Open Letter To John Travolta and Weekend Shenanigans

While I highly doubt Johnny boy will actually read this (heck, I'm not sure *anyone* is reading this thing!), there's a little something I feel I, as the mother of an autistic son for nearly 20 years, should address.

According to Wikipedia, this plea from Hollywood Interrupted's Mark Ebner, and this story from Sunday's Herald Sun (an Australian newspaper), Travolta has been avoiding a possible problem with his son for quite some time. Jett is now 15 years old and has been rumoured for years to be autistic. Their cult's teachings don't "allow" this, so it's been swept under the carpet.


From the Wikipedia entry:

"On April 10, 2006, Mark Ebner of Hollywood, Interrupted made a public plea to Travolta and Preston to have their son treated for autism, alleging five reliable sources — including representatives from Cure Autism Now and The Autism Perspective — who say that Jett suffers from autism, and not from Kawasaki syndrome as stated by the parents. His brother Joey Travolta recently produced a documentary about autism."


And from the Herald Sun story:

"But parents of autistic children say that Travolta should join American celebrities Sylvester Stallone, Doug Flutie, Jenny McCarthy and Toni Braxton - who all have autistic children - in raising awareness and research funds to cure the disease."

Also see this Autism FAQ - Well-known Autistic People from the Autism Resources site.


I read through the comments attached to Mark's plea and I need to address some issues. First and foremost, autism is NOT a disease and it can't be cured. It can be controlled through therapy and, in extreme cases, medication. But there is no cure in sight at this point. I wish there were, believe me, but my son will never be autism-free. His condition has improved a great deal over the years, yes, but Riel will never be perfectly "normal."

He is also NOT mentally challenged (or the dreaded r-word which should be outlawed), as so many of the readers commented. I can't believe people still think that way in 2007, amazing. Talk to some autistic kids. Trust me, most of them are probably smarter than you and I, they just have a hard time expressing themselves.

I have a problem with organizations (such as the two mentioned above) giving people false hope. How the heck can we expect a cure when we still don't know what causes the damn thing? By all means, cough up dough for research and programs to help parents deal, get the kids into therapy (still too expensive for the average family to handle), whatever, but don't feed these desperate people lies on a sugar-coated spoon.

There is no cure. Deal with the son or daughter you have now. Love them, train them to behave better, stop them from biting themselves or knocking their heads against a wall, but don't waste your time and money dreaming of a cure.

Way back in 1992, the TV show, "20/20", had a fascinating report on what's now known as the Leominster Cluster in Massachusetts, home to a Foster Grant sunglasses plant. Here's a write-up I found published by The New York Times in 1992:


Tonight's edition of "20/20" contains intriguing evidence of a connection between environmental pollution and autism. "The Street Where They Lived," a report by Dr. Timothy Johnson, the ABC News medical editor, focuses on a number of children who suffer from some form of pervasive developmental disorder, a combination of social, behavioral and language problems, of which autism is the best known. What links the children is the town of Leominster, Mass., where their mothers or fathers grew up in the 1960's.

Leominster was then home to several plastics companies that polluted air, water and land. Suspicion centers especially on the 27 smokestacks of Foster Grant, makers of sunglasses; they spewed a derivative of vinyl chloride, which is known to cause cancer and other illnesses. The relationship to autism is not proved, but, as Dr. Johnson notes, the figures are startling: a neighborhood of about 600 homes around the Foster Grant plant have produced 42 cases of pervasive developmental disorder. That compares with a national figure of 15 children in 10,000 who show symptoms of the disease. Experts remain unconvinced, but this brief report ends with a hope that the painful story of Leominster may hold a clue to the cruel riddle of autism."


And there's an interesting story on the Brown University site on Martha E. Lang, a paraprofessional in Bio-Med, and her dissertation on the environmental connections with autism she found in Leominster.


But what's been done in the last fifteen years? Diddley squat as far as I can tell. What else happened fifteen years ago? That's right, little Jett Travolta was born and, if reports are correct, diddley and squat have been done for him as well.

I'm so glad we didn't give up on Riel when he was first diagnosed (as that doctor I mentioned in this post wanted me to do) and I'd hate to think Travolta's done the same.

So, why should I care what he does about his son? Because it breaks my heart to think one of the richest men in the world, someone who could buy the best therapists and all the equipment or nutritional supplements a kid could need, is doing nothing and hoping it goes away or something. And I can only imagine the positive influence someone like Travolta would be for the autism community.

When I started my adventure on the web eleven years ago, I didn't have a lot of content and just naturally assumed folks would enjoy seeing pictures Riel had drawn with our Paintbrush program. Boy, did they! And some of the messages brought me to tears. In particular, a sister whose autistic brother was never allowed to participate in family activities as her parents were "ashamed of him." She wrote to thank me for showcasing Riel's artwork and not hiding him away from the public eye. How bloody heart-breaking is that, huh? I wrote back a long email that I hope helped her cope in some way. I just hate to think Jett is being treated the same way.


