What a Wonderful World!

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left) and nature preservationist John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. In the background: Upper and lower Yosemite Falls. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's kind of a depressing world we live in. Every day the news is full of bad news--oil spills, murdered children, plane crashes, political chicanery, terrorism, disappearing species. Or we have direct exposure: You see a stray dog hit and killed in the road, or you are haunted by childhood memories of domestic violence or alcoholism. Someone you know is killed in Afghanistan. Or maybe the thrushes that have nested in your woods every summer since you bought the place back when your kids were little didn't come back this spring. And it is easy to despair. 

"I'm just one person! What can I do?"
This is the question a client asked me the other day. And my answer was, "A lot! You can do a lot!"

Theodore Roosevelt said it best: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." People with great resources (money, some sort of public platform from which to reach millions) can do a lot. The rest of us, not so much. But we can always do something, and in relative terms, it counts for much. 

The point as I see it is to be a good steward of your little corner of the world, to leave it just a little bit better than you found it.

Vote. Write a letter to your congressional representative, or your senator. Attend a school-board or city-council meeting. Write a letter to the editor. Demonstrate. Boycott. Raise money for a good cause.

Spay your cat and keep her up. It seems like a small thing, but it does wonders for her health and happiness: Cats allowed to run free are subject to all kinds of bad outcomes, ranging from injuries in fights to infectious diseases to being hit and killed by cars. In her lifetime, you could save as many as 300 birds' lives. That is no small thing! And by not allowing her to reproduce, think how many homeless kitties you've prevented in succeeding generations. 

If you can't afford a dog yourself, volunteer at your local shelter. Your efforts will make the animals' lives healthier and happier while they're there, and every hour you donate increases their odds of survival. Adopt (don't buy) one yourself, if you can. You may not be single-handedly solving the homeless dog population problem yourself, but your action means everything to that one dog. Everything.

Adopt a child. If you can't afford that, get qualified as a foster parent by your local Department of Family and Children Services. Or become a CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer. Informally, offer a hand to that overwhelmed parent in the supermarket or in your neighborhood. Or pick up the phone and report a child at risk. You could be saving a life.

I used to carry a hot pink key-chain fob that said, "Woman On a Mission." Quite naturally, people would periodically ask me what the mission was. When I was a child protective services caseworker, I told everybody I was out to change the world, one child at a time. When my practice was predominantly women survivors of domestic abuse, it was "changing the world, one woman at a time." I knew I couldn't change the world, but I believed that my work could be world-changing for the one woman or child in my office, at least for the one hour. You're no different: You, too, can change the world for another living being.

Start a blog. They're free here at Blogger.com and via WordPress. Both will walk you through the set-up process, so you don't even have to be very computer-savvy. Perhaps you know more than you give yourself credit for, and you can share your experience, strength and hope with others. All it will take is a little of your time.

Recycle. Pull your weeds the old-fashioned way instead of poisoning them. Don't use pesticides. You'll help save birds, butterflies, and bees, and our soil and streams will be just that tiny bit much cleaner for your effort. If you have property, plant some milkweed.

Speaking of water, use less. If you can afford it, buy shade-grown organic coffee. If you can't, cut your consumption. Don't eat chocolate produced by companies that exploit children, use slave labor, or rape the environment. If you can't afford Rain Forest Alliance-certified chocolate, give it up. Or eat less. Buy locally-produced food-stuffs when you can.

Say something nice to somebody today. Do somebody a favor. Or just smile at them. It may not seem like a big thing to you, but it could be the highlight of their day.

My first ethics text, If Everybody Did, by Jo Ann Stover, asks children to consider their actions in the light of this question: What if everybody did that? When you are taking one tiny step toward improving your world even one tiny little bit, ask yourself that. What if everybody did? 

What a wonderful world it would be!

Bigotry is not a mental illness. . .

Image via Wikipedia

. . . and neither, ladies and gentlemen, is domestic violence.

I had planned on another A.A. blog post today, either about individual members who try to cram their personal God down your throat, or what to do about the ones that want you to stop taking your meds "or you're not really sober."

But then, alas, up pops yet another female apologist for Mel Gibson, and I just couldn't let this one pass. Alicia Sparks is a layperson who writes for PsychCentral, which I usually recommend but am lately having doubts about.

