Oh, look! A bandwagon

[charliesmum]

I know we're all sick of Tom Cruise, so this is the last thing I'll say. I promise. I just want to get it out of my system:

Dear Tom Cruise:

You are an actor. A fairly good one, really, for a while there you were really taking some risks, taking roles other than the 'pin up boy' roles you'd gotten famous for. Remember "Born on the Fourth of July? No one really cared too much about whether or not you were gay, or why your marriages failed. Your job was to be an actor. You did it well, (though I personally have only seen four of your movies) and everyone was happy.

But now you've decided to pull a Mel Gibson and bring your personal beliefs into your professional life, and I don't think you realise how stupid it is making you look.

It's fine if you have personal crusades, and work tirelessly to make sure they get the recognition and help they deserve. Look at Sting. People think Sting, they think Rainforest preservation (or, you know, Tantric sex, but let's not go there) but he doesn't jump up and down on people's couches and shout down interviewers who don't agree with him. He just makes his music, and donates time and money to the causes he believes in, and again, everybody is happy. (Especially Trudy because, you know, tantric sex.)

You, on the other hand, are just being annoying. Really annoying. I'll be the first to say I agree with the idea that some medications are getting prescribed too quickly - I've resisted for awhile now the school system's hints that my son should be on meds. Right now he is doing okay, and I'm not drugging my son just to make the teacher's lives easier. However, if it came to a point where all methods have failed, and he is actually slipping in his recovery, or suffering in school, then I would reconsider it, because I've seen how it can help.

And as for depression, the whole 'snap out of it' philosophy doesn't always work. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't been given anti-depressants when I was a little girl. Yes, it shouldn't be the knee-jerk reaction the second someone walks into a doctor's office, but credible psychiatrists usually try other methods first, to make sure that the drugs would be the most appropriate solution. And maybe if my grandmother had gotten medications, she wouldn't have shot herself to death when I was fifteen. (And until you carry a baby for 40 weeks, and give birth to it, and have all the hormones in your body go crazy while at the same time you are adjusting to getting zero sleep because the baby is up every hour needing to be fed, just shut up about Post-Partum depression being solved by vitamins.)

You've already proven yourself a gullible idiot by playing the "Nazi" card when it comes to psychiatry. Just because L. Ron Hubbard said it doesn't mean it's true. The man wrote science fiction stories, for Pete's sake. Get a clue.

I truly hope you are actually paying attention to what people on the internet are saying, because I have yet to see anyone really stand up and defend what you said. I'm sure your Scientology buddies are all "You go, girl" but so far the average person thinks you're an idiot.

Oh, and War of the Worlds? I'm sure it's a great movie, after all, it did well when it was called Independence Day.

Done now.

Love from charliesmum

Comments

[hiddengrotto.livejournal.com]

It's fine if you have personal crusades, and work tirelessly to make sure they get the recognition and help they deserve. Look at Sting. People think Sting, they think Rainforest preservation (or, you know, Tantric sex, but let's not go there) but he doesn't jump up and down on people's couches and shout down interviewers who don't agree with him. He just makes his music, and donates time and money to the causes he believes in, and again, everybody is happy. (Especially Trudy because, you know, tantric sex.)

May I metaquote you? :)

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

oh, really! Sure! *grins foolishly* Always wanted to be metaquoted.

[hiddengrotto.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/community/metaquotes/3409263.html

[chavvah.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, tantric sex...

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

Oh, and War of the Worlds? I'm sure it's a great movie, after all, it did well when it was called Independence Day.

*snorfle*

Well said.

[thoughtcr1me.livejournal.com]

I love you. :D

a veritable miscellaney here

[swordmage.livejournal.com]

Cruise has recently proven himself to be a complete fool. The sane people are looking at him and shaking theirheads in disbelief and... something else (for me, it's amusement, and that may very well be what others are doing).

When it comes to, what you call a Mel Gibson, I would call a John Travolta. Starship Troopers anyone? (though Passion is a very good example as well, andprobably a bit more relevant)

It's fine if you have personal crusades, and work tirelessly to make sure they get the recognition and help they deserve. Look at Sting.
Or Bono-who is one of the few I have no problem with when he begins to talk about world peace and such.

If you want my personal med story-it's short and simple (and makes me laugh at Tom (and my mother, but that's a different story :D) all the more). Sometime in the fall of my junior year, my shrink and I decided that maybe I should go on Prozac. I was having trouble with some family stuff, and it was making me melancholy and rather depressed. We'd discussed it before, and I'd said no. This time we agreed, got my dad's permission (as mom wouldn't give it and I neededit, being 17n and all), and I was off. Sometime about four or five months later, I decided that I was feeling fine and no longer wanted to take it. That was it. Nearly half a year on the stuff and no side effects, addiction, or bad experiences. Yes, there are plenty of people on the stuff that don't need it, but some do. And it helps them.

But then again, I think Scientologists are against any form of psychiatric help.

And I doubt he's seeing what's going around online. though if his PR people are (and, unless I'm mistaken, they essentially consist of his sister), they're probably going nuts. Because this isn't exactly what I'd call good press...

