Taking the Ride

Taking the Ride

It’s hard to know what’s right and what’s wrong these days. So much is coming out in the news and on the Internet that seems so convincing that either all is lost or all is saved, depending on how you choose to view things. Either way, Ph.D.’s and stalwart economists and political analysts are obviously so confused and conflicted that anyone onboard this “ship” of ours has got to be terrified as to who’s at the helm and what sort of charts are they using to navigate us through the storms ahead.

Having been through some storms of my own that on a personal level make what lies ahead of us not so scary to me, I’m here to say that it’s all part of the journey we’ve all known secretly or otherwise was bound to come. “Life runs in cycles,” a very wise old mentor of mine used to say. “If we would just step back a bit and look at the patterns, we could predict the future pretty accurately.” He was 94 when he passed away with his Daytimer still in hand, and he’d run businesses as big as any that are now in various stages of bankruptcy and collapse. He’d seen it all, through World Wars, recessions and the “Great Depression,” and he said with a smile, “It’s all just an exercise in consciousness…and sometimes it’s better just to ride the horse the direction it’s running.”

Yes, there’s trouble ahead…and some people are going to get hit hard. But it doesn’t have to be all that hard. What my old friend was saying, in essence, was that once you’re moving, stay with it and enjoy the ride as best you can. How you get to the other end is a matter of your choice of attitude. Fight it and resist it, and you only make it harder on yourself. Fight it and resist it to the extreme, and you’ll most likely not ever see what’s on the other end.

At several points in my own ride through life, I’ve been at what appeared to me to be a dead end, but I always managed to take a deep breath and plunge ahead, only to find sensibility and mysteries unveiled. Recently, at one of the worst times in my life, I chose to keep a truly positive (as opposed to faking it) attitude, and the most apparently unlikely person to have any resources with which to help me showed up…and became one of my biggest supporters and newest “best friend.” That’s actually happened to varying degrees many times along the way, and I can tell you unequivocally that it’s worth every trial and every sorrow.

Show up for others in your life, no matter what, and don’t give in to the doomsayers and “analysts,” and your ride will prove memorable…even enjoyable––regardless of what it might look like right now. If enough of us do that, those storms will blow over with a whole lot less damage and destruction, and like the end of the movie, “Titantic,” we’ll all raise our goblets in toast to the ride of our lives.

Don Kirchner
ReturnToHonor.org

Making a Difference

A few days ago, I buried a friend of mine. She wasn’t a long-time friend…in fact, I hardly knew her at all. She bounced off the windshield of the truck in front of me, and in a blur of feathers and wings she fell under my car as I passed over her. I hate it when that happens…even more so when it’s me that’s the cause of such suffering…but I had places to go and people to meet, so I winced a bit and brushed it off as simply another contribution to the food chain. But as I drove along another mile or two, it bothered me enough that I knew it would still be bothering me later if I didn’t do something about it. So, I whipped a U-turn at the top of the next hill and went back to find her still in the highway and not yet road-kill.

I got out of the car and took a look at her. She was still blinking her little eyes…still showing some sign of life…so I picked her up and held her for a bit, hoping that perhaps she was just knocked silly but would recover and fly away as they sometimes do. She laid there in my hand calmly looking back up at me for a minute or so, then suddenly flapped her wings furiously and fell to the ground. When I picked her up, her eyes were closed and she was gone.

I was on my way back from a long road trip, and that incident…harmless and insignificant as it may seem, had a lasting impact on me. It was just a bird…one of millions out there doing their thing, so why should this one have any impact on me? It was a bit of feather and wing clinging to life in a palm of human flesh and bone, clinging to life on another level, but nonetheless significant in the grand scheme of things.

As I traveled along in the days afterward, I thought about the human friends and family members I’ve lost over the years, and wondered what had been meaningful about them…what had they accomplished in their lives? We’ve just “lost” Michael Jackson, once revered then scorned and vilified, and now loved and revered again, and along with him another icon of my generation, Farrah Fawcett, born the same year as me, and someone I had a huge crush on for most of my adult life.

What did they leave behind of lasting value besides memories and estates for others to squabble over? What did they do to make life better for others? Such thoughts caused me to go deep into myself and wonder what have I done to make life better for anyone else? What legacy will I leave behind that will matter to others?

What about you? Who are you? What are you doing with your life that really makes any difference to others? Are you just getting by, or are you pursuing something in your life that has a positive impact on others? Are you just making your way from cradle to grave as safely as possible, or are you clearing a path for others behind you?

