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My postings of late seem morbid. First the end of the world, then suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge. I came across this video that sums up the essence of life. Look up and try to put all of that into one word, one sentence about life. You just cannot do so adequately. Each point of light represents a billion possibilities of who we are and what we are. Whether God made man or man made God or everything collectively being an ultra consciousness – it is majestic, inspiring, and should make anyone want to live another day if for no other reason than to see what happens next.
I set the video to play in HD. You might click the YouTube link and watch it on a larger size. It is 8 minutes long but looks like it ends early – wait for more…
Happy Friday everyone. - MisterWriter
You reach a speed of 76 mph or greater and hit the water at the 4 second mark after jumping, with the force of a car smashing into a concrete wall. 98% of the people who jump from the bridge die. The latest victim of the Golden Gate Bridge is a 15 year old Allison Bayliss of Danville who, it is reported from bridge video, took her own life sometime late Monday morning.
Stories like this are frequent – far too frequent and far too softly reported. On April 19, an unidentified 16-year-old girl in San Francisco on vacation with her family leaped from the bridge after handing her sister a suicide note.
On March 10, a 17-year-old student from Sonoma County on a field trip also survived a jump from the bridge and swam ashore. the Golden Gate Bridge is 
reportedly the world’s most popular spot to commit suicide.
As of 2005 approximately 1,200 people have leaped to their deaths off of the golden gate bridge since it opened 71 years ago around 1937. For the most part the bodies are not recovered, swept out to sea with the current.
The few who survive the initial impact generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water. New suicides average one every two weeks. As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump. Those who do survive strike the water feet-first and at a slight angle, although individuals may still sustain broken bones or internal injuries. One young woman, Sara Birnbaum, survived, 
but returned to jump again and died the second time.
This is the view, on a good day, that greets the suicide before he jumps -- a panorama enthralling in its harmony of land, sea and sky. Even when the cooling fog blunts the view, the vast majority of jumpers take their last step facing east instead of west toward the Pacific, a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “Lethal Beauty” from October 2005. They added: A suicide barrier would prevent deaths. Golden Gate Bridge district directors voted in March to authorize a $2 million feasibility study, which has not yet been fully funded.
The question that should be asked, given the history of the bridge that attracts tourists worldwide is “why has nothing been done all these years?” Sure there are signs that offer a hotline, and even a hotline that would connect a jumper to some form of help, and yet it seems unlikely that someone who has determined their fate this way, resolute, would stop to make a phone call.
The Chronicle article goes on to explain that “In his original plans, chief engineer Joseph Strauss considered the bridge's potential as a suicide site and designed railings 5 1/2 feet high. On May 7, 1936, a year before the opening of the bridge, Strauss boasted to the San Francisco Call-Bulletin that the bridge was "practically suicide-proof." As seems to always be the case where foresight was applied, another architect, Irving Morrow who had been hired to design the entryway, reworked the guardrails and reduced them to 4 feet.
It is the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District that have resisted the “suicide barrier” that has been proposed through the years. On May, 2011, a contract is anticipated for approval for a net system to prevent suicides. The project which is estimated to cost $45 million and 18 months to design, has no identified funding source yet, although funding will not come from bridge tolls. You can read about it HERE and should let The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District know that it is time to do something useful and end the needless deaths. You can reach them at bridgecomments@goldengate.org.
Sadly the years of endless discussion will have failed to prevent the latest victim’s death, a young girl whose inner pain none of us could probably imagine, and the pain that has now been passed onto her family left behind trying to figure out why this tragedy could have happened.
Click the yellow text to read the source articles that I have cited.
MisterWriter
Dearly Beloved,
As we are gathered to bear witness to the failing of the few who maintain the end of man, let us reflect on the mess of death and a far better way to be than just toasted or taking up valuable real estate.
Spanish designer Martin Azua has developed a special urn into which your dusty remains are placed, along with a seedling for a tree. Read more HERE. The contained has everything it needs to turn you into a tree leaving only one thing – that question that Barbara Walters used to love asking her guests: “If you could be a twee, which twee would you be?” (see video below).
And by the way, for our Asian and Australian readers, the #rupture should be starting today for you! We counted on you 
for Y2K failing and we are counting on you again.
And even better news for those of you planning to last awhile, Kentucky will soon be building the Noah’s Ark Theme Park
MisterWriter
These days it does not take much to get a global interest in the end of the world. Well, I guess it is never hard when the end of the world is involved. In this case, the “Rapture” predicted by Harold Camping who did this once before but then recalculated and is certain that this is the end time.
He has many who believe him and many within his own church group who do not. Likewise Tim Lahaye, the author of the popular Left Behind series disagrees stating the claim "is not only bizarre but 100% wrong!" This from a man who has himself been out there predicting that the recent global earthquakes are a sign of the end times.
