As the year ends the media indulges in lists that attempt to summarize the past and predict the future. So why not add the Autism Personality Of THe Year or APOTHY award, to be made to those who represent the APOTHEOSIS of our movement?
Here are my nominations.
Autistic Person of the Year. Ari Ne’eman for his work in bringing autistic self advocacy to the attention of the White House.
Organization of the Year. The National Autistic Society for its advocacy work in the UK that was epitomized by the passing into law of the Autism Act.
Blogger of the Year. Sullivan for keeping LBRB going when Kev needed to take a break.
Novel of the Year. The Way Things Look to Me by Roopa Farooki who wrote a better book than The Curious Incident.
Journalist of the Year. Trine Tsouderos and Patricia Callahan for exposing quackery in a series of well researched articles in the Chicago Tribune.
Researcher of the Year. Mady Hornig for upsetting her fanbase in the anti-vaccine camp by publishing a paper that showed “no relationship between the timing of MMR vaccine and the onset of either GI complaints or autism.”
Event of the Year. Publication of judgements in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings when the vaccine hypothesis was tried and found wanting in the US Court of Federal Claims.
Baseball Team of the Year. The Philadelphia Phillies for honouring Dr Offit. (He also got an award from the American Association of Paediatrics, the President’s Certificate for Outstanding Service but we know which one really matters.)
Shape of things to come. It has to be Square and you will find it at Asperger Square 8.
And any other nominations or categories that you can think of.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Amen to that.
I agree with this list!
“Blogger of the Year. Sullivan for keeping LBRB going when Kev needed to take a break”
“Amen to that.”
I have to admit that I went back up to the top to make sure the author WASN’T Sullivan…not that I think he’d want to be on a list he himself created (kinda like Groucho Marx not wanting to be in a club who would have him as a member).
I’d nominate Age of Autism but I’m not sure whether the category should be Comedy Troupe of the Year or Anti-Vaccine Propoganda Machine of the Year…I guess they would be more of an apAtheses
I nominate myself for being the autistic person who has gone to the most IACC meetings (including actual IACC members), promoting a re-focus of research away from finding causes and cures and toward services, supports, and practical outcomes for autistic people, our families and communities, throughout our lifespans. So… IACC Attendee of the Year.
“Organization of the Year. The National Autistic Society for its advocacy work in the UK”
No.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) has achieved far more this year relative to its budget and staff, in a supremely hostile environment
The National Autistic Society deserves no awards until it gets its house in order. And it is currently very disordered indeed.
Jake Crosby: Dope on a Rope
I second that.
I tend to agree with Socrates about the organization of the year, but I am biased. ASAN has accomplished a remarkable amount of advocacy work, and effective advocacy work at that, with the aforesaid minimal staff and budget.
As long as I am nominating myself for “IACC Attendee of the Year”, I should post a link to my fav comments, and link to the YouTube video:
http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/iacc-comments-october-23-2009.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMg0SwYOthw
I second the nomination of Paula Durbin Westby for IACC Attendee of the Year. She has directed the great majority of ASAN’s advocacy work in regards to the IACC and has been a capable and principled advocate for our community on autism research issues.
Thank you, Mike, for your kind nomination. It’s very flattering.
Jonathan Mitchell: Whinge on a binge.
Can we have some more positive nominations? It occurs to me that I neglected film, theatre, art and music in my original list. Any suggestions?
First, thanks for the good words. Second, I have something small planned along these lines as a blog post.
not sure I’m qualified to rec something for LBRB readers, but under the category of blogs that ended too soon, I would nominate the well crafted posts of Dora Raymaker and Kristina Chew over at Autism.Change.org. Merging self advocate and parent perspectives on one page is no small feat, although maybe not so tough as creating a snark/ND/biomed/genetics/ABA/RDI/floortime/science foundation page. But hey, what the heck. As long as we’ve got ears to listen and something between them to sort out the noise, we might make some progress, dare I say, together, on issues that affect those that we love.
too positive?
Hi Reader,
thank you for reminding me. The Autism.Change blog should be honoured.
Special masters George Hastings, Denise Vowell and Patricia Campbell-Smith.