Monday, June 9, 2014


News Clips For The Day


It's an Anomaly! Winds Keep NASA's Flying Saucer Grounded – NBC
BY ALAN BOYLE
First published June 8th 2014

Sorry, flying-saucer fans: Unfavorable winds have forced NASA to call off the launch of its saucer-shaped Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator for the fourth time in a week.

The prototype vehlcle, and the team behind it, will have to wait until Wednesday at the earliest to send the LDSD on a mission aimed at testing technologies that could be used for future landings on Mars.

The experiment at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, was originally scheduled for June 3, then for the 5th, then the 7th, and then Monday. Each time, NASA has had to stand down.

"Wind conditions have been the prevailing factor in the launch delays," NASA spokeswoman Shannon Ridinger said in an email on Sunday.

The 15-foot-wide LDSD is supposed to be launched by a helium balloon to a height of 120,000 feet, and then blasted up to 180,000 feet by a solid-fueled rocket engine. As it descends at supersonic speeds, it would inflate an "inner tube" device to increase its diameter to 20 feet. The resulting atmospheric drag should slow the descent enough for the deployment of a super-strong parachute.

A more advanced version of the device could be used to help land multi-ton payloads on Mars. But for this test, NASA wants the LDSD prototype to fall into the Pacific Ocean — and that means upper-level winds have to blowing out to sea rather than inland. So far, the winds have been blowing in the wrong direction.

NASA spokesman David Steitz told NBC News that the current wind pattern appears to be anomalous.

"The LDSD team examined the weather records of PMRF [the Pacific Missile Range Facility] during the past two years, day-by-day, to pick the optimal time of year for cooperative atmosphere and winds," he wrote in an email. "This year, however, Mother Nature appears to have new plans for the winds over Hawaii."

After Wednesday, the team has one more opportunity on the schedule, on June 14. For additional background on NASA's flying saucer, take a look at last week's preview. And to find out which way the winds are blowing, check out the LDSD project's website or follow @NASA_Technologyon Twitter.




The “Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator” is being tested for future flights to land on Mars. The base of operations is U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. “'Wind conditions have been the prevailing factor in the launch delays,' NASA spokeswoman Shannon Ridinger said in an email on Sunday.” The vehicle is 15 feet wide, which will be inflated by an “inner tube device” to 20 feet at the time of descent to produce enough drag that a “super strong parachute” can safely slow it down to the landing. A rocket engine is used in mid-flight once it reaches 120,000 feet by the use of a helium balloon, and from there will be taken to 180,000 feet. “A more advanced version of the device could be used to help land multi-ton payloads on Mars.” This project is at least two years old, since the team has been studying wind patterns for that length of time.

There have been urban legends, of course, that the military have been experimenting with “flying saucers” for decades, as strange objects have been sighted in the skies. I wonder what the benefit of being saucer-shaped is – greater maneuverability? If it can be steered in a new direction from any part of the circle it would explain some of the tricky movements that flying saucers are reported to have made, by those people who claim to have seen them, that is. It does seem to me that to carry a crew of maybe six complete with an on board bathroom and some kind of resting facility it would need to be at least twice that large.





Two Cops, Three Others Killed in Las Vegas Shooting Spree
BY ANDREW BLANKSTEIN AND HASANI GITTENS
First published June 8th 2014

One of the shooters who ambushed two Las Vegas police officers and shot them to death at a pizzeria yelled “This is the start of a revolution!” before firing, witnesses told police.

The man and woman then sprayed bullets at a nearby Walmart, gunning down a third person, before killing themselves in an apparent suicide pact, authorities said.

The officers were eating lunch Sunday at a Cici’s Pizza when the shooters approached. Authorities said they stripped the dead officers of their weapons and ammunition before going across the street to continue the spree.

“It’s a tragic day,” Sheriff Doug Gillespie told reporters. “But we still have a community to police, and we still have a community to protect. We will be out there doing it with our heads held high, but with an emptiness in our hearts.”

Investigators on Monday were trying to piece together what happened. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the shooters covered the dead officers with the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag, which depicts a coiled snake and the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

The officers were identified as Alyn Beck, 42, and Igor Soldo, 32. One of the them fired back at the two shooters before succumbing to his injuries, Gillespie said at an afternoon press conference.

“My officers were simply having lunch when the shooting started,” said Gillespie. “I can tell you that they were both family men, and they’re leaving behind loved ones.”

Deputy Sheriff Kevin McMahill told an earlier press conference that one of the shooters, described as a tall white man, yelled "Everyone get out!" before unleashing a hail of bullets in the Walmart.

“They just said, ‘The revolution’s begun,’ they said that they shot some officers, and basically get out of the store if you don’t want to get hurt,” said Tyrone Ellis, who works at the Walmart.