It doesn’t take a Michael Jackson or a Farrah Fawcett to make a real difference in the world. As Margaret Meade wrote so powerfully, it only takes a small group of (passionate) people committed to making a difference to change the world for the better. So, whether you impact millions, like Michael or Farrah, or one at a time, do it with all the passion and caring you can muster. If enough of us impact just a few others in our lives, we can and we will see miracles and wonders in our lifetimes yet. It doesn’t take an icon…and in fact it rarely works that way at all. It only takes a few of us, dedicated to leaving behind something for others to be inspired by, and a clearer path for them to find their own way. Can you do that much? If you can, you will be just as important––if not more so––than any “icon” ever has been.

Don Kirchner
www.ReturnToHonor.org

The Best of Times...or the Worst of Times

The Solution

In the months and years after the jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001, the American public was introduced to greed and corruption on an unprecedented scale that brought about the collapse of Enron first, then one Fortune 500 company after another after another until business failures on a large scale became almost passé. In recent months, we have seen the collapse and bankruptcies of companies that made those failures seem paltry by comparison. Along with that has come a litany of sex scandals among our top political and religious leaders that has most of America and the rest of the world wondering where the hell does it stop, and how much worse can it get?

Personally, I don’t know where it stops on the grander scale, and things may well get worse before they get better. But I do believe that they will get better eventually, and that it has taken such massive breakdown on all levels and resulting hardship to get our individual attention on what’s most important. WE are what’s most important. By that I mean that we as individuals matter in that overall grand scheme of things, and the only way that we can hope to make a difference in creating a truly “kinder, gentler nation” and safe world to live in is to give back to one another instead of taking blindly whatever we can from a nation that is essentially bankrupt.

I don’t know if we’re on the “brink of collapse,” as so many people are saying, but I know that I can at least stop contributing to the breakdown by paying more attention to how I go about my daily life, and by how willing I am to reach back and help others. If you don’t think that will make a difference, consider how all those people were able to keep their charades going for so long. We allowed that to happen…all 300 million-plus of us at every level of our “get-ahead-at-any-cost” culture. Those planes flew into those towers not just because a bunch of Islamic Jihadists had a grudge against us. It happened because we stopped caring about others on a massive scale…and we allowed our political, military and corporate leaders to take whatever they wanted from other countries and from us. Collectively, we contributed to the process in some way or other by allowing it to happen.

I’m not going to take issue with the powers-that-be, or side with radical elements who want to bring the government down, but I damn sure will start paying more attention to what goes on in my life. The only thing I can do of any real substance, even if it’s tiny by comparison with what a general or a Senator or CEO of any of the remaining Fortune 500 companies can do, is to reach back and help someone else get through what is going on now. Just that act alone makes one person at a time feel better and more valued, and begins a process of rebuilding confidence and caring that, one at a time, builds to the point where more people are paying more attention to what goes on in their lives and who we put in office and whose products we buy.

We got ourselves so caught up in making a living and getting ahead or just surviving that no one paid attention to some trends and patterns that now in hindsight seem pretty obvious even to un-trained eyes. Those people got away with the things they did because we let them, and we ignorantly allowed ourselves to believe that we couldn’t do anything about it. We just went along with it, believing that it didn’t affect us.

I know that it doesn’t seem that any individual can make much of a difference, but we have to begin somewhere…which can and should be with ourselves. Each of us can make a difference by the examples that we set and how we impact others with our thoughts, words and actions. Consider the movie, “Pay It Forward,” and how you felt after watching it. Of course it was “just a movie,” but it had a profound impact on just about everyone who watched it because it showed how powerful one simple idea, properly implemented, had the potential of changing masses of people at a compounding rate.

You can make a difference. You need to make your voice and your intentions heard among those over whom you have any influence or control, and you have to commit to making a difference, no matter how small it may seem to you. Mentoring, caring, guiding and re-directing others on any and all levels can and will restore balance and sensibility in an insane world. At no time in history has social order and disorder been in such an amplified state. But we have the Internet, satellite TV, computers and many things that will vastly accelerate the process, which can make these the best of times in the face of the worst of times.

