Throw Your Troubles To The Wind

Whenever I feel stressed out or have a lot on my mind, I like to take a long, leisurely walk, preferably in New York's Central Park, my all-time favorite greenspace.

The feel of fresh air on my face, the sight and smell of greenery, and the sound of wildlife never fails to clear my head and lift my spirits.

Until I recently heard a segment on the public radio show The World, I didn't know there was a name for this activity that I've been doing for many years. It's called uitwaaien (pronounced out-vy-een), a Dutch word for "out-blowing" or "walk with the wind."  There isn't, unfortunately, an English equivalent, according to one online article.

In the Netherlands it's a common practice for people to take these open-air strolls on windswept days to relieve themselves of stress and anxiety. And it's a lot cheaper than taking pills or going to therapy sessions.

So the next time life gets you down, try uitwaaien and let the wind blow away your troubles.

Does Conversion Therapy Change Only Gays?

The thing about conversion therapy that people don't seem to acknowledge is that if it's possible to change someone from being gay or bisexual to being heterosexual, wouldn't reverse conversion therapy apply to straight people? I don't think conversion therapy, if it's possible, is a one-way street. Just a thought.

Coloring Books Are No Longer For Kids Only

Think coloring books are just for kids? Think again. The Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine recently published an article titled "Adults Rediscover the Pleasure of Coloring Books."

"The act of placing color to paper," reports the magazine in its August 10, 2015 issue,"has proved to be a sought after tactile antidote in this distracted age of social media." In addition, "many find coloring to be a relaxing, stress-free experience." So much so that coloring books for adults "have suddenly catapulted to the top of bestseller lists" while at the same time coloring clubs inspired by the Facebook group Ladies Coloring Club have mushroomed across the country.

The idea of adults indulging in coloring books is not such a bizarre thing. After all, comic book/graphic novel publishers hire specialists called colorists to add color to an illustrator's work. And these colorists are definitely not kids.

Burnout: The High Price Of Success?

Are your goals eluding you despite ceaseless hard work and sacrifice? Are you always tired, quick to anger, constantly plagued by physical ailments, and always forgetting important appointments and deadlines? Without knowing it, you may be a prime candidate for burnout--a psychological/emotional phenomenon that usually afflicts the high-achiever. But no matter how long burnout persists, it is not irreversible. You can survive it.

Here's how Dr. Herbert J. Freudenberger, a New York psychologist, specializing in burnout,, defines the malady in his book, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement (Doubleday/Anchor Books): "To deplete oneself. To exhaust one's physical and mental resources. To wear oneself out by excessively striving to reach some unrealistic expectation imposed by oneself or by the values of society" such as having a perfect marriage or being the most outstanding worker on the job.

Dr. Freudenberger, who has been a psychologist for more than 30 years and who has many black and Hispanic clients stated in a telephone interview that what high-achieving persons need to do to avoid burning out is to re-evaluate their goals. "They never take time out just to reflect, to think. So one of the things I do talk about [in 8-hour seminars] is a shift of goals. What else becomes very important is an awareness that as the burnout occurs, many changes take place in their behavior. The changing behavior ranges all the way from an emotional change to a mental change as well as physical changes."

"And those that are close to such a person whether that be a mate or an employee or a colleague or a friend are often the first ones to be able to call it to that person's attention by saying 'Hey, something's going on with you.'"

Among the things he recommends is that you acknowledge your feelings. "As soon as denial enters the picture," he writes, the "person's symptoms become enemies instead of allies." He adds "Denial intensifies that which is being denied." Tiredness is considered the best indication that one is burning out because it is a symptom that is easily recognized. You should become aware of your limitations. If your work is becoming monotonous and repetitious, ask your supervisor for a change in duties. Cultivate on-the-job friendships. This will encourage the exchange of ideas and viewpoints as well as offering each of you relief.Take a much needed vacation. It also helps to develop a sense of humor as insurance against burnout.

"Above all," writes Dr. Freudenberger, "never lose sight of the fact that you, as a human being, are more important than the task, no matter how crucial the task may be."


This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News in 1982.

