Around the Blogosphere, 4 April 2015
by meep
Or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays.
First, thanks to my top referrers:
And to the search strings that brought people here:
I’m kind of wondering what that last person was looking for.
By the way, it took them to this April 2014 post on governments desperate for cash. That’s a topic that will not be going away any time soon.
I am not all that interested in creating anything new today, so I’m just going to share stuff I saw online this past week that I thought of interest.
- LA Mag profile of Eugene Volokh — I learned several things I did not know about Mr. Volokh from the profile. I can’t quite remember when I first came across the Volokh Conspiracy, as it was over a decade ago.
I think I mentioned I “blogged” starting in 1996, but I guess the closest to the current idea, was when I joined livejournal back in April 2000. My first posts can be seen here.
- Who are These Creepazoids? asks Stacy McCain. Thing is, there have always been creeps. Some have taken advantage that many women are too meek to tell a guy to go fuck off.
While Stacy blames the degradation of manners, I blame all the college ‘safe zones’ and the like for this bullshit. Seriously, nut up, women. When did feminism become about being Victorian Shrinking Violets? (Mind you, many of the Victorian ladies were no shrinking violets, but could tell you to fuck off in much more refined language. That’s a level of education we certainly do not get anymore.)
Yes, the guy will likely call you a bitch, or worse. Why do you care what a douchebag calls you? Just move along.
- A lonely death – a Reuters piece on older people in Japan dying alone. The story they’re hanging the pics on is a man whose body wasn’t found til a month after he died. Japan is going through a demographic hollowing
Thing is, this also happened to a cousin of mine, and while I don’t want to get into the details, it wasn’t because there was no family per se. There was. But some people deliberately do not interact with those around them.
The real difference now, compared to the past, is all the automatic systems that are set up: pensions automatically deposited into bank accounts, utilities/rent/mortgage auto-paid out of the account. It used to be that even if a very antisocial person tried not to interact with the outside world, at least there would be regular bills that would cause a chain of responses once they were not paid.
But yes, a lot of people do get withdrawn from the world more, once they’re not working, and if they have no family to keep in touch with. Their own friends die off, and they find it difficult to make new ones, which leads me to my next item.
- Autism Acceptance Day vs. Awareness and What It Means to Me What It Means to Me is a blog post by my old schoolmate Tim Tucker. I also have an autistic child, and I do see the need for awareness still, inasmuch I think people misunderstand autism and may miss it in their own children. I know Stu & I did, because we thought it was about being antisocial.
We do go back to some of our old videos of D, before he was diagnosed, and we see all the signs we missed then. Both Stu & I were kind of weirdos as kids (and still are now), so we didn’t see how abnormal some of this behavior was.
In my own case, I am not asking for “acceptance” (however you want to term it), but tolerance for difference. Tolerance for weirdos. Doesn’t mean you have to like it. Doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions. All I mean is not to shun the weirdos. Be human to them. Yes, they may not be able to interact normally, but you also don’t have to ignore them.
We try to include D in all the family stuff we can, but sometimes we realize he is going to disturb way too many people (like at church…there is a level of disruption where nobody can listen, and we can’t have that.) But yes, you are going to hear him make weird noises while we’re out, or flap his hands, or talk in a weird way. That’s just how it is, and yes, we’ve had him going to all sorts of therapy, but it’s not like he’s being “naughty” when he is doing such things.
No, nobody has to put up with hitting (we don’t), or creepazoids (as in a prior post), but a certain amount of weirdness should be tolerated, okay? This not only goes for autistic people, but all sorts of out-of-the-normal behavior, like senile folks who may seem embarrassing in their too-loud voices with inappropriate remarks. In the second case, remember you may end up like that yourself. Have some compassion.
