Saturday, October 10, 2015
Stunning? I'd say so!
Top Psychiatrist’s Stunning Announcement About Gun Violence
By PAULA J. CAPLAN, PHD
Featured Blogs October 9, 2015
After each highly publicized gun violence incident, some lawmakers—whether with good intention, for political gain, or both—declare that we must have laws to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness. It is therefore stunning and profoundly important to note Sunday's blog post from the American Psychiatric Association's president, Dr. Renee Binder.
As chief executive of the major lobby group that advocates for the interests of psychiatrists, Binder might have been expected to recommend an increase in psychiatric treatment for the mentally ill as a way to reduce gun violence. Amazingly, she not only did not make that recommendation, but she made the powerful—and well-documented—statement that people diagnosed with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it and that most of the mentally ill will never commit acts of violence against others. Thus, to pass laws to prevent the mentally ill from owning guns is no way to reduce the frequency of murders. In fact, as Binder pointed out, "Stronger indicators of risk include a history of violent behavior, domestic violence, and drug or alcohol abuse."
Politicians on the Sunday morning news shows either failed to read Binder's essay or chose to ignore it and plowed right ahead, pushing for gun laws about the mentally ill. And on Monday morning, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy appeared on CBS, making an impassioned plea to prevent the mentally ill from owning guns and making the bold—and unfounded—assertion that that such a step would have prevented the most recent mass shooting. It will be worth watching to see if over time, Binder's strong statement alters politicians' proposals. Today, Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson made a similar plea.
Two important points shed further light on this matter. One arises from the fact that the primary way that "the mentally ill" are identified is by having been given psychiatric diagnoses, but a vast body of work over three decades has revealed psychiatric diagnostic categories to be constructed and applied with little or no scientific support, so attempts to divide the populace into "the mentally ill" and "everyone else"—and aim to pass laws affecting the former—make no sense.
The other relevant point is that the ballooning numbers of categories and subcategories that are called mental illnesses has led to the psychiatrizing of our society, the tendency of therapists, media people, the public, even some novelists to try to explain every aspect of human behavior as caused by a mental illness. This often takes the form of, "Person X did Y, and the fact that they did Y proves that they are mentally ill, because Y (almost any action or expression) is a mental illness." Defense attorneys operating in a system that is often stacked against the accused, especially if the latter are poor or women or people of color, understandably try to get their clients diagnosed as mentally ill, hoping to argue that the psychiatric disorder is reason for a reduced sentence. As a result, a confounding factor we will increasingly need to consider is that an artificially created correlation between a diagnosis of mental illness and commission of a violent act will result, as anyone charged with an act of violence is increasingly likely to be labeled mentally ill. As that happens, it will unjustifiably become ammunition for those who want to base laws on the notion that "the mentally ill" are more dangerous than the rest of the populace.
POST-BLOG THOUGHTS. I've added a couple of things that might be relevant. Below is one of those cut-and-paste Facebook messages about depression, which are, I guess, better than nothing - but not much. They strike me as paper doll or cookie-cutter responses, don't cost anything, and can give you a false sense of having done your bit (so you can wash your hands of it all).
These are posted for just one hour, then, I assume, taken down - but why? Why is it considered so dangerous for people to leave a post about depression on their page? Why the necessity of reassuring people with statements like "I did it for a friend and you can too" (which smacks of "well, my friend has this problem. . . )? The whole post seems to be saying, "it's OK to display a message about this completely taboo topic, because no one will ever know".
For many people, even mentioning the subject to offer "a moment of support" is just too great a risk, likely because they fear being exposed as a sympathizer. "If I don't see your name, I'll understand" is a very sad statement: I know you can't risk mentioning your name, because people might think you're "one of them". As I've said before, and I will keep on saying it, mental health issues are where gay issues were in 1970, and cancer issues in 1950.
I have some things to say about all this (as usual). Below the Facebook quote and my response to it, I've posted a link to something you really need to see, if this subject interests you at all. (Please note: this is what you should NOT wear as a Halloween costume.)
Facebook cut-'n-paste message:
Yes depression is such a bitch and seems relentless. A lot of us have been
close to that edge, and some
have lost friends and loved ones. Let's look out for each other and stop sweeping mental illness under the rug.
If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my family and friends wherever you
might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to give a moment of support to
all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of
any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for
nobody is immune. Hope to see this on the walls of all my family and friends
just for moral support. I know some will!!! I did it for a friend and you can
too. You have to copy and paste
this one, no sharing.
