Here’s a link to an article I found a few months ago but never got around to posting. Collin Brusnahan is a sophomore cross country runner at Shorewood High School, which isn’t remarkable on its own, but what is remarkable is the fact that Collin is autistic.

Brusnahan had a doctor’s appointment and could not make practice. On the way home, he and his mother were passing by the course the team was running. Brusnahan saw them and spoke.

“Collin is a man of little words,” his mother said. “But he told me, ‘Pull over, mom,’ and he started getting out of the car to catch up with the team. He was in his street clothes.

“I sat there and was just astonished.”

It was shocking because Brusnahan and many autistic people rarely show affection for something in that way.

After reading the article, I did a little research on google, and I came up with the story of Anthony Crudale, another young man with autism who runs marathons. What struck me about the article was the single-minded devotion Crudale shows towards his running.

“I’m glad he’s good at it; it’s gives him confidence,” says his mother, who attends his marathons. “But I don’t like the ritual of it. It’s like when he used to spin things for hours. It bogs down his life.”

As someone who used to run cross-country in my younger days, it’s great to see how running can be used to give autistic individuals a chance to find their niche when it comes to athletics.

Earlier tonight, Greg Borowski over at All Politics Watch posted an interesting entry about polls showing Tommy Thompson continuing to trail his opponents in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Saturday’s Iowa Republican Party straw poll looms over Thompson’s campaign like a black cloud, because Governor Thompson has made it abundantly clear the straw poll is a “make or break” event for his campaign. Thompson has said he needs to finish first or second in order to be able to continue his campaign, and the polling I’ve seen shows Thompson finishing well out of the top three.

Tommy Thompson’s based his whole campaign around Iowa, and while he’s got a low-key, down to earth speaking style that could really resonate with Iowans, he suffers from being the less charismatic than Mike Huckabee, who has a really similar style of speaking. Those the same conservatives who would probably support Thompson for his down to earth speaking style and personality are instead flocking to Mike Huckabee, who has that “aw shucks” thing down pat, with the main difference between him and Tommy Thompson being that Huckabee doesn’t seem like as much of a boob as Tommy Thompson. I think it’s safe to say Tommy Thompson won’t finish in the top four in the Iowa straw poll, and I expect to see him drop from the race shortly after the results are announced.

It’s official - Barry Bonds is baseball’s all-time home run king. With one swing of his bat, Barry Bonds crushed a pitch from Mike Bacsik of the Nationals 435 feet deep into the stands at AT&T Park to surpass Hank Aaron’s record of 755 career home runs. I’ll make no secret of the fact that I hate that Barry Bonds was the one to break the record, because there’s never been a player less deserving of breaking a record than Barry Bonds. His use of performance enhancing substances will forever cloud this record - at least until it’s broken by someone like Alex Rodriguez. Even without his use of performance enhancing substances, Barry Bonds would have been recognized as one of the best players of this generation - if not the best, which is why it’s so disappointing that he chose to raise his game through better chemistry. I know some Barry Bonds apologists will argue it’s never been proven Bonds has used performance enhancing substances, and while that’s true, I simply refuse to believe Bonds magically bulked up naturally, without the help of any illegal or illicit substances.

Bonds before and after steroids

What really pains me the most about Bonds breaking the record is that he broke Hank Aaron’s record. Hank Aaron has been an ambassador for baseball, both during his career and after, and he left a significant mark on Milwaukee, both as a baseball player and as a person. Hank Aaron really is one of the “good guys,” and so I think it’s a terrible shame that his record was broken by a recalcitrant, self-centered cheat.

I won’t be celebrating for Barry Bonds, and I can only hope he’ll finally retire after this season, so his record will be within the reach of someone like Alex Rodriguez.

