Link Roundup

Truly Dangerous? I’ve avoided writing about the FLDS circus happening because I really don’t know enough about the fundamentalist group/cult to do anything better than parrot what the traditional media has been saying. But Sara at Orcinus has been covering the topic in depth, discussing whether the group has the potential “to become truly dangerous” and what outside regulatory agencies need to get involved to protect the people within.

One’s Soul Catching Cold: An AlterNet interview with Charles Barber, author of Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, discusses the tendency of the American medical system to use psychiatric medications for non-psychiatric problems. This section has been kicking around in my head all week:

CB: There wasn’t really a term for depression in Japan. The drug companies invented one [kokoro no kaze, or "one's soul catching cold"]. There weren’t any sales of antidepressants in Japan until the late 1990s, because they didn’t really think that depression was that much of a problem. I’m sure people were depressed in Japan, and part of it was probably underreported, but in any case, there was a different attitude. A cultural minister in Japan said they didn’t really think of depression, in its milder forms, as anything bad. Rather, they saw it as a sign of awareness and artistic sensitivity.

The drug companies put on a brilliant advertising campaign and, sure enough, the sales of antidepressants went up five-fold in a very short time. But our American sensibility is to be uncomfortable with unhappy feelings and root them out as quickly as possible. I want to be very clear not to romanticize suffering, but there can be a utility to some difficult emotions.

Water Fall: Thirty six states will face water shortages within the next five years. Just something to distract you from the failing U.S. economy, global hunger problem and… Obama’s wanting to eat waffles (because apparently they all hold the same weight in the traditional media).

California uses about 23 trillion gallons of fresh water per year. The United States as a whole uses more than 148 trillion gallons for all purposes, including agriculture, manufacturing and other uses.

Other threatened regions include the Midwest, where the Great Lakes are shrinking, and upstate New York, where reservoir levels have fallen to record lows. Georgia’s crisis has already arrived, and Florida’s is expected to hit soon.

While Florida has no shortage of rainfall, widespread draining and paving of the region’s natural wetlands has left the water unable to drain back into the soil. As a consequence, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of water into the ocean per year to avert floods. The state’s environmental chief, Michael Sole, has asked the Florida legislature to increase the use of reclaimed wastewater. Other states are encouraging measures such as desalinization, but it is widely accepted that conservation is the cheapest alternative.

Related: Forget Carbon: You Should Be Checking Your Water Footprint

CIW2: Another article on Sen. Sanders hearing about the rights of the workers in the Florida agricultural system. For a shorter version that includes contact info for the groups involved, see my previous post.

Tags: Bernie Sanders, Charles Barber, CIW, FLDS, Orcinus, psychiatry, water shortage