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A Few Thoughts About Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve had 24 hours to absorb the news that Pope Benedict XVI is stepping down at the end of the month. I think he’s doing the right thing and showing some true fortitude. But I’m also glad because there’s an opportunity for the Catholic Church to right some wrongs.

Mood music:

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The Church has stubbornly held on to backward beliefs about the role of women, the status of a person’s Catholicism after a divorce, and its attitude toward gays. It has the evil legacy of sexually abusive priests and the cover-ups involved still hanging over it. Perhaps as a result, few men are joining the priesthood these days.

The current thinking in the Church is that these matters aren’t open for debate because the Bible lays out how things should be. I agree with some of that. I think the parts about loving your neighbor, feeding the hungry and receiving the Sacraments are timeless. But when it comes to how we treat people who are different and how we treat women, the old ways of thinking need to give way.

I’m hoping a new pope can steer us in the right direction. Meantime, I’m going to just keep trying to be the best Christian I can.

Pope Benedict XVI

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I Was Wrong About Lance Armstrong

A few months ago I wrote a post called “Lance Armstrong Was Robbed,” in which I opined that he didn’t deserve to be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. I’m back to tell you I was wrong.

Like most Americans, I’m a sucker for stories about people who overcome serious adversity to achieve great things. Those stories have given me the extra push I needed over the years to bring my own demons to heel. That Armstrong won seven titles didn’t matter to me as much as the fact that he did it after beating testicular cancer. I also argued that the use of performance-enhancing drugs was beside the point; that without the raw talent and drive, all the drugs on Earth wouldn’t have pushed him to seven victories. Rightly or wrongly, I still believe that.

But I’ve had a change of heart about him being robbed after reading about his interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which he admitted to the doping. In fact, he reportedly told her that he started using performance-enhancing drugs to gain an edge in cycling in the mid-1990s — before he was diagnosed with cancer. USA Today reveals that Armstrong engaged in a cover-up that involved “attacking anyone who implicated him.”

According to the article, Armstrong’s admission that he started doping in the mid-1990s is consistent with the evidence revealed in October by the US Anti-Doping Agency.

Nobody likes to be wrong. But admitting you were wrong is better than attacking those who question you, especially when it becomes painfully clear to everyone that you’re covering something up.

I’d rather be a rational human being who can have a change of heart in the face of facts than a stubborn person whose pride won’t allow him to see the truth.

Lance Armstrong, 2005 Tour de France
Photo Credit: Joel Saget, AFP/Getty Images
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Aaron Swartz and How to Deal With Suicide

I read many articles this weekend about the suicide of Internet prodigy and activist Aaron Swartz. Most were about how we should view his legacy in the face of charges that he used MIT’s computers to gain illegal access to millions of scholarly papers kept by JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals.

Mood music:

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Some call Swartz a hero who stood up for Internet freedoms. Others point out that he broke the law and had to be punished.

All that is beside today’s main point: The 26-year-old, co-creator of RSS and Reddit, was a tortured soul, the victim of a horrible illness many still fail to comprehend. It’s an illness I suffer from, and it claimed the life of my best friend 16-plus years ago.

Swartz, a man I never met, was open about his depression. Like other sufferers — like me — he wanted people to understand that it was a true illness, as dangerous to the body and the brain as cancer is when left unchecked.

Now he’s another tragic statistic, and those left behind have to come to terms with the nature of his death.

In the years since my friend’s death, I developed a code of conduct that allowed me to stop wallowing over that evil day in November 1996:

  • Don’t blame yourself; it’s pointless. No matter how many times you replay events in your mind, the fact is that it’s not your fault. For one thing, it’s impossible to get into the head of someone who is contemplating suicide. Sure, there are signs, but since we all get the blues sometimes, it’s very easy to dismiss the signs as a normal bout of depression. When someone loudly contemplates suicide, it’s usually a cry for help. When they say nothing and even appear OK, it’s usually because they’ve made their decision and are in the quiet, planning stages.
  • Don’t blame others; it’s equally pointless. Take it from me: Nerves in your circle of family and friends are so raw right now that it won’t take much for relationships to break apart. A week after my friend’s death I wrote a column about it, revealing what, in hindsight, was too much detail. His family was furious and most of them haven’t talked to me since. They feel I was exploiting his death to advance my writing career and get attention. What I’ve learned, and this is tough to admit, is that you’re going to have to let it go when the finger pointing starts. It’s better not to engage the other side. Nobody is in their right mind at this point, so go easy on each other. Give people space to make their errors in judgment and learn from them.
  • Don’t demonize the dead. When a friend takes their life, one thing that can gnaw at survivors is the notion that if they believe in Heaven and Hell, they believe those who kill themselves are doomed to the latter. I’m a devout Catholic, so you can bet your ass this one has gone through my mind. What I’ve learned, though, is that depression is a clinical disease. A person suffering from depression who then kills themselves isn’t in control of their actions, and Catholics, at least, don’t believe God punishes them for that.

