Fugitive Seeking Truth

Research Assistant Application

2012-02-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

I recently applied and was selected for a Research Assistantship on campus. This is proposal I sent in as part of the application. It proposes looking at the effects of different types of education on terrorism; at a deeper level, it searches for just and peaceful solutions to problems in the world today. Here it is:

Effects of Education on Terrorism

Part I – Objective: What are the effects of unbiased education on the potential for acts of terror? This study hopes to overcome barriers encountered by previous studies by using empirical analysis with innovative datasets, as well as a basic assumption that not all types of educational systems are the same. The major hypothesis will posit that unbiased education in a given society reduces the risk of terrorist attacks.

This proposal proceeds as follows: Part II provides a background and literature review. Part III discusses variables and the proposed methodology. Finally, Part IV explains the significance of this proposed study.

Part II – Background: Some previous studies suggest that education is either positively associated with terrorism or not statistically significant at all, but the results have thus far been inconclusive. Some major studies develop theories of increased education leading to increased participation in terrorism based solely on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is a unique situation in itself (Berrebi 2007; Kreuger et al. 2003). These theories may not be applicable to other scenarios. Other studies try to conduct cross-sectional analyses, but use incomplete methods for measuring education, such as illiteracy rates (Krueger et al. 2003;) or enrollment rates (Testas 2004).

There are a few obstacles to these analyses that this study will try to confront. The major barrier that limits these previous studies is the tremendous lack of data on education levels; in fact, Kreuger et al. (2003:140) state that including illiteracy rates “reduces the sample size because data is not available for all countries.” Another obstacle to previous studies is a dependent variable based on tangible occurrences of major terrorist attacks rather than the potential for terrorism in a society. Using the latter definition as a dependent variable could aid the analysis in a number of ways: it will help account for attacks whose country of origin is unknown, it will include countries where no attacks originated from at all, and it will also provide more of a sense of whether there is a general atmosphere conducive to terrorism within a society.

There is also a major theoretical misstep not addressed by previous studies in their empirical analysis: all education systems are not the same. However, measures of education do not take into account the type or quality of education received; thus, education is assumed to be the same. Depending on the type of schooling, increased education could lead to increased participation in terrorism. A madrassa funded by a wealthy terrorist group will produce radically different scholars than schools that promote tolerance and understanding. Previous studies have suggested that many terrorists are actually more educated than the average person (Berrebi 2007; Kreuger et al. 2003). This may be because the type of schooling these terrorists received is far different than what we traditionally define education as. This study will assume that not all education is the same, and thus will attempt to differentiate between various types of education. Although different education systems may be hard to quantify, it may be possible to produce a dummy variable for different systems of education. This will be discussed further in the “Proposed Methodology” section.

In terms of the determinants of terrorism, the literature is expansive; multiple causes have been examined. The deprivation theory of terrorism claims people with lower socioeconomic welfare are more prone to subversive acts of violence. Income per capita is negatively associated with terrorism, and thus supports the deprivation theory (Freytag et al. 2011; Bravo 2006). One study suggests political freedom is a significant determinant of terrorism in a non-monotonic fashion: countries with high or low political repression are less likely to experience terrorism than countries with intermediate political repression (Abadie 2004). Consequently, illiberal non-democratic regime types are more likely to experience terrorism (Bravo 2006). Lastly, the presence of civil war in previous years also increases the chance of terrorist attacks in a given year (Testas 2004).

The vast benefits of unbiased education, defined as schooling that does not come with a political agenda, work to fight these root causes of terrorism. For example, education allows individuals to have better jobs and higher incomes, which translates into greater societal economic prosperity (Vila 2000; Wolfe 2002), and thus may address the deprivation theory. Education may also address political repression. In their working paper, “Learning Democracy: Education and the Fall of Authoritarian Regimes,” Sanborn & Thyne argue that increased education is a significant predictor of authoritarian regime failure due to an increased desire for participation in government; a more educated population increases the desire for political freedom and helps overthrow authoritarian regimes (Sanborn & Thyne 2011). Finally, Thyne (2006) suggests that increased education significantly reduces the chance of civil war through the creation of strong social cohesion in a society. Education attacks the root causes of terrorism on many layers, and thus this study will argue it is a significant factor in lowering the risk for terrorism.

Part III – Proposed Methodology and Variables: This study will employ a novel dependent variable for use with ordinal logistic regressions. Since 2007, the Institute for Economics and Peace, partnered with the Economist Intelligence Unit, releases an annual report known as the Global Peace Index, which quantifies a country’s relative peacefulness. One of the indicators used in the index is “Potential for Terrorist Acts.” This indicator ranks a country’s risk of terrorist attacks on a scale of 1-5 (very low-very high) and covers a cross-sectional time-series dataset of 153 countries from years 2007-2011. This indicator is particularly advantageous as a dependent variable because it is based on probability. The benefits of such a variable are outlined in the previous section. In comparison, the majority of previous studies potentially limit themselves by examining major occurrences of acts of terror rather than the relative potential of acts of terror across countries.

The variables discussed in the “Background” section–GDP per capita, political repression, civil war, and regime type–will be included in the regressions as controls. Population and geographic factors will also be included in the regression, as a previous study suggests they are significant in sustaining terrorism (Abadie 2004). All these variables will be added for two reasons: first, they will provide a comprehensive set of controls to pit the education indicators against, and second, they will be tested against a new dependent variable to check for robustness.

The dummy variable for various types of education, mentioned in the “Background” section, must be included in the regressions to test different types of education. Deriving this variable, however, will be the most tedious and demanding step in the study. The obstacles include defining the nature of the coding and how to obtain the information needed to create the variable. A preliminary proposition is that the variable can be coded 1 for education that includes major bias and 0 for education that is mostly unbiased. Again, the definition for biased education is schooling that comes with a political agenda. A look into how schools are funded, either by governments, private individuals, or terrorist organizations, could potentially help determine whether education is biased by this study’s definition. These are exploratory thoughts; the details of the complete methodology would have to be worked out.

For the independent variable, the IIASA Education Projections dataset will be used (KC et al. 2010). The dataset is constructed by producing forward-projections of education data for 120 countries from years 2000-2050. It uses the 2000 census and takes into account mortality and fertility rates. It is a superior dataset to use for a number of reasons. Firstly, it tracks education attainment levels for various age groups rather than enrollment rates or government expenditures; essentially, it tracks educational output rather than input. It also standardizes definitions of primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of achievement, which may have different meanings for cross-sectional groups. But most importantly, the IIASA dataset has a value for every country-year it includes, which drastically reduces missingness of data, the major problem in examining education variables. With the use of unprecedented datasets, a thorough set of controls, and a dummy variable differentiating educational systems, this study hopes to make up for the deficiencies present in the previous literature.

Part IV – Significance: Since 9/11, fighting global terrorism has become a political, social, religious, and moral priority. Identifying the origins of terrorism can aid policymakers and researchers in initiating and drafting procedures designed to address terrorism’s root causes. However, the determinants of terrorism that have been examined to date are incredibly difficult to change or manipulate externally. GDP growth is not a simple feat even through foreign aid, especially when some countries are too deeply entrenched in poverty and do not possess stable political institutions to pull themselves out of it. Quickly toppling authoritarian regimes or decreasing political repression may involve drastic methods, such as wars or sanctions that could actually end up decreasing the welfare of the population, thereby leading to more acts of terror. It is difficult for foreign power to prevent civil wars. Civil wars could also be born out of the same environments that are conducive to terrorism, and consequently cause a state to enter a recurrent downward spiral, leading to more terror and more conflict.

The purpose of this study is to add a tool to the policymaker’s arsenal to combat terrorism, a tool that is plausible, simpler, and involves less loss of life: education. Specifically, the goal of this study is to suggest unbiased, tolerant education reduces the change of terrorism. Rather than a reactionary fix, education may provide a preventive solution to stop terror before it even begins. Not only that, but the change would take place internally rather than be forced on a state externally by a foreign power. Such a finding could have major implications in the international sphere. For example, foreign aid could be directed to countries that are investing in education to create an open and free public learning system. An emphasis can be placed on organizations that promote universal education, thereby increasing public funding and awareness of such organizations. If the aim of the War on Terror is to curb and hopefully stop terrorism, then discerning causal factors that prevent terrorism from occurring in the first place should be the main concern for researchers and policymakers in the field of international development and security.

References

Abadie, Alberto. "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism." American

Economic Review 96.2 (2004): 50-56.

Berrebi, Claude. "Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism

among Palestinians." Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 13.1

(2007).

Bravo, Ana, Bela Santos, and Carlos Manuel Mendes Dias. "An Empirical Analysis Of

Terrorism: Deprivation, Islamism And Geopolitical Factors." Defence and Peace

Economics 17.4 (2006): 329-41.

Fair, C. Christine, and Bryan Shepherd. "Who Supports Terrorism? Evidence from

Fourteen Muslim Countries." Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29.1 (2006): 51-74.

Freytag, Andreas, Jens J. Krüger, Daniel Meierrieks, and Friedrich Schneider. "The

Origins of Terrorism: Cross-country Estimates of Socio-economic Determinants

of Terrorism." European Journal of Political Economy 27 (2011): S5-S16.

Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Peace Index: 2011 Methodology, Results &

Findings. Rep. Sydney: Institute for Economics & Peace, 2011.

KC, Samir, Bilal Barakat, Anne Goujon, Vegard Skirbekk, Warren Sanderson, Wolfgang

Lutz. “Projection of populations by level of educational attainment, age, and sex

for 120 countries for 2005-2050.” Demographic Research 22.15 (2010): 383-472

Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. "Education, Poverty And Terrorism: Is There A

Causal Connection?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 17.4 (2003): 119-144.

Sanford, Howard B., and Clayton L. Thyne. "Learning Democracy: Education and the

Fall of Authoritarian Regimes." Presented at Midwest Political Science

Association (2011).

Testas, Abdelaziz. "Determinants Of Terrorism In The Muslim World: An Empirical

Cross-Sectional Analysis." Terrorism and Political Violence 16.2 (2004): 253-73.

Thyne, Clayton L. "ABC's, 123's, and the Golden Rule: The Pacifying Effect of

Education on Civil War, 1980-1999." International Studies Quarterly 50.4

(2006): 733-54.

Vila, Luis E. "The Non-monetary Benefits of Education." European Journal of Education

35.1 (2000): 21-32.

Wolfe, B. L., and R. H. Haveman. "Social and Nonmarket Benefits from Education in an

Advanced Economy." Conference Series - Federal Reserve Bank of Boston 47

(2002): 97-131

-Azi H.

The Twice-Exceptional Student

2012-01-02T16:28:00.001-08:00

Edward C.
First Published in the Newport Daily News

For some students, school is often too hard. For others, school can be too easy. For a certain percentage of students, it is both.

These students are known as twice-exceptional. They are twice-exceptional because they are both gifted and disabled. The problem is that educators tend to only focus on their weaknesses, and having only their weaknesses accommodated could be worse than having no accommodations at all.

Parents and educators across the nation are regularly viewing twice-exceptional students as lazy or oppositional. After all, they argue, if a student with an IQ in the 98th percentile and a math disability has proper accommodations to help him with math, what reason does he have to not be excelling in his academics?

The emotional pressure on twice-exceptionals is typically disregarded. There is a reason a disabled middle school student with writing and reading scores in the post-college range could be getting a C in English, or a student with a IQ in the 98th percentile could be failing his classes; these students are incredibly frustrated or discouraged, because little to no attention is placed on accommodating or recognizing their giftedness— even when their strengths are more deviant from average than their weaknesses.

Unfortunately, twice-exceptional students are often failing miserably in school. Who wants to devote effort and attention to something that makes them feel frustrated, depressed or flawed? Pressure and expectations they receive from their peers in addition to those of their educators creates social, emotional and academic challenges.

Research done regarding twice-exceptional students tells that one of the primary reasons that they are underachieving is because of this sort of frustration.

A study done in Connecticut observed several twice-exceptional students. The researchers found that, when accommodated for only their incredible strengths, their grades went up significantly across all subjects. This suggests a major improvement of attitude and academic interest.

According to the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, twice-exceptional students often “hit the wall” before they are properly accommodated. After a student reaches this point, it can be difficult to recover.

In order to bring out the best of our brightest, educators must understand how critical it is to accommodate both the strengths and the weaknesses of a twice-exceptional, otherwise the true, brilliant potential of such students is neglected.

To Change a Heart

2011-12-23T18:22:00.000-08:00

M. E. Porter 23 December 2011

In the past few days a story broke about a nine-year-old autistic boy, Chris Baker, being repeatedly placed inside of a duffel bag to “control his autistic behavior.” His teacher claimed that he was disrespectful and defiant, and that he refused to do his work. His mother was called into the school to get Chris, and found him stuffed inside of a gym bag. She demanded her son’s immediate release, and was later told that this had happened several times over the past year. This was the first time his mother had ever heard about it. Over the past couple days the story has gone viral over news websites and the petition on change.org, which was started by a very good friend of mine, currently has over 7,000 signatures, and the number is rising by the minute.

This issue, child abuse at the hands of a teacher, hits closer to home for me than almost anything else can. I’ve never spoken publicly about this, but about ten years ago, when I was eight years old, I was abused by my third grade teacher. I’m not autistic, but I am a twice-exceptional (someone with a high I.Q. who also has a learning disability) and before I was tested this combination led some teachers to assume that I had trouble in class because I was lazy or defiant, and that it was their job to change this behavior by any means necessary. This particular teacher used the fact that I was had not been evaluated and had no special education protections to target me. Even when it was another student who was misbehaving, she would create a reason to blame me. I would be the scapegoat and take the excessive punishment, simply because I needed to be taught not to “act up.” It never got to the point where I was placed in a bag like Chris, but it did go far enough that when I was eleven I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the effects of which I still have to deal with every day, all these years later.

I’ve come to terms in my own way with what happened to me. As a Christian, I try to look at it like Joseph, who years after his brothers had sold him into slavery in Egypt told them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.” (Gen. 50:20, NLT). I can see how the God I believe in has used what I have gone through to shape me into who I am today. We can’t chose every trial we go through, but we can control how we react to them. It’s in the past, and I couldn’t change it no matter how hard I tried. But who I am today is not who I would be if that hadn’t happened to me. Despite the fact that I have had to overcome the fear and the hurt that comes with a traumatic experience, I don’t let that fear and hurt rule me. Instead, I try to take what I have learned from it to become a better person, and make a better world. I guess that, in a way, coming out with my story is my first attempt to do so.

It’s disturbed me that stories about teachers abusing special needs students have been in the news more often than usual in the past few months. The one thing that still upsets me about what happened to me is that it didn’t end with me. The difference from what we know about learning disabilities now compared to what was known ten years ago is astronomical, yet teachers are still using outdated methods to “control” their special needs students. Instead of helping them, these methods teach students that school is not a safe place, that they can’t trust the people that are there to ensure that they are safe. That fear can stay with people throughout their educational careers. Not only does it make students feel less safe, but it inhibits their ability to learn. Think about it. If you’re always in sheer survival mode, you’re only looking for threats and trying to avoid them, and all you’re taking in is what you need to ensure you make it. Typically that means that we’re less likely to take in what the teacher is supposed to teach us. Those of us with special needs have a hard enough time learning in a classroom setting without feeling like we need to be constantly on high alert.

So why is this still happening? Why haven’t we progressed enough in the educational system with all the new evidence and discoveries so we know how to treat people with respect and dignity? I honestly don’t have a clue. My mother is studying education research, and I know from her that the research says that there is no basis for abusive treatment of any student, special needs or otherwise. I feel that the reason is more based in inherent human fault than anything else. It is a human tendency to mistreat those who are different from us, and this has been happening since the beginning of history. Society has witnessed the discrimination of people who look different, sound different, act different, believe different. I am not shocked that we still target those who think different. Unfortunately, learning disabilities seems to be the one area where discrimination is still somewhat acceptable. People always mistrust what they don’t understand. Research also shows that, especially with my generation, narcissism is more common and that empathy is becoming a rarity. The less we are able to get into each other’s heads to understand where people are coming from and why they act and think the way they do, the worse this problem will get.

The only way to end this is to try to understand other people. I once heard someone say that it is fitting that God gave us two ears but only one mouth. Our world is a place where people scream their opinions left and right, but hardly take a second to consider anyone else’s point of view. We can hear each other, but none of us seem to be able to listen. In a world where the one universal value is “tolerance,” it’s amazing how intolerant we all manage to be. Unfortunately this is not a battle that can be won on the political field. All the petitions in the world cannot change anyone’s heart. In the end this issue is so much broader than education. This affects every aspect of our lives on this earth. We, as people, as the human race, need to choose for ourselves to try to understand one another, and recognize that there is more than our own worldviews. We need to recognize that the social contract that society is based on requires us to treat each other with respect, if not love. And that’s the only way the world will change.

The Absurd Society

2011-12-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

David M. 8 Dec. 2011

The following text is a dialogue I wrote for my Greeks and Hebrews class to explain the ramifications of a strictly materialist worldview.

The Absurd Society

David. If only people would abandon dreams of “God”, all would be well in the world. I vote we defenestrate spirituality and religion. It would do society a lot of good.

Paul. That is a complex assertion. What do you mean by spirituality?

David. Surely it is <the state or quality of being dedicated to God, religion, or spiritual things or values>, as opposed to <material or temporal ones>.[1]

Paul. And religion?

David. Religion is the <belief in, worship of, or obedience to a supernatural power or powers considered to be divine or to have control of human destiny>.

Paul. So we discard God, spirits, and the supernatural?

David. Let us discard such fairytales. Religion and spirituality should be replaced by the strictest materialism—that is, the rejection of spiritual reality. There exists nothing more than the material world.

Paul. I would caution you from such a statement, David, as I think you do not realize what a materialist society entails.

David. Please, educate me.

Paul. First of all, the materialist society must be relativistic. Because moral absolutes are incalculable, the only absolutes to which the materialist can appeal are the mathematical constants of the universe, and these are silent in moral discussions.

David. I disagree. Any person will admit that pleasure is good and pain is bad, so the best action is that which causes the most pleasure and the least pain.

Paul. And how does one calculate the pleasure or pain of a given action?
David. For every possible course of action, one simply sums numerical equivalents of the pleasure and pain experienced by each member of society.
Paul. But such a calculation is impossible. You must acknowledge that some people derive great pain from the same things that please others. Your calculations must also accommodate the preferences of the individual to ensure the utmost accuracy. Moreover, some people might derive great pleasure from behavior that causes pain to others, and surely this must also affect your calculations. Such a calculation is impossible also because of the nature of pleasure and pain and the nature of morality. Since pleasure sometimes leads to pain (e.g., too much chocolate leads to obesity or acne) and pain sometimes produces some good (e.g., exercise produces bodily health), it is not just to say that pleasure is intrinsically good. Sensation is an indifferent accompaniment to action; that is, it is amoral. One cannot draw a moral conclusion from amoral premises.

David. I see. But the materialist can still deliberate based on what most benefits society.

Paul. And how does he discern those behaviors that benefit society?

David. Is it not obvious?

Paul. No, it is not. Please explain.

David. That which benefits society is that which promotes the happiness of its citizens.

Paul. Can you elaborate on this “happiness”?

David. Happiness includes, but is not limited to, health, wealth, and freedom.

Paul. And why is it good that citizens be happy?

David. What do you mean? Don’t you want to be happy?

Paul. Yes, I do. Do you mean to imply that something is good simply because one wants it?

David. No.

Paul. Why is it good to be happy, then?

David. (Silence.)

Paul. If you take the materialist stance, you indeed cannot answer this question. The materialist cannot define the Good, as he can make no rational statements of value without the presupposition of some absolute. Evaluation is essentially a comparison between an object and some standard. For the relativist that standard is entirely constructed by the individual. Jean-Paul Sartre concurs; he concludes that, without God, there is no Good because “there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think [the Good]. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists…because the fact is, we are on a plane where there are only men.”[2]
David. Surely the relativist can make rational statements of value as long as he recognizes that they are highly localized, and he can follow a social construct just as well as he can follow an absolute.
Paul: Sure, but then his evaluations lose all significance. They become senseless ejaculations. In saying something of infinitesimal worth he says practically nothing, so, frankly, he should keep his mouth shut. Let me revise my argument thus: the materialist can make no sensible statements of value without the presupposition of some absolute.

David. I see.

Paul. The materialist worldview stifles society also because of the paradox inherent to relativism. If what is right for some is wrong for others and there exists no absolute to reconcile them, people with different moral opinions will be in perpetual conflict. Societies are built not on conflict but on commonality and cooperation, so this situation would surely doom society as we know it.
David. You are right in saying that perpetual conflict would dissolve society, but a society of diverse moral opinion is not inherently turbulent. Two parties can disagree and yet tolerate each other. If each side tries to understand the other and suspends judgment, no hostility will ensue, and society will flourish.
Paul. Your appeal to tolerance proves my previous argument. As long as neither side makes any judgment of what the other does, no conflict will ensue. Only in a society of absolute tolerance, where no action is evaluated as morally right or wrong, can people with contradictory ethics coexist. This ethic of absolute tolerance betrays the relativism that the materialist must espouse because, simply put, it is an absolute principle. Moreover, it threatens society, for absolute tolerance entails tolerance of all kinds of destructive social practices, e.g., terrorism, rape, and genocide, which spring only from a difference in moral opinion.
David. But an ethic of tolerance need not be absolute. Surely violence of any kind, as well as other actions that are detrimental to society, should be prohibited by law. A selective tolerance would be more appropriate.
Paul. Here you make a moral evaluation of violence, and since it cannot be absolute, it is true only in certain cases—for certain people or at a certain time. Therefore, there remains the problem of conflict between groups with different conceptions of morality. You must understand that the tolerant relativist can have no sensible laws, for law implies an absolute and suppresses diversity of opinion. If we may assume that people act in order to achieve some good, whenever people commit crimes, they do so in order to achieve some good, either for themselves or for society; otherwise, they would not commit the crimes. If good and evil are subjective–that is, matters of opinion–all crimes in a relativist society are merely clashes of opinion regarding the nature of the good. Therefore, the tolerant person must contradict himself if he wishes to establish laws of any kind, for laws suppress diversity.

David. But tolerance is indeed conducive to society if one tolerates those behaviors that promote society and censures those that destroy it. This kind of tolerance does not contradict relativism, because those behaviors that benefit society might differ in different societies.
Paul. Again you support my argument. Conflict remains an issue for the society that tolerates behaviors as they benefit it. To benefit essentially means to make something better. When something becomes better, it becomes closer to the “best” it can be. This “best,” is singular; there is only one. In a moral context, the word implies a moral absolute, so in relativism it is a nonsense word. Since we have decided that the relativist cannot make a sensible moral evaluation, it is clear that his assertion that some behavior is good because it benefits society is senseless. In addition, the materialist does not acknowledge the Good, so the word “better” is ambiguous. So I reiterate: the materialist can make no sensible moral evaluation without contradicting himself; he claims that ethics is relative but appeals to absolutes for support. We therefore eliminate the option of selective tolerance. Therefore, the materialist must adopt a self-contradictory, absolute tolerance of all behaviors, which is as dangerous as it is absurd.

David. I see.

Paul. Finally, you must understand that the materialist has no reason to pursue “the good life.” Peter Kreeft in Back to Virtue gives three reasons why one should practice virtue: to please God, to nurture the soul, and to survive. The materialist defenestrates the first two. But according to Kreeft, “the third reason will not work without the other two. For it fails to answer the crucial question why to survive, for what earthly or heavenly end?”[3] It is clear from the patterns of history that civilizations dissolve as their virtue dissolves[4]; therefore, virtue is requisite for a healthy civilization. In the words of Dostoyevsky, “without God, everything is permissible”; therefore, “without religion, virtue dies.”[5] If “God is dead,” as the atheist Nietzsche says, then people are liberated from morality.[6]

Therefore, it is evident that the materialist society has no advantage over the spiritual society. The materialist society must contradict itself in order to survive and can do nothing to resolve conflicts between people with opposing views of morality. The materialist society will ultimately destroy itself because its citizens have no reason to cooperate, to love one another, or even to be happy.

David. Can we talk about something else?

Paul. Sure.

[End of dialogue]

[1] Words in triangular brackets are taken verbatim from dictionary.com.

[2] Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism and Humanism”, reprinted as Existentialism and Human Emotions (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957), 21-22.

[3] Kreeft, Peter. Back to Virtue. 193.

[4] Ibid. 193. “Israel, Greece, Rome, and the modern West are examples.”

[5] Ibid. 192. “I want to prove three principles, which are related logically in a syllogism: 1. Without virtue, civilization dies. 2. Without religion, virtue dies. 3. Without religion, civilization dies.”

[6] Ibid. 193. “Nietzsche, that most consistent of atheists, agrees with Dostoyevsky, the Christian, that without God everything is permissible. His philosophy calls for a ‘superman’ who will realize that ‘God is dead’ and thus be freed from moral scruple and guilt. He sees morality as originating in the weakness of the herd and their resentment at this weakness; they invented morality to pull the teeth of the wolves so that they, the sheep, would not be devoured by them. Why should someone who believes this philosophy have moral scruples? Reason gives no answer to this question, and history gives a clear answer. It wears a swastika.”

Name Above All Names

2011-11-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

David M. 3 Nov. 2011

The following text is an exegesis I wrote for my Greeks and Hebrews class. It discusses the meaning and purpose of God's enigmatic name, as it appears in Exodus 3:14.

