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This Blog has Moved

2008-08-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved. Click here for my new site: The Standard Review

What Can Be Done with Words

2008-08-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Some people seem to work very hard to express themselves. They try to make what they say count for something important and good and they are not frivolous with their speech. Too many others however seem to take for granted that what they say won't matter and that they can always fix any problem their words create with more words.

It seems to me that the frivolous attitude of producing and throwing away so many products has led to the many problems in our environment by polluting the air with factories and more powerful and faster means to transport ourselves along with the waste that pollutes our air and our water by throwing away things when we want bigger and better products.

Not only do I think we are misguided by thinking this overproducing and over disposing of things will eventually satisfy our insatiable appetites, but also this attitude of viewing what we must have as needing to be the biggest and brightest along with being so careless with all our other resources carries over into our emotional lives as well. This can and does and change how we view people.

We decide whether a persons size, lifestyle, race, and abilities are worthy of our attention which ultimately leads to decisions of whether some people are even worthy of life itself.

As we attempt to become bigger, stronger, brighter, shinier and more socially acceptable, what we feel we need to fix about ourselves becomes the catalyst for the discomfort we feel when we see some of those traits or aspects of ourselves in others.

It's no wonder that we would become clumsy with our words and use them to hurt people rather than use them to empower people if we can't readily see what those people have to offer that will serve us most effectively in the way the newest and best product on the market does.

I wish that more people understood that disabled often means differently abled but even more importantly that value can be found in people by a multitude of ways that our current cultural bias often allows and even encourages us to ignore.

The word retard has been used to hurt many autistic people as well as many others with a great deal of value that is thereby conveniently ignored by the use of the label. This word is used to marginalize and devalue who people are.

Some even use the word to justify how they abuse people by claiming that people being given this label is what provides others with the right to abuse them.

One of Hollywood's newest products is the movie called Tropical Thunder and it stars Ben Stiller.

In this movie the ugly slur "retard" is carelessly used in a similar way that it has been used to mistreat many people for a long time.

The ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) is working with the greater disability community to send a message to Hollywood that this movie is not fit for public consumption because it sends a wrong and hurtful message. Also we want to send the message that we and all who understand and accept our message will boycott this movie and any other one that is made like it that reflects these inappropriate values. ASAN is working to distribute this video to as many people as possible.

Christschool has once again given of his time and talent to make this great video. The video is a reminder to me that we all have the ability and responsibility to influence peoples lives with our words and we need to learn to respect the vulnerable aspects of humanity and act responsibly with how we use words.

To anyone who can and will, I would encourage you to promote and distribute this video and encourage others to as well so that our voices my be better heard.

The video: R word

Intellectually Discouraged

2008-08-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

The ways that I find the word intellect often being used does not describe much more than arbitrary judgments that has more to do with a cultural or societal bias. I see this judgment often leading to inappropriate and wrongful treatment.

There are so many attributes to different types and different sources of intelligence that it is completely irresponsible for any person or group that arrogantly claims to be mainstream to define so many potentially alternative resources as inappropriate and/or invalid.

This is Wikipedia's definition of intelligence:

Intelligence (also called intellect) is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However, some psychologists prefer not to include these traits in the definition of intelligence.

I think it's fair to say that the broad range of ways this term is used and the amount of all that is included in this umbrella term is an indication of how much potential damage can be done to any person or group being described as unintelligent.

Also, regardless of this broad definition there are still many who make many quick, inappropriate wrongful judgments about what they see as intelligence. Attitudes need to change to really allow for broader acceptance of what people already know but often ignore.

On that Wikipedia page there is also this:

Intelligence comes from the Latin verb "intellegere", which means "to understand". By this rationale, intelligence (as understanding) is arguably different from being "smart" (able to adapt to one's environment), or being "clever" (able to creatively adapt).

At least two major "consensus" definitions of intelligence have been proposed. First, from Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, a report of a task force convened by the American Psychological Association in 1995: Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen somewhat different definitions.[1][2]

This would explain why the term mental retardation is so ill-defined and such an ineffective method of evaluating a person's strength. What someone can or does adapt to includes too many nebulous factors to attach some one with the label to describe their speed and capability for adapting.

AND on that page there is also this:

A second definition of intelligence comes from "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which was signed by 52 intelligence researchers in 1994: A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings-"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.[3]

The number of ways that these abilities can be discouraged is unlimited. Discouraging of a skill is a pattern just as the promotion of an ability is.

People get conditioned to believe that bad behavior is expected from them and this can be a very difficult pattern to break. In order to effectively help people to make this alteration to better behavior along with overall better thinking patterns and more adaptability is partly teaching them to see themselves and their interest as valid and maybe even how and what they think is interesting to others.

People also get conditioned to believe that what they have to offer is unworthy of others attention because of the standardized tests they fail. The standardized test aren't just academic. The way that academic test are designed and evaluated are both reflective of the ways that society evaluates people as well as being a method by which society learns to make such evaluations.

There is no question that many autistic people as well as many others who are deemed academically, psychologically, and behaviorally unfit are very capable of moving beyond these inappropriate judgments once they understand how unfairly prejudicial they are or they don't hear or listen to them in the first place.

However, in order to teach the greater society at large how we who have been unfairly judged as intellectually inferior need to be individually evaluated based for a broader set of standard skills and abilities that may then become what is described as standards. If we the people (rather than just we the government) provide more to people with individual interests and skills that may be unique according to their need that would make us all more independent people with more contributions. We need to stop only promoting what unfair judges see as being our shiniest and best.

It's not necessary to conform in ways that prevent others who have traveled along similar paths to be excluded just because our particular abilities and circumstances have allowed us to "pass" as valid rather than invalid. Individual self promoting conformist were who excluded us. Some types of overcoming promote the sale of what no one can afford to give up.

From this article A mental hospital's breakdown I found this paragraph:

In the 1940s and 1950s, mental hospitals around the country began using electroshock therapy to dull the intellects of the patients and quiet the wards of mental hospitals. Doctors also began using experimental prefrontal lobotomies, the surgical removal of a frontal lobe of the brain, to try to cure mental illness.

Is it any wonder that these hospitals would also use what they call chemical restraint in the form of pharmaceutical medicines for doing nothing more than making those whom they already see as weak even weaker and more manageable. They don't need no stinking research to peddle their wares or force consumption of them.

Here is a part of an article called The History of Eugenics in
the United States

Eugenicists believed genetics were the cause of problems for the human gene pool. Eugenics stated that society already had paid enough to support these degenerates and the use of sterilization would save money. The eugenicists used quantitative facts to produce scientific evidence. They believed that charity and welfare only treated the symptoms, eugenic sought to eliminate the disease. The following traits were seen as degenerative to the human gene pool to which the eugenicists were determined to eliminate: poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, prostitution.

They believed that charity and welfare only treated the symptoms, eugenic sought to eliminate the disease.

If the pitiful type of charity and welfare that is most widely used in the U.S. is the only alternative to elimination of all these behaviors/problems through eugenics, I think it's time to start being creative and finding some other alternatives.

Poverty stricken nomads??!! If that's how a group of people in another country were seen, some people may feel less empathetic about their lives being lost in a war. If you think such wars that are fought on foreign soil that are promoted with such attitudes won't affect your home, you might want to reconsider how strong you really are.

I've heard it said that the average American is three paychecks away from poverty. If government sponsored banks buy enough houses during a mortgage crisis, there may eventually be a larger population of nomads including people that now live in your neighborhood.

If we don't find more neutral ways to define peoples abilities and skills, all skills and abilities that are considered superior or inferior will ultimately be overly scrutinized and unfairly judged.

Until society is willing to put into place a system of evaluation that no longer creates the illusion of scarcity of resources and begins to make more of an effort to provide people with equal opportunities by providing each person (that doesn't abuse that privilege) according to their need, I think it's completely impractical to expect anything other than unfair cultural bias (officially enforced or otherwise) toward those who are deemed intellectually unfit.

The Justice of Turnabout

2008-08-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

The job of empowering oppressed groups is too often ignored as a practical goal by claiming that the job is too big or that there are too many pathological issues facing each individual person to help them to understand and be responsible for their liberties once they are granted.

In this way the liberties of individuals who are a part of an oppressed category are categorically ignored as victims of too big of a problem to solve. This societal illness doesn't just claim the lives of those who are perceived as weak but it prevents those who are considered strong from realizing the aspects of themselves that are considered weak but are actually strengths that few people ever recognize. Oppression serves no one.

With very little equality and fairness, there are very few ways to fairly judge anyone. Still people are judged as if there was. Turnabout can't be considered fair play and people can't be accurately evaluated that way until there is a better way of judging what fairness really is.

One of the things that I find often occurs within group dynamics, societal reforms, and governmental justice departments is how people attempt to view things from the standpoint of all things being equal as how things are rather than this being the ideal of how they should be. To me this seems to come from the group of viewers seeking to make the ideal of personal responsibility more important than social responsibility because it serves to maintain a system that benefits them. This can and does create more advantages for those who already have them at the expense of those they (the advantaged) find less favorable being given more of the burden.

The ways I see this as being a problem is that social responsibilities are often not met because there is too much focusing on the unrealistic and unattainable goal of creating judgmental divisions based on perceived effort, inborn ability, and severity of symptoms. While each person is an individual, to attempt to overly define that for purposes that determine which so-called liberties should be withdrawn from those who have the fewest creates the opposite of justice. This perpetuates a negative cycle.

It would be great if everyone could and did act assertively based on how and when they felt assertively against oppression rather than the needing to be careful of the consequences of challenging those with perceived power but that has never been the case with very many people in any environment where I have been. Those who were challenging were usually punished for doing so if their station in life was known to be less influential or found to be that way.

Oppressed populations often act in the very ways they are taught as well as how they are understanding themselves as being viewed. This does not mean that they don't have individual wills or are incapable or unreasonably afraid to assert them. The belief that this is the case is one of the biggest contributors to maintaining an already oppressive situation.

Many other countries have very few people asserting themselves against oppression at all. In the United States, some have been granted this privilege of doing so (often from an already favorable position) and claim that others who don't assert what they arrogantly refer to as their "right" are less informed and/or are less courageous.

Fortunately, we do have people that are strong and willful and who do fight assertively for what prevents the liberties of themselves and others like them with less means to do so. However, that doesn't mean that those who don't challenge the current oppressive system are weaker.

Teaching people to be strong needs to include not only teaching them how they are capable of this strength but also what kinds of stereotypes and misinformation has been spread to the general public (often for generations) about the less than favorable category which they find themselves defined as being in and how this affects how they as a group have learned to behave.

To claim that someone who is in a category of already oppressed people is strong and another is weak based on how the one considered strong is personally overcoming their plight may serve to encourage others to do the same, but it can also remind some people to believe that they need that extra something that they have been taught that they don't have. Without learning comprehensive steps for how to assert themselves against oppressive forces, the ideal that they should but aren't assertive enough often serves as a reminder of what they have been taught they can't do and this can prevent them from trying.

Maintaining the oppressive governing of people has strong and deep roots in how generations of people have learned about who they are and what their worth to society is in relation to others.

Turning that around has to involve the ways that society changes their system of justice and their societal norms. Attempting to create equality based solely on individualism can be used to create strife within one oppressed group or between one oppressed group and another oppressed group.

Instead these groups need to support each other in ways that create more equality and less strife for everyone. This can't be done at too much abrupt risk to those who are favored without also causing misappropriations of privileges for all.... Instead favoritism for groups and classifications of people need to be better understood for what they have to offer so individuals within those classifications can be evaluated more appropriately.

A group that has been oppressed needs to have some solidarity of purpose and learn to work with others who are in the same or similar situations, and we need to stop oppressing our own in the way the favored within our society do. This only perpetuates the oppression and creates a victory for those who oppose us.

Every form of government has been infected with the corruption of power. To claim that capitalism has not fallen prey to the same type of corruption as communism is to ignore the so many who are suffering due to how this system is abused. Individual rights and responsibilities can be achieved but not as long as oppressive officials, oppressive laws, and oppressive forms of government are supported.

One example that shows me the way those who govern the experiment known as the United States respond to their public in ways that are contrary to equal rights and equal responsibilities are the ways that we maintain our system of warehousing people.

In the State within the United States where a large percentage of people were found to be innocent of their crime after they were executed for that crime has also provided the nation with their governor. Now that he is president, I have watched him act in the same corrupt manner.

The are an alarming percentage of wrongful executions in the U.S. that are the result of the accused being unable to secure what is considered adequate counsel. What is considered adequate council has been completely misrepresented to the public in similar ways that the nation has also been taught to believe in a nonexistent middle class. The poverty line is drawn to include the majority of residents in this nation of wealth. If adequate counsel can't be secured by the majority of people how can we say that our council does anything other than provide us with the privilege of buying our way out of unfair treatment.

How can our justice system evaluate individuals and individual situations when our very laws and justice system are some of the biggest contributors to that nations lack of justice? How can societal norms not also be affected by this level of official miscarriage of justice?

The US is reported to warehouse a larger percentage of people than any other nation. Because so many in the United States are not factored into any statistic we also have a lot of people who are in extremely bad situations that may be placed in one of these human warehouses if their conditions become no longer tolerable and they seek better provisions.

The freedoms that people within the United States claim to have can only be seen as bought privileges by those who can't afford them.

Not affording these so-called rights financially is very similar to not being able to afford them with the freedom to act, speak, and assert oneself in the ways that those who are more favored do.

As an autistic person, I have been in many situations where autistic people are not only given less opportunities to assert themselves due to the differences in the ways that we communicate and how that can be misunderstood, but we are also stereotyped as being aggressive and/or violent when we are not at all that way as a group. This mischaracterization often conveniently can and does lead to some of the worst types of unfair judgements.

The warehouses that have been defined by the U.S. justice system as correctional institutions have become an extension of how minority races are housed in the worst part of cities and talked about as this being their "place". Autistics along with those who have many neurological disorders, psychiatric and psychological diagnosis's, learning disabilities, and people who are homeless and considered to be unable to care for themselves (which includes people who have never been taught differently or are seen as being unworthy of such teaching) are all being warehoused in mental institutions and the like that have worse conditions than jails.

These institutions are considered correctional facilities for many who have committed no crime and pose no threat. These institutions are in no way hospitals other than the fact that they can collect money from Medicare and Medicaid, and they may be required to employ more medical staff. Our nations luxurious conveniences won't stay hidden.

My personal philosophy includes seeing turnabout as an unethical means of governing individuals or groups. I also don't think that the phrase "Turnabout is fair play" can be practically used as a method of creating justice with individuals until there is a lot more fairness for how groups or categories of people are treated.

Revised and edited at 5:45 P.M. Eastern Standard U.S. time Monday 8/7/'08

The Sweet Smell of Creativity

2008-07-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

All that is considered organic can and does emit gases. :] Some of those gases are more pleasant smelling than others but they all provide proof of activity. Even what begins to die, in some ways, creates new activity that we can recognize by it's scent.

The thing is that we all must contend with the activity in our environment. The activity that gives us the most joy as well as most aggravation can come from the other humans in our environment. No matter how much we may try to avoid certain people or certain aspects of how some people behave, our attempts at trying to escape the patterns that make us uncomfortable often carve a path directly to what we were hoping it was possible to ignore. This can create a new beginning for those who are in search of one.

The efforts made to protect a piece of wood with paint or stain is similar to the glazing and preservation of a piece of clay. This application does not protect the life of these things but rather it stops their life and becomes a representation of a life that once was. This memorable representation may last longer but it is no longer pliable to the elements of its environment.

People on the other hand are not only meant to be the representation of a memory that we want to keep alive but we are meant to act independently as well as respond to our environment. Doing nothing more with how we treat a living person than attempting to preserve their memory of what we wish them to be is not only futile but it creates fragile situations with breakage that can cause terrible consequences.

I think it's natural for someone whose life is chaotic (no matter how it got that way) to attempt to create structure where ever they can. If this structure can create a path of allowing for more encouraging and more creativity then I think that it is a very useful tool. Even requesting and encouraging people to respond in predictable ways with you specifically that provide boundaries for everyone involved can be a very productive and useful tool for encouraging opportunity and growth.

If instead this attempt at predictability is used to stifle or prevent growth by someone who has perceived power or a stifling method of oppression over someone else, then this will do nothing more than create rigidity and frustration for everyone involved.

Not many autistics (anymore than anyone else) probably want or need to be seen as weak or immature based on the environment we do best in. The structure in our lives can define the best ways that we can do things without needing to have some arbitrary and demeaning adjective that defines who we are as people.

Stifling growth is the opposite of providing structure. Instead, it makes sense to define the boundaries that will encourage creativity, responsibility, and the kind of maturity that allows for autistics and everyone else to provide for others in the best way we can.

When other people whose lives are more chaotic (which may include inner turmoil from undefined sources) attempt to create what they see as structure, they may have a confused view of what real structure (or the kind of structure that promotes creativity and growth) looks like. When people are feeling unnecessarily and overwhelmingly controlled by their circumstances they may focus their dissatisfaction and the disillusionment that accompanies it toward the entity they have chosen to view as the source of happiness or lack of it.

Goals then get set in rigid ways and the people who set them as well as the people expected to reach them can break under the pressure.

Everyone needs to be provided with ways to experience the fresh renewing scents that accompany structured and supported growth. Sometimes children are born without the attributes we may have hoped for or they don't achieve the goals we set for them in the way or the time that we had hoped. People come into everyones life like that at all ages. When this happens, it may be time to redefine the sweet smell of success as being more about being satisfied and happy with the achievements that we and others actually can and do make toward what we ourselves think is important instead of just depending on the attainment and achievement of unrealistic and unnecessary goals that society defines for us as our primary source of all that we call good and pleasant.

Shocking

2008-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

As I have learned about the recent statements made by shock jock Michael Savage about autism, I have been thinking about how shock jocks have evolved over the past 30 years and what their appeal has been with their audience.

Growing up near Washington DC and having my first FM radio station choices as being WASH and DC 101, I must admit that DC 101 had more appeal to most teenagers I knew at the time because WASH was pretty boring (soft rock just isn't rock....it just isn't).

Howard Stern gained notoriety as the morning DJ at DC 101 during the mid-to late 1970s. The station was also home to Don Imus at around the same time. Howard Stern left his post and made room for The Grease Man who was every bit as shocking as Howard though his humor added a touch of subtlety to his crudeness.

All three of these men have been fired from jobs for going too far with who they insulted and how. I don't think any of them were what most would consider tame 30 years ago, but certainly today the tolerance level described as "too far" is higher than it was then and more gets tolerated.

In order to maintain their audience, I think it was necessary to continually strive to go a little further with their insults of any and all types of people they saw as vulnerable easy targets.

I just learned about who Michael Savage was this past week when he made his outrageous insulting comments about autistics, their parents, and several other groups.

My best guess is that Michael felt that his audience may originally feel some discomfort about his statements but agreed that there was enough validity in what he was saying to be accepting of his typically rude and crude nature.

After all, his audience expects to be shocked by what he says. Too often I hear people's comments about such speech sounding like, "I agree he went too far and how he said it was wrong, but you have to admit that what he says is all too true." That attitude is all too prevalent in today's society, and I find it very upsetting.

I see Rush Limbaugh as having the same hold on his audience as Savage does on his. It seems to me to be a type of guilty pleasure that accompanies an all too cavalier attitude toward very serious issues that are seen as "all too true" when really they are seen this way only because of the spin that they are described with.

This is my message to Savage about his comments concerning autism:

Mr. Savage,

Your insensitive, outrageous, and absurd insults about autistics and our families have angered many in the autistic community.

You're speech has been amplified, and you're right to it has been protected by the public who have chosen to listen to your show. What you may not have thought of is how many autistics and our friends and family are part of the public that purchases what your sponsor's offer.

While you may feel that it is your responsibility as a shock jock to continually find newer and more offensive ways to insult those whom you feel are inferior, you may have underestimated the resilience, strength, and influence these people have.

Choosing to find ways to validate your exclusionary, survivalist methods of self gratification and the ways by which you intimidate your listeners into emulating your behavior with attacks on those whom you choose to see as inferior targets before you all get attacked by those you define as superior will never elevate your status on the imaginary ladder that you all have been disillusioned by.

While you may see yourself as a defender and promoter of goodwill, I hope you will reflect on the ways you have been disrespectful to the autistic community and find better ways to express yourself in the future.

If the sponsors of your show and the public who are consumers of their products and services are not able to discourage you from making further insults, I hope you will at least remember that even you will eventually reach a point where you are unable to meet the unreasonably exclusive standards you attempt to set for others.

Honorable Mention

2008-07-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

The methods that are used to categorize people can sometimes be very useful. It can give people a sense of belonging and provide the comfort of knowing that they're not alone. What isn't necessary and what creates problems is when a population of people has their category devalued in ways that can often just as easily be described as different. If different people make typical people uncomfortable, change is less likely.

Valuing difference threatens some people because what they themselves do and who they are that is more typical would also then have to be seen by them and others to be less valuable. This difference that threatens them is often really their own and they are caught up in a value system that is (at least for the moment) providing them with confidence and reassurance (however false it may be).

This unnecessary method of exclusion and oppression is very much a method that affects autistics. We are not uniquely excluded from a system that judges others fairly. In fact quite the contrary is true. I don't think any human who is in some way different than what is considered typical is not marginalized in some ways by our differences.

When the aspects of our difference gets targeted as what can and must be eliminated these unrealistic value judgments serve as justification for punishment. All human traits are present in every person, or they are potentially present. Therefore, trying to eliminate or fix what you can't completely define puts everyone at risk of being unfairly judged.

Sometimes I hear people who are advocating for autistic people describing our place in society as what I would call that of being worthy of honorable mention. I hear this being said in ways that to me sound like saying something that gives the impression that low functioning autistics can be pitied and made to be tolerable and high functioning people need to be responsible for how they act in ways that society sees as inappropriate (no matter how inappropriate this judgment is).

This is not reserved for autistics at all but this screwed up value system often gets amplified when it comes to how autistics get treated.

I have worked at jobs that paid one dollar a day or even worse. I have been shown a statement of my earnings that said my wages went entirely for my "care" while I was at work. That is not at all like going for on-the-job training. Working at such jobs is what they are training people to remain doing.

I've also been taken out of such programs when it was seen that my appearance and social skills didn't accurately describe my competency level (for people who view things in this way) and placed in another program that I couldn't even be trained for because of abilities I don't have. This amplifies their objective to me. Training and accommodations for certain types of people is often rejected because of "the gate" that it is said to open for others with similar difficulties being seen as expensive.

Of course the problem is that these people who make such exclusionary judgments waste their resources. The biggest resource they waste is the people they exclude.

Another example of wasteful exclusions based on societies wrongful methods of determining value are how the owners of companies collect cooperate welfare (often with very little of their profits that filtering down to their employees) without being shamed by the public while those who often work harder against greater difficulties are provided handouts and shamed by the public by being defined as lazy beggars.

Value judgments that determine status can also determine a lot of inappropriate punishments that are considered lawful but are quite unjust. Once a person establishes themselves in society their behavior is often seen quite differently.

A cashier at Exxon that skims money from their bank roll may be doing this to feed their family and been convicted without an opportunity to acquire the adequate counsel so that they even have a chance at defending themselves based on their financial means. On the other hand a banker who does something similar for much less honorable reasons may be excused based on their ability to acquire a defense and even if convicted only get sent to a white collar prison/resort.

I can't imagine anyone believing that there are many real "entry level jobs" or shoe string business's that provide a real hand-up as I've heard it referred to by many people. Believing in such things is silly. If more such things were available more people would eventually be employed at better jobs after using such jobs as stepping stones. These "opportunities" are designed with an entirely different purpose in mind.

If reading this seems depressing, it's not intended that way. My point is that our class system is made up of ridiculous and often harmful judgments that create the marginalization of many minorities and persons with disabilities. This is what I see as the basis for the marginalization of autistics. This can be more easily turned around than many other obstacles.

I don't think that it's helpful or wise to tell an autistic person that they can be protected by the law only if they are also seen as deserving pity. It doesn't make much sense either to provide them with a goal of attaining the opposite status of a "normal" acting person that is capable of being taught to behave in socially acceptable and clearly understandable ways either. That doesn't inspire me. Who are we really being asked to protect and who gets hurt as a result of our efforts? What types of values are we being asked to justify and who's benefiting?

All such thinking protects is a protection system that is too wrapped up in a warped set of values to see real justice as it ought to be and too irresponsible to change.

Teaching people inappropriate values does not prepare them for the "real" world. Too often those who teach such values are simply preparing autistic people to live in a world that "they" have decided is real in order to protect their own (the teacher's) image and status. You can't expect people to accept the "real" image that you define for them if your number one priority isn't building their confidence and self respect. I also believe your respect for them is shown by the respect you show for other autistics.

Autistics just like everyone else can and do abuse the privilege of being treated respectfully but also like everyone else we deserve to have the right to ruin our lives without the aid of others.

Mentioning people as valid vs. invalid based on how they are configured honors no one.

I also don't think that anyone benefits from dividing people of any configuration by seeing part of that population as being in need of pity and reform. Most people who receive more essential things like respect and encouragement never need these things. What support we do need is a natural extension of the respect and encouragement we are shown.

Human Dignity

2008-07-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

I don't believe that anyone is born without a healthy way of seeing ourselves and all others as having intrinsic worthiness. Hanging upside down and nude in a room full of people and getting smacked on your rear may not be the best way to start things off. For those of us who were circumcised, I'm thinking that wasn't a real confidence builder either.

Throughout our lives, how we are treated and how we are taught to view ourselves and others in terms of many unnecessary and unreasonable comparisons of worth shapes our self image. How what we are provided with by nature in the beginning of our lives is nurtured will make a dramatic impact on our abilities and equally or more important our self image by which we express those abilities.

Wikipedia defines human dignity as it relates to human rights (which is how I'm referring to it in this post) this way:

When this concept is associated with the adjective "human", it is used to signify that all human beings possess intrinsic worthiness and deserve unconditional respect, regardless of age, sex, health status, social or ethnic origin, political ideas, religion, or criminal history. If violated, this can be considered discrimination. In other words, this respect is owed to every individual by the mere fact that he or she is a "member of the human family" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Preamble). This intrinsic worthiness is widely recognized by international law as the source of all human rights. In this respect, both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966 affirm that human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person”.

