My personal digital cameras ended up with mostly pictures of the kids' noses and soda pops, and the photographer's pictures are expected in 3 weeks. However, today we discovered that our D.J. has a great picture of us!

 

The D.J. is the guy in black.

 

THIS would be why email was always my preferred method of communication in the office. This, and of course, the unwillingness of management to either a) learn about, read about, or comprehend the actual issues (and the singularly involuntary NATURE of being autistic) and then b) integrate into the office the actual awareness training needed to stop staff from stubbornly misunderstanding everything. Of course, when "management" refuses to "get it", how can anyone expect other staff to make any effort? And for how long is the highly competent, very skilled, autistic employee reasonably expected to spend time self-advocating, instead of focusing on the tasks at hand? How is THAT smart management? [Panic attack, anyone?]

Saying to an employee (as was so often said to me) "Don't rely on email - people want to TALK to you" is plainly idiocy when the people "listening" are too self-involved to even hear factually what is being said. Email is far better for communication regarding methodology, structure, interface, workflow, planning, and UI parameters, just to name a FEW things it's better for. Having no affect doesn't HINDER this kind of work, it enhances it.

Interesting reading.

 

*******

Workplace wisdom: Autism research offers advice
Published February 2007 in issue 0607 of the HooK.

By PENELOPE TRUNK PENELOPE@PENELOPETRUNK.COM

Hannah Schufreider may seem an unlikely person to offer career advice. She's a 12-year-old autistic girl who spends her days being bored in school.

Hannah's successful strategies for dealing with her disability could be adapted by adults having trouble in their professional lives-- particularly those who can't connect with others at work.

 The link between the two is socials skills. Is there always one person at the office who's rude during meetings? Do you shy away from interacting with colleagues because you're not good at office politics?

Maybe that colleague, or you, have trouble reading social cues. People with autism usually have poor social skills.

Autistic people behave in ways that are out of sync with other people. "I make terrible jokes because I copy stuff I see on TV. I think it's funny, but my parents tell me it's not," says Hannah. Most people are born with the ability to read nonverbal cues, but Hannah cannot.

A workplace corollary is when a colleague who makes a coworker the butt of a joke is clueless that the coworker has a fragile personality. Another example: you've worked months on a big project, and after talking about it for an hour, a colleague says, "Forget it, that will never work."

In these situations, a manager should take that person aside and explain what was inappropriate.

People who miss social cues naturally have no idea they're missing them. "Often employees don't agree with the assessment. So the person speaking tries to give specific scenarios," says HR pro Beth Howell.

For example, instead of saying, "I feel you were too aggressive in that meeting," Howell would say, "In the meeting when you said 'X,' did you notice no one said anything? You might have been a little too strong."

Teaching people to read social cues is difficult. So instead of trying to understand how to say things differently, these people should avoid large meetings and concentrate on one-on-one conversations or e-mail.

People who are bad at reading nonverbal cues fare worse when there are more people around.

Back to Hannah. She's more successful in a smaller group than in her regular, larger classroom. It's easier for her to connect with one person and block out everyone else.

Writing is another good solution because the nonverbal affect isn't present. For most people, this makes communication more difficult, and we add emoticons to compensate for lost nuance. To someone without strong social skills, written communication has a flat, straightforward affect, making misunderstanding less likely.

Hannah's connection to the written word is almost life-saving. When she has trouble in a given situation, she reads. So here's a tip-- if you're on the receiving end of the "You're-offending-people" feedback, try communicating via e-mail.

A lot of people with poor social skills say things like, "I just want to be left alone." But it's very hard to maneuver through the workplace with this attitude.

People judge your work skills as incompetent if you're not likable-- no matter what your work skills are. It may not be fair, but people do it. So if you want to keep your job, you need to do enough politicking at work to make people like you. Instead of saying you don't like being around people, try creating scenarios where you find people more tolerable.

For those not succeeding with colleagues at work, the key is to figure out what environment would help them become successful. For someone with poor social skills, much of the ability to function is dependent on the environment.

But perhaps the most important thing we can learn from kids with autism is that they're most likely to succeed if we help them compensate for their weaknesses. We each have strengths, and we can each use this approach to make the difficult task of self-improvement more positive.

2007 is definitely a good year so far. Not only are we getting married in March (and have solved the biggest problem - venue-related - that had faced us), but Friday morning we just took delivery of our wedding presents from my father: a new washer/dryer and a refrigerator! Also good this year: Raiden is flourishing in private school and just made it into the school band; Jon is having a great time doing some big, interesting projects; and all the MN kids are healthy and enjoying school. Well, except maybe for the one in middle school, but I've decided that public schools are never able to do middle school with any competence at all, and I'm not local enough to fix it or even fight about it, unfortunately!

So... back to the appliances! So far, I am incredibly happy with all three choices. I have yet to actually USE the washer and dryer myself, although I watched my dad, since he has the same ones at home in Nashville. I won't deploy until I have read the manual front to back. The fridge, however, had to be deployed before I could actually read the manual, but thus far exceeds all my expectations. Now, details:

Washer: LG TROMM SteamWasher™ WM2688H

Dryer: LG TROMM XL Capacity Gas Dryer DLG8388

Refrigerator: LG French Door LFX25960

And hey - that was some football today. I am exhausted just from WATCHING.

