Egypt going forward

Hamza El-Nakhal wrote a letter to The Davis Enterprise, today, regarding the situation in Egypt, his native country.

He wrote:

I am so proud of all the defenseless Egyptian youths who stood up to the dictator and his terrorist regime for 18 days in Tahrir (Liberation) square in downtown Cairo. They endured the shutting down of communication means such as the Internet and mobile phone services, thugs on horseback, criminal drivers who plowed through the pedestrians, rock throwing, rubber and live bullets, tear gas and cocktail bombs, and freeing criminal prisoners and ordering them to cause as much chaos as possible in the civilian population.

I too feel good about the peaceful demonstrators in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt. They behaved admirably. However, it should be noted that, as brutal as the Mubarak government (and the thugs within his political party) could be, that regime was tame compared to most Arab and Muslim governments. It is pure hyperbole to call Mubarak's government a "terrorist regime," when it is seen in the light of Syria, Algeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran.

Protests have spread recently to Libya. Not surprisingly, Col. Kaddafi's response was much more violent than Gen. Mubarak's was:

The severity of a Libyan crackdown on its so-called Day of Rage began to emerge Friday when a human rights advocacy group said 24 people had been killed by gunfire on Thursday and news reports said further clashes with security forces were feared at the funerals for the dead.

A later report from the AP says 84 have been killed by Col. Kaddafi's goons.



Mr. El-Nakhal adds that, "Egyptians lived under the iron fist of that regime for almost 30 years." That is true. But it's not the case that before Mubarak Egyptians had legitimately elected or liberal governments. Nasser and Sadat were, like Mubarak, military leaders who became dictators. Before them, Egypt had a king in power.

While Mubarak was no more democratic than his predecessors, he was no less. And in fact, Mubarak had started to liberalize their socialist economy. That liberalization led to the creation of new industry in Egypt, and its byproduct was a rising economy and a new middle class. The protestors in Tahrir Square were not peasants. Nor were most of them workers in Egypt's socialist enterprises. A great percentage of them were educated, middle class people whose fortunes were improved by the liberalization.

I hope the coming elections will be democratic. I have a small wager that they will be. However, because of the widespread illiteracy and bad education in Egypt, the ubiquitous poverty--the L.A. Times reports that about 40% of Egyptians live on $2 a day or less--and the lack of a tradition of democratic governance and the troubling influence of Muslim extremists, I don't have a lot of hope for much democracy after the elections.

One problem is that the military in Egypt is an independent entity which wants to end liberalization and return to the socialist ways which were adopted in the 1950s when Soviet planners directed the Egyptian economy:

The Egyptian military defends the country, but it also runs day care centers and beach resorts. Its divisions make television sets, jeeps, washing machines, wooden furniture and olive oil, as well as bottled water under a brand reportedly named after a general’s daughter, Safi.

From this vast web of businesses, the military pays no taxes, employs conscripted labor, buys public land on favorable terms and discloses nothing to Parliament or the public. ...

Field Marshal Tantawi, the defense minister, and other senior officers were all commissioned before Mr. Sadat switched Egypt’s allegiance to the West in 1979. They trained in the former Soviet Union, where sprawling business empires under military control were not uncommon. ...

(American ambassador to Egypt), Margaret Scobey, wrote of the plans for economic liberalization: “The military views the (government owned enterprise's) privatization efforts as a threat to its economic position, and therefore generally opposes economic reforms. We see the military’s role in the economy as a force that generally stifles free market reform by increasing direct government involvement in the markets.”

One probable political change in the next year, whether there are democratic elections or not, is that Egypt will become more socialist in its economy. The trend toward liberalization will end. And many of those protestors who helped to topple Mubarak will be disemployed as their new industries are shut down and replaced by government companies under the control of the military.

Socialism is not compatible with democracy. A stagnant, uncompetitive economy is not compatible with democracy. A military in charge of an economy is not compatible with democracy. In the end, it looks very unlikely that Egypt will soon be a truly free, democratic country.

