ustxtxb_obs_1999_06_11_50_00031-00000_000.pdf

WN e hot new newsletter from full-time agitator Jim Hightower. The 4LOWDOVilti new racketeers’ . 11,,,,1,T dry 1r4orr stirs. dry crAr m hunral o.o Hightower gives you the lowdown about what’s happening in our country. And how you can help take our country back from the GREEDHEADS of Wall Street and the BONEHEADS of Washington. Get a year of The Hightower Lowdown for the ridiculous, unbelievable price of just $10 for 12 issues. Send a check or money order along with your name and address to: The Hightower Lowdown P.O. Box 20596, New York, NY 10011 it’S Irrura *11 for dr r thr ummy enmonrcr t omInk fu Par The self-titled debut album. Featuring She’s So High and Darker Side Of Blue. One of the most satisfying pop discs in recent memory.” Entertainment Weekly “She’s So High’…is simply one of the most undeniable singles of the year.” Prodtktql and Mixed by 113ob Bock otbd linchnum O www.talbatbrblin.om -coolosoothoor wool … s Polo. &Tool. toil. \\In. ,. ituuktowhI., \(*rms.’ FA11.11IntIss ttocl JUNE 11, 1999 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 31 desire for attention, the difficulty with this particular plan of care is the Stress on the aides themselves, especially at night. “It’s a set-up to be fired,” explains someone who has sat at Lance’s bedside on several occasions. “You’re holding his hand in a dark room. There’s no way you’re not going to fall asleep.” For several aides, their care of Lance has ended with a tap on the shoulder and the opening of their eyes to see a supervisor, and hearing the inevitable words that mark dismissal for sleeping on the job, “Wash your face and go home.” \(Non Lance-related attrition of employees at the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation is also high, and not limited to the Austin. facility. In the last fiscal year alone, among new aides for the department’s statewide system of schools and mental hospitals, There’s more. Although a state trooper whose clothes are ripped or torn in a struggle will have them replaced at state ex pense, at the State School, direct-care staff whose clothes are torn or whose personal possessions are destroyed by violent clients can make no claim for reimbursement. Moreover, in the interests of protecting what administrators describe as “clients’ rights” and supposedly to fight drug use, whenever a school administrator chooses, aides at the State School are subject to body searches and searches of their vehicles. Would white-collar workers \(read: white ment’s downtown office towers be asked to turn out their pockets on command? That’s only the down side, of course. If you stay long enough at the state school there are benefits. It’s a learning experience. You learn, for one thing, the subtle difference between peanut butter as it goes in, and peanut butter as it comes out. You learn to wipe ass. Austin writer Lucius Lomax was an employee at the Austin State School from 1996 to 1998.