We'd like to wish the children of California Godspeed and an army of angels' protection. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the nation’s first coronavirus vaccination mandate for schoolchildren

DisneyLand Measles was the Trojan Horse. Inside it, Covid. When my oldest was 2 years old, I asked her pediatrician to give her the Varicella vaccine for chicken pox. He told me, "No, it's too new."  I was angry with him. I have the notes in her baby book. A book that trailed off to nothing but visits to specialist and grand mal seizure charts. If parents want to choose the CoVax for their children, that is their decision to make with their doctor.  To require a product that is still experimental, with barely a year's worth of data in a completely different population, as the admission to school is not at all surprising, given California is the bellwether state for vaccine mandates.

Have any readers been watching the Korean series called Squid Game? It's relaxing compared to what's happening today.

###

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the nation’s first coronavirus vaccination mandate for schoolchildren, requiring that all elementary through high school students get the shots once the vaccine gains final approval from the U.S. government for different age groups.

The government has fully approved the COVID-19 vaccine for those 16 and over but only granted an emergency authorization for anyone 12 to 15. Once federal regulators fully approve it for that group, the state will require students in seventh through 12th grades to get vaccinated in both public and private schools. Newsom said he expects that requirement to be in place by July 1.

California will require the COVID-19 vaccine for students in kindergarten through sixth grades after it gets final federal approval for children 5 to 11.

“We want to end this pandemic. We are all exhausted by it,” the Democratic governor told reporters at a San Francisco middle school.

Another pull on the noose. YouTube will remove all vaccine “misinformation.” CHD was removed. In GroupSpeak it’s called deplatforming. In America it used to be called censorship. In N Korea it’s called loyalty to dear leader.

What if autism was the test? Once America swallowed the lies that autism is genetic and has always been here and could never have been from vaccines, the runway was ready for what we are seeing today. Once tens of thousands of kids were booted from school for lack of a vaccine, the jets were scrambled. Vaccines will be our nuclear missiles - protecting us from the evil viruses. The shadowy powers that be - and we claim NO inkling of who it is (both Republican and Democrat administrations have forsaken us) are on a mad tear to vaccinate. At any cost. At every cost.  We're still here. I hope our tiny size is our shield.

From a NYT article that we can't link:

YouTube said on Wednesday that it was banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including those of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous.

In a blog post, YouTube said it would remove videos claiming that vaccines do not reduce rates of transmission or contraction of disease, and content that includes misinformation on the makeup of the vaccines. Claims that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that the vaccines contain trackers, will also be removed.

The platform, which is owned by Google, has had a similar ban on misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines. But the new policy expands the rules to misleading claims about long-approved vaccines, such as those against measles and hepatitis B, as well as to falsehoods about vaccines in general, YouTube said. Personal testimonies relating to vaccines, content about vaccine policies and new vaccine trials, and historical videos about vaccine successes or failures will be allowed to remain on the site.

“Today’s policy update is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we’ll continue to invest across the board” in policies that bring its users high-quality information, the company said in its announcement.

In addition to barring Dr. Mercola and Mr. Kennedy, YouTube removed

the accounts of other prominent anti-vaccination activists such as Erin Elizabeth and Sherri Tenpenny, a company spokeswoman said….

The accounts of such high-profile anti-vaccination activists like Dr. Mercola and Mr. Kennedy remain active on Facebook and Twitter — although Instagram, which Facebook owns, has suspended Mr. Kennedy’s account....

Note: A reader asked me what yesterday's post had to do with autism. It's a balance these days, because of Covid, which is on everyone's radar, to manage post flow.  I hope this seems more relevant.

###

From Safeminds
September 26, 2021
Identifying Needs Prior to a Catastrophe is Incredibly Important

Emergencies and disasters happen in unpredictable ways and in some instances, with no advanced warning. These unexpected situations are challenging for everyone, but can be especially difficult for individuals with special needs and their caregivers. Which is why disaster preparedness is critical for the disability community. The Los Angeles Times recently ran a report on this important topic. Their article advocates for people with disabilities to identify their daily needs and incorporate them into an emergency preparedness plan. This plan should include a detailed list of medications and dosages, names of doctors and how they can be reached, special equipment needed, as well as health insurance information. Also featured in the article was the Americans with Disabilities Act Center’s four step framework for emergency situations, which can be adapted for anyone. These suggestions include:

Find five trusted allies and share your emergency preparedness plan: You should have at least five people who are fully informed about your emergency plan, including what supplies you have and need, your evacuation plan and all of your medical information. Write down their contact information so that you have it as well. Do not rely on just one person or on having contact information stored digitally.
Prioritize your health needs and create lists: Have physical and digital copies of everything: doctors and their contact information; medications and dosages; what kind of equipment you use, where you store it and how you use it. This information should be accessible to your allies and emergency responders.
Create your emergency kits: You should have an emergency kit for your home, your car, on your person and at work. These kits should have the emergency basics, as well as supplies for any specific needs.
Plan how and when to evacuate: Typically an earthquake will not trigger an evacuation, but wildfires do. Plan at least two evacuation routes and practice them. Make sure they’re accessible to you and your needs.

Take Action  to send a messages to your federal representatives.

Please call: The White House (202) 456-1111

We awoke to a craven new world. The President of the United States told millions of Americans that he is "disappointed" in them, because they have not taken the Covid vaccine.  This is patronizing in the extreme. He is not our Daddy - NO President is - he works for us. All of us, whether we voted for him or not. During his candidacy he said he would not mandate the vaccine, and he wanted to unite the nation.  So much for that. Tomorrow is September 11th and many of us can not visit New York City because we don't have the right "credentials." Anyone know if the Taliban has let more Americans come home? And  before you accuse us of being partisan, don't forget who never drained the swamp, who never put RFK Jr on the vaccine safety commission that he never got off the ground, and who launched Operation Warp Speed and who has also told us to get the jab.  CHOICE. We believe in CHOICE. That's our core tenet.  Always will be. From Autism Action Network - CALL THE WHITE HOUSE and eblast your Congressmen and Senators. Today.

###

US Take Action: Biden orders almost everyone to get shots. He has no authority to do this.

     Last night President Joe Biden outlined a six-point plan to respond to Covid in a speech seething with anger at the 80 million adult Americans who refuse to participate in the Covid shot mass experiment, and rage directed at the governors who reject the ever-changing and mostly science-free federal Covid policies.

     Biden began by congratulating himself on what a good job he has done on Covid, and excoriating Americans who aren't buying his malarkey. He lied about the safety and efficacy of the shots. He lied about the FDA approving the shots available in the US. He had nothing to say about people who have recovered from Covid, and gave no indication that he has anything in mind for addressing Covid other than vaccinating everybody by wildly expanding the powers of the President.

     The first and major part of the plan is forcing more people to get shots. After months of denying he has the authority to impose mandates, Biden asserted that he will have the Labor Department issue a directive that will require all businesses with more than 100 employees to force their workers to get the shot or  submit to weekly testing.  And he announced that he signed an executive order requiring all federal contractors to get the shot. Following on an existing order that requires all nursing home employees at facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid dollars, the requirement will be expanded to cover workers in hospitals, home healthcare facilities, and other medical facilities. He never asks why healthcare workers, the heroes of 2020, must be forced to put this product in their bodies.

Mandates are wrong. So are prohibitions. Even when you are on the "right side" of them.

Visit the  Emergency Campaign to Stop All COVID Vaccination Mandates

School. Work. College. Life. 

We can not become a society of government sanctioned exclusion and punishment.  We ended that in 1861 when men were worth 3/5 of a life. We ended that we we ceased to practice COVERTURE for wives in the mid 1800s. We can't go back because of vaccine status.

Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here? They both blow themselves up, inflict harm on those around them, and are convinced they are fighting for freedom. Arne Duncan, 8/29.21 Twitter

The cruelty, ignorance and moral superiority drip off the screen from former Secretary of Education under President Obama Arne Duncan.  We can shrug it off, call him a jerk, move on. Or we can take a hard look at the thought process of people with current or former power within our government and their platform/capacity to incite deep fears that have one goal - compliance.  Secretary Duncan might want to pay some of us a visit, to find out how akin we are to suicide bombers as we care for our children 24/7/365. It is WE who got bombed, and 25 years into the autism epidemic, we are less respected and more hated than ever - how's that for an ugly truth. Hard to believe where we are today as a nation.  Hard to believe.  
 
Here is the Tweet text below: www.twitter.com/arneduncan
Managing Partner, The Emerson Collective. #ChicagoCRED. Author of How Schools Work. Here are the Emerson Collective's stated priorities:

Immigration Helping aspiring Americans and new immigrants succeed
Education Clearing pathways to a meaningful education
Climate Building solutions at the intersection of climate innovation and environmental justice.
XQ: The Super School Project Rethinking America's high schools
Chicago CRED Creating real economic destiny in Chicago
Equity & Justice Shaping new systems of opportunity for all
Media & Journalism Provoking thought and strengthening democracy
Health Accelerating cancer research and empowering patients

I spent a good portion of yesterday listening to the three major cable news networks report on the crisis in Afghanistan. I'm worried for the women and girls. I'm especially worried for the boys and girls who have autism and their mothers and fathers. I ran a Google search on Autism and Afghanistan and found very little:

There are no known studies looking at the prevalence of autism in Afghanistan, and organizations such as Autism Speaks do not operate in the country.

