Why is this or that band not “bigger”?

Every so often, one hears a friend or neighbour speaking about this or that band. And unless the band is AC/DC or The Beatles or the like, people constantly ask why the band is not “bigger”. Or in other words, not playing to stadiums and making records that go quadruple-platinum all the time and such.

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I hate it when you prove me right.

Good evening, curebies. I would like to talk to you about a recent event. It seems that within the last day or three, actress Daryl Hannah has outed herself as being on the autistic spectrum. This actually surprises me quite a bit, as being in front of the camera is not exactly a profession that autistic individuals are traditionally associated with. Behind the camera, sure. In front? Not so much.

But we could be here all day discussing the irony. Hannah, you see, is one of the numerous actors in Blade Runner whose role in that film so without intent or consideration captures a specific part of the autistic population that it does not merely refute the Rain Man stereotype, but smashes it to bits.

In the above image, there are two characters who bear a strong resemblance to autistic adults of different types. Daryl Hannah is the one on the right. In the film, she is described at briefing to one character as being a physical A+ type, but a mental B or C (I forget which). So when one hears her not only quoting Rene Descartes but in the proper way to use the statement (“I think, Sebastian, therefore I am”), it is jarring, to put it mildly.

(The other character in this frame who resembles an autistic adult is J.F. Sebastian, a genetic designer who “builds” himself friends to keep himself amused. An example of which is in the extreme right of the frame. Keen eyes might also recognise William Sanderson from the HBO series True Blood.)

The Daily Mail, a publication from the United Kingdom that has made the move to online, printed an article based around Hannah‘s coming out. And allowed the comments section to stay open. Like flies to shit, the normies and curebies came out in force, trying to either vigorously deny that Hannah could possibly be autistic or to minimise what she could be going through as an autistic adult. Yes, just in case you forgot, the world has morons in it who think being autistic is a competition, and if you are capable of tying your own shoes without shitting yourself, you are not autistic enough to count.

I think my feelings about that phenonema can be summed up in this image I posted on my Fudgebook account late last year:

The text reads as follows:

My name is Dean McIntosh. I am 34 years old. I am autistic. I took this photograph myself, using my camera that I painstakingly selected and outfitted with an attention to detail that normies like you mock and have abused me for.

You refused to acknowledge I exist. You refuse me my idols, whilst automatically assigning me murderers, rapists, and thieves.

I am Dean McIntosh. I am an autistic adult, and I hate you. If you are still wondering why, maybe you are the one that our world could do without.

The emphasis, I have added, because the text emphasised sums up this situation very nicely. Apparently, the whole idea that Hannah could find the rampant abuse of autistic individuals that is mentioned every day in the media unconscionable and therefore worthy of challenge is a shock to these people. The idea that in a world where black men can become President and teenagers can invent new devices that are resource-friendlier is apparently perfectly easy to digest. A woman who at one point appeared in one of the greatest films ever made being autistic, however. Oh no, that cannot possibly be! Abomination, et cetera.

Not having met Miss Hannah myself, I cannot personally comment on her statements other than to address the denialists who are trying to refute or minimalise her statements without any credentials whatsoever.

And to those people, I have a question. Who the fukk do you think you are? For decades now, we autistic folk have had to endure all manner of people from Ronald Bass to Autism Speaks For Normie Assholes literally selling our murders. That is, devaluing our lives to the point where people seem to think it is perfectly okay to murder us solely for being something we were given no choice in. But the second a celebrity comes forward to try and bring some balance into this, to say something positive about being autistic, you have to jump in and tell us all how ashamed we should be to be us.

But when someone shoots a bunch of children in a (“special needs”, might I remind you) school, oh, he was so obviously autistic!

As the image text says, you refuse me my idols and automatically assign me murderers. Every day, I yell at passives that you lot deserve all kinds of nasty brutality and they plead at me to be passive and gentle and Rain Man-y.

Thank you yet again, normies, for proving me right.

Dear LiberalInNameOnly Party,

The following is an open letter to both the “Liberal”/National party of Australia and the newly-appointed Prime Minister. In the interests of keeping this as civil as I can, I will refrain from the usual derogatory terms I refer to any of these entities by. Except one that I have already used. Explanation will be forthcoming.

What do you really expect me to say?

Two things. One, it is not okay to sympathise with a person who almost killed her child, no matter what the circumstances are. Two, “not everyone is as high-functioning as you” is like saying “not everyone is as white as you” or “not everyone is as literate as you”. It is a total non-sequitor. A woman tried to kill her autistic child. No amount of attempting to demonise that child will ever make that woman a hero, regardless of what normies think.

This is how you do NOT talk to a Powell type

The last few days have been incredibly rough for me. The news stories concerning one woman trying to kill herself and take her autistic daughter with her have brought out the absolute worst in me. I know for a fact that one thought in the daughter’s processes would have run something like “great, mother, I know you want to kill yourself, but have the guts to not take me with you”. The fact that I am going to tell my own mother that I wish she had offed herself before I started school might tell you something about how I feel lately.

Oh, look. People are taking the side of a (wannabe) murderer again.

So, how many weeks has it been since one brave soul who still has not owned up and thus spread the potential fallout to other neighbours made written threats to an autistic child and his mother? This is a serious question. I would like to be able to state an average concerning the number of identifiable threats the autistic receive from day to day, week to week, and so on.

Person-first attitude?

In the past, I have written so many things about so-called “person first” language that it is starting to make me angry that I have to keep doing it. But once in a while, an article comes along that is so fundamentally stupid that you just have to congratulate the author on how little they “get it”.