I am Spoof

2 video's I found spoofing Autism Speaks

Word Cloud

I passed the 30 post mark a few days ago so I made a word cloud of my profile welcom text.



I also made one of this earlier post.

Handwriting

Kids With Autism Need Handwriting Help

This is me, just look at my Drogs to see what I mean. The reason why I write like that is that my proper connected writing is impossible to read. Even I sometimes can't read it.

As a kid I had a lot of trouble with fine motor functions, doing a head role and standing on one leg took me about a year of extra gym lessons to learn. Lucky I went to a small school and had some teachers who were willing to sacrifice some of their breaks to help me with this.

Sticker Collages

Here are some Sticker Collages I recently made.

Guardian Demon

All those people who claim to do good but only cause damage

Empowerment/emancipation can be fun.

Grr

Means nothing, just a fun image.

Drog 5 - The Box

One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes

Rant: Your Logic is SO Faulty!

Great post at FWD/Forward. Rant: Your Logic is SO Faulty!
FWD is my favourite feminist blog.

Global warming

Today is Blog Action Day and the subject is Climate Change so let's talk about it.

But immediately There is a little problem, even as a kid I always wanted to know the why and what on any giving subject, if a teacher at school said something I wanted proof. Some teachers liked this, some hated it. This might be a symptom of autism (a really cool one) or maybe I'm just a smart ass.

And with global warming there is evidence that it is happening and that humans are involved in it. But we just don't know how, when somebody says that the Netherlands will flood in 50 years he is really saying that the worst case scenario is that we will drown over here, not that it will definitely happen (the chances for these worst case scenarios are very small). Saying that everything is allright and that there is nothing going on is on the other hand just lying and stupid.

So on one side of the debate people are exaggerating and the other side is lying, so what now. We could try to read the research and make up our own mind but to be honest the science involved is way beyond my understanding. So from now on we enter the realm of my personal interpretation and opinion, feel free to disagree.
The climate is changing and we are partially to blame but the climate is always changing and it doesn't always make sense ,apparently there was a miniature ice age a few hundred years ago which provided some spectacular winters over here, you can see paintings of this on a lot of Dutch Christmas cards.
I don't believe that the climate will change dramatically within the next ten years or that it is to late. Should we do something about this, yes but we should be reasonable about it and make sure that what we do actually helps and that it is not something we do to make us feel better. This might sound cynical but green has become one of the biggest marketing tools of the last few years.

For example, here in the Netherlands there is this hype for green electricity, pay a bit more and a certain amount of your electricity will be generated by the sun and the wind. Sounds great but how will they do that, my power comes trough the same wire as that of my neighbour so we get the same amount of green power but my neighbour pays more so he can feel good about doing something for the planet.

There are loads of these examples, flying around the world and buying a piece of rainforest to feel good, the trees need about 40 years to undo your damage and sometimes the trees don't exist, or are sold several times or cut down for economical reasons.

Hybrid cars are just as good/bad as a good diesel car, on a simular note ethanol isn't the answer to.

A lot of these easy but sometimes expensive solutions are a marketing trick to sell to you the feeling of doing something good. Global warming is a serous and complex issue, it can not be solved by one liners in adds.

I don't have all the answers but I will keep looking for them and in the meantime I will do the little things like using environment friendly light bulbs, don't keep the heater on all day, reuse my plastic bottles and just generally be sensible about this.

Source
Global Warming
Ethanol in Cars

Logo?

Is the puzzel ribbon really the best symbol for autism?

The ribbon links it with deceases like AIDS and Breast Cancer which are important causes but autism is different, it's not a decease (even though the anti vaccination lobby tries to convince people it is).

The puzzle piece as a symbol for Neurodiversity is a nice idea but it's meaning got lost when people started using it who are not in favour of Neurodiversity (Autism Speak just to name one).

It's also a very ordinary looking logo and with so much talent within the spectrum we must be able to come up with something better.