And this:

https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-6435-8_102534-1

The people of Afghanistan continue to hurt from the effects of decades of invasion and civil war. While there have been some efforts to support the physically disabled population of Afghanistan, there is less support for individuals with intellectual and mental disabilities; specifically, there is no support for children and adults with autism. This entry begins by introducing the history of autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) and the various legislative and political efforts in place in Afghanistan to support general disabilities. Furthermore, it addresses the lack of support for people specifically with autism in Afghanistan in regard to research and treatment of the condition. This is measured by the lack of nationwide recognition and awareness of autism, screening and diagnosis, and treatment for those afflicted with it. In addition to recognizing the severe lack of mental health resources in general, this entry also addresses the various cultural and social perceptual issues...

I am trying to bear in mind that we here in the United States and our readers across the Western world are so very fortunate.  Despite the major controversies and problems we face. I look at my own daughters, loved, helped, treated, healthy, welcomed by most of society, valued.....  a universe apart from what girls, typical or otherwise, experience in Afghanistan.  What can we do?

...There are no known studies looking at the prevalence of autism in Afghanistan, and organizations such as Autism Speaks do not operate in the country....

New paper

FDA are expected to vote today to fully license the Pfizer vaccine while hiding the hideous fallout

https://www.scivisionpub.com/pdfs/us-covid19-vaccines-proven-to-cause-more-harm-than-good-based-on-pivotal-clinical-trial-data-analyzed-using-the-proper-scientific--1811.pdf

ABSTRACT

Three COVID-19 vaccines in the US have been released for sale by the FDA under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) based on a clinical trial design employing a surrogate primary endpoint for health, severe infections with COVID-19. This clinical trial design has been proven dangerously misleading. Many fields of medicine, oncology for example, have abandoned the use of disease specific endpoints for the primary endpoint of pivotal clinical trials (cancer deaths for example) and have adopted “all cause mortality or morbidity” as the proper scientific endpoint of a clinical trial. Pivotal clinical trial data from the 3 marketed COVID-19 vaccines was reanalyzed using “all cause severe morbidity", a scientific measure of health, as the primary endpoint. “All cause severe morbidity” in the treatment group and control group was calculated by adding all severe events reported in the clinical trials. Severe events included both severe infections with COVID-19 and all other severe adverse events in the treatment arm and control arm respectively. This analysis gives reduction in severe COVID-19 infections the same weight as adverse events of equivalent severity. Results prove that none of the vaccines provide a health benefit and all pivotal trials show a statically significant increase in “all cause severe morbidity" in the vaccinated group compared to the placebo group. The Moderna immunized group suffered 3,042 more severe events than the control group (p=0.00001). The Pfizer data was grossly incomplete but data provided showed the vaccination group suffered 90 more severe events than the control group (p=0.000014), when only including “unsolicited” adverse events. The Janssen immunized group suffered 264 more severe events than the control group (p=0.00001). These findings contrast the manufacturers’ inappropriate surrogate endpoints: Janssen claims that their vaccine prevents 6 cases of severe COVD-19 requiring medical attention out of 19,630 immunized; Pfizer claims their vaccine prevents 8 cases of severe COVID-19 out of 21,720 immunized; Moderna claims its vaccine prevents 30 cases of severe COVID-19 out of 15,210 immunized. Based on this data it is all but a certainty that mass COVID-19 immunization is hurting the health of the population in general. Scientific principles dictate that the mass immunization with COVID-19 vaccines must be halted immediately because we face a looming vaccine induced public health catastrophe.

42% of reports and 60% of fatal reports to VAERS (started in 1990) are for Covid products since December: fatal vaccine reports to Yellow Cards are more than 20,000% up on the year

By John Stone

This is a brief investigation into the public data as it stands in mid August 2021. I would add that the point is not that this is the highest quality data but that it is the only data there is - we are being deliberately deprived of real data through negligence at best, as the FDA confessed to the New York Times early on. They had not got the machinery running - or more likely  they had it running and were just were not telling us about it. And so we get back  to VAERS which was diagnosed in 2010 as being so deficient it was picking up less than 1% of events (at which point US government agencies evidently realised that they were on to a good thing and decided not to streamline it). So here are two relative measurements.

42% of all reports to VAERS from 1990 to August 13, 2021 are for Covid vaccines (595,662/1,409,664)

60% of all reports to VAERS “where patient died” from 1990 to August 13, 2021 are for Covid vaccines (13,068/21,936)

I am not saying that we should just multiply these figures simplistically by 100 but they are indicative that there is something drastically amiss.

Meanwhile, we have a different collection of data from the United Kingdom to August 11. Here we should bear in mind that the population of the UK is one fifth of the US and the licensing body, the MHRA, generally reckons that reports represent about 10% of cases.

To date there have been 347,032 Yellow Cards, 1,151,768 Adverse Events, 1,596 Fatal 

This breaks down as follows:

Pfizer 36.6m doses 104,446 (1 Yellow Card in 350) 293,779 Adverse Events (2.8 per card) 501 Fatalites (1 in 73,054)

Astra Zeneca 48.6m doses 228,239 Yellow Cards  (1 in 213) 813,622 Adverse Events (3.6 per card) 1,053 Fatalities (1 in 46,154)

Moderna 2m doses 13,325 Yellow Cards (1 in 150) 41,274 Adverse Events (3 per card) 14 Fatalities (1 in 142,857)

Brand unspecified 1,022  Yellow Cards 3,093 Adverse Events 28 Fatalities

The fact that three brands have such distinct adverse event profiles argues strongly against this being background noise, however there are overwhelming reasons why most reports would never get made: people will not report because they don’t know to, because they don’t know how to, because the ethos is overwhelmingly hostile and they think it is the wrong thing to do or they are scared, or because they are too sick or even dead. By comparison the average number of vaccine reports for the previous ten years was 3,039 with 8 fatalities: 200 times the fatalities and we are not a year in: off the scale and the world is run by madmen.

This story will tear your heart out. Have you been affected? Tell us. Write to me and let me know if you want to share what's happening. AutismAges@gmail.com.

'A new low': TRICARE cuts services for children with autism, concerning military families

Rachael Riley
The Fayetteville Observer
In 2013, when her father returned from a third deployment, Mia Martin was diagnosed with autism at 3 years old.

Autism is a bio-neurological developmental disability that impairs normal brain development and ultimately cognitive function and social interaction.

Mia was enrolled in public school for a while.

Her days started at about 5 a.m. to catch a bus.

She’d sit in a classroom until about 1 p.m. then head off to therapy for four hours, ending her day at about 6 p.m.
James Martin and his daughter Mia are one of the military families impacted by the Defense Health Agency's decision to eliminate certain applied behavioral analysis services from classroom settings.

The 12-hour days were part of Mia’s routine for four years.

Mia’s father, Fort Bragg combat veteran James Martin, knew it took a toll on Mia.

The public classroom setting was too rigid.

“Even in a classroom of 15 kids with a special education teacher and an assistant, my daughter is quite the handful,” Martin said.

Mia couldn’t adapt.  Read more here.

We’ve been barred from Google News for years. Our stories used to be indexed and shared often. Good to see Google is disseminating important information for families. This alert came through in my email for "autism".  Testing anecdotal evidence on... puppets. Maybe Bert and Ernie will take over care for our kids when we die?  

Points if you get the headline joke.  If not, here you go.

How true is this? And now, the pressured, fear-based rush to add an experimental nail to children's, teens and young adults coffins. My daughters have autism, but they are full of joy, smiles, and they are content. They walk with confidence and pride in a world that’s quite inaccessible to them.

They function.

They function well. Despite their disability. 

Many of their “typical” peers are lost in a morass of low functioning mental health. 

Sad generation with happy pictures. 

Shower and hair brushing and one ripped shirt. This too is autism. The autism that was ignored this year exists every day. They autism no one talks about exists every day. The autism every President of the United States has glossed over or at best paid lip service to while a candidate. Autism is day old bread. Yesterday's news. Who ever thought we'd actually miss the days of neurodiversity feel good stories? On Wednesday night, President Biden finally spoke to Americans and especially children facing difficult circumstances....  but it wasn't us.

Goodbye "Autism Awareness Month."  Hello, T-shirt shopping.

Many years ago, Ginger Taylor started a Blogger blog called "Lives Lost To Autism." I was an admin with posting privileges. We posted news story after news story of drownings and other terrible, untimely, far too early deaths among those with autism. Mostly children. Autism has lost its blue sheen, replaced by gender issues, and of course Covid. But never, ever forget, AUTISM was causing breathing related deaths long before COVID showed up. National Autism Association has done more than any other organization to boost awareness of wandering. Such a simple word. "Wander." In autism, we know it by many names: bolting, elopement, abandonment, forgotten, distraction, and of course, a preternatural attraction to water.

God rest this beautiful boy's soul. And our condolences to his family. Most of know that it is indeed impossible to be on perfect alert 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  Mohamad Nour. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

JSO: 5-year-old boy with autism found dead in Jacksonville pond after being reported missing

April 25, 2021 at 1:03 pm EDT

By Aurielle Eady, Action News Jax

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A young boy with autism was found dead in a pond Sunday morning just hours after he was reported missing, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.

The parents of Mohamad Nour, 5, called police just before 9 a.m. after they noticed he was gone.

Prior to him being reported missing, JSO said he was last seen at 6 a.m. by his family.

According to JSO, it is believed the boy unlatched the lock of the front door of his home and left.

Harsh. Cruel. Jarring. And true. Don’t forget leprosy. Also allowed. This includes students with autism. 

You'd think after a solid year of watching what happens to children forced out of school, and their families, the mere thought of any reason to keep kids home artificially would be wholly repugnant. But no, here in Connecticut legislators have  been voting with salivating glee to cast the dirty, not-fully-vaccinated, dangerous, non-compliant children out of education.  Soon. And then what?

Last week, I helped my 20 year old with pre-verbal autism into her school transport van.  There was a substitute driver (again) but I recognized him from more than a year ago. We said, "hello," I closed the door and off went my beautiful daughter. 

