Give Us Your Poor, Your Weak, Your Feeble-Minded -- We Have Just The Place For Them

Like many people, I'm fascinated by abandoned insane asylums.  Unlike many, I want to know the deepest histories of them.  I want to know why.


When you look at the beginnings of what would eventually become a horror-show of abuse and murder, you find the finest of intentions.  You see what humans can do for each other, before you see what they do to each other.


Each asylum that I've researched started out with noble design.  Those huge "scary" buildings were constructed to house, protect, heal, and teach.  Most of them included features found now in luxury resorts:  pools, saunas, gardens, tennis courts, libraries... The amenities were calculated to engage body and mind, and the medical models drove care that should have brought comfort, even if the patient could never be truly healed and recovered.


So what went wrong?


Committees. 


Men rendered faceless by their presence around a table, sharing responsibility so that none shouldered any blame.


They cut budgets, proclaimed treatment options too expensive, and congratulated each other for the savings.  They allowed increasing populations while decreasing funding.  They turned what could have been a cocoon of protection into a straitjacket.


And when the horrors were revealed, they denied knowledge.  That is believed because they had not one bit of actual awareness of the conditions, since they never visited or even communicated with the facilities they purportedly oversaw.  Why would they?  All they were concerned with was the budget.


Committees are man's way of controlling without responsibility.


Because the idealistic dreams of mental health experts were ground beneath the heels of anonymous bureaucrats, asylums are closed.


That leaves us with people who have no home, no protection, no hope.  They also are overseen by ... nobody.  They are nobody's problem, and everybody's problem.


Could we, at this time and with our current "advanced understanding," bring back to life the idealistic centers of care?


No.


Because we are no more advanced than we were 100, 75, 50 years ago.  I know that.  Shining buildings of glass and steel, rather than stone, could be built, clean lines and soothing colors, ambitious compassionate teams assembled, mission statements developed and binder after binder of policies and procedures printed, patient-based care plans implemented, and still, within five years, the slide would begin.  It's unavoidable.  Because every Tuesday, people would sit around a table to discuss the budget.  Or every fourth Tuesday, or quarterly.  A representative of that table would sit at another table for each interdisciplinary meeting, analyzing the plan of care, the interventions, the cost.


Bonuses would start for cutting costs, for increasing census, for "right-sizing" staffing.


No, we have learned nothing from the past, because we are not forced to learn.  The blame has always been placed on the direct caregivers, the providers, and never on the reasons behind the short staffing and decrease in care provided.


And the committee members moved on to other committees.

PTSD Now Covers Deep Disappointment

I do try to avoid the news, but sometimes I get bits of it while waiting for weather.


Yesterday, a very, very young man (although I'm probably being insensitive for assuming its gender) was bemoaning the SCOTUS rejection of hearing the case for open bathrooms.  "My heart hurts for all the trans students who are living in fear!" it wept.


Why? 


I know, they'll all be crowding the counseling offices to weep and shake and curl up into balls over this disappointment.  More than one will drop out of college and go back to their childhood bedrooms, pull the blankets up, and go on PTSD disability.


I'm laughing.


I have PTSD.  From being raped.  Constantly, age 3 to age 17.  And I function.  I do not expect people to tiptoe around me, I do not expect all men to apologize, and I do not expect everything in life to go my way.


And I have no sympathy for these fake-disorder crybabies.


That's all for now.  Just... grow up.  Life isn't elementary school, where your feelings are spared and you get awards for breathing.  And, increasingly, get special treatment for deciding your preferences before you even develop secondary sexual characteristics.

Take THAT, You Dirty Trump-Lover!

I was watching the channel Viceland, for a show about abandoned places.  Love those things.


And they ran a short.... commercial? ... tagging one older man as "Vincent  Father In Law" and another younger man as "[can't remember] Son In Law."  Vincent apparently committed the heinous crime of supporting Trump during the campaigns, and he talked about how his SIL would shout at him, so he would leave his own house during times his daughter, granddaughter, and son in law visited, just to avoid arguments.


When Trump won the election, the son in law laid down the law.  His wife and daughter would never see Vincent for as long as Trump held office, or anyone SIL disapproved of, for that matter.  SIL moaned about "Thanksgiving being lonely" because he would not go to Vincent's home for the holiday -- this also meant, of course, that he would not allow his wife to see her own father.


So much for women's rights, there, SIL.


Vincent, on his camera, was in tears.  "I don't care about the elections.  I just want to see my daughter and granddaughter!"  I guess old Vincent learned his lesson, right?  Vote correctly, or pay the price.

The Pit and the Pendulum -- Well, At Least the Pendulum

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away...


Well, not so long ago, in our own galaxy...


The sitting President was burned in effigy, had shoes thrown at him, and was compared to Hitler.  "He's not MY President!" graced many automobiles.


The Pendulum swung back, and someone his supporters considered totally different, their savior, their Hope and Change, got in the White House.  Said supporters were... less than gracious in their victory.  Chortles of "You lost, get over it!" issued from every throat.  They hurriedly scraped the bumper-stickers off their cars.


