God, gladiators, and Mike Tyson

It feels good to be writing and posting again…

I was returning from what is supposedly the most important exam of my time in medical school – no idea how I managed to do … only feeling like I’d been kicked in the balls by the test authors and betrayed by my school whose philosophy was to completely ignore preparing us for the board exam much less actually seeing patients…

I was driving back to my girlfriend’s house, about an hour and change away – the promise of a lack of guilt for not continuously studying when I realized that life is HARD…

Not just challenging – life is fucking cruelly hard…sometimes you’ve gotta feel like a gladiator or a warrior – just to survive the most mundane things around…just…to…survive…
And I thought about God watching us all, watching us struggle and fight, watching us survive – barely at times…

And I realized he was cheering for us – we may not have ever asked for it – but we’re apparently gladiators, fighting in front of him…struggling to get where we’re going…and I realized that since God is a part of each of us (at least that’s what I believe)…it would mean we’re all there too – watching the gladiators of the world – fight…and survive…

And it’s just this huge struggle…

I got home to the news that Mike Tyson’s daughter had passed away…and I started thinking of the retarded, sick and inhumane comments that people would be making about that poor man while he was grieving hard…his head slung low, hardened to how society perceives him or labels him because it’s the only thing that would allow him to survive…

Suddenly I felt like I understood a large swath of society…we play mental jujitsu with our challenges and struggles…we either battle them directly only to flip them into positives, or we shut pieces of ourselves out of our consciousness merely to maintain some internal stability and consistency…so when something horrible happens – we laugh it off…We joke about it because it’s such a terrible tragedy and it hurts so bad that we are unable to face it directly…

So there I was realizing that the “idiots” who would laugh at a man whose small child passed away realistically probably identify with him… They wish they could be as strong as he is – as fearless as he has been and as unconcerned with the rest of everybody else around as he is…not realizing that it’s a sort of caged freedom…Because he has tuned the rest of us out – he is free…but only while he’s tuned out completely…because as soon as he opens up or tries to engage, he is going to get ripped apart…mostly because it makes us feel better about ourselves and our own myriad tragedies…and there it is…Mike wasn’t only a gladiator in the ring…as a man with a REAL life that has consistently been thrust into the public spotlight by others, he’s been a gladiator while walking down the street every day…He was given unnatural talents – through no fault of his own – and was subsequently used and exploited for those talents…his returns have not reached parity with what he lost…

I talked to a friend of mine about our society – how so much is predicated on tearing people down, destroying their sense of self – so that they’ll buy something…Magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue that serve no purpose other than to tell women AND men that if they don’t look a certain way they don’t have any real aesthetic value, nor are they doing their best to help the world out…

And it seemed pretty ludicrous to be quite honest…just another example of us struggling along to find our light and being told that we have none…struggling and fighting

And I wondered to myself – what are we struggling for?  The right to purchase cheap ass plastic toys and cheap, canned foods?

Or don’t we want to be free to go do stuff with our time, and eat delicious meals and watch entertaining stuff…would we even need sports and beer to escape if our world was a little more…humane?

The animal world is just that – the animal world, where nature is all about competition and where the strongest dominate and kill whomever they please…in the human world – we’d call that a despot.

Unfortunately, we go to work for despots…we listen to their opinions on the news every night and we pay them heed by purchasing their cars, clothes, music, and food…We don’t do ourselves any favors by listening to these despots…

But even beneath that layer…you realize that right there – the people who are going to work for those despotic organizations are just people…struggling…fighting…whether its’ literal, or figurative – fighting with fists and knees or consciences, pricinples, and propaganda – we are all fighting…

And living in the animal world – not the human one.

Our world, as humans, is defined by unlimited potential and boundless creativity, energy, and abilities…don’t believe me?

Turn prisons into boot-camp style colleges and watch what happens…
Ensure equal access to scholastic information to everyone around and watch what happens…Stop hoarding and selling knowledge in academic worlds and watch what happens…

We are strong and resilient for having fought…now let’s show God that we are intelligent too…

Vocabulary Skills?

So I saw a link that said Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused the media of “personal, salacious” reporting…

I have one question…

Salacious?

