6A / NEWS / TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
CULTURE
Chris Neal/KANSAN
Rev. Josh longbottom, Chuck Corbett, a 1983 alumnus, and Ben Jeffries, Tonganioe senior, sit outside the Ecumenical Christian Ministries building Thursday afternoon. Longbottom is the founder of the group "Cloud Watchers," that meets every Thursday outside of the EMC.
Watching clouds, loving peace
BY KELLY MORGAN kmorgan@kansan.com
Students, drop your guns and grab your guitars. The unofficial group, Cloud Watchers Jamming for World Peace, has made its way to the front lawn of the Ecumenical Christian Ministries building, where members gather once a week to play their guitars, talk and stare at the sky.
"It makes the world twice as peaceful, that's what I say," said Josh Longbottom, the unofficial group founder and associate pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church. "You can't hold a gun and a guitar at the same time and the more people who are watching clouds and playing guitar, the less hungry, the less isolated they are, the more nourished and wholesome the whole world will be."
The meetings began after one of the ECM's weekly veggie lunches. Longbottom said he was inspired by a dream he had the night before.
"I had a dream that I was floating on a cloud playing a sitar and Ganesha was floating on another cloud playing a guitar," Bottombottom
said. "So, that day I just grabbed a pizza box and wrote on it, 'Cloud Watchers jamming for World Peace.' I don't know, it's just what I thought of in the moment so I wrote that down and hammered the sign into the ground, spread a blanket and people started picking up guitars
and playing songs they were working on or singing Beatles covers"
Shannon Gorres, office administrator for the ECM, participated with the group in the past and says that the gatherings are open to people of varying ideological values. "All of the ECM programs are open to anyone," Gorres said. "People of any faith tradition and people of no
Since its first meeting, the group of three to eight people continues to meet on Thursdays after the veggie lunch.
"It makes the world twice as peaceful, that's what I say. You can't hold a gun and a guitar at the same time."
"It only happens on Thursdays when it's a nice day," Longbottom said. "It's all situational."
JOSH LONGBOTTOM Group founder
faith tradition."
Group gatherings typically have less than 10 people.
While their tactics of promoting peace do not involve passing out fliers or protesting, Cloud Watchers encourage harmony in the world by taking the time to relax and have good conversations
"It totally depends on comings and goings and who knows who and who sits down," Longbottom said. "There's not a formal group or membership or anything."
with the people around them.
"People probably just think that it's a hippie thing or something." Longbottom said. "I mean, its cloud watcher jamming for world — I don't even like jamming. I like pop songs."
— Edited by Roshni Oommen
MENTAL HEALTH
Voluntary admits denied
mlowry@kansan.com
"The shelter provides a community base," said Loring Henderson, executive director of the Lawrence Community Center. "The staff and the other guests are a community for people who are dealing with mental illness. We provide a sense of family for those folks, and when they come back from the mental hospital we are a base for them"
BY MEG LOWRY
"If you are mentally ill you can't handle it on your own; you need support and medication and someone to talk to," Waugh said. "It is heartbreaking to know that people are being turned away. People tend to forget that people who are mentally ill are not just problems, they are people."
"Everybody should have good family and friends," she said. "You know, a support system to help out so no one is alone. Everyone should try to help out."
Steph Waugh, a senior from Topeka, understands the importance of resources to the mentally ill. Her sister Melinda Waugh, 28, is schizophrenic.
Melinda Waugh said she knows that her schizophrenia and the mental illnesses of all who are affected by them cannot be battled alone.
Roy Menninger, president of the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, has issued a public plea to the Legislative Budget Committee to refrain from making any further cuts. He said cutting off Kansans from being able to voluntarily admit themselves to a state psychiatric hospital will worsen their condition and put them at risk of harm or even death.
"All we can do is coordinate," Ruttinger said. "We have staff in the jail that are there every day to work with inmates with mental illness. If there is any takeaway message, it's that the state really needs to look at their system and its management."
Kansas mental health hospitals denied voluntary admission to patients seeking care during two periods between May and July because of overcrowding.
According to NAMI, there are four to five times more people with serious mental illness in the state prison system than the licensed bed capacity in state mental health hospitals. As a result, organizations such as Bert Nash have to take a different treatment approach.
The homeless population of Lawrence is also affected by this lack of funding.
Mental illness causes more disabilities than any other class of illness in the nation. One in four Americans will experience mental illness, and twice as many live with schizophrenia than with HIV or AIDS.
"We work very closely with the hospitals, at the point where they had to make that decision we were aware," said Eunice Ruttinger, director of adult services at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center. "So we had contingency plans. If someone was a client of ours that we knew and was at risk and needed to be hospitalized, we had to look to other communities."
Hospitals had to decline admission from May 19 to May 26 and July 16 to July 20, the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services said.
"I think the health centers statewide have been recommending that there need to be more beds," Ruttinger said. "We do not have enough room in the system statewide or in the community, and that's the main problem."
"We need to be very cognizant of the fact that we have a population of people that need our help," Ruttinger said. "Having housing is so important for the mentally ill.
Bert Nash, an outpatient mental health center in Lawrence, offers counseling and support programs in addition to treatment for the mentally ill. Ruttinger said any closure of a hospital is extremely damaging.
"It creates a lot of anxiety in a system when it happens," Ruttinger said. "If this was sustained it could be a very serious problem. We can adapt to shorter periods of time, but it's not ideal. It's extremely concerning for us."
To be alone and paranoid with no place to go is just unthinkable.
In a 2009 report issued by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Kansas received an overall grade of "D" for mental health care. Rick Cagan, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Kansas, said the state hospitals were "starved for resources."
If a patient was already checked into Bert Nash's system, the facility could help provide other options to compensate for hospital closures. However, those who were not may have no resources to turn to.
Edited by Anna Nordling
"It is always detrimental when you don't have options." Ruttinger said. "If people go into a crisis and are screened away from the hospital, we can't guarantee that we will be able to find and help them."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
No Border Patrol agents were hurt during the "firefight" early Saturday in Mission, agency spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said. She did not say whether Border Patrol gunfire hit anyone, citing the ongoing investigation.
SAN ANTONIO — U.S. Bornee Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico after coming under attack during a half-ton drug bust and giving chase to a truck along the Rio Grande, U.S. authorities said Monday.
FEDERAL
"The firing they received came from the Mexican side," Huey said.
Border Patrol agents fire shots into Mexico during a drug bust
Huey said several Border Patrol agents, at least some of whom were patrolling in boats, were seizing a
half-ton of marijuana when they came under gunfire. Federal officials said the shots from Mexico began when a truck that was being chased by another group of Border Patrol agents entered the area.
FBI special agent Jorge Cisneros said the truck, which was on the U.S. side, appeared to be connected to the drug seizure. He said the gunfire from Mexico was a "direct result" of Border Patrol agents doing their jobs.
"We're obviously concerned with what happened, that they would be shooting from the Mexico side to us," Cisneros said.
Federal officials did not release how many agents were involved, how many shots were fired or the number of shooters on the Mexico side. Cisneros said the FBI was
working with Mexico authorities, including the Mexican military and the Tamaulipas state police, to determine what happened.
It was at least the second time in three months that Border Patrol agents in Texas have fired into Mexico. In June, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after authorities say a group try to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso.
Cisneros said he can recall a handful of times in the last few years that gunfire from Mexico has crossed over the border. He said Border Patrol agents "have always been very good about not shooting back unless there is a life-threatening situation."