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Topics - try another castle

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16
Open Free for All / The Five Stages of Grief... STUPID JUNGLE!!
« on: May 08, 2009, 09:34:01 PM »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCoaBN6iOu0

To this day, still my favorite bit from this show.

17
briefly...

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/m ... for-chafe/

(Temple is the last name of her husband, Brad.) Appears that she's working in the public sector. Definitely an improvement.

Just thought I'd throw that out.

18
The Troubled Teen Industry / poll: were you adopted?
« on: April 10, 2009, 04:19:32 AM »
pretty self explanatory

19
The Troubled Teen Industry / poll: were your parents divorced?
« on: April 10, 2009, 04:15:56 AM »
Edit: changed the topic title to see if I can get more voters to weigh in.

And please, guys, dont fuck around with the last three options by choosing that and something else. I'm trying to get some real numbers here and I feel that those are hellishly important to have. If I could code it so they could be mutually exclusive of the others, I would, but this board doesn't give me the flexibility to be all fancy and fenagle the AND/OR/NOTs myself.

I know we're a small bunch and not really representative of anything but our own crazy selves, but I do seem to notice a trend.


Also, for people like Auntie Em and che, who are related to someone who was in a program, please feel free to fill out the poll on behalf of your relative if you like. It's hardly subjective material, so I doubt there will be any misrepresentation.

But please, no answering the last two questions on behalf of another parent. Then it gets all confusticating.

Not like any of this is scientific and official anyway.

20
I'm extremely red-faced about posting this, since I am totally going to sound like one of "those" parents.

And yes. I am a parent. I don't talk about it, but I am. It's just something I prefer to keep hidden from internet forums and the like.

I actually have two daughters. They are both adopted. (Obviously, since I can't actually make children of my own.)

When my eldest went through her teenage years, she had her bouts of bitchiness, but for the most part, whenever a dispute went down, we could work it out.

However, my youngest has just reached "that age" (adolescent i.e. 14) and has started to get "that way".

Karma is definitely a bitch. I myself was a pain in the ass at that age, but it certainly is different when you are on the other side of this. I am honestly at a loss.

She is downright unruly. I mean, seriously wild. (and  you know that if I feel that way, that's saying something.) She is hyper, destructive, she stays up all hours, never listens to a word I say, gets into such horrid fights with her older sister that I actually have to break them up, and now.. she has started to steal from me. That, I can't abide. (and yes, it really is embarrassing to write this, because this list does sound like what a program parent says about their own kids.)

I am not sure if her being adopted has anything to do with it. (Especially since my eldest is adopted, too.)  She was seven when I became her father. Absolutely nothing is known about her history prior to her adoption. The adoption agency weren't even the ones who rescued her from her previous living situation, so they don't know much. She doesn't talk about it, which worries me. It is apparent, however, that some seriously fucked up shit happened to her, because she has little nervous compulsive habits. (For example, she's a "paper eater". I actually knew a kid like that when I went to school. It's not unheard of.)

Anyway, I really could use some good parenting advice on this, guys. I know this forum really isn't for that, and I know it's kind of uhm.. unexpected, since I've never talked about my kids before.

Placement, is, of course, absolutely not an option. I just need to maybe hear some advice from parents who have been there.

I've also decided, (against my own better judgment) to post a link to her picture, for those doubting Thomases out there. I asked her permission beforehand and she just dismissed me. Seriously, she doesn't care.

This is my daughter, I love her, and I am worried.










Her name is Niku.

21
The Troubled Teen Industry / The feasibility of a definitive study.
« on: March 15, 2009, 01:10:55 PM »
Since the fifth estate airing, I've been reading a great deal of swill regarding "success rate", and how it is measured.

These things have been measured in the past with other programs, such as synanon and 12 step.


However, criteria for "success" is not merely an issue of sobriety, is it?

I read the glowing testimonials from parents and grads about how the program "turned their life around". Well, how the fuck is this even measurable? Prove it, bitches. How do you know you wouldn't have worked out just fine if you never went?