But to be honest I don't have any idea right now.

PS. I'm posting a poll in my sidebar about this.

Jenny McC has a small P

I don't like Jenny McCarty.
As an actress/presenter/comedienne (I've never been really sure what she is), I always found her very annoying but as a fake autism expert/activist I really hate her.

Why not let her say what she wants to say, how about free speech? The reason is that some of the things she says are very harmful and even dangerous.

So I'm going to say some nasty things about het but for legal reasons I'm going to start with the claim that she has a very small penis.

• The claim that Autism can be cured.
  
  • This is just not true.
    
  • It hinders proper autism research.
    
  • The claim that autism is a disease, that there is something wrong with me is in my opinion racist.
• The claim that vaccination causes autism.
  
  • Once again not true and it also gets in the way of research.
    
  • It makes the vaccination rates drop to a dangerous level.
• The claim that there are no adults with autism.
  
  • I'm 34 and I have autism so Fuck You.

She tells people based on some weird paranoia idea not to vaccinate their kids, she tells people to withhold their kids a basic medical treatment. This is a form of neglect.
As far as I am concerned this is a form of passive child abuse.

Maybe all of this is a bit harsh but she is one of the people who yells that a generation of kids is being stolen and that the government is poisoning babies so as far as I'm concerned the gloves are off.

Thank you for letting me rant.

Sickening

Found this link to a magazine article at Turner and Kowalski's blog.

It's an article about autism treathment from 1965 and it describes therapist screaming at autistic kids, hitting them and the aplication of Shock Therapy.

This is torture. This is a direct violation of the Universal decloration of Human Rights, article 5 - No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The realy sad part is that these kinds of things still hapen at places like this.

Not only is this totally useless, but this is really harmfull.

This leaves me sick and really pissed off.

Video on Vaccination

Found this at Autism Nostrum.

Bye Bye Sint

This post will at first glance makes no sense to non Dutch people because it deals with Sinterklaas. I have once described Sinterklaas as Santa Claus but with more dignity and a bit racist.
For months children are bombarded with the coming arrival of Sinterklaas, and when after a few weeks when he leaves on the fifth of December, thats it.

Now a group of parents of children with autism has begun an action to get Dutch media to not only report the arrival but also the departure of Sinterklaas. Some autistic kids are just confused about where he has gone while other are stil afraid of him and Zwarte Piet (Sinterklaas doesn't just reward good behavior but also puninesses bad kids).

While I think it a nice idea I'm not convinced it's only autist kids that have this problem. Personally I was never afraid of Sint and Piet but I knew a lot of kids that where confused and scared by this whole thing.

Some random Sint Trivia

• One of the most populair Sint songs is “Sinterklaas Kapoentje”, a kapoen is a castrated rooster, some people say this is a reference to Sinterklaas being circumcised which in itself could be a reference to Sint being a foreigner.
• Although modern mythology makes Sinterklaas come from Spain (he lives there most of the year) he officially comes from Turkey.
• Nowadays he is a very nice and gentle man, the historical figure was a bit of a hard ass (apparently he beat up some other priest).

Autie Kitty

I sometimes come across the terms Autie and Aspie to describe Autism and Asperger and they just rub me the wrong way. If somebody stands on your feet you have a boo-boo but if somebody hits you with a baseball bat you got a concussion, not a boo-boo. Autism is a serious subject, don't cute it up. Don't Hello Kitty it.

If someone would do this with something like cancer people would be pissed so why do we do this to ourself? The following examples would and should not be accepted.

• I got a Tummie Wummie in my head.
  
• My Hiv Wif is not progressing.
  
• I broke my legs when a car went Boom Boom.
  
• My bone marrow is a bit Leukedelic.

If we want the rest of the world to take us serious we should start with taking ourself and our condition serous. We are not five year olds (unless you actually are five years old, in that case, go play with your Lego).