30 minutes later, I got a call from the head of transportation that my daughter had not arrived at her school. She had been driven to her OLD SCHOOL 13 miles away down Route 95. The school that CLOSED its doors for good when COVID hit.

Let that sink in for a moment. She expected a normal day. Quick trip. No problem. Instead, she found herself taking a completely different route onto the highway with NO WAY TO SAY "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING??" So I'm yelling for her.

This is autism. The worry. The never ending source of agita and angst and outright terror. For her. For me. For all of us.

Autism? Something else? Well, according to ABC News, the boy was unable to answer any other identifying information. 

##

5-year-old found abandoned on the street in Connecticut on a rainy day, woman charged

Police said it appeared the child was left there by a Black female driving a white Infinity Q50 or Q40 sedan. The boy answered to the name "Prince," but was unable to provide any other identifying information.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (CBSNewYork) — A Connecticut mother is facing charges after police say she abandoned her child in the pouring rain.

Investigators say 41-year-old Sharon Williams stopped at the corner of Burroughs Street and East Main in Bridgeport and left the 5-year-old boy, who has a disability, alone in the streets.

We were disheartened to read yesterday that Facebook has removed the NVIC page. Barb Loe Fisher has been a champion for the right to informed consent, safety and choice for vaccination for more than 40 years, as result of her own son's injury. 

Kim and Bella with Barb, 2009

NVIC has always been a resource for factual information about vaccination safety, informed consent and State by State updates on religious, philosophical and medical exemptions. It is a goldmine for thinkers. And a threat to the pharmaceutical warmongers who are the new ruling class, protected by Big Tech. Facebook removed their page yesterday.

Visit NVIC.org here.

SEYMOUR CT— Police say an investigation has revealed a Monroe woman “intentionally drove” her vehicle into the Housatonic River in July, leading to her death and killing her son who was a passenger.

The Detective Division has deemed the crash a murder-suicide, Deputy Police Chief Roberto Rinaldi announced in a statement Wednesday that stated the investigation has been completed. Read more CT Post Police: Monroe mom 'intentionally' drove car into Housatonic in murder-suicide involving her son

Hello, readers. I live in Connecticut in the next town over from Monroe. The Housatonic river that runs up 149 miles up into Massachusetts, dotted with shuttered factories in the Housatonic Valley . Factories that used to manufacture the products that made America run back to Colonial times.  On a warm Summer day, powerboats and sailboats dot the water that flows into Long Island Sound in Bridgeport. We are not strangers to catastrophic death here. Sandy Hook School is just 14 miles up the road. The perpetrator of that horror was a boy with Asperger's. He killed his own mother in the spree. Here, Mom, as determined by an investigation, a woman known to so many as a strong advocate for her son with special needs, loved by so many, purposefully drove her vehicle off the road and into the Housatonic. And she turned down assistance.  “The boater made numerous attempts to rescue the occupants of the vehicle,” Rinaldi said. “However, Connie Crowell refused to acknowledge or accept the boater’s assistance and rescue efforts.”

I'm on a large Facebook group for CT Special Needs Families. We have members from all walks of life, whose loved ones have the full array of disabilities, autism included.  There was a tribute thread in which member after member expressed shock, dismay and a deep sympathy for Connie Crowell and her son John.  She was beloved. A great Mom. Strong. Moved heaven and earth for her son. Don't we all? Day in and day out. And then she drowned him. Will we never know what motivated her? Having covered stories other Mothers who murdered their special needs children including Gigi Jordan, Karen McCarron and Dorothy Spourdalakis, and not knowing Connie personally, I assumed my usual role of adding another perspective to the thread. Not sure it was welcome, but I have said this every time a parent has murdered his or her child with special needs.  WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KILL OUR CHILDREN.  And then asked if MEDICATIONS played a role.

My comment on Facebook: I’m going to poop in the punch bowl. This is a horror. I understand the depths of despair and the incredible stress we all face. We all do. Still, we don’t get to murder our children. If she had been a distressed Dad and shot himself and his son, would the thoughts be as kind and understanding? My first question is - was she on medications for which the side effect is suicidal ideation? I think that’s really important. Was this a medication driven decision?? She drowned her son. Years ago, Wealthy Gigi Jordan shoved pills into her son w autism until he seized and choked on his vomit at the ritzy Peninsula Hotel. Dr Karen McCarron put a bag over her autistic 3 year old daughter’s head. Dorothy Spourdalakis stabbed her son Alex to death after he had languished in a Chicago hospital for weeks bc of his violent behavior. This beautiful boy drowned at his Mother’s choice. We don’t get to murder our kids. I’m going to cry now.

By late July, Covid lockdown had taken a toll on all of us. We were four and a half months into the worry, the lack of services.  At age 22, John, called Jack,  would have just aged out of any school based services, and no one was taking in new adults into programs. My daughters' day program still has not enrolled adults who aged out last year. We are all exhausted, sometimes, maybe often, to the breaking point.  Now we have had a weather catastrophe that's impacts thousands of families with kids for whom routine and sameness is mother's milk. (Sorry, "people's chest expressed beverage.")

No one will know what darkness overtook Connie Crowell. Or how to prevent the darkness from devouring any of us. May God bless their souls, especially John, who died knowing that his mother killed him. It tears me up inside.

Evidence in my daughter's case

From the Washington Post.  Our children, from young through adulthood, deserve respect and proper treatment. As someone whose daughter was abused, leading to a criminal case and felony result, there are few pains as sharp as knowing people who are supposed to care for ,teach, assist are too angry, underpaid, untrained and lazy to do their jobs without resorting to base actions.

###

The very real, very painful reasons the autistic community demanded two restraint scenes be removed from Sia’s new film ‘Music

At least 745.

That’s how many times, court documents say, Jennifer Tidd’s son was restrained and secluded in school.

The Northern Virginia mother can’t say much about the lawsuit she and other parents launched about a year and a half ago against Fairfax County Public Schools. But what Tidd can share, and is eager to, is what her inbox has shown since she became a receptacle for questions, complaints and worries from parents across the country: Too many autistic people have been restrained against their will, and too often that action has resulted in injuries, trauma or death.

“This is what we’re dealing with when we have kids who have intellectual and developmental disabilities,” says Tidd, who has two autistic sons. “They’re not seen as people.”

If they were, she says, people wouldn’t do things to them that they would never consider doing to other children. They wouldn’t respond to their meltdowns by holding them down or locking them away, instead of taking the time to figure out what is bothering them.  Read more here.

Below is an excerpt from Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement The developers of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have previously undisclosed ties to the re-named British Eugenics Society as well as other Eugenics-linked institutions like the Wellcome Trust.

2020 has been a year of impossible things. Is it too far fetched to wonder about a campaign to quietly decrease populations who.... do not contribute? Like my three adult daughters.  Before you pillory me - I do not think for one moment that my beautiful children are non-productive. They employ many people tangentially. They bring joy to many. They are teachers - they teach humility, gratitude, fortitude. My daughters are valuable members of society. They also cost the government a whole lot of money. Oh dear. As the autism epidemic Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill and the rest of us at Age of Autism have been clamoring about for going on two decades ages out, the burden is shifting from Mommy and Daddy to the states, here in the USA. 18 means adulthood and an application for Supplemental Security Income. That's about $800 a month at the top level. Add SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, dollars to the tune of a high end of $195 for a sole head of household, and let's say you're looking at $1000 a month per adult with autism as a minimum. Then add those who have the "luxury" of state DDS programs, budgets for day programs or residential care, each of which can run into six figures. Our kids are precious indeed. Perhaps "someones" have noticed the crushing burden that's coming. Perhaps "someones" have noticed that our "typical" children, boys and girls alike, are riddled with anxiety and mental illness, have lower IQs than their grandparents and are overwhelmed with college debt that hobbles them into their thirties and beyond? Less coming up. And the elderly living longer and longer "thanks" to the miracle of modern medicine. Living expensively in congregate care, not with their adult children as in past generations. Spending down to make Medicaid,. Turning Medicare on its head.

I think we have cause to worry. I'm reminded of the song Silver and Gold that Yukon Cornelius sings in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer: "How do you measure it's worth? Just by the pleasure it brings us on earth?"

###

...mainstream media has had little, if anything, to say about the role of the vaccine developers’ private company – Vaccitech – in the Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership, a company whose main investors include former top Deutsche Bank executives, Silicon Valley behemoth Google and the UK government. All of them stand to profit from the vaccine alongside the vaccine’s two developers, Adrian Hill and Sarah Gilbert, who retain an estimated 10% stake in the company. Another overlooked point is the plan to dramatically alter the current sales model for the vaccine following the initial wave of its administration, which would see profits soar, especially if the now obvious push to make COVID-19 vaccination an annual affair for the foreseeable future is made reality.

Yet, arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK Eugenics movement. The latter organization, named for the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton, is the re-named UK Eugenics Society, a group notorious for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to “improve racial stock” by reducing the population of those deemed inferior for over a century.

The ties of Adrian Hill to the Galton Institute should raise obvious concerns given the push to make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine he developed with Gilbert the vaccine of choice for the developing world, particularly countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia and Africa, the very areas where the Galton Institute’s past members have called for reducing population growth....  READ MORE HERE

Many kids are not receiving the special education and therapy supports that they need because of the pandemic. NBC News’ Kate Snow hears from a family about the challenges they are facing. How the pandemic is impacting kids with special needs

We must point out that while the report focuses on "children," COVID changes have also ravaged families of adult children with autism and other diagnoses. Group homes have been especially hard hit, and families have been separated from their children for months.  Mental health is a factor in general health. At what point are the restrictions.... enough. Or too much?  My own daughter's school closed in June, and the report features local families that I know (like my daughter and I) who have struggled to find new placements and a way forward.  How is your family doing? What are your challenges? Share in our comments.

