Day: 07/02/2015

Flattered by Opinionated Man

HARSH REALITY
My goal with this blog is to offend everyone in the world at least once with my words… so no one has a reason to have a heightened sense of themselves. We are all ignorant, we are all found wanting, we are all bad people sometimes.

It must be a heavy burden to have such a negative view of people.  In my blogging experience, I can’t recall coming across a blogger who has a “heightened sense of themselves” — actually, it’s usually the opposite.  Of course, there’s one exception, that being Mr. Jason Cushman from Opinionated Man.

I’m so flattered that Mr. Cushman talked about me on his blog:

http://aopinionatedman.com/2015/06/30/addicted-to-being-a-victim/

http://aopinionatedman.com/2015/06/30/it-all-makes-sense-now/

The above posts are dated after he left these comments on my blog (which I haven’t approved, but post here in their entirety).  I think it’s interesting that Opinionated Man was one of my early followers, but this is the first time he’s ever left comments on my blog.  Seven months without a peep, but when the subject is him personally, I get all this extra attention.

Submitted on 2015/06/29 at 4:44 pm | In reply to painkills2.
So you read some random posts on my blog that were not directed at you and decided it warranted a post where you and your “friends” could mock me? And you call me a bully? I did nothing to you and this is how you treat me and my blog? Sounds like you are the one with the issue here. Enjoy mocking me if that is how you spend your time. I find your reactive nature pretty pathetic. Take care, I was never anything but polite in my responses to you.

-OM

Submitted on 2015/06/29 at 4:48 pm
If you hate my blog don’t link to it please.

Submitted on 2015/06/29 at 5:37 pm
Reblogged this on HarsH ReaLiTy and commented:
Posting my blog so you and your friends can mock and bash me. All because someone wrote a nice post about me? Well done! You really taught me a lesson on cyberbullying. Maybe you should psychoanalyze yourself. -OM
Note: Comments disabled here, please visit their blog.

Submitted on 2015/06/29 at 6:06 pm | In reply to Opinionated Man.
Actually I removed this reblog. You don’t deserve a response from me after I thought about it. Take care and I hope you find some time for self-reflection. 🙂 -OM

Dear Mr. Cushman:

First of all, I didn’t read just a few random posts on your blog.  As I stated, I’ve visited your blog numerous times — the first time was when you decided to follow mine.  See, when someone follows my blog or likes one of my comments, I usually visit their blog in return.  I look around and try to find at least one post to “like.”  Sometimes, that’s hard to do, like with blogs that talk about god all the time (since I’m an atheist).  And I’m sorry to say that I also couldn’t find any posts on your blog to like.

That’s not a put down or anything — obviously people have different interests and like different things.  For instance, if you don’t suffer from chronic pain or have an interest in things like the drug war or homelessness, then you probably wouldn’t find my blog very interesting.  Which is one reason I find it odd that you’ve been following me for 7 months — up until recently.

Secondly, I don’t hate anyone or anybody’s blog.  But I did feel you were a little too full of yourself, even though you take great pains to hide it.  However, it’s not against the law to have an inflated ego, which was my take-away after recently digging further into your blog and reading even more of your posts.  You think that the world is full of people with a heightened sense of themselves, the reason you say you want to offend your readers — at least once. Ironically, you don’t see this in yourself.  I believe this is called “psychological projection.”

And I think this is all just part of a gimmick.  After all, controversy is one way of increasing your number of followers.  But I wasn’t offended by anything I read on your blog — just bored.

If one of your goals is to offend people and create controversy, then perhaps you should grow a thicker skin.  And maybe try to take blogging a little less seriously.  Learn to laugh at yourself once in awhile — you’ll live longer.

To show what I am

Addicted To Popularity

AOL.com is down

Reported to AOL Mail on Facebook and sitedown.co/aol:

Johnna Stahl:  Cannot access aol.com. Page is blank. What’s the problem and when will it be fixed?

https://www.facebook.com/aolmail?v=wall&rf=103762082996099

http://sitedown.co/aol

Which means I can’t access my email, so if I don’t respond to your comments, that’s why.

Evidence Counters Myths About Medicare, Medicaid

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Medicare/52404?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-07-02&eun=g875301d0r

In the first instance, a study conducted by investigators from Harvard Medical School and the City University of New York and published online in mid-June by the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that undocumented immigrants pay more into the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund than they take out…

Between 2000 and 2011, unauthorized immigrants generated a substantial surplus for the Medicare Trust Fund — $35 billion, according to the Harvard study. That ranges to between $2.2 billion and $3.8 billion per year, or $316 per capita for that population, compared with $106 per capita for the rest of the American population…

Antipsychotic Drug Rx for Teens: Too Much, Too Often?

