Kurt Brindley's Blog, page 155

PTSD

Truthout.org / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA



Truthout.org / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA



Soaptree / Foter / CC BY



otisarchives4 / Foter / CC BY



Dr.S.Ali Wasif / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND



Dr.S.Ali Wasif / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND



Dr.S.Ali Wasif / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

These moving images were selected from the results of a search I did on the term “PTSD” through my blog’s Free Stock Photos Foter plugin. Attributes and rights can be found in lower right corner of each image.

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Crossing One Thin Line After Another

freestylee / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

History shows us there is a thin line between outrage and unrest, between unrest and riot, and between riot and revolution. And it seems lately that we are constantly crossing these lines, that we are constantly on the edge and on the verge of being pushed to the limit, that every day, some where in the world, individuals, families, communities, countries, and regions are fluctuating and transitioning from one point of frustration to the next, even more frustrating point.

From the economy, to the environment, to intractable politics, to intolerance, to technology, to terrorism, to any number of other issues, who knows what will trigger the next outrage, unrest, riot, or revolution.

While certainly there will always be multiple known and unknowable factors behind any tumultuous event, historians and analysts have come to a consensus that it was increasingly rising food prices, and, more specifically, the high cost of bread that pushed a region over the line and triggered the Arab Awakening.

And there is evidence that shows that, historically, rising food prices typically are what pushes even the most civil minded citizens into becoming revolutionaries for change.

We are learning that, depending on the weather, on whether we continue to see extreme droughts, and flooding, and other climate change unpredictables, 2013 may be a year of severely rising food costs. It may prove to be quite year, indeed.

[This post first appeared on facebook

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New Writing Project

We’re getting close to going live with my next writing project. In anticipation, I just want to let you know that it’s gonna start getting a little more political and controversial around here.

With that, a word or two should be mentioned about how information on public pages, such as this, are now managed by facebook. Because fb has been having such a hard time with its valuation since it went public, it is struggling to find new ways to make money. One way they’ve implemented is to throttle all public posts, such as this, in an effort to get the owner, such as me, to pay fb to promote them. Consequently, my posts here are hardly reaching any of the 13K plus subscribers to this page. While it has always been a rather subdued crowd here anyway, fb has found a way to doubly subdue the mood. That said, it still is incumbent upon me to offer interesting and engaging content for you all to enjoy. That’s my charter and challenge to myself: to write stuff you want to read. It is my hope that my new writing project will meet that challenge. Stay tuned…we’ll find out soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~

who are the heroes

heroes of dystopia

who will rise the dawn

[This post originally appeared on facebook]

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Friendship Day

Today is the day they will open their base to our community, the economy, as they call it, and will allow us to enter without restrictions.

It is the day they will hold their own version our Obon, our summer festival where we honor our ancestors. They will wear our yukata and our happi and will cook for us our yakitori and our takoyaki. They will play recorded versions of our traditional music over their loudspeakers and will attempt our traditional dances. We will try not to smile too broadly when we tell them how nice they look in our clothes and how well they perform our dances.

Today they will sell us their beer and their pizza. We will forego the yakitori and takoyaki and will, instead, buy as many cases of their beer and as many boxes of their pizza as we can. We will then drink too much and eat too much while we sit on our blankets in a tree-covered park next to their small marina and their large McDonalds; or, perhaps it is our McDonalds since we will see that only our people are employed there.

Today, though, is especially the day they will give us tours on their ships. We will crowd into their buses and we will wait in long lines until we are divided up into small groups and escorted throughout their ships by their sailors in white hats. Mostly, we will want to tour their aircraft carrier. That is where our lines and our wait will be the longest. And when we finally reach the flight deck, we will take deep breaths of the salty air and we will look out across the expanse of the bay and we will try not to wonder why they are still here.

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Comforting

Never before had Tomoe felt as uncomfortable as she did while sorting through her father’s belongings. Goro should be responsible for this, she thought, a thought she had been thinking ever since the will was read. A daughter should not have to dispose of her father’s past.

By the third day she had become numb to her task. Clothes would be donated; furniture would be sold; papers, mostly old bills and outdated tax records, would be burned. On the fourth day she found a box, a beautifully lacquered and ornate box of the sort that would not normally be filled with such crumpled and torn papers. The faded script written on the brittle pages was formal, ancient. But as she struggled with the writing, she came to realize that what she was reading was about to change everything she thought she understood about herself.

