Giving my bud, Tuck, a break, my goal now is to TRY to assail YOU, Mr Mark Levin. Years ago I would listen to your show while killing time for a weekly drive to assist my elderly mother. Surprised? Well, I surely did. WHY? I needed to experience something more painful, more upsetting, more distressing than the last 5 hours. To some extent not unlike The Gate Theory for pain. Self-injurious cutting. Drinking whiskey straight up with an ulcer. Painful needing more painful. Mr Mark Levin, you are an educated bigot. A charlatan. An objectionable salesman. An impostor. A bully. You used to scare me. But that was then. Intimidate me. Badger me. Appall me. But now I just don’t care. You don’t matter. Your callousness is just plain mean. Your words no longer sting. Your ego is purely alarmist. Your beliefs are devoid of substance. Of HUMANITY. You resort to verbal, malignant, hyperbolized cartoon caricatures. You persecute and bludgeon. You do not belong with the likes of Anderson Cooper. Judy Woodruff. Christiane Amanpour. Lester Holt. Katie Couric. Hitting below the belt is yours and other SHOCK JOCK modus operandi. Are there comparable members of the other party that are an embarrassment to one’s sense of humanity? Therefore, it behooves me why and how you endure. Who would ever listen to you and come away with any sense of dignity. I just don’t ‘get it’!
Radio talk show hosts who lie like you bruise us all by dishonoring our democracy’s ongoing conversation. Such rants, of course, are standard fare on talk radio and on TV shows hosted by the likes of Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and their feverish emulators on other right-wing cable channels.
Why, Mr Levin, must you speak with the tenor of a lunatic experiencing road rage? How dare you howl at an absent Beto O’Rourke (“Nobody likes a weak man, Beto…Nobody likes a weak man like you.”). If only you were as respected and DIGNIFIED AS HE! Attacking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s looks is simply juvenile. Primitive. Underdeveloped. Quite frankly suspicious. Yet you DARE call Sen. Mitt Romney an “ass,” and Sen. Dick Blumenthal a “pathetic, loathsome liar.” O REALLY? If only you had the cultivation and sophistication of Rachel Maddow or Madam Speaker’s humanity -whom you consistently scorn. You are a pariah to all decent and honorable Americans. regardless of political party.
You characterize the media as “rarely capable of circumspection or improvement”. Yet, you are known to demonstrate the misunderstanding of the sources you quote. Is it because you do not notice or you choose to ignore humor, sarcasm or subtlety. You misread cues. And you do so raucously, as if all listeners are thugs. Your longstanding role as a merchant of questionable goods and vague controversial supplements rank you on par with believers of THE BIG LIE. Were you not also instrumental in spreading a conspiracy theory that publicized a left-wing plot to ship illegal immigrants to Florida interfere with voter demographics for future elections (although there is no evidence of this). A hateful action. SHAME ON YOU. You are a child. Grow up, Mr Levin. Sincerely, Pamela Barnes. PEASEREADTHIS🗽
The question of whether Trump acted within the scope of his duties as president when he denied E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in the mid-1990s will likely decide whether her defamation lawsuit – one of several legal clouds hanging over the 2024 White House candidate – moves forward.
It’s a terrible thing, you see, when you are second-guessed, mistrusted. Especially if your rape involves a powerful person and in a worldwide arena. Ms Carroll tried. And tried again. She is strong, resolute. But rape victims’ souls are durable. And Ms Carroll is tenacious and vigorous. Her spirit undaunted. She must be. Her testimony is graphic. Uncomfortable. It must be. Why? Because it is truthful. Her truths are considerable. Urgent. And truth can be dirty. Odorous. Messy. And Because she wants it. Really wants it. JUSTICE that is. JUSTICE FOR ALL WOMEN. And I thank her for her tenacity.
Both parties recently submitted Discovery Plans in New York. Ms Carroll asked the Courts for an April trial. Typically, Mr Trump’s calendar says never. No surprise there. Having spent years trying to avoid this lawsuit by evading process, claiming presidential immunity from civil suits and removing to federal court. Clearly, this man has no conscience; no sense of ethics. Sinking to the bottom even further, Mr Trump stated that defaming a woman as ‘too ugly to rape’ was part of his job as President. But Ms Carroll is about to TRY AGAIN. GO JEAN!
