Outside The Asylum

There is good news and bad news in the job market. The bad news- with between 30 and 60 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, it's harder than ever to find a job, especially for autistics whose social skills are mere coping skills. But here's the good news- for the professional specialist, search engines like Dice, Monster, and Craigslist have become excellent places to find jobs to apply to. Initial application is now almost entirely electronic- no paper, no "putting yourself out there" in person. One huge new behavior from HR departments is the electronic pre-screening, by either e-mail or website. Be prepared to actually spend MORE hours on a job search- I saw questionnaires ranging from 30 to 400 questions, covering technical skills, personality profiling, even a little bit of classic IQ testing. Naturally, the more questions they ask you, the more likely even High Functioning Autism will be uncovered- so it's wise to self-disclose if you shou...

The real problem with illegal immigration isn't illegal immigrants- it is lazy American Citizens who don't think others deserve the same standard of living they have, combined with ridiculously low fines for their arrogance and criminal behavior. Case in point from the article: Annette — who agreed to give only her middle name — owns a two-bedroom condo in Phoenix, which she rents out. Her last tenant, a smoker, just moved away, and in order to fix the lingering cigarette smell, she needs a paint job. Annette's painter is not authorized to work in the U.S. In fact, he's not authorized to live here, either. His name is Raphael, and he's cheap. Annette says an American painter quoted her $1,200 for the job. Raphael charges $500. Annette believes American prices are inflated, so paying Raphael the lower wage is justified . So Annette doesn't believe Americans deserve their standard of living- does she include her own family in that? Is she willing to lo...

Thanks to Marc Stiegler for permission to use this. I don't have his original story, so this is paraphrased. I'm typing this from memory, as oddly I can't find it online. It was part of a sci-fi story I once read, but it's often a theme for outsiders. There was once a bully and a crazy boy. Every day, the bully would threaten the crazy boy, for his lunch money. And every day the crazy boy would give it to him. One day, a homeless man saw this happening, and took the crazy boy aside, to give him the secret only outsiders to society know; that nobody wants to mess with insane people, for fear they will catch the insanity themselves. The next day, the crazy boy had no lunch money in his pocket to give, on purpose, and got beaten up. The day after that the bully asked for lunch money again, and was refused, and the crazy boy got beaten up. The day after that the bully asked for lunch money again, and was refused, and the crazy boy got beaten up. The fourth day, the ...

I'm not even sure I have the CD anymore- just a few MP3s of my favorite songs from their CD on my phone. Don't know how to spell their names either- I think it was Sammuson & Tomassi, weird spellings from a weird city at a weird time. It was 1996. I was a single guy back then, very liberal at the time. Spent a lot of my time at The Beanery coffee house in Salem, OR. A lonely geek, three years before I'd figure out women enough to meet my wife and get married, four years before I'd actually find out what was wrong with me with my Asperger's diagnosis. Fourteen years ago. One night, a singing duo came into the coffee house. Good 'gonie folk rock, they sung about the values I grew up with as in a Tom McCall Republican household- conservation, living off the land, lots of respect for Native Americans. Some new age thrown in, but I didn't mind that as I hadn't discovered what an Old Age religious guy I was yet. Wonderful music. At that time in my ...

Pepperland! And Blue Meanies! Yes, it's the Yellow Submarine!

This is written in response to this Call for papers on the subject of autism. 1. Don't Panic. Ok, I know it sounds like the slogan of a certain comedy science fiction book, TV Show, Radio Show, and Movie that a lot of geeks like, but it's true in this case too. That's the first thing you shouldn't do. There are a lot of "charities" and "doctors" out there right now in the internet and in society that are hoping that you'll panic at your child being diagnosed with autism, and accept their cure. Not all of their advice is bad, but not all fits all autistic children or people. And some of their more expensive recommendations are downright awful. So don't panic, do your research, and NEVER accept a single opinion on what is right for your child. ALWAYS ask to see the data. 2. Heavy metal poisoning is the #1 crackpot theory out there today, and there's good reason for it- it's co-morbid with up to 75% of autism cases, depending ...

So, is the Roman Catholic Church too judgemental? Or too merciful? Or is it just that some people who want it to be merciful for *THEIR* favorite sins, don't like it when the Church is merciful for *OTHER PEOPLE'S* favorite sins? We're Catholic. We're supposed to believe in *forgiveness* more than sin. But being merciful to a child abuser, apparently, is the unforgivable sin among some Catholics.

