Stir This Returns from Lengthy Hiatus to Support ADAPT Activists and "DUH City!"

The people in the above photo [depicts four activists seated near the Department of Housing and Urban Development] may appear homeless, but they have homes to which they will eventually return. Unfortunately, many seniors and people with disabilities don't. They've been moved into nursing homes and institutions because they can't afford to live independently. Some had homes, and saw their homes sold against their will. Others rented but fell behind on payments. Many never owned or rented a home and, upon reaching adulthood, faced a choice between living on the streets or in institutions.

That's why ADAPT has pitched tents outside the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and why the above activists are living in those tents, effectively homeless until key policymakers commit to ADAPT's housing reform platform. The tent city ADAPT has constructed is called "DUH City," a reversal of the acronym HUD, as well as a play on words indicating that, if you can't afford to live independently, you end up homeless-- "Duh!"

But, some say, that's why there are institutions-- to prevent these people from becoming homeless! ADAPT disagrees. People in nursing homes are homeless. Do you have a home when you don't have a choice about where you live? Do you have a home if your mealtimes, bedtime, medications, hygiene, and even whether you live or die, are decided by strangers in a building where you did not choose to live? Sounds like imprisonment, right? That's exactly what ADAPT considers the unwilling committment of people with disabilities and the elderly to nursing homes: Imprisonment, and homelessness, rolled into one package labeled "Care."

ADAPT wants lawmakers to pass the Community Choice Act, which gives people with disabilities and senior citizens the choice of receiving care in their own homes rather than nursing homes. Funding attendant care in individuals' homes saves money versus operating nursing homes. Despite these facts, many politicians including Senator John McCain have opposed the Community Choice Act on the basis of cost.

While the CCA has widespread support from lawmakers in both parties, too often have politicans promised support and withdrawn it at the last second. Under the table dealmaking and the flawed public perception that home care costs more public dollars can't be allowed to stop the Community Choice Act. That's why ADAPT is camping out outside the HUD, and that's why Stirring the Pot and the following blogs are following ADAPT's direct actions and covering them as they happen:

Disabled Soapbox (Susan) http://www.disabled-soapbox.org/
Six, almost Seven (Cindy Sue) http://cindysuecausey.blogspot.com/
FRIDA (Amber) http://fridanow.blogspot.com/
Crippled under the Law (Carrie) http://cripprof.tumblr.com/
Pitt Rehab (Greg) http://www.pittrehab.blogspot.com/
Joy of Autism (Estee) http://www.joyofautism.blogspot.com/
PTSD Online (Michael) http://www.ptsdonline.com/
Retired Waif http://www.retiredwaif.com/
Go Becky (Becky) http://gobecky.net/
Wheelie Catholic (Ruth) http://www.wheelliecatholic.blogspot.com/
River of Jordan (Danielle) http://www.theriverofjordan.blogspot.com/
All 4 Gals (Nicole) http://www.all4gals.blogspot.com/
Tremors of Intent (Josie) http://www.newmobility.com/browsePosts.cfm?blogID=10
Web Pulp 2.0 (Joe) http://www.webpulp.org/
Uppity Disability (Mike) http://uppity-disability.net/
Daily Troll (Terry) http://dailytroll.com/
Media Dis-n-Dat (Beth) http://media-dis-n-dat.blogspot.com/
Geezer's Sermons (William) http://william-loughborough.blogspot.com/
Crip Power (Cripchick) http://crip-power.com/
Whitterer on Autism (Maddy) http://whittereronautism.com/
Rolling Rains Report (Scott) http://www.rollingrains.com/
Asperger Square 8 (Bev) http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/
Chewing the Fat (Dave) http://www.davehingsburger.blogspot.com/
Drive Mom Crazy (Jason) http://www.drivemomcrazy.com/
All That is Dazlious (Marla) http://www.marlabaltes.blogspot.com/
Growing Up with a Disabilty (David) http://growingupwithadisability.blogspot.com/
Wheelchair Dancer (WCD) http://cripwheels.blogspot.com/
Stirring the Pot (Sandy) http://stirthis.blogspot.com/
The Gimp Parade (Kay) http://thegimpparade.blogspot.com/
Andrea's Buzzing About (Andrea) http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/
Blogging Against Disablism (Nilesh) http://myblogs.nileshsingit.org/
Perserveration (Jeff) http://perseveration.org/
Roadhogs Ruminations (Dawn) http://roadhogsruminations.blogspot.com/
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" — MLK (Nick) http://nickdupree.blogspot.com
Speaking for the Dead (Dustin) http://www.speaking4thedead.com/
Whose Planet is it Anyway? (abfh) http://autisticbfh.blogspot.com/
Multichiropter (Fledchen) http://multichiropter.blogspot.com/
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network's NorthernVirginia (Paula) http://asannorthernva.blogspot.com/
PhilosopherCrip (Joe) http://www.philosophercrip.com/

Please visit the blogs on this list often, and link to DUH City on your own blog if you have one. Whether you're old or young, able-bodied or disabled, Republican or Democrat, we can all agree that making affordable, accessible, integrated housing available and providing home care (which, again, SAVES money), is absolutely a necessity. FREE OUR PEOPLE-- and all people!

The Nature of Sexism

I saw an article recently that gave me pause: 3 in 4 boys on B.C. street exploited by women. I've never been fully comfortable with feminism, especially as a female with a circle of friends that's 90% male. I don't dislike men, nor do I consider it in their nature to abuse any more than I consider it the nature of women to receive abuse (as some parents apparently believe). But this article moved me, for the second time in recent memory, to comment on sexism.