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/52403?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-07-02&eun=g875301d0r

More than half the prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs prescribed to young people were not based on any clinical diagnosis, according to the first ever descriptive analysis on youth trends for the use of antipsychotic medication.

Mark Olfson, MD, MPH, of Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues found that between 57% and 67% of youth ages 1-24 who were prescribed these drugs had no outpatient or inpatient claim that included a mental disorder diagnosis. Moreover, the data suggest that script for these medications is rarely written by a child or adolescent psychiatrist…

In addition, Olfson added that he was surprised that the majority of young people receiving antipsychotics did not receive psychotherapy treatment. Only a small portion of young people receiving this medication had an outpatient claim for psychotherapy (range: 13.5%-24.8%)…

FDA Probes Kids’ Codeine Cough Syrups

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/FDAGeneral/52405?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-07-02&eun=g875301d0r

WASHINGTON — The FDA said it is investigating all use of codeine-containing cough syrups in children under 18, due to the drug’s potentially life-threatening side effects such as respiratory depression. In 2013, the agency recommended these products not be used for children following tonsillectomy and/or surgery on adenoids…

I guess if adults are going to be suffering from lack of options for pain management, children will have to suffer too.

What chronic pain patients face in Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/blog/no-quick-fix-to-prescription-drug-abuse-1.3131971

Have they put a stop to narcotic abuse? For a whole bunch of reasons, tamper-proof pills have not solved the narcotic crisis, say the authors of the commentary. First, if you think addicts always chew, crush or dissolve drugs like OxyContin, you’re wrong. Many of them swallow the tamper proof pills intact. Compared to crushing or chewing, it may take more time to get high. But if you take enough of them, you will. Second, the fact that OxyContin was tamper proof simply motivated addicts to experiment with other narcotics to get high. That’s one of the main reasons why we’ve got a growing problem of addiction to another narcotic named fentanyl. Overdose deaths due to fentanyl are on the rise…

http://idpc.net/alerts/2015/06/prescription-for-life-addressing-opioid-overdose-in-ontario

The Province of Ontario has become a leader in Canada when it comes to per-capita opioid prescribing and high-dose opioid dispensing, and along with it has earned 13 straight years of record setting opioid overdose fatalities…

A group of drug strategy representatives from across the Province known as the Municipal Drug Strategy Co-ordinator’s Network of Ontario (MDSCNO) have taken up the tremendous task of releasing a detailed report on “key actions urgently needed to improve opioid safety and reduce accidental opioid overdose fatalities and injuries…

“It is critical to understand that people who are at-risk of an accidental overdose include individuals who are taking opioids as prescribed, in addition to people using opioids non-medically…” – Prescription for Life, Summary Report

The first recommendation made by the MDSCNO regarding overdose policy is to develop and implement a real-time prescription monitoring and surveillance system…

Click to access CDPC_OverdosePreventionPolicy_Final_July2014.pdf

Out of 2,330 drug-related deaths in Ontario between 2006 and 2008, 58 percent were attributed, either in whole or in part, to opioids. Between 2002 and 2010 there were 1654 fatal overdoses attributed to illegal drugs in British Columbia, and between 2002 and 2009 there were 2,325 illegal drug-related overdose hospitalizations. Opioid overdose deaths in BC in 2012 numbered 256, somewhat fewer than 2011 when there were 294 deaths. The greater number of deaths in 2011 was due in part to an increase in the purity of heroin on the street. There were also 95 opioid overdose deaths in Quebec in 2011, compared to 51 in 2000.

Similar to the us, alarm about the increasing use of nonmedical prescription opioids has increased in Canada in recent years, due to increases in the use of prescribed opioids. Research in the US suggests that there is a strong correlation between increased prescribing of these drugs and an increase in harms such as overdose injury, death, and treatment admissions. In Ontario, for example, regions with a high incidence of opioid related deaths per capita had high rates of prescription opioid use. In response to these concerns, seven provinces removed OxyContin from provincial drug formularies in 2012…

As the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports, if the use of one drug is controlled by reducing supply, suppliers and users may move on to another drug with similar psychoactive
effects, but of greater potency and purity. As Oxy products have been removed from many of the provincial and federal formularies in Canada, some people have switched to equally strong prescribed drugs or are seeking other illegal alternatives. Data and anecdotal evidence suggest that the nonmedical use of prescription opioids has become more prevalent than heroin use…

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-624-x/2012001/article/11696-eng.htm

In 2009 there were 3,890 suicides in Canada, a rate of 11.5 per 100,000 people…

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for people of all ages. In 2009, it ranked as the ninth leading cause of death in Canada. Among those aged 15 to 34, suicide was the second leading cause of death, preceded only by accidents (unintentional injuries)…

Homeless Man Blows Us Away With His Moving Piano Performance

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/homeless-man-sarasota-keys-piano-project_n_7707814.html

People across the Internet are mesmerized by one homeless man’s amazing musical skills.

