New sticky with a bit more meta, short form.

[New entries will appear below this one. Scroll me, baby.]

First, for those who remember my blog from years past, my primary focus here is shifting away from autism, as I described in some detail under “Update 2″ in my re-introductory post. The ways in which society’s constructed biases afflict autistic citizens, and how those biases must be addressed, will always be an important topic to me. But I’m most interested in attacking the root of that problem, which requires a much broader focus. The new categories shown above may give some hint of the direction of this thrust, but all of that is still undeveloped, and will remain so for a while. Bear with me.

Second, I’m still hoping to revamp the look of my blog, owing to the advice of an old friend who is also a web designer. I made a few changes last week, which gave me some good ideas, but the kind of changes I really want to make will be much more demanding. For now, I’ve rolled back the appearance to what it was before, to give myself a clean slate, as it were. A bit drab, yes, but we can live with that for a little while longer.

Right? Hello? Hey, where’d everybody go?

Some thoughts on helping, and “helping”

[Prompted by a recent Tumblr reblog by duyukdv (Urocyon here on WP), I'm dragging this old one back up to the top of the timeline. It originally appeared here on February 29, 2008.]

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[UPDATE: For a bit more on this delightful topic, see Andrea's "So-Not-Helpful Fixers and their Malcommendations." Cheers.]

Everyone wants to appear helpful. Trouble is, rarely are any of us willing to do the extremely hard work of figuring out just exactly what help, if any, is actually needed. And when we fail to prevent our motives from being ruled by the social compulsion to appear helpful [and/or, the drive to promote our own careers ... hint, hint], our rationality is invariably compromised by conflicting interests, and we are almost absolutely guaranteed to screw the pooch. In such cases, unless we just happen to get lucky enough to guess right — which is a bit like playing the lottery with someone else’s money — then we are very likely to end up harming the person we’re so hell-bent on “helping,” and perhaps (OMG!) ourselves as well.

Or, to repeat what is rapidly becoming an “old saw” in my limited repertoire: “Ninety-nine per cent of the art of helping lies in knowing what NOT to do.“

But Ego is a Jealous God [as are fame and wealth], and guarding against the corrupting influence of social compulsion and ego-defense is perhaps the hardest work of all. It requires a great deal of time, self-awareness, careful critical thinking and skepticism, and rarest of all, an extraordinary commitment to self-honesty.

But, failing all that, here’s one rule-of-thumb whereby we can help ourselves to, at the very least, do no harm:

If we feel compelled to keep telling people over and over that we’re “only trying to help” … then WE’RE NOT.

This is not some cynical admonition to never try to be helpful — far from it. Rather, we should take these hard realities as a recurring opportunity to carefully examine our own commitment to actually being helpful.

So … there it is.

A dream: I, the honored instrument of fictitious death(s)…

As I posted in my Tweet-stream, & on Tumblr just now:

#dream Wow. Had a nap. Dreamed that Hunter S. Thompson had planned his own death, due to age & infirmity — & he chose me to carry it out… / …we we were in his home, he was being a total curmudgeon, but playful. He had booby-trapped me & himself… / …so that I’d be the one to blow him up. I was being uncooperative, & he kept trying to trick me into doing it… / …Later, it wasn’t Thompson, it was Kurt Vonnegut. Me and a few others were there to participate… / …myself, Patrick Stewart, & my adoptive dad (Curt March, died in ’09), were all there to make sure he died as planned… / …wish I could remember what we were taking about. He (Thompson, then later, Vonnegut) was being a total asshole… / …but it was all mutual ribaldry, funny as hell, & perceived by all of us as a fitting, proper end… / …Not sure what else to add. Don’t remember much more. It was a wild one. Both sad & funny, & all seemed perfectly appropriate… / …One of my more interesting dreams, a classic. They’re usually so nightmarishly dull. Damned glad I remembered so much… / …But I guess me and Patrick Stewart were the only two who survived that one! :-D Go figure.

[end]

“The Spectrum” — Old Autism-Related Pages Now Restored

Holicrapoli, six days, and what do I have to show for it? An ill-matched quickie background , still no decent header (my attempt to photograph artwork did not go well), and about a million behind-the-scenes tweaks that no one will ever notice…

Still, since opening things back up, I find my old pet topics coming back into focus, with some new structure & cohesion to boot, and that’s a rather nice feeling. But, naturally, it’s all in my head. Grand ruminations are one thing, but thought-to-text translation is another kettle of fish entirely, especially when I’ve gotten out of the habit of thinking in words. But it’s coming back around. Slow going, as I knew it would be, but all is well. One thing at a time.

