4.17.2011

Cigarettes as a Positive Factor in Treating Mental Illness?

 

There is a wonderful post about cigarettes, nicotine, and schizophrenics by Dirk Hanson over at Addiction Inbox. He has a great blog with some wonderful content. The first paragraph of the piece is below…continue reading at Addiction Inbox Link.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Medical Cigarettes

Is it “Inhumane” to Take Cigarettes Away from Schizophrenics?
In an article for Brain Blogger a couple of years ago, I looked into the astonishing fact that, as a typical study of in-patient smoking among schizophrenics in Britain revealed, about 80-90% of the patients diagnosed with schizophrenia were cigarette smokers. Given that the running rate in the general population hovers around 20-25% on average, this is really quite amazing. It seems clear that nicotine is doing something for a schizophrenic that makes cigarettes into a form of self-medication that almost all schizophrenics apparently discover at one time or another. Read the rest of this interesting article at Addiction Inbox.

4.10.2011

The 99% and The Battle for America

 

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when everyone has to throw of his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked?“      ~Soren Kierkegaard

venice_masque

We are the author of our own personal truth. We make daily decisions, as the creator, designing and constructing the platform-frame as a foundation to which we attach our personality, build a narrative history, and create a legacy that becomes the unique remembrance of us in the world. We do this as individuals and as the United States of America.

Nationally, as Americans, we love to believe in the American Dream - that anyone can become anything, rising above circumstances and limitations, to become an American success story.  Our history is one of dreamers and dreams being born and flourishing. Our soil grows an independent fighting Spirit that makes us seek more and better; each new generation shoving past its predecessor to become smarter, brighter, stronger, richer, and happier. This is the promise we have cherished since becoming a nation; a promise believed to be our great Destiny. We are a nation built on hope, individuality, and dreams.

But, times are changing, and as New Americans we live in a time of masks. Our politicians are primarily a collective of hidden faces behind picturesque disguises, the national economy still tragically caught within a depression that is masked by the title recession, and numerous negative sociological and cultural changes ignored and denied as non-existent boogey-monsters imagined by an uneducated and panicky lower-class public. The American Dream still applies to 1% of the population, but what about the 99% who have trouble sleeping and haven’t dreamed in years?

Class Levels and the Battle for Education

America has always been a land of class division as much as she would deny it. However, not since the years of open slavery has the schism between the rich and poor been so great. The classes continue to grow in distance from one another, with the realities of one class being almost incomprehensible to the other class. At the heart of these different realities lies education.

The poorer classes traditionally are less educated and less literate than the more prosperous classes. The recent cuts in public school budgets for arts and sciences, the teacher downsizing and layoffs in the public schools, and the current trend toward staff reductions and closing of public libraries is obviously more detrimental to the poor. Likewise, when the fear of government shut-downs were discussed, it was the military and public parks that faced pay cuts and closures – both of which are utilized by and filled with people of poor to modest incomes. The rich seldom need to use these services or join our military forces.

The money and privilege of the higher classes provides advantages beyond what the “average” American can afford. High crime rates, violent acts during a crime, and major drug use are often directly traceable to lack of education and trauma in the home. Deprivation of basic resources and a sense of stability and security, along with unhealthy self-esteem, creates an unbalanced psyche that leans toward mental illness, drug use, and violent crime. While the answer may not be to throw money at the problems once they’ve reached that stage; certainly, no one would deny that our society benefits from educating our children, teaching them to be productive, ensuring that all children have their basic needs met, and are provided a good, basic education.

Education is like medical care: those with higher incomes and more disposable money will always be able to purchase both commodities. Those without the funds to do so lose the foundation of opportunity. We create a society in which violence thrives because higher education, critical thinking, logic and problem solving have not been taught. Instead, people take what they want by forces believing that to be the only way they’ll ever have it. Lack of opportunity, inequality, and jealousy creates violent men and women.

door-lock_small

In recent years, our public education system has fallen terribly short of its objectives – we do need review and changes. However, cutting teacher pay, laying-off teachers, and increasing class size are not forward-moving steps. Rather, these are antiquated methods that lock doors to keep certain people (classes) “in their place.” An uninformed and uneducated public is also a less powerful public. But, we must beware, because history shows that mob rule becomes the norm when people cannot find voice or power any other way.

 

Who is the 99% ?

 

There’s a wonderful article by Joseph E. Stiglitz, in this month’s Vanity Fair, titled, “Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%,” that explores the inequality in wealth and class in America. According to Stiglitz:

The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent….While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall.

 

This is a staggering truth – the numbers don’t lie. The rich run the country through wealth and power, and the middle class IS shrinking. Stiglitz goes on to examine this situation in depth, looking at the ruling class and politicians, at current reinforcing rules, and at what this means for America as time passes. In closing he explains a basic truth often forgotten by those in power: As a nation, the fate of the 1 percent and the fate of the 99 percent is intricately knotted together.

The 99 percent could be called the “average Americans.” The men and women who work a job in construction, food service, plants or warehouses, service industries, and myriad other “blue and white collar” jobs. The 1 percent are the politicians, the IT millionaires, the privileged dynasty families, and the other top power brokers in our nation. The 1 percent, like the mythical comments of the French queen, may very well say “let them eat cake,” as the lower classes starve. Again, history teaches us valuable lessons about the abject distance between the two classes and the violence that is possible when the rich and powerful men forget that the poor man has a destiny entwined with his own.   

