So this was new, I'm not sure whether it should be described as hate mail or an offer of assistance. See what you think, the many spelling errors are as found. I will respond in red.
Sent: Thursday, 12 February, 2009 11:03:20
Subject: Your son's autism can be cured..with homeopathy..mine was!!!
I couldn't resist emailing you, as the contempt and bitterness you exhibit is quite understandable and yet very unsettling. What? Where have I exhibited contempt and bitterness, and if I had, why should it be understandable? I too had a son who was autistic..although mildly on the spectrum...he was clearly on the the spectrum...I spent over a year searching fervently for a way to heal my boy. That sounds jolly good fun. My son could never be described as "mildly on the spectrum", oh no, he's your full strength autistic! I did all the protocol of the so call DAN doctors and the gluten and caisen free diets...Methyl-B-12 shots...Occupational therapies etc. the whole nine yards...nothing helped, no surprise there, that stuff is all hokum until I tried a new form of external homeopathy. Oh, here it comes...First of all, I have to comment, and to probably no avail, as I can see your posture is quite fixed on your mindset about homeopathy, but let me just be frank...and clear...your ignorance and contempt for a medicine that has cured and ameliorated conditions for several centuries Prove it is quite nauseating to say the least. Surely if I'm making you so nauseous you can find the right type of magic water to cure it! Get over your Irish stubborness Nope. If my stubbornness (I take it that's what you meant) is what saves me from falling for the hype of cranks, then long may it last. (I'm Irish too And?) and start looking at the real science seriously, you're promoting bollix and asking me to look at the "real science"?! I hate to sound too brash and arrogant myself so stop yourself, but you see...my happening upon your website was none the least a detour upon my journey which is to do research on autism as I am currently writting a book about the subject.Flippin' heck, she's writing a book! I can only imagine what a publisher's dream that will be based on the quality of writing here. I also have over 15 years of a science and medical background shall I take your word on it? I wonder what exactly this "science and medical background" amounts to including an understandiing of quantum physics Don't be daft! I've a degree and a postgraduate degree in physics and I wouldn't claim to have much of an understanding of quantum physics, more than you though I'd bet! and that vital force that you so readily scoff at where is it? share your evidence and I shall scoff no longer. Quite frankly, if you think that your son is uncurable my son is perfectly autistic, I feel no desire nor need to cure him. I only want to parent him to be the best he can...I feel great sadness towards you and your family particularly your son you can stuff your great sadness, we're all getting along quite delightfully well...as you are failing him with that kind of attitude No, you are entirely wrong. I want to extend my help to you if you will accept no, as a practitioner liaison who works with children on the spectrum, I feel sad for those children using the exact same cure that brought my son out of his world and into ours, out of his world, into yours, where had he been, Mars? I will extend that therapy to you at cost. no thanks I will not charge you above and beyond what I pay for it...which is about 50 dollars a month...if you want to learn more about it...go to www.quackeryforkids.com or www.expensivecrap.com let me know what you want to do. I would be happy to help you heal your son...and it can be done. Also check out www.sawyoucoming.org as they employ the same patch therapy that I used with great results.
I look foward to hearing from you, I'll bet you did
Most Sincerely,
J Brown
Patient Liaison
Quit being so feckin stubborn and drink the kool-aid, bejaysus.What on earth was all that about? Did she want to insult me, or bring me on as a customer? Did she want to tell me about her dodgy companies and quacktastic web sites or piss me off and accuse me of failing my child?
What an odd, pathetic email.
32 comments:
I did so enjoy reading your comments in red.
Squawk! What a rude and ignorant person!
I had someone once offer to "heal" my children via the telephone with "energy work"..if I hear from her again, can I send her to you?..I adored your comments.
My goodness, I enjoyed your comments!!! How incredibly ignorant of that woman.
I love it "perfectly autistic"...that's how I would describe my Andrew too.
That's... very bizarre. It looks like they couldn't decide what sort of method of persuasion to use to try to convince you that you needed their, uh, "product." It careens wildly from trying to sound sympathetic "I know what you're going through! Here let me help!", to just being very rude, to back again, to various things in between.
I also enjoyed the comments in red.
LOOOL!! Great replies! :D
Those homeopaths are always the silliest of them all!
*Quantum physics*
That's a favourite among people, who don't even understand basic science.
