Apparently...

...my 'surfing habits' are being scrutinised. And they are not those of a 'normal' person.  Hey, no shit, Sherlock!  I'm not sure what these people think that proves but I'll tell them what it does prove. It's quite simple: the meds I take fuck up my concentration. I do most things in 15 minute spurts, including browsing the web. A few pages here, a few pages there.  If you have a problem with this then feel free to say so. I could send you samples of the meds I take and you could take them for a couple of weeks and we'll see if your reaction is any different. It won't be. Here, some research. Here, have some more.  The cure for ignorance is the acquisition of knowledge.  Try it some time.  Yes, I know, I'm probably shouting into an abyss.

I must learn never to underestimate the capacity of some people for willful ignorance.  I must also remember to never expect the conduct of those who claim to be superior to actually be superior even though that seems to me to be a perfectly logical assumption  to make.

Now, I'm off to see a war veteran about some interesting stories.

A final PS: A special 'Hello' to Dogbreath and Slapper McSquirrel (a middle aged woman who thinks that all references to middle aged women are about her.  Now, that's not egocentric in the least, is it?  She also believes that mental illnesses are 'self created dramas'.  I knew she was a Mail On Sunday reader.  Well, she seems to fit the profile: fingernail deep and as thick as clotted cream.)

Grace the Cat

My friend Andrew who works at The Blue Cross alerted me to this story.  He said 'people suck' and he's right.  That is why I sometimes get more distressed by harm inflicted on animals than I do when I hear about harm inflicted on people.  I knew someone in hospital who was a vet who treated abused horses.  She felt exactly the same way because eventually people are able to express and deal with the emotional consequences of abuse in therapy.  Animals can't do that.

A couple of years before Bella the Cat's death Nobby and I found a kitten, terrified and shivering outside his flat.  I picked him up and held him while Nobby called Andrew.  He was taken to the Blue Cross.  Later the vet who examined him said his injuries were consistent with a fall.  They suspected, but could not prove, that he had been thrown from one of the flats. Andrew asked me if Bella 'would like a little brother'.  But Bella was a bully cat and did not get along terribly well with other members of her species* so I had to refuse. They found him a home eventually.

Some chick called 'dog ree' (or maybe it was 'dog breath'.  I can't be bothered to go back and check.) called me 'catty' on a rather unpleasant blog.  Given that one of the definitions of 'catty' is 'Catlike' 'Stealthy' I'll take that as a compliment. Oh, and the person who called me that is a mangey old dog.**

(Ouch, think I touched a nerve there.)

Lost a bunch of weight recently.  Still more rotund than I would like to be though.

*we had so much in common.

**I offer the most profound apologies to dogs.

Currently listening to

The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it's quiet.


Farewell Angelina, Joan Baez

And this is how it begins.  They push you away and then they build walls around themselves. Anything to stop the deluge, the rising tide, the rot.  I am so afraid.

Bella's ghost has departed.

And The Mail on Sunday...

...excels itself once again. My response: (which won't be printed)

I receive supplementary disability living allowance* for a psychiatric disorder but I'm sure those principled, compassionate journalists at The Mail On Sunday will be pleased to learn that I am saving up for a one way trip to Dignitas. Perhaps they'd like to accompany me there to see a job well done. Thanks for reminding me that I'm not wanted. The Nazis had a policy called Aktion T4. Perhaps that should be the next step. We must deal with these people. (Myself included, of course). Grab your torches and sharpen your pitchforks, people, we're going on a witch hunt. What fun!

DLA was originally introduced by the Tories with the intention of saving money. It was also a key feature of their care in the community policy. ** It was intended to keep people out of long term psychiatric facilities. If the Mail on Sunday have their way and this benefit is withdrawn then its recipients will probably face a life in institutions which, incidentally, will cost far more than the taxpayer is currently paying.

Of course, there is another alternative: government sponsored work placement schemes but these will never be implemented because they too cost far more than DLA.