On another autism related note, I so wish I had known about this past weekend's 3rd Annual Ontario Walk Now For Autism here in Toronto, but I was clueless (I'm pretty ticked at Riel's school for not telling us). I'll remember for next year and we'll be there with bells on!

Perhaps we'll call ourselves Riel's Rangers or something. Get a load of some of the great team names I found on the site:

A Mile For Max
Christopher's Crusaders
Finding The Missing Pieces
Jack's Joggers
Jammin' for Jason
Kieran's Smile Says Miles!
Mad Mac's Family
Magic Backyard
Matthew's Voice
Mike's Believers
Nicholas' Noodle Heads
Nicholas' Nearest and Dearest
Owen's Optimists
Raisin' Hell for Isabel
Roarke Rocks
Ronan's Renegades
Tyler's Future
Under the Umbrella Tree
Vanessa's Smile


If you're still reading, you must be here for the latest Weekend Shenanigans, so let's get to 'em! The only outing we had was on Saturday for the Kingston Road Street Fest. First time in ages that the weather was nice enough, but alas, it seemed the fest was a lot smaller than previous years. It helps if you have very young kids as they'd enjoy the face painting, the bouncy castle, and the clowns etc. Otherwise, we enjoyed the street bands:






While the Kingston Road United Church drew a good crowd:




And a couple of mounted police made an appearance which the kids loved:






There were clowns (or at least this guy):




And, ummm, a gingerbread man posed for me:




Gabby's had a band called Coldwater entertaining inside:




Which Riel enjoyed dancing to (they had a really nice sound actually):




And he got a kick out of the karaoke machine set up outside Gabby's:




Meanwhile, after we'd done the fest, George enjoyed seeing the Toronto FC win 2-1 over the Colorado Rapids:






I rounded off the weekend by taking a shot of our cat, Doc, stretched out in the backyard:




In other news, I thought this Yahoo.com item was pretty cool:

WARSAW (Reuters) - A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.

Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival.

"It was Gertruda that saved me, and I'll never forget it," Grzebski told news channel TVN24.

"For 19 years Mrs Grzebski did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections," Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as saying.

"When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere," Grzebski told TVN24, describing his recollections of the communist system's economic collapse.

"Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."

Grzebski awoke to find his four children had all married and produced 11 grandchildren during his years in hospital.

He said he vaguely recalled the family gatherings he was taken to while in a coma and his wife and children trying to communicate with him.



From there, I stumbled on this interesting story about Kirk Cameron preaching and this entertaining take on YouTube called GodTube where I found these two funny vids:


Mac vs. PC ad parody




"Baby Got Book", a parody of the rap hit "Baby Got Back":





Man, I just love my web! Till next time, kids.

Mother's Day Weekend Shenanigans At BMO Field

Hope you all had a good Mother's Day weekend and treated or remembered your mothers with kindness. I had an awesome weekend myself (been too busy working on a big update for the Sesame Street site to blog about it, sorry!), thanks for asking. It started off with a bang on Saturday as we experienced something you don't get to do too often; we were a part of history, baby.

A while back, word started to spread around George's local, Gabby's (980 Kingston Road); Toronto had a brand spanking new football club (aka soccer on this side of the Pond), Toronto FC, and they were looking pretty darn good. BMO Field, their new stadium on the old Exhibition Stadium grounds (where I saw Leif Garrett in the '70s, unwillingly might I add), sounded pretty tasty, too, what with their international food and their Carlsberg Pavilion. Hey, I know, let's all go see a game! Well, not all, but 48 of us ended up going, thanks to George, your go-to footy guy, and Gabby's cool managers, Larry, Danny, and Gus.

And what a game we saw! My first football game turned into a whole afternoon of firsts. Most importantly, not only did we get to see the team's first goal (hey, we're young, we're still getting on our feet, so to speak), but two more to boot for our first win, woohoo! We also scored our first red card (Danny Dichio), our first streaker (he didn't make the field, alas), and our first fan ejection. I didn't capture them all on film, but let's get to the pics of this great day out.



Never did get a good group shot of the day, I concentrated on the game a bit much, but here's Dougie and Gavin, in his full TFC gear, before the game, outside Gabby's.



And here's Gavin waving his TFC scarf out the bus window like a lunatic .. I mean, like the level-headed super fan he is.



The hallowed ground, BMO Field.




For the first couple of hours before every home game, the parking lot's a sports playground for kids and adults. Looks like fun, but we didn't have time to investigate this time.