When cops arrived at the store, they found the one casualty at the front entrance, and then exchanged fire with the suspects, who fled further into the store, Gillespie said.

Officers then heard more shots: The shooters had apparently killed themselves, in what officials described as "some kind of suicide pact."

Gillespie said the woman suspect shot the man first, then herself.

The suspects were not immediately identified, and the motive for the entire episode was unclear. Officials stressed that the investigation was in its early stages.

In a statement, Walmart said the store was closed and that it was working with local police.

"We express our deepest condolences to everyone who has been affected by this senseless act of violence," said spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan.

Cici's Pizza also put out a statement saying, "We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and our hearts go out to the families and friends of the officers." They said the store would remained closed until further notice.





“This is the start of a revolution!” cried one of the shooters as they shot two policemen dead as they were peacefully eating at a local pizzeria. The last time I heard talk of a revolution here in the US was in the 1970's. Some, not all, of the “hippies” favored an attempted revolution. Those people are all in their sixties and seventies by now. So where is a new movement to take over the government coming from now?

“The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the shooters covered the dead offices with the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag, which depicts a coiled snake and the words 'Don’t Tread On Me.'” One of the shooters is described simply as “a tall white man,” and his companion was a woman. The woman may have been the leader, since she shot her companion and then herself. Both Cici's and Walmart are closed for the time being while they interact with police investigating the event. Why the Gadsden Flag? The following article gives the current political affiliation of many users of that particular flag, which leads me to believe that these shooters may be on the radical end of the Tea Party or other far right organizations.



http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_20918830/at-gettysburg-history-or-propaganda

At Gettysburg, history or propaganda?

Complaints made about merchandise sold at battlefield bookstore.
By TIM PRUDENTE The Evening Sun
POSTED:   06/22/2012 

The name might not be recognizable, but you've probably seen a Gadsden flag, typically yellow with a coiled rattlesnake and the warning "Don't tread on me."

The flag was flown by colonists rebelling against British rule. And more recently, it's become the adopted symbol of the Tea parties and conservative Republicans, prompting questions as to whether it's an appropriate theme for merchandise sold at the Gettysburg battlefield bookstore.

"During the Civil War, the flag was used in some Southern states as a symbol of secession," she said.

A group of Republican congressmen unfurled a Gadsden flag from a Capitol building balcony during the debate on healthcare reform. And a Colorado man made national news when his homeowners association ordered him to remove a Gadsden flag from his roof.

Also, a group of retired Marines was denied a request to fly a Gadsden flag at the Connecticut State Capitol. Lawmakers there defended their refusal by saying the flag was a political symbol with Tea party connections. And debate raged when Arizona's conservative governor Jan Brewer signed a law providing the Gadsden flag the same protections as "Old Glory."

"The flag is legitimate in the proper context," Gioni said. "The problem is this flag has been hijacked for the political stage. It's definitely partisan and definitely inappropriate. The park should be politically neutral."

There have been other complaints of inappropriate merchandise sold at National Park bookstores. The Park Service has drawn criticism for selling a creationist book that says the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah's flood.

Others have objected to the sale of books containing American Indian folklore, particularly one that says the towering rock formation in northeast Wyoming called Devil's Tower was formed by bears.

Barna said the Park Service follows strict guidelines to prevent the appearance of religious or political affiliations.

"We're very careful about what we do, especially in an election year," Barna said. "These items with the Gadsden flag were not selected to have anything to do with current political issues out there."

Gioni doesn't believe the Gettysburg bookstore is pushing partisan politics. Rather, he said, the items are probably stocked because they sell.

"When you're in an election year, you know this stuff is going to make a fast buck," he said. "They're disregarding what's appropriate in the interest of money."

The Gadsden flag merchandise arrived about two months ago and there has only been one complaint, said a store employee. In fact, some visiting veterans have praised the merchandise, saying the flag speaks to U.S. military history.




French Far Right's Marine Le Pen Rebukes Dad in Anti-Semitism Row
- Reuters
First published June 9th 2014

PARIS - Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front (FN), rebuked her father and former party head on Sunday for remarks reviving long-standing allegations of anti-Semitism soon after a major poll victory.

Marine Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigrant and anti-EU party from Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011, said a controversial quip he made about a French Jewish singer that included an implied reference to concentration camp ovens had been misinterpreted.

But for an experienced politician like her father, she said, "not to have foreseen how this phrase would be interpreted is a political mistake the National Front is (now) paying for."

Marine Le Pen, who has made the FN more acceptable to voters by playing down some hardline traditions, led the party last month to first place in French voting for the European Parliament, the first time it has ever won a nationwide poll.

French and European Jewish groups denounced her father's comments as anti-Semitic. Another prominent leader of the FN, speaking out before Marine Le Pen, said his attack was "politically stupid and deplorable."

