Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

CSI Effect - "Lawyers are not going to be able to rely anymore on their advocacy skills," Alan Dershowitz

In criminal law, Harvard Law Professor and part-time litigator Alan Dershowitz predicts science replacing attorneys' rhetorical skills.  Juries are picking up their state-of-the-art science lessons from watching the "CSI" series.  A fave is the one set in Miami with David Caruso as Horatio.  So much has this crime-scene-investigation science caught on that it even has a name: CSI Effect.  Lawyers now take seminars to deal with jurors' expectations of clear-cut evidence.  But, Dershowitz insists in a chapter of the 2008 book "What's Next: The Experts' Guide" by Jane Buckingham that it's going to go much further than that.

Therapists & Other Paid Servants

In the late 1990s, I had my attorney send a letter to my psychotherapist David H. Harder, Ph.D.  He was and is a professor of psychology at Tufts University.  In those days - it was still a time when we absolutely trusted experts - the industrial-strength academic credentials over-impressed me.  So, "we," both the attorney and myself, wanted to see what was cooking in his head and what the therapist thought was cooking in mine.  Often those hard-boiled lawyers are more efficient healers than society's designated ones.  LawyerMan had a hunch that peeking behind the curtain in the land of Oz would fill me with a healthy disrespect for The Credentialed.

Hey, Fellow Depressives et al., three cheers for Patrick Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy seems to have pulled it off.  His mental-health parity bill has passed the House, 268-148.  If it isn't too badly gutted in the Senate, the eventual law will mandate that insurance companies pony up coverage of diseases of the mood and of perception equal to others with less stigma. 

Yes, Cher, Delta, Ned, Britney, Connie - It's Smart Keeping Depression Under Wraps

It's the American Way.  We want to hear how people like Cher and Delta overcome problems like clinical depression.  But no way, Jose, do we want them to exhibit disability around us.  I know.  After successfully masking the depressive condition which seized me at age 11, at 43 I decided to let it sag out.  The world fled.  No surprise I was left in isolation, which made the depression worse.  Warning:  Keep up the pretense in public that depression was yesterday's challenge, not today's.  We like to be introduced in conversation with you to your new and improved obstacles.

Do-It-Yourself Nut Houses aka Spas - For Peanuts

In this post-scientific era we are getting the confidence to put together our own solutions for our health problems, especially mental ones.  In this spirit of experimentation, I have created my very own safe place to weather emotional storms.  I exited that place today, whole and without needing to pay a therapist or check into the nut house.  Yes, it's a Do-it-Yourself healer.  And it could save the medical system, including insurance companies like CIGNA, a bundle.  After all, stays in nut houses aren't cheap.  That's why the system makes it increasingly difficult to get in and have a restful stay.

Public Health - Banning All Holidays, Not Just Religious Ones

Not enough research has been done.  But when it is, I am convinced the evidence will be strong that holidays are bad for public health.  And I mean all holidays, not just ones rooted in someone's religion.

Owen Wilson "Looks Horrible" - NEW YORK POST, Sept 4

How should a person look, regular guy or celebrity, a few days after he tried to off himself? Probably not too chipper.  Yet, newsflash, David K. Li of the NEW YORK POST reports today "Owen on the mend - But looks horrible."  Here's more.  Li, providing photos of Wilson as he heads home from the hospital, notes, "Owen Wilson looks like death warmed over, but pals say he's doing just fine."

Owen Wilson, Suicide & Panic

"I want to die."  According to THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER, Sept 10th issue, [Don't turn your nose up. Dominick Dunne buys his copy of the NE every week] that's what Owen Wilson moaned in the aftermath of his suicide attempt.  That feeling is becoming more common, especially among young people who should have everything to look forward to.  Yet, despite all the theories about why people commit/try suicide and why those numbers are going up, we really don't know much about this dark night of the soul.  If we did, society would have a handle on it.  It doesn't.

Suicide - On A Lot of Our Minds

Why are so many of us thinking about doing ourselves in? And, it's a sign of the stigma still attached to suicide that when someone does succeed, like financial star Arthur Zankel, the response is shock.  The question is "why."  My post on Zankel's death from way back in January 17, 2006, still is receiving an unusual amount of attention.  My hunch is that the shock and questioning come from our own concerns about whether we too will cross that line from considering suicide to following along Zankel's path.

Porkers Face Social Isolation - Hey, I don't want to catch your fat

As if porkers don't have it tough enough, now it's going to get worse for them.  A study by Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis published in THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE provides evidence that fat is contagious, especially among close friends.  If my bestest bud has porked up, there's a 171 percent increased chance that I will do likewise.  If I have already "caught" the fat, does that mean that friend ought to pop for the cost of a weight-reduction program for me?  And if this person becomes socially isolated as the result of the study, is that cause for a lawsuit - or even a class-action lawsuit by lonely fatties?