The writing was that of her great-grandmother’s, a woman whose name she had never once heard mentioned during the whole of her life. She read that, in 1904, as Japan consolidated its forces in Korea in preparation for war with Russia, her great-grandmother, and many young women like her, were also consolidated there to keep the forces comfortable and war ready.

Mostly what Tomoe read was heartbreaking: it was a time of misery and hardship and of suicidal desires. But on the final, most tattered page, she read that one cold February night a fair-skinned and near-frozen American writer named Jack London suddenly arrived. Her great-grandmother and four other girls were specially chosen to bathe him. Her great-grandmother, alone, was chosen to prepare his bed and to comfort him as best she could.

After carefully smoothing out the pages and returning them to their box, Tomoe found a pen and some paper and began to write in a newly found voice.

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Legacy

The father placed the tray over his son’s lap.

“Dad, how come you never ask me about the war?”

The father sat down blatantly in his chair. He found the remote and pointed it at his son’s missing legs. “All the answers are right there.”

The son picked up the sandwich, held it before his mouth, and then set it back down on the paper plate. “You do know there are heroes over there dying trying to defend us, right dad?”

The father sighed and began surfing through the channels. “I have nothing over there that needs defending.”

The son pushed himself up by his elbows. One of his stumps jerked upwards and unsettled the tray. “Unbelievable. Most fathers would think their son is a hero if—”

“We don’t have to do this, you know.” The father stood up, walked over to his son, and reached down for the tray. “If you’re not hungry I’ll—”

“Leave it!” the son said, grabbing the tray and spilling its contents onto his lap.

The father turned and walked toward the door.

“That’s it. Go ahead and run away. Run away on your perfect fucking pair of legs.”

The father stopped. Without turning around he said, “Son, just because someone happens to get killed in battle, or happens to drive over an IED and get his legs blown off, doesn’t automatically make him a hero in my book.”

“Really? Well then, dad, what does make it in your book? Sitting around and getting high all day? Singing protest songs? Carrying dangerously worded signs?”

The father took a step toward the door and then, again, stopped. “Tell me, son. If I think war is immoral to begin with, then what am I supposed to think about the person who volunteers to fight in that war?”

The son didn’t answer.

The father left the room.

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Untitled, for no particular reason

it doesn’t matter

it doesn’t matter

it doesn’t matter

but it does

it doesn’t matter what is heard

it doesn’t matter what is seen

it doesn’t matter what is felt

but it does

it doesn’t matter what is read

it doesn’t matter what is studied

it doesn’t matter what is learned

but it does

it doesn’t matter what is wanted

it doesn’t matter what is needed

it doesn’t matter what is neglected

but it does

it doesn’t matter what is played

it doesn’t matter what is worked

it doesn’t matter what is earned

but it does

it doesn’t matter about sex

it doesn’t matter about abstinence

it doesn’t matter about monogamy

but it does

it doesn’t matter about the laughing

it doesn’t matter about the crying

it doesn’t matter about the ennui

but it does

it doesn’t matter about the mind

it doesn’t matter about the heart

it doesn’t matter about the soul

but it does

it doesn’t matter about peace

it doesn’t matter about war

it doesn’t matter about surrender

but it does

it doesn’t matter about right

it doesn’t matter about wrong

it doesn’t matter about indifference

but it does

it doesn’t matter about purpose

it doesn’t matter about meaning

it doesn’t matter about truth

but it does

it doesn’t matter about belief

it doesn’t matter about non-belief

it doesn’t matter about un-belief

but it does

it doesn’t matter about was

it doesn’t matter about is

it doesn’t matter about shall be

but it does

it doesn’t matter about birth

it doesn’t matter about life

it doesn’t matter about death

but it does

it doesn’t matter

it doesn’t matter

it doesn’t matter

but it does

and just it doesn’t matter

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Insurance Insures Ensures My Frustration

Back in February of this year, I posted the following gripe to my personal facebook page (as opposed to my public facebook page):

I am fortunate to have a rather decent long-term disability policy with Mutual of Omaha, which I, thankfully, purchased through my former employer prior to the diagnosis of my cancer.

