October 28th, 2006
Ruminations
If you’re not in the mood for rambling, you might want to skip this post. Consider this fair warning 
I’ve decided to give up reading autism research stuff for awhile. The last few reports I’ve heard of autism research findings have left me sputtering in annoyance, and the only comments I can think to make would amount to non sequiturs. Am I the only one who finds this stuff fluffy nonsense? TV, low cholesterol and older dads cause autism. Yeah, sure it’s all those older dads who feed their kids health food and force them to watch Thomas the Tank that did it. Mmmhmm. There might actually be something worthwhile in all the nonsense (oops, I mean research findings), but I ain’t got a shovel big enough to dig it out of the poop.
So, putting autism research reading far aside, I read The Speed of Dark and Women from Another Planet this week instead.
After reading The Speed of Dark I decided I’m going to use as many contractions as possible in my writing from now on. I’m assuming (after reading the book) that it’s a cliché of some sort that autistic people are not (oops! aren’t!) capable of contracting their words. I dislike following clichés.
All complaining aside, it’s a pretty good book and I recommend reading it, though I didn’t care for the ending and disliked some of the generalisations, it’s a generally good read and raises some interesting issues. More than I can say for ‘autism news’ these days.
Women From Another Planet has some really good stuff, some of it very different from my own experience, but then the ladies who wrote here sound very different from EACH OTHER so I won’t let that bother me too much. Funny, there was one woman who spoke of using Shirley Temple movies to help her learn social skills as a kid. Me too.
I don’t recommend this!
The Shirley Temple School of Social Skills might have flown well in the 1930’s but nowdays, unh unh, no way.
So, yeah back to autism research and the funding of such.
I didn’t watch that comedy telethon thing that contributed proceeds to Autism Speaks, but I caught a really disgraceful performance from the show by the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen posted on Youtube. If you feel like raising your blood pressure a few notches, you can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWilcs0Fse4 .
If you’re not in the mood to watch the whole thing, that’s ok, here’s the part that pisses (yes I said PISSES) me off:
(The host asks if they have telethons in Borat’s home country)
Cohen, as Borat, responds:
Ah, yes, Jonny, we have one like this every years. Last year was for a very similar cause to this one. The money raised was used to construct the (Almahti?) Handicapped Care Centre. It have 300 cages for them to live in and public viewing gallery where for ten (tenga?) you can stare at the strange ones and for 20 you can throw potatoes at them.€
Whoa. Classy, eh? Thank you Borat and Autism Speaks, we really needed that.
Couldn’t they have raised their money without including jokes that insult disabled kids? Are these people totally clueless? And they say WE have poor judgement. Ha.
If Sascha Baron-Cohen is really the cuz of Simon Baron-Cohen (surely that’s just a rumour?!?) I do wish they’d have a nice long sit down talk at the next Baron-Cohen fambly picnic and discuss whether it’s ok to make offensive jokes about disabled children. I can’t imagine Simon B-C would approve of jokes like that.
Too bad. I liked Sascha B-C until now, just because he played the part of the lemur king so well in the cartoon
Madagascar.
I don’t like him anymore.
Oh, well, I don’t guess he’ll notice one less fan.
And to think. All that money that’s donated to Autism Speaks from that telethon and many, many other fund raisers is going to add lots more research findings for us to enjoy. I can hardly wait.
Which reminds me - I wonder if they ever found a nematode model of autism? NAAR (now Autism Speaks) was funding research into that a couple of years ago about the most pointless, demeaning thing I can imagine is finding (or creating) an autistic nematode. How the heck are you going to know if it’s autistic, I’d like to know? And even if you KNOW it’s an autistic nematode, what the heck does that have to do with me and my family, either in understanding us or helping us? Don’t answer that, I promise, it’s a rhetorical question
But couldn’t this money be spent in more useful ways?
Eh! Enough of my complaining. go have some quality time with your kids instead!
