The Disney Media Networks and ABC Television plan to re-air an episode of Modern Family on Wednesday night that is a distasteful example of blatant prejudice against Americans with mental illnesses.

I first wrote about Modern Family:Halloween 3: AwesomeLand the day after it aired last year and thousands of you and The National Alliance on Mental Illness joined me in expressing outrage at the show’s stigmatizing characterization of persons with mental illnesses.

This morning, NAMI’s Executive Director Mary Mary Giliberti issued a strongly worded press release calling the network “Callous” for refusing NAMI’s request that it not show the episode again on Wednesday. NAMI is asking its members to participate in a Twitter conversation at  #unmodernfamily 

In the episode, Claire Dunphy decides to create the most frightening house in her neighborhood by transforming her front yard into a “scary insane asylum” complete with “deranged mental patients,” a “sadistic nurse” and “demented doctor.” The episode features daughter Alex chained to a hospital bed and Luke wearing a straight jacket – images that are intended to make viewers chuckle. Words such as “nut job, Looney Bin, cuckoo” are sprinkled throughout the dialogue — less viewers forget that nothing is more frightening than someone with a mental disorder.

Three men have the authority to stop the showing of this episode and two of them should know better than to air such hurtful garbage.

The trio are Bob Iger, the chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company; Ben Sherwood, co-chairman of Disney Media Networks, and President, Disney-ABC Television Group, and Paul Lee, head of ABC Entertainment Group, which oversees the television network ABC and its production arm ABC Studios.

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When the Utah state chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness invited me to speak at a public meeting and talk to state legislators in January, my tour guide was Francisca Blanc, NAMI Utah’s development director. She knew every state legislator, was an effective lobbyist and a whiz at getting me on Salt Lake City television and radio programs.

At one point, she told me that she had been struggling with her own mental illness, including bouts of depression, for more than two decades.

What she didn’t tell me during our jam-packed day together was that she was self-medicating with booze during my visit. Lots of booze. I had no idea because she hid it so well. But shortly after my visit, Francisca crashed and ended up in a emergency room.

Last week, I returned to Utah to speak at a Housing Matters Conference held by the Utah Housing Coalition in Park City and I was thrilled to see Francisca waiting there to introduce me. She had quite a story to share.

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Reviewers Assumed Duplicity Would Be Filled With Political Rhetoric But It’s Not

Book reviewers are expressing surprise that Duplicity, the novel that I wrote with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is fiction and not, as one wrote, “overt political rhetoric and liberal-bashing.” It’s a political thriller — and a good one.

The Book Wheel, reviewed by Allison Hitz

…I must admit that I’m not a Newt Gingrich fan when it comes to politics, so I was hesitant about the subject matter of his latest book. It’s described as the story of a Benghazi-style attack on a U.S. embassy that was opened by the president for political reasons. Because I’ve followed along with the Benghazi hearings, this immediately put me on high alert and I went in mentally prepared for a book that leaned heavily on overt political rhetoric and liberal-bashing storytelling. Naturally, when I started reading, I was able to point out precisely these things.

But it wasn’t long before a funny thing happened – I became engrossed in the story. Not only that, but I found myself flipping the pages so quickly that I forgot to look for political rhetoric and started enjoying it. Then, about halfway through the book, I pulled myself out of the story and realized that the book is pretty balanced and that this isn’t a book about personal politics at all – it’s just a book! In fact, Muslims, marines, politicians, and the media are all portrayed in both positive and negative lights, meaning personal politics were not at all the distraction I had anticipated. 

In short, I was wrong (insert foot in mouth here).

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Dear Mr. Earley,

I am writing about Natasha McKenna and her death in the Fairfax County Detention Center. (I have provided you my contact information so you can confirm who I am and my credentials, but I ask that you withhold my name for reasons that will become obvious.)

Why was she “managed” by trained professionals in a manner that was so callous & inhumane? Why was she shocked repeatedly with a Taser while posing no serious threat to the men who had her on the floor? How were the deputies able to overlook and disregard her pathetic, desperate cries, whimpers and gasps?

How did this happen? There were six men directly involved and several others looking on, only a few feet away. Any one of them could have interrupted what was happening, but there’s no indication that anyone objected. No one said, “Put away the Taser – we don’t need it.” Nobody said, “One time with the Taser is enough!” (or two times, or three, or even four). There was no sign that anyone said, “She’s scared, this isn’t working. Let’s stop and think about a better way to get this done.” Equally important is the fact that the Lieutenant in charge didn’t stop to say, “This is going bad. I’m going to call my Captain for guidance, or my Major, or my Colonel, or the Sheriff.”

Why did this happen?

Are these men (and women) sadists? Are they sociopaths? Are they inexperienced? Are they stupid? Are they racist murderers?

I know them personally, I work with them and my answer to these questions is “No, no, no, no and no.” I’ve had conversations with them in our workplace about our kids, about our jobs, and, in some cases, we’ve shared both laughs and secrets. We are not bad people.  The deputies that did this are not much different truthfully than most of our friends and neighbors – your friends and neighbors too. We are ordinary Fairfax citizens.

So how could these deputies treat another human being this way?

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Photo by Joao Silva/New York Times

 A grieving father determined to change our system speaks out, a detailed examination of what’s happening in Pennsylvania since that state began shuttering its mental hospitals, and an alarming expose by The New York Times about Africans with psychiatric conditions, who are being chained for years in “prayer camps,” are three recent stories that I want to call to your attention.

James Cornick sent me an e-mail describing the ordeal that he went through trying to get meaningful help for his son, Jeff, who ended his life in a jail cell. James told me that his son’s death could have been prevented and he was going to do his best to demand county officials improve local services. A reporter with the Des Moines Register happened to hear James telling his story and the result was a moving newspaper account: Grieving Father: Stop Jailing People For Mental Illness. 

Within two months of the death, Jim Cornick started standing up publicly, demanding that society stop sending people to jail for being sick. The retired Meredith Corp. magazine publisher has met with the sheriff, the police chief, judges, lawyers, probation officers, county supervisors, legislators and the governor.

He doesn’t vent anger or claim that his son was harmless. He speaks calmly, offering specific proposals:

• Families should be able to tell mental health professionals what they see happening in the lives of their ill relatives, he says. Commitment laws must be changed to make it easier for families to get patients in for help and to keep them in treatment for more than a few days.

• Police and jail staff members should have more training in handling those with mental illness. People shouldn’t have to wait weeks or months for assistance. And if police come across someone whom a judge has ordered into treatment, the officers should automatically be notified of that order so they can take the person to a hospital.

His normally steady voice shakes when he is asked what he’s trying to accomplish. “I feel like maybe I can make a difference, move the needle a little bit, raise some awareness,” he said in an interview at his South of Grand neighborhood home.

His son didn’t mean to hurt anyone — including their family — by committing suicide, Cornick said. “He did it because he’d given up hope. He’d worked damned hard to get better, and he just couldn’t.” (read more here.)

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