#Lou Pelletier | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

newstfionline · 8 years ago

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The Hacker Who Cared Too Much

By David Kushner, Rolling Stone, June 29, 2017

One afternoon in a modest, hilltop home in West Hartford, Connecticut, Linda Pelletier, a sandy-blond mother of four, opened a greeting card from her 15-year-old daughter, Justina. To her surprise, a small, intricately folded piece of paper slipped out from inside. It was an origami fortune teller. Pelletier poked her thumbs and forefingers under the flaps, spread them apart, then unfolded the flap that faced her. A chill shot through her as she read the message, written as tiny as her daughter’s handwriting would allow: “I’m being tortured.”

Six months earlier, Justina, a spunky petite brunette, seemed like any other middle-class, suburban girl. She collected stuffed giraffes, listened to Taylor Swift and ice skated competitively, coached by her mom, a champion skater in her own right. But then she began feeling unusually sick. She developed searing stomach pains and confounding digestive problems. It got so bad her parents took her to see Dr. Mark Korson, a metabolic geneticist then at the Tufts Medical Center. He had given her a working diagnosis of mitochondrial disease, a chronic genetic disorder that can cause weakened muscles, neurological problems and dementia.

Soon after, in February 2013, Justina’s symptoms became too much too bear, as her stomach felt like it was ripping apart. Desperate and scared, her parents rushed her through a blizzard to the best hospital in reach, Boston Children’s, the renowned teaching facility associated with Harvard. By the time she arrived, she was slurring her speech and barely able to swallow food.

But the doctors at Children’s gave Linda and Lou a shockingly different diagnosis than the one she’d received at Tufts: Justina didn’t have mitochondrial disease; her illness, they said, was in her head. The hospital told them that they were taking Justina off her mitochondrial and pain medication. Confused and reeling, the parents refused to comply. And when they attempted to check Justina out of the hospital, they were blocked by security guards. The state was taking emergency custody of their daughter under suspicions of what they called “medical child abuse” at the hands of the parents. “We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye,” Lou later said.

Transferred to Bader 5, the hospital’s psych ward, Justina’s condition rapidly declined. She could barely walk or speak anymore, and felt like she had knives in her stomach. But the treatment she claims she endured was the most devastating of all. “I was getting worse and they didn’t believe me that I was in pain,” Justina tells me. According to a lawsuit the Pelletiers later filed against Boston Children’s, Justina was left in hallways and in bathrooms for hours at a time. When forced to walk, she would fall at times “and they would laugh at me,” she says. Her toenails were ripped out, she alleged in the lawsuit, when they pulled her in a wheelchair and her feet dragged on the floor.

Even more frightening, she was too afraid to tell her parents any of this. Their communications--limited to one 20-minute call and one hour-long visit each week--were closely monitored by hospital staff, and she worried about what might happen to her parents or her if they overheard her. Instead, she resorted to sneaking notes, such as the one hidden in the origami, to her family. After the Pelletiers began speaking out publicly about their daughter on social media and to local news, a judge ordered the family put under a gag order. “I couldn’t talk to anybody,” Justina recalls.

To the Pelletiers and their supporters, Justina had been “kidnapped,” as her father Lou put it, by the state of Massachusetts for the sake of medical experimentation. Korson, the Tufts doctor who had given Justina her original diagnosis, wrote a scathing letter to the Pelletier’s attorney on their behalf calling Children’s actions “the most severe and intrusive intervention a patient can undergo…it feels like Justina’s treatment team is out to prove the diagnosis at all costs.”

But, according to the state, it was the parents who were the real danger. The Department of Children and Families (DCF) and Boston Children’s refuted the allegations against them. They were protecting Justina from parents who were, as one Children’s physician put it, “overmedicalizing” the girl and neglecting to give her the psychiatric treatment she needed. Taking custody was in the child’s best interest, the hospital contended in a statement at the time, because of “both parents’ resistance towards recommended treatment plans.”

However, a December 2013 in-depth investigation of Justina’s case by the Boston Globe found that, in the previous 18 months, Children’s had “been involved in at least five cases where a disputed medical diagnosis led to parents either losing custody or being threatened with that extreme measure.” There was even a nickname for such custody battles, which occurred at other hospitals as well: “parentectomy.” The Globe, in a wider investigation into the DCF, found more disturbing data. More than 95 children were found to have died in state custody between 2001 and 2010.

To get help with Justina, the Pelletiers reached out to Reverend Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, a group who had rallied around keeping Terri Schiavo alive during her controversial right-to-die case. Mahoney believed that the “government was overstepping their boundaries into personal individual freedom.” As the Pelletiers’ spokesperson, he transformed their fight into an online campaign, soliciting volunteers to help spread the word.

As publicity surrounding Justina’s case reached its height, Martin Gottesfeld, a 30-year-old computer security expert who had no relation to Justina or her family, decided to act--during one of the hospital’s biggest fundraising periods of the year. According to the indictment from the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, Gottesfeld attacked the computer servers of Children’s and the nearby Wayside Youth and Family Support Network, the residential treatment facility where Justina was moved after Bader 5. Though no patients’ records were compromised or harmed, the hospital claimed the attack, which lasted several days and temporarily downed the website, “disrupted day-to-day operations as well as research being done.” Children’s claimed the attack cost $300,000 to mitigate, and resulted in another $300,000 in losses due to the hospital’s donation website being shut down.

But the attack largely achieved Gottesfeld’s intended effect: It put the institution overseeing her care on the defense and raised awareness of Justina’s story. The feat also landed Gottesfeld behind bars. He is currently awaiting trial inside a federal detention center in Plymouth, Massachusetts, charged with conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, a law written during the Reagan administration to protect government computers from “unauthorized access.” If convicted, Gottesfeld could face up to 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.

