From regret to revolution

Posted on December 8, 2012 by sheilawill

Reducing the stigma of mental illness should be the next civil rights movement. I’ve always been fascinated by “diseases of the brain,” as some of the writers at my Our Place Clubhouse writing workshop call mental illness. From the early 1970s, when I read British psychiatrist R.D. Laing’s “The Politics of Experience,” I wondered who was crazy: Was it the individual who believed she had a bomb in her stomach or the pilot dropping bombs on Vietnam.? It was a conundrum.

We certainly never talked about mental illness in my family growing up, but I’ll bet it was there. My father fell asleep most evenings reading the newspaper in his chair (depression?). My mother was very angry and yelled a lot (very likely had OCD). Were there chemical imbalances, disorders of the brain? Does it matter? Aren’t we all on a mental health spectrum?

My view of what constitutes mental illness has matured since my infatuation with R.D. Laing, who may have had schizophrenia himself. There’s the theory that therapists and shrinks harbor their own brain disorders, spending a lifetime trying to right their own stuff. Could be.

When I was in grad school in the ’70s, earning an M.A.T. degree at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, I concocted an independent study in radical psychology. I taught an introductory psychology class at Northampton Junior College. Taking students  on a “field trip” to the state mental hospital is one of the biggest regrets of my life: Inmates — that’s what they were — were catatonic or totally out of it, drugged to the nth degree, dressed in Johnny shirts, seeming inhuman. We all stared at them in disbelief. Crazy people unlike us. Really sad.

Thank goodness it’s not like that anymore. Many people with serious brain disorders are out in the world, high-functioning, taking much better medications to alleviate their symptoms, living “normal” lives.

There are fantastic community places here in Tucson like Cafe 54/Our Place Clubhouse, which is under the umbrella of Coyote Task Force. I was asked to be on the board around eight years ago, after writing an article about a local psychiatrist. Talking about finances at board meetings didn’t do it for me. I applied for a Poets & Writers magazine grant to work with writers. I wanted to contribute more, to help educate the wider community about people who are more than their mental illness. Watch for our chapbook sometime in 2013.

We’re on our way.

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New England Proud…Arizona not as much

Posted on November 17, 2012 by sheilawill

Gabby Giffords and Ron Barber voting together.

It’s 11 days after the election and Arizona’s Second Congressional District race has finally been called for Ron Barber. It was a close race between Barber and Republican Martha McSally, but that’s not why it took so long to count the ballots. Arizona had something like 750,000 ballots left uncounted on Election Day.

Why, you ask? Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett bloviated about the success of our early voting on NPR the other day. Forty percent of Arizona voters use mail-in ballots. Here’s my take: If it’s “early voting” why isn’t there a deadline for people to send in their ballots a week before Election Day so they can be counted in time, allowing poll workers to concentrate on counting provisional ballots? Why let “early” voters drop off their ballots at polling places on Election Day? Uh…couldn’t they just vote that day instead, allowing the machines to do their thing faster than poll workers bogged down with paper and pencil?

More Arizona voting embarrassment: Racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio wins? Sensible Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Richard Carmona loses — by only five percentage points — to  Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, one of the guys who can’t figure out how a woman’ s reproductive system works?

Ahhhhh…but then there’s New England. All Republican congressional representatives up for election were defeated. Feisty Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren was elected to the U.S. Senate. New Hampshire voted in the first all-woman congressional delegation — plus governor — in history. There’s always Vermont Independent (really a socialist) Sen. Bernie Saunders, whom I pay attention to and trust. And my dear Maine, where Obama beat next-door neighbor Romney by 15 points, and is sending smart, no-nonsense former Independent Gov. Angus King (really a Democrat) to the U.S. Senate.

That’s not to say there aren’t wackos in Maine too.

And there are many right-wingnuts who are still whining about Obama winning reelection. Brassy former First Lady Barbara Bush advises, “Get over it. Move on.” We’ve got to work together. If  House Republicans continue to obstruct progress, President Obama must lead the way.

There are bright spots in Arizona too. Finally, I might add. In addition to Barber’s win, which the Arizona Daily Star still hasn’t announced, Kyrsten Sinema won in CD9, giving the state  a majority of Democrats in the House.

Overall, I’m very happy about the election results. On a personal note, I’m happy that both my grown-up kids are doing their thing at their respective professional conferences this weekend, in Berkeley and Chicago. I’m very grateful this Thanksgiving. I hope you are too. Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

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Born to Run

Posted on October 29, 2012 by sheilawill

Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords groovin’ to the music

Gabby looked tired. She looked sad although she smiled and subjected herself to hundreds of people taking pictures. She was born to run. U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, who won a special election to take her place in the House, noted that Gabby’s always had a secret passion to be a DJ., which she did at today’s “Get Out the Vote” bash/concert at Tucson’s historic, funky Hotel Congress. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen was the first song she played.

