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"What's So Bad About Hate" (pt. 1)

2010-11-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

By Andrew Sullivan (part 1)

I.
I wonder what was going on in John William King's head two years ago when he tied James Byrd Jr.'s feet to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him three miles down a road in rural Texas. King and two friends had picked up Byrd, who was black, when he was walking home, half-drunk, from a party. As part of a bonding ritual in their fledgling white supremacist group, the three men took Byrd to a remote part of town, beat him and chained his legs together before attaching them to the truck. Pathologists at King's trial testified that Byrd was probably alive and conscious until his body finally hit a culvert and split in two. When King was offered a chance to say something to Byrd's family at the trial, he smirked and uttered an obscenity. We know all these details now, many months later. We know quite a large amount about what happened before and after. But I am still drawn, again and again, to the flash of ignition, the moment when fear and loathing became hate, the instant of transformation when King became hunter and Byrd became prey.What was that? And what was it when Buford Furrow Jr., longtime member of the Aryan Nations, calmly walked up to a Filipino-American mailman he happened to spot, asked him to mail a letter and then shot him at point-blank range? Or when Russell Henderson beat Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, to a pulp, removed his shoes and then, with the help of a friend, tied him to a post, like a dead coyote, to warn off others? For all our documentation of these crimes and others, our political and moral disgust at them, our morbid fascination with them, our sensitivity to their social meaning, we seem at times to have no better idea now than we ever had of what exactly they were about. About what that moment means when, for some reason or other, one human being asserts absolute, immutable superiority over another. About not the violence, but what the violence expresses. About what -- exactly -- hate is. And what our own part in it may be. I find myself wondering what hate actually is in part because we have created an entirely new offense in American criminal law -- a ''hate crime'' -- to combat it. And barely a day goes by without someone somewhere declaring war against it. Last month President Clinton called for an expansion of hate-crime laws as ''what America needs in our battle against hate.'' A couple of weeks later, Senator John McCain used a campaign speech to denounce the ''hate'' he said poisoned the land. New York's Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, recently tried to stop the Million Youth March in Harlem on the grounds that the event was organized by people ''involved in hate marches and hate rhetoric.'' The media concurs in its emphasis. In 1985, there were 11 mentions of ''hate crimes'' in the national media database Nexis.
By 1990, there were more than a thousand. In the first six months of 1999, there were 7,000. ''Sexy fun is one thing,'' wrote a New York Times reporter about sexual assaults in Woodstock '99's mosh pit. ''But this was an orgy of lewdness tinged with hate.'' And when Benjamin Smith marked the Fourth of July this year by targeting blacks, Asians and Jews for murder in Indiana and Illinois, the story wasn't merely about a twisted young man who had emerged on the scene. As The Times put it, ''Hate arrived in the neighborhoods of Indiana University, in Bloomington, in the early-morning darkness.'' But what exactly was this thing that arrived in the early-morning darkness? For all our zeal to attack hate, we still have a remarkably vague idea of what it actually is. A single word, after all, tells us less, not more. For all its emotional punch, ''hate'' is far less nuanced an idea than prejudice, or bigotry, or bias, or anger, or even mere aversion to others. Is it to stand in for all these varieties of human experience -- and everything in between? If so, then the war against it will be so vast as to be quixotic. Or is ''hate'' to stand for a very specific idea or belief, or set of beliefs, with a very specific object or group of objects? Then waging war against it is almost certainly unconstitutional. Perhaps these kinds of questions are of no concern to those waging war on hate. Perhaps it is enough for them that they share a sentiment that there is too much hate and never enough vigilance in combating it. But sentiment is a poor basis for law, and a dangerous tool in politics. It is better to leave some unwinnable wars unfought.

2010-11-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

A WOMAN'S WEEK AT THE GYM

If you read this without laughing out loud, there is something wrong with you This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine.

Dear Diary,

For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Belinda, who identified herself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.

My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
________________________________

MONDAY: Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Belinda waiting for me. She is something of a Greek goddess - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!! Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which she conducted her aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!
Belinda was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time she was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!
________________________________

TUESDAY: I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Belinda made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then she put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but Imade the full mile. Belinda's rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT-!! It's a whole new life for me.

_______________________________

WEDNESDAY: The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn't try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot. Belinda was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. Her voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when she scolds, she gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.
My chest hurt when I got on the tread mill, so Belinda put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Belinda told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. She said some other shit too.
_______________________________

THURSDAY: Belinda was waiting for me with her vampire-like teeth exposed as her thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't help being a half an hour late - it took me that long to tie my shoes. Belinda took me to work out with dumbbells. When she was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. She sent another skinny bi*** to find me.
Then, as punishment, she put me on the rowing machine -- which I sank. _______________________________

FRIDAY: I hate that bi*** Belinda more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic little cheerleader. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat her with it.
Belinda wanted me to work on my triceps. I don't have any triceps! And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director? ________________________________

SATURDAY: Belinda left a message on my answering machine in her grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing her voice made me want to smash the machine with my planner; however, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.
________________________________

SUNDAY: I'm having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter(the little sh**) will choose a
gift for me that is fun --like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 2)

2010-11-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan (part 2)

