Give 10-year-old Shawn Fairbairn this: Hes a political reporter who cuts to the quick.

He thinks that Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, should stick to writing books. His first question for a top surrogate for Bernie Sanders was whether the Vermont senator was up to the job of running for president after a heart attack.

And if he gets a moment to talk to Sanders himself? He has a great gotcha question ready: Whats his favorite Ben and Jerrys flavor?

Id ask him how hes feeling and if he recovered well, I think Ill ask him that about his favorite flavor, Fairbairn explained, anticipating Sanders likely appearance in the spin room after the debate Tuesday in Westerville, Ohio.

Fairbairn is the latest reporter representing KidScoop Media at the debates. KidScoop Media is a Culver City, California outfit that gets kids interested in the news by getting them to report on it.

If this sounds familiar, its because the Jewish Telegraphic Agencyprofiledanother KidScoop Media reporter, Jeffery Kraft, in July at the debate in Detroit.

CNN or the Democratic National Committee its not clear who, exactly has for the second time seated JTA at a debate between KidScoop Media and Jewish Insider.

Fairbairn, like Kraft, is Jewish, and attends Hebrew school at Temple Akiba in Culver City twice a week. He says without hesitation that his favorite Jewish holiday is Rosh Hashanah.

I want to ask how they will empower kids like me who want to make a difference in the world.

I really like the Rosh Hashanah dinners and I like being with my family a lot, he said. I really like matzah balls.

Matzah balls? What about apples and honey?

I dont actually really like apples and honey, said Fairbairn, and then added with the politest expression of disgust shadowing his face.

Shawn has more serious questions planned to ask the candidates too.

I want to ask how they will empower kids like me who want to make a difference in the world, he said.

How does Fairbairn want to make a difference?

Rainforests. I like all the animals in them, I like animals a lot, frogs are my favorite animals and a lot of frogs live in rainforests, he said.

Shawn actuallymet Williamsonwhen the candidate had an event in Culver City in July.

Why did you take a break from writing books to go into politics? he asked her.

Her answer: She still is writing, on Twitter.

I just wanted to know, when we looked her up we saw she was an author, that she used to be author and then she became a politician, Fairbairn told JTA. I like to read books, I would wonder why people would stop writing, because I think that books are amazing.

It was at least a more normative encounter than Jefferys with Williamson, at the July debate. Williamson gave Jeffery an oddscoop that her cat was dead.

On Tuesday, Shawn, sporting a gray suit, a blue shirt, a black bow tie and a Sony camera around his neck, wandered the spin room and scored an interview with Nina Turner, the former Ohio state senator who is the president of Our Revolution, the political action committee that grew out of Sanders 2016 campaign.

I asked her how Senator Sanders was doing, Shawn said. She said hes feeling great, hes in high spirits. She said he has a lot of energy.

Turner told Shawn that Sanders and Ben and Jerry are all Vermonters, and that the ice cream mavens back Sanders campaign.

But it was JTA who told Shawn that Sanders, Ben, Jerry, and Williamson were all Jewish.

I did not know that! Fairbairn said, his eyebrows raising in genuine curiosity.

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This 10-year-old Jewish reporter has some tough post-debate questions - The Jewish News of Northern California

Its been 20-plus years since Sex and the City premiered on HBO, introducing a generation of premium cable subscribers to stylish sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw, and her three friends, Charlotte Goldenblatt (ne York), Samantha Jones, and Miranda Hobbes.

The ensuing two decades have only served to solidify the shows place in the pop culture pantheonjust ask designer Chelsea Fairless and writer-director Lauren Garroni, the L.A.-based duo behind @everyoutfitonsatc, an Instagram account that documents the series most iconic and most tragic fashion decisions. Theyve become authorities on the world of the show for the accounts 600k followers, and this week they release We Should All Be Mirandas, a satirical self-help book that plumbs a truth many fans have come around to as theyve gotten older: Miranda, not Carrie, was the series true connecting character.

It all started with the Instagram account, which began as a joke between the two friends, but within a month had 100k followers.

It was unexpected to say the least, Fairless says. Garroni adds, If we knew what it would become, we would have tried for a more interesting origin story, but thats probably why its become what its become because we didnt expect it to.

The account first spawned merch, including a T-shirt reading We Should All Be Mirandas, a parody of Diors $800-plus We Should All Be Feminists shirt. Hobbes, cynical attorney and single mother, takes a minute to warm up to. While young women watch the show and envy Bradshaws job, closet, and romantic life, Hobbes is often viewed as the frumpy realist who wears pantsuits and eats cake out of the trashcan. But once you grow up a little, you realize how great she was.

At the end of the day, Miranda went to Harvard, became a law partner before the age of 35, owns her own brownstone, has a full-time housekeeper, and in todays world, thats aspirational. If not that, I dont know what is.

In starting this account, we realized we had grown into Mirandas, Garroni says. I mean, Im sure the characteristics always existed or resided within us, but I think like many people, we wanted to be Carrie. We kind of emulated those behaviors in embarrassing ways. Our closets used to be filled with very regrettable H&M purchases. Chelsea and I both lived in New York and we went to college together for fashion school. There was a lot of walking on cobblestone streets in the dead of winter in high heels trying to emulate that lifestyle and never quite getting there and then starting the account and growing older, we were Mirandas and it caused us to look at why we didnt want to identify with her and really looking at how at the end of the day, shes someone who went to Harvard, became a law partner before the age of 35, owns her own brownstone, has a full-time housekeeper, and in todays world, thats aspirational. If not that, I dont know what is.

Stephanie Gonot

We Should All Be Mirandas pokes fun at the self-help books made popular in the 80s and 90s that tell women they can have it all.

