Kin

The word "kin" comes from the Old English, 'cyn' which meant "family, race, kind, or nature" Kinship is considered a modern word first attested in 1833 in the writing of Mrs. Browning.

It's a key word. In McLean's Triune Brain is seen the evolution of man internally as likened externally. The lizard brain is there. Lizards have the basal brain mechanisms for maintaining breathing and heart beat, the very mechanisms of the survival and reproduction, territoriality, fight and flight, aggression, defense, and such.

Robert Hare, points out in Snakes in Suits, that the psychopath is really a lizard person with chameleon capabilities. He lacks feelings and conscience.

Feelings are associated in McLean's Triune Brain with the middle brain development, amygdala, basal ganglia and the whole emotional apparatus that is found in mammals. Lizards drop their eggs on the beach like fish drops theirs in the sea whereas the mammals care for their young and form groupings around the raising of young. ( Jurassic Park was an interesting discussion of whether the dinosaurs could do group hunt behavior because that coordinated activity was thought part of the first development of the mammalian proto kinship brain.)

Robert Hare likens this ability to be mammalian to the 'sociopath'. The psychopath is a loner. The sociopath in contrast is part of a group. In the book On Killing about PTSD in the military the writer quotes a sergeant saying that there were psychopaths and sociopaths in the military, very few in fact, because they couldn't be trained to work together. The psychopath loner might function as a sniper but couldn't be counted on not to pick his own targets. The sergeant described the sociopaths as 'wolves' and himself as a 'sheep dog'. The wolves could hunt in packs but there was a question of their loyalty. Indeed sociopaths make good mercenaries for this reason. The soldier who described himself as a 'sheepdog' had a higher sense of 'kin' associating with sheep and humans, allying as such to a greater social grouping than the mere 'blood line' or 'DNA' derived tribal association.


To Hare the sociopath had the capacity to identify with it's own kind. It had the capacity to form a kinship network. A Hell's Angel might not tell the truth to the RCMP or FBI but he would tell the truth to a fellow Hell's Angel. Similiarly a Palestianian might not speak openly with an Israeli or a Mossad with an Hamaz. Klu Klux Klan and the Black Supremacist organizations aren't going to see eye to eye the way Billy Graham and Bishop Tutu might. The issue here is kin and kinship.

Anthropologists found that all tribal people considered themselves "the people", hence the name "Inuit" meant "the people". The significance of this was any one not of the 'the people' was the "other." The rules for the 'people' didn't apply to the 'other'. This was the next question the anthropologist would ask, 'what do you call the neighbor'. When anthropologists encountered cannibals, the answer was the 'edible ones'.

To the sociopath the 'kinship' tribal boundary stops and those on the other side are 'edible ones'. To the human theoretically the kinship association should be at least as advanced as the sheep dog compared to the wolves though of course this is idealistic.

So it really doesn't matter if there are 10 commandments and we say we believe in the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments say "Thou shalt not steal". However to the sociopath or other tribal person this is like one Hell's Angel knowing that he shouldn't steal from another Hell's Angel. The question is who belongs to the 'Tribe'. A tribe can be a political party, or professional group like bankers or a society like the Freemasons or Feminists or Tea Party people.

Democracy is a pretty word until you ask 'who is a citizen'? Only the rich Athens were citizens in the original democracy. Roman citizenship was what kept St. Paul from being crucified without trial. Crucifying non "Romans" was standard operating procedure of the day. The same holds today with the incredibly lucrative business of "immigration" in the United States and the political and legal naming of whose in and whose out. It's no surprise that King Lear called 'courtly things' just that.

The concept of kinship therefore is far more important than 10 commandments or democracy or even the greatest human command, "love your neighbor as yourself" since the word 'neighbour' doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Sociopaths simply don't use the same 'definition' as Jesus or Paul or perhaps the Christian today would use the word 'neighbour'. Chameleon psychopaths would even parrot the words,nod their heads and chant all the while they considered where they were going to take the first bite.

