Posts Tagged ‘rant’

On being welcome vs being forced to choose

November 25th, 2009

Being welcomed generally feels good. When one is given an ultimatum to choose between friends, or between sets of friends, some find that to be a rather unpleasant feeling. I personally see it as creepy and manipulative.

“I like you and want to associate with you.” is, to me, a very positive statement.

“I like you and want to associate with you, on the condition that you not like or associate with so and so.” is, to me, a very asinine statement.

The former is welcoming, the latter is not.

I said what?

November 21st, 2009

It has been a weird week. To mark it as weird in a good or bad way would be jumping the gun however. There has been a sizable amount of both.

The most disturbing part of the week was when I drove a friend to the local Emergency Room. She was feeling physically ill, decided to go, and asked me for a lift, to avoid the expense of an ambulance or taxi ride.

According to a social worker who came to ask me some questions, I had allegedly told a doctor three things:
1. She was my wife.
2. She was behaving wildly psychotic and out of control.
3. I wanted her committed involuntarily to a psychiatric ward.

Problem is none of these things were true, nor did I tell anyone at the hospital any such thing. When medical professionals act on the never-said allegations of a non-existent family member to force someone into a locked facility, one might begin to suspect that the whole practice of psychiatric involuntary commitments is in fact a very dangerous thing.

At least in the former Soviet Union, they would coerce a real family member to make false allegations. Thankfully we live in a democracy where the dude giving someone a lift has the allegations automatically made on his behalf.

Happy Fourth!

July 4th, 2009

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Not that there is much today that is happy.  I’m in a foul mood, didn’t sleep last night (again.) And life in general sucks.

Oh well.