The Marcus Autism Center has a bunch of fluffy PR videos on YouTube. Let's take a look at one.
Here Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus takes time out from his busy schedule whining and bitching about federal regulations and unions (workers voted against unionizing the Home Depot because they knew that unions would prevent parking lot cart pushers from becoming the company vice president) to talk about the Marcus Autism Center which is, of course, named after his wallet.
Bernie mentions two things that raise eyebrows. One, his question about how do you know when someone who is nonverbal is suffering or in pain. His answer: SPECIALISTS!
Hmmm. Specialized in what exactly? Because the specialists you get at the Marcus Center are specialized in behaviorism, which is, by its own definition, a field completely unconcerned about what goes on inside the mind. I can use modified Skinnerian techniques to train my dog to fetch but it's not going to be that much of an aid in helping me figure out why Fluffy's feeling sad.
Second, Bernie says that Marcus has, over the course of its existence helped over 40,000 kids.("And Growing!") Wow. So if even a tiny percentage of those kids who are not adults are willing to pay back Marcus for the great treatment they've received then the Marcus Center should be able to brings hundreds of adultautistics to testify on the center's behalf.
Except, these adults are unknown to anyone at Marcus I've asked on the subject including Don Mueller.
Let this miniscule or completely nonexistent set be the real testimonial for the Marcus Autism Center.
By the way, low level Marcus employees. You need a union.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Anyone? Mueller?...Mueller?
Before this gets any more stale, here's my write-up of my March meeting with the Marcus Center's Don Mueller:
When robots or computer animated humans get too close to looking real without completely nailing the illusion they project something called the Uncanny Valley.
Don Mueller is the only human being that I have ever met who projects his own Uncanny Valley. I had never really noticed this effect before until I sat down with him in his office on the morning of March 16th, but once there it was impossible not to see it. There's just some little bit of humanity that people normally radiate that Mueller simply doesn't. Normally I might not mention this, but since Mueller is the Executive Director of the Marcus Center, whose whole reason for being is to, essentially, modify the behaviors of autistic children so that they can pass for normal humanity, his deficiency in this regard stands out with a particularly ironic clarity.
The meeting had been suggested by Mueller at the end of the previous month's Atlanta Autism Consortium meeting after he objected to my questioning of a speaker. I had speculated in an earlier post that I thought the purpose of this might be to lay the groundwork for my eventual banishment from future AAC and other Marcus Center related events. That's not how it turned out and now, three months later, I'm still somewhat unsure as to the nature of Mueller's original intent.
Attending this meeting, in addition to Mueller and myself, were Gregory Abowd, who runs the AAC meetings and my associate, Linda Styles.
It had been my plan to actually record the conversation and then produce a transcript. But when Linda brought out a mini-cassette player and placed it on the table, Mueller made clear that he would not consent to a taping. Such would not be, he argued, conducive to building an atmosphere of trust between us. "At this point, do you really think there's any danger of that happening, Don?" is a question I thought of asking. But didn't. In the very spirit of building an edifice of trust.
Still, recording undermines trust?
Hmm.
Since I began meeting with these behaviorists two years back, I have been been amazed at how the mediocrities (at best) that comprise the core of the behaviorist community continually project their own inadequacies onto others (and how frequently they do so in the name of science): Amy Wetherby claiming repetition is a danger sign in the course of delivering a painfully repetitive (by her own definition of the word) power point presentation; an ABA proponent who waxes on about the horrors of lack of eye contact who then refuses to look me in the eye even for a moment while I am asking him direct questions about his methodology; the parade of experts who claim that the people they study lack empathy or a "theory of mind" while they themselves clearly show themselves incapable of applying either to someone outside the narrowest parameters of their own comfort zones.
How many events have I intended at the Marcus Center in which a main theme was surveillance? Children, sometimes aware they are being filmed, and sometimes obviously not; their every gesture and utterance scrutinized, and judged by a series of juries they are unaware even exist. I remember all the many times that Mueller had spoken up that recording these children without their knowledge or consent would be inconducive to building trust with that child.
Oh wait. I got my numbers mixed up. It wasn't "many" times.
It was actually zero.
As always, there is one set of etiquette and ethical boundaries for those who would make the rules and another for those whom they would have live under them.
Whatever.
Mueller let me know that he considered my questioning of the speakers at the AAC meetings to be inappropriate. Abowd, sitting across from me, said that he did not consider this the case at all. Mueller then pointed out that there were those who had come previously to the meetings who no longer were attending because of me. I countered that I had a member of my smaller group who would no longer be attending the meetings because he could no longer stomach the barely-hidden derision of the so-called "experts." There are casualties on both sides in this war.
