This morning President Obama cautioned against nationalism built around an us or them. As a marriage and family therapist, I have to say that anything built around an us or them is dangerous. And it touches the next blog entry I wanted to make anyway, as I work my way through What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.
Bear in mind that the author obviously has to simplify, and I am going to simplify what he writes. It's obviously far more complicated than what I lay out here. But I am on a journey to understand my country. And this leg of the journey takes us to Wichita, Kansas. That's where the Us and Them became defined by the judgement of those who came to believe political parties should define morals, and forever left behind the division between the state and the church. Former Republican senator Sam Brownback didn't believe Kansans care about economic issues because the cause of poverty is spiritual rather than "mechanistic". He said Kansans have "set their sights on grander things,like the purity of the nation. Good wages, fair play in farm county, the fate of the small town, even the one we live in --all these things are distant second to evolution, which we will strike from the books, and public education, which we will undermine in a hundred inventive ways."
So let's go sideways, for a moment. Mr Trump appointed someone to his cabinet who doesn't believe in climate change. Someone who is a known to have support a website that is anti-black, anti-woman, anti-Latino and anti-everything that is not male and white. Hmmm.... looks like we are getting a glimpse of how this began.
Operation Rescue. Remember them? It was the "Summer of Mercy." Abortion was firmly supported by the people of Kansas until busloads of evangelical Christians arrive that July, 1991. (Before, it was Atlanta in 1988 and Los Angeles in 1990). While there were obviously people on both sides of the question of abortion, it was Operation Rescue that made those contradictions manifest. They "set up a conflict so unresolvable that everyone in the state would eventually have to choose up sides and join the fight." I would add eventually the nation. It is the attitude of if you're not for us then you are against us.
So Pat Roberts gets involved, declaring "We will not rest until every baby....is safe in his mother's womb." The Christian right piled on and made their views manifest coast to coast on the airwaves. And these are the people who then became extremely politically active. Further, no one works harder than those who pushing extreme political action for the "the Kingdom of God."
Moderate Kansans pushed back, telling the Wichita Eagle: "They want women to return to a time...when white gloves were required attire at afternoon teas, and when women were kept in their place by being taught that the men in their lives always knew best." Soon the moderate pushbacks made the Conservatives who were anti-abortion believe "that society's real victims were evangelical Christians."
Ultimately, this division became a class war: "Not in the way tastes-and-values way our punditry defines class."
So those "with the lowest per capita income and lowest median housing values consistently generated the strongest support for the conservative faction. The areas with the highest income and highest real estate values ....were just as reliably loyal to the moderate machine." So the situation completely flipped from what it was forty years before. Previously, those who were the most desperate were also the most radical.
Conservatives came to define class as a matter of authenticity: "Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George Bush." Let's just substitute the words Donald Trump. He talks like them and wears a ball cap like them, so therefore he's one of them.
"Our culture and our schools and our government, backlashers insist, are controlled by an over educated ruling class that is contemptuous of the beliefs and practices of the masses of ordinary people. Those who run American, the theory holds, are despicable, self-important show-offs. They are effete, to use a favorite backlash term. They are arrogant. They are snobs. They are liberals." And that becomes "Liberals, in other words, are parasites."
By breaking down social class definitions to authenticity instead of privilege and money, conservatives began rallying behind the very corporations and tax laws that cause them harm. But that's a different blog entry.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
Understanding the Heartland Pt 2
So first I read Hill Billy Elegy because the author was on MSNBC. Yeah, I'm a bleeding heart libral who gets her news from the Elite. I check their facts. I read their sources. I can't listen to Fox 2 minutes.
Then I watched a commentator that I didn't like so much, the bastard voted 3rd party and I'm not real patient with people who throw their vote away in this election, but he talked about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland. It was published in 2004, but really is fleshing out a lot of those missing pieces.
Let's step over to the back burner a moment. I'll tie it in, I promise.
