Tag: huffington-post

By on

Judy Sandler, in Huffington Post, made an interesting observation about her reticence to discuss her son’s mental health with others. He is struggling with it but how do you talk about it without causing more, possibly well-meaning but, nonetheless, unwanted follow up questions or invading your child’s privacy.

This leads to a bigger question for me — why is mental health such a forbidden topic of discussion? How is silence helping anyone dealing with mental health? It is a problem that a lot of people experience — either personally or through loved ones. Instead of talking about it, we him and haw, give vague answers that say nothing and undermines any understanding that other people might have about mental health struggles.

There is this hidden shame. My kid is a mess and it is a really difficult time for us. My kid is a failure.

People, by and large, are interested in your life and aren’t nosing around for gossip. It is genuine concern. But it is mental health. We don’t talk about mental health problems. There is this weird connection with good mental health and the goodness of the person. If I tell someone my son is having mental health issues, I have somehow failed as a parent. Alcoholics, schizophrenics, drug addicts, depressed people are all somehow bad people who should be hidden away until they come to their senses.

This silence about people who are suffering with their mental health is damaging. It discourages people from seeking help. It also puts the onus of diagnosing mental health with the person breaking down or their families.

If we, as a country, were serious about mental health — everyone would get a yearly mental health check in to see how people are doing.

But no we would rather wait until a mother kills her children. Or a young man shoots up his schools. Or a depressed person kills themselves. Or drug addicts camp out on our streets. So many of our problems have a mental health connection. An annual mental health check ups would be far cheaper than cleaning up the mess broken people make.

It also might take some of the shame out of seeing mental health professionals. If everyone is doing it we might diminish the silence regarding mental health issues and, more importantly, we might be able to pro-actively address the problems people are dealing with before they breakdown.

By on

I was laying in bed this morning thinking about what important issue I was going to tackle today in my blog. Yes, dear reader, this is how seriously I take my blogging. It is the first thing I think about in the morning. Any way, enough about me, I remembered seeing in the Huffington Post’s headlines a post about J.D. Vance’s Astrological Chart. See below. I also provide a link to the actual chart if you are so inclined to pursue this type of prognostication device to understand the future of our vice-president.

I do not however and it occurred to me that I have been scrolling by these posts without much thought.

Now, first, I have to confess I like a good astrological chart as much as the next guy but J.D. Vance’s seems like a big waste of space. I realize this is in the Life section of Huffpost, so media outlets have a lot of leeway about what goes in the section. It should be fun — advice columns, crossword puzzles, comics and general astrological predictions. So, for example, my astrological sign is Cancer. I would be perfectly fine with an astrological column saying something like “Cancers will wake up this morning with a startling realization about the media.” This is harmless fun. I could laugh about and say yes that’s what happened to me.

But J.D. Vance’s astrological chart isn’t really an appropriate Life posting. J.D. Vance is a major political figure in a position of power. Providing space for an astrologer to speculate about his future is waste of time and space. The reading is, as almost all astrological readings are, vague and could conceivably apply to any number of people sharing his astrological sign or not. And what have I learned about Vance — that his sun sign is Leo and he is a Leo rising is hardly worth troubling my eyes to pursue.

This is worse than a gossip column in that, at least with gossip, you may be getting the truth about a famous person. Yes I don’t have anything to do with this person, it will in no way help me in my life and is certainly a waste of my time — but it may be true. And there is something important about the truth. While an astrological chart is giving you ambiguous information that is relevant only to the person who’s chart the astrologer is reading. A chart, by the way, that this person will probably never read. Helpful right?

To further disappoint my expectations in the Huffington Post, they think this post is so important to actually highlight that they have an article about J.D. Vance’s astrological chart. Instead of hiding this post in a hard to find place so people won’t realize the bullshit they are posting, they are proudly highlighting it for everyone to see. They are actually wanting people to read it. Their shameless pandering knows no bounds. I am gobsmacked.

Finally, I am disappointed in myself because I’ve been seeing these astrological posts of current political figures for some time and hadn’t thought a thing about it. My obliviousness to bullshit now is remarkably high. Just more bullshit on the bullshit pile. I go to the next post without giving it a second thought. It took actual time for me to reach the bullshit conclusion which means how much bull shit am I missing?

This is truly scary.

By on

Nepo kids, a perfect term by the way, are the children of famous people who, supposedly of their own accord, also obtain a modicum of success in some famous person profession. There is some, not totally unwarranted, suspicion that these kids had a leg up in their climb to success. Well, the Huffington Post recently highlighted the struggles that many of these Nepo kids had when they matured. Many were financially abandoned by their parents and forced to get jobs. You heard that right jobs. Think about it. Just remember to have a hanky near you as the stories of their travails are heart rendering. Just in case you missed the link here it is again — Nepo kids. (Hint, please read the link)

I found myself laughing over this pathetic attempt to make these people stories even remotely like a real person’s struggle. The first story shows how really difficult these kids have it. Dakota Johnson had to ask her mother for money instead of her father after he cut her off financially. That was her big problem. I mean it sounds like Hell, I know. I am not sure how the poor thing survived.

Then there is the story of Jamie Lee Curtis. She was cut out of her father’s will which was pretty shabby if you were a 18 year old girl but she was 52 years old when her father died. I think she had plenty of time to milk her parent’s fame and fortune in her rise to the top. Tori Spelling also had will problems. Her take was only $800,000. What an insult, if I would have been her I wouldn’t even have bothered to collect it.

Then they talk about Prince Harry and this is when I started laughing uncontrollably. They are trying to say that that idiot’s climb to corporate power and a luxury home in one of the poshest, if not the poshest, towns in Southern California is the result of his talent and not that his father is the King of England. I mean isn’t the whole structure of the monarchy based in nepotism? I mean if anyone deserves to be called a Nepo kid, Prince Harry is the definition.

But Kourtney Kardashian gives away the game when she said her Dad told her he would help her find a job. Well, yes, there it is — the leg up. You got a break that a normal person wouldn’t get. Their stories are clearly different to the struggles of less connected and wealthy people. Their complaints are incomprehensible to me.

This points to a bigger problem which is a blindness to what is actually happening to the rest of the world who aren’t as fortunate. It is disheartening and more than a little disingenuous. Some of these people might be genuinely talented and deserve their success. OK. But the world is full of talented people. Most of them don’t have the connections these people have and it matters.

I don’t blame them for using these advantages. I would have used them too if I were in their position. But, a little humility about your good fortune would help. To be helped by your parents is not a terrible thing. People do understand it and most people accept that people will use these connections to get ahead. Just say yeah I did have leg up and put your fucking struggles into perspective before opening your mouth.