We may be entering a Sneetch world.  Discrimination based on vaccination status. If you aren't familiar with Dr. Suess' story, there are two sorts of Sneetches. Those with and those without stars upon thars - their bellies.  I've copied a video reading below.  Theodor "Ted" Geisel, aka Dr. Suess, was a political cartoonist and activist, not simply an author of iconic children's books.

Dec 16, 2020, WISN/ABC12 Milwaukee:

https://www.wisn.com/article/covid-19-vaccine-id-card-could-be-needed-for-return-to-normal/34993828?

As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widespread, could a card proving recipients have been vaccinated soon be required to get on a plane, go to a concert or sporting events?

A year ago, it would be hard to imagine but it is a possibility that some facets of everyday lives could look very different as more people get the COVID-19 vaccine. The first doses were administered Monday afternoon. But there are already questions about whether people will be required to get it.

"I can assure you the state has no intention of mandating the vaccine," Deputy DHS Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said. "What private employers do, you know, will be up to each employer as to the conversations they want to have with their employees."

The state gives anyone getting the vaccine a card. But Willems Van Dijk said it's meant as a reminder to return for the next injection. It's not meant to be used as proof for admission to work or other venues.

We bring you grim news this morning. Dr. Paul Thomas' Oregon license to practice medicine has been suspended.  Please read his own words below. Dr. Thomas is a champion for children, not a chump for CDC. And like others before him, he will be made a scapegoat and example to instill fear in other Pediatricians, many of whom, couldn't find their backbone if they had a second degree in Chiropractic.

Governor Kate Brown defines herself as a "fierce feminist" on her Twitter account. Oregon's 38th Governor. Always fighting for better jobs & schools. Fierce feminist. Working to strengthen & expand voter access. A woman who prevents other women from making decisions for their own children sounds like another F word than fierce to us....  From Dr. Paul:

###

Freedom to choose how your child is vaccinated is being threatened.

If you want to preserve the right to choose what is injected into your child or your body and preserve the ethical right to informed consent, please act now. Join the Free To Choose movement and DONATE HERE:  

Dr. Paul now faces attacks on three fronts:

1. Providence Health Plans, the largest local insurance company terminated all contracts.
2. The State of Oregon terminated all contracts.
3. BREAKING NEWS, the same week his data is published and CHD Defender posts about it comes:

“By order of the Oregon Medical Board, the license of Paul Norman Thomas, MD to practice medicine is hereby suspended, effective December 3, 2020, at 5:15 p.m. Pacific Time. As of this date and time, Licensee must stop practicing medicine until further order of the Board.”

Integrative Pediatrics and our providers are fighting to preserve your right to direct your child’s medical care with Providence Health Plan (PHP) and with those covered by OHP (Oregon Health Plan). PHP and the Oregon Health Authority (OHP) intend to terminate our provider contracts in an effort to restrict your provider choices and force you and your children into compliance with CDC vaccine “recommendations.” 

Note: Below is a post I read on Facebook (and got permission to share) that sums up the experience of  thousands of autism families here and around the world. Our children, from early intervention to adulthood, are suffering, and therefore, so is the entire family.   We will always write from the perspective INSIDE the autism epidemic. Even when it's painful. Especially. 

Feel free to share your story in our comments.

Posted with permission from the author:

###

As this pandemic/shut down continues indefinitely, my family’s overall well being continues to worsen in almost every way. I’m pretty sure most people can not understand what it’s like having two severely autistic young men (18 & 19 yrs old) to raise, keep safe, and live harmoniously with.

They simply can not function without in person therapy, education, and support. They are spiraling into a deep depression and confusion while years of progress  are dwindling daily. Crying, biting themselves, and coming after their father and I everyday all day.

Our lives and existence were difficult without the pandemic but this is absolutely excruciating to witness and live with. I understand the reasons why most schools are closed though I absolutely do not agree with a solely special education school completely shutting down. The hybrid program they eventually tried to do, that lasted a few weeks, was only two days per week, with only three students per class. That has since shut down completely.

The fact that these schools do not see themselves as essential workers is beyond cruel and selfish. That’s right, selfish and cruel. They are supposed to be the people that understand this population. There has to be some exceptions and this should surely be one of them.

My sons can’t stay home alone while my husband and I go to work. That means, we simply can’t go to work. My kids need constant supervision. My kids receptive language skills are not high enough to explain why they are trapped at home and not aloud to go anywhere. Staying in this state of affairs is only magnifying the problem.

Are you ready to be placed on a DO NOT FLY list as a viral terrorist? Qantas airlines has announced that they will require proof of a Co Va cks to fly their airline.  Good day and Goodbye, Mates!

Psst, hey dude, you got an extra ticket and a bootleg vax pass?  First concert I ever saw was YES at the Boston Garden. Today, the thought of attending a concert ever again sparks a resounding "NO."  Funny how this news was withheld until after the election and tagged onto the Pfizer announcement of "success." To borrow from Freddy Mercury, "...We will we will SHOT YOU!"

###

From Billboard: Monday's news that
pharmaceutical company Pfizer's early results on a new COVID-19 vaccine showed a 90% efficacy rate on an initial clinical trial have given concert professionals hope that the business can start mounting a return in 2021. As part of that preparation, Ticketmaster has been working on a framework for post-pandemic fan safety that uses smart phones to verify fans' vaccination status or whether they've tested negative for the coronavirus within a 24 to 72 hour window.

Many details of the plan, which is still in development phase, will rely on three separate components -- the Ticketmaster digital ticket app, third party health information companies like CLEAR Health Pass or IBM's Digital Health Pass and testing and vaccine distribution providers like Labcorp and the CVS Minute Clinic

Many years ago, we wrote about Kent State University Professor Trudy Steuernagle, who was beaten to death by her son, Sky Walker. She knew that one day, his severe autism would kill her.  She did not blame him. She left a letter behind saying as much.  Kent State professor Trudy Steuernagel's fierce protection of her autistic son, Sky Walker, costs her life: Sheltering Sky.

Last month, the autism community lost Feda Almaliti and her beloved son Mu in a fire. Mu did not beat his mother to death. He refused to leave their burning home. She chose to remain with him, even to their deaths. 

Autism, like so many other critical issues this abysmal election season, has been cast aside for COVID .  Already tough times for families are far worse with closures, lack of proper school, no day programming, services and care staff unavailable and above it all - a radical change in routine which is toxic for our loved ones. 

We parents whose children remain at home are really feeling the pinch of  COVID's social isolation. There are countless families facing violent behavior, 24/7 caregiver exhaustion, financial trauma. I feel fortunate to have day programming opened my older daughters. That said, I have at least one of my daughters home with me at all times.  This means every trip to a store requires bringing her with me.  I've cancelled appointments. There is no downtime until bedtime. That sound you hear at 9:15pm is probably me breathing a sigh of relief! And I'm lucky all three of my daughters sleep. Many families do not have the luxury. Work is pecked out while surrounded by noise, music, stimming, hands grabbing me to do this or that, demands.   I have been telling friends this is like going back to the toddler years - with a few precious hours of preschool (day program) a week and a little one always in tow. I'm not complaining (much) - many have a far tougher situation and we have a darn good routine here.  I'm proud of my daughters.

Trudy and Feda's trauma is seared into my heart and soul.   Below is a post from David Royko that rings true. A call to action. A call to KEEP GOING because autism should not be fatal - to any of us.

Juggling Autism Blog: Feda Almaliti and Mu, A Severe Autism Nightmare

Father to Ben and Jake; Husband to Karen; Psychologist (so you can call me doctor if you want to though I probably won’t realize you mean me); Director of Chicago court system’s divorce mediation services; Writer/Author — mainly autism, music, children of divorce, Mom and Dad (Carol and Mike Royko); Blogger (Juggling Autism; Huffington Post); Resident of Deerfield, Illinois, and Beachwood, Ohio; Former: Drummer, Circulation Truck Helper, Radio Host, Workshop Leader, Uber driver, WFMT Production Assistant; Group Therapist; Freight Train hopper.

“Autism was becoming a fatal condition for me.”

Karen said that a dozen years ago when Ben and we were the subjects of an episode of the radio show, This American Life. It was about Ben moving out of the house into a residential placement. And she wasn’t speaking figuratively.

Severe autism is a living hell for the afflicted and those who love them. Karen had suffered a dozen years of severe sleep deprivation. Dangerous incidents were becoming more frequent with her ability to control a hulking, six-foot 12 year old decreasing by the day.

Last week, it became a fatal condition for Feda Almaliti. She was a larger-than-life, 43 year old powerhouse in the autism world, with a son suffering from severe autism. A true “Warrior Mom,” her accomplishments included co-founding the National Council on Severe Autism, and helping to reform California’s insurance laws to cover autism. In the world of autism, her brains, her sense of humor, and her personality were making her a living legend. And autism ended her life, and that of her beloved son, Mu (Muhammed).

The news reports all blame the fire for their deaths. No. It was severe autism that killed them....

Trust us. We know from social isolation. We have PhDs in social isolation. Black belts in social isolation. Decades of social isolation. When COVID ends for the world, our loved ones with autism will still endure social isolation.  This is why we continue our mission.

BBC's look at autism....pretty scary 

By Anne Dachel

Sept 6, 2020, BBC: Special educational needs families and the fight for education

Sofia is one of more than one million young people in the UK with special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND.She’s among one fifth of young people with SEND who have the most complex needs.