Donald Gould, a homeless man, was seen playing a moving cover of Styx’s “Come Sail Away” on a public piano that was placed in Sarasota, Florida, as part of the city’s Sarasota Keys Piano Project. The moving performance was caught on camera and uploaded to Facebook where it went viral with more than 2.3 million views and over 93,000 shares…

Aroar Natasha

Sarasota installed ‘public pianos’ throughout downtown. This homeless man now has the opportunity to be something other than ‘just a nuisance’ to all the people downtown. Just took my breath away. Wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCguq3hTC2M

An Open Letter to Black Women About Mental Health

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/minaa-b/an-open-letter-to-black-women-about-mental-health_b_7662862.html

I remember the first time I became aware of my own struggles with mental health. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I isolated myself from my peers and I was extremely irritable and always frustrated with the world and with my life. I was 16 years old when I came to the conclusion that I could no longer handle the life that I was given and I became suicidal. I was consumed and obsessed with the thought of ending my life, and I took the first step when I began to self-mutilate and neglect any health concerns related to my body.

Now, at the age of 25, I take a look back at my fragile 16-year-old self and ask her, “Why didn’t you get help?” …

Dear Black Women:

Yes, you are queens. Yes, you are magical. Yes, you are strong and yes, you have a resilient heart that is capable of enduring pain and surpassing any struggle. But I want you to know that above all else, you are human, and mental health is a serious illness that does not discriminate. Despite popular belief, it is not a “white people problem,” and our young black boys and young black girls are also susceptible to this growing epidemic consisting of physical and mental dysfunction and maladaptive behaviors…

I want you to know that it is OK to struggle; it is OK for you to not have it all together, it is OK for you to feel weak and it is OK for you to admit to the universe that you can’t do life on your own. Black women, your life is deserving of its best chance; please step out of your own way. I don’t want you to be one of the African-Americans who die by suicide every 4.5 hours in the U.S. I want you to understand that suicide is the third leading cause of death for young black males ages 15-24; these are the young black talented men that we are raising.

We can no longer turn a blind eye to the subject of mental illness within our community. Studies show that 63 percent of African-Americans believe that depression is a personal weakness. The top-rated barriers to treatment for African-Americans are denial, embarrassment and shame.
I want you to know that you have nothing to be ashamed of. You are worthy, you are loved and your life is worth fighting for…

#respectyourstruggle

If you — or someone you know — need help, please call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. If you are outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of international resources.

#FeelTheBern

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/bernie-sanders-madison_n_7709966.html

Wednesday’s rally was Sanders’ largest yet, and may be the biggest of the 2016 cycle overall. Clinton’s campaign launch drew approximately 5,500 people to New York City’s Roosevelt Island, while about 3,000 supporters attended Jeb Bush’s kickoff in Miami…

“When you deny the right of workers to come together in collective bargaining, that’s extremism,” Sanders said, going after Wisconsin Gov. and White House hopeful Scott Walker. “When you tell a woman that she cannot control her own body, that’s extremism.” …

Wisconsin Defender @wi_defender
Fittingly, the only empty seats at this #BernieSanders rally are the luxury boxes. #Bernie2016 #FeelTheBern

Shy Moon

“At the root of the shy temperament is a deep fear of social judgment, one so severe it can sometimes be crippling. Introverted people don’t worry unduly about whether they’ll be found wanting, they just find too much socializing exhausting and would prefer either to be alone or in the company of a select few people.”  Jeffrey Kluger

“I have reason to be shy. I’ve been hurt plenty.”  Ethel Waters

“As a young person, and I know it’s hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn’t do normally if I was just by myself.”  Annie Leibovitz

(Photo taken 6/29/2015.)

The Market

https://myfridayblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/the-market/

The former sprinter, her body wrecked from years of training and competition, went to the pain clinic in an attempt to find relief. The doctors of the clinic, afraid of the DEA’s crack-down on prescription pain-killers were very reluctant to prescribe any medication they knew would be somewhat effective…

Someone she knew attempted to convince her to grow some of her own plants, but the expense, insects and structure of the law in her state prevented her from trying. Another friend, suggested she skirt the law and purchase the marijuana from the much less expensive black market. She was reluctant to do so, but was also desperate for relief…