There are few things that I believe more strongly than the human rights that “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person” of everyone (and especially autistic people) is too often discouraged and that there is a fundamental and very needed change for how all (and especially autistic people) are seen that will best create and provide for the respect of our human rights.

I have not seen or experienced autistic people being mistreated in less than extreme ways and extreme changes are needed. Watered down neutral views toward extreme violations of human rights is a sharp sword that people too often fall on.

I believe that many societal views of human worth are too often based on what someone can provide in the way of financial support, by way of social and networking skills, and by way of breeding stock. When someone is thought of as not being a good provider in these areas or not likely to be able to gain a lot of ability in these areas, they are more likely to be provided with fewer human rights.

If autistics fall into any or all of these categories (as some of us do) the view of our value is lessened and how we are then treated follows. First of all, fewer people need to be seen this way because too much of too many peoples potential is being wasted. Also, this system that devalues the view of peoples worth needs to change for every ones sake. We all deserve better.

When people are placed in poor housing and human warehouses, human dignity is the most valuable resource and the most difficult to attain. Financial means, education, and training can have a big effect on turning this problem around but not until people change their attitudes about people who are caught up in the cycle.

It seems to me that sometimes people look at others with what are considered the fewest tangible resources as victims of their own ignorance. It's too often thought that such people have so many personal issues that they can't be accessed on a personal level by others.

I'm not saying that such a view is not based in any kind of reality . I think that the number of relationship dynamics that divide people that have resources from others who don't would naturally seem overwhelming to both groups. What I am saying is that there is a cyclic dynamic involved that isn't necessary. Whatever combination of struggles someone has had relating to both internal conflict and unreasonable circumstances has a multitude of layers of what they have become that makes the judgment by others as to why someone is where they are to be impractical, silly, and often mean.

When society starts seeing populations of people as lacking intrinsic value and being disposable, every human trait is devalued and all humans with more resources along with others with less are devalued.

I think the view that resources of caring and providing human dignity for others being limited is the most limiting view of all. Re-creating self respect, providing, and securing more people with human dignity can solve many problems associated with all people lacking many other resources.

Behavioral Standards and Mysteries

2008-07-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes what or who I see is no more mysterious than the mysteriously based way I choose how to look at it or them.

If I need my what to be a piece of furniture like a couch or a chair I don't want it to move. When I go to sit down, I want things to be just the way I have known them to be. I don't want to take a lot of time to research all the aspects of a chair and how it can be creatively influenced. I want it to be a functional staple in my environment that I can depend on.

My particular sensory issues that contribute to my directional deficits often have me reverting back to something or somewhere that I know very well. As far as locations, I can get lost very easily even in places that are familiar to me. I can become easily distracted by subtle changes to my environment and then get lost.

When I visit the neurologist and am tested for knowing which is my right hand and which is my left, if I'm stressed I sometimes have to look. (My wife and I have matching wedding ring tattoos on our left hand so that's how I check).

While it may seem to the casual observer that I am obsessive about predictability, it's actually knowing where to find things that allows me to be creative. When I misplace my structural cues or others move them, I'm less likely to find a creative means for defining and therefore influencing my circumstances.

While I leave the critical evaluation of the specific formal use of ABA treatments to those who have studied all the facts about such programs, I am in a position to critique how autistic behaviors are generally misinterpreted and how that leads to mistreatment in formal as well as informal settings.

The ways that I have seen and experienced this in more formal settings has been worse than many of the informal settings because in formal settings behavior adjusters are given a license to abuse and even kill. The lack of formality and the license that it provides can at least provide the opportunity for such things to be seen as illegal.

My experience with this license has shown itself to not have many limitations and I have seen the extremes of its uses. It's not difficult for me to imagine the kinds of abuses that are reported about the practitioners of what is specifically called ABA therapy.

Sometimes I find the ways that people judge the methods an autistic person uses to determine or seek more structure in their environment as being manipulative, demanding, or selfish when it's not factored in why that person may need the structure they seek more than someone else that is more suited to what is typical.

If autistic people weren't individuals with individual circumstances that (like everyone) made inappropriate and unjust choices, then we wouldn't be human.

My point is that the key to working to be more inclusive of people who may choose different and sometimes even inappropriate ways to get their environmental needs met needs to start with understanding what their needs are and then finding out if there can be accommodations or exchanges made to provide for those needs. Trying to change reactions (no matter how amplified) to unnecessary stimulus is disruptive at best.

I think it's also important to remember that once someone who has different needs does have them provided for they may and often are very motivated to provide more of what they have to offer to others. Especially, when this is a very new and liberating experience for them. When motivation is judged prematurely and in overly strict ways, many possibilities for positive change are stifled.

Behavior analysts (professional or otherwise) need to look at more than someones reaction to any given set of circumstances that actually could just be illiminated. They need to look at what may be accomplished by removing the stimulus. Otherwise, they are likely to contribute to (or even set off) a reactionary cycle that they are the ones that need to be responsible for preventing.

Anyone claiming to be using one particular set of standardized tests to judge behavior must be very careful to also consider how the negative influences they have been exposed to of cultural bias can negatively influence their judgment.

If behavior is automatically seen as aberrant and defiant without further consideration, the analyzer and the analyzed are given few ways to creatively move forward.

In this case I'm saying with much power comes much responsibility. Therefore, if someone's status in life has been elevated to the position of setting standard rules for what behavior "should" be, judging peoples behavior based on those standards, and they are then given the license to influence the behavior of those they evaluate, their views and methods must be critiqued and challenged to prevent them from abusing their authority.

As society becomes more sophisticated with how weapons and the people who use them are designed, I think it becomes even more important to find the most peaceful and humane means of teaching and influencing people who will ultimately determine our future.

Interactive Learning

2008-07-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

As a person develops, the need to be open and aware of our surroundings never lessens. Awareness is expressed in many ways by many different people. The awareness of interactive learning can and should be exciting in a positive way.

Sometimes I hear people speak about growing up in what I see are terribly overly strict terms. Even more so than when they speak of growing scholastically, the growth in terms of social skills is expected by a certain date and time. Maturing physically and based on the number of years that someone is alive, we decide what that person should know and therefore how they should act. This experience can be counterproductive to the teacher of these skills as well as the student when the goal becomes more important than the means.

Autistic people are highly prone to being victims of abuse.

Sometimes I hear the reason for these regulations and strict methods of teaching people to develop what they consider civilized behaviors justified by lack of time and or money that is required to provide for each grower/learner in a way that is directly according to his or her need. So they need to be uncivilized in how they teach it for expediency sake???? twisted....

This becomes a mind numbing growth retarding cycle when life is seen and taught as a cruel, dog eat dog, social Darwinist, demand for attitudes that offend in order to defend ones self. This stifles everyone's awareness and demands that we always be on stage (so to speak) and never vulnerable enough to understand what we see.

While there are many factors to consider with each person due to heredity, altering experiences and injuries, and the aspects of someone's psychosocial development, how we view learners, treat them, and allow them to learn about us and their other surroundings will make a difference in how their awareness develops. A teacher's ego can only be displayed for so long until they have to recharge. In other words, when your shields are up you may be protected from others, but you're also protected from what you need....which includes being aware of how your abuse of others hurts them as well as yourself.

Maybe the fluttering of butterfly wings changing the atmosphere on the other side of the globe is somewhat of an extreme example of how we all interact with our environment in ways that affect it. However, too often we choose combative reactionary modes of defense toward otherwise ethically neutral behaviors that we just don't understand. Mis characterizing behaviors as bad won't make them better.

Can a learners behavior indicate they are asking to get attention? I would say so. If they are starved for attention, I would ask myself why. Sometimes older teaching people and people who are considered more mature are just more skillful in their methods of manipulation. What confuses me though is if someone is attempting to gain something by manipulative methods, wouldn't being more skillful at that make them actually less mature?

What people want when they abuse someone who is more vulnerable is something they can't have because they can't see the person they're abusing. Not really. They're not aware of their victim's feelings in ways that can benefit them. This shields them from seeing what is good about themselves too. Basically what I'm saying is they can't receive what they are trying to steal. It's an illusion.

You can't teach appropriate behavior by behaving inappropriately. You can't bring about awareness in others without being aware. They may be able to see what you're doing but a teachers abuse is always a part of the process of shutting down and aggravating everyone's emotions.

There is no lack of resources when it comes to the awareness that can create positive change. When people use and abuse others to temporarily and conveniently hide what they themselves are not willing to learn....we all pay for their convenience.

Ethical Governing

2008-07-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

I have said before and still believe that challenging policy and social rules is a way that Democratic citizenship can best be expressed. At the very least I would say that the United States as it is seen as the most powerful nation on earth must be much more responsible as the one who holds that position than it is. Whether it has done better than other nations with similar responsibility is not so much a factor to consider for me as the fact that aspects of how things are done in the United States need to be continually inspected, investigated, and challenged if necessary.

As a part of the autistic online community, I feel some obligation to others within the community to share some personal aspects about myself as to what qualifies me and my judgment as something that others need to listen to as valid. I may however be less forthcoming about such things.

Sometimes I should my way out of doing that. What I mean by that is that I don't think that I or anyone should have to adhere to all the unnecessary and sometimes ridiculous social mores that afford us the privilege of having our expressions validated. Without an expression being acknowledged or recognized as valid it makes no impact on anyone else's situation. Being constantly reminded that your expressions aren't valid often discourages people from exploring the impact they can have. This is a waste that no society can afford.

I know there may be some rules of convention that everyone must adhere to in order to be entitled to have their voice heard and I know I also don't believe that anyone who achieves this status that provides them a better platform from which to speak should be deprived of what anyone else with less unfairly judged characteristics is afforded. However, I am mainly an advocate for learning from what is expressed by anyone no matter the typical methods that are more traditionally used to evaluate whether any person is seen as worthy of having their expressions recognized as valuable.

As I hope I have made it clear in my blog posts, I have no formal education, specialized knowledge, nor do I hold any position that would typically afford me the privilege of having what I say seen as valid. I maintain the position that there are many valid expressions that are not regarded as such because of typical standards. I would like to see that change.

I do not believe that any government is rightfully in the position of issuing human rights and then deciding weather those rights will be denied by them. Instead I believe that those who were appointed or elected to positions of government are there to protect the rights of its citizens based on what they (the citizens) see is ethical. The US government contradicts the very documents they claim are the foundations for how they are to govern when they deny citizens ethical treatment and force unethical treatment upon their own people as well as people in other countries.

Beyond human rights of basic survival, the efforts that are made to discourage people from our right to earn more rights based on the responsibility we take is a way to suppress our voice and therefore our rights as people. Too many provisions for people in need can't accurately be described as the biggest part of the problem until people with less means can see their opportunities coming from responsible parties that truly want to see them succeed more than they wish to maintain and protect their bigoted view that oppressed populations choose their fate and aren't capable and/or worthy of success. At least it would be helpful if people didn't see their own government working to show our failures as what defines us as people.

I see the demand for having our severity of symptoms and hardship described constantly as a badge of being in the most need and being the most deserving of aid used as a tool to keep oppressed people from desiring to succeed or expressing their ability and talent. That is really twisted. (twisted....that's my new word. :) )

This also turns us against others who are in similar need of provisions as we are. Division can be a powerful means of oppression.

One of the rights that I feel is a human right that is protected within the Constitution of the United States is the right to free speech. A closer adherence to enforcing laws that protect that right would in turn bring about many other ethical changes that are needed as well. I don't believe anyone has that right until everyone does. Otherwise it's not a right but a privilege that is royally protected by and for royals. There are certain social standards of hierarchy that would at this point only allow for the votes of our nation's most prominent citizens.

I don't see a very broad group of people being asked to express how they feel about the policies in the United States that govern how they live, what is expected of them, and what if anything they can expect in terms of preventing their own government from violating their basic human rights. When too many people who really do care about the welfare of all others and are afforded the privilege of making decisions about the welfare of everyone are also under the mistaken impression that most peoples views actually are being expressed and factored into the decisions that govern their lives, dangerous exclusive decision making habits are formed. Just as fewer voices can take a negative path, encouraging more can have a positive one.

I don't see the provision of civil liberties as a type of treatment that is needing to begin at home (home being defined as the U.S.). If people don't stay at home then they don't really have one do they? While agencies like the United Nations have often not acted in ethical ways, neither have many governments who had the power to change things and didn't. World agencies don't need to dissolve borders in order to make and enforce policies that protect human rights and no nation or agency should enforce policies on others who just think differently. How overly idealistic civil liberties may seem can't be seen as a way to discard our need to try and change things for the better in the ways that we actually can.

Few are regarded as a contributing members of American society. How could a nation rise to this level of power and not regard the majority of its citizens as contributing to its success? I would say that this rise to power has often been rather ruthless and that needs to change for the very survival of our nation.

The only people who truly have rights to the land we live on are Native Americans or Indians. Stealing something doesn't make it yours. It just makes it something you have temporary control of. Many nationalities of people have come to the United States and contributed with little or no regard for their human rights. Many were forcibly brought here. Their lack of being acknowledged as valued members of this society has often afforded them little or no voice. No one in positions of power and governmental authority has been provided their position by any type of fair means that affords them the right to deny these people that voice.

I think it's clear to most people by now that our method of financial exchange does not allow for financial means to trickle down to the masses. What too often does trickle down are the attitudes of our most powerful and influential leaders that don't serve us but instead serve those leaders.

I believe that the laws that are written in the Constitution of the United States of America do provide for the ethical treatment of all people in this country. I believe in the people that are here. I believe that if the masses of people are allowed to vote on policies that there will be a positive change that allows for and encourages the responsibility that provides for all peoples well being.

Of course those who are defined as having superior intelligence and are seen as being more valuable contributing members of society do not validate the right for us all to be treated in more ethically and humane ways. The questions I have are: Why would anyone or any attribute that anyone has be needed to validate anyones ethical treatment. Why must ethical treatment be designated to any person or group of people?

I advocate for anyone who is fighting for better and more ethical and humane treatment of all people to be allowed to express this view and for it to be recognized.

I am expressing my own personal views here and they are not meant to reflect the views of anyone else.

I advocate for the rights of unfairly oppressed populations to be allowed a voice that provides for not only our human rights and our ethical treatment but also for our opportunity to be responsible for our own lives so that we can succeed or fail based on merit and our willingness rather than unclear and unfair judgments that describe our worth as people.

Crazy Consumption

2008-07-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I want to get my point across really bad I try to consider what it must be like to say something without who I am getting in the way. Maybe that's not very realistic. There aren't many ways that who anyone is won't speak louder than what they say based on most hierarchical methods people use to evaluate what someone has to offer. Few people seem to feel that there is time to look past their swift and often superficial evaluation of anyone.

It often seems that many people choose their sources of information similar to the ways they choose their clothes and the other outward symbols they use to define who they are. Whatever we see or hear that doesn't serve what we can foresee to be our immediate future is often seen as a bad investment.

We invest our time and our money in what we see as valuable. When our values get twisted it can prompt us to view some people as being not much more than a product to buy, sell, or trade and too much of how those people ARE valuable can gets lost in how they may translate their thoughts in less typical ways. It seems to me that too much of what we all can learn from gets contained within the minds and thoughts of those people whom too many people never listen to. The unique expression of those thoughts and the development of the thoughts, expressions, and people who have them are too often discouraged.

No one is without having original ideas and creative thoughts at any age or in any other ways people are categorized. The belief to the contrary makes a consumer driven society impractical and wasteful of many expressions, and ultimately it makes every evaluating member of that society a disposable product.

If all we see ourselves as being nothing more than what we can commercially and politically acquire or manipulate, it can make others with less means of this acquisition or manipulative ability seem less valuable as being someone worthy of us knowing.

While 100 years ago there was less congestion and less sophisticated forms of weaponry, I really don't believe that people were any less crazy (as in people choosing inappropriate pathological means for solving problems) or were any less impaired in cognitive ways.

In whatever ways technology or sophisticated speech has aided our impaired abilities in these areas, I believe we have also done as much harm with them as well.

What seems to be our insatiable appetite for the best of products and services has also made all services of all people a product that can then be what I see as a tool to create wide division between what is worshiped and what is disposable. Following the path of wanting to become someone that is commercially and politically worshiped can also lead people to offering themselves as sacrifices to the development of an unworthy hierarchical view of these gods.

When the lights go out a person who's blind may be the most valuable resource to site oriented people because they have had to use resources that we haven't and that are now needed.

The senses that some people with these restrictions have developed from having lived life in a very different way is sometimes a valuable resource that others can learn from. The ways that they have had to adapt to a world that was less designed for their capabilities can also aid them in developing other senses that teach them valuable life lessons that they would likely not learn otherwise.

These lessons won't have an immediate commercial price tag for those who want to learn them. Instead it can only be valued by the worth that each person places on their own time and efforts, and what they really wish to gain from how they spend those resources.

I wish this were the way that all such people with what are described as impairments were initially considered to be useful or that it was at least considered that this may at least be something uniquely valuable about them and what they may have to offer.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that's the case often enough. This is not so these people would be classified as more worthy of understanding and respect than average but at this point I see the scales dramatically tilted in the other direction.

Angels and receptacles of pity aren't respected either. That's just another method people use to avoid the entire configuration of who people are and what they have to offer without having to confront their maladjusted prejudices of the so-called defects that people have that make them (the viewer/evaluator) uncomfortable.

What people experience based on sensing life in different ways can be a valuable resource for the development of everyone's senses that can make us all more sensitive and caring for all life. These views that some so-called impaired people have developed are too often not explored and this can encourage all such others with these impairments to be seen as disposable people.

If craziness as it is seen as an impairment is more prevalent today I believe that it has more to do with the campaigns to market crazy healing and promote the careers of crazy healers. This hardly stimulates the economy when so many are left in the path of it's destruction because the ideal is used to make too many harsh and critical judgments that devalue and exclude them.

What I see as being the best way to produce better humans is to encourage more humanity within ourselves as that relates to caring about others and to learn to delay our initial commercial and political evaluation of their worth. Our sophistication can best be evaluated based on how we develop the aspects of who we are that are really important. The means we use to encourage better relationship skills and more socially acceptable behaviors (that are often nothing more than how they are defined at any given time and place) need a lot further evaluation as to what our priorities really are. This is a key ingredient to our sanity and our preservation.

Another View of Behavior Management

2008-06-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Although I am aware that my dissatisfaction with how a computer works is my own personal issue, I sometimes have to remind myself that the computer doesn't have the ability to do something other than what I tell it. I really wish that it could be blamed for being abhorrent, deceptive, and manipulative but of course these behaviors are human.

People are always much more complex than computers. We act and think in totally random ways, have a multitude of inconsistencies, and often insist on including others to help with punishing ourselves in whatever ways we ourselves feel we need to be punished. All people are that way to some degree even if they reason in a different way than is considered typical such as may be the case with an autistic person.

I don't think that humans are ever more complex than when we choose to hurt others within our own species. Although I don't completely understand it, it seems to have something to do with someone's internal process of protection that gets acted out in a twisted way against those who were more convenient, vulnerable, and accessible rather than against their true enemy. Sometimes it even seems that their enemy is revered in a way that promotes their repeating of that person's behavior.

The need to do this seems like the most complicated and detrimental aspect of our humanness.

I guess no one who is involved in interpersonal relationships can completely avoid that kind of communal grooming but when it turns into a pattern with harmful and even destructive consequences, I think people need to discourage it (even go so far as to write a blog post about it).

If autistic people really were less than human and soulless shells (as it seems we are too often described), I don't believe that we would really bring out strong emotions in others at all. I think it would be quite easy to ignore us and exterminate us.... and I don't see that as being an easy task at all. : )

I don't know what it would look like for the majority of people in charge of promoting the best behavior for autistic people if they primarily had our best interests at heart because that isn't what I have seen and experienced.

My best way of understanding why someone wants my behavior to change is by looking at which behaviors they choose as the ones they feel need to be changed, what their motivation seems to be when they attempt this, but mainly what seems to me to be what really aggravates them about what I'm doing and why they believe that anyone else would be aggravated by this.

The majority of behaviors that people seem to want to change in autistic people are not what is best for us but what makes the people we are directly involved with uncomfortable and maybe even what they are convinced that others will be uncomfortable with. This lack of their comfort is puzzling. : )

How ever it may seem that we are not understanding situations that involve other people does not mean that we don't understand the world. Sometimes it means to me that someone's actions are completely contradictory to what I feel would be practical and effective behavior. Not understanding something also does not mean that the responsibility to learn to interact with others needs to be completely ours anymore than it is with anyone else.

I don't see how anyone who wants to interact with another person can place the entire responsibility on the person they want interact with and not be willing to have some introspection about how they themselves may be acting that may seem to that person to be impractical, indirect, or contradictory to what they claim is their purpose. To punish someone for what is seen to simply be "their" lack of understanding crosses some serious boundaries for me.

So, why do people take such extreme measures to get rid of behaviors that don't look good or are uncomfortable to those around us? What values is this kind of treatment encouraging in anyone? Are those who are receiving this treatment really being spared the kind of pruning and exclusion that the rest of society will ultimately subject us to otherwise or has the means of the objective of this treatment been lost within an unreasonable amount of effort being used to eliminate a problem in a convenient way? Are people choosing that convenience rather than taking the extra time and effort to evaluate their own emotions and objectives to see if they are really doing what is best for everyone?

I think some people who take unfair advantage of others can only learn if they are being aided in punishing themselves. Sometimes it seems like this is the only language they understand. Their understanding of life often seems to me to be very shallow and their means for dealing with life seems very temporary and convenient. Their lack of understanding what they see seems to be more of a deficit of compassion rather than of intellect.

The shame that results from their cycle of abuse seems to be the primary motivating force for their lives. The only lasting change comes when they are able to look past the flat-isms of their unrealistic beliefs and overly strict performance evaluations that obstruct their view and limit their understanding of the real world.

I believe that those of us who are most directly affected by the maladjusted views of these people who have been infected by their personal and often unbearable emotional turmoil need to closely examine the effect their misbehavior has on us as well as on themselves. If they cannot be saved from themselves, we cannot allow them to infect the rest of us.

If those who abuse others can't adjust to healthier ways of expressing themselves, and we don't find a way to adjust their behaviors or avoid them, we may all be subjected to the designs of their prisons.

How Good We Ought to Be

2008-06-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

As the organization Autism Speaks continues to use their political and financial muscle to silence the voices of autistic people (as seen here), I am reminded of just how misleading their claims to serve autistic people really are.

While many people who are seen as having different types of mental impairments are often lumped into the same group for many purposes, at times I've seen people who are primarily diagnosed as having mental illness or learning disabilities being more likely to have their mistreatment justified as punishment for their behavior that is described more in pathological terms as bad or wrong and sometimes those with disorders that are seen to be more neurological in origin will be more pitied for what is seen as their misbehavior.

However, once anyone shows themself to be overly able to interact personally with those who need to convieniently keep anyone with substandard behavior at arms length, their behavior automatically gets described in pathological ways and therefore punished accordingly. Some people don't want us to get too close for fear they will see in us too many aspects of themselves.

When so many children were seen as having ADD beginning a few decades ago, it was decided that amphetamines and dietary changes would aid in their learning and behavioral problems. In many ways I see this as a gateway to how so many autistics are seen and treated now.

Also, in a similar way to those drug and dietary treatments, behaviorism isn't a new way to treat autistics at all. It's now just more isolated, defined, and marketed as being a more humane form of treatment than it was previously.

Punishment therapy however has been the primary means of dealing with the entire population of people who are considered mentally impaired (in whatever ways) for a long time. However it sometimes gets sugarcoated, behavioral treatments begin with the negative aspects of what others see in someone rather than who any person really is which one can only see by looking beyond how they are responding to their environment at any given time.

Contrary to some popular beliefs, we don't become people only after we have had our behaviors evaluated and adjusted. It seems like some people tend to forget that all people really start out being people when we are born. There aren't any standard methods of any behavior that a child can exhibit that make them more that way.

Whatever goals may be achieved by working backwards from the outside in (so to speak) I think we need to discourage any means of attaining behavioral changes that can be terribly abused and justified by defining it as a means of some sort of treatment.

Whenever I hear the story of Helen Keller it is usually described in a couple of ways. One way that it is described is by emphasizing what a triumphant and overcoming hero Helen was. The other is by emphasizing what a patient and diligent therapist she had. While both of these women are due this respect, I think they miss the boat entirely when they confine what is important about her story to either one of these descriptions of these people. To me the most important thing about Helen's story that should be emphasized is that people who are seen to have impairments have so much to offer that is often not accepted or understood.

The key to understanding people is to keep our humanness first and foremost as the priority for how we should be viewed and therefore worked with. Too often we who are seen as disabled are not at all like people think or we don't become what we want to be and could be because it can be difficult for any oppressed population to break out of a stereotype weather those within that population have impairments beyond societies view of them or not.

So the question that I have is: Does society want this population to be empowered? If so, how many methods of discouraging this empowerment that are currently being used are others within the general population willing to accept as part of the problem and how willing are they to work toward changing them?

Mentally impaired people are more likely abused than other populations of disabled people. What I am reminded of though, is how few number of incidents of abuse that are carried out against this population are ever reported. If we are ever even listened to (which is rare), we are taught in harsh ways that we should never report these things and how we will be further punished if we do.

I often wonder if many people have any idea how good a person must look and how refined their speech must be as a part of this population in order to report how we are mistreated. Of course the other problem is that if we look too good, sound too good, or write too good we are often seen as someone who couldn't possibly know about or be a victim of the kinds of situations that we are reporting.

Whether or not abused people breaking out of this cycle is difficult or not isn't really doesn't need to be focused on as the primary issue, as long as there are so few efforts being made by others to correct the problem.

The efforts to silence the autistic population such as the ways Autism Speaks is doing are becoming more blatantly abusive and therefore more clear to the general population, and I hope that this kind of awareness will create the campaigns that are really needed to change things.

What's the point in claiming that some autistic people can't speak for themselves when so many efforts are made to prevent so many others of us from doing so?

We don't come and neat packages. We don't come without pathological problems or even bad attitudes. The next time you simply don't like what an autistic person thinks or says remember how often they may have been ignored, and what they thought didn't matter at all to others. Whenever you see an autistic person whom you think dresses too nice for speaks too well for an autistic person, please remember that often them being seen as autistic in the past may have also meant them being seen as someone who wasn't supposed to look or sound very good and consider whether or not you only want autistics to be seen in negative ways and how your views may affect our future .