We moved to Arkansas when I was ten. My daddy decided he was going from Conservative Methodism to the Church of Christ (many believe they approximate a cult). He started attending college at Harding University. He got a preaching job for $100 a week he drove to Possum Grape Arkansas and preached Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Several families in the congregation were chicken farmers, and I've spent my fair share of time in a chicken house helping to collect eggs on a Sunday afternoon. Long, narrow buildings full of noise and odors. Those are all gone now, replaced by the same buildings owned by Tyson foods.
Let's talk about my book.
In Kansas it was farms, or companies like Boeing. There were no labor unions to protect people when Boeing decided to become a virtual corporation. They "outsourced", asking cities to bid against each other. They moved production overseas, picked fights with unions.Then 9/11 happened and the demand for planes plummeted.
"The culprit is the conservatives' beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for small town merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place. Deregulated capitalism is what has allowed Wal-Mart to crush local businesses across Kansas and, even more important, what has driven agriculture, the state's raison d'etre, to a state of near collapse."
I knew some of this, but not all because I believed that capitalism was sacred. Here's what else he says: "But in reality the interests of [farmers and agribusiness] are more like those of the chicken and Colonel Sanders of backlash lore. And Colonel Sanders has been on an unbroken winning streak now for twenty-some years, with farm legislation, trade policy, and a regulatory climate all crafted to strengthen the conglomerates while weakening the farmer."
He goes on to say; "Farming is a field uniquely unsuited to the freewheeling whirl of the open market. There are millions of farmers, and they are naturally disorganized; they can't coordinate their plans one with another. Not only are they easily victimized by powerful middlemen...but when they find themselves in a tough situation -- when, say, the price they are getting for wheat is low -- farmers do not have the option of cutting back production, as every other industry does. Instead, each of those millions of farmers work harder, competes better, becomes more efficient, cranks out more of the commodity in question....and thus makes the glut even worse and pushes the prices still lower."
That's why the New Deal research on my previous blog. It brought price supports and acreage set-asides and loan guarantees. But agribusiness likes low farm prices because it means high profits for them. The Regan-Clinton area deregulatory climate led to to the ironically named Freedom to Farm Act which threw all the acreage into open cultivation and basically finished off the New Deal. Farmers didn't even seem to understand what this would mean. They over produced, prices plummeted, and everyone failed except the largest and most efficient farms. Finally it got so bad government stepped in again. But the largest farms got the most help.
But we don't need any of the government interference.
That's where I am now.
Then I watched a commentator that I didn't like so much, the bastard voted 3rd party and I'm not real patient with people who throw their vote away in this election, but he talked about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland. It was published in 2004, but really is fleshing out a lot of those missing pieces.
Let's step over to the back burner a moment. I'll tie it in, I promise.
We moved to Arkansas when I was ten. My daddy decided he was going from Conservative Methodism to the Church of Christ (many believe they approximate a cult). He started attending college at Harding University. He got a preaching job for $100 a week he drove to Possum Grape Arkansas and preached Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Several families in the congregation were chicken farmers, and I've spent my fair share of time in a chicken house helping to collect eggs on a Sunday afternoon. Long, narrow buildings full of noise and odors. Those are all gone now, replaced by the same buildings owned by Tyson foods.
Let's talk about my book.
In Kansas it was farms, or companies like Boeing. There were no labor unions to protect people when Boeing decided to become a virtual corporation. They "outsourced", asking cities to bid against each other. They moved production overseas, picked fights with unions.Then 9/11 happened and the demand for planes plummeted.
"The culprit is the conservatives' beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for small town merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place. Deregulated capitalism is what has allowed Wal-Mart to crush local businesses across Kansas and, even more important, what has driven agriculture, the state's raison d'etre, to a state of near collapse."
I knew some of this, but not all because I believed that capitalism was sacred. Here's what else he says: "But in reality the interests of [farmers and agribusiness] are more like those of the chicken and Colonel Sanders of backlash lore. And Colonel Sanders has been on an unbroken winning streak now for twenty-some years, with farm legislation, trade policy, and a regulatory climate all crafted to strengthen the conglomerates while weakening the farmer."