Sociopaths and other Tribal people aren't operating with a full deck. The lizard is a very good killing machine but it's not a particularly genteel neighbor. It's a whole other matter when your daughter wants to marry one. Kin and kinship are the stuff of Romeo and Juliett.

That said, can a fish love? Can you 'teach' a lizard conscience. Can a sociopath really become a human being in the sense of global citizenship as opposed to Israeli, Palestinian or American citizenship. And finally can this occur without a 'conversion experience'.






















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Pictures from Sunday

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Spring Hope

I saw heather blooming
Yesterday
And cherry blossoms
Not many but early
Hopeful, colourful
Characters, they were
Explorers, adventurers
Darlings of the new world
I noticed them
They stood out as daredevils
Against the recent snow and sleet
Real trendsetters and go getters
These were.
I loved them for their zest

I saw heather blooming
Yesterday
For the first time
This year
2011
I have hope
Hope that I'll live the year
The planet with me
Friends and family
Prospering
Thriving
If the heather can do it
And the cherry blossoms
So can we
It's in the promises
Heather and Cherry Blossoms

Father Matthew Johnson

Father Matthew Johnson is the street outreach minister at St. James Anglican Church.  He's a handsome personable chap who I've talked to often "on the street".  He helps the homeless and looks out for the really struggling in the vicinity of St. James Anglican which is at 303 East Cordova Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1L4.
It's not an enviable job. Not very much of what might be called 'sitting room Christianity' in his work.  He's surprisingly uptempo despite the sordid and often harsh surroundings he must minister in.
Today I heard him give a sermon for the first time.  He was terrific. It was an amazing sermon on Ecumenicalism. In brief sentences he sumarized the major thrusts of the different Christian ministries. He described the liberal churches interfacing with society and focusing on things like poverty and civil rights. He saw the evangelical churches as concerned primarily with one's relationship with Jesus. The orthodox were equally concerned with the mystical while traditional Catholicism emphasized authority and truth.  He saw the Anglican church as trying to balance these various priorities. He also spoke of the World Congress of Religions.
He spoke to the need to understand that there were differences in a family but that a family was nonetheless a family. I'm really not doing his sermon justice. It was extraordinarily profound and yet simple.  I was moved.  I felt more a part of a greater human whole connected more closely together with God.
After that there was more incense, the choir outdid itself, we said the Lord's Prayer and everyone went to the front to receive communion before returning to our seats to kneel and pray.  Then we were all ushering out of the church to begin another week of everyday life.
I felt uplifted. No small thanks to Father Mathew Johnson.  I think it's good they let him come inside.

Drug Testing Pot Smoking Adolescents

If you think your teen is smoking marijuana they probably are. Otherwise they might have a brain tumor. I once did the thousands of dollars work up with complete psychiatric assessment, neurological exam, CTScan and EEG, blood work, and such because the kid's grades were poor and teachers wondered why he was so feral with no memory and no concentration.
Teen and parents insisted he didn't smoke marijuana. I was afraid I was missing some sort of brain eating virus. The kid was that stupid and irritable. Worse than an average teen ager by many points. I was upset that I must be missing something and expressed my defeat to my secretary. She told me his parents were the town drug dealers.
It did a urine test and it came back positive. Mostly marijuana isn't that obvious. It's associated with poor grades, irritability and arrogance. The way to pick it up is by a simple urine drug screen.
Today I'm a medical review officer for government and transportation and such. Refusal to pee is a positive test. That was the agreement between government, unions and Americans with disabilities. If you're not smoking marijuana you're glad to pee because it will be clean. It's a matter of pride for people like me. I'm happy to show you my urine doesn't have drugs. It's not a civil liberties thing. If I'm acting dumb it's a lot cheaper test than doing an MRI. It's the place to begin with teens.

Any family doctor can order a urine drug screen. To make it random the teen has to do it without notice within 24 hours. Marijuania will test positive in urine for weeks to months. It's not like cocaine which clears in days to weeks. The drugs we look for in addition to marijuana are cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, benzodiazepines and hallucinogens. The simple cheap dipstick test has cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, pcp and benzodiazepines. More extensive broader tests have more but truthfully I'm rarely concerned about more than the above. These are all the gateway drugs and if people are doing designers they may be picked up but they're probably doing the 'fav 4" (cannabis, cocaine, amphetamine, opiates.)

