What are the odds?

[ajax13]

Does anyone reading this forum think that it's a coincidence that AARCSurvivor was rolled into the Straight, Inc. and Derivatives board?  Every single straight branch closed either permanently or to reopen under a new name.  Many of the renamed Straights closed as well.  The offshoot of Straight, Kids, all closed as well.  All of those programs were beset with lawsuits and criminal charges.  But folks like Vin's Favorite Guest, the Who, Joshy, and a few others would have us believe that to question AARC is ludicrous.  In fact Friendly turned CensoredFriendly turned Interested turned Interestednomore turned Vin's Favourite Guest would have readers believe that calling AARC into question and pointing out the similarities between the Executive Director of AARC and that of Kids, as well as the AARC Executive Director's direct link to Kids, is in the same vein as murdering and decapitating a complete stranger on a bus.  
So raising questions about the legitimacy of AARC, an unlicensed facility employing a former employee of Kids as the Executive Director, is outlandish and apparently constitutes a heinous crime.

[TheWho]

But folks like Vin's Favorite Guest, the Who, Joshy, and a few others would have us believe that to question AARC is ludicrous.

If you read back thru the posts you will see the problem doesn’t lie in the questions you have, but with your inability or refusal to listen to the answers to those questions which have been presented.  I have sat here and watched you ignore many answers to questions just to turn around and repeat the question again without acknowledging others who post here or engage in honest dialog to better understand the truth.



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[ajax13]

You haven't sat and watched anything, asshole.  You've attempted to answer questions or manipulate opinions by offering up conjecture or sentiment.  You've insinuated that I haven't completed high school, as if my education were somehow pertinent to the discussion.  By honest dialogue are you referring to the guy who claimed that my wife was a prostitute, or the one who said that I was a pedophile?  Or was that engaging in honest dialogue when you attempted to tell me, on several occasions what I was thinking.  But without fail, you offer up some convulted explanation for everything that ignores the point of the thread.  Read back over the threads in which you've posted.  By the time you've finished, the topic of the thread is always lost because you sidetracked it, generally without ever addressing it.  So again, why are you attempting to offer answers to anything when you have admitted that you know fuck-all about AARC?   You asked what my source was for saying that, if we used your interpretation of the table in AARC's study, the table in question would get a failing mark in a statistics class.  In the context of statistics that is on a par with asking me to explain why you would fail remedial math if you said that the sum of 17 and 12 were 51.  So what is it that you're trying to accomplish?  Are you concerned that someone is maligning a program that receives millions of dollars from high profile charitible donors and the Provincial Government in Alberta and has received literally dozens of favorable reports from television and print media?  Do they require your two cents to stay afloat?

[psy]

You've attempted to answer questions or manipulate opinions by offering up conjecture or sentiment.

Don't forget opinion, which is inherently pointless to counter since it's not falsifiable.  Point is that most everything he says is either misleading or completely irrelevant.  Don't take the bait and chase after his chaff.

[TheWho]

You haven't sat and watched anything, asshole. You've attempted to answer questions or manipulate opinions by offering up conjecture or sentiment. You've insinuated that I haven't completed high school, as if my education were somehow pertinent to the discussion.

You brought up peoples education in this discussion yourself, not I, attacking schools and diplomas or work done without offering up what the requirements were.  This has been asked several times to you Ajax.  What level of education is needed for this position (Running AARC)? Bachelors, masters, PhD? and where is this documented?  You refuse to answer or discuss this with anyone.

By honest dialogue are you referring to the guy who claimed that my wife was a prostitute, or the one who said that I was a pedophile? Or was that engaging in honest dialogue when you attempted to tell me, on several occasions what I was thinking.

No, the discussion on the Union Institute and the AARC study.

But without fail, you offer up some convulted explanation for everything that ignores the point of the thread. Read back over the threads in which you've posted. By the time you've finished, the topic of the thread is always lost because you sidetracked it, generally without ever addressing it.

Not true, If you would stay on topic then the thread would not be derailed.  I have asked numerous times why the PhD is important, why the type of school is important.  What does it matter if he didn’t attend the University of Calgary? You try to gain and understanding about how the man could do research for his PhD and work at the same time and you don’t want to hear any answers.  Why do you ask if the answers piss you off so much?  And you avoid the discussion everytime and go off topic.

So again, why are you attempting to offer answers to anything when you have admitted that you know fuck-all about AARC?

I haven’t offered any answers specific to the internal workings of AARC.  I spoke to the study and education if I recall correctly.

You asked what my source was for saying that, if we used your interpretation of the table in AARC's study, the table in question would get a failing mark in a statistics class.