He goes on to say; "Farming is a field uniquely unsuited to the freewheeling whirl of the open market. There are millions of farmers, and they are naturally disorganized; they can't coordinate their plans one with another. Not only are they easily victimized by powerful middlemen...but when they find themselves in a tough situation -- when, say, the price they are getting for wheat is low -- farmers do not have the option of cutting back production, as every other industry does. Instead, each of those millions of farmers work harder, competes better, becomes more efficient, cranks out more of the commodity in question....and thus makes the glut even worse and pushes the prices still lower."
That's why the New Deal research on my previous blog. It brought price supports and acreage set-asides and loan guarantees. But agribusiness likes low farm prices because it means high profits for them. The Regan-Clinton area deregulatory climate led to to the ironically named Freedom to Farm Act which threw all the acreage into open cultivation and basically finished off the New Deal. Farmers didn't even seem to understand what this would mean. They over produced, prices plummeted, and everyone failed except the largest and most efficient farms. Finally it got so bad government stepped in again. But the largest farms got the most help.
But we don't need any of the government interference.
That's where I am now.
Understanding the Heartland
First a note of housekeeping. I do not tolerate trolls. My views are not up for debate. I have changed my setting so I moderate comments because if I don't like it, I get rid of it. My blog, my thoughts, my rules. I like readers, but the writing is for me.
Back to writing....
When things happen that I don't understand, my "go to" to research. Guess that makes me an elitist. And the best way for me to assimilate information is to act like I'm in school writing "reflection papers". So here we go.
I grew up in the "armpit" of the midwest. Rice fields, mosquitos the size of a grape, and poverty. I didn't know it then, but we were privileged. I didn't know that my skin color and a three bedroom home, two cars and a job and a half in the house meant privilege because all the white people in my neighborhood, school, and church appeared to have the same. Except the country club set, but they didn't talk to me. It took living in a 30 year old mobile home and a sixteen year old car for me to understand I will never be as upwardly mobile as my parents, guaranteed by the student loan that gave me a career, but whose interest payments are more than $2400 a month, if I could make them.
So with the loss of this election, I really needed to understand. I'm not saying I do, but that I am beginning to get glimpses of what has happened to my country while I was sidelined with getting out of Arkansas, getting away from a psychopath, and loosing my children. Yeah, I was a little distracted before I turned 40. Then I went to grad school and got distracted for another decade. But here I am. And I apologize to those in the midwest who were struggling and didn't get the help they needed.
So let's have a history lesson. I'm looking to wickipedia for some basic background info. This is a blog, not a term paper ; )
1929-1932 banks didn't have depositor's insurance, there was no unemployment insurance, social security or medicaid. Income fell by over 50%. A quarter of the nation was out of work or underemployed. Eventually 5 million mortgages were foreclosed. According to Wicki: "Political and business leaders feared revolution or anarchy."
FDR was elected, and promised a New Deal: "The New Deal represented a significant shift in politics and domestic policy. It especially led to greatly increased federal regulation of the economy. It also marked the beginning of complex social programs and growing power of labor unions. The effects of the New Deal remain a source of controversy and debate among economists and historians." Nevertheless, the New Deal put people to work, resulted in FDIC insurance for deposits, established the US Securities and Exchange commission to prevent another Wall Street crash and corporate abuses, and provided for farms and rural programs.
Not everything he tried worked, but the economy shot up over the next ten years. The point is that the government, with many mistakes and side trips, became a last resort of protection for the people. Now I was raised in Indiana and then Arkansas, and have spent the last thirty years in Georgia and South Carolina. My family are conservative republicans. And I was raised to believe that all government interference is bad and competitive markets are always best. I was wrong.
The purpose of "government interference" was to provide a safety net. I've drawn unemployment insurance. My current paycheck depends on children's medicaid payments. One day I hope to draw social security (downsides are a different discussion). The banking reform "offered unprecedented stability". Farmers benefited as the government paid for reduced output which raised prices. They could afford to be farmers again. Now we've turned that into something bad. We've pitted little farms against monopolized corporations (thank you Regan) and made it possible for the corporations to put most farms out of business. We've busted the labor unions who got fair wages for people and reasonable working conditions (I love you, Mother Jones). We've destroyed our own safety net. We sold our souls to companies like Tyson and Boeing, who then pitted us against each other, and sold it to us as free enterprise, bankrupting our people and our small towns.