II.
Hate is everywhere. Human beings generalize all the time, ahead of time, about everyone and everything. A large part of it may even be hard-wired. At some point in our evolution, being able to know beforehand who was friend or foe was not merely a matter of philosophical reflection. It was a matter of survival. And even today it seems impossible to feel a loyalty without also feeling a disloyalty, a sense of belonging without an equal sense of unbelonging. We're social beings. We associate. Therefore we disassociate. And although it would be comforting to think that the one could happen without the other, we know in reality that it doesn't. How many patriots are there who have never felt a twinge of xenophobia? Of course by hate, we mean something graver and darker than this kind of lazy prejudice. But the closer you look at this distinction, the fuzzier it gets. Much of the time, we harbor little or no malice toward people of other backgrounds or places or ethnicities or ways of life. But then a car cuts you off at an intersection and you find yourself noticing immediately that the driver is a woman, or black, or old, or fat, or white, or male. Or you are walking down a city street at night and hear footsteps quickening behind you. You look around and see that it is a white woman and not a black man, and you are instantly relieved. These impulses are so spontaneous they are almost involuntary. But where did they come from? The mindless need to be mad at someone -- anyone -- or the unconscious eruption of a darker prejudice festering within? In 1993, in San Jose, Calif., two neighbors -- one heterosexual, one homosexual -- were engaged in a protracted squabble over grass clippings. (The full case is recounted in ''Hate Crimes,'' by James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter.) The gay man regularly mowed his lawn without a grass catcher, which prompted his neighbor to complain on many occasions that grass clippings spilled over onto his driveway. Tensions grew until one day, the gay man mowed his front yard, spilling clippings onto his neighbor's driveway, prompting the straight man to yell an obscene and common anti-gay insult. The wrangling escalated. At one point, the gay man agreed to collect the clippings from his neighbor's driveway but then later found them dumped on his own porch. A fracas ensued with the gay man spraying the straight man's son with a garden hose, and the son hitting and kicking the gay man several times, yelling anti-gay slurs. The police were called, and the son was eventually convicted of a hate-motivated assault, a felony. But what was the nature of the hate: anti-gay bias, or suburban property-owner madness? Or take the Labor Day parade last year in Broad Channel, a small island in Jamaica Bay, Queens. Almost everyone there is white, and in recent years a group of local volunteer firefighters has taken to decorating a pickup truck for the parade in order to win the prize for ''funniest float.'' Their themes have tended toward the outrageously provocative. Beginning in 1995, they won prizes for floats depicting ''Hasidic Park,'' ''Gooks of Hazzard'' and ''Happy Gays.'' Last year, they called their float ''Black to the Future, Broad Channel 2098.'' They imagined their community a century hence as a largely black enclave, with every stereotype imaginable: watermelons, basketballs and so on. At one point during the parade, one of them mimicked the dragging death of James Byrd. It was caught on videotape, and before long the entire community was depicted as a caldron of hate. It's an interesting case, because the float was Jacobs and Kimberly Potter.) The gay man regularly mowed his lawn without a grass catcher, which prompted his neighbor to complain on many occasions that grass clippings spilled over onto his driveway. Tensions grew until one day, the gay man mowed his front yard, spilling clippings onto his neighbor's driveway, prompting the straight man to yell an obscene and common anti-gay insult. The wrangling escalated. At one point, the gay man agreed to collect the clippings from his neighbor's driveway but then later found them dumped on his own porch. A fracas ensued with the gay man spraying the straight man's son with a garden hose, and the son hitting and kicking the gay man several times, yelling anti-gay slurs. The police were called, and the son was eventually convicted of a hate-motivated assault, a felony. But what was the nature of the hate: anti-gay bias, or suburban property-owner madness? Or take the Labor Day parade last year in Broad Channel, a small island in Jamaica Bay, Queens. Almost everyone there is white, and in recent years a group of local volunteer firefighters has taken to decorating a pickup truck for the parade in order to win the prize for ''funniest float.'' Their themes have tended toward the outrageously provocative. Beginning in 1995, they won prizes for floats depicting ''Hasidic Park,'' ''Gooks of Hazzard'' and ''Happy Gays.'' Last year, they called their float ''Black to the Future, Broad Channel 2098.'' They imagined their community a century hence as a largely black enclave, with every stereotype imaginable: watermelons, basketballs and so on. At one point during the parade, one of them mimicked the dragging death of James Byrd. It was caught on videotape, and before long the entire community was depicted as a caldron of hate. It's an interesting case, because the float was indisputably in bad taste and the improvisation on the Byrd killing was grotesque. But was it hate? The men on the float were local heroes for their volunteer work; they had no record of bigoted activity, and were not members of any racist organizations. In previous years, they had made fun of many other groups and saw themselves more as provocateurs than bigots. When they were described as racists, it came as a shock to them. They apologized for poor taste but refused to confess to bigotry. ''The people involved aren't horrible people,'' protested a local woman. ''Was it a racist act? I don't know. Are they racists? I don't think so.'' If hate is a self-conscious activity, she has a point. The men were primarily motivated by the desire to shock and to reflect what they thought was their community's culture. Their display was not aimed at any particular black people, or at any blacks who lived in Broad Channel -- almost none do. But if hate is primarily an unconscious activity, then the matter is obviously murkier. And by taking the horrific lynching of a black man as a spontaneous object of humor, the men were clearly advocating indifference to it. Was this an aberrant excess? Or the real truth about the men's feelings toward African-Americans? Hate or tastelessness? And how on earth is anyone, even perhaps the firefighters themselves, going to know for sure? Or recall H.L. Mencken. He shared in the anti-Semitism of his time with more alacrity than most and was an indefatigable racist. ''It is impossible,'' he wrote in his diary, ''to talk anything resembling discretion or judgment into a colored woman. They are all essentially childlike, and even hard experience does not teach them anything.'' He wrote at another time of the ''psychological stigmata'' of the ''Afro-American race.'' But it is also true that,during much of his life, day to day, Mencken conducted himself with no regard to race, and supported a politics that was clearly integrationist. As the editor of his diary has pointed out, Mencken published many black authors in his magazine, The Mercury, and lobbied on their behalf with his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. The last thing Mencken ever wrote was a diatribe against racial segregation in Baltimore's public parks. He was good friends with leading black writers and journalists, including James Weldon Johnson, Walter White and George S. Schuyler, and played an underappreciated role in promoting the Harlem Renaissance. What would our modern view of hate do with Mencken? Probably ignore him, or change the subject. But, with regard to hate, I know lots of people like Mencken. He reminds me of conservative friends who oppose almost every measure for homosexual equality yet genuinely delight in the company of their gay friends. It would be easier for me to think of them as haters, and on paper, perhaps, there is a good case that they are. But in real life, I know they are not. Some of them clearly harbor no real malice toward me or other homosexuals whatsoever. They are as hard to figure out as those liberal friends who support every gay rights measure they have ever heard of but do anything to avoid going into a gay bar with me. I have to ask myself in the same, frustrating kind of way: are they liberal bigots or bigoted liberals? Or are they neither bigots nor liberals, but merely people?

