Get your shots!

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   I had a doctor's appointment yesterday.  Among the matters I took care of was making sure I got my flu shot for this season.

   I'm not afraid of getting influenza myself.   Chances are that I'd be in bed for several days, and then I'd be relatively fine.  I got my flu shot as a public duty.

   I'm generally healthy, but the others you may pass the virus to may not be.  You may be a carrier even before you have symptoms.  Consider the elderly.  Consider people with AIDS.  Consider cancer patients.

  Maybe you'll pass the virus to someone else who IS healthy, but they'll pass the virus to someone who isn't.

  My father, like me, understands the importance of immunization and herd immunity.  He got his general flu shot AND his swine flu shots last year.  But over New Years, he was hospitalized with ANOTHER strain of the flu virus, and he came down with pneumonia, as well.  We were afraid that he wasn't going to make it.  He's 73 years old and he has type two diabetes, in a rather severe form.

  But thanks to the good folks at the hospital, he survived and lived to tell the tale!  Sure, you can't be immunized for every single viral disease out there, or every single strain.  But the more immunizations you get, the better.

  Listen to mainstream medicine.  DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LISTEN TO JENNY MCCARTHY.  

   A lot of people do get unpleasant side effects from vaccines, but that's no reason to shun them.   Nothing in any vaccine 'causes' autism, and autism isn't something to be banished, either.  Autism does a lot of good for humanity.

  I can tell you what DOESN'T do good for humanity.  Measles!  Mumps!  Rubella!  Polio!

  My father remembers when polio was a big deal.  His cousin and best friend died from the disease in the 1940s, I believe.  Polio is now very rare in the developed world, but polio still exists.  All it takes is for some people from the developed world to visit the developing world and NOT get their shots, and then BINGO!  We'd have a polio epidemic again!

  Measles, mumps, and rubella, all diseases that can be deadly, even in otherwise healthy people, are all on the rise in the United States and Canada.

  You wanna know why?  Because far too many parents watch that Oprah and listen to that Jenny McCarthy.  

  I try to refrain from too much profanity on this blog, but now I'm so pissed off I can barely contain myself.  

wesome website.

   These are real lives and real people who are being affected.  People are DYING because of Oprah and Jenny's stupidity.  If you lost a loved one to rubella, you'd be mad, too.

   We can totally eradicate certain deadly diseases, but only if as many people, adults and children, get their shots as possible!

   Do the whole entire world a favour, and get as many immunizations as possible.  Immunize your children.  Tell adults to do the same.  Spread the word!

   Get informed, and read these links.  Especially the Jenny McCarthy Body Count.  That's an awesome website.

• Jenny McCarthy Body Count
• No link found between vaccine mercury and autism
• Canadian Coalation for Immunization Awareness and Promotion
• Immunization Education Inititive
• Should My Child Get The MMR Vaccine? PDF file
• Aspies For Freedom

  I've got a busy week ahead of me!  I'll try to continue my 'A Brief History of the Web' series by Friday, at the latest.  In the meanwhile, check out Blogcritics and Dragon Blogger.  TTFN!

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It's up to all of us to stop bullying!

  I'm willing to guarantee that pretty much everyone over the age of ten has either witnessed bullying, been bullied, or has bullied others.  So the subject of this post concerns everyone, children and adults alike.


  Bullying is an especially hot topic these days, because news has been made of a few teens who have committed suicide due to bullying of a homophobic nature.


  Eighteen year old Tyler Clementi was a talented violin player and a student at Rutgers University.  After his roommate Dharun Ravi videostreamed Tyler online while he was being intimate with another man, Tyler was in tremendous despair.  On September 22nd, Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge, to his death.


  Thirteen year old Asher Brown was harassed about his religion and sexual orientation by his classmates.  On September 23rd, Asher shot himself with his stepfather's gun.


  Seth Walsh was only eleven years old.  He was also harassed about his perceived sexual orientation by his classmates.  He was found unconscious in his own backyard, another apparent suicide.  He died after ten days on life support.


  Fifteen year old Billy Lucas received homophobic harassment by the other kids at school.  Billy hung himself on September 9th.


  Fifteen year old Justin Aaberg was a talented cello player who came out of the closet at age thirteen.  He also hung himself.