AIDS Forum For Black Gays Slated For Black History Month (1984)

An ad hoc group of black gay and lesbian activists is sponsoring an AIDS forum to be held February 1 [1984] at Hunter College [in New York City]. The group was formed, said DeWitt Hoard, a social worker and group member, because they "had attended several symposiums and noticed that there was a lack of blacks in the audiences and among the symposium participants." This lack of participation is attributed by many to a widespread belief among black gay men, as well as the black community in general, that AIDS is a white disease, a perception fostered by the exclusive media attention given to white gay men with AIDS. The fact that 26 percent of those with AIDS are black is an indication that "we've been hit just as hard by this epidemic," said Isaac Jackson, another group member, "and it is vitally important that information be disseminated throughout our community."

The group decided  to hold this forum on the first of the month because it is the beginning of Black History Month, a date which becomes "quite significant," said Gwen Rogers, the forum's moderator, "when you consider that we, as black lesbians and gay people, certainly are concerned about all aspects of our oppression. This will be the opportunity for us to raise the issue of the struggle against AIDS, to raise the issue of AIDS as a health concern, to raise the demand that health care is a right, and to highlight the fact that as lesbians and gay people, we've certainly been a part of the struggle and this is a way to be very visible and active."

The ad hoc committee see the AIDS issue as being part of the overall concern for better health care delivery with the total black community. They also see the socio-economic ramifications of the AIDS epidemic. "We have seen a number of attempts," said Rogers, a psychologist, "either by people who are talking about funding for AIDS research or by other anti-gay people to say 'Why should there be funding for AIDS research when there isn't funding for sickle cell?'"

"Gay issues for blacks," said Hoard,"take a third stand and maybe even lower on the totem pole." There are people, he further said, who see this attitude as an indication of black homophobia, however Hoard sees it as more of "a prioritizing situation wherein the black community is many times focusing on employment and housing. I think," he continued, "it's important that somehow we begin to put all of the problems that we have within the black community together under an umbrella situation. Somewhat like under oppression because oppression certainly gets involved in unemployment, in housing, and it also gets involved in a situation like AIDS."

The forum, which is being co-sponsored by the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of Hunter College, will deal with the following topics: "The medical Facts on AIDS," "AIDS and the Crisis in Black Health Care," "Social Services for People with AIDS," "The Impact of AIDS on the Haitian Community" ("There's been a great deal of racism," said Rogers, "that's been whipped up in terms of our Haitian sisters and brothers, primarily by the government and the press."), and "Personal Reflections of a Person with AIDS." There will be four panelists at the forum. A question-and-answer period will follow the presentations.

The forum is free of charge and open to the general public. It starts at 7 p.m. and ends at 10 p.m. in Room 615 of the West Auditorium at Hunter College, located at Lexington Avenue and 68th Street, in Manhattan. The school is accessible to the IRT Lexington Avenue line.

Note: I wrote this article on January 15, 1984. It was subsequently published in the New York Native.

An AIDS Forum At Hunter College (1984)

An AIDS forum for black gays, sponsored by an ad hoc group of black gay and lesbian activists, was held on February 1 [1984] at Hunter College [in New York City]. One of the purposes of the forum was to counteract the widespread belief among black gay men, as well as the black community in general, that AIDS is a white disease, a perception fostered by the exclusive media attention given to white gay men with AIDS thereby causing blacks to take less of an interest in AIDS forums.

The first of the month was chosen because of its significance as the beginning of Black History Month. It would show, said Gwen Rogers, the forum's moderator, that black gays and lesbians were "concerned about all aspects of our oppression." The forum, she continued, provided "the opportunity for us to raise the issue of the struggle against AIDS, to raise the issue of AIDS as a health concern, and to raise the demand that health care is a right."

The audience, numbering between 90 and 100, some of whom were white, heard the following panelists: Leonard Brown, MD ("The Medical Facts on AIDS"); Raymond Jacobs, resident recreation therapist at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York ("Psychosocial Issues"); Jessie Cadet ("The Impact of AIDS on the Haitian Community"); and Bruce Hall, a black person with AIDS ("Personal Reflections of a Person with AIDS"). Also Diego Lopez, a social worker, who was called to speak at the last minute, expressed his concern for quality health care and asked the audience to help him and others to reach the black community with AIDS information.

