Such a Handsome Lad

 

4014 Big Boy 9/30/2025

The Union Pacific has added some nifty smoke screens. Purists, clutch your pearls.

Contrast

A Canadian naval vessel as compared to a US Navy vessel.

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Clue: Rust

Autism

Seems RFK Jr is pushing the idea Tylenol, taken by pregnant mothers, is linked to autism. What is linked to autism, among many other factors, is illness while pregnant. Might, among other remedies, might pregnant women take to relieve symptoms? Tylen

As parents with a autistic toddler, we belonged to a monthly support group moderated by a psychiatrist. He had a special needs child. One comment he made stayed with me fifty years later. He said the difference between a retarded child and an autistic child was the educational level of the parents. If the label, retarded, were still used for all development disabilities, has the overall rate of retardation changed over the years?

AI Overview

Using the outdated and offensive term "retardation" is inappropriate

. The correct term is intellectual disability (ID). The apparent "level" of ID has changed significantly over the past 50 years due to evolving diagnostic criteria, improved public health, and shifts in societal trends. 

I support RFK Jr’s efforts to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable.  His problem, as I see it, is his only tool is a hammer and he sees every problem as a nail.

Blog comments

Reluctantly,  I am now deleting blog comments that are off topic with no link to the poster.  For ten or so years, none of my posts every received more than 200 views and just a handful of on topic comments. Now each post receives 3,000 ‘views’ and many off topic comments.

In no way are my scribbles on par with LL, Old AFSarge, Old NFO, BRM, LSP and others. My conclusion is someone’s AI is targeting my blog. Do I care? Not much, but it irritates me.

One of many things that irritate me – clickbait

MSN is one of many offenders. The headline, “Major auto parts supplier bankrupt”, prompts me to click on, and some talking head starts some drawn out monologue. Nowhere is the name of the auto parts supplier. I click off. Same thing with YouTube channels. Get to the point , then I will listen to your analysis. Otherwise, I click off.

As always, YMMV

Problem Children

Ami at I.Am.Mental writes about the children under her care and one that is a large challenge.

http://amimental.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-problem-child.html

She hasn’t given up on him and he is improving.

Our first born is autistic. He was a challenge, to put it mildly. Now 47, he lives independently in Seattle and is a professional dishwasher. On the side he sells newspapers on a corner in the Wallingford neighborhood. Recently, he lost his job of eight years to the wonderful victory of Social Justice Warriors in raising the minimum wage in Seattle. He now works in a restaurant outside the Seattle city limits.

One thing was clear to me during the many conferences we attended at schools. The ‘professionals’ didn’t like him, not at all. The more they pushed behavior modification, the more he pushed back.

Then he got a teacher, Mark Hammond by name. Mark talked to us and said he thought our son could learn and wanted to drop the behavior modification model and try teaching basic academics. We told him to go for it.

This required a high level of trust between teacher and parents. Mark would literally sit on our son, hold his head in his hands to force eye contact, and say,

“Sean, A,B,C, etc.”

It worked. He started learning, and the behaviors diminished. The more he was treated as a regular kid, the more he acted like a regular kid. One teacher, who didn’t give up, saved a kid from life in an institution. That was during the time “deinstutional” was gathering steam so he probably would be homeless or dead.

This shouldn’t be taken as rant against behavior modification techniques. Rather, it is a rant against adults who don’t see children as unique human beings.

Having handicapped children can crush you or temper you. My ex and I, already activists, became involved in many endeavors. The draft legislation for the Washington Education For All Act was written on our dining room table and she lobbied for two years to get it passed. I worked my ass off so she could. We were the first officers of the Seattle Chapter of a national organization focused on autism.  I became involved in local politics and was a precinct committeeman for years, first as a Republican and then as a Democrat.

Forced out our comfort zone, we became acquainted with people we would never have otherwise known. Professionally, it helped me.

Our marriage failed after twenty two years. I don’t blame the stresses of our children’s problems alone but recognize it as a factor. There were health issues, financial issues, and personality conflicts. She has a Mensa IQ and the common sense of a dead roach. My nickname, “The Tank”, speaks to my problem solving approach. Subtle and patient are words seldom mention by people describing me.