My response to these one-hour-long, "if I don't see your name" messages of support:
We're starting to see more about depression on Facebook these days, and people are pasting and sharing and doing all manner of things. But do you know what might do even more to help the cause? If you know of someone who is off work with depression, don't avoid them or pretend it isn't happening. Ask them if they're up to a visit at home or in the hospital, and go see them and bring flowers or something else they might like. Depression is disabling and hurts far worse than a heart attack or a broken bone, but there are virtually no flowers sent to psychiatric wards. People's aversion runs very deep. Let's get over it, shall we? THAT would be really helpful.
My response to these one-hour-long, "if I don't see your name" messages of support:
We're starting to see more about depression on Facebook these days, and people are pasting and sharing and doing all manner of things. But do you know what might do even more to help the cause? If you know of someone who is off work with depression, don't avoid them or pretend it isn't happening. Ask them if they're up to a visit at home or in the hospital, and go see them and bring flowers or something else they might like. Depression is disabling and hurts far worse than a heart attack or a broken bone, but there are virtually no flowers sent to psychiatric wards. People's aversion runs very deep. Let's get over it, shall we? THAT would be really helpful.
Friday, October 9, 2015
Unreel: the lost art of the film countdown
This is an example of something that affected my childhood just as profoundly as those horrendous Civil Defense TV announcements with their headsplitting deeeeeeeeeet sound that convinced me I was heading for certain doom ("This is only a test"). During the Cuban Missile Crisis it very nearly happened, but that is another story.
When I was going to McKeough School in Chatham, Ontario, back in 19-blah-whatever, every once in a while there would be an Announcement. This would come from one of the spinster schoolteachers (all our teachers were Miss Somebody-or-other, no men or married women, we didn't think they could teach), and would set our little hearts a-thumping: we would be seeing a "fillum" that day.
We were trooped with military precision down to the basement of that hideous neo-Gothic structure (recently ripped down due to dry rot and excessive haunting) and sat on the damp floor. This is how we did things, how we moved bodies around: we marched in to school to military music in the morning, the boys on one side of the building and the girls on the other, as if grade school kids were going to indulge in some sort of awful debauchery.
There we saw a Fillum, or Fillums rather. These were boring beyond measure, always produced by the National Film Board, and had no story to them at all. They were industrial things about how to manufacture pencils, or prim lessons in manners and decorum, how to obey your parents, etc. etc., though sex was off the table then, if not forever.
I'll tell you why we were transfixed by all this. It was a Fillum, that's why, and a bit of a break from the deadly boredom of all those lessons on penmanship, obedience and being a good citizen. But most of all, it was because of THESE things, which I didn't know went by the prosaic name of film leaders. To me they were a sort of rocketship into the land of soaring imagination, or at least the National Film Board. We were told NOT to do the countdown out loud, though many of us whispered it and, of course, filled in the missing "2" and "1" (and I am still not sure why it is always absent). By this time the space race was on, so that we actually were listening to countdowns on TV as one pathetic rocket after another fizzled and fell.
There is still great mystery and beauty in these things, since they're all different and all so utterly incomprehensible. If they have a purpose, I will never know what it is. Maybe filmmakers strung them all together into a countdown stag reel, who knows. (I'd be up for it.)
Anyway, they don't seem to exist any more, which makes them even more precious in my eyes. That sound, too - the phhht, blp, blp, THUD, bzzzztztzt - all that stuff, the fuzzy splicky staticky noises I'm having such trouble describing - these danced with the splashy urgency of the images, the rush of descending numbers, the flash of - what? - that thrilling countdown that so quickly disappeared.
So where am I getting these, from whence have I dredged them up after all these years? As is usually the case, I 'm not sure of their origin. Before YouTube, all this treasure was just lodged in the back of my brain somewhere, so that I really didn't know if it had happened or not. If I tried to talk to anyone about it, they looked alarmed, as if I had gone dangerously insane or was at least delusional, so I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut. Then, of course, it all turned out to be True, because here it is again, flashing right in front of my eyes in a never-ending Mobius of magic.
This last one is a bit of a cheat, since I was still on Gifsforum (poor, dear, defunct Gifsforum), which gave you many options, including three speeds, turning colour into black and white or sepia, and reversing direction, not to mention captions and gifs that lasted up to 30 seconds. (These, which seem fairly long compared to the violent 2-second lurches you usually see, are only 20 seconds maximum.) So just to see how it would look, I ran it backwards.
By the way, if you are very, very quick, you might be able to catch the subject of the film. I can see that one of them says "ice fishing" (it's only on one frame or something), and another says "Pream" (remember all the Pream gifs I posted a while ago? Oh well.) The leaders are mostly gleaned from those YouTube compilations of old commercials and/or TV sitcoms of the '50s like Topper and I Married Joan, and no doubt are edited out in a lot of cases. But give me the big, sloppy sprawl of rotting old video, the kind of Fillum we used to devour while sitting on the damp floor of the basement of McKeough School, give me that raw unedited footage complete with the wild ride of the leader with its mysterious. seemingly useless and impenetrable countdown.