Meanwhile I cling to this:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

*It really helps if, on a whim, the hospital in which you are incarcerated (AKA Section Three) decide to perform an EEG on you which detects 'abnormalities'.  Most people aren't so lucky.

**And, my God, they've got a nerve.

Redressing the Balance

Those who have been following the divorce proceedings in which Heather Mills and Paul McCartney have been embroiled (until a few days ago that did not include me) may be interested in this. Ms. Mills is 'Lying, vindictive, scheming, manipulative' according to many in the tabloid press. I take it then that their editors will be queuing round the block to offer her a job as these sound like ideal characteristics for a tabloid journalist. And before you start feeling sorry for 'Sir Paul' remember 'The Frog Chorus'* . Now that was a true crime against humanity.

Another article that seeks to redress the balance can be found here. Joan Smith points out that none of the women who formed relationships with 'Sir Paul' were treated particularly well by the press and the public. Many seemed to see the Beatles as public property, incapable of determining the course of their own lives. According to Ms. Smith, Linda McCartney received her share of bad press. She was only elevated to the status of secular saint when she became ill. Even the tabloid press wouldn't stoop so low as to attack a terminally ill woman. And, as the 'Diana' saga illustrated, everybody loves you when you're dead. Finally, whatever Jane Asher's reasons were for terminating her relationship with 'Sir Paul', it was probably one of the best decisions she ever made.

*Listen and puke.

Apparently I have Nothing Better to Do Than...

hang out at this blog.

punter (qual res) | 12.03.07 - 9:00 am | #

Louise, (for it is you), I have avoided addressing you directly before. Not out of fear but because mental illness is your thing and I tend to avoid accusing FJL directly of mental illness. I know too little about it and it does no good because she simply denies it and throws it back.

My thing? No, I never take credit when it isn't due. Let these people take the credit for that:
http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk...lower-a-flower/

Hmm, all those people lining up to kiss one guy's ass. An epidemic of backache must have ensued.



But Jailhouse lawyer is not me. He, as far as I know, does not post here and has no need to, because he has his own blog, and he has no record of commenting anonymously. He may well have an ego of his own. He certainly isn't afraid.

Message to Felicity: The next time you commit a crime, make it less serious. Don't target the online world's answer to the people's princess, bash a little old lady over the head with an axe instead. (And remember to use the blunt end because that somehow diminishes culpability.)
It's an excellent career move.



So - quoting what someone else wrote on JHL's blog is a bit of an obscure thing to be doing here.

And I note that you commented 3 times last night and then immediately responded to the first comment here. Are you, as some have suggested, hovering over these pages?

Who has suggested this then? One of your alter-egos? I'm just waiting to see what you'll accuse Ms. Lowde of next. Every misfortune this species has encountered since the fall? Or was she responsible for that too? That serpent was framed. On these pages it has been intimated that she is a prostitute, a holocaust denier and now this. Seriously, mate, are you trying to get her off? You know, if I were FJL I'd have started this blog myself, enticed my accusers (Victims, call them what you will) to comment on it and then induced the defence of provocation.



Please, comment under your own name and don't assume (à la fjl) that this blog or its comments are written by JHL. I dare say he would take credit for his own work. He has done so far.

And your given name is 'Punter'. And Shurly Some Mistake's name is 'Shurly Some Mistake'? Whatever.

I'm afraid you're the one making erroneous assumptions. You may not wish to take credit for other people's work but someone else certainly does. One of your...um...masterpieces was plagiarised on the comments section of my blog. The person responsible had Mr. Hirst's portal on his blogroll.

If Ms. Lowde is an attention junkie, then you are her dealers.