    Even if you don’t believe in an afterlife, you might feel angry at your loved one for intentionally leaving you just when they did. It comes to the same thing: that person was sick and couldn’t make good decisions. My practice today is to simply pray that those souls will be redeemed and that they will know peace. It’s really the best you can do.
  • Break the stigma. One of the friends Swartz left behind has already done something that honors him: She went on Facebook and directed people toward the American Association of Suicidology website, specifically the page on knowing the warning signs. That’s a great example of doing something to honor your friend’s memory instead of sitting around second-guessing yourself. The best thing to do now is to educate people on the disease so that sufferers can help themselves and friends and family can really be of service.
  • Get on with your life. Nobody will blame you for not being yourself for a while. You have, after all, just experienced one of the worst tragedies there is. But try not to let it paralyze you. Life must go on. You have to get on with your work and be there for those around you.

Life can be brutal. But it is a beautiful thing. Seize it.

Aaron Swartz

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Sandy Hook Lesson: Be the Change, One Soul at a Time

Like most of you, I’ve spent a good part of the weekend thinking about the lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. We all want specific solutions that will prevent more of these tragedies, but what we’re dealing with is too big and too gray for that.

 

A lot of people are debating gun control. Some people think the world would be safer if every law-abiding citizen had a firearm. Others say they support the Second Amendment but that there’s no reason for anyone other than police and soldiers to have access to weapons that can fill a body with scores of bullets in the blink of an eye.

A lot of people are also debating what this tragedy says about how we should treat the mentally ill. Some people think the mentally ill should be locked away. Others cry out for better services and educational tactics to drive disturbed individuals away from the the path Adam Lanza took when he grabbed his mother’s guns, killed her and headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he stole the lives of 20 precious children and six heroic adults who died saving the children who made it out alive.

Would stricter gun control prevent future massacres like this? I doubt it. Would giving every school principal a gun prevent it? I doubt that, too. I believe in the right of citizens to bear arms, but I don’t see how that makes it OK for people who aren’t soldiers or cops to carry handheld weapons of mass destruction. A hunting rifle for hunting and a handgun for self-defense when a home is invaded is one thing. High-powered rifles are something else entirely.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that on the subject of mental illness, I agreed with those who said we need better treatment and counseling to reach troubled youths before they become murderers.

Maybe I’m biased because I was one of those troubled kids. People made fun of me in school and I could never seem to get the hang of sports and other things that might have made me more socially acceptable. There were times in my youth when I’d occasionally think of how sweet it would be to grab a rifle or a knife and tear into the bodies of those I felt were oppressing me. Luckily for me, there were enough positive influences in my life to make the difference.

I know one kid who has a lot of emotional issues and has been through every kind of therapy and drug treatment known to man. He’s doing well, but a paper-thin line separates the sweet side of his soul from the side that could send him on a rampage. The more positive influences he has now, the better.

As for those who suggest we simply lock up the mentally disturbed: who do you think qualifies for the cage? You’ll likely point to the troubled guy who walks down the street shouting obscenities at everyone he crosses paths with, but that doesn’t mesh well with the profiles of those who went on to shoot up schools and movie theaters. This latest gunman had no criminal record and was described as a fairly docile person by family and neighbors. Charles Manson’s most blood-thirsty followers were model students and athletes in high school.

At some point their minds became twisted and sick, but outward appearances wouldn’t have indicated that they should be locked up. That’s something else I have firsthand experience with. During some of the worst periods of mental illness in my life, I was able to put on a smile and calm exterior. I could function in society, but inside I was a time bomb.

You want an easy fix for this problem? You can’t have one. It doesn’t exist.

The answer is much more difficult but worth the effort: If you know a young man or woman who goes through periods of depression, rage or self-imposed isolation, someone who struggles to fit in, try to spend time with them. Show them love and kindness. Mentor them.

Doing so has a better chance of preventing the next school massacre than more or fewer guns. We can’t catch every troubled soul and turn them around. The task is simply too big for any of us to handle.

But if we can guide one or two of them, that’s huge.

Sandy

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Hostess Was My Main Dope Supplier

A lot of people are sad this morning because Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, is going out of business after striking workers failed to heed a Thursday deadline to return to work. That’s the company’s official line, anyway.

