05 April, 2010

Recommended Reading Number One

First, the geek stuff:

Five Geek Social Fallacies. I guess this is a really old and classic thing but I just encountered it for the first time. I actually don't socialize in groups very much but I do think it's interesting to think about how socialization is different among people who didn't socialize when they were younger.

Better Late Than Never? The Office by Zack Handlen at the Onion AV Club. This is interesting because I've had a problem since I was a little kid with fiction where characters are about to get caught doing something wrong--like, I'd have to leave the room during movies and stuff. I find it really hard to watch/read things where characters cheat, lie, or impersonate other people because I get anxious about the idea that they're going to get caught.

Then, this wonderful post at FWD/Forward by Anna: Jenny McCarthy & Autism Part 2: Let's All Be Normal (Acting). The post isn't actually about Jenny McCarthy or even really specifically about autism, but is about the pressure that non-disabled parents of disabled kids put on their kids to act less disabled.

Today the FWD/Forward Recommended Reading included this post, AngryBlackBitch: On Autism Awareness, by a woman who is a guardian of her ASD brother. There are some problematic aspects as Kowalski pointed out in her comment on the FWD/Forward post, but overall I think it's really nice. That post reminded me of a post I found that's a few years old and was written in response to the Ashley Treatment, by someone whose sister is severely intellectually disabled: Fit of Pique: Growing Up with Sky.

Also Dave Hingsburger has continued to post awesome videos with transcripts: Change Begins, about witnessing abuse in an institution and being pressured to keep quiet about it; and Sean--An Evening Out, about treating a teenager with severe CP like a person. His Easter post is also beautiful.

I hope this post isn't annoying or anything. I don't know if I will make another like it--I mean, I probably will, but I don't know when. I just find things I like and I get excited and want to make sure everyone else gets a chance to like them too.

Quote of the day:
"Facebook is a lot of fun. I always pretended not to like Facebook when I thought I was too cool for school, but now I really like it. All these girls comment on things I do, which is not all like real life."--John

4 comments:

  1. you should do posts like this because I don't have time to find stuff.

    funny quote.

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  2. I remember finding the GEEK SOCIAL FALLACIES from MoggyMania, some four years ago now (or less recently).

    And Sean's story is incredibly funny.

    So is the Angry Black Bitch, especially Bill and his love of barbecues.

    (I so wish I could have invited Bill over to our place last night).

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  3. yeah...I felt sort of weird because while I agree with Kowalski and the other person's criticisms in the FWD/Forward comments, I also felt like that was a "politically correct" reaction to have--and I'm generally really pissed off when someone responds to someone else's point of view by saying "You're being politically correct" because it's just kind of a strawman that people use to avoid listening to each other, a lot of the time. But I want to explain what I mean:

    I don't like the puzzle piece ribbon. And I don't like someone saying "I live with autism" when in fact they live with someone else who lives with autism. But I fucking love that someone wrote such a positive post about a family member with severe ASD, and emphasized that the experience of living with him is not tragic, or even all that much harder than living with someone else. And that seems so much more important to me.

    I mean, saying "I live with autism" when you don't have autism is a fucked up thing to say not just because it's not true but because of everything that sentence represents. She shouldn't have said it, and maybe I'm just pleased by this post because I'm used narratives about autism that are so much worse. I don't know.

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  4. (I don't like the puzzle piece ribbon either).

    Because then it means that autism is a THING.

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