I did manage to throw the old top-level autism-related pages back together and link them all under the new parent heading, “The Spectrum,” above. No decent introductory text yet, but the age-old rants are available to the public once again. Other than maintenance, that was priority one. As for the other new topic headings, they’ll just have to take a number and have a seat for a while. The doctor will be in when he’s in.

Er, WHEN did you say your appointment was scheduled, again?

:-D

-

Update 1: Background

Hm. Better color match this time. But the orientation won’t do. May be hard to blend with a good header too. May go with different theme anyway, since this one doesn’t render the same on Winboxes as on Mac. We’ll see…

Update 2:

Yeah, this background blows. Theme is wearing on me too. Should pick new theme next week. Then i should fire up the old pattern generator in OS 9. Heh. Knew I was keeping that around for something.

Biting The Bullet

Okay, this is it. Teh Blog Of Doom is now LIVE once again — but by no means Ready For Prime Time. Not by a long shot. I just decided to throw open the doors, in hopes that the risk of embarrassment might prod me forward. We’ll see.

I am working on it even as you read these words. No, really. Those are not Star Trek reruns you hear in the background.

Explanations and elaborate excuses to follow forthwith…

12:05 am

UPDATE 1: Precipitous

By the way, I do a lot of deadpan (in writing, that is — I can’t do deadpan in my face). Maybe it’s the mystic touch of New Mexico that seeped into my crust so long ago.

Disability Rights Community vs. Autism Speaks

[sent to family and friends]

The letter below is the latest step in a national and international protest against the U.S. organization known as Autism Speaks. Countless attempts have been made to impress upon the organization that its public rhetoric, policies and practices are profoundly harmful to ALL Autistic citizens, and that its leadership MUST accept guidance from Autistic stakeholders and the broader disability rights communities if they wish to retain their status as a prominent charitable organization.

Deficit-model feeds anti-Autistic prejudice

[Originally posted on June 24, 2009, as a comment on Helene Guldberg's Psychology Today article, "How the quack industry harms autistic children," an interview with Michael Fitzpatrick, discussing his book, Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion.]

Not a bad article – especially in contrast to the kind of “information” that currently dominates popular opinion on the topic of autism.

Unfortunately, it does not go nearly far enough into the question of harm, because it proceeds solely from the narrow “deficit model” of autism. Lacking what is often referred to in academia as “the sociological perspective,” such discussions cannot approach the issues that have, by far, the most devastating impact on quality of life, not only for children, but for all Autistics.

Learning By Example

Yes, mainstream “values” set the example. And, yes, our youth internalize those “values” and follow that example — albeit, sometimes too explicitly to suit our comfort and convenience:

“The video was made by girls at a Spanaway, Washington school who apparently had a falling out with a classmate, Piper. The clip carries illustrations of Piper being shot, made to commit suicide, thrown off a cliff and poisoned…”

Of course, we note — with some satisfaction, no doubt — that these girls were “disciplined.” That’s the modern-day euphemism for extrinsic punishment. We no longer remember what that revered word “discipline” once expressed. We just use it to sanctify that very social mechanism which makes such offenses so common first place: society’s unquestioning devotion to, and all-consuming obsession with, extrinsic behavioral conditioning.

[Note to Autism Hub members: that last devotion/obsession is, in my opinion, the very root of what ultimately makes ABA and its offshoots unethical.]

More on that later…

I resisted. But it was futile.

Yes, it was inevitable. And now it’s done.

I am now officially “Twitterpated.”

The inexplicably enthusiastic should note, however, that I am NOT mobile, and email is still the most reliable way to contact me. Don’t Blackberry me before I’m dead.

That is all.

As you were.

New GAO Report: Schools Abuse Disabled Kids

["GAO" = Government Accountability Office, United States of America]

From a new entry on the Mother Jones blog:

GAO: Schools Abuse Disabled Kids

— By Jen Phillips | Tue May 19, 2009 11:07 AM PST

A new GAO report shows that the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts isn’t the only place where developmentally disabled and emotionally troubled kids have been physically punished and restrained. The [new GAO] report, which came out today, details cases at public and private schools across the nation where children as young as five have been sat on, lashed to chairs, isolated for hours, starved, and humiliated as punishment for actions like “slouching and hand waving.” In dozens of cases, these punitive measures resulted in students’ deaths…

Katie Couric’s Terrorphobia Inc.

To be fair, most of the corporate media float these sensationalist red herrings almost to the exclusion of all else. Nevertheless…

Tonight on CBS News, Couric plugged an upcoming segment promising to examine the presidential candidates’ positions on what she called “one of the most serious threats to this country, Islamic extremism.”

My immediate reaction:

APA Complicity in Abuse and Torture

A message from the Psychologists For Social Responsibility discussion group brings good news, and bad. A majority of the APA membership have made a significant step toward redeeming the organization, at least on the issue of participating in — and thus, tacitly condoning — inhumane treatment of detainees.

