When I first met my friend Sarah in 1993 we were on the bus and she was fascinated with the conspiracy theory about the Masons controlling the world.  I work for them now and it's the best job I've ever had. 
I am inspired to think nurses can do for people with dementia what childbirth education did for women experiencing obstetric care- empower them with respect for the power of their natural experiences.  People with dementia naturally achieve what mystics pray for-living in the moment with open hearts.  Our attempts to control and tendency to demean them the way we do children and emotional women stirs up their rage and shame. 
If that can be cvhanged, we can reclaim old age for its mystical value.

My tarot reading said, unsurprisingly,  I have a definate mission or purpose, my dominion, and I have energy to move forward but if I don't move toward completion, I will experience strife as my energies devolve into debauchery.
My ayurvedic studies teach me that ity is best for creative types to keep a regular schedule.  I am finally accostumed to early to bed, early to rise and I hope it will make me more healthy wealthy and wise.
My ego does not want to let go of the old me, although I am crabby when forced to continue the same pattern of serving the children and my spouse while I am prevented from concentrating on the creative work bubbling within me.  I seek to escape the strife of unfulfilled purpose in drink and entertainment.
I have to focus on one goal at a time.  I need to accomplish the small steps that lead to the great changes I seek.
Wish me luck, Love and gratitude to all.  Anne

In an age of artificial reality, what is reality today? Have Americans ever had a grasp of it?

You can't fool me, I listen to public radio.

Some of us think we understand reality, but the trauma of reality is too much for awareness. Listening to the news on public radio makes me cry. My imagination is too vivid. A thousand murdered on their way to celebrate an annual holy day in Baghdad. I can imagine the fierce expressions of terror on the faces of religious people on a pilgrimage as their brothers and sisters are shot down beside them. Then the newscaster announced that the president said the violence wasn't so bad this year. Last year it was three thousand who were killed. That's when the tears started to flow down my face. I vowed not to listen to public radio anymore. In Dickens’ Hard Times, the orphaned circus girl, during economics class, said she didn't see how the families of the children who died of starvation would think the economy is good, even if there were a thousand less who died of starvation this year in London than there were last year. Most of us would agree with Dickens' little girl. The religion of statistical analysis and science failed to change our human nature, facts are not as important as feelings like compassion or greed.

Another day, I heard some neurologists on the radio talking about research into the partisan brain. They found that dedicated party members showed little neural reaction to information that their own candidate was guilty of crimes against the people. Their brain centers of identification on one side of the head and toward the front continued to register their reactions to their own party. When showed a picture of the opposing party's candidate, the oppositional side of the brain was activated and the reaction of displeasure was a more impressive firing of neurons than the electrical activity seen with identification. Just the facts, sir, we are neurologically wired to favor emotional responses over rational understanding. Identification is relaxing, and opposition is stimulating. Marketers have developed the science of behavior modification and manipulation of emotional responses to create brand loyalty, to relax consumers enough to spend more money.

America is moving away from the age of psychology, analysis, psychotherapy, and marketing, into an age of psycho neurochemistry. With global domination and the existence of extreme wealth has come a need to control emotions for the people whose greed is not sufficiently motivating, and who do not identify with a powerful group, are not partisans or brand loyal. Ten percent of women take antidepressants, and six percent of children do, (fourteen percent of boys take Ritalin, one out of six to seven kids is on drugs!) according to the Washington Post. The number for Americans who have taken antidepressants at one time is greater. We are a sad people. We are alienated from our communities and our histories. All the information in the world and the constant availability of entertainment cannot create contentment and enjoyment, like identifying with a group working for the betterment of the people can create. And it can’t give us the neural boost we get from fighting an opponent. Continuous war keeps some of us loyal to the nation and creates jobs as cannon fodder for the profit makers’ programs, but how sad is that? We seek better living through chemistry. 157 million prescriptions for antidepressants were filled last year. (O, the Oprah Magazine, 3/1/2006).

Our widespread sorrow encourages me to think we are a more aware nation than we are willing to admit. Our children know the price of empire. Six percent are drugged for sorrow! The myth of the Ugly American is that Americans are unaware of what is going on in the world; we boorishly trample paradise in our frenzy to consume. This myth is not true. We are aware but dare not face the truth, because we cannot bite the hand that feeds us. The one percent of the population, who control forty percent of the wealth and sixty percent of the corporate stock in the U.S.A.,

controls our access to food and shelter, our politicians and our mainstream media. They keep the myth alive for us. It is in their best interest to make us think it is our own greed to consume that prevents us from rising up for human rights and dignity.

Hope springs eternal, and every where people discuss the truth and try to make a better world. Two out of three Americans favor deadlines for withdrawal of troops from Iraq and ending dependence on foreign oil (PR Newswire, 6/29/2005). Inglewood California residents resisted a one million dollar campaign by Walmart and voted three to two to prevent construction of a superstore there. The Green Party, the Organic Consumers Association, the Sierra Club, Acorn, Vets for Peace, peace and social justice committees at countless churches and in countless neighborhoods, all plug away, to reduce the causes of our sorrow. They are all working to create environments where compassion and love flourish. We can create the national will to reverse global warming, provide health care for all, and guarantee food and shelter for all children in this country, and end the endless war. Americans need some happy delusions to guide them. Fighting for justice and equality staves off ennui and depression, because the sorrow over injustice is forged into the steel of outraged determination. Rise up, America, rise up! You can make your own pleasant neurochemicals. If you can’t go out and fight for justice, meditate on a better world. The human body experiences what the person imagines vividly. Imagine peace, imagine justice, imagine love. Make being American beautiful again.

Bibliography:

Dickens, Charles: Hard Times, 1854.

MPR Radio: August 21, 2006, “The Partisan Brain” with Drew Weston, Prof. Psy., Emory University and Jonas Kaplan of the Ahmanson- Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, UCLA.

http://www.endgame.org/primer-wealth.html

PR Newswire, 6/29/2005, “2 Out Of 3 Americans Want Deadline Withdrawal from Iraq” High beam Research.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200407/lol.asp , “10 Reasons to Stop Walmart”, Amanda Shaffer, Abby Wheatley, and Robert Gottlieb, July/August 2004.