Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Let's Talk: today and every day





Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself. 

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they?




So the name itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. "Mentally ill" is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). But it's still inadequate.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.





I hate stigma. I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve the ugly term, detach it and throw it away. 





"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.  

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"?  Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the 'poor soul" attitude that prevails?





But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior". 





One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.





Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark.  I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its finest and most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?








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Such a douche





































IS "CALENDAR FEAR" UNDERMINING YOUR HEALTH?

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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

I am



The Twelve Steps: is there another way?




THE TWELVE STEPS


1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol… that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure then or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we under-stood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.






THE HUMANIST ALTERNATIVE


1. We accept the fact that all our efforts to stop drinking have failed.

2. We believe that we must turn elsewhere for help.

3. We turn to our fellow men and women, particularly those who have struggled with the same problem.

4. We have made a list of the situations in which we are most likely to drink.

5. We ask our friends to help us avoid these situations.

6. We are ready to accept the help they give us.

7. We earnestly hope that they will help.

8. We have made a list of the persons we have harmed and to whom we hope to make amends.

9. We shall do all we can to make amends, in any way that will not cause further harm.

10. We will continue to make such lists and revise them as needed.

11. We appreciate what our friends have done and are doing to help us.

12. We, in turn, are ready to help others who may come to us in the same way.




Only a few years ago, on my first blog on OpenSalon, I posted a piece called Why I Quit AA. Within a few hours, I was astonished to receive a torrent of something like 150 abusive, contemptuous, mocking comments from hard-core AA members who obviously felt threatened by what I was saying. One person said I must have been going to meetings in a mental institution (the ultimate insult, writing off those with mental illness as if they did not count as human). Only a small handful of comments, largely shouted down by ever-more-aggressive responses, supported anything I was saying. 

I did not trash AA, gave it credit for helping me make changes in my life, and (I believe) was quite respectful in my approach. The hate-storm it provoked made me wonder why AA saw itself as so benevolent. Where was the live-and-let-live attitude it supposedly embodied? Weren't these people actually proving some of the points I was making about AA fundamentalism and rigid insistence on adhering to the letter of the law? What the hell was going on here?

Now this message is seemingly everywhere, or all over the internet at least, and I don't see anyone getting clobbered to nearly that degree. But it makes me wonder if all those abusive people really believed they were practicing one of the most important traditions of AA, which states that it must never involve itself in any controversy. These people were only too quick to jump in, as if they had tasted blood in the water. Such heresy must be quickly clapped down, attacked to such a degree that the heretic would be silenced.





If all this was designed to turn my negative attitude towards AA around, it didn't exactly achieve that. Arm-wrestling to change someone's opinion never does. Once I got over being devastated, I felt vindicated. These people were obviously not perceptive enough to know that they were handing me a gift: written, even published proof that my observations about AA's insularity and rigidity were largely correct.

The steps have been rewritten lots of times, and this is another attempt, which, by the way, I did not write. I do not expect a torrent of abuse from this, largely because the tide is turning, not "against" AA but against seeing it as the only choice for people who are suffering from the devastating effects of alcoholism.

What is my attitude now? I can sum it up in three little words.

Do what works.




KICKER/afterthoughts. That reference to OpenSalon brought back another unpleasant memory: the way I was basically railroaded out of the blog network by people's snobbery and exclusivity. I had the effrontery to write about Sylvia Plath and used a photo of her that I had seen everywhere. One of my OpenSalon critics told me I should have contacted Plath's estate to get formal permission to use the photo with my story. I countered that with "I had the impression it was in the public domain." Her response: "I'm speechless." 

Meantime one of her cohorts had chimed in and was discussing my stupidity, their comments going back and forth in my full view. Obviously they wanted me to hear this. Most of it was in extremely rarefied, even codified literary jargon about Plath and her genre, designed to make anyone who read it feel like an ignorant worm. But most of it was just oh, so delicately-phrased mudslinging. They weren't even criticizing me directly; it was "and another thing she's doing" and "I'm not surprised at the way she" and "why do people like her have the idiocy to", until I couldn't stand it any more.





In this age of Pinterest, no one gets credit for anything, be it photo or anything else. It's all up for grabs. You can "pin" it and no one says boo, because they can't complain any more. It won't get them anywhere. This worked in my favour only once, when someone posted a link to my piece I See Dead People: Victorian Post-Mortem Photography, which has so far had something like 120,000 views.

