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[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters327.html#Meatbag ]
Date: Thu, September 20, 2012 9:52 pm (answered 30 September 2012)
Yeah. At least the birds do fight back occasionally. When I lived on the farm, there was this one mockingbird who really had it out for Alley, probably because she killed another mockingbird. It would dive down at her and force her to hide under the lawn furniture. Hilarious. I would rescue Alley, not because she deserved to be rescued, but because that bird made a lot of racket while attacking Alley. It even went after Titania, probably because she's a cat, and she looks a lot like Alley. Both cats are tabbies, with the main difference being that they have different stripe patterns.
Hi again, Meatbag,
Yes, the last time I saw a bird attacking a cat, it was because the cat had grabbed the
mate of the bird.
Yeah, ocicats are basically a combination of siamese, abyssinians, and American shorthairs. Somehow, that results in a cat with a spotted tabby pattern that looks like an ocelot, despite having no wild cat DNA (unlike the similar-looking savannahs, who are serval/cat hybrids).
I think my two favorite pieces of cat-related bullshit are this Kickstarter
for a cat motivational tape
And there is a cruel irony to the Dakotas being anti-Indian, considering those states were named after Indians.
Yes, and the Dakotas were originally "the Indian Territory", guaranteed
to the Indians by treaty forever — "as long as the river flows, and the grass grows", etc.
But then somebody discovered gold in the Black Hills.
Funny how gold automatically invalidates previous promises.
I do have to wonder about the sort of people who have so much anger and hatred as a lot of talk radio personalities do. It can't possibly be good for them. I can see why Rush Limbaugh abuses painkillers. Spewing vitriol every day drains a person, no matter how much money they make from doing that. Yes. What kind of a life is it, knowing that you are making millions of dollars as a professional liar and hate-monger? You would have to have a very warped value system to rationalize that. Unfortunately, Big Nurse is everywhere when you have a disability or mental illness. Or, heaven forbid, both. Incidentally, mental hospitals and prisons are a lot alike. No shoes with laces allowed. You can't wear certain clothes (I had my overalls confiscated). The days are highly regimented, from the time they want you to wake up to the time they want you to go to bed. Visitors are only allowed at certain hours. After every meal, they check to make sure you've returned all your plastic cutlery. By the way, the food tastes like prison food. The soap is in travel-sized containers. And you stay in the hospital for however long the doctors want you to stay. That last sentence sounds frightening. In bad rehabs, that translates into "as long as your health insurance pays." Warm Springs is kind of a cross between that environment and a college. There's no restrictions on your clothing. You're actually free to walk to town and even have a car, unlike the mental hospital, where I was confined inside from day one until the day I got out. Things are set up so you don't need a car, though, and there's even trips to Walmart every weekend. The cafeteria food tastes significantly better. Your parents can visit you whenever they want. But if you stay with your parents for longer than the weekend, you have to tell your assigned counselor beforehand. Kind of like a probation officer, actually.
The whole "working your way up" thing isn't restricted to the medications. New residents start off in a barebones dorm with a roommate, and you're not allowed to bring in furniture that can't be moved easily. To be fair, that's because there's a decent chance your roommate will be a wheelchair user. Eventually, you can move in to an apartment with a fridge and your own room. They never trust you with appliances like toasters, though. This set-up is a lot like my old college, where upperclassmen got nicer dorms than the freshmen.
I can't quite tell from the tour just how regimented the day is. Is it structured like a college, or structured like a mental hospital? I'm also not sure how easy it is to quit the program if I don't like it. But the place does have a fair amount of good points. They stopped requiring everybody to take the same living skills classes before work training. Instead, they test everyone to see what skills they need. There's a variety of work I can choose to do. It seems like I'll get paid while training. They'll help me get a job when I'm done with the program.
So, it seems like I can get a lot out of this if I can put up with being treated like a naughty teenager for a while. I do wish a non-patronizing program of this type wasn't too much to ask for, though.
Good luck there. Yes, I also wish for non-patronizing personel in such places. It seems to be an occupational
hazard — many of those jobs like caretaker for people with mental problems quickly lead to
the staff having patronizing attitudes, or worse.
Have a good day, and a good life.
== Orange
[The next letter from Meatbag is here.] 
