True- generally, we would have no idea whether anyone is getting therapy for anything. It’s funny that people seem to feel like they should see photos of Jett’s classroom aides, or his home program timesheets with PT & OT professionals, or video of his social skills workshops… :rolleyes:
That article appeared on Hollywood Interrupted, which was started and is run by Mark Ebner. Ebner, a former writer for Spy magazine, is pretty famous in anti-$cientology circles for his brave and snarky print article about $cientology in Spy. I don’t yet know the background of the Kennys and how they would know the things they claim, so of course it all could be bogus, but them being steered to Ebner to tell their story is understandable.
By the way, Tim Kenny committed suicide March 30,2008 because of (according to his wife, assuming that really is her writing in the Comments section) depression and financial problems.
Even if not a word of that article is true, we have it from Kelly Preston’s lips that they had Jett undergo $cientology’s “Purification Rundown” which, as far as I’m concerned, is fucking child abuse. PR has been blasted as dangerous by many sources.
Note the “Preston, who also said Jett suffered from asthma” and this from the PR Wikipedia page:
To give a growing child massive doses of Niacin and sauna treatments is unconscionable.
He left once, but they lured him back in. [CONJECTURE] Gossip has it that the auditing sessions revealed homosexual liaisons and they used that to blackmail him. Being gay in $cientology is a MASSIVE no no. Hubbard was quite the homophobe. His own gay son commited suicide. Once they lured him back in, they were able to completely brainwash him, especially after they paired him with another $cientologist, Kelly Preston, to keep an eye on him. [/CONJECTURE]
And Travolta has always gone on and on about $cientology. He used to be the one who wouldn’t shut up about it. [CONJECTURE]I believe he missed getting an Academy Award nomination for Get Shorty because he wouldn’t shut up about it. He had won all these precursor awards prior to the Oscar nomination ballots being sent out. At every awards show he praised L. Ron Hubbard in his thank yous. People got sick of it and finally, I think at the Blockbuster awards but don’t quote me, he was booed for it. Everyone fully expected him to be nominated for an Oscar, but he wasn’t, and it was assumed by many that people changed their ballots because they were sick of him. That same year, Nicole Kidman, then married to Tom Cruise and assumed to be a $cientologist, was expected to not only get an Oscar nomination for To Die For but was a deserved frontrunner to win. But, she shockingly didn’t even get nominated. I personally believe that that was the year of the great $cientology backlash and Nicole got unfairly caught up in it. Celebrity $cienos really toned it down after that. Btw, Nicole was never a $cientologist.[/CONJECTURE] Tom Cruise used to be the one who never talked about it. He changed his mind somewhere along the way.
In any case, whatever and all, back on topic, there are going to be 2 pathologists working on the autopsy, which is good. I’m interested in what shape Jett’s liver is in.
I feel so sorry for him.
Hm… your first link goes back to that “disgruntled restaurant owner” at one point, and also slams Travolta for not using his son as a poster child and becoming an activist. You know, famous people are not obligated to become activist for anything. In fact, I wish more of them would not do that.
Second link is a bunch of people gossiping on a message board. Oh, yes, very definitive.
Third has a video of the kid. Yeah, he’s got problems, that’s obvious. But, despite the accompanying article, it’s not obvious it’s autism. Mental retardation and/or brain damage can mess a person up that way, and a severe seizure disorder can cause both. Or the kid could have simply had the misfortune to be born not quite normal. At least they take the kid out in public rather than leaving him at home with a sitter. Goodness knows, with their resources they could have left him at home in Florida with caretakers rather than bringing him to Paris with the rest of the family. Hardly the actions of parents who are somehow embarrassed about their disabled son or trying to hide him. The snippet at the end, implying the cult of scientology somehow killed him or led to his death, is uncalled for until the autopsy results are in.
It seems like the rabid autism crowd wants to slam the Travoltas up against the wall and get them to “admit” their child has autism. How effing rude. They are not obligated to share any details of either their son’s medical condition or its treatment with anyone. They are not obligated to be activists. They are extremely fortunate to have the resources to hire extra help for him and I have to wonder if part of the venom stems from jealousy over that. It’s a damn shame that there are families in the US with disabled children who are reduced to poverty by our broken medical “system” and yet can not really cover the needs of their children, but that is not something the Travoltas are responsible for. What is this - either they join the woo-woo crowd of autism or they’ll get slammed in the scandal sheets? How repugnant!
Perhaps the point some people want to make is that if Jett was autistic, Scientology does not recognize autism, and therefore he would not have been treated for autism, and by not being treated for autism, he was not getting proper care.
