Sally Field's UNCENSORED Speech

Yeah, so it's really not all that exciting. I think Fox edited out her anti-war rant in an effort to get more media attention.

Regardless, I am ever grateful that our brothers and sisters in the "Great White North" are less hell-bent on editing out media content with which they do not agree with. Sometimes I wonder if Canada and the U.S. somehow switched Constitutions somewhere along the road, because they do a damned better job following ours than we do sometimes.

Thanks, Blogger, for not editing out my rant. =)

Here's the video:



Love,
David

A lesson in futility...

Today we admitted a patient who has been on the unit many times and never seems to make progress. Why was he discharged in the first place? Because, unfortunately, a person must make the same mistakes numerous times before receiving the proper treatment they need and deserve.

I am so angry at the mental health system. I knew I hated it before, but this just never ends. People are released and taken back, not equipped with the proper medications, guidance, or facilities to reach their unattainable goals. Day after day I witness this and feel as though I am swabbing the deck of the Titanic while it sinks into the ocean.

My greatest fear is not to be swept beneath the crashing waves with the ship... that's what a good crew member must be willing to risk. No, my fear is that one day I or somebody I love may require psychiatric treatment. Is this how they will be treated? The stigma of mental illness is one thing. However, the incompetency and lack of oversight into the care of the patients is something I will not tolerate.

Am I supposed to cave in? After putting in years of service, am I supposed to become jaded to the notion that these people simply will never receive the care they need? Why can a person who requires the strict monitoring that a long-term locked residential facility provides not receive those services? And why are individuals with moderate to severe mental retardation sent to a psychiatric hospital? Is it our job to cure behavioral problems and alter personalities, because that is impossible to do. All that ends up occurring are the patients become drugged up to the point where they can no longer be a threat to themselves or others. Who is being serviced in such treatment? Nobody.

If the hospital I work for was a "for profit" organization, my feelings would be much different. However, the fact that this hospital offers financial assistance for patients to receive the wrong care does not make the situation any better. All that means is that the staff get paid less and the quality of care diminishes proportionately.

I am but one person. What can I do?

God, if there is one out there... what can be done? Is anything even supposed to be done about this? Am I the one in the wrong here? Please, grant me the clarity of thought to know what it is I need to do...

Love,
David

P.S. I can take my girl out for a drink and a movie... and that's what I'll do.

P.P.S. I am currently giving quite a lot of careful consideration to applying to MSU's School Psychology program. It sounds interesting and, as you can see, one of my life goals on my Facebook profile is (and I quote):

"Get a Master's degree in a field I'm interested in."

Roger Ebert's greatest film review to date...

...and I haven't even seen the film yet!

Ever since I heard about this project, I knew that I would probably avoid it, but I was also well aware the curious temptation within me to see what the accusatory mind can produce might very well get the better of me and catch me unaware.

Roger Ebert's film review for "September Dawn" has much more to do with socio-political agendas and brainwashing concepts related to the film than it does the actual content of the film itself or the talent of the creative staff involved.

I felt comforted inside to hear somebody other than myself refer to the slaughter of countless numbers of the natives of this great country in Christ's name as GENOCIDE instead of PROGRESS.

Ebert hit the nail on the head with this review, pointing to the two possible agendas that must have been set forth by the creative team responsible for this story.

After this review, I desperately want to see "September Dawn" - but I think I might just have to wait until it comes to video. I want to know if Roger Ebert is simply reading into this a little too much, or if humanity could really have stooped this low...

-Dave



September Dawn (R)

Ebert:
Zero stars

Users
२.५ stars

Bishop John Samuelson, a crazy Mormon zealot (played by Jon Voight), orders the massacre of a visiting wagon train of Christians in "September Dawn."

September Dawn

August 24, 2007

Cast & Credits Bishop Samuelson: Jon Voight Brigham Young: Terence Stamp Joseph Smith: Dean Cain John Lee: Jon Gries Nancy Dunlap: Lolita Davidovich Black Diamond Pictures and Slow Hand Releasing present a film directed by Christopher Cain. Written by Cain and Carole Whang Schutter. Running time: 111 minutes. Rated R (for violence). Opening today at local theaters.