I'm not saying swapping things around is "good", but I am saying that on the internet, it's the standard now. But I was crucified for it in the most public way. Soon I left OpenSalon and started my own blog, hoping I wouldn't be run out of Dodge in a similar fashion. So far I haven't been. But if that ever happens again, all those comments will be immediately deleted.

Be warned.





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Monday, January 25, 2016

Men have been shot for less than that!




Uninspired, and feeling more than a little sick, I've dredged up some good vintage ads from the million-and-one sites that post them. Years ago I remembered a lot of those bizarre old comic book ads, but when I talked about them people looked at me like I was crazy. Turns out I was right (you bastards!) This one needs no comment.




This one is, somehow, related. It's an old one, but no stranger than the foot-pumped vibrators doctors used to induce "paroxysm" (orgasm) in "hysterical" women. Before that, they used their fingers. Reminds me a bit of Marvel the Mustang.




I plan to get one of these.




See, I told you the moon landing never happened!




How ARE they, anyway?




Some say this one is a hoax, but I wonder. It might make a hit way down south, where Mountain Dew is the drug of choice for the under-six set.




Handy for those suicidal impulses.




I remember these ads for Midol, used for "periodic pain" which I never quite understood. Did this relate to the periodic table of elements? I am posting two of these because the hair styles are just too gorgeous to omit. The backcombing is pure art.




Self-explanatory.




Ummm. . . 




Just what is the groom going to DO with this?




TOM: Skip the wise-cracks, funny man! I like these "Stretchy-Seat" Munsingwear SKIT-Shorts . . . brief, airy, plus a little support. They stretch up and down. And how come you're so modest. . . you with a pair of nothing-muches right out of the little boys' department?

AL: I resent those words. . . speaking for Munsingwear, and myself, too. These SKIT-Trunks give me everything you've got, including that Munsingwear masterpiece, the exclusive "Stretchy-Seat". . . plus the extra leg-inches that I like.




TOM: Well, I'll ride right over you with this. It's Munsingwear's SKIT-Shirt, and a better shirt was never made. Fits like my skin, and gives with every move, with bottom shaped to avoid bulk.

AL: Mine's the same, too. It's a Munsingwear SKIT-Winger with crew neck. Wear it solo for sport, inside for business. Protects underarm of outer shirt, a go-getter for blotting up perspiration.




"It's the Stretchy-Seat!"




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A flood of memories



A double rainbow





There is some sort of commercial running now - for the lottery, maybe? - that has a guy exclaiming over a double rainbow. I kept thinking: where have I seen this before? Here. The original goes on for about 8 minutes, and the guy laughs, weeps and appears to reach orgasm. I will spare you that version. I can't find the ad anywhere, but this was posted 6 years ago and there have been lots of parodies.


Is there anything worse than haggis? I'll tell you.





4

Vegetarian Haggis



20 reviews

Made 23 times

Recipe by:NORTHERNLIGHT1

"'Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!' 

Here's a tasty vegetarian version of The Robbie Burns Night sausage,
passed on to me by some friends from Cape Breton."

1 h 20 m 10 servings 163 cals

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, finely chopped
5 fresh mushrooms, finely chopped
1 cup vegetable broth
1/3 cup dry red lentils
2 tablespoons canned kidney beans - drained, rinsed, and mashed
3 tablespoons ground peanuts
2 tablespoons ground hazelnuts
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cups steel cut oats
Add all ingredients to list

Heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and saute the
onion 5 minutes, until tender. Mix in carrot and mushrooms, and
continue cooking 5 minutes. Stir in broth, lentils, kidney beans,
peanuts, hazelnuts, soy sauce, and lemon juice. Season with thyme,
rosemary, cayenne pepper, and mixed spice. Bring to a boil, reduce
heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in oats, cover, and simmer
20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly
grease a 5x9 inch baking pan. Stir the egg into the saucepan. Transfer
the mixture to the prepared baking pan. 
Bake 30 minutes, until firm.


