Dear Ms. Murphy, It's not my place to say how you should protect your child. I don't have any and thus don't have to protect any from my medications. I can, however note the various government and private studies have listed drowning, suffocation and motor vehicle accident as the worst dangers of accidental and preventable death to your child. Child-proof locks must be working, because preventable death due to toxins and firearms accidents are way down on the list. But I've seen OCD up close, and what it does to children. It's not pretty. However, if you must have the last word, please do so.
Sir, please do not think me mean when I say, I bet money that even though there are child proof locks on the medication bottles that you have, you also lock them up as well? Would that not make you overly-protective? And it wouldn't be very effective in the case of an allergic reaction or heart attack would it? Tell me this, should I not be so cautious with my lethal firearms? And when I do so take your advice and just put them in a child proof case, which we both know is about as child proof as the medication caps, and my son gets into it and hurts himself can I come calling at your door to find out what would be the next best solution? Or, should I continue to do what I am doing and teach him (when he is old enough) how to properly handle these things that way I can have it be more useful without the fear of walking in my house to see my sons dead body on the floor. I can't possibly have been that stupid to keep the ammunition and the guns in two separate locations that are both easily accessible with the key right next to my bed to unlock the safety I have. I feel absolutely mortified that I could take such a risk with my family's well being! Thank you Don for pointing out to me the error of my ways! Not once did it cross my mind in the training that I have received for gun safety that all I had to do was look to the citizens of Tulsa to not only help me make my guns so more readily available but also to teach me how to raise my son! People like you are the reason why there is such tight gun control. Because people believe that there children can't get into something than when they do, they cry for stricter gun control. Put my firearms in a child proof case? What does that even mean? What child proof anything is there? How many times have you hidden something from your own children, just to have it found? Do me a favor and think on this mental piece of cake. You lock something up, tell your kid that they can't have it, what is the first thing they do when you're not there? That's right, it's the proverbial golden ticket to them. And what happens when they get in that case and both the ammunition and weapon are there? That's right, they're going to want to play with it. Than what's next? They hurt themselves, someone else, and if you're really lucky, they might not do anything. But the point is that they will try to get into whatever it is that you keep locked away. So let's go a head and make it easier for them to get it. Fantastic. Let's go a head and pass out dime bags to fifth graders and have them lock it in a drawer and say that they can't have it. They're going to be able to get it, know how to get, why not just make it easier for them. According to your logic, you did your part by saying no don't do that so they're not going to do it. Please Don come teach my kid to behave and to not do stupid things. You would be making my life so much easier. You're a gem.
The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODMHSAS) occasionally publishes its version of the Oklahoma Mental Health Code, Title 43A. On its web site, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services lists section 5-401 of Title 43A, the Oklahoma Mental Health Code as "Repealed", and ignores its provisions. It has done so for a number of years.
For example: circa 2003: http://www.odmhsas.org/emer_rule/2003%20-%2043A.pdf circa 2006: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6532648/Oklahoma-Mental-Health-Laws circa 2007: http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/documents/Title 43A Mental Health Law.pdf circa 2010: http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/documents/2010%20-%2043A.pdf
Nor is it alone. So do the local District Court, the District Attorney and Public Defender's Office here in Tulsa. Yet the official version on the Oklahoma Legislature site says,
"§43A-5-401. Repealed by Laws 1997, c. 387, § 11, eff. Nov. 1, 1997. >NOTE: Subsequent to repeal, § 5-401 was amended by Laws 1997, c. 195, § >3 to read as follows:"
Where I went to junior high, "subsequent" means "after". The numerous provisions that dictate what officials involved in involuntary commitment shall do includes §43A-5-401.D.1, which states:
“The attorney appointed by the court shall be a licensed and actively practicing attorney who shall represent the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment until final disposition of the case. The court may appoint a public defender where available. The attorney shall meet and consult with the person within one (1) day of notification of his appointment. The attorney shall immediately, upon meeting with the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment, present to such person a statement of the person's rights, including all rights afforded to the person by the Oklahoma and United States Constitutions. …”
It is substantially repeated in §43A-5-411.D.1, under Rights of Person Alleged to be a Person Requiring Treatment, which ODMHSAS does not list as “Repealed”. However, the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health (TCBH), the Tulsa County Mental Health Court, the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney treat such “consumer rights” more as mere guidelines that can be ignored for convenience’s sake, rather than things they shall observe.
This is important because, among other things, the right to a jury trial must be “requested” or “demanded”. This not likely to happen if neither the Public Defender’s Office nor the Mental Health Court Judge ever mentions it to the person alleged to need treatment. A jury trial provides under §43A-5-411.D
“6. The right to present and to cross-examine witnesses. The petitioner and witnesses identified in the petition shall offer testimony under oath at the hearing on the petition. When the hearing is conducted as a jury trial, the petitioner and any witness in behalf of the petitioner shall be subject to cross-examination by the attorney for the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment. The person alleged to be a person requiring treatment may also be called as a witness and cross-examined.”
Otherwise, under Tulsa County Mental Health Court procedures in the fall of 2010, the only testimony comes from the person alleged to need treatment, and that person does not get to see any evidence against him or her, have accusers appear in Court and give statements sworn under the penalties of perjury, cross-examine either accusers or mental health examiners or witnesses for the District Attorney or to present witnesses in his or her own defense, not even doctors and/or psychiatrists of long-standing. Without a jury trial, the Judge may under 43A consider the evaluations of the State’s psychiatrists without reference to any other source. The State psychiatrists don’t even have to show up at any hearing. This leaves the person alleged to need treatment entirely at the mercy of ODMHSAS/TCBH and the Mental Health Court, which in this place tends to act as a rubber stamp for ODMHSAS psychiatrists.
From what one has seen, the Public Defender’s Office explains very little about one’s rights under the State and Federal constitutions. The right to demand a jury trial is one sentence, buried on one page of one court document that did not, in August 2010, explicitly identify the person alleged to need treatment as the person who has that right. I complained bitterly about getting railroaded without any witnesses, for or against, appearing to be cross-examined. I did not find out about these provisions, and the consequence of not demanding a jury trial, until conducting my own research after my release. The Public Defender’s Office seems to be willing to go along to get along, and not waste too much time and expense on people that the local authorities have written off as “losers”, regardless of the proof or truth of any allegations, or lack thereof.
By contrast, in about 1995, the JOINT LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND REVIEW COMMISSION OF THE VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY wrote some 37 Recommendations on how to improve the efficiency and due process of involuntary commitment in that State. Consider "Recommendation (22). The Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services should develop a written booklet which explains the involuntary mental commitment process and an individual’s rights within that process. Included within the booklet should be an explanation of the individual’s right to retain private counsel or be represented by a court-appointed attorney, to present any defenses including independent evaluation and expert testimony or the testimony of other witnesses, to be present during the hearing and testify, to appeal any certification for involuntary admission to the circuit court, and to have a jury trial on appeal. The booklet should be written in a simple and straight-forward manner."
One might note that the State of Virginia had some little thing to do with writing the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Would that Oklahoma could follow its example. But in Tulsa, both TCBH and the District Attorney’s Office insisted, and the Mental Health Court accepted, that all it takes to commit someone involuntarily is “a preponderance of the evidence”, not the higher standard of “clear and convincing evidence” both written into Title 43A in eight locations, and mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1979 Addington v. Texas case. But in Tulsa, if by hearsay three people reportedly get together and say you’re nuts, then that is “a preponderance of the evidence”, and accepted thereafter as proven fact. In most cases, accusers may not even have to make out a sworn statement, which the person alleged to need treatment may not be allowed to see, even if they do.