The CFAA faces widespread criticism for being both outdated and overzealously applied. Most notably, this happened in the case of activist Aaron Swartz, the Harvard research fellow who was charged with illegally downloading several million journal articles from the online academic database JSTOR, which he reportedly intended to make openly available to the public. Though Swartz was fighting for freedom of information, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz famously declared “stealing is stealing,” charging him under the CFAA with felony counts that carried a maximum sentence of 35 years and potential fines of $1 million. Refusing to take a plea, Swartz committed suicide in January 2013.

While Justina’s case was gaining attention online, Kathleen Higgins, a former Bader 5 nurse-turned-whistleblower, wrote Olga Roche, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, comparing the hospital’s treatment of Pelletier to “torture.” “From the perspective of the teen whose life has been derailed,” Higgins went on, “she is the ward of a state devoid of compassion and conscience, prohibited from contact with every facet of her life that holds meaning for her.”

Barry Pollack, a former federal prosecutor who served for 15 years on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, wrote the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett demanding an investigation into Bader 5. “Among other things,” he wrote, “arrogance, professional mediocrity, and/or a rush to judgment, Bader 5 appears virtually synonymous with abuse for many children.”

On March 25th, Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judge Joseph Johnston found that Justina’s parents had acted irresponsibly by calling the hospital “Nazis” and claiming that Children’s “was punishing and killing Justina.” Such statements, he determined, were evidence that they “engage in very concerning conduct that does not give this court any confidence they will comply with conditions of custody.” He awarded permanent custody of Justina to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. If the parents wouldn’t help their daughter, then the state would.

Justina herself would ultimately prove to be her most powerful advocate. She hatched a plan to get her own voice--and face--online. With the help of a her older sister, Justina shot a short video of herself inside her new facility in Thompson, Connecticut and had it posted online. On June 8th, a 45-second cellphone video appeared on the “Miracle for Justina” Facebook support page. It showed Pelletier in her zebra-striped wheelchair, rubbing her thin legs, and pleading to Judge Johnston to reverse his decision. “All I really want is to be with my family and friends,” she says in a shaky voice. “You can do it. You’re the one that’s judging this. Please let me go home.”

There was no question about its authenticity. Despite 16 months of the hospital insisting that her symptoms were in her head, it was painfully clear that no amount of psychiatric treatment had improved her conditions. And, once again, the exposure online worked in her favor. Days later, on June 17th, the family received stunning news. On the recommendation of the Massachusetts DCF, Judge Johnston agreed to dismiss the case, citing “credible evidence that circumstances have changed.” (Michelle Hillman, a spokesperson for the DCF, declined to comment on the court’s decision). The next day, Pelletier’s father carried her out of her wheelchair up the hill to their front door and, at last, into their home.

“I was just so happy to be with my family again at home,” Justina says. Reverend Mahoney, the director of the Christian Defense Coalition, thanked the power of online activism with getting her back. “Giving God all credit,” he says, “this couldn’t have happened without the Internet.”

On the crisp blue morning of February 25th, 2016, Justina Pelletier appeared on the steps of the Massachusetts state building with her family and lawyers. Since Justina came home, she was back to being treated for the illness she was first diagnosed: mitochondrial disease. Now, dressed in tan pants, black boots and a black cardigan, she looked healthier--the product of several surgeries (including a stomach operation at Yale), and months of horseback-riding therapy--but was still confined to a wheelchair.

The family was there to announce a lawsuit against Children’s and the four doctors who helped obtain custody of Justina. (The case is still pending). They were asking for unspecified damages over gross negligence and civil rights violations. Though the family had been forced into bankruptcy as a result of the case, the suit is not about “revenge,” her father told the assembled press. “I just really don’t want this to happen again to another family,” Justina said, still struggling to speak without slurring.

In the wake of Justina’s release, awareness and action is growing to prevent such custody battles from happening again. “We must protect children from the rare disturbed parent,” University of North Carolina law professor Maxine Eichner, herself a parent of a child with mitochondrial disease, wrote in the New York Times opinion pages of the Pelletier case. “But medical child abuse, as it has been understood, is far too big and blunt an instrument to accomplish this purpose. It has harmed too many genuinely sick kids, and made life hell for too many loving parents.”

When I visit Gottesfeld in jail, I ask him what he would say to Justina, whom he has never met or spoken with. “She was very brave and she suffered and endured something that would have killed a lot of other people,” he says, “I wish her nothing but happiness and success in her life and her family’s efforts to achieve justice and to try to make sure what happened to her never happens to any other kid.”

I relay this to Justina and her family during a visit to their home, and her parents are quick to distance themselves from the hacking of Children’s. But Justina, who’s been quiet and shy during the interview, boldly speaks up. Though the two have never talked or met, she and Gottesfeld share a unique bond, and she, more than anyone, knows what it’s like to be trapped inside the system. It’s as if they’ve traded places, and now, for the first time, she can take a stand to help him get out--just as he had done for her. “He shouldn’t be in jail,” she tells me. “He didn’t hurt any kids. He was just trying to help.”

