Wasteoidurbia http://alphaned.posterous.com Most recent posts at Wasteoidurbia posterous.com Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:41:00 -0700 Native Studies; Reaction 7 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-6 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-6

Indian Givers, Weatherford

 

It is safe to say that I knew none of the history described within this reading. How fascinating that so many of our modern medical advents have come from Natives and how hopelessly sad that the rain forests are bulldozed by an industry that will dry up while potential cures for maladies may be uprooted and made extinct as result.

 

I liked how the piece began, with the journey to Timbuktu, like something out of Heart of Darkness, a five day trip on the river, two days of desert travel through a trail that would be obscured if not for the mummified skins and bones of camels and donkeys. How fitting that Weatherford begin here before delving into the history of medicine where roles are reversed. Europeans are dying from conditions such as scurvy and are shown the cure from Natives. Cartier who's men were afflicted on this journey gums bleeding with erupting sores, emitting a vile stench showed his appreciation to the Donnaconna tribe chief by kidnapping him so that he might show them mountains of gold. Isn't this always how the story ends?  

Mummified_camel

Mummified camel

reasoning for the term appear to me to be comprehensive and spot on.  I think this social suffering is beginning to invade white, middle class decedents of European expansion or colonizers, and they don’t like it.  Remarkable in the case of modern day suburbanites is the lack of shared material and social culture to begin with as they’ve hermetically packed themselves in a homogenous white, middle class enclave.  The suburbanites are experiencing severe depression at astounding levels.  Their culture is separation and they’re beginning to feel the squeeze of a lack of meaningful work.

This “healing” movement sounds like something society as a whole could benefit from.  I think the Occupy movement provided a venue for this sort of gathering.  Like the Anglicans strangling animism and Natives’ harmonious relationship with nature from their spiritual philosophy are neoliberal forces stomping out a counterculture movement from spreading values that run in contrast with their own.  At least these forces are more rational than religion!  I think in many ways, the Natives of North America are the canary in the coal mine, a harbinger of the dystopic future waiting to embrace all but the elite.

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:21:00 -0700 Native Studies Reaction 5 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-5 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-5

The came, they saw, they wiped out the entire population of South Hampton Island with Western disease.  Chapter 8 had many memorable passages, but an inadvertent genocide has to be about the damndest thing I've read about.  Though the susceptibility to disease kept Native American's off limits for the most part, as far as slavery was concerned.  To think about a single white man being a biological weapon of mass destruction, it is fitting as they've invented rules in this text to accomplish what they couldn't do with their mere presence.  Talk about a toxic person.

Reading about the first white man washing up on Innuit shores dead in a battered raft with his living son has me searching for the empathic reasoning behind shackling a boy in dog restraints, leaving him to be consumed by the harsh elements.  Had they taken him in, he very well may have died anyway, but it's curious that after not being able to communicate with the boy, his fate was decided.  

The crew of the Discovery chewing on candles and sucking vinegars socked gull bones as they floated in Hudson Bay.  A great body of water that is much colder than the open ocean at similar latitude since it is cut off from warm ocean currents.  The temperatue in mid-chanel has been measured as low as -63 degrees Celsius.

Meahwhile Paddy Aqjatusuk has landed with his hoodwinked family members in their new home.  An area immediately regarded as alien.  An area so far north, the northern lights no longer dazzle the sky.  Truly a barren frozen desert hellscape.  Supplies are quickly consumed and their is no repletion, months can pass between deliveries.  The Innuit have been expected to live off the land, because that is what they've been able to do.  They know nothing of this land.  Vaccination vessels, which had historically been avoided and resisted, like an extraterrestrial-like abduction, now became a sought after method for departure of this island.  The white man had once again done what he does, who could have prepared?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:54:00 -0800 Native Studies Reaction 4 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-4 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-4

The Long Exile, Chapter 6

Seal
This is as close to a depiction of seal head stew as I could get.  In chapter 6 we learned a bit about the Innuit diet.

