Uncle Gerrard returned home from his holiday in Europe only to be kidnapped the day after he got back to Rio. The kidnappers took his car, cash and keys, and left him in the middle of nowhere – unharmed thankfully. On the plus side of it reminded me to order the recently released fil about kidnapping in Latino America, ‘Secuestro Express‘..
Suggested captions gratefully received.
It’s my pleasure to report that I will be launching a new online portal for imaging products to fight cancer. Imaging products allow earlier detection of cancer compared to traditional techniques, saving lives and money. It’s a ‘no brainer’.
By coincidence, the above MRI image of me comes from a session within over a year’s worth as a volunteer at the UCL Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience just down the road from Great Ormond’s Street Children’s Hospital in Bloomsbury.
One of the sudies which I was involved in involved gambling, & it has just reported that “people who make irrational decisions when faced with problems are at the mercy of their emotions”. In addition that “people who behaved rationally were better able to manage or override their emotional responses”. The study doesn’t appear to report on people’s ability to synchronise (note my recent posting on this subject) with events or people, though you’d need to read the full findings in the Science journal.
Good to read from Shaun @ UPI on a bill to support the mental health needs of homecoming US service personnel, on the day it was reported in the UK that executed WW1 soldiers, often suffering from ‘shellshock’, are to be pardoned.
A bill named after a young soldier who killed himself after returning from Iraq seeks better tracking of psychological trauma among veterans.
The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill, HR 5771, currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, mandates the establishment of a comprehensive screening and counseling referral program for all returning veterans that would identify and track at-risk individuals, and provide more help for those with emotional or spiritual wounds.
Spc. Joshua Omvig left Iraq on his 21st birthday, Nov. 18, 2004 after an 11 month tour. “Five days later he was having Thanksgiving dinner with us,” his father Randy told United Press International in a telephone interview. “A week after that he was back at work” at his civilian job.
But his son never got over the experiences he had in Iraq. The young soldier “came back a different person,” his father said.
Spc. Omvig was depressed and uncommunicative. His family encouraged him
to seek counseling but he was reluctant. “He believed very strongly that
if he sought help it would adversely affect his military career,” said his father.
On Dec. 22, 2005, 13 months after returning from Iraq, Omvig took his own life. It would be a commonplace to say that in doing so, he became a statistic. But it would also be wrong. There are no statistics.
The figure commonly cited for veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan who have killed themselves is 79. But, as Omvig’s family are keen to point out, that count starts only in March 2003, and includes only those who were receiving care within the federal Veteran’s Administration healthcare system.
“There’s Joshua and lots of others who aren’t counted” because they never sought help, said his father.
And therein lies the problem.
A study published in July 2004 in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that there was likely significant under-reporting of mental health problems among returning soldiers and marines.
Of those in the study’s sample who were screened positive for a mental disorder, “only 38 to 45 percent indicated an interest in receiving help, and only 23 to 40 percent reported having received professional help in the past year.”
“The subjects reported important barriers to receiving mental health
services, particularly the perception of stigma among those most in need
of such care,” concluded the study.
“Not all wounds inflected in combat are visible,” said Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, one of the bill’s sponsors. “A simple screening and tracking process could have provided Joshua with the counseling he needed, saving his life.”
Omvig’s family stress the importance of a proactive approach. “What provision there is supposed to be at the moment… it’s mainly left up to the soldiers themselves or their families to diagnose,” said his father.
The bill would provide suicide prevention training for all Veterans’ Administration staff, contractors, and medical personnel.
“The same way swift triage care can save a soldier on the battlefield,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, “accurate diagnosis and delivery of quality mental health care can do the same once the fighting ends.” With his fellow Iowan, GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, Harkin has introduced a senate version of the bill, S 3808.Supporters say they hope the legislation can be fitted in to the crowded legislative schedule of both chambers after the August recess.
In February 2006, there were more than 555,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, just over half of them from the National Guard or Reserve.About 168,000, or 30 percent of them, have so far sought help from theU.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs healthcare system, which offers former troops free treatment for a wide range of ailments that might be
related to their service. Of those, 168,000 — almost exactly one third — had an initial diagnosis that included some form of mental illness, according to figures provided to lawmakers.
The bill would also try to engage the families of returning veterans, creating an education program help them understand the readjustment process for returning troops and recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness.
