When to talk and when not to

I realize that I haven't posted anything in the pamphlets blog for a very long time. It isn't that I don't have anything to say. Rather, others are saying it for me. And I don't believe in chatter.

Perhaps too much attention is given to originating and too little to listening. Listening is good. When is the last time someone listened to you? Didn't it feel good? Is there anything you'd like to tell me?

Bad Drugs -- When will we learn

1. Bad Drugs -- For those of you interested in the increasing "drugging of America" with psychiatric drugs, See NY Times article. http://tinyurl.com/l52ahlc (full url: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/us/was
   hington-navy-yard-shootings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
   
   Alexis was prescribed Trazodone twice in the last month. Trazodone is an antidepressant that carries an FDA black box warning for suicide and has been shown to cause mania and violence.
   
   The story reveals some interesting facts. When will the nation wake up to the fact that guns don't kill, people do, and people on mind-bending drugs get strange ideas!

    

   Some will say -- he was mentally ill and he didn't get the (psychiatric) help he needed. But I think, if you look carefully at the history of his and others psychotic incidents, you will find that, where we can view the medical records, they were on (or had been on) psychiatric drugs that cause suicidal and homicidal behavior in some persons. 

   
   

   I suggest that you visit the website of Citizens'' Commission on Human Rights: http://www.cchr.org/videos/making-a-killing.html

Finally - a ray of sanity as regards the psychiatric DSM

Bill HR0898 introduced into the Illinois General Assembly calls into question the vast network of psychiatric diagnoses established by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Yay.

For too long this FICTIONAL diagnostic guide has been perpetrated. It has grown to the extent that any human behavior can be called abnormal.

You can read the bill on the Illinois General Assembly website at this address:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=0898&GAID=11&GA=97&DocTypeID=HR&LegID=67042&SessionID=84

by selecting the clickable text: Full Text. It's only five pages long and very clearly written.

I hope that Illinois supports this bill.

To find out more about the DSM, go to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights site: cchr.org and watch their well-documented videos.

The big mind-altering drug experiment and its consquences

I don't know whether anyone is listening or will get this post, because I post my opinion so infrequently, but I feel I have to say this:

I think that we are in the middle of a big experiment being conducted by the drug companies and psychiatrists (and others who can prescribe drugs) that is having continual very harmful consequences.

Just yesterday, a soldier in Afghanistan walked into several Afghan villages neighboring his barracks and shot (deliberately murdered) men, women and children. And no one knows why. And of course our relations with the Afghans are ruined.

The act (s) was unjustified and unexplained. There will be a lot of "why-finding." But I believe that I know the reason.

That soldier was mostly likely on one of the psychiatric drugs meant to handle what is being called PTSD. And if so, this will be hushed up, or, at best, not seen as causal.

A week or so ago, a high school student pulled out a gun in the cafeteria of his school before school and started shooting his fellow students. No one could discover why. The students he shot at seemed to be random. They hadn't been bullying him. Several died.

These are just the latest in a long series of unexplainable events.

If you find yourself puzzled by these random acts of violence, I suggest that you go to the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights website (www.cchr.org) and read some of the investigatory information on that site. Very interesting.

I also suggest the article in Freedom Magazine (http://www.freedommag.org/english/vol33I1/page04.htm) called "The Peril and Tragedy of Drug Solutions" because it contains actual cases.

I hope this post will reach some people and that you will follow up.

Answering Up

Recently there was a very sad story on the news. A large cruise liner full of happy vacationers just starting out on their cruise was mishandled by her captain's orders and crashed on the rocks. Some of the passengers died, trapped in the ship. The passengers had not yet gone through a lifeboat drill, and the captain is alleged to have "jumped ship" or "fallen" (depending on whose story) into a life boat.I wrote a poem expressing a viewpoint. I have updated it to include suggested changes and I post it here.

Answering up

Poor man
I say, watching the TV,
police leading him away
humped back, bent head.

Poor man?
you say. He
jumped ship — no,
“fell”
into a lifeboat,
left hundreds to die.

But who,
I say, has not jumped ship
in the face of danger?
or held his tongue
when he knew better?

Who has not put on,
sometimes,
that cloak of invisibility
called shame.

Not everyone,
you say
sets himself up
as the captain of the ship.

Why not?
I think, (holding my tongue).
. . . Poor man.

 Pam Blehert

On the face of it, I would appear to be excusing Captain Francesco Schettino's behavior. Look again. There is a more complex viewpoint. I may not (and you may not) have been responsible for the loss of the liner, but did we, on the other hand, ever step up to the challenge of leadership? Or were we ever ashamed of our deeds/ misdeeds/ or lack thereof?

What is reality?

Sure, we all know what reality is, right? Reality is what is… well …REAL.

But what is it?

Wikipedia tells us: Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible.

It’s simple enough to confirm that the chair we sit in is real. The ground, the cat, the roof over our head, the food we eat. These are solidities.

What about ideas? Are they real? Is death real? You can experience it, sure, but are you really extinguished for eternity? Is there a heaven or hell? Will you sing with the angels or roast in everlasting fire?

These are “realities” which are debatable.

There is such a thing as personal certainty, and that may or may not be real. Certainly, when we find someone claiming that the Martians are out to get him and wearing funny hats made of aluminum foil, we are quick to reject his “reality.” We even shut him up in a sanitarium if he appears dangerous.

So maybe “reality” has something to do with agreement. If many people in America are told with enough “authority” that terrorists are out to get us, is that real? Well, it’s real enough until debunked. (Some say, in fact, that we create terrorists by creating conditions which are unbearable.)

For many years most of us thought that the USSR was a viable threat, until it fell apart and we discovered that its people were living in poverty so that some politicians could divert all the resources of the country and its satellites to maintain a posture of success.

Well, if I tell you that you are basically good and that you are an immortal being, is that real? I believe it, so it’s real to me. A number of people I know “understand” it as a personal truth. But if you haven’t personally experienced it, it won’t be real to you. This is an area of ideas, and reality is subject to our agreement.

And wouldn’t it be nice if it were true? What I would like is for you to look for yourself. Can you really imagine a world without you in it? Check out Scientology.

Are you there?

Yesterday I was thinking how nice people are — in general, you know.

The owner of Greenberries coffee shop provided a nice cool place to sit while I updated my notes. The art director at the Reston Community Center was supportive of my efforts to start a class in Herndon. Someone — a complete stranger — smiled at me. A driver waved me to cross the street. A construction worker noticed my eating a Dairy Queen soft cone and remarked how nice it looked in this hot weather we're having.

How nice they are, all of them.

I look around and I see that each one, each person, each spark of life (really) has his own memory and purpose and concept of past and future. I want to know more about each one.

Communication is a two-way street. It's not words. It's perception, recognition. The person who doesn't recognize other life leads a very lonely existence.

Let's communicate, my friend.