Dr. Martin's Mix

Much like my Mom's poor attempts at her half-baked feminism and her angered infrequent bouts of cooking that she rebelled against when I was growing up, (preferring instead to replace them with compulsive cleaning chores like laundry and washing dishes), her recipes also reflect her deluded, fractured sense of self that is so inherent with her disorders and her generation.

Much as I find her "I Hate to Cookbook" a sometimes silly relic of yore that is more akin in tone to old Russian satellites falling out of the sky than it is to reality, I found a family gem among her favorite recipes, as evidenced by the splattered pages of this well-worn recipe for "Dr. Martin's Mix."

Recipe for "Dr. Martin's Mix" from the " 'I Hate to Cook' Book".

My mom was drawn to it because she likes to pretend that she is a doctor (giving herself the name "Dr. Diane" when we were kids, like a commercial advertising a fake character called "Dr. Mom", made for selling cough syrup), given her science background and the many, many hours she is forced to consider her own challenging illnesses that were fed by a constant, steady pop culture diet of t.v. shows about similarly fake doctors popular in her time like "Dr. Kildare", because she also has open crushes on "out" actors like Richard Chamberlain, also a weird reflection of the warped sensibilities of her youth.

It's not real, but the food I make from the collected shards of her self that I put together on my own certainly are, such are the strengths that a "Master of the Arts" has always had, no matter who we are with, or where we are, out there in the larger world.

Hey, what's cookin'? Oh! Yum!!

Blessings and encouragements to you this week as you fight your many, many battles. That's the fun of life on our planet! Enjoy your time here, my peoples, because it goes by so, so fast.

Stick to your ribs food: perfectly filling on a cold, wet winters' day.

Mental Illness: Now Appearing Near You

I've touched on the subjects of sociology and psychology before but not at length, though it's greatly affected me through exposure to individuals not in full possession of their faculties. When I watch the news, it occurs to me that I'm not alone in this experience throughout the world, as behavior that starts in the home and ends in a disastrous collision of the private with the public. Like many people, I struggled with whistle-blowing on sick people versus my safety, resulting in the loss of home, health, and income; choices many of us face at home and at work every single day. I've worked with people so sick, they rocked back-and-forth in their chairs all day while at work, muttering curse words over and over again, or whispering threats at employees without any consequences at all. True: the world is unsafe, life is hard, and I accept that. Nothing new to this working class girl.

A cursory list of the latest headlines speaks to the major health care crisis in our country, as a plague that tells its tale in psychosis and gun violence. The "Virgin Killer" in California, who legally bought three separate handguns, posted sick rants detailing his future crimes on YouTube before he committed them. He manifested such extremely violent tendencies that his aunt called the police to alert them about his obvious status as a walking time bomb (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-killings-elliot-rodger-was-described-as-polite-and-courteous-during-welfare-check-by-police-9432530.html), but nothing happened. Unfortunately, someone has to break the law before legal action takes place, and an intelligent criminal knows exactly where the dividing lines are, much better than you and l. That's their big advantage in the world: shock and awe, for the dual purposes of hurt and destruction. Ask anyone who's been harassed, stalked, or threatened, and they'll tell you a similar story, to the ongoing frustration of law enforcement officers and psychiatric health care workers, and that's just the beginning.

There's a recent spate of murders in NYC, again, perpetrated by an individual so unfit for a place in our society, that his parole officer told anyone who would listen in authority that he would murder someone soon, and then he did (http://nypost.com/2014/06/06/parole-officer-warned-cops-brooklyn-ripper-was-dangerous/). Need more examples? No problem. I got that: the school shooting in Oregon (http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/justice/oregon-high-school-shooting/), the psychologist with security clearance who calmly let himself onto an army base to commit what he felt was a "revenge" murder (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/us/fort-hood-shooting/), not to mention the massacres in Colorado, now infamous.

What is it? Where does it come from? Just like conversations about global warming and starving children in Africa, the answer is as old as slavery and murder: because it's a part of human nature. But, how did it get this bad? I have a theory that I'm road-testing, which is quickly gaining support. The answer is this: a greater dissolution between public and private in "The Age of Transparency", because there's less room to hide, and for healthy people like myself, that is a very good thing indeed. What was once hidden at home, like a body surreptitiously buried in the backyard at midnight, way out in the country, with no proof of wrongdoing, has now gone public. Ed Gein lived in a place so rural, he could get away with it. Jeffrey Dahmer preyed on homosexual men, a group that traditionally had very little public support or empathy. "Jack the Ripper" likewise preyed on another famously disenfranchised group, the street-walking prostitute, often a societal target for psychotic rage and murderous intent.

Now that today's individual is much more savvy about the early signs of illness (thanks to the widespread access of such information), those of us who grew up in homes of the sick are often forced into the roles of psychiatrist and law enforcer unwillingly, and that is extremely threatening to someone who seeks to hide their paranoid psychosis with violent tendencies. Children and teens who witness this behavior routinely are groomed to accept abuse as acceptable, as they're gradually conditioned to it (along with the rationale for it) through complicity, similar in method to a pedophile or addict. Who are we to give voice to a major worldwide health crisis? We're nobodies, and that's exactly what someone who is desperate to exploit us counts on, though those rules are changing, too. The kids who are artists, thinkers, and makers are no longer the "kooky" black sheep in their respective families, as "The Digital Age" and the "Design Intelligence" movement now lead the world. 

Hmm...who then to disenfranchise, isolate, and victimize? It's become harder to do so, and so the disordered responded by setting up their family members through constant vicious attacks in secret, sabotaging them until they appear to be the opposite of what's true in public, because that's what bad parents do. I saw a story in that vein just yesterday: a girl was raped, then her crazy parents pushed her into the media spotlight to get attention for themselves, and then they forced her to take to "the low road" through deliberately enforced impoverishment to survive, after they cut her off financially. The result? 