Well, I just wish it would hurry up and take these people from us so we can be done with them because the arrogance of humankind to believe that an omnipresent and an omnipotent all loving (usually) God would send a message through some fool is really surprising to me. But what do I know?
And so I have decided to await the rupture that will occur from the laughing taking place on May 21 as all these fools are left standing looking…well….stupid.
The first principal of a true religion is to keep it subjective; only you have the right to inflict your views upon yourself. (Keep your yap shut)
The second rule is not to stand around announcing something as extreme as the end of days because it violates the first rule and, when you are wrong, makes you look like a kook with zero credibility.
You see the third rule is that IF the omnipresent and an omnipotent all loving (usually) God was going to end the world then the last person He would share it with was the town bigmouth or the village idiot.
An equal, yet different firestorm of criticism has rained upon Stephen Hawking for his comment that “A belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death.” Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 21, shared his thoughts on death, human purpose and our chance existence in an exclusive interview with the Guardian HERE.
This brought immediate disdain from ex-actor Kirk Cameron, former teen idol who once starred in the sitcom "Growing Pains" who said "Why should anyone believe Mr. Hawking's writings if he cannot provide evidence for his unscientific belief that out of nothing, everything came?" You can read Kirk’s comments HERE.
Now let’s hope that no one told Kirk that the Bible, a compilation of heavily edited papyri that had to first pass through a multiple review board from the third century on and which cannot be proved to be linked to the author's named in the “books” and which excluded another larger quantity of carbon dated papyri on similar topics, is likewise not evidence for his belief that existence arose from something. Kirk did add that he “lost my faith in atheism long ago and prefer to stay within the realm of reality.” Well Kirk – that is up for debate.
Since we are quoting celebrity theologians let me quote from Ricky Gervais, an atheist who learned that “historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities….So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say “Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say “Just God. I only believe in the one God,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869.” You can read his take HERE.
Which brings me back to the rupture scheduled for May 21. There is a simple, yet determinant test of your faith if you are one of those believing that May 21 is the day. In the name of all the charities of the world, I ask that you withdraw all the money from any bank or investment accounts you may have and on Friday, May 20th, donate it to a charity of your choice. After all, it is the least you can do.
And as for Harold Camping – he should be stripped of any religious protections he may be enjoying and subjected to the wrath of the IRS at its earliest opportunity after the rupture – that would be Monday, 23rd. Family Radio, the evangelical nonprofit that has plastered billboards and driven vans across the Bay Area and the world proclaiming the end of the world will be Saturday. The Oakland-based nonprofit has raised more than $100 million over the past seven years, according to tax returns. It owns 66 radio stations across the globe and was worth more than $72 million in 2009, reports the Contra Costa Times in a story you can read HERE.
I’ll be discussing the events foretold for 2012 and the coming of the asteroid Apophis at a later date. Meanwhile…
May the Force be with you – always!
MisterWriter
Read the story from the source. Click the photo. I’d like to know what kind of person can just do that?
[UPDATED: 5/19- The child has been identified. Click HERE for the story]
Script Cops Script cops whatcha going to do, whatcha going to do when they write for you…
MisterWriter
I give you that it is only television, free entertainment funded on the backs of advertisers and that as the ratings fall and ad revenue payoffs fail, shows get cancelled. I have no issue with that.
What I have a huge issue with is the extent to which viewers are suckered into watching shows faithfully, wooed and courted by the networks or stations airing the shows, only to get no closure upon cancellation. As is the custom, each season ends with a tease or a cliffhanger pulling you back into yet another season a half year later. When cancelled, most shows are on hiatus leaving storylines without resolution.
I watched Defying Gravity last year, an excellent series that was short lived –killed after 12 episodes. Flash Forward, killed after the first season and a bit, just when it was getting good. And now a new slate of cancellations, this time ABC getting rid of 'Brothers & Sisters,’ 'V,' 'Off the Map,' 'No Ordinary Family', 'Detroit 187, 'Better With You' and 'Mr. Sunshine.' And ‘Human Target” which I enjoyed.
I have no issue with ending shows that are not a profit for the network, but at least allow fans of the shows one final episode where the storyline can be resolved. It is called closure and it is very important for networks to understand because it actually affects their bottom line. Here is why: If you get me used to shows I like getting yanked off with no closure, I will not buy in to the new shows 
because I know how hard it is for them to succeed. And if I do not watch then you don’t get advertiser ratings and the whole nasty cycle is repeated.
By giving viewers a final episode, mandated as a rule, viewers will accept the end of one show and readily watch another with equal fervor because they know it will not end without and ending. More so, the viewer will feel more important than just a statistic, more than a Nielson number that helps determine ad prices, and perhaps have an even greater value to the process.
