Phil Taylor’s piece on the Mets is “spot on” and speaks for generations of fans:
Month: June 2012
Troops with Disabilities Face Delays When Seeking Help
“The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have repeatedly promised to do a better job of handling the medical evaluations of wounded and disabled service members. Instead, they are doing worse.”
Full editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/opinion/sunday/a-disservice-to-disabled-troops.html?hpw
Margaret Cho and the Retard Baby
Comedian Margaret Cho made news this week when she announced on Fox News that she doesn’t want to have a “retard baby”–you can see the video here.
Now I of course can’t speak for all the retard babies, but as a preemie blind kid born in the fifties, who would have been the subject of abortion prognostications had pre-natal testing existed, I can tell Margaret to shut her pie hole. Kids with disabilities have nobility and beauty.
I’m not without subjectivity. I love nobility and beauty in all it’s forms. Some of my best friends are the very people Ms. Cho would call retard babies. In turn I choose not to call Margaret anything. She’s likely a sad person. History is filled with self-loathing comedians.
Bleaching Kids With Autism
We read Sunday Stillwell’s blog Adventures in Extreme Parenthood this morning and saw the following:
” Then later in the week I ran across a news story which at first I thought was a parody from The Onion. Only, it wasn’t.
Instead it detailed how this week’s AutismOne conference was heavily promoting a new treatment which claims to have “recovering” 38 children from autism.
As it turns out the the “treatment” involves practitioners and parents giving children with autism an enema with a solution called Miracle Mineral Solution or MMS for short. This chemical compound it more commonly known as industrial strength bleach.
The science blogger known as Orac described it like this,
“What it is, in essence, is industrial strength bleach, 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water. It is frequently diluted in acidic juices, such as orange juice, resulting in the formation of chlorine dioxide, which is, as the FDA characterized it, “a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment.”
Emily Willingham of The Biology Files and DoubleX Science has started an online petition located here where you can watch the video presentation about MMA from AutismOne’s conference last week and if you are as horrified as the rest of us please add your signature to the petition and help us stop this so-called “treatment” which is nothing more than child abuse disguised by a lab coat.”
**
Perhaps there are more horrifying things than bleaching autistic children: maybe you’re weary after the A bomb and the Holocaust and you’ve retreated to your private sanctum to watch reruns of “Three’s Company” forever–but for the rest of us who still believe in medical ethics, human dignity, civil rights, real science, well, this is a moral catastrophe. It’s another instance of outright ignorance mixed with “normative” parents’ fears of disability. Only absolute ignorance and fear can create a “pillow angel” or a child forced to receive toxic chemicals via enemas.
This is a disgrace.
We recommend Sunday’s blog, for her activism and her streetwise humor are sharp, literate, and brave. You will like her Ryan Gosling send ups too!
Police Say Bus Monitor Slammed Child's Head Into Window
(CNYCentral)
May 29, 2012
UTICA, NEW YORK– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] An argument on a Utica school bus led to an Autistic child getting his head slammed into a closed window by a bus monitor, according to police.
It happened Wednesday as the bus was stopped in the parking lot of Proctor High School.
The 11-year-old child told his mom he stood up to stretch his legs inside the bus, and was told by the bus monitor to sit down. Both the child and the bus monitor, Kendra Owens, 38, started to argue.
Owens walked to the front of the bus where the child was and punched and slapped him in the face before slamming his head into the window, according to Utica Police.
The child suffered scratches. The boy’s mother reported the incident to police.
Police were able to obtain security footage from the Birnie Bus Service. The footage supported the child’s claim and Owens was arrested.
Entire article:
Autistic child has head slammed into school bus window by bus monitor, Utica Police say
http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=758115
Related:
Police: Utica bus monitor punches autistic child, 11 (Observer-Dispatch)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0529124b
Occupy Judge Rotenberg Center
Occupy JRC To ProtestJune 2 To End Skin Shocks At Judge Rotenberg Center
(Canton Patch)
May 29, 2012
CANTON, MASSACHUSETTS– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] Occupy JRC will hold a peaceful protest against the Judge Rotenberg Center, scheduled for Saturday, June 2 from 12pm to 4pm. Location to be announced.
The Judge Rotenberg Center is the only place in the country to use aversives, including remotely controlled, painful electric skin shocks to change behavior in children with autism, developmental delays and/or psychiatric diagnoses.
The school has survived a move from Rhode Island to Massachusetts, multiple lawsuits, and the forced resignation of its founder and former Director, Matthew Israel. Most recently, the Judge Rotenberg Center hit the airwaves on a national level when the facility was required to release previously suppressed videotapes of former student, Andre McCollins being restrained face down for over seven hours and shocked 31 times after he refused to take off his jacket.
Occupy JRC will host the protest in Canton, time and place to be announced, and plans to include a march as a part of the day’s events.
Entire article:
Protest Slated For June 2 to End Shock Therapy At The Judge Rotenberg Center
http://tinyurl.com/ide0529122a
Related:
Former JRC teacher lobbies state lawmakers (Canton Citizen)
http://www.thecantoncitizen.com/2012/05/17/jrc-shock-petition/
Judge Rotenberg Center case on Anderson Cooper today (Fox)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0529122c
Join ASAN Seattle in Protesting the Judge Rotenberg Center at the ABAI Convention! (Autistic Self Advocacy Network)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0529122d
Petition: Make the Call! Stop the Torture of Special Needs Children in Massachusetts (Change.org)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0529122e
Petition to Ban Shock Treatment at Mass. School Delivered to State Lawmakers (Youth Today)
http://www.youthtoday.org/view_article.cfm?article_id=5309
Judge Rotenberg Center — Facility Uses Electric Shock To Change Behavior (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ma/jrc.htm
Planet of the Blind 