baristas with ph.d.s

cautionary turn

2010-11-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

Deep in the maddening crowd,
the lads kick a hooligan pass,
but you've started missing.
Not just the ball,
but the sound,
the throng,
the hum of vibration,
the energies of attenuated distance.
The overtones that require stillness,
near-silence,
the frequencies beyond grasping.
For, there,
you will find her,
them,
it,
all awaiting the grandeur
of your finally perfectly unique entrance.

the miracle worker

2010-09-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

Take him off your lists, lock the door, stop looking through the windows, it is no more. You never responded, that's just what he wanted, you came off as fickle, now everything from you seems pre-meditated. He moved on a long time ago, his friends rubberneck to see how you've "grown," you're better than this, you deserve more, stop peering through the window, cultivate your own, tend your garden, keep your flame, say your own name instead, your head can be a thing of beauty, a place you like to dwell, instead of a waiting room for vindication.

unfinished song written 5/17/10

2010-05-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

Through these sorry eyes,

stone cold sour, no alternative.

I can't make up my mind,

that's my prerogative.

Finding freedom within

but judging others as without.

You can keep trying

through your creeping fog of doubt.

But you'll only get what you want

if you really truly love me.

Can you love me?

Axe is swung, silver arrow,

cutting through the straight and narrow.

Seeds are sewn when rage is blind.

Do you have to be the hurting kind?

Lo and behold, the grass is greener.

Blooming roses smelling sweeter.

The part of you you laid to waste

is fertilizing nowhere, no place.

Temple Grandin's views on autism and animal perception

2010-02-12T12:02:00.000-08:00

A Conversation with Temple Grandin

January 20, 2006

Animal scientist Temple Grandin says autism helps her see things as animals do. Grandin talks about her work designing humane slaughter systems for animals, and her unique way of looking at the world.

FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow this is TALK OF THE NATION SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News.

(Soundbite of music)

FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. For the rest of the hour, a look inside the often mysterious world of autism through the eyes of someone who has made a career out of overcoming the roadblocks the illness put in her way.

Temple Grandin doesn't see the world like most of us do. She does, she would say, see the world more like most animals: a place of fear without emotion where your thoughts come to you in pictures rather than in words.

Temple Grandin is autistic. Her writings about her struggles with autism, her fear, her anxiety, the overwhelming sensation of smell and sound, provide an intriguing glimpse into the world of autistic people.

Because of her autism Dr. Grandin says she can understand how animals see the world in a way that most humans cannot. She has written about her experiences with autism and her observations of animals in many books.

You may remember her Thinking in Pictures. Well, her latest book is Animals In Translation. She now joins us.

Let me formally introduce her. Temple Grandin is an Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior is co-authored with Katherine Johnson. She joins us from studies of KPBS in San Diego.

Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Grandin.

Dr. TEMPLE GRANDIN (Colorado State University):

It's good to be here.

FLATOW: How has your book been received?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, there's been a lot of interest in it. I was really happy to say that we're making some of the bestseller lists.

But let's get into talking about how autism is similar animal behavior. The thing is I don't think in a language and animals don't think in a language. It's sensory based thinking, thinking in pictures, thinking in smells, thinking in touches. It's putting these sensory based memories into categories. That's the basis of how an animal would think. One thing I want to say is, animals do have emotion. But fear tends to be one of the most primal emotions.

FLATOW: So you don't read animals minds, don't want our listeners to confuse that?

Dr. GRANDIN: No. And I always get asked all the time about animal communicators and I really don't want to get into a discussing whether ESP exists or not. Let's just stick with, you know, the other more concrete things.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Dr. GRANDIN: Because that's how I think.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. GRANDIN: I think in most cases, a lot of these animal communicators are very good animal behavior people. And a lot of them are visual thinkers and their picking up very subtle body cues from the animal.

You know, it's crouching down a little bit, it's moving around little bit differently. They're just very good at reading animal behavior. And I think in most cases that can explain some of their successes.

FLATOW: And why do you think your autism allows you to understand how animals think?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well to understand animal thinking you've got to get away from a language. See my mind works like Google for images. You put in a key word; it brings up pictures. See language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that. And language just sort of, you know, gives an opinion. Like, oh, that's a good idea or oh, I just figured out how to design that.

Language is not actually used in the actual designing process that is all done in pictures.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. When did you first discover that you could do this? That you could understand how animals think?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, the thing is, I thought everybody thought in pictures. When I was in high school and college, I thought everybody could think in pictures. And my first inkling to my thinking was even different was when I was in college and I read an article about you know, some scientist said that the caveman could not have designed tools until they had language.

And then when I did Thinking in Pictures I started interviewing people in detail about how they thought. And that really gave me insight into how my thinking was different. And that some people think much more in words. And then I'm thinking, well, that has to be how an animal would think. There's no other way an animal could possibly think.

FLATOW: And so you've been able to design a device that animals will readily use as where other people have failed? Because you can think …

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, back…

FLATOW: …how they think?

Dr. GRANDIN: The first thing I thought about is how they see. I mean, I'd read in my physiology books that, when I was in college, that cattle had 360-degree vision. And I was out in the feed yards in Arizona back in the 1970s. And, you know, some of the cows would just walk up the shoots to get their vaccinations. Other cattle would refuse to go through the shoots.

So I got down in the shoots to take pictures of what the cattle were seeing. And people thought that was just kind of crazy. And I found that they were afraid of shadows. They were afraid of a reflection off the bumper of a truck. They were afraid of seeing people up ahead. And if you remove these visual-based details, then the cattle would walk right up the shoot. In the beginning when I first started doing that, I mean people just couldn't even see why I was doing it.