How does she know what that word means? Does she know what the word means?

I never saw any reporting done regarding Gov. Barracuda that was “sexually lewd or obscene” (which is the definition of salacious).

Maybe she thought her bumbling, stammering through the Charles Gibson and Katie Couric interviews was hawt…

The librarian look she sported for the interviews: very attractive…

The strident “mama grizzly” who shoots wolves from helicopters, while indiscriminately, and un-eloquently spewing hard-right, christian fundamentalist, anti-everything except-white-male rhetoric: very unattractive, actually the exact opposite of “salacious”…

I’m sorry, but she jumped into the fray and unfortunately made herself and her state the laughingstock of America…

Better to stay quiet and let people wonder if you’re an idiot than to open your mouth and confirm it for everyone…

Insights from 1 year, 4 months, 2 weeks and 3 hours in

- I need to study at a desk…

- I need music and light snacks to study with…

- I should preferrably be somewhat cool (temperature)…

- People cannot be walking by, nor tugboats for that matter – movement in my general direction is a poor predictor of successful studying…

- I cannot be trusted with a highlighter…nor a ruler and a pen…

- Always memorize the tables in the books…

- Always memorize the slides…

- Always memorize things that are italicized, underlined, bold, or have a catchphrase such as “it is important to remember…” or “it is dangerous to…” or “the patient may die if…”

- I should make algorithms using lab data/history/physical findings for each system and complaint…

- Animations make oodles more sense than textbooks…

- Pictures are good – words are a double edged sword…they’re sorta like electrolytes…or antibodies…

- It’s actually a good thing to live so close to school…Frustrating, demoralizing, alternately soul-crushing and soul-draining…but occasionally its’ sorta convenient…

- I cannot afford to not pay attention to things like laundry, haircuts, cleaning, writing, photography, eating, or exercise – if I don’t learn how to cram them in now, I never will…

- Every hour I need to stand up, stretch, breathe, and refocus myself…

- Writing and exercising is therapeutic…

- Lectures are absolutely worthless – attendance is in fact somewhat detrimental…small groups range from marginally beneficial to completely useless…

- Studying for boards is going to suck a lot…

- Medical school is designed to be an uphill battle the entire way – a series of seemingly endless struggles punctuated by repeated failures…

- I’m on a roll…

Soft on Crime vs. Soft on Value

I was reading the newspaper today, during a quick little break and decided to delve into the comments for a few moments. Mostly because the teaser is so damned intriguing. The article is about three men who were shot in Seattle. The long and short of it is that someone shot them, and the victims knew the assailant. The police hadn’t quite found the assailant, but were looking.

Why I looked into the comments, I don’t know. But I found a few gems.

Harsher penalties is the answer. These gangsters are worthless liabilities to society and if they can’t understand what is expected of them then it is our duty to show them what is expected of them. The prisons are a cake walk for these habitual criminals. We have to turn our prisons into work farms and make these criminals regret being sentenced to “hard” time. Make them suffer through complete exhaustion.

and

And I’m supposed to care, why? Glad to hear they weren’t “innocent bystanders.” As long as they keep taking each other out without picking the rest of us off, let ‘em. Better to decrease the worthless population.

The emphasis in the above quotes is mine.

But statements like “worthless liabilities to society”, “prisons are a cake walk”, and “Make them suffer” aren’t exactly enlightened thoughts.

People might say that the persons leaving these comments are merely being hyperbolic – but I’d refute that. We have a myriad of proof that shows that people who are poor, minorities, and/or somehow not in the current mainstream are seen as worth-less. Unfortunately, the gentleman is right – when we stop viewing our neighbors and citizens as assets and truly expecting them to contribute to society as opposed to giving up hope and losing respect for them as humans – people become liabilities to society, liabilities that our strained society cannot afford to pay for.

Companies are laying off people at a breakneck pace – jobs are drying up, markets are shifting and terrified – and I’d say that a large part of the reason is because of our value system. We’ve forgotten how to value people. We’ve forgotten as a society to respect our neighbors.

