Freed To Paint

While I have some baggage I carry around about my father (who doesn’t?) I have to admit to myself that there were times, as a child, that my daddy was my hero. I thought my daddy was the smartest, most talented man that had ever lived. When my father said something I treasured the words, I secreted them away in that part of my brain I called MY HEART. I like to pretend I have forgiven my father and that my grudges have gone the way of icicles in spring, but the grudges are still there cold and sharp and hanging over me menacingly. Nevertheless, despite my grudges remaining, I know there there are still things about my father’s life that I admire. I have regrets for my father. I know that he sacrificed the life he wanted and surrendered his shot at greatness to support his family. I know he was trapped and I know why.

My father had a significant measure of artistic ability. Had he made a few different choices as a young man, there is a good chance that he would be as well known today as Norman Rockwell.

My father seemed unable to talk with me, unless he was driving. If I sat next to him, and he drove somewhere he would talk as he drove. The vast majority of my non-terrifying memories of my father occurred while he was driving and I was riding shot gun.

My father told me a lot of stories about artists. He would talk about how great Paul Cezanne, Telus Lautrec, René Degas, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gogan were and he knew a lot of biographical details. Later I learned that he had some of the facts wrong, but those factual errors did not diminish the intoxication of the tales. I was fascinated by the lives of these artists. To my father these were rags to riches stories. My dad didn’t want to work, he wanted to be rich and famous doing stuff he enjoyed doing. Who doesn’t want the same? My dad wanted to do what he wanted to do and be rich and famous doing it.. To him it looked like a short cut to the easy life. An artists take cheap canvas and paint and turn it into masterpieces admired for hundreds of years, and sometimes it is the source of enormous wealth.

Eventually I learned that my father didn’t really want to paint he wanted to be a rich famous painter. Being an artist was not the goal, being a famous artist was the goal. That was what he wanted for me, to be a rich famous artist who’s name and work would be admired for a thousand years or longer. Education was not valued by my family. The main value in my family was creativity. Creativity was not just valued, it was the highest of all values.

Some of my father’s paintings really wowed me. I have, in a place of honor on the walls of my home, a picture my father painted in 1954,. While I saw that painting almost every day that I lived in his home, I still find it a very fine painting. His technical skill was very, very good.

As I grew older, however, I noticed something about my dad’s artistic work ethic. He was a very fine artist, but he just didn’t produce much art. When a picture was finished, when the quality of the work was to the point he wanted it to be, then it was done and had to be protected and treasured. He never immediately started another picture. My father was also very reluctant to sell his work, or to give it away to family.

I sometimes got the feeling that once he had completed a picture he was afraid he would not be able to do another picture as good as THAT one, and he was reluctant to start another and prove himself right.

The other thing I noticed about my dad is that most of his paintings were copies. I remember him trying portraits of his wife and children, but he just did not do that much original work. I remember him painting pictures from photos he saw in photography magazines. What I remember him doing most was copying paintings by artists he referred to as “the great masters.” The thing about copying an existing work of art, or even a carefully composed photo, is that all the work of composing the picture is already done. Someone else has worked out the color pallet, the perspective, the copied picture has already found the light source and located the places where shadow needs to be to give it the desired look.

I caught that same disease. I would paint a picture and then be too afraid to start another. I too used magazines as a source for my painting subject matter. I wanted to keep every picture I painted because I feared no one else would care about them enough to let them go, and it was always possible the “gift” would leave me and I’d have no evidence left to show I had been a successful artist.

Eventually I gave up on my father’s artistic goals and found my own goal. I became a more productive and somewhat happier artist when I faced what I believe are real yet disappointing truths. What I discovered was that I was a better artist when I stopped caring about the finished product. I go into a zen like altered state when I paint, but once it is done, once I've allowed the images to settle in a little, the finished product becomes just a trace of moments I am soon going to forget.

I’m not going to be a famous artist -- so I might as well not try. To be famous, my work has to be perfect. Each picture has to be a knocking it out of the ball park crowd please-er. If I can’t do that kind of painting consistently then I can’t be famous. Here is the advantage of accepting my mediocrity: If I’m not going to be famous then I am free do paint bad pictures. Once in a while I might paint something I think is pretty cool, but mostly, it just really doesn’t matter what I paint, how well I paint, and it doesn’t matter if other people like what I paint. To be a rich and famous artist most people have to love your work. I’m not famous, I'm not cut from that kind of cloth, so I’m not under any obligation to produce famous quality work. If I like to paint then I am now able to paint all I want with no restraints, no parameters, no rules, and no expectations.

