Taking the Scenic Route

For those lucky enough to have missed this gem, here is a quote from his show July 16:

Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I’m not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden — why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I’ll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], “When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], ‘I don’t know, the dust got me.’ ” See, everyone had asthma from the minority community. That was number one.

Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is ? I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, “Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”

Autism — everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, “Don’t behave like a fool.” The worst thing he said — “Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.” That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.

After an uproar, and him claiming that he would never apologize, Low and behold…here is a copy of his defense of his comments:

My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community’s attempt to label too many children or adults as “autistic.”

Just as some drug companies have overdiagnosed “ADD” and “ADHD” to peddle dangerous speed-like drugs to children as young as 4 years of age, this cartel of doctors and drug companies is now creating a national panic by overdiagnosing “autism, for which there is no definitive medical diagnosis!

Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an “illness” which may not exist, in all cases. Just a few weeks ago doctors recommended dangerous anti-cholesterol drugs for children as young as 2 years of age! Without any scientific studies on the possible dangers of such drugs on children, corrupt doctors made this controversial, unscientific recommendation.

Increasingly, our children are being used as profit centers by a greedy, corrupt medical/pharmaceutical establishment. As the brother of a severely disabled person who suffered and died in a New York “snake-pit” of a “mental hospital,” I know first-hand what true disability is.

To permit greedy doctors to include children in medical categories which may not be appropriate is a crime against that child and their family. Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free.

Michael Savage

 

When I first heard the initial quote I was incensed.  Very upset.  I went to look up his name and discovered that this is probably one of the least offensive things he has said.  The dude is a lunatic.  As much as I passionately hate Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, because they are also assholish idiots, this guy somehow manages to be even just a little bit worse.  I can’t take somebody this stupid seriously.  He is a shock jock who was obviously hit in the head a few too many times by his asshole father. 

There is a part of me that wishes there wasn’t such a response to this guy, even as I add to that response, because it is what feeds him.  I would never have heard of the guy if not for the uproar.  I do wonder if it was a smart thing for him to do though.  Autism crosses all socio-economic and political boundaries, and there are as many conservatives with autistic relatives as liberal, and it might be problematic for him if he ticks off his base audience.  The liberals already know he is a fruit.

Well, I am thankful that I have the husband that I do because this move would have been nearly impossible without him.

He has had to write a few little programs to get everything over here, including one that moved all of the photos over and then replaced all of the photos hotlinked to xanga and made them connect to the storage here instead. He also had to write a script to attribute the comments correctly. Right now he is working on making the subscription thing work when our domain doesn’t want to let it work correctly. Hopefully that will be up soon too. (Although he wasn’t feeling well today, so that might not be immediately)

On our list…still wanting to get the avatars working and figure out a photo gallery, amongst other things.

I am sick. I started coughing two Wednesdays ago, and it looked like it was getting better by the end of the week. I am not sure if it was simply because I went out the night of the birthday party, or the glass of wine (or the combination), but within 24 hours of that party, I was sick as a dog. I wasn’t sleeping any more because the coughing was so bad. I hurt from coughing so hard. By Wednesday of last week, Zach took the morning off so that I could drag my butt to the dr. He gave me some heavy duty antibiotics. Here I am, 6 days since that appointment, and I am finally just starting to get some sleep. I am pretty much doing nothing but sleeping after not being able to for so long. I am really dragging. My voice is slowly starting to come back, but I am still pretty hoarse and trying to stick to whispering if I can.

In the middle of all that, we found out the travel dates for Zach to go to Germany. And, with some financial help from Zach’s dad and my mom volunteering to stay with the kids, I am going with him. Me. Zach and I both had to get passports because we had never traveled outside the country before. (technically, I went to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in high school with the youth group for a church conference, but most of the people there were Americans and no passports were involved, so it didn’t feel very international)

WooHoo!. Zach got his passport in days (might be because he has been through multiple security clearances for jobs, so it is probably documented) and I got mine a few days ago. I know that pictures on those things are notoriously bad, but I almost look like I am a different race. I look freakishly dark. Now, if I was a girl who liked to tan, it wouldn’t look so weird, but I am pasty, pasty white girl, so it looks really strange to me. You can hardly see it though through all of the security reflections though.

This week Zane started camp STARR at Heartsprings. He seemed to really enjoy it. I am going to have to watch for pictures to be posted on their site since I am not with him. The one advantage of being so tired is that I am not the least bit nervous about him being away for the morning and early afternoon. Besides the fact that his professional therapist is there, several of the student therapist and teachers he has had at the WSU SL Clinic are working there this week too. There are many people there that know him and it is a relief that he is able to just go enjoy himself without me being stressed about it.

