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Irony.
March 05, 2004
You'll have to excuse the lack of postings. I've been a little preoccupied. You see, I got shot the other day.
Last Tuesday, I responded to an emergency call: Kids in danger. Domestic violence. One parent threatened to kill the other parent and the kids. Social worker --me-- to evaluate the safety of the kids. (It's always fun when the referral come across my desk emblazoned with "DANGER! SOCIAL WORKERS TO RESPOND WITH POLICE ESCORT. FATHER THREATENED TO KILL CHILDREN" emblazoned on it in an 18 point bold face font.)
So I motor into a not particularly nice part of Los Angeles, sheriff's deputies in tow. I've got a new worker with me -- The Rookie -- his second day in Emergency Response, his first time responding to one of these nifty, gotta see 'em now calls. We've already chatted about the insanity of working for the County, the nonsensical paperwork and how cute cops are in their pressed uniforms and their spit shined shoes reflecting the winter rays of the beautiful California sun. (Hey, it's always nice to find another 'Mo on the job. Mind you, it's not particularly hard as about half the guys in the office read the same books I do, but we don't always get partnered up on emergency calls.) He's asking me what to expect on this call and I'm trying to tell him that I have no clue -- but do it in a very authoritative, resounding, impressive way that bespeaks to my ability to hide my lack of prescience in matters such as this.
We hit the front door to the rather nice little Craftsman, cute Latino deputies leading the way. They're decked out in khaki outfits, badges knight sticks and bullet proof vests. I'm in jeans and tennis shoes, sporting a little plastic ID card put together by an office secretary on a paper cutter with super-glue an Exacto knife and a Polaroid picture snapped when I was still a wide-eyed and eager pup out to save the world.
The deputies' finger itches toward the bell...his partner is off to the side covering him... the neighbor grabs her kid and closes a big white door with a rolling clap... Me and the New Guy watching as the cop puts one hand on the butt of his pistol...
And my phone rings.
Nice melodious symphonic number -- free with my Samsung -- that sends air into our lungs and attention towards the little chirping flip phone on my belt. It's the Mother, calling me back from her office, wanting to know why we're bothering her. Stating over and over again that the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, that there really isn't a problem and that we're just going to get her husband really, really, angry if we keep at this and besides, her kids aren't even there and--
I spring into action, being threatening, therapeutic, understanding and probing all at the same time. (Try it sometime. It's a lot like running, standing still and doing mid air somersaults simultaneously -- damn near impossible, very noisy in the attempt, but ultimately quite beautiful.) Eventually, after she stops crying, after she realizes how serious all of this is, after she understands that I just am not going away, she discloses that her children are at their grandparents house in yet another, even less desirable part of Los Angeles, and her husband is at work. I tell her to meet me at the grandparent's home as soon as she can.
One of the less convenient aspects of Los Angeles is that that the Sheriff's department manages some sections of the city, local police other parts, and city wide LAPD other sections still. It's a patch work of jurisdictions, overlaps and boundaries, where no two police organizations co-exist and we social workers are forced to figure out who claims what zip code as theirs. Same thing can't be said for we social workers. We go everywhere, do everything and see everyone, no matter the hour. It's all our bloody jurisdiction.
The Cute Latino Deputies say they can't follow to the new address. It's LAPD territory Besides, they've got a 211 in progress to respond to. I still don't know what a 211 is, but it's must be pretty important given how fast they blazed away, lights spinning and siren blaring.
I wasn't expecting the grandparents home to be so messy. It was pile on pile of garbage. Gradients of decay, with bottles on top of paper on top of older bottles on top of discarded cartons of half eaten KFC. A treasure trove for future archeologists I'm sure, but currently a breeding ground for several small, wiggly things that I didn't know existed outside of the Cantina scene in the original -Star Wars.-
Grandma knew we were coming, her daughter probably called her the moment she hung up with me. Grandma's hands seemed to be full dealing with her own husband, a man teetering precariously with each step, gravity drawing him down, his slurred speach, blunt affect and glazy eyes giving some clue as to the causes of the decay. The Rookie mouthed the usual variation of "Jesus Christ," his previous stint in the Adoptions Division not preparing him for the strange decorating tastes of many of the Southland's residents. I made the sign for Binky's Balls to ward off the evil trash monsters and proceeded into the morass of mess to interview the kids.
