Black Wednesday

It's snowing in Seattle today and it's clear we've got a winter this year that just won't quit. But it's not just that. The American economy is in total meltdown, we've got a new President who makes me very uneasy, a Congress that seems to have OD'd on SSRIs, a government that's invading private businesses, conservatives going utterly batshit and liberals going utterly batshit in return defending the whole thing. It's an ugly time to be a moderate. Hell, it's an ugly time to be an American. Meanwhile protesters are going batshit in London.

Pass the Prozac. Or the bourbon.

Word has it that Seattle is on the verge of becoming the first major US city without a daily newspaper (good news for our mayor though), my career as a journalist is pretty much toast (at least in print form) and I simply cannot get past the sense that there is a lot of crazy, dramatic change afoot in our culture and that it doesn't strike me as being for the good. Hell, I've got friends who are giving up on Seattle and moving to California--just picking up and moving like that--just because they feel like their lives here are played out and they've got to chase their dreams somewhere else. Yesterday, a young woman I know told me that some guy she didn't know tried to grab her by the hand in a park (she was walking her dog) with God only knows what in mind (she's OK). My part of town is reasonably safe, so that's really unusual and deeply troubling.

I'd like the world to make sense again. Really soon.

Also, news is out in PsychRights' case versus the State of Alaska over its drugging of foster kids and others in its care...and the state admitted in a legal filing that it cannot care for the kids allegedly in its care and that it has no influence or control over how doctors treat these kids for behavioral issues. That should put your jaw on the floor. There's more on this over at Beyond Meds and you can even write Gov. Sarah Palin to let her know what you think of the whole thing.

I don't even have words for that kind of bullshit. I think if you unspool the entire rise of the psychopharmacological paradigm, you will see the hand of our lovely government in each frame of the story.

But even more fun is news that AstraZeneca is seeking approval of Seroquel for for--drum roll--pediatric bipolar disorder. I didn't even know about this until the FDA announced that they are going to put the whole thing before an advisory committee in June.

I just want to vomit.