See you say things like this without providing your source and then get bent out of shape if anyone questions your educational background, what’s up with that?  You obviously do not have a statistical background, so why do you say things like that without knowing?

In the context of statistics that is on a par with asking me to explain why you would fail remedial math if you said that the sum of 17 and 12 were 51.

?

Hmmmm.... okay?
 

So what is it that you're trying to accomplish? Are you concerned that someone is maligning a program that receives millions of dollars from high profile charitible donors and the Provincial Government in Alberta and has received literally dozens of favorable reports from television and print media? Do they require your two cents to stay afloat?

No, I am sure they will do fine without me.  You were the one asking a ton of questions and I thought I could help answer some of them, which I have successfully.  If you asked me anything about the internal program I would not be able to help you out, but the studies and some educational requirements I may be able to help with.



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[ajax13]

You didn't answer a single question with information.  You offered speculation and conjecture, and then interpreted your own scenarios.  I didn't create the issue of the inadequacy of the Wiz's qualifications, but then you already knew that.  The nature of Miller Newton's education from Union was part of the case against Kids.  As the Wiz has a PhD from Union and performs the same role in AARC that Newton did in Kids, it seemed to be a fairly important fact about AARC.  It's not up to me to determine what qualifications are needed to run AARC, or to administer treatment in AARC.  Perhaps no qualifications whatsoever are needed to administer treatment to chemically addicted youth.  You'll notice that this thread went off topic with your first post.  The subject was the likelihood of AARC being a non-abusive program in light of it's heredity, and you turned it, again, into an attack on me.  Which begs the question.  Is your aim to simply disrupt the forum, in order to deflect readers away from the issues surrounding AARC, or are you just nuts?  Either way, it's interesting to observe.

[Anonymous]

.  Is your aim to simply disrupt the forum, in order to deflect readers away from the issues surrounding AARC, or are you just nuts?

Both, but they primarily wish to fill the forum with pro-AARC bullshit.


 

Either way, it's interesting to observe.

No, it isn't.  Kinda tiresome, really.........

[TheWho]

You didn't answer a single question with information. You offered speculation and conjecture, and then interpreted your own scenarios.

I offered my opinion and discussion.  If that is not what you wanted then why are you asking these questions here on fornits?  You should direct the questions about education towards Union Insitute, Qualifications towards AARC and the Study towards those who designed it (Hazelden and Patton) if you wanted direct answers.

I didn't create the issue of the inadequacy of the Wiz's qualifications, but then you already knew that.

There hasn’t been an inadequacy established.  In order to establish an inadequacy you need to present / define what is adequate and how that is established.  This hasn’t been done yet.

The nature of Miller Newton's education from Union was part of the case against Kids. As the Wiz has a PhD from Union and performs the same role in AARC that Newton did in Kids, it seemed to be a fairly important fact about AARC. It's not up to me to determine what qualifications are needed to run AARC, or to administer treatment in AARC.

This has been my point.  If you don’t understand the qualifications needed to run then how can you determine if the person filling the position is inadequate?


 

Perhaps no qualifications whatsoever are needed to administer treatment to chemically addicted youth.

Exactly, his Bachelors degree may be enough which would deem any discussion about further education moot.  I think you are starting to see what I mean.  There needs to be an acceptable standard defined first before comparisons are made.

You'll notice that this thread went off topic with your first post. The subject was the likelihood of AARC being a non-abusive program in light of it's heredity, and you turned it, again, into an attack on me. Which begs the question. Is your aim to simply disrupt the forum, in order to deflect readers away from the issues surrounding AARC, or are you just nuts? Either way, it's interesting to observe.

As you read thru the thread you will see that a lot of time has been wasted by you not fully understanding or acknowledging responses to your questions.  Many have offered answers but you are not reading them or responding.



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[Anonymous]

So, again, what are you doing, Who?

He's leading you around in circles attempting to tire you out.  Even if you win an argument with him, he'll raise the same one in a page or two (knowing that most casual readers won't bother to look back).

My advice is to completely ignore him (click on his username and add him as a "foe").  If you do that, he goes away.  Or you can categorize your responses to his most common arguments into a faq and simply post a link to the appropriate answer in each of your responses (so you don't have to repeat yourself).

Look, Who.  I've talked to AARC survivors, and frankly, based on what they've told me, it's one of the worst places i've heard of.  Maybe you should do a little reserach on who you are defending before you decide (in boredom, I suppose) to give AARC some pro-bono propaganda services.