If I paint a lot, then selling paintings, and giving paintings away is not a problem. If I paint a lot and don’t distribute my work, then I’ll soon be covered up with paintings. If I’m not a famous artist then who the hell cares what I paint? I can copy if I want to. I can do stuff out of my head and not give a tinker’s damn if the shadows are all in the right place? I paint to please myself. I am free to paint what I want, how I want. I don’t have to be good enough to sell because selling is not the goal. I don’t have to paint good enough to be famous, because fame is a pipe-dream inherited from my father. Because I am free from my father’s obsession with fame and fortune I am free to paint. My wife, who sees all this as a hobby, has said, “When you paint, you do better.” She has endured almost 40 years with a chronically depressed husband. If painting make me easier to live with then that’s just one more reason to keep painting.

I have already painted more pictures than has my father did. I have sold paintings in shows, I’ve taken commissions, I’ve painted murals, filled sketch books, and given pictures away. I have pictures in the Netherlands, in Australia, Abu Dhabi. Every where I have lived I’ve left pictures behind, Milwaukee, Kansas, Virginia, Florida, and all over Texas. I decided that while I may not be good enough to be the sort of painter my father wanted me to be, I am good enough to be the kind of painter I am. I may not be all that good, but what I lack in ability I make up for with volume. And here is the secret I learned: I enjoy painting. I paint because I like to paint. I only have to paint good enough to have fun painting. Nothing is freer than that.

Reading THE DARK SIDE OF THE LIGHT CHASERS

I’m reading a book called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. I sought out the book because I heard it was based on Jung’s thoughts on the shadow world of people. I say this because it means I am predisposed to want this book to be great for me, to enlighten me about my own dark side. I am a depression lifer, but as pessimistic as I am, I hide within the folds of my brain little pockets of goofy optimism. I keep thinking, I’ll get the right medication, talk to the right shrink, or read the right book and be suddenly and forever OK.

There was a series of skits on the wonderful but now defunct Tracey Ullman Show where the character would go see a shrink, the shrink would say some fairly simple statement and the patient would be instantaneously cured. We laugh because it just can’t happen that fast. We laugh, I laughed, but that is still what I want.

So it is with high hopes that I began reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. I’m a light Chaser. I, like all humans, have a dark side. The premise us of this book is that we harm ourselves by pretending that the dark side doesn’t exist. Very early in life we learn that there are some things in our make up that parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, and peers don’t like. We learn that we are unacceptable if we have within us some of these unacceptable traits. If you can’t get these unacceptable traits to disappear then they must be hidden away. At first we hide them from others, but, over time, with practice, we hide these “bad traits” from ourselves.

The trouble comes when we have bad traits, shadow traits, but don’t know those traits are there. I read once that Mother Teresa was asked when it was she started her work for abandoned children. Mother Teresa replied:

On the day I discovered I
had a Hitler inside me.

What this faith leader meant was that she had the same ingredients in her that were in Hitler, and so as saintly as she was, she had the capacity to do great evil.

In Ms. Ford’s book she uses the example of a Hologram. Every part of a hologram in half and each half will contain the whole holographic image. Cut the Hologram into three parts or four, or more and every piece will contain the entire holographic image. Ms. Ford’s point is that all of us, each and every human contains the traits of all other human beings. Given the right circumstances I, a passive wimp can be aggressive and brave. I have the capacity for both gentleness and cruelty.

Ms Ford goes on to say that these shadow parts of us, according to Ms. Ford, these aspects of ourselves that we label as bad, are the very aspects that contain great gifts that will benefit us greatly.

In one example the author said she was in a workshop and the leader pointed to her can said that she was a bitch. Ms. Ford’s reaction to that was, “How did she know? I thought I had that trait hidden, under wraps.” The leader went on to ask if there were times when she needed to return an item to the store when it was helpful if she was bitchy. Were there times when you are being “run over” by some bully that it would help you protect yourself if you could be as bitchy as needed?

This is the place where I get hung up. I have traits that I have labeled as bad, and I have trouble seeing the gift contained in that shadow trait.