The controversy began on Friday with a video posted on the FN website in which Jean-Marie Le Pen lashed out at several celebrities - including U.S. singer Madonna, French comedian Guy Bedos and tennis star Yannick Noah - for expressing alarm that the party had swept 25 percent of the European Parliament vote.

Reminded by his interviewer that Jewish singer Patrick Bruel was among the critics, Le Pen chuckled and said: "That doesn't surprise me. Listen, we'll do up a batch next time."

Le Pen has often used subtle word play to hint at anti-Semitic views without clearly saying them. His word for "batch" - fournee - is a baking term that originally meant "ovenful".

He was convicted of inciting racial hatred in 1996 for saying the gas chambers used to kill Jews in the Holocaust were "merely a detail in the history of the Second World War."

Bruel responded to his video with a tweet saying: "J.M. Le Pen reoffends ... Did he need to remind us of his true face and that of the FN?"

Marine Le Pen told Le Figaro daily, in comments distributed before publication, that the assumption that her father's comments were anti-Semitic was a "malicious interpretation" but that the incident "allows me to reiterate that the National Front most firmly condemns every form of anti-Semitism."





Jean-Marie Le Pen referred to Jewish singer Patrick Bruel's condemnation of his views, saying that “We'll do up a batch next time” in reference to Hitler's gas chambers. His daughter repudiated his comment, and said, 'not to have foreseen how this phrase would be interpreted is a political mistake the National Front is (now) paying for.' Marine Le Pen, who has made the FN more acceptable to voters by playing down some hardline traditions, led the party last month to first place in French voting for the European Parliament.... The controversy began on Friday with a video posted on the FN website in which Jean-Marie Le Pen lashed out at several celebrities - including U.S. singer Madonna, French comedian Guy Bedos and tennis star Yannick Noah - for expressing alarm that the party had swept 25 percent of the European Parliament vote.” Maine Le Pen claims that the National Front “'most firmly condemns every form of anti-Semitism.'” The problem is that there is a large enough minority in France to elect the right wing National Front because it stands in opposition to immigrants and French membership in the EU. Parties like this in a number of countries across Europe, including Britain, have been in the news this year. The ability of the EU to hold together could become a problem, and there does tend to be a rising anti-Semitism involved in the mix.

Nationalism is a stimulus to a strong central government and an enthusiastic national pride, which can be good in that it is more stable, but if it inflames racial and religious hatred it is dangerous. There have been many news articles about rising anti-Semitism across Europe in the past few years. I read somewhere in a history class that the rise of Nazism was largely a response to the economic problems of the Depression, which caused fear among the poor and middle class. This caused the citizenry to revert to seeking a scapegoat as the cause of their problems. The Jews have been a favorite scapegoat since the rise to a position of political power by the Christian religion. The US chose not to have an established religion, hoping that would make all religions safe and free to worship in their own way. Unfortunately there are still diehards in the US who maintain their religious membership as a competition, rather than accepting “the Other's” right to exist. The words of Jesus can be a stimulus to peace and virtue, but too much “enthusiasm” for any religion is always dangerous. The Christians have been killing each other as Protestants or Catholics for centuries and in between times, they killed Jews. So, on it goes.





Hospitals Put Pharmacists In The ER To Cut Medication Errors
by LAUREN SILVERMAN
June 09, 2014

In the emergency department at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, pharmacists who specialize in emergency medicine review each medication to make sure it's the right one in the right dose.

It's part of the hospital's efforts to cut down on medication errors and dangerous drug interactions, which contribute to more than 7,000 deaths across the country each year.

Medication errors can be caused by something as simple as bad handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, poor packaging design or confusion between metric or other dosing units, according to theFood and Drug Administration. But they're often due to a combination of factors, which makes them harder to prevent.

At Children's in Dallas, there are 10 full-time emergency pharmacists, more than anywhere else in the country, and they are on call 24 hours a day. The pharmacists provide a vital safety net, according to Dr. Rustin Morse , chief quality officer and a pediatric ER physician.

"Every single order I put in," Morse says, "is reviewed in real time by a pharmacist in the emergency department prior to dispensing and administering the medication."

That may sound obvious, but Morse says doctors like him, are used to jotting down a type and quantity of drugs and moving on. If there's a problem, a pharmacist will hopefully catch it and get in touch later. But later won't work in the emergency room.

The extra review is particularly important at Children's because medication errors are three times more likely to occur with children than with adults. That's because kids are not "just little adults," says Dr. Brenda Darling, the clinical pharmacy manager for Children's Medical Center.
"They have completely different metabolic rates that you have to look at," Darling says, "so you have to know your patients."

On any given week, pharmacists at Children's review nearly 20,000 prescriptions and medication orders, looking at things like the child's weight, allergies, medications and health insurance.