Pemmican

Pemmican: a mixture of fat and protein.

Bully_beef
Bully_beef_cartoon

Bully beef: a cured and pickled corned beef and a fun legacy cartoon advertisement.

I would try the pemmican, not the bully beef though.  Being Irish, I've always dreaded the traditional corned beef and cabbage dish at the parents place.  

And:

Nick-nolte-mugshot
Dipsomaniac: a term used to describe a medical condition in which a person has an unquenchable thirst for alcohol.

This may describe the story of the St. Roch.  A ship that was floated near the polar north none.  On September 11th the sea became so cold that the men were forced to chip ice off the ship's propeller.  Charges filled with gunpowder were used to break up ice that easily could have sunk the boat.  

Meanwhile Innuit life was becoming unsustainable, the fur trade was collapsing.  It was decided that government aid given to Innuit was to be delivered in a relocation north in what were supposedly more fertile lands.  The first ever Eskimo conference was held in Ottawa which broke in a plea to the government for aid.

I find it interesting how happy the Innuit portrayed were described to be.  Despite the dismal living conditions, the ruthless weather.  It's remarkable how seasonal depression hits hard in the midwest, but why not these people who live so much further north.  I was thinking it may have something to do with the fact that they work outdoors.

 

Chapter 7

This chapter contained possibly the most remarkably twisted piece of information thus far.  The story of Minik I found to be amazingly savage.

Minik
A boy lifted from Greenland with 5 of his people.  Four died almost immediately from disease leaving Minik and another man later to be returned to Greenland.  The experimentation planned to take place was canceled and Minik was adopted.  He was indoctrinated by his Christian family who raised him for many years.  One day inside a glass case, Minik found a skeleton.  He found out it was none other than the skeletal remains of his father who had been captured along with him.  A skeleton Minik had been told was laid to rest properly.

Suddenly Christianity fell apart in the eyes and heart of Minik.  They had kidnapped him, killed his father, and lied about his remains.  

Meanwhile the other survivor of the European disease was shipped back to Greenland to tell the tale of England.  Like Gulliver this man was considered a lunatic.  People simply didn't believe his stories of trains, cars, and buildings.  Ultimately, he was exiled from his community.  The taint of Europe was absolute.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:58:00 -0800 Native Studies: Reaction 3 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-3 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-3

I wrote down many of the Inuit language translations from chapter 4 of The Long Exile.  All I've ever heard up until this course on the Inuit language is that they have numerous words for snow.  I think many people would say just that if asked.  This section I think, was aimed at helping us build a social constructionist idea as to who who these people generally are.  What kind of people would choose to live outdoors in the arctic?  I think some of the language introduced begins to explain a remarkable psychology that values stability.  True tollerance is practiced, children are allowed to exercise their out their convoluted feelings which may be invoked as tantrums.  This behavior is something the typical Inuit outgrows.  As a person gains ihuma they outgrow nutaraqpaluktuq and work to establish a harmonious balance.  Happiness or quiva attracts others, it's true in American culture as well.  An American dropped into The Long Exile would be an interesting experiment.  American culture however is possibly the polar opposite as the most successful people, often are not happy.  American culture's material base is classist in it's nature.  Finer clothes are sought to signify higher class.  Wealth is sought as proof of success.

The Inuit run a communal society.  Decisions are made, as a group and individually for the benefit of the group.  Meanwhile they host a infant mortality rate equivalent to the infant mortality rate of medieval times.  The life expectancy is 27.  Some of the most important words are immaga which means perhaps and ayunqnaq meaning, it can't be helped.  Passivity, tranquility, and above all happiness.  Who could look at such relevant values and think "this is all wrong".  Well, Christian missionaries did.  I found it interesting how Christian teachings impacted the Inuit.  When Charlie Oujerack became deluded, thinking he was Jesus Christ incarnate he posed more of an internal threat to the Inuit community than those traditionally deluded.  These traditionally deluded peoples became shaman, the spiritually powerful sect of Inuit society.

