Monday Mail: Go to the beach and lie on the bottles

Looking through the bent-back tulips to see how the other half lives, it's Monday Mail.

Glass

Today's opening is from the Beatles' song "Glass Onion."

Garbage

A reader named Kenneth offers this comment on the city's recycling service. It reminds us Columbus will switch to once-a-week trash pickup Sept. 14, the Monday after Labor Day (and Labor Day's a holiday with no pickup):

Hi Tim,

It's 7 p.m. on Thursday, and the recycling bins are still full on our street and in our neighborhood. I can understand not picking up last Thursday because of the stormy weather, but today was clear as a bell. If this kind of "service" happens now, how in the world do they expect that a once-a-week schedule will be any better? I have my doubts.

Dear Kenneth:

That happened to me twice, too. I called 311, and the city sent a guy in a pickup truck to get it.

Did you see the city's notice that it won't recycle glass anymore? It said glass essentially is sand, so eventually it will degrade.

Now I tell people my job's so stressful I just want to go to the beach and lie on the glass.

The mentally ill

Here's an email in regard to a theater-shooter Rusty Houser-related report on how the judicial system deals with "the mentally ill":

"Those who know the law, and work with the mentally ill."

"The"? We are a broad and diverse demographic. You do not actually intend that word. Editors' eyes do not today miss "the" Blacks, yet somehow cannot see "the" mentally ill.

"Houser is not typical of the mentally ill, who are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of crime."

An interesting and oft repeated statement, it is a truism: "The" mentally well are more likely to be victims rather than perpetrators of crime. Reporters are as well.

"But that's rare: The U.S. Supreme Court has held that it's a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act to deprive the mentally ill of their liberty without extensive due process."

What lies behind your comfort with the phrase "the" mentally ill interests me. What is it?

My guess? You do not see it. Words have a way of hiding in plain sight.

Harold A. Maio,

Retired mental health editor,

Fort Myers, Fla.

Dear Harold:

Except for brevity, I don't know why I used "the" mentally ill. Maybe I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes me fixate on such things.

I take an anti-depressant, so I may be among "the" mentally ill, too.

It's not a race or culture, you know.

Tim Chitwood, tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com, 706-571-8508.

This story was originally published August 16, 2015 at 8:58 PM with the headline "Monday Mail: Go to the beach and lie on the bottles."