I have been absent from Blog Land a while, I have not even been bothering to comment on other peoples blogs.
Well partly it is because I have been wasting my efforts on the awares site until recently and partly because my studies are taking up more of my time.
I think it gets a bit pointless after a while, all the email and blog exchanges, in that when all is said and done, we on the spectrum can be as devoted to our own pet ideas about what autism is, how it came to be, who called it what and who deserves to be in and who outside the spectrum as any of the Mercurians and curebies out there, and I am fed up with it.
It is bad enough having to defend a position when I read the rot that passes for research and scholarship in the professional literature. Academically speaking I am not altogether convinced that any of the “names” are as "high functioning" as their credentials and position make them out to be in the social ladder of research fellow, PHD or what have you. The memes just pass from one paper to another like Chinese whispers and never a thought as to where they come from and what validity they did not have to begin with. There is just so much sloppy thinking. Take a paper on prosody for instance, written by American’s studying Americans, well American English prosody is different from UK English prosody, Caribbean English prosody and never mind all the non English languages out there, yet the authors universalise from what they know over to what they don’t even know they don’t know. That’s Volkmar and his pals for you.
Why do I feel so angry right now. I don’t know, you would think I would be rather pleased with myself, I have got I wanted and been transferred from undergrad to masters level on my University course, that’s got to be some acknowledgement at least.
However I just think the way the course is structured is not ideal for me at all, but I have to make the best of what is available if I want that “glittering prize” at the end. No I don’t think I will ever be happy till I am writing a course myself and teaching it. And then I shall just have to put up with people criticising me, well nothing new there at least.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Survived Lancaster
Well I am over the Lancaster Conference and just as I thought it was tough on me.
I could have made improvements to the way it was organised which would have improved it for others not just me, with a bit of advance planning.
My advance planning failed mind you, because of the unpredictability of Virgin trains, which despite having assured me on two consecutive days that the trains were running from Coventry on a Sunday, when I arrived at the station they were not.
By now however I am used to anything with the trains :(
My presentation went down Ok I wasn’t lynched for heretical thinking, but I wonder how much notice was taken and if I will have any influence on shifting the paradigms of Social Model thinking. In comparison to Tom Shakespeare I am attacking it from a different model, he is a revisionist for sure, whereas I am actually more radical than the original model.
Well there was lots of fluent bollox spoken and I have to confess I couldn’t follow all this post modern discourse when it is spoken in a lecture theatre. Mind you my language reduced in the opposite direction as I struggled with it all.
I am glad I booked the extra night, because after the conference I just lay on my bed and did not get up till the morning, my limbs aching and feeling total exhaustion.
Maybe I should not have drunk so much after my presentation though, but the relief afterwards led me to such excesses, that and the free wine provided by Tom Shakespeare’s publisher.
Figured out one thing mind, it ain’t us as have necessarily got flat voices we just sing in different harmonies as it were :(
I could have made improvements to the way it was organised which would have improved it for others not just me, with a bit of advance planning.
My advance planning failed mind you, because of the unpredictability of Virgin trains, which despite having assured me on two consecutive days that the trains were running from Coventry on a Sunday, when I arrived at the station they were not.
By now however I am used to anything with the trains :(
My presentation went down Ok I wasn’t lynched for heretical thinking, but I wonder how much notice was taken and if I will have any influence on shifting the paradigms of Social Model thinking. In comparison to Tom Shakespeare I am attacking it from a different model, he is a revisionist for sure, whereas I am actually more radical than the original model.
Well there was lots of fluent bollox spoken and I have to confess I couldn’t follow all this post modern discourse when it is spoken in a lecture theatre. Mind you my language reduced in the opposite direction as I struggled with it all.
I am glad I booked the extra night, because after the conference I just lay on my bed and did not get up till the morning, my limbs aching and feeling total exhaustion.
Maybe I should not have drunk so much after my presentation though, but the relief afterwards led me to such excesses, that and the free wine provided by Tom Shakespeare’s publisher.
Figured out one thing mind, it ain’t us as have necessarily got flat voices we just sing in different harmonies as it were :(
Monday, September 11, 2006
The Groves of Academe
Well I was mega stressed by the whole thing, and although I had my laptop and recording device, I still could not stand to hear falsehoods and inaccuracies perpetrated during the lectures, and I guess at some point I could almost have taken over. 
I was full of righteous anger every time the infernal triad was rolled out, if they could but see themselves and realise their own inconsistencies because if you were to add up everyone’s variant version of the memetic triad it would add up to something considerably more than three.
However that apart the thinking at Birmingham is considerably more liberal than elsewhere and we are given more credit than the likes of Amaral and Volkmar would give us.
It was a bad sensory environment and one where I did not know where I was supposed to be most of the time, when my laptop crashed, so did I.
The problem in the evenings was that I tried to be social, but I could have stripped naked and danced on the table and still would have been invisible, because there is something about the intensity of NT's social focus that excludes everything else, I was a tree falling silently even when I lost my temper.
There is a lot I am not happy about today, a lot I did not take in, a lot of consideration that was not given to my own autism despite being in the company of autism "experts" and workers.
I really only felt comfortable with Dinah Murray and Wendy Lawson. Dinah gave me a lift home, with Wendy in the back, I hope they now remember where the best Pylons on the route are, round by the NEC.
Did I forget to introduce Electricity Pylons into my interjections during any of the lectures, no I did not, (tastefully of course)
Other than that I am not very happy at the moment, the first part of the course will not be that difficult for me, but the problem is not what I know, nor what I can learn, but how I present it.
Maybe that is why the likes of Wendy Lawson and Ros Blackburn always get to do the presentations, they are smoother at it.
However in a weeks time, I am really in the Lions den as if Birmingham was not bad enough. I am going to be speaking fluent Larryese to some of the academics who invented the social model of disability and they will no doubt be speaking fluent bollox back.
I have four thousand words to deliver, that would if it were an assignment for my Birmingham course be at Masters level, yet Birmingham expects far less of me. Do you think I feel unappreciated, you can sure I do.
I was full of righteous anger every time the infernal triad was rolled out, if they could but see themselves and realise their own inconsistencies because if you were to add up everyone’s variant version of the memetic triad it would add up to something considerably more than three.
However that apart the thinking at Birmingham is considerably more liberal than elsewhere and we are given more credit than the likes of Amaral and Volkmar would give us.
It was a bad sensory environment and one where I did not know where I was supposed to be most of the time, when my laptop crashed, so did I.
The problem in the evenings was that I tried to be social, but I could have stripped naked and danced on the table and still would have been invisible, because there is something about the intensity of NT's social focus that excludes everything else, I was a tree falling silently even when I lost my temper.
There is a lot I am not happy about today, a lot I did not take in, a lot of consideration that was not given to my own autism despite being in the company of autism "experts" and workers.
I really only felt comfortable with Dinah Murray and Wendy Lawson. Dinah gave me a lift home, with Wendy in the back, I hope they now remember where the best Pylons on the route are, round by the NEC.
Did I forget to introduce Electricity Pylons into my interjections during any of the lectures, no I did not, (tastefully of course)
Other than that I am not very happy at the moment, the first part of the course will not be that difficult for me, but the problem is not what I know, nor what I can learn, but how I present it.
Maybe that is why the likes of Wendy Lawson and Ros Blackburn always get to do the presentations, they are smoother at it.
However in a weeks time, I am really in the Lions den as if Birmingham was not bad enough. I am going to be speaking fluent Larryese to some of the academics who invented the social model of disability and they will no doubt be speaking fluent bollox back.
