There is an insider-aspect in journalism and writing these days that’s getting a bit much.

Whatever happened to the subject being a regular person – like you and me? Sometimes they can muddle through the putting together of their story. Sometimes they can’t and need the assistance of an editor. Either way they are still the main subjects.

Not only is everything by a media insider, it’s about a media insider:

I observed this and made a comment recently after reading a medical piece in a newspaper. I’ll spare the details…but all the subjects appeared at first to be regular folks, sharing heartfelt thoughts and experiences. It took something away when I realized all of them worked in medical journalism and were contemporaries of the piece’s writer. Honestly, it seemed kind of lazy on the writer’s part that she didn’t go beyond her own world to write about.

The same goes for TV. How many TV news stories start out with, “Our own….” (Maybe the over-the-top coverage upon the death of Tim Russert, whom I admired, is an example of this.)

I work, not in the field of journalism, but in a field that deals with getting subjects. I try to hold one rule of thumb - don’t make your world the subject.

Back to print journalism… Frankly, I’d rather hear from a troubled person who writes than a writer who’s a troubled person.

My daughter is about to lose her third job in 2 years. She doesn't realize it yet...but I see it coming. How do you convince a hypochondriac to "not go to work and complain about the symptoms" - so you can keep the job long enough to start seeking medical treatment with insurance? She doesn't make that much money to begin with...she is 22 and not in school so I can't carry her on my insurance. I would like to check into the CBT but I can't afford it...neither can she. And unfortunately, we are not unemployed to qualify for the assisted medical insurance.

Every time we turn on the TV we are innundated with DRUG commercials telling us we NEED their product, all the while running the fast talking disclaimers of all the maladies the drugs can cause as side affects if you take them.

Hint: An apple a day keeps the sickos away! Juice...raw veggies and fruit.

I think the underlying reason for hypochondria is fear of death. Some people manage to push death away, but for some of us, it's forever lurking.

Is that you, goodcelery?

Many years ago, when my brother was just 4 or 5 years old, my mom became convinced he had scarlet fever after reading the symptoms in a medical book. She took him to our pediatrician, who was an old country doctor. He listened patiently as she described his symptoms and her fears. Then he offered his take.

"The first thing you do," he told her, "is you throw that damn book away."

It's only a paper moon

hanging over a cardboard sea . . .

now let's sell some books.

No need to apologize for how you felt about what i wrote and how you interpret it. Nothing was untoward given the this setting, although someone has deleted the post, and I take no personnel offense in the exchange of ideas thoughts emotions and bs which makes being human somewhat more interesting and worthwhile.

Thought and response is provoked on both sides.

As for the perception of insult, i speak generally and not specifically. Crazy and stupid are quite suitable to describe the domesticated primates in this culture. I believe in psychology and behaviorism. I don't blame the victim but I do not entertain the illusion that the same forces which strive to keep us ignorant, foolish and duped in order to control and manipulate us for their profit have any real desire to change or improve the situation.

I haven't bought the government and MSM BS for thirty years now. If you have been buying into what they have been selling, then you will think everything is normal. We are waging war against people half way around the world who never did anything to us and we have two presidential candidates who are threatening to go to war yet another country half way around the world which has never attacked us and this is normal?

Watch television - is that what is normal? You couldn't show stuff like that in theatres until the 70s (under 18 not admitted).

Crazy is anything out of the zone of normal and those things give us character, personality and uniqueness and that is what makes us persons.

The corporations have stolen "normal".

Anxiety and panic are perfectly normal responses to the corporate "normal" - ship your jobs overseas, devalue you currency, jack up the prices, foreclose those mortgages, natural disasters, predators and psycho killers are out to get you and YOU have a chemical imbalance!

Here is a secret - excessive CO2 levels cause anxiety and panic - breathe deep and slow and avoid flying certain airlines with an butt ugly logo of a flag who don't run the air adequately at altitude to save some bucks on fuel. That is why they put hoods on prisoners. It is basically mild torture. So was flying across the country with them twice.

...are sick of hypochondriacs. Some make a tidy (and crooked) living by seeking out exactly that kind of patient. Someone I know visited this practioner, who took 13 (THIRTEEN!) vials of blood. I wouldn't put it past this guy to be in kahoots with the testing lab. There was nothing wrong with this person, except in their head.

Also- the so-called "alternative health" movement would collapse overnight if they stopped marketing to (and scaring the shit out of) hypochondriacs.

Ever see a hypochondriac hang on every word of some crackpot health "expert" blather on and on about the latest Toxin du Jour on silly health-oriented radio shows? I have.

Ever go to an "alternative" health fair? They are a lot of fun. You can buy a magic charm (it hangs from a chain on your neck) that will neutralize cell phone radiation.

By the way- the doctor (a real MD) who took all that blood? Well, he was one of the promoters of the silly health fair.

As far as I am concerned, there is a special place in hell for all the quacks, crooks and kooks who prey on hypos, and take their money, when all they need is a good CBT specialist.

As a trained scientist and electrical engineer, this shit makes me wanna holler!