Please click the link and read the original article. The findings are interesting, though I have many quibbles with the method of sampling and data collection, as well as the method of reporting the findings. The Vancouver Sun seems to have written most of their article through copy-and-pasting from this press release. Next, if you like, read the 64 page PDF reporting the study's results. Incidentally, the research did not involve an original survey: Data sets from the McCreary Centre Society were used.

I noticed two things about the Vancouver Sun article:

1. The first statistic related to the abuse of females was buried 10 paragraphs down.

2. The headline is inaccurate. The headline reports that 3 in 4 B.C. boys on the street were sexually exploited by women. The actual statistics differ somewhat:

From the PDF:

"Around 1 in 3 street-involved youth indicated they were sexually exploited. Among the
younger street-involved youth in both surveys, a higher percentage of males than females
were sexually exploited (33% males vs. 24% females in 2000, 34% males vs. 27% females
in 2006). In contrast, among the older street-involved youth in 2001 in Vancouver, a higher
percentage of females identified as exploited (53% vs. 32% males)."

Using the most recent numbers, 36.5% of street-involved youth were exploited, making it impossible for 75% of all street-involved males to have been exploited, even if only males had been exploited. Let's find an accurate headline. From the Sun:

"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging sex for money or goods with a female."

So, a total of 33% of males surveyed were exploited. Of these, 79% were exploited by females. In other words, 26.07% of male street-involved youth surveyed were exploited by females.

Accurate Headline:

1 in 4 B.C. boys on street sexually exploited by women

However, this headline still sounds more like a press release than accurate reporting of the results of an important study. In addition, it's still sexist. Does the abuse suffered by girls have less import because, according to the report, it's more expected? I mean, really. Because we expect girls to be abused, let's report only on the abuse suffered by boys?

It's not impossible to report such results in a gender-neutral way. In fact, I'll demonstrate. The following is my version of the Sun article:

More than 1 in 3 B.C. street youth sexually exploited

Study says most abuse comes from opposite sex

VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street-involved youth, including runaways, couch-surfing youths, and youths involved in street-based activities such as selling and purchasing drugs, has found that 36.5% of street-involved youth in British Columbia have been sexually exploited, with 86.5% of exploitation overall perpetrated by members of the opposite sex.

Boys and girls were equally likely to suffer from sexual exploitation, with 40% of males and 33% of females overall reporting that they had traded sexual activities for money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter, transportation or anything similar. Among younger street-involved youth, more males than females were exploited. Among older street-involved youth, females were more likely to have been exploited.

Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia, served as principal investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary Centre Society.

The results were drawn from interviews with 1,845 youth - some as young as 12 - in surveys taken across the province between 2000 and 2006.

Sexual exploitation is defined as youth under 19 trading sexual activities for money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter, transportation or anything similar. This can include work in brothels, escort services, pornography and Internet sex but it also includes what's described as "survival sex," where a child provides sex in exchange for a place to sleep, a meal or a ride.

The study found that around one in every three children living on the street have been sexually abused, although many did not appear to feel that they had been exploited, said Saewyc. Some of the youth surveyed considered the persons exploition them to be friends or romantic partners.

"It's a shocking number. The law is clear: any adult who has sex with children for any form of consideration is exploiting them and it's illegal," Saewyc said.

The study found 94% of exploited females reported they had been sexually exploited by men. Of exploited males, 79% were exploited by women. Of the report's findings that 79% of exploited males were exploited by women, Saewyc said, "I must admit it wasn't something we were expecting."

The study says the social systems in place to deter and prevent sexual predation were only designed to help females and the criminal justice system wasn't concerned with what was happening to young males.

Saewyc said the findings were indicative of prevailing myths about sexual abuse, including the perception that most victims are girls and most abusers are men.

"Part of the challenge is that young males are not seen as being exploited because they are not coming to the attention of the police and the police aren't out there picking up the perpetrators. The system is set up to handle the sexual exploitation of young women, not young men," she said.

Community research associate Jayson Anderson said most of the programs to deal with sexual exploitation were designed by women for women. "There's really nothing out there for males. So we need programs for young boys," he said.

The study showed that the following youth were most likely to suffer from sexual predation:

- those who were lesbian, gay or bisexual
- Aboriginals
- those with physical or mental health issues
- those who had been abused by family members
- youth that had been in government care.

It's possible to report the findings of a study that involved gender-- even surprising findings about gender-- without sexism. It's possible to report the abuse of boys without disclaiming the suffering of girls.

It's possible to call for changes to the criminal justice system without forgetting that the current system is in place for a reason. It's possible to help boys without forgetting girls, and to help girls without leaving boys out in the cold.

Unfortunately, the nature of sexism is to expect that to extend opportunity to one gender, one must disenfranchise the other. It's unfortunate that in order to call attention to a study about sexual exploitation, authors must emphasize the results relating to boys and bury the results relating to girls. It's unfortunate that journalists accept the sexism in press releases and publish them nearly verbatim. But most unfortunate of all is that, if programs serving abused females are attacked as sexist, it's not sexists who'll suffer; it's abused girls.

The experience and expertise of professionals who treat female victims of sexual abuse must not be thrown away as sexist merely because boys and girls respond in unique ways to receiving abuse. The knowledge present in programs that focus on the treatment of females must not be denied because those programs have failed to adequately serve abused boys. It's that experience and knowledge that should advise a developing system of treatment for male victims of sexual abuse. Caring for sexually abused boys is a new and evolving science, and young professionals interested in this occupation will need the mentorship and oversight of persons experienced in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse.

Make new programs, but keep the old. Don't reduce resources available to female survivors in order to increase resources available to male survivors of abuse.

Equality isn't everyone getting the same thing. It's everyone getting what they need.