Which basically means a good marriage, a hot body, a good career, all of that stuff, Fairless says, so our book very much uses that kind of architecture and that was our inspiration point for We Should All Be Mirandas.

The Miranda shirt led to a book, as well as a relationship with Cynthia Nixon, who played Hobbes on the show. When Nixonwho follows @everyoutfitonsatcran for New York governor in 2018, her team called Fairless and Garroni for help. The two hosted a fundraiser with her and designed merch for her campaign, and wrote and directed a campaign video for her. Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, and Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie, also follow the account. Considering the account occasionally pokes fun at the characters sartorial choices, Fairless and Garroni say theyre conscious of what they write.

We always want to try to be respectful to the actresses on the show, Fairless says. That said, we also want this to be for the audience. Were not afraid to say an outfit is crazy if its actually crazy and everyone perceives it to be that way. But also, its like sometimes we criticize the styling choices, but we would never criticize someones appearance, we have no criticism for the actresses of the show because they were so incredible.

Fairless and Garroni fete We Should All Be Mirandas at a launch party on Oct. 24 at the Standard, Hollywood.

RELATED: Scene It Before: Carrie Bradshaws Hollywood Smoking Stoop

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'We Should All Be Mirandas' Celebrates the Actual Heroine of 'Sex and the City' - LA Magazine

An online treatment platform consisting of psychoeducation for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and education regarding sleep management is a potentially effective strategy for reducing posttraumatic stress, according to research presented at World Sleep 2019, held September 20 to 25, in Vancouver, Canada.

Researchers enrolled evacuees of the Fort McMurray wildfires that occurred in Canada on May 1, 2016, in this study. A total of 697 individuals who participated in a baseline phone survey that assessed prevalence of PTSD, insomnia, and depression in this population expressed interest to participate. In the final cohort, researchers randomly assigned participants to a treatment condition (n=69) or a waitlist control condition (n=67).

The treatment condition consisted of a therapist-assisted self-help online cognitive behavior therapy that provided 12 sessions of psychoeducation on PTSD, sleep, and depression. Participants also received education regarding sleep management, including sleep hygiene education, stimulus control, and restriction of time in bed. They completed sleep diaries and self-assessment measures of PTSD, insomnia, and depression during the study.

Individuals randomly assigned to the treatment group completed a mean of 55.26 online therapy sessions, and 17 participants completed 50% of the treatment. The treatment condition was associated with improvements in the symptoms of PTSD, insomnia, and depression.

Limitations of the study include the predominantly large proportion of women (76%) and the self-reported nature of improvements in the PTSD and sleep parameters.

This computerized psychotherapeutic tool was successful to provide access to specialized evidence-based mental health care to promote resilience and better sleep after a disaster in a remote population, the researchers concluded.

Reference

Belleville G, Lebel J, Ouellet MC, et al. RESILIENT an online multidimensional treatment to promote resilience and better sleep: a randomized controlled trial. Abstract presented at World Sleep 2019 Congress; September 20-25, 2019; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Improves Sleep, PTSD in Evacuees of Natural Disasters - Neurology Advisor

Steps from USC campus, a modern, newly built detached studio apartment. Full kitchen w/ brand-new gas stove, dishwasher. Washer/dryer, full bath, a/c, bedroom nook, ready-to-go entertainment hookups. Scandinavian design appeal. Walking distance to L.A. Metro. $1,400/month.

A dream Los Angeles rental listing? At 20 percent below market, in a neighborhood where the alternative is a 70-year-old building with a coin-operated laundry?

Its not reality yet, but it will be soon. Construction will begin this month on 20 to 30 units fitting this description through an innovative development effort that focuses on converting detached two-car garages of which there are 250,000 in Los Angeles County into subsidized studio apartments.

According to a recent report by the California Housing Partnership, the state needs 1.4 million more affordable rental homes to meet current needs. The housing crisis in California means that architects and builders have had to get creative, and Steven Dietz said he is up for the challenge.

I believe that affordable housing is the single biggest problem that California faces, and its entirely man-made, said Mr. Dietz, the chief executive of United Dwelling, a company that won a million-dollar grant last year from Los Angeles County to help bring his vision of garage conversions to life.

Garage conversions, granny flats, backyard cottages, in-law apartments, guesthouses, crash pads: In California as of 2017, theyre all accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, and state laws regulating their construction have been relaxed. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law this month that further encourages their construction.

Larger, multiroom ADUs built from the ground up are also a part of efforts to contend with the housing crisis, but Mr. Dietz, a longtime venture capitalist who invested in Costco and Starbucks and has taught a class on entrepreneurship at the University of Southern Californias Marshall School of Business, took inspiration from the new laws to focus on a garage-based solution with research help from his students at U.S.C.

His idea is simple: United Dwelling enters a partnership with a homeowner, pays for the garage conversion, manages the rental of the apartment to a qualified applicant and splits the rent with the homeowner.

Since most of the detached garages in Los Angeles arent used for cars 91 percent of the 2,100 homeowners surveyed by Mr. Dietzs students use their garages for something else, mostly storage this can provide rental income and affordable housing in many neighborhoods. And it does it by using existing structures.

The No. 1 complaint with the construction of any new affordable housing anywhere is that it changes the fabric of the neighborhood, said Christian D. Nvar, the co-founder of Modative, an architecture firm in Los Angeles County that has been leading the charge in reimagining affordable ADUs. That isnt an issue, with this approach.

Modative has been specializing in small-footprint home design since its founding 13 years ago, but the current ADU push in the firms business started a year ago with Mr. Dietz, who asked Modative to design an attractive, appealing studio garage conversion that could be done quickly and efficiently and at large scale. Mr. Nvar and his business partner, Derek Leavitt, designed a 310-square-foot studio garage conversion with a set of specifications to fit almost any detached two-car garage.