One of my frustrations (of several) with the policy is, though, that Mutual of Omaha required/forced me to apply for federal Social Security disability compensation at the onset of my claim. Once approved, Mutual of Omaha then began deducting the amount the federal government pays me from what they pay me.

That seems like such a scam to me; however, from what I have been able to find out, it appears to be a legitimate scam.

Legitimate does not always equate to being right.

Regardless, since the American federal tax payer is providing nearly 33% of my disability compensation, I suppose it is incumbent upon me to say thank you to them for their support.

Thank you, American federal tax payer.

I would like to add an update to that gripe:

Back in May of this year I found out that, because I had been collecting Social Security disability payments for two years (which I was forced to apply for—see above), I would now be forced to apply for Medicare health insurance. Well, technically, I wasn’t forced to apply for the government-sponsored program, however, if I had chosen not to, I would have been dis-enrolled from my primary insurance program, Tricare, which is administered by the US Family Health Plan.

So, of course I applied for Medicare.

The fun part is, not only do I have to pay an additional $100.00 a month (well, technically I am not paying out the funds; they are automatically deducted from my monthly Social Security Disability payments—six in one, glass half empty in the other) for the government program on top of the premiums I still have to pay for Tricare, I am not allowed to use the government benefits which I am forced to purchase.

Ah yes. I must always remember…pain is just a loving reminder that I’m still alive.

Consider Yourself Warned!

Okay, I’ll admit—maybe Medicare will come in handy some day as a backup for Tricare.

But still…it’s all a little too hokie and borderline scam for my taste…

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Short Verses and Other Curses #4

laugh long in woe’s stead

skip your stones across the deep

mock the keening call

*

scrape away the rot

’til only sweet meat remains

save what may be saved

*

who am i to say

who you have the right to be

who am i, indeed

*

women of the world

mothers and mothers to be

god hath ordained thee

*

entangled we roll

each clinging madly to each

caught in fate’s cross winds

*

even when hidden

even when undesired

happiness is there

*

money is the voice

which those with speak, and to which

those without listen

*

life offers it all /

though, if it is not taken /

life forsakes it all

*

stitched and tightly seamed

joysorrowlovelossdespairhope

a patchwork of me

*

life offers it all

though, if it is not taken

life forsakes it all

*

listen not to noise

for it’s pronounced with meaning

once it’s heard, it’s heard

*

the pond, cool and deep

enlightened frogs bathe content

lo! first came their leap

*

with the winded leaves

with the doves in their mourning

I explode with life

*

staying still, quiet

showing only peace, they come

writing this, they flee

*

whither I go

wither go I?

*

is less truly more

to give even a little

seems to take so much

less is truly more

to give even a little

seems to mean so much

*

now that they have grown

into wonderful beings

every day is mine

*

tell not: show what is

ask not: do it just because

want not: agape

*

if not valued true

diamonds, soon, would lose their shine

surely, too, would we

*

dying, castro turns

after a revolving life

he turns to haiku

*

let the serpent slide

let the vulture pick the bone

let the angel be

*

seek within the grain

the smallest reveals the grand

imagine the sand

*

one accomplishment

if I can do just one thing

even just one thing

*

what compels the awe

are miracles miracles

or just is as is

*

what must be endured

before the blossom unfolds

heaven only knows

*

a sailor’s reward

life awash with memories

how grand the ocean

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Is

History As Our Guide?

It is my assumption that most of us are probably more familiar with World War II history than the histories of most other wars. As most historians don’t consider something as history unless we are at least fifty years or so removed from the event, I am not considering the world’s most recent wars when I make this assumption.

Consequently, I have been doing a little research to brush up on my World War I history. I was fortunate to find a wonderfully produced ten-part documentary on youtube fittingly entitled “The First World War.”

What I relearned from my research, and I know that this is not a new revelation by any stretch of the imagination, is that we as humans were utterly brutal and merciless during the twentieth century. It’s unfathomable to me how many millions were killed during World War I. And to top it all off, just as the war ended, the Spanish Flu pandemic infected the globe and killed another twenty million or so people.

Unimaginable.

You’re probably familiar with the saying “misery loves company.” Well, we at least can find some solace for what seems like our present day madness of global wars and revolutions and piracy and economic depressions and disregard for human rights by looking back through history and finding just about any point in time when it was much, much worse.

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