Schizophrenia is not a disease, not a mental illness, not an incurable condition!  Whether it is psychiatrists or other mental health professionals or Schizophrenia Ireland or the American Psychiatric Association who claim that schizophrenia is a mental illness and is either hereditary or biological or biochemical in nature, there is no evidence to back up such an assertion.  Nevertheless, this medical perspective continues to hold sway even though the major psychotropic drugs used cause more problems to the individuals labelled schizophrenic than the problems they presented with in the first place.  Psychiatrists and general practitioners minimise the side-effects of these drugs; but the experience of those who take them are that the dire effects are way beyond being ‘side issues.’  The most common effects are considerable weight gain, loss of energy and concentration, tumours, muscle spasms and loss of libido.

The recent high number of deaths on our roads resulted in a call for Gay Byrne, Chairman of the Road Safety Authority, to resign his post.  This is scapegoating; Gay Byrne is not responsible for the spate of fatalities and calling for his head is not going to help us one bit down the road of understanding and resolving the sad carnage on our roads.  Ultimately, responsibility comes down to the individual person.  However, Gay Byrne did not do himself any favours by stating that he did not know what more could be done to stop the fatalities.  This statement does beg the question: what is he doing as Chairman of the Road Safety Authority if he believes nothing more can be done?  

Zidane’s head butting of the Italian player Materazzi has provoked considerable controversy.  One thing is certain, Zidane deserved the sanction of being red carded, no matter how insulting were Materazzi’s remarks.  However, the tongue is mightier than the sword and, certainly, the head butt, and Meterazzi’s verbal violence also deserved a red card.  It is here where injustice often lurks, because this was not the case of a perpetrator and a victim; this was a case of two perpetrators, and the most violent of them was not sanctioned!  Ironically, the French team was sanctioned, because they now had to play with ten players and the French and non-partisan spectators and the one billion T.V. viewers were also sanctioned by having to look at an unequal contest.  It would appear to me when an individual player is physically or verbally violent that strong sanctions need to be applied to the perpetrator, but not to the team or to the spectators.  It reminds me of school that when one student in a class is disruptive, very often the whole class suffers, which is an unjust response.

Sometimes, one of the hardest things to do is to be real, to be authentic, to be genuine, to say out what you truly feel, think and need.  Being real is never about talking about somebody else, but it is about talking and taking action for self.  There are those who believe you should say straight out what you feel and think, whether it is about self or another.  However, if you call your wife ‘stupid’ or ‘histrionic’ or ‘a controller’, you are not being real, but you are being defensive.