Other organizations in the city have also been helping to make ADUs accessible to more people.

The Backyard Homes Project, coordinated by LA-Ms, a nonprofit design group working in low-income communities, received more than 130 applications in May from homeowners interested in building its one- and two-bedroom ADU designs. The program also provides the design, financing, construction and management in a one-stop shop, with collective partners that include Self-Help Federal Credit Union, LA Family Housing and Restore Neighborhoods LA.

Elaine Phuong, who lives in the West Los Angeles neighborhood, had her homes Spanish-style stucco garage converted into one of Modatives prototypes over the summer.

We had a garage we were just dumping stuff in. We didnt have a car in it, said Ms. Phuong, 40, a restaurant owner who lives with her husband and two young children.

Last year, she connected with Modative and agreed to become the first model conversion. I love minimalist homes that really maximize space. Its really thoughtful. It doesnt feel like a garage. It just feels like an apartment, but its camouflaged with the Spanish style, with a patio.

Ms. Phuong said her mother may move into the space, or her cousin. As much as renting it out is attractive, having family stay with us is probably a priority right now, because we have twin girls who are four years old, she said. But theres a lot of potential to help us regain whatever money we put in it.

United Dwelling is focusing its initial push in the South Los Angeles area, where there are 9,600 detached garages within three-quarters of a mile of one of the six Metro stops closest to U.S.C., which is a partner in the project. Each Metro stop represents a cluster ripe for conversions.

Leimert Park is a major neighborhood in the cluster, and Mr. Dietzs near-term goal is to begin construction there on 24 garage conversions in October. Many of the leases have already been signed.

We have a teachers aide who works at a school in Leimert Park but commutes from Lancaster, two hours away, Mr. Dietz said. She ends up sleeping in her car three to four days a week. One of the houses were working on is a couple with a 2-year-old, who live five doors down from the school.

The ideal outcome? The teacher gets to live a minutes walk from her job, the parents receive rental income and occasional babysitting help.

And theres one less car on the road.

By next January and February, Mr. Dietz said, he foresees 20 to 30 conversions a month in the first six geographic clusters around U.S.C. In subsequent rollouts, United Dwelling is working with public schools to provide housing for their teachers and with area hospitals to provide housing for doctors, nurses and other health workers.

Modatives chief innovation has been to trim both construction time and cost. It also streamlines the permit and inspection process.

In aesthetic terms, it was important to Mr. Nvar that the materials and fixtures be of high quality, modern, and thoughtful, with a pleasing selection of colors.

Through extensive research, he and Mr. Leavitt homed in on the necessary creature comforts: a bedroom nook thats tucked away, a full gas oven and stove, wiring for a television and entertainment area, a stacked washer-dryer and a dishwasher.

Mr. Nvar explained that Modative can save time and money by pre-assembling walls, kitchens and wiring, and then storing the components until a site is ready. Ms. Phuongs conversion was completed in June. This month, United Dwellings Leimert Park conversions will begin in earnest.

The prototype costs about $100,000, but by doing four to five conversions at a time in the same neighborhood, Modative estimates, it will cut the cost of each unit to about $65,000. With an empty garage and a clean foundation, each ADU conversion takes about two weeks.

In its partnership with United Dwelling, Modative is also contributing jobs; the firm has 15 construction workers who have been hired through Chrysalis, a nonprofit program that helps find jobs for people who have faced past roadblocks to employment, including homelessness, substance abuse and incarceration.

Each employee undergoes an in-house training program specifically geared to the ADU projects. To meet its construction goals, United Dwelling said, it needs to hire more workers.

We have done the big-budget, expansive custom home projects, which are fun in and of themselves, but they wont solve the housing problem, and they wont benefit the community, Mr. Nvar said. Right now, this is the work that excites us the most.

Mr. Nvar said Modatives focus on ADUs originated with his own challenges in finding a place to live, and with those of his colleagues.

Many of the companys employees have moved to Portland over the years, in search of housing that was within their means.

Mr. Nvar grew up in Sunnyvale, in the epicenter of Silicon Valley, and he said that he and his wife as business owners, parents of two young children, and with $250,000 in student loans could not afford a home there.

It doesnt really matter what stage of income youre at in California you cant afford a house, he said. Whether its a low-income rental or a first-time home buyer looking for something attainable, housing has become a universal problem.

The other strand of Modatives ADU work is an answer for first-time home buyers: units that are up to two bedrooms with 2.5 baths on a compact footprint. As with the studio garage conversion, customers choose from a set of models with different palettes and options. Think of buying a car; you select a model, and then you have a few choices. Do you want the red one or the black one? Leather interior or fabric? The home choices are limited, and so is the price: $350,000.

Modative built the first of its larger ADUs in West Los Angeles late last year, and it has several more home projects, including one in Santa Clara, Calif., that will be completed by the end of the year.

The larger ADU is the kind of structure that empty nesters might build in the backyard, so that their grown children might live in it or so that they can rent it for extra income. The hope is that well-priced ADUs can go far in solving a range of housing problems all over California and in the country.

While nonprofit housing developers prioritize multifamily developments, we support ADUs as one of many tools that can help address our housing crisis, given the staggering deficit of units across California for people of all incomes, said Alan Greenlee, executive director of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing. Notably, ADUs can help achieve greater density of units in neighborhoods that are primarily zoned for single-family homes.

To spread the gospel of their garage converted ADUs more easily, Modative has IKEA-fied the building plans for the conversion, simplifying instructions to make construction accessible to more homeowners and contractors.

They have just licensed a set of test plans to an outside contractor to see if he can build it on his own from the plans. Mr. Nvar and Mr. Leavitt said they were inspired by the simple and elegant visual coding of LEGOs no written instructions needed.

