Is UVA Hospital Above the Law? C’ville and Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ Offices and UVA Police Seem to Think So

Ever tried to report a crime committed against you at UVA? Well good luck to you.  The Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney office may tell you you have to figure out whether the crime was committed in Albemarle or Charlottesville and won’t answer your reasonable question of whether it was a federal or local crime, attorney supposedly consulted too busy to look it up?  Albemarle is more polite but still insists on you calling UVA police.  UVA police are downright rude and derisive and insist you must be “on grounds” to report a UVA crime when there office is off grounds on Ivy Road.  Also insist you bring all the evidence and prove intent just to report a crime.  Gee, and I thought police were supposed to investigate crimes, not ask victims to present complete and proven cases, silly me.  I have found no way to report a crime against me at UVA and everyone suggests I get a lawyer? To report a crime.  I guess the next step is to walk into both Charlottesville and Albemarle (where is it) Police Departments and insist one of them take my report of a crime, talk to a REAL policeman, not a company man playing policeman at UVA.  And folks wonder why crime is low as reported at UVA, maybe because it isn’t investigated and people give up on reporting it after being sent through circles by C’ville, Albemarle and UVA? Anyone still willing to say this isn’t a company town and the company is the University of Virginia? 

I have had a crime against me go uninvestigated 17 years ago, I’m not giving up, but most people will. And they will suffer the sense of not being an equal citizen, because if you can’t report a crime against you and have it investigated, what are you? A citizen or a member of the underclass?  Let’s not forget our history in Charlottesville and the United States in general as it continues today as crimes against people of color, people and even children with disabilities, transgender folks, etc., are not investigated, prosecuted nor sentenced in proportion to crimes against middle class and upper class whites.  That is not a democracy.

Small Town/City Gossip Blues

I hail from Philadelphia where you can find a dead body on the corner and be given a hard time by dispatch as to which exact corner as if there were likely to be a dead body on all 4 corners.  (True story from my youth).  In Philadelphia if you aren’t hitting someones car or robbing them they really don’t care much what you are or what you do.  So imagine my culture shock in moving to Stepford/oops/C’ville in 1996/7 and watching an older man and a young man politely discuss an accident on the side of the road and then discovering that everyone knew everything about everyone it seemed.  I heard stories about people who weren’t even alive anymore and how they died, people I had never and clearly would never meet.  Finally it happened, I started hearing stories about myself.  I was shocked at what an exciting life I was leading all unbeknownst to me.  I was startled to learn about diagnoses no doctor had ever given me were being applied to me and spread around.  I was rather stunned to hear I was HIV positive given the low chances of such for me. 

So I have decided to fight back in my own way and create my own rumors or gossip about myself.  Only I and friends who won’t tell you know which if any of these rumors is true, so have fun guessing and be my guest in spreading them if that is what you like to do with your time….

I was engaged to an English South African.

I was best man at a wedding.

I grew up in the ghetto.

I grew up on the Main Line of Philadelphia.

I am independently wealthy.

I receive alimony.

I am poor.

I am anti-Green in all ways.

I am a vegan.

I summer on Fire Island.

I summer at home.

I have many connections across the globe and commonwealth.

I am a loner.

I am a party animal.

I am never invited to parties because I don’t fit into the proper categories in Stepford.

I drink.

I can’t drink without falling asleep after half a glass.

I am a heroic kidney failure survivor.

I am a lucky kidney failure survivor.

I made up the whole kidney failure thing and fooled several nephrologists despite their blood tests and vast training.

I hate men.

I hate women.

I love men and women but hate children.

I eat chocolate for every meal unless I eat Sugar Smacks.

I never walk if I can drive.

I walk several times a day starting first thing in the morning.

I have scars from a knife fight in my youth.

I have scars from several dialysis accesses.

Feel free to add your own rumors below but don’t ask if any are true because I’m not telling and neither are my real friends. 

Charlottesville Clinic on Fair Housing for People With Disabilities, Tues., April 21st

Fair Housing for People with Disabilities

When: Tuesday, April 21st, 2009, 12:00 to 2:00 PM
Where: Independence Resource Center, 815 Cherry Avenue, Charlottesville
This clinic is designed to give people with disabilities and their advocates detailed information and one-on-one assistance on their fair housing rights.
Highlights:
Learn How the Fair Housing Act Protects People with Physical and Mental Disabilities from Housing Discrimination.
Review the Rights of People with Disabilities to Reasonable Accommodations (changes in rules and policies) and Modifications (structural changes for accessibility) in Housing.
Discuss Examples of Local Housing Discrimination and Successful Advocacy Efforts in Support of Fair Housing Rights.
Get One-on-One Assistance with Your Fair Housing Concern.
Receive Take-Home Materials and Local Resource Information.