Sentiments like “make them suffer through hard work” aren’t productive. They don’t do anything to enhance the person, or society. Hard work can be incredibly rewarding. Hard work IS incredibly rewarding. Ensuring that someone, who has already shown proclivities towards violence has a terrible time in prison isn’t going to stop crime. Rather it only “hardens” criminals. Forcing people to act like animals to survive isn’t the answer to eliminating crime. Forcing people to act like human beings is.

Prison is a necessary punishment. I agree that the person(s) responsible for the shooting should if convicted after a fair and impartial trial, should go to prison.

But lets’ actually ensure that the people in prison (yes, people) are productive to society. Let’s make sure that they have the skills, both technical and affective, to succeed in the general population once they are out of prison. Let’s make sure they never want to go back because they view prison as beneath them – not because they are rationally afraid of an irrationally brutal system.

We’ve added year after year to minimum sentences. We’ve added firearms enhancements to criminal penalties, we’ve cut back on the vocational and educational opportunities for incarcerated people for decades, fearful of being soft on crime – and all its’ done has made ex-convicts more desperate and fearful of going back to prison.

That translates directly into police having to deal with more desperate and hopeless people. People who act irrationally and in unexpected ways.

I remember sometime ago when I was working with the Fire Department. We went to a motor vehicle accident and upon arrival found a car, flipped over onto it roof, with bullet holes in random parts of the underside of the car. Shell casings littered the ground.

The people in the car were okay – two women and their three children. The youngest child was about 15 months old.

The bullet holes they reported, came from the man who after hitting them broadside and thinking he had hurt them badly, feared going back to prison – “Fuck that, I’m not going back” he was reported to have said multiple times, as he emptied a clip of bullets into their car.

Yes he should be in prison. But it’s wrong to ignore that fear – that fear that leads to more irrational violence.

They were lucky their car was a late model one with actual steel protecting them from the bullets. But others haven’t been.

Our criminal justice system woefully needs repair. You can’t rehabilitate people when they haven’t been habilitated in the first place. You can’t teach civics lessons in the colliseum with gladiators all around. You can’t learn peace if you constantly fear violence.

The only way we’re going to be able to truly be “tough on crime” is if we can figure out how to instill in inmates the true value of the wasted potential that unfortunately characterizes the lives of most of their lives…

We have to figure out how to value their humanity in order to get them to value others…

Without doing that, we’re doomed to repeating the same mistakes and expecting something different.

Didn’t somebody say that was the definition of insanity?

Had Dreams of…

“Had dreams of breaking Mike Vick out of jail / Took the underground rail to the end that failed/ I rebel, NYSL / Here to leave a trail like Nelson Mandela.”
- Common, Gladiator

What he did was cruel and unconscionable. He essentially, literally, tortured dogs. He’s in prison now – for about two years.

I’ve heard people calling for his head, wanting to make an example out of him. Wanting to make sure we throw the book, a few catalogs, and even a couple of pamphlets at him. People who were rightly upset by his animal cruelty. And to be sure – I agree, he does deserve to be in prison, absolutely. He does need to pay some type of restitution, absolutely.

But enough is enough.

Some people have good too damned far. There are people who want the NFL to ban him. They somehow think that by depriving him of his celebrity status that will prevent others from torturing dogs. Quite the opposite.

Giving him the opportunity to make it right will keep people from torturing dogs. The power that Michael Vick held and hopefully one day will hold is that of a role model for young boys and people who are like him.

Let me give you some background – I grew up with pit bulls. I’ve seen them fight…In person. And I love pit bulls. I remember when I finally realized that it was wrong to fight pit bulls. I remember when some of the people who used to fight pits around me realized the same thing. Furthermore, I think the breed bans that some people have advocated are absolutely senseless. Any dog in the hands of an insensible or incapacitated owner can kill. Hell, a few months ago I remember reading about some puppies eating a poor man alive.

Trying to eviscerate and neuter Michael Vick, throwing him in jail, and trying to flush the key down the toilet is a knee-jerk response to a horrific crime. The only way anyone is going to ever prevent others from fighting dogs is by setting up and acting on some type of dialog with the people who are doing it.

