Croneswood Art

mental illness

January 10, 2007

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On one of the forums I frequent, they are discussing mental illness and how to not so much treat is but how to talk about it. This forum is focused on herbalism in the Wise Woman Tradition and therefore they put much more stock in a person’s “story” and what we call “story medicine” than most people are used to. These are my thoughts on “mental illness.”
Mental illness, as well as the more mundane physical illnesses, do not manifest in a vacuum. Treatment for and judgment of the illness is very much part of the culture/society in which the person lives. How the person is viewed, how they are able to act out or not is dependent on how the society in which they live tolerates deviations from the norm. And the norm itself is defined by that society and that definition is changeable.

Story medicine is so important for those suffering what is considered to be “mental illness” but our particular society distrusts and in many instances dismisses the patient’s story as invalid and/or irrelevant. It’s really quite difficult and scary when you think of how arbitrary it all can be.

Some societies accept things like schizophrenia differently. In shamanic circles the schizophrenic may be revered as a soothsayer. In times past, they burned them as witches. In our society, we medicate, shock, operate. We used to lock them away in back wards, but now thanks to Reagan era reforms, we boot them out on the sidewalk and feed them in soup kitchens.

Even conditions like ADD and ADHD have changed over my lifetime. When I was growing up, kids were full of piss and vinegar. When my children were little, they were “hyper.” Now, they are medicated and not only that, almost all children who are more active than the school systems’ tolerate, are diagnosed and treated. This is not to say that some are truly suffering and in need of meds, it’s just to point out that over the course of just 3 generations, the whole landscape of what is “acceptable” child behavior has changed. What is within the normal bounds is different than it was when I was small and even different from when my boys were small.

It’s a very interesting and difficult thing to navigate, mental health. What I see as intolerance by many is really nothing more than caution and fear to tread in places that we simply don’t feel equipped to handle. As Wise Women, I do hope that we can find and promote a more humane way to cherish those outside the bounds of “normal” and truly listen to their stories.
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and this from Pat Buchanan

January 9, 2007

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Pat Buchanan notes that the danger doesn’t end with Bush’s brain…but the bigger brains of neocons, who like Bush, find it impossible to learn from their mistakes or assume responsibility for this fine mess. Here’s just the summary part of his recent column…follow the link at the end to read the whole thing.

… Conspicuous by its absence from disparagements of the president by these deserters from his camp and cause is any sense that they were themselves wrong. That they, who accuse everyone else of cutting and running, are themselves cutting and running. That they are themselves but a typical cluster of think-tank incompetents.

No neocon concedes that the very idea itself of launching an unprovoked war against a country in the heart of the Arab world — one that had not attacked us, did not threaten us and did not want war with us — might not be wildly welcomed by the “liberated.” No neocon has yet conceded that Bismarck may have been right when he warned, “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”

“Huge mistakes were made,” says Perle, “and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives. … I’m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war.”

Almost all the neoconservatives have now departed the seats of power in the Bush administration and retreated to their sinecures at Washington think tanks, to plot the next war — on Iran.

Meanwhile, brave young Americans, the true idealists and the casualties of the neocons’ war, come home in caskets, 20 a week, to Dover and, at Walter Reed, learn to walk again on steel legs.

for more, go here: http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=pbu
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molly on war, truth and ducks

January 9, 2007

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Molly Ivins is one of my favorite columnists, and this her first that I’ve seen since Thanksgiving was worth waiting for.

pinched this from the Star Telegram…

========
Bubba, we — yes, we –have to stop the war now
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

The president of the United States does not have the sense that God gave a duck — so it’s up to us. You and me, Bubba.

I don’t know why George W. Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it’s time we found out. The fact is that WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped. NOW.

This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it’s doubly wrong for him to increase U.S. troop levels in this hellhole by up to 20,000, as he reportedly will soon announce.

What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn’t supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny?

Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?

It’s monstrous to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people the charges against them if they’re arrested. This administration has done away with rights enshrined in the Magna Carta, and we’ve let them do it.

This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I’ll write about this war until we find some way to end it. Every column, we will review some factor we should have gotten right.

So let’s take a step back and note that before the war, one of its architects, Paul Wolfowitz, testified to Congress that Iraq had no history of ethnic strife.

Sectarian and ethnic strife is a part of the region. And the region is full of examples of Western colonial powers trying to occupy countries, take their resources and take over the administration of their people — and failing. The sectarian bloodbath we see daily completely refutes Wolfowitz.