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 3)

2010-11-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

III.
Hate used to be easier to understand. When Sartre described anti-Semitism in his 1946 essay ''Anti-Semite and Jew,'' he meant a very specific array of firmly held prejudices, with a history, an ideology and even a pseudoscience to back them up. He meant a systematic attempt to demonize and eradicate an entire race. If you go to the Web site of the World Church of the Creator, the organization that inspired young Benjamin Smith to murder in Illinois earlier this year, you will find a similarly bizarre, pseudorational ideology. The kind of literature read by Buford Furrow before he rained terror on a Jewish kindergarten last month and then killed a mailman because of his color is full of the same paranoid loopiness. And when we talk about hate, we often mean this kind of phenomenon. But this brand of hatred is mercifully rare in the United States. These professional maniacs are to hate what serial killers are to murder. They should certainly not be ignored; but they represent what Harold Meyerson, writing in Salon, called ''niche haters'': coldblooded, somewhat deranged, often poorly socialized psychopaths. In a free society with relatively easy access to guns, they will always pose a menace. But their menace is a limited one, and their hatred is hardly typical of anything very widespread. Take Buford Furrow. He famously issued a ''wake-up call'' to ''kill Jews'' in Los Angeles, before he peppered a Jewish community center with gunfire. He did this in a state with two Jewish female Senators, in a city with a large, prosperous Jewish population, in a country where out of several million Jewish Americans, a total of 66 were reported by the F.B.I. as the targets of hate-crime assaults in 1997. However despicable Furrow's actions were, it would require a very large stretch to describe them as representative of anything but the deranged fringe of an American subculture. Most hate is more common and more complicated, with as many varieties as there are varieties of love. Just as there is possessive love and needy love; family love and friendship; romantic love and unrequited love; passion and respect, affection and obsession, so hatred has its shadings. There is hate that fears, and hate that merely feels contempt; there is hate that expresses power, and hate that comes from powerlessness; there is revenge, and there is hate that comes from envy. There is hate that was love, and hate that is a curious expression of love. There is hate of the other, and hate of something that reminds us too much of ourselves. There is the oppressor's hate, and the victim's hate. There is hate that burns slowly, and hate that fades. And there is hate that explodes, and hate that never catches fire. The modern words that we have created to describe the varieties of hate -- sexism,'' ''racism,'' ''anti-Semitism, ''homophobia'' -- tell us very little about any of this. They tell us merely the identities of the victims; they don't reveal the identities of the perpetrators, or what they think, or how they feel. They don't even tell us how the victims feel. And this simplicity is no accident. Coming from the theories of Marxist and post-Marxist academics, these ''isms'' are far better at alleging structures of power than at delineating the workings of the individual heart or mind. In fact, these ''isms'' can exist without mentioning individuals at all. We speak of institutional racism, for example, as if an institution can feel anything. We talk of ''hate'' as an impersonal noun, with no hater specified. But when these abstractions are actually incarnated, when someone feels something as a result of them, when a hater actually interacts with a victim, the picture changes. We find that hates are often very different phenomena one from another, that they have very different psychological dynamics, that they might even be better understood by not seeing them as varieties of the same thing at all. There is, for example, the now unfashionable distinction between reasonable hate and unreasonable hate. In recent years, we have become accustomed to talking about hates as if they were all equally indefensible, as if it could never be the case that some hates might be legitimate, even necessary. But when some 800,000 Tutsis are murdered under the auspices of a Hutu regime in Rwanda, and when a few thousand Hutus are killed in revenge, the hates are not commensurate. Genocide is not an event like a hurricane, in which damage is random and universal; it is a planned and often merciless attack of one group upon another. The hate of the perpetrators is a monstrosity. The hate of the victims, and their survivors, is justified. What else, one wonders, were surviving Jews supposed to feel toward Germans after the Holocaust? Or, to a different degree, South African blacks after apartheid? If the victims overcome this hate, it is a supreme moral achievement. But if they don't, the victims are not as culpable as the perpetrators. So the hatred of Serbs for Kosovars today can never be equated with the hatred of Kosovars for Serbs. Hate, like much of human feeling, is not rational, but it usually has its reasons. And it cannot be understood, let alone condemned, without knowing them. Similarly, the hate that comes from knowledge is always different from the hate that comes from ignorance. It is one of the most foolish cliches of our time that prejudice is always rooted in ignorance, and can usually be overcome by familiarity with the objects of our loathing. The racism of many Southern whites under segregation was not appeased by familiarity with Southern blacks; the virulent loathing of Tutsis by many Hutus was not undermined by living next door to them for centuries. Theirs was a hatred that sprang, for whatever reasons, from experience. It cannot easily be compared with, for example, the resilience of anti-Semitism in Japan, or hostility to immigration in areas where immigrants are unknown, or fear of homosexuals by people who have never knowingly met one. The same familiarity is an integral part of what has become known as ''sexism.'' Sexism isn't, properly speaking, a prejudice at all. Few men live without knowledge or constant awareness of women. Every single sexist man was born of a woman, and is likely to be sexually attracted to women. His hostility is going to be very different than that of, say, a reclusive member of the Aryan Nations toward Jews he has never met.

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 4)

