Wade Rankin's blog

I just posted something on my other blog, Injecting Sense, about last week's American Rally for Personal Rights. Along with being an excuse to post some photos from the event, it gave me a chance to rebut some of the misinformation being spread on the web about something I am very proud of. Rather than repost it in its entirety here, I would simply refer you here.

During the struggle to try and secure civil rights for all Americans in the sixties, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. found himself incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama. His time in jail was put to good use, as he wrote a letter to a group of clergymen who, although sympathetic to Dr. King’s cause, were critical of the Birmingham demonstrations as being too confrontational. In other words, Dr. King was rocking the boat.

January 21, 2010

Mr. Tony Hunter
President, Publisher
Chicago Tribune Company
435 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611

Dear Mr. Hunter:

In case you haven’t yet seen the news, Age of Autism just named Ed and Teri Arranga their “Couple of the Year” for 2009. I cannot think of any who could be nearly as deserving. Their work with Autism One, and The Autism File

I decided to break out of my current blogging sabbatical to briefly comment on the Christmas present Julie Gerberding just got. For those who have not yet heard, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control ¬⎯ the federal agency responsible for formulating our government’s vaccination policies ⎯ has just been named to be the new president of Merck Vaccine.

I'm thinking back to a moment around five years ago, when a self-styled "developmental pediatrician" told us that the Little Rankster was definitely autistic, and we needed to do three things: 1) get him on Ritalin; 2) get him in a special school; and 3) start looking into a residential placement he would probably need in a few years. We did none of those things.

We chose, instead, to use "unproven" biomedical treatments, which we mixed in with speech therapy and a little bit (but only a little bit) of traditional behavioral therapies.

It's been a while since I posted anything anywhere. Life's been even more crazy than usual. I posted this to my public blog, and thought I'd cross-post here.

It’s times like these that I always default to the plaintive cry of Rodney King: “Can we all just get along?”

I just posted this to my public blog. Although I’m not sure I’ll be cross-posting that much, I thought it might be appropriate in this case.

I truly enjoyed meeting many of you face-to-face at A-1. Being there, among people like you, is always a privilege. I wish we would have talked more. But then again, that’s what this network is for.

We are the people of action and hope.

Hello, my name’s Wade, and I’m a blogger. (All together now: Hi Wade.)