#Justina Pelletier #medical abuse #hospital abuse #Boston Children’s Hospital #Martin Gottesfeld #hacking

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joseelanue · 5 years ago

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Curriculum Vitea

Modèle vivant:

Synstudio (2016-2020) -

http://synstudio.ca/

- Charles, Oleg, Éric Mannella, atelier du vendredi

Jocelyne Filion - ALPAP (2020)

Centre communautaire George-Vanier Responsable Nosberto Lou (2019-2020)

Maison OFlore - duo avec Atalante, le responsable est Hugo (2019)

Maison des Arts de la Rive Sud - Réal Campeau (2017-2019)

Atelier Uqam - David Chaît (2017-2020)

Cours de l'UQUAM - Pol Turgeon (2019)

Catherine Arcand - Cégep du Vieux Montréal (2019)

Atalante (2018-2019)

Carl Duplessis (2016-2019)

Bernard Leduc - Cégep du Vieux Montréal (2018)

Paul Turgeon - Uqam (2018)

Atelier Privé Zime Miles (2017-2018)

Atelier Modèle Ville Blainville (2017)

L'atelier de dessin avec Eberhard Froehlich - NAD Montreal (2017)

Atelier - Chunkleman Verdun (2017)

Atelier Academ - Pascale Bernardin (2017)

Atelier Rosemere (2017)

Le concierge dans l'Escalier (2016) -

https://www.facebook.com/La-Concierge-Est-Dans-lEscalier-163342400486704/

Drawing From Life (2016) -

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=472248112967533&set=a.421422931383385.1073741836.100005470452966&type=3&theater

Jean Gladu (2015) -

http://jgladuarts.com/

Mannequin photo:

Michel Bouchard (2020) -

https://www.facebook.com/michel.bouchard.1291

Steve Pelletier (2016-2020)

Steeve Mavré (2020)

Adam Leep - instagram @ad_rokk (2020)

Charles Richer - instagram @cricher.photographie (2019)

Isityu Photo (2019)

Olaf (2019)

Jacque Pose -

https://www.facebook.com/jack.pose.35?fref=ts

(2015-2020)

J-D photographie alias Caserio -

https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/817374/viewall

(2010-2018)

Daniel Archambault (2018)

Signature Modele -

https://twitter.com/SigModels

(2016-2018)

Sara Eirew Book Cover (2014-2018)

Louis-Albert Ducharme -

https://www.facebook.com/laducharmephoto

- (2013-2018)

Gregory Bouchet -

https://www.facebook.com/prettysnazzyphoto/?fref=ts

(2016)

Vincenzo Pontarelli -

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010531536574&fref=ts

(2015-2016)

Atelier photo -

https://www.facebook.com/weekendscreatifs/?pnref=story

(2016)

Madlynx -

http://madlynx.deviantart.com/

(2010-2016)

Bikini Of The Sky -

http://www.colorsoftheskybikinis.com/

(2016)

Beauty Outdoor -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1042807

- (2016)

Atelier KD, Hair clip extension (photographe Blushpic studio) -

https://www.facebook.com/1blushpic/?fref=ts

- (2016)

Christopher Moore -

https://www.facebook.com/christopher.moore.1000?hc_location=ufi

- (2016)

Ronhep -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/181893

- (2014-2016)

Alexander Ken -

https://www.facebook.com/alexandre.v.sander?fref=ts

- (2016)

Fotologo -

https://www.facebook.com/fotologo/

- (2016)

Anisis -

http://www.viewbug.com/member/Asinis

- (2016)

SFstyle, catalog (photographer PY) -

https://www.facebook.com/Artiste-Photographe-PY-146224168777714/

- (2016)

Pier Huet -

https://www.facebook.com/pier.huet

- (2016)

Henri-Daniel Wibaut -

http://www.photwib.com/

- (2016)

Line Lamarre -

https://www.facebook.com/lamarre.line

- (2015)

Amin Djema -

https://500px.com/amin-djema

- (2015)

Jean-Louis Delhaye -

https://www.facebook.com/jeanlouis.delhaye.7?fref=ts

- (2015)

CJ St-Charles - (2015-2016)

Jacques Millaire - (2015)

Kassandra Keyes,

www.playboyplus.com

(2015)

Jacques Blier -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/3148701

- (2015)

Jacque Pose -

https://www.facebook.com/jack.pose.35?fref=ts

- (2015)

Tallmo Photo -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/tallmo63

- (2014)

Ray Mahn -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1314710

- (2014)

Marcus Easton -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/56749

- (2014)

Alexandre Burt-Riley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandre-burt-riley-3588b497

- (2014)

Pano Photo - (2014)

Peter Gouvis -

modelmayhem.com/3872483

http://modelshooter.deviantart.com/

- (2014)

Marc P

http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/3004901/viewall

- (2014)

Desertvertstudios -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/desertvertstudios

- (2014)

Alain Grillo -

https://www.facebook.com/alaingrillophotographe/?fref=photo

- (2013-2014)

Alan W Bean - Modelmayhem #224413 - (2013)

Cromwell Photographic -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1068389

- (2013)

Pierre Desrosier -

https://www.facebook.com/pierre.desrosiers.56?fref=ts

– (2010-2013)

Claude Bigault -

http://clobizzz.deviantart.com/

- (2013)

Auguste Poire -

http://auguste59.deviantart.com/

(2010-2013)

BoldDaniel -

http://bolddaniel.deviantart.com/

- (2012-2017)

Madlynx -

http://madlynx.deviantart.com/

- (2010-2012)

MC Martin -

http://mixmenace.deviantart.com/

- (2012)

Photocville -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/1491339

- (2011)

Sericat -

http://sericat.deviantart.com/

- (2011)

Mc-Photo -

http://mc-photo.deviantart.com/

- (2010-2015)

Stéphane Kenny – (2010)

David Laurent -

https://www.facebook.com/david.laurent.926

- (2009)

Mode Vexy -

https://myspace.com/vexyvicious

- (2009)

Gaetan Allard -

http://www.istudio.com/en/551076/photos

- (2008)

Bruno Gallant -

http://brunogallant.info/portrait_fashion

- (2008)

Mylene Lorrain -

https://www.facebook.com/mylenelorrainphotographe/?pnref=lhc

- (2008)

Éric Provencher - (2008)

Freddy Beltrand -

https://freddybeltran.com/store/

- (2008)

Alain Denault -

http://www.modelmayhem.com/670892

- (2008)

