Monday, December 17, 2012
Your Christmas Card(s)
Here are your Christmas cards for this year. I made a few, so you can share if you like. Enjoy via IT'S CHRISTMAS, DON WINSOR!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Wrong Color Pants
Okay, I'm gonna be one of those people, writing about this on the internet. Please excuse this digression from my normal "come see my show" and "look! funny/disturbing!"
I know that today a lot of you will be remembering those affected by the tragic events in Connecticut.
Whether you're praying or simply thinking or whatever it is you do, maybe you could find it in yourself to include a few thoughts about the person responsible and especially his family. If only he'd been able to get help, or help could've found him. I'm not saying sympathize with the guy, at all, just think "what can we learn from this?" This feeling comes to me courtesy of a conversation with my mom. She talked to me about how things used to be, regarding care for the mentally ill. I realized later that she's been involved directly or indirectly with caring for the mentally ill throughout a great deal of her life. She was a bookkeeper for a facility that dealt with mentally ill people for many years before I was born, and since 1995 or so has taken in a great many children with developmental and/or behavior disabilities as a therapeutic foster parent. She doesn't do that quite so much anymore, since she and Dad adopted a family of four kids several years ago, great kids who would otherwise have been split up by the system. Some of the children she cared for, though, are kids that scare other people. Me included. Seeing how she handled and treated them, I wondered how on earth she did it. There are children who've come into her care basically abandoned by a system that tries to "mainstream"everyone. Children who, in another time, would've been institutionalized. This word - "institutionalized" - sounds cruel, but even with the boundless and mystifying love my mom has for all children (especially those with problems) she believes that it isn't and wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I've seen her deal with children who cannot communicate through anything but phrases they've learned from TV commercials. Children who never develop emotionally beyond about age three. Even children whose unpredictable violence lies underneath an innocent, placid surface and strikes out suddenly and without warning. I've been afraid for my parents to have some of these kids in their house, but they have love for all of them. I don't know how the hell they do it. Often I don't know why they do it, but thank goodness someone shows these kids some love and compassion. When Mom and I were talking about everything that happened this week, she said she thinks that it is cruel to put a child - or anyone - who lacks the tools to function in the world out into society under some illusion that it's better for everyone to be in the mainstream. She's seen children so damaged mentally that they lack the capacity to even feed themselves or use a bathroom pushed through the system in an attempt to "mainstream" them so that the state can wash their hands of them. They'll wind up on the street. Pretending everyone can be independent just because you believe everyone deserves independence is childish. "Things used to be better," she said. "There were places people could take someone who needed help, public places. Now, everyone's 'mainstreamed.'"
I'm thinking of all this today because I read an affecting article from a blogger HERE that I'd like you to read. It's from a mother increasingly afraid of her own child, and it's about her trying to get him help. It's worth a read, and maybe it'll get people talking about this in a constructive way The media would use this sort of tragedy to whip us all into a frenzy of finger-pointing and knee-jerk reaction, but if we can start a productive conversation about why these things keep happening, we can honor those affected with a promise of real progress.
I know that today a lot of you will be remembering those affected by the tragic events in Connecticut.
Whether you're praying or simply thinking or whatever it is you do, maybe you could find it in yourself to include a few thoughts about the person responsible and especially his family. If only he'd been able to get help, or help could've found him. I'm not saying sympathize with the guy, at all, just think "what can we learn from this?" This feeling comes to me courtesy of a conversation with my mom. She talked to me about how things used to be, regarding care for the mentally ill. I realized later that she's been involved directly or indirectly with caring for the mentally ill throughout a great deal of her life. She was a bookkeeper for a facility that dealt with mentally ill people for many years before I was born, and since 1995 or so has taken in a great many children with developmental and/or behavior disabilities as a therapeutic foster parent. She doesn't do that quite so much anymore, since she and Dad adopted a family of four kids several years ago, great kids who would otherwise have been split up by the system. Some of the children she cared for, though, are kids that scare other people. Me included. Seeing how she handled and treated them, I wondered how on earth she did it. There are children who've come into her care basically abandoned by a system that tries to "mainstream"everyone. Children who, in another time, would've been institutionalized. This word - "institutionalized" - sounds cruel, but even with the boundless and mystifying love my mom has for all children (especially those with problems) she believes that it isn't and wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I've seen her deal with children who cannot communicate through anything but phrases they've learned from TV commercials. Children who never develop emotionally beyond about age three. Even children whose unpredictable violence lies underneath an innocent, placid surface and strikes out suddenly and without warning. I've been afraid for my parents to have some of these kids in their house, but they have love for all of them. I don't know how the hell they do it. Often I don't know why they do it, but thank goodness someone shows these kids some love and compassion. When Mom and I were talking about everything that happened this week, she said she thinks that it is cruel to put a child - or anyone - who lacks the tools to function in the world out into society under some illusion that it's better for everyone to be in the mainstream. She's seen children so damaged mentally that they lack the capacity to even feed themselves or use a bathroom pushed through the system in an attempt to "mainstream" them so that the state can wash their hands of them. They'll wind up on the street. Pretending everyone can be independent just because you believe everyone deserves independence is childish. "Things used to be better," she said. "There were places people could take someone who needed help, public places. Now, everyone's 'mainstreamed.'"
I'm thinking of all this today because I read an affecting article from a blogger HERE that I'd like you to read. It's from a mother increasingly afraid of her own child, and it's about her trying to get him help. It's worth a read, and maybe it'll get people talking about this in a constructive way The media would use this sort of tragedy to whip us all into a frenzy of finger-pointing and knee-jerk reaction, but if we can start a productive conversation about why these things keep happening, we can honor those affected with a promise of real progress.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
A Valid Point
This guy raises some thought-provoking questions. I agree with most of what he says.The Wal-Marting of American Theatre What are your thoughts?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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