celebrities, controversies, ethics, mental health, music, politics, social media, Virginia, YouTube

A few more thoughts about “Rich Men North of Richmond”…

When I wrote yesterday’s post about Oliver Anthony’s popular anthem, I didn’t know much at all about him. I was simply reacting to the lyrics of “Rich Men North of Richmond.” Consequently, my post, based solely on my first reactions to his popular song, may not have been as accurate as it could have been. I have since learned more about Oliver Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.

According to Wikipedia— admittedly not always the best source for information– Oliver Anthony is between 29 and 31 years old. He comes from Farmville, Virginia, which is a town I know well. I went to college in Farmville, home of Longwood University (Longwood College when I went there). Anthony might have been born when I was still a college student in his hometown, a place where there is poverty and lots and lots of funeral homes. In all seriousness… I remember there were quite a few nursing homes and funeral homes in Farmville, when I lived there. Maybe that’s changed, though. Longwood has certainly changed a lot since my college days.

I read that Mr. Anthony dropped out of high school and later got a General Equivalency Diploma. He worked a lot of industrial jobs in Virginia and North Carolina. Farmville isn’t too far from the North Carolina border. Evidently, while working at a paper mill in North Carolina, Anthony suffered an accident that fractured his skull and left him unable to work for six months. He’s suffered from mental health issues and alcoholism. Much to my surprise, he claims to be “non-partisan”, saying “I sit pretty dead center down the aisle on politics and always have.”^[8][50]

If it’s true that Oliver Anthony is non-partisan, how is it that he’s become such a darling of the conservative, “anti-woke” crowd? I noticed a few of his other videos on YouTube. He’s written and sung a lot of songs that are about the plight of the working man. Indeed, he recorded most of his songs on a cellphone, singing near his off the grid camper. In the wake of his supposedly stunning debut, he’s made history, having become the first songwriter to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with no prior chart history.

Record companies are reportedly clamoring to sign Oliver Anthony. He’s “brushed off” $8 million contracts, claiming he doesn’t want to be in the spotlight, nor does he want the trappings that usually come from success in the music business. If that’s true, I commend him. Just like light bulbs, people who burn really brightly tend to burn out quickly. I think it’s good if Anthony is grounded enough to realize that losing what’s led to his relatability would be a mistake.

I also think that jumping into sudden wealth can quickly lead to disaster. Many people get caught up in the idea of living in mansions and driving fancy cars, but they forget about the associated negative things like taxes, fairweather friends, unscrupulous business associates, gold diggers, and criminals who suddenly take notice, and unhealthy interest.

I don’t have any personal experience with this phenomenon myself, but I have read and heard a lot of stories about overnight sensations who become the hottest thing in town without proper support from honest people. Next thing you know, they’re hooked on drugs and/or alcohol, suffering from severe mental health problems, and have fallen among the down and out. Mr. Anthony has already admitted that he has issues with alcohol and his mental health. Like a lot of people with mental health issues, he’s shown extraordinary talent that speaks to a lot of people. I would hope there are people near him who are looking out for his well being.

Now… about that song. Personally, I am still not a big fan of it. I mostly explained why yesterday. It reduces a lot of very complex and serious issues into a three minute song that, I think, blames some of the wrong people. I especially don’t like that Mr. Anthony, while trying to represent the working people of America, throws poor people under the bus, especially as he alludes to personal responsibility. I think those particular lyrics, reposted below, are hypocritical and ignorant.

I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat
And the obese milkin’ welfare

Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down

I get being a “salt of the earth” person, and I might even agree, on the surface, that taxes shouldn’t pay for junk food. However, as I mentioned in yesterday’s rant, what seems simple to so many people, isn’t actually simple at all. A poor, obese person using a SNAP card and eating fudge rounds is likely facing a lot of problems. Many of the problems they face are not so different than the ones Mr. Anthony has faced, and tried to drown with alcohol. Moreover, someone who weighs 300 pounds at 5’3″ probably has a legitimate eating disorder.

A lot of people scoff at the whole idea of eating disorders… especially folks who come from a lower middle class background (or poorer). Many people have also only heard of the most famous eating disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Those are the ones that get the books, TV specials, and movies, especially when someone famous suffers or dies after having been afflicted with them.

But there are many other eating disorders out there, and they are comorbid with a host of physical, emotional, and mental health problems. They aren’t fun to have, and they can have devastating effects on people’s lives and livelihoods. The deleterious effects of eating disorders don’t just negatively affect the person suffering from them, either. Their family members, loved ones, and friends also suffer, as does society as a whole.

