What I said – deinstitutionalized madmen

Okay, now you’ve REALLY made me mad!

Ann Althouse posts on the subject I raised this morning – although not surprisingly, more cogently.

“Studies in New York and Connecticut from the 1920s through the 1940s showed a much lower arrest rate for the mentally ill. In an era when involuntary commitment was relatively easy, those who were considered a danger to themselves or others would be hospitalized at the first signs of serious mental illness. The connection between insanity and crime was apparent, and the society took a precautionary approach. Mentally ill persons who were not hospitalized were those not considered a danger to others. This changed as deinstitutionalization took effect.”

Which is not to deny that there were some horrific stories of people wrongfully  held in what were essentially prisons for decades – there was a reason for the deinstitutionalizing movement back then, after all – but by making it almost impossible to commit anyone, we’ve set the stage for repeated tragedies. Most of these horrific massacres are, after all, brought about by people who are totally bonkers.

After a wait of almost 375 years, Greenwich gets a fire boat

All aboard for fun! Sister ship arrives in Norwalk

$600,000 in pork barrel sludge, $24,000 per year (estimated, bound to go higher) maintenance, we’re taking delivery of a 39′ North River fireboat. How have we gotten along without it all this time? What are we going to do with it now? “Beats me”, says our Emergency Director, “but Norwalk’s got one, so we want one too. A fine town like Greenwich shown up by friggin’ Norwalk? Not on my watch.”

Let’s hope the boat performs better than North River’s former owner, who, while being investigated by the FBI for wire fraud, shot his girlfriend three times with a shotgun. She died.

From the people who will be providing your health care …

 

Congress at work

Sandy relief becomes one giant pork chop. Seriously: we’ve lost the ability to govern ourselves.

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

Republican lawmakers say the lack of details and justifications for the spending will delay approval until after Christmas, while they analyze and document what spending is “appropriate.”

Gov. Cuomo yesterday warned Congress not to hold up the money.

Out on a limb

Greenwich Time: School shootings far too common

Well it will get him out of the Senate, but I wonder how veterans will feel about this?

Obama to name John Kerry Secretary of State.

JOHN KERRY: Several months ago, in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit—the emotions in the room, and the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai, and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free-fire zones—shooting anything that moves—and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals.

http://ia600401.us.archive.org/26/items/dn2004-0220_vid/dn2004-0220_512kb.mp4

NYT, ABC, rush to interview grieving friends and families in Newtown

They also went after the children themselves yesterday, but here’s an excellent response to the ABC reporter.

Has Sean Dunne moved to Round Hill Road yet?

Green is the color of money

An anonymous reader who likes to keep on Sean Dunne’s financial dealings sends along a link to the latest court proceedings from a lender’s attempt to recover £185 million owed by Mr.Dunne. Did he transfer his assets to his wife Gayle, as alleged, or was she already rich enough to pay for their new life here in Greenwich? The parties disagree.

Apropos of nothing, I just like the song