The ad hoc committee while planning this forum, said Rogers, a psychologist, did "not view the AIDS crisis in isolation" but saw it as being part of the overall concern for better health care delivery within the total black community. They also saw the socio-economic ramifications of the disease, which, according to Dr. Brown, has a 40 percent mortality rate. Rogers saw the forum as something that will help unify the gay as well as the black community.

Much of the medical information given has been around awhile. Jessie Cadet's presentation was short and to the point: there is an urgent need for more money for AIDS research and the oppression of Haitian immigrants by U.S. officials must end.

The two speakers who gave the most interesting presentations, in terms of information, if not style, were Hall and Jacobs.

Hall, a 29-year-old ex-New Yorker, now living in Chicago, was diagnosed as having AIDS in September of 1983. He felt, following the diagnosis, that it was unfair for him to have come down with this disease, especially after several years of abstinence from drugs, alcohol, and sex with multiple partners. He is presently involved in a monogamous relationship and, although he and his lover have not refrained from having sex, they do not exchange body fluids. Hall is also in a self-imposed program of hypnosis, weight lifting (two 40-pound dumbbells), and bicycling (18-30 miles a day). It's part of his battle against AIDS, although he's not sure if any of it works.

Jacobs spoke of the isolation and psychological crisis AIDS people endure, leaving them feeling angry, guilty, and ashamed. There is the tendency to moralize and believe the disease resulted from the wrath of God.

Jacobs placed AIDS people in three categories: those with the disease who have not contracted  major illness, those with a major illness who are working their way towards death or dying, and those, like Hall, who have recently been diagnosed.

Hall told this reporter in a later interview that he visits AIDS people in the hospitals so that they know that someone out there cares and that there are people with AIDS who are functioning. He felt that these visits "might give them some hope."

A question-and-answer period followed the presentations.

Note: I wrote this unpublished (?) article on February 9, 1984. An earlier version was written in January of that year, probably for the New York Native.

Fighting Arson: An Interview With Dennis Smith, Author & Former Firefighter

Charles Michael Smith: What type of person becomes an arsonist?
Dennis Smith: I don't think you can make a generalization. There's been a great deal of research into children fire setters. They found out that the profile generally fits the profile of a young delinquent and that is generally from a broken home. People with serious education deficiencies, learning deficiencies, and severe personality problems. It's a couple of steps beyond juvenile delinquency in that it can become deadly.

CMS: When a fire is of suspicious origin what is the investigative procedure?
DS: It's a long procedure. There are certain ways that all firefighters are taught to proceed in the initial exposure to a fire. That is, if there are two different fires--one in one end of the building, one in the other--you know that it's arson. If you go in and see streamers anywhere--streamers meaning long strips of paper or other devices so that the fire will extend--you know that it's arson.

CMS: What is the role of the fire marshal?
DS: Fire marshals are called in some states fire investigators. In some states there are none and the police department is fully responsible for it. Their role is to determine the cause and the origin of all fires. It's only when the fire chief  at the scene says a fire is suspicious that a fire marshal gets really involved.

CMS: What are the attitudes of firemen to the arson problem that you've been able to find out?
DS: I don't think that the concept of arson in its consequences looms very large in the firefighter's mind. All they know is that the building's on fire or that they've got to go out into the streets, into the building to put the fire out.
But one fire to a firefighter is generally thought of in the same way as any other fire. It doesn't matter how it started really. The thing is once you're there how do you extinguish the fire. Do your job, save whatever lives need to be saved and do it as safely as possible without getting yourself killed or severely injured.

CMS: How many kinds of arson are there?
DS: There are three kinds of arson that are major problems in America? The first kind is the traditional maladjusted mental personality who is traditionally called a pyromaniac. The second kind of arson is arson as social protest and that was a huge problem during the late sixties and through the seventies. The third kind of arson is the most serious one facing us now. Although the amounts of arson incidents have declined in the last year it seems. We're not really sure but it does seem that way for the statistics gathering people. So while we have fewer arson fires, the costs are greater which means that the third biggest arson problem, which is arson for economic profit, is the one now that is in the long run the most dangerous to us as a society. That is, people are finding it in tough economic times as we've had in the last four or five years in business that it's an easy answer to recouping an unsound business investment as to burn it down.