There are occasional false positives, the urine tests positive and the teen isn't doing drugs. But we sort this out by having the young adult be seen by an addiction specialist. Addiction specialists have a Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) Certificate or an American Society of Addiction Medicine Certificate (ASAM) or an International Society of Addiction Medicine Certificate (ISAM). GPs, general psychiatrists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, historically haven't been that knowledgeable about addiction despite their common claim that they are. Some of them think they can do surgery and surgeons look askance at generalists operating. In addiction medicine there's the same problem. Lots of people who think they are experts, few are. Look for the certification. If a teen tests positive send them to a certified medical addiction special. When it comes to doing urine testing the Medical Review Officer (MRO) is the most knowledgeable and certified but isn't really necessary for teens unless the teen starts being a jailhouse lawyer. .

I have several patients who are on contract with their parents that if there parents phone me I requisition a urine test at the request of the parents. As the parents are paying for the teens home and school it's reasonable that they want the teen to be present for the experience. It's so much easier to do adolescence, a tough job at any time, if you have your brain in your skull.

Ongoing random urine testing, as opposed to an initial screening test, is only done after a teen has lied but tested positive. If a teen tells me they're using I don't need a confirmation test and I don't like the cost or unnecessary paper floating about. When the teen is clean I order a test to support their claim and to encourage them to remain clean. It's good to sit down and write a voluntary contract with parents and teen so everyone is on board about what will happen next.

Today Narcotics Anonymous has a young peoples group for those under 25. I would definitely send a teen to such an NA group but not the adult one. Often marijuana smokers quit drinking as well and go to AA which also has a young peoples group.

Urine testing isn't 'invasive'. Blood tests are invasive. Urine tests are not.


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House Rules

One of the most common concerns expressed to me by parents of adolescent children is that their teens are totally uncooperative. This isn't a biological necessity of child or adult development. Delayed adolescence and rebellious adolescence is predominantly a modern western urban culture phenomena made worse by media, (aiming to sell to teens and feeding into their greatest depravities), divorce, working parents, loss of control of schools, gangs etc.
There are organizations that it really behooves parents to join. Parents Together is one such organization. Kids spend a lot of time talking about how to "beat" their parents. Parents need allies and in the modern single family homes there is a real need to reach out to get help. Al Anon is an organization for parents whose children have problems with alcohol and drugs. Police organizations, locally, the Vancouver Police and RCMP, often have personnell who will gladly advise parents if they have concerns about their childrens safety or behavior before a problem arises. Child and adolescent psychiatric services are available at hospitals and help lines are often another source of information. It is really important when children are problematic to get information from the school and consider the teachers as allies. It's really critical to know what others are doing or saying in the community.
That said, I commonly start with behavioral problems by encouraging the parents to make a list of 10 commandments, the House Rules. These need to be broad and clear and posted. My experience is not with healthy normal kids but rather with the most difficult teens referred as the worst in the school or sent to psychiatric wards. I tell parents the first thing that kids encounter in 'group homes' is the House Rules. You can look for House Rules on line and get an idea of what juvenile detentions, foster house and such use. So make a set for your house and make sure your teen is on the same page.

