I don't recall anything about a BMI..?? But I did just get yet another MRI and my brain is settling down apparently so the chemo is out of the picture, thank goddess! I probably wouldn't have done it anyway; quality of life counts for something. But Kali came here to pick up maybe 30 manuscripts to send them letters and I gave her the (temporary anyway) title of "assistant editor." (In case she starts getting a big head on here, you'll know why .)

Oh, and I've been still upset about my friend, asked my neurologist for the real scoop with pertinent facts and it was not good. Chances of death still very high. He hasn't wakened from the coma since this all began and if he doesn't die, chances are very good he'll be vegetative. He's a very proud dude and I know he'd much rather die, so that's what I'm hoping for actually. He was a good hip hop artist, loved what I heard of his music. And they hadn't finished the album they were doing either...

It's so so weird cuz he was in his thirties, I'd just spoken with him, and now like magic, he's just disappeared. The human brain has a hard time comprehending death, I think.

Kong, aka Thomas Kelly, 41, died of that brain aneurysm in January after a few weeks in coma. Turns out that the very day it happened, he'd had a headache and mentioned to a couple folk that he was concerned about an aneurysm cuz of other family members having that happen. Someone offered to drive him to the hospital but he wouldn't go cuz he didn't have insurance... (Anger toward all those forces that create these conditions; knew an older guy, too, a trucker, who had a treatable form of cancer but wouldn't get help cuz he was proud and he didn't have health insurance.)

OK, OK.... On to venting about putting the mentally ill into prisons in this country. (Prisons have become a huge business in the country.)

To start off, here's some basic info:

The shift in residency of the mentally ill from hospitals to the criminal justice system is the result of deinstitutionalization, which occurred in the early 1990’s. The impetus began in the 1970’s to eliminate the infamous mental institutions.

http://www.geocities.com/stargazers_her ... lness.html


[Jimmy Carter began this shutting down of mental institutions, but intended to/had a plan for replacing them with various forms of residential living/group homes. Then Reagan came in and just threw out all those safety nets that hadn't yet been set up.]


It can happen in any American city on any day or night. A mentally ill street person shouts Scripture.... Or accosts passerbys. Or dumps a shopping cart filled with trash onto a busy intersection.

Pedestrians are alarmed, frightened. A police officer is called. The offender gets hauled into the precinct house. It turns out he's homeless. Often he refuses going to a shelter.

There are just two alternatives -- release him back to the street. Or lock him up.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage. ... ntId=14273



One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill. Many of them suffer from serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals.

The rate of mental illness in the prison population is three times higher than in the general population. … prisons are dangerous and damaging places for mentally ill people. Other prisoners victimize and exploit them. Prison staff often punish mentally ill offenders for symptoms...

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/10/22/usdom6472.htm


“We have unfortunately come to accept incarceration and homelessness as part of life for the most vulnerable population among us."
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig& ... gle+Search


Approaching one third of homeless people have a psychological disorder. ... The overflow of the mentally ill has overloaded the prison system.
http://www.geocities.com/stargazers_her ... lness.html


Getting mentally ill homeless people off the streets and into supportive housing costs taxpayers only slightly more than leaving them to fend for themselves, according to a study to be released today.

[But it's also actually much cheaper than paying their prison costs! Should we consider being humane as a culture/a society perhaps on top of the economic factors?]

http://www.shnny.org/documents/Wall%20S ... 0Study.htm

I'm super sorry about your friend Gail. That's very sad.

Did you know that 1% of the adult US population is in prison? More than 1 in 100 people are in jail.

Land of the FrrreEEEE room and board, upon conviction!!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/28/prison.population.ap/index.html


The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.


Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 -- one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.


"For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling," the report said. "While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine."


No shit? Wonder why?

Are you joking, Kali? First off, even up here in MN, our cop force is very, very racist and they do shit like beat up blacks, plant drugs on em, etc. Then the sentencing for blacks is always worse (like the diff between "coke" and "crack"--basically same stuff but hugely diff sentences for the same amounts). Cultural habits don't die easily.

And now, my god, it's one of the biggest businesses we've got! They need raw product material, right?

Here, check this out:

Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign

A Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime a Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance of the same fate.

CDF’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Campaign is a national call to action to stop the funneling of tens of thousands of youth, predominantly minorities, down life paths that often lead to arrest, conviction, incarceration and, in some cases, death. Race and poverty are the major factors underpinning the Pipeline.

The problems, policies and systems that feed the pipeline are a result of human choices:

• lack of access to health and mental health care
• child abuse and neglect
• lack of quality childhood education
• failing schools
• zero tolerance school discipline policies
• unsupported community institutions
• neighborhoods saturated with drugs and violence
• a culture that glorifies excessive consumption, violence and triviality
• rampant racial and economic disparities in child and youth serving systems
• tougher sentencing guidelines
• too few positive alternatives to the streets after school and in the summer months
• too few positive role models and mentors in the home, community, social and cultural life

We created the Pipeline and we have the power, knowledge and will to dismantle it. The need is urgent.

http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/Pa ... ename=c2pp

I was just surfing channels and came across that MacKenzie Phillips story and was yelling at the folk on the TV, which I know is pretty pathetic, so I decided to vent here instead. (In case you didn't hear, she was raped by her father and then says it turned "consensual.") First of all, I was pissed at HER for saying "consensual" when her father was HER FATHER!

I saw this kind of scene way up close once, with a grown daughter doing things like getting naked and asking her father to massage her and acting like a jealous lover rather than a daughter. She kept insisting none of it was actually sexual BUT she'd grown up with a father who later admitted that he'd been "training her since she was 12" to share inappropriate things and not think of it as sex. He also admitted that he was "more in love with" his daughter than any woman he'd ever been with! But as he admitted these things to her in a sex addiction therapist session, she refused to believe anything he said, insisted it was all her own initiative, free will, etc, etc, her CHOICE!

Despite being intelligent, she totally ignored the obvious fact that it was a bit strange that after her father had been training her in that sick and UNUSUAL direction, that she would "choose" such a role !!! In fact, that obviously (obviously to OTHERS) to others meant she COULDN'T have "free will" with those things EVER.

Same deal with MacKenzie Phillips. Hasn't she been in therapy? Or just is still in denial, wanting to believe these illusions?

And then these other folk on the show were wondering if she were lying!!! Cuz she has a long history with drugs, which is TYPICAL with abused people, so cuz of thatthey kept saying they couldn't trust her memories/beliefs if she were using! GET REAL, people! Everytime adults in this society choose to be WILLFULLY IGNORANT of these REALITIES, we're making more kids deal with this stuff alone! It. Is. Cowardly! DEAL.

[Later: I edited this to correct the name , was too busy talking back to the TV, I guess?]

Oh yeah, and a FYI-- The kind of men who do these things are EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE. (Something that doesn't just suddenly happen one day, of course, but which has existed throughout the childrens' lives; relevant, you think?) They just don't want to risk the adult possibility of rejection in a PEER relationship, so family is the safest bet. And denial runs strongly in these families also. (Yes, there are patterns, usually inter-generational.) Now apparently, half MacKenzie's extended family is saying she's lying. Like they would know??? HOW exactly would they "just know"? And the show host and others were taking that seriously, without even questioning the absurdity of thinking anyone else would/could know that...

ARgh, just.... argh!