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June 18th, 2008
03:24 pm - Yearbook Too Good For Short Bus Rabble?
Hi folks. I've been totally swamped for the last couple of months, but am gradually recovering. Today I managed my first blog post in months. Whoopee. Link:
http://dkmnow.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/yearbook-exclusion/
I'll just stick with the essentials here. You'll know what to do:
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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.
Darla Granger said her sons Holden and Hunter were purposely left out of their Roseville, Calif., school yearbook -- along with the rest of the school's special needs children.
"When your own school district and the people that are supposed to be there to support you and your kids and your situation sort of shun you, it is hurtful," Granger said.
Holden and Hunter Granger, who are in second grade, are students of the Placer County Board of Education, which assigns special-need students to various schools within the district.
The boys are in a collage photo in the yearbook, but the school's special needs class, including teachers, is missing.
"I got the book and was excited to look up their class and see their pictures with their names and their teachers, and they weren't in it," Granger said.
Darla and her husband, Blandon, have filed a complaint with the Placer County Board of Education, but said they aren't taking legal action and would just like to ensure that the class pictures of their children and other special-needs students are included in future yearbooks.
The Placer County superintendent who oversees the special needs program at Quail Glen Elementary said she thinks the incident was an oversight, not a malicious act.
"I do have a hard time understanding how they could have not noticed that every autistic child from their campus was missing," Darla Granger said.
The boys' father said he doesn't know if the act was intentional but doesn't think care was given to include the children with special needs in the yearbook.
"I just felt like I needed to speak out," Blandon Granger said. "I feel like we are owed an apology."
Sources (same story on different sites):
http://www.local6.com/education/16639257/detail.html
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/education/16639257/detail.html
http://www.wjactv.com/moms4moms/16639257/detail.html
http://www.clickondetroit.com/education/16639257/detail.html
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Placer County Office of Education
360 Nevada Street
Auburn, CA 95603
530-889-8020
http://www.placercoe.k12.ca.us/
Gayle Garbolino-Mojica, Placer County Superintendent of Schools
ggarbolino@placercoe.k12.ca.us 530-889-5922
Keith Bray, Administrator
kbray@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Larry Mozes, Assistant Superintendent, Student Services
lmozes@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Susan Bolton, Special Education Coordinator
sbolton@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Glenda Lightfoot, Special Education Coordinator
gchun@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Cyndi Stone, Principal/Coordinator
cstone@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Michael Warych, Principal/Coordinator
mwarych@placercoe.k12.ca.us
Susan Watts, Special Education Director
swatts@placercoe.k12.ca.us
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DRY CREEK JOINT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICT
9707 Cook Riolo Road
Roseville, CA 95747
Phone: (916) 771-0646
Fax: (916) 771-0650
http://www.placercoe.k12.ca.us/district.aspx?id=134
http://www.drycreek.k12.ca.us
Mark Geyer, Superintendent
mgeyer@drycreek.k12.ca.us
Lynn Barbaria, Special Education Director
lbarbari@drycreek.k12.ca.us
Louise Santana, Student Services Director
lsantana@drycreek.k12.ca.us
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Quail Glen Elementary School
http://www.placercoe.k12.ca.us/site.aspx?id=89
1250 Canevari Drive
Roseville, CA 95747
Phone: (916) 789-7100
Fax: (916) 789-7113
http://www.drycreek.k12.ca.us/indexSch.asp?page_id=8
patriots@drycreek.k12.ca.us
Tracy Robinson, Principal
trobinson@drycreek.k12.ca.us
Renee McCann, School Secretary
rmccann@drycreek.k12.ca.us
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April 7th, 2008
07:10 am - i can haz protest?
[crossposted]
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!"
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April 5th, 2008
12:40 am - Shoemaker's Witch-Hunt: An Open Letter
[crossposted]
In case you weren't aware, Kathleen Seidel and neurodiversity.com are under attack via a frivolous and brazenly unconstitutional "subpoena" issued by a dirtbag anti-vax lawyer in one of the most half-witted foilhat freakouts since the first radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds." This "subpoena" is an obvious attempt to intimidate and silence Kathleen, and by proxy, the entire autistic self-advocacy community.
My "Open Letter" (below the cut) is posted on my WordPress blog, and crossposted here at IJ on my own journal and at the ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) asperger asylum. Many more blog entries in support of Kathleen can be found at I Speak of Dreams, and The Voyage, and Natural Variation.
Please show your support and help protect our civil and human rights by blogging about this outrage.