Gabby’s lucky to be alive with her cognitive abilities intact after a bullet smashed through her brain nearly two years ago. I’m always happy to see her and to walk by her home a few blocks away.

Yet if must be tough for her to hear Ron Barber talking about his current campaign to win a full term in Congress and to listen to Dr. Richard Carmona, who’s running for a U.S. Senate seat that could have been Gabby’s.

People around me were teary-eyed as Carmona, the former surgeon general under W., related how he came to his decision to run for the Senate, when his instinct was to get far away from Washington. “I was inspired by a committed leader who worked tirelessly for Southern Arizona,” he said.  Of course that was Gabby. “She would call me her opening act” whenever he campaigned with her.

Sad sad sad.

A woman stood next to me wore an “Old White Women for Obama” button. Guess that’s me too. I have to say, I’m a little sad watching young women — who look no more than 20 — running around today as a chief of staff or campaign director. A job I wanted fresh out of college, as a political science major/political junkie. I stumped the halls of Congress trying to land such a job but back then I was only asked if I could type. I tried again after working in the 1972 McGovern campaign.

It’s too late for me to be a politico in Washington. But I hope it’s not too late for Gabby.

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George McGovern: “My Conscience is Clear”

Posted on October 21, 2012 by sheilawill

I met Democratic presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern in 1972, when I worked in his campaign in Montana. I didn’t know what to say. “Just keep telling the truth,” I blurted. And he did, that year, and in all the years since.

During the ’72 campaign, Republicans did more than swift-boat McGovern. They sent henchmen to the National Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate complex to find anything that would discredit an honest, smart historian, an American hero during World War II. But like my other role model Howard Zinn, another historian who became an anti-war advocate (not a pacifist) precisely because he had been a bombardier, McGovern spent the rest of his life speaking out against war.

In 2004, McGovern attended the Democratic Convention in Boston where Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was nominated for president. Kerry, who went to war in Vietnam, coming home in 1971 to testify before Congress against the war. At that time,  in what became a famous anti-war line, he pleaded, “How can you ask the last man to die in a war that was a mistake?”

I don’t know if McGovern spoke with Kerry in 2004 about defending his war record. If he did, it didn’t matter. Bush, Cheney and the evil genius Karl Rove manipulated Kerry’s service to make him sound like a French-loving, cosmopolitan weenie.

And Kerry, unfortunately, stood on the Senate floor in 2002 to defend W’s macho invasion of Iraq.

McGovern never swerved from his abhorrence of war. And he kept writing, mostly about history. I heard  him speak about his book on Lincoln in Tucson around five years ago. I didn’t say anything to him then; 2004 was enough. I was on my way to Maine and had received press credentials to cover the Boston Democratic convention.

When I heard that McGovern was sitting in the South Dakota delegation, I ran over and got to sit down with him and chat for a few minutes. I thanked him for his honesty again — 32 years after driving back east from Montana, proud of my little red Toyota’s Massachusetts license plate (the only state McGovern won in 1972, along with the District of Columbia). “Don’t blame me. I’m from Massachusetts,” proclaimed my bumper sticker.

At the 2004 convention, McGovern took my  hand in his, smiled at me, and said, “We didn’t win but my conscience is clear.”

This week I’ll be wearing my “McGovern President ’72” button, in memory of a true hero.

Posted in Fight wimpiness, For Love of History, politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Politics is small, life is big

Posted on October 14, 2012 by sheilawill

Driving home from Sunday grocery shopping I was glued to a Radiolab story on NPR. Twenty-one-year-old Alan Lundgard refused to give up on his girlfriend, Emilie Gossiaux, after she was hit by an 18-wheeler truck while riding her bike in Brooklyn. Following weeks of stillness in a hospital bed —  a nurse even pronouncing her dead — Emilie’s shattered parents were ready to move her home to a New Orleans nursing home.

Meanwhile, Alan remembered a method used to communicate with Helen Keller. It worked with Emilie. Read their story on NPR. It’s what happens when a loved one refuses to give up. I sat in our garage to hear the rest of their story. Maybe the cuties I had just bought from Trader Joe’s were melting. I didn’t care. It was a life-affirming moment.

With the young lovers’ story close to my heart, I went inside and had only a few minutes to put away the groceries before Felix Baumgartner’s remarkable descent from 28 miles in the sky, first in a free fall, then via the stability of a parachute. My favorite part was before he jumped, going through his checklist with mission control on the ground, when he gradually stuck his feet out of his capsule window.