Example.

Problem. Job site is shut down because bears are helping themselves to the worker’s lunches.

Solution. Fire up a chain saw and charge the bears. It worked.

We did the counseling thing, etc., but finally she bailed leaving me to raise the two younger children, one with a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome.   They turned out to be responsible adults but  with some big bumps along the way.

So, a big shout out to Ami and all the people like her that work with children.

To paraphrase an old saying, they may not change the world, but they can change one child’s world.

Autism and The Police

Rev. Paul, Way Up North, had a post that prompted this post.

http://www.mooseintheyard.com/2016/02/this-needs-to-go-viral.html

My oldest son, now 46, has been autistic since birth. No good explanation as to why but his mother was in labor for 36 hours. He was in a transverse position. He has given me permission to relate some of his history.

Autism spans a broad range of behaviors and impairments. In his case it seemed his brain didn’t process stimuli in real time – always with a noticeable delay.

Our first interaction with the police was at a department store in Salt Lake City. We turned around and he was gone. Two police officers showed up and helped search. Two hours later a clerk discovered him among the shelves under a display island. He hated going into stores. I had a pair of ear protectors he latched onto and wanted to wear them. We indulged him and he was happy to go into stores so long as he was wearing them. Seems the florescent lights made a noise he could hear and was painful.

Fast forward to his teen years. With the help of some gifted and dedicated Special Ed teachers he was able to function fairly well in school (still special ed) and society. Around age 16 he started demanding money from his mother. She told him no. He then tried to rob a tavern.

He entered the back door of a tavern one night armed with a marshmallow  stick and demanded money. The police were called. When they entered the back door, he let out a screech and charged them.  They wrestled him to the ground, handcuffed him, and took him to the police station. I was called and went down. The two officers were visibly nervous as they explained the situation to me. He was fairly well scuffed up. They relaxed after I thanked them for their professionalism in not shooting him. Even though he is only 5’4” and 135 lbs, charging two police officers with a “weapon” in dim light is a recipe for disaster. They let me take him home where I was able to learn his motivation.

Seems he “owed” some drug dealer money and the dealer was threatening him. He was robbing the tavern to get money to pay the dealer because his mother wouldn’t give it to him.  I found out where he was to make payment and a description of the dealer. I showed up in his place. The meeting did not go well for the drug dealer.

Now 21, he had a job in the deli section of an upscale grocery store in Bellevue, WA. One morning he stepped off the bus and was hit by a bicyclist. They went head to head. In the weeks following he went back to zero. The road to recovery was rocky. We did extract enough money from the bicyclist’s insurance company to find a condo for him and purchase it. Then came his knight in shining armor period.

Seems one of his friends claimed she was raped. My son went to the “rapist’s” door armed with a butter knife to do who knows what. My son got punched, the police were called, and my son was arrested.  Some butthead Assistant District Attorney laid attempted murder with a deadly weapon and other charges and got bail set at $300,000. He spent the next four months in the King County (WA) jail awaiting trial. Here is where professionalism came into play. The correctional officers kept him safe. It wasn’t pleasant for him but it could have been a nightmare. When his case finally went in front of a judge, she tossed the whole case and spent ten minutes publicly berating the ADA.

From jail he went to a mental health facility for a year and then to a less restrictive placement where he remains. He works in the kitchen and has a part time job selling an alternative newspaper outside a coffee shop in the Seattle Fremont district.

He has had interactions with law enforcement over the years, mainly positive. Once two street hustlers got his bank card from him. He went to his bank and they called the police. He made a big hit with the investigators when he gave them a stick figure drawing of the suspects to help identify them. A less positive experience was being robbed of his leather coat and luggage in the Chicago Amtrak station while a police officer was in the area and didn’t intercede. Of well, Chicago where you need to pay to play.

I truly appreciate the police officer that have been involved with my son (and his siblings, another story for another time). They have been professional, compassionate, and caring. They deal with human misery and dysfunction at a level most of us will never, thankfully, experience.

