the Train has finally made it to Eugene 5+ hours late: https://kval.com/news/local/amtrack-train-stopped-for-4-hours-in-oregon-passenger-threatens-lives-of-others-and-self
Consider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown.
tdmidgetConsider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown.
I watched a documentary on the Unibomber last night and it was sad. The guy was a genius mentally but because of it his parents kept advancing him grades in grade school and he could not form a social bond. At the age of 16 he earned a full scholarship to Harvard University. Once he arrived there he was without his knowledge put into a program that experimented with him mentally in an attempt to find his breaking point. It was determined that experience at Harvard combined with his experience as a kid pushed him over the edge. After graduating Harvard he was employed by everyones favorite campus, UC-Berkley but resigned two months after accepting the job and became a hermit......went downhill from there. Speculated that one of the reasons he targeted Universities and University professors was his experience at Harvard.
What would have been different if his childhood was more normal and Harvard didn't play mind games with the guy?
tdmidget Consider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown.
The mentally ill, moderate and severe, are underserved, partly because insurance does not regard them with parity and nearly 40 years ago, the money for outpatient treament for those discharged from state hospitals started to be cut from the levels needed. Community mental health has never been properly funded. But there are many myths about the mentally ill and violent behavior and predicting violence. This link is to a short, but factual article.
charlie hebdo tdmidget Consider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown. The mentally ill, moderate and severe, are underserved, partly because insurance does not regard them with parity and nearly 40 years ago, the money for outpatient treament for those discharged from state hospitals started to be cut from the levels needed. Community mental health has never been properly funded. But there are many myths about the mentally ill and violent behavior and predicting violence. This link is to a short, but factual article.
If we recall during the 70's there was a 'movement' to discredit the state run mental hospitals (and I am not saying that in many cases their conditions weren't disgraceful) by highlighting all the disgraceful conditions and the 'tax payer expense' of operating them - so the movement worked to have most, if not all, of them closed and their inhabitants 'main streamed' into the general population - with no care what so ever! Yep, thats the way to solve the problem. [/sarcasm]
The thoughts were that 'for profit' mental institutions would take them in - at least until there was no way for them to pay for their care.
So basically all we have today is the mentally ill being blamed for being mentally ill and no care system in place to assist them.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Or suppose he had found out about what Harvard had done, and after getting his BA Diploma, engaged a lawyer like Allan Dershowitz to sue Harvard for violating his civil and humanitarain rights, and get an award of a decrnt lifetime income?
BaltACD charlie hebdo tdmidget Consider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown. The mentally ill, moderate and severe, are underserved, partly because insurance does not regard them with parity and nearly 40 years ago, the money for outpatient treament for those discharged from state hospitals started to be cut from the levels needed. Community mental health has never been properly funded. But there are many myths about the mentally ill and violent behavior and predicting violence. This link is to a short, but factual article. If we recall during the 70's there was a 'movement' to discredit the state run mental hospitals (and I am not saying that in many cases their conditions weren't disgraceful) by highlighting all the disgraceful conditions and the 'tax payer expense' of operating them - so the movement worked to have most, if not all, of them closed and their inhabitants 'main streamed' into the general population - with no care what so ever! Yep, thats the way to solve the problem. [/sarcasm] The thoughts were that 'for profit' mental institutions would take them in - at least until there was no way for them to pay for their care. So basically all we have today is the mentally ill being blamed for being mentally ill and no care system in place to assist them.
The outcome was exactly that. However, you have several errors. The 1970s deinstitutionalizing movement was the result of the discovery of new medications and the civil rights movement. The conditions in some state hospitals were bad, very bad, even into the 1980s. They were often warehouses where unfortunate relatives were "relocated " - the lock 'em up and forget them treatment plan. The problem was and still is that ongoing aggressive outpatient care through community mental health centers had its funding cut in the 1980s at the same time as the transition to for-profit insurance and hospitals. The chronic mentally ill got the shaft.
charlie hebdo BaltACD charlie hebdo tdmidget Consider yourself lucky. We have a mental health crisis in this country. Nut cases shooting people for no reason, living in the streets and no help for them. We don't have a St Jude, an Md Anderson, or Mayo clinic for mental health. We turn them right back to the streets and then wonder why. We probablky have a million potential mass murderers and serial killers but we make no effort to identify and help them. We are reaping what we have sown. The mentally ill, moderate and severe, are underserved, partly because insurance does not regard them with parity and nearly 40 years ago, the money for outpatient treament for those discharged from state hospitals started to be cut from the levels needed. Community mental health has never been properly funded. But there are many myths about the mentally ill and violent behavior and predicting violence. This link is to a short, but factual article. If we recall during the 70's there was a 'movement' to discredit the state run mental hospitals (and I am not saying that in many cases their conditions weren't disgraceful) by highlighting all the disgraceful conditions and the 'tax payer expense' of operating them - so the movement worked to have most, if not all, of them closed and their inhabitants 'main streamed' into the general population - with no care what so ever! Yep, thats the way to solve the problem. [/sarcasm] The thoughts were that 'for profit' mental institutions would take them in - at least until there was no way for them to pay for their care. So basically all we have today is the mentally ill being blamed for being mentally ill and no care system in place to assist them. The outcome was exactly that. However, you have several errors. The 1970s deinstitutionalizing movement was the result of the discovery of new medications and the civil rights movement. The conditions in some state hospitals were bad, very bad, even into the 1980s. They were often warehouses where unfortunate relatives were "relocated " - the lock 'me up and forget them treatment plan. The problem was and still is that ongoing aggressive outpatient care through community mental health centers had funding cut in the 1980s at the same time as the transition to for-profit insurance and hospitals. The chronic mentally ill got the shaft.
