Playlist: The River Is Wide
Compiled By: Susan J. Cook
The River Is Wide is written by a political activist and psychologist. Citizen's Guides, the occasional Congressional Guide, sonnets when no other format seems appropriate, A Sixty Second Moral Inquiry from time to time, original poetry from our Department of Poetic Justice and brief essay-ish commentaries all speak to the many events every day that change our lives. The story that belongs to everyone at some time- the times when crossing the river is very very difficult to do is a focus here.. Public radio that stirs the public conscience- free of personal influence peddling- that values thoughtful voice and speaks truth above partisan rhetoric - helps us all get across. The series... Show full description
The River Is Wide
The River Is Wide is written by a political activist and psychologist. Citizen's Guides, the occasional Congressional Guide, sonnets when no other format seems appropriate, A Sixty Second Moral Inquiry from time to time, original poetry from our Department of Poetic Justice, the NEW 2 and 1/2 Minute Conspiracy Theory section and brief essay-ish commentaries all speak to the many events every day that change our lives. In the wake of the 2016 election, we will soon be offering a new part called 'My Human Family', brief essays and interviews with people who have sought asylum in this great civil liberty honoring country of ours. All of these parts of The River Is Wide series tell the story that belongs to everyone at some time in life- the times when crossing the river is very very difficult to do. Public radio that stirs the public conscience- free of personal influence peddling- that values thoughtful voice and speaks truth above partisan rhetoric - helps us all get across. The series began when a local editor refused to publish a letter he called "uncivil" for criticizing a political candidate for a failure to acknowledge human rights violations by the Chinese government. Another inspiration has been Maine Public Radio's censorship of a 30 year jazz radio program "The humble Farmer" whose producer dared to talk in 2003- about disliking war and the Iraq War in particular. After refusing to sign a list of Employee Guidelines censoring his speech as an independent, non-journalist producer who was paid $30 a program, he quit. The event remains uncharacteristically small-minded and partisan on the part of a public broadcasting station better known as broad-minded and thoughtful, especially in trying times when public discourse often helps uncover the moral underpinnings instead of concealing them by firing the questioner.
The River Is Wide (Series)
Produced by Susan J. Cook
Most recent piece in this series:
Why Women Don't Tell, Part 3: The Cultural Anomie that Keeps Violence Toward Women Hidden in Broad Daylight
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 08:36
Why Women Don't Tell Part 3
The Cultural Anomie that Keeps Violence Toward Women Hidden in Broad Daylight
In the 15 or so years since the first woman was murdered by the alleged perpetrator, the now- indicted and arrested Fifth Avenue Architect, didn't anyone suspect or even know this man had violent tendencies? Aggression toward women? Was there no speculation that his wife and children periodically left because of a recurrent aggression no longer suppressed? Some recurrent resurfacing of a pathology? Did no one suspect or even witness events that raised doubts about violence and aggression in the man's life?
The deaths of these women described only as “prostitutes” as if there was nothing else to say about them, renews fears that this culture's anomie about violence toward women has not gone away or is at least quietly accepted. Anomie, Google says, means “a lack of moral standards, or a sense of lawlessness, or sometimes the anxiety that comes from being in a lawless place.”
Then there is the Anomie about Telling What We Know about someone else's violence and aggression. The arrest of this particular alleged perpetrator hiding in plain sight raises renewed anxiety that cultural acceptance of failing to Tell What We Know persists-Why Women Don't Tell. Surely, someone must have known or suspected this alleged perpetrator's violent side. The Tarrasoff Law would dictate that even healthcare providers disclose to authorities threats of known violence or homicide or committed ones.
Sometimes, the most fiercely internalized moral lessons come from witnessing in ourselves or in others the horrible aftermath of moral atrocities. The next step is to speak out but we know too well that if you see something you very often do not say something. Telling, comes at a cost- a well known cost that many avoid. Our internalized evolutionary tool for bettering the human race by telling- our sensitivity to human pain and suffering betrays us. There is no telling. The secret is kept.
I am a psychotherapist who for many years has studied and continues to study and provide Trauma intervention. Knowing itself- witnessing- violence- the discovery of the dark truth can be all by itself traumatic. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V acknowledges hearing about and witnessing violence, atrocious events can lead to post traumatic stress disorder. The frontal lobes- where we plan, decide, our executive skills which lead us through our lives, go offline, as Bessel Van der Kolk writes. Psychotherapist Sebern Fisher notes the neurobiology of a response to trauma may bring fight or flight, tonic immobility, collapsed immobility, an orienting freeze, or loss of consciousness or fainting (the vasovagal response) The human abilities through which we function are hijacked or shutdown completely. All reasons why others don't tell what they have seen, heard or know.
There is also plenty of exposure to culturally sanctioned punishment for Telling by the discloser. A shameful example of that punishment if not assassination for telling is best exemplified by a Washington Post Pulitzer Prize toting- columnist who reviewed in 1997 “The Kiss”, Kathryn Harrison's telling about her father's incestuous acts with her. The words in book synchronize almost with precise the torturous emotional sequalae of the act of telling about incest and the incest itself. Precise to chills which they did on my first, second and third reading. The real topic of the Washington Post reviewer Jonathan Yardley is given away by the article's title: “Daddy's Girl Cashes In”. His review explicates how to take down the girl who tells the truth about being the object of violence- physical or sexual- or fearful that violation or victimization has taken or is about to take place. The visual metaphor of Yardley's stance is that of him standing with his heel on the back of Kathryn Harrison's neck- pushing her face, the mind with which she eloquently and painfully found the words to disclose and the lips that mouthed them in mud. “Slimy, repellent, meretricious, cynical”, he wrote. “His seduction of the not-unwilling her. Its essential elements are not graphic sex -- in that department Harrison is coy rather than revealing -- but a revolting mixture of self-pity and narcissism“. “The real act of dishonesty is this shameful book, which exploits the private life of the author's family -- if, by the way, anything herein actually happened as she claims it did...” As if telling about sexual violence is exploiting “family privacy”.
Jonathan Yardley could have served as Consultant for anyone hoping to suppress suspicions about the now DNA-verified suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders. He reminds any perpetrator how to irreducibly discredit Anyone who might Tell the Truth of what they have seen, heard or observed. Yardley even refers to the same geographic area, the “polygon” of the alleged murderer's route writing that salaciousness rather than the atrocity of Harrison's sexual abuse drew readers. “The chattering classes of Manhattan and the Hamptons have homed in on it with the unerring instinct of swine slopping in swill. It is the Flavor of the Month.”
If the response to the trauma of hearing the atrocious does not bring shut down, freeze, a loss of conscious willingness to know what we know, our ethical core can be part of the making sense. There's a chance here that the Cultural anomie of Telling about Violence toward women will be uncovered- if it's held up to the light here- broad daylight where it has been hiding all along.
Apple and The 15 Year old's Myopic World View
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:07
So we now know that Apple has made the extraordinary contribution called ‘Enter the wrong password 10 times and all the data on your way-too-expensive made in human-rights-violating China I-phone' disappears.
This leads me to believe that yes, Apple is run by and its products designed by those with worldviews like 15 year old Information Technology hackers who live with their parents but stay in their rooms most of the time and have never actually read a newspaper printed on actual paper held in their hands, not even The New York Times.
There are worse things in life than having your parents know what’s on your I-phone. Finding out who mass murderers have contacted is important for the whole world. Many 15 year olds don’t realize that.
Apple doesn’t seem to see that clever 15 year old hacker privacy features which they use to promote faith in the I-phone is as damaging as any privacy breach. Eliminating all the data on an I-phone can be as damaging and terrorist-like as reading what’s on the I-phone in the first place- depending on whose I-phone it is. And you don’t even need a password to do it. You just need to enter the wrong one ten times. I don’t see too many I-phones being carried around in armored vehicles- more usually in back pockets.
Apple and The Fifteen Year Old ‘s Myopic World View -Susan Cook- So we now know that Apple has made the extraordinary contribution called ‘Enter the wrong password 10 times and all the data on your way-too-expensive made in human-rights-violating China I-phone' disappears. Which leads me to believe that yes, Apple is run by and its products designed by those with minds like 15 year old Information Technology hackers who live with their parents but stay in their rooms most of the time and have never actually read a newspaper printed on actual paper held in their hands, not even The New York Times. There are worse things in life than having your parents know what’s on your I-phone. Finding out who mass murderers have contacted is important for the whole world. Many 15 year olds don’t realize that. Apple doesn’t seem to see that clever 15 year old hacker privacy features which they use to promote faith in the I-phone is as damaging as any privacy breach. Eliminating all the data on an I-phone can be as damaging and terrorist-like as reading what’s on the I-phone in the first place- depending on whose I-phone it is. And you don’t even need a password to do it. You just need to enter the wrong one ten times. I don’t see too many I-phones being carried around in armored vehicles- more usually in back pockets. Eliminating all the data from a 15 year old’s phone so parents can’t see it may be absolutely inconsequential- depending on the health and well-being of the 15 year old. If the I-phone belongs to a Chief of Staff or an Airlines executive, that amplifies the consequence. But the 15 year old hacker is often the most important person in the 15 year old’s world. Which brings us to the difference between a visionary world view and the myopic one of Apple’s 15 year old worldview. Making products in China with no acknowledgement that China remains one of the worst violators of human rights in the world is a passive acceptance of human rights violations. In China, the government Mom and Dad get your information and you are in jail like Liu Xiaobo- but of course they don’t need your password to do that. Publish a paper very similar in content to the political platforms of the Democratic or Republican parties and the Chinese government will eliminate access to paper, pens, and yes, I-phones by putting you in jail. Ask Nobel Peace Prize winner Lui Xiaobo when they let him out of jail. Apple’s 15 year old world view brings it to make products in China which ties this enormous American company to Chinese workers whose human rights survive by a string. It ties Apple to the Chinese economy which is kind of how the Chinese like it, of course. And the Chinese figured out a long time ago that accessing your private data by figuring out your password is old school. They will tae that I-phone completely and eliminate any data making- privacy feature or not- and sentence you the other way- in a court. Apple in its 15 year old worldview has not yet realized parents do that kind of thing which - by making I-phones in China- Apple makes itself vulnerable to- the parent Chinese government taking things away. That only changes when China has civil liberties - not just an I-phone privacy feature. Which brings us back to having an easy way to eliminate I-phone data that does not even require a password- just 10 wrong ones- is as damaging as being able to read the data itself. Apple could solve the problem by getting rid of the eliminate data feature. If Apple could just get over itself- and realize there is a big human rights violating world out there- which a psychologist could lain is extremely difficult for most 15 year olds who stay on their I-phones all day to do.
Harper Lee' s American Mirror
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:07
Twenty four hours or so have passed since a portrait of the older Atticus Finch as a bigot, complaining about the integration of “Negroes” into the culture, has been given to us by Harper Lee in the newly published "Go Set a Watchman". She has given us a mirror of the struggle to sustain and protect deep compassion, that is, in many, many ways a uniquely American mirror.To Kill a Mockingbird could not have been published when it was in many other countries. And in another country, or culture- maybe this Atticus Finch in Go Set a Watchman wouldn’t have stung quite as much - because the good one is no longer purely good. But so many people here feeling the sting- recognizing that is part of this country too. We all are the watchman in our own way.
- Playing
- Harper Lee' s American Mirror
- From
- Susan J. Cook
A Hackle o' Meter in Every Home, A Not-Politically Fit bit On Every Wrist
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:19
Elected officials or politicians aspiring to be elected officials say things that would register on our Hackle o’ meters and our Politically Unfit Bits- if someone would just invent these tools. Our Hackle o’ meters would go up because well, our hackles would go up. And our Politically Unfit bits would practically fall off our wrists because of all the calculations of political unfitness they’d be making.
I am not taking about You-Know-Who. I think You-Know-Who, for some people, raises adrenaline by stimulating the amygdala- the part of the brain which raises adrenaline and fight-or-flight hormones because something feels dangerous. Dr. Joseph Ledoux , a neuroscientist says the path signals take to the amygdala is fast and spontaneous, thus he calls it the Low Road. We also respond to danger, he says, by signals sent to the Frontal Cortex when we sense danger but those signals are slower so he calls that path the High Road.
A Hackle O’ Meter or a Politically Unfit Bit works very differently. Both work from subtle, subtle visual and auditory cues. And they might be good for the country.
- Playing
- A Hackle o' Meter in Every Home, A ...
