(brief disclaimer - this post and those that follow are written for the Principia Discordia language community, which employs some bizarre and idiosyncratic usages of words, phrases, and exaggerations that you might find offensive or disturbing. We probably don't mean them that way.
This is the thread to discuss organization against the Judge Rotenberg Center and the systemic human rights abuses it inflicts on the children and adolescents entrusted to it. This GASM is unusual in that it is not (primarily) an effort to spread humor and enlightenment, be weird, or troll people who annoy us. Our objective is the cessation of the atrocities committed by the Judge Rotenberg Center: we are taking on a real, brick-and-mortar institution.
For reference, see my posts here (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25205.msg881449#msg881449) (in particular the last couple) and the NY State Education Department report on the JRC available below.
Measures of Success:
Complete Victory will be declared if the JRC closes its doors and proper treatment and therapy is provided to its (now former) students.
Success is the closure of the Rotenberg Center.
Partial Success is bringing hope to the children being abused at the JRC or sharply reducing the number of children sent there.
Minor Success is causing substantive changes in its operating practices or getting a full-fledged media and/or blogosphere blitz.
The Five Prongs of Engagement:
I: Information
If the first rule of warfare is "Know your enemy" then the first rule of information warfare is "Get everyone else to know your enemy." If you google "judge rotenberg center" the major hits are their own website and their Wikipedia entry - which currently looks like it was written by their marketing department. In other words, the intelligent person with a healthy skepticim (exactly the kind of person we need) might see a damaging blog post or two, and then check up on the claims via Wikipedia and the company's own statements, both of which are great works of PR, especially if the researcher is not particularly knowledgeable about modern psychiatry. If he looks no further, there's a good chance he'll come to the conclusion that the claims are overblown and that this is just another "cause" promoted by conspiracy-minded self-declared "advocates." We can fix that.
First, we can fix the Wikipedia page. This might be an uphill battle in that most of the criticisms of the JRC are found on blogs and forums, while its apologetics are found on its very official-looking web page, complete with cherry-picked citations for, say, why bipolar kids do just fine without medication. News sites aren't that much help either; they mostly seem to try to be "balanced," which apparently means showing the pros and cons of dehumanizing child abuse, and they deal with the complex psychiatric issues with the understanding of a communications major being fed pseudoscience by a very good PR team. The Wiki page needs to be updated with objective, sourced, and airtight documentation of the various problems of the JRC. And no, no matter how accurate it is, the other editors are (justifiably) not going to treat something published by NoSpank.com or Aspies for Freedom as either NPOV or reliable. Again, I recommend the NYSED report - it's damning enough by itself, and from a US state government agency, a credible and authoritative source.
Second, we can promote accurate, informative, and persuasive links on Google. In particular, we should promote sites that give coherent and accurate descriptions of the JRC in an easily digestible format. An understated 26-page report, TL;DR forum posts, and apparently biased blogs aren't going to cut it. PD.com apparently does have the clout to affect Google rankings by itself (incidentally, we're still the #1 and #2 hits for "worst forum on the internet" without quotes) but we need to find sites worth promoting first. Remember, Google shows the URL, title, and the first couple lines of the pages it links to; the links we promote should be persuasive even without the user having to click on them, and have a credible looking (if not actually credible) URL.
Also about Google - you know how it suggests search terms as you're typing in your query? Right now, if have "judge rotenberg" or "judge rotenberg center" in the search box it suggests "judge rotenberg center X," where X is "mother jones," "wikipedia," "jobs," "reviews," "employment," "2009," "shock," and "deaths." If we could get "child abuse," "human rights violations," "torture," and various articles and reports that condemn the JRC up there as well, that would be pretty cool. Anybody know how Google determines search suggestions? Can we just make a bot that spams searches for "judge rotenberg center human rights violations"? (If you were wondering, Mother Jones is a news site that ran a series of articles on the JRC a while back - they might have more resources we could use as well.)
Third, we need a list of factoids about the JRC, with sources cited and a little information about how the person can help (see next point.). This is intended to be the TL;DR summary of what the JRC is and why it needs to be closed down post-haste. The intended audience is an ordinary person who probably has never heard of the JRC before, and the reaction we're looking for is the reader scraping their jaw off the floor afterwards. It would also be a good thing to link people to - if someone says "Your extraordinary claims about torture require extraordinary evidence" we need to have a simple response rather than linking them to half a dozen sites that each tell half the story. We'll also probably want slightly different versions for different target audiences, or at least for people who already have a decent background knowledge of special education. I may or may not have something along these lines done sometime tomorrow.
Lastly, either I or someone else should rewrite this post the results of this discussion into a kind of "action plan" that can distributed / linked to to other people outside PD who want to know what they can do to help. Probably should wait until we get a clearer idea of what we're doing, though.
Final note: this isn't a project that calls for disinformation. The Truth is on our side, and frankly it is horrible enough.
TL;DR summary of what you can do: Find lots of good, credible sources, which we/you can then use to improve the Wikipedia article, influence Google search rankings, and create our own summaries for use elsewhere.
II: Rhetoric
In addition to fact sheets, we need specialized motivational material. The most obvious are simply persuasive articles and essays that can then be spread around in the usual fashion. Images are also good. If anyone wants to illustrate some of the horror stories that come out of that place, that would be wonderful. Again, I have a couple of ideas for comics and articles and stuff, but this is definitely an area where you can help - there are a surprisingly large number of good writers and artists on this site.
There is also the need for direct argument and refutation. The JRC has a good media arm, and they publish "for the media" articles and responses to some news articles and blog entries, which are full of misleading statements, bad science, and even outright falsehoods. (For instance, they keep repeating that they have a highly trained staff; NY state says that the majority have only a high school education and a generic two-week orientation that is the same for the people monitoring the cameras as it is for the people working directly with the children. JRC claims that their high-level aversives are used only to prevent even more destructive behaviour; their own records disagree.) We need refutations of their refutations, also written for the media.
Random thought about rhetoric - we probably want avoid the abbreviation JRC and instead abbreviate it as just Rotenberg Center in publications. Because i) to many initialisms is a signal that a group has developed its own internal jargon, which indicates something of a exclusive and cultish atmosphere (count how many TLAs are in internal CoS documents) and ii) as much as I hate to play on stereotypes, the name "Rotenberg" just sounds vaguely menacing in a human-rights-violating, unethical-human-experimentation kind of way. It also reminds me of "Röntgen" (a measure of ionizing radiation, the kind that kills you) and "rottweiler" (a scary fucking dog, guards prisons, and the second most likely to kill a child after the pit bull.) The "Judge" prefix makes it sound more legitimate, so not using that when avoidable could be a good idea.