Wherever You Go

2008-06-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Sorrow and sympathy are necessary parts of the emotional spectrum. When either of them begin to overwhelm and thereby control too many other aspects of our lives they can become diluted as well as delusional and therefore very harmful.

Charity serves our humanity more than anything. However, how we define what charity is and then how we express that charity to others is what is really important.

So often it seems to me that people begin with the right intentions about how we want to treat people and then somehow we express those intentions in a very different way then we began wanting to. We seem to lose our way.

Some hurting is important and even necessary to everyone but so is denial. We have eyelids for a reason. Since we don't have ear lids, humans have found a variety of ways to adapt by tuning out what we can't deal with or don't want to hear.

It's difficult to say what another person "should" not be in denial of because no one really knows another person's circumstances or where they are in terms of their emotional development. Still there must then be standards of ethical treatment that discourage the ways someone harmfully treats others as a result of that denial in order to protect what for them has become a safe haven. Once people manipulate or otherwise hurt others in order to protect their own thinking that may have just become misdirected at some point, they are then participating in the cycle of abuse that was most likely originally dealt to them.

Sometimes I view someone's artwork and become very saddened and or hurt. I think about the courage that it must take for the artist to experience what they do and then express it in such a bold way. How people express themselves artistically with words or in other ways can make me feel like that also.

Experiencing such a painful zone isn't always a choice, and whether it is or not, I often find that people who can experience what seems to me to be so much of one end of the emotional spectrum can also experience the other end just as richly.

Too much avoidance doesn't allow for either. Being able to courageously enjoy life comes from the progressive understanding of what ones own choices are and realizing why joy is so important. Otherwise, we get stuck in a state of melodrama that never really takes us (in any kind of real sense) where we want to go.

The term neurodiversity to me means encouraging the real and progressive means of looking at and dealing with adversity as well as learning to be accepting of thinking or behaviors that are just different. It's a decision that first comes from understanding your choices and then making the best choices that will help those around you and in turn you yourself to experience life in the best and fullest way.

Agendas Matter

2008-06-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

I know that many ways of describing any spectrum can be empowering to everyone who has been otherwise mistreated, wrongly evaluated, and misunderstood. I too often see ways that people counter this view of the autism spectrum with the claim that the inclusion of too many people being described on this spectrum makes things difficult for those who are more autistic being evaluated or treated appropriately. I have experienced the opposite as being true.

The best way I can describe this is that from what I've seen, when a treatment is thought of as being needed by people who also need to be sympathized with, the treatment isn't sympathetic at all. It's actually just pathetic at best, but usually it's worse. There can't be too much of an understanding for who people are, and what they may be experiencing to better know how to treat them with respect.

The next step after identifying more autistics needs to be to provide more realistic supports for students by being able to better identify how they learn and what they CAN do best. Also, the number of ways that I think the autistic label can be empowering for all autistic people is limitless. Unfortunately, western medicine and the most recognized western belief system that I refer to as "The Church of Modern Psychology" often make sacrificial lambs of anything or anyone they can use OR that stands in the way of what they call progress. Sometimes it's either one of these and sometimes it's both.

I don't think that the benefits of any progress can be properly evaluated until or unless people also take a close look at what kind of progress is really being promoted and what wrongs are being justified in what is considered a progressive ideal. It is equally important to look at what ways people may be being abused in order to make what is seen as progress look good.

Something that I feel is very important is that while I understand the need for teachers and employers to describe a person based on an evaluation of how well they can perform, I see little if any reason for anyone else to evaluate people this way. I see no need for anyone else to describe anyone as low functioning, especially if you don't also specifically describe what areas they are less and more capable in. The term low functioning too often seems to reflect someone's view that a human being should only be defined by their ability to function within overly strict societal evaluations.

This term often seems to imply that a human being is in a static place and won't grow or change (which actually seems worse to me than the way the term retarded was originally meant to describe someone as being). Of course, if this really were the case what else would autistic people need to learn how to do other than learn to tolerate standing in line for the latest medicine or therapy?

Here are several examples that I see as other times that more needs to be explored to make better decisions:

1) I have many personal reasons to disapprove of how psychiatric medicine is used inappropriately by the pharmaceutical industry. Few positive changes are made to medicines or therapies within a really old and really bad mental health system. This system was never meant to serve patients or consumers. The public outside of that system is who it's designed to serve.

However, it bothers me a great deal when someone says that all psychiatry is inappropriate and should be abolished without taking into consideration how the people who are dependent on those medicines would be affected by this abrupt change. Such views actually support the current system rather than encourage positive, effective, and lasting change.

If you abolished all psychiatric medicines tomorrow without careful consideration of all the people who are taking these medications and what alternatives will at that point be available to them.... well, I just think lots of careful consideration should be given as to the consequences of such changes.

2) I consider taxes on cigarettes in a similar way. While I don't know how many people actually quit smoking due to the cost, I know that those people who are already the most disregarded by society pay the highest price for the higher taxes and price increases. Those who pay the most or are most affected by price increases, have seen how this has directly caused violence and even killings. I think that better ways to discourage cigarette smoking needs to be explored.

Again the agenda is disguised to create positive change but that's not what I think it really does.

3) I can see how someone who works in a factory may be more concerned with the paycheck they use to eat and to feed their family than about the environmental toxins that their factory also produces along with its products. That doesn't mean that environmental issues need to be ignored, but it does mean for me that people are our most valuable resource and should be considered above everything else.

Causes often don't have the best goals and sometimes their goals are really bad.

The point I'm wanting to make about more careful consideration as it relates to autistic people is that when it comes to providing the best for autistic people what you try and how you try it needs to come as an addition to first seeing people as people. It's also important to look at the trends of how autistic people are being seen by the treatment and therapy promoters and make sure that this is their top priority. For instance, most institutional behavioral treatments I've seen were not focused on this at all (to say the least).

If a label is being used to encourage and promote what's best for autistic people that have similar characteristics or even symptoms (if they must be categorized as such to acquire and maintain supports) then I feel the label is being used for the best purpose. However, when people start adding too many extra symptoms, purposely trying to make those symptoms sound as terrible as possible, and claiming that they are presented this way in the majority of autism cases for the purpose of creating one-size-fits-all programs for medical and behavioral treatments this automatically makes me suspicious of what the real motivations are for these program and treatment providers and their promoters.

This is when I think people need to carefully evaluate whether those whom they look to for answers and support for themselves or the autistic people they care for really have their goals focused on what is best for autistic people who are in need of support rather than on another agenda that may just be disguised that way.

The Outside of No Where

2008-06-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world and those who believe there are more. The more I think about that statement the more the hardware between my ears starts to rattle and smoke. Meditation and contemplation be damned! There's just no reason for that kind of talk! : /

Or what about this phrase: "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." The way that someone defines what that means is one of the ways that an intelligent person is supposed to be able to find out whether another person is intelligent too. What I have never understood is why someone asking the tester the question, " Why is someone throwing stones inside of a house," makes a person less smart. It seems to me that if the person asking the question won't look at and explore the reasons for what the person taking the test may see as the inappropriateness of asking someone to explain the meaning behind what they see as an inappropriate metaphor (or at least one that the tester can't better explain) as a way to define someone's intelligence, how are they smart enough to judge the intelligence of the person taking the test?

Just because children have questions doesn't mean that adults have answers and no longer need to ask questions because now they're smarter. Sometimes it just means that adults who are now in a position of authority over children can get away with answering their questions with, "Because I said so." rather than being vulnerable enough to think and ask questions anymore. This is also not just something that happens between someone considered as an adult and someone who is considered a child. Many people in positions of authority use the same method of avoiding what isn't convenient for them. Such expediency demands too much of a price from everyone.

If all children learned the same things at the same times and in the same ways as all other children there would be little wrong with defining progress in a strict way. However, that doesn't happen. I, and many other adults, could define the time when we were seen as unable to learn as also being the time that many people gave up on teaching us. I can tell you that this does not always get better as someone gets older. Teachers are a terrible thing to waste.

I see the ways that the media depicts autistic children as being not present and unaware is a ruthless despicable act. Not understanding why children who appear this way are different can't be justified when so much of those children's positive future depends on people seeing them in a very different way. This also doesn't stop when many autistic children reach adulthood. Whether we will learn to communicate better by having our way better understood and accepted or whether we also learn more typical methods of communication as we get older, it is important that no one be seen as not present or aware.

The phrase, "Of course you are special, just like everyone else is" again doesn't factor in what kind of views are depicted in such a statement or the conclusion that the statement might suggest someone to draw. Therefore, the truth or validity of any part of the statement in any isolated situation can't be used to validate the statement without more of an explanation. There are typical standards and guidelines that have been made unreasonably strict, and we don't all fit into them.

If someone can better define the words they are saying and chooses not to what they say can be used as a form of manipulation. This method of deception is very harmful to everyone including the person that uses it and none of us can afford that.

The nature of who people are includes a mind and the soul beyond any description of a mechanical brain. Furthermore, a set of brains anywhere can't be seen and taught within an overly strict set of guidelines.

We all see things in different ways, we learn things in different ways, and the unique ways that we express ourselves are not only valid, but they are very important. Also, diversity is more than just something that is important to recognize. It must be accepted and promoted as what has been the essential means of our past and future survival and every aspect of truth (and that includes the ways it is more uniquely seen and described or those who take longer to describe it) needs to be recognized, respected, and explored by everyone for diversity to be honored.

Diversely Defended

2008-06-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think that people stay confused about what motivates people to do what they do instead of trying to find out the reasons. It seems we tend to describe people within our society as losers based on a game that is considered standard and allows little room for difference. Sometimes people seem way behind in a race simply because they are focused on an entirely different finish line. Strict societal standards often leave people who can't or don't fit into the boxes that are defined for us, having to work really hard at finding appropriate goals. We also have to work hard at understanding how others see us, how we can fit into society, and how much of that we need in order to survive. Beyond survival, we have to choose how much of that we want.

How we defend ourselves as individuals, and as we relate to the labels that society gives us, also often presents a real difficulty for us when so much of what we see describes our difference as inferior, unwanted, and unworthy of respect. When we feel engulfed by this way that society sees us, it's often difficult to see how to defend ourselves because the attitudes that are our enemies are too close for us to see. We often don't have a lot of resources for where to learn about such things.

That's one reason why I think that blogging is such a valuable resource for autistics and our friends and family. The autistic population can also make a big difference in how many other diverse populations are defended, taught, defined, respected and how their rights are protected. We cannot only learn from other diverse populations that have had to fight for their civil rights, but I think we have something to offer as well.

We have to be able to hear from more people to help us know the best ways to empower those that society tends to disempower. Too often societal standards allow for and encourage the view that the discarded and unseen are a necessary evil that is the only way to ensure progress. Few castles exist without dungeons so we need to be careful of the ways we honor or promote what we call our royalty.

This often reminds me that if what someone says may help someone to understand something better, I wish it didn't matter so much what credentials they had or what label society has placed on their validity as a person. Unfortunately, too often it seems people are too busy trying to decide whether or not someone is valid enough by society's standards for them to take the time to understand what actually IS credible about what they're saying.

It seems that often when I'm trying to get across something that I know really does have value, people are evaluating my societal status instead of the point I'm trying to get across. Sometimes it sounds to me something like this: "Who are you and why should I accept anything that you say has value." or "Who has given you the appropriate credentials that makes what you say valid". and "How do I know whether or not what you say is valuable if no one who has been described as valuable has ever valued you."

This political, status seeking game continues to fight against itself and make losers of most players and eventually causes the group who is seen as the elite winners to dwindle in size.

Claiming that victims see themselves as victims and cause their own victimization is a type of victimization itself that encourages the same in others and creates a vicious cycle. Aside from my personal view as to the moral aspects of why that is wrong it also seems completely impractical. When someone does become an achiever by society's standards if the attitude they are surrounded by encourages toxic emotions that damage their esteem, they sentence themselves to the bottom of the ladder that they may be under the false impression that they have climbed.

I've heard it said that sometimes we are less respectful, gracious, and appreciative of those we are closest to. There's something about that pack mentality that motivates us to over-groom until we taste blood. Then our responsibility gives way to our more temporary primal need to eat. We tend to eat our young (so to speak). What's sad is that humans are the one species who have the most capacity to care and yet we are the only species that kills for no reason.

When more restrictions are placed on the public and less are placed on the public's government, this creates more opportunities for there to be a corrupt government. It also encourages the laws that are broken by the public to be described among those in power as the biggest problem. While this is convenient, it makes many of the problems that need to be addressed more even worse. Furthermore, it promotes the idea that might is right.
Examples:
"The little kid on the playground was pestering the bigger kid." is too often seen as the reason for the little kid being hurt by the bigger kid. Often the bigger kid has been given more opportunities to create allies AND sometimes little kids aren't as visible on the playground, so they are more easy to ignore and later be seen as inconvenient to the overall progress for the goals of playground activity by the teacher or playground activities director. OR
"The deputy sheriff had just cause to shoot the suspect first." This is defined this way for the protection of nothing but the sheriffs department....Unless the suspect was the mayor's son or daughter. Then the protection goes to the highest bidder. AND "The teacher who abused the child is also a victim....and the school system is a victim of poor funding"....because the school system must be protected....unless the child was the mayer's son or daughter....where does it end?

When we advocate for the more vulnerable populations among ourselves, we often meet with the same type of barriers no matter what that population is. Too often these barriers and unfair treatments don't need to be right in anyone's moral or ethical view as long as those with enough political power can find a way to temporarily avoid or stamp out what is a problem to them.

Difference isn't just an excuse to ask for accommodations from those who have the ability to provide them and don't. We who are different (contrary to what often seems to me to be the most popular belief) are more than just consumers. We have lots to offer that gets overlooked and we want and need to provide that.

If those with resources really want to solve the problem of what they see as a drain on what they feel are *their* resources by the rest of us whom they see as useless eaters, the best way to do that is to look for and encourage what we have to offer. The games of exclusion that may at times seem harmless, can and often do lead to the ideals that promote eradication. The winners in the game that ultimately eradicates its losers will meet with nothing more than an empty and temporary victory. The sweet taste of temporary success will meet with the eventual bitter taste that accompanies having lost at the game that they created and/or promoted.

The Specialist

2008-05-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

The goals that I've seen people to have for me and other autistic people often seem to vary between the strict lines of the boxes they know how to control. Some of these peoples ideas sound like this to me:

"I'll treat you as a well behaved higher functioning autistic until or unless, you show me that you are a lower functioning autistic who needs to have their behavior managed by me."

"I'll treat you as though you want no contact with others until or unless, you show me that you do in a way that I can conveniently recognize." or "I'll keep you in the environment that you claim is overwhelming to you but just right for the rest of us until you claim that you can't handle it."

"I'll treat you as though you have no sense of humor until or unless, you show me that my jokes make sense to you."

and this is the one that really bugs me "If you want to be seen as special, I'll treat you in the condescending, patronizing, and pitiful ways that special people get treated. Otherwise, say goodbye to your terminal uniqueness and hello to the mediocrity the rest of us know and have learned to tolerate."
Hmmmm....
Excuse me,but are there any other choices? Adding cheese to road kill and putting a fancy French name on it still doesn't make it very appetizing. I know it's the excepted diet around here but I really didn't "choose" to become a vegetarian for the glory that comes with individualism.

One of the most inappropriate suggestions that I see too often as being described as a part of who autistic people are is the view that we are not concerned enough about the needs of others. I don't see this as a behavioral problem that autistic's have nor do I see it as a lack of maturity. It is however these things to all people (autistic and not) at different stages of their lives and certainly this would apply even more to when we are young, small, weak, and vulnerable and in the most need of assistance.

I think there are many reasons that an autistic person is seen this way more often when the opposite may be true and the reason for others' misperceptions are not explored often enough.

The best example that I can think of that illustrates the difference of how an autistic's behavior can be completely misunderstood is how our eye contact has been described. If one of your most firmly held beliefs was that honesty was revealed by one particular type of eye contact, and you now know that this is not the case when you evaluate the eye contact of an autistic person, can you also see how vastly different an autistic's diverse thinking patterns may compel people to not have a solid base for evaluating our behavior due to autistic's with what is considered inappropriate eye contact also seen as being more honest?

I would hope that this reminder of how behavior is sometimes misperceived would help people to understand that what they may see as a person who is aloof, indifferent, or even uncaring about others may not be showing you a behavior that you can relate to that would appropriately indicate how that person is really feeling.

Some of us who are older than the average autistic (as age is described by the statistics) know very well, that life is about choices, we know the joys of loving, caring for, and providing for others, and we know the benefits that accompany our being responsible. I don't think anyone at any age can be fairly evaluated as not knowing these things or not being willing to be caring and responsible until they have also been given an appropriate opportunity that would clearly indicate that.

Autistic's not being given the opportunity to show more clearly who we are and how we really feel is the result of often being confined to only being seen by evaluators who continue to insist on using some very old and really wrong thinking to view us. I would like to believe that since there may now be a better understanding of autism, this would provide more opportunities to be viewed in better ways.

Unfortunately, the rise in the numbers of autistic diagnosis's has instead often encouraged many doctors , teachers, therapists, and specialists (who are just oh so special), who are prone to being irresponsible in their evaluations of those people who are more likely to be seen as inconveinient, (based on how they are taught) to repeat and/or continue this ignorance and avoidance of reality by continuing to go around who autistic's really are.

The older methods of avoiding who autistic's are may have been more convenient for many people because fewer of us were labeled autistic. Now avoidance seems to be packaged by spreading propaganda and showing in detail every specific part of our labels (along with some that don't even apply to us but that they decided to throw in any way) and how those parts should be fixed, cured, and eliminated. Since no disease or its cure has been identified, eradicating the people that they can't find a way to fix would of course be the ultimate plan within a world where that's the way things are done.

Unless school systems, therapies, institutions, and agencies, are using dramatically new, more understanding language to empower autistics (which absolutely includes the acknowledgment of how the current most dominant view of autistics in the media is WRONG) are guilty of causing the problem, if not in any other way, by continuing to avoid what needs to change for our very survival (and by that I mean everyone's survival). Often their most common and encouraged language indicates to me a much more active role in causing the problem.

If special is how you describe someone or something about someone that you resent and feel the need to ostracize and belittle, and you can't be more creative with how you evaluate others, then yes, it's best to see us all as special or no one as that way (which then makes the word special similar to the word inconsistent.... it cancels itself out....) If you can't use the label respectfully maybe it's better not to use it at all. However, if you do decide to evaluate someone as trying to obtain the benefits of being special that isn't willing to pay the price, it might be in your best interest to investigate further why they are even in the position that would indicate to them that they needed to make a choice about such matters . You may also want to look at why you think any such attainment such as being described as special could provide someone with a free ride. If you don't understand that, you may want to explore your personal definition of responsibility more thoroughly.

If you want to really do something that's special, try evaluating what's good about someone and how you can make them feel more special rather than how they need to be fixed, isolated, and eliminated if necessary to suit and protect your convenient, exclusionary, peace-through-dictatorship hold on your mediocre environment.

When Advocates are Called to Protect

2008-05-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

As I have been learning about the recent story of Alex Barton, I have been disgusted by what has happened and concerned about why such treatment of children is allowed.

As I read this account on Christschool's blog of how this teacher and other officials who were looking into the matter were describing these events, I was reminded of my biggest concern. I am concerned that the attitude this teacher displays is not new, and it has been woven into so much of our cultural fabric, that it can be glossed over much too easily.

I'm so glad that there are so many who have spoken up and said how wrong what this teacher did really is. It bothers me that so many people have been unaware that this attitude is as prevalent as it is. For something so wrong to be described so innocently by these officials reminds me that we are too often using our sophistication to cover how we act in ways that are primitive and shameless.

The human race is not moving forward when compassion is not our top priority. The goal of everyone being safe must include emotional safety, especially for our children. Every type of inappropriate violent act begins with someone feeling emotionally vulnerable. Therefore, all safety needs to begin with the emotional safety of children.

Alex and every five-year-old child needs to know that they can trust those who are in authority over them. They need to know that they can grow and learn in an environment that allows them to be free from feeling the need to protect themselves.

Right now Alex needs to know that teachers are provided for him to assist his learning, people wearing law enforcement uniforms are available to protect him, and whenever the educational system misbehaves or treats a child wrongly, that the public will step in and advocate for children. His mother needs to know that many of us really do care and that she and her son will not be alienated when the system they depend on acts inappropriately.

We need for teachers and people who work within the educational system that are doing a good job in the right way to know that they will not be micro managed or wrongly accused. That can't happen if the public looks the other way when an injustice has been done.

Children will identify adults by the roles we play in their lives. They will know what the teacher looks like because they guide and protect them when they are at school, protectors of the law will be wearing police uniforms, and the public who advocates for them and protects them when any of these officials do wrong will be known by us showing up when they need us. They will know what we who are advocates look like by us showing them that we care, that we won't look away when they need help, and that we will be there to do whatever we can when they need us.

The Paper Factory

2008-05-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes agencies are developed and maintained for no other reason than to allow a certain part of the population or advocacy groups that represent that population to feel secure that what they are seeking help with is being worked on.

I have heard these agencies referred to as paper factories. The idea is that as long as they produce enough paper that contains the right words they can postpone (too often what seems like forever) doing anything about what they were assigned to do.

In order for a paper factory to really work some people's needs must be met. Politicians and political groups that create these paper factories try to appease a part of the population that will provide them with support and they in turn will assure them that some parts of their population that the agency is supposed to serve (and by that I mean the most visible and loudest part of that population) are given all they need and sometimes all they want as well.

This creates security for not only the politicians who create these agencies, but also for the agencies themselves to survive as an agency. Then the "one hand washing the other" and "political backscratching" creates a situation where the majority of unwashed hands and unscratched backs are ignored, blamed, and sometimes descibed as the casuties of a necessary evil.

I remember hearing Bill Clinton speak extensively about how many student loans go unclaimed every year. By saying that, the point that he was trying to get across was that the government was doing their part but that people were not making the effort to get these loans. What he failed to explain was how many other reasons there were for these loans and even similar grants not being applied for. The reasons are many and there are many barriers that the US government knowingly creates to prevent these kinds of programs from being accessed by the majority of the population. As is the case with agencies, the way to secure the false claims of unlimited access to these programs is by parading the few who have been successful at using these programs in front of everyone else and have those people tell everyone else how great these programs are and how anyone can access them the way they did.

The way such things work (or rather don't work) for those claiming to be promoting education are very similar to the ways things are tried with in these agencies or paper factories that I'm describing. Unfortunately they have been successful at preventing real progress by promoting the illusion of success for too long.

This illusion is also very prevalent in how many public agencies are claiming to attempt to serve the disabled. Acknowleging neurological difference is one of the biggest threats to hiding the failures of agencies claiming to serve the disability community in the United States and hiding how the old system that has not worked for so many for so long.

If the US government truly accepted that disability was, in most (if not all) cases, an issue based on a lack of an appropriate job being offered to a person who is capable in ways that were not being acknowledged by the government and the public at large, they would need to change the core of their belief system and how they do things.

I don't believe that the US government is organized enough to create the massive conspiracies that many people claim. I do however think that it is safe to say that somebody somewhere who is making major decisions about government policy knows that such things such as glamorizing mood disorders and blaming hyperactive kids while feeding them amphetamines will reduce the population of those they see as unwanted without being blamed for it.

But how can autistics who are known to have a neurological difference be contained and maintained by the old-fashioned governmental paper shuffling rules and rulers? There will need to be a strategy to train the next generation of autistics to accept what the rulers (so to speak) describe as being their defects before the older autistics get the word out and spread their ideals that describe an "autistic culture".

Of course behaviors have to be given pathological reasons and treated with behavioral therapies. Some of those therapies will be brutal but can be justified by claiming that they prevent self injury if enough influencial people describe them that way.

The claims of outside sources such as vaccinations and inapppropriate foods causing autism will allow for the growth of the industry described as "therapies" along with marketing more of the lethargy and confussion causing toxic drugs that promote the pharmaceutical industry.

The one thing that will make traditional methods of isolation and exclusion look bad and ultimately less effective is allowing people to believe that differences can actually be accommodated. Tradition is protected by describing things as dis ease so that ease can be marketed based on the claim that this ease (or answer to the dis ease) will come in the form of fixing, curing, and possibly eliminating differences that we find it to be uncomfortable and/or inconvenient to support or encourage.

The accommodations that have been provided for people with all types of disabilities within the United States to be more productive has increased in an alarming slow rate in comparison to the rate of expansion and development of the products and services that we as a nation offers. Our traditional paper shuffling and ignoring people who are seen as inconvenient has created nothing but an enormous debt and a larger part of the population than ever who is seen as unproductive. While it may be difficult for some people to recognize, these kinds of inappropriate and irresponsible management practices have a way of catching up with everyone.

Correct Thinking

2008-04-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

It seems too often that thoughts or patterns of thoughts are described as incorrect when that's not the case at all. Too often this discourages diverse or unconventional thoughts and ideas. This is a luxury that no society has ever been able to afford and we won't survive that way.

While unconventional ways of thinking may not immediately be seen as practical, that doesn't mean that it isn't practical. Often what is standing in the way of progress is the way someone with little or no experience at being listened to has not developed the best way to transfer their diverse ways of thinking into a more conventional form that others can readily understand. Then there is of course the matter of more conventional thinkers not training themselves to listen and explore ideas that are outside of the"normal" box which starts or keeps the cycle going.

In many ways I see the larger group mentality (or herd) as being in charge of things. That includes the decisions as to how the majority is described as thinking and even how many people it takes to make a majority. So many people are not factored into what is described as the majority because of economic and social status. My thinking is that the majority of less influencial people are not seen as having something worthy to say. Then they don't say it or when they do, it isn't seen as having validity which discourages people from attempting to influence others.... and it can and often does discourage them from feeling that they have any influence on any aspect of their lives. Which came first isn't nearly important to me as people making real efforts to turn that around.

I feel privileged to be able to learn things online from people who not only think in what are often described as unconventional ways (although they think in ways closer to the way I think and seem more practical to me), but people who are willing to question convention and challenge it.

It seems like diversity would be approaching the extent of it's usefulness if there were too much inclusion such as describing the misbehavior of serial killers as someone having a series bad days. That doesn't seem like the extreme that is the most threatening to our society at this point.

