From Skinhead To Hero

There are stories that come along every once in a while that leave you speechless. We look at people and make sometimes educated, sometimes not so educated guesses about what is on their inside based on what is outside. In some instances, as with clothing, tattoos, things we do to our appearance, this process is intended. But every once in a while, what we see gives no hint at all of what is really underneath. And every once in a while we get a glimpse of how fluid we really are as humans, or can be, how we can begin as one thing and become something else. This man’s story is such a story.

This man, Bryon Widner, began as one of the worst racist skinheads. He was described by anti-skinhead movements as one of the most aggressive and confrontational. Then something changed. I don’t know if we will ever know what. I’m guessing that having kids may have had something to do with it. But he not only left the white power group he was in, but decided to speak out against them. He underwent multiple surgeries to remove his facial tattoos, after seeking help from one of his former enemies to get the surgeries. He received death threats against himself and his family. And still continued and spoke up.

I could expound on what kind of courage it takes to leave such a group, or speaking out against their terrorism, or even finally going to a group of people who were enemies and admitting you were wrong. But none of what I am relating conveys the extreme nature of his story or the magnitude of what he did in renouncing his status as completely as he did. None of this conveys the magnitude of what his wife did to support him, or what his family went through. So here is a more extensive article that still does not convey it, but it comes closer.

http://news.yahoo.com/reformed-skinhead-endures-agony-remove-tattoos-162205881.html

I am a cynic and a pessimist. I don’t watch the news because I get too angry. I’m not Anne Frank. I can’t say that I believe that there is good in everyone. But when someone like this comes along, I believe, at least for a little while, that maybe I’m wrong about that. Good luck, Mr. Widner and good luck to your family. I hope you find the peace that you seek. As far as I am concerned, you have earned it. You have made a transition from monster to hero in such a way that we find in myth and legend. And I hope that your message and what you have gone through will change the world. It has certainly changed my perspective of it today.

Iranian Water Fights

I saw this article today, and it started as a hilariously awesome celebration, with pictures of teenagers that you might see after a long day of high school in Ohio, New York, or California. http://news.yahoo.com/water-gun-fight-park-iran-sees-dark-designs-150629272.html. Pictures any of us in the US might have been in…a pitifully long time ago *cough*, well not that long. Pictures that I would like to be in with my daughter at some point, having a great time.

But the news deteriorated, as it seems to these days into an overassumption by adults of what it means. Even the conservatives in Iran have commented, ‘Detained for a water fight? Really?’ Common sense seems truly to be on the endangered species list, because the squeaky wheel, the crazy people are simply louder and have more real guns.

Even many conservatives seem to be able to maintain a reserve of common sense to say that you can’t restrict youth too much or you are going to get rebellion coming out somewhere. This is the definition of teenager.

And of those people who think it’s appropriate to detain people for being in a water fight because laughing and showering another teenager is the sign of impending revolt and ‘dark designs from abroad’, need to ask themselves why behavior needs to be controlled so tightly if they themselves are not doing something worthy of revolting against.

Maybe everyone in the country could find some peace, perspective, and catharsis, and not just them, but us too, by loading up the super-soakers and water balloons, and going to war…before winter anyway.

Childhood Obesity and the Government

State intervention in removing obese children from their homes seems to me to completely miss the point of the problem of childhood obesity. http://tinyurl.com/5rfkdxp

What is it with the ’experts’ in this country comprised of people completely incapable of looking past the symptoms, to the cause of the symptoms? Much of this obesity, as noted by the numerous comments from struggling parents, is that they were working so hard to make a living that they either hadn’t the time to make healthy dinner, or hadn’t the money to buy healthy food, or both. So they were forced by urban desertification and working multiple jobs to rely on fast food as a staple.

Where is the responsibility of the businesses in these neighborhoods which often sport a plethora of liquor, cigarette, and fast food joints, and not a single grocery store? Where is the responsibility of the government to provide programs that will allow these families alternatives to working unrealistic hours and feeding their families with garbage?

I am not Republican, but there are ways in which I agree with the original tenet of Republicans in terms of laissez fair government. In my opinion, removal of kids from their families will effectively punish them all for being poor, and in this I believe the government has no business. This would be a completely inappropriate use of government regulation, targeting the weakest link: the struggling families, when the cause of their struggle is higher up the power chain and therefore more difficult to challenge. If the health experts and the government wants to help these kids, give their parents back their unemployment, or help them get decent jobs that realistically support an average family, or help them get a grocery store on the corner walking distance from their homes, instead of a McDonalds!

There seems to be a shift in our consciousness, a decline following the New Deal in which symptoms like obesity, unemployment, poverty, and homelessness are seen as wholly the responsibility of individual citizens and indeed, the more powerless and vulnerable of those citizens. There is no longer any responsibility taken at all for the factors contributed by poor government policy decisions and requirements laid on these individuals, or a nation’s collective failing to act with shared responsibility for the poor and sick, and for finding solutions that cause the least harm to all involved. Instead, the solution put forth here, removing children from their homes because their parents can’t keep the childens’ weight down, respresents an expedient and immediately visible political decision that will cause great harm to the people whose wallets aren’t as loud. Decisions like putting obese kids in foster care seems to me to be grandstanding to appear to solve a problem, to ‘show progress’ on an issue rather than actually solving the ‘lifestyle’ problem for real, by connecting the frequent and also well-documented link between poverty and obesity.

Writing for Stress Relief

I am what used to be called a Type A personality. However the DSM or various manuals would define it now, I am a neurotic, obsessive nut who nevertheless is painfully disorganized and absent-minded.

How do I function without imploding? I make lists in my head. From the time I wake up in the morning until I go to bed, I have a list of tasks. And I focus like Rain Man, all day long on going through that list and getting at least most of the things done on it.

How does that work without making me even more insane? I write. At the end of the day, during lunch hour, during breaks, I write another world where the main characters are usually more insane than I am, like watching the Jerry Springer Show to remind oneself that things could certainly be more out of control in one’s own life. No matter what else is happening, I’m not throwing shoes and chairs. But I can write people who are throwing a lot more than that.

My life with a terrific husband and amazing little girl is great. But since I am a socially-handicapped stress monkey, life’s little stressors add up to a lot. And recently, I went through a very discouraging experience with the Denver police, which would have driven me to drink if I liked liquor. So most nights, after my kid, and sometimes my husband went to sleep, the computer came out.

Last year, I contemplated going back to school for my Ph.D in social science. Around the same time, I started writing. And I realized that if I got into the doctoral program, I’d spend most of my time writing essays and research papers. And I was having a blast writing creepy short stories. If one is going to write a good story, research is still necessary, but it doesn’t have the same academic pressure behind it. It’s purely for pleasure and curiosity. I’ve been in social science for over ten years. And I love it, but I’m not interested in conducting studies at this point. I like being out in the world in my job and doing applied science, and I don’t want to give up any more of my time away from my daughter and husband for a research deadline.

I can write when I need to and want to, around both of their lives. And my husband said something to me that I’ll never forget, “I feel like I get to know you better when I read your stuff.” As profoundly disturbing as that might be given that I often write horror, it really drove home the benefit of writing as pure self-expression, in a form available to those of us with difficulty expressing things verbally. Since then, I haven’t looked back.