During lockdown, while schools closed to the majority of children, the government said that the most vulnerable, including those with complex special educational needs could still attend.Families speaking to Panorama say they've found accessing support difficult and that it was an example of the long-term struggles they have faced getting educational support for their children during lockdown.

Of course the BBC completely misses the BIG PICTURE HERE: They are showing us the ugly side of autism, namely out-of-control children with severe behavior issues. 

This is autism.

We see several autistic children who have meltdowns and the parents who have to deal with this daily.  A girl is described as "nonverbal," --another word in the modern lexicon that we're all getting used to like "on the spectrum," and "high functioning."

The BBC's message is that these kids have not been served during the lockdown over COVID. If government had only done their job and provided something for these children, all problems would disappear. 

Wait a minute. What are these same kids like in school?  Why is it that back in 2015 the big news out of Britain was the announcement that the government would be opening 27 new special needs schools in England.

These schools would serve 2,000 students. Of the 27 schools, 22 would be specifically for children with autism.

Many years ago, I wrote my obituary on Huffington Post as a way to explain to the asses (I mean masses) at that site what it's like to be an autism parent and how we say "we can never die."  (I'd link it, but they scrubbed my 7 years of FREE writing because I sometimes wrote about vaccines and autism.) The world is not ready to care for our adult children. Housing and residential care is going to be a nightmare.

Below is a news report about a disabled man (he not have autism) who was "missing" for months and then found and dead in the basement of his care facility. "No foul play." I call bullshit. His body was so decomposed there is no funeral.   Rest in peace Kam Franks.

Missing since March, man found dead in basement of adult care facility where he lived

His sister calls him a wanderer, so it wasn't a total surprise he went missing, she said. But months passed and the family heard nothing.

Until last Saturday we are told staff at Faithful Helping Hands, was cleaning out a basement room, when they found Kam dead.

"How do they not smell a body in the summer," Kai said. "How do you dismiss that? She said we get mice sometimes in the summer."

One of the owners of the facility told FOX 2 by phone, there was no odor blaming Detroit police for not checking the basement back in March. She didn't have an answer for why here own staff didn't look there.

This week, I learned of a disheartening situation in Edinburgh, Texas from Evelyn Cano and Debra Liva.  They are two of the fiercest advocates for special needs kids in the entire Southwest. I had the pleasure of meeting them and speaking at their event in the McAllen, TX area twice.

The witches though, are the Edinburgh Consolidated Independent School District, including  school board trustee Edward Pena, Jr who joked that another trustee was "special ed" at their meeting on August 18. The other board members laughed.   The trustees actually laughed instead of calling him out. I damn well hope it was nervous laughter at least. What if he’d made a racial slur, would that have been as amusing?  I was reminded of the Roald Dahl story "The Witches," in which the witches pretend to love children, until they rip off their masks. And show their disdain.  Fish rots from the head. When the board of education thinks special ed students are acceptable targets for jokes, you can bet your red rubber nose, seltzer bottle and punchline that every layer below them knows it.  I am certain the special education teachers and paraprofessionals were wounded when they learned that they too are considered a joke, by virtue of devoting their careers to students like MY THREE DAUGHTERS.  My children did nothing for my district's testing score rating. My daughters did nothing for college acceptance rates. My daughters did nothing for sports accolades. But I can promise you that my daughters made an impact on all of their peers, teachers and paras, all of whom worked so hard for honestly, not a lot of return, except my gratitude.

I HATE that our kids are the butt of jokes. Special education is taking over districts across the nation. Boards that are in such lily white Ivory towers had damn well better come to terms with this. 

We're in a nadir of civility and respect across the nation. Special education has taken a monstrous hit during COVID - as most of our kids have been fed scraps of services instead of what IDEA and their IEPs require.  Sometimes, school boards give special education lip service, having no clue what teaching and parenting a child with special needs entails. Me? I'd like to give Mr. Pena Fat Lip Service for his cruelty. However, that wouldn't do much for civility, would it?



Official Disability Chamber of Commerce RGV press release regarding the ECISD incident from August 18, 2020.

As some of the largest employers in our area, school districts in the RGV still need training and direction with our disability community. We challenge them to be part of a larger discussion and change. We are here to help with sensitivity trainings and disability awareness trainings.
#dccrgvcares #CallToAction #changethenarrative #ableismexists

Ginger Taylor posted this Tweet from Canadian MD Matt Strauss. It made my blood run cold. Read it. Admissions diagnosis, starvation. Our elders are starving because Covid measures have plunged all of into.... autism. Hear me out. 

Autism is loneliness.  I once watched my beautiful then 15 year old daughter stand at the front door of my home watching the neighbors much younger kids playing in their yard. She was mesmerized from behind the screen door. Then she said three words that broke another piece of what was left of my autism ravaged heart:

Gianna wants friends.

Autism is not being able to leave the house when you want to go somewhere or do something because it may be very difficult for your child.  My daughters have never left the house without an adult, caretaker or to board a bus with an adult.  I wrote in my memoir about the time I had to leave a Chinese food order in the restaurant because my daughter had such a meltdown in the parking lot that I had to carry both her and her older sister (they were tots) back to the minivan and drive home hungry.

Autism is not knowing what the person you see is feeling because you can't read his or her facial expression.  I thank God I am old enough to have crows feet and forehead creases so that people can tell if I am smiling or angry behind my red, white and blue mask. And poor enough that I can't even consider Botox...  ha ha.

Autism is isolation. My 25, 24 and 19 year olds have not been invited to a single event that was not adult facilitated for special needs since around 5th grade. That's more than a decade without a social interaction with typical peers.

Autism is diminished financial security for adults with autism and their families alike. From this I surely know.

Autism is an epidemic.  And so are the repercussions of COVID.

We're starving. All of us.

XOX    Kim

By Twilah Hiari

In 2020, we find ourselves living in a world where some of our fellow humans are not only rationalizing, but demanding human sacrifice. The question is not so much how we got here, but what does it say about our moral malleability and basic humanity.

On June 26, 2020 the New England Journal of Medicine published an article entitled Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. The piece serves as a legal blueprint to guide states to increase uptake of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine when it becomes available, guidance to when a mandate of the vaccine may be appropriate, and strategies to use to sidestep legal challenges in the event of a vaccine mandate.

As a person who lost the ability to read, write, speak and count in 2014 due to a series of medically induced injuries, including injury from two vaccines, the piece read not so much like the prequel to a dystopian novel, but like a direct threat to my life. 

Included among the criterion the authors suggest as a trigger for state vaccine mandates is Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendation of the vaccine for populations including the elderly, health care professionals working in high-risk or with high-risk patients, and persons with certain underlying medical conditions. I strongly suspect that I’d qualify as a person with certain underlying medical conditions.

An unusual characteristic of the paper is its recognition that vaccine injury is real and will inevitably affect some people who receive the vaccine. One of the criteria that the authors outline as a prerequisite for a vaccine mandate is that, “a generous compensation program for people who have serious vaccine side effects should be a centerpiece of these efforts.” 

Do I, as a person who is under potential threat of state mandated vaccination feel assured by a promise of generous compensation should I lose my ability to read, speak and perform the functions of daily living independently again? No, I do not. No amount of money would be fair compensation for a loss so far reaching as severe vaccine injury. Severe vaccine injury is a loss that destroys not only the life of the injured individual, but transforms the lives of that person’s family and community. My spouse would lose a partner again, my community would lose a person who grows and shares a quarter acre of organically grown produce, my friends would lose a loyal support. And I, as a shell of my former self, would require valuable productive energy and resources from a team of other human beings to maintain an existence that no longer nourishes me or anyone whose life intersects with mine.

Note: Thank you to Brett Wilcox for sharing this post from his blog "Running the Country."

Adolescent Suicide and Murder, The Next Pandemics

Fox News 12 Sherman Texas

I saw this story about a Texas boy burned by chemicals left on a shopping cart on the Massachusetts' Health Choice Facebook page and wanted to scry. That's not a typo - that's scream AND cry. I've been thinking about children around the world - and ubiquitous use of toxic, caustic, dangerous chemical cleaning and disinfecting agents.

This weekend I was in a Shop-Rite here in Connecticut and they have shower curtains hung between the cash register aisles.  If you have ever had a clear shower curtain, you know they get moldy very fast and don't stay clear long. They are a bear to really clean. This is what shopping as come to during COVID-19. Jury rigged safety systems are that have no scientific basis.

What will happen in schools, when every surface is covered in a chemical one, two or more times per day? What is the public health cost to inhaling and contacting these products day in and day out for any of us, let alone kids? I think the boy have lost his sight if he'd gotten that "stay COVID safe!" chemical in his eyes. A nightmare.  Kim

###

Texoma boy burned by chemicals on Kroger shopping cart

SHERMAN, Tex. (KXII) - A Texoma boy is recovering after something meant to protect him left him with burns on his face. How a trip to the grocery store quickly turned into a trip to the doctor.

“We go to Kroger weekly. We enjoy it, love the fuel points, you know. It’s just one of those, it took us by surprise," said Jessica Garcia of Sherman.

Garcia and her 7-year-old son, Jax Owens, went to do their weekly shopping at the Sherman Kroger Sunday. She said she noticed a gel-like substance on the shopping carts, but wiped down as much as she could see before letting Jax inside.

“As we’re going through getting our groceries he just was telling me how his face was itching and burning, but I didn’t see anything," said Garcia.

Garcia says his face became red and swollen, and kept an eye on him that night..

“The very next morning, his lip was, even though it’s huge right now it was about 5 times bigger than that,” said Garcia.