People who don’t have anything aren’t looking at what happened to Michael Vick and saying that they are going to stop fighting dogs because they might lose their 100 million dollar football contracts. They are looking at someone, who they’d like to think is just like them, and they see racism in the decision. Afterall, I’ve never seen someone who fought dogs get thrown in federal prison. At the most its’ a fine and confiscation of the animal.

So punishing Michael Vick more isn’t going to help dogs. Allowing his re-entry into the NFL on the stipulation that he becomes THE spokesperson against animal cruelty is.

That’s my controversial opinion…

Ratings a.k.a. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised…

John Travolta’s child died a few days ago.

Let me restate that in terms that are a little more humanistic. A few days ago, a father lost his son – forever. Desperate futile calls for help, and still his son perished.

John Travolta is a Scientologist.

Let me restate that in terms that are a little more humanistic. There is a man who has beliefs that not everyone agrees on. Those beliefs happen to be religious.

John Travolta’s child died a few days ago. Why exactly does it matter what John Travolta’s religion is? Who cares? Does it make you feel any different about his personal tragedy? Does it affect how much you care about the fact that a life was lost?

It shouldn’t. Nothing should. The media needs to stop turning events into referendums on a persons religion. John Travolta’s religion is between him and his God. The media has honestly gotten a little sickening over the past decade or so. They report things that don’t matter, usually with an inflammatory tone, especially when it comes to race, gender, or religion.

The fact of the matter is, the media is the main outlet for education on what’s happening in our culture – the media serves both as a repository and rudder for popular culture. So to see the media steering pop culture towards a disdain for a particular religion is something that is worthy protest. They’ve already done it with Islam – failing to show images of positive Islam… I ask you – when is the last time you’ve seen pictures of smiling Muslims, that haven’t been connected to some terrorist attack? I know they exist. When is the last time you’ve seen video of the interior of a Muslim home without some U.S. soldier inside of it? They’ve elected to omit positive images of an entire culture.

Reality television isn’t exactly reality television. Me and my roommates don’t fight as much as the people on the Real World did. The Apprentice, is not reality television. Major companies do not decide who gets a job based on such pressurized competitions. If they did, they’d have a company full of backstabbing lunatics who, while probably are great at leading are really shitty followers.

Maybe I’m off base. Maybe John Travolta’s religion actually matters, roommates fight like cats and dogs, and U.S. corporations are overflowing with sociopathic sycophants (actually sounds true)…

Or maybe people are too pessimistic and believe anything they see on television. Maybe television producers can’t find anything intelligent and non-provocative to put on the boob-tube.

Don’t believe everything you see…

Sometimes it’s difficult

To tell if you are being the bad friend, the one who is being inflexible, the one who is making the jokes at the expense of the other person.

Other times it isn’t so difficult.

Today isn’t one of those other times.  Today’s theme might be inflexibility.  Actually, this week’s theme might be inflexibility.  I’m trying to be subtle here, so as not to offend friends who either are or aren’t reading.  To be honest, I doubt the friends who spurred this post even care to read my blog.

I really do doubt it.

But just in case I’m going to try to be vague.

Sometimes, when you are a busy person, and you’d like to see a friend who is in the vicinity, you both have to make sacrifices.  Maybe it’s doing something that you wouldn’t quite do normally.  Maybe it’s going somewhere to eat that you wouldn’t usually go.  Maybe it’s going out when you don’t want to go out.  Or maybe it’s going somewhere to eat, that you can go anytime.

Either way, sometimes, both people need to be flexible.  Sometimes, everyone involved  needs to actually sit down and figure out what exactly everyone wants, figure out exactly why it’s difficult to do that.

You can’t just throw an inflexible agenda out and expect to maintain relationships.  It’s actually quite impossible to do that.  As frustrating as it is, it’s quite impossible.

Right now I’m pissed off, because I’ve tried to be very flexible, offering a friend multiple opportunities to hang out, multiple ways to see each other.  Unfortunately I’ve been met with nothing but “well, we’re actually going to be doing this instead”.  I’ve called, sent text messages, multiple times.  The only thing I haven’t done is email.  I’ve put effort in on my side, but if it isn’t going to be matched, then I can’t really solve that problem.

