A Savage Douche-Bag!

It's been a while. I've been working and trying to take care of some things around the house. I've barely had time to check my e-mail much less anything else.

But, it doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about blogging. I've caught myself from time to time thinking, "I should write something about this" or that. I've had a ton of topics fly through my head but my wife told me about something that pissed me off so badly that I have to vent somehow.

I'm sure some of you have heard of Michael Savage, the "compassionate conservative" radio talk show host. I've listened to him every now and then and shook my head in bewilderment. He's kind of like a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. I can at least have some respect for the last two, at least they aren't pretending to be anything other than they portend. Rush is a conservative. His radio show is for entertainment and he he has been known to exagerate for the sake of humor. He at least is capable of apologyzing for any of his offensive remarks. Howad Stern is all about entertainment for males whose maturity level never quite made it past 13-year-old potty humor with bare breasts thrown in occasionally for seasoning.

Michael Savage on the other hand is a "shock-jock" trying to pretend to be a serious commentator. He's made a lot of comments that have warranted his removal from the air. I read while doing a little online research for this entry that he has been fired by MSNBC for some slurs he has made towards the homosexual community. While I'm not a fan of homosexuality and my religious beliefs consider it a sin against God, I'm not going to place myself on the judgement seat to condemn something I don't understand and others have freely chosen to have as a life-style. It is God's right to judge not mine. I do my faith a disservice by making statements intended to harm those that I am commanded to love as my brothers and sisters. You may not share my beliefs and that's cool. It does nothing to me. It is between you and our Creator. If I'm wrong, so be it. If your wrong, good luck.

Michael Savage makes a living selecting a hot button topic and making inflammatory comments on it while trying to make himself sound like a conservative. He definitely succeeds in making an ass of himself while absoring the praise he gathers from him listening audience like a narcotic.

In his death throws he is apparent;y choosing to offend as many people as possible. Most recently he chose to, in one broadcast, slander minorities with asthma and parents of children with autism. Wow, what a glutten. He must really need the attention.

At first, I was pissed. The comments he made calling autism a "fraud" and nothing more than a condition exagerated by "wimpy dads" made me want to throw up. The thought that I would somehow want this is ludicrous. I didn't make the label or ask for it. What I am about to tell you is not to garner any sympathy. I don't want it and could care less for it. Our experience with this condition is as unique to us as it is for every parent who has a child afflicted with it. The level it affects those diagnosed with it swing wildly from hardly noticeable to extremely debillitating.

The only thing I know is that one of the most important people in my life was a perfectly normal baby, who had just started talking, counting numbers and other perfectly normal baby behaviors right up until he was 18 months old. Then we started losing him. He first stopped waving bye-bye at bed-time, stopped talking and started babbling. He would sit and stare at a ceiling fan until we would move him. He stopped interacting with us and seeking our attention and approval. He got quiet and withdrawn.

He had suffered no injuries or serious illnesses prior to this. It was like somebody was in his head and one at a time turning things off.

My wife and I went to doctor after doctor, all who had very few answers. At first, my son got labeled as PDD/NOS, Pervasive Developmental Disorder / Not Otherwise Specified. Then the word autism was thrown around. My initial reaction was much like everyone elses, "You mean, like Rainman?" I had no idea what it was and what it meant for my son.

We went to Mayo-Clinic in Rochester, MN. when my son was around 3. He was poked and prodded over several days by an army of nurses and doctors of a huge variety of disciplines from allergists to geneticists. The only thing I learned was that not even the army of doctors at Mayo Clinic know jack-shit about autism, what causes it, what it leads to, what can help it, NOTHING.

One of the doctors had tried to test my sons potential intelligence. His lack of cooperation garnered him the label of mental retardation. During our closing meeting the same doctor had told us with a long face that he wouldn't be surprised if our son never potty trained. While my wife and I stared at each other he noticed my son and said, "Is he wearing underwear?" My son had been potty trained for several months. It was slow going but he did it. The same doctor then withdrew his initial diagnosis and labeled the results as erred due to a lack of patient cooperation. Duh. Something we had told him at the beginning.

It's not that the doctors aren't intelligent and talented people. They all cared about my boy very much and I could even see in some of them bitter disappointment that they couldn't be more helpfull. We were finally told that the best thing for now was to treat the manifestations that could be treated and try to adjust life around the ones that couldn't. They had no idea how much he would learn or even if he would regress further. My wife and I have been left to worry ourselves every day that my son may never leave us or need our care in some way. And in that is the cruelest reality of all of it. After we are gone, who will take care of our son and understand his needs and the communication he can manage? I have seen managed care homes for the mentally handicapped and as much as some may try, they can't give the love that those people need to fully live a life that isn't more than being provided for until death.

That thought kills a little bit more of me every day.

We have adjusted our lives accordingly. We have limited the travel on the windows in our house to prevent him from climbing out of them. We have two doors on our front entry. One on the outside that cab be locked to keep someone out and one on the inside that keeps our son in. We didn't do these thinsg pre-emptively. We did them as a result of episodes f our son leaving the house and taking off after finding something we hadn't thought of. There have been  lot of other things we have changed to adapt to his needs and continue to chamge as he does. We are trying to keep him safe and ourselves sane while negotiating this thing that has stolen my son's future from him.

Until about a year or two ago, it was like everybody else was standing by oblivious to what was gong on. In the years prior to my sons diagnsis, autistic spectrum disorders afflicted 1 in 10,000. Then there was a huge jump in the 90's, 1 in 150. Depending on who you talk to it is now 1 in 100 to 1 in 50.

Part of that is that they continually add new disorders to the autistic spectrum. Some of which don't really make a lot of sense but there's a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense about it. The one thing that I know is that before all of the other things were added, 1 in every couple hundred kids were being born with it and the numbers are increasing. Of course as with everything, nobody really gives a shit until a fuckin celebrity is effected so when an NFL quarter-back announced one of his children had it, suddenly it mattered.

At last autism has started to garner the importance of the obligatory fund-raisers and telethons. The research needs it and hopefully they discover what causes it or what could make it better.

And now, out of the woodwok crawls Michael Savage. Now that autism matters to people he has decided to walk out and spew some half-assed opinion. Apparently according to Savages ratings hungry little mind, this whole thing is a hoax. Something cooked up by people to get money out of the government or due to some parents inability to control their child's behavior.

As I said, at first I was pissed off to a plateau that could have lead me to an extreme level of violent creativity. However, after I simmered down a bit  I realized that my previous fears of some kind of harm to the efforts of  people to raise funds for research was an overreaction. After reading around on the internet  I came to know that aside fom a galleon load of interstate truck drivers really gives a shit. So on that note, keep spewing Michael Savage. The only thing being accomplished is a shrinking audience, shrinking sponsorship and an equally shrinking pocketbook.

Sweet.