Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #dianetics more → 
Time to Audit Scientology's Anti-Medicine Stance
New York, 2:46 PM
Mon Nov 30
40 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
tips@gawker.com
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder | Email
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield | Email
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate | Email
Media:
Hamilton Nolan | Email
Politics:
Alex Pareene | Email
Investigations:
John Cook | Email
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan | Email
Nights:
Adrian Chen | Email
Azaria Jagger | Email
Ravi Somaiya | Email
Weekends:
Foster Kamer | Email
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley | Email
| posts about #dianetics more → |
Time to Audit Scientology's Anti-Medicine Stance |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
01/04/09
To bastardize De Tocqueville, you get the website you deserve.
01/04/09
And I'll soon be experiencing it, I guess.
01/04/09
01/04/09
Gawker former employees simply need to set up a competing blog where the truly intelligent like Mr. Hippity and Aaron Altman could expouse again and I would only occasionally ask that people stop use the word retarded as a pejorative.
I just sent back to Misericordia my ten year old cute deaf with cerebral plasy topped off at 14 months mentally son. Keeping him at home under supervision has become quite the challenge.
Tommy is kept under constant supervision with a one on one. Thats life. He uses Depakote which doesnt have a long term liver problem if closely monitored. There are other meds to calm him and for his safety that in the words of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl " chill him out ever so slightly". Apparently everyone on this website could use them tonight.
Not having your at risk child die , or as SIster Rosemary refers to them " our most vulnerable members of society" requires proper medical care , supervision and luck. I dont think that Jett Travolta had any of those things and he deserved better.
People speak out for him and for our children.
01/04/09
I've also asked this.
01/04/09
- Albert A. Pejorative
01/04/09
- Ryan B. Bad
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
Some say Travolta's gay nanny lover was ordered to kill Jett because it was getting too hard to hide his autism from the higher ups in Scientology.
What time is Brody Jenner on?
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/05/09
01/04/09
Oh, and Rupert Murdoch called. He says a real media mogul who wants to seem like a lovable rogue makes GOOD decisions regarding their companies. They don't fire proven earners who they fear/dislike and replace them with... Nothing.
BTW: Your jaw is too big. Shave with a shotgun, you goddamned crotch.
Love and Hugginz,
Ian
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
On top of this college paper level Star magazine style reporting, Denton has the gall to throw stones at Choire on NYD for an appearance on CNN. Classy.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
Now I must watch Blade Runner and contemplate Daryl Hannah's hair.
01/04/09
01/04/09
Sadly, Gabriel is a wuss, and Nick terrifies him into being a wuss. What the wonder twins don't understand is, yeah, you can keep pageviews while being pussies who are afraid of women, MAD magazine could still have gotten subscriptions by becoming TV Guide. The great media site has given itself over to pure, creeping cowardice. And they cannot understand why people are starting to hate it.
And they can't yet see the blowback they've inspired. From Nick's perspective, Gabriel is an experienced magazine/media guy. From a media perspective, he was the number one suck-up creep who you should always ignore. From a readers' perspective, he's the guy who's fetish for avoiding trouble is destroying Gawker.
From my perspective? Nick is a coward. So he hired one. Gabriel is shocked that I've turned on him after knowing him for all these years. But he turned on me. He used to be a fucking writer.
Now? He and Nick are a simple machine. And that machine produces lies, only. As to why they fired everyone. That machine should be crushed.
01/04/09
01/04/09
You are a total fake, and you completely fear me. That's why you're anonymous, sissy! Come forward, tell me where to see you, and I will show you how undignified I am, you fucking coward. I will push your face through the back of your skull.
You know who I am. I am listed. Tell me who you are, you fucking little creep. Tell me your name right now. You know mine, pussy!
01/04/09
This post, however, grasping and manufacturing meaning as it does, is a shit-show. And it is quite transparent the objectionable elements are spurred on my the editorial direction of the site.
This has always been my contention about Gawker 2008 and beyond.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
It goes without saying that your voice is sorely missed here, yet I suspect that you wouldn't come back for any amount of cash. For what it is worth, you positively nailed the job, and your shoes are too big for anyone.
01/04/09
A good, stiff round of lemon squares is called for. Trix? My Antipodean lemon tree is still heavy with fragrant, juicy fruit - how's about I pick us a bushel, to be followed by mojitos, made with limes from yonder lime tree and the bright green mint that spreads in a carpet beneath my pink hibiscus.
Missing you all, especially you on the weekends, Ian. My compulsion to drop in has waned somewhat lately.
01/04/09
Then again, you're a guy. You would have been promoted. And on third thought, you're smart -- you would NOT have been promoted.
But I'm not bitter.
Miss you, man.
01/05/09
01/06/09
Hey there, right back at you! I've been missing your be-wigged, furry-faced visage.
01/04/09
(the photo is a bit much, Owen. And that's coming from someone who just used an inappropriate pun.)
