The Oakland County sheriff here in suburban Detroit has a rep as a publicity hound, and he did not disappoint after the mass shooting over the weekend. He held several news conferences (good), ordered — ordered! — reporters not to contact victims for any reason (very bad), and spent a lot of time repeating “mental health” (eyeroll eyeroll eyeroll).
“Mental health” is the new “thoughts and prayers,” the thing gun people say after a tragedy that sounds like you care, but you really don’t. Because, as you may have noticed, this is never, ever followed up by dedicated policy that would make a meaningful change in this bloody shithole we all live in. In fact, you don’t even have to put the phrase in a sentence; you just say “mental health” and it’s like an incantation.
Left unaddressed / unasked:
** You’re aware, sheriff, that many or even most people with serious mental illness think they’re just fine? (See: West, Kanye.) And certainly most are not violent at all, and if they are, the violence is usually self-directed. And as a lawman, you know that even people with paranoid schizophrenia have civil rights; we can’t just throw them in a cell, shoot them up with meds and hold them until their teeth fall out. Well, we can, but only for three days. So how would you propose we get around this?
** Note I said “cell.” Because that’s pretty much all we have left, psych units having filled up years ago and very few more being built. Anyone remember Michael Golden, who used to read/comment here before he died a few years back? He did business with the California state prison system, but I can’t recall what, exactly. He once casually mentioned that prisons are bulk buyers of psychiatric meds, and everyone paying attention knows that prisons are essentially mental hospitals. Very badly run mental hospitals.
** If mental health is so important to those who want to curb mass shootings, why is every single weak stab at addressing the problem — red-flag laws come to mind — so fiercely opposed by your party, i.e. the Republicans? Have you spoken to any lawmakers about this? Please fill us in.
I could go on. I won’t.
Because the mass shooting was only one terrible thing that happened last weekend. We also had the Turning Point USA conference here, and I’m starting to hear anecdotal amusements about that. A woman in one of the air-travel groups I follow on Facebook complained that her MAGA hat, worn on her flight back to Dallas, caused the stewardess in first class to be very rude! To her! And served her drink last, and with a snotty attitude! Someone else I know was seated next to a table full of TPUSA attendees (they were wearing lanyards), and managed to glare them into at least taking them off. Good. They need to know they’re in hostile territory.
Also, a downtown boutique hotel may or may not have hosted Nick Fuentes, proud racist, over the weekend, and if it turns out they did, they better have a good reason. (Not that anyone is asking them; the mainstream media coverage of this event was pretty thin.)
Finally, hats off to Kellyanne Conway, liar, who went on Fox and claimed Trump spoke to “8,000 people” at a black church in Detroit. Hilarious. One hundred to 200, tops, and most of them were white, but do go on, dear.
And now it’s Thursday. I think the heat is getting to me. I skipped boxing yesterday morning but tried to make it up with a lunchtime swim. It was…disgusting, the water so warm it felt like swimming in human soup. Got 1,500 yards in, got out, went home, turned the A/C down to 75. Sue me, it was 94 degrees at the time.
This continues through the weekend. Sigh. So few weekends in summer, it’s a shame to spend them indoors.
But you all have a good one.
Jeff Gill said on June 20, 2024 at 9:35 am
Our county jail administrator is given to saying at all sorts of community events “I manage our area’s largest mental health facility.” He’s correct, sadly.
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Mark P said on June 20, 2024 at 9:46 am
About the MAGAts who were stared at meanly — makes me think of Proverbs: The wicked flee when no man pursueth.
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ROGirl said on June 20, 2024 at 9:49 am
The “mental health” phrase was repeated multiple times by a co-worker who lives a mile or 2 from the splash pad, along with the declaration that you are never going to stop people from getting guns, so there’s no point in trying to prevent it or reduce access, etc.
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Jason T. said on June 20, 2024 at 10:51 am
I interviewed a local doctor this week about the heat; he specifically used swimming as an example of why you can’t cool off once the temperature and the humidity get this high: “Sweat helps us regulate body temperature via evaporation. If humidity is too high, producing sweat becomes more difficult. As an analogy, you can’t produce sweat if submerged in a pool.”
People often comment about how low the housing prices are in Pittsburgh; they don’t realize that most of the housing in the Pittsburgh area was built before 1950, which is why it’s so cheap, and much of it doesn’t have central air conditioning (and it’s cost-prohibitive to fit to a house with no ductwork and steam or hot-water heat).
http://almanac.tubecityonline.com/almanac/?e=3471
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Mark P said on June 20, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Jason T — I think the doctor is confused. The body continues to produce sweat as long as it has sufficient hydration, no matter what the temperature and humidity are. I can attest to that by the copious sweat that drips off my body when I work outside in hot, humid conditions. The problem is not reduced sweat production, but reduced evaporation. Sweat cools the body by evaporating. When the humidity is high, evaporation is reduced, and thus cooling is reduced. So, sweat drips off the body, but you stay hot.