And let’s keep in mind that when the Army arrived in Baghdad, we, the television viewers, watched footage of a bunch of enraged and joyous Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein, their repulsive dictator, in Firdos Square. Only one thing was wrong: The event was staged, instigated by a Marine colonel and a psychological operations unit that made it appear spontaneous.

When we later saw the whole square where the statue was located, only 30 to 40 people were there (U.S. soldiers, press and some Iraqis — and one of several U.S. tanks present pulled the statue down with a cable). We, the television viewers, saw the square being presented as though the people of Iraq had gone into a frenzy, mobbed the square and spontaneously pulled down the statue.

We need to cut through all this smoke and mirrors and come up with an exit strategy, forthwith.

The Democrats have yet to offer a cohesive plan to get us out of this mess. Of course, it’s not their fault — but the fact is that we need leaders who are grown-ups and who are willing to try to fix it. Bush has ignored the actual grown-ups from the Iraq Study Group and the generals and all other experts who are nearly unanimous in the opinion that more troops will not help.

It’s up to you and me, Bubba.

We need to make sure that the new Congress curbs executive power, which has been so misused, and asserts its own power to make this situation change.

Now.
Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate.
5777 W. Century Blvd.,
Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045

http://www.creators.com/
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good commentary from Garrison Keiller

January 5, 2007

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Garrison Keillor’s article written for the Baltimore Sun and reprinted by CommonDreams.org is worth reading. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0104-20.htm
In one paragraph, he gives us a brilliant, succinct analysis of Bush the Lesser.

Here we have a slacker son of a powerful patrician father who resolves unconscious Oedipal issues through inappropriate acting-out in foreign countries. Hello? All the king’s task forces can gather together the shards of the policy, number them, arrange them, but it never made sense when it was whole and so it makes even less sense now.

We have yet much to fear from this administration. Mr. Keillor has a bit more confidence than I in the new crop of critters just elected. He says:

The earnest folk in Congress are prepared to discuss policy issues, to plant their butts in hard chairs and sit through jargon-encrusted reports and long, dry perorations thereupon. They’re trained for that. That’s one good reason they’re there and not you or me. But to address the war and the White House, you’re talking pathology.

Yes, it’s going to take more than hard work and good judgment on the part of our congress critters to deal with this insane war, but honestly, if what I saw last night on ABC World News is any indication, this bunch will be towing Shrubs line, complete with hooks and sinkers, and the men and women who will be surging over to Iraq when (not if) this congress gives The Decider everything he requests will be left out on the sands of Iraq without boat, paddle or the creek needed to get stranded in.
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It’s all downhill from here

January 4, 2007

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um, pardon my french, but UNFUCKIN’ BELIEVABLE!

I’m sitting here, minding my own business, watching ABC’s Charles Gibson interview (if you can call it that) three newly sworn in House Freshmen, Nancy Boyda (Kansas), Patrick Murphy (PA) and Heath Shuler (North Carolina), and I am appalled. Thoroughly, disgustedly, frighteningly appalled at the lack of intelligence and abundance of arrogance. These three newly and embarrassingly elected democrats have sent what little hope I had after this last election spinning spectacularly down the toilet.

Aside from the fact that these three are utterly unable to form a coherent sentence without an abundance of ums, ers, and eh-eh-ehs, (Gibson had to actually complete a sentence spluttered by Boyda) their complete lack of understanding of what the word, “Representative” means just shook me to the bone.

The most offensive of the three is Nancy Boyda from Kansas. When Gibson balked at her statement that she would, despite the will of the people she represents, vote in favor of an increase in troops in Iraq, this smirking little twit said, “Well, they should have thought of that before they voted for President Bush not once but twice.”

It’s a mess, people. And I don’t think there’s any way to fix it, not as long as we continue to elect sublimely stupid, unethical assholes to power.
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funerals, etc.

January 4, 2007

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so, my uncle’s funeral is over and now i think i’m coming down with brni’s plague. ugh. even though the funeral itself was on the tame side, i am more convinced than ever that i not be given this sort of send off. here’s what i wrote about it at the beginning of 2006, right after the second death of the year. it’s longish, so unless you have nothing better to do with the time you have left….

http://thereallinda.livejournal.com/48500.html
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mental illness

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and this from Pat Buchanan

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molly on war, truth and ducks

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good commentary from Garrison Keiller

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It’s all downhill from here

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funerals, etc.

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