With the kids -- two over active twin 10 year old boys and an adorable 8 year old girl with braided ebony locks -- the information just started pouring out. Usually I'm pulling teeth or doing a simpler variation of my running fast while standing still routine, but these kids were giving up the details before I could pull the cap off of my pen with my teeth. Dad pushes mommy down the stairs, one of the boys says. Mom knows about dad's affair, the other imparts. Mommy told us to go upstairs and lock the doors while she and daddy threw things at each other, the daughter related in the same tone used for the detached play by play for what she learned at school.
By the time the mother arrived I had a fair idea of how everything was transpiring. Fights, abuse, violence, yelling, screaming -- the usual, bad situation where the woman was the victim of a horrendous amount of pain and suffering. She was also the perpatator too. By keeping her children there with her, in a situation where there was a strong chance of violence and perhaps even death, she was victimizing her kids all over again. Binky forbid that she be killed, but it would be about a thousand times worse were it to happen in front of the twins and their sister.
And death -- or years more of abuse -- was what was likely to happen, given the first words out of the mother's mouth after I discussed my interviews with her kids was "They're lying." Every incident, happening, push, shove, scream or shout I relayed was met with some spin, some comeback, some justification that tried to pass the whole thing off as one big mistake, as just another day in the life of their happy neo-Brady family.
Yes, it's always possible things can get blown out of proportion, that little details become big incidents when the Eye of the State peers through, looking for trouble. I've seen those little things grow quite quickly, kiboshed only after a good deal of work and effort. But that is the rare case. Mostly these things are true, the stories turn out to be the most easily remembered incident of a much larger and more pervasive case. One blow, pop in the eye, push down the stair or clobber over the head turns out -- with further interviews, conversations with knowing parties and a simple review of previous social worker visits -- to be the most recent, most noticed unacceptable event in a long line of equally unacceptable happenings.
That left me with two options, one involved the mother taking the kids out of the house and heading for a shelter and the other involved mom choosing to stay in the house and the kids coming with me. And I would have explained all of this to the mother in some degree of detail, along with a fair amount of cajoling, sympathy and encoragement towards taking the first of the two options, thus saving me from opening a court case and giving her more leeway in conducting her treatment, but for a rather untimely and unwarranted arrival.
Dad walked in the door.
And Dad was just a bit peeved.
And Dad had a gun.
One of the more common notions out there about child protection social workers is that we're all about breaking up families. Someone calls us, we swoop in, grab kids, cart them off to the dark terrors of the Foster Care System and ask questions about the whole thing later. I can tell you that it's patently false.
Detaining children is just too much paperwork to be done willy-nilly. Seriously. After the Detention Report, there's the Petition, the Amendments to the Petition, the Pretrial Release Interview, the Pretrial Resolution Conference, the 280 forms, the 709 forms, the Case Plan, the Notification to School for Change of Report, the 815, 816, and 817 forms to meet ASFA requirements for placements with RCs or NREFMs or... Well, you get the idea. Gack, the paperwork will just kill you in the end.
Anyway.
The effort that 99% of social workers make, what the supervisors support and the Court tries to uphold, is make sure that kids are safe and to try, whenever possible, to keep families together. Out in the field, in the heat of the moment, discovering messy homes, bugs, spankings or the like, the first goal is to figure out if there is a threat to the health or safety of the child, and if nothing immediate is found but concerns persist, then try like mad to get the family to get the help it needs to stay on the good side of the Welfare and Institutions Code of the State of California. It's the simple presence of the DCFS social worker, on the doorstep, asking pesky questions, that is more than enough to kick people out of their stupor and into the arms of a community organization suited to helping them.
When the abuse is so bad we pull 'em. When all pointers show there's a problem in a family...say like one parent is getting smacked around by another... and no one is doing anything about... like say when the smackie is in denial that the smacker is hurting them... and the kids stay in the middle of the situation ... such as when twins take their sister to an upstairs room, close the door and hope everything blows over... then there isn't anything else to do but put the little ones in the back of the car and tell everyone to show up in Court 72 hours from now. That usually pisses people off. And pissed off people aren't pleasant. And pissed off people with guns can be very, very unpleasant.
Which brings us back to Yours Truly, standing waist deep in a landfill hiding out in an apartment, with a couple of very, very angry parents who I'm about to tell I'm taking their kids away from them. And did I mention Dad's got a gun?
