Year: 2006
Holding Back
Posted on November 17, 2006 in Disappointment Mania
Lately I’ve been holding back regarding my feelings on this blog, largely due to accusations that I was becoming obsessed with my illness and situations relating to it. This is funny because I spend most of my days doing crossword puzzles, going to the gym, reading, and not writing or talking to much of anyone except the guys I meet in the gym. And our talk is about the two Ws: workouts and the weather.
I’ve realized, suddenly, that I am dealing with people in mania. Such folks are very good at appearing sane. Such folks are very good at running you down in histrionic bursts. Such folks panic when you appear to be on to them. No, I am sorry. No details. That would be to name names and violate confidences.
I must always be checking my own sanity in this. Currently, I would call it slightly depressed from the waves of hostile energy coming my way from just one source. I have email to show the outrageous overreaction of this individual. I’ve forwarded it to those who should know. And yet, despite the strength of the evidence, I still feel beaten down by the person. Is this obsessing or is this merely acknowledging what I feel at this moment? Only a few minutes ago, I was doing crosswords. Then I got up, went to the computer, put up the tips about bipolars over the holidays, and felt the feelings that I have now.
I’m not entirely in control of the disease. No one is, though some would love to think so. It has beaten me down many times and right now, in this moment, it is pulling at me. So I will finish this article and wash the clothes that I need for the gym. I should have done that an hour ago.
It would not surprise me if the person in question freaks at the sight of this and uses it to fire up an attack later. Ce la vie.
Bipolar for the Holidays
Posted on November 17, 2006 in Bipolar Disorder
Here’s an abbreviated version of recommendations from WebMd concerning how to help your bipolar relative get through the holidays without being excessively triggered. (I wish I’d had this two weeks ago.)
- Be direct
- Think about what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t
- Offer to help
- Pare down the guest list
- Change the venue
- Think about limiting alcohol
- Offer a place to go during a party
- Don’t forget about your own needs
Friday Anteater Blogging – Dallas Newborn
Posted on November 17, 2006 in Xenartha
The Dallas Zoo is greeting the arrival of a newborn baby anteater. You can check out the video of the pup here. And if you have a good name for it, you can go here.
I suggested Spout.
Who needs cat or squid blogging when there are anteaters combining the best qualities of both?
Campus Police Out of Control
Posted on November 16, 2006 in Accountability Violence
A video of UCLA police tazering a man for not having his identification card at the UCLA library.
Cops and their toys.
Who Runs Foreign Policy?
Posted on November 16, 2006 in Foreign Relations Reading
Implicit in such media coverage is the idea that the real legitimacy for U.S. war policymaking rests with the president, not the Congress. When I ponder that assumption, I think about 42-year-old footage of the CBS program Face the Nation.
The show’s host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest: “Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy.”
“Couldn’t be more wrong,” Sen. Wayne Morse broke in with his sandpapery voice. “You couldn’t make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That’s nonsense.”
Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, “To whom does it belong then, Senator?”
Morse did not miss a beat. “It belongs to the American people,” he shot back — and “I am pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign policy.”
The journalist persisted: “You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy.”
Morse’s response was indignant: “Why do you say that? … I have complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the facts if you’ll give them. And my charge against my government is, we’re not giving the American people the facts.”
Morse, the senior senator from Oregon, was passionate about the U.S. Constitution as well as international law. And, while rejecting the widely held notion that foreign policy belongs to the president, he spoke in unflinching terms about the Vietnam War. At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Feb. 27, 1968, Morse said that he did not “intend to put the blood of this war on my hands.”
And, prophetically, Morse added: “We’re going to become guilty, in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the world. It’s an ugly reality, and we Americans don’t like to face up to it.”
O.J. Cries
Posted on November 15, 2006 in Celebrity Hypocrites
So why the f*ck did you write the book if you cared about your kids?
He Flipped Coins for Grades
Posted on November 15, 2006 in Mania
Bipolar’s face in education and how one university doesn’t quite get the nature of the problem:
Torok is portrayed by the university as an arrogant and crass professor who disrespected and intimidated his peers, used profane language in class, flipped coins for grades, assigned grading to students, made flagrant sexual remarks, and even once asked female students if anyone in class had a tampon. One student claimed that Torok had talked about sex on the Internet between priests and nuns.
Borat and Real Kazakhs
Posted on November 14, 2006 in Ettiquette Film Hatred
Sascha Cohen’s depiction of a Kazakh telejournalist afoot in the United States amounts to little more than black face.
Borat and Real Americans
Posted on November 14, 2006 in Ettiquette Film Hatred
These were not actors but real people who agreed to go on camera and give the people of Kazakhstan a glimpse of real Americans.
Memo To Oliver North
Posted on November 12, 2006 in Occupation of Iraq
I want you to get something clear: if the war in Iraq was lost over here, it was lost by you. You and the pathetic scoundrels who seized the Executive Branch in 2000 and propelled us into yet another Vietnam. It was not the anti-war protestors or the liberals in Congress who lost it. We should have learned the lesson after Vietnam, but thanks to you, your cowboy constituency, and vainglory, we didn’t. We got ourselves mired in yet another civil conflict thanks to you.
So when the Congressional hearings come around on this, stay home. Don’t put on your uniform and bleed red white and blue all over the airwaves. It won’t work this time, Ollie.
DBSA News Feed
Posted on November 12, 2006 in DBSA Support Groups and Conferences Pointers
DBSA now features an RSS feed:
http://www.dbsapages.org/newswatch.xml
Friday Anteater Blogging – Rock and Roll!
Posted on November 10, 2006 in Xenartha
Here’s a South African rock group called “Anteater”.
