George, You've Been Fired...Vacate Your Office Now!

Well, George, we've been meeting here for therapy sessions for some years now and, frankly, I don't see any investment on your part toward getting a grip on reality. Your employers, the American citizens, have sent me copies of notices to you that your position has become untenable....and they have fired you several times. I need for you to understand this clearly on the behalf of public safety.

So, let me be clear. George Bush, you have been fired!

You must vacate your office and relocate your household goods and family immediately. The White House Staff all have signed up along with most members of Congress and several thousand citizen volunteers to help in the move. The trucks are already lined up and waiting.

Aah, I can see from your uncomprehending gaze that this information is not reaching you and that, as usual, the executive areas of your brain are at a standstill. So, here's what is going to happen. Because of the thousands of innocent people who have died at your order and because you are suffering from a severe mental illness, you are going with these police officers to a facility for the mentally ill. Your entire personal law firm represented you at the commitment hearing on Friday, May 4, 2007 and, in the face of compelling evidence of your illness and dangerousness to others, a Federal judge (one of those you did not fire) signed the order of commitment. We do not want the same mistake repeated again as happened recently in Virginia. Since you have already caused harm to thousands through the delusions of your reality, there is no possibility of a community commitment.

I think you will find your accommodations comfortable, and, hopefully, within 6 months or so you will be well enough to be released home to the Texas ranch. However, as you know, having been committed you will never again be allowed to possess a firearm or have access to weapons of destruction either directly or through agents at your direction. Sorry, but this is how it has to be. The gentlemen who have just entered the office will escort you to the hospital. You will also be informed that, once you have regained sufficient mental stability, any legal proceedings against you for criminal acts will be brought forward. Being mentally ill does not absolve you of accountability for any criminal acts.

Wooden Shoe

Bankruptcy Notice: Democracy

The Vice President Touts...or is it "announces"?
Cheney: Credit checks aren't illegal

There are moments when the ludicrous becomes just plain ridiculous. This article and its headline, is the epitome of circuitous reasoning. Because credit checks have become the de facto means by which people in the country are hired, housed, given license to borrow, and monitored for "creditworthiness", a statement such as the use of credit checks to catch terrorists simply is "so what else is new" in the daily news scene. The fact that terrorists, apart from inept thugs, are quite aware of the means of monitoring financial activity and can skillfully run through or around these techniques is yet another "look what we are doing to make Americans safer" dodge.

Meanwhile, thanks to the transparent techniques of presidential "letters", financial "policies", and privacy caveats such as: information sharing is perfectly OK for reviewers, billers, researchers (with or without IRB protocols), the shreds of freedom and democracy are nearly swept clean from the foundation of America's cherished vision.

Sadly, it will not matter much what the congress sets out to achieve as long as Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush are busy playing Imperator with the nation at the financial, moral and human life cost of citizens of the country and the world. As in most cases where persons are held captive in concentration camps, the hostages develop a strange attachment to the hostage takers as it becomes the only means to hope for survival. This may seem irrational...for instance why hasn't the Administration been charged with crimes against humanity, sedition, murder, theft and extortion? The problem is the crimes themselves are too small to apply to the enormity of the damage being incurred. It's not as though these decisions and actions can be remedied through the next election and a new administration. Mr. Bush., Mr. Cheney and his entourage of faceless "yes puppets", to include Ms. Rice, Supreme Court appointees, and, of course Mr. Gates have bankrupted the country and the concept of democracy as well as soiled its ideals with all that is corrupt, greed based and debased in every breath they take (*must remember in group think there is one breath not individual breaths).

The transparency of having a national budget that simply leaves out sizable parts of the spending of citizen's money...such as the war in Iraq, and an administration and congress which flagrantly touts personal privacy in health care, unless it happens to be a matter of "interest" to the government, supports the freedom of information, unless it happens to be an item excluded from types of FOIA eligible documents, is not lost on the American public. The enormity of the impact is daunting and it will take tremendous vision and creative, ethical action for at least two generations to effect any positive momentum to restoration of the light of freedom and individual rights. While there may be many firebrands seeking cataclysmic change in the government, it will be purposeless to replace one tyranny with another in the name of moving back to the country's foundations, even though the thought of excoriation is a longing for many.

There is no choice except to make a choice and hold fast to it regardless of how the wind blows in government quarters. If one lives ethically, morally and compassionately, actions that follow can only be toward human and world survival and growth. We may, sadly, extinguish ourselves as a species. One can only hope that the wisdom of the Earth will survive the emptying of its coffers.

Wooden Shoe

Spinning Into The Bottom of the Barrel

It's been a year since Wooden Shoe last posted here. A year of watching; a year of witnessing and waiting to see how the Sandbox Bullies chose to behave and, more importantly, how the rest of the playground reacted.