Mood music:

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Me? I feel badly that 18,500 workers are getting laid off, though I suspect some other company will swoop in and buy Hostess for a song. The world needs its cream filling, after all.

But part of me would be glad to see the company go for a simple reason: As a compulsive binge eater who once ballooned up to 280-plus pounds because of the addiction, Hostess cakes were essentially my crack cocaine. I’d go into gas stations and buy up most of their Twinkies and both the chocolate and yellow cupcakes.

By going out of business, Hostess gives me one less thing to worry about going forward. No Hostess, no binge food.

Of course, it’s not that simple.

I’d simply binge on something else if it came to that. And McDonald’s was always number 1 in my binge book anyway.

Still, I think I can now relate to the feeling heroin and coke addicts got every time a drug lab got blown up during the ill-fated war on drugs. I can picture some junkies worrying about their supply drying up and going on a stockpiling craze.

That’s surely going to be the case with Hostess addicts. Expect a run on all their products at your local grocery store.

The good news is that with all the preservatives in those things, the supply you manage to hoard will never go bad.

Twinkies

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Lance Armstrong Was Robbed

I just saw a report that Lance Armstrong is stepping down as chairman of the Livestrong charity he built to inspire and empower cancer sufferers. It comes after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency reported “overwhelming evidence” that Armstrong engaged in doping while he was a professional cyclist.

Armstrong was robbed.

Mood music:

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Much has been made of doping in professional sports. Frankly, I couldn’t care less if athletes use steroids. So what? The media acts like it’s a new thing in professional sports, when the reality is that some form of drug enhancement has been going on in the profession longer than I’ve been alive. To be the athlete that inspires millions, you need a raw talent and drive that most people could only hope to have. Dope all you want. If you don’t have the talent and determination to begin with, you’re going nowhere.

Armstrong’s case is particularly sad. Here is a man who overcame testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain and then won the Tour de France seven times. He became a hero in the eyes of millions and that helped turn his Livestrong foundation into one of the biggest cancer-fighting charities in the country.

As far as I’m concerned, he wasn’t a hero because he won the Tour de France. He was a hero simply because he went the distance multiple times in that brutal competition. Had he come in 10th place, he still would have been a hero to me, because he overcame a deadly disease and showed sufferers everywhere that physical limitations need not stop them from living out their dreams.

People say steroids gave him an unfair advantage. I say the damage his body suffered from cancer put him at a huge disadvantage going in.

The doping controversy is bullshit. It was the creation of politicians that wanted something to grandstand over. Go ahead and disagree.

Some people I admire are fighting cancer right now, and because of the money raised by Livestrong they have better odds than they would have 10 or 15 years ago.

I agree with Forbes writer Chris Smith that it’s time to legalize steroids in professional sports. He writes:

If we really want to level the playing field, it may be time to head in the other direction: legalize performance enhancers.

Not only would the playing field suddenly be even for all players, it would be at a higher level. A huge part of watching sports is witnessing the very peak of human athletic ability, and legalizing performance enhancing drugs would only help athletes climb even higher. Steroids and doping will help pitchers to throw harder, home runs to go further, cyclists to charge for longer and sprinters to test the very limits of human speed. …

Detractors will argue that steroids and doping can pose health risks to the athletes involved, but athletes undertake serious health risks by simply walking onto the field or straddling a bike. Just last year, a media car ran Johnny Hoogerland off the road during the Tour de France, sending him headlong into barbed wire. Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann famously had his leg broken and career ended mid-game, and the devastating longterm effects of concussions are rapidly becoming apparent. Plus, if performance enhancers were made legal, then they could be safely distributed and regulated so that players aren’t forced to rely on shady back alley transactions for untested drugs.

We love to make heroes out of people who do big things. Unfortunately, we love to tear them down, too. Armstrong has done so much good for a lot of people. This whole affair is a shitty way to repay him.

Lance Armstrong

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Sex Change Outrage: Should We Pay for Convict’s Operation?

There are a lot of good people out there who deal with brutal medical situations that make them outcasts. There’s the depression I’ve covered extensively here. And there are things like being transgender. But if you’re behind bars for murder, should taxpayers be paying for your treatment?

Mood music:

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Depression is a simpler example. If antidepressants can make a convict well enough to better serve the prison community where he or she is doing time, I’m for it. Maybe their crimes were so bad they should never get out. But if taxpayer-funded treatment means they can become well enough to counsel inmates who aren’t there for life, it’s a win in my book. At the least, it’s better to put them to work keeping the prison running than to let them take up space as useless blobs.