For Elizabeth McClung

Beth at Screw Bronze challenged all of her readers to go do something fun this past weekend and then post about it. I did a fun thing for Beth-- I went to a cemetery (just like Beth and Linda did, but minus the corsets) and took pictures of pretty things growing amongst the graves. These three shots of the same buds from a tree beginning to bloom were my favorites.

For you, Beth, because I remember that you took pictures of yellow flowers the last time you went outside your house for a walk without the chair. Some red flowers for a pretty lady in a black chair and red corset in a cemetery.

Survivor: Kindergarten Edition

When I heard about all the controversy surrounding Kid Nation, I recall thinking that teaching children that reality shows, in any way, resemble reality, couldn't possibly be a good thing. But perhaps I should have worried less about tough, adaptable kids, who are often smarter than one expects, and a little more about the people placed in positions of power over kids.

You see, it seems one Wendy Portillo has turned her classroom into Survivor: Kindergarten, and the first child not to survive, so to speak, is a little boy in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Alex Barton has frequently had disciplinary problems, and one morning last week after he returned from the principal's office, Ms. Portillo led the class in telling Alex what each student didn't like about him, and then took a vote. By a vote of 14-2, Alex was voted out of the classroom.

Take a good look at the picture at the top of this blog. Does that little fellow look "disgusting" or "annoying?" I don't think so, but that sweet little blond boy sure does-- thanks to a teacher who allowed classmates to apply those epithets to him. He's five years old. Far too young to understand that some classmates do not know that his developmental disability means sometimes he does things hard for neurotypical kids to understand, or that sometimes the things he does may be seen as disgusting or annoying, but that he, Alex Barton, is a person wholly separate from others' perceptions.

Alex now says "I'm not special" repeatedly to himself, and has trouble sleeping at night.

Oh, and, by the way?

The authorities found no evidence of emotional child abuse. No charges will be filed, except the civil suit Melissa Barton is considering.

Summer Vacations

Okay, you can probably tell from my last post that I need to get away from it all for a while. So, summer vacation planning is go!

I can probably only really afford to take 4 or 5 days away, over a long weekend so that I don't miss too much work. I'd like to go by car, so I can take my dog with me; he's just barely too big to ride in the cabin of an airplane, and I wouldn't dream of shipping him in cargo in the summer heat-- especially since he's a black, long-haired dog.

I had been hoping to get to the Allied Media Conference, but it's looking increasingly less likely that I'll be able to get time off in time for that. Plus, I can't make definite travel plans until I get in touch with.... well, someone really hard to get to hold still and talk to me about this long, expensive trip I'm supposed to be taking to meet up with him and get something really, really important.

So it looks like July or August for my summer vacation.

I found this vacation guide on Disaboom, which is a downloadable PDF and suggests theme parks, music festivals, national parks, baseball stadiums, and state fairs, and has accessibility info for all the destinations. So that got me thinking, I've never seen Yellowstone. Maybe I should go?

But then again, Rocky Mountain National Park is only a short drive away, and I have a hard time imagining a park that's really more scenic than the one practically in my own backyard.

Maybe what I really want is to go somewhere and be a beach bum for a weekend? But Florida is so hot in the summer, and I don't really want to go to California again; I want a vacation to somewhere I've never been.

Decisions, decisions.

Have Had A Lousy Month: Degrees of Bad

I have had a lousy month.

We all have our degrees of bad, and we all have a breaking point between "Life happens" and "Okay, now this is a BAD, inexcusably bad, depressingly, awfully bad month." I have reached that point. No, I'm not dying, and neither is (knock wood) anyone in my human family. But:

• Lost two of my animal family suddenly
• My fiance's grandfather is dying, slowly and painfully
• Fiance has been nominated de facto caregiver and is suffering from caregiver fatigue
• Fiance's family dismisses his caregiving work- giving injections, changing adult diapers, transfers in and out of wheelchair, monitoring bloog sugar, giving medications, providing companionship, cleaning, doing laundry often stained with human waste, as easy and unimportant to the point he is considering disappearing for a few days to see how the rest of the family copes with caring for Grandfather without him
• On top of all that, the two pets we lost were his favorite rat and her son
• Two pets that were abandoned with me and had been in loving homes for over a year lost their homes after the adopter became chronically ill
• My favorite coworker is moving away
• A forum that has been my support network through many things has appointed a moderator who really has it in for me, personally attacking me in every thread, and the forum owner says I- the female of course- must be the problem
• My best friend and his first love broke up and he is devastated and depressed
• A good friend's mother is dying of cancer and now I get to be the one to call my friend and tell her that one of the rats I was sending to her as a companion and friend died after his neutering surgery, for no apparent reason
• Fiance's childhood best friend overdosed on drugs and nearly died, then disappeared back into the world of addiction and his whereabouts are unknown
• A friend of a friend overdosed on drugs and died
• Can't get ahold of someone who I'm supposed to be doing a 30 hour drive (one-way) to meet and get a pet from.

In short, life sucks right now, and I have nobody to really tell except the wide world of blog-friends. Everyone else in my life I have to try to be strong for, and being strong all the time means nobody to lean on, and lots of other people leaning on you.

Ugh.

I did something nice for someone last night. I will do something nice for someone tonight. I have to keep trying to believe in good karma.

On Walking While Female

I think anyone who makes a habit of hanging around with activists has heard of the offense "Driving While Black/Brown," or DWB, referring to the way in which law enforcement profiles drivers based on race, searching the cars of black drivers pulled over for minor violations while releasing white speeders without even asking to take a peek in the trunk. Recently, I've been doing some thinking on a social, rather than legal, crime: Walking While Female. Google returns 211 results for the exact phrase, including this illuminating blog post, which mirrors many of my own thoughts.



