Ok, first of all I suggest we all eat some shrooms and jump in the "magic circle".

Now that part is done with, I tried hard to read this thread....but after each post of the thread's originator going on and on about all the amazing gifts autistic kids and adults have, and how everyone should hope to be autistic....and each post being 100 pages long (slight exaggeration there). I found I couldn't.

I do say that ok, she has her heart in the right place, but she does not seem to know what she is talking about. As stated before autism is different from person to person.

My experience is a young cousin of mine. Me and his mother (my aunt) have always been really close, more like brother and sister partly due to the closeness in our own ages. I adore this kid, he is very loving and friendly, though yes, he can get a bit annoying some times. For years he had a hard time struggling through his autism. The school system did not do anything for him, mainly because they were lazy to make accommodations for him. Finally, her family had to move to another town. There they got all the support they needed in the public school system. In the years they have lived in Sandpoint, he has blossomed. Yes, he is still a high functioning autistic, but he has friends and everyone likes him. All in a public school system.

Recently, he has taken to the creative process as an outlet to reach beyond his own limitations. It has been working well for him. He likes art, and he has been painting and drawing. His high school art teacher chose two of his paintings for an art show. I am very proud of him.

However, his creativity and his ability to express it, has no bearing on his autism. Especially, not in a family full of artists, musicians, singers, writers, artisans, and other such slaves of the creative muses. By the originator's reckoning, my whole family would be autistic, all members of this "magic circle", because we could not find ways to create without it. No, we would all be stuck in front of the TV and drinking in the latest episode of American Idol or CSI Miami, instead of doing something constructive.

By her reckoning, the friends I have made in the artist community would all be hiding in their own minds, with no need of a proper education, because they are artists, they must be autistic. No once again, her brush is tainted by rosiness, and not the grittiness the real world shows to most people.