I have four thousand words to deliver, that would if it were an assignment for my Birmingham course be at Masters level, yet Birmingham expects far less of me. Do you think I feel unappreciated, you can sure I do.
Friday, September 01, 2006
The Infernal Book Meme
Whilst I am awaiting the inspiration to write something more sensible I shall try and come up with suitably Laurentian answers to this parlour game to perplex and annoy.
So leaving out the Bible, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica as one is supposed to do when one lands on the desert Isle, in Roy Plomley's classic Desert Island Discs, here goes. Be prepared for books you have never heard of.
One book that changed my life
Well it is not books that change lives but what one does after one has read them, maybe the first book I ever read, was the one that changed my life most, changing me from an illiterate dyslexic to a child on the path to discovery
One book that you've read more than once
How about two books I've read more than twice, that would have to be something like Le Corbusier's la Ville Radieuse, and Ivor de Wofles (sic) Civilia I guess :)
One book you'd want on a desert island
A survival manual what else? With lots of spare pages you can use as tinder.
One book that made you laugh
DSM IV what else?
One book that made you cry
Books don't make me cry, onions do, maybe a textbook on onions if there is such a thing might make that cognitive leap.
One book you wish you had written
Well how do you know I haven't? I do not wish I had written other peoples books, I wish I had written my own.
One book you wish had never been written
I suppose the Empty Fortress by you know who:(
Other than that…
Anything by Fred Volkmar
One book you're currently reading
Er, I am reading the screen at the moment, anyway a recent blog will tell you one book I have recently read, currently I am attempting to wade through a swathe of books, including Hello Americans, which is a biography of Orson Welles by actor Simon Callow. I ordered the book after seeing him promote it at a literary event in Brum. Like as not it is so thick it will end up like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons, a book I shall never finish.
One book you've been meaning to read
Majia Holmer Nadesan (2005) Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'truth'
Apparently it is a Larry sort of book, not a Kirby or a Lathe take on autism but a book about how the whole notion is socially constructed. I have managed to get the School of Education at Brum Uni to order it for the library, you see I have started being subversive at Birmingham already and I am not even onto the course yet :)
Oh yes and before I end let me add one of my own
One book you found particularly challenging
William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, being as I was only seventeen when I read it in its original first edition dated 1655 in Latin, not having had the benefit of a public school education where one learns Latin at the end of a stick. Lots of fine pictures in it though and I do own a book of these being prints by Wenceslaus Hollar.
Now who shall I tag next?
Nobody that is far too social an activity for me to get my mind round:)
So leaving out the Bible, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica as one is supposed to do when one lands on the desert Isle, in Roy Plomley's classic Desert Island Discs, here goes. Be prepared for books you have never heard of.
One book that changed my life
Well it is not books that change lives but what one does after one has read them, maybe the first book I ever read, was the one that changed my life most, changing me from an illiterate dyslexic to a child on the path to discovery
One book that you've read more than once
How about two books I've read more than twice, that would have to be something like Le Corbusier's la Ville Radieuse, and Ivor de Wofles (sic) Civilia I guess :)
One book you'd want on a desert island
A survival manual what else? With lots of spare pages you can use as tinder.
One book that made you laugh
DSM IV what else?
One book that made you cry
Books don't make me cry, onions do, maybe a textbook on onions if there is such a thing might make that cognitive leap.
One book you wish you had written
Well how do you know I haven't? I do not wish I had written other peoples books, I wish I had written my own.
One book you wish had never been written
I suppose the Empty Fortress by you know who:(
Other than that…
Anything by Fred Volkmar
One book you're currently reading
Er, I am reading the screen at the moment, anyway a recent blog will tell you one book I have recently read, currently I am attempting to wade through a swathe of books, including Hello Americans, which is a biography of Orson Welles by actor Simon Callow. I ordered the book after seeing him promote it at a literary event in Brum. Like as not it is so thick it will end up like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons, a book I shall never finish.
One book you've been meaning to read
Majia Holmer Nadesan (2005) Constructing Autism: Unravelling the 'truth'
Apparently it is a Larry sort of book, not a Kirby or a Lathe take on autism but a book about how the whole notion is socially constructed. I have managed to get the School of Education at Brum Uni to order it for the library, you see I have started being subversive at Birmingham already and I am not even onto the course yet :)
Oh yes and before I end let me add one of my own
One book you found particularly challenging
William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, being as I was only seventeen when I read it in its original first edition dated 1655 in Latin, not having had the benefit of a public school education where one learns Latin at the end of a stick. Lots of fine pictures in it though and I do own a book of these being prints by Wenceslaus Hollar.
Now who shall I tag next?
Nobody that is far too social an activity for me to get my mind round:)
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Robots and Chimpanzees (that's us folks)
You would think that in the intellectually respectable world of the chattering classes, someone like Stephen Pinker a Harvard Proffessor of Pyschology no less, would in his writing on culture, and the mind, know a false meme when he saw it.
Yet he perpetuates the mythology of autism we have inherited down through the changeling of mediaeval legend through Bettelheims exported Freudian metaphor to Simon Baron Cohen’s Theory of mind hypothesis (by way of Philip K Dicks Androids, and the Voight Kampf test)
Fact and fiction seamlessly integrated, for on page 62 of Stephen Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” (Penguin London 2002) He states “Autism is an innate neurological condition with strong genetic roots. Together with robots and chimpanzees. people with autism remind us that cultural learning is possible only because neurologically normal people have innate equipment to accomplish it.”
The notions seem to be lifted straight out of Simon Baron Cohen’s 1995 (and well out of date) tome, Mindblindness, an Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. for he also states :
“A mind unequipped to discern other peoples beliefs and intentions, even if it can learn in other ways, is incapable of the kind of learning that perpetuates culture. People with Autism suffer from an impairment of that kind. They can grasp physical representations like maps and diagrams, but cannot grasp mental representations …”
For a professor of psychology Pinker seems extraordinarily ignorant about what language, culture and representation actually are as concepts and how they relate in terms of cognition. In other words he has no idea of my world, it’s levels of complexity and richness.
This whole network of blogs we belong to on the Autism Hub, if it proves nothing else proves that we have representation (in more one sense of the word) and the means of transmitting culture for if this is not it, what is?
So what is it then the robot as exemplified by culturally complex character Roy Batty of Blade Runner, or the sophisticated Chimpanzees of the Planet of the Apes.?
Beware Professor Pinker, the Autists might take over the planet one day and strip you of your academic credentials.
Yet he perpetuates the mythology of autism we have inherited down through the changeling of mediaeval legend through Bettelheims exported Freudian metaphor to Simon Baron Cohen’s Theory of mind hypothesis (by way of Philip K Dicks Androids, and the Voight Kampf test)
Fact and fiction seamlessly integrated, for on page 62 of Stephen Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” (Penguin London 2002) He states “Autism is an innate neurological condition with strong genetic roots. Together with robots and chimpanzees. people with autism remind us that cultural learning is possible only because neurologically normal people have innate equipment to accomplish it.”
The notions seem to be lifted straight out of Simon Baron Cohen’s 1995 (and well out of date) tome, Mindblindness, an Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. for he also states :
“A mind unequipped to discern other peoples beliefs and intentions, even if it can learn in other ways, is incapable of the kind of learning that perpetuates culture. People with Autism suffer from an impairment of that kind. They can grasp physical representations like maps and diagrams, but cannot grasp mental representations …”
For a professor of psychology Pinker seems extraordinarily ignorant about what language, culture and representation actually are as concepts and how they relate in terms of cognition. In other words he has no idea of my world, it’s levels of complexity and richness.