Name Above All Names

An Exegesis of Exodus 3:14

Yahweh makes a baffling first impression. When He meets Moses on Mount Horeb, he introduces Himself using a formula instead of a name. “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh,” says God; “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14 GNT). Philological analysis of the formula in light of logic, ontology, ancient Hebrew symbolism, and modern Jewish philosophy illuminates its meaning and intent.

The Hebrew phrase itself is ambiguous. “Ehyeh” is the first-person form of the verb “hyh,” which can mean, “to be,” or, “to cause to be.” Sensible translations include, “I am who I am,” “I am that I am,” “I am that which I am,” “I am what I am,” and “I will be who I will be” (Sarna 17). The Vulgate reads, “Ego sum qui sum” (I am who am), and later, “Qui est” (He who is), as God refers to Himself in the third-person (The Vulgate Bible). A grammatical analysis shows that the clauses that comprise the formula are interdependent. A transitive verb, “to be” (am) derives all meaning from its object. The object, “who I am,” refers to the subject and creates an endless loop of meaning. Though the translations vary slightly, they all evoke the same deliberate obfuscation of God’s identity.

Reading the formula through an ontological lens shows that God conceals part of His being from Moses. P. Coffey, author of Ontology, describes being as having two parts: existence and essence. A thing either exists, or it does not exist. A thing’s essence, according to P. Coffey, is “that by which a thing is what it is: id quo res est id quod est” (Coffey 75). In other words, the essence is the trait or collection of traits that defines something and distinguishes it from all other things. The formula “I am who I am” expresses God’s existence but conceals His essence entirely. Thus, the text read in light of ontological principles implies that God cannot be fully known.

It seems, then, that God’s answer sidesteps Moses’ question; however, hidden in the enigmatic formula is a statement of eternal truth. The formula can be compared to the tautology, i = i (often called an identity in mathematical conversation). Such an equation is remarkable in that it is always true, regardless of the numerical value of i. It is clear that the point of the statement is not to describe the value represented by i, but merely to express that i is in impeccable congruency with itself. God’s statement is identical. When God says, “I am who I am,” he asserts eternal, infinite congruency. Other translations inspire no less a sense of absolute certainty. “I will be who I will be” is a promise of timeless faithfulness. (Since the Hebrews had no concept of time as a dimension, it is anachronistic to interpret this translation as a statement about God’s transcendence of time. The covenant culture of Ancient Israel suggests that God intended this phrase as a vague but ageless covenant.) Moreover, since God states his existence in place of His essence, it can be argued that He discloses much of His essence implicitly. Moses asks God’s name (which the Hebrews equated to the essence), and God states his existence. Also, in the Vulgate, God tells Moses to tell the Israelites that “qui est”—“He who is”—has sent him to them. In this way the dialogue suggests that God’s essence is strongly connected to, if not equal to, his existence; therefore it is plausible that God’s existence is His essential characteristic.

The reason for which God conceals his name is as elusive as the meaning of the formula. Here, the writings of Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel serve as an interpretive aid. In his analysis of the origin of religion, Heschel describes verbal expression as a departure from wonder; “In expressing,” he says, “one is delivered of what he is replete with” (Heschel 97). For example, a man sees a beautiful sunset and is enthralled by its beauty; he can overcome this emotion by painting the sunset, whereby he contains the phenomenon on a canvas and subdues that which formerly subdued him. Moreover, Heschel defines piety as the life that flows from a soul overcome with a sense of the ineffable, and the pious person as he who “[desires] to live [that sense] rather than be released of it” (97). That sense is lost the moment it is expressed in words, so God lays the foundation for Jewish piety by omitting the detail that would release a person from his stupefaction.

It is possible that God obfuscates his name to declare his dominance over humans. When a person is confronted by the unknown, his reaction is first one of fear. His power is threatened, so to speak, by the object of his wonder. In order to regain his position of power, the person must understand that which bewilders him. He does this by naming it. A name is a shortcut, a symbol that provides quick access to a complex concept. For example, a reptile with a bony shell is called a turtle because it becomes tedious to refer to the animal by describing it. To know God’s name would allow Moses to access Him, to classify Him, and in doing so to believe he has dominated Him. In his commentary of the Torah, W. Gunther Plaut quotes Martin Buber: “Anybody who knows the true name [of a person] and knows how to pronounce it in the correct way can gain control of him. …through the name he becomes approachable, the speaker has power over him” (Plaut 399). The ancient Hebrews evidently associated knowledge with power, so it can be argued that God retains anonymity to assert his dominance. (Whether God does this to protect his throne or to state a reality is unclear as His intentions are absent from the passage.)

God’s dominance is also apparent in that his response defies human nature. In the book of Genesis, the first responsibility God gives to Adam is the task of classifying the fauna; taxonomy is thus a pillar of human nature. It follows that God’s name-formula—essentially a non-name—signifies an irreconcilable rift between the human and the divine. Moses wants to name God, to understand Him, but he cannot. The image of the burning bush from earlier in the passage harmonizes with this notion. In Hebrew culture, fire evoked mystery and divinity. In light of this, that God calls Himself, “I am who I am,” shows that God operates on a plane different from, if not higher than, that of humans.

Heschel further suggests that God chooses to remain nameless to preserve the genuineness of His relationship with humankind. Heschel talks about the inherent loss of detail in symbolism; he says, “There is hardly a symbol which, when used, would not impair or even undo the grasp of remembrance of the incomparable” (Heschel 97). To illustrate, a photograph of a mountain never stuns a person as much as the real thing. The symbol represents; it does not duplicate. The second commandment against making graven images suggests that the Hebrews believed this as well. Therefore, it can be argued that a symbol for God would weaken the relationship by its gross inaccuracy. Furthermore, Heschel sees all existence as a fluid thought of God. It follows that humans cannot think of God but only in God. The philosopher explains the relational effects of this: “As soon as a person objectifies God, he gains an idea and loses God” (128).

It is yet possible that God conceals his name to initiate Moses’ transition from material polytheism to spiritual monotheism. In Coffey’s analysis of essence, he notes that in pondering “the constitution of any corporeal thing, there is a danger of taking what is really only part of the essence of such a thing for the whole essence” (Coffey 77). Having grown up in a world of golden calves, animal-headed gods, and Pharaohs who were essentially gods on earth, Moses probably would have tended to see gods as “corporeal beings.” God’s nondisclosure of His essence thus prevents any confusion over the part and the whole of God. With no way to connect God to the material, Moses is forced to embark on an exclusively spiritual journey.

One could say that this journey is defined in the first few moments Moses speaks with God. Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt with an obedience that can only flow fresh from an encounter with indescribable wonder. God’s perplexing introduction marks the beginning of a grand narrative—that of the Israelites’ quest for nationhood, for prosperity, and for relationship with the unknowable God who is who He is.

Works Cited:

Coffey, P. Ontology. New York, NY: Peter Smith, 1938. Print.

Good News Bible. New York, NY: American Bible Society, 1992. Print.

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Man Is Not Alone. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951. Print.

Plaut, W. Gunther. The Torah: a Modern Commentary. New York, NY: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981. Print.

Sarna, Nahum M. The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1991. Print.

The Vulgate Bible. Ed. Swift Edgar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. Print.

Modern Day Slavery

2011-10-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Azi H. October 1st, 2011

In the summer of 2009, I voyaged with my family to the crown jewel of Arab entrepreneurship and advancement, the metropolitan emirate of Dubai. Known for the sudden and explosive expansion of its tourism industry, Dubai has established itself as a prime vacation spot for world travelers within the last couple of decades. As a tourist myself, I was held in rapture by the glittering architecture and record-breaking monuments. The lure of the city veiled my eyes from the corruption of its creation, itself an expression of the failure of humanity to recognize and support the rights of its members.

Upon arriving home in the States, I decided to delve into the lore of Dubai. After some research on this supposed City of Wonders, I realized that undercurrents of depravity had surrounded me as I walked among its skyscrapers and shopping centers. What I uncovered was that Dubai was built, essentially, by a slave class. The multitudes of construction workers I had seen were part of a social stratum of trafficked humans, former residents of underdeveloped countries taken advantage of and abused by corporations looking to make a buck. Dubai’s acceptance and implied approval of this practice marks it as an epicenter not of human excellence, but of human vice.

I never really thought I would run into human trafficking again, or at least not for a while. Little did I know that I would not have to step outside the boundaries of my home country to encounter modern day slavery. In a recent discussion about social justice with one of my friends (a circumstance which I have realized occurs frequently here at Georgetown), I was told about the ventures of my friend’s mother, who is a social worker working with a group of trafficked Indian victims. What really struck me was that this case did not occur in some underdeveloped, authorization country, but instead these victims were trafficked into our nation and exploited by US citizens. Apparently, this was not an outlying case; trafficking in this country is a major problem, albeit incredibly under-vocalized.

We tend to think of slavery as a relic of the past, an antique element of social life that should provide for us, in retrospect, a greater understanding of the moral responsibilities we have as humans. After a brief reflection, we proceed to revel in the liberties we now have living in the modern-day United States. With the values our country upholds, and with a history already tainted by slavery, it is absurd to know of the blatant human rights violations that occur right under our noses. But with the knowledge of our history, and with the knowledge of on-going human rights infringements such as trafficking, we can make an important insight on the path the United States is on, a path directing it away from the values of its creation.

How can a country with liberty and justice at its foundation account for atrocities done within and without its borders, whether they be committed by government policies or government neglect? I may be accused for not giving the government enough slack. I may be accused of adding on to the already extensive list of troubles our country is confronting. But I don’t think our real issue is the enormity of the problems we face, but the way we face them. Maybe it’s time to straighten out our priorities. What if we place morality first and foremost in our decisions? What if our policies, instead of focusing on the perpetual power struggle to gain an edge over others, were designed to protect human integrity? For a long while, these were the goals of the United States.

When the United States was formed as a country for justice, it made great strides towards that central ideal. But there came a point where we seemed to have jumped the gun in thinking we achieved it. In actuality, the quest for justice is never-ending, and thus policies should continually be created with the intent to strive towards justice. The termination of slavery was a step in the right direction; the emergence of human trafficking is the equivalent of walking backwards. Our negligence of this social issue, and countless others, suggests a disconnect between the current-day United States and the principles it was founded on. In order to be the country we are meant to be, the country we are supposed to be, we have to once again embrace the values of morality in our actions as well as words, so that each step taken will be with the right direction and intent: to achieve justice.

I Finally Cried

2011-09-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Ylanne S. | 11 September 2011

I couldn’t cry, not at first.

I couldn’t cry when I saw the pictures of the towers falling.
I couldn’t cry when I saw the pictures of the Pentagon burning.
I couldn’t cry when I saw the pictures of nineteen young men’s faces,
displayed prominently on the paper’s front pages.

All I could do was pray, ask God to do something.
Anything.

At first, I was confused.
I did not know what had happened.
At first, I was afraid.
I did not know if I was in danger.
At first, I was unable to cry.
I did not know what “three thousand” meant,
not in human terms.

All I could do was pretend, blend in with everyone around me.
Lie.

All around me, I heard screams that split the comfortable silence.
All around me, I saw tears that defied small-talk conversations.
All around me, I felt fear that pierced my private understanding,
and forced me to accept that I did not know of what it was I was afraid.

All I could do was hide, bury my head in my hands.
Alone.

I hid behind the covers of books, trying to learn about this “terrorism.”
I hid behind the soft glow of computer screens, reading in silence about 9/11.
I hid behind the dog-eared pages of printouts, desperate to learn why this happened,
why those nineteen men thought God would reward them for murder.

All I could do was wonder, create in my head wild tales of violence.
Horror.

I know of things that could keep you awake at nights,
with your white-knuckled fingers curled around the covers,
your eyes wide and growing wider,
your body shaking, your heart rate racing,
your mind recreating everything in technicolor.

I finally cried when I heard the name Abu Ghraib,
and saw the pictures of men huddled naked with certain parts censored.
I finally cried when I heard the name Guantánamo,
and learned that the Constitution has limits when it comes to “terrorists.”
I finally cried when I saw the photos of acid-burned Afghani women,
and saw the evidence of the human capacity for cruelty.
I finally cried when I read two hundred pages of the USA Patriot Act,
and learned that it was possible to ignore the Fourth Amendment.
I finally cried when I heard of mosques spraypainted with graffiti,
and saw that hate crimes can still happen in the twenty-first century.
I finally cried when I watched the news that we were still in Iraq,
and saw that this was long after we discovered no WMDs.
I finally cried when I heard about emergency, six-month long detentions of Muslims,
and learned that caprice is alive and well in our government.
I finally cried when I read rants from “terrorism experts” about shari’a,
and saw how easy it is to be ignorant and claim education.
I finally cried when Bin Ladin was dead and my fellow Americans were celebrating,
and learned that it can be socially acceptable to be happy about someone’s death.
I finally cried when I read stories and poems and tributes that said “We will not forgive,”
and learned that even leaders latch onto anger.
I finally cried when I found myself up late nights writing,
and learned that it was the only way to cope with all the madness.
I finally cried when I watched the news about a “Ground Zero Mosque,”
and learned about our capacity for hatred,
even though it wasn’t a mosque
or even at Ground Zero.

All I could do with all that knowledge and all those stories,
and all the sense of quiet desperation,
and all the silent screaming going on inside my head,
and all the numbers and foreign words spinning around me,
and all the rhetoric and vitriol,
and all the politics and drama,
and all the sugar-coated lies and news stories of tragedies,
and all the repeat images of people jumping from burning buildings,
and all the planes smashing into those towers on a million TV screens,
and all the bearded, brown-skinned men shouting “Allahu Akbar,”
and all the clean-shaven, white-skinned men preaching about the evil of Islam,
and all the fury kept inside and well-hidden,
and all the prayers that seemed to go for years unanswered,
and all the words blurring on the insides of my eyelids,
and all the pounding headaches and shuddering breaths,
and all the nights spent huddled beneath blankets staring at the ceiling…

All I could do was cry.

Welcome to New Contributing Writer David M.

2011-08-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

David became a Christian in high school after many struggles with faith. Since then, he has endeavored to be a living example, through his actions, of Jesus Christ’s commands in the midst of pluralism, materialism, and consumerism in American society today. Taking a Christian ethics class in 2010 and a Christian theology class in 2011 helped David develop his personal convictions in the context of today’s culture and claim them as his own.

David considers himself a moderate advocate for the environment. He doesn’t go to Earth Day parties or picket for oppressed penguins, but he does grow a vegetable garden, as well as reusing and recycling plastics and cleaning trash strewn about his neighborhood. David believes that the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. Ergo, humans have a responsibility to care for the earth, that is, to preserve endangered species, prevent pollution, and use sustainable farming methods, among other initiatives.

David is also an avid and talented composer. He composes music so prolifically and everywhere he goes (literally, everywhere) that he could not possibly transcribe all of his creations. David hopes one day to become a professional composer.

David chose to join the Fugitive Seeking Truth project to provide an educated, thoughtful Christian perspective. Christians, especially in America, are often stereotyped as hypocritical, judgmental, and anti-homosexual. They are often condemned for the actions of extremists—people who, by definition, do not represent the majority of Christians. He hopes to inform people about Christianity in a thoughtful and genuine way, and to grow and mature himself in the process of doing so. Of his beliefs, David believes that every human is made in the image of God, and thus, that all human life is sacred.

Welcome to Two New Contributing Writers

2011-08-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

Azi H.

Azi is an American Muslim who joined the Fugitive Seeking Truth project to offer another divergent perspective from my own, adding his voice on pressing topics like international development and peaceful conflict resolution. Passionate about progressive change in communities that recognizes cultural differences and addresses root causes of systemic problems, Azi has traveled much of the world—including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates—and experienced both its beauty and deficiencies.

Throughout high school, Azi worked in the community to improve the lives of ordinary people through coordinating activities like river clean-ups, soup kitchens, recycling programs, and fundraisers for a literacy drive. He excelled academically, becoming part of the National Honor Society, and in 2011, becoming a National Merit Scholar, one of only eight thousand high school seniors nationwide to receive a scholarship award. Additionally he was a varsity athlete in three sports.

Azi has been lobbying for legislation in his home state of Rhode Island since 2009, working with his district representative to create and advance a bill mandating the presence of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) inside all high schools. He has also volunteered his time with a crime specialist, anti-bullying initiative, an AIDS research laboratory, and the Rhode Island Special Olympics.

As a rising freshman in Georgetown University’s Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Azi has dedicated himself to a life of service to others, to effecting positive and meaningful change across cultures and throughout communities.

M. E. Porter

M. E. Porter spent her high school years at a private Christian school with conservative roots, while cultivating and developing her own faith throughout her education. Despite the conflation of Christianity with political conservatism, she has expressed her identity as a follower of Christ through politically liberal beliefs. She has supplanted an individual faith journey with the encouragement and support of family and friends, traveling on missions trips twice to New Orleans in order to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. Seven years later, parts of New Orleans are still rubble.

M. E. Porter is dedicated to changing the world around her throughout her life by pursuing her God-given passions for theology and theatre. She has always been a dedicated actress, performing in multiple productions, as well as pursuing leadership roles behind the stage—as a stage manager, an assistant director, and a propsmaster in various productions. Through understanding and portraying characters, M. E. Porter believes that godly actors can communicate and express ideas about important and relevant issues and discussions that affect both individuals and society at large.

She intends to double major in Religious Studies and Theatre in order to connect her passions for learning—learning about God and growing close to Him, and studying the dramatic arts to refine her talents. She wishes to bridge the two fields, to continually seek God, and to live her life so that all she does reflects on the glory of God.

Between the Trees

2011-07-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

Between the Trees
Ylanne S.

There is a hand lying on the sand,
smooth, fair flesh caressed by the golden sand.
It should be a warm hand, a grateful, clutching, laughing hand.
Instead the fingers are cold.
In the time it takes a pebble to roll down a beach to water,
summer's smiles turned to savage screams,
summer's calm pierced by strange laughter.
But it is not the laughter of youth around Norwegian lakes or campfires.
Between the trees, you can see an ocean of hands
jutting from clothes that flutter in the breeze,
an entire sea of cold, pale fingers reaching toward the water or the trees or God.
They cannot speak, but their words are unmistakeable.
"Why, oh God?" sobbed between shaking shoulders and shudders of shock.
Even atheists ask.
There are only murmured voices and averted, glittering eyes.
God does not answer the pleas of the still, silent hands.

On Religious-Inspired Terrorism

2011-07-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

"How do you live with yourself?" Hank asked abruptly, somehow managing to sound angry without changing his tone or inflection. Perhaps everything was catching up with him. "You have harmed people. Innocent people."

Lisa keyed in a few numerical codes and then she looked up. "Innocent? There's no such thing," she said, her voice conveying some sense of regret.

"Innocent. Those who have not harmed or done wrong outside the scope of the common man."

"You play with words," Lisa scoffed, entering a dozen more lines of code as she stared in Hank's direction. After a moment, she spoke again. "I am called to do the work of God. Who is man to question God's will or plan? It is beyond human understanding."

"Who is man to take the work of God and mangle it until it justifies mass murder?" Hank was in fact Catholic.

"I have faith in my leaders," Lisa replied. She continued typing while she spoke. "I trust that whosoever is called as an instrument of God will fulfill his task without question. Ours is not to know why, but to serve knowing we do what is right."

"Killing harmless innocent people is wrong. Your religious leaders display signs of psychopathy. Psychopaths go to jail because they are wrong." He spoke this as though he was absolutely certain that he was correct, and such a simple concept that he was explaining it to a two year old.

"There are no innocents," Lisa said, staring at Hank. "If you do not believe, you make war against God in your heart. Only through the purging of creation of the unfaithful can the End of Time come. This is what the Father taught: the End of Time will usher in the Kingdom of Heaven where man can enter into perfect union with God."

"The Father was a delusional psychopath," Hank said flatly. "What makes you believe his 'teachings'?"

"The Father was a righteous and holy man who received divine revelation," Lisa shot back as she pounded out more commands on the keyboard.

"Holy because he claimed to know the word of God?"

"Holy because he was chosen by God."

"How do you know this? That He was chosen?"

"When the Father first announced to his family and a few close friends that he had received several visions, he was ridiculed and rejected," Lisa explained, pressing the return key several times. "But those whom God had stirred prayed and fasted to seek divine guidance, and others too came to understand that the Father had been specially anointed. His visions were confirmed. Others saw them too. By the time I was born, there were many who had embraced the truth."

"So he inspired people to kill because of a dream he had,” Hank scoffed, tapping his fingers against his Glock. "I was wrong. He isn't a psychopath; he was just stupid. I dreamt I met Jesus once. He told me to stop those who slaughtered others. Perhaps I too am a holy man because I have several people who would agree with this vision."

"So remind me again why I'm saving your sorry ass?"

"Because if you don't, yours will be locked in prison. Forever."

"Is that a threat?" she asked, her fingers slowing to a halt.

"You need your freedom from me. I need your… skills from you. As far as I'm concerned, we're both threats to one another, but nowhere near in comparison to the FBI problem right now,” Hank responded, attempting to make eye contact with her. Luckily, they were alight with the reflection of her computer screen.

She met his eyes for only a moment before glancing away. "You would happily kill me, wouldn't you? You think I'm either a psychopath or insane, don't you. That's how all of you think, isn't it."

"Don't think that I represent the common views of the FBI,” Hank replied. "I know a few people who might go as far as to hold a degree of respect for you. But me? Yes, I do think you are a psychopath. As for insane? No, just delusional." He then gave her a look as if to say "Well, you asked."

"The only delusions are sent by Satan to those who would stand in the way of the faithful," Lisa replied, resuming her typing.

"I am faithful to God,” Hank replied frankly, toggling the safety switch of his Glock. He imagined pulling the trigger at Mitch's head.

"If that were true, you would not stand against us."

"I was taught my religion by a holy man."

"Religion is a lie," Lisa said. "There is only God and Satan. Two choices. Religion is a creation of man."

"Some would say that about God,” Hank replied, simply stating the facts.

"They are wrong."

"Some would say the same about you."

"Your point being?" Lisa raised an eyebrow, but her gaze remained on the screen.

"What makes your views any more true than others? Nothing. This is what happens when humans try to pretend they understand God. There is death left in the wake of such thoughts."

"Death is the other half of living."

"Death is the state of death. Life is the state of living."

"There is no life without death," Lisa said, her hands moving across the keyboard like a mosquito over water. "One is dependent on the other."

--
Courtesy of excerpt from collaborative writing between Edward C., portraying Hank Desrosier, and Ylanne S., portraying Lisa Karim.

Society's Attitudes Toward the Neurodiverse

2011-07-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

"Well I've never had any friends," Natalie said, "just colleagues, classmates, and enemies. And strangers. But I don't think they count. I didn't have friends in school, and I don't have any now. People don't want to be around me. My therapist says I intimidate people, but I'm not particularly scary-looking, and I don't usually brandish my gun."

Amelia paused before making a comment, then speaking slowly and carefully. "Ye have an aura," she replied, as if that explained it quite thoroughly. "Ye dunnae need to brandish your gun," she added, remembering how frantically she'd looked for the weapon that Natalie didn't have. She'd been more afraid of the agent then she had been of any of her other pursuers.

Natalie squinted, tilting her head to the side to a fresh wave of pain from the bullet wound in her shoulder. "You think I'm inherently frightening? Well, I guess I have no chances left of acquiring a friend in my lifetime if that's true. Sofia says I'm 'lame,' but I don't know what she means, because I'm not a quadriplegic or a paraplegic."

"Nae," Amelia quickly replied. "Not fright’ning. Intimidating," she adds, trying to get her point across. The disinclination from Natalie's part no doubt was another factor in that. She giggled slightly at Sofia's description. Modern terminology escaped Natalie, it seemed. "She's using the modern definition." Amelia decided not to actually get into that; Sofia was less then complimentary, it seemed.

Natalie frowned, thinking about that. "How do you mean, intimidating?" She had never thought of herself as intimidating, not at her height and with her rather librarian-esque glasses. They drove onto the gravel, tiny rocks crunching under the tires as Natalie maintained the same steady speed. They passed more houses, now grouped more closely together, and not as rustic in appearance as the first ones that had passed.

Amelia paused to think about this again; she didn't want to misword this. "You're… so aloof. And difficult to properly communicate with… or understand," she replied haltingly, trying to find the words to express the air of almost cold indifference that Natalie unintentionally portrayed.

At once, Natalie remembered the words of the child psychiatrist her parents had taken her to when she was a child. "Antisocial personality, obsessive-compulsive, profoundly gifted." Later, in reading her own evaluation, "Cold affect, inability to form reciprocal relationships, inability to maintain reciprocal conversation, attention deficit, ninety-ninth percentile in visual-spatial learning, autistic preference for solitude, developmental delay, no understanding of social boundaries, pedantic speech, perseverative interests, stereotyped movements, communication deficit." Without warning, Natalie pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park. Thin lines of moisture appeared beneath her eyes.

"Whoa!" The swerve was completely unexpected, and Amelia spent the first few seconds being shaken up, then getting herself back together before working out what'd happened. She looked curiously over at the agent. "What's wrong?" she asked, cocking her head to the side slightly as she tried to work out why the FBI agent who had been so calm, even after being shot, suddenly had started… crying was what Amelia thought, and was correct, although the normal evidence of sadness weren't really there.

"The incorrect answer," Natalie responded automatically, and then shook her head, frowning. "The field of psychiatry and the imbeciles who populate it." She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "They don't understand anything." The engine hummed quietly in neutral, the sound of birds chirping audible in the trees around them. She spun her pen.

