A Sham with no Shame: Dr. Phil and the Anthonys' TV Stunt

by Pat Brown

I didn't watch the Dr. Phil's two-day interview with George and Cindy Anthony for a number of reasons: because they make me ill (all three of them), because I knew there would be nothing but more lies to be told, and because I didn't want to contribute to the fame or fortune of any of them. But, most of all, because it was a shameless sham.

Most everyone who watched was curious to see if Dr. Phil would manage to corner the Anthonys, get them to break, to slip up, to finally admit to knowing more than they did before, during, and after the trial. Promos for the show promised "surprises" that we wouldn't want to miss. Hogwash. There was no way anything all that revealing could ever have happened during the interview because the interview was fixed from the start.

Think about it. The Anthonys weren't about to take a chance on spilling any beans; they didn't have to put themselves at risk just to make the bucks. Dr. Phil and the Anthonys' attorney, Mark Lippman, made sure everyone would go home happy–at least everyone who was going to make money from this charade. Their "admissions" are still self-serving lies and half truths that benefit them and only them.

First of all, that show wasn't live. It was taped. And it was taped in a private location (note the secluded living room setting) without a studio audience. That means all the questions can be planned out ahead of time with both parties knowing what was going to be asked and how they would be answered. I would be surprised if there wasn't a condition in the contract that stated the Anthonys would have to approve the final product before it was aired. And there was no studio audience to be a witness to what was actually said and attest to what was deleted from the final product, so it was a pretty safe game for the Anthonys to play.

Believe me, taped shows are cleaned up and edited before they hit the airwaves. I have been on Dr. Phil's show and I can tell you what I said on the show didn't show up on air. I was actually the "big" guest on his show that day, starting out the discussion, just the two of us talking and then the other guests joining in later. But that is not what anyone saw. Oddly, I vanished out of the front of the show and appeared for just a couple of statements in the middle of the panel discussion. I was none too happy considering the effort it took me to fly to California and back for no pay just to do the show. I have no idea why I was edited out but what Dr. Phil said in his speech at the end of the show sounded an awful lot like what I said at the beginning.

I also got a major snip during the show I taped with Dr. Oz as well. I was asked what kind of woman abandons her children to help a killer escape from prison and commit crimes with him. I looked the family in the eye and said, "A psychopath," and followed this up with a discussion of how the woman likely manipulated everyone around her as she traveled through life. The other guest disagreed with me, softening his take on the woman by telling the family that she likely became so smitten with the man that she lost control of her emotions. When the show aired, everything I said had vanished and the tone of the show was very forgiving. I haven't been asked back since.

However, there are exceptions. I did quite a few taped shows for Montel Williams and I never had anything I said cut, even if it was controversial. I have to give a lot of credit to him and his producers that they allowed the viewers to see the show that was shot, not some watered-down version of the discussion.

And that is what Dr. Phil gave America with his phony interview of the Anthonys; a staged event that brought his show high ratings and the Anthonys a nice deposit in their (oh, excuse me, their organization's) bank account. We aren't told how much they got for their performance because Dr. Phil knows we would become livid if we found out the actual number of zeroes that was on the check handed over to them (think 6).

The viewers were duped. There never was a "no-holds-barred" interview with Cindy and George. The viewers are the losers and the Anthonys and Dr. Phil are the winners. Dr. Phil should have been ashamed of putting these people on his show, he should have been ashamed that he staged this event, and the Anthonys should have been ashamed to show their faces in public again. But, hey, there's money to be made, so the hell with decency, right? Caylee may be dead, but she's a gift that keeps on giving, and Casey and those people who created her, and all the rest of the morally bankrupt parasites, keep on receiving.

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Scrabble Psychos of the Internet

by Pat Brown

As we always warn children and young adults, the Internet is a world with little law, a Wild Wild West that extends the circumference of the earth and is peopled by every sort of weirdo one can imagine. They are on blogs, Facebooks, Twitter, chat rooms, and, much to my annoyance, my online Scrabble site.

Not that some of us Scrabble players who show up at the local clubs aren't a bit odd (and while nonScrabble players are thinking I am being judgmental, the Scrabble players themselves are nodding their heads and thinking, well, yeah, that's true). But, at the club and the tournaments (that is me in red at a MN tourney in 2005), we have rules–like you have to hold the bag at eye level so you can't peek down into in and look for a blank or an S to make your big play. Although there are still poor losers and those who whine and argue about how things should be done, there is a code and you have to stay within the group comfort zone or you will be ousted.

Online, however, the personality disordered can have a field day! First of all, they can cheat. They can use electronic dictionaries and programs and simply put in the letters on their rack, hit the button and come up with big words. You can always tell these cheaters because while their strategy is terrible, they know words like DROUKED and DAIKER and DUIKER (yes, those really are words in Scrabble). Then there are those who get mad at you if you happen to actually know some weird words because you are a fairly highly rated player and they furiously type in "CHEATER! CHEATER! CHEATER!" even though they should recognize that they are a novice player and you are not.

There are those who lose and immediately whine that the computerized Scrabble game always give them bad letters! If you win, they call you lucky; if they win, they are skilled.

Sore losers and poor players with personality disorders have interesting ways of punishing their opponents which sometimes includes attempting to force you to stop playing so they can get the win. Sometimes they call you names and cuss at you hoping you won't be able to stand it and run away. Other times, they simply don't play for so long that their opponent goes crazy waiting on them (it is a timed game, but they have twenty minutes on their side). I multitask when they do that and I snicker as I watch their time run down; I am not sitting there staring pointlessly at the board, so, haha, it isn't working, buddy. A variation of this is to log off and on and off and on and off and on until the other player feels like a ping-pong ball.

Another interesting childish maneuver is to play gibberish, an entire game of nonsense words that, of course, one must challenge off the board each and every time. Some are not even trying to win; they are just being abusive and getting a kick out of it. Most people will suffer through a whole game of this crap because if they stop playing, they lose and their rating drops. In one of my last games, the player, losing badly, waited until his last play and then he asked me to abort the game....uh-huh. Didn't happen. So sorry. Nyuck, nyuck. The abusers turn me childish in return.

And, yes, the perverts are there as well.

ScrabbleDude: Hi and good luck.

Pat: Hi and good luck to you too.

ScrabbleDude: GOLDEN 22 points

Pat: SINGULAR 70 points

ScrabbleDude: ZEP 53 points

Pat: HAO 18 points

ScrabbleDude: Do you have big tits?

We have antisocial folks on the site who block any communication during the game and there are those who are friendly until they lose and when you type "Good game!" the reply is "Your opponent is not logged on."

At least in the real world where people have to interact face to face, abusive and psychopathic creeps can get cut off or penalized for bad behavior. On the Internet, they can strike over and over, fueling their feeling of power, getting satisfaction every time they get over on another person in the Cyberworld. One has to wonder that this kind of gratification and validation is not a good thing to be so easily obtained by someone with psychological issues. Even worse, teens and grade school children with personality disorders and behavioral problems are finding out that the Internet provides a world without adult supervision and controls; Facebook and chat rooms are filled with teens abusing teens and children getting some very nonhealthy kicks from antisocial behaviors. Probably some of my opponents in Scrabble on the Internet are juveniles and have no adults in their lives paying attention to what they are doing.

The Internet can be a fabulous tool for communication and socialization but if we aren't careful, bullying and predation and harassment will invade our life online and our children may get the brunt of it. We need to be very aware of the dangers of the Internet to our well-being and our children's well-being and make sure we are vigilant about allowing strangers access to our lives and our minds without even leaving our homes.

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