FLATOW: Yeah, you write in your book about how you've noticed that animals do not like to stand with their legs crossed or feet together. And that some of the pens were forcing them to do that and you designed that out of it.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, that's getting into the restrainer systems that I designed in the 1990s. I designed a system holding a cattle in the meat plant, where they straddle a conveyor. And if you get things set up right they just walk in really quietly.

And you've got to get the lighting right. They're afraid of the dark. If the lights were going, blasting in their eyes like the sun or there's a reflection on a shinny piece of metal moving, they're going to be afraid of that. And you get rid of those things their afraid of then their going to walk right in.

You know, the things that scare a prey/species animal like cattle are a whole lot of little visual details that people just don't tend to notice. And one of the big problems they used to have is the people just wanted to get out there and yell and scream and push and shove and you know more and more prods. Rather than remove the things that the cattle were afraid of.

FLATOW: You also talk about animals having special talents. Like special talents autistic people may have.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well some autistic people have savant skills. All autistic people do not have savant skills. Autism is a very variable disorder varying all the way from Einstein, emollient scientist, just a little bit of the trait, many scientist and engineers, down to somebody that's going to remain nonverbal.

There is a small segment of people with autism that have savant skills, where they can memorize entire maps of whole entire city. They can do calendar calculations. And this is similar to some of the skills that animals have.

Take bird migration for example. You know a Canada goose only has to be shown the route once and then he remembers the way. And this is sensory based memory. Because if you take a carrier pigeon and you take it somewhere and let it go and then it comes back home again. It remembers the things it sees and smells along the way.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. GRANDIN: But if you put him in a smell-proof, vision-proof box, he's not going to find his way back home.

FLATOW: Right. What about the special powers we think animals have. For example sensory powers, they can predict or when an earthquake is coming. We hear stories during the Tsunami that the animals knew enough to get out of the way in advance.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, I think their hearing, you know, low frequency sounds you know as the tidal wave was coming in. I mean their just, animals have very sensitive hearing. And they're hearing those sounds and they're trying to move away from them basically.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK. Mike Inifik(ph) in New York, hi, welcome.

MIKE (Caller): Hi, hi Ira, hi Dr. Grandin, very nice to get a chance to talk to you. First time I was aware of your existence is when you were on Terry Gross's program. And I was thinking holy mackerel, this persons mind works a lot the way mine does. And I read an article about Asperger's syndrome came out of the New York Times. And a friend of mine showed it to me and said this describes me all over.

So I got a bit curious about it and I read the Curious Incidents of the Dog in The Night Time, which is a semi autobiographical account. And I became interested in it and I found a fascinating web site. And I'm wondering if you're aware of it, it's by some one named Andrew Lahman L-A-H-M-A-N and maybe two N's and it's called Origins of Autism. It's either originsofautism.com, or dot org.

And in this he presents the hypothesis that autism is in fact an adaptation, not a disorder. That it can go wrong, but when it goes right it enables people to be more predisposed to have certain kinds of occupations. It's a predisposition not a predetermination. Any person can get any king of occupation. But that autistic people tend to be particularly predisposed to do better at certain occupations that include science, inventing, music, dancing, the visual arts and things like this.

While people who aren't autistic tend to do better at more practical jobs, not that each can't do the other's jobs. But they do better with the job their body and brain is more adapted to. And he argued that this adaptation evolved at the time that the Bonobos separated from the chimp. He argues that the Bonobo separated from the regular chimp and then the Bonobo predicated into the Bonobos of today.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: I would…

FLATOW: Go ahead.

Dr. GRANDIN: You know, I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits. I mean after all, the first stone spear was not designed by the totally social people.

Let me just tell you about some research. Some of Simon Baron Cohan's research in England showed that there's two and a half times as many engineers in the family history of the people with autism.

I feel very strongly that if you got rid of all of the autistic genetics you're not going to have any scientists. There'd be no computer people. You'd lose a lot of artists and musicians. There'd be a horrible price to pay.

It's like a little bit of the autistic trait can give some advantages. You get too much of the autistic trait then you get a very severe handicap where the person's going to remain non-verbal. It's a continuum from a severe handicap all the way up to something where it's a personality variant. There's no black and white dividing line between a mild Aspergers, which is the mild autism, and computer engineer, for example.

FLATOW: Mm hmm, mm hmm. What do you want people to know or understand most about autistic people? What do you think is most misunderstood about them?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, it's a lot of things that are misunderstood. One of the things I want to mention is if you see a child with autistic-like behaviors at age two and three, the worst thing you can do is just let them sit and watch TV all day. That's just the worst thing you can do. You need to have a teacher working with that child, working on teaching language, working on social interaction, working on getting them interested in different things, and keeping their brain connected to the world.

Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments. This is the research of Dr. Eric Corshane(ph) out in San Diego. In fact, in my new edition of Thinking in Pictures, I review this research.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Temple, you credit much of your success to a high school science teacher. Tell us about that, please.

Dr. GRANDIN: Yes. Yes, Mr. Carlock(ph). I was a goof-around student who just wasn't interested in school, just didn't want to study, totally bored with school. High school was a disaster. I got kicked out of a large girls' school because I threw a book at a girl after she teased me. And I was sent away to a special boarding school for emotionally disturbed children.

You've got to remember, this is the ‘60s. And so they now know that autism's not an emotional disturbance. But they didn't know that in the ‘60s. And I was still a goof-around student. Now, they had horseback riding. That was one of my favorite things to do. We had model rocket club. We had electronics club. These were all activities where I could get away from teasing and get in with other students where I had shared interests, you know.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: People with autism aren't interested in social chit-chat. And Mr. Carlock, I mean, took my interests and used that as a way to motivate me to study science. And I mean Mr. Carlock was an extremely important mentor in helping me to develop. And when you look at, let's look at the people with the milder forms of autism that are successful. They have their area of strength, you know, built-up on. I have a career that involves using my visual thinking skill for designing. And then mentor teachers, another really, really important thing because the autistic brain tends to be a specialist brain, good at one thing, bad at something else.