Please don’t feel “sorry” for me as the parent. Life isn’t always fair. I get up every day and start putting one foot in front of the other. Somehow it usually works out. Feeling sorry for yourself just makes you sorry,  and a burden on those around you. YMMV

Misplaced Child

Wyatt Earp has a post up about losing his daughter in a crowd. Even after thirty some years, I can remember the feeling. Horrible!

http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.com/2014/05/carnies-built-this-country-2/#comments

My  oldest is autistic. His particular problem seems to be centered around his hearing. As a toddler, he fought against entering any kind of store. Once, at a Bon Marche store in Salt Lake City, he disappeared. About thirty minutes later, one of the sales ladies found him under a display module. This module had shelving underneath to hold additional stock, and he had slid open one of the doors to climb inside.

One day he grabbed a pair of my ear muff protectors and wanted to wear them. Rather than argue, his mother let him wear them. He happily went into all the stores. Seems the little guy could hear the florescent fixtures, and the sound bothered him. After a few years, he discarded ear muffs and had no problem with stores.

I suppose some parents would have been uncomfortable with the looks from other people. Give my ex credit; she, along with me, didn't give a rat's ass what anybody thought about how our children were perceived by others. We were the ones raising them.

Vindicated, Dr. Wakefield

Warning! This is not a warm and fuzzy blog entry.

Many years ago, a British researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, suggested a link between multiple inoculations given very young children and autism and intestinal disorders. For his efforts, he was attacked by the full weight of the British medical establishment and British press, soon joined and sustained by the USA establishments. Turns out he was right.

http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2013/06/21/new-published-study-verifies-andrew-wakefields-research-on-autism-again-mmr-vaccine-causes-autism/

I have a deep personal interest in this as two of my children are in the population he discussed. One is a classic example of the inoculation then development pattern. I happen to know one of Dr. Wakefield's brothers, and know some of what inspired the man to launch his research.

When I've broached the subject, many health care professionals have told me, in polite, or not polite terms, I'm full of shit. That "scaring" parents into refusing to have their children inoculated leads to all kinds of health problems. Bad, bad, WSF. Ignorant opinionated WSF. So, excuse me, if I don't feel somewhat vindicated.

Inoculations in themselves are not the problem. Sloppy science and poor manufacturing practices are the problem. Money, profits, research grants to those who deliver "preferred" results are some of the problems. Giving multiple inoculations at the same time is the problem. A three year old's immune system may  not be strong enough to handle mumps, measles, and rubella all at the same time. Single dose inoculations are, or were, available. Just not too convenient for the health care practitioners, and vaccine suppliers.

Look to our, and others,  military. Adverse reactions to anthrax inoculations. Gulf war syndrome. Safe? Maybe, maybe not. What happens when you give someone six to eight inoculations at once?

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/anthrax_vaccine_side_effects.html

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/6063.php

To all you vets, think back to that day your unit was lined up, usually basic training, and you ended up with two sore arms. Why do you think medics/corpsmen were standing by? Remember someone being hauled away who never came back?

One other little tidbit, for the baby boomer generation. How many polio vaccine "pioneers" do you know with cancer?

So excuse me, but no flu shots, no shingle shots, for me. I'll keep my ignorance, thank you very much.

Vaccinations and Autism

I get in heated arguments, in person, and on blogs about this subject. Two disclaimers. I have an autistic child (now an adult). I'm nowhere near rational about the subject.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield was one of the first to suggest a link. He is now cast as a villain. I ask all who have an opinion to read the following short link.

http://www.anh-usa.org/vitamin-d-fluoride-and-vaccines-the-common-theme/

No need to get into any further arguments. I'm done debating this issue.

Proud Father

Received word today my youngest is doing well in his Combat Medic 68W training. One requirement is passing the National Registry Emergency Medical Technician - B NREMPT-B testing which he passed this week.

My first born is Autistic. He recently passed his Washington State Food Handlers permit. This is, for him, a major achievement that he has been working on for two years.

Please excuse me while I puff up my chest and grin ear to ear.