Autism(?) in the Meadowlands

New Jersey where I live has the highest prevalence rate for autism—CDC in February—hence have state senators pushed forward a number of proposals to fund autism research and treatment as well as to create a statewise autism registry. Why there is “so much” autism in New Jersey is a topic not so easily answered: There is certainly a lot of awareness and a lot of services and educational programs here, and a lot of parents who seek these out. Others point to the Garden State’s reputation for being less than environmentally safe and sound, and even “toxic“; for myself I think the heightened awareness of and knowledge about autism needs to be seriously taken into account in considering New Jersey’s high rate.

I do have occasion to think about the environmental state of this state: It is the case that, at some point on my drive to work (around the time I am just passing by the Newark Airport), the general smell of things is garbage-like, and then simply of garbage as I pass over the Pulaski Skyway, down the ramp, and down by trash heaps full of metal pieces, formerly car parts. My drive also takes me just on the edge of the Meadowlands, the wetlands area of New Jersey that houses Giants Stadium, a racetrack, and, yes, wildlife and natural resources. (Here I documented our trip floating around the Hackensack River amid the phragmites reeds and some gorgeous old train bridges.)

So there were shades of Jersey on my mind when I heard of a new Showtime TV series with the name of Meadowlands about Danny-who-used-to-be-Eddie, whose “doings have gotten the family delivered into a remote witness-protection program that Mom is deeply in rebellion/denial about”—could Danny be in hiding from a connection with a New Jersey family “like this? The pilot is this Sunday, June 19th; “Meadowlands” is the name of the Florida development that Danny and family are dropped off at.

The June 16th Sun-Sentinal also notes that the show is “a family chronicle of contemporary parents who can’t fathom what the heck’s happening with their wild-and-randy teen daughter and her ADD/OCD/autism poster-child twin brother.” This brother, Mark, is described as “withdrawn”: “Troubled son Mark cocoons in his bedroom to the strains of Alan Price’s O Lucky Man.” I’ll reserve judgment on the character Mark’s diagnosis, the possible representation of autism, and the Meadowlands—-what is it about autism as the diagnosis of the “troubled child” of late?