original work - Angles

The site is the interior of Stamford Mall in downtown Stamford, CT

mental health - accountability

     If we are to accept the spiritual premise that "...the meek shall inherit the earth..." we know that they will not be found amongst the arrogant and vain-glorious poseurs who ~ with pomp and bombast ~ assert themselves as leaders but who are, in truth, just power-lust perverts.
     In stark contrast are those brave souls who, oppressed and reviled, call for establishing "new traditions" which offer guidance and direction for how leaders ought to manage themselves. Some may scoff at seeking wisdom from madmen but there are times when wisdom is excoriated, and the wise, are in those times, dismissed as delusional and insane. Such as the times we live in now. It behooves us, therefore, to pay heed and listen to the meek ...and the Mad

from the Accountability Caucus
     The Accountability Caucus is a group of mental health client activists who are working to upgrade the California clients movement by constructing a new tradition based on accountability. We stand for these objectives/principles as our initial talking points:

     1. Constructive activity, not attack politics, based on the recognition that ours arises as a wounded community;
     2. Development of an alternative program for client activism that stresses personal responsibility and competence in meeting the challenges of empowerment;
     3. Specifically, this alternative is a micro-empowerment program, which strengthens client involvement through:
     A. recognizing triggering behavior and upholding suitable ethical standards for such;
     B. fighting discrimination by insisting that people treat us like reasonable beings;
     C. defending the meaningful role of personal sensitivity and empathy; and
     D. opposing an excessively or solely biological approach in favor of a humanistic, spiritual, client-driven model; and
     4. Advocacy against the values of tokenism and in favor of the empowerment values which help us hold to account the oppression of the client culture.

     We believe that clients are persons of quality whose mental health issues and experiences express both talent and personal challenge. We deserve respect based on our capacities, our resilience, our abilities, and our contributions.
     We urge clients who share these principles to join with us and to help re-center client activism in California around the new tradition of accountability. We will organize as a fellowship of involved, reflective, watchful persons seeking serious dialogue with other parts of the clients movement.

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First posted at Short Notes on 2005 August 24. For More Info: Accountability Caucus, Social Justice, Andrew Phelps' Accountability Writings and Kenneth J. Gergen's Transformation of Identity Politics |

commerce - why I won't shop at Lowe's

I've not traded with Lowe's [the lumber and hardware superstore] since 2008, discontinuing when it took almost three months to get a special order [pre-paid, mind you] of three packs of roofing shingles from the store.
     They were ordered in Newington in September. The clerks were certain such a small order would take no time at all. I took possession of my shingles just before Thanksgiving Day, in November. I learned that my order had been sitting in a warehouse outside of Boston almost the entire time since "special orders" don't get delivered right away to the originating store. When the clerks called to find them I was present and overheard the call. The Boston folks seemed angry that the clerks were bothering them. The guys I was standing with were embarrassed; said to come back next time I needed something and they'd give me a good deal, but I didn't return.
     Until recently. In the process of repainting Bill's apartment while he's in the hospital, I thought I'd give them another try. Maybe that was a fluke. This time I went to a new store, n Cromwell.
     I special ordered a gallon of paint. Put it on the bed of my pick-up. When I got home, the paint can had tipped over and while the top had not come off, the paint ["creme Brulee" the color mix] had seeped out and across the bed of truck.
     I was more than a little upset. I called the store and was told by a woman that it was water-based so it should be easy to clean up. She took my number and promised a manager would call then, abruptly, hung up.
     It took about an hour to clean up the paint.
     When I got a call back I was berated by the clerk [Chris was his name, he would not provide his last name] who began questioning how I'd secured the can on the truck bed; that I should have been more responsible. He told be it was "impossible" for the paint to have just seeped out from underneath the lid since the store uses a high-tech securing device to guarantee the paint can is sealed.
     I told him I knew the device; that all stores use it and there was nothing high-tech about it; that I'd watched him seal the can and that the device is called a "mallet". He was momentarily silent.
     The fact that not only he would neither apologize [it could have been insincere, I understand that] nor take any responsibility for his inattention ~ but instead glared at me defiantly when I came back in, made it worse. When he was through foisting the blame on me, he said to come back in and he'd mix a new can for no extra charge and that I could even have what remained in the spilled can.
     It's a work truck. I've never expected to keep it in pristine collector-state condition. But I would prefer that, if it's damaged, it's due to something I did; getting a gallon of paint on the bed because a store clerk didn't properly seal the can shut is unacceptable.
     Ironically, he was actually kind of helpful when I first went in to get the paint.
     But it is the attitude that I can't abide.
     In the past two years I have probably spent over $14,000 on lumber, or hardware or new appliances. That is money that did not go to Lowe's. It may not be a huge chunk of change to them, but it is still business they didn't get ~ and still won't.

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IMAGE SOURCES: Paint can found at: Smart Couponing; Lowe's logo found at: Propper Source; Rubber Mallet from Hand Tools

living with cancer - poem

at a psychic crossroads

The temps are cooler and the sky gray
I wait for nothing
yet remain filled with anticipation

wondering about the geometry of pain
            and how that fills the area
            consigned to it

my brother, my dearest friend
            and his cousin
            cancer victims all
I track their symptoms
            and treatment progress
all hostages to uncertainty
            and exhaustion

for the time being
my workplace attentions are gone
the plights of the perpetually troubled
no longer are tied to my plights
and once uncoupled
            disconcertingly easy
            to step away from
            at last

Onward to Art
        and land use planning