How can we rationally discuss the crime rate when the laws of capitol punishment are being endorsed by a president who was previously the govenor of a state where so many innocent people were put to death by the legal system for not being able to secure adequate council.

How can the the United States approach the problems of immigration when we owe so much of the foundation of the country migrant workers? How can this be discussed rationally when the current president and his family owe so much of their wealth and their future wealth to migrant workers? You can hardly say you own something if someone unwillingly bought it for you.

I wonder if people who are trying to figure out who (if anyone) should help with the mortgage crisis remembers that this land was taken over from people who didn't believe that land could or should be owned.

How do we approach the problems of public education when states are promoting the sale of lottery tickets to fund the schools instead of being more responsible with other funding and expenses.... or when those who purchase so many of those tickets can't afford them (many because a public school system that failed them) and they are then blamed for being useless eaters that don't know any better and/or that don't matter.

Crime prevention doesn't start with guns and more police. Practical ways to get around problems get stiffled when people depend on punishment motivation and neglect mothods of empowerment. A lot of problem prevention starts with empowering kids and adults so people have a future to look forward to.

If someone wants to explore with me better ways of doing things, I don't want to argue with them. I want to listen. I want what isn't working to change.

How is anyone's approach to civil rights, autistic rights, and neurodiversity even an inconvenience to anyone unless something they say makes some sense to someone.

Forgive me if I don't always know how to respond when someone takes me seriously. I'm not very accostomed to it. However, don't let that stop you. I'm looking forward to getting used to it. :)

So, where are all those neurodiversity bloggers who are preventing or trying to prevent kids from recieving support? I haven't seen them.

A lot of so-called science isn't being challenged and when bloggers that actually can and do challenge the conventional methods of treatments and therepies for autistics that have been harmful and that have the potential for being harmful to others....and they get intimidated and bullied....who's future is served?

When I see people making a lot of effort to disempower people before they have been empowered.... or when they make irrational, unfounded accusations about someone who is saying something that challenges convention , I am likely to label them as part of the problem.

What's it all about Cliffy?

2008-04-07T11:09:00.001-07:00

This is a great video by Autism Diva.
Thanks Kathleen. I'll support you any way I can.

Pity Never Serves Justice

2008-04-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

I am encouraged that the autism awareness campaign has only designated one month out of the year as "Autism Awareness Month". I am happy that there are still 11 months that are not considered "Autism Awareness Month."

Until there are campaigns that promote who autistics really are, all other campaigns are to likely to spread the misinformation that has caused so much problems for autistic people in the past.

Not only is spreading misinformation not helpful, but calling attention to misinformation described as helpful can be very harmful.

When I looked at the mainstream media yesterday on how this campaign was being described, the word that came to mind was "pitiful".

When I thought of all the problems that were associated with pitiful attitudes I felt like vomiting. I didn't need any heavy metals chelated from my body nor were there any typical behaviors that I was in need of learning. The dis ease I was feeling was a societal attitude that I have too often digested and the best chance that I have at being healthy is learning to reject this toxicity.

There is nothing I haven't seen that I need to in order to feel more compassion. Pity is a convenient way to ignore the effort, diligence, and patience that it takes to be compassionate. Justice requires compassion. Pitiful justice is unjust.

I heard Senator Obama say recently in a speech that pain trickles up. It reminded me of a boil that has become ripe enough to lance.... or a volcano that couldn't stay quiet any longer.... or a landfill that continued to stink. What we waste will not continue to stay hidden. It seems we fight wars on soil where we dig deep into the earth to extract fossil fuel and yet we find more and more ways to ignore and waste what is REALLY our greatest resource which is human lives and human potential.

Asking the question of whether or not autism is a disability or not can prevent us from looking at the poor and convenient attitudes that disable us all. The main thing I've heard the disability community in the US ask for from the larger or more accommodated public for many years is respect and empowerment. Instead this population is told that this is not what they REALLY want.

Christopher Reeves never seemed motivating at all to me. I in no way mean to minimize what his pain and struggles were. However, he neglected to learn about the struggles of others in the disability community along with what they were working toward and what had already been learned about in the best ways to achieve that. This alienated many people and prevented rather than helped anyone's cause.

If the money that is spent on research to cure autism or eradicate us by trying to isolate the gene that makes us autistic for one year was used instead to empower autistics, they may find this to be a much better investment.

When people pity other people, the pity pot just gets deeper, wider, and more difficult to escape. True compassion can truly enable and empower people when everyone can see the attitudes that are disempowering and how to move beyond them.

How We Respond

2008-03-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

The social model of what is expected of us all is presented to the decision making population of voters all time. This model of how everyone should look, act, dress, eat, purchase, etc. is on billboards, TV,and the Internet all the time. When people fail to meet these standards, the cycle of rejection serves no one.

Of course everyone will not be able to meet these standards and it is important to look at what can happen to them when they don't and be able to adjust our personal standards of them in order to better include them.

The ways and speed that someones nervous system evolves cannot be determined in each individual person. However, it can be better encouraged when someone's nature is better understood.

There are some things that are understood about the nature of autistic people that can be helpful to everyone.

Too often the societal demands of conformity can prevent people from understanding how what to encourage and at what speed.

How we were originally designed will become more evident as we get older. However, we will also learn from our environment what is acceptable and what isn't and it is everyone's nature to develop habits.

Reacting impulsively to our environment is partly determined by the ways we have been taught to respond and whether we can access such a response to the situation. It also makes a difference how that response is accepted.

There are several things that I have learned are NOT likely to promote a healthy response from an autistic person or promote better ways for us to learn to respond. Adult autistics and children are at different places and may learn at different rates but we never stop learning.

The conforming box of the social model is more likely to place unrealistic demands on anyone but even more so when someone who is designed differently.

I can't see how anyone can be encouraged by hearing that society sees them as unwanted.

When everything about what others describe as acceptable and best is contrary to the best and most reasonable goals based on who someone is, it is likely to be discouraging.

When classrooms are designed to accommodate only a narrow set of skills that anyone is not likely to acquire, this is also discouraging.

No one will be likely to conform to the ever-changing and unrealistic expectations if they continue becoming more narrow.

Learning to encourage diverse types of expressions, skills, and responses will create a more healthy environment for everyone.

United We Stand

2008-03-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping that our next U.S. president will make the changes needed to find value in what more people can do so that more people's efforts can be recognized and utilized.

Although there are many things that I don't know about what would be required to restore the U.S. economy, I have seen some things that don't get factored into nearly enough politicians discussions of the issues and I don't feel it is discussed enough on the Internet.

As an autistic person, and just as a person, I reject many of the stereotypes that I think society uses to try to rob people of their status of being a person. Trying to rob people of this status works against all efforts to understand people that are treated as less than people and it prevents society from understanding the best ways to empower them.

Too often people are taught to believe that those who are not listened to really have no voice that is valid....so the cycle continues.....

It seems that often the ideal of having the best formal education and the best status in the community before people have something valid to say prevents too many people from ever achieving those things because they are never recognized in the first place.

Too often it seems to me that people want people to be more responsible and all they show to those people are the obligations of responsibility. That doesn't encourage responsibility. It just puts more division among everyone. With power comes responsibility and with responsibility comes advantage. People won't be encouraged to take responsibility if those who seem to have the advantages that come with it only use those advantages to should on those who are seen to be less responsible. That doesn't seem like a very appealing ladder to climb.

From my view, humanity is often not served when people who have economic status are not willing to listen to those don't. While this unwillingness is of course two-sided, it often does seem to me that people who have the better status (whether earned or unearned) have more opportunities to influence public opinion. I feel that needs to change to provide everyone more opportunities.

I don't think that complaining and having a bad attitude is any more likely to be the result of any level economic status.

People who are provided public assistance have more opportunities than those who are not provided that on either side of the economic ladder. Unfortunately, what I see that doing is creating strife among those who work for low wages and those who have no wages or get an organized type of public assistance. It doesn't need to create strife. I believe what is needed is unity and more understanding. It has become too convenient to believe that it is overly idealistic to think this is worth working toward. I think it is overly idealistic to believe that the human race will survive without it.

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is very rare in today's economy. While I know there must be financial status incentives to encourage everyone to do their best, what are considered entry-level jobs, shoestring businesses, and small reasonable loans are not seen are rarely considered.

It seems completely impractical to me convince one person that they are actually considered part of the same human race by society when they have little or no opportunities when they see other humans elevated to the status of royalty and seemingly unlimited financial resources.

I think it is unfortunate that many have been convinced in the United States and in other countries that the average middle class American lives in suburbia and has a reasonable working income. Too many people are not factored into that average.

Most people know that the ideal of empowering people with disabilities in the U.S. using government funding was heavily influenced by the physical injuries that soldiers got on the battlefields during wars. However, those in the psychiatric system are given little if anything other than being labeled as unworthy. However people get into that system there has to be opportunities to move beyond it. Otherwise it seems safe to assume that this is not the goal.

It seems to me that if the goal of psychiatry was really to promote mental health, our present psychiatric system would have already be evolved enough to be better equipped to deal with the post traumatic stress of soldiers, we wouldn't have military vetrans living on our streets, big Pharma would not have the kind of influence that it does in over medicaiting and so many people, and more than one quarter of those in our country who are considered disabled for psychiatric reasons would actually be choosing the psychotherapy that is offered to them based on the merit of that therapy.

Too many of us have been hurt really bad by the psychiatric industry. Encouraging people to not start down this path is good but don't forget that along with this ideal there are too many people who are on these meds to take them away tomorrow without serious consequences or some practical alternative.

Rehabilitation needs to be reserved for those who have been traumatically injured or convicted of crimes. Learning disabilities and learning differences don't require rehabilitation, they just require aid. Why would it be called rehab if system that failed to meet the need in the first place is not looked at or asked to change? That puts all of the responsibility and blame on the person so that the system isn't seen as needing to change.

Minimum wage jobs cannot be considered entry-level jobs if most of the people who have those jobs change jobs at least four times a year.

With a failing economy, many of the problems in our society that had been conveniently hidden will become much more evident. People who had previously survived without the aid of government resources will be asking for it. This can't be ignored. Serving each person according to their needs and encouraging responsibility along with recognising more diverse abilities is the answer. However, nothing like it already exist.

Too many of the resources that are needed have only become financial resources because people have been using money to deal problems that they should be using their hearts and minds to deal with.

Learning Difference

2008-03-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

There are so many ways that people think, learn, and express themselves, it is not practical or even possible to place value judgments on every action, reaction, and expression. To attempt to do this only seems to objectify people and what they do in a way that would ultimately make us into nothing more than products or commodities to buy sell and trade instead of being recognized as people. Looking at people in this way robs us of our humanity.

While I can't say what percentage of autistic people are seen as having valuable skills by others within their community, autistics are likely to have a combination of diverse skills. This can (and often does) lead autistics to have a better understanding of how those in our environment (and those in society at large) evaluate performance.

No one such as an employer, teacher, diagnostician, or intelligence quotient tester, has ever described my skills as anything other than substandard. I feel that knowing their evaluation of me was inappropriate has led me to find more creative ways to evaluate what I see in myself and in others.

Also while it may seem that having skills that are marketable may make some people immune from societies performance evaluations that are unrealistic and that promote exclusivity, that does not seem to be the case at all with autistic people. If there are autistic people that feel as though as though they don't need to promote a healthier view of autism within society because it seems as though somehow the negative evaluations don't effect them, they may want to consider more futuristic planning. Furthermore, ANYONE who feels as though they are immune to the attitudes that so much of our society has that are exclusive may want to be careful about such thinking. It is important to remember that when the few and the elite set exclusive and subjective standards, those standards will eventually change to exclude everyone.

I think that advocates for the acceptance of diverse experiences, behaviors, and skills need to focus more on the unity and empowerment of each other. We don't empower ourselves or anyone else when the standards that we have set for ourselves are no different than the unrealistic and exclusive standards that our society has mislead us to believe are valid.

These beliefs DO affect how we see ourselves and how we see others. Also these collective views DO ultimately influence societal standards.

Conformists have always threatened diversity by the unrealistic expectations of how they define inclusion. In this way inclusion becomes nothing more than a newer more deceptive method of exclusion.

Someone with the agenda of exclusion may use the value judgments they attach to labels to exclude people in physical and/or emotional ways and one will ultimately lead to the other.

What I think it is important to remember is that someone with aspirations of valadating inappropriate labels can do so by finding better ways of viewing more diverse ways of thinking and acting so that every individual is able to support each other.

When our value is instead limited to how we are presently seen to serve the conformists view of our society, more adults and more children will be warehoused, numbered, as nonhuman objects. This limits our most valuable resource in ways that no society can afford.

Out of this World

2008-03-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

This morning I was reminded of reports of UFO sightings. I wonder why people describe such things unidentified flying objects? The main question that I'm thinking about as it relates to this, is how we as a culture deal with what we can't define.

While the lack of strict definitions for all that we see allows some people to explore infinite positive possibilities, others will look at what they don't understand and be bound by the fear of all the negative potential that this could be mean.

The difference in how we see things DOES influence how we view people and no one can afford to fear the people in their lives that think and act in ways that are unfamiliar.

The closer (geographically) we are to these people and the more responsibility we have or assume for them, makes our view of them even more important.

Being close to people IS a commitment rather than it requires one. We don't have to want to be commited - we just get to be. What one doesn't decide will be decided for them. Our choices about how we view people will define how we treat them. This will influence how they see themselves and how they expect others to treat them. These personal decisions have an influence on our culture.

Too often we look at what is wrong with people, how severe we see this wrongness as it relates to how we see the severity of this wrongness in others, or even where the wrongness originated. Seeing ambivalent behavior as wrong can be used to distance ourselves from that effort and responsibility that is required to relate to people. It starts in the home and ultimately becomes a part of our culture. Our culture cannot afford this and no one can personally afford it. The price is paid by both the viewer and the viewed.

What I'm writing about here doesn't just relate to just one type of person that is viewed as being in need of fixing, one type of person that seen as flawed, or one age group of people. This ultimately includes everyone and affects everyone.

Autistic people are being attacked in various ways and there is a power base that has a lot of influence on how we are seen. Not everyone who makes unfair judgments or treats people unfairly does so consciously. In fact, I believe that most people who do this have not really thought it through or are too bound by their emotions to choose a better way of responding to us.

To those of you who have autistic people in your lives, I would like to remind you that we are not aliens. We are available in ways that you may not have thought of or may not have explored. We need you just like you need us and neither of us afford to forget it.

Escape from Paradise

2008-03-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

A community represents what is home to most people. What we see in this home shapes our veiw of the rest of the world as well as it shapes what we want to have and what we want to be. However, we are not all designed the same way so we view things in different ways and make different choices about what we look at it in (what may be considered) the same environment.

Some people may be described as more interested in exploring when they choose to seek more environments to focus on. However, the more environments one person looks at may be preventing them from having a good understanding of the universal laws that are present everywhere but require a more narrow focus that comes from being in only one place.

In a similar way, I see formal education as an alternative to exploring life randomly. Learning in traditional ways by others who have been educated by the same method can create discipline that can lead to a more creative imagination. A structured environment or a structured method of learning can provide a great deal of attention to detail that defines a subject or a story that cannot be comprehensively understood otherwise. The ability to understand something in this way can also provide for an opportunity for this to be more effectively communicated to others because it is better understood. Nothing else but this structure can provide this creativity, or the attainment and development of these ongoing progressive skills.

We will all be influenced to some degree by the decisions and actions of other people in our environment whether we repeat what works for them or ignore it. We will all make the same mistakes that others do or we will learn to avoid those mistakes.

Society and science will give us ways of looking at ourselves and others, they will label us all, and they will make value jugements based on the labels given to us by these influences.

The point I'm trying to make in this post is that convention can provide us with structure for good and creative change. Society and science has screwed up the way they label many behaviors and the way the label many people. However, we can use many of the same conventional labels as a structure for how we further define them, better define them, and (in some cases) redefine them.

How I see this as it relates to the label of autism is that while society and science may have created the label, defining how we see and describe that label is up to us. In order to do that in the best way, we may need to stick to certain conventions of society and science that allow us to define an autistic culture that will preserve autistic people. Without us using the already established conventional labels to define an autistic culture, we are in danger of allowing society and pseudoscience to repeat their same mistakes.

Autism is a package. Every person (and every type of person) is born with different sets of abilities and difficulties and different things are nurtured or discouraged throughout of our lives. When it comes to disabled people and the unified decisions that disabled people have made about what they want (based on being disabled people) we need to remember that their focus has mainly been on asking society to adjust who they are as people and make accommodations for their disabilities rather than focusing all societal attention on fixing and changing the ways they are disabled.

When it comes right down to it, it seems that most people would rather be treated with dignity, respect, accommodations, and equal opportunities, rather than having society see them as less than as they focus on what they can't do and how they need to be fixed to meet societal standards. I think most people are basically the same in this regard. The difference is mainly that some people are afforded the luxury to escape having to decide what is really most important to them.

When autistic people define ways that all of society can treat autistic people with more dignity and respect and what we say about that is met with undignified and disrespectful confrontation....well, that futher demonstrates why we need to be involved.

The main questions that I see as being important are these: If society no longer sees autism as a disability, how will people be accommodated or how will the way they are presented as being a differently packaged person (that doesn't allow them to be accommodated) help them to reach their goals? My answer to that is:

Don't allow the words autism, disability, and the need for accomidations be illiminated because they are defined inappropriately. That takes a lot of time to change and many of us won't survive during the time it takes to persue the attainment of such high ideals. Instead work to redefine the words. The best intentions CAN lead to the highest ideals.

If the autistic spectrum is divided so that the part of the package that is seen as a negative part is described as nothing more than a set comorbidities that are accompanying the package of persons with Aspergers syndrome, what will eventually happen to autistic people once people start stripping away the parts that are seen as bad? It seems to me that we have already been shown what the goal is for people who claim to just want to eliminate part of the package. It seems the same as the goal of those people who ONLY want to eliminate what they see as a the negative part of the package that is the collective population of humans altogether. A decreased population of what they consider better people. An ideal world.

What some people seem to not understand is that such ideals will include more and more inappropriate and prejudiced views about benevolent behaviors that just seem odd or uncomfortable to the people making these decisions. It's not that the people making the decisions don't have some of the same behaviors or even that they are not similar types of people. This unfortunately doesn't stop them from wanting to eliminate what they don't like and ultimately who they don't like.

What we decide individually will affect us all collectively. Especially when what we discuss and vote on that we want is really the only way we'll have the power to make positive changes. This collective effort gives us the structure that we can use to make those changes.

The ideal of perfection has gone too far when we are seen as units or a collective sum of units that require ongoing perfected change in order to create the perfect person or the perfect society.

This illusion of paradise is an escape that will prevent us from looking at realistic situations in comprehensive and reasonable ways that allow us to make realistic changes that give us all what we really need.

Who are "We"?

2008-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

I think it is important to reject the ways that the term "we" is loosely used to describe the world's population or even the U.S. population, when what is being described only accounts for the elite few.

The elite do have more sophisticated technology to move what they call information more quickly and to a wider audience. However, they are still in the minority and claims that they speak for the majority or even in the majority's best interest, can be easily proved as false with a lot less effort and sophisticated exposier than most people are taught to believe.

Claiming that those who are not speaking up have nothing valid to say has been the biggest accomplishment of every government since the beginning of time as well as the worst crime.

Too often "we" the majority don't speak up about what we really think because we are not choosing to think for ourselves or that what we think isn't important.

I don't believe that formal education or the use of eloquent or sophisticated speech are liberaters until or unless they are offered to everyone who wants that ability or set of skills. Even then, if education doesn't accomidate difference AND promote it, then it's nothing more than a mind altering training camp being used to divide, label, oppress and eliminate anyone and everyone who can be seen as unwilling to conform.

When it comes to deciding on laws that govern everyone as pertaining to how we can best be protected from foriegn and domestic abuse, then it is very important to open ongoing discussion and continue to refine the best ways to do that. However:

1) Cut out the laws that (without proof that the behavior or condition of a person will lead to violence) are being used to make false claims. Continuing to use unjust profiling as an excuse for suspicion and/or unprovoked aggression will eventually include everyone.

2) Personal and societal responsibility cannot be divided for conveinience sake. Any collective representation must include both or it will include neither.

3) A, B, C, D, and F are not a sufficient number of grades to make up a fair grading system for scholastic achievement to meet even a small portion of the population. Also, no society and no government has ever been able to predict, assume or assign age appropriate development of human anything.

4) The only plan for economic growth in the U.S. is using would require a decrease in population so that fewer people and fewer types of people would be accomidated. You won't benefit from such a policy if you are not here.

Do you think that billboards and T.V. advertisements about 1 autistic born every 20 minutes is for the purpose of the kind of awareness that would promote better education, accomidations, and job opportunities for autistic people?

I wish that people would think about the ways that they talk about the autism "spectrum" in relationship to how others (who don't have the best interest of autistics as a priority) might be using such spectrum related speech to harm rather than help us.

The whole world is too interdependent on each other for anyone to make any kind of claim that they are representive of the popular vote. Certainly the U.S. has never been liberated and free to make such a claim.

Claiming that the U.S. HAS a middle class that is filled with soccer moms with 2.3 kids, drive mini vans, and live in suburbia, may be the way to get a Clinton in the white house but it doesn't make it anymore true.

Even if the majority were the most influential voice, as long as there are lawmakers, laws, unfair influence of wealthy corporations, and the oppression of groups of people for no other reason than that they don't fit the advertised veiw of acceptable, then no one is liberated and no one is free. The reason for that is that by liberating yourself at the expense of another is the way that people imprison themselves. When freedom comes at the expense of giving up your freedom then you aren't free.

The people who are seen to have power and influence in the U.S. have designed our very perception of what power and influence looks like. They have not earned what they have at all. They create the misperception of being in the majority like The wizard of Oz created this misperception.

We are not making decisions that influence how our government is run. We are not the ones that influence policy's, laws, the people who make those laws and poilicies, or the people who enforce them.

However, those who have traded their conscience and itegrity in order to give other people the false impression that they have power, cannot convince themselves of what they try to convince others of. Therefore they have lost themselves and are truly powerless.

We who are not seen as having this power and influence, who choose not to follow in these peoples footsteps, actually do have REAL power. We have lots of abilty that we aren't using. This power and collective but diverse ability is more than sufficient enough to change the world. In order to use what we have, we must reject what we have been taught. If we start thinking in ways that they have taught us that we can't and or shouldn't , a true representation of who we are will have a chance to emerge and be heard.

Entitlement and Commitment.

2008-02-14T05:20:00.000-08:00

I am aware of a method of how to approach the subject of entitlement and commitment with my questions and thoughts. Answers to these questions and conclusions to these viewpoints are what promotes discussion. I have not found a method of participating in discussion based on how the process of discussion has been presented to me. Weather or not this is a self imposed limitation or not, I do feel that I pay a price for it. While it may seem to afford me certain liberties, it also creates a lot of bounderies. I am commited to the process (as I understand it) just the same.

Throughout a persons life, one is presented with liberties and prices for the attainment of those liberties. Love is an equal exchange that includes a great deal of trust, faith and commitment.

When one commits to more than one person, pledging your faith and trust can become more complex. An organized group who have some common interest or view seems complex enough, but a family.... the faith and trust involved in everyones commitment must be beyond what any human could ever prepare for.

Once a person, a couple, or group of people, take responsibility for another (a child for instance) before and/or without that persons consent (or their willingness to make that same commitment to common goals), they have the potential for all extreme situations, both terrible and great. When a person is placed into an environment that is not of their choosing, the continual progressive realization of everyone involved will require a great deal of vulnerability on everyones part.

To describe that vulnerability in scientific or mathmatical terms seems quite impractical. The emotion of love, along with the faith and trust in your own ability as well, as others ability to comprehend the complexities of that commitment is a part of a complex network that no ones words could ever describe.

Once a person makes a commitment to another to be responsible for that person's well being, nothing entitles that person to break that commitment. If you make a decision based only on romantic love, it lacks the commitment to reach the goal that the decision was meant to accomplish. Romantic love without commitment places love in a box that that is unattainable to you or those whom you intend it for. It cheapens the most wonderful feeling or expression to being nothing more than every other fleeting thought and emotion that anyone may experience at any time.

In this way, any whimsical notion, in one moment of indecision, can take every joyful expectation and dream you ever had and allow that to transition into the worst fearful nightmare you can imagine.

For civilization of any kind to continue at all in this world, it will require the vulnerability of commitment, and then the safety and courage that accompanies that commitment will sustain our civilization. Just as a coward dies a thousand deaths, the lack of commitment will bring about it's own punishment and that punishment will be servere. The decision to strenghten the emotion of love that accompanies your commitment will strengthen that same courage and the love that makes your commitments joyful and hopeful.

When you instead allow your decisions to be based on frivilous and fleeting thoughts and the experiances that accompany those thoughts you will suffer the injuries of battle that accompanies your frivilous and fleeting thoughts that you use in vain to secure the rewards of the commitments that you weren't willing to really work for.

No government, church, judge or jury on earth will decide this punishment. Nature has it's own system of justice.

When a child is born and you as a parent or guardian chooses to love that child, it is a romantic love that must be fostered and renewed like all love. If what you romantisize about what you will experience with the child (or even what you want the child to experience ) you may have to let go of those romantic hopes if (for whatever reason) that is not going to happen. This is because your child can't afford to feel this disappointment based on learning that they should be disappointed because you are. Besides such grieving is misguided, unnecessary, and it doesn't help you any either.

Whatever you desire (based on subjective, arbitrary, and romantisized notions) for your child to experiance or achieve based on their ability, that doesn't happen the way you hoped or planned, this doesn't entitle you to to judge them or their experience as less valuable or less worthy of all the joy you can bring them. It also doesn't entitle you to judge what they provide to you as any less worthy of what you provide to them.

If you make a commitment to love someone(spouse, partner,etc.) it will originally be based partly on the romantic notions of what you hope for someone to become. Whatever may stand in the way of that, may require you to foster your love for them in different ways. A commitment to love someone isn't subject to change based on what you decide you want later on. It becomes a commitment when you make it or it isn't a commitment at all.

Also your willingness to act everyday in ways that strengthen that love is what reminds the other person that you meant it in the first place and when it reminds you of that too, then your love and commitment for each other can become more powerful than any challenge.