I'm a visual thinker, really bad at algebra. There's others that are a pattern thinker. These are the music and math minds. They think in patterns instead of pictures. Then there's another type that's not a visual thinker at all, and they're the ones that memorize all of the sports statistics, all of the weather statistics. It's kind of a language-logic mind.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. We're talking with Dr. Temple Grandin, author now out in paperback, Animals in Translation on Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News.

Hey, is that what you mean when you say about normal people not being detail-oriented like the way you are and animals are?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, the thing is, my thinking is sensory-detailed oriented. You can also have details of words, and there's some details of words that I don't, I'm not very good at. But I'm talking about sensory detail, visual detail, detail of some little small sound. I mean, think of all the smell detail that the dog gets. I mean, he checks out the local fire hydrant and he knows who's been there, when they were there, how long ago they were there, and are they friend or foe. That's a lot of information on the fire hydrant just from different smells.

FLATOW: Yes. They have to be detail-oriented because that's how they survive.

Dr. GRANDIN: And it's also how they think. And animals actually, you know, can solve problems under new conditions. And how do you have a think in pictures? Well, you have to sort the pictures into categories. You know, for example, a dog knows that, you know, there's good people and there's bad people. And I talked to a lady the other day where her dog was afraid of people with white beards because she had adopted him from an animal shelter and somebody with a white beard had abused him. And this dog was now afraid of everybody that had a white beard. That was the bad category.

FLATOW: Mm hmm, mm hmm. I think a lot of people are surprised when they hear you speak and read your writings about your knowledge about how animals think, your sensitivity to their feelings, to learn that you're not a vegetarian.

Dr. GRANDIN: No, I played around with vegetarianism back in the ‘70s. One thing, my physiology just got to have animal protein. I get hypoglycemic, I get all light-headed unless I eat animal protein.

And I did a lot of thinking about this and I've designed a lot of equipment for meat plants. The cattle would have never been foreign, you know, if we hadn't raised them. And I feel very strongly, we've got to give animals a good life. I've worked really hard improving slaughter plants and animal handling and transport. And people have said to me, why don't you work on improving conditions on pig farms? And basically, to be effective on making real change out there on the ground, you can only work on so many things. You know, you get too distributed, you're not effective. And, you know, I've got my one area I work in and I want to educate people about autism and I also want to improve, you know, animal handling and transport and make a real change out in the field on the ground.

FLATOW: Do you have a project you're working on someplace in the country?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, right now I've been just non-stop travel with speaking engagements.

FLATOW: Yeah.

Dr. GRANDIN: At the age of 58 years old, you kind of get to the point in your career where I want to pass my knowledge on. And I've got two big projects coming up. I'm going to be visiting two different universities for a week. I'm going to Cornell University in February as a visiting professor and give talks on animal handling. And I'm kind of at the point where I want to like, you know, pass my knowledge on.

FLATOW: Yeah. Do you talk to the vets at the vet school there?

Dr. GRANDIN: Yes. In fact, I've got a meeting lined up with North Carolina State University at their veterinary school. And I'll be talking to the veterinary students at Cornell.

FLATOW: Do you think it's necessary for them to learn about animals before they become vets?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of things to animal behavior that vets need to learn about. I mean, just the other day they thought my, I have an assistant named Mark, and we thought that his dog might have a bladder infection. And the vet wanted to take poor Red Dog and throw her on her back and stretch her out on the exam table, no sedatives or anything, stick a needle into her belly for a urine sample.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: And I said that's too traumatic a thing to do to Red Dog. She's a very, very high-strung dog, and she's likely to be traumatized by that. We're not going to do that. We need a urine sample. We'll get her to pee in a cup.

FLATOW: Yeah. That's good, that could…

DR. GRANDIN: We're not going to traumatize her putting her on her back.

FLATOW: All right. Stay with us, Dr. Grandin, and everybody wanting to speak with Dr. Grandin, with Temple Grandin. We're going to take a short break and come right back. Don't go away.

I'm Ira Flatow. This is Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News.

You're listening to Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about autism with my guest, Dr. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Her latest book out in paperback, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. Our number, 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to the phones.

Let's go to Joel in Sacramento. Hi, Joel.

JOEL (caller): Hello there. It's a privilege to talk to you both. My question is based on the fact that my mother works with autistic students in junior high school and has a difficult challenge because she works in teaching them English, reading, and sometimes math. And the problem that she's observed, and perhaps, Doctor, you may have a comment on this based on your personal experience or study, is the students will often display just outward, to her it seems to be out of nowhere, just this terrible fear. They get terrified and she cannot get through to them to the point where often they have to be taken out of the class. And would you, perhaps, have one or two simple suggestions that my mother could use in calming a student down and directing them to the lesson? Or maybe we're looking at this all wrong.

Dr. GRANDIN: Okay. Let's talk about the fear problem. Fear was my main emotion until I started taking anti-depressant medication. And I was one of the people where, as I got older, the fear got worse and worse. So I can really relate to an animal getting, you know, scared and traumatized. Some of these fears these students have are sensory based. You know, when I was a little kid and the school bell went off, it hurt my ears like a dentist drill. You know, maybe the kid sees a cell phone and the ring on that cell phone hurts that kid's ears.

So, if he just sees that cell phone he's going to panic because it's a dangerous thing that might go off. Things like microphones are dangerous things because you never know when they might feedback and squeal. There's a lot of different things that can set off this fear reaction. And I would probably need to talk to your wife a whole lot more to figure out just which situations they're getting the fear reaction in. But a lot of this is sensory.

