Miss Wombles,
1. Person first language. Learn about it. This is the first clue that indicates to me that you are not equipped to have this type of discussion. --part of a new comment on a two-year-old post
The post, in itself, and the remainder of the person's comment aren't what's important here. Plenty of folks have tackled this issue of person-first language. Lydia of Autistic Hoya has done so several times. Stuart Duncan has covered it. I'm pretty sure there are few long-term bloggers in autism-land who haven't handled this issue.
CHERRY HILL, NJ -- Standing next to my Dad under the watchful eyes of the sculpted Jesus I remembered well from childhood church services, I resolutely censored a mental curse. I hadn't attended Catholic mass regularly in years, and while I was embarrassed by my stumbling responses to some recently-reworded portions of the service, I was still absolutely certain of profanity's sacrilege during this particular Sunday hour.
Whenever I'm home for a visit, I'm reminded of religion's formative importance during a childhood that included attending weekly mass and religion classes, singing in the children's choir, and, later, lectoring during services.
My friend Benny (who produces
the Rationally Speaking podcast) really hates the word “skepticism.” He understands and appreciates its meaning and long intellectual pedigree (heck, we even
did a show on that!), but he also thinks — based on anecdotal evidence — that too many people apply a negative connotation to the term, often confusing it with cynicism.
A short while ago we carried a strange claim from a group of ethicists at Oxford. Not only should abortion be okay,
actual children should be aborted even after they are born.
They're ethicists so they can be dismissed rather quickly. Tomorrow they are just as likely to be arguing there should be no abortion at all if you can't abort newborns. Yet there is growing concern that the government doing more things for more people in the best interests of overall society is leading to a resurgence in the social authoritarian rationalizations that gripped the country (and really, the world) the last time progressives held any power.
How do you effect change, change that's big, change that's lasting? Can you, can one person, have that kind of impact? I remember arguing adamantly with my grandfather nearly 24 years ago that one person can change the world. We argued back and forth for a good long while, my grandfather getting more agitated but also more resolute that one person couldn't make any difference at all. "Jesus Christ!" I yelled at him, frustrated but not taking the Lord's name in vain. One man made all the difference. One man's followers changed the world. My grandfather wasn't having any of it. Lincoln. Surely, he would concede that Lincoln freeing the slaves, waging the civil war made a difference? John Wilkes Booth made a difference, as well, changed the course of the nation, possibly.
If we had a prize for Most Celebrated Business Hero in America, it would have to be Steve Jobs, the late founder of Apple.
The agile doge of Silicon Valley had a “death stare” you couldn’t escape.
He had a up-from-orphan back story you couldn’t resist.
And he had the vision of ten of his fellow technology executives.
That’s why--we’re told--Apple was so good at making the things we love. All things “I”, that is--from iPads and iPhones, to iPods and iTunes.
Lately, it also seems that Jobs and the company he left behind were also awfully good at all things Me.
The
Judge Rotenberg Center is on trial, legally, for negligence in the 31 shocks and hours of restraint that Andre McCollins suffered at the hands of JRC staff and in the court of public opinion, finally, for its decades of use of skin shocks by a
device Matthew Israel created.
On March 22, I
called on Autism Speaks and the Autism Society of America to stand up against the abuse, restraint and torture occurring at the Judge Rotenberg Center. Today, I received an official statement from Autism Speaks through
Marc Sirkin, Autism Speaks Vice President, Social Marketing&Online Fundraising:
Men and women of good conscience cannot sit silently by and allow these things to happen. This is abuse and torture and, still, people support these. Still the Massachusett's State House supports it. Believe it or not, some parents of residents continue to speak out in favor of the use of these shocks.
What happens when genomics and synthetic biology labs get together? Anti-science people flip out. Because, you know, anti-science hippies think scientists are inhuman crazies without families who only care about breaking the laws of nature (maniacal laugh).