Steve Jobs created a world of imaginative products used the world over for creative connections between humans. Bill Gates created machines to conduct business. Today is a day to talk about Bill Gates' iron grip on every aspect of planet earth save maybe its orbit as the pandemic he may have crafted wages on. Two men. Genius level. Both college drop-outs. Both richer than most of us could ever imagine. One died from cancer, unable to save his own life using medicine. The other is now for all intents and purposes in charge of our lives, and believes using medicine is his to impose on every one of us. In  1984, when Jobs launched the Macintosh computer, the above TV ad mesmerized the world with its theme of a WOMAN shattering an Orwellian world.  A world with robotic people following instructions, marching in lockstep and even wearing.... masks.

Exactly the world Bill Gates is constructing around us TODAY.

The strange love-hate relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

Said Gates of Jobs in

Bill Gates has a perfect explanation of the difference between him and Steve Jobs

Jay Yarow
Apr 7, 2015, 8:49 AM

Steve had a design mind-set. When I get to a hotel room, I don't go, 'Oh, if I had designed this car I would have done this and this.' People like Jony Ive and Steve Jobs are always looking at stuff that way. You know, I look at code and say, 'Okay, this is architected well,' but it's just a different way of understanding the world. His most natural, innate sense was a world-class instinct about whether this or that object met certain standards. He had extremely high standards of what was shit, and what was not shit."

Language alert:

Source, Barbara's FB 10/19

Note:  I met Barbara Fischkin at my very first public speaking event in New York City a dozen or so years ago.  She is an accomplished author,  and was a successful journalist who traveled the world for her career. I consider her a friend and mentor. Her adult son Daniel has been in his New York Group home since the quarantine began.  Like many group homes, Dan's been denied all visits, even from Mom or Dad. Her son contracted COVID and recovered. She has been able to have curb distance visits. This is happening all over the country, maybe the world. People with autism cut off from their loved ones. I can't imagine anyone being able to explain to my three daughters why I am not there for them. My once, twice, thrice broken heart couldn't take knowing they were worried I'd never return, or worse starting to forget me.

Below is an excerpt from a magnificent narrative non-fiction essay she has written about this time and our autism family.  Never forget, no matter how we ended up here, how we have treated autism, educated our children, housed them - all of it - at the end of the day, we are the autism family.  Take the time to savor her style, her wit, her honesty, her emotion. Enjoy.  Kim

Barbara Fischkin is the author of three books of narrative nonfiction and satiric fiction and is currently writing an autism-related historical novel titled The Digger Resistance, some of it set in what was once an Eastern European shtetl. She holds an interdisciplinary Master of Liberal Studies Degree in “Autism Past and Present,” is a writer for City University of New York’s Office of Communications and Marketing, and is a member of the CUNY Disability Scholars Group. As an international journalist, Fischkin covered stories in Latin America, Asia, and Europe and wrote for major publications including Newsday, where she was on staff, the New Yorker, and the New York Times, among many others.
.
AUTISM in the Time of COVID: Guilt, Histories, and the Village

Kim

By Barbara Fischkin

GUILT

The Covid test for my son came back positive. Great, I told myself, first you gave him autism, now the plague. Dan, 32, has been unable to speak since he was three and a half, a rare case of Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. Doctors told my husband and me to expect the worst. This, they said, was as severe as it gets on the autism spectrum. The worst did not happen. As an adult, Dan has an active life. Still, he is far from cured. Due to his lack of speech and other disability-related deficits, he cannot live by himself or go anywhere alone. He lived with us until he was 22 and then moved to a nearby group home. It is a beautiful, well-furnished house and he has his own large room. Still, it is a group home. I do not know what happened to our once normal child; nobody does. As the spectrum itself grows, it becomes more confounding. For me, maternal guilt comes with the territory and it is irrational. I am still haunted by the long-debunked theory that “refrigerator mothers” cause autism. In my case this is beyond ridiculous. Friends, relatives, and colleagues—and my husband in particular—claim I have an overabundance of warmth, enthusiasm, and passion and, if anything, could tone it down a bit. Still, on bad days the dark side of my brain imagines Bruno Bettelheim, the most famous purveyor of the “refrigerator mother” autism myth, rising from his cremated ashes to crown me the world’s foremost ice queen.

I think: I should have worked less after he was born? Should I not have moved him from one country to another when he was just a toddler? I was a journalist and a writer. But I took him with me. On interviews in Mexico City, to Guatemala to interview orphans, to Panama, Thailand, and the Philippines to catch up to his foreign correspondent father. He rode in a baby backpack and played with my hair. I took him—and a nanny he loved—to a North Carolina writing workshop, because two weeks was too long a separation. Doesn’t this exemplify a warm mother?

I should have played more games with him. Did we have enough puzzles? Too many? I read to him every night, didn’t I? Goodnight Moon. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The Philharmonic Gets Dressed. You name it, I read it. 

I breast fed Dan. Or am I imagining this?

Could a mother imagine she did such a thing, when she did not? I do not think so. But when it is almost 30 years since your child fell apart and you still don’t know why, such thoughts continue to flow. And so, it came as no surprise to me—or others—that when Dan tested positive for the novel Coronavirus, I was sure I had given this to him, too. I based this on circumstantial evidence which would be mortifying, if it weren’t so funny. In the worst of times, and in our memories of them, humans crave humor. If we didn’t, the Holocaust movie Life is Beautiful would not have won three Academy Awards. 

So here goes: I was sure I gave Dan the virus because I had my eyelashes dyed. 

The woman who does this for me—as she tells great stories about waxing the legs of Lillian Hellman and Beverly Sills—tested positive after my last appointment with her on March 4. New York was still wide open then. She was so sick that she wondered if she was down for the count. I didn’t find out until she revived and after I had spent a day with my son. If I had known, I would not have seen him. This anti-mantra flowed through my brain, until I convinced myself I could push it aside by a list of other ways Dan could have been infected. Three of his group home housemates had it. Did they give it to him? Or he to them? Staff came in and out. My husband and I rode the Long Island Rail Road in early March. We walked and biked the crowded boardwalk in Long Beach on Long Island, where we live. This is the nobody knows virus. Dr. Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine described in the New York Times on May 26 as a “legend in the battle against Ebola and Aids,” does not know where he got Covid-19.

Dan appears to be healthy now. He has been symptom-free for weeks. He has, ahead of time, lost the 20 pounds he usually sheds in summer when he surfs the ocean. He looks like himself again, tall and solid, fashionably balding with a Roman profile. There do not seem to be any Covid after-effects, as many others—including Piot—report. But. . . can a mother tell such a thing from a distance of six feet? As I finish writing this on June 1, I have not been able to touch my son or even stand in the same indoor room with him since March 17. Seventy-six days. After 49 days, my husband and I were permitted curbside visits with him. It is as if our son were a restaurant permitted to offer take-out, but not delivery. Neither one of us has ever not seen him for this long, even in those vintage traveling days.

Below is a Facebook post I could have written myself. Three times.  Please consider support VOR - Voices of Reason for the disabled. VOR has been fighting for the rights of the disabled, including the autistic, for decades.  I was their keynote speaker several years ago and still recall how welcome I felt there, as we all had the same agenda - our children's rights throughout the lifespan.  It's ironic that I teach self-defense. I earned my black belt in two martial arts late in life. And I train every day. Protecting women is my passion. And yet, I can do little for my own daughters.

The post linked an article from the National Counsel on Severe Autism.

###

An autism fact too horrible to discuss May 27, 2020 The mother of a teenage daughter with nonverbal autism opens up about her extreme sexual vulnerabilities

My 17 year-old daughter, I’ll call her Cathy, has autism. Not the “self-advocate” autism, or the “neurodiversity” autism, or the Daryl Hannah autism (whatever that was). Noooooooooooo. My Cathy has an autism that leaves her helpless, 100% defenseless.

Cathy is gorgeous, quite tall, with wavy bright blond hair and a face like a doll. If an actress were to play her in a movie I think Cameron Diaz would fit the part. But after that, no similarity. Cathy can’t talk, read, write, answer a phone, text, or understand a story. She can’t brush her hair or teeth, wipe herself after toileting, change her menstrual pad, or put on her clothes. If it’s freezing outside it wouldn’t occur to her to put on a coat. More than once she’s left the house totally naked.

NOTE: This might not be the best day for me to write about the concept of REHOMING kids with autism. Tomorrow's not looking good either. The term is a euphemism usually used for dogs and cats that are sent away because they are inconvenient, too much work, vicious, don't get along with other pets or family members and frankly, most rescue agencies think people who rehome are selfish jerks. Read the poem above and change DOG to CHILD.

How about rehoming children with disabilities like autism? 

Yes, it's better than killing them. We just saw a horror in Florida. Still. Rehome... I know how hard life can be with kids with autism - don't we all. I know families facing the horror of reactive attachment disorder in adopted children.  I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

How much time have you devoted to your children with autism. What have you lost? Given up. How many bruises, cuts, scratches, broken windows, smashed drywall have you mended. When was the last time you sipped a cup of coffee alone and contemplated all the parts of life that autism has taken from your child?  Let alone you. Me? Try 68 cumulative YEARS with my 3 daughters.  And it ain't a contest I want to win. Or a contest at all.

