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Martí Noticias

GOLD STAR MOM TO POKER PLAYER MCCAIN: 'SORRY THE LIVES OF OUR BRAVE WARRIORS BORE YOU'

 

Responding to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) playing online poker on his iPhone during yesterday’s Senate hearing with Secretary of State John Kerry over war with Syria, Gold Star mother Debbie Lee fired back in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News. by Ben Shapiro

Read on breitbart >>

12-YEAR NIGHTMARE: Ariz. Mom Escapes Warren Jeffs' Polygamous Sect

Read at foxnews >>

De Madre a Madre: "¡LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS SON PARA LOS HUMANOS DERECHOS!"

Correo recibido:

telegraph.co.uk

Hace poco, las madres de PANDILLEROS encarcelados, realizaron una manifestación, exigiendo los  "DERECHOS" de sus hijos. Acá está la respuesta de una  madre ciudadana, hacia la  hacia la madre que protestaba:

DE  MADRE A MADRE:

"Vi tu enérgica protesta delante de las  cámaras de TV, en la reciente manifestación en favor de la  reagrupación de presos y su transferencia a cárceles cercanas a  sus familiares, y con mejores prestaciones.

Vi cómo te  quejabas de la distancia que te separa de tu hijo, y de lo que  supone económicamente para tí, ir a visitarlo como consecuencia de  esa distancia.

Vi también toda la cobertura mediática  que dedicaron a dicha manifestación, así como el soporte que  tuviste de otras madres en la misma situación y de otras personas  que querían ser solidarias contigo, y que contabas con el apoyo de  algunas organizaciones y sindicatos populistas, comisiones  pastorales, órganos y entidades en defensa de los derechos  humanos, ONGs etc. etc.

Yo también soy madre y puedo  comprender tu protesta e indignación.

Enorme es la  distancia que me separa de mi hijo. 

Trabajando mucho y ganando  poco, idénticas son las dificultades y los gastos que tengo para  visitarlo. Con mucho sacrificio sólo puedo visitarlo los domingos,  porque trabajo incluso los sábados para el sustento y educación  del resto de la familia. 

Felizmente, también cuento con el  apoyo de amigos, familia, etc. 

Si aún no me reconoces, yo soy  la madre de aquel joven que se dirigía al trabajo, con cuyo  salario me ayudaba a criar y mandar a la escuela a sus hermanos  menores, y que fue asaltado y herido mortalmente a balazos  disparados por tu hijo. 

En la próxima visita, cuando tú estés  abrazando y besando a tu hijo en la cárcel yo estaré visitando al  mío y depositándole unas flores en su tumba, en el cementerio.  

¡Ah! Se me olvidaba: ganando poco y sosteniendo la economía de  mi casa, a través de los impuestos que pago, tu hijo seguirá  durmiendo en un colchón y comiendo todos los días Y ADEMAS CUANDO SALGA TENDRA SU PAGA PARA QUE NO ROBE DURANTE UN TIEMPO,  O dicho de otro  modo:seguiré sosteniendo a tu hijo malhechor. 

Ni a mi casa, ni  en el cementerio, vino nunca ningún representante de esas  entidades (ONGs), que tan solidarias son contigo, para darme apoyo  ni dedicarme unas palabras de aliento.

¡Ni siquiera para  decirme cuáles son MIS DERECHOS! 

------------------------------------

¡Si estás de acuerdo con  esta carta, hazla circular!

Quizás entre todos, podamos  revertir estos valores que existen en nuestro país, donde los  delincuentes, ladrones, terroristas y corruptos tienen más  derechos que los ciudadanos honrados y trabajadores, que sólo  queremos vivir en paz.

¡LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS SON PARA LOS  HUMANOS DERECHOS!

Thinking the Unthinkable: "I live with a son who is mentally ill"

anarchistsoccermom

Michael holding a butterfly

In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”

“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off. 

Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.

The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?”

“No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.”

His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.”

