Just Don't

So this bothers me quite a bit. I wasn’t going to say anything about Robin Williams because I actually wasn’t surprised like everybody else seemed to be. And I’m not saying that to be an asshole.

I have lived with bipolar disorder for seventeen years. Most people wouldn’t guess that—couldn’t guess that. I see my psychiatrist, take my meds, and go to counseling if and when I need it. It’s work. It’s difficult and sticky and humbling. And it’s heart-breaking to see somebody go the way Robin Williams did. Some people self-medicate like Williams had in the past. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I understand the appeal. I understand the need to feel numb and to quiet the voices in your head. And sometimes that period of numbness doesn’t feel long enough.

What frustrates me is reading Christian quotes from people who can’t understand the disease.

Stop.

It’s offensive and it trivializes a struggle most couldn’t begin to understand. Those pithy platitudes suggest the people battling depression have somehow lost their way. It suggests that they gave up on God or whatever higher power they believed in. That’s not how depression/bipolar/schizophrenia works. Depression is a sickness.

The particular quote that caused this rant is from Corrie ten Boom and says “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

Fuck off. This isn’t Nazi Germany. The bad guys aren’t easily identified by a swastika on their sleeve.

Let me tell you something. Suicide isn’t spontaneous. Those thoughts sit there and slowly chew away at your resolve. They weed out any happiness and hope that you might have and shine a big ol’ spotlight on all the failures in your life, people you’ve hurt, and betrayals that have been inflicted upon you. It separates you from your friends and family by causing you to lash out at them. Depression is a dark corner where the only discernable company is guilt, doubt, and loathing.

Imagine someone who has battled this quiet monster for years, decades. And what is your suggestion?

Jesus take the wheel?

Trust an intangible deity that (if you do believe) has given you a pretty crap hand to do all the heavy lifting?

What you view as a supportive spiritual quote I see as censure. Don’t offer advice that you’re unfit to give. Don’t presume to know their pain because you felt depressed that one time. Being depressed and having depression are not the same.

It’s a dick move. Not everybody believes in God. That’s their business. It doesn’t mean that the absence of faith explains the outcome. All it means is that the depression was too much. The monster won and at the end of the day, the world lost somebody that meant something to the people around him or her. It’s harsh and ugly. Don’t piss on their struggle by suggesting it could have turned out differently if they just thought happy thoughts.

So if you think you have the solution to depression and suicide, just don’t. People who’ve fought this internal battle daily have already heard it. More than likely they’ve gone to therapy. Medicated. Self-medicated. Used art to express their pain and sex as a distraction. Cut off all their hair, changed their diet, and experimented with God. They’ve bargained and prayed and still felt dirty and hollow inside. And sometimes—if they’re lucky—they manage to find and hold onto a sliver of tranquility by believing in God or not, but that threat of darkness will always be there.

Feel free to do all the praying you find necessary, but don’t suggest that mental illness is something that can be prayed away. The best you can do for friends with depression is get them professional help and let them know you’re there, that you’ll listen, and that you care.

Civil Rights Summit

This is my final semester of undergrad before I head to Seattle and the University of Washington. I’ve been accepted into the iSchool, and I’m extremely grateful and excited about the move. So to help decide if I want to pursue a future in a traditional library setting or if I want to do archival work, I’m interning at the LBJ Presidential Library. It has been, hands down, the coolest internship I could have found.

President Lincoln's and LBJ's hats with the Emancipation Proclamation.

This year marked the 50^th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of ’64 and the Library hosted the Civil Rights Summit. I was told that more than likely I wouldn’t be able to attend the summit, and I was understandably disappointed. So I did my work and hoped against hope that I would be one of the first people to get a ticket when they went up on the website. Three minutes of being on stand-by and all the tickets were gone. A few days before the summit, the digital archivist I work with told me her husband wouldn’t be able to see Obama with her and asked if I wanted to be her plus one. Of course I said yes!

I was working the first day of the summit and Liza, the same archivist who asked if I wanted to see Obama, turned to me and gave me a ticket to the daytime panels. Of course I said yes and went to see the panel Gay Marriage: A Civil Rights Issue. The second panel was on immigration reform. So, the summit started off strong.