I've decided, there needs to be a study. The thing is, what exactly, is being studied to begin with, and how the heck would it even be conducted?

I've been thinking about it, and here is what I have come up with so far.

1. It would require a list of criteria for both success and and initial placement. Some ideas for success (or, as I would prefer to call it from now on, "high-functioning") could be: employment, income level, nature of relationships with parents/family/friends, living situation.) I don't know, my point is that something specific would need to be established. Psychiatrists who work with outpatient care normally have a list of criteria that could probably be used as a reference.

The criteria for initial placement basically means the reasons kids were put away. These could be things such as a. drug/alcohol use. Frequency, nature of substance, etc. b. school attendance or discipline issues c. juvenile record d. poor grades e. psychiatric diagnosis f. history of suicide or self-harm. I'm not saying one way or another whether these are reasons to put a kid away, (but I'm sure you can guess what my feelings are on this). In addition, this would have to reflect the ACTUAL situation, not the parents perception of the situation. As such, the criteria must be concrete, measurable things, but could also take into consideration the subject's state of mind as they remember it, such as mood. This question could also be asked in establishing the criteria for high functioning rate.

2. A control. A cross section of adults from the general population who did not attend such schools, and are from similar socio-economic backgrounds as the adults who were placed in programs. Adults would be screened and selected based on whether their behavior as a teenager matched the placement criteria for the students in the study group who were placed in programs.

These adults would then be tested to determine which percentages met the criteria of a high functioning individual as an adult, in addition to the percentage breakdown for each line item in the criteria.

3. A study group. This is a selection of adults who were placed into programs as teens, and also determine the placement criteria that the control group is to be selected by.

The same poll run against the control would then be run against the study. Results would then be evaluated to see if there is any deviation between the control and study.


I also feel that it would be equally, if not more, important to do a similar study of percentages of suicides, unemployment, divorce rate, drug use and overdose, and criminal record/imprisonment between a program study group and a control group.


I would just really like to shut the success anecdote wagon train the fuck up for once, because at this point, it's arguing the hypothetical. And to be fair, that is the case either way, (i.e. crediting/blaming the program for general high or low functionality, with the exception of specific diagnoses such as PTSD.)

Anyway, it needs to be done. Really and truly. I'm just wondering if it's doable. The trick is the criteria, and this is why it would be essential that this study is done by the psychiatric industry, coupled with sociologists, because, as far as I know, they have established such criteria already as to what constitutes high, medium and low functionality. Whereas placement criteria is determined strictly by the study group.

Thoughts?

22
Feed Your Head / India Fails.
« on: March 14, 2009, 03:54:30 AM »
As I mentioned in another post, I recently finished reading a book by Rose George called "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters". (Highly recommend.) It got me interested in the general fucktardedness that is the Indian caste system, and how a country that is now reaping the financial benefits of first world business and taking our damn jobs still thinks it's a-ok to relegate an entire group of their citizens to indentured servitude by cleaning up everyone else's curry-laced shit by hand.

Observe:

http://material.ahrchk.net/video/lesser-humans.html

I recommend watching the whole thing, because that last bit with the guy going down into the sewer....  :eek:  yow.

Yet another argument for how religion is good for absolutely nothing except to fuck up everyone's life... unless you have money.  ::fullofshit::

I guarantee that no-one you have to deal with on one of those frustrating technical support calls is a banghi. No, those poor fucks are still making a whopping 20 rupees a month scraping out dry latrines with a piece of cardboard they found in the street.

It makes me wonder where India's new "middle class" comes from, cause it aint from there.

Fail.  ::unhappy::

23
CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones / celebrity trivia
« on: March 04, 2009, 02:24:52 AM »
I'm still trying to figure this out...

I would assume that there is some kid of a celebrity out there who was sent to a non-CEDU program, but it seems that for some reason, CEDU was the preferred dumping ground for famous folks' offspring.