This whole network of blogs we belong to on the Autism Hub, if it proves nothing else proves that we have representation (in more one sense of the word) and the means of transmitting culture for if this is not it, what is?
So what is it then the robot as exemplified by culturally complex character Roy Batty of Blade Runner, or the sophisticated Chimpanzees of the Planet of the Apes.?
Beware Professor Pinker, the Autists might take over the planet one day and strip you of your academic credentials.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Study: Autism Affects Entire Brain
"New research is challenging the long-held belief that autism affects only those regions of the brain that control social interaction, communication, and reasoning — suggesting, instead, that the disorder affects the entire brain. "
From CBS News.
This is what many of us with the condition would tell you. It goes much further than the diagnostic manuals say, indeed sensory perception has been much ignored until recently.
It also shows that Autism has to be a part of the natural human condition, you cannot cure it without destroying the person.
I and my autism are indissolubly linked, it has advantages and disadvantes but it is all relative. Society is going to have to live with autism just as we have to live with society.
From CBS News.
This is what many of us with the condition would tell you. It goes much further than the diagnostic manuals say, indeed sensory perception has been much ignored until recently.
It also shows that Autism has to be a part of the natural human condition, you cannot cure it without destroying the person.
I and my autism are indissolubly linked, it has advantages and disadvantes but it is all relative. Society is going to have to live with autism just as we have to live with society.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Attack of the non verbals.
I have just had an unpleasant experience this morning whereby my speech would not carry me through a series of phone calls.
I am not even sure that it is autism, rather than a dyspraxic, dyslexic thing being unable to articulate.
It doesn't cut out altogether, but what happens is it slows down, the words don't come, and I cannot proceed because I can neither compose the sentence in my head that I want to say (Chomsky note, my innate grammar goes) nor actually get the verbal muscular apparatus to utter the next word.
It is like playing a record that gets stuck in a groove over a radio where the transmission is intermittent and ends in a long period of silence, perhaps a lot of stammering over a word which is holding place while the rest of my brain tries to figure out how to use words, punctuated by islands of fluency when whole phrases come out as if there were not problem.
It’s a right bugger when that happens, as it always does when you have something complex and important to communicate.
I guess it must puzzle people when it breaks up like that, because they are used to me being hyperverbal even if the dialect I am speaking is unintelligible Larryese anyway.
So what is the problem I was trying to communicate?
Well it is my Disabled Students Allowance assessment report, it is recommending unsuitable equipment, the cheap and nasty option of an all in scanner/printer. When what I need is a decent printer and a decent OCR document management package not some generic schlock that comes bundled with the cheapo option.
What is annoying is I have a scanner which is OK, and a printer that will do, but because both are well over five years old neither is likely to work with a current model laptop which they are providing, for a combination of hardware/software and obsolescence problems.
My desktop is slowly dying, I can't defrag my discs because of the bios on the motherboard won't support any of the hard drives currently available, my graphics card is failing, and again my processor won't support any replacement card currently on the market.
Makes you sick, that you can't simply replace the hardware with the equivalent old technology to get it back up to speed, you have to go for a new computer entirely, and then upgrade your peripherals too.
The costs of becoming a student mean I can't afford any of that, but the grants and allowances to help you are quite inadequate, and deal with budget options not individualised person centred solutions.
That coupled with the fact the first part of the course is in about three weeks time, and all the staff who can help sort out this problem won't be back till then by which time it is too late.
So when I try and phone anyone, my own speech is as halting as the computer I am stuck with for now.
I am not even sure that it is autism, rather than a dyspraxic, dyslexic thing being unable to articulate.
It doesn't cut out altogether, but what happens is it slows down, the words don't come, and I cannot proceed because I can neither compose the sentence in my head that I want to say (Chomsky note, my innate grammar goes) nor actually get the verbal muscular apparatus to utter the next word.
It is like playing a record that gets stuck in a groove over a radio where the transmission is intermittent and ends in a long period of silence, perhaps a lot of stammering over a word which is holding place while the rest of my brain tries to figure out how to use words, punctuated by islands of fluency when whole phrases come out as if there were not problem.
It’s a right bugger when that happens, as it always does when you have something complex and important to communicate.
I guess it must puzzle people when it breaks up like that, because they are used to me being hyperverbal even if the dialect I am speaking is unintelligible Larryese anyway.
So what is the problem I was trying to communicate?
Well it is my Disabled Students Allowance assessment report, it is recommending unsuitable equipment, the cheap and nasty option of an all in scanner/printer. When what I need is a decent printer and a decent OCR document management package not some generic schlock that comes bundled with the cheapo option.
What is annoying is I have a scanner which is OK, and a printer that will do, but because both are well over five years old neither is likely to work with a current model laptop which they are providing, for a combination of hardware/software and obsolescence problems.
My desktop is slowly dying, I can't defrag my discs because of the bios on the motherboard won't support any of the hard drives currently available, my graphics card is failing, and again my processor won't support any replacement card currently on the market.
Makes you sick, that you can't simply replace the hardware with the equivalent old technology to get it back up to speed, you have to go for a new computer entirely, and then upgrade your peripherals too.
The costs of becoming a student mean I can't afford any of that, but the grants and allowances to help you are quite inadequate, and deal with budget options not individualised person centred solutions.
That coupled with the fact the first part of the course is in about three weeks time, and all the staff who can help sort out this problem won't be back till then by which time it is too late.
So when I try and phone anyone, my own speech is as halting as the computer I am stuck with for now.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Philadelphia.
Philadelphia.
Named by Quaker William Penn as the "City of Brotherly Love" from the Greek. That was the cryptic reference in my last post :)
Well Autscape is over and I am settling into the next phase of my life.
Autscape was fine, my Landie did not let me down, and I was comfortable being able to sleep in the back.
The presentations were mixed, I liked some, not so sure about others. Wendy Lawson got of lightly this time, (apart from suffering me over dinner) so did Jim Sinclair.
This one was interesting, and the guy deserves more publicity even if it is hosted on “Autism Never There’s” website.
On arriving home I have to deal with the operation coming up very shortly now, and worse than that even, the first study weekend at Birmingham Uni.
Why oh why do they have to have Ros Blackburn to do the self narrating zoo turn?
I would rather someone who is politically aware and linked with the wider online autistic community, not someone who annoys me with unsustainable bias.
I would rather see Kieth McKenzie do his autscape presentation although he has more to learn about our wider community yet, which things I am sure he took note of after Autscape.
I shall have to make sure that the other students are aware that there are many shades of autistic opinion and make sure they know about the autism hub even if I get chucked out doing so.
That course has a lot to learn and I shall make sure that my metaphorical sword never sleeps in my hand till they look at what they don’t want to look at rather than stay with what is safe.
Is it any wonder I am very tense about the whole thing?
Named by Quaker William Penn as the "City of Brotherly Love" from the Greek. That was the cryptic reference in my last post :)
Well Autscape is over and I am settling into the next phase of my life.
Autscape was fine, my Landie did not let me down, and I was comfortable being able to sleep in the back.
The presentations were mixed, I liked some, not so sure about others. Wendy Lawson got of lightly this time, (apart from suffering me over dinner) so did Jim Sinclair.
This one was interesting, and the guy deserves more publicity even if it is hosted on “Autism Never There’s” website.
On arriving home I have to deal with the operation coming up very shortly now, and worse than that even, the first study weekend at Birmingham Uni.
Why oh why do they have to have Ros Blackburn to do the self narrating zoo turn?
