*the pic is a high school yearbook pic of the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, that was posted at ajc.com
*** Update 1/9/2011 to Clear Up Confusion: I am in no way advocating that the shooter be given a free pass and let go to go out and commit more killings. That is not what this post is about.***
The dust has not yet settled in the horrific shooting in Tuscon, Arizona where many people were injured and several were killed by a gunman who open fired on a group gathered outside a Safeway to participate in a meeting with Congresswoman Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. Already people are lining up on each side of their political fence to throw the blame at one another for inciting violence in “the crazies,” but what I fear will probably be lost in all of this is that it probably has nothing to do with politics and more to do with a lone shooter who was most likely mentally ill and set adrift in a gun-toting culture of violence that doesn’t want to deal with the “problem” of mentally ill people, let alone the stigma of it all.
If it turns out that the gunman is mentally ill, there will likely be no discussion about the real issues related to mental health care for people who are seriously ill, and the media will again brandish a VIOLENT person as a representative of what mental illness is. I checked out what is reported to be the gunman’s youtube page: Classitup10 who is supposedly Jared Lee Loughner and his videos are filled with the kind of nonsensical, paranoid ramblings classic in mental illness, especially untreated schizophrenia. If these are in fact his videos, and if he is mentally ill (which is all conjecture at this point: Jan. 8, 2011, 3:30pm), I wonder and fear how this will play out in the media and how it will play out in the courtroom.
Of course, my sympathies are for the people killed and injured and their families, but it would also be tragic if this entire situation was blown up into a political football that people just pass back and forth. If we could come to learn more about the real reasons for violence in our society and possibly learn something real about mental health care and stigma, perhaps all would not be lost. I am not crossing my fingers though.
* below is another pic from the same source of Jared Lee Loughner in 2010.
) I might owe my fast reading of this book to my Starbucks coffee run, but it could also be attributed to the good and interesting writing in this book. “Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine” by Stephen Braun is a captivating discourse on two of the most beloved substances on the planet. At one moment you are a molecule-sized scuba diver following the path of the ethanol molecule throughout the body and the next you are sizing up the athletic advantages of caffeine. The first half of the book is dedicated mainly to alcohol and its effects on the body and brain. The second half discusses caffeine. While the book may be a bit outdated (published in 1996), it still has relavent information for lay readers interested in how caffeine and alcohol work in the human body. The book really left me wanting to know more of the unanswered questions about how these substances work on a microscopic/molecular level. I felt that the first half covering alcohol was more complete, and ultimately more interesting, than the caffeine part, which is why I give this book 4 stars instead of 5. A good read nonetheless and you will come away probably knowing more than you do now about alcohol and caffeine.
kristinbell.org 