Joseph's House

I stayed after church today to hear a presentation about Joseph's House, a home for otherwise homeless terminally ill (mostly cancer and HIV / AIDS) patients in DC. It's a small house, with room for only 6 at a time. This is like a hospice in that it's where dying patients go to live out their last days in dignity. More information is at their website:http://www.josephshouse.org/

Our presenter gave us a moving account of life at Joseph's House. They celebrate each patient as a uniques and loved individual. Many patients have not felt loved in years. Staff and patients have vigils for those closest to death. Every patient dies surrounded by people who know and care for them. Each time someone dies, the staff and residents have a service where they make a card with the person's name on it. Then the card sits on the mantel for a time. Each May, they have a service for all the patients who died in the past year. All the cards are buried in a box, and flowers are planted on the grave. They had 37 cards in last May's box. 

You may know that DC's HIV / AIDS incidence rate is among the highest in the world. TheCDC's official definition of an epidemic is: "The occurrence of more cases of disease than expected in a given area or among a specific group of people over a particular period of time." Since some diseases become more prevalent or lethal over time, while others become less severe, the CDC must adjust its statistical models to alter the definition of what's truly more than expected. Currently, HIV / AIDS is epidemic in an area if more than 1% of the population is active. In DC, the reported cases affect 3% of the population--and it's widely believed that as many as half of the cases are not reported.

DC has over 15,000 people living with HIV in a population of under 600,000. Using the population and illness data in the World Clock app at the bottom of this blog, that rate is almost 500 times the global rate.

In addition to attending to the sick in their last days, Joseph's House also calls attention to issues of social justice. Why do we have an HIV / AIDS epidemic in the Nation's capitol?The question is even sharper when one realizes that 90% of the District's cases are found in less than 20% of the District's area. Poor housing conditions and a lack of opportunities lead many people to lose hope. The black community in Southeast DC is disproportionately involved in drug abuse, crime, and the incidence of HIV / AIDS. With 25% of the black men in prison, women outnumber men. This severely reduces their power in relationships. Women, especially those with children to care for, often tolerate abusive behavior from men just to survive from day to day. Many black women with AIDS at Joseph House are rape victims who didn't even bother to take their medicine. Getting medicine is not the issue. They have no home, so there is no way to keep their medicine refrigerated. More to the point, they have no hope for a long term future. Life is a daily struggle to survive.

I applaud Joseph House for alerting these terminally ill patients to the dignity that is theirs as members of the human family. Yet I remain concerned about the conditions of poverty, ignorance, and despair that have filled Southeast DC with so many homeless, terminally ill HIV / AIDS patients. I have the sense that, were AIDS cured today, soon a new pestilence would strike in this disadvantaged group. When I think about the obstacles and challenges in my own life, I can imagine everything working out fine. I have a hard time accepting that many people are convinced they were born to die alone and forgotten on the street.

Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell

Further proof that I have the greatest boss ever: we found ourselves enjoying a political sidebar which got even more interesting when he asked me whether I had heard of Neil Postman. I wished I could say yes, but I am a poor bluffer, so I admitted the truth. He went on to describe the reason for his inquiry: Postman's juxtaposition of Huxley and Orwell. I did confess some awareness of these great authors and their most famous works: A Brave New World and 1984, respectively.  


So who got it right, Huxley or Orwell? Whose vision of the future was most accurate? My knee-jerk reaction: Orwell. Think of the regulation, the control, the standards, and the conformance. Ironically, tellingly, even non-conformists complain about the same things using the same techniques. Huxley's vision was, comparatively speaking, a Utopia.


Not so fast, says my boss.


Postman's book is called Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. Given the title (PhilosFX) and purpose (philosophical musings about life with special effects) of this blog, I can scarcely imagine a more intriguing book title. Postman argues in his book that it was Huxley, not Orwell, who actually got it right, at least for this country. Orwell's post-Soviet world best describes the Taliban at this point in time. And I admit--I am not likely to suffer from a dearth of information in this country. I am far more likely to suffer from the opposite, a flood of information and a gradual dulling of the senses brought about by overexposure. Many people spend too much time watching TV and surfing the net. People can be exposed to so much information that the next bit has no marginal value. It's not censorship or propaganda that will do us in. It's the moment we stop caring whether what we hear or see it true or not. 


For more information, I refer the reader to a cartoon based on Postman's work, which can be found at this link: Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death. The same site also offers links to related tid-bits. For example, you can read the foreword from Postman's thought-provoking book. You can watch a 60-minute lecture by Neil Postman on technology and society. 


What do you think? Huxley, or Orwell?