A teenage pregnancy and a convict "baby-daddy", gaining plenty of evidence to do her in and discredit her point of view. In order to survive adverse conditions, it's not uncommon among whistle-blowers in the home to be singled out as a primary target for family scapegoating. After all, what can a dependent teenager really do in retaliation? They held all the cards, along with the money and their seemingly suburban perfection, except the facts didn't exactly pan out. Their daughter tested "positive" for drugs while living in their home, and now, safely on her own as a working single mother, she's clean, even with random drug tests, which she volunteered to do: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/2136.

I saw an episode of "Judge Judy" that was so bad, the bailiff had to warn the defendant by looming over him physically until he was subdued enough to speak somewhat coherently, bringing no defense to the table or excuse for his poor behavior whatsoever, in a brazen show of delusional cockiness that grows worse and worse every day. Another man on the show, in a separate case, lashed out at the judge in a way I'd never seen before. When she pointed out that his crazy behavior was the result of his mental state and medication, he shot back at her (in full view of the public, on t.v.): "You, too! You need medication, too!", and I actually gasped. Another woman was so unmanageable, her entire case was dismissed, because the judge repeatedly told her to be quiet and, red-eyed with rage, she declared defiantly "I will not!". The mentally ill no longer respond to authority figures, public shaming, financial consequences, or the law.

It's become harder for sick people to find targets for their aggression, easy as it is for us to openly view their sick behavior and then testify about it; witness any reality t.v. show nowadays about dating, drinking, and mental illness. They've been forced into the public arena to act out their rage, because our private spaces have become safer from a growing movement of support and education, thanks to the brave people who are willing to speak out, even to their detriment. And therein the problem also lies—because even obvious outward manifestations are not enough to get someone help anymore, like I observed at any one of my office gigs. A sick guy I worked nearby had ranted all day long to himslef at his computer (OCD), within clear earshot of the entire office space, visibly twitching, talking, cursing, and starting from his chair compulsively, something I often see in other public places like subways and libraries. 

Where once a family could exert financial and social pressure upon a disordered person, forcing them to conform, the economy changed to our detriment. Now, the sick have power and money, which is more easily done with a damaged morality (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/donald-sterlings-mental-health-figures-clippers-sale-report-n118176). What do you do when those in power are mentally unfit to serve our best interests? My generation, Generation X, was painted as "slacker" because as a population group, we were blocked from implementing change by those same corrupt Baby Boomers who have/had numbers on their side, but just like in life, our time has finally come. In the process we became leaders, as we waited until a new population could respond to our ways of thinking, like Gen Y and Millennials have shown through their abilities to adapt to technology and respond to change, embracing a world vision that's greener, safer, saner, and healthier, not because it benefits them immediately, but because it's the right thing to do.

The answer is dual-fold, combined with better healthcare laws and stricter gun laws. There's absolutely no good reason that a college student like "The Virgin Killer" should legally possess three guns for his "self defense". It's absurdly irrational, these old laws made to please unsafe extremists, and it will change. Healthcare must follow suit. Without better mental healthcare reforms in place, all we can do is cry out yet another warning at our own expense, bankrupting our lives in the process, because self-sacrifice is what a honorable person does while actively seeking change, waiting for the tides to turn. And the tides, ushered along by global warming, are turning. 

Welcome to "The New World Order". We've had enough. No longer will the sane cower in fear at the hands of tyranny, because this world operates on one very powerful principle that was previously hidden in the dark, nursed in secret, now reaching its final, unhealthy conclusion as an end to it all, and that is this: transparency.  
What a beautiful world it will be.

As We Know It

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2626412/NASA-spots-worrisome-Antarctic-ice-sheet-melt.html

The day that has long been foretold is now upon us; the harmful change to our natural world, as it has existed for millennium, has begun, and will move swiftly towards us all. We have artificially warmed our world to such a degree that we have destroyed one of the last great wild spaces on our planet; one of our polar ice caps.

It is with a heavy heart that I also write to inform you that our race has sealed the death warrant for millions of species and fellow inhabitants on this planet. No longer can the powers that be, (who reaped the earth for gain and profit, with the intention of passing on their sins to someone else to figure it out and clean it up), hide behind their profits, lawyers, paid government officials, and corporate-sponsored specious reasoning. 

As dire as this expected news is for us, I also found a bright spot amid all my depressed thoughts, while fretting about the impending changes that have been irreversibly set in motion. Those who counted on thriving under the cover of dark will now be exposed to the light. No longer can someone "accuse" someone of "making up" Global Warming under the guise of some weirdly vague hippy, meddler, do-gooder type of argument, nor can the evil forces of the world point the finger at a scientist for falsely "twisting" the facts (and why someone would do that is still open to debate, because it was never a real question to begin with), because that part of our world is gone now too; the wrong with the right.

It is not whether have you enough information to move forward, because many, many others before me have told you the story of our planet's sickness long before it flashed onto your screen in a brief one minute spot during the evening news, but this: what will you do today, and from now on, to make the changes needed to save our planet and the species that still have a chance of making it out alive from this worldly mess? 

If your spot on the globe is coming under water (and for sea-level dwellers and coastal inhabitants, it most certainly will be, with the expected 4-12 feet of melt water that's expected to hit the planet soon), it should not be about me, (and people like me), who know the problems and have the answers, but rather this: how will you and your children and grandchildren and elderly, along with the sick and the vulnerable in our population, survive under the new climate? Because it isn't me, or people like me, you have to fear. 

It is yourselves. 

Good luck out there,
Your Sister in Christ

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/antarctica-ice-sheet-disintegrating-n103731