The Worth of Silver

2008-01-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have polished a lot of silver. It's not my favorite job. However, I have gotten pretty good at it. Yes, there actually is a technique to it. That really is the point of this post. Being good at polishing silver not only does a better job, but once you know how to do it, the job is actually easier. If you don't already know it, a person can waste a lot of time polishing silver, work really hard at it, and not do it very well at all.

The value of skills must change when someone meets a challenge. Diversity is the biggest expense the world has ever known....and all because people would rather ignore it, change it, fix it, hide it, or hope it goes away. You would be surprised how many people would actually cancel a social event because they can't find a way to deal with their tarnished silver that seems convenient enough to them. Society folk have a pretty high standard when it comes to silver. Ya know it's a good thing that parents don't choose to not take their kids out when they seem tarnished based on ridiculous social standards. That would be awful....

Then again what about that.... The number of things that I see on a daily basis about autism on the internet that is biased and wrong is pretty overwhelming....not to mention often insulting and hurtful. But what do I know? Right?

I mean every autistic is different and views of autism needs to be left to professionals and parents. I mean you can't take the rights of parents away who are the ones who know their kids best. Heck, some people think corporal punishment should be outlawed as though it was actually hitting a more vulnerable person who can't defend themselves....and they want to make such restrictions on parents, why? All because they had a parent who didn't know how to "spank" responsibly. Don't give the government rights that they abuse. I actually agree with not giving rights to the government based on them abusing their privilege to govern and restrict responsibly..... but....

Autistics....Handouts and pity sucks. Not because there aren't resources available but because it's done for convenience sake instead of for the person's sake. We don't need to be given opportunities for things that would level the playing for things that we really aren't good at anyway....at least not yet.... because what we are good at has not even begun to be explored. We don't need the advantage, or even the benefit of the doubt, when police situations happen when we are present because NOBODY has begun to to even start to prevent us from being attacked for things that everyone knows are benign.

Nothing about us with out us.... you have got to be kidding. I was in D.C. and got close enough to the students at Gallaudet when they were in the midst of their most publicized fight to get a pretty good picture of what was going on. I assure you that they didn't get any of the rights that they deserved in the first place by holding hands and marching on Washington. Deaf people have even been accused of being exclusive....

ND bashing is still encouraged and NT bashing is considered very wrong if not illegal. The deaf community kicked ass for any rights they do have, and its time the autistic population started realizing that we are going to have to start speaking a stronger kind of language that people will listen to.

No we shouldn't be rewarding autistic overcoming or rewarding the experiences of autistics as valiant. However, as much as autistics need to quit selling us out, the rest of you need to quit buying bootleg. Get it?

There are a lot of autistic people who wouldn't dare say what I just said here no matter how much they agree. Gee....I wonder why?:/ Maybe people should start posting comments on blogs as though autistics were reading them because actually a lot of them are. What's your message to them?

Everybody knows that only "good autistics" are accepted and the rest get punished. Right?

I can't wait for somebody to tell me that an aluminum plate and baking soda is the answer to conveniently achieving polished silver.

Remebering Katie

2008-01-16T12:56:00.001-08:00

Autism Tourist

2008-01-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

First let me tell you a stereo-type of an obnoxious tourist.

Note: In this example the tourist happens to be a man. Women can be like this too, but they dress differently.

The obnoxious tourist is wearing cheap sneakers, white socks, plaid bermuda shorts, a ridiculous T-shirt, a Nikon camera around his neck, cheap sun glasses, and a baseball cap that advertises Blue Ribbon beer. Also he drives a Cadillac and he has sunburned knees, neck, forearms, and crusty white cream on his nose to prevent sunburn.

He claims to be touring the town but the most interesting thing in the town are the people who live there. However, he will never find that out, because that's the way it is in the town where he lives and he never pays much attention to the other people there either.

Since he learned a little Spanish on T.V. , when he sees someone whom he judges to be an immigrant, He asks "whats your name?" in Spanish (that no one would even recognize as any language) when what he wants to know is, where is the bathroom. When he doesn't get the reply he's looking for, he talks louder. He somehow figures that if he can't accommodate one of the locals for one of their deficits of not speaking like he does, he will assume that they have another deficit, which is that of not hearing him. He figures that two accommodations for what he assumes to be "their" problem will have a better chance at getting him what he wants.

I see autism tourists in much the same way. There are some great parents of autistics.The parents of autistics that I"m speaking about may not be the worst part of this problem. It may just be that some of the parents I meet are more likely to loudly ask me where the bathroom is in a language they haven't bothered to learn. Actually since I don't even appear to be that sophisticated or valid, I usually just get ignored all together.

I mean think about it. These parents are presented with this being that does nothing but eat, cry, and poop, and it's their job to get them through college so that they can be independent valids, like they are.

Doctors. and teachers are taught that our competitive marketing must become stricter, so our teaching methods must recognize fewer achievers, and therefore we need more division among classes.

If they can't achieve this by showing that fewer are even worthy of life itself, they will show everyone that people have been plagued by this awful disease. This will make the disease - ridden invalids hide or want to, and once the doctors and teachers can show that the standards need to be high and narrow and the education and training budget is low, the parents will these pay these "professionals" all they have, which doesn't do much more than provide more valids with employment and comfort at the expense of validity seekers that are disguised as charitable parents and near-do-well missionaries.

Those that can complete the validity test and show competition for other valids will give us all an even higher bar to strive for that will make us all stronger and fewer. It won't do much for human relations, but there are more important things for people to think about. Right?

Since the typical tourists are seen as (metaphorically speaking) driving new Cadillacs and the locals drive old Mazdas, locals will do anything at their neighbors expense ( and even at the expense of looking foolish to their neighbors) to become or to at least look like a tourist. This way they don't have to relate to anyone and they can be seen as valid. Their life will be miserable, but they will have a little more time to live (most of their lives will be spent in schools, doctors offices, and funerals of course).

Doctors, teachers, and parents will encourage societal validity to parents as the standard to strive for and even autistics themselves will describe themselves as better than valids (by foolishly trying to beat them at their own game). They will claim that they are better than the invalids....I mean the disabled. These proud autistics will claim that "other"autistics" that don't meet the standards of superiority that they blindly assume THEY were uniquely and divinely destined to become, are lazy or that it is the REST of society that has abandoned them and left these invalid, disabled, autistics behind.

Tourist never see or hear anything of value because the valuable people that they won't recognize keep getting in the way.

The Official Public Part 1

2008-01-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

I am going to write a series of blog posts (this being #1) about how the general public is served in official ways. Service is, of course, provided to everyone but those who are seen and treated as a burden to individuals and society are the only ones penalized for how our needs are unpopular among decision makers.

These peoples abilities (or whatever we provide that isn't seen as worthy of respect) survive in the wild (as in; forgotten entirely,on the streets, warehoused, or hidden away by the financial restrictions and label of disability) and are the ones I'm concentrating on as those who are lawfully eligible for public services in the U.S.. Primarily this series will focus on autistics.

This has nothing to do with community efforts because before the general community accepts this responsibility, most of us will be selected as unworthy of breathing.

By official I mean what is provided for outside of the free market. While free market service providers may provide better services to a few people, they could hardly be considered to be available to the general public. The general public can't afford them and many others who can are often subjected to opertunists who prey on their need for conveinience and their willingness to pay for it.

I will (for the purpose of this series) not refer to any differences between what are considered levels of functioning or age of autistics. The laws concerning these issues, as to how they affect a person's right to receive services, contradict themselves and are further complicated mainly by the public who serve the agenda of those who govern service providers, by bickering over trivialities and by not addressing the unwillingness of the officials to make fair judgements based on these laws .

The law already provides for the accomodations of autistic people at any age. Unfortunatly, there are no official public defenders (by title or otherwise) who are willing to educate the public about these laws or demand that they be enforced. Anyone who would choose to do this would either lose their job and /or tell the rest of us the truth.

I will be choosing topics for this series that include both the general types of service providers for autistic people as well as specific individual institutions, warehouses, and agencies.

Born Free

2008-01-07T03:33:00.000-08:00

We all, at sometime in our life will find someone or something to commit to. Too often that commitment is not much more than one of dependence on what we need to survive. It's even worse when that dependence is on something that doesn't have to be a necessity but it becomes one.

A relationship based solely on dependence will rob both party's of their liberty and freedom. Without commiting to our responsibility in a relationship we loose the benefits that come with that.

Responsibility is too often seen as an obligation when really, commiting to our responsibility in relationships is what provides us with the opertunities to obtain all of the wonderful things in life.

I hear socital views that claim that so many people are not willing to accept responsibility and too often:

1) Our leaders set really bad examples of how to be truly responsible by the way they behave in all aspects of their life.

2) I hear these leaders complaining about how others are unwilling to be responsible and yet they continue to not provide the people they claim are being this way with real opportunity for change. This instead show the leaders irresponsibility and their neglect at nourishing a responsible relationship with the public they are supposed to be leading.

What is the public's responsibility? Well, we need to teach our parent's (so to speak). To those of you who are younger than I am, I apologize. We who are a part of previous generations haven't been very responsible in providing you with the leadership you needed. You deserve to be able to depend on your leaders and I don't see how you can at this point. Now we have to ask you to help us create something better for us all and the next generation as well.

One place we can all start is:
If your job and your environment teaches you a value system that will create the dillusion that what you perform determines your worth, you are likely to look at your friends, family, and kids in this way and then they are likely to reflect that to others as well.

Personhood is a right. However, being treated this way often must be asked of others or demanded of them if necessary (and as difficult as it sometimes is) we have to remind ourselves that we own it.

How do you think that the mental heath industry got so screwed up. Do you think that aliens came in and took over their bodies. Those people who work there are ours weather we like it or not. Our values aided in them to being able to cause such extreme chaos and harm.

I wish the angry bullies who spread false information was the biggest threat to autistic people, but I can't give anyone or any group of people that much credit or perceived power. Our views and values have set up alot of ignorance.

Mercury isn't the outside force that creates autism any more than bullies are the outside force that is causing all the problems for autistics. Some bullies are autistics themselves who are acting very badly. I agree some are acting terribly....Very terribly. And no, being autistic doesn't make anyone less responsible. We can't allow or afford to think that way.

However, society continuing to seperate itself from people (even bullies and leaders who are sometimes one and the same) and blaming them is what excludes people from ever being allowed to show up in places where their integration with others can provide them an opertunity to educate themselves and have them educate us as well (as crazy as this may sound).

We as an autistic culture, like any other subculture, must teach the rest of society who we are and what the best ways we learn are, rather than relinqishing that power to irresponsible societal leaders . That's been part of the problem all along. We haven't done that.

Why can't we get poorly behaved people punished for their outrageous criminal acts? Partly because we are trying to make nice with too many agencies and companies that we claim are only doing "a little bit wrong". Our irresponsible relationship with these people (by not holding them responsible for their inappropriate behavior) is punishing us all.

Political back scratching, being the good autistics, instead of just being people who are hurt and angry as ANYONE would be if they were mistreated, is, in many ways, sending the wrong message.

We are not saints and describing ourselves this way, only allows us to be seen in ways that promotes the pendulum to swing the other way so that we are being seen as worse than typical. This often happens when we reliquish our power to others by claiming we are better than them in the same way as they have done this to us. Instead we need to just be honest and show people that we are just different. We are people with good and bad in all of us. Trying to present ourselves as anything else only hurts us when the truth is learned.

Our personhood is a free gift that can't be taken away. Earning the right to be treated as free (even when fair treatment has been stolen from us), requires consistent and persistent effort from all of us.

The Master's Rights

2008-01-06T10:50:00.000-08:00

When a person gets arrested, the U.S. judicial system requires the police officers to read the assumed offender, his or her rights....and....being willing to demand your nonexistent and/or worthless rights may or may not delay or lessen all the other abuses of rights you are claimed to have but don't.

The assumption of guilt is no longer even claimed to be required of any officer at any time. Marshall Law will not be new in the United States. The news that we have it will just be new to the elite minority that thought somehow they were immune. Some of us grew up knowing this was true.

Besides, we who were excluded for arbitrary reasons, have always been targeted and punished for being different. Everyone else has just been comfortably ignoring what's going on. Now more people are taking a closer look because they are finding out like the rest of us that:

1) Conformists are never satisfied
2) Their conformity has done little more than buy them time at the rest of society's expense.

Assumption of breaking any law is the same as guilt. The only immunity from any type of any official's laws at this point is that the assumed offender may be able to display symbols of their ability and willingness to be taxed. Currency is one of the best and/or most important symbols now but currency and other status symbols will change for the purpose of continuing to make conformity unattainable for anyone at any time.

You have the right to remain silent until or unless someone with a more official title decides that you being silent is an aberrant act.

If you give up that right (or someone makes you give it up), even though you never really had it anyway, what someone with a more official title than you claims you said or did, then becomes the reason for your punishment.

Your individualism, your right to not fight against the injustices of those whom you have allowed to govern your environment at the expense of those who could not afford to display your adornments of temporary immunity, were just incentives to influence you to help carry out the master's diabolical plan. However, now you are becoming less valuable to the master because the master has not been given any real limitations.

I always knew that I was food or bait but now I see that you are too. My advantage is I already know it. Do you?

Now that you are with me, let me tell you what we mean to them. We are all poor, disabled, diverse, criminal ,and without monitary resources. BUT WAIT! THERE IS GOOD NEWS!

We are bigger than the master and together we have an undeniable resource, which is ourselves. If too many of us remain individually divided we will all remain this way and our life on earth will not be good.

Together we can create the liberty in our world that (through this fight) we have gained in our heart. :)

Organized Mistakes

2008-01-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

There have always been people who did not fit into what is seen as respected soceity for many reasons. Some were less likely to fit in because of physical and mental limitations as they were compared to elite societal standards of what was descibed as natural and normal. Some were just excluded because they were not seen as able to perform what were decided to be marketable skills.

One of the reasons this is important to recognise is that there have always been the majority of the elite society who would describe these people who are excluded in much more conveinient but impractical ways .

Many people who are respected for the wrong reasons misinterpret this problem as being better now due to the efforts made to help the people who were closer to the place of being accepted as "overcomers". While this has in many ways helped some, it has also prevented many efforts to include those who were not so close to this place of societal acceptance.

This misunderstanding of overcoming has hurt the majority of people in many ways. It's MOST debilitating effect is the claim that the decision makers are doing the best they can to help everyone OR even worse that important decisions are being made by a real democracy.

As democracy in the western world (where it has for so long been assumed to exist) is under more attack than ever and the goals of population control are much more effective without the voice of these unheard and ignored majority that is unfortunatly becoming quiter, more of the unrepresented are becoming less hopeful than ever. That's what I'm working to prevent.

The human race cannot withstand this level of oppression and exclusion.

Note: This doesn't need to be seen as a cynical, pessimistic, or overly idealistic at all. It is quite refreshing to see where the real problems are so they can be addressed effectivly.

Most people will naturally gravitate to some kind of organized community effort. Some will be more successful and some will be more effective at reaching their mutual goals.

Those who are less successful at meeting societal expectations that afford them benefits, REALLY DO have alot to offer and:

1) They don't have to be educated in all the formal ways others have been successful at achieving. Actually the opposite is true.

These people have life experiances that have never even been evaluated as to thier worth because their experiances have not been heard. What they have to offer has never been factored into any decisions and that has severely affected them in negative ways. Also ,these people DO make up the majority of the population.

The rest of society has no idea what these people (who have little or no formal education) have to offer ALL of society because their veiws and their life experiences have never been validated as being worthy of having anything to offer anyone.

2) The idea that these people are somehow a necessary exclusion to enable the most privaleged forward thinkers to pull the rest behind has never worked.

Expecting people to reach higher to catch nonexistent windfalls has left good valuable thinkers, workers, etc. being considered lazy, slothful, and even worthless and disposable.

This is the biggest economic mistake our world has ever made. It has also lead to the cruelest exclusionary judgements.
-------------

There has never been a middle class in the United States that has been acknowleged or addressed. The claim to the contrary is one of the biggest lies ever told. It has caused some of the biggest problems.

The real middle and lower economic classes are not included in any statistics that validate thier needs and it is society's responsibility to provide them with the voice and the power they have never had. Also, that means alot more than having U.S. democrats driving people to the polls on election day because they can't get there otherwise. I mean really....

I believe stongly that those who have fought for civil rights and disability rights should be honored for their brave and persistant efforts and the benifits that have resulted from those efforts.

At the same time, it must also be understood and dealt with as a more important issue that:

The belief that such rights ARE actually provided for anything other than the minority (in any country) or that the rights of the majority of people are decided in any kind of democratic or fair way is causing the biggest problems.

Respect Before Gratitude

2008-01-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

I have a concern....

Autistic people have a lot to offer. The internet shows too few people describing that they feel this way.

People that are diagnosed as autistic and desire to learn how that can be respected as they learn to respect autistic others and their autistic selves....I consider them to be autistic.

We are human whether we respect who we are or not. Every other valuable label we earn by learning to respect it. To do otherwise is to associate yourself with a label that creates pity, self loathing, disrespect, and disgust.

If you self diagnose yourself as autistic, or just identify yourself with autistics, then you, like the rest of us, are learning to respect what is good about it....and more power to you. If there are parts of being autistic that you need accomodations for, such as education, vocational aid, and healthcare.... then hold the people who are providing that to you, or who you want to provide that to you, responsible for treating the label of autistic with respect.

No one can expect you to do that alone but you don't have to.

If you are receiving services from an autism agency, autism organization, or autism service provider, find out how they define autism and work to make their view a more respectable one. Find out where their funds come from and where they go to. Find out who,besides their clients, that they are responsible to. If they or their money are being used to hurt and show disrespect for autistic people, work to change how they do things and find others who will help you with your efforts.

If you are seeking help for you autistic kid, along with whatever else you do to aid your child, seek out autistic adults who are working to teach society how to respect autistic people. If you hope for your kid to become an adult (which I'm sure you do) , they may have many of the same characteristics as we do and you need to be working to help us all to start creating more respect for autistic people so that your kid grows up in an environment that respects their differences.

If you don't like the word neurodiversity, use another word that shows acceptance for peoples' uniqueness and even what others see as weakness....because whether you like it or not, you ain't that normal or that strong by normal standards either, and if the world can't tolerate difference and/ or what they see as weak, then the world won't be tolerable for any of us.

And another thing:

1)Start placing a higher standard on where you show your gratitude. Make sure that people understand what it means to show respect for autistic and disabled people and that they follow the standards they understand. Especially if they are inofficial positions where it is very important for them to do so.

No one deserves gratitude for being willing to tolerate us, and diplomacy only works with people who won't abuse diplomacy as being what they see as an opportunity to continue with their inappropriate behavior.

2) Either fix the "autism awareness" campaign or help get rid of it before it does any more harm.

3) Quit telling people that the decisions that are made about autistic people are decided by some kind of democracy, when the few who are voting on these issues are uninformed about who we as autistics are, and how their decisions impact our lives.

4) Quit treating issues where people are being severely abused, and sometimes even killed, as an issue like one that might be discussed in a civil manner as some topic for a T.V. talk show.

This minimizes the severity of the issue, and worst of all it minimizes the value that people are placing on the lives of those who are being abused. They can't afford for people who care to handle this so dispassionately, or for it to be described to others in such a way.

happy new year.

Dear Dr. Koplewicz

2007-12-15T09:12:00.001-08:00

Dear Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz,

This letter is being sent to you in an effort to add my voice to the many voices who are outraged by your recent ads called "Ransom Notes", by the NYU Child Study Center.

I, as well as many others, are asking that you reconsider how everyone that is targeted by this campaign will be negatively affected by it, as well as to how such views that were expressed in this campaign have negatively affected society throughout the years.

I understand that you and others within the mental health professional community have often not been required to be responsible for your actions. I also understand this naivete has further impeded your developmental progress as a person. However, your behavior in this campaign has been recognized by many who are often very negatively affected by the societal views that the expressions made by this campaign are promoting, and we are not willing to be accepting of this inappropriate behavior.

We have been made aware that you were not aware of who we are and how we feel. Such awareness starts by you being willing to listen. Your profession often creates many pathological problems for doctors such as yourself who are given the license to practice in the name of therapeutic intervention, without being required to answer to those whom you profit from, and whose lives are affected by your inappropriate behavior.

We are willing to be a part of your education and rehabilitation. The first step requires that you acknowledge that you are in need of our services. Unfortunately, because of the severe problems associated with your recent behavior, we must require that you be willing to take immediate action to make reparations to all you have harmed in whatever ways you can (we will direct you as to how you can do that), and be willing to acknowledge from now on how behavior such as this is not acceptable.

We look forward to your immediate and complete compliance to our direction in this matter.

Sincerely,
Ed
http//:www.edsautismpage@blogspot.com

Real Solutions for Everyone

2007-12-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

Even by today's standards, Sigmund Freud would be classified by wealth, status, and eccentricity rather than having habits that would define him as not acceptable enough to be a worthy member of society. However, the same habits that he had would describe someone else who had them (that didn't have wealth and status) in a way that would never allow them to be honored as eccentric.

There are laws that are determined by nothing more than social status. Whatever is being currently described as social skills is what defines social status. However, there doesn't need to be the focus that there is on the hierarchy and/or status that defines a person's worth. (and NO I don't think that the ideal of unreserved acceptance of human life is either unrealistic or unreasonable.)

It is more important than ever that we find ways that make nonviolent and benevolent behavior free from value judgments.

If you walk around a mall in one direction it is considered exercise and it is encouraged. Skateboarding may not be a crime but if you are going to carry that skateboard under your arm, you had better not let anyone see you walk in more than one direction because pacing is a crime. However, if you can pass as an executive, then you can then be considered to be having valid stress and you are allowed to do what would otherwise be considered pacing for other people.

If I have to go into the bank (because I wear the glasses that I do) it has been required of me that it come up on their computer that I "have autism". Because my behavior may be seen as unacceptable???? Like the kind of stress I get when I walk into a bank where it shows up on the computer that I "have autism''????

I had enough people watching me long before there was anything like "autism awareness". What do you think people are really trying to make people aware of?

Functions are described by what is socially acceptable and seen as worthy of respect. Autistics are divided as Aspies and low functioning because.... Why? Because the goal behind "research" and "awareness" is to provide the "real autistics" with "cures", "appropriate therapy" and to see that they are sent to the appropriate class? Is that class distinctions or classrooms?

Tell me, do you put high functioning Aspies in one "class" because all Aspies are gifted? Do you put all "low functioning" people with "real autism" or "low functioning autism" in another class room because they really can't be taught? What defines class or function and how many class's or functions do you think ought to be recognised as having something to offer society?

If you don't fit into a distinct class that is recognised as being worthy of respect, do you think that a truant officer will come to your home? Where in the world do you think truant officer's exist? Who do you think they serve? Do you think that everyone wants everybody to be educated? What for?

If you think that any behaviors that you or your child has may ever be seen as socially unacceptable just because its different, you might want to focus less on fixing what people arbitrarily decide is uncomfortable and unwanted and start focusing more on the awareness in society that makes society more tolerant and accepting of what they have chosen to dislike and be uncomfortable of.

Responsible Citizens

2007-12-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

The most backwards words I've ever heard a so-called proud American say is, "America, love it or leave it." Such words seem to claim that to utilize your freedom is disrespectful to those who claim you have freedom. It reminds me of how an organization who claims to be guided by the principles of anonymity would make their first requirement that of introducing oneself.

How would a nation who claims to be guided by the principles of democracy and freedom be an example of the effectiveness of these principals to other nations?

When a dissident becomes a leader and then doesn't encourage independent thought and expression among their followers, they are not just fighting amongst those whom they claim ruled in a way that they needed to liberate themselves and others from, they are then waging war against themselves as well as waging war against those principals for which their followers chose them in the first place.

If industries such as psychiatry and behavior modification become overly focused on profits and show that they are willing to prey on peoples fear rather than promoting their strengths, then these industries are threats to the liberty and freedom of everyone.

I was born in a small town in the mountains of the southern part of the United States. The year was 1963. There was quite a revolution going on and I was born into the middle of it. It was a time that conformity needed to be challenged and it was.

I have studied for 45 years about how this revolution effected people. Since so many people who sought liberty during this time made mistakes about how to achieve liberation, anyone who didn't seek to find their own way became confined to a prison that was quite similar to those who clung to the ideals of conformity.

The resistance to this revolution was very strong and many conformists were quite fearful. Today we live in a different time but the fear of those who see nonconformists as a threat are still very loud, and this fear is being preyed on today by many industries who are willing to accept the temporary benefits that accompany the deception of a swollen market.

While fear has always been very marketable, it is not an aspiration that people are drawn toward but rather a prison where people without aspirations end up.

Psychiatry has always used fear as their primary method of promotion.

Just like the politics and religions it supports, psychiatry makes a fearful spectacle of anyone who resists the agenda that the promoters of psychiatry preach.

I remember 1980 as the time when I really saw the leaders in the United States become very absolute about their direction of becoming governed by a single political party that would promote the falsehood of how their description of personal responsibility would create liberty for everyone. There still has not been enough resistance to this false agenda.

The view of these political leaders had very close ties with those views of the industry of psychiatry in much the same way as the views of psychologist Abraham Maslow promoted the New Deal plan of the president at that time, Franklin Delanore Roosevelt.

No irresponsible leader has ever inspired a responsible form of government. The fear that results from irresponsible leadership has more to do with the acts of a dictator rather than the courage that comes from the inspiration of a liberater.

Since there is no separating personal responsibility from societal responsibility, when people try to promote one at the expense of the other, the result is the lack of responsibility.

The most widely used recreational drug in the U.S. today is reported to be the same as the most widely prescribed psychotropic medication for children who are descibed as having "behavioral problems." At the same time more and more methadone users are being excluded from the same system that provided it to them in the first place.

Nicotine is described as being as addictive as heroin, and yet cigarettes are seen as a conveinient thing to tax because it's unhealthy and people don't need them.

Why do you think that 11% of U.S. military veterans are homeless? Also remember that those were are given cigarettes and taught to "Smoke em if you got em" have insult added to injury when windfall profits never reach the bottom but those taxes sure do.

If torture is being used by every nation that is at war, how do you think the U.S. military creates endurance amongst it's soldiers who they think might tell important information if they are taken prisoner? The same way that every other nation does it. The soldiers are tested by being given those tortures they might receive.

While modern psychiatrist report that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is at its worst amongst military veterans now, the aid to these veterans is reported to be worse than ever.

