The L.A.T.T.E.

Recently, there's been a lot of hubbub, harrumphing and a general din over Autism and the autism awareness campaign being run by Autism Speaks. If you've paid any attention to cable news, you'll find a recurring theme of despair, sadness, pity, and general horror when it comes to about any news story on Autism.

Normally I'd just ignore this - after all, ratings = profit for channels such as FOX News, MSNBC and CNN, among others. However, their misinformation and bias towards sensationalism are distorting the facts and causing actual harm.

Take, for example, a story by CNN on the cost of raising an Autistic child - excuse me, "The financial toll of Autism" (http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/02/pf/autism/index.htm?hpt=hp_c2):

The cost of providing care for a person with autism in the U.S. is an estimated $1.4 million over their lifetime, according to a study funded by advocacy group Autism Speaks. For those with autism who are impacted with intellectual disabilities (with an IQ of 70 or less) -- nearly half of the autistic population -- the cost jumps to $2.3 million.

That's in addition to the standard costs associated with raising a child, including food, education and housing.

Let's take a closer look at these figures. First of all, how much, over a child's lifetime, does it cost to care and raise a child? According to CNN:

The cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 for a middle-income, two-parent family averaged $226,920 last year (not including college), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 WOW, big difference, right? I mean, 1.4 million compared to 226,920? That's awful!

But wait a second - something's wrong here. The 1.4 million estimate is for a person (with autism)'s lifetime, not just from birth to age 18. Comparing a lifetime of care for a person (birth to age 80, approximately) to caring for a child until they're legally an adult (and most parents give care beyond that, anyway) is incredibly misleading.

So let's take that 226,920 number and multiply it by a lifetime (about 80 years). Rounding up the age to 20 - thereby keeping the number low and somewhat accurate - The amount of expenditure for a lifetime of care comes to $907,680, $492,320 dollars less than Autism Speaks' estimate of 1.4 million for a person with Autism.

$492,320 is a lot - but a LOT less than when you compare their estimate with the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18, which totals $1,173,080 dollars. 

Keep in mind that these are also averages - which means costs fluctuate and vary across the nation; they could be higher or lower, depending on a multitude of factors. According to Wikipedia (who also got their numbers from the USDA in a report written in 2006) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_raising_a_child, a higher estimate for birth to age 18 is in the $250,000 range. 
A great calculator of the cost of raising a child can also be found here: http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator it has a great user interface that's simple, clear and concise. The USDA has its own as well, listed here: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/calculatorintro.htm. As you will see, costs vary greatly.

Let's be clear: raising a child - period - is expensive. It will remain expensive throughout the centuries, because a child is not a toy, or a pet - it's a human life. Humans are complicated, complex creatures. To expect anything else is to be naive, narrow-minded and short-sighted. Raising a child with a disability will probably cost more, depending on the disability. But in a society where disability is seen as something wrong, something to hide, something to be ashamed of (it is not) - what do you expect?

Of course, CNN also headlines the story with "AUTISM'S $137 BILLION PRICE TAG", which makes it sound as if Autism alone is somehow bankrupting our country. It is not. Here's a question: how much is Down's Syndrome costing our country? How about baseball? Or education? This number means little when comparing it to what else the nation spends money on; not to mention that as a capitalist country, spending is a part of what DRIVES our economy. The only reason to show the number is to invoke feelings of dread and sadness upon those who don't think beyond the story.

Then again, facts don't get ratings. Sensationalism, emotion and drama do. 

By the way, CNN's videos are not captioned! Great job on accessibility, CNN!

Three months into the new year, and to be honest, I'm already behind. GNOME 3.4 was just released, and Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/) is using GNOME (http://www.gnome.org/) as its default desktop environment. Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) is using Unity (its own desktop environment creation), which makes things a bit more difficult since Unity is less than 5 years old.

I haven't tested either of them personally.

As I sit here at my desk, downloading the most current isos (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsi/g/isofile.htm) of both Ubuntu, Fedora and Mint, I remember why I haven't done this sooner.

Part of this has to do with my own bias against Unity, as well as GNOME 3. I know, I'm ashamed. Normally, I'm an advocate for progress and new ideas. However, since I did get to see what GNOME 3 was like in Linux Mint 12 (http://www.linuxmint.com/), I was disappointed - not in Mint (which did a fine job with MATE and other modifications to their desktop), but in GNOME for abandoning the highly recommended, used and popular design and interface that was present in 2.3 (the version before GNOME 3).

With Unity, it's one thing - I was moving on from Ubuntu anyway, so I wasn't as unhappy with the change on their end as much. I was ready to try a different distro and improve upon my Linux/open-source knowledge by trying something new. Unity wasn't going to help in that area, specifically due to the fact that 1) the buttons on the left-hand column menu are frustratingly hard to change, and 2) multiple windows/programs open at the same time was not possible (I mean, you could, but there was no way to see them, i.e. a task bar, etc). I had other complaints, but that was mostly about trivial customization matters. Unity, from where I stood - and somewhat today still stand - is for end users who are not very knowledgeable about computers, but want something low/no cost and 'pretty'. I have met people who use Ubuntu with its Unity interface; out of that pool, very, very few, if any, are technical users. Most are just people who want things to work, and don't want anywhere near a command line. That's perfectly okay - different people know different things, and if everyone knew the same thing, life would be mortally boring. Unity just wasn't for me.

When it came to GNOME 3, however, I was...disappointed. I guess I was hoping for something different, but not too different as to shake up the desktop that I was used to working with. What was I expecting? I'm not entirely sure, but it wasn't what GNOME is today. I really liked 2.3; my Linux 'teething' took place there. So when what I knew changed, I didn't know what to do. I ultimately went from Ubuntu to Linux Mint Debian Edition to Linux Mint 12 with LXDE (http://www.lxde.org/). While I adore Mint, I've grown to dislike LXDE for a few reasons: 1) rudimentary configuration of some things (mouse, desktop icons, etc.) is not persistent; 2) no graphic menu editor (I can still modify the config file); 3) it's not playing all that well with my peripherals. Hopefully Mint's newest endeavor, Cinnamon, will bring back the look we all love and miss in current distributions.

If not, I'm back to where I am now, using a desktop environment I don't particularly care for, hoping for a GNOME 2.3-like experience on a distribution that's stable, reliable, and current. Maybe I should move on, try the new environments, and get used to what will probably become the norm in the future for desktop distributions. That WOULD be the adult, mature thing to do.

But for some reason, it doesn't feel like the Linux thing to do.

What does feel like the Linux thing to do is to customize my own system using GNOME 2.3, configure it extensively, and enjoy a now old-school desktop environment upon a current distribution. But like the end users I described above, I do need a system that 'just works' for my daily activities: reliable, durable, current, and stable. Putting an obselete environment upon a constantly updating release is the opposite of what I need. It would be ever so satisfying though, if I could get it to work.

So, in the next couple of weeks, I'll do some testing on the latest versions of Mint, Ubuntu, and Fedora. I will make sure I detail the accessibility programs I tried out, as well as the specifics on each distribution. 

Also, for those of you who listen to podcasts, I am contemplating doing an audio recording of my blog, with transcripts available for those who need them. I'm welcome to ideas, thoughts, criticisms, etc. regarding this. 

Espresso for all, 

- Spencer