Don Kirchner
ReturnToHonor.org

Incarceration: Changing Our Thinking

Incarceration: Changing Our Thinking

Incarceration is a term with which most Americans are well familiar by now. Enough movies, books and television and news programs have us all well informed by now about all the dark, evil and brutal aspects of being locked up. True, it’s scary and sinister stuff. It’s the darker side of the human experience, and for most people it is evil and even brutal. But it’s our stuff, meaning that collectively it belongs to us. We, as a society, created it and we sustain it by what we believe about it and how we allow others to run it, just like everything else in the political and economic worlds.

In order to do anything about it that makes any difference, we need to recognize it for what it is, and how it functions with our collective acquiescence and indifference…and our ignoring what goes on inside the walls and fences. That includes what goes on in the minds of the people who manage and administer jails and prisons, many (if not most) of whom do so with a sense of vengeance and coldness that only enflames the problems and reinforces behavior patterns on the part of “criminals” that typically make them worse.

I am not a cynic, nor do I have anything against “the system,” such as it is. In fact, I work with that system, in that I counsel and teach both inmates and correctional officers how to recognize behavior patterns that are destructive and counterproductive, and to change those behavior patterns for the better. It’s amazing how small a change in thinking toward others will positively affect their behavior no matter how “brutal” or vengeful they might be.

How do I know this? I was one of them. I was a federal prisoner for 2 1/2 years, which very nearly became 25 years, with no chance of parole. I survived the experience in the face of brutish resistance and hostility toward me because I looked like everything most inmates and criminals have learned to dislike and distrust. But as I made consistent efforts to help them with simple things like reading and writing, their behavior changed for the better, not only toward me but toward everyone else––including correctional officers. What seemed destined to be a 25-year sentence became far less, primarily because of the good that was evidenced as a result of my work inside. Nearly everyone's attitudes toward one another began to change, and with that came near-miraculous developments that enabled me to not only still be alive, but thriving outside the walls as a useful, contributing member of society.

In order to change anything that has such a huge collective emotional charge such as the criminal justice system, we have to get outside of our own personal issues and pre-conceived notions about crime and criminals, and be willing to change our thinking…if only a little bit at a time. Just being willing to understand is a major step forward. One needn’t agree with or condone criminal or negative behavior, but only be willing to see behind the masks and the negative images we see in the movies and on television. If enough of us do that (and thank God that there is a groundswell of people on both sides now doing exactly that), we can change the way “incarceration” works, and make it work far more effectively.

Don Kirchner
June 9, 2009
www.ReturnToHonor.org

Judges Take Cash to Jail Juveniles

The Associated Press updated 6:56 p.m. MT, Wed., Feb. 11, 2009 WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses. The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. “I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward. No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged. Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it. Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.

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California Ordered to Reduce Prison Population

58,000 Non-Violent Prisoners Ordered Released

(CNN) -- Federal judges tentatively ruled on Monday that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prison system by up to 40 percent to stop a constitutional violation of prisoners' rights. California must cut the number of inmates in its prison system by up to 40 percent, judges have ruled. "Overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons," the court concluded.

California state officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, immediately promised to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

"The governor and I strongly disagree with this ruling," said Matthew Cate, California's corrections and rehabilitation secretary. Implementing the court's ruling would result in up to 58,000 prisoners being released, Cate said, describing it as a threat to public safety. He disputed the court's contention that the prisons are unsafe the way they are now.

But in 2006, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency because of "severe overcrowding" in California's prisons, saying it had caused "substantial risk to the health and safety of the men and women who work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in them." In court documents, the judges said the state's prison system was at about 200 percent of capacity.

The ruling is the result of two class-action lawsuits on behalf of California prisoners who said medical and mental health care in the state's prisons are so inadequate that they violate the federal constitution's Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

The judges said their ruling is tentative so that the parties involved can plan accordingly, essentially giving them an opportunity to work things out themselves before an official ruling is rendered. The court suggests a two- to three-year window for reducing the number of prisoners in the system.

Those who would be released would be very low risk, according to Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a group that provides free legal services to California prisoners. He said the ruling would affect those in jail for three or four months because of parole violations, those getting early release dates, and those who might qualify for early release for taking part in rehabilitation programs.

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On the Brink

As I've waded through the rising floodwaters, so to speak, of our social and economic dilemmas this past several months, I find it difficult to maintain a positive attitude about anything. Yet I've been through enough hell in my life to know that a positive attitude is the only way out of any trouble...and I mean real trouble. Not that what we're facing isn't "real," but that if I could significantly alter the outcome of actual physical, mental and emotional endangerment and confinement in my past experiences with right choice of attitude, I know without a shadow of doubt that we can, too...collectively as a nation.