I would rather someone who is politically aware and linked with the wider online autistic community, not someone who annoys me with unsustainable bias.
I would rather see Kieth McKenzie do his autscape presentation although he has more to learn about our wider community yet, which things I am sure he took note of after Autscape.
I shall have to make sure that the other students are aware that there are many shades of autistic opinion and make sure they know about the autism hub even if I get chucked out doing so.
That course has a lot to learn and I shall make sure that my metaphorical sword never sleeps in my hand till they look at what they don’t want to look at rather than stay with what is safe.
Is it any wonder I am very tense about the whole thing?
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Off to Autscape in the morning
Well tomorrow actually, but why should I let that get in the way of a catchy title and a literary reference that is probably far too obscure for most of my readers. (If you know the title prove me wrong)
I don’t doubt as I shall disagree with practically all of the presenters, not to mention the organisers, not to mention the very fundamental principle that Autscape ought to be serving but I believe it is not.
So why bother? I guess I want to meet people again (how shockingly NT of me)
Well I might let Wendy Lawson have an easier time than I have given her on my past two encounters. Whatever I guess Autscape does not suck as much as I suppose Autreat would for me, I am not one of natures convergers.
What really pisses me off though is the whole internal “navel gazing” of it all. I prefer myself to present at more hostile conferences because there are more people there who need to hear about how autism positions within a wider disability movement.
This seems to be my latest perseveration, that we are not going to make any progress or inroads against discrimination and the crap we are dealt unless we make alliances beyond what appears to be our rather insignificant movement when you stand back and look at it globally.
Are we saying anything new?
No we are not even if we delude ourselves into thinking that we do.
Autism is no more unique than any other kind of human diversity. Now whatever the Russian scholars might say, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and I am going to have to continue upsetting people on my right and on my left, before me and behind me, above me and below me. Hedged about with ideologues of all persuasions, you can’t be heard unless you make a noise.
My visions mine, though some I share
I bend not break, for such a load I bear
And what I dream no other mind could see
The pattern of my own eternity
My destination not one I would chose
My life's my own and there's no time to lose
So beat the drum if that is what you will
I need no drum my vision to fulfil
I hear no sound, for sound can come no more
Existence’s edge the place where I explore
I don’t doubt as I shall disagree with practically all of the presenters, not to mention the organisers, not to mention the very fundamental principle that Autscape ought to be serving but I believe it is not.
So why bother? I guess I want to meet people again (how shockingly NT of me)
Well I might let Wendy Lawson have an easier time than I have given her on my past two encounters. Whatever I guess Autscape does not suck as much as I suppose Autreat would for me, I am not one of natures convergers.
What really pisses me off though is the whole internal “navel gazing” of it all. I prefer myself to present at more hostile conferences because there are more people there who need to hear about how autism positions within a wider disability movement.
This seems to be my latest perseveration, that we are not going to make any progress or inroads against discrimination and the crap we are dealt unless we make alliances beyond what appears to be our rather insignificant movement when you stand back and look at it globally.
Are we saying anything new?
No we are not even if we delude ourselves into thinking that we do.
Autism is no more unique than any other kind of human diversity. Now whatever the Russian scholars might say, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and I am going to have to continue upsetting people on my right and on my left, before me and behind me, above me and below me. Hedged about with ideologues of all persuasions, you can’t be heard unless you make a noise.
My visions mine, though some I share
I bend not break, for such a load I bear
And what I dream no other mind could see
The pattern of my own eternity
My destination not one I would chose
My life's my own and there's no time to lose
So beat the drum if that is what you will
I need no drum my vision to fulfil
I hear no sound, for sound can come no more
Existence’s edge the place where I explore
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Peccavimus (we have sinned)
We are incestuous and cannibalistic
We feed off each others posts in a parody of the construction of co-dependency. We feast upon each other in a parody of the Eucharist, and beyond that we indulge in practices which are tantamount to inbreeding.
We don't see ourselves in this tiny fragment of the blogosphere as part of anything much larger than the world as we see. We have not reached Piaget's stage of recognising the permanency of objects metaphorically speaking, and certainly those distant trees are falling and we don't believe they are making any noise.
I have seen far too much amongst our neat little culture here, that assumes that there is no way of believing but ours, we are the Autistic Amish as it were, or worse the Autistic Exclusive Brethren.
Neurodiversity came to us as a concept via someone whom we now regard as apostate, but the idea came not out of autism at all but out of mainstream disability politics (not that it is that mainstream in terms of wider issues either, but we are an enclave in an enclave)
I feel I need to make these criticisms, to force on us the realisation that we are all talking to the wrong people when we talk amongst ourselves (talk as a metaphor for blog/list/NG discourse)
Reading the criticisms of Kam Nazeer today I was struck by the pomposity of our own positioning, in that we are almost issuing Fatwas against our own kind simply because they are like the Hellenistic Jews of the first century (now there's a mixture of religious metaphor for you) absorbed by a culture which would seem to alienate and distract them from what we believe is the proper way to keep a covenant with our autism.
I spent most of my adult years as an Autist in a different culture, not a mainstream one but a generalist disability one and that is where I learnt the most pressingly important things about autism before I even knew about my own autism or anyone else’s to the degree I do now.
There are many autistics out there who are neither pretending to be normal or aware of being part of our Cosa Nostra. I am bloody sure I spotted one today. Some of them are going to be like Kam Nazeer, well placed and successful in the political economy.
We have to realise we are not the only game in town, and to act on that in a sensible way.
It's like David Blunkett, for whatever you think of him as a politician, he has been in the cabinet as a politician not as a blind man and if he were only a blind man with blind mans interests he would never have advanced that far.
We feed off each others posts in a parody of the construction of co-dependency. We feast upon each other in a parody of the Eucharist, and beyond that we indulge in practices which are tantamount to inbreeding.
We don't see ourselves in this tiny fragment of the blogosphere as part of anything much larger than the world as we see. We have not reached Piaget's stage of recognising the permanency of objects metaphorically speaking, and certainly those distant trees are falling and we don't believe they are making any noise.
I have seen far too much amongst our neat little culture here, that assumes that there is no way of believing but ours, we are the Autistic Amish as it were, or worse the Autistic Exclusive Brethren.
Neurodiversity came to us as a concept via someone whom we now regard as apostate, but the idea came not out of autism at all but out of mainstream disability politics (not that it is that mainstream in terms of wider issues either, but we are an enclave in an enclave)
I feel I need to make these criticisms, to force on us the realisation that we are all talking to the wrong people when we talk amongst ourselves (talk as a metaphor for blog/list/NG discourse)
Reading the criticisms of Kam Nazeer today I was struck by the pomposity of our own positioning, in that we are almost issuing Fatwas against our own kind simply because they are like the Hellenistic Jews of the first century (now there's a mixture of religious metaphor for you) absorbed by a culture which would seem to alienate and distract them from what we believe is the proper way to keep a covenant with our autism.
I spent most of my adult years as an Autist in a different culture, not a mainstream one but a generalist disability one and that is where I learnt the most pressingly important things about autism before I even knew about my own autism or anyone else’s to the degree I do now.
There are many autistics out there who are neither pretending to be normal or aware of being part of our Cosa Nostra. I am bloody sure I spotted one today. Some of them are going to be like Kam Nazeer, well placed and successful in the political economy.
We have to realise we are not the only game in town, and to act on that in a sensible way.
