I wonder if the bigwigs in the Church of Scientology are thinking, “You know, Cruise is kind of making us look like jackasses.” Not that it’s hard, but he’s got a loud megaphone from which to spout his inanity. So keep going, Tom. You’re the worst thing to happen to Scientology in a long time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t have a sit-down with him and tell him to chill.
And Brooke Shields is great.
Somebody else around here pointed out the… interesting idea of a high school drop out telling a woman with a degree from Princeton that she was uninformed.
Right…
I know two women who are dealing with PPD right now. One has relapsed on alcohol and drugs after a long period of sobriety, the other is scared to death she’s going to hurt her daughter.
PPD is not “feeling blue.” It is a serious, dangerous mental state that MUST be addressed by a professional.
I have read excerpts from Down Came The Rain and it seems very well done.
For those who think PPD is not that big of a deal, two words: Andrea Yates.
Of course, she was suffering from Post-Partum-Psychosis, which is even worse, (though rare), but it developed due to years of untreated PPD.
For those of you who are addressing my post regarding Brooke Shields’ opinion, I did not say PPD was not a big deal, or anything like that. I did say, and I stand by it, that I just don’t believe it’s as obscure as Brooke is making it sound. Just because she hadn’t heard of it before doesn’t mean the rest of the world hasn’t heard of it. I think it’s great that Brooke is raising awareness of a serious, debilitating problem.
I think an awful lot of women don’t realize how serious PPD can be, however. Most women expect the “baby blues,” but to actively contemplate harm to your baby? That’s not something that’s easy to discuss, even with your doctor. Especially if you don’t realize it’s something treatable.
When Tom sat there spouting to Matt Lauer, “You don’t know the history of psychiatriy! I know the history of psychiatry! And I know there’s no such thing as a chemical imbalance!” I wrote him off as a terminal moron. i’m surprised the CoS hasn’t muzzled him yet; he can’t be doing them any good.
I was simply objecting to your unfortunate choice of words. “Feeling blue” is not PPD. The “baby blues” are exceedingly common - between 50 to 80% of mothers experience them.* This is far from serious and symptoms usually disappear within ten days.
PPD is thought to occur in only 3 to 20% of births.* Women are often told it is the “baby blues” and the severity is underestimated by much of the population.
*Cite
But if you go to the doctor and tell him your symptoms, he will only suspect baby blues, and not PPD? This I did not know. I assumed all doctors at least know about and will monitor for PPD. I guess Brooke is doing a good thing, then. My common knowledge is obviously not everyone’s common knowledge.
This is the Straight Dope. It’s vaguely chilling to me that anybody with a lot of posts next to their name would think this way in this forum. The fact that one person dropped out of high school and one person graduated from college is completely irrelevant to the situation at hand. I don’t see Dopers listing their Completed Levels of Education next to their Location. :dubious:
It is not a higher-education issue. This is 2005. A lot of people who graduate from college are narrowminded in their thinking. If you think that an Ivy League School like Princeton University is a bastion of wildly free liberal original thinking, I suggest you do a bit of research… She didn’t exactly graduate from Sarah Lawrence.
What if, for example, Brooke was adamant in an assertion that beets were in fact a natural way to stop male infertility and Tom thought that was insane. Well, from what one reads Tom may well be infertile. Might we give the high school drop-out ignoramus the benefit of knowing his own body- and the inner workings of the male reproductive system- better than Brooke? Yes, we might in that case. ( or, I sure hope we would ). No, I’m not saying that women are incapable of learning how a man’s body works. So, no flaming on that account please. I’m using this as an example of how the tables might well be turned.
I would say from what I have read that two things appear to be true to me:
Ms. Shields has articulated her experiences with care and a thorough honest approach. This can only serve to help out other adults- women AND men- who deal with PPD. I respect that.
She is actively pimping her own book on this topic right now. Never underestimate how shrewd someone is when they are pimping their own book. She got the New York Times to basically run a free ad for her book, under the ( entirely acceptable and understandable ) auspices of a letter to the editor. She’s brilliant. This move doesn’t detract from the validity of her words or the honesty and impact of her book. I just think it was a brilliant move on her part.
My initial response to the bru-ha-ha? Mr. Cruise is an ass and should have grown up enough by now to learn to keep his yap shut about certain things. That doesn’t negate my thoughts concerning how calculating Ms. Shields’ response has been.
Cartooniverse
Brooke Shields did not start this current bru-ha-ha. Tom Cruise was actively pimping his new movie and “new romance” and he brought up the totally unrelated subject of Brooke Shields. She had every right to respond.
I’d like to know Cruise’s credentials for his statement “I know the history of psychiatry.” See if he could go five words without saying “Scientology.”
