DEMENTIA MORE COMMON IN CYNICS

While perusing the October, 2014 issue of Reader's Digest, I found an interesting mention in its World of Medicine section (pp. 60-61). A new study from Finland suggests that trusting people, generally, is a way to stave off dementia. The study of 600 older people found that those who had the highest levels of "cynical distrust" of their fellow man were three times as likely to develop dementia than less jaded study participants.

Those who agreed with statements like "most people would lie to get ahead" and "it's safer to trust no one" are the group who was found to descend into dementia at three times the norm.

The link between a cynical lack of trust in others and dementia held true even when the study controlled for other risk factors, like age and health.

I pondered the meaning of this study for a while. I wondered if levels of distrust, a precursor to dementia, could be "contracted," or caught, by repeated exposure to some media or people...like the motley crew on Fox News, for instance. Then I thought about an America in which a significant number of people could be allowing themselves to be exposed to a dementia-causing agent on a regular basis, and what that might mean for the rest of us.

Wow. Just wow. Picture a future in the U.S. where higher than average numbers of elderly people suffer dementia. Picture the mess when dementia-addled seniors scream about birth certificates and socialism and black presidents being the devil. Who will take care of these hate-filled monsters? An even better question is just how much would caretakers need to be paid, just to stay on the job?

We really must begin weaning our older folks off Fox News now. We need to begin programs that encourage contact with puppies and kittens and babies immediately. Exposure to happy children of all colors playing together, and sweet television shows, like The Golden Girls, Happy Days, Matlock or Lassie are critical to keeping our seniors sane and pleasant to be around.

If we fail to act now, we may be doomed to putting up with mad gangs of muttering, fist-shaking, crotchety old people wandering the streets and making us all miserable.

OH BOY! THE NRA WANTS ME TO JOIN.

Recently, I had the opportunity to receive three issues of three magazines (after ordering a product I saw on TV). Because it was among my choices, and because I thought it might provide inspiration for my writing, I opted for GUNS & AMMO as one of my picks. While I haven't been able to bring myself to read a single page yet, I have finally received an offer the NRA hopes I can't refuse!

To sway me to join, the NRA has sent me an exciting sweepstakes opportunity. If I enter (no membership is required), I could win one of six different hunting trips, or a Dodge Ram truck/Coleman camper/Yamaha ATV, or a gun collection (25 guns, or 12 guns, or 8, or 6, or 5, or 4 guns). All I need to do is put my bullet stickers on the prizes I'd most like to win.

The NRA has even decreased its membership rates - just for me! I can receive a free gift, based on the number of years I wish to join for. Or, in the hopes that I am a true "Second Amendment warrior," I can opt to "put more of my dues toward the fight for freedom."

Ok, this gimmick is silly, but I understand the effort. However, reading the letter that came with my sweepstakes entry papers was pretty chilling, with lines like these:

"Unless you and I stand together it's only a matter of time until we lose our freedom, our heritage, and our American way of life."

"NRA needs you as a fighting, card-carrying member more than ever before. That's because the Second Amendment is the one freedom that gives you and me the power to protect every other freedom in our Bill of Rights."

"Remember, we're fighting powerful gun-hating politicians in Washington, DC and in the state legislatures...anti-gun judges...U.N. global gun-ban diplomats...freedom-hating billionaires...and a corrupt media elite."

And more recently I heard that the NRA is trying desperately to increase the number of registered voters among its membership. Who knew? Second Amendment warriors don't cotton much to voting. I suppose it makes sense. It's far easier to hate the government you refuse to participate in. Now, if we could just educate non-voters about their Constitution (the real one, as opposed to the one we keep hearing Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann refer to), this particular demographic may opt to keep their NRA memberships but get good and mad about how the corporatist agenda is hurting them in their everyday lives.

WHY WE MUST GET OUT THE VOTE THIS NOVEMBER

IS PRIVILEGE THE GATEWAY FLAW?

I have friends who are wealthy. Wait, that's a lie.

I have friends and family who are comfortable, to a greater or lesser degree. Surely, some of them are struggling more than I know. We all struggle; that's life in America these days.

But is it, really, in the world of great privilege?

I guess we mere mortals find it hard to understand a world in which our crimes go unpunished, our character flaws aren't held against us, and our basest instincts and urges don't cost us anything. Boy do I feel sorry for those people! Wait, that is also a lie.

I'm wondering whether a life of privilege is worth protecting? To those who live it, certainly, but how about to the rest of us? To what lengths ought a person go to keep living the life they've become accustomed to? How far will they go?

I propose that it might be important to consider these questions - all of us. I propose that my very comfortable friends think about what the privileged might do to protect the status quo, and to recognize that they themselves are not among the group possessing great privilege. I propose that my less comfortable friends give thought to the politically-motivated policies that affect our lives, even policies they themselves may support, through the lens of suspicion for a little while, and consider that some of the policies they support may not be in their own best interests. Ask yourselves who benefits from the policies the poor are subjected to.

I propose that we all spend a moment to think about how public policy has always been about protecting the assets of the kings of industry. These days, however, public policy is geared more and more toward protecting the assets of even the idle rich, who provide nothing to the rest of society.

It was only when workers began to demand conditions that didn't degrade or abuse them that workers started to have a real shot at living the American Dream (though the phrase was coined later in history than the first worker's movements). It was only after workers won rights to safe workplaces, and outlawed child labor, and demanded a minimum wage, and earned the protection of labor laws to help prevent abusive employment practices, that workers began to enjoy the American Dream. The wealthy, the bosses, the politicians...none of them would have fought for what workers had to win in order for workers to elevate themselves into the middle class.

Somehow, those days are gone. The American Dream has turned into a puff of industrial smoke, in a fire lit by politicians who care nothing for you and me, for the benefit of the captains of industry, or any wealthy donor who helps them into office. But believe this - the relationship between pols and donors is strictly quid pro quo. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Union busting. Fighting an increase in the minimum wage. Fighting against being held to the same standard as every other employer in providing health benefits. Outsourcing jobs overseas. Moving corporate headquarters offshore to avoid paying taxes to the U.S. Treasury. Limiting hours available to employees. Influencing Congress to direct the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division to providing ever-more guidance to employers about how NOT to steal wages from employees (rather than letting the Wage and Hour Division do its job to go after such employers for recompense on behalf of wronged employees).

These are all symptoms of a world in which there is such utter privilege for some, and none for the rest of us. These symptoms are NOT a reality that we must embrace. America has no caste system, and we are NOT members of the feudal system.

These issues, and so many more, are why it is important to VOTE in the mid-term elections. It is our duty to protect the way of life WE benefit from, and the fundamental truth is that our politicians have been serving the wrong masters for far too long. If regular, ordinary Americans don't vote to put the brakes on our corporate-supporting, wealth-loving lawmakers, we will get what we deserve, forever doomed to a life of making ends meet (because employers have all the power), to struggling daily to educate and feed and care for our families (because the wealthy have all the power), and to feeling more and more disenfranchised from OUR government (because the politicians owe the powerful, and take our power from us).