There are also automatic reviews by an electronic medical record system designed to essentially "spell check" orders to prevent errors. You need both, says Dr. James Svenson, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin, because the electronic medical record doesn't catch all errors.

Svenson co-authored a study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that found that even with an electronic medical record, 25 percent of children's prescriptions had errors, as did 10 percent of adults'. Now his hospital also has a pharmacist in the emergency department 24 hours a day.

So why doesn't every hospital do this? The main reason, Svenson says, is money.

"If you're in a small ER, it's hard enough just to have adequate staffing for your patients in terms of nursing and techs, let alone to have a pharmacist sitting down. If the volume isn't there, it's hard to justify."

Hiring pharmacists is expensive, but Morse points to research showing prescription review can reduce the number of hospital readmissions, thereby saving money and lives.

"People do make mistakes," Morse says, and you need to make sure "a patient doesn't get a drug that could potentially stop them breathing because it's the wrong dose.”





“Bad handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, poor packaging design or confusion between metric or other dosing units,” are among the causes for some 7,000 deaths in the US annually. Everybody jokes about the doctor's illegible handwriting, and unfortunately, from my own observation is it too often true. I don't see how pharmacists can get it right from looking at the prescription. I imagine they sometimes call the doctor to verify it, but I think in other cases they guess at it and get it wrong. This new trend makes a great deal of sense, and like so many good ideas, it is a simple one.

Dr. Rustin Morse at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, is not defensive about the matter. “'Every single order I put in," Morse says, "is reviewed in real time by a pharmacist in the emergency department prior to dispensing and administering the medication.'" Why don't all hospitals do that? It costs too much, according to Lauren Silverman. Dr. James Svenson, a professor at University of Wisconsin, said, “even with an electronic medical record, 25 percent of children's prescriptions had errors, as did 10 percent of adults.'” That really is a dangerously high figure. Perhaps even small Emergency Rooms will increasingly have at least a few pharmacists on staff, if the trend toward doing it increases. Perhaps they could pay their top administrative officers or physicians a little less – just make some cuts to share out the costs.





Untreated mental illness an imminent danger? – CBS
How many of the recent mass shootings in the U.S. were preventable tragedies, symptoms of a failing mental health system?

Jun 08, 2014
CORRESPONDENT Steve Kroft

The following script is from "Imminent Danger" which aired on Sept. 29, 2013, and was rebroadcast on June 8, 2014. The correspondent is Steve Kroft. Producers Graham Messick and Coleman Cowan.

The past several weeks have seen another deadly outbreak of mass shootings by lone gunmen in their 20's on or near college campuses, part of an epidemic of senseless violence that's now occurring on a regular basis.

It's become harder and harder to ignore the fact that the majority of the people pulling the triggers have turned out to be severely mentally ill, not in control of their faculties, and not receiving treatment. In the words of one of the country's top psychiatrists, these were preventable tragedies, symptoms of a failed mental health system that's prohibited from intervening until a judge determines that someone presents an "imminent danger to themself or others."

And as we first reported last fall, the consequence is a society that's neglected millions of seriously ill people hidden in plain sight on the streets of our cities, or locked away in prisons or jails.

There is something eerily similar about the shooters, as if they were variations of the same person. All young males, often with the same glazed expression, loners who exhibited bizarre behavior, and withdrew into their own troubled world. They're often portrayed as villains. But Dr. E. Fuller Torrey says their deeds have much more to do with sickness and health than good and evil.

Dr. Torrey: Every person I've taken care of, and I've taken care of several hundred of these people, had a very good reason for doing what looked to be crazy behavior. But in their mind, it wasn't crazy behavior. It was in response to something that was very logical, that their voices were telling them, or that their delusions were telling them.

Dr. Torrey is one of the most famous psychiatrists in the country, an expert on severe mental illness, and a staunch critic of the way the country deals with it.

Steve Kroft: How much of these terrible incidents that we've had, these mass shootings, is traceable to deficiencies in the mental health care system?

Dr. Torrey: Well, they're directly related. About half of these mass killings are being done by people with severe mental illness, mostly schizophrenia. And if they were being treated, they would've been preventable.

For example, before killing 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last September, the gunman, Aaron Alexis, told police that he was hearing voices and being bombarded by strangers with a microwave machine. If he had been transported to a psych ward, the shootings might never have happened.

Dr. Lieberman: You can be the most popular student, you can be the valedictorian of your class. And if you develop schizophrenia it will change the functioning of your brain and change the nature of your behavior.

Steve Kroft: You could be completely normal at age 20, perhaps a good student or a gifted student and a solid citizen, and at 21 or 22 be psychotic?

Dr. Lieberman: Absolutely.