It's like David Blunkett, for whatever you think of him as a politician, he has been in the cabinet as a politician not as a blind man and if he were only a blind man with blind mans interests he would never have advanced that far.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Larry Arnold Myth and Reality
Right now I am feeling somewhat beleaguered having to defend myself against those who sometimes seem to wilfully misunderstand what I am about for purposes that to me are equally mysterious so I propose a little myth breaking as I say goodbye to the world of Usenet where there seems not point in repeating myself ad infinitum in defence against the slander mongers.
Myth - I have been accused of being a super aspie, only interested in advancing the cause of people like myself.
Reply - Anyone who knows me well enough should be able to see that I constantly speak out against Aspie supremacists and others who want to divide the spectrum into an us and them. Those who have seen me in meetings will know I am as vehement for the rights of the unheard autistics who are the cannon fodder of Autism Speaks videos and Press manipulation. If I were to deny my abilities as a polymath in order to become more "acceptable" I would not be true to myself and truth to self is a right I fight for, for all.
Myth - The second that arises from the first is from the parents who accuse me of wanting there children to left in some sort of state of nature and noble savagery.
Reply - This again is not the case, opposing a cure, does not mean I see autism as static or oppose education and intervention aimed at making it easier for children to survive in this corrupt society. I see the goal of “indistinguishable from his peers” as not only unattainable but undesirable and productive of a great deal of psychological harm.
Myth - I am anti science.
Reply - That is based on a misunderstanding of my position that science is not the only game in town, and that even it's paradigms are governed by social, individual, psychological, commercial, economic and academic factors that need to be taken into account in any reading of what is supposedly objective evidence obtained by the scientific method. Indeed the scientific method can be employed in showing the bias in science. There is no unitary thing that can be called science, economics can sometimes teach as much about the behaviour of individuals as cognitive psychology and what interests me are the synergies between different systems. I am a natural philosopher and without philosophy without answering questions such as where does mathematics derive from, what is language, what is logic, what is the relationship between the perceived and the “physical” experimental science cannot even begin to take hold.
Myth - I do not believe in the physical reality of disability.
Reply - Again that is a simple misunderstanding of my understanding of the way language and society works to create different meanings from the same phonemes and syntax. I believe that it is important not to locate disability in the individual as this has led to a culture that does not adapt for difference and sees the solution as fixing the individual, and if that fails eliminating them altogether.
If my car breaks down and runs into a ditch, even after I sort the engine out, it will still be in the ditch, it is better to get it out of the ditch first.
Of course I go to a doctor for mechanical ailments, but I do not need a doctor to improve the social and the physical environment for those whom society casts in the role of disabled. I do not see why I should adopt the stereotypical disabled role, when it is my right to chose who I want to be.
Myth - and lastly that I live in an unreal world of intellectual speculation.
Reply - I live in the real world, outside of my use of philosophical tools I use the conventional practices of politics to get my ideas of liberation across. I pay my bus fare to travel into town I don’t speculate with the driver on the nature of the coins I use or the causal relationships between there symbolism and the town moving toward me as the universe shifts in a relativistic movement around the actors in this drama of exchange calling every new location into being and extinguishing it again as it passes out of perception, fun though that might be if I did not have a bus to catch and the driver and passengers had all day to discuss this in some Socratic agora.
Myth - I have been accused of being a super aspie, only interested in advancing the cause of people like myself.
Reply - Anyone who knows me well enough should be able to see that I constantly speak out against Aspie supremacists and others who want to divide the spectrum into an us and them. Those who have seen me in meetings will know I am as vehement for the rights of the unheard autistics who are the cannon fodder of Autism Speaks videos and Press manipulation. If I were to deny my abilities as a polymath in order to become more "acceptable" I would not be true to myself and truth to self is a right I fight for, for all.
Myth - The second that arises from the first is from the parents who accuse me of wanting there children to left in some sort of state of nature and noble savagery.
Reply - This again is not the case, opposing a cure, does not mean I see autism as static or oppose education and intervention aimed at making it easier for children to survive in this corrupt society. I see the goal of “indistinguishable from his peers” as not only unattainable but undesirable and productive of a great deal of psychological harm.
Myth - I am anti science.
Reply - That is based on a misunderstanding of my position that science is not the only game in town, and that even it's paradigms are governed by social, individual, psychological, commercial, economic and academic factors that need to be taken into account in any reading of what is supposedly objective evidence obtained by the scientific method. Indeed the scientific method can be employed in showing the bias in science. There is no unitary thing that can be called science, economics can sometimes teach as much about the behaviour of individuals as cognitive psychology and what interests me are the synergies between different systems. I am a natural philosopher and without philosophy without answering questions such as where does mathematics derive from, what is language, what is logic, what is the relationship between the perceived and the “physical” experimental science cannot even begin to take hold.
Myth - I do not believe in the physical reality of disability.
Reply - Again that is a simple misunderstanding of my understanding of the way language and society works to create different meanings from the same phonemes and syntax. I believe that it is important not to locate disability in the individual as this has led to a culture that does not adapt for difference and sees the solution as fixing the individual, and if that fails eliminating them altogether.
If my car breaks down and runs into a ditch, even after I sort the engine out, it will still be in the ditch, it is better to get it out of the ditch first.
Of course I go to a doctor for mechanical ailments, but I do not need a doctor to improve the social and the physical environment for those whom society casts in the role of disabled. I do not see why I should adopt the stereotypical disabled role, when it is my right to chose who I want to be.
Myth - and lastly that I live in an unreal world of intellectual speculation.
Reply - I live in the real world, outside of my use of philosophical tools I use the conventional practices of politics to get my ideas of liberation across. I pay my bus fare to travel into town I don’t speculate with the driver on the nature of the coins I use or the causal relationships between there symbolism and the town moving toward me as the universe shifts in a relativistic movement around the actors in this drama of exchange calling every new location into being and extinguishing it again as it passes out of perception, fun though that might be if I did not have a bus to catch and the driver and passengers had all day to discuss this in some Socratic agora.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
And notwithstanding whatever I was going to write
And notwithstanding whatever I was going to write, this blog is somewhat delayed in appearance as I have only just got back on Broadband after a thunderstorm fried my modem and ADSL connection.
So what was I going to post. that is already old news?
I have been re-elected onto the board of the NAS. I was seriously wondering whether my time was up for that, but I suppose I have the satisfaction of that to moderate this post modern anxiety I feel over having my internet connection cut off.
What does it mean? To me and to others?
Being careful about what I say, to be fair to others, I did not get elected on the board in the first place, the first time I stood. Then I suppose that is natural enough. To be elected in the first place to the board was a relatively minor victory I think, compared to being re-elected. The first time round it established something new, it broke a “glass ceiling” showing that an autistic person could be elected to the board, but I think this second time round, it maybe shows more than that, that an autistic person can be trusted on past performance to carry out the duties and responsibilities that being elected involves. It was not so easy this time, there was more competition. Sadly not from people on the spectrum but there you go, it just shows how much work still lies ahead of me.
I have to admit to attempts at tact and respectability. I might have gone down to my last board meeting in an open necked shirt and shorts, but by the time of the Council meeting I was wearing a suit and tie. Nonetheless any attempt to self muzzle and not have a go at the old enemies, the curebies and the scientists for fear it might jeopardize my chances was doomed to failure,
Well I am pleased with the result, I congratulate the other trustees who either got re-elected or will be joining the board for the first time, I will not have any difficulties working with them or the other way round.
