Sunday January 15, 2017
By Jim Taylor
In the apparently endless saga of mass shootings in the Excited States, Esteban Santiago’s stands out.
As we all know by now, 26-year-old Santiago flew from Anchorage, Alaska, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida – despite early news reports, NOT from Canada -- with a gun in his checked baggage. When he got to the Fort Lauderdale airport, he claimed his baggage and unpacked his gun in a washroom.
Emerging into the open airport, he opened fire. Randomly, but accurately. He killed five, seriously wounding six more.
Then he spread-eagled on the floor, waiting for security to arrive.
Unlike most recent mass shootings, Santiago did not die in a hail of police bullets, leaving authorities to guess about his motivations. And often, I suspect, to create conspiracies where none existed. We’re told he has been cooperating with police.
Even so, most news reports have included a line such as, “Terrorism has not been ruled out.” Or perhaps, “Authorities are still investigating possible terrorist links.”
Why, why, oh why must Americans find someone else to blame?
Mental illness explains nothing
Yes, Santiago had some mental problems. He came back from service in Iraq changed, said his friends. “It was like he lost his mind,” his aunt Maria Ruiz told the news media. According to Associated Press, he “had been deeply shaken by seeing a bomb explode next to two friends.”
Santiago went to an FBI office in Alaska and told them he kept hearing voices in his mind, and that CIA spies were forcing him to watch ISIS videos.try to
But ISIS didn’t send him on his killing spree.
Earlier the same week, a Canadian military survivor of the Afghanistan war, Lionel Desmond, also committed suicide after shooting and killing his wife, their 10-year-old daughter, and his mother.
Has it dawned on anybody yet that these killings might have something to do with going to war?
By official figures, 4,424 American service personnel lost their lives over the seven-year Iraq war. That total has been far surpassed by the numbers of veterans committing suicide. Although controversy surrounds the Department of Veterans Affairs’ statistics, it seems clear that the highest suicide rates have occurred among veterans aged 18-29 – the soldiers involved in the most recent wars.
Returning to “normal” civilization apparently inflicts more casualties than an enemy army can.
Refusing to admit mistakes
What are we doing wrong?
In his book When Breath Becomes Air, neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi describes meeting with a talented surgeon “who could not admit when he’d made a mistake… as he begged me to help him save his career.”
“What you have to do,” Kalanithi said, “is to look me in the eye and say, ‘I’m sorry. What happened was my fault, and I won’t let it happen again.’”
“But it was the nurse who---“
“No! You have to be able to say it and mean it. Try again.”
“But---“
“No. Say it!”
Kalanithi ends: “This went on for an hour, before I knew he was doomed.”
Kalanithi’s point is clear – you cannot learn to avoid a mistake until you admit you made a one.
Send ‘em off to war
The mistake we have made, and continue to make, is sending our young people off to war. Yes, we have done it since time immemorial.
But it is simply not possible to train young men and women to kill people who are “different from us,” and then expect them to integrate seamlessly back into a society full of people who are different from them.
We are different because we have not seen our best friends blown up by a bomb. We have not shot anyone in cold blood through sniper’s sights. We have not pushed the button and sends a missile to annihilate a family gathered for a wedding or a birthday.
We simply don’t understand what gnaws at their guts.
Many veterans do integrate again. But many do not.
One summer, I worked with a university student whose father did not laugh once in 13 years after World War II. Was that mental illness? Or memory of intolerable situations?
Esteban Santiago heard voices telling him to do things he didn’t want to do. Was that mental illness? Or memory of intolerable situations?
As long as we send young people with impressionable minds off to war, we will have to deal with the after-effects when they come home.
The mistake is war. And we can only start to repair that mistake after we admit it.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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YOUR TURN
There’s a huge pile of mail this week. You may want to go get a cup of coffee before you start reading it.
I’ve sorted the mail into three groups:
1) Those who shared their own experiences with dementia
2) Those who disputed some or all points in my column
3) Those who objected to doom and gloom in the media (and in some recent letters here).
Fran Ota wrote, “I just returned from a weekend in Edmonton with my sister who has some kind of dementia. All we know is that it isn't Alzheimer's. It manifests in confusion and. And yet if she chooses to be, she is quite functional. It was fascinating to watch her when she decided to do some things, and was quite capable....vs when it was easier to sit and sleep and let someone else do it. She won't put in her hearing aids...which I am sure adds to some of the confusion and 'non sequiturs' in conversation. She doesn't eat enough, and doesn't exercise any more, except her Tai Chi twice a week. So I am finding the actual mechanics, and the sorting of what is dementia and what is just her, quite fascinating. It's more frustrating for her husband. There are so many kinds of dementia, and I suspect each person is different.”