Annie Mayfair – (2008)

Mic Dev (agence) -

https://www.facebook.com/micdev.sb?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/AgenceDeMannequinsMicDev/

- (2007)

Mannequin défilé:

Gala de distinction Homage aux femmes 2018 -10 mars 2018

Festival Écolo - Université Sherbrook, Longueuil - 28 mai 2017

Fashion Show Théatre Rialto - 19 avril 2017

Fashion Show Paradoxe - 7 avril 2017

Anges et Démons runway tour no3 2016 - décembre 2016

Pop-Up Beauty - 27 aout 2016

175 Avenue du Président-Kennedy, Montréal

Stay Beautiful Charity Fashion Show - Saturday august 6, 2016 Matahari Loft 1673 Mt-Royal est, Montreal

Fashion Show Narcisse A.S Delaperfection - Theatre paradoxe 5959 boul. Monk, Montreal

La nuit de la sape – 25 juin 2016, 1956 rue Frontenac Montréal

La Vitrine F – 4 juin 2016, 533 Ontario Est, Montreal

Événement Beauté Glamour 2016 – 15 mai 2016, 120 Boul. Du Séminaire Ste-Thérèse

Fondation Melio Fashion Show 2016 – 1er Mai 2016, 6010 Boul. Des Grandes Prairies St-Léonard

Lancement d'album Narcice Soulsigner – 25 avril 2016, 533 Ontario Est

L'Évenement Mode Fashion Show – 21 avril 2016, 1476 rue Crescent, Mtl

Défilé PFGR (Petites Femmes aux Grands Rêves) – 10 mars 2016, 6086 Sherbrooke Est, Montreal

Figuration vidéoclip:

Richy Jay, Pardonne-moi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gn16c6Nt9I

Rémi Chassé - Contre qui -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_v--wqFlg

(2019)

Nikol Kassell - Reflecting Light |Official Music Video| -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHnMiAMkwJU

(2018)

Richy Jay Ft. Lya & J-Sincère - An Nou Zouké (J-Sincère Style) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L3NGCSOdO0

(2018)

Cezar Montreal -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPul2wL0CVc

(2017)

Richy Jay - De La Tete Aux Pied (2017) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-7Xs1TordQ

KOHINOOR - OFFICIAL VIDEO - JOHNY HANS FT. MEET RAJU & ALEXANDRA BANDEAN (2017) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHTnWXdSnSE&feature=youtu.be

Narcisse Soulsigneer (2016)

Modlee (2016) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ3-x0uz1LM

(Yellow skirt and white socks)

Rime Salmi (2016)

Steve L Queen et Nappy Jizzle (2016) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPchj1cr-F8

Born2Porn session (2016) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrDR4b3Ib7E&feature=youtu.be

Jamhaitian (2016) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUC1tHMbdSA

KNAFO – Change to Last (2015) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMZlPBwEII

Teddy the Beer – Dans le prochain Marvel – Mystic (2015) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZZlzMNnyt4

Figuration autre:

Tu te souviendra de moi (2019)

Production ZK -

https://www.filmaka.com/films.php

… (2018)

Lynk Parker et PAVFILMS (2017)

Zoe

The Cohort - Student Film or QPU Casting and for Directors: Selina George and Gabriel Wihl - 4 jours

Bar scene - Shanna Roberts Salée - Director/Producer Quixote Productions

Téquila Pamplemousse - Noémie Gagnon 3e assistante à la réalisation - 2 nuits

Comédie policière d'action - Ecclésiaste LEMBA Producteur du film WTM

Bikini Of The Sky - Fashion Video

The Last Laugh - (2008-2018)

Publicitée – Fusion Energy Drink – Nacisse's Sexy Lady (2016)

Long Metrage - Punk Fu Zombi – Zombi (2016) at Fantasia 18 of july 2017

Strip video – www.

playboyplus.com

- ''Barber's Chair'', ''Rousing Roommate'' and 'No Fliter'' (2015)

Film étudiant Catherine - Cinéma Beaubien 6 juin – Catherine - (2013)

Théâtre:

Le Français, ça se parle - 2018

Tout le monde en parle - 2016

Coeur de Lionne - 2016

0 notes

djinarocks · 14 days ago

Note

Based on The Cat/Mice AU, if You Imagine What The Feline-Ized Versions of The Humans would look like in the Artstyle of "Warriors".

Then What Do You Suppose Each of The Cat! Human's Warrior Cat Name would be compare to Their Own Cat Breeds?

Dr. Saccharin -- Fadedstorm

Igor -- Duskpaw

Lucien Bolok -- Lucentclaw

Ambre-Lou Astrecean -- Ambreleaf

Daniel Pabine -- Doestar

Elodie Auclair -- Calicoflame

Jeanne Cartier -- Silkshadow

Ines Marseille -- Icedream

Madelline Pelletier -- Molluskfall

Heloise Travers -- Herringwing

Alejandro Cruz -- Ashbush

Celestine "Celeste" Auclair Bolok -- Cypressbright

Raphael Auclair Bolok -- Rushsong

Galaxia Astrecean Pabine -- Galaxiaheart

Hawking Astrecean Pabine -- Hawkpaw

Newton Astrecean Pabine -- Newtonfrost

Isla Seguin Astrecean -- Indigofur

Felix Astrecean -- Felixwhisker

Bastiane Auclair -- Birchpad

Agnes Durand Auclair -- Ashdance

Florence Roux Dubois -- Fawnwhisper

Samuel Dubois -- Snowpelt

Louis Pabine -- Lionroot

Sophie Monet Pabine -- Speckleshine

Dominik Cartier -- Dewswift

Violette Fountaine Cartier -- Vinefoot

Willow Huxley Marseille -- Willowfire

Qamar Marseille -- Qamarstar

Zara Savatier Pelletier -- Elderzara

Chantal Pelletier -- Cloudshine

Giovanni Travers -- Giovannifur

Blaire Lavigne Pelletier -- Branchpelt

#non disney #ask answered #original character #xilam #space goofs #stupid invaders #misc: literature #other fandoms #alternate universe