The lessons learned in their youth dont stop there. When he was a seventh grader at Sunnyvale Middle School, Mr. Nvar took a wacky class called Survival of the Fittest that he remembers vividly. In it, he and his classmates were asked to imagine being stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash and to think about the most important basic thing that they couldnt live without. Water, they all agreed. Definitely water.

It was shelter, Mr. Nvar said; his teacher made a point of it. Without it, the sun, the heat, the cold the exposure would get you first. And I never forgot that.

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Empty Garages: The Answer to Californias Housing Shortage? - The New York Times

REVENUE FOR THE FIRST 9 MONTHS OF 2019+22% TO 32.4MILLION

Sales momentum confirmed

Noisy-le-Grand, France, October 15, 2019, 6:00 pm CEST EasyVista (FR0010246322 ALEZV PEA-PME eligible), a leading IT Management player in Europe and the United States, today announces its revenue for the third quarter of 2019.

Sylvain Gauthier, co-founder and CEO of EasyVista, says: As anticipated, our client portfolio is continuing to expand among a growing number of global players attracted, in particular, by our self-handling solution Self-Help thanks to our AI technologies associated with knowledge bases. By allowing the autonomous and automated management of IT issues for internal users and BtoB requests for external users, EasyVista is directly supporting organizations operational performances. Stakeholders in businesses digitalization, our solutions which have a growing number of users are enabling us to increase market share while addressing new segments beyond the ITSM scope. Confident that this sales momentum will continue over coming quarters, we are reaffirming our 2019 target of 20% revenue growth and an improvement in EBITDA.

Over the first nine months of 2019, revenue totaled 32.4 million, giving growth of 22%. Recurring revenue increased by 25% to 25.7 million. During the third quarter, EasyVista signed a number of emblematic new contracts abroad on the strategic upper-mid market segment. In Europe, the Group stood out on the energy and construction sectors with Ansaldo Energia in Italy and CAF in Spain in railway equipment. In France, EasyVista strengthened its positioning on the agro-industry, engineering and finance verticals with Savencia, Expleo (ex-Assystem Technologies) and Wendel. Lastly, in the United States the Group now has the Spark pharmaceutical laboratories and Vitamin Shoppe, a retailer with 780 stores generating over a billion in revenue, among its prominent listed corporate clients. EasyVista has also extended its public sector presence via the signing of a contract with Snohomish County in the State of Washington.

H2 2019 prospects: EV CONNECT 19

EasyVista could count on the success of its user conference, a key event in the group's marketing agenda, organized this year on the theme of transforming user services for the future of work in companies.The first session of EV CONNECT 19, held in Austin, Texas, in early October, recorded a significantly increased audience, with the participation of nearly 60 major North American clients who demonstrated the benefits of the solution through use cases and were trained in the latest innovations through workshops.The 2019 tour, which will pass through the cities of Madrid, Lisbon, Milan and Paris, will be an opportunity for customers to discover or rediscover the challenges of transforming the User Service using EasyVista's technological tools. This year, the group unveils the latest version of its Self-Help solution, Cobalt, which offers the possibility of quickly deploying virtual agents to assist users in solving their IT problems in natural language.

Next financial press release: 2019 annual revenue, on February 11, 2020

About EasyVista

EasyVista is a global software provider of intelligent service automation solutions for enterprise service management and Self-Help. Leveraging the power of ITSM, Self-Help, AI, and Micro Apps to create customer-focused service experiences, EasyVista has helped companies improve employee productivity, reduce operating costs, and increase customer satisfaction. Today, EasyVista helps over 1,500+ enterprises around the world to accelerate change, empowering leaders to better serve their employees and customers across financial services, healthcare, education, manufacturing and other industries.

EASYVISTAAmlie Aliasghariaaliasghari@easyvista.com01 55 85 91 13

NewCap Financial Communication & Investor RelationsLouis-Victor Delouvrier / Emmanuel Huynh easyvista@newcap.eu 01 44 71 98 53

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Revenue for the first 9 months of 2019 +22% to 32.4 million - Yahoo Finance

Creditvia Jen Malia

You convinced yourself that you and our daughter have autism, my husband yelled. You did all this research and told the doctor what he needed to hear to diagnose you!

No, it wasnt like that, I said. You know about all the testing we went through.

I cant believe you brought her into this, he said. Youre like those mothers who make up medical problems about their kids. Why cant you just let her be a kid?

Shes still the same girl she was before she got diagnosed, I said, tears dripping down my face. And Im still the same woman you married, too.

I knew then that if I couldnt persuade my husband of five years to accept my daughters autism and my own, it would ruin our marriage and tear our family apart. Autism wasnt just a medical diagnosis; it was part of our identities. To reject our autism was to reject us.

Doctors originally told me my daughter had just a language delay. But I knew this couldnt explain the intensity of her emotional meltdowns. It took me hundreds of hours of medical research to understand that her difficulty socializing, repetitive routines, sensory issues and obsessive interests pointed to autism. I eventually realized that not only was she autistic I was, too. A clinical psychologist diagnosed me and my daughter with autism spectrum disorder on the same day; she was 2 and I was 39.

Do you think theres something wrong with everyone in our family? my husband asked a year later, when our then 2-year-old son was also diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. As an autistic mother, I wasnt surprised to learn that I had another child on the spectrum. A 2014 study found that parents of autistic children are more likely to have elevated levels of autistic traits, whether or not these traits are enough to qualify for a clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

[Learn about sensory processing disorder and how it affects kids.]

In the study, when one parent scored high on a test that measures presence and severity of autistic traits (the SRS, or Social Responsiveness Scale), they were 52 percent more likely to have a diagnosed autistic child; when both parents scored high, they were 85 percent more likely to have one. Published earlier this year, the largest study ever conducted regarding genetic contributions to autism also found that inherited genes account for about 80 percent of autism risk.