  Nineteen  year old Raymond Chase attended Johnson & Wales University.  He was openly gay, and he hung himself in his dorm room last week.


  See http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=17469.


  These homophobia related suicides touched Ellen DeGeneres' heart, and she candidly spoke about them on her talk show on September 30th.









I was also violently bullied as a child. I'm heterosexual, and no one ever thought I was gay, but people who know about bullying know that bullies target people who are different, period. I was bullied for my eccentricity and awkward social skills. I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome until I was nineteen, and years of bullying and enduring a public school system that couldn't understand me made me drop out as soon as it was legal, at age sixteen.


There were certainly times I felt like committing suicide, much like those teenagers mentioned in my post who committed suicide due to homophobia.


My experience with bullying started when I was nine years old, in Grade Four at Munden Park Public School, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Teachers and lunchtime supervisors would tell me, "Just ignore them, Kim, they're only teasing!" From age nine, until I dropped out at age sixteen while attending Meadowvale Secondary in Mississauga, I was constantly bullied in various ways.


I was constantly insulted. I was ostracized by all the other kids in my class, ALL of them. I was kicked. I was punched. I had my possessions stolen and vandalized.


The teachers, supervisors, and school administration always ignored the issue. "Kids will be kids!" Arrrgghh! That attitude makes me so angry.


Like gay kids, or kids who are suspected of being gay, autistic kids, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed are also subject to bullying a lot more than other kids.


From Michael McGrath's article, Aspergers Syndrome and Bullying, http://www.suite101.com/content/aspergers-syndrome-and-bullying-a66366:

Children with Asperger’s syndrome are ideal targets for bullying. Asperger’s children tend to be socially isolated and awkward in conversations and physical coordination. An Aspie child often has interests that other children consider odd, or may have unusual verbal or physical habits. Most rewarding, from a bully’s perspective, is how easily many Asperger’s children “meltdown” and lose control when under pressure.

Approximately 90 percent of Asperger’s children are bullied – some sources suggest the number is closer to 100 percent. Adults with Asperger’s syndrome often relate how helpless, angry and alone schoolyard bullying made them feel, and how the effects of bullying followed them into their adult lives.

Parents and teachers should make it quite clear that there is never a good reason to bully, and that the correct and safest thing to do is to tell an adult the child trusts – whether a parent, teacher or counselor. The traditional belief that ignoring bullying makes bullies stop is simply not true. Many schools now have no tolerance policies for bullying, but those policies can only be enforced if teachers and school staff know bullying is occurring.

 In my experience, though, schools don't take bullying seriously at all.  It's a crying shame.


 And, not only kids are bullied.  Adults are often subject to bullying as well.


 From http://www.canadianliving.com/relationships/friends_and_family/adult_bullying_how_you_can_fight_back.php:

Adult bullying takes place at the park, in parent committees and kids’ sporting events; among people in volunteer and peer groups; and even in families. Examples of outright physical bullying among adults include Stewart Ferguson of Pakenham, Ont., near Ottawa, who was sentenced in 2005 to 18 months probation for shoving a referee into a door frame after his son was thrown out of a minor league hockey game. But more often adult bullying is emotional. 

 The Canada Safety Council defines adult bullying as a “grab for control by an insecure, inadequate person, an exercise of power through the humiliation of the target.” It involves humiliation or abusive words that lower a person’s self-esteem. It can take the form of rude, degrading or offensive remarks; intimidating gestures; or discrediting a person by spreading rumours, ridiculing her or calling into question her convictions and private life. It can also be about belittling a person by making her do tasks below her skill level. 

According to the International Labour Organization, physical and emotional violence is one of the most serious issues facing the workplace today because the psychological wounds can run deep. The Commission des normes du travail, which enforces labour standards in Quebec, has conducted surveys that show up to one in 10 workers in that province have been the subject of harmful bullying, intimidation or belittlement by a boss or coworker. 

  There is a solution to combating bullying.  And all of us must take part in order for the campaign to be effective.

