Aiko & Egor

See Beneath, Inc. is a start-up non-profit company dedicated to producing educational tools for young autistic kids. It is the inspiration of three creative people: Casey Hoffman, Gerin Gaskin, and Jim Turner. Casey and Gerin are early childhood Interventionists and Jim is an artist. They saw a need and they went for it.

I admire them. I support them. I believe in them. I am going to put my money behind them by giving generously to their Kickstarter Project. I am requesting that you GIVE what you can afford.

Raising funds to offset the costs of producing their first DVD and to continue producing more episodes in the Aiko & Egor animated series is a big challenge. Casey and Gerin have spent 3 years, countless hours a week, sitting across from 2-3 year old kids with different degrees of attention deficits. As you can imagine, this work requires incredible patience and specific skills.

After full days of driving all over San Diego County to these kid's homes, interacting with frustrated parents, and making tiny, incremental progress at connecting with these toddlers, Casey and Gerin have also spent a year and a half of their evenings and weekends with a team of writers and animators producing the Pilot Episode of Aiko & Egor.

When you watch their first video, remember the simple goals of the creators: to grab and hold the attention of a young child with Autism and to maintain that connection while teaching core skills. Stop, look and listen is natural for a normal child; but not for kids with complicated attention deficit disorders.

Their research is supporting their work. The kids are mesmerized by "Aiko & Egor" and their undersea friends. The lessons are being communicated. It is the beginning of a series of DVD's that families can watch together while Mom and Dad, and brother and sister, can be part of a transformation.

Many of us have learned the importance of "see-ing beneath" the surface of human situations to uncover solutions. The name of Casey, Gerin, and Jim's new non-profit corporation clearly states the truth about their intention. They know that behind the veil of autism syndrome is a child waiting to be discovered.

Please help them help Autistic kids and their parents. Thanks!

Click here to Go To Kickstarter and PLEDGE your support.

Thank you so much for helping autistic kids and their families.

You Make Me Want to Be a Better Man*

As the football season reaches its climax, the political season is in full form. Jud forwarded this information about Thomas Jefferson and it once again proves the point about humans. We have forgotten more than we have learned.  

Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man. At 9, he studied Latin, Greek and French. At 16, he entered the College of William and Mary. At 19, he began his Law studies. At 23, he started his own law practice. At 25, he was elected to the Virginia House. At 32, he was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.  At 33, he wrote the Declaration of Independence. At 33, he began revising Virginia's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom. At 36, he was elected the second Governor of Virginia At 40, he was elected to Congress. At 41, as the American minister to France, he negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams. At 46, he served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington. At 53, he served as Vice President. At 55, he became the active head of Republican Party.  At 57, he was elected the 3rd President of the United States.  At 60, he orchestrated the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation's size. At 61, he was elected to a second term as President. At 65, he retired to Monticello. At 80, he helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine. At 81, he created the University of Virginia and served as its first president. At 83, he died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Thomas Jefferson understood history and the nature of man. He is a voice from the past with a wake up call. Read through these quotes from Thomas Jefferson and marvel and shiver at the truth: "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe." "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." In the early 1960's, John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the White House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at. JFK made this statement:  "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." *"You make me want to be a better man."  As Good as it Gets, 1997, James Brooks