When I first set out to be elected as a trustee I have to admit I did not know what I was letting myself in for and I did not (anymore than I think several other of the new candidates today) knew what we would be letting ourselves in for. You can’t change the world as easily as that because you have to understand the economics and dynamics of an organisation, in the same way that you have to know the MPG of your car when you set out on a journey. You might get in your car at London and want to drive to Scotland, believe that you can, but without realising that petrol has to be paid for and that your tank only holds so much between fill ups, and if you don’t you certainly will not get there.
So what was I going to post. that is already old news?
I have been re-elected onto the board of the NAS. I was seriously wondering whether my time was up for that, but I suppose I have the satisfaction of that to moderate this post modern anxiety I feel over having my internet connection cut off.
What does it mean? To me and to others?
Being careful about what I say, to be fair to others, I did not get elected on the board in the first place, the first time I stood. Then I suppose that is natural enough. To be elected in the first place to the board was a relatively minor victory I think, compared to being re-elected. The first time round it established something new, it broke a “glass ceiling” showing that an autistic person could be elected to the board, but I think this second time round, it maybe shows more than that, that an autistic person can be trusted on past performance to carry out the duties and responsibilities that being elected involves. It was not so easy this time, there was more competition. Sadly not from people on the spectrum but there you go, it just shows how much work still lies ahead of me.
I have to admit to attempts at tact and respectability. I might have gone down to my last board meeting in an open necked shirt and shorts, but by the time of the Council meeting I was wearing a suit and tie. Nonetheless any attempt to self muzzle and not have a go at the old enemies, the curebies and the scientists for fear it might jeopardize my chances was doomed to failure,
Well I am pleased with the result, I congratulate the other trustees who either got re-elected or will be joining the board for the first time, I will not have any difficulties working with them or the other way round.
When I first set out to be elected as a trustee I have to admit I did not know what I was letting myself in for and I did not (anymore than I think several other of the new candidates today) knew what we would be letting ourselves in for. You can’t change the world as easily as that because you have to understand the economics and dynamics of an organisation, in the same way that you have to know the MPG of your car when you set out on a journey. You might get in your car at London and want to drive to Scotland, believe that you can, but without realising that petrol has to be paid for and that your tank only holds so much between fill ups, and if you don’t you certainly will not get there.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Being in Control
On reflection I think I can handle a lot of things going on in my life at once so long as I have some idea that I am in control.
Towards the beginning of the year I was very stressed out awaiting the results of my applications to Uni, and more recently with exams coming up, and fitting everything around NAS meetings, getting my DVD completed, presenting a paper in Liverpool and the perennial problems with the Landie.
Well the exams are done with, and Uni is settled and I have been quite able to rush around getting forms filled in, assessments done for Disabled Students Allowance and that sort of thing. I am also resigned to the change in my life that is coming about with leaving the college that has pretty much been the centre of life for so many years.
Even the Landie I am content with at the moment because the work that needs doing has been arranged and some of it is covered by warranty.
No what has put me out now has been a letter I received this morning tell me that on a particular date I am to present at an out of town hospital for day surgery at 7.30 in the morning, with the proviso that if I don’t turn up or let them know if I can’t make it in one day I will lose my place on the waiting list.
Now I have known about the operation coming up for some time, but had no idea that it might not be done in Coventry, and what is more I had been told that the first I would hear would be a call for pre op tests to be done, and this has not happened.
Furthermore the operation was scheduled without regard as to how I could travel to another town for that time in the morning when there are no trains or buses that can get me there that early.
I had a lot of phoning to do this morning to sort that out, not helped by the fact that the wrong number to call had been given on the letter, and that another number I was given put me on call waiting and then told me they were so busy they could not take my call today. Eventually I got through to someone and cancelled.
Now I was not expecting this at this time at all because I have a Cardiologists appointment scheduled for this month and I assumed they would wait until I got the results of that consultation before operating, it makes sense to do that doesn’t it.
I have put in a complaint to the Hospital Trust, about the poor communication that has resulted in this out of the blue, and also about the fact that they are paying no regard to either my AS or my Social situation in any of this. My Social Worker, for once was in today, and he will be writing a letter too.
I need these ops, but I need more certainty to plan around them, this month would not have been a good time, as I want to be able to drive to Autscape and look after myself there and as my Landie is in going in for possibly extensive repairs, being unable to drive would mean I would be unable to get it back from the garage if the repairs were not done in time for the operation.
Hopefully now they will reschedule the op, at a hospital I can get to, and at a time which does not impinge too hard on my new Uni course starting in September, when I also have another conference booked where I am presenting another paper.
Towards the beginning of the year I was very stressed out awaiting the results of my applications to Uni, and more recently with exams coming up, and fitting everything around NAS meetings, getting my DVD completed, presenting a paper in Liverpool and the perennial problems with the Landie.
Well the exams are done with, and Uni is settled and I have been quite able to rush around getting forms filled in, assessments done for Disabled Students Allowance and that sort of thing. I am also resigned to the change in my life that is coming about with leaving the college that has pretty much been the centre of life for so many years.
Even the Landie I am content with at the moment because the work that needs doing has been arranged and some of it is covered by warranty.
No what has put me out now has been a letter I received this morning tell me that on a particular date I am to present at an out of town hospital for day surgery at 7.30 in the morning, with the proviso that if I don’t turn up or let them know if I can’t make it in one day I will lose my place on the waiting list.
Now I have known about the operation coming up for some time, but had no idea that it might not be done in Coventry, and what is more I had been told that the first I would hear would be a call for pre op tests to be done, and this has not happened.
Furthermore the operation was scheduled without regard as to how I could travel to another town for that time in the morning when there are no trains or buses that can get me there that early.
I had a lot of phoning to do this morning to sort that out, not helped by the fact that the wrong number to call had been given on the letter, and that another number I was given put me on call waiting and then told me they were so busy they could not take my call today. Eventually I got through to someone and cancelled.
Now I was not expecting this at this time at all because I have a Cardiologists appointment scheduled for this month and I assumed they would wait until I got the results of that consultation before operating, it makes sense to do that doesn’t it.
I have put in a complaint to the Hospital Trust, about the poor communication that has resulted in this out of the blue, and also about the fact that they are paying no regard to either my AS or my Social situation in any of this. My Social Worker, for once was in today, and he will be writing a letter too.
I need these ops, but I need more certainty to plan around them, this month would not have been a good time, as I want to be able to drive to Autscape and look after myself there and as my Landie is in going in for possibly extensive repairs, being unable to drive would mean I would be unable to get it back from the garage if the repairs were not done in time for the operation.
Hopefully now they will reschedule the op, at a hospital I can get to, and at a time which does not impinge too hard on my new Uni course starting in September, when I also have another conference booked where I am presenting another paper.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Exams again.
I have just completed my last A level exam, and coming so close on the assessment for disabled students allowance I had yesterday it has set me to the customary musing on exams, concessions and alternatives.
Now to begin with my concession for exam is being allowed to complete them on a computer in a separate room, with 25% extra time but spell checking disabled.
It also occurred during my assessment yesterday that to be granted money to by a laptop may not be an option in the future as lap tops become more an more a mainstream necessity for today’s students, it will become something one is expected to provide oneself with anyway and only exceptional software may come as a concession. That would put one at an economic disadvantage rather than a disabled one, as one would be in the same position as any student from a less affluent background.
However I thought too of what the exam was trying to prove. In essence the 25% extra is partly to compensate for not having a spell checker allowed, they give with one hand and take away with the other.
The emphasis on spelling and grammar is there in exams as much as in papers and dissertations, essentially what one is having to prove in an exam is ones ability to recall enough of what one has learnt and to communicate that to a third party under pressure in answer to a specific enquiry. A very narrow scope of knowledge.