October 28th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I had to chuckle as the boys are watching Madagascar as I read this. When they put it on and I saw the opening credits, I had to look up both the Baron Cohens on Wikipedia to see if they are related (Wikipedia says yes).
A fun kid’s movie beats a telethon any time!
October 28th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Well, that settles it, I trust wikipedia…sigh.
We love Madagascar. We’ve been quipping from the movie ever since we first saw it, it’s so funny. The Lemur king was the high point for me, he’s so funny. Maybe that’s why that bit from the telethon hurt so much. My kids love that guy. I’m was beside myself when I saw that clip yesterday, it really upset me.
Yep, the movie was better than the telethon
October 28th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I agree with you about the ending of “Speed of Dark”, although I really liked the book as a whole. Hmmm… I have a habit of not using contractions when I write… is this more evidence of my spectrum tendencies or… just me?
I have never been a fan of put-down humour, although it can be very funny from “the horse’s mouth”. When I played wheelchair basketball back in the late 70’s the crip humour was honest & hysterically funny, but if you try it & you’re not one… it falls pretty darn flat.
October 29th, 2006 at 4:24 am
About the contractions, I don’t know if it is really evidence of autism…but it was quite noticable in the book. All the autistic characters talked that way
I’d never heard of that as a ’sign of autism’ sort of thing, I thought it must be a cliche I hadn’t heard before.
Yep, I’m with you on the put down humour. Even fairly innocent stuff, like slapstick comedy or videos of people falling on the Funniest Home Video upsets me. I don’t think it’s funny to watch people getting hurt. Honest humour is good, and I like black humour, but when it’s at someone else’s expense it upsets me. Also, I’m a very visual person; hearing a joke like this one (from SBC) brought up painful images.
Husband things I’m being overly sensitive about the Borat video, maybe he’s right
But I can’t help how I feel.
October 29th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Maybe the author of “The Speed of Dark” had autistic people confused with Data from Star Trek.
I found that book annoying, too. When I checked it out of the library, I expected that the main theme would be the dilemma that would confront autistic adults in deciding whether to seek a cure in the near future, but because the story was set in such a peculiar alternate universe, many of the characters’ concerns (being permitted to marry or to work in space, etc.) were completely irrelevant to the real life issues.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Hi Bonnie
Yep. Annoying. I’m torn, though. I want to say I’m glad someone was trying to write from an autistic viewpoint, and suceeded in some ways. But then there were the bits that were over generalised and grated and I’m fighting with the sarcastic inside me about that.
*….Maybe I just need some time jumping on a trampoline to classical music and it will all be better….*
See what I mean?!
Bad! sarcastic self…go back to sleep!
The ending defied logic, in my opinion…and it bothered me that the things that were considered ‘unattainable’ desires to the main character were discarded as ‘undesirable’ at the end. That really grated. It’s hard to explain why without giving the ending away and spoiling it for someone who hasn’t read it yet.
Anyway, I’ve read worse attempts to understand autism, this wasn’t so bad, in my opinion.
November 18th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Sorry couldn’t find an email address. Did you know that when one [me/you] clicks on your name in the comments box, [on other blogs] you travel to your old blog site. If you click on the details of the new one [this one] it doesn’t take you through [says error] But that could be firefox. Please delete this, as I’m only a beginner but I thought you might like to know that perhaps some people are having trouble finding you. best wishes
November 18th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Thanks, I think I used my old blogger id by accident for a few of the comments I’ve made on other people’s blogs. I keep fogetting to choose “Other” for my id
I hope you don’t mind if I leave this up in case others have the same problem, maybe that will explain…
I’m not sure why there would be an error for this blog, though. I’m glad you told me about that…Maybe autiblogger was down for awhile? I wonder if anyone else is having that problem, hmm…
My blog email is shhmumisthinking@yahoo.com.au
Thanks again for letting me know about this.
BTW, I’ve been enjoying your blog!
November 18th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Ahh…I figured it out. Silly me, I was typing in the url for my blog wrong on comments. Sheesh. Whelp, now my secret is out– I’m hopelessly untechie!
July 25th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
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