Last week I watched Stargate Universe’s finale. They knew the axe was coming and made one. The crew, lost in another part of the universe, aboard an alien ship that they have been stuck on since the get go, realize they will not survive the part of space they are in – everytime they drop out of FTL they are attacked; drones at every Stargate in that sector.
They need to drop out for resupply, so it is a no-win situation. Until they decide to put themselves into stasis for the three years of the jump with the hope that they will be free of danger at that point.
It was an 
okay ending to the series – not satisfying in that they got no answers that they had been seeking for their series run; the reason for the alien ship in the first place. And cleverly, by being in stasis, should a mob of angry fans threaten SyFy, the show could always become a stand alone motion picture to free them from stasis and end the story properly.
It was a weak ending, but at least it was an ending, and better than Bobby Ewing stepping from a shower in the 80’s show Dallas only to let you know the whole thing was a dream.
If you want to know more about what’s going on inside the tube – visit http://thevoiceoftv.com/tv/
In the meantime, drink your diet soda, buy that new car, and go stuff your face at a fast food place, all of which have been pushed your way as the price of your entertainment addiction. And look below for the list of cancelled shows…
FOX
-Lie to Me
-Breaking In
-The Chicago Code
-Traffic Light
-Human Target
ABC:
- No Ordinary Family
-Brothers & Sisters
- V cancelled
- Mr. Sunshine
- Off The Map
- Detroit 1-8-7
- Better With You
NBC:
- Outsourced
- Law & Order: LA cancelled
- The Event
No doubt more will follow.
MisterWriter
SOHO watched as a fairly bright comet dove towards the Sun in a white streak and was not seen again after its close encounter (May 10-11, 2011). Read more HERE.
Don’t mess with the sun!
MisterWriter
Awhile ago I suggested that someone should invest in the development of digital paper as a way to save newspapers and magazines. The print age of paper is coming to an end. Well it looks like the product may be developed after all.
I imagine you having a sized digital newspaper that has its content digitally inked to the page and updated over the air so you always have fresh content. You would have the tactile sensation you get from reading a printed publication without the waste.
Watch the video.
MisterWriter
Have you ever blown your nose in a sunlit filled room only to see a billion tiny specks floating around from the tissue?
I get seasonal allergies and have noted for some time that they worsen when I blow my nose with tissue paper like Kleenex. I suspect the particles aggravate the already inflamed nasal and sinus tissue adding insult to injury. The more you blow the more you need to blow.
Checking online I find that I am not alone. Others report the same thing HERE on the health boards.
I have tried paper napkins with much better results, although it is rougher on the nose.
President Ronald Reagan’s allergist Ralph Bookman, M.D., had this to say: "A large number of non-protein substances like Kleenex, paper dust, paint fumes, perfume, newsprint and cigarette smoke are erroneously called allergens, but they’re not. They do produce symptoms in many people, but it’s because they’re irritating, not allergic".
Bookman has a ton of great information for those of us prone to nasal impairment.
For me, there is an itchy spot at the back of my throat, slightly up towards the nasal area. Just touching it with my tongue, made worse if you try to “tongue scratch” your throat in order to suppress a sneeze, makes it all worse. Ice water helps as does a wet face towel. But like last night, the barrage of sneezing serves to make for a miserable night sleep and a sluggish morning.
As for tissues, how insidious a sales plot it would be to provide a product into which you should sneeze, only to find that it makes you sneeze more. What better way to sell boxes and boxes of the product, a little like cigarettes adding stuff to addict you even more. And God forbid you use the fragrance filled tissues!
It’s easy to see conspiracies after only a few hours of sleep. A visit to the Kleenex website found them asking “Are you sure your bathroom hand towel is clean?”
Wait a minute – no diversionary tactics to take me away from my original theory. They even included a video to show you why I should be using their Kleenex products, and are pushing their “Sneeze Catcher” club!!!!
Moving on – since I am so focused on sneezing, some facts you might not know.
In Nebraska it is illegal for a child to sneeze while in church.
Apparently you cannot sneeze while you are asleep.
You can infect a person with your uncovered sneeze up to 150 feet away. See the nice photo above.
Ah….. ah…..ah………choo!
MisterWriter
Just a few days after talking about cyber wars and the things that go on, this piece about how
which may well affect you and yours. I guess that is the price for posting the minutiae of your daily life. Or as one commenter on the article wrote: “Facebook was cool when it was only for college students. Once mom sent me a friend request I knew it was time to say goodbye!”
Read the leak HERE: Then go change your password – yet again. It’s so nice to know that In-Your-Facebook took the time to let YOU know about the breach, wasn’t it? Not!