For sure the ability to communicate what one has learnt is as important as merely knowing it if one is to go on to any kind of higher education of employment which actually requires one to share knowledge so that I will accept.
What I don't accept is the need to know everything without reference to dictionaries or standard reference materials or notes. Many public speakers will use notes to prompt them, and of course anyone publishing will make use of proof readers if there grammar, phraseology and spelling is in anyway in doubt. Indeed one of the things that the DSA will be to pay for is for me to access that kind of support for my written work.
So a real world test of knowledge would be somewhat more general than a few selected and often badly phrased random exam questions.
I see no reason why someone completely untutored writing an academic paper, using references and a secretary should not gain an equivalent to an exam grade for the final product if that final product better communicates the knowledge one has acquired in the process.
The arguments then come about pressure, it being realistic in a work situation to assume one has to work under pressure and exams are a preparation for that. Not so I say, there are pressures enough having to produce a paper for a deadline, particularly if one is doing ones own research rather than learning in a classroom environment.
Then the pro examination brigade cite the growing amount of plagiarism in favour of exams against course work. To that I say that plagiarism is a problem which needs to be tackled, however, parroting what one has rote learnt cramming for an exam is not exactly being original either.
Well whatever I hope to do well overall in my exams, even though my showing last year was not too good. It is irrelevant to some extent how I do, except to me, because I already have my University place for this Autumn.
Now to begin with my concession for exam is being allowed to complete them on a computer in a separate room, with 25% extra time but spell checking disabled.
It also occurred during my assessment yesterday that to be granted money to by a laptop may not be an option in the future as lap tops become more an more a mainstream necessity for today’s students, it will become something one is expected to provide oneself with anyway and only exceptional software may come as a concession. That would put one at an economic disadvantage rather than a disabled one, as one would be in the same position as any student from a less affluent background.
However I thought too of what the exam was trying to prove. In essence the 25% extra is partly to compensate for not having a spell checker allowed, they give with one hand and take away with the other.
The emphasis on spelling and grammar is there in exams as much as in papers and dissertations, essentially what one is having to prove in an exam is ones ability to recall enough of what one has learnt and to communicate that to a third party under pressure in answer to a specific enquiry. A very narrow scope of knowledge.
For sure the ability to communicate what one has learnt is as important as merely knowing it if one is to go on to any kind of higher education of employment which actually requires one to share knowledge so that I will accept.
What I don't accept is the need to know everything without reference to dictionaries or standard reference materials or notes. Many public speakers will use notes to prompt them, and of course anyone publishing will make use of proof readers if there grammar, phraseology and spelling is in anyway in doubt. Indeed one of the things that the DSA will be to pay for is for me to access that kind of support for my written work.
So a real world test of knowledge would be somewhat more general than a few selected and often badly phrased random exam questions.
I see no reason why someone completely untutored writing an academic paper, using references and a secretary should not gain an equivalent to an exam grade for the final product if that final product better communicates the knowledge one has acquired in the process.
The arguments then come about pressure, it being realistic in a work situation to assume one has to work under pressure and exams are a preparation for that. Not so I say, there are pressures enough having to produce a paper for a deadline, particularly if one is doing ones own research rather than learning in a classroom environment.
Then the pro examination brigade cite the growing amount of plagiarism in favour of exams against course work. To that I say that plagiarism is a problem which needs to be tackled, however, parroting what one has rote learnt cramming for an exam is not exactly being original either.
Well whatever I hope to do well overall in my exams, even though my showing last year was not too good. It is irrelevant to some extent how I do, except to me, because I already have my University place for this Autumn.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
That far country (from whose bourne no traveller returns)
I guess this is another gloomy post, another gloomy post on such a sunny day, but the longest day has past already and the days will shorten towards winter.
I guess I have been getting obsessed with my great unfinished video project again, which I started back in 2002 on the second year of my media studies course.
Just under a year ago, I started a rather different project "Whichever way you look at it, it's still autism" Which after some problems along the way, finally saw production as a DVD.
Mind you I have no evidence of any significant sales yet. I guess it may be too radical for the autism market, stuck as it is with medical models. Certainly the major autism publishing houses turned it down because autism or not it was not in the conventional genre.
"Oustside In" of which only some of the credit is due me, continues to shift though, but I have moved on a long way since then, it was made way back in 2002 as well in the days before I got my current favourite hat.
I don't suppose I will ever get any credit for "Terra Incognita" it is going to be a difficult one to get any interest in, being as it is so eclectic and introspective. Now if I were a ruthless publicist like Andy Warhol, who made rather bad movies on his reputation alone, it might be a different matter.
You see in this world it is not what you are, or what you can do, but who you are and how you are placed.
The world laps up videos by Tony Atwood, and all manner of rubbish turned out by curebies and medical model fetishists, who employ professionals to make second rate videos because the professionals know how to reach the market.
I doubt if I will even get any showings on the independent film making circuit. Again that requires positioning, reputation but above all social nous, to "brown nose" ones way in.
And so I am doomed, to my introspection, to doing things the way I want to, but never earning anything from it, until finally I cross the borders into Terra Incognita, that far country from whose bourne no traveller returns.
Heck everybody and his dog will be making home movies in HDTV before I ever complete this in plain old PAL.
I guess I have been getting obsessed with my great unfinished video project again, which I started back in 2002 on the second year of my media studies course.
Just under a year ago, I started a rather different project "Whichever way you look at it, it's still autism" Which after some problems along the way, finally saw production as a DVD.
Mind you I have no evidence of any significant sales yet. I guess it may be too radical for the autism market, stuck as it is with medical models. Certainly the major autism publishing houses turned it down because autism or not it was not in the conventional genre.
"Oustside In" of which only some of the credit is due me, continues to shift though, but I have moved on a long way since then, it was made way back in 2002 as well in the days before I got my current favourite hat.
I don't suppose I will ever get any credit for "Terra Incognita" it is going to be a difficult one to get any interest in, being as it is so eclectic and introspective. Now if I were a ruthless publicist like Andy Warhol, who made rather bad movies on his reputation alone, it might be a different matter.
You see in this world it is not what you are, or what you can do, but who you are and how you are placed.
The world laps up videos by Tony Atwood, and all manner of rubbish turned out by curebies and medical model fetishists, who employ professionals to make second rate videos because the professionals know how to reach the market.
I doubt if I will even get any showings on the independent film making circuit. Again that requires positioning, reputation but above all social nous, to "brown nose" ones way in.
And so I am doomed, to my introspection, to doing things the way I want to, but never earning anything from it, until finally I cross the borders into Terra Incognita, that far country from whose bourne no traveller returns.
Heck everybody and his dog will be making home movies in HDTV before I ever complete this in plain old PAL.
Monday, June 12, 2006
The sociology of Autism
Today's blog is inspired by the fact that I am facing two Sociology exams on Friday Afternoon.
Now I took up Sociology because I wanted to widen my perspective on this phenomenon called Autism, as much as for any other reason to add another "ology" to my qualifications.
I think most of those blogging on the Autism Hub are sociologists of one kind or another whether they acknowledge it or not, for what I see is an acceptance of autism that goes beyond medical labels and descriptions of traits, to an understanding of how we deal with autism either as individuals or as parents, is sociological. How autists are educated, diagnosed, discriminated against, stereotyped; that is all sociological, and those who look merely on the "disaster" of autism, and accept every fly by night explanation or offer of a cure are missing the context of their own being as a participant in a wider society that has structured their beliefs, their faith (or not) in medicine and science and their belief that something must be done to relieve them of the guilty burden they feel (whoops straying into another "ology" here)
As a youth, I looked down on Sociology as a "wooly" discipline, studied by those who couldn't think of anything better to do, but "wooly" though it is, it certainly has helped me to realise that Autism is whatever people think it is. The very traits of Autism and its diagnosis by behavioural observation with its corrollory, the frantic search for biological and neurological indicators, shows that we do not have any definitive answer to the question.
