For the time being, I will not be blogging. This blog was originally started to help bring about changes at Psycho Donuts. Since that goal has been achieved and is continuing to be achieved with Jordan Zweigoron’s promise to work together with NAMI, I do not feel the need to blog. I could post more about stigma but many are already doing that, and I have other issues to write about.
Psycho Donuts makes more changes – Oscar Wright and Ben Miller praise Jordan Zweigoron for changes
According to the latest report from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Psycho Donuts, no longer has a padded cell where you can put on a straitjacket. Instead the cell has been changed into a music booth, complete with a guitar that customers can play. This is on top of renaming the three most offensive donuts the shop originally offered.
Both Oscar Wright, who debated former owner Kipp Berdiansky, and Brian Miller of NAMI, have praised Zwiegoron for the changes he has made. Briam Miller is looking for ways to work together with the new Psycho Donuts.
Pete Early writes about Psycho Donuts in USA Today and says mental illness is not a punch line
Psycho Donuts, a California-based bakery, features a padded cell, walls decorated with goofy faces and a neon “Bates Motel” sign flashing near the front window. Employees wearing lab coats and nurse outfits proclaim that they have taken the ol’ doughnut and “put it on medication, and given it a shock treatment.”
So why are members of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) protesting the Psycho Donuts shop in tiny Campbell, near San Jose? Its supporters claim this is simply lighthearted fun.
Read the entire article by Pete Farley.
The customer I referenced in my last post, apparently was wrong about the new name that Psycho Donuts gave its bipolar donut. According to Psycho Donuts website, the bipolar donut has been renamed mood swing, while the massive head trauma donut has been renamed headbanger.
The store has made other changes as well. You can read about them here. Still no word on whether or not the padded cell will be transformed into something else.
Bipolar Duality Donut
According to one recent customer of Psycho Donuts, the shop has renamed its Bipolar donut to Duality donut. They have also renamed the Massive Head Trauma donut, but he doesn’t give us the new name. Psycho Donuts has also extended its hours. If there are any additional changes, we will report them here.
A change in ownership at Psycho Donuts and a subsequent announcement about changes to the shop apparently wasn’t enough to deter a determined coalition of mental health advocates this past weekend.
The Community Alliance United to Seek Equality broke months of silence on Aug. 2, rallying at the Orchard City Green for a demonstration against the controversial doughnut shop.
Update Aug. 5, 2009 Here is the latest, from ABC News, on Psycho Donuts possibly making some changes in the right direction.
“Initially, Zweigoron and the co-owner of the business resisted making any changes to the business model.
“We said, ‘We’re sorry, it’s not your business,” he said. “You don’t have a right to tell us how to run our business. It’s a free country, it’s America.”
But since [Oscar] Wright and others advocating for mental health issues have called for a compromise to use the notoriety for education, Zweigoron has bought out the other co-owner and promised an “evolution” in his themed doughnut shop.
“There have been some encouraging developments lately,” Zweigoron said. “I’ve had a meeting with some of these folks. The reality is our business is not a typical kind of business. It’s always going to be constantly evolving.”
Thankfully Jordan Zwiegoron has bought out Kipp. He seems to be more thoughtful than Kipp. In the debate, it was clear that Kipp did not want to change. He tried hard to be funny, saying about the Massive Head Trauma donut that “we removed the bullet so it’s a lead free donut.”
He refused to meet Oscar Wright in private, trying to paint a sinister picture of a private meeting. The truth is that a private meeting would not bring Berdiansky any publicity, and he would have to get serious about dealing with mental health issues. He would not be able to clown for television. Sound bites and cute but unsound arguments would not survive such a meeting. It is quite clear that Berdiansky realized that in Oscar Wright he had met more than his match.
The latest news from Psycho Donuts, in Campbell California, is that they are going to make some changes. It would appear that some of those changes might involve toning down the mental illness theme. At least that’s what I read between the last lines of the post, which states:
Quick note to the protesters and their planned gathering this Sunday – ch-ch-ch-change your plans and be p-p-p-patient.
If that’s the case, my hat’s off to them. If not, I will continue blogging here until they do change.
Photo from an earlier protest
Host: “PSYCHO DONUTS”? NOT CUTE. NOT FUNNY.
Type: Causes – Rally
Network: Global
Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009
Time: 11:00am – 2:00pm
Location: Orchard City Green
Street: corner of Civic Center Dr. & N. Central Ave
City/Town: Campbell, CA
PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED FROM
President Kennedy just before being shot
MASSIVE HEAD TRAUMA
Massive Head Trauma Donut
NO ONE WAS LAUGHING ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963!
AND NO ONE SAID “LIGHTEN UP.”
IF HE HAD LIVED, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN MENTALLY DISABLED.
WOULD YOU HAVE OFFERED HIM OR JACKIE SOME MHT DONUTS FROM PSYCHO DONUTS?
Medical breakthroughs are bringing new hope to people with traumatic brain injuries. Can brains be saved?
September 6, 2008, was a clear-blue Indian summer day in Nebraska. Jennifer Ruth sat in the stands and watched her 12-year-old son, Derek, run with the football. She was unconcerned when he was tackled in a routine play. But as he fumbled the ball, she remembers seeing his right arm drop oddly, almost in slow motion. “He never does that” flickered through her mind. The coach noticed a glazed look on Derek’s face in the team huddle. He pulled him aside and asked him for the date, score, and his brothers’ names. Derek answered correctly. Then, minutes later, he screamed, “My head,” pulled off his helmet, and collapsed.
Read the entire article in Parade Magazine.
Sacramento — Oscar Wright, chief executive officer of United Advocates for Children and Families (UACF), and Kipp Berdiansky, co-owner of the Psycho Donuts shop, participated in an interview and debate Wednesday on KTVU’s Bay Area People with host Rosy Chu.
