Reviews/Responses | Zach's Strange Corner of Thought

December 23, 2021January 2, 2022

You NEED these books in your life!

Happy Holidays strange thinkers! Don’t forget! ALL HOLIDAYS MATTER!!! So Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Merry Festivus, Happy Kwanzaa, Get your Saturnalia on, or however your holy days self-identify. Here are books you need in your life!

Aristotle. Complete Works Part 1. Translated by Jonathan Barnes, Princeton Univ. Press, 1995. Buy here!

Aristotle. Complete Works Part 2. Translated by Jonathan Barnes, Princeton Univ. Press, 1995. Buy here!

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan(New York: Vintage Books, 2009), 20-21. Buy here!

Michel Foucault, Power: (The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 3), trans. R. Hurley, ed. J. Faubion (New York: The New Press, 2015). Buy here!

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: an Introduction. Translated by Robert J. Hurley, Vintage, 1990. Buy here!

Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, edited by Colin Gordon, by Michel Foucault, Longman, 1980, pp. 109–133. Buy here!

Foucault, Michel. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the collège De France, 1975-76. Translated by David Macey, Picador, 2003. Buy here!

Pull Yourself Together: A True Story of Alternate Realities, Spiritual Healing, and Dimensional Wholeness. Buy here!

Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton, Columbia University Press, 1994. Buy here!

Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. Autonomedia, 2014. Buy here!

Farmer, Philip Jose. Riders of the Purple Wage. Buy here!

Laozi. Tao Teh Ching 1. Translated by John C. H. Wu, Shambhala, 2003. Buy here!

Wang, Bi. The Classic of the Way and Virtue: a New Translation of the “Tao-Te Ching” of Laozi as Interpreted by Wang Bi, translated by Richard John Lynn, by Lao Zi, Columbia University Press, 1999. Buy here!

Laozi. Tao: A New Way of Thinking: A Translation of the Tao tê Ching with an Introduction and Commentaries, translated by Chung-Yuan Chang, Singing Dragon, London, 2014. Buy here!

Laozi. Tao Te Ching a Bilingual Edition. Edited by Wang Bi. Translated by Dim Cheuk Lau, The Chinese University Press, 2001. Buy here!

Zhuang, Zhou. The Essential Writings: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Translated by Brook Ziporyn, Hackett, 2009. Buy here!

Popper, Karl Raimund. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge, 2002. Buy here!

The Ecology of Attention by Yves Citton. Buy here!

Einstein, Albert. Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition by Albert Einstein. Translated by Robert W. Lawson, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1961. Buy here!

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, Barnes & Noble, New York, NY, 2005. Buy here!

Schulman, Sarah. Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017. Buy here!

Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson, Columbia University Press, 1986. Buy here!

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, translated by Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Books, New York, 1974. Buy here!

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Translated by Walter Kaufman, The Viking Press, 1966. Buy here!

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, translated by Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Vintage Books, New York, 1989. Buy here!

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ. Translated by Reginald John Hollingdale, Penguin Books, 2003. Buy here!

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic. Hackett Pub. Co, 2009. Buy here!

Singal, Jesse. The Quick Fix Why Fad Psychology Can’t Cure Our Social Ills, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2021. Buy here!

Plato Complete Works Buy here!

Taibbi, Matt. Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another: With a New Post-Election Preface. OR Books, 2021. Buy here!

Ol’ Dirty Bastard . “‘Cuttin’ Headz’ (Featuring RZA).” Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, The RZA. Buy Here!

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Patreon

May 31, 2021August 24, 2024

Bloomington Police Mislead on Alternative Responders

This clause in the Bloomington Police Department union contract is causing concern.

According to interim-Chief Gregg Scott & City Manager Tim Gleason, nothing in the contract would prevent a co-responder model. This means crisis teams would be the first responders on the scene along with police officers. But, we don’t want co-responder models. We want these crisis teams responding without police presence, because the mere presence of a police officer is itself an escalation of any situation.

**Interim-BPD Police Chief Gregg Scott (Left); City Manager Tim Gleason (Right)**

Interim-Chief Scott says he would not feel comfortable sending non-police crisis response teams to people with suicidal ideations. Here, the Interim-Chief is relying on a very pernicious belief that those with mental health issues are dangerous individuals who can present an imminent threat to the public at large. Studies will tell us that the overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are NOT a threat to others. Actually, they are far more likely to be the victims of violence or to be a threat only to themselves, than they are to be a threat to others.

We want the norm to be that individuals experiencing a mental health crisis are not considered a threat to public safety. By having crisis teams be the first responders on the scene (without police), they can determine whether an individual is only a threat to their own health (i.e., we treat this as a health care issue); or, if they do in fact present a larger threat to public safety. If it is the latter situation, then the crisis team can request police assistance to help resolve the conflict. But, treating these mental health crisis as instances requiring health care and/or social welfare is the norm we want to see in society.

Assistant Chief Wamsley, Interim-Chief Scott, and City Manager Gleason all made very clear in the way they framed the conversation that a non-co-responder model could very likely be a violation of Article 20 of the union contract. The PBPA’s membership mainly lives outside the city limits, doesn’t pay property taxes, and can’t even vote for the elected officials their bargaining with. If PBPA did file an Article 20 grievance against the City of Bloomington for implementing crisis teams without initial assistance from police, they would be sending the message that they–and not the tax paying residents of Bloomington–should be in charge of how the City spends and prioritizes its resources; and they should be in charge of how the community chooses to democratically address its own social problems.

There are better models. Learn more about CESSA, The Community Emergency Services & Support Act.

CESSA would create an alternative response to the police for most nonviolent, noncriminal calls for service. CESSA stresses that just because an individual is only a threat to themselves this does NOT constitute a threat to public safety. Finally, CESSA is designed so that incarceration, institutionalization, or in anyway restricting a person’s freedom is the last resort in resolving a situation. CESSA is a non-co-responder model. Crisis teams under CESSA would be the first responders on the scene and have authority over the situation to best determine the needs of the individual in crisis, and to be able to determine based on their own experience how best to provide help and not harm.

Agitation Rising

May 24, 2021June 12, 2021