Nickelodeon Criticized for Stigmatizing Stereotype

You might remember that I created an award called the Stupidity Award for Promoting Prejudice a while back and gave the first to an NBC sports writer who didn’t see anything wrong with a high school dance team in Waunakee, Wisconsin wearing straight jackets with the word PSYCHO WARD printed on them as they performed in a state competition.   

I was tipped off to that school’s insensitive, stigma-promoting  performance by a fellow mental health blogger, Chrisa Hickey, who posts her thoughts at The Mindstorm: Raising a Mentally Ill Child.

Chrisa sent me an email about a new example of stigma in the media. From reading her note, it sounds as if another SAPP award is due.

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Dr. E. Fuller Torrey: Sounding An Alarm or Being an Alarmist?

For the past several weeks, I have had an interesting and troubling email exchange with Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, perhaps the most controversial psychiatrist in America. He’s also one of the most influential.

Today, Dr. Torrey is best known for his campaign to get Assisted Outpatient Treatment laws passed. An example is Kendra’s law. There’s plenty on the Internet — pro and con — about AOT. 

It would be a mistake, however, to believe that Dr. Torrey’s impact has only been in promoting AOT legislation. He has been sounding alarm bells and criticizing our mental health system for decades.  Among other things, he has founded two organizations. The Stanley Medical Research Institute is a nonprofit organization that supports research looking for the causes and treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. According to its webpage, it has given away more than $300 million since 1989 for research, mostly outside the U.S. The second group is the Treatment Advocacy Center which describes it’s purpose as “eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness.” TAC’s main focus is pushing for passage of AOT laws.

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Deadlines, deadlines and more deadlines!

 I’ve prided myself on posting a new blog every Monday morning on this webpage, but I missed my deadline this week.  Unfortunately, I fell behind. I had a blog written but I wasn’t happy with it and until I get it right, I won’t be posting it. I also got overwhelmed with work.

In addition to completing last minute tasks for the publication of my new book, The Serial Killer Whisperer, that will be released by Simon and Schuster in January, I am under the gun to complete a novel that I am writing. 

Yep, I’m writing fiction again. More about that later. Because the novel is due September 1st, I am spending 14 hours a day at my keyboard.

I will be posting a new blog next Monday and, hopefully, each Monday after that.

Until then, I hope you will continue checking my blog, posting comments, and, more importantly, supporting my advocacy for a better mental health system.

Be well.

Drop-In Center, Dancing Doc, Baton Rouge

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know one of my favorite quotes is attributed to Margaret Meade who said:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that  ever has.

One of my favorite things about traveling is getting to meet inspiring people who are changing their communities and improving the lives of persons with brain disorders.

Here are some examples.

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Lack of Leadership In Fairfax County Hurts Us

Lack of Leadership in Fairfax County has Failed Us

As my recent flight began its descent into Dulles International Airport, I felt a sense of frustration, embarrassment and irritation. The cause is a lack of leadership in my home county by the Fairfax County Bar Association, Commonwealth’s Attorney, and our local judiciary. Those of us with loved ones who have severe mental disorders deserve better.

First, some background.

I was returning from Utah where I had been invited to give the opening keynote at the 1st Annual Intermountain Mental Health Court Conference being held at Utah State University. Before the conference, I’d appeared on the local NPR affiliate in Logan with Judge Kevin F. Allen, a District Court Judge who oversees a mental health court in Utah.  A political conservative, Allen told listeners that he had been wary of mental health courts until he saw first-hand how they can help break the jail-streets-jail cycle that many persons with mental disorders get caught in and  — also how the courts actually save tax dollars.

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Russian Who Exposed Femme Fatale Is Identified

Former Russian Spy Now Peddles Spy Gear

Thanks to a Russian military court in Moscow, we now know who told the FBI and CIA about ten Russian “illegals,” who were arrested last year in the U.S., including the femme fatale,  Anna Chapman.

In case you have forgotten, Chapman and her colleagues where caught in June 2010 and accused of being “sleeper agents” employed by the Russian Federation’s external intelligence agency, the SVR (formerly the KGB.)  Illegals are a Russian specialty. Yuri Andropov, who oversaw the KGB from 1967 until 1982, was a huge proponent of dispatching KGB-trained Russians into foreign countries under the guise of being immigrants. Their assignment was to blend into a target country’s society and, if possible, quietly work their way into jobs where they could collect information. In some cases, sleepers were told they might never be called on by Mother Russia unless a war broke out. If that happened, the sleeper agents would be ordered to carry out military assignments, such as blowing up targets.

The idea that your seemingly ordinary next-door neighbor might secretly be a foreign spy is juicy stuff and when Chapman turned out to be both young and sexy, her arrest sparked international headlines. Most foreign intelligence agents conduct their spying activities under the guise of being dipolmats. This gives them immunity from prosecution.  But “illegals” don’t have diplomatic immunity, which means they can be arrested, just as Chapman and her co-horts were. They were later returned to Moscow as part of a spy swap. We sent them ten Russians and they gave us four alleged spies from our side.

When Chapman and the others were arrested on June 27th, my phone began ringing. Everyone assumed that Sergei Tretyakov had told the FBI and CIA about the sleeper agents. Tretyakov is the subject of my book, COMRADE J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War.  He began working for the U.S. sometime in the mid-1990s and as the deputy rezident of the KGB/SVR’s New York office, common sense dictated that he must have known about Chapman and her pals.

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