PS: Click on the cartoon and read how one in five employers check you out on your Facebook page to see what kind of person you are.
MisterWriter
Texas will soon be making the armed college campus a norm. Republicans in the Texas Senate on Monday approved allowing concealed handgun license holders to carry weapons into public college buildings and classrooms.
Personally I believe the idea is outright stupid. And apparently the “UT-System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa wrote lawmakers and Gov. Rick Perry outlining worries from university officials that guns on campus will lead to more campus crime and suicides.”
So why is this even a consideration? The right to bear arms? Next up we will all be wearing holsters again and dueling when offended. The problem with that is it requires integrity and honor, two things lacking in current society where deceit and cowardice are often disguised in a cloak of justice. Nowadays a drive by shooting or something more brazenly insane like the Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords seems the norm.
In fact the number of headlines about elementary students bringing loaded guns to school is as alarming as this piece of legislation.
So on the one hand you read about bullying pervasive on campus, and the other having victims given the opportunity to carry a concealed weapon. I believe there will be some interesting crime headlines coming out of Texas soon.
Fear apparently is the dominating argument. “Hearings on the measure were dominated by powerful testimony from supporters who had been raped or assaulted on college campuses, and several people who had survived the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech University when a gunman killed 32 people.”
The Texas Governor Rick Perry plans to sign the bill and was in the news for shooting a coyote last year during a jog. Then again, in Texas, concealed handgun holders can skip metal detectors, the report says.
I wonder how Virginia Tech would have been different if staff and students had been armed? My guess is that the gunman would have had more reason to aim and more people to shoot, now with guns pointed at him.
So what’s next? Guns in church? Guns in restaurants? Guns in banks – after all they are always getting robbed and the chance of you getting shot at while in a bank is infinitely higher than on a campus.
Here are some stats from the Associated Press:
—April 16, 2007: A gunman kills 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. The gunman later dies.
—Aug. 1, 1966: Charles Whitman points a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin's Tower and begins shooting in a homicidal rampage that goes on for 96 minutes. Sixteen people are killed, 31 wounded.
—Nov. 1, 1991: Gang Lu, 28, a graduate student in physics from China, reportedly upset because he was passed over for an academic honor, opens fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus. Five University of Iowa employees killed, including four members of the physics department, two other people are wounded. The student fatally shoots himself.
—May 4, 1970: Four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops called in to quell anti-war protests on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266368,00.html#ixzz1M4bcgR9y
So from 1970 to 2007 about 41 students have died on campus shootings. Out of about 14.4 million students in the U.S. (that is 0.00029% chance of dying).
And bank robberies? But in cases last year where a bank robbery turned violent, there were a total of 106 injuries, 16 deaths and 90 people taken hostage.
It’s a dangerous country when 57 people (students and adults) died last year at school or in the bank. Better bring that gun just in case….
Keep these stats handy. Let’s see what happens one year after this law passes.
MisterWriter
Peace. The vision of a countryside, sheep grazing, a stream meandering through, grass as green as emeralds.
Okay – forget that image. There is no peace. There is no countryside. And the sheep are stuffed full of antibiotics.
Aside from the fact that we are the most stressed out species who has, in one form or another, waged war for the last few hundred thousand years; from survival, to conquest, to growth, through technology to the smart weaponry and cyber warfare that exists all around you, we are totally clueless.
People are fishing for your information, on your computer. And others are waging war on the infrastructure of countries across the planet.
(Click the colored text to visit source sites…)
4) Terrorism and cyber attacks are main threats to UK, national security strategy finds.
5) The threat of cyber-attack from a foreign country, a terrorist group or malevolent hackers is real. Last year, multiple U.S. corporations were the targets of industrial espionage through cyberspace. Before that, the governments of Estonia and Georgia were partially paralyzed by massive denial-of-service attacks. Recently, the Department of Defense acknowledged that some of its systems were compromised by a foreign intelligence service.
And here we are, with not only every aspect of our planet run by computer technology, but countries engaged in a quiet cyber-war, each trying to infiltrate, disrupt, manipulate the other in a never ending battle for supremacy. Will there be an enemy activation of a nuclear arsenal, not necessarily ours, but perhaps a country with fewer defense systems in place.
You know we farmed out customer service jobs to India but did you know that “Globally there are 4,00000 community of black hat hackers, out of which 70 percent are students and between the age group of 20 to 25, 18 percent are between the age group of 15 to 20, 2percent are above the age of 30, 10 percent are grey hat hackers. And this population is of hactivists. (Read this beautiful research report in Cyber Terror) from this population 22% are only Indians,10 % from Pakistan (details of these hactivists with pictures, code name, their addresses, and much more read in Cyber Terror)?”
