3,181 Comments Posted by Lynne

Only me, prolly.

J.R.,

Grab a copy of the book that Mott's references above - Leo Polaski's "The Farm Colonies" (2003). It has a ton of grand pix.

Sorry, J.R. Too busy banging my head against the wall to catch this earlier. ;-)

Don't worry - you'll get over it quickly. ;-)

Because no one generally steps forward and shells out the incredible amount of money it would take to restore them. This place has been a notable exception, but check out the cost of restoration sometime and then see if your neighbors are willing to pay the taxes to renovate/restore. Few people are willing to maintain current buildings that are in use, much less the cost of maintaining/restoring old buildings.

As far as why they aren't torn down - in many cases someone hoped that the building(s) would be purchased some day, but by the time there was interest, the increased cost of restoration (and asbestos abatement for many older buildings) had become prohibitive.

Undoubtedly. "Clean the walls, beat the patients, water the grass" - what a great multi-purpose tool for all psychiatric facilities.

Have you ever lived somewhere that they don't have refrigeration or a fairly rapid garbage removal system or no plastic bags to seal up all the good juices? You don't exactly want to leave rotting material outside the back door, if you catch my malodorous drift. Also, if you have ever had the pleasure of being in the neighborhood when they burn garbage, it isn't the pleasantest or sexiest of aromas, so you purposely want it to be a ways away from where people live. That's just being practical - nothing arcane or secretive about it.

tabcrawler:

http://www.opacity.us/...te.htm#comment_22149
http://www.opacity.us/...te.htm#comment_22224
http://www.opacity.us/...ows.htm#comment_2496

[Psssst!!! ~Me! Must be a relative of Thomas Covenant.]

And Henry knows what he is talking about.

Cool! Come on down - we need you! :-)

I always think I'm being clear, but obviously I've not done a very good job. For that I apologize.

There were times when the things we now call "torture" were commonplace. At that time those things were not called "torture". At that time they were called "treatment" or "acceptable experimentation." The techniques, treatments, and experimental procedures many people want to now call "torture" were often well-known at the time and were in fact published in journals for anyone to see who cared to look. I can find you several hundred of these "secret experiments" in older journals any day of the week, and so can any of you if you go to any university library. Everyone knew that experiments like these went on, and no one stormed the Bastille to ask them to stop, I am sorry to say. Didn't happen. Pick up almost any journal from the 40s and 50s and you will see these things described clear and plain as can be. No secrets. Straight forward at the time and "acceptable" to the culture at the time. Kind of like the way we currently zap the hell out of people who have cancer with radiation to save their lives - this will undoubtedly be seen as obscene torture and experimentation in the next 50 years but right now we think it is brilliant and a grand way to save lives. It's all we have right now. Are we evil now because we don't know any better? Should we do nothing at all and just wait for someone to magically come up with a cure without trying anything? And then we scream and holler because no one ran "experiments" before the drug was first released to see if it actually worked?

The point is that this wasn't considered a "bad thing" when it was done, whether or not we call it a "bad thing" today. So, yes, people did weird things to people who lived in mental hospitals, psychiatric wards, prisons, and, quite frankly, regular hospitals, including pediatric wards of "normal" hospitals. These weird things were also done (in lesser numbers, of course) on people who were considered "normal" like you and I are considered "normal." This was part of the culture. This was something most people knew about and were aware of, IF they cared enough to find out, which most people did not. As regards how most people in this country (don't know about other countries than the U.S.) felt, they were simply too busy worrying about Communists and Socialists and Black Panthers and beatniks and panty lines and ring-around-the-collar to care what was happening in their hospitals to their "outcasts." Ugly but true.

So, yes, things happened that we now called torture. There were even some instances where it went on and no one knew about it. Anyone who ISN'T aware that this used to happen is a pretty poor specimen of a human being to have lived in a world with this much knowledge having been public for so long and not having been aware of this.

No one is trying to hide anything about how bad institutions were (and still are in some cases). Bad things happened. Bad people were there. Bad policies were in place and people did things of which most of us are now ashamed. But it sprouted from a bad culture or was a product of the lack of knowledge we had at the time. And until we are willing to say that WE were the bad culture and that our knowledge was limited and that the bad things that happened came from US, then we have missed the entire point and it will happen again. As soon as you start blaming one person, one group, one place, for bad things, then it will be easy to ignore that the bad stuff lies in all of us and it takes all of us to keep it from happening again. If we say it was one place where bad things happened, then we shut down the one place but we then ignore the fact that it happened somewhere else as well. And somewhere else. And somewhere else. It would be pretty convenient to think there were only a few sick people involved. But them's not the facts, Jack.

Oh heck, I can't say it right and no one cares. I suppose it IS easier to blame the "bad guys." Sorry. My bad. I should know better by now. Don't know why I keep at it. Lost cause and all that.

Great! They are pretty cool, aren't they?

Got it. :-)

Many people think they are anarchists until someone takes a piece of THEIR pie. All of the sudden, ethics become paramount. Funny old world, ain't it? ;-)