By Roger Ebert

On Sept. 11, 1857, at the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a group of fanatic Mormons attacked and slaughtered a wagon train of about 120 settlers passing through Utah on their way to California. Can we all agree that the date has no significance? No, we cannot, because "September Dawn" is at pains to point out that on another Sept. 11, another massacre took place, again spawned by religion.

But hold on. Where did I get that word "fanatic"? In my opinion, when anybody believes their religion gives them the right to kill other people, they are fanatics. Aren't there enough secular reasons for war? But there is no shortage of such religions, or such people. The innocent, open-faced Christians on the wagon train were able to consider settling California, after all, because some of their co-religionists participated in or benefitted from the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans.

Were there fanatics among those who ran the Salem Witch Trials or the Inquisition or the Crusades? Or the Holocaust? No shortage of them. Organized religion has been used to justify most of the organized killing in our human history. It's an inescapable fact, especially if you consider the Nazis and communists as cults led by secular gods. When your god inspires you to murder someone who worships god in a different way or under another name, you're barking up the wrong god.

The vast majority of the members of all religions, I believe and would argue, don't want to kill anybody. They want to love and care for their families, find decent work that sustains life and comfort, live in peace and get along with their neighbors. It is a deviant streak in some humans, I suspect, that drives them toward self-righteous violence, and uses religion as a convenient alibi.

That is true, wouldn't you agree, about Mormons, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and so on? No, not all of you would agree, because every time I let slip the opinion that most Muslims are peaceful and nonviolent, for example, I receive the most extraordinary hate mail from those assuring me they are not. And in a Muslim land, let a newspaper express the opinion that most Christians and Jews are peaceful and nonviolent, and that newspaper office is likely to be burned down. The worst among us speak for the best.

Which brings us back to Sept. 11, 1857, when a crazy Mormon zealot named Bishop John Samuelson (Jon Voight) ordered the massacre of the visiting wagon train, after first sending his spokesman to lie that if they disarmed, they would be granted safe passage. Whether the leader of his church, Brigham Young (Terence Stamp), approved of this action is a matter of much controversy, denied by the church, claimed by "September Dawn."

What a strange, confused, unpleasant movie this is. Two theories have clustered around it: (1) It is anti-Mormon propaganda to muddy the waters around the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, or (2) it is not about Mormons at all, but an allegory about the 9/11/01 terrorists. Take your choice. The problem with allegories is that you can plug them in anywhere. No doubt the film would have great impact in Darfur.

There isn't anything to be gained in telling this story in this way. It generates bad feelings on all sides, and at a time when Mormons are at pains to explain they are Christians, underlines the way that these Mormons consider all Christians to be "gentiles." The Mormons are presented in no better light than Nazis and Japanese were in Hollywood's World War II films. Wasn't there a more thoughtful and insightful way to consider this historical event? Or how about a different event altogether? What about the Donner Party? They may have been cannibals, but at least they were nondenominational.

If there is a concealed blessing, it is that the film is so bad. Jon Voight, that gifted and versatile actor, is here given the most ludicrous and unplayable role of his career, and a goofy beard to boot. Stamp, as Brigham Young, comes across as the kind of man you'd find at the back of a cave in a Cormac McCarthy novel. The Christians are so scrubbed and sunny, they could have been teleported in time from the Lawrence Welk program.

And isn't it sickening that the plot stirs in some sugar by giving us what can only be described as a horse whisperer? This movie needs human whisperers. And giving us a romance between the bishop's son and a pretty gentile girl? And another son of the bishop who dresses up like an Indian and goes batty at the scent of blood? And real Native Americans who assist the Mormons in their killing, no doubt thinking, well, we can get around to the Mormons later? I am trying as hard as I can to imagine the audience for this movie. Every time I make any progress, it scares me.