A headline disconnect
It must have been a slow news day at the BBC where a recent story reports the odds of dying from someone with schizophrenia to be 1 in 20,000, compared to 1 in 1,000 for homicides throughout England and Wales. So, what's the point of a headline, "Mental health killings increase" when the story talks about an increase of 16, from 54 in 1997 to 70 people in 2004? Is this an example of exaggerating danger for any good purpose, or someone simply asleep at the copy desk?
This is commerce?
Jean Arnold, from the National Stigma Clearinghouse, writes that a Silicon Valley shop selling doughnuts drives sick humor -- poking fun at people with a mental illness. Arnold laments "doughnut names like Massive Head Trauma, Malted Madness, Cereal Killer, and Bipolar take on ominous overtones." She notes the co-owner, Kip Berdiansky, uses marketing techniques such as "Posing straitjacketed children in a padded cell for a 'fun' photo," This, she says, is "a clueless mentality. "
