Fifteen feet have turned on the shores of Seattle and surrounding areas. It is a mystery who they belong to and solving it is proving to be no easy task.
While there’s no shortage of stories of gracious people giving blood and donating organs, a new nonprofit is encouraging people to hand over their No. 2’s to help those with plaguing gastrointestinal conditions.
After watching a friend and relative with C. difficile infection, an aggressive intestinal bug, suffer through 18 months of ineffective treatments, a small group of microbiologists, public health advocates and concerned citizens founded OpenBiome in 2012.
The concerned founders felt heartened when their loved one was able to recover after getting a fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), aka a poop transplant, and they wanted to make it easier for other patients to get access to the life-changing procedure, according to the group’s website.
C. difficile attacks the lining of the intestines and can lead to constant diarrhea and severe abdominal pain, among other issues, according to WebMD. It affects about 500,000 people in the U.S. every year and can be fatal in extreme cases, according to OpenBiome. About 14,000 to 30,000 people succumb to the condition annually.
While introducing healthy fecal matter is relatively simple -- since it can be done via endoscopy, nasal tubes or swallowed capsules -- obtaining rigorously screened, healthy poop was incredibly challenging before OpenBiome hit the scene, The Washington Post reported. So desperate for a reprieve, many patients resorted to conducting at-home transplants, which can pose serious risks without proper medical supervision, according to the nonprofit.
The Medford, Massachusetts group has streamlined the process by exhaustively screening potential donors and then sending the filtered, frozen and ready-to-use fecal matter to hospitals and clinics around the country.
What used to take clinicians about two to three hours to conduct, now can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes.
As of December, OpenBiome had shipped more than 1,500 treatments of stool to 150 hospitals and clinics in 36 states.
And viable donors (you have to be between 18 and 50 and have a BMI less than 30) are compensated pretty handsomely.
Prospective donors get $40 for a sample, and accepted donors can earn up to $250 a week (that’s $13,000 a year).
"We get most of our donors to come in three or four times a week, which is pretty awesome," co-founder Mark Smith told The Post. "You're usually helping three or four patients out with each sample, and we keep track of that and let you know."
While the group doesn’t currently have the bandwidth to correspond directly with patients, it’s doing its part to help people who can’t afford the procedure.
In the last six months, OpenBiome has sent 45 pro bono treatments, which included helping a homeless veteran who was being treated at a VA hospital, Carolyn Edelstein, an OpenBiome employee, told HuffPost via email.
The vet had recurring episodes of C. difficile and his social worker reached out to the organization for help.
"She had expected to have to negotiate hard against a more traditional pharmaceutical organization for a discount, and was very glad we had the program," Edelstein said. "The procedure went well, and he's since recovered."
I spent nights in Iraq lying prone and looking through a 12-power sniper scope. You only see a limited view between the reticles. That’s why it’s necessary to keep both eyes open. This way you have some ability to track targets and establish 360 degrees of awareness. I rotated with my spotter and an additional security team member to maintain vigilance and see the whole battlefield. I scrutinized every target in my scope to determine if they were a threat.
In a way, it’s an analogy for keeping the whole Iraq mission in perspective and fully understanding the experiences of the U.S. war fighters during Operation Iraqi Freedom. No single service member has the monopoly on the war narrative. It will change depending on where you serve, when you were there, what your role was, and a few thousand other random elements.
For the past 10 days, “American Sniper” has rallied crowds and broken box office records, but if you want to understand the war, the film is like peering into a sniper scope — it offers a very limited view.
The movie tells the story of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, said to have 160 confirmed kills, which would make him the most lethal American military member in history. He first shared his story in a memoir, which became the basis for Clint Eastwood’s film adaptation. Kyle views the occupation of Iraq as necessary to stop terrorists from coming to the mainland and attacking the U.S.; he sees the Iraqis as “savages” and attacks any critical thought about the overall mission and the military’s ability to accomplish it.