P. S. Watch all of these, they're all different and it took me two years to make and collect them. I went to a lot of trouble. Okay?
Monday, October 5, 2015
Cisco Kid was a friend of mine
These are things I have discovered, rediscovered, regiffed or whatever. Since I have literally hundreds of gifs on file, I have now come to the point where I can't find anything. I'm trying to separate things out into specific files, and it isn't working because then I discover I CAN'T FIND one of my favorite, favorite gifs of all time, and then I find out the YouTube video it came from has been taken down.
One of my very first TV memories is The Cisco Kid. I was far too young to know what was going on, maybe three or four. And we certainly did not see it in this gorgeous, saturated colour, which brings out the rapturous skins of those eager little quarter horses. In those days actors really did have to know how to ride, just in case they were in a Western. And fence, and speak properly, and other things. I think James Dean killed it.
You know, I don't know what the fuck this is, but boy is it interesting. No doubt it's the intro to some wacky show from the late '50s. That clock, I mean. . . I had one.
This is also completely gorgeous, the pink and the orange, the filthy surface with the lines and splotches. Too bad we can't hear that thunky, staticky sound I used to love so much.
I just like the idea of there being a show called Panic. It looks to be futuristic, and perhaps influenced by The Twilight Zone in its apparent paranoia about technology.
Fuck if I know what this one is either. Oh, forgive my language, I'm in another round of angst about my work. Everyone says reframe your failures as positive experiences. OK then, I'm POSITIVE I'm a failure.
Now this is very, very interesting. The announcer says something like "The following program is brought to you in glorious black and white." Which is, of course, all we had at the time.
One of my most glorious gifs. THIS is how the logo should look, but by the time we got a colour set I don't think they were using it any more. (Note: I think this is some sort of artist's mockup, as it looks too clear and perfect for early TV which went in for garishness. Sort of like early talkies, where everyone shouted at each other and thumped around.)
Double Danderine and Milk of Magnesia Toothpaste. Twilight Zone?
NEWS FLASH: I lied about the peacock. That wonderful but sterile-looking thing with the black background is some sort of abstract. The REAL "in living colour" NBC logo looked. . . something like this.
. . . and here are a few more I just discovered - so low-tech they're magnificent - surely a guy was dragging a piece of cardboard across the klieg lights. This has a fierce, aggressive military look to it, not surprising since the war was still so fresh in people's minds. The glowing lightning bolt in the eagle's beak is an inspired touch.
But look what I found, look what I found! This was, incredibly, at the beginning of an old Popeye cartoon made during World War II. I have no idea what NRA stands for. National Rifle Association? Imagine Popeye and Olive Oyl blowing each other to pieces.
And who knows what happens here. It looks like the Dumont logo is dropped into a wobbly slot or something. Dumont is really the best for Brontosaurus TV, truly paleolithic stuff that quivers greyly like a bad dream at sunrise.
And one more peacock logo, apparently the first one ever used, back in 1957 when NO ONE had a colour set. There was the inevitable announcer intoning "The following program. . . " with the most horrible, doomy, minor-key orchestral music, like the end of the world was coming. It scared the living shit out of me when I was three. Visually, this is the most vivid and effective of all of them, with a mystical, shimmering harlequin look that was later dropped in favour of the blurry stuff that matched the swirling music. Beats the hell out of that doomsday stuff.
And Harold, forever sucking face with Jobyna.
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It's a Universal Picture!
Nobody had better logos than Universal. This one dazzles me even in black and white, and makes me wonder why they ever had to update it.
In blue. This was back when Gifsforum was in operation, and I had much more flexibility in speed, duration, coloration, sound and spectacle. Makeagif is serviceable, but that's about it.
Just a tad faster. Kind of gives it a supernatural thrill.
Wah-HEEEEE-doodle! How in HELL did I get this effect? On reflection, it's a bit nightmarish, but it shows you what Gifsforum could do, before it died.
Now here's something different, and because it's from a compilation I don't have much info on it. It's not really quite the same because you can see land masses on the earth, instead of just blinky things. The animation seems more sophisticated - 1940s?
For some reason I always think of the end of King Kong, and that thrummy percussive music as the plane flies silently around the world.
This version would come on at the start of the picture, with plane sounds. Quite magically high-tech for its time.
Just when you think you've seen it all. . . the most beautiful of any of them, and I just found it. But again, I don't know what year this was. Surely some time in the 1930s. But who gives a fuck about the year? It's the beauty. I'd rather look at these than almost anything (except maybe old film leaders).