I'm wondering why this would be the case, and I think the answer could be contingent on who the first celeb CEDUNK/RMANK was? (I'm talking preexisting celebrity, not joe francis)

Cause if it was Barbara Walters' daughter, that *could* explain some things. What better, more "reliable" referral than a famous telejournalist and tv personality?


Was there anyone before her?

24
1. Nestle quik powdered chocolate drink mix
2. ramen
3. instant coffee
4. mother's iced animal cookies (they're going out of business, noooo)

Let's deprive kids of processed crap and give them only healthy food, so that when they finally have access to said processed crap, they are going to want it more than ever.

25
I'm assuming at least some of the RMA alum know what I am talking about. The smelly, sputtery bugs that always bumbled their way indoors during the fall to find a nice toasty place to play dead/hibernate for the winter. (Normally the windowsill.) I don't remember who came up with the name, but it started while I was there, if memory serves (87-89). The portmanteau stood for slow as a snail, ugly as a roach. I somehow stumbled upon a listing in the urban dictionary, (I think someone pointed it out to me) where the OP stated that the nickname started at the monarch school. (I corrected him, goddammit.)

I fucking HATED those things. They gave me the willies, especially since I have a healthy phobia of all things of the order Hemiptera. (true bugs) I don't know why, that shield shape just freaks me out. *shivers* They always made me scream, and I always ended up having to be the one to trap them and kick them out of the dorm. The minute I got the faintest whiff of sour apples, I sought the guilty party out and got rid of it.

However, normally the things I am the most phobic of are also the things that fascinate me, and I always wondered what KIND of bug it was. I assumed it was a stink bug (family Pentatomidae), but I found out that it's actually a leaffooted bug (family Coreidae). It's binomial name is Leptoglossus occidentalis, otherwise known as the Western conifer seed bug, or pine seed bug. (Wiki says that Ohioans refer to it as the walky bug, because of its gait.)

http://bugguide.net/node/view/3393
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_conifer_seed_bug

As far as smelly bugs go, its stinkyness was rather pleasant. (I grew up in texas with black stink beetles. oh lord those were nasty. Smelled like the rotting vomit of a diabetic.)

Oh, and I'm sorry, average max size of 2cm? Yeah, my ass they were that small. Nuh fucking uh.

Anyway, I just finished up a job with a guy who went to spring creek lodge in montana, and yup, he had to deal with them too. (SCL has swamp coolers on the roof, and the bitches would fly in there and stink up the whole dorms.)


This post is part of the CEDU forum continuing series: "What The Fuck Were Those Things All About."

Thank you.

26
Feed Your Head / Coolest book ever written
« on: November 15, 2008, 10:55:50 PM »
http://us.macmillan.com/thebignecessity

I found out about it thursday, bought it yesterday, and am thoroughly enjoying this read.

It's about poop. What more can you ask for?

27
I think I may have talked a little bit about it before, but I was considering the role each propheet and workshop played and how each one fed into the other. I know that when I was there, the premise of each propheet and workshop seemed rather arbitrary, as if we were kind of jumping all over the place in terms of personal issues, but I accepted that it was the "right" time to be dealing with them. For some reason, I was thinking tonight about what the true objective of each experience was, and how they do indeed outline quite clearly the progressive steps used in thought reform. Apologies if this is obvious stuff everyone already knows.

1. Truth: We are broken. We are taught to lay ourselves raw. Often inappropriately.

2. Childrens: We are taught to regress. We are taught to feel as helpless as a child.

3. Brothers' Keeper: We are taught to betray our friends

4. Dreams: We are taught to betray ourselves

5. I Want to Live: We are taught that fear will kill us. We are also taught to fear.

6. Values: We are taught to base our moral compass off of other people's ideas of what we should be.

7. Imagine: We are taught to regress to the point of infantilism. We are taught that it is wrong to desire approval.

8. I & Me: We are taught to divide our psyches and create disharmony between the two.

9. Summit: Our personaes are re-written and dictated to us by the staff members. Some of us even change our names.

28
I think I can safely say that the all students at RMA were expatriates of another region of the country. But for some reason, the Idaho campus had a huge percentage of Californians. This is most likely owing to the fact that the parent campus is in California. (Although we still beat their ass every year in the east vs. west games, and several people in my peer group were instrumental in ensuring that always happened).