This portrayal is not unrealistic. My unit had plenty of soldiers who thought like that. When you are sacrificing so much, it’s tempting to believe so strongly in the “noble cause,” a belief that gets hardened by the fatigue of multiple tours and whatever is going on at home. But viewing the war only through his eyes gives us too narrow a frame.
During my combat tour I never saw the Iraqis as “savages.” They were a friendly culture who believed in hospitality, and were sometimes positive to a fault. The people are proud of their history, education system and national identity. I have listened to children share old-soul wisdom, and I have watched adults laugh and play with the naiveté of schoolboys. I met some incredible Iraqis during and after my deployment, and it is shameful to know that the movie has furthered ignorance that might put them in danger.
Unlike Chris Kyle, who claimed his PTSD came from the inability to save more service members, most of the damage to my mental health was what I call “moral injury,” which is becoming a popular term in many veteran circles.
As a sniper I was not usually the victim of a traumatic event, but the perpetrator of violence and death. My actions in combat would have been more acceptable to me if I could cloak myself in the belief that the whole mission was for a greater good. Instead, I watched as the purpose of the mission slowly unraveled.
I served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During that time, we started to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, the 9/11 commission report determined that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, false sovereignty was given to Iraq by Paul Bremer, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were exposed, and the Battle of Fallujah was waged.
The destruction I took part in suddenly intersected with news that our reasons for waging war were untrue. The despicable conduct of those at Abu Ghraib was made more unforgivable by the honorable interactions I had with Iraqi civilians, and, together, it fueled the post-traumatic stress I struggle with today.
My war was completely different than Chris Kyle’s war. That doesn’t mean his war is wrong, and mine was right. But it does mean that no one experience is definitive.
The movie depicts compounded action scenes with very little political and regional context. It was a conscious decision by Clint Eastwood, apparently, to leave out the cause of the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. It was a conscious decision, apparently, for multiple characters to describe the Iraqis as “savages” and never show any alternative. When I heard of the bigoted reaction some Americans had after watching the film, I was disgusted, but not surprised. Audience members are mistaking Chris Kyle’s view of the war as “the” story about the war. No wonder someone tweeted that the movie made them “want to go kill some ragheads.” It’s sad that such a nearsighted portrayal of Iraqis has caused more people to fear Arabs and glorify violence against them.
It would be refreshing if a big Hollywood movie would take on the task of creating a less dramatized, more nuanced version of warfare. There are some incredible documentaries on the subject. “Occupation: Dreamland” and “Restrepo” capture the life of a service member in a modern deployment without sugarcoating the hard political environment that is a backdrop to the conflicts.
The responsibility to make a picture that takes into account all of the political and social dynamics might not rest on any individual filmmaker. After all, it is just a movie. But that means the public should treat it like that, and educate themselves before jumping to a conclusion that the whole war was just like that. Especially if they support the democratic ideals that Chis Kyle, me and every veteran who put on a uniform swore an oath to defend with our lives.
If you really want to be a patriotic American, keep both eyes open and maintain 360 degrees of awareness. Don’t simply watch “American Sniper.” Read other sources, watch other films about the conflict. Talk to as many veterans as you can, get a full perspective on the war experience and the consequences. Ensure the perceived enemy in your vision is what it seems.
Garett Reppenhagen served as a Cavalry Scout Sniper with the 1st Infantry Division in the US Army and deployed on a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and a combat tour in the Diyala Province, Iraq in 2004. Garett works as a Regional Director for Vet Voice Foundation and is a veterans advocate and social justice organizer.
This is a chilling account of an experiment conducted on Stanford's campus that shows what happens when ordinary folks (students) are asked to pretend to be either prisoners or prison guards.
It got real ugly real quick.
Check out the complete experiment at http://www.prisonexp.org. An excerpt is below.
Also note, a movie is being made that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival recently.
A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford University
Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment web site, which features an extensive slide show and information about this classic psychology experiment, including parallels with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.
How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of human nature.
I'm thrilled to share there's another grand baby on the way! And it's another girl! How cool is that?