And an adult or a child that has a tantrum and just goes ballistic every time you take him in a big supermarket, that is usually due to sensory overload. They may not be able to tolerate smells in the detergent aisle, the fluorescent lights flicker and make the supermarket look like a discothèque, or it may be just noise overload and they feel like they're inside the speaker at the rock and roll concert. But these sensory problems are very variable from really mild to just overwhelmingly bad.

FLATOW: All right. Good luck, Joel.

JOEL: Thank you. We'll take that and see if we can figure out what it is that is really upsetting them and perhaps remove that from them.

FLATOW: Thank you.

Dr. GRANDIN: Yes. We need to…

JOEL: I'll relay that to my mother. Thank you.

FLATOW: Good luck.

Dr. GRANDIN: I'm sorry. It's your mother. Okay. I'm sorry.

FLATOW: Dr. Grandin, what was it that you did that you were able to overcome? You mentioned some medication you were using? What point did you say I'm going to overcome these fears and these obstacles?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, the thing is, autism is all different, you know, variables. And you start out with a certain amount of, you know, the point where the differences in the brain are going to just be a personality variant and, like, for very mild Asperger's.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: But you get into more severe kinds of autism where there's obvious speech delay, obvious abnormal behavior in a two and three-year-old child, you know, the initial neurology is different from case to case. But all children with autism are going to do better if they get really good educational intervention. And there's a lot of controversy as to which programs you use. I have found that the most important thing is a good teacher. Some teachers just know how to work with a child and get progress and others don't. And you need lots of hours with a good teacher in these really young kids.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's talk for a bit about something you designed, and was very interesting to read about, called a squeeze machine.

Dr. GRANDIN: Okay.

FLATOW: Tell us about your squeeze machine.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, when I, when puberty hit, that's when the anxiety attacks and the panic attacks started. I was a type of person with autism where once there was puberty, non-stop panic attacks. I mean, imagine how you felt when you did your first really big, important, you know, interview, how nervous you were. Now, imagine if that's the way you felt all the time, all the time. Now, there's other people with Asperger's and autism that don't get nervous. This is where, you know, autism can be very variable.

And I was watching cattle go through a squeeze chute for their vaccinations. It's a device they put the cattle in to hold them still. And I noticed that some of the cattle just kind of relaxed. So I went and tried out the squeeze chute. And the pressure calmed me down. Many individuals with autism find that deep pressure applied over large areas of the body has a very, very calming effect on the nervous system. So then I built a squeezing machine that I could get into that worked with an air cylinder and an air compressor where I could work a little control handle and I could squeeze myself. And I used that to calm down.

Now, as I got into my 20s, my anxiety got worse and worse and worse. And in early 30s I went on antidepressant medication. I would not be here today if I hadn't gone on that medication. But, you know, exercise is another thing that's also very calming but, you know, this is common, the pressure seeking…

FLATOW: Do you still have your squeezebox?

Dr. GRANDIN: I still have my squeezebox, yes I do.

FLATOW: Yeah, okay, 1-800-989-8255 is our number. While we get people on the phone I want to also ask you about meeting and studying B.F. Skinner. We all, I mean I'm a contemporary of yours, probably about the same age. I remember in college in the ‘60s, all I studied was B.F. Skinner and his white rats in the boxes, running mazes and things. You write a lot about that and also about meeting him.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, I want to start out that I was lucky in the ‘60s to also be taking a class in Classical Ethology by a professor named Tom Evans, where I learned that operant conditioning does not explain all animal behavior. He explained how fixed action patterns and hardwired instinctual behavior works. And I remember going on a visit to Dr. Skinner and I felt like I was visiting, you know, the grand temple of psychology. And I went up to his office and, you know, he seemed, I'm like, oh, you mean he's actually an ordinary person? And we got to talking and of course back then I wore a dress you know ‘cause, you know, ladies had to be, like, dressed up, and I had a very conservative dress on, and B.F. Skinner touched my legs.

And I said, you may look at them, but you may not touch them and that ended that. And that is as he was showing me around the rat lab, I said, Dr. Skinner if we can just learn about the brain then we really would know some things. And Dr. Skinner says to me, we don't need to know anything about the brain, we have operant conditioning. And I just never really could accept that. You know, especially after taking Tom Evans' class at the same time.

FLATOW: Mm hmm. And later on, you write, he just changed his mind totally on this.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, yes, Dr. Rady(ph) knew him after he had his stroke and he admitted that maybe he needed to get inside the black box and inside the brain. That yes, the brain did make a difference. But he had to have a stroke in order to realize that.

FLATOW: Patricia in Santa Rosa, California, hi, welcome to Science Friday.

PATRICIA (Caller): Hello, Dr. Grandin it is such an honor to be able to speak with you. I had read your book years ago, when I was working at a pre-school and I was really intrigued with your squeeze machine that you had developed. And I was so grateful to have read that because currently, I'm working with a boy who has high functioning autism or Asperger Disorder. And when I first started working with him I saw that he really needed some deep pressure, he kept hitting his head and he would crash his body into things, and have developed certain ways to have him use language to say how much pressure he needs, since we aren't able to make the squeeze machine. But, that has made a world of difference in working with him.

Dr. GRANDIN: That's just wonderful and another thing where I'm getting very good reports on is therapeutic riding programs. I'm getting lots and lots of great reports from parents on, you know, how beneficial that's been for some children, too.

PATRICIA: Yes, we tried, we considered doing the riding but he doesn't really like horses.

Dr. GRANDIN: Okay, well the thing is…

PATRICIA: But we have him do swimming and its amazing, he loves to go down as deep as he possibly can and stay down there for a moment and then shoot back up.