III: Networking
Possibly the most important prong: whatever it is that we're doing, the more people we have doing it the more effective it is. Networking is connecting to sympathetic people and getting them involved in their own way, and taking people who are already involved and connecting them to each other. The obvious and easiest method is simply to promote materials from sections I and II via social networking sites. (Is that thing from TwitterGASM suitable for this / still working?) While it's true that the typical Facebook user who joins a group for some social cause promptly forgets about it and does nothing, if we get enough exposure there's the chance that a reporter or editorialist or blogger or just plain profligate sneezer notices and spreads the message somewhere else. And if we come up with something simple and painless for the general public to do, even Facebook might accomplish something. Maybe something like a group for "everybody tweet about the JRC on MM/DD" or "digg/reddit these articles" or "politely ask Fark.com to run this story," I dunno. I also know next to nothing about other social networking sights, like Twitter and the various social bookmarking sites, so if anybody knows how we can use those productively, post about it.
But more importantly, we can directly talk to people who can help. I think that the main groups who are most likely to be helpful are:
-Teachers, because most of them really do care about education, and they all know how hard it is. Sentences like "the majority of the teaching staff had only a high school education" and "the most common interaction between teachers and students is the hourly rotation of electrodes" are probably enough to convince most real teachers that what goes on at the JRC cannot be called "education." Oh yeah, and most of them like kids.
-Psychologists and psychiatrists, because they know real psychology and the associated therapies. That the JRC starts with the assumption that every kid can be taken off their meds, pulled out of every other complementary treatment, and given exclusively fringe behaviorist therapy with no mechanism for rewarding good behaviors, without any attention to side effects, and regardless of the underlying condition, is probably enough right there to get psychologists/psychiatrists foaming at the mouth, if only out of professional pride.
-Various mental health / disability / special ed advocates, because they already care about and advocate for these kinds of children - they just need to be informed that this place exists. That, and they have networks in place already and are presumably good at activism and raising a big stink when necessary.
-Human rights activists, for much the same reasons. Then again, they have a lot of other stuff on their plates so they might be too busy for this. On the other other hand, they like to use examples of human rights abuses going on in your presumably civilized country to remind people that "human rights" is an issue that doesn't just apply to smudgy people on another continent.
-Weird people, the kind who read about the children who get sent there and think, "That could have been me." People who don't need to read all the way to "Then they came for me / and by that time no one was left to speak up." because they know they'd be gone before the first three stanzas are up.* The people who have had their own experiences with special education services and IEPs and child psychologists and know first hand how important it is that these things are done right and what the stakes are when they are done wrong, and that the children on the receiving end of these treatments are real human beings, not facimiles thereof.
The first two groups, teachers and mental health professionals, might be the most important because they have understanding of the issues in question, professional organizations, clout, and standards. A letter signed by 500 mental health facilities, 1,000 educational institutions, or 10,000 teachers, counselors, and licensed psychologists is going to carry a lot more weight than one signed by 10,000 no-name internet activists, especially if we get recognized professional organizations on the letterhead.
I intend to write personal letters to a number of teachers and counselors I know from my old high school and current college (run by the Jesuits and Marianists, respectively, both of which have a strong commitment to social justice and links to a ton of human-rights type groups. If we can get the Jesuits involved, that would be a major coup.) This is another area where you can definitely make a difference, especially those of you who are current students or recent graduates - I have a feeling that talking to teachers, professors, and school counselors could be a very fruitful exercise. They are exactly our target audience, and you already have a personal relationship with them.
Additionally, there are already a lot of organizations and bloggers who have already tried to raise awareness on the JRC or related issues - a March 2010 Boston Globe article mentions "31 disability advocacy groups" charging JRC with inhuman practices. They need to be connected together into a unified coalition. (I don't mean actually uniting the groups, just getting them working together collaboratively.) This is an issue that has already gained some traction among mental health advocates, especially the ASD self-advocacy movement. Off the top of my head, Mental Disability Rights International has written a very strongly worded letter, the Autism Self-Advocacy Network has written a letter to various official bodies, and Aspies For Freedom has already tried to do some kind of protest against the JRC ... but I don't know how much real follow through they've done. They need to be told that a major push is about to be made, and that this time something concrete is actually going to be accomplished.
*I am not, of course, referring to communists, union members, or Jews, or at least not exclusively. I'm thinking of the various modern versions of the poem with all kinds of additional vulnerable peoples thrown in.
TL;DR summary of what you can do: locate all the groups and blogs who have already done something or expressed concern so we can get them all working as a unified front on this issue.
IV: Direct Kindness
We can also write letters directly to the students enrolled at the JRC. This needs to be done very carefully, of course. The objective of this part is to try to communicate that there is always hope, that yes, even strangers care about them, and that they have friends on the outside - that is, to show basic human kindness to the people who need it most. The idea is to try to mitigate the enforced solitude these students live in with some genuine human contact. If we do this right it has the potential to be very, very positive, and it has the added benefit of helping children even if ultimately the school doesn't change any of its policies.
I like this idea because it isn't aggressive or confrontational; it's genuinely constructive. This is the sort of thing we could get lots of ordinary compassionate people to do, and it isn't reliant on any kind of complicated media effort or iffy legal challenge, and requires no skills in organization, media manipulation, activism, etc. I'm picturing a number of community service groups at various schools writing a letter or two each per member - that adds up quickly.
A word of caution: this is very easy to get wrong. At a minimum someone else should review each letter before it's sent, preferrably someone with experience working with disabled children. In particular, it would be a terrible idea to send any form of a call to action or any kind of religious message (they do not need to know about Ganesh, remover of obstacles, no matter how much you might think it would help.) These children are not going to organize anything approaching an effective protest inside, and trying to incite them to do so can only make things worse. That's not the point; the point is to show basic human decency to people who are being treated like something less. We also want to avoid implying that we're only writing to them because they're students at the JRC and we think it's evil - we're writing because they are human beings who could use a smile. They'd still be having a tough time of it even if they were at a quality institution. Come to think of it, there are already groups who do similar things for hospitalized children, there's probably someone who already does this for children at mental health facilities. If there is already a group that does this, we should use the networking and organization for this to help them expand to cover the JRC.
Also remember that the people we would be writing to range from profoundly disabled to average intelligence with severe emotional problems. (I don't know what percentage are even literate.) This is not the normal audience for the letters you usually write. It would probably be a good idea to get some feedback from a professional in psychology as to what might actually be beneficial to the student we're writing too. (Like, would jokes help? What kind of joke would a person who mutilates himself to relieve stress find funny?)
As for names and addresses, I think we could probably get those from the parents themselves. (It would be a good idea to get their parents' permission before strangers start mailing these kids en masse anyway.) If we do approach the parents for this purpose, though, we would want to do it through a group that isn't confrontational or attacking the school their kids go to. I don't think that names/addresses of the minors in this sort of institution would be public knowledge (or the names of the students over 18, for that matter.)
