Schizo-What?

‘Why don’t you work full time?’ asked a colleague at the home the other day.

‘Because I’m radio rental,’ I replied.

‘Radio rental?’

‘Yeah, you know, it’s Cockney Rhyming slang. I’m mental. I have schizo affective disorder.’

‘Schizo what?’

‘Schizo affective disorder.’ I enunciated my words carefully. ‘It’s a combination of schizophrenia and manic depression.’

I saw her flinch when I uttered the word ‘schizophrenia’. She pursed her lips, walked away and said nothing more about it. Now, how am I supposed to respond to that? There is a flicker of fear in her eyes now whenever she sees me.

The government’s aim, not entirely devoid of merit, is to get as many ‘disabled’ people as possible off benefits and into full time work. This includes the ‘mentally ill’. It is easy, when hanging around in the ‘Madosphere’, a virtual place in which one is suffused with the warm glow of acceptance, of mutual appreciation, to forget that the real world is not like that. With a few notable exceptions, mental illness carries a greater stigma than physical illness. And no government can legislate away fear, suspicion and hostility.

Vacuous Bimbo Extraordinaire

I have just found out who Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s mate Liz Jones is. She is the fashion editor and columnist for The Daily Mail. She used to worship at the Altar of the Cult of Thinness and, if she is involved in the fashion industry, she still does. She is a former anorectic and used to be editor of Marie Claire, a magazine that also worships at the Altar of the Cult of Thinness. No doubt she passed on her ‘wisdom’ to any vulnerable young woman foolish enough to purchase that magazine. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who spends a good deal of time in ‘Working Men’s Clubs’ watching ‘working men’ ‘swigging beer’: ‘Responding to beer-swilling blokes in Wibsey Working Men’s Club, in Bradford, who said on television that they had lost their place as the backbone of the nation because Asians were overtaking them, she wrote: “A snail with special needs would overtake this lot … It is patronising and not remotely useful to treat the white working class as though they are all helpless, giant toddlers in need of conservation.’

I cannot find any evidence that Ms. Jones is of ‘working class stock’. I’m willing to bet that the working men she expresses such contempt for have contributed more to society that she ever will. I wonder how many young women’s lives have been destroyed as a result of the tyranny of slenderness promoted by the magazines she has worked for. She clearly doesn’t believe young women are ‘in need of conservation’ either.

I once called Polly Hudson of The Daily Mirror ‘Vacuous Bimbo Extraordinaire‘. Well, sorry Polly love, you’ve just been usurped. Step up to the stage, Ms. Jones, to accept your new title.

Addendum: I’ve found out why Nobby is called ‘Nobby’!  Good old Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobby_Clark

Burying Someone is One Thing…

Dancing on their grave is quite another: http://streamsofutternonsense.blogspot.com/

And, yes, I’m posting on this issue again. So, sue me. (Oops maybe I shouldn’t have said that. They probably will.)

In response to this, from Wombat Blogger:

‘Although few have any sympathy with a seriously ill person at the centre of events, the fact is that the pattern of harassment and abuse that is much more serious than some realise, is likely to continue until proper medical help is offered and accepted.’

So, you acknowledge that she is ill? How very charitable of you. Please tell me how all this is supposed to help. I know of no doctor who would reccommend this course of action.

Just one more thing. This little nugget of wisdom was left on Ms. Lowde’s blog by an individual known as ‘Jailhouse Lawyer’. (respected and admired by some of you – I’m told I shouldn’t judge you collectively but I can do little else as I don’t know who you are.):

”Glad to hear that you are homeless. I am sure that men will give you a bed for the night in return for your sexual favours.’

‘So, not only have you lost your head you have lost your house. LOL.’

Do you condemn it?

A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice.

____________

The middle class liberal elite, just as vicious and merciless in their way as their working class counterparts who persecute paediatricians because their favourite newspaper tells them to hunt down paedophiles, only worse, much worse because they think they are superior.