It is hard to forget how we felt during the Kavanaugh hearings; that ‘Kennedy cousin’ rape trial and the infamous Anita Hill debacle. Well, friends…Get ready to feel that way again! It’s Ms Carroll’s RAPE REDUX. And, as usual, with any allegation of impropriety, Mr Trump denies the crime. If THIS doesn’t inflame your sense of honesty, decency and humanity … stop reading and turn on Patriot Radio.
You will question my repetition and fervor, as I have written about this in subsequent blogs. It is never enough. Never. I cannot stop. And, I don’t blame you if you are thinking…’here she goes again’. You see there’s something about RAPE that tickles my devotions and greed. For I believe E. Jean Carroll implicitly. I feel it. RAPE HAPPENS. To anyone. In any place. By anyone. It may not always be violent. Violence need not be loud. And there’s something about that idiom, “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes” that rings true. So, at least try to read this. If not for E. Jean Carroll. For me.
You see, Ms Carroll filed a second complaint in December if this year, adding a claim for battery under the recently passed ADULT SURVIVORS ACT. In addition. another defamation count, since Mr Trump repeated the allegedly defamatory allegations in October. New York’s new law gives sex crime victims, who missed deadlines associated with statute of limitations, another chance to file a lawsuit. The time for such suits will open for one year. After that the usual time limits will be reinstated. Good for you, Ms Carroll. A WIN for you!
It WILL happen. The trial. And SHE WILL WIN – if not in the courts, in our hearts. Although this will prove to be so ugly that it will make the Depp-Heard trial look like a fairy tale. But for now, let’s just worry about solving the Rubik’s Cube Discovery order…One puzzle piece at a time!
Trump’s current attorneys said this week that they do not yet know whether they will represent him against the new allegations. Smart Men. Hopefully, he will retain more skilled professionals than those chosen for his criminal trial, who were CLEARLY inadequate. Nearly laughable. As I secluded myself under the warm and cozy brilliance of Congressman Raskin for Trump’s trial I found myself nearly giggling aloud at this farce costumed to be a defense? Perhaps even wads of Trump money (obtained partly due to tax evasion) does not lure the most clever defense teams. Maybe THEY FINALLY GET IT. The man is a liar. A cheater. A hoodlum. A criminal. A RAPIST. GO GET HIM, Ms Carroll. And yes, Jean…You don’t even have to say he’s ugly. PLEASEREADTHIS⚖️
The space between the extremes of rock bottom and every-now-and-again drinking: this is the grey area which can negatively impact lives. …Jolene Park
As in any grey area of life, grey area drinking can be nebulous. A territory with hazy boundaries that sits between moderate drinking and alcoholism. By definition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that moderate or social drinking is one cocktail or less for women in a day and two cocktails or less for men in a day. A study by Rand Corporation found that the numbers have doubled to tripled during the pandemic, not even mentioning the spike in alcohol consumption from Thanksgiving to Christmas/Hanukkah.
The term falls into this grey area because it doesn’t yet meet the medical definitions of alcoholism,” says Dr. Shah, chief of addiction medicine at Jersey Shore University Medical Center. “But I think that risk is there.” And, personally, I get it. And you should too. Statistics don’t lie. People do. The Journal of Addiction Medicine says drinking is on the rise nationwide. And, during COVID lockdowns, drinking among women rose by more than 50%. If the woman had a child under five, it went up more than 300%.
Society has unfortunately normalized problematic drinking. This makes it difficult to identify both for the person experiencing it and to anyone on the outside like friends, partners, or providers. If I were to question or discuss the alcohol consumption of my peers, I am confident that the majority would deny the title of ‘a grey area drinker’. Why? Most likely they are either simply unfamiliar with the term and refute its implications…or…craftily weasel a non-answer. This is NOT TO MEAN the cunning responders are alcoholics. Nooooo. It simply implies that knowledge of such terminology is foreign. Scary. Alien. Well, let’s further explore (succintly) the concept.