And then there is you – readers with a Facebook page, a Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace etc… who readily expose your private information under the guise of Friendship. Your friendships, photo identification, dates of birth, anniversary, children, family, comings and going as well as what you ate for dinner – all fodder for the thieves and the crooks, the perverts and the cyber terrorists in the business of information mining whether to push a targeted advertisement in your face, or for other less savory purposes. “Social Engineering is defined as the process of deceiving people into giving away access or confidential information.” You do not consider yourself victims, I know, believing it all to be irrelevancy in high quantity; but then, like dumpster divers who raid your trash for information that can be sold, computers can sift through massive amounts of irrelevant information in order to put together a portrait of you, one that can be adjusted by others.
So you wake up tomorrow and find that somehow you are now on the Megan’s Law database? Or you dins that someone has your identity and is raking up debt in your name, using your ID and an electronic signature because they got your passwords by sifting through all that crapload of information you freely share.
I have known many a Facebook denizen hacked into and having their account exploited, some just sending a barrage of emails to everyone on the contact list, others posing as the person and asking for money.
If you have a Firewall on your home computer, turn on the settings so you are notified each time there is an attempt made to access a port on your computer. It will blow you away the extent of it, non-stop, 24/7, from the moment you power up until you power off. Computers can ping sequentially through millions of addresses to see what is open and free, unsecured. If that is you, next thing you learn is that your computer now serves as a conduit through which hackers and spammers pass – not because you are important, but because their target is, leaving a trail back to ….your computer. You explain to the NSA why your computer IP was logged trying to breach their systems.
So what happens if cyber-hackers use their skills to pit two less sophisticated nations that possess nuclear weapons to suspect each other, leading to a rise in tensions with the goal of starting a nuclear exchange?
Or what happens when “Social networking makes compromising situations easily available to those searching. In the FBI case, the hacker used spear phishing techniques, an email spoofing fraud that targets a specific person, seeking unauthorized access to confidential data. This kind of spoof is accomplished by the hacker posing as a trusted source of the intended victim, such as a FaceBook Friend. Once tricked into opening an attachment from the “trusted source,” a virus in the FBI case compromised the recipient’s computer, including its Webcam, microphone, and every keystroke. In examples of sextortion, the hacker, successfully reaching his target, is then able to spy on his victim through his or her own Webcam. In the case under discussion, the hacker was only discovered when he contacted one victim in an attempt to obtain an explicit video in exchange for not telling her parents. Luckily, the intended victim told her parents, who contacted their local FBI.” Remember the student who committed suicide after being spied on with his own computer webcam exposing him in a gay relationship?
And can you be sure that your computer anti-virus program is really protecting you? Exploitive hackers can get around that. Have you ever had a virus warning that told you to click to heal only to be stuck in an endless loop of warnings designed to get you to buy the “anti-virus” program they were selling? Your only virus was the anti-virus program.
It is a war. And anyone who thinks that there is privacy is a fool. Everything you do online is recorded, somewhere, someone has a copy of your words, emails, actions, movements, just as every website can be redeemed long after it is gone. Visit http://web.archive.org/ and you can find long gone websites, indexed, archived and like those old aircraft kept in the dry desert, ready to be reborn at any time.
Likewise, do a search of YOU, your name, or your name connected with any activity. You will be amazed at the wealth of things you can find with little effort.
This is your war. There are operatives working to inflict real damage on everything from your country, to your bank; there are less equipped versions designed to do damage on your credit and your personal systems, and there are people who are doing it just because it is “fun”.
And the funny thing is that no one really seems to care too much. Except when it stops. Except when the system crashes and they cannot post their daily bytes, quips, comments. Because it has all become like The Matrix, with the world of the make believe that we all crave for, cluster toward like little fish huddled together in a giant ball, roiling against the waves as the giant net slowly scoops us up. 2G, 3 G, 4G. iPad 1, 2, updated OS, wow, thank God my service provider upgraded to Froyo so I can watch Flash videos now – Amen to the digital God, that ironically, in our own digitally compressed way, have bauded a realization of the quantum mechanics that take all the minute bits of energy in the universe and bind it all together into a program that runs… for a time, until the need for the next upgrade.
Enjoying the war – wish you were here!
MisterWriter
Need I say more? “Earth to MisterWriter, come in please!” Watch…
MisterWriter
Despite commentary from the likes of Michael Moore about how bin Laden should have been tried in American courts that I have addressed elsewhere, the whole notion of Pakistan as an innocent dupe seems most unlikely given the length of Osama’s stay there, and the country’s history of siding where convenience lies strongest, despite the mass amounts of money that we are giving them, and which I believe should stop.