Here's some ideas:
1) No physical damage to the humans in this house. No use of knives, guns or baseball bats or fists against other humans. No hitting. No harming pets.
2) No damage to the house itself. No explosive devices. No fire setting. No head banging through walls.
3) No urinating or defecating anywhere else but in the toilet.
4) No cutting, strangulation, overdosing with pills or jumping off roofs in an attempt to suicide or self harm.
5) Be in house before 11 on weekdays and 12 midnight on weekends. These are arbitrary numbers but locking of a house or apartment should be done for the protection of all and all members should be inside at fixed times.
6) No strangers allowed in the house without parental permission.
7) Rooms should be capable of passing a basic health inspection. That means no left over food. I'm a big one for no clothing on the floor since where shoes and feet have been should not be mixed. Ideally parents should be teaching their children's the basics of what natives would call, "learning not to shit where you eat" and the difference between a 'bedroom' and a " nest." There's a lot of self respect to be gained by putting dirty clothes in a bin and clean clothes in another bin.
8) No smoking in rooms. No alcohol or drugs in rooms.
9) Chores - these aren't horrendous, child slave camp things but minimal levels of group living, like washing dishes, taking out garbage, cleaning once a week or something like this in which the adolescent participates in the running of the apartment or home. They should be contributing members.
10) Allowance should be earned and conditional not an entitlement.
11) Television times.
12) Computer times. Televisions and computers, cellphones, wifi and gameboys are not necessary in private bedrooms and can be moved to public areas if there are concerns in this regard. Their use can be limited. Parental controls are good things.
14) Game times.
15) Cell phone usage.
16 Lights out can be set as can wake up times. In psychiatric hospitals it's common practice to wake adolescents up for morning breakfast and to lock the bedrooms of bed seekers.
17) No yelling.
18) No calling your parents or family members names that are demeaning and objectionable to most U.S. marines.

These are just ideas. Ideally a list of 6 or 12 is better than 20. Keep it simple.

When there is an infraction don't discuss it but rather ask the adolescent what rule has been broken to see if they know, are brain damaged or really don't know. When they answer, "what!" or "whatever" or such responses invite them to come to the place where the house rules are posted and point at the number of the infraction. Don't read or repeat or say what it is. Ask them to do this to see if they can read or are stoned. Gain agreement on the misdemeanor. Note this is exactly what police do and it is a means of training children for the adult world.

Sentencing is a wholly separate matter and should be done at a completely different time and place if possible.

Ie. We agree you put the cat in the microwave and that is a breach of
rule number #1. We will discuss what consequences will result from this in one hour. In the meantime go to your room or else. Never tell any adolescent what else is as it quite possibly could lead to your doing jail time.



