Posted on 07/21/2008 11:23:49 AM PDT by camerakid400
Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every autistic child as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview Monday morning that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.
“My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in an interview on Monday. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.”
On his program lastWednesday, Mr. Savage suggested that “99 percent of the cases” of autism were a result of lax parenting. He told his audience: “They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life.“ He added, “Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ”
Asked Monday if he actually believed that 99 out every 100 cases of autism was misdiagnosed, Mr. Savage conceded that figure was “a little high.” “It was hyperbole,” he said.
But he said he was proud to have prodded discussion on the subject, and planned to give over his entire show on Monday — broadcast live from northern California from 3 to 6 p.m. Pacific time — to parents and other callers who wished to disagree with him, and to educate him.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is so true.
I showed him the "checklist" the system had demanded from me. He took one look; reared back. Left the room, and came back to me after about 20 mins. He'd made some phone calls to friends. And we had an appointment. Certain concession had to be made by me because the state was absolutely clear and directly verbal in their assertion to pursue a charge of "negligent parenting" if my son was NOT on a program of their choosing.
My physician saw nothing wrong with my son. My son had very obvious physical talents by age 2. He could scale 6-foot high redwood fences, climb any tree. Had scaled a ravine into the Lion Safari Den at Oakland's Zoo. He could punch out screens, and be found calling for me in the dead of night under my bedroom window under a slow, full-moon night.
And no, not hyperactive. He could sit for long hours analyzing legos and building things. And to this day, he's still an extremely gifted martial artist, on his way to another blackbelt. To watch him do his forms, is to watch a perfection in near balletic form. Nothing fuzzy about this young man. He's just been awarded a fully funded 4-year scholarship based on his academics.
He was never drugged. The state couldn't get its clutches on him; but danged if they didn't try over, and over, and over again.
This young man knows and loves freedom, his country, and people from all walks of life.
I knew then, his situation was similar to my youngest brother; and physically, he took after another brother and I. It wasn't at all hard for me to understand this.
No kidding. I never cease to be amazed by the clueless experts who have no firsthand knowledge of autism but they’ve “read a lotta books”. lol
I do think perhaps he got it mixed up with ADD. Surely he’s not as ignorant as it appears.
He’s dead wrong on this one.
I have seen it with my own eyes.
Because these drugs are being prescribed to the fashionable new excuse for bad parenting called Autism. This is making schools and drug companies billions at the expense of a medicated litany of children. How much did schools and drug companies rake in for the cholesterol scare (among black children) we see none of now; how about the ADD, ADHD epidemic which seems to have gone out of fashion? I can’t believe how many are falling for the new fashion trend to medicate our children for profit!
Just more ‘look at me!’ shenanigans. Why does Savage need to resort to the headline grabbing? Must not have much of a substantive show?
Oh, he maxed out donations for Jerry Brown, among others.
I’m laughing, reading your post. My son and I went through hell together over math. I homeschooled too. He just wasn’t interested until he was 9 or 10. Well, turns out he’s a math wiz. And he doesn’t care that he’s a math wiz. lol. I’m certainly not a math wiz...
You talkin to me?
Here is what wikipedia says about it:
Savage introduced himself to certain writers in the North Beach area of San Francisco in the early 1970s.[6] He befriended and traveled with Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Stephen Schwartz, also an acquaintance of Savage from this time, reported Savage possessed a photograph of himself and Ginsberg swimming naked in Hawaii and used the photograph as sort of a “calling card.”[1][6] Savage maintained a correspondence with Ginsberg consisting of ten letters and a trio of postcards across four years, which is maintained with Ginsberg’s papers at Stanford University.[7][1] One letter asked for Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti to come do a poetry reading, so others could “hear and see and know why I adore your public image.”[3] One postcard mentions his desire to photograph Ginsberg in a provocative way, though Savage states that this correspondence is actually a forgery created by gay detractors.[1] Another acquaintance was poet and author Neeli Cherkovski, who says Savage dreamed of becoming a stand-up comic in the mold of Lenny Bruce.[1] On his radio show, Savage confirmed this desire but contrasted this with his desire, as a child, to become a cowboy.
Autism is not ADD or ADHD. I don’t disagree with your point at all. Autism doesn’t really respond to the medications you are talking about. Autism is real. It is not an excuse. It is very difficult to deal with. It is a form of brain-injury and if you ever met kids with TBI or CP, you’d know that parenting becomes a whole different thing when these kids are so messed up.
That is the consensus among many of us who just play "doctor"
Their brains are not right because they have no human interaction with their mothers. Mothers don’t attend daycare. It’s like a Romanian orphanage.
Before I went into the legal field, I was an
administrator of a Parochial School pre - 8th grade.
I have a clue what is real with neuro bio disorders.
Have seen and delt with them with the students.
I myself am dyslexic and have central auditory processing disorder.
When I went to school, there was no real diagnosis and I wasn’t until decades later.
Also the view that there is over med on various situations,
(which may be true in small per cent of cases) is because
there are more cures and stabilizing meds than there were
10 or 50 yrs. ago.
The problem is, many people are afraid and there is a stigma when it comes to neuro bio disorders because people don’t take the time to read and find out what it is about.
The population in many cases are no different than 300 years ago when someone had epilepsy and was burned at the stake
You obviously don’t have a range of experience with parents of autistic children.
ADHD - Absent Dad/Husband Disorder
I’ve met Michael Savage’s son Russell. And Mrs. Savage. Russell is a staunch conservative. A very impressive young man. He ran for office against a Democrat in Marin. He lost. No surprise there. But, again, if you met Russell, you’d get an idea as to what good parents Russell has.
Hi lainie, and spot on.
All the good work he has done battling the IslamoFascists will be dismissed with a wave of the hand because he has an uninformed opinion on this one subject. Sad.
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