It seems like common sense for someone who is very obese to just quit eating so much and start exercising more. I also know that plenty of people, lucky enough not to be bothered by eating disorders, will add that fat people shouldn’t be eating junk food. And, you know, people with obesity really shouldn’t eat junk food… nor should anyone else, really, be eating junk food. But it’s so easy to think or say what people should or shouldn’t be doing, especially when you know nothing about them, their lives, or the issues they’re facing.

People develop eating disorders for different reasons. Sometimes it’s genetic. Sometimes, it happens because of trauma. Sometimes a person uses overeating, purging, or starvation as a means of coping with stress or even pain. Sugar rushes temporarily make people feel good. So do endorphin and adrenaline rushes. Fat consumption can be very comforting to some people, not to mention flavorful. Food that tastes good makes people feel better… for a short while, anyway.

When I was a lot younger, I used to skip meals a lot in an attempt to lose weight and, if I’m honest, get attention from others. Doing that usually made me really bitchy (more so than usual, that is), but sometimes I’d get an endorphin rush not unlike the ones I’d get after cutting myself or maybe hitting my head (or another body part). That rush can feel really good, especially to someone who is in some kind of pain or distress. I hasten to add here, I didn’t deliberately cut myself to get endorphin rushes. I’m merely mentioning that rush I’ve experienced after accidentally hurting myself somehow.

Deliberate cutting is an associated behavior for some people with mental health issues seeking stress or pain relief in unconventional ways. Sometimes people cut themselves on purpose as a means of distracting themselves from another kind of pain, such as replacing physical pain and bleeding with psychological pain. And the bonus is that rush of endorphins that sometimes happens when a person is hurting physically.

As a side note… I just started entering search terms on Google and it somehow knew I was going to ask about eating disorders. I typed “Why do people develop”, and it immediately suggested “eating disorders” as the top result. Obviously, I’m not the only person who wonders about it.

The truth is, there’s no one definitive reason why a person might develop problematic eating patterns. But, impoverished people often have had a lot of trauma in their lives, and food is a cheap and readily available way to soothe bad feelings. What makes a food addiction especially problematic is that people have to eat to survive, and food (especially junk food) tends to be ubiquitous. And as I mentioned yesterday, it isn’t always easy for everyone to simply eat good, nutritious food.

I imagine that Mr. Anthony, who reportedly has himself been living off the grid, would know that firsthand, just as he apparently knows about being an alcoholic. I’ll bet Oliver Anthony doesn’t like it when people point at him and claim he’s the source of a complicated societal problem. And I’ll bet the poor people who eat fudge rounds don’t like that, either. It’s not a crime to be poor, and lobbing abuse and hate toward people unfortunate enough to need welfare assistance is neither productive, nor fair. Moreover, if a person is going to sermonize about personal responsibility, they really ought to start by taking a good hard look at themselves and their personal responsibility for their own situations before pointing fingers at other people.

No matter what, though… individual welfare recipients are not directly responsible for keeping the working poor in poverty. It’s probably more likely that Anthony’s song title has the true culprit within it. That is– wealthy people who make many times what the workers make, and are more interested in keeping investors and shareholders happy are probably the ones keeping down the working folks who are just scraping by in life. Add in the fact that basic necessities like health insurance cost so much– again, because healthcare is a business, rather than a human right.

A few days ago, I mentioned my college friend who was doing well enough to recently take a vacation in Hawaii. Just after she came home from that trip, she was in a catastrophic car accident. She may never fully recover from that accident, and there’s now a crowdfunding effort to help her family accommodate her needs when she’s discharged from the rehab hospital where she’s spent the summer.

While I don’t mind helping my friends, and I did help my friend’s cause, she’s in this situation because she was in an accident. Why should she depend on the kindness of family and friends to get the care she obviously needs? Especially when there are American people who have made so much money that they’ll never be able to spend it all in their lifetime, yet they’re constantly trying to find ways to avoid paying taxes. And you know as well as I do that the vast majority of those super rich people didn’t get rich without a lot of help from the much less wealthy.

Anyway… I’d like to see Oliver Anthony dig a little deeper into the issue. And if he really is non-partisan, I’d like to see his lyrics focus less on shitting on people who are already down, regardless of their body size. We all have problems. Everybody has a story. While a lot of people can relate to “Rich Men North of Richmond” and think it’s perfectly fine that Anthony specifically calls out fat people on welfare, personally, I’m not very impressed by it. It seems like a really cheap shot to me. Maybe some more reflection and empathy are in order.