After an overdose of testosterone growing up and raising boys, I get the ribbons and bows!
Woohoo!
Of course, the downside of being a long distance grandma is that I'm so far away, that I don't get the pleasure of seeing my girls grow up in an up close personal way.
But here's what I'm hoping . . .
That somehow, when they're older, they'll see my life as an inspiration, and not as some foolish old lady on an extended trip overseas.
I hope they will have the courage to step out of their comfort zone and do exciting things.
I hope they will learn to appreciate the world, and the varied cultures in it, with their different ideas and different ways of doing things.
I hope they'll see that you're never too old to pursue your dreams.
I hope they will be fearless (not as I am, but as I strive to be), always questioning, asking why?
I hope they will understand their value and their worth, not only to themselves, but to the world.
I hope they will forgive my absences, as I strive to pave a way for them.
Really interesting article that provides fascinating food for thought.
From The Washington Post -
Why is terror Islamist?
By M. Steven FishJanuary 27
This image made from a video posted online by Islamist militants on Jan. 11, shows slain hostage-taker Amedy Coulibaly, who shot a policewoman and four hostages at a kosher grocery in Paris, with a gun in front of an Islamic State emblem. (Militant video via AP)
Contemporary terrorism is disproportionately Islamist. In a recent book I reported that between 1994 and 2008, the world suffered 204 high-casualty terrorist bombings. Islamists were responsible for 125, or 61 percent of these incidents, which accounted for 70 percent of all deaths.
Just as disturbing is the reaction of ordinary Muslims. The torching of Christian churches in Niger by mobs of Muslims angered by Charlie Hebdo’s insults — a week after Islamist militants slaughtered the paper’s editor and other staff in Paris — understandably irks non-Muslims. And rarely are such demonstrations of rage eclipsed by shows of opposition to terrorism. Most Muslims oppose terrorism, but how often do the streets of Casablanca, Istanbul, Islamabad, Dakar, or Jakarta fill with people chanting “Not in Our Name!” after incidents such as that which rocked Paris on Jan. 7-9? And why do many Muslims even in the West express regret rather than revulsion over murder in the name of their faith?
One explanation we can rule out is that Muslims are violent people. Predominantly, Muslim countries average 2.4 murders per annum per 100,000 people, compared to 7.5 in non-Muslim countries. The percentage of the society that is made up of Muslims is an extraordinarily good predictor of a country’s murder rate. More authoritarianism in Muslim countries does not account for the difference. I have found that controlling for political regime in statistical analysis does not change the findings. More Muslims, less homicide.
And yet, we are still left with the terrorism problem.
Some writers explain it in terms of religious doctrine. According to Robert Spencer, the Koran contains ample rationalizations for violence against outsiders.
But the Old Testament does so as well. For example, it reports Joshua’s conquering armies massacring entire captured cities — putting sobbing children to the sword, hanging people on trees and carrying off the plunder and booty — all under God’s orders. In terms of savagery and divine enthusiasm for the slaughter of innocents, the Koran contains nothing analogous to the account in Joshua chapters 10-11.
Another theory, suggested bySatoshi Kanazawa, blames sexual frustration. The promise of sexual bliss in the afterlife for the fighter for the faith is unique to Islam; and polygyny, segregation of the sexes, and normative proscriptions against premarital sex may make young Muslim men particularly prone to violence.
But what little we know about the sex lives of terrorists leaves room for skepticism. In his sample of Islamist terrorists for whom he obtained family status information, Marc Sageman found that most were married men who had children. The top leaders of terrorist organizations, moreover, have been polygynous rock stars in their own earthly communities. For Osama bin Laden, heaven could wait; for Ayman al-Zawahiri, it still can.
Another explanation finds historical rather than scriptural or social cause for terrorism and casts Muslims as bearers of legitimate, age-old grievances. The Crusades, according to Karen Armstrong, are the supreme cause of Muslim resentment.
Yet attributing current-day violence to events that occurred a millennium ago is questionable, especially since the Muslims under Saladin won the wars against the Christian interlopers and retained the Holy Land.
