Does Dream Therapy Really Work?

This article was published yesterday, but I wanted to take some time to look into it a little further before I commented on it. Does Dream Therapy work for every person every time? No, but neither does FDA approved medications. Individuals respond as individually to therapy as they do to medication. There are proponents and opponents for Dream Therapy, depending on which theory of psychology/psychiatry you embrace. Here are some abstracts and criticisms about Dream Therapy.

My biggest question, I suppose, I that since research on this has been done for years, why is it just now making waves in the military? The VA published an article about this several years ago calling it Imagery Rehearsal Therapy. The VA’s report is mainly based on studies conducted at the University of New Mexico.

If you’re into study numbers like I am, here’s an in depth look at a 2001 study based solely on women with PTSD.

Dream Therapy also goes under the name of Cognitive Restructuring. Whatever you call it, even if it only has a chance of working, this opportunity should be afforded to everyone suffering from PTSD. While having bad dreams is only 1 of 17 symptoms of PTSD, dealing with the dreams, when present, are shown to positively affect other symptoms as well.

Dream therapy a coping tool for combat stress

Psychologist suggests it’s best to sleep through nightmares
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 9, 2007 17:39:13 EDT

ASAD, Iraq — For 1½ years, Cmdr. Beverly Dexter’s husband gently shook her awake when she screamed in her sleep.

But one night, even as she begged him to wake her up in an unusual case of sleep-talking, he let her continue her nightmare.

She never screamed in her sleep again.

Now the combat psychologist says she may have a key to help those who never sleep through the night because they wake themselves rather than face dreams about the battlefield deaths of their buddies, the disturbing images of Iraqi — or Vietnamese — children handling explosives, or even traumatic scenes from their own childhoods.

“There’s no such thing as a bad dream,” said Dexter, chief of the Combat Stress and Readiness Clinic at Al Asad Air Base. “You’re working through things when you sleep.”
Though Dexter is careful to say she needs to do more research about her theory and that her book, “No More Nightmares,” will not be published until she retires and is able to look at it more closely, she’s excited that veterans have told her their dreams have disappeared within a day of her sleep-therapy lessons, which she teaches here in a classroom-type setting.

Military officials say they want to see more case studies and proof that Dexter’s theory works before commenting on it or recommending it. Dexter is the only therapist who uses her program, which she calls Planned Dream Intervention.

Even Dexter, a fellow of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, said she is not yet sure why the therapy works, though she has ideas. And word has gotten around. Troops recommend it to each other, chaplains have come to her for advice on how to use it and other therapists send their clients to her to try to rid them of never-ending sleepless nights, she said.

“I know this works,” she said. “I know it sounds ridiculously too good to be true, but it is.”

After her husband let her sleep through her nightmare, Dexter said she woke up refreshed and stunned to hear she had even had a bad dream.

As she thought about it, she realized people don’t wake up out of good dreams — no one wakes screaming after winning the lottery. So, when she woke up in a foul mood after an odd dream where the Roman Colosseum — traveling on a pickup truck — began crushing the truck, she wondered how she could make it a happy dream.

“I know,” she said, snapping her fingers and speaking with her whole body as she does when she gets excited. “What if the bricks became hundred-dollar bills?”

That night, she did not wake up. This was significant, she said, for a woman who had suffered nightmares almost nightly since she was 4.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized her solution was more about empowerment — about resolving the bad situation in the dream.

“You have to think, ‘What do I want to happen next?’” she said. “But I don’t know if it’s getting back into the dream and finishing it or the waking resolution that works.”

Soon after Dexter’s peaceful night, clients — as usual — complained of nightmares, and she began asking them to think of scenarios where those dreams could become good. She told them to work only with the point where they woke up — not to rewrite the dream — and think about what’s next. She had them write down the positive outcome, then read it before they went to sleep.

It worked, she said. People began sleeping through the night.