TL;DR summary: we (and a lot of other people) can write uplifting and encouraging letters to the people trapped at the JRC, and even extend the basic idea past this particular GASM as a long term effort to be nice to the Children of Eris everywhere.
Completely random thought: it would be awesome if we could acquire one of the GEDs that the school uses. Probably not possible to get one from them, but I bet they have patents filed somewhere, and if we get the specs I'm sure we can find a Mad Scientist willing to put together a replica. That would be a killer demo to show people - here, try this one. BRZZAP. There, that's what they call a "hard pinch" at the JRC. The JRC doesn't let journalists demo the things anymore, probably for a reason. The Boston Globe articles say they have a model that delivers 41 milliamps at 66 volts for 2 seconds (pretty sure that's AC). How bad is that?
Space reserved for resources, etc. Also, the above post is within a sentence of the 20k character limit, so I can't add anything else to it.
QuoteThe Boston Globe articles say they have a model that delivers 41 milliamps at 66 volts for 2 seconds (pretty sure that's AC). How bad is that?
I'm curious how they control the amps that much, given that human skin can vary in resistivity by a couple orders of magnitude, it might be assuming wet skin for safety reasons. If that assumes dry skin... that'd be real bad, a kid that started swetaing might die from the amps suddenly jumping 100 fold.
A car battery would produce (assuming wet skin) 42 volts and 42 millamps if the information I have is right (42 volts on the battery, and 1000 Ohms for wet human skin). So yeah... those giant sparks when you accidentally let the jumper cables touch? It's like that, bit worse even. :x
I'd assume DC, since with AC you're getting real close to the ~60 milliamp deadly force range. DC is safer (300 mA, at a minimum).
So, I'm poking around for some legitimate sources about the Rotenberg Center and I found a couple of potentially useful links.
An article on it by Education News dated Feb 23 2012. (http://www.educationnews.org/mobile/ednews_today/59610.html) There does appear to already be some legal action being taken, an investigation by the US Department of Justice. As far as I can tell, the investigation could take some time. But, we at least know that there are organizations that are actively working against them, organizations that are credible. Like the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies - Syracuse University, The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities - University of Delaware, and the University of San Diego Autism Institute. This site also has a copy of the original complaint letter filled by these groups, which could be useful.
I also found a pdf of a court case that the Rotenberg Center filled against the New York State Education Department. (http://www.tsplusblog.com/files/AlleynevNYSED.pdf) New York banned them from shocking their students, and the Rotenberg Center tried to claim this violated their rights. The ruling was that their rights were not violated and the Rotenberg Center cannot legally use their "therapy." We also have a very legitimate source that details exactly what was done.
QuoteAversive methods include contingent food programs, the use of helmets on some children, mechanical restraints, and the application of electric skin shocks through a graduated electronic decelerator (GED).
They've also been caught in a lie, but I'm not sure how useful it is.
QuotePlaintiffs [Rotenberg Center] contend that defendants [New York State Education Department]
improperly accepted allegations of mistreatment by JRC as fact in early
2006 without investigating their merits. With their next breath, however,
plaintiffs object to just such an investigation, asserting that defendants' "rereviewed"
JRC to avoid negative media attention arising from the 2006
allegations. Clearly, plaintiffs cannot have it both ways, and their attempt
to do so must be rejected.
So those 31 groups are already aware of each other and working together, or at least co-signing a letter. MDRI isn't on the list of co-signees, which is a little odd, because they're kind of a big deal and they even made their own report asking the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. (http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf) It's a little over 60 pages. They did a couple of their own interviews with former students and staff but mostly used public sources, in particular the NYSED report and a Massachusetts report which I just spent the last half failing to find. Did find this (http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dmr/qe_reports/se_judge_rotenberg_educ_center.rtf), however, which is a rather cryptic report on the quality of life in the facility.
ETA: Vene, the first link is dated 2010, not 2012.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on June 06, 2010, 06:32:12 PM
QuoteThe Boston Globe articles say they have a model that delivers 41 milliamps at 66 volts for 2 seconds (pretty sure that's AC). How bad is that?
I'm curious how they control the amps that much, given that human skin can vary in resistivity by a couple orders of magnitude, it might be assuming wet skin for safety reasons. If that assumes dry skin... that'd be real bad, a kid that started swetaing might die from the amps suddenly jumping 100 fold.
A car battery would produce (assuming wet skin) 42 volts and 42 millamps if the information I have is right (42 volts on the battery, and 1000 Ohms for wet human skin). So yeah... those giant sparks when you accidentally let the jumper cables touch? It's like that, bit worse even. :x
I'd assume DC, since with AC you're getting real close to the ~60 milliamp deadly force range. DC is safer (300 mA, at a minimum).
Hmm, not exactly sure where the Globe got the 41 mA from. The NYSED report says that the weaker GED does an average of 15.25 mA RMS with an average peak of 30.5 mA, with the stronger version having a maximum current of 45.0 mA RMS and an average peak of 91 mA.
[Edit: This might be related to the 31 groups you mention, GA.] I've found a few groups that already exist that are potential allies (in MASS and other). What follows is a mess-o-links. Hopefully it's readable.
The Arc of Massachusetts (activist and advocacy group - ARCMASS) are opposed to the Rotenberg Center. Executive director Leo V. Sarkissian spoke against Matt in a 2006 article.
Schuler, Rory. (26 Oct. 2006) Mistrust of center grows with title slips. Tauton Gazette. Oct. 26, 2006. hxxp://www.judgerc.org/NewsArticles/mistrust_of.html
- ARCMASS's page on 'aversive therapy' (all about the Rotenberg center) here (http://www.arcmass.org/StateHousePolicy/RegulationandPolicyDebates/AversiveTherapy/tabid/303/Default.aspx).
A list of a few advocates who already know about the place. Some have been working to get it closed. ARCMASS, Mind Freedom, MDRI (already a UN group). Also The National Disability Rights Network in the U.S. and TASH (http://www.tash.org) (The Association for the Severely Handicapped), The Alliance to Prevent Restraint, Aversive Interventions and Seclusion (http://aprais.tash.org/index.htm); the Coalition for Transparency in Public Education (http://www.transparencyinpubliceducation.org/aversives.htm) (NY State Org.), which has a 2006 item page on aversives and the New York State Educational Department getting sued by Matt and Friends (which Vene mentioned).
2 Facebook groups:
Mass Students United Against the Judge Rotenberg Center (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5879127059&v=wall)
DOWN with the Judge Rotenberg Center (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4614812683&v=wall)
And some reports, PDFs, etc that are Wikipediable:
- The 2006 NYSED review GA is referring to (linked in the previous thread):
NYSED Review Team. (9 June 2006) Observations and Findings of Out-of-State Program Visitation Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (http://boston.com/news/daily/15/school_report.pdf). New York State Education Department, Board of Regents. 5.
