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Oh, The Insanity

As I sit here waiting for the 800,000 record SQL table I’m working with to finish its long, slow climb up Mount Analysis, I came across Jeff Jarvis’ latest post on BuzzMachine. It’s about insanity. Jarvis sums up my attitude pretty much to the letter: That the real problem is the sort of faux compassion of not putting the clearly incompetent into some sort of facility where they can be treated. People are afraid to say, “Hey, this person is obviously completely out of touch with reality, maybe he/she needs help.” I think the deinstitutional movement did much more harm than good. And I think the recent campus-wide attitude surrounding one Hatoon is clear evidence that Jarvis is right. The woman didn’t need a gym membership, she needed anti-psychotics. Granted, Hatoon wasn’t a dangerous vagrant, but I’m sure the damange wrought upon her family over the years was a huge price for her untreated illness. I am not afraid to say it: Hatoon was a nut, the guy in the coat who asks for change and mumbles is a nut, two-thirds of the hobos in Eugene are mental and I don’t think it’s good for anyone to just smile and say, “awww, look at the cute psycho, here’s a dollar.” It’s unlikely to change, true, but I still think the attitude is all wrong.

  1. Matt says:

    Side note: article in the Emerald on the front page yesterday or so was about how different groups of people are raising concerns about the intersection of onyx and franklin. This is obviously spurred by Hatoon dying there. To this I can only say: I guess any intersection can be dangerous is you are on a bike, have a red light and decide to ride through anyways…

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