Layer 419 . . . Mental Health, Women (and Men, and Children) in Crisis, Education, Pills, League Tables, Bankers, Giffords, Palin and the Tea Party

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Time to get back to the newspapers for a dose of harsh reality . . .  for a top-up of disgust at the state of the world.

If anyone happened to read Layers 412 and 417  and thought I was over the top with my comments about miserable, burnt-out young people and the amount of mental health issues in our society, then think again.

"Is it any wonder that so many children, and so many adults, are borderline insane? And so many of them are . . . literally . . . driven insane. Or become morose, depressed, angry and resentful."

This week the Guardian carried this report:

Mental health of women in crisis

According to survey of 2,000 girls and women, around two-thirds have had mild to moderate mental health problems

by Amelia Hill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/11/mental-health-women-crisis

Almost a third of women aged over 18 have taken antidepressants, according to research published today which its authors claim reveals "generations of women in crisis" with mental health problems.

According to a survey of more than 2,000 girls and women in England and Wales, around two-thirds have had mild to moderate mental health problems, equivalent to 15.2 million girls and women.

Penny Newman, chief executive of Platform 51 (formerly the Young Women's Christian Association), said: "Millions of girls and women are facing mental health problems and they are telling us that they are not getting the support they need."

At least 13% of women experiencing mental health problems had quit a job while 44% had taken some time off work; more than a quarter had been off work for at least a week, the research showed.

The findings into the extent of mental health problems experienced by girls as young as 12 were reached after the group expanded the medical definition of "common mental health disorders" as defined by the Department of Health.

The definition of mental health problems used in the new study includes low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, and stress.

"This term captures the range of feelings and symptoms which negatively impact on girls' and women's mental health and which can have more serious consequences if undetected or unaddressed," said Newman.

"What is most striking about these behaviours is that they are often self-destructive and hidden."

About 20% of adult women in England suffered from a common mental disorder – typically depression or anxiety – compared with about 12% of men, according to an NHS report last year.

Professor Louise Howard, head of women's mental health at King's College London, said the figures were "very interesting and relevant". She said: "There is evidence that there is under-identification of people with mental health problems that need treatment."

The research includes women with emotional difficulties as well as those with mental health problems, she added. "But any of the stresses that these women are reporting can lead to mental health problems. Depressive symptoms can persist and need treatment but some women will feel that they have to keep on coping because they have all these people depending on them."

Platform 51 works with 11,000 girls and women in schools, community centres, youth clubs, mother and baby units, and prisons across England and Wales. Its study found those they identified as having mental health problems attempt to cope with their distress in damaging ways. More than a quarter regularly drink too much and many isolate themselves from friends and family: almost a half had not left their homes for a long period and more than a quarter had lost friends.

One in five had built up debt. One in 10 had self-harmed – a figure that rises to 35% for women aged 18 to 24.

"Many women appear to be functioning normally or coping adequately with particularly difficult situations when in fact they are struggling to cope," said Newman. "But we identified many risky behaviours that girls and women engaged in as a result of mental health problems, including promiscuity, drug-taking and crime."

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "This survey is shocking and covers a myriad of distress."

Colin Walker, policy and campaigns manager at mental health charity Mind, welcomed the report but said his organisation's research showed men and women experienced mental health problems such as depression and anxiety in roughly equal numbers.

"But men are less likely to speak out or ask for help," he said. "This tendency to suffer in silence is reflected by the fact that men account for 75% of all suicides."

Around one in three women with low-level mental health problems have never sought professional help, the report, "Women Like Me: supporting wellbeing in girls and women", found. Of those who did seek help, almost two thirds felt doctors were too ready to prescribe drugs.

So here's more evidence that huge numbers of people have mental, emotional, social and spiritual afflictions, who also know that getting drugs from doctors is NOT the answer to their problems.

How and why do these afflictions occur in the first place? What can possibly be done about them?

Why do so many of us suffer from  low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, and stress? Why haven't we learned how to overcome these problems? Why don't schools and other agencies do more to prevent these problems occurring in the first place?

Well - nobody asked them to. Not in this country. On the whole. Nowhere is it a requirement to ensure that pupils acquire more resilience, self confidence, and high self-esteem. Nowhere are these things prioritised any more. Maybe in some schools here and there, where the leadership is more enlightened, but there's no expectations - not seriously - from government, bureaucrats or Ofsted, whose sole concern is with academic success and test results. It's an appalling situation.

We all let our hearts bleed about the poor sods who are cracking up all around us, in so many ways, and all we do about it is send these people to get their anti-depressant drugs to help them 'cope'. These are people who ought to have been able to develop their emotional intelligence, social intelligence and spiritual intelligence whilst at school, in order to prepare them for living in the big wide world, and all they got was pressure to achieve in exams - in order that the schools could do well in the league tables and deal with the Ofsted inquisition.

