Monday, February 04, 2008

Feed the Hungry

Improve your vocabulary while helping to feed the hungry. There's a website where you test your vocabulary and for each word you get correct, you donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

This site is insidious and educational. Yesterday over 91 million grains were donated. This is a program that apparently started in October and has already given more than 17 billion (yes, that billion with a b)grains.

Hey! Why not take a few minutes out of your day, improve your wordpower, and help the world? Seems like a good plan to me!

Betrayal of a Meltdown

To be clear up-front - Britney Spears generally isn't high on my news radar and I don't particularly intend to make any change in that position. However, as I was scanning the papers this morning I noticed the articles about her stay at the psychiatric hospital being extended for an additional 14 days. What caught my eye was the phrase "according to a source who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to release the information" (or something like that - I don't have it in front of me right now).

Excuse me! I sincerely hope the hospital tracks down that leak and fires their sorry ass ASAP!!

It's obvious the poor woman's life has spiraled out of control and she's in need of help. But if her name had been Jane Doe or Jack Roe or any other essentially anonymous person, no one at the hospital would have even acknowledged that a person of such a name even existed.

It's hard enough to undergo psychiatric treatment without having every glance, shrug, sigh, tear, or tirade plastered across the world-wide media. Then to have some lowlife who wants a little bit of "secret" notoriety, to be able to snicker behind their hand to themselves that they were the one to expose the poor woman at her worst, blab that more help is needed (as if that wasn't obvious) ... well, isn't it called "piling on" in football?

It's safe to say that the longer I type, the angrier I'm getting. What this person has done is actually a prosecuteable crime, one which rarely is followed through on, but definitely should be. If there were clear consequences for the perpetrators, it would be less likely to happen when someone with a famous name is involved.

It wouldn't surprise me that somewhere in the addled brains of those who need help, especially celebrities, there's this truly skewed desire to completely melt down in public rather than risk someone revealing the secret psyche that must be revealed in order for healing to happen. I'll acknowledge that sometimes it's the visible meltdown that leads to getting essential help; however, once there ... LEAVE THEM THEIR PRIVACY!!!!! The broken trust perpetuated by the person who blabbed, and the media who chose to share the news, is often what keeps celebrities and non-celebrities from getting the psychiatric help they need.

I also admit that there are much more significant problems in the world today that need to be addressed. Yet there are so many people who could legitimately benefit from counseling and treatment, who might be among those who would harm themselves and others, who might even be open to addressing their psychological issues, if they were reasonably certain that their lives would not be bared to the entire world. Perhaps if we were able to address some of these issues in the confines of a counselor's office or a treatment center, some of the violence and hatred and inhumanity to others could be eliminated and our society as a whole become a more wholesome experience.