- The MDRI argument that the JRC is committing a violation of human rights, good review of previous investigations (also contains a copy of the confidentiality agreement staff have to sign - pg. 45; also linked in the previous thread):
Laurie Ahern & Eric Rosenthal. (2010) Torture Not Treatment (http://www.mdri.org/PDFs/USReportandUrgentAppeal.pdf): Electric shock and long-term restraint in the United States on children and adults with disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Urgent Appeal to the Special Rapporteur on Torture. Washington, DC: Mental Disability Rights International.
- NY Psychological Association Task Force (2006),
New York Psychological Association Task Force. (22 Aug. 2006) Report of the New York Psychological Association Task Force on Aversive Controls with Children (http://www.arcmass.org/Portals/0/NYSPA_aversives_execsummary823.pdf). 6. [public pdf available through ARCMASS]
[edit - just noticed your mention of MDRI and your link. Are the 31 groups mostly state and federal? While it's based in Washington, MDRI is an international rights org... might account for the absence. I still think the appeal is useful - it's an overview of the studies that have been done so far, interviews include therapists treating former Rosenberg students. Either way, apologies for the overlap.]
A list of the 31 groups.
Alaska Youth and Family Network and YouthMOVE
Anchorage, AL
American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Washington, DC
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Silver Spring, MD
The Arc of the U.S.
Silver Spring, MD
Autism National Committee (AutCom)
Forest Knolls, CA
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Washington, DC
Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies, Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY
The Coalition for the Legal Rights of People with Disabilities
Boston, MA
Cobb and Douglas Counties Community Service Boards
Smyrna, GA
Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities
Hartford, CT
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Berkley, CA
Easter Seals
Chicago, IL
Exceptional Parent Magazine
Johnstown, PA
Hope House Foundation
Norfolk, VA
The Learning Community for Person Centered Practices
Annapolis, MD
The Maine Independent Media Center
Waterville, ME
Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education
Hanover, MD
National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors
Washington, DC
National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
Washington, DC
National Association for the Dually Diagnosed (NADD)
Kingston, NY
National Disability Rights Network
Washington, DC
The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities, University of Delaware
Newark, DE
Respect ABILITY Law Center
Royal Oak, Michigan
RHA Howell, Inc.
Raleigh, NC
Self Advocates Becoming Empowered
Kansas City, MO
TASH
Washington, DC
United Cerebral Palsy
Washington, DC
Values Into Action
Media, PA
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Nursing
Newark, NJ
University of San Diego Autism Institute
San Diego, CA
The Voices and Choices of Autism
Lakewood, CO
This is great, vene. Should have read your Education News link before posting. (I'll catch up soon.) :D
Huge thanks GA for getting this started.
One of my cousins is an activist and a lobbyist and I'll ask her if she has any connections we can use for this.
Additionally, something LMNO said in the thread this originated in, a lot of these kids come from poor homes where the parents can't afford to take care of these kids. A measure of success I'd argue for would be to have the facility taken over by the state or another entity like that. Kids can stay there and get real treatment and the parents don't have to struggle with a child whose needs they can't meet for one reason or another.
I am a teacher. Please PM me if that's useful.
Also, on contacting the students, i think possibly the better method may be identifying major news sources in the area and having messages of support sent to these (letters to the editor.)
Wow, I am absolutely sickened by what I've been reading here
My suggestion:
create a blog with this url----
http://JudgeRotenbergCenterAbuse.wordpress.com
Chop up all the abuse data you've collected here - format them into short, easy to understand blog entries which get to the point immediately. The entry titles should contain the name "Judge Rotenberg Center" and another emotionally evocative hook.
like: The Judge Rotenberg Center withholds therapy to children who need it
The Judge Rotenberg Center restrains and shocks children for not sitting up straight
wherever possible, you want the entry to contain text from those reports, or better - first hand accounts of people who've been imprisoned there.
when writing the blog, always use the word We instead of I, portraying us as an interest group instead of an individual.
and most importantly: you need a call to action, some kind of hook which can translate the emotions you're evoking into ACTION.
you'll need a blog entry titled "Help end the abuse" or something to that effect, which contains the information about how to get involved. Link to this post from every blog entry, so if you just got linked in, you are going to be encouraged to participate.
This is getting some good momentum. I have a quote I'd like to share:
http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/01/29/interview-with-neurodiversity-advocate-kassiane/
I met Kassiane while going to a Discordian themed party @ the "Pink and Brown Collective" housewarming (Johnny Fenderson, of P&B was one of the blokes who got the Parlour going, which sadly just closed).
She identifies as Discordian, and has an athame that is pronounced W-R-E-N-C-H, which she uses to project bloody noses onto street-kids who try to touch her animal crackers. She's witty, fun to be around, an incredible gymnist (and coach), and identifies as "neurodiverse" but not "disabled". Definitely worth a read. I can get permission to use the full thing, probably. (She also name-drops some orgs we can get behind us on this.)
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 06, 2010, 05:31:13 PM
Final note: this isn't a project that calls for disinformation. The Truth is on our side, and frankly it is horrible enough.
I don't think it should be ruled out yet.
The Yes Men have had the truth on their side as well, but the disinformation in their pranks was the key to raising awareness. The contrast of the disinformation with the actual situation may be a way to drive points home with more entertainment, engagement with the issues, and efficacy in getting people to act than a more straightforward approach.
The level of interest and outrage that is generated with a prank, as well as it's humor value, could help get past people's yeah-that's-horrible-but-so-are-a-million-other-things filter.
I just saw a blip about Bhopal on the news, which reminded me of the Yes Men
an example of how they might approach this project would be to concoct a press release which looks like it's from the Judge Rotenberg Center, in which they apologize for the abuses and list the steps they're taking to make things right [read: the reforms we want].
At this point, the JRC has to respond, probably by dismissing the apology (thereby drawing more attention to the points we're attacking).
Quote from: Telarus on June 07, 2010, 09:50:37 PM
This is getting some good momentum. I have a quote I'd like to share:
http://technoccult.net/archives/2010/01/29/interview-with-neurodiversity-advocate-kassiane/
I met Kassiane while going to a Discordian themed party @ the "Pink and Brown Collective" housewarming (Johnny Fenderson, of P&B was one of the blokes who got the Parlour going, which sadly just closed).
She identifies as Discordian, and has an athame that is pronounced W-R-E-N-C-H, which she uses to project bloody noses onto street-kids who try to touch her animal crackers. She's witty, fun to be around, an incredible gymnist (and coach), and identifies as "neurodiverse" but not "disabled". Definitely worth a read. I can get permission to use the full thing, probably. (She also name-drops some orgs we can get behind us on this.)