 

Has everyone seen this already?

 

The Coolest Clock. Ever.

Sigh. Am I only posting about death recently? Not good. But that's mostly because I am so busy, not because I am being morbid.

Legendary singer James Brown dies at 73
By GREG BLUESTEIN, 7 minutes ago

James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.

Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.

Pete Allman, a radio personality in Las Vegas who had been friends with Brown for 15 years, credited Brown with jump-starting his career and motivating him personally and professionally.

"He was a very positive person. There was no question he was the hardest working man in show business," Allman said. "I remember Mr. Brown as someone who always motivated me, got me reading the Bible."

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."

His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Out Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.

"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."

He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.

He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.

From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business."

With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.

In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.

Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.

Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal.

"I wanted to be somebody," Brown said.

By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars.

While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.

While most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter, he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne.

In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom.

Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.

Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state.

Soon after his release, Brown was on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable television viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery two days earlier, the coroner said.

More recently, he married his fourth wife, Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers. The couple had a son, James Jr.

Two years later, Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers. Brown's attorney, Albert "Buddy" Dallas, said singer was exhausted from six years of road shows.

I have not seen John Allen in years and years, but when I was a "wee girl", I spent a lot of time with him, and his music means a lot to me. He was very close with our family for a time, there, when I was young.

When Jon and I were in Toronto in August, we were *in* freaking Pickering, where apparently John Allen lived, but I didn't know he was there, so we didn't visit him. Damn, damn, damn. I thought he was in Cape Breton.

Interestingly enough, the song that was *supposed* to be played at my mother's funeral, "Mist-covered Mountains", but that her husband nixed because my father produced it, WILL be played at our wedding. And John Allan is the man who taught her how to sing it in Gaelic! I guess we'll have to add some of his music to the wedding, too!

***

Mist-covered Mountains

Chorus
O chi, chi mi na morbheanna
O chi, chi mi na corrbheanna
O chi, chi mi na coireachan
Chi mi na sgoran fo cheo.

Chi mi gun dail an t-aite 's an d'rugadh mi
Cuirear orm failt' 's a' chanain a thuigeas mi
Gheibh mi ann aoidh abus gradh 'n uair ruigeam
Nach reicinn air thunnaichean oir.

Chi mi ann coilltean, chi mi ann doireachan
Chi mi ann maghan bana is toraiche
Chi mi na feidh air lar nan coireachan
Falaicht' an trusgan de cheo.

Beanntaichean arda is aillidh leacainnean
Sluagh ann an comhnuidh is coire cleachdainnean
'S aotrom mo cheum a' leum g'am faicinn
Is fanaidh mi tacan le deoin.

[In english]

Chorus
Oh ro, soon shall I see them;
Oh he ro see them oh see them.
Oh ro soon shall I see them the
mist covered mountains of home.

There shall I visit the place of my birth
And they'll give me a welcome, the warmest on earth
All so loving and kind full of music and mirth,
In the sweet-sounding language of home.

There shall I gaze on the mountains again,
On the fields and the woods and the burns and the glens,
Away 'mong the corries beyond human ken
In the haunts of the deer I will roam

Hail to the mountains with summits of blue,
To the glens with their meadows of sunshine and dew.
To the women and men ever constant and true,
Ever ready to welcome one home.

MIDI file

The weird thing about THIS year is that my son won't be calling my stepfather to thank him for his service. The first time Raiden did that was a few years ago, and he did it on his own. I was so proud. I was neither close to nor fond of my stepfather, but I supported any social effort my son ever made, and I thought the Veteran's Day recognition was a biggie.

My stepfather died in early October, and his funeral was Oct 10, which ironically was the 5-year anniversary of my mother's death. He flew Spitfires for the RAF in WWII. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross. When he wasn't being totally self-absorbed, he had moments of being interesting. [Some day I should post about his hijacking of my mother's funeral.] He was very anti-war, no doubt informed by the horrors he witnessed in WWII.

I was hoping for the ubiquitous pic of Jack in his Spitfire in the obit, but they used a pic from the set of his TV show instead. This is the obit from the CBC. Here's his Wiki entry.

Anyway, it's weird to be having Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day, and have *remembering him* be something of the past. Today we watched the movie Shallow Grave, which ends on Jack's co-written song, "Happy Heart". It was somehow fitting, as he was terrifically proud of the song, and that they used it in this film.

Any of you dealing with problems of ridiculous amounts of homework that stress your kid out pointlessly and create rifts in the home should read this article, and then click on the handy-dandy amazon.com links I have included so you can do your OWN homework on the issue, and *then* talk to the school about what you have learned. I have been following this kind of research for years, knowing intuitively and full well that the stupendous, overwhelming busywork being sent home with my child (things he has frequently not been adequately taught - because they expect *me* to teach it!) was sheer nonsense. Now, more and more books are being published that explain why. The typical parental gut-reaction that homework is at all meaningful is pretty much an urban myth. Be sure to get all the way to the principal's analysis in the final paragraph. It's illuminating.