Sometimes it’s difficult…

Wires

I’m almost done moving into my new apartment.  I love it.  It’s more spacious.  There are huge picture windows that I can look out of.  It’s amazing.  Except for one little thing.

Wires.

They were a pain in the arse in the last place I lived.  Come to think of it, they’ve been a pain in my side in EVERY place that I’ve lived.   Why are wires so obtrusive.  Why does a tiny plastic sheathed piece of metal snaking across the floor get under our skin?

Controlling tendencies?

I don’t think so.  There is good reason to dislike wires all over the place – they tend to become obstacles to trip on.  When you trip on a wire you can do one of two things.  You can either trip and fall on yourself, or you can trip and yank the wire out of the piece of electronics its’ connected to…or you can even pull the electronics down to the ground.  Come to think of it, you can do all three things.

But in addition to being functionally annoying, wires are aesthetically annoying.  Wires are to electronics as flies are to food.  They come with the territory.  But they are a limitation.  A snively reminder of our lack of control over our environment and an annoying reminder of our lack of intellectual freedom outside the confines of our built environment.

We’ve come to think of minimalist architecture as clean, natural.  Straight lines and plumb walls are understood as one of the highest manifestations of purity and nature.  They are however an illusion.  Nature rarely knows straight lines.  Nature knows only curves and swooping gradations.  Nature is messy, a true manifestation of entropy.  Wires are entropy.  They trip you, things fall, they become tangled and complicated to root out.  They fray.  They catch fire.  Wires are nature.

I still don’t like them running across my carpet though…

Sometimes I get the feeling

That the Bronx is dying

Slowly breathing, chests are heaving, pollution spewing like phlegm and pitched notes on a broken violin

Dying

Violent deaths on sidewalks riddled with bullets and obesity

Bleeding profusely outside the fried chicken shack the smell of freshly charred bananas caressing

your last memories

Dying in vain

Dying in spirit, body, and name

Dying in agonizing pain

Suffocating

The Bronx, South South Bronx is dying – screaming for help silently

Impatiently waiting to be rescued

Fighting in the ER, fighting the streets in the streets

Fighting to balance their own battles that they didn’t have to luxury to pick and choose

Fighting and dying

Like soldiers in a civil war with their own country

Their own city

Their own borough

A bureaucracy that has declared a covert war against them all

The Bronx is dying loudly, sirens and salsa music wailing competing for ears and hearts

The Bronx is hungry for simple things like air and peace

Jobs and good food

More subway stops and taxi cab drivers who aren’t afraid of the thoroughfares

The Bronx is begging the factories by way of prayers and cellphone communication

Begging the factories to stop pumping pollutants into the air and water

Unfortunately the factory owners aren’t listening, because one of them somehow found the frequency that God’s been listening to and is trying to jam it.

Someone a long time ago threw a lever in the gears of democracy

Someone threw us in the gears of decency so they think grinding us up seems to oil everything else decently

Someone sold us some wolf tickets in sheepskin clothing

That’s why they used to use sheepskin condoms and that’s why so many people in the Bronx have AIDS

and are dying

I’ve got blood on my jacket and she is still smiling at me because I look fresh

Not fresh as in dope, but fresh as in alive and the Bronx, since it’s been dying for years, flocks to life wherever it can be found

Downtrodden and sick but vibrant and loud

I’ve never seen so many colors in my life

I’ve never heard so many languages in my time – even though they are all English

The Bronx is dying and I don’t know what to say about it other than

God Rest Your Soul you don’t deserve this.

Here are the Answers for The Quiz…caveat…

So – I’m in the tail end of the first year of medical school and they finally revealed the secret.  We are getting the answers for the quiz…not the quiz that we have next week – the quizzes that we are going to be getting later on in the third and fourth year.  Only problem – they expect us to remember the answers, but we don’t have any idea what the questions were.  It’s almost ridiculous that there isn’t something other than competitive drive to get the best grades that pushes people to learn as much as possible.  Doctors who don’t know are doctors that can make serious mistakes.  Unfortunately – for both the patients and the doctors – doctors have been told, but not in a manner that emphasizes what questions the answers are to.  Medical students, being medical students, will make valiant attempts to memorize everything instead of learning a framework that actually matters.