Worse, most people don't realize that's what we did. Thanks to the Christian right's involvement, it's become moral issues. We've forgotten the principal of separation of church and state.
FDR's advisers "believed that excessive competition and technical progress had led to overproduction and lowered wages and prices, which they believed lowered demand and employment". What would they say now? We've elected a president who promises to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and to cut regulations on clean air.
Since Mr Trump is uniquely unqualified to run a country and has never even been elected to the PTA, I'm going to look to the man who will really be running the show, possibly for the next 16 years. According to Brietbart, Mike Pence " opposed federal bailouts and economic interventions, called for returning control over education to states and local communities, and opposed numerous power grabs from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Communications Commission. He was also one of the foremost lawmakers opposing Obamacare, both before and after its passage."
It looks to me like by the end of the next four years, we won't recognize this country. Listening to MSNBC and CNN over the weekend, it's clear that the freedom of the press is being threatened. Unlike other countries, no one can sue inside the US for libel the same way you can in other countries which is why President Obama couldn't go after the birthers despite the clear lie. Yeah, it's all going to change and some within 100 days. FDR brought about radical change in 100 days which is where that measuring stick came from. Holy cats, what will Mr Trump do?
This is getting too long and I've not even gotten to the book I am reading. Let's end here. I needed to do a little research and organize my thoughts. We'll talk about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland next.
Back to writing....
When things happen that I don't understand, my "go to" to research. Guess that makes me an elitist. And the best way for me to assimilate information is to act like I'm in school writing "reflection papers". So here we go.
I grew up in the "armpit" of the midwest. Rice fields, mosquitos the size of a grape, and poverty. I didn't know it then, but we were privileged. I didn't know that my skin color and a three bedroom home, two cars and a job and a half in the house meant privilege because all the white people in my neighborhood, school, and church appeared to have the same. Except the country club set, but they didn't talk to me. It took living in a 30 year old mobile home and a sixteen year old car for me to understand I will never be as upwardly mobile as my parents, guaranteed by the student loan that gave me a career, but whose interest payments are more than $2400 a month, if I could make them.
So with the loss of this election, I really needed to understand. I'm not saying I do, but that I am beginning to get glimpses of what has happened to my country while I was sidelined with getting out of Arkansas, getting away from a psychopath, and loosing my children. Yeah, I was a little distracted before I turned 40. Then I went to grad school and got distracted for another decade. But here I am. And I apologize to those in the midwest who were struggling and didn't get the help they needed.
So let's have a history lesson. I'm looking to wickipedia for some basic background info. This is a blog, not a term paper ; )
1929-1932 banks didn't have depositor's insurance, there was no unemployment insurance, social security or medicaid. Income fell by over 50%. A quarter of the nation was out of work or underemployed. Eventually 5 million mortgages were foreclosed. According to Wicki: "Political and business leaders feared revolution or anarchy."
FDR was elected, and promised a New Deal: "The New Deal represented a significant shift in politics and domestic policy. It especially led to greatly increased federal regulation of the economy. It also marked the beginning of complex social programs and growing power of labor unions. The effects of the New Deal remain a source of controversy and debate among economists and historians." Nevertheless, the New Deal put people to work, resulted in FDIC insurance for deposits, established the US Securities and Exchange commission to prevent another Wall Street crash and corporate abuses, and provided for farms and rural programs.
Not everything he tried worked, but the economy shot up over the next ten years. The point is that the government, with many mistakes and side trips, became a last resort of protection for the people. Now I was raised in Indiana and then Arkansas, and have spent the last thirty years in Georgia and South Carolina. My family are conservative republicans. And I was raised to believe that all government interference is bad and competitive markets are always best. I was wrong.
The purpose of "government interference" was to provide a safety net. I've drawn unemployment insurance. My current paycheck depends on children's medicaid payments. One day I hope to draw social security (downsides are a different discussion). The banking reform "offered unprecedented stability". Farmers benefited as the government paid for reduced output which raised prices. They could afford to be farmers again. Now we've turned that into something bad. We've pitted little farms against monopolized corporations (thank you Regan) and made it possible for the corporations to put most farms out of business. We've busted the labor unions who got fair wages for people and reasonable working conditions (I love you, Mother Jones). We've destroyed our own safety net. We sold our souls to companies like Tyson and Boeing, who then pitted us against each other, and sold it to us as free enterprise, bankrupting our people and our small towns.