Amelia was unsure what to make of this latest outburst; Natalie could be very confusing. "What's the problem about them?" she asks, trying to work out where that sudden change had come from… Maybe she'd said something wrong? And upset her? The other problem with the lack of emotion; it was hard to work out what Natalie was actually feeling.

"Their diagnostic labels do very little to compensate for the challenges of the individuals they claim to 'help,'" Natalie said, spinning her pen rapidly as she spoke. "Very few of the professionals in the field have firsthand knowledge or understanding of the populations they are supposed to serve. Textbook descriptions of 'disorders' prove useless juxtaposed to living people with emotions, fears, and aspirations." Her tone remained level, as it nearly always did, but there was an intensity with a semblance of anger about her words.

Amelia just stared for a few seconds, working out the gist of the meaning of what Natalie had just said. It was a confusing thing, when you didn't know some of the words. "So, they label people, but do not try to aid in fixing with what they've labeled them with?" she asked, still unsure if the meaning that she thought she'd understood was correct.

"On the contrary, they think that 'fixing' someone is necessary because differences from typical development are treated as defects," Natalie responded. "They think that if everyone is normal, that's an ideal situation, disregarding the fact that that precise sentiment demeans and devalues people who are different from the norm. It plays into a societal notion that difference is defective and should be concealed, mitigated, or cured. And people like me are ostracized because the people who ought to understand our differences treat us like specimens under microscopes instead of people."

Well, that was much clearer, no juxtaposing or such. Amelia frowned as she nodded. She wasn't quite sure what to reply to that though; the vehemence was conveyed, even without the cutting tone most people would have. Eventually she settled on a response, a very well thought out one. "The urge to make everyone 'proper' and normal citizens is something that quite a few people have, not just psychiatrists," she replied, remembering her etiquette teacher. "Most people don't understand non-normal people because they act differently than what most people expect, thereby throwing them off."

"I don't know what others expect of me, but I don't meet their expectations, nor do I care to," said Natalie. "But some differences go deeper than merely having different preferences in reading taste or fashion. Some differences are neurological, and that's why psychiatrists choose to label them. I do have challenges other people don't have, but they don't make me any less human or any less worthy of living life as who I am instead of who society wants me to be."

Amelia just sat back, wondering again how this conversation had come about. Probably something that had been bothering the agent for a while? "If ye're human, like ye are, then they cannae pretend you aren't," she replied, voicing her opinion on the subject, just like everything else. It'd been a long time… and even being in an awkward situation with a woman she barely knew was almost like paradise to the odyssey of fear and pain.

Natalie's hand moved the gear back into drive, and she slowly pulled onto the road again, resuming her previous speed of 55 km/h. "Well, that's how they treat people like me," she said. Gravel gave way to pavement and larger clusters of homes.

Courtesy of an excerpt from collaborative writing of Alasund De’astio, portraying Amelia Sharnock, and Ylanne S., portraying Natalie Schultz.

Welcome to New Contributing Writer Edward C.

2011-07-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

8 July 2011 Ylanne S.

Welcome to Edward C., new Fugitive Seeking Truth contributing writer on Special Education, Education, Disability, and Public Policy. Edward is an American high school student who has been in the public education system since preschool. He has had a special education plan, or Individualized Education Plan, for years. Edward is both intellectually gifted and learning disabled, and therefore has seen all facets of the public education system. He has experienced firsthand the failures of a system that relies on standardized testing, denies reasonable accommodations to students who need them, and ignores the dual nature of twice-exceptionals--students who are both gifted and disabled.

Diagnosed at different times with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Math-based learning disability, Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Bipolar Disorder before finally receiving the edifying diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder), Edward's IEP repeatedly failed to appropriately mitigate and accommodate his learning disability by applying standardized accommodations that were of no use because of his particular visual-spatial learning style. His IEP failed to recognize his strengths in writing and reading comprehension, which resulted in years of mistreatment both at the hands of peers and faculty and staff.

As a rising high school senior, Edward faces the challenge of reconciling a school record that misrepresents his intellectual gifts and extracurricular accomplishments with his passion and drive to change the way the educational system meets the needs and encourages the strengths of those with unique challenges and gifts. He believes that some of the most important thoughts on the public education system must come from those within it, such as himself. In his capacity as a writer and a student, Edward will be contributing his thoughts on education, special education, disability, and public policy to Fugitive Seeking Truth.

Reflection on the Fourth of July

2011-07-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

‎Reflection on the Fourth of July
Ylanne S.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
— Declaration of Independence

"We the People of the United States..."
— The Constitution

"All men" and "We the People" mean ALL people:

Autistic and non-Autistic, disabled and typically abled, speaking and non-speaking;

Christian and Muslim and Jewish and Hindu and Sikh and Jain and Baha’i and Wicca and Atheist;

Democrat and Republican and Libertarian and Liberal and Conservative and Apathetic;

White and Black and Asian and Latino and Native American, born in American or come to America;

Men and women, heterosexual and homosexual and bisexual and transsexual and asexual;

ALL people.

This does not leave room to exclude any group of people or any individual on the basis of an identifying characteristic or quality from the same rights and freedoms granted to everyone by the Constitution of the United States. These rights and freedoms that we herald as uniquely American and representative of our nation’s founding on the principles of equality and liberty can only herald those principles when everyone is granted them. As long as even one individual is denied any of these rights and freedoms—the right to equitable and just treatment under the law in both civil and criminal matters, the freedom of beliefs and private or public expression of those beliefs, and the right to equal participation and representation in the democratic system—America has not fulfilled the promise of its Declaration of Independence and its Constitution.

Granted, at our nation’s founding, these phrases were not understood to mean anyone but white men, mostly of Protestant background, and mostly landowners. African slaves, Catholics, Jews, Native Americans, and women were all excluded from the democratic process. They did not have political rights—in New England communities, only adult male members of the town Calvinist church could vote. Their human rights were routinely violated—from the genocide of Native peoples to the disenfranchisement and enslavement of Africans. Worse still, the United States Supreme Court upheld these practices through rulings such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott v. Sandford. Treaties with the Native American nations that ought to have been upheld as international agreements between sovereign parties were routinely violated when it became convenient to steal, settle, and develop Native peoples’ land and to forcibly relocate those same people while establishing “educational institutions” to assimilate them into American culture—that is, to remove them from their own culture and destroy any traces of it.

But we have made great strides forward. From the women’s rights movement that eventually saw the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that saw overturning of segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the ratification of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, we have come to a point in our national history where we have become comfortable and lax.

Sure that racial discrimination and sex-based discrimination are relics of the past, most Americans are complacent and do not realize that all people in our nation are not treated equitably and justly under the law. Autistic people routinely face discrimination in the workforce and ostracization in their communities; the LGBTQ community faces the wrath of religious bigots who refuse to acknowledge or address the systemic problem that they have caused of bullying LGBTQ youth in schools; Muslims are wrongfully excoriated and vilified by the conservative Republicans for political gain; and Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately overrepresented in American prisons and in low-income communities with few opportunities for alternative sentencing and youth jobs programs to prevent offending and recidivism.

Today is the Fourth of July, a day that is supposed to be a celebration of our nation’s birth and the ideals Americans have always espoused. But until they are made actionable, by addressing and rectifying the systemic problems leading to inequity and injustice for entire groups of people as well as individuals, these ideals will remain lofty and unattained.

Egypt: Rising to Freedom

2011-06-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

Starting on 25 January 2011, eighteen days of protests and calls for democracy and change led to the resignation of twenty-year President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

Partisanship and Uncivil Dialogue

2011-05-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

Islam dominates the news. From anti-Sharia legislation to accusations of Islamophobia to Islamic terrorism, it is impossible to ignore wild ravings from both the left and the right—the left accusing the right of misguided fear-mongering and bigotry, and the right accusing the left of pandering to Islamists and ignoring the threat of terrorism. In the din of rampant accusations and sharply-divided bickering over Islam-related news items and comments, it has become imperative that we as Americans reexamine our national dialogue on this issue.

While it is true that the vast majority of Muslims, including American Muslims, are law-abiding, peaceful citizens who repeatedly condemn terrorism, it is also true that a majority of terrorist attacks (and thwarted terrorist plots) are carried out by people who call themselves Muslim and who use Islam as justification for terrorism.

Representative Peter King’s hearing in March on the threat of radicalization in the American Muslim community was, however misguided in motive, an important step toward developing a public dialogue on this problem. We must learn how to adequately and openly discuss the very real threat of Islamic terrorism while remembering that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

Is it wrong to demonize all Muslims and implicate the entire Muslim community for complicity in terrorism? Absolutely. It is equally wrong to ignore or downplay a significant threat to national security and the safety of our communities and families.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said in his 2008 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that “99.9 percent of Muslim-Americans or Sikh-Americans, Arab-Americans are every bit as patriotic as anybody else in this room, and that many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.” So yes, it is wrong to assume all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

Instead, the just and necessary antidote to extremism is to recognize the legitimacy of American Muslims as part of the American community while at the same time addressing the threat of Islam-inspired terrorism to all Americans. According to the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking system, over 21,500 terrorist attacks or attempted attacks since 9/11 were carried out by Muslim extremists (as compared to 419 attacks by every other type of religious extremists combined, including 334 by Christian extremists.) Fact: Islamic terrorism is a threat. And to discuss Al Qaeda or Hamas or Hizbollah, we have to talk about that threat frankly and openly, without fear of being labeled bigoted.

Not only would it be edifying for a new generation of young Americans to witness a mature and honest public discourse, but it is imperative for national security that we move to the median between the false extremes of either ignoring the threat of Islamic terrorism or conflating Islam with terrorism. We must address these issues in a truthful and honest manner, which is to say equally free of cowering to political correctness on one hand and inflammatory rhetoric on the other. We cannot let partisanship and divisiveness stand in the way of national security.

Bin Ladin Dead: Now What?

2011-05-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's been all over the news ever since President Barack Obama's sudden address last night, around 11:40pm EST (4:40am GMT). Usama bin Ladin, the elusive leader of Al Qaeda, is dead. Responsible in part for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the 1994 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in addition to numerous acts of terrorism around the world, bin Ladin has been on both the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and Most Wanted Terrorists List and the target of the CIA's manpower. The documentary "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?" poked fun of our inability for over nine years to find this one man. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni father and Syrian mother, bin Ladin was the seventeenth of fifty-one children of a business mogul who died in a plane crash when bin Ladin was ten. Bin Ladin was university educated and the wealthy scion of the Bin Ladin family, if an outcast one. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, bin Ladin traveled several times to provide financial and material support to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets, which is where he made his reputation supposedly engaging in combat against the "godless Communists." It was through this war that the organization known as Al Qaeda, "the base," emerged.

Rumors have had it that after being ousted by Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and after leaving Sudan and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, bin Ladin had been hiding in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan. To the contrary, American intelligence officials say that bin Ladin had been living in a unique, luxurious compound in Abbottabad, outside Islamabad. Heavily fortified and lacking both telephone and internet service, it was believed to hold an individual of high value, possibly bin Ladin. It was the name of a trusted courier, who also died, that led to bin Ladin's positive identification. Four men, including the unnamed courier and one of bin Ladin's sons, died along with bin Ladin (reportedly shot in the left eye after engaging in armed resistance to the Special Operations team) and an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield. Bin Ladin was buried at sea within twenty-four hours, as is Islamic custom. (Evidently, no country wanted his remains, for pretty obvious reasons.)

What does this mean now? Will America face greater threat of retaliation? Even if bin Ladin has essentially been a figurehead for the past several years, providing a source of morale for would-be jihadists around the globe, there are many others within Al Qaeda who will take on the mantle of leadership, be that directing operations and logistics or providing a new public face for the organization. (Two names that come to mind are Ayman al-Zawahiri and Anwar al-Awlaki.) Al Qaeda certainly will not splinter and disintegrate. It will not cease to be a threat to the international community, and terrorism will not go away. Bin Ladin's death, instead of providing a crucial blow to Al Qaeda, may serve as the impetus the organization needs to redirect its energy and operational capabilities at Americans in retaliation for its founder's death at the hands of Americans.

Does this also mean that Obama stands a greater chance of re-election? Perhaps, as it could render null the claim by some conservatives that Obama and other liberals are weak on terrorism and unable to act decisively and effectively to neutralize terrorist targets. At the same time, it could also be viewed as his attempt to save face in light of his inability to reduce the federal deficit (already exceeding $14 trillion) and keep promises made during his campaign and in the beginning of his presidency--namely, to close Guantanamo Bay Prison, to end the use of military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees, and to shift directions entirely away from many of the Bush-era policies. Bin Ladin's death is certainly a political statement and one that will elicit many more emotional responses than rational ones. Because bin Ladin was responsible for the deaths of over three thousand Americans, many Americans will and have expressed emotional responses of happiness or relief in his death.

Looking forward both short-term and long-term, we need to worry about two primary threats. Firstly, as alluded to earlier, the threat of retaliation against Americans or American targets, either by Al Qaeda operatives or by other jihadist sympathizers. Secondly, we need to continue to treat Al Qaeda as a significant threat. Our intelligence community will now be charged with the task of identifying key leaders in Al Qaeda and working to neutralize these other threats in order to continue preventing terrorist attack and bringing to justice those who do engage in acts of terrorism. Bin Ladin's death is a milestone in the War on Terror, but with an invisible, scattered enemy -- as most terrorist organizations differ in specific points of doctrine or ideology, and many more are led by non-state actors as opposed to being state-sponsored, as opposed to in the past -- and a constant threat of continued terrorist attacks, it is imperative that all Americans remain vigilant.

30 Facts for 30 Days: Autism Awareness Month

2011-04-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

For Autism Awareness Month 2011, in the month of April, I decided to share one fact about autism each day to shed positive awareness and encourage acceptance of autism. Here is the series in its entirety for your reading pleasure.

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Fact #1: If you've met one Autistic person, you've met one Autistic people. We are not all the same. We do not require the same supports or services as each other. Some of us speak; some of us use other means of communication. Some of us are highly gifted in one area (math, languages, etc.) while others aren't particularly. We have our own personalities, interests, strengths, and needs.

Fact #2: Around half of all Autistic people are nonverbal, including Autistic people who will never develop speech or Autistic people who have extremely limited speech. Not speaking is not the same as not thinking. Nonverbal autism is not the same as intellectual disability and means nothing about the individual's ability to communicate in other ways or potential to self-advocate.

Fact #3: There is a difference between expressive speech and receptive speech. Nonverbal Autistics who do not use expressive speech, the ability to use words to communicate, almost always have receptive speech, the ability to hear and understand spoken words. It is a false assumption that not speaking means not comprehending speech.

Fact #4: Autism is not caused by vaccines. Andrew Wakefield, who used to be a doctor before he was stripped of his medical license, originally proposed the vaccine causation hypothesis in a since-disproven study, where nearly all of his coauthors later rescinded their names from the paper. There is absolutely NO scientifically proven link between vaccines and autism.

Fact #5: Autism is a spectrum. People with Asperger’s are in fact Autistic. (Highly verbal isn’t the same as almost normal. Besides, normal is overrated.) Simply because someone with AS doesn’t seem to have much “disability” does not mean their life is all sunshine and rainbows. And, yes, I really do take offense when you tell me there’s no possible way I can be Autistic.

Fact #6: Independent living should not be the primary goal of anyone with an Autistic child or student. Some Autistics can live independently--and many get married and have children! Others will never live independently. That’s not a tragedy. There is nothing wrong with interdependent living, except that our culture says so. As long as we are happy and our lives our meaningful, we’re all set.

Fact #7: The majority of Autistic people are not mentally retarded. The statistic that 70% of Autistics have mental retardation is outdated and wrong. Estimates for mental retardation in non-speaking Autistics are always going to be inaccurate, because not speaking is not the same as being mentally retarded. Some Autistic people are also mentally retarded, but not most.

Fact #8: Not all Autistic people want to be cured or think that a cure is a good thing. (Some do. Many don’t.)

Fact #9: Autism is not a childhood condition alone. There is a lot of focus on Autistic children, but the reality is that Autistic children become Autistic adults. Most will still need services and supports (of varying kinds depending on the individual.) The current system, which is designed for children, does not provide appropriate services for most Autistic adults.

Fact #10: Some Autistic children are best educated in an integrated mainstream setting. Others require a full-time dedicated classroom or school. It would not be fair to Autistic children to force either a broad, mandatory policy of inclusion or exclusion for all Autistic children. We each have different learning profiles and therefore require different appropriate educations.

Fact #11: The Autistic self-advocacy movement is not comprised entirely or even mostly of people with “high-functioning Asperger’s.” This is a misrepresentation. Many Autistic self-advocates are non-speaking, use alternative means of communication, have been labeled “low-functioning,” or do not qualify for the “Asperger’s” diagnosis.

Fact #12: Autistic people are not more likely to be violent than non-Autistic people. Some Autistic people are charged with violent crimes. So are thousands of non-Autistic people. Furthermore, the incidence of violent behavior in Autistic people is lower than in the general population. There is no link between autism and violence and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or misinformed.

Fact #13: The vast majority of Autistic people are not savants. We are not all walking clones of Rain Man or Dr. Reid (Criminal Minds). Some of us do have amazing savant abilities (and in various areas). But for the sake of our collective and individual sanity and dignity, please don’t automatically assume we are savants when you meet us and learn that we are Autistic.

Fact #14: Autistic people do in fact have empathy. A 2007 study (Markram et al.) supports this assertion. We may not express empathy in typical or socially appropriate ways or at expected times, but this by no means suggests we don’t have it. Many Autistic people are driven very strongly by a sense of justice in order to right wrongs; this is empathy.

Fact #15: High-functioning autism and low-functioning autism are not only demeaning labels, but also inconsistently applied. Many Autistics report having been given both labels at different points in their lives. There is no scientifically valid basis to draw lines of distinction across the autism spectrum. These labels do nothing for an Autistic person.

Fact #16: Not all Aspies are math and science geeks. Many of us are, but an equal number of us simply have no affinity or (metaphorically) warm feelings for math and science. Some of us are in love with history, politics, languages, or sociology. Not every Aspie knows how to deconstruct and reconstruct computers, understands quantum physics, or can perform complex mathematical operations.

Fact #17: Autistic people do not lack imagination. We have it in abundance! Many Autistic people are writers, singers, artists, actors, and musicians. Several prominent figures in the arts are Autistic. Many Autistic people play Pretend games (and repetitive scenarios are not unimaginative, contrary to popular opinion), participate in roleplaying games, or create fictitious worlds.

Fact #18: It’s not possible to actually diagnose people post mortem. We can make very accurate guesses if a person’s life was well documented by multiple observers, but we cannot say with certainty “so and so was definitely Autistic.” We can say, however, that, based on the information available, one seems to have been diagnosable as Autistic with reasonable certainty.

Fact #19: Autistic people are not incapable of talking about themselves or analyzing our lives. Ask any one of us who have written about ourselves, like Rudy Simone, John Elder Robison, Stephen Mark Shore, Liane Holliday Willey, or Temple Grandin.

Fact #20: Autistic people are not incapable of relationships. Plenty of us have boyfriends or girlfriends (and breakups). Some have long term relations, get married, and even have children. (Not all of us do, but hey, neither do all non-Autistic people either.) Some Autistic adults even have Autistic children as well!

Fact #21: Autistic people are not incapable of going to college. Plenty of us do and it’s not just those with the Asperger’s diagnosis either. With the right supports and services—which differ between individuals—we can do anything.

Fact #22: Autistic people questioned by police may give false confessions or misleading statements when officers are not trained in recognizing autism and using appropriate questioning techniques to elicit the most accurate and useful responses. This is only one of many reasons training for law enforcement is a necessity.

Fact #23: Autistic people who do not speak can and do communicate. Some use American Sign Language. Some use AAC devices with keyboards. Many use the internet. Not speaking does not mean not able to express oneself.

Fact #24: Not all Aspies are avowed atheists or incapable of religious belief. Plenty of us are spiritual—some are Christians; others are inspired by animistic traditions. Some are Jewish. And yes, plenty of us are atheists or agnostics. If you ask, we usually have very good reasons for our faith or lack thereof.

Fact #25: Autistic people can and should be included in their IEP team meetings. No one knows better what accommodations, services, and supports are actually needed and the progress report on current accommodations than the Autistic student receiving them. Whenever feasible, the Autistic pre-teen or teen should be invited to attend and participate in IEP meetings.

Fact #26: Not all Autistic people are diagnosed, especially older adolescents and many adults. Chances are there are undiagnosed Autistic adults in your life whom you've never known are Autistic but always suspected something different about them.

Fact #27: Neither a non-speaking Autistic with 24/7 residential care, nor a highly verbal Autistic with a competitive job, nor an Autistic with several co-morbid diagnoses struggling in the school system alone can truly represent every Autistic. The Autistic community is comprised of many individuals and it is wrong to assume Autistic self-advocates represent only one perspective or profile.

Fact #28: Neurodiversity is the idea that conditions like autism and ADD are not disorders or diseases but natural variations on the human genotype and phenotype with the potential to be both beneficial and harmful in different ways in the same individual. It is not the idea of “Autistic supremacy” over non-Autistics. Neurodiversity seeks equality between Autistics and non-Autistics.

Fact #29: The parents of Autistic people are not the only advocates for Autistic people. More and more Autistics are advocating for themselves and other Autistics, including many non-speaking Autistics, Autistics who have been labeled “low functioning,” and Autistics who have been institutionalized. (Wretches and Jabberers.) It’s important to listen to us, too!

Fact #30: Autism Awareness Month doesn’t mean that promoting positive awareness and acceptance of autism is limited to April every year. Take the time to get to know the Autistic people in your life. Ask questions. Read books. But most of all, don’t forget about our existence for the other eleven months of the year.

Maybe we should send Congress to remedial preschool.

2011-04-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

That's how one of my friends put it when discussing the looming possibility of a federal government shut down earlier today. Thankfully, these very valid fears have been averted by an eleventh hour (literally, for D.C.'s timezone) deal announced by Speaker John Boehner less than fifteen minutes ago. Thus, this cartoon, inspired by my friend, is being uploaded around fifteen minutes too late. Senator Reid is speaking live now...

The resolution being passed now will fund the government through Thursday, to allow both sides time to hash out the remainder of the disputes over the budget -- the rider items over which party lines are the general divisions of "sides." Let's hope the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House can learn to compromise between the extremes of both parties in order to make our government more efficient and more responsive to the real needs that must be met in this country.

UPDATE: 11:18pm EST -- After hearing from two Senators including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Senate just passed the bill as amended with unanimous consent. This is a stopgap up through next Thursday. Now it goes to the House.

UPDATE: 11:23pm EST -- House Majority Whip is making the rounds to ensure everyone votes to pass the deal...

UPDATE: 11:25pm EST -- Major Republican concession removed ALL riders from the stopgap bill. It must be passed by the House (has been by the Senate) by midnight in order to ensure the government does not shut down tomorrow.

UPDATE: 11:31pm EST -- They are rounding up all of the Representatives in order to rush them through the halls to the chamber so they can take the vote and pass the stopgap deal. The analysts predict that the biggest battle in the upcoming weeks will be over healthcare. One says that the House Republicans will attempt to defund Obama's healthcare legislation, which will not pass through the Democratic-controlled Senate; however, even in the unlikelihood that it would, Obama would veto the measure. One analyst said that the Democrats did a good job in the past several days in shifting focus from the Republicans' criticism of Planned Parenthood (and intention to remove all federal funding from it) to making the "riders" the primary issue.

For the uninformed, a "rider" is an item in a bill which may or may not be directly related to its primary content. Riders may be added either to prevent a bill's passage (by adding something no one wants to pass) or to garner additional votes (by adding a measure someone wants in order to solicit their vote). In this case, most the riders were Republican additions to the possible stopgap bill.

Still waiting on the Representatives to all run to the chamber from their offices...

UPDATE: 11:40pm EST -- Heard from CNN live that a House leadership aide says the vote might not be taken for another half hour to hour; however, even though that might be past the midnight deadline, the government still will not have a shut down...

UPDATE: 11:57pm EST -- House will vote in ten to twenty minutes, just a matter of getting paperwork in order. Afterward, the President will sign the stopgap bill... This gives Congress until Thursday to pass an actual budget after over six months of temporary resolutions to fund the federal government. September 30 is the end of the fiscal year. Republicans want more spending cuts, especially the Tea Party backed freshmen Republicans in the House, whereas Democrats have proposed cuts of up to $1.7 billion to defense spending. (Republicans have objected vehemently to this proposal.) Still waiting...

UPDATE: 12:02am EST -- The stopgap bill which funds til next Thursday cuts $2 billion in spending, whereas the larger bill encompassing it will cut around $38-39 billion in spending. Speaker Boehner is speaking now. There's been a lot of positive "buddy buddy yay everyone's cooperating" talk...

UPDATE: 12:33am EST -- The U.S. House just passed the stopgap bill that will keep the government running through next Thursday, which is when Reid and Boehner expect a vote on the rest of the budget deal, in which about $39 billion will be cut in spending in order to decrease the over $1.3 trillion federal deficit. The last government shutdown was in 1995 during the Clinton administration. A five-day full shutdown was followed by twenty-one days of partial shutdown of the federal government. Another shutdown, during Obama's administration, was narrowly averted less than two hours ago. This is my final update for the evening. Good night friends in America and abroad!