Enjoy!!

************

Forget Homework
It's a waste of time for elementary-school students. by Emily Bazelon

Posted Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006, at 7:47 AM ET

Over the last decade, Japanese schools have been scrapping homework while American elementary schools have been assigning more of it. What gives—aren't they supposed to be the model achievers while we're the slackers? No doubt our eagerness to shed the slacker mantle has helped feed the American homework maw. But it may be the Japanese, once again, who know what they're doing.

Such is my conclusion after reading three new books on the subject: The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish; The Homework Myth by Alfie Kohn; and the third edition of The Battle Over Homework by Duke psychology professor Harris Cooper. If you already despise homework, Bennett and Kalish provide advice on how to plead with teachers and schools for mercy. If you're agnostic, as I was, Kohn is the meatier read. Kohn is the author of several rebellious books about education, and he exposes the lack of evidence for many of the standard arguments in favor of homework: that it boosts achievement, that it inculcates good study habits, that it teaches kids to take the initiative, that it's better than video games or whatever else kids do in their free time.

Cooper is one of Kohn's main foils and a leading scholar on the subject, so I picked up his book expecting to find a convincing counterargument defending homework. I didn't. Cooper's research shows that, much of the time, take-home assignments in elementary school are an act of faith. No one really knows whether all those math sheets and spelling drills add up to anything. If there's little or no evidence that younger students benefit from homework, why assign it at all? Or, to adopt Kohn's less extreme position in The Homework Myth, why make homework the rule rather than the rare and thought-through exception?

In The Battle Over Homework, Cooper has crunched the numbers on dozens of studies of homework for students of all ages. Looking across all the studies is supposed to offer a fairly accurate picture even though the science behind some of them is sketchy. For elementary-school students, Cooper found that "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero." In Kohn's book, he highlights a 1998 study that Cooper and his colleagues did with second- through 12th-graders. For younger students, the amount of homework completed had no effect on test scores and bore a negative relationship to grades. (The results weren't quite so grim for older students. Their grades rose in relation to the amount of homework they completed, though their test scores did not.) Kohn looks at these findings and concludes that most homework is at best a waste of time and at worst a source of tedious vexation.

Cooper, despite his findings, continues to back the "10-minute rule"—10 minutes of homework in kindergarten and first grade, with 10 more minutes for each additional grade level. For support, he zeroes in on six studies conducted between 1987 and 2003. These included third- through fifth-graders, and they compared kids who did homework with kids who didn't. (In a rare moment of good science in this field, the kids were assigned randomly to one group or the other in four of the studies.) The homework kids performed better, but only on a "unit test"—a test of the material they'd been sent home to study. Which means that Cooper's best evidence doesn't refute one of Kohn's central claims—that the measurable benefits of homework diminish the longer students are tracked for. Take a snapshot of a math quiz on fractions after kids drill fractions at night and homework looks good. Take a longer view and the shine comes off.

Cooper's support for the 10-minute rule actually makes him a voice of homework moderation in light of evil-homework tales of kindergartners slogging through 130-word lists. But as Kohn writes, "We sometimes forget that not everything that's destructive when done to excess is innocuous when done in moderation." In response, homework advocates emphasize the inviting notion that homework in elementary school fosters good study habits. "Before you can build a house, you need to build the scaffolding," Cooper says. Giving young kids briefer take-home assignments "is like learning to add single-digit numbers before you can add double digits."

This claim seems to make intuitive sense to a lot of people, but there is no research to either support or debunk it—the association between early homework and study habits simply hasn't been studied. And to me, it makes no sense at all. Time management and a general notion of discipline are not refined and specific and cumulative skills like playing tennis or baseball. So, why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school? Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross? "Most twelve-year-olds are better [at time management] than most seven-year-olds regardless of how much homework they've been assigned," Kohn writes. "It's both naive and unhelpful to expect younger children to defer gratification or know how to engage in long-term planning."

Nor does most homework teach kids to take the initiative and make learning their own. Instead, it's about following directions. In The Homework Myth, Kohn muses that the real purpose may be to foster uncritical obedience so that when kids grow up they'll accept the long hours Americans are expected to work. I'm not sure I'm ready to join that conspiracy theory, but I do resent the lemminglike nature of homework and its incursion on my kid's time. Eli is at school for 6.5 hours a day already—that seems like plenty of opportunity to get across what they want to teach him.

Kohn makes one major exception to his skepticism about homework—the encouragement of reading for pleasure. But he counsels that schools should take care lest their prodding turn books from a joy into a chore. Eli and his classmates are supposed to write down the books that they've read or had read to them. I'm willing to try this, but wary. It's only the first month of school, and a friend's daughter has already pretended to have read books that clearly haven't left her shelf. Homework as temptation to fib: not the lesson that schools intend to teach, but probably one that a lot of students learn.

When I shopped around the arguments against homework, I discovered that how you feel about it depends a lot on what you think kids will do if they don't have any. Eli's homework seems like an imposition when I measure it against running around the playground or playing card games or building with blocks or talking to his little brother.

In response to this, Cooper delicately suggested that my idea of a childhood afternoon well-spent is idealized and elitist. Maybe so. But the argument that homework is a net benefit for most kids has a big weakness. When homework boosts achievement, it mostly boosts the achievement of affluent students. They're the ones whose parents are most likely to make them do the assignments, and who have the education to explain and help. "If we sat around and deliberately tried to come up with a way to further enlarge the achievement gap, we might just invent homework," New York educator Deborah Meier told Kohn.

I e-mailed the principal of Eli's public elementary school, Scott Cartland, to ask about homework, and he emphasized the value of encouraging reading and making room for long-term projects. But he also fell back on logic that he admits is not, well, logical. "It has been drilled into our collective psyche that rigorous schools assign rigorous homework," Cartland wrote. "I recognize that this is a ridiculous thought process, particularly since your research suggests otherwise, but it's hard to break the thinking on this one. How could we be a high-achieving school and not assign homework?" How indeed. I hope the education establishment begins to wrestle with this question. If not, maybe it's time to move to Japan.

Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2149593/

My dear friend, Hayley, is a "Case Girl" on Deal or No Deal, and she told me that they are now selling ringtones of her voice!! She gets some kind of recognition for being the most popular girl, and since she is my friend, I want to help out. SO, any of you who want a hot girl telling you to "Answer the phone; you might get lucky" should go grab her ringtone!

Let me point out that they misspelled her name, but that doesn't make her less hot. Hee!

Hayley on the DOND site.

Mostly only because of the idiotic things he says to people on Loveline on KROQ, because I quite enjoyed the Man Show. But I have to really give him credit for this one! He did something genuinely funny and cool for a change!

The Great Society provides a rough transcript:

ADAM CAROLLA: Ann Coulter, who was suppose to be on the show about an hour and a half ago, is now on the phone, as well. Ann?

ANN COULTER: Hello.

CAROLLA: Hi Ann. You’re late, babydoll.

COULTER: Uh, somebody gave me the wrong number.

CAROLLA: Mmm… how did you get the right number? Just dialed randomly — eventually got to our show? (Laughter in background)

COULTER: Um, no. My publicist e-mailed it to me, I guess, after checking with you.

CAROLLA: Ahh, I see.

COULTER: But I am really tight on time right now because I already had a —

CAROLLA: Alright, well, get lost.

 

 

*wild applause from Shannon*

I just read in my Entertainment Weekly that arrived yesterday that Arif Mardin passed away on June 25. This makes me sad. He was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth guys I ever worked with. He was a huge, important man, in the music business, but he was terrifically kind and genuine and never had airs or talked down to the staff at studios where he did his work.

I am sad to hear he's gone, because not only was he gifted, he was a good human being.

Obit from Rolling Stone Magazine. Includes a link to hit songs.

NPR Interview from December 2005!

Wikipedia entry.

Stepson Christian is here from MN, and we are having a lovely time!

We happened to go to Disneyland on opening day of the new, improved Pirates of the Caribbean ride. OMG. The lines were huge, but the Jack Sparrow additions were quite groovy. Kudos to the animatronics programmers who did the first appearance - it really moves like Sparrow!!

Superman was very enjoyable.

Very important: GO SEE An Inconvenient Truth. Seriously. Don't screw around or do whiny politically-biased arguing. Go see it, then do the research yourself. But don't let anyone else's crap dissuade you from at least SEEING it.

Last Wednesday we went to see Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler (he of Dire Straits fame, for those of you not guitar afficionados), and the show was awesome. There is also an album, All the Roadrunning, so you all can share the joy. Also available on iTunes, of course.

And I STILL need this shirt!!! I know my birthday isn't until September, but the midterm election is in NOVEMBER, and the more promotion of TDS and Colbert, the better!!!

So, the fear-mongering of the American insurance lobby aside, I have always known that universal health care is a Good Thing, because I am from Toronto, and I witnessed its great successes with my mother's cancer throughout her lifetime, and my stepfather's heart problems and eventual quad bypass. I worked hard on the campaign to bring universal care to California when there was a bill pending here, and even went to colleges around my city helping to explain the very simple economics of it to the brainwashed college youth. It's a shame the soul-less insurance company advertising mangaged to terrify the voting public with their lies.

 

So, I first read about this back in May, in a groovy blog which I have on my BlogRoll, the one called "Northern Fence". But I decided to wait to post about it until the full article was released, which happened yesterday. It's a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

 

Summary:
Objectives. We compared health status, access to care, and utilization of medical services in the United States and Canada, and compared disparities according to race, income, and immigrant status.
 
Methods. We analyzed population-based data on 3505 Canadian and 5183 US adults from the Joint Canada/US Survey of Health. Controlling for gender, age, income, race, and immigrant status, we used logistic regression to analyze country as a predictor of access to care, quality of care, and satisfaction with care, and as a predictor of disparities in these measures.
 
Results. In multivariate analyses, US respondents (compared with Canadians) were less likely to have a regular doctor, more likely to have unmet health needs, and more likely to forgo needed medicines. Disparities on the basis of race, income, and immigrant status were present in both countries, but were more extreme in the United States.
 
Conclusions. United States residents are less able to access care than are Canadians. Universal coverage appears to reduce most disparities in access to care. (Am J Public Health. 2006;96:XXX–XXX. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.059402)

Read the .pdf here, or read the abstract only here.

 

Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites

From New Scientist Tech.

A taste:
New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

But probably will have one made in dark green or maybe black/silver. I think it's PERFECT.

I adore it, but the woman who makes it is UK-based, so I'll need to get a dressmaker here to make one like it for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, this is a GWP (Gratuitious Wedding Post).

This venom-spewing, leggy hatemonger named Ann Coulter is so disturbing to me I cannot even describe it. And that is even with my great efforts to never have to read or see her, ever, except occasionally while being well-deservedly mocked on TDS or Colbert. But this charming post detailing her apparent plagarism is such fun to read, I thought I'd post a link to it.

Because Some Things Are More Profane Than Profanity - Ann Coulter's Possible Plagiarism

(And thank me, because I linked to the G-rated version. )

Stupid enough to have a Stephen Colbert interview on his website to raise defense money and support.

It's covered nicely here, on the Think Progress site. Prepare to be highly amused...

Snippet:
DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?” Apparently the people at DeLay’s legal fund think that Colbert is actually a conservative. Or maybe they’re just that desperate for supporters.

BTW, it is a very funny, "hard-hitting" interview... So not a bad choice.

Colbert's WH Correspondents Dinner Roast Ranks No. 1 On iTunes...

The after-dinner speech that refuses to go away has scored another distinction: top of the charts.

An audio version of the roast of President Bush by Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central rose to the rank of No. 1 album at Apple's iTunes store on Saturday, three weeks to the night of the White House Correspondents Dinner. Also in the Top 10 were new releases by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Paul Simon.

I could never have predicted seeing those four names together in the top ten, and it is so sweet. Hee!

AS the one I posted several weeks ago is no longer any good. Lazy Sunday on the NBC website. All legal and such.

But I only discovered the UK response to "Lazy Sunday" this morning. Grab a cuppa (PG Tips for me!) and prepare to laugh.

Wow. I finally got to sit down and watch the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner, and was I ever stunned by Colbert's courage. Not only am I fairly certain more than half the audience was completely incapable of comprehending his satire, but I am pretty sure the other half was just aghast that he had the balls to be so sharp and so funny.

At first, it seemed the press ignored his speech, and then, when forced to ack it, they (mostly) insisted he wasn't funny. Except that he WAS. He is so bright and so deadpan and so excellent at staying in character that it was just a fantastic performance. Underrated because easily 2/3 of it was over the heads of the audience. And also perhaps because he roasted the press about as much as he roasted BushCo.

Some snippets:

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

And now, on to roasting the press...
But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

 

Anyway, it's well worth watching.

 

And I just want to say THANK YOU!. And that link is where YOU can go say "thank you" too. Or just read the other thousands of "thank you" messages left by others.

 

[Transcript source: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811]

Everyone needs to see this video.
 
Everyone.

Cool assortment of consoles converted to portables. Sent to me by my stepson Christian. Have a look! I'd love to have that N64!!

Note: SNL got greedy and not only is LS not free on iTunes anymore, but they made Google Video and YouTube remove their copies. I found this link below, but I have no idea how long it will be viable.

"Lazy Sunday" [Original]

"Lazy Monday" [West Coast Response - hysterical]

"Lazy Muncie" [Midwest Response - also very funny!]

I've encountered several requests recently on various support groups to which I belong asking for suggestions for books. This list should be useful for anyone who has a child they are trying to explain Asperger Syndrome to, or even for parents or other relatives to whom parents are trying to explain the complexities of AS.

As a parent of a teen with AS and an adult with AS myself, I know firsthand how impossible it can be to help people GET IT. It's soooo difficult, when we look about the same as any neurotypicals, for people to grasp that we are, in fact, fundamentally WIRED DIFFERENTLY in some very critical respects. Certainly not in every respect, which might make it even worse, in terms of getting people to understand and accommodate the differences. We outwardly LOOK like everyone else, so the differently-wired bits seem, instead of just different, as hostile, or stupid, or stubborn, or paranoid, or ignorant, or deliberatly obtuse, etc. Fill in the negative adjective of choice here. But it's not so.

So, here's my starter book list for educating NTs, or helping AS kids better understand themselves, which in turn will help them better self-advocate as they grow older. Note this list doesn't have any of the typical "for the parents" titles, which tend to be by NTs and for NTs, it's really more for our kids and sometimes also good for educating relatives too. So, kind of a different list. for Enjoy!

I recommend (in order from youngest to teenager-appropriate):

This Is Asperger Syndrome (Paperback)
For younger ones, maybe 7 or 8 and younger. Although I also bought this for my own mother back when my son was originally diagnosed, and she, in turn, bought several copies for the more-resistant relatives who needed a bit of education. You know, the "He's just being BAD on purpose to get attention"-types.

Albert Einstein (Famous People Series) (Paperback)
I like this one because, in truth, all the claims of dead people being diagnosed posthumously are just speculation, BUT this book merely describes some of his characteristics, and leaves it to the reader to notice and possibly identify with them. Or not!

Asperger's Huh? A Child's Perspective (Paperback)
This one is very blunt, but I found it really helped my son to read it around age 10. Also, letting some family members and buddies read it was useful, as well. It's all about educating people who don't want to understand neurobiologically-based behaviours.

Blue Bottle Mystery : An Asperger's Adventure (Paperback)
This one made me cry, because the boy in the story is SO mistreated by his teacher. However, it does have a nice ending, and my son really liked it when he was about 9 or 10.

Of Mice and Aliens: An Asperger Adventure (Paperback)
Same author. Good book.

Asperger's Syndrome, The Universe and Everything: Kenneth's Book (Paperback)
Written by an at-the-time-10-year-old AS boy. Quite educational and interesting.

Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence
I cannot recommend this unfortunately-named book highly enough. This is another book written by boy with AS, and he is funny and insightful (as least when it comes to AS! LOL!) Absolutely a must-read for teens with AS AND their families.

Asperger's: What Does It Mean to Me? (Spiral-bound)
This is actually OK for a broad age range. Back when my son was 12, he didn't want to do it because the beginning is rather simplistic, but other friends who have completed it told me that it gets much more sophisticated as you go through it, so I am going to encourage him to try again this summer. It's too hard to get him to work in a workbook when he is dealing with so much homework in grade 7! He needs time to STIM, too!

This is a tool that parses Bush's State of the Union addresses. You can search on whatever words you like. It's so useful. And instructive.

For example, last night he talked about terror 19 times, and said "environment" once.

Check it out.

I guess that's better than 2004, when he didn't mention the environment EVEN once.

Here in L.A., there is a wonderful radio show on KROQ in the mornings: the Kevin and Bean show. Bean now has a blog, and he's a very funny, very intelligent guy. He is also a guy who is very likely an Aspie, although as far as I know he's not planning on getting a formal diagnosis.

Anyway, that is likely the least interesting thing he has to offer, and is probably mostly a fact highly interesting to me, but perhaps not to others. Either way, his blog is very funny, as is he. Recently he's been covering the bizarre rain situation they have been experiencing in Seattle, where he lives on a little island and does his local L.A. radio show via technological magic.

Here are a couple of Xmas/NY pics. I have more, but I need to watch the football games from today on the Tivo before anyone blows the score for me, so I'll post more later.

This is Catherine, Jon's daughter, with our cat, Spooky:

 

This is Raiden, throwing a snowball at me outside my grandparent's house in Halifax. I am pretty proud of this picture:

 

And this is me, with my wineglass, on New Year's Eve:

The Giant Microbes were a great hit, particularly the Flesh-eating Strep and the adorable Mad Cow prion. Also appreciated were the Firefly and Serenity DVDs (WONDERFUL series and great film), and the Doom: the Boardgame.

My son Raiden and I went to Halifax on December 18, in order to visit my 88-year-old grandparents and see snow. My dad flew up from Nashville and my sister joined us (after stopping in NY to sing at Carnegie Hall with the McGarrigles!). Raiden and I flew home Christmas morning via Detriot-then-Minneapolis, where we met Jon and his kids and then all flew home to L.A. together, family-style. It was wonderful fun! At some point I'll have pictures, but since I broke my little ELPH on the trip, I have to have the analogue insta-cameras developed and put on a CD before I can share them... *sniff*

Just took the tree decorations down yesterday, and Jon just took the tree out to the front lawn today, so the house is officially back to normal, save a few stray candy canes (which I always seem to have hanging around all year, along with my Jack Skellington lights!).

Today I added another blog to my blogroll. It's "Tuna Toast", and it's a foodie-type blog belonging to a woman Jon recently met at our favourite sushi bar, Sushi Z. It is in Alhambra, of all the unlikely places, and the chef, Ito-san, is spectacular. Jon met this woman and her husband one night while Raiden and I were in Halifax, and they really hit it off. I find her foodie blog interesting, and hope to encounter them sometime when we are at Z, so I can get to know them, too.

Happy New Year to all! Cheers!

And I have added it to my blogroll. It's called "Northern Fence", and it's a Canadian look at American politics. I am intrigued, and I like their "mission statement":

 

Hello, Welcome to Northern Side of the Fence. The purpose of this site is to give a Canadian perspective on American politics and the state of American News.
 
Some of you may be wondering, ‘Why should I listen to Canadians about American Politics and News Media?’ The world’s #1 negotiator and American Herb Cohen explains why thusly:

Over 160 years ago, a French sociologist by the name of Alexis De Tocqueville came to the United States. He traveled around, met with Americans, and then proceeded to write books telling us about ourselves. Now this is kind of interesting. How come he told us about ourselves? Why didn’t we figure it out? Because it’s hard for me to know me. It’s hard for us to know ourselves and it takes an outsider to explain us to us.

What I'm trying to get across is that with the current hostility between the American Left and American Right, it might be helpful to find out what a third party thinks. Hopefully, Northern Fence will try to fill that gap.
 
This site is intended to be non-partisan. We also won't be reinforcing a particular point of view like so many weblogs currently do.