[ajax13]

To some degree I'm curious about the Who.  He's latched onto this forum, but why?  With 4000 posts, he's spent several days in the last few years composing his posts.  If his background is related to the Aspen group, why is he devoting time and energy to derailing the Straight thread, in particular talk about AARC. Is he paid to do what he does on Fornits, and if so by whom?  A few days ago someone was discussing the Who in the context of putting out disinformation.  Is his interest in AARC simply due to the fact that any program that tanks draws fire upon all of them?  AARC being the only Synanon for youth in Canada, the demise of such a program would be a massive scandal, particularly in light of the Provincial Government support for AARC.  If he's not a paid agent of disinformation, what is the explanation for so much time devoted to this?

[TheWho]

To some degree I'm curious about the Who.  He's latched onto this forum, but why?  With 4000 posts, he's spent several days in the last few years composing his posts.  If his background is related to the Aspen group, why is he devoting time and energy to derailing the Straight thread, in particular talk about AARC. Is he paid to do what he does on Fornits, and if so by whom?  A few days ago someone was discussing the Who in the context of putting out disinformation.  Is his interest in AARC simply due to the fact that any program that tanks draws fire upon all of them?  AARC being the only Synanon for youth in Canada, the demise of such a program would be a massive scandal, particularly in light of the Provincial Government support for AARC.  If he's not a paid agent of disinformation, what is the explanation for so much time devoted to this?

psy had it right,  I was just a little bored.  Nothing going on in the TTI thread.  Wish I was getting paid for this.  Ajax you were posting all these questions and I thought I could help but it turned out you really didn’t want any answers.

I don’t have a background in this industry other than placing my daughter at ASR.  From what I read AARC is a 1 year program, straight was more of a cult which recruited the entire family and tried to make each person spend a lifetime (from what I have been told here).  AARC  reached out to an independent source (Patton) to conduct a study and brought in people from Hazelden to help oversee the data collection and presentation.  You tried to shake that apart but as we saw it was pretty solid and does give them quite a bit of credibility as far as success goes.  You also targeted the owners credentials which I did not understand how this had a bearing on anything based on the schools results.

What wasn’t touched upon was any abuse which transpired within the walls of AARC.  Typically this is the main focus when trying to discredit a program but was absent from the attacks against AARC, so at first glance they look appealing (from a fornitian point of view).

Psy indicated that they are among the worst so maybe I have some reading to do to catch up.  I believe that each program is independent and I don’t buy into the thought of branding a place because its history can be traced back to abusive programs.  A person who spent time in an abusive program may actually be the best candidate to start a new one (assuming they recognized the abuse).

Confrontational therapy used in the 1970’s was leading edge and somewhat controversial but it had the eyes and ears of the professional community for a long time because it was having an effect (maybe short term) but an effect just the same.  Anything that could improve the lives of people who were totally lost couldnt be all that bad or abusive and the programs during those times thought they were doing the best for their patients.  Besides every night on the 11 o’clock news there were hippies running all over the US smoking anything that grew out of the ground and sitting in front of government buildings disrupting life and smoking stuff that wasn’t taxed.

30 years from now the present therapy will be viewed upon as archaic and abusive, I am sure, because we will be solving these problems via gene therapy or some type of medication which will alleviate the need to separate family members for long period of time.  So we need to keep the present programs in our sights and try to determine which ones are benefiting our youth the most in the least restrictive manner and shortest time frame and expose the abusive ones.

I guess I am running off topic………………………..



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[Anonymous]

Go back to the Aspen boards Who.

[TheWho]

Go back to the Aspen boards Who.

Blow me!!

[Carmel]

Lovely, lovely! A good old Fornits showdown....its been a while, nice to see one after such a long dead period.  The thing is guys, people come and go here....and getting all indignant about anything anyone posts here starts to look quite amusing after 7 or 8 years.

But continue, by all means! Keep the blood flowin!
 :wall:      

[Anonymous]

So raising questions about the legitimacy of AARC, an unlicensed facility employing a former employee of Kids as the Executive Director, is outlandish and apparently constitutes a heinous crime.

I think NOT raising questions about the legitimacy of AARC, allowing unlicensed facilities to even exist, and not taking a very close look at the treatment practices of AARC BECAUSE it was created by a former employee of Kids would be outlandish and should constitute a heinous crime!

From what I've read, Kids of the Canadian West was put under a microscope by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and not allowed to fly, the SAME scrutiny should have been conducted regarding the AARC program WHEN IT STARTED, and even more importantly NOW that it's been running for years (unregulated).

The protection of youth should be a given... not an option.

 :-