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May 25, 2004
White Teeth
"White Teeth" was British writer Zadie Smith's first novel. It was critically acclaimed, it won awards and it was turned into a mini-series on British television. We saw it last winter on PBS - Masterpiece Theater. My daughter Claire was caught by the story and bought the book. In looking up Smith on Google, I found a variety of fan sites, literary sites, and book trade sites which mention her work (see selected links at the end of this post). Some of the sites indicate that she sold the book and got a good advance on the strength of the outline and first 80 pages.
Smith writes very well. Her characters are well drawn, distinctive, complex people with interesting impulses, feelings and ideas. The characters carry the novel and tell the story. The social and political themes are presented through the stories of the characters.
The narrative voice is third person omniscient, and the point of view shifts. Generally, the point of view is minority - Asian or Caribean immigrants, women, and young people - but without any large sense of oppression. Her characters are not necessarily powerful in society, but they are powerful within one another's emotional lives.
Smith is at her best with several complex and confused young people. There are Clara and Alsana, the young women who marry Archie and Samid, who are men in their 50's, veterans of World War II. There are also Irie, the daughter of Clara and Archie, Magid and Millat, the twin sons of Alsana and Samid, Joshua Chalfens, and a handful of other young people. The young people are pulled in different directions. They are drawn to assimilate into British culture, and the British intelligentsia. They want to be normal. They imagine themselves within the framework of movies and pop culture. They embrace and reject parental and family influences. They face the direct prejudices of outright racists, and the oblivious racism of the average Englishman. They also encounter the subtle and condescending racism of political correctness and liberalism. Some are drawn to isolationist religious and racist movements or radical activism.
She puts her characters into a very interesting story that goes from the older men capturing a Nazi scientist at the end of World War II to several sets of characters involved, at the end of the 20th century with promoting or protesting a scientist who has created a genetically modified mouse. Her treatment of science and culture is progressive and post-modern.
Several of the characters are involved in religion and politics at the extremes. There are Jehovah's Witnesses, Islamic Fundamentalists, Animal Rights activists. Smith deals with these characters in a mature way. She writes these characters as sometimes ridiculously obsessed, sometimes confused, mixing ideas and emotions, rationalizing their choices and beliefs, or simply proclaiming them without logic or reason.
There is an interesting authorial rant late in the book which starts with Irie's love for Millat. Irie is the daughter of Archie - middle aged white English working class - and Clara - second generation Jamaican. Millat is one of the twin sons of Samad Iqbal, Bengali. Millat is part cocksman, part gangster, and an Islamic militant by the end of the book. Irie is convinced that Millat can't love her because he is damaged by his past, to which Smith says: "What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way?" This is an interesting commentary on the sense of entitlement we absorb from pop psychology and pop culture, which leads us to blame others for not living up to our hopes and dreams.
There are some weaknesses in the book. Smith leaves some plot threads dangling. For instance part way through the book she suggests that Millat gets HIV during unprotected sex, but leaves that idea unresolved. Some of her characters are just caricatures. Joyce Chalfens, wife of the scientist Marcus Chalfens, writer, gardener, earth mother, liberal, hippie, is weak. There is a ridiculous liberal school headmaster.
The climax - the collision between Marcus Chalfens's genetically altered mouse and all the protesters has a moment of great tension, which almost overcomes the disappointment of an otherwise flat climax. The resolution of the stories of the lead characters is also disappointingly sweet and benign. There is a feeling that the ending was chopped off, and written in a positive and feel-good way, to help guarantee the saleability of a hyped product.
On the whole though, a very good book by a writer of great talent and promise.
There are several Zadie Smith links. Avoid the unofficial one called zadiesmith.com which has popups. It's a literary lure site. There's a good fan/critic page by Kevin Patrick Mahoney. There are reviews, pages devoted to Smith or "White Teeth," biographical material and interviews at Culture Wars, PBS and BBC.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 07:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 24, 2004
Chains, Gears and Pedals
As we reach the end of May, we have only been able to wear shorts 4 times. The temperatures have generally stayed under 10 degrees (Celsius). However, we have been riding steadily. We didn't ride in the evenings during the week of May 10-14 due to a spring blizzard. I passed on one ride this week to make soup and pudding for Claire, who had just had her wisdom teeth out. But otherwise I have been out nearly as much as Mike whose odometer for the year is at 872 kilometers since March 28. Steve, who rides to work and rides at lunch (but can't ride most evenings in May and June since he is a responsible dad with three kids playing soccer) is at 921 kilometers.