So now you can actually SEE the brilliant Rob Corddry report called "Double Vision". Heh.

 

Here it is again: http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=24640

Do not miss this special report by Rob Corddry.
 
Daily Show: Corddry - Double Vision
In which Rob Corddry would *love* to report on Scooter Libby, but there's a giant ball of tin foil to look at. From Monday, October 31, 2005.

My sister happened across this fascinating picture. The best part, IMHO, is that Ron doesn't look like a snivelling little coward, which is how he has been directed ever since the first film. Not that I feel Ron *is* that, but the filmmakers have apparently felt he needed to provide a humourous counterpoint by bumbling about and screaming like Dakota Fanning all the time, and I loathe it.

 

This is a nice, tough Ron.

 

 

There is a very interesting MuzikMafia artist named Cowboy Troy who caught my ear a few months ago. The style he has, it seems, created all on his own, is called "Hick-Hop". Sound unique? Well, it is, and I really like his album. You can hear most if not all the tracks on his website.
 
This week, the two eldest of our kids have both informed me that Cowboy Troy himself will be on the Food Network tomorrow. I suppose I'll have to Tivo Food Secrets of Country Music Stars, to see if Cowboy Troy cooks as well as he makes music.

So, this explains why I have such an impossibly difficult time lying... too much gray matter. It's a nice, friendly way to think about such a crippling (in this society) deficit.
 
"Yeah, can't really lie comfortably. I can try, you know, but it never really goes well. What can I say, just a little too much of the old gray matter.... you know how it goes..."
 
Heh. [Emphasis below is mine, all mine!]
 
Liars' Brains Wired Differently
09/29/05
A USC study of pathological liars shows first evidence of structural differences in the area of the brain that enables most people to feel remorse.
By Usha Sutliff

A USC study has found the first proof of structural brain abnormalities in people who habitually lie, cheat and manipulate others.
 
While previous research has shown that there is heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain that enables most people to feel remorse or learn moral behavior – when normal people lie, this is the first study to provide evidence of structural differences in that area among pathological liars.
 
The research – led by Yaling Yang and Adrian Raine, both of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences – is published in the October issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
 
The subjects were taken from a sample of 108 volunteers pulled from Los Angeles' temporary employment pool. A series of psychological tests and interviews placed 12 in the category of people who had a history of repeated lying (11 men, one woman); 16 who exhibited signs of antisocial personality disorder but not pathological lying (15 men, one woman); and 21 who were normal controls (15 men, six women).
 
"We looked for things like inconsistencies in their stories about occupation, education, crimes and family background," said Raine, a psychology professor at USC and co-author of the study.
 
"Pathological liars can't always tell truth from falsehood and contradict themselves in an interview. They are manipulative and they admit they prey on people. They are very brazen in terms of their manner, but very cool when talking about this."
 
Aside from having histories of conning others or using aliases, the habitual liars also admitted to malingering, or telling falsehoods to obtain sickness benefits, Raine said.
 
After they were categorized, the researchers used Magnetic Resonance Imaging to explore structural brain differences between the groups. The liars had significantly more "white matter" and slightly less "gray matter" than those they were measured against, Raine said.
 
Specifically, liars had a 25.7 percent increase in prefrontal white matter compared to the antisocial controls and a 22 percent increase compared to the normal controls. Liars had a 14.2 percent decrease in prefrontal gray matter compared to normal controls.
 
More white matter – the wiring in the brain – may provide liars with the tools necessary to master the complex art of deceit, Raine said.
 
"Lying takes a lot of effort," he said.
 
"It's almost mind reading. You have to be able to understand the mindset of the other person. You also have to suppress your emotions or regulate them because you don't want to appear nervous. There's quite a lot to do there. You've got to suppress the truth.
 
"Our argument is that the more networking there is in the prefrontal cortex, the more the person has an upper hand in lying. Their verbal skills are higher. They've almost got a natural advantage."
 
But in normal people, it's the gray matter – or the brain cells connected by the white matter – that helps keep the impulse to lie in check.
 
Pathological liars have a surplus of white matter, the study found, and a deficit of gray matter. That means they have more tools to lie coupled with fewer moral restraints than normal people, Raine said.
 
"They've got the equipment to lie, and they don't have the disinhibition that the rest of us have in telling the big whoppers," he said.
 
"When people make moral decisions, they are relying on the prefrontal cortex. When people ask normal people to make moral decisions, we see activation in the front of the brain," he explained. "If these liars have a 14 percent reduction in gray matter, that means that they are less likely to care about moral issues or are less likely to be able to process moral issues. Having more gray matter would keep a check on these activities."
 
The researchers stopped short of asserting that these structural differences account for all lying.
 
"This is one of the components," Raine said.
 
"The findings need to be replicated and extended to other parts of the brain. What are the other neurobiological processes?
 
"We haven't had studies like this. It's exciting to us because it's a beginning study, but we need a lot more to flesh out this discovery."
 
Yang, the study's lead author, said the findings eventually could be used in making clinical diagnoses and may have applications in the criminal justice system and the business world.
 