Worse, most people don't realize that's what we did. Thanks to the Christian right's involvement, it's become moral issues. We've forgotten the principal of separation of church and state.
FDR's advisers "believed that excessive competition and technical progress had led to overproduction and lowered wages and prices, which they believed lowered demand and employment". What would they say now? We've elected a president who promises to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and to cut regulations on clean air.
Since Mr Trump is uniquely unqualified to run a country and has never even been elected to the PTA, I'm going to look to the man who will really be running the show, possibly for the next 16 years. According to Brietbart, Mike Pence " opposed federal bailouts and economic interventions, called for returning control over education to states and local communities, and opposed numerous power grabs from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Communications Commission. He was also one of the foremost lawmakers opposing Obamacare, both before and after its passage."
It looks to me like by the end of the next four years, we won't recognize this country. Listening to MSNBC and CNN over the weekend, it's clear that the freedom of the press is being threatened. Unlike other countries, no one can sue inside the US for libel the same way you can in other countries which is why President Obama couldn't go after the birthers despite the clear lie. Yeah, it's all going to change and some within 100 days. FDR brought about radical change in 100 days which is where that measuring stick came from. Holy cats, what will Mr Trump do?
This is getting too long and I've not even gotten to the book I am reading. Let's end here. I needed to do a little research and organize my thoughts. We'll talk about What's the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heartland next.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Post Election Thoughts
Like half of America, I watched last Tuesday night with fear and trepidation. Last spring I married my partner of 13 years, despite swearing I was waiting until the election results were clear. I feared what I happened in California, when gay people went to bed one night married,and woke the next morning not. Then I became angry. Angry at the fear. Angry at bigotry. Angry that human rights are still questioned, and married my partner in a court house ceremony. Half way into the night, I knew Hillary would loose, but couldn't face it.
I wasn't going to blog my thoughts. I wasn't going to risk an unfortunate backlash if my blog is actually traced to my real identity which could complicate employment, safety, etc. But after watching brave people march, others take a stand, and news reporters expressing real concern for the freedom of the press, I realized that sometimes we have to put it out there. So here I am. And here I will continue to be.
I've heard negativity regarding the Clintons most of my life. I grew up in AR listening to the adults talk about Bill Clinton and the horrible things he and Hillary supposedly did to the Arkansas education system, for example. Many years later I learned teachers in AR were functionally illiterate. The teachers were required to take a test which basically tested literacy. What was the problem????
This fall I started researching. I read books, articles, and internet sources about both candidates. It was impossible to compare policy because Trump didn't have one. His self admittance of narcissism, multiple bankruptcies and extreme count of lawsuites (3500). I read about Hillary, and while I don't understand all of her choices, I read about a woman who has answered her calling. A woman who really is a bleeding heart liberal who wants to do good.
I still can't make sense of America's vote. I continue to read and research, Having read Hilly Billy Elegy by JD Vance this weekend, maybe I have the beginning of an understanding.
On a personal note, I have never felt more at risk. I never thought my education would become a dangerous liability. Or that women really would risk dying again if Roe v Wade is struck down. Or loosing my marriage if they somehow manage a retroactive antigay marriage stance. Or the unforeseen complications of a Republican Supreme Court, House, Senate and President.
May God have mercy on our country. And may have a country left at the end of this president's term (s). And for the record. He's not my president.
I wasn't going to blog my thoughts. I wasn't going to risk an unfortunate backlash if my blog is actually traced to my real identity which could complicate employment, safety, etc. But after watching brave people march, others take a stand, and news reporters expressing real concern for the freedom of the press, I realized that sometimes we have to put it out there. So here I am. And here I will continue to be.
I've heard negativity regarding the Clintons most of my life. I grew up in AR listening to the adults talk about Bill Clinton and the horrible things he and Hillary supposedly did to the Arkansas education system, for example. Many years later I learned teachers in AR were functionally illiterate. The teachers were required to take a test which basically tested literacy. What was the problem????