I related to Mueller how, as a member of Bob Morris's group I had spent two years discussing with Bob the nature of the behaviorist. Bob believed that the behaviorists that he engaged were misguided and that, with the proper argument, they could be reasoned with. I came to believe that the behaviorists were not scientists at all. They were pseudo-scientists, cast from the same mold as astrologers and creationists. While Bob was alive, I had, out of respect for him, stayed, for the most part, out of this arena. But I had also watched the eye-rolling derision with which he was been treated by this community of "scientists." Respect, for the behaviorist, is a one way street.
I had started coming to the AAC for one purpose. To demonstrate conclusively to my people that the behaviorists and their allies are frauds. And I believe that I have done so. Real scientists and researchers simply do not behave in the shameful and cowardly manner that the behaviorists at the AAC and other events I have attended have behaved. Who does behave this way? Con men.
If these really were men and women of science, how easy would it have been for them to meet my simple inquiries? After two years, how many of them have been able to answer the simplest question of all: what empirical evidence exists to classify everyone on the autistic spectrum as disordered? They base their science on this assertion.
Mueller's organization gets rich off of it.
Mueller asked what I'd like to see from the Marcus Center. I did not give my standard line that I wished to see everyone who worked there live a life of regret and eventually end up cursing my name on their deathbed. Such statements, I know, are not conducive to building an edifice of trust.
Instead, I simply stated that I wished to see it go out of business. Even this pared down statement seemed to catch him off guard for some reason. I don't know why since he had already heard me say, at that very meeting, and several other gatherings, I'm sure, that I considered behaviorists to be engaged in scientific fraud. Why would I, or anyone else, wish to see people whom they believed were engaged in fraud continue on in their fraudulent activity?
I don't know. Perhaps Mueller simply lacks a theory of mind.
At the end of the discussion, which ended up running about 70 minutes, it was time to sum up. I told Mueller that I intended to continue at the AAC meetings exactly as I have been. If he wanted any change, then he would have to ban me.
And with that, Mueller coldly thanked me for coming.
Walt Guthrie
When robots or computer animated humans get too close to looking real without completely nailing the illusion they project something called the Uncanny Valley.
Don Mueller is the only human being that I have ever met who projects his own Uncanny Valley. I had never really noticed this effect before until I sat down with him in his office on the morning of March 16th, but once there it was impossible not to see it. There's just some little bit of humanity that people normally radiate that Mueller simply doesn't. Normally I might not mention this, but since Mueller is the Executive Director of the Marcus Center, whose whole reason for being is to, essentially, modify the behaviors of autistic children so that they can pass for normal humanity, his deficiency in this regard stands out with a particularly ironic clarity.
The meeting had been suggested by Mueller at the end of the previous month's Atlanta Autism Consortium meeting after he objected to my questioning of a speaker. I had speculated in an earlier post that I thought the purpose of this might be to lay the groundwork for my eventual banishment from future AAC and other Marcus Center related events. That's not how it turned out and now, three months later, I'm still somewhat unsure as to the nature of Mueller's original intent.
Attending this meeting, in addition to Mueller and myself, were Gregory Abowd, who runs the AAC meetings and my associate, Linda Styles.
It had been my plan to actually record the conversation and then produce a transcript. But when Linda brought out a mini-cassette player and placed it on the table, Mueller made clear that he would not consent to a taping. Such would not be, he argued, conducive to building an atmosphere of trust between us. "At this point, do you really think there's any danger of that happening, Don?" is a question I thought of asking. But didn't. In the very spirit of building an edifice of trust.
Still, recording undermines trust?
Hmm.
Since I began meeting with these behaviorists two years back, I have been been amazed at how the mediocrities (at best) that comprise the core of the behaviorist community continually project their own inadequacies onto others (and how frequently they do so in the name of science): Amy Wetherby claiming repetition is a danger sign in the course of delivering a painfully repetitive (by her own definition of the word) power point presentation; an ABA proponent who waxes on about the horrors of lack of eye contact who then refuses to look me in the eye even for a moment while I am asking him direct questions about his methodology; the parade of experts who claim that the people they study lack empathy or a "theory of mind" while they themselves clearly show themselves incapable of applying either to someone outside the narrowest parameters of their own comfort zones.
How many events have I intended at the Marcus Center in which a main theme was surveillance? Children, sometimes aware they are being filmed, and sometimes obviously not; their every gesture and utterance scrutinized, and judged by a series of juries they are unaware even exist. I remember all the many times that Mueller had spoken up that recording these children without their knowledge or consent would be inconducive to building trust with that child.
Oh wait. I got my numbers mixed up. It wasn't "many" times.