Frank Martens commented, “This was a most interesting column for persons such as myself. I'm 79 going on 80 too quickly. I took a dementia test of 30 questions about 5 years ago, then again last year. The first time I got 30 out of 30, last year I got 27 of 30. At an exponential rate, I should have full blown dementia by 90 years of age, should I live that long. I hope I have the courage to ask my doctor for my last injection and I hope members of my family will grant my wish. What's the point of living if you can't remember who you are?”
Jack Driedger IS 90 years old: “I live in a complex with 400 others over 55 years of age. Part of our complex is reserved for people who are eligible for what we call assisted living. You need to give an accepted reason before you can move into the assisted living area.
“I am much aware of my loss of short term memory. Thus far people assure me it is not yet a problem. How long will it be until people do notice it and start talking about it behind my back?
“Because I am proactive, I gave up driving while I was capable of making that choice. I have likewise appointed my Power of Attorney some time ago who is taking over my affairs while I am still aware of what is going on.
“My brother, who was four years older than I, was not proactive. I would say he was in denial. I do not want to be in denial. Thus far people assure me I am far from being in denial. Of course people don’t want to believe that I am 90 years old.
“Society accepts assisted living. How much longer until society accepts assisted dying?”
Peter Scott also raised the issue of assisted dying: “My mother developed dementia about age 70. My father, who was 4 years older than her, took care of her at home for about 10 years. I, their only child, lived about seven hours away. Fortunately, she did not get violent as some do but gradually she refused to do anything for herself, and as he aged dad became unable to get her in and out of bed or the bathtub. One day he called me and said, ‘This is killing me, I can't do it any longer.’ I went home immediately. I made an appointment for my mother to be interviewed by a nurse from the nursing home and the next day she became a resident there.
“At that point she still sort of recognized us sometimes, but she talked a lot more to her long-dead grandmother than anyone else. Within months she was sitting silent in a row of wheelchairs in the hall when we visited and it was obvious that she recognized no-one.
“To make a long sad story short she ‘lived’ another 12 years in that nursing home. The last nine of those years she spent curled up in a fetal position in her bed making only animal sounds. The staff fed her and cleaned her and kept her body alive but her spirit, her mind, and her personality were all dead and there was nothing that I, even with ‘power of attorney’ could do to free her from the prison of her body. Every year the nursing home sent me a letter asking for permission to give mother a flu shot and every year I refused hoping she would be freed by. Every day I prayed for her to die, and every day the staff of the nursing home worked to keep her alive.
“As a society we have a long way to go to find a compassionate way to deal with individual patients suffering from dementia. I don't fear death but I certainly fear ending my life the way my mother did. I am determined that if I begin to experience the slow slide into dementia I will find a way to end my life in whatever fashion is available to me at the time.”
Charles Hill: “About three years ago I lost a part-time college teaching job because I couldn't remember anything. It took another year to get the diagnosis that a couple strokes had damaged my short-term memory. No damage to my ability to think or reason or write, (I hope), for which I am grateful. I just wouldn't remember your name after you told me… Limiting? Yes! Especially in learning anything new. But I am still doing a little work for which I am paid. Brain damage comes in many forms. Be charitable to individuals with cognitive disabilities.”
David Gilchrist picked up on the toll on caregivers: “Having watched my grandmother-in-law and then mother-in-law develop Alzheimers, I know the toll it can take. When my sister-in-law was angry with my wife and a third sister for putting their mother in care, she took her into her own home, and soon found out that no one can be on duty 24/7!”
Similarly, this from Ruth Shaver: “As a pastor, I have seen dementia in many forms take its toll on entire family systems. The patient, after a certain point, is (blessedly?) unaware of the turmoil caused by the degradation of his/her functioning while the primary caregiver(s) slide into a world so small that the outside might as well not exist except for the travel corridors to doctors' offices and hospitals. Churches and other community organizations often try to step up to help, but families are often so internally focused that they can't even tell others how to help. Perhaps one of the bright spots in 2017 will be news on the prevention/reversal front for at least some forms of dementia. In the meantime, we can all be ready to help and prepared to encourage caregivers to take time away every week, if not every day.”
And Bonita Garrett wrote, “My frustration is with an ill-prepared homecare system. Homecare can assist with getting someone up and dressed for the day, assisting with personal grooming, change dressings, readiness for bed, and a host of physical needs. However, homecare was not created to provide companionship for people unable to access day programs, i.e., to be with an individual with dementia to eat with them, play cards, watch TV, take them walking, etc. -- to provide the daily stimulation necessary for a happier, more secure life. And the many friends and family members who 'retire' or move to part time work, to accommodate the needs of a person with dementia, are not compensated or acknowledged as part of the health care system. For too many members of congregations that I've been in ministry with, the emotional and financial strain is great.”
Okay, now for the contrary opinions.
Alex McGilvery wrote, “We need to be as careful in our doomsaying as in our optimism. New studies in the US and Europe show the rate of dementia declining sharply, by as much as 25% in the last while. Increased education is getting tentative credit. It makes the goal of universal education that much more important.