01/04/09
That said, let me roil the waters with a little more useful information. Depakote is valproic acid, which has been known for 125 years and used for its anticonvulsant (as in seizure) properties for around 45 years. That's forever in medical research. It can cause liver damage, but that usually manifests itself in the first six months of treatment. That's plenty of time to get onto something new, and there are lots of options now.
Interestingly, seizure is only one of three FDA-approved "indications" for Depakote. The other two are migraine and bipolar disorder (to control the manic episodes). Now, docs can prescribe a drug for whatever they damn well feel like, but the fact that Depakote has an approved indication for bipolar might have been enough to set off alarms at Thetan Control.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
Indeed, no one with a vagina on the masthead at Gawker anymore, and this is editorial direction we are left with. The days of the quirky, witty and cultural Gawker are disappearing in the rear view window -- but for this less than Star magazine level reporting?
Meh.
01/04/09
I don't know what you're suggesting here. Genitals give editorial direction? If so, your use of Star magazine is a FAIL, what with their masthead.
01/04/09
We are a far cry from a Choire edited Gawker, and i think the cracks are really beginning to show now the election is over. Though Gawker will always have its special status as breeding ground for over use of awesome sayings like "FAIL."
So that's a plus.
01/04/09
Why not? They could hire this guy.
01/04/09
01/04/09
Also, i don't think that i was entirely clear in my conflating Star and no vagina parts here at Gawker anymore. As i female reader, the lack of female perspective here is annoying. I was simply using the tabloid style reporting as an 'insult to injury' scenario.
Quite frankly, i have no fucking clew as to what happens at Star. It was a handy sign to reach for, and fitting since Radar was taken over by AM. Add to that Denton's beloved JA used to work there, and it seems a fitting sign to plop into a sentence.
That said, the halcyon days of Gawker being culturally relevant (not in the mainstream sense at least) are probably behind us. So few writers remain here i want to read, and that is the bottom line.
01/04/09
There's just something that really bugs me about this story.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
Yet Christian Scientists are still around. I thought that family was nuts. Turns out a couple of siblings now don't talk to the mom (she was C.S.; dad converted for her).
There is medicine around for a reason, people.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
This is bigotry - plain and simple.
01/04/09
I wonder how much he watches this? You know, just to watch the monkeys jump?
01/04/09
The loss is unimaginable and horrific, and there can be no question that speculating as to the parents' possible culpability in this tragedy is unseemly and probably premature. But shit, this is Gawker, and it is a goddamn gossip site. Owen (and hell, Denton) are no strangers to publishing utterly unsubstantiated gossip.
The righteous indignation here is baffling, particularly when the circumstances are as bizarre as they are in this story. Special needs kid. Two nannies, one of whom was publicly photographed kissing the entertainer, and seemingly has no qualifications as a caregiver for a special needs kid. History of seizures, medication for which was terminated. Two parents. No one noticed he was in the bathroom overnight in a goddamn hotel suite. Stir in the crazy of Scientology and you have a perfect Gawker cocktail.
As someone said, there is a big internet out there, and places where you can share your genuine condolences and sympathy. The hall monitors are clearly moving beyond comments and now opining on editorial topics.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
The other point here is that this kind of story seems to evoke the worst sort of tabloid instinct in Gawker, i.e., plug the story incessantly and throw out the wildest possible accusations on the off chance that some of them might be true. If they are true (off chance, remember), Denton's a hero crusading journalist. If they're not, well, everybody will just forget about it anyway -- or say, "the real truth was covered up."
This is nasty, hideous stuff.
01/04/09
But this is exactly what Gawker does. I mean, this is almost formulaic and textbook Gawker. That is why the righteous indignation is baffling. Gawker speculates on media stories, in its own unique tone. Truth and accuracy are not the immediately goals of Gawker gossip.
Look, I get the ickiness. There is a dead 16 year old and parents that, regardless of their devotion to aliens and spaceships and auditing, have to be in a world of pain few of us could come close to imagining. The tragedy is horrifying, but, as far as I can tell, that tragedy isn't the point of these posts. It is the other stuff - the bizarre stuff - that make it a newsworthy item in the entertainment world. I guess I can separate the two. And I am hardly Gawker's biggest cheerleader.
@Spirit Fingers: We may be of different minds here. I have been critical of posts, to be sure, but mostly of the content of the editorial, not the topic. See, e.g. Moe (on Gawker), generally. If there is a post on something I don't particularly care about or think unseemly, I just don't click on it.
01/04/09
Well, here's my problem: Owen's stuff is not speculating on a media story -- basically the mention of the TMZ piece was only a jumping-off point for a series of rants against Scientology.
It's fair to connect the dots, but I don't think it's fair to make up all the dots except the first (and possibly the second) and then pretend that the through-line is anything but fiction.
01/04/09
And yes, it would be easy not to click, but the frustration is more about the editorial direction in these instances as opposed to a few isolated posts.
And I think we all pretty much agree about that photo.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09