But how was I supposed to parent our autistic children if my husband didnt even think they were autistic and doubted my diagnosis too? It is not unusual for family members and others who know autistic women to have trouble accepting their autism diagnosis.

Doctors, teachers and most people have a male stereotype of autism in mind; when they think of autism, they think of Rain Man, not of a woman or girl, said Dr. Francesca Happ, Ph.D., a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Kings College London. For women who are married with children, this goes against several stereotypes people may hold about autism: male, single, few close relationships, no children.

The diagnostic criteria and assessment tools were developed primarily based on how autism presents in males, which means women can often be overlooked for an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, depriving them of an understanding of themselves as different, not damaged, said Dr. Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., a professor of neurology, pediatrics and psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine and the director of the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Childrens National Hospital.

Sunyi Dean of Leeds, England, a mother of a 4-year-old nonverbal autistic son and a 7-year-old daughter who is on the waiting list for autism spectrum disorder diagnostic testing with the National Health Service, said that she worried about how her son will relate to other people if he doesnt learn verbal communication, but at the moment he is happy in himself and settled into his special school.

With her home-schooled daughter, Dean said she was mostly ignored by professionals and other parents when she first raised concerns about autism, and now that shes being taken more seriously, the process has been very difficult and slow.

As an autistic mother who was diagnosed after her son was, the biggest challenge for Dean has been finding time for self-care. I always thought I wouldnt mind the demands of parenthood because Im not hugely social and dont need to go out much, Dean said. But I still need a lot of personal space, a lot of downtime to recover on my own, and thats difficult to get with kids around.

By the time I was diagnosed with autism, I was so overwhelmed by the responsibilities of working full time as an English professor while parenting three young children (a 1-year-old son and 2- and 3-year-old daughters) that I could barely keep it together.

The year before my diagnosis, the stress of being an undiagnosed autistic mother nearly cost me my life. I spent two weeks in and out of the E.R. complaining of stroke-like symptoms while battling uncontrollable crying fits brought on by my desperate attempts to get medical treatment. You need to learn to manage your pain. The E.R. is only for patients who actually have emergencies, a nurse said while handing me my discharge papers.

Though I didnt know it at the time, my crying fits at home and in the hospital were autistic meltdowns. I would find out many months later that what I had experienced was a cycle of sporadic hemiplegic migraines, which can lead to a coma or, in rare cases, even death. I often wonder if I would have been treated differently by medical staff if I had had an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis then, or if I still would have been dismissed as an anxious woman who didnt know how to manage her pain.

Research also suggests that undiagnosed autism has been harmful for women. In a 2016 study of 14 women, many told us that the fact that their autism went unrecognized for so long had a very real and negative impact upon their mental health, said Dr. William Mandy, D.Clin.Psy., Ph.D., an associate professor in clinical psychology at University College London. A lack of a diagnosis means a lack of appropriately targeted support, which can place an autistic individual under huge stress.

The published research on the experiences of autistic mothers is very limited. Two small qualitative studies in 2016 and 2017 consider pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. The interviews of autistic mothers in these studies reveal challenges they had with sensory issues during breastfeeding and childbirth, and adapting to motherhood and infant care. Many said they felt unfairly judged by midwives and other caregivers on parenting skills and decisions.

Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, Ph.D., a professor of developmental psychopathology and the director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, and his colleagues have multiple studies underway to investigate the experience of autistic motherhood beyond the perinatal period. Presented at the 2016 International Meeting for Autism Research, their unpublished research involved an online survey of more than 300 autistic mothers. The study found the majority of them had extreme anxiety when talking to professionals about their children, encountered disbelief when they disclosed their diagnosis to professionals and struggled with daily parenting tasks.

It should now be a routine requirement for autism researchers to collaborate with autistic people in every project, Dr. Baron-Cohen said. Without the input of autistic mothers, we would have missed key issues such as the fact that autistic mothers have increased rates of postnatal depression and have been falsely accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy on the assumption that they were making up their childrens autism. He hopes this research will lead to more awareness of autistic motherhood experiences and the development of policy documents to improve the woefully inadequate services available for autistic mothers.

Many autistic women are highly attuned to their children, said Lana Grant, author of From Here to Maternity: Pregnancy and Motherhood on the Autism Spectrum, a book aimed at helping autistic mothers with the challenges of pregnancy and motherhood. They may see their child struggling with the same things that they struggled with as a child. They read up on everything they can about a behavior or condition and then they go to the professionals for help. Instead, they are seen as too knowledgeable and hysterical, Grant said, and dismissed as trying to tell professionals how to do their job.

She was already the mother of five of her six children (three of whom are on the autism spectrum) when she got her autism diagnosis at 38. Autistic mothers are their own worst critics, Grant said. She recommends that autistic mothers find a support network of other mothers on the spectrum, including those who are out and proud on social media, like her.

A few years after my diagnosis, my husband came to accept my own and our childrens autism. I stopped lecturing him, realizing that he would eventually understand our differences on his own terms. He started going to therapy appointments with our children. Then last year, at our kids Taekwondo class, I told the father of another child that we are autistic. I know, he said. Your husband told me last time he was here.

My husband now respects my parenting decisions, knowing that I can help our children by drawing on my own experiences living with autism. He is the supportive husband whom I married and a loving father who accepts our kids differences.

While the limitations of my autism sometimes make it difficult for me to handle the demands of parenting three young kids, I am now more willing to seek help from support groups and therapists. Learning to understand and accept my own and my kids autism was the best thing that ever happened to me because it empowered me to be a better mom.

[The right school can make all the difference for a child with disabilities, one mom writes.]