We rode to the gravel quarry in Bird's Hill on Sunday May 23, and we had the rare excitement of a steady, strong tailwind on the way home. I was riding my Giant Yukon, and the ride exposed a shortcoming of this bike. I found that I did not have the top end gear combinations to keep up with Mike and Steve. I suspect that Mike and Steve have smaller top rear rings - 11 or 12 teeth. Mike clearly has a bigger front ring.
I counted gear teeth later and determined that the smallest cog or ring on my rear cassette has 14 teeth. The big front ring has 42 teeth. That ratio, applied to a 26 inch wheel is only 78 inches of travel per revolution. Bicycling Magazine's Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair has a table of travel which assumes a standard mountain bike gearing of 13 teeth on the smallest rear cog and 46 on the largest front cog, yielding 92 inches of travel per revolution in top gear. For road bikes, they assume a front ring of 53 teeth. Applied to a 13 tooth rear cog and a 27 inch wheel, they approximate 110 inches of travel per revolution.
I have been using the Giant more as a hybrid touring bike than as a trail-riding, mountain bike. I use the small rear cogs much more than the big trail rings, and I need different gearing to get a more out of my bike. A 12 tooth rear cog and a 46 tooth front ring would give me 99 inches per revolution, which would be good for downhills, tailwinds, and sprints.
I bought the bike in 1998. It was supposed to have been a 1997 model. It's time to renew some drivertrain components. While I may only have put on a couple of hundred klicks a year from 1998 to 2002, the last 2 years have been more intense. The chain is stretched by 1/8 inch per foot, which is past the time to replace it, according to Sheldon Brown, a good and knowledgeable source.
It's time for a new chain, a new rear cassette, and probably at least one of the front rings. I may have to take the wheel into a bike shop to make sure I get the right cassette to fit my freewheel hub. Replacing Shimano cassettes can be simple under some conditions, but I'm not sure what I'm shopping for.
A few weeks ago I bought a pair of Shimano PD-M324 pedals which have a platform on one side, and a binding for a cleat (for Shimano's clipless SPD system). Shimano markets them as entry-level multi-purpose clipless pedals. At the time I was looking for something to use on my road bike, without committing to cleats and eggbeater pedals. The salesman (at Winnipeg's Gooch store) said that I would like the big platform on a road bike. He was full of shit on that point, but I liked the idea of a conventional platform on the other side. I thought that would be handy to have a simple platform if I have to jump on the bike in sandles or regular shoes to run an errand. The platform is like the platform on a regular mountain bike pedal, although not quite as aggressive as some metal mountain bike pedals. I thought I would be able to use them on the road bike for a few rides and switch them to the Giant.
This weekend Mike suggested that I move them to my Giant now, since I use that bike for our mixed surface urban/rural touring and I always wear my bike shoes, which now have cleats, for those rides. It was a logical suggestion. I put the M324's on the Giant this morning and went for a 20 k ride before the rain arrived. It was a good idea. It let me get rid of the crappy plastic pedals that came with the bike. It forced me to learn to use the cleats and bindings.
I had planned for the option of a cleat-based clipless system when I bought the shoes last year, but I had been reluctant to use the cleats, even when I put the pedals on my road bike a few weeks ago. I found that it's easy to release from the pedals, although I wonder if I could manage to twist both ankles fast to get out of a spill. Locking the cleats is still a little unpredictable after a couple of dozen attempts Sometimes I find it easily, but sometimes I am fumbling for the correct spot. I am increasingly confidant about hooking in, and I have the platform side if I have to start fast.
Once I was riding with my feet centered on the pedal axles, I looked at the adjustment of the bike seat and moved myself forward an inch, for a tighter and more comfortable ride.
It seems to have been the right decision. With the amount of riding I do, it makes sense to have moved into a higher quality pedal that hold my feet consistently in a good position.
My main regret was not shopping more carefully. Mountain Equipment Coop sells the M324 at $72 per pair. Gooch listed them at $120 but offered a 25% markdown. (The retail price for online vendors in the US runs from $39 USD at Jensens to $97). I paid more than I had to.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 03:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2004
Remembering Sister Jane
Sister Jane's drop-in Center, Chez Nous, operated in an old bank building at the corner of Main Street and Higgins Avenue. When Jane was sick, the Center was frequently closed. When Jane died, her friends and supporters on the Board of directors of the non-profit corporation were left with a decision to sell the building, or to try to carry on Sister Jane's work.
They have carried on. Jane's therapist and friend Vicki Frankel helped the Board to reorganize itself. The Board members trained themselves to work in the drop-in Center, and they found and trained more volunteers. They raised money, and they kept the doors open. The Archdiocese of Winnipeg has been recognizing their work, and Sister Jane's work in taking collections and publicizing the work of Chez Nous in its internal newsletter in May 2004.