Isn’t that just special? So watch your back. And try not to look paranoid about it.
Well, what do I know? I thought the point of setting one’s self up as an example of proper thinking would be to imply that others should do it better. I didn’t think that even the U.S. Army had a handgun and ammunition that could leap out of a child-proof drawer and assemble themselves. With all those precautions to keep a firearm from a child, I thought he had to be much older. At 19 months, I don’t think I could tie my shoes. I suppose that everyone’s child is the next Einstein, but I would have thought that a simple child-proof cabinet lock should have sufficed for a while. And I could be wrong, but I think there might be some kind of problem with putting the bottle it came in and the bleach into separate locations. That’s not something I would try with my fatally child-toxic prescription medications. But then, I’m easily confused :)
The inmates of the State of Oklahoma's mental facilities might be forgiven for wondering if their keepers (but not all of them) are the kind of people who at home lock their children in closets, or fly into a rage and scream, "I'll make you act right!" There are certainly people who need help, but that kind?
When I was inside TCBH, I met people with apparent delusions who needed assisted living, but not necessarily prison-like confinement in an intellectual desert and warm-body warehouse. There was the old woman who said she was God, and promised everyone a big car when we all got out. There was the old guy who had angry conversations with either people who weren’t there, or simply was acting out some internal dialog, erupting now and then with “Bam! Bam!”. There was the guy who went around saying that he had or would get a contract with the State to refurbish the facility, and that he was going to make a Univac computer out of a long-outdated vacuum-tube technology called Nuvistors. Some would stand and stare at nothing or break down and cry for no apparent reason. Or maybe because people they counted upon had abandoned them there. I wasn’t sure about the guy who said he had a castle in Poland. I had no knowledge or proof that he didn’t.
Although a few made threats or allusions to threats (“There’s going to be blood!”), aside from a few bloodless female cat fights, few had any violence in them. Not even the big guy with a history of abuse who made “money” by tearing strips of paper out of books, and did karate kicks in front of his mirror. The worst violence was directed at him or herself. Like the suicides, and the very nice young lady with deep scars on her arms who heard a voice telling her to cut herself and remove limbs. She was missing part of one leg just below the knee, and was on 24-hour observation.
Most of the problem seemed to be that no one wanted them around. They made regular people uncomfortable. They were there to be warehoused and drugged until either they became well-behaved enough to be acceptable, or the drugs made them shake so bad with palsy that they couldn’t care for themselves on the outside. The old guy with the angry expressions shook so bad that he wore a lot of his coffee on his front. The young lady with the missing shin was just starting to shake.
If you think it was about healing, consider this. The food was greasy and salty, with few fresh vegetables and almost no fruit. The shrinks showed up for maybe thirty minutes out of a week, if that. The psychiatrist who signed the petition for my commitment came in one session, and didn’t know either my history or the fact that she had prescribed medication for depression. Then she threatened to overmedicate me for not agreeing that I should be there. Her idea of breaking a hunger strike was to deny the electrolytes that kept a heart from racing.
We were not allowed to see any outside doctors at all, not even psychiatrists or general practitioners of long standing. It took a lot of bitching just to get TCBH just to ask established doctors for records of current prescriptions, so that they could be continued. And what real doctor doesn’t know that an asthma rescue inhaler has to be available upon request, not just twice a day at med times? The only times I can recall that anyone got out of there to see a real doctor (or dentist) was then one of the old guys started choking on food, and my abscessed tooth finally got so bad that I couldn’t eat.
The ones that got out fastest tended to be those who had actually committed some act of violence, the suicides, and those who ran from, threatened or fought police. One young woman came in with knife scars on her throat, and either left in a few days, or was transferred to the other unit, though that rarely happened. Apparently they were the easiest to coerce into “giving the Wookie what he wants”, the politically correct statements that the psychiatrists and counselors wanted to hear.
Another group with fast turnaround were those who came in for a quick detox, especially if they had been found unconscious or senseless. One young woman came in for reasons unknown, looking like an Original Gangster, and was back out in a few days. When someone was picking her old clothes out of a bin, out dropped a glass crack pipe. No doubt more miracle cures.
Most seemed to be there because they had been denounced by some person or persons who just didn’t like the way they acted. For example, State law Title 43A-1-103 includes the in the definition, “Risk of harm to self or others”, the clause 18.c, “having placed another person or persons in a reasonable fear of violent behavior directed towards such person or persons or serious physical harm to them as manifested by serious and immediate threats”. This has two parts. If someone has actually pulled out a weapon, pointed it at someone and threatened to use it one them, or set up an obvious deadly boobytrap, or deliberately torched a building with someone in it, those actions obviously fit the second part.
But many people being warehoused and drugged only “fit” the first part, the “reasonable fear of violent behavior” as seen or alleged by the person making the complaint. As Professor Joan G. Brannon of the School of Government of the University of North Carolina put it in “The Magistrate’s Role in Involuntary Commitment”, Administration of Justice Bulletin, 05 September 2007: “Dangerous to Others A magistrate must also issue a custody order for a mentally ill respondent if he or she is dangerous to others. A respondent is dangerous to others if, within the relevant past, he or she has: (1) inflicted or attempted to inflict serious bodily harm on another, or has acted in a way that creates a substantial risk of serious bodily harm to another, or has engaged in extreme destruction of property, and (2) there is a reasonable probability that such conduct will be repeated.36 (36. G.S. 122C-3(11)(b).)”
She goes on to state: “In order to find a respondent dangerous to others on the basis of threats alone, however, the petitioner must present specific evidence about the kind of harm the respondent threatened, when the threats were made, and in what context. For example, the mere allegation that the “respondent ha[d] made statements to her husband of a threatening nature,” without more, is insufficient.40”
Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1979 standard in Addington v. Texas that such allegations require “clear and convincing evidence” to justify involuntary commitment, it seems apparent that the “context” must be fully explored, and not rest entirely upon the mere allegations of those who have bigoted or intolerant or malicious axes to grind. Failure to establish that those making the allegations are indeed truthful can only lead to an extremely damaging miscarriage of justice and deprivation of civil liberties.
Unfortunately, few who make false complaints out of bigotry, intolerance or malicious self-interest have any fear or probability of ever being caught and held to account. Especially not when those investigating the allegations are bigots trained by bigots. They are like D.W. Griffith, who directed the 1915 silent film “Birth of a Nation”. In which a skulking white man dressed up in blackface threatened the purity and virginity of a Southern damsel, only to be thwarted by the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan.
No one has to explain to Black Americans how the bigoted myth of uncontrollable racial lust works. The current bigoted myth that those with mental illness tend to be criminal and violent is just as effective. In the movies and news media, people with disabilities are either supercrips (Google it) or serial killers/mass murders, with serial killers/mass murders way in the lead. For example, "In this content analysis of television, the portrayal of persons with mental disorders was highly correlated with the portrayal of violent crime. The mentally ill were found to be nearly 10 times more violent than the general population of television characters, and 10 to 20 times more violent (during a two week sample) than the mentally ill in the U.S. population (over the course of an entire year). The mentally ill on television were also judged to have a negative impact on society and a negative quality of life." [Diefenbach, DL. "The Portrayal Of Mental Illness On Prime-Time Television."Journal of Community Psychology 25 (3): 289-302 MAY 1997]
It’s so easy to lock up people and make them pay for one’s intolerance when they have no political clout and can’t fight back. Or, as one disabled person put it, “Why don’t we have a march on Washington? Because it’s such a bitch to get there.”
