(To get the real deal on the Michael Jackson case read “Mad Dog” Sneddon Vs. Michael Jackson. ) Without the defense his money afforded (Thomas Mesereau Jr.), Jackson would’ve probably been imprisoned for 18 years! In all likelihood, he’d have perished in the pokey. People with modest means could not have mustered the resources to win. Think back to the day care child sex abuse witch hunt that gripped the nation in the 1980s. Over 400 children, stoked by hysterical mothers and lethal therapists (most of whom have retained their professional credentials), accused day care workers, parents, and teachers of the kind of perversities that would’ve made the Marquis de Sade blush. The accusations (also the evidence in court) would’ve also befuddled the infamous sexual sadist, because they involved copulation with clowns, spaceships, robots, and mythical creatures. Still, children don’t lie, remember? In any event, victims were imprisoned absent corroborative evidence—no blood, semen or evidence of battery was ever produced. Kelly Michaels, Gerald Amirault, and the Breezy Point day school ought to be household names—helpless victims of libel. The name of Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, the “Mad Dog” of Massachusetts, ought to live on in infamy. Janet Reno’s already does: then the Dade County State Attorney, Reno used these cases as a professional stepping stone, going on to commit even greater crimes.
Cruise And The Psychiatric Shamans
Celebrity, Hollywood, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Reason, Science, The Therapuetic State
The psychiatric peanut gallery has blasted actor Tom Cruise for insisting correctly that there’s more voodoo to the profession than veracity. Cruise’s instincts are good: “Psychiatrists don’t have a test that can prove that a so-called mental illness is actually organic in origin, I wrote. Rigorous clinician —members of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology come to mind —concede that drawing causal connections between “mental illness” and “chemical imbalances” is impossible. That prescription medication often helps misbehaved or unhappy individuals is no proof that strange behavior is an organic disease —placebos or cognitive-behavioral therapy, for example, are as effective.
The shameful shamans depend for their livelihood on diseasing every aspect of behavior (and especially bad behavior). And they evince no qualms about “junking free will, responsibility, and agency for an unproven biological determinism, riddled with logical, factual, and moral infelicities. Cruise, of course, is not the most eloquent spokesman. Actress Kelly Preston is. Her arguments against Ritalin are lucid.
Male biopsychology has been demonized in the schools. As I explained in Broad Sides, boys are boisterous. They are also “naturally predisposed to competition. But a “progressive,” public-school system, populated by female feminists, forces boys to conform to the feminist consensus about appropriate male behavior. One consequence of the last is that instead of challenging, disciplining, and harnessing their energies, boys are often medicated with Ritalin. Cruise, however, ought to have arrived at his perspective not via Scientology, but by studying the works of Thomas S. Szasz, MD, the genius who delivered the deductive death knell to the psychiatric house of cards.
Shark Tale
Fantasy though it is, Steven Spielberg’s magnificent thriller, Jaws, is still a better Guide For The Perplexed on shark behavior than the “experts.” Using anthropomorphism (the practice of attributing human characteristics to an animal), not reason, the shark seers insist that this perfectly designed killing machine prefers feasting on fish than on folks. (“Too tough and chewy,” says a spokesfish for the shark community. “The attacks in the Florida Panhandle were carried out by two rogue members of our society.”) Let’s see: isn’t the alleged feeding preference of sharks a consequence of there being more fish in the sea than people? Hmm… And so we hear that the two teens who were recently savaged were either mistaken for seals or were perceived by Jaws to be jostling for his food supply. (“This is a turf war,” said the spokesfish, otherwise known as “The Mouth.”) A witness —a brave surfer who paddled to the rescue —says Sharky didn’t seem remotely ambivalent, and was doing what powerful, flesh-eating animals with pointy teeth do: tucking in.
“Different species; different cultures,” philosophized MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. That neoconservatives adopt the language of equivalence vis-a -vis man’s relationship with a man eater isn’t surprising. They have embraced many pink perversions (Andrew Sullivan does proud to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club). “Why do you think the Bush administration has such a blind spot on the environment?” Scarborough whinged at actor Robert Redford, who proceeded (with permission) to slime the president for taking pleasure in “shredding” nature. Bill O’Reilly and Joe Scarborough pounce on anyone who repudiates the invasion of Iraq for the moral, legal, and constitutional corruption that it is. But they openly allow liberals to slam Bush on the one issue he’s not that bad on: the environment (for one, his refusal to capitulate to the Kyoto-protocol crazies showed good judgment). Go figure.
Cable Is Kaput
If you wondered about cable news lately —don’t. It’s dead. Pushing up the daisies. Six feet under. Today, for example, these news nincompoops were in Utah and Aruba (I’m told Greta Van Susteren has moved there), when they ought to have been in, say, “Eyeraq” (it’s “Iraq,” pronounced eeraq! If you’re going to champion razing a country, at least have the courtesy to say it right), documenting how ordinary Iraqis are faring under “democracy.”
In any case, the Aruba story is not news. There has been no news from Aruba since, well, since shortly after the girl vanished and the arrests were made. A half-decent newsman would mention it again only if there were developments in the case. The unfortunate disappearance of Natalee Holloway, however, should never be dominating news broadcasts.
And why are we still hearing about the bug-eyed run-away bride? What kind of a market would support a book detailing her hoaxes and histrionics? “If you find a box labeled American Dry Goods, you can be reasonably sure it will contain nothing but their books,” said Oscar Wilde about an industry that has only worsened since. (For heaven’s sake, someone give Jennifer Wilbanks thyroid medication. Those eyes!)
Utah: Some brainy American parents warned their kid to the point of paranoia not to speak to strangers. They forgot, however, to tell him not to stray from his Boy-Scouts group during an excursion to the Utah Mountains. Consequently, the boy wandered off into the wilderness, but when search-and-rescue came looking, he hid from them for fear of… strangers. If you don’t believe me, here’s proud mama: “We’ve [sic] also told him don’t talk to strangers. … When an ATV or horse came by, he got off the trail. … When they left, he got back on the trail.” And here’s proud papa: “Brennan continues to amaze us.” He amazes me too. My sources tell me the boy abandoned the camp because there were too many strangers around.