Grey Area Drinking may not cause problems right now. But it could. Daily late afternoon drinking while decompressing after work is common and not questioned. A mother with small children pouring a glass of wine while preparing dinner appears perfectly normal. That is, one or two glasses. However a bottle or more? Dangerous. Clearly precarious for many reasons, including the effect on one’s health and well-being. Where do you stop? Yet grey area drinkers can and do stop drinking. That’s very characteristic. They stop frequently and then start again with the intention of limiting intake. And, often wake the next morning and say, “I can’t keep drinking like this”. This occurs again and again. Why? Most likely because, being a grey area drinker, they have THE AWARENESS that excess is simply and frighteningly one more glass away. But this is fleeting. No one has EVER IMPLIED THAT THEY DRINK TOO MUCH. NO INTERVENTIONS IN SIGHT. And so after the grocery store, a visit to a liquor store is routine. “All my friends drink a glass or two at dinner time”. And personally I see it constantly. I, in fact, had a ‘spree’ not too long ago with Amaretto cocktails. Shamefully and honestly, I was imbibing 4-5 cocktails a night! A Spree? A Bender? I finally discovered a cocktail that I LOVED. But I needed a self-imposed drinking hiatus. Not being much of a drinker before my amaretto lust, it was easy (kinda) for me to stop. I had no insight into this behavior but I was getting sneaky and foxy with my consumption. I sensed it was excessive. And if I didn’t develop serious gastric medical sequelae today, my alcohol consumption would continue until… who knows? I now am told that alcohol consumption is detrimental to my gut…Doctor’s orders. I auspiciously now drink very little. And never at home. I am lucky. I had NO choice.
In closing, it is noted by researchers in the field that Grey Area Drinking is NOT about the amount of alcohol that matters, but rather the person’s view of alcohol. If someone is only drinking three nights a week, but they’re frequently thinking about when it’s time for a glass of wine every day – can be problematic. Or, if they’re just waiting until ‘cocktail hour’, with this activity occupying their thoughts and distracting them…this can also be disordered and need attention.
If you are unsure or question your drinking habits, please TALK TO SOMEONE – Your doctor or simply a good friend. NOW is the time-if the above sounds familiar, to address the issue. It is tough, but sure better than a fatty liver, gastric problems and worse. It does not mean you cannot drink alcohol-but changing your attitude and relationship with alcohol will be a healthier one. Cheers😜
We all do it. Rich and poor. Young and old. We surmise that self assembly of furniture IS A GOOD THING. Well, Martha. I. Think. Not. Does not the photo above remind YOU of AT LEAST one thwarting effort. You swear NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN. Yet the industry that has conditioned us to devote hours of our own labor to do things once done for us, all for the reward of a cheaper price, often fails at instructing us on how to perform the required assembly tasks. You hear ‘Pay for the damn assembly’ by your husband behind you as you crouch on the floor surrounded by tools (which took an entire day to find) and miscellaneous metal pieces. You could so easily slap him silly for this obvious comment. But you don’t. Your hands are full. You might kill him. You are sweating. Maybe cursing. Certainly not the person who merrily ordered the ‘Beautiful solid wood night stand’ that CLEARLY STATED…ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. You say… ‘I. Got. This’. Do you? You have a tool kit. Brains. You can read. You remain resolute. For now….
It is 11am. And we have all been there. You are diligently doing your best to follow directions from the phyllo paper pamphlets to successfully assemble a desk. A dresser. A bicycle. A children’s easel. Whether from IKEA or Amazon- something is amiss. The page numbers don’t follow! You can’t find the English version of directions! The photos are skeletal with no sign of any ‘wrench’ that is explicitly displayed as ‘a crucial’ part. Verbs are absent in the directions. So are nouns. Illustrations gaunt. Anorexic. Explanations abbreviated as if we all speak in riddles. You count and recount the nuts, bolts and screws. {not even mentioning the 2 extraneous hardware that resemble Chinese characters!). Not enough! The illustrations are very confusing, as if in Olde English. Misspelled words. Grammatical errors. No punctuation. [Hm… methinks this is not a local business]. It is nearly impossible to follow these perplexing and befuddling instructions! You become disoriented and unsettled. Cranky. You start grinding your teeth. Yet still you proceed. You decide to skip a step simply because you cannot find the corresponding piece.