Additional reading. Even just the abstracts of the articles are instructive. Other reading can be found at PubMed.gov, the online journal database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine - somewhat more substantial than myths. Search on “serious mental illness”, “crime”, “violence” and related terms in various combinations.
1. Monahan, Jerome. "Celluloid madness." (Teacher)(PSHE)(portrayal of mental illness in the media) Times Educational Supplement, Dec 5, 2003 2. Monahan, John. Circa 1980 (1st Ed), 1995 (new Ed.), The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale NJ and London, 134 p. 3. Monahan, John, and Steadman, Henry J. 1994, Violence and Mental Disorder: Developments in Risk Analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 318 p. 4. Schneider, Irving "The theory and practice of movie psychiatry." American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol 144(8), Aug 1987, pp. 996-1002 5. Signorielli, Nancy. "The stigma of mental illness on television." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Summer 1989 v33 n3 p325-331 6. Wahl, O.F., Lefkowits, J. Y. "Impact Of a Television Film on Attitudes Toward Mental-Illness." American Journal of Community Psychology 17 (4): 521-528 Aug 1989 7. Nasar, Sylvia "The Man Behind a Beautiful Mind: The real John Nash never saw visions, and after 1970 he never took medication. But his love affair with Alicia, he says, is 'just like a movie.'" Newsweek March 11, 2002 p52 (780 words) 8. Rockmore, Daniel "Exploiting a Beautiful Mind." (the real life of John Nash, the mathematician depicted in 'A Beautiful Mind') The Chronicle of Higher Education Jan 25, 2002 v48 i20 pB18(2) 9. Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness. Contributors: Otto F. Wahl - author. Publisher: Rutgers University Press. Place of Publication: New Brunswick, NJ. Publication Year: 1995. 10. Marilyn Dahl, The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability- Disability as Metaphor: The Evil Crip, Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 18, No 1 (1993) 11. Lisa Lopez Levers, Representations Of Psychiatric Disability In Fifty Years Of Hollywood Film: An Ethnographic Content Analysis, Theory & Science (2001), ISSN: 1527-5558 12. Linden M, Kavanagh R. Attitudes of qualified vs. student mental health nurses towards an individual diagnosed with schizophrenia. J Adv Nurs. 2011 Oct 9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05848.x.
P.S. And I'm extremely gratified to see Tulsa Transit scrupulously using their new hybrid buses on the 251 FastTrack route. Never mind that they have all those batteries on the roof, making them awfully topheavy for those curves at each end of the Broken Arrow Expressway. And never mind that their twelve foot high profiles makes them the least aerodynamic of all buses, a condition that manifests itself most in the highway speeds that the 251 almost exclusively operates at.
No, the most astoundingly wise part of all is that the hybrid, as everyone with a lick of sense knows, gains efficiency in spite of itself by reclaiming braking energy and reusing it. And since the 251 sees an application of the brakes twice or maybe three times per expressway jaunt, I expect figures will show that these units won't need new service brake shoe replacements until eight or nine years after they're retired and scrapped.
I'm so pleased to know that, no matter how many areas of life the government insists on taking over, there still isn't a single lick of sense to be found in a position of authority outside of the private sector.
Well, had a fun evening. Got out of the old second shift sweatshop and rushed to catch the 9:32 East Nightline--the one running clockwise. I was right on time but it was nowhere to be seen. So, having nothing better to do than to get myself a little exercise, I took a little stroll.
I wandered along the route for nearly two hours, feeling like a lost tribe only smaller, and finally succombed to by blisters and had a nice little rest at Eleventh and Kingston. And, presently, I was rewarded by the sight of the Nightline rounding the corner at Eleventh and Sheridan at 11:42 p.m.
He was only two minutes ahead of, as they used to say in the railroad business, The Advertised at that point. But, apparently, he was early enough to have beaten all of the other second shift refugees, as he was running old L903 quite empty. And, apparently, he didn't consider himself early enough, because upon entering the westbound lanes of Old Route 66 he immediately tried to run the automobile in the right lane off of the road, and when he thought better of that, tried to out-drag it. Upon seeing me calmly waving like a semaphore, he graciously and to my undying devotion condescended to forfeit his drag race and stop for me.
He then did me a great favor. He took off down Eleventh like greased lightning, extending his commendable two minute lead on The Clock by enough to pass Yale at 11:45 and to cross Utica at 11:50, when he was supposed to be crossing Yale. He certainly succeeded in relieving us of the inconvenience of having to stop for other passengers, instead leaving them struggling to their stops unfortunately over-secure in their belief that Tulsa buses NEVER run early, and got me home only an hour and fifty-three minutes late rather than a full two hours.
One wonders why they don't just run the Nightline in the Afternoon...
The reason why my son hasn't been trained to properly handle a firearm would be because my son is only 19 months old and that would also be why my guns are locked up the way they are. Because until my son is old enough to use and properly handle firearms, I don't want him to be a statistic. If people would take more caution with their firearms, we wouldn't be having this lovely conversation of second amendment rights now would we? As to Mental Illness, the Websters Dictionary definition is any of the various forms of psychosis or severe neurosis. That means, that if you're grieving over the loss of a loved one, a gun may not be the best thing to be had. In that same respect, if you have a history of depression let's go a head and give you a gun because if you decide to go off your medication, and have a bad reaction, you can have something to harm yourself or others with. And the last thing that I would like to address is how I am telling other people to live their lives with their rights. You're wrong on that respect. I am not telling people how to live their lives, merely offering suggestions on how to handle firearms CORRECTLY and SAFELY. And Police officers who have fired a firearm in the line of duty have to turn in their weapons. As well as gun owners who use the firearm for self defense. As both may or may not be used in a judiciary hearing. Please do not think to tell me or anyone else what it is that I am "trying to say" especially when you are incorrect. I am very well capable of speaking for myself. Had you asked a question in a non-belittling frame, I would have been more than happy to explain myself, and my views and reasons, in the same manner. However, I do wish to point out that I am happy that you felt the need to comment on this issue because it does need to be hammered out. I don't believe that someone should take the right to bear arms away from us, I do believe however that we shouldn't give a dangerous weapon to just anyone. I appreciate the opportunity to debate.
I beg to differ with Mrs. Jazmond Murphy's concept of supporting the Second Amendment. For one thing she is already halfway to a gun controller's paradise when she makes a firearm so hard to get working that it cannot be realistically used in a blitz home invasion. I note that nowhere in her letter does she mention firearms safety training for her son to demystify the forbidden fruit she has created.
For another thing, what does she mean by "no history of mental illness"? The range of mental illness is as wide and varied as cancer. Do you have a history of postpartum depression? Then by that wide standard, you shouldn't own a gun. Are you suffering grief, depression and survivor's guilt from losing a loved one in an accident? Are you having anxiety attacks from being stalked by an ex-lover? Do you have post traumatic stress disorder from getting mugged, maimed in a car wreck, raped, gang raped, or terribly scarred by burns or surgery? Are you having bad tornado dreams because your house came apart around you here in tornado alley? Then by Mrs. Murphy's wide standard, you shouldn't have a gun. And if any of this happens to you and results in mental trauma, then you'll have to turn yours in. By this standard, those who become the most vulnerable will be denied the most effective means of self defense. Is Mrs. Murphy by any chance volunteering to stand guard over them?
