Getting stranger

My combination of derealization and (increased) depression continues virtually unchanged since my last "lightbulb" last November. This the same incident that sent me into the psych ward last January. Each day since then has been another groundhog day. I'm doing very little work ( collecting sick benefits from EI) and trying to deal with my sick parents, one of whom is dying. My depression is extreme but I force myself to get through each day although I have done almost nothing during most of that time, little reading,etc.. DID as its called, I guess, makes it almost impossible to remember things, the agrophobia hurts my stomach ( throwing years away). One upshot is that I have averaged about two to three hours of sleep per night over the last couple of months. I have been staying at the parents house most of this time instead of my own dump. I wonder how much longer I can survive the lack of sleep? This event was not caused by the sickness of my parents which occured later. I simply remembered that depersonalization was a problem which caused panic in me back when I was in my twenties and then I just "lived" that way for decades.

Dealing with Student Loans

Well kiddies those of you who read this blog in the past probably know there have been weird things happening to this writer over the last few months (actually many decades but we'll leave that for now). One thing that hasn't been brought up yet, as I can remember, is my problems with the student loan system. I tried to go back to the University of Regina around 2001 as an engineering student. The problem was that I was fifty years old at the time and couldn't do any kind of academic work. My memory and mood have been affected by years of neurotic behaviour, menial jobs and a host of poor habits picked up over a thirty year period. I dropped out after a few weeks and eventually wound up at the local technical college, SIAST, a place which I seriously dislike. I won't relate all the details from that point but just to say that I have a student loan debt from both places which still isn't paid off. Now I just realized if I had paid about 120 dollars more per month in the last five years this debt would have been paid in full. A feeling of agrophobia (let's call it) came to a pitch last fall. Somehow it is as though I had retreated into some kind of long term "fugue state" ... and every few years I realize what I'd done to myself ... usually to no avail.

Here are some points to ponder:

1) I have existed in a lifelong dissociative state. I feel that I am trapped inside my own body. It's the "world as a photograph" feeling, except this has gone on for forty years.

2) I am a fifty-nine year old virgin.

3) I know very little about any subject. Most of the blog entries here are just quotations from other sources which I immediately forget.

Anyway why not watch the de Grey video below ... and hope.

From Cambridge, England

Try this. Any comments?


http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3329065877451441972&hl=en

Let's Talk About Anything Else -- B of A Protests

I'm get tired of talking about my problems which aren't really getting much better anyway though they probably aren't really that much worse, though the "ouch" factor is still up there. The scale of screw-ups in my life would be hard for a stranger to get their minds around. In this decade money has been at the heart of everything ... my pathological spending on nothing in particular being the main thing. I don't read very much anymore and my general knowledge has essentially nose-dived. Nobody really understands all this because it doesn't make much sense not even to me. I've gone over this junk before so just for the record a neurotic refusal to take advantage of good opportunities and good advice as a younger man undercut my sense of responsibility on a gigantic scale. I 've half-way "caught up" with myself several times but last fall was the worst and I started babbling in ways that got me into some hot water ...one way or another ... plus flashbacks and all that ... but like I said I've gone over all that ground enough already. Both of my parents are very old and sick and I haven't done much to make their lives any better. My father went into hospital in January with severe septic shock and a possible heart attack although we're not definite on the last one. (My mother has her own problems like congestive heart failure. AND despite the progress that has been made in the use of adult stem cells derived from bone marrow, as one example, in cardiac problems no one seems to have much interest in this idea in this city.) But speaking of filthy lucre here's just a little something from a-infos. For some reason the YouTube segment was giving error messages so I couldn't embed this one. The picture is downtown in Colchester, Essex, England where I was born.

Close to 40 community activists and residents rallied outside a Bank of America branch to kick off "Thursdays-at-the-Bank" afternoon protests that run through March 19 in Copley Square. Organizers are demanding, "No More Bank Bail-outs" and "Homes & Jobs for People!" The action spotlighted residents facing foreclosures. ---- Testimony was offered by a long-time homeowner who is facing eviction from the home in which she grew up and in which she raised her sons. One had recently returned from Iraq a disabled veteran and is now subject to loss of his home. Event organizers and the homeowner both argue that they can all remain in the home if Bank of America - recipient of $45 billion in federal bailout money - sells the home to the owner at its real value. Promising to make this happen, the action ended with the demonstrators chanting, "We'll be back!"

For more information, please check out the accompanying video courtesy of Press Pass TV.
http://www.youtube.com/v/MUnapICqTGM&amp

Out of the Psych Ward

For those that are interested I spent two and half weeks in the Psych ward at the Regina General Hospital. This of course didn't accomplish much. These things never do. Now I'm trying to put my life back together again. Anyone interested can write to me if they want. What happened is this. Some of you might remember that I was raving on about the "s" thing for a month. One day some "good" citizen called the police and they ended up at my door. I didn't go to the hospital voluntarily although I said that I did of course. The state just won't let go of people. That IS crazy.

OCAP and the "Child Poverty" Scam

Here's another dismal story from the OCAP ... this time the game is the child poverty routine or the so-called deserving poor ie. the notion that indigence is caused primarily by laziness. Governments project the image of "welfare" recipients as being a burden upon the working poor, playing misery against misery. One way around this would be to make any provision universal. No politician would dare attack old age pensions (such as they are) and likewise public support for medicare suggests that universality is a key to acceptance.

In 1995, just before the Harris Government cut social assistance rates by 21.6%, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty marched from the low-income community of Regent Park into affluent Rosedale. The impending welfare cut and Provincial tax breaks would soon transfer about $1 million a month from one community to the other. Replicated across Ontario, this vast transfer of wealth to the already wealthy was at the very heart of the 'Common Sense Revolution'. Initiatives around poverty that ignore this continuing injustice are of very limited value.

Last week, a report was issued by the National Council of Welfare on the undermining of provincial income support systems since the early 1990s. Written well into the McGuinty Government's second term of office, the report makes clear that Ontario has lead the way in the deterioration of income adequacy for people on assistance. It is from this dismal starting
point that the Government of this Province issues its proposals to address the problem.

'Poverty reduction' in Ontario is part of an international trend that has developed after at least three decades of deregulation and social cutbacks. It focuses on patching up some of the worst and most destabilizing impacts while leaving in place, and even securing, hugely increased levels of inequality.

The report just issued by Ontario's Minister of Children and Youth, Deb Matthews, fits into this pattern. Rather tellingly, it is entitled 'Breaking the Cycle' and declares that the problem is to be found in 'intergenerational poverty'. This dubious conclusion is used to justify an approach of 'putting children first'. Those who see challenging poverty as a public relations exercise regard concentrating on 'child poverty' as a tactical necessity for the obvious reason that children are the ultimate representatives of the 'deserving poor'. For those designing
regressive social policy, however, this approach is extremely useful, as we see in the present proposals.

Any right thinking person is outraged when children grow up in poverty. For this very reason, a dubious undertaking to make sure that 'the kids are alright' can cover up a lot of social injustice. Single adults, who have actually fallen the furthest behind, are not considered in the
Matthews report. Any limited restoration of lost social assistance income is to be delivered in the form of a special benefit for children. In assessing this, three elements stand out very clearly.

Firstly, measured up against a decade and a half of income loss, the allocation to children is astoundingly inadequate. By 2012, a single parent family of three is predicted to be 35% better off than in 2003. People were already living in poverty in 1995 when Harris cut their income by 21.6%. Thirteen years of inflation, offset only by very small increases in the last period, have made that situation much worse. These measures, viewed at their best, are a selective and partial return of what has been previously removed.

The second aspect to consider is an increased inequality even for children living on social assistance. The report acknowledges that a single parent family receiving the minimum wage will see an increase in their income that is significantly higher than a family on assistance. The level of welfare payments is to fall even further behind the lowest paying jobs on offer, even for people with children. The working poor are to receive a somewhat better (though still inadequate) income through a payment to their children that is really a de facto wage top up to those employers who fail to pay a living wage.

The third question is the extreme fragility of these measures. They are presented as a pledge to reduce child poverty by 25% over 5 years but some caution is needed here. The importance is stressed of federal co-operation and of 'a growing economy' if goals are to be met. Given the developments of the last few months, that's a bit like being offered a car that will run fine provided it doesn't break down.

In mentioning the state of the economy, the Matthew's report comes face to face with its own personal Banquo's Ghost. The developing international economic downturn creates an entirely new context in which to consider poverty in Ontario. In this Province, a severe loss of better paying jobs in the industrial sector had taken a massive toll even before the astounding crisis of the markets flowed into the real economy. We are facing a situation that will have, as one of its central features, a very serious increase in the numbers of people experiencing or facing poverty. That's why the proposals in this report must now be judged from an entirely different standpoint from how they may have been viewed a few
months ago.

This downturn will soon expose the sad fact that the systems of social provision that might have afforded protection have been fundamentally compromised. A shaky pledge to do some small things over five years is desperately short of what's needed. To go into a major economic crisis with a system of social assistance that will not enable people to pay their rent and feed themselves is a recipe for disaster. Have our expectations been so driven down that we would accept such a thing? A 40% increase in welfare rates would return us only to the levels that existed before Harris did his work. We can demand nothing less and accept nothing less. (Maybe it is time to demand more. Social services which are universal tend less to be seen as a "handout".)

• Walmart employee killed in stampede

From the Wake Up Walmart blog comes another story of greed. Check this site for more on the "real facts about Walmart".

The tragic story of Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart worker originally from Jamaica, will stay with you forever.

It has been all over the news. Damour was trampled to death while shielding a pregnant shopper from a Black Friday stampede at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, NY. When we heard the news about Jdimytai, we were utterly shocked. Even today, we can't believe Wal-Mart let this happen.

At Jdimytai's Wal-Mart, lack of preparation and aggressive marketing turned Black Friday into a crowd-control nightmare. Early that morning, a throng of 2,000 shoppers swarmed at the store's front entrance. They grew agitated. Though Jdimytai Damour was given no crowd control training, though he had no security experience whatsoever, management put him in front of the surging crowd of shoppers just before the doors opened. Not long after, he was pronounced dead.

The Damour family lost a son. We could never hope to fill that void in their lives, but we can help them fight for justice in the courts and for change at Wal-Mart. We are dedicating this year's Holiday Worker Fund to the Damour family's legal expenses, but it's still not enough. YOU can change that.

The Damour family deserves justice: help us reach our goal of 150 new donations before the New Year

Several people were injured in that early morning crush, but none fared worse than Jdimytai. Now, the only support for the Damours will come from family and activists like you. They are relying on us.

Donating helps, but it isn't everything. The Damour family also needs your moral support. You can use our website to send the Damours some words of encouragement and consolation. It will take only a few seconds (longer if you like) to help Jdimytai's family take heart in the coming New Year.

Please show your support for the Damour family by writing a few words of encouragement.

The tragedy in Valley Stream demands change. Show your support for the Damour family and let Wal-Mart know America won't stand for irresponsible retailing.

It's time for Wal-Mart to put safety before sales.

Thank you for all that you do, and happy holidays and a safe New Year to you and your loved ones.