Families and Memory — Free Public Symposium

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A Free Public Symposium on Eugenics and Family Life:
Past, Present & Future
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Friday, October 24, 2008, 8:30 am – 4:00pm
Edmonton Public Library, Stanley Milner Branch (Downtown)

This FREE PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM will centre on the stories and experiences of survivors of sterilization, institutionalization, and other aspects of our social structure that have excluded persons with real or perceived disabilities from family life

Planning on attending? Enrollment is limited! Please tell us!

Visit www.whatsorts.net and register today
(Register Here)

Get more details on the day beneath the fold.

The War in Iraq: an Australian perspective

Although it is not the habit of this blog to be “overly political” (heavens forbid!), with all the election fever that is sweeping both Canada and the US, my Australian sensibilities have led me to think that readers would appreciate a uniquely antipodean interview with the Australian Minister of Defence, Dr. Brendan Nelson on no less important a topic for our future than the war in Iraq.

The video, which shows Australian Minister of Defence Brendan Nelson interviewed on the respected ABC network (not to be confused with the acronymically identical ratbag US network), is not captioned, nor translated from Australianese into North Americanese. But still, it shows our leaders at their best. Beware: what follows is a bit of a lollyscramble!

For those who want a transcript of the video, click here. (By the way, we are working on making use of the new YouTube facility for captioning, but it’s still more than a few clicks away for videos that we don’t ourselves own. We hope to bring some nice results from that change shortly.)

Victims of Violence with Autism

Recent murders, violence, and abuse of children and adults with autism or Asperger syndrome are an incredibly disturbing trend. The following cases are only a sample of the many cases reported within the last month:

19 September 2008 – Margate, FL, USA NBC6 News reports that two men were arrested in connection with a sexual assault of “an autistic girl.”