For that matter, what about Police who often are badly affected by their traumatic experiences, and sometimes end their careers with a bad case of guninmouthia? Does one hear those who know just what to do about everything proposing to take their guns away? Or do we not count them because that last act puts an end to their histories? By the same token, do we ignore the Police who have been killed with their own guns, in creating reasons for who shouldn't have them? That would seem to depend less on any objective standard than someone's personal politics.
It's easier to tell, others what to do, if their experiences aren't real, unless they happen to you.
This morning on NPR, Harry Belafonte noted that his mother said, "Never let an injustice pass unchallenged." Let's say there is an apartment complex containing about 120 units of elderly and disabled renters. The average rent (utilities included) is at least $600/month, heavily subsidized by the State and HUD. If the complex is 90% full, it grosses about $64,800 a month. It has only three full time employees, some part time employees and a number of sporadic contractors. Then let's say the out-of-state owner hires a new manager, firing the old one literally at her husband's death bed. I have some questions about that.
Is it right for this new manager to stop answering the emergency medical bell pulls after hours, leaving them to an answering machine or service? Particularly when this leads to a near death for one elderly and disabled resident who got sick. Is it right for this manager and her maintenance man to tell residents repeatedly that broken plumbing will be taken care of "tomorrow", then leave it broken for up to a month? Is it right for this manager to make only superficial cosmetic changes, and then call the complex "resort style living",? Especially when the amenities the manager takes credit for are some coin-operated laundry machines, an independent beauty contractor, and a number of things that the residents have provided or died and left behind, like computers, books, and often broken exercise equipment that the manager does not maintain. After the previous manager took care of regularly testing and refurbishing the apartment fire detectors, usually about seven feet above the floor, is it right for this manager to demand that residents should be responsible for them, also demanding that the residents, even those too crippled to walk, test them "at least once a month". Is if right for the manager to threaten or take away shopping carts, donated by Walmart, that the residents use to move furniture and heavy shopping bags, or just to use as a walker, just because it doesn't fit the manager's image of "resort style living"? Is it right for the manager to make many of the residents so terrified of eviction that they fear to criticize or challenge the management openly, and in one case, even to report part of a ceiling fallen in. Is it right, when the vast majority of residents are elderly, or disabled, or require oxygen and other special medical help, or are just waiting to die of a terminal disease, for the manager to proclaim in disgust that "this isn't a rest home", that it is a retirement resort. And then advertise online on a site that promotes assisted living. Is it right for this manager to proclaim to a resident, subject to previous drug theft and worried about master keys unchanged for for over five years, that anyone in the management can come into the resident's apartment at any time, for any reason, without prior notice? Is it right for this manager to verbally abuse another retired resident, trying to get that one to move when no reason can be found to evict? Is it right, when long term, long-suffering residents move out the manager's control, for this manager to call ordinary wear and tear on carpets and paint "damage" and charge hundreds of dollars for "repairs"? Especially when the management's web ads make one resident's ornate living quarters look like the norm, and takes credit for it. When a resident cannot be around to supervise a move, is it right for this manager to harass moving company personnel, demanding that they get things packed immediately, or else the property will be thrown in the trash the next day? Particularly when over a thousand dollars of property comes up missing, and the most of the rest is packed like pick-up sticks in boxes too large for the resident to move by hand. Is it right that the out-of-state owner thinks that this is the ethical and proper way to treat residents? When ambulances appear at least once a month at this complex, and at least one resident fears that this manager's actions could drive vulnerable seniors over the brink into the hospital and even death, is it right for the TPD to dismiss such concerns as not their problem, unless a resident turns up dead of violence? When a resident becomes concerned about these issues, is it right for Adult Protective Services to ignore repeated e-mail complaints? When a resident is both concerned about these issues and ready to defend against home invasion from any quarter, is it right for the District Attorney's Office to call this resident a "terrorist"? Especially without bothering to check with the resident's neighbors to determine the truth? Has it come down to the point that a business person in Tulsa can make any false and misleading advertisement, commit any abuse and make any accusation with the willing support of the TPD, the Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's Office and the local Courts, merely because the opposing party is not a business person, or just has some unpopular disability?
The manager in question no longer works for the apartment complex. But reportedly, the out-of-state owner regretting losing the manager to a better job, and the residents are still too frightened of eviction to openly discuss or testify about what happened. Is this the way that Tulsa proudly expects its elderly, sick and disabled to live out their last years?
I have some questions about the local and state mental health "services". Things may have changed since the third quarter of 2010, but maybe not. 1) Has anyone ever known the Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES) to interview all those with reason to know about an alleged incident, before recommending emergency commitment to the local loony bin, to get a context for the situation and check on the truthfulness of those making accusations? 2) Has anyone ever known the mental health unit of the Public Defender's Office not only to inform a candidate for commitment of all of his or her rights under the state and federal constitutions, but to advise that candidate that he or she should ask for a jury trial so as to have the legal right to cross-examine witnesses and accusers? 3) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health (TCBH aka the local loony bin aka This Can't Be Happening) to turn away someone brought in for examination as unjustly accused? 4) Has anyone ever known a "witness" for an involuntary civil commitment at TCBH, in any proceeding not a jury trial, to be someone other than an employee or contractor of the State or local government? 5) Has anyone ever known of a case where the person accused of being in need of treatment (aka "the consumer") was not examined, for mental defect and/or recommendation for commitment, by the Psychiatrist who would later benefit from employment as that person's doctor of record. 6) Does it strike anyone as improper that the Psychiatrist who would later benefit from such employment could sign papers as the "witness" for commitment, the "evaluator" for the commitment, and the person requesting the commitment? 7) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Police Department to help someone with difficulties and concerns Before it gets to the point of speculation about ending it all, so as to avoid the massive violation of civil liberties of an involuntary commitment? 8) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Police Department to take a person with mental health difficulties seriously enough to fully investigate a situation so as to determine the truthfulness of the accusers? 9) Has anyone ever known the Oklahoma Dept of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to follow the civil commitment procedures listed in section 5-401 of the Mental Health Code (Title 43A), instead of just pretending that it was "Repealed", as it says on their web site. The actual code states that it was repealed and then amended to state what is listed on the Oklahoma Legislature's site.
Vive le Ranch in Tulsa, Oklahoma absolutely ruined my wedding day. They told me ELEVEN days before my Saturday wedding that they weren't supposed to book me because of a fundraising event that is supposed to take place on the following TUESDAY.
Thank you, Vive le Ranch for causing me to dream about a wedding for over a year, and then allow me to spend $15,000 on a day that you ruined.
Also...the organizer of the Brush Creek Youth Ranch--the organization in which the money I paid for the venue with supported, is a complete jerk. She pretty much said her organization was far more important than mine because it's an annual event. Annual events are generally planned well ahead of time, so... I should have been notified FAR LONGER in advance.
Why do all of the ads in the print version of Urban Tulsa look like they are for a strip club????? Do the businesses posting these ads want non-sleazy customers?? I would be completely embarrassed to have ANYONE see this trashy paper in my home. It is disgraceful! Not everyone in Tulsa likes this garbage....two thumbs WAY down. Maybe I would read the paper if I did not have to look at the disrespectful and disgusting ads.