Dad works security. He stated very explicitly that he would in no way go along with any kind of separation and shelter plan for the mother and children, as that involved restraining orders, which would have his gun permit yanked which would cause him to loose his job. Besides, he denied problems, and mom, now very animated, bargaining, and pleading, offered her own denials still. Dad's big .50 Cent sweater obscured the gun, but not the outline of it against the fabric.
Me: (low voice, directed to the Rookie) "Call the cops, now."
Rookie: (lower voice, puzzled and perplexed) "How do I do that?"
Me: (higher, lower voice, slightly panicked) "9-1-1."
Rookie: (light bulb over forehead) "Right."
An hour later I'm still waiting for the police. Still talking people down. Still contemplating just bailing for the car, retreating to the police station, and calling my boss up with a sudden onset illness. But I stayed, worried about what would happen to the mom and the kids if I did go. Or maybe that's just what I tell myself. Maybe pride, or stupidity or masculine ego blinded me to the Trouble-Alert blaring in my head. When I look back on it, it was nuts.
The cops did show up, the cops did remove the gun from the Dad -- a nice .357 with a stylish Eagle handgrip, perfect for maintaining aim when firing while angry -- and I did remove the children from mom. Given her state, there wasn't much else I could do. She didn't want to go to a shelter, didn't believe her life was in danger, and Dad, with no marks found on his wife on his kids, was free to go -- after I left with kids planted in the back seat of the car.
I suppose you are wondering where the gore is, the blood, the bullets, the violence? I did say I got shot after all. Well, see later, after the kids were placed safely in foster care, the Rookie was on his way home to his partner of six years, and I drove off into the cold night, my head pounding, my heart still rumbling, and greatly upset that I didn't have a substance abuse problem to drown my jitters with, I clicked on the radio and heard the President talk about his proposed Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage. It was the irony that hit me about as surely and directly as any one that would have come out of the barrel of Angry Dad's pistol. I can get killed trying to fix something I legally can't have.
Yes, yes, I'm aware of all the obfuscations people pull by saying that I can go off and marry any girl I want and start a family. Since I can't bitchslap such fools and a simple, curt, "Don't be a tool" is painfully pedestrian, I'll quote France, who wrote in the early part of this century: The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
A few days before I met my Angry Dad on my DV call, an LAPD officer was killed after meeting an angry one of his own. I skirted through a tough situation without getting shot. Over a week later, now able to sleep again after the ancient reptile brain stopped arguing shrilly all night long with the newer, more evolved reason centers, I understand that my job hazards include not only paper cuts and ink splatters but arterial bleed outs and exit wounds.
There is nothing heroic about what I do. I do not want to give that impression at all. The cops who helped me out, the firefighters who pull burned kids from buildings, the soldiers who take a bullet far across the sea are much more in keeping with the idea of defenders and protectors than anything I do or have done. I've got a civil service job -- that I'm admittedly a bit burnt out on -- which allows me to help kids and families on a good day. That social workers don't get much respect is another matter, an essay, all together.
There is also nothing heroic about proposing an amendment to the Constitution banning gays from marrying in an effort to "protect the family." There's nothing heroic in stating, over and over again, from pulpits to blogs, to opinion pages, to street corners, that gay people are trying to bring down families by seeking legal recognition for their own. My caseload hasn't gone up since San Francisco staged its civil disobedience, nor have the hidden horrors I've discovered in messed up families gotten worse since the SCOTUS handed down their rulings. Gay people, gay families, have nothing to do with the pain and problems of heterosexual families. They don't take away from the scant social services monies available for family care, nor the lack of adequate police resources, nor school deficiencies, nor access to preventive and protective health and medical systems. In short, blaming gay folk for these problems is a bogus argument, one that isn't grounded in the reality of this world. It is rather a sales tool, offered by people scared of change, seeking any reason, any justification, to hold on to a world that never really existed.
Coffee's done. I gotta go. I've several home calls to make before I get into the office and try to figure out if a homeless grandmother with cancer can take care of her special needs daughter.
All in a days work, I guess.
Posted by Jody at 08:32 AM
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Stories like this about a possible biological or dirty nuclear attack on the U.S. really give me pause. I actually live right next to was-and-will-be-again target so, unless the Fates are kind, any major hit and I'm either a diseased zombie or a pile of radioactive ash.
But that isn't the scary bit.