• Schools, for young children and adults alike, must have strong and detailed anti-bullying policies.  And they must be enforced by all authority figures.  Adult workplaces need the same.
• If you observe bullying, and you did nothing about it, you are not an innocent bystander.  You are a guilty party, as well.  I can't count how many times I was viciously bullied while other kids just watched and did nothing.  The same applies to adult bullying, too.  If you witness bullying, tell the bully to stop!  Or, at the very least, tell an authority figure about it.  The bully may possibly be breaking the law as well, so teen and adult bullies may be charged with a crime by the police.  In those situations, make sure the police are involved.

 Ellen DeGeneres has recently popularized the use of the #StopBullying hashtag on Twitter.  I posted a few #StopBullying tweets last night, and I got a quick response from musicismylifee1.

 Thanks, musicismylifee1 and idkmybffjenn for bringing this wonderful blog to my attention.  Here's the link for everyone: http://www.stopbullyingnoww.blogspot.com/.  It's an inspirational story, Pursuing Happiness.  You've got to check it out.

  What it all boils down to is this: it's up to all of us to stop bullying!

  Some more related links:

•  thetrevorproject.org/
• http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=7b05f33a-7b8b-477b-af23-42965920b1a0
• Bullying and Asperger's Syndrome

On a more positive note, there's plenty to look forward to on this blog and kimcrawley.com...

Kimcrawley.com and buchalterconsulting.ca will be upgraded to HTML5 and CSS3 by 2pm EST, tomorrow, October 8th.  See Getting ready for HTML5- no more delays!

  And...

  This Saturday, October 9th, John Lennon would have been celebrating his 70th birthday.  Tomorrow, October 8th, you can look forward to my new post: Remembering John Lennon, An Objective View.


  This weekend of October 9th and 10th, I've got a real treat for computer nerds and newbies alike.  I'll be debuting my A Brief History of The Web series, which promises to be fun and informative.  Surely you wonder how the web started, and how we got to the web we have today?


  On Monday, October 11th, possibly in the evening, I'll start the conclusion to my Project HTML5 series.  The last two articles will be about CSS3.













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I am a PERSON, not a PUZZLE, and it would be very dangerous for Jenny McCarthy to come within ten feet of me!

 I apologize for not posting in the past couple of days.  I've had extensive dental surgery recently, my two first root canals within less than a week!  I thank my skillful and talented cousin, Dr. Elizabeth (Lisa) Caruana Vella, for her excellent work.  But I've needed a lot of rest!

 Now, there's one issue that has brought me out of my slumber.  I'm motivated, and pissed off, simultaneously!

 Admittedly, Celebitchy is one of my favourite celebrity gossip blogs, and I visit the site quite frequently.  The coverage and opinion provided by Celebitchy and Kaiser is usually excellent.  Unfortunately, Celebitchy and Celebitchy's commentors show much ignorance about Autistic Rights and Neurodiversity in this one post from today about Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey's possible reconciliation: http://www.celebitchy.com/118667/are_jim_carrey_and_jenny_mccarthy_back_together_/ .

 If you don't want to visit that link, basically the post speculates whether of not Mr. Carrey and Ms. McCarthy are back together.  CB calls McCarthy an 'autism advocate', and THAT'S what got my blood boiling.  

  I'll gladly provide my readers a bit of background.

 I'm on the autistic spectrum.  I'm a 26 year old woman with Asperger's Syndrome.  I was diagnosed relatively late, at age 19.  If you don't know what AS is, it's basically a neurological condition that makes people 'nerdy'.  People with AS are supposed to be weak in social skills, but make up for that lack with an ability to be really fascinated by a few areas that interest them.  Those areas differ from person to person, but are often technology or trivia related.  Usually, people with AS can go on and on about their favourite subjects whether or not other people are interested.  Quite often, people with AS have an incredible knack for technology.  Bill Gates has AS, that is all but confirmed by him and his people.  Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, is officially out of the closet as an 'aspie'.  As for me, I'm excelling in my IT studies at George Brown College, I can code in HTML, CSS and JavaScript in my sleep (I'm a web designer, please go to kimcrawley.com if you haven't already), and I can usually kick serious ass while watching Jeopardy! with others.  Aside from weak social skills and high technical skills, AS is also associated with sensory sensitivities and 'stimming'.

  Now, I don't fit stereotypes of 'aspies' and autistic people that well.  First of all, I'm tremendously affectionate with the people I love, physically and verbally.   Secondly, I read body language, tone of voice and sarcasm very well, and I use all three myself.  Thirdly, I show obvious empathy toward the people I love, people with AS are supposed to have difficulty with empathy.  Contrary to popular belief, aspies don't lack empathy, they just tend to have difficulty expressing it in a way neurotypicals can recognize.  In my case, though, I DO express empathy in a way that neurotypicals recognize, and quite frequently.  I suppose I'm not a typical anything.

  To people who meet me, I'm some sort of a strange hybrid between neurotypical Penny and her nerdy pals on The Big Bang Theory.   

  Now, on to Jenny McCarthy.  Gosh, even typing her name makes me angry!

 In a nutsell, Jenny's young son was diagnosed with autism.  Jenny is convinced, contrary to extensive scientific evidence, that her son's MMR vaccine 'caused' his autism.  Her promotion of her dangerous beliefs on Oprah and in her propagandistic books, has caused many parents to dangerously avoid getting their children vaccinated, and that has already caused many deaths, see jennymccarthybodycount.com.  In addition to her dangerous anti-vaccine crusade, she also describes autism in horribly offensive terms.  Ms. McCarthy, autism doesn't 'steal' children.  Autism isn't a 'tragedy'.   Yes, indeed, it can be tremendously challenging to be on the spectrum, and to have a child on the spectrum.  But autism offers plenty of gifts and advantages, as well.  Eliminating autism from the human race would have dire consequences.  People on the spectrum and their families need counselling (but not ABA!) and support, but most autistic people can learn to be happy and productive members of society, given the proper supports and encouragement.  

  Another very dangerous idea that she promotes is chelation 'therapy'.  Follow that link for more information. It's something that's very dangerous and offers no benefits at all.  And, although there is a minority of people who should avoid dairy and/or gluten for digestive reasons, there is no real link between dietary intolerance and autism, and putting autistics on a restricted diet is no 'cure', either.  

  And there is no reason to 'cure' autism!  From http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-curebies-and-why-are-they.html:

Why are Curebies Dangerous?
The main reason that curebies are dangerous is because they're usually willing to take any steps possible to convert their child to a normal one - even if there's risk to the child's health, longevity or mental state.

Curebie therapies are often quite nasty and many (most) of the doctors who support cure movements tend to fall into the "quack" category. In some cases, the curebie medical profession seems very similar to internet scams with the main aims being more monetary that social.

 __________________________________________________

 Some great articles about the advantages of autism and Asperger's Syndrome:

 http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/does_autism_offer_special_gifts_20050527/

 http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/my-autism-pages/what-is-neurodiversity/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article1081075.ece

 In addition, here are some excellent pro-neurodiversity resources online:

 http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com

 http://mikestanton.wordpress.com/

 http://www.neurodiversity.com/

  From Mike Stanton's blog:

Vaccines, autism and actresses.

Jenny versus Jennifer

How would you describe an actress and a mother who makes public statements about the nation’s vaccination programme?

Brainwashed simpleton?

That is a bit strong, even when applied to Jenny McCarthy. But this is the EOHarm email list passing judgement on a different actress, Jennifer Garner whose crime was to speak up in favour of vaccines, namely the flu vccination programme in the United States. Another letter described her as,

Just another Hollywood uninformed propagandist?

This without a hint of irony from members of a group that has nothing but praise for their ownHollywood uninformed propagandist, the aforementioned Jenny MCarthy! Another letter suggests that Jenny McCarthy might want to pop round to Jennifer Garner’s house for coffee and presumably put her right on the vaccine issue at the same time.

I feel she would get short shrift. Jennifer Garner will have been ably briefed by the American Lung Association. She knows that with an annual death toll of 36,000 from influenza and its complications, this is the number eight killer in the USA with 2.7% of all deaths. It used to be 4% which suggests that the vaccine is having a positive impact. EOHarm takes its inspiration from “Evidence of Harm,”  a book that purports to be a balanced investigation of the alleged connection between the mercury content in childhood vaccines and the growth in the prevalence of autism, but ends up providing uncritical support for the belief that we are in the midst of an autism epidemic caused by mercury poisoning.

