Archive - Jan 3, 2009

Here is the song I will use to introduce 2009 musically to the blog.

Why? Mostly because I have been really into learning about mental health lately (okay maybe forever, natch). Currently I am reading Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present and it's a page-turner, seriously. "Crazy chicks" are fascinating and the subject of a great deal of cultural material, also often the objects of a great deal of affection. Why is that? I am digressing a bit here, but no matter how interesting the book is, it really strikes me that the author is more comfortable sticking to a very objective and cursory description of the gendered history of mental health. Rather then trying to analyze or suggesting any patterns or recurring themes in terms of social relations with, or community reception of the mentally ill. I keep hoping for a richer more textured narrative of the relationships and experiences that take place in (and out of) asylums and through outpatient care, but I keep getting stuck with stuff like. "After an apparent full recovery she was returned to her family and died at the age of 76". Okay... that's a bit vague. I guess that's why I read novels, things like Bedlam may be fiction, but they seem to provide more deep insight then the real histories are able to.

Insomnia costing economy $20-billion a year. Interestingly are the comments (56 of them), the vast majority of which take offense at the suggestion that one should look at insomnia as a productivity issue, And not the sad result of working in the hyper-stressful global market economy.