- From
- Susan J. Cook
A Hackle o’ meter In Every Home; A Not Politically Fit Bit On Every Wrist -Susan Cook- Elected officials or politicians aspiring to be elected officials say things that would register on our Hackle o’ meters and our Politically Unfit Bits- if someone would just invent these tools. Our Hackle o’ meters would go up because well, our hackles would go up. And our Politically Unfit bits would practically fall off our wrists because of all the calculations of political unfitness they’d be making. I am not taking about You-Know-Who. I think You-Know-Who, for some people, raises adrenaline by stimulating the amygdala- the part of the brain which raises adrenaline and fight-or-flight hormones because something feels dangerous. Dr. Joseph Ledoux , a neuroscientist says the path signals take to the amygdala is fast and spontaneous, thus he calls it the Low Road. We also respond to danger, he says, by signals sent to the Frontal Cortex when we sense danger but those signals are slower so he calls that path the High Road. So when we listen to You Know Who, your amygdala might get revved up and you turn off the television, radio or click ‘Power Shutdown’ on the PC. If your Frontal Lobes start firing, you just say ‘I am not voting for him.’ A Hackle O’ Meter or a Politically Unfit Bit works very differently. Both work from subtle, subtle visual and auditory cues. We Observe Mitch McConnell for the 450th time say he will not give President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee the time of day. We see the visual image of his clamped shut jaw, creating a glacier of pale skin beneath that jaw. I hope he has a sense of humor because really, landscape metaphors work best. I am not saying the man is dangerous ala’ Gorilla walking into your living room. But he may well get your Hackle o’ Meter going and if you had a Not-Politically Fitbit, it might fall off your wrist with its calculations going wild. Now, there are Democrats who effect Hackle o’ Meters and Non-Politically Fit Bit. Some of the ones in my state register so strongly on the Non-Politically Fit Bit, I had to take mine off. If only someone would invent these tools. It would be good for the country. Someone could slip one on Mitch McConnell’s wrist or one of the Politically Unfit Bit high registerers in my state and very gradually- it’s better to go slow- the Hackle o’Meters and the Politically Unfit Bits would convince them. Not their job to undo the US Constitution, not their job to use Internet Bullying to trade votes with Republicans, no amnesia about policy positions and no blocking duly nominated Supreme Court nominees.
Why Women Don't Tell: Dying from Silence
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 07:59
The anniversary of the loss of my childhood friend who died from suicide just passed. She, like many women, was sexually abused and never told anyone. Not too long ago, many assaulted by Harvey Weinstein are finally told. For the silence of those who have been exploited or sexually assaulted to end, shame needs to be disenfranchised, for once, from telling. Which means that the blame, the ready cacophony of ‘She’s lying’, the persistent undermining of women’s credibility, no matter what her experience or credential ends. We all bear witness to that in the reduction of an exceptionally experienced, brilliant woman who ran for president reduced to liar, sneaky untrustworthy thief and criminal. We should all fear that the same specter awaits those who have accused Weinstein and that in time, his accusers will be met with the same sanctioned dismissive view.
- Playing
- Why Women Don't Tell: Dying from Silence
- From
- Susan J. Cook
-Susan Cook-
The anniversary of the death of my childhood best friend, who I’ll call ‘S’, passed recently. 'S' drove to an isolated country road, parked her yellow convertible by the side, and, in time, died. She committed suicide. Someone found her there. Over the next few weeks time- word of her death spread to me when her roommate answered my call late one Sunday night, hoping to talk to my longest friend. Her ashes were scattered from a mountain overlooking the ocean. The long disoriented grieving then began for a 24 year old, who I knew had not always been happy, but presented happiness to everyone else. Yellow was her favorite color.
And then, there‘s the coverage of a 2013 Maine prostitution trial following the exploitation of a young woman by 140 men. Her feelings, her body, her violation were pretty much ignored as the media devoured the events. The statewide newspaper headlined the “dilemma” of men who paid for sex with her trying to prevent the embarrassment of publicity . And then there was the Maine Press Herald columnist who wrote of the young woman “oh yes, having sex with well over 140 men who paid dearly for an hour of her precious time” and questioned how contrite she was when she said “These actions were not taken because I wanted to. I did not feel like I was in a position to choose.” Bill Nemitz, the columnist wrote, “Come again?” “The Madam glides from the spotlight insisting she'd been tricked into turning tricks,” he wrote.
A Citizen's Guide to the Difference Between Telling the Truth and an Attack
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:51
I heard Jill Abramson , the former executive editor of the New York Times say recently that since the George W. Bush administration, there have been no less than eight lawsuits against members of the press for disclosing truth from information held in government documents.
Because the truth can change people’s beliefs, we are now in a time when telling it has been raised to the “orange alert” stage- the now unused system for alerting the public to danger. Fourth grade girls knew the truth is threatening in this way all along anyway. But as citizens, we have to ask what we lose when telling the truth is called an attack, something to prevent at all costs and thus beyond the reach of our beliefs because the powers that be don’t want us to hear it. The inner fourth grade girl in all of us is silenced and we are left with whatever the real consequences of the abuse of power are- which getting back to the outcomes history has displayed are often far worse, more damaging because the observers and the people in power who could have stopped those dangers did not have truth on their side or chose to ignore it or pretend that truth telling was an attack rather than act of protection.
Ode to Mr. Roubini's West Grand Lake Bass Update
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:18
In Maine, Bass fishing on West Grand Lake is a destination respite for many, including Mr. Nouriel Roubini, the legendary economist who was almost single-handed in anticipating the 2008 housing collapse and world-wide recession. This "Ode to Mr. Roubini's West Grand Lake Bass " is revisited in the wake of the recent change in , let's say, the landscape under the "River of Financial Abundance".
ODE TO MR. ROUBINI'S WEST GRAND LAKE BASS REVISITED
MR. ROUBINI, DO YOU THINK IT WAS THE WEST GRAND LAKE BASS
THAT HELPED YOUR BRAIN CELLS FORECAST THE 2008 CRASH?
LUCKY FOR YOU, SOME BASS STILL REMAINED
TELL US, WILL INTRODUCING ALEWIVES TO THE ST. CROIX RIVER DRIVE OUT THE BASS?
The 2022 Prologue,
Mr. Roubini, time to fire up the grill,
Your very best guide in this time of ticker tape upheaval
is not Bloomberg News or today's Wall Street Journal.
To keep your title as Dr. West Grand Lake Bass,
your Omega-3s jumping, still saving our last
nickels and dollars from going out with the tide,
go to www.grandlakestreamguides."
-SUSAN COOK-
The Generic Election 2018 Senate Candidate Anthem: In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning)
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:19
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning) , a generic anthem for each and every Election 2018 Senate candidate.
The Generic 2018 Election Senate Candidate Anthem
-Susan Cook
Oh beautiful, for spacious me, I am a profound man
So don't keep asking me to say for what it is I stand.
My friend Big Grouchy told me, "Just say you do not know
which Senators agree with you. Voters don't have to know.
" Oh beautiful, for spacious me, Big Grouchy meant to say
Don't tell them how you'll vote until they really have to pay.
Friday before Election Day, when Silver's polls are up,
Their vote will be your Hostage! Kavenaugh the final wedge!
Oh beautiful for spacious me. Big Grouchy says I can
hide all the facts about my past, my voting history.
I'm not anonymous you know. But Grouchy gets real mad
if someone tells the truth and he can't find out who they are.
Oh beautiful, for spacious me. Big Grouchy also said
Make sure you scan the Internet and pay some overhead
to Google every minute to tell you if they post
the facts you know, so they won't blow the cover off of you.
Oh beautiful for spacious me. Big Grouchy says he will
send out subpoenas rapidly when Truth's anonymous.
It's not that he's a liar. It’s public image work.
He says just show them what I want. The rest they can forget.
Oh beautiful for spacious me. My only problem is
because I have said things outloud, it’s not anonymous.
I mean the public record. It’s out there on the web.
Maybe Big Grouchy’s next lawsuit will ban the Internet.
Oh beautiful for spacious me, I know that I can win.
I've got them all so nervous. I think it is a cinch!
The most important thing to me is getting to D.C.!
Constituents? What's that? The issue's loyalty to me.
Oh beautiful for spacious me, I don't know what Brie is.
Food you know is not my thing. It doesn't go ka-ching!
My checkbook always needs me: I round up every sum.
The difference goes to charity, Guess what ! Lowers the tax for me!
Oh beautiful, for spacious me, I don't do sacrifice.
The Senators earn 100 thou. I don't plan to be one of them.
There is a difference, I'll tell you, no, I don't think I can.
I don't want citizens to think they are the ones I'm better than.
Oh beautiful for spacious me, I give to charity.
It comes to point zero zero one of my salary.
My supporters don't do math. Plus I am not a Mormon.
They give their ten percent away. No way I'll outdo them.
Oh beautiful, for spacious me, I won't let wages rise.
A dollar here, some quarters there. What do poor people buy?
I 'm not that big a spender, except for my TV,
It's part of my economy. Don't ask me: "So, tax-free?"
Oh beautiful, for spacious me, a trillion dollar gap,
would not be my problem when I am down there in DC.
It's not something I started . It wasn't on my time.
Too bad for you. you've got enough to pay me on your dime.
And yes, environmentally, contamination might
happen somewhere, the EPA has problems keeping sight
of chemicals and stuff like that. My votes will all be right
Don't start inventing reasons for me to take on your gripes.
Oh beautiful for spacious me. There are times when I'm wrong.
It doesn't really matter though, because I know I'm right.
It shows that I'm a leader. I will do what I want.
Do not forget I have to fend for my financ..um.. political life.
Oh beautiful for spacious me. I'm not a hypocrite.
Computers are for everyone and helps them feel they fit
into the world of cyberspace. Who knew they’d be Anonymous
and spread the truth about my past while I'm in politics.
Oh beautiful, for spacious me, I 'm so glad that I found
the time that I will really need to make my way around
to donors who will help me run my Senate race for free:
Make sure the check's signed properly "For More Money...For me."
A Citizen's Guide to Cynicism
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:04
Eleven years after I posted the first commentary for The River is Wide series, this remains true: Speaking and seeking the truth is not cynical.
- Playing
- A Citizen's Guide to Cynicism
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Bannon's Farewell: An Addendum "I Was Seeing Him"
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:47
Great American Wrong Book lyrics for Mr. Bannon, now that Roger Stone, one of 6 of his former campaign colleagues indicted, is one of 3 now convicted.
Addendum to Bannon's Farewell. "I Was Seeing Him..."
to the tune from "I'll Be Seeing You.."
-Susan Cook-
I was seeing him, yes
it was a minor whim
I probably should have stayed home
watching re-runs of
a certain Cosa Nostra film .
I had no idea
it was a favorite of his too.
I was hard at work helping You-Know-Who.
So I guess I'll change my pattern.
Try to get back to the gym.
Do a lot more yoga.
See if my PC could possibly fit in
The next space launch they're having
maybe Elon Musk could try
get it out there- headed straight
for Mars, hey, maybe for Saturn.
Actually, I barely knew him.
Roger Boulder, was that him?
The other thing I do not do
is send out emails
on a whim.
I hope you understand emails
easily are faked.
The important things- I say, face-to-face.
That was why I saw him briefly,
usually at yoga class.
He is a big tanner.
Not my style. Burns my nose too fast.
I spend enough time dealing
with my allergies to dust.
How I got by with no yoga,
Let's just say, it's now a must.
Now I won't be seeing him
at yoga anymore.
It may be a little while before
a class offered near him. But more
and more, federal prisons opt
to have it. Keeps the prisoners calm.
No more tanning booths.
Just downward facing dog.
I will not be seeing him.
I got my computer cleaned up.
Gee, I'm sorry that he's hit
a road bump. Sort of a hiccup.
I don't think back to those days,
I secretly admired
Mr. Mueller. Those head stand shoulders,
shout out, Yoga something he has tried.
AND DON'T FORGET!
THE ORIGINAL!
A Poetic Tribute to the Departure of Mr. Bannon’
To the Tune from ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’
Susan Cook-
read between the fine lines,
called reporters back,
still read things in The New York Times,
I didn’t ever bother,
I never used words like suck or cock.
I’m a journalist.
You know I just like to talk.
I am kind of Presidential.
I think that came through.
Yes I’m allergic to
Certain foods, mold, cat dander too.
That’s why my nose looked stuffy
Kind of red, yes, my eyes too,
never got a chance to Photoshop
my best side for you.
they both do
A certain kind of yoga pose,
I’ll tell you just between us too,
I think yoga is liberal ,
Mahatma Gandhi had his version too
Who’d do that kind of thing?