Just my opinion, folks… perhaps I should write a song about it, too.

law, musings, psychology

I don’t think curfews are the best idea…

Even though I never left the house yesterday, it turned out to be a somewhat action packed day. Bill bought himself a butterscotch yellow Fender Telecaster electric guitar. I was kind of active on social media, even wishing for marijuana at one point. To be truthful, I have only had exposure to cannabis for recreational purposes a few times. My first time getting stoned occurred on my 43rd birthday, when we visited Haarlem, a town close to Amsterdam in The Netherlands. I tried it a couple more times before we came back to Germany. I enjoyed the experience, and since COVID-19 is a stressful thing, I think I would enjoy having some pot again right now. But I don’t want it badly enough to go looking for it.

Then I read an article in The New York Times about the curfews that are being imposed in different cities around the world. After reading the article, I determined that I don’t think the curfews are a good idea. I’ll get to why in just a moment. First, as you must have already guessed, I read the comments. I noticed many people commenting probably didn’t bother reading the article. That’s not surprising, since after a few freebies per month, The New York Times puts up a paywall. Most people don’t seem to think that journalists should be paid for their work, so they refuse to pay for a subscription. But they still read the headlines and opine, and sometimes they make uninformed comments.

I responded to one person’s comment. What I wrote wasn’t stupid, derisive, or disrespectful. But then some yahoo comes along and laughs at me, then writes, “C’mon dude. That’s your rationale?” Then he wrote more to someone else, indicating that they should be grateful for curfews and lockdowns, since that will “fix” the COVID-19 situation.

My response to the random yahoo was that, actually, my comment came from content in the article. I asked him if he’d read it. Then I commented that I’m not a “dude”. About twenty minutes later, I found myself inexplicably pissed off… and before anyone decides to tell me I’m too sensitive, I know I should ignore the comments. But I’ve been pent up for weeks now. Germany has had a “lite lockdown” going on since November, and things have been significantly stricter recently. It’s wearing on my nerves. And sometimes, I just feel the need to lash out a bit. I try to keep my lashing out to my blog, which most people only read if they’re actually interested, but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Anyway, against my better judgment, I followed up my comment with another asking the random yahoo why he feels it’s necessary to laugh at comments from people he doesn’t even know. Granted, a lot of people went to the “Google School of Public Health” and pop off their theories based on what they’ve read in the news and their own opinions. It’s always funny to me when someone asks a stranger for their credentials in a comment section, asking where they got their MD or PhD in epidemiology. How do they know the person they’re demanding credentials from isn’t actually qualified?

In my case, I legitimately do have a master’s degree in public health. I did not concentrate in epidemiology; my focus was health administration and policy. But I did used to work as a graduate assistant for the Bureau of Epidemiology in South Carolina. In that job, I did learn a thing or two about disease tracking and transmission. I also took courses in epidemiology and health promotion.

I also have a master’s degree in macro social work, so I know something about social problems, community development, and crisis intervention. I earned both degrees in 2002. They were awarded by fully accredited programs at the University of South Carolina. As I was reading the article about the curfews, it occurred to me that if I had actually pursued the path I was on when I met Bill, this COVID-19 situation could be a treasure trove of relevant work for someone like me. The average person doesn’t know this about me, though. I’m just a “dude” who posts something they think is “stupid”.

So why do I think the curfews are kind of a bad idea? For one thing, it’s because the COVID-19 virus spreads more when people are indoors. And the virus doesn’t care if you are indoors with your family. If one of them picks up the virus while out and about and brings it home, chances are good that everyone in the house is going to get sick. For more on that reality, here’s another New York Times article about a family in Los Angeles who share a tiny one bedroom apartment. Grandma got sick first, so she locked herself in the one bedroom, while everybody else slept in the living room. Sure enough, they all got sick too. Most people aren’t going to practice social distancing and masking in their own homes. If we’re lucky, they’re washing their hands, but that’s not a given, either.