Stamina. Love. Ability. Care.  Altruism. And a touch of masochism, if we get down and truthful. Some of us parents have it. Others. Don't.  And NONE of us is Mother or Father Teresa. This poor gal couldn't last 2 years.  Just look at her tears.  Look at her husband in his tight immaculate white T shirt and coiffed goatee.  There were "things they weren't told." Cue the flood of tears and clutch your pearls.  From CHINA? Imagine that?  What were YOU told before autism? What did YOU EXPECT when you were EXPECTING? Perfection? And we should pity her for feeling so, so bad about her decision to return her kid - tell me? Is it a nickel or dime return on a child?  She gets a story in People Magazine for doing to a child what most call selfish to a dog or cat.  A YouTuber. Maybe she should consider going into UnBoxing as her career - Motherhood ain't for her.  Kim

###

YouTuber Myka Stauffer Reveals She 'Rehomed' Her Son Who Has Autism 2 Years After She Adopted Him

Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/schools.htmlhttps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/schools.html

I live in New England, where parents can not get their middle school boys to wear pants in the dead of winter. On the bright side, girls might finally be willing to poop in the (socially distanced) bathrooms saving hours of discomfort and a mad dash to the door upon returning home. Masks for "Students over the age of 2."  Those ain't stoodents. They is babys. (Oops, someone needs some old fashioned school!)

I was wondering about the meaning of "School":  School has its roots in the Greek skhole. That word originally had the sense of “leisure,” which evolved into a “place for discussion,” so you can see how school came to have its modern meaning. School, as in "school of thought," can describe a group of people bonded together by shared principles.

And then I found this gem, true or not, it made me laugh and cringe at the same time because it's exactly what CDC is recommending for our kids.  Here in the autism community, many of us struggle to get shoes onto our children, shirts can case a meltdown that lasts hours. Masks seem.... unlikely..... for long term wear.

Source: Who Invented School and Why Did They Invent it

Horace Mann is the name that comes as the ultimate answer to “who invented the school”. Born in 1796 in Franklin Massachusetts, Horace Mann is believed to have invented the school system we all know today. He was both a college professor (teaching Latin and Greek) and a college president. However, before this man, there were many schools and teaching methods in Greece already, which makes the whole story a bit blurry. Yet, he takes a lot of credit when it comes to invention and contribution to the Normal School System in 1838.

Another man who is believed to have invented the school is Harry P. School. Around 1369, he started gathering neighborhood children with an unacceptable behavior and locking them up in a building. In other words, his “school” was a place where children were being punished. His concept may have been rough, but the parents of the punished children liked Harry’s idea. Truth be told, Harry P. School is not the inventor of school, but he definitely deserves some credit because of his idea of gathering children into one place in order to correct their wrongs.

By Kim Rossi

Mayor encourages constituents to 'socially shame' people not wearing masks in Rhode Island Jack Perry The Providence Journal

Everything we have ever taught our children about bullying is WRONG. We should teach our kids that life is 100% situational based on the agenda.  Black can be as white as snow. Fire can be water. Freedom can be slavery. Shame your neighbor? Turn them in? Celebrate their loss of income, the collapse of their business to save others?  I saw an article about ankle bracelets in Kentucky for family members of COVID positive relatives to track if they leave the house. Kentucky orders quarantine-breakers to wear ankle monitors

We are in a 21st century version of The Industrial Revolution when life changed dramatically and entire industries were rendered obsolete by machines. We've seen technology do the same to a lesser degree since the 1980s, mostly displacing humans and cassettes. But this COVID iteration is different. It lacks the hope of a better future that has always been at the core of the American dream and backbone.

The United States of America once competed in the race to space.  Today? We're in a forced march to something I do not recognize. The Manhattan Project, for better and certainly for worse, created a bomb that made the nation feel strong and protected. Invincible even, for a time. Today? COVID has turned us into traitors to our friends and neighbors, cowering at home in fear, compliant, meek, scared.

By whom? For whom?

CUI BONO?

Thank you to our Anne Dachel for transcribing excerpts for our readers.  Anne says:

"This was one of the most informative and empowering talks I’ve ever listened to in all the years I’ve been working as an autism advocate. Every person concerned about what the COVID 19 pandemic will do to our medical freedom needs to hear these speakers and learn the truth about what’s coming. There is no walking away from this threat to our liberties."

April 4, 2020, Panel discussion the COVID 19 crisis and what a vaccine could mean to the American people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV_QPwWxOX8&feature=emb_share&fbclid=IwAR04nwi-CfzHYrIIgE5U00Gt7Z9ZBeht8N-3xzUtsHziHNHr8BuAKO0X6VQ

Panelists:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Del Bigtree, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Dr. Rashid Buttar.

Here are excerpts from the discussion.

Charlene: “…the year 2020 was a big deal. … This is the year, if we don’t help people understand this critical issue we may loss our freedoms, and they may be able to come in and try …to force us into these vaccines. But we did not know what we were getting into….

“I was watching Tucker Carlson  [Fox, Tucker Carlson Tonight]. He’s actually had Bobby Kennedy on…  We couldn’t believe that mainstream media outlet was covering that. We felt like Tucker’s our friend…

“Last night…on Tucker Carlson Tonight … He had a guest and they talked about Operation Wrap Speed, the COVID vaccination where they’re literally going to pass through the trials that they should be doing. They’re going to skip all that safety measures to get to this vaccine. They’re going to have a hundred million ready to go. …

“The guest talked about this as if it’s a good thing, and Tucker Carlson who has interviewed our good friend Bobby Kennedy, ….  I was really letdown by the fact that Tucker Carlson allowed that guest to say that and didn’t dig in. …”

5:42 Kennedy: “There’s now eighty separate vaccine projects. Bill Gates has eight of them. Bill Gates is now the biggest vaccine producer in the world, bigger than any other company.

Yesterday was the 59th anniversary of the first American manned space flight by Alan Shepard. Now imagine that NASA was granted the power to demand that EVERY AMERICAN take a space flight starting on May 6th, 1961. THAT's the COVID vaccine.  For some, the vaccine might be a giant leap for health. For others? A Challenger far worse.

Pro-vax. Anti-vax. Doesn’t matter. Bloomberg is telling you that safety for a product already exempt from liability, safety is not the very first priority.   Anyone who takes the new vaccine will be participating in the world's largest clinical trial. "Vaccine trials normally start by looking at safety, but in order to hasten the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, the drugmakers are looking at both safety and the immune-system response from the experimental shots."

In March, Wayne Rohde wrote an article for us titled Meet The PREP "Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness" ActMeet The PREP "Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness" Act:  Here is the definition of the act. The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) added new legal authorities to the Public Health Service (PHS) Act to provide liability immunity related to the manufacture, testing, development, distribution, administration and use of medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear agents of terrorism, epidemics, and pandemics.   It also added authority to establish a program to compensate eligible individuals who suffer injuries from administration or use of products covered by the PREP Act’s immunity provisions.

Bloomberg News published an article yesterday about the race to bring COVID-19 vaccines to market.  Below is an excerpt and link. And I've taken a screen shot to preserve the critical phrasing.

Pfizer Starts U.S. Trials of Experimental Covid-19 Vaccine By Cynthia Koons

...New York-based Pfizer is working with BioNTech SE of Germany. The companies started testing the inoculations in patients in Germany in late April. Vaccine trials normally start by looking at safety, but in order to hasten the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, the drugmakers are looking at both safety and the immune-system response from the experimental shots.

Pfizer and BioNTech are in a race with companies including Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Inc. and dozens of other biopharmacuetical outfits and academic groups to come up with a safe and effective vaccine against the illness within the next year to 18 months. A handful are in human trials already, including Moderna’s and ones from CanSino Biologics Inc., the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Pfizer’s U.S. trial will involve 360 patients in two age groups: 18 to 55, and 65 to 85, though trials in the older population will start only after safety and immune response are established in the younger group. The University of Rochester Medical Center/Rochester Regional Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center will eventually provide testing sites for the vaccines as well.

Note:  As of yesterday, Donna, who will be homeless with her adult disabled daughter, and now resides in a hotel, has not heard from the Governor. Perhaps she needs to send him an old N95 mask and pretend to be a kindly Kansas farmer to get his attention, to be worthy of a TV snippet to tug on the old heartstrings. Aw gosh golly gee willikers ain't that eye-talin Andee Koo-oh-mo the greatest Guv ever?  No. He. Is. Not.  Donna lives in a hotel for 1 more week and then? 

If you think you can help in any way, please send an email to HelpDonnaK@gmail.com.

###

Governor Andrew Cuomo

Twitter: @NYGovCuomo, Fax: 518-474-4513, Via Send a Message to the Governor

Mayor Bill de Blasio

Twitter: @NYCMayor, Via Send a Message to the Mayor, Fax number unavailable

Senator Todd Kaminsky

Twitter: @toddkaminsky, Fax: 518-426-6914, 516-766-8011, Email: kaminsky@nysenate.gov

Dear Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio and Senator Kaminsky:

I am writing to ask for your assistance during this COVID-19 Pandemic.  I have been watching the press conferences and the news daily… “Stay Home, Stay Safe, Save Lives, WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, #flattenthecurve”.  My heartbreaks for all who have lost a loved one to this virus.  My situation, has its own difficulties.  Currently, I am homeless along with my daughter, Taylor, 21 years old, and her dog Penny, which she uses for emotional therapeutic support. Our housing situation has become dire because of COVID-19.  In addition, my daughter is an adult with a disability which is limiting our housing options.  She has been recently approved for Medicaid eligibility in New York State.  We are also in the process of Self Direction with Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). As of now we do not know how much longer before OPWDD Self Direction launches and Guardianship determined.  We are at a standstill during this crisis to shelter in place with limited resources. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has made our family and friends who have supported and helped us in the past to now fear us as a possible contagion.  Due to the unknown and fear of catching COVID-19 we now find ourselves on our own.  Prior to the pandemic I have been looking diligently for an apartment we could afford and call our own as we have in the past.  The past 2 years apartments on Long Island have become un-affordable in comparison to my salary which has been stagnant over the past 15 years.  Due to these circumstances, we went to Nassau County Department of Social Services for housing assistance.  We were informed our family of 2 monthly income was over the limit of $1,766.00 for New York State housing assistance and our application was denied. Affordable apartments i.e. studio can be found.  However, we do not qualify due to the strict criteria that is required by landlords/management companies. I have been informed that a Studio apartment renting for $1,400.00 per month in Long Beach, NY, would require the lessee to earn a yearly salary of $74,000.00+ and a credit score of 700+. These circumstances have completely shut us out from the rental market. 