Alt-left wingers ok Melania, too.
There might be a yoga version
made with alt-right guys in mind,
Politically on target
Where you keep your ammo by your side
I won’t have that much time,
I am not planning to retire
I’ll be back at Breitbart,
White guys only need apply!
starting his own studio,
Sean Spicer, Reince, maybe even
Mitch McConnell might decide to go
And when the class is over
Lying in Shavasana,
They will all be chanting
Three times,
What happened,
Ohm, Ohm, Ohm, Ohm.
l
Myths, Proverbs and so on. The Sword of Damocles: A Citizen's Guide
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:23
Quick and to the point! Citizens' Guides adapted from Greek myths, proverbs and so on.
The Sword of Damocles: A Citizen's Guide
-by Susan Cook-
Once in Greece, there lived a king, Dionysius. Many admired him for his wealth. One courtier, Damocles, admired him. Dionysius asked Damocles why he admired him. Damocles said he would like to do whatever he wished for a day like the king. Dionysius said tomorrow the next day Damocles would do that.
The next day Damocles was dressed in royal robes, he had fine food, and good entertainment. Suddenly he saw a sharp sword hanging from a thin thread hanging above his head. He asked why it was there. Dionysius replied, "I live with that sword above my head always." Damocles begged the king to take back his power. Damocles never did envy the king again.
COVER A
MYTHS A-
WRITING A-
SPELLING A-
In the Department of Poetic Justice: LIMBO, A Musical Tribute (The Leave It To Beaver version with song and dance)
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:53
In today's Department of Poetic Justice, we offer a musical tribute to a fictional radio host, Rushton Limbo, who poetically longs for the respite of television watching and the iconic "Leave It To Beaver".
A Musical Tribute to Rushton Limbo, a fictional Radio Host-
The Leave It To Beaver Version
To the tune of the song ‘BINGO’
-Susan Cook-
It’s not nearly as interesting as listening to me.
But lately I’ve been thinking
So fascinatingly
Of turning on my TV, a little break for me.
Oh, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, Limbo is my name.
Ward Cleaver is a lot like me
Way back when I was slim.
I’d like to watch some re-runs. I don’t go on the web.
Especially the one of a President, denying he had sex.
Oh, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, Limbo is my name.
Of pictures of a girl from then.
I bet you know her too. Please join me in remembering
We’ll hold our nose together. As we recall repulsively
What our country had to weather.
Oh, L--I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, is my name.
Oh why couldn’t Newt Gingrich
Get Bill Clinton out the door. So un presidentially, his index
Finger pointed, he even lied to you and me
Said he did not have sex.
Oh, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, Limbo is my name.
less turmoil, at least nobody has brought out a blue dress.
My job gets harder everyday. With the GOP's big clammor,
Where did Mitch and Newtie go, with Hastert in the slammer?
Oh, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, Limbo is my name.
Can’t raise my Prozac dose Higher,
lest I end up asking her on my show.
I need some comfort now that the GOP’s upended,
a little harmless Beaver. Don’t go there, no pun intended.
Oh, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, L-I-M-B-O, Limbo is my name.
Who Rules The World and Why It Matters
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:00
Boys' State is an experiment in Democracy that a select group of high school boys attend in Maine this week. We can hope they will learn about the dangers of the cooption of the democratic process. The current administration leaves us all wondering what do they do down there in Washington, sometimes. Using political party membership as a sledgehammer to force agreement just one questionable technique. A democratic process stolen by a small number of Senators or Representatives or Presidential executive order - those who want their opinion to count more than anyone else's matters enormously.
This incident described happened about 12 years ago but it raises some of the same questions about the Democratic process the new administration does . So we re-visit: Who Rules the World and Why It Matters.
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- Who Rules The World and Why It Matters
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- Susan J. Cook
A Citizen's Guide to What to Eat During a Government Shutdown
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:02
Citizens are being reminded these days of everything they don't have control over. Any nutritionist will tell you that the one thing you always have control over is the food you put into your mouth. Times like these require food with substance and comfort.You would be surprised at the comfort and substance found in the grocery store (as long there were not federal dollars involved in getting it there because of the You-Know-What.) A Citizen's Guide is here today about what to eat during a government shutdown.
Civil Liberties for Sexists: The Purity Ball and Prostitution Laws
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:45
Recently, a man convicted of aiding the prostitution of a young woman who was exploited by over 150 men, was given a 3 week sentence. This sentence from a female judge, on her toes not to appear you-know-what, invites men to pimp. Like the right wing conservative Family Research Council director who promotes "Purity Balls" where fathers sign virginity protection clauses with their daughters, the pimp's sentence devalues women's sexuality and their worth. Women, with all their glorious advancement, are still there for the dirtying, still there for male credibility to prevail when big decisions must be made, that is defining what a women is really worth and whether she can credibly make her own decisions, about her body or anything else.
For many women, in the world, in this country and in this state, their worth still lies not when they lean in, but when they lean back.
The Opposite of Love is not Hate, it's Indifference: Cupcakes and the Lineage of Hatred
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 07:52
When we don't recognize the unkindness of entitled hatred, we may be quietly consuming more of it than we realize. That may be a way in which a lineage of hatred quietly enters our system and our lives.
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- The Opposite of Love is not Hate, it's ...
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Cupcakes and the Lineage of Hatred
-Susan Cook-
How to Be Invisible, Part 2: Preventing Maltreatment By Listening to Someone Else
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 09:50
Our society has systematically discredited women's ability to know themselves, their bodies and their ability to parent. Child maltreatment, Harvey Weinstein's victimization and Ireland's long permission to invade women's private medical decisions are consequences of that discrediting.
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- How to Be Invisible, Part 2: Preventing ...
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- Susan J. Cook
How to Be Invisible, Part 2: Preventing Child Maltreatment by
Listening to Someone Else
-Susan Cook-
I was driving to the local farmer's market the other day, in the rain. Not torrential, but still, rain. I passed a man walking by the roadside with a ma-a-y-be 4 or 5 month old baby in a baby carrier backpack, the child facing forward. No hat. Legs and arms completely bare and exposed. The child's, that is. I thought for about 3 seconds and I slowed and rolled the window and said to the father (I assume), "Your baby's head is getting wet." Father had his hat and rain jacket, on. He nodded and pointed generally down the road. I rolled the window back up and started to drive. Then, I thought about another 3 seconds, rolled down the window and said "You know little kids get hypothermia a lot quicker than adults do."
"Thanks for the help," he said, "[Expletive] ... off."
I continued driving , thought about Child Protective's 1-800- line, the local police and continued to drive. Child Protective in Maine has now been documented as negligent following release of a vague "investigation" of 2 child deaths by caretakers since December 2017. Three other events linked to the deaths of 3 other children at the hands of caretakers also took place. That's 5 children killed by caretakers since December. Largely uninvestigated. It is after all, the time of fertilizing political egos. Election season.
Child Protective will take a long time to be "on their game" enough to investigate a baby who "might" get hypothermia from bare skin completely exposed to rain.
I once told a father of a similarly small baby that he should not take the child in his canoe on a lake that becomes quickly rough during a canoe race. Oh, he had already placed the child in the canoe, the child with a life preserver on. Let's be clear- the life preserver was not the father's good judgement. I did call Child Protective that time.
Ego is inextricably bound to parenting. Every chicken speck of ego fragility, every blurring of the absolutely necessary distinction between what is safe for children and what is safe for adults- after a live birth- gets tossed into the more powerful, more dominant current of a parent's ego. Parenting means putting your own needs on hold- whether it means missing the farmer's market closing or abandoning your addiction.
"My kids are the ones that look like me," I heard a mother call out to someone recently.
Ego is not just about vanity. It's about when parents won't acknowledge the impact of their actions on their children. Ego can make a parent's conscience as opposite as the perspective of the child sitting behind the father in the baby carrier. And it contributes to child maltreatment. (See Parental Awareness and Child Abuse and Neglect, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, July 1983).
I told one of the fiercer peace advocates I know about this event later in the day. "I've done that and you pay for it."
She's right about that. I wrote a letter to the newspaper about the 4 Maine child maltreatment deaths since December. An immediate comment from a Republican said "She's a political operative who accused the Republican State Senate President of "tapping" her phone." The comment reflects the same sloppiness of detail the then- yes- Republican Governor and DHHS commissioner brought to reviewing the 5 child deaths. No effort to be accurate in response to the many calls to Child protective about these children that were dismissed.
The "[Expletive]... off" comment came on the same day that Irish women were celebrating the successful referendum to remove the abortion ban from Irish law. It comes the day after Harvey Weinstein was charged, arrested and lead off in handcuffs for rape and sexual assault of two of the many women he victimized. Both in their own way speak to the permission to discredit women- pregnant or not- who know best what their own bodies have experienced, their own suitability and ability to parent, and the suitability and ability of the fertilizing male to parent a baby born after that long period of incubation. It's not about the threat to the father's ego called on to support the woman's ego. When one unmarried, single woman who bravely and independently fended off society's then rampant familial shaming and humiliation to give birth to the child, called the emotionally disengaged father from her hospital bed to announce the child's birth, he hung up.
Emotionally, the immediate defense against shaming is a wish for invisibility. Fear of shaming- and its explotation- made Harvey Weinstein's accusers invisibile. Successful shaming leads to real invisibility. Irish women (and Americans) for generations were sequestered in 'homes for unwed mothers", their infants ripped from them and, a Maine newspaper recently reported, sold by the Catholic church to those willing to make donations.
The zygote, the newly fertilized ova, the embryo are now medically visible to pregnant women, as they have never been before. The physical and emotional needs of the developing fetus, for nutrition, medical care, substance- free, psychotropic- medication free, mothers whose emotional bearings are free from abuse and yes, shaming, remain the same. Very often unacknowledged and ignored. Maine's then Governor and then DHHS head banned child-bearing age women from receiving food stamps if they held over $5000 in assets- a reliable vehicle, a motor home, a savings account. They opposed Medicaid for poor childbearing age women.
The people who knows best what her body has experienced, much as Harvey Weinstein's victims know best what he did to their bodies, much as Irish Women know best their own invisibility to the physical intrusiveness of Ireland's government and the church, are the women themselves. Any politician's effort to suggest they know better than the woman replicates and breeds the theft of credibility, like that of Harvey Weinstein's victims. Like that of women sequestered in Irish homes for unwed women.
Unconditional credibility for women begins to end shaming as the tool that pries a woman off her own body's instinct to speak up or acknowledge what it knows and makes her gut invisible to herself.
This brings us to the Gag rule Congress now reviews to prohibit Planned Parenthood clinics from telling women about options for termination of a pregnancy. It is another version of the discrediting of Weinstein's victims, the practice of sequestering of unwed, pregnant women and yes, the hip young dad telling me to "[Expletive]... off". Child maltreatment is, as ever, put on the backseat made invisible egocentrically, by shaming, humiliating and discrediting. Just saying, "[Expletive]... off" if someone happens to notice it.
The Little Prince and His Imaginary Rose: Her Imaginary Care and The Proprietary Life
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:17
I’m not sure how one marries the proprietary "I give the right to life” to the “I give the right to life free from emotional and physical torment”. Like “The Little Prince” in St. Exupery’s book, the rose some in our society imagine they "give the right to life” becomes even more imaginary when it comes to her care, drawn only on paper. And even when the roses are real, a judicial system that gives only a verbal warning to an alleged sexual abuser to have no contact with children gives only imaginary protection to them.
Her Imaginary Care and the Proprietary Life
-Susan Cook-
At the same time, personal choice after conception to continue a pregnancy - or not- what an individual can claim as theirs to decide- is always being disputed by those who claim to be the better judge than the mother of whether she has the emotional, physical and social capacity to bear and raise a child free from abuse, neglect and torment. It is only the child who suffers from their misjudgement and the shaming and humiliation of a woman who does not believe she can give a child a safe life. Nobody contests the average 6 year sentence in Maine of murderers of young children. Nobody contests the gross inadequacy of a judicial system giving a verbal warning to an alleged abuser to have no contact with children under the age of 16. Ownership of the damage and suffering children experience when raised by parents whose reckless self indulgence or deprivation take precedence over a child’s well-being may be nowhere to be found. It does not freely follow from the sole-proprietor “I give the right to life" claim.
I've Been Having a Small Tirade: In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning)
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:53
With lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook, a tribute to You Know Who and how his workday goes sometimes. Sung to "I've been working on the railroad" that American folk song written for the truly hard-working Americans who make our country a beacon of hope and prosperity for the rest of the world.
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- I've Been Having a Small Tirade: In the ...
- From
- Susan J. Cook
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning)
"I've Been Having a Small Tirade..."
sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad..."
with lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook
I've been having a small tirade
all the live long day!
I've been having a small tirade
If it gets big, clear the way.
Can't your hear the fake news coming!
Fine with me. I'm on my game
Can't you hear the fake news coming
When they hear my name!
I've been working on my golf game
every chance I get !
I've been working on my golf game
trim the ice cream off my waist.
Can't you hear the press complaining!
Why is he gone so much?
Can't you hear the press complaining
Jealous, that's my hunch.
Yes, I get a little grouchy
if they say too quick.
Yes, I get a little grouchy.
But I can only take so much!
First, they say that I'm a loser
lost by one hundred thousand votes
Then they start to ask each other,
who wrote her that check?
Cohen don't you blow,
Cohen don't you blow
Cohen, don't you blow your horn..
Cohen . don't you blow
Cohen, don't you blow,
Cohen, you say, "I don't know!"
I know Mitch McConnell loves me
Yes, he's kind of shy!
I know Mitch McConnell loves me
He's afraid his a__ will fry
if he openly opposes,
says things that sound like Hillary
since he hasn't gotten an inkling
how I got chosen.
I have been extremely good at
making friends world-wide!
I have been so good at taking
the small countries for a ride.
Think of all those in Korea
worried I might be mad at them
I gave Kim Jong Un the idea
that we should be friends.
Rudy, don't you blow,
Rudy, don't you know
what you told the press last week!
Rudy, don't you blow
Rudy, don't you know
forgeting makes you seem real weak.
So the butler or the valet
wrote that I get a little cross
Actually, I am not certain
What a way to treat your boss!
Put it in the paper, now it's nationally on view
Just remember nothing changes,
It's still "Big Grouchy" to you!
Grouchy, I might be
Grouchy I might be
Grouchy I might be on Tues ues day!!
Wait a couple days!
Out on my golf range,
I'm a really fun golf guy!
It's Not What You're Given, It's What You Do With What You Get: My Supermarket Monopoly Game and The Pentagon Budget
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 08:36
Fifty-four cents of every federally appropriated dollar goes to the Defense Department budget. Exactly where, the Pentagon auditors find "impossible" to track. Maybe they should hire some Supermarket game auditors to help out.
It's Not What You're Given, It's What You Do With What You Get:
My Supermarket Monopoly Contest and the Pentagon Budget
In my state, the annual "Shop, Play, Win Monopoly"game, a"Collect and Win" game offering" "over $250 million in prizes and money saving offers" after 3 months of fabulous opportunities at every checkout moment at my local Supermarket is winding down.
Fingers crossed . I finally went through the hours long process of tearing open (along the perforated lines, of course) each potential gold mother lode held in each small folded square (one for each 10 dollars spent) and then placing each individual rectangular stamp (after meticulously moistening the back) on the "Monopoly Board.
The one million dollar cash prize required that you randomly receive 6 certain stamps each with an assigned number (333A1, 334B1, 335C1, 336D1, 337E1 and 338F1) of bewildering complexity.
I knew it would be tough to win that. So I set my sights slightly lower, the $100,000 cash prize maybe with only 5 specifically numbered stamps .
In every single category I came up one stamp short with the exception of the One Million Dollar prize in which I came up 2 short. Correction, I also came up 2 short for the $500 Portable Grill and Groceries which I didn't really want. Last year, almost the same thing happened. I won nothing.
But how is it that a supermarket chain presenting the same contest in several states offering 28 different prizes manages to precisely track the distribution of millions of these tiny rectangular stamps and confidently state that 3 lucky shoppers "might" win the million dollars or 250 "might" win the $500 Portable Grill and Groceries?
This is in stunning contrast to The Nation magazine's article (November 27, 2018) "Exclusive: The Pentagon's Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed". Independent auditors Ernst and Young and others hired to externally audit the Department of Defense reported it impossible to have a reliable audit because of a completely flawed Pentagon accounting system. The audit request came because The Pentagon for 26 years failed to internally audit themselves despite the 1990 Chief Financial Officers' Act requiring all departments and agencies to reliabily internally audit. Only the Pentagon has failed to comply. Impossible to have a reliable Pentagon audit? So, why doesn't the Pentagon hire auditors who took the same statistics classes the people who design the "Shop, Play, Win Monopoly " game did? In the supermarket game, "impossible" probably means one person getting all the little stamps to win "the Million Dollars" and "the $500 Portable Grill and Groceries" and the "$30,000 Jet Skis" . Maybe the "$20,000 College Tuition". And, you know, the Supermarket statisticians know exactly the impossibility of one person winning all 4 of the prizes .
Now, the bookkeepers at the Pentagon have far better benefits and far better salaries. than the Supermarket chain contest makers, let alone the benefits and salaries of the high school kids and young adults who work as baggers and cashiers. But those Supermarket statisticians still figure out these complicated probabilities and get every penny the Federal government levies on the workers in taxes.
By the way, The Pentagon receives $.54 out of every dollar of federal appropriations.
It has a 2.7 trillion dollar budget and no one knows exactly where that money goes.
The Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said at least they tried and the Pentagon didn't think they would pass anyway. That attitude would not be tolerated at my local supermarket chain. They after all track those millions of rectangular stamps and insure that only 75 of the "$7500 Family Vacation" prize will be available. Or have the where-with-all to hire auditors who can. No way will more than 75 people ever become lucky winners of that prize- unless- through some miracle in which Pentagon bookkeepers are suddenly cast down the ladder of success and hold jobs at the Supermarket Chain corporate headquarters. And then more Family Vacations then you could imagine going to the unsuspecting shoppers who- it turns out- with the same stroke of Pentagon incompetence have a major lucky day.
The Nation article went on to say that years of fraud in the Pentagon books works like this. Quote "When the Dept of Defense submits its annual budget requests to Congress, it sends along the prior year's financial reports, which contain fabricated numbers. The fabricated numbers disguise the fact that the DoD does not always spend all the money Congress allocates in a given year. However, instead of returning such unspent funds to the US Treasury, as the law requires, the Pentagon sometimes launders and shifts such money to other parts of the DoD budget." All of it a violation of the US Constitution. And thus the Pentagon's budget increases every single year.
Congress does not demand that the Pentagon enforce the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act . Each year, the cost of the military budget goes up and up.
Going through the Supermarket Checkout line is very poignant sometimes. Food is our life blood. Sometimes, there's the young mom trying to keep a baby quiet and a 4 year old engaged while waiting to see the cost of all the food piled high in her grocery cart. Food is a largely unsubsidized commodity in this country or at least never subsidized at the $.54 cents of every dollar that the military receives. Until Congress demands that the financial record be set straight, no one knows exactly what the Pentagon spends on what. But you can bet, when military conflict comes, the Pentagon is more than willing to entice the low-paid , no subsidized college tuition - federally taxed supermarket workers- to enlist or - be drafted- to place their lives in the the lottery that every military bloodbath inevitably creates.
One small correction. I did win won thing this year. A free bagel.
Teaching A Computer to Find You- A Citizen's Guide
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:29
Internet anonymity now is presented as ‘the standard’ . But being anonymous when online really is optional . If like many other human activities, anonymous engagement on the Internet required mutual consent, many of our new Internet ‘problems’ might soon end.
-Susan Cook-
Misinformation
Unsolicited Pornography
Dangerous Chat Rooms
Trolling and Smearing
Financial Scams
Spam
Bullying
False Information
Computer Viruses, Worms, Bots
Identify Theft
Compassion and Its Blindspots: Women's Turn for No Compassion in Alabama
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 08:09
A Buddhist teacher talking about Compassion told the story of the leader ripping open his vein to feed a starving stranger. Bodily acts coming out of compassion to prevent suffering are found in many spiritual traditions. The blindspots in compassion in this society it appears may now prevent recognition of the decision to end a pregnancy as one of those acts.
Compassion and Its Blindspots: Finding A New Dedication to Merit
I heard a Buddhist teacher talk recently about Compassion, he born in Bhutan. In Bhutan, wealth is measured by Gross National Happiness, not a Gross National Product. There is no military. Hatred, anger and suffering the teacher said are dispelled by compassion. He explained the origin of a Buddhist liturgy that like in any other tradition people will repeat without really understanding its significance. The liturgy recited after a lengthy practice session or teaching goes like this,
By this merit may all obtain omniscience,
May it defeat the enemy wrongdoing,
From stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death,
from the ocean of samsara may I free all beings
A variation of this liturgy says,
By the confidence of the golden sun of the Great East
May the lotus garden of the rigdens' wisdom bloom
May the dark ignorance of sensient being be dispelled.
May we all obtain profound brilliant glory.
The merit , he explained, comes from an example set by the ruler of a mythical and beatific country where establishing compassion was the standard by which everyone lived. Some very dark evil carnivorous beings came who had no compassion and because this was a country where killing to eat was not tolerated, they had nothing to eat. They came to the ruler, starving and on the verge of death and asked him to given them food. And the ruler ripped open his vein and gave them blood to save them and from this he created the Dedication of Merit.
From the beginning of time, war and conflict between men (largely) has been the source of blood sacrifice that is considered noble, patriotic, beyond question as an act of valor. Compassion rarely comes from that. Rather, we are more familiar with body strewn images of the Civil War, World War I and II, the Vietnam War, any war that comes to mind. and the misery of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder so closely associated with those who survive the horrors of war. Somewhere along the line, the ripping open of the veins to feed the starving as an act of compassion to end suffering has been subverted: the patriotic encouraging the blood shed unaccompanied by compassionate intent.
This brings us to the current vitriol surrounding the termination of pregnancies. There is much more beyond conception to creation of compassionate care for the breathing born 40 weeks or less later. This is not a secret. Women know what is not available to the unborn, the deprivations of the unborn in utero that psychological and emotional despair, poor nutrition, poverty, alcohol and opiod use, and abuse of the body of the woman carrying the child creates. Who bears the deprivation of care most significantly, if the infant survives to a breathing birth, is the child.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy is the ripping open of the vein like the king in the Dedication of Merit origin- a choice to bear the suffering oneself rather than 40 weeks later pass the deprivation, the abuse, the harm onto a being only able to breath on their own at birth.
Like the leader, it is an act of compassion in which one bears the consequence ones self. It is only in white Western elite societies that sophisticated medical technology allows survival of some infants after birth that in third world countries without medical sophistication do not never survive.
The "merit" that Donald Trump know endorses as a criteria for immigration to this country reifies the White Western elitism seen in births that survive because of sophisticated medical technology and the absence of that "merit" in third world countries.
There is no license granted in any spiritual tradition to my knowledge to reserve bodily sacrifice for the War dead. The ruler ripping open his vein to feed those filled with hatred and contempt as an act of compassion is not unlike those ending a pregnancy who openly acknowledge their own inability to provide compassionate care because no mystery here- society or family do not or will not provide the care either. The deprivation of care after birth is passed on after a 40 week gestation period- if a breathing being endures the deprivations. Many do not feel entitled to make the zygote, the embryo, the fetus bear the suffering of the deprivation. Like the Buddhist leader who chose to bear it himself, they choose to bear it themselves and terminate the pregnancy.
There is a spiritual blindspot in the pronouncements of the Alabama and Missouri governors who pass legislation to ban termination of all pregnancies because- this is no mystery either- they fail to acknowledge "the life" they alledgely are saving needs much much more to survive to a live birth let alone grow to and through a healthy childhood. In keeping with the Dedication of Merit, we could establish a new merit rating for each for these states that pretend to glorify life by assessing these qualities:
-availability of free birth control to all conception-eligible women to prevent unwanted pregnancy
-provision of housing, food, medical care and employment at a living wage scale for women during pregnancy
- provision of safe, reliable, well monitored child care immediately after birth
-Medicaid and Medicare for all
- Food stamps distributed without shaming or race-baiting
-psychological and psychotherapy intervention widely available
-healthy, safe foster care if a mother cannot provide care
Men or family may well not be willing or able to provide care. In the United States,society is not- no surprise- our extended family. And for the woman who is victimized, incested, raped, shunned, broke, abandoned, partner-less, or damaged in body, mind and spirit, ripping open the vein, terminating a pregnancy may be the only act of compassion available and she chooses it.
Should Old Fish Stories Be Forgot? Auld Lang Syne lyrics for 2018
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:46
To the tune from Auld Lang Syne - for the Great American Wrongbook- a musical tribute to say farewell to the past and anticipate a more visionary future in Maine politics.