Have You Ever Noticed…

…how middle class ‘liberals’ cease to be quite so ‘liberal’ when their own interests are threatened?

I just couldn’t let it lie..

‘A case study in madness’?

This ‘Dan Hart’…is he a psychiatrist as well as a fine arts graduate? And if Ms. Lowde is indeed a ‘case study in madness’ then that makes the lynch mob on here about a thousand times worse than she is. A case study in hypocrisy, methinks. There’s a bit of Matthew Hopkins in all of you.

These people make you proud to be British, don’t they?

It’s worth noting that, in the States, attacking someone for being mentally ill is regarded with as much disapproval as attacking someone because of their race. And we have the audacity to mock them for their perceived lack of sophistication.

PS: BellaCat is really fat again 😎

Publish and Be Damned

Just another point. Ms North, you asserted: ‘As to whether she is mentally ill, I just don’t know. The court didn’t seem to think so.’ The Courts? You mean the District Judge. Well, this may astound you but district judges are neither omniscient nor infallible, nor are they mental health professionals. Neither, for that matter, are the prison officers whose job it was to observe Lowde. Many mentally ill women are left to languish in gaol because the system simply is not equipped to deal with them. The ‘special hospitals’ are designed to deal primarily with male offenders. The fact that the District Judge chose not to take psychiatric reports into account says more about the lack of care available for mentally ill women than it does about the state of Ms Lowde’s mental health. See, the personal really *is* political, even more often than *you’d* think.

BTW, if Ms Lowde doesn’t suffer from any kind of mental illness does that mean she has been libelled by the many bloggers who asserted that she was? And do you condone or condemn the prejudice they exhibited towards the mentally ill during the course of their ‘battle’ to bring Ms Lowde to ‘justice’. You may detach yourself from such comments but the fact that you failed to condemn them speaks volumes.

This Too Shall Pass

‘There’s your hopes and your dreams you embrace
Then there’s what’s staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won’t last
This too shall pass’

Bruce Hornsby

In response to this

Dear Ms. Alibhai-Brown,

I read your column with interest. I also listened to what you had to say on the BBC’s News Twenty Four and frankly I found it rather amusing. I really don’t think a country that treats a sixth of its population as subhuman (the lowest caste – the ‘untouchables’) has the right to lecture any other country on bigotry. This kind of discrimination occupies no column inches in our newspapers. No one takes to the streets and burns effigies of upper caste Indians on their behalf. But then they’re not spoilt Bollywood actresses.

I am from a working class background so I’m probably not as intelligent and sophisticated as you are but there are a couple of things I just don’t ‘get’:

1. Why do you consider racism wrong while endorsing other forms of bigotry such as class-based prejudice and misogyny? (You accused Jade Goody of being motivated by envy in her treatment of Ms. Shetty because the former is ‘ugly’ and the latter is ‘beautiful’ – because that is all woman is, right? Her packaging? The irony is that Ms. Shetty probably comes closer to Western ideals of beauty than Jade Goody who has West Indian features.) It seems like an illogical position to hold.

2. How is a programme watched by a minority of the population any more representative of the UK than the way in which some Indians treat their lower caste citizens? (They are exploited, mistreated, raped, tortured, immolated but that’s clearly something that doesn’t interest you. The next time you’re at the BBC take a trip over to Radio Four’s studios and listen to the episode of ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ that was broadcast on the Saturday before Christmas – it includes a particularly harrowing account of caste-based violence in rural India. That didn’t make it into our newspapers – probably because it didn’t involve any celebrities.)

Make no mistake, bigotry is wrong. All kinds of bigotry. Exhibiting a different kind of bigotry to Ms. Goody does not make you superior to her, it makes you the same as her. If you disapprove of someone’s behaviour it’s best to avoid emulating them.

And finally, could you please justify this:
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/23825.pdf

yours sincerely,