Some closing thoughts for the month.

July is an odd part of the year from my perspective. My mother was born in the last week of it, and I was diagnosed with diabetes exactly thirty years to that day. I have already resolved that if my dream of being in the Human trials for a cure for diabetes comes true, I will ask them to do that procedure on my mother’s birthday. She will “get it”.

Hypothetical situation: Autism Speaks has just ceased to exist. Now what?

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine an organisation that is allowed to call itself a charity being hated by the people it claims to be working for to a greater extent than is the case with Autism Speaks. In fact, Autism Speaks’ behaviour in general reminds me of one of the few moments in RoboCop 2 that even comes close to working. During the MediaBreak segment that opens the film, we are told that the police in Detroit have gone on strike once again. In the accompanying interview footage, an officer states that the company that has taken control of the police service in the city has cut the force’s salaries by forty percent and cancelled their pensions. And now, he says, said company will not even talk to them. “God knows why,” the officer opines, “but they want this strike.”