Should Old Fish Stories Be Forgot?
2018
(to the tune of Auld Lang Syne)
-Susan Cook-
Should old fish stories be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Like humans after business closed
and leave it all behind.
How could we do that now
that someone's finally finished up
his bariatric surgery paid,
the healthcare compliments of us.
And now that vaseline will take
a back seat in the news,
no pun intended . We're just glad
There'll be respect for diverse views.
From politicians who will not take offense
when they differ
and not begin to verbalize
the foulest thoughts inside their quiver.
Now to this day, like someone who
exagerrates their catch
and says the fish was two feet long
when it had barely hatched.
The bright star that delivered Paul Lepage
to us in Maine
was not divine Providence
or because his base all came
To vote for him Election day.
No, that's not the reason why.
The ones who pushed his vote count up
made completely different claims.
The first one's known as Rasmussen,
the rest belong to Equality Maine.
Rasmussen, knows how easily
voters voting can be swayed
When a poll shows who is ahead
Ha! Stochastic bias? What is that?
It measures numbers so it seems
they are all somehow in-bred!
If that sounds like Rasmussen's numbers
have relations with each other,
Well, that is just what Stochastic
means. It adds extra numbers!
Now enter those in Maine
who said "Wow! Rasmussen's polls are up!"
The Honorable Libby Mitchell falling
like water poured out of a cup.
Here, in Maine, gay marriage was
high up on the to-do-list
of Equality Maine, and the rights
LBGT folks had missed.
Now please remember Mr.
Nine Million Dollars said he'd try
to protect gay marriage,
Cutler the name we got to know him by.
Eliot Cutler knew that his chance
of winning almost quarantined!
Here comes Rasmussen fixing a long shot,
His polling almost warrantied!
Equality Maine's leaders (now
Matt Moonen in Maine's House,
turned nauseous, sick to his tummy,
Yes, he turned white and quite pale.
He too decided to email
their membership and push
a vote for Cutler, not for Mitchell,
Polling Statistics not his forte.
Now Gay marriage, Equality Maine
feared was headed south,
Rasmussen chuckling from afar
Made sure his polls left no doubt.
Maine Press joined Rasmussen's band,
he resting down in New Jersey
or who knows where. We only know he turned
the Governor's race topsy-turvy.
Who knows if Equality Maine
has brushed up stochastically
when it comes to skewing numbers
how to make polling numbers lean.
We only know that Paul LePage
got enough more of the votes
because Equality Maine fell for
a pollster's pre-election hoax.
Eight years have passed
and Mr. Moonen has a brand new job
seeing the wreckage left by lack of vision
by someone who shouldn't have risen to the top.
So from now on let's try to find
the visionaries in our politics
who refrain from cyber trash-mouthing
and took courses in statistics!
An edge in the elections, as if
the outcome could be hacked.
LePage likely would not get in
without vote-changing emails hijacked.
Should old fish stories be forgot
and not allowed to surface
Not if you want bad pollsters banned,
Elections fair, not contaminated on purpose.
In the Department of Poetic Justice: "Scurrilious, Mr. Sessions said!" (The song and dance genre)
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:00
The Senate Intelligence Committee hearings about Russian meddling in the 2016 election are Scurrilous one especially important testifier said.
- Playing
- In the Department of Poetic Justice: ...
- From
- Susan J. Cook
-Susan Cook-
To the 1921 tune of ‘Baby Face’
In honor of the testimony
before the Senate Intelligence Committee of
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Scurrilous
You ask me questions
That I’ve already
told you before
I had no prior
knowledge for.
Squirrelish
Like I am running off
To hide something
in the backyard
Nuts, acorns,
I would not go that far.
With my flag, back at home
In Alabama, I mean my Old Glory,
Our country’s flag,
I don’t let her secrets
out of the bag.
Churlish and
No, I’m not like that when
Russians came to the GOP
Convention,
So they can party with me.
girlish when she told you
that I’m a decent, good
Hail fellow well met,
a.k.a Donald Trump’s favorite bet
Now that it turns out Putin
Likes the inside track
He won’t get from me,
Executive privilege, gee,
The Tiffany of privacy.
Scurrilous, you got me thinking this is
Scurrilous
You ask me questions
That I’ve already
told you before
I had no prior
knowledge for.
"Irrelevant!" For You Know Who! In the Dept of Poetic Justice, with lyrics for The Great American Wrongbook
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:21
Attention Evangelicals! What if Jesus holds the Second Coming down in San Joaquin- you all stuck on the other side of the W--- that You Know Who just had to build?
Irrelevant!
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning)
with lyrics for The Great American Wrongbook
(could be sung to the tune from "Unforgettable!)
-Susan Cook-
Irrelevant!
Mr. President! How you'd become so irrelevant!
I only say this since you now forget
Democracy's genetic
inheritance-
one nation free . That's what the founders meant.
It's not for you to decide who is relevant.
Irrelevant.
This is how you got to be so irrelevant?
Even alt-right wingers start to see
six billion dollars quite
excessive. See,
you could be buying ammo
for the army, navy, you know, militarily?
It's better spent
in ways that aren't quite so
irrelevant.
Mr. President, you could buy some more
fries and burgers
feed the NFL some more .
At least free tickets
when you're shown the door?
Spending our last cent
on burgers a little closer to what
Ben Franklin meant
When he signed the Constitution,
Oh, McDonald's
had not been invented yet.
But you can bet
burgers are more relevant.
Evangelicals
think there's something more angel-ical
Steel slats, see through,
What if Jesus means
to hold the Second Coming
down in San Joaquin,
Even Ted Cruz can not intervene
and he'll miss out on the biggest scene?
Irrelevant!
How'd you end up
so irrelevant?
When the alt-right chose you as President
more ammo coming. You were heaven-sent.
Is Home Depot,
Lowe's your new constituent?
Big boxes making us irrelevant?
Mitch McConnell too,
at Home Depot somewhere
down near aisle two
cannot find where steel slats are on view,
looking for the large post diggers too,
Waiting for the clerk to
help him find
wall stuff. Is this a waste of Mitch's precious time?
Irrelevant.
Now tell us, Mitch, are we irrelevant?
Please don't tell us that you do not care
If Home Depot signed up for
some new welfare
six billion dollars because of You Know Who?
And you still waiting there
Customer assistance? Not for you?
Even Scarramouchi knows
-since he's not working he's been down at Lowe's
checking prices on their wall supply-
noticing they're getting high.
Kelly Ann and Sarah Huckabee
he's seen them down near aisle twenty three
six billion dollars for a wall would be
a lot of gift cards- yes, those would be free-
but still no ammo for their constituency.
Even Scarramouchi here
could help you out. He'd warn you not to smear
with words the New York Times will have for lunch
on paper plates recycled from their private hunch
that you are sexist, racist, the whole bunch
of alt-right buzz words.
which will be relevant
and make you more irrelevant.
Irrelevant!
Now we find out that he never meant
to lead this country
like Abe Lincoln did
or FDR. Yes, we know, those guys are dead
but Principles live on in what they said,
The Girl Scouts get it
Just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Why Women Don't Tell, Part 2: July 20, 1969 for Some Women Means Remembering Violence
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:29
The 54th anniversary of the Moon Landing reminds some of us that violence toward women and girls is still minimized.
No Reason Two: Asking Questions About Gun Access for a HCFA-1500 Form
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:55
We cannot expect care providers to intervene with individuals who intend to use a gun to harm others or themselves unless we do everything we can to make sure providers ask the questions in the first place. Do you own a gun? How many guns? These questions are the point of entry for prevention. On a HCFA-1500 form, that required data begins to answer the questions about conditions we all second-guess later. Did the individual have a mental health diagnosis or a physical health problem? Had they been treated for it before? What was the treatment the provider offered? If the Billing specialist who must complete the HCFA-1500 form in order to avoid rejected payment requests, is the person insisting that the care provider remember to ask questions about gun access, so be it.
No Reason Two: Asking Questions about Gun Access for a HCFA-1500 Form
In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School shooting, many suggestions have been made about changing gun access. In order to effect access, we first have to know who has access, either legally or illegally. One way to do this would be to require every health care provider to answer on the HCFA-1500: Does this patient own or have access to a gun? How many guns? You could even ask what kind.
HCFA-1500 stands for Health Insurance Claim Form.It is regularly revised by the Center for Medical Services. It is the universally required form that any health care provider, from your podiatrist to your opthamologist, must complete in order to bill Medicare, Medicaid, and any health insurance company for payment.
Any information on a HCFA-1500 form is HIPPA protected. The Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act prevents any of the information on a HCFA-1500 form from disclosure- unless subpoenaed by a legal authority or with the patient's permission.
The HCFA-1500 includes the patient's name, age, employer's name, diagnosis,the date the illness or injury started, the procedure code for the service or supplies the health care provider gave, the dates of service, prior hospitalizations for the illness, if the service is the result of a disability, car accident or work-related injury, similar injury treatment, marital status, school enrollment,employment, other lab services and all insurance-related information- a prior authorization number from the insurer, plan name.
There is even an empty space "reserved for local use" that could now be used to enter gun ownership information.
Why do this? Because we cannot expect care providers to intervene with individuals who intend to use a gun to harm others or themselves unless we do everything we can to make sure providers ask the questions in the first place. Do you own a gun? How many guns? These questions are the point of entry for prevention. On a HCFA-1500 form, that required data begins to answer the questions about conditions we all second-guess later. Did the individual have a mental health diagnosis or a physical health problem? Had they been treated for it before? What was the treatment the provider offered?
No health care provider gets paid without a properly completed HCFA-1500 form. If the right spaces aren't completed, the bill is rejected. And if it is the billing specialist who is insisting that the health care provider ask the questions so the HCFA-1500 form is not repeatedly rejected- so be it.
There is no reason not to use this required and widely used tool to document that an individual has access to a gun or many guns. The data gathered- which is HIPAA protected- will answer many questions that we speculate about – later.
Death of a Paddler
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:41
Those who sign on for white water rafting trips, fishing and hunting day trips are hoping to find a few hours or so of Great Abandon, an experience the Pandemic has made even more difficult for many Americans to access. Just a little over a year ago, a River rafting Guide who brought that experience to many passed on. And now so much has changed.
- Playing
- Death of a Paddler
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Death of a Paddler
A white water rafting guide died on July 24, last year, four weeks after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. "Sully" was a white water rafting guide out of the West Branch of the Penobscot slightly northwest of the place where the flow of the East leg joins it to become the Penobscot River.
When I was told that he died of a very aggressive cancer four weeks after initial diagnosis, my first thought was, "I wonder if he had health insurance." White water rafting guides, registered Maine Guides, commercial fisherman, small family farmers, all the self-employed seasonally based vocations that are the bristling heart and soul that Maine's natural resources offer up, do not have a reliable, affordable health insurance network. Going without means missing medical check-ups.
I only knew this particular guide because he was a guest at a relative's wedding, the groom and his bride, both White Water Rafting Guides. The wedding celebrated every aspect of Maine's outdoors. The vows were exchanged on "Miss Moggin", a lobster boat decorated with white tulle, moored off Pumpkin Island Lighthouse, at the southern end of Eggemoggin Reach. Other wedding guests reached the wedding location on a boat formerly used as an island mailboat which tied up on the port side of the "Miss Moggin" and the "Millie", a smaller lobster boat tied up on the starboard. The officiant, a commercial fisherman, donned his white Captain's shirt, trimmed with gold braid epaulets along with a white dress cap loaned to him for the occasion by the local Fire Department chief. Under blue skies, with a fair wind, over sixty guests on the mailboat, 30 others on the Miss Moggin and 10 on the Millie observed as the couple vowed "to love and cherish" "til' death do us part" noting that "marriage is a vow not to be taken lightly". The bride wore a white, empire-style wedding gown, with beaded bodice and lace overlays. Both the bride and groom wore boat shoes. The Miss Moggin, despite the white tulle, still looked like a lobster boat which the groom's soon-to-be-mother-in-law noted, to no one in particular, “She knows I don't like boats.”
At the reception, the couple's engagement with the outdoors was on full display: the two tier wedding cake, decorated with fishing rods, canoes, moose, deer and white water rapids, a collage of the couple with the moose which the bride had shot when she won a permit through the Moose Lottery, with the groom as co-permitee. Several photos of the couple with deer and various fish they shot or caught together were included, along with one photo of a rafting run in which the groom served as stern paddler with the bride paddling at the side. The best man congratulated the groom on sharing his life with a bride willing to lather herself up with fly dope, to walk 2 miles through the woods to fish for trout.
