Understanding mental health

An important part of my teaching job - I work in a special day school with kids with serious academic, behavioral, and mental health issues - is an understanding of mental health and how it impacts peoples' relationships and functioning.

In that vein, I've done and continue to do a lot of broad study of mental health issues. One isssue that came up, recently, in a conversation with my roommate, was schizophrenia.



These are some very nice videos demonstrating what schizophrenia looks like, offering a fuller, truer-to-life illustration of this condition and its serious consquences for peoples' lives.



Mental health and psychology is subject to debate, of course, like any other idea or body of knowledge. It is subject to democratic discussion and debate as much as scholarly discussion and debate.

But the reality of the impact of psychology on our functioning and perceptions of reality is much more undeniable the more you see such situations and the consequences of mental health and our understandings of psychology, our own and others', on our lives.



My job lies between the world of serious mental illness, as demonstrated in these cases, and the more mentally healthy and yet always less than ideal mental health of those of us who do not suffer from a serious mental illness.

But understanding psychology and mental illness is critical to any understanding of people and how they relate with one another, including policy thought and discussions.

These videos give just a taste of what that understanding has to offer us.

One Day in September

If you have not seen the Oscar-award winning documentary, One Day in September, an excellent account of the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics and one of the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life, it has uploaded, in toto, apparently, on Youtube.



I highly recommend this really brilliant and remarkable film. I do not agree with all of its conclusions, especially its conspiracy-minded thinking about the German government and its motivations in its handling of this tragedy and its aftermath.

But, especially given an extended interview with Jamal Al Gashey, the last remaining member of the Black September terrorist cell responsible for this crime, I highly recommend giving this a watch.

You also might check out another excellent documentary on radical Islam, Obsession, when you get a chance.



Enjoy.

The people I want ruling the world

If there is any group of folks whose votes I want ruling the world, it is definitely this group of geniuses.



The idea that we would have our major policy debates about who can emulate or pander best to this bullshit rather than an engaged and honest debate and discussion about who has the best ideas about how to tackle our problems most effectively - and how to best let people tackle problems on their own and with one another without the oversight of the equally impressive geniuses who run for office - is, well, really fuckin' brilliant, you must admit.

And the idea that force, rather than liberal and democratic engagement, would operate as some kind of substitute for more genuine liberal democratic values, is as foolish in its consequences as it is the most persistent and stubborn abuse of power.

If our history was not so replete with a long track record of steering ourselves in the right direction despite such foolishness and abuses, I would be more gloomy about the world.

But, for awhile, as Lincoln wisely opined, these dumbasses can be convinced to do just about anything. And that is the problem. Power inherently involves manipulation. And these folks are just too subject to it.

If only that could be the end of it. Except that it can't. There is only one way out. We just all have to get smarter. And more responsible for our own lives.

And that is the way, and the only way, forward.