I'm a teacher. In classes with mixed economic backgrounds, my students from lower economic levels are more likely to work hard to keep up. In classes with a high percentage of students from lower economic levels, those students reinforce each other's disregard for education and fail.

Exactly which elephant am I failing to see? Or is it just that you nom-de-keyboard is absolutely accurate?

-Tayefeth

Posted at February 5, 2006 7:15 AM in response to School Frays

And when your blood pressure stops responding to diet and exercise, or your thyroid conks out, or your pancreas stops producing enough insulin, maybe you'll stop conflating "45%+ of the American population taking prescription medication" with "the American drug culture."

Posted at June 26, 2005 2:20 PM in response to Serious Stuff

While I agree that there are other (some more useful) ways of dealing with depression than popping pills, you seem to have missed the part where Dan decided that all of the children who go to the nurse's office for prescription medication are doing so for antidepressants/Ritalin, and Dan's insistence that all prescriptions are for happy pills. He happily cites a statistic about the number of adults taking prescription drugs, and then claims we're all imbibing "artificial cheer." Apparently blood pressure medication, insulin, and thyroid hormone replacement have somehow become happy pills while I wasn't looking.

Dan seems to be impervious to all suggestions that a) not all prescription drugs are for mental illness, b) not all mental illness can be treated with anything other than medication (those kids I know who hear voices telling them to kill their brothers won't get rid of those voices by "doing emotional work"), and c) sometimes medication is necessary even when you are "doing emotional work." For someone who claims repeatedly that "non-centrists" need to watch their every word so as not to create rifts within the party, Dan is awfully imprecise when he's flogging one of his own horses.

And let's definitely not talk about the way that health insurance companies encourage people to take pills (rather than "do emotional work") by paying a far greater fraction of the cost of the pills than the cost of the therapy.

Posted at June 26, 2005 2:13 PM in response to Serious Stuff

I do know that in the past 30 years or so the whole population has been conditioned to expecxt relief from medication, and that big business interests make billions of dollars by keeping us feeling that way.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but American culture has been looking to "magic pills" for longer than the past 30 years. See lithium (1950s), cocaine (the real original Coke), and various quack "remedies" before then.

I can't believe that there has been such an increase in the need in just a few decades, although I do allow that today's societal/environmental degradation may have inflicted who-knows-what on our kids.

Maybe you can't, but I can. Between environmental degradation, societal neglect, and increased accuracy in diagnosis, why shouldn't there be a drastic increase in need? Or should we go back to writing kids off because they don't function well without medication?

You claim to "remember the time when 45%+ of Americans did not use a prescription drug daily, when 20% of primary age kids did not line up at the school nurse's station to be fed their morning dose of cheer or sedative", but do you really? Because you seem to be implying that the majority of prescription drugs, even those for mental health/learning issues, are taken for spurious reasons, and that's just bullshit.

this doesn't even touch on the whole subject of illegal drugs and the crime subculture that type of use finances, and the untold worldwide misery that an underground drug culture supports.

You're right. It doesn't. Because illegal drugs are an entirely separate issue.

Posted at June 25, 2005 9:11 AM in response to Serious Stuff

Dan, I'm happy for you that you haven't suffered any medical problems that necessitate your taking prescription medication daily, but trust me, that medication is not solely a dose of artificial cheer.

I know two children under the age of ten who hear voices without medication. I know a surprising number of autistic children. I know several young adults who would not be succeeding in college without medication. I know a Down's child born to a healthy, non-drug-using, young woman. Perhaps a more worthy direction for your self-righteousness might be to find out why these ailments are showing up in increasing numbers, rather than blaming those who choose to use medications to alleviate them.

Posted at June 24, 2005 7:36 PM in response to Serious Stuff

We can call Republicans misguided fools throwing ineffective temper tantrums without demonizing them. Not that it's easy, given the tendency the current Republican leadership has for authorizing acts that make Darth Vader look merciful.

Posted at June 24, 2005 7:03 PM in response to Enemy Talking Points

Oh, I see. Anti-DLC is "anything that doesn't support every DLC talking point"? From my POV as a Dean supporter, the DLC spent more energy attacking Dean during the primaries than attacking Bush during the general election.

Posted at June 24, 2005 6:54 PM in response to Enemy Talking Points

the "Bush Doctrine," it is that tyranny keep people poor, miserable, fightened, and violent.

I'm not sure where you get this statement of the "Bush Doctrine," unless you're only counting his words. Bush seems to have no qualms whatsoever about supporting "friendly tyrants." Witness the picture of him holding hands with the Saudi prince and the way he treats Musharaf.

Posted at June 18, 2005 9:16 PM in response to Bush versus Truman on the UN

Could we please, please have the "Comment Posted Successfully" page return to the full thread? And could the reply button take us to a page where the comment we're replying to is displayed? At the moment, I type most of my replies in a separate window, so I don't have to reload the whole thread (and lose track of the 'new' comments) after every comment I make.

Also, is there any chance of email notification when someone replies to a comment we make? I'm sure I've lost information by not being able to find back threads I've commented on...

Posted at June 18, 2005 9:05 PM in response to Romero, Site Updates and that pesky html editor

Usury laws have largely been circumvented by the law/rulings that allow credit card companies to incorporate in, say, North Dakota, and use North Dakotan interest rate laws to govern consumers in, say, New Jersey. North Dakota gets some small amount of income in the form of business taxes, few North Dakotans get horribly screwed by the credit card companies (and fewer connect that to the actions of their politicians), and the credit card company gets rich by screwing over the New Jersey consumers.

Some states (New York, I think, is one) have laws that give their consumers some measure of protection from out-of-state lenders, but it's not often enough.

Posted at June 17, 2005 6:17 AM in response to Discover Business Practices "Unreasonable, Unconscionable, and Unjust"