Dr. GRANDIN: You know, different things work for different kids because the sensory problems are variable. Like I had auditory sensory problems and touch sensitivity problems, I had no problems with my vision. Other people absolutely cannot stand fluorescent lighting and they're sometimes helped by a thing called the Irlen colored glasses where you try on all kinds of different pale colored glasses until it's easier to read. It stops the problem of the print jiggling on the page.

PATRICIA: How do you spell that?

Dr. GRANDIN: It's Irlen, I-R-L-E-N.

PATRICIA: Okay.

FLATOW: Excellent.

Dr. GRANDIN: You can also go to…

FLATOW: Go ahead.

Dr. GRANDIN: Sorry.

FLATOW: Okay. Thank you for calling.

PATRICIA: Oh, thank you so much.

FLATOW: Have a good weekend and good luck to you.

PATRICIA: Thank you.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255, Dr. Grandin, you say that you almost never think in language that you think in pictures. So, it must be hard for you then to write books like this I would imagine.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, thinking in pictures is totally my writing. And then, of course, all my Scientific Journal articles I wrote. And my writing is much more technical, formal kind of writing and thinking in pictures has that. I wrote Animals in Translation with Catherine Johnson and Catherine Johnson's a super brilliant writer. She has two autistic kids, so she really knows autism. And she was able to write the book, making it like my voice. And, I really owe Catherine a lot. You know, it wouldn't have been a book without Catherine because my writing is much more formal. I've got a lot of stuff on my webpage, Grandin.com, that's all my writing. And I think I'm a good technical writer but I don't know how to write the way Catherine does.

FLATOW: What would you like to do that you haven't been able to do so far in life?

Dr. GRANDIN: Oh boy, that's a hard question. One thing I'd like to just keep on doing is I want to educate people about animal behavior and about autism. I've been doing autism talks for the last 20 years and there still are people out there that do not want to, they can't recognize that these sensory problems are real. That, for some of these kids when that fire alarm goes off, that really hurts the ears, it's a really real thing.

FLATOW: Yeah. Well, we've been hearing a lot lately about an autism epidemic, what do you think about that?

Dr. GRANDIN: I think the mild Aspergers have always been there. You see, Asperger's diagnosis did not become common in the U.S. until the early ‘90s. And an Aspergers has more or less normal speech development and they've always been here, that hasn't changed. I can think back to when I was in high school, this is 40 years ago, I could name kids in my high school class and college class that, today, would be diagnosed as Aspergers. When I go out in the meat industry, there's 40 and 50-year old undiagnosed Aspergers all over my industry, in good jobs like head of maintenance, drawing drawings, fixing equipment, a plant engineer.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: Now, where I think there may be an increase is in some of these more severe forms of autism, especially this type where the kid seems to appear to be normal and then at 18 months of age or so, he loses language. I call that the regressive type of autism and I think that segment's gone up.

FLATOW: There's been a very vocal minority of people who are sure that autism, the rise in autism, has something to do with the mercury preservatives that used to be in vaccinations, where do you come down on that?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, there's actually been some research where they've managed to create some mice where, when they were given mercury at about the same level as vaccine, they would do some very autistic-like behaviors like biting the ends of their tails. You know, we also need to be watching out for mercury in flu shots given to pregnant moms. And now we get it out of the vaccine, we're going to have mercury in fish from power plant emissions.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: There's also other environmental contaminants that could get in there. I've been reading a lot of things in Science and Nature about endocrine disrupters. These are chemicals that mimic hormones, getting into the water supply and they're already causing some real abnormal things in fish.

FLATOW: Mm hmm Are you talking about things that might get into a pregnant woman, in-utero, and causing things that show up later in life? Or things that happen from childhood after birth?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, I think, looking at the research, genetics is probably 60 to 70% of autism.

FLATOW: Mm hmm.

Dr. GRANDIN: And, in my case, I mean I'm old enough where I didn't get these vaccines, I'm young enough to have done anything to me. And my case would have been purely genetic. All the Aspergers around, you know, when I was a kid were purely genetic. But I think you might be getting some kind of susceptibility, you know, that goes with genetics, where maybe they have a very difficult time metabolizing some of these toxins out.

FLATOW: Right.

Dr. GRANDIN: Or there's a genetic by environmental interaction.

FLATOW: Talking this hour with Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation on Talk of the Nation Science Friday from NPR News. Let's see if we can get a couple of more calls in, if we can. Let's go to David in Iowa City, Iowa, hi, David.

DAVID (Caller, Iowa City, Iowa): Hello, it's a pleasure, great pleasure to speak with you, Dr. Grandin. And I have a question about, you mentioned earlier in the show the difference between pattern thinking, people with autism with extraordinary music or math ability, versus picture thinking, which is how you've described your abilities. And, I'm curious to know whether there are, are you familiar with cases of people with autism who have extraordinary pattern thinking abilities, music, math, and through therapy or intensive instruction, have they been able to develop an extraordinary, or at least a normal, language ability, based on their pattern thinking ability?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well one thing that happened with me is they pounded away and pounded away in trying to teach me Algebra and that was just hopeless. And one of the mistakes made in my math education was not going on to trigonometry and geometry. Yes, you can do things, you know, like, we take somebody who's a poor visual thinker and you can work on improving their visual thinking. But you're never going to get them to my state, where they can, I do, I can look at a blueprint and I can do 3-D, you know, full motion video of that blueprint.

Dr. GRANDIN: You know, and I've been talking to people that are pattern thinkers and it's different for me. I was never very good at chess, that was, like, too abstract for me. You know, what I'm good at is something where I can manipulate photo-realistic pictures. And again, I want to emphasize the importance on building on a person's strength. We need to be thinking, when these kids are in junior high school, what are they going to do when they grow up? Because I look at the successful people that have, you know, high functioning autism and Asperger's, they're ones where maybe the parents were in the computer industry and they just taught the kids programming at, you know, age eight and nine and they just went on into the industry with their parents.