I, like many of my generation, am loath to call myself a feminist in mixed company. Or, really, any company that's not activist or political company. I can be sitting on the couch drinking a beer after a long day of work while my boyfriend cooks, and if a couple of his friends are slouching around the living room, they don't notice the non-traditional gender roles. But let me say aloud, "I think it's a great outgrowth of feminism that you 20-something men don't notice our non-traditional gender roles," and you'll hear a tirade about feminism that is only barely matched by Rush Limbaugh in his most blustering fury. Unshorn legs, shorn heads, and combat boots will be invoked. Feminism as a whole will be accused of misandry and demands for special rights. It gets tiresome, and I confess I've largely given up on reclaiming that term as a positive one in my daily life.



However, there are moments when I realize that I am, by lifestyle, personality, and necessity, a feminist. Yesterday, I had one of those moments, when I unwittingly committed the grave offense of Walking While Female (WWF).



I generally stroll to the park with my pooch after dark, when a light-up collar and a pocket full of treats make it easy and safe to let him off leash for a run. Yesterday, though, I felt motivated to walk while the sun was still warm, and so departed for the neighborhood park with pup in tow. I was still dressed for work, in low-heeled boots, trousers, and a pink blouse, with a skiing jacket thrown on in place of the wool jacket I wear to the office. I did not present a particularly titillating figure; certainly, no more so than the young parents walking with toddlers, nor the day care moms supervising the play of a group of school aged kids, nor the couples out to enjoy the setting sun.

Yet, somewhere along the way to the park, a group of teenaged boys in a blue sedan decided that their entertainment for the evening would be repeatedly circling the block and calling out harrassing, sexual comments each time they passed me and my dog. Said dog, blissfully unaware of gender politics, spent most of his time piddling on various vertical objects. The first cat-call hardly fazed me; I was annoyed, and grumbled something to the piddling pooch about cowards who couldn't pull over and say something like that while they were in slugging distance. But they circled around to follow me, and I noticed several things.

Most notably, I felt compelled this time to yell back, when I'd felt no such need on the first go-round. I shouted something, which they likely didn't hear over their car's engine as they sped away, but which insulted their intelligence, male anatomy, and level of maturity. I was immediately ashamed about sinking to their level, but, really, what does one do in that situation? Ignoring hooligans seems only to encourage them, because they interpret silence as fear or shock.

The third time they drove by, I again resorted to ignoring them. Only after they'd disappeared in the distance did I think about recording their license plate number to report by calling *277 (*CSP, for Colorado State Patrol) for harassing a pedestrian and for speeding in a residential area. I was too busy being upset that they not only thought repeated obscene comments were appropriate, but that they chose a moment when I was walking by a playground where several young boys and girls were playing to shout those obscenities. I would be surprised if at least one of those children doesn't pick up a new word and blurt it out at the dinner table with Great-Aunt Myrtle as a result.

As I walked home-- thankfully, without additional running commentary from the hooligans-- I took time to notice my own curious emotions. I was angry, as one might expect, but I also realized I had my hand on my pocket knife, preparing unconsciously for a physical confrontation, despite the total absence of any evidence one was imminent. I was afraid. Not of anything in particular, but of the fact that strangers had intruded into a peaceful and pleasant nightly ritual. Of course, that's exactly the reward I'm sure the hooligans wanted.

Why do some men, particularly young men whose basic needs are met, who have cars and spending money and food to eat, think any woman on foot and alone is fair game for verbal harrassment? Are they just bored? Should their parents find better ways to schedule their time, so that they aren't roaming the streets in groups, driving irresponsibly and risking an accident by leaning out their windows to hoot at strange women? Are they raised by misogynist fathers, and truly convinced that they are in the right to cat-call at women walking down the street?

Have they ever had someone single them out and act in ways specifically designed to make them question their safety in their own neighborhood?

Are they aware how poorly they reflect upon teens as a whole? I have heard teenaged males say, "That waitress gave me bad service because I was young," or declare, "It's not fair to make people leave backpacks by the door in shops," or even, "Nobody respects teenagers' rights."

Can their behavior be blamed on the pre-frontal cortex, not fully developed until the twenties, which governs judgment and logic?

I'm not sure. I'm neither a parent nor a man, nor a psychologist or neurologist. I do know that all teenagers behave immaturely at times. After all, they're not mature human beings. However, this behavior is unacceptable, and as a child-free, mostly closeted feminist, and not really so many years older than those young hooligans, I have no idea how to change it.

Does anyone know how to decriminalize Walking While Female?

Facebook Lets Me Off With a Warning

It seems I have been sternly scolded and let off with a warning. For the first day after reactivation, my Facebook profile displayed a "WARNING! Your account may be disabled!" message on my home page. That disappeared rapidly.

Anyone want to place a bet on how long it takes before they decide to ban me again, for using social networking sites for -- gasp -- social networking!?

Banned From Facebook!

Ironically, my Facebook account, with which I've attempted to build friendship and community with people in the disability community, has been DISABLED. How's that for a little humor to start off the morn- er, afternoon right? Apparently I added too many friends too fast, so they not only banned me from Facebook, they deleted the entire profile. Now, to give you some perspective, it's so hard to get deleted from Facebook that the New York Times ran an article where they interviewed a man who had to threaten legal action before Facebook removed his information. But because I added too many friends, my profile is not only banned, but removed from all my friends' friend lists, removed from the search function, and likely exists now only in archived copies on Facebook's servers

I'm not one to critique the moderation style on websites I visit (much), but Facebook seems to be looking too hard for ways to make money and make sure nobody else is making money on Facebook, and not hard enough for ways to make the site valuable to users. I didn't get value when I had a Facebook profile from being invited to a million different surveys and applications. I did not get value from being told I was "flirtable" or that I could join a "CSI Addicts" group. I got value from the presence of activist groups and causes, where I could find people with the same interests I had. How did I do that? I added random people from disability and activist groups, people with cool profile pictures or who lived near me, and waited for them to respond.