What was going through his mind? He wasn’t speaking but responded to mission control commands with a thumbs-up. “If I were him I’d even be praying now,” I said. We were pioneers watching a historical first. Another life-affirming moment.

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Vulture Capitalists

Posted on October 13, 2012 by sheilawill

In our adjoining fancy El Encanto hood!

I’m worried about the election for the first time in months. Could a disastrously passive 90-minute debate have lost the election for Obama? Did Smokin’ Joe Biden bring us back or hurt the cause in the VP debate on Thursday night? Did  “Vulture Capitalist” Romney’s opportunistic, supposedly moderate debate performance turn the tide among voters who want aggressiveness? Don’t they know what a liar he is?

Even women voters are moving toward Romney, which is unbelievable considering the Republicans’ desire to control women’s bodies, at the same time that they spout a need for  government to get out of the way! Malarkey!

Before I completely unravel, here’s my take on the Biden’s debate performance:

Loved it when Joe pointed out that Ryan asked for stimulus money in Wisconsin.

Responding to Ryan’s foreign policy criticism, “What would you do differently?” asked Joe. No specifics from Ryan.

Name a loophole that you would cut from the tax code — Lyin’ Ryan kept his ticket’s secret.

BS about Republican support of Social Security and Medicare: Biden looked straight into the camera, “Trust your instincts on this folks. These guys never wanted SS and Medicare. Who are you going to trust on this one?”

Republicans are now yelling about Biden being disrespectful and condescending. I could totally relate to Joe’s laughing, looking at Ryan with disdain. Exactly what he and Romney deserve for all their lying. How they care for the poorest among us and will work hard for the middle class.

Malarkey. Bullshit. Lies.

“Facts matter,” asserted the vice president.

Biden called out Ryan on Romney’s infamous 47 percent “victim” video, noting that members of the armed forces fighting in current wars, which Ryan and Bush Republicans started on a “credit card,” are part of the 47 percent who don’t pay taxes.

Ryan attempted to defend Romney: He didn’t really mean that 47 percent of Americans were moochers.

“I always say what I mean,” said Biden. “And so did Gov. Romney in that video.”

Ryan voted to reduce spending for protection of our embassies by $300 million. Now he and Romney are squawking about the attack on our Libyan embassy where four people were tragically killed.

Republicans can’t yell as much about the economy because of definite improvements such as unemployment dropping to 7.8 percent.

When Ryan chastised Biden for the administration borrowing money from China, which was one thing Ryan did approve in the Republican do-nothing Congress, I wish Joe had talked about Romney’s investments in China.

Do we want a president who hides his wealth in China and the Cayman Islands? Why won’t Romney release his tax returns going back more than two years? Tax evasion/criminal activity?

Do the American people want a president who’s “holding the middle class hostage,” while Republicans insist on  20 percent tax cuts for the super-wealthy to match any cuts for the middle class.

Vulture capitalists indeed.

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Movies I can dance to

Posted on October 8, 2012 by sheilawill

If you enjoy movies that make you think about the big picture, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is one. “Tree of Life” was hyped last year as the consummate film about the mystery of human history. I found it boring, pretentious and way too long. I’d only give it a 3 out of 10, for those of you who remember teens rating new songs on American Bandstand during the ’60s. “It’s got a good beat.” “You can dance to it,” they’d say.

With all the hype and the beautiful actors in “Tree of Life,” I couldn’t dance to it. “Beasts,” with Quvenzhane Wallis playing 6-year-old Hushpuppy and Dwight Henry as her proud and very ill father, conveyed another story. Working hard to survive Hurricane Katrina near New Orleans’ breaking levees, they seemed like real people — off the grid, part of the 47 percent. They treated their neighbors like family and were all, literally, in the same boat. I got them, even though I’ve never been truly poor.

I believed Wallis, an amazing little African-American girl whose dad insists that she repeatedly holler, “I’m the man!” Hushpuppy learns to believe she has a place in the universe.

“Arbitrage” was the other movie we saw this weekend. Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, two of my favorite actors, portray a very wealthy New York couple caught up in the 1 percent. Make more money, sponsor more charity balls, all of that high-class glitter.

Gere, playing it to the hilt, is more than a rich guy going down because of dubious multi-million-dollar deals. He’s cared for employees beyond what’s necessary. He cares about his family, even though he’s cheating on his wife. I’ve never been rich either but the movie humanized his over-the-top lifestyle.

Movies aren’t real life but they can shine, be instructive (even in understanding the political economy), if they feel like they are.

