Tom Cruise was very lucky as a child that his mother refused to put him on drugs to "cure" a "learning disorder". Kurt Cobain was not so lucky and the ritalin he took as a child led him into worse drugs and eventually suicide.
So Cruise, like other members of the Church of Scientology, is taking a stand against Psychiatry and its destructive drugging and labeling of children: Cruise slams fraud psychiatry
Michelle Stafford, who has already won two Daytime Emmy Awards, has been nominated once again for "Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series" for her role as Phyllis Summers Abbott in The Young & the Restless on CBS.
Michelle is also a big supporter of the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (HELP) which uses the breakthrough educational methods developed by Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to help children develop literacy and related skills.
It sometimes seems as if a young actor suddenly bursts onto the scene from nowhere. This is rarely what actually happens, it's just that you haven't seen all the earlier work he's done which led up to the breakthrough. Such is the case with Jason Dohring, currently appearing in the hit UPN series "Veronica Mars". Jason has been acting for many years and had appeared in movies, commercials and several TV shows before landing the role of "Logan Echolls" (one of the bad guys).
I see that Tom Cruise is on Oprah today. I'm betting he'll mention Scientology, so I thought I'd dig up some links that might be useful to anyone hunting for data on the subject:
There you go - happy hunting.
Jenna Elfman's new series, "Everything I know about men" will be a CBS midseason series. Here is the blurb from CBS:
Everything I know about men stars Jenna Elfman ("Dharma & Greg") in a comedy about an attractive secretary with simple goals: find true love, have an exciting career and a normal relationship with her father. But in a world where men behave like, well ... men, she realizes that she may be overly ambitious. Brady Smith ("Just Pray"), Hugh Bonneville ("Doctor Zhivago"), Rhea Seehorn ("Romy and Michele: In the Beginning"), Lauren Tom ("Friends") and Dabney Coleman ("Nine to Five") also star. Fred Barron ("According to Bex," "Caroline in the City") is the executive producer for Touchstone Television in association with Paramount Network Television. Multiple Emmy Award winner James Burrows directed the pilot.
Jenna Elfman is not just gorgeous but is also incredibly funny. I got to be in the audience for one of the "Dharma and Greg" episodes a couple of years ago and they didn't need to hold up any "laugh" signs to get me guffawing. She's been in a couple of movies over the last few years, the funniest being "Looney Tunes: Back in Action", but these movies have never really made use of her great comedic talents. In "Ed TV" the character she played was meant to be rather subdued, so that's how she played it. In the "Looney Tunes" movie the character was an up-tight movie executive, so that's how she played it. The scenes where she was allowed to show her real talent are in the out-takes and deleted scenes section where she is a scream! Anyway, the good news is that she's coming back to television in a new series being produced for CBS. Here is the announcement on her website: Everything I Know About Men. We'll get to see hilarious talents of Jenna in the fall season - so get your TVO's programmed and your gut muscles in shape for plenty of laughs.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Kelly Preston on the day the bill she has been helping through the Florida Legislature was passed (Great News For Parents and Children In Florida.
There are some women who are beautiful only on the outside and some who are beautiful on both the outside and inside, Kelly Preston is definitely one of the latter. I saw her coming into the restaurant where I had just had lunch and I just had to tell her "Well done!" When some perfect stranger, right out-of-the blue, advances upon and starts talking to a major movie star, the stranger shouldn't be surprised if the star is less than enthusiastic, but in this case I was surprised at how enthusiastic she was. She gave me a beaming smile and we chatted about the whole process of getting the bill passed. She was very complementary of all the people involved, especially Representative Gus Barreiro of Miami Beach who sponsored the bill. She also mentioned the support from Sean Hannity who featured her on both his TV and radio shows.
As I left the restaurant with a big smile on my face, my friend summed it up with "She's a doll!"
For some years now parents have been forced to put their kids onto dangerous mind-altering drugs if teachers, psychologists or psychiatrists decide the child has a "disease" such as "ADHD". There is no way to test for these so-called diseases, it's like telling someone they have AIDS without doing any kind of test to see if the disease is actually present. But the threat has been that you can't have your child in school and you could get in trouble for child abuse for not drugging your child as instructed.
Any parent who does even a small amount of research will quickly find that the side-effects of these psychotropic drugs range from minor stomach problems to suicide and death. So the situation has been you give your kid these drugs that could kill him or her or else!
Now thanks to the efforts of many good people, including Scientologist Kelly Preston parents in Florida have the chance to "just say no" to drugging their kids. This article doesn't give all the details, but the bill has passed successfully through the legislature: Kirstie Alley & Kelly Preston Talk Drugs and Kids
As you can see from the article Kirstie Alley was also involved. I've highlighted Kelly's contribution because after she went on national television to talk about he bill the Florida Legislature was inundated with calls from concerned parents. Well done Kelly!
Tom Cruise is often in the news because of his movies or personal life, but here is a story about his activity in another area, his religion:
New Church of Scientology Opens in Madrid - Actor Tom Cruise addresses the thousands in attendance.
The son of one of my best friends just got back from spending 6 weeks in Indonesia and Sri Lanka with the International Scientology Relief Team that has been in these countries since the tsunamis hit.
There are teams in India, Thailand as well, and smaller groups of Volunteer Ministers went to help in the Maldives and Madagascar as well.
This young man and the other volunteers he worked with spent all their waking hours helping in refugee camps, hospitals, and at the relief team's tent.
Here are the faces of some of the people they helped - worth all the effort!
It would be pretty arrogant to say that Tom Cruise was my friend.
But often when I meet someone knew and tell them I'm a member of the Church of Scientology they say "Oh -- do you know Tom Cruise?"
(I wish. )
But really I think the world of this man.
He is always helping people. Here are some great examples of things he's done for our Church -- from visiting ambassadors in countries where there is a serious lack of religious tolerance, to opening a detox center for the rescue workers from 9/11, to speaking up in defense of the rights of children and being a mentor himself:
Tom Cruise: Scientology Ambassador
Cruise Helps Open the New Church of Scientology in Madrid
Another Scientology Blog Entry about Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise Fan Site about his Movies and Scientology
New Zealand Scientologist compilation of NZ Press from when Cruise was filming Samurai
Cruise Donates Money to an Anti-Drug Group