Then again, he's a follower of a "religion" created because Hubbard was having tax problems, and by declaring his organization a religion could escape them. Incidentally, he also spent the end of his life on a boat sailinga round so he could avoid the multiple governments that wanted to get the money he owed them...

Re: a veritable miscellaney here

[erynnef.livejournal.com]

Hey!! HEY!!


Leave poor John out of this. -sniffle-


But, wasnt it Battlefield Earth? Thats the L. Ron Hubbard movie he did in 2000. Horrible sci-fi. Made my head hurt. Made me dislike John for a few weeks.


Other than that, I agree.

-hearts John-

[chavvah.livejournal.com]

Oh, and War of the Worlds? I'm sure it's a great movie, after all, it did well when it was called Independence Day.

Or, when it was narrated by Orson Welles. ;)

[germankitty]

In through metaquotes:

Or done by The Alan Parsons Project with awesome music and the gorgeous voice of Richard Burton as narrator ...

I'd also like to include Bob Geldof with the good guys and their causes. 1985's "Live Aid" and the upcoming "Live 8" concert this Saturday prove that he's taking his commitment to "feed the world" (or at least Africa) very seriously.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Bob Geldof really means what he says, and mostly just goes around quietly doing it.

Not sure if you're old enough, but I was 16 when "Do they know it's Christmas" came out, and that was just a bunch of people doing something they thought would help, and (forgive me for sounding like Linus in the Pumpkin Patch here) it was all very sincere.

Don't get me started on the "We are the World" crap. :)

[germankitty]

Oh yeah, I'm old enough alright. :-) In fact, I was definitely on the wrong side of 25 back in 1985. (Which is also why I own a vinyl LP of WotW, not a CD ...)

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. It's always nice to meet another LJer who remembers before things like cell phones and iPods. :)

[germankitty]

Heh. You have NO idea. *grins*

I actually remember honest-to-God gas lights on the streets, even. I live in Germany, in a fairly big city, but back around 1960, the suburbs still had men go about each day at dusk/dawn to light/extinguish the street lights. I found it quite fascinating as a kid. By the mid-sixties, even the city limits had switched to neon.

My son always seems to think that kind of thing only happened in the Dark Ages, and is clearly boggled by the fact that his very own mother (who owns both an iPod and a cell phone) remembers this actually happening.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

That's kind of cool, really.

My husband LOVES Germany. He was stationed there when he was in the Army, and hung around for a bit after.

I have an MP3 player and a cell phone. And still think, 'gosh, this is the coolest thing, ever!'

*nods*

[germankitty]

*grins* Just because we waved good-bye to our twenties a while ago doesn't mean we can't be cool!

[october31st.livejournal.com]

I read this thinking "Please, stop talking about Tom Cruise!!!" (not that you're annoying, but that I was saturated by the media long ago :(), and then this line

Oh, and War of the Worlds? I'm sure it's a great movie, after all, it did well when it was called Independence Day.

made it all worth it. Heck, if anything I'd say that one is the most metaquotable. Well done :)

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

Just because L. Ron Hubbard said it doesn't mean it's true. The man wrote science fiction stories, for Pete's sake.

And a really flakey one, at that!

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

Over from metaquotes.

And as for depression, the whole 'snap out of it' philosophy doesn't always work.

In fact, it seldom ever works. If anything it can make things worse.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

In fact, it seldom ever works. If anything it can make things worse.

I agree. I mean it might work if you're just sad because, say work sucked, but for real depression it won't.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

ditto, ditto, and more ditto. Especially since Hubbard supposedly invented the religion just to see how many gullible people he could get to sign on! (I'm not sure that that legend's *true,* but c'mon. People who knew him all unanimously agree that he was enough of an asshole, and just the kind of asshole, to do it. And the religion's blatantly all about getting people's money??)

I'm sorry about Katie Holmes, though. I really thought she had more sense.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Except, you know, War of the Worlds was a classic sci-fi novel and radio programme back in the thirties, and, if anything, Independence Day probably took stuff from it.

Of course, the movie will probably be crap, but give the novel its due: IT pioneered aliens-invading-Earth scenarios. Independence Day was silly, and incomparable to WoTW.

[erynnef.livejournal.com]

Incomparable, yes.



But, it was funny, and up to the times. I enjoyed that one. I love me some Will Smith.


The effects look good, and Im hoping this AT LEAST does well enough for me to go and see it on the big screen once.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Agree about WotW original story. (plus the story about the radio show itself was very interesting)

I'm willing to bet, though that the movie's only thing in common with the book (and radio show) is the title. Because in the end of the real story the aliens are defeated because they caught a cold. I'm sure in the movie TC's character will have something more to do with their demise.

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

Word, word, and more word. I think there's some basic "law of batshit crazy" that goes "if you cannot get your point across without frothing at the mouth and berating an interviewer, you do not have a "point," you have a problem."

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

you do not have a "point," you have a problem."

And now I really want someone to start berating me during a debate, just so I can use that line.

[apetslife.livejournal.com]

Here from metaquotes, and may I just say...

A-FLIPPIN'-MEN, SISTER.

Best letter to Tom I've seen yet. :)