what a powerful response, thank you. not to go off-topic but there’s a lot of talk about faith and spirituality swirling around me at the moment (though I’m not a religious person)—-I do think that belief and something about, faith, perhaps are part of the emotions and feelings in these discussions.

It is also a very diverse congregation in terms of race, ethnicity, and wealth. Most support Barack Obama which shows even God’s children can be wrong.

I am disturbed by the absolute hatred that some have for anyone who has faith, leaving aside the attempts by some to introduce religion into the classroom.

The rules about gaining acquiring monetary assistance for our children past a certain age are indeed strange. Everyone who has a child incapable of supporting itself needs to look into a special needs trust.

One learns something new everyday. Today, I learned that supporters of Israel are commies. I suggest reading any of Robert Conquest’s books before making such an absurd stipulation. Neocons support Israel because they think it is in America’s best interest to do so. One can argue whether they are right or wrong, but to suggest they do it for other reasons suggests they are a fifth column and smacks of antisemitism.

You wrote:

You spend a great deal of space discussing a topic you do not really want to talk about anymore and offer little space to discuss topics you do want to discuss. Why pander to it?

Indeed yes I do, and I thank you for the “good luck” wish regarding concerns about employment. Hopefully we can all work together at whatever levels we are at to move forward to create change—-a very general statement, but one that colors my various other efforts (and various other postings on education, funding, autism organizations, and so forth), and my scrambling.

It does bother me that, when the subject is autism, there’s so much attention here (as in this thread) being devoted to the political position of Slate and to government conspiracies—–perseveration of a certain sort………and it seems hard to keep attention on what and who’s in front of us.

As for what’s in front of me where I work in Jersey City—-it meant a lot when Obama came to my college campus, Saint Peter’s College, back in January.