Date: Sat, September 22, 2012 7:49 pm You are an idiot. Sent from my iPhone
Date: Mon, September 24, 2012 12:16 am (answered 30 September 2012) Dear Orange, A few years ago I got sucked into the AA nightmare. At the time I thought it was the only way out of an ongoing battle I'd been having with alcohol. Well, it turned out that it only made it worse. I was always relapsing, going back to meetings, relapsing, going back and on and on. Finally, just one year ago I ended up in the hospital for the umpteenth time, nearly dead and so messed up that they kept me sedated for a week while trying to get my heart rhythms back to normal. While in the hospital, a friend stayed with me and together we searched the internet for alternative answers to AA and found your site. There was enough information there to get me going in an entirely new direction, 180 degrees away from AA, a direction that I think saved my life. Today, I'm sober, I'm happy, I'm healthy and I've been that way ever since leaving the hospital one year ago. I have a future ahead of me, a new business I now own and I'm in better shape physically than I was when I was 20. Most importantly, I have drive, determination and I now know I WILL make it and realize my goals. It's all because I read the information you provided and made a decision.....a decision to take responsibility for my actions and I consciously decided NOT to drink, ever again. I made that promise to myself and it's worked. I have no cravings, I'm not an unhappy "dry drunk" and I'll never set foot inside an AA meeting again. I now see AA for what it really is, a cult that simply does not work. I also occasionally see some of the AA members that I used to see in meetings, on the street from time to time, and to a man, they're all still locked in a battle they'll never win as long as they stay in AA. I've tried to help a couple of them but there is no help until they open their minds and see that they're being brainwashed. I just wanted to thank you for putting your web site out there. There are alternatives and they work, whereas AA will always fail. Thanks Orange, I have my life back.
Sincerely,
Hello LDJ,
Wow. Thank you for the letter. I'm flattered and very happy to hear that things worked out for you
okay. It sounds like you've got it, and there isn't really anything for me to say other than,
"Thanks for the thanks, and have a good day." And congratulations.
== Orange
Date: Fri, September 21, 2012 6:48 pm (answered 30 September 2012 http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/09/20/4276609/mother-testifies-about-finding.html
Hello Peter,
Thanks for the tip. That is Straight, which was actually worse than A.A., if you can imagine such a thing.
Straight was a very abusive "treatment program" that was derived from Synanon,
which was derived from Alcoholics Anonymous.
Charles "Chuck" Dederich, the founder of Synanon,
was a former member of Alcoholics Anonymous who decided that he could take the "best"
parts of A.A. and add on a confrontational "group therapy" where everybody attacked everybody else,
and make a better treatment program for drug addicts.
Dederich had this crazy idea that having people verbally attack each other and rip each other to shreds would
improve people and make them get clean and sober.
It didn't work. In the end, Synanon degenerated into a nightmare commune cult of guns and alcohol and violence
and attempted assassinations. Synanon formed a goon squad called the "Imperial Marines" that was armed to the
teeth.
The "Imperial Marines" attacked former members and dropouts. They
smashed Phil Ritter's head with a baseball bat from behind
in the dark of night, and he got meningitis and nearly died.
When some victims of such abuse sued Synanon, the "Imperial Marines"
put a rattlesnake, minus the warning rattle, in the lawyer Paul Morantz's mailbox.
He nearly died from the snake bite.
When the police came to arrest the leader Chuck Dederich for attempted murder, he was too drunk to walk.
The police had to carry Dederich out on a stretcher. That's really quite some Director of a rehab program,
isn't it?
Nevertheless, Synanon is still the basis for all of the "confrontational" drug and alcohol treatment programs
in the USA. Former members of Synanon claim to be experts on recovery, and they have set up new abusive programs using
Synanon techniques. And those programs spawned more bad programs. There are literally dozens of abusive
treatment programs that decended from Synanon, which descended from Alcoholics Anonymous nonsense.
Quackery everywhere. What Synanon really taught them is that you need no credentials or training or expertise
to go into the child-abuse-for-pay business.
Just advertise that you are "helping children", and you can get away with murder.
(Literally.)
Every Straight program that ever existed was charged with child abuse and sued. They all shut down under a
firestorm of lawsuits and accusations and charges of criminal child abuse. Nevertheless, more abusive descendants of
Straight are still in operation, "helping children".