By noon you ‘think’ see a shape forming. A mirage? A psychotic hallucination? You commence euphoric thoughts. ‘A new dresser- so much fun to fill’, or so you think. But! The first shelf looks slightly crooked. You jiggle it. Re-screw all. Still crooked. You shake it (maybe something will ‘fall into place’). You really want to stab it. Bludgeon it. Let the dingo take it. STOP! Positive thinking must ensue. You must start thinking that the next step will turn this Leaning Tower of Pisa into a charming nightstand. NOT!
You followed the directions as well as you can considering your disorientation. Your Phillip’s head screwdriver is stripped from trying too hard. (Stupid name for a tool anyway… is there a ‘Barnes’ hammer)? You’ve lost your glasses at one point in order to read the staccato diminutive ‘English’ directions. Did I discard them accidentally within the blizzard of styrofoam?
3:30. Voila! It is completed. It’s stylish. Modern. A bedside table. 2 drawers. Functional, even though one drawer does not open and it wobbles. A nice light pine wood. It is perfect. It is sensational. And I DID IT. But, wait. Why is there a considerable amount of surplus screws and nails strewn around the floor? And, wait again. Why can’t the top drawer open properly without a forceful pull? Did you miss a step? Where did you leave those instruction pamphlets? OH! I shredded them by hand as soon as it looked like a piece of furniture. Well, my house isn’t on the Spring Lake Holiday House Tour …. So it will do. I desperately need something…ANYTHING…bedside. A gal needs her comfort….
PART II. AFTER
Diagnosis: FAS: FURNITURE ASSEMBLY STRESS Care Plan: Meditation, Yoga, Keratin Hair Treatment, Xanax prn and Raymour & Flanagan. Ooops! And a Warby-Parker order.
Within an industry that has conditioned us to devote hours of our own labor to do things once done for us, all for the reward of a cheaper price, often fails at instructing us on how to perform the required assembly tasks, according to tech whirl.com. Research by a UK website that helps home owners seeking professional tradesmen found that 44 per cent of adults were unable to assemble flat pack furniture. Nebulous and unclear instructions were cited as common complaints. Most surprisingly, three-quarters of respondents would pay someone else to do the assembly for them.
That’s it. Had to address the issue. Personally I now only purchase assembled furniture. The thought of the word assembly evokes hives, having spent many a day {and night} crossed-legged on the floor, frustrated and beaten, immersed in foreign debris. Geeze, life is tricky enough.
Unforgettable. Unforgivable. These experiences can be traumatic and I truly think these experiences are indelibly branded in the ‘furniture construction’ part of your brain. Remember…’SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED’ is not a suggestive remark. It is the Bible. Good luck. Go to Macy’s.
Time to panic – again. And, as I reflect on my life, the words ‘things will never be the same’ spilled out of my mouth, nearly aloud, reminiscent of June 2012- my first bout of a life-altering disease. Stage 2 breast cancer. Firstly, naked panic would enter my being like the start of a foot race. Next, I became a warrior. In the end, I won the battle. That is, with a team of compassionate and skilled physicians and the love and support of family and friends.
How life can change in one second. Think about it. A misplaced glance. A step the wrong way. A wave that drags your board and body through an underwater tornado. A touch of one’s hand. It’s May now. A stunning morning. 7:45am. I am impressed with Gayle King’s spunky comments to Ms Conway. And while listening, I was checking out the tiny incision in my chest wall where a heart monitor was recently surgically implanted. And… I found it. What??? Something’s very wrong.
8:30am: I am writing my LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT! CANCER. A hard nodule in situ. The word itself is malignant. ANYTHING is less menacing. Fibromyalgia-who cares? Bunions-simple. Migraines-Duh! If only my symptoms encompassed too many bathroom trips. Nope! ANOTHER rubber-like stable and sturdy nodule… this time crouching in a place already baptized with toxic therapeutics. Maybe…it’s too close to my cardiac implant to capture Atrial Fibrillation to thrive. It will be killed by my implant!!! Tumors do not like Medtronic Loop Recorders! Right??? Just maybe a part of the implant got dislodged from the tiny computer, which [so happened] to be the size and shape of a frozen pee. C’mon….SHIT!