CMS: What can a private citizen do to help alert firemen of arson?
DS: One has a great duty to report that. For this reason, when one goes about setting a fire one time in all likelihood they're going to set a fire another time and another time and develop a pattern of setting fires. And if it's a member of the family or friend then that person ought to be helped and also reported to the fire department. The fire department would almost certainly in the bigger cities have some program in place that would be helpful to such a person. Arson kills people. More than a thousand people we estimate at least in America last year.

CMS: What penalties would you like to see enacted in arson cases?
DS: It's interesting that the penalties vary depending on what time the arson takes place. I'm not a lawyer but there is a code of penalties that judges can go by for very specific crimes. If arson occurs during the nighttime hours from 11 o'clock until 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock in the morning, then the penalty ought to be much greater than an arson that occurs at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The rationale being that while somebody's sleeping, arson is a much more serious problem.

Part of this Q and A interview appeared on the Inquiry Page of USA Today (August 30, 1983).

Note: Dennis Smith is a former New York City firefighter. His books include Report from Engine Co. 82, Dennis Smith's History of Firefighting in America, and Report from Ground Zero. This interview took place in 1983 at Firehouse magazine in Manhattan where he was the publisher and editor-in-chief.

Book Review: "The Stonewall Experiment"

Ian Young is upfront about who he sees as the intended reader of The Stonewall Experiment: A Gay Psychohistory (Cassell)--"a young gay man (or whatever term he chooses for himself) of a future generation." I just hope this future reader will be able to get through the text without yawning or having his eyes glaze over from encountering pages of social science jargon like "heteromimetic" (imitating heterosexual marriage), "ithyphallic" (an erect penis), and this tongue-twister, "brachiopractio eroticism" (fisting).

The British-born Canadian writer traces the psychohistory of gay men from the mid-19th century to the present age of AIDS. Young explains how "fear, shame and guilt have always undermined our cause" and how the Stonewall Experiment, "an experiment in reclaiming full humanity" for gay people, was co-opted by "government, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, organized crime, the churches, the public--and we."

Most of The Stonewall Experiment is devoted to the AIDS crisis which would be fine in a history of the AIDS epidemic, but this is supposed to be a book about how and why gay men have internalized their oppression over the decades by "having fervently embraced the role assigned to [them]--that of outcast and pariah..."

What The Stonewall Experiment lacks is a narrative style that makes the early homophile activists--Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard, among others--come alive on the page and that makes complex but otherwise interesting ideas and theories compelling and layman-friendly.

The bibliography, however, is a useful guide to books and articles of particular interest to gay readers.

The Blood, Sweat, and Tears of Journalists

One aspect of disgraced New York Times journalist Jayson Blair's memoir, Burning Down My Master's House that got overlooked is his mention of that paper's employee relations department where he sought help for his drug addiction. This part of the book was more interesting than his tales of plagiarism and fabrications.
When I read the book I never knew that such a department existed at a major American newspaper. It made me wonder if other media outlets had a similar department.
Since the lives of a number of Times editors and reporters ended in suicide, no doubt from workplace pressures, I thought it was time for someone to examine the role that such a department plays in keeping employees healthy and functioning. What programs are made available? How accessible are they to employees? What are the origins and history of an employee relations department? What are the qualifications of the administrators? What are the annual costs such a department incurs? What is their success rate? What problems predominate? These are some of the questions I would seek answers to.
Such an article is important because it sheds some light on the underside of the media--the psychological and physical wear and tear of daily journalism.
In light of such recent tragedies as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as well as the decimation of newspapers and journalism jobs by the economic downturn, it would be eye-opening, timely, and instructive as to the ways media outlets are helping their current and former employees cope with these events. It would allow news consumers the opportunity to see the human side of the journalistic profession, to witness the blood, sweat, and tears shed by those whose job it is to cover the events of the day.