Caught this cuteness on the couch.  Rare moment of the kids not driving each other crazy.

Zane is actually reading.  Zora is “reading”.  (in this case, she is barking in various ways, imitating how I read the book to her)

The blog move has been slower going than anticipated because I am sick. I thought I was getting better, but Sunday night when I (tried) to go to bed, I started coughing and coughing and coughing. I don’t think I got more than an hour of sleep the whole night. Monday was no better, and I just got back from the doctor with an Rx for an upper respiratory infection and ear infection. Yeah me.

On the new blog, I transferred over the posts, but none of the titles stuck, so I have gradually been going through them and putting a title on them. Zach got an image loader set up for me in the last day or so, but my brain is so foggy I haven’t been able to retain the new information, so I haven’t used it for a post yet. I am getting a backlog of pictures though. lol. Hopefully tonight I can start getting some of the new posts up. We also need to put an email subscription button. There is an RSS feed button, but I prefer getting emails to RSS feeds because I am an old fart and don’t feel like figuring out how to do the RSS feed. lol

We did find a program to upload xanga onto wordpress. Worked well, except for these points:

It didn’t upload the titles with the posts, just put the date of the post there instead.
Made everything public, including both private and protected posts. Ugh. I had to go through all of my posts an put the relevant ones back on private (ya know, because most people don’t really want to hear the status of my menstrual cycle or my workout/weight information…and I don’t particularly feel like sharing it publically either).
And, as of right now, all the pictures are hotlinked to xanga. lol. I need to fix that before I tell xanga that I don’t want their stinkin’ subscription any more.
Although it transferred all of the comments, it didn’t keep the name of the person making the comment.
You are welcome to take a peek, but there aren’t really any new posts yet (hoping that will change tonight or in the next few days): http://www.takingscenicroute.com/

Until I get a subscription method set up over there and the photos all transferred, I will keep this blog going.

Happy Happy Birthday,

That’s what we’re here to say

Happy Happy Birthday,

May All Your Dreams Come True!

Happy Happy Birthday,

From All of us to you.  HEY!

Yeah…too many years waiting tables…this is the song that goes through my head now days. lol.

After long conversations with each of his parents on the phone (they each live several states away), my folks invited us to Carabas for Zach’s Birthday.  Much to our suprise and delight, Steve and Joy were there too.  Joy looks a lot better and even treated us to a glass of some decent wine.  Yum. 

So very appropriate for my guy.

Zora’s first cannoli. 

She was pleased.

The lack of posts is because I am trying to figure out wordpress as I get ready to move my blog.  Xanga has irritated me for long enough and I am ready to move. 

As a girl who used to be able to hardcode HTML and program in C, it is really frustrating for me to realize I have no idea what I am doing anymore.  I look at the CSS and PHP and and can’t figure out how to modify it.  I haven’t used FTP in years and had to get Zach to show me how to use it again.  lol

Nothing major has happened since my last post. We had a good 4th, but forgot the camera.  There are a few pictures stuck in the camera phone and when I get those off the phone I will post more about the holiday.  Since then, just doing the homemaker thing and Zane has a cold.

We had a spectacular holiday.  Ironically, this was not a holiday we really celebrated much when I was growing, up, but it was a big deal to my husband.  His dad used to be the dad that bought insane quantities of fireworks and would put on a show for the entire neighborhood.  Zach’s enthusiasm has infected my family and we now gather each year that we can out at the farm and enjoy the day. 

My maternal Grandma was there for the fun, although she stayed inside (doesn’t handle heat well).  We decided to eat inside, but had a great BBQ meal.  Outside, the guys lit a few daytime fireworks, went exploring, and took very slow rides on the 4-wheeler.  I mostly hung out with Grandma until she was too tired to socialize and headed home, but the kids had a ball outside.

When the sun began to set, we headed out to go to the Inman Fireworks in the City Pasture. (yeah, you know it is a small town when the city has a pasture.  lol).  We turned the corner in the pasture only to discover it empty (well, except for the other cars that came expecting to see fireworks and were clustered at the enterances trying to decide what to do too.)  After a call to my Dad’s sister, we found out the location of the fireworks in McPherson, and headed there. 

We ended up watching the fireworks from the parking lot of the church my Grandparents (and multiple other relatives) attended through my childhood.  The show was very good, better than the Inman show would have been, with the bonus of not doging other people’s fireworks.  It also was calm and non-chaotic, unlike the Wichita fireworks.  A very enjoyable end to the day.

Riding with Grandpa

http://www.kansas.com/news/story/454961.html

I don’t think we know them.  Nevertheless, I am heartbroken for them and scared that it could be us.