MENTAL Health Week is a particularly important week because it is pertinent to all of us. It concerns issues surrounding our mental wellbeing which in turn reflects who we are as a person.
Hence the commonly asked question "How are you?" represents a query about our state of mental or inner wellbeing.
All of us feel stressed, anxious or down at times for a variety of reasons. These, to varying degrees and from person to person, are symptoms relating to our mental wellbeing.
It is because these things are common to us all that the more extreme mental difficulties that some of us face can generate reaction in those around us.
Where there are fears surrounding mental issues it is easy for some to adopt judgmental and discriminatory attitudes and stigmatise those whose issues are more overtly severe. This is not justified and one hopes Mental Health Week will be seen as an opportunity for all to reflect on this and be gentler, not only with ourselves in relation to our own issues, but also towards those who are clearly struggling in a more apparent way.
I've marked the date on the calendar and hope to live long enough to be at your rock'n'roll celebration in the Savage Club Hall.
Sounds like a good cause: improving facilities for wheelchair users and for the failing bladders of us old-age pensioners.
However, I'd like to slightly widen your definition of "community buildings" when you say the Savage Club (1893) is the second-oldest such building in Whanganui, after the Repertory Theatre (1882).
If we made it "buildings still in community use" then the honour would easily belong to St Peter's Church in Gonville (albeit not on its original site). As Christ Church in the Avenue, it was consecrated in 1866, and church and hall are still used regularly by parishioners and community groups.
Meanwhile, (rock'n') roll on November 25.
MURRAY CRAWFORD Whanganui
TDS and nutters
Jay Kuten is correct when he points out that "Trump Derangement Syndrome", or TDS, is not a medical or psychiatric diagnostic term.
However, Mr Kuten appears to be mistakenly associating the term's invention and exclusive use to US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
I do not think Senator Paul was intending to diagnose anybody by using the term, I think he was just using it in the generally accepted way.
The term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" has been in common usage at least since the 2016 election, and is used to refer to and highlight the over-the-top, unbalanced, or outright insane-appearing words and behaviour of some people and organisations that don't like President Donald Trump.
Whether it is certain media organisations who have 94-98 per cent negative coverage of the President, individuals who scream irrationally at the sky to protest his inauguration, Hollywood "celebrities" who make videos denouncing the resident or abusive statements at awards shows, "celebrities" who threaten to hurt or kill the President or his family, or simply the constant lying about what the President says and believes, because they had so much invested in the losing candidate, all fit into the list of examples of TDS.
How about the time Jimmy Fallon had the then presidential candidate on The Tonight Show, an entertainment programme, as his guest and joked around with him about his hair?
The reaction against Mr Fallon was so vocal he later apologised for "humanising" Donald Trump. The owner of a restaurant told White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders she and her family members would have to leave because she worked for the President. Mrs Sanders and her husband went home, but the restaurant owner followed the other family members to another restaurant and arranged a protest to yell at them. Instead of the condemnation such behaviour should receive, the main Democrat voices you heard were those like Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who said no member of the current administration was welcome anywhere in public or should be allowed peace at home. The examples go on and on and on, and I am not going to attempt to diagnose any of the people involved, of course. Suffice to say some of the behaviour suggests Mr Kuten's choice of label for them appears accurate, that of "nutter".
K A BENFELL Whanganui
The battle is over for Auckland activist Penny Bright.
RIP Penny Bright (Auckland), champion, and only in her 60s.
Hawke's Bay rates up 30 per cent over the past two years, next year 50 per cent. Whanganui already on the slippery path. That will bring a flood of tears for the WDC mayor.
The war will continue.
F LAW Whanganui
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