Ding Dong, Kevorkian's Dead

Shame the damn topic of assisted suicide won't die with him... Of course, there's articles cluelessly praising him all over the place, and here's my response to one:

[Writer] & fellow readers, PLEASE do some research on this guy. I did, and have bookmarks here:
http://www.diigo.com/user/xyzzyx/euthanasia

To summarize:

Kevorkian made it very clear in his book "Prescription: Medicide" and in court that his real goal was "making possible the performance of invaluable experiments" he described as "creative" and "of any kind or complexity" on disabled people from infancy onwards, because "...self-elimination of individual and mortally diseased or crippled lives taken collectively can only enhance the preservation of public health and welfare."  If the person wasn't capable of consent, it'd be "suicide by proxy."

He stated: "Intense emotionalism engendered by the concentration camp atrocities of World War II has unfairly stigmatized [human experimentation] and cloaked it in silence...Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that a few of the medical criminals did the right thing..."

In his plans, if the experiment wasn't lethal, "death may be induced" by things like "removal of organs for transplantation" or "lethal dose of new or untested drug to be administered by an official executioner." He proposed the idea of auctioning off the organs of people that were "hopelessly crippled" and giving a portion of the resulting proceeds to relatives, "whose financial burdens would be eased."

His first idea was to make it legal to perform fatal experiments on prisoners; when that failed, he realized that he needed to get society used to the idea of deliberately killing humans first, and chose to promote assisted suicide as that path. He placed advertisements offering to help "cripples" commit suicide, then picked "subjects" for their publicity value.

Repeated investigations showed that only 25% of those killed were terminally ill, most were not in untreatable pain, and some had no diagnosable condition.  Many had untreated depression or anxiety, were grieving the loss of a loved one, were in serious debt, or feared being a burden -- all things that aren't best handled by death.

He had *no* credentials in any field working with patients, and only worked with them as required for his residency to become a pathologist.  He wanted to be around death whenever possible as a student, liked to take pictures of dying people's eyes, and cadaver blood in his paintings.  His death videos show a lack of any emotion, totally the opposite of videos made by any orgs worldwide that truly do care about the patient.

As far as assisted suicide is concerned, there are solid reasons that most disabled people & virtually all of our orgs are against it... Rather than restate them here (this is long enough) I'll link to it:
http://bit.ly/l16hS2

If the real reason people want to legalize euthanasia is to alleviate poor quality of life, then they would advocate measures that uphold quality of life for terminal & disabled people and for more research into ways to alleviate suffering while science hunts for cures. 

Right now, the advocates end up discovering at the end that they don't really want to die unless they're depressed, and the folks that do ask for it (or in some cases, didn't ask) do so from the same motives as Kevorkian's subjects, often after subtle or blatant hints from others around them...

Quote borrowed from Estee Klar

Catching up with parent-ally Estee Klar's recent blog posts, I got to see this great quote:

“An individual having unusual difficulties in coping with his environment struggles and kicks up the dust, as it were. I have used the figure of a fish caught on a hook; his gyrations must look peculiar to other fish that don’t understand his circumstances: but his splashes are not his affliction, they are an effort to get rid of his affliction and as every fisherman knows, these effects may succeed.”
– Karl Mennenger

I view my depression & anxiety as afflictions, but they're the symptomatic reaction to how our society & its people handle people like myself or my mother. They're a response to knowing that no matter how sick I am, my non-disabled brother can't be bothered to drive Mom to the doctor, and that Mom's oldschool sexism makes her believe that it's totally normal for young men since "normal" men aren't nurturing.

The depression and anxiety, to veer more towards Estee's commentary, are from the nightmare of trying to seem "normal" throughout my first relationship, being mistreated without understanding what I was doing wrong. Dating a fellow autistic seemed like the perfect antidote -- but the emotional problems were only deepened tenfold, beacuse the autie had been trained harshly to fit in, and felt it was his job to 'helpfully' point out all of the tiny ways I didn't, to tell me what a freak his friends thought I was, and impress upon me how he didn't want to be unemployed as that would mean he's a worthless, useless "eater" undeserving of love.