2010-11-17T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

In her book ''The Anatomy of Prejudices,'' the psychotherapist Elisabeth Young-Bruehl proposes a typology of three distinct kinds of hate: obsessive, hysterical and narcissistic. It's not an exhaustive analysis, but it's a beginning in any serious attempt to understand hate rather than merely declaring war on it. The obsessives, for Young-Bruehl, are those, like the Nazis or Hutus, who fantasize a threat from a minority, and obsessively try to rid themselves of it. For them, the very existence of the hated group is threatening. They often describe their loathing in almost physical terms: they experience what Patrick Buchanan, in reference to homosexuals, once described as a ''visceral recoil'' from the objects of their detestation. They often describe those they hate as diseased or sick, in need of a cure. Or they talk of ''cleansing'' them, as the Hutus talked of the Tutsis, or call them ''cockroaches,'' as Yitzhak Shamir called the Palestinians. If you read material from the Family Research Council, it is clear that the group regards homosexuals as similar contaminants. A recent posting on its Web site about syphilis among gay men was headlined, ''Unclean.'' Hysterical haters have a more complicated relationship with the objects of their aversion. In Young-Bruehl's words, hysterical prejudice is a prejudice that ''a person uses unconsciously to appoint a group to act out in the world forbidden sexual and sexually aggressive desires that the person has repressed.'' Certain kinds of racists fit this pattern. White loathing of blacks is, for some people, at least partly about sexual and physical envy. A certain kind of white racist sees in black America all those impulses he wishes most to express himself but cannot. He idealizes in ''blackness'' a sexual freedom, a physical power, a Dionysian release that he detests but also longs for. His fantasy may not have any basis in reality, but it is powerful nonetheless. It is a form of love-hate, and it is impossible to understand the nuances of racism in, say, the American South, or in British Imperial India, without it. Unlike the obsessives, the hysterical haters do not want to eradicate the objects of their loathing; rather they want and the shame of being bested by him -- that the vengeful soldier had to obliterate, even if he needed a gang of accomplices and a weapon to do so. But the murderers of Matthew Shepard seem to have had a different impulse: a visceral disgust at the thought of any sexual contact with an effeminate homosexual. Their anger was mixed with mockery, as the cruel spectacle at the side of the road suggested. In the same way, the pathological anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany was obsessive, inasmuch as it tried to cleanse the world of Jews; but also, as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen shows in his book, ''Hitler's Willing Executioners,'' hysterical. The Germans were mysteriously compelled as well as repelled by Jews, devising elaborate ways, like death camps and death marches, to keep them alive even as they killed them. And the early Nazi phobia of interracial sex suggests as well
a lingering erotic quality to the relationship, partaking of exactly the kind of sexual panic that persists among some homosexual-haters and anti-miscegenation racists. So the concept of ''homophobia,'' like that of ''sexism'' and ''racism,'' is often a crude one. All three are essentially cookie-cutter formulas that try to understand human impulses merely through the one-dimensional identity of the victims, rather than through the thoughts and feelings of the haters and hated. This is deliberate. The theorists behind these ''isms'' want to ascribe all blame to one group in society -- the ''oppressors'' -- and render specific others -- the ''victims'' -- completely blameless. And they want to do this in order in part to side unequivocally with the underdog. But it doesn't take a genius to see how this approach, too, can generate its own form of bias. It can justify blanket condemnations of whole groups of people -- white straight males for example -- purely because of the color of their skin or the nature of their sexual orientation. And it can condescendingly ascribe innocence to whole groups of others. It does exactly what hate does: it hammers the uniqueness of each individual into the anvil of group identity. And it postures morally over the result. In reality, human beings and human acts are far more complex, which is why these isms and the laws they have fomented are continually coming under strain and challenge. Once again, hate wriggles free of its definers. It knows no monolithic groups of haters and hated. Like a river, it has many eddies, backwaters and rapids. So there are anti-Semites who actually admire what they think of as Jewish power, and there are gay-haters who look up to homosexuals and some who want to sleep with them. And there are black racists, racist Jews, sexist women and anti-Semitic homosexuals. Of course there are.

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 5)

2010-11-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

IV.
Once you start thinking of these phenomena less as the ''isms'' of sexism, racism and ''homophobia,'' once you think of them as independent psychological responses, it's also possible to see how they can work in a bewildering variety of ways in a bewildering number of people. To take one obvious and sad oddity: people who are demeaned and objectified in society may develop an aversion to their tormentors that is more hateful in its expression than the prejudice they have been subjected to. The F.B.I. statistics on hate crimes throws up an interesting point. In America in the 1990's, blacks were up to three times as likely as whites to commit a hate crime, to express their hate by physically attacking their targets or their property. Just as sexual abusers have often been victims of sexual abuse, and wife-beaters often grew up in violent households, so hate criminals may often be members of hated groups. Even the Columbine murderers were in some sense victims of hate before they were purveyors of it. Their classmates later admitted that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were regularly called ''faggots'' in the corridors and classrooms of Columbine High and that nothing was done to prevent or stop the harassment. This climate of hostility doesn't excuse the actions of Klebold and Harris, but it does provide a more plausible context. If they had been black, had routinely been called ''nigger'' in the school and had then exploded into a shooting spree against white students, the response to the matter might well have been different. But the hate would have been the same. In other words, hate-victims are often hate-victimizers as well. This doesn't mean that all hates are equivalent, or that some are not more justified than others. It means merely that hate goes both ways; and if you try to regulate it among some, you will find yourself forced to regulate it among others. It is no secret, for example, that some of the most vicious anti-Semites in America are black, and that some of the most virulent anti-Catholic bigots in America are gay. At what point, we are increasingly forced to ask, do these phenomena become as indefensible as white racism or religious toleration of anti-gay bigotry? That question becomes all the more difficult when we notice that it is often minorities who commit some of the most hate-filled offenses against what they see as their oppressors. It was the mainly gay AIDS activist group Act Up that perpetrated the hateful act of desecrating Communion hosts at a Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York. And here is the playwright Tony Kushner, who is gay, responding to the Matthew Shepard beating in The Nation magazine: ''Pope John Paul II endorses murder. He, too, knows the price of discrimination, having declared anti-Semitism a sin. . . . He knows that discrimination kills. But when the Pope heard the news about Matthew Shepard, he, too, worried about spin. And so, on the subject of gay-bashing, the Pope and his cardinals and his bishops and priests maintain their cynical political silence. . . . To remain silent is to endorse murder.'' Kushner went on to describe the Pope as a ''homicidal liar.'' Maybe the passion behind these words is justified. But it seems clear enough to me that Kushner is expressing hate toward the institution of the Catholic Church, and all those who perpetuate its doctrines. How else to interpret the way in which he accuses the Pope of cynicism, lying and murder? And how else either to understand the brutal parody of religious vocations expressed by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of gay men who dress in drag as nuns and engage in sexually explicit performances in public? Or T-shirts with the words ''Recovering Catholic'' on them, hot items among some gay and lesbian activists? The implication that someone's religious faith is a mental illness is clearly an expression of contempt. If that isn't covered under the definition of hate speech, what is? Or take the following

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 6)