On Sunday May 16, 2004, Chez Nous held an open house to unveil a plaque in memory of Sister Jane. I arrived late and missed the unveiling. The Archbishop of Winnipeg was there, which meant a lot to Jane's Catholic friends who saw it as supportive of Jane and her calling to work with the poor.
I spoke with some of Jane's friends about how they were handling work with addicts and street people, and how they managed their safety and emotional boundaries with needy and sometimes dangerous people. I looked at the comfortable old furniture, the posters, the pictures of visitors and volunteers.
Again, I was moved to realize that while Chez Nous offers little in the way of financial support, it tries to provide a safe respite from the street, with respect and love. I realized again that Sister Jane, from her own pain and confusion, had been true to her calling and true to the Gospel message of loving the poor.
I wasn't able to stay long because I found myself breaking down into tears. I don't think it was honest grief for Sister Jane, although I believe that her life and death were painful and sad. It was a more personal grief, of a self-pitying kind.
Jane's case also marked some turning points in my life. When I met Jane in late 2001 I was a few months past a series of surgical procedures and a diagnosis - incorrect as it happened - of colo-rectal cancer. I had started to go to Church again, after years of anger at the Church and skepticism. I was rejoicing in not having cancer, and in having had an explanation and an end to years of GI tract problems.
However, my son was growing away from the family, and my wife was becoming desperately sad about Dave and hopelessly and angrily disappointed that I was more skeptical than ever about her favoured spirituality - the New Age. As I worked on Jane's case, I found many references to questionable Alternative therapies and human growth movements, some of which directly indicted my wife's parents, friends and counsellors. My wife became convinced that my negative and skeptical attitude to life was the main cause for our son's estrangement and rebellion and our daughter's emotional problems during her childhood and mid-teen years. Eventually she said that I was emotionally abusing her by criticizing the New Age and demanded a divorce.
Visiting Chez Nous this past Sunday brought that sharply and painfully into focus.
I don't blame Jane or my decision to take Jane's case for the changes in my own life. I can't make those connections. I think working with and for Jane has helped me, then and now, to understand what I believe in, and to accept that life comes with pain and loss.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2004
More about Sister Jane
Since I first posted about Sister Jane, I have talked further with her legal personal representative and her family, and reached a point where I can tell more of Jane's story and take some lessons from it.
Sister Jane was Sister Jane Mary McDonald, a professed nun in the Order of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. She was born in 1951. She was from Manchester, New Hampshire. She joined the Order as a postulant in 1972 when she was 20. In 1975, she met Sister JW, who had been in leadership positions in Holy Cross in Edmonton. Sister JW was involved in a movement called PRH (Personality in Human Relationships) originated in France by a priest, Father Andrew Rochais. She came to New Hamphire to give a presentation. Jane didn't know it, but the presentation was an introductory PRH workshop, now remembered by the American PRH organization as part of its early history. Sister JW was encouraging younger nuns to come to Edmonton to study her approach to living the professed Religious life.
From my perspective, PRH seems to be a personal growth cult operating on the fringes of Catholicism. Under the influence of Sister JW and other leaders of the Order, it seems to have had a great influence on the Sisters of the Holy Cross.
Sister Jane came to Canada in 1975 and spent a year in Edmonton. During that time Sister JW was working within the Order to set up a new spiritual community under her leadership. While she was not able to open a separate Holy Cross house, she was able to organize support to set up a communal living arrangement under the name of Maissons du Croissance or Homes for Growth. Homes for Growth was supported by Holy Cross and the Oblate Fathers. It was supposed to be a spiritual community and a retreat center offering services to other clergy and spiritual seekers. The first Home for Growth was in Lorette, Manitoba. The program grew and opened more houses later. Sister JW later developed her own programs and grew apart from the main PRH movement in Canada.
Sister Jane came to Manitoba in 1978, and stayed here for the rest of her life. She was a resident of the Lorette commune for about a year. It was during that time that Jane had the sexual experiences with Sister JW that I mentioned in my first post about Sister Jane. Since most of the Holy Cross sisters in Manitoba were connected to Homes for Growth, Sister Jane had a hard time ending her connection to it. Since most of the Holy Cross sisters in Manitoba admired and supported Sister JW, Jane became estranged from her Order. She took a job with the Salvation Army at one of its shelters for a few years. She founded her drop-in, Chez Nous, in 1987 and worked there until she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2000. Through most of the year, Jane was under intensive treatment to manage her cancer. She went into remission in the fall.
