About dementia

Interesting thought this morning.

Dreamed last night that I was back in college and couldn't find my dorm room - kept mixing up the floors and ended up in a new dorm that was built after I graduated and that I've never even seen except in a picture. Was also worried about my senior examination that is usually done in the winter of senior year but it was already springtime in my dream and I hadn't heard anything about it yet - when and where - so I hadn't even studied. Anyway, my thoughts from the past and a bit of the present were all jumbled together and things made sense but they didn't, as they often do in dreams.

My father had dementia for many years and I often wondered what he was thinking - did he know where he was or not; did he know but couldn't express it; or was his connection to the present completely gone? Sometimes he seemed kind of with it, other times he seemed lost with bits of the past sprinkled in.

It occurred to me that's what it must be like to live with dementia - like being in a dream, where time and experience is jumbled and everything seems real and kind of makes sense, like in a dream, but you're actually awake. I can imagine myself walking around the kitchen muttering that I must get to my dorm, check my assignments, and prepare for my exam and my kids say to me, "Mom! It's okay. You're not in college, you're home. There's no exam." And what they're saying makes no dent on my thinking because my mind is in another time and place.

That must be what dementia is like: being in a dream but never waking up.

© 2017 Kvick Thoughts. All rights reserved.

Clintons may be forced to become Democrats

Here’s the thing the Clintons and the Democratic Party don’t get, don’t want to get, or God knows what. Sure, a lot of Donald Trump supporters are just as loony as their candidate, but many mirror the same disenfranchisement felt by Bernie Sanders supporters, and Trump’s directness and plain speaking appeals to them, and they believe (wrongly) that he can or will try to help them.

It’s easy to scorn Trump supporters, but the Clintons have been running more or less neck and neck with Trump until recently. Despite all the money and campaigning, the Clintons’ numbers had not been moving much and roughly half the electorate preferred Trump over the Clintons. If Trump were to win, it would mean a majority (probably) of the American voting public preferred Trump over the Clintons.

Bearing in mind that Obama, a much-disparaged person of color, was elected twice with a comfortable margin, you have to ask what is happening. Has half the country suddenly become openly racist, misogynistic or homophobic? Not likely. At least some Trump supporters are angry, frustrated, and looking for answers, and they have not found them with the Democratic Party. If the Clintons want these votes, they’re going to have to stop pandering to moderate Republicans and deal head on with some bread-and-butter issues they’ve been avoiding, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trump is a gift to the Clintons, but if he drops out as recent gossip suggests he might, and he is replaced by a saner conservative voice, the Clintons will be in trouble. They’ll have to start sounding like Democrats.

©2016 Kvick Thoughts. All rights reserved.

About the Black Lives Matter campaign

There has been criticism of the Black Lives Matter campaign that its focus on black lives only implies white lives don't matter. This is an obvious and probably intentional misreading of the Black Lives Matter message, but there is a context where the criticism may make sense.

In terms of police brutality, of course black lives matter and of course there is an experience of being black (or a person of color) in the U.S. that is unique and that many "white" people cannot understand because they have not experienced it and, if they are thoughtful people, find it hard to believe even happens because they cannot imagine people could be so nasty to each other, or that surely such violence does not happen without provocation.

But as we've seen over and over, there is racism in law enforcement (and elsewhere) and a campaign to highlight that is good, but not sufficient. We cannot change the attitudes of racist cops overnight. But we can demand for everyone's sake that cops who do as they please and violate civil rights be reined in. As a society we can say we will not tolerate out-of-control law enforcement for anyone. This does not end racism, of course, but it does help protect people of color who bear the brunt of such behavior as well as "white" people who are also subject to such abuse albeit less often and not as deliberately.

In 1974, my husband, who is white, was travelling with some friends in the U.S. in a green car with Michigan license plates. They were in southern California and a green car with Michigan plates had been involved in a robbery in the area. The police pulled them over and forced everyone to the ground at gunpoint screaming obscenities the entire time. At one point, my husband who is Swedish was going to reach for his passport to prove his identity but, thankfully, did not. When it was clear they had the wrong car, the police simply drove away. No apology.

I understand the potential danger to the police, and the odds of two green cars with Michigan plates in that part of California at the same time is low, but coincidences do happen. And to approach it with such a macho attitude only increases fear and tension. To leave with no apology is inexcusable. There is no doubt in my mind if my husband had reached for his passport, a natural thing to do if you are in a foreign country and/or unfamiliar with possible police attitudes, he would be dead today.

While not deliberate victimization by racist cops, it was nonetheless a shocking and frightening experience for my husband and his friends and did nothing to increase their overall trust in U.S. law enforcement.

So keep up the "Black Lives Matter" campaign to build awareness of racism in law enforcement and elsewhere, but for pragmatic results that indirectly curb the behavior of racist cops and that benefit everyone, we should demand loudly and unequivocally that aggressive, out-of-control cops be removed from their jobs.

© 2015 Kvick Thoughts. All rights reserved.