The Evangelical Haitian Church in my neighborhood hosts evening 12 steps meetings. The nights they host AA and NA, you don't even notice. The night they host Gambler's Anonymous you can't find a parking spot in the area.

It’s so bad US: this thing about my country sucks Others: It doesn’t suck for us! Did you know it doesn’t have to suck? US: Um, yes? Others: I can’t believe you live like that US: Yes? That’s my point? Others: Well, anyway, sucks to be you! Toodles!

If you aren’t sure what a grievance parent is, think about the parent influencers who parade their kids on their social media despite their best interest. Now imagine if all those influencer videos were about your support needs and how Parent is suffering because of you & your support needs.

ugh, I have a stressful meeting in 10 minutes and my brain has just been in full-on Bartleby the Scrivener mode since lunch...

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

Oh, dear. I just re-read the paper I submitted for my US Health System class and apparently I did *not* edit out the placeholder where I referred to myself as a "human-shaped pile of pre-existing conditions." Guess we'll find out what the professor's sense of humor is like! 🙃

OMG OMG OMG

Hey a thing I really don’t want to get lost here is that while Tylenol doesn’t cause autism, IT’S FINE TO BE AUTISTIC. Let’s not grant them the premise that autism should be eradicated in our way to correct the science, okay? Okay.

My cousin was cleaning out some old boxes at my mom's place and found pictures of me at my first protest - it was anti-apartheid (in South Africa) but I was clearly there with the Palestinian delegation! 😁

Sidebar: the language we use (hallucinations, knowing, thinking etc.) to explain the tech are just metaphors to make it easier to understand, but are dangerously misleading in that they impute capabilities and imply a form of sentence that they simply do not have.

This article from ASAN's Executive Director Colin Killick talks about how policies and misinformation from the Trump administration hurt and ignore autistic people. www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

Can Auchincloss take a break from embarrassing Massachusetts for like... ten minutes? If nothing else, I think Moulton and Lynch might need a sec to catch up.

Do I know anybody with access to Understanding America Survey data? I have, like, two picky little questions about UAS 547 (the Survey of Disability Related Goods and Services) that probably don't require/justify signing up and downloading the whole dataset?

Incredibly helpful guide to combatting the underlying foundations of misinformation instead of getting bogged down debating the final details (which accepts and reinforces the premise)

can I please have a mayoral candidate who makes me cry about inequities in pregnancy outcomes??

From Teen Vogue, which is doing some of the best journalism about the extremist cult now in charge of the U.S. government: www.teenvogue.com/st... We need to assume that every masked person kidnapping people off the street is a criminal, whether employed by the Trump regime or not.

Topics in the group chat today: - the UN Products and Services Code System and how cool it must be to work on categorizing and coding every single product and service in the world; - cute puppy in raincoat; - the bisexual flavor of Monster; - a really neat Green Line train nobody had seen before

I'm fat! There's no part of me that isn't fucking SUPPLE AND SENSUOUS to behold! I don't have collarbones, I have The Tops of My Breasts!

Literally everything in healthcare is about weighing pros and cons for the patient. The risk of letting fever or pain* go unchecked in pregnancy beats the imaginary risk of Tylenol and autism. *stress, like that caused by pain you don’t feel safe treating, exacerbates pregnancy complications

Imagine discovering that aliens were watching you through technology you knew not wot of…. …and then finding out that they voted on your eating habits? “Human177 really destroyed those oatmeals! Look at the highlight reel! She’s using the purple spoon!” Anyway, it’s Fat Bear Week! Happy voting!

"Sakeik got preliminary approval on her green card application days before DHS tried to deport her for the second time." So despite four months of mistreatment she always had a prima facie case to become a permanent resident based on marriage.

[new Isaac Chotiner interview]

“Are clinicians obliged to collaborate in the deportation of their patients from the ICU?” “Absolutely not and let us tell you how to say ‘no’”

The problem isn't autism. It's fear and hatred of autism. The problem isn't trans people. It's fear and hatred of trans people. The problem isn't immigration. It's fear and hatred of immigrants.

If my writing about autism does anything, whether it be in my books, my columns or my reported stories, I hope it advances the idea that autistic people are whole human beings as they are with legitimate needs and inner lives that deserve to be told the same as other stories.

The only monarchy I'm currently interested in.

Coming to you from the depths of this lit review project with a reminder that *the way the US measured childhood disability totally changed in 2019.* Does that influence the "2020 spike in autism" narrative I'm suddenly seeing everywhere? Not sure, will report back! But it's good to keep in mind!

Hey Mass folks, I hate that this resource needs to exist, but it literally just came in handy. You may know about LUCE from their ICE Watch Hotline (617-370-5023), but they also have a really comprehensive collection of other resources for immigrants at risk of ICE action. Maybe bookmark the link?

Hellloooooo, journalists! Covering the Mon announcement abt #autism? CHECK OUT the last 3 @thinkingautism.com newsletters for background on the loooong trail of grift in mitochondria-autism industry, starting w/a man who co-authored entire study abt his own daughter w/o disclosing the relationship.🧵

You know you've started to hit the good stuff in a lit review when your notes are starting to look like a conspiracy theory board...

This is perversely impressive as an act of language corruption - if we pretend "woke" means "censorious", and pretend it's the left who are censorious, then we can also pretend the post-Kirk attacks on free speech are the right acting like the left, and hence are "woke right".

LRP: I still remember a friend saying to a doctor, "Oh, that patient is 'non-compliant'? What are you asking them to do that's *so* insurmountable that, even at the cost of their health, they can't, or can't make themselves, do it?"

Pretty fucking reasonable! 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

When ICE floods a neighborhood with tear gas, it is flooding that neighborhood with a known abortifacient. In a just world, that sort of behavior would be a ticket to the Hague.

I'm beginning to think the endless right-wing focus on letting comedians make transphobic, sexist, violent, racist jokes without professional consequences wasn't about protecting the freedom to make jokes.

One thing I'll say about DC not only canceling Red Hood, but recalling the first issue and refunding stores for buying it, is that you can still get Neil Gaiman's work through them. They still work with Otto Schmidt. Eddie Berganza worked there for years AFTER the formation of a policy that no women

linguistics and public health, together again!

MA Gov Healey statement before ACIP: “We are not going to let Trump or Kennedy take away your ability to make your own health care decisions. We are taking this action so the people of MA will continue to be able to get the vaccines you want and need – no matter what happens at the federal level.”

Massachusetts immunization update - remember how I said the 2024-25 CDC/ACIP guidance was the standard for MA until we heard otherwise? New MA vaccine guidance for the current/coming year has just been released: mass.gov/VaccineGuida... Highlights in the thread below. #PublicHealth #mapoli 1/9

Oh, surprise surprise, Steven "the only person who could make voting for Brianna Wu seem like a good idea" Lynch, once again on the shitty side of history. (can someone who's *not* BW primary him, please???)

"They're politicians, what are they supposed to do? Literally fight in the streets?" Unashamed to say this made me cry.

me to my students: LLMs are like your worst ex. They will LIE to you with the most serene, most confident face one of my students, quietly: I hate that guy so much

Also worth highlighting (as Jessica mentions downthread) that the dashboard lets you filter by region and even state, which is important if you're using it to make personal risk-assessment decisions! (For example, national risk level? high. Northeast region? moderate. Massachusetts? ...high.)

He is living today with the trauma of losing his only friend, who died while trying to get flour to feed his family. This tragedy has left him with a deep wound and a great fear that he might face the same fate.

damn, NYP. from your lips to god's ears...

As someone whose work depends in part on accurate data about people with disabilities, largely from government data sources... it's rough, but I can't fault anyone for doing what they need to do. (but do please consider disclosing as much as possible on anonymous surveys if not in medical records?)

Quick reminder to my MA folks - the reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is meeting later this week. However, *whatever they come up with,* the standard for COVID-19 vaccine eligibility and access in Massachusetts is here: www.mass.gov/info-details... #PublicHealth