November 7, 2014

Is there a link between religion and mental illness?

* 99.8% ofprison inmates are theists and more than 80% of them Christian. (1) A recent in-depth study shows that religiosity correlates negatively with societal health. (2) Teen pregnancy is highest in states with the most evangelical Christians. (3) Divorce rates are highestamong evangelical Christians. (4)
In addition to general social problems connected to Christianity, there is a whole gamut ofmental illnesses related to religion. Hyper-religiosity is a recognised mental illness – an obsession with religion to the detriment of the rest of the individual’s needs. (5) Religious scrupulosity – an anxiety disorder in which people agonise over their every action, concerned that they may have been committing a sin, until they can no longer live anormal life is a form of anxiety disorder for which psychiatrists are consulted. (6)

Most common of all is thought to be religious OCD although it is hard to know how many cases of this there actually are because it is unethical for psychiatrists to diagnose someone with a mental illness if their fears are supported by scripture or doctrine. Sufferers will be unable to prevent themselves thinking blasphemous thoughts, denying the holy spirit or imagining having sex with Christ and will then feel the compulsion to pray endlessly or recite bible verses multiple times to repent of the thought. "

*This is the problem in a nutshell –‘ the sufferer is not aware of the inappropriatenessand strangeness of their actions nor their unreasonable nature’ because all of this seems real and normal to the individual brought up to believe they are inherently sinful, that they are being judged at all times by an omnipotent being and may be cast into eternal torture. To be a thoughtful, devout Christian who accepts all the tenets ofChristianity is to accept the strange and the inappropriate and the unreasonable and toattempt to live your life by it.

How can this possibly lead to mental health?"

http://lifeafter40.net/2014/11/01/is-there-a-link-between-religion-and-mental-illness/

November 2, 2014

Mike Brown’s Mom Is Taking Her Son’s Case to the UN in Geneva

Lesley McSpadden, the mother of the 18-year-old boy whose death at the hands of a Ferguson police officer in August sparked weeks of protests, is going to Geneva, Switzerland next month to speak about her son and other victims of police brutality in front of the United Nations."

The trip — which was recently made public by organizers and promoted under the tagline "Ferguson to Geneva" — is meant to make a case, to as wide an audience as possible, that both Brown's killing and the militarized police response to protesters demanding justice for him, are a matter of human rights"

*Wade said he first thought to take Ferguson's fight for justice to the UN after learning of a similar initiative by a group of youth of color in Chicago, who planned to also go to Geneva this fall to denounce their experience as targets of police violence — an initiative they dubbed, "We charge genocide."

https://news.vice.com/article/mike-browns-mom-is-taking-her-sons-case-to-the-un-in-geneva

November 1, 2014

Justice Department lowers the boom on the Albuquerque Police.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department will undergo reform and be monitored for use of excessive force under an agreement announced on Friday between the city and the U.S. Justice Department.

The agreement follows a federal investigation that concluded the department used excessive, even deadly, force against passive civilians. People suffering from mental illness were disproportionately targeted, the investigation found.

Under the new rules, Albuquerque police will be prohibited from firing at moving vehicles, required to wear body cameras to record their encounters and limited in their use of electronic control weapons, such as tasers."

The Justice Department inquiry, which was prompted by public complaints, concluded that a majority of 20 fatal officer-involved-shootings from 2009 to 2012 were unconstitutional. In one high profile case, a U.S. veteran of the Iraq war suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder was killed in an incident that led to a $10 million civil judgment against the city."

A U.S. Department of Justice report cited Albuquerque police in April for engaging in a “pattern and practice” of using excessive force, and Police Chief Gorden Eden told officers the following month they could no longer carry their personal weapons – including AR-15s – in the field.

The DOJ report found officers would purchase expensive weapons they viewed as “status symbols.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/01/1340812/-Justice-Department-lowers-the-boom-on-the-Albuquerque-Police

November 1, 2014

How The Southern Baptists Are Still Completely Failing Transgender People

Back in June, the SBC approved a resolution “On Transgender Identity,” which declared that “gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception,” describing transgender and intersex identities as manifestations of “human fallenness.” The resolution also expressed opposition to any form of physical gender transition, as well as any governmental or cultural validations of transgender identities."

*Insisting that the Bible dictates everything that a person needs to follow, Burk dismissed all of the research that shows that gender is fixed and that there are mental health consequences for denying a person’s gender identity. "

Brynn Tannehill, a transgender activist and Director of Advocacy for the transgender military organization SPART*A, took personal exception to Burk’s claims. She pointed out to ThinkProgress that there is an increasing amount of research that demonstrates that transgender identities have a biological origin."

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/10/31/3587156/erlc-transgender/

Personally I believe it takes outstanding courage to live as yourself, and I admire that courage.

November 1, 2014

Cedar Park PD release dash cam video after excessive force allegations

New dash cam video has been released by the Cedar Park Police Department after claims by a DWI suspect that officers used excessive force.

The DWI suspect, 21-year-old Christian Salinas was hospitalized in the ICU after the incident."

*Officers appear to hit Salinas with their fists multiple times and eventually Salinas is tasered twice.

Over the next several minutes more officers arrive. Eventually an officer confirms Salinas is in handcuffs and he's taken to the ICU at Cedar Park Regional Medical Center.

Salinas' family tells KVUE that doctors at the hospital put him into an induced coma to help him breathe.

On Friday morning Salinas was released."

*They're making me look like some sort of thug or some sort of outlaw," Salinas said over the phone. "I would like to speak to a lawyer. I don't know understand why all these charges are being pressed against me."

http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/2014/10/31/cedar-park-police-release-video-after-excessive-force-allegations/18288121/

October 31, 2014

How the law encourages police brutality

Had any of the men made any suspicious movements?” I asked.