But that, apparently, is spammer behavior. However, I reported actual spam, comments on a group's wall saying things like, "See me naked 4u on my webcam," and they took over three weeks to be removed by Facebook admins. If a human being had taken 10 seconds to look through the messages on my profile, on my "Wall," or my interests, they would see I'm a human being, not a computer or a spammer, and that I was, at the time when they banned my account, engaged in conversation with a very emotionally vulnerable Facebook friend. Maybe they are too busy collecting sensitive data from users' profiles, including likes and dislikes, and sending it to Google Adsense to bother checking out my profile or deleting obvious spam.

Five Ways to Opt out of Commercialized Romance on Valentine’s Day

After seeing this article on Disaboom, and some blog posts along the same lines here and here, I felt I ought to respond with something for folks who, like me, find the entire idea of Valentine’s Day somewhat absurd. St. Valentine is the name of a religious martyr about whom nothing is known save his name and that he is buried at the Via Flaminia on the 14th of February. There is no evidence that his martyrdom or Canonization had anything to do with love. However, somehow, greeting card companies and jewelers have managed to turn St. Valentine’s mysterious deeds into an excuse to sell huge amounts of product each February. While it’s certainly a good idea to take a day at least once a year to show appreciation to someone you love, do we really need all the Hallmark cards, the dozen roses, and, worst of all, those, “He went to JARED’S!” ads? I think not!


I present to you a list of five things to give on Valentine’s Day that won’t put a single penny in the pockets of corporations who bank on commercializing commitment.




Press flowers together.

A pressed flower is a simple and timeless token of love. It’s a little late to have a flower or several pressed in time for this year’s holiday, but take a walk, roll, or drive together on Valentine’s Day and pick some pretty wildflowers, then lay them flat in the middle of a heavy book. Dictionaries and religious texts works particularly well— and, admit it, you’re not using them for anything else! By next Valentine’s Day, your flowers will be beautifully pressed, and you can start all over with fresh flowers.


Plant something tasty.
Instead of giving a dozen dead plants that will dry out and have to be thrown away in a few days, give a window box planted with tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and other fresh herbs and veggies. February is the perfect season to plant many edible goodies, depending upon where you live. Start them indoors and move them outside as they grow and the weather warms. When you enjoy the fruits (vegetables?) of your labors in the summer and fall, remind yourself that, like gardening, relationships take work but offer bountiful rewards.


Make cards using only what you already have in the house.
Sure, it might be easy to make a homemade card if you’re artistic types and always keep oil pastels and manuscript paper around; but what if you don’t? For even more of a challenge, lock yourselves in separate rooms to make each other’s cards- you can only use the stuff in that room! This only works if you refrain from cheating and putting some artsy stuff on the grocery list the week before. My significant other and I did this last year- he loved his macaroni art card, and I framed the one he painted with my nail polish!


Make your own chocolates and heart-shaped box.
Don’t spend big bucks on fancy boxed chocolates in shiny red and pink boxes. Just melt your favorite brand of non-Valentine’s specific chocolate, mix in some cream, chill, and roll in cocoa powder. See the full (and very easy) instructions here. But don’t stop with the chocolates! You can even make your own box, in a cute little heart shape. Watch the video to see how. Of course, if you’re about as talented with origami as I am, that is to say having the approximate manual dexterity of a giant clam, nobody in their right mind will turn down even unboxed truffles.


Origami: Heart Shaped Box - Watch the top videos of the week here

Give the best gift of all: Time.
There’s only one gift in the world that can’t be returned, exchanged, or replaced, and that’s time. It sounds totally cliché, but it’s true. So many couples spend their time running around like crazy planning Valentine’s surprises for each other, and run out of time to actually spend together. Stay in bed all evening and just talk. Take time to come up with a list of 100 things you appreciate about each other and your relationship. Improvise haikus about how you met. Declare February 14th official Mushfest Day 2008, and say all the gooey, silly, fluffy, sappy, clouds-puking-rainbows sweet things you can think of.

Open letter to Matthew Israel and the JRC

Matthew Israel was kind enough to drop by yesterday to comment on my post as part of Blogging Against Aversives Day, on the subject of the JRC, the only "special education school" in the United States that uses skin shocks as a form of "therapy" for children, teens, and adults with various disabilities and mental illnesses.

In response, I offer an open letter to Matthew Israel and the JRC, and invite a specific response to my concerns and the concerns of other bloggers who participated in Blogging Against Aversives Day. I could certainly discuss many outside sources- most of my favorites are linked in this post, as you've doubtless noticed- but for the time being, I will respond specifically to the PDF file Mr. Israel linked me to.

Dear Matthew Israel and JRC,

First, thank you for responding to my blog post. I have several concerns about the document provided in response to the many bloggers who oppose the use of aversives. I have selected portions of this document with which I take issue, and quoted them in italics, while detailing my concerns beneath each quote.

"This therapy is completely removed when students’ behaviors improve sufficiently."