This fall I started researching. I read books, articles, and internet sources about both candidates. It was impossible to compare policy because Trump didn't have one. His self admittance of narcissism, multiple bankruptcies and extreme count of lawsuites (3500). I read about Hillary, and while I don't understand all of her choices, I read about a woman who has answered her calling. A woman who really is a bleeding heart liberal who wants to do good.
I still can't make sense of America's vote. I continue to read and research, Having read Hilly Billy Elegy by JD Vance this weekend, maybe I have the beginning of an understanding.
On a personal note, I have never felt more at risk. I never thought my education would become a dangerous liability. Or that women really would risk dying again if Roe v Wade is struck down. Or loosing my marriage if they somehow manage a retroactive antigay marriage stance. Or the unforeseen complications of a Republican Supreme Court, House, Senate and President.
May God have mercy on our country. And may have a country left at the end of this president's term (s). And for the record. He's not my president.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Reflections
I was in the 8th grade in Searcy Arkansas when I developed a crush on the bari-sax player. He was an older man in the 9th grade, socially awkward, and likely returned my feelings. We would have been"equally yoked" in the proper Church of Christ terminology, since we were both members of the same church. We sat together a few times on the band bus and I even remember holding hands once. It was an almost serious relationship. Until the day they were spinning records in the band room and he walked in and saw me dancing. That was a sin and the almost relationship ended.
I dreamed about my bari-sax player last night. In my dream I was a guest in his three bedroom apartment and felt just as much on trial as I did every day that I attended that high school. I had gotten up from my single bed and stumbled to the kitchen to find the daughter-of-my-heart preparing breakfast. She was telling me I could wake him and my life, and it would be that world of small town Arkansas. This time I could graduate, go to college, get married to the bari-sax player, and keep my children. All in the right order. And all I had to do is settle.
Put that thought on the back burner.
I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Hillary Clinton, the woman I hope and pray will be the first woman president. She got stuck in Arkansas for 17 years, about the same time I did. She moved from Illinois, 45 minutes out from Chicago. Might as well as been another planet. When I moved from neighboring Indiana, with the Republican Methodist grandparents and extended family, to Searcy Arkansas the culture shock nearly shut down my previous 10-year-old self. I spent years trying to get out.
Add that thought to the previous one...let's stir.
So I crawled out of bed this morning amidst the 25 cats and stumbled to the bathroom still in that dream of what if. And shook it off as if I had had a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. Yeah. I could have created a life in Arkansas. Inside the Church of Christ where dancing is a sin. And I would have lost out on the love of my life who is a trans gendered male and watched Rocky Horror, both versions, with me last night. I might have been graduated college but using that degree when there is a very patriarchal husband in the household would more likely have kept me home raising children and languishing in a small town that nearly broke my younger-self.
My partner and I have lived together for 13 years. I told everyone at work I wouldn't get married until I saw the election results because I didn't want to live through Mr Trump undoing my marriage if he wins. Then in act of defiance and love, I married my partner anyway. Yeah, Hillary escaped Arkansas, survived her husband and the White House politics. And now she's prepared to go back and stand by my right to be married to my partner as well as all the other hard things she will have to do. And it's because of Arkansas and where we come from that she has my vote.
Google is a remarkable thing. I just found that bari-sax player living three blocks from the high school in a 1200 square foot house with one bathroom. My house is equally modest. But I wonder if his life is a rich? I'm going to go have lunch today with my friend from England who spent 20 years in South Africa. I'm going to a job for a few hours to do play therapy with children, thereby following my calling and my passion. And when I come home tonight, it will be to the arms of guitar-playing, artist, poet partner that I married this spring. And 25 cats.
 |
| From the downtown area |
Put that thought on the back burner.
I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Hillary Clinton, the woman I hope and pray will be the first woman president. She got stuck in Arkansas for 17 years, about the same time I did. She moved from Illinois, 45 minutes out from Chicago. Might as well as been another planet. When I moved from neighboring Indiana, with the Republican Methodist grandparents and extended family, to Searcy Arkansas the culture shock nearly shut down my previous 10-year-old self. I spent years trying to get out.