Our first look at the field and scoreboard/video screen as we headed for our seats in Section 110, lined up with one of the goals (which turned out to be the right place to be for the first goal) and right next to the infamous fan section, 113. You'll meet these guys shortly. They certainly did add to the atmosphere!




Some of the boys warming up. Don't ask me for names, the pics aren't close enough. I took most of the action shots with extreme close-up and just hoped someone would be in the shot. Hard to take outdoor pics with my camera as it has no viewfinder, I can only go by the screen where the image tends to fade in the sunlight.



Section 113 is starting to warm up and fill up.



The first of many flags takes flight.





My boys warming up for the game; Riel digging his Game Boy (he did put it away once the real game started), while George and his friend, Stewart, admire the facilities.




And Stewart enjoys the scenery (Charmaine and Wayne coming back with beverages, she's the blonde, he's wearing the blue jacket)



At this point, we hadn't managed to score a goal in our first four games, so this great flag of a John Lennon drawing with the words, "All We Are Saying Is Give Us A Goal", went down well with the crowd. We were all soon chanting along at the top of our lungs. Lots of fun.




The teams line up and the US and Canadian flags are held aloft as the anthems are sung.



Section 113 did us all proud by holding their TFC scarves aloft during "Oh, Canada." Gets ya right there *sniff*



A shot of the scarves from further back.




To commemorate the Grand Opening of BMO Field, they gave away seat cushions. Brilliant move. Didn't take long to figure out these puppies could fly! The first rain of cushions began as the game started ...



... took 'em 10 minutes to pick 'em all up. Which, naturally, slowed down the start of the game. As did each subsequent shower during the game. Twits. I shouldn't talk, really. I only have one of our three cushions left. Riel tossed the other two with joyous abandon once he saw them all starting to fly.




As the large, glorious, TFC flag started to wave in Section 113 ...


... the confetti cannons went off, woohoo!


Dusted the pitch on our end with confetti for the rest of the game.


Bit messy, huh? Bet the goalkeepers were thrilled. Check list for next home game: lose the projectile giveaways and the slippery confetti on the pitch.


Find the ball. Bet he had trouble, too!


Another action shot of the pitch.




Random action shot of the game. Note the birthday hat in the right-hand corner. Taken right before I was handed the only beer I had for the whole game ($8.50 a pop, yeah, right!), which meant my hands were full for ...


Our first goal, scored by Danny Dichio, yeeha! Sorry I didn't get the goal itself, but this fella's reaction says it all :-) Taken moments after the goal was scored, note the litter of cushions already on the field.




Section 113 went nuts for the historic goal.




Streamers added to the celebratory mess.



Before we had time to bask in the afterglow, there's a fracas in the net ...



I zoomed in for a closer shot, right before the man of the hour, Danny Dichio, was handed a red card in an awful display of the most horrendous, "The ref is freakin' blind!", officiating I've ever seen. The keeper should have been tossed, but let's not dwell on bygones, shall we? Oh, look, a distraction.




The owner of the birthday hat from earlier (note its angle after a few beers), party on, dude! Ya just gotta have shirtless guys at a footy match. Him and four of his buddies obliged us for the second half of the game, bless 'em.

George wasn't pleased with my taking these pics, but not for the reason you'd guess. Seems the cad was wearing AC Milan undies. Who knew?! Anyway, we went on to win the game, 3-1 (my batteries ran low, we went for food, so there's not a lot of blog worthy game pics to show), and the crowd went wild.










The team applauded the fans ...




... and an overzealous fan was led off the field, the first official ejection, I believe. He was but one of many. Probably screwed themselves out of any more home games for at least this season, but I'll bet it was worth it!




We left behind some seat cushion frisbees and empty beer cups. But, we left with a dose of hometown pride in our hearts and a lump in our throats from a thrilling game and day out.



Way to go, George! And a huge thanks to the Gabby's boys for their help and support for the team. So, when's the next one?!



After the excitement of the game on Saturday, I had a lovely, quiet Mother's Day.



It was a glorious day, as you can see from this shot I took down Beech Ave., facing Lake Ontario. Some girlfriends invited me to enjoy High Tea at the La Tea Da Tea tea room on Queen Street, which was quite the treat, as you can see.




Little finger sandwiches and scones on the bottom tier, cakes, pastries, and fruit slices on the top, with your own pot of tea (the tea menu has about 30 exotic choices, I had the Lady Londonderry). All the little touches added up, too, like real Devonshire cream for the scones and such unique and delicate tea services for each customer (a lot of them are apparently donated by local residents). It felt like such a decadent outing!

Otherwise, George and Riel amused themselves at the park and let me enjoy my day with the girls, which I certainly did. Hope your weekend was half as much fun!