Ms. Ford tells another story about a woman who was ashamed to say that she hated her own child. Later that lady was asked to see the gift her hatred contained. The woman and her daughter apparently had some sort of breakthrough and now they can be open and honest with one another. It was a good story, and it was well written, but I just don’t get it.

Part of what Ms. Ford is trying to say is that we do “shadow work” in order to be whole. If we pretend we have no shadow world then we are functioning with one hand tied behind our back. We are entering the battle field with a powerful gun, but unaware that we have hidden the ammo somewhere on our person.

I’m going to have to think about all this.

I agree with the author that I have hidden these parts of myself labeled bad, and I have closed off each allegedly negative trait in its own room, and, over time, the part of my castle available for my use has gotten smaller and smaller. What I have trouble accepting is that these shadow traits are not bad, they are actually good, that the hidden traits I wish I didn’t have contain gifts that will greatly enhance my life.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Becoming A Grouch

Yesterday, my wife said: ”I think I’m going to be one of those woman married to a grouch.” When I asked what she meant she said, “You know, one of those guys that never wants to go anywhere, never wants to do anything, and is just fussy and critical of everyone they meet.”

Usually, when facing an opportunity to have my feelings hurt, I attempt to get logical. I try to consider what truth may be found in the statement that has all that “hurting feelings” potential. Am I a grouch?

I remember once, years after I’d left home, listening to my father saying stuff he thought was funny. He’d come up with all these doorbell sound jokes. He thought up a different front door sound to fit each of his children. My father thought he had captured the essence of each child by the doorbell sound he’d selected for each of us. The way it worked was like this: someone would ring the doorbell of my brother Bob for instance, and Bob’s doorbell sound would be, “I hope you’re the Pizza Guy!” That was supposed to be funny because Bob eats a lot and so what else would a portly middle aged guy want but pizza, right? Or for my extrovert brother Paul, his doorbell sound would be: “Come on in and let’s Par-teeeeeee!” The doorbell my father thought up for me was this: “Someone comes up to tex’s door,” my father said, “they rings the bell and they hear: GO AWAY!”

There was a lot of sibling thigh slapping laughter because my daddy had nailed me, perfectly. My doorbell sound had honed in on my most recognizable trait. That I’m a loner, who would prefer to have no interaction with anyone. Eric Hoffer says that we know ourselves by hear-say. Is Mr. Hoffer right? What I hear from my family is that I’m not just not very friendly, that I don’t like people, that I’d rather be alone.

If one does not understand a person,
one tends to regard him as a fool.

Carl Jung

Was my father making an observation, or was it criticism? Was it intended to be funny, or was it a passive-aggressive way of telling me I’ve been a bad son, because I have such little contact with them?

I have to admit that I took the comments of my father and my wife as negative assessments of my behavior. Whether I mean to or not, I come off as a grouchy, stick in the mud that never wants to do anything, go any where, or enter act with anyone. Is that an accurate assessment of me?

Everything that irritates us
about others can
lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung

If the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has taught us anything, it has taught us that we are not all alike. We do not all share the same traits, interests, or characteristics. We don’t all think alike. The way we process our experiences can vary dramatically from person to person.

Garrison Keillor has a running gag about shy people. Extravert's may not understand introverts, but it isn’t wrong to be extroverted and it isn’t wrong to be introverted.

Perhaps I take some of these observations about myself as criticism because the words have so often been used in service of negativity. If you are not comfortable being the life of the party are you “unfriendly” or are you “introverted.” If you are quiet in a group are you devoid of thought, do you lack problem solving skills, or might you be reflective, deliberate, and not given to knee jerk responses, or jumping to conclusions?

Is it rude, unkind, or indelicate for people who have a family bond to be critical and blunt about the personality traits of a member of their clan? It is so easy to take offense because criticism implies a need for improvement. A need for improvement implies failure. Failure indicates that one just doesn’t measure up when compared to others. In my mind failure equals loss. A loss makes me a loser. Being a loser means I am not productive, I am not earning my way, that I deserve nothing because I contribute nothing

We cannot change anything unless we
accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Carl Jung

Even Myers-Briggs is too restrictive. If you’ve ever taken the Myers-Briggs test you know that as you read the results most people still find stuff that fits them perfectly and stuff that doesn’t fit them all. In a way people are like snowflakes. They are all similar and each one is unique,

I recognize that I am more comfortable alone. This may not be my personality, but a symptom of my mental illness. For most of my life I’ve had very low self esteem , I have been hypersensitive to criticism (even very mild criticism). I am a turtle, more comfortable when I’ve retreated into my shell. It just seems slightly safer inside a shell.

