I read an article a while ago (maybe here on Salon? Can't remember) about Netflix picking up indie films at places like Sundance.

So someone films a cool, interesting, quirky movie (like "Little Miss Sunshine"), produces it on the cheap, and sells it directly to Netflix. Cool idea... not all films demand the space and noise of the big screen. Then if it does well enough there (with Netflix's backing), it might get a big-screen run. Even if it doesn't ever make it to the big screen, it finds its audience, completely circumventing the traditional Hollywood scene.

The end of the deal is that people like stories. We'll get them one way or another. As another poster pointed out, if Big, Simple, and Loud is the niche that Hollywood wants to fill--great. Someone else will fill the Literate and Complex niche.

It turns up about once every two or three months here on Salon. Where every armchair expert in the known universe can sit and say that ADD and ADHD don't exist. Nope, don't exist, and it's just Big Pharma trying to sell you shit so you don't have to be a good parent.

True... if you read the clinical descriptions for ADD or ADHD, you'd swear we all have it and put Ritalin in the drinking water. Distractable (check) can't sit still (check) impulsive (check) acts without thinking (check) can't concentrate (check). Sounds like every kid in the universe. Every person in the universe, some days.

The trouble is, what do you do when YOUR kid (like both of mine) is a couple of orders of magnitude outside the norm of their peer group? When they can't play sports/participate in school in any meaningful way/make friends/learn to swim/get along in life/take a ski lesson/play an instrument/learn to read because they're either A. climbing the walls (my son) or B. spaced out on another planet (my daughter).

Yes, I could blame the school system. But I've volunteered, I've spent enough time with kids to know what a typical kid their age ought to act like. And without meds, mine are the ones who can't participate. I'll admit it. I have the weird kids. THAT kid. Oh my god not THAT kid.

I could pull them out of school. I could homeschool. I could hire private tutors for EVERYTHING. I could refuse to believe that there is anything different about my kids that better parenting couldn't fix. (God we must be complete fuckups to come up with kids like these, it must mean they need more discipline). I could toss the computer and the TV (we did toss the TV, and didn't have much before).

Been there, tried all that. We've done family therapy. We've done parenting classes. We did private school for a while and nearly went broke. And now both kids take meds (yes, I'm one of THOSE parents). Wonder of wonders, they can participate in life. For my daughter, it means she can tune in enough to actually hear the teacher. For my son, it means he can slow down enough to hear the teacher, the coach, he can actually make friends, which he couldn't do before.

It doesn't fix everything. There are side effects we struggle with every day. But the effect is so striking, so remarkable... to go from a kid who acts about 3 years younger than his peers to one who acts appropriately... it's amazing. And it's absolutely not fair to them to take it away.

It's not fair on the other kids in their classes, on their teachers, on the kids who might be their friends, to put a behavioral first grader in a fourth grader's body into the mix. Most of all, it's not fair to my son or my daughter to not give them every advantage I can, even if that advantage is chemical, and it does nothing more than level the playing field so they can be on it at all.

If they needed glasses, I'd do it. Hearing aids, braces, insulin, chemotherapy, orthopedic shoes, I'd do it. Why not Ritalin, for kids who so obviously need it? I've never seen anyone argue for natural vision (or at least not people who wouldn't instantly be labeled "crackpot.")

Let's try it out. Glasses are unnatural. If you get glasses, you'll be dependent on them. You'll become addicted. You'll never be able to get through life without glasses. Glasses are a slippery slope, a crutch, when a natural life with your eyes as the Good Lord intended is how we are supposed to be. No one was meant to have 20/20 vision. People who can't see the blackboard should learn to deal with their disability.

I thank the gods every day for ritalin.