Quote of the week
My colleagues and I often care for patients suffering from hallucinations, prophesying, and claiming to speak with God, among other symptoms—in mental health care, it’s sometimes very difficult to tell apart religious belief from mental illness…. Our conclusions frequently stem from the behaviors we see before us. Take an example of a man who walks into an emergency department, mumbling incoherently. He says he’s hearing voices in his head, but insists there’s nothing wrong with him. He hasn’t used any drugs or alcohol. If he were to be evaluated by mental health professionals, there’s a good chance he might be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. But what if that same man were deeply religious? What if his incomprehensible language was speaking in tongues?
Scientific American
On bad cartoons
As with his lord and saviour, Trump, it’s all a con. Jerm’s business strategy is to produce deliberately offensive work and then crow about how the fake news media is distorting his intent. He then turns to his followers and asks them to continue financially supporting his brave crusade. But, for a supposed satirist, he doesn’t seem especially concerned with actually making jokes or wry observations about social folly. Jerm seems to exist under a perpetual cloud of humourless outrage, endlessly frothing at the bit about teen climate activists, post-modernists, anti-fascist groups or whatever other enemy he is pathologically obsessed with at any particular moment.