FLATOW: So, you're worried about the future?

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, we need to be, you know, I think some of the other countries, in some ways may be doing better than we're doing. I went to Japan, that was a little while ago and, I met a lot of Aspergers people over there and they all had decent jobs.

FLATOW: Can you train people to have decent jobs?

Dr. GRANDIN: Yes, people have to learn social skills. I mean I had to learn social skills, like being in a play. And this is one advantage that being a child of the ‘50s was. All children in the ‘50s were taught manners, they were taught to say please and thank you, they were taught not to be rude. And I'm seeing some problems today where somebody's losing a job because they made fun of a fat lady that couldn't fit in the elevator. I mean that was the sort of thing that, when I was eight years old, my mother made it very clear to me that that was not okay to say that kind of stuff.

FLATOW: Well, I want to wish you the best of luck, Dr. Grandin and I thank you very much for taking time to talk with us this hour.

Dr. GRANDIN: Well, thank you so much for having me.

FLATOW: You're welcome. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Her latest book is Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. A terrific read, I highly recommend it.

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Scorpio Moon

2010-01-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

This is a song I wrote while living in Belize for Ph.D. fieldwork. The sights and scents of roadside and forest refuse fires found their way in. I have the arrangement worked out in my head, but it will require a full band. Yet another one of those plans that will have to come to fruition "after the dissertation"!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Verse 1:

You rose to meet me

at four shadowed walls,

misty curtain calls that stay

supple with pain.

The glow that burns away

smokey defenses

I’ll come to my senses one day,

you say,

You’ll come to my senses one day…

Verse 2:

I look for your scattered

reflections on the track.

Never too lost as to

lose my way back.

There’s a fire that is raging

on hills, cast aside

by the doubts infiltrating your mind

by the doubts infiltrating your mind.

Chorus:

(But) the lessons we learn

can divide us when pride is the

recourse demanding its say.

And the moments of sorrow

form a shroud for tomorrow,

so I search for your light until

night becomes day.

so I search for your light until

night becomes day.

Instrumental Break over Chorus chords

Verse 3:

Down to the wire,

by the skin of its teeth.

Not quite the person you

had hoped you would meet.

The sweetness of surrender grows

tart with the sublime.

I hope that you’ll give it some time.

I only hope that you’ll give it some time.

Chorus (2x)

2^nd time: “So I search for…” (3x)

Verse 1 (reprise):

You rose to meet me

at four shadowed walls,

misty curtain calls that stay

supple with pain.

The glow that burns away

smokey defenses

You’ll come to my senses one day,

you say,

We’ll come to our senses someday.

Diplomacies of Black and White (poem)

2010-01-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

When every touch mesmerizes,

(surfaces forever gleaming

in the rays of one's projections)

do not take the dark samsara

emanating from life's tragedies

for the alluring cloak of night's mystery.

For, although one is given

and the other chosen,

(which is which being your jurisdiction)

that would build pleasure

upon another's pain.

Refrain from judging rage

against the dying of the light

too harshly,

with its gauche angling

like awkward adolescent limbs.

Rejoicing in one's moments

(those homespun webs of significance)

delights all

if you can cease to

insinuate

victory.

The Undermine

2009-10-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

(written 1/29/08)

Winds of change are blowing,

kicking up leaves,

stirring this nest of tragedy,

sight overseen.

Kicking up logic,

forethought mistrusted,

consistency shallowed

and heartstrings busted.

Leaving me a desert,

the kindest desolation,

the chattering lies

of chosen isolation.

Wait for spring, child.

Rains come with patience.

Worth the wait beside the mesas

where it's been long believed

that dust harbors tricksters,

their havoc to be silenced

in the still calm coolness

of inner shade.

feminist rant

2009-06-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

North Texas is a place in which conscious, independent women can live, get by, but under very few circumstances thrive. This is a bastion of white male privilege, and I am reminded living here once again for almost two years how spending my adolescence here radicalized me as a feminist. For instance, I see so few instances of women's interactions not mediated by men, particularly by significant others. There is downright fear in relating without them...initiating conversation is a revolutionary act. Men purchase only deodorants and soaps specifically designed for "men," like Axe and Dial For Men. When my friend borrows her boyfriend's Dial For Men after running out of soap, he deems it perfectly reasonable. But he would NEVER use her soap. I pointed out to him yesterday that she was, in fact, using St. Ives Energizing Citrus Shower Gel, which has no specific gender associations. He replied that he did not know that. He simply assumed that her soaps were "feminine" somehow, and therefore untouchable. When I sing karaoke, I notice women performing Journey songs sung by Steve Perry, Goo Goo Dolls songs sung by Dave Grohl, even the kitschy 80s tune "One Night In Bangkok" penned and originated by Murray Head. But I have NEVER seen a man sing a song popularized by a woman. All I can do is relish in my boyfriend's claim to have sung Alanis Morrissette several times in the past and the spot-on imitatons of Prince that have brought him local fame.

The automatic devaluation suffered by items and intangibles exclusively associated with women is the overtone that harmonizes with the all-too-casual male use of the word "bitch" I hear all too often. It arises in living rooms, uttered in the same breath as Miller Lite and Crown Royal, shouted over the din of XBox 360 and Rock Band televised battle and clicking controllers, screamed over the industrial-size rage of Nine Inch Nails and Drowning Pool, contained by the indifference of passers-by feigned for so long to have become reality, and underwritten by barflys, Jugalos, wrestlemaniacs, and midnight cowboys itching for a fight.