The bride invited the crowd "to party it down". Sully and the white water rafting guides, dressed in their semi-formal wedding attire: water-proof sandals, short-sleeved shirts and dressy water-proof shorts,took her up on it. Their gift to the bride was a bottle of "Hot Damn", a Made-in-Maine liquer. The female rafting guides decided to move away from the stuffiness of the dance floor to the less restrictive area on the top of their table (#11 in the Guest Seating Guide) from which the dishes had been cleared. They were joined , shortly thereafter, by their male rafting guide companions, Sully included. They danced with great abandon until the groom's maternal aunt tapped the dancer closest to her on the ankle, pointing to the table that looked like it might break. "Thank you", she said, and they got down. The party was, one of rafting guides said, "A Ray-jah (spelled R-a-g-e-r).
Great abandon moves a body through a landscape far different from a cancer diagnosis that ends a life in 4 weeks.Great abandon is what day trippers try to get a taste of when they sign up for a rafting trip. Maine legislators, if they want to insure that young people cultivate careers as Outdoor Crafters of Great Abandon, need to make health care available and affordable to them, maybe even allowing them to buy into the Maine State employees' health plan. Maybe even at the same rate that legislators do. "In wildness is the preservation of the world", Thoreau wrote. He too relied on the expertise of Maine Abenaki guides to craft his trip into the Maine Woods. Someone needs to be looking out to preserve the health and wellbeing of Maine's Outdoor Crafters, who create the rafting, bird hunting, fishing trips, Great Abandon moments for those lacking those opportunities in their everyday lives.
It turns out Sully had moved to Alaska from Maine and found his dream job, calling on his knowledge of the wild,that maybe even gave him health insurance. Twenty years and four paddlers later, the now very married couple drove to the Forks. They missed the spreading of the ashes but got there in time for the party.
The Thickness of the Moral Skin of the US Senate: To Be the Catcher in the Rye
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 08:19
The thickness of moral skin is sometimes measured in the willingness of its inhabitants to take on the risk of being the catcher in the rye- the one who protects the children running toward danger. The US Senate during the hearings to vet a Supreme Court nominee stepped aside- almost to a one. The spectacle was almost like watching the ingenuousness of Holden Caulfield falling away after encountering the world's indifference- this time right in front of us.
The Thickness of the Moral Skin of the US Senate: To Be the Catcher in the Rye
"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye? I'd like-"
"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."
"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."
She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.
"I thought it was "If a body catch a body'," I said."Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch eveybody if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
After Holden Caulfield has this conversation with his little sister, in his sojourn before entering a psychiatric hospital, he calls up Mr. Antolini, the Pencey Prep teacher . "He's the one that finally picked up that boy that jumped out the window I told you about, James Castle. Old Mr. Antolini felt his pulse and all, and then he took off his coat and put it over James Castle and carried him all the way over to the infirmary. He didn't even give a damn if his coat got all bloody."
In the aftermath of the confirmation hearing of a prep school alumnus who left a trail of nightmares and unresolved trauma in the emotional web of one 15 year old, the thickness of the moral skin of US Senate members comes to mind. I'll talk about the 2 from my state since I know most about their moments of moral cowering.
In 2007, I was interviewed and quoted by a reporter for Current.org , a public broadcasting newspaper. Susan Collins had contributed mightly to the firing of a popular Friday night jazz host who had criticized the Iraq War- in a genial, understated. way Turns out that the Maine public broadcasting Board of Trustees was comprised of members who together gave over $160,000 to the Republican party. I said (look it up) that Mainers would work hard to defeat Susan Collins in her next go-round she being someone who engages in activities that usually get legislators thrown out of Washington. Now, Senator Collins does not like anyone making reference to her pre-marital relationships in her first 50 years of dating eligibility or recreational activities. That off-sides view that Susan Collins endorses about her own past, may explain her minimizing the testimony of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's sexually assaulted victim. Indecent exposure is also illegal. Instead, she insisted his distortions, lies and beligerence toward his 2018 Senate questioners had nothing to do with his judicial temperament. By Collins' side, as she announced her choice, was Maine's recent failed GOP gubernatorial candidate, former DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew whose cost-cutting adminstration co-occurred with an almost unparalled number of deaths of children at the hands of their foster, biological or step-parents.(https://www.pressherald.com/2018/05/14/letter-to-the-editor-mayhews-dhhs-neglected-maines-children/)
Senator Collins usually hires out her thin moral skin and backlash toward those who threaten. Her one-time Director of New Media Matthew Gagnon was a player on the Maine political commentator scene whose willingness to bully has been documented on the front page of Maine's largest newspaper.
Then there's Maine's other Senator Angus King who ires quickly when anyone calls him out on his - ahem- purchase - when he was governor- of a state-owned oceanfront parcel of land abutting one of Maine's pristine ocean-side state parks. I even a wrote some lyrics sung to the tune from "America the Beautiful" which his purchase decidely was not.The purchase was documented in the Times Record and noted there was no "public bidding" on a piece of property that any one knew would do nothing but increase in value. It is now worth many times what he paid for it by encouraging the right state employee .
"Oh beautiful for spacious me, for land I'd like to buy,
that borders on state property in Georgetown or nearby,
that suddenly the state of Maine would like to sell to me,
the ocean deep, the price real cheap, what better guy than me?"
The morally thin skin of US Senators created a Brett Kavanaugh nomination and hearing that has left millions of sexual assault survivors in this country with a deep sense of moral betrayal. While survivors are compromised because of the emotional fissures trauma creates, many have stepped forward to disclose, despite the insistent cacophony of shame and the self-doubt that the assault is their own fault. Withstanding that self-blame requires morally thick skin which the moral imperative of the Kavanaugh hearing creates.
I do not trust Senator Collins or our other Senators- to be- we all hope they might- the catcher in the rye. Only one came to Holden Caulfield's mind- the teacher who carried the suiciding adolescent boy and didn't even care if he got blood on his jacket. Senator Collins and her GOP Senators minimized the belligerance, hostility and denial of his past of a Supreme Court nominee accused - not in a trial- but a job interview. In the wake of that dismissal, many, many sexual assault survivors who the equally morally thin-skinned Lindsay Graham said "have a problem"( hint: are flawed, damaged, mentally ill) will go home and direct the damage toward themselves- in self-harm, self-mutilation, if not suicidality.
Not one of these Senators can be trusted to be the catcher in the rye- nor can this Supreme Court nominee-. They are far too frightened of getting blood on their jackets or their morally thin skin.
Dept of Poetic Justice! Nate Silver's Still Counting All the Numbers! Extra Golf Strokes!
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 07:10
No False Equivalence here! The Pandemic. Trillions of Dollars of National Debt! And You Know Who's Extra Golf Strokes! Counting Every One!
Nate Silver's Still Counting All the Numbers"
In the Department of Poetic Justice and Reckoning
(With lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook to the tune from
'It's Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas'
Nate Silver's still counting all the numbers.
It's that time. It's what he does
like post offices sorting mail,
delivering snow, sleet or hail.
Nate Silver's on it. Never fail.
We're hoping he's got more time to focus.
There's no football. All that fuss
is finally put on hold
so we are hoping we'll be told
what voters will actually do.
We're taking a moment to remind him
like we did two years ago
to call Ellen Langer right up, try
a seance, maybe two with Stephen
Jay Gould. They both know.
When voters pick up the cell phone ringing
and they're asked who they will choose
the next thing he must require
is this answer. Yes, it's dire.
Will they be mailing in their vote?
Kelly Ann Conway has decided
a good way to sabotage
the abundance of dislike now
for You Know What he's called.
He lives in Washington D.C.
Cheryl Sandberg creates the conscience
for Facebook. Yes, she's not an app
but she and Mark Zuckerberg
decided to make Truth their act
Just click Like on a Facebook Page.
Just in case you haven't noticed
how she and Mark just said "Ok"
to posting lies left and right, on Facebook pages,
What's the gripe with Russians
sharing Voting plans?
So what if they're not really voters?
Remember US citizens
have always had to enroll, prove they live here,
Zuckerberg, Cheryl Sandberg,
look it up!
Nate Silver, I guess, did not have Facebook
on his radar, plus Russian hack-
ers would not answer calls,
"Are you voting in the Fall?"
Til' Paul Manafort said"Hi, it's me."
When You Know Who's not on a golf course
spoiling for those who admire
the skill of hitting the ball,
the little white one so it will fall
into a hole with a big flag.
One of the most disturbing shortfalls
of this man's abilities
is when he picks up the stick
tries to reach it back to hit
the little ball off of the tee,
There are probably house flies in the suburbs
who are thinking while they laugh
along with the PGA
and Sunday Hackers who would say
"Maybe his fly swatter works best?"
For accomplishing something that eludes him.
In this case, to hit the ball.
Mitch McConnell likely regrets
Not just the trillion dollar debts
but Trump's golfing embarassment.
Displaying ridiculous ineptness.
We're not talking when adhoc
he starts making things up to say
in press conferences. No, it is the way
he pretends he's playing golf.
To get back to Nate Silver's special forte
accuracy, counting skill
Though statistics cannot predict
Election outcomes that will stick
because the ballots must arrive.
Nate Silver learned that the hard way.
We know now he's on his game.
Maybe lovers of golf can save
admiration for this game
and hire Nate to clarify
Exactly how many strokes are taken
by You Know Who after he shakes
his golf club above the tee,
tries to give it the old heave-
Ho to make it move toward that small hole.
Nate Silver can finally help them realize
the cost the country now must bear.
The Pandemic has taken more
lives than several major wars.
And then there's Donald fake golf scores.
The country has got to hope there's something
left when- Syonara- he is gone.
Yes, I mean living human beings
but don't forget the viewers seein'
the mockery he's made of golf.
We're not making falsely equiva-
lent. The Pandemic is far worse
but give us a little break
for Sunday hackers now trying to take
socially distant honest strokes.
It's beginning to look alot like Christmas.
Don't hold your breath. Just check your mail.
The golfers in every town want Nate
counting extra golf strokes You Know Who takes!
Something Russians cannot hide!
In Dept. Of Poetic Justice "When the Saints See My Receipts" Turbo Tax Tribute!
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:58
Lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook! Depreciation. Commuting miles. My Old and Trusty Mileage Log. Tax Experts Waiting to Answer! And much much more.
“When The Saints Find My Receipts”
--Susan Cook-
A Musical Tribute to Turbo Tax To the tune from “When I Paint my Masterpiece”
by Bob Dylan
Oh the sheets that hold
all my deductions
MS Works and Excel too
Spread mighty wide,
The rows and columns,
stretch up high,
toward heaven too.
Refrain
I sleep calmly knowing my deductions
for my taxes clean as they can be.
If I've erred, I'll find my redemption
I have always kept receipts.
You’ve got all last
year’s deductions,
Rental properties, you knew,
The nonprofits
I give my time to
My hourly fee
Of course you knew.
Refrain
Sleeping calmly kmowing contributions
to non-profits where they ought to be.
Someday, maybe more things will be tax-free
Then I'll stop keeping receipts.
My mileage log
is old and trusty
Audometers
I use to tell
The truth to you if I get busted
Commuting miles?
The road to hell.
Refrain
Tax experts are always standing ready
Answer any questions I might have.
Do I have depreciations?
God Bless You! You know I have!
Just goes to show
Our home computers,
Desktops or a laptop too
Can bust the chops
of higher taxes
Knock down how much
Federal tax due.
Refrain
Of course you always Will review them.
Ask politely let's go through again.
You looking hard for one more tax break.
For hard earned cash I shouldn't spend.
The streets where gold
Is used for toilets
Mostly down
In Manhattan.
The IRS
tries to stay on it, hence
you devised Audit Defense.
Refrain
I sleep calmly knowing the deductions
for tax I've paid accurate and clean.
If I erred I'll find my redemption.
When the Saints see my receipts.
Oh the sheets that hold
all my deductions
MS Works and Excel too
Spread mighty wide,
The rows and columns,
stretching high,
toward heaven too.
Nate Silver Does Not Believe In Santa! In the Dept. Of Poetic Justice!
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:18
Election Day has come and gone! Remember the poll that really counts most always is the vote you cast. To the tune from "It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas!" With lyrics for The Great American Wrongbook!
In the Department of Poetic Justice
for calculating variance.
Does Nate Silver somehow believe he'd predict
gone the way of Hillary.
out on South Dakota Plains or Colorado's grazing range
in South Dakota where they'd roam
"So-called experts" now would say
they've preserved their DNA in Kristi Noem, the Governor.
I'm not talking about who's in the White House.
The Indifference Diaries: The Opposite of Love is Indifference: How to be a Good Neighbor and Warship Builder
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 09:56
As Bath Iron Works ships become more sophisticated in their use of sonar devices, we recall the 40 million dollar Maine Legislature approved tax break for a subsidiary of the fifth largest weapons producer in the world. A reporter recently disclosed via the Freedom of Information Act the communication between the bill's sponsor, a legislator, and the Vice President of the General Dynamics-owned Bath Iron Works which will receive the money . The VP's solicitous tone and responsivity is in striking contrast to his refusal to respond and his frank indifference to a neighborhood citizen seeking information about the devices used/installed/tested in the shipyard and their pronounced health impact on residents.
The Indifference Diaries: The Opposite of Love is Indifference- A Defense Company Ignores the Impact of What They Do
-Susan Cook-
Dear Mr. Harris,
What testing is in place at BIW this morning from 3 AM or so on? Sonar is harmful.
"At this point I will no longer respond to your messages , given your decision to pursue legal action. Our counsel is Jon Fitzgerald." Now, Mr. Fitzgerald is a vice-president.ewho testified as theleadl lobbyist on this tax break bill who I have also contacted multipletimes precisely when the disturbance because of sonar/radar/"you tell us" is happening.
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald, Starting at about [fill in the time], the sound of testing of a sonar device at or near the drydock on Washington St. is loud and disruptive. Please inform me before your company testing begins. And please remember the Duke University Engineering work which indicates that sonar disrupts on the cellular level."
After this bill was filed, a reporter using the Freedom of Access law, obtained copies of Mr. Fitzgerald's communication with the bill's sponsor.
The legislator needed "talking points" from Mr. Fitzgerald.
“I am available at your convenience, thanks for sponsoring.”
“[H]appy to host a working lunch or whatever works for you,” Fitzgerald said in a Dec. 8 email to the bill's sponsor. “At that time, I will have the expanded list of city/town BIW employment, a draft of the legislation, a multi-page listing of state, county and municipal assistance provided to Ingalls in Mississippi. It would be great to get specific on co-sponsors and any other details you require.”
[Ingalls Shipbuilding is a BIW rival based in Pacagoula, Miss. Bath Iron Works has argued the renewal of a 1997 tax deal from Maine is essential to maintaining the company’s competitiveness with Ingalls, which has received considerable subsidies from its state".] The two met Bath Iron Works’ offices.
“[W]ould you like me to order lunch?” Fitzgerald wrote. “I would get something from the Sandwich Shop. If that works for you, let me know what you would like, they usually have fish chowder on Friday.”
“Sounds good,” former State legislator Jen DeChant replied. “Turkey sandwich. Thank you.”
Truth be told, I received one response from Mr. Fitzgerald to the multifold I sent. "There is no testing of sonar equipment at 4 am. " he texted on Wednesday September 13, 2017. Testing as opposed to installing; using as opposed to testing; sonar as opposed to radar; radio waves as opposed to radar. I am not a medical physicist so parsing exactly what they are doing is difficult.
The Distance of Time: An American Sonnet about Relativity
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :51
Poetry makes everything accessible, even the Special Theory of Relativity.
The Distance of Time
Relativity is everywhere in
daily life. Understanding doesn't mean
that first, there have to be twins, who begin
to move apart, one at home, one last seen
climbing on a space ship, each with a clock.
The years go by and when they meet (because
the speed of light is really slow, can stop
the years from showing up) there's a loss
of time, between them. One twin, traveling out
somewhere in space, can not remember when
they were last together, the day in doubt,
which year it was. While waiting for a friend,
Einstein, always late, knew, time's lost by hours.
Space brings us closer; time is never ours.
Small: An American Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :57
In the large, large universe, the mind's eye still sees what it will.
- Playing
- Small: An American Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Small
It doesn't matter how diminished we
feel, situated deep deep within the
large, large universe, we now know, we see
more and more of, its every corner, the
source of a revelation, a surprise
appearance of something we did not know
was there but has been all along. The size
of anything is not important, no,
changes mostly depend on nothing more
than the sun's cast shadow, the patterns we are sure
to form, in our mind's eye, largeness ignored,
the smallest persistent, convinced we'll endure.
Small, large do not save us as the mind's eye
slowly watches, no urgent need to hide.
The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :55
Thomas Edison and what his light did- understood through an American Sonnet.
- Playing
- The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
- From
- Susan J. Cook
The Discovery of Light: An American Sonnet
-Susan Cook-
Thomas Edison discovered cotton,
carbonized, sent out strands of silky light.
The non-believers drove for miles, not in
fascination, but in doubt that night sight
didn't require burning fire first,
a kindling so much harder to ignite,
the loss of life, from time to time, the curse
of other lamps, the tragedy of fire
placed too close, times when frightened horses kicked
the stable candle, burning hay that brought
entire towns to ash, the flames that licked
up everything, the cost of fire caught.
Some still don't trust a horse's fear, sudden
swaying, still not sure what this light has done.
Sonnet for the Higgs Boson: A Poem Demystifing
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | :49
In National Poetry Month, a poem to explain how the Higgs boson really works.
Sonnet for the Higgs boson
-Susan Cook-
You, Higgs boson, you come out of nowhere,
once you're blasted, hard enough, then, they say
indifference turns into desire, prepares
these subtle transformations, mystery's way,
bringing things together. Beauty, boson.
A boy beside me pulls me to my feet.
His truck is dark, darkness all in motion,
moving in the heat. Higgs, that was not heat
alone. Heat, remember, cools so quickly,
his, a perfect truck, catching you. You've known
that darkness deep inside a truck, thickly
threading all as one. I think Adam owned
a truck, magnetic wheels. The moving sent
him off. A truck, a truck, world without end.
The Sixty Second Moral Inquiry: Shouldn't Facebook Be Accountable for their Exploitation of Anonymity - the Faceless- by FacebookTrolling?
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:35
Shouldn't Facebook also be held accountable for their moral indifference to the human consequence of Facebook trolling that the platform's anonymity has helped flourish?
Sonnet for the US Ducks Independently Verified to Have been Neither Forcefed for Foie-Gras Production Nor Plucked of Their Feathers and Down During Their Lifetime
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:17
A United States outdoor clothing store sells coats, labelled to assure us that the down is from US Ducks Independently Verified to Have been Neither Forcefed for Foie-Gras Production Nor Plucked of Their Feathers and Down During Their Lifetime. Scott Pruitt who sued the Environmental Protection Agency over a dozen times has been installed as the agency's head. In reading the label on a down coat, I have found consolation, hope and small victory that our environmental sensibilities will survive, sentiments presented here in a sonnet, in the Department of Poetic Justice.
to Have been Neither Forcefed for Foie-Gras Production
Nor Plucked of Their Feathers and Down During Their Lifetime
-Susan Cook-
I want these ducks to know my faith in our
country has been re-nourished by this feat
when they grow the down , in their pro-life hour
in their solitary stance against the elite
practices that feed the rich while the ducks
live lives of strangulation, the minute’s
peace, lost, the moment when the neck curves, tucks
itself inside the plush gift. Diminish
the significance of the gift, the down’s weight,
the coat that will keep anyone warm, no
matter their social standing, EPA
head or not? Surely, they’re not our new foe.
Even ducks saved from force feeding won’t feed
you, Mr.Pruitt, your stick figure needs.
Auld Lang Syne Repurposing the Bottom Line To Hear For Whom The Bell Tolls!
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 03:45
This year, even with its dashed hopes and fear of "deja vu all over again" an abundance of good prevailed.
Auld Lang Syne !
Repurposing The Bottom Line To Hear For Whom The Bell Now Tolls!
-Susan Cook-
Should old stock options be forgot and not put up for trade?
Curevac, Novartis, Sputnik Five
Oh, right Sputnik's not on our exchange.
Now do not fret. Moderna and German-based Bio N Tech pulled through
and managed to earned good money
unlike what Pfizer, their US partner could not quite do.
For those of you who wonder how vaccine makers gears did shift
to their bank accounts
and bigger wallets to make sure their profits fit.
Into their pockets to not confuse the world (they are discrete)
their job of saving lives
with good old American Wall Street greed.
And don't forget the home test kits, administered at your leisure
so when you board a New York bus
your weapon will not be your sneeze.
Now for a minute, let's forget Nancy Messonier, the queen
of 2020 Test disasters
like the CDC had never seen.
And put on hold her minimizing so she'd stay employed
the virus which we needed testing for,
the bug we needed to avoid.
So fortunately Abbott, Quidel stepped up to the plate
and gave us Binax, Quick-Vue tests
to check on antigens we've made.
And since we're on the topic, yes, these home tests are great.
Please remember twenty-nine point six,
Abbott's stock increase this year, to date.
Now, no one in their right mind, well, hard times can bring forgetting
this country's favorite sound.
It goes like this: Ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching.
Even so, some companies disregard the bottom line
when a crisis comes
(think 3/10/20) they thought of us all the time.
In Maine, some companies said, “We 'll make products that will help”
Protective clothing and face masks, hand
sanitizer, and brand new tests.
Alcohol once used in Maine Spirit Bourbon quarts
was repurposed in a Growler size
to sanitize germs of all sorts.
And Idexx didn't drop the ball, recommissioned Canine tests
to accommodate Covid genomes
found in human nostrils through their tests.
And LL Bean did not bail out on doing what they could.
They made masks, protective shoes,
and gowns. Just their way of doing good.
These times have been exhausting. Yes, we've been raked through the coals.
For some Maine business, the bottom line
listens for whom the bell now tolls.
Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:02
In these times, a poem for the places we find resilience.
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- Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Tell Me How Many Black Seabirds
-Susan Cook-
Tell me how many black seabirds
woke up this morning, flew to a high place,
shook off a thousand drops of river, heard
each one, in slow motion, fall, a trace
of where each one began inside. This is
a daily ritual. They celebrate
with such silence, quiet applause, which is
to say, this abundance will tell a (late
sometimes) lie. The absence of chaos, just
drops of water shaken off, lets the heat
from the sun's dependable rays, we trust,
bring heart to any body's weary beat.
Tell me how we remind ourselves to turn
to the deliberate, needing it just now.
Dad Donald- A Parenting Guide to Being Presidential
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:52
Human Growth and Development textbooks may be the ‘go to’ reference to explain ‘what the hell is going on’ as the new Republican opponent apparent, Mr. Trump has said, in this 2016 Presidential race.
You may remember from your Human Growth and Development class the different kinds of parenting power and decision-making that Gerald Lesser, Diana Baumrind, Carolyn Newberger and others have identified. There’s the egalitarian parent’s power- the child has more influence in decision-making than the parent. Then there’s the democratic parent’s approach to power- decisions are made collaboratively. Finally, entering the room via the gold escalators, just to remind you who brings the bacon home, there’s the absolute authoritarian parent- What Dad says goes. Dad makes all the decisions. If Dad says we’re building a wall, we’re building a wall. Dad divys out praise or shame or warmth depending on whether Dad thinks you need it. Dad’s power, after all, controls the resources- financial, emotional and physical . If Dad thinks public humiliation and shaming is in order- well, this is just what Dad has to do. He doesn‘t have to apologize for injustice, crudeness or even the psychological violence of what he says or does. He is Dad.