Sharia Legislation in Tennessee

2011-03-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

It took me eight days and a dictionary to finish this drawing. It's a response to what's happening in Tennessee. It also took a lot of effort to be legible. None of this is my normal handwriting (which is quite illegible and Jeffersonian in appearance). Click the image for a larger image. You may link to this post or this image, provided you provide me with clearly visible credit, and preferably a link back here to Fugitive Seeking Truth.

Enjoy!

Tuol Sleng Genocide

2011-03-06T13:48:00.000-08:00

After discovering the program Windows Live Movie Maker on my new laptop, I pieced together a few videos this weekend. Here is today's, a solemn visual for the Khmer Rouge genocide perpetrated at S-21, the Tuol Sleng Prison, which was a converted school turned torture center.

_______

Tuol Sleng (S-21)
1975 - 1979

"Between 1-2 million Cambodians--and many thousands of foreigners--were starved to death, tortured, or killed, during this reign of terror. When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979 the S-21 prison staff fled, leaving thousands of written and photographic records... Former prison staff say as many as 30,000 prisoners were held at S-21 before the Khmer Rouge leadership was forced to flee, in the first days of 1979."
-- www.TuolSleng.com

Video by Ylanne S.

Lyrics (Urdu):

Allah wohi hai tau na muztir ho

Jab maayusi dilon pe chhaa jaati hai
Dushman se bhi naam tera japwaati hai
Jab maayusi dilon pe chhaa jaati hai
Dushman se bhi naam tera japwaati hai
Allah wohi hai tau na muztir ho

Mumkin hai ke sukh mein bhul jaaen itfaal
Lekin unhein dukh mein maan hi yaad aati hai
Mumkin hai ke sukh mein bhul jaaen itfaal
Lekin unhein dukh mein maan hi yaad aati hai
Allah wohi hai tau na muztir ho

Original

Mix of two Urdu rubaiyat (rubai is a Persian quatrain; plural rubaiyat).
"Allah wohi hai tau na muztir ho" is a stanza from a rubai by Mirza Salamat Ali Dabir (19th century). Azam Ali uses it as a chorus./"Don't feel perturbed when Eternal God is here".

Jab maayusi dilon pe chhaa jaati hai,
Dushman se bhi naam tera japwaati hai;
Mumkin hai ke sukh mein bhul jaaen itfaal,
Lekin unhein dukh mein maan hi yaad aati hai.

A rubai by Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali (19th century).

When despair our hearts doth maul,
Atheists too Thy name recall;
Children might forget their mother in prosperous days;
They cannot but think of her when hard times appal.

Analysis of Middle East Revolutions and Current Situation

2011-02-22T16:55:00.000-08:00

COMING SOON.
No seriously. I am writing an analysis! I promise!

Christianity and the Problem of Evil

2011-01-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

Christianity and the Problem of Evil
Ylanne S. January 2011

Evil does not count as a proof against the existence of God because there is neither a Scriptural nor logical inconsistency juxtaposing the existence of evil and the existence of God. In Scripture, God creates the world and all that is in it as good, and it is corrupted so that evil exists in the world beginning in Genesis 3 with the story of the Fall. Nowhere in Scripture is evil denied, and nowhere in Scripture is God portrayed as unable to act against evil. Scripture continually portrays God as acting within His creation to make evil right. Likewise, there is no logical inconsistency in the “theistic set” as defined by Ronald Nash; neither deductive nor inductive reasoning can with any degree of certainty disprove the existence of a God who is omnipotent and omnibenevolent as Christianity teaches upon considering the existence of evil. J. L. Mackie, in his essay “Evil and Omnipotence,” claims that such a God cannot exist simultaneously with evil; however, Alvin Platinga offers a defense known as the “Free Will Defense” which challenges this argument with the notion of human free will as the cause of evil.

John G. Stackhouse, Jr., in Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil, describes Alvin Platinga’s “Free Will Defense” as “one of the most trenchant philosophical responses of our time to the question of God and evil” (Stackhouse 80). According to Stackhouse, Platinga’s argument can be simplified as follows:

“God desired to love and be loved by other beings. God
created human beings with this in view. To make us capable of such fellowship,
God had to give us the freedom to choose, because love…is meaningful only when
it is neither automatic nor coerced. This sort of free will, however, entailed
the danger that it would be used not to enjoy God’s love and to love God in
return, but to go one’s own way in defiance of both God and one’s own best
interest” (Stackhouse 81).

Free will, therefore, allows for the possibility that humans might choose evil. It is “an authentic possibility” (81). Free will is “to grant us the awful dignity of making real choices with real consequences;” otherwise, it is not in fact free will (82). According to the Free Will Defense, the existence of free will entails the existence of evil derived from freely-made choices. If having free will is a necessary component of Christian understanding—as the choice embedded in Eve and Adam eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil—then it follows that humans have the ability to choose evil, and apparently, sometimes do. This seems to allow for a possible reason explaining the existence of evil juxtaposed with the existence of a God as understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Christians are then faced with another problem. If, as J. L. Mackie says, “good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do,” one must ask why God does not exercise His supreme power—at least, the omnipotence ascribed to Him—and simply eradicate evil (Stackhouse 80). This is perhaps the most potent question about evil. Whether or not humans have free will, would not a fully good, all powerful God eliminate any evil that comes into existence? Alvin Platinga’s Free Will Defense, a response to Mackie’s essay “Evil and Omnipotence,” addresses the fallen creation aspect of evil but fails to sufficiently address the role of God in allowing human free will and evil. If God could eliminate evil “but the elimination of that evil would result either in the existence of a greater evil or in the nonexistence of a greater good,” then “it makes no sense for God to eliminate an evil that would bring about a state of affairs in which there would be less good or more evil” (Nash 186). This is the classic question of using an evil means to accomplish a good end—does the evil of the means absolve itself by its end purpose? Or, conversely, can a good action which produces evil be justified? In The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan asserts that “eternal harmony…[is] not worth one single tear of the martyred little girl…If the suffering of little children is needed to complete the sum total of suffering required to pay for the truth…all the truth in the world is not worth the price” (Dostoyevsky 326). Perhaps in answer, Ronald Nash proposes the argument that “an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God created the world,” that it contained evil, and that God had “a good reason for doing so” (Nash 189). Nevertheless, this still leaves the problem of what exactly that good reason is.

J. L. Mackie makes a second argument against the Free Will Defense in which he asserts that God can bring about any logically possible state of affairs, that “a state of affairs in which humans are free and always do what is right is logically possible,” and that therefore, God could bring such a state into existence (Nash 191). Mackie postulates that were God to have created such a world, there would be no evil in it because humans would have free choice and would always freely choose what was right. Alvin Platinga’s response hinges upon disproving Mackie’s first premise by demonstrating that there are logically possible states of affairs which God cannot actualize despite his omnipotence. “Once God creates significantly free creatures…it is no longer true that God can bring about any logically possible state of affairs. Because we are significantly free, it is now partly up to us which possible state of affairs will be realized. This is what it means to be significantly free” (192). Mackie’s premise is wrong because humans cannot be significantly free and always choose what is right. According to Platinga, “it is logically possible that all human beings suffer from a moral defect…that in any possible world, there is at least one action with respect to which the person would do wrong” (192). Thus, if Mackie’s premise is false, the rest of his argument against the Free Will Defense is invalidated.

Nash finally restates Platinga’s Free Will Defense in argument form, including the premise that “it was not without God’s power to create a world containing moral good without creating one containing moral evil” (193). This is one of the most important means by which the Christian may reconcile the existence of evil with the existence of God. Moral good and evil are central tenets of the Christian faith; they are also generally recognized by atheists and non-Christians. What then entails the existence of moral good and what defines it? In the present world, it is impossible to define moral good without first accepting the existence of moral evil. Thus, if God created a world in which moral good existed—which it must, if Christians believe God’s nature is wholly good—then such a world must also contain moral evil because the existence of a world with moral good entails the existence of moral evil within that same world—or at least the possibility of it.

The last problem of evil, according to Nash, is that of gratuitous evil—“truly senseless, mindless, irrational, and meaningless evil” (Nash 209). In the Book of Job, Job is described as an upright man who has not done anything to offend God. Moreover, the evil perpetrated against Job by Satan was clearly permitted by God (Wright 69). Why, then, does God permit evil to be done against Job? If, as Nash posits, there is evil in the world because God has a good reason for it, or because all evil is somehow justified, then there is some mysterious reason or justification for all evil (Nash 210). The Book of Job ends with a likely unsatisfying answer in God’s revelation to Job of His righteousness, reassurance of His dominion, and display of His power. Alyosha Karamazov, perhaps, has the answer that Job does not receive. “It is to [Jesus] that they will sing, ‘You were right, O Lord, for Your ways have now been revealed to us,’” he says in response to his brother’s moral inquiry (Dostoyevsky 328). It is a traditional understanding in Christianity that the ways of God transcend all human capacity for understanding. If this is true, then it follows that any divine rationale or justification for evil may also transcend human capability of understanding it.

These arguments clearly demonstrate that there is no inconsistency in Christian teachings concerning the existence of evil, nor is there a logical inconsistency as Nash demonstrates. Evil is certainly a problem—whether for the Christian seeking to understand it in context of his face, or for the atheistic seeking to understand the derivation of moral good and evil in the absence of the divine—but it can and must be addressed. If there is no inconsistency regarding evil, then it must be something upon which the Christian must act. Jesus taught a faith of action. His life exemplified this through His miracles, concern for the poor and the sinners, and ultimately, in his submission to worldly authority to be crucified for all the evil that ever was. The Christian therefore is called upon to confront evil. The ways of God may be unknowable, but Christianity is not merely a faith of speculation and guessing. It is also a faith which directs its believers’ moral lives, thereby acting as a moral agent in a world where evil exists.

Bibliography

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew. The Brothers Karamazov. New York, New York: Bantam Classics, 1984.

Guinness, Os. Unspeakable: Facing Up To Evil In An Age Of Genocide And Terror. San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

Nash, Ronald H. Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1988.

Stackhouse Jr., John G. Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil. 2 ed. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2009.

Wright, Nicholas Thomas. Evil and the Justice of God. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2006.

A Treatise on Education

2010-11-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

A Treatise on Education

Ylanne S. 15 November 2010

There are many flaws in America’s educational system, and these can be found in public, private, and alternate schools alike. The following are a few proposals which to me seem common sense and which may, if implemented properly, revolutionize the way education is done in America’s schools.

1.) Education should be fun. It should engage the student’s interests and passions, as this is the one true effective way to connect with any student and maximize retention. Education was not meant to be boring or a chore; it was meant to enlighten and to equip students with tools for careers and to change the world.

2.) Education should provide a foundation for real world skills and knowledge. It should not be limited to rote memorization of facts without context or theoretical explorations without application. While theory is important, and in many cases, necessary for proper understanding, education should include teaching of application of theoretical concepts. This grounds the real world in the classroom, offering students a foundation upon which to build their individual sphere of knowledge.

3.) Education should fit the student holistically, considering his or her abilities or disabilities, interests, and needs. If a student is gifted or disabled in one area, then the curriculum should be adjusted to reflect the student’s learning profile. If a student has particular interests, these should be encouraged and explored, instead of sacrificed for sameness in curriculum. Likewise, a student should be exposed to a broad liberal arts education, and grounded in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts. Students should be given the opportunity to pursue any particular topic in a depth not normally explored at the pre-secondary school level (or undergraduate level). Likewise, they should be given the opportunity to be challenged at their own level. Education should neither stoop to the lowest denominator nor pressure towards unrealistic expectations. It should be tailored to the student. That said, the student should be included in the structuring and planning of his or her education, and any plan should be flexible and allow for change.

4.) Education should take a holistic approach, including classroom learning, hands-on learning, and real world experience. It should also explore areas not typically considered necessary for a liberal arts or college prep education such as exploring nature, the arts, athletics, vocational training, life skills training, and spirituality. Education should not be limited to one area or stereotype, but should explore all realms of knowledge and possibility. Students should be given the opportunity to explore even the most seemingly mundane or non-academic topics as part of their education.

5.) Classes should be small, and allow for ample time between classes. Teachers should know each student personally and work in small groups and seminars rather than large lecture halls or classrooms where it is difficult to gain personal knowledge with students. Positive relationships with teachers are necessary for a positive educational experience. Having much time between classes facilitates teaching of time management skills and allows for more effective stress management for students and teachers alike.

6.) Teachers should not assign busy work, or excessive nightly homework. This sort of homework creates undue stress and resentment in students. Assignments should be projects, presentations, papers, and creative projects which encourage students to use analytical thinking skills, creative skills, and time management skills to complete. Not giving nightly homework also allows students more time to pursue their academic and extracurricular interests in depth as well as devote more time to significant assignments and exams.

7.) Education should not shy away from questions of worldview and spirituality. There is no such thing as a secular or nonsectarian education. The careful exclusion of Christianity from public schools does not remove spirituality from schools; it imposes a different spirituality, that of agnosticism, upon its students. Only by grounding ethics, politics, the sciences, and history in a spiritual worldview (which may be religious, atheistic, or otherwise) can an education be complete. Students should be encouraged to explore their own spirituality and religious or worldview beliefs, and these topics should be discussed throughout a student’s education.

Innocent Bystanders: Not So Innocent

2010-10-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today, like many of you, I went online to read the breaking news stories of the day. What I saw came flying around a corner at one hundred eighty miles an hour before hitting me.

I shouldn't have been surprised.

In the wake of the publicized suicides of Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, Massachusetts and Tyler Clementi of Rutgers University, today's article detailed the bullying-related suicides of Sladjana Vidovic, Eric Mohat, Meredith Rezak, and Jennifer Eyring of the same school in Mentor, Ohio. (One was a possibly accidental drug overdose).

According to the article, Sladjana was mocked for her thick Croatian accent, called names such as "Slutty Jana", and hit by food projectiles. The most callous act of her tormentors? They laughed at her body's appearance in the open casket at the funeral.

Sad, sad stories.

All real.

It's disappointing that the school has done nothing to stop the bullying that obviously pervades their school. It's disappointing that it took four deaths for parents to speak out and have their voices heard. It's disappointing that none of the parents were able to prevent the bullying. It's disappointing that none of the teachers or administrators stepped in. It's disappointing that these four young people were so desperate and hopeless in their lives that they saw their own deaths as the only way out.

But what is most disappointing is that the vast majority of you - yes, you reading this article - will read it, claim to be moved, shed a tear or two, and moments later, return to your work, your stupid English paper for that anal teacher, or the cup of coffee growing cold by the mousepad, or the dog whining at you to let it out. And within minutes, you'll forget about this article.

Four people are dead.

And you will forget about it. You will shudder and be silent for a moment as you contemplate the tragedy of their deaths, but it will only be a moment before you return to the rest of your life, appointments to keep and calls to make and status updates to post before retiring for the night, content in the bubble of safety and comfort you have created for yourself.

The illusion will not last for long.

This will continue.

More students will be bullied, and more young people will watch from the sidelines, thinking "As long as I'm not the one bullying him, then I'm okay." Wrong.

I hereby issue an indictment to each and every one of us: We are all guilty for what happened here, because we allowed this to happen. If we continue to be of the mindset that someone else will do the right thing, someone else will inform the authorities, someone else will stand up to the bullies, then no one will.

Let me retell the story of Catherine Susan Genovese, better known as Kitty Genovese. In 1964, Kitty was murdered less than one hundred feet away from the door to her apartment building. Accosted by William Moseley, she screamed and tried to fight back. Moseley departed the scene for ten minutes before returning to continue his assault. Nearly twelve neighbors had heard or seen Kitty's assault, and almost none of them bothered to check on her or call the police. The entire attack lasted over thirty minutes.

The neighbors who knew she was being attacked and who did not attempt to help even in some small way? They were just as guilty as Moseley for her death.

Innocent bystanders are not innocent when a crime occurs. And bullying, my friends, is a crime. It is the intentional inflicting of physiological, emotional, or mental pain on another individual. Called by any other name, it is a prosecutable offense in nearly every court in the United States. And yet we turn a blind eye.

You might say "They're just teasing her. It's nothing serious." Just as harming animals de-escalates into murder for serial killers, so-called 'friendly teasing' de-escalates into psychological torture. You can ask any of the thousands of people who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder related to bullying. Or you can ask the family and friends of the people who have killed themselves because of bullying. All forms of bullying are not only wrong, but also harmful, dangerous, and deeply hurtful.

You might balk at the prospect of so daunting a task as ending bullying, and rightly so. One person cannot erase hatred and sadism in a single fell blow. But one person can make a difference. Recall the parable of the woman walking along a seashore, among thousands of dying seastars stranded on the beach. She throws them one at a time into the ocean, and a passerby says, "What are you doing? There are thousands of them out there. You're not going to make any difference at all." The woman looks up at the stranger, and as she hurls one back, says, "It made a difference to that one."

All you need to is write a Facebook status update, letting the world know you will not stand for bullying. Say something when you see it happening. Educate your children - or your siblings - or the neighbor kids - or your own friends. Take the initiative and do something, instead of standing by and doing nothing while someone's will to live is crushed. Is five minutes of your time really too much to ask when lives are at stake?

I think not.

Forget about the voicemail waiting to be answered, or the coffee brewing on your Kreuger machine, or the next text message from a friend. Forget about your favorite show and your dog's dinner time and your unkempt hair for a moment.

Think.

Do you want to be the person who reads this, nods, and then does nothing?

Or do you want to be the person who reads this, and is convicted by this indictment to doing something for the one time when it matters?

You decide.

I'm done talking.

--

Original article:

CBS News, via Associated Press. "Sladjana Vidovic: Four Bullied Teens Dead by Their Own Hands at Ohio School". (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20019077-504083.html)

Garden of Souls

2010-09-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

This year's September 11 poem, entitled "Garden of Souls":

Lover of mine, build gray stone bridges
by the empty fountain, where dust and small pebbles
rest in its bosom, and where your pretty birds
no longer fly. Stretch wreaths of white lilies
between the branches of your great oaks, where I lie in
a silence that cannot be broken, either by promises or
by threats of violence. Stir the waters of your pool,
where grass grows long, and moss breeds between
tall weeds and mournful dead children, wide eyes staring up
forever from the water.

Lover of mine, sweep the ashes from the porch
on the side of the house, where the pathway has
cracked like splintered glass, and where two no longer
walk together at sunset or dawn. Rest your fingers on
my glistening cheek, and understand that at nighttime
I cry because I am afraid. I cannot see beyond shadows of
empty glories and childhood dreams. I fear I will never again
reclaim the innocence of youth. In your garden of souls,
I have seen no blossoms or green. Heal this place, my friend.

Then maybe you can heal me.

Terry Jones Does Not Speak For Me

2010-09-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

Terry Jones, the pastor of the fifty-member Dove World Outreach Center, a self-proclaimed Pentecostal, has become a fixture in recent news, ever since his announcement of "International Burn a Koran Day" for 11 September 2010, to commerorate the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Otherwise known for his "Islam is of the Devil" message, Jones has faced harsh criticism from civil rights groups, the government, and Americans and Muslims in general.

Why has this provoked so much internet curiosity? Because Terry Jones is a demagogue whose religious extremist views highlight the problem of fundamentalism in Christianity. Many Americans - particularly "good Christians" - are inclined to associate religious extremism with Muslim extremists, like the Al Qaeda members who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Religious extremism haunts Christianity, too, and Jones is a perfect example.

There is nothing American, patriotic, or Christian about intentionally disrespecting another religion's holy book by burning it en masse. America's First Amendment - which Christians often proudly wield in civics discussions - protects all religions. The Founding Fathers, while not perfect or necessarily of one or another religious persuasion collectively, were acutely aware of the social discord brought about by religious persecution. For example, Quakers in Massachusetts were subject to torture and execution by the Puritans; Catholics were denied rights and even driven out from many communities - including Maryland; Jews were excluded altogether; Puritans in England faced torture and execution for subversive activity; and the list goes on.

One of the founding ideals of America was that of religious liberty - a nation free of religious perseecution. Though the ideal was not necessarily practiced - Jews and Catholics faced discrimination for decades - it was what they aspired to at least in principle. And one would think that in the twenty-first century, the modern day equivalents of hanging, witch burning, torture, and the like would be nonexistent in a nation so free and progressive as America.

The First Amendment protects Jones's right to burn the Qur'an. But what is legal is not always what is right. Merely by making the announcement, Jones has endangered many lives. The State Department has issued a travel advisory to all Americans abroad. General Petraeus, the ground commander in Afghanistan, urged Jones not to carry through with the plan because it would - and will - endanger the lives of our troops. Even President Obama has denounced the plan as "contrary to American values".

For me, this means that I am now vilified. Because Jones claims to be a Pentecostal Christian and is an American (and both are true of myself), everything he does reflects on me. I do not want to be associated with a demagogue who twists my faith and preaches a message of hate. And I do not want my country or my religion to be associated with him. Yet, according to one news source, "[i]n Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans burned an American flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" to protest the planned Quran burning." These people are not Christians! Terry Jones does not represent Americans. He does not represent Christians. And he does not represent me. He speaks for himself.

Sources Consulted

There were others, but I have since misplaced the links.

http://news.oneindia.mobi/2010/09/10/695471.html (One India)

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sally_quinn/2010/09/the_notorious_pastor_terry_jones.html?hpid=topnews (Sally Quinn, The Washington Post)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11255366 (BBC)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100907/ap_on_re_us/quran_burning (Mitch Stacy, Associated Press)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39099740/ns/business/ (Reuters)

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/usa/pastor-cancels-quran-burning-then-reconsiders-1.680103 (Gulf News via Associated Press)

In Support of the Islamic Center Near Ground Zero: Memorial to the Muslims Killed on 9/11 and Symbol of America's Values

2010-08-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

In Support of the Islamic Center Near Ground Zero:
Memorial to the Muslims Killed on 9/11 and Symbol of America's Values

Ylanne S. | 20 August 2010

This blog is dedicated to controversial issues of politics, philosophy, and religion, but part of its mission is to avoid the topics most often debated (i.e. abortion, gay marriage, etc.) by bringing to light less debated, but just as important and significant issues. Yet in the wake of the barrage of blog posts, news articles, editorials and opinion columns, and press releases concerning the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero, I found I could no longer ignore this issue.

I am beyond disappointed that there was a need to write this article.

The Cordoba House should not be a controversy. But it is. Why else have all these folks been going back and forth about it? They've made it into a war of words, of those attacking Islam as inherently violent and supporting terrorism... and those defending the center's right to exist. Worse, these two clearly partisan sides have stooped to ad hominem attacks and accusations of black and white morality: "You are with us or you are against us". Divisiveness and inaction in the American political community at its shining worst.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four American airplanes. Two were crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; one was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC; and the fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field, after the passengers fought the hijackers to prevent them from crashing the plane into the White House, its intended target.

These terrorists claimed the religion of Islam.

They were not the first, and they are certainly not the last to claim Islam or any other religion as the motivation and cause of their acts of terrorism. Throughout history, religion has been twisted by some of its most devout adherents into a vehicle for violence against innocents. This is true not merely of Islam, but also of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and even Buddhism.

Terrorists are not Muslims. They are not Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Hindus. Al Qaeda, the IRA, and the Tamil Tigers are not organizations led by religious leaders. They are terrorist organizations led by terrorists.

Here in America, we celebrate ideas about freedom and diversity. If the center to be built here were a church or a synagogue, no one would question it. It would never have made it to the news. But because it is a mosque (and not even just a mosque, but a cultural/community center too), those predisposed to sentiments of Islamophobia, however cleverly disguised as patriotism, have condemned it as a symbol of "Islam's triumph over America". What triumph? We are not at war with Islam, though some claim we are.

President Barack Obama expressed this well in his recent speech:

"Let us also remember who we're fighting against, and what we're fighting for. Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al-Qaida's cause is not Islam—it's a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders—they're terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children. In fact, al-Qaida has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion—and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11."

Prominent American Jews signed on to a letter from JStreet, which included the statement:

“We agree with you that some victims of 9/11 are entitled to “irrational” feelings as a result of their loss. But being less tolerant will not help us heal, and it is not wise for America to alienate millions of its own citizens, let alone the hundreds of millions of Muslims in countries that Americans visit around the world. Remember, there were Muslim victims on 9/11, too, Muslims that worked in the World Trade Center, or were part of the rescue crews that bravely entered the buildings that day."

Just who were these Muslims? New York Times list of Muslims murdered on September 11 gives the following names:

Samad Afridi, Ashraf Ahmad, Shabbir Ahmad, Umar Ahmad, Azam Ahsan, Ahmed Ali, Tariq Amandullah, Touri Bolourchi, Salauddin Chaudhury, Abdul Chowdhury, Mohammad Chowdhury, Jamal Desantis, Ramzi Douani, Saleem Farooqi, Syed Fatha, Osman Gani, Mohammad Hamdani, Salman Hamdani, (a 23-year old NYPD cadet, part-time ambulance driver, incoming medical student and devout Muslim), Aisha Harris, Shakila Hoque, Nabid hossain, Shahzad Hussein, Talat Hussein, Mohammed Jawarta, Arsian Khakwani, Asim Khan, Ataullah Khan, Ayub Khan, Qasim Khan, Sarah Khan, Taimour Khan, Yasmeen Khan, Zahida Khan, Badruddin Lakhani, Omar Malick, Nurul Miah, Mubarak Mohammad, Boyie Mohammed, Raza Mujtaba, Omar Namoos, Mujeb Qazi, Tarranum Rahim, Ehesham Raja, Ameenia Rasool, Naveed Rehman, Yusuf Saad, Rahma Salie and unborn child, Shoman Samad, Asad Samir, Khalid Shabid, Mohammed Shajahan, Naseema Simjee, Jamil Swaati, Sanober Syed, Robert Talhami, Michaqel Theodoridis and W. Wahid.