I WANT TO POST THIS AD THAT MIGHT BE MOST INTRIGUING TO HEAR,WHERE DO YOU TULSA PEOPLE RAISE YOUR CHILDREN IN SLUTVILLE OR A STRIP CLUB?WHEN WOMEN LIKE NINA FROM TULSA OFF OF N. GARNETT WOULD WASTE HER TIME TAKING CARE OF A MARRIED MAN AND PAYING COURT FEES AND BONDS.WHERE IS THE MONEY FOR YOUR CHILDREN GOING ON SOMEONES HUSBAND?THAT'S EVEN A LITTLE LOW FOR A DOG.IF A WOMAN CAN GET SO DESPERATE FOR COMPANIONSHIP, THAT YOU WOULD DEPRIVE YOUR CHILDREN AND RUN AWY TO TEXAS WITH A FUGITIVE WITH YOUR CHILDREN,THEN STARVE THEM FOR DRUGS AND A MAN.I JUST HAVE ONE QUESTION'WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THAT COUNTINUE TO HAVE THEIR KIDS?JUST A THOUGHT I'D LIKE TO SHARE,DOES ANYBODY HEAR ME?
I called greenwood christian church long distance to see if a traveling indie could get booked & was told the bishop (mighty) does not book you unless he knows you. What the what? Good going church. For reasons like this, I am going to look for secular bookings 'cause all they want is professionalism and ability to perform. What makes this so sad is that i am a jew who wanted to go to a church to reach this generation with positive hip hop. This church is perfect--so I thought. They represent Yeshua, don't think so. The lady did not ask for my EPK. Just as they did Joseph when trying to find room ga the inn I was told no room--kiss off. Well, I know Yeshua and I am glad he would not respond this way. Even my friend Hadaccah got the same response. Good going bishop gary mcintosh. Is this what your Jesus would have DONE!!!
Tired of fake Christians in their private clubs And do not care who knows about it.
Well, I had a fine adventure on Tulsa Transit this morning. I got on a 105, bus number 2015, which said route 101 over the windshield. Fortunately, I was on Peoria, not downtown, so I wasn't fooled--yet. Then I got on a bus marked 251 Fasttrack downtown, and it proceeded to cross Cincinnati on Second and turn north on Detroit. Now, this would either mean it was taking a major detour--like a different highway--to get to the 'midtown' station out on the east side, or it was really a 203 masquerading as a 251. Either way, it wasn't going to help me catch the 318, which runs about once every hour and a half, so I was without any hope of making my appointment. I got off the bus and walked back to the Denver Ave. station, and in came a 105 South which would in theory get me back home, with a dollar and a half and an hour's worth of time wasted.
But I was in no mood to take chances--especially since it was bus number 2013. So, I asked the driver if this was really the 105 South. He nodded. I then told him I had been on a 105 claiming to be a 101, and a 203 masquerading as a 251, and joked that it seemed to be April Fool's Day and maybe he didn't get the memo. He promptly threatened to throw me off the bus if I didn't shut up. So I sat down and shut up. He then proceeded to turn right at Second and Boulder from other than the right lane, and stay in other than the right lane until he had bypassed the stop by the Hyatt and made an elderly woman walk halfway to City Hall to get on. Shortly afterwards he lied to a man on Second east of Elgin about whether he could catch the 210 there--the poor guy may still be waiting for that bus as you read this--griped at a woman for using a marked and shelter-equipped stop in a construction zone, and let a man on with a lit cigar. Good enough for government work, I guess.
Also good enough for government work was the Dallas consultant who told the city a while back that the railroad line in the middle of the Broken Arrow Expressway would make a fine light rail commuter line, and recommended that a park and ride lot be set up at either 42nd and Memorial or 36th and Sheridan. They got millions and millions of dollars for this. Service cutbacks occured shortly afterwards, and nothing more in the way of light rail development has come along. Millions of dollars to Dallas when any idiot who was actually born and raised in Tulsa could tell you that the same rail line crosses 51st Street right underneath Highway 169, and a park and ride lot at that location could actually share a traffic light with the 169 on- and off-ramps.
Mass transit is a laudable goal. But it's abundantly clear that if this city is ever to have a viable system, we're going to have to make up our minds that mass transit is much TOO GOOD for government work.
What does Brittany Driver have to do with Tulsa? I DO NOT AGREE that it would be in the best interest for Urban Tulsa to do a story on her unless they want to become a tabloid magazine. There are more important issues to discuss that are local.
URBAN TULSA PLEASE READ/HELP: In regards to the comment below about "Brittany Driver" I agree! I've been hearing about her a lot and I just graduated from USC (whether it's because she is a model or the family drug scandal). Google search engine doesn't provide many references about her fathers' supposed scandal, but there has been a bunch of controversy about her. A friend of mine also said a professor at USC even mentioned her name in a CJ course? That is strange that there has not been more coverage on this. It would be in "Urban Tulsa's" best interest to cover or review her story since none other internet media site has. In my opinion, "Urban Tulsa" would benefit greatly since for a period of time they will be the only source of information regarding her story and/or family...which is a story in high-demand. I would personally like to know more; as so would plenty of others. And if anyone else has further information please comment, Thanks!
BRITTANY DRIVER: ALL OF THIS BRITTANY DRIVER NONSENSE AND SCANDALS: Brittany Driver is a college singer/swimsuit model? attending Ole Miss from either Los Angeles or Memphis? But what is the obsession with her? AND what are the TRUTHS?... Is her father a drug-lord and is she really doing a show with Kim Kardashian? I am from Dallas, TX and I've heard about her but yet there is no evidence? Come on?....
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Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
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Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
It's not my place to say how you should protect your child. I don't have any and thus don't have to protect any from my medications. I can, however note the various government and private studies have listed drowning, suffocation and motor vehicle accident as the worst dangers of accidental and preventable death to your child. Child-proof locks must be working, because preventable death due to toxins and firearms accidents are way down on the list. But I've seen OCD up close, and what it does to children. It's not pretty. However, if you must have the last word, please do so.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
For example:
circa 2003: http://www.odmhsas.org/emer_rule/2003%20-%2043A.pdf
circa 2006: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6532648/Oklahoma-Mental-Health-Laws
circa 2007: http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/documents/Title 43A Mental Health Law.pdf
circa 2010: http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/documents/2010%20-%2043A.pdf
Nor is it alone. So do the local District Court, the District Attorney and Public Defender's Office here in Tulsa. Yet the official version on the Oklahoma Legislature site says,
"§43A-5-401. Repealed by Laws 1997, c. 387, § 11, eff. Nov. 1, 1997. >NOTE: Subsequent to repeal, § 5-401 was amended by Laws 1997, c. 195, § >3 to read as follows:"
Where I went to junior high, "subsequent" means "after". The numerous provisions that dictate what officials involved in involuntary commitment shall do includes §43A-5-401.D.1, which states:
“The attorney appointed by the court shall be a licensed and actively practicing attorney who shall represent the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment until final disposition of the case. The court may appoint a public defender where available. The attorney shall meet and consult with the person within one (1) day of notification of his appointment. The attorney shall immediately, upon meeting with the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment, present to such person a statement of the person's rights, including all rights afforded to the person by the Oklahoma and United States Constitutions. …”
It is substantially repeated in §43A-5-411.D.1, under Rights of Person Alleged to be a Person Requiring Treatment, which ODMHSAS does not list as “Repealed”. However, the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health (TCBH), the Tulsa County Mental Health Court, the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney treat such “consumer rights” more as mere guidelines that can be ignored for convenience’s sake, rather than things they shall observe.