But he was no different.  Still blew people up, still started and expanded wars.  But here, his particular brand of venom deepened the conflict among us.  But his people stayed strong, because, though he was a wealthy criminal, he was their wealthy criminal.


And the other half rose, as his supporters rose in 2008, and elected our current sitting President.


Now the other half smiles and says, "You lost, get over it."


Oh, that does not sit well at all.  Not at all.


So, emboldened by the culture of "burn it all down" created by the last President, protests light up the night.

They didn't get their way, so they stomp and say they want him OUT.  Good Lord, who cares?!


They are so bratty, so incredibly spoiled, that they think they can drive a President out of office.  If they can, I would say that the country is finished.


Now, as history (which they do not understand) has shown us, the pendulum will swing back in four to eight years.  Given the trend, the next President may very well be the last President of the United States.


And that would not be a bad thing, really.


Me, I'm stocking up on popcorn.  I'm enjoying the pain their own immaturity is causing them.  I personally really, really hope Trump takes a sledgehammer to everything they hold dear, and I won't even care if he continues the trend of shredding "our rights."  The last two did enough. he might as well complete the process.


I hate them all.  All three of the Presidents, and all of the crybabies.  This is Karma writ large.

Gettin' Serious

It's been a long time, much longer than I realized.


So let's get back on track, shall we?  I've been missin' all the spewing of darkness.


I've created a schedule for my blogs, and will be posting here on Mondays and Thursdays.  Stay tuned for my own special brand of saying what people only think.


And I don't give a shit about Trump. I think it's Karma on our country, but I'm certain I'll have a few things to say as time rolls on by.  Mostly about the ginormous temper tantrum people are having.


So.... I'm baaaaack!

The Answer -- You Won't Like It

Instead of crying that there is a problem, people should find out why there is a problem.


The answers are there.  Buried under politics, mob mentality, victimhood, and greed.  Those very factors are the reason the answers will never be popular.  Facts are not politically correct.




Take, for instance, the financial melt-down of Chicago schools and the incredibly high crime rate.  Some point to Dems, some point to race, some point to racism, others to gun control leaving the guns in the hands of criminals.  Nobody, nobody, talks about personal responsibility and making better choices.




This is the digital/information age.  There is not one person who is not aware that there is a better life.  There is not one person who can possibly believe that their street, their neighborhood, their family dynamic holds true for the entire world, and that's all there is.




Choose to believe that you can't have better, and you won't have better.  But don't say that it's someone else's fault you don't succeed.




In a grander sense, this infection of helplessness is the root of the Chicago ills.  People have turned their lives over to social engineers, politicians, unions, hate-mongering racists, and crushing bureaucracy.  Stupid, wasteful decisions in spending and programming have driven all potential for true education from schools.  The social engineers merrily experiment on kids, turning them into puppets dependent on media to tell them how to feel, vote, respond, and live.  Schools feed them, punish them by withdrawing food or giving them garbage in a highly-public manner, crack down on any show of compassion between students that is not state-approved, and foster an air of helplessness as teachers are not allowed to get classes under control.




All of this sets up kids to see that the strong and brutal survive.  If you want to eat, you take the food from someone else, whether by theft or by handout.  Money?  That comes from the state, or from taking from those you consider to be your enemies.  Problem-resolution is through violence, because nobody can stop you.




And it's all someone else's fault.




Don't ask why there is a problem.  You won't like the answer.

This Perfect Day -- or Not

So Mr deGrasse advocates a virtual country with an evidence-based rule of the land.

First, virtual, I believe, means having no physical presence. Therefore, "solid" evidence is impossible. Any "evidence" would be in the form of images, which we all know can be manipulated. If the evidence to which he refers is that of what is acknowledged as fact regarding the physical world, that comes down through the generations from teachers, who put their own slant into the knowledge they impart. Scientists argue all the time about what is and isn't. It can get pretty nasty and bloody, in fact.

Second, it is not possible to exist in a virtual country. Certainly many virtual "countries" already exist, Facebook, Minecraft, those other games that are deep and involved. Even those worldwide communities that exist on the Internet can be considered countries, with their own rules and administration. But you can't eat a Hot Pocket within the Internet.

Third, though the headline states that he "proposes government system known as 'Rationalia'," I see nothing in his tweet stating that he wants the American Government, or any other nation, to dump their constitutions in favor of his ever-so-logical ideal world view. Which is based, of course, on his belief system. Everything else, the analysis of his proposal, the support from his followers and the entire essays from his detractors (responding to one Twitter line), and what will certainly be a media firestorm, is entirely manufactured based on the usual Internet hysteria.  None of the interpretations are based on fact.  He didn't say a thing about changing our government.

A tweet, like a blog post, or a newspaper article, or a history book, is one person's opinion.  As I've said before, an expert is only someone who has convinced enough other people that his or her opinions are fact.

People need to stop getting worked up over one line.