"We are at a cusp," said Haris Tarin, director of the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. "The thing that has personally affected me the most is that the individuals who call this an act of insensitivity forget that Muslim Americans were victims on 9/11 also. Our country was attacked. Our neighbors were attacked. . . . Our faith was hijacked on that day."

If the Cordoba House were built two blocks from Ground Zero, it would not be an insult to those killed. It would honor them. The Cordoba House would be a fitting memorial to the innocent Muslim men and women murdered by terrorists on September 11, 2001.

It would not be giving in to terrorism. It would be standing up to it. Our American values are freedom, equality, equal opportunity, and the freedom to worship publicly in whatever manner so suits us (obviously, other than human sacrifice or anything like that). If we as Americans decry this Islamic Center, then we are giving in to terrorism. Terrorists do not accept freedom of religion. They do not accept tolerance. They want us to stir up controversy over this. By opposing the Cordoba House, we play right into their hands.

By building it, they have nothing to say to us. The Cordoba House represents the triumph of American values. Those who want to build it are Americans. Or have opponents of "that mosque" forgotten that? America is not a country of "Everyone but Muslims". American Muslims are like any other Americans. They marry for love... have children... pay taxes... give to charity... go to college... get jobs... vote... and expect others to respect their choice of religion. But many seem to have lost sight of this fact. Before September 11, Americans tacitly accepted Muslims, as they did with any new immigrant group. After? We reverted to the age-old nativist bigotry that has defined Western culture.

In the past one hundred years, American culture was defined by hidden anti-Semitism. This was expressed in the segregation of non-Jews from Jews in pubs and business ventures, in not so subtle jokes in our entertainment, and in general ignorance about the principles of Judaism and Jewish culture. This was true of Western society in general, going back hundreds of years into the Eastern European ghettos and the Spanish Expulsion Act, when Jews were viewed as scions of Satan and murderers of Christ.

After September 11, we became defined by overt Islamophobia. This is not the first time, and as much as I hate to say it, it will not be the last time that a society has decided to reject an entire culture based on its religion. Islam's history is no more violent than that of any other religion also born in a time of adversity, when its early adherents were persecuted and murdered. But the claim is still made, hawked repeatedly over the backrooms of the Internet like propaganda spewing from the sewers, that Islam is a religion of violence. That the Qur'an is a book of violence.

There is a silent fear that all Muslims are secret supporters of Al Qaeda. This fear has been morphed into hatred. What better way to protect yourself from that which you fear than by hating it and declaring war against it? You see it on the school playground. We as humans naturally fear what is different from us, and what we do not understand. When other children deviate from expected behavioral norms, their peers shun and ostracize them. What they fear becomes the object of their misplaced hatred.

This fear is the sole reason behind the opposition to the Cordoba House.

The Pilot's Paul Dunn writes:

"In 1997, years before the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on New York's World Trade Center, members of Manhattan's Muslim community had officially begun steps to construct Cordoba House. This was to be a large 13-story Islamic cultural and prayer -center two blocks north of what would ultimately and tragically become Ground Zero - site of the terrorists' air attacks and resultant deaths of about 2,750 victims, including, paradoxically, many Muslims. Without the 9/11 attacks, the center would have been built years ago and now be well attended by devout Muslims and visitors, just as traditional mosques and cultural centers are in the other boroughs of New York City."

This is not something conceived in the wake of 9/11 with the intention to purposefully cause controversy or divisiveness. Nor is it solely a religious center:

"It would house meeting rooms, a fitness center, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a restaurant and culinary school, a library, a 500-seat auditorium, a Sept. 11 memorial, a reflection space, and a mosque that could attract as many as 2,000 worshipers on Fridays. There is no place like it in the city, which is home to 600,000 to 700,000 Muslims, according to Columbia University researchers." (Thompson and Sonmez, emphasis added).

Nor is the Cordoba House merely a sudden appearance of Islam in New York City. There are two other mosques are near Ground Zero; one twelve blocks away, and the other only four. Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, said to Brian Lehrer:

"Imam Faisal has been leading a congregation for the last 27 years in Tribeca, really only 10 blocks from Ground Zero. … We, the members of the Muslim community, want to be part of the rebuilding process. And we feel a special obligation. And it's also our way of giving back to this great city that has given us so much. So we're coming at it from the point of view of wanting to contribute to our society and to take that tragedy of 9/11 and turn it into something very peaceful and hopeful for all of us."

NPR's Margot Adler adds:

"[Daisy] Khan describes it somewhat like the Jewish Community Center uptown, with facilities for athletics, arts, performances, lectures series, forums and weddings, as well as a prayer space. Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf considers himself an orthodox Muslim, but he is also a Sufi, a contemplative and mystical path in Islam. The offices of the Imam and his wife are in a building used by many faiths that is part of Riverside Church in upper Manhattan, a liberal bastion of interfaith work. When you listen to Khan speak, she sounds very much in that tradition. "This center will create this kind of counter momentum which will amplify the voices of the moderate Muslims[", says Khan, "] If we have to defeat the extremists, Muslims have to be leading that effort." ".

Bestselling author Vince Flynn (of whose books I am a big fan) writes:

"I am against the mosque being built so close to Ground Zero. Manhattan is a big island. If they were really about healing the wounds they would pick a less divisive location. Pop question: How many church's, synagogues and temples were built in all of Saudi Arabia last year? Answer: Zero."

This location was chosen in 1997, as previously mentioned at least twice. And Flynn is not the only one to make the argument that the location of the Cordoba Center would exacerbate already existing tensions and negative sentiments regarding September 11. Still, in the same vein of my earlier statements, I believe that if the Cordoba House is built, it will be an important step to healing.

If Americans refuse to educate themselves on what Islam really is, and who American Muslims really are, then they let the terrorists win. If they continue to oppose Cordoba House on baseless grounds, then they are giving into fear - and terrorists use fear as their primary tactic. They do not merely murder or bomb... they create fear and they manipulate it.

As I believe that science and religion need not be in conflict... I believe Islam and the West need not be in conflict. What happened on September 11 was far more complex than any one blog post could ever do justice. It was a devastating tragedy in which the three thousand murdered were not the only victims... American Islam was hijacked too. And American tolerance was replaced with Islamophobia; American patriotism with nativism; American freedom with fear. You cannot have both. A house divided cannot stand.

And just to make things clear for anyone who opposes the Cordoba House being built who is reading this: I am an American. And I am a Christian. And I believe that the Cordoba House should have been built when it was planned, and that this argumentation over it should never have happened.

This blog post should never have been made necessary.

But the fear that terrorists create? Otherwise sensible Americans giving into that kind of irrational fear made this blog post necessary.

Sources

Adler, Margot. "Islamic Center Near Ground Zero Sparks Anger". National Public Radio. 15 July 2010.

Dunn, Paul. "About that Islamic Center Proposed for Ground Zero". The Pilot. 15 August 2010.

Eshman, Rob. "An Islamic Center at Ground Zero". Jewish Journal. 3 August 2010.

Saletan, William. "Islam Is Ground Zero: Why we should build the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan". Slate Magazine. 16 August 2010.

Shoebat, Walid. "Ground Zero Imam Faisal Rauf: ‘I Don’t Believe in Religious Dialogue’". The West, Islam and Sharia. 27 May 2010.

Thompson, Krissah and Felicia Sonmez. "To N.Y. Muslims, Islamic center near Ground Zero would be more than a mosque". The Washington Post. 19 August 2010.

The Tripartite Voting Method

2010-07-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

Voting is an integral part of the democratic process, and a hallmark of the self-representative form of government that comprises much of how we understand American government and politics. Yet since its inception as the primary method of selecting our public officials – from town or city aldermen to district attorneys to state governors to congressmen to the President of the United States – the process of voting has become highly politicized and partisan.

I have been aware of this for many years in a subtle way, expressed in brief political discussions with friends and by reading the sorts of messages disseminated by political organizations and candidates. But it wasn’t until this year that I first began to realize just how much party politics and single-issue politics dominate the voting process of everyday Americans like you and I.

Before I came to this epiphany, I had been under the impression that most sensible people would vote in the way I consider to be the ideal manner of selection of candidates – which I believe is possible to retain as constant regardless of party affiliation, or political alignment – but evidently, other patterns of voting are more commonly used than my ideal method.

There are two primary ways of voting which I consider to be ultimately ineffective and suboptimal. These are, as aforementioned, party loyalty and single-issue politics.

The first of these is party loyalty, or party politics. Many Americans are members of political parties or supporters of them – the two largest ones, of course, are the GOP, or the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party. Many Americans who consider themselves to be one or the other – or a third party, may vote solely based on the party of the candidate. This is true whether an individual says “I only vote for Democrats” (only voting for members of a certain party), or “He’s a Democrat? No way.” (never voting for members of a certain party).

This approach neglects the larger picture and focuses solely on a candidate’s affiliation. Let us remember that not all Republicans are conservative and not all Democrats are liberal. Within the scope of any one political party, candidates may have many inconsistencies with one another, and differences in their platforms and specific stances on various issues of concern. Not all Republicans are identical in platform or objective, nor are all Democrats.

Voting in this manner, however, makes the assumption that these clearly false statements are, in fact, truths. It disregards a candidate’s individual beliefs about various issues, his or her character or experience, and anything else that may otherwise have swayed a voter towards him or her, all on account of one single aspect of the candidate’s campaign – party affiliation.

The second of these two kinds of voting is single-issue politics, where an individual will vote for a candidate solely based on his or her position on any one issue, without regard to any other issues. This too is shortsighted and narrow-minded, because the voter in this position only considers one of many aspects of a candidate's platform. It is foolish to disregard a candidate’s position on multiple issues for the sake of one issue alone. Furthermore, depending on the position she or he is running for, that one issue might never even be of importance (i.e. a candidate’s position on gay rights won't really affect a Mayor's job at all, regardless of state or whether she or he supports or opposes it, because state law dictates whether or not gays can marry to begin with.)

Instead of following these two common methods of voting, I recommend three other criteria to use, collectively, to make an informed choice about a candidate – I recommend these criteria to anyone, regardless of party affiliation or political alignment.

Firstly, I recommend that voters make a choice based on the candidate's character. Is the person honest, responsible, compassionate, dedicated to positive change when needed, and genuinely interested in the people she/he will be governing/representing? Someone who has good character and integrity, and is there to serve the people, not him or herself. This is absolutely a must, especially in a day and age where politics has a reputation as a cutthroat world of narcissists out for their own self-gain as opposed to serving the public, as public servants.

Secondly, I recommend that voters make a choice based on the candidate's ability to do the job. For example, someone with a reputation as a slacker or a bad team worker would probably be a bad choice, as would someone who lacks initiative or the ability to think independently and to deviate from Party Think. In addition, a candidate who has the qualities and abilities to do the job well may be a good candidate. (On another note, experience in politics and/or a high level of education should not be considered as necessarily making a candidate more or less qualified than another.)

Lastly, I recommend that voters make a choice based on a collection of many issues. There will likely never be any candidate with whom I will agree on all issues, and perhaps not even most issues. But instead I prioritize a few issues I am concerned about the most, and I consider how a candidate's position on any of those issues will or will not have to do with the position she or he is running for. If they have no effect, then it doesn't really matter; if they are great significance, then it definitely matters.

Thus, my final recommendation is to use these three methods of making a choice together in order to select the most qualified candidate with the best character and closest representation of the voter’s beliefs, in a holistic and broader approach to voting, as opposed to selecting a candidate based solely on his or her political party or position on one issue alone. I do believe that if more people voted like this, we would have an influx of dedicated statesmen and women making our laws and shaping public policy in a way that benefits our communities, instead of their careers.

Your Miranda Rights

2010-07-25T16:38:00.001-07:00

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you."

We've heard them a million times, on TV, in the movies, and even in popular crime fiction. But what are your Miranda rights? Where did they come from? And what are the ethical and legal implications of having (or not having) them?

If you are involved in community activism (or civil disobedience of any kind), you may have heard from your organization that if you are arrested, the best thing you can do is to clam up and say absolutely nothing. If, on the other hand, you ask a police officer what you should do if you ever question by police, he will likely tell you that if you have nothing to hide, then you have absolutely no reason to invoke your rights.

These two contradictory pieces of advice share a grain of truth - the criminal justice system is not perfect, and innocent people are all too often convicted of crimes they did not commit, usually because they waived their Miranda rights and made incriminating statements, or false confessions; likewise, answering when questioned could clear your name, and lead to the truth of the matter. In some cases, people accused of crimes were not aware of their right to remain silent, such as in the 1963 case of Ernesto Miranda, charged with kidnapping and raping an eighteen year old mentally retarded woman. When he was questioned by police, Miranda was not informed of his right to remain silent, or his right to have a lawyer, and he confessed to the crime. This confession was later thrown out by a judge, and he was convicted again in a separate trial. In the 1966 Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona, the Court's ruling made confessions inadmissible as evidence unless the suspect was informed of his rights beforehand, thus paving the way for the advent of the modern Miranda warning.

Today, different police agencies have different policies on the use of the Miranda warning. Legally, it is required when a suspect is questioned while in custody - when he is not free to leave. In practice, officers often exercise extreme caution in giving the Miranda warning, sometimes to the point of reading off of a card with the Miranda warning printed on it, each time the suspect is spoken to. For law enforcement, this can be problematic, as the number of times a suspect is warned of his rights is directly proportional to the chance that he will choose to invoke them, and not speak to a detective.

When a suspect is not in custody and voluntarily participating in questioning, it is assumed that he is free to leave at any time (unless placed under arrest), and thus the Miranda warning is not legally required. Similarly, when a suspect is under arrest, but not being questioned, there is no legal requirement for him to be Mirandized. Law enforcement officers may give the warning anyway, although a skilled interrogator may choose not to (unless he feels it may hurt the case later, when any incriminating statements may be challenged by a defense attorney). In some cases, agencies require the use of a standardized form with the Miranda warning written, requesting suspects to initial each statement, and sign and date the bottom to indicate they have read (or been read) their rights and understand them.

Police may also use different variations of the Miranda rights. For instance, some may choose to give a minimal warning (the shortest possible advisory), whereas others may use a lengthier warning:

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you at government expense. If you choose to answer questions now, you may stop answering at any time until you have an attorney present.

This lengthier version (and similar ones) may be used as a precaution against challenged statements; however, they may also serve as a deterrent to the suspect for actually choosing to answer questions.

This Miranda warning is one example of America's protections for those accused of a crime, who have many rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to a speedy, impartial, and public trial; protection against being given a cruel and unusual punishment; and protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Suspects of crimes are not permitted to be physically abused during interrogations, and they are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty. The Miranda warning is another protection of a suspect's rights - it protects him from being unwittingly coerced into giving a confession.

Even so, the Miranda warning has proven problematic in certain cases. For suspects with mental retardation, true understanding of the Miranda warning can be hard to determine, and many inmates (possibly as many as 20%) are believed to be mentally retarded. Many were convicted on the basis of confessions, and some are even on death row. For suspects with autism spectrum disorders, the challenge may be even harder - autism being an invisible disorder, not readily apparent to the nonexpert in many cases - to determine whether or not the suspect actually understood his rights or waived them with full understanding of the possible consequences.

A number of autistic persons were read their rights, and asked if they waived them, and all of them slowly raised their right hands, exhibiting the autistic mindset of understanding language quite literally. Still other autistic persons could easily fall victim to common interrogation techniques, and give a false confession to either escape the situation, or to appease the authority figure (the interrogator), presenting problems especially if the person is innocent.

The Miranda warning is a good sign of how far America has come in our determination to protect the rights of all of our citizens. Unfortunately, its implications are large. For law enforcement, required reading of the Miranda warning may reduce the number of suspects who do speak to them, thus reducing confessions. For many vulnerable citizens, the Miranda warning may not serve them at all. And for society at large, they have become furniture in the American drama - always present, easily forgotten, and often overlooked.

The Colors of the Flag

2010-07-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

The Colors of the Flag

From the book "Our Flag" published in 1989 by the House of Representatives...

"On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution authorizing a committee to devise a seal for the United States of America. This mission, designed to reflect the Founding Fathers' beliefs, values, and sovereignty of the new Nation, did not become a reality until June 20, 1782. In heraldic devices, such as seals, each element has a specific meaning. Even colors have specific meanings. The colors red, white, and blue did not have meanings for The Stars and Stripes when it was adopted in 1777. However, the colors in the Great Seal did have specific meanings. Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, reporting to Congress on the Seal, stated:

"The colors of the pales (the vertical stripes) are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valour, and Blue, the color of the Chief (the broad band above the stripes) signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice."

And from a book about the flag published in 1977 by the House of Representatives...

"The star is a symbol of the heavens and the divine goal to which man has aspired from time immemorial; the stripe is symbolic of the rays of light emanating from the sun."

--

Red is valour
Blue is justice
White is purity

That's what they say.

I see it differently.

Red is the blood spilled to protect my freedom...
Red is the sun setting over the Grand Canyon
and the roses growing along the Eastern Shores.
Red is the tractors plowing the fields of Nebraska
and the ink correcting students' errors at Harvard.
Red is the blood spilled so I can say,
"I believe in God.
I don't believe in the Patriot Act."
and fear no harm will come to me.
Red is the color of the backbone of this country.
Red is the stuff of what we're made.

Blue is the uniform worn proudly by West Point graduates...
Blue is the ocean lapping against California shores
and the irises growing along the Eastern Shores.
Blue is the boats carrying fish from Alaska
and the tears that fall standing over the grave of a soldier.
Blue is the uniform worn by the men and women
who fight because they love this country,
and who fight so we don't have to,
especially when we are afraid.
Blue is the color of the hands and feet of this country.
Blue is actions speaking louder than words.

White is all the Houses of Government in the Beltway...
White is the dove flying over the Appalachian mountains
and the lilies growing over mossy lakes.
White is the planes carrying passengers who are not afraid
and the gowns of brides waiting to say "I do."
White is the name of God written in the bones of blood of this nation,
even when God seems absent
or forgotten
in the hulabaloo.
White is the color of the heart of this country.
White is our new beginning.

The Ethical Implications of Classifying Autistic People

2010-06-30T20:34:00.001-07:00

The Ethical Implications of Classifying Autistic People

Common terminology in the autism community includes the terms "low functioning" and "high functioning", used to refer to autistic people who seem less able to cope with the neurotypical world around them, and those who seem more able to adapt to the neurotypical world around them, respectively. Yet there are many who insist that these terms are ultimately degrading to autistic people, regardless of which term is applied. In the same vein, others maintain that these labels are necessary to differentiate between differently affected autistic individuals - between those who live and communicate independently, and those who will need lifelong living and communication assistance.

Why do people use these terms?

Particularly common among parents of children with a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome or Autistic Disorder, using the terms 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' are ways to differentiate between what are perceived as two types of autistic spectrum disorder: Those who seem more Aspergian in nature, and are considered by many - especially parents and some therapists - to be more mildly affected; and those who seem more classically autistic in nature, and are considered by many - especially parents and some therapists, to be much more severely affected.

Here are two examples, both fictitious, but very likely instances:

Carolyn is a thirty-nine year old woman who has been married for twelve years and has two children. All her life, she has struggled with relationships, basic social skills, and coping in stressful situations, as well as managing depression, and anxiety that she has never understood. As a child, she was expelled from two schools for behavioral issues and misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, but she did well academically, excelling in courses far above grade level, though she always struggled with executive functioning skills, and was tormented mercilessly by her peers. Today, Carolyn works a steady job and helps with her family. She was diagnosed recently with Asperger's Syndrome.

Jonathan is a twenty-four year old man who is living in a residential program at a group home for the developmentally disabled. He was diagnosed with autistic disorder at the age of three. He did not speak until he was eight, and to this day, speaks rarely, if at all. He was enrolled in state-funded educational services through the age of twenty-one, and frequently elopes - runs away from home without regard to his own safety or the emotional concerns of others. He stims constantly, rocking back and forth, and flicking his fingers in front of his eyes. He has never had a job. It is believed that he is also mentally retarded, although this is a diagnosis with no real means of confirming or refuting.

In the first case, Carolyn's husband, parents, and therapist refer to her as 'high functioning' because her lifestyle is fairly typical and independent, and because she is able to work, attend school, and marry and have children. In the second case, Jonathan has always been referred to by his parents, siblings, teachers, and therapists as "low functioning" because he will never live independently or communicate consistently and effectively with the neurotypicals with whom he interacts on a daily basis.

Both these illustrations, as noted above, are fictitious representations, but both are likely quite similar to actual cases of individuals with varying autism spectrum disorder diagnoses, as are the ways in which the terms 'high functioning' and 'low functioning' are used. There are also many cases where the same individual has been referred to by both terms - typically by different persons, and at different times during his or her life - due to the ambiguity associated with the various possible diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders stemming from the current guidelines in the DSM-IV.

What problems are there with the continued usage of these terms?

There are some within the autism community - a collective of individuals comprising autistic people, the families of autistic people, the friends of autistic people, advocates, educators, therapists, professionals, and researchers - who believe that continued usage of these terms is detrimental for the long-term improvement of quality of life and social advancement of autistic people.

They contend that using such loaded terms as 'high' and 'low' qualify not the functionality or severity of an individual's autism, but rather the worth of that person. As 'high' and 'low' used in reference to social strata, quantitative value, and qualitative value typically imply superior or inferior status respectively, there arises the problem of such a connotation in reference to autistic persons. By labeling autistic people either 'high functioning' or 'low functioning', their worth is measured qualitatively to other autistic people - and neurotypicals - by this designation as either closer to neurotypicality or farther from it.

Thus, long-term usage of these terms continues to define autistic people by foreign labels separating them into two broad, and sometimes murky, categories, of those who seem more capable of coping in a neurotypical world with all of its demands, and those who seem less capable of doing so. The ambiguity of the terms further contributes to the obfuscation caused by their varying usage - as in the cases of autistic people who have been referred to by both terms at different times.

Those who insist the terms are necessary to differentiate between people who are actually 'autistic' - those who are unable to function in a neurotypical world - and people who can, and are thus not actually 'autistic', often seem to contradict themselves. For example, they readily claim, accept, and even assert that a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, NLD, or PDD-NOS places an individual on the autism spectrum; yet in the same breath, they claim that those with such diagnoses are not truly autistic, and that only individuals who more resemble Jonathan are truly autistic. The term 'autistic' is thus reserved for those who have traditionally been diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder, autistic disorder, Kanner's autism, or infantile autistic disorder.

But what does this mean for those with Asperger's, Nonverbal Learning Disorder, or PDD-NOS? We are relegated to a narrow, fragile bridge - on one end lies the label 'autism spectrum disorder', and on the other end lies the dual-natured rejection - not normal, not autistic. We are either on the autism spectrum or not. And by the very definition, anyone with an autism spectrum disorder must be autistic. It is simply what the word itself means.

Usage of the terms high functioning and low functioning are only another way to compensate for the reticence to accept the name 'autistic' as referring to all persons on the spectrum. It is a compromise, a way of splitting spectrumites into two distinct camps. Yet this itself poses an inherent problem - the ethical implications of implying qualitative value of autistic individuals based upon the perceptions and preconceived notions of their abilities or lack thereof by non-autistics are dire indeed.

Whether the individual more resembles Carolyn or Jonathan, all autistic individuals possess similar, baseline characteristics that shape the neural pathways that process and respond to information (referred to by Dr. Temple Grandin as an "information processing difference") - whether it be sensory information, social information, or otherwise - which result in the triad of impairments commonly cited by professionals (first recognized by Lorna Wing and Judith Gould in a groundbreaking 1979 paper): social interaction, social communication, and imagination. The degree and manner in which these characteristics are manifest in the individual is often what causes clinicians to differentiate between a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome as opposed to Autistic Disorder. Similarly, the degree and manner in which these characteristics are manifest in the individual may make the difference in whether the individual will be referred to as high funtioning or low functioning. The existence of the same characteristics in all autistic individuals is the same - the only differences lie in the degree and manner...

It is primarily parents and caregivers who choose to use these terms most often, in order to clearly identify the nature of autism in their child. Both the parents of so-called' low functioning' and 'high functioning' children insist that these terms are necessary, because there are two types of autism. Some experts disagree, especially in the light of the proposed revisions to the DSM-V in which separate entries for the varying autism spectrum disorders are collectively merged into the single eponymous category-turned-condition: 'autism spectrum disorder'. According to them, autism is a continuum comprised of vast possibilities of different affected individuals - not a disorder with two distinct and opposite subtypes.

Many autistic neurodiversity advocates - many of whom would be labeled 'high functioning' by those who use such terminology - contend that there is no neurological difference between someone like Jonathan and someone like Carolyn. The only differences are the outward manifestations of the autistic mind - and the nature of these, of course, as perceived and understood by neurotypicals.

(A side note: Until fairly recently - the past two years or so - it was widely accepted throughout the psychological and psychiatric communities that autistic people are unable to experience empathy; however, many autistic people who can communicate in typical ways have disputed this, with a 2009 study at Harvard University concluding that persons with Asperger's Syndrome in fact experience the same amount of empathy as neurotypicals, and in some cases, experience more empathy.