One of my best friends is moving to New York later this summer, and another friend of mine is crewing on a Woody Allen movie there for the next few months. As I doubt NY is out of the woods just yet -- it is still a tempting target -- I'm certain someone is going to try something nasty again. Leveling Manhattan with a nuke or rendering it uninhabitable with a biological agent is extremely likely. So is taking some of my friends along with it.
But that isn't the scary thing.
I'm fairly certain that any nukes let loose on the US, any biological weapons triggered over our cities or any devices detonated so as to unleash hazardous amounts of radioactive contamination amongst the unsuspecting, will be met, on our end, with a fairly devastating response.
On the order of sand-fusing-to-glass.
Persia would become a giant mirror, a monument of rage for future generations to both reflect on and to fear. We are the only nation to have used nuclear devices in combat. We currently have a standing policy of nuclear response to any first use against us. Tactical nukes remain at the ready for battlefield commanders. Stealth and B-2's can reach any point on the globe in less time than most of us spend awake on a typical workday. Our national sense of outrage and anger over any such attack would make 9/11 look like tearing up over E.T. going home by comparison. I don't think considering our use of such is too much in out field.
The damndest thing is the use of nukes isn't really what scares me (much.)
What scares me is that, on the pure, self-reflective, navel-gazing-because-I-can level, it wouldn't bother me one bit to illuminate the terrorists and their respective states by the supreme and permanent use of x-rays, gamma rays and nuclear fusion.
I've said before that military response to terrorism should be measured and appropriate, that widening the war to cover just anyone who disagrees with us is dumb (if not criminal), and that International Law must be respected because law and ideals are pretty much the only things that separate us from both animals and the jungle. But thinking about it, thinking about the kind of appropriate response to any person or group that uses sheer terror on such a vast and final scale to cower, level and dominate, the only kind of response that makes any sense is of a kind that is even more savage, more vicious and of such finality that nothing is left to be questioned.
There is some hypocrisy in that last bit, at least on the face of it. After all, by unleashing such destruction on even more innocent a number of people, aren't you, in effect becoming the very thing you are fighting against? By vaporizing any non-combatants who have the misfortune of being near by hasn't fear then become your tool for getting others to acquiesce to your particular will?
Here's the thing -- it's also part of the scary thoughts for the day -- if we loose, if the West and it's institutions of democracy, free speech and open debate are destroyed or rendered irrelevant to a noxious and wicked brand of dark-age thought whose applications of justice mock the term -- then the argument over whether such a response is right is moot. Under the system of government proposed by those who destroyed the towers, dissent dies, debate ceases and freedom devolves to mean the choice between which prayer to an angry sky god one reads from a greatly schizophrenic tome that day. All that makes our lives meaningful -- all the nobility of dissent, the questioning of establishment, the pomposity of talk radio and the beauty of cute life guards -- is ended completely. For without the ability to debate these questions freely and across all fields and venues the mind is wont to go -- which is what would happen if such a totalitarian system were to gain hold -- then all the advancement, liberty and social justice of the last 500 years has been for not.
I am a liberal (or more exactly a progressive) so I often have a good deal of disagreement with those across the aisle on many matters both fiscal and social. (Which is okay, because I have a great many disagreements with those sitting next to me too.) I know that talking, sanctions, diplomacy, debate, censure, and even the judicious use of force all have the ability to get positive results, to ensure freedom, and to make life a bit better for all of those involved. Circumspect restraint and thoughtful contemplation are the hallmarks of civilization and justice. But when all of the tools of civilization, all the generally agreed on norms of discourse and diplomacy that just about everyone, an any aisle, gap or divide agrees on as useful and necessary, are ignored, demeaned and rejected, there really isn't much else to do. All bets are off, civilization becomes a quaint idea and the disquieting sounds of the jungle -- and the monster tearing out of the jungle and towards your jugular -- are all that exist. At that point, it's survival of the fittest.
And I have little desire to be rendered unfit.
Posted by Jody at 12:32 PM
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Does Stanley Kurtz really share the same planet as the rest of us or is he just going through the motions, all the while mentally occupying a plane of Star Wars like fantasy where gay men are the cause of all the evil in the universe?
The later I think.