When prohibition ended and the FDA was created, which drugs were put on the list as being illeagal and why? LSD 25 when it was first created was not illeagal. It was first tested on U.S. soldiers, mental patients, and, you guessed it; it was one of the first treaments used to try to do what they claimed would, "cure autism".

When the NAMI worked to get the bill passed to make it so that parents would be allowed to demand their sons and daughters (at any age) who had a diagnosis of mental illness could be placed in a mental institution (against the patients will) based on nothing more than the parents say so....All I could say is "don't". You bet I got attacked for that, but even if I could have argued my point, I wasn't allowed to by the parents.

So, whats a citizen to do about autism? You know that there is no such thing as autistic services - but what about autism services? Saying that your child has a treatable, and/or curable "disorder" and calling that disorder autism will get you milage points right now, but you won't like where that train takes you. Nor will you ever be able to afford the consequences. That is guaranteed.

A culture that accepts difference is the only real guarantee any of us has.

So, how radical am I going to be about what I say? As radical as I want to be (I might teach Dennis Rodman a thing or two about how to be radical), until they don't let me speak anymore.

To those who say, "America, love it or leave it." I say, "Liberty, use it or lose it."

Behavioral Reformation

2007-11-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

The leaders of the western world have sought many methods to secure authoritarian rule by using behavior modification techniques that are disquised as treatment for illness and/or punishment for what is unfashionable.

Fashion influences the market and reinforces the values that authoritarian leaders decide will prevent public dissent.

Those who were described as explorers, pilgrims, and revolutionists, who found their way to the eastern shores of what is now considered the United States, had no map that directed them to this place and many of the ideals they had for creating a liberated land had not been thoroughly planned.

As soon as they found that there were people that already occupied this land, those people were described as savages because of their radically different behavior and lifestyle. This was of course the first justification for war that occured within the land that they would claim as their own and call the United States.

Along with enslaving the prisoners of this war, they soon also took part in the slave trade that savagely kidnapped Africans from their homeland on the other side of the world. Once again this war was justified because of people's behavior and lifestyle was so radically different than their own. These Africans were considered savages and and again they were treated in savage ways. Of course the savagery of these "settlers" was again condoned. This slavery was seen as a way to promote their economy.

But how would they preserve the puritanical, legalistic, religious methods of behavioral modification techniques with the claim that they were seeking the separation of church and state? This proved to be quite difficult.

Once again they declared war against the "savagery" they claimed threatened their narrow views of an authoritarion-based lifestyle. This time it happened within the very walls they considered their place of worship by their clergymen, and against the women and children who were most vulnerable.

This war was against people they claimed were their own. However, in order to try to protect what they saw as their good name, this war became known as a war against a force rather than against those who were seen as savages and subhuman. It would have to be that way wouldn't it? I mean these people were considered a part of their own race! This was called the war against the outside evil force of witchcraft.

Some of the behavior modification techniques used against those were were seen as witches have heavily influenced other behavioral modification techniques throughout (what many refer to as) the civilized world.

In order to modify the behavior of people who were considered citizens of society and not easily dismissed, the war is convieniently declared against some outside force.

Rather than accept public responsibility, overcomers of what are considered afflictions of thought, perception, or behavior, are glorified and if the one whose behavior is seen as "abnormal" cannot be punished in a way that society will readily agree with, the force that dictates the person's behavior must be seen as either demonic, provoked by disease, or promoted by genetic defect that must be eliminated.

What is important to remember is that once a behavior can be described to the public as wrong instead of different, it can and does lead to the worst and most savage methods of the behavior modificationists. Those who modify behavior that is different in the justified name of "correcting what is wrong" go unpunished and their methods (once justified in this way) are not only accepted, they are promoted. These are the REAL wrongs that need to be researched, investigated, and fixed!

These methods of how different behaviors are treated didn't all originate in the U.S. and it won't help to just blame capitolism or the U.S. government for how the problems with abuse of power are handled in the U.S. and everywhere else.

People in the U.S. have come from all over the world and they have power here to do good things that they are not using. People everywhere (not just the U.S.) can change human rights in other places in many ways that they aren't yet. Furthermore, the people who are most capable of world domination and those who are the worst violaters of human rights no longer care about money. They have plenty. These people are NOT the U.S. government.

In order to create real change that promotes human rights for everyone we must consider what we are really fighting against and how we should best do that.

Thanksgiving Holiday

2007-11-26T05:36:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the blogpost dealing with the subject I described in my last post, I descided to show and tell about my holiday since it was really like my first spent with family.

My wife and I have been together for 7 years but this is the first time we had both her sons to join us and also.... it was on Thanksgiving weekend!

We had a delightful time laughing, eating, and watching movies at home. My wifes youngest son (who is quite the multitasker) was on his laptop computer the whole time while watching movies, while the eldest drifted in and out of sleep alot as he hadn't had much time off from work lately. My wife couldn't have been happier. I joined in and retired to the other room and the computer when the fun became too overwhelming for me.

The main time we did go out of the house we went to the theater to watch a movie. We went to see Beowolf. We left after only a half hour into the movie. I would have been under my chair the whole time if there had been room for me there. (I've been repeating to myself since we saw what we saw, "The monster wasn't real and he can't hurt us.")

Here are family pictures we took over the weekend.

Misperception

2007-11-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

Today I'd like to explore some of the ways that diversity of perception has be evaluated.

Just as art imitating life is a two way street, the pattern of how we define history influences future events.

In particular I am most interested in the events that have seemed to me to have influenced how decisions were made reguarding how difficulties and/or differences in human perception are evaluated and treated.

Since there has never been any absolute defining lines in the evaluations of psychologist, psychiatrist, and sociologist, I feel that the best way to influence future methods of evaluations is by looking at which events might have had more influence on the direction of the interventions they have chosen to use.

Psychologists (along with the unresonable social standards some of the ideals of psychology have created) have described peoples responses to situations as the prime cause of all their difficulty. These evaluations create a great deal of acceptance and promotion of abusive behavior.

Psychologists and their followers often describe many of worlds problems as a result from people not taking personal responsibility over their own lives. This description of course places that responsibility on the most vulnerable and most convinient people. Being inapropriatly blamed in this way often leads to the wrong person feeling shameful and unsupported.

The origins of psychiatry are quite frightful and the only changes in psychiatric treatment that have seemed to become more civilized have seemed to be done for the sake of creating more dependence on the psychiatric industry by adding more consumers. Just like any other industry, once a monopoly has been created it becomes more difficult to moniter. We cannot trust an elite few to make decisions about which types of treatment are civilized. This power has too often been abused.

The dangers of how some people are exploring neurology are becoming more apparent all the time. We cannot afford to trust the fate of future generations to genetisists with terrible agendas. These agendas are often disquised as compassionate ways to end suffering.

When specialist diagnose people with learning disabilities, any programs that are designed to provide them with learning stratagies must be monitered by the public to prevent some "one size fits all program" from becoming exclusionary even when it claims to be promoting inclusion.

Diversity of perception will always continue to be a part of who we are as the human race. However, unless we fight for the rights of expressing how that perception effects each of us individually, there will be people who abuse their power that will try to more narrowly define our perceptions and use that as a tool to more narrowly curtail our expressions.

Defining how diverse populations can be better accomidated will certainly promote diversity but not every program that claims to have that as their objective can go unmonitered by the people who are most effected by how they do things.

It seems to me that for true diversity of perception to be protected we who are effected by the groups who are defining this diversity, must work to understand their history and what has led to the methods that they use to make their decisions. By doing this we can all be more responsible in making sure that these desisions are made in ways that serve us rather than hurt us. (Note: I will be making more blog posts that are dedicated to this very effort)

What We Are Able to Do

2007-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

This post was inspired by the most recent post from ABFH of how neurodiversity and disability are described at http:// autisticbfh.blogspot.com/200711unfashionable-abilities.html
She (as she always does) has described something that I feel is very important in a good and comprehensive way.

My attempt here is to describe my thoughts about this, mainly based on how I have seen disability and accommodations treated in the U.S. during my lifetime.

As history continues to be rewritten (as we understand it better), technology is becoming more sophisticated, and the value of products and services is evolving. How people see value in what a person can do is reflected in these changing values.

While I don't think that a human's ability to feel and express a full range of emotion has ever been inherently impaired (different yes, impaired no) in any human or that this has ever changed, there are specific societal influences on how we respond to those feelings that are based on people who live in a particular location acting in particular ways, at particular times.

We as a world and we who live in particular locations do make decisions that effect societal values as well as the direction of what temptations become more available.

As I think about times in history when I've heard about a race or classification of people whose rights were being ignored and how the lives of those people who fit that classification were in danger, it has also made me wonder how those who described the problem to others and fought against the dangerous trend were seen by others.

Certainly there were people who were enjoying comforts during that time (that would later prove to be very expensive) who were quite opposed to any radical disruption in their lifestyles.

Others who were experiencing more of the discrimination had their judgement clouded by intense emotion and I'm sure this has often led to convenient and less rational approaches to the problem that hurt everyone.

Still others must have had some understanding of how what was happening to them was headed down a dangerous path, but felt powerless and afraid to speak up.

Of course the worst influences during these times are those whose feelings of hopelessness lead them to focus solely on the immediate gratification of their own needs. This comes at the expense of others and is most clearly displayed by those who see this as an opportune time to prey on the fears of others.

The first step toward turning things around is to view fear accurately and see it as deception. Most of the bad things that happens are caused by the apathy of those who can choose to do something to help the situation but don't.

Those who see the best way to create and protect the rights of autistics by describing the experience as a diversity or as a disability can reach a common goal with pure motivations

All people with differences and/or what are described as disabilities are often objectified as well as being excluded in the worst ways.

People have always been objectified by others who find ways to hurt them. The main difference is that today our weapons are more sophisticated and terrible agendas take less time to be carried out.

Desperate people will make clumsy decisions in haste. However, another problem is that too many humanitarian efforts are now being seen as trite and impractical. Idealists CAN always inspire lawmakers and planmakers.

There needs to be leaders, scientists, artists, and yes, even idealists (like me who don't give specific advice), that are working together for a common goal.

Those who today are being seen as disabled need accommodations and so do many others. There are people who need medical attention who must agree to certain labels in order to receive that help.

There is nothing about the ideal of neurodiversity that threatens that. In fact, it is the only ideal I know of that has any chance at preserving the rights of people who need these provisions from being led down an even more dangerous path. I would urge people to be careful who they fight against and how.

Debilitating Infection

2007-11-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

Today I'd like to talk about the ways that a terrible disease is being allowed to threaten a great deal of the world's citizens.

This dis ease is perpetrated and maintained by the worst type of infection. The problem is that it infects that which is our most powerful weapon that allows us to build our immune system as well as the part of us that is the most vulnerable. That part that I'm speaking of is our attitude.

This virus infects the consciousness of the individual and spreads to the collective consciousness of our entire culture. This horrible virus is best described as ablism. Fortunatly there is treatment available and maybe even a cure. However, protection as well as early detection will create everyones best defense.

The effect that it has had on the human race has created more death and destruction than anything else. The bad methods of defense that have been devised to destroy it have allowed it to mutate again and again.

One of the best methods of ensuring a strong defense is to understand how and where ablism is present.

One of the ways ablism is now being presented is by the attempt to cure autism. Denied accessability for peoples needs and the denial of their rights that defines how many people determine a person's quality of life are some of the more subtle ways this virus uses to infect people's attitudes. However, the result is always the same. It is claimed that since difference cannot be cured, fixed or accomidated appropriatly, it must be elliminated.

Ablism needs a specific environment in order to create its most damaging effects. These are the early detection signs to watch for:

1)Hope must be created and then eliminated. This happens with several steps:

A)The differences of autism must be medicalized in order to encourage people to invest hope and money into the cure.

B)Behaviors are pathologised in order to blame either the autistic person (which can be seen as justification of their torture) or the parents (which can lead them to feeling guilt and shame and then more willing to eliminate the problem).

2)Once hope has been diminished, the debilitating force of ablism is spread by two powerful forces that attack autistics in similar ways to how it has accomplished its descrimination of many other types of people.

A)More narrow types of standardized tests are created. This works to ensure that the public will view that any ability that is not seen as normal must instead be the sign of inability. This inability is seen to tax, and therefore burden the rest of society.

B)The dreaded agism is always a powerful agent and affects everyone. With autism it seems to create the perfect division for this problem to spread. If people can truly believe that there is a limited amount of resources that must be divided between accomidations for the younger people and accomodations for older people,all age groups will be seen by each other as a threat TO each other. Once people are pitted against each other in this way, the compassion that drives ALL accomidation in the first place is then replaced by strife and arguing between people who could and should learn from each other and work together.
-------------------

However, there is hope. Most carriers of this disorder are not aware that they are infected. You don't need to anger most carriers, but you can let them know the signs of the disorder and how to turn it around.

Help them understand that the problem lies in the attitude and that the circumstances that cause peoples problems stem from that attitude.

Question any and all treatments. Question ribbons, question what is done in the name of awareness, and question what is done in the name of research. Work toward creating adaptations for what are considered disabilities and be very careful of how behaviors are determined by some to be pathological or medical issues.

THIS is true awareness and together we can work toward real and positive change.

He's a Strange Bird

2007-11-04T06:20:00.000-08:00

I have often wondered why some people seem to place so much emphasis on continuity and conformity.

Autistic people are often ignored, excluded, and treated in the harshest ways because our behavior is misunderstood and doesn't fit "normal" expectations.

Some may already be aware of the unorthodox way that some (just some) use when hunting in the name of sport.

What I would consider "the good ole boy" approach to (what was once considered nothing more than) providing ones family with food sometimes includes dulling the senses with alcohol and spending more money on weapons, gear, and having the carcus stuffed to display in their home than they would ever have to spend on buying alternatives to this meat.

While I can't say that I understand any sport very well, this "sport" called hunting (as it done in this manner) is the most irrational one to me.

The attitude of these hunters is, however, is something I have been exposed to most of my life. While these behaviors are quite repulsive to me, I have studied their habits as an animal of prey would study their most common preditor.

While this example may seem extreme, one would need to have been the object of such preditory behavior to really understand.

My analysis of the motivation for this behavior is that while it is not the same as the fear of starving, or exactly the same as the fear of being attacked, it still stems from fear.

Most people who display reckless aggression (based on what I've learned from those whom I've observed) have also been targets of reckless aggression.

It seems that instead of learning from their experience of being the target of reckless preditors, some twisted pathological thinking drives them to believe that their self preservation is dependent on blending in with other preditors, even after they have witnessed the price these preditors pay for their behavior.

There is a big price to be paid by the individual as well as by the entire human race when someone tries to selfishly obtain the fulfillment of their needs at the expense of someone else's needs. Sometimes the individual doesn't even seem to learn from the consequences of their mistakes after paying the price for them again and again. Sometimes nothing seems to deter them from trying to preserve this way of life that was taught to them as a means to survival.

One of my favorite scenes from any movie came from the movie "Powder". The scene shows the main character, (whose power was derived from his sensitive and empathetic nature) providing a hunter with the ability to sense the emotion of a deer that the hunter had just shot.

The hunter had become so unempathetic and calous, that sensing this emotion was over whelming beyond his wildest imagination.

This lack of sophistication is also often shown by by U.S. leaders. While their reckless aggression is usually carried out on other humans, the U.S. vice president was recently involved in a hunting accident where he mistakingly shot another man in the face while attempting to aim at a bird. It should of course be noted that the vice president said, " I'm sorry."

My analysis is that the fear involved in this "good ole boy" attitude seems to include the of breaking of tradition. Of course, the preservation of these traditions also turns this into a cycle that is difficult to break.

Isn't it interesting that it was also a cycle that described the life of the main character in the movie "Powder"?

It was the characters sensitive nature that made him different in the first place, and instead of working to be more like him (which would have saved them a great deal of fear, anxiety, and the punishment that comes from acting on these negative emotions in reckless ways) they instead chose to exclude him which perpetuated the very cycle that imprisoned them in the first place.

Holiday Spirit

2007-10-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to talk about holiday spirit.

Tonight there may be shorter than average people showing up at your front door. They will be expecting candy.

In order to obtain this (what seems to be more of tax that you are expected to pay) their role in this collection drive seems to be to appear humble and cute....and to use an expression that (to me) seems tired and worn out. They seem to use this expression with little or no enthusiasm.... as if they don't even seem to know the meaning of the words they are saying. The expression they use is trick or treat.

How is it that by age 14 these little people are listening to Marilyn Manson and are completly educated in how to dress themselves in classic gothic style but at age 10 they are standing at front doors in plastic costumes based on some Disney characters and wimpering the words trick or treat.

Just once I'd like to see somebody at the door covered with real blood, holding their severed head in their hands, and demanding (in a loud shrill voice and cussing alot), "GIVE ME SUGARY SNACKS OR I"LL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!!!"

It would be even better if they were wearing lots of black leather.... and a pink skirt....black nail polish would add a nice touch too. Heck, if someone like that showed up at my house on Halloween, I'd give them cash....all I had on me at the time.

Now I don't blame these mild mannered cute little people. They have been trained to act the way they do by parents who dress them this way and then follow along behind them. Sometimes it's their hippie grandparents that go with them. I feel sorry for the little people when I see their grandparents tagging along and they are dressed like Jerry Garcia and Grace Slick....O.K. actually Grace Slick is a good Halloween costume.....and I guess Jerry Garcia isn't so bad either....but as a warlock. NO tie dye and no hemp jewelry.

And to those of you who are giving out treats....remember, sugar and chocolete. Snickers, 3 Musketeers, and Hersey's....but without almonds....and no Mounds. Coconut has nutrients. Halloween has nothing to do with nutrition. Some of these boomers are giving out granola bars and sulphur free papaya spears for crying out loud....STOP IT! It sends the wrong message. Besides, you don't have to deal with them for the next several days while they're hyped up on this junk.

So about autism, diversity, inclusion and all that.... Well, If you've got little people or big people running around your house (some of whom are also kids) remember that they are also people and many will get bigger one day.... So, teach them how to be real and how to have fun.
Happy Halloween! : )

Monsters, Misfits, and Misbehaving

2007-10-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to talk about how society looks at diversity and how our perception effects how we treat people.

Monsters are of course made in laboratories by robotics engineers who make terrible mistakes and we most often see these monsters when our fears are heightened and our imagination is doing us more harm than good.

Too often the term misfit is used among people who could be more specific but aren't.

Certainly there are those who are having more difficulty acquiring accommodations for their differences, and no one who has overcome these obstacles can claim anything but good fortune as long as the majority of the WORLD'S population doesn't have the same opportunities. Elite conformists delight in local (rather than global) comparisons because that encourages internal battles.

For instance, Winston Churchhill and F.D.R. both claimed that charity would weaken us rather than impassion us to do even more for each other, as it actually does. Abraham Maslow also did alot to influence (what we now call) modern psychology to be even more dehumanizing. Maslow did this by assigning a standardized path of hierarchial needs, and a narrow description of the human condition and guidelines for how we should then behave.

Since these men DID INDEED know enough of how their decisions and the ways that they used them to influence people would effect the world, they acted in ways that were at least, irresponsible, narrow minded, and shortsighted. Their leadership led to unreasonable demands. Certainly a different path would have led to something better for everyone.

These are not popular views anywhere. The reason is not because they are not educated views and not because they cannot be backed up. It is instead because they don't follow conventional form. Basically they don't fit.

Bricks in a wall fit. Nature will form minerals in all sorts of different ways. A brick is instead formed by taking minerals that have been made pliable by saturation, conformed into strict standards, exposed to harshly heated environments, and once they meet conventional standardized tests of measurements of size and density, they are seen as being stacked with other bricks to create protection, insulation, etc.

Of course, those that fail at any point during the conforming process are broken, ground down, resaturated, harshly heated, and retested until they are seen as worthy of conventional USE and the treatment that accompanies that evaluation.

The majority of people never speak in terms of "in my opinion" and only a small minority that are geographically hindering the elite get a diagnosis based on how the APPOINTED evaluaters describe their thinking and behavior. ( AUTISM SPECTRUM INDEED!!!! **** **** **** ****) Why should anyone else receive a level of exclusion based on some sort of spectrum? They are geographically excluded and therefore more convenient to ignore.

Western idealist are pacified by funding organizations that go to other parts of the world where they claim to educate people and by doing so these people can become more "sophisticated".

People rarely think of how few westerners even get any formal education. If it were truly important to the elite to educate us:
1) The education budget would reflect that.
2)If we westerners had aspirations of helping the rest of the world to become more "sophisticated" we would spend less money on bombs to kill them with.

The majority of the worlds population reaches "self actualization" without acquiring anything like what westerners consider to be adequate food and shelter.

The claims that anyone has ever rushed toward being seen as poor and down trodden in order to do anything but survive in a world that doesn't accept them, are made by those who don't need to do that.

Our world has nothing more to acquire than the humanity it has traded and sold. Our monsters and our misfits will continue to misbehave until the rest of us get our act together.

Untitled

2007-10-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

When caution creates apathy, besides what it does to others who need your help, it will eat you up inside.

When people are being hurt or insulted, anyone who can help out should do just that.

The insult (that I see leading to extremes of the worst kind) is that of calling people high functioning and low functioning anything.

Because of my experiance and education about this, I not only speak as one of the best athorities on the subject, I speak from the position of KING.

I have been told by several people (not on the internet) that knew that I had a diagnosis of autism and not of Aspergers that because of certain abilities that I have
I should refer to myself as Aspergers anyway because I could pass and that calling myself autistic was putting myself down. **** **** **** ****

What a person calls *themselves* is really not what I'm concerned about. However, we live in a world that is less than ideal. While you personally may be able to seperate how a person functions from what they are worth, you cannot ignore that our less than ideal society is not nearly that sophisticated.

Labeling a person by how fast someone learns a particular thing or weather or not you or anyone else thinks they *can* learn it....by using terms like low OR high functioning (one causes as much trouble as the other).... this will perpetuate the standardized tests, the claim that there is such a thing as normal....and worst of all this WILL carry over into how society judges their worth. How peoples worth is judged WILL descide how they are treated.

If people who make noise and people who run the world can't understand that.... they can all go home and keep their mouth shut and I will do all the noise making and I WILL RUN THE WORLD!!!!

When the Party's Over

2007-10-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

What I'm writing here is not really about the end of the world or even a warning about how we all need to be thinking of things in that way. The reason I'm not writing about that is that I think that fear is what the world really needs to be working to avoid. It has and is causing alot of problems.

Although people are not empathetic about it as we should be, most people do know that there are people who are living opulant lifestyles while others go without. I don't think looking at the one extreme being responsible for the other is really as productive as looking at how we can make charges in our attitude that helps more people be provided for. When you are at one end of an extreme, balance seems like an unrealistic goal but undiciplined emotional reactions will cause hatred for what is happening which is often why there is a problem in the first place.

When it comes to including more diverse people and making our planet more accepting of diversity, I don't think that the elite few who are making the big decisions want that at all. I think they are determined to decrease the population and create their view of a smaller better society of people. Less suffering is often masked as a means to this end. Actually this could only lead to an end unto itself because no such ideal is possible and no such cut-off point can ever really be made.

As depessing as this might sound, I'm not meaning it that way at all. What I'm saying is that as much power as these elite few seem to have over the masses, they have that power because of long history of apathetic views and beliefs. Understanding their real objective may make many people feel that the problem is too big for us to solve. Again that is what has caused the problem in the first place.

If enough people believe in and work toward change, the change can occur. Even if it couldn't (which I believe it can) the lack of belief and more apathy will make the problem worse. Coming together and working toward real change is not simply our only hope, it's the the most optimistic way to live.

The Resourceful Attitude

2007-09-21T09:23:00.001-07:00

Worth Striving For

2007-09-06T04:31:00.000-07:00

Note: I have not really updated this blog lately as I have been working on making You tube videos, doing school work, and keeping up with my other responsibilities but this blog is also important to me and I will be adding to it again now on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, I will begin that right now. :)

Worth Striving For

I often wonder why people make the choices they do about what is worthy of thier time and effort. Everyone has different priorities.

The need to challenge ourself and become a better person does express itself differently in everyone. I can't help thinking that this is not only based on our unique circumstances and our environment but also in how we were designed in different ways.

I would describe myself as noncompetitive but such a description is not easy to explain. So often people reserve the label of noncompetitive to those that are never heard or seen by others. I would say this deserves a better explaination and that there is alot more to this than that veiw describes (or rather the resricted use of that label).

People do strive for different things in different ways. One claim that I continue to make but am never successful in explaining is that no one is lazy.

How each person spends thier time and energy may vary greatly but it is degrading to all humans to claim that anyone could be lazy. This claim leads to all sorts of prejudice and discrimination.

It is worthwhile for me to strive to show how this claim is false and very damaging to our society. I will have to keep working on it but I am sure that it can be explained better.

Message in a Bottle

2007-09-01T18:18:00.001-07:00

Wonderful Expressions

2007-08-31T13:45:00.001-07:00

He Ain't Heavy (script)

2007-08-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

Script for: "He Ain't Heavy"

Hello,
What I'd like to speak about today is the value of labels. My reason for the title of today's video, "He Ain't Heavy" is that I am reminded of an old tune named, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" that always gave me reason to look at people beyond their labels.

The way each of us sees another person by their label that they give to themselves can greatly enhance the respect we show for that person.

If, for example, someone can tell you who they are and how their culture often communicates, the label by which they identify themselves can aid in our understanding of that person or allow us the opportunity to say," I don't know a lot about that, but I am willing to learn." When we see beyond that person's label and remember that we are all connected as brothers and sisters and fellow humans ,
we can expand our knowledge of the diversity within each subset of people.

Unfortunately, the way we use labels is often much less respectful. Our judgments are not made with a great deal of patience. It is all too easy to decide whether a person is good or bad or whether we like them or we don't.

Beyond that we are not likely to change our view of a person once we have decided what their labels say about them. This makes it difficult for people to be seen as who they are and can greatly impede their opportunity for growth.

In this case, we may not need to judge the judger, but we can certainly show the error in their judgment.

We must also accept that there are societal power structures that create the need for people who are more likely to be oppressed to show how they are proud of who they are. This is important.

Amomgst those who need to struggle for respect and dignity, we need to give that to each other. Otherwise we cancel out the efforts of each other. Creating dignity and respect for one already oppressed group at the expense of another will create the same oppression that caused the problem in the first place.

