"P.S. -- your tv can listen to you also."

[Robb]

Today's glimpse into the mind of the paranoid schizophrenic is brought to you by Officer.com.

Alleged Athens Police Killer Has Long History Of Paranoia

(snip)

Court records reveal Barksdale, 29, as a tormented man convinced that police, the government, gangsters and others were directing microwaves at his brain; a man who tore cable out of his mother's home because of his belief "they" were using the wires and television to tap into his brain.

(snip)

At one point he kept the lining of a microwave against his head to deflect the radiation he felt was being beamed into his brain. He lined his room with aluminum foil to keep the microwaves out, according to a petition that his mother filed.

(snip)

"P.S. your tv can listen to you also. All you have to do to access the watchers at the ... police station, is say the key words such as ... bomb making words. ... I have dealt with this for 23 years. ... It cost me my fathers land, almost my sanity, my privacy, my future, and anything that made me happy. Now I talk to the A.B.I. ... through constant M.R.I. brain Maping telekinesis."

(snip)

"If you are having strange trouble reading this ... just try to move your head faster than the frequency they are using to shut off your memory."

(much more sadness)

[Maddy McCall]

1. This is so sad. I hope no one makes jokes about it.

Mental illness is as painful and real as physical. Anyone who would laugh at mental illness is heartless.

[hlthe2b]

2. You know, there is so much that is sad about this story...

--the paranoia of mental illness, the fact that we laugh and then hesitate. Given the changes in this world and especially the increasing losses of civil rights with lunatics like Asskkkroft and their "Patriot Act" excusing "police- state" tactics that would have been unfathomable not long ago, even otherwise rational people are going to be prone to these kind of bizarre notions. While it may not rise to the level of someone who is clearly mentally ill, that gap between clearly crazy and "well what-if?" is becoming far more narrow.

That is the most frightening thing to me.

[SoCalDem]

7. I had a friend once who was convinced that c-span was

"sending her messages".. She was in her 40's and her husband had left her, and she was on the verge of a meltdown, so a friend and I went to her place to take her out to lunch and cheer her up.. She invited us in, but would not leave because she was waiting for her "message" from c-span..:eyes:

The sad/funny thing, she was Cambodian, and was not the most fluent english-speaker, so I doubt if she even understood what they were even talking about ..

[mac56]

3. Very sad, and not at all uncommon.

nm

[tom_paine]

4. I think TVs spying on people is still a few decades away

Think about it, Total Information Awareness and the Compouter Age allows Totalitarians to monitor their Subjects effectively enough.

Pindexter and the rest of the Imperial Scum are still bringing that on line, as well as designing programs (Google "Project Genoa" and see if this is paranoia...it is on the DoD'd own website--or was)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Project+Genoa%22+DOD

to sift through the mountains of information to flag traitors for the Imperial Traitors tasked with controlling and putting down the spirit of liberty in Imperial Amerika.

Now, considering Orwell was so prescient regarding the state of media in Impeial Amerika (it's like he was living here now), I don't think this 1984-style methodology is a stretch of the imagination that it would one day be so.

After all, it's all downhill for the Imperial Subjects of Amerika. Augustus begat Tiberius begat Caligula begat Nero (metaphorically speaking) and don't kid yourself...whoever Uday and Qusay Bush are going to be in 2050 (my guess goes to George P."Caligula" Bush as the Uday of Imperial Amerika), they are going to have to contend with a cynical, impoverished, and downtrodden citizenry yearnng for precisely the Liberty and Free Elections that the Imperial Family have been getting rid of since the Attempted Coup of 1998.

Bottom line...TVs aren't equipped with spyware yet, but I wouldn't be so bold as to say that won't be in case in Imperial Amerika 2050 or 2100.

Orwell was right about so much, I truly wonder if his ultimate vision will come to pass...

[KissMyAsscroft]

5. One of my Mom's coworkers called her early in the morning once

and informed her that someone had installed a listening device into her anus, and the filling in her teeth. And that everyone was out to get her, etc.

It always seems to be a similar story with paranoid schizophrenics. Always the same symptoms....(radio waves, wires, government after them, phone tapped, etc.)

Really sad. I hope that the new millineum brings more effective treatment for this horrible condition.

[Robb]

8. I think the "symptoms" are just a product

of the age. Before it was radios in the fillings, it was ghosts and angels talking to people. :shrug:

[bamademo]

6. This happened in the county next to me

Athens is about 25 miles from Huntsville, where I live. The saddest thing about this is that there is no law in Alabama to report involuntary commitments to the F.B.I. database for background checks to buy guns. So in Alabama, if you're a paranoid schizophrenic you can walk in to a gun shop and legally purchase a hand gun.