 

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Dear Barack: I’m Flabbergasted

Posted on October 6, 2012 by sheilawill

Plenty has been written about your less than lackluster first-debate. Frustrating and depressing for sure. I figure you were so angry you couldn’t speak, and anything you said Romney would respond to with a lie.

Of the 67 million people who watched the debate, some must be wondering if they can count on you in a time of crisis (haven’t you already proved that?). My brother told me, “Only he and Michelle will know what really happened,” and he heard that you really, really don’t like Romney.

Yesterday at work I received a request for money from the Romney/Ryan campaign. They’re blabbing, “Victory is in sight” and “we’re going to undo all the liberal damage of the past four years.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! I’m a proud liberal Democrat and Romney is an unscrupulous liar,” I yelled. Really, Romney would like to check off being president on his bucket list. He’s the wealthiest person to ever run for the presidency. He’ll say anything to get there. But what would he do there? It’s too scary to think about. I think you feel the same way.

On Thursday Rachel Maddow made me feel a little better, walking us through the history of modern televised presidential debates, relating how incumbents have lost the first debate and still won the election.

So shape up, Barack. We need you. How could you allow that hyper-liar to walk all over you? Is there some national security matter you’re worried about that you couldn’t discuss? Were you being a polite statesman while Romney engaged in his opportunistic lying? Are you too busy as president to prepare?

You’ve probably been getting lots of advice. Here’s mine:

Ask Romney what he would cut to reduce the deficit. Don’t let him off easy. Stare him down and keep asking.

Don’t let him f****ing agree with you on Social Security and Medicare. What a big fat lie!

Don’t let Romney be the one to bring up wanting to help poor people! Hit him with the 47 percent video.

Don’t keep looking down. Talk directly to the American people. They like you better.

Practice with Wild Bill before the next debate. And get Jon Stewart to moderate it.

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Motherhood moments

Posted on September 25, 2012 by sheilawill

Thirty-five years ago tonight I only had to wait another day to see Brook. Bet I can remember every detail of those 24 hours. Trust me. Memories are hard to come by these days, but I’ll bet any mother can recount her labor and childbirth sagas.

Mama Sheila and baby Brook

Even if, like me,  it’s been 35 years and 31 years since my kids were born.

A few weeks ago I visited with a young friend and her sweet three-week-old son. Holding him, I started swaying to that inner tune that all mothers seem to hear. It just happens. New mother questions flooded back to me — was my baby making too much noise? Was she hungry? Should I nurse her? Should I hop in the car, get home as quickly as possible to feed her?

I still empathize with new mothers. We always want to have everything go right for our children, whether they’re babies or in their 30s.

Thirty-five years ago tonight we drove to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, N.H., in my 1972 red Toyota. That car had taken me through grad school,  across the country to Montana to work in the McGovern campaign, back home to New England with a “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts” bumper sticker above the  license plate. Adventures big and small. Distant memories.

But I’ll never forget getting out of that red Toyota on Sept. 24, 1977, around this time of night on a moonlit street in Hanover, N.H. Looking up at the stars.

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“Next to Normal”

Posted on September 22, 2012 by sheilawill

A rock musical about bipolar disorder? “Next To Normal” roared into Tucson to the Arizona Theatre Company last night. It’s worth seeing.

For me, which is more compelling — politics and President Obama’s re-election or helping to reduce the stigma of mental illness. They’re both right up there (I’m such a lightweight — taking a break from politics I see a play about mental illness. Oh well. Tonight we’re seeing “Stomp.”)

A few things bothered me about the ATC production. The main character, Diana, often sounded more operatic than rock ‘n rolly. Still, what exuberance, what a topic for a Tony Award-Pulitzer-Prize-winning play! I missed “Next to Normal” on Broadway. I love the title: What is normal?

 I  recently received a grant from Poets & Writers magazine to run a writing workshop at Cafe 54/Our Place Clubhouse for people with serious mental illness. The idea came from one of the clubhouse members whom I’ve worked with on her writing. Since the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson that seriously wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others, she’s asked, “Does everyone think that if someone has a mental illnesss she may go out and start shooting people at any time?”

“Maybe we should do some writing, put a book together with others,” I replied, “letting people know what it’s like to have a mental illness.”

Hey, aren’t we all on a sanity continuum? There’s a difference between well-functioning people who receive treatment and those who don’t. This fact is often lost on the general public. 

As Brian Yorkey, one of the shows creators, put it, “Diana is not exotic and other. She’s one of us.”

“Next to Normal” closes in Tucson just prior to Mental Illness Awareness Week, which runs from Oct. 7-13.

 

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