Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Update on Michael Savage

I have attempted to contact all of Michael Savage's sponsors to make them aware of what their advertising dollars support. Most of them are not companies or organizations I patronize, but a few are larger, and one, Home Depot, is a place I've visited regularly in the past. I will not patronize Home Depot until they pull their support from Michael Savage's show.

DMIUSA has a full email inbox. I hope a lot of people had the same idea I did.

I have to be honest: I skipped one sponsor. I didn't try to contact Townhall.com, because just as I was looking for contact information, I ran across an article about how autism is over-diagnosed. Besides, Ann Coulter's one of their columnists. If they like her, I'm sure Michael Savage is no problem for them, either. Pointless, hate-filled rants are their specialty.

According to a New York Times article, Savage is standing by his remarks on autism. However, he's shifting the discussion to a broader point of "autism is over-diagnosed". I truly hope nobody lets him get away with it, but I know the gutless mainstream media will not bother to do any research, and he'll get away with all of he disparaging remarks he made.

He attacked children with autism and their parents. Let's not forget that.

He also attacked minorities, implying that they were all on welfare and all minority children were dishonest about asthma--something they die from three to six times more often than white children with asthma.

There was nothing factual in his claims about autism. The only number he cited was "99 percent", in reference to the number of cases where autism is simply a "brat who hasn't been told to cut out the act." If anyone in the media interviews him--and I'm told Good Morning America will--they should have a good set of facts handy and, ideally, a group of parents with their children who have autism. This last would be difficult for most parents dealing with autism, I know--my kid wouldn't want to be in such an alien situation, and might have a meltdown--but I'd love for Michael Savage to look at the faces of autism and try to stand by his remarks.

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