Witchfinder General

I am the Witchfinder and I wander
Through a deceptively tranquil countryside
In which daemons, devils, Lucifer himself reside

I pursue them, they run, they hide
I hunt them down. I am the dark shadow
That hovers over them, wounded, defeated

We hunt in packs - my minions and I
We run them to ground. Young girls, their faces
Smeared with blood and dust. We corner our prey

Respectable farm-girls until the crops failed
And it was that bad harvest that brought them to me
Wild eyes blazing defiantly

They resist but we persist and in the morning
The villagers gather wood for the fire
But I am the one who insists on igniting the pyre.

It's not the band we hate...

It's their fans.

In response to this:

Don't get too complacent. I've seen exactly the same behaviour by your compatriots on Usenet. But yes - these people are slightly deranged. Some of them actually believe that denigrating someone over the internet is more reprehensible than battering an old lady to death with an axe. Strange days indeed.

I recall one particular case in which the 'culprit' was a guy from Madison County, Wisconsin. However, I do not remember anyone criticising his physical appearance or suggesting that part of his rehabilitation should consist of performing sexual favours for the opposite sex.

I can't imagine why that could be.

Can you?

Publish and Be Damned

Just another point. Ms North, you asserted: 'As to whether she is mentally ill, I just don't know. The court didn't seem to think so.' The Courts? You mean the District Judge. Well, this may astound you but district judges are neither omniscient nor infallible, nor are they mental health professionals. Neither, for that matter, are the prison officers whose job it was to observe Lowde. Many mentally ill women are left to languish in gaol because the system simply is not equipped to deal with them. The 'special hospitals' are designed to deal primarily with male offenders. The fact that the District Judge chose not to take psychiatric reports into account says more about the lack of care available for mentally ill women than it does about the state of Ms Lowde's mental health. See, the personal really *is* political, even more often than *you'd* think.

BTW, if Ms Lowde doesn't suffer from any kind of mental illness does that mean she has been libelled by the many bloggers who asserted that she was? And do you condone or condemn the prejudice they exhibited towards the mentally ill during the course of their 'battle' to bring Ms Lowde to 'justice'. You may detach yourself from such comments but the fact that you failed to condemn them speaks volumes.

'Curiouser and Curiouser,' said the Theology Graduate

Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe she'll get to share a cell in Holloway with Felicity Whatsherface. Maybe they can anchor their respective mental illnesses to some kind of religion so that everyone, even their victims, will be tying themselves in knots in a fruitless attempt to understand why they did what they did.

Stalking, murder, stalking, murder...which is worse? You decide.

Oh, and it would appear that the rest of the world disagrees with the self-appointed bastions of British Blogdom (bloggery? Buggery?) who fought so hard to bring Ms Lowde to 'justice'.

'There is a very weird witchhunt-y feel to all this stuff about tracking her down

On reading the two blogs, that's my feeling as well. From what I can tell, what we seem to have here are two female bloggers involved in a catfight. One is popular and politically astute. The other is quite smart but clearly has serious psychological problems. Both seem to take great pleasure in publicly needling the other, but the astute one knows what lines she can and can't cross, how to whip up public support, and how to use the system to her advantage, while the unhinged one is obviously isolated and in need of help.

After reading the two blogs, I can't help but think I'd much prefer the more overtly insane one -- even though you know that eventually she'd turn on you over some imagined slight as well.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:13 AM on May 28

Damn straight!

Chaos

Accompany me on my journey
Over the sea. I am leaving
A country whose soil
Is stained with blood
I am the iconoclast
Cast in the role of villain

This is a kind of primal tribalism
I set myself apart for I am neither
The devil nor the divine
I swim against the tide
I resist the divide
I will not surrender

But they hunt in packs,
The emotional bloodhounds
I stand between them and their prey
I am pushed aside and we watch
As she ascends the scaffold
Old and mad and terrified

They celebrate their conquest
They serve as mutual mirrors
In this land of polarity
There is no dawn, no twilight
There is only day, there is only night
They will never love me
But their love was and always will be
A prize not worth possessing
A desire to belong used to burn inside me
It will not return for I know now
That their missiles do not always
Hit their target

For even they cannot hold back the night
Even they cannot hold back the tide
Even they cannot hold back the chaos
One day it will come rushing in
It will engulf them. Eventually.