Dr. Lieberman, who runs the psychiatry department at Columbia University's medical school, says that schizophrenia has a genetic component and tends to run in families, affecting the way the circuits in the brain develop. You can see the structural abnormalities in a brain scan.

Dr. Lieberman: And you see people, a young adult, with a normal brain, same age with, who has schizophrenia, and you see that degenerative process has already begun.

Steve Kroft: This is really a disease of the brain. Not a disease of the mind?

Dr. Lieberman: Absolutely.

It lies dormant during childhood and usually emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood, affecting perception and judgment. People see things that aren't there and hear voices that aren't real.

Schizophrenia is more common than you might think. Several million Americans have it. 17-year-old Jacob Bowman has been struggling with it for a couple of years.

Jacob Bowman: This is basically me on a bad day, I guess. Because I can't think straight. My thoughts are racing really, really fast.

He's dropped out of high school, lives at home under the watchful eyes of his parents, and rarely goes out because he thinks people are trying to kill him. He spends much of his time on social media -- we found him on YouTube -- where he shares his world with other young people who have the same symptoms. He wants them to know that they're not alone, and that the voices and hallucinations are not real.

Jacob Bowman: Basically all my voices I have are just thought-- just voices telling me to harm myself or harm other people or kill people. And, that's why I think I need to get on medication because I don't want to hurt anyone. And because I know schizophrenics aren't violent.
And he's mostly right. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia never show any signs of violence.

It is a serious concern and a sobering thought, because it's estimated that half the 7 million people in the country with schizophrenia and other forms of severe mental illness are not being treated at all.

Duanne Luckow: This is Day 10 now of my fast. So I'm feeling really, really good.

Duanne Luckow is one of them. He has spent the past three years on and off the street and in and out of jails and mental institutions, but he doesn't acknowledge that there is anything wrong with him and has refused treatment. He's been recording the events in his life to prove that he is sane and that the rest of the world is out to get him.

Steve Kroft: Did you have trouble getting him treatment?

Sandra Luckow: Yes. Yes. A tremendous amount of trouble getting him treatment.

She is no longer sure her brother can be helped, and has kept her distance ever since he sent her a threatening email.

Sandra Luckow: He said that someone was going to come to my apartment with an AR-15 and hollow point bullets and spatter my brains all over my apartment.

Steve Kroft: Has he ever been violent?

Sandra Luckow: Not that I know.

Steve Kroft: But you think it's possible?

Sandra Luckow: Sure.

Fifty years ago, someone like Duanne Luckow would have ended up in a place like this, involuntarily committed to one of the big state-run hospitals that were used to warehouse the seriously mentally ill.

Documentaries like Frederick Wiseman's "Titicut Follies" helped expose the dehumanizing conditions and led to reforms. One by one, the big asylums were shut down, and over time, a half million inmates were released into communities to fend for themselves. They were supposed to be housed in residential treatment centers, medicated, and supervised by case workers at walk-in clinics. But the programs were never adequately funded.

Dr. Torrey: What we did is we emptied out the hospitals and, on any given day now in the United States, half of the people with schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses are not being treated.

Steve Kroft: How difficult is it to get somebody admitted who does not want to be admitted?

Dr. Torrey: Almost impossible in most states. The laws will read, "You have to be a danger to yourself or others," in some states, and judges may interpret this very, very strictly. You know, we kiddingly say, "You have to be either trying to kill your psychiatrist, or trying to kill yourself in front of your psychiatrist, to be able to get hospitalized."

Steve Kroft: If these people aren't receiving medical attention, where are they ending up?

Dr. Torrey: Many of them end up homeless. Many of them end up in jails and prisons now. So this is a huge problem. Our jails and prisons are our main place now where you find mentally ill people.

In fact by some measures, the largest mental institution in the United States is the Cook County Jail in Chicago. It houses the largest number of mentally ill people in the country.

Tom Dart: This is a population that people don't care about and so as a result of that there are not the resources out there to care for them.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is in charge of the jail and he is not very happy about the situation.

Tom Dart: I've got probably 2,500, 2,800 people with mental illness in my jail today. And you look at their backgrounds, they've been in here 50, 60, 100, we have some people who've been in here 400 times.

Steve Kroft: What kind of offenses?

Tom Dart: Oh my God, retail theft is a norm. And usually it's 'cause they're stealing something either to feed themselves or, frankly, they're stealing something because they just wanted it that second. Loads of cases of criminal trespass to land. What's that? They're breaking in some place to sleep.

Steve Kroft: You're saying the prisons and the jails are the new asylums?

Tom Dart: Absolutely. There is no person that could argue otherwise that the jails and prisons are the new insane asylums. That's what we are.


