A paranoid schizophrenic who drifted in and out of reality, in and out of hospitals, in and out of compliance with his medication regime, walked into the Capitol a year ago and killed two security officers.

Rusty Weston is now in a federal corrections unit in North Carolina. He awaits a court decision on whether corrections officials can force him to take his medication…

…What kind of system waits to invoke mandatory medication until a man so severely ill has killed two people? The kind that insists on presuming that an irrational man makes rational decisions about his mental-health care. The kind that then fails both the incompetent and the innocent.

“‘Rights’ leave mentally ill families in legal limbo” by Beth Barber

If correction officials can’t force a mentally ill person—who is IN PRISON and who has KILLED two people—to take medication, then how does anybody believe that the administration at Virginia Tech could’ve done anything about Cho Seung-Hui?

As it stands right now, the PARENTS of an adult with schizophrenia can do absolutely nothing to help him when he goes out of control—except watch.

You can’t force your son to take his medication, you can’t force him to accept psychiatric help, and you can’t institutionalize him against his will. And our law works this way because?

Because our society was brainwashed into thinking that all mental institutions are run by Nurse Ratched.

Yes, it is true that in the past there were abuses; people institutionalized not because they were mentally ill but because they were inconvenient. My great uncle, for instance, had polio. When he became an adult he could no longer be cared for and he was committed to a mental institution. It was a disgusting travesty of justice and medicine.

God forbid that this ever happen again. It won’t, either, because now we have tough laws that prevent such abuses. But we have literally thrown the mentally ill patient out with that bathwater.

Modern drug therapies are much more successful than the treatments of the past, but sometimes in order to stabilize a patient you need to place him with an inpatient facility until the proper drug therapy can be determined and administered.

Translation: you have to commit them to a mental institution, because they are so far gone that they will not cooperate unless they are forced to do so.

And as you can see in the case of Rusty Weston, even if someone has killed two people as a result of delusions, the law does not allow anyone to force that person to take medication without a court order!

This hits very close to home for me. I know two families who were/are prevented from forcing their sons into treatment for schizophrenia, with disastrous results.

One of these young men was brutally murdered less than a day after the police detained and then released him—because he was “no threat to anyone.” He was a diagnosed schizophrenic and obviously very ill, but our current laws and lack of resources to treat the mentally ill prevented him from receiving the treatment he needed. Institutionalizing him would have saved his life.

The other young man is my nephew. What his family is going through is hell. He is suffering, they are suffering, and yet the law prevents them from helping him. Medication can stabilize him; in fact, he took his medication for years and lived a good, productive life, but the only way now to get him back on his meds would be to institutionalize him, because he is deep in the throes of his illness and will not voluntarily cooperate.

Virginia Tech is an aberration, a statistical anomaly. The mentally ill are much more likely to become victims of violent crime than to perpetrate it, and yet when they do, it becomes news.

Therefore it is the most painful of ironies that a larger majority of mentally ill is less likely to get what little help is available because they are of no threat to others. And that little bit of help still available is constantly being whittled away by proposed cuts and other bureaucratic stupidities.

We could have prevented the deaths of 33 people by forcing Cho to receive treatment, and yet we allowed our fear of resurrecting Nurse Ratched prevent us from doing so. It is another travesty of justice and medicine, but for some reason we are just too blind see it.

I don’t know either of the boys involved, and I don’t know if the 17-year-old driver was driving recklessly or not; that will be determined later. What I do know is that this intersection is a very difficult one.

The article mentions the lack of sidewalks on the south side of Santa Fe Drive, but what it fails to note is the lack of a traffic light at the southbound I-5 exit onto Santa Fe Drive. Take a look:

In order to go east on Santa Fe, you have to wait for a gap in the traffic before navigating the turn. When the high school pickup/dropoff traffic is in full swing during mornings and afternoons, it’s almost impossible to turn left at all, especially with students walking in the road on the south side.

It’s a little easier during lunch rush, but not by much. You have to wait for that gap in traffic and then accelerate quickly on your left turn, and remember: there are student pedestrians on the road into which you’re turning.

What with the rain we had yesterday it is quite conceivable the 17-year-old driver saw an opening and accelerated too quickly for the wet pavement.