Kassiane is really wonderful; I wish I saw more of her.
Also, so sad about the Parlour. :(
Thanks everyone!
Here's my timeline for the rest of the week: Tuesday and Wednesday will be devoted to research (the links that you've found will help speed that up), Thursday I'll start putting short informational pieces together and drafting letters, and then Friday and Saturday I'll finish the first round of letters and send them to teachers & counselors that I know. The informational pieces - intended to help with the letters - I'll post here as I work on them so we can collaborate. I only have ~3 hour time windows Monday thru Thursday so it will be a little tight.
So for the first week I'm thinking we should mainly be:
-gathering sources
-talking to people who can help us plan, people who we don't need to make a big sell to first. (e.g., this Kassiane person maybe?)
-brainstorming ideas
Then again I haven't exactly done this before, so... i dunno.
Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 07, 2010, 10:58:01 PM
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 06, 2010, 05:31:13 PM
Final note: this isn't a project that calls for disinformation. The Truth is on our side, and frankly it is horrible enough.
I don't think it should be ruled out yet.
The Yes Men have had the truth on their side as well, but the disinformation in their pranks was the key to raising awareness. The contrast of the disinformation with the actual situation may be a way to drive points home with more entertainment, engagement with the issues, and efficacy in getting people to act than a more straightforward approach.
The level of interest and outrage that is generated with a prank, as well as it's humor value, could help get past people's yeah-that's-horrible-but-so-are-a-million-other-things filter.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 07, 2010, 11:17:30 PM
I just saw a blip about Bhopal on the news, which reminded me of the Yes Men
an example of how they might approach this project would be to concoct a press release which looks like it's from the Judge Rotenberg Center, in which they apologize for the abuses and list the steps they're taking to make things right [read: the reforms we want].
At this point, the JRC has to respond, probably by dismissing the apology (thereby drawing more attention to the points we're attacking).
Quote from: Cramulus on June 07, 2010, 11:17:30 PM
I just saw a blip about Bhopal on the news, which reminded me of the Yes Men
an example of how they might approach this project would be to concoct a press release which looks like it's from the Judge Rotenberg Center, in which they apologize for the abuses and list the steps they're taking to make things right [read: the reforms we want].
At this point, the JRC has to respond, probably by dismissing the apology (thereby drawing more attention to the points we're attacking).
By disinformation I was thinking more along the lines of "don't make up abuses that haven't actually happened." I actually thought about contacting the Yes Men directly after we got this going a little (both so that the YM will take us seriously and because a news release probably won't be a big deal unless there's already some current interest?) - making them say, "You have been mislead - we have no plans to stop traumatizing children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder." would be great.
I've got some info, not psoting it from work though :|
accounts created:
https://judgerotenbergcenterabuse.wordpress.com/
username: judgerotenbergcenterabuse
password: rotGASM23
rotGASM@gmail.com
password: rotGASM23
I chopped up the data GA linked to on page 1 and posted it
we've now got 10 entries
we could use some of the "how to get involved" data on there too
Cool, thanks!
Unrelated musing about the opinion pieces I've been stumbling across: one of the reasons that the various news articles / blog posts about the JRC abuses haven't been as effective as they should have been is that a) so many of them read as sensationalized and b) they all focus on the electric shocks, especially as if that in-and-of-itself is the abuse. The first sets off people's BS detectors, which leaves them primed to accept the JRC's calm and measured responses as authoritative.
The second is just false - painful electric shocks really could be used to benefit some people with severe self-destructive behavior as part of a comprehensive treatment plan designed to fit the individual's needs and administered by professionals who have the patient's best interests at heart. So the reader looks at that and thinks, "If I had to choose between someone I love trying to swallow razor blades for the rest of her (very short) life or go through some pain for the next 1-3 years and then live the rest of her (now improved to average length) life with only her normal disabilities... it wouldn't take very long. Okay, maybe the shocks hurt a little more than strictly necessary, but compared to the alternative of a perforated GI tract, I'll take it. I wish these crazy autistic self-advocates would quit trying to push their 'it's torture to hurt suicidal people, we should let them die slowly of internal bleeding instead' agenda on vulnerable children."
The problem isn't that the JRC uses electric shocks, it's that they start with the assumption that any problem can be cured with severe enough punishments (e.g., the NYSED documented a case where they were trying to 'cure' a child with PTSD by hurting her enough) and that the only treatment necessary is punishment (bipolar and schizophrenic kids don't need medication, autistic children don't need to be taught social skills, children with physical handicaps don't need physical therapy, and nobody needs speech therapy, or for that matter, to be allowed to talk. Conversations are a privilege reserved for the most well-behaved, and friendships are right out of the question. You read that right: they go out of their way to prevent suicidally depressed children from making friends.) It's like the mental health equivalent of those people who think nobody needs vaccines because enough Vitamin C cures smallpox.
That, and they don't monitor for when their treatments are causing more psychological harm than good (hint: quite frequently), and if they don't think the treatment is working properly (as purely measured by incidents of misbehavior; they don't care about anything except how often the children break rules) their solution is to make the punishments even more severe. You can imagine otherwise normal parents, driven to wits' end from the non-stop crying of their baby and having tried everything in the parent's bag of tricks, resorting to slapping their baby across the face. At this, point of course, the baby starts crying even louder, and the parent realizes that hitting a baby for crying was a really stupid idea that has only made things worse. Dr. Israel goes for the taser and ignores the massive stomach ulcers exacerbated by his unusual approach to child nutrition until the child eventually dies of them.* Oops.
I was pretty much just publishing data that other people have written, getting higher googleability for phrases like "JRC abuse"
anyway I spent like four or five hours working on this today, I hope you can find some use for it
Quote from: Vene on June 06, 2010, 07:27:01 PM
I also found a pdf of a court case that the Rotenberg Center filled against the New York State Education Department. (http://www.tsplusblog.com/files/AlleynevNYSED.pdf) New York banned them from shocking their students, and the Rotenberg Center tried to claim this violated their rights. The ruling was that their rights were not violated and the Rotenberg Center cannot legally use their "therapy." We also have a very legitimate source that details exactly what was done.
QuoteAversive methods include contingent food programs, the use of helmets on some children, mechanical restraints, and the application of electric skin shocks through a graduated electronic decelerator (GED).
They've also been caught in a lie, but I'm not sure how useful it is.
QuotePlaintiffs [Rotenberg Center] contend that defendants [New York State Education Department]
improperly accepted allegations of mistreatment by JRC as fact in early
2006 without investigating their merits. With their next breath, however,
plaintiffs object to just such an investigation, asserting that defendants' "rereviewed"
JRC to avoid negative media attention arising from the 2006
allegations. Clearly, plaintiffs cannot have it both ways, and their attempt
to do so must be rejected.