That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.

“Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?”

“You know where we are going,” I replied.

“No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!”

I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.”

Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer.

The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—“Were there any difficulties with....at what age did your child....were there any problems with...has your child ever experienced...does your child have....” 

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.”

By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore.

On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map). Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. (http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/09/05/us-number-mentally-ill-prisons-quadrupled)

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail, and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011 (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140167676/nations-jails-struggle-with-mentally-ill-prisoners)

 No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”

I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.

God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
------------------------------------------
This story was first published online by the Blue Review. Read more on current events at www.thebluereview.org

On Being, Or Not Being, Adam Lanza’s Mother

inthesetimes

aangirfan.blogspot.com

By Lindsay Beyerstein

On Friday, as the nation grieved the mass shooting in Newtown, a mother blogged about her fears for her 13-year-old son, Michael:

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

The post was called "Thinking the Unthinkable," it was later republished under the headline "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother." It quickly went viral.

Michael's mother, who blogs as "Anarchist Soccer Mom," described what it's like to fear that your child is going to kill people, and have nobody take you seriously:

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

A vicious backlash against ASM is already underway. A widely-cited post entitled "You Are Not Adam Lanza's Mother," accuses her of dehumanizing the mentally ill, trafficking in stereotypes, and overmedicating her son. (This Monday morning quarterbacking of psych meds really bothers me. It's extraordinarily presumptuous for this blogger to second-guess the doctors of a kid s/he's never met.) 

We need to put ASM's post in context without demonizing her as a person. We shouldn't take her post as a commentary on all mental illness or on any particular disorder. She's not a professional or an expert. She's a mom who's terrified that her kid is going to hurt someone or himself.

Here's the truth: Most people with mental illnesses are not violent. Most disturbed kids don't grow up to be murderers. Hell, most murderers don't become mass murderers.

ASM doesn't blame her son's behavior on any particular condition. She says various professionals have bandied about terms like "autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant-, or Intermittent Explosive Disorder," but she says nobody knows what's wrong with him.

She's afraid that her kid is going to end up killing people, not because of some label, but because he pulled a knife on her and threatened her other kids.

Michael is an individual, not an metaphor for all people with mental illness, or autism, or blond hair, or anything else. Are we going to tell ASM, not knowing her kid, that she's wrong to be worried?

If a kid's own mother says there's a good chance that he's going to kill people, that's as big a red flag as anyone could possibly wave. It's insulting for total strangers to be discounting her fears out of hand and shaming her for voicing them.

Some critics are angry at ASM for violating her son's privacy. In this case, I think she was right to go public. Her blog is pseudonymous, but the post got republished under her real name.

A social worker warned ASM that nobody will take her seriously unless Michael's charged with a crime, but she doesn't want to send him to jail. At least by getting her story on the record, she's forcing doctors, administrators, and law enforcement to take her seriously. If Michael hurts somebody, they won't be able to say they weren't warned. Yes, a blog post could follow Michael around, but it's a lot better than a criminal record. Privacy is important, but it's not an absolute right. Michael is violent and the people around him have a right to know what he's already done and what his mother fears he might be capable of.

Another blogger, Sarah Kendzior, is spelunking through ASM's archives, trying to prove that she's a bad mom or a liar, or something. This is despicable.

I read ASM's entire archive, which consists of about 35 posts, spread out over 5 years. Kendzior promises "the truth" about ASM. I'm here to tell you Kendzior's full of shit. Malicious shit.

The post about Michael's illness is a major departure for ASM. She usually writes about being a classics profs, religion, the books she's reading, cheap chic outfits, her divorce, and her own adjustment to life as a single mother of four.

Kendzior implies that ASM is lying about her son because there's another post from January 2012 that describes him as a typical annoying teenager, as opposed to a maniac.* Guess what? Mentally ill teens are teens. They're walking the same developmental path as their neurotypical peers. As ASM said in her mental illness post, Michael is charming and intelligent on his good days.