And you can and do indeed sweat when immersed in water. This doctor needs some continuing education.
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Jason T. said on June 20, 2024 at 12:47 pm
Hmm. I would say I’d misquoted him but the interview was over email.
A little Googling (which I should have done) indicates that you can, in fact, sweat underwater; but you won’t be cooled by sweating underwater, because there is no evaporation.
I suspect that’s what he meant? I’m going to ask him to clarify.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2dx8di/do_we_sweat_underwater/
https://www.simplyswim.com/blogs/blog/do-you-sweat-when-swimming
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4dbirds said on June 20, 2024 at 1:23 pm
We had our primaries this past Tuesday in Virginia. I live in the 10th district, and our rep, Jennifer Wexton, is stepping down due to health issues. There were eight very high-quality people vying to succeed her. My state rep was running, and I liked him a lot, but my head was turned by another candidate who was an army vet, liberal, and worked in the State Senate not to allow Jan 6ers on any state ballot. He had my vote until……. a woman claimed he grabbed her breast in a social setting 5ish years ago. What do I do with that just a few days before I’m set to vote? Well, I changed my vote to my local state rep, and he did go on to win. I’m not sure if the controversy had anything to do with the win, but since all the candidates were good, I feel good about the result, and unless I live in an armored bubble, I doubt the Republicans will win in Nov.
Eugene Vindman won his primary, and I’m happy about that because we’ve been sending him lots of money. I don’t have much opinion on the Trump-endorsed Bob Good primary. I guess Trump’s endorsement didn’t make much of a difference, with a couple hundred votes separating the two contestants.
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Jason T. said on June 20, 2024 at 1:57 pm
Mark P:
Good catch — this is what he meant:
“Sweat helps us regulate body temperature via evaporation. If humidity is too high, producing sweat becomes more difficult. As an analogy, you can’t be cooled off by sweat if you’re submerged in a swimming pool, because your sweat won’t evaporate. The combination of high heat and humidity can be very dangerous.”
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Brandon said on June 20, 2024 at 2:12 pm
Is there a rain storm (with possible light hail) coming through the Detroit area? https://weather.com/weather/today/l/cc00d28013eace94c0d3fcb151248686ae6d21bea73d7a6b939589a164d26bea
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David C said on June 20, 2024 at 3:31 pm
I read about Jennifer Wexler a while back. She has progressive supranuclear palsy. The same thing that took my brother in law’s life a couple months ago. It’s probably second on the list of cruel diseases after ALS. It doesn’t rob your voice or ability to breathe but to ravages everything else. Poor lady. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
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Sherri said on June 20, 2024 at 4:10 pm
The oldest living Negro League player: https://wapo.st/3xqn6cP
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Jeff Borden said on June 20, 2024 at 4:44 pm
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
Enforce existing gun laws.
This isn’t a gun problem. It’s a mental health problem.
Law abiding citizens shouldn’t be inconvenienced because of bad people.
This isn’t a gun problem. This is a spiritual problem because of turning away from god.
These are the standard boilerplates used by ammosexuals. And, of course, the Senate QOP has already say no to a law outlawing bump stocks, even though it was backed by tRump.
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Deborah said on June 20, 2024 at 6:58 pm
Here’s what’s been happening in New Mexico weather wise. None of this is that close to where we are in NM, but very bad https://wapo.st/3RBl7ct
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Brandon said on June 21, 2024 at 4:04 am
When Kanye bought that house/”architectural treasure” in Malibu.
Billionaire rapper Kanye West appears to have dropped $57.25 million on a box-like Malibu house as he navigates his divorce from Kim Kardashian.
And although the 3,665-square-foot, concrete-heavy house is designed by award-winning starchitect Tadao Ando, it wasn’t impressing the social media masses when Dirt.com broke the news Sunday night.
“Kanye living in a parking garage,” one wrote on Zillow Gone Wild’s Instagram page Monday morning.
“He loves the abandoned clinic look,” wrote another commenter, while a third added, “Looks like a high-end bunker for a cult leader.”
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2024 at 8:31 am
I found this Reggie Jackson short interview heart stopping. He is only 12 years older than me. I remember watching him play baseball on tv. It once again drives home how much I didn’t experience growing up that people of other races did and how naive I was for so much of my life.
https://wapo.st/4bjfXc5
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nancy said on June 21, 2024 at 10:12 am
I thought so too, Suzanne. I think it’s interesting that some people hear that and think “I had no idea” and others “That never happened, and if it did happen, it hardly happened at all, and anyway, it never happens now, so we don’t have to remember it.”
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alex said on June 21, 2024 at 11:10 am
Discrimination in public accommodations was a very real thing not so long ago and the fake cases being taken up by the Supreme Court by vendors who don’t want to sell floral arrangements and wedding cakes to gay people are part of an effort to return to Jim Crow, with the blessings of Rand Paul, who’s been arguing for his entire political career that business owners should have the right to deny service to anyone for any reason. Segregationists tried the religious objections argument (God put Blacks on a different continent for a reason and race mixing is in contravention of God’s will) and it didn’t fly in the 1960s but with the current court anything is possible.
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Julie Robinson said on June 21, 2024 at 11:15 am
For historic context, Ruby Bridges is two years older than me. My biggest worry going into kindergarten was going without my afternoon nap.
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Dexter Friend said on June 21, 2024 at 1:15 pm
I wish every person young or old could watch Reggie Jackson from last night. This, finally, shows the real Reggie. I saw him play many games in Oakland in 1970, and some Athletics fans booed him then for his flamboyant attitude. His storied Yankee career was to behold. I sat in Comiskey’s right field grandstands in 1981 when Reggie had complained of his salary and White Sox fans jeeringly threw coins, dollar bills, and even fivers at him as he played defense. Reggie picked up every bill and waved at us jokingly.
So…as a member of the Indianapolis Clowns barnstorming teams of 1968 and 1969, I was glued to the entire presentation last night. ( to explain, after the 1967 riots, the owner decided to hire 6 white players to perhaps prevent our bus from a fire bombing.) 500 applications arrived, some were culled, I was invited for a tryout at Winston-Salem, and made the team, first year as a player on the “College All-Stars”, even only one of had any college, the the second year as a member of the Clowns team, playing mostly third base and catcher.) We played nearly all the Deep South parks on up to Wisconsin. We played a game in Comiskey Park, Chicago, home of the White Sox.
I saw so many accounts of overt racism I could type all afternoon; I will spare you.
I played one game each year at Rickwood Field, but we played a different minor league park every night, and they all had histories, so we didn’t know the whole tale of Rickwood. Now, 55 years later, I know more.
The bus that was rehabbed that they showed last night was exactly like the bus we rode in , an old Greyhound; ours was painted red. No AC, no toilet. Only water allowed, no food or Co’Colas, as we called it.
Reggie last night…a lump in my throat as he recounted the 4 girls murdered in 1963, his story of being denied basic human dignity, his emotion, his PASSION!— this is the real Reggie Jackson. After he spoke, so briefly, I was trembling and weak in the knees…I had witnessed this stuff in a very limited version of what Reggie had. What a production last night on Fox Sports. Wow.
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Sherri said on June 21, 2024 at 1:27 pm
I started first grade the first year schools were fully integrated in my home town.
One time, the local paper printed a story about the history of my high school, Clarksville High School, and wrote about famous alumni. You knew the article had not been written by someone local because included in the famous alumni was Wilma Rudolph, the Olympic sprinter. Wilma Rudolph was indeed from Clarksville, and went to high school after Brown v. Board, but she was not allowed to go to Clarksville High School, she went to the Black high school.
She then went to Tennessee State, the black public college. The Tennessee legislature, having underfunded TSU for decades, recently vacated the board and replaced it with a board more to their (white, conservative, Republican) liking.
Jim Crow was just quiet for a while, but it never went away.
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Brandon said on June 21, 2024 at 2:13 pm
What happened to a wall designed by Ando.
Demolition has begun on a wall in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, which forms part of Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s only building in the UK.
Removal of the six-metre-long concrete wall, which locals have dubbed the Berlin Wall, began on 16 November and is expected to be completed this week.
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ROGirl said on June 21, 2024 at 5:23 pm
That is very reminiscent of what happened with Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc in New York.
https://culturenow.org/site/tilted-arc
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Suzanne said on June 21, 2024 at 10:01 pm
Now we know why firearms are so important to Republicans. Never know when you might have to chase a stripper!
https://heartlandsignal.com/2024/06/20/michigan-gop-state-rep-neil-friske-arrested-after-alleged-altercation-with-a-stripper-involving-a-firearm/
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alex said on June 22, 2024 at 10:44 am
Frisky Friske.
I don’t think there were any guns involved when Fanne Foxe jumped into the tidal basin. Maybe there were, but Second Amendment virtue signaling hadn’t been invented yet.
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ROGirl said on June 22, 2024 at 11:41 am
This just keeps on getting better.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/06/conservative-legislator-allegedly-sexually-assaults-stripper-chases-her-down-the-street-while-brandishing-a-handgun-then-invokes-the-second-amendment
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