Being autistic and having my physical disabilities aren't afflictions that I struggle to break free from... No, I was a very happy girl as I was, proud of being myself rather than trying to fit in, dedicated to honing the talents that I was also proud of. It wasn't until people I looked up to (or at least thought were worth listening to) started communicating their bigoted, hateful thoughts that I was afflicted with anything or started feeling like I was flailing ineffectually against an invisible monster determined to eat me alive. Hopefully we can find some way to keep future generations from being threatened similarly -- perhaps with some targeted "early intervention" of non-disabled kids & their parents, to make sure they don't become some other innocent's nightmare affliction.

Autistic breath of fresh air

It must be Interesting Article Month or something, since I just saw another on Salon that I had to share my reply to.  This one had the interesting title of How My Son Has Taught Me About His Autism; while it repeated some common misconceptions, it was very unusual in that it was about a mother listening to her young son and other autistic people, not running around crying that autism ate her baby.  Here is what I replied with:

Seeing an article by a non-autie parent of an autistic-spectrum kid, I immediately became anxious from too much experience... 99% of the time, such things boil down to: my child is broken. Being autistic, with an autistic father I'm really proud of & a ton of other autistic-spectrum relatives on both sides, seeing our kind of person referred to that way is upsetting.

It's good that you're listening to your son, doubly so that you're listening to autistic people, not just "experts" making guesses from the outside! I was interested to see his description of his mind isn't far from how my mother (not sure what she is) describes hers; mine is more synaesthetic like moving textured swirls of color, but when translating my thoughts into words, I use a similar computer/dictionary kind of method.

You have to be careful, though: most of today's young spectrum folk were raised to see everything about themselves as dysfunctional, and to view bullying/mistreatment from the self-blaming perspective of an abuse victim. They make it seem logical to figure "if he seems more like them, they won't hit him" instead of the way we'd handle it for anyone else: "hitting kids for being different isn't acceptable."

The theory of mind idea is actually wildly inaccurate. To begin with, everyone interprets human behavior based on their personal, cultural & neurological background; the way you politely show appreciation for a home-cooked meal in Italy, for example, is really offensive in America. Also, non-auties as a group are much worse when it comes to reading us than vice-versa, so that most of the literature on autism and how to treat or help us is wildly inaccurate as a result.

I'll tackle another couple of misconceptions... We don't find life itself confusing, just things (social structures, room layouts, etc.) designed for non-auties. We have our own ways of interacting, communicating nonverbally, and socializing that work great with other autistics. We also have hardwired ways of relieving stress & anxiety like the steam in a teakettle -- stims (repetitive actions), perseverating (intense studying of a favorite subject). The best way for us to avoid isolation isn't to put on a big act to hang out with non-auties, it's to find others of our own kind that share one of our interests.

With that in mind, if you want to help your son and protect him, seek out our wonderful parent-allies like Estee Klar & fellow auties that (like me) perseverate on understanding & accepting autistic neurology. My namelink points to my autism bookmarks on that topic, including ones going to Estee's blog.

Good luck to you and your son... I hope you two, as well as all of the other autistics & parent-allies (allies are the ones that don't want to cure, normalize, or abort us) have a good week!

Can horses goose-step?

This might have been the weirdest movie-review debacle I've heard of... First, Salon's Andrew O'Hehir posted a what-the-hell-was-he-on review of Secretariat (seriously, it has to be read to be believed), to which I replied:

First, a side FYI: "Sham" was the name of one of the three stallions that all thoroughbreds can trace their ancestry back to, who was also known as the Godolphin Arabian.

Anyway... Several years ago, my brother gave me a copy of a bestseller about one of the great racehorses. The big problem was that the book was completely focused on the people around the horse -- the horse was more like a vague far-in-the-background plot device -- so I found it painfully boring.

So chances are that I won't bother with this movie... Sounds like it's mostly about the people here, too. Meh.

That said, what you described is how virtually all horse stories work -- they're supposed to tell of how the horse went from being a nobody to something great. Somebody (often a kid or cynical adult) gets a horse that's supposedly unsuitable for whatever it was bred for, stick with the long days of training through various small crises or setbacks, and emerge victorious.

That that narrative is precisely why Secretariat, Man O'War, and other top racehorses were so beloved back in their day. While you sneered at it for not focusing on current events, the reality is that Americans saw the horses as symbols of their own ability to potentially succeed, and focused on racing to escape the events around them.