 

 

Addiction Inbox: The Ghost in the Receptor

Addiction Inbox: The Ghost in the Receptor: "The “spiritual” thing. It often seems as if the proponents of the biological view are offering a take-it-or-leave-it view of human nature ..."

3.13.2011

Contradiction

Fruits of Chaos by RyoAce / © Some rights reserved.

 

All that I ask
you will with hold.
It’s your nature
to deny me. I’m
aware of this
contradiction.
Asking less of you
than predecessors,
teachers, friends.
You have my
full attention
like brilliant sun
light looming
large in dark skies.
Hero and villain,
always
the lead character
in the story
that wasn’t
really. Anything
can happen, but
won’t. I
am aware
of this
contradiction.




 

 

March 2011 

 

 

 

Artwork:

Fruits of Chaos by RyoAce / © Some rights reserved at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3335273109&size=large

Prayers for Japan

 

I have spent the last few days watching the situation in Japan like most other people in the world. It is a horrible, unthinkable disaster of Biblical proportions.

The loss of life, property damage, and overall destruction to the country of Japan is more than we can truly understand or conceptualize at this point. What can be said in the face of such horror? Truthfully, very little. All we can do is pray, offer our condolences and blessings, and provide whatever financial and humanitarian assistance is needed.

The New York Times provides satellite imagery of before and after in Japan. These pictures leave one speechless and stunned to the point of meditative grief.

I have nothing new to add to this situation. I simply want to join the chorus of voices that are praying for the people and the country of Japan.

 

The New York Times slides can be viewed here.

3.11.2011

Meeting with Craig Stoxen, CEO/President of the SC Autism Society - William's Garden

I'm very pleased to be working with John Winright. He's a wonderfully giving person. He and his wife, Marilyn, have started a local program (in Upstate SC) for autistic children and their families. A wonderful effort that is deeply needed in our community.

For more information, to read their blog, or to contribute:

http://williamsgarden2010.webs.com/

Meeting with Craig Stoxen, CEO/President of the SC Autism Society - William's Garden
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1.02.2011

Compulsory New Year Blog Entry 2011

Your subconscious knows that you have the resolve and the wisdom to achieve anything.
 ~My Yahoo Horoscope for December 31, 2010


Ritual Born

I've never been the type of person to make New Year's Resolutions. I prefer to spend New Years Eve reviewing and evaluating the year that's ending. I am always looking for growth - what did I learn in the past 365 days? I'm also looking at myself to see if I've become a more complete person in some way or if I simply spent the year dormant and uninspired.


Taking time to reflect on the past 12 months of life provides perspective and allows me to consider the path ahead. I usually do this in a new, fresh-leather handwritten journal - a clean white page, a ritual of sorts. I'm adding a new ritual this year - the Compulsory New Year Blog Entry. Who have I been and who am I becoming as the year transitions?

Goodbye 2010


I have no major complaints of 2010. My formal career in the car business has been productive. Promotions, pay raises, hitting benchmarks, gaining insight and expertise, and facing new challenges with patience and courage have occurred. I've reached a place of quiet assurance and confidence in myself and my abilities.


My personal relationships (with husband, kids, grand babies, family, friends) are all flowing smoothly, happy and on track. No major issues there to contend with which is absolutely wonderful!


I resumed my informal career as an artist in 2010 - making time for writing, completing a poetry collection, and planning a new online magazine project for the coming year. I have been a writer longer than I've been anything else in my life and it feels good to be back at the keyboard playing with words. It's a homecoming for my deepest self.


There have been sad and stressful moments in the mix. I miss certain friends a great deal and realize they are lost to me in some odd way - our time together past and the new of life demanding its place now. It has been a year of strange, internal goodbyes - to people and places I will likely never see again, to old beliefs and misconceptions, and to dreams and childish indulgences that have grown dim in the light of a new future. The old pieces of Self passing away tend to make a fuss about it - the old us we leave behind screams "don't go" as we walk away.

These are the personal changes in self during 2010 that most surprised me:


* I realize how much quieter I have become in all areas of my life and aspects of my being. Silence, in myself and the world around me, is something I've learned to treasure.


* Mourning over the absence of others from my life (due to death or distance or less intimacy than I'd wish) was a dominant part of my emotional journey during 2010. I lingered in deep, sad places of remembrance, wishing, regretting, and eventually letting go during much of the year.


* I returned to my writing with a totally different concept of myself and my work. I have a new sense of peace and understanding about myself as an artist and about my work as art. It's as if a last puzzle piece fell into place when I wasn't paying attention. The picture is clear, crisp, and vibrant now.


* I am experiencing life as a "now" experience more than ever before. The past has drifted into misty realms and the future is a shinning cloud - I am living in the moment with an odd sense of calm and contentment even on the rough days. I love this new state of simply being.


So, with remembrances of the lessons and gratitude for the gifts and good fortune - and deep appreciation for all the many blessings - goodbye 2010!


Hello 2011


The new year starts as a clean, blank page. We can write our story however we choose. I hope to write in bright, beautiful strokes of vivid ink this year. I hope you do the same. Happy New Year!