In one case, a woman Dexter said she had helped sleep through dreams of childhood abuse woke up in the middle of such a dream when her alarm clock chimed. In the new dream, however, the woman went into the dream as an adult and saved her younger self from her abuser, Dexter said.

At the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., where Dexter works when she’s not deployed, most of her patients deal with combat stress, and she has used the new therapy with them, she said, with good results:

* A soldier suffering combat dreams began sleeping through the night — and stopped spanking his children. Dexter wonders if he resolved his anger issues by finishing the dream.

* A woman had a nightmare that she kicked her boss’s head off. The next day, she thought about him sprouting a new head and apologizing for his bad behavior, and she slept through the night.

* A woman who woke up through 25 years’ worth of sexual-abuse dreams began sleeping through the night.

* A Desert Storm veteran suffering for 10 years with a nightmare about watching civilians die — something he had seen in reality — came up with a new outcome, slept through the night and made peace with the idea that he had done the best he could in that long-ago situation.

* A Marine who dreamed about hurting his daughter at first refused to try Dexter’s therapy because it seemed “flaky.” Out of desperation, he tried it and slept through the night — and stopped being afraid to be near children, she said.

Other troops’ flashbacks have stopped after they began sleeping through the night, she said.

In Iraq, Dexter offers a two-hour group therapy class to teach service members not to wake up during their nightmares.

Eight Marines and soldiers sat in one of her classes recently in the basement of a 399th Combat Support Hospital building. They ranged from a private with recent combat experience to a colonel who had been dreaming since Vietnam. Some seemed into the idea, and others looked skeptical as Dexter explained the process.

She told them their “sleeping brains” say, “I’m not going to let you go there” when a nightmare hits, and that they need to train themselves to sleep through it. In a combat zone, where people remain hypervigilant, that can be tough, but she compared it to “potty training.” Parents teach their children to wake up when they feel bladder pressure.

With her process, people train themselves to think differently about nightmares.
“No one dies in dreams,” she said. “Even if a dream has incredibly shocking pieces to it, I have to trust whatever my sleeping brain is going to do. If you start sleeping peacefully through the night, you wake up more refreshed, and that can make you calmer during the day.”

And, she said, the brain may be using the nightmares to work things out as people sleep.

“Experts say that in dreams, you may forget what we don’t need,” she said. “If you stay asleep, you probably won’t remember your dreams. But we believe the brain biochemistry is doing balance work, and you have to let it.”

She also said it’s important not to interpret dreams. So, if a soldier dreams of killing a friend or sleeping with a loved one’s wife, it means nothing in real life, and allowing it to happen in a dream could work out anger or guilt issues people don’t realize they have.

She also told the service members not to worry about the violence or inappropriateness of the dream intervention they come up with. Early on, her therapy didn’t work with someone who dreamed about two friends he had seen killed in a gruesome way.

“I was shocked,” she said. “I thought, ‘What? The magic fairy dust doesn’t work?’”
She asked him about his intervention.

“He said, ‘I had the insurgent guys lay down their weapons and walk away,’” she said. “‘I’m not doing that violence thing.’”

But that, Dexter said, wasn’t gut-level enough. Still, he said he was a Christian and couldn’t gun the insurgents down, even in a dream. Instead, he had them float away as dust — which worked.

“Abstract is fine,” Dexter said.

But it has to hit at the “caveman” level because dreams are ancient ways to handle stress. In other words, a group hug in dreamland probably won’t do it, but fire-breathing dragons swooping to blast the enemy might.

Sometimes, the dreams make no sense. One client kept having a surgery dream that wasn’t a nightmare, but he also had pain in his leg that no one could find a cause for. But he liked his surgeon, so he didn’t understand the dream.

“Think caveman,” Dexter said she told the man. “On a subconscious level, this man cut you open and hurt you.”

In the dream intervention, the patient beat up his surgeon, and the dreams and the pain went away, Dexter said.