I’ve often heard that traffic lights don’t get installed at intersections until somebody gets killed. I’ve often wondered how come there wasn’t a traffic light installed at that intersection, especially with all the school traffic so close, but I guessed it was because of the traffic light that does exist a short distance west of the intersection.

Perhaps the city planners felt that two traffic lights so close together might cause gridlock, and indeed, Encinitas lights are famous for their poor timing. Carlsbad seems to have traffic light timing down pat, but Encinitas gridlock is a given.

No matter what the cause, Ryan Hwang was taken from us, cruelly and too soon. The other boy’s life has been forever changed. These two families need our prayers.

UPDATE 03/05/2007

I’m opening up some mail that collected on my desk, and found a letter from the school with this information:

Rather than flowers, the family is asking for letters or donations. Donations will gladly be accepted at:

The Ryan Wang Memorial Fund
c/o Alexandra Dodds
Wells Fargo Banki
276 A North El Camino Real
Encinitas, CA 92024

I’m the gal in the glasses at the very end, just before they sign off.

Thanks, Tiger!

P.S.

I’m NOT the lady in the sunglasses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that lady in the sunglasses.

“Due to the generous donations provided by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, San Dieguito Academy will hearby supply free contraceptive devices at all further dances, beginning with prom 2006.”

“San Dieguito Academy neither promotes nor condemns your student’s sexual activity. Our mission is to support the unique culture and programs of San Dieguito High School Academy. In keeping with this mission, SDA thanks you again for helping us provide a healthy and encouraging environment for your student to grow, learn and succeed.”

Excerpts from prank letter mailed to parents of high school students.

Dang, I wish I’d gotten this letter… it sounds like a classic. I mean, “We neither promote nor condemn your student’s sexual activity” is exactly what you’d expect to hear from a school district nowadays.

And you’ve got to give the kids involved some credit for coming up with a senior prank that’s funny without causing physical damage to the campus, or requiring somebody to clean up a big mess.

The school administration, however, doesn’t see any humor in it at all.

[Principal] Gauthier said the school resource officer, who is a sheriff’s deputy, will investigate the prank.

“To put my name on it – that’s got to be breaking some law,” she said.

At any rate it seems to be a hot story. There were news cameras in the school parking lot when I picked up Tiger; a pretty blonde woman stopped me and asked me if I’d mind answering some questions. I said sure, but when she stuck the microphone into my car window, my brain turned to mush.

REPORTER: So what do you think of this senior prank?

BONNIE: I, um… splork…

CAMERAMAN: (to reporter) Psst! Your microphone isn’t on!

REPORTER: It’s not? (she clicks a switch on the microphone) How about now? Okay! (turns to Bonnie) So! What do you think of this senior prank?

At that point I was greatly relieved—because I had a second chance! This time I was going to put a coherent sentence together, a sentence that would reassure the citizens of San Diego County that at least one parent wasn’t high while driving.

Unfortunately, looking into the business end of a microphone apparently renders me incapable of speech.

BONNIE: I… um, er…. splork!

So if you see a confused-looking parent on the tube tonight, splorking about Prom contraceptives, you’ll know who it is.

1. It’s hard to be funny whilst ranting, and
2. Who cares about my little rants anyway?

Hubby has to listen because he’s married to me—and I have a sneaky suspicion he tunes me out sometimes—but none of the rest of you are so obligated. Therefore, I don’t rant (much) on this site.

One of the few rants I did post I called “Will NutriFeron save you from the bird flu?” and it probably gets more hits than any other post I’ve made so far.

The post was inspired by a Shaklee spammer—whose original spam comment I edited to remove her name and the link to her site, but otherwise left to stand. I also posted my snarky opinions about multi-level marketing (MLMs) and NutriFeron’s dubious labeling, and in so doing received several comments from Shaklee distributors.

A few were angry. One was extremely rude. But most came from sincere, hard-working Shaklee distributors who felt I attacked their livelihood. We had a lively discussion and I’m still getting comments on it even though it’s over four months old.

In comment #17, someone criticized how I chose to brand some comments as “spam” or not:

As for spam, last time I checked, posting ones personal opinion in a public post setting did not constitute spam.

