I’ve Moved!
November 20, 2008
So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:
In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here
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That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.
Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.
Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.
Reader Mail: Functioning with Bipolar
March 2, 2008
Pistol Pete sends in his thoughts on this article and the human rights complaint filed by Paul Lane. Let’s just briefly re-cap Mr .Lane’s situation:
Mr. Lane lie[d] about his having bipolar disorder to get the job [testing artillery] in the first place, work[ed] just over a week before being incapacitated by his bipolar disorder (did the Reader get the part where his job involved testing artillery software — how do we suppose one does that, exactly?), and is let go because a) he lied about his condition to get the job and b) like most employees at most companies, he was on a 90-day probationary period in which the company needs to give next to no reason to dismiss an employee anyhow.
Pete writes the following:
I can appreciate how in this case the employee misrepresented his ability to function. I would, however, point out that the condition of Bipolar Disorder need not be a disability any more than the condition of diabetes. Those of us who take our meds, seek apropriate treatment, and make a commitment to self-care can function as well as anyone. I’ve been in a high stress career for over 13 years since my original diagnosis and have been very successful.
This is something interesting that I admit I’d overlooked in my previous article, and it raises the possibility of one of two truths; either Mr. Lane is afflicted with an unusually virulent form of bipolar disorder which is well beyond the ability of any medicine — even any regime of medecine that he might currently be taking, or might have been taking at the time of his brief employment that is at issue here — to control adequately, or else he refuses to acknowledge that his condition requires treatment and a regime of medications.
In either case, his dishonesty is deplorable and his human rights complaint absurd. One desires to be charitable and assume that Mr. Lane’s problem is the first of the two possibilities outlined above; bipolar disorder is (or can be) a terrifying condition that one would never wish on anyone, even a dreaded enemy. But somehow, given the readiness with which Mr. Lane denied his condition, and given the speed with which he turned his (rightful) dismissal into a frivolous human rights complaint, that his actual problem tends toward the latter of the two I have detailed. It is more probably, methinks, that his viewpoint of his bipolar disorder is not that he suffers from a tragic condition that requires treatment, but that he suffers from a tragic condition that everyone around him must be compelled to make accommodations for, even though he himself refuses to explore any of the many effective treatment options available for him.
Update: Welcome, Steynians!