Now 10am. I start ironing, among hourly palpations, my white blouses. Many. Too many. Time to resort to my childhood into adulthood most successful coping mechanism. Wrinkles replaced with peace…with health. My tumor now is sore. Poor thing being mauled now every half hour. Uh oh! A worse prognosis! Yet! I feel brave. Resolute. At 11:21 I nearly vomit. Noon? Gagging. At 12:35 I think about my ‘living’ will. {Why is it called a ‘Will’ when your Will may be gone soon?}. At 2pm I made THE LIST – too depressing to enumerate here. By 3:00pm I resume ironing my 9th blouse. Collars saluting. Sleeves rigid. Button holes pounded flat with that hot domestic weapon. By 5:00pm, puffy face will recede, as I don the armor put away 10 years ago. It is dusty-nearly moldy. Used. Discarded. A Betty Broderick. Not wanted. However I knew better. It’s like finding you saved some ‘fat’ jeans. You are just brilliant for saving AND finding them. It was a matter of time… nearly DINNER TIME!
But first, it is time to tell David. Time to tell my Doctor. Time to stop ironing. Time to assume a tactical position. But it’s DINNERTIME. And just yesterday I wished my hardy appetite would evaporate. Today! Takeout Disco Fries. The Tesla of junk food. I devoured them. No! They devoured me. Too many. Too wet. Too salty. {BTW- these delectable bites are called ‘Poutine’ in Canada and considered a delicacy }. Too destructive. I am loving them. I lap them from my plate like a dog. No pauses. But I needed this supplication, albeit their lipidous (word?) intentions. Did they help? You bet they did. And now – it is time to ‘square’ it. Time to talk. Time to cry and follow the protocol from exactly 10 years ago. I can do this! I have already done this.
Well…let’s bounce to December. Same year. I have been writing, but not posting. It has been a difficult time for my family: the prolonged and premature death of a beloved family member/a broken shoulder/COVID/Shingles/ankle injury/digestive problems. And more…
As it turned out, the breast lumps were diagnosed as some creepy growths trying to overcome my implanted Loop Recorder for my heart. Not Cancer. I dodged that one. I expect to live. Panic averted. That is…. Until my next health challenge. BEING OLD SUCKS. I now have 7 doctors in my life. Medications to take every 4 hours. Too many medications. But necessary. Non-compliance not a choice. I must end now. Time for my second Dicyclomine. CHEERS🥂.
Cruz, Graham, Cornyn, Hawley, Blackburn, etc, etc…don’t make me go ‘back there’! This is a blog, not a column in POLITICO. And I shall treat it as that. So…if I sound MAD, it’s because I am. If I sound naive, it’s because I am. If I sound sophomoric, it’s because I am. But what the hell. I read NUMEROUS scholarly articles these past two weeks. Originalism. Textualism. Bork. Gorsuch. ‘Friends of Abe’. Tea Party Caucus. Federalist Society. Too much. A blur. It means I did my homework (but the dog ate it!). So there. And, I came away chafed. Incensed. As even the MOST intellectual venues hinted, if not equated, these proceedings as a BIGTOP spectacle. A consortium of bipartisan politicians -half of whom do not know the meaning of respect nor dignity.
You see the ‘war’ here is not between ‘good’ vs ‘evil’. Yes, there IS evil, but evil to me implies the devil. And, the devil implies a spiritual flavor in a recipe that belongs in a kitchen, not a courtroom. You think my gastronomic analogy odd? Well, the pure evil of the Anthony Hopkins’ character and HIS intimate blue plate special flew into my brain just now and….NO! I won’t! Another time… Another blog when I can hone my writing skills so as not to included in an episode of DATELINE: Bloggers Indicted. Consider yourself lucky, Mr Cruz et al. Your time WILL COME; just not now. My wounds still bleeding.
Simple. Clear. Fair. Prudent. Smart. So what’s the fuss? Three rings here: critical race stuff, ‘woman’ stuff, pedophilia stuff. Stuff. That’s all it was. Stuff. Meritless acrobatics in an arena that was more a hippodrome of over-dramatized nonsensical rhetoric than an honorable proceeding. Yet I watched every sacred second. It was an honor. A privilege. And I cringed. Screamed profanities. Cried. Two days of HEAVEN/HELL. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH was mistakenly seen around the world for the wrong reason. However, The Ringling Brothers were proud. Little did they know they were featured on C-SPAN, PBS, CBS in prime daytime. Lions, elephants, acrobats and many clowns delighted those who know no more than how to TRY to ruin HISTORY IN THE MAKING.