I went back upstairs because there was still plenty of work to do. Liza was trying to get a ticket to see Jimmy Carter that was on hold for a UT student and there was a mix-up. What did she do with the extra ticket? She sent me back down to see President Carter speak.

I wasn’t too familiar with Carter’s work, but he left quite an impression. His current work addresses the war on women and he spoke on everything from unequal pay to sexual slavery. I was so moved by his words that I bought his book. He’s a wonderful, kind man. And, it was a privilege to be in the auditorium to witness his interview the Mark Updegrove.

I had school on Wednesday so I couldn’t go to the panels or see Bill Clinton, but I was there bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for President Obama’s visit the next morning. Another archivist asked if I was going to the other daytime panels, and I told her that I didn’t have a ticket for it. She handed me hers, saying that she had to drive her husband to work and couldn't make the panels. Another break for Vicky. Staff was thoughtfully ushered to the front of the line and we were able to get the seats behind the VIPs.

I was in the 11^th row.

First Lady Michelle Obama and civil rights leader John Lewis.

Meeting Wendy Davis.

I seriously sat stunned by the experience that I missed what the President was actually saying for the first couple of minutes. He quoted both Martin Luther King, Jr. and LBJ and stressed that without the work done by those two men and all the individuals involved with the civil rights movement, he wouldn’t be where he was and we as a nation wouldn’t be where we are. The Civil Rights Act opened doors for us all.

Putin--WTO--Obama

The World Trade Organization handles the trade between nations through regulation and negotiation.

Apparently President Putin is attacking the Ukraine economically and trying to sever its connection with the United States and any support offered. Putin is claiming that the U.S. sanctions regarding the Ukraine and Russian banks are illegal.

President Obama then responded that he will impose more sanctions if Putin refuses to call off the pro-Russian militant groups in the Ukraine.

Everything about this is strategic and sadly the people of Ukraine are the pawns. I think world leaders are desensitized by the time they’ve amassed power and tend to forget that actual people are the ones who are severely affected by the political moves they make.

It’s more than money and Putin using the WTO to cut off Ukraine from another country with its own agenda other than the supposed fight for democracy doesn’t surprise me.

[Reuters/Gleb Garanich] Pro-Russian armed man in Ukraine.

Bollywood

So my friend Sami loves Bollywood. Naturally because I love Jane Austen, she once felt I should watch Bride and Prejudice. Perhaps I’m a purist, but I don’t like my Austen contemporized, set in a different culture, to a trendy sound track, and for the love of god please leave the zombies out. Just give me Mr. Darcy and let me swoon. And not just any Mr. Darcy; it has to be Colin Firth.

Sami is a unique person.

She’s half British and has no accent. Seriously, I’ve heard her attempt at a British accent and I was offended on her mother’s behalf.

She also has a tendency to be pulled aside by airport security every time she flies across the pond.

I went to study Jane Austen literature in Scotland. My professor was British, we read a Jane Austen novel a week, and I was in heaven. Before my move to Scotland, Sami agreed to meet me in Wales and we would take a few days to travel up the United Kingdom by train.

Sami was doing a summer internship in the United States Embassy and I was so nervous about being questioned at customs for a visa that I blabbed all about Sami. Apparently, I crack under non-existent pressure.

So, Sami likes Bollywood. Bollywood and tea.

Perhaps if I enjoyed unapologetic escapism in the form of musical numbers I could appreciate it more. But there’s something about musicals that rub me the wrong way. They’re either too cheerful or too depressing. I’m looking at you, Rent.

I get that there is deep history in Bollywood that has to deal with British colonialism. But I refuse to believe this is Naveen Andrews singing.

My Sister

On Monday, March 10, 2014, my sister became the happiest I’ve ever known her to be. She married the love of her life and is enjoying the happiness and misery that only married people will have the privilege of knowing.

I, of course, was at SXSW toasting to their union and shouting, “My sister just got married!”

When people asked why I wasn’t at the wedding, I answered that having her family tag along would defeat the purpose of an elopement. The truth is I would have loved to be there to officially welcome Erin into our family, but I couldn’t afford to leave Texas. As it so happens, Texas wouldn’t allow them to get married because Alicia and Erin are a same-sex couple.