Stop with the silly names, its embarrassing.

The Cure

Turner and Kowalski's Blog has begun with a response to the "I am Autism" video called "I am Autism Speak". They ask readers to send pictures ridiculing Autism Speak and it's ville video.

This is a picture I send to them. I really like T&K's blog, at times it rude and a bit naughty (they have used the phrase "LBRB on acid").
It makes the connection between all the different forms of civile right with a clear focus on the Autistic and LGBT community.

48 Hour

last weekend the 48 Hour Film Project visited Utrecht, in the past I have participated but not this year.
In the last two and a half year I have become a fan of the 48HFP, even if I'm not making a film myself, I try to go to the screenings in Amsterdam and Utrecht and sometimes volunteer to help at the screenings.

Yesterday the films made last weekend where shown in Utrecht and Richard Schut (the organiser of 48HFP in the Netherlands) asked me why I didn't enter a team this time, after a few basic answers (no time, busy, broke) I said that I had a strange year, when he asked me what I meant I decided to tell that I was diagnosed with Autism.

This was one of the first times I told anybody about it (I told my direct family and one person at work) and to my pleasant surplice Richard didn't freak out or started to treat me like an imbecile. He asked what it meant to me and how it related to film making. This felt good and it gives me hope that the rest of my coming out will be easier.

Welcome to Holland

I just found this poem which apparently is world famous, I never heard of it but I really like it

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability — to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this...

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, ‘Welcome to Holland.’

‘Holland?!?’ you say. ‘What do you mean, Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.’
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills.., and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, ‘Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.’

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.
©1987 Emily Perl Kingsley

I am Monster

A little follow up to the previous post.
If you going to make autism look like a monster than do it right.

I'm autism, I will raid your fridge, I will steal your credit card data and use it to buy on-line porn and when your loved one finds out your marriage will be over.
I'm autism, I will eat your cat and sexually molest your daffodils and spray pant obscene graffiti on your car.
I'm autism, I'm everywhere, just like McDonald's, I will leave my skate board lying around so you will break a leg.
I'm autism, I will make you listen to Celine Dion until you jump out of the window Alex DeLarge style.
I'm autism, I know where you live and I have the key, I'll use your toilet and won't flush.

Believe me, nothing I can come up with is more offencive than the original video.

I am Propaganda

After reading about the video "I am Autism" for several days I decided to take a look at it because I believe you should get to know something before you pass judgment. I was shocked on several points.

• It's badly made.
  
• It's completely from a Neural typical perspective.
  
• It portraits autism as a monster.
  

To a lot of people the quality of the video isn't that important but I'm a Film and a Potter nerd and Alfonso Cuarón is the man who made the best Potter film to date. For him to make something what can only be described as a lazy montage of home movies with a voice over is embarrassing. This is the director made "Children of Men", one of the best and most moving Sci-Fi films of the last five years. Billy Mann on the other hand has produced the likes of Take That and The Backstreet Boys, so to be honest I'm not that impressed by his track record.

It's completely about the parent/brothers/sisters/loved ones of those with autism and not about those who life on the spectrum themself. Granted that it can be difficult for a lot of people within the spectrum to express our feelings, especially those with more severe forms of autism but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask. If a walking person would make a video like this about being in a wheelchair people will performer hit and runs with their chairs.

The most offencive part must be the portrayal of autism as a monster. I'm not making this up, here are a few quotes

• I am autism. I'm visible in your children, but if I can help it, I am invisible to you until it's too late. I know where you live, and guess what? I live there too.
  
• I work very quickly. I work faster than pediatric AIDS, cancer, and diabetes combined.
  
• And if you are happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails. Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain.
  
• I will make it virtually impossible for your family to easily attend a temple, a birthday party, a public park, without a struggle, without embarrassment, without pain.
  
• Your neighbors are happier to pretend that I don't exist, of course, until it's their child.
  
