Your Advocate Online

Happy Birthday Mr. President! ( Abraham Lincoln’s 200th that is)

It’s been 200 years since his birth and we are still fascinated by Abraham Lincoln who is arguable one of our greatest president if not the greatest. However Lincoln could never be elected today. First off, if truth be told, we have admit he could best be described as ugly. Now to people like myself anyone who is that ugly transcends ugliness and takes on a kind of beauty all their own. Gargoyles come to mind. But it would not get many votes. In addition unlike the many actors who portrayed him in movies and TV he has a high screeching voice often described as unpleasant. Few might want tot listen to it today. And if that were not enough, depending on which Lincoln author you read, he was clinically depressed and or suffering from rare medical conditions which impacted on his every action including how he governed. Would you vote for someone like that? Yet, despite all of that he achieved greatness and saved the country from disaster. In these troubled we have to hope and pray that our current president despite is polished appearance and auditory would be blessed with 1/10th of Lincoln’s abilities.

Open letter to President Obama

Hello this is John Riolo and welcome to my Civil Discourse Blog. http://psychjourney_blogs.typepad.com/your_advocate_online/

Dear President Obama:

I am a retired member of the National Association of Social Workers among other professional groups. Professional organizations have urged me to write you on behalf of all our nation's children, and applaud your signing the S-CHIP bill which will benefit children and a a few vested interest groups. I do applauded your signing this particular bill. This bill will help children. However trade organizations be they social work or any other all vested interest groups and lobbies will never be satisfied with your signing any one bill. I am sure they are planning to lobby you to include all kinds of pork in the stimulus package that will not benefit the public but the narrow interests of its members. This makes them no better or worse than any other special interest group.

Please. I urge you to resist them. I also urge you to control your own left wing of congress. You won this election based on a claim of bipartisanship and willingness to rule from the center.

I believe you are sincere in that desire. I am concerned that the biggest threat to administration is not just the far right and the Rush Limbaughs but the an even bigger threat are the extremists on the far left. Please don’t worry about alienating the far left. They have no where else to go. Regretfully, too many of my colleagues fall into that category. So please take any mass letter writing campaign with letters faxes and emails from social workers that all read word for word and sound as if they were written by one or a few people with a grain of salt. I

 did not vote for you but wish you the best. You are the President of all of us and we will all sink or swim together. I sincerely meant it when I say, what is good for you is good for the country at this time at least.
Sincerely,

John A. Riolo, PhD. (LICSW)
Former member of NASW (retired)
Former Chair, MA Chapter Managed Care HMO Committee

Guess who is asking for a raise? In this economy no less!

No, I’m not referring to CEOs, bankers or stock brokers but it seems psychotherapists and social workers of all people think they need to raise the fees they charge people who are stressed out by this terrible economy as well. I wish I were kidding. The professional organization that I was once a member NASW reports that it is working with other mental health groups to develop compelling evidence that the psychotherapy codes should be revalued and therefore more can be charged for services. Asking for more money! In this economy? Really?

To my colleagues let me paraphrase president Obama’s message to Wall Street bankers , “shameful” there will be time fro them to make profits. But this is not the time. It true for a Wall street banker or a social worker . This is not the time. Many psychotherapists report usual and customary fees of $100, $200 or more per hour. They may not always get that on every case but does anyone making that kind of money really need a increase while most of the people they serve are loosing jobs by the millions? In fairness often when social workers and other psychotherapists talk about increasing fees they are not just talking about the fees they charge their clients who pay out of pocket but rather they are referring to the rates that insurance companies will reimburse. These rates can be lower than the usual and customary fee they report. Nonetheless it is a good deal more than the average working stiff gets an hour. Make no mistake even if we are only talking about insurance rates an increase will be passed on to the subscribers and employers who are already struggling in this down economy.

The last thing a small business or a someone needing mental health services needs these days is to pay more for health insurance right now. So if you are seeing a therapist or thinking of seeing one and they tell you that they need to raise their fees, tell them that there is a time an place to ask for more money. BUT THIS IS NOT THE TIME.

Social workers of all people should know better. If you agree, let me know. If you don’t agree let me know also. You may also want to let organizations such as the National Association of Social Workers and the American psychological Association know as well.

Hello this is John Riolo and welcome to my Civil Discourse Blog. http://psychjourney_blogs.typepad.com/your_advocate_online/

 
 

Picking one political turkey for this year is simply not possible so here are may top 10   There are not necessarily in any particular order so help me rate them or throw in a couple of your own.