Some people don’t understand what happens when you tell a couple that their love cannot be taken seriously because of their sexuality. They think that it is a matter of respecting the sacred bond of matrimony and that marriage should be between a man and a woman. They think that their religious views should be venerated, while refusing to acknowledge that just because someone is gay it doesn’t mean they don’t believe in God.

It’s not saying, “Please respect my beliefs.”

It’s saying, “Please don’t argue when I don’t allow you the same rights as everybody else.”

I felt that Erin was my sister long before they said their vows. I felt it by seeing how hard they loved and the sincerity in their joy. I felt it every time she made my sister laugh, that loud, obnoxious bark that startles their cats, Bones and Mr. Sulu.

I am so proud to call them my sisters. I’m happy that they grabbed the world by the lapels, gave it a good shake, and said, “Dammit, we can love too.”

SXSW and the Rodeo

So the past few weeks have had me running ragged. The craziness of SXSW just ended a couple of weeks ago, and I’m still recovering. I’ve never actually done it before—gone downtown to enjoy all the free music and festivities. So to sum it up, I RSVP’d to a bunch of newsletters and events online. These venues would then email me the location to pick up a wristband that would get me into free parties downtown. Folks, I spent a week waiting in long lines for free, watered down drinks, listening to a bunch of bands I’ve never heard before. Some of the music was good, some of the food was decent, but the trick to having a good time is tipping the bartenders. I got some free stuff and had a good time with my friends, but doing it all week long was simply not possible. I was actually relieved to go into work on Tuesday and Thursday just so I could relax.

I saw Grumpy Cat and sat on the Iron Throne. I rode a mechanical bull and was proposed to by someone who was surprisingly sober—not that I was. I stood in long food lines, eating before getting more food and going back to the end of the line and doing it again. I was three sheets to the wind and silly enough to remember how fun playing with toys could be. (We will miss you Toy Joy.) I’m glad I did it and can honestly say I will never do it again.

Besides… I like ACL better.

So before SXSW really got going, Cynthia and I decided to go to the rodeo. We bought tickets and were planning on riding the rides at the carnival before watching cowboys getting bucked off of god knows what.

Things don’t always happen the way you envision them. It was raining and cold. I’ve lived in Scotland so I wasn’t too fazed by it, but Cynthia had left her jacket at the apartment so she wasn’t having as nearly a good time as I. Oh, we still rode some rides. Maybe I’m getting too old, but the rides actually hurt. The centrifugal force was putting too much pressure on my poor joints. My shoulders and hip felt the worst of it, and I was honestly happy to climb off of some of the rides.

Everything at the carnival was bought with tokens, including the carny food. I ate so much junk that I told Cynthia not to let me buy the funnel cake. (It’s okay; I got my fix later that week at SXSW).

We enjoyed the rodeo more, at least I did. See, this was Cynthia’s kind of thing—nothing new to her. But me? Oh, it was like Christmas morning. “What’s that?” “What’s happening?” “Oh, look at all the pretty lights!”

I had a great time even if I did get mud all over my Chucks and my clothes smelled like stock yard. It was a Texas adventure and I went for it.

Jihadist Globalism

I will be the first to admit that I was, and still am to an extent, unconversant in the topic of jihadism. So to help explain I went to my friend Gabby to “dumb it down” for me. Even then, I needed to do internet research while she was explaining things.

Jihad translates to struggle, and in the concept two different types were born. Greater jihad is about inner struggle while lesser jihad is about the struggle against those seen as a threat to the religion. This is the jihad that has become associated with terrorism.

The goal behind jihadist globalism is spreading Islam worldwide. The structure is not hierarchical; with globalism it has a horizontal web of leadership now.

Now, the really interesting thing about any type of globalism is the myth that it can be regulated. Most sectors in globalism can be regulated; however, jihadist globalism is not one of them. Militant Islamic groups are fighting a religious war and rules that apply to collaborative knowledge or economic ties cannot be applied to jihadist globalism.

For a better understanding of meaning in the term jihad, I recommend this TED Talk.