Thanks for the link! I read through the decision, and while IANAL this is what I think it the most relevant parts of the decision were:
- That given that the use of aversives is a contentious issue among education professionals, with rational arguments and research on both sides, it is not in purview of the courts to make educational policy decisions (reasonable) but that state government can legitimately take a side in the debate by imposing regulations, provided they do not do so arbitrarily or capriciously (also reasonable.)
Double IANAL disclaimer: pretty sure this means legislation could get passed outlawing the techniques the JRC uses, but the courts are not going to ban any school policies on the basis of their educational soundness. Does that leave open the possibility that they could (in some other case) rule that the policies constituted abuse or neglect? Dunno.
- That due process was not violated by the manner in which NY adopted the emergency regulations. NY was getting sued by a parent who claimed that the JRC abused her kid, there was a slew of sensational news reports, which lead to them putting the emergency regulations into place. The court found that given that NY was facing a lawsuit which alleged that it was allowing NY children to be abused at NY expense, a lawsuit which did have some supporting evidence, it had a legitimate reason to act rapidly (i.e., put regulations into place first, and then hold public hearings later.) Furthermore, in this particular case, the public hearings resulted in even stricter final regulations, so the judge found the claim that the children's/parents' rights were violated without due process to be invalid on the basis that there was due process. However, the judge did not make a decision as to whether the ability to use adversives was a right - since there was due process, rights were not violated without due process, so whether or not the use of aversives is a right is a moot.
- The judge has not yet ruled about the main argument by the parents, which goes like this:
- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitles qualifying children to services that meet all their needs, academic, emotional, physical, and social.
- Precedent holds that not addressing disability-related acts violence and classroom disruption is not reasonably calculated to allow the child to receive educational benefits.
- The adversives used at the JRC address disability-related acts of violence and classroom disruption.
- The recent regulations ban and/or restrict the adversives.
- Therefore, the regulations deprive our children of the educational benefits guaranteed by the IDEA.
Thought: if the IDEA guarantees access to education to that meets emotional/physical/social needs, and it is shown that the JRC does not meet those needs - does that get us anywhere? Can the parents just say "Well, we have access to education that meets those needs, we just choose not to use it?" Can that force somebody somewhere to build a school that does meet those needs so parents have an alternative to the JRC?
Quote from: Cramulus on June 09, 2010, 02:23:52 AM
I was pretty much just publishing data that other people have written, getting higher googleability for phrases like "JRC abuse"
anyway I spent like four or five hours working on this today, I hope you can find some use for it
Sorry! Looking back at my post it appears as if I accused you of being sensationalist or focusing on bad arguments - that wasn't my intent at all. The earlier draft of the post had "Something I've been thinking about:" instead of "Opinion follows:" - for some reason I changed it to better indicate that that was my subjective opinion and I hadn't examined all of the newspapers/blogs to declare it to be fact. It wasn't meant to be taken as an opinion of the blog at all - I haven't done more than glance at it yet (been reading that legal paper above) and what I saw looked pretty good. But since it follows after your post, it looks like it does, so I'll change it back.
The intent of the piece about sensationalism and focusing on the GEDs was just to try to get some thoughts going about what we can do differently than other pieces to make our rhetoric more effective.
Went through the blog (except watching the videos) and it looks pretty good. Obviously at some point we'll want to start publishing articles directly written for it, but that's in the future.
Found this by following links from the blog - there is apparently a bill in the US House & Senate to pretty severely limit restraints and seclusion in schools (for everybody, not just children with disabilities.) House Version (http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:4:./temp/~c11105ROs9::) and Senate Version (http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:1:./temp/~c111aG72bs::)
Highlights:
- Both bills require states to make plans to prevent the use of restraint/seclusion, and send annual reports with numbers and demographics to the Sec of Education.
- Both bills call for states to develop Crisis Intervention certifications, and require that restraint/seclusion be carrying out by them except in emergency.
- Both bills prevent including restraint/seclusion in education/behavior plans for students; they are not planned punishments. As far as I can tell this is directly aimed at the JRC.
- Both bills forbid restraint/seclusion unless there is imminent danger to someone and less restrictive measures wouldn't work.
- Both bills require somebody to at minimum maintain visual contact with the student for the duration of the restraint or seclusion, if not face-to-face contact.
- Both bills require the school to notify the parent if their child is restrained/secluded.
- The senate version additionally requires the school to document the antecedent events and hold a debriefing which the parents get invited to. This had better stay in the combined version, or else the earlier part re: only using them in case of imminent danger and if there aren't alternatives can't be enforced or investigated.
- Both bills give advocacy groups some powers under 2000 Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act to "investigate, monitor, and enforce" the protections.
For googleability, put some links to the blog in public subforums of this board, or even better, just your signatures. PD.com has a pretty high PageRank for google-juice.
Only drawback is that because of the higher pagerank, PD.com itself might come up before the blog.
I almost worked for them.
The front end of their establishment was an odd garish scene. Walls that were TOO white contrasted with flashy abstract art, the likes of which would seize the brain of a Japanese Pokemon fanatic. The furniture designer had obviously listened to a european in a tight black shirt spouting "less iz more" while trying to imagine what LSD must be like. (the only rationale I can imagine) This might have flown for an art gallery or the office of a specialty design company, but for a place that purports to "Help children" it was a bit unsettling. Hell, jsut their front end was walking up to a grand mal seizure and poking it with a stick.
Fellow applicants (Who I largely outdressed thanks to absence of sneakers, "Wu-wear", and a properly arranged tie), were not chatty, as we were all put to work on informational and screening paperwork. The drudgery and the backdrop which could only be described as bizzare was all set to the tune of a very carefully scripted and arranged short video of the center's prospective clientelle, (the kicking screaming berserk type), describing only superficially the services the center could offer (Focused on "Education" of course), ending with a well rehersed GED presentation ceremony to a graduating client. Tolerable, if you have to watch it once, but this was on repeat.
Anyways. Down through the usual riggermarole. I have not been arrested, I have a driver's licence, and on and on.
The application also had a few questions focusing on how I would handle specific situations, deliberately vauge or miss-worded. I smelled a test, answered to all possible meanings. At best, english comprehension, at worst projective testing.
Later, waiting for my turn on the interview, I had a vistitor. An old school buddy, one from the team, who had been one year ahead of me in learning. (Wait, wasn't he going to grad school? Motioned outside, we had a quick chat after pleasantries.
"So what's going on, I thought you had grad school lined up?"
"Didn't go through Rich. You serious about working here?"
"If they take me and it looks good, sure."
"OK, basically, keep your head down for the first six months then. After that, you're golden."
We said our goodbyes and I went back in to wait.
My turn in the hot seat was unremarkable at best. Wait, did I mention the furniture and decor? It got better. I was ushered into a room outfit with the same garish wall hanging. (focusing once again, on abstract reds and yellows) Stark white walls (as standard), recesed lighting, and the funiture.....