Jen Malia is associate professor of English at Norfolk State University and the author of the forthcoming childrens picture book Too Sticky! Sensory Issues With Autism.

Continued here:
My Daughter and I Were Diagnosed With Autism on the Same Day - NYT Parenting

Handle With Care, the title of a new theatre festival in London about generation snowflake, is smartly ambiguous. Read as an instruction, it suggests fragility and echoes the accusations of hypersensitivity levelled against young people. But it also implies content that needs to be approached with rigour and treated seriously.

If I tell you handle with care, that can be a warning, a threat, or a really deeply generous thing, says Pablo Pakula, one of the artists featured in the festival at Camden Peoples theatre. The three-week programme of performance and live art will take on contested ideas such as safe spaces, freedom of speech and identity politics, explore todays polarised political landscape and unpick the millennial stereotype.

Among the many criticisms hurled at millennials such as myself, our apparent tendency to take offence is second only, it seems, to our expensive passion for avocado toast. Pakulas show Yes No Black White uses a succession of projected images and texts to question what does and does not offend us and what we then do about it. The performance, he explains, prods at pressure points and sore spots, challenging audiences to examine their own offence-taking mechanisms.

Weve been told were all special and have something to give. We totally buy into that, thats why were artists!

Australian theatre company TomYumSim are poking fun at another popular perception of millennials: our uniqueness. Weve spent a lifetime being told that were all special and we have something special to give, says Tom Halls, one half of the company. We totally buy into that, thats why were artists! laughs fellow company member Simone French. But were taking the piss out of that idea of the specialness in us. Their show, Nothing Special, is an interactive self-help seminar that satirises millennials desperate desire to stand out from the crowd.

The festival is headlined by Eurotrashs show Trigger Warning. Styled as a budget airline safety briefing, the performance delves into the language and politics of content warnings and disclaimers, using a mixture of text, clowning and dance. Its not a polemic, explains Marcelo Dos Santos, one of the creators of the show, which will be about rolling around in the complexities of it, more than coming down one way or another on the issues. Co-creator Natasha Nixon adds: Its clown: you watch people fail at trying to work out a problem.

The shows in the festival explore the millennial mindset, while challenging the idea that they are generation snowflake. I certainly think millennials get a hard time, says Dos Santos. Halls suggests the snowflake label feels like something thats been imposed, adding: older generations blaming and poking at younger generations is not a new thing. Theres also a sense of humour to how these artists deal with the snowflake accusation, not least in the tongue-in-cheek gesture of programming a festival about millennials for Camden Peoples theatres 25th anniversary. Theyre 25, you know, theyre the peak millennials, says French.

Despite what the festival title may suggest, these artists arent afraid of making provocative statements. Pakula, for instance, challenges some of the thinking around safe spaces and no-platforming. While insisting on the crucial distinction between free speech and hate speech, he also suggests that taking offence can sometimes be a silencing gesture, and he believes it is rash to dismiss all the opinions of those we disagree with politically. I think it is very unproductive, uncreative and inhuman to disregard somebodys positions completely just because I disagree with them fundamentally on this, he says, giving the example of Brexit.

Theatre should not necessarily be an innately safe space. It should be a space where ideas are challenged

Nixon likens Trigger Warning to a white-knuckle ride thrilling, exciting, difficult. The show aims to touch on uncomfortable topics and to keep knocking audiences off balance. You might think in this piece that were going Yeah, millennials are oversensitive, and just at that point it flips back and were on the other side, she says. Likewise, TomYumSims French stresses: Were not shying away from the provocative in our work.

These shows share an aim: to create dialogue. Im hoping people come out of it wanting to have a stiff drink and a really long chat with other people, says Pakula of Yes No Black White, adding that he intends to invite my so-called enemies to the party. Similarly, Nixon says Trigger Warning is about starting conversations rather than proposing solutions.

Theatre should not necessarily be an innately safe space, says Halls. It should be a space for dynamic conversation, for people to feel like their ideas are maybe being challenged or supported, and to open a dialogue about that.

Theatre and performance has to be a place where dangerous things can happen in a safe space, insists Pakula. Unless dangerous things can happen, whats the point?

Handle With Care is at Camden Peoples theatre, London, from 22 October to 9 November.

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Content warning: this festival is for 'generation snowflake' - The Guardian

The Donkey Dow is a round-up of the movers and shakers in the race to face up against Donald Trump. Heres how the candidates and contenders fared over the last few days.

On Tuesday night, CNN and the New York Times hosted the largest presidential debate of the primary season with 12 candidates in Westerville, Ohio. While Cockburn thinks the debate size is trending in the wrong direction, he was grateful the moderators omitted a tedious round of opening remarks. With so many candidates on the stage, Cockburn looks at who stood out.

Bernie Sanderss recent heart attack cast doubt on whether the Vermont senator is healthy enough to serve in the countrys highest office. Last night, Sanders likely assured some voters with his solid performance. When asked about his health during the debate, Sanders expressed gratitude, thanking people, including other candidates, for their love, for their prayers, for their well wishes. The septuagenarian added that he was so happy to be back here with you this evening. Cockburn, a softie at heart, was touched. The moment when Bernie said I agree with Joe and Pete was equally convivial. Why cant we be all friends?

Like Sanders,Joe Bidenhad his own problem he needed to address: his son, Hunter Biden. Rather than admit to any geopolitical wrongdoing when questioned during the debate, Biden successfully focused on Trumps sinister motivations: Hes going after me because he knows if I get the nomination I will beat him like a drum.

While Biden sidestepped the Ukraine affair, he continued to stumble over his words elsewhere in the debate. While discussing economic reforms, the former vice president offered a confusing response:

I would eliminate the capital gains tax. I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate of 39.5 percent. I would double it. Because guess what? Why in Gods name should someone who is clipping coupons in the stock market make, in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who, in fact, is like I said, a school teacher and a firefighter.

