Several Things

I've been down with a cold--my first since last year sometime, an achievement given our winter this year--so I'm playing a bit of catch-up.

First, here's an article on the young man who killed the two police officers in Virginia. It's the sad narrative of an otherwise normal young man, who started experiencing headaches and delusions last fall. His parents took him to three seperate mental health facilities and, according to the article, he'd been given meds. Not clear if he was taking them at the time of the shooting. Either way, I'm a bit troubled that he never wound up in the hospital and that it appears no one bothered to determine whether the family had guns that were accessible to a delusional son. It seems to me that a lot of people knew just how out there this guy was, but did little to intervene. I think this case fits the TAC crowd's narrative of "he couldn't get care" less and less as time goes on. I'll go out on a limb here and say the care he got was inadequate and that there seems to have been poor follow-up on everyone's part here. Friends, family, hospital, courts, etc. I mean how does a guy break out of a hospital and the staff do no follow-up with either the family or police to alert them to a potential problem?

Second, I am going to write a correction to a recent post in which I made some errors. I hope to do this tomorrow.

Third, I'm gratified that a bunch of new readers have found this site in the last week. I hope there's something useful for you here, whether you agree with it or not. Please leave comments.

Fourth, I am disgusted at the number of typos in a couple of recent posts. They are ones that a spell-checker won't catch. Note to self: stop posting at 12 a.m. and use a larger screen.

Fifth, Fuller Torrey himself will be making an appearance in the Seattle area in late June. His visit appears to be sponsored by one of our local NAMI affiliates. Since I know them, I think I'll have an interesting chat with them about Torrey. Or, hell, maybe I'll just show up at the event and ask him a bunch of questions. More news on his visit later.