In the case of autistic people, we must be careful in the ways that we use our
inherent talents or even our accomplishments as a badge of honor that promotes our label. What society calls our level of functioning, cannot escape the subjectiveness
of how each function is seen to be a contribution.

Diversity must play a dominant role in these decisions, otherwise every autistic will be expected to function in a more socially acceptable way rather than what is commonlly and thoughtlessly referred to as a level of functioning. There are too many variables within each autistics experience for such evaluations and the expectations that go with them.

Professionals often speak to and of autistics in a patronizing tone. Autistics have been more likely been seen by what we can't do instead of what we can. The discrimination against our culture has been a great burden to how we are seen and how that effects our self esteem.

This self esteem is essential for us to know that we can contribute. We must remind ourselves, and others that it may very well be the social skills that seem awkward and
even the behaviors that seem difficult for ourselves and/or others to manage that is a part of a package that is not being adequately evaluated.

The same sensitivities to an environment that was designed without us in mind may be the very thing that indicates that a person is inclined to be very creative and inquisitive.

Everyone is connected to autistic people, and we can all design opportunities for autistics and help people to approach the label with more dignity and respect.
Thank you

He Ain't Heavy

2007-08-21T11:09:00.001-07:00

Sophisticated Aspirations

2007-08-18T04:44:00.001-07:00

Conformity

2007-08-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

Script for "Conformity" video:
Hello.
The subject of this video is conformity and more specifically how expectations of conformity might impact diverse expressions such as those of an autistic person.

Certainly there are conforming expectations in every society that help to preserve law and order. However, as is often the case when society encounters the diverse expressions of an autistic person, there are expectations of that person to conform that has no other value than creating a temporary and false sense of comfort for others who are more motivated by conformity and are suited for it.

When a group or society demands such a sense of comfort for themselves, the group mentality can lead to unreasonable judgements that lead to unreasonable efforts to support and maintain thier delusions of immunity.

While these delusions may begin by making them feel safe and that their own differences will not be targeted as unacceptable, unless reason, understanding, and a more accepting veiw of diversity is incorperated, everyone will eventually fall prey to these types of demands.

Exclusion, bullying, and negative stereotypes are just the begining of the negative path such conformist's veiws can enable. Eugenics, murders masked as "mercy killings", and even the atrocities commited in Nazi Germany are not beyond the scope of what could happen if the ignorance of discouraging diversity is allowed to flourish.

I accept the responsibility of seeking a peaceful means of interacting with others who veiw the world differently than I. I accept that many who are more typical than I will design places and situations that are not ideal for me but I CAN benifit from them.

I also realize that for me to provide the most to others and to society as a whole, I will need accomidations to help me realize my potential for this. While these needs may be different than others and in some ways I may require more extensive supports, no one is exempt from some of this type of help.

While my acceptance of responsibilities and the adjustments I must make to live in a world that was designed in many ways to accomidate people that are very different than myself may be phrased within a set of seemingly acceptable terms, it may surprise many people to what degree these terms are not accepted by society.

For instance, while competition can bring out the best in people with pure and compassionate motivations, it can corrupt those who confuse winning as an end unto itself, and people with fewer skills in certain areas will be hurt by this veiw.

Contrary to the shortsighted veiws of too many of our blindly ambitous decision makers, accepting diversity requires no expense to the resourses of our time and money.

Insted the opposite is true. Unless the ideals of including diversity becomes our most important goal, every individual expression and ultimately every individual will suffer as a result.
Thankyou

The Time to Learn

2007-08-15T04:37:00.000-07:00

Script for "The Time to Learn" video:
Hello,
The question I'd like to explore today is, "When is the best time for a person to learn?" The only answer I feel is appropriate is "Between the time their birth and the time of thier death." Any other answer will suggest inappropriate decisions by individuals, about themselves and others, and such veiws lead our society down a very destructive path.

It first needs to be understood that if a person in thier youth, in thier advanced years, or even throughout thier whole lives, does have what some may consider a learning impairment, the value of who they are as people must be recognised for a society to maintain its humanity. If someone needs support to learn, society must veiw this as a priority.

While it is a problem that we often dont show the respect that we should show toward those who aren't considered learners, we also place standards on how fast someone learns, the way that they learn, and what they are compelled to learn. The reasons behind why we choose these standards and what they say about who we are as people dont reflect well on who we are at all.

In the case of an autistic person, the labels of retardation or pervasive developmental disorder are not appropriate or even practical.

Of course I dont see what good the label of retarded has ever done anyone. Negative stereotypes, bullying, discarded, disempowered, excluded, aborted, abused, and even murdered is just the beginning of what this label and this veiw of people has brought us. No person is retaded! This label has no value.

If anything is retarded its a society that refuses to admit that it was a mistake to label people in this way in the first place.

When describing a person's developement, the idea that it is pervasive is unnecessary at any stage of developement as well as being totally subjective. All jugements about developement usually imply unreasonable standards of the speed and the way a person developes.

And disorder....The only thing disorderly in our universe are the pathological decisions that people make when they hurt other people.

As more is understood about different neurologies, those of us who didn't have the advantages of our teachers understanding of this when we were growing up, want the opportunity to utilize teachers understanding of it as adults. This gives us a chance to contribute more. We need this and our socity needs us to have it.

Children must be provided with support beyond some arbortrary age limit such as 18 or 21. Senior adults dont stop learning or contributing when they are age 65. They are among our most valuable resources.

And finally, we need to take our focus off of what makes people autistic and how to change the autistic characteristics that may be misunderstood, uncomfortable, or even just inconveinient for others.

We need to provide autistics with the opportunity to learn. To do that we need to listen and be observant of who they are.

Each autistic has similarities that can teach us more about autism and more about who we are as the collective human race.

Our dilligence will help us understand how each autistic learns best and what they are most interested in. Remembering that the speed at which each individual learns is dependant on many factors and patience will make learning faster and better.

Society must learn that people are our most valuable resource and our best investment.
Thankyou

Liberation Matters

2007-08-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Script for "Liberation Matters" video
Hello,
I'd like to speak today about liberation matters and how it matters in the lives of individuals as well as the entire collective human race.

Throughout my lifetime I have explored how so many people become inpassioned by thier beliefs only to inprison themselves by loosing sight of what started out mattering to them the most.

All too often people loose sight of thier goals when the very thing that motivates them to liberate themselves and others becomes confusing and thier own expressions begin to sound the same as every other voice they hear.

Freedom creates identity and the will to be free leads to the expressions that remind and teach us who we are. As we learn who we are, our individualism becomes a part of more and more sets and subsets of a growing population. We are exposed to more and more diverse expressions until there are times when we are bound to doubt how important any cause could be.

Certainly I have doubted the sincerity of others but mainly because of my own self-doubt.

Human rights are often described as luxuries by those who have them TO those who don't but we must be vigilant in our fight for the dignity and respect of all people.

The truth is that the people who fight for causes are the only ones who get scrutinised for thier fighting for causes and the only one's who have any critisism to internalize.

While a pure heart may choose any number of worthy causes throughout thier lifetime, and sometimes they wonder if they have thier priorities in order, this doubt they experiance is nothing compared to thier pain from apathy.

Please remember that a person's condition or thier experience will not determine the purity of thier decisions and this will be tested throughout thier lifetime, but the masses of people who choose apathy will always envey and scrutinize those who don't. They will stand as an army against diverse expressions, against minorities, and they will find thier greatest leverage when those who are different and persecuted choose to stand alone.

My veiws have been altered by the way I have seen society treat myself and others with differences. This has changed the way I think and it has and it is continuing to change the way I act.

Being born autistic is not just how I was born, how I was diagnosed, or how I identify myself and diversity is not just a cause I have chosen. My life and who I am is all these things and more.

I do not expect that my fear of scrutiny will ever completly go away and doubt presents me with an ever present threat. My only hope is that more often than not, I make choices based on what I feel is right rather than how I'm afraid I will be judged.
Thankyou

Buying Blue Sky (Script)

2007-08-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

This video was made on August 10,2007
Script:
Hello,
Today's video is entitled "Buying Blue Sky". For the purposes of this broadcast "blue sky" represents a romanticised veiw of hope. We all seek hope but often we choose the wrong means for obtaining it.

Years ago there were traveling merchants who sold what they refered to as "cure all tonics". These merchants were described as "snake oil salesmen" by others and were not very well respected.

These tonics often included alot of alchohol and while they gave you a temporary buzz, ultimately no health problems or any other problems were really solved. People were just buying bluesky.

Today our news media preys on peoples fears in a similar way.
The reasons that people respond more to fear has mainly to do with how we've been conditioned. The news media promotes this condition of fear and profits by how the public craves what has long been a major part of our viewing diet.

When it comes to children with disabilities or differences, much of the general public has never been given much of an opportunity to be educated in how to best raise and/or care for this diverse population.

These ways do exist. As a matter of fact, I read alot of good ideas about this on the internet everyday. Many of them are coming from parents who are choosing an alternative and eclectic method of raising thier children that is tailor made to fit the individual needs of thier kids.

While all kids, like all people, are different, the open and observant ways these parents learn about how each one learns, can be beneficial for everyone to hear. I'm glad they are sharing it, and hope more people will take advantage of thier willingness to share it.

Those who our society considers disabled have been misunderstood and often mistreated. The concept of these people having diverse abilities is a very new concept to many and is too often not being embraced.

Certainly people do have medical needs and many autistics need this kind of help. We also think in different ways and need an educational approach tailored to these differences.

However, the claim of an autism epidemic has brought out the worst in opportunists who would prey on peoples fears. There are far too many bad treatments for autistics and far too many dangerous veiws that would naturally occur in a society that is so often fearful and intolerant of diverse expressions and diverse populations. This needs to be understood.

Parents of autistics need to be supported and encouraged and there is much we can learn from how many of them are approaching parenting.

The idea of an autism epidemic is based on biased reasearch and promotes more of the same.

While there are conditions that modern medicine can cure and even daily living it can enhance, the ideals of diversity must be our top priority. Until there is a shift in how our diversity is viewed, there will be more unreasonable, romantic, blue sky views of conformity, more standardized tests to support them, and more fear mongering.

This will do nothing to support different approaches that encourage different types of people, and ultimately all expressions may be seen as needing to cured or fixed.
Thankyou

How We Function

2007-08-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

Script:
Hello,
In this video I'd like to explore how we function as individuals, how we function as a society, and how these two functions are related.

When it comes to individual functioning, society will make judgements on how well we function based on what they choose to believe our goals should be. This is based on a collective mentality that will create standardized measurements of human behavior.

Ideals such as what is decribed as normal are often thoughtlessly enforced as unwritten social laws that serve only to provide comfort for conformist's. These conformist's may begin by creating situations that exclude those who dont follow a path that makes sense to them. However, the problems this creates don't stop there.

Even for those who may choose to be less aware of the consequences of these standardized veiws, they often do make choices that lead down a destructive path. They are also apathetic about change. Often we are unaware of where apathy can lead until our individual set of values and those that become woven into the fabric of our society cause many problems and are harder to change.

There are many things that influence how people within minority cultures make decisions that are not understood by the mainstream. The choices that are just different and do not hurt anyone beyond making them feel fleeting discomfort and false pride do not deserve punishment.

In the case of different neurologies such as what autistic people have, there are many behaviors that may simply seem odd or strange to others. We may also have intense responses and intense expressions based on how our environment effects us.

I am not suggesting that autistics are beyond responsibility. Quite the contrary. I am also not suggesting that any minority that is persecuted can be permitted to hurt others and turning around persecution takes alot of time and effort.

What I am suggesting is that to truly accept autistics, the ways that we think and act differently, AND the adaptations and supports that many of us need, will lead to our opportunity to be responsible.

True responsibility is not given as a burden. Instead it is a human right. When we are treated with respect and dignity.... when we are not selectivly aborted and murdered.... when we are given educational and vocational opportunities that are geared for us and provide for us with more opportunities to contribute to society....THEN society will justifiably give us more responsibility and by doing so create an opportunity for us to become REAL accepted members of society. Then we will be included and resposibility will be our individual burden or our individual liberation just as it is for many others who are better equiped for what society now refers to as a typical environment.

In conclusion, our society and our world works best when individuals and subsets of diverse populations are included for being just who they are.
Thankyou

Note:

2007-08-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

My newest video on You Tube is called "How We Function". Very soon I will be putting the written script here on this blog. I hope that soon I will get the audio problems I'm having with my videos fixed. Thank you who are watching them for your patience.

Also in the coming days I will write here a script for all my previous videos (except for the first one which I already did that for).

Thanks, Ed

Buying Blue Sky

2007-08-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

Liberation Matters

2007-08-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

The Time to Learn

2007-08-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

Conformity

2007-08-03T13:14:00.001-07:00

My View Script:

2007-08-02T18:46:00.001-07:00

Script: I am an autistic adult living in the United States. There are many issues that are of great concern for everyone in 2007. I'd like to speak about one of them today.

While there are many who support the rights of autistic people and recognise our contribution to society, there is a great deal of misunderstanding that challenges our efforts to educate people about this.

People with disabilities, like all people, have a far greater value than the tasks we perform. To sum up the value of human beings this way leads us down a very destructive path.

History has shown us that any movement that encourages and works toward the elimination of any group will lead us to the destruction of more and more minorities and ultimately the annihilation of the entire race. The movement to cure autism must be recognized for what it is.

Disabled autistics are not only ignored by not providinng some of the services that we need to live but the contributions that we can make are often overlooked and we are not provided the accomodations in schools and jobs that would give us more opportunities to contribute.

Also, disability or ability does not define the autistic population any more than the ways we are defined by clinical psychologist and diagnosticians who attempt to categorize what they think they see in us in relation to the medical model of autism.
We are much more than the composite of the skills we display when given these poorly constructed tests.

While differences in learning and communication styles do present autistics with obstacles, many autistics throughout history have accomplished a great deal without what modern society refers to as "services." If someone needs help with daily living, or if they need help with doing something or learning to do something that has already been seen as a valuable skill, such needs must be evaluated as to how not providing this affects our humanity. Who we are as people must always aspire to provide people with what they need in this way. This is very important.

Actually today many autistics are making contributions to society in ways that are recognized (Vernon Smith and Steven Spielburg to name just a couple) but these people being autistic isn't sending the message that it should. At least, it has not turned a lot of popular opinions around that need to change.

As long as views of autism are spread throughout the mainstream media about the causation and cure of autism that is based on unproven science and as long as causation and cures are the focus of how autistics are seen instead of finding more ways to support diversity, people will not place their focus where it should be.

When our nation begins to focus more on ending prejudice, and finding ways to include all expressions of diversity we will create a stronger workforce that makes better use of what more people have to offer and more importantly, more peace of mind.

While I speak only for myself, there are people who share my views on this matter of how autistics are often misrepresented and how and why this needs to change. Many of these views are represented on the internet on places like Autism Hub, Neurodiversity. com and The Autism Acceptance Project (TAAP).

The focus on the causation and cure of autism in the mainstream media goes beyond being impractical. It is very dangerous, not only to autistics themselves , but to our nation's future and to everyone's future.

For those of us that are looking for political change in the upcoming election, we are, of course, looking for a candidate whom we can support. I am concerned that there are politicians who are representing the interest of the people who are not accepting their responsibility to know more than they do about autism legislation. When biased research leads to unreasonable fears, unnecessary expenses, and even dangerous medical treatments, and negative stereotypes about who autistics are, this presents a very real need for a better understanding.

There is much talk of a widespread epidemic of a mysterious disease. The real mystery is why more people aren't making an effort to learn the truth about autism.

We need to all become more educated about who autistics are. We need to educate our communities about who autistics are. We need to educate our communities and we need to educate our politicians.

Please join me in learning more about who autistics are and how we think and feel.
Thank you

My View

2007-07-28T18:19:00.001-07:00

Why Hate Difference?

2007-06-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

This is a question Ive spent alot of time exploring. I wont say that it hasnt been more difficult to understand such things when I was really hurt. However, my experience has taught me alot about this since when I began exploring the subject (which BTW must have been the day I was born).

Choosing to dominate a person because of your advantage....Yes, people are going to do that. Its not a wise choice but its going to happen.

Catagories and labels for people for convenience sake....Again, its going to happen. However, why hate difference?

I think that people have difficulty when they dont feel they have alot of understanding about how they feel about something or someone.

Exploring something or someone new is difficult for some people. Indecision can lead to doubt and doubt can lead to negative emotions. Unfortunately, joy isnt something they have alot of practice at so they choose the emotions that are convenient and comfortable to them. They make quick decisions that they feel will protect and preserve them rather than wise decisions that will make them and everyone around them happier as well as making the world a better place.

For those who are brave and patient enough to find the joy in exploring....for those who will seek better ways of responding to difference and practice the positive emotions that result....there are answers. Better still, there is comfort in the journey toward seeking answers.

Valuable Records

2007-06-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

I tried to record
Every important event
I tried to hold on to all my thoughts
As each one came and went

My values were so established
And held firmly in my brain
But there was so many new things to see....
Must change require pain?

Somewhere along my path
I began to try fewer things
I lost sight of the moments that couldnt be recorded
And the joy that each one brings

WAKE UP! I yelled to myself
As I noticed it was getting late
There is so much new for me to see
and I 've got better things to do with my time than sit here and come up with a word that rhymes with late.... fate, rate, create, wait....

My Place

2007-06-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

I am required to appreciate what I have
As if somehow I did not
The comparisons that others define me by
Remind me that I have alot

I own my thoughts
Though Im expected to stay quiet
Courage is seen as never anti-social
And society defines me as too poor to riot

Each day is mine
To do with what I will
I trade using what I feel I can afford
and for the air I breathe, I receive a bill

I must remember my place
And remember it isnt mine at all
Views that are seen as valid
Must be coming from people who can afford to fall

Isolation

2007-06-22T02:28:00.000-07:00

When you identify a type of learning style in someone and then create the environment that will best help them learn, its good. If you take that person out of an environment where others are seen as having learning problems that are catagorized by "junk labels" or where other people are seen as retarded (or where they whisper the term MR) these 3 harms may be done.

The students who remain get sent a message about values that devalues them.
The student who moves forward (so to speak) sees a value system that can ultimately only serve them until they themself get left back somewhere else later on. How they valued the others when they were left back is how they will value themself when it happens to them.
All of society ultimately suffers as everyone who supports such programs, as well as every student in it, has the potential of taking the values that are taught here and applying them to other situations.

If instead you dont identify people as being different and encourage that difference (which includes the acceptance of how they may appear weak by standards that glorify the current standards of strength) you create temporary inclusion that will again ultimately exclude....EVERYONE! (Claiming you are expecting universal standards and saying that you just dont want to patronize people may have nothing to do with lifting someone one else up. It may just be another exclusionary method that provides the person imposing the standards a fleeting and false sense of empowerment.)

Also in and of itself the autism label may not include the need for medical treatments. People with autism do get sick and need medical treatment, but calling autism a medical problem and allowing for people to treat that label has caused terrible treatments as well as abortions. Isolate what needs to be treated. Isolating and identifying the autistic gene will only be used to eliminate the autistic with it.

Autistics can have the same difficulties that psych patients have and there cant and wont be special treatments for autistics without identifying EVERYONES differences and specific needs. Ive known many people who have been terribly hurt by the psychiatric system whose main purpose of existence seems to be to serve and protect the public from the psych patient (whether there is any evidence that the public needs to be protected from someone or not). I dont see how such a screwed up system can be fixed until alot of peoples attitudes about such things change. However....

However, too often liberation for some comes at the cost of oppression for others. This ultimately serves no one and isolates everyone to one degree or another. The attitude needs to be either we all move forward together or we all stay where we are.

Why Might Some People Act the Way they Do?

2007-06-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

This is a post about why some individuals may act the way they do. Im saying maybe, possibly, a reasonable guess, and some individuals; all in an effort to qualify as someone who can make reasonable guesses within such wide boundaries. As someone who believes very strongly in the things that Im advocating for, Im learning to be more responsible in how I do that....And where am I learning that? From people who are the kind of advocates that I want to become, of course.

Now I never learned much of anything from being blamed. Not that blame doesnt have its place, its just that blame was always taught to me in the context of shame. And shame just teaches me what I cant do. It never does much for helping me understand what I can.

When an autistic kid went to school years ago and was labeled a geek with high intellectual abilities, they may not have had their unconventional behavior seen as simply a neurodiversity that could be accepted and included, just another variation. They may not have even taken a class in neurodiversity.

When an autistic kid went to school years ago and was labeled as mentally retarded, they may not have had a teacher who knew how to encourage confidence and self esteem in them. There may have even been a hierarchy within these classrooms that supported the idea that each kids' worth was directly related to how conventional they acted and how much they achieved scholastically. This may have ultimately created heirachial views in alot of students that in turn lead some of them to view each other based on how conventional they acted or how much they achieved within conventional standards. Many may have been taught to take their place in society.... a society where these values are reinforced again and again.

Some autistics may have even been raised by autistics (who were born neurologically different....that is important to remember when discussing these things in such a context), had been taught to be ashamed of who they were and knew not much more than the kind of teaching that would pass this shame on. Some parents may have been diverse in any number of ways and maybe....

The idea that autistics are the way they are because of refrigerator mothers or fathers doesnt seem like it would ultimately encourage parents.(Its been proven to be wrong.) Then when kids (or adults) are blamed for pathological problems that society treats with dangerous behavioral treatments and drugs....What is solved by that?

If instead autism is seen as being a disease and even an epidemic (which it is neither of) that must be subjected to whatever it takes to get autistics up to speed or to act as conventional as possible at all cost.... and the shame of looking at autism this way ultimately prevents more autistics from being born....what is the ultimate cost to our society that must include diversity to survive?

Responsibility? Im learning alot more about responsiblity these days. Mainly Im learning it on the internet from other responsible autism advocates who also learned alot from other autism advocates that are learning more about responsibility, etc.

To those who I am learning so much from and are so encouraging to me, I sincerely thank you for all that you are doing to encourage and teach us all.

Behave or Else

2007-03-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Behave or else what? You will get some bad treatment or you wont get some good treatment? This will train a kid to be prepared for what?

There is a bumper sticker that always catches my attention and makes me think. It says something like "Well behaved women rarely make history." When I think about this, Im reminded that weather behavior is taught in an organized environment like something called therapy and weather it used for autistics or anyone else, the question I have is, "How practical is what it trains kids to do in adult life."

I was trained to do alot of things as a child and I didnt learn it easily. I'll admit that some of what I learned taught me how to learn which was more important than the lesson itself. Also, some things I was taught were things that I would have had to learn eventually anyway. However, alot of it was traumatic that just taught me to live life anticipating trauma and that didnt help at all.

Some of the ways I was taught to behave were not only things that I wouldnt use as an adult. I grew up believing that my behavior was more important than who I was as a person. Also, what learning to behave in certain ways ultimately taught me was completly contary to what promotes the kind of thinking that will make me a happy and productive adult with healthy relationships....Somtimes I think about that.

Whats Missing

2007-03-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

The people who are being funded to work to provide services that maximize the potential for autistics seem to be missing an important.... something....what is it?

They seem to be claiming that autism is a neurological difference that needs to be encouraged....even a difference to be celebrated but.... cured if possible....and fixed....whats up with that?

More Opinions

2007-03-01T01:59:00.000-08:00

Theres a formal education and a more widely accepted education and a realm where thoughts are exchanged that might well fit both descriptions.

You can exchange thoughts, learn to think in different ways, learn a trade, learn to think in tradable ways, or even learn better ways to trade. Many people just learn to teach....so that others may follow.... or lead.

Thinking requires abstractions which rely on absolutes. An absolute abstraction will remind you that where ever you go, there you are....which is why you must move with all the energy you can harness....because the earth turning is what creates gravity and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line....so the energy you harness to achieve travel is all that will ground you.

There are basically two groups of people in the world. One group believes that there are two groups of people in the world, and the other group believes there are more.

Of course the chicken came first. Sometimes an egg is just what one scambles and adds to a three course breakfast with toast and bacon. I dont know how a kings horse could help repair a broken egg and kings men may have mixed feeling about the task.

There is no such thing as inconsistancy. All life requires a consistant pattern to exist and all that is dead cannot be evaluated unless it is seen or acknowleged as a life form....which is no longer dead.

Every fighter eventually learns that there is always someone that is better at fighting. Every opinionist eventually learns that their opinions must constantly change and adjust or experiance the destruction of their fragile pride.

Only compassion can create anything. Any belief or opinion that lacks compassion for the things and the people in their lives that really matter are not just destructive. Seen for what they are, they can be used like the final stage of an animals digestive system. Waste that is used to help things grow is not waste at all. If there are those in this world who choose pride over compassion (and there will always be those), use the furtile remains of what is left behind by pride to learn, and teach, and show compassion and experiance growth....Then you will believe in what you think because it is true and others will believe it too. No can truly deny compassion and no one needs to be convinced of it either.... it just is.

Opinions

2007-02-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Opinions are important and its important that people educate themselves so that they form the best opinions that will serve everyone....but there is more.

Recently I saw on T.V. a program where they discussed the value of Hip Hop music. They talked about how it began and how it was used in ways that were a positive influene and ways that were a negative influence.

What really caught my attention was when they talked about how the people who recorded and listened to this music were living a life that, before this music came along, was not expressed anywhere. I thought that it was a good point that weather what the music decribed was good or bad, alot of important issues never get addressed until someone acknowleges that its happening. Its like if people never have to look at something, they can pretend that it isnt happening.

(Note: Glorifying what is bad, is never good. However, this post is not about weather Hip Hop music is either good or bad. It is just something I am using as an example.This is not a debating blog or a debating post.)

Not only can this lack of acknowlegement make things worse, but its never good when people are living one way and are reminded all the time in newspapers, T.V., etc. that their way of life is never represented, so they believe that in the larger scheme of things, its really not important. This can contribute to peoples feelings about their own worth.

Art and music has a long tradition of giving people a voice that they never had otherwise. However, just like with politics and religion, being able to learn of others opinions about things can help a person form more educated opinions.....this can lead to public power....However, there is something about this that has always bothered me....

Public power does not make anyone a better or more worthy person and neither does aquiring any means to it. Therefore, an educated opinion....published, debated, or otherwise can be very valuable but it does not make any person more valuable or worthy and I continue to believe that this is an important thing to remember.