Pat Condell had an excellent commentary on the whole thing. If you are unfamiliar with Pat, his 4 minute videos cover a wide territory. As a Brit he has a lot to say about the effects of Islamic law in his country. Here he talks about ours.
MisterWriter
Got a few million dollars for the world’s ultimate hobby? Try this… keep watching as it gets really good.
You should read the details of how this was done….
The display took 7 years and roughly $4.8 million to build.
The model includes a whopping list of accessories, including 40 planes, 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches and 300 buildings.
Click HERE then go out and start your own collection….
MisterWriter
A statistic floated my way that stated that 26% of Americans are diagnosed with a mental disorder. Now without insulting people with extreme psychological issues which almost certainly do exist and do require treatment, “Although parallel studies in 27 other countries are not yet complete, the new numbers suggest that the United States is poised to rank No. 1 globally for mental illness, researchers said,” as quoted in a Washington Post article you can read HERE.
A different study showed that on average one quarter of the country has had a criminal record ( about 65 million citizens with about 13% for marijuana or drug related offenses) with “more than 50 percent of inmates in prisons across the country suffer from mental illness and substance abuse,” says The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. “Major depressant disorders to paranoid schizophrenia, to bipolar disorders; those are the offenders that we see," says Dale Schipaanboord, a mental health administrator at The Olympus Facility (Utah).”
We lead the world in mental illness as well as the number of people we have locked up in prison, two very interesting statistics. We are, in short, screwed up! Or are we?
Here is the thing. When your blood pressure goes up, and you happen to be at the doctor, he notes it. If he notes it again, you may get labeled as hypertensive. If you are one of millions suffering “white coat hypertension” which means that your blood pressure elevates only in a medical setting (and who can blame you – or me) then one of two things happens; your doctor decides to put you on drugs because any hypertension is bad hypertension, or you doctor decides to let you live with it (until it kills you – and the jury is out on that one.) Either way you are now listed as hypertensive.
The fact is that we are told what to think and believe by professionals who are themselves like students; prone to error and fixated on the path of least resistance. I have had doctors tell me so many variations of their reasons for a particular medical result, plying drugs and then more drugs to solve the interactions of the first drugs, until I realized that they were not only incorrect (objectively), but the treatment was to stop the drugs. You can read about this in my book “Signs You May Be An Idiot” that you can download FREE HERE.
We stopped applying objective analysis to situations and instead look for the easy fix, the definitive diagnosis and apply it as some sort of universal, for all time thing. We do not start out damaged, but we damage ourselves along the way. The prevailing theory of blood pressure treatment is that you are on it for life. When you consider that most people with elevated blood pressure are overweight, and losing sufficient weight often rectifies the blood pressure issue, is it still a fair statement that people need to be on that medication for life? The other factor is that as with all medications, the human body develops a tolerance (and an addiction – whether mental or physical) to it. So you get caught in a catch-22 where your medication, that causes other problems, needs to keep increasing and as it does, and as you experience other side effects, you are also mentally crippling yourself into believing that you are fundamentally defective were it not for the magic pill and the medicine man. And getting off that cycle is like getting off heroin or quitting cigarettes.
Is mental illness a state of being, a state of mind, or both? And is it a permanent condition that you remain afflicted with or can it be induced and removed in kind? We all want wellness. We want to be whole. We want to be regarded as strong in mind and body. We want to be normal, even though normal is a word with a very loose definition in a country that likes to label everything with sub-categories.
One thing is certain, a diagnosis of mental illness, or physical illness, often develops into a crutch to explore the many laws that are in place to aid the disabled, in whatever form, to as normal a life as possible. Our anti-discrimination policies are so easily bound to that so once you get that blue disabled placard, you are part of a different club.
Before you attack me for an opinion – understand that there are disabled people of no choice, no alternative and thankful for whatever remedy that comes their way. I am not suggesting in any way that these people are creating a situation or that they are not deserving of any remedy that works for them. This discussion is about the validity of the label assigned by the psychiatric profession and whether it is acceptable to allow the country to carry the statistic of “26% of Americans are diagnosed with a mental disorder” as a norm.
Psychologists and psychiatrists in their 50 minute sessions rely on quantitative psychological profiles that may be accurate as a snapshot, but like the STAR test in education, are merely small windows into a very large and deep swimming pool. The fact that talk therapy and drugs are the main tools against mental illness seems to indicate that it is a flawed approach given the statistics that they so quickly cite showing how many people are still mentally ill (despite their efforts.)
In fact, by definition, virtually everyone could be classified as mentally ill in some way whether delusional with unrealistic expectations (every teenager) or suffering from phobia (fears are prevalent although not always consistent). Ambition can be determined to be a flaw with the ego, while someone who has a hard time trusting others is certainly in need of a psychology wonder pill. Drink more than two drinks a day and you could be an alcoholic. And blaming the actions of those labeled above can serve as a reason to avoid harsh consequences. Murderers and violent offenders who are justified through a mental impediment or a childhood trauma, seems to me to be a mental illness on the part of the psychology profession desperate to drum up business. When we start attributing the past as the sole motivator for our present actions and thought we are doing a disservice to those who suffer by alleviating them of a need to move beyond that point in time. And so wrapped up in defendable counseling points, victims of trauma grow to resent anything that suggests they grow beyond their trauma, or move on with their lives. Soldiers on on the battlefield know this well. And certainly it is difficult to pass through understanding trauma and how it affects you. The point is that survival is about change and while one can remain steadfast in the pain of the event, in order to survive they must change. This is the lesson that life teaches every living thing. Of course I am sure that someone will say I am just being paranoid and in need of therapy to get back in touch with my inner child in order to find out where I was abused for making such broad sweeping statements. Or perhaps I am suffering delusions of grandeur in my wildly ranging ranting? Am I doing a Charlie Sheen?
Panic attacks and anxiety are good examples. These are conditions that we have grown into usually due to events that serve as triggers, although later they may be trigger-less. The treatment – drug you up with everything from an SSRI to a Benzodiazepine, talk therapy, in an effort to control your symptoms. More radically, there is a treatment that encourages you to confront and encourage your symptoms in order to lessen your sensitivity to them. But why do they happen? Chemical imbalance of the brain. Determined how? And the medications cannot be proved to be effective other than some statistical evidence amidst a slew of side effects and other arbitrary effects that could likewise have helped. In fact, when it comes to the psyche of both men and women, cycles are as prevalent as anything else. Just ask the husband of a woman with PMS or the wife of a man with his version. We are not the sum of our parts, but our parts, our choices and our actions.
Divorcing parents are often thrust at psychologists for an evaluation of their parenting skills in what always appears to be a test of who is the better parent – at least that is the feeling each person gets. I have seen a case where an angry mother falsely accused by the father of molesting the child, angrily poured out the tale to the psychologist and was listed as excessively emotional, aggressive and likely to inflict emotional distress upon the child, all based on a fear of being taken advantage of and anger at a false accusation. Now go figure that one out. Bad parents. Good parents. How to deal with difficult kids – haven’t they been difficult since the beginning of time? Why do we need instructions from some counselor now on how to do this the right way? What is the right way? Go look at the rows of self-help books in a bookstore and realize how screwed up we have allowed the psychological industry to make us.
And what of our need to see dead Osama Bin Laden photographs. Reuters displayed three dead men from the compound with nasty wounds, very graphic. But it was not Osama. Are we mentally ill that we revel in the death of this terrorist? Or are we just rejoicing in the fact that he will not enjoy any other events he caused? Are we collectively in need of therapy from 9/11? Perhaps we should all be in therapy since it appears we have not overcome the basic angst of that event.
Offshore oil drilling after the oil disaster is back. Surely that warrants some psychological evaluation? Certainly the members of Congress should all have mental health exams….
A psychological evaluation is pricey. Repeated tests that attempt to discern the answer by repeating variants of the question with alternative positions serve to get by the scrutiny of the test taker. Are you sad? No. Have you ever been sad? Yes. Do you recall being sad? Yes. Are you unhappy? Yes. Do you wish you were not feeling sad? Yes. If you knew someone who was feeling sad would you encourage them to seek help? Yes. When you are sad do you find that talking to friends is helpful? Yes. Do you have friends? Yes. Do you know any friends who are sad? Yes. Has any of your friends seen you sad? Yes. Do you feel the need to hurt yourself? No. Are you happy? Yes. Have you ever been unhappy? Yes. And so on…
With repeated therapy sessions, an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety pill, group therapy and some home self-esteem chants I will give you, you should begin to feel better quite soon. How many sessions will I need? It is really hard to say? Each person responds differently. Am I mentally ill? Of course not. I would say that you have some issues that are troubling you that you need to work through and together we can make progress on these. Do you take insurance? Of course. – Guess what the insurance company classifies you as? Mentally Ill.
Okay. Our time is up. I’ll see you again next time for another session. Take care.
MisterWriter
Certainly it is a victorious day – the mastermind of 9/11 Osama Bin Laden, shot in the head by Navy Seals inside Pakistan ending a decade long hunt that has come at a heavy toll. For while we celebrate the death of evil in that form, we should not be so quick to forget that we indirectly helped create the man through our financing of the Afghan Resistance during 1979-89 in the war against the Soviet expansion and the threat of communism. It was the US and the Saudis who financed the resistance of whom Osama was a key player through the Pakistani Military Intelligence. And it was Osama’s hatred of the atheist Soviets and later of America, especially through our involvement in the Gulf War that cemented his extremist 
push for a Fundamentalist Islamic regime that would deal with the oppressors (us.)