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Marriage, Church and State

Marriage was traditionally an "institute of family". It was a union of husband and wife with the intent of sexual congress for the sake of creating children for the community. It was a community based recognition of the biological coupling of families and designated who would be responsible for children.
Children were appreciated by families and communities until very very recently in the history of humanity. Children were proto adults who were the principle workforce and the ingredients of armies and numbers and health and well being of these children defined the futures of the communities. Marriages were almost entirely arranged by adults and families who had long understood the importance of 'breeding' biologically since the early days of herding and politically as the stuff of alliance.
Marriage was monogamous or polygamist. If monogamous and no children, the lack of children could be grounds for dissolution of the marriage as 'barreness', initially of women and later men, was considered a grave disadvantage. In the history of the aristocracy how one pleasured oneself sexually, whether with males, females, animals or otherwise was nobody's business really, as long as children were produced as heirs. Marriage and family were essentially synonymous. If there were no children the marriage was accepted but it was not considered healthy, successful or enviable. Childless marriages were 'cursed' marriages.
In times of poverty and starvation, children, considered the future, might well be sacrificed (even eaten) by the adults who considered themselves by brute strength alone to be the rulers of the present.
Post industrial age, ie post "the age of the machine", the need for human labour for production of food, clothing, shelter,transportation and war was reduced. Children lost value as did all humans. Today one might say that with one button attached to enough warheads to annihilate all men, women and children and the planet itself children and humans in general are at an all time nadir. Certainly the very few at the very top of the food chain have more power than any tyrant of any age previously. The tolerance of these super humans for the rest of us is perhaps the same as the French Queen who said "give them cake" if only to shut them up and stop them riotting.
Mass annihilation of sub groups such as Scots, Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandas, and Aboriginals in general, and mass abortions of undesirable races such as Canadians and now the hope of euthanasia might reduce the numbers of those ruled by those ruling to a much more congenial equation in time. Right now humans and children aren't particularly desirable. Fortunately, Afghans and Vietnamese before them have demonstrated that drones and bombs are not yet as efficient in war as individual human soldiers. Thanks to the success, albeit little, of these horrible rebels, the armies of the right and good are still necessary. Therefore the ruling class continue to have need for the occasional babies.
A time in the not too distant future may come when the planetary rulers could get along with say a million servants and things would be much better all round for everyone especially the lakes and dung beetles, to say nothing of the spotted owl.
It's been only a half century that predictable and readily available birth control has been available for most. Marriage is no longer the dangerous leap into child rearing it once was. Condoms at the turn of the last century were not found in dispensers in outhouses, were highly unreliable and far more undesirable than the modern day Trojan or Sheik condom that claims to be not only secure but hardly noticeable when worn. The birth control pill for women is this generations contribution to the future and the male birth control pill is finally ready for marketing.
Gays, homosexuals or lesbians, who have entered into sexual unions never had the terrifying potential and leap of faith that young women and men did when their community approved sexual relations could saddle them with a toddler and later a teen ager at any moment. Gay sex, like adultery or adolescent sex or any non community sanctioned sex had it's illicit risks but by comparison to illicit heterosexual sex was incredibly safe in comparison. Only very recently has gay homosexual sex been a 'risky business' as a result of biological disease. Lesbian sex both biologically and socially has by many standards been the safest of all sexual unions. Pregnancy and childbirth today are however safer for women than in any other time in all of history. Acute pain therapy for childbirth is one of the miracles of modern science. Despite this childbirth's popularity with women has so decreased that scientists are desperately working all hours to develop extrauterine in vitro birth in case women completely forfeit this role which men, even those who do dishes and floss, have shown no interest in taking over.
Children have not only brought benefit to the family but also grave risk. The behavior of children has for millennia reflected poorly or positively on parents. Increasingly though children have been co-opted by the state, especially totalitarian states, as monitors and police of the parents. Countless adults now have died as a consequence of the intentional or unintentional statements of children.
With the age of machines children became less desirable. Only with the advent of the 19th Century hospitals before Lister was childbirth en mass truly dangerous. When it's dangers were addressed women gained 10 years life expectancy over men who continued to bear the brunt of the dangerous work place and wars that enriched the shrinking numbers but increasingly potent rulers. . Naturally women might opt for more life than more children in contrast with their grandmothers whose experience was 'many hands made a chore less burdensome". In contrast 'many mouths' became the post machine age nightmare.
It's been said that modern times, the last 200 years are best understood as a paragraph, less than a page, in the 200 page book of human life on this planet.
Marriage as an institution of family has been present for a goodly bit of those 200 pages whereas marriage as the term is used today is at best a line in the book of life in the present age of divorce.
Marriage until very recently for most was a lifelong institution, adult life lasting 20 to 30 and at most 40 years beyond childhood. Except in the numerology of Biblical accounting a 50 year marriage was rare indeed. There are countless 50 year heterosexual marriages, and 2/3's of the monogamous ones have not known adultery. The polygamous marriages have probably even more abiding statistics.
Kinsey first looked for Gay long term unions and found very few with supreme effort just a few decades or less than a line of history ago. Today gay unions are a terrific experiment in human relations a kin to the development of the space shuttle and as admirable givens the forces against them.