( Shoemaker's Witch-Hunt: An Open Letter )
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April 1st, 2008
10:22 am - Autism Awareness: "Wait -- you're saying that YOUR prejudice is a 'symptom' of MY autism?"
[crossposted from my WordPress blog]
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:
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.
( yadda-yadda-yadadda, da-blah-blah-blah )
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March 14th, 2008
05:37 pm - Three-point-whaaaat?
On this most irrational of days, wishing you all magical math and merriment, full of fish and finger Pi in ... well, Springtime.
:-)
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March 8th, 2008
02:33 pm - 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:
Scientist: The Earth is round.
DragonBallZFan: It looks flat to me.
AnnCoulter: The Earth is flat, you godless, anti-American, terrorist-supporting liberals! And you know why? Science said it's not flat, and science is always wrong because it conflicts with the Bible!
QB253X2: Get a year's supply of Viagra for just $14.95 at htttp://www.stealyouridentity.info
[Shamelessly snarfed from a recent comment on Slashdot.]
And everyone wants to be normal, whether they're sane enough to admit it or not. Any sicko who wants more proof that autism is caused by vaccines doesn't deserve to live in the Magic Kingdom Of Free Money. They should be waterboarded and deported back to Aflaqistan where they belong.
The only facts that matter are Gawd-Loving Red Blooded American Dollars, and the only data that matters is what's displayed on the boards on Wall Street, and the numbers on the checks that pay for the repackaging of parental guilt remanufacturing of poor defective little children.
Yeah. If argumentum ad populum is good enough for real people, then it should be good enough for me. Right?
Right.
(Sorry -- I'm too disgusted to say anything intelligent about all this, but for some reason, the sarcastic remarks just keep pouring out of me.)
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March 7th, 2008
10:14 pm - Whyizzit?
When I look at John Hagee, I can't help but be struck by what a perfect representation he is -- a frighteningly uncanny personification -- of what my country has become.
Welcome to my nightmare.
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04:06 am - ...or, Why I Don't Mind Being Dirt-Poor
Mark Morford -- "Read this column before you die""Maybe what bothers me is how Carpe Diem Syndrome is just half the game. Or a tenth. Hundredth. Because the truth is, you could eat at every restaurant in the world and see every exotic wonderland and read a million great works of art and still be quite a miserable spiritually vacant neoconservative jackass with a world-class photo album and the soul of a cockroach..."
Heh.
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March 5th, 2008
02:51 pm - Update On Posts Blocked by NYU/CSC "Town Hall"
As was made clear by events on and following Tuesday, Feb. 26, NYU's Child Study Center failed to live up to its promise of providing an open forum for discussion of children's mental health (though they would have us believe otherwise). However, it would appear that Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz is gradually making good on his subsequent promise to reply via private e-mail to those posts which were blocked.
As evidence, I have just received a reply to one of my posts, which I will be deconstructing shortly for your enjoyment the purpose of furthering open dialog.
Moreover, the e-mail reply DID include, as expected, a copy of my original post, and presumably, this will be the case with all such replies. What that means is that those of you who were blocked will have a second chance to re-insert your voice into the sphere of public debate where it belongs.. If you wish, when you receive your reply, I will be happy to add the text of your original post to the current list of those that were gagged blocked by Koplewicz and crew. (yes, I know -- I still need to polish up the list's introductory text -- bear with me)
( reed moar )
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March 4th, 2008
02:56 am - How NYU/CSC's "Town Hall Meeting" SHOULD Have Been Done - A Coincidental Demonstration
For over two months, they protested of their eagerness to listen, to welcome the voices of the concerned, to come together with all and work hand-in-hand to help the children ...
Mmmmmm-hm.
Via the purely unrelated vehicle of yesterdays's liveblogging on the ongoing scandal surrounding the political lynching of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Harper's legal affairs contributor Scott Horton and Firedoglake.com accidentally delivered a seamless demonstration of what an online "town hall meeting" should look like.
( no-no-no ... wait -- whaaaat? )
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February 28th, 2008
04:34 pm - Par For The Course: "Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is torture in a 12-oz can..."
First, this (New and Improved) Blast From The Past:
And now, Old Meets New:
Wolfram's adulation for Pepsi's latest "gift" to the world:
What gets me is that they had high-paid executives sitting around a table, drinking this dreck and all nodding approvingly, "Oh yes, this is what America wants, a 'light, crisp, refreshing' beverage that tastes like Cheney sputum."
You want to defeat terrorists? Force them to drink Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi. I'm sure it would violate the Geneva Conventions, but they'd immediately tell you anything they knew, then hang themselves. Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is torture in a 12-oz can.
