Letters to the Editor
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where does one go
Oi, first I sat through Olbermann's segment on this last night. Then this morning I was subjected to it on on each station as I flipped channels hoping to glean just a little bit of real news from the 24 hours "news" stations. Fox was even engaged in an extended phone interview with the girl's father.
There was also some news about one of the Brittneys. It's gotten to the point that I can't tell these girls apart & I don't know who's who or what there damage is. And I don't much care.
At least with websites I can, hopefully, click on the news I want to read about. On TV, I have to either turn it off or wait it out to get to another topic.
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She'll be fine...
All she needs is for her parents, the responisble adults, to sit her down and give her a good talking to. Ahh, Never mind.
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motivation for change
One of the biggest chalenges for getting people into a serious program of recovery is developing real motivation for change within the addict, emphasis on "within the addict."
Certainly many celebs have seemingly strong external prods toward change, most notably gobs and gobs of negative publicity which is stigmatizing and potentially career threatening. When we see this we wonder how it is that they show so little inner motivation for change.
Part of the problem is that the downside of use is contingent and remote while the "benefits" are certain and immediate. To a well paid and lionized actor who doesn't lack for sympatitic friends and roles to play, the stigma and career damage of chronic use may seem like a joke. Just because middle America is wringing its hands doesn't mean Lindsey can't get a group of friends together on any given Friday night. It is likely that she hasn't been barred from any of her favorite clubs. She has a new movie comming out right now. Thus she hasn't been stigmatized by the people that matter to her and her career has hardly been jeapordized thus far.
Sobriety generally serves the purposes of the long term. The long term goals of health, freedom, career acomplishment even after youth has faded, community respect as a responsible person, these are all best served by sobriety. The problem is that these are not usually the goals of very young people. This is mainly because very young people are more oriented to the present moment.
Ms. Lohan is very young. Do we really have any legitimate expectation that she will inwardly adopt the values that would itterate a move from the world of instant gratification to a world of a longer lasting and secure life?
Probably not.
Also, herding un-motivated youths into rehab prematurely (ie before they are even remotely interested in fundemental change) will always be doomed to failure which is the last thing the recovery industry needs given its already dicey rates of sucess working with motivated people.
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Better issue for Broadsheet: Butt Slapping threatens teens with sex offender registry and ten years in jail
Broadsheet, no one cares about Lohan, but many of us have brothers or sons in danger of being turned into sex offenders and serving 10 years in jail for butt slapping.
How does Broadsheet and its readers view that?
Unruly schoolboys or sex offenders?
FACTBOX
• What the law says
Sunday, July 22, 2007
SUSAN GOLDSMITH
The Oregonian Staff
The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran -- what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.
But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.
After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.
Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?
Bradley Berry, the McMinnville district attorney, said his office "aggressively" pursues sex crimes that involve children. "These cases are devastating to children," he said. "They are life-altering cases."
Last year, in a previously undisclosed prosecution, he charged two other Patton Middle School boys with felony sex abuse for repeatedly slapping the bottom of a female student. Both pleaded guilty to harassment, which is a misdemeanor. Berry declined to discuss his cases against Mashburn and Cornelison.
The boys and their parents say Berry has gone far beyond what is necessary, criminalizing actions that they acknowledge were inappropriate. School district officials said Friday they had addressed the incident by suspending the students for five days.
The outlines of the case have been known. But confidential police reports and juvenile court records shed new light on the context of the boys' actions. The records show that other students, boys and girls, were slapping one another's bottoms. Two of the girls identified as victims have recanted, saying they felt pressured and gave false statements to interrogators.
The documents also show that the boys face 10 misdemeanor charges -- five sex abuse counts, five harassment counts -- reduced from initial charges of felony sex abuse. The boys are scheduled to go on trial Aug. 20.
A leading expert called the case a "travesty of justice" that is part of a growing trend in which children as young as 8 are being labeled sexual predators in juvenile court, where documents and proceedings are often secret.
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Anonymous, you're off subject
10 years in prison for "butt-slapping" does sound absurd, but why would you post your rather long article on a comment area about Lindsey Lohan? Besides, if you want to read a very good article about your exact concern, check out the NYT's Sunday July 22 magazine, which has an article about juvenile sex offenders.
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"Ya Gotta Wanna" as George Carlin would say
It certainly seems like celebrities have begun devaluing the impact and work associated with giving up substances which you cannot control. It is to substance abuse recovery what the mischaracterization of women glibly practicing unprotected sex and lining up for abortion after abortion is to that third rail issue.
It's a big joke used for publicity purposes to get the media off their ass. To whom much is given, much is expected. She's a very powerful media figure for impressionable teens. Throw the book at the spoiled little bitch and quicken the pace at which she finds her rock bottom. It's not a joke, and it's not something easily tossed off. Let the disease bring her to her knees like it does so many others without the benefit of agents and millions of dollars to throw at the problem.
She doesn't get it. Fawning, enabling entourages aren't going to help her figure it out anytime soon, either.