Tom Dart: And the videos we've shown people are to show them what happens when we take people who are mentally ill and we cram them into the criminal justice system where they're not supposed to be. And the irony's so deep that you have a society that finds it wrong to have people warehoused in a state mental institution, but those very same people were OK if we warehouse 'em in a jail. It's just-- you've got to be kidding me.

[Elli Montgomery: Were you ever diagnosed with depression or bipolar disorder?

Inmate: Yeah, a long time ago.]

Every day Elli Montgomery, one of five social workers here, goes over the list of new inmates with mental illness.

Elli Montgomery: We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...15. With a severe mental illness.

Steve Kroft: Just this morning?

Elli Montgomery: Yeah, just this morning. Severely mentally ill. Not like a little bit of depression.

Most of them will be here for several days to several months, then released back on the street with a packet of pills and no plan. Sheriff Dart says it's become a huge public safety issue.

Steve Kroft: There's been an epidemic of mass shootings. A lot of them by people with serious mental health problems. Do you think there's a connection?

Tom Dart: Yes, I do think there are connections here because people-- some are getting treated. Other ones aren't getting treated. People are falling through the cracks all the time. And so to think that that won't then boil up at some point and end up in a tragedy, that's just naive. That's just naive.

Dr. Torrey: We have a grand experiment: what happens when you don't treat people. But then you're going to have to accept 10 percent of homicides being killed by untreated, mentally ill people. You're going to have to accept Tucson and Aurora. You're going to have to accept Cho at Virginia Tech. These are the consequences, when we allow people who need to be treated to go untreated. And, if you are willing to do that, then that's fine. But I'm not willing to do that.





“In the words of one of the country's top psychiatrists, these were preventable tragedies, symptoms of a failed mental health system that's prohibited from intervening until a judge determines that someone presents an 'imminent danger to themselves or others.'” I remember when the government began to cut down on funds for mental hospitals for the chronically ill. A large hospital in Washington, DC, where I was living, literally turned mentally ill people out on the street “with a packet of medicine and no Plan” as this article states. There was already a homeless problem there, and that just became a bigger and more dangerous problem because so many of them were psychotic. There would be encampments of people in sleeping bags in any available grassy space, or even right on the sidewalk. Often I have seen them “preaching” to the crowd, ranting on some subject at a street corner. I became adept at walking as far away from them as possible while crossing the street beside them. I wasn't hostile toward them. I was just afraid.

From this article, I think there may be a new sensitivity to the stupidity of failing to hospitalize and medicate these people. Civil libertarians sometimes argue that no one should be hospitalized or made to take medication against their will, but some of those medications make them groggy or have other side affects, and as a result they don't want to take their prescription. I know something about mental health drugs, and one thing that is true is that you have to keep trying new ones until you get the medication that is both effective for you and has no serious side effects. They are powerful drugs, especially the anti-psychotics, but they work wonders where no amount of talk therapy will effect a cure. With the right drugs, patients can live outside on their own and hold a job, that is assuming they have an ongoing relationship with a psychologist who keeps track of his patients and is available if they need help. With no therapist they are too likely to stop taking the medication, especially if they are living on the street. Then they become a problem for the police or society at large, and they are “hospitalized” in the local jail, as one Sheriff in this article said.

Society has to understand and “believe” that psychotic individuals are not “just like everybody else.” Many criminals are in jail because they never learned to control their temper, but others simply can't stop being violent without a medication. There is a need for mental hospitals in which people are “warehoused” but with proper medications, and if they are still unable to attain a place in society, they need to stay there forever. I remember the uproar when John Hinckley was about to be released from the hospital on his own recognizance. That makes no more sense than putting him in jail does. The hospital listened and he was kept at that point, but according to the Wikipedia article on Hinckley as of December 2013 a judge has allowed him to make extended visits to his parents. I hope he stays on his medication and can live successfully.





How A Lack Of Toilets Puts India's Women At Risk Of Assault – NPR
by JULIE MCCARTHY
June 09, 2014

A young girl sweeps fallen debris from a tempest that blew through her village of Katra Sahadatganj one recent evening. This remote spot in Uttar Pradesh — India's largest state — has become the center of another gathering storm.

It was here two weeks ago where two young girls were audaciously attacked: raped and hanged from a tree. Inter-caste violence and patriarchal attitudes combined to make a chilling spectacle in this impoverished place of mud-caked children and hand-pumped water.

It's a question of belief in human dignity, which somewhere along the line we seem to have lost.
- Gouri Choudhury, Action India

But the deaths conceivably could have been averted if the girls had had access to a toilet at home. Lacking one, on the night they were killed, the two teens did what hundreds of millions of women do across India each day: Under the cloak of darkness before sunrise or after sunset, they set out for an open field to relieve themselves.

Guddo Devi, 35, is a cousin of the two slain girls and says women normally move in pairs to avoid being preyed upon.

