Before You Take That Pill » Uncategorized

Indie Author Tag Fest

Doug Bremner — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 02:12:34 +0000

Come help out Indie authors (those not published by major publishing houses, like myself) by tagging books on Amazon via the Romancing the blog website. This helps Indie authors get their books out in front of the public and searches. Scroll to the bottom of each book’s page on Amazon and click on the tags.

My book I’d like tagged is The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg.

A psychiatrist buts heads with a multi-billion dollar drug company and finds his mother along the way.

Join the Discussion on my Author Q&A Page on Goodreads

Doug Bremner — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:01:47 +0000

Q&A with Doug Bremner

3 members

Question and answer with author and physician Doug Bremner about his latest book “The Goose That Lai…

Books we’ve read

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Before You Take That Pill Top 10 Blog Posts for 2011

Doug Bremner — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:11:44 +0000

These are the top blog posts from Before You Take That Pill based on the number of comments generated.

I guess it was the year of attractive young women on trial for murder.

At least one of the most popular posts was about… umm… psychiatry.

Amanda Knox Blog Wars Update for the Week
The Rise of the Guilter Monster
Rebuttal to “Angel Face” the Book about Amanda Knox
English Tabloids Say That Amanda Knox Should Wear Black, Stay at Home, and Pray
Nancy Grace is Completely Wrong About the Amanda Knox Case
Why It Isn’t Physically Possible For Amanda Knox to have Killed Meredith Kercher
Amanda Knox and the Coercive Interrogation Tactics of the Polizia di Stato in Perugia
Tot Mom: Case of Missing in Action Mother
Whoa! Tot Mom Was Abused!
New Questionable Diagnoses on the Horizon from the DSM-5 Committee

Con Berlusconi Non C’e Liberta’ di Parola in Italia 7

Book Review: The Beauregarde Affair, by Brian Talgo

Doug Bremner — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:04:53 +0000

The Beauregarde Affair is great narrative nonfiction about the author’s time in the 1970s living with his sex drug and rock and roll friends in a house on North Morningside Drive in Atlanta, GA. The author and his friends lived in a stately older home in the Morningside neighborhood of Atlanta while they carried on with wild times. The book is an interesting snapshot of an earlier time in Atlanta by an author who is now an American ex-patriate living in Oslo, Norway. He is also a great illustrator and adds his artwork to the book.

You can access The Beauregarde Affair on Amazon Kindle for $2.99 here or in paperback.

Rebecca Zahau Ties Hands Behind Back, Leaps off Balcony, Hangs Self: Yeah, right.

Doug Bremner — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:44:09 +0000

Rebecca Zahau

San Diego’s brilliant Sheriff Gore would like to have us believe that 27-year-old Rebecca Zahau, the companion of drug company mogul Jonah Shacknai, tied one end of a rope to her bed and the other around her neck using perfect nautical knots, then bound her ankles and wrists, wrapped a t-shirt around her neck and stuffed one end in her mouth, then vaulted off a balcony to hang, naked, until dead. Oh, and this is after she painted on the door of her room “I saved him can you save me” in black paint. Oh, and this is after she fell and hit her head, left some blood, and got some other scratches and bruises. Oh, and I forgot, before she did all this, she was playing with pulling duct tape off of her legs.

That is what San Diego’s finest would like us to believe after declaring her death a suicide and refusing to re-open the case? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the drug mogul recently donated money to the police? The “him” referred to is the 7-year-old son of Shacknai from a prior marriage to Dinah Shacknai, Max, who in a hyper-active moment of riding his scooter around their 27-room mansion two days earlier had apparently vaulted over another balcony and hit his head. The night of Zahau’s death Max’s condition took a turn for the worse and he later died. Now the sister of Dinah, Nina Romano, states that she believes Zahau killed herself and that she “knew something” about Max’s death that apparently caused her to suicide. The last person to see Zahau alive was Jonah’s brother Adam Shacknai. He also found her dead the next morning. An eye witness put Dinah outside the house acting in a suspicious manner the night of the murder. Her sister Nina also said she sent a text to Zahau saying she wanted to “talk” at 9:41 pm the night of the murder and went over there at 10:00 pm but couldnt get in the house. No matter that the phone records said 10:41 pm, she says AT&T “got it wrong” on the time stamp. A neighbor says he heard loud music at 1:30 am. Time of death was about 3 am. Sheriff Gore said they found a search for “rape,Asian bondage” on the computer from that night and implies that Zahau did the search which inspired her to bind herself and presumably take the leap. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Jonah Shacknai isn’t saying anything but threatens law suits.

