THE PAVILION ANNEX

[Chuck Messer]

Rick:

Keeping you and your family in my thoughts. Goddamnit, but we have all been going through shit lately.

Chuck

[MichaelRapoport]

But, but, but...then what? Does everyone who behaves a little oddly now deserve the scrutiny of society? In the same way anyone who looks just "a little too muslim" commonly gets after 9/11?

Where then? Act oddly, get examined? You're a little too hostile, maybe we ought to dig deeper? You're "not of the body", maybe we should up your meds?

...

But how do we, as a society, not overreact and condemn the merely different from the potentially dangerous?

Boy, does that hit home. As I've mentioned on the Pavilion in the past, I have a son, now 11 years old, who has ADHD. He's a wonderful kid - smart, lovable, good-hearted, talented. Because of his disorder, he also is prone sometimes to behavior that an outside observer might regard as eccentric or odd, like facial tics and uncontrollable, excitable bounding all over the place. He's no threat to anyone, but I can easily imagine some overly officious security type taking a look at him and deciding he's someone they "need to keep an eye on."

As others here have noted, the ways to address tragedies like Tucson, and Virginia Tech before it, are treatment for the truly mentally ill, and keeping firearms out of their hands. Beyond that, let's not go after people for the crime of being individuals.

[Rick Keeney]

Thanks to all of you who replied. Your positive energy was a boon to me and mine. Look for Chelsea Keeney to check in here sometime soon.

Kelly was in surgery 7 hours and only suffered a slight but disconcerting blood pressure spike due to pain. Dilaudid was the saviour.

Now Kel can begin her fight back to vibrancy. Now her children can sleep.

Thanks again. To all of you.
Rick

P.S. Goldberg, thanks for the clarification.

[markabaddon]

First and foremost, Keeney I am glad Kelly is out of surgery. Please keep us informed as to how she is doing (and it now makes more sense why you did not want Chelsea to stop in at the party last Saturday, other than trying to keep her away from some of my friends, of course)

Lori, I am quite certain that Palin has no idea what she is saying, but those aroudn her certainly do. "Blood libel" is too specific a term to be chosen at random, and was done to evoke a certain image, connotate violence, and to reference atrocities in the past. Take a look at this article, which details some of Palin's religious beliefs, and its anti-semitic undertones, and you tell me if you think her use of the term was doen without knowing its context:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/1 ... 08854.html

Doug, for some reason your post, and especially the final line of it, makes me think of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke, where Joker takes Commissioner Gordon and tortures him in an attempt to drive him mad. He states that all that stands between where him and someone like Gordon is one bad day. A truly chllling concept

[FrankChurch]

Rob, human nature is still a mystery. If we only were about selfishness and competition we would all kill each other. Most of us trust a social contract, we just get it beaten out of us by the crazy, stilted nature of our culture.

[Steve Evil]

New edition of Huck Finn! Minus the word "nigger". . .

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/01/04 ... ith-slave/

Rewriting a dead writer's work? What's not to love?

[robochrist]

Frank, while your tutelage is enhancing as always, human nature is not QUITE the mystery you think it is: genetics, ecopsychology, nature versus nurture, and many other sciences provide very clear roadmaps that reveal what we are and why we do what we do.

[Lori Koonce]

Ok robo

This is the second time you've mentioned the word ecopsychology.

So, for the benifit of those of us who wanna understand ya, could you please define!

[markabaddon]

ecopsychology sounds like the psychology of plant life to me. Like Sarah Palin

[robochrist]

Mark, I think that would be more like "hortipsychology"!

Palin, however, obviously falls under the science of paleobotany!

Lori,

Again, I thank Thom Hartmann for introducing me to the concepts of "ecopsychology" (in tandem to my having recently read Origin of Species).

This examines the relationship humans have to the ever-changing global environment in terms of our attitudes, ethics, perceptions, and behavior. The scientific community by-and-large regards global warming, biodiversity losses, ozone depletion, and so on to human-induced transformations. Just the other day on NPR, I heard a report stating that science advisors in the US government now determine that human population has exceeded the Earth’s “limits of sustainability” (which scares the hell out of me, considering where the global economy is heading).

Ecospychology might ask, "how will most people around the world respond to that report?"

From what we've seen, that's an easy guess! And if our guess is right, I only wish there WERE a God!

In spite of efforts to restore environmental vitality, the pace at which we continue modifying environment (generally if not ALWAYS for short-term profit, aka, exploiting for self-gain...a human behavioral trait that reaches back to our beginnings) is unrelenting!

Researchers argue that the future health of the biosphere for sustaining all life may be drifting close to the margins as environmental crises increase at increasing paces. The questions about our destructive propensities - our odd nature to detach ourselves from our own planet and believe it will have no consequences for our own species - have profound cultural and psychological roots that divide us from the rest of the environment.

I'm almost afraid to read further into the reports and studies, because MOST people EVERYWHERE dismiss the information, or the need to know, or the desire to seek solutions (logically, of course, if you deny the data you deny the need for any solutions).

We are fuckin' arrogant, and therefore fuckin' STUPID! Is there any other word for a species that would doom it's chances to sustain itself, as it places conviction over the need to know?

[robochrist]

I should have read that before posting!

"...increase at increasing paces."

That's terrible, man! I meant, more appropriately, "as environmental crises increase at faster paces"

[cynic]

"A rebuke from Obama leads the New York Times to run from the fight it started.."
By JAMES TARANTO
" This appealed to what one might call the Manichaean wing of American liberalism: those who mistake political disagreement for enmity, who are so strongly prejudiced against conservatives as to regard them, in some sense, as less than fully human."

"The outrage of the Palin-haters over the use of the term, however, is phony. Many of the outraged haters have themselves used the term "blood libel" in similar metaphorical senses, including the New York Times. Here are a couple of examples:"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopOpinion

"Our favorite example comes from Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com, who wrote yesterday, albeit with more smirk than dudgeon:
[The claim that Sarah Palin was the victim of a "blood libel" had been making the rounds in the right-wing media for a few days before Palin decided to make the accusation herself.] "

[cynic]

fema death camps
plans for "the holocaust part II"?
global drowning/warming
ecosystem collapse

happy new fuckin' year

[RocRizzo]

ecopsychology sounds like the psychology of plant life to me. Like Sarah Palin

Please don't insult plants like that.
Thank you in advance.

[cynic]

"Finally, the charge that the metaphors used by Palin and others were inciting violence is ridiculous. Everyone uses warlike metaphors in describing politics. When Barack Obama said at a 2008 fundraiser in Philadelphia, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," he was hardly inciting violence."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 06068.html