Look at these schools squealing today, as the government shifts the goal posts once again, and they suddenly find themselves failing to meet the arbitrary targets again. Not so smug now, eh? So why haven't they been doing more to fight the very idea of targets, league tables and so on? Surely not because they thought they were doing pretty well . . .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/12/1-in-6-get-english-baccalaureate

Notice how the schools are now being accused of "failing to prepare pupils for the workplace". NOT 'prepare them for living in a challenging and complex world'. Not ' prepare them for managing complex relationships'. No - we just want them to be able to satisfy the demands of employers. That'll do nicely.

Meanwhile lives are wasted and ruined, kids are getting burnt out by the age of eighteen, and they'll very likely end up stressed out, depressed and lacking in self-esteem even if they get a pocketful of exam passes.

This all makes me beyond anger.

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A good comment from Winhill:

It isn't just women, although they might be more up for admitting it. Our society is fundamentally sick.

I don't think most people realise anything else is possible. Try travelling and you find otherwise. Try going to sub-Saharan Africa for example. They may be poor, but they have a general culture which is far more kind and supportive, and they don't spend their whole time being terrified of each other like the British do.

But then, why should it be a surprise that we are sick? Values of brutal competition, insecurity and the-weak-go-to-the-wall have been deliberately inculcated by neoliberalism. As Thatcher said "economics are the method. The object is to change the heart and soul". She changed it alright.

Some people can cope with living in a brutal, insecure environment, but many can't. They just crumble.

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Our world, our society, doesn't have to be like this - relentlessly, competitively materialistic; full of greedy arsehole bankers whose stupidity and selfishness is already well-established; where mental ill-health is the norm rather than the exception.

Banks given go-ahead to pay unlimited bonuses


Ministers cave in to City and reject calls to tackle highest earners as No 10 seeks face-saving deal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/10/banks-unlimited-bonuses-ministers

Britain's banks have been given the go-ahead to pay unlimited bonuses, drawing to a close a two-year political battle to rein in the City.

After months in which a series of government ministers of all parties have threatened a toughening in the stance over City bonuses, Downing Street said the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers.

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How insane is this - Sarah Palin has accused her opponents of inciting hatred and violence . . .

Fucking insane.

In the US, where hate rules at the ballot box, this tragedy has been coming for a long time

The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords may lead to the temporary hibernation of rightwing rage, but it is encoded in conservative DNA

by Michael Tomasky

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/09/us-shooting-republicans-giffords-loughner

Gabrielle Giffords shooting reignites row over rightwing rhetoric in US

Sarah Palin at centre of storm over political vitriol after spree leaves six dead and congresswoman in critical condition

by Ewen MacAskill

The US was tonight seized by a fierce debate over whether inflammatory rightwing rhetoric was to blame for a shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona, that targeted congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including a nine-year-old child.

Giffords, 40, who remains critically ill in hospital after being shot through the head but is expected to live, criticised Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist of districts, each shown as being in crosshairs.

"When people do that, they have got to realise there are consequences to that action," Giffords said. Palin today distanced herself from the shooting, as did leading figures of the Tea Party movement. Conservative bloggers accused liberals of seeking to exploit the attack.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/gabrielle-giffords-shooting-rightwing-rhetoric

Insanity Rules. OK?

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Layer 86 Decision Day, More Neil Young, and Opening Minds.

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So the day has finally arrived. It’s either hello to a new liberal America, the likes of which we’ve never seen before, since the Democrat president will be backed by a Democratic majority in both the Senate and the House, in an America where the ideology of conservatism has now been fully tested to destruction and is totally discredited. Or we’ll have the appalling prospect of a McCain/Palin leadership for the next four years, which doesn’t even bear thinking about.

I’ve been catching up with last Friday’s Guardian G2, whose cover article was, ‘What’s Bush done for our cultural life?’ ‘Twelve prominent Americans’ were asked to give their verdict.

Naomi Wolf wrote,

“It's not just that [Bush] didn't fund the arts or invite artists to the White House; it's not just that he doesn't read poetry, doesn't read books: there's something about the brute force of this administration, and the fetishisation of brute force by this administration, which literally stands in opposition to civilisation and the arts.

I've done a lot of work on Germany from the Weimar period to the late 30s. There was a similar hostility then to the cosmopolitan, the urbanite, the avant garde, to any originality in art.

[Why are people so reluctant to call the USA of the past (x) years a neo-fascist regime?]

I think artists in America are scared. Respected journalists are being arrested. Film documenting the Republican national congress has been destroyed. And artists are next on the list after journalists. So if, God forbid, there's a McCain/Palin presidency we'll see a crackdown of the police state, there's no doubt.

I'm really quite ashamed of the American people - and of course I include myself in this. We have seen what was happening, and we kept right on internet shopping. All these writers and artists, good people, have just looked around and quietly aligned themselves.

Novelists have been really silent. Usually writers are at the forefront of denouncing a regime: look at Václav Havel. Here, people have complained a lot, but in terms of organising a vanguard of resistance, of people getting out there and saying this is not the American way ... Where is the Arthur Miller of this generation? Who is out front, somewhere visible and tricky and scary?”