This is important because, among other things, the right to a jury trial must be “requested” or “demanded”. This not likely to happen if neither the Public Defender’s Office nor the Mental Health Court Judge ever mentions it to the person alleged to need treatment. A jury trial provides under §43A-5-411.D
“6. The right to present and to cross-examine witnesses. The petitioner and witnesses identified in the petition shall offer testimony under oath at the hearing on the petition. When the hearing is conducted as a jury trial, the petitioner and any witness in behalf of the petitioner shall be subject to cross-examination by the attorney for the person alleged to be a person requiring treatment. The person alleged to be a person requiring treatment may also be called as a witness and cross-examined.”
Otherwise, under Tulsa County Mental Health Court procedures in the fall of 2010, the only testimony comes from the person alleged to need treatment, and that person does not get to see any evidence against him or her, have accusers appear in Court and give statements sworn under the penalties of perjury, cross-examine either accusers or mental health examiners or witnesses for the District Attorney or to present witnesses in his or her own defense, not even doctors and/or psychiatrists of long-standing. Without a jury trial, the Judge may under 43A consider the evaluations of the State’s psychiatrists without reference to any other source. The State psychiatrists don’t even have to show up at any hearing. This leaves the person alleged to need treatment entirely at the mercy of ODMHSAS/TCBH and the Mental Health Court, which in this place tends to act as a rubber stamp for ODMHSAS psychiatrists.
From what one has seen, the Public Defender’s Office explains very little about one’s rights under the State and Federal constitutions. The right to demand a jury trial is one sentence, buried on one page of one court document that did not, in August 2010, explicitly identify the person alleged to need treatment as the person who has that right. I complained bitterly about getting railroaded without any witnesses, for or against, appearing to be cross-examined. I did not find out about these provisions, and the consequence of not demanding a jury trial, until conducting my own research after my release. The Public Defender’s Office seems to be willing to go along to get along, and not waste too much time and expense on people that the local authorities have written off as “losers”, regardless of the proof or truth of any allegations, or lack thereof.
By contrast, in about 1995, the JOINT LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND REVIEW COMMISSION OF THE VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY wrote some 37 Recommendations on how to improve the efficiency and due process of involuntary commitment in that State. Consider
"Recommendation (22). The Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services should develop a written booklet which explains the involuntary mental commitment process and an individual’s rights within that process. Included within the booklet should be an explanation of the individual’s right to retain private counsel or be represented by a court-appointed attorney, to present any defenses including independent evaluation and expert testimony or the testimony of other witnesses, to be present during the hearing and testify, to appeal any certification for involuntary admission to the circuit court, and to have a jury trial on appeal. The booklet should be written in a simple and straight-forward manner."
One might note that the State of Virginia had some little thing to do with writing the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Would that Oklahoma could follow its example. But in Tulsa, both TCBH and the District Attorney’s Office insisted, and the Mental Health Court accepted, that all it takes to commit someone involuntarily is “a preponderance of the evidence”, not the higher standard of “clear and convincing evidence” both written into Title 43A in eight locations, and mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1979 Addington v. Texas case. But in Tulsa, if by hearsay three people reportedly get together and say you’re nuts, then that is “a preponderance of the evidence”, and accepted thereafter as proven fact. In most cases, accusers may not even have to make out a sworn statement, which the person alleged to need treatment may not be allowed to see, even if they do.
Isn’t that just special? So watch your back. And try not to look paranoid about it.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
When I was inside TCBH, I met people with apparent delusions who needed assisted living, but not necessarily prison-like confinement in an intellectual desert and warm-body warehouse. There was the old woman who said she was God, and promised everyone a big car when we all got out. There was the old guy who had angry conversations with either people who weren’t there, or simply was acting out some internal dialog, erupting now and then with “Bam! Bam!”. There was the guy who went around saying that he had or would get a contract with the State to refurbish the facility, and that he was going to make a Univac computer out of a long-outdated vacuum-tube technology called Nuvistors. Some would stand and stare at nothing or break down and cry for no apparent reason. Or maybe because people they counted upon had abandoned them there. I wasn’t sure about the guy who said he had a castle in Poland. I had no knowledge or proof that he didn’t.
Although a few made threats or allusions to threats (“There’s going to be blood!”), aside from a few bloodless female cat fights, few had any violence in them. Not even the big guy with a history of abuse who made “money” by tearing strips of paper out of books, and did karate kicks in front of his mirror. The worst violence was directed at him or herself. Like the suicides, and the very nice young lady with deep scars on her arms who heard a voice telling her to cut herself and remove limbs. She was missing part of one leg just below the knee, and was on 24-hour observation.
Most of the problem seemed to be that no one wanted them around. They made regular people uncomfortable. They were there to be warehoused and drugged until either they became well-behaved enough to be acceptable, or the drugs made them shake so bad with palsy that they couldn’t care for themselves on the outside. The old guy with the angry expressions shook so bad that he wore a lot of his coffee on his front. The young lady with the missing shin was just starting to shake.
If you think it was about healing, consider this. The food was greasy and salty, with few fresh vegetables and almost no fruit. The shrinks showed up for maybe thirty minutes out of a week, if that. The psychiatrist who signed the petition for my commitment came in one session, and didn’t know either my history or the fact that she had prescribed medication for depression. Then she threatened to overmedicate me for not agreeing that I should be there. Her idea of breaking a hunger strike was to deny the electrolytes that kept a heart from racing.
We were not allowed to see any outside doctors at all, not even psychiatrists or general practitioners of long standing. It took a lot of bitching just to get TCBH just to ask established doctors for records of current prescriptions, so that they could be continued. And what real doctor doesn’t know that an asthma rescue inhaler has to be available upon request, not just twice a day at med times? The only times I can recall that anyone got out of there to see a real doctor (or dentist) was then one of the old guys started choking on food, and my abscessed tooth finally got so bad that I couldn’t eat.
The ones that got out fastest tended to be those who had actually committed some act of violence, the suicides, and those who ran from, threatened or fought police. One young woman came in with knife scars on her throat, and either left in a few days, or was transferred to the other unit, though that rarely happened. Apparently they were the easiest to coerce into “giving the Wookie what he wants”, the politically correct statements that the psychiatrists and counselors wanted to hear.
Another group with fast turnaround were those who came in for a quick detox, especially if they had been found unconscious or senseless. One young woman came in for reasons unknown, looking like an Original Gangster, and was back out in a few days. When someone was picking her old clothes out of a bin, out dropped a glass crack pipe. No doubt more miracle cures.
Most seemed to be there because they had been denounced by some person or persons who just didn’t like the way they acted. For example, State law Title 43A-1-103 includes the in the definition, “Risk of harm to self or others”, the clause 18.c, “having placed another person or persons in a reasonable fear of violent behavior directed towards such person or persons or serious physical harm to them as manifested by serious and immediate threats”. This has two parts. If someone has actually pulled out a weapon, pointed it at someone and threatened to use it one them, or set up an obvious deadly boobytrap, or deliberately torched a building with someone in it, those actions obviously fit the second part.
But many people being warehoused and drugged only “fit” the first part, the “reasonable fear of violent behavior” as seen or alleged by the person making the complaint. As Professor Joan G. Brannon of the School of Government of the University of North Carolina put it in “The Magistrate’s Role in Involuntary Commitment”, Administration of Justice Bulletin, 05 September 2007:
“Dangerous to Others
A magistrate must also issue a custody order for a mentally ill respondent if he or she is dangerous to others. A respondent is dangerous to others if, within the relevant past, he or she has: (1) inflicted or attempted to inflict serious bodily harm on another, or has acted in a way that creates a substantial risk of serious bodily harm to another, or has engaged in extreme destruction of property, and (2) there is a reasonable probability that such conduct will be repeated.36 (36. G.S. 122C-3(11)(b).)”
