40 Years After an Acid Attack, a Life Well Lived
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Everyone (myself included, which I am ashamed of) did everything to not stare at him nor look in his direction– which of course would have been glaringly and awkwardly obvious to anyone observing the scene.
Reading this article, his body of work is fascinating. Part of me hopes that if I ever see him again during one of my commutes, I'll have the courage to go up to him and ask him questions about all the cool stuff he's done.
By that same token, I don't know if Dr. Miele would notice much of it, because he has been isolated in public from such a young age.
> “That’s so fascinating,” he said, “but you know, it wouldn’t have made a difference. I was a cautious kid. I knew who was outside the gate. I knew Bassy. You would have opened it, too.”
I can't imagine the trust issues one would have after going through this. If a stranger does something, it can be explained away. But if it is someone you know, makes it much more difficult.
About the only lucky thing about the attack is that the victim didn't get any his eyes, but months on he's still recovering after multiple skin-grafts.
There isn't really a lesson that we can fathom from this really. It happened about 24 hours after an incident when the perpetrator had gotten angry and thrown a beaker on the floor, and literally 5 minutes before the acid attack happened (when the previous events were related to me) I commented that we should take it more seriously because if someone's not in control that's how acid gets thrown on people.
society since then has not gotten better at identifying threats coming from sick people. down to sandy hook, the completely insane individual is left alone until he/she commits an atrocity.
>> "down to sandy hook, the completely insane individual is left alone until he/she commits an atrocity"
It's up to family and friends to help identify problems someone they know might be having and it's up to the government to provide adequate support and facilities to treat ill people. People being left alone with their problems until they crack is not just due to people not identifying the problems, it's due to inadequate care options.
But I know if she has a true psychotic break, there is little to no support available beyond a 72 hour evaluation. Jail has become the defector storage place outside of the underside of bridges because there are far too few beds for people who need longer term care.
The state hospitals of the 50s were horrid places, but in dismantling them, we've done away with almost all long-term care for people who can't function due to mental illness. And that comes with a huge cost to society. There was a middle ground of "let's improve the care and treatment" that was completely ignored.
But, as a society, let's not talk about that. Let's talk about whether 11 bullets or 14 buckets are too many, even if a fire extinguisher can be shown to be a horrid weapon to somebody ill enough.
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unth...
It seems that, every time some mentally ill person does something like this, whether it's a big, splashy mass shooting or bombing or something smaller like this acid attack, you later find out that everybody around that person had known for a long time that they were uncontrollably and irrationally violent at times, but nobody could think of anything to do about it. Just like that article - the boy's own mother is pretty sure that he's going to do something horribly violent someday, but nobody has any idea what to do about him, besides getting him thrown in jail.
I suppose it's a hard problem, if you really think about it. Exactly what should the threshold be for having somebody involuntarily committed to some sort of mental hospital or something, and kept there against their will for their entire life, or until some doctor thinks they're safe again? As I understand it, it was fairly low back in the early 20th century, which led to lots of people being committed, some for various versions of being unpopular or eccentric, into mental hospitals that were real horror-shows. What we have now is the backlash against that, which might be too far in the other direction, where it's almost impossible to get someone committed like that until they commit a serious violent crime.
Where's the happy medium? Or is there one? I don't know... but it's something we all ought to think about.
Could you explain why? Here (the UK) there is quite a lot of free help from the health service and there are a lot of charities I know of which provide counselling. Local GP's are also able to work with people and refer them to specialists if necessary.
A person can go to their GP to get treatment, and the GP will either treat (access to short form talking therapies and some medications), or refer on to a community team.
The community team provides access to heavier duty meds; long form talking therapies; ECT; hospitalisation; a variety of different clinicians, etc etc.
Note that treatment can be forced, and against the patient's wishes. Note also that there's the possibility of community treatment orders. These mean that a person living in the community (not in hospital or prison) could also be forced to take medication regularly.
All of this is free at the point of delivery. (With the exception of prescriptions, but there are so many exemptions they're free to most people.)
And let's not forget that people with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrator.
We don't have that option. And I'm really torn on this one.
And let's not forget that people with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrator.
Absolutely.
That is intended to be a helpful observation, not a criticism.
The other end of it is society starting to aggressively label and segregate people as "threats". Everyone would have to fit this set of behavior somebody else defined or else they get labeled as threats.
We can't condemn these people to a life in jail, just because sometimes bad people do bad things. I agree people should talk about their concerns, and talk with and help people that seem to be going off the rails. But as with everything in human life, there are a million shades of grey.
You must see little bit further how everything interacts like a connected cogwheels.
First you have emotional burst, the anger, the sadness, full range of emotions, then, you must go further than that. Then you must see how well it have played out.
There have been a few horrific stories of cultural backwards attacking women with acid in the UK press. It's made me far more cautious when handling automotive batteries.
I won't move a car battery ever again without wearing safety goggles.
But don't fall into the trap and read anything else into it, the things you should fear in life are quite boring. Some comments seem to be going down this path.
This is the story of Dr. Joshua Miele who, after this horrific attack, has been working on some really interesting projects using technology to make the lives of those living with disabilities better.
After reading this story, I found an interview he did describing some of the projects he's been working on, including tactile maps on smartphones to help blind people navigate their world. http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201106171000.
So I'd say it's relevant.
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Next. Sometimes people work in technology are interested in how the world works, about beautiful things, about life and how it interacts with the rest of the world. Yes, sometimes we also have this feeling that things that strike and inspire us and stimulate our intellect might be of interest to others. I come here not for the technical articles. I work in this field and those will inevitably float through to me. I come here because I wish to read and savor the thoughts of incredibly amazing people. It is discourteous to decide explicitly how this community will evolve. If you or anyone really feels that there is no place here for humanity, art and articles on culture, you can very well flag the article. If it looks like that is happening enough. Those of us who enjoy such things will find another home to continue this journey.
This is an interesting suggestion but it would not be on our top 100 things to fix.
What was it? I'm genuinely curious.
There's bound to be a thread filtering add on for whatever browser you're using.