DINK'S - Dual Income No Kids marriages are another truly recent phenomena, at most a generation in the countless generations of life on earth. Women can safely enter that once dangerous union called marriage knowing they will never have to have children, never take the risk of childbirth, never raise toddlers and teenagers and have all the benefits of marriage without their partners knowing they never ever planned to have children. Men can themselves get vasectomies and marry without ever having to fear one day holding a vulnerable screeching baby in their arms or having a teen ager begging for the keys to Dad's car.
The hard political work of families on behalf of marriages in these recent years of political and economic entitlements have acknowledged the greater cost and obligations that married people, ie parents had over single people, ie unmarried people. There is a desire today for those who aren't parents to have those benefits and given the rapidity of the change in circumstance and naming of things in the last lines of the history the very meaning of marriage and family and sexuality are at stake. The rise of the singles and DINKS also has already gained them many credits over the former majority the married parents. It's no surprise that Gays want what DINKS already have.
It is only very very recently that any sexuality was open to discussion thanks to the pioneering work of Kinsey. Married sex was as much a taboo as unmarried sex. Today Gays are facing the same persecution that unmarried heterosexuals living together only mere decades ago faced. Today the children of interracial marriages are still being persecuted as seen with the colored children in today's Vietnam.
However as a community what will we give to children since all the advantages of 'marriage' given by community were specifically regarding the future of the community, ie the children.
As we define marriage as just two adults, and really whether they're female, male or two eunuchs isn't at issue here, what will we say for families especially families where there are only one adult and children or even adopted children with any number of adults. Can we seriously change the nature of marriage without really addressing the whole antequated graveyard of family legislation especially when for far two long decisions have been made by white privileged upper class old wig wearing men whose traditional servile wives have raised the children.
There would be no dispute about marriage in churches today if the law courts would have done their job of getting in touch with 21st century long before the churches and communities had to attend to the messes left them by the self serving "social courts'.
Given that the average length of marriage in north american between childless of any arrangement is commonly 5 years or less and those with children seem to be divorcing in this culture of divorce earlier and earlier, what does marriage say about 'stability' and 'commitment'. Indeed only one generation ago marriage reflected maturity and responsibility whereas today marriage may be a name associated with stupidity and immaturity. Indeed being married might mean you are gay or childless or only able to commit for 5 years. Given the 50% divorce rate maybe only bad marriages succeed and good marriages divorce. The entertainment and marketting industry responding to the decline of the wedding party began to make profits by promoting divorce parties definitely competing in popularity with he declining baby showers. Black gowns are in and white gowns are out.
The fact remains, what about the children?
All the 'domestic laws' of family and cohabitation need to be rewritten in this post machine age to stop lawyers and judges and the state from disenfranchising children in marriages with children. The divorce courts will be required shortly to pay back the children of divorce for the wholly unnacceptable cut they took from these children's heritage. Gay marriage is truly just an opening gambit in this long overdue process.
DINK's and GAYs ,who don't adopt, really don't deserve the privileges that were sought for families on behalf of the state and community.
Gays however should have every right that heterosexual DINK's have until either have children, adopted or procreated.
Love and lust matches of individuals either gay or heterosexual shouldn't be called called marriage 'retrospectively' as in the term 'common law' marriage. Marriage was and should remain a 'prospective' consensual agreement that two adults enter into and contract to do. The rights of 'squatters' should not be the same as 'homeowners' or the very courts themselves are rewarding the lawless as they have done now for decades. Parliaments and congress need to reel in the self serving courts which are by their actions not interpretting laws but actually making them for their own benefits to the detriment of the community at large. Shacking up is not marriage. Anyone who shacks up should not be seen legally as worthy of the rewards, benefits and rights of the proposed lawful gay, heteroseuxal or eunuch marriages or eunuch marriages.
Sexuality should no longer be punished by the courts who have never been sanctioned to be in the bedrooms of the nations in the first place. Individuals who live together don't get to have the others pensions and judges should stick to what they know which is contractual law, prenuptial agreements or marriage contracts. Increasingly today couples gay or heterosexuals are forced by housing costs to be roommates. Retrospectively any roommate can risk all future income if their roomy gets a slick lawyer and claims there was sexual congress whether there was or wasn't. As Gays today are wanting to have legal unions that is admirable indeed. Legal unions are to be admired by community. The problem remains that the courts don't even uphold their own laws and the consequence is the destruction of all community as we know it.
The state has always increasingly been against families and has demonstrated their penchant for divide and conquer in their unwillingness to recognize the world re live in today. No judge in social courts should be allowed to wear a wig today as it causes them to think like dinosaurs. Perhaps church leadership should consider discussing issues of marriage and family wearing sweats and having only milk with cookies for refreshments. There appears too much evidence of too much alcohol or pot in some of the decisions in this domain.
Finally, what of the rights of children? All of the rights of marriage were there to protect children and family. Should not the marriage laws be changed in the context of family laws and why is polygamy, either male or female, outlawed in a supposedly 'multi cultured' society. Really.









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