Add that thought to the previous one...let's stir.
So I crawled out of bed this morning amidst the 25 cats and stumbled to the bathroom still in that dream of what if. And shook it off as if I had had a bucket of cold water dumped over my head. Yeah. I could have created a life in Arkansas. Inside the Church of Christ where dancing is a sin. And I would have lost out on the love of my life who is a trans gendered male and watched Rocky Horror, both versions, with me last night. I might have been graduated college but using that degree when there is a very patriarchal husband in the household would more likely have kept me home raising children and languishing in a small town that nearly broke my younger-self.
My partner and I have lived together for 13 years. I told everyone at work I wouldn't get married until I saw the election results because I didn't want to live through Mr Trump undoing my marriage if he wins. Then in act of defiance and love, I married my partner anyway. Yeah, Hillary escaped Arkansas, survived her husband and the White House politics. And now she's prepared to go back and stand by my right to be married to my partner as well as all the other hard things she will have to do. And it's because of Arkansas and where we come from that she has my vote.
Google is a remarkable thing. I just found that bari-sax player living three blocks from the high school in a 1200 square foot house with one bathroom. My house is equally modest. But I wonder if his life is a rich? I'm going to go have lunch today with my friend from England who spent 20 years in South Africa. I'm going to a job for a few hours to do play therapy with children, thereby following my calling and my passion. And when I come home tonight, it will be to the arms of guitar-playing, artist, poet partner that I married this spring. And 25 cats.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Season of Change
Last September began the season of change. I'm still working as a clinical counselor at the methadone clinic doing substance abuse counseling, but rather than going into management, as previously planned, I moved sideways adding a part time job in the afternoon/evenings at a children's mental health clinic. My original dream in grad school was private practice, and I had found my way into a business as a contractor that would give me that dream back. One I gave up on a year and a half ago when I took the new job at a just opening methadone clinic.
I had been told I would become the director, but the previous director didn't tell me it wasn't his power to reward that position. So he passed me small responsibilities, coached me in the personnel side, and then broke my heart. Hours of overtime and burnout later, a miracle occurred. But the miracle came at a price. Right now I need both checks to pay for the 12 years of neglect to our material needs, such a roof repair, kitchen floor, and car repairs. But hopefully this coming September I will go from being gone from home 16 hours a day to 10. I can live with that.
In January my weight peaked at a new high of 303 pounds, and I made a commitment to myself and my future for self-care. With Lipedema and Lymphedema as well chronic fatigue syndrome, I needed to amend my ways. I started using Almesid as a diet aid, and since Jan 12 I have lost 23 pounds. I'm afraid that the new life style and eating requires a lot of shakes for my own well being, but with my terrible schedule, they actually simplify the eating and planning. Weekends are nice when I can cook. We've had some amazing food such as pizza and potato soup.
I had been told I would become the director, but the previous director didn't tell me it wasn't his power to reward that position. So he passed me small responsibilities, coached me in the personnel side, and then broke my heart. Hours of overtime and burnout later, a miracle occurred. But the miracle came at a price. Right now I need both checks to pay for the 12 years of neglect to our material needs, such a roof repair, kitchen floor, and car repairs. But hopefully this coming September I will go from being gone from home 16 hours a day to 10. I can live with that.
In January my weight peaked at a new high of 303 pounds, and I made a commitment to myself and my future for self-care. With Lipedema and Lymphedema as well chronic fatigue syndrome, I needed to amend my ways. I started using Almesid as a diet aid, and since Jan 12 I have lost 23 pounds. I'm afraid that the new life style and eating requires a lot of shakes for my own well being, but with my terrible schedule, they actually simplify the eating and planning. Weekends are nice when I can cook. We've had some amazing food such as pizza and potato soup.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
I have been working in methadone treatment since Sep 10, 2008. I started out working the front desk, taking money. Six months of hell later, I was promoted to a counselor. I was given a caseload the same day I began seeing clients as a student therapist. I worked for a greedy man who profited 3 million a year (yes, the foolish man let his accountant fax his tax return to the work address while I was standing there). Pay raises were irregular, but sneaked to me now and then when others didn't get them. The organization was obviously profit seeking and unprofessional, and when a new clinic opened last year, I made the jump. Note that my check bounced three times before I sent out my resume. Not that because he didn't have the money to cover payroll, but because he didn't leave anything in his business account. So the bouncing was due to carelessness, best I could tell. And over spending in his personal life. Islands in the Bahama's are not cheap, at least not to me.
