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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 4, 2005 McGowan's death is a call to work against illness By Steven Wall Jacksonville As were many people, I too, was shocked by the death of Joanie McGowan. I had no connections with Joanie's friends in Ashland, but I did know Joanie on a professional level. She sold us sponsorship on NPR. The funny thing is, she sold us these sponsorship spots, but as soon as I met Joanie, it didn't seem like a professional relationship. This is not to say she didn't act in a professional manner, because she did. It was more like she became an instant friend. That is a rare thing. Joanie was the kind of person you just couldn't help from liking. She carried the "liking" gene. You came in contact with her, you liked her. She burst with energy! It came at you, straight away, not from the side or hidden, just right up front. It saddened me to think this bright soul was eclipsed by something ominous and dense - something which eventually consumed her life flame. I feel for Joanie in her desperation, because that is what it truly is, this illness, which extinguishes all hope, light and life. She is gone now, past the suffering, past the confusion, past the ironic juxtaposition of elation and despair. We are here to ponder it. It's always why? Why? I don't think there is a simple answer. It would be easier if there was. It would make more sense to us if we could put a clear cut reason to it. As Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D, says "It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide." I had a friend, where I used to live, about four years ago, who too suffered from bipolar disorder. I knew him quite well, knew his wife and his children. My son and his daughter have known each other from birth. About five years ago my friend did as Joanie did, ended his own life. He left a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old. This friend was unquestionably the funniest person I'd had ever met. He was incredibly charismatic and could command the attention of a room almost instantly. But like Joanie, there was something else going on inside as well. He was 36 years old and I still get angry when I think about it. So, what do we do? Besides mourn and cry? We need to educate ourselves and each other about this and other mental illnesses. We need to be bold when we see signs of this in our friends. Bipolar is treatable and prognosis is often good for treated patients, but they must absolutely have correct diagnosis and proper treatment. If you know someone who you think may be suffering from bipolar, please do something to help them, because they may be unable to help themselves. The course of the illness supercedes their ability to make clear decisions regarding their own welfare. Democrats are lost with out-of-touch liberalism By Doug Forsyth Ashland So some Democrats are working themselves up into another hissy-fit again, imagining all sorts of paranoid evils and deluding themselves that all it will take to torpedo the Republican agenda is an angry letter-writing campaign to state senators and house representatives. Don't bother folks, it will avail you nothing. You may get Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi spitting mad but the Republican majority will simply ignore them. As long as they can keep their members corralled the Republicans will, for the next two years at least, win every fight in the house. Despite throwing everything at the presidential election, the Democrats still came up one and a half million votes short. Only one Democratic presidential candidate has won over fifty percent of the vote in the past forty years and that was President Carter, who got 50.1 percent in 1976. To add salt to the wound, the Democrats have lost majorities in both houses and every seat that was up for re-election. Add in the facts that they are steadily losing the Hispanic vote, that the majority of the blue collar workers jumped ship years ago, that the Dixicrats are now firmly in the Republican camp and the picture emerges that the Dems not only lost big time but will, in all probability, continue to do so. I was tempted, when looking at the electoral map following the elections with its sea of red and its blue strips on each coast, to imagine that an argument could well be made that the Democrats have finally come to occupy the lunatic fringe. The simple fact is that there are now three conservatives for every two liberals. Unless the Democrats develop a center-right political platform that convinces independent conservatives that they have an agenda worth voting for, then forget it. They are destined to occupy the dunce's seat for as long as it takes for them to finally see the light. Personally, I will be in there pitching for John McCain or Rudy Giuliani come 2008, assuming of course that they run. For me and a host of other conservative independents to vote for the Democratic ticket will require a conservative star in the mold of Harry Truman, a candidate far different and better than the likes of Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich. That is if they want to win. 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