“In my capacity as a justice, I would do what I’ve done for the past decade,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said Wednesday during questioning…”which is to rule from a position of neutrality, to look carefully at the facts and … to render rulings that I believe and that I hope that people would have confidence in.” That IS her ‘Methodology’, and if pressed, her ‘Philosophy’, although semantically Not HER choice.
Dutifully, I must say that judge Jackson should be not be blindly accepted as the new Supreme Court Justice …. HOWEVER, this lovely learned lady should not have had to endured the senseless target practice by disgruntled GOP archers during her nomination hearings. Was it that she’s Black? A women? Both having long been subjected to subordination in the public and professional arenas. And, most notably, in the confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court. I mean…”Anti-Racist Baby”? (Pardon my rumination)
Ok. Some dry background. Mostly obvious. For smooth, bipartisan confirmations are clearly a thing of the past. Political parties are ideologically polarized. Hyperpartisan. Courts have taken on core social, economic, and political questions, where each party’s declarations focus mostly on who sits on the bench. Most notably, the Supreme Court’s. Ferocious and antagonistic elections and a increase in partisan ‘team play’ have emboldened both parties to utilize judicial appointments to rally elections support. Last year, only three Republicans supported Jackson’s elevation to the D.C. Circuit’s Court of Appeals, and only a handful of them have supported any Biden appellate court nominees.
As we recently and clearly witnessed-charges by GOP ‘pundits’ directed at her two years as a public defender stating this tenure made her ‘soft on crime’ and a hero of the Democrats’ ‘radical left’. Cruz dubbed her a proponent of Critical Race Theory (of which I sincerely doubt his exact knowledge of its true roots and meaning). What?!?! Because of her Harvard education, ties as a distinguished alumnae (as is he) AND the fact that she happens to be BLACK – make her an author of The 1619 Project? Hmmm… now I am NO political strategist, yet conspicuously it is these preposterous and comical platforms that were clearly performed for these GOP conservatives eager to maneuver for their presidential ambitions. It was clear that Democrat majority on the court is secure and Republicans, being in the minority in the Senate, so there’s an argument to be made that the party stands to gain more from demonstrating bipartisanship than what we witnessed last month. And for what? A fight they will lose. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson WILL be confirmed. As presidential elections are progressively hyper-partisan in recent decades, it is obvious that the so-called ‘apolitical’ Supreme Court jumped onto the bandwagon. And although self-evident, I delight in the outcome. Oh! And my copy of ANTI-RACIST BABY is back-ordered on Amazon. Thank you Mr Cruz for this …. Thinking an Oprah Book Club contender? PLEASEREADTHIS🗽
Better off you fantasize Mark Knopler’s genius lead guitar and song writing skills to preface this idiosyncratic blog- much easier to swallow. For I, if you have read any of my pieces, am a CRIMEÈ. I watch trials in COURT TV from, years ago, the OJ Slaughter, until today’s repetition of Mr Reeve’s acquittal. This keeps me sane. Why? It makes nonsense nonsensical. Truth questionable. Justice unfair. That’s life. That’s what makes it all crazy-and isn’t is all CRAZY???? I mean. It is OK TO KILL someone because HE WAS MAD. REAL MAD. NOT SCARED. He said he was never so scared. WHAT??? A SWAT COP for years? The MAN is LYING. DERANGED. No one can convince me Mr Reeves was’ scared for his life’. The jury ‘fell for it’! I mean…. A BIG six foot ex cop NOT SUFFERING FROM ANYTHING OTHER THAN OSTEO-ARTHRITIS gets acquitted of a guy pissed at him for being an old fart… ‘scares’ him by tossing popcorn – then gets SHOT IN THE FACE. DEAD. The jury so understood his daughter’s words… her “Dad”. We had one. Did (most of them) shoot a fella IN THE FACE?? I. Think. Not. And the political reasoning as fucked up as the moral. O! Th his is Florida, AND I can stand wherever I want.