The outcome was exactly that. However, you have several errors. The 1970s deinstitutionalizing movement was the result of the discovery of new medications and the civil rights movement. The conditions in some state hospitals were bad, very bad, even into the 1980s. They were often warehouses where unfortunate relatives were "relocated " - the lock 'me up and forget them treatment plan. The problem was and still is that ongoing aggressive outpatient care through community mental health centers had funding cut in the 1980s at the same time as the transition to for-profit insurance and hospitals. The chronic mentally ill got the shaft.
They got the shaft then and they are still getting the shaft today.
On a side note -
Why is the passenger 'deranged' - does that mean that the other passengers are 'ranged'.
Why do we have 'disgruntled' employees - I have never heard of a gruntled employee.
[quote user="BaltACD"]Why is the passenger 'deranged' - does that mean that the other passengers are 'ranged'?
Well, you asked. It's from French, where it's really 'des' meaning thoroughly not, rather than just 'from' or 'out of') and 'rang' refers to order, in the sense of lined-up rows (see the use in Montreal and Quebec City suburbs), and derange is in essence to put the ducks NOT in a row.
(Before you bring up 'disabused' which has even richer 'possibilities' for inexperienced would-be-cunning linguists, this is another French one where 'des' meaning thoroughly against now combines with a word meaning 'deceived'.)
The 'des' in the French 'desrengier'comes from the Latin 'dis' rather than 'de' so it is easily confused.
JOHN PRIVARASpeaking of mental health... I've always wondered why Europe has so few homeless (many of whom are mentally ill). Sure, they've got much better social care than we do (and the population doesn't seem to despise each other like ours does) but still... The percentages of mentally ill should be roughly the same (unless there's something in our water supply).
Prevalence rates for the more common categories are pretty similar to ours, and not just in Europe.
With the politics of the country at the present time - everyone must be mentally ill - as the proponents of every party say that those the oppose them are nuts.
The German safety net is better than ours and I only remember bits and pieces of it. The United States is slowly changing to be better but very slow. For example just looking at unemployment a good portion of the American safety net is privately run by NGO's. In Germany if your unemployed you can enter a program by the German government to retrain you into another area paid for by German taxpayers (the Germans paid a stipend to live off of while undergoing the retraining). That exists as well in the United States but it is very poorly funded and the retraining puts you into much lower paying jobs in the United States that pay a rate of pay you can't live on.
One item I like about Texas is it's unemployment program is geared towards getting you employed ASAP instead of just paying you a check. You have to conduct a job search and keep a log and submit at times to the state. As time rolls on the state intervention gets more involved in that they will assign you a counselor for your job search by week 8 or 9 while on the state rolls. Now there is a downside to it in that again as time passes the focus on the Texas program is geared more towards getting any job vs a job that replaces the income lost in the one previous........even more so to the point of they will argue you take a job as a security guard part time vs holding out for a liveable wage.......that part of the program is stupid and needs revamping. However the first few weeks the focus of the unemployment program is correct and I believe limits the overall unemployment claims for the state. The other part to it is the state investigates via employer inquiry why your employment was ended to see if the employer was a habitual abuser of workers in Texas OR if the unemployment applicant has a habitual history of not being able to hold a job.
The German program (this was the 1980's) will train you in areas such as working in a Bakery, Administrative Assistant, as well as offering apprenticeship programs in areas such as auto mechanic, electrician, plumber, etc. Mostly blue collar work but they had some areas of white collar employment covered. The contrast between the German system and American system was the German jobs offered you could live off the salary or wages. American side the jobs sucked and not as good. The other item to consider in all this is Germany has a higher structural unemployment rate then does the United States, even in good years. I am not sure if that is still the case. Additionally, Germans did not job hop as much as Americans did in the 1980's.......Germany in the 1980's was pretty much under the former job or career for life model the United States followed up until the 1960's and 1970's.
Anyways a very high level comparison from an observer on safety net comparisons.
Many states have similar unemployment schemes.
Wouldn't it have been better, and faster, to keep the train moving to meet the police rather than stopping in the middle of nowhere and waiting for the police?
BackshopWouldn't it have been better, and faster, to keep the train moving to meet the police rather than stopping in the middle of nowhere and waiting for the police?
The original article is very poorly written and does not give a narrative on what actually took place.
In my experience, the Amtrak crew notifies the Train Dispatcher of the need for Local Authorities to meet the train at a point that is known to both parties - most frequently some specific road crossing. Normally, Amtrak will set this location in advance of their actual location at the time the request is made so as to minimize the delay to the train. Remember, neither Amtrak or the railroads, have stations everywhere anymore.
What is not stated in the article was the degree of resistance the 'deranged' individual had to being ushered from the train by the Local Authorities. In removing the 'deranged' individual the local authorities have to look out for the safety of the individual, the authorities as well as the other Amtrak passengers and crew.
I suspect most of the 5 hours was spent in negotiating the individual off the train, not waiting for the Local Authorities to arrive.
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