Jane contacted the Superior General of Holy Cross in 1998 and 1999, and disclosed her experiences with Sister JW and Homes for Growth. The Superior did not take agree to take any steps to discipline Sister JW or to assert any control over Homes for Growth.In December 2000, Sister Jane brought her story of sexual abuse and exclusion from her Order to James Weisgerber, the Archbishop of Winnipeg. He expressed concern about the direction the Homes for Growth movement had taken. He said had been concerned about PRH in Western Canada since his experiences with that movement as priest in Saskatchewan and as Bishop of Saskatoon. He listened to her respectfully and took her story seriously. He gave Jane financial support to make a trip to Ireland. But he said he had limited authority in Canon (Church) law to take action against Sister JW for sexual abuse or to curtail the activities of Homes for Growth. He may have reported the matter to the authorities in the Vatican responsible for independent Religious Orders, because the Vatican appointed a retired Superior of the Grey Nuns of Montreal to visit Winnipeg and investigate the story. Jane never saw the report of that investigation.
By the spring of 2001, Jane was depressed and suicidal. She got help and started counselling with Cynthia Jordan, a psychologist, and Vicki Frankel, a social worker. After a few months of therapy, she began to consider leaving the Order, and seeking compensation for the sexual and emotional abuse she had experienced. That's when I got into the story. I satisfied myself that Jane had been receiving good treatment from qualified, competent and ethical professionals, that her memory of abuse was genuine, and that the abuse had caused significant emotional harm. I started court proceedings but Sister Jane's cancer came back before we had a hearing in Court, and she died in July, 2003.
I was uncomfortable, as a practicing Catholic, with the fact that the institutional Church had been unable or unwilling to adjudicate Jane's allegations against Sister JW and Holy Cross internally in Canon law. I was uncomfortable with the way Holy Cross presented itself within the Church when it was questioned about how it was handling Jane's claims. The Order and the lawyers for the Order treated Jane confrontationally in the legal proceedings, but defended their stance by blaming Jane for seeking civil justice and taking the matter to Court, and for not forgiving her abuser.
In one sense, Holy Cross treated Jane like any ordinary corporation treats a whistle-blower - it tried to discredit her and to avoid engaging in any public discussion of the story. In another sense, she was treated worse because her willingness to take her grievance against Sister JW, Holy Cross and Homes for Growth to Court was portrayed within the Church as an immoral attack on the Church itself and an abandonment of her religion.
I have been left with serious questions about whether the Church's Code of Canon law is adequate to secure the safety and financial security of clergy and professed religious who have legitimate grievances against other members of the clergy. I have also been left with other questions about the meaning of religious freedom. The government and the public courts should not be attempting to regulate belief and theology, but the members of Churches and religious movements should be able to find justice within their religious institutions. It seems to me that the government has a fundamental role in securing the safety of members of churches and religious institutions from exploitation and abuse.
Working with Sister Jane led me to examine the way in which the Church responds to intellectual and emotional trends in the world. I am old enough to remember the excitement and fear that came from John XIII's movement to open the windows, and to remember the debates about whether the Church had to become "relevant".
Sister Jane, like many progressive Christians, caught the message of the politics of equality and reform through liberation theology and devoted herself to service to the poor.
Sister JW caught the message that religion was an affective or emotional subjective experience. She used her power in the Order to create a post-modern cult of self-actualization and personal growth. Her story illustrates the risk of corruption in locating religion in the affective realm of impulses and feelings - the risk in committing acts of self-gratification and abuse in God's name.
The Church hierarchy has been much more harsh toward liberation theology than to cults and sects. The Polish Pope, an old Cold Warrior, has been suspicious that liberation theology represented the penetration of Marxist teachings into the Church. At the same time, he is an advocate of bringing back traditional prayers and devotions that touch the feelings of the faithful. The Church has had a hard time teaching against affective New Age cults while it promotes tradition-based affective practices.
My anger and frustration over the Church's response to Sister Jane's story nearly led me out of the Church. My admiration for Jane's honesty and devotion to her calling has helped me to stay.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2004
Starting Over
"Starting Over" is a self-help book by Thomas A. Whiteman and Randy Peterson, published by Pinon Press in 2001. I found it at McNally Robinson, a Western Canadian chain of bookstores.
Whiteman is real licenced psychologist with a Ph. D. degree from Bryn Mawr, a real university. I don't take that for granted in the authors of self-help books. He is an entrepreneur, with a counselling practice in Pennsylvania, called Life Counseling Services and a connection to Fresh Start seminars. The book is founded in the working experience of a qualified professional. The appearance is that Whiteman has the experience and the ideas, and collaborated with Peterson to produce a book so I will generally refer to Whiteman as the author.