• I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams. I will make sure that every day you wake up, you will cry, wondering 'who will take care of my child after I die?'

This kind of rhetoric makes autism sound more like the mob or a child molester than a neurological condition. Just the act of explaining why all this is insulting seems insulting to me.

As I'm diagnosed less than six months ago and Autism Speaks not being active in the Netherlands (as far as I know) I have very little knowledge of this organisation but the more I read about them the more suspicious they seem. (update, done some reading, AS is bad people)

If you're still op for it here's the video.



Some other replies on this video.

LeftBrainRightBrain response
autismherd response
Cat in a Dog's World response

Spring cleaning in the autumn

I always thought I was messy but maybe it has to do with Autism, just been bagging about 30 kilo of old newspapers, my back hurts but my toilet is getting cleaned.
Doing household chores is just one of the things I might need help with. It feels a bit weird to admit I need help with these things, almost as if I'm being betrayed by autism. But if it helps getting my life better organised it will be a positive thing.

I guess that this will probably be one of the biggest changes/challenges that the spectrum will bring me

Drog 4 - We'll make great pets

The last one I have, I will draw more soon.



One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes

Drog 3 - Eyes

A problem I have all the time.



One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes

MMR video

A short video with Dr Ben Goldacre on the subject of MMR and autism, clear, short and entertaining.
His book Bad Science is a fun and informative look into medical science in all its forms and contains a chapter on MMR and Dr Andrew Wakefield.



And here we have the good doctor ranting on the BBC Radio



Yes, you can always shout at us.

Neurotypical is so 2008

Sometime during 2008 I stopped to think of myself as a Neurotypical.
So today I made a little logo to symbolise that.
A small version is in my sidebar but I decided to show it in all its crappy glory.

It was fun to do vector graphics again after a long time.

Drog 2 - Indigo Rain

Some parents decided that their kids are really special, not the “my kid is the cutest” special but “my kid is the next step in evolution” special.
We call these parents idiots and the kids Indigo Kids. Some of these kids are just normal kids and the most harm they will ever encounter is a deep sense of shame toward their parents(this is something most kids encounter).
On the other hand there are also indigo kids who are not indigo but have real issues like ADHD and autism.
In these cases the indigo label can do harm because most indigo parents have a mistrust of mainstream medicine. They take their kids off proper medication and therapies and are an easy prey for quacks.

One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes.

Drog 1 - SCAM

The first Drog, the more I read about autism, the more I encounter Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), ranging from the hippie (crystals), the proven to be wrong (homeopathy) to the “You must be kidding” (nicotine patches) categories.
As far as I'm concerned it should be called Silly Complementary and Alternative Medicine (SCAM).

One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes.

Mary & Max

Just found this, being a big animation fan and having doen a few attempts myself (my biggest achievement animation wise is a dinosaur origami short).
I was very pleased to come across Mary & Max, the trailer looks great and I can't wait to see it.



On a similar note I'm also looking forward to seeing Adam.
Having heard the interview with the writer/director Max Mayer on the Creative Screenwriting Podcast I feel that they really tried to understand autism. Unfortunately there is no Dutch release date yet.

And any film that gives Forrest Gump the finger is alright by me.

Book

I ordered "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure" by Paul A. Offit last week on Amazon.

They told me it would take about six week to ship to the Netherlands (October 5 was the expected delivery date) but it came today. The few times I ordered at Amazon the delivery has been very fast.

So now I have some heavy reading to do and hopefully writhe an in dept post about autism and vaccination soon.

Drogs comming soon

Maybe I got inspired by the Travis Ford article and maybe I just missed doing it but yesterday I bought a notebook and I already drew 4 blog entries.

These are a little less polite than in tone than that of my other entries and probably a lot more personal. Also because I'm sort of dyslexic and draw without a spell checker there will be a lot of spelling and grammar errors, please cope with that.