Thursday, October 1, 2015
William Shatner as Alexander the Great!
An unsold TV pilot, of which I have only had titillating YouTube glimpses. Shatner in a skirt, or in a hot bath, or wrestling, or. . . That's definitely him on the horse, not a stunt double, no stirrups so it's the same as bareback, and if so, he rides as well as Gary Cooper.He even does a few of those impressive running vaults onto the horse. This was pre-Trek, and it's easy to see why they thought of Shatner when re-casting the failed Star Trek pilot. Jeffrey Hunter was too boring, no histrioncs, and couldn't do the stunts. Remember the famous Kirk wrestling throw? Anyway, this also has Adam West, John Cassavetes, Joseph Cotten, and many other solid journeyman actors, so I am not sure why the pilot never sold. I think it was a Desilu production, but the costumes are at least a little less chintzy (though with no shortage of gold lame). The truth is, it may just have been too expensive to produce. In a few scenes A the G postures and poses, turning his profile this way and that, and damn, he really is a fox! Being 84 and still an able horseman and able at just about everything else a 35-year-old can do, I greatly admire the man and wonder what sort of deal with the devil he made to stop ageing at 60.
(Watch it here!)
http://free-classic-movies.com/movies-06/06-1968-01-26-Alexander-the-Great/index.php
The man himself. Not bad for 84.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
World's worst airplane food: bring back the airsick bag
World’s worst plane food
A “classic English breakfast” and pasta with a “bodily fluid-like"
sauce are among the worst offenders identified in air passengers'
photos
Safe to say this was one of the more interesting plane meals I've
had #jetstarairways #planefood. I've literally no idea [what it was],
it upsettingly tasted ok but that could have been the hangover telling
me that!' Photo: instagram.com/williamrae27
By Soo Kim
3:51PM BST 30 Sep 2015
40 CommentsAmused, confused and disgusted passengers have revealed some of the
most unappetising in-flight meals they’ve been subjected to on a plane
with pictures posted on Twitter and Instagram.
'After living off rice for the last 10 days, I couldn't wait to have
an 'English Breakfast' when offered it on the plane. But then, I got
this. #planefood #britishairways #whatisthat #fullenglish' Photo:
instagram.com/chriswilko
The snaps have ranged from several unidentifiable, sloppy masses
and questionable pasta with “hard pellet-like things” to one British
Airways meal described as “the most disgusting plane food ever” as
well as a sad, skimpy cheese sandwich from Virgin Australia. One
disgruntled Virgin passenger once sent
"the world's best passenger complaint letter"
to Richard Branson, which went viral after it surfaced, in which he
described his "culinary journey of hell" on a flight from Mumbai to
Heathrow.
• The British Airways solution to bland airline food
'This was supposed to be some sort of Italian pasta, and I can
only compare the sauce texture to a bodily fluid. I could not, after a
lot of effort, identify the hard beige pellet-like things in the sauce.'
Photo: Kathryn Siegel (submitted to MailOnline)
One user posted a picture of his meal for others to guess what it
could be, while another user, williamrae27, admitted the meal he
had "tasted okay" even though he couldn't identify what he
actually was eating.
Photo: instagram.com/timoberg78
Images of other contenders for the world's worst airlines meals
can be seen on AirlineMeals.net.
A hamburger served on North Korea's Air Koryo, which was ranked
the world's worst airline by Skytrax earlier this year Photo:
AirlineMeals.net
Helpful hint: avoid the mushroom omlettte on the menu Freebird
Airlines. Photo:AirlineMeals.net
Swimming in what looks like the water at the bottom of your
dishwasher, Ukraine International Airlines offers up a sad fruit salad.
Photo: AirlineMeals.net
However, a few users revealed some of the more enjoyable and even
"delicious" meals they've had on airlines including Qatar Airways and
Qantas.
'Pea and Mint soup aboard #Qantas #qf598 #perbne
#businessclass #avgeek #aviation #paxex #planefood
#flying #planes #lifewelltravelled
' Photo: Twitter / @PeterLoh
Blogger's note. This was a cut-'n-paste job, obviously, as posting
links is not only dull, I am sure no one ever bothers to read them.
This does all sorts of bizarre things to the formatting, so it takes
a while to screw around with it before I can post it, with a few
flubs left over. I've had airplane food that was pretty much inedible,
but you can't even LOOK at this stuff, and it probably has
that steamed-dirty-socks-combined-with-disintegrating-brussels-
sprouts reek and institutional metallic taste,like something served
off a green plastic tray in a mental hospital.
Makes me feel just a little bit better that I can't afford to fly anywhere.
SPECIAL BONUS SHOTS! These may be
geography lessons. I've never seen South
America done in mushy peas.
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