I Speak of Dreams

Shiny Happy Person Says It For Me

Thankfully, I am feeling better, thanks to medication and psychotherapy.

Depression is both the most godawful, visceral agony, and a numbness so overwhelming you can't imagine ever feeling real again. It is an inability to feel or be affected by anything other than your own intense pain. It is frostbite of the mind. It is that dream where you want to scream but no sound comes out. Depression is the feeling of walking through glue, both physically and mentally, which reflects in the effort it takes to open your mouth to speak. Depression paints the world monochrome and muffles all sounds. Depression strips away your personality and leaves you two-dimensional. Normal human functioning diminishes; sleep dwindles to nothing, food becomes an alien notion, weight falls from your bones in a physical representation of your character and the person you have forgotten you used to be. Depression is crawling on hands and knees to get to the bathroom; it is lying in bed and wondering if you would be able to move if the house was on fire. It is trying to carry out a familiar activity and not having the first clue what to do.

Depression is all of these things, and it is all of these things for week after week, month after month. It does not begin and end at feeling miserable.

Dyslexia Not A Learning Disability In New Zealand

According to the news report (below the fold) the Education Ministry of New Zealand does not recognize dyslexia as a learning disability.

The first article repeats some myths ("Sometimes they see words or numbers back to front"--no, no, no; "dyslexics are visual learners."--I don't know what that's supposed to mean). 

And sadly, the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand is closely linked with Davis Dyslexia Method--an approach to dyslexia that has no research base in terms of either the cause of dyslexia or remediating the condition.

New Zealand is also the home of Reading Recovery, which is not effective in teaching dyslexic students and lacks a research base.

High Achieving Dyslexics: Ashok Kurien

The opening speaker at Tata Interactive's 2006 Learning Disability Forum (TLDF 2006) was a man who did not let dyslexia stop his advance.

Ashok Kurien talked of his days as a child, how he had struggled in school, failing numerous exams. The school kept him merely because he was an excellent athlete. Inside the classroom he was the object of derision. He could hardly even spell correctly. His mother who headed a department at a university whipped him and called him slow. As did his teachers. When he went on to college more insults were heaped on him. He dropped out. His mother refused to talk to him and they didn't exchange words for over 45 years. Kurien took up a job in the villages of India, flying small planes to spray fields with insecticide. Five years later he headed back to the city and enrolled in a college again. This time, he persevered to finish his graduation and joined an ad agency. Though his colleagues ridiculed him, his clients loved him for his creative input. Seven years later, with less than Rs. 5,000 in his bank account, he started his own ad agency. Ambience was a big success and was eventually bought by the French agency Publicis, who retained Kurien as the managing director. He went on to become one of the founding directors of India's first independent media company, Zee. He also established India's first privately owned lottery, Playwin and started DishTV, India's first Direct-to-Home TV service. Today he is worth thousands of crores. Like Branson, Ashok Kurien achieved success despite his dyslexia. And he achieved it in a society that ill-treated him and refused to accept his problem.

The connection between dyslexia and entrepreneurial success has been noted in many places.

Winter Travel Safety

My deepest condolences to James Kim's family and friends.

I started a post on the Kim family experience.  But Chris Clarke said it all better than I could.

Except I'd add one thing, drummed into me by my dad: never head into the mountains without a full tank of gas. 

It's saved my bacon more than once.

I heard John Dill once say, "It's not the first bad decision that kills you, but it is the one that seals your fate."   Please read Dill's Hiking Safely article.

Holiday gifts

77 items under $77

I'm thinking of sending this to PZ Meyers -- you can order one here.

Ballista, trebuchet, catapult: I know somebody who would enjoy putting one of these together for his son.  You can order one for yourself here.

Recycling is good, correct?  So wouldn't you want an oil lamp made out of a genuine recycled grenade?  Get yours here.

Save Money on Health Care

The good folks down under have just mounted a self-diagnostic service that can save you beaucoup bux on health care.

Read Second Sight for more info.

Academy at Ivy Ridge Not A School

The Academy at Ivy Ridge (AIR) began in 2000 when Robert Litchfield bought the former college campus in Ogenburg,  New York,  and leased it to Jason G. Finlinson (Litchfield's brother-in -law) to begin a school for

an effective specialty school for adolescents ages 12 through 18. These adolescents have excellent potential but are headed for some serious problems. Typically, these are students who are determined to do their "own thing", regardless of whom it hurts or how it may alter their futures.

The school opened in January 2002.

Now Finlinson is back in the news again. 

A letter from the State Education Department to Ivy Ridge quoted in the Watertown Times says, "The Department's review revealed that AIR is principally a behavior modification program and not a school..."

On July 26, 2006, the law firm of Hancock & Estabrook filed a $100 million class action law suit against Ivy Ridge Academy, Finlinson, and WWASPs citing

Plaintiffs alleged in their Complaint that defendants fraudulently advertised Academy of Ivy Ridge (AIR) as an accredited boarding school licensed to issue credits and diplomas to its students

Ivy Ridge has several different websites:

http://www.academyivyridge.com/

The academic program at the Academy at Ivy Ridge has been designed to work successfully for the college-prep student as well as the learning-disabled student.

http://www.teenpaths.org/ivy_ridge

Small classes and ideal student to teacher ratio, help create an extremely progressive academic program. [snip]

Credits earned by students at Ivy Ridge usually have no problem transfering to the majority of public schools and institutions of higher learning throughout the USA.

http://ivyridge.us/

I've written about Ivy Ridge here (with extensive comments from kids who were held there) and here.

This Made Me Laugh Out Loud

ValleyWag's newbies article, linking to an awesome egowall.

Disgusting Fraud

For the last twenty years, Rosie Marie Costello has been collecting Social Security benefits for her son, Pete, who was reputed to be mentally and physically incapacitated, unable to communicate and unable to perform even rudimentary self care.  Costello is now 28 years old, and was recently filmed contesting a traffic ticket.

Pete and Rosie Marie Costello were indicted in September on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud. The Vancouver, Wash., pair pleaded not guilty in federal court in Tacoma on Tuesday after the case was unsealed.

Having friends with very impaired kids, I know the difference that SSI can make to a family.  This makes me livid.  Is the existence of this case going to make qualifying for support tougher for families with kids with real disabilities?

And I'm thinking about Pete Costello's childhood -- how did Rosie Marie convince him at age 8 to fake a disability?  Did he ever go to school?  Have friends?  Live anything like a normal life, from the age of 8 to 18?

via boing boing

Juvenile Injustice

Arbitrary and Capricious pointed me to this post by David Feiges "Stop Jailing the Juvies" :

"rather than promoting public safety, detention — the pretrial “jailing” of youth not yet found delinquent — may contribute to future offenses. Studies from around the country show that incarcerated youth have higher recidivism rates than youth supervised in other kinds of settings."

Full study (from Justice Policy Institute ) here

Feiges is the author of Indefensible.