Month: December 2017

by William Skink

A former professor put up an article on Facebook about why boys need more emotional support than girls. It’s a very interesting read. Here is an excerpt:

In a 2000 study entitled “The Fragile Male,” Sebastian Kraemer states that baby boy brains are actually more fragile than baby girls’. Even in the womb, boy brains are more reactive to maternal depression and stress, while at birth, baby boy brains lag behind girls by a full six weeks.

Research has also shown that boys have higher cortisol levels (the stress hormone) after a traumatic birth where they were separated from their mothers, or their caregiver was unresponsive.

Kraemer argues that female brains have an early advantage that stays with them throughout childhood, while boys struggle and trail behind in a variety of areas.

As boys age, they can continue to struggle, which, when compounded by the lack of emotional support, only gets more serious. Although scientists go back and forth on this, it is thought that males are more prone to dyslexia and difficulty with reading and language, making school and learning difficult. Boys are also more likely to have childhood onset conduct disorder and are two to three times as likely to have ADHD than girls.

These neurological differences that researches are studying are then exacerbated by cultural stereotypes of masculinity, further depriving boys of the emotional support they need for their development.

What broader implications could studies like this have on our understanding of why men behave the way they do? Could being deprived of emotional support early in a boy’s life lead to acting out violently later in life? And what does this say about the effort to equalize the sexes? In conflicts between men and women, women are often the victims of male aggression. Does this gap in early emotional support complicate those roles of aggressor/victim?

It’s something to think about, especially now as men are being broadly demonized due to the individual actions of men in positions of power. Instead of just blaming men and the entrenched power of the patriarchy they represent, maybe studies like this will lead to a better understanding of what boys need in terms of support, and if that understanding leads to changes in providing that support, both men and women could benefit.

by William Skink

Last month, amidst the anxiety and uncertainty of Montana’s budget crisis, case managers at Western Montana Mental Health Center chose to unionize:

On Sept. 20, case managers at the Western Montana Mental Health Center voted to unionize, a development that shop steward and six-year WMMHC case manager Cheryl Nguyen-Wishneski attributes largely to fear over the impacts of state budget cuts. Nguyen-Wishneski says case managers first got together in a state of shared shock mid-summer to discuss their options, after they were informed of impending layoffs in their department. She adds that the new union also includes community rehabilitation aides, who frequently work in tandem with case managers for high-need clients.

“Pay was going to go down, workloads were going to go up, and that’s what was presented to us,” Nguyen-Wishneski says of the explanation she and other case managers were given for how WMMHC would absorb a 37-percent cut to Medicaid reimbursement for case management.

Case managers already have an incredibly difficult job. It’s also an incredibly important job. Good case managers work to keep their clients stable and out of costly institutions, like Warm Springs and County Detention. With homelessness on the rise, and no clear path out of the jail overcrowding crisis, case managers are a critical resource that need to be supported by this community and it’s political leadership.

That support was not happening. This was made perfectly clear in an op-ed penned by Cheryl Nguyen-Wishneski and Lisa Leon. They called out Jean Curtiss specifically because she is the president of the board of directors of the Western Montana Mental Health Center. Here is a good portion of their complaint:

We want to be treated with respect and dignity in our places of employment. That is why we voted on Sept. 20 to form a mental health workers’ union. We have two goals that go hand in hand: the just and compassionate treatment of our clients, and the just and compassionate treatment of mental health employees.

On several occasions the mental health workers of Unite Here Local 23 have requested an audience with Missoula County Commissioner Jean Curtiss, who also serves as president of the board of directors of the Western Montana Mental Health Center. On every occasion she has refused, with a resounding “no” to democratic process. Do not elected officials represent the working class? We have been led to question if Curtiss is the most fit and qualified candidate to represent the workers of Missoula County.

We are currently facing severe state Medicaid cuts. We could shortly be unemployed. If this happens, the population at the Poverello Center, the population at the State Hospital, the prison population, and the population of the homeless camps under the bridges will increase. Some of the most vulnerable persons in society will be unable to seek help, and their helpers will be left to collect unemployment.

We implore you to support the care and treatment of persons suffering from disabling illness, as well as the just treatment of mental health workers throughout the country. Be kind and offer a smile the next time you pass a homeless person on the sidewalk. Think carefully about who you want to be your next county commissioner. And be a voice for democracy and a living wage for all persons who work hard daily to meet the needs of the most at-risk of society’s members.

Unionizing was a good move. Maybe now unresponsive political officials, like Commissioner Curtiss, will realize they can’t keep squeezing workers to do more with less while they give empty lip service to living wages amidst increasing caseloads and budget cuts.

by William Skink

I am feeling seriously triggered by both the University of Montana and City Council. I think that’s the right word, considering it’s dealing with past traumas that seem to be repeating.

Bringing back Bobby is brilliant if the idea is to create a different PR problem to distract from a plethora of other bad moves, like trying to hide information on the prioritization process and firing/hiring/firing/hiring contracted lecturers. Poor Seth, this shit-show is now his to try and deal with. He may want to check the Missoula County Inmate Informational Portal every morning, especially weekends. It would have to be early, before those fancy lawyers can spring ’em out.

For more frequent posts on the ineptitude of UM and the terrible reign of King Clayton, Logicosity has been great. I’m listening, Ed! I care!

Bringing back Bobby Hauck is not the only throw-back, dumb-ass move by a critical institution of Missoula. Missoula’s City Council is re-visiting trying to ordinance away a nuisance issue, this time “urban camping” by people in unsightly RVs.