The ones I've done so far have nothing to do with pop culture but are more for my own enjoyment/therapeutic value.

The last problem is how to name them, I combined the words drawing and blog into drog (I considered drag but it felt a little to silly). Now all thats left is to scan them.

Branford cartoonist Travis Ford draws from his daily struggle with autism

Cool story I found, but to my regret I haven't been able to find any of his cartoons online.
Branford cartoonist Travis Ford draws from his daily struggle with autism

Archetypes of Autism in storytelling, an introduction.

Let's get theoretical, this post, like probably most of the post will be, shale concentrate on film because of the simple reason that I'm a film nerd.

After watching several films (long/short/fiction/docu) that deal with autism, sickness and disabilities I started to notice some patterns. I will address this patterns more deeply in other post but I would like to list a few elements that are very common.

That something is common doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing, done well the biggest cliché can be profound, but it's easier to do them bad than good.

First of all and this is also what saddens/angers me the most. Most stories dealing with any disabilities and or neurological and psychological conditions are not about the person with the disability or condition but about one of their loved ones. It's not about being autistic but about raising an autistic child or having a brother with Down syndrome. Don't get me wrong, these are important stories to tell but the balance is totally lost.

Secondly, a lot of stories portray disabilities and conditions pretty inaccurate. Focusing to much on the positive or the negative side. Something like autism is a very complicated and multi faceted thing. To sugarcoat or make it scary I think is counter productive and rather insulting.

And then there are three major story archetypes.

• The Disease of the Week. A story about the latest fad in medical fashion, usually made by people with very little understanding of the subject mater. Roughly 50/50 percent inspirational or scare story almost 100 percent sentimental crap.
  
  
• We Shall Overcome. Almost exclusively about parents whose child is born with autism, down syndrome or a disability and how the parents overcome the obstacles they face. Most true life accounts on television fall into this category(think Oprah). As said before these are important stories but please include the kid and be careful with the amount of sentiment.
  

The third is probably the most popular and also (in my opinion) the one which represents the biggest problems.

• The Holy Fool. This is a category almost exclusive to people with neurological and psychological conditions. In their naivety they say things that are so profound that normal people learn so much and are capable of bettering their live. Once again it's not about the person with the disability or condition but about the people around them. Reducing a person to a condition or disability so he can give wisdoms witch fit in a fortune cookie is doing nobody a favor. At first glance it might seem like a positive thing but I find it dehumanizes people in a profound way. And just a little bit of advice. If you have serious problems, talk to a psychotherapist, marriage counselor or any other professional, not to a bloke with a box of chocolates.
  

Storytelling has become the most dominant art form of humanity, it helps us deal with life, so therefore I think it's very important to represent it as accurate as possible. I know several people who when they hear the word Autism think of Rainman and are surprised that that is not necessarily the case.

What made me think of autism

About two years ago I started to consider that I might be autistic. Before that I had been diagnosed with SAD (social anxiety sindrome) and while that explained some things it also left a lot of questions.
Then by accident I saw this video.

well, it's true.

I recognised a lot that was said in the video. Almost as if it was meant to be there were quit a few TV programs about autism going around at the time (several on MTV). It took me about two years to find the courage to admit to myself that it might be autism and to talk to my doctor about it.

I will be thankful to Emily for ever. I fully believe that seeing this video and the 2 follow ups changed my life.

part two of my personal video series aout autism!

This video responds to the many messages and questions i have gotten regarding my first two aspergers videos.

Something fun

Just something that I really like. At first it might seems that the film Stingray Sam has nothing to do with autism but for me it does.

Last april while I was being testes for autism I took a week of to volunteer at the Imagine Film Festival (formerly known as the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival), I saw this film and met it's director and star Cory McAbee.

This film helped me in a time of confusion to feel okay about being outside the norm. It's film making outside the box at it's most accessible and funniest.

If you choose to download you get the trailer and a song from the film (both I-Pod ready)