2010-11-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

sentence: ''The act male homosexuals commit is ugly and repugnant and afterwards they are disgusted with themselves. They drink and take drugs to palliate this, but they are disgusted with the act and they are always changing partners and cannot be really happy.'' The thoughts of Pat Robertson or Patrick Buchanan? Actually that sentence was written by Gertrude Stein, one of the century's most notable lesbians. Or take the following, about how beating up ''black boys like that made us feel good inside. . . . Every time I drove my foot into his [expletive], I felt better.'' It was written to describe the brutal assault of an innocent bystander for the sole reason of his race. By the end of the attack, the victim had blood gushing from his mouth as his attackers stomped on his genitals. Are we less appalled when we learn that the actual sentence was how beating up ''white boys like that made us feel good inside. . . . Every time I drove my foot into his [expletive], I felt better?'' It was written by Nathan McCall, an African-American who later in life became a successful journalist at The Washington Post and published his memoir of this ''hate crime'' to much acclaim. In fact, one of the stranger aspects of hate is that the prejudice expressed by a group in power may often be milder in expression than the prejudice felt by the marginalized. After all, if you already enjoy privilege, you may not feel the anger that turns bias into hate. You may not need to. For this reason, most white racism may be more influential in society than most black racism -- but also more calmly expressed. So may other forms of minority loathing -- especially hatred within minorities. I'm sure that black conservatives like Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell have experienced their fair share of white racism. But I wonder whether it has ever reached the level of intensity of the hatred directed toward them by other blacks? In several years of being an openly gay writer and editor, I have experienced the gamut of responses to my sexual orientation. But I have only directly experienced articulated, passionate hate from other homosexuals. I have been accused over the years by other homosexuals of being a sellout, a hypocrite, a traitor, a sexist, a racist, a narcissist, a snob. I've been called selfish, callous, hateful, self-hating and malevolent. At a reading, a group of lesbian activists portrayed my face on a poster within the crossfires of a gun. Nothing from the religious right has come close to such vehemence. I am not complaining. No harm has ever come to me or my property, and much of the criticism is rooted in the legitimate expression of political differences. But the visceral tone and style of the gay criticism can only be described as hateful. It is designed to wound personally, and it often does. But its intensity comes in part, one senses, from the pain of being excluded for so long, of anger long restrained bubbling up and directing itself more aggressively toward an alleged traitor than an alleged enemy. It is the hate of the hated. And it can be the most hateful hate of all. For this reason, hate-crime laws may themselves be an oddly biased category -- biased against the victims of hate. Racism is everywhere, but the already victimized might be more desperate, more willing to express it violently. And so more prone to come under the suspicious eye of the law.

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 7)

2010-11-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

V.
And why is hate for a group worse than hate for a person? In Laramie, Wyo., the now-famous epicenter of ''homophobia,'' where Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten to death, vicious murders are not unknown. In the previous 12 months, a 15-year-old pregnant girl was found east of the town with 17 stab wounds. Her 38-year-old boyfriend was apparently angry that she had refused an abortion and left her in the Wyoming foothills to bleed to death. In the summer of 1998, an 8-year-old Laramie girl was abducted, raped and murdered by a pedophile, who disposed of her young body in a garbage dump. Neither of these killings was deemed a hate crime, and neither would be designated as such under any existing hate-crime law. Perhaps because of this, one crime is an international legend; the other two are virtually unheard of. But which crime was more filled with hate? Once you ask the question, you realize how difficult it is to answer. Is it more hateful to kill a stranger or a lover? Is it more hateful to kill a child than an adult? Is it more hateful to kill your own child than another's? Under the law before the invention of hate crimes, these decisions didn't have to be taken. But under the law after hate crimes, a decision is essential. A decade ago, a murder was a murder. Now, in the era when group hate has emerged as our cardinal social sin, it all depends. The supporters of laws against hate crimes argue that such crimes should be disproportionately punished because they victimize more than the victim. Such crimes, these advocates argue, spread fear, hatred and panic among whole populations, and therefore merit more concern. But, of course, all crimes victimize more than the victim, and spread alarm in the society at large. Just think of the terrifying church shooting in Texas only two weeks ago. In fact, a purely random murder may be even more terrifying than a targeted one, since the entire community, and not just a part of it, feels threatened. High rates of murder, robbery, assault and burglary victimize everyone, by spreading fear, suspicion and distress everywhere. Which crime was more frightening to more people this summer: the mentally ill Buford Furrow's crazed attacks in Los Angeles, killing one, or Mark Barton's murder of his own family and several random day-traders in Atlanta, killing 12? Almost certainly the latter. But only Furrow was guilty of ''hate.'' One response to this objection is that certain groups feel fear more intensely than others because of a history of persecution or intimidation. But doesn't this smack of a certain condescension toward minorities? Why, after all, should it be assumed that gay men or black women or Jews, for example, are as a group more easily intimidated than others? Surely in any of these communities there will be a vast range of responses, from panic to concern to complete indifference. The assumption otherwise is the kind of crude generalization the law is supposed to uproot in the first place. And among these groups, there are also likely to be vast differences. To equate a population once subjected to slavery with a population of Mexican immigrants or third-generation Holocaust survivors is to equate the unequatable. In fact, it is to set up a contest of vulnerability in which one group vies with another to establish its particular variety of suffering, a contest that can have no dignified solution.

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 8)

2010-11-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

Rape, for example, is not classified as a ''hate crime'' under most existing laws, pitting feminists against ethnic groups in a battle for recognition. If, as a solution to this problem, everyone, except the white straight able-bodied male, is regarded as a possible victim of a hate crime, then we have simply created a two-tier system of justice in which racial profiling is reversed, and white straight men are presumed guilty before being proven innocent, and members of minorities are free to hate them as gleefully as they like. But if we include the white straight male in the litany of potential victims, then we have effectively abolished the notion of a hate crime altogether. For if every crime is possibly a hate crime, then it is simply another name for crime. All we will have done is widened the search for possible bigotry, ratcheted up the sentences for everyone and filled the jails up even further. Hate-crime-law advocates counter that extra penalties should be imposed on hate crimes because our society is experiencing an ''epidemic'' of such crimes. Mercifully, there is no hard evidence to support this notion. The Federal Government has only been recording the incidence of hate crimes in this decade, and the statistics tell a simple story. In 1992, there were 6,623 hate-crime incidents reported to the F.B.I. by a total of 6,181 agencies, covering 51 percent of the population. In 1996, there were 8,734 incidents reported by 11,355 agencies, covering 84 percent of the population. That number dropped to 8,049 in 1997. These numbers are, of course, hazardous. They probably underreport the incidence of such crimes, but they are the only reliable figures we have. Yet even if they are faulty as an absolute number, they do not show an epidemic of ''hate crimes'' in the 1990's. Is there evidence that the crimes themselves are becoming more vicious? None. More than 60 percent of recorded hate crimes in America involve no violent, physical assault against another human being at all, and, again, according to the F.B.I., that proportion has not budged much in the 1990's. These impersonal attacks are crimes against property or crimes of ''intimidation.'' Murder, which dominates media coverage of hate crimes, is a tiny proportion of the total. Of the 8,049 hate crimes reported to the F.B.I. in 1997, a total of eight were murders. Eight. The number of hate crimes that were aggravated assaults (generally involving a weapon) in 1997 is less than 15 percent of the total. That's 1,237 assaults too many, of course, but to put it in perspective, compare it with a reported 1,022,492 ''equal opportunity'' aggravated assaults in America in the same year. The number of hate crimes that were physical assaults is half the total. That's 4,000 assaults too many, of course, but to put it in perspective, it compares with around 3.8 million ''equal opportunity'' assaults in America annually. The truth is, the distinction between a crime filled with personal hate and a crime filled with group hate is an essentially arbitrary one. It tells us nothing interesting about the psychological contours of the specific actor or his specific victim. It is a function primarily of politics, of special interest groups carving out particular protections for themselves, rather than a serious response to a serious criminal concern. In such an endeavor, hate-crime-law advocates cram an entire world of human motivations into an immutable, tiny box called hate, and hope to have solved a problem. But nothing has been solved; and some harm may even have been done. In an attempt to repudiate a past that treated people differently because of the color of their skin, or their sex, or religion or sexual orientation, we may merely create a future that permanently treats people differently because of the color of their skin, or their sex, religion or sexual orientation. This notion of a hate crime, and the concept of hate that lies behind it, takes a psychological mystery and turns it into a facile political artifact. Rather than compounding this error and extending even further, we should seriously consider repealing the concept altogether. To put it another way: violence can and should be stopped by the government. In a free society, hate can't and shouldn't be. The boundaries between hate and prejudice and between prejudice and opinion and between opinion and truth are so complicated and blurred that any attempt to construct legal and political fire walls is a doomed and illiberal venture. We know by now that hate will never disappear from human consciousness; in fact, it is probably, at some level, definitive of it.