If this is the case, why does Matthew Slaff, a resident of the JRC for over 19 years, continue to wear a Graduated Electronic Decelerator? The value of a therapy is measured first and foremost by its effectiveness. According to the Village Voice, Slaff banged his head to the point of severe self injury when admitted, and while that behavior has been eliminated, 19 years later, he continues to wear a GRE. Autism is a developmental disorder. This is not the same thing as developmental stasis, as Andrea recently explained in a post about another dubious and often harmful therapy given to Autistics. If after 19 years of GED "therapy," he still wears the device, can it truly be said that Matthew Slaff has improved because of the device? First, he still wears it. Second, he has had 19 years to mature and develop at his own, individual rate. Natural maturation could easily explain the improvement in Slaff's behavior despite, not as a result of, the GED device. How do you explain the use of a painful aversive therapy for 19 years, despite the discontinuation of the self injuring behaviors that qualified Slaff for the therapy?


"Skin-shock therapy is used for only 42% of the school-age students currently enrolled at JRC and is used only after a lengthy treatment of positive-only therapy if that has failed to modify self-destructive and other seriously harmful behaviors."

Skin shock therapy is used on 0% of school age students currently enrolled at any other center in the United States, and, strangely enough, nobody at those institutions is crying out, "Just let us shock our students! Nothing else works on 42% of them!"

If positive-only therapy is failing for 42% of students, have you re-evaluated your positive-only therapy program and improved it in order to offer more immediate rewards? JRC students wear cards on their belts, to which they can attach tokens with which to obtain rewards outside the classroom. For 42% of your students, is it truly that positive behavioral therapy is ineffective, or is it simply that these positive reinforcers are not reinforcing that student.

You are clearly aware that a consequence of behavior must be delivered promptly in order to be effective. This is the reasoning you have given for the use of skin shock therapy. However, the reward of a token for a card on a student's belt, no matter how prompt, is a conditioned reinforcer, not a primary reinforcer; and, in many cases, students with limited capacity may not find conditioned reinforcers rewarding. This is only one reason the token program is intrinsically flawed and causes 42% of students to end up wearing a GED. Another reason is that the reward program offers rewards available outside the classroom. In any type of teaching or training, with any species, it is a problem if the learner is happy to end the training session. Rewards that encourage the desire to hurry up and get out of class to receive these rewards are bad behavioralism.

TAG Teaching (Teaching with Acoustical Guidance) delivers a prompt, conditioned, positive reinforcer that has been shown to be effective on students in a variety of settings, from high-level gymnasts to students with disabilities. The TAG website offers the following tips on effective TAG Teaching:

1. TAG points must be phrased in the positive “The TAG point is…”

2. TAG points should be clear, concise, and have a yes or no answer as to its completion.

3. TAG only one movement element at a time—do not try to combine TAG points.
Ignore mistakes—resist the urge to give helpful suggestions about elements of a skill that are not the active TAG point. Keep track of these suggestions and note them for future TAG points.

4. Let students TAG the teacher or each other.

5. You can pump up the motivational power of the TAG by allowing the students to receive an additional reward for the TAG or “collect” their TAGs and redeem them later for stickers, stamps, candy, free playtime, or whatever is motivational to the individual.

6. Stop before fatigue or boredom sets in—if you go past this point—switch to an easy TAG point. Let the athlete have success and then end the session.

Can you present evidence that these six steps key to a positive-only method that has been shown in in-dept scientific trials to be effective are incorporated in the positive therapy used as a first resort with JRC students?

As a followup to my concerns about the poor application of positive behavioral therapy in the JRC, I must wonder why other therapies outside the behavioral paradigm are not employed. Any behaviorist is well aware that what works for one learner will not necessarily work for another. One learner may find praise reinforcing; a second learner may find the attention embarrassing and in fact try NOT to perform behaviors that are "reinforced" with praise. For many learners, the positive reinforcement in the form of tokens may not be reinforcing, and may actually be subjectively punishing, particularly for students with disabilities like Autism that relate to social interaction. For these students, why are the following therapies, and dozens of others, never employed before using aversive skin shocks?

-Talk therapy, perhaps the most common form of psychiatric treatment, studied and employed successfully for decades.
-Drug Therapy, which is successful for many patients, but is banned at the JRC.
-Art Therapy, which enhances recovery and wellness while providing an outlet for creative expresson.
-Photo Therapy, akin to art therapy, with similar benefits.
-Animal-Assisted Therapy, shown to be associated with moderate effect sizes in improving outcomes in the areas of Autism-spectrum symptoms, medical difficulties, behavioral problems, and emotional well-being.
-Occupational Therapy, which uses meaningful occupation to assist all people in participating in society to their fullest individual potential.
-Play Therapy, which uses play to allow children to better communicate and obtain improved mental health.

The false dichotomy which poses positive behavioral therapy and aversive behavioral therapy as the only two alternatives is harming students.

"If not treated successfully, these behaviors will interfere with their development and consign them to a lifetime of institutionalization, debilitating drugs and physical restraint."

Why, exactly, is it that this sentence is written in reference to the suggestion that the JRC is ineffective, rather than in reference to the JRC itself? A successful treatment, by this description, would result in de-institutionalization and the removal of physical restraint. The GED device is a physical restraint device, and is often applied while children are strapped face down to a board that immobilizes them and prevents them from seeing the staff member administering shocks. If not to a lifetime of institutionalization, to what outcome does this lead? Again, Why is Michael Slaff wearing a GED after 19 years, if this is so effective? Can you tell us the average length of a student's stay at the JRC, and how many students continue to wear a GED after reaching adulthood? How many residents are adults and wearing a GRE?

"As a first step, with the guidance and supervision of its psychiatrist, JRC removes students from psychotropic medication which in most cases has been ineffective with these students and which often has negative and sometimes irreversible side effects. Parents (and the students themselves) are often grateful for this step alone and have expressed their relief that they have their child back now fully alert rather than sleeping 18 hours a day."

