

The boys in the bunkhouse - stuntgoat
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/09/us/the-boys-in-the-bunkhouse.html

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thinkcomp
The Times has two really interesting pieces on mental illness running right
now: this documentary, which is quite good, and Ron Susskind's piece on his
autistic* son in the NYT Magazine.

The Susskind piece is more of a typical uplifting human interest story that
you find frequently written about autism. It focuses on one [upper middle
class] individual and that individual's story, without getting into too much
depth on the real challenges.

The documentary shows the tip of the iceberg: what life is like for basically
everyone else with serious disabilities. It's horrendous. Abuse and neglect
come in many different forms, no matter which state you're in. Even some of
the top programs for people with disabilities, which can be insanely
expensive, are hard to distinguish from the type of untrained care described
in the documentary. There is virtually no oversight or effective regulation
and Medicare fraud is rampant.

Two pieces my father wrote speak to these topics:

Disability and the Invisible American 'Gulag Archipelago'
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/disability-
an...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/disability-and-the-
invisi_b_4257301.html)

Failings in Mental Health Care for Adults With Autism
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/health-
care-a...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/health-care-
autism_b_4422430.html)

It's also interesting to look at the federal court records of county-level
disabilities boards, such as the one in Cuyahoga County, OH, where I grew up:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=5006872](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=5006872)

Not a pretty picture. And most communities are just as ignorant as the one
portrayed in Iowa, if not more so.

* The word "autism" is virtually meaningless. See [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/autism-concep...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-s-greenspan/autism-conceptualizing-au_b_586546.html).