My theory concerning this discrepancy of the long-held, mistaken assumption is that neurotypicals assumed that if autistic people experienced empathy, they would express it in neurotypical ways and at socially appropriate times. Yet these same neurotypical researchers are the ones who dialogue about the deficit in an autistic person's ability to appropriately read social situations and nonverbal forms of communication - and the subtleties of social communication - which, naturally, would preclude any typical expressions of empathy. If autistic people cannot read the body language of others, how are they supposed to convey their own feelings through the same means of communication? This mistaken assumption about autism and empathy was perpetuated because of the preconceived notions of neurotypicals who did not think outside the metaphorical box.)

Both professionals and lay members of the autism community agree that Asperger's Syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder - or sometimes called 'a mild form of autism'. Then why do they balk at granting self-proclaimed Aspies the title of 'autistic'? Why must we be divided into two separate groups with a line forbidding crossing over? There is no scientific reasoning to support the social conception that autism consists of high functioning and low functioning individuals - the autism spectrum consists of autistic individuals, who run the gamut of being able to cope with a neurotypical world fairly well or not at all - and nearly every possible point in between.

The obvious implications of using the terms high functioning and low functioning to differentiate between autistic people are the unspoken connotations of more desirable forms of 'autism', and 'levels' or 'grades' of autism. This idea, idependently, is neither with nor without merit; however, when it is applied in practical situations, it has much farther-reaching sociological impact. Autistic people, when referred to consistently as either high or low functioning, are essentially being valued in a quanlitative way - they are being compared to one another on the basis of their ability or lack thereof to cope in a neurotypical world. They are being judged.

Those labeled low functioning will be reluctantly resigned to a lesser state of being, and it is typically the families and friends of those who sport this questionable label who view autism as a disease in need of a cure, as a form of psychological bogeyman which has a neurotypical persona hostage beneath it. Those labeled high functioning will be assigned a more meaningful state of being, praised for their ability to cope in a neurotypical world - where they nearly always must make the compromises, and where neurotypicals rarely, if ever, concede anything to them - and reassured by their friends and families that they are not in fact truly autistic, and merely have a social disorder, or something of the like.

Invariably, this results in furthering the schismatic nature of the autism community - already divided over the issues of a cure for autism, the nature of the causation of autism, the various forms of therapy or treatment available for autism, and the best ways to reach out to those affected directly or indirectly with autism - by dividing autistic people themselves into two broad, sweeping categories which inevitably alienate them one from the other, by implying that to be in one is more desirable than to be in the other, while simultaneously avoiding giving voice to that implication and yet casually and consistently forcing usage of the very terminology that creates this effect.

If these terms were to be eliminated, how can we distinguish between the numerous conditions that are considered autism spectrum disorders, and the general patterns of effect on the individual in question?

The proposed revisions for the DSM-V merge all of the autism spectrum disorders into a single entry, allowing for only one possible diagnosis, not a myriad of possible diagnoses, as has been the case throughout the existence of the current DSM-IV. These revisions have been met with criticism from throughout the autism community, including, but not limited to, adults with Asperger's Syndrome who assert that Asperger's is a unique condition not to be equated with Autistic Disorder, parents of autistic children who claim that their children are more adversely affected than those with a diagnosis of Asperger's, and those concerned about the possible ambiguity of the new diagnostic criteria and the potential for misdiagnosis.

It has been suggested by some that the revisions to the DSM-V provide for one category of autism spectrum disorder, with various labels used to distinguish persons like Carolyn from persons like Jonathan. Some suggest that labels like "Asperger's" and "Kanner's" be retained in the vocabulary of autism spectrum disorders specialist, albeit in an unofficially sanctioned manner. These labels, while still labels that tend to divide autistic people into separate categories, are more neutral and free of unwanted connotations and implications, characteristics that the terms high and low functioning do not possess.

At the end of the day, even if scientists conclusively prove that there is no underlying neurological difference between someone like Carolyn and someone like Jonathan, the general public will always be aware that the Carolyns and Jonathans of this world will exist in very different estates, with the one much more visible and interactive with the greater world community, and the other far less visible, and far less interactive with the greater world community - the layperson without connections within the autism community will see someone like Jonathan and instantly know he is autistic, whereas the same layperson will see someone like Carolyn, and only note a bit of eccentricity, never guessing she is autistic.

So what should we do, moving forward?

We should be sympathetic to the varied reasoning behind the use and nonuse of the terms high functioning and low functioning, working to eliminate terms like these, that have unwanted and unintentional connotations and consequences, in favor of using more neutral terminology to express sociological perceptions of differently affected autistic individuals.

Hunger: Christianity and Social Justice

2010-06-26T12:07:00.001-07:00

Hunger: Christianity and Social Justice

One out of every seven people in the world suffer from hunger. Yet out of the controversial ethical dilemmas, inflammatory political debates, and pressing issues that the Church faces today, one that often goes unmentioned is this issue of social justice in our communities. Many Christians fail to realize that despite the constant – and well-intentioned – solicitations for aid to the poor in third world countries, there are also millions of hungry people in the developed nations, including the United States. Throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testament, believers are called to the cause of the poor, and are admonished when they fail to serve others. It is our solemn duty, and a joyful act of worship, to serve the hungry in our communities by living well and ensuring that they do not remain so.

One of the clearest issues that Christians should take a clear moral stance on – and display this not just through rendering pretty words, but also through action and behavior – is hunger and social justice in our communities. In the Old Testament, the wicked were those who ignored the plight of the poor, who reaped every last grain from their fields, and who stole from the fatherless and the widows – the most food insecure people in that society. It is written, “the righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” (Proverbs 29:7 NIV), and again, “Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.” (Zechariah 7:10). Sodom and Gomorrah, according to Ezekiel, were condemned because of their attitude toward the poor: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel16:49). And in the New Testament, it is the hungry and the poor for whom Jesus shows the most compassion, and condemns the believers most harshly for neglecting: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:52-53).

In recent times, contemporary Christian society, particularly in America, has become transformed by a materialistic, consumerist culture whose principles especially apply to food and the typical abundance of it in the typical middle-class American Christian home. This is all the more hypocritical when juxtaposed to the staggering figure of thirty-five million people in American alone who live in what is called a food insecure household, or one in which families are not certain whether they will be able to obtain food (Marcum 27), according to the United States Agricultural Department. In Massachusetts alone, there are five hundred thousand food insecure households, according to Project Bread. Most parents admonish their children not to waste foodstuffs, and this holds especially true for those whose abundance of food means that there will be an enormous amount of leftovers – what is discarded by one family could mean survival for another, whether halfway around the globe, or within one’s own community.

Nevertheless, the importance of food in and of itself is underscored by the equal importance of nutritious food – God’s world was envisioned with healthy fruits and vegetables to provide for man’s nutritional needs in the garden of Eden, not a smorgasbord of vending machine fatty junk food of little to no nutritional value. It may be argued that food is food regardless of nutritional value, but God’s will ought not be done halfway – if His creation plan was for humans to live in harmony with nature and its rich nutritious fruits, then food for the hungry should also serve the purpose of nourishing the body and mind. Yet an ethical dilemma that believers face when confronted with the needs of the hungry is the fact that the healthiest foods are often the most expensive foods, thus placing low-income families at the greatest possible risk for food insecurity, an inference supported by the disproportionate levels of obesity among low-income families (According to the Food Research and Action Center, a number of studies showed a correlation between food insecurity and obesity (Parker 13)). For example, many organic foods, while praised as wholesome, beneficial to the environment, and healthier for individuals to eat, are often quite expensive (Winter). In another example, food companies often market unhealthy, highly-processed foods with multiple artificial chemical preservatives, at the expensive of making food a commodity (Wirzba 86). In order to make food a viable ‘product’ for ‘consumers’, it is separated from its agricultural origins, to make it ‘cheap’ and ‘manufactured’ – rendering it a readily available item for even the food insecure, at the expense of healthy, nutritious living in keeping with God’s originally created order (Berry 145).

Another dilemma believers must consider is the healthy boundary between gluttony and asceticism – God clearly wants Christians to take joy out of their meals and to reap bountifully their harvests, as he says in Psalm 22:26: “"The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live forever." In response to asceticism, or extreme self-denial, food is often used as a form of celebration, in unity with God’s creation and gifts (Bateman 91). However, at the same time, it is undeniably clear that to deny the poor and refuse to feed the hungry is a grave sin against God – and this is one manifestation of the sin commonly called gluttony. Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink’. . . Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty. . .?' He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'" (Matthew 25:17-18 NIV). Then Christians must be mindful of the separation between the sin of gluttony, and the sin of asceticism, giving in to neither temptation at the expense of the hungry. It would be sinful of course to revel in gluttonous eating while our neighbors are hungry, but at the same time, it is sinful for the Christian to engage in voluntary asceticism without purpose when God wants him to rejoice in his meal.

In recent times, charitable organizations which feed the hungry have suffered from the economic downturn, along with most businesses and nonprofit organizations, but economically stable Christians should not use the economic circumstances as a shield to hide behind in order to avoid making real sacrifices on the part of not-as-well-off neighbors. Similarly, a constant debate among Christians regarding welfare, food stamps, and similar services, and whether or not the government ought to be obligated to service the poor, is best shelved (Marcum 29). There are real people in real times who are facing real hunger, and it is the able Christian’s solemn duty to serve these people – to sideline them while debating theoretical applications of Christianly principles would not only be an insult, but the utmost form of hypocrisy. Whether or not one believes that the poor should be encouraged to take responsibility for their own economic state, it would be inhumane and cruel to abandon them to their own devices without offering even a smidgen of aid – especially with regards to an issue like hunger, which can easily become a life or death issue. The hungry need real help now, not later, not when the problem is solved, and not when Christians have come to a unanimous agreement over exactly to what extent the poor need to be held accountable and the government obligated to provide state-based aid.

What then should Christians do? It is clear from God’s Word that we are obligated to serve the hungry. It is equally clear from God’s Word that His created order provided for man’s self sustainability in combination with a certain sense of interdependence – in the Garden of Eden, the man and woman were provided for, but they cultivated the fruits of the Garden in tandem with one another (Genesis 2). In the book of Acts, the early church, or community, shared all things in common so that no one was hungry or wanting for anything (Acts 4). But it still leaves the question of what tangible, realized actions able Christians can and should take to address the problem of hunger and food insecurity. Perhaps we ought to follow Christ’s example – when the crowds of five thousand became hungry, he fed them. When he passed anyone in need as he walked through cities, he addressed their immediate need. Yet in the same vein, it was Jesus’ unorthodox teachings that upset the status quo of society, in part addressing the root causes of many social problems – not least of all the insensitivity of the religious leaders. When Christians today argue that the hungry and food insecure ought to be taught to support themselves, they fail to recognize that the immediate need must also be met, before the hungry man can ever become self-sufficient. If his needs are not met, and his efforts not encouraged, there will be no independence and so-called responsibility for himself. It may well be true that God is not the God of free, never-ending handouts. . . but it is clear from the Christian worldview that He is not callous and cruel either.

When the poor are suffering from lack of food, food insecurity, and hunger, it is not for the Christian to ignore their plight or consign it to a lack of self-support – rather, the Christian is called upon to render service to his disadvantaged neighbors, and in the present time, there are many opportunities for Christians to do so. Food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless ministries, monetary giving, and Boston’s Walk for Hunger are all means by which Christians may honor God through serving others, and actively taking part to combat a very real problem in society today: hunger. It is a Christianly duty and service to address social issues, in the same vein as Jesus did during his ministry on Earth, and hunger is one with little room for ambiguity.

Works Cited

Bateman, Lori Brand. “We Are How We Eat”. Christian Reflection: Food and Hunger. Ed. Robert B. Kruschwitz. Waco: Baylor University, 2004. 89-93.

Berry, Wendell. “The Pleasures of Eating”. What are people for? Essays. New York: North Point Press, 1990. 145-152.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

Marcum, Jack. "Who's Hungry? Who Cares?" Christian Reflection: Food and Hunger. Ed. Robert B. Kruschwitz. Waco: Baylor University, 2004. 26-32.

Parker, Lynn. “Obesity, Food Insecurity, and the Federal Child Nutrition Programs: Understanding the Linkages”. Food Research and Action Center, October 2005.

Winter, CK and SF Davis, 2006 "Organic Foods" Journal of Food Science 71(9):R117–R124.

Wirzba, Norman. “The Culture of Food”. Christian Reflection: Food and Hunger. Ed. Robert B. Kruschwitz. Waco: Baylor University, 2004. 84-88.

American Talib: John Walker Lindh

2010-06-24T13:51:00.001-07:00

American Talib: John Walker Lindh

Through the twentieth century, the public perception of crime consisted primarily of high-profile murders, organized crime cases, civil rights cases, and gang-related violence, but with the turn of the century, a new category of crime came to the forefront of public attention: terrorism. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, national attention turned to the efforts of law enforcement and the intelligence community in combating terrorism directed against Americans, leading to a number of high-profile arrests and trials. One of the most prominent terrorism cases was that of John Walker Lindh, dubbed the American Taliban by the media, accused of supporting the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda. Lindh’s case was nationally significant because it provoked national outrage at the idea that an American could support the people who claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks which took nearly three thousand lives. With the nineteen hijackers dead and Usama bin Ladin hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Lindh’s case, closed within a year of the attacks, became a focal point for tensions following the September 11 attacks.

Born in 1981 and raised in Marin County, California, John Walker Lindh would rise to infamy in 2001 after being captured in Afghanistan fighting with Taliban forces against the invading Americans and their allies, the Northern Alliance (Mahoney 1-2). Accused by prosecutors as a terrorist, supporter of Al Qaeda, and loyal follower of Usama bin Ladin, Lindh would be sentenced to twenty years in prison on the sole count of violating economic sanctions against the Taliban (Lindh, Interview). The other ten charges, mostly related to terrorism and Al Qaeda, were dropped.

Captured shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Lindh’s case prompted a media storm and national umbrage at the idea that an American could be a supporter of Al Qaeda (Lindh, “Human”). Lindh himself stated to a reporter who spoke to him shortly after his capture, “Yes, I supported it”, referring to September 11 (Walker Lindh, Interview). His trial, scheduled to start on the anniversary of the attacks, never proceeded (Lindh, “Human”). Since then, Lindh himself has been relegated to the back shelf of public interest.

In 1993, Lindh first became interested in the religion of Islam after watching a video about Malcolm X, and posted a number of online queries about what is halal (permissible) and haram (forbidden) according to the traditional practice of the faith (Jess 70-1). He began to research Islam in depth, reading biographies of Malcolm X and the prophet Muhammad, studying hadith (the collection of sunnah, or recorded practices of the prophet), and intending to study Arabic (Lindh, Interview). In 1997, Lindh formally converted to Islam in the Islamic Center of Mill Valley, nine miles away from his family home (Kukis 8). He changed his name to Suleyman al-Faris.

In 1998, he traveled to Yemen, ostensibly to study the Arabic language of the Qur’an, returning in 1999 after being found in violation of his visa conditions (Lindh, “Human”). It is speculated that he attempted to enter the interior, mountainous part of Yemen, where terrorist training camps are known to be located, before being forcibly repatriated (Jess 119). Lindh returned to Yemen in 2000, but after ten months, continued to Pakistan, where he journeyed further into Afghanistan, receiving training at a military camp sponsored by the now-infamous Usama bin Ladin (130-31). While in Pakistan, Lindh met personally with bin Ladin at least twice, on one occasion having bin Ladin thank him for coming (122). Once there, Lindh adopted a third name, Abdul Hamid, which is how he would later identify himself upon capture.

Since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the installation of a puppet Communist government, internal factions had been warring with the Moscow-supported regime, most notably funded by expatriates such as the Saudi bin Ladin, whose organization “Al Ansar” would come to be known as “Al Qaeda”, the foreign mujaheddin fighters who rallied in support of the Taliban opposition to the Communists. Lindh fought with the Taliban, but in a unit of foreigners, as he spoke neither Dari nor Pashto (Pelton).

In 2001, following the joint invasion of the Northern Alliance and the Americans, Lindh was one of four hundred or so prisoners taken to the Qala-e-Jangi fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif following another rout of the Taliban and their foreign allies (Mahoney 9). He was briefly interrogated by CIA paramilitary officers Michael Spann and Dave Tyson, neither of whom were able to extrapolate any information from “the Irishman” – Lindh had been told to say he was Irish were anyone to ask (13). Within twenty minutes, however, a violent prison uprising began that would leave most of the prisoners dead along with Spann (Jess 28).

Later that same day, the Northern Alliance forces resorted to vicious tactics, including burning gasoline and flooding, to kill the remaining prisoners huddled inside a building known as the Pink House (Mahoney 22-3). Finally, the surviving eighty-six prisoners surrendered, with Lindh himself being the first to emerge from the subterranean area (23). After several days, Lindh would be released from the custody of the Northern Alliance to American military custody, where for the first time, he spoke with journalist Robert Young Pelton, his own remarks incriminating to the American public, who had just been victim of the September 11 attacks (Lindh, Interview).

In the interview with Pelton, Lindh stated that to be martyred was “the goal of every Muslim”, and that the “jihad” in Afghanistan was “exactly what I thought it would be” (Lindh, Interview). After being repatriated to America, Lindh’s case became major news. Several prominent officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Senator John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Senator Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, former President George H. W. Bush, and President George W. Bush, independently made public remarks connecting Lindh directly to Usama bin Ladin as a terrorist, implying a connection to Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks (Lindh, “Human”).

Lindh’s case, highly publicized though it was, never went to trial. Though a trial was originally scheduled to start on September 11, 2002, the one year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, a last minute reversal resulted in ten of the eleven original charges being dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to the charge of violating economic sanctions against the Taliban regime (Lindh, “Human”; Plea Agreement). Afterward, Lindh was sent to the federal supermax prison in Colorado, where he was placed on special administrative measures restricting communication for national security reasons (Lindh, Interview).

Whether or not the remarks made by prominent Americans served to prejudice potential jurors, as Lindh’s father claimed they did, will never be known; however, it is clear that they reflected at least in part the sentiments of the American community at large (Lindh, “Human”). Lindh was captured while fighting against American soldiers in a war – this was viewed as treasonous. He stated that the September 11 terrorist attacks were justified – this was viewed as an atrocity (Walker Lindh, Interview). In the decade leading up to the September 11 attacks, terrorist attacks including the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1994, and the Oklahoma City bombings of 1995 brought the crime of terrorism to the national front. Nevertheless, until the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, no single act of terrorism had resulted in as much bloodshed, nor drawn as much attention to radical Islamic terrorism – terrorism carried out by self-proclaimed Islamic movements (Frank 13). Lindh was an Islamic terrorist taken into custody less than three months after the World Trade Center attack.

After the 9/11 attacks, a sentiment now-called Islamophobia began to appear in America, with many Americans associating the religion of Islam with violent extremism as exemplified by the philosophies of the hijackers, who claimed they carried out the attacks in the name of Islam (Goldenberg, Frank). Before September 11, in the 2000 election, Republican candidate George W. Bush had appealed to the American Muslim community for sharing the same conservative values he espoused, resulting in a sweeping endorsement from American Muslims (Elections). In the first few weeks following September 11, 1200 Muslim Americans of Middle Eastern descent were detained without notification to families or attorneys, many on various immigration related charges (DiLeva, Mujahid). Over the next several months, the FBI, under the authority of the Patriot Act and FISA, went on to conduct several thousand interrogations of Muslim Americans in the search for “suspected terrorists” (Mujahid). In another example of Islamophobia, the number of hate crimes committed against Arab-Americans, Muslims, and residents perceived falsely to be either Arab or Muslim, such as Sikhs and Indians, rose sharply following September 11 (Stahnke 4).

Around the same time, but particularly evident immediately after the attacks, a unanimous sense of patriotism became manifest in a highly visible manner throughout America, with one American woman writing that she searched dozens of stores and internet catalogs to find an American flag, so she could join the many others she saw with flag magnets and bumper stickers, and flags flying from their homes, only to find them out of stock everywhere (Campanelli, World Trade Center Attack, 134-5). The coincidence of patriotism, Islamophobia, and fear of the unknown was viewed by many, both within and outside America, as uniting Americans in defense of their nation and cultural identity, while simultaneously viewing Islam as complacent in permitting the violence bin Ladin preached (Mujahid).

In America’s immediate response to the 9/11 attacks, Bush ordered the military invasion of the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, because the Taliban were harboring bin Ladin and refused to surrender him. But Bin Ladin was never found, as evidenced by the fact that he remains on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List to this day (Federal Bureau of Investigation). Unlike Bin Ladin, however, the potential for attaining justice through the court system could have lain with the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was indicted in December 2001 – around the same time that Lindh was turned over to American custody – as the would-be “twentieth hijacker” in the World Trade Center attacks, also a vocal member of Al Qaeda blessed by Bin Ladin (Fox). But one major difference between the Moussaoui and Lindh cases was that Moussaoui’s trial didn’t conclude until 2005, long after the initial shock and anger over the World Trade Center attacks had worn off. On the contrary, when Lindh was captured during the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, his trial was scheduled to begin in 2002, exactly one year after the attacks, while the events were still at the forefront of most Americans’ minds (Lindh, “Human”).

This timing would lend a sense of immediacy to Lindh’s case that Moussaoui’s would lack. Other factors too would contribute to Lindh’s notoriety as the American Taliban. During the course of the media onslaught, it became well known that Lindh was an American citizen born and raised, not a foreign national, like Moussaoui, who was a French citizen of Moroccan descent. Though a clear connection between Lindh and the 9/11 attacks has never been conclusively proven, his connections to Taliban and the Al-Ansar group affiliated with Al Qaeda is enough to permit the inference that if not directly involved in the planning of 9/11, Lindh at the very least had some foreknowledge of the attacks, and would willingly have participated in them, had he been given the option. These circumstances, in concert, served to further highlight the Lindh case as significant in marking it as the first to result in a conviction following September 11.

Lindh’s case was one of the first in which someone affiliated with Al Qaeda faced criminal charges related to terrorism after the September 11 attacks. His American nationality would serve to malign him further rather than to mitigate the circumstances – the action of taking up arms against Americans could be viewed as treason. Taken into captivity within months of the attacks, Lindh’s case would go on to dominate both the televised and printed news media, followed by increasingly negative publicity as he became dubbed the American Taliban, now tied in name to an organization best known for harboring Bin Ladin (Lindh, “Human”). Lindh’s father contended that it would have been impossible for his son to have had a fair trial, were Lindh ever publicly tried, due to the nature of this publicity (Lindh, Interview). Yet in the grand scheme of things, Lindh’s twenty year sentence for the sole count of violating economic sanctions against the Taliban regime was perhaps necessary to serve as a deterrent for future would-be terrorists and Al Qaeda sympathizers, spurred on by extremist propaganda readily available from the Internet. With some demanding the death penalty in Lindh’s case, it could be argued that a sentence of twenty years in prison is a lenient one, in light of actions that can be viewed as violently misguided at best and treasonous at worst.

Though Lindh’s case was never taken to trial, it was one of the first and most significant cases of the twenty-first century – United States of America v. John Phillip Walker Lindh would set the tone for the political debates concerning the war on terror ever since. Lindh’s was the first case pertaining to Al Qaeda that made major news and concluded immediately after September 11. His was the one case where an American was vilified as a card carrying member of Al Qaeda, an organization that has repeatedly called for death to the Great Satan, as they have dubbed our nation. Lindh was the first Al Qaeda member convicted of a crime after September 11. His case represented the times in which he lived – a century that opened with a horrific act of war against civilians, with Lindh’s case quickly following the attacks. Lindh’s case also opened controversy that continues to this day, with a minority camp expostulating Lindh’s relative innocence and mitigating his traitorous actions, and another camp intent on vilifying Lindh as a trusted follower of Bin Ladin who would have been more than happy to participate in the World Trade Center attack himself. Perhaps in the end, there can be no win-win outcome in this case. Whatever else he was, and whatever organizations affiliated with, Lindh’s crimes were no more significant than those of the many others who have chosen to act in opposition to their nation. Perhaps his case only received the amount of attention it did because of its proximity to the event that has changed the landscape of American political and legal thought ever since. In any event, Lindh’s case was one that brought an amalgamation of emotions and precedents to a nation that needed to find closure for events beyond its control.

Bibliography

"Elections 2000: American Muslim PAC Endorses George W. Bush for President." EE-Corp. Ed. Abdus Sattar Ghazali. American Muslim Alliance, 23 Oct. 2000. Web. 31 May 2010. .

Ashcroft, John. Interview with CNN Inside Politics. Aired 5 February 2002.

Casil, Amy Sterling. Coping with Terrorism. New York, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2004.

Clarke, Richard A. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. New York, New York: Free Press, 2004.

DiLeva, Dan, and Ramy Khalil. "Justice Denied to Arab Americans: Hundreds Still Detained Without Charge." Socialist Alternative. Mar. 2002. Web. 31 May 2010. .

Federal Bureau of Investigation. "FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive - Usama Bin Laden." Federal Bureau of Investigation Homepage. Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Nov. 2001. Web. 9 May 2010. .

Fox News, and Associated Press. "Bin Laden: Moussaoui Wasn't Sept. 11 Conspirator." Fox News. 24 May 2006. Web. 5 June 2010. .

Frank, Mitch. Understanding September 11th: Answering Questions about the Attacks on America. New York: Viking, 2002.

Goldenberg, Suzanne. "Islamophobia Worse in America Now Than after 9/11, Survey Finds." Common Dreams | News & Views. Guardian UK, 10 Mar. 2006. Web. 01 June 2010. .