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larryland · 6 years ago

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EMMY-WINNER GORDON CLAPP (“NYPD BLUE”) SET FOR THERESA REBECK’S DIG;

MRS. CHRISTIE OFFERS NEW LOOK AT AGATHA CHRISTIE

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

(Dorset, VT– May 14, 2019) Dorset Theatre Festival, under the leadership of Artistic Director Dina Janis, will mount two world premiere productions during the 42nd Season. DIG, written and directed by Theresa Rebeck (July 11-27, 2019), and MRS. CHRISTIE by Heidi Armbruster (August 1-17, 2019) fall between the Festival’s previously announced runs of Noël Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES (June 20-July 6, 2019) and SLOW FOOD by Wendy MacLeod (August 22-31, 2019) at the Dorset Playhouse (104 Cheney Road, Dorset, VT 05251).

DIG will feature Andrea Syglowski (“New Amsterdam,” “The Good Wife,” “How To Get Away With Murder”) in the role of Meghan. Syglowski will return to Dorset having previously starred in DEAR ELIZABETH (2016) and CRY IT OUT (2018). Emmy Award-Winner Gordon Clapp, best known for his role as Det. Greg Medavoy on all 12 seasons of the television series NYPD Blue, will play Meghan’s father Lou. The cast also includes Jeffrey Bean (Broadway’s Bells Are Ringing; Alley Theatre Resident Company) as Roger, Greg Keller (Broadway’s Uncle Vanya, Wit, Our Mother’s Brief Affair, Dorset’s Cry It Out) as Everett, David Mason (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, “House of Cards”, “Law and Order: SVU”) will play Adam.

Gordon Clapp

Jenny Mudge

Heidi Armbruster

Amanda Syglowski

Dorset’s World Premiere of DIG, under the direction of the playwright, Theresa Rebeck (Broadway’s Bernhardt/Hamlet, Dead Accounts, Seminar; Dorset’s Downstairs, The Way of the World), will have scenery designed by Christopher and Justin Swader (Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson), costumes by Tilly Grimes (Small Mouth Sounds, Romance Novels for Dummies), lighting designed by Philip Rosenberg (Broadway’s The Elephant Man, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), and sound designed by Fitz Patton (Lewiston/Clarkston, Broadway’s Choir Boy, Bernhardt/Hamlet).

DIG is the newest play from the author of DOWNSTAIRS and Broadway’s 2018 hit Bernhardt/Hamlet. A dying plant shop in a dying urban neighborhood receives a visitor from the past: Meghan, the neighborhood screw-up, whose suicide attempt followed a terrible tragedy. Roger, the store owner, wants nothing to do with this situation, but Meghan is improbably clinging to life. Can a soul beyond saving be saved? A play about courage, redemption and photosynthesis.

Dorset Theatre Festival Resident Playwright Theresa Rebeck has developed more than six productions at the Festival that have gone on to other stages around the country, including 2017’s DOWNSTAIRS starring Tim Daly and Tyne Daly, which ran Off-Broadway at Primary Stages in fall 2018. The Most Broadway-Produced Female Playwright of Our Time, Rebeck returns to Dorset as writer-director for the first time since her The Way of the World in 2016. That play went on to the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC in 2018, where Rebeck also directed.

The 42nd Season will also premiere a new play about Agatha Christie that was developed through Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group. MRS. CHRISTIE by Heidi Armbruster will feature Lortel and Drama Desk Nominee Jennifer Mudge playing Lucy, who will next be seen on screen opposite Danny Glover in “The Drummer”, and in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “The Irishman”. Mary Bacon (Giant, “Law and Order: SVU,” HBO’s Mildred Pierce) returns to Dorset to play Agatha Christie where she previously starred in THE SCENE opposite Tim Daly (2014) and OUTSIDE MULLINGAR (2015). Susan Greenhill (Broadway’s Crimes of the Heart) will play Jane; Michael Frederic (The Lucky One, “The Blacklist”) will play Archibald Christie; and Betsy Hogg (Broadway’s The Crucible, Children and Art, Fiddler on the Roof, Peter and the Starcatcher; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) will play Charlotte and Mary. Stephen Stocking (Describe The Night, “The Good Fight”) plays modern-day Christie scholar William as well as Collins, Agatha’s publisher. Sevan Greene (“Betrayed,” “Blue Bloods,” “Damages”) plays Hercule Poirot.

“Heidi has been working on this play in Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group since 2015. We are so proud to have the opportunity to produce the World Premiere and share this show with our audiences before Mrs. Christie goes off to future productions across the country,” said Dina Janis, Dorset Theatre Festival’s Artistic Director.

Joining the director of Mrs. Christie, Giovanna Sardelli (Dorset’s Dial “M” for Murder, Intimate Apparel), are Scenic Designer Alexander Woodward (Dorset’s Pride and Prejudice, Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville), Costume Designer Sarah Nietfeld (Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts I, II, and III), Lighting Designer Stacey Derosier (Lewiston/Clarkston), and Sound Designer Fitz Patton (Lewiston/Clarkston, Broadway’s Choir Boy, Bernhardt/Hamlet).

