Four years ago, Larry and Judy Vardon’s house was extensively remodeled thanks to ABC-TV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, in part to accommodate their blind, autistic now-16-year-old son, Lance. Now the family faces the loss of the house: The family’s mortgage payment has almost doubled since the makeover and their medical insurance does not cover medical, dental, and other therapies for Lance. Both Larry and Judy Vardon are deaf and the renovations included the installation of cameras and flat-screen monitors for them to monitor their son. As reported in today’s Associated Press via MLive:
Adding to their insecurity, Larry Vardon, 50, works …read more

Professor Stanley Fish of Florida International University, in Miami and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, opens a post about “norms and deviations” on his New York Times blog by citing a letter published in Time magazine:
A letter published in the May 26 issue of Time magazine protests the inclusion, in Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, of two researchers allied with the organization Cure Autism Now (a name that speaks for itself). The letter writer declares himself to be “outraged” because, in his view, “Autistic …read more