European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 9, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday april 9 2007 stars and stripes Page 15 opinion distracted acts out bitterness Over pills Florianna Mington have a Little problem with the b idea of somebody giving my son drugs to keep him Nice and quiet maybe i dont think Nice and quiet is such a Good thing so says the father in distracted a Power Ful new play about the difficulties of Parent ing a child diagnosed with add the play written by Lisa Loomer and starring Rita Wilson had its world premiere at Las Mark taper forum late last month if s a stinging indict ment of our Pill for every ill culture in which parents of hyperactive children find themselves being pressured sometimes subtly sometimes overfly by doctors teachers and school administrators to medi Cate their kids in the Case of Jesse the boy in the play the pressure comes in the form of a threat that unless something changes hell be put in a Speciale class at its Best Art can change the Way we see the world enriching the National Conversa Tion by offering stories that touch Peoples hearts in a Way that rhetorical arguments and oped pieces and yes blogs rarely can i first realized the trans formative Power of Art in school when i read Sybil Ben Jamin israelis novel warning his country men of the danger of 19thcentury in glands disintegrating into two nations be tween whom there is no sympathy when it was published in 1840 the Book became a sensation and the outrage it provoked propelled fundamental social reforms i got the same feeling when i recently saw distracted with my 17yearold daughter i dont know what to do cries the father in the play during an argument about whether to give his son ritalin i just want him to be a Happy kid what Parent cant relate to that i was particularly touched by the play because with both of my daughters at different stages of their lives i had a doctor and a teacher Sug Gest i put them on medication in both cases i decided against it and my girls both made it through difficult periods unmediated stronger and More Able to navigate lifes ups and Downs this is notto suggest that there Arent Chil Dren who Benefit from medication clearly there Are kids with chemical imbalances who Are helped by prescription drugs indeed one of the Best things about distracted is the Way it gives both sides of the add debate a full airing in fact two of the most memorable moments in the play come when a teacher at her wits end says of a problem child my entire class is learn in disabled when Hes there and when one of the actors playing a pro ritalin Doc Tor Breaks character and says you think i would even remember my lines if it we rent for ritalin before ritalin i even get to my auditions on time but the play also makes Clear that As a culture we have gotten into the habit of treating childhood As a disease and of turning to drugs As the default and Costco scions he Friendly solution there can be no argument that we Are in the midst of a Lega drugging epidemic America now has More than a million kids on antidepressants such As prozac and More than 7 million on ritalin the madness of the Pill popping phenom Enon is nicely summed up in this Exchange from the play doctor people with untreated add Are three times More Likely to abuse drugs mama and by untreated you mean doctor unmediated mama so if my son takes a drug Hes less Likely to take drugs and later the doctor has this to say about the potential Side effects of ritalin the most common Are loss of appetite delayed growth and insomnia but we can always add another drug like clo Nidine to help the insomnia some children develop tics but we can add a Little telex to control that paging Joseph Heller the play also effectively raises a Mirror to the parents in the crowd forcing us to question How much our Blacker multitasking Media overloaded ways Are affecting our kids As Wilsons character puts it at the end of the play what if the Best thing i can give my son for attention deficit disorder is my attention i left the theater grateful that this cultural crisis had been dramatically presented in such a moving and engaging Way in a show business world increasingly driven by flu fits wonderful to see a production de signed to make people to see an actress such As Wilson who never leaves the stage during the play throw herself and her gifts into such an important subject Hamlet told us the play is the thing wherein ill catch the conscience of the King distracted will catch the con science of anyone who sees it and in mod Ern America when enough people Are galvanized the political or medi Cal or directly watching Over the Fra take heed to drug or not to drug our kids that is the question we need to be asking ourselves our political leaders and our medical establishment no interest in push for us forces in Darfur Ann Coulter in Light of the increasing noise from the fifth column in America it is a serious question whether president Bush would have the will to deploy military Force even to Stop a deadly serious threat to the United states in speaking of course of Darfur Saddam Barbaric rape rooms chemical attacks and torture those liberals could live with but now they want us to Send troops to Darfur a re Gion from which no one anticipates terror ism any time in the next millennium if youre looking for a Good definition of no imminent threat Darfur is it the climate change emergency set to Start taking effect sometime during the next Century is a More imminent threat to the United states than Darfur these people cant even wrap up Geno cide weve been hearing about this Slaugh Ter in Darfur forever and they still Haven finished the aggressors Are mov ing like termites across that if s like genocide by committee who running this holocaust in Darfur Fema this is truly a War in which we have absolutely no interest but liberals want our boys to go fight scimitar wielding dervishes while the democrats hold pointless hearings into what George w Bush had for breakfast republicans should pass a Law prohibiting liberals from mentioning Dar fur until Horace Mann and Dalton Are pre pared to put up a battalion so no Darfur is not the threat i was imag ining i Haven even told you what that threat a hostage taking holocaust de Nying Lunatic who Doest own a Necktie but is within two years of having a nuclear bomb comes to mind you can already hear Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi saying of the democrats were in charge the use of military Force be necessary be cause wed constructively engage them and appease their stated desire to kill us Damn that Bush Hes made people who hate our guts not like us in uplifting thought no 57 about the War liberals keep telling us that iraqis Are genetically indisposed to Freedom which i would characterize As the hard bigotry of Low expectations in this let us re member the message of passover is that Freedom Doest come easy Moses had to grab jews by the Scruff of their necks and drag them to the desert for prickly City by Scott Stantis Buzuayehu actress Mia Farrow shows slides from her trips to the Darfur Region of Sudan on March 29 at the statehouse in Boston she pleaded with Massachusetts lawmakers to divest state pension fund holdings in Sudan where hundreds of thousands have been killed in War torn Darfur 40 years to get a generation capable of Liv ing in Freedom and even then the jews were complaining about it being too draft the first stiff necked generation didst even want to leave egyptian Captivity once free they complained about the food which apparently compared unfavourably to the food Back in Egypt kind of re minds you of liberals talking about Sadd ams rape rooms even in the desert the jews would not Stop with the Golden calves god nearly let the whole lot of them perish in the desert he was so angry about their idolatrous ways Only when he had a new generation born in Freedom that didst complain about the food did he Lead them to the promised land for you liberals still read ing this is All extensively covered in a Book known As the Bible also this month we celebrate a fast track to Freedom that Doest require 40 years in the desert but As i recall the suggestion that we convert muslims to christianity was shot Down Early on in this War if you want a Shorter rebuilding process then were going to have to wage less humane wars the enemy As Well As inno cent be bombed into quivering terror otherwise we displace aggression but dont destroy it americans Are weaker for having seen that kind of carnage in world War h re Call that the worst generation was raised by the greatest generation that tells you How awful War is the greatest generation was so exhausted by the War it didst have the spine to stand up to pot smoking draft dodging hippies occupying administration buildings but enough about Bill Clinton if were going to have humane wars they Are going to take a Little bit longer that be so bad except that it gives fifth columnists More time to Demor Alize americans and convince them that we Are losing a War in the Paramount Strug Gle of our time