This Is So Fucked Up...

This is the first account I have encountered that even makes an attempt at being objective. This whole sorry episode reveals what people really think of the mentally ill. To call it a 'witchhunt' is an understatement. Another blogger castigated Ms. Lowde for what he called her 'evil deeds'. On his own blog he called her a cyberterrorist. In another post he defends a former IRA RL terrorist. In what kind of moral universe can the former possibly be seen as worse than the latter. These people really terrify me.

http://tinyurl.com/2zbryv

Scroll down for this quote:

'Don't get on the soapbox about the Criminal justice system being soft on murder. Your (sic) soft on cyber stalking. Then again you are a bully.'

Madness. Absolute madness.

Will Somebody Please Get Me Out of This Rabbit Hole?

And this one, I think, will run and run. The Jade Goody/Big Brother story is still occupying column inches, still causing mass hysteria. Ms. Shetty is being interviewed around the clock and people are still comparing her favourably to Ms. Goody. Much has been made of Jade Goody's lack of intellectual prowess in comparison with that of the 'college educated' Ms. Shetty. Apparently she has appeared in fifty Bollywood films and speaks ten languages. Which begs the question: why on earth was she appearing on Big Brother at all. The programme is named after the manipulative, omnipotent dictator of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I'm surprised Ms. Shetty was unaware of this. Big Brother is also renowned for the bullying and vulgarity of many of its housemates. Surely Ms. Shetty viewed footage of past shows before she agreed to compete.

Media luminaries are lining up to inform Ms. Goody that she is not exactly the brightest star in the sky. Well, guess what, people, Ms. Shetty sounds as though she has had a better education than Ms. Goody because she has. There is a deeper issue here, one that the media is steadfastly refusing to confront. Is is right to gloat over the fact that a damaged young woman has been so poorly served by our education system?

I don't adhere to the concept of collective guilt so I don't believe Ms. Goody's conduct represents me. It has been suggested that we, as a nation, should be ashamed and embarrassed by Ms. Goody's behaviour. I disagree. Any embarrassment we feel should not be a result of what happened in the Big Brother House but by the way in which a minority of the population reacted: screaming for lynch mob 'justice' (an oxymoron if ever there was one) whilst being cheered on from the sidelines by our so-called intelligentsia. I'm surprised I didn't hear calls of 'Burn the witches.' Now, where is Matthew Hopkins when you need him?

I am the Witch

I am the witch
You all want to burn
For it is in me
You see your impurity
I am the mirror
That reflects you
You smash me to pieces
Into inconsequential parts
You tell me I have no soul
You tell me I have no heart

Once the stars were just eyes
Blinking in the blackest of skies
I revered those magnificent
Celestial bodies. Their positions fixed
So rigidly and, like the magpie
I was drawn to glittering things
They gazed upon me so smugly
Yet still I yearned to be
One of them, part of that posse
Partying up there in space

Among those two-dimensional
Paper-thin women, sneering
Rouged lips curving upwards
Dressed in fox-fur stoles
And silently, they mocked me
Until earthly gurus transformed me
Into a most alluring commodity
I became a supernova, untouchable
Slaying those silver stars
I became one of the higher angels

But I was only a puppet
They tugged on my strings
I did not feel those threads unravelling
Until I was falling, falling
This was my spectacular death
'The Diva is dead,' they said
As they danced on my remains
The hierarchy reasserts itself
'We nuked her. Didn't we, didn't we?
She is gone, Hasn't she, hasn't she?

I did not ask for this
But once I had it I could not
Relinquish it. I am their enemy
And they annihilate me
But I only played the role
Assigned to me. I am lost
Devoid of energy. I am eclipsed
I cannot recreate myself
They strip me of the skin I'm in
And I am truly untouchable now.