I happened to be watching the news tonight, and I heard a story about a 13 year-old boy who was shot outside the home of Milwaukee County Supervisor Peggy West. Curious for more information, I surfed on over to WISN.com, where I found a little more on the story. Apparently the dispute was gang related, and according to the report, the boy who was shot allegedly flashed gang symbols at a 14-year-old friend of Supervisor West’s daughter, who then pulled out a gun and shot the 13-year-old in the back. The 13 year-old victim is recovering in the hospital, but he’s going to be paralyzed for life from the waist down.

Supervisor West’s home has apparently been vandalized since the incident, and she says her family has received death threats as well. This is a sad story all the way around, but what really gets my goat is the fact that the shooter apparently can’t (or won’t) be tried as an adult, so he’s going to get a slap on the wrist for his actions. I know I should probably show a little mercy considering the shooter’s only 14 years old, but I’m a firm believer that if he was grown up enough to have a gun and use it, he should be grown up enough to face the consequences as a grown up.

As I noted earlier today, it seems County Supervisor candidate Chris Kujawa is no fan of voter referendums, despite his public comments that “Public service needs to be about serving the best interests of the public.” It seems County Executive Scott Walker is no fan of voter referendums either, which really isn’t much of a surprise. However, as I was trolling through the Cheddarsphere, I came across a really interesting entry by Brew City Brawler, who astutely points out that just five short years ago, County Executive candidate Scott Walker said:

“…I will take this vision for the future directly to the people. Instead of working deals in a backroom in the executive’s office, I will take our agenda on the road to senior citizen clubs, civic organizations, church groups, and anywhere else people are willing to listen. Positive change must come through the support of the public and this will force the board to act on our reforms.”

What I find really interesting about conservatives is the level of their hypocrisy. Many conservatives I’ve either interacted with or heard speak have struck similar tones about wanting to “give power back to the people” and about “letting people decide for themselves,” yet every time they’re given an opportunity to put their words into action, they refuse and blame some liberal bogeyman. If Scott Walker really supports voter referendums, then I challenge him to put his money where his mouth is and allow the sales tax referendum to make it to the ballot.

During my scan of the interwebs, I happened to come across one article and one news brief related to autism that I felt were worth sharing here.

The first is a news brief from Greater Milwaukee Online discussing Governor Jim Doyle’s plan to be part of a rally Tuesday in Milwaukee with 200 autistic children, their families, teachers, health care providers and others who work with those with autism. The rally is in support of a measure currently under consideration in the State Senate that would mandate health insurance companies provide coverage for autism treatment. Currently, autism is classified as an emotional disorder by insurance companies, as opposed to being classified as a neurological medical condition. This provides health insurance companies with a convenient excuse to avoid having to pay for autism treatment, which in most cases can total tens of thousands of dollars a year.

The refusal by insurance companies to provide coverage for autism treatment means that even folks who have health insurance are forced to rely on Medicaid to provide autism treatment. Having to rely on Medicaid means having to deal with the unimaginably long waiting lists to get such treatment, and I fail to understand why I should have to wait over 11 months to get my son the help he needs simply because my insurance company wants to save a few bucks. I know I’m being selfish because my son’s affected by autism, but I fail to understand why I pay health insurance premiums only to have my health insurance provider tell me, “No Thanks” when it comes to helping get my son the help he so desperately needs. I think it’s an absolute travesty that someone with health insurance should have to rely on public assistance to get help for their child, and this situation is a perfect example of why we need comprehensive health care reform here in America.

The second article I came across today happened to be on Time.com. The article outlines a new study due to be released soon that contends that autism may be caused by watching too much television at a tender age. Now I don’t know how much stock to put in the results of the study, simply because the study itself didn’t actually measure the amount of television being watched by children; it merely looked for a connection between autistic children, weather patterns, and a cable television hookup in the home. I’m certainly no expert on autism, but I tend to believe there’s no one easy answer as to what causes autism, or why there’s been such an explosion of diagnosed autism cases.

