Subject to Change

I realize that I may be writing this post at the risk of jinxing my son.

Here’s what I “know” about autism:

It’s a horrible thing to have to deal with. It limits a person’s ability to communicate and function socially.

According to all the statistics I’ve seen it affects 1 in 150 children.

Medical studies have suggested a link between autism and the mercury used as a preservative in vaccines, in particular the combination MMR vaccine.

Rainman had autism. Rainman was a cool movie, definitely, definitely a cool movie.

Given the “facts” as I know them, riddle me this:

Why don’t I know anyone with autism? 1 in 150 seems like a statistical likelihood. I ought to at least know someone who knows someone, yet it’s never come up. Now that I’m asking, maybe it will.

If the odds are so good, why do the doctors treat you like a heretic for asking about immunizations? Try asking a pediatrician sometime if you can get the MMR vaccines one at a time. He’ll look at you like you’re asking him to use a Dixie cup instead of a stethoscope.

Kelly reads a lot of articles about babies, a lot of them. The stories about autism really freak her out. In every single one a perfectly normal child goes undiagnosed for too long or the doctors blow it off and the parents are left with a brick that eats and shits. It certainly sounds serious to me.

But, maybe it’s just me. If there really is a convincing link between immunizations and a 1 in 150 chance of turning a child into Rainman, I would think that the medical community should take it a little more seriously. One would hope that they aren’t that deep in the drug companies’ pockets, or so saddled by the insurance companies that doctors won’t even talk to parents about their options.

What’s really going on here?

That previous post about Stephen King reminded me of something. I used to enjoy writing stories. Occasionally I still get an idea that I think should be published. Blogging helps with that a little. When I was in high school I thought taking the creative writing class, in spite of its reputation, would be a good idea. In retrospect I think that class may be what killed my desire to write. It definitely destroyed any dream I had of ever becoming an author for a living. Do you hear that, Homestead High School?

Nothing destroys the creative process faster than applying rules. This class was loaded with them: deadlines, demands, and pressure. The most frustrating requirement involved journal writing. Take a high school male, who’s never written a diary entry in his life, and tell him he’s got to produce so many entries a week. That’ll work well, right? It wasn’t light work, either. The requirements were steep enough that writing journals actually required some prep time and felt like real homework. Eventually, I just learned to be creative about my journal entries. I had quantity at the expense of quality. If I treated this blog like those journal entries I’d be posting every day, but there’d be no joy in it.
We would also write impromptu in class and read our work out loud. Twice I remember sharing something that left the class stunned. One time I think it was because I punctuated a story with a cuss word and they were watching the teacher for a response. Did I mention that I read a lot of Stephen King back then?

The other time we were doing an exercise where the teacher briefly showed us a few images and we were supposed to pick one to write about. I’ve been looking for my creative writing binder, to find the story that I wrote in those five minutes. I was really inspired when I wrote it. I had to cheat to finish it though, because I wasn’t done when the teacher demanded that we put down our pencils. I’ll try to summarize what I wrote, but it’s not going to have the same impact.

The image that chose me was one of a dark hand, presumably African American, shaking a lighter skinned one. Something in the back of my mind snapped and my cynical side kicked in. I saw a hidden agenda in that photo, so I decided to develop selective amnesia. Rather than writing the story that I though the picture was intended to inspire, I chose to rebel against PC nonsense in favor of something darker. It’s not that I was being entirely radical. The images were displayed quickly, with the intent that your mind’s eye might see something different. I simply decided to test the waters, and the teacher.

I decided that I hadn’t seen race, or two adult hands for that matter. I wrote a story about a fireman (the darker hand). In five minutes I managed to set up a dramatic rescue attempt. The fireman heard cries in the blaze and rushed toward them to find an infant, alone. The ladder rescue began and turned horribly wrong. This is the part where I decided the picture wasn’t about racial harmony. It was the final image of the infant’s hand in the fireman’s dirty paw, right before the child’s shoulder dislocated and he tumbled to his death.

