Category Archives: Psychiatry

WHITE MALE MISERY In America

America, Drug War, Economy, Multiculturalism, Psychiatry, Race, Racism

The Economist’s writer is no angel. But he is dancing like so many angels on the head of a pin in order to minimize the effects of systemic hostility toward white men in America:

… thoughts of suicide were slightly higher on average amongst less-educated whites than other groups.
… heavy drinking was higher amongst whites than other groups.

… opioid abuse along with other prescription drug abuse and illegal drug use remain much higher amongst non-college educated whites. Other research has shown that whites commit suicide at a higher rate than blacks and Hispanics: according to the CDC, white non-Hispanic Americans commit suicide at around three times the rate of blacks and Hispanics, with the highest and growing toll amongst older men.

…increased suicide rates among white men may be caused in part by a decline in income and status.

The Economist also cleverly attempts to minimize the dire situation of white men in America by implying that these “poorly educated” white ingrates are still “better off than women and minorities.”

Then of course, there are the solutions of shallow economic reductionism:

Increase the minimum wage. Provide more generous earned income tax credits. (“Because of lower incomes, minorities and women are more likely to be eligible for EITC payments, and to benefit from minimum wage increases.”)

READ: “Depression is increasing among Americans reaching middle age: Misery is spreading across all groups, but poorly educated white men remain the unhappiest.” (5/15/019)

UPDATED (9/23/020): Obesity

Free Will Vs. Determinism, Healthcare, Psychiatry

Obesity Worsens Outcomes from COVID-19

Adults with obesity are at even greater risk during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Having obesity increases the risk of severe illness from COVID-19.
Having obesity may triple the risk of hospitalization due to a COVID-19 infection.
Obesity is linked to impaired immune function.^2,3
Obesity decreases lung capacity and reserve and can make ventilation more difficult.⁴
As BMI increases, the risk of death from COVID-19 increases.

‘Deaths Of Despair’: The Most Suicidal Populations Are Amerindians And American Whites

America, Economy, Healthcare, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Psychiatry, Race, Russia, The West, The Zeitgeist, Welfare

Suicide rates are declining everywhere except for the big exception: America, where it is 12.8 per 100,000, “well above China’s current rate of seven.”

And, in particular, among white Americans and native Americans.

“There are parallels between the rise in suicide in post-Soviet Russia and the ‘deaths of despair’ in America identified by Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton University,” observes The Economist.

Suicide rates among white Americans are higher, and have risen faster since 2000, than among any other group except native Americans (see chart). The same trend can be seen among the middle-aged. At the turn of the century, older people were much more likely to kill themselves than those in their 50s, but that is no longer true. Rates among people in rural areas are higher, and have been increasing faster, than those among people in towns and cities.

The Economist is slightly more candid than the likes of the neocons and lite libertarians mentioned in the post, “Immigration: A Look-Away Issue For Neocons & Lite Libertarians“:

For working-class misery, neoconservatives and lite libertarians [economic reductionist all] blame everything BUT mass immigration, diversity, loss of community and sense of place. Anything but the truth …

MORE: “Defeating despair: Suicide is declining almost everywhere …”

NEW COLUMN: Christine Blah-Blah Ford & Her Hippocampus

Ethics, Gender, Ilana Mercer, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Science

“Christine Blah-Blah Ford & Her Hippocampus” is the current column, now on Townhall.com (slightly abridged).

An excerpt:

One of many cringe-making moments in Christine Blasey Ford’s protracted complaint before the Senate Judiciary Committee—and the country—was an affectation-dripping reference to her hippocampus.

“Indelible in the hippocampus” was the memory of supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her, some 36 years back, asserted Ford in that scratchy, valley-girl voice of hers.

With that, the good “doctor” was making a false appeal to scientific authority. Ford had just planted a falsity in the nation’s collective consciousness. The accuser was demanding that the country believe her and her hippocampus.

All nonsense on stilts.

We want to believe that our minds record the events of our lives meticulously, and that buried in the permafrost of our brain, perfectly preserved, is the key to our woes.

Unfortunately, scientific research negates the notion that forgotten memories exist somewhere in the brain and can be accessed in pristine form.

Granted, we don’t know whether She Who Must Never Be Questioned recovered the Judge-Kavanaugh memory in therapy. That’s because, well, she must never be questioned.

Questioning the left’s latest sacred cow is forbidden. Bovine Republicans blindly obey.

I happened to have covered and thoroughly researched the “recovered memory ruse,” in 1999. Contrary to the trend, one of my own heroes is not Christine Blah-Blah Ford, but a leading world authority on memory, Elizabeth Loftus.

Professor Loftus, who straddles two professorships—one in law, the other in psychology—had come to Vancouver, British Columbia, to testify on behalf of a dedicated Richmond educator, a good man, who had endured three trials, the loss of a career and financial ruin because of the Crown’s attempts to convict him of sexual assault based on memories recovered in therapy. …

… READ THE REST. “Christine Blah-Blah Ford & Her Hippocampus” is now on Townhall.com.

Unabridged, the column appears on other favorite sites: WND.com, The Unz Review, Constitution.com, and American Greatness.