Kendzior holds up this goofy Irma Bombeck-like post as evidence of ASM's parental depravity. ASM jokes that she could throttle her kids. What a monster. Get a load of this part:

Finally, Mr. Teen Hero in the front seat, blasting your music through your Skullcandies, if you take the name of Our Lord in vain one more time, I will tell all your facebook friends that you are really listening to Justin Bieber instead of Linkin Park.

In her greatest creative excess, Kendzior accuses ASM of having "Abraham-Isaac murder fantasies" for this pseudo-philosophical reflection on mountain climbing:

Why then do we choose not to summit a mountain? That question is more difficult for me. We choose because when we reach the moment of decision, we find ourselves insufficiently aware, informed, prepared. We choose not to succeed at some things because the risks outweigh the benefits. To give up something that you value greatly for those you love is to know the meaning of sacrifice in the Biblical sense. As I turned back from Mr. Regan’s taunting summit, as I wedged my body between sheer rock faces with vertical drops of more than 30 feet, as I scavenged for handholds in flaking granite, I thought of Abraham, knife poised above the body of his innocent son. Why does God give us these urges, then tell us not to act on them?

As if all this truth weren't shocking enough, Kendzior solemnly reminds us that ASM is D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D. Classy.

Kendzior went out of her way to malign a parent in crisis, a woman who's already living in fear that her son will kill her or her children.
Is this some sick manifestation of the "just world hypothesis'? Does Kendzior assume that only a bad mom would end up with a violent, mentally ill son?
It's ironic that the real Nancy Lanza's corpse wasn't even cold before people started attacking her for failing to control her son. With zero evidence, strangers were ranting and raving about how she didn't do enough to stop Adam.
Conservative pundit Ann Althouse even speculated that Nancy conspired to kill school children:

Why did Adam, after killing his mother, travel to the school where she worked? Shouldn't some suspicion fall on the mother? She looks like a victim, but could she and her son have been operating together?

ASM is afraid that her son might be violent. She had the courage to voice her fears. Now she's being vilified for trying to prevent another tragedy. Total strangers, again with no evidence, are lecturing her about her own son.
A mom just can't win.

*The post might not even be about Michael. ASM has two teenage sons, and the post doesn't mention any names.

'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother'

mashable

popcultureperversion.com

Charlie White 

Liza Long has a profound situation on her hands. Her 13-year-old son scares her. She says he has serious mental health problems, and she writes about her struggle and its larger implications in an essay that has gripped the Internet with its frank discussion of coping with mental health issues in children.

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, on blogs and social media, we're debating violence, gun control and mental health issues. We're searching for reasons why something like this could possibly happen. In her post, Liza writes that it’s easy to talk about guns. But she thinks it’s time to talk about mental illness.

In her moving essay, she writes in detail about her own son's illness:

"A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me."

According to her personal account, things got much worse:

"Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer."

She gives us her reasons for writing the post in the first place:

"I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother.And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness."

Read the rest of her powerful essay on her personal blog, The Anarchist Soccer Mom, or on another site that's republished it, The Blue Review.

Birthrights - Mothers saved

The Stories of Mothers Saved film is a collection of individual stories of women who did not die needlessly in pregnancy or childbirth and have lived to tell their stories. This film is part of the Stories of Mothers Saved initiative organised by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Mother's online breast milk service 'popular with men'

 

 

Toni Ebdon has been selling her spare breast milk

Cash-strapped Toni Ebdon, 26, gave birth earlier this year and found herself producing more than enough milk for baby boy David.
A friend joked that she was producing so much extra milk that Toni could open her very own dairy.
So she turned to the internet in a bid to offer expectant mothers who could not produce their own milk the chance to use hers.
But Toni was stunned when her only customers turned out to be men - who claim to use the milk for its healing properties.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/830232-mothers-online-breast-milk-service-popular-with-men#ixzz1F0c8ejCh