Cockburn, for what its worth, is now looking into the lucrative scheme of clipping coupons.

Tom Steyer,the environmental activist and self-made billionairehad his major league debut during last nights debate. Steyers ascendance appeals to the hearts and minds of American voters: with enough money,anyonecan get on the presidential debate stage even if they wear a tartan tie.

Steyer also made the baffling choice to stare straight down the barrel of the camera whenever he was called upon to speak. He may have been trying to connect directly with the viewers at home, but Cockburn felt like he was being ogled on a first date. Thats one way to stand out I guess!

Most pundits agree South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieghad a good night while offering a moderate vision of the Democratic party. Mayor Pete battled front-runner Elizabeth Warren over the impracticalities of her Medicare-for-All plan and stood up to Beto ORourke on the issue of firearm confiscations: The problem isnt the polls. The problem is the policy. And I dont need lessons from you on courage political or personal. The sheer homoeroticism of this moment got Cockburn rather hot under the collar. More please!

On the stage after the debate, Cockburn thinks he saw Biden slip a $20 bill in the young mayors jacket.

In tandem with Mayor Pete,Amy Klobucharstood out as voice of moderation, taking her own shots at progressive policy agendas like Medicare-for-All. Unfortunately for everyone, the senator had to slip in this terrible line while discussing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election: This wasnt meddling. Thats what I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what shes doing. That excruciating line earned silence from the crowd.

EntrepreneurAndrew Yangssignature issue of Universal Basic Income received further attention during this debate, as the moderators asked the candidates how they would handle the threat of job automation. For an outside candidate, Cockburn counts this as a win.

Julin Castro, whocriticized Joe Biden for his age during the last presidential debate, was put in timeout last night, speaking for the third fewest minutes. He used his sparse time crafting some imagery about him and his twin brother being raised by a single mom. A less evocative description than Mayor Petes description of a Chevy Cruzewhy do candidates treat these debates like theyre reading a personal essay to their creative writing class?

As Cockburn noted in the last Donkey Dow, Beto ORourke needs standout moments during debates to receive much-needed attention. Unfortunately for Beto, he got one, with his outlandish proposal to deprive churches of their tax-exempt status ahead of the debate. Not a good look!

Marianne, Oh Marianne. Cockburns self-help guru, Marianne Williamson, missed last nights debate. While Cockburn thinks Marianne is a necessary voice in the Democratic field, he suspects desperate tweets like this do not bode well for her campaign:

Elizabeth Warren, who is challenging Joe Biden for the #1 spot in polls, took most of the heat from upstart mid-tier candidates like Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar, Beto ORourke, and Andrew Yang. This provided some breathing from for rival Joe Biden, but Cockburn doubts the attention will hurt her surging poll numbers.

Tulsi Gabbard warned earlier this week that she was considering boycotting last nights debate, but ultimately showed up anyways. With limited speaking minutes, Cockburn thinks she might have attracted more attention by not showing up at all.

Kamala Harriss camp cannot he happy that her most notable moment was advocating for President Trump to get kicked off Twitter. Perhaps the senator is better equipped for this medium:

Harris was also one of two candidates to make an early play for those coveted Gillibrand votes, by trying to redirect the healthcare conversation to discuss womens rights to abortion access. Cockburn has a theory here: though Gillibrand never got traction in the early-primary states or online, she was very popular among influential left-leaning not-for-profits like Planned Parenthood. The debate halls are always filled withthe staff of influential left-leaning not-for-profits like Planned Parenthood. By playing to that crowd, perhaps Harris was hoping to get a smattering of applause in the room, therefore creating the perception that shes still a popular candidate. Worth a shot, right?

The other vocal womens rights advocate, Cory Booker, spent part of the debate as Democratic presidential field peacemaker. After a spat between Mayor Pete and Beto ORourke, the New Jersey senator lamented: I, again, worry about how we talk to each other and about each other.

While Booker worries about the norms of civility, Cockburn doubts the senator is doing anything to help his stagnant poll numbers. He did bring his boo Rosario Dawson into the spin room though. Hows that for civil?

Though he doesnt have a shot at the nomination,John Delaneyis running away with the title of candidate most likely to win in a cage fight.

Speaking of other non-contenders, do you remember Steve Bullock, Michael Bennetand Tim Ryan? Cockburn is unsure about their whereabouts and is considering filing multiple missing persons reports.

While Cockburn doesnt like to close on sad news, he must note that since the last Dow, NYC mayor Bill de Blasio has dropped out of the race, to focus on spending more time with New Yorkers who hate his guts. His wit and good nature will be missed.

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Donkey Dow: the wild wild Westerville - The Spectator USA

Two hours of testimony from the failed bosses of Thomas Cook confirmed what we had suspected: the level of delusion in the boardroom was spectacular.

On one hand, the former directors argued to MPs that their self-help plan for the business was a rip-roaring success, right up until the moment it wasnt. In the next breath, they suggested their jobs were always near-impossible because 150m in interest costs had to be paid every year to banks and bondholders.

Neither the former chief executive Peter Fankhauser, nor Frank Meysman, who was chairman for eight years, explained why they did not de-risk the balance sheet when they had the chance. As recently as May 2018, remember, Thomas Cooks equity was worth 2bn, which was an opportunity to cajole shareholders into backing a decent-sized rights issue to take a chunk out of a debt pile that eventually surpassed 1bn.

Meysmans account of that period was particularly feeble. He said a plan to reduce debt by 100m a year looked solid in late 2017 and early 2018 if there would continue to be progress in operations. The conditional if was the critical word. External events from terror attacks to exploding volcanos in Iceland regularly derail the best-laid plans in the tourism business. If the possibility of safer funding exists, grab it.

