A friend of mine admitted herself to the psychiatric ward of a local hospital.
She is severely depressed over a recent breakup and was afraid that she would attempt to harm herself; she has a history of attempted suicide. We visited her about 12 hours after she was admitted, and she seems to be doing much better. I am very, very glad that she took this step, and I know it was a scary thing for her to do. It's all too easy to collapse into yourself when you're in the grips of serious depression. It's like mental hydrophobia -- the things that will help you are the last things you're inclined to do; the most harmful actions seem most appealing.
My housemate /jen works at the hospital where the friend was admitted. She later told me of a related incident. A man came into the hospital and approached the information desk; he said something like "Can you tell me where the psych ward is? I need to check myself in." The on-duty nurse politely directed him up to the third floor. But while the man and his companions were waiting at the elevator, a nurses assistant, who was on break nearby, openly mocked him to her friends: "Hi! I've gone crazy, and I need to go to the nuthouse!"
The guy wasn't even close to being out of earshot. /jen said one of the nurses called the assistant on the carpet for her utterly callous and totally inappropriate comments ... but damn. What kind of a jackass do you have to be to think that mocking anyone's condition is an appropriate way for a caregiver to behave in his or her workplace? How is ridicule supposed to encourage people to seek treatment?
It makes me sad that hospitals are so hard up for nursing help that disrespectful, irresponsible, uncaring people like that can still keep their jobs ... while meanwhile far more competent, humane folks in other sectors remain unemployed in this frigid job market.
On a probably-unrelated note, Braunbeck shaved off all his hair right down to the scalp today.
This is much cause for household astonishment, because he's had long, curly hair for over 20 years and until now has steadfastly refused to even get it cut short. Also, it's very, very cold out, and not exactly baldness weather.
I think he was concerned about having anything but a long, shaggy 'do because he was in a pretty bad automobile wreck when he was a teenager and received head lacerations. He was afraid he had a lumpy, misshapen skull or lots of scars.
As it turns out, his skull is nicely shaped and quite symmetrical, and the only scar he's got left was already visible on his forehead.
So, if you see him, be sure to openly admire the curve of his cranium, the gleam of his scalp. Bald men are teh sexxxy, and he needs to be reminded of this ....
Highlander
He came to the party. I found myself sitting on the back porch trying to plan an escape for when things got hectic. I lit a cigrette and cooked the eye that was staring down at it. Shit. That fucking hurt.
So... How did I get in this mess? Well the answer, inevitably, don't date people. I used to think there was a clause to that sentence: Don't date people who...
-have boyfriends in jail. -procreated more than once. -lift weights.
No, and no again, I understand that there is no novel long enough to secure that sentence.
They call him Highlander, and everyone was telling me to hide. He thinks I like his girlfriend, but let me tell you how joyous I was the day I boke it off with her. He should be thanking me for freeing her up. But rationality must never have been mastered by his particular species. After I came back in, he walked in the room and grabbed a bottle of rum off the table.
"Guess whoever's this was is hit. Oh yeah, and you're gonna fuckin' die little man." He points to me, in case anyone was confused, and storms off to find his "bitch".
The hottest girl in the room looked up from her game of pool and said, "That guy's scary."
Yes, Michelle, that guy is scary to big tall street people like me, nevermind tight little vixens with beautiful voices. He came back in after a minute. He had his tree climbing ninja claw on backwards(spikes out) and carried a sword behind his back.
"I don't know why you're still in the room." He put his hand on the edge of the table and used the claw to steady his blade. He took a shot at the eight ball and turned away from my corner.
People probably thought that he gave me the mark under my eye. Now I knew they were afraid to ask. I left. Michelle followed me.
"You need a ride?" she asked.
"Sure."
In the driveway a stranger came out of the shadows.
"Hey! You the guy Highlander's tryin to kill?"
It was Kevin. Oh thank Christ. It was Didn't-we-grow-up-together Kevin. Thank the football playing gods of bodygaurds, Kevin is HUGE. Huge like Rhino!!! He's Now-I-can-stay-and-party-cuz-this-huge-guy-got-my-back huge.
"Shit man, it's me, Shane."
"What?! Shane? Yo, Highlander's my buddy. Lemme talk to him for ya'."
It's my birthday again. Always seems to happen around this time of the year.
I'm getting older, hopefully wiser, and definately more cynical, which is a bad thing. Of course, I've got my children to remind me of the important things.
"So, Dad, why do people make such a big deal about having money?"
"Well...", I paused, trying to put the worries of food, clothing and shelter into terms a seven year old could understand, "...money makes the world go 'round."
"But Dad, Love makes the world go around!"
Thank you son, for reminding me of that which I have tried to teach you.
One of the great guiding principles in the founding of the democratic society we live in today, is that a sufficiently educated populace is capable of governing itself.
Education for everyone was deemed essential by Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Lee and others, because only with knowledge can tyranny be overcome. In the 18th century, that "tyranny" was British rule in the New World.