Dad Donald- A Parenting Guide to the 2016 Presidential Race -Susan Cook- Human Growth and Development textbooks may be the ‘go to’ reference to explain ‘what the hell is going on’ as the new Republican opponent apparent, Mr. Trump has said, in this 2016 Presidential race. You may remember from your Human Growth and Development class the different kinds of parenting power and decision-making that Gerald Lesser, Diana Baumrind, Carolyn Newberger and others have identified. There’s the egalitarian parent’s power- the child has more influence in decision-making than the parent. Then there’s the democratic parent’s approach to power- decisions are made collaboratively. Finally, entering the room via the gold escalators, just to remind you who brings the bacon home, there’s the absolute authoritarian parent- What Dad says goes. Dad makes all the decisions. If Dad says we’re building a wall, we’re building a wall. Dad divys out praise or shame or warmth depending on whether Dad thinks you need it. Dad’s power, after all, controls the resources- financial, emotional and physical . If Dad thinks public humiliation and shaming is in order- well, this is just what Dad has to do. He doesn‘t have to apologize for injustice, crudeness or even the psychological violence of what he says or does. He is Dad. In this and many cultures , The Dad persona- and the person assuming it- is given broad license to do what Dad will. Parenting is an innate, developmentally and culturally defined mindset. I wrote an entire Masters’ Thesis about its intricacies. When someone subtly or overtly begins to play ‘the parental power card’ and exercise parental power over you, it’s hard to immediately recognize because - well, we all there at one time. None of us become our own parents- or parents ourselves- until we grow up or had to. Which is part of the reason it has been so hard to hear what Mr. Trump has been doing. He will parent us, or treat us and the problems of this country as if is he were the authoritarian parent yielding his absolute power like authoritarian parents do. And those of us who never rebelled - whether our parents liked it or not- and became our own parents can really be kowtowed. A turning point in human development is telling Dad- up front- “You can’t tell me what to do. “ Or some variation of questioning Dad’s omniscience. That power shift forever more changes human development. This is Donald Dad Trump. He doles out humiliation as needed- he threatens to take the car keys or build a wall- and once he comes down the gold escalator- Dad built that-you know-he will tell Mr. Cruz he’s smart. He will tell Reince Pribus what a big boy he is doing his job as Republican Party chair. And on and on. Great dads are a wonder to behold. My father was a great father. He held leadership positions of influence. He was the President of the Automobile Dealers Association in the state I grew up in the 1950’s- the automobile’s heyday. He knew parenting is also about knowing what you don’t know- and respecting that every child- every child- has something to teach a parent about how to be a parent. And to be President you have to listen to the economist , the defense and state department , the Supreme Court, and the Congress children. And I do not believe Dad Donald gets that not doing that is the end of the house of Dad Donald’s power. Many a three year old has told a shocked parent, ‘You’re not the boss of me.‘ Dad Donald doesn’t remember that .
Shaming and Humiliating By Choice: Roe v. Wade and Denying Consequence
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 06:13
As 6 Supreme Court Justices end Roe v. Wade, shaming and humiliating Pro-Choice advocates becomes the anti-choice strategy.
Reproductive choice supporters know each of these circumstances has precipitated many female suicides.
A Sonnet for the Quantum Mechanics of Poetry
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 01:03
Poetry best helps us grasp the Quantum Mechanics topic of the latest Nobel Prize in Physics.
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning): 'To an Itsy Bitsy Spider'
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 02:50
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and Reckoning), The River Is Wide offers a poem that could be sung to the tune from a tune in the public domain, of course, The Itsy Bitsy Spider. With lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook, "To an Itsy Bitsy Spider" is a reflection.
In the Department of Poetic Justice (and reckoning) with lyrics for the Great American Wrongbook To an Itsy Bitsy Spider -Susan Cook- To an Itsy Bitsy Spider The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Once he was up there no one could get him out. So they chose him for governor. Now they’re sorry Itsy sits up there cause the itsy bitsy spider keeps having little fits. The itsy bitsy spider doesn’t like the income tax He had an itsy fitsy when his bill could not get passed So the itsy bitsy spider went looking for revenge And itsy said he’ll never sign another bill again. The itsy bitsy spider wanted to reduce The government budget. Itsy doesn’t have no use For asylum seekers coming here who’d like to be like the itsy-bitsy spider, enjoying liberty. The itsy bitsy spider forgot it’s not just him creating legislation. Itsy doesn’t seem to know he’s not the most important legislator who's around, so he vetoes everything and tells them no, no, no, no no. The itsy bitsy spider seems like he's inflated his own self- importance which is a little over-rated. It’s a problem that is treated with some sure de-levitators. That is heading to the State House to deal with Legislators. The itsy bitsy spider can have a real hard time. Just like Nikita Khrushchev sometimes you think he’ll pound his sneaker on the table when he gets very mad. Whoops! That’s the part we fantasized. Has itsy had past lives? The itsy bitsy spider did not come out of nowhere. His message is so simple. You wonder where he found the voters who believed him. Voters sometimes can be the sucker now they’re left to try and find a way to impeach… the itsy bitsy spider! …went up the water spout... 
Referendums on Arrogance- A Citizen's Guide
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 05:14
In politics, arrogance can be hired, purchased or -in volunteer organizations- a gratuity that comes with volunteer labor.- or elected. In Maine , the incumbent Governor who was re-elected on Tuesday certainly had very public moments of arrogance. But voters decided - on Tuesday-alongside their bond referendums- who had less arrogance. They decided he had less- 48 to 44%.
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- Referendums on Arrogance- A Citizen's Guide
- From
- Susan J. Cook
Credibility in Business Casual: Sexism Wears a New Outfit
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 04:46
The Republican attack on women, a not- so thinly veiled attack on credibility, the females, that is, is not new. Women, you may remember, require more “proof” that they are telling the truth than men do. Women’s credibility remains the non-credentialed, not appropriately dressed, inarticulate sweetspot where, when hit just right, sexism implants its tendrils and goes viral, its derision entitled, origin unknown, because we are talking about women.
Much is heard about the "new" Republican attack on women, a not so thinly veiled attack on credibility, the females’, that is. Women, you may remember require more “proof” that they are telling the truth than men do. Women’s credibility remains the non-credentialed, not appropriately dressed, inarticulate sweetspot where, when hit just right, sexism implants its tendrils and goes viral, its derision entitled, origin unknown, because we are talking abut women.
Many women don’t realize that today’s war on women’s credibility is like that faced by Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearing either because they now have credentials that they hope protect their credibility or they were not old enough or not allowed to watch that spectacle as it unfolded on national television in the early 1990’s. During the hearings to admit Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Anita Hill, an African-American attorney was subpoenaed to testify about the sexual harassment she endured at his hands at his previous job.
I still have my “I Believe Anita Hill” button. Many women don’t. Many men never got one in the first place. The smug confidence that Clarence Thomas evinced during those hearings has metastasized into complete silence, as he now sits on the Court. He perhaps now believes he doesn’t have to say anything to have credibility as he has not said or asked any questions during the oral arguments for something like 6 years.
Some believe that blatantly different standards for male and female credibility have gone away. We need go no further than the recent trial of John Edwards for federal campaign law violations for “proof” that sexism’s new business casual dress does not mean standards have changed.
Criminal law trials are about credibility. The “designer” proof presented by John Edwards that he was telling the truth was this: A video of his nationally-televised appearance lauded as his moment of truth-telling, the “tell-all” in which he stated that he had a brief affair with Rielle Hunter but it had ended and his unethical staffer had fathered her child.
This “truth telling” explique was presented to the jury as evidence that the man before them was really not telling the truth then, even though he said he was before a national television audience, but he was telling the truth now. This, strategized his defense team, was, yes, a wardrobe failure in credibility that would now be restored with that ever-trustworthy safety pin- the fact that John Edwards is a man. They knew that would hold up better than the fact that Edwards is a lawyer. One word captures how a woman engaging in such tactics would be characterized: Flighty!
The Credibility dress standard is not the same for men and women. Credibility remains an icon of sexism that presumes that women have to meet different standards of proof than men do. There are cultural and social questions that we all must ask about the different standards for “proof” that apply to men and women, that are as unfair and unequal now as they were when Anita Hill was subpoenaed to testify about Clarence Thomas.
When we ask for proof from men and women, do we ask each of them, equally, no matter what the context, no matter who has been privileged with the presumptive “truth-teller” status? When the ” court of public opinion” is courted, really deep down, don't you think you can overlook what she says is true? That what everybody else thinks is better proof? That any other truth that she might offer is really just her reaching for a safety pin- when really- there isn’t one big enough to fill the gap?
Why Women Don't Tell, Part 3: The Cultural Anomie that Keeps Violence Toward Women Hidden in Broad Daylight
From Susan J. Cook | Part of the The River Is Wide series | 08:36
The arrest of a Fifth Avenue architect as the alleged serial murderer of several women brings up the question of whether anyone over that long period of time knew of the man's aggressive and violent underworld life. Did they know and just not tell? Is this yet another example of Not Telling about Violence Toward Women, about the cultural anomie about disclosure- "a lack of moral standards" a "lawlessness" about disclosing about violence toward women?
Why Women Don't Tell Part 3
The Cultural Anomie that Keeps Violence Toward Women Hidden in Broad Daylight
In the 15 or so years since the first woman was murdered by the alleged perpetrator, the now- indicted and arrested Fifth Avenue Architect, didn't anyone suspect or even know this man had violent tendencies? Aggression toward women? Was there no speculation that his wife and children periodically left because of a recurrent aggression no longer suppressed? Some recurrent resurfacing of a pathology? Did no one suspect or even witness events that raised doubts about violence and aggression in the man's life?
The deaths of these women described only as “prostitutes” as if there was nothing else to say about them, renews fears that this culture's anomie about violence toward women has not gone away or is at least quietly accepted. Anomie, Google says, means “a lack of moral standards, or a sense of lawlessness, or sometimes the anxiety that comes from being in a lawless place.”
Then there is the Anomie about Telling What We Know about someone else's violence and aggression. The arrest of this particular alleged perpetrator hiding in plain sight raises renewed anxiety that cultural acceptance of failing to Tell What We Know persists-Why Women Don't Tell. Surely, someone must have known or suspected this alleged perpetrator's violent side. The Tarrasoff Law would dictate that even healthcare providers disclose to authorities threats of known violence or homicide or committed ones.
Sometimes, the most fiercely internalized moral lessons come from witnessing in ourselves or in others the horrible aftermath of moral atrocities. The next step is to speak out but we know too well that if you see something you very often do not say something. Telling, comes at a cost- a well known cost that many avoid. Our internalized evolutionary tool for bettering the human race by telling- our sensitivity to human pain and suffering betrays us. There is no telling. The secret is kept.
I am a psychotherapist who for many years has studied and continues to study and provide Trauma intervention. Knowing itself- witnessing- violence- the discovery of the dark truth can be all by itself traumatic. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V acknowledges hearing about and witnessing violence, atrocious events can lead to post traumatic stress disorder. The frontal lobes- where we plan, decide, our executive skills which lead us through our lives, go offline, as Bessel Van der Kolk writes. Psychotherapist Sebern Fisher notes the neurobiology of a response to trauma may bring fight or flight, tonic immobility, collapsed immobility, an orienting freeze, or loss of consciousness or fainting (the vasovagal response) The human abilities through which we function are hijacked or shutdown completely. All reasons why others don't tell what they have seen, heard or know.
There is also plenty of exposure to culturally sanctioned punishment for Telling by the discloser. A shameful example of that punishment if not assassination for telling is best exemplified by a Washington Post Pulitzer Prize toting- columnist who reviewed in 1997 “The Kiss”, Kathryn Harrison's telling about her father's incestuous acts with her. The words in book synchronize almost with precise the torturous emotional sequalae of the act of telling about incest and the incest itself. Precise to chills which they did on my first, second and third reading. The real topic of the Washington Post reviewer Jonathan Yardley is given away by the article's title: “Daddy's Girl Cashes In”. His review explicates how to take down the girl who tells the truth about being the object of violence- physical or sexual- or fearful that violation or victimization has taken or is about to take place. The visual metaphor of Yardley's stance is that of him standing with his heel on the back of Kathryn Harrison's neck- pushing her face, the mind with which she eloquently and painfully found the words to disclose and the lips that mouthed them in mud. “Slimy, repellent, meretricious, cynical”, he wrote. “His seduction of the not-unwilling her. Its essential elements are not graphic sex -- in that department Harrison is coy rather than revealing -- but a revolting mixture of self-pity and narcissism“. “The real act of dishonesty is this shameful book, which exploits the private life of the author's family -- if, by the way, anything herein actually happened as she claims it did...” As if telling about sexual violence is exploiting “family privacy”.
Jonathan Yardley could have served as Consultant for anyone hoping to suppress suspicions about the now DNA-verified suspect in the Gilgo Beach murders. He reminds any perpetrator how to irreducibly discredit Anyone who might Tell the Truth of what they have seen, heard or observed. Yardley even refers to the same geographic area, the “polygon” of the alleged murderer's route writing that salaciousness rather than the atrocity of Harrison's sexual abuse drew readers. “The chattering classes of Manhattan and the Hamptons have homed in on it with the unerring instinct of swine slopping in swill. It is the Flavor of the Month.”
If the response to the trauma of hearing the atrocious does not bring shut down, freeze, a loss of conscious willingness to know what we know, our ethical core can be part of the making sense. There's a chance here that the Cultural anomie of Telling about Violence toward women will be uncovered- if it's held up to the light here- broad daylight where it has been hiding all along.