Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 10:42 PM
Wed Dec 2
51 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
01/13/09
Just saying.
01/13/09
My mother in law "teaches", if you can call it that, a group of autistic children at her school. More often than not they are total nightmares who are physically abusive and shit their pants on a regular basis.
01/14/09
People should try watching a documentary called Today's Man. Parts of it were funny, but the subject, an autistic man, who had very famous parents, was incredibly obnoxious. There was a scene where he wanted to work in a midtown Manhattan bank, but got fired in part because he complained noisily that he hadn't expected there to be so many black employees; he felt as if he were in Harlem or something.
Then his family got him a job at some place like the Manhattan Theater Club and he got fired for telling people who called to cancel their tickets after a bad review that the play was indeed awful.
[www.imdb.com]
It's also perfectly apparent that he had great parents, in particular, his mother was extremely attentive.
Made you wonder about all those poor autistic kids.
01/13/09
01/13/09
Autism is far from being understood in full. In the brief 8 years that I have dealt with it (for my son) I can tell you that many things that scientist were "certain" was correct about treatment, cause, medication and other areas have been turned on their ear. The fact that this is a spectrum, as Owen pointed out, is what make finding the proverbial silver bullet cure more elusive than other syndromes.
The sole truth that has held true with treatments is that early intervention is the key to giving the kids a fighting chance at a real life.
The sole falsehood is that we have ruled out the triggers. With all due respect Owen, you are dead wrong when you say that early shots/vaccines have been ruled out on the list of suspects. The jury is far from out on that topic in large part to the lack of any real research in this area. The CDC simply claimed that they "looked at it" and didn't see any relationship. Hardly a valid examination of a serious and wide reaching disease.
We need accurate information and commentary on this topic at all times. For some great resources visit the Cure Autism Now, TACA or The H.E.L.P. Group web sites.
To all who have commented and shown interest; thank you. Public consensus that this is a serious issue for public discussion, involvement, funding, research and advocacy is the best support us parents.
01/13/09
And folks, if you don't think the potentially massive civil liabilities involved won't prompt corporate cover-ups--or at least coordinated sand-throwing in the proverbial umpire's (unbiased researchers, doctors, the public, the media, etc.) face--you are dangerously susceptible to bullshit.
01/13/09
The worry now: Are we all perhaps a bit depressed?
The worry now: Are we all perhaps a bit OCD?
The worry now: Are we all perhaps a bit ADD?
It's always something.
01/13/09
Not really. Polio was a public health problem long before The Cold War. Per Wikipedia, it was identified as a distinct condition in 1840.
The Salk vaccine came out in 1952. The Sabin, 10 years later. The Cold War lasted a lot longer.
[en.wikipedia.org]
01/13/09
I think Owen may be right about something. Many people today seem to be ill at ease with what used to be regular conversation. I think of my own friends who would rather text message each other than call and deal with a conversation. Who have no idea how to behave in a group of strangers and complain that meeting new people, and making meaningful relationships, is too hard. We have been able to reduce the complexity of emotion to a emoticon (that is, if you think about it, never really that simple). Perhaps the two are somehow related. It might be that autism isn't the right analogy, but for now it seems to be the media scare du jour.
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
Not so fast. That's been debunked, too: [www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu]
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/13/09
01/12/09
Anyway, I have my own theory which is relative to this post but I wonder if the rise of autism is really the next step in our evolution. Technology goes well with autistic people, they are usually exceptional in one area only whether it be math calculations or reading.
I was with him on Christmas and some other kids came to visit and I knew one of the kids were autistic also. Not to go on about this but I was amazed to see how they consumed content on the internet. Everything from youtube to google they went to town on and it just seems that it will speed up so maybe an autistic mind would have an advantage?
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
While I agree that people may spend too much time on the Internet, it is ridiculous to insinuate that it is making us a "bit" autistic or that he thought even crosses most people minds. Who's worry is that? Really? In real life, most people have no trouble expressing themselves, and maybe people who didn't spend all day pontificating about this or that theory to get pageviews and discussions going would understand that.
Nothing personal, of course.
01/12/09
01/12/09
01/12/09
It is okay to eat raw sushi before or after cleaning your carpets just not while you are actually cleaning your carpets. (To be safe you should wait til the sushi is fully digested before cleaning) I learned this the hard way.
01/13/09
Avoid people with mercurial personalities.