Is the Writer Obligated to Use His/Her Medium as an Instrument for Social Betterment?

2009-06-17T07:59:00.001-07:00

This short piece is from Tom Robbins's 2005 retrospective of short pieces, Wild Ducks Flying Backward.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A writer's first obligation is not to the many-bellied beast but to the many-tongued beast, not to Society but to Language. Everyone has a stake in the husbandry of Society, but Language is the writer's special charge. A grandiose animal it is, too. If it weren't for Language there wouldn't be Society.

Once writers have established their basic commitment to Language (and are taking the Blue-Guitar-sized risks that that relationship demands), then they are free to promote social betterment to the extent that their conscience or neurosis might require. But let me tell you this: social action on the political/economic level is wee potatoes.

Our great human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.

How many writers of fiction do you think are committed to that?

Asked by Fiction International, 1984.

Video for "Love Action (I Believe In Love)" by The Human League

2009-04-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend was watching a Human League video on YouTube and left the site up after retiring to bed. The next morning, I decided to watch videos for some of the other songs on their 1981 album Dare other than the hit "Don't You Want Me." "Love Action" sounded familiar. Within the first few seconds, it all came back...being 9, 10 years old in Phoenix watching the video on MTV circa 1982-1983. I distinctly remember the wedding scene and Susan Sulley throwing household items at the camera. Until yesterday, I had forgotten how much this video had influenced my preferred modes of filmmaking to this day and my conception of romantic relationships growing up. To me, it encapsulates the best of the early MTV "New Pop" videos from the U.K., in their expert location of a common ground of paranoia in 70s gritty social realism and 80s vogueish "acting as if."

If you watch this after "Don't You Want Me," you could construe this video as its sequel. Here you have the band/crew assembled to make another movie, scenes of which are intercut with Phil Oakey's memories of his failed relationship with Susan Sulley (in the videos only...in real life, he dated the brunette singer, Joanne Catherall). He confuses between the realities of the film and his personal life; plus, his actor self breaks frame to prosthelytize about love to us viewers directly. I think this confusion is wonderfully realized in the editing and choice of shots, and goes to show how much experimentation with music video as an art form was embraced by MTV in those days. Back then, this was a major factor in the channel's decision to include a video within its rotation, which opened the door to a refreshing swell of new faces and voices. In his amazing book Rip It Up And Start Again: Post-punk 1978-1984, Simon Reynolds quotes David Byrne of the Talking Heads reminiscing about this state of affairs:

You could do a vaguely experimental film thing as cheaply as you possibly could, and if it was connected to a song, MTV would play it, because they needed stuff desperately in those days. So you didn't have to tour in order to build up an audience. It was a bit like how I imagine the early days of pop singles were - you'd record something real quick, and then a month later it'd be a forty-five single in jukeboxes and it would be on the radio.

By 1984, this was all over. Radio hits and exorbitant budgets seized the day at the network. Before long, game shows and reality shows eclipsed the music. But I'm glad I was an avid and impressionable viewer during MTV's glory days.

An unjustifiable move in the name of compromise...

2009-04-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

"Obama and habeas corpus -- then and now"

The Obama administration fights harder for the power to abduct people and imprison them with no charges.
Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/index.html

Righteous anger

2009-03-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last night, my boyfriend Brandon and I drove out once again to our regular Saturday night karaoke spot at the border between Plano and North Dallas, TX. We respect the professionalism of the karaoke DJ (KJ), for whom Brandon has sung and worked for 5 years. We got there around 7:30, a half-hour early, so we could top the list of returning singers, ensuring that we would be able to sing at least twice that evening. Several friends Brandon has met at karaoke over the years show up on these Saturday nights, and, sure enough, the three middle-aged couples who have championed our 1-&-1/3rd-year relationship from the get-go were there, seated per usual at the long table in the front. Brandon's younger friends had not yet showed up. Of those friends, I particularly like Jason, a spectacular singer who has started bringing along his new boyfriend from Houston, an equally kind fellow.

Shortly after we'd seated ourselves at the long table, one of the couples bemoaned the state of society today, under Obama's governance, to which the other couples nodded affirmatively. The wife expressed the hope that the much-feared 2012 "apocalypse" would just "come on down," that she would rather be swept up in the Flood than live another day where her $100,000+/year income be subject to higher taxation. As a staunch Obama supporter, my feathers were naturally rankled by this. But what depressed me me more was the likelihood that Brandon and I were the lone dissenters in that bar. I did jokingly reply that I would be the only liberal left standing after said Flood. But, had I tried for an honest discussion, without capitulating to the "joking relationship" that Spradley and Mann (1980) have theorized regarding bar culture, I have a strong suspicion that these friends of his would thereafter passive-aggressively give me the cold shoulder, perhaps hint to Brandon that I was too radical for his own good, and that the McCain-supporting KJ might mess with the mix while I sang so that the audience misheard me.

Later in the evening, around 10:00, it only got worse. The husband of another of the couples, a biker who rides with the local gang BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse), staged yet another routine with the KJ mocking male homosexuality...what they've established as their schtick. The KJ was singing "Sandy" from the movie Grease. The biker flirted with him in front of the stage, after which point the KJ replaced every mention of "Sandy" in the song with the biker's name. The biker then got up onstage and started cuddling with the KJ, who responded by chuckling with mild embarrassment. Then, during the spoken section of the song, the KJ re-sang the line "And, baby, you gotta believe me when I say...I'm helpless without you" as "....I'm disease-free without you." But, caught up in the moment, wanting to fit in with the crowd, there I was, laughing with everyone else, wondering only afterward (just afterward) how that would've sounded to Jason had he been there. I am beyond ashamed. In that moment, I performed the precise opposite of the humanist values I cherish...that my close, true friends share with me and know me for.

