Looking Beyond the Headlines

Because I am a tech geek I am never too far from my iPad and phone. Sad sure, but but you never know when you will need to have immediate access to important news or even more pressing; Words with Friends. I woke up briefly around 4 am and checked ABC news to see if the world imploded during the night. I saw an article called "Newtown Shooter Had Sensory Processing Disorder" 

Here is the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/newtown-shooter-adam-lanza-sensory-processing-disorder-controversial/story?id=18532645

Immediately I became angry. Yet again a story about this kid's apparent Autism diagnosis and a desperate attempt to say that this is why he murdered all those people. Another revolting effort to pull it away from the fact that he had unfettered access to assault weapons and was severely mentally ill.

I have read at least 15 different news stories since December pointing out that the shooter had Autism and then more specifically Asperger's.  How he was a loner and how he sought out solitude and of course played violent video games. Society needs to blame something tangible for this tragedy, I get that.  Hell I want to know why he did it, if for no other reason that I want to make sure it never happens again.  I just we wish a bit more common sense and less sensationalism would be used PRIOR to passing judgment.

Side Note:  I would like to quickly explain my opinions about violent video games.  I do not believe they are the cause of society's ills.  They are a form of entertainment.  HOWEVER there are games that are conceived, designed and written for adults.  The hard core, intense graphics depicting gore and violence should not be viewed by children, in my opinion.  I believe that each game should be thoroughly vetted and reviewed by parents for EACH child.  My son can handle games such as the HALO series and historical war simulators.  My daughters can not.  

That is not a sexism thing by the way.  I just know and understand their limits.  As much as my son would like to play some of the more hard core games (Call of Duty, Far Cry and the like) I do not allow them in my home because I believe he is too young to process the imagery and understand that it is fantasy.  Adults have every right to make that decision for themselves.  

If I can add more of my opinion...Adam Lanza did not murder because of video games, but I do question the judgement to allow him to play them when he had shown such extreme anti-social behavior.  That would have not been my choice. However, I refuse to go so far as to lay blame on the games.  I dare say these crimes would have occurred even if Xbox and Playstation had been banned.

Back to my story.

So I began stewing.  I decided that I would write a scathing blog post about conservatively run news outlets and their sad, pitiful need to draw attention away from gun control and blame a poor group of misunderstood kids who can't defend themselves.  Niiiiice. Well enough is enough, you rat bags are going to hear from me! I am not misunderstood and my voice works quite well thank you.  No one has ever said that I couldn't defend myself.

Obviously this is hitting startlingly close to home to me because my two girls have Autism, one with the Aspergers label.  That same daughter also has Sensory Integration Disorder, known as SID. She cannot handle the feeling of cold.  Until 2 years ago she despised the water and light touches on her skin. She used to sob hysterically when she got wet. 

I remember the first time she got in a pool. Memorial Day weekend 2005.  She had the most adorable blue swimsuit with a pretty tiny fish on the front.It was during my try to steer away from pink phase.  There was a white ruffle around her waist with a few sequins inside. She loved to rub the ruffle and make oooohhh sounds when the sunlight hit the sequins. Miss Thang saw the pool, pointed and grunted to go in.  She didn't know what it was…it’s just that Teddy was in it so she had to be in it too. I swooped her up and sat her down in the pool to wait as we set the pool up. As the pool was still empty she was happy and smiling. We began to fill the pool with water and I dug my camera out. I took several pictures of her.  Just was the water began to touch her and the smile started to shift to something else. 

Here are the pictures I took that day. I had the first one in a frame for a while.  I thought it was nothing more than yet another adorable glimpse of her.  The second one I filed away as yet another picture of her crying.  We had so many of them after all.  Later on, when the diagnosis was given to us and we learned that she was in pain...I took it down and now every time I see them, I cry. 

Here is the face of a child suffering from Sensory Integration Disorder.

Certain noises like vacuum cleaners, concerts and unusual electronic sounds (the TV shutting off do to power outage) will send her into a sobbing fit.  Not once did she ever fly into a rage because of her sensory issues. Not once. And believe me she used to have many, many rages. But they were never caused by water touching her or because of me hoovering the floor.  

Pain and fear. Those are the emotions brought out by SID.  Surely, any decent human being can understand my ire at reading over and over about how Autism and SID were the “real” causes of the recent horror.  Well.  If they didn't, by God they were after I was done writing my missive.  I started planning my indignant response to the article and wondered if I could actually release fire from my fingertips as I typed. 

  

I woke up again two hours later and started the day. After the daily fight with Connor about not eating her fruit at school and digging out a pair of clean socks for Tessi I sat down to read the article. I wanted to get some quotes to copy in my scathing rebuke of the writer's premise that all delayed kids are evil and about to release the hounds of hell upon society.  

Imagine my surprise as I read the article and found credible, non-Jenny McCarthy related, sources stating that Autism and SID are NOT linked to violence. The article was about a television show produced by and aired on PBS. Hardly a front for lunatic conservative right fringe.

One doctor was also quoted as saying, " There is insufficient data....we don't know who diagnosed him" 

Wait....intelligent thought? 

Holding off on judgement until all evidence is gathered? 

I hardly recognize it.

"You have no idea what it was like at home" quite possibly the most accurate sentence ever written down.

I began to see that my rant was going to have to be altered a bit.  Truth can have that affect upon you.  

Well, at least it should.