How can you not get involved! This is LIVE TV. WHAT. THE. FUCK. I am sick. So sick. Kyle made me sick. Mr Martin. Mr Durst. Goes on and in. But! SICK. IS. GOOD. Keeps me realizing what life means. It’s really about what people PERCEIVE. ITS RANDOM. NONSENSICAL. And, change comes about only by, at the least, and in my realm, by writing. Feels right. Fair. PLEASEREADTHIS🗽
‘People with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other civilians approached or stopped by law enforcement’, according to TREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER. And…
FACTS:
In 44 states, a jail or prison holds more mentally ill individuals than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital.
Individuals with psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are 10 times more likely to be in a jail or prison than a hospital bed.
Mentally ill inmates remain in jail longer than other inmates.
In Florida’s Orange County Jail, the average stay for all inmates is 26 days; for mentally ill inmates, it is 51 days. In New York’s Riker’s Island, the average stay for all inmates is 42 days; for mentally ill inmates, it is 215 days.
Mentally ill inmates establish behavioral management problems that result in their isolation, sequestrationand exacerbation of serious symptoms.
Due to impaired thinking, inmates with serious mental illnesses can present possibly harmful behavioral problems, contributing to their heavy over-representation in prisons and in solitary confinement. In Wisconsin, for example, a 2018 audit of three state prisons reported that “between 55% and 76% of inmates in segregation [isolation] are mentally ill”. Really?
The WHY
Over fifty years of ineffective mental health policy have placed law enforcement on the front lines of mental illness crisis response and turned jails and prisons into the new asylums. Deinstitutionalization, old and unlikely treatment laws demanding a person become violent before intervention, discriminatory prejudiced Medicaid funding practices as well as the breakdown by states in the funding of their mental health systems drive those in need of care into the criminal justice and corrections systems, instead of the health system where they belong. So! Should this surprise us that people with untreated mental illness are greatly overrepresented in deadly encounters with law enforcement! Individuals with untreated mental illness are vastly overrepresented in every corner of the criminal justice system! Only when we are able to reform prison policies that have abandoned them will these tragic outcomes begin to dissipate.
Serious mental illness has become so prevalent in the US corrections system that jails and prisons are now commonly called “the new asylums.” In point of fact, the Los Angeles County Jail, Chicago’s Cook County Jail, or New York’s Riker’s Island Jail each hold more mentally ill inmates than any remaining psychiatric hospital in the United States. Overall, approximately 20% of inmates in jails and 15% of inmates in state prisons are now estimated to have a serious mental illness. Based on the total inmate population, this means approximately 383,000 individuals with severe psychiatric disease were behind bars in the United States in 2014 or nearly 10 times the number of patients remaining in the nation’s state hospitals.
The criminal justice system was created to identify, incarcerate, and rehabilitate men and women that have broken the law. However, over two million people with mental illnesses are placed into jails every year. The lack of proper psychological evaluation and diagnosis coupled with misunderstood evidence and economic hardship has produced a system that treats these men and women as criminals rather than someone suffering from an illness. When an individual with mental health issues comes into contact with the criminal justice system they are often improperly evaluated by first responders, wrongfully convicted, and inappropriately sentenced. The lack of proper psychological evaluation and diagnosis, coupled with misunderstood evidence and economic hardship, has produced a system that treats these men and women as criminals rather than individuals suffering from illness. The criminal justice systems, and its designated officials, are typically undereducated in the implications and cognitive processes of someone who has a mental illness. They are not trained to understand that, due to a medical condition, the “criminal” may have an altered perception of rules and social norms that does not fit within the typical guidelines of the system. And, most of these individuals are infrequently offered mental health evaluations and thus isolated from both staff and other inmates, causing them to become even more distressed, irritated and symptomatic.