It was actually zero.
As always, there is one set of etiquette and ethical boundaries for those who would make the rules and another for those whom they would have live under them.
Whatever.
Mueller let me know that he considered my questioning of the speakers at the AAC meetings to be inappropriate. Abowd, sitting across from me, said that he did not consider this the case at all. Mueller then pointed out that there were those who had come previously to the meetings who no longer were attending because of me. I countered that I had a member of my smaller group who would no longer be attending the meetings because he could no longer stomach the barely-hidden derision of the so-called "experts." There are casualties on both sides in this war.
I related to Mueller how, as a member of Bob Morris's group I had spent two years discussing with Bob the nature of the behaviorist. Bob believed that the behaviorists that he engaged were misguided and that, with the proper argument, they could be reasoned with. I came to believe that the behaviorists were not scientists at all. They were pseudo-scientists, cast from the same mold as astrologers and creationists. While Bob was alive, I had, out of respect for him, stayed, for the most part, out of this arena. But I had also watched the eye-rolling derision with which he was been treated by this community of "scientists." Respect, for the behaviorist, is a one way street.
I had started coming to the AAC for one purpose. To demonstrate conclusively to my people that the behaviorists and their allies are frauds. And I believe that I have done so. Real scientists and researchers simply do not behave in the shameful and cowardly manner that the behaviorists at the AAC and other events I have attended have behaved. Who does behave this way? Con men.
If these really were men and women of science, how easy would it have been for them to meet my simple inquiries? After two years, how many of them have been able to answer the simplest question of all: what empirical evidence exists to classify everyone on the autistic spectrum as disordered? They base their science on this assertion.
Mueller's organization gets rich off of it.
Mueller asked what I'd like to see from the Marcus Center. I did not give my standard line that I wished to see everyone who worked there live a life of regret and eventually end up cursing my name on their deathbed. Such statements, I know, are not conducive to building an edifice of trust.
Instead, I simply stated that I wished to see it go out of business. Even this pared down statement seemed to catch him off guard for some reason. I don't know why since he had already heard me say, at that very meeting, and several other gatherings, I'm sure, that I considered behaviorists to be engaged in scientific fraud. Why would I, or anyone else, wish to see people whom they believed were engaged in fraud continue on in their fraudulent activity?
I don't know. Perhaps Mueller simply lacks a theory of mind.
At the end of the discussion, which ended up running about 70 minutes, it was time to sum up. I told Mueller that I intended to continue at the AAC meetings exactly as I have been. If he wanted any change, then he would have to ban me.
And with that, Mueller coldly thanked me for coming.
Walt Guthrie
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Anthony Weiner and the Charles Woods Dilemma Part One
What did Charles Woods get for Christmas?
A pair of glasses and a staple gun.
That is probably the first political joke I ever heard. Not so much a political joke, really, as a joke about a political figure. There were lots of jokes about Charles Woods on my elementary school playground while I was going to school in Alabama in the '60s. I don't recall hearing any jokes around that time about Wallace who was then governor and leading the state and the region down a truly monstrous path.
Charles Woods did not lead anyone down a monstrous path. He was simply a monster. In the crude, simplistic, purely physical way that monsters exist to sheltered children.
Woods had been shot down in World War II and as a result suffered extreme burns on his face and hands. With virtually no real facial features at all, he resembled Dr. Phibes from the Vincent Price movies. Amazingly, he decided to enter Alabama politics and had some success at it.
I was a political cartoonist for the Birmingham Post-Herald for twenty years and during that time I would occasionally consider the Woods dilemma.
An editorial cartoonist uses caricature to exaggerate the features of political figures and others into representations of their true selves, at least as seen by the cartoonist. It's an easy tool to abuse. This is, of course, highly unfair. .But politics itself is unfair.
Still, there is a line
It's one thing to render, through caricature, a fat senator into a bloated hog or over-emphasize the unattractive features of a homely governor. (I took particular pleasure in drawing the loathesome one-time Attorney General Charlie Graddick, who, over the years devolved in my cartoons into a doughy fish-lipped Mr. Potato head). It 's quite another to apply these same techniques to the deformed features of a burn victim!
Even though Woods remained in the political arena through my years at the paper, I somehow never found myself in the position of having to actually caricature him so I don't know what I would have done. There were, however, some pretty butt- ugly characters who did land in my sights and I did not hold back from exploiting their physical deficiencies in the least.
So, what, other than degree, is the difference between exploiting the natural everyday ugliness of a politician and doing the same with a Charles Woods?
I'll attempt an answer in the next post. An answer that, I think, bears on the media reaction to the Anthony Weiner affair.
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