BrexitThere is now little doubt that the Brexit process has led many UK customers to delay their holiday plans for this summer, said the chief executive, Peter Fankhauser, in May. But it cannot be the whole story - arch-rival Tui has coped because its finances are healthier.

WeatherThe summer heatwave of 2018 encouraged would-be holidaymakers to stay at home, undermining prices in the lates market where operators try to clear unsold holidays. There seems to have been a hangover into 2019, with customers calculating that waiting to book is a productive strategy.

CompetitionA pincer movement of Airbnb and budget holidays has changed consumer behaviour, though Thomas Cook still managed to sell 11m package holidays last year.

Banks and debtThe tour operator has been attempting to shoulder a huge pile of debt for the past decade 1.7bn worth at the last count. Successive managements failed to remove meaningful chunks. The banks argue they have supported an overstretched company for years and the details of why it could not be saved may have to await the report from the Insolvency Service.

Bad managementThomas Cooks borrowings were too high. The moral of the tale is that tour operators should fund themselves conservatively. If your balance sheet is fragile, you are at the mercy of events in an industry where most of the cash arrives in the summer and then flows out in the winter.

Nils Pratley, financial editor

Meysman pointed to a few debt-reduction measures he did oversee. The largest was a 425m placing and rights issue but that was back in 2013. The second largest was the sale of 350m worth of businesses, but that was clearly insufficient given Thomas Cooks need to invest in new hotels.

After a summer heatwave in the UK, the optimism of spring 2018 was replaced within six months by a crisis in the form of enhanced monitoring by the Civil Aviation Authority. Cue a doomed attempt to flog the airline, and then a desperate effort to secure a 900m restructuring with the help of lenders and the Chinese group Fosun International.

According to Meysmans version of events, all would have been well if only the government had stepped up with an extra 150m to 250m in the form of a last draw, first payback backstop. Both he and Fankhauser seemed incapable of understanding that, if backers will not commit until they see public money at risk, the plan is fundamentally weak.

There is no doubt that lenders late demand for the 200m backstop was a serious and sudden setback, but being taken by surprise seems to have been a regular occurrence in Thomas Cooks boardroom over the years. The trick is to have a plan B. Listening to the directors testimony, one could understand why ministers declined to back a bailout. It is hard to justifying risking money when financial visibility is so poor.

Fankhauser, at least, conceded that different choices could have been made, such as putting the airline up for sale earlier. But, as if to sum up proceedings, he did not foresee the obvious question about whether he will pay back the cash element of his last bonus. He said he would go away and think about it. His prepared answer should have been: Of course I will.

Even as he was fired, Neil Woodford could not resist a last growl. The decision to wind up his flagship fund was one I cannot accept, nor believe is in the long-term interests of LF Woodford Equity Income Fund investors.

He may have a marginally credible point about the interests of investors since it is not obvious that Link, the administrator, will produce better value for them via a wind-up. But on every other score, Woodford should recognise he is the author of his downfall.

Specifically, he believed his record in spotting investment opportunities among large companies qualified him to fish in the shallow waters of small and unquoted stocks. The sports are very different.

Worse, he overloaded with unquoted investments to the point where he could not comfortably meet redemptions when performance fell flat and investors wanted out. The liquidity mismatch will lead, almost certainly, to reform of rules for open-ended funds. Quite right, too: the Financial Services Authority was shockingly slow in spotting the problem.

Woodford could attempt to relaunch his career with a new venture but he may have irretrievably annoyed the last members of his fan club by continuing to charge 65,000-a-day management fees while the Equity Income fund was gated.

That decision was disgraceful given the many millions paid in dividends to Woodfords management firm in the past. No wonder the financial establishment did not lift a finger to prolong the life of his flagship fund. Sympathy is roughly zero.

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Thomas Cook bosses clearly had their heads buried in the sand - The Guardian

Dr. Amit X. Garg, a professor of medicine at Western University in London, Ontario, knew about turmerics medicinal use because of his Indian heritage. He knew firsthand of its rich cultural significance too: On his wedding day, his relatives rubbed the spice all over him because it is believed to be cleansing.

After seeing the effectiveness of curcumin, in smaller studies, Dr. Garg and his colleagues decided to test it on a larger scale in hopes it would make elective aortic surgery safer by reducing the risk of complications, which include heart attacks, kidney injury and death. In the randomized clinical trial that followed, about half of the 606 patients were administered 2,000 milligrams of curcumin eight times over for four days, while the others were given a placebo. It was a bit disappointing, but we couldnt demonstrate any benefit used in this setting, Dr. Garg said of the study, published last year in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

In fact, there is not enough reliable evidence in humans to recommend turmeric or curcumin for any condition, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Turmeric became a nutritional golden child partly because of its promise in laboratory studies cellular and animal. Some research indicates that both turmeric and curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric supplements, have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial, antiviral and antiparasitic activity. But this has mostly been demonstrated in laboratory studies, and, in many cases, the benefits of preclinical research isnt observed in clinical trials.

According to Natural Medicines, a database that provides monographs for dietary supplements, herbal medicines, and complementary and integrative therapies, while some clinical evidence shows that curcumin might be beneficial for depression, hay fever, hyperlipidemia, ulcerative colitis, osteoarthritis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, its still too early to recommend the compound for any of these conditions.

And Natural Medicines has found there isnt enough good scientific evidence to rate turmeric or curcumins use for memory, diabetes, fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis, gingivitis, joint pain, PMS, eczema or hangovers.

Physicians say more research is needed. Dr. Gary W. Small, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies curcumins effect on memory, sees a lot of therapeutic potential. He also states that existing research demonstrates curcumins biological effects.

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What Are the Benefits of Turmeric? - The New York Times