What we can do
So how should we respond to these facts − as members of society, or as people like me who have and continue to provide care for people with mental illness? Most importantly, NOT with fear. Most people with mental illness present no increased risk to others. There is a heightened risk of violence with one specific mental illness if it reaches a critical point; that is, during the acute phase of a psychotic illness. But these symptoms can often respond to understanding and therapeutic intervention. Proper psychiatric assistance should be readily available for people with a psychosis. Mental Healthcare planning and support can let people with psychosis and their families to pre-plan for symptoms and get the proper care and support EARLY, before police involvement. Well resourced, sensitive and responsive services and policies of social inclusion are the strategies that will improve outcomes for people with psychotic illness, reduce symptoms and thereby make society safer.
Should they enter the correctional system,…three responsibilities must incur…
Screen for mental health problems and distress, as many people are reluctant and too ill to come forward.
Offer mental health care that is appropriate to their needs and support them through their incarceration.
Actively, and in a timely manner. plan for supporting the person during their process of release and re-integration into society.
Who? Too many…
It is too painful to choose Adam Lanza in my discussion. Too many factors. Besides… he’s dead. Anticlimactic. I am too cowardly to approach his case…
However, if you, like myself, are a crime junkie, you may [or may not] admit to a multi-hour daily visit to COURTTVdom. It consumes me, as it should. A privilege I enjoy daily. A miracle. [I still feel the anger and abandonment during those NOCOURTTV days]. If you seek justice for the innocent, seek fairness for ALL…and have a love of the law …no need to beg understanding. I did my Kyle thing…. A good piece. A bad outcome. Difference? Mr Rittenhouse was never diagnosed with a mental defect! [only a racist brat] HOWEVER…What about the Travis Reinking case? Mr Reinking clearly told therapist after therapist that he suffers fro delusional thing with an absurd fixation on Taylor Swift … these forces, in turn, also told him to commit the WAFFLE HOUSE MURDERS.
The David Berkowitzs’? Better known as the “Son of Sam”, he killed six people in NYC in the 1970s claiming that his neighbor’s dog had told him to do it. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by several forensic psychiatrists.
James Eagan Holmes recently on trial for the 2012 “Batman murders” in Aurora, has been diagnosed with schizophrenia by 20 doctors. Numerous hospitalizations document HIS powerful struggle against SCHIZOPHRENIA He murdered 12 persons and is serving 12 counts of First Degree Murder in a high-security prison in Pennsylvania..
In short, Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness causing changes in the structure of the brain. Auditory and visual hallucinations are frequent along with delusional thinking and a powerful lack of judgement. Today, drugs can help many schizophrenics control their symptoms.
Cecil Clayton was executed on March 17, 2015, in Missouri. He was a 74 year old man suffering from dementia, the IQ of 71, making him classified as having a mental defect. Cecil was missing a significant part of his brain due to a sawmill injury which removed about 20% of his frontal lobe, responsible for impulse control. In latter years, with Cecil’s aggressive behaviors increasing, they become responsible for his killing of a man. His attorneys insisted he should be spared because he did not understand the punishment to be assigned. He was executed via lethal injection.
Jared Lee Loughner is an American mass murderer who pled guilty to 19 charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with the 2011 massacre in which he shot and severely injured and killed six people, including Rep Gaby Giffords and US DISTRICT COURT JUDGE John Roll.
In September 2010 because of his bizarre and disruptive behaviors in classes he was suspended from his College. Soon followed law enforcement arrests. After two medical evaluations diagnosed Loughner with PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA , ruled him incompetent to stand trial. He was placed on medication while in jail, as part of his treatment. In August 2012, Loughner was judged competent to stand trial, and at the hearing, he pleaded guilty to 19 counts. In November 2012, he was sentenced to life plus 140 years in federal prison.
Is there something WRONG here? If you had Parkinson’s Disease and accidentally knocked over a hot cup of coffee on a patron due to your tremors…. Could you go to prison? Absurd! If you had Tourette’s Syndrome and kept loudly ranting utterances in the middle of a dramatic Shakespearean play…. Would you be arrested for ‘Disturbing the Peace’. Of course not… Why do we continue to view mental illness as so different from other afflictions? I am not stupid. I clearly realize the indigenous problems inherent here. Asthmatics don’t kill. Diabetics don’t push people onto subway platforms. That’s the rub! And! That’s what makes this topic so nonsensical, arbitrary and, of course, controversial. I must go now. More to come. I gotta think.
PEASEREADTHIS 