Scientology lies, it’s part of their scripture. Scientologists lie, it’s part of their training. Perhaps Jett wasn’t autistic, but no one who knows anything about Scientology would even for a second think to take Travolta’s word for it.
You miss the point entirely. John Travolta is a member of a dangerous cult religion which believes that psychological disorders do not exist, they are caused by mysterious “engrams” which are the remnants of souls sent to this planet 74,000,000 years ago by the evil God Xenu, and they can only be cured by expensive auditing sessions and a very woo-ish “purification” session which, as Equipoise pointed out, can be potentially dangerous. And the child in question isn’t just being denied proper treatment, he is now DEAD.
The Travoltas have already stepped into the arena by claiming their son had Kawasaki Syndrome, which appears to be an utterly specious diagnosis. (Yesterday, Larry King interviewed one of the Backstreet Boys whose son was recently treated for KS – the boy looked bright, healthy, and remarkably well-behaved for a six year old, a far cry from Jett.) While it’s nothing new for parents, especially celebrities, to claim their children have certain syndromes which are obviously made up (don’t get me started on Jenny McCarthy) they don’t always die from neglect. Something definitely smells rotten here – hopefully the authorities will find it.
KGS no you are missing the points.[ol]
[li]Treating or not treating the autism that Jett may or may not have had would have had NO impact on the young man’s death.[/li][li]It doesn’t matter that the Travolta’s falsely blamed their son’s problems on Kawasaki disease, just as others blame autism and a host of other diseases on other innocent bystander circumstances. That self-delusion did not cause the young man’s death. And assuming that he actually was most accurately diagnosed as having autism, the lack of the label does not mean he did not get the best possible treatment for autism or was neglected in any way. Tell us what specific treatment for autism you think he was denied as a consequence of being labeled as merely having “a developmental problem”. There is no evidence that Jett was neglected. None. All the evidence is that he was cared for amazingly well by dedicated loving parents.[/li][li]Your hatred of Scientology does not justify your exploitation of this particular personal tragedy towards the end of exposing Scientology’s evils. Instead this exploitation works against your goal.[/li][/ol]
That is so wrong!!!
played nicely and I’ll save a seat for you in Hell.
Which, from my viewpoint, is no crazier than the BS promoted by other religions such as Mormonism, Christianity, Hinduism, etc., etc. All religions strike as irrational and a bit crazy (including my own). I fail to see where scientology is so horribly worse than many others. The disadvantage Scientology faces is that it is small in comparison to others. I mean, c’mon, the Catholic church for centuries attributed mental illness to demonic possession and said depressed suicides were damned to hell for eternity. Is that any crazier than Evil God Xenu?
And there is ZERO indication at this point that his parents’ beliefs or practices had jack all to do with that death. People die every day. Having a seizure and hitting one’s head in the bathroom is, unfortunately, one way people die. The circumstance is not limited to scientologists.
Given the widespread damage that can be done by Kawasaki’s it is not out of the bounds of possibility that a child could wind up brain damaged. Blood vessel damage could impair circulation in the brain, an anuerysm could burst, causing damage… I have no idea if that happened or not to Jett Travolta but it’s not beyond possibility that he took permanent damage from a legit case of Kawasaki’s. Pointing to one child and saying “he’s fine” does not bar another child from having a complication. It may be Jett’s condition was totally unrelated to Kawasaki (whether he had it or not) but parents of disabled children frequently look for something to blame the problem on, which makes the Travoltas pretty human.
So far there is no PROOF that the Travoltas did anything harmful to their son, just hearsay from people who disapprove of their beliefs. I await the autopsy results and if they show signs of abuse or neglect I will revise my stance. Until this, this OMG! Scientologists! Cruelty! strikes me as nothing more than slander base don religious prejudice.
Sorry, but I gotta ask…what makes you think she made up her kid’s problem?
Well, the aviation community and the airport where John lives was pretty well made famous last year by the bozos who decided to go airborne in a BMW. All 5 died.
She claims her son’s autism was caused by vaccinations ('nuff said), and he recovered 100% thanks to a “miracle cure” (gluten-free diet, which has NOT been shown to be effective in treating autism, although many parents swear by it), and she’s pimping her new book, which is keeping her in the public eye since her acting career has hit the skids. No doubt she believes in her story, supported by self-selected doctors and other fringe autism advocates, but let’s get real…her story has all the earmarks of a con job.
No less crazy, but at least the Catholics don’t eschew modern medicine. Heck, they even build hospitals.
We shall see.
