Struggle for stillness I do, am I ergo.

When I read this post from someone else’s journal, I was struck by the awesome amount of negative reaction I felt in the back of my head. I do not know this author from Adam/Eve, so I am not going to comment about their journal, nor am I going to direct about the post directly. The reason it is linked here is so the discussion may be framed properly.

My hands. Cold hands. Yoooour haaaaands… (and so on)

If there is one thing that really bugs the hell out of me, it is the manner in which the mainstream autistic civil rights movement seems unable (or worse still, unwilling) to think beyond stereotypes. Stereotypes are much like a weapon. They can be used for both good and ill, and the difference is much a matter of whom is wielding them.

Living with diabetes, a reflection

Around this time in 1988, I started to get really, really sick. So sick that I lost a substantial portion of my bodyweight, was thirsty enough to empty a double-doorway refrigerator of all its liquids, and spend substantial portions of days feeling so listless that I was practically sleepwalking. Then, on my mother’s birthday that year, I was taken to a general practitioner who listened to a brief rundown of my symptoms, tested my blood and my urine, and told me plainly that I had developed diabetes.

The meaning of awareness. The real meaning, in the real world context.

Autism Awareness. Autism Awareness. Autism Awareness. Autism Awareness. Autism Awareness. Diabetes Awareness. Cancer Awareness. Spina Bifida Awareness. Down’s Syndrome Awareness. Retardation Awareness. Being born without limbs Awareness.

See where I am going with this yet, normies?

A response to A Letter to Victoria’s Secret From a Father

I will tell you something that should be bloody obvious to anyone who follows me closely enough. I spend a lot of time reading Internet documents. Being old enough to remember when the idea of a unified collection of public computer networks was fantasy to all but a few, I thrive on going as far and wide as I can with this source of information.

Sometimes, when reading what people I am linked with on Fudgebook post links to, I wonder “where do they get these people?”. Sometimes, I applaud every written word. Sometimes, I even feel compelled or at least motivated to write responses. Such a case of the last of those responses exists in Reverend Evan Dolive‘s open letter to the Victoria’s Secret company.

Stereotyping part fifty million.

Another big problem I have with the autistic civil rights movement in its current incarnation is that one group seems to believe its view of itself should be applied to all groups. A good example of this in recent months is a publication called Loud Hands. You see, there is a stereotype, based largely on diagnostic criteria and psychologist writing, that has it that autistic individuals rock about like badly-made chairs or wave their hands about like a six year old who has watched too many rap star videos.

Person-firsters do it again (that is, prove what assholes they really are).

I am not going to dress this up or beat around the bush about it: the parallels between the civil rights struggle by black Americans in the 1960s and the present-day struggle for autism civil rights is inescapable. Among other similarities, there are groups that can loosely be referred to as “uncle Toms” in both camps that listen to the lies that the enemy tells them as negation effort.