I Speak of Dreams

Making Light: Go Bags

The excellent Jim MacDonald has compiled a list of things every human being should have on hand in case of emergency.   Making Light: Go Bags.

I need to refill my cash stash.

Yep, It Moved For Me

I was dozing in bed last night, continuing to recover from the vile disease, when I thought Jenny the Wonder Dog was  engaging in an orgy of scratching.  Nope.  When I sat up, I realized it was a rock'n'roller earthquake.  It seemed to go on for quite a while.  By the time I got up and stuffed my feet in some shoes to head for the out-of-doors, it was over.

You can see an intensity map and report how it was for you, too.

Neither dog nor cat reacted much.

Down for the Count

That disease that's been running around my circle hit yesterday afternoon, thankfully after I got back from the conference.

The conference was awesome.  More posts about it later.

Westin Hotel, Market Street

Like I said, I'm at a conference.  The Westin Hotel bills itself as providing "Flawless Meetings At Our Downtown San Francisco Convention Center Hotel" and  "High-speed Internet access in all rooms and meeting rooms, for a fee". Yes, the audiovisual  electronics are working well.  I can get the internet access sign-on screen, but no one on the staff can tell me what the fee is, or how to pay it.

It's really frustrating as I needed to communicate electronically with three people yesterday during the day.

What I'm Up To

I'm at the annual meeting of the Association of Educational Therapists.  I thought I was going to be liveblogging some of the conference elements, but the hotel staff maintain I cannot have internet access.  Sheesh.

Shawn Jones, an Academy at Ivy Ridge Victim

There was an article in the paper yesterday about Shawn Jones, the young man who was brutally mauled by three dogs in 2001.  Jones spent nearly a year in the hospital.

His mother assigned custody to a relative, Belinda Arnett.   I was shocked to read that  at some point  between 2002 and 2005, Arnett sent Jones to the Academy at Ivy Ridge (AIR), a notorious behavior-modification treatment facility masquerading as a school. 

In my opinion, no part of the AIR program is reputable, and might be particularly ill-suited for a child that had been traumatized by a dog attack, subsequent lengthy hospitalization,  and who had significant physical disfigurement.

Fortunately, Jones' incarceration at AIR prompted his mother to regain custody.

Jones returned to California in 2005, and now is playing football for Mount Diablo High School.

I wish him the very best.

Parents, if you are considering a residential treatment program for your child, please download and read this factsheet from Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment (A START).  Download ASTART_program_questions.pdf

Academy at Ivy Ridge Not A School, Says New York State
Class Action Suits Against Ivy Ridge and WWASPS

Homeopaths on the Warpath

<

Update April 2010 Homeopathy a systematic review finds no evidence that homeopathy has effects beyond placebo. Dr. Steven Barnett's article, Homeopathy: The Ultimate Fake reviews the status of homeopathy in the United States. Homeopathy lists the critiques published of homeopathy in April, 2010. homeopathyThere's Nothing In It, the 10:23 campaign.

p>Once upon a time, October 11 2007,  a blogger named Andy Lewis (who keeps the Quackometer, and writes as Le Canard Noir) wrote a post criticizing UK homeopaths and their parent body, The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) The response?  SoH threatened the Quackometer's hosting company, Netcetera, and the post was taken down.  Silly SoH--the "offending" post was rapidly propagated throughout the web.

Here are the links to the controversy:
Quackometer: The Offending Post (The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing)
Skeptic Dog (one of many who reposted the offending post)
Quackometer: How SoH Has Not Responded (Homeopaths Through the Looking Glass)
 
Bad Science: Homeopaths Try to Silence Critiques
Bad Science: The Very Polite E-mail from Andy to SoH

Back Story:
Quackometer: Homeopathic Thought in the 21st Century (October 12 2007)
Quackometer: Will itunes and Homeopathy Cure AIDS?
Quackometer: State-Sponsored Quackery

Attention, Teachers and Parents: The Basics are Fundamental

Read what TMAO says (relative to closing the teaching gap & NCLB):

4. Basic skills are not basic. They are fundamental, foundational, and critical. In their absence, almost all other leanings are undervalued and under-realized.
5. Instruction in basic skills is not necessarily mind-numbing and awful. This manner of instruction, in these settings, undoubtedly exists, and it is the reason so many fail so mightily to acquire these skills.

(emphasis added):
it's incumbent on us to fix problems of survival -- and yo, it's diplomas or jail in our cities -- before problems of enrichment.

After McCarthy: Autism quackery on the rise

Remember how Jenny McCarthy became an autism expert?  Sigh. Now: go read what Leelo's mom said.  And then go read what Charlie's mom said:

Hope for me doesn’t start because some other person has told us “do this and he will stop flapping his arms and will make eye contact.” Hope for me starts with Charlie, my son who has autism; a great kid, a patient and sensitive kid, who has taught me to listen to things I didn’t know were being said to me, to see that I can be most wrong when I think I am most right, who tries the hardest of all to do what is asked of him.

And Orac recounts the damage celebrity credulity can do, in The "Jenny McCarthy effect": More credulity towards autism quackery.

Southern California Ablaze

Update: More links from Boing Boing, including satellite photos

Update 2: Karoli to MSM:  Attention Mainstream Media: Quit Comparing SoCa Fires to Katrina!

 

There IS no comparison.  Yes, the fires are terrible and my heart goes out to every person who has lost their property or worse yet, their life as a consequence.  But you simply cannot continue this absurd comparison to Hurricane Katrina, nor should you allow the politicians to use this disaster as evidence that they’ve learned their lessons.  Here’s why:
go read the post.

 

Update #3 Grace Davis has a pointer to her BlogHer post, which in she links to people liveblogging and photographing the fires.

Update #4: Karoli: Deconstructing the Fires

[FEMA's] goal was to use our California disaster to vindicate themselves of the Katrina disaster.  It didn’t work.

Update #5: Joel Sax:

The Witch and Harris Fires repeated the cardinal mistakes of the previous fires in San Diego County and it all comes down to this: people in San Diego County don’t want to pay the costs of protecting themselves

 

The Los Angeles Times is listing 18 active fires (Google map here).

In many cases, crews were slowed fighting fires because they were too busy rescuing residents who refused to leave, fire officials said.

"They didn't evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District. "And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources."

You can try here: http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents,  but it is currently overloaded.  There's also the National Interagency Fire, here: http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/nfn.htm,  which lists the number of current active fires in California as 11.   NOAA's Fire Weather page, http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto/cafw/index.php has most of Southern California, from the Pacific over to the Central Valley, on Red Flag Alert status.  A blog, California Fire News, can be found at http://calfire.blogspot.com/

Below the fold: InciWeb for the fires, to date.