Quizzing, Quitting, Twisted Sister, and Kids
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Another new bonus episode?! What the—
Yes, it’s true. Maximum Fun, which is the best podcast network and better than other networks, has been running the Max Fun Block Party where we encourage our listeners to check out other shows also in our network. To accomplish this, we’ve been doing crossover episodes where we smash two shows together. Like when the cast of Bonanza would appear on The Brady Bunch or the Happy Days gang would stop by the X-Files. Neither of those happened. But they should have.
Ours is a crossover with Go Fact Yourself, a delightful trivia and conversation show hosted by Helen Hong and J. Keith van Straaten. Both of those people have great names and I would gladly take their names over my own.
Give the episode a listen and play along as I quiz J. Keith and Helen on antiquated, semi-horrifying, and completely ineffective treatments once used to cure mental illness.
Just because it needs to be said plenty of times….
Children’s mental health in America is an emergency
NPR reports on a joint statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) sending a pretty urgent warning about how kids are holding up. Or not holding up. Or eroding.
This worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health is inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and represents an acceleration of trends observed prior to 2020. Rates of childhood mental health concerns and suicide rose steadily between 2010 and 2020 and by 2018 suicide was the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10-24. The pandemic has intensified this crisis: across the country we have witnessed dramatic increases in Emergency Department visits for all mental health emergencies including suspected suicide attempts.
The coalition of groups also includes several recommendations, including increased funding for preventative screening as well as implementation and funding for school-based mental health programs.
This stuff is going to be with us for a while. Don’t tell yourself that kids are resilient and will get over it. That’s just denial.
Mental health charity says thanks yeah no to Jamie Lynn Spears donation
I don’t really understand what’s going on here completely but it seems significant or at least interesting. Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of Britney, has a new book really actually called Things I Should Have Said.
Meanwhile, brilliant writers struggle to get gigs writing listicles somewhere. I digress.
She announced she would be donating some (cryptic word there, “some”) of the proceeds to This Is My Brave, a non-profit that seeks to tell the stories of people dealing with mental illness. In the battle over Britney’s conservatorship, the tea leaves seem to indicate that Jamie Lynn has not been much of an ally to her sister and Britney has made some comments to that effect. Britney’s fans have lined up firmly against Jamie Lynn and roared at This Is My Brave, which does good work despite “brave” not being a noun, to reject the money. The organization did so and might have done so anyway.
Again, I don’t follow this story closely but of course I’m Team Britney.
The whole thing reminds me a little of when Paul Ryan said he was a huge fan of the band Rage Against The Machine and the band told him, motherfucker you ARE the machine. Imagine saying you love a band and then that band announcing that they hate you. That’s always been one of the funniest stories to me.
Here’s something I learned today: Twisted Sister rejected Paul Ryan too.
That whole song is about rejecting the establishment. Paul Ryan IS the establishment.
It’s even sadder and funnier because this credible political band, Rage Against the Machine, hated Paul Ryan and then Twisted Sister kicked him too. It’s like losing a presidential race and then losing a local school board race a week later.
Dang it, I digressed again.
Oops, I digressed again. I’m not that innocent.
In praise of quitting
I’ve always been a fan of just yelling “UGH! GROSS! NO!” and walking away from an impossible situation. Quitting gets some love from the NYT here in this video which I cannot embed.
Remember: quitters never win. But they never lose either. And they often win later because they quit the sucky thing and got the better thing.