"...think about why Mel Gibson (and anyone else, for that matter) has done these things," she writes.

OK. Here's my theory:

1. He drinks because he is an alcoholic.
2. He abuses women because he hates us. And because he can.
3. He uses intimidation, threats, and physical force to get his way.
4. He's bigoted because, well, because he's a bigot.

Ok, Ms. Sparks. Next?


"The verbal abuse and threats were bad, yes."

"Bad?" Oh, oh. Anybody else here see a minimization coming? Sure enough:

"The physical violence was bad, too (if there was any – there’s now speculation as to whether Gibson actually hit Oksana Grigorieva in the mouth, as she claimed, or if that all plays into the extortion theory)."

The link takes you to a brief Entertainment Section story which refers to photos Ms. Grigorieva has given to the police of herself with damage to the veneers on two teeth. Apparently, "sources familiar with the medical charts, photos and examination notes of Grigorieva's dentist indicate there is no evidence Oksana was struck in the mouth."

Well, no sh*t, Sherlock. How could there be? Unless the dentist got DNA off Mel's fist from between her front teeth, all he can say is whether her injuries are "consistent with" or "not consistent with" being punched in the mouth. What he actually said in a sworn statement was that she showed signs of blunt force trauma, and that he was concerned enough for her safety to offer to shelter her himself.

So first, you have a non-professional blogging on a psychology website. Second, she's citing entertainment pieces as if they were investigative journalism. Third, she's accusing Ms. Grigorieva of extortion, and doing it without the courage to come out and say it directly herself, using the mealy-mouthed "there's been speculation".

OK, just for the sake of argument: I think I'd like to strike out on my own with a child, leave my husband. I think that I will cause myself some extremely painful, potentially permanently disfiguring injuries, and tell him if he doesn't give me money, I'll claim he did it to me. Does that make sense to anybody? And does anybody really think that Grigorieva bruised their daughter herself, to make money??

For what it's worth, the police have opened an investigation into the DV allegations. They have not opened one into the extortion claim.

Sparks is also conveniently ignoring two other little minor details, that being Ms. Grigorieva's description of the alleged incident on tape, followed by a little snappy repartee from Mel, to wit, "You know what? You f**cking deserved it." And then there's the photo of the baby, with bruises.

Details, details. 

Next, Sparks asks,

But even amidst all that, it is possible to eventually set aside the inevitable shock and confusion and anger and evaluate the situation. If indeed Mel Gibson is suffering from untreated mental illness, which would be better: Hoping he seeks (and benefits from) professional help, or writing him off as a lunatic lost cause?

Here, the logic breaks down entirely. But let's try to follow it.
#1. Who's confused? You? Not me. I see a clear case of domestic violence here. Yeah, yeah, I know, innocent until proven guilty and all that, but we are not in a court of law. This is a blog.
#2. If indeed, Mel is mentally ill, what does that have to do with anything? Domestic violence is not a mental illness. It is not even about mental illness. (It is not about anger management either, but that's another rant for another day). No, ladies and gentlemen, domestic violence is about power and control. Period.
#3. Bigotry is not a mental illness, either. Not as it is expressed in racism, anti-semitism, or hatred of women.

I defy Ms. Sparks to find me even one sloppy study that shows that bigots or wife-beaters can be helped with diagnosis and treatment of a mental illness.

Alcoholism, of course, is a disease. However, I would also like to see the study that shows that sobering a guy up will make him quit spewing hate-talk, making anti-semitic movies, and hitting people.

Just one. Even a sloppy one.

#4. Mel, according to friends quoted on MTV's website (yet another shining example of investigative journalism, I know, but there you are), is already in therapy. And he already knows he needs to quit drinking.

So what, exactly, is Sparks' point here? Is she saying he shouldn't be held accountable for what he's done? Does she want us to give him a pass?

#5. Who's writing him off? There's a straw man argument if ever I heard one.

No, going back to the title of her piece, I think what she wants is for us to have compassion for him. So I looked it up. Compassion means "deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it."

Funny thing, that describes exactly how I feel about Ms. Grigorieva.