TheBanyanTree: Mental Illness Ain't No Picnic

[Julie Anna Teague]

Quoting Sally Larwood <larwos at optusnet.com.au>:

> Getting back to the actual incident.  My husband keeps asking me what my
> American friends think about this latest incident.  Does it make more
> Americans think about the gun issue?

I always think about the gun issue.  My brother is (mostly) mentally 
stable.  Ok, he's fine, really. And he owns an AK-47.  Seriously?  But 
I think a lot more about the very deep philosophical divide in this 
country and the hatred and hate speech that that foments.  I've 
followed politics my whole life and I've never heard hate rhetoric like 
I hear now.  Comments like putting someone in the "crosshairs" has to 
stop.  It makes me sick.  Someone who speaks in a peaceful way, like 
Jimmy Carter, who I always greatly admired as a peaceful humanitarian 
and still do, can no longer make it in politics.  When a well known 
politico says things like "How's that hopey-changey thing working out 
for you?" it makes me sick.  I still hope for change, and a lot of 
other things.