So, someone with the initials "JB" thinks the way to promote a cause is to be condescending, deceitful, and overtly offensive. Coincidence?
"You need to send me money because you're an ignorant, maladjusted piece of crap."
Oh, man, what a sales pitch! Dale Carnegie ain't got nothin' on this player!
XD
(I call troll.)
My guess is she did want to sell her stuff to you, and thought that expressing pity for your poor autistic son (what a horrible thing to be!) would be just the ticket. (Hey, what parent doesn't want to cure their lost, autistic kid, right?)
Obviously she didn't bother to read more than one post or so. Not a very good salesman. Of course, even if she could have been bothered to do enough research to know that the pity-party language wasn't the best strategy here, you'd still have been just as uninterested in her kind of "science".
I *love* the picture :-)
Sad thing is there might be one vulnerable newly diagnosed parent in ten who this quack hits square on.
We have one who calls herself "remedy" who constantly drops into threads on rollercoaster offering to heal speech delay "due to damage to the vocal chords during birth trauma" with her magic pills and potions.
Me? I just bath my kids in vegemite 5 times a day. works a treat, autism begone!
xx
O M G! Let me first of all say I just love your comments.
Opzouten! (get lost, dutch translation)
What people dare to bother someone with on the internet it's unbelievable. Thanks for publishing!
awww go on, give us the real web addresses. I wanna laugh!
I do like your red comments :D.
Sharon, you're a remarkable example of reason and scepticism. It is very hard for most people to realise they've put their faith in a lie, but that hardly demands such rudeness.
As I always say about homeopathy: If homeopathic water can hold a "water memory" for something diluted out of existence, doesn't that kinda mean it should have a water memory for everything that's ever been diluted in it?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a 1:1x10^30 dilution of anything is going to be massively overpowered by the water's "memory" for sea salt, fishies, traffic cones, shopping trolleys and poo.
Sharon, Dia dhuit!
Well... wasn't your corresponded a total arse, ah? What I have to say especially is how you feckin' OWNED the silly sod with the bit about quantum physics! I myself, although a psychologist, have a love for quantum physics and did indeed study it at university as part of a general physics course... no way could I say that I understand it well (although I do actually get the gist... which I would say is more than that woman spouting total bollock-wash at you!).
I love how you dealt with her the same way in which I deal with yon feck-wit/pig (delete least applicable ending) , John Best Junior (AKA ForeSkin or The Amazingly Stupid Prepuce)... must be a Celtic thing (I am a Scottish person), no? :)
Well done! Although I can't help thinking that she got off light with you... *evil grin* ;)
She said "brought my son out of his world and into ours"
You said "out of his world, into yours, where had he been, Mars?"
I loved all of your comments but that one cracked me up
Even if she actually DID know all about quantam physics -- how exactly is that supposed to signify that she would also know all about how the human body works? Talk about non-sequitor.
I just found you through CTF and I have to say, that was awesome.
"I've a degree, ..............., in physics and I wouldn't claim to have much of an understanding of quantum physics"
Me too. And, me too.
I got lost on multiple-electron, three-dimensional solutions, particularly when applying the Pauli principle.
Perhaps your correspondent would help me out? It's been bugging me for twenty years.
What an absolutely horrible email to receive! She is one sick, sad person. Your comments in reply were brillant.
Our little man is autistic and wonderful - his take on life has made us all sit up and see life in different and more unusual ways!
My son's on the autistic spectrum so I empathize--the quantum physics part cracked me up--reminds me of the misrepresentations of scientists' work in What the Bleep Do We Know?
May I suggest that J. Brown and your mate, wee Merv, go into business together? They could set up "The Away With The Faeries School Of Quantum Physics" It's a sure fire hit!
Well that was very offensive spam wasn't it? I loved your replies to her. I hope she reads it.
( just in case she clicks on my name- my autistic kids are great and I do not want a "cure" for them..thank you)
Socrates: "I got lost on multiple-electron, three-dimensional solutions, particularly when applying the Pauli principle."
Know what you mean... I'm okay with 1-d 1(e-)-systems (1/2 H2, basically), where there's no need for the Pauli Exclusion Principle... but what fecks you fecks me too...
Socrates: "Perhaps your correspondent would help me out? It's been bugging me for twenty years."
Think she'd consider a master class?