"What's So Bad about Hate" (pt. 9)

2010-11-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Andrew Sullivan

We know after decades of education measures that hate is not caused merely by ignorance; and after decades of legislation, that it isn't caused entirely by law. To be sure, we have made much progress. Anyone who argues that America is as inhospitable to minorities and to women today as it has been in the past has not read much history. And we should, of course, be vigilant that our most powerful institutions, most notably the government, do not actively or formally propagate hatred; and insure that the violent expression of hate is curtailed by the same rules that punish all violent expression. But after that, in an increasingly diverse culture, it is crazy to expect that hate, in all its variety, can be eradicated. A free country will always mean a hateful country. This may not be fair, or perfect, or admirable, but it is reality, and while we need not endorse it, we should not delude ourselves into thinking we can prevent it. That is surely the distinction between toleration and tolerance. Tolerance is the eradication of hate; toleration is co-existence despite it. We might do better as a culture and as a polity if we concentrated more on achieving the latter rather than the former. We would certainly be less frustrated. And by aiming lower, we might actually reach higher. In some ways, some expression of prejudice serves a useful social purpose. It lets off steam; it allows natural tensions to express themselves incrementally; it can siphon off conflict through words, rather than actions. Anyone who has lived in the ethnic shouting match that is New York City knows exactly what I mean. If New Yorkers disliked each other less, they wouldn't be able to get on so well. We may not all be able to pull off a Mencken -- bigoted in words, egalitarian in action -- but we might achieve a lesser form of virtue: a human acceptance of our need for differentiation, without a total capitulation to it. Do we not owe something more to the victims of hate? Perhaps we do. But it is also true that there is nothing that government can do for the hated that the hated cannot better do for themselves. After all, most bigots are not foiled when they are punished specifically for their beliefs. In fact, many of the worst haters crave such attention and find vindication in such rebukes. Indeed, our media's obsession with ''hate,'' our elevation of it above other social misdemeanors and crimes, may even play into the hands of the pathetic and the evil, may breathe air into the smoldering embers of their paranoid loathing. Sure, we can help create a climate in which such hate is disapproved of -- and we should. But there is a danger that if we go too far, if we punish it too much, if we try to abolish it altogether, we may merely increase its mystique, and entrench the very categories of human difference that we are trying to erase. For hate is only foiled not when the haters are punished but when the hated are immune to the bigot's power. A hater cannot psychologically wound if a victim cannot psychologically be wounded. And that immunity to hurt can never be given; it can merely be achieved. The racial epithet only strikes at someone's core if he lets it, if he allows the bigot's definition of him to be the final description of his life and his person -- if somewhere in his heart of hearts, he believes the hateful slur to be true. The only final answer to this form of racism, then, is not majority persecution of it, but minority indifference to it. The only permanent rebuke to homophobia is not the enforcement of tolerance, but gay equanimity in the face of prejudice. The only effective answer to sexism is not a morass of legal proscriptions, but the simple fact of female success. In this, as in so many other things, there is no solution to the problem. There is only a transcendence of it. For all our rhetoric, hate will never be destroyed. Hate, as our predecessors knew better, can merely be overcome.

Correction: September 26, 1999, Sunday An article on page 50 of The Times Magazine today about hate and hate-crime laws misstates the year that James Byrd Jr., a black man, was dragged to his death by white supremacists in East Texas. It was 1998, not 1997.

You may print this article now.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company — Privacy Information

Things To Remember

2009-05-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

I find what I look for in people. If I look for God, I find God. If I look for bad qualities, I find them. I, in a sense, select what I expect, and I receive it. A life without challenges would be like going to school without lessons to learn. Challenges come not to depress or get me down, but to master and to grow and to unfold thereby.
In the Father's wise and loving plan for me, no burden can fall upon me, no emergency can arise, no grief can overtake me, before I am given the grace and strength to meet them.
A rich, full life is not determined by outer circumstances and relationships. These can be contributory to it, but cannot be the source. I am happy or unhappy because of what I think and feel.
I can never lose anything that belongs to me, nor can I posses what is not really mine.
To never run from a problem: either it will chase me or I will run into another just like it, although it may have a different face or name.
To have no concern for tomorrow. Today is the yesterday over which I had concern.
To never bang on a closed door: Wait for it to open and then go through it.
A person who has come into my life has come either to teach me something, or to learn something from me.
~~ Unknown~~

The Obstacle in Our Path

2009-05-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many others never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one's condition.
~~ Unknown ~~

Deep Dung

2009-05-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

A little bird was flying south for the Winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.
While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.
The dung was actually thawing him out!He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.
Morals of the story:

(1) Not everyone who sh**s on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh** is your friend.

(3) And when you’re in deep sh**, it’s best to keep your mouth shut!