In 1926 Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared. Ten days later, the 37-year-old wife and mother who dabbled in detective fiction was found at a posh seaside resort having checked in under the name of her husband’s mistress. Agatha Christie walked out of that hotel ready to become the icon we regard her as today, but why did she disappear? Shifting back and forth in time, and with a little help from Mystery’s favorite characters, Heidi Armbruster’s classic new comedy shows Agatha as she’s never been seen before. While attending a convention for mystery aficionados at Agatha Christie’s homestead, Lucy puts together clues that lead her to the truth of her Patron Saint Agatha’s mysterious eleven-day vanishing. Sometimes a woman needs to disappear in order to find herself.

“It is so thrilling that the work we have been doing in supporting new plays is paying off by way of really, really talented people wanting to come work at Dorset,” said Dina Janis. “These casts and creative teams are built of artists in the truest sense of the word.”

Previously announced casting for Noël Coward’s Private Lives, directed by Evan Yionoulis, includes Rachel Pickup as Amanda Prynne, Shawn Fagan as Elyot Chase, Sydney Noel Lemmon as Sybil Chase, Hunter Oznowicz as Victor Prynne, and Dee Pelletier as Louise. Slow Food by Wendy MacLeod, directed by Jackson Gay, will star Peri Gilpin as Irene, Dan Butler as Peter, and Greg Stuhr as Stephen.

Subscriptions for the 2019 Summer Season and single tickets are on sale now. The box office may be reached by calling (802) 867-2223 ext. 101, Tuesday through Friday, 12 – 4 pm. For more information, or to purchase subscriptions and tickets online, visit www.dorsettheatrefestival.org.

ABOUT DORSET THEATRE FESTIVAL

Dorset Theatre Festival’s mission is to create bold, innovative, and authentic theatre that engages a diverse, multi-generational community, and economically diverse region: enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring our audience through the celebration of great plays. We aim to redefine the landscape of theatre by presenting thought-provoking productions drawn from the new and classic canon, as well as through the development of new plays, new audiences, and new artists for the future of American theater. We produce theatre that matters.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

WWW.DORSETTHEATREFESTIVAL.ORG

Dorset Theatre Festival Announces Casting for “DIG” and “Mrs. Christie” EMMY-WINNER GORDON CLAPP (“NYPD BLUE”) SET FOR THERESA REBECK’S DIG; MRS. CHRISTIE OFFERS NEW LOOK AT AGATHA CHRISTIE…

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battybat-boss · 7 years ago

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Medical Kidnapping: Is Big Pharma Responsible for the Majority of the Nearly Half Million Children Put into the U.S. Foster Care System?

The first MedicalKidnap.com banner. Medical Kidnapping happens far more than we knew.

by Terri LaPoint Health Impact News

Medical kidnapping of children may be far more prevalent than anyone has realized. When Health Impact News launched MedicalKidnap.com in October of 2014, we believed that these stories were only a small fraction of the larger group of Child Protective Services cases where children were taken away from their families.

As we got deeper into our investigation, we realized that the problem was much more widespread than we ever could have imagined. We now know that medical issues are involved in at least half to as many as 80% of all the cases involving the removal of children from their homes.

The late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer may well have been the first to use the term 'kidnapping' in the context of the State taking children from their families.

In 2007, she published a scathing report entitled, “The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services.”

Senator Schaefer was a trail-blazer, speaking out for families who had been brutally ripped apart by the system at a time when there was very little public recognition of this threat to American families.

She championed the rights of parents, exposing deep corruption and problems within the system.

Pulling no punches, she referred to what she saw as “crimes against humanity for financial gain.”

She blasted the Clinton administration's Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) as well as the earlier Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (CAPTA). She called for the abolition of federal and state financial incentives for taking children:

Those [tax] dollars have turned CPS into a business that takes children and separates families for money.

See this article, and listen to her powerful speech that she gave at the 5th World Congress of Families in Amsterdam in 2009:

How Child “Protection” Services is Legally Abducting Children in the U.S.

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Justina – Kidnapped by Boston Children's Hospital

Medical kidnapping has been defined as the State removing a family member from their home for medical kinds of reasons, such as parents asking for a second opinion or disagreeing with a doctor. It is a subset of the larger issue of “State-sponsored kidnapping,” where Child Protective Services seizes custody of children from their families.

Lou Pelletier used the word “kidnapping” in an interview with Beau Berman of Fox 61 News, telling him that “It was kidnapping” when Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts CPS seized his 14 year old daughter Justina from her parents' custody over a medical disagreement.

Mr. Pelletier defied an unconstitutional gag order in order to tell the public what was happening to his daughter, and their story made national news as concerned Americans watched in horror to see the tyrannical power of Boston Children's Hospital and CPS.

It was through Justina's story that we learned that children who are wards of the state – foster children – can legally be used in medical research projects and pharmaceutical drug studies without their parents' knowledge or consent.

A doctor at Boston Children's Hospital was conducting a study on somatoform disorder when Justina came into their emergency room. He disagreed with the diagnosis of mitochondrial disorder by her regular doctors at Tufts Medical Center, saying that Justina actually had the condition for which he needed another subject for his study.

Justina Pelletier and her parents. Photo by John Tlumacki/Globe Staff.

Former U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann sponsored “Justina's Law” on Capital Hill in the attempt to thwart such unethical behavior by doctors. She told Fox 61 News:

We know that this is happening all over the country in all 50 states, that children who are designated wards of the state, are having medical research done on them that may not have any direct benefit whatsoever to the child and in Justina's case she was made paralyzed by this medical research. (See link).

The bill went nowhere, and to this day, the practice of medical experimentation on foster children is still legally allowed to take place.

There Were Others

Before Justina's story captured the (brief) attention of the mainstream media, medical kidnappings had been taking place all over the country for years, with the public remaining unaware of either the possibility of it happening or of the extent to which children were being medically kidnapped under our noses.