(how long can i keep this shit up??? LoL)
Bizarre and offensive spam - but dealt with nicely. I especially liked your alternative email addresses.
That really cheered me up! What a laugh! Maybe she can cure the recession with some holy water
XXX
David,
I was fine until I met my first, forth-order runge kutta; I just got totally obsessed with numerical analysis and then, well, in an act of extreme braggadocio blagged my way into a post-grad seminar on contemporary set theory and that was me done for...
A tragedy of Jenny McCathy proportions.
"including an understanding of quantum physics"
So what? That doesn't mean you know anything about medicine, they're completely different fields.
Reminds me of my father's grump about veterinarians who think they know computers better than the computer support guy (him). Just because you know a lot about one field doesn't mean you know anything at all about another field.
So you haven't heard of quantum homeopathy, yet?
;)
Phew, I don't think there's ever been so many comments on a post before! Clearly Ms JB has pissed off more people than just me!
@Bree, thanks,
@Bev, double squawk, strangely rude!
@Anon you send 'em here next time
@Judi, I like perfectly autistic too. I got into a whole argument with a woman before who couldn't comprehend how I could call my "damaged" son perfect.
@Fleecy, it's the most confused letter I've ever read. She really doesn't know where to go with it.
@Woolworth Cup...you sure like to keep us on our toes with your reinventions! I actually thought they were moving away from quantum woo (very 2007) and onto new ground.
@dkmnow, It's not him. I'd never give him to time or space here.
Nice summary of her sales pitch!
@Norah, yep, she couldn't have been more wrong in her approach. It's funny how common that is!
@Tara, it's perfect isn't it!
@Hammie, my oh liked your vegemite line! I hate to think anyone would fall for such spectacular bullshit but sadly indeed, some do.
@Aspie Bird, I need more Dutch expressions! Thanks.
@anon, I might give some of the real addresses later. They were some sort of homeopathy patch. (Holds head in hands at the thought of such silliness)
@bullet, thanks, they came easily.
@Biologista, she's too rude, you're too kind! I absolutely agree with you on the water memory thing, unless the water is so special that it can choose what to remember...explain that with your science eh?!
@David, dia's Mhuire dhuit.
Right, that's 30% of my cúpla focal exhausted.
I wonder just why they all started harping on about quantum this and that anyway? It doesn't make them sound clever, just really silly.
@Portlairge, oh good. I really dislike the thing about different worlds.
@Anon, exactly, what does she think it means?
@mmc, Argh! I'd forgotten about the CTF sexy blog thing. But never fear for I lay back and thought of Ireland, and have now done my duty.
@Socrates, giving you her email address would give me a certain sick pleasure. Ha!
@Blogdog, woof. I'd call her a bitch but that's rude to dogs.
@FridaWrites, I don't know What the bleep do we know, is it best avoided?
@AnnB, hee hee. I don't think wee Merv would be into all that stuff. He's only into one particular Storey.
@Ruth, I don't even think she will read it. I reckon she read one post before spamming. And I'd pay to see her try it on with you!
@David, "how long can I keep this shit up?" Shall I answer that honestly?
@jdc325, weird stuff. I think my urls were more accurate.
@Jean, I bet there is a homeopathic remedy for financial crisis...I just had to look this up and found a load of sites selling stuff for the "symptom"...fear of poverty! What a hoot!
@Socrates, you and David can go get a room!
@Ettina, absolutely right. This woman claims to know quantum physics which I don't believe, and somehow reckons that gives her authority to harass me for how I raise my autistic son!
@Woolworth Cup, I remember reading something in the Guardian by Jeanette Winterson about it last year (I think) when she was all impressed and sucked in by the quantum-ness and science-ness of it all. She may have mentioned "nano" something too.
I'm grant writing and needed a release!!! Despite your 'stubborn tendancies' (must be the centuries of inbreeding that did that), I am delighted to see your literary skills are fully intact.....Mrs McDaid (nee McLaughlin) would be proud.....heck I am! Fabulous punctuation of dithering dribble Sharon.....I had a good chuckle to myself.
Love to all, Haggis.
I had my first bloggy-run-in this week. By my unwillingness to completely acquiese to a philosophy, not to mention taking over my blog for their forum, somewhere down under two parents hate me alot. You give me strength, Sharon.
Barbara
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