“I’ve had some really odd, remarkable pain that could not be explained disappear with the dream,” she said. “You just have to think, ‘What do I want to happen next?’ It’s like having magic fairy dust.”

Seven steps to planned dream intervention
* There is no such thing as a bad dream.
* Think only about the part of the dream that woke you up.
* Think, “What would I like to happen next?”
* Come up with a quick idea that feels right: Bashing the bad guy, turning spiders into golf balls and whacking them with a club, watching a dead friend enter an elaborate castle in the sky.
* Write it down.
* Read it before you go to sleep.
* If it doesn’t work, come up with another Planned Dream Intervention. The emotional level has to be the same as that of the dream.

Gender Equality in Television

I wrote this paper for a recent sociology course I was in. It's somewhat narrow in scope and certainly more in depth research should be done for clarification, but it is representative. I removed my personally identifying information. If you'd like to use part of this for scholastic or educational purposes, just drop me an e-mail at drexxell@hotmail.com to get written permission.

As Assessment of
Gender Equality in Television

Abstract

Television is the primary source of information for more than eighty-five percent of the population in the United States of America. Over the past several decades, television has been the focus of many research projects designed to identify and point out differences in national representation as it relates to portrayal of characters in day-time, prime-time, and weekend television programs. Researchers have also studied content in commercials in these three viewing periods to identify portrayed gender differences and target audiences. This report is an evaluation and comparison of the work of John Condry (1989) focusing on sex and gender inequalities in television programs and commercial advertisements.

An Assessment of
Gender Equality in Television

As early as the 1950’s and 1960’s, the content of television programs and commercial advertisements has been the focus of research for many psychologists and sociologists. Hundreds of studies have been generated to measure varying effects of sex role portrayal in children viewers; differences in gender equality as it relates to traditional and non-traditional gender associations; the effects of viewing violence by children; and the effects of viewing changing attitudes of sexual permissiveness in society, to name a few. It is, however, important to continue to generate research on this topic as children are more and more involved in digital media such as television, movies, and video games. These issues should be studied further because of the influence that television programming and commercial advertising has on young children and adolescents, as well as adults.

Social Developmentalist John Condry (1989), after reviewing and performing secondary analysis on over 660 secondary sources, concluded that, “Even though women make up the majority of the audience, television is a world of men” (p.68). Television viewing behaviors (the amount of time watching television) are also important to note as television viewing “has replaced the family as a source of recreation” (Eshleman & Bulcroft, 2006, p. 69). Additionally, television is frequently used as a baby-sitting tool and claims have been made that American children spend more time watching television than they spend in school (Eshleman & Bulcroft, p. 56). These notes are especially important as parents have been replaced as role models by children’s favorite television characters allowing children to gain their moral and social attitudes from network directors, sit-com producers, or commercial marketers.

All of this information presents a sociological issue that, while it has been studied, has not been addressed in terms of resolution. The objective of this report was to evaluate current television programming and commercial advertisements and to discuss the potential impact on today’s children and adolescents.

Method

Sample

Due to the narrow scope of the assignment and the limited time allotted to complete the research, I confined my viewing periods of daytime and prime time television programs and commercial advertisements from Monday July 23rd, 2007 to Friday July 27th, 2007. All daytime viewing was done between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM Eastern Time and covered 10 half hour situation comedies in syndication and 140 commercial advertisements. All prime time viewing was done between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM Eastern Time and covered 5 one hour long night-time dramas in syndication and 190 commercial advertisements. All viewings were digitally recorded and played back for observation. The channels observed were available on local broadcast networks not requiring cable to obtain.

Qualifications for Inclusion in Analysis

Statistical data resultant of these observations was produced by only counting actors or actresses who played significant roles in the television programs or commercial advertisements. Extras and background actors or actresses were not included in this analysis. Actors and actresses were not sorted by age or race; only by gender. Thus, the resultant data include all ages and all racial/ethnic categories.

