Colin Meloy in Defense of Not Reading the Huffington Post

Colin Meloy colinmeloy.tumblr.com A friend of mine wrote me asking why I’d suggested on Twitter that people stop reading the Huffington Post, saying that the political reporting is still really strong and important. This is what I wrote in response: Hey Sarah, Yeah, so maybe I got a little short in that tweet, but it’s hard to fit detailed reasoning into 140 characters — it was mostly just a frustration vent. I clearly hit emergency levels re: HuffPo, which seems to happen too often. Agreed: a lot of the political reporting is good. The editorial is awful, though. For whatever progress is made by the clear, insightful reporting done by the site’s fine political reporters is deeply undercut by the way it’s presented, with 5,678 point type headlines manufacturing outrage and sensation over every little thing that comes across their desk. Also: the constant feed of ugly, demeaning celebrity-worship-perpetuating trash…

A Video Explanation From a Nonspeaking (at times) Autistic

Paula C Durbin-Westby paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com I am not a completely nonspeaking Autistic, of course. Many people have seen me speak and some do not even know that I lose speech at times. My loss of speech is temporary, and can last a few seconds to a few hours or the good part of a day. Sometimes it really is the good part of the day, as I often find talking to be exhausting and it’s nice to not have to do it, even if it is because I temporarily can’t do it. The following short video clip is part of what is going to be a longer video. I have about 5 or 6 of the segments made, but need to get to a much faster Internet connection to upload them, and need some more time to edit it all into one video. Here’s for starters. This one was made recently,…

Healing

Kate   When I was a fifteen years old, my psychiatrist told me that in ten years’ time, there would be a machine that would scan my brain and tell the doctors exactly what medicine to give me to make me normal, to make me whole. That was thirteen years ago, and though I have not yet heard of any such machine, I’ve realized that I never needed it. What I needed was acceptance. What I needed was love. These are the things that made me realize that I had, in fact, been whole all along. Sometimes, I feel as if my life were a long, cold winter, and that spring took a very long time coming. Like many autistic adults, I did not have an easy time of it growing up. Even in adulthood, I struggled with loneliness, employment, and a host of other issues. Though I was almost…

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Yes, You May Approach the Short Bus

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com What I want people to know—and why I write—about parenting my autistic son   Photo © Jonathan Mandel [image: A white mother with orange hair holds a toddler  on her hip while standing with a young child, as a third child emerges, smiling, from a school bus.] When I realized my middle child was autistic and therefore disabled, I had a visual epiphany similar to the wide-eyed new parent who suddenly sees babies everywhere—except I saw short buses. Short buses. The kind of yellow schoolbuses that take kids like my autistic son to and from school every day. They’re everywhere, and if you don’t believe me, take a tally the next time you drive around any reasonably-sized town. Then think about all the kids who must be riding on those buses, and those kids’ parents and families. Think about all the kids who used to…

My Path to Autism Acceptance

Linda at Outrunning the Storm outrunningthestorm.wordpress.com My son, Charlie fell apart last fall when kindergarten started. So did I. It was one of the darkest times in my life. But, I can say today — and I don’t say this lightly — that I am so very glad for everything that happened last year. All of it. You see, last fall I felt like my child was broken. I knew I was broken and I had no idea what to do about any of it. Most days Charlie wasn’t fit to leave the house. I stopped talking to people. What could I say? I live in fear of my five year old child’s violence? I couldn’t. I didn’t. Instead I went to my blog. Under the guise of anonymity, I went to my blog and I wrote and I wrote and then I started reading. Everyday, I read every single…

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An AAC App and Autism Success Story

AAC, or Augmentative and Alternative Communication, provides many autistic people with communication options. We keep hearing how some of those same people are discovering new tablet- or app-based AAC options that even better suit their needs. One such person is Nathan, whose mother Lisa Valerio describes him as, “a 9 year old boy with autism who loves playing outside, swimming, jumping on the trampoline, painting, and putting together puzzles. He uses his the LAMP for Words app now to communicate.” Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be an AAC family? My son Nathan has autism and verbal apraxia, and after many years of struggling to communicate (and intense SLP services) we determined he needed an AAC device — and became an AAC family. What kind of AAC technology has Nathan been using? How did you choose it? When Nathan was younger we started with…

Passing

Kate It happens, not every day, but often. You’re at a social gathering, feeling good, feeling alive, and this conversation leads to that leads to “Oh yeah, I’m autistic. I have Asperger’s syndrome.” And the almost-inevitable response. “Really?  You don’t look/seem/come off as autistic.” I can never quite decide if this is supposed to be a compliment or not.  To take it as a compliment would mean accepting the premise that to be autistic is something bad, which it’s not,  that my social skills are good enough to ‘pass’ for neuro-typical in public and that is a good thing, since people have so many ‘bad’ stereotypes of what autism is and might misjudge me. Which is weird, because I’m pretty sure that anyone who makes a statement that I don’t look autistic doesn’t know me well, and doesn’t know autism well. Here’s the thing.  I can ‘pass’ for neuro-typical in…

From Autism Stress to Autism Acceptance

Brenda Rothman mamabegood.blogspot.com I had a lovely conversation with another mom of an autistic child, face to face, sipping coffee, while we talked about hot-button issues in the autism community. Without losing respect or good will for each other. Maybe it was the coffee. It was good coffee. We debated “cure:” why some parents want it and why autistic persons are offended by it. She said the desire for a cure would never disappear for some autism parents because their children are more severely challenged. She told me the story of a single mom with an adult autistic son, who was non-verbal, had restricted motor abilities, was self-injurious, and would never live independently.  She related how difficult it is for the single mom to handle her grown child, how distraught she is about how she would care for her child as she aged, who would care for her child after…

A Letter To The Staff at My Daughter’s School

Ariane Zurcher emmashopebook.com All examples are misunderstandings or things that have been said and done to Emma by someone within a school setting. My daughter, Emma will be at your school this year. A few days ago, Emma told me she was “scared to go to new school.” Emma loved her teachers and friends from her old school. So I want to introduce you to her. I cannot speak for Emma, I cannot know if everything I write here is completely accurate, but these are things I have learned over the years, things that are specific to Emma and that may be helpful, at least that is my hope. Sometimes Emma does not look at you when you are speaking to her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hear you. Her hearing is excellent. She may not know how to process what you’ve said or she may not know what…

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Autistic Lives: Not Less Valuable

Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com www.blogher.com Two days ago, Patricia Corby was ordered to stand trial for the murder of her four-year-old autistic son, Daniel Corby. During testimony, the local District Attorney’s Office Investigator said that Corby “…felt like she had no life. She wanted Daniel to be normal.” This seems like a good time to revisit the post below, which I wrote for BlogHer.com after another Autistic, George Hodgins, was murdered by his mother Elizabeth — just three weeks before Daniel died. —- Obviously, I’m feeling angry and confrontational. Explosively so. With good reason: George Hodgins, a young autistic man from my son’s school, was murdered by his mother Elizabeth (who then committed suicide) earlier this month. Mainstream media reports have focused almost exclusively on how difficult life was for his mother, framing parents killing disabled children as an understandable tragedy, while parents killing typical children is considered a…