“We spend a great deal of time and money training our troops to survive their deployment,” said Omvig’s father, “But we spend nothing when they return, making sure they can transition back… making sure they survive the peace.”
He said the problem was especially acute for guard and reserve veterans, especially in rural areas, who might live miles from their base and even further from the nearest Veteran’s Affairs Department facility. “There needs to be more outreach,” he said. “They need to get out there to where people are, to work with them there.”
The bill would ensure 24-hour access to mental health care for veterans who are deemed at risk for suicide, including those in rural or remote locations.
Since their own tragedy, Omvig’s family have found some comfort in pressing for change in the system they feel failed their son. “We feel,” began Omvig’s mother, Ellen, “that if some good can come out of the worst thing that ever happened to us…” but she trailed off.
“There’s nothing we can do for Josh now,” his father said, “but we can help others. This isn’t a political thing. As Americans, we made a promise to those young men that of they went out there and risked their lives for our country, we would look after them… I don’t think we are keeping that promise.”
Launched on 2 November, this blog has just past the 10k mark in terms of visitors – thanks in large part to the inflationary effect of the World Cup on interest in Kaka & Caroline stories..
On visiting the ‘Che Guevara: Revolutionary & Icon’ exhibition at the V&A I was interested to discover the classic image is from a quick shot of Che by Korda at a rally in 1960. And that this iconic image was first used before Che’s death. Now it’s all around us..
If you want to email this image straight to a friendo/frienda, just-click-here.
So a lot of my posts are about implicitly about synchronicity. What most people mean by that is controlling a number of things so that they co-ordinate together, ie ‘synchronise’. In nature synchronicity is more complex as there’s nothing controlling different ‘things’, the synchronicity happens without imposed order. It’s unpredictable in the technical sense of the word, but not unlikely if there is understanding of what’s going on because we are inhabit a naturally synchronising world all the time. Like when all the traffic lights are green all the way home one in 100 times. Of course again to repeat for most people that’s just coincidence, because if you can’t ‘make’ the traffic lights align to show green, you’re just lucky.
But then what if you understand that we are educated to operate in a controlled environment? But that there is a way of connecting to the world that can exploit natural synchronicity. Sounds like mystical bullshit? Right you are. That’s what that sounds like to a ‘normal’ person, where normality is rooted in self-control, and where life is linear. LIfe then is designed to minimise unpredicatability. Which is great but that also means you are less able to take advantage of it, that is the essential way the universe works. Bit of a shame, but hey gotta pay the bills right?
I met a guy in deepest Didcott who’d met Tim Berners-Lee yesterday (I even got the chance to use my line that in one way an abacus is as powerful as a computer, but that didn’t impress him either). I politely refused to be impressed, citing the fact that Tim’s blog ‘only’ contains 8 entries. Of course I was profoundly joking – in fact I see it as a great virtue that he has only blogged 8 times. I’m all for quality over quantity, particularly if you ‘know’ how to ‘let’ information come to you, rather than looking for it. But that takes as much work to set up as the chasing does! But then there’s me getting ‘Zen again’..(or is that knowing/showing how to translate the model of complexity science using the metaphors of everyday language and reality – you takes your pick sucka).
I see AC Milan win though (Ricky) Kak
For some reason recently my mind just can’t connect with the early 1980s. Then history starting repeating itself, Israel gets ‘back to the future’ in Lebanon, and we’re back in 81-82. Hold tight..here come the Fun Boy Three.
But wasn’t their track ‘The Lunatics..’ recently covered by Los De Abajo ( I should know I went to the gig in November with Dr Dougie & Shirls; and wasn’t Dougie a mate of Dr Paul Hodgkin who set up Patient Opinion?)..and doesn’t the Abajo album include a neat Mexican wrestling pic on the back of the album..and isn’t the Mexican wrestling film Nacho Libra opening in the UK tomorrow? So this is really about Mexico? But didn’t I go to Mexico just after the invasion of Panama, just a month after the fall of the Berlin wall? And wasn’t that a good reason to call off our planned global motorcycle trip starting with central America, symbolised when we rode into one Mexican village and a young boy picked up a large rock to throw at us? and haven’t I just returned from Sao Paulo where there’s been serious armed conflict between criminal gangs and the police? etc, etc, etc.