I am really interested in watching this program and will try to find it online. I still wish the writers didn't use sensational journalism and partial information in their headlines.  I do understand the philosophy about attention grabbing and that you have less than 5 seconds to grab a reader's interest.  However since many people never bother to read the articles and claim their knowledge from just headlines (Yes, thank you USA News and the birth of sound bite journalism) all they see is that a large scale murderer has the same impairment as my beautiful daughter.  Since I've had some asses come up to me and ask if I worry about my girls "snapping like that" yeah, you people are impacting my life with your words.

Autism. Understand it before you blame it.

Geeking Out at EB Games Expo

 I think I have cemented my role as GEEK amongst my friends. Today I will spend close to 13 hours at the first EB Games Expo in Sydney. Teddy and I heard about this expo 2 months ago and we both have been wigging out about it. I'm not a gamer, that's for sure but the idea of being in computer friendly type convention culture with no My Little Pony (yes, I'm still a little bitter about that) had me in a tizzy.  I would KILL to go to The San Diego Comic Con but the logistics are a bit iffy. So this gamer coulter here in Sydney will just have to soothe my geek needs until I hit the the lottery and can hit California or more of the geek/sci fi/ weirdo culture jumps the pond and comes over here.  Teddy just wanted to play HALO 4.  So now we're both happy.

He's brought a mate with him (don't I sound native!) and we have been juggling the "Crap! I don't want to be here with my mother" and the "Crap! I need my mom!" mindset all day. On one hand, dear Lord, no one wants to be here with their mother, but on the other hand I did stand in line for almost 3 hours to give them a chance to play the new Assassin's Creed game. I did get bonus points for that.

Many of my close friends are re-reading that last paragraph and blinking very hard. After all, I am the PIA mom who has steadfastly refused to allow Teddy to purchase the "cool" games like Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Medal of Honor and yes, Assassin's Creed. I've been ruining his life and destroying his only hopes at happiness for at least 3 years now over these games, why the sudden change of heart?  It's not actually a change of heart as much as its a temporary suspension of the rules. He's not getting the game but I did wait 3 hours in line so he could play it for 10 minutes. I did this because a few months ago he tried to snow me with a rather brilliant plan to try get me to like the new game.

See Assassin's Creed 3 is set in the American Revolutionary War and the main character is killing all the English soldiers. Teddy casually mentioned to me that he was a bit concerned that he wasn't learning enough about American History one day and lamented how sad that must make Dad and I-considering our love of US History. He then mentioned this new game coming out was set in the American Revolutionary War and how it showed all the battles and used the correct generals names. When he told me the title I just raised one eyebrow at him. This is when the con really started - He told me that he was offended that I would assume that he was asking for the game. After all, he knows the rules about THOSE games. See he just wanted to have a conversation about history with me.

It was fantastic. He blathered on and on for about 20 minutes about the merits of this game. You know, the EDUCATIONAL merits of it. Then he walked away. Let it go completely. Just left me thinking about how my poor son isn't learning about the history of his homeland. And his father has a masters degree in American Colonial History nonetheless.  It was brilliant. Really, I give it two thumbs up. It might have worked too if I was the  complete schmuck he thinks I am and I did NOT go look up reviews about the game on You Tube. First scene had the assassin guy slit the throat of the English soldier. Niiiccceeeeee.

So I waited until the next day and when he wasn't paying attention I mentioned how I looked up the game on You Tube. He stopped dead and without even looking at me he said, "You Tube?"  "Yes" I said, "I looked up the EDUCATIONAL game you mentioned to me" Pause.pause.pause. "We'll, I never actually thought I'd get the game" he coyly mentioned to me. "That's ok Babe," I purred back at him, "that was a really good try. I'm really impressed how you used guilt and played on our worries about your education to try and get your way, it was impressive" "Yeah, we'll, you gotta try sometimes," he said a little dejectedly and wondered off. 

True dat.  Sometimes you gotta try. Most normal mothers would have been really angry about him trying to pull a fast one like that and yea, normally I would have been chapped. This is one of the joys of parenting though: you get to pick and chose when you're a hypocrite. I really was impressed by the thought, planning and effort that he went to in order to try and win. Maybe I can be impressed because I wasn't even remotely fooled by it. I'm not sure. Either way, there was no danger of him getting the game and wow..he did try for it. So I caved a little today and helped him play his game and he doesn't know it yet but he's getting an Assassin's Creed 3 t-shirt for Christmas. 

So I sit here now being hypocritical about the game but enjoying the Hell out of myself. I don't care. I'm happy. Since I'm me though and can always find something to complain about I will voice 1 complaint.

 No free wifi and no charging stations for electronic devices?  Really EB GAMES?! For Chrissake, what market are you are you targeting here? Geeks who spend money on video games and electronic devices rather than going outside!!!!  That's who! You want me to be here all day and I have no way to charge my phone? You people know how bad Apple has been about providing any real battery life for its products. Shame on you! I know you think that since its Australia you don't have to provide all the goodies that people in the US expect. However since I do have excess to a thing called the Internet (well, I did before my damn phone died) I do know that free wifi is offered all over the place in the US. If city buses can offer its, so can you.  If you want people back next year think about offering these services, please.

In the meantime I will enjoy my cool new Expo t-shirt and at least for a 10 minutes today, I got to be a cool mom before I was regulated to waiting in the cafe for him to need me again.  All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.