But the truth is, in the contemporary world, Christians won big. And the frustration and humiliation that Muslims now feel as a result can help explain terrorism. That frustration and humiliation is rooted in politics rather than sex and in modern experience rather than deep history. And it has little to do with the Koran.
Let’s consider a few simple facts: Christians drew the boundaries of the states in which most Muslims live. They named those same formations, from “Senegal” to “Jordan” to “Indonesia.” Currently, people in Christian countries make up one-third of the world’s population, while holding two-thirds of its wealth and nine-tenths of its military might.
Now let’s engage in some extravagant futuristic thinking. Imagine that, over the next several decades, Christendom declines. Imperial overstretch cripples the United States, while Western Europe’s gradual decline continues. Lower hydrocarbons prices and rulers’ boundless greed leave Russia in a position of fading sway as well. Latin America’s yawning socioeconomic inequalities persist, producing chronic instability. Plagued by disease, war and weak governance, Christian southern and central Africa are trapped in poverty and turmoil.
As Christendom declines, non-Christian nations rise. China’s economy continues to soar, and China replaces the United States as the world’s most influential country. In an effort to access mineral wealth, expand foreign markets to absorb its exports and resist competition from a declining West, China undertakes a long-term program of investment in the Arab world, Iran and parts of Muslim Africa. The Middle East and Muslim Africa grow in economic power and global political influence.
Turkey and Turkic Muslim Central Asia, spurned by Europe and pressured by Russia, turn south and east. They embrace Chinese tutelage in exchange for investment and security guarantees. Arabs and Persians, many of whom associate Turkish military leadership with the long centuries of caliphal glory, welcome the Turks into the fold.
In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia move from their medium-high tempo of economic growth to Chinese-style expansion. They assume regional leadership as the Philippines, Thailand and Burma remain mired in chronic political instability. With their Muslim majorities and Chinese minorities, Indonesia and Malaysia embody and bolster ties between China and the Muslim world. Singapore, with its Chinese majority and Malay-Muslim minority, aligns itself with China, Indonesia and Malaysia. In South Asia, India’s rise founders on the rocks of social inequality and bureaucratic torpor, and in any event the country’s influence is counterbalanced by Pakistan and Bangladesh, which enjoy close ties with Muslim countries and with China.
In order to participate successfully in the global economy as well as scholarly discourse and cultural production, Americans, Frenchmen, Brazilians and Russians now must master Mandarin and Modern Standard Arabic — with Turkish and Indonesian strongly recommended. Arab countries easily dismantle the state of Israel. The occasional invasion and occupation of parts of Russia, Southeastern Europe and the Philippines at moments when China or the Muslim countries believe they detect a security threat from those Christian lands becomes part of the rhythm of global politics. Such actions spark outrage in Christendom. But they do not prompt concerted, effective counteractions, since Christian countries no longer have the ability or will to resist.
In fact, many leaders in Europe and the Americas cannot resist financial enticements offered by China and the Muslim states, which help fund electoral campaigns and personal consumption. The lucre cools Western leaders’ passions for resisting what at any rate seem like inexorable trends in world politics.
Would everyone in Christendom accept these developments calmly? Some might not. Disregard for their cultures, languages, forms of government, products, services and security concerns may even ignite a widespread, slow-burning rage. The suspicion that even some of their own leaders were complicit in their countries’ degradation might be the final straw.
The final straw, that is, that broke a healthy human abhorrence of deadly violence against innocents and a normal human capacity for distinguishing between innocents and oppressors. Under such conditions, is it difficult to imagine that some self-proclaimed soldiers of Christianity would lash out by committing terrorist acts? Might not Eric Robert Rudolph of the Christian Identity movement, who carried out the Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics and a string of other bombings to protest abortion and homosexuality;, and James Charles Kopp, an affiliate of The Lambs of Christ movement who murdered a physician who performed abortions in 1998, turn their ire on those whom they regard as enemies of their country and faith? Is it not possible that Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, might target Muslim overlords rather than the Feds?