The mourning customs of the Inuit are characteristically interesting and practical.  Josephie's mother, Maggie Nuarluktuk.  Following her unexplained death, her body was buried beneath "the rocks", her family said a prayer, burned Maggies clothing, and "returned to their lives".  Of course they would have to.  The harsh arctic climate doesn't allow time for mourning.  This idea was detailed later on, focusing on a man that fell sick.  His sickness while not infecting the rest of his family directly, caused them to suffer his fate as well.  One man's sickness killed his family.  This is the sort of life-or-death necessity that focuses the mind on things immediately relevant.  This focus on raw survivalism in a frozen hellscape I think, puts other, more trivial matters in perspective in Inuit culture.  

 

Karl Pilkington, immaga ayunqnaq.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:17:00 -0800 Native Studies: Reaction 2 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-2 http://alphaned.posterous.com/native-studies-reaction-2

I've been watching An Idiot Abroad, Ricky Gervais' travel program starring a man who's mind has absolutely captivated me, Mr. Karl Pilkington.  I cut a bit from an episode where he was sent whale watching and happened to make a stop in an Inuit village in Alaska.  Top notch stuff, I laughed and I learned what a honey bucket is:

 

I had actually read ahead a bit and had reported on chapter 2 and much of chapter 3 out of The Long Exile.  The tail end of the chapter had some particularly interesting bits of information.  Missionaries, arriving to save the souls of the heathen savage in duality with whalers killed off the majority of the Inuit population.

Christian dogma would seize upon the Inuit banning shamans and banning drum circles.  Fear of so permeated Inuit culture that traditional beliefs became a relic of the the past.  The material possessions brought by missionaries enticed the Inuit, maybe they could embrace this new way of life..  Missionaries introduced Mother Hubbard dresses to the Inuit, replacing their traditional undergarment, caribou skin trousers.

Mother_hubbard

Missionaries did impact Inuit culture in what I would consider to be somewhat positive ways.  They effectively ended the practice of infanticide, instead babies were brought up by the mission and brought along as servants.  The distasteful practice of euthanasia performed by such means as sending an elder out on a kayak with no paddle, also the snow brick tomb method we discussed in class.

 

I also read The Copper Eskimo, and I'm quite glad I did a remarkably fascinating read.  Maybe the most shocking passage for me in this piece was on the courting process of newlyweds.  Marriage-by-capture is how it was described, a simulated abduction in which the bride also participates, pretending to resist.  It's like a simulated rape fantasy the whole family participates in.  I record this out of fascination, this passage so moved me I felt compelled to share it with the nearest person.  The legacy behind this custom would be an interesting research topic.  The Copper Eskimo were partook in kinky sexual practices by todays standards as wife-lending operates in such stark contrast from the modern monogamy formula.

The hysterical superstition of the Copper Eskimo is so pervasive that following the death of a person the area is abandoned.  The dead is soon thought to become a manevolent ghost that will hang around for five days before departing to the spirit world.  

Shaman are healers, helpers, guides.  They are the closest example of a dedicated professional in the community, though it is necessary for them to hunt and fish.  Illness is produced by supernatural forces.  Some believe an illness is indicative of bodily possession and the theft of the soul.  

Inuit_shaman

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:13:00 -0800 Finale http://alphaned.posterous.com/finale http://alphaned.posterous.com/finale

Disclose.tv - Foster Kids Prescribed Psychotropic Drugs

Antipsychotics, a $14 billion per year industry for their manufacturers recently paid out the largest legal settlement of $5 billion, that has been only recently surpassed by BP, for illegally marketing their product.  This does little to change the fact that children on Medicare and especially foster children are prescribed atypical antipsychotics off label.  While extrapyramidal symptoms have been ironed out fairly well in the second generation of antipsychotic medication, the pills are now being linked to an increase in blood sugar, diabetes, a resistance to insulin, and a reduction in brain mass.  This shrinkage of the brain was theorized to be a symptom of a schizophrenic stricken brain, but a study done by the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine found that the severity of illness had nominal effect on brain mass, it was patients receiving prolonged antipsychotic treatment that displayed the most profound reduction.