Many such organizations of legal and helping professionals — including the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association — wasted little time in condemning the Bush Regime’s unlawful and inhumane treatment of detainees, and in barring their membership from any participation in such abuses. The APA leadership, however, were apparently unwilling to give up what promised to be a highly lucrative association with entrenched political interests. Shocker.

But this week’s news brings some real hope for change. Stephen Soldz, APA activist and founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, has posted a press release on the Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice blog:

Yearbook Too Good For Short Bus Rabble?

Or is it just another case of the same old pedestrian status quo negligence, born of socially constructed ignorance, that always governs the behavior of the privileged toward atypical and non-privileged members of society?

Does it matter which? Intent may signify malice, but if the cause is mere ignorance and carelessness, what’s the difference? The effect is the same.

For the particulars in this case, here’s the scoop:

School Leaves Autistic Kids Out Of Yearbook
Parents Say Act Done Intentionally, School Disagrees

June 18, 2008

ROSEVILLE, Calif. — The parents of twin autistic boys left out of a yearbook are accusing the school of discrimination.

For All Our Mothers, Yours and Mine, Then, Now and Forever

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

In Search of Awareness

or, The Ghost of Easters Past …

For those in search of Autism Awareness, I suggest you start by turning OFF your television.

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As a child, my experience of Easter was mixed. My early memories include the fun, the frivolous, and the unfortunate, the curious and the catastrophic, the “renewal” of spring and the crushing blows of “pragmatic” but uncomprehending nature, human and otherwise.

My lifelong agnosticism is not born of illiteracy regarding religious matters, as I was practically raised in the Presbyterian Church. I was as aware as any child of the significance of Easter in the Christian tradition. But like any child, my own perceptions were confined to the flow of my own experiences, whether pleasant or painful. My awareness of the commercialization, and the inevitable dilution of meaning that comes with it, came much later. And later still, other associations crept in…

Because someone had to do it

So there.

Next?

—

For those few who (owing to their living under a rock, I guess) are as yet unaware:

Q: Who is “katleen”?

A: “I Am Kathleen.”

Q: Oh, you mean “Kathleen.” Don’ look so “leejun” to me. Whyzit such a big deal?

A: Because the “subpoena” [PDF] is a retaliatory abuse of power, and a compound civil rights violation, contrived with intent to intimidate a very large group of citizens … and because “WE ARE ALL KATHLEEN, NOW!“

Shoemaker’s Witch-Hunt: An Open Letter

[Lists of dozens more blog entries in support of Kathleen Seidel can be found at Holford Watch, and I Speak of Dreams, and The Voyage, and Natural Variation, and ....]

[WARNING: extreme satire ahead!]

“Autism Awareness”

Or, “Wait — you’re saying that YOUR prejudice is a ‘symptom’ of MY autism?”

So, the dreaded “Autism Awareness Month” has arrived, and thus, the seasonal deluge of parental angst and professional avarice shall soon be upon us.

For my own part, I will indeed be attempting to participate in the “Blogging for Autism Awareness” project. Here, have a button: [deleted by host]

As words are often in short supply for me (well, coherent ones, at least), I expect I’ll mostly just be linking back to various classics in autistic self-advocacy and disability rights genres. But for this stab, I’m going to indulge in a bit of self-quotation, plus links…

Who will teach journalists how science works?

Scientific Blogging‘s Michael White has a very interesting new piece (link below) on one aspect of how science is often (mis)represented in popular media. I don’t feel inclined to argue pro or con on any of the particulars of the case he examines, although I do have a great deal to say on the broader issue of how our society presently handles matters pertaining to scientific progress. But I’m saving that rant for later. As for the answer to my opening question, I’ll offer up this little “hint”: it won’t be our increasingly corporate-dominated education systems. Not the way things are going, at least.

However, I think Autism Hub readers, especially, will find many strikingly familiar themes in Bad Science Journalism and the Myth of the Oppressed Underdog — especially in light of [*cough*] recent events in The Great Autism Debate.

Share and Enjoy.

Evidence of Barm

(or, “Data?! We don’t need no stinkin’ data!“)

So, the Gub’ment conceded that one girl’s quasi-autistic characteristics might have been aggravated by some jab or other … and that’s conclusive proof that autism is caused by vaccines. Gawd, I love America! Big Pharma must be peeing their socks in delight over this spectacular distraction from their real atrocities. And what better way to help marginalize dissenters and their pathological obsession with “fact-checking”?

Well, who knows where scientists and autistics get their crazy ideas, anyway, and who cares? For normal people, sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth, and researching the netertoobs goes something like this: