Amy Winehouse dead

[Glen Quagmire]

Stop being disingenuous. You were clearly stacking up Amy Winehouse's death as unworthy of tragedy status compared to tsunami/starvation/shooting spree. That is presenting tragedy and death as a competition. You also displayed a staggeringly offensive ignorance of mental health and addiction problems.

As someone who has since I was a kid helped relations cope with getting over an alcohol addiction, supported another with some really bad depression, and who has himself been in a secure mental hospital as a patient in the past, I suggest it is you who displays a staggeringly offensive ignorance of assuming what insight some people have into mental health and addiction problems.

[bobbins]

I certainly am a strange and complex character. I some how find some weird sentimental romance in talented a musician blowing their fuse before their time. I can

[bobbins]

As someone who has since I was a kid helped relations cope with getting over an alcohol addiction, supported another with some really bad depression, and who has himself been in a secure mental hospital as a patient in the past, I suggest it is you who displays a staggeringly offensive ignorance of assuming what insight some people have into mental health and addiction problems.

If that's all true, then your lack of empathy and understanding is even more staggering.

[TAFKA Family Guy PMSL]

Death isn't a competition because there only ever is the one, same end result. What can matter is how persons or people came towards that final event, and normally also how they lived their lives. Because of the lifestyle she chose to live, she took very high risks that ended up with her dying young. And if by your definition Whinehouse's death is tragic, so too is Osama Bin Laden's.

 

Just for you Glen, here's FGPMSL's handy tip of the day! If you want to be right in a discussion, just think about what you want to say, and state the complete opposite.

[Glen Quagmire]

If that's all true, then your lack of empathy and understanding is even more staggering.

How do you know that I have a lack of empathy or understanding? I've already said that Winehouse's death is sad.

[Glen Quagmire]

Just for you Glen, here's FGPMSL's handy tip of the day! If you want to be right in a discussion, just think about what you want to say, and state the complete opposite.

That to me is the attitude of someone in a discussion who has lost the argument because they could not give real substance for their own opinion it in the first place. At least Russel Brand has done so.

[Mandingo's Donger]

Death isn't a competition because there only ever is the one, same end result. What can matter is how persons or people came towards that final event, and normally also how they lived their lives. Because of the lifestyle she chose to live, she took very high risks that ended up with her dying young. And if by your definition Whinehouse's death is tragic, so too is Osama Bin Laden's.

 

Sorry but are you actually arguing against the definition of tragedy? Not mine but that of a dictionary whose very existence is to define what words mean.

 

Yo said Winehouses death wasn't a tragedy compared to other events when it quite clearly is.

 

As is Bin Ladens to his family and followers i'm sure.

[bobbins]

How do you know that I have a lack of empathy or understanding? I've already said that Winehouse's death is sad.

 

From this paragraph.

 

Amy Whinehouse, a signer just as famous if not more so for her drug and drink habits and addictions along with the public glamuorisation of denial of her problems (...they tried to make me go to rehab...), kept hanging around people who were her "enablers" and didn't try to break away from them ends up being found dead on a summer's afternoon as her body could take no more and gave out, lying slumped on the floor likely in her own body waste. She knew the dangers of what she was doing, her death was no accident. She could have tried and got help for her problems but she didn't. If she was not strong enough willed to break the cycle herself, someone close to her should have. Her death is sad, and no doubt those close to her are in mourning. But its not a tragedy.

 

Personally I would have thought that someone with your stated history (if they had some empathy and understanding) would want to use this debate to help highlight the severity, the seriousness and the despair of mental illness and addiction, rather than taking the path of judgemental moralising and belittling dismissal. The kind of "pull yourself together and snap out of it" attitude normally only displayed by the genuinely ignorant. Maybe because you overcame your obstacles, you don't understand how hard it can be for other people to do the same? You talk about the choices that Winehouse made, as if the choices of a mentally ill addict are just as rational as those of a mentally healthy person. Making terrible self-destructive choices is a condition of the illness, and as you obviously know this due to your history, castigating Winehouse for her life choices is very strange behaviour.

[dangerously420]

JBL posts a video on his opinion on Amy Winehouse death.

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/John-...ld/194176253533

[Loki]

Personally I would have thought that someone with your stated history (if they had some empathy and understanding) would want to use this debate to help highlight the severity, the seriousness and the despair of mental illness and addiction, rather than taking the path of judgemental moralising and belittling dismissal. The kind of "pull yourself together and snap out of it" attitude normally only displayed by the genuinely ignorant. Maybe because you overcame your obstacles, you don't understand how hard it can be for other people to do the same? You talk about the choices that Winehouse made, as if the choices of a mentally ill addict are just as rational as those of a mentally healthy person. Making terrible self-destructive choices is a condition of the illness, and as you obviously know this due to your history, castigating Winehouse for her life choices is very strange behaviour.

 

You're talking as if there's only one valid approach or opinion on mental health, where anything that someone does who's depressed is excusable by their illness and where they have no control over their actions. Everyone I know who's recovered from a bout of severe depression, or overcome (or at least contained) an addiction has said that at some point they make a personal decision to change course and fight. If they are to be applauded for doing so, why is it so wrong to point out that Amy Winehouse never did so, despite many trips to rehab and plenty of effort from friends and family, and that therefore she ultimately shoulders the responsibility for that?