Here are some links to more information about Synanon and Straight.
Now legally, this story presents some interesting questions. The defense lawyer has a point when he
complains that his client was coerced into the confession by Straight.
Not much of a point, but a little one. I'm sure that
the prosecutor will get her conviction anyway. But legally, it's a real question whether someone who is
undergoing court-ordered attendance (which this apparently was not)
at any confessional drug or alcohol "treatment program" (like A.A. or N.A. or anything based on
12-Step cult religion) can then be
prosecuted with the confessions heard there. I think not. However, the prosecutor has DNA evidence, which is
probably not tainted by the confession.
Legally, a program like Straight has no right to confidentiality of confessions, like the Catholic Church gets.
Straight was never a religion, or based on confessing sins and seeking God, like A.A. is.
A.A. supposedly has such protection, because
judges have ruled that A.A. is a religion,
but that is also violated often.
A medical treatment program, which A.A., N.A., and Straights also purport to be, is also supposed to
have medical confidentiality, but obviously, they don't.
Nothing that you say in any A.A. or N.A. meeting, or "group encounter"
drug and alcohol treatment program is confidential or safe, really.
On that point, I advise people to assume that anything confessed in an A.A. or
N.A. meeting, or in a rehab "group therapy" session, will be faxed to
the police, published on the Internet, and gossiped all over town.
From a medical point of view, I'm very curious about how heroin supposedly made this guy kill a girl.
Heroin does not tend to make people violent — it makes them passive, and "down".
A junkie who just got his fix is nodding out and very happy, not looking for someone to kill.
I suspect that this murderer is a very dangerous, very sick psycho killer who just
happened to take some heroin before committing murder.
Perhaps he was trying to calm down his spinning mind by taking heroin.
Apparently, it didn't work. Obviously, the guy has much bigger issues than a heroin habit.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sat, September 29, 2012 8:55 pm (answered 2 October 2012) A sour grape...Oops...A.Orange.... worked for mew for 29+ years... Maybe you just didn't do what you were told to.....we call that "self-will" Read 1st sentence on page 58 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. THAT'S where the secret is.....
Hello Ron,
Congratulations for your 29 years of choosing to not drink alcohol.
Apparently, that's the smart choice for you. By the way, there is no "sour grapes" for me.
I have 11, almost 12, years of sobriety too, so my "program" is also working great.
Thank you for showing once again that Alcoholics Anonymous really is a cult.
Surrender to "the program" or "the group" is a standard cult
characteristic. It's in The Cult Test. Look here:
Surrender to a cult is never the answer to drug or alcohol problems. The very idea is insane. But that's what
Bill Wilson was — insane.
He just took
Dr. Frank Buchman's pro-Nazi cult religion
and declared that it was the cure for alcoholism, so alcoholics had to
"make a surrender",
and that was supposedly "the answer".
A.A. has no magic "secret". Again, that is cult talk —
We Have The Panacea.
There is nothing wrong with self-will.
It beats the heck out of being a slave and just obeying someone else's will.
And doing just what you are told is the path that leads to drinking the cyanide
koolaid when the leader tells you to.
(Or to not taking your medications, or to becoming a victim...)
By the way, what you are calling "self-will" is often really just thinking for yourself, rather than
being one of the sheep.
The first sentence on page 58 is Bill Wilson
lying with qualifiers,
again: "thoroughly followed our path."
Bill wanted to count only the sober people, so that his "program" would
look like it really works, so he claimed that only the sober people had "thoroughly
followed his path." Bill Wilson was a lying con artist who knew how to play word games.
Only count the sober people, and disqualify all of those who drink again for not
having thoroughly followed the path, and hey presto! — you suddenly have a
100% success rate. What a great program. NOT!
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sun, September 30, 2012 4:21 pm (answered 3 October 2012) A. Orange, I FIND YOUR VERY PERSONAL ATTACK ON BILL W. AND REALLY A.A AS A WHOLE PRETTY PETTY. ONLY AN ANGRY BITTER INDIVIDUAL WITHOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD WOULD FEEL OK RISING ABOVE SOMETHING THAT HAS HELPED SO MANY AND TRANSCENDED ALL RACIAL AND CULTURAL LINES. I HOPE YOU FIND YOUR WAY AND PEACE IN GOD. Wade...