Original Biomedical Theory

Once upon a time biomedical explanations and interventions for autism revolved around diets, anti fungals and vitamin supplements. I have a book, “Biological treatments for autism and PDD” by William Shaw dated 1997 which even contains a recommendation for parents to vaccinate their children against Streptococcus Pneumoniae. 

The closest it comes to implicating vaccines is the author’s belief that adverse reactions to vaccines may be one of the factors contributing to recurrent infections that require antibiotics. It is the antibiotics that are supposed to do the real damage, destroying the natural flora in the gut.  Consequently fungal infections damage the gut and allow poorly digested peptides to enter the blood stream. If these get into the brain they attach to opioid receptors and cause the symptoms we diagnose as autism. Three years later Karen Seroussi wrote “Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder” [Simon and Schuster 2000] which repeated Shaw’s basic hypothesis. Vaccines, typically MMR but also DPT, were again accorded a supporting role in exacerbating a pre-existing difficulty coping with infections. Mercury, heavy metal poisoning and chelation therapy did not get a mention.

Mercury Rises

There was a problem with this “Opioid Excess” theory of causation. [apart from the obvious one that even today it remains a tentative theory with little hard science to support it.] It had originally been expounded  in 1979 [Panksepp J. A Neurochemical Theory of Autism] Even if the MMR was an added factor, it too had been around since the 1970s. But the dramatic increase in reported cases of autism in children suggested that something else was happening. There were perfectly good reasons not to believe in an epidemic. But for those parents already primed to blame MMR, the growth in autism led them to look for vaccine-related causes. During the 1990s the number of mandatory vaccines for children in the USA grew steadily alongside the autism figures. In some cases children could have received in excess of the stringent safety limits for mercury exposure if they had receieved all  their vaccine shots. A paper pointing to supposed similarities between mercury poisoning and autism was published in a fringe journal. Information supporting the mercury hypothesis was widely disseminated amongst parents via the internet. David Kirby wrote his book, “Evidence of Harm” and the rest, as it were, is history.  

Blame all Vaccines

Now that mercury has been removed from all mandatory childhood vaccines and autism shows no signs of decreasing you would think that people would move on and look for other explanantions for autism prevalence. Perhaps this article in Time Magazine or this interview with Dr Gernsbacher and Dr Neuschaffer could offer a less catastrophic interpretation of the figures.

But parents who have invested so much intellectual and emotional capital into their belief in vaccine damaged kids as a source of autism are increasingly blaming the vaccines themselves. The real vaccine/autism scare began with the MMR fiasco in the UK. That resonated in the USA where Dr Andrew Wakefield is a popular figure at Defeat Autism Now events. As I understand it, in one variation on a theme, the mercury in vaccines was supposed to weaken the immune system and the measles component of the MMR subsequently overwhelmed it. IF you believe this and IF you also buy into the conspiracy theory that the US government [in the form of the FDA and the CDC]  and the big drug companies knew about this and are now engaged in a cover-up, it is a short step to believing that all vaccines are dangerous and everything that the government tells us about vaccine safety and efficacy is a lie.

For the true believers 36,000 preventable deaths from influenza [and that is in the USA alone, never mind the rest of the world] are as nothing compared to the hypothetical possibility that vaccines cause autism. Brainwashed Simpletons? No,  more like sadly deluded.

 _____________________________________________________

 So, Celebitchy, I usually love your site, but calling Jenny McCarthy an 'autism advocate' is like calling Mel Gibson a 'women's rights advocate'.  Same goes for Holly Robinson-Peete, she's also very dangerous for autistic people!

 Autism Speaks is also EXTREMELY dangerous and evil:

 http://www.aspieweb.net/why-is-autism-speaks-so-bad/

 http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2010/08/autism-speaks-not-charity-recommended.html

 http://aut.zone38.net/2009/09/23/autism-speaks-hits-a-new-low/

 __________________________________________

 I swear, if I came within ten feet of Ms. McCarthy, she would not be safe.  I usually have excellent self-control, but at the very least I would scream at her and stand up for my rights and the rights of people on the spectrum everywhere!

 I leave my dear readers these videos:

   kimcrawley.com


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