“Speaking of education, rates for that are going up while the rate of population growth slows. Last I read, the UN estimated the turning point to be about 11 billion in around 2050. Increasing efforts to educate will speed the process. We don't need to do anything about population; reducing poverty and increasing education will take care of it.
“The real dementia is the societal demand for an unsustainable standard of living, and one which is making us less happy. When we can look around and see our rat race for what it is, global warming, mass extinctions, and other disasters will become beatable.
Bob Stoddard had a similar comment: “Your ‘sky is falling’ scenario does not seem to consider the studies in the United Kingdom and the United States which found significant DECREASES in dementia occurrences in the last five years.”
Steve Roney denied my claim that people were in denial: “Sure, I deny it! A smaller proportion of people than ever before, at every age group, are getting dementia. That is not characteristic of an epidemic.”
Steve went on to deny every other example I cited.
I had used the Alzheimer’s Society’s date of 2031 as a crisis point. Robert Rollwagen took that up: “I have been preaching at every opportunity that ‘it is coming and we have been watching it and ignoring it for decades.’ I doubt 2031 will be any more significant than 2017. It will just be another year in the same direction and very few people are even aware of it.”
Ted Swart didn’t challenge my presentation on dementia, but did on my reference to global warming: “The truth is that the extra CO2 is not merely benign (in the sense of doing no harm) but positively beneficial to plant life on Earth and thus to all life on Earth.
“In a recent talk and associated article called ‘Warming versus greening,’ Matt Ridley (PhD in Biology, University of Oxford) sets out in detail the benefits of the extra CO2. (Even if extra CO2 does cause some warming this is hardly a bad thing since, in the main, warming is better than cooling).
“In fact actual thermometer readings show that there has been no warming for some 19 years -- completely contrary to what the CO2 alarmists forecasted. The only irrefutable consequence of the CO2 is that it acts as a fertilizer which increases crop yields and is particularly beneficial to plants in arid regions -- by making them more robust and drought resistant. This has been unambiguously confirmed by satellite measurements which show that the extra CO2 has indeed been ‘greening' the earth.”
Now some space for the more optimistic.
Betty Darby wrote, “I am no Pollyanna -- but so far I do maintain hope that life can be better. I can only do that by believing that the small things we do can make a difference -- maybe only in one life or one garden -- but they may also have some ‘pebble/wave’ effect.... Many years ago in Haiti, having just returned from being with a family as their child died of Tetanus, I wailed about children dying needlessly and what was the point of feeding them and caring for them only to have them die from preventable causes. My hopeful partner said, we cannot know the future -- we can only do the best we can in the moment we are in. So I have held on to that premise while hell sometimes unfolds around me!
“Pessimism, I think, leads to despair -- to immobility or to violence -- and we certainly are seeing it in our world these days -- but I am still trusting that the ‘hopeful’ ones can turn the tide!”
Pat Grant: “I'm astounded that so many find no progress from the time of the Romans. Admittedly, we live in a privileged part of the world. Yet many see life, even here, as 'hopeless'.
“But –
“Medically, changes have been astronomical. I am almost 80. In my lifetime, amazing things have happened. In my own family, we have had three kidney transplants (my husband and two sons... We are increasing efforts to help throughout the world with solid, practical groups like Medicines Sans Frontiers, Red Cross and Red Crescent, and so many more. People now live who used to die.
“Educationally, we continue to improve our standards. Curriculums now teach what was Grade 12 content in Grade 9 or earlier. With determination and not much funding, a child who really wants to pursue a trade, a college training, or a degree can find his or her way to that goal.
“Economically, I hope we are on the way to a guaranteed income. Earlier experiments have proven that such a program produces people who are more eager to try new ventures, to prove themselves capable of much more than the given income grants them. People live in decent housing who used to live on dirt floors.
“Socially, we are more open to meeting with those of other cultures, exchanging ideas and customs, learning from different world views, rather than automatically dismissing them as 'foreign'.
“Legally, many parts of the world have outlawed the death penalty. That has not led to an increase in violence, but, I would argue, an increase in civility.
“[Of course] one can find horrendous examples of the opposite. Much, much more needs to be done. But, peace and decency do exist. Kindness and enlightenment have increased in the last 50 years. I have seen it. Frankly, hopelessness is stupid. To deny hope is to deny the facts.”
Isabel Gibson continued that theme: “Lying in bed this morning, I heard part of a half-hour advertisement for in-house water filtration systems to remove chlorine and ‘other contaminants’ from our water, linking that to the rise in dementia. Is this science in any sense, or more of the vaccine/autism hysteria? I don't know.”
Isabel cited a quotation: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't exist."
And then continued, “Maybe the greatest trick was convincing people there's no hope. Because when we lose hope, we lose both the will to fight evil (when that's required), and the energy to work on problems (which is required way more often, in my view).”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net