Bessie Blout Griffin/Physical Therapist, Inventor

2009-05-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

Dates: November 24, 1914 -
Occupation: physical therapist, inventor
Also known as: Bessie Blount Griffin
Bessie Blount’s Inventions Help Patients

Bessie Blount was born in Hickory, Virginia on November 24, 1914. She studied Physical Education at Panzar College in New Jersey. Prior to graduating from Panzar, she moved to Chicago where she completed her education. After graduating, she began working with injured World War II amputees. While she worked at helping her patients regain their independence, she found that eating was the most difficult task for them to manage by themselves. In response to her patients’ difficulty, Blount invented a device to assist them. A mouthful of food was delivered through a tube each time the patient bit down on the tube. The device could be used while lying down or sitting up.
In 1951, Blount moved back to Newark, New Jersey where she began teaching physical therapy at the Bronx Hospital in New York. She tried to market her device, but was unsuccessful. Instead, she decided to patent another device called the portable receptacle support. While its purpose was the same, this device was composed of a brace that was worn around the patient’s neck and was used to support a bowl or other dish.
Blount was unable to market this device and the Veteran's Administration was disinterested in using it. She signed over the rights to both of her inventions to the French government in 1952. According to Blount, despite not being able to promote her inventions, she was able to prove that "a black woman can invent something for the benefit of humankind."
Blount Works in Forensics
In 1969, Blount began conducting forensic science research for police departments in New Jersey and Virginia. In 1977, she was sent to Scotland Yard in England for training. After she stopped working for police departments, she started her own business using her forensic training experience to examine pre-civil war documents. She remained active in her business until she was 83.

Michael Anderson (Astronaut)

2009-05-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Dates: December 25, 1959 - February 1, 2003
Occupation: Astronaut

Michael Anderson’s Education

Michael Anderson was born on December 25, 1959, in Plattsburgh, New York. Anderson's father was in the Air Force, so he grew up on military bases. After finishing high school, Anderson began attending the University of Washington. In 1981, he received his B.S. degree in physics and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He completed a year of technical training at Keesler AFB in Mississippi. He moved on to Randolph AFB in Texas, where he was the Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015 Communication Squadron.
In 1986, Anderson began attending the Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB in Oklahoma. After graduation, he served as an EC 135 pilot for the Second Airborne Command and Control Squadron. In 1990, Anderson received his masters in physics from Creighton University.

Michael Anderson Joins NASA
In 1994, Anderson was selected by NASA. Upon completing a year of training, he became qualified for flight crew assignment as a mission specialist. In 1998, he traveled on the STS-89 to Russia's Mir space station. The objective of the mission was to transfer scientific equipment and logistical hardware to the Shuttle-Mir.
On February 1, 2003, Michael Anderson’s short career as an astronaut ended. He was one of seven astronauts who died aboard the shuttle Columbia 16 minutes prior to its landing in Florida. Anderson served as the payload commander, and as such, he was charged with conducting scientific experiments in search of a cure for prostate cancer. Michael Anderson was one of only a handful of African American astronauts.

The Establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau

2009-05-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

On March 3, 1865, Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was to function for only one year, but on July 16, 1866, Congress extended the life of the bureau over the veto of President Andrew Johnson.

The Goals of the Freedmen’s Bureau:
The bureau was organized under the War Department with Major General Oliver O. Howard as the commissioner. The bureau’s chief focus was to provide food, medical care, help with resettlement, administer justice, manage abandoned and confiscated property, regulate labor, and establish schools. Over 1,000 schools were built, teacher-training institutions were created, and several black colleges were founded and financed with the help of the bureau.

The Bureau’s Failings:
Despite the bureau’s success in education, it was unable to alleviate many problems, especially in regard to land management. When the Bureau gave 850,000 acres of abandoned and confiscated land to freedmen, President Andrew Johnson returned the land to Confederate owners. Without the resettlement of land, the bureau instead focused on helping freedmen gain work. They encouraged them to work on plantations, but this eventually led to oppressive sharecropping and tenancy arrangements.
The progressive goals of the bureau, however, were not enough to make up for the inadequate funds that plagued its existence. In 1869, Congress terminated all of the bureau’s work except for its efforts in education. In 1870, that too was ended.

Be THANKFUL

2009-05-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don't know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn.
Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you grow.
Be thankful for your limitations, because they give you opportunities for improvement.
Be thankful for each new challenge, because it will build your strength and character.
Be thankful for your mistakes. They will teach you valuable lessons.
Be thankful when you're tired and weary, because it means you've made a difference.
It's easy to be thankful for the good things. A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.
Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive. Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.
- Unknown

The Echo of Life

2009-05-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

A son and his father were walking on the mountains. Suddenly, the son falls, hurts himself and screams: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Curious, he yells: "Who are you?"

He receives the answer: "Who are you?"

Angered at the response, he screams: "Coward!"

He receives the answer: "Coward!"

He looks to his father and asks: "What's going on?" The father smiles and says: "My son, pay attention." And then he screams to the mountain: "I admire you!"

The voice answers: "I admire you!"

Again the man screams: "You are a champion!"

The voice answers: "You are a champion!"

The boy is surprised, but does not understand. Then the father explains: "People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE. It gives you back everything you say or do. Our life is simply a reflection of our actions. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence. This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life; Life will give you back everything you have given to it.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT A COINCIDENCE. IT'S A REFLECTION OF YOU!
- Author Unknown

2009-05-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. ~~Aristotle~~

Encouraging Cancer Survirors/Recoverees' Pt. 2

2009-05-17T08:13:00.001-07:00

Encouraging Cancer Survivors/Recoverees' Pt. 2

Encourage: to inspire with courage, spirit and confidence; to stimulate with assistance; to promote, advance or foster.

What is your task as the encourager if your chose to accept. I am glad you asked:

A few do's and don'ts...

1. Do be patient.
The survivor/recoveree is experiencing various unexpected life changes. Some of these changes are received more easily then others. You as the encourager will need to be gentle, composed and accomodating throughout these procedures and when the survivor/recoveree has difficulty adjusting.

Be patient knowing that the survivor/recoveree is on this life changing journey and the succession of these necessary treatment(s) as a willing/unwilling participant. With this focus in mind, be conscious of the fact, that the survivor/recoveree has first hand knowledge and experience of what he/she is encountering, feeling, and the difficulties that are associated with this recovery process.

Is it a life change for you the encourager? Yes, however, even though it may take it's toll on you as well, you can not negate what the survivor/recoveree is experiencing. As the encourager, you may need to get outside help to provide you with the necessary endurance to continue as the encourager. So if possible/necessary try and get your main support from outside of this enviornment.

2. Don't overwhelm the survivor/recoveree with suggestions, of 'you oughtas' , or you shouldn'ts'.
As the encouarger, you will witness moments when the survivor/recoveree has little or no ability/strength to function. Along with this, the survivor/recoveree will have a major change in their food intake, their physical activity, and their social life.

