Highly Atypical

I could go the entire rest of my life without encountering another story about how ~~~inspirational~~~ disabled people are, and how ~~~amazing~~~ it is when they're successful. And I would be happy to do so.

Seriously, the news story I just watched was all about how this woman runs a restaurant, but it's not an ordinary restaurant, because she uses a wheelchair. They could have done a story about the barriers she faced getting it set up. (Hurdle number 1, as pointed out by exor674: people who are surprised that they can own a business!) They could have done about a hundred other stories about her. But no. This was flat-out "Hey, abled people, you can watch this and feel good about yourselves!"

Positive depictions of people with disabilities are good. The story I saw (which I am not linking, even via DoNotLink, because fuck that) is not positive, that is patronizing. It's inspiration porn, and I'm sick of it.

If you really want to use the media to help disabled people, you don't only show them the same way you'd do a story about a water-skiing budgie.

I got my ballot in the mail yesterday. Biggest ballot ever in the state of Colorado, as I've heard. Two full pages, both twice the size of normal paper, printed front and back.

I've got it all filled out, folded back up, placed in the privacy sleeve and sealed up in the envelope. Once everyone else in the house is done, we can drop them off and save on postage (It costs $1.17 to mail these things!).

Does this mean the pollsters will stop calling me now?

I envy many aspects of Great Britain's electoral system. They have, what, two months? Six weeks? to campaign. None of this yearlong bullshit.

(Also, there are four different bathrooms in this house. WHY IS EVERYBODY USING THE ONE I NEED TO SHOWER IN AAAARGH.)

DAMN, I loathe Facebook more every time I have to use it.

If nothing, it's worse than the driving question. At least I could shut people up with the disability response when people ask me why I don't drive. (Also for why I don't drink, but that's somewhat less successful.) But I hate Facebook so I must come from another planet.

Also, my not driving is something everybody (I hope) sees as a personal choice. People seem to see my not using Facebook as a judgement against them. Evidently, because I don't join in laughing at pictures of people trying to balance Solo cups on their asses, I must hate them. (And trust me, I'm starting to.) And why does my opinion matter to them? It never has before. It obviously doesn't on other matters.

Good question. Let me fetch my Magic Crystal Ball of Precognition^tm... it's a shame I can never remember where I'm going to put the damn thing.

Ah, here we go. It was somewhere in 2009 this time. I usually don't leave it that far... let's see what it has to say, shall we?

In A.D. 2008, year was beginning. (Useful little thing, isn't it? Let me fix its language subroutines... there. All better now.)

( My predictions )

(Voting isn't for two weeks on this one. And as you may have gathered, I did end up taking that bye week last week. Nothing against you, Tianna, but I really didn't want to write something as smarmy as that.)

One of the doctors who killed a boy in the name of making him "normal" is going to stand trial. (For those of you who are listening to this post, there's a "listen to this article" link on the article. I haven't tried it, but it might be better than TTS programs.)

I wish I could say this was an anomaly.

I wish I could say with any certainty that he'll even be convicted.

I wish I could say that we as a species are better than this, that we could use our vaunted critical thinking skills to realize how stupid treating autistic people for completely unrelated disorders they don't even have is. Even if there were a link between thimerosal and autism--which there isn't: that horse has been thoroughly killed and beaten by this point--chelation only works for acute, recent heavy metal poisoning. As in, large amounts of whatever heavy metal is in question. That's not the case with vaccines to begin with. So why is the issue that this hack excuse for a "healer" administered the wrong drug, and not that he did this at all? If he had used the correct drug correctly and the boy died, you can bet it would have been painted as a simple tragedy rather than the malpractice it still would have been. If he had administered chelation properly to a neurotypical person, you can be damn well sure he'd be nailed for malpractice. And autism is the tragedy here?

I wish I could say that these parents are among only a few who think this way, who can't accept that their children are anything but their precious "normal." I wish that tripe like "Autism Every Day" didn't exist to make it seem normal for parents to want to kill their autistic children. There was one set of parents a few years ago, who hired a "priest"--I think he was a phony, but I'm not sure and that's not overly relevant--to perform an exorcism on their autistic son because they honestly believed it would cure him. Not long after, their son died in agony, wrapped in a blanket and having his head sat on by a man three times his size. And autism is the tragedy here?

I wish for effective treatment for autistic people. I wish that treatment to be highly individualized, because despite the umbrella terms we use, there are as many kinds of autism as there are autistic people. I wish their focus to be on helping autistic people function in a neurotypical world--occupational therapy for socialization, life skills and sensory issues; auditory integration for those with aural sensitivities; and yes, even the much-vilified applied behavior analysis has its place. I wish for people to accept that not everybody's brain is wired the same way, and that's okay. It's outright hypocrisy for neurotypical people to write about how all autistic people have no theory of other minds, when autistic people more than neurotypicals are the ones who are more able to accept and even embrace the fact that "he isn't like me, and that's okay." I am what I am. This little boy died for who he was. And autism is the tragedy here?