Davis City Council -- selecting a new member

Here is my take on the odds of each of the 10 candidates being selected:

Dan Wolk--31.35%
Kari Fry--27.40%
Sherelene Harrison--10.67%
Kerry Loux--10.03%
Walter Bunter, Jr.--6.55%
Steve Williams--4.93%
Linda Parfitt--2.76%
Paul Boylan--2.59%
Vincent Wyatt--1.98%
Robert Smith--1.75%

EDIT: After watching the LWV's forum--which can be viewed here--two candidates stood out to me as much stronger than they did in their videos recorded with Davis Media Access. Those two were Steve Williams and Paul Boylan. I don't mean that to demean the performances of any of the others. Williams and Boylan came across as confident, informed and having a sense what the four members of the council should be looking for in a new colleague.

Target Map

Conaway Map

This is an aerial map of Conaway Ranch:

Davis RDA Map

PHEV

Legalize it

Trex

Miss Iowa

Understanding Regis Philbin, but still not liking sea cucumbers

One of the joys of writing a column is getting letters from my readers. After I explained what a boring sport soccer is, I got this entertaining missive from a reader named Mayra. Here is my reply:

Hi Mayra,

Nice to hear from you.

You begin:

“okay you are out of your mind!!! your article really offended me! i cant believe someone would let you actually write this article about soccer!!”

They only let me out of the psychiatric ward to write my column occasionally.

“many people love soccer!! if basketball, baseball and football are so much better, how come they dont have a world cup??!”

I’ll be sure to explain to the Yankees that there really is no such thing as the World Series.

You continue:

“… you know why?? because only americans think that these sports are cool. i think football, baseball, and basketball are really boring!!”

Everyone has his or her own tastes and or opinions. That’s why Regis Philbin has a career on TV.

“your so called "tips" are useless. making the goals bigger will be way too easy to score goals from even half of the field!!”

I’ve never thought scoring was such a terrible thing. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.

“soccer is more intense because its non-stop except for half time.”

Of course, it’s also non-start.

“in soccer you have to be really good to score a goal. and in basketball pretty much anyone could score, not much skill in that.”

I’ll tell Kobe Bryant that the next time I run into him.

“also in soccer when you score one goal it counts as one point no matter where the person scores it from. and in basketball one score could be like 2 or 3 points which is pretty lame to me. why cant it just be one point?!”

You make a very good point. Shakespeare wrote tragedies about lesser crises than the three-point field goal.

“also in football one touchdown would be 6 points, why so much for one touchdown?!”

Maybe because it’s six times as exciting as a soccer goal?

“the u.s. game vs. nigeria was really suspense, even though it was only one goal it was worth it.”

I won’t let the Algerians know you called them Nigerians. Wars have begun over lesser slights.

“what really sucks is that the u.s. soccer team doesn't get enough support from people like you.”

If they would let me off the psych ward more often, I might be a greater athletic supporter.

“people should support the team because they are playing internationally and it takes hard work competing against other countries.”

Fortunately, we have a very good military. So if they beat us on the field, we can send in the Marines.

“who ever wins the world cup, they are the best in the world not just in the nation.”

That is hard to argue with.

“soccer is a fun and an exciting sport, you should try it first before criticizing.”

I tried sea cucumber once at a Chinese restaurant. I didn’t care for it, either.

“support the u.s. this saturday against ghana.”

And miss the Davis Farmer’s Market?

All the best,

Your good friend,

Rich

Arizona immigration

Nishi Property

Prisons vs. Higher Education

Not seeing the forest for the trees

The missing piece of the puzzle of why Amy Bishop shot six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, killing three, is mental illness. The idea that she was a perfectly normal person who just snapped due to stress brought on by the loss of her job is absurd.

