Tuesday

Considering this is supposed to be summer, it has seemed a little chilly and wet to me.  Not that I'm complaining about the wet, I wouldn't dare.    I took the flowers from Emmanuel to the hospital this morning and my buddy in the golf cart was being cheerful enough for both of us, telling me what a wonderful day it was with the rain.  Asked me if I missed the fog in London.  I said he has been reading too much Dickens, we don't have fog any more in London.

You have I am sure heard of the dreadful mass killing here by a young 22 year old man.  He e-mailed his parents a copy of his 'manifesto' setting out what he was going to do;   they immediately left home and was racing to him when they heard on the car radio what he'd done.    One's heart goes out to all the victims and families, the six people he killed and the thirteen injured - and to his parents, what an immense burden of grief and pain they too will have to bear for the rest of their lives.

All the time there is little, or no, mental health care in this country these tragedies are going to continue.   It is all very well to blame the gun laws, as people do, and the easy accessibility of guns is certainly a factor in enabling these young men to go on shooting sprees, but guns aren't the cause of the tragedies.   Mental health care, or the lack of it, is.

I am reading a very interesting book at the moment called 'the sociopath next door', which asserts that

1 in every 25 Americans is a sociopath, that is, born without a conscience.   Sociopaths are not capable of being emotionally connected to other people, and what makes them especially dangerous is their ability to hide their disorder, so that outwardly they appear perfectly normal.  The book sets out to show how to recognise and identify sociopathic behaviour.

I haven't felt all that bright today, I've needed a migraine tablet, then had to sleep off its effects.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have a bit more to write about.