"When we step out of the house we are scared," Devi says. "And we have to go in the mornings, in the evenings, and when we cannot stop ourselves, at times we go in the afternoons as well. ... And there are no bathrooms. We don't have any kind of facility. We have to go out."

Others complained of harassment in the fields, but only now, after the double rape and murder, do they fear for their lives performing the simplest bodily function.

A Toilet For Change

Social entrepreneur Bindeshwar Pathak has offered to build a toilet for every house in the village. It wouldn't be the first time for the man known in India as the "toilet guru."

Nine hours' drive away in the bordering state of Haryana, Pathak has already transformed the village of Hir Mathala with his simple two-pit design.

Swinging open the door to a toilet bowl built on a raised platform that stands 25 feet from the front door of the owner, Pathak says it requires only one liter to flush, compared with the usual nine liters of water.

With Pathak's low-maintenance, low-cost toilet — about $250 — one pit gets filled while the other biodegrades the waste, which can be used as fertilizer. Each of the 144 households has been outfitted in this village, a village Pathak calls a "pathfinder ... to show the entire nation that you should have toilets in your house. And here nobody goes outside. This is the beauty of this village," he says.

The women of Hir Mathala village arrange themselves on the floor and literally sing the praises of the 71-year-old Pathak, whose lowly toilet has become a tool of social change.

Their song is about a wife's plea for a toilet. In rural India, households that can afford to build a latrine often don't. Resident Shelia Nahelia says her husband refused because of the expense. So Nahelia stitched clothes to raise $50, her family's portion of the cost and a small fortune for her.
Vijay Laxmi smiles radiantly. The 35-year-old says she and her children have never been healthier.

"There has been a huge change in our lives. Before, the men would follow us, wait for us to sit in the field and watch. Now, thanks to Mr. Pathak, we have a lavatory at home." Laxmi says, "We don't need to step out, and we feel better. Our dignity which is an ornament for us — is now safe."

A Massive Health Risk

Pathak's NGO, Sulabh International, has built 1.3 million toilets in Indian homes the past four decades. While commendable, the Sulabh toilet has not dramatically reduced the incidence of open defecation, which presents dire consequences for public health.

The practice contaminates food and water, and transmits diarrhea-related diseases that kill 700,000 children every year worldwide — 200,000 of them are in India, says Brian Arbogast, director of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"There is an increasing body of evidence that says poor sanitation when a child is young, can lead to mental and cognitive stunting," Arbogast says.

He says the Gates Foundation set up a challenge to "reinvent" the toilet that can accommodate the deprivations of India.

"It can't have to be connected to the water grid, it can't have to be connected to the sewer grid, and it can't have to be connected to the electricity grid," he says. "It needs to kill all of the pathogens so that what comes out of their toilets doesn't smell and can't make anybody sick. And it has to be cheap."

A team from Cal-Tech was awarded the most promising design and is one of three now being tested in India. Team member Clement Cid says it meets the goal of 5 cents per user per day, but the toilet still costs $1,500.

"Our goal is to make it cheaper, and we're working on the core component of the system and we are driving the cost down," Cid says. "But the benefit on the overall society is huge."

Shifting Social Norms

Arbogast says even affordable innovations won't alone solve India's sanitation problems. He says India needs to shift the mindset that open defecation is "natural and normal" to "it is not healthy."

"You teach them that their children and their families are suffering a lot of sickness because of basically fecal matter being transmitted, by flies or other ways, to the food they eat," Arbogast says. "And once people really realize that, that can really be a triggering event for a community."
Diane Coffey, a Ph.D. candidate with Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and an economist, says simply providing latrines is no guarantee that people will actually use them. She studied five northern Indian states and found that 19 percent of women with access to a latrine still preferred to defecate in the open.

"They're used to it, for one," Coffey says. And she says the research is clear that "building toilets without addressing common norms, attitudes and beliefs around latrine use is unlikely to reduce open defecation in rural India."

Gouri Choudhury of the human rights group Action India says the country's political leadership has failed to grasp the gravity of the problem.

"It's a question of belief in human dignity, which somewhere along the line we seem to have lost," Choudhury says.

India and China each have more than a billion people, and here's the contrast: The World Health Organization says in China, 1 out of every 100 people defecate out in the open; in India, it's 1 out of every 2 people — the highest rate in the world.

India's former rural development minister, Jairam Ramesh, says increased government assistance for building toilets has spurred construction, as has the issue of women's privacy.

"We launched a 'No Toilet, No Bride' campaign," Ramesh says. "I would go out and exhort women not to get married into families that did not have a toilet. And this worked. In many parts of the country, women refused."

But a social movement to revolutionize attitudes and behaviors toward sanitation in India may be in order.