It has been a year of continued unspeakable acts of psychopathology of the President and his movers and shakers. When the Iraq debacle began in 2001, the media, public, and money allies waved the flag and assisted in creating a truly hateful and terrorist inspiring world presence. We actually thought the President was worthy of being named Time's Man of the Year.

Now, if you who read this post were to sit in the waiting room of the mental health center where I work and come across George Bush sitting there as well, stripped of the gloss and glitter, and hear him start a tout or rant about being in charge of democracy in the world, I guarantee you would raise your eyebrows, bury your heads in a magazine and deperately hope someone would quickly take the man away to a safe locked unit where he could be treated and not have access to any weapons. What you see, instead, is a desperate, irrational middle aged man clinging to an eroding slope. He has no insight, no judgement, and is definitely a danger to others...and "we" the US citizens accept this AND give him the power to order the destruction of the world. This is the hallmark of pathology of this type, carefully exploited at first to create the illusion of good and then revealing the actuality of despotic power.

We, the US citizens, have absolutely not one word to say about the running of any other country at this point (and never have except through example of a well run -- not any more -- democracy and self-governance by the citizens). The debased and corrupted actions of the members of leadership we chose to elect are all the more shameful for the lack of correction by the country's citizens. We not only chose, but clung to the coattails of a runaway demon and now are coming too late to awareness of the effect of this parasitic attachment.

Only in very recent months has the media retrenched from support for the administration's hurtling charge into chaos in the name of "democracy and freedom." Only last week did a man who spoke with eloquence and truth at the 2004 Democratic Convention make the front cover of Time Magazine. And, true to the current groupie mentality of the public, the wording of the new infatuation with Barack Obama reflects his "rising star" qualities not his more mature emerging statesmanship and leadership abilities. The man is already being staged for falling off his pedestal when he doesn't keep his idol position and shows himself to be more complicated than a media bite can encompass.

I fault the President and the Sandbox Bullies for their unspeakable actions over these years, and have seen no change except for increasing pathology and desperation leading the country to a pivotal point of hatred by anyone who recognizes the difference between true freedom and cult slathering devotion.

Sadly, I also fault myself for a year's inaction of public voice, and the rest of the US citizens for failure to use what remnants are left of the Constitution and government structures to halt this madness and reduce it to the back ward of a forensic state hospital unit where no one can be further harmed.

Wooden Shoe

Wow, How Familiar!

Monitors in Iraq Review Votes Where 'Yes' Ballots Hit 90% By DEXTER FILKINS and ROBERT F. WORTH 10:31 PM ETElection officials are investigating "unusually high" vote totals in 12 Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

Heh heh....gee where have we seen these high numbers before? How about Ohio? Yep, some folks just couldn't make it to the polls in time to vote and others were there in droves!

I guess the Administration has taught the Iraqi voters and voter organizers very well indeed.

Wooden Shoe

Evangelism and Zealous Beliefs

The shock of a shooting at a church service has left neighbors, friends and the public in an uneasy state of bewilderment. There seems no logic to such a violent and tragic event, no understanding of how an ordinary man who lived an ordinary life without a history of violence could simply take aim and methodically murder members of a prayer fellowship.

It is time to look at how evangelism and zealous beliefs ensnare those most in need of control over their inner thoughts and impulses. It is time to look at how the political endorsement of conservative, fundamentalist structures has fueled the flocks of lost souls looking for some anchor to control their own behaviors outside of themselves.

The actions of one man who found personal justification in murdering his fellow church members during services is simply a crack in a Pandora's box of unleashed human violence. As a species we are not, as we would like to believe, highly intelligent, rational or superior creatures. Quite the contrary, we have an unrelenting passion for savagery and destruction. Over 58 years of exploring life I cannot identify any species on earth apart from humans that kills and injures for the savage pleasure of it, nor can I identify any other species that justifies mass decimation with divine direction.

Evangelism is not restricted to religion of course. We have ample evidence of that in the actions of the President of the United States engaging and driving a tightly controlled flock of followers to evangelize what he calls democracy to the entire world community with complete disregard for others' cultural, historical, or political structures and choices. This becomes all the more ludicrous when the light shines on his version of democracy reflecting horrific abuses in Guantanamo and Abu Graib, destruction of quality of lives and families by hijacking National Guard and Reservists to serve active duty for such length that their civilian lives are shattered, and a driven effort to foist loss of privacy in the name of security across the country. This is all cloaked in a thinly veiled marketing strategy of religious compassion.