It wasn’t really the photo that inspired the story, though. Once I started writing the ending came to me. I envisioned the child falling and the reaction of the firefighter. I had the words to put in his mind long before I got to that point in the story, and that’s what drove me to finish it. I wish that I could find the story, because it was the fireman’s final thought that ended it so perfectly. It was those words that caused a few of the people in my class to gasp. I knew from that response that I’d gotten my story exactly right.

I recently dug out my collection of Stephen King books. I’m pretty sure it includes everything up to about the time King was struck by a car. He slowed down after that, and so did I. Unlike him, I never really got back on the horse.

I don’t think I ever really got King, anyway. I haven’t read all the novels I collected, but I’m surprised at how many I have managed to get through. My favorite books were the Dark Tower series, Eyes of the Dragon, and The Stand. I also enjoyed reading his short stories and novellas. These are all vastly different from the rest of his material.

I don’t think I’m really into the horror/suspense genre. It’s not just Stephen King, either. Most horror films don’t really keep me on the edge the way they should. I find myself identifying recycled sound effects and laughing at they way the same tricks get used over and over to build the tension. I think that may be part of my frustration with King: that once you’ve read enough of his books you can start to see the patterns. It shows more on film than it does in print. So many of his movies have the same look and feel.

The most important part of a Stephen King book, for me, is the author comments. It’s fun to psychoanalyze the man based on what he chooses to share about himself. He’s not exactly screaming for help, but he’s struggling with the world inside his head, which is significantly larger than the one he lives in. He can’t quit writing, in spite of the promise that Dark Tower VII would sound his retirement, because he needs to share his thoughts. He always seemed to connect with me somehow when he talked about where his ideas come from. His talent is knowing how to chase those little ideas and turn them into stories. All it takes is one tiny little trigger: a thought, a vision, a word, and the man is off and running. That’s what I’ve always found to be inspiring about him.

If I’ve got any Stephen King fans reading, how do you relate to his work? Go ahead and share some thoughts.

H/T: Fuzz

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
- Bill Gates

Windows Vista.
- God

Half the people who see this won’t get it. The other half are giggling like little girls.

Here’s the reference, in case you were born after 1980 something.

There’s hope for us dorks after all.

Stolen from ICanHasCheezburger

Did we miss this year’s Wispolitics blog summit, or did Owen and Jay have it without us?

If I were part of the driving force behind last year’s Citizen Blog Summit I’d consider trying to beat Wispolitics to the punch.

Let’s make the minimum wage $20 an hour, because when you’re paying someone $40K a year you’re more likely to have standards. I recently witnessed a series of events at a local fast food joint which made me want to jump over the counter and take over.

What brought me to this particular restaurant wasn’t the food. I wanted to hop on the Wi-Fi and check email because I was trying to keep up on a software issue. I could tell right away that lunch wasn’t going to be as productive as I hoped. The building was being remodeled and the lunch rush had arrived. The place was a zoo.

While I was waiting in line someone I assumed to be a manager opened up a new register and asked, “can I help anyone over here?” A man with the walker made it to the register less than ten seconds later, but the woman was already gone. She returned several times and looked at the customer directly. It was clear that she’d totally forgotten what she’d been doing and had moved on to the next task. The man with the walker waited a few more minutes and eventually moved to a new register.

I decided to try my luck with the Wi-Fi, so I asked if it was working. The woman helping me needed to ask someone else, presumably another manager. The manager instinctively responded that it was working. A short while later she realized that the construction might have upset things, but she still insisted that it was probably working. She failed to make the next logical leap: offer the customer a Wi-Fi pass code.

At this point I mentally shrugged. I could’ve asked for the Wi-Fi code, but there were other people waiting. Based on past experience at this location I might be waiting a while for someone to find the Wi-Fi coupons. It wasn’t worth it after what I’d just witnessed.

The family hasn’t been feeling well all week. Since Weekend Video usually reflects what’s on my mind I decided to share the pain.