How are you doing as we face another week of COVID quarantine? Like most of you, I'm off and on social media throughout the day. I think it's fair to say that for caregivers like us, this is an especially hard time. Sure, it's tough to be a cast as a schoolteacher at home for your typical kids. Yes, it's taxing to go from working outside of the home to at home with your babies and toddlers and preschoolers underfoot. Of course it's an adjustment to be home with a husband, wife or partner every day without a break. All valid trials. All new territory for many.  But caregivers - like us - face a unique brand of hell. I'd say the same must be happening to caregivers of the population with dementia and Alzheimers. Sundowning is an all day affair these days, I'm sure. Broken routines mean broken lives. Sometimes broken windows. Or bones.

Katie Wright showed me a Tweet from the Chief Science Officer at Autism Science Foundation - aka Paul Offit's Protect Vaccination Foundation and former Autism Speaks employee yesterday that made me sick. Katie shared hardship and was accused of starting a "contest." There are many folks who just can't bear to read about our plight, including the CSO of ASF - and THIS is Autism Awareness Month! Ha ha. Remember that?  And lookey look - it seems even Katie Wright did not know Halladay has a daughter with autism. She responded to me in Twitter to leave her alone. Easy, ASF will never do a thing for my kids. I hope she and her daughter are faring better than the families below.

I can't stress enough how important it is for us to band together - keep in touch - reach out - scream - yell - call - text - whatever you need. Keep away from idiots like Halladay who have no clue or compassion. Her response to Katie is dripping with contempt and disrespect.  You will NOT find judgement here. I have three daughters with full autism in my small home. And I have it easier than many of my friends whose kids have severe behaviors, and seizures and severe sensory needs. Or who are in the city - cooped up in an apartment.

Here are three families' plights below. I'm sure Autism Science Foundation is ready to step in to help. If you can dress your kids up as an MMR vaccine, they'll be right over. Dress up like RotaTeq and they'll bring you a pony.

My son was admitted to  Inpatient Psych last night through the ER.  I called 911 due to his violence at home, then he wielded a bread knife cutter at the police and he was restrained in the ER due to attacking staff.  His behavior had been getting progressively worse.  He only has behavior issues at home. His diagnosis is high functioning ASD, OCD, and receptive language disorder.

###

I’m at such a low point right now with my son. He’s 7 and regressing. How I know, when he was young he never wanted to try new foods his comfort food was chocolate chip pancakes. I had to keep boxes of mix to keep up, who’s going to deny their kid the only thing they eat? Little by little he started eating different foods to the point I was making chocolate chip pancakes on occasion. Now he won’t eat anything but chocolate chip pancakes, he is having outbursts of screaming. He is so irritated and his impulses are just out of control. I don’t know what to do! I’m working nights now because we are in a state of emergency my shifts will be 12 hours and we can get held up to 18 hours. How am I going to do this?

###

What options exist for a parent who works full time, and is being expected to care for her special needs child while working from home? This situation is not doable. Her employer is pushing her to do FMLA- but she works for a larger than 500 person organization, and therefore it would go unpaid. She needs income to support her family. She does not have local family support. Additionally, she has a second child she is also caring for. Are there any existing programs, grants, or other there options for her? My heart is breaking for her that things are so hard and I don’t know how to help.

Note: When I was a kid, we had a silly saying "Show up or step down." It was said with hands on prepubescent  hips and as much attitude as an 11 year old could muster. Today I am telling everyone to "Show up in Hartford, CT next Wednesday, or students from day Kindergarten through grad school who are not 100% vaccine compliant will have to step down and stay home." New Jersey staved off their similar bill by showing up in droves in Trenton. It's time to let go of our prim and proper New England ways and become revolutionaries.   Every man, woman and child within 100 miles needs to show up in Hartford. Vermonters, Rhode Islanders, New Hampshire's LIVE FREE OR DIE citizens, Mainers, New Yorkers (yes YOU Westchester) and Massholes (said with love, I'm one myself) need to stand tall with us to fight.

I'll be there with my daughter Bella. Her iPad will be shouting "I AM HEALTHY AND ENTITLED TO SCHOOL!" 

Put on your LL Bean and raise a HELL HELL SCENE.  Kim

DETAILS:

The Public Health Committee has raised a bill, HB-5044, which aims to remove the religious exemption completely for all public and private K-12 schools, child care, institutions of higher education and child group care homes in Connecticut. It gives children/students who previously used the religious exemption until the start of the 2020 school year, or Sept 1, 2020 for child care, to get the initial dose of any missed, age-appropriate vaccines and to create a catch-up schedule for any additional required doses. It also would require children/students who are medically exempt from one or more of the vaccines on CT’s vaccination schedule to submit a new certificate, to be created by the Department of Public Health.

The public hearing on February 19, is your opportunity to tell Connecticut legislators that you do not consent to the removal of the religious exemption. It starts at 10:30am in Room 2E of the Legislative Office Building, 300 Capitol Ave Hartford, CT.

Public Hearing for HB 5044

Wednesday, February 19th 9:00am

Legislative Office Building
300 Capitol Ave
Hartford, CT

Note: Here's another story of a poorly trained, poorly paid, poorly monitored mistake of an employee having direct contact with a person with autism. Joseph Jean-Felix cried that he "wasn't trained" properly and that's why he abused a pre-verbal teen boy on the bus.  Really?  If I didn't know how to care for, let's say, a ball python snake, but I was HIRED to care for a ball python snake, I wouldn't throw the snake out a second story window or crush it with a hammer if it slithered  and I did not know what to do. I would have asked for instructions. I would have asked my boss. I would have asked the snake owner. I would NOT have harmed the snake.

Ignorance is NEVER an excuse for harming our children. Jean-Felix hurt the boy because he is an impatient, cruel, frustrated, nasty, mean man who had no respect for the boy. 

My 19 year old daughter was abused on 2010 by HER bus monitor. A sweet,  young 20 something who twisted my daughter's hand and thumb causing her to cry out in agony on the bus tapes over and and over and over again.  She also received a suspended sentence and probation.

Our children will face harm until the day they die because the world is wholly unprepared for a generation of men and women with full autism and the behaviors that can include.  Heck, schools can not handle 6 year olds with severe aggressive behaviors.  We're on a slippery slope to hell on earth for them once we die and aren't here to try to protect them.

I have been in contact with the Father of this boy for several months.  Fairfield is the next town over from me. "Bruising and red marks," sounds far more benign than what really happened. I know his pain. And this suspended sentence and probation feels like a slap in the face. Because it is. Kim

###

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A former Connecticut school bus monitor caught on surveillance video physically abusing a non-verbal autistic teenager has been given a suspended sentence.

Joseph Jean-Felix, 59, of Fairfield, received a five-year suspended sentence and three years of probation on Wednesday, the Connecticut Post reported.

Jean-Felix pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a child, third-degree assault and first-degree unlawful restraint.

The 15-year-old boy’s parents went to Fairfield police in December 2018 when their son came home from school with bruising and red marks on his wrists and arms. Read more here.

Meet Connecticut State Representative Joshua Elliott*!  the architect of removing your right to decide on your child's health in Connecticut. The man who told Robert Kennedy Jr the debate with Yale on vaccination safety and policy had been cancelled.  He devotes much of his time to legislation to help our prison population. I wish he'd devote ALL of his time to making sure inmates can make free phone calls...  Meanwhile, my daughters are unable to use the telephone thanks to their vaccine injury. (See below from the State website for a description of his work as a Rep.)  He and I share the same birthdate believe it or not. I believe he is single and does not have children.

He wrote this post on Facebook yesterday: "More vaccination stuff! I was on TV!" (Which reminded me of the old Crest toothpaste ad featuring a little kid saying, "Look, Ma! No Cavities!")

Here is the comment I left on his on his Facebook page:

Hello. That vaccination “stuff” landed my beautiful daughters at The Kennedy Center for severe disability. They are vaccine injured. Their names are Mia and Gianna. Your language is callous. Hope the camera caught your good side.

Elliott owns 2 health food stores. The Common Bond and Thyme and Season. (Common Bondage and Thyme for a Mean Season.) Common Bond is just a few miles from my house. In a painful serving of irony, most of us have used supplements and organic, natural, gluten free foods to help our kids. I sure did. At stores just like Elliott's. So he is PROFITING off of our vaccine injured children. Age of Autism supporter and contributor Laura Hayes called both stores from her home in California yesterday!  She left us these two comments:

Josh Elliott also co-owns Thyme and Season in Hamden, CT. This is an excellent opportunity for those in CT to boycott his stores as he works to remove your rights, and encourage others you know to do the same. To call his stores to register your complaints, and to let them know they will not be receiving your shopping dollars, here are the numbers: The Common Bond: 203-513-8200 Thyme and Season: 203-407-8128 To call his office: 860-240-8585 I would also encourage people to leave reviews on Yelp, and other forms of social media, letting potential shoppers know that the co-owner of these stores is working hard to strip CT residents of their rights, freedom, and health. (Laura Hayes)

I just called all 3 numbers I posted previously. I spoke with a store manager at each of Josh Elliott's stores (both were polite and listened to my concerns/complaints/plans to encourage those in CT to boycott his stores, and one expressed alignment with and gratitude for the work we are all doing to advocate for parental rights and medical choice freedom), and I also left a voicemail for him at his legislative office. I hope others here at AoA will join me!  (Laura Hayes)

CT Dems: