You’re just feeding the wolf on this.  Savage lives and breaths stupid controversy.  He’s an attention whore, just like Limbaugh was back in the 80s.  He’ll keep saying stupid shit on the assumption that it’ll get him a bigger audience.  Because let’s get real.  No one who listens to Savage rant on and on about beating up gays and foreigners and people who drink expensive coffee gives a fuck about autism.  Hell, his listeners are probably the same goons who go home every day and beat their pregnant wives until they’ve cause autism.

:-p

I have to agree that I don’t see the point of listening to anything Savage says.  He’s like a three-year-old who shits on the floor to get attention.  I doubt that he believes half the stuff he says—he just says it so he can feed his ego with media coverage and outraged letters.

If he wants attention that badly, why doesn’t he do something useful? Like setting himself on fire?

Then he can tell himself, “Stop acting like a putz and grow that skin back.”

“No one who listens to Savage rant on and on about beating up gays and foreigners and people who drink expensive coffee gives a fuck about autism.”

I don’t really think this is true. These days just about everybody knows a family with an autistic child, sees how difficult the struggle is, and, in many cases, have a “there but for the grace of God” reaction to it. There’s a lo0t of sympathy for these families.

(Of course, everybody knows somebody with a gay kid, too, but the reactions there are skewed by religion, right-wing politics, and sometimes the reaction of the parents.)

Although I don’t like to hear Savage - or anyone with that big a megaphone - attack any group, it’s interesting to see him go after people who are not a despised minority - in this case, “innocent disabled children.” Maybe he’s finally stumbled in his choice of target.

If he really believes what he’s saying, then he’s even a bigger idiot than I thought.

I have to agree that I don’t see the point of listening to anything Savage says.

There is a genre of blog posts that is basically, “omg, Omg, OMG! Look at this OUTRAGEOUS thing a right-winger said somewhere!!11!” People seem to like those posts, and they attract hits. Just a week or two ago there was an active thread about something Gary Bauer said about Obama, as though it were some big news that a Republican social-conservative activist said something anti-Obama.

Insofar as Savage shouldn’t be ignored, it is probably helpful to go after the advertisers and also ensure that local listeners in your community pay some social penalty for their behavior.

Savage is a typical right-wing authoritarian “leader”: demanding rigid conformity to societal and supposed cognitive and behavioural norms from others, all the while he believing himself completely exempt from those standards (and demonstrating that belief by acting like a rabid animal day in and day out to draw attention to himself).

Can you imagine the kind of psycho who takes him seriously?

You only hurt a Savage by pulling his advertisers out from under them.

By the way, Rockstar energy drink is owned by Michael Savage and his family.
Don’t buy it or drink it..

I really think Savage is all an act and doesn’t take himself seriously. Hes out to get money. Doesn’t excuse what he does, just sayin’. Hes basically a troll made flesh.

I really think Savage is all an act and doesn’t take himself seriously.

Much like a married man who has a few mistresses “really” loves his wife, deep down. It’s a distinction without a difference—the results and consequences are the same, regardless of what he “really” believes.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but he doesn’t really seem to have even a vague grasp of what the symptoms of autism are.

Here’s a hint Mr. Savage: a little kid crying when they’re upset? That’s a generally human thing, not a specifically autistic thing.

I’m willing to bet the reaction to this particular piece of sociopathy (One of many in his case) is because Savage just fired a broadside across his own listener base. Even racist homophobic families can have autistic children.

What a disgusting and appalling human being. I’m ashamed to share a last name with that asshole. I’ve worked with autistic kids, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Scary, but rewarding to teach them martial arts.

To have shitheads like him out there saying these kids are lazy or stupid is just gross. Why point it out? With any luck, enough momentum can be gathered to kick him out, at least for a while.

Didn’t we just have a bunch of pearl-clutching articles about how mean liberals are? Ha.

Tyro-

I think the fact he doesn’t really believe it and is doing it for money makes him a BIGGER scumbag, actually. Just to set the record straight.

Thanks for spreading this story, Pam.

Of course, everybody knows somebody with a gay kid, too, but the reactions there are skewed by religion, right-wing politics, and sometimes the reaction of the parents.

Well that’s because it’s pretty easy for (many) gay people to remain closeted, whereas the days of having a secret relative locked in the attic are pretty much through.

It’s funny actually—at the beginning of your post you mention that most families know at least one other family with an autistic child.  I immediately thought, “wow, really…  autism rates must really have climbed since I was a kid, because I don’t remember ever knowing an autistic person growing up…” 

Except that I did, in fact I knew at least two autistic kids around my own age within just a few blocks of my house.  People just tended not to use that particular word, favoring expressions like “disabled”, “slow”, “a lot of learning disabilities”, and “mentally retarded” from some less enlightened folks.  And, yeah, I realize that those words don’t necessarily imply only autism spectrum problems, but in hindsight I realize that’s exactly what it was.

From the Autism Action Network:

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:31 am   Post subject: 
And this is the guy who coined the phrase “Compassionate Conservative”. Sorry GOP folks, but always knew that was an oxymoron…

Hit his sponsers as well, hit this neo-fascist where it hurts him most…in his wallet:

Send a message to Savage’s broadcasters, syndicators and commercial sponsors:

(Use our messaging system to contact them but also fax and call them directly – where a web address email is indicated go to their web site):

Buckley Broadcasting/WOR Radio
General Phone Number: 212 642 4500
111 Broadway 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10006

Home Depot
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
(770) 384-4646

Sears
Sears Public Relations And Communications
(847) 286-8371
contact through their website:
http://www.searsmedia.com/tools/inquires/feedback.htm

Radioshack
Media Relations_
Riverfront Campus _Mail Stop #CF7-130_300 RadioShack Circle _Fort Worth, TX 76102-1964_
Phone: (817) 415-3300_
Fax: (817) 415-2585_
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

AFLAC
1-800-99-AFLAC (1-800-992-3522)
Laura Kane, 2nd Vice President External Relations Aflac Incorporated_1-706-596-3493
Mechell Clark_
Media Relations Manager_
1-706-243-8004
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Budweiser
Anheuser-Busch, Inc.
One Busch Place
St. Louis, MO 63118
Email through their site:
http://contactus.anheuser-busch.com/contactus/email.asp
1 800 DIAL BUD
(1 800 342 5283)

Michael Savage
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Talk Radio Network
Talk Radio Network
Talk Radio Network
P.O. Box 3755
Central Point, Oregon 97502
Phone: 541-664-8827
Fax: 541-664-6250

The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation
The Paul Revere Society
150 Shoreline Hwy, Bldg E
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Fax: 415-339-9383

————————————————————————————————————————
Here is a sample message you can use:

Dear Michael Savage Sponsor or Supporter:
We have learned that your company sponsors or supports Michael Savage’s radio program.
On a recent program, he attacked children with autism, claiming that autism was a fraud and a scam. He went on to say:
“I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.”

Savage also used offensive terms to describe autistic children, such as “idiots”, “morons” and more.

We parents and family members of an individual with autism will not tolerate Savage’s offensive and unacceptable conduct. We respectfully request that your company withdraws their advertising dollars from his programs and, if you broadcast or syndicate his radio show, that you dismiss him immediately.

Autism affects 1 in 150 children in the USA. Each of those children has a circle of family, friends and supporters who share the concerns of the child. We would say that there are likely 10 people for every child with autism who shares that child’s concerns.
When you consider this request, please consider that as many as 1 in 15 Americans will be watching your decision and how you react will have a powerful impact on their opinion of your company.

We hope and trust that you will do the right thing.

Respectfully,

————————————————————————————————————————

The Autism Action Network

Jl, thank you.

At the end of Pam’s article up above is a link to my diary she promoted last night on PHB. In the comments, there are links to a petition to fire Savage and more info on contacting more sponsors…

There was an asthma epidemic among minority children because they were more likely to live in dilapidated tenements – “sick buildings” – than were their more affluent counterparts.

I’ve met a couple of adults with autism when I worked as an employment counselor. One guy worked full time, and I was merely doing follow-up with him. By the time we closed his file, he had been promoted to shift supervisor. He worked like a dog, but had had trouble finding a job on his own because he was so socially inept. His mother claimed, and I agree, that he was incapable of telling a lie, even when such a move would profit him.

He never missed a shift. He never showed up late. He never so much as raised his voice above a monotone.

He was intelligent, with an excellent memory, but he could barely write his own name.

There was something substantially different about the man, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with his parents, who were wealthy; or with his status. 

He, like Dr. Temple Grandin, had autism – a real disability that causes real problems for those affected by it.

I also worked with another autistic guy who could talk, but rarely did; who would gouge at his own face with whatever sharp object was handy; who was impossible to subdue without medication; and who was utterly unemployable – but I would be glad to submit his resume to Michael Savage. Let’s see if “Man-Up” Michael can handle THAT.

We all know, however, that Savage is nothing but a load of hot air infused with the smell of bullshit, and that his sole purpose in life is to drum up controversy. He doesn’t have the stomach for real work, which is why he is content with sitting behind a microphone all day pontificating on “the realities” of a world he rarely ever visits.

I have to say I agree with Michael Savage on this one, as hard as that is to say. There has beena rapid increase ibn autism diagnoses in the past few years. What’s the explaination? Is there some factor at work which has rendered children autistic? I hardly think so he anti-vacs say preservatives in caccines cause autism, but the preservatives they believe cause autism are less common than they once were and could thus not account for rising dagnosesof autism.

What I think we’re seeing here is a shift in diagnostic crteria. If you lover the bar on what counts as autism and reward teachers for refering students for evaluation, many more children will be diagnosed as autistic. The curret autism plague is as much hype as the ADD plague of the late 80s-90s.

I was briefly shunted into special education in the 70’s, an era when treating all problems as psychiatric disorder of the child in question was out of fashion. Even so, I got sent to the special ed gulag because of my extreme social depravition and open atheism. My homeroom teacher watched as two classmates held me down while a third beat me with a metal twirling baton. She thought I had it coming to me as a godless heathen. I hid most of the details of this attack from my parent as I did not want to become even more socially isolated, and that’s why I still have a crooked jaw.

After this I was subjected to every kind of test you can imagine, and they found a way to get me into classes with the droolers, the wheelchair-bound, and the incoherent. I got out of this within two weeks becuae the principal decided I must not be retarded becuause I could communicate in complete sentences with prepositional phrases, conjunctions, and correct grammar. I beat the rap and was in advanced classes by the next year

Butchildren will do to others what their parents will only dream. The fundies have almost taken ove around here and don’t oyu believe for a second that diagnoses of ADD or autism won’t be affected by lack of compliance with fundie values. Fundies will use the heavy hand of the school systems to destroy atheist and secular families.

The fundies are an enemy without morals or mercy. They have expressesed sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists and openly desire that we remake America more in accord with their verson of an Islamic State

I have to say I agree with Michael Savage on this one, as hard as that is to say. There has beena rapid increase ibn autism diagnoses in the past few years. What’s the explaination? Is there some factor at work which has rendered children autistic?

For one thing, Bacopa, there are more children around now than there were n the 70s. An increase in people means an increase in disabled people means an increase in autistic people.

For another thing, there are more precise guidelines for diagnosing kids with autism. Those kids would have been considered disabled in the 70s, just as today, but they would have been called by some other label – slow learner, perhaps, or mentally retarded.

What I think we’re seeing here is a shift in diagnostic crteria. If you lover the bar on what counts as autism and reward teachers for refering students for evaluation, many more children will be diagnosed as autistic. The curret autism plague is as much hype as the ADD plague of the late 80s-90s.

I quite agree that Aspergers (“mild autism”) is perhaps over-diagnosed, and that ADD certainly is, but I have a hard time seeing what “reward” the teachers get for referring troubled kids to diagnostic resources. If anything, over-diagnosis is the result of a strained educational system as opposed to a system handing out goodies and money to the teachers who send the most students for evaluation.

And as for autism being over-diagnosed, I somehow doubt it. Full on autism is pretty hard to miss.

After this I was subjected to every kind of test you can imagine, and they found a way to get me into classes with the droolers, the wheelchair-bound, and the incoherent.

But you escaped your genetically inferior counterparts in special ed to become the compassionate human being you are today. Heart-warming.

The fundies have almost taken ove around here and don’t oyu believe for a second that diagnoses of ADD or autism won’t be affected by lack of compliance with fundie values….The fundies are an enemy without morals or mercy.

Oh, for crying out loud. No, the fundies are not a merciless horde of man-beasts. They’re people, just like you, and some of them even have autistic kids.

“I’m willing to bet the reaction to this particular piece of sociopathy (One of many in his case) is because Savage just fired a broadside across his own listener base. Even racist homophobic families can have autistic children.”

I’m with Left_Wing_Fox on this one.  Let’s hang Savage like an anchor around the GOPs neck.  Ask GOPer congresscritters if they agree with what he says, especially those with lots of white upper class women in their districts.  These women are the ones in the forefront of the autism movement - I’m sure they’d love to hear that the GOP believes they can cure their child’s autism with a firm lecture!

Has Savage endorsed McCain?  If so, McCain should be asked if he will refute Savage’s statement - push this shit back on them.

Let me rant once again that it drives me absolutely NUTS when my dad refers to my extremely social and outgoing cousin as “autistic.”  For many people, “autistic” has become a more polite way to say “retarded,” which does a major disservice to people who actually are autistic, unlike my cousin, who is developmentally disabled by a brain injury at birth, not autistic.

I quite agree that Aspergers (“mild autism”) is perhaps over-diagnosed, and that ADD certainly is, but I have a hard time seeing what “reward” the teachers get for referring troubled kids to diagnostic resources. If anything,

Tell you what, present evidence to support this assertion or feel free to hang with Weinerhead.  The evaluation process for Asperger’s is not exact, but every psychiatrist we’ve been to keeps coming back with the same diagnosis using the same very well defined traits.  Notice I said psychiatrists.  Not teachers or social workers.  Psychiatrists.  The only case of over diagnosis for the condition is people who self diagnose using stupid internet questionnaires that ask whether you are awkward in social situations or don’t laugh at jokes.

Tell you what, present evidence to support this assertion or feel free to hang with Weinerhead.

Get a thicker skin, and read for comprehension.

I used to work with child development researchers, so I’m here to tell ya: The Devil’s Advocate is right. They’ve gotten much better at diagnosis, and kids who might have been diagnosed as disabled years ago are now diagnosed as autistic.

One researcher I worked with was looking at old home videos of kids with an autism diagnosis when they were tiny infants, and was starting to look at gross motor behaviors they exhibited at a few months of age.

I dealt with psychologist and neurologists, and they were hammering away, but it’s such a mystery.

And so heartbreaking to the parents. Here you have this little person you love more than life itself, and if you hug him, he’ll freak out.

How the hell do you cope with that?

Tell you what, present evidence to support this assertion or feel free to hang with Weinerhead.

Now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I’ll expand on my advice that you get a thicker skin and read for comprehension, Todd:

I never once said, or even implied, that kids diagnosed with Aspergers actually have nothing wrong with then, I said it is perhaps over-diagnosed. I should have clarified, stating that some kids diagnosed with Aspergers may in fact have some other developmental disability with overlapping symptoms, but I didn’t see such a clarification as necessary given the over-all tone of my post.

You’re just looking for something to be outraged over. I’m not interested in playing along.

http://www.autismconnect.org/news.asp?section=00010001&itemtype=news&id=5899

http://www.helpforkidspeech.org/articles/detail.cfm?ID=294

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2005-07-05/healthfeat.php

Reading these threads make me curious.

Why, when people discuss autism, does it always seem to be framed from or for the perspective of parents, even hypothetical ones, and framed in relation to kids?

Michael Savage attacks autistic children, progressives defend autistic children, people talk about parents (of autistic children). It’s always about god-damned parents and children. (If it isn’t crank science, and then sometimes it still is.)

Perhaps it’s the cynicism one develops when one lives in a world not of one’s making and not for one’s partaking speaking, but I think it might be because autistic adults are just too inconvenient. I mean, everyone’s working so hard to dehumanize autism (it’s a mystery to be solved, a puzzle, a curse, plague, etc… etc… separating the condition from the people who live it, and then still slapping those people with a “them” label) so you can have some sort of objectified thing to attack and objectified people to talk about and it’s just that those darned autistics adults might want to talk with you and muddy up your ideas about autism.

Michael Savage is certainly full of shit, but it is indeed true that autism is grossly over diagnosed. I know this because it happened to me (actually had severe social anxiety disorder.) Totally made my life a living hell with people thinking I was some stupid retard who needed to be in “special needs” programs instead of letting me do what I was capable of doing.

Sorry, but I just don’t buy that 1 in 150 children are autistic (and don’t get me started with that vaccine bullshit!)

Here’s more examples of misdiagnoses:

http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/2006/03/misdiagnosed-few-posts-ago-we-talked.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZp9O7AY98s

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/340808/the_autism_and_add_epidemics_just_a.html

Perhaps it’s the cynicism one develops when one lives in a world not of one’s making and not for one’s partaking speaking, but I think it might be because autistic adults are just too inconvenient.

I’ll see your cynicism and raise it with my own:  I think it’s because most of the vocal spokespeople for autism are upper-middle-class parents with a lot of money who have a vested interest in seeing their children as victims of forces outside themselves.  They can’t admit that their “perfect” child might not be neurotypical, so they spend their lives trying to prove that their child’s autism came out of nowhere.

My defense of the fact that it always ends up being about “the children” is that we’re only just getting to the point where kids who were properly diagnosed at a reasonably young age are becoming adults.  There are a few prominent autistic people—someone already mentioned Temple Grandin, but I’d also say Donna Williams is pretty well-known since she has two bestselling books—but not enough to overcome the parents.

I see your point Mnemosyne, thanks for making it.

fbug - so now i’m a “stupid retard”, am i?
maybe i should “straighten up and act like a man”, huh?

Why is 1 in 150 so hard to believe? I moved out of a city where over 30% of children had asthma. Obviously there were environmental factors there (it rose to 50% in children living near highways). How high is the SIDS rate? I think I remember it as 1 in 500, though I could be mistaken.

It’s easy to think of good health as the natural state of things, the default people will rarely vary from. BUT how realistic is that? Every system functioning perfectly, when there are so very many things that can go wrong; think of the odds of actual perfect health.

We don’t believe the odds of autism are that high because we don’t want them to be that high. But not every case is equally severe. I don’t think I know anyone with full autism, but I certainly have known my share of Aspies—one who spent a lot of time volunteering for Doctors Without Borders. So it’s as silly to fight reality about the rates of autism and autism spectrum disorders as it is for people to get freaked out over my fibromyaglia. I don’t need a wheelchair, I just may limp sometimes if a muscle decides to work against me for a while. Fibromyalgia rates are higher than autism rates, but most people wouldn’t guess because most of us 1. aren’t diagnosed until adults and 2. cope all right. (no offense to the ones in wheelchairs; their pain is greater than mine).

Not that fighting reality has a point even in the cases of things like fatal heart attacks, which are by definition as severe as it gets. Knowing what strains our society faces in terms of medical needs, educational needs, transportation needs, etc, etc from ANY medical condition is far more useful than burying our heads in the sand and going, “The numbers CAN’T be that high!”

I have to say that my partner is autistic and that I work with teens of many different abilities, some of whom are also autistic.  When this hit my inbox on Sunday I was livid.  The bad, immature, person in me would like Mr. Savage to spend a day in my shoes. 

I want to say that I love working with autistic kids.  They have taught me more about loving, learning and thinking than anyone else.  Supports simply must be in place for these kids.  When I remet my partner in grade nine, not a goddamn thing had been done about his autism.  He is the product of a family who don’t believe in autism (see Mr. Savage’s comments above).  In grade nine he was scraping by in all courses that had to do with language, had no words for simple feelings and could not handle the basics of simple human interaction. Slowly and painfully we worked on these things.  It’s taken fourteen years, but he can now hold down a job.  I know exactly how much work needs to be done with these children; I do it each day at home and at work. 

These kids are worthwhile.
These kids are not “stupid retards”, nor is any child.
No one should “straighten up and act like a man”.

About the time I was 30 or so, I finally figured out that I had Asperger’s (and it’s been professionally diagnosed, which wasn’t necessary for me but some would insist I’m not until someone did so.)  I always tell myself I have a mild case, but that’s because I don’t want to think about how unhappy and out of place I felt for most of my life.  I was just socially awkward, wanted to be a hermit, sensitive to lots of lighting, a picky eater, unemotional, and a host of other things that made me a pain in the ass to any and everyone who demanded to know why I wasn’t successful since I was a smart one since forever.  Once I understood a lot about why I was the way I was, it became easier for me to deal with the world around me.  Books and websites and talking about it (which is much easier with a label of “Asperger’s” than “socially-awkward would-be hermit”) gave me valuable insights not only about myself, but—more importantly—into the minds of everyone else.

If autism spectrum disorders are overdiagnosed, I worry about those who will be subjected to a battery of well-intentioned treatments intended to “accomodate” if not outright “cure” them of the way they think.  But I also welcome the idea that they will at least be in a world that admits not everyone thinks in the same way.  Parents and teachers and many others will always have fears about what will happen to children when they grow up.  Education and parenting and socialization are focused on those things.  And children who don’t go along with preconceived notions of normality are, for many people, going to be infuriating.

What’s wrong is to assume that the children are doing it either on purpose or because they’re lazy.  Sure, some are.  Some will not get with a/the program no matter how beneficial it is.  Enlightened self interest and childhood are about as far apart as you can get.  There are children with life plans, children living day to day, and children like I was who are just going through the motions.  I spent most of my life trying to figure out why I didn’t belong.  Pretending to try to act normal is a hard act, very tiring, and not rewarding in any way.

Where am I now?  With much more realization of who I am, I’ve grown up quite a bit the last few years.  I’ve given up with the normal life act, am less fearful of my instincts, and enjoy being around people a lot more now that I no longer place so much importance on whether or not they’ll realize I am only pretending to be comfortable.  I’m still very solitary, still more content in my own head than anywhere else, and much less dependent on others to make me appear normal.  For others, my life would be hell.  It’s no picnic for me, either, though I wouldn’t trade.  I’ve got a good job, more independence than I need, three wonderful children (though I worry about the middle one in the same way my parents worried about me,) car payments and student loans made on time, I’m not lonely, and I’ve got plans for the future that I’d have never pursued before those years of figuring out who I am.  Life would be so much less interesting if I was “normal”.

CNN is finally covering this story…

According to CNN, one major sponsor has pulled its money: AFLAC.

Go Duck Go!!

“Why, when people discuss autism, does it always seem to be framed from or for the perspective of parents, even hypothetical ones, and framed in relation to kids?”

I can’t address autism in general, but this happens a LOTwith Asperger’s—mainly because it only became an official diagnosis 14 years ago. Lacking a clear, medically defined label for their “problem,” adults on the higher-functioning end of the spectrum usually developed coping mechanisms and work-arounds to “pass” or at least find a role in neurotypical society. High-functioning Aspergers, at least as far as behaviour and recognising social cues is concerned, is largely a self-correcting or self-compensating condition under the right circumstances (and often under the wrong ones).

Kids, on the other hand, can now be labelled with a condition from the DSM IV, and have compenastion therapies administered by people other than themselves. Some of these therapies formalise and apply in safe environments what A.S. adults usually learned themselves over difficult years of applying trial-and-error heuristics. Many of those therapies (e.g. facial expression recognition, explanations of the confusing neurotypical social norms) make a lot of sense.

The problem is that the Asperger’s label is also being used more and more amongst the less enlightened (particularly right-wing authoritarian conformists) as a “medically legitimate” reason to separate, exclude, punish and stigmatise kids who, while they may have a neurological condition, do not necessarily have a debilitating one. For the ultra-conformist, kids are a lot easier to control and manipulate than adults, so they’re happy to place most of the emphasis there.

Not that they don’t try to villify and make sport of adult A.S. people—bullies and psychopaths like Savage find the prospect irresistable. The A.S. label is increasingly promoted by those people in an exclusively negative and perjorative sense, ignoring many of the postive aspects of the condition (e.g systematic long-term thinking, honesty, focus, self-reliance, etc.) that can be channeled productively in tolerant and diverse societal environments.