The Vatican is claiming that they're being attacked by a Witch Hunt from the New York Times. Well, after reading a few rad-trad Catholic sites and doing my own reading of the NYT's so-called document trail, I think it might go deeper than that, at least if you're schizophrenic, paranoid, and off your meds: In 1963, the Masonic Pope John XIII convened Vatican II to get the Roman Catholic Church to change it's teaching about God in a very fundamental way. God was no longer the wrathful judge and strict father figure we had grown to love, no, suddenly he's smokin' ganga and handing out mercy to any sinner who asks. Fast forward 10 years, and a priest in Wisconsin by the Name of Fr. Murphy has been hiding in the confessional, molesting deaf boys during the infamous American Hippie Summer of Love (well, he ended in the Summer of Love, he'd really been doing it for a lot longer before that, but he's clearly a dirty hippie and a member of the vast Masonic Cons...

Opposition to providing every human being with health care *of some sort* is Cain and Abel all over again. I *am* my brother's keeper. Matthew 25 says I will be judged by how I treat him. By what stretch of the imagination can we be greedy and say "I don't care what happens to him"? And the wages for this sin aren't far behind. In today's world where oppressed people commit acts of terrorism, the lack of health care is a HUGE defensive hole that fails to be filled. If I were al Qaida, I'd be concentrating on highly contagious diseases. Far better than a suicide bomber with a vest of dynamite, is one guy with a cough and a bunch of frequent flyer miles in a country with inadequate health care.

Or at least, some people I'm close to are getting strange. Christopher's godparents are getting a divorce- and she's cracking up, been diagnosed with a whole host of mental illness problems. Our pastor at St. Clare's has decided at 57 that he no longer wants to be alone the rest of his life- at least he's doing the right thing by resigning from the priesthood instead of causing a scandal by breaking his vow of celibacy. I admire his integrity in this choice, but what timing! He'll be lucky to have a job again in less than six months- right now the average unemployment period in Oregon for *anybody* is more like a year or two. Six applicants for every job. OTOH, for his direct problem of loneliness attached to his vow of celibacy- he's the man, he's the man, he's the man- who doesn't exist. Moral, upright, never been divorced because he's never been married, and over 50, an age where single women outnumber single men 2:1. I suspect he...

An interesting post - and an interesting point. The War on Terror has been utterly, utterly lost, and: It doesn’t matter either way. Dead or alive, Osama bin Laden is the greatest strategist in the history of human conflict. With no navy or air force or anything that resembles a formal army, he’s managed to whip the world’s mightiest nation like a rented camel. Our economy is shot, the best-trained, best-equipped military in history has been proven impotent, and our moral standing in the world has gone through the sub-basement. I seem to remember making a similar point before the 2004 election- that the Republicans, as war makers, were a failure to invade Iraq, and that one old guy in a Turban with a kidney condition had effectively beat the US military all hollow.

A wonderful alternative to Autism Speaks, A Hope for Autism, is having a fundraising dinner April 10th at the Benson Hotel in Portland .

The original Equal Rights Amendment was simple- the law should have no gender differences. A man makes his decision to become a father the instant he has consensual sex, at least, under the law. I should emphasize the word consensual; we're not talking about rape or incest here, we're talking about normal sex, inside of some form of committed relationship. He can't back out past that point. Yet Roe V.Wade allows a woman to. This creates a difference in the law- a difference in parental rights. Yeah, I know, women try to justify it with "It's my body and I have to give up 9 months of my life for the child". But I'm talking cusps here- the moment of decision. And the moment of decision, legally, should be the same for a man as for a woman. And that moment shouldn't be *after* the fact. Non-consensual sex, like incest and rape, isn't included in this. In fact, I consider abortion due to incest and rape to be murder- and the murderer to be the ra...

I'm Roman Catholic. To me, that means marriage is a sacrament designed to last, and even divorce should not be permitted. Recently I participated in a joke post on somebody else's blog, playing devil's advocate: Why California can no longer afford divorce But I fear it might have left my real position confused. So here goes- the gay agenda has highlighted one thing in particular. Writing marriage into civil law comes dangerously close to violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Which causes a conflict for me between faith and patriotism. Thus I propose this answer: We split civil recognition of marriage into three parts. First of all, Sacramental marriages may no longer be recognized by the State at all . They are fully in the province of religion, and follow the rules of the religious sect of the person who officiates at the marriage. The person officiating at the ceremony has the full right to require premarital classes and cou...

Or rather, in certain industries in the United States, the consumer isn't the customer. Yeah, that's right- especially in Debit and credit cards apparently, the consumer isn't the customer, the bank is. VISA and MasterCard especially, but also smaller networks, sell their brand name to banks. To get banks to buy their brand name (for which they get a few pennies off of every transaction) they have been pushing up the fees in a perverse price-inflation competition, which returns those interchange fees to the banks. Which raises the price on EVERYTHING else you buy- because it is the consumer that ultimately pays these interchange fees. In other words- a certain business has learned how to enact a completely legal, hidden sales tax. von Mises must be spinning in his grave- it's a case of laisez faire competition raising prices and creating inefficiencies equal or greater than any government bureaucracy. Funny how the Roman Catholic Church predicted something like th...