And might not some Christians countenance such acts — or even applaud them? The slaughterers just mentioned enjoyed vocal support among some extremist groups as well as quieter, more diffuse sympathy among broader sections of the American population. Rudolph was feted in popular music and lore and shielded by local communities in North Carolina where he hid during his years as a fugitive prior to his 2003 arrest. McVeigh was lionized by some antigovernment extremists and became an object of fascination among many others. In the hypothetical scenario sketched here, isn’t it possible that some Christians would sympathize with terrorism against Muslims and non-Muslims who they regard as collaborators?
True, the peaceable Christian majority might inveigh tirelessly against attacks on innocents. But even these good people might refrain from vigorously condemning the radicals in their midst out of fear of being identified with the oppressors.
The realism or likelihood of our scenario is of little importance. What matters is first, recognizing that it simply flips the power relationship between Christians and Muslims that actually exists in today’s world; and second, pondering what Christians’ reaction to a reversal of fortunes might be.
There is no justification for slaying and maiming innocents. Terrorism can never be justified. But it can be explained.
Just read that the fire alarm has gone off twice in the past three nights at the hotel where the New England Patriots are staying in preparation for the Super Bowl.
False alarms both times.
Must be something electrical, atmospheric, mechanical, etc.
It's been a while since I've written about this topic, but it continues to make a tremendously positive impact on my life. This article brought it home again.
From The Atlantic (apologies for the formatting errors) -
The Forgiveness Boost
Making amends with those who trespass against us yields a number of physical and mental benefits. Sometimes even victims of the worst crimes can find solace in letting go.
Lauren Giordano/The Atlantic On New Year’s Eve in 1995, Frances McNeill, a 78-year-old woman who lived alone in Knoxville, Tennessee, went to bed early. Outside, someone watched the house lights flick off. Figuring its inhabitants were gone for the night, he made his move.
McNeill awoke to the sound of the intruder rummaging through her bookshelves and drawers. She walked out of her bedroom and crept up behind him. He swiveled around, raised his crowbar high above his head, and bludgeoned McNeill to death. Afterward, he raped her with a wine bottle.
The next morning, McNeill’s son, Mike, discovered her body on the blood-stained carpet. Mike frantically called his older brother, Everett Worthington, who drove over to the house right away.
For the next 24 hours, the brothers seethed with rage.
“It was a traumatic scene and terrible to walk through the house I was raised and see the evidence of all this violence,” said Worthington, who recalled the incident recently. “At one point, I pointed to a baseball bat and thought, 'I wish that guy was here so I could beat his brains out.'”
Worthington, who was (and remains) a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, had at that point been actively researching the psychology of forgiveness for several years. He was studying how people forgive and how forgiveness can work alongside justice.
"I thought, ‘Oh man, here is a guy who has written a book about forgiveness, has taught about this,’” Worthington said of himself. Surely, he thought, an expert on forgiveness could find a way to make peace with even the most heinous perpetrator.
He decided he was going to try to forgive the killer.
Mind you, Worthington does not forgive easily. He says he once had a professor who gave him a B and it took him “10 years and a religious experience to forgive that guy.” But he knew from his research that carrying around the anger over his mother’s homicide would be worse than the painful process of absolution.
To do it, Worthington used his own, five-step “REACH” method of forgiveness. First, you “recall” the incident, including all the hurt. “Empathize” with the person who wronged you. Then, you give them the “altruistic gift” of forgiveness, maybe by recalling how good it felt to be forgiven by someone you yourself have wronged. Next, “commit” yourself to forgive publicly by telling a friend or the person you’re forgiving. Finally, “hold” onto forgiveness. Even when feelings of anger surface, remind yourself that you’ve already forgiven.
What helped on the empathy front, Worthington says, was that after the intruder killed McNeill, he ran from room to room, smashing all of the mirrors with the crowbar—even in the rooms he didn’t search. Worthington took it as a sign that he couldn’t look at himself.
