Just Wondering

Have you seen the graffiti on the concrete pillars at the south entrance to Washington Park? Last year a serious effort was made to give those pillars a thorough cleaning. Years of graffiti and pigeon guano was removed. The workers who did the job wore bio hazard suits and probably required many months of intense psychotherapy afterward.

But shortly after this clean-up, somebody used a permanent marker to write a graffito about somebody named Janet. It reads: "Janet ______ has aids." Another in the same hand reads: "Janet ______ got aids. Just ask her."

So many questions arise. Have I dated anybody named Janet? No. Did the author of the graffiti date Janet? Is he a bitter ex who tested positive, or is the author just slandering Janet, who may not have AIDS at all? Maybe she just borrowed his car and wrecked it! And this is his payback? Or perhaps the author is a woman competing with Janet for some guy's affection? Then is this her way of eliminating the competition? Oh, shame on you, anonymous scoundrel, whoever you are.

IT'S NOT HOMICIDE. IT'S THE 2ND AMENDMENT.

If you click on this link, http://vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm, it will take you to the Violence Policy Center's page that keeps a regularly updated tally of homicides committed by shooters with concealed carry permits. Since 2007, 9 law enforcement officers and over 100 civilians have been shot to death by perpetrators with permits to carry concealed weapons.

DAVID POOLE UPDATE

As of Tuesday, David Poole has made progress after having been evicted.
The Drop Inn Center is offering him the 50/50 Deal: The resident
agrees to give 50% of his income to the Drop toward getting him into
some sort of housing. David has finally got in touch with PATH,
who entered his personal information into their system, and are
actively searching for a housing solution.

On January 1, because of funding and other issues, Tender Mercies
laid off four employees. The individual who made the decision to evict
Mr. Poole was one of them.

GOOGLE RESISTS EVIL

Anybody who got their gmail accounts phished by those Shanghai digital banditos should feel
a measure of justice has been meted out with the news today that Google is threatening to pull out of the PRC. Many months ago, Yahoo knuckled under to the Beijing government and supplied them with information about account holders. Google appears to be made of sterner stuff. One hopes it is not a bluff.

Also, one wonders whether these miscreant phishermen might have been on the Chinese government's payroll. Several news outlets reported today that many of the phishing expeditions targeted critics of the government, and known dissidents. Phishing thousands of Google accounts worldwide might have been nothing more than cover for a more specific operation.

The Right to Unbearable Arms

The festive, celebratory gunfire began a tad early this year. According to www.time.gov it was 11:59:20 P.M. on December 31, 2009 when the shooting started. Much of it was confined to west of Central Parkway, and to Avondale.
It's not clear to yours truly whether it was police intervention, or lack of ammunition that curtailed the excitement, but the shooting was over by 12:20:00 A.M., January 1, 2010. The recreational shooting, that is. Our annual firefight with the cosmos.
Homicidal shooting, encouraged by our national right to bear arms --- arms unimagined by the Constitution's authors --- will resume within the hour.

Digression 1.2: Email from Shanghai

Recently received an email from a friend's address, but I am quite sure she didn't write it. An outfit from Shanghai called unsico.com, purports to offer all sorts of electronic and computer stuff for impossibly low prices. They apparently phish both your email address as well as all the addresses in your contact file. That way unsico's bogus offers appear to come from one of your friends. You might even mistakenly believe that your friend is endorsing unsico.com. Don't push that reply button.

davidcarney to bernicebirnbauer@schleppmail.com 10:21 p.m.

Bernie,

Somehow an internet scam known as unsico.com is using your email address to send out bogus solicitations. The sent-to-addresses may have come from your contact file. Think about deleting your present email at gmail and opening another one. Unsico.com operates out of Shanghai, their ads are written in broken English, and they only accept payment via wire transfer or Western Union. I.e., your money disappears.

I thought about sending it to you, but decided to just delete it. Since I opened it, it might have phished me, so it might be time to change my address as well. Wordpress has a page about unsico, but I have yet to hear from google. Talk about "getting Shanghaied." These guys are such a cliche.

dc

STELLA WITHOUT STARLIGHT

While chatting with Stella today, the subject of meds came up. She dismissed my concern about receptor sites and neurotransmitters. Stella's mood is always deeply depressed, she is often uncommunicative, often decompensating. Her physical movements are exasperatingly slow, as if she has been drugged.

She is quite the opposite. She has declined to take any medication for years. Stella maintains that "antidepressants don't do a damn thing." She has case management and sees a psychiatrist occasionally. Since she has been unable to keep appointments, her mental health provider agency has placed her on the clinic schedule.

Clinic means that her appointment is not with a specific psychiatrist, but rather with whichever psychiatrist is up next to see a patient. It's like a cattle-call audition for movie extras: Stella shows up (usually) at 10 a.m. In the waiting room are fifteen or twenty other agency clients who also have a 10 a.m. appointment. There are two or three psychiatrists in the exam rooms who gradually work their way through the crowd of patients. If Stella happens to be one of the last patients seen, then her wait can be as long as two and a half hours.

I tell Stella that it frustrates me, her lack of interest in meds, or in therapy, or in trying to manage her depression. I tell her that if she's not careful, her disorder could become integrated into her personality. Instead of having a disorder, she could literally be the disorder.

She scoffs at me. "Hell, that happened years ago. Or so the goddam doctors say."

I've taken Effexor since 2000. Added Welbutrin to that in '06. I suspect that many people say "antidepressants don't work," when what they really mean is, "antidepressants don't make me happy."

To me, it's like saying, "This damned insulin won't grow new beta cells in the Islets of Langherans in my pancreas!"

I don't think any class of antidepressant will bring happiness. At best, it allows us to function, to sleep better but not perfectly, to process information better, but not on a genius level. I try to manage my disorder. I have no illusions about curing it anytime soon.