The reality is also that for many people, the turmoil of that time basically didn't reach them. My parents were hippies, and from the many stories they've told, their siblings, parents, and grandparents *were* isolated by their upper-middle-class communities. It was the equivalent to what the Haiti disaster is for most of us.

I'm definitely curious whether the movie mangled the facts about Secretariat or his handlers. I'll have to look into that... For what it's worth, I'd say that for a female protagonist, an industry that refuses to accept women *is* a significant obstacle -- it's unclear whether you dismiss that issue, or if the movie did a poor job of depicting it.

Slate's Dana Stevens agreed with him, but added more interesting information with Bio-pics of Lennon & Secretariat an oddly fitting pairing .  I figured I'd toss in my ten cents there as well:

Actually, I like your review a lot better than the one at Salon that you referenced... Among other things, he didn't mention what the woman's obstacle was regarding the farm, just that there was a tax problem, which is different from losing her father's farm. I get the feeling that before commenting on specific things, you'd look up a little about it first. (Like "Sham": anyone that read Margurite Henry's books as a horse-crazy kid can explain that "Sham" was one of the 3 stallions that all thoroughbreds are descended from.)

It sounds like "Secretariat" is designed the way virtually all horse movies are -- the problem is in the current tendency to market them as being for general adult audiences, when horse movies are almost always basically for horse-crazy types, especially kids. That's why the genre focuses on the bond between the horse and a human or two: that's why we watch. Or put another way, when I watched "The Black Stallion", I wanted to be reminded of how amazing animal-human bonds can be; with "Phar Lap", I was curious about the life of a famous race horse in historical Australia and his bond with his caretakers.

Back in the mid-20th century, Americans adored racehorses because the horses were both a symbol of the ability to become one of the greats through talent & effort, and of their own ability to use knowledge & dedication to succeed. In other words, their obsession was a way of escaping the reality of their lives; they didn't want a reminder when watching related movies. Also, according to my SF Bay Area former-hippy parents, an affluent mother back then would hear about some of the events through gossip or the news, but it was like far away problems we're not directly affected by today.

Here's where things swung towards weirdness straight into really funny.  Evidently the cluster of readers at Salon & I that disagreed with O'Hehir's weird review weren't quite alone, because Roger Ebert felt the need to post a grand, extremely funny smackdown, called Secretariat Was Not A Christian.  (Muahahahaha!) My two favorite quotes:

I question if a single American, right-thinking or left-thinking, thought even once of Secretariat as a Nietzschean Überhorse. Nor did many consider the Triple Crown victories as a demonstration of white superiority, because race horses (which seem to enjoy winning for reasons of their own) are happily unaware of race. Does a horse think of a human as belonging to another race? I speculate that a horse considers a human as a differently-abled horse. A cat, now, may belong to another race. ...

I am so totally not kidding if I ask, must a man who does indeed look like Pancho Martin therefore be "villainous, swarthy and vaguely terrorist-flavored?" And as for the hapless Sham, the horse with the evil name, for Christ's sake, O'Hehir, that was the horse's damn name.

Glee, Cop Rock for the millenium

To my surprise, Salon's TV reviewer actually posted a slightly confusing article criticising the show "Glee" for some of its flaws, in an article called "Glee" could be great -- if it weren't so awful. (Isn't "weren't" for plural subjects, and "wasn't" for singular ones?) I decided to throw in my ten cents, much as it might piss people off, with a letter called Cop Rock For The Millenium:

I tried watching an episode of Glee last year, and also had to sit through an episode or two of a soap opera that mimicked it earlier this year. I've heard the songs often enough to know the notes/timing, but they weren't my favorites, and I'm not picky enough to reject how they sound performed live or as a skillful cover -- yet they sounded butchered enough on those TV shows to make me cringe. I mean, much as I disliked its predecessor Cop Rock as a kid, at least it wasn't near-intolerable in the background.

So I'm stuck wondering how on Earth others *can* enjoy those renditions. Is it that you have a vague nostalgia for the tunes that comes from hearing them at central points in your past without listening routinely since then? Or are you hearing them, but not the sort of person to really pick up on the exact notes & timing? Or is it more because you're swept up by the excitement of the latest big "in" thing on TV?

Maybe Heather can explain in a future column, or Salon could post an article on the topic...

Another anti-hospital/medicine nut...

Well, once again, some nitwit's wildly illogical commentary got me going. This time, among other things, the person said that "medical wisdom is an oxymoron" and far more that was harder to make sense of. Here is what I wrote in response:

Well, back in the olden days before 'evil' medicine came along, the mortality rate for mothers AND babies was horrific. It wasn't uncommon for the woman to hemorrhage to death or die of organ ruptures, babies to die of all kinds of things -- cord wrapped around the neck, birth defects, prematurity...

One heartbreaking case I read several years back really showed the truth. A woman did the home-birth, and as labor dragged on abnormally long, she pleaded to not be brought to the hospital. Her husband did get her there, but it was too late; the newborn died shortly after birth of some treatable problem that would've been detected with basic fetal monitors.

Such tragedies happen because some people put their fancies ahead of the well-being of their offspring... They forget that the important thing is to keep mom and infant alive & unharmed, not create her dream "birth experience"... *After* that fundamental basic has been planned, prospective parents should look into the delivery/labor options at nearby hospitals, so they can find one that is as close to their preferences as is possible. Deaths are rare, sure, but even one is too many, isn't it?

The idea that "medical wisdom" is an oxymoron is the most mind-bogglingly absurd thing I've heard in a long time, by the way. Thanks to medical science, I never knew anyone with vaccine-preventable disease as a child, and many things that used to be death sentences are now controllable for decades & often curable. Since the early 90s, they've even been able to fix major formerly-deadly cardiac defects in the womb -- can a midwife detect & fix that?

I'm not saying medicine is infallible; hospitals have caused me to suffer & very nearly die repeatedly over the years. I'm saying that most of the time, things are done correctly, so medicine spares us exponentially more pain & death than it causes. If the cost for that is being held in a room with mauve walls & eye-crossing privacy curtains, it's worth it.

PS. In case some are figuring this: no, people are not better off dead than with virtually any birth defect, disability, or disorder. Look up "Not Dead Yet" for more info if you are curious.

Evidently Merced's prisons are empty and free?

Yes, I'm at it again... SFGate has a short article that states, in brief:

"Homeless people in Merced have six months to leave their camps or face arrest. The City Council adopted that deadline Monday night when it voted 4-3 to enforce Merced's no-camping law."

I was the second person to comment, and gave this wholly disgusted response:

"Wonder how many have developmental/cognitive disability or major mental illness that has gone untreated for various reasons, and won't fully comprehend the 'warning' or remember it?

If that seems like overdramatizing, try reading this sadly-common account from a country with much more assistance than ours: [Autistics.org: Autobiography Of Anonymous]

If you're curious why some patients become too terrified to seek/accept help: [Autistics.org: Conversation On Institutions]

I've encountered far too many people that have been through the same sort of things. As anyone that has dealt with SSI/Medicaid can attest, handling issues with them is a failure-prone drain at best even if you're well -- let alone for people with mental/cognitive problems.

Merced should get volunteers helping those folk get the help they need, so they have a solid chance at *contributing* to society. Better than wasting $$ to fill our prisons with folk whose 'crime' is needing help society won't give."

An Author Whines About BCP

Another quickie, as it's late (and no, I haven't sorted out my font problem yet, arrrgggh)... Salon's latest "traumas of the privileged class" article, Why I Hate The Pill, annoyed me enough -- I've always hated it when people whined about piddly shit -- that I was inspired despite the late hour to write a fairly diplomatic response:

The author's focus on the age of various forms of birth control is a sad sign of our times. Like with furniture, new isn't always better: most advances in medicine have improved or saved lives, but others have been harmful or even deadly. If one has endured despite multiple competitors, it probably works -- and no matter how new something is, some patients will have unpleasant or fatal reactions.

Note: I've never been bothered by the issue I wrote about below; I shared it because otherwise my reaction to the article wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

I've been on various hormone pills since my ovaries self-destructed at 13 years old. Each year, if I still didn't have sexual thoughts or interest in finding a mate, I was given a higher dosage, until I finally answered 'correctly' at 19. We've bumped it up repeatedly since then, and given my symptoms, will probably do it again around the 20th anniversary in a few months.