Was all lime green tranlucent plastic. Lime Green Transclucent Plastic, that had obviously been cut and bent from a single peice of 3/4" sheet plastic. I had left the land of the wannabe surrealists, and was in hell done by the designers IKEA can no longer abide.
Standard intervew fair otherwise. I didn't know the important questions to ask yet, and they were almost happy to be vauge and nonforthcoming. A few basics followed, and I asked about their obviously loaded application questions on the application. My interviewer smiled to herself slightly and made a notation while answering me that it WAS intentional. God help me, I just passed some sort of test.
A quick walkthrough of an adjoining building, decorated in much more standard schoolhouse / office furniture followed. Normal classes, we only witnessed one restraint (handled deftly, by large men inadvisably wearing neckties and shirts). None of the shock rigs that I'd read about later. It was soon done, and we were led back to the nightmare reception building to be sent on our way.
Thanking my hosts (another approving nod and a note) and I was back on the highway. Odd experience, and I'd wonder in future why other joints didn't display sanity damaging accoutrements or psychological testing in their interview process. Still, few enough jobs and interviews under my belt, I didn't know that yet. I would likely be offered a job, but circumstance and providence had me land elsewhere.
Permission received to use the entirety of Kassiane's interview. She's pretty hyped about this project:
"Thank YOU. Oh my gosh, seriously, you have no idea how much it matters to have people who aren't autistic finally know that JRC exists and is a hellpit."
@Richter - Interesting. I've seen a couple people complain about the decor elsewhere. Something about nauseating levels of high-contrast, bright colors not meshing well with people who are prone to sensory overload (autistic children for one, although I'm pretty sure there are other disorders with that symptom.) The bizarre thing, though, is that the JRC's website lists it as a "feature": check out their section on the Yellow Brick Road, where they identify the designers by name with some of their accomplishments. Are we now choosing mental facilities based on how big the names of their interior designers are?
http://www.judgerc.org/yellowbrickroad.html
It would be interesting to contact some of the designers and ask them how they took the disabilities of the main users of the rooms into account.
You should also contrast that with some of the prisons that the Absurdists/Surrealists designed. No, I'm serious:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/27/spain.arts
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2698177.stm
http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/anarchotorture.html
Looked through a "scientific" paper that the doctors at the JRC put together and linked to on their website. Their website lists it as "recently approved for publication," but the article was published in 2007. :?
I'm going to ask a professor I know about this article (I'm not a psychologist, not by a long shot,) but I'm pretty sure it's bunk.
Anyway, presenting "Side Effects of Contingent Shock Treatment." (http://www.judgerc.com/SideEffectsContingent.pdf)
- The first thing to notice is that the "side effects" that the study measures are all behaviors that contingent shock (CS) therapy directly or indirectly targets. Depression, constant fear, and sleep loss are examples of potential side effects; complying with instructions is the intended therapeutic benefit, i.e., not a side effect. Showing that a therapy accomplishes the intended primary effects cannot even in principle show that it has no serious side effects and claiming otherwise is dishonest.
- The "side effects" measured were all behaviors, whereas most of the side effects reported to result from CS therapy are mental in nature, such as feelings of helpless, great fear, depression, suicidal thoughts, etc. Behavior does not necessarily reflect internal mental state, especially given that what is being tested is a therapy primarily intended to modify behavior. For example, it is conceivable that a patient who is punished severely for crying might eventually learn to stop expressing sadness while becoming even more depressed, or that a patient might fake being happy by affecting a smile and friendly demeanor to avoid punishment while secretly planning violent revenge the instant the threat of punishment vanishes. A person who reports thoughts of suicide and is punished for it would presumably no longer report feeling suicidal, but there is no reason to think that this would correspond to an actual reduction of suicidal thoughts, or even a reduced risk of actually committing suicide.
- The nine test subjects were not chosen at random. This implies that someone went through students and selected those they thought most suitable for the study, i.e., those that were predicted to respond best to CS therapy.
- The subjects were not evaluated on all of their behaviors, but only on those that were "target" behaviors, which varied by individual. So if crying is a target behavior for Jack but not Jill, then Jack crying less frequently constitutes an improvement, while Jill can start crying 24/7 after treatment begins without having any effect in the results. Again, side effects are not effects that are targeted, but rather unintentional effects.
- Additionally, because target behaviors were determined before the treatment phase of the study began, unanticipated behaviors possibly triggered by CS therapy would not be recorded in the study. If a subject replaces old prohibited behaviors with new negative behaviors of equal or greater severity due to CS therapy, and the team at JRC, which does not believe that CS has any negative side effects, did not predict that specific behavior, the study would count that as an improvement. Thus, the study cannot falsify the hypothesis that CS can causes subjects to begin to exhibit self-destructive or aggressive behaviors which were not previously present in the subject.
- There was no control group. Rather, each subject first had a brief baseline period of "randomly" (more on this next) determined length. The lengths of the baseline periods were not reported in the article, which makes it impossible to determine how statistically significant the baseline measurements were. (more on statistical analysis later)
- The baseline periods were not of random length. Subjects who began exhibiting behaviors that the JRC judged too severe were immediately begun on CS therapy, which skews ... the baselines more positively and treatment period negatively, against the intended conclusion of the article? Weird.
- Subjects still received all other punishments as normal during the baseline and treatment period, including mechanical restraint and food deprivation. Therefore, the study cannot falsify the hypothesis that CS has negative sides taken by itself, which is what the title would suggest is being investigated. It could be the case that the other adversives already being used cause severe side effects and that CS therapy causes severe side effects, and the two together cause severe side effects, but not significantly more than the other adversives alone.
- The frequency and severity of CS administered was not reported anywhere in the paper. The hypothesis that CS has side effects would imply some level of correlation between the amount of its use and the incidence of its proposed side effects. The paper later makes the assertion (unfounded, as will be explained below) that some subjects made improvements in some areas while others did not. The paper cannot falsify the hypothesis that those who made less or no improvements received more frequent or more severe CS than the subjects who did improve, which would imply that there is a positive correlation between frequency/severity of CS and a lack of improvement in targeted areas.
- The only measure of target behaviors was frequency and kind - no severity. Thus, a subject who rolled his eyes several times an hour during the baseline period, but replaced hourly eye-rolling with physically attacking someone daily after CS therapy began would be marked as an improvement under the system of the study. The paper cannot falsify the hypothesis that the use of CS, a painful disciplinary measure, instills the belief that violence is an effective and appropriate expression of negative emotions, which causes subjects to replace forbidden negative behaviors, such as crying, with less frequent but more serious behaviors such as violent aggression.