Osama bin Laden is, by all accounts, a highly educated man. A man who views the world through a bias set by his personal religious beliefs. This does not make him a "madman" or an "evil" man, it makes him a man who sees us differently than we see ourselves. It makes him a man that most of us, have no context within which to understand his actions.
a CAUTIONARY Note here:
I do not condone or in any way agree with Osama bin Laden's lack of tolerance for other people. In fact I find him reprehensible beyond any society's ability to tolerate. He does deserve to be held accountable for his actions, because he has not taken any action without full understanding of the consequences for his "enemies" and has no respect for anyone's rights beyond the strict interpretation of Islam.
Making use of the vast amount of information now available to me through all media, I have absorbed the pros, cons, opinions, analysis and vitriolic statements from all sides ...and have formed my own "educated" opinion. The process has been long and the results are complex in their derivation. I am not sure that I can provide a direct logical line of reasoning for any of my thoughts.
Islam is not a "religion" like Catholicism. It is not being a Baptist, or a good member of The Church of Christ. Islam is a life encompassing religious based philosophy that dictates every action, reaction, decision and point of moral tolerance, in the life of those who adhere to it. Osama's actions are about Islam. Bush's (our) reaction is about retribution. Bush's (our) further actions are about energy. Bush's (our) actions beyond Afghanistan are about fear. Bush's (our) actions toward Saddam are about energy. We have become, through the public actions of our leaders, the very tyrant we have been accused of being. An attack on Saddam is NOT an attack on Osama ...in fact it may be just what Osama wants! Iraq's socialist dictatorship is not the Islam he supports, and he only fights us instead of Saddam because he perceives us as the larger threat. He fought the Russians in Afghanistan for the same reason; their incursion into that country represented a large threat to Islam. Osama is intelligent enough to know how to use his enemies against one another. A war against Iraq is a "no win" situation and has no basis in any tolerant morality. Perhaps we should be recruiting Saddam to use his armies and his non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" to help us quell the threat to the world, represented by Osama. Bush's (our) actions in the Middle East, are about Islam.
"We fight to defend our way of life".
Just because we consider religion to be a non-government issue, does not mean that anyone else in the world does. The New World is in fact one of, if not the first place where such an arrangement was even considered, much less implemented.
Is it right for everyone? Our immigration figures would suggest it is part of a pretty attractive package.
Is it right for us to impose it upon others? Is it right for us to pollute another culture by ignoring the differences in our systems? or refusing to consider that our way of life might not be what everyone else wants? Have we in fact, attacked Islam in ignorance?
This saber rattling against Saddam will go bad for us. Many will die ...including some of us. This may be the moment it all spins out of control...
I don't know what to do.
I was safer in my ignorance.
An attack against Saddam is an attack against a socialist dictator who rules his people with fear and military power. An attack against Iraq is an attack against Islam. Osama does not care whether we understand him or not. He fights for Islam. He will bring that battle to our streets if we continue our aggression against Islam.
If I have enough information to deduce and reason the sense of this ...the non-sense of this...
How am I to believe that our leaders remain ignorant to what they are really doing?
They cannot possibly be that right ...and righteousness is so unbecoming.
When will we be asked to disarm?
And who will do the asking?
i hate albuquerque. i hate gangstees. i hate forgetting my knife... because there are some days you only realise people are flammable after they flee.
so no shit, there i was, walking down the road, when suddenly this guy tries to rape me...runs up behind me, and in a totally ineffective moron-fu maneuver, grabs me by the boobs and the crotch...so i reached for my trusty jackknife, with a shout of "and now is the time on sprockets when we kill you in the face with death!" and then i realised i had no jackknife. ooh, pisspoor day to wear the other jacket. and the thought that goes through my head is: "great, i'm gonna get raped in a well-lit alley forty metres from my house. well, most accidents happen close to home..." so, feeling like an utter fool under my fifty pounds of backpack, but still standing, startlingly enough, i resort to the defense of the immovable object. i weigh close to two hundred pounds with my current assortment of gear and books, and i'm five foot one. i can be bent, spindled, and mutilated with the application of sufficient kung-fu, but unless i want to move, or you hit me with a tank, i'm not going anywhere. and, so firmly affixed, i unleash a gory yell for help that turns my skin a fairer shade of pale...
and he leaps back and runs like a man chased by the immortal legions of hell, which if my brother had been home, he might have been...
and nothing happens. not a ding in the calm of the urban night. i shit you not. i stand in the cold, immediately in front of someone's front door, watching them watch tv through the blinds for five minutes while i speculate about summoning the boys in blue, before finally heading off to the mailbox, which i know damn well contains 128mb of ram, all for me. as i slink out of the alley, sprained back and all, i hear someone announce they're going to take out the trash, and i watch them do so, as i filter my mail. i am faintly astonished at the utter lack of response, once again proving that people suck, and yelling any number of things, 'help', 'rape', and 'get off me, fucker', among them, is an utterly useless exercise in inviting a sore throat.
for once i'm glad i'm the only one who noticed...
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