My sense is that Savage, in an effort to be “outrageous” and “edgy,” have pushed this focus on easy targets (kids) further down the autism spectrum where the coping and adjustment therapies are much more difficult to apply. He’s an extreme case with a brutal and brain-dead “prescription,” but there are a lot of ultra-conformists out there who are looking for a simple magic-bullet cure or (in the case of the anti-vaccination crowd) cause for autism spectrum conditions to show that their kids could otherwise be “normal.” The more desperate and sincere those folks are, the more likely they’ll be targetted for exploitation by unscrupulous, greedy, and power-hungry types, be they attorneys with shady class actions or demagogues like Savage.

I would wish for Michael Savage to have an autistic child, except firstly I wouldn’t wish having Savage as a father on *any* child, and secondly I wouldn’t wish having Savage as a father on an autistic child in particular, given his asshattery on the subject.

If only there was a way to make him experience what it’s like to raise an autistic kid without fucking up the kid. How about we put Michael Savage in a sensory deprivation tank with goggles on displaying “Sims: Your Autistic Son” and he’s not allowed outside until he can successfully get through a grocery store trip with his imaginary autistic son without either a major meltdown, or imaginary asshats that are just like him coming up to him in the store and criticizing his child rearing practices?

fbug - so now i’m a “stupid retard”, am i?
maybe i should “straighten up and act like a man”, huh?

No, geez, you are not a stupid retard. Neither am I. Never said anyone was a stupid retard. Those so called professionals though I was mentally challenged even though I am clearly not.

I volunteer with special needs children, and while the kids have varying levels of functionality, it’s obvious that none of them are faking it for attention, too lazy to behave properly, or just poorly raised. The signs of autism are fairly obvious (the signs of Asperger’s less so), and the kids universally respond to understanding and compassion, not “tough love” or bullying.

And fbug - While some of the kids have some level of mental retardation, not a one of them is a “stupid retard,” and I can’t imagine that any of their parents would appreciate them being characterized as such. Learn some tact.

And fbug - While some of the kids have some level of mental retardation, not a one of them is a “stupid retard,” and I can’t imagine that any of their parents would appreciate them being characterized as such.

I understand that completely. However, people always seemed to think of me as a “stupid retard” despite the fact that I am highly intelligent, including “professionals” who should have known better. The popular opinion even among “professionals” seem to be that anyone with a disability or disorder is mentally retarded. This of course is not usually the case.

Sorry to everyone who has been offended by me saying “stupid retard.” Believe me, I have been every bit as offended when people have referred to me as “mentally disabled” or “mentally Incompetent.” To me that is the same as calling me a “stupid retard.”

Unraveling before our veriest eyes.

These creatures have always been…tightly coifed?,
like Liddy Dole but this is all just too fu*ckin’ delicious.

[Takes but one pretty afflicted autistic in the neighborhood
to put all that to rest. Maybe we’ll see Savage go there too.]

I would just love to force Michael Savage to spend a week or so with my severely autistic brother and try to tell him to just knock it off. I sure bet he would no longer think autism is just a made up condition.

I really think Savage is all an act and doesn’t take himself seriously.

I’m not sure which is worse that he believes the hate he spews or that he doesn’t believe it, but propagates it for profit.

I like how Michael Savage’s father told him not to sound like an idiot and fool.  Apparently it didn’t take.  Try harder, pops, try harder.

Alara, I understand where you’re coming from, but having an autistic child isn’t a punishment. Please… be careful. Thanks.

Advertiser Boycott update:

—Sears says they don’t advertise on his show.
—RadioShack says that the placing of the advertisements “was in direct violation of our advertising contract with the network.”

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2008/07/sears-says-it-d.html

If the history of the Dr. Laura boycott is any guide, ads from these brands should stop appearing on the show fairly soon. (Some of those advertisers also claimed ads were placed in error.)

Savage’s attacks remind me of the crap Anne Coulter pulled a couple years ago, basically spewing hateful shit to get media attention and act like she’s a champion of free speech. It took a while but eventually people got bored of her. Let’s hope this guy’s spot light is over soon.