I JUST CUT MY OWN THROAT: my thoughts on self-worth

I do the grocery shopping at our house. This morning I was pushing the cart down the personal hygiene products aisle. I remembered I needed shaving stuff. I looked at the shavers that you buy and add blades to, but they were too expensive. I checked the disposable shavers. I looked at Schick, BIC, and Gillette. Some came in packages of three for around $5.00, there were some that came in packages of 5 and 10 for around that same $5.00ish price. The bulk disposable razors had thin handles, but a razor is a razor, right? Then I spotted the store brand. Those were made with an ugly mustard colored plastic for the handle, but there they were in a clear bag, 10 for $1.99.

Now after putting up the groceries I got in a hot tub. I shave in the tub. I have to sit in the tub and let it fill. If I fill first, at my size, I get in, and the water gets out.

I know most guys buy shaving cream in an aerosol can, or some shaving gel that comes out like tooth paste but as you rub it on your face it foams up. Those products seem too expensive for me. I use hand soap, soap up my face and use the Braille method of shaving. I run the blade across my face, and then feel for escapee whiskers, soap them up again, and scrape at the whiskery spots until I no longer feel the hair stumps.

The under chin area is always a problem, especially as I age and have the beginnings of a turkey neck. That’s when it happened. I cut my throat. It wasn’t a nick, it was a slice and a long slice as for as shaving wounds go. When I applied my generic store brand aftershave (sold by the quart) I made a face that the Home Alone kid would have admired.

Now I contemplated these events and asked myself a critical question: Why was I shaving without shaving cream, using the cheapest razor money can buy? When I buy razors for my wife I buy one of those Venus vibrating razors.

As I press a wad of toilet tissue against my bleeding throat I realize that I think my wife deserves the best, and I deserve nothing, and since I need to shave to look semi normal, I reluctantly buy the cheapest crap possible. These bulk bag cheap-o razors had the words Safety Razor on the packaging, but there was not much safety present with these things.

The cheap disposable razors I buy are a outward and visible sign of an inner and utter conviction that I am not worth it, not worth a good razor, not worth the big piece of chicken, not worth name brand shoes or pants or anything else. Perhaps I bled so much I came too and realized that I don’t value myself.

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your
permission."
Eleanor Roosevelt

How can we know if we undervalue ourselves?

Ask these questions and then answer them honestly, ruthlessly. Don’t answer YES or NO because that doesn’t show degree. Use answers like Never, Occasionally, Often or Always.

1. How often do I feel a dislike of myself ?
2. How often do I think I am inadequate when compared with other people?
3. How often do I feel shy?
4. How often do I feel a lack of confidence?
5. How often do I feel as if my opinions don’t matter to other people?
6. How often do I feel as if I don’t deserve to be happy?
7. How often do I feel like other people dislike me?
8. If I do well at something how often do I call it “dumb luck” rather that feeling pleased with myself?
9. When I make a mistake how often do I believe that it is all my own fault?
10. How often do I find it difficult to say, “NO!”
11. Is it hard for me to accept criticism?
12. Is it hard for me to give honest criticism to other people right to their face?

If your answers indicate that you undervalue yourself, or hate yourself, well, you are a member of the LOW SELF ESTEEM CLUB.

Maybe the first step toward building up your esteem is to go out and buy yourself the most expensive gold plated shaver, and an expensive brand of shaving cream with aloe, because your face deserves the very best.

Dare To Accept Me Radically

I’ve been seeing Psychiatrists, and therapists since 1982, I didn’t become depressed in 1982, however, that happened when I was much younger. I wrote a nonce sonnet about depression that I hoped would capture my earliest encounters with depression. The word nonce comes from the medieval expression for the nonce, meaning for the one time. Thus, a nonce word is a word used for a special circumstance only. So IF you are a sonnet zealot you will notice this sonnet does not follow any traditional form. A nonce sonnet would be a changed sonnet form created for one unique occasion.