When the convict is transgender and wants a sex change, the picture gets a lot muddier. Take the case of Michelle Kosilek, a convicted murderer formerly known as Robert Kosilek.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf recently ordered state prison officials to provide Kosilek — serving a life sentence for killing his wife in 1990 — with a taxpayer-funded sex change. Wolf ruled that surgery is the “only adequate treatment” for Kosilek’s “serious medical need.” In his 126-page ruling, the judge said, “The court finds that there is no less intrusive means to correct the prolonged violation of Kosilek’s Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care.”

Check out Boston.com for more details on the case.

I’ve seen a lot of outrage over this in the usual online places (Facebook, etc.). At first, I was a little outraged. This guy made a choice to receive the hormonal treatments that have helped him become a transgender being. Should we taxpayers be paying for his personal choice to become a woman?

Like depression, being a transgender can debilitate the inmate, which means he’s not doing what we tend to picture prisoners doing, such as making license plates and mopping floors. Wouldn’t it be better to “cure” Kosilek and put him (or her) to work?

I’m having trouble seeing how this medical problem was beyond Kosilek’s control. He chose to become a woman. But the more I think about it, the more I remember that many medical conditions are the result of the choices we make. Many heart conditions started with the sufferer choosing to eat junk and smoke. If you have something like Hepatitis C, there’s a decent chance it came from the dirty needle you chose to stick in your arm.

Kosilek chose to become a woman and got hormonal treatments. Now he’s trapped between two sexes, an outcast. Of course, he became an outcast the day he decided to murder his wife.

In the final analysis, society has a choice to make.

Either we accept that the prison system runs on taxpayer dollars and, as such, inmates must receive free treatment for whatever ails them, or we decide prisoners really should rot to death in their cells.

I lean toward the first scenario. People end up in prison for many reasons. Some are rehabilitated and go on to rejoin and contribute to the good of society. Some will never get out but are too mentally gone to know right from wrong.

But the bigger issue is that American justice is supposed to be rooted in compassion. If someone murders another person, we can deny the murderer freedom for life. But as a compassionate society, we should also take care of them when they have medical problems, even if the problem sprung from bad choices.

Maybe it’s not fair. But doing the right thing isn’t always a matter of fairness.

pixel.gif (1×1) Kosilek

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Empire State Shootings Bring Back Old Fears, Timeless Lessons

The shooting spree outside the Empire State Building this morning reminds me of the mind-numbing fear I used to carry inside me every day — the feelings of dread that kept me indoors, away from the life I should have been living. It also reminds me of some critical lessons I’ve learned from my experiences.

Mood music:

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As CNN reported news that Jeffrey Johnson, 58, had opened fire on a former co-worker and police outside the NYC landmark, I remembered:

The latter is what apparently happened today. According to reports, Johnson was apparently fired from his job as a designer of women’s accessories at Hazan Imports last year, and the 41-year-old man he shot to death may have been his former boss. Several people were injured in the crossfire before police shot Johnson dead.

Big crowds used to scare me senseless. I’d worry that if some crazy bastard came around the corner with a knife or a shotgun, I’d be trapped in the human traffic jam. I’d really freak out if I got lost in the crowd with no clue as to where I was or how to get back to familiar roads and neighborhoods. These feelings intensified after 9/11.

I also used to carry around a lot of bottled-up rage, especially over work situations. In one job I was trapped under a micro-managing viper who would blame you for everything that went wrong and take all the credit for things that went right. I can’t say I ever daydreamed about killing the man. I’ve always been either too law-abiding or too chicken for that. But I definitely dreamed up scenarios where I got to administer the beating I felt he so richly deserved.

Fortunately, I outgrew those emotions. Therapy and medication helped, but my deepening faith in God was the real game changer. I choose to worry less about other people’s motives and attitudes and focus on keeping my own in check instead.

I think the bad wiring that sent Johnson on the warpath is in all of us. It lies dormant until traumatic experiences, like getting fired, bring it to the surface and severs the rest of the brain from the part that powers our self-control.

I’m thankful that I have my own self-awareness today. I pray that you have your own awareness and that it keeps you from a tragic loss of control in the future.

Finally, I pray for those who got hurt today. Specifically, I pray this experience doesn’t send them into hiding, afraid to live their lives over the bad things that might happen.

Photo by SEAN SENATORE, New York Daily News

 

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Prayers for Those Killed During “Dark Night Rises” Premier

I awoke to a terrible story breaking in Colorado: at least 12 people killed and 50 wounded when some sick soul opened fire on them during an early Friday morning screening of the new Batman movie at an Aurora, Colo. movie theater.

News reports are coming in quickly with new details, but I wanted to take a moment and express my condolences to family and friends of the victims. I’ll pray for them, and I hope you will, too.

Dark Night Poster