Low, by by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

August 16, 2014 Martha Thomases 2 Comments

My father hated this time of year.  Or rather, he loved it so much that he would get depressed thinking hat it would end soon.  School would start, it would get cold, and he wouldn’t be able to play golf on the weekends.  Therefore, when he played golf on the weekends in the nice warm weather, he would be sad.

I’m hating this time of year, too, in part because I learned it from him.  Also, because the news is so unreservedly bad.

 

We’re having a police riot in Missouri.  I’m not defending the property damage caused by some of the demonstrators.  I understand it, but I’m not defending it.  I mean, we can call it other things, but the facts are that the police killed an(other) unarmed black kid, and they’re pissed that they got caught.

Quite different from the way law enforcement reacted to Cliven Bundy.

If you read the comments to the article in the first link, the one about Ferguson, you’ll find this one  from Al in Boston, saying, “Where’s Wayne LaPierre? Why isn’t he out there crying for these protesters’ rights to arm themselves against a tyrannical government? Isn’t this exactly why those 2nd Amendment heroes carry their giant penis-replacers at Chipotle??

No one would be demonstrating if this wasn’t just another example of African-Americans being killed by law enforcement officers for no good reason.  Once is a tragedy, but can be understood (but not excused) as an over-reaction in the heat of the moment.  When it happens as often as it has this summer, it starts to feel like a pattern.  A pattern in which local law enforcement thinks that shooting unarmed black people is standard operating procedure, just the price we pay as a society to be safe.

And by “society,” we mean white people.

I don’t know what to do.  And when someone offers good advice, I don’t know how to act on it.  Suggestions welcome in the comments thread.

Race touches every aspect of American life.  We can’t even suggest that kids eat their vegetables and play outside without some gasbag making it partisan, political and, yes, racial.

It’s horrible.  I can’t stand it.  What I really need is to laugh, to see the absurdity in life and lighten up a little.

Oh, wait.

It’s hard to select the worst response to the death of Robin Williams.  Rush Limbaugh, as usual, blamed the left (and I’m not linking to it because it’s too disgusting.)  These wackadoos made sure to get their names in the paper.  And people in my own profession circled the body like vultures.

None of us knows what went on in Robin Williams’ life.  I get enraged when I see commentary that says (not really, I’m condensing and interpreting), “He wasn’t the happy clown he appeared to be on television.”  Duh.  He was a human being who had lived for more than six decades, and he presumably experienced more emotions than one can count.  Just like the rest of us.

I hope that Williams’ death will encourage people with mental illnesses to get help.  I hope they won’t believe, as my father did, that needing help is a sign of weakness and moral failure.  I hope they won’t think, as I did, that taking appropriate medication would mean I would lose my creative spark.

(Not only did I not lose my creativity, but I also didn’t experience the lowered libido that can sometimes be a side effect.  Not wanting to die all the time really kicks up one’s lust for life.)

We’re still in the early stages of learning how to treat emotional and mental diseases.  As with every other serious illness, no two bodies react the same way to medication and therapy.  Sometimes, a patient has to try more than once, more than twice, more and more.  It can be tough going, but everyone who discovers a successful treatment for herself makes it easier for the next person.

In the meantime, enjoy the day if the weather is nice.  Don’t think about the snow, or the cold, or the darkness.  You have heat and light right now, and right now is all we ever have.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, has right now and also a very nice cat.