Depression by tex norman

I first encountered you in ‘53.
I remember it was extremely hot,
and mama made me rest out summer’s heat.
I turned like a slab of sizzling meat
as I lay sweltering on my cot.
I’m wondering now why you selected me.
Where were you hiding in the room,
crouched in a closet, or under the bed?
Your attack was savagely complete,
and my resistance, easy to defeat.
You left me wishing that I were dead.
That’s when it happened, or so I now assume.
I turned into this melancholy baby,
a diaper full of crap, and I can’t change me.


Obviously this is a sonnet written by someone still depressed. After 56 years of depression and 27 years of therapy I have to wonder why I keep seeing mental health professionals. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results?

What is the goal of therapy for me. My hope would be that if I were to understand the goal of therapy that it might be a goal shared by others making my search of value to me and to others on a similar quest.

The depression I feel can be traced to defective parenting, perhaps some faulty DNA, and a weak will. My questions are as follows:

1. Is there a way out of this life long depression?
2. Is understanding the cause of depression in any way a healing discovery?
3. If there is a way out of my melancholy then is there a map that I can follow, and share with others?


Most of the therapists I have seen are hell bent on helping me understand the inevitability of human flaws. I tend to hate myself for being flawed, and I think other people are not flawed (or at least they are not as flawed as I am) I think, yeah, some people have problems and imperfections, but I am so flawed, so damaged that I am un-salvageable.

I am starting to think that maybe there is some value in my focusing on my flawedness, embracing my brokenness and living proudly and openly with my wounds. I know that this sounds odd, but real awareness comes only from truly accepting reality of me.

I had a shrink in Lakeland Florida named Frank Schultz.

[ http://www.aloth.com/about.htm ]

He use to tell me that I was perfect. Saying something like that to someone as imperfect as me was an affront. Them’s fightin’ words. I have to argue with such reckless talk.

I think, however, that maybe it is our imperfections that make us perfect. This is an odd thought, I know, but maybe you can’t have perfection without imperfection. There are things about me that I literally hate. I don’t dislike these traits within me, I hate them with a murderous loathing that has, at times placed my life in jeopardy. What I’m starting to realize is that maybe these flaws in me serve a useful purpose. Yeah flaws are flaws, and flaws by definition are bad, but maybe I hate my flaws because I am looking at them in isolation. By itself, a flaw is just total imperfections, absolute badness. But if I were to view my flaws in contexts I might find out that my imperfections have some value.

This is really odd thinking, I know, but then, when you think about a subject for almost 60 years you’re bound to come up with some odd thinking from time to time.

I have been talking about resignation for awhile now. I’ve been focused on the implications that come from resigning myself to the life I have at this moment in time. The word resignation implies something negative. If you resign yourself to something, you have surrendered, given up, thrown in the towel, and this all seems negative, and hopeless. Negative and hopeless stuff seems like dangerous thinkin’ and feelin’ to a chronically depressed dude.

Perhaps a better word would be ACCEPTANCE. The goal of therapy is not to turn me into something perfect, nor is it to just throw my hands up and be a loser for the rest of my life. Maybe the goal of therapy is for me to accept me.

If I can accept me, all of me, warts and all, then I can be OK. If I can look at me and see the flaws and accept them, I can also use my acceptance to seek changes in my life.

Jung talked about our shadow selves, that all of us have a dark side. There is good in us, but for every good, there is a corresponding bad. If we ignore our dark side, it has a tendency to sneak up behind us and bite us right in the ass. But if you accept that you have a dark side, that you have these imperfections, you can also keep your eye on them, and nip negative stuff in the bud.

It is important to find a way to embrace me as I am, and to also embrace my need for change. This might be good for you as well. This seems like a contradiction. If I accept me as I am, then why would I embrace a need to change? If dishonest is one of my flaws, then why accept that? Who would want to be dishonest? But what I’m thinking now is that maybe you can’t accept yourself unless you also accept your need for change. I use to think a paradox was two doctors, but actually a paradox is something that seems false, but is actually true. You can’t accept yourself without accepting your need for change. On the other hand, you can’t change unless you accept yourself because without accepting yourself, all of your SELF you won’t be aware of what changes are needed.

My therapeutic goal is to accept myself, radically, and with gusto. My intention is to recognize that as imperfect as I am, I can hold my imperfections in check, while embracing my opportunities to change. Change is impossible without accepting all of me. In a sense I am not whole, not perfect, without accepting both my positives and my negatives.