Hello Wade,
A.A. has not "helped so many."
A.A. harms and even kills more people than it saves. That is why I criticize it.
I'd be all for A.A. if it actually worked half as well as the A.A. promoters claim.
But telling people to list and confess their sins and not take their medications
kills more people than it saves.
And practicing
an old pro-Nazi cult religion from the nineteen-thirties
does not get people closer to God either, or make them spiritual, or improve their lives.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters327.html#William_B ]
Date: Tue, October 2, 2012 12:22 pm (answered 3 October 2012) Hi Orange Two more tragic suicides. Jessica below recently killed herself. I knew her personally from meeting her at AA meets. I liked her and some considerable years ago she seemed friendly and approachable but later became very wary of me. Although I have to honestly say I do not know why. http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9874577 [Dead link]
A man in a nearby town of Worthing killed himself in March by jumping off a crane. Verbal reports from acquaintances say he was seen at Al Anon meets looking for somewhere to fit in. The last place I saw him was at an AA meet last year where he complained that my eating chips at the meet stopped him understanding what was going on. Obviously my own self protection is a strong motivation not to approach aggressive people so I avoided him. I heard this morn from a friend that some one I should know who claimed to want to go back to AA died. He had met a girl in AA and they had got married and had a daughter. I can not put a name to these people although their names seem familiar. But with 500 people a year in our area being sent by the treatment centres I just get lost in a sea of faces. I can not help but feel that the 12 Step Program probally fucked with these peoples heads and left them no option but to kill themselves. I can not help but think of my earlier letter:
" did my own survey. I went to 5 meetings AA, NA, CA, on Monday last week. I counted 157 people not including duplications. Using Vaillant's figures: In one year's time 3 or 4 of these people will be dead. The quote of Vaillant on your site does not reveal a distribution chart for the deaths. It just says that 29 out of the 100 people he could trace were dead after 8 years. We have to remember that the 6 people he could not trace may be dead as well. In reviewing this letter I can see that my maths is correct but how I got from a sample of 157 to 129 not sure — must have had a bad day. However the facts that I have reported at the beginning of the letter from only those people who I know or should know personally bear out Vaillants findings. Since Vaillant clearly reported his findings factually this does not suprise me. On a personal note one day when my son D and I were playing golf on his Wii machine I said "lets look in the shed for some clubs and go out to the local 9 hole. I forgot that it is half a golf course not a pitch and putt. So off we went. I also forgot that I would have to carry the clubs. Anyway D enjoyed it so now every weekend we play golf. D particularly likes rolling around in the bunkers and playing the 7th hole on his hands and knees using only a putter. My father in law offered to buy some junior clubs but I had that covered I thought it was because he is from Scotland and he wants D to remember his Scottish heritage. But apparently he told my wife that "no one encouraged me to do anything when I was young" and indeed Hell would have frozen over before my father took me to play golf. Is it not amazing that childhood regrets/losses/etc. echo down the generations. One query I remember seeing a film which was claimed to be based on a true story of a young lady who led a family of hand raised geese on a migration to Florida by using a microlight. So the question is how do your orphan geese achieve this feat.
Regards and Respect
Hi William,
Thanks for the letter and the information. The suicides are certainly depressing.
So I'll take the last item first. That's easy.
The story of the family of hand-raised geese getting led south by an ultra-light is a true story.
Actually, the journey's start was in Canada, in Ontario, I think, and the destination was North Carolina
in the USA. They made a movie of it — it's called "Fly Away Home". (Recommended. Rent it,
or download it, or something.) I described that movie more in this letter:
How you get the geese to follow is super-easy: You can't stop them. Canada Geese goslings are very intelligent,
and they know who their parents are. And they know when you have adopted them and saved their lives, and
become their foster parent.
So they become very attached to you, and follow you around all day long and hop into bed with you at night,
and cry if you won't let them sleep with you. (I learned that one the hard way, and had to give it up and
sleep with them.)
Young Canada Geese expect their parents to lead them south on a migration in the autumn. So when the girl
who was the foster mother of the orphaned goslings started leading them around in an ultra-light, the young
geese were eager to follow.
All that she had to do was exercise them, taking them on longer and longer
flights around the neighborhood, to build up their wing muscles before the journey.
