Category: blog

The news was fresh and startling today.. one in 70 kids have autism. Or is it 60? Or maybe 50..  Or some outrageously high number, I guess, have autism. But it’s all due to that ‘better screening’.. The modern media thinks we will believe that. ‘Better screening’… does that excuse really fly?

Fact: Newest numbers showcase this: 1 in about 88 kids have autism.

People lit it up blue today to remind us all of that.

We don’t need reminding.

Autism  has now reared its head into a mega load of lives in the United States and the world. It’s not just the person down the street, but now it’s the person in the house. Or a friend of the person in the house. It’s not just something that hits someone else’s home far away; it hits home. 

Earlier today the fine folks at FineArtStream.com, the 24/7 Art Bell rerun website played a show form 2006 when Art talked to a guest speaking about how autism rates were around the 1 in 188 range. They shunned the suggestion that better screening led to such epidemic like rates.  It is obvious it may have an effect, but not nearly as profound as what some say.

So we may now have finally admitted it.. Autism is on the rise.  Will the cure be found? Maybe we must first find the cause.

We need to find why boys are more likely than girls to get it.. we need to find why some have warning signs but regression doesn’t hit until 18 months.. we need to find out why women who live near highways are more likely to have babies with autism… And we need to ask really serious, hard, difficult, and probing questions about vaccines. I know ‘two dozen’ studies failed to link vaccines.. but I frankly don’t care. Study it more. Please? 1 in 88 kids’ lives and maybe soon 1 in 33 kids’ lives depend on that.

The brutal truth, not for better but for worse, is that the number may simply climb from this point. What are the implications of that? Lots. 

Societal implications.

Career implications.

Political implications. 

Budgetary implications.

Get the picture yet?

They are not one in a million, but 1 in 88. And they are growing up.. will people without knowledge of their symptoms even understand them? Will their presence be unwanted? Will their gifts and talents be appreciated the same as others? What will we do to help them once their safety net has expired from the earth? Parents take great care of their children … what about when mom and dad pass into the great unknown.. and 1 in 88 are alone to fend for themselves? It certainly appears that many of the 50 states of the once great America don’t have a mighty high place for autism in budgets. Then again, what lobby do kids with autism really have, anyway?

I get the feeling that all of this talk today about autism in media and TV may have been actually been a disservice in a sense. It made autism seem, still, like it was someone else’s problem.

Listen.. 1 in 88 kids have autism. Did you hear that? 

I have two nephews who are afflicted. And guess what.. they are two beautiful, wonderful, human beings. Quite frankly, I often think they are a hell of a lot smarter than me.

As a matter of fact…. 

Keep this in mind: People with autism are.. *GASP!* people!  with feelings! awareness! habits! laughter! kindness! tears! and fears. Yes fears. They have them. Maybe more than “US”. 

They are nothing like us but everything like ‘us’ at the same time.

Oh, and what are we?  What are us ‘common folk’ and ‘normal folk’ like? Think of this truth: We enter a rat race every day in a car that could crash.. we head to a job we really don’t want just to make a simple income to buy a few things after we pay for bills. Many of us choose to use leftover cash on booze and drugs to dull the mind to the depression that would occur if we really thought about existence. Sometimes we drown out the night by casting the blue light of the television set in our living rooms, as though it will tube up the worst of the day and make us faaaaghhettabout it….  We overeat sometimes. Or under eat. Some of us make ourselves vomit because we hate our bodies. Others look in the mirror and see perfection–those are the vain ones of ‘us.’ They probably think the song is about them…………..And that’s that. And some of those same ‘normal folk’ with their highs and lows, often unnatural, think they are better.. Laughable, isn’t it? Laughable indeed.

What do we know tonight that we did not know in 2008, 2006, 2002, 2000, 1997, 1995, 1992, 1988, 1980? NOTHING.

We know that….

And that, really, is all we know. No matter what ‘experts’ or highly paid ‘not us’s’ tell you.