She goes on to state: “In order to find a respondent dangerous to others on the basis of threats alone, however, the petitioner must present specific evidence about the kind of harm the respondent threatened, when the threats were made, and in what context. For example, the mere allegation that the “respondent ha[d] made statements to her husband of a threatening nature,” without more, is insufficient.40”
Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1979 standard in Addington v. Texas that such allegations require “clear and convincing evidence” to justify involuntary commitment, it seems apparent that the “context” must be fully explored, and not rest entirely upon the mere allegations of those who have bigoted or intolerant or malicious axes to grind. Failure to establish that those making the allegations are indeed truthful can only lead to an extremely damaging miscarriage of justice and deprivation of civil liberties.
Unfortunately, few who make false complaints out of bigotry, intolerance or malicious self-interest have any fear or probability of ever being caught and held to account. Especially not when those investigating the allegations are bigots trained by bigots. They are like D.W. Griffith, who directed the 1915 silent film “Birth of a Nation”. In which a skulking white man dressed up in blackface threatened the purity and virginity of a Southern damsel, only to be thwarted by the White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan.
No one has to explain to Black Americans how the bigoted myth of uncontrollable racial lust works. The current bigoted myth that those with mental illness tend to be criminal and violent is just as effective. In the movies and news media, people with disabilities are either supercrips (Google it) or serial killers/mass murders, with serial killers/mass murders way in the lead. For example, "In this content analysis of television, the portrayal of persons with mental disorders was highly correlated with the portrayal of violent crime. The mentally ill were found to be nearly 10 times more violent than the general population of television characters, and 10 to 20 times more violent (during a two week sample) than the mentally ill in the U.S. population (over the course of an entire year). The mentally ill on television were also judged to have a negative impact on society and a negative quality of life." [Diefenbach, DL. "The Portrayal Of Mental Illness On Prime-Time Television."Journal of Community Psychology 25 (3): 289-302 MAY 1997]
It’s so easy to lock up people and make them pay for one’s intolerance when they have no political clout and can’t fight back. Or, as one disabled person put it, “Why don’t we have a march on Washington? Because it’s such a bitch to get there.”
Additional reading. Even just the abstracts of the articles are instructive. Other reading can be found at PubMed.gov, the online journal database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine - somewhat more substantial than myths. Search on “serious mental illness”, “crime”, “violence” and related terms in various combinations.
1. Monahan, Jerome.
"Celluloid madness." (Teacher)(PSHE)(portrayal of mental illness in the media) Times Educational Supplement, Dec 5, 2003
2. Monahan, John. Circa 1980 (1st Ed), 1995 (new Ed.), The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale NJ and London, 134 p.
3. Monahan, John, and Steadman, Henry J. 1994, Violence and Mental Disorder: Developments in Risk Analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 318 p.
4. Schneider, Irving
"The theory and practice of movie psychiatry." American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol 144(8), Aug 1987, pp. 996-1002
5. Signorielli, Nancy.
"The stigma of mental illness on television." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Summer 1989 v33 n3 p325-331
6. Wahl, O.F., Lefkowits, J. Y.
"Impact Of a Television Film on Attitudes Toward Mental-Illness." American Journal of Community Psychology 17 (4): 521-528 Aug 1989
7. Nasar, Sylvia
"The Man Behind a Beautiful Mind: The real John Nash never saw visions, and after 1970 he never took medication. But his love affair with Alicia, he says, is 'just like a movie.'" Newsweek March 11, 2002 p52 (780 words)
8. Rockmore, Daniel
"Exploiting a Beautiful Mind." (the real life of John Nash, the mathematician depicted in 'A Beautiful Mind') The Chronicle of Higher Education Jan 25, 2002 v48 i20 pB18(2)
9. Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness. Contributors: Otto F. Wahl - author. Publisher: Rutgers University Press. Place of Publication: New Brunswick, NJ. Publication Year: 1995.
10. Marilyn Dahl, The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability- Disability as Metaphor: The Evil Crip, Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 18, No 1 (1993)
11. Lisa Lopez Levers, Representations Of Psychiatric Disability In Fifty Years Of Hollywood Film: An Ethnographic Content Analysis, Theory & Science (2001), ISSN: 1527-5558
12. Linden M, Kavanagh R.
Attitudes of qualified vs. student mental health nurses towards an individual diagnosed with schizophrenia. J Adv Nurs. 2011 Oct 9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05848.x.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
No, the most astoundingly wise part of all is that the hybrid, as everyone with a lick of sense knows, gains efficiency in spite of itself by reclaiming braking energy and reusing it. And since the 251 sees an application of the brakes twice or maybe three times per expressway jaunt, I expect figures will show that these units won't need new service brake shoe replacements until eight or nine years after they're retired and scrapped.
I'm so pleased to know that, no matter how many areas of life the government insists on taking over, there still isn't a single lick of sense to be found in a position of authority outside of the private sector.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
I wandered along the route for nearly two hours, feeling like a lost tribe only smaller, and finally succombed to by blisters and had a nice little rest at Eleventh and Kingston. And, presently, I was rewarded by the sight of the Nightline rounding the corner at Eleventh and Sheridan at 11:42 p.m.
He was only two minutes ahead of, as they used to say in the railroad business, The Advertised at that point. But, apparently, he was early enough to have beaten all of the other second shift refugees, as he was running old L903 quite empty. And, apparently, he didn't consider himself early enough, because upon entering the westbound lanes of Old Route 66 he immediately tried to run the automobile in the right lane off of the road, and when he thought better of that, tried to out-drag it. Upon seeing me calmly waving like a semaphore, he graciously and to my undying devotion condescended to forfeit his drag race and stop for me.
He then did me a great favor. He took off down Eleventh like greased lightning, extending his commendable two minute lead on The Clock by enough to pass Yale at 11:45 and to cross Utica at 11:50, when he was supposed to be crossing Yale. He certainly succeeded in relieving us of the inconvenience of having to stop for other passengers, instead leaving them struggling to their stops unfortunately over-secure in their belief that Tulsa buses NEVER run early, and got me home only an hour and fifty-three minutes late rather than a full two hours.
One wonders why they don't just run the Nightline in the Afternoon...
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For another thing, what does she mean by "no history of mental illness"? The range of mental illness is as wide and varied as cancer. Do you have a history of postpartum depression? Then by that wide standard, you shouldn't own a gun. Are you suffering grief, depression and survivor's guilt from losing a loved one in an accident? Are you having anxiety attacks from being stalked by an ex-lover? Do you have post traumatic stress disorder from getting mugged, maimed in a car wreck, raped, gang raped, or terribly scarred by burns or surgery? Are you having bad tornado dreams because your house came apart around you here in tornado alley? Then by Mrs. Murphy's wide standard, you shouldn't have a gun. And if any of this happens to you and results in mental trauma, then you'll have to turn yours in. By this standard, those who become the most vulnerable will be denied the most effective means of self defense. Is Mrs. Murphy by any chance volunteering to stand guard over them?
For that matter, what about Police who often are badly affected by their traumatic experiences, and sometimes end their careers with a bad case of guninmouthia? Does one hear those who know just what to do about everything proposing to take their guns away? Or do we not count them because that last act puts an end to their histories? By the same token, do we ignore the Police who have been killed with their own guns, in creating reasons for who shouldn't have them? That would seem to depend less on any objective standard than someone's personal politics.
