Dear Mr W. K. Dawson,

You wonderful man, sir. You marvellous man, sir.

Many parents would be at a loss as to how to do something like that for their autistic children, but you have shown exactly how to do it. It's called accepting your child as autistic, regardless of his/her age, and accepting that s/he needs some support even as an adult, and that sometimes that support will still mean messy hands (although, in many cases, not involving nappies... although this can sometimes be needed too).

My own father, a somewhat Aspie-ish man himself, suggested that we should not make too much of my daughter's diagnosis when it comes time for her to go to school here. I don't know why he said that: he knows the problems I had in school, and how it affected my quality of life. Both my parents still seem to see it in the old-fashioned way of looking at it: that of an illness needing a cure or treatment, I think.

My wife and I pulled out all the stops for our daughter, because we do not believe that organisations and systems are as caring as they are believed to be, and because of our own very similar experiences in very different countries (I'm from the UK and she is from Finland). Recently, a special education nursery teacher and a social worker took it upon themselves to harrass us, by - ultimately - threatening to take our daughter away from us and put her in care. We hit the roof. I would have happily hit them. We did what the Finnish call "paperisota" (a paper war) with them, and buried them in papers: letters from our supervisor at university (we are both studying at the same place: I shall qualify with an MEd in Special Education: Applied Educational Psychology this year and she will qualify with a Postgraduate Diploma in Special Education: Applied Pedagogics). The story is long, but the point is ( and you reflect it well in your supportive letter to Pettigrew) that the impact of autism isn't what most people like to comfort themselves by thinking that it is: it is in fact what people do to us from their organisational ivory towers. That is what I perceive from your letter, anyway. If I am correct in that understanding, then I thank you for saying this.

And so, Mr Dawson, you excellent man, you... in supporting Michelle, you have validated the experience of the very vast majority of autistics (yes, I'm one, as is the Missus, and our daughter), and you have therefore supported us too. I thank you, then, for supporting Michelle and - can I say - the rest of us too. If only the Kit Weintraubs, Lenny Schafers, Jim Mulicks and other parents of autistic children were like you; I think we could get more things done properly if they were. And I hope that, as I support my daughter, I can do it with the grace and composure that you have done in support of your own.

Sincerely,
David N. Andrews BA-status, AEPiT
Applied Educational PSychologist
Kotka
Finland

Michelle,

Your dad's a star.

David

I hope that the Minister of Health, Pierre Pettigrew, has responded to Mr. Dawson's excellent letter! Please let us know if, and when, he responds.

Hello Michelle,
Maybe Pierre Pettigrew, or his replacement, will reply to your letter with the seriousness it deserves, after the Canadian general election.

Today Ujjal Dossanjh, the former NDP Premier of British Columbia, was sworn in as Pierre Pettigrew's replacement as Health Minister.

Nice letter to Ujjal Dossanjh. I really hope he responds positively.

Camille

Edited by author 08-03-2004 05:43 AM
Camille, at this point I think it would be more effective to send the Minister one of your "Autism: it's not like you think" t-shirts. Or a bumper sticker, for his limo. It could hardly be *less* effective.

If I send you the bumper sticker, can you put it on
his limo...or one of his limos...?

I suppose he'd give the tshirt to the limo driver to
polish the limo.

I wonder about a trucker hat? I could photoshop a
photo and put him INTO one of my t-shirts....eh? eh?

don't tell me no...cuz I'm a gonna do it.

:-)

Camille -- Peter Szatmari is next.
--- QT - Michelle Dawson
<qtopic+26-Z9ARL6ftLeGdh@quicktopic.com> wrote:

>
>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

oh, I forgot we were talking about the guy with the unpronounceable name...I'm going to start with your pm PM.

Camille - the what's his name the minister if I can find his photo - the Szatmari

Fuck!

Michelle?

Your dad is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers????

Damn. Not an easy honour to get, as far as I was aware (having started out somewhere along the line in engineering of the same type).

I'm struggling to qualify by very unorthodox means.

Re IEEE, see http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/new...emberson_award.html

Edited by author 08-20-2004 01:39 PM
Bloody hell!!!!!

He's doing very well, isn't he?!

And a nuclear physicist to boot! I loved my physics courses! Especially the nuclear/atomic and quantum physics....

*removes hat*

Edited by author 07-21-2006 12:55 PM
Please post further comments on No Thank You, Pierre Pettigrew to the following discussion board:
http://www.quicktopic.com/27/H/vJvhV4fDnBgw7

Edited by author 07-21-2006 02:11 PM
Correction:
Please post further comments on No Thank You, Pierre Pettigrew to the following discussion board:
http://www.quicktopic.com/24/H/fgjQyy3iXCf