12/14/12

I'm nearly finished with Mike Earley's Crazy.  I've been listening to it on disk, I take a break and the Newtown Connecticut shooting pops out at me.  I see a shooting at an elementary school and my first though is mental illness.  I've been digging around all day looking for more information on Adam Lanza but of course, not much is known as of yet.  Examiner.com is reporting Lanza dealt with OCD and Asperger's syndrome  http://www.examiner.com/article/gunman-adam-lanza-acted-alone-conn-shooting-26-dead-gunman-shot-himself.

In the news media, I'm reading two dominant naratives; we need to develop more sensible gun laws in this country and our mental health system is in shambles.  Unfortunate that it requires this sort of event to prompt movement on either of these issues.  In America, we have endured a gauntlet of these sorts of incidents certainly through the years, but lately it seems to be happening weekly.  It is the horrendous circumstance of this instance in that 20 elementary school children died attending school that separates this incident.  That is the nature of this inertial society as this point in history.  The harsh reality is that I feel movement must take place on both fronts.

Another thing I've looked for is the conservative response to this incident.  One never quite knows what to expect.  Mike Huckabee blames the absense of god in schools.  Aparently our separation of religion from our public schools has been binding enough to repell an omnipotent being who created the world.  That's what I call effective government policy.

HUCKABEE: Well, you know, it’s an interesting thing. We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a palce where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability? That we’re not just going to have to be accountable to the police, if they catch us. But one day, we will stand before a Holy God in judgment. If we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that.

 

It's interesting to note Newtown Connecticut is a community of means:

Estimated median household income in 2009: $109,767 (it was $86,553 in 2000)

Newtown:

 

$109,767
Connecticut:

 

$67,034

Estimated per capita income in 2009: $43,820

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/city/Newtown-Connecticut.html#ixzz2F5dvOPxt

 

I think of Miami, the city Mike Earley did much of his research on mental illness.  Miami maintains the highest metropolitan population suffering the ill effects of mental illness.  This is thought to be the case because of the year round warm weather, but also due to the Wet Feet, Dry Feet policy on Cubans seeking political asylum.  Castro used this policy to empty Cuban asylums.

Cuba_truck-boat
To make the connection, our pitiful system of health care in the United States cannot be denied when the wealthy, the recipients of our privatized, for profit system of delivery are not receiving adaquate care.  One may consider how many more individuals in urgent need of care may be walking the streets or waiting to be released from jail.  This all make me curious as to what the Norwegian response to their mass shooting was.  That shooter was found to be a paranoid schizophrenic actively psychotic during the shooting.  Norway also has a gun culture which is part of the reason they don't belong to the EU.

Nearing the end of Crazy, something that really struck me as vitally important is how every person Earley is talking to, I believe without exception, has discontinued their use of antipsychotics for one reason or another.  These actions work to undermine our current system under deinstitutionalization at its core.  These are the people that have entered into the system in one form or another.  People that likely wouldn't exist in the system if not for an altercation with law enforcement.  The argument against universal access to health care was gutted again today, reforming a system that has enriched a few to the point at which their lobbying arm is one of the strongest in Washington, well, I'm not so sure that is realistic, especially in post Citizens United America.

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:23:00 -0800 Physically ill...foggy minded. trudging on http://alphaned.posterous.com/168870140 http://alphaned.posterous.com/168870140

News coverage of my sponser

 

I've been reading Crazy in America

Crazy_in_america

and learning about the inadequcies of the criminal justice system in Iowa.  Oddly enough, an organization not at all equipped or even slightly prepared to deal with psychiatric patients.  deinstutionalization reduced the number of beds in the Iowa State Mental Institute from 1800 in 1940 to just 95 fifty years later.  Until 1974 lobotomy was endorsed by Iowa's medical society to "stretch hospital labor"

 

Posterous keeps crashing there's more..try to post later.