I am guessing that when I accept myself, warts and all, flaws and all, I can also believe that these traits are not fixed and immutable. If I recognize my flaws, and really see my positive traits, and observe myself in the whole, in the gestalt, then I can also believe that change is possible. If I acknowledge the possibility that I can change then maybe I can actually change.

I also think I need to accept that all this is radical acceptance is a process of life, that it is a journey with no arrival point. My destination is always within me. If I can accept my imperfections while seeking perfection, if I can knowledge that no one actually gets there, but that anyone can get closer, then maybe this therapy stuff is valuable, and precious and something I am not yet ready to discard.

Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha ~ Tara Brach

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Acceptance-Embracing-Heart-Buddha/dp/0553801678

A Conservative Pararable Revisited

I recently read A Parable about Socialism

The way the story goes, this young girl is about to finish her first year of college. This young lady considers herself a liberal Democrat, and she is in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs. [Republicans would call her view Redistribution of wealth.]

This young liberal woman gets into a discussion with her staunch Republican father and she challenges her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. Instead of talking about taxes the father asks his liberal little girl how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' His daughter replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.'

Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!'

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the conservative's philosophy.'
At the end of this little parable the writer adds:
If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between a Republican and Democrat I'm all ears.
It is a good parable, and, in my opinion, it does reflect the conservative philosophy. The parable is saying that what is mine is mine and I don’t have to share what is mine with anyone. The parable takes a complicated issue, oversimplifies it, and then feels that this simple story is so clear and straightforward that there is no longer any room for debate. What idiot is going to defend taking a point away from a 4.0 hard working student and to giving it to some drunken party girl with a 2.0? The unfairness of that suggestion is positive, irrefutable proof that the conservative philosophy is the only correct position to take. And yet, I have misgivings. While that parable claims to advocate for FAIRNESS the story itself is UNFAIR. Here are my problems with the simplistic conservative philosophy as depicted in the parable.

This conservative parable implies that the liberal agenda is to make everyone financially equal. In the parable the republican father suggests that the liberal philosophy would want both girls to have the same grade point average. The parable is talking about GPA but it is really talking about income. If conservatives think liberals want everyone to have the same amount of income they are just plain wrong. We liberals do not advocate for the government to take all the income of this country and divide it equally so that every person is just as rich AND as poor as everyone else. The very term REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH sounds like a word has been left out. Conservatives would have you think we were advocating the EQUAL REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, and that is a an implied lie.

The father in the parable is using grades as a representation for dollars, but there is a lot of difference between grades and dollars. One could make the argument that what is unfair with nickels is equally unfair with five billion nickels, but for most people there is a difference. What if the grade point difference was like this: Audrey has a 2.O and the liberal girl has a 9,000,000.0. If we are proposing to take 1.0 from the liberal girl and giving it to Audrey so that now Audrey has a 3.0 and the liberal girl has a 8,999,999.0. GPA It may still be unfair, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s as big a deal to most folk.

The parable is actually a TEA-BAGGER I HATE TAXES parable. The issue of taxes being fair or unfair is not a simple issue. If each one of us lived on an island by ourselves then we would be obligated to no one, we would be responsible for ourselves, and we would thrive from our good choices and suffer from our bad choices. But we do not live in isolation, we live in communities. When humans live in close proximity we have a society (or a civilization.) In order to live in close proximity we must have laws so that our lives and property can be protected. To give laws meaning they have to be enforced and enforcement requires a government, and government workers have to be paid. Cities, and states, and nations are expensive, and taxation is the way the bills are paid. Taxation is the cost of civilization.

But living in a civilization involves more than just having laws and law enforcers. If we are civil, if we are civilized, it means that we accept a certain degree of responsibility for one another. I know an 11 year old child suffering from mental retardation and cerebral palsy. This child was abandoned by his mother. Had he been born in Nazi Germany he would have been eliminated because he is defective. Perhaps there are those among us today that would support terminating broken, economically expensive beings. This kid is always going to be dependent on others for survival for the rest of his life. It was not his fault that his mother abandoned him. It wasn’t his choice to be mentally retarded or to have cerebral palsy. A tea-bag conservative would probably say the mother has no right to abandon that child and should be forced to take care of the child, or forced to pay the cost of that child’s care. If no parent can be located, then teabag republicans would say that churches an charitable organizations should step in and take care of that child. It is estimated that there are 764,000 children and adults in the United States suffering from cerebral palsy. Realistically, how many of you think that we can get the churches to take care of every victim of cerebral palsy? And this is only one condition that often requires life time care. Consider quadriplegics? There are 250,000 Americans with spinal cord injured. Each year there are approximately 11,000 new injuries. The average lifetime costs for quadriplegics, is $1.35 million.