“I started thinking about this from the point of view of someone who is keyed up and think they have perfect crime, and this woman is looking at them right in the face, and he has the means right in his hand,” Worthington said. (It’s worth noting that no one has been convicted in the murder, and the case against the leading suspect was dropped. I’m using male pronouns, but this might have been a woman.)
After that first, agonizing 24 hours following his mother’s death came another 20 or so during which Worthington says he went through all five REACH steps. He forgave his mother’s murderer completely. He says it was important to do so right away.
“I was emotionally aroused, and that magnified all the emotional experiences I was having,” he said. “So when I had the experience of working through and forgiving this person, it gave it a little extra power. If I had done it two days later, when I was calmed down, probably it wouldn't have had as much effect.”
Talking about the “benefits of forgiveness” can feel slightly self-serving, like donating to charity only so you can tell people about it later. But one reason why people might avoid forgiving is that it feels like the offender gets away with something—especially if he or she never apologized. In that sense, at least, it’s worth considering what’s in it for the forgiver. And as it turns out, there’s a lot.
First, there’s a sizable and immediate mental-health boost. Worthington says that an eight-hour forgiveness workshop can reduce subjects’ depression and anxiety levels as much as several months of psychotherapy would.
But beyond that, forgiving people are markedly physically healthier than unforgiving ones. A 2005 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicinefound that participants who considered themselves more forgiving had better health across five measures: physical symptoms, the number of medications used, sleep quality, fatigue, and medical complaints. The study authors found that this was because the process of forgiveness tamped down negative emotions and stress.
“The victim relinquishes ideas of revenge, and feels less hostile, angry, or upset about the experience,” the authors wrote.
In 2011, a group of researchers asked 68 married couples to rehash a recent fight, and they recorded the discussion on video. The participants then watched the videos back and described how conciliatorily they behaved toward their partners, using phrases like “I tried to comfort my partner,” or conversely, “I wanted to keep as much distance between us as possible.” The scientists found that the more peaceable the "victims" of each fight were (the ones accused of not doing their fair share of the chores, say, or of invading the other’s privacy), the lower their blood pressure readings were. Their partners’ blood pressure was lower, too. In other words, both granting and receiving forgiveness seemingly brought down the tension level of the entire marriage. Importantly, it didn’t matter whether the instigator of the fight had tried to make amends: “The power to grant forgiveness (and its benefits) rests with victims,” the authors concluded. Forgiving study participants perceived a hill to be 5 degrees less steep than unforgiving ones did. (Social Psychological and Personality Science)
This replicated past research, from 2001, showing that when study subjects were told to mentally rehearse a hurtful memory in a resentful way, versus an empathetic and forgiving way, they had faster heart rates and larger blood pressure changes. They also showed more tension in their facial muscles.
When someone holds a grudge, their body courses with high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. When cortisol surges at chronically high levels for long periods of time, Worthington says, it can reduce brain size, sex drive, and digestive ability.
Perhaps most surprisingly, though, forgiveness can also help with things that have nothing to do with physical or mental health.
In a study recently published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, 46 participants were divided into two groups: One set were asked to write about a time when someone wronged them and they forgave the person, and the other group was asked about a time when they did not forgive the offender. Afterward, all of the subjects were led outside to gaze upon a large hill. The “unforgiving” group thought the hill was about 5 degrees steeper than the forgiving group did. Then, all the participants were asked to jump up and down. The forgiving group jumped seven centimeters higher, on average.
The experiments showed how a grudge can weigh a person down—literally—says Ryan Fehr, an assistant professor of management at the University of Washington and an author of the study.
“If you’re primed with having a heavy burden, it makes you feel heavy,” he said. “The metaphor becomes real life.”
For all its merits, forgiveness isn’t a cure-all, and it’s not always the best thing to do, Fehr said. “If you have someone who is really unrepentant and keeps offending you over time, maybe not.”
