When I was a young man,Courtin' the goils...
... there were these things we used to call "asylums," where crazy people were locked away, treated, and often mistreated because psychiatry and psychology were either pre-gestational or in their infancy. The lady stomping up and down the street wearing an army helmet and screaming in Bulgarian was locked away, whether she actually knew the language or not. The guy who thought he was Napoleon Bonaparte, or General Pershing, or even just the Grand Poobah of something or other, had the room next to her. The guys in the white coats used to come for those who were unable to control their impulses -- kleptomaniacs, nymphomaniacs, and the plain maniacal. They became wards of the state, and they were often "treated" in ways that would curl your hair. Nellie Bly described it in 1887:
What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.
The New York World was able to spring its ace investigative reporter, several doctors had to uncomfortably explain how they had diagnosed a perfectly healthy woman "incurably insane," and New York ponied up more money for the care of its inmates.
Fast forward 130 years.
It's now just about impossible to get into a "mental hospital" (we don't have lunatic asylums, crazy houses, or cackle factories anymore) without blasting your way in. Threatening to kill yourself might do it, at least for a few days, but threatening to kill your next door neighbor will get you a court order, maybe. We "mainstream" the lady who thinks she speaks Bulgarian. It's up to the rest of us to try and communicate with her. Those incapable of controlling their impulses are indulged and often encouraged.
There used to be a saying about the lunatics being in control of the madhouse. Today not only in spite of, but precisely because of our better natures we're all living in the asylum. Just because it's assumed that no one's totally "normal," the abnormal are assumed to be "just like everybody else."
There was a story a few weeks back about a plastic surgery addicted fellow who wanted to have his genitalia removed so he could be a "sexless alien." There's a woman who's transformed herself into a "human Barbie Doll." If she wants to procreate (I doubt Barbie would. Is the human version still anatomically correct?) she could meet the "human Ken Doll" for drinks and a sesssion at the Motel 6. There are multiple Lizard People, a few cats, and maybe even houseplants (Who knows? If there are, I'm sure they'll tell us.) There was a long line of women who claimed convincingly and some no doubt sincerely to be Romanov Princess Anastasiya, and there would probably still be if that didn't require them to be 117 years old now, despite the DNA tests -- they found the bodies, you know; there she was, what was left of her.
A day or two ago we had a story about a guy having sex with a dead woman in public. The day before that we had the guy who got life in jug for deviant sex acts with vegetables -- what kind of sex acts with vegetables aren't "deviant?" The day before that a girl named Monalisa killed her sweet Pedro by shooting him through a book for a YouTube stunt -- okay, that one's just stupid, not insane. But anyway, since we were talking about not controlling our impulses, a week or so before that, a homicidal kleptomaniac teen girl swiped a machete from WalMart and hacked her Uber driver to death. The same day we saw the story about the guy arrested for raping a mare ("It wuz consensual, yer honor! Besides, I used a rubber!").
Day after day we get stories about people who just ain't right. The guys who shoot up nightclubs or chop off their mothers' heads or something just blend in with this never-ending series of stories about people who really would be better off living in rubber rooms, their opioid problems replaced by periodic doses of extra-strength sedatives. Close behind them are people who exhibit paranoid tendencies because the white race or the black race or the Russians or the Chinese or the Americans or the infidels or the penguins are plotting against them.
Which kind of brings us full circle, doesn't it? Rantburg will be sixteen years old this year, a chronicle of murder, mayhem, rape, torture, slavery, blood, and gore perpetrated by people whose turbans are too tight. My thought is that housing people who listen too closely to the voices in their heads and periodically giving them soothing potions would probably be cheaper in the long run than fighting a war on terror. How many cases of Valium can you buy for the cost of a Tomahawk?