However, exactly what disease she has is unknown. Her husband has said she never had seen a psychiatrist or had any psychiatric disorder. Yet every story which has come out about her past, including the fact that she killed her brother, possibly sent a bomb to one of her other colleagues and harassed her neighbors suggest she was a very disturbed person for a long time.

This ABC News story is the best I have seen at getting to the question of her likely mental illness:

Accused Alabama shooter Amy Bishop screamed and cursed at children, instigating confrontations with their parents, according to former neighbors who painted a frightening portrait of an woman accused of a killing rampage.

Former Massachusetts neighbors described the brilliant scientist as a woman who 15 years ago had "face-to-face, nose-to-nose confrontations" over evening basketball games, skateboarders and even whether an ice cream truck would be allowed on the child-friendly street.

"She picked fights with them," said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified because Bishop's children return summers to visit their grandparents -- Judy and Samuel Bishop -- who still live on Fille Street in quiet Ipswich, Mass.

"The ice cream truck was banished from the street because [Bishop] told them her children were lactose intolerant," said the neighbor. "She even had one of the children's teachers fired."


Last week Bishop was arrested for killing three professors and injuring three others -- all colleagues at University of Alabama in Huntsville -- during a faculty meeting. She is currently on suicide watch.

Soon more disturbing news emerged from Bishop's background. Investigators unearthed several disturbing pieces to the puzzle of the suspect, an accomplished cellular biologist and mother of four children aged 8 to 18.

In 1986, she shot her then 18-year-old brother Seth Bishop with a shotgun at their home in Braintree, Mass., but was never charged in the shooting.

And in 1993, she and her husband were questioned by police after a pipe bomb was mailed to one of Bishop's colleagues, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg.

I'm quite certain that Bishop's husband is completely innocent in her crimes. However, I sense that he cannot see the forest for the trees. For whatever reason, her very peculiar behavior and paranoid personality strikes him as perfectly normal. Yet everyone else saw Amy Bishop as off her rocker.

James Anderson has said that he and his wife were cleared in the mail bomb investigation and were never suspects.

Anderson told ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston Monday that he had no idea why his wife would shoot their co-workers.

"Nobody understands what happened. Nobody knew," he said.

Anderson told The Associated Press that he and Bishop went to a shooting range just weeks before the killing, but said the family did not own a gun.

This is the first story on this case I have seen which gets the views of trained psychiatrists:

Though many at the university had heard grumblings that she had been denied tenure, police, psychological experts and even her own family say her motivation is an enigma.

"For a faculty member to murder colleagues after denial of tenure would probably require 'standard' experiences of disappointment, a sense of betrayal, and desperation and the additional burden of mental illness, either a severe depression or some form of psychosis," said Dr. Stephen Shuchter, professor of clinical psychiatry emeritus at The University of California, San Diego.

"We are likely to learn about these only if the perpetrator chooses to defend herself by presenting the mitigating circumstances of an insanity defense," he told ABCNews.com.

Bishop's strange personality was not unknown to some of her colleagues and neighbors:

Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop then, described her as "an oddball" and "socially a little awkward," according to the Boston Globe.

Among former neighbors, Bishop was cantankerous and not well liked.

Ipswich police logged two calls for neighborhood disputes from Bishop, and in 2002, she reported receiving harassing calls, according to local reports.

Once, neighbors organized a block party and didn't tell Bishop because of conflicts she had with people.

"We never had any issue with them directly," said the grandmother who knew the family. "But it was very uncomfortable with the other neighbors. Amy was not friendly. The high school kids at the time were very in to sports and they'd come out and play from 8:30 to 10 at night. The noise was bothersome to her."

If Bishop has a serious mental illness, it was not diagnosed:

... many psychiatric disorders can go undiagnosed for years, especially for those who lead insular lives.

"People in science and computers are solitary people," said Dr. Igor Galynker, associate chairman for the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein college of Medicine.


"They work in solitude and they don't need to interact in complex social situations and can be paranoid for a long time without someone realizing."