Better treatment of autistics, better ways of seeing autistics, disability rights, neurodiversity, etc. ....all these things are very important to me. Also being a part of a community where everyone becomes better educated, where I become better educated and can do more good.... and even where people read opinions and debate opinions to create better educated opinions for everyone.... this is very important to me. How is this done so that valid opinions or even better opinions are not seen as what makes a person more or less valid or valuable AS a person.... This is something Im still working on....I think its important.

Grateful for Another Day

2007-02-13T04:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I write about difficulties. I actually have a reason for doing that. It doesnt have so much to do with how it effects the situation. I would certainly hope that it would not discourage anyone. All it really means to me is that Im acknowleging some things that I see.

I can see how sometimes acknowleging things can make problems real when they wouldnt be that way otherwise be that way but Ive also noticed (for me) not looking at things can be a way of not accepting some part of my reality. Also by accepting this reality (for me) is when I can take responsibility for it. Otherwise I really dont know how I could.

Of course then things have to be divided into what I have some control over and what I dont. Otherwise, once again, (for me) I dont know how I can be responsible for what I feel I need to (or not do as the case may be).

I try to respond to others as what I see helps me. When someone never shows that they have difficulties, they may indeed be overcoming them and even avoiding alot by not emphasizing them. However, since this doent really inspire me, I try to find what people are saying that does inspire me. Also, doing things that way doesnt seem to have any practical value, as far as me doing things the same way.

Then comes the issue of gratitude. The attitude of gratitude for me is like the most nutritious food on earth and I eat it every chance I have that I can remember to do so. I really do have a great deal to be grateful for and that really is the most dominant feeling that effects my life.

Just as I have never been able to use the experiance of being should on by others(thats how it feels to me), I try not to do that to others. In some cases Im sure that it is helpful but (for me) I try to leave that activity to people who know how to help people by telling them what they should or shouldnt do, and people who are actually good at knowing how to use this experience in a positive way. Since I dont know how to be productive in either way, it becomes a matter of shoulding and I try to stay out of it.

More than anything else that I have to be grateful for (and there is a lot) I am grateful for another day. My time is borrowed. Its always been this way. I just didnt always know it.
On this day that I have been given, I have choices that I can make. For that I am very grateful.

What If I Were Not Me

2007-02-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

Well, if I were not me I would be someone else. What I cant figure out is why I would want to be someone else.

There really are alot of subtle (and some not so subtle) messages that I get from some individuals and the public in general, about what a person should be that is different than who I am. Since I never really had a guidebook as to what I was "supposed" to be like, Ive often accepted peoples perceptions about who I am and unfortunatly, too often it made me feel bad about the expectations that I wasnt reaching.

Im now realizing that alot of this stuff that others seem to believe about me isnt bad like they think. Its just different. It has alot to do with how Im wired differently and will respond to things in different ways than others. Really, if people had some idea of who I really am as a person and what makes me that way (as in how Im designed differently than alot of other people) I think that alot of the ways that I respond to my environment wouldnt seem bad or wrong to others at all.... once they understood better.

Its not that I dont grow or mature.... I do. By that I mean I learn how my decisions effect others and how I can be better at being nicer to others and making things work in my life. The thing is though that sometimes what people expect or demand of me doesnt make sense. Sometimes what people think is right or good is just about how they see who they are and how they were made as fundamentally right and by constast my difference makes me fundamentally bad or wrong.

Now, what Im saying here isnt something I learned easily or by myself. Actually its just been quite recently that Ive read about others who had similarities to me that have written blog post and comments that have really helped me understand this.

Being able to make this distinction between what the expectations of others are, what I should really expect of myself, and how I can and should conduct myself is vital to my future and to the success of my efforts.

I cant educate everyone in one day and there are certainly obstacles in the getting majority of the public to come to understand what I talking about. The world probably wont change for the better that much within my lifetime. Conformity to what is seen as "normal" and "well rounded" is encouraged while diversity is too often challanged. That is something that we all must contend with. However, I do have much more reason for hope.

The thing is though, that there are people that are challenging alot of preconcieved notions about autism and differences in who people are and that is very exciting to me. The public perceptions of these things require alot of unlearning and relearning. But the times, they are a changing. Im so glad to be a part of that and Im excited about what it can mean to my future and everyones future.

Whats Important

2007-02-10T04:48:00.000-08:00

I am inspired
By so much that I see
What I see as important
Is what changes me

I may often think
Better than I can talk
What I see as making sense
Changes the direction that I walk

I am so grateful
For the choices I get to make
I see some things as real
And other things as fake

Whats most important
Is the caring that people do
No other kind of mistakes you make
Can ever define you

Peoples efforts wont always fix
What brokeness they see
But if we learn to truly care
Our souls will be free

Never underestimate
What caring can do
And how it changes how you feel
Will ultimately change you

Clairity

2007-02-08T02:50:00.000-08:00

Crisp clear thoughts
Filled the morning air
I could only choose
One at which to stare

Each sequenced story
Had a purpose and a plan
I sought to be gounded by one
Like a space ship trying to land

All that my brain
Tried to freeze
Acted like snow that
Melted with ease

I wished to unlock
What was frozen in my mind
But the fluid motion that I sought
I could not find

If I could just piece together
The sequential parts of a day
It could be just a visit
I wouldnt need to stay

The clock is a reminder
That time sings a song
I cant hear it play
For very long

Im glad for my life
That was given only as a loan
And though my memory is fragmented
Its something that I own

by Ed

I Say This

2007-02-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

I just want to say this. Some things I want to say but I really dont want to talk about.

Its like debating. I cant really say that Ive ever really been in a debate. It took me years to be able to explain this. Of course I know that what I have is opinions. I just have no way of supporting them in a debate. Whats more important though, is that I have no interest in learning to do this. I could explain why but if someone feels that life is all about opinions and debate....not everyone feels this way. Not even everyone feels that blogging is all about this. Im glad that there are people that feel this way or i would have to stop blogging. Its too confusing otherwise. No Im not saying something about all autistics or even anybody but me. I speak for myself only.

People make assumptions about me and of course I make assumptions too. If I was blaming anyone I would have to accept the same blame also but thats not at all my point. The reason that people make assumptions about me that gives me difficulty is because I havent told them what would explain to them why they are assuming what they are. Its up to me to clear it up and eventually maybe Ill find a way. Until then, I accept responsibility for it but until I know how to deal with it I can just say what I am saying here.

I have a great deal of difficulty with knowing how much to tell about myself and when to tell that. Im sure it will make a difference in how Im seen and understood. There are people who are comfortable with communicating in a realm that is too confusing to me. Since not everyone is like that or doesnt choose complicated communcation, those who do or that find me confusing, can leave me alone because.... I know that Ill find people that are interested in working with me to find simple communication. Thats why I blog and otherwise I wouldnt blog. No, Im not saying anything about this being an autistic thing. Its a me thing.

Mine

2007-02-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have often listened to peoples stories and I always try to remember that I really cant say that I may respond differently to the experiances of theirs that they describe. There are too many factors to consider and I could never know enough of them to know how I would respond. I mean, really, Im not them....

I DO think that we as a society have to say what is bad or wrong for one person to do to another and sometimes what has been done is bad enough that the reasons cant matter.... its just wrong.

How I see myself is important. It effects how I see others and how I treat them as well. I may not like how somethings go. I always want to try to respond to people and things that happen in better ways and learn from my mistakes.

Whats important is that I dont hate how I am treated by nature and I dont hate people who do things that hurt me. I know how to be healed from negative emotions that can hurt me and Im wise enough to choose that healing. I dont hate how I was made or who I am. I cant afford to.

Whats mine is mine and I am given choices everyday. For that I am very grateful.

Music to my Ears

2007-02-01T05:27:00.000-08:00

When time stood still
And I felt I couldnt move
I experianced graceful motion
In a vision I couldnt prove

When my speach made no sense
And my words didnt mean much
There was meaning I understood
That only I could touch

When I could feel the wind
Of a butterflies wing
The power of a tornado
Seemed unable to lift a thing

I could walk to the bakery
Where I smelled bread two blocks away
But the danger I sensed before me
Might leave me frozen and unable to stray

I knew where I was
I could walk toward the sun
When a dark confusing maze
Might have convinced me to run

I had problems focusing
On one word at a time
But I felt beauty that was mine
And that I had commited no crime

There were threats and noises
That could excite my fears
But I found sounds that I OWNED
That was music to my ears

Dont Quit Poem

2007-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

by anonymous

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road youre trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
When you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but dont you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Dont give up, though the pace seems slow;
You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to faint and faultering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when youre hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

The Good Ole Boys

2007-01-22T04:47:00.000-08:00

The "good ole boys" is a term Ive used all my life to describe a group that Ive never written about in an effort to define what I mean by that. Ill attemt to do that here as well as write about what Ive learned is the best approach to deal with such a force.

The reason I feel the need to do that is because Im trying to educate myself about some issues that are happening in other parts of the world that have some attitudes and costoms that are parellel to the ones in the geographical location that Im accostomed to dealing with.

To understand this kind of thing I have to understand better whats going on in these other places better. However, I have already learned that this "good ole boy network" that I have always thought of as having its base in the southern U.S.,( at least the one I see and deal with) has begun to network in many other parts of the world. Thats important to know.

No one can ever say for sure how big any unorganised network really is but what I hope to write about in this essay is the underestimated power of the individual person and thier individual thoughts.

While Im not surprised at the size of this familiar network, it actually makes it a little easier to learn what Im trying to, by realising that although there are many aspects that need to be considered, the network that I know something about is at least part of what can be factored in as some kind of influence. All it really means to me is that in trying to learn what I am, there are at least some influences that Im already aware of. That means Im at least not starting from scratch. (Ill be more specific in future posts about my direction with all this.).

Speaking about this network (or any other)does not define the person who uses the term as either a conspiracy theorist or someone who is paranoid. What "the good ole boy network" means to me is a network of people (men and women) who have an established power that is unwritten an rarely acknowleged for what it is that effects alot of the decisions within in public forums and news sources without a clear definition of their influence.

I have known something about how all this worked from before I had even known that it had a name or had been defined by anyone. Like many such things, as I began to understand it, I felt more helpless and disempowered. These days Im leaning how to get around or through what, before seemed like, impossible obstacles.

One of the things that has disempowered me more than anything was the belief that because this was a well established network of public power that was in influencing certain decisions that I felt were wrong, I would never have but so much freedom or liberty unless I was a part of a similar network whose objective it was to counter this movement.

Because the good ole boy network derives its strength from being unorganised, one who has recognised thier power may begin by feeling that any attempt to counter their efforts would need to come from either another organised effort to protest them or that they would need to become a part of some unorganised network that wants to counter them. (Sometimes a network seems to be dependant on numbers of people and less dependant on independant thought.)

Today I am empowered by the reminder of the power of a PLAN. You see no one can stop someone with a plan because no one has a plan to stop them. This has everything to do with why diversity is importatnt and what supports my veiws of creativity.

I have always known that I was wired different but too often I have been thinking of this as a deficeit. Its not. Not at all.

This is not limited to those who born with different wiring. Anyone can do it. All of us are given different equitment and different experiances with which to create plans.

Too often we doubt the power of those plans because we see how powerful collective power can be. The thing is that what Im talking about here is where collective power is actually more vulnerable and less effective than personal power. Collective power (organised or unorganised) is dependant on the ideas of many people. No matter how much exchange of ideas their is within these groups, they will never reach the power of solidarity of the individual and an individuals thoughts.

Too often we doubt ourselves and believe that someone must know better than we do.

When people with an understanding of this personal power can agree on a common purpose or cause and network to achieve that common purpose without sacrificing their individualism, there is no way that anyone can stop them. Thats where our hope is.This kind of networking has great strength.

She Loves Me

2007-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of things about how my wife and I met that Ive never written about. Today seems like a good day for that.

The first time my wife and I spoke it was over the phone. All we talked about was nutrition since someone had told her I knew alot about that.

Next, she sent me a gift. It was a 1 oz. tincture of high grade kava. There was no card or letter attached. So....lets see a gift of chocolate means something....What does a gift of kava mean? Now, she did work at an herb shop at the time and she got discounts on such things, but still....Im just glad she didnt work at a pharmacy. Who knows what she might have given me. ( My phone skills are not great anyway and I was a more than a little bit nervous).

The next gift she gave me was when we met for the first time in person. Now, at this point all she knew about me was that I was someone who stayed at home most of the time, I knew something about nutrition, and from the phone conversation we had, she might have gathered that I was a little bit different.

The second gift was a drawing of Albert Einstein that she had bought at a craft fair. On it were written these words, "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

The gift scared me a little. I mean, did she know something about me that I didnt know she knew? She still says she cant really say why she descided to buy it for me. She says that something just made her think that it would be an appropriate gift for me.

The picture was framed and still hangs on the wall of our home today. It is a constant reminder to me that she knows me and she loves me.

Anna The Cat

2007-01-17T05:46:00.000-08:00

Anna is not too complex. Of course I cant be sure what shes thinking but she usually lets me know if she wants something.

The vet said we should feed her the same amount every day at the same time. She gets fed every day at 3:30 pm each day. She begins to sing to me every day at around 2:30 pm. Its not like she has to sing for her super. Still she seems to sing me the same song for me every day. After dinner shes very quiet.

Since my wife and I eat a really heathy diet, she get the best organic food along with a supplement called Greenies.

She get her hair brushed (which she likes) and her teeth brushed (which she is less fond of).

Some cats are aloof but Anna is never that way. I try to find some time to play with her some every day. She actually has one game that is kind of like fetching. She has a stuffed mouse that she will drop in front me if Im at the computer or watching T.V. Once she has droped it she hides behind the furnature, runs after it, drops it in front of me again, and then immediatly hides behind another piece of furnature waiting for me to throw it again. When she gets tired she just stops and chews on it for a while by herself.

Since when we got her, she climbed on me when I was trying to sleep, she gets her own room at night. Each night I convert the bathroom into her room and change it back during the day. In her room she sleeps on a large stack of floor pillows with those fleece mats for cats on top. Her litter box and water are in there and there is a night light in case we need to get use the room during the night.

She is less thas enthusiastic about the occassional trip to the vets office.All in all she seems happy and Im glad to have her around. One thing about her is that she is never shy. Thats a habbit that Im learning from her. I really like the way she handles herself.

January is for New Starts

2007-01-14T05:38:00.000-08:00

Today Ive made a decision about how I want to use my blog.

When I first started blogging I remember reading a blog post from someone who told what blogging is. They said that blogging was a place for people to give their opinions and get feed back on them. I hated their veiw of blogging then but now what I hate it even more is that I see that there are so many others who feel the same way.

You know what. Blogging is a very new medium and it can (and will) become whatever people make it. In the age that we are living, we need to be very careful with what we do with something as unregulated as blogging. If we dont govern ourselves in ways that make people safe, those who are threatened will choose to be in an environment that is more regulated. In other words. If we dont acknowlege peoples vulnerability, those who truly are vulnerable (for whatever reason) will choose ways to protect themselves that will result in a bigger, stronger, and an even more dangerous government.

I know very well what Im talking about. I have lots of real experiance with it. Im telling you this is dangerous! Trust me, I know.

When I say people who are vulnerable for one reason or another, Im not talking about people who are weak and/or fearful. Some threats people have are very real and people who are dealing with these things is something people to need understand. People need to acknowlege and respect these real threats these people deal with before they make quick, callous judgements about how the person should change to adapt to their environment. Sometimes its just the environment that needs to change (not the person) and if people want fight about something....they should fight to change that. Individuals dont respond to well to judgement anyway. Large networks and governments can absorb critisism from the strength that comes from their support and this is where critisism needs to
be directed. This actally can bring about real change. This actually can be productive.

My wifes son may soon be sent back to Iraq. We dont need any extra drama. If you want to tell me your religious or political veiws, I dont want to hear it. Ill try to tell less of my opinions. People need to fight the decisions that are being made in Washington but if you want to say something to me, just tell me that you are praying for the soldiers that includes my wifes son. Anything else, I really dont want or need to hear. Ill tell you what, with each passing day, (for me) opinions become less important and prayer becomes more important.

In every culture since the begining of time, when people have not had the right to express their veiws, the majority of people who are already disempowered become less empowered. People need to be able to express themself with art, poetry, film, literature, and even blogging. I dont think that our world is becoming more free, I think its becoming less.

Blogging is an opportunity for people to have a voice. That is very important. However, this is the very reason that we need to be responsible with how we use it.

Some people who have been disempowered by not having a voice before are glad to get the opportunity to do so by way of blogging. Unfortunately, since this feeling of freedom is new to them, they are abusing the blogging opportunity and abusing everyones rights by what they feel is their new-found liberation. No one has rights that include anything that extends beyond having compassion for others. Words are very real things. People need to be careful how they use them or all of us will be less free to use our words in the future.

Some of my prayers have been answered lately in a way that is nothing less than miraculous. Ive learned to do things on the computer. I appreciate the help Ive gotten. Im setting up several blogs and begining to join groups. Im getting some programs set up on my computer that allow me to somethings like reading that I wasnt able to do before. Im more sure than ever that I will be able to get a formal education but Im also finding ways that I can really be of help to others as I do this.

This is exciting. I have never felt so empowered. Its a humbling feeling. I must use it wisely.

There are plenty of people who are being responsible with their blogging and the are fighting for good causes. The future of how autistics are seen in the future is something that is very important to my future and everyone elses too. I will support the people I feel are doing this as best I can and I encourage you to also. However, all you will hear from me in the future are positive encouraging statements and that is all Im trying to encourage on my blog(s) and thats really all I want to encourage other to say to me.

I believe that this is what truly empowers people and this belief is well-founded. My goals and path will be much clearer in the future. Im getting some help with this. Im very grateful for that help. Ive needed it for a long time.

The words Im posting here are ones that I feel are very important and I will be posting this entire post again to keep me on track.

I have found some people who have been very encouraging to me in my blogging. You know who you are. I am sincerely grateful. I hope we can continue to encourage each other and find others who are wanting to participate in this as well.

Learning Curves

2007-01-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ive always been seen as different
Im learning more about how and why
Things make better sense
When I know how to get by

People are different in many ways
And difference is nothing to fear
There is so much to be learned
When I really listen to what I hear

Parents teach their children
And the other way around
There are many sources
That wisdom can be found

Learning never seems to take the straight path
But Im learning as I go
That people want to know how much you care
Before they care how much you know

Fly's and Bee's

2007-01-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

There was a fly
It did not like me
But better a fly
Than a bee

Bee's will sting
But fly's arent that way
Eventually they all
Will go away

Flys and bees
Are friends of mine
We co-exist
And thats just fine

Once I name one
It becomes my pet
Its behavior doesnt change
But it no longer makes me fret

I cant get rid
Of some frustrations
But ownership and design
Make them my creations

We are one big family
As you can clearly see
We must live together
In some kind of harmony

One Hand Washes the Other

2007-01-08T05:39:00.000-08:00

This is about how sometimes industry (and society in general)is less accomidating for difference.

For the purpose of this post, the way Im refering to left-handedness as being like autism, is that it is a difference in how the brain is equiped to do certain tasks.

The picture here is from a book of my wifes called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. The picture shows how the right hemisphere of the brain controls the left hand and the left hemisphere controls the right hand. The book has lots of illustrations of how the brains work.

http://www.baylorhealth.edu/proceedings/12_4/12_4_flatt.html This is an article that tells some about some people who have been left-handed and some about how this has effected history.(I just learned how to make links like that.Cool or what? : ) Ill be explaining what I find out as I learn such things on my new Learning Blog.)

The point is that left-handers have always had alot to contribute to society and sometimes industry has found it inconveinient to accomidate their differences to (for instance) put left-handed machines in factories. The people deciding these things have said that it cost too much to do that. Im saying that *not* accomidating peoples differences, is very expensive. Especially in the long run.

Now, I have some difficulties that are different than autism(although Im autistic also) and its taken me a long time to understand what the difference is and how these things *are* different than autism. However, Im convinced that autism (apart from other things) *is* just a difference.

Actually, it is expensive for society to look at things about people as being broken. It is cost effective as well as compassionate and practical to look at people in the ways they are different and find ways to adapt to these differences.

I have worked for many years to get vocational programs to adapt to peoples differences and I continue to do so. I believe that ultimatly companies themselves (aside and without aid from vocational programs) need to do the adapting but one step at a time.

Now, Ive always known that people are uncomfortable with people who are different. When I walk into a store, everyone turns around to look at me. (I hate that) Some of it is my appearance thats different and some of it may also have to do with my energy level or whatever.... The thing is that I dont hide very well. I mean I REALLY stand out in a crowd. Ive always wondered why people are so uncomfortable with difference.

What I didnt know (that Im now learning) is that in addition, there is a serious campaign to get rid of the difference of autism (and autistics). This makes me angry and actually more than a little bit afraid of what may happen if some things dont change. Ill help more with this as I learn more. Im very grateful to the people who are addressing this issue and teaching myself and others.

I could write a great deal more about how society has accomidated left-handed people and the benefits that have occured. The point is that difference is not something to be afraid of. It is something that must be embraced. People who are different have so much to contribute to our society and its very important that we all find more ways to include and be more accepting of peoples differences.

Learning Blog

2007-01-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

This is a new supplementary blog that will focus on my formal education and track my progress. I havent found out how to set up the link yet but this should work in the meantime. To go to that blog click on http://learningblog-ed.blogspot.com/

Story Time

2007-01-05T05:03:00.000-08:00

The more I hear where people have been
The better I know why they do what they do
But who people are is not a set of responses
Cicumstances just change your veiw

You see everyone will experiance
What they cant control
Thats what effects who they are
The rest is just their role

Tough or better is just an illusion
It creates a false sense of pride
Strong is hard to see, Caring is true
All other appearances have lied

If you want to know who someone is
Forget about what you think they have done
You cant know what choices they have had to make
Or how many battles theyve won

Judgements must be made
Each and every day
But to really know who someone is
Its takes time and effort to know why theyre that way

Protected Speach

2007-01-04T07:19:00.000-08:00

First of all let me explain that the Protection and Advocacy lawyers (or at least the people called Protection and Advocacy advocates who work with my lawyers) who are working with me on my case to help me and make things better for other autistics are reading this, my blog page. They are commenting on it by Email rather than directly on the page but because I think this is a good thing, thats good enough for now.

They have alot to learn. They have admitted this. I want to facilitate their learning. They can be stubborn and difficult to work with at times but the same has been said of me so Im trying to be patient.

One of the most difficult things to get across to them is that, most if not all, of services they are supposed to be set up for helping autistics are heavily influenced by the misperception that autistic means a trajic epidemic of 1 in 166 being born with are terrible affliction and that then there are nerds that want to prevent the others from getting cured. WRONG.

Since I know the truth, for the first time I AM THE ONE WHO IS COMING FOM THE POSITION OF BEING EDUDATED. Thats exciting! (being a teacher aint easy).

Ive been too conveinient all my life thats changing. Am I in a fighting mood? Damn right I am!

Based on the epidemic veiw that is controling alot of politics and beaurocrats, they would be glad to put me in the catagory of a nerd who doesnt need any accomidations or a behavioral problem that needs the services of having my behaviors fixed. They cannot do either. They have never been able to do this. Pathology is still very much how autistics are seen by programs (and I mean LOTs of programs.... not just the ones that people think). Just yesterday a P&A lawyer was using a method of speaking to me that I happen to know that even Lovass said 30 years ago was inappropriate and didnt work. Thats O.K. she gets to learn.

Yeh, I know I have more time to get educated on blogs of autistic self-advocates than lawyers. Once I get formally educated and am in a vocation, I will have less time for that too. At this point I get to share what Im learning and later I get to take my education with me.

My phone conversations often dont get very far but lately Ive been able to get across some good points. Another P&A lawyer told me two days ago that although it was obvious to him that I spoke differently that there were no laws that could help to advocate for allowing me to get across what I needed to. He said that if I was blind, we could agree on a type of communication (brail). If I was deaf we could agree on sign language. He said that autistics language had no laws that provided them anything. (I rarely say what I want or need to on the phone but this time I had an answer) I said, " That means we get to write those laws so they will be in place for me and others". (or at least I said something to that effect) He was less than enthusiastic. Thats O.K. He gets to learn.

Ive been fighting this stuff all my life but until I got married, no one was listening and fights were short lived because I was over-ruled and/or dismissed by my lack of being able to express myself. Now because there is an autistic self-advovacy movement that Im learning from and because people cant get around my wife like they get around and dismiss me.... Im becoming much less conveinient and Im finally making progress. It aint over yet. Actually, Im just getting started!

My mother isnt able to help in some ways but because of my mother and my wife, there are now, educators, autism specialists, and even P&A lawyers and advocates reading this blog site. (This may have been the case before but now Im sure if it.) Welcome to all of you. Anyone who wants to participate in helping me educate them so that they can help me and others....you are more than welcome to do that as well.

As for these people that Im talking about that are finally reading my page, they are already sending me Emails that comment about it. Who knows.... Eventually they may start commenting right on the page. Come on. Dont be bashful. There is no shame in seeking an education. Even if you already have a formal education and have to unlearn and relearn some things.

Maybe Ill write another poem about compassion later....Right now Im not in the mood.

A Moment

2007-01-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

Life is filled with moments.
In a moment a person can say what someone has been waiting to hear their whole life.
In a moment a person can decide to listen to what never seemed important before.
In a moment a sitiuation that is bad can be made better by a someone deciding to help.
In a moment a person can find courage to face their fear because someone showed them compassion.
In a moment a person can find a whole new perspective about what before seemed like the biggest problem in the world because someone showed them they cared.
In a moment someone can smile at someone who that means the world to.
In a moment someone can tell someone else they love them....when sometimes hearing that means everything to to them.
Every moment there is someone who needs me to care about them or about something that is valuable to them.
It only takes me a moment to make the right decision that and I should and in that moment that I do what I should, it can make all the difference in the world.

Care Package

2006-12-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Too often, even in subcultures and countercultures people look at the value of human life as being about who is best at doing something.

Even in communities such as the homeless and the disabled, sometimes people who can do something better are seen as being better people.

This doesnt help us feel better about others and it doesnt help us feel better about ourselves. Not really.

Compassion has always been more important to the survival of the human race than competition. It is vital that these values be encouraged.

Everyone wants to provide something to others. The great thing is that everyone can provide something. Everyone can care. Knowing that we have this ability and using it is the most important thing there is. This is our hope for the future.