Nimoy and Shatner: before they were icons




This is just what you think it is: a pre-Trek, pre-Captain Kirk William Shatner, he who appeared on various popular SF (or sci-fi or whatever they call it now) TV shows of the mid-'60s. I believe this one was The Outer Limits. He also did a couple of turns on The Twilight Zone, the monster-on-the-airplane-wing one and another one, much more low-key, in which he became addicted to a sort of Satanic coin bank that was foretelling his death. Jeffrey Hunter,the original Captain Kirk in the failed pilot, didn't seem to have this paranormal/space epic background, or if he did I don't remember it. He was in Biblical movies, I think, and didn't know how to do that infamous wrestling throw that bested Kirk's worst enemy, the Gorn. He was just too bland, and what they seemed to need on the show was the sort of histrionic performance that led to his deathless soliloquy: "No blah-blah-blah!"



Which see.




But wait, there's more! Leonard Nimoy also did at least one turn on The Outer Limits (that I know of - he may have done some Zone/One Step Beyond as well. He had a family to support.) It's eerie how similar this shot is: both of them looking at something disturbing on a screen, though Nimoy turns away with a mildly perplexed look on his face and Shatner looks as if he needs a Pepto-Bismol. Though these appearances weren't on the same episode, guess what! . . . 




They appeared together on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1964. I probably watched this episode, since I was slavishly devoted to the show (and unlike all my friends, I liked Robert Vaughn rather than David McCallum). Like everyone else, I had no idea these two journeyman actors would become cultural icons, and neither did they. All in a day's work.


Stop Alien Abductions! (an excerpt)





ALIEN ABDUCTEE FROM KENTUCKY WEARING A THOUGHT SCREEN HELMET

"Since trying Michael Menkin's Helmet, I have not been bothered by alien mind control. Now my thoughts are my own. I have achieved meaningful work and am contributing to society.

"My life is better than ever before. Thank you Michael for the work you are doing to save all humanity."

SEE ABDUCTION FLOWCHARTS FOR INFORMATION LINKING ALIEN ABDUCTIONS WITH THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC





AMERICAN LOCATIONS

History

Mississippi 3 July, 2015

A man with a thought screen helmet stopped the aliens from taking him but he was still being harassed by alien-human hybrids outside his house. The alien-human hybrids banged on the wall of the house repeatedly in the night to harass him. The house was on the edge of a forest in central Mississippi. In the middle of the night the man wore the helmet and went outside with a loaded gun. He fired the gun where he heard the hybrids moving. The hybrids left after the gun was fired and never returned.

Texas 2  November, 1999

Woman who reported abduction experiences as the type described by David Jacobs and Bud Hopkins. She said the alien brought her to orgasm by mental suggestion. It looked like the type of insect like alien reported in The Threat. She reports complete success and has been wearing a helmet 24 hours a day for a year and a half. Her husband says she even bathes with it on. This woman was extremely traumatized by her abduction experience. Her husband had her hospitalized for several months when she insisted she was abducted. After wearing the helmet for several months she said she became much more stable and focused.




Possible alien weaknesses (grays only)

Reliance on telepathy


When the alien's telepathic powers are neutralized by the "thought screen helmet" they do not attempt to abduct their victims. Without their telepathic power they cannot render their victims passive.
    

Vitamin C to kill implanted alien-hybrid embryos

One woman who now wears a thought screen helmet along with her husband reports that she killed four alien-hybrid fetuses in a row by taking a gram of vitamin C every hour for weeks. She used her alarm clock at night to awaken her. She reported that she could no longer feel the fetuses moving and the aliens were very angry at the deaths of the alien-hybrids they implanted in her. The aliens did remove a dead alien-hybrid fetus before implanting a live one at another time. This was before she started wearing a thought screen helmet.

Nutrient absorbing skin of grays

It was reported in The Threat that the grays sit in a vat of nutrients and absorb it through their skin. They do not eat as humans do. The grays nutrient absorbing skin may be a weakness as substances of strong odors or material sprayed on their skin may be absorbed directly into their body.

Perfumes

Several abductees report that aliens do not like perfume.  One abductee claims that they stopped an abduction by exposing strong cheap perfume to aliens. 





Michael Menkin was a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the U. S. Coast Guard Reserve. He is a 43 year member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a 16 year member of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). He is also a 29 year member of Sons of the American Revolution.
http://www.stopabductions.com/



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