Comments

omg i love this picture - The angles are totally fab!

looks like im a little behind the times here.. great shot motts!
I gotta catch up now.
:)

not to be the devils advocate, but there can be many reasons for parents intrest , perhaps, he, she was a parent of someone hurt. when i read parents comments i dont see any direct finger pointing . anyone with some smarts knows there are some great mental health workers out there .

Pssh. We all know it's a thingamajig.

Thanks! It's an interesting field, to say the least. I have enjoyed learning about it as I have worked in different places, and this site has challenged me to learn even more.

Marty, my friend.

We have to deal with name-calling monsters like this all the time. They do tend to get on your nerves occasionally, but only because they don't know what they are talking about. I admit, I don't mind a true debate, but this person is at the "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" level and doesn't have any information to back him/her up.

Believe me, we're used to it - over the years Marcia, Big Ed, and I have been called a lot worse names by a much higher class of people for working in this field. ;-)

Navi,

Tee hee! :-)

William,

We've done more than read the information. That's the point. People are working off a few small pieces of information and want to believe that's all that ever happened. And they want us to believe that things will get better when so many people are so short-sighted and small-minded as to ignore the larger picture and everything that happened, not just look at the bad parts.

Why does history get repeated? It's because no one seems to want to learn from it - from ALL of it, not just the parts that people choose to pay attention to. The difference between some of us and others of us is that some of us want to see the entire scope of what happened because we think that is how we can make things better. If you want to look at the bad engine that caused a car wreck, that's great. But if you miss the fact that the entire design was faulty, that the factory itself was faulty, it won't save any more lives by just fixing the engine, because there are more problems than that.

Why don't you two stop looking at the engine and look at the factory that built the machines? Are people afraid to admit that this was a societal problem and stop poking at the people who were stuck in a broken system? It's a lot harder to point a finger at the larger system - no easy scapegoat. And some people need a scapegoat to sleep at night. Salves their guilty consciences so they don't have to see that ALL of us were the problem - the entire society.

parent, if you weren't out there helping out at Pennhurst then you are a hypocrite of the worst sort - the one that likes to blame others and doesn't help out. However, at the same time by writing in over and over again and missing the main point, in a small way you have done a service. You have shown us where the problems still are in the system - that people still want to blame past problems on individuals and not the lousy system and the people who didn't take care of the system - the voters. And for that, I thank you. You have done a great service to people who read this by showing them what happens when people are unable or unwilling to grasp the larger picture. You get to make it happen all over again.

Yeah, blame it on the engine.

BTW, Lynne, I enjoy reading your explanations of things on this site. They shed a little light on these "dark" places, I think...:-)...

Yes sir, nothing like shock therapy to calm the nerves. Mmmm, gotta love those involuntary contortions.

How dumb is that? a fire exit to another room.

Did anyone read the information on the Pennhurst home page?

it's probably where they treated agrophobia.

Lynne,
You've created a monster... All I can think of is Col. Kurtz' last words...

"THE STAKES ARE TO HIGH."

Damn, then I guess that means the tent won't hold...

I ASSURE YOU I WILL NOT GO AWAY! THE STAKES ARE TO HIGH. I WILL CONTINUE TO WORK HARD AND MAKE SURE CHILDREN NOW AND IN THE FUTURE WILL NOT BE CONDEMED TO THE PIT OF OBLIVION IN INSTITUTIONS LIKE PENNHURST.