There were a few other stories that made headlines. Health Impact News covered these stories after local media reported them, including:

the Godboldo family of Detroit, where CPS sent a SWAT team in 2011 after a mother who refused to give her daughter dangerous psychotropic drugs. See story here.

the Nikolayev family in Sacramento, California, in 2013. The parents wanted a second opinion before allowing surgeons to perform heart surgery on their baby. When they took their baby out of the hospital, CPS sent police to their home to seize the baby. See story here.

Isaiah Rider, the Missouri teen who had surgery in Chicago. When doctors told them that there was nothing they could do for Isaiah's pain and seizures, his mother wanted to take him to another hospital. CPS was called and Michelle Rider was kicked out of the hospital. See our extensive coverage of their story here.

See:

Medical Kidnapping: A Threat to Every Family in America Today

Many parents tried to speak up, but their voices were silenced by the courts or ignored by mainstream media.

There were others who were afraid or ashamed to speak out about their stories. The seizure of children and adults by state agencies remained largely a secret, hidden in the shadows.

The Pelletiers opened the door to more news coverage of these stories, and MedicalKidnap.com was established as a division of Health Impact News near the end of 2014.

Medical Kidnapping Is Everywhere!

We started investigating stories that came to us. We didn't know if there would be an occasional story to report or a steady stream. One thing is certain: none of us were prepared for the sheer volume of stories that continue to come our way every day.

We have reported many hundreds of stories since then. For every story we publish, there are always more that we cannot get to or who choose not to go public with their story.

It has been almost 4 years, and it hasn't stopped. Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't contact us, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July.

We quickly learned that some children simply have the misfortune of being diagnosed with the very condition that a doctor at that hospital wants to study for medical research. A child with a rare medical condition can literally be worth millions of dollars to a drug or medical research company. It is irrelevant what the parent has or has not done if the doctor or hospital wants the child badly enough.

I originally believed that “medical kidnapping” stories were a small subset of the much larger group of “State-sponsored kidnapping” cases. However, almost every story that came to us had some kind of medical element involved, whether it was a disagreement over a treatment plan, desire for a second opinion, a medical condition that mimics abuse, or the drugging of the children after they were placed into foster care.

Children in foster care are three times more likely to be prescribed psych drugs, making them a large market for the pharmaceutical industry.

The circle of cases that had some type of medical element kept growing wider, the more we investigated. Even so, the high percentage of children in the system who have been labeled as having medical issues surprised me.

Medical Issues Involved with MOST Children in the System

The percentage of children in foster care with medical issues are stunning. Far more children in the foster care system have medical problems than children who are not in the system.

According to Pediatrics, there are more than twice the number of foster children with significant health needs than children in the general population:

In a 2008 report to a House Subcommittee in Washington D.C., the American Academy of Pediatrics, represented by Dr. Laurel K. Leslie, stated that:

… nearly half of all children in foster care have chronic medical problems, about half of children ages 0-5 years in foster care have developmental delays, and up to 80% of all children in foster care have serious emotional problems. (See link).

The numbers reported in the 2011 Pediatrics Journal are similar:

The majority of children in the foster care system come from poor families, but poverty alone does not account for the high numbers. Even when children taken from their families are compared to children who are on Medicaid but not in foster care, there is a significant difference. Dr. Leslie writes:

Several decades of research has firmly established that the health care needs of children in out-of-home care far exceed those of other children living in poverty. (Source).

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families combines the number of foster children with physical health needs with the number of foster children with various kinds of developmental and psychological concerns to conclude that most of the children involved with the Child Welfare system have serious medical needs of some kind:

When behavioral, emotional, and developmental concerns are taken into consideration, the estimated proportion of foster children with serious health care needs jumps to over 80%. (Source).

Do Children Enter Foster Care with More Problems than Other Kids?

Most sources theorize that the reason that children in foster care have more medical and psychological needs than other children is because of the horrors that they experienced at the hands of their biological family before entering the system.

If the majority of children in the system had been taken from truly abusive or harmful parents, that would be a logical supposition.

However, as we have reported many times, the data is clear that the majority of children in foster care should not have been removed from their families.

Less than 16% of the children taken from their families were taken from parents accused of abuse. (Source). Only 17% of all the allegations against parents are substantiated. (Source).

There may be a finding of substantiation by a social worker without any actual evidence, the allegation could be based on lies or hearsay, and the finding can happen without any due process at all.

There are suggestions in some of the literature regarding child abuse that children who are disabled are more likely to be abused by their parents.

In fact, a child abuse policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics entitled, “The Evaluation of Suspected Child Physical Abuse,” is one of the main policy documents driving the abduction of children over accusations of “child abuse,” and it identifies pediatric disability as a risk factor for child abuse that all pediatricians should be on alert for.

The document was written by lead author Child Abuse Pediatrician Cindy W. Christian of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in conjunction with the AAP Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect. In it, Dr. Christian writes:

Source – “The Evaluation of Suspected Child Physical Abuse” by Cindy W. Christian

However, a “systematic review of population-based studies published between 1966 and January 2006” found evidence to the contrary. After searching 40 years of available studies for data showing that a child with disabilities is at increased risk of being abused, the authors concluded that:

The evidence base for an association of disability with abuse and neglect is weak. (Source).

See:

Exposing How Child Abuse Pediatricians Medically Kidnap Children: A Guide for Parents

Could there be another explanation for the disproportionately high number of children in foster care needing medical and psychological care?

Follow the Money: More Medicaid Funds Spent on Foster Children

There is a significant disproportion between the amount of tax money spent on Medicaid for the general population and the Medicaid funds spent on children who are in the foster care system:

Children in foster care account for a disproportionately high share of Medicaid expenditures when compared to other children in the Medicaid program. For example, although children in foster care represent only 3.7% of the nondisabled children enrolled in Medicaid, they account for 12.3% of total expenditures and 25 to 41% of Medicaid mental health expenditures.