I'm not an extremist. Really. I don't believe immigration will destroy the U.S. I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job. I don't believe a group of guys hiding in caves will emerge and force us all to live under sharia law. I don't believe that allowing same-sex couples to marry will eventually lead to men marrying the rare and deadly Asian Shit Ant.
But having tasted Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi once, I'm certain that the end of civilization is about three weeks away. Even the irritating gold, white, red, blue and black can should be enough to tell you that...
And THAT, my friends, is why I am now off to brew yet another pot of coffee.
Cheers. XD
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February 26th, 2008
04:29 pm - Call for posts that were blocked by NYU's "Town Hall Meeting"
As some of you may know, New York University's Child Study Center hosted what they purported to be a "town hall meeting" today on the topic of childhood mental illnesses. For weeks, they have been effusively "inviting public participation and input," which was to take place, supposedly, in the forum today. But what you won't likely know unless you participated in the forum is that countless posts were BLOCKED for no apparent reason -- except, perhaps, that "Doctor" Harold Koplewicz (of "Ransom Notes" and Paxil Study 329 fame) just didn't happen to feel like addressing those posts, and as such, saw no reason for them to appear at all. Clearly, he has his own unique definition of what "town hall meeting" should mean.
Here are three of my most "controversial" posts that were silenced in this "open forum":
( And what I'm hoping to do about it... )
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February 25th, 2008
02:54 am - "Am I a Person Yet?" -- Amanda, Michelle, and Autistic intelligence.
This just in from Ari Ne'eman at ASAN. The latest issue of WIRED Magazine has a new article on Autistic intelligence. Discussed are Amanda Baggs' YouTube videos, and Michelle Dawson's collaboration with Laurent Mottron, among others. Excellent article -- another must-read for the self-advocacy community ... and an unequivocal in-your-face at the bulk of mainstream research and professions.
The full article is currently available only in PDF format, so expect to do a lot of enlarging and scrolling.
Blurb and links:
Traditional science holds that people with severe autism are prisoners in their own minds, severely disabled, and probably mentally retarded. Don't tell that to Amanda Baggs, an autistic woman who achieved viral fame with her YouTube video "In My Language," which has so far received more than 350,000 hits. Wired contributor David Wolman gets inside the life that Baggs has created for herself, which includes blogging, hanging out in Second Life, corresponding with her friends, and a "constant conversation" with the world around her. Wolman's conclusion: Much of past research about autism and intelligence is catastrophically flawed...
Main page for March, 2008 issue:
http://www.wired.com/services/press/2008/march
Full article [PDF], "Yeah, I'm Autistic. You got a problem with that?":
http://www.wired.com/images/press/pdf/autism.pdf
[Cut to clip of Bob Wright's head exploding]
PS: PASS IT ON. ;-)
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February 2nd, 2008
08:21 am - It just had to be done...
( my new 'tough love' cat macro )
Now I need a nap.
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12:59 am - "Help Yourself."
So.
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, 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, 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 admonishment 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.
We now return to our previously scheduled grudgewank, which is no doubt already in progress ...
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December 20th, 2007
11:25 pm - Goodbye VileJournal. Have a nice implosion.
As of this morning, my status as a LiveJournal user is now officially terminated. This was over a year in coming, and I need not detail the causes here. I had been planning to commit to the final deletion on December 31st, and had announced such to my f-list there. But this morning, when I clicked in from offsite, I discovered that Every Single Post had been placed behind a Nanny-State cut, sternly warning passersby, "Oh, dear! You may not be Mature™ enough to view whatever material might be in this post! Now, give me that crayon! You might poke your eye out!"
Sorry, my LJ friends, but that was just the final Last Straw.
It's over.
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06:28 am - Rest assured, we have not heard the end of this...
UPDATE: NYU’s controversial “Ransom Notes” campaign has now been officially halted. Huge thanks and congratulations are in order, for Ari Ne’eman and everyone at ASAN, and for everyone in the broader disability, self-advocacy, and ‘neurodiversity’ communities who pulled together to convince NYU to rethink their approach. Still, there are crucial aspects of our message that have simply not been heard. This must change …
In the mean time, here's a point-blank question for the exalted Dr. Harold Koplewicz and other esteemed oracles of psychiatric wisdom at New York University:
IS the systematic dissemination and reinforcement, intentional or otherwise, of pervasive social prejudice genuinely conducive to long-term mental health for any segment of society?
