The story of David and his victory over Goliath is the story of a family in poverty. Jesse is a very old man with his youngest tending to sheep in Bethlehem. People made fun of David not only because he was poor but as a small child doing the work of a man, “Why can’t David play like us because he’s a redneck and a farmhand!” other…

On a bright Easter Sunday on the way to my Family’s Easter Brunch, there was a radio ad of a group of job seekers in my state of Michigan pairing up with Autism Speaks so they could hire more Autistic people. I asked myself why, why partner with Autism Speaks…

Pageantry competitions are built upon Erhard Seminar Training, a 1970’s sales tool by former Scientologist Warner Erhard. Instead of psychiatry, those seeking help for the self-invested up to $300 for Erhard’s lectures in the mid-1970s and 80’s. Known as EST, the technique involves psychological analysis, new hopes and dreams, a…

“I killed Mozart” This is the line that sets the film Amadeus in motion that makes us think Salieri killed Mozart; but what if Salieri was really a witness and a bystander of Mozart’s real killer, a culture of stigma and micro-aggression towards people with autism. In saying, “I killed Mozart” it really…

a parody of Jack London’s Ode to a Scab — After God Made the red-shoed wolf Garrison Keilor, the Grusome Newt Gingrich, Rotten Rush Limbaugh, and Denis Prager he bestowed upon the world the NPR Centrist. An NPR Centrist is a two-legged creature with such diluted ignorance of the voices of the tired and the poor that it only hears…

How the Mozart Effect is Tied to Eugenics and Elitism — Mozart Makes Babys Smart! Don’t You Want a Smart Baby? As a person with Asperger’s, I always knew I was smart. As a child, I thought I could be anything until my Lucy van Pelt of a mother put me in Homeschool in 2nd- until 4th grade. I never knew why she did this to me because it felt cruel…

Once I was a child who had lofty dreams and goals as every child should, then my realist of a mother and I saw Coraline based on a book by Neil Gaiman. If you lived in a Hole in the Ground, the story is about a young girl with very…

In a forest, there was a tree that thought it was taller than the other trees and would stay a tall tree, “No matter what happens to me I will stay put!”.

umbrella term (plural umbrella terms) A term used to cover a broad category of things rather than a single specific item. When I try to talk to people about Volksmusik as it does exist in the Midwestern States and many other German-Speaking communities in America. One ugly word and umbrella term that pops up is…