Another crash posterous..  how demoralizing to write several paragraphs only to have posterous crash my browser

Crazy is a captivating read about the all but complete lack of a mental heath care system for the seriously mentally disturbed.  A common theme in Crazy is law enforcement's lack of training in dealing with any aspect of seriously mentally ill people.  Officers on the beat who treat someone experiencing schizotypal symptoms and botch even the approach of one of such persons could incite a mortal incident.  As did two beat cops in Florida, who suffocated a mentally ill man while he pleaded with them to be committed.  The reprocussions of the incident lasted years, torturing the minds of those officers.  One wrapped his car around a palm tree driving with a blood alcohol content over twice the legal limit.  The other police officer ended his own life years after the incident in a violent confrontation with his estranged wife, whom he had beaten in the months following the suffocation.

Prison guards are not trained to adaquately tend to the needs of such individuals either.  One woman with a well established suicidal ideation and history of self harm, placed in an isolation cell still found a way to hurt herself.  Prison staff had a fellow inmate watching her on a 15 minute walk through cycle.  Somehow the inmate found the opportunity to harm herself plucking out her eyeball with her fingers.  When staff finally saw to her her eyeball was dangling from it's tendons hanging out of its socket.  This inmate did previously attempt to harm her eyes.  Years later serving time in prison for a separate sentence she plucked out her other eyeball leaving her permanently blind.

Posterous crashed my whole system..maybe due to uploading media.  Computer restart.


Bellfromhell2

Picture a stillshot from A Bell From Hell.

Yet another crash and restart.  I can't take any more posterous at the moment.  More lost paragraphs.  Next time I'll be saving every paragraph and I'll use Firefox, maybe the Chrome browser is an issue.

Oh, I did want to include something I would love to throw on my presentation but it's just too long and not eventful enough to take a snippet from.   It's a schizophrenia simulator that some police departments are using for training purposes due to the increased volume of mentally ill people they are dealing with.

The black cloud hallucination at 1:29 wold be terrifying.  Very informative though, riding the bus in Milwaukee I used to see people displaying schizotypal symptoms, seeing the world through a similar lens is quite interesting.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Fri, 12 Oct 2012 21:32:00 -0700 Sleeping and http://alphaned.posterous.com/sleeping-pharma-and http://alphaned.posterous.com/sleeping-pharma-and

DREAM

It's no wonder Americans are having problems sleeping considering the rigid, unrelenting pace of American life, not to mention the copious amount of stimulants prescribed.  After taking amphetamines throughout the day to stay on point slugging through drudgery, a person just may not be quite ready to sleep when the lights go out.  Sleep disorder have become a public health issue (Martin, 2011) and it's no wonder when people are clinging to jobs that provide steadily worse working conditions.  Eighteen hour shifts are certainly alarming, and more extreme than I've ever personally worked or even heard about on a long term basis.  I've done twelve hour shifts, albeit part time, but accompanied by school, and an infant child to boot.  The twelve hour shifts by themselves were enough to upset any biological routine, I certainly didn't have the time or energy to exercise.  Arriving at the factory before sun up and leaving after sunset, promotes a disorienting condition, I can empathize with that completely.  I can certainly see the appeal for a power down pill, like Ambien, for when a person needs some sleep after amping up all day, so they're not dead tired the next day.  However, the side effects for Ambien range from bizarre to horrifying.  Looking into forums, the hallucinogenic potential for Ambien is well known, as many discuss recreational usage for this purpose.  

Users on the Drugs.com forums report a kalidescope of bizarre behaviors.  User schillbj reported knowingly defecating in their bed while conked out on Ambien.