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Well, Neil Young and his mates, for a start. The Dixie Chicks? Also Naomi Klein. And Gore Vidal. It’s an interesting challenge for us Brits - to think of any prominent Americans who have put themselves out front, protesting and denouncing in a place that’s very scary, given the appalling ignorance and potential savagery of the American Right.

I had an interesting conversation with a close friend yesterday, a long-time Neil Young fan, about Neil Young getting the band back on the road to protest about what was happening in the country, to protest against the Iraq war. Having seen the first part of Friday evening’s BBC4 documentary of the 2006 'Freedom of Speech' tour, my friend was of the opinion that it was rather sad and embarrassing to see those old geezers still trying to crank out rock music, ‘protest’ music if you will, in large stadiums.

I had to disagree. On the grounds that in the first place the music and the performance were OK, but also because it’s entirely admirable for any musician or artist to speak out visibly and publicly against the Bush regime, or indeed any injustice. To hell with what they look like. At least my friend admits he’s an ageist and a sizeist.

You still have a few days to see all 60 minutes of the documentary about Neil, 'Don’t Be Denied', (or download it) at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f815m

Or you might need to go first to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/neilyoung/

where you can also see some clips featuring Steve Stills, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, etc, talking about Neil and his music. Stills says some interesting things about how scarily polemical, provocative and combative Neil is. Emmylou talks about him putting something back into the world, and being a good father.

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Other contributors to the Guardian feature on the 'Bush legacy' said,

Daniel Libeskind

How can you even begin to speak of a cultural legacy? It's been wholly negative. Culture's a dirty word to these people, like "liberal" or "literate". We've experienced a complete bankruptcy of the culture of ideas over the past eight years. The intellect has been denigrated. Deep cuts have been made in education and in investment in cultural institutions.

It's hard to believe Bush, a man who's proud not to read books and who makes fun of words longer than one syllable, has been the inheritor of the mantle of the Founding Fathers, or of Woodrow Wilson, FDR or even Bill Clinton. These people believed in the value of American culture being seen as an inspiring and civilising force around the world. Jefferson was a fine architect. All Bush has offered the world is military force. This is still a great country, but Bush and Cheney have ensured that only the negative side of US culture has spread around the world.

David Simon

Enron, Afghanistan, Iraq, New Orleans, Wall Street. An untenable drug war. A non-existent energy policy. An obliviousness to climate change. An unwillingness to recognise our problems, much less begin the hard work of solving them. Incompetence - rank incompetence - has become the American standard. We are no longer a competent, responsible nation-state. America. The can't-do superpower. Quite a legacy. Mr Bush is a remarkable man.

Alex Gibney

I think the Bush administration did its best to create a vast wasteland. At the same time, because of the perfidy and corruption and utter lawlessness it created a very interesting backlash of politically oriented materials that were inspiring. Unintentionally, the administration provoked a lot of political art that I think was very valuable.

Edward Albee

What cultural legacy? There is no cultural legacy. We have an administration of criminality, complicity and incompetence but no cultural legacy whatever from those eight years. It doesn't seem to have produced the kind of rage that I would have expected it to. It shows me that we have a far more passive and ignorant society than I thought we had.

I'm something of an optimist. I hope that we're capable of getting back on the right track and continuing our peaceful social revolution.

Elizabeth LeCompte

He has fostered the rise of political satire as an art form again. It hasn't been very strong for the last 30 years or so and I think television programmes such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and South Park are all political works of art. Without the Bush administration I don't think satire would have been as strong. It revived irony.

With satire there's an incredibly powerful challenging of the powers that are, which I think is very healthy. There's also a trivialising effect at the same time. But it is a change, because young people are going to be involved in politics in a way that they haven't been before.

When Obama had trouble, before he beat Hillary, they began to make fun of him as a pompous teacher, so let's see. I think it'll be interesting. I just know that for me, under the Bush administration, things like The Daily Show and South Park will be remembered as real satire, not just parody and caricature."

This is an interesting point - the difference between satire, parody and caricature. The Daily Show has produced some brilliant satire, absolutely slaughtering McCain and Palin. Jon Stewart in particular is a genius.

Wouldn’t it be good if the general populace could read all the above comments before they go out to vote today. McCain says, “I’m not George Bush!” - but how different is his mindset and his ideology in reality? Palin, in many ways, is even worse than Bush.

Read the transcript of her being pranked by a Sarkozy impersonator:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/04/sarahpalin-usa

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Education News

The RSA Academy, Tipton, was featured on BBC TV news today. It’s an interesting place.
“Radical, controversial - should this school become a blueprint for others?”

“We actually want students to be motivated in their learning. Traditional homework has been scrapped,” says the headteacher, Michael Gernan.

The changes are fundamental. The focus is now on life skills or competences, managing information and relating to people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7707662.stm

The RSA’s “Opening Minds Framework” is excellent:

“The Opening Minds curriculum features five categories of competences: learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information. Focusing on competences means that Opening Minds teaching is emphasising the ability to understand and to do, rather than just the transmission of knowledge.”

Read the rest of it here:

http://www.thersa.org/projects/education/opening-minds/opening-minds-framework

It is radical, and it should be a blueprint for other schools.
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