Schizophrenia can be marked by social isolation, odd behavior, "strange disordered" thinking and speaking, poor hygiene and lack of friends, according to Galynker.

Often people don't notice signs until more serious symptoms emerge.

"Brilliant scientists are supposed to be crazy," he told ABCNews.com.

My sense is that those who knew her and didn't think she was mentally ill likely assumed her eccentricities were normal behavior for a scientist.

Anti-social personality disorders can also result behavior that is "incompatible with laws," like stealing or shooting, he said. And in narcissism, a person can display disregard for the feelings of others or seek self-aggrandizement and, like Bernie Madoff, can be "very charming."

Psychotics like Seung-Hui Cho, the student who who killed 31 at Virginia Tech in 2007, are particularly dangerous.

Killers like Cho view others as inconsequential and often humiliation can set off a psychotic depression that could make a person violent or suicidal, said Galynker.

Those with personality disorders, such as Eric Harris, who went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in 1999, are particularly dangerous.

"They don't have a conscience," said Frank Ochberg, a Michigan psychiatrist and founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

"There is the fear of getting caught, and then you get away with it and you harbor a sense that all these other people are crazy," said Ochberg. "There's a sense of entitlement."

Any of those psychiatric disorders could justify an insanity defense -- lacking the capacity to know right from wrong , according to both psychiatrists.

Ochberg, who is an expert in psychopathic predators and mass shootings, said female shooters are rare, but he admits, "mothers have done tragic things. They have killed their kids."

"In general being a woman and a mother makes you more in tune with your feelings, more nurturing and sympathetic," said Ochberg. "I believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but some women are from Mars."

NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness

One of the laudable goals of NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) is to reduce the stigma associated with mental disease. The idea is to make Americans aware of the fact that psychiatric problems are not the patient's fault. They are not the product of bad parenting or moral weakness. They are biological illnesses, like cancer or the flu. They are not contagious and they can be treated effectively with a combination of pharmaceuticals and psychotherapy.

The hope is that by reducing stigma patients with mental issues will then seek out treatment, get well and be fully accepted as regular contributing members of society.

Ironically, however, NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness.

Why?

NAMI opposes involuntary treatment for the seriously mentally ill. NAMI's ideology is that the mentally ill are the same as everyone else and as such, they should not be forced into treatment. If we have to force some patients to take anti-psychotic medications, that would suggest that those folks really are not the same as you and me.

But allowing all patients to decide for themselves if they want to take anti-psychotic drugs means that many won't -- particularly those who, due to their disease, cannot understand that they are really sick -- and therefore we will necessarily have thousands of very sick mental patients all over the country not receiving treatment. Those untreated patients will act in a bizarre fashion and sometimes commit horrific crimes. And nothing does more to increase the stigma of mental illness than when a person with serious psychiatric problems becomes a danger to society.

More people today associate mental illness with violent crimes than they ever did in the past. And the greatest source of stigmatization of mental illness is its association with violence, according to the Surgeon General.

If you were trying to create a stigmatizing scenario about someone with serious mental illness on the loose, you could do a lot worse than portray Kain Figuereo. Everything about him right now screams "be afraid; he is dangerous."

Mr. Figuereo is a large man with paranoid schizophrenia. He is not being treated for his illness. He is confused and extremely paranoid. He has a background in the military, which probably means he knows how to use weapons. And authorities don't know where he is.

If Kain Figuereo commits a violent crime, stigma for the mentally ill will increase.

Here is the latest news from the Standard Speaker in Hazleton, Pennsylvania:

State police at Hazleton are looking for a missing man with a history of mental illness.

Police said Kain Figuereo, 50, was last seen at Ramada Inn, state Route 309, Hazle Township, on Jan. 15.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and hasn't been taking his medication, which may make him confused and extremely paranoid. He is an Army veteran and has been committed several times in the past for mental evaluations.