Oscar Wright released this statement today:
“As the former regional administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, I appreciate an individual’s goal to live the great American dream and start a business, but profits should not be made at the expense of others. By naming a donut “bipolar,” Psycho Donuts is trivializing a very serious and complex medical illness of the brain. It is not something to be taken lightly.
“Kipp Berdiansky and Jordan Zweigoron’s use of mental health terminology out of context leads to misunderstandings and confusion and furthers the stigma associated with a physical brain disorder that is not a choice. The impact of stigma on children, youth and families is devastating. Stigma can result in fear, mistrust and violence against people living with mental illness. In fact, many people do not seek help for mental illness because of the stigma and mockery they face from the public.
“It is my hope the owners of Psycho Donuts will seek to work with the mental health community to help create a business that supports the mental health community instead of ridiculing it.”
While on air, Wright challenged Berdiansky to meet again outside of the media spotlight to engage in further discussions about changing negative public opinions about mental illness. Berdiansky repeatedly sidestepped the offer saying he would only do so in public. Wright continues to believe that in the end, Berdiansky will find it in his heart to do the right thing rather than insisting on a public venue in which to commercialize his donut business instead of addressing the real issue of mental illness stigma.
The interview featuring Wright and Berdiansky will air on Channel 2, KTVU’s Bay Area People on Saturday, July 25 at 6:30 a.m. and Sunday, July 26 at 9 a.m. on KICU TV36. The show also will be available on Comcast on Demand the week after July 26.
I thought those of you who are true Catholics, would appreciate Cardinal Lozano Barragán’s Address at World Day of the Sick, God’s Image in the Mentally Ill. Bigoted, pseudo-Catholics will no doubt continue to stigmatize and despise the mentally ill.
The Psycho Donuts Boarding House, a virtual community made up of a couple of computer tech guys who are ineffectual bloggers and who hate this blog and appear to hate the mentally ill as well, has been exploding with rage and hate the last few weeks, the result being a whole host of rumors flying about the Psycho Donuts and anti Psycho Donuts community.
Rumor #1 This man is a devout pro-life Catholic.
Dan Hydar
This is doubtful because he believes it is okay to stigmatize the mentally ill. You cannot be pro-life and/or a devout Catholic and believe that it is okay to stigmatize the mentally ill.
Rumor #2 Psycho Donuts is coming out with a frontal lobotomy donut, that already has a piece missing from it. As insensitive as the owners of Psycho Donuts are, I find it hard to believe that they would go this far.
lobotomy donut
Rumor #3 That NAMI owns www.psychodonuts.com.
Whois says it is owned by the New Day Foundation.
Rumor #4 I am married to a woman named Diane.
My marriage license says otherwise.
Rumor #5 That everyone who opposes Psycho Donuts is a bleeding heart liberal. I’m not. Like Dan Hydar, I am pro-life and quite conservative on a number of other issues. I am libertarian on other issues.
More rumors will be posted as we dig them out of the rubble of the Psycho Donuts Boarding House.
The details of retired Florida National Guard Sgt. Ernie Rivera’s harrowing deployment to Iraq are told in the thousands of pages of his medical file.
Severe traumatic brain injury. A cracked vertebrae. Surgically repaired shoulder.
Rivera, the most-decorated man in his unit, won two Bronze Stars for his service in Iraq ending in mid 2007. But he can’t get what he values most.
A Purple Heart.
Oscar Wright, the great debater, takes on Kipp Berdiansky, the master baiter, on KTVU’s Bay Area People
In a much anticipated public face off, the co-owner of controversial Campbell doughnut shop Psycho Donuts will sit down with the head of one of the state’s leading mental health organizations in a televised debate.
Kipp Berdiansky, the embattled owner ever since the doughnut shop opened in March, will appear on KTVU’s “Bay Area People” alongside Oscar Wright, CEO of United Advocates for Children and Families. The show will air on July 25 and 26.
Public outcry erupted over the shop’s “wild and crazy” place to be ever since it opened on the corner of South Winchester Boulevard and Campbell Avenue. But mental health advocates have not chuckled over doughnuts dubbed “Bipolar” and “Massive Head Trauma” nor the shop’s straitjacket and padded cell where kids are welcome to take photos.
Read the entire story at www.mercurynews.com.
I stumbled upon a new anti Psycho Donuts website when I typed in the wrong www address for my own website. The site is www.psychodonuts.com. Check it out.
No doubt the people who have been harassing and threatening me and cyberstalking others will find out who is running it and try to embarrass them by posting their personal information on the internet as they have tried to do with me. However, all they have done is send more people to this blog, for which I thank them.
I especially want to thank the very devout Catholic blogger from Campbell, California who claims to be pro-life but espouses the same attitudes toward the mentally ill that the Nazis did. He apparently knows nothing about Bishop Galen, later Cardinal Galen. More about him, the Campbell blogger, on another day.
A new study has found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.
January 1933
The Nazi party (NSDAP) takes power in Germany.
14 July, 1933
“The law for the prevention of progeny with Hereditary Disease” calls for the sterilisation of all people with diseases that the Nazis thought of as hereditary, i.e. mental illness, learning disabilities, epilepsy, blindness, deafness. Even alcoholism is covered by the law.
Also in 1933
The Third Reich starts to issue propaganda against disabled people. The term “useless eaters” is used to highlight their burden on society.
1939
The T4 Program begins. Disabled people are now killed rather than merely being sterilised.
1940 – 1941
An estimated 70,000 disabled people are killed under the T4 Program. Most of these are large-scale killings using poison gas – a forerunner of the killing program of Jews, which became known as ‘The Final Solution’.
See the rest of the timeline at the BBC.
