It's on for young and old at Wired!

I see that Wired magazine has a number of stories running that appear to be critical of the crowd who argue that vaccinations cause autism, so it's on for young and old in the comments sections of some online Wired magazine articles. So much hot air! It's such a pity that so many people on both sides of this debate have to waste so much time over a dispute that only has one rational side.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/

I'm not dead and I haven't given up this blogging caper, I've just been to busy doing the mother and housewife thing. It's boring, I know.

The other day I was looking into free activities for young kids that our local city council provides to us good ratepaying working families. I saw something that I thought might be fun for one of our young ones, except that this free kids' activity session included an element of vigorous exercise, presumably with the aim of preventing or curing the much-hyped epidemic of childhood obesity. This is the last thing that our youngest needs. My gene for childhood hyperactivity has certainly not been wasted. You know your child is genuinely very active when they often complain of aching legs after particularly busy days. I think it's funny that this child of ours is probably very much in vogue this year, because these days everyone is supposed to be getting children to be more active than they otherwise might have been, and obesity and lack of fitness are some childhood disorders that are now most fashionable things to hate. Active children are "in" this year and children who like to stay put for long periods of time are "out" this year. But I cast my mind back to the time when I had my first very active young child. I felt most defensive. Back then it was definitely not the desired look to have a child who is a blur of hyper-excitable haste. That time was the tail-end of ADHD mania. When fashionable young mums get together to chat these days they might swap tales about their son's speech therapist or OT, but back then the chatter was often about which foods or drinks or chemical substances were thought to trigger manic and unmanageable behaviour in our troublesome offspring, usually sons. So I'd like to congratulate all of those mums and dads, child health nurses, parent educators, natural therapists, doctors, prescribing paediatricians, parenting experts and inferfering grandparents who set their minds to curing the terrible epidemic of childhood hyperactivity back in the 1980s, the 1990s and earlier decades. You did well, rather too well. Be careful what you wish for.

I wish life really meant life in Australia

I guess it is some consolation that Sharyn Ward, formerly from Hawk's Nest in New South Wales, Australia, who left her seven year old autistic daughter to starve to death over a long period of time while imprisoned in her filthy bedroom, has been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. I guess having an autistic child was not accepted as a valid excuse for child murder in this case, which possibly shows that attitudes are improving. But I can't understand why the "father" Blakeley Ward, only got 12 years for manslaughter. He had no idea what was going on? He was unable to do anything to prevent what happened? Prison sentences are a joke in Australia anyway. Life never means life, and crims get let out early all the time. Will these murderers be allowed to start new families when they have done their time? Nothing stopping them.

Readers might be a bit confused about the identity of the child who was murdered, because the child has been reported as having two different names in Australian press coverage. Recent media coverage names her only by her middle name "Ebony" and the older media coverage from the time that the murder was first discovered gave her normal name "Shellay Ward". This is because of some bullshit law that we have here that is supposed to protect the identity of children who are victims of crimes. I believe this law protects the identity of family members who murder or molest their own young kin, as the names of all family members are also suppressed from media coverage. This law is a very convenient thing for adults who do the wrong thing by children, but it isn't doing a damn thing to help young Shellay Ebony Ward, because she is long-dead and beyond all help now. She was apparently under the dilligent supervision of the New South Wales Department of "Community Service".

Links to press stories:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26155231-953,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22716498-2702,00.html