 

 
John Edwards earns a gobble twice one for the hair cut and another for the affair. 

 

Hillary Clinton for claiming that she was being shot at on the tarmac in Kosovo  when clearly that was not the case.

 

Mike Huckabee  gets honorable mention nor making that TV commercial with  that book shelf that kinds looked like a cross. Now before any one  gets upset with me I have nothing against charities or crosses  . But when ever I see anyone running for the office of Pastor in Chief I am reminded of the fellow who said render unto Caesar that which is Caesar and to God  that which is God’s .

 

There’s prominent turkey mention to whoever stated the silly season about  lipstick on a pig brouhaha  and claiming it was a slur against Sarah Palin in particular and all women in general. .

 

Speaking of Sara Palin although I think she had bee given a bad rap by liberals and the press  I must sat 150,000 wardrobe did not quite fit with your average Hockey mom Image.  

 

Dick Morris earns a turkey for his transparent venomous hatred of the

Clintons

. . I’m  no fan of the

Clintons

but he is over the top like a spurned lover.

To John McCain and Sara Palin  for making a perfectly good noun Maverick a verb and they proceed to go off  mavericking together.

 

John McCain for apparently picking Joe the plumber as his economic advisor. Or at least that the way it looked by mentioning his name  in every sentence. Again I have nothing against plumbers in general or Joe in particular . But in the economic crisis I want a present who picks advisors who well … know economics. 

 

Bill Clinton earns a big turkey for playing the race card . it backfired big time.

 

And while I can think of a few instanced where President-elect Obama acted turkeyish but won’t go into that right now.   Lets hope in his administration  there will be few turkeys for us to talk about. We need him to do well.

 

 

That’s  my list . What are your thoughts? 

  

Blog On Blogging

A bright side to this horrible economy?

OK I have to admit I am grasping at straws here. The economy is really bad and it might get worse. But I need to find something so here it is.

 

My grandparents and parents experienced the Great Depression. It was worse than what we have now or so I’m told. However they learned what hardship was and knew the importance of spending only what they could afford and saving a little no matter how poor they were.

 

I can remember my grandfather going ballistic if you left room without turning off the light. If he gave me a quarter, I got a lecture on thrift and had to save some of it. .

 

Well some of it did stick I guess I tend to be on the frugal side. I do try to avoid debt. And I suppose as tough as things are I am grateful to my parents and grandparents that I did not take a mortgage I could not afford or get into major credit card debt. It’s a small consolation.

 

But perhaps my children and grandchildren’s generation were not so lucky. Since they grew up in good times my generation did not teach them the importance of staying within their means. In fact we did not want to deprive then of anything. Ironically in our effort to give then everything they might desire we deprived them of the valuable lessons of that past generations tried to pass on to us.

 

However given the economic mess we are now in children growing up today will learn that sooner or later the bill becomes due and thrift, hard work and taking responsibility will once again become respected attributes.

 

Hay I said I was desperate to find the bright side and this is the best I can do for now.

 

 

What are your thoughts? 

 

 

Avatar or virtual sex..

I

I recently read a story on Avatar or virtual sex.. Apparently in

England

recently a wife sued her husband for divorce on the grounds that the husband was having a “virtual affair”.

 

Now let me be clear. I do not recommend so called online sex be it pornography websites  or sex chat rooms etc. for a number of reasons. On the internet nothing is truly private and as a mental health professional I have seen too many marriages pulled apart by online behavior that was thought to be private but later got discovered. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085412/Revealed-The-woman-Second-Life-divorce--whos-engaged-web-cheat-shes-met.html

 

 

However the concept of “Avatar Sex”  or “Virtual Sex or a “Virtual Affair” is fascinating. Can we actually say that having sex with an imaginary and not a real person is actually an affair? Is it adultery and grounds for divorce? 

 

And if one can be sued for a virtual affair or virtual adultery what other virtual transgression  can one commit without ever having actually done anything that, except for technology, people have done for eons only it was called a day dream?   

 

 

If one engages is a video game where one robs a bank but no actual money is taken from anyone are you a virtual bank robber? And is that the same as actually robbing a bank?

 

What about playing James Bond where we think we are 007 and crack up a few cars and kill some virtual bad guys. Is that virtual killing the same as actual killing?

 

Where does virtual end and reality begin? What is the difference between our fantasies and our actions in this Brave New Online World?

 

I would like to hear from others in civil discussion?

 

 

 

"Redistribute the pain".

President-elect Obama faces many challenges: two wars, dependence on foreign oil and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. 