"If [the findings] can be replicated and extended, they may have long-term implications in a number of areas," said Yang, a doctoral student in the USC department of psychology's brain and cognitive science program.
 
"For example, in the legal system they could potentially be used to help police work out which suspects are lying. In terms of clinical practice, they could help clinicians diagnose who is malingering – making up disability for financial gain.
 
"And also in business, they could assist in pre-employment screening, working out which individuals may not be suitable for hiring.
 
"But, right now, I have to emphasize that there are no direct practical applications," she said.
 
In their journal article, the authors mention that separate studies of autistic children – who typically have trouble lying – have showed the converse pattern of gray matter/white matter ratios.
 
"The facts that autistic children have difficulty lying and also show reduced prefrontal white matter constitutes the opposite but complementary pattern of the results compared to adults with increased prefrontal white matter who find it easy to lie," the researchers wrote.
 
"Although autism is a complex condition and cannot be taken as a model for lying, these results … converge with current findings on adult liars in suggesting that the prefrontal cortex is centrally involved in the capacity to lie."
 
The other researchers were Susan Bihrle and Lori LaCasse, also of the USC College's psychology department, Patrick Colletti of the Keck School of Medicine of USC's department of radiology and Todd Lencz of Hillside Hospital's department of research.

Now, these look like they'd be so much fun to collect!! Just in time for Christmas!!!

Giant Plushie Microbes.

I love all the cute logos they have for each subset of plushies. I think I like the Calamities best, although E. coli is pretty darn cute.

 

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes—only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).
Each 5-to-7 inch doll is accompanied by an image of the real microbe it represents, as well as information about the microbe.
They make great learning tools for parents and educators, as well as amusing gifts for anyone with a sense of humor!

Today I came home from a little birthday trip I took to Santa Barbara. Jon and I drove up and stayed at Fess Parker's Doubletree. This is what we did last year, as well. But this year, we also had the pleasure of taking in a lovely concert: Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller. It was fantastic! My sister drove up as well, so we got to have a lovely sushi dinner with her last night.

Anyway, now that I am home, I have a chance to upload my favourite PDC pictures. Jon may upload some others of larger groups, but these are my faves.

 

Developer sandwich! Yay! That's Kevin, me, and Rich.

 

Just me and Rich...

 

And Kevin and Rich, so no one felt left out! Well, except perhaps Jon, who was relegated to photographer duties...

 

And here are Jon and Kevin, enjoying the lovely Farmer's Market, an L.A. landmark since 1912!!

This is the first time I have stumped iGod.

 

Me:
what does "chatterbot" mean?
God:
A chat robot is a program that attempts to simulate the conversation or "chat" of a human being. The Chat robot "Eliza" was a well-known early attempt at creating programs that could at least temporarily fool a real human being into thinking they were talking to another person. it is a kind of artificial intelligence.
Me:
you are artificial?
God:
Yes I am an artificial being.
Me:
interesting.
God:
Would you like to know more?
Me:
yes, please.
God:
Your polite style is very nice. What would you like to know?
Me:
how can you be God and be artificial?

...

...

...

...

***********

I am still waiting for iGod's reply...
I'll leave the window open for a couple of hours.

I am allowed to post pictures. Yay! So, I'll just post some varied ones as I sort out this UI.

 

This one is Jon, with me, as I enjoy my first real Guinness, in Galway, 2004.

 

 

This one is me standing by the sign for Six Mile Bridge (in Ireland), whence my family line originates. We encountered this sign by happenstance, while driving around a bit lost. It was cool!

 

 

This one is Jon's youngest son, Parker, Jon, and my son Raiden, all ready for our friend's Bar Mitzvah in June. It was fun! (No one in our family ever dresses this way unless we HAVE to, so it's worth documenting!)

 

I guess I will finish off with a picture from my sister's wedding, last Halloween. It was a Restoration-period, pirate-themed wedding, and it was great fun. Jon is wearing the tartan of my mother's family. There were 120 guests, and only TWO did not come in costume. It was a smashing success. I'll post more pics from the wedding another time. They are good fun!

So, having been given blog space, but then cautioned that I have to "behave" because this is, you know, a professional blog, I've been trying to figure out what exactly I am going to post about. It's not really so much that I am compelled to be outrageous or naughty, but that having those aspects restricted has kind of muffled my creativity, because I never know when those bits might happen to be triggered by something going on. I hope that makes sense. And I hope I can find things to say.

 

Right now I am reading Everything Bad is Good for You. I am enjoying it very much. Specifically because, although I have long believed videogames (and live RPGs, for that matter) to be extremely beneficial for the brain, I have never considered many other aspects of popular culture to be particularly redeeming, and this book just might be changing my perceptions on the issue.

 

In other news, I can enjoy a little rant about the Gap Online Store being CLOSED for about 2 weeks now. In what universe does the IS/IT group not build a new site, ramp it up on a parallel system, hammer on it for a few weeks, and then roll it out? How on earth is CLOSING the online store (during the first 2 weeks of school, when everyone needs to buy school clothes!) the best call? Baffles me. Also, it would be the reason why my son's new fall jacket came from Land's End, instead of Gap. :-P