Jared Loughner and me . . .

I just read a long, front page piece in The Washington Post, about Jared Loughner, who'd evidently been quite desperately ill for some time. And please note that I say he was "ill," not "mentally ill," because to me part of the responsibility for the Arizona shootings comes from society's (meaning yours and mine) habit of differentiating between mental and physical illness. We've already established that separation did not lead to equality in schooling. Nor, I would submit does it lead to equality in our treatment of the sick.

Isn't it time we recognize that, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, an illness is an illness? That behavior is as legitimate a symptom of a need for medical intervention as a temperature or a seizure? That those of us who would reach out to anyone who faints, should reach out anyone who acts as Jared Lougher has for years?

Photo of Loughner playing the saxophone as a teenager in a jazz program.
Photo courtesy of Robert Blanco Photography

The Washington Post article about Mr. Loughner paints a portrait of a musically gifted kid who had some kind of a break in high school, for which he was never treated, and from which he never recovered. Instead his illness got worse, as untreated illnesses do, and we all know what happened.

Two thirds of the way through The Washington Post article, researched and written by three Post staff writers, was this:

In the past year or so, the crumbling of what was once Loughner was clear to anyone who bothered to look. Teachers, fellow students, even the anonymous e-buddies who substituted for the real friends he had lost - many suspected mental illness and said so, to one another, to Loughner, even to people who might have taken action. But no one did.

Later on in the article comes ...

By last summer, evidence of Loughner's increasingly deteriorating mental state was littered across the electronic worlds he inhabited.

On one site, Above Top Secret, Loughner left dozens of posts with bizarre theories about U.S. currency, the Constitution and grammar. Finally, another regular on the site wrote back that "I think you're frankly schizophrenic, and no that's not an amateur opinion and not intended as an uninformed or insulting remark. I really do care. Seek help before you hurt yourself or others or start taking your medications again, please."

Loughner, known on the site as "erad3," responded, "Thank you for the concern." 

There's already been a lot written about how inadequately we, as a  society, deal with mental health. Here's an excerpt from George Kubin's OpEd in Wednesday's Chicago Tribune.

... As a nation, we fail over and over to address the problem of mental illness and then wonder where these people come from when there is a mass murder. These people do not see the world like most rational people. Applying a rational form of justice on an irrational individual does nothing to address the core problem. Rather than viewing these events as isolated incidents, we as a society need to do a better job of educating people about what options there are to get people with mental illness the help they need.

Sure. Sure. I agree with Mr. Kubin completely. But, to me, the language of this piece still somehow separates the mentally ill from the physically ill, as though "these people" were somehow something other than "people."

This issue is personal with me, as I am chronically ill with both the disease of addiction and the disease of depression. Both -- hallelujah -- are in deep remission through treatment, but I am still ill. If I hadn't gotten treatment, who knows what I'd be doing this fine bright morning instead of blogging away for WMRA!

Treating the mentally ill begins with accepting -- and I mean accepting -- that "mental" illness is no more of a stigma per se than any other illness; say, for example, diabetes. Both are conditions that threaten a person's ability to lead a healthy life as a fully functioning member of society. Both need medical intervention. We've got to stop separating how we, as individuals and as a society, view the two.

This post is a plea to examine your own attitude toward the "mentally" ill. If you think of  Jared Loughner as "an other," then think of me as "an other" as well. Conceivably, the difference in what we did with our lives could be attributed, at least partially, to the difference in the help we got.

Just shut up?

Those of you who follow us on Facebook, know that the traditional first post of the day is "Bob's Morning Edition  pick," which is Bob Leweke's choice as the do-not-miss  feature of the day. Today, Bob's pick was "Shooting Fallout: Political Rhetoric Takes the Heat ."  At npr.org, Corey Dade begins his story begins this way:

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) has raised concerns about the effect of inflammatory language that has become a steady undercurrent in the nation's political culture.

No kidding? You think maybe that might be the case?

Later on in the same article, Corey Dade brings up "The Crosshairs Controversy,"

During the midterm elections, Giffords and other Democratic House candidates were featured on the website of Sarah Palin's political action committee with crosshairs over their districts. Giffords, disturbed at the reference, said at the time, "When people do that, they have got to realize there's consequences to that."

In a Sunday interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce, Rebecca Mansour, who works for Palin's PAC, said the images of crosshairs weren't intended to evoke violence: "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said.

The controversial image (which SarahPac took down over the weekend) is shown above. As someone who occasionally target shoots, it seems to me both disingenuous and unhelpful to claim those circles with crosses in the middle have nothing to do with targets and shootings. Isn't denying the obvious yesterday tantamount to squirting gasoline on today's rhetorical flames? I mean, truth still exists, right? Surely, the meaningful question about the above image is not what is it, but what are its consequences.

There have been many, many calls for moderation in our political language over the last 24-hours. However, Fox News seems to be complaining today that . . .

. . . many on the American Left said the horror could be traced to the malign influence of American conservatives; members of the Tea Party; right-wing pundits Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck; former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin; and Fox News. 

Among the "many" cited by Fox News (4 in all) was Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who wrote yesterday, "We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.  . . . " And Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat and friend of Gabrielle Giffords, who, according to the article, "argued that the 'vitriol' of the country's harshly polarized political climate was partly to blame, arguing that unbalanced individuals are uniquely 'susceptible' to vitriol."


Which, you know, just might be the truth. And what's wrong with speaking that, I'd like to know?

Gabrielle Gifford on the way to intensive care

The New York Times today writes in its lead editorial that

Jared Loughner, the man accused of shooting Ms. Giffords, killing a federal judge and five other people, and wounding 13 others, appears to be mentally ill. His paranoid Internet ravings about government mind control place him well beyond usual ideological categories.

But he is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery. With easy and legal access to semiautomatic weapons like the one used in the parking lot, those already teetering on the edge of sanity can turn a threat into a nightmare.

Okay, okay, enough!

The point I'd like to make is who cares anymore whose fault our poisonous partisan state of affairs is? Hasn't who said what, when, and to whom after yesterday become much less than important. Can't we all just shut up, calm down, and start our political conversation over at a much lower pitch..

And another thing. Jared Lougher seems to have been obviously lurching  toward Sunday's violent murder spree. Why didn't we do something? Were we just too busy talking heated and pointless nonsense to realize that the last thing we needed was to allow Jared Lougher's mental illness to  go untreated, while, at the same time allowing him access to a gun?

Your thoughts?