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.

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.

Passivity is robbing me of my will to write.

Writing is a hard job. There are some people, I will not name names, who seem to mistake writing for just being a hobby or not a “real job”. There are also people who have said that writing is the only profession where one can work for hundreds of hours on a project, not get paid, and have it all considered normal.

Racism, the traps in its definitions, and what we can learn from same.

As I have hinted before, I really love to draw parallels between the struggles of racial minorities such as black people in America and the autism civil rights struggle. Whilst there are significant differences between them, there are also overlaps that have equal significance. So it is worth having a think about the manner in which minorities are discriminated against, and the lessons that autism civil rights activists can learn from same.

Internet designers nowadays: eat me. Sincerely…

When I think back to the mid-to-late 1990s, when I first started taking my tentative steps onto this whole new, “exciting” medium called the Internet, I think of all the promises that were made and the promise the medium was reputed to hold. And in those days, it did promise a lot that was exciting to a technology-dreaming boy like myself. But promises are like wishes. Put one in one hand, then shit in the other hand. See which one fills up first. And never has there been a better example of this truism than the Internet after the commercialists realised that it was not just some “geek” trend, that it was not going to just go away whilst they ignored it, and that it posed a real, credible threat to them. And since then, they have been working overtime to try and negate what made, and to a degree still makes, the Internet a far better medium for all concerned.

Now, you have probably noticed that I inserted a capture of what I see when I load this journal in one of the web browsers on my computer. It is not for vanity reasons. For one thing, I am not that vain. For another, I do not like to use graphics in these things unless it is for an actual purpose. And if you have even the slightest interest in design, one glance at the image I have placed near this paragraph should be able to tell you what that purpose is.