A fully alert child who does not need drug therapy is capable of learning without skin shocks. A child being shocked painfully and embarrassed by the wearing of a GED, even in the shower, is not better off than a child on psychotropic drugs. The blanket policy of removing all drug therapy from the treatment of JRC residents harms students suffering from conditions which can be mediated by drug therapy, and further indicates the pathological adherence to a behavioral-only therapy method, which has proven so ineffective that 42% of students receive aversive skin shocks, and which has never been overhauled to include alternative therapies for the students for whom behavioral therapy is ineffective.


"The judge then decides what the student would have chosen if the student had been competent to make his/her own treatment decision."

It is absolutely crystal clear that, if this is indeed the judge's intention, those judges have failed horrifically and repeatedly. In the Mother Jones article, School of Shock, a former JRC resident discusses contemplating suicide as a result of painful skin shocks. This student would not have chosen a therapy that would cause pain and suicidal thoughts, had he been given the choice, as he makes quite clear in the article. The few students who would choose to receive skin shocks are likely acting out the same self harm behaviors and need for physical pain they act out by cutting, punching themselves, head banging, and other behaviors cited as reasons for the use of skin shock. How does the JRC reconcile the fact that it is delivering physical pain to students who want physical pain, and who display their need for physical pain through self-harm behaviors? The cycle of self harm is perpetuated in a perverse twist on the "Suicide by Cop" story, where a suicidal person provokes an authority figure into carrying out his or her desire to die- only, here, a troubled child is provoking authority figures into carrying out the desire to inflict pain on him or herself.


"The shock feels like a hard pinch. It has no side effects other than a very occasional reddening or discoloration of the skin that clears up in a few minutes or at most a few days."


If this is the case, why exactly was a student taken to the hospital for first degree burns after a recent incident in which students were shocked as a result of a prank call? Why did a CNN representative describe the shock as very painful? Why does Mother Jones describe it as like being stung repeatedly by wasps?


"Such vestigial behaviors, as well as antecedent behaviors, might seem to be not significant enough to deserve treatment if they are considered in isolation, outside the full treatment
context; however, they are important to treat for reasons similar to those that cause a doctor to recommend treating cancer at its earliest possible stage to recommend that a patient continue taking antibiotics even after the outward signs of an infection are no longer evident."


Let's ignore for the moment that cancer is not an infection, and address this quote tself.

It certainly makes sense that antecedent behaviors can be identified which lead to a behavior that is targeted for aversive skin shocks. Similarly, advocates of Clicker Training, which I discussed in my last post, have shown that rewarding even minute behaviors that could eventually lead to the desired behavior is effective in shaping a behavior. Does the philosophy of punishing antecedent behaviors extend to positive reinforcement? Are students immediately, promptly, and in a way reinforcing to the individual, rewarded for minute steps toward the desired behavior? Is the tiniest glance at a teacher in a student who has difficulty paying attention rewarded immediately, just as the movement of hands upward in a student who pulls his hair out would be punished? Or is this enthusiasm for prompt response reserved for the use of skin shocks?


"Every surgical, dental or medical treatment involves discomfort, risks or costs on the one hand, and expected benefits on the other."

Can you offer testimony from a self sufficient adult graduate of the JRC, who is able to participate in society, that skin shock therapy was worth the over $200,000 yearly charged in tuition by the JRC? Can you connect me by telephone or email with a single autistic adult who would go back and do it all over again- skin shocks and all- because that therapy was so valuable?

The only JRC survivors I see speaking out for themselves are the ones who discuss physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the institution- not how rewarding and beneficial the JRC's skin shock therapy was.

"With aversives however, many are able to obtain an education for the first time in
their lives, reunite successfully with their families, and have hope and optimism for their future where none had previously existed."

Prove it. Prove that the improvement in students over years of therapy is due to that therapy, not in spite of it. Show us the hordes of thankful graduates who should be swarming the blogosphere with congratulations to you, Mr. Israel, if your 100% success rate is truly due to skin shock therapy's intrinsic benefits, not to the fact that aversives subdue aggression by force, not through learning. I can show you an adult autistic who was abused and never benefited. I can show you dozens more like her. Can you show me an adult autistic who will tell me how much the abuse helped her?

I can show you an expert who developed functional analysis who doesn't feel that the JRC is conducting any functional analysis or assessment. Can you show me an expert of similar stature who will go to bat for skin shock therapy? Can you direct him here, or to the blog of any other participant in Blogging Against Aversives Day, to retort?

Show us where your salary- over $300,000 of it- is going. Show us the people. Show us the results. Show us someone who is willing to personally contradict all the horror stories told by JRC survivors. Then show us that these are the vast majority, and that the people who see their time at the JRC as a waking nightmare are the exception.

Can you?

-Sandy

On a Culture of Punishment

Today is January 14th, which has been designated Blogging Against Aversives Day in support of those attending a hearing regarding the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center and those who put in the valuable work to get the Massachusetts legislature to hear four bills against this Center.

"The facility, which calls itself a "special needs school," takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten."

As an animal lover and a person who has trained dogs, horses, and even a few cats and rats, my first reaction to those sentences from the Mother Jones article is to wonder exactly why their system needs to be so complex- or, rather, why the administration of this center thinks it does.

Let me elaborate. Let's say that I have just acquired a biting dog with some possible neurological problems. It's safe to say that if a dog in this situation has a home, it's lucky, and that it's probably on its last chance to learn to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Similarly, the JRC paints itself as a last-ditch effort to modify behavior of extremely troubled children who have not been successful in other behavioral intervention programs. However, the consequences of my new dog's failure to learn to behave itself are far more final: A dog that bites repeatedly is put down, often by Animal Control following a court order. It is arguable that the fate awaiting a human who continues to behave aggressively could be worse- prison- but the death penalty is given only to a small percentage of human repeat offenders. The dog will not have more chances to modify its behavior in its lifetime. The human likely will continue to live, and thus continue to have opportunities to change.