Indictment. United States of America v. John Phillip Walker Lindh, No. 02-37-A (D. Va.), (February 2002). Accessed <>

Jess, Sara and Gabriel Beck. John Walker Lindh: American Taliban: A Psychological Study. San Jose, California: University Press California, 2002.

Kukis, Mark. My Heart Became Attached: The Strange Journey of John Walker Lindh. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2003.

Lindh, Frank. Interview with Cageprisoners. 4 March 2008.

Lindh, Frank. The Human Rights Implications of the "American Taliban". Commonwealth Club, California. 19 January 2006.

United States of America v. John Phillip Walker Lindh, No. 02-37-A (D. Va.) Norman B Linnell. Eastern Virginia. Initial Appearance Transcript. (25 January 2002). <1-11>. Accessed

Mahoney, Richard D. Getting Away With Murder: The Real Story Behind American Taliban John Walker Lindh and What the U.S. Government Had to Hide. New York, New York: Arcade Publishing, 2004.

Mujahid, Abdul Malik. "In a Virtual Internment Camp: Muslim Americans since 9/11." Sound Vision. Sound Vision Foundation, July 2003. Web. 07 June 2010. .

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Spann, Johnny. “False and misleading statements by Mr. Frank Lindh omits many known facts: Article of appeal”. 1 February 2006. (Available: http://www.honormikespann.org/pdfs/flindh_retort_feb2006.pdf; accessed 22 May 2010)

Stahnke, Ted, et al. “Violence Against Muslims: 2008 Hate Crime Survey”. New York, New York: Human Rights First, 2008.

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Dispelling Misconceptions and Misunderstandings: Why I Oppose a Cure for Autism

2010-05-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

In the autism community (comprised of individuals on the autism spectrum, their families, educators, therapists, advocates, and researchers), the single most divisive and emotionally provocative issue is that of a cure for autism. Proponents of a cure often claim that is for the benefit of the individual concerned by returning him to the present world and ceasing his suffering, whereas opponents typically claim the opposite, that a cure would strip the autistic individual of his identity and sense of self.

Yet as my friend Daniel, who is autistic and would like a cure for autism, wrote in his 26 April 2010 blog post, Cure for Autism, "It [is] clear that not everyone wanted a cure for the benefit of the child. Several had there[sic] own agenda, whether promoting issues or just hating weird folk, it became clear why people are insulted at the notion of a cure." His blog post went on to address the ways in which some cure proponents (but certainly not all) show "a lack of concern for the person actually suffering with autism", as Daniel put it, and "ways to respond positively in the face of those unwelcome calls for cure".

I believe his post is very much needed, as one stone to fill in the gap that has separated the so-called 'curebies' (a derogatory term, for those unfamiliar with it) and the neurodiversitites (also somewhat of a derogatory term for people who oppose a cure). After I myself was called an 'extremist' for my opinion opposing a cure by several commentators on the website Age of Autism, I decided it would be prudent to address these issues.

In an earlier March post on Fugitive Seeking Truth, I wrote about how this issue divides the autism community, rendering us ineffective as a united front in clear cases of abuse and injustice (specifically, drawing upon the reactions in the Zakhqurey Price case, which is ongoing). But I did not offer a solution, or the beginnings of one, except with this:

[W]e should disagree. Disagreement is a healthy part of life and living in a
place where there is freedom of speech. But disagreeing over one issue should
NOT cloud our thinking or judgment when presented with other situations where
action is clearly needed, or where there is a clear moral action to be taken
(that anyone reasonable SHOULD agree on). Let's not let our politics get in the
way of our solidarity as a community. Disagreement should NOT promote feelings
of resentment, bitterness, and hatred.

What should disagreement do?
Disagreement should foster healthy, respectful, open-minded discussion among all
parties, and should unite a community through its common goals and basic ideals,
perceived in different ways and with different means of attaining them.

Nevertheless, I felt compelled to write an additional article to further expound upon the sentiments I expressed in the previous one.

My hope is that I can dispel some myths to proponents of a cure about my own beliefs in opposition to a cure, thereby facilitating positive discussion and plausible action to better the autism community as a whole. Unfortunately, my cynicism precludes these hopes, for fear that cure-proponents who read this will find it an empty list of excuses, and that cure-opponents will read this and see it as 'pandering to the enemy'. . . Nevertheless, I have proceeded in writing this in the vain, optimistic hopes that if I have done anything right here, it will be to defuse this unfair tension that has developed between two quite polarized 'sides', in an effort to bridge our beliefs over what we do hold in common with one another.

1.) I have a genuine desire to improve the lives of all autistic people - whether they more resemble people like Temple Grandin and John Elder Robison, or whether they more resemble people like Sue Rubin and Tito Mukhopadhyay. Too often, cure proponents jump to the conclusion that cure opponents do not want to improve the lives of autistic people, especially the severely autistic. This is simply not true. I believe that a cure is not a good path to seek the improvement of the lives of autistic people.

I do believe in therapies and ‘treatments’ for autism, such as social skills therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration therapy, special education services, life skills training, speech therapy, and the like. I also believe that because each individual with autism is different from the next, no one therapy or treatment should be treated as one size fits all, and that each autistic individual is deserving of help and therapy appropriate for his own specific needs and challenges. I believe that with the right focus on the individual, a cure for autism is unnecessary, and that the challenges and difficulties of autism can be mitigated without eliminating the unique mindset and way of existing that autism presents.

2.) I am personally dedicated to increasing public awareness of autism in all its forms and manifestations, especially in the areas of education, human services, and criminal justice. Similarly, many cure proponents also jump to the conclusion that if we oppose a cure, then we do not want to help autistic people, and that we ignore the need for advocacy and awareness in the public arena except when it suits our political needs. This too is untrue. When I seek reform in the educational system or the criminal justice system to better address the needs of autistic people, I do not do so with the vague hope that all those with whom I interact will come to adopt my belief that a cure for autism is not the way to go. I do so in the hopes that I can improve interactions between the entire autism community and the public, and facilitate the educational process for autistic children, and communication and understanding with the general public of autistic people.

3.) I recognize and accept that for all autistic people, there are very real challenges and difficulties that the non-autistic do not have, and that for the severely autistic, these challenges and difficulties may be manifest much more than in individuals on the so-called 'high-functioning' end of the spectrum. The majority of cure opponents happen to be individuals with what is called ‘high-functioning’ autism, typically people with diagnoses like Asperger’s Syndrome, and the neurodiversity movement has often come under fire for this. Many cure proponents claim that because most of us are ‘high-functioning’, we do not and cannot understand the challenges that the severely autistic, the so-called ‘low-functioning’, face that we do not seem to. This too is untrue.

While the exact manifestations of the various challenges and difficulties associated with autism are different between the two extremes, and different in each individual, the sources and underlying causes are primarily the same (sensory integration disorder, anxiety disorder, communication disorder, etc.) What is true is that for each autistic person, the exact nature of the challenges and difficulties presented with autism are different, and will be manifested in different ways and to different extents. Merely because I oppose a cure for autism does not mean I am unsympathetic, uncaring, cruel, callous, or cold to these facts.

4.) I recognize and appreciate the plight of parents, especially of the several autistic, who have been shunted to the side by the medical and educational systems, and who also want to see their children gain greater quality of life. Many, but not all, cure proponents are family members of autistic people. (There are also autistic individuals who advocate for a cure). Many of these same people conclude that autistic cure opponents do not and cannot understand the many, many challenges that they face in procuring educational services for their children, challenging the broken healthcare system to provide therapeutic services for their children, and living with the everyday realities of autism.

Yet it is precisely because we are acquainted firsthand with these things that we can and do understand them. Opposing a cure for autism does not mean that I am wishing something terrible either upon the autistic individual or his family. . . on the contrary, I oppose a cure for autism because I want to see the vision of autism transformed. I do not believe it is a disease in need of curing, but rather a different way of being that comes with its own unique set of gifts, strengths, weaknesses, and challenges (and that these weaknesses and challenges often seem to preclude the gifts and strengths, and may seem more evident than the former).

In conclusion, my purpose in writing this article was not to convince cure proponents that they should abandon their view in favor of supporting the neurodiversity movement, but rather to attempt to close the gap that has developed between these two inimical antagonists dominating the autism community. I want to see real dialogue and effective advocacy on a united front, but that cannot happen unless the two ‘sides’ sit down and overcome the misunderstandings and mistaken assumptions. We let this one issue divide us, instead of recognizing that all of us really do want to improve the lives of autistic people (ALL autistic people). . .

Cure proponents claim that cure opponents are harming the autistic population and do not have their best interests in mind because how can someone possibly advocate against a cure for such a terrible disease. Similarly, cure opponents claim that cure proponents are harming the autistic population by clamoring in an effort to strip them of their identity and what makes them who they are because it is impossible to separate someone from the way their mind works.

It is time we stop pointing fingers and realize that there is much common ground, and much to be learned from listening, really listening, to one another. . . when we spend all of our time conversing only with those who agree with us, we lose sight of the larger picture, and we begin to see everything painted through an obscured lens which depicts those who agree with us as the knights in shining armor, and those who disagree with us as villainous ghouls. . .

If we can work together to overcome this divisiveness, it does not mean we will settle the issue for once and for all. But isn’t that the same with issues like where the line can be drawn on human rights in the war on terror, when millions of lives may be at stake? There is no absolute certainty that crosses ‘party lines’. But we can work to create a unified presence in educational advocacy, in healthcare advocacy, in criminal justice advocacy. And those of us in the autism community know well such advocacy is sorely needed. We could be a powerful force internationally if we united despite our differences. . . but until we do so, the autism community will continually be weakened, inhibited and hampered by our inability to work alongside and with one another.

Heaven and Hell

2010-05-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

What is heaven? What is hell? Among people of all faiths and sometimes among those who do not believe in religion, there is an almost reverent curiosity about the 'places', or 'states', commonly known as 'heaven' and 'hell'. Most prominent in the American Judeo-Christian tradition are the stock images of pearly gates, white clouds, and golden streets as representing 'heaven', and the flames and torture representing 'hell'.

Throughout history and across faiths, there has been speculation as to the nature of death, and in many cases, the nature of the 'afterlife'. In the Greek tradition, the afterlife was represented by the fields of Elysium, where there was eternal feasting and happiness, and Hades, where the sinful were condemned to impossible tasks for all eternity. In the Islamic tradition, there are seven levels of Jannah (literally, The Garden), which is a place of pleasure, a literal paradise; and there is Jahannam (Hell), a place of physical and spiritual suffering for those who are sinful (which can include Muslims.) In Hindu tradition, true release is moksha, where one is released from the samsara, or cycle of births, deaths, and rebirths, whereas seven hells are ruled over by Yama.

Yet if you ask me what I believe about heaven and hell as a Christian, my first response is to scrap the idea of a palatial, golden city as Heaven, and a pit of fire as Hell. By all means, hurl those ideas off of a precipice nearby.

I believe that when Earth was created, it was created with perfect union between God, man, and all of nature - from the simplest prokaryote to the most genetically complex Homo sapiens. This is metaphorically represented in the Garden of Eden described in Genesis, in the poetic storytelling style. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve worked to cultivate the fruit of the land, but they did not do so out of necessity, hardship, or suffering toil. Everything was provided for them; there was no shame of their naked stated; they lived in harmony with all of the non-sentient life there. And God was manifestly present with them, and they were with God in all things, in an intimacy no longer present.

I also believe that when Adam and Eve fell, when they committed the first sin, or transgression, or wrongful act, this true utopia vanished. No longer did they work to find fulfillment in the beauty of what they did, but they toiled long and hard under the sun just to survive. They lost the harmony they once had with nature (something I see evident today in the deteriorating relationship between humans and the environment), and now lived in constant conflict with it. And though God is omnipresent, God was no longer with them in the same way as before, and the true union of Lover and Beloved was gone.

I believe then, that Heaven will be a return to the state of life in the metaphorical Eden. Heaven is to be eternally and completely with God, so that Lover and Beloved are one. Heaven will not be unlike Earth today, except that there will be no dysfunctional families. There will be no crime, no poverty, no wars, no injustice, no hatred, no hard feelings between one person and another. It will be the kind of utopia we desire and lament, the kind of utopia we disaparage with depictions of dystopian regimes self-styled as utopias.

Likewise, Hell is the complete separation from God. It is the absence of God, as opposed to the presence of God. Hell too will be like Earth, but it will lack all forms of goodness, of charity, of justice, of kindness, of love, of trust, of peace, and of true community. The people may make government for themselves, but it will be unjust and corrupt. They may make laws in an attempt to reconcile themselves to natural law, but the laws will always be broken. They may marry, have children, make friends. . . but these relationships will be broken. It will be a dystopia in every nuance of the world.

In Heaven, our purpose to glorify, honor, serve, and be loved by God will be complete. In Hell, it will be distorted in every manner possible.

Let me quote from the words of the Persian Sufi poet Rabia al-Basri, and the anonymous author of the Spanish "Soneto a Cristo crucificado" (Sonnet to Christ Crucified):

Rabia al-Basri wrote:

If I love thee for fear of Hell,
put me in the fires of Hell.
If I love thee for the sake of Heaven,
deprive me of this bliss for all times
My love for thee is thine alone;
I yearn for thy communion.
Withhold not thy everlasting beauty from me.

The author of the Sonnet wrote:

No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido,
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

¡Tú me mueves, Señor! Muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido;
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido;
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Muéveme en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque lo que espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

Or, in my own translation,

I am not moved to love you, my God,
by the heaven which you have promised,
nor I am moved by the flames of hell so fearful,
to cease all acts which offend you.

You alone move me, Lord! I am moved to see you
nailed to the cross and ridiculed;
I am moved to see your body so wounded;
your affronts and death, they move me.

Your love moves me in the end, in such a way
that were there no heaven, I would love you,
and were there no hell, I would fear you.

You need not give me more so that I would love you,
for even if that for which I hope became hopeless,
in the same way I love you now, I would then still love you.

I believe it is not the Christian's place to emphasize the reward of heaven and the punishment of hell. . . I see too many Christians caught in this trap of overemphasizing and obsessing over converts, because "If you're not saved, you'll go to hell", and "I know I'm going to heaven when I die". Quite frankly - heaven should not be thought of as the reward for righteous Christians, nor should hell be thought of as the disincentive for not becoming Christian.

If heaven indeed is a return to the original, untainted vision of Creation, then it should be what we strive for each day, in our relationships with others, in our lifestyles, and, most importantly, in our character. For are we not defined by our character? When we interact with anyone for any reason, we may be judged based on our appearances, upon our manners (or lack thereof), but in the end, we are judged based on our character. Are we honest, reliable, kind, compassionate, concerned with the plight of others, dedicated to social justice, courageous to stand up for what is right, loyal to our nation and those we love, patient, merciful and forgiving towards those who act against us? If not. . . then we are moving away from heaven. We are moving away from a state of complete togetherness with God.

Heaven and Hell are not going to come down to us like the pictures in children's books. . . they are already very real and very evident in the way we live and the ways we interact with one another and the world around us.

Educational Reform and the Autism Spectrum

2010-04-30T05:44:00.000-07:00

Educational Reform and the Autism Spectrum

Drawing Credit: Ylanne S.

This article is one of a series for Autism Awareness Month.

If there is one thing to be said about America's educational system, it is this: we are failing our children.

In my experience, there are two groups of children whom we are failing the most: children with special needs or learning disabilities or differences, and children who are gifted. As far as the mainstream is concerned, we are doing splendidly educating our youth - compared to a surprising number of nations, we have a very high literacy rate (1), and some of the best universities in the world (2). But the mainstream is just that - your average students, some of whom may be a tad brighter or slower than others, but who for the most part fit very cleanly into the box our society has constructed. And as long as you fit into the mainstream, you're fine and you'll do well, and Uncle Sam will take good care of your education - no matter how much you complain about homework.

The need for reform is highlighted especially by the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders. According to the most recent study, 1 in 91 people are believed to have an autism spectrum disorder, whether that be AS, Kanner's Autism, PDD-NOS, NLD, or HFA (3,4). A significant percentage of our youth are being diagnosed with ASDs, as well as an emerging number of adults for whom diagnoses were incorrect or absent altogether in youth. Among autistic children, the condition can range from severely affected children (such as those with Kanner's autism) to very mildly affected children (such as those with Asperger's Syndrome).

For parents whose children are enrolled in public schools, federal law mandates that the public school system provide appropriate services and accommodations for any student with a documented disability(5, 6); however, it is the purpose of schooling that may be overlooked. When you have an autistic student in your classroom, it is your job to teach that student - not merely to make them comfortable and prevent meltdowns.

Yet in a surprising number of cases, autistic students are denied services, or subjected to inappropriate restraint and seclusion, sometimes leading to criminal charges, and expulsion from school systems (7). This is true both for students more severely affected and those with milder autistic variants, such as Asperger's Syndrome, as one may note from the cases cited.

There are two primary types of students with which we are concerned in this position paper - more severely autistic children who may have more severe behavioral and emotional issues, and who may or may not have some degree of mental retardation (but may also have high IQs, or even a genius-level IQ) (8); and more mildly autistic children (such as Asperger's and PDD-NOS children) who may have milder or nonexistent behavioral issues, and milder emotional issues, and who have average, or above average IQ - particularly those who are also considered 'gifted' or with relatively high IQs (or genius-level IQs).

Both types of children present immediate needs and challenges for any school district, but especially for those unequipped to handle exceptional students. If all students deserve equal opportunity for a good education, and it is our school's legal and moral obligation to provide it, then it is imperative that they do so. It is imperative that they educate themselves, require training for their teachers, and actually educate these students - not shelve them off as someone else's duty - but genuinely care for them.

Students who are considered to be severely autistic often require services and accommodations that students who are considered to be mildly autistic do not. The converse is the same. While both subtypes of students certainly face many of the same root challenges (and are gifted with some of the same root gifts absent in non-autistics), school districts often haphazardly follow through on providing IEPs, services, and accommodations for them. While it would be equally wrong to communize services for all autistic students by mandating each one receive exactly the same services - as each is an individual with his or her own needs - it is also wrong to inconsistently provide services, and in some cases, provide inappropriate services.

If your school district is doing a great job - then thank them for their work and time. If your school district isn't living up to the standards set forth in our law. . . and by our needs. . . then make your voice heard and advocate for much-needed change. There's no time to lose. Our autistic students are not going to go away while you say "Well, they'll get around to it sometime". Our autistic adults who were denied their equal opportunities in education aren't going to go away while they watch the same thing happen to others. . . when it is very much preventable. This isn't a lose-lose situation. . . if our schools stepped up to their duties, we would have a win-win situation.

Footnotes:

(1) The adult literacy rate for the United States is 99.0%, ranking 19th among all nations, according to the United Nations Development Programme Report 2009.

(2) The top universities in the world are mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom The American ones include, in order, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Chicago, Princeton University, MIT, Caltech, Columbia University, UPenn, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, Cornell University, Stanford University, and the University of Michigan.

(3) The report is “Prevalence of Parent-Reported Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children in the US,” and was published in the 5 October 2009 issue of Pediatrics. It was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services National Survey of Children’s Health, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), via a telephone survey.

(4) The autism spectrum is comprised of a series of disorders formally recognized by the psychological and autism communities, including Asperger's Syndrome (AS), Kanner's Autism (or classic autism), pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and High Functioning Autism (which is the only condition not formally recognized by the American Psychological Association, of these) (i). They are all considered ASDs because of similar traits and characteristics exhibited by individuals diagnosed with one or another of these conditions. As of 2010, the current issue of the DSM-IV classifies each of these (except HFA, which as noted is not formally recognized) as separate, unrelated conditions (ii). The general community at large has accepted the idea of an autism spectrum, and proposals for the next revision of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) include recognition of these as one condition which manifests itself in different manners (iii).

(5) The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (formerly called P.L. 94-142 or the Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975) requires public schools to make available to all eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their individual needs. This Act mandates schools to develop Individualized Education Programs (IEP's) for the student in question (iv).

(6) "Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (Section 504), is a federal law designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Section 504 provides: "No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance . . . ." The Section 504 regulations require a school district to provide a "free appropriate public education" (FAPE) to each qualified student with a disability who is in the school district's jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability. Under Section 504, FAPE consists of the provision of regular or special education and related aids and services designed to meet the student's individual educational needs as adequately as the needs of nondisabled students are met." (v)

(7) Examples of recent cases are Zakhqurey Price (vi), Dallas O'Banion(vii), Evelyn Towry(viii), Ian Garvin(ix), Gunnar Moody(x), and Isaiah Moore(xi). Another chart of some recent cases can be found at: http://www.tash.org/dev/tashcms/ewebeditpro5/upload/Documented_Abuses.doc (Warning: This is a Word document that will prompt a download dialogue if clicked.) This is compiled by TASH, the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps.

(8) Among people diagnosed with autism (not Asperger's Syndrome), there is a 60% incidence of mental retardation, defined as an IQ of 70 or below, with normal IQ being between 90 and 110. A significant number of autistics have an average or above average IQ. The diagnostic criterion for Asperger's Syndrome specify an average or above average IQ.

Footnotes to the Footnotes:

(i) According to the National Institute of Mental Health, autism spectrum disorders also include Rhett's Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disorders-pervasive-developmental-disorders/index.shtml)

(ii) Current DSM-IV entries for pervasive developmental disorders are for 299.0 Autistic disorder, 299.80 Rett's disorder, 299.10 Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, 299.80 Asperger's Disorder, and 299.80 Pervasive Developmental Disoder NOS. See the DSM-IV, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

(iii) Proposed revision 299.0 for 'autistic disorder' is subtitled 'autism spectrum disorder', and includes a list of criterion common in varying degrees of severity to all currently recognized autism spectrum disorders. (http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=94)

(iv) See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq., Implementing Regulation: 34 CFR Part 300.

(v) Taken directly from the Department of Education website (http://ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html)

(vi) Zakhqurey Price is an eleven year old fifth grader with diagnoses of autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, dyslexia, and ADHD. After his school refused to implement an IEP, he kicked one teacher and shoved another during a meltdown, and is currently facing a felony assault charge. His next court hearing is on April 13, 2010. See http://www.thezakhappeal.com or my earlier January post for more details.

(vii) Dallas O'Banion is a seven year old with autism facing criminal charges after allegedly biting a teacher during a meltdown.

(viii) Evelyn Towry is an eight year old girl with Asperger's Syndrome who was handcuffed and taken out of school after her teacher refused to let her wear her favorite jacket, a comfort item.

(ix) Ian Garvin is a ten year old with autism who was arrested for allegedly hitting and kicking a teacher at Gulf Elementary School during a meltdown.

(x) Gunnar Moody is an eleven year old with autism who was arrested because he was singing while doing push-ups during gym class in the San Jose school district in 2008.

(xi) According to a 2008 lawsuit, then seven year old autistic student Isaiah Moore was "battered, assaulted, unlawfully restrained, abused and/or subjected, to excessive force at the hands of Krukauskas, by, including but not limited to, choking, crisscrossing (Isaiah's) arms across his face, and hitting him, in a 30 April 2007 incident at school." (http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/nov/01/autistic-students-parents-say-son-abused-at/)

Judging Autistics by One Example? John Odgren, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Violence, and Stereotyping.

2010-04-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

John Odgren was a sixteen year old student in Lincoln-Sudbury High School in Massachusetts when on 19 January 2007, he stabbed classmate James Alenson to death in the men’s restroom. Previously, John had been diagnosed with a number of mental disorders – obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, anxiety disorder, attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and Asperger’s Syndrome. Over the past three weeks, his trial has gone on, with prosecutor Daniel Bennett and defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro presenting closing arguments earlier today, 27 April 2010.

I happened to be reading the latest articles from the past week or so regarding John’s trial, in the Boston Herald, and read through a number of disparaging, outrageous, and terribly abusive and bigoted comments. Some were so inflammatory that I needed to step away from the computer for several minutes before returning, in order to avoid writing another such abusive response.

One commentator wrote “If this genius with Ashbergers syndrom could do this are we and our children in danger from others like him? How do we protect ourselves from them?” That was perhaps the least abusive out of the bigoted comments (the rest I will not bother quoting, in order to avoid having comments of that particular nature from appearing on my blog), but it is the most representative of the general sentiment on the site – that a.) John was not insane, and was a sociopathic/psychopathic genius with a very violent predisposition, or b.) All people with Asperger’s Syndrome must have a predisposition to violence, should not be mainstreamed in schools, and should be kept away from society in some fashion or another.

And to this, I vehemently retort that there are many persons without Asperger’s who have committed some heinous crimes and other crimes against humanity – just as there are people with Asperger’s who have committed violent crimes (John Odgren is not the only person with Asperger’s or another autism spectrum disorder who has committed a violent crime, or been accused thereof). Just as most non-autistic people do not commit crimes and lead fairly law-abiding and nonviolent lives, the majority of people on the spectrum don’t commit crimes either, and also live fairly law-abiding and nonviolent lives.

The problem is that whenever someone who is accused of a violent crime also by happenstance happens to be on the spectrum, the media tends to make a big hype out of their diagnosis, or even if the media does not intentionally do this, the general public does. Likely, this is out of a general lack of accurate information about what being on the spectrum actually means, and how being autistic does and does not affect someone’s behavior. Because it is Autism Awareness Month, I find it especially appalling that no one has taken the time to make special mention of such cases, in an effort to make waves toward real awareness.