Sure, as long as it doesn’t involve birth control, abortion, family planning, or use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. I’m sorry, I’m not giving the Catholics a pass. They’re just as nutty as the scientologists and over the years have done a lot more damage.
Scientologists “eschew” psychiatry, not all the rest of modern medicine. It’s not like psychiatry has a sterling record, either and plenty of non-scientologists “eschew” it as well. I personally think that’s a nutty stance, but the world is full of nuts. If we put all the nuts in prison there wouldn’t be enough people left to act as guards and wardens for the rest.
So what?
Indeed.
Just another thought on whether or not that article is legit (and I mean no disrespect for Equipoise – if it hadn’t been for hanging out here on the Dope, I’d never think to question these things either and I’m still not always so good)…
I did some Google searches on both Tim and Patricia Kenny in conjuction with Ocala and being a restaurant owner, but came up with nothing that didn’t somehow link back to the original article. Also, considering that his suicide supposedly happened in May of '08, I find it difficult to understand how an autism advocate and a business owner in the community has no death notice. Plus, the links that do talk about his suicide, look all alike and use the exact same picture. Bizarre.
Anyway, offered for y’all’s consideration when deciding whether or not the Travolta’s have been neglible in the context of what’s being discussed.
Of course, maybe my search abilities just suck. I’m open to any possibilities.
Irrelevant, because Jett didn’t die from an STD. Quit trying to change the subject.
Anti-psychiatry people believe it’s the wrong way to treat mental illness – but that’s a far cry from flat out denying mental illness exists in the first place, unlike Scientology. And here, we’ve got a young boy who died from a neurological disorder, and his parents are members of a church who claim that neurological disorders don’t exist. That fact alone is worthy of suspicion, and further investigation is clearly called for, just as clear as if he’d died from exsanguination and his parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I find the Catholic church’s stubbornness on reproductive issues just as harmful as stupid as the Scientology’s stance on mental illness. You are free to have a different opinion, but it’s all religious stupidity.
Are you saying Scientologist’s deny the existence of epilepsy, stroke, brain injury, and the like? I certainly haven’t heard that. While there is some overlap between neurological disorders and mental illness they are not precisely the same thing. Mere membership in Scientology is not proof of neglect of their child any more than membership in the Catholic church is proof someone never used birth control.
Again, I want to see some EVIDENCE of wrong-doing here, not hysterical rants on parental beliefs or scandal sheet BS articles.
Do have any evidence that Scientologists do not believe that seizures exist, or strokes, etc.? Or that they should not be treated?
Why do you believe that Scientolgists eschew all of modern medicine in general? They do not.
Jett Travolta did not die of untreated autism any more than he did of an untreated STD.
Aaaand this is relevant…how? :rolleyes:
The autopsy should determine whether or not Jett was taking anti-seizure meds at the time of his death. If he was, or if it’s determined that he accidentally skipped a dose (noting that the Travoltas have yet to prove their son was taking any medication at all, which they could easily do, if it was true) then what we’ve got here is a horrible, unfortunate accident and that’s the end of it.
However, I wouldn’t blame the Travoltas if they chose to sweep this whole matter under the rug – after all, what parent would want to admit they were partly responsible for the death of their own child? What parent could live with that knowledge?
It’s relevant to demonstrate that Scientology is far from the only belief system that discards large swathes of modern medicine.
What I don’t understand is why anyone thinks the part in bold is anyone’s business outside of Jett, his parents, and his treating medical providers. Seriously. It’s nobody’s business The Travoltas are under no obligation to make public the details of any medical problem of anyone in their family.
Why are you so convinced they are responsible, even in part? Your “gut”? Your dislike of scientologists? Or do you have any real proof at all?
Wow. I hope you’re not really saying that it’s nobody’s business when a child dies from potential abuse and neglect. You’re not really saying that, are you? Because innocent parents get investigated all the time, when their children die under seemingly suspicious circumstances – it’s better to be safe than sorry. Why should the Travoltas be any different?
Proof? Of course there’s no proof…but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence, which merits further investigation.
I sometimes visit a small town near one of John Travolta’s houses. He doesn’t live in the town itself but does often go there. The people in the town (some of them famous themselves) really like him a lot. He’s friendly and down-to-earth with everybody. Just a regular guy.
I don’t know if Kirstie still has a house nearby, but the town was not as accepting of her. She seemed to expect special treatment.
I certainly think that Scientology is not a good thing. But not everyone is turned into a Tom Cruise. Surely the son was not neglected. He may have just been given some privacy to take a shower.
Why not save your displeasure for someone who shows some signs of being totally removed from reality?