It makes sense that, in saving my biting dog from euthanasia, I would want to use every possible method of education, correct? After all, if the dog bites again, I don't get another chance to train it- it gets put to sleep. Are we on the same page?

Now, here's where the direct comparison comes in. I would not use a complex system of rewards and punishments no matter what the consequences. In animal training, the more complexity there is, the more opportunities for failure there are. You set animals up for success in training- not offer them a thousand windows for failure.

In fact, I would use one, very simple, system of rewards and negative punishment. I would use clicker training, a method developed from dolphin training in which a marker signal is used to signify that a behavior was correct and will be rewarded. If necessary, I could utilize this system from outside the room to remotely reward signs of calm and submissive behavior. The only punishment is negative- if necessary, I subtract a reward from the situation. For example, my biting dog is playing nicely with a guest when suddenly he growls playfully. I instruct my guest to turn her back and ignore the dog for 30 seconds. The dog's actions were punished not by a shock collar, not by a beating, but by the very simple subtraction of the play and attention he was receiving from my guest. When my guest counts 30 seconds and turns back around, the dog is rewarded with play, and gets a click and a treat for rolling over on his back submissively. Simple, right?

So why would you need a complex system of rewards and punishments for children, when hundreds of thousands of animal trainers worldwide have experienced results with possibly the most simple behavioral modification system ever conceived- Clicker Training. You click the box and give a treat when the animal does something right. I successfully taught my seven year old niece (using a marker signal and rewards) to train her Chihuahua using a marker signal and rewards. How much easier does it have to be before the punishment advocates see the light?

Aversives are part of everyday life. If I am clumsy as I walk around the corner, I stub my toe. If I am rude to a coworker, she avoids me for the rest of the day. But, as Karen Pryor says...

"In general, all that we learn from the inevitable aversives in daily life is to avoid them if we can."

Avoid the teachers.

Avoid the professionals who are tasked with protecting your safety.

Avoid them because they are the ones who administer shocks and punishments.

Even when you are being abused- physically, emotionally, sexually.

Because, more than likely, the teachers are the ones abusing you.

Just avoid them- you're on your own.


....Is that what we want to teach children with behavioral problems?

Another Dead Young Disabled Person

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wear/7177716.stm

"Brent Martin died in hospital after being found with multiple injuries on Sunderland's Town End Farm estate in August last year."

"On Tuesday, at the start of the 17-year-old's trial, the court heard that the attack began at a bus stop when he bet £5 that the 16-year-old could not knock out Mr Martin with his right hand. Both youngsters were trained as boxers, and their victim was repeatedly punched, kicked, stamped on and head butted, the jury was told."

Where to start?

Just another example of the world telling people with disabilities that they are not human. Just another example of the glorification of violence teaching youth that the role of the able bodied is to harm, subjugate, and kill those who can't defend themselves. Just another helicopter parent unable to accept that their offspring could have been in the wrong, washing blood off his clothes and defending his actions.

"The court heard that the 17-year-old defendant later told witnesses: 'I am not going down for a muppet.'"

Some part of me wonders what they said to each other while beating a human being to death. Did they call him a muppet then, too? Mongoloid? Moron? Did they continue to bet money, or was it simply fun after the first punch was thrown? Did they know when the first boy threw that first punch that they would kill a member of their own species that day, or did they simply enjoy it so much they didn't stop until he was dead? Were they surprised to find that they had killed him?

"Prosecutor Toby Hedworth QC said: 'That man Brent Martin never lifted an aggressive finger towards them and they did that to him until he was dead. They did that for their own sport.'"

Have we really not advanced one bit in 13 years?

http://trinityva.livejournal.com/tag/pwd+deaths

http://thegimpparade.blogspot.com/2007/12/robert-latimer-denied-parole.html

http://crip-power.com/2008/01/02/another-young-disabled-woman/


Robert Latimer killed his disabled daughter in 1993. Eight days into 2008, two youths kill a disabled man for fun. Among the three murderers, none show remorse. Should any of the three receive sympathy from the public?

In an appeal to his conviction, Latimer contended that he 'had the legal right to decide to commit suicide for his daughter by virtue of her complete lack of physical and intellectual abilities.'

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/283184

"Latimer will likely hurt inside for the rest of his life for what he did. What he did to his daughter was out of love."

If the two young thugs who killed Brent Martin had been two old thugs- his parents- and excused their actions by claiming they loved him and didn't want him to suffer from his learning disability anymore, would they receive this sympathy?

"How is someone supposed to show remorse for doing something they still think was right? The child was in horrible pain all of the time. This was confirmed by her specialist. He has served more than enough time for his offence. Worse criminals have served far less time. I say free him now so he can be with his family ... where he should have been long ago!"

If not, where is the threshold? When is someone disabled enough that someone else can kill them out of love? When they can't walk or talk? Should we conduct tests on children- yes, Ma'am, your son is over 90% disabled- proceed to the euthanasia chamber for immediate service! Where does the line lie between murder and mercy killing for the screaming mobs who demand Robert Latimer be paroled?

And over everything else, one fact about this story stands out to me.

Brent Martin had a learning disability. Not a physical disability. He could have fought back- he couldn't have won, but he could have thrown a punch or two, left a couple of black eyes on his assailants. But again...

"That man Brent Martin never lifted an aggressive finger towards them and they did that to him until he was dead. They did that for their own sport."

And that alone, to me, makes Brent Martin more human and more worthy of life than the murderers.