“No,” said the cop.

“Did you have any reason to think the men were armed?”

“No.”

“So why did you draw your gun?”

Trial lawyers are taught never to ask a question to which they don’t already know the answer, and I was breaking that rule when I asked the last question. But I figured no possible answer could hurt my client. Still, the cop’s answer stunned me:

“I was outnumbered.”

I looked around the courtroom, making a show of quietly counting on my fingers the other people there – the court reporter, opposing counsel, the clerk, the judge. Then I asked the officer, “Are you outnumbered right now?”

It is hard to imagine moving through the world and seeing every other human being around you, no matter how ordinary, as a threat. If I lived like that, I wouldn’t leave the house. But police are trained to see the world that way, and for at least fifty years, our courts have ratified their worldview."

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/31/why_did_you_draw_your_gun%E2%80%9D_how_the_law_encourages_police_brutality/

October 31, 2014

Eight Police Officers Fired 46 Times at My Mentally Ill Son for Holding a Pen Knife

Milton was a homeless, mentally ill African-American man, who was born on April 25, 1963, in Saginaw, Michigan. He was a community worker, and he was always there speaking out for those whom he considered the weak, for those who did not have the strength to speak for themselves.

He had a mental disability that became apparent as a young adult, from when he was probably 24 or 25. But in spite of this, he lived his life independently and with freedom."

He always would say everybody has equal rights. That was one of his songs that he sang all the time. So he exposed violations and campaigned for redress for people that he thought were victims.

Milton took action to ensure and promote equal rights, and that was part of his training that he got from working with Rosa Parks. He was always addressing institutional racism. I admired him for that.

Being an avid reader and a researcher, he was knowledgeable about oppression, particularly violence towards poor people, people of color , the homeless, and those who struggled with mental illness.

For him to be shot at 46 times and hit 14 times by all white policemen, it really raised questions in my mind. How they circled him and assassinated him. One policeman, after he was on the ground, turned him over, handcuffed him, and put his foot on his back."

Disturbing video at link: https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform-free-speech-racial-justice/eight-police-officers-fired-46-times-my-mentally

October 30, 2014

Loyal Police Dog Being Treated Inhumanely on Chief’s Orders

It’s bad enough that we are constantly bombarded with tragic stories about police killing friendly family pets for often no reason at all, and it’s just as sad to learn that police aren’t even treating their own K-9s well. Jack is a Belgian Malinois police dog who has been forced to live in a squalid cement pen for the last two weeks. Why? Apparently because his partner decided to take a promotion with the sheriff’s department.

This comes from friends of Jack in an anonymous letter to the editor of Rowan Free Press:

? Behind the Salisbury Police Department (Salisbury, N.C.), in a cramped chain-link and cement dog run, a Belgian Malinois named “Jack” has been imprisoned, day and night, for almost two weeks.

Jack sleeps, exposed to the elements, on the cold cement often with his urine and feces his only company. He is not properly exercised, and his body shows signs of deteriorating muscle mass. At night you can hear the dog’s whimpering. He also shows signs of separation anxiety and social isolation, which can result in aggression in breeds such as Jack’s."

*Our photographer was able to take photos from behind the police department, where Jack displays signs of separation anxiety, physical neglect, and discomfort. Jack is located in one of the two 6’ x 8’ pens on the cement yard behind the police headquarters building. Jack has many friends in the Police Department, but they fear for their jobs to speak out."

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2014/10/loyal-police-dog-being-treated-inhumanely-on-chiefs-orders/

October 30, 2014

Americans consider inequality world’s greatest danger

Nuclear weapons. Ethnic conflict. Global warming. Americans have a lot to be worried about these days. But what do they see as the biggest threat to the world? Inequality.

Americans aren’t alone. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, Europeans, too, rank inequality as the top threat. "

For the United States, religious and ethnic hatred comes in a close second, after inequality, but only 7 percent think AIDS and other diseases pose the greatest danger.

U.S. concerns have shifted over the years based on what’s most immediate on American minds. The first time Pew administered the survey, in 2002, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, one-third of Americans ranked nuclear proliferation the biggest threat to the world. By 2007, after the U.S. had been involved military in Afghanistan and Iraq, religious and ethnic hatred rose to the top. The percentage of Americans identifying inequality as the biggest concern has increased from 17 percent in 2007 to 27 percent today."

*And even though Americans as a whole think inequality poses the greatest danger, they continually underestimate just how severe the wealth gap between the rich and poor is — at least in this country,"

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/americans-consider-inequality-worlds-greatest-danger/

October 29, 2014

Cops do 20,000 no-knock raids a year

Most swat teams spend their time carrying out home raids"

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from "unreasonable search," meaning police can't bust into your home whenever they feel like it — they need a warrant, granted by a judge. Even a search warrant doesn't give police the right to enter your home by force — they're supposed to knock, announce themselves, and give you a chance to open the door.

But as the war on drugs ramped up in the 1970s and 1980s, police argued that criminals and drug dealers were too dangerous to be granted the typical courtesy of knocking first. In the early 1970s, the federal government made it legal for federal law enforcement agents to conduct no-knock raids — but the law was so widely abused that it was repealed a few years later.

Since then, though, a series of court decisions and state laws have carved out a set of circumstances that make it legal for police to raid a house without announcing their presence beforehand. This has happened at the same time that SWAT teams have proliferated around the country."

* In 2003, the commissioner of the NYPD estimated that, of the more than 450 no-knock raids the city conducted every month, 10 percent were wrong-door raids. That estimate came after a wrong-door raid resulted in the homeowner's death: when police broke into the home of 57-year-old Alberta Spruill and threw in a flash-bang grenade, the shock gave her a fatal heart attack."

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7083371/swat-no-knock-raids-police-killed-civilians-dangerous-work-drugs