Please register your responses now ... and don't forget to ask yourself that question again, before launching your next "awareness" campaign.
That is all.
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December 19th, 2007
06:20 am - Meh.
"NYU’s “Ransom Notes” campaign: How Will It Work?"
http://dkmnow.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/questions-about-nyu/
I'm not at all satisfied with this, but I'm just burnt. I want to convey something difficult for a lot of us to understand, but I don't want to just preach to the choir. And my brain has turned to pudding just in trying to figure out how to do it.
Whyizzit, whenever I start getting seriously involved in autism/disability self-advocacy, I always end up regretting it?
People suck.
Wait -- do they really? Lemme check...
*looks in mirror*
Yeah, people suck.
----
Looks like someone needs to meditate on impermanence and equanimity for a few days ...
*whistles innocently*
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December 15th, 2007
01:41 pm - New info on NYU's "Ransom Notes" perpetrators
First, I'm afraid I'm being a tad "spammy" with this entry, and for that I apologize. But I think this tale needs to be told, post haste.
By now, many of you know about NYU's Child Study Center, headed by Dr. Harold Koplewicz, and their repugnant "Ransom Notes" campaign. And some of you have probably signed ASAN's petition calling for the campaign to be scrapped:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ransom/petition.html
(Thanks Ari!)
Well, just a few hours ago, I was browsing the list of recent signatories, and this entry caught my eye:
486. [name omitted]: comment: I live in Raritan Twsp. NJ = My daughter almost died from Paxil. a drug Dr. Koplewicz helped promote off-label
Yeah, Paxil, and its lavish "off-label" uses -- one of my old pet peeves. So on a whim, I googled the string "Koplewicz + Paxil" ...and a moment later, "the other shoe dropped."
First, it turns out that the ad agency, BBDO, which produced the "Ransom Notes" campaign also represents both Pfizer and the notorious Glaxo Smith Kline, maker and aggressive pusher of Paxil. Shocker.
But among the top hits in the search came this seemingly unremarkable blog entry:
Many Angry At Childhood Mental Illness "Hostage" Ad Campaign
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2007/12/many_angry_at_childhood_mental_illness_hostage_ad_campaign_1.html
The entry, like so many others, tells of the NYU debacle, but then drops this bombshell:
"As it turns out ... Koplewicz is one of the co-authors of the infamous Paxil Study 329 ...
"Study 329 basically asserted that Paxil beat placebo in treating depression in teens when, in fact, it did not. In addition, there were instances of suicidality in this study which Glaxo somehow managed to deep-six."
And from the Alliance for Human Research Protection website comes this repost:
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/03/25.php
The Times quotes Dr. Harold Koplewicz, indicating only that he is the director of the NYU Child Study Center: "The fear I have about this warning is that many teenagers will not get the medicine because it will build resistance among their parents, and that is really a tragic outcome."
Dr. Koplewicz, not only is one of the staunchest promoters of psychotropic drugs for children, he was a co-investigator and co-author of a major Paxil study (329) in which he and the pillars of American child psychiatry claimed to have found that Paxil was "well tolerated and effective" for adolescents. The article has now been discredited by the FDA. Furthermore, an internal 1998 memo by the manufacturer of Paxil indicates that only the positive data from study 329 would be published, but the negative findings would not.
Readers trust the New York Times, believing that the experts selected by the Times for their views, are objective unless identified as having a financial interest in the product/ company or have taken a position. The Times failed to disclose any of the relevant background information that demonstrates a decidedly biased point of view. The Times article also failed to disclose the very substantial financial ties to the drug industry of either Dr. Koplewicz or the NYU Child Study Center ...
And so on.
Obviously, this connection needs to be investigated further. At the moment, I don't feel up to the job of deciding how relevant this information is to NYU's ongoing "Ransom Notes" disgrace. But I felt compelled to bring it to your attention.
Please spread the word.
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December 10th, 2007
06:56 pm - A quickie Migration Roundup
In my few days here, I've run across some excellent resources for current and prospective IJ n00bs:
From ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) morgandawn:
What! Another "How Do I Leave LJ" Post?
From das_dingsi:
InsaneJournal: A Beginner's Guide
[This one, especially, is a must-read.]
From greenwitch in 07refugees:
A Note on Asylum [Community] Creation
From karma_apple:
Backup and migration tools
and:
LJ-Migrate for Communities - How To, on Windows
and from alter_writes on GJ:
Visual Tutorial for LJ MIGRATE [Communities], on Mac
I'm sure there's plenty more, but that's what I've got so far.
Enjoy.
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