Something for Veterans' Day

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like of old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind:
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in sonic smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not talk with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


Wilfrid Owen (1917)

Vicarious Trauma, Media Frames, Numbing and Avoidance

Article on vicarious traumatization. With commentary.

As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood - Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer - but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury. .

In medical parlance it is known as "secondary trauma", [vicarious trauma] and it can afflict the families of soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. along with the health workers who are trying to cure them. Dr. Antonette Zeiss, Deputy Chief of Mental Health Services for Veteran Affairs, while not wishing to talk about the specific case of the Fort Hood slayings, explained to TIME that: "Anyone who works with P.T.S.D. clients and hears their stories will be profoundly affected."

It's entirely possible that other factors may have acted as a trigger for Hasan . . [who] . .had developed strong objections to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he was also due to be shipped out to Afghanistan, drawing him closer to the terrible scenes described in detail by his patients. At army hospitals dealing with P.T.S.D. patients, the staff is required to periodically fill out a 'resiliency' questionnaire that is supposed to gauge how well they are coping with the burden of their patients' emotional and psychological demands. [filling out a questionnaire? Wow, what a profound therapeutic intervention!] "It takes its toll on people," says one officer at a Colorado military hospital. "You cannot be un-affected by the terrible things these soldiers have undergone."

Most army psychiatrists now have a full caseload of men and women returning from combat zones with P.T.S.D.. A survey by the Rand Corp. last April revealed that one in five service men and women are coming back with post-traumatic stress and mental depression. Previously known as "combat fatigue" or being "shell-shocked", P.T.S.D was only diagnosed as an illness in the 1980s, but it has been around for as long as men have been killing one another and undergoing fearful experiences. It can lead to outbursts of rage, emotional numbness, severe depression, nightmares, and the abuse of alcohol and pain-killers. In extreme cases, P.T.S.D. sufferers have committed suicide and murder. Since the late 1980s, doctors have also learned that over time, along with drugs and therapy, P.T.S.D. is curable.

As part of their therapy, PTSD sufferers are typically asked to dredge up their worst wartime memories. [this is crap. it is also not standard of care. Note the "dredge up' frame, too.]Hearing these nightmarish experiences can stir up powerful reactions in even the most seasoned therapists [note how writer demonizes empathy]. One Colorado sergeant, diagnosed with P.T.S.D., who had served as a dog-handler in Iraq, told me how his psychiatric counselor had broke down sobbing after the soldier described how he had been sent out to find the remains of his close friend, a helicopter pilot, shot down in southern Iraq. "I looked up, and there she was crying," the sergeant says. "I didn't want that from a shrink." [well, that's crap, sergeant.]

But there is a major difference, says Veteran Affairs' Zeiss, between a therapist being moved by combat horror stories and being traumatized by them - though it can happen. "Psychiatrists are trained to notice their own reactions and emotions, and if there's something hard to deal with, they should turn to their peers," she says. [This is incorrect. One should not turn to one's peers. One should go get oneself a competent therapist] But according to some news reports, Hasan's unprofessional conduct was red-flagged early on; at Walter Reed he was given a poor performance report, but that did not hinder his transfer to Fort Hood.

And for even the most hardened army psychiatrist, that would be a grueling assignment. [note how sentence equates "hardness" with competence. Besides being a sexist frame, "hardening" is more like "numbing," a symptom of PTSD] Fort Hood has the highest suicide rate of any army base in the country, largely because so many service men and women stationed there have undergone severe trauma while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. At Fort Hood, in other words, there was no shortage of horrific tales that could have set loose the demons in Hasan's mind.

IOU

Ok, I'm back from DC. Almost off to work.

This is a blogging IOU.

Will write about Americans United for the Separation of Church and State's blogger meet-up in DC. Great fun, lots of laughter.

Thinking about writing at more length on sexist smears against Martha Coakley, sample here.

Putting the pieces together re Ft. Hood shooter. Sounding more Islamic than traumatic right now. When will they start trying to waterboard him?

Later.

Al-Jazeera on Fort Hood Shootings

Deaths in US army base shooting

. . . Lieutenant-General Bob Cone, the base's commanding officer, said the shooting took place at about 1:30pm local time (1930 GMT) on Thursday at a Soldier Readiness Facility.

The suspect has been named as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old army psychiatrist.

"There was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene. He was not killed as previously reported. He is currently in custody and in stable condition," Cone said.

Hasan was born in the US to Muslim Palestinian parents who had emigrated from a small town near Jerusalem, US media said. . .

Josh Rushing, Al Jazeera's correspondent at Fort Hood, Texas, said: "[Hasan] is a first-generation American. He joined the army after high school and went to the Virginia Tech university to get a psychiatry degree through a military programme.

"He became a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington ... where he counselled soldiers coming back from war.

"Every day, he heard how horrible those stories were and he really started to question the wars, according to what his cousin and sources who knew him said.

"Hasan became more devout in his religion and started arguing with soldiers about whether the wars were right or not, to the point where he received disciplinary action and negative work reviews.

"He was transferred to the medical facility here at Fort Hood, where apparently these feelings continued.

"It raises a major question - how can a person responsible for the mental health of soldiers returning [from war] be allowed to continue in this profession when he has these kinds of questions himself?"

The rampage occurs at a time of stress for the US armed services burdened by two wars, with commanders struggling to ease the effect of repeated combat tours on troops and their families.

Repeated deployments

Suicides in the army hit a record level last year, with at least 128 taking their lives, and are on track to set a new high this year - surpassing the rate among the wider civilian population.

US commanders believe repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have played a role in the spike in suicides, as well a surge in post-traumatic stress and depression.

Hasan faced his own imminent deployment for military service, officials said.

Nader Hasan, a cousin, said Hasan was "mortified by the idea of having to deploy" and that he had been harassed by other soldiers for being a Muslim.

He told the New York Times newspaper that Hasan had retained a lawyer and sought to get out of the army before the end of his contract.

Full story here.

No Sense in the Madness of Crowds

The Fort Hood shootings continue to whip up that ol' mob mentality. You can't tell facts from mere foamings at the mouth.

Yesterday, media said the psychiatrist was someone who had just been promoted to Major. Today, media swears he'd been interviewed by the FBI, and had been given a poor job performance evaluation at work.

Hunh?

Desperate to cook up a more-or-less sensible mythic framework, much?

Fort Hood Shooter Said to Be Army Psychiatrist

.

Army Major said to be psychiatrist treating traumatic stress who was about to be deployed to Iraq.
He had worked at Walter Reed. Just promoted to Major.


[Interlude]

PTSD symptoms, short form:


1. Numbing and avoidance


2. Intrusive thoughts

flashbacks,
nightmares


3. Hyperarousal

anxiety,
insomnia,
hypervigilance,
irritability,
panic attacks,
angry outbusts,
aggression

What Vast-Left Said

The audacity of Plouffe.

Yes, I'm Still Here

Yes, I'm still here, but I can't think of anything to write about. Well, sure I can, I already Googled the child abuse du jour cases, and there were just so many of them, mostly featuring daddies and mommies and boyfriends doing horrible things to 13 month olds and under, and I just couldn't handle picking up the links. I mean, ugh. You, too, can Google "child abuse" and then "news" and you will see what I mean.

Another Shameless Sexist Article in HuffPo

Yecch.

"The Original Power Couple Emerges Again With Hillary on Top . . ."


Why not come right out and call her a nappy-headed ho' and get it over with, Bronstein, you um "dickhead"?


And now for something completely different: Arthur Silber, a guy who gets it.

Torture Is as Torture Does (CIA version)

Manacled to the ceiling?

Well, and why not?
They were, like, Teh Enemy! Once they're dubbed Teh Enemy, you get to do anything you want, do you not?

Let Them Eat Cake? No! Let Them Make Tea!!

I work with people (adults and children) who have chronic complex PTSD and dissociative disorders, many of whom self-injure, and many if not most of whom have suicidal ideation, and some of whom are actively suicidal. Meaning that sometimes they act on their thoughts.

When I, as their clinician, think they are a danger to themselves or others, part of a safety plan we've put together includes going for an evaluation at a hospital or crisis center. I don't just send people to the ER on a whim, because that would be, well, idiotic, would it not? Generally, I try to speak with someone there to express my concerns, and my familiarity with my patients' patterns. If they listen to me.

Lately, that hasn't been so much the case. And I am discovering many of my colleagues are having similar experiences. Seems like, more and more, people who should be inpatient are not being admitted, whether it's because of having poor insurance with poor benefits, or I'm not sure what.

It is often very hard for people who are a danger to themselves or others to admit that. So the act of actually going to an ER and saying, yes, I have been having those thoughts, and yes, I am afraid I will act on them, is really quite a step forward, clinically-speaking. For someone to respond to that admission in a trivializing way, as in the "Oh, it's not so bad, why don't you just go home and make a cup of tea" (which actually just happened, I kid you not) gatekeeper incident, is completely unacceptable.

Obama, who is quite ready to spend on physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) needs to spend money on shoring up our social infrastructure -- mental health and child welfare, doing it from the bottom up, not from the top down. More services, not fewer. More services for the most endangered.

Are we hypnotized, as a nation, by some weird gender-biased kinda frame? Bridges and roads are visible, strong, real and manly and tough? Minds are invisible, weak, fickle, unreal, not truly existent, thus unworthy of making a top priority?

CIA Torture Program Used Classic Torture Skill-Set

CIA torture program: classic bait and switch?

Nah. Classic inflict and revive.

According to human rights lawyer John Sifton, the CIA tortured some of its detainees in the War on Terror so severely that it had to take measures to keep them alive so they could continue being tortured.

Sifton, who is the executive director of One World Research, told an interviewer for Russia Today that there was both a CIA detention program and a military detention program and that "The CIA program was by far the most secretive. ... That's the one that only had a few dozen detainees at any given time -- but it's the one that saw the biggest abuses, the most serious forms of torture."

"In the military, there was actually a larger number of deaths than with the CIA," Sifton continued. "The CIA engaged in some horrendous abuses, but they appear to have taken precautions to have actually prevented people from dying -- which might sound humanitarian, but in fact was kind of sickening."

"Kind of" sickening?

See, the whole point of torture is to create experiences of suffering that are so horrendous that it makes your torturees wish they were dead. And then -- you just don't let them die. Because that would end the torture. So you just keep on doing it. And your torturees keep on wishing they were dead. And if you don't watch out, they'll go ahead and kill themselves. Or, if they're lucky, you'll slip up in your attempts to keep torturing them, and they'll die on you, the swine. And then the torturees win.


It's all so very medieval, is it not?

JurassicPork Going Down, Down

It ain't right, people.

Pass it on.


Send some love to Welcome Back to Pottersville.

"How Is This Poem by Nobel Laureate in Literature Czeslaw Milosz Relevant to The Democratic Party As It Currently Exists?" (originally posted May '08)

for Vast Left



A Task


In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life

Only if I brought myself to make a public confession

Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:


We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons


But pure and generous words were forbidden

Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one


Considered himself as a lost man.


. --Czeslaw Milosz

It's All About Me. No Really. It Is.

So I've belatedly discovered that the bushist fascists with their dreadful profit-driven health-insurance-healthcare-denial-serf/slavery system have contaminated my mind, and left me vicariously traumatized. Which had been too traumatized to notice until the day before yesterday. No, really.

Here were (are?) my symptoms: irritability, anxiety, panic, angry outbursts (NOT a usual behavior for me), insomnia, hypervigilance. Occasional upsurges of wanting to kick something sentient (REALLY not a usual discursive thought-stream for me.)

So, in the tiny sliver of co-consciousness that miraculously accompanied these behaviors/subjective experiences, I'm like, where is this all coming from?

Which it took me a while to figure out.

It is not my anxiety. (Although I have every possible reason to worry about what I worry about). It isn't mine -- it's theirs. The people I work with at work. I am bringing my work home. And I have been sharing worry about suicidal clients whose insurance providers, in order to save pennies on meds, are dumping people off the latest anti-psychotic drugs and replacing them with cheaper generics or with really old drugs left over from the 1950's. Thus de-stabilizing the previously stable.

I mean, how stupid is that?

And I can't do anything about it. There is no way for me to intervene in this system. I can watch them go from ok on an outpatient basis, to needing to be inpatient, but inpatient is too expensive, so they re-do their meds and spit them out on the streets again, still unstable.

And what is my part in this? Like watching a plane headed into a tall building.

"Oh. Look."

That plane -- is going to -- hit -- that building."

Boom!


Hmm.

So what am I, what are we, supposed to do?

Rape: Another "Pre-Existing Condition"

Collecting all these stories of "health?" insurance company denial abuse is rilly, rilly getting fun!

Here's one about a rape survivor getting in wicked trouble because she took a drug after being raped so she might not get AIDS! W00t!

Let me highlight another juicy bit:

. . . patients and therapists wrote in with allegations that insurers are routinely denying long-term mental health care to women who have been sexually assaulted.

Yes, boys and girls, it takes a "health?" insurance denial abuse panel to take power and control over your mental health care, denying care because it is actually needed. Wow! Double bind much?

And now for something completely different because I am just having well one of those days

Roscoe Holcomb -- I am a man of constant sorrow.

Father Knows Best

Nothing like an honor killing to start out the week with a bang: Dad Kills Daughter For Being Pregnant, Unwed.

A Jordanian man was charged on Sunday with premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death his 22-year-old daughter because she became pregnant outside wedlock, police said.

"The father and his brother took the girl on Saturday to a doctor because she suffered stomach pains, and everybody was surprised to learn that she was six months pregnant," a police spokesman said.

"On their way home, the father stabbed the girl with a sword 25 times in her stomach, killing her immediately as well as her unborn baby boy."

The source said the suspect had confessed to the crime, which took place in the Jordan Valley.

"His brother was also charged with premeditated murder, while the victim's boyfriend is being held in custody for his own protection," he added.

Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan but in such cases of the so-called "honour killings" a court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

Honor killings = leniency? Really?

Call to Action: Events Saturday in Boston, on Cape Cod, All Across the Land!

Here's an opportunity in Boston to show the teabaggers how appreciative we are of all their efforts to prevent socialist healthcare from spreading promiscuously. Morrisey Blvd, two ish.

And on the Cape, shameless Democrat Martha Coakley needs some kind of counter-demonstration, really.

Support the Teabaggers this Saturday!


Be a Billionaire! Let your needs and wants eclipse everyone else's!

Billionaires for WealthCare: Fight Socialism: End Medicare NOW!

Food Fight:: And Now for Something Completely Different

Long, thoughtful, passionate thread on food, US culture, obesity, at Corrente. I didn't want to clog it up with a video, so I am posting an offering here. Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories/Bad Calories, turns conventional wisdom inside out; noted wellness doc Andrew Weil, M.D. gives Taubes' insights a solid thumbs up.

Obama's Not-Bush Nobel Win Results in Massive Mob-GOP Head Explosion

One must work really really hard to feel compassion for so very many Mob-GOP exploded heads.




Not to mention how hard it would be to feel compassion toward the shamelessly sexist exploded heads of the idiotic faux-left.

[Hat-tip to actual liberal blog, Corrente.]

4 year old in criticl condition: 5 adults charged with felony child abuse

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Nothing to see here; move along.

Neighbors who lived near the home where five adults were arrested for abusing a 4-year-old boy described a horrific scene on Friday - detailing the insides of the Hattiesburg home where the abuse took place.

They told of a vacant home with blood stains, a dog cage that may have been used to confine the child and rooms cluttered with trash and debris surrounded by graffiti-covered walls.

"There's stacks and stacks of clothes and little mats on the floor. It has the smell of feces," said the landlord, who didn't want his name publicized, of the home at 215 N. 25th Ave.

Among the suspects charged with one felony count of child abuse are: Sue Miller, 53; Nancy Miller, 34; Patricia Aguilar, 30; Francys Albertson, 20; and Christopher Lee, 37, all of Hattiesburg.

The landlord, who lives near the house, said all five suspects lived in the home, but only Sue Miller and her daughter, Nancy Miller, and Albertson were listed on the lease of the home, he said.

The suspects were arrested Tuesday after police received an anonymous tip from someone concerned about the welfare of the child inside the residence. Police said the child was in Sue Miller's care.

The 4-year-old boy was one of 10 children taken from the home by Forrest County Department of Human Services officials, police spokesman Synarus Green said. Green said investigators have not determined the relationship between the other nine children and the adults arrested.

The 4-year-old remains in critical condition at a Jackson hospital, police said.

The other nine children are in the custody of the Department of Human Services.