It's easier to tell,
others what to do,
if their experiences aren't real,
unless they happen to you.
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Is it right for this new manager to stop answering the emergency medical bell pulls after hours, leaving them to an answering machine or service? Particularly when this leads to a near death for one elderly and disabled resident who got sick.
Is it right for this manager and her maintenance man to tell residents repeatedly that broken plumbing will be taken care of "tomorrow", then leave it broken for up to a month?
Is it right for this manager to make only superficial cosmetic changes, and then call the complex "resort style living",? Especially when the amenities the manager takes credit for are some coin-operated laundry machines, an independent beauty contractor, and a number of things that the residents have provided or died and left behind, like computers, books, and often broken exercise equipment that the manager does not maintain.
After the previous manager took care of regularly testing and refurbishing the apartment fire detectors, usually about seven feet above the floor, is it right for this manager to demand that residents should be responsible for them, also demanding that the residents, even those too crippled to walk, test them "at least once a month".
Is if right for the manager to threaten or take away shopping carts, donated by Walmart, that the residents use to move furniture and heavy shopping bags, or just to use as a walker, just because it doesn't fit the manager's image of "resort style living"?
Is it right for the manager to make many of the residents so terrified of eviction that they fear to criticize or challenge the management openly, and in one case, even to report part of a ceiling fallen in.
Is it right, when the vast majority of residents are elderly, or disabled, or require oxygen and other special medical help, or are just waiting to die of a terminal disease, for the manager to proclaim in disgust that "this isn't a rest home", that it is a retirement resort. And then advertise online on a site that promotes assisted living.
Is it right for this manager to proclaim to a resident, subject to previous drug theft and worried about master keys unchanged for for over five years, that anyone in the management can come into the resident's apartment at any time, for any reason, without prior notice?
Is it right for this manager to verbally abuse another retired resident, trying to get that one to move when no reason can be found to evict?
Is it right, when long term, long-suffering residents move out the manager's control, for this manager to call ordinary wear and tear on carpets and paint "damage" and charge hundreds of dollars for "repairs"? Especially when the management's web ads make one resident's ornate living quarters look like the norm, and takes credit for it.
When a resident cannot be around to supervise a move, is it right for this manager to harass moving company personnel, demanding that they get things packed immediately, or else the property will be thrown in the trash the next day? Particularly when over a thousand dollars of property comes up missing, and the most of the rest is packed like pick-up sticks in boxes too large for the resident to move by hand.
Is it right that the out-of-state owner thinks that this is the ethical and proper way to treat residents?
When ambulances appear at least once a month at this complex, and at least one resident fears that this manager's actions could drive vulnerable seniors over the brink into the hospital and even death, is it right for the TPD to dismiss such concerns as not their problem, unless a resident turns up dead of violence?
When a resident becomes concerned about these issues, is it right for Adult Protective Services to ignore repeated e-mail complaints?
When a resident is both concerned about these issues and ready to defend against home invasion from any quarter, is it right for the District Attorney's Office to call this resident a "terrorist"? Especially without bothering to check with the resident's neighbors to determine the truth?
Has it come down to the point that a business person in Tulsa can make any false and misleading advertisement, commit any abuse and make any accusation with the willing support of the TPD, the Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's Office and the local Courts, merely because the opposing party is not a business person, or just has some unpopular disability?
The manager in question no longer works for the apartment complex. But reportedly, the out-of-state owner regretting losing the manager to a better job, and the residents are still too frightened of eviction to openly discuss or testify about what happened. Is this the way that Tulsa proudly expects its elderly, sick and disabled to live out their last years?
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1) Has anyone ever known the Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES) to interview all those with reason to know about an alleged incident, before recommending emergency commitment to the local loony bin, to get a context for the situation and check on the truthfulness of those making accusations?
2) Has anyone ever known the mental health unit of the Public Defender's Office not only to inform a candidate for commitment of all of his or her rights under the state and federal constitutions, but to advise that candidate that he or she should ask for a jury trial so as to have the legal right to cross-examine witnesses and accusers?
3) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health (TCBH aka the local loony bin aka This Can't Be Happening) to turn away someone brought in for examination as unjustly accused?
4) Has anyone ever known a "witness" for an involuntary civil commitment at TCBH, in any proceeding not a jury trial, to be someone other than an employee or contractor of the State or local government?
5) Has anyone ever known of a case where the person accused of being in need of treatment (aka "the consumer") was not examined, for mental defect and/or recommendation for commitment, by the Psychiatrist who would later benefit from employment as that person's doctor of record.
6) Does it strike anyone as improper that the Psychiatrist who would later benefit from such employment could sign papers as the "witness" for commitment, the "evaluator" for the commitment, and the person requesting the commitment?
7) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Police Department to help someone with difficulties and concerns Before it gets to the point of speculation about ending it all, so as to avoid the massive violation of civil liberties of an involuntary commitment?
8) Has anyone ever known the Tulsa Police Department to take a person with mental health difficulties seriously enough to fully investigate a situation so as to determine the truthfulness of the accusers?
9) Has anyone ever known the Oklahoma Dept of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to follow the civil commitment procedures listed in section 5-401 of the Mental Health Code (Title 43A), instead of just pretending that it was "Repealed", as it says on their web site. The actual code states that it was repealed and then amended to state what is listed on the Oklahoma Legislature's site.
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Thank you, Vive le Ranch for causing me to dream about a wedding for over a year, and then allow me to spend $15,000 on a day that you ruined.
Also...the organizer of the Brush Creek Youth Ranch--the organization in which the money I paid for the venue with supported, is a complete jerk. She pretty much said her organization was far more important than mine because it's an annual event. Annual events are generally planned well ahead of time, so... I should have been notified FAR LONGER in advance.
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Tired of fake Christians in their private clubs And do not care who knows about it.
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But I was in no mood to take chances--especially since it was bus number 2013. So, I asked the driver if this was really the 105 South. He nodded. I then told him I had been on a 105 claiming to be a 101, and a 203 masquerading as a 251, and joked that it seemed to be April Fool's Day and maybe he didn't get the memo. He promptly threatened to throw me off the bus if I didn't shut up. So I sat down and shut up. He then proceeded to turn right at Second and Boulder from other than the right lane, and stay in other than the right lane until he had bypassed the stop by the Hyatt and made an elderly woman walk halfway to City Hall to get on. Shortly afterwards he lied to a man on Second east of Elgin about whether he could catch the 210 there--the poor guy may still be waiting for that bus as you read this--griped at a woman for using a marked and shelter-equipped stop in a construction zone, and let a man on with a lit cigar. Good enough for government work, I guess.
Also good enough for government work was the Dallas consultant who told the city a while back that the railroad line in the middle of the Broken Arrow Expressway would make a fine light rail commuter line, and recommended that a park and ride lot be set up at either 42nd and Memorial or 36th and Sheridan. They got millions and millions of dollars for this. Service cutbacks occured shortly afterwards, and nothing more in the way of light rail development has come along. Millions of dollars to Dallas when any idiot who was actually born and raised in Tulsa could tell you that the same rail line crosses 51st Street right underneath Highway 169, and a park and ride lot at that location could actually share a traffic light with the 169 on- and off-ramps.
Mass transit is a laudable goal. But it's abundantly clear that if this city is ever to have a viable system, we're going to have to make up our minds that mass transit is much TOO GOOD for government work.
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Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.