There are many questions that need to be answered, most predominant is why Pakistan knew nothing of this stronghold mansion that had been built 5 years ago, reportedly for Bin Laden, despite the fact that the US sends Pakistan a lot of financial aid. And there he was in a city that housed ex-military officials all hiding out, burning their trash rather than allowing it to be taken, a little commune of people that Pakistan should have long ago flushed out.
And what of our tendency to export arms as a commerce transaction? To aid in an ally in need of weapons. “Sell them our old crap and make a profit” has been the credo, and yet at some point, especially where the Middle East is concerned, it comes back where we have to attack our own old arsenal. Or defend against our old missile technology. 
Why are we supplying anyone in that region anything military that actually works? At the least we should ensure the stuff just does not work properly. Or better yet, include a failsafe that it can never be used against us.
Made in America is a special that Diane Sawyer did last year for ABC, and which has popped up again in the round of crap emails that good friends seem to get off on sending to each other. In her special she took a typical American home and removed anything that was not made in the USA. It left very little – the kitchen sink and the toilet. And he premise was why we allow ourselves to pillaged by the proliferation of 
foreign goods in order to save a buck when what we are really doing is screwing America out of jobs? Of course, Diane Sawyer did not phrase it as tactfully as I just did, but the point remains a valid one. We are all talk about American Made and honestly, these days, with the average student barely literate in a global sense and our debt load owned by the Chinese, from whom we buy most of the stuff, what exactly is the turning point at which we say “Enough is enough?”
Our need for oil has us vested in the Middle East which,without all those oil dollars would be one big dust storm embracing poverty. instead we have fueled their existence through our oil addiction and pretend that they like us, even while factions plot our demise. The spread of Islam itself is no worse than the spread of Christianity; both religions have had their periods of bloodbaths and creative geniuses. But what stems as a view of Americans as the cause of all pestilence for the Islamic world results in a very huge population of people who would be quite eager to see a world without an America, or one under Islamic control. And we foster this through our continued dependence on oil that has us defending swatches of land we otherwise have no use for at all. Trust me – Afghanistan will never have a Disneyland build there – it is not a vacation spot no matter how much we defend it. Take Diane Sawyer’s MADE IN AMERICA quiz to see if you can identify products made here. You may be surprised. CLICK HERE.
So as far as world peace, economic stability, American strength and a future we can be proud of it seems easy enough to say BUY AMERICAN and break that addiction.
Of course, you would have to unload that car, that mobile phone, dvd player, laptop and Wii console and wait patiently through the pain of our own industry trying to recapture things that we did originally invent. Let’s take back those customer service jobs that are routed to New Delhi and let’s put our kids to work instead of letting them gather like thugs after school, dealing drugs, fighting, and making babies they cannot afford. Let’s look at legislation designed to build America, not delay America. All those rich people we love to complain about who would now have the opportunity to become even wealthier by investing in the same infrastructure their forbears did – power, transportation, automotive. Where is that future where we have flying cars and cheap fuels?
The only thing holding it back is big oil still making billions in profits no matter what happens. Gasoline at an all time high and expected to keep rising and the oil companies are raking in the profits. Are you feeling screwed yet? You should be. That comes from our own shores in the form of corporate greed.
And while they are raking in profits there is no need for a viable alternative to compete with oil.
The irony is that the Middle East has been at war since Biblical Times. We keep getting in the way of them finishing the job. Broker peace here. Accord there. And we look…. stupid. And all we get is enmity, fanatics that believe to die killing an American sends them to a virgin infested heaven where they will enjoy a few hundred thousand years, and we stand there with our military might and blow everything up while they throw their women and children in our path and call it a massacre. And we are in Iraq still, Afghanistan, and Heaven help us if we have to get involved in a Korean conflict, or somewhere else.
Yes, it is very important in the cycle of the tragedy that was 9/11, that not only marked a major hit on our own soil, but as a major demoralization that America may have lost its edge, slowly sinking in the mire of debt and fast getting outpaced by China as the leading economic power of the world. It has been one long decade that has had more negative notations than reasons to shine. With his well planned and executed kill order, President Obama did the country a service by scoring one for the world to see, and a big one that will hold value for some time. And while there may still be the #2 guy still out there potentially able to take over Bin Laden’s title, it is no longer their game rules, and no longer their strength that prevails.
What we have to now do is redefine our role as an independent nation, one where national pride and hard work can become the mainstay of our lives, and take back the role we had not so long ago. And yet that will prove harder to do than finally put a bullet in a terrorist ten years after he hurt us.
MisterWriter