Imagine that someone had said, back in the 1970s, when homosexuals were flooding into Catholic seminaries all over the U.S., that substantial numbers of gay priests, far from accepting the rule of celibacy, would deliberately flout that rule, both in theory and in practice. Suppose that someone had argued that homosexual priests would gain control of many seminaries, that many would openly "date," that many would actively cultivate an ethos of gay solidarity and promote a homosexual culture that would drive away heterosexuals � especially theologically orthodox heterosexuals � from the priesthood. Suppose this person went on to argue that, at its extreme, the growing gay subculture of the priesthood would tolerate and protect not only flagrant violations of celibacy, but even the abuse of minors. Then suppose that this person predicted eventual public exposure of the whole sordid mess, an exposure that would precipitate a crisis within the Church itself.
Bah! Ha! Ha! Yes, our great plan is finally coming to fruition! (Is that a pun?) The great Homosexual Subversion is a smashing success! We knew that the problems of secrecy and authoritarianism, coupled with a view of sexuality formed when camels were seen as more important than women, wasn't going to be enough to undue the Catholic Church. No! We had to penetrate (another pun? Nahh..) the very heart of Catholicism and start our grand, 30 year plan to pull it down from within!
Did I just wake up in a queer version of Star Wars or something? Are gays the new Clones or ? (More to the point: does this mean I actually have a shot at Hayden? Ewan? Temuera? Yoda?) If we are the Clones destined to take over the Republic, convert it into an Empire and corrupt poor defenseless Anakin, does that mean that Palpataine -- the evil Emperor, the head Dark Lord of the Sith-- is actually...
*gasp*
Andrew Sullivan???
What's clear from Berry's account is that sexual abuse of boys by homosexual priests (the typical form of abuse in the current scandal) was part and parcel of a larger gay subculture within the priesthood, a subculture that effectively enabled the abuse of minors by encouraging flagrant homosexuality, and openly flouting the rule of celibacy itself.
Funny. I thought the abuse happened because those who were supposed to put a stop to it -- you know, the Cardinals -- covered their holy asses, transferred people about, paid off complainers and generally hid behind the sanctity of Sanctimony? Or did I miss something?
Isn't it just a bit odd though that, with all of these invading hordes of homosexuals -- which must be like invading hordes of Moslems, only better dressed, better cooks, able to ride in time to the latest "Pet Shop Boys" album and can do wonders with old, musty Cathedrals through judicial uses of color swatches, accent mirrors and Salvation Army Castoffs-- the incident rates for sexual abuse is basically the same for boys, girls, adolescent males and adolescent females? Could that mean that wacked-in-the-head gay priests occur in the same numbers as wacked in the head straight priests?
THE SKY THAT FELL
This is exactly what has happened to the Church. It has been at least 30 years since the homosexual presence in the priesthood began to increase markedly. All along there were signs of trouble, yet no profound institutional crisis.
Exceedingly odd, isn't it, that the majority of cases of abuse cited so far in the press are ten, twenty and sometimes even 30 years old? It doesn't seem to be that many young priests -- you know, those all of those new, subversive clones that have invaded the noble republic -- that are carrying out the abuse, but a bunch of crusty old men who came of age well before the "decadent" revolution of gay rights? Odd and telling...
Here is a case in which gay sexual culture has not been tamed by, but has instead dramatically subverted, a venerable social institution � an institution built around an ethic that is a first cousin to marital fidelity itself...
Oh yeah, like that happened. Those 50% of marriages that ended in divorce were all gay men who secretly married clueless women, only to divorce them later for some nefarious goal. And that 25 to 40% of marital infidelity? Yup. Gay men were sleeping with women (other than their clueless wives) to further demolish the notion of fidelity. (All that sleeping with women and we still found time to sleep with each other. Thank god for Palm Pilots.)
You know, when we gays sit around our secret bathhouses, performing centuries old dark Sith rites on children, animals and the various droids we've managed to abduct, we love to laugh and chortle about how successful we've been in destroying....well everything. Baseball, football, cars, fashion, education, capitalism, gun ownership, frequent flier mileage and of course, Coke-a-Cola (New Coke? BAHAHAHAHA!!!!). Yes, we all sleep better at night (together, in one large orgy, drifting off to "Over the Rainbow") knowing that it wasn't human frailty, ambition, hubris, greed and arrogance -- human traits residing equally in both hetero's and homo's -- that has greatly tarnished the Catholic Church, but rather our evil, centuries old plans, endemic to homosexuals and only homosexuals, that brought to glorious fruition this grand event.
Yes, yes, Stanley, we've only just started. You see, for our next trick (there's that punning again) I'd like to show you this thing we're building called the Death Star....
Posted by Jody at 12:52 PM
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