You as the encourager will want to help move the survivor/recoveree forward, with nudges and sometimes forced pushes. Be mindful though, because not all survivors/recoverees are oppossing these helpful verbal nudges/strong-armed shoves. Most times, the survivor/recoveree does not have the energy, the drive, or the get-up-and-go to move ahead. So, even though you may see the need or think it is necessary, don't overwhelm the survivor/recoveree with what one believes should be done/is best. As the encourager, your role is to inspire gently the survivor/recoveree to trudge forward.

Always consider the mindset of the survivor/recoveree. Keeping in mind that the survivor/recoveree is undergoing what seems like a forever long process, that leaves them feeling ill, weak, lifeless, and sometimes hopeless. The stress of being dependent, and looked upon as though any day will be your last factors into the mindframe of the survivor/recoveree.

3. Try to be understanding.
Treatments take it's toll on the survivor/recoveree. Even though the treatments may have ended, the long term affects of the treatments factor into the continual progress of the survivor/recoverees' desire or energy level. Therefore it is necessary in understanding that, yet the survivor/recoveree is out of treatment there is still a recovery process that must be maintained. Don't expect the suvivor/recoveree to jump back into life with both feet planted firmly on the floor. That ain't gonna happen.

Stayed Tuned In for Pt. 3

2009-05-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

~~ Compassion ~~

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Encouraging Cancer Survivors/Recoverees' Pt. 1

2009-05-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

Encouraging Cancer Survivors/Recoverees': Pt. 1

Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, and do not invade or metastasize.

Encourage: to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence; to stimulate by assistance; to promote, advance, or foster.

If you have not experienced cancer treatment(s), or the impact of the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional aspects of cancer. I would say that, ministering to a cancer survivor, is not as easy as one would expect.

Would I say that cancer patients are difficult?? Possibly. It depends possibly depend on the severity of the treatment, the personality of the patient, the location of the cancer, and the stage of the cancer.

The recoveree/survivor undergoes a metamorphosis. The entire life has/and will change for these individuals.

Does that mean the recoveree/survivor will cease to live/enjoy life? Hecky No. Treatments make some things a little less bearable for the individuals.

So what is your task as the encourager. I'm glad you asked.... Just a few Do's and Don'ts

1. Do Be patient

2. Don't Overwhelm the patient with suggestion.

3. Try to be understanding.

Stay Tuned for Pt.2

2009-05-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

If you can read the following paragraph, forward it on to your friends and the person that sent it to you with 'yes' in the subject line.

Only great minds can read this This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs share it.

From A Strange Friend via email......

Remembering My Sisters on Mother's Day

2009-05-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

We Miss You Dearly;

......You had the gift of happiness,

The unrelenting grace

To see the radiance of life

Within the ruthless face.
Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes,

Paralysis and pain,

A flood that left you penniless

. . .And still you smiled again.
It wasn't pure naivete

Or something just not there,

Or, even worse, an inner lie

That said you didn't care.
It was a certain blessedness

Attained by very fewT

hat let you live within a love

Within the love in you.

Anonymous

Mother's Day Proclamation

2009-05-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day Proclamation
By Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)

Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace... Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace.

Inventor

2009-05-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

George Edward Alcorn, Jr.
George Edward Alcorn, Jr. received a four-year academic scholarship to Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics. George Edward Alcorn received his degree with honors while earning eight letters in basketball and football. George Edward Alcorn earned a Master of Science in Nuclear Physics in 1963 from Howard University, after nine months of study. During the summers of 1962 and 1963, George Alcorn worked as a research engineer for the Space Division of North America Rockwell. He was involved with the computer analysis of launch trajectories and orbital mechanics for Rockwell missiles, including the Titan I and II, Saturn IV, and the Nova.

GirlFriends

2009-05-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

POEM ABOUT OUR GIRLFRIENDS:

Someone will always be prettier. Someone will always be smarter. Some of their houses will be bigger. Some will drive a better car. Their children will do better in school. And their husband will fix more things around the house. So let it go, and love you and your circumstances. Think about it! The prettiest woman in the world can have hell in her heart. And the most highly favored woman on your job may be unable to have children. And the richest woman you know, she's got the car, the house, the clothes~~~~ might be lonely. And the word says, "If I have not Love, I am nothing." So, again, love you. Love who you are. Look in the mirror in the morning and smile and say, "I am too Blessed to be Stressed and too Anointed, to be Disappointed!" "Winners make things happen~~ Losers let things happen."

2009-05-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

To my sisters in the Lord...

There comes a time in every woman's life when she has to take a close look at herself. Not at her circumstance, not at what she did, not how unfair life is, or at who made you do it. She has to just look at herself in all her glory and imperfection. Have you ever admired a woman who has been through changes in her life? Or have you made up in your mind that she is just messed up. Before you make this mistake, take a closer look. A woman who has endured the most unusual life is someone of wisdom, someone who has been chosen by God to go through things that have made her stronger.

Think of all the great women in the Bible: Mary Magdalene, Ruth and Naomi, the woman with an issue of blood, and Esther, to name a few. Mary was a prostitute, a very uneasy woman. But by the time Jesus was done with her, she was His closest follower. Esther was unfortunate in marrying an abusive man, but by the time God was done with her, she had married one of the wealthiest men in the land.

Women are so quick to beat the next one down instead of trying to hold her up. Before you wonder, 'What's up with her?' ask yourself, 'What's up with me?' That woman could be my mother, sister, aunt, in-law, stepmother, niece, grandmother, great-grandmother, neighbor, friend, or co-worker, etc. That woman could be ME.

Women are the carriers of life, not the channels of death. Let's build and encourage each other, as did Ruth and Naomi. Pass this to all the women in your life. Encourage and love, forgive and forget, and trust that the woman that receives this will be touched in some way.

May the peace and love of Christ be upon you!

Sometimes In Life....

2009-05-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in life, you find a special friend;

Someone who changes your life just by being part of it.

Someone who makes you laugh until you can't stop;

Someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world.

Someone who convinces you that there really

is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it.

This is Forever Friendship.

When you're down and the world seems dark and empty,

your forever friend lifts you up in spirit

and makes that dark and empty world suddenly seem bright and full.

Your forever friend gets you through the hard times,

the sad times and the confused times.

If you turn and walk away, you forever friend follows.

If you lose your way, you forever friend guides you and cheers you on.

Your forever friend holds your hand

and tells you that everything is going to be okay.

And if you find such a friend,

you feel happy and complete because you need not worry.

You have a forever friend, and forever has no end."