As restricted as we were regarding dress, the California look still managed to seep its way into the school's culture. Remember what kind of shoes girls were issued when they first got there? Those awful reebok high tops that permeated every California girlie teenage movie around in the 80s. What did the guys get? Vans? VANS??? ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?? MOTHERFUCKING VANS?? You dudes were sooo lucky!!

I remember seeing that among the required garb of flannels and cardboard jeans, we could get away with a shirt saying something like sideout or quicksilver on it during the summer months. Even if a kid's "image" was that you were a surfer boy.

And let's not forget patagonia. Oh lord, that's what I wanted for christmas more than anything. patagonia polar fleece, to warm my freezing ass.

What did us east coasters contribute to the allowable RMA wear? Motherfucking sebagos. Hey, let's live out in the middle of nowhere where snow is on the ground at least half of the year, and wear shoes with no traction!! Yaaay! Skiiing!!

Oh, and LL Bean and J Crew. Lovely.


I was wondering earlier tonight why I was talking Californian before I had even moved out to this state. My vocabulary was already littered with "likes" and "dudes" before I even descended onto the city by the bay. And then I realized.. motherfuck, I learned it in Idaho.


Like, ROFL!  :rofl:

29
Tacitus' Realm / Castle's rant on CA prop 8. I now pronounce you nothing.
« on: November 07, 2008, 03:03:15 AM »
Yup, it passed. Thanks to out-of-state influence mostly. Queers can't marry... in California. California? Wait, isn't that the faggot state? Yes.. Yes it is.

I know there are a lot of people who say "well, fuck marriage anyway. why do gays want to have to deal with the same bullshit that hetero couples do?" You know, the whole jaded, marriage-is-a-totally-fucked-up-institution-anyway, thing.

Well, you kow what? Fuck you. I'm not getting any younger ok? I want someone who is legally obligated to stick around and love me until I die... or until I piss them off enough that they have to divorce me.

You would think that I would have a better chance of being able to legally marry someone, since I'm "bi", (I prefer the term "equal opportunity") But no. I'm also trans. and since I'm trans, there is a bit of an inconsistency regarding what sex the law views me as. One thing I do know is that a marriage between a woman, and someone who was born a woman but is now a man, is still technically a same-sex marriage. However, I can also easily have my drivers license say "M" instead of "F". All I need is a note from a doctor. I can also have my birth certificate changed to say that I was born male to begin with. That, however, will not alter the law which says that a marriage between a woman and an FTM is same-sex. What it *could* do is also make it impossible for me to marry a man.

And this, my friends, is where identity politics falls flat on its face. I can't get married, because some dumbfucks in legislation and idiot voters haven't even bothered to consider how goddamn irrelevant gender is when it comes to marriage, anyway. OMG, you married someone of the same sex, so you're gay, and you married someone of the opposite sex, so you're straight. So what does this mean when I tromp into city hall with either a man or a woman in tow, and demand to be married. Am I both a dyke with a chick and a faggot with a dude? Regardless of either, it's nobody's damn business anyway. And if there was no idea or belief that there is any difference between a "gay" and "straight" marriage, or (dare I say) a "gay" and "straight" ANYTHING, I might actually be able to call someone my wife or husband.

If the voters and legislature in this country can't even come to an agreement on whether or not it's ok for certain people to marry based on their gender preference, AND WHY THIS SHOULD EVEN BE AN ISSUE OR WHY ANYONE SHOULD EVEN CARE. I have little faith that they would even be able to wrap their raisin-sized brains around what the fuck *I'm* supposed to be and whether or not I'm even allowed to betrothe something that is human.

30
You know how some parents have to take out a second mortgage just to put their kid in raisin-cake camp?

Well, sounds like that might not be happening for a while...

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