Of course, if someone does get COVID-19, it makes sense for people to quarantine at home. But it’s a lot easier to social distance when people have the freedom to go outside, which is a lot bigger than inside spaces are. And since businesses are closed down in a lot of places anyway, particularly in places where there’s a curfew, it’s not like most people are congregating at a dance club or a bar. Why shouldn’t people be allowed to take a walk or a drive if they need to, even if it’s after 6pm? The curfew article cited one case of a woman walking her boyfriend, doggy style, and complete with a leash, with him on all fours, in Sherbrooke, a city in Quebec. Yes, they were stopped by the police and fined about $3100, which is absolutely insane. It would have been okay for her to walk a real dog, but not her boyfriend, who is much less likely to take a dump on the sidewalk. I think $3100 is an excessive fine, too, particularly when so many people can’t work.

Another reason I don’t think curfews are a good idea is because people who are locked down are more likely to be bored, depressed, drunk, or high on something. People don’t like being told what to do, even if it’s for their own good. But forcing people to adhere to a curfew could deprive them of the ability to get out of the house when someone becomes abusive. Even people who get along well might have trouble dealing with being stuck in the same house with someone for weeks on end. Imagine dealing with a violent drunk or someone who has an anger issue. An incident that might have resulted in a tongue lashing under normal circumstances might turn into something more violent or even deadly under the stress of a curfew.

Many people get frustrated and angry when they are confined, and they might turn to drugs or alcohol to relieve the stress, which will likely only make things worse. Yes, the argument could be made that leaving the house for one’s own personal safety could be considered an “essential reason”. But people who are stuck in abusive situations may still find it more difficult to leave under curfew conditions, even if they’re being threatened.

And finally, I think a lot of people already distrust the government. People are highly pissed off at government officials of all stripes. I have been reading about how public health officials, who normally don’t get too much hatred lobbed at them under regular circumstances, are being vilified in their communities. Some of them have been threatened with bodily harm or even death. Curfews make sense in situations where there’s rioting and civil unrest. But most people would prefer to be allowed to live as they see fit. Being forced inside for their “own good” may inflame people who are already highly pissed off and uncooperative. That could lead to hidden abuse behind closed doors, or it could lead to uprisings that land a lot of people in legal trouble or hospitals. And jailhouses and hospitals are not good places to be, particularly during a pandemic.

Personally, I haven’t had a problem staying home. Bill and I get along very well. He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body, despite his long military career. We have a fenced in backyard, two balconies, and plenty of space. If either of us got sick, it would not be a problem for one of us to move into the guest room in the basement. Bill can work at home as much as he needs to, and he makes enough money that we don’t have to worry about expenses… at least for now. But I’d venture to guess that most people aren’t as fortunate as we are, and this situation is causing real hardships for many people.

I imagine how I’d feel being forced into a curfew with my family of origin. My father was an alcoholic with PTSD who lashed out when he was under too much stress. When he was alive and we still lived together, we fought a lot. There were times when he occasionally got violent. I sure wouldn’t want to have to be locked down with him, if only because we didn’t always get along under normal circumstances. He could be a control freak, which didn’t sit well with my admittedly occasionally difficult personality.

There are people out there with even worse problems than alcoholism. I worry for those who are in those situations, particularly if there are children involved. People wonder how long they’re going to be expected to adhere to these oppressive new rules. I know I’ve been wondering. Sometimes, it makes me very depressed to think about it… enough that I wonder if I’d rather just find a way to check out early. I mean, Bill would miss me and so would the dogs, but I don’t have any children or a job, and plenty of people think I’m an asshole and laugh at me, or block me for reasons unknown. I’ve got to die someday, and this lifestyle genuinely sucks. I don’t know how long it will go on and what it will mean for the future. The present is already pretty shitty. Why stick around for what’s coming next?

You see? I have a pretty easy time of it, but even someone like me can easily fall into a pit of hopelessness and despair. I think about people who are dealing with joblessness, homelessness, drug and alcohol addictions, mood disorders, menopausal rage, and any of the other issues that have people on edge right now. And I think limiting a person’s liberties can cause a lot of unintended consequences. I base those concerns on my own experiences and the knowledge I’ve gained actually studying these issues. There hasn’t been a lot of research done about this specific topic because this is the first worldwide pandemic we’ve had in 100 years. Maybe that’s one of the silver linings of the pandemic. This is a perfect opportunity for some enterprising healthcare professional to do some research that will help the next time this happens. Hopefully, I will be long dead by that time.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for this snowy Sunday, which didn’t produce enough snow for the outside to be a winter wonderland, but has made the backyard more of a depressing morass of mud and soft dog crap. Tomorrow, Bill will take Arran in to have his tumor excised. Hopefully, it will go well and he’ll be okay.