Now, on to the suicides. That is so sad. The hospital kicking that woman out when they knew that she was
likely to commit suicide is reprehensible. I can just see some official rationalizing, "It's policy. That's
what the rules say. Three days and out." I'm sure that part of that is due to budget cut-backs. Great Britain
under Margaret Thacher and the USA under Ronald Reagan have both seen big cuts to government services, and
cuts in funding of mental hospitals have been the result. Reagan actually argued that mentally-ill people
should be free — he was nuts, he was an Altzheimers case himself — so he kicked
all of the mentally-ill people out onto the streets and closed the mental hospitals.
As a result, we now have homeless mentally-ill people in the streets of every city in the USA.
And occasionally, they commit suicide or murder.
And of course, those sick people often try to fix themselves by self-medicating, so they also get into
trouble with drugs and alcohol.
I agree that A.A. and Al-Anon are doing a great disservice to those sick people. The last thing that
depressed suicidal people need is some 12-Step fanatic telling people to "Work The Steps" and
list and confess their many sins, wrongs, moral shortcomings, and defects of character.
That's just another "repent and be saved" cult religion, which is not good for already-depressed
suicidal people.
Again, A.A. is just not qualified to treat mental illness. They aren't "the experts of addiction",
like they claim.
Oh well, have a good day anyway. Speaking of which, playing golf with your son is a lot more fun than
going to an A.A. meeting, isn't it? Healthier, too.
== Orange
Date: Fri, September 28, 2012 6:06 am (answered 4 October 2012) Hi Orange, Hope you are well. As always, I've been enjoying the letters section of the Orange Papers. Hey, have you heard of this guy, Dr. Griffith Edwards? Here's his obit: Any thoughts on this guy? Bill
PS — Like you, I've been into bird photography. It's such a nice way to spend a day
in the woods or at the shore. I live in NJ so I go to Cape May a lot to take photos.
Hello Bill,
Thanks for the tip. Oh yes, do I have some comments and opinions on Griffith Edwards. He was a lying fraud
who devoted his career to promoting the 12-Step cult religion and passing it off as a successful cure,
and writing propaganda that declared that A.A. works. The New York Times obituary was a real white-wash
and glorification of a fraud.
I have discussed Griffith Edwards several times before. Look here:
The NY Times obituary mentions this clinical test, but neglects to mention the fact
that Griffith Edwards then proceeded to ignore these test results and spend the
rest of his life promoting the 12-Step quack treatment anyway.
Have a good day.
== Orange
Date: Wed, September 26, 2012 1:41 pm (answered 4 October 2012) http://torontostandard.com/the-sprawl/torontos-harm-reduction-movement
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Hi again, Peter,
Yes, a very interesting article.
The first thing that caught my attention was the 60-year-old woman junkie. I thought, "If she hasn't
quit by now, then she never will. Might as well just legally give her the stuff."
It would save society money in the long run.
Harm reduction saves money, too. Not to mention the fact that it is the compassionate and Christian thing to do.
I agree with your statement:
Unfortunately, I think that there will large stacks of bodies before public sentiment
recognizes that the prohibition crusaders are barbaric, sort of like how we now
look at the "noble, virtuous, Godly" witch-hunters of the Middle Ages.
Alas, our current enlightened attitude towards witches doesn't bring the burned girls back to life.
Date: Thu, October 4, 2012 4:44 pm (answered 8 October 2012) From: "Peter Ferentzy" Subject: RE: Web and Social Networking Positions open in Toronto
Unfortunately, I think that there will large stacks of bodies before public sentiment recognizes that the prohibition crusaders are barbaric, sort of like how we now look at the "noble, virtuous, Godly" witch-hunters of the Middle Ages. Alas, our current enlightened attitude towards witches doesn't bring the burned girls back to life.
Yes that's true. Im just hyped because we're gonna win. But sure, it would be nice
if we didn't have to struggle against ignorance and malice. Yeah ... dead witches
and dead junkies and etc.
Now that's a good positive attitude. Celebrate our eventual victory, rather than mourning
our losses.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Wed, October 3, 2012 10:10 am
Peter Ferentzy, PhD
Okay, good luck. It sure would be nice if American drug policies were as enlightened as those of Canada.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Last updated 9 March 2013. |