I wish for these child's parents to feel a whole damn lot of guilt. Now, don't get me wrong. I feel awful for them. I can't even come close to imagining what it must be like to lose a child. But these parents moved to another country for this. They presumably did enough research to find out what it's supposed to do, as well as what it actually does do to people without acute heavy metal poisoning. They spoke with the quack and ordered the treatment anyway. And they were so desperate to have a "normal" child rather than love the one they had, that now they have no one. Their attitude is less "I wish my son weren't autistic" and more "I wish I had a son without autism." And autism is the tragedy here?

I wish to know where the hell the public outrage is. We have monuments to the people who have been tortured, beaten and killed for their race, for their political views, for their sexual orientations. There are days of remembrance for them. There's legislation in a lot of areas that give harsher sentences to killings that are motivated by race or gender or sex. (Whether it should exist is another issue entirely, and isn't really relevant. It still exists.) So where is the monument to Katie McCarron, whose mother suffocated her because she wouldn't take a nap and was therefore "regressing?" Marcus Fiesel, whose foster parents tied him up, put him in a closet and left town so he'd starve to death? Christopher DeGroot, who was only a year younger than me when his parents locked him in their apartment and set it on fire? Ryan Davies, whose mother drove her car off a bridge, killing both of them? Oh. I get it. They're "mercy killings." They're "acts of love." The victims were autistic and that makes their murders acceptable. And so, then, are all of these. Take a moment and read that. Look at their killers' sentences. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson both got life in prison for the exact same crime. Next October will mark ten years since they tortured and killed Matthew Shepard for mistakenly hitting on them in a bar. The only difference in the crime is their choice of victim. And autism is the tragedy here?

I wish I could say this was an anomaly. But it isn't. And that breaks my heart.

I went back upstairs, because GAH. My chances of developing high blood pressure are enough without listening to those douchebags, tyvm.

Did I mention how wonderful "douchebag" is as an insult? Not only does it just sound perfect, it's fun to say and it's a term for something completely useless.

Anyway, I just felt compelled to post ( these. )

Lesson of the day:

Violence in the media doesn't make people violent.

Listening to people spread lies about violence in the media makes people violent.

(In particular, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold didn't listen to Marilyn Manson, and Seung-Hui Cho didn't play video games.)

Oh... part n+1 of the DMV saga came through yesterday.

There is absolutely no way they'll let me renew my ID without being there in person. Since there's no way in every single Hell in the universe that that's gonna happen, I'm gonna be getting myself a Kentucky state ID. Good thing is, the courthouse is just a few blocks away and it's rarely crowded. I'll even wave at the webcam when I go. (It won't be until Wednesday at the earliest, but meh.)

In other news, GO AVS!!!!!!!!

The Arapahoe County DMV shall now forever be on my shit list. I don't know if their hiring process is meant to weed out all forms of critical thinking or if working there makes one stupid, but either way...

OK. So. First time getting my state ID (just after I turned 18), they munged up my address and blamed it on me (never mind I had the paperwork to prove I'd given them my correct address. They didn't want to see it.) Since they'd rather have me jump through eleventy billion hoops to get an ID with a valid address on it, I put the correct address on the back and had done. No lasting harm done, right? Right.

Flash forward to spring break. As my 21st birthday (and thus the expiration date of my "under 21" ID) was approaching, I spent a morning in a new-ish branch of the Arapahoe County DMV. Thankfully it was slightly cleaner and much less crowded than the other one.

Not so thankfully, they sent me an ID that not only has already expired (and was only valid for ten days), but also still lists me as under 21. My bet is they interpreted "renewal and address change" and just took "address change." Never mind I filled out forms for both. The printout I got that was to replace my ID until the new one arrived did expire on Friday, but I'd thought that was because it was replacing the ID they'd invalidated.

So, to "celebrate," a poll.

( This is my head. This is my head on a fucking BRICK WALL. )

I bet you thought with the Stanley Cup finals over, you all would be spared my hockey blatherings?

Nope.

Vancouver traded Todd Bertuzzi. To Florida, of all teams. Good riddance... now Vancouver's off my shit list.

For those of you not in the know about why I disliked the Canucks... In February 2004, Vancouver and Colorado were playing. A Colorado player named Steve Moore checked Vancouver's captain (Markus Naslund) and ended up giving him a mild concussion, sidelining him for three games. The hit was perfectly legal, and the damage was accidental. Sometimes it happens; people misestimate the amount of force needed, or just are going too fast. Naturally, the Vancouver coach and players were pissed off, but didn't do anything since the NHL commisioner was at that game.

Fast forward to two weeks later, when Vancouver and Colorado played again (this time in Vancouver). A Vancouver player named Brad May had declared a... crap, can't remember the word he used... vendetta, maybe? against Moore. Everybody else on the team (especially the coach, who has quite the rep for being a sleaze and has since been fired) agreed and spent most of the game picking on Moore.

And then finally... this happened. (clearest part of it is toward the end, but don't watch if you're particularly squeamish.)

So. Moore isn't playing anymore. He broke two neck vertebrae and a massive concussion, among other injuries, and didn't regain consciousness until several days later.

Bertuzzi got himself suspended for the rest of the season (not that there was much of a season left at this point), and the following year (but there *were* no NHL games then because of the lockout.) He was captain of Team Canada in the Olympics, and although assault charges were filed, he was only sentenced to community service.