The preeminent psychiatrist, Dr. Victor Frankel, wrote in his classic book, Man's Search For Meaning, of how he and a few of his fellow Jews survived Nazi concentration camps and ultimately gained their freedom by fundamental attitude shifting, and he detailed how it was done repeatedly through the most horrendous circumstances that we who view history only think we know about from the books, movies and stories of that time. But his, and their, journeys were very real. He wrote later on, after 3 1/2 years of daily torture and constant threats of imminent death in every passing hour that our only "real freedom" was our choice of attitude.

I read that book while I was in federal prison in the mid-80's, and turned an almost certain 25 years in prison without chance of parole into what ultimately worked out to be 2 1/2 years...and in almost every instance, turned my adversaries into allies. How did I do that? I chose to find something for which to be grateful in every day, and discovered that even in my adversaries I could find something to be positive about...and even respectful. I didn't "kiss up" to anyone, nor did I compromise my values or beliefs. I just chose to view things from a different perspective than being a "victim" or reacting to what or who was confronting me at any point.

We're "on the brink" of financial and political disaster, according to everything in the news, and according to many...if not most...of my friends and associates in the business world. While that may be true, I'm choosing to look at the crises in the world as merely rapids ahead that need to be traveled through not with horror or doom and gloom, but with a healthy sense of keeping ourselves off the rocks and trusting the ride...and working together to make it through. There are calm waters behind these troubled ones, and we can only make it worse by reacting to, or resisting or fearing what's coming. We've all known for quite some time that it was coming, so the only thing to do now is to maintain a good and positive attitude about the outcome...and be willing to suspend our pre-conceived notions about who's who and what's what.

There's a huge shake-out and cleaning up going on right now, and it won't be easy. The rats and the cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork, and it's getting easier and easier to spot them and put them where they belong. Meanwhile, we need to keep our focus on the rocks ahead and stay clear of them. And we need to be willing to work together to bring about a better world where truth, honesty and integrity cease to be merely words but more a way of life.

To me, that's worth going over the brink for. I've had enough of words, posturing and promising. Let's embrace the coming times as our parents, grandparents and Forefathers (and mothers) did through numerous wars, depressions and other challenges. We're still pioneers in every sense of the term, just like them...only our "frontier" may be the most arduous one of all...that being the human mind. Only right attitude and a healthy state of being can change that for the collective betterment of society in this day and age. That "brink" may look pretty scary right now, but it may not be all that bad...or that deep. In any case, there's no avoiding it; we might as well get ready for it, and learn to do things less selfishly and fearfully.

Don Kirchner
Sedona, AZ

A Sobering Thought

"Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose" - Janis Joplin

Posted By: The Candid Blogger
visit our Job Search Blog at: The-Job-Specialist Blog

Courage

Courage

While there is much excitement about the many changes that are already coming out of the White House now, there is still the aftermath of what has happened over the past eight (or more) years that all of us have to contend with. Despite the near-euphoria that many of my close friends and associates are feeling about all the good things to come, there remains the reality of making a living and getting the bills paid that overshadows much of what they are doing…and trying to do. For many of them…myself included…this is a very scary time. Some of my more affluent friends are suddenly realizing that they don’t have the “safety cushion” they thought they had, and others are working rather menial jobs just to pay the utility bills…again, myself included. I understand that there is a very long waiting list just to get a job at Walmart now.

These pages of blog links and writings describe and detail many startling things about our society and what needs to be fixed, yet here we are…most of us…unsure of what lies ahead and how to pull out of the morass of social and financial upheaval in our lives. It seems daunting and even, to some, hopeless. We alone are responsible for whatever circumstances face us, and as a nation of people we are responsible for what comes of the decisions we make now…every day. We can’t blame anyone or anything else…not even people like Berny Madoff, or the idiot who jumped out of his plane in an attempt to fake his death and run off to God-knows-where with whatever money left over from having bilked his investors. They make Kenneth Lay (remember him?) and the guy from Tyco look like amateurs, in terms of living lavish lifestyles with other people’s money.

But guilty as they may be, and as outrageous as their lives may have been, they are products of our collective lifestyles. We created them, somehow, by having too long looked the other way and put into office people who not only tolerated such lunacy, they indulged themselves as well. George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the plethora of senators, governors, big-city mayors and corporate leaders that all have come and gone now were products of our generation’s unwillingness to have the courage and the moral responsibility to do something about what’s been going on for a long time. Enron was but the tip of the iceberg…and a grim forewarning of what was yet to come. No wonder we can’t pay our utility bills, and many of us face the possibility that we might be homeless soon.