I have now decided "Enough." These couples--lulled into the illusion of security their wealth affords them, refusing any social interaction that is not preaching to the choir--are not worth catering to. Sometimes one has to take a stand, risking anger they would rather not face (especially for the sake of a loved one, as with Brandon in my case). Revolution begins in the one-to-one, letting one's true voice ring out and being willing to savor the sour and bitter as well as the sweet and savory of the consequences. Better that I keep showing up and start owning my right to say my piece as proudly and loudly as they do, rather than slinking away in cowardice to give their fear-ridden views center stage, time and again, where they have dwelled for too long.

Text of Obama's acceptance speech

2008-08-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

A speech about America fulfilling its promise by a politician who is already fulfilling his...I can't contain my excitement:

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation.

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest -- a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next first lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia -- I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story -- of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart -- that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for 232 years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women -- students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

We meet at one of those defining moments -- a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for 20 years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land -- enough! This moment -- this election -- is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time. Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives -- on health care and education and the economy -- Sen. McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this president. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisers -- the man who wrote his economic plan -- was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud autoworkers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Sen. McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than 100 million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy -- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is -- you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president -- when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job -- an economy that honors the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great -- a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States.

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves -- protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America -- the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president.

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes -- cut taxes -- for 95 percent of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Sen. McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American -- if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime -- by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less -- because we cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength." Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility -- that's the essence of America's promise.

And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander in chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For while Sen. McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell -- but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a president who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice -- but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans -- have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As commander in chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America -- they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose -- our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This, too, is part of America's promise -- the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what -- it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For 18 long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us -- that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it -- because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it. Because I've lived it. I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I've seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I've seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit -- that American promise -- that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours -- a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead -- people of every creed and color, from every walk of life -- is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise -- that American promise -- and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

the public lag

2008-08-22T11:28:00.001-07:00

I just received via e-mail my recent installment of New York Times book reviews and glimpsed a new biography of Norman Mailer. It reminded me that fame brings the suppression of truths about someone that don't fit a neat marketable image: these only emerge over several decades, often postmortem. And even "reputable" sources like NPR, reporting testimonies, have a brand identity to protect. Maybe ethnography is the only ethical place for this endeavor. Ideally, and as far as I'm concerned, there is no "there" there in ethnography except for what emerges in conversation and interaction. But it takes also self-discipline for quelling ego-clinging to be open enough to what is being received and perceived. Meditative arts and fieldwork would make excellent bedfellows!

The Punishers

2008-07-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

I was reading in the Dallas Morning News a few days ago about the immanent retirement of Neil Slater, chair of Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas. As a former Bachelor of Arts music major at UNT, I breathed a sigh of relief. I have never met the man, but befriended many students who had borne the brunt of the jazz faculty's unique brand of negative reinforcement and unforgiving perfectionism (percussion prof Ed Soph, for instance, was known for commanding nervous performers to take beta blockers). So imagine my satisfaction when the 7/6/08 article by David Flick commemorating the end of Slater's 27-year tenure (too long for any chairpersonship, really) was comprised primarily of student reactions telling it like it is:

Tim Ries, a former student whose résumé includes stints with Maynard Ferguson and the Rolling Stones, played in the One O'Clock Lab Band when Mr. Slater took over in 1981.

"He very definitely put his own stamp on it," Mr. Ries said. "He gave us the freedom to play, but he could be very brutally honest with the students."

Even his praise sometimes had an edge.

Mr. Ries was on Mr. Slater's first European tour with the band in the early 1980s, when they played some of the most prestigious venues on the continent, often sharing billing with the biggest names in jazz.

"I remember one day we were on the bus, and we were behaving like typical 20-year-olds, like we were teenagers on a vacation with their parents," he said.

When the bus arrived at the Antibes Jazz Festival, the group saw its name on a poster that also included Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and Ron Carter.

"These people were our heroes," Mr. Ries recalled, "and he pointedly said, 'For some of you, this may be the pinnacle of your careers.'

Flick continues:

More recent students say Mr. Slater hasn't mellowed.

Evan Weiss, who graduated this year, said, "If something sounds bad, he'll tell you it sounds bad."

But he said Mr. Slater's background as a musician gives credibility to his judgments.

"I guess the fact that Neil is a writer, he has an honest perception of what he wants the band to sound like. When he gives you a suggestion, it's not done as a pedagogue," Mr. Weiss said.

Still, he said, Mr. Slater could be intimidating to a young musician.

"When I was a freshman just joining the band, he handed me the book [of pieces the group would perform], and said, 'Don't mess this up.' "

These instructors’ values are antithetical to the spirit of jazz as I understand it. They are following an anxiety-ridden programme of canonizing pre-fusion repertoire, creating museum pieces out of a living, breathing art form, technically brilliant but ultimately soulless. I'll take the camaraderie and risk-taking of jazz musicians trained at UCLA (where I served as a teaching assistant for the pre-eminent jazz composer, arranger, and conductor Gerald Wilson) over UNT's top-down robot-making any day.

But don't take my word for it...talk to the hundreds of former UNT jazz students who’ve dropped out before completing their degree. This top-notch talent pool got out while they could and have done extraordinary well for themselves as professional musicians (look at Norah Jones!). My friend's burgeoning strategy of enrolling in the program in order to receive just enough training and the credential of having "studied at UNT" has probably become de rigeur. Because no one with any self respect and a true love of jazz would allow any instructor to break them down so thoroughly as to ensure there is no "self" left to color the music they play and sing. Jazz was born from spontaneity, breaking free from convention, and individualism. The time is nigh for marginalizing old white men with axes to grind so that they no longer rain on the parade.