I always picked Australia.It was my answer ~ EVERY TIME! You know the question…”If you could go to any country in the world where would YOU go?” I don’t know if it was my little girl love of Koala Bears or what? As I got older I kind of lost sight of that worldly desire of mine. Life kicks in, bills come and go.Life evolves…children are born. Realizing YOUR DREAM is not possible…your mind convinces yourself…”Heck, I never wanted to go DOWN UNDER anyway!
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Well guess what? Now that I’m all grown-up …I realize I don’t want to go “Down Under” at all. I want to go UP ABOVE! Australia is SO ENLIGHTENED about the spectrum! I think they need a new nick name!! AWESOME AUTISM ATTITUDE LAND !! Yesterday I was fortunate enough to view a news story from an Australian morning show! Megzz Megan Hammond provided it to me on facebook! She is an amazing woman who was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in her mid-twenties!
She has an extremely interesting group called My life with Asperger”s From the title of her book. http://www.femail.com.au./my-life-with-aspergers.htm I highly recommend you check-out and join her group! She really is a phenomonal individual! Not only does she share something so personal and informative to the world. She is constantly POSTING AMAZING PHOTOS!! Truly…you will not be dissappointed! Thanks Megzz…YOU ROCK!
So now, back to this” bone I have to pick” with OUR American MEDIA!! Please watch the attached News CLIP . http://today.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1040518 What struck me most about this “news story” was that it was just that! A NEWS STORY! Meant to TEACH for HELPING purposes. Not a “feel good” story with an antecdote or two. Sure that would be fine for a print piece or in a longer profile piece. However, those stories are few and far between in the U.S.! Seems, we save all the “anecdotal /feel good” stories over here for Autism “Awareness” APRIL. Why would they TEACH and HELP?! Oh yes…you might not make ratings with THAT brand of T.V.!
Ridiculous! Autism is not a sound bite for the nightly news. It is a way of life for over a million people…and counting. What will … serve OUR Community is effective dialogue, and practical solutions! Amazingly that is exactly what you see when you look at this story! Reporter Lisa is well prepared with an informative script and visual graphics helping to make her points. Very clear, very cohesive! Sally Thibault the mother/author featured in this story is an amazing woman! By all means check into her book as well! 
www.davidsgift.com.au
WORLDS of information!! C’MON people can we please take a look at the FOREST…through the trees?!! Let’s get with the program over here on our side of the pond!! Let’s look at AUTISM from a whole new perspective. It is crucial that we do this! There are more and more of us everyday and we thrive on GOOD information! So we need to take a lesson here on what is important! We need to rise to this occassion as our Australian neighbors have so rightly done! When it comes to our MIND-SET regarding Autism and Asperger Syndrome …let’s take a lesson from our friends “DOWN~UNDER.” Open our eyes and our hearts and rise…”UP~ABOVE!!