In California, for example, Medicaid-eligible children in foster care accounted for 53% of all psychological visits, 47% of psychiatry visits, 43% of the public hospital inpatient hospitalizations, and 27% of all psychiatric inpatient hospitalizations among the program's entire child population.

A Pennsylvania study found that Medicaid mental health-related expenditures for children in foster care are nearly 12 times greater than costs for non-foster children. (Source).

Foster care children can legally be used in medical research and drug testing. It isn't every day that a parent willingly chooses to allow their child to be used as lab rat, thus foster children whose parental consent may be bypassed can be a prime commodity for researchers and pharmaceutical companies. See:

Medical Kidnapping in the U.S. – Kidnapping Children for Drug Trials

If the children have a “condition” and are on medications, the foster parents as well as the local CPS office are entitled to receive more money for having the children in their care.

It is a win/win for the drug manufacturers and the foster parents, while the children are the big losers in this scheme, suffering the side effects and numbness of drugs they don't need.

It doesn't end there for the children who are labeled as having a mental illness by psychiatrists profiting on the backs of the kids while they are working with CPS.

No Evidence Required for Psychiatric Labels and Meds

Dr. Gina Loudon, Ph.D., is a news commentator, radio host, psychological analyst, and mom who takes the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries to task over their practices. In her new book, Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy, she points out that:

Every label creates an interest group that can become a recipient of federal funds. But also, being diagnosed with mental illness can be used as a reason to deny people rights.

Dr. Gina Loudon, Ph.D. Photo from Facebook.

With the diagnosing psychiatrist holding all the power, people, including children, have been forced into psych wards against their will and force-medicated.

Just as social workers and family courts don't require actual evidence to take children from their families, objective testing and evidence is not required for a psychiatrist to label someone with a mental illness – a label that can follow the child for years, or forever.

According to Dr. Gina:

Unlike other disease models that require evidence to prescribe drugs, mental disorders don't.

Her conclusion on the matter applies to foster children as much as to anyone else:

What most of us really need aren't drugs, but faith, family, friends, and a determination to make the most of our unique gifts.

youtube

Comment on this story at MedicalKidnap.com.

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lopezdorothy70-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Medical Kidnapping: Is Big Pharma Responsible for the Majority of the Nearly Half Million Children Put into the U.S. Foster Care System?

The first MedicalKidnap.com banner. Medical Kidnapping happens far more than we knew.

by Terri LaPoint Health Impact News

The late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer may well have been the first to use the term 'kidnapping' in the context of the State taking children from their families.

In 2007, she published a scathing report entitled, “The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services.”

She championed the rights of parents, exposing deep corruption and problems within the system.

Pulling no punches, she referred to what she saw as “crimes against humanity for financial gain.”

Those [tax] dollars have turned CPS into a business that takes children and separates families for money.

See this article, and listen to her powerful speech that she gave at the 5th World Congress of Families in Amsterdam in 2009:

How Child “Protection” Services is Legally Abducting Children in the U.S.

youtube

Justina – Kidnapped by Boston Children's Hospital

Justina Pelletier and her parents. Photo by John Tlumacki/Globe Staff.

Former U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann sponsored “Justina's Law” on Capital Hill in the attempt to thwart such unethical behavior by doctors. She told Fox 61 News:

The bill went nowhere, and to this day, the practice of medical experimentation on foster children is still legally allowed to take place.

There Were Others

There were a few other stories that made headlines. Health Impact News covered these stories after local media reported them, including:

the Godboldo family of Detroit, where CPS sent a SWAT team in 2011 after a mother who refused to give her daughter dangerous psychotropic drugs. See story here.

See:

Medical Kidnapping: A Threat to Every Family in America Today

Many parents tried to speak up, but their voices were silenced by the courts or ignored by mainstream media.

There were others who were afraid or ashamed to speak out about their stories. The seizure of children and adults by state agencies remained largely a secret, hidden in the shadows.

The Pelletiers opened the door to more news coverage of these stories, and MedicalKidnap.com was established as a division of Health Impact News near the end of 2014.

Medical Kidnapping Is Everywhere!

We have reported many hundreds of stories since then. For every story we publish, there are always more that we cannot get to or who choose not to go public with their story.

It has been almost 4 years, and it hasn't stopped. Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't contact us, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July.

Children in foster care are three times more likely to be prescribed psych drugs, making them a large market for the pharmaceutical industry.

Medical Issues Involved with MOST Children in the System

The percentage of children in foster care with medical issues are stunning. Far more children in the foster care system have medical problems than children who are not in the system.

According to Pediatrics, there are more than twice the number of foster children with significant health needs than children in the general population:

In a 2008 report to a House Subcommittee in Washington D.C., the American Academy of Pediatrics, represented by Dr. Laurel K. Leslie, stated that:

The numbers reported in the 2011 Pediatrics Journal are similar:

Several decades of research has firmly established that the health care needs of children in out-of-home care far exceed those of other children living in poverty. (Source).

When behavioral, emotional, and developmental concerns are taken into consideration, the estimated proportion of foster children with serious health care needs jumps to over 80%. (Source).

Do Children Enter Foster Care with More Problems than Other Kids?

If the majority of children in the system had been taken from truly abusive or harmful parents, that would be a logical supposition.

However, as we have reported many times, the data is clear that the majority of children in foster care should not have been removed from their families.

Less than 16% of the children taken from their families were taken from parents accused of abuse. (Source). Only 17% of all the allegations against parents are substantiated. (Source).

There may be a finding of substantiation by a social worker without any actual evidence, the allegation could be based on lies or hearsay, and the finding can happen without any due process at all.

There are suggestions in some of the literature regarding child abuse that children who are disabled are more likely to be abused by their parents.