"The child's body was covered with new and old bruises, marks, cuts and abrasions," Green said in a prepared statement. "A lot of them were old injuries. He didn't receive them in one day," he said.

Investigators don't know how long the abuse had been going on, Green said.

A preliminary medical exam showed that the child had cuts on his head and body, broken teeth with damaged gums and internal abdominal injuries caused by blunt-force trauma. . . ."

But really, let's concentrate on the innocent unborn, not the guilty post-born. Oh, and really, let's save them widdle snowfwakes, mm-'kay?

Polanski Got Off Lightly, Lawyers Say

Polanski would face tougher prosecution today

By GILLIAN FLACCUS (AP) – 3 hours ago

LOS ANGELES — If Roman Polanski were charged with child rape today, DNA evidence, stiffer penalties, outcry over childhood sexual abuse and tougher scrutiny of celebrity justice would make prosecutors much less willing to cut the plea deal the director received more than 30 years ago, legal experts say.

For one thing, changes in state law since the 1970s would give prosecutors other options in pursuing charges, including a law that includes a mandatory 15 years to life in state prison for rape, sodomy or a lewd act with a child coupled with certain circumstances, such as the use of a controlled substance, said Robin Sax, a former sex crimes prosecutor with the district attorney's office.

"He should be shutting up and thanking goodness for his sentence," said Sax, who is also a victim's advocate. "There's one part of me that says, 'Bring it on, you want your trial? Let's let everyone here see what the evidence really is.'"

Polanski was accused of plying a 13-year-old girl with champagne and part of a Quaalude during a modeling shoot in 1977 and raping her. He was initially indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy.

The director pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse; in exchange, the remaining charges were dropped, and the judge agreed to send Polanski to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. But Polanski was released after 42 days and fled the country on the eve of his Feb. 1, 1978 sentencing after the judge reportedly told lawyers he planned to add more prison time.

"I intended that he at least serve a full 90 days in state prison," Superior Court Judge Laurence Rittenband said in an AP story from the time.

Rittenband also called the prison psychiatric report on Polanski "a complete whitewash" and told reporters he believed it didn't adequately explore Polanski's reasons for committing the sex offense.

Victims of clergy sexual abuse staged a protest outside the district attorney's office Wednesday to protest celebrities who have publicly supported Polanski since his arrest in Zurich, Switzerland over the weekend.

"It is very, very similar to the allegations against the priests ... and no one says that we should just ignore the priest pedophilia," said Katie Buckland, executive director of the California Women's Law Center and former Los Angeles city attorney, who was not affiliated with the protesters.

An HBO documentary released last year suggested judicial misconduct surrounding Polanski's plea deal. The victim, who didn't want to testify against him at the time, has joined in Polanski's bid for dismissal, which is currently before a California appellate court.

Chad Hummel, Polanski's attorney, declined to comment Wednesday.

Experts watching the case unfold on two continents say in today's climate, Polanski would have very little chance of getting the sort of plea deal he got in 1977 — judicial misconduct or not.

"I think we treat sex and sex with minor cases now much more severely than we did then," said Stan Goldman, a law professor at Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. "I think Polanski or anybody today would be looking at massive amounts of time in jail ... in light of the allegation, as originally charged, that this was forcible, and that he fed her drugs."

Yo, Whoopi: That's What "Rape" Rape IS

Has this country run entirely out of adults?

Here's a link to story about Whoopi Goldberg, who, along with some others, seems to find the act of drugging, raping and sodomizing a child something other than utterly repellent and unacceptable. She thinks it was rape, but not "rape" rape.

[Whoopi-Polanski]

Splashed all over HuffPo you'll find Polanski apologists. It's remarkable. I see Polanski apologists everywhere.
They don't even know that they're dead wrong.

Polanski apologists could feast their eyes on Polanski's victim's testimony at The Smoking Gun, here. Where, you know, the child victim testified to being all alone with Polanski, given champagne, and more champagne, and then qaaludes. Then, having been all softened up, she testifies to being raped and sodomized by Polanski. It's all right there in black and white.

But, hey, there's a big pro-torture crowd, too, in the ol' U-S-A, so what's not so funny about peace, love and understanding child date-rape,-rape-rape,-and-sodomy?