When good stuff needs to happen, and when that good stuff is expensive, then it just makes sense that all of us would agree to pay for the good stuff, and the burden will be easier to carry when it is carried by everyone.

UNEMPLOYMENT: What Goes Down Must Go UP First

There is a quote that adds some insight into the unemployment issue:

Statistics are like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than illumination. Sir Winston Churchill British politician (1874 - 1965)

Give the masses a statistic and you turn the simmering masses, turning the masses into boiling, over reactive churning asses. We have this knee jerk tendency to hear the statistic and to believe whatever the statistic citer wants us to believe. Often we feel that believing the statistic must be believed, must be accepted because statistics are facts -- aren’t they? After all, to have a statistic means something was counted with actual numbers, and some mathematical magic was applied to the numbers and that is all factually stuff – right?

I have a love/hate relationship to statistics, and, being a part of the masses I am not alone in my love and distain for statistics. We are surrounded by polls, submerged by surveys, engulfed by research, and buried under avalanches of the latest focus group results. A statistic seems like a conclusion. If you count stuff and calculate an average that is an irrefutable fact – isn’t it?
We have this inclination to believe statistics without question. I believe Prim Minister Churchhill got it right. Statics can be illuminating and helpful, but we should maintain a healthy dose of doubt, and seek to understand the way a statistic was gathered and how the results have been interpreted. There are stupid statistics out there.

47.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot...
quoted from www.gullible.info/

I once read in Parade Magazine that 100,000 dogs die each year from falling out of the beds of pickup trucks. If you love dogs as much as I do, this statistic is shocking. But if you start to examine the numbers the persuasive point quickly dulls. If each and every year 100,000 dogs die this way that would mean that 247 dogs would have to die this way every day, 11 dogs would have to fall out of pickup trucks every hour. If this statistic is correct then 2,000 dogs a year per state would have to fall out of pickup trucks and senselessly die. But I am 59 years old and I have never once heard about someone who’s dog died from falling out of the back of their F-150. I’m fairly certain that dogs do fall out of pickup trucks, and dogs do die from this stupid way of hauling the one life form that loves them unconditionally, but the statistic is shocking, convincing, and ridiculous. Looking a little closer to the Parade Magazine article and you’ll see a source citation. The statistic came from the Humane Society.

Those that hate progressives, and those people that hate having a black President are eager to find any statistic that shows that Obama’s efforts to stimulate the economy are failing. When some statistic factory produces the latest employment figures and those figures are low, the naysayers joyfully point to the numbers and say, “He is failing!”

The problem with unemployment statistics is not just numbers counted – it is the numbers of unemployed and underemployed people who are NOT counted. The definition of unemployment excludes a huge number of unemployed and underemployed people. The counters ONLY count people actually, actively looking for work. The counters do not count the unemployed people who have given up. The data gatherers do not count the unemployed people who have grown so discouraged that they have given up and stopped looking for work. There are huge numbers of unemployed people who would like to work but have stopped looking because they are just so tired of rejection. Unemployment figures do not include the people who have hunkered down and are waiting for the economy to turn around. There are a lot of people who lost good jobs, couldn’t find jobs that paid what they had been making. Unemployment figures don’t count big equipment salesmen who lost their jobs and now work at Burger King. These underemployed people have jobs, so they are NOT counted, but these people can’t live forever on minimum wage. When the economy turns around, when the stimulus starts working again, these people will start looking for jobs like the once they had before the great recession.

When the economy starts to improve, when the stimulus begins to stimulate the economy the discouraged unemployed people turn into hopeful unemployed people and they start looking for work again. Guess what happens next? The number of unemployed people goes UP. The truth not included in unemployment figures is that when the economy starts to improve, the first sign of improvement is not unemployment going down – it is unemployment going UP. For the economy to improve the numbers MUST go UP before they can come DOWN. Having MORE unemployed people makes it look like the economy is still circling the drain, but “it ain’t necessarily so.”