The promised 3.5% annual raises, 4 weeks PTO, and six months after starting, the intern director said I would be groomed to become the director. My monthly stats are consistently 90% and above, I have taken on additional responsibilities, and work a lot of overtime to get the extras done as well as my own responsibilities. The director runs another 800 population clinic in another state. He's supposed to be in our clinic two days a week, but its more like 3-4 times a month. Recently I learned my promotion is not in next year's budget, there's no real plan to promote me any time soon, and the business owner says the director "overstepped himself" in offering me the promotion. My theory is the promise was just a way to get him out of our clinic several days a month, and that when things are running this well from a business perspective, there's no intensive to change.
Worse, despite passing our national certification with no recommendations (meaning with flying colors), high marks on everyone's report cards, and all of our hard work (a new clinic is 20 times harder than one that's been open for 10 years, I now know), we were not given pay raises (all the other clinics they own got their raises, despite one's less than adequate performace); we weren't profitable enough? Since I track population and who's paying, I'd say it's greed. They wanted a profit and payoff this year despite some business decisions they made that cost the clinic). While I have many speculations (and facts) for why, I won't put them here. Unlike my previous clinic, I won't be given one quietly on the sly, either. While it is a much more professionally run clinic on many levels, the lack of raises and the promised promotion have broken my heart.
Put that on the back burner. Side note:
BTW the above is what happened to my blogging over the last couple of years. With the chronic fatigue syndrome, I was so thin I worked, slept, ate, and worked some more. My hobbies, my writing and my art largely went to the wayside. Due to financial constraints, we gave up cable tv and I haven't even noticed.
Let's get out another pot.
About six months the PD (program director) needed to hire another counselor. In methadone, the ideal caseload is 50 patients. Given that it's a new clinic, with the majority needing intensive time and attention, it should be much lower. We were up to 70-75. Since he was "training me" I helped go through resumes, we talked about hiring practices, and I participated in the interview. I was introduced to our future employee as the future program director. That obviously hasn't happened, and isn't happening any time soon and the people around me know it. Matter of fact, a new position was created for the business owner's pet, and she has been appointed the clinic "point person". The director assured me at the time it did not affect my promotion. Uh huh. I got a bridge for sale.
Put that on the back burner.
So our new employee was contacted by one of her contacts in the field about a few positions coming open in several local practices. $40 an hour, 32 hours a week (in private practice you don't really get paid for the paperwork so 8 additional hours would be set aside for that). The particular opening that caught my interest is an a pediatrician's office (she is there one day a week).
Let's stir the pot.
I took business practices in grad school. In fact, Cam came across my business plan a month ago or so. I had given up on the idea of private practice because I don't have the necessary local contacts. I'm not known in the community, don't hang out with doctors and other practitioners. Methadone's kind of a red headed step-child in the substance abuse and agency world. And the business owner was ready to hire me sight unseen because of my recommendations and previous training in child therapy. We graduated from the same school, had the same teachers and training. She knew what I knew. She even rewrote the contract to accommodate my needs.
Let's put it all together.
I'm sitting on my deck, something I've only managed 4-5 times this year, blogging. I have a week's vacation. When I go back to work, I'll be working 5am - 1 pm at the clinic. Then half an hour away, I'll start seeing children in the afternoons 2-7. When they have 25 hours a week for me, I make the move full time. I start next Tuesday. Given that they already have scheduled 5 hours for me, I think it'll build. In fact, she needed 3 people for this office. Until the my caseload and one other's is full, she's not bringing on the 3rd, though she's been hired. Based on last year, she has no doubt she'll fill our schedules quickly.
I once dreamed about working with children and their families. That dream is about to come true.
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