Sponsored by: Piedmont Housing Alliance (PHA) & Independence Resource Center (IRC)
This event is free and open to the public, but please register by April 20th. Lunch will be available for all registered attendees.
For more information and to reserve your seat, contact: Tryshan Ravenell at Piedmont Housing Alliance at 817-2436 ext. 113.

Michelle Obama Coming to Charlottesville This Wednesday Afternoon

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-09-14-0275.html

No details given yet.  Since I seem to have nothing else to write about I thought I would share

Psychosurgery Promoted For Everything, How Long Before a Virginia Citizen Is Forced to Undergo Psychosurgery By a Special Justice or an “Authorized Representative” For Addiction or “Aggression”?

 http://thejns.org/doi/pdf/10.3171/FOC/2008/25/7/E1
 Psychosurgery
 W. JEFF ELIAS, M.D.1 AND G. REES COSGROVE, M.D., F.R.C.S.C.2
 1Department of Neurosurgery, University of Virginia Health System,  
Charlottesville, Virginia;
and 2Department of Neurosurgery, Lahey Clinic Medical Center,  
Burlington, Massachusetts

 Neurosurg Focus 25 (1):E1, 2008

 SURGERY for psychiatric disease is experiencing a rebirth as neurosurgeons employ deep brain stimulation techniques and show an improved understanding of limbic circuitry obtained from functional cerebral imaging. These treatments have now been welcomed by psychiatrists and their patients, who have been without surgical options for decades. The rampant use and abuse of frontal leukotomy in the mid 20th century remains a sobering memory.
 WE ARE PLEASED to introduce the July 2008 issue of Neurosurgical Focus, which is devoted to the topic of psychosurgery. Tremendous advances in our knowledge of limbic circuitry and neurochemistry have invigorated numerous investigative centers around the world to employ rigorous and honest scientific methods in the study and treatment of patients with mood and anxiety disorders.

 The first series of papers in this issue is devoted to the history of psychiatric surgery. A paper by Manjila and colleaguesnotes that an unknown pioneer in the field, Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt, performed the first human experiments for psychological disorders by excising regions of the cerebral cortex in the 19th century—for which he was roundly criticized. Soon thereafter, the psychiatric environment
 changed and became more favorable so that Dr. Egas Moniz was able to perform the first human prefrontal
 leucotomy, as noted in the paper by Wind and associates. Elias et al. observe that much of our current understanding regarding the parallel limbic circuitry of the striatum was obtained later from the neuroanatomist Dr. Lennart Heimer, who developed a track-tracing method and used it to discover
 the pathways of the ventral striatum.

 We are also very pleased to present several contemporary clinical articles pertaining to neurosurgical procedures for mood disorders including depression, anxiety, addiction,
 and aggression. These articles form an excellent reference set for future clinical trials and studies. The clinical section begins with a comprehensive discussion from two renowned experts (Abosch and Cosgrove) regarding the biological basis for neurosurgical intervention. This written work alone serves as an authoritative reference for what is currently understood about the biology of depression, and
 we are pleased to provide a podcast as well (http:// nsforum.org/) with further thoughts from the authors.
 Contemporary ablative procedures are still quite effective, and Dr. Eljamel discusses his experience with stereotactic cingulotomy and anterior capsulotomy. Addiction, a disorder
 so constantly present in our society, is reviewed by Visser-Vandewalle and colleagues as a potential target for future neurosurgical techniques. Last, Dr. Fountas reviews the management of aggression using stereotactic amygdalotomy.
 The final section of the issue is devoted to laboratory investigations in the field of psychiatry. It is a true sign of the future to observe neurosurgical groups such as Wekenhuysen and colleagues actively studying psychiatric conditions such as anorexia nervosa. This is only the beginning of new developments in this field, and we anticipate much more interest in the science and treatment of psychiatry byneuroscientists and clinicians. We hope you enjoy this issue.

 Neurosurg. Focus / Volume 25 / July 2008
 Neurosurg Focus 25 (1):E1, 2008

 (DOI: 10.3171/FOC/2008/25/7/E1)