Having Asperger’s does not give me a predisposition toward violent behavior – neither does the fact that I write crime novels, spend a significant amount of my time researching criminals, terrorists, the legal system, and law enforcement, and take a special interest in such topics. Those who work in law enforcement, those who write crime novels professionally (the ones who are published authors), and those who work in academia and research may all have the same hobbies and interests, and the vast majority of these people also do not engage in violent behavior.

One person, or even several individuals, should not be used to categorically judge and condemn a group as a whole. If we do not judge all Christians by Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church), all Germans by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, all Communist supporters by the acts of Josef Stalin, or all Arabs or Muslims by Usama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein, then why do we judge all autistics by the actions of a few people? This seems to me to not only be utterly ridiculous, but also the epitome of ignorance, hypocrisy, and stereotypes propagated either unwittingly by the media or condoned by its representatives, which serve not to encourage autistics to overcome their challenges and contribute positively to society as they are, but to stigmatize them and alienate them within their communities.

Just as all Muslims cannot help that Usama bin Ladin claims to be a Muslim. . . or all Christians cannot help that Fred Phelps makes a concerted effort to publicize his extremist rhetoric and controversial protests while claiming the banner of Christianity. . . or all Germans cannot help that their history is forever marred by the Nazi Party and the Holocaust. . . all autistics and their families cannot help that there are people like John Odgren (and others) who are on the spectrum and who have committed violent crimes. We are individuals. . . not clones of one another. Just like non-autistics, some of us will do horrible things, but most of us never will. Don’t judge us based off of the actions of one person. It’s not fair to us, and it’s not fair to him.

And to those of who you have posted comments demanding that John Odgren be fried or executed in otherwise gory manners inappropriate to restate. . . yes, he committed a heinous crime, and yes, he took the life of another young man with great potential. But he is a person too.

The Abandoned Church

2010-04-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

The church lies abandoned in the field,
its shutters closed, its innards unveiled,
the walls defaced, the altar smashed,
“There is no God” scrawled in epitaph.

Inside, the pews overturned and Bibles strewn
like litter, the confessionals left in ruin,
yellow crime scene tape half-faded there,
a child’s smile or presence all too rare.

Once, they boasted a congregation one hundred strong,
now lucky if the church still stands when comes the dawn.
Once, they boasted heavenly fire would rain down,
now drought ravages the land, no rain touches the ground.

The congregants buried in shallow graves,
for all their pretty words, a dearth of works,
their eulogies lacking songs of virtue,
their lives easily forgotten in the hereto.

Good Friday - Undeserved Mercy

2010-04-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

The definition of "grace" is undeserved mercy. As a Christian, I believe that what happened tonight, almost two thousand years ago, was an amazing act of selfless sacrifice by a loving God, and that if it weren't for that, I would not be where I am today. I would not be WHO I am today. But as I reflected on the enormity of what happened tonight. . . I was reminded of a short passage from one of my novels, which is currently in intensive revisions, which to me is representative of an incredible tragedy.

I will share the passage with you shortly, but first a brief explanation. The two characters are Tahira Ali and her niece, Kami as-Sabbriya. Tahira is a convicted terrorist, and Kami, who used to live with her, is a graduate student at Suffolk. In her childhood, Tahira's mother was a Christian missionary, and she grew up in a mostly Muslim neighborhood. As an adult, Tahira is agnostic - clinging to the notion of some monotheistic god, without accepting the tenets of any recognizable religion. Kami, during the time that Tahira has been incarcerated, has come to know Jesus Christ personally, and converted to what we might call Evangelical Christianity. The passage that follows is the conversation between the two of them during the first visit Kami has ever made to her aunt in prison, eight years after her conviction.

It had been eight and a half years since Kami had had the courage to face her aunt, but she had spent the last week building up the mental strength for what would no doubt be a confrontation. Harsh words were the last thing Kami wanted, but given the circumstances, it was doubtful she would be subject to anything else.

The last time they had seen each other had been during the sentencing hearing, when Ali's lawyer had called on Kami to testify in favor of a lenient sentence. The last time they had seen each other, face to face, without the public eye separating them, had been the night before the takedown in the wee hours of the morning. This time, it would be yet another place.

Kami had never been to the prison before, and she stared blankly at it, unsure whether to be wary or welcoming. The federal supermaximum prison was a foreboding structure erected from poured concrete, surrounded by razor wire and watchtowers, set against the endless skies of mountainous Colorado, a desolate, harsh landscape. There was a slight breeze toying with Kami's jacket, and rustling her hair, which she absentmindedly tucked behind her ears as she surveyed the prison grounds.

She was met at the gate by a pair of armed guards who nodded politely to her, and when they heard her intentions, helpfully offered to escort her around to the visiting building. Once there, her coat and bag were checked, and her driver's license photocopied. She was led through a metal detector and then frisked lightly, frowning at the guard as he moved his hands over her body. Finally, before being taken to the visiting room, a few forms were shoved at her, and she signed her name after reading.

The whole building resembled a sparsely furnished school - the floors were tiled with a monotonous, generic pattern, and the rooms were lit by institutional fluorescent light, the walls lacking decorations, painted in a light gray as if to imbue a sense of inhumanity, create an artificial distance from the very real people incarcerated inside, people who had very real emotions, aspirations, fears, and lives.

From the hallway, the visiting room looked like any other office along the hallway of the administrative building, where the visiting center was housed. The door appeared to be simple wood, reinforced with steel, locking from the outside, and here, it opened to a claustrophobic room divided in the center by a glass partition, with a chair on either side. Kami resisted the urge to turn back, to brush back past the guard without explanation, instead taking a seat, sitting on the edge of the plastic chair, noting for the first time a small shelf on either side of the partition with a phone on each side.

There was writing on the metal shelf, initials, profanities, and promises carved into it, as if testaments to past visitors and prisoners who had passed through. Kami understood that animal necessity well - the need to mark one's territory, the need to not be forgotten. The guard, a young man with carefully combed sandy brown hair, stood behind her, leaning against the door, his light blue eyes resting on Kami without registering emotion. She didn't acknowledge his presence, though she watched his reflection on the glass partition in silence, wondering how much longer it would be before Ali would be brought.

At the thought, the door on the other side of the room opened, two armed guards escorting Ali into the visiting room, where she was seated in the other plastic chair, opposite Kami, chains clinking against one another with the movement. Kami's eyes raked over her aunt, taking in her appearance. She seemed to have aged more than a mere eight years, her features more hollowed, her frame thinner, her previously long hair now chopped short in jagged ends. There was more white in her hair than gray. And she was no longer dressed in her own clothes, wearing an orange prisoner's jumpsuit, and shackles on her wrists and ankles, her handcuffs fastened to a chain around her waist. That was probably the biggest difference. Kami had never seen Ali like this before.

Unconsciously, Kami's hand fluttered to her neck, fingering the gold cross that lay there, rubbing it gently. Ali did not make eye contact, but she inclined her head at the sight of her niece. Kami picked up the phone, and after a moment's hesitation, Ali did the same.

"Good afternoon," Kami said softly, not trusting her own voice. "How have you been?"

"I am fine," Ali responded, speaking slowly, her accent seeming almost thicker than it had before.

"Really." Kami regretted speaking immediately, and she looked away. "I'm sorry. I meant - I just thought that, you know. Being here. I guess I wanted a more honest answer. But maybe I don't. Not that way. I just - wanted to know." There was a moment of silence, and then Kami looked back toward Ali. "It's been a while. I probably should have come a long time ago. Guess I was just afraid. Time to face my fears. Get it over with. I don't know what I thought would happen. Maybe I was afraid you'd be angry with me. Are you? Are you angry with me?"

There was a pause before Ali answered, looking upward at Kami as she spoke. "Of course not. Why in the world would I be angry with you?"

Embarrassed, Kami gave a half-smile, shrugging lightly. "I'd rather know than not know. But really - how are you? Honest answer. We only have a short time. And there's - there's - "

"The execution," Ali finished Kami's thought. "My execution." Her voice was almost a whisper, almost inaudible through the phone.

"Yeah. Next month." Kami nodded, her smile gone, voice almost cracking. "So - honest answer? How are you?"

Ali thought for a moment before she answered. "Tired." And then she added, "Afraid."

"It's okay to be afraid," Kami said, feeling stupid. Here she was, twenty-three and giving advice to a woman three times her age facing imminent execution. "But you don't have to be, you know. Afraid."

"And why should I not be?" Ali frowned, a small downturn of her lips.

"Because death doesn't have to be something to fear, not if you know where you're going." Kami leaned forward as she spoke, ever closer to the glass partition.

"But I know what awaits me," Ali said, shaking her head. "And that is what I fear."

"How can you know what will happen, and yet be afraid of it?" Kami asked, voice rising at the end of the question.

"We will all be judged, and I know what my judgment will be."

"You can't know that."

"There are some sins that cannot be forgiven," Ali said flatly, her voice registering no affect.

"God can forgive any sin," Kami whispered. She placed her palm against the glass, leaning closer, til her nose was almost touching the barrier that separated them.

"I broke whatever sacred laws there may be. My hands, they are stained with the lifeblood of many. My actions have damned me. Man has been more merciful than God will be."

"That's not true, Aunty. . . God loves you. He really does. You just have to open your eyes, and your heart. . . and then you'd know it. He does forgive sin. You are forgivable, Aunty. I didn't believe it either - I thought it was some ridiculous, made up bedtime story to comfort little children. I wondered how it could possible be true. But it is. And it's changed me. There is real power, real power to forgive. . . but you need to accept it."

Ali remembered her mother, always reading her Bible, always praying to Jesus, teaching her daily that God would forgive her of anything. But it couldn't be true. No just God would ever permit the rampant devastation and evil she had come to know firsthand. No just God would ever offer forgiveness for people who had wrought the worst kind of suffering on innocent bystanders. "I just can't believe that," she said softly.

Kami's self-control eroded, silent tears began to slide down her cheeks as she trembled, her palm still resting against the glass. "Please, Aunty. Don't make the same mistake I did. It's not too late. But it will be. You don't have much time - you don't have forever to mull it over. Can't you see? There's a God. . . a loving God. And He wants you to know his love. . . but you need to accept it, accept the gift he's given you. . ." Kami sobbed as she spoke, chest heaving as she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the partition. "I love you, Aunty. I don't want to see you living without God's grace. I don't want you to, to die without it."

Ali slowly shook her head, pained at the sight of her niece so clearly troubled. "I - I want to believe," she confessed, her voice almost inaudible, "but I cannot. I cannot. If there is a God, he would not love me. No God could forgive what I have done. I know I am damned. Man will punish me, and then God will. Your kind words cannot save me."

"I can't. . . but God can. Jesus died for you, Aunty. He died for you." Kami opened her eyes, looking into Ali's eyes as she spoke, not bothering to wipe away her tears. "I came because I hoped you could understand that. I don't want you to die unsaved, Aunty. I was scared to come here, because I thought you would hate me for what I'd done. . . but I do care about you. I do. And I want you to know the love of God. If it weren't for this cross," she gestured to her necklace with her free hand, "I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be furious at you, at the world. . . or I'd be dead."

Ali looked down then, staring at the floor. "I love you too, Kami," she whispered, and then the guard on her side of the room straightened his posture, glancing at his watch.

"Time's up," he announced, and without further delay the two guards removed Ali from the room, leaving Kami behind, watching them take her aunt away, before the man standing behind her coughed lightly, and she stood, turning, as he opened the door for her.

Later, in the same novel, Tahira is executed by the federal government of the United States, and as far as any Christian is concerned, she dies without ever knowing the grace of God. She dies unsaved. In her last thoughts, she wonders whether there really is a god, and she decides there is no such thing. For me, this is a tragedy unparalleled by any other - she had every opportunity to come to understand the enormity of what grace really can do, but in the end, she could not bring herself to believe it, and belief is the key that unlocks the door.

When anyone who has heard the Gospel dies without accepting it, there is a tragedy. There is a soul, a being who was created and who is loved by God, who will be eternally separated from God. For me, heaven is eternal communion with God, and hell is eternal separation from God, eternal alienation, so to speak. We were created to glorify God in all things, in our image, in our character, in our actions, and in our lives, and to be close to God. Thus, heaven is being with God in all ways. And hell is being apart from him.

We believe that, as Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." and that as Romans 6:23 says, "And the wages of sin is death." (eternal separation from God), and that according to John 3:16, "[but] God so loved the world['s people], he sent his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him will not die but have eternal life." To me, this means that we are all equally guilty of sins that alienate us from our Creator, but that we all have the equal potential of coming to be in a state of grace with our Creator. He has offered each of us the opportunity to seize eternal life but it does not obligate anyone to accept it.

And that is the great tragedy of Tahira Ali. Though fictitious, and a character of my own creation, I find there is the same message in this vein as there is in our lives, of the very real people around us. Tahira, in her story, is someone who did things most of us will never even consider doing - she murdered people and she was part of a terrorist group that did much the same thing. But she, like me, like you, has the potential to be saved. To experience the power of divine forgiveness, the kind of forgiveness man can only attempt to imagine.

The tragedy is that even though God suffered complete rejection and shame at the hands of men, and died a human death so that we might be saved. . . too many of us will not step into God's grace. And one is already too many.

Autism Awareness, or Autism Ignorance?

2010-03-29T18:59:00.001-07:00

As Autism Awareness Month (April) approaches, I am reminded of how the general public knows very little about autism, and what anyone might know is likely riddled with misinformation and stereotypes along with truths. Even among the autism community, parents, educators, advocates, and even spectrumites themselves often remain poorly misinformed, or misled by what the professionals and the leading advocates say. Hence this post, an attempt to rectify some common misconceptions, and to share some simple facts about autism.

1.) Autism is NOT a "mental illness". When insurance providers and teachers try to tell you that it is, let them know we are going to close that dastardly loophole soon. Mental illnesses will be covered and one day everyone will acknowledge autism and be educated about it.

2.) There is no cure for autism. It is a lifelong condition, and children do not grow out of it. There are autistic adults. Some of them will need lifelong care, and some of them are independent and well-integrated into society.

3.) There are people with autism who are neither savants nor mentally retarded. Many autistic people have normal intelligence, or near-normal intelligence. We can't tell you how many blades of grass are on your lawn, and we won't be struggling with simple tasks. Some can do these things, or do struggle with simple tasks. Many don't.

4.) Except in the most severe cases (Kanner's autism), most people with autism can and do speak. Some may speak more than others, and some (Asperger's) may even seem very articulate and intelligent. For those on the so-called 'high-functioning' end of the spectrum our difference is invisible. Autism is not always obvious at first sight.

5.) Autism is not an excuse for bad behavior or bad parenting. Many autistics are fairly well-behaved, and many autistics come from loving, supportive families. Behavioral problems and autism are often caused by sensory integration disorder, in which the autistic is easily overloaded by sensory input; or by severe anxiety, in which the autistic is frustrated by sudden changes to routine, or other sources of anxiety.

6.) Hand flapping, rocking, and spinning are not harmful or malicious behaviors. These are called 'stims', or self-stimulation, and they are often exhibited by autistics as a coping mechanism for dealing with anxiety and sensory overload. Such behaviors are calming and comforting, and should not be stopped unless there seems to be a clear and immediate danger.

7.) Asperger's Syndrome is not just a social disorder. Most Aspies often display characteristics normally associated with classic autism - sensory issues, resistance to change or unexpected deviation from routine, self-stimulation, communication disparities, and a tendency to take language to its most literal extreme.

8.) There is an autism spectrum. There are autistic individuals who are able to function well in the rest of society and who cope with the social world of typicals; and there are autistics who will need lifelong care because they cannot take care of their most basic needs or even express them. And there are many, many autistics who fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

Conservatives and Liberals: Divisiveness and Inaction in the American Christian Community

2010-03-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

In the American political system, most people involved in the political sphere are sharply divided along the lines of conservatism and liberalism, as well as with the libertarian, anarchist, and socialist camps, among others, and the same is true among American Christians. One cannot enter a church or a religious school, but ask whether it is conservative or liberal. One cannot meet an American Christian without assuming that he or she is either politically conservative or liberal. (For our purposes, libertarianism falls under the right-wing end of the spectrum, although it is separate from conservatism).

For conservative Christians, anyone even remotely associated with American liberalism is unpatriotic, unrepetant, irresponsible, and idiotic. For liberal Christians, anyone even remotely associated with American conservatism is hypocritical, closed-minded, judgmental, unrepentant, backward, and idiotic. And conservative Christians demand, "How can you be a Christian and be a liberal?" And liberal Christians demand, "How can you be a Christian and be a conservative?"

And it is precisely this divisiveness which has rendered the Christian community, the Church, if you will, uneffective, powerless, and enervated in America today. If we are to be the body of Christ, we are to accept one another with open arms, without judgment and without reservation. We ought to celebrate our differences - we ought to recognize that in the end we have the same goal: We want to follow God in a dynamic, purpose-driven life filled with the grace of the Spirit and the joy of the Lord, and to make our lifestyle one of the Spirit, standing for what is right and growing closer to God in understanding in prayer of the nature of God, and what that means for our lives.

The problems arise because we disagree on how exactly to go about fulfilling this purpose, and on how to live a morally right life in immoral times, and how to reconcile Christian teachings with contemporary society, and how involved Christians should be in government and democracy, and what political movements are morally right and morally wrong. But the point is that on principle we have the same core belief and goal - the problem is in the fulfillment of it.

Divisiveness, whether propagated by Christian liberals or conservatives, only further enervates our democracy and ability to institute positive change. Christian liberals and conservatives ought to use their differences to promote positive multilateral discussion, and to have the courage to go against party politics to take action and make changes, when necessary, without forgetting the principles of the matter and the real lives of real people who will be affected by everything our government does.

The sad fact of the matter is that both conservatives and liberals turn politics into a war-ground, instead of transforming politics to a place where they can cultivate an informed, morally responsible, and actively engaged America for all of its people, not just the political leaders and political zealots. Everyone uses politics as an excuse to attack the Other, but nobody is taking that step to create a community unified by diversity of opinion and belief, where differences become our strength. . . not the weakness that divides us.

The worst part of this is that many Christians, liberals and conservatives alike, will read this post, will nod their heads in agreement, will resolve to change their lifestyles and perceptions, and then will navigate to another webpage, and hours later, forget they have ever read this, and will, in the end, change nothing. We have the ability to engage and mobilize the Christian community in America to effect positive change, to become a compelling voice for the voiceless, and a driving force for action where there are the poor, the hungry, the fatherless, and the oppressed. But unless we let go of the divisiveness that renders us divided upon ourselves, we cannot do any of these things.

Neurodiversity or a Cure for Autism: Divisiveness and Inaction in the Autism Community

2010-03-10T20:35:00.001-08:00

After the disappointing lack of unity in the autism community at large to support Zakhqurey Price in his still pending criminal case, I made an astute observation. For those of you who don't remember, Zakh is an Arkansas fifth grader charged with felony assault after being restrained by his teachers. He has diagnoses of autism, ADHD, OCD, and oppositional defiant disorder, and his school refused to implement an IEP (see my earlier January post for a more thorough recap).

The original action alert about Zakh's case was issued by Ari Ne'eman, the President of ASAN, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, a neurodiversity activist and advocacy group in the autism world (of which I too happen to be a member). In the wake of his announcement, not one of the major autism organizations mentioned Zakh's case, even in passing, but there was an enormous collection of negative reactions in the blogosphere, including one post on the autismgadfly blog that used the Zakh Price case as an example of "more inconsistencies from Ari Ne'eman". Opponents of neurodiversity, and critics of Ari Ne'eman and ASAN specifically, dismissed Zakh's case as either lacking merit, or merely some sort of publicity stunt for neurodiversity advocates. Not one of these people made statements in support of Zakh's case. In fact, in the comments section of many blog posts about Zakh's case, whether made by ardent supporters or critical writers, transformed from a polite discussion of the facts of his case and action being taken into an explosive argument between neurodiversity proponents and cure proponents.

I was appalled. The issue of whether or not there should be a cure for autism is NOT the issue. The issue in Zakh's case is improper training on autism for educators, improper use of restraint, lack of his school to implement an IEP, and overreaction of administrators and an overzealous prosecutor criminalizing a special needs eleven year old. In essence? An educational reform issue, and a travesty of justice issue. Not a cure issue. A cure for autism has absolutely nothing to do with Zakh's situation, whether you support one or not.

But most people don't see it that way. 'Party politics' in the autism community has left the neurodiversitites and cure-ites at opposing ends of a divisive world, when in fact our basic views are all the same: People on the spectrum have challenges that people not on the spectrum don't, and we all want to do everything we can to mitigate those challenges and improve quality of life. Unfortunately, this party politics, black and white line of thinking, has completely blinded the autism community from being able to work constructively together. That statement of a common goal may be poorly phrased, but I think it gets the point across. The differences are in our views of how to go about it, what's the moral way to go about it, and what we ought to be doing in order to realize our goals.

Take for instance our social issues (politically speaking, not related to autism). We all want to do what will be the best for our society and its people that inhabit our communities, but we disagree very often about what is best, and how to go about realizing our dreams about what is best. Some people support the death penalty as a means of deterring crime and enacting justice; others oppose the death penalty as encouraging judicial hypocrisy and immoral behavior. Some people think that women ought to be able to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy in order to give them more independence; others think that fetuses are equal human beings and that abortion constitutes murder. But, with a few extremist exceptions, do you see death penalty proponents and opponents at each other's throats in their communities, for no reason other than their views on the death penalty? No? I didn't think so.

So why is it different in the autism community, on the issue of whether or not there should be a cure for autism, or whether neurodiversity is a good thing or a bad thing? Yes, we disagree, and we should disagree. Disagreement is a healthy part of life and living in a place where there is freedom of speech. But disagreeing over one issue should NOT cloud our thinking or judgment when presented with other situations where action is clearly needed, or where there is a clear moral action to be taken (that anyone reasonable SHOULD agree on). Let's not let our politics get in the way of our solidarity as a community. Disagreement should NOT promote feelings of resentment, bitterness, and hatred.

What should disagreement do? Disagreement should foster healthy, respectful, open-minded discussion among all parties, and should unite a community through its common goals and basic ideals, perceived in different ways and with different means of attaining them. We celebrate differences in other ways - race, age, gender, interests, lifestyles. But why are we unable to tolerate political differences in the autism community? This befuddles me utterly.

Character and Author

2010-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

Oftentimes, in my fiction writing, I am faced with writing about characters whose lives, personalities, and accomplishments are far different than mine. Sometimes, I even choose to write exclusively from the perspective of just such a character. Some writers would contend that this is a bad proposition from the start, while others encourage exploring the characters of those who are different from us in many ways.

There are pros and cons to both types of characters - those that mirror ourselves, and those with whom we have little, if anything, in common. For those characters that are similar to ourselves, some writers will cry Mary Sue, or self-insertion, but this is not always true. Sometimes it takes writing a character similar to ourselves to fully understand some aspect of our own selves that we otherwise might never have hoped to understand. There are many great writers whose protagonists seemed to be but reflections of the author's own personal character. At the same time, you have characters like Bella Swan in Twilight, which was a badly written over-idealized wishful-fantasizing self-insertion on the part of the author.

Then there are the great writers whose characters share little if anything with their authors, the ones whose characters are as dynamic and interpersonal as a crowd of people. And sometimes authors may find failure while writing such characters, by not knowing how to portray them realistically, or more importantly, in a way that readers can relate to them. But it is when there is a success with such a character that a work may be hailed as a great achievement - writers who can well portray characters who reflect them very minimally are great writers indeed, for their sense of self and other, and perspective and emotion, is keen and adroit.

I have experimented with both, and I have found successes and failures with both. But mostly, I don't think about my characters in terms of whether they post any similarities to myself or not. These thoughts typically come long after I have created a character or begun to write concerning him or her. And by then, it just goes to show that any writer can develop talent and skill in portraying all sorts of people - just as there are people similar to oneself, there are those different from, and the adept writer can weave intricate characters from both categories.

All May Be Redeemed

2010-01-31T15:51:00.000-08:00

On the night of 21-22 February 2009, I dreamed a strange type of dreams. In most dreams, you the dreamer are either actively participating in the dream (whether as yourself, or as someone else), or are invisible but trying to communicate with the others in the dream (again, whether as yourself, or as someone else), but in this dream, I was a third party who was not participating at all in the dream, but watching it, as one might watch a movie without comment, unable to interfere with the action in any way.

In this dream, I watched as a young boy, perhaps around 9-16 years old - a young male, shall we say, then - who was a prisoner for some or another reason, his punishment being torture and an imminent execution to take place soon in the time frame of the dream. Then another man appeared, came up to the boy, and said "You know, I'll take your place. I will suffer and be tortured and die, and you will go free." And so he did.

As a Christian, this was a powerful image. We believe that God sent Jesus so that all of us may go free, even though we are all guilty of wrongdoing, and all equally deserving of the death penalty. But the gift isn't automatic, and it isn't a one-time deal, which is what many seemingly hypocritical self-identified Christians espouse. They say "We have been saved, so we can do what we want," and their lives pander to every worldly desire, whether positive. . . or negative. These people seem arrogant. Self-righteous. Their behavior and their attitude completely turns off other people who might otherwise consider what they have to say. I know. I've been one of them.

The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It also says that the wages of sin is death. Therefore, we are all sinful and all deserving of death. BUT. . . there is room for redemption. What is grace? Grace is giving what is not deserved. It is giving without expectation of reparation. It is mercy without reason. And that is what is so amazing about grace.