If Zahau did kill herself, it would be the first time in history that I am aware of that a woman with no history of mental illness bound herself and then hanged herself naked. The naked body is more consistent with someone wanting to humiliate her in death, and the detail of heaving off a balcony is hardly a coincidence in my opinion. Looking at all of the evidence together you come to the conclusion that there is no way this was anything other than a homicide.

The police did a less than thorough job of investigating those who could have been involved in a murder, all of whom had a motive in anger/blame about the death of Max, namely his parents and their siblings. Jonah Shacknai claims he was at the hospital and then went to Ronald McDonald house that night. Did anyone see him there? He claims he got a text message (?!) from brother Adam, who was at the house, at 7 am saying Rebecca hung herself. Who sends a text message about that?! Adam says he was at the house at the time of the murder, get this, watching porn on his iphone (was it Asian porn?). Nina says she went to the house that night (but didn’t get in) while Dinah was seen there but denies it.

Time to open this case up again, guys.

New URL for the Beyond Meds Blog

Doug Bremner — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:39:08 +0000

The “Beyond Meds” blog which chronicles one person’s withdrawal from psychiatric medications and covers a range of mental health issues as a consumer has changed its url from bipolarblast.blogspot.com to htt”//beyondmeds.com.

Where Are All these Mormons Coming From?

Doug Bremner — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:10:45 +0000

Where are all these Mormons coming from? Between Mitt Romney running for president on a “I’m a conservative like you, just a slightly different flavor” platform and HBO’s Big Love with its pandering after the ups and downs of sex in a multiple wife marriage, it seems like the Mormons are coming out of nowhere. But what most people don’t know is that the Mormons have not just been cooling their heels in Utah for the past 100 years. They have been on a role for quite some time now.
While the Baptists have been struggling to retain members and the Methodist and Episcopalian churches have been shrinking, the Mormon church (known as Latter Day Saints, or LDS, by their members) has been expanding at a rapid clip. In fact, it is the fastest growing religion in the world. There are now far more Mormons outside of Utah than within the boundaries of the beehive state.
What’s the appeal? The Mormons don’t lay a lot of head trips on their members like all that stuff about Adam and Eve and original sin. For LDS we are all on a continuous trajectory from imperfection to a higher plane. God and Jesus are just like us (yes, they are physical beings), they are just farther along on the spiritual journey. Death is not the end, it is just a marker on the journey. And we are all traveling with our extended families. But in order to make sure that their families are coming with them, LDS members have to find out who they are.
You may not know it, but the Mormons have been collecting information on your family for quite some time now. For them, genealogy is a religion. And they believe that advent of the internet (which allows information to be made available to everything through sites like Ancestry.com) was divinely inspired. Having personally experienced the mesmerizing pull of searching for my own ancestors, I think that is a big part of their draw. And as a psychiatrist I think that doing genealogical research on the internet has become like an addiction for many people.

You can read more about my speculations on Mormonism, genealogy, and my own quest to find my missing family in my recently released book The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, available in paperback and also $0.99 Kindle.

You can read the first chapter here and the enthusiastic reader reviews here.

Come Down to the Park Tonight, Support Occupy Atlanta

Doug Bremner — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:51:43 +0000

General call out from those at Woodruff Park who are part of Occupy Atlanta:

If anyone is able to come down tonight, Occupy Atlanta needs support – see below. It might not be too late to call & email the mayor:404-330-6100 or mayorreed@atlantaga.gov,

From AJC:

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Saturday issued a second ultimatum to Occupy Atlanta protesters who have camped out at a popular Downtown park: Leave or be arrested.

Around 5 pm., Reed was huddling with aides and Atlanta police inside a mobile communications unit near Woodruff Park, where Occupy Atlanta protesters have camped for several weeks, vowing not to leave the area.

Occupy Atlanta leader Tim Franzen said he and local civil rights leader Joe Beasley met with Reed in the mobile unit around 3:30 p.m. and the mayor, visibly angry, ordered the group to clear the park Saturday or face charges.

Franzen said the mayor did not provide a specific time to vacate, but the organizer remained defiant.

“We are here until the civic problems that brought us here are changed,” Franzen vowed. “I wish he would be more angry about the civic reasons why we are here.”

It was the second such order Occupy Atlanta has faced in recent weeks to leave Woodruff Park. Reed earlier had given the group until this past Monday to clear out but backed down a few days before the deadline. His office at the time said the mayor never intended the first demand to be set in stone.

Book Promotion by Indie Authors on Goodreads

Doug Bremner — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:35:53 +0000

I am part of an Indie author thread on Goodreads.com to promote books and I encourage you to check it out!

I am on the nonfiction memoir thread.

On Live Shark Radio Discussing The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg and Accutane

Doug Bremner — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:09:21 +0000

Listen live here:

http://www.sharkradionetwork.com/