There’s some evidence, for example, that forgiving a romantic partner’s offenses can drag down a person’s self-respect if the partner hasn’t made amends and the infraction was severe. (This is called, fittingly, “the doormat effect.”) And forgiveness is not always the valorous high-road that it might seem. When the psychologists Sarah Stanton and Eli Finkel tired out a set of participants by making them take a difficult test, they found that they were less forgiving of a hypothetical severe transgression (their partners cheating) but more forgiving of a minor one (their partners not calling when they said they would.) Sometimes people are just “too tired to take offense at their partner's bad behavior,” they write. But it’s unclear whether this type of “eh, whatever” relationship is a truly healthy one. Keoni Cabral/FlickrTo Worthington, forgiveness is worth doing even when the target is a person whom it’s difficult to emotionally acquit—and sometimes, that person is ourselves.
Mike, the brother who discovered Worthington’s mother’s body, was never quite the same after she died. He suffered from extreme PTSD, and he asked Worthington for help with his flashbacks and other symptoms. Worthington tried to help—he recommended counseling and the like—but Mike never seemed to want to go through with it. “I tried to help him, but we had too many adolescent conflicts left over in our relationship,” Worthington said.
In 2005, Mike killed himself. Worthington then faced, as he describes it, the even more Herculean task of getting over his own self-blame. “I had struggles with God, like, ‘How did this happen?’”
Worthington worked on his relationship with God, and he tried to make what he calls “social repairs.” In a suicide note, Mike had mentioned financial problems, so Worthington helped Mike’s widow with them. It took three long years, he says, but Worthington was eventually able to forgive himself.
“I couldn't bring my brother back to life, but there's a pay-it-forward that you do,” he said. “I try to help other people avoid the problems I went through. I felt like, as much as you can put anything like that behind you, I was able to put it behind me.”
Buy some Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, whether you like ice cream or not. Once you've bought yours, buy some for me. These guys are taking a stand for what's right.
Molokai, Hawaii, is the fifth largest of the Hawaii Islands, with a population of roughly 7,000. It is most famous for housing a small colony of lepers, which operated until the late 1960s or early 1970s. (Currently, there are no known cases of leprosy on Molokai.) Nowadays, Molokai is a tourist destination – National Geographic Traveler recently placed it in its top 10 islands to visit.
But if you go, do not send a postcard. Send a coconut. An unboxed, unpackaged coconut. If you go to Molokai’s Hoolehua post office, you can do exactly that — for free. (You just pay for the shipping.)
It’s called a “Post-a-Nut” and the process is amazingly simple. Take a coconut from one of the plastic bins on the floor, as seen above (larger, original here). Grab a marker. Address and decorate your coconut. Then give it to this man – he’s the postmaster, Gary Lam. He’ll weigh it, look to see where it is going, and ask you for the appropriate amount in postage. (Domestically, mailing the coconut will cost about $10-12 and take as long as a week.) No envelope is needed nor, for that matter, recommended.
For more pictures — including a great shot of some decorated coconuts set aside as examples for would-be mailers — check out this article on BoingBoing. Want to try it yourself? The Hoolehua post office is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. local time, but closes each day from 11:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. for lunch.
Bonus fact: Internet lore gives us two dubious claims about coconuts. First, there is a rumor that 150 people die each year from being struck on the head from coconuts falling from trees — about ten times the number of people who die, annually, from shark attacks. As per The Straight Dope, that’s untrue. (Sorry.) Second, legend has it that coconut water can be used in lieu of blood in cases requiring an emergency transfusion. The Straight Dope, again, gets to the bottom of it, and concludes that this is mostly incorrect, although “it works in a pinch.”
From the Archives: Hawaii Dollars: Special money made for Hawaii, in case of a Japanese takeover.
Related: “Moloka’i,” by Alan Brennert. A fictionalized historical novel of a Hawaiian woman who contracts leprosy and is segregated into Molokai’s leper colony. 4.5 stars on 210 reviews; 153 reviews are of the five-star variety. $8.81 in paperback, $9.95 on Kindle.
