Curtis Dahlgren
Dysfunctional families (where the big bucks are)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Depression is simply anger without enthusiasm." — author unknown
TO COMPLETELY SUPPRESS ANGER IS TO SUPPRESS GRIEF (and everyone knows that's not a good thing to do). The "Dictionary of Word Origins" says that "the original notion contained in ['anger'] was of 'distress' or 'affliction'; 'rage' did not begin to enter the picture until the 13th century." Furthermore: the English language acquired it from the Old Norse word ANGR — which meant "grief."
John Ayto goes on to say that anger "is connected with a group of words which contain connotations of 'constriction': German and Dutch eng (and Old English enge) mean 'narrow' and Greek ankhein meant 'squeeze, strangle' (English gets angina from it), and Latin 'angustus' (source of English anguish) also meant 'narrow.'" [from entry "anger"]
It should not surprise anyone that where there is "anger" there is "sorrow," because they originally meant the same thing! The tricky part is in preventing the grief/anger from causing more of the same in an unbroken cycle. The Bible says, "Be angry but sin not. Let not the sun go down on your anger."
SOME DAYS THE SUN JUST SEEMS TO GO DOWN TO TOO FAST. But "seriously folks," the Bible is the Creator's operator's manual for man, whether most people know it or not (it's not just a coffee table book there for looks)! As the title of this column suggests, however, there are BIG BUCKS that can be made "treating" the after-effects of failing to follow the Creator's operator's manual.
Today I stopped by the library to look for a few factoids from the Milwaukee yellow pages. The only issue that was available was the 2002-03 "One Book." Here are the cold, hard statistics:
- Lawyers: 84 1/2 pages worth of them
- Doctors: 54 pages, including psychiatrists (others "treat" psychosomatic illnesses, too)
-Psychologists: 3 1/2 pages worth
-Mental health servies: 2 1/2 pages
-Licensed counselors: 2/3 of one page
-Crisis intervention: 1/4 of a page
-Process servers: 1/2 of a page
-Bondsmen: 1/8 of one page
-Debt couselors: 1/4 of a page
-Mediation services: 1/2 of a page
-Court reporting services: 1/4 of a page
-Private Investigators: 3/4 of a page
-Police Departments and police equipment: 3/4 of a page
WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING A HANDFUL OF SUPPORT GROUPS (OR 11 1/2 PAGES OF CHILD CARE CENTERS) I FOUND NEARLY 150 PAGES OF LISTINGS FOR PEOPLE WHO MAKE MONEY DEALING WITH PROBLEMS THAT WERE VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN 100 YEARS AGO OR SO! (There were no mental health clinics along the Oregon Trail either, you know.)
The 2002-03 Milwaukee "One Book" does have 14 1/2 pages of listings for churches, but it is my "theory" that if those churches were more faithfully utilized, there would be little if any need for all those other services (not to mention the county jail employees, employees of the state facility in Franklin, over-lapping Sheriff's and city police departments, or federal and state correctional facilities elsewhere that house many former Milwaukee "residents" — nor to mention parole officers, probation agents, social workers, prison chaplains, tutors, and "remedial education" personnel. And I haven't even mentioned yet the cost to society of college and university instruction in "law enforcement" and in the "service trades" mentioned above!
Call it the "Dahlgren Theory"; I have as much right to my "theory"as Darwin had to his, plus there's so much more emperical evidence that my theory is at least TRUE!
During Fonzi's "Happy Days" of the 1950s, I lived in a county that had, as far as I can recall, ZERO MURDERS during the whole decade. Now well into my seventh decade of life, I can vouch for the fact that something has gone terribly wrong with America's "culture." Despite the millions of millions of dollars our country spends on education and law enforcement and secular "counseling," conditions are only getting worse (but the mainstream media reporters aren't even interested in asking the candidates for President what they're going to do about crime).
I have had 8 very close friends killed in a shooting (7 victims, plus the shooter); I used to know a guy from my home town who was later shot dead working at a gas station in Milwaukee; there have even been murders in the county I now live in (which is more like Mayberry USA than Peyton Place or Philadelphia or the District of Columbia). The only murder in my former area happened in the 1940s, but a sister of the victim ended up living on the farm adjoining my dad's farm. It's a small world. And a deadly one. I'm talking about Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit — not Baghdad.
So, y'think liberals are a little bit crazy? Ya ain't heard the half of it yet. Now cities such as San Francisco and New Haven, Connecticut are "protecting" illegal-alien/drug dealers from deportation by the federal government, which is one of the legitimate constitutional powers given to the federal. Liberals want to expand the role of the Feds into every aspect of our private lives (such as seat belts), and yet the powers which the Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution are scorned and mocked. Beam us up, Scottie!
The cultural revolutionaries got God and the Bible out of the public schools and replaced them with WHAT? GRIEF COUNSELORS?
Government of the judges, by the judges, and for the judges (liberal ones) will probably get worse before it gets better. We may be depressed about it, but depression is just anger without enthusiasm. We need to put our foot down. What this country needs is a good 5-cent cigar (whether the libs like it or not) — and some enthusiasm with our depression!
© Curtis Dahlgren
"Depression is simply anger without enthusiasm." — author unknown
TO COMPLETELY SUPPRESS ANGER IS TO SUPPRESS GRIEF (and everyone knows that's not a good thing to do). The "Dictionary of Word Origins" says that "the original notion contained in ['anger'] was of 'distress' or 'affliction'; 'rage' did not begin to enter the picture until the 13th century." Furthermore: the English language acquired it from the Old Norse word ANGR — which meant "grief."
John Ayto goes on to say that anger "is connected with a group of words which contain connotations of 'constriction': German and Dutch eng (and Old English enge) mean 'narrow' and Greek ankhein meant 'squeeze, strangle' (English gets angina from it), and Latin 'angustus' (source of English anguish) also meant 'narrow.'" [from entry "anger"]
It should not surprise anyone that where there is "anger" there is "sorrow," because they originally meant the same thing! The tricky part is in preventing the grief/anger from causing more of the same in an unbroken cycle. The Bible says, "Be angry but sin not. Let not the sun go down on your anger."
SOME DAYS THE SUN JUST SEEMS TO GO DOWN TO TOO FAST. But "seriously folks," the Bible is the Creator's operator's manual for man, whether most people know it or not (it's not just a coffee table book there for looks)! As the title of this column suggests, however, there are BIG BUCKS that can be made "treating" the after-effects of failing to follow the Creator's operator's manual.
Today I stopped by the library to look for a few factoids from the Milwaukee yellow pages. The only issue that was available was the 2002-03 "One Book." Here are the cold, hard statistics:
- Lawyers: 84 1/2 pages worth of them
- Doctors: 54 pages, including psychiatrists (others "treat" psychosomatic illnesses, too)
-Psychologists: 3 1/2 pages worth
-Mental health servies: 2 1/2 pages
-Licensed counselors: 2/3 of one page
-Crisis intervention: 1/4 of a page
-Process servers: 1/2 of a page
-Bondsmen: 1/8 of one page
-Debt couselors: 1/4 of a page
-Mediation services: 1/2 of a page
-Court reporting services: 1/4 of a page
-Private Investigators: 3/4 of a page
-Police Departments and police equipment: 3/4 of a page
WITHOUT EVEN MENTIONING A HANDFUL OF SUPPORT GROUPS (OR 11 1/2 PAGES OF CHILD CARE CENTERS) I FOUND NEARLY 150 PAGES OF LISTINGS FOR PEOPLE WHO MAKE MONEY DEALING WITH PROBLEMS THAT WERE VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN 100 YEARS AGO OR SO! (There were no mental health clinics along the Oregon Trail either, you know.)
The 2002-03 Milwaukee "One Book" does have 14 1/2 pages of listings for churches, but it is my "theory" that if those churches were more faithfully utilized, there would be little if any need for all those other services (not to mention the county jail employees, employees of the state facility in Franklin, over-lapping Sheriff's and city police departments, or federal and state correctional facilities elsewhere that house many former Milwaukee "residents" — nor to mention parole officers, probation agents, social workers, prison chaplains, tutors, and "remedial education" personnel. And I haven't even mentioned yet the cost to society of college and university instruction in "law enforcement" and in the "service trades" mentioned above!
Call it the "Dahlgren Theory"; I have as much right to my "theory"as Darwin had to his, plus there's so much more emperical evidence that my theory is at least TRUE!
During Fonzi's "Happy Days" of the 1950s, I lived in a county that had, as far as I can recall, ZERO MURDERS during the whole decade. Now well into my seventh decade of life, I can vouch for the fact that something has gone terribly wrong with America's "culture." Despite the millions of millions of dollars our country spends on education and law enforcement and secular "counseling," conditions are only getting worse (but the mainstream media reporters aren't even interested in asking the candidates for President what they're going to do about crime).
I have had 8 very close friends killed in a shooting (7 victims, plus the shooter); I used to know a guy from my home town who was later shot dead working at a gas station in Milwaukee; there have even been murders in the county I now live in (which is more like Mayberry USA than Peyton Place or Philadelphia or the District of Columbia). The only murder in my former area happened in the 1940s, but a sister of the victim ended up living on the farm adjoining my dad's farm. It's a small world. And a deadly one. I'm talking about Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit — not Baghdad.
So, y'think liberals are a little bit crazy? Ya ain't heard the half of it yet. Now cities such as San Francisco and New Haven, Connecticut are "protecting" illegal-alien/drug dealers from deportation by the federal government, which is one of the legitimate constitutional powers given to the federal. Liberals want to expand the role of the Feds into every aspect of our private lives (such as seat belts), and yet the powers which the Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution are scorned and mocked. Beam us up, Scottie!
The cultural revolutionaries got God and the Bible out of the public schools and replaced them with WHAT? GRIEF COUNSELORS?
Government of the judges, by the judges, and for the judges (liberal ones) will probably get worse before it gets better. We may be depressed about it, but depression is just anger without enthusiasm. We need to put our foot down. What this country needs is a good 5-cent cigar (whether the libs like it or not) — and some enthusiasm with our depression!
© Curtis Dahlgren
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