 

As others have pointed out, on a day when nearly a hundred people lost their lives through no fault of their own, it's hard to feel a huge amount of sympathy for a rich drug addict. That's not being callous, it's just having some perspective.

[DJ Kris]

The bombing and shootings in Oslo that have claimed at least 93 lives have taken away the lives of many young people, among them decent productive people who did not seek out danger until it came to them thanks to a Fundamental Christian right-wing lunatic. That is a tragedy.

 

Tens of thousands of people in Africa and elsewhere in the world are dying from very preventable diseases and causes that could be largely eradicated for a few quid a year. That is a tragedy.

 

The Tsunami and earthquake that hit Japan a few months ago claimed thousands of lives, destroyed tens of thousands of buildings, caused massive damage to infrastructure etc. That the Japanese because of the history of their land had prepared as much as they thought they could do, but nature had other plans. That is a tragedy.

You are aware that these two events are not in anyway linked? Honestly, when these things happen I really don't know why people feel the need to draw comparisons as if one event can somehow cancel out another.

 

Amy Whinehouse, a signer just as famous if not more so for her drug and drink habits and addictions along with the public glamuorisation of denial of her problems (...they tried to make me go to rehab...), kept hanging around people who were her "enablers" and didn't try to break away from them ends up being found dead on a summer's afternoon as her body could take no more and gave out, lying slumped on the floor likely in her own body waste. She knew the dangers of what she was doing, her death was no accident. She could have tried and got help for her problems but she didn't. If she was not strong enough willed to break the cycle herself, someone close to her should have. Her death is sad, and no doubt those close to her are in mourning. But its not a tragedy.

I assume you're aware of plays and stories that might be described as a tragedy? Here's a dictionary definition of that:

 

"a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. "

 

So Amy Winehouse, a young and extremely talented woman dies because she was not strong enough to over power the demons that controlled her life. It was a character flaw that we don't really know where it came from, but it was certainly the cause of her downfall and as we will likely find out, her destruction.

 

I've never been a fan of Russell Brand, always thought of him as a bit of a faux-whimsical tosser to be honest, but that wonderfully elequant piece he's written above is absolutely spot on. It's of considerably more worth than any of the dross Kelly Osbourne et al have come out with, and bares the hallmark of someone grieving over something they wanted to help, but knew fine well they couldn't.

I wanted to say just that. Very good piece from Russell Brand, very heartfelt and meaningful. Surprising actually. Just goes to show that you don't always know what goes on behind the media image of somebody.

 

And as I pointed out in my last post, I never said it was! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

No, you didn't say "Death is a competition" however you did turn it into a competition my drawing comparisons as a way to show that her death didn't hold up to another all while misunderstanding the definition of the word tragedy. You may feel the word is too strong for the circumstances, but it was certainly used in the correct context.

[Richie Freebird]

Off topic by a mile, but why the face, that's what I'd like to know.

 

I was in the midst of what was (for me) a terribly painful break-up. Some of my worried friends dragged me out and encouraged me to drown away my sorrows with drink, to which I agreed. I was there in a bar getting slaughtered to ease my pain, and the woman in question waltzed in happy as Larry and started talking to / flirting with all my friends. I was so angry, that I needed to release some of my tension somehow. I could never ever lay a harmful finger on a woman, and it would have been unfair of me to attack any of the other patrons in the pub, but I was so mad that it had to be done to release a portion of my anger / agony at the situation.

 

I was swiftly jumped on by the bouncers, roughed up and chucked out. At which point I headed to the bridge to jump off. Someone had died jumping off the bridge previously so I was pretty confident of my chances at succeeding with the suicide. My best friend chased me town, tackled me, attempted to mop up my face with a bandanna and forcibly dragged me to his house and locked me in. I thanked him in the morning.

 

It

[stewdogg]

There is a massive difference between mental health issues, and drug addiction. Mental health issues can happen to anybody, however, injecting/smoking/snorting drugs is a choice.

 

Amy Winehouse had the world at her feet, but chose to fuck her life up with her destructive behaviour, which is a kick in the teeth to everyone who tried to help her, and also to the general public who saw a beautiful, talented young lady mess up her life. If anything her life was a tragedy, her death was inevitable.

[d-d-d-dAz]

There is a massive difference between mental health issues, and drug addiction. Mental health issues can happen to anybody, however, injecting/smoking/snorting drugs is a choice.

 

Amy Winehouse had the world at her feet, but chose to fuck her life up with her destructive behaviour, which is a kick in the teeth to everyone who tried to help her, and also to the general public who saw a beautiful, talented young lady mess up her life. If anything her life was a tragedy, her death was inevitable.

 

The 'ground zero' of drug addiction isn't the point at which you choose to take drugs, but the variables that make that seem a valid choice. Addiction exists in the personality, before drugs are even added to the mix. And, that, in itself is a mental health issue.

[stewdogg]

That adds a perspective different to the way I was looking at it.