Comment by Alan — 11/2/2005 @ 4:53 pm

This is a tender subject for me. As any blogger knows, spammers can drown a site unless it’s adequately protected. If it weren’t for my anti-spam software (Spam Karma 2 and Bad Behavior) this site would be covered with spambot droppings.

But there are human spammers who get past the spam software, determined little buggers, to say the least. And some of them are just clueless people hoping to get more visibility for their businesses, like the original Shaklee distributor who spammed me.

Yet Alan seemed to be saying the comment from the Shaklee distributor wasn’t really spam, but free speech. I responded:

Ah, yes, Alan, but this is not a public post setting, this is my website. People who leave comments here are my guests.

Some of my guests leave comments about Viagra, poker games, software, pornography, and vitamin supplements, among other things. Then they tell my readers how to purchase such items.

You may treat such comments with the respect reserved for personal opinions, but I choose to refer to them as spam.

Comment by Bonnie Wren — 11/2/2005 @ 5:46 pm

I thought this was the end of it, but yesterday I received a new comment on the subject. Stewart gave a thoughtful explanation of his opinion of MLMs and NutriFeron, but he also asked me this question:

… I have a question about the “public post setting” and “my guest” comments (in post #17).

I understand web/spambots which may post things electronically (and should be illegal), but if you have fields for comment at the bottom that are open to anyone to use, doesn’t that make it a public post? Otherwise, wouldn’t there need to be a password required for people to be able to post?

Comment by Stewart Stevens — 2/23/2006 @ 10:30 pm

I could be wrong, but I think readers like the gracious Stewart and the not so gracious Alan may believe that if I invite discussion on a subject, I should probably expect opinions that might contain spam. At the very least, perhaps I shouldn’t get upset about it when it does arrive and write posts criticizing Shaklee supplements.

I do accept all opinions… as long as they meet my standards of acceptable use, based on my personal prejudices about profanity, sexuality, or verbal abuse. I also have prejudices about whether or not the comment is a legitimate attempt to engage in the discussion at hand, or just a thinly disguised attempt to generate sales of a product.

I deleted many, many spam comments on that post. Some of the messages seemed to be part of the discussion: “I learned a lot here!” “Thanks for this resource!” “Interesting discussion… perhaps you’ll be interested in my site!” The links led to Vegas timeshares, poker sites, web-hosting, apartment rentals, phentermine, incest sites, sports betting, fioricet, xanax, blackjack… the list goes on and on.

Most of them had only been on my site for a second or two before posting, which proved they were spambots. Being spammers, not a single one was a negative comment. (The better to sneak in, my dear!) No matter, I deleted them all. Off with their heads!

I never deleted legitimate opinions, even when the authors strongly disagreed with me or questioned my motives. I did edit one commenter’s statement, something I now wonder if I should’ve done. At the time, I found that one line offensive as it had nothing to do with the subject and everything to do with how the poster wanted to insult me.

I guess I could repair it to its original condition, but it’s probably best to leave well enough alone. Live and learn.

But back to Stewart’s question.

Stewart is correct in that all posts and comments made here on my blog are public. Comments become searchable by Google within a few days of posting. But even though the posts and comments are public, they do not have the same protections of free speech that might exist in, say, a public input session during a city council meeting.

Comments made on a privately-owned internet site such as mine goes by different rules, as the First Amendment Center explains:

I got kicked off AOL for cursing in several messages. Doesn’t that violate my free speech?

No. Online services have the right to establish and enforce codes of conduct. When you sign up, you’re using a service that belongs to a private company, and you are subject to its rules. Because the online service is a private company, its restrictions do not constitute government censorship and, therefore, do not violate the First Amendment.

First Amendment Center FAQ on Free Speech

Ballpoint Wren is not paid for with public tax dollars. It’s paid for with Bonnie Wren dollars. It is therefore my private property, just as my home is. There is no law or obligation that says I must allow personal opinions that contain advertisements to exist on my site if I choose not to do so.

I do want a free and polite exchange of ideas, even if those ideas are contrary to what I believe. But why should someone else make money off my site while I pay for the bandwidth they use?

Rant over.

free speech, blog comments, spam, blog spam, Bad Behavior, Comment Spam, BloggingBlogging, spam karma 2