The use of the religious conservatives to justify totalitarian, exploitive and abusive behaviors on citizens in this country has opened the door to justification of violence to achieve a "right" outcome. The vulnerability of someone's inner fears and uncertainties coupled with a tacit government permission to justify violence in the name of holiness will, inevitably, fuel the types of events that occured yesterday at a small church service in Wisconsin. Add to this political message the increased sense of justified existence of fervent evangelical groups who posit having the true light to carry to the world, then the light we'll be seeing will be increasingly explosive.

Until we, as a species, choose to internalize social and individual control to the degree of other species, we are at the bottom of the chain, not the top. Because of our lack of internalized self-discipline and ability to steward rather than control territory and lives, we are too dangerous to take on a mantle of rightousness or to lay claim to apostolic, evangelical leadership. Standing at the feet of God is not the same as standing in His Shoes. Whoever's shoes are being borrowed by zealots of all political and faith persuasions have the stench of destruction and decay and leave a trail to darkness not light.

Condoleezza and the Chocolate Factory

You know, the qualities of a good prostitute have always been to have excellent social graces and multiple talents. Sadly, no matter what Ms. Rice's level of intelligence, her mouth is permanently glued to a portion of the President's anatomy and she will always exhale the company line. Too bad for her, and dangerous for us. Barbara Boxer was extremely professional and cuttingly well controlled in challenging Condi's parroting company lines. My comment to some of the President's supporters in my community centered on Ms Rice's skin color reflecting not so much a noble ethnic heritage, but the debris clinging to her from her juxtaposition to the President.

Now, the question is whether Ms. Rice has the other attribute of a good prostitute; the ability to play her customer with such skill, he doesn't know he's being had. I'm afraid she needs more training in this regard, or maybe her personal agenda is being met by being near the PowerPoint button.

Don't you just detest those PowerPoint slide shows by now? Same old, same old format and lines. I think the President must have over rehearsed his Inauguration speech. Who could possibly build something that repetitively boring around two such powerful words: Liberty, and Freedom? Only PowerPoint, poorly delivered, could make banal two concepts that reflect so much struggle and passion?

And another thing...how could the President, his wife and children NOT know the sign for satan that they so liberally and gleefully demontrated thinking they were signaling support for the Texas Longhorns? Either they haven't paid attention in Discerning Witches and Satans church classes, or maybe.....? Hmmm..now that's an intriguing thought isn't it? Anyone up for making a PowerPoint presentation about GWB and his family being secret members of a satanic cult whose mysteries are hidden in the Texas Longhorns' locker rooms?

Lilly Knew About Prozac Risk in the 1980s

The need to re-invent the wheel every few years always amazes me. This headline has occupied the CNN news all day. Every time it is run, I have a gut response that is becoming a mantra at this point: "Don't throw symptoms away until you know the purpose they serve!"

In the 1980s I was very new to mental health "in the trenches" work. I worked with the Greater Manchester Mental Health Center in Manchester NH as a residential and crisis program manager. It was great training and I was fortunate to have excellent supervision and learning opportunities through my boss, Diane Langley, RN, and the mental health center treatment team staff.

Prozac hit the trade near the end of my 5 year tenure at GMMHC. The VERY FIRST information we learned was that the manufacturer and the psychiatrists said ANYONE with a bipolar type disorder or an agitated type depression SHOULD NOT be prescribed this medication because of the risk of their flipping into mania from vegetative depression. Now, if that information came into the prescribers' hands in the 1980s, how can it have "slipped" the minds of practitioners since then? How would prescribers get the information in a manner sufficient to warn other practitioners and patients unless the company gave it to them? So, if it was known then, and if the information came from the manufacturer, how can there be a furor over "secrecy" now?

Anyone with more than two brain cells can figure out that an SSRI is activating, hopefully improving overall brain function to reduce depression related anxiety and agitation from cortical underarousal as well as to lift slowed function from the same source. It is not a great choice for those who present as depressed but who may be developing and maintaining such symptoms to keep the lid on rage, or reactive fear and aggression which is a core of over half the clinically depressed patients I see in my practice.

Mood instability MUST be evaluated IN CONTEXT before a decision is made to prescribe any medication. Lifestyle, substance use, level of exhaution and sleep deprivation need to be adjusted FIRST or, less preferred, concurrently with slow initiation of antidepressants.

There is NO EXCUSE for providing an SSRI without knowing the context and function of the symptoms. Most importantly, symptoms should NEVER be reduced until there is knowledge of what lies beneath and risk assessment should the lid come off.

We must stop telling people they have a right to feel good and help them encompass feeling bad as acceptable and motivating toward personal change. Our current culture is antithetical to experiencing a sense of safety or tolerance of added distress without watching and experiencing the tower of "I" shatter. Until we choose a social and political path of peace and safety, all the pills in the world are a waste of money and are potentially lethal.

Wooden Shoe