According to an article submitted by Patty Kujawa, County Supervisor candidate Chris Kujawa has rejected the County Board’s plan to push a referendum that would raise the area’s sales tax by a penny, if approved. Kujawa’s position on this issue is interesting, given the fact that according to his own campaign website, he believes, “Public service needs to be about serving the best interests of the public.” Apparently, Mr. Kujawa believes serving the best interests of the public involves him deciding what’s best for his constituents, instead of allowing those constituents to decide for themselves. Mr. Kujawa’s disdain for letting the taxpayers of Milwaukee decide the issue for themselves in a referendum is exactly the kind of attitude we don’t need on the County Board, because the citizens of the 8th District deserve a Supervisor who trusts citizens enough to give them the opportunity to decide these kinds of issues for themselves. If Chris Kujawa can’t be bothered to trust the good people of the 8th District to make decisions for themselves, then how can the citizens of the 8th District trust him to provide us with the quality representation we deserve?

Chris Kujawa has made it clear he wants to be a County Supervisor so he can serve as nothing more than a rubber stamp for County Executive Scott Walker, a fact that should come as no surprise given their close relationship. Kujawa’s company has done over two hundred thousand dollars worth of work for the County, a fact that apparently escaped Mr. Kujawa’s memory during a recent interview, saying that fact “slipped his mind.” The citizens of the 8th District deserve more from their Supervisor than someone who’s perfectly content to vote in lockstep with the wishes of the County Executive, never mind the wishes of the citizens he hopes to be elected to serve.

The citizens of Milwaukee County’s 8th District deserve more than a “rubber stamp” from their Supervisor; they deserve real leadership that isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo and think outside the box when necessary, and quite frankly, Chris Kujawa just can’t offer that kind of leadership.

So according to an article on All Politics Watch, County Supervisor candidate Chris Kujawa, a personal favorite of mine (yeah right), said in an interview this week that KEI, his family’s landscaping and exterior design company, doesn’t do business with the county. Kujawa went on to say he resents suggestions he might have a business conflict of interest if he wins a vacant south suburban Milwaukee seat on the County Board. What’s really interesting about Chris Kujawa’s statements is the fact that records show his company’s been paid over $200,000 by Milwaukee County for products and services his landscape firm has provided the county since 2000. Of course, when asked to explain the discrepancy between his own statements and county records, Kujawa chalked it up to the fact that $200,000 worth of work his company did for the county “slipped his mind.”

This is yet another example of why Chris Kujawa simply isn’t fit to serve as a member of the County Board of Supervisors, and I personally hope Pat Jursik hands him his hind end on Tuesday.

This is a little bit random, but the story caught my eye and made me chuckle, so I thought I’d repost. A Madison man, Jim Gleeson, won San Jose State University’s 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, beating out thousands of other entrants. Gleeson submitted 20 entries, and this was the winner:

“Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them ‘permanently’ meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee.”

Now that right there is some God-awful writing. What’s really disturbing to me is that as bad as Gleeson’s entry was, I’ve seen some pretty comparable writing from folks who weren’t trying to write poorly; they just have no skill at all.

This is great news.

I’m glad to see the South Milwaukee School Board recognizes the need for a full-time position in the district’s early childhood program. The EC program at Blakewood School seeks to better prepare children with autism before they reach school age, in hopes that the children can be “mainstreamed” into regular classes. According to the article, since the 2003-04 school year, the school district has gone from seven students recognized with autism spectrum disorders to 22 projected for the coming year. It’s obvious there’s a need for a full-time position, and I’m so pleased to see the School Board taking appropriate action to address the issue. What really amazes me is the fact that the School Board obviously did their research on the issue, with board President Brett Briesemeister saying, “We try to find kids who need help, as early intervention will help smooth the transition. If we catch kids early, they’re better off for the 12 years they are with us.”

It’s no secret early intervention is the key to success for children with autism, and I’m glad the folks on the School Board of South Milwaukee recognize that fact.