So, what can we do? How do we pull out of this? We’ve managed to elect a new President who seems to have the right attitude and willingness to do what needs to be done to make things right…but he has the equivalent of a national 9/11 to clean up, and he can not do it without every one of us being willing to take steps in our own backyards and in our neighborhoods and in our families and within ourselves to make the difference. We need to suspend disbelief and distrust, and we need to have the courage to own what is our responsibility for loss and damages in our lives. We cannot waste another hour worrying about what went wrong or what is bad in the world, and just focus on our individual lives…to clean up our own messes.

I’m not an economist, but I’m going to accept the fact that the only thing that stands between us and another real Depression is the extent to which we are willing to stop pointing fingers and blaming others for our problems, and have the courage to step up and do what is right in our lives to set things straight. We need to hear each other, and be willing to help…even if it’s only to care a bit more about others than we do about ourselves. That’s what brought us out of the last Depression, and a World War that makes what we’re going through now pale by comparison.

We’re on a global Titanic, folks, and we’re in the midst of huge icebergs. We need to apply what we’ve learned about the disasters of the past, and stop arguing over who did what and why, and look around us. We have great resources all around us…and we are they. It takes courage and compassion…and truth. That’s what all this is about. We’ve lived too long in denial, greed and avarice of our own, and collectively we have created the mess we’re in by either having supported the fools and the crooks we’ve put in office or have supported in business, or by having looked the other way and never took action to change things.

The time is now for each of us to buckle up, suit up and go to work. Obama and his team will do what needs to be done. Now, we need to do what needs to be done in our own backyards. That will take more courage and willingness to be clean and clear in all we do and say than we’ve known or done probably in our lifetimes. However, it really won’t take long to change things for the better…and in those lifetimes we can yet see and experience what the human spirit, and God, is capable of achieving.


Don Kirchner

War on Drugs an Economic Disaster for America

Re-entry Programs: an Idea whose Time is Now

About thirty-five years ago, Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. Since then, we've spent more money on that war than in Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug crimes. Prisons are America's fastest growing industry, with 2.2 million Americans currently locked up. We're making 1.9 million arrests and spending $70 billion on drug crimes every year, yet drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far more available than ever before. What is the solution?

"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

-Abraham Lincoln

A Rand Corporation study conducted fifteen years ago resulted in a team of mathematicians calculating the most cost effective tactics: law enforcement, interdiction, foreign aid, treatment, and prevention. They found that only treatment was effective.

The hard evidence they presented has had no impact on drug policies that have failed to reduce drug addiction, crime, and/or juvenile drug use. The drug war continues and each of these problems continues to increase.

During alcohol prohibition, murder went up 13% and robbery, 83%. Prohibition ended in 1933, and violent crimes returned to their pre-prohibition levels by 1937. It is estimated that 80 percent of felonies are drug related. One of the drug war's hypocrisies is that its purpose is to prevent harm to users. While drug addicts do serious damage to their lives, the drug war destroys those lives.

The number of Americans behind bars for drug offenses, mostly nonviolent, has increased by 1,200 percent since 1980. Legendary NYPD crusader, Frank Serpico, describes the prison system as an industry. "They run it like real estate. They have so many rooms, they have to rent them out, and the police fill them."

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As states across the country confront historic budget shortfalls, more and more politicians are looking toward long-overdue criminal justice reform as a way to cut spending. Suddenly, the money local governments stand to save by slowing down incarceration rates is trumping the political costs traditionally associated with it. Good news. The nation's prisons have been dysfunctional and overcrowded for ages, reaching emergency levels in recent years. Around this time last year, a study released by the Pew Center found that 1 in 100 Americans was behind bars.

The cost of locking up parole violators has been a major drain on states' resources -- and no state knows this better than California. In 2002, a study by the Justice Policy Center calculated that the Golden State -- which leads the country in the size of its parole population and recidivism rates -- spent some $900 million a year to keep parole violators (who spend an average of five months in prison) incarcerated. That year, according to the same study, nearly 1 in 5 parolees lived in California.

President Obama is on the right track as it is definitely TIME FOR A CHANGE, and aftercare and re-entry programs are the solution.

Posted By: The Candid Blogger
visit our Job Search Blog at: The-Job-Specialist Blog