However IMO the most serious challenge will be his ability to stand up to the many special interest groups that believe correctly or not that they got him elected. Most of them are on the left and some the far left. They felt shut out completely during the Bush Administration and believe that it's now their turn to get first place at the Banquet table, pork barrel or however one chose to describe receiving taxpayer money. 

While I am not surprised I am saddened nonetheless that some of the groups and associations I belong to are jockeying for position to be among the first with their hand out and think they can now call in IOUs real or imagined. 



What these interest groups refuse to realize is that this time there is not much of a banquet. The cupboard is bare. We are in an economic mess with no easy solutions. The Mccain/Palin fear that Obama will redistribute wealth seems unfounded. There is a lot less wealth to spread around these days. The new mantra may have to be "Redistribute the pain". 



If we are going to come out of this national economic crisis we all are going to have to make sacrifices. That includes the Wall Street exec, the seniors on Social Security, the family on welfare, plumbers named Joe or otherwise and mental health professionals such as myself. What makes any of us so special that while we expect everyone else to take a hit we should be the exception. It’s all too easy to rationalize that we are more important then the next group. 


If President-elect Obama effectively does that he and we will come out of this crisis stronger for it. On the other hand if he caves into some or all of the many vested interest groups that can't wait to lobby him for special treatment he will demonstrate that he is not much different than his predecessor and the only change we have is which special interest groups get favored status. 

 

 

him for special treatment he will demonstrate that he is not much different than his predecessor and the only change we have is which special interest groups get favored status.

 

In a hole? STOP DIGGING!

This is John Riolo and welcome to my Civil Discourse blog  http://psychjourney_blogs.typepad.com/your_advocate_online/  

 

Earlier I posted my advice for president Elect Obama. So not let me in fairmess give my advice to my republican friends as well.  

 

Less than a week  after the election of Barack Obama as out 44^th president my conservative and republican friends are blaming the RINOs ( Republican in name only)  for their  defeat. They are now calling for a purge of the party.

 

They can’t seem to realize that part of the reason why Obama won and McCain lost is they have already purged the republican party of any moderates and scarred the hell out of a lot of independents. Now  the Republican Party consists mostly of  neo-cons and the religious right.

 

 

Of course my liberal Democratic friends are not immune to digging themselves into a hole either. A number of the vested interest groups that supported Obama do expect they will be paid back by getting their far left agenda passes and directly benefit from the change.

 

The problem of course is that if they force Obama to move away from the center he may lose support of the majority of Americans.

 

Hopefully the change hi promises is more than merely changing the digging crew that is digging us all in a hole.

 

It’s time for all of us to stop digging and start working together.

Rights Vs Privilege

 

Recently someone identified as Ken  graciously commented on my Civil Discourse blog that Civil marriage is not a privilege, but rather it is a right.

 

To have a reasoned civil discussion  on an issue such as this we need to at least have some understanding of how we are defining our terms.   We may not agree on our definitions but we avoid unnecessary  confusion if we at least know what the other person means.

 

While there are many references that could be used I find the definitions of Ahimsa Dhamapada in his article  Lawful Arrest/Search/Seizure FAQ  particularly useful to this discussion.  I paraphrase.

· “A right is something you are born with, and you will die with, granted to you by your "Creator"  however you define creator.   

· A privilege is granted by   authority i.e.   Church, or the State, and may be revoked for a failure to meet  specified conditions.

"Civil Rights" are by definition, conveyed by positive law, and thus are more akin to privileges than to natural rights. So-called

· "Civil Liberties" are by definition natural immunities to government interference.

· The right to travel or move about freely is one such right, exemplified by the "privilege" of the driver's license.

 

And I maintain so is a marriage license. The state sets conditions on who shall be granted this privilege.  States set age requirements; degrees of sanguinity or how  closely related by blood the parties may be and how many people may enter into the marriage contract.  We seem to think it is always two but we don’t have to look far to find societies where polygamy is permissible.

So if the state has the right to impose all those conditions including that it can be only two people then it also has the right or authority to limit it to one man and one woman or two men or two women for that matter.  

Now I do not have to agree with the states  condition that it be one man and one woman any more than I need to agree on the age of granting a drivers license or who can prescribe medications. My individual agreement is not required.   

 

Collectively if enough people don’t agree they have every right to change the law. Or, they can go to court and make a case that the state  is being arbitrary and capricious in their conditions.

But that does not change the fact that the state can set conditions for the privilege.

Fortunately in our society no one has the absolutely right to do whatever we want and that includes the state.