Come to think of it, I’ve never heard Brooke express any medical information or opinion. Her book is an account of her personal experiences with PPD. She’s hardly telling any other women what to do or not do in that situation.
Cartooniverse, why should my post count be any more of an indicator of my thought process than my education? 
I was just pointing out the already-expressed irony of the uneducated calling the educated ignorant.
I’m sure that TC has actually done tons of non-biased research on his chosen topic, whereas Brooke Shields, with access to the finest doctors around, made an uninformed, knee-jerk decision.
:dubious: , indeed.
But that’s not the point; the point is that Tom’s grade school education and Brooke’s degree in French Literature are both beside the point in their opinions on this subject. The playing field is basically level here, education-wise, with Brooke taking the advantage in actually having experienced PPD.
Not really. They are certainly potentially on a level field, here: I have known high school drop-outs who continued through their lives as voracious readers and I have known college graduates who basically treated their advanced education as a trade school, narrowly focusing on their major while studting only for the test in all other subjects. However, in general, a person who drops out of school (and demonstrates a general ignorance on a wide variety of topics) is probably not on the same level as a person who spends four years in an atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and graduates with honors. Unless Princeton has dropped all standards, part of her curriculum would have included some science and possibly even psychology.
Certainly this does not guarantee that Ms. Shields is the intellectual or educational superior of Mr. Cruise. (That can be deduced by watching them speak in interviews.) But an assumption that Ms. Shields has an edge by virtue of her education is not inherently wrong while a claim that they are on the same level would need rather more documentation.
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of sarcasm. My implication was not, in fact, that Ms. Shields was uneducated in the ways of PPD. I kinda thought that was clear.
And, tomndebb, they’re not both on the Debate Team here. Opinions are like…uh… you know- and Mr. Cruise is entitled to his. I would guess that since he cannot possibly know what it is like to suffer PPD, ( as mentioned above), that his lack of college degree is completely irrelevant here. As for your assertion that
Might I ask you how many celebrities you have spent time with when the cameras are not turned on? I’m guessing not nearly as many as I have. People say the things that will serve them best when the camera is turned on. It is not always representative of who they truly are, or how they truly feel.
I can cite examples to prove same. For starters, Christie Brinkley and The Rock. Both are percieved to be of a certain intellectual stature. I have in the past spent quite a few hours with both of these people. They are- to be blunt- not who you see when you watch them on the t.v.
As I said up there, graduating from an Ivy League school guarantees nothing other than the fact that you A) Paid the tuition promptly and B) Did not flunk out. Otherwise, the proof is in the pudding not the parchment. 
Ahhhhh. You are missing the point here. ( and, I didn’t mean to besmirch your education or lack of thereof, ok? )
There is no irony there. The uneducated get to call the educated ignorant quite rightfully if the educated are ignorant on a given point. There is the difference between being stupid and being ignorant. The uneducated may well have a lot to teach the educated. This just doesn’t happen to be one of those situations.
Mr. Cruise might well have a hell of a lot to teach Ms. Shields about what it is to adopt a child. Does he need to have taken a Ph.D in Sociology with a minor in Family Planning from Brandeis to teach Ms. Shields a thing or two on that topic? Nope. He’s an adoptive father. She is not an adoptive mother. She is, in fact, as ignorant as anyone else in that regard and he…is not. Depending on her personal interest in that topic, family or friends who have done it and whatnot, she may be absolutely ignorant, or just mildly uneducated.
I’m no big fan of Mr. Cruise here, but I am eager to defend those who lack the parchment but are posessed of respectable knowledge. Let’s not forget that the President of the United States of America went to Yale and is incapable of forming a cogent sentence on his own. ( then again, he was a C student… 
)
I see it exactly the opposite way - I think a claim that Brooke has more education on this subject than Tom does is what would need more documentation. It certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibility that Brooke took psychology courses in school; I just don’t think we can assume that she has, any more than we can assume that Tom has never had any education in psychology (it doesn’t seem likely, but that’s not the same as fact.) I just think that bringing their education into this debate is a moot point.
Now, are you saying they’re dumber than they appear? Cause The Rock seems quite intelligent to me, in spite of all the football player brawn.
Most telling, neither of them hold an MD - and both are talking about medication.
This thread has treaded into the waters of IMHO.
I’ll move it there.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
Indeed he is, but I’m suprised that someone from a national Institute of Psychiatry (American or British or whichever) or a Professor of Psychiatry, or even someone from the American Medical Assoc. didn’t speak out, because doing what Brooke Shields did, and being a psychiatric specialist, would make TC look even more of a tool.
Whu-huh?
I’ve never been able to figure out the difference between IMHO and MPSIMS (and I defy anyone to explain it), so I’ll take your word for it . . . Though I’d have thought if this were going to be ejected from MPSIMS, it would be into Great Debates . . .