[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 187 (Wednesday, November 15, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7257-S7258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO RON POWERS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to recognize 
the moving work of Ron Powers of Castleton, VT--a Pulitzer Prize-
winning author who has written about everything from Mark Twain to the 
soldiers of Iwo Jima to broadcast news and sports.
  Ron's latest book, ``No One Cares About Crazy People,'' concentrates 
on a topic that he promised himself he would never write about: the 
social history of mental illness in America. This story is poignantly 
told through his own deeply personal story of his two

[[Page S7258]]

sons' struggles with schizophrenia, which tragically claimed the life 
of one of them.
  The book's informative yet intimate approach raises awareness about a 
subject that most are too uncomfortable to broach. When reading it, you 
can hardly hold back tears.
  I cannot imagine the pain Ron and Honoree went through while working 
on this book. It is a truly personal journey and a triumph. I am proud 
of him for publishing this important work. He understands that mental 
illness is not an issue that will simply go away if pushed into the 
darkness of neglect and denial. One cannot lock it up in an institution 
and expect to be rid of the problem. Mental illness in America needs to 
be discussed openly, by those who suffer from it, the friends and 
families of those affected, medical experts, and those of us Senators. 
We must all follow the footsteps of Ron and continue to shine a light 
on this extremely sensitive issue.
  I ask unanimous consent that the October 8, 2017, Vermont Digger 
article honoring Ron Powers and his family and recognizing his great 
work be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Vermont Digger, Oct. 8, 2017]

            A Vermonter Questions the Nation's Mental Health

                          (By Kevin O'Connor)

       Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Powers' past works have 
     eagerly explored everything from the 1800s literary lion Mark 
     Twain to the flag-raising World War II soldiers at Iwo Jima 
     and the present-day pioneers of broadcast news and sports.
       The Vermonter's current focus is different.
       ``This is the book I promised myself I would never write,'' 
     Powers begins its preface. ``I have kept that promise for a 
     decade--since our younger son, Kevin, hanged himself in our 
     basement, a week before his 21st birthday in July 2005, after 
     struggling for three years with schizophrenia.''
       The author, born 75 years ago in Twain's hometown of 
     Hannibal, Missouri, can boast of a prolific career that has 
     seen him in a columnist's chair at the Chicago Sun-Times and 
     a commentator's seat on the CBS News program ``Sunday 
     Morning,'' as well as on the best-seller list for more than a 
     dozen books that include collaborating on the late U.S. Sen. 
     Edward Kennedy's memoir ``True Compass.''
       But after the death of one of his two boys, the Castleton 
     resident could barely think about, let alone tackle, another 
     project. He and his wife, Honoree Fleming, were finally 
     starting to heal (``adaptation, really,'' he says) when they 
     saw their surviving son, experiencing a psychotic break one 
     Christmas, tell neighbors he was the messiah before police 
     took him to a hospital.
       And so Powers began to research mental illness--not just 
     the schizophrenia his family has faced but also all the other 
     issues the World Health Organization estimates will affect 
     one-fourth of the world's people at some point in their 
     lives.
       ``I realized that my 10 years of silence on the subject,'' 
     he says, ``silence that I had justified as insulation against 
     an exercise in self-indulgence, was itself an exercise in 
     self-indulgence.''
       And so Powers is talking up his new book, ``No One Cares 
     About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health 
     in America.'' The 384-page Hachette hardcover shares his 
     family's story alongside a historic and often horrific survey 
     of mental illness in larger society.
       ``Studies by the National Institute of Mental Health show 
     that among Americans age 18 or older, more than 62 million 
     (26 percent of the population) require (but are not always 
     given) counseling and medical treatment,'' he writes.
       Powers could cite too many reasons for not wanting to 
     tackle the topic: What about his family's privacy? The 
     appearance of exploitation? The fact he isn't an expert?
       ``Book writing is hard work,'' he continues. ``And, really, 
     end of the day, who the hell wants to read about 
     schizophrenia anyway?''
       Plenty of people, the author would discover. Nearly a 
     decade after their son's death, Powers and his wife accepted 
     an invitation to testify at a 2014 Vermont legislative 
     hearing on whether acutely mentally ill patients should be 
     medicated against their will.
       ``At first glance, speedy `involuntary treatment' might 
     seem the least objectionable of measures, given that people 
     in psychosis are virtually never capable of making rational 
     decisions,'' he writes in his book. ``And yet opponents of 
     the process bring passionate counterarguments to the debate. 
     Among the most formidable is that `involuntary treatment' is 
     by definition a violation of one's civil liberties.''
       Powers testified in support of shorter waits on decisions 
     about involuntary intervention, which the Legislature went on 
     to adopt as law. But the author was moved by opponents of the 
     measure.
       ``They were there: the faces and souls of the mentally ill, 
     emerging from their prevailing invisibility to declare 
     themselves,'' he writes. ``The sheer presence of them, their 
     actualization in the room, had affected me in the gut, not 
     because I hadn't expected them, but because of the profound, 
     elemental humanity of them.''
       Three weeks later, Powers read news of a Wisconsin 
     political aide who, responding to headlines of state mental 
     health mismanagement, emailed a colleague: ``No one cares 
     about crazy people.''
       That's when the author started writing--for himself, his 
     household, other families, friends, neighbors and psychiatric 
     professionals.
       ``My aim with this book is not to replace or argue with the 
     existing vast inventory of important books on mental 
     illness,'' he writes. ``Rather, I hope to reamplify a simple 
     and self-evident and morally insupportable truth: Too many of 
     the mentally ill in our country live under conditions of 
     atrocity.''
       Powers has taken his message to National Public Radio's 
     ``Fresh Air'' program and is seeing it shared in publications 
     nationwide.
       ``He writes with fierce hope and fierce purpose to persuade 
     the world to pay attention,'' fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning 
     journalist Ron Suskind wrote in a review for The New York 
     Times. ``I'm not sure I've ever read anything that handles 
     the decline of one's children with such openness and searing, 
     stumbling honesty.''
       Readers can learn for themselves when Powers speaks at the 
     Brattleboro Literary Festival on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the 
     downtown Centre Congregational Church. If similar appearances 
     are any indication, he'll share a few of the book's humorous 
     family stories, too.
       ``Why do I include these?'' he told an audience in 
     Manchester. ``Because they make me smile and bring the two 
     boys to life. I wanted to avoid a kind of cliche--the 
     afflicted loved ones described only in the context of their 
     victimhood. It's hard to feel compassion for an abstract. My 
     sons were wonderful spirited boys before this affliction 
     struck.''
       That said, Powers isn't seeking to entertain.
       ``I hope you do not `enjoy' this book,'' he writes. ``I 
     hope you are wounded by it; wounded as I have been in writing 
     it. Wounded to act, to intervene.''
       ``America must turn its immense resources and energy and 
     conciliatory goodwill to a final assault on mental illness,'' 
     he concludes. ``My sons, and your afflicted children and 
     brothers and sisters and parents and friends, deserve nothing 
     less.''

                          ____________________