Is this a pervasive problem? Or are a few, persistent violators confounding police and health department officials? From the link:

Mike Haynes, director of Development Services, said the regulatory change came after health and law enforcement officials and the city attorney’s office struggled to deal with several long-term campers who caused sanitation issues and safety concerns.

In a memo to the City Council, Haynes explained: “Temporary and occasional cases of ‘urban camping’ rarely generate complaints, but there have been cases where individuals have parked in neighborhoods for long periods of time, presented significant problems for residents, and generated citizen nuisance complaints that have required code enforcement and law enforcement interventions.”

In one case, a couple camped for nearly two years in various Missoula neighborhoods, resisting all attempts at enforcement by moving whenever neighbors began to complain.

According to Haynes, this is not a pervasive problem. “Several” is a pretty low occurrence rate to warrant passing an ordinance. But that’s what Missoula has done under Engen, and will continue to do, apparently. Hey, people keep voting for him, so I guess this is what “progressive” Missoula wants.

Does Engen support these changes to the ban on urban camping? How does this fit into the housing initiative Engen constantly referenced as he was campaigning? I’d like to know. I would also like to know how, specifically, would these changes address the “several” cases police and city officials can’t apparently handle. If they can’t afford the fine, and don’t show up to Municipal court, is this just another “failure to appear” that could land a violator in the debtors jail on Mullan Road?

The city of Missoula and UM, acting like the it’s the aughts with ordinances and Bobby Hauck. What’s next, pretending like Jon Tester will be a foe to wars and a friend to enviros like it’s 2006?

by William Skink

Jon Tester is a tool of Wall Street, but progressives in Montana refuse to acknowledge this. Despite tangible evidence of Tester’s tool status, the mighty fear of Republicans continues to be enough to scare spineless progressives in Montana toward supporting Tester’s bid to stay in office.

The recent theatrics Tester engaged in before the tax bill passed got all kinds of attention, but it was an empty gesture—bullshit theatrics from a duplicitous politician seeking re-election. Tester knows who his real constituents are, and they are not your average Montanan. Tester’s support for this misguided deregulation legislation is the proof. Here’s a quote from an Intercept piece:

Four Democrats — Banking Committee members Joe Donnelly, Ind.; Heidi Heitkamp, N.D.; Jon Tester, Mont.; and Mark Warner, Va. — negotiated S.2155 with Republican leaders. In all, 10 Democrats have co-sponsored the bill, giving it enough support to break a Senate filibuster if all Republicans sign on. That makes the deregulatory effort more than theoretical; it’s a real risk to pass.

Democratic staffers on the Banking Committee cite three major problem areas for S.2155. First, despite being pitched as relief for community banks and small lenders who played no role in the financial crisis and got caught up in the regulatory undertow, the bill extends that aid to the big boys. It eliminates automatic enhanced standards, like higher capital requirements and “living wills” that lay out how to unwind the firm in case of trouble, for banks with between $50 and $250 billion in assets. This includes large regional and national players like American Express, SunTrust, and BBT, and foreign megabanks like Barclays and Deutsche Bank, whose holdings in the United States fall within that threshold. These international lenders have been notorious “repeat offenders,” paying tens of billions of dollars in fraud penalties for actions like repossessing the cars of service members while they fought overseas.

In all, the bill removes enhanced supervision from 25 banks that control $3.5 trillion in assets and received $48 billion in taxpayer bailouts, according to an analysis from Public Citizen.

The effort to re-elect Jon Tester is not going to leave much resources for down-ticket races in Montana, just like the effort to keep Bullock in the Governor’s mansion was the all-consuming focus of Montana Democrats in the last election cycle. That means Democrats will continue being a weak minority barely able to fend off the short-term greed and cruelty of Montana Republicans.

by William Skink

It’s so easy to get sucked in to the daily outrage. I am by no means immune. The tax catastrophe is one of those monumental deceptions that boggles the mind. Trickle down economics never worked, so watching deficit hawks become deficit pigs wallowing in the spoils of class warfare is more than just obscene. It’s demoralizing. Especially because their base will not revolt.

Meanwhile, Democrats up for reelection like Jon Tester are doing their best to exploit this GOP Christmas gift to corporations and the donor class. My reaction to seeing Tester flinging around the hefty tax bill is about the same as my reaction has been to any empty Democratic posturing for votes: I’m not buying it.

Democrats do not represent legitimate opposition to the policies of the plutocrats because they serve the plutocracy. As disastrous as the tax plan will be it will be no worse than the bailout of Wall Street after the housing bubble burst. That happened under a Democrat controlled Congress and a shiny new biracial president who successfully lulled white liberals to sleep for the next 8 years.

Those positioned to feed at the trough are doing so because they know the Great Contraction is coming. They are taking whatever they can get before this fantasy cluster of bubbles starts popping off like fire crackers. And the bubbles will burst.

What I’m less sure about is whether it will be some unforeseen trigger or a controlled pin-prick to set it off. I lean toward the latter. Those at the tippy top of this ponzi pyramid economy will do anything to maintain their positions of power and control.

While the .000001% continue consolidating their hold we will continue fighting each other and sliding deeper into fictions and delusions.

I’m working with my own fictions and delusions. And I’ll keep checking in on other strains of delusion, even if it belches up hoax theories about AIDS from time to time.

Here’s a new video.