Results
For the television programs in the specified daytime viewing time frame, I found that the ratio of male to female performers was 1.2:1. Additionally, for commercial advertisements in the same time frame, the ratio was 1:1 while the ratio for voiceovers for the commercial advertisements was .7:1. Commercial advertisements were broken down into the following groups: alcohol; cellular phone service; charity; female beauty; female hygiene; finances/money; food; insurance; internet services; legal services; medical services; and real estate/timeshares. Categories where the ratio of male to female performers was significantly disproportionate in favor of men (≥ 2:1) included: alcohol; cellular phone service; food; insurance; and legal services. Categories where the ratio of male to female performers was significantly disproportionate in favor of women (≤ .5:1) included: charity; female beauty; and female hygiene. Categories where men and women were portrayed equally in number, or without significant disproportion, (> .5:1 through < 2:1) were: finances/money; internet services; medical services; and real estate/timeshares.

For the television programs in the specified primetime viewing time frame, I found that the ratio of male to female performers was 2.7:1. Additionally, for commercial advertisements in the same time frame, the ratio was 2.2:1 while the ratio for voiceovers for the commercial advertisements was 3.5:1. Commercial advertisements were broken down into the following groups: advertisements for other television programs; automobiles; cellular phone service; cleaning products; education; food; insurance; medical services; real estate/timeshares; and travel. Categories where the ratio of male to female performers was significantly disproportionate in favor of men (≥ 2:1) included: advertisements for other television programs; automobiles; cellular phone service; food; and insurance. Categories where the ratio of male to female performers was significantly disproportionate in favor of women (≤ .5:1) included education only. Categories where men and women were portrayed equally in number, or without significant disproportion, (> .5:1 through < 2:1) were: cleaning products; medical services; real estate/timeshares; and travel.

Discussion

My overall assessment of the data supports Condry’s (1989) claim that television is a man’s world. This is not only evident in the majority of the sex ratios depicted in television programs and commercial advertisements disproportionately favoring men, but also in the roles that the characters assume.

In daytime television programs, the sex ratio is only slightly imbalanced at 1.2:1. However, male characters were portrayed as having jobs such as executive; junior copywriter; doctor; psychiatrist; police detective; actor/model; and paleontologist. Female characters, on the other hand, were assigned jobs like waitress; radio station producer; fashion designer; chef; musician; and physical therapist. While categorizing jobs such as these as masculine or feminine is subjective at best, it appears that men are portrayed in higher status positions. With only a few exceptions, all characters observed were young (less than 35), in good physical shape (male), and thin and attractive (female).

In daytime commercial advertisements, the sex ratio is equally balanced at 1:1. However, subjective assessments of gender roles become concrete objective assessments as men are portrayed in positions of authority, as decision makers for financial issues, or as working in a traditionally masculine job like construction worker; tow-truck drivers or business executive. In advertisements concerning food, men were portrayed as decision makers as it relates to choice of restaurants, but women were depicted as decision makers in terms of groceries. Advertisements for services, more often than not, portrayed women in need of assistance and men as having expert knowledge or the power to provide the required assistance. In advertisements for female beauty products, women were shown as focused on personal appearance while men, if present, were depicted as inept or as only seeing a woman in terms of how she looked. In medical advertisements, characters of both sexes discussed issues from diabetes to Medicare to adhesive bandages; however, men were shown playing golf or otherwise out of the home setting and women were shown in the home in all cases. In the instances of adhesive bandages, women were shown in the home treating the skinned knees, chins, or elbows of their children. In commercial advertisements where women were shown as having the same status position as men, in terms of employment, the women were out numbered 3 to 1 and women were never depicted in supervisory roles.

In night time dramas, the sex ratio was close to Condry’s (1989) findings of 3:1 (2.7:1). Male characters were shown in positions of authority, leadership, or power; i.e. congressman; lobbyist; district attorney; police captain; college professor; business executive; and murderer. Female characters were typically shown in positions of service or weakness; i.e. waitress; cashier; victim; and police informant; however, one female character was portrayed as a medical examiner. In the instances where men and women were depicted as having the same status position, in terms of employment, women were out numbered 4 to 1. Overall, in prime time viewing, men not only out number women in terms of characters, they seem to dominate the higher status positions. The majority of characters portrayed were young, in fit physical condition (men), or were thin and attractive (women).

Commercial advertisements during the specified television programs were closer to 2:1 (2.2:1). The data indicate a slight improvement of the 1989 findings. Traditional gender role portrayal in prime time commercial advertisements is far greater than the ratio of performers indicates. Especially of note is that while advertisements for cleaning products have a sex ratio of 1.1:1, females are depicted as those who clean and males are shown as those who enjoy the cleanliness or the fresh scent of the product. Also of interest are the addition of some advertisement categories and the elimination of others between daytime and prime time viewing. Prime time advertisements did not include the categories of: alcohol; charity; female beauty; female hygiene; finances/money; internet services; or legal services. Categories included in prime time advertisements that were not included in daytime advertisements included: advertisements for other television programs; automobiles, cleaning products; education; and travel.

The inclusion of the category of automobiles in prime time viewing of commercial advertisements is incredibly important. There was an average of 5 automobile commercials for each 1 hour night time drama. There were no females shown in any of the automobile commercials. Men were depicted driving over rough terrain and in general shown as tough and masculine. This indicates that men are the dominant decision makers in terms of automobile purchases.

Also interesting is the inclusion of advertisements for other television programs. The sex ratio for these commercial advertisements was 2.2:1 and the gender inequalities were even more pronounced than in the night time drama itself. Men were depicted as tough, strong, masculine and assumed positions of power and prestige while women were shown scantily clad in short skirts, revealing tops, or as wearing bikinis in a beach setting.

It is noteworthy to point out that all advertisements for food in the prime time area were for restaurants and not for groceries. The sex ratio for these commercial advertisements in prime time was 5.4:1 compared to the 2:1 ratio for daytime commercial advertisements for food. In all cases where women were in food commercials, they were portrayed as service providers while men were shown as consumers. This solidifies the male as the decision maker in terms of choice of restaurant.

Another drastic difference in sex ratio from daytime to prime time is in the category of cellular phone service. The daytime sex ratio is 2:1 while the prime time ratio is 8:1. In those cases where women were in the advertisements, they were portrayed as needing service (asking for directions) or as fulfilling a service role (customer service representative) while men were portrayed as having expert knowledge. This also leads a viewer to believe that men are the decision makers in terms of cellular phone service.

These findings seem to support Conrdy’s (1989) claim that in situation comedies, men and women are generally portrayed as more egalitarian and equal; and that night time dramas are specifically catered to a male audience. They also support earlier findings of gender inequality in commercial advertisements, especially in prime time viewing. The significance of these findings is that as children and adolescents view the content of these television programs and commercial advertisements, they become acclimated to the ideas that men and women are not and can not be equals. As it relates to television content in daytime and prime time viewing hours, gender inequality begets itself.

References

Condry, J. (1989). The psychology of television. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Eshleman, J.R., & Bulcroft R.A. (2006). The family. Boston: Pearson

Child Abuse in Deployed Families (Part 2)

You're welcome. I had been mulling this for a while. I was really getting ticked with the titles of the news reports that were coming out. Very deceptive headings. Made it sound like it was categorically true of all military families when the truth was that only 1,771 families were looked at world-wide and those families already had prior incidences with abuse. And these families studied did not include officer's families or single parent families.

What those news reports don't show is that prior to deployments starting in 2003, instances of child maltreatment in the military community were considerably less than those among their civilian counterparts per 1,000 children. This last report indicates that while incidents of maltreatment among active duty army families have increased, they're only marginally higher than those reported in the civilian sector.

Very few studies exist making a comparison of child abuse between military families and civilian families. Those that do exist are really not representative of the complete military community. For example, guard and reserve families are often not included because there's not a base anywhere near where they live. Underreporting could be happening in cases involving military families due to reports going to Child Proctive Services (CPS) instead of to the Family Advcacy Programs (FAP).

Additionally, there is no uniform definition of what maltreatment or abuse is. Each branch of service has it's own definition and it's own reporting system as do all 50 states. Some report by incident instead of by the case. Others report by the family instead of by the child. Until an across the board system and definition are put into practice, results from these kinds of studies are going to have some sort of bias to them.

What is consistent, though, is the lower the rank, the younger the parents, and the younger the child, the greater the potential for maltreatment. Also of importance is whether or not the family has experience with prior deployments in how to cope with the stressors involved.

It's also important to point out that this most recent study was a secondary analysis of data collected from September 2001 to December 2004. Since that time, MANY improvements have been made to FAPs for all branches. So, this study is really looking at specific time period of post 9/11 predeployment and comparing that to a first time deployment time frame of about 20 months.

I really don't think JAMA or RTI are the bad guys here. They published an objective report covering a specific time period. For the media to frenzy on it like they have is irresponsible. The report from FOX News just set me off. I knew it wascoming because FOX likes to report some pretty left-side stuff, but getting Stacy Bannerman to comment for the article was inappropriate. First, she belongs to an anti-war group composed of military families. Second, she has no children. Third, her marriage dissolved after her husband returned from Iraq. Who better to ask about the effects of deployments on child abuse?

Now, I'm not painting a bulls eye on Miss Bannerman. Don't go sending her nasty hate mail. I don't agree with everything she has to say, but she makes some valid points. She was a deployed spouse as so many of us have been. That kind of service is not measurable and I embrace her for enduring and suffering the months of lonliness. Miss Bannerman is right that more needs to be done in terms of VA treatment for veterans. She's especially right that more needs to be done in terms of outreach programs for national guardsmen/women and reservists who don't have ready access to base facilities and programs. I applaud her for her trips to DC to try to correct these issues that have seemingly slipped through the cracks.

I don't agree with her views about if we should even be in Iraq, but she's entitled to her opinion on that matter and I respect that. I don't agree that not funding the war is the best way to "Support Our Troops". I think she swings from both sides of the plate with that conviction while at the same time demanding better training and equipment for the guard and reserve. IBA doesn't grow on trees. Neither does night vision goggles, MREs, fuel, amunition, transportation, MRAPs, or anything else.

Miss Bannerman also contends that deployments cause more divorces. A study by Rand Corp. contests her claim by stating that wartime and peacetime divorces are pretty much equal. You'll notice a .5% gain in percentages of divorces, but that is explainable by looking at the numbers or couples getting married in the military vs. the numbers getting divorced in a given year. For example, if there are 1,000 married couples in 2001, 100 couples get married, totaling 1,100 and 75 get divorced, the divorce ratio is approx. 6.8%. This leaves 1,025 carried over to the next year. If only 50 couples marry in 2002, totaling 1,075 married couples, but the number of divorces stays constant at 75, now the divorce rate is very close to 7%.

I have searched and searched and I can not find any article, prior to the release of RTI's data review, where Miss Bannerman adressess child abuse in military families. From what I have seen of her book reviews, it also does not address child abuse. There's no doubt that Miss Bannerman is an educated woman with some alphabet soup behind her name. Her opinion is as educated as the next person; but, what is it that makes her qualified to speak on the topic of child abuse? I have no idea.

My point here is this. FOX News used Miss Bannerman, in or out of context (it doesn't matter), to support it's political stance on this war and to be able to have another bullet for it's political weapon. "Deployments cause child abuse! Bring the troops home!" Bologna. Parents/caregivers cause child abuse. Military or civilian.

Along those same lines, "Deployments cause undue stresses, lower academic performance, and higher rates of depression in children! Bring the troops home!" This one is true, but the same can be said for divorce, the death of a loved one, a hurricane, or any other traumatic life change.

I really want to encourage people to look closely at issues that popular media presents in articles and stories. Ask yourself the critical questions. Research it if you like. Just never ever take the word of the media at face value.

Child Abuse in Deployed Families Gaining Lots of Attention

I didn't include the text of the report in this post, but you can get to it by clicking above. When I first saw this, I discarded it as inaccurate. But since it's gaining such attention, I feel it's important to address it here. There are several other sources for this story by several different writers. I've only seen a few reports that include the actual numbers. RTI, Journal Watch, Fox News, and USA Today all comment on the original report, but I didn't see where any of them made it a point to emphasize that this is not inclusive of all military families.

Looking at the original report from The Journal of the American Medical Association with a skeptical and scientific eye, it clearly states that the families included in the research are those with previously established occassions of abuse.

I think the reports are incomplete. A general assumption that all deployed spouses are child abusers can't be made from this report. What the researchers looked at were families where at least one confirmed case of child abuse had already been substantiated.

That being said, the sample taken for this study was not representative of the population that the researchers are reporting on. To me, the people who published these reports, without that disclaimer, are irresponsible.

The fact that DoD defines child abuse differently or more strictly that their civilian counterparts also plays this out in a different light. When we were all kids, corporal punishment was a norm, just like riding around in the back window of the car.

My advice, just look at it as a wedge being driven between the morals of US society and the war. They're playing on the sympathies of the US public. I believe they think if they show deployments as destructive to the home life of military families, US support for the war will drop even further and politicians will feel even more compelled to push for withdrawals and quick resolution.

Until these researchers come out with a more comprehensive examination that is inclusive of all military families or is more representative of the military family population, this report will only be viewed as a black mark.

At best, this report is good to see how the stress of deployment effects families that already have at least one occurrence of child abuse in the home. The fact that occurrences in child abuse for deployed wives where child abuse has already happened increases when their husbands are deployed is not surprising.

Representative samples of the US population where child abuse occurs indicates that women are more than twice as likely than men to be abusive to their children. But again, we’re working with different definitions, like comparing apples to oranges.

Potential Added Financial Protection for OCONUS PCSs/Deployments

Companies that don't do this voluntarily already ought to be ashamed. You do it because it's the right thing to do.

Bill would bar phone, car insurance penalties

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Aug 6, 2007 10:49:56 EDT

Service members receiving orders to deploy or for reassignments to and from overseas bases would be allowed penalty-free cancellation of contracts for their phone, cable television service, automobile insurance and utilities, under a bill introduced by an Iraq war veteran.

Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., calls his plan the 21st Century Servicemembers Protection Act. The bill, HR 3298, would greatly expand financial and legal rights under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act to allow the termination or suspension of contracts signed before military orders were received.

The bill was referred to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, which already is considering updates to the current SCRA.

Murphy is a former Army judge advocate who deployed to Iraq in 2003 as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. Since being elected to Congress in 2006, he has pushed to update military personnel policies. He is not a member of the veterans’ committee but does sit on the House Armed Services Committee, which makes recommendations about changes in legal protections for deployed troops but does not have legislative jurisdiction over the law governing service members’ rights.

With 22 co-sponsors, Murphy is proposing a major extension of current cancellation rights that allow apartment and automobile leases to be canceled when a service member receives permanent-change-of-station orders or is deployed for more than 90 days for housing and 180 days for vehicles.

His bill specifically would apply to cellular phone service, cable or satellite television service, Internet service, automobile insurance, water, electricity, oil, gas, telephone and other utilities.

Under Murphy’s proposal, a service member or a service member’s dependent would have the option of terminating or suspending a service contract if he receives reassignment orders to or from a location outside the continental U.S., or receives orders for a deployment of 90 days or longer, or has received orders to deploy a minimum of 180 days.

A company could be notified by hand, fax, mail or private messenger of the termination or cancellation. A company could not impose an early termination charge and would have to refund any fees paid in advance, However, canceling a contract does not mean a service member or his dependent does not have to pay any balance for service provided before the cancellation takes effect. In cases where fees were paid in advance, a company would have 30 days from the effective date of the termination to provide a refund and a service member could also receive up to $10,000 in damages and have his attorney’s fees covered for each violation.

Murphy’s bill also would increase the potential penalty for companies that do not comply with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act by lowering debt interest rates to 6 percent for pre-military loans when service members are mobilized for active duty. Up to $10,000 in fines plus attorney fees would be allowed as damages when a creditor willfully or negligent violated the law.

Telling Stories on your Kids (Story # 1)

I was recently inspired by a fellow parent to create this post. I believe I will make it a frequent occurrence.

My daughter would be horrified if she found out I told this story on her, but she's 12 now and I'm Daddy, so it's my job, right?

So, here she was in her crib. Mommy was working swing shifts so it was just Daddy and, at that time, two kids. She hadn't, at this point, learned to climb out of her crib yet, or I'd have been in deeper doodoo than I was. (you'll see the hilarity of that in a moment)

It was summer time so the oldest one wasn't in school yet and I didn't have to be up too early, except that I did because my daughter was producing hideous little giggles from her room at 0600. After about 5 minutes of rolling around in bed wondering what she thought was so amusing as such an early hour, I decided that this was not normal behavior and got up to "find the funny".

After tossing on a bath robe, I peered into her room and found that my darling little princess had completely disrobed herself, diaper included. The contents of said diaper had become the material for her "creative expressionist period" as she had used the poopoo to "finger paint" the walls and her crib. She had applied the poopoo as "war paint" on her face and body.

One of those "OH...MY...GOD"s spilled from my mouth as my still sleepy brain processed the scene trying to produce a course of action. It was at this point that my daughter noticed I was standing in the doorway. She slowly pulled the corners of her mouth upward with her cheek muscles to show me, not the figurative, but the literal definition of "shit eating grin". Another "OH...MY...GOD"

Now, my brain and my body decided not to cooperate.

BRAIN: Go turn on the bath.

BODY: ::walks over to the crib::

BRAIN: Don't pick her up with your bare hands!

BODY: ::reaches out to meet the awaiting little arms in the crib::

BRAIN: Dude, you smell that?

BODY: ::gags::

There's nothing like the threat of vomiting to make your brain and body sync up. I admit it. I have a weak stomach and certain situations just set it off. In this case, I could have taken the sight or the smell, but not both in harmony. What to do...

To the shock and dismay of her highness, I turned around and left the room and started the bath. A few more minutes in her present condition wouldn't hurt her, right? I went to the linen closet, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around my face. "Better to smell fabric softener and deal with the sight", I thought.

I turned off the bath and went to retrieve the little princess. As I walked back into her room, she looked up at me again, eyes big like golf balls in sharp contrast to her newly acquired skin tone. Then came roaring toddler laughter. The kind that is contagious to adults. So now, against my own wishes, I was laughing along with her, even though the situation wasn't the least bit comical to me. I reached out to pick her up.

BRAIN: Bare hands, dude.

Oh, hell. What to do... I took a deep breath, inhaling as much Downy scented air as my lungs could hold, unwrapped my face turban, wrapped it around my "little stinker" of a daughter and carried her to the bath, dreading the bedroom clean-up more than the bath itself.

A few extra minutes won't hurt her my eye! It's amazing that discovery dawns on people in times of crisis. In my case, I discovered that the water content in poopoo evaporates quickly when spread thin and exposed to toddler body heat. I also discovered that it does not reconstitute in bath water.

Fortunately, my little princess decided that the rewards of artistry did not outweigh the costs of the ensuing scrub down that followed and she did not repeat this malodorous behavior. Well, maybe she decided that, or maybe it was because Daddy started getting up before she did to prevent such things from happening again.