TheCecil claimed he walked sleeping to his girlfriends house and had sex while sleeping only to wake up dumbfounded as to how he got there.

One wonders the potential for criminal activity while under the influence of Ambien.  Popping an Ambien after working some overtime could that person potentially wake up in jail, awaiting sex crime charges.  A potential companion novel to Camus', The Stranger.

As if the mobile sleeping isn't enough to worry about the nightmares often described by Ambien users are horrific, and vivid.

Vlcsnap-2012-01-12-03h56m03s0

Begotten 1990

Everyone's friend Bob

 

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:20:00 -0700 Deinstitutionalization http://alphaned.posterous.com/163644514 http://alphaned.posterous.com/163644514

 

What the neoliberalization of medicine has led to.  Pharmaceuticals can serve to institutionalize the minds of those would be inmates so they can finally learn to take some responsibility for their lives.  I jest, but the closing of the mental health institutions puts new duties and pressures on those in law enforcement and prison guards.  

Duties they may very well not be trained to perform, such as sensibly defusing an intense schizophrenic episode when these powerful anti-psychotics aren't taken or fail.  I feel conflicted over this tact.  Sure, no one wants to be locked away against their will, but surely we are not acting socially responsible by closing institutions, the only place we have conceived to store the afflicted, and relying on anti-psychotic drugs to pacify their symptoms enough so they are able to be cared for by the community, and for numerous reasons.  We know these drugs are dangerous, Zyprexa, a popular anti-psychotic, has been linked to diabetes.  In clinical studies conducted before Zyprexa was approved, between 1 in every 100 and 1 in every 1,000 people taking Zyprexa developed diabetes (http://schizophrenia.emedtv.com/zyprexa/zyprexa-and-diabetes.html.  Retrieved September 28, 2012.)  

Thorazine, "besides slowing down the brains of patients, had awful side effects that doctors came to call "extrapyramidal" muscular tremors, facial twitching.  Patients on Thorazine were often stunned into immobility; in extreme cases, they wound up staring at the ceiling, their eyeballs locked in place.  Others drifted aimlessly, a compulsion so common it became known as the "Thorazine Shuffle" (Wallace, Ben Wells. (February 2, 2009). Bitter Pill. Rolling Stone, p. 56-76.).  As a civilized society, I would argue, we owe those most vulnerable in our society far better than how they're being treated.  We pump them full of drugs that effectively zombify them, killing their personality and creativity.  Not that such patients shouldn't be medicated, it's more the method I object to.  We could potentially learn much about ourselves caring and studying those afficted with such disorders.  Surely a more humane and fruitful program can be implemented than arrangement the neoliberalist austerity agenda currently walking hand-in-hand with big pharma's multi billion dollar guinea pigization of clientelle.  The social contract surely needs to be re-negotiated as medicine and health care should not be a for profit industry.  An industry more interested in profit margins and satisfying shareholders than doing genuine good for our species.  Ironic that the many of the most vocal opponents of the Affordable Care act are pro-life right wingers.  As the late, great Bill Hicks used to say "If you're so pro-life then love the people who are already here.  Love all people or shut the fuck up!" 

Ecks psychiatric biouniversalism is certainly a large pill to swallow, but I think this may have been the most fun idea to play around with so far.  The United States scarfs up most of the pharmaceutical drugs on a global scale but big pharma's market is expanding.  Why would this be?  Well, it could be that the carceral world we've created in the United States, starting with school, then most of those that graduate from that instituion move on to be dominated by the institutional rules of our corporatized jobs.  We are moving farther away from our true nature and are psychically rebelling this strangling non-reality.  Years of strain and stress under these conditions inspire us to turn to drugs to help with institutionalized life.  Or as many might refer to it, freedom.  Ha!