- Behaviors were only monitored during a 10 minute period chosen "randomly" each weekday, but which never included times when subjects were receiving behavior reinforcements (such as CS). This seems to imply that the monitoring periods were not random. By definition, there is a strong timing correlation between contingent punishments and the behaviors they are contingent upon. By excluding episodes where subjects were administered contingent punishments, it is highly likely the case that the target behavior which triggered the punishment was also excluded. Thus, during the treatment period, the negative behaviors which are responded to immediately by contingent punishments are excluded from the data, while the positive targeted behaviors that are not reinforced immediately (such as rewarding a subject for being polite the entire day), are left in the data. This creates an obvious bias towards reporting incidents of positive behavior in favor of incidents of negative behavior during the treatment period.
There's more (the staff around the subjects were aware of the monitoring and could influence results, the JRC monitors students with video 24/7 and documents every single incident of targeted behavior, yet the study inexplicably ignores this and only uses a few hours of footage per subject) but I have to go to bed so I'll cut to the most damning flaw (after the fact that the study couldn't even in principle measure side effects, point #1):
The data was not statistically significant. Specifically, the baselines were so short that the author admitted that statistical analysis could not be done. Instead, he "analyzed" the data by plotting graphs (incidence of targeted behaviors vs. time),
removing the time labels so that you cannot tell from the graph whether it shows a significant timescale or not, and
asking clinicians whether they thought the pictures of the graphs indicated significant change or not. The clinicians were not said to be independent or unaware of the purpose of the study, so we can assume that they were all JRC employees who where aware of what answers would benefit the institution. Further, no mention is made of the clinicians having any sort of mathematical literacy at all (although we know that JRC training includes a 1 hour section on graphing data) or being aware of how long a timescale the graph represents (that information is not even given to those reading the paper) or how many datapoints the graph represents, or what margins of error are, etc.
In other words, the results were not statistically significant, so the paper instead reports on what laymen without any statistical knowledge or scientific knowledge or training and every reason to bias the results think the statistically insignificant data signifies.
awesome report! posted to the blag
Hey, has anyone posted this to Reddit yet?
If not:
Note that reddiquette considers it perfectly fine to repost something as more information comes available and/or if a topic didnt get the attention it deserved: "Search for dupes before posting something. That said, sometimes bad timing, a bad title, or just plain bad luck can cause an interesting story to fail to get noticed. Feel free to post something again if you feel that the earlier posting didn't get the attention it deserved and you think you can do better."
What is the best link to post? Just judgerotenbergcenterabuse.wordpress.com?
Another possibility is to post links to several articles on that blog over the course of a week or so, which might get more attention and buzz as people hear about the subject repeatedly and realize its severity with increased exposure. This might be especially useful if we think society has become so jaded that "something horrible" needs a few encounters before it registers as "something real", "something that happens in my country", "something that actual people do to actual kids"
What is the best title for the link(s)? The titles of the current blog articles aren't very good. I just wrote a topic on this topic (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=25549).
And of course, anyone with a reddit account should immediately vote it up, afaik quick upvotes is the best way to ensure more front page time.
Oh, and one more thing: The "About" page on that blog still contains the default WordPress text. Better to put something there, or otherwise the blog looks really unfinished and amateur.
Bump.
Any new progress or difficulties we could help with?
seconded. :mittens: for the whole damned thing!
BUMP - GA, did you get any use out of the blog? any further updates?
I found a rebuttal by the JRC regarding the NY investigation. Basically, they claimed that everywhere the NY investigative team said "we found no evidence of..." they didn't actually ask for evidence, and other kinds of willful misunderstandings. For example, when NY said they found a student on shock therapy who hadn't yet been approved by a judge, they said that they investigators were looking at old documents, and had they requested newer documents, they would have seen that the kid had, in fact, been approved. A bunch of things like that.
I still think it's a disgusting operation, but... what do? JRC had a perfectly good explanation to almost all of the horror stories, and as much as I want the placed closed down I can't in good conscience use anecdotes I don't think are true. I'm forced to agree with the JRC that most of the buzz created around them is a product of Outrage Mongering or whatever it's called ... not that they aren't bad, but that there isn't any good documentation of them being bad.
I really should have written some of the investigators in the NY report and asked them if they had a response.
Isn't too late now.
I'll give it some thought.
Bump for action against Rotenberg:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/05/25/rotenberg_founder_set_to_face_charges/?camp=misc%3Aon%3Ashare%3Aarticle
We didn't make much noise about this one, did we?
Shame, it was a worthy cause. In any case, I'm glad about the legal action.
Roo roo! So good to see Israel forced into retirement.
I started off just going "Hey, Golden Applesauce needs some help with this thing he's really passionate about, I wonder how I can help..."
and then suddenly I had spent an entire day reading about this stuff and working up a good froth and posting content to the blog. We're the third hit for "Judge Rotenburg Center Abuse". I basically just indexed a whole lot of disgusting stuff I found on different websites, put it in a central place. I should check to see how much traffic we got...
Looks like we got a slow but steady trickle of traffic. In a given month we got between 30 and 120 hits. We started to climb at the beginning of 2010 and have gotten steadily more hits each month, peaked in march, slowly coming down now. This probably reflects the stuff going on in the news. I'm really glad we helped spread the word because this stuff definitely got under my skin.
Yah, thanks for putting that together Cram.
:pax:
Quote from: Cramulus on May 26, 2011, 02:41:19 PM
Roo roo! So good to see Israel forced into retirement.
I started off just going "Hey, Golden Applesauce needs some help with this thing he's really passionate about, I wonder how I can help..."
and then suddenly I had spent an entire day reading about this stuff and working up a good froth and posting content to the blog. We're the third hit for "Judge Rotenburg Center Abuse". I basically just indexed a whole lot of disgusting stuff I found on different websites, put it in a central place. I should check to see how much traffic we got...
Looks like we got a slow but steady trickle of traffic. In a given month we got between 30 and 120 hits. We started to climb at the beginning of 2010 and have gotten steadily more hits each month, peaked in march, slowly coming down now. This probably reflects the stuff going on in the news. I'm really glad we helped spread the word because this stuff definitely got under my skin.
RAH!
:mittens:
somebody from JRC found the blog. I got a comment on one of the posts which suggests that we should read this PDF ---
http://www.judgerc.org/responsetoblogs.pdf
it apparently clarifies their use of shock therapy
Good job, I'll have to put some more effort into this if we're a top google hit. (I need to verify this on a clean computer - google tracks your search history and gives you results it thinks you'll be interested in, so it's hard to tell if your own stuff is high in results because google know you like it or if it's just high.)
you can add &pws=0 (Personal Web Search = off) to the end of your google URL and it should give you non-personalized results.
additionally, afaik, if you log out of your google account, it won't track your history.
one thing you will get is localisation, but your IP is in the US and your target audience is too, so that should be fine.