Elvis Costello's National Ransom live today: On Point

Quick! What time is NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook on in your neck of the woods?

http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/11/elvis-costello-national-ransom

Local NPR station programming schedule may vary.

Brew Masters with Sammy Calagione

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Start your DVRs!

Series premiere for Discovery Channel's Brew Masters is 10 pm, Nov 21. The series is hosted by non other than Dogfish Head's Sammy Calagione.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/brew-masters-series-premiere.html

The trailer alone makes me thirsty!

Take it down a notch for America

We have just made it through the most expensive, and arguably the most caustic, election in our Nation's history. The ubiquitous negative campaign ads were, unfortunately, effective. This is unfortunate because we will undoubtedly see more of the same.

Despite all the hyperbole that accompanied a GOP rally in this mid-term election, Speaker-Presumptive Boehner has shown appropriate humility in his reaction to the bloodless transfer of power. Speaking of class, I wish more people could show as much class in victory as John McCain did in defeat. In contrast to the examples of McCain and Boehner, some of the honking and hoopla I've seen from partisan groups seems more appropriate for ringside at a WWE wrestling smack-down.

Politics may have devolved to theatrics in this country, but the actual work of public administration is still serious business. Anyone who has felt the heavy mantle of leadership would be concerned about interpreting the "will of the (short attention span, what's in it for me, blood-sport watching) people."

Steering the ship of state requires good judgement, sound rigging, a competent crew, and a bit of luck. We can still get where we want to go as a Nation, or we can lose focus and run aground. The cash-infused rabid rebel ruckus that characterized this election season is not helping.  Let's look at the issues, let's discuss them with our neighbors, let's let our elected representatives know what works and what doesn't. They'll listen, if they can hear. Let's take it down a notch for America.

Onwards and upwards...

       "Nobody trips over mountains.  It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble.  Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain."

                       ~ Author Unknown



       "Building a business, or any large task for that matter [ahem, like writing a dissertation?], is a process that you must take one step at a time.  It's the little things that can sometimes be the biggest obstacles.  If you're feeling overwhelmed by the big picture, try tackling just one thing, then another, and another.  And, don't forget to give yourself a well deserved pat on the back as you finish each task."

                         ~ Michelle Henry




If you are like me, you may have a tendency to dismiss bromides such as these. Pass all the pebbles and viola! You crossed the mountain.  Right!  Life is more complicated than that. Or am I just paying too much attention to complexity and detail at the expense of striding out? 


I decided to post and comment about these inspirational quotes today because I do support the underlying truth they contain. It's easy, too easy, to get distracted by the small stuff in our lives. It's hard, very hard, to recognize the small stuff for what it is when we encounter it. Which pebble can I safely step over or on, and which other pebble will get in my shoe or cause me to slide down the mountain? 


Am I alone on this? I don't think so. We're all climbing mountains of one sort or another, but there are pebbles on the path. Making progress is not as easy as ignoring the pebbles. Every step exposes the climber to a new array of pebble-like distractions. We may toil at clearing the path, but the next step seems to bring more pebbles. Perhaps the trick is to see the pebbles and spend just enough energy to decide whether to step on, over, or around them.


What if I slip or stumble? Fear of failure causes us to get really good at the wrong thing--avoiding mistakes. We obsess over our To Do list. We re-write the paragraph ten times. We sort and categorize and polish our pebbles.


What if I reach the summit and realize only then that I climbed the wrong mountain? Fear of success causes us to focus on all the pretty rocks on our path. Life is full of so many interesting distractions. We fritter away our time and energy on pursuits that are only tangentially related to our main effort. Wouldn't it be a pity to miss out on the simple joys of life because we were so hell-bent on getting to the top?


The smart climber will recognize that some balance is a good thing. There may be more than one path to the peak, so I will strive to be open to options, but not to the extent that I stop moving. The peak I can see from today's vantage point may not be the actual summit, so I will be prepared for disappointment, but I must keep moving. There is time for clearing pebbles, but only to the extent that I can keep moving. I climb the mountain I am on, right or wrong, because it makes no sense to worry about someone else's mountain. I climb to the best of my ability, while trying to get better at what matters. There is only so much room in the rucksack for non-essentials, so maybe it's time to give away the rock collection and get back to climbing a little faster. 


Pass all the pebbles and life will be perfect, right?  No, not quite. The process of climbing asks us to climb while noticing the pebbles and thinking about each step, but climbing, always climbing, always moving onwards and upwards.

A Voice In the Dark

You can read right through a book of matches
But that won't make you smart
You can laugh in the face of watches
But time will only break your heart

                           --Elvis Costello, 

                             A Voice In the Dark, 

                             on National Ransom