Hate crimes against the autistic. Why they should be prosecuted.

Very recently, it came to my attention that some very big, brave person delivered an anonymous letter to the mother of an autistic child. This letter spared no effort in stating to said mother that the author wanted her to either move or euthanise her child.

So what does an autistic adult who really would shoot people have to say about all this?

It is difficult to come up with a clever, brilliant way to preface what I am about to say here. In fact, given the circumstances, it is probably better to not even try. But what I am about to say is one of the most serious things I have ever said, and I honestly believed earlier today (December 18) that hell was going to freeze over before I received the chance to say it.

So I consider “Autistic Australian” to be a contradiction in terms. Let us take a look at why.

So on occasions prior to this writing, I have spoken of the world of difference between being autistic, and having skin cancer or diabetes. Or both, if you happen to be in the situation I am in. Maybe the higher spirits of Queensland were watching me when I posted that, because yesterday morning, I got a very unpleasant surprise concerning the skin cancer that is in my face.

A dozen things that a Powell type autistic adult wishes you grokked

I have two very specific and very unhappy memories relating to the time when I was told that the reason I was having so much difficulty in life was because I am autistic. Number one, I was told before the diagnosis and immediate plan was laid out that things would improve from this point. Very specifically, I was told, I might add. So the fact that the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service worker who made this promise to me has not been severely disciplined for making promises she had no intention of acting or following upon makes me angry.

Our language: context, tone, and intent all mean something

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In my previous post, I began to speak about an event that Lydia Brown shared with us on her Fudgebook page in which she was told what words she means. As often happens, writing about this topic caused me to descend into a rage, so I decided to abandon the subject for the time being and instead begin an essay about some of the basics of our language. It is in the hope that some normalistic assholes out there can read it and learn that maybe they do not know everything, and do not deserve to be the sole arbiters of right or wrong.

So I was reading other people’s journals once again

I make no secret of this. I read other people’s online journals. I read them a lot at times. Not because I want to research “the competition” or because the “everything online” crowd says that is what I have to do. No. The main reason is because in spite of how difficult certain neurological quirks that have never been investigated make it, I like to read. I have learned more, especially as a child, by reading well-written writings than from thousands of hours of teacher effort. But the primary reason I read online journals is pretty funny: they are my primary source of news concerning the struggle to make the world at large understand that we, the autistic, are people, too.

An open letter to Playboy magazine (a first-draft effort)

(Note: before we begin, I will be addressing this letter to Hugh Hefner, who as of May 20, 2012, is still listed as Editor In Chief of Playboy magazine. But this letter should be considered directed at every person who works as part of the Playboy empire.)