Many Indians look to their new Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make good on his recent election campaign promise: "toilets first, temples later."





The recent brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls who had to go outside to eliminate, and were caught by a gang of youths, was in the news last week. “Inter-caste violence and patriarchal attitudes combined to make a chilling spectacle in this impoverished place of mud-caked children and hand-pumped water.... 'It's a question of belief in human dignity, which somewhere along the line we seem to have lost,'” according to Gouri Choudhury of, Action India. Somehow “good people” have to be dislodged from their complacency, and say that another man's problem is my problem, too. The very poor should not be trodden underfoot by those who feel superior to them. It's basically immoral, and if religion doesn't teach this, then the law has to be written to protect such groups who lack social leverage sufficient to allow them to live a decent life.

When I was a very young girl, though we lived in a town, we had no indoor toilet. We did have an outdoor “johnny house,” but it was full of spiders and stank. Nonetheless, I had to use it. We moved to a house that was fully equipped when I was six, so we had no more problems. At this point, in the US, I don't think there are any houses within city limits that don't at least have an indoor bathroom, though there may be no bathtub provided. I've seen bathrooms that only have a shower. There are generally laws about it. It really is a matter of basic hygiene. India, of course, has a huge population, many of whom are terribly poor, but they still need to expend government money to provide basic sanitary facilities. All housing should be remodeled to include a flush toilet and some kind of facility for bathing. Maybe with this outpouring of anger from women the problem will be rectified. Indian women in their flowing saris are so very feminine and beautiful, but the picture in the newspaper of them in the street with signs demanding toilets and their faces furiously angry, their fists in the air, was so striking that I had to copy it to my collection of photos on my computer. I am so proud of them for standing up for girls and women.

Social entrepreneur Bindeshwar Pathak has begun action already toward providing two seater flush toilets for each house. In the village of Hir Mathala, which houses 144 families, has been finished and he plans to move on to Katra Sahadatganj where the two girls were killed. Each double toilet costs $250.00 to build. The article describes them as being “built on a raised platform that stands 25 feet from the front door of the owner,” which sounds to me as though it's still outdoors, but Pathak is quoted as saying they are indoors. “'to show the entire nation that you should have toilets in your house. And here nobody goes outside. This is the beauty of this village,' he says.” Whatever. It's private and they don't have to go out to a nearby field. “The women of Hir Mathala village arrange themselves on the floor and literally sing the praises of the 71-year-old Pathak, whose lowly toilet has become a tool of social change.” Just think how many people will be spared from a death from cholera now. It should be worth the costs for the government to mandate toilets all over the nation and aid people about building them.

Brian Arbogast, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stated, “'There is an increasing body of evidence that says poor sanitation when a child is young, can lead to mental and cognitive stunting.'” Of the type of toilet that is needed, he said “'It can't have to be connected to the water grid, it can't have to be connected to the sewer grid, and it can't have to be connected to the electricity grid," he says. "It needs to kill all of the pathogens so that what comes out of their toilets doesn't smell and can't make anybody sick. And it has to be cheap.'"That is a lot of requirements, but the foundation has issued a challenge for the invention of such toilets. “Arbogast says even affordable innovations won't alone solve India's sanitation problems. He says India needs to shift the mindset that open defecation is "natural and normal" to "it is not healthy.'" “Diane Coffey, a Ph.D. candidate with Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and an economist, says simply providing latrines is no guarantee that people will actually use them. She studied five northern Indian states and found that 19 percent of women with access to a latrine still preferred to defecate in the open.” Still, that looks like progress to me. 19% isn't a very large number of people compared to the 80% or so who have improved their patterns. Social acceptance of any new thing in a highly conservative society takes time.

“Gouri Choudhury of the human rights group Action India says the country's political leadership has failed to grasp the gravity of the problem.” It's a matter of education and that is a process that needs to be made from the top down, and made again and again until attitudes change and the people adapt. There was one place in South America where “riser” toilets were put in during the 1970's and the people there simply couldn't use them because they were “squatters.” It takes experimentation and practice to change something like that.

The article contrasts China and India, saying that whereas in China one in a hundred people defecate outdoors, in India it's one in two. That really is startling. “Jairam Ramesh, says increased government assistance for building toilets has spurred construction, as has the issue of women's privacy. 'We launched a 'No Toilet, No Bride' campaign,' Ramesh says. 'I would go out and exhort women not to get married into families that did not have a toilet. And this worked. In many parts of the country, women refused.'" Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his election recently partly on the election slogan, “ "toilets first, temples later." I see a lot of hope in this article. At least fewer young women will be going outside to eliminate wastes, so their likelihood of meeting attackers will be lower. They will also have a greater sense of dignity, I think. Maybe they will even start to carry mace canisters to spray would be attackers in the face.