I've tried to quit a few times after reading anti-BCP rants, but learned even before my first doses that without the drug, I have intolerably severe perimenopausal symptoms. Big whoop if my libido never learned to notice anyone sexually/romantically, I'm less "womanly" in mind than my ex-BFs were, and I never have surges of hormones -- I'm not suffering from hot flashes, cold sweats, random crying fits, simmering rage, attention/memory deficits, etc.

So I really have to wonder what Geraldine Sealey would have done in my shoes -- or, if she eventually has peri-menopausal symptoms as horrid as mine are but reacts badly to hormone replacement, what she'll do then. She might have to handle any emotional issues with medications, as I do with my PTSD-induced anxiety/wariness & depression.

PS. Since she felt this was worth sharing in detail despite its relative rarity, the author should find a routine activity to keep things in perspective... It can even be upbeat: volunteer at a hospital's pediatric playroom, join a night class or seniors' group focused on autobiographical writing (plenty of great tales there), read some of the blogs at Inspire.com, etc. It's not about how good one has it -- it's about being reminded that we all have challenges that sometimes feel horribly unfair/burdensome if we don't see real evidence of others fighting along with us, and then getting that 'evidence' so we feel more determined/optimistic again.

I'm not saying that nobody gets to recognize that life's unfair (it is!) or that this fixes the really traumatic stuff. I'm talking about handling things more in line with my having to carry an asthma inhaler & spacer everywhere, her not being able to take BCPs, your team losing a big game, and so forth. As a really cool sociology teacher put it, "you have one minute -- don't waste it."

For Salon: you're not doing yourself any favors with the "traumas of the privileged class" series, especially since most aren't very well-written. If you want to attract readers with personal tales, there are quite a few on Open Salon alone (let alone other blog sites) that are more engrossing, hard-hitting, and well-written, plus some of the authors could use the money. Some blogs/posts I'd strongly recommend, shortened due to the absurdly long URLs OS uses:
http://bit.ly/MindiTheMagnificent
http://bit.ly/TequilaAndDonuts
http://bit.ly/ArizonaTeacherHell
http://bit.ly/MySonsBrain
http://bit.ly/ForNathanWhoWas2
http://bit.ly/Grannys5Tips
http://bit.ly/TheClassClown
http://bit.ly/IHavePTSD

As a bit of a side note, I have a slight suspicion that the author mentioned might have been experiencing a psychosomatic reaction to some degree. I noticed years ago that on discussion groups for self-identified asexual people, there were three very distinct groups:
-- never had sexual interest/awareness, no fantasies, no real sense the body is gross (like a kid before being told it is)
-- people that had been sexually abused or were virgin girls afraid of sex hurting the first time
-- people with strict religious or otherwise anti-sex upbringings that they internalized

I'm in the first group: I don't mind having sex, I can orgasm, but I just don't seem to notice anything/anyone as having sexuality. As far as I can tell, that is what it is to be asexual -- and I'm pretty damn sure people in the other two groups have a major psychological hang-up about sex in the way. Among friends of mine that didn't handle BCPs well in that way, there was a similar breakdown: some of them just became asexual, but others (who often had anti-chemical or anti-science parents, went that way in college, etc.) acted more like they had some kind of personal guilt/morality issue making the whole thing so horrible that they didn't want to even think about it. No need for BCPs if you're too disgusted/uninterested to have it, after all.

(I'm not saying that I necessarily don't have mental issues of my own in the sexuality department. With my medical history, I'm quite certain that I do... However, given I have no emotional reaction and a working libido that simply doesn't seem aware that living creatures exist sexually any more than doorknobs, I don't think the medical stuff is the culprit.)

The record industry said to do *what*?

Hanging out listening to the Grateful Dead's old album Workingman's Dead for the first time, I got an entertaining little surprise from the last "bonus" track... It started up with the song Easy Wind in progress, then a relaxed fellow's voice said over it:

"The Workingman's Dead, by the Grateful Dead. Available on Warner Brothers** tapes and records; you should be able to get your copy by May 15th. Workingman's Dead by the Grateful Dead."

The song continued for a few seconds, and then the guy came back to add:

"Steal one."

**which recently had YouTube remove all Frets On Fire videos that use Grateful Dead music.