Since the public, the publishing industry and the counselling professions have been influenced by the dubious theories of "recovery", humanistic, transpersonal and transformational psychology, even qualified professionals often spout pop psychology nonsense in self-help books. While "Starting Over" is not entirely free of pop psych jargon, it seems to be well grounded in common sense.
"Starting Over" is for people who did not expect or initiate the end of a relationship. It starts with survival, and tries to get to starting over. It emphasizes taking responsibility for one's recovery, accepting that recovery is going to be a long, painful process, and that healing requires forgiveness and justice.
There is some God-talk in the book and I wondered if this was intended to be useful to evangelical Christians who might have religious problems with the divorce process. I confirmed that later when I Googled Thomas Whiteman and Fresh Start Seminars. Whiteman seems to have developed a Christian-oriented version of his principles through his work with Fresh Start, which is noted at the Fresh Start Web site and other sites like JCSM. In "Starting Over," he presents his advice in a less religiously oriented manner. His ideas are not particularly religious or faith-based. He simply makes the effort to help an evangelical Christian accept divorce and accept the idea of remarriage.
Chapter One addresses taking responsibility, which requires consciously recognizing that the marriage is over and taking deliberate steps towards starting over. Divorce isn't an agreement. If one partner wants to leave, it happens. The writers encourage people to believe that there is a natural healing process which will happen if we take responsibility for working to start over.
They use the theory or image of Five Stages of Grieving in Chapter Two, and through the next few chapters. As I posted last week, the Five Stage theory is only a rough model of the process of grieving for death and dying. I doubt that there is scientific evidence that divorcing people - either the ones who leave or the ones left behind - go through all five steps in any order.
Whiteman basically takes the idea of Five Stages and redefines the Stages in terms of divorce. He says that people will slip quickly through the first three stages of Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression and then often slip back and forth between stages before they finally feel better and reach Acceptance. He also says there is a vital extra step.
He defines Denial as a response to emotional shock, in which a person will deny the reality of the situation and will, as a result, be unable to be open to change and to entering into new relationships. He suggests that denial may often last only a few days, although in some cases it last for months or a lifetime.
He explains that Anger is natural and legitimate. He suggests expressing anger in legitimate ways, and in framing the issues and identifying anger as a response to perceived mistreatment. He says that it is important to re-examine our perceptions of the breakup as a way of reducing and resolving the anger. He advises avoiding confrontation that will escalate the anger, redirecting energy spent in anger to more constructive projects, and resolving the anger by altering perceptions of the original injustice.
His discussion of Bargaining is brief and to the point. Bargaining with oneself or the ex in the hope of reconciliation is tempting and risky. Usually the other spouse is not open to it, and often the other spouse has an agenda and will manipulate you. You may sell yourself out by being weak in the hope of leaving the door open to reconciliation. You may also bend yourself out of shape by trying to change yourself to please a spouse who will be unhappy with life, no matter what you do.
His advice for Depression is to expect it, tolerate it, avoid addictive behaviour, and to get help if it lasts too long or becomes too intense.
He explains Acceptance as the end state where you have stopped obsessing about it, and move on with your life. I think he has perhaps taken that Stage out of order, to try to conform to the popular model. He introduces an important sixth step in Chapter Two which he discusses at length in Chapter Five. He advises that we need to aim for forgiveness. More on that later.
Chapters Three and Four state that recovering from the emotional pain of marriage breakdown can take, usually, two years or longer. Progress through the stages is a climb up a slippery slope. Anger and depression will recur. I think he also says that even after passing through the stages, you may need more time and some work on a healthy self view and healthy connections before you should start a new intimate relationship.
Whiteman counsels avoiding intimate relationships for a couple of years after a breakup because you will be too fragile and needy and your judgment will be impaired - you will be either too vulnerable or too defensive to succeed. He counsels avoiding rebound relationships. People enter into rebound relationships to prove that they are lovable - to themselves, to the ex who left them. Often a rebound relationship is with a person with the same character as the ex, and has the same weaknesses as the original relationship. Sometimes the rebound relationship is with a person who exploits your vulnerability and need.
Chapter Five discusses forgiveness. Whiteman explains that he does not counsel forgetting the other party's actions or excusing the other party's misconduct. Forgiveness is not earned or deserved. Forgiveness is an authentic release of animosity. Whiteman is very careful to explain that forgiveness is not a matter of taking the moral high ground and saying that you have forgiven the other person. He advises that you have to see the person with new eyes, to assess the person realistically and to stop being angry.
He suggests that the process will vary, depending on whether the other person wants forgiveness, and whether there is going to be any kind of ongoing relationship. These are not simple terms and concepts. The idea that the other person will want forgiveness means that the other person must be willing to meet and hear your grievances and acknowledge that he or she has harmed you. An ongoing relationship doesn't mean a reconciliation. It may refer to custody and access arrangements with the kids, working in the same company or profession, going to the same Church, belonging to the same clubs and organizations, or just being in the same circle of friends.
He suggests that it is appropriate, where the other person is open, to discuss each person's the grievances in neutral language, and resolve the animosity - even if there no ongoing relationship. If there is going to be a relationship, but the other person acts as if you as if you are entirely in the wrong, it is still possible to state your views, be heard and move on.
His view of the importance of forgiveness may reflect an underlying theological approach to psychology, but his view is also logical and supported within conventional scientific models of pyschology.
Chapter Six is about Self View. He puts forward some of the standard ideas about developing a positive outlook and taking care of oneself. He refers at one point to the slippery concept of self-talk, and he lapses into some jargon in this Chapter. Mainly, he puts himself at a distance from the popular ideas of entitlement and self-esteem. He advises that we should develop a balanced view of ourselves as valuable people in a community of valuable people. We shouldn't feel deprived or denied if we have not enjoyed great achievements, and we shouldn't demand praise or flattery for slight achievements. We should take care of ourselves and respect others. We should examine ourselves and let go of emotional baggage that contributes to an incorrect or unfair self-appraisal.
As with all advice in self-help books, the advice in this Chapter can be taken selectively, but Whiteman does his best to be clear and helpful.
I can deal with the rest of the book quickly. Chapter Seven encourages participation in wider communities and discourages isolation. It warns that we need to look at the explicit and implicit message we get from our friends and to discount the messages that support an unhealthy self view or unhealthy behaviour. Chapter Eight encourages supporting and helping others.
I wasn't sure this book was going to be useful, but I think it will be.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 01:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 10, 2004
Sunscreen
My friend Stephen Katz offered my some support and advice in a private email message in the form of a quote from the Sunscreen song. I may have heard of it, but I didn't think I had ever actually heard the song or read the lyrics.
The story of the Sunscreen column, the Sunscreen speech and the the Sunscreen song is interesting. It started as a newspaper column by Mary Schmich, written and published in Chicago June 1, 1997. It was titled "ADVICE, LIKE YOUTH, PROBABLY JUST WASTED ON THE YOUNG". It began to circulate on the Interet, but it was generally misattributed as speech by Kurt Vonnegut, to the graduates of MIT. It was turned into a 1999 hit song by Baz Luhrman.
I found the text of the column, and Luhrman's musical version.
It's cute and funny, and wise and sad.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 06:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 03, 2004
Five Stages
During a conversation with my brother about my divorce and my relationship with my son, the question of stages of grief came up.
I knew that the stages included denial, anger and depression. I wasn't sure if there were seven stages of grief, or five. I knew that they had been suggested by the Swiss psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her 1969 book On Death and Dying, which I had read many years ago. I remembered the writer's effort to find a pattern of meaning in the emotions of some of her patients. I remembered that I had found the book did not live up to its hype. I remembered that the idea of stages had been the central theme of the 1979 movie, All that Jazz, which I had seen when it was released in theaters. (The movie has attracted mixed reviews).
Kubler-Ross claimed to have described a general process of grieving for one's own death by terminal illness, or for grieving the death of a loved one. Her idea has been extended and generalized to other kinds of losses by some counsellors and writers who appear to accept the stages as a universal human process. The idea of a staged process has become part of the stock of modern cultural information and so widely accepted that it forms part of the conventional wisdom,
The five stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
Kubler-Ross's theory has been widely criticized by scientists, care-givers, theologians and philosophers. This link to the online course notes of Dr. Christian Perring of the University of Kentucky's Department of Philosophy provides some general criticisms of the theory. Howard Gorle has published an online E-book at www.bereavement.org which goes into more detail.
One of the pages at bereavement.org - Beware the 5 Stage Theory - reminds us that the theory of 5 stages was originally a description of how critically ill patients receive catastrophic news and that it was not a general theory of grief. The Canadian journalist Heather Robertson published an article in Elm Street Magazine which indicates that Kubler-Ross had borrowed her theory from a chaplain and from other writers without attribution and dressed it up as a (Freudian-oriented) psychiatric theory.
Gorle's summary of the criticism of Kubler-Ross is succinct:
The 'Stage Theory' and Kubler-Ross have been the subject of often cynical questioning in recent years. Difficulties with the research method have not been addressed in over 25 years. Nor is there any verification of the existence of the Five Stages or that if they exist, people progress through them in any orderly fashion.The supposed universality of the stages sometimes results in patients being herded along to 'the next stage' by family, support and medical personnel. In other words, the 'description' has become the 'prescription'. The theory denies the individuality of human beings and other needs of the dying such as having some control in their own treatment and destiny, the role of culture, religion, personality, family dynamics and so on.
Other pages at bereavement.org, stemming from a theories page, explore many other literary, religious and cultural theories of grief. I recommend these pages to readers of my age who will be confronting their own illnesses and the illnesses and deaths of elderly parents. I have been there myself in 2001 around a (fortunately incorrect) diagnosis of colon cancer. I wish I had had this information for my own support at that time.
Kubler-Ross has not truly and justly earned all the fame and public esteem that has come her way, which is a comment on how weak ideas can circulate and gain popularity in our modern world.
She describes the process of learning about imminent death, and dying as a journey from denial to acceptance. That's a romantic vision, with overtones of Eastern religious wisdom - a journey from ignorance and pain to enlightenment and release. It is obviously a more attractive package than the journey from immobilized shock through anxiety and depression to painful resignation.
She writes as a psychiatrist, and presents her work as a scientific analysis of the case studies of a large number of patients. What she presents is her selective interpretation of what some people told her they were feeling. The 5 stage theory is simply her rough model of the grief process for the doomed and the bereaved. It isn't science - it's metaphor. Her five stages are named for a confusing combination of states, processes and basic emotions. She starts and ends with judgmental statements about denial and acceptance. People who don't like the idea of dying are in denial which is unenlightened and bad. People who learn they have no choice are enlightened and good.
Her concept of Denial seems to legitimize one of the great all-purpose insults of the late 20th century. When someone does not agree with your interpretation of facts, events or emotions, he is not merely mistaken or wrong, but "in denial". A person in denial is ignorant, unenlightened and sick. When one person describes someone else as being in denial, she claims the moral and spiritual high ground, and the therapeutic high ground.
I doubt that she was the first person to misuse the word "denial" this way. This demeaning pseudo-therapeutic usage comes out of the addiction/recovery movement and humanistic psychology, and Kubler-Ross has only further popularized it.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 05:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bike Restoration
Several times last year, I told my friends that I was going to get my road bike back on the road. On Saturday morning, looking at a long ride on pavement to Lockport on Sunday, I decided to go forward with the project.
The bike is a Kuwahara Apollo. I bought it around 1979 or 1980. I rode it actively for a few years, but my cycling dropped off after 1982. It has a high quality Chrome-moly frame, and good wheels and components.
The basics to get it roadworthy were new tires and tubes. I thought that 20 years of sitting in the basement had dried out the rubber and made the old ones pretty unreliable. The tires had seen some wear too. In view of the prevalence of sharp stones and other road hazards on Winnipeg roads, I went into the mid-market for tires and bought Armadillos. I bought new tubes, and a spare to carry on trips.
The next item was a seat post. The bike came with a short post and I had extended it past the safety mark to get proper leg extension. I'm not sure why I didn't take care of this when I bought the bike. New alloy seat posts are cheap - but they tend to be pretty long to match the geometry of modern frames which call for long seat posts. A quick cut with a hacksaw and I had a post that was properly seated in the frame.
I got a rear rack. I carry a rack pack or panniers with spare tubes, a few tools, lights, snacks, headband for cold weather, rain cover for helmet etc. I will not be racing this bike - I will be using it for long rides on pavement and I want to be safe.
I looked at the brakes. Shimano calipers. Nothing wrong with them but the brakes pads were worn and the rubber was probably dry. However fiddling with brakes can get time consuming so I decided to leave that task for another day.
The drive train seemed fine. The gear teeth were in good shape. Twelve speeds doesn't sound like enough in the modern era, but it is. If I want, I can probably add a third ring on the front when I renew or replace the front rings. I'm not sure, because it may require a different crank to get space for the third ring. However, I don't know if I really need to make that change. It certainly wasn't necessary to get the bike on the road this week. The rear cassette has 6 rings. Adding to that would be a problem. More rings, more axle - and where do you fit that without frame work? Again, why bother.
I had wondered about changing the shifters to modern indexed shifters. The front shifter had been tricky all along - it didn't hold in the outer position over my big front ring. However I thought this job could wait.
The pedals were built for clips and old fashioned bike shoes with a grooved cleat. They had little posts on the inner and outer edges to hold a narrow racing shoe. That made them hard to use with the bike shoes I have now, and hopeless with any kind of general purpose shoe. So new pedals were required. And while I was at it, I might as well get clipless pedals. Gooch's bike shop has a sale so I saved a little there. I got Shimano pedals with a platform on one side and cleat locks on the other.
I spent a few hours replacing the tires and tubes, repacking the wheel bearings, cleaning and lubing the chain, installing the rack and installing the new pedals.
The bike felt good on the Sunday morning ride our Sunday morning ride to Lockport. I had to shift in the saddle a bit to get comfortable and I thought of making some adjustments but by the end of the ride I was comfortable again.
I realized quickly that I need to replace the brake pads right away. The brakes worked but wailed like pan pipes played by a goose with a sinus condition. I found that the cloth tape on the handlebars is frayed and uncomfortable and needs to be replaced. The water bottle cage was pretty shaky. I can add a second cage to the seat tube if I carry my tire pump strapped to the top tube with velco straps. These are all small and simple repairs.
I will have to do something about the shifters. The front shifter is not working and I will need those gears on some rides. I may want to get a longer front stem if I can't get a little extension. I will be looking into these repairs.
The cost of parts adds up, but it is a good bike and I don't want to buy a new one when I already own a good bike.
There is no doubt that a road bike is more efficient for a long ride. As Steve has posted, it was a windy day. The road bike allows or forces a rider into a dropped position, and the thin tires (23 mm) offer far less rolling resistance that touring (35 mm) and mountain bike cleated fatties.
Complaining about the wind, and the narrow shoulders and the ignorant drivers on Henderson Highway is part of life. I complain during the rides and I will probably complain about it in the future because I will take that ride again. Lockport is a nice ride on a sunny Sunday.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 08:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 02, 2004
Teenage gigolos
My son Dave calls me about once a day. He calls collect from Edmonton and I accept the charges. The number shows up as a local number. It might be a cell phone, but I have found that some long distance calls show up as local calls in call display.
He called me on Friday morning at work. He knew the number.
He seems to have a good memory for some things. It's curious that his mom always believed him when he used bad memory as an excuse for broken promises or unwillingness to accept directions and rules. I always thought he was pretty clever and that he had a problem of attitude, not a problem of ability.
He wanted money. At first it was just money for food but it became clear that he feels entitled to ask me for more. He said that that his plan is to get a job and the mall. He was suggesting that I should help him out by putting up a damage deposit on a room or apartment and sending him money for food and expenses. I said that my plan was that he stay with CFS and get a job and work for a few months and prove that he could live on his own before I would start investing in supporting that kind of plan. I reminded him that I had not agreed to pay for his trip to Edmonton or any part of it. I said I did not think he was really in trouble, and I pointed out that he has other resources.
He complains that his friends' parents have been helping out and he says I am being a Jew. He has picked up some anti-Semitism as part of his vocabulary on the street. He also knows that slur gets under my skin and he uses it to distract me and to break up the communication.
It appeared to me that he had an audience when he was making the call. I realized that he was starting to contradict the stories he had been telling Jan. He had told her he was alone, and that the friends who go had taken him to Edmonton had ditched him.
As he got more angry with me he began to brag about how he had nearly succeeded in taking the car again. I had thought it had been him. He told me that he was with Cody again. He said that Cody's girlfriend was pregnant. He said her name was Kristin. I said that didn't change my thinking. If they wanted to get out of this spot, they would have to find their own way. When he realized that I wasn't responding, he threatened me. I hung up.
Cody is a kid that Dave started to hang around with last summer. Cody has addiction issues and a major resentment of his step-dad. Dave and Cody reinforce each other's sense of entitlement and focus one another's anger on their dads.
I checked in with Cody's step-dad Mark who said Cody had mentioned a girl named Amber who had come up with some money for this adventure. Cody has run away to Vancouver and Edmonton a few times. The first time, he stole Mark's Interac card. He has learned not to trust Cody too far but he keeps taking him in and trying to help him and Cody keeps burning him.
Cody and Dave have worked out a little gigolo act. They hang around malls and meet girls who find them attractive. They are both reasonably good looking kids, and the girls find bad boys attractive. They throw themselves into a short relationship, and encourage the girl to run away with them. Sometimes it means the girl will cut school and sneak them into her house. Other times she will leave home with her own bank card, or her parents' bank card, and finance an adventure.
I got another call from Dave on Saturday, with a few variations. He didn't seem to be playing to an audience and he sounded tired. But he still wanted the same thing. Money for today, to help him out. I asked him how Cody got home from his trips to Edmonton. He said he thought Cody had hitchhiked. He said he would still need money for food if he did that. I said I wasn't suggesting that he should hitchhike or promising him to send money if he promised to come back to Winnipeg. I said if he needed help he would find it. He will have to work for the life he wants.
I don't think he's surprized that I don't trust him. He gets angry and he identifies his anger as a response to my distrust, rather than a response to the frustration of his plans.
Posted by Tony Dalmyn at 07:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack