Let's Talk About Mental Illness!

I found it interesting, in listening to a psychiatrist for the criminally insane, to learn that Arizona has a law in which the state can be petitioned to order an exam for anyone who is deemed to be of questionable mental stability. It seems Virginia has a similar law. In neither the case of the Tucson shootings nor the Virginia Tech shootings, when people in authority knew of the questionable mental health of the shooters, no one took advantage of those laws.

 Every newspaper in the country should be examining their state laws and informing the public whether or not they too have them and if so how to go about it.

Mental illness is the issue and and it comes in all shapes and sizes. When does it become a danger to the public?

Take for instance our old acquaintances, the Westboro Baptist Church crowd. The ones who protest at military funerals. I might add they made their rounds locally not long ago over a play being preformed about Matthew Shepard, the student in Wyoming who was beaten to death allegedly because he was gay.

They just don't quit. They protested at Elizabeth Edwards funeral. Now, disappointed that Congresswoman Giffords has not succumbed to her wounds, they have decided to protest at the funerals of those who did including nine year old Christina Green. A press release from the group says she "was killed for your rebellion when God sent the shooter to deal with idolatrous America." A nine year old girl.

As for the Congresswoman, a spokeswoman described her as an "arrogant pinhead who surrounds herself with fags and baby killers."

She went on about the killer, "God sent the shooter - that guy's bat-shit crazy - but God sent him."

You cannot tell me this group has one sane member in it. Sane people neither behave nor believe this way. Yet what they do is protected as free speech.

Now let's look at real incitement to violence. Yes, there are groups that go where they go to blunt their effect. It happened here. Yet someday, somewhere, someone is going to be hurting so badly from his or her loss they're going to lose it and go after the protesters. Who then will be judged mentally unstable?

To me the political rhetoric that has become a flash point in this case pales by comparison.

The reason why the judge is dead is "He doesn't care about free speech." Not now he doesn't.

"Once the child enters hell, it's over for her."

It is over for the child. Hell, however, is reserved for the rest of us having to listen to this under the guise of free speech. Is that sick or what?

Are We, The People, Less Important?

Are the people who work in this building more important than the people who put them there?  Of course not, but in the aftermath of Congresswoman Giffords shooting, I'm beginning to think they think so.

I don't mean to diminish in any way the horrible act that took six lives.  The Congresswoman, at least up until now, was not one of them.

I'm having trouble with the closing down of business in the House for a week because of it.  No company I've ever worked for would have ceased doing it's business if it's CEO or another high level executive met with an untimely death.  They definitely would not have had it not resulted in death.

I understand the moment of silence and flags at half staff for the victims.  I agree with it.  I joined in.  Okay.  Now, let's get back to work on the people's business and let things in Arizona get sorted out.

 She is a Congresswoman, no more and no less.  Until this happened, unless you live in Arizona, you probably didn't even know of her.  Just as it is with the victims of countless other violent crimes that happened this weekend. Somewhere in all this it's getting lost that this is a nation of laws, not people.  From the President on down. Mrs. Giffords chose her career path freely, knowing the risks involved for any public figure.

Yet talk radio today is  exacerbating the blame game with a fury.  This is not Sarah Palin's fault. It is not your fault nor my fault. It was the fault of a deranged young man.

It has been an opportune time to point out the character assassination game that has been going on for years without a clue if the rhetoric had anything to do with it at all.  If it does, a whole lot of politicians had best be looking over their shoulders.  Is it guilt because they know they've been over the line of decency and maturity?

I'll give them their week to figure out among themselves their complictness in this.  The media should be doing the same but they are not.  It's time to let Mary Jo Buttafuoco go back to Las Vegas rather than discussing with Megan Kelly what it's like to get shot in the head.

It's time for Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh to get over their paranoia about the Left blaming the Right.

The crime, as before stated, was horrible but the shooter is in custody.  The Congresswoman is doing as well as can certainly be expected. It's time for the law to handle the shooter, the doctors to care for their patient and the families of the deceased victims to mourn.

It's time for Congress to get back to work.  It's time for the media to get back to work.  Did you listen to China's equivalent of our Secretary of Defense tell Mr. Gates China will not tolerate our supplying Taiwan with arms with Gates standing beside him?  This adds to the already palpable tension between our two countries. Is it being reported?

Knowing none of this is going to happen, I've one more suggestion.  Let's take a moment of silence for all the other innocents who met similar fates over the weekend.  They, in their individual ways, were important too.  And do not use this as an excuse to take away more of our rights in your usual over-reactive way.

Put A Cork In It!

After yesterday's tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the expected is playing out. Unfortunately it took the murder of six people and the serious wounding of many more, including the Congresswoman, to bring it to a head.

We are an angry nation. There are unbalanced malcontents among us just itching for an excuse to vent their anger. The rest of us blog or jog. The trouble is, when times are bad, desperate people are often driven to desperate means. And too often it doesn't take much to push them over the edge. I think this is one reason for this tragedy.

Another reason is we have people with high public profiles, be they politicians or members of the media, who wittingly or unwittingly egg them on. Let's face it, there are a whole lot of us acting like children.

First the politicians and their partisan spats that bear no inkling of civility. No matter which side of the aisle, they all do it. For a person on the edge, this provides a perfect launching pad.

Then there is the media. The right is to blame. The left is to blame. Civility is non-existent.  Listen to Keith Olbermann. Then there are those with loose connections like Glenn Beck espousing his theories that people, looking for an excuse like the current shooter, take to heart. Neither contributes to civil discourse. It's by no means just these two, there are many from every side of the political spectrum. They know exactly what they're doing. Do enough of us see it?  Is there anything we can do to stop them?  Turn them off.  Maybe their ratings and advertisers might hear, though I doubt it.

Next will come the overreaction by the government. But for the prominence of some of the victims, this would just be another tragic shooting, would run it's cycle and fade into the archives.

But no. This was a Congresswoman and a Federal Judge. Already there is talk about more security for them. What will that entail? Will constituents have to be searched before meeting with their Representatives? Are the tax payers going to be expected to pay for 24/7 protection for every government official? If it comes to that two things will result. No one of substance will run for public office and we'll soon be living in a police state.

So let's go back to the politicians and their rhetoric. Put a cork in it. And to the on air voices who regale us 24/7 with their "wisdom", put a cork in it.  Who anointed them as all knowing anyway and why do we buy into it?

The sick will always be among us and tragedies will occur be it kids mad at their peers or teachers, or adults mad at their country. The rest of us hold a huge responsibility to not add to problems that are a part of life by enhancing our own egos.

If that's all you have to offer, truly, put a cork in it!

A Change Of Priorities

This is my workbench. There are three chess pieces in progress and two sitting there to reference for dimensions. These characters are for a set based on the original illustrations in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass which is based on a chess game.  Years ago doing my own version became an obsession.

Then came the back pain. It was such I could not sit on my stool for long periods, then eventually not at all.  For whatever reason, the position was different than the chair in front of my computer. Besides it doesn't take nearly as long to write a post as it does to carve a figure. I stopped. I couldn't concentrate to the degree necessary. I need to get back to it. I miss it.

My one other love is blogging. It's nearing obsolescence with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, but I still enjoy it. I want to keep at it. I'd miss it.

Today I've put my Facebook Zoo Mates on notice I'm cutting way back. It has become an addiction I need to break. My "friends" count will probably dwindle. The real ones will stay. I hope.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon unsubscribing to sites I'd joined for no really good reason. Linkedin. It's for business networking. I have nothing to offer or gain.

Nolabels. People are friending people right and left, forming discussion groups with no discussions and mainly just sitting there. One more group discussing the pros and cons of our government such as it is has no teeth. There are too many of them.

Various photo editing sites. I have one that fills my needs. I don't need a half dozen. Sites I've bookmarked and never visit. Gone.

What's left will still take up ample time but my illusions of being discovered have settled into reality. I'm one blogger out of how many kazillions. It's fun. It gives me a chance to vent. What more need it be?

It's time to live. The pain will, apparently, always be with me. It's time to accept it, deal with it as well as I can and move on.

Or in one case move back. I've got a chess set to finish.

Political Correctness Will Destroy History

What is wrong with leaving well enough alone with things that do no harm but are accurate reflections of who we were and are?

When I read that a new edition of Huckleberry Finn will not have the words Nigger nor Injun in it I was disgusted beyond words. How dare anyone rewrite great literature! It's akin to painting clothing on, say Venus Anadyomene by Titan which, by the way, dates back to 1525.

Venus Anadyomene

It's a malady creeping across our  culture and it's dangerous.  Just last spring a group in Texas won a battle to put a conservative slant on the content of their textbooks.  Parents dictate to schools which novels their children are allowed to read using the  most lame of excuses.  This is no way to teach.  More importantly it is no way to learn!

I remember the book  Little Black Sambo?  Do you?  And the restaurant that bore the name Sambo's?  The original book was about an East Indian boy, not a black, but somewhere along the way it was decided it was hurtful to black children and the name was changed to Little Brave Sambo.

As for the restaurant, the owners picked up on the theme thinking it fun using a combination of their names.  So much for fun.

Let's move on to the names of sports teams.  No longer can you use Squaw, nor Redskin among others.  Now we have rough and tumble mascots like the Banana Slugs and Fighting Blue Hens. There are teams that will strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.

It goes on to the world stage.  If Ahmajinedad had his way there was no holocaust. Actually there is a British Bishop who holds the same belief.

It makes me wonder what is and what is not true.  More and more we have to read dozens of periodicals and listen to a broad spectrum of news shows and punditry to get even a feeble grasp of what actually is.

As the trend grows there will be more and more doubt.  Soon people will no longer question.  They'll accept whatever sound bite they happen to hear.  It's already happening in politics and why partisanship is so prevalent.

That much, at least for the present time, I'm willing to sort through.  But don't mess with the classics; what books tell us.  They are our only link to the past.  Before people were inclined to  impose their own views before truth.

 Without that we can but live from day to day with no sense of who we were, who we are and who we're likely to become.  Those are treasures about to be lost and there will be no treasure hunters to seek them out because they won't know they exist.