 

 Well with globalization these repetative, mind numbing jobs are being exported around the world to the country with the right amount of regulations and most importantly cheap labor.  What's happening is that these people working these jobs are psychically rebelling and are medicated in order to cope with the non-reality of drudgery survivalism.  Neoliberalist capitalism is creating a psychic unity as a coping mechanism for the robotization of the 99%, for failure of a better term.  The relationship is reminiscent of that between the Morlocks and the Eloi in H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, in creating a docile herd medicated to accept a break with human nature.  The difference lies in that the Eloi's carcass is devoured by it's predators.  In our case our humanity is devoured by a beast with an unquenchable appetite, then our bodies are discarded when they no longer serve a purpose.

Sort of like what George Carlin had been saying for 20 years.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned
Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:09:00 -0700 Drugged in suburbia http://alphaned.posterous.com/160870635 http://alphaned.posterous.com/160870635

As the parent of a 7 year old girl, I cannot imagine getting her started with habitual pharmaceutical useage.  If she did require psychiatric evaluation I would hope she would get a pediatrician like Dr. Lawrence Diller.  As we enter this brave new world of pathologized chemical solutions to what in many cases, the human race has traditionally recognized as stages of life, I worry less about this experimental generation than I do about the next generation should this school of thought in psychiatry achieve victory.  To me that victory seems likely as America is by and large an extremely lazy nation of individuals.  One can see that from our current political landscape, as deep pocketed multinational corporations continue to apply more pressure on the neck of a society they have pinned down.  Meanwhile this current generation serves as the de facto guinea pigs for big pharma.  The perversion of the mindscape of a generation.

If these prescription drugs are being predominantly prescribed to children in middle class homes could this phenomenon be yet another consequence of suburban sprawl and the inherent isolation that accompanies it?

"Among affluent suburban girls, rates of depression skyrocket—they are three times more likely than average teen girls to report clinically significant levels of depression. And for all problems, the troubles seem to start in the seventh grade. Before then, the affluent kids do well." (Marano, Hara Estroff. (March 22, 2005)  Teens: Suburban Blues. Psychology Today, Retrieved September 13, 2012.)

These slices of the American dream designed to be safe environments away from the inner city but they have many unintended, unforseen consequences built right into their design.  There are no sidewalks on these streets.  It is likely the people in this particular neighborhood but in countless others do not know their neighbors.  One must hop in a car to get anywhere in this type of neighborhood, but that poses a particular problem for children who don't yet drive.  

 

The psychological effects of those living in suburbia resemble those experienced by prisoners in solitary confinement.  "Prisoners who are isolated for prolonged periods of time have been known to experience "depression, despair, anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and/or an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember." (Frintner Carly. (2005). Lonely Madness: The effects of Solitary Confinement and Social Isolation on Mental and Emotional Health. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1898 Retrieved September 14, 2012.)

 

 

 

Asylum

Asylum (1972) Peter Robinson.

 

Coming of Age on Zoloft, written by Katherine Sharpe, reads so far like a psychotropic memoir. Sharpe considers the possibility of a new "right of passage" upon swallowing that first pill.  Her parents provide a unique dynamic in that her father has suffered from depression for years and has been medicated through that period and a mother who believes her issues are related to her emotionally volatile stage of life.  

I can sort of relate to this.  Back when I was in high school when I started cutting class, stopped doing homework, and staying out all night my parents sent me in to a psychiatrist for Zolft too, if memory serves.  I'm not sure how on board my dad was with the idea, but he definitely didn't approve of my academic outlook.  Well, the Zolft did not change my behavior in the least, the therapy was a joke to me, and the Zoloft I probably didn't even take routinely enough for it to make a difference before I just stopped taking it.

I think in Sharpe's case though Zoloft may have been a good move for how emotionally volatile she was.  She wasn't suicidal, but given her mood swings I think it was worth a shot, as low as she would swing.  Why not try a helper?

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2143197/Bob.jpg http://posterous.com/users/n3kMAacYtJbF8 alphaned alphaned alphaned