How autism is diagnosed, how it is treated(clinically and educationally) and how we are treated (by our peers and administrators) is governed not so much by the autism, its severity or its cryptic qualities, but who we are in society, and what society we are in.
Both socialised medicine and insurance based medicine favour those who have the education and the social status to challenge peremptory decisions. That goes not just for Autism but for any medically diagnosable condition.
Those who don't have the status or the income find themselves accepting whatever is available, and often there is very little growing lesser the further into the third world you go (which is as much present in North American and European cities amongst the disenfranchised poor as it is in Calcutta or Rio.)
I am writing to you, because I am educated, I have welfare, and I have an attitude too. Otherwise I would just be another lost soul on this sink of an ex Council Estate, living in a condemned flat.
Who is the voice for all those disenfranchised autistic people I wonder? Certainly not the curebies with their "me me me" culture.
If you are a parent on such a nightmare estate, or maybe even a lately diagnosed "aspie" or whatever, you are the victim of just about every piece of misinformation out there, particularly on the web (assuming you have any access to it at all)
Too many spokespeople on both sides of the Autism divide come from comfortable middle class backgrounds, the well heeled and the well educated, whilst the basic struggle for survival leaves you with little surplus energy or cash for such things.
I spend an inordinate amount of my money on my internet access because it allows me to escape the confines of this existence and to "punch beyond my weight"
You don't expect many fellows of the Royal Society of Arts to be living in my circumstances, it is not the kind of organisation that most working class people join.
Well there is a sociological thesis about participation in such organisations waiting to be written, if it has not been already, for the critics of pluralism, would allege that even the interest groups are run by self selecting elites.
Sadly in my adventures into such territory I often find that to be the case.
Makes me wonder how we can ever set up an authentic and credible grass roots group for autistic advocacy that does not rely on the relatively advantaged to give it credibility and therein instant lie the dilemma, which is the curse of being able to remedy it. You need leisure and income to devote to such causes, and the leisured and wealthy often do not understand what it is not be of their company.
Now I took up Sociology because I wanted to widen my perspective on this phenomenon called Autism, as much as for any other reason to add another "ology" to my qualifications.
I think most of those blogging on the Autism Hub are sociologists of one kind or another whether they acknowledge it or not, for what I see is an acceptance of autism that goes beyond medical labels and descriptions of traits, to an understanding of how we deal with autism either as individuals or as parents, is sociological. How autists are educated, diagnosed, discriminated against, stereotyped; that is all sociological, and those who look merely on the "disaster" of autism, and accept every fly by night explanation or offer of a cure are missing the context of their own being as a participant in a wider society that has structured their beliefs, their faith (or not) in medicine and science and their belief that something must be done to relieve them of the guilty burden they feel (whoops straying into another "ology" here)
As a youth, I looked down on Sociology as a "wooly" discipline, studied by those who couldn't think of anything better to do, but "wooly" though it is, it certainly has helped me to realise that Autism is whatever people think it is. The very traits of Autism and its diagnosis by behavioural observation with its corrollory, the frantic search for biological and neurological indicators, shows that we do not have any definitive answer to the question.
How autism is diagnosed, how it is treated(clinically and educationally) and how we are treated (by our peers and administrators) is governed not so much by the autism, its severity or its cryptic qualities, but who we are in society, and what society we are in.
Both socialised medicine and insurance based medicine favour those who have the education and the social status to challenge peremptory decisions. That goes not just for Autism but for any medically diagnosable condition.
Those who don't have the status or the income find themselves accepting whatever is available, and often there is very little growing lesser the further into the third world you go (which is as much present in North American and European cities amongst the disenfranchised poor as it is in Calcutta or Rio.)
I am writing to you, because I am educated, I have welfare, and I have an attitude too. Otherwise I would just be another lost soul on this sink of an ex Council Estate, living in a condemned flat.
Who is the voice for all those disenfranchised autistic people I wonder? Certainly not the curebies with their "me me me" culture.
If you are a parent on such a nightmare estate, or maybe even a lately diagnosed "aspie" or whatever, you are the victim of just about every piece of misinformation out there, particularly on the web (assuming you have any access to it at all)
Too many spokespeople on both sides of the Autism divide come from comfortable middle class backgrounds, the well heeled and the well educated, whilst the basic struggle for survival leaves you with little surplus energy or cash for such things.
I spend an inordinate amount of my money on my internet access because it allows me to escape the confines of this existence and to "punch beyond my weight"
You don't expect many fellows of the Royal Society of Arts to be living in my circumstances, it is not the kind of organisation that most working class people join.
Well there is a sociological thesis about participation in such organisations waiting to be written, if it has not been already, for the critics of pluralism, would allege that even the interest groups are run by self selecting elites.
Sadly in my adventures into such territory I often find that to be the case.
Makes me wonder how we can ever set up an authentic and credible grass roots group for autistic advocacy that does not rely on the relatively advantaged to give it credibility and therein instant lie the dilemma, which is the curse of being able to remedy it. You need leisure and income to devote to such causes, and the leisured and wealthy often do not understand what it is not be of their company.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Interpersonal Skills, job finding, and volunteering
Old lags here might know I am a photographer and currently out of work.
With advertisments like this one "JUNIOR STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHER required for a contempory modern Hertfordshire based studio. Must have excellent interpersonal skills" Is it any wonder, that my business failed.
Self promotion is the worst nightmare for any budding aspie businessman (or woman)
Talent is never enough it seems whilst the majority of advertisments call for "team players" and "excellent communication skills"
Yes I can be a team member, if my role is well defined and the other team players, play their proper parts in support, but usually that is not what the phrase means, it means that one needs to be a joiner, a voluable personable socialite.
Communication skills I must have, to have survived on the board of the NAS, to have built a web domain as large as mine, but again what counts is first impressions at an interview, or on the phone.
I have offered my services as a volunteer to a local organisation (not the NAS) as I think the work experience might be useful to me with regard to my studies next year, but the organisation turned round and said that they do not take volunteers, I believe that to be an outright lie, they meant that they did not take awkward autistic volunteers (and they an autism charity too)
I have been let down and lied to so many times by those who are supposed to be looking after or promoting my interests. My art is not promoted, my DVD's are not promoted, I am a side line.
Well I will promote myself here, you can buy my DVD direct from me and I will be the one who benefits for once http://www.shiningcityvisions.com/
If you buy from the NAS I am not allowed to profit from any of the sales via that route, though the NAS profits enough by my being on their board I might add, but Charity rules are one way and out of date, made for the leisured middle classed who can afford to give their time for nothing, not the forcably leisured hoi polloi who can't.
With advertisments like this one "JUNIOR STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHER required for a contempory modern Hertfordshire based studio. Must have excellent interpersonal skills" Is it any wonder, that my business failed.
Self promotion is the worst nightmare for any budding aspie businessman (or woman)
Talent is never enough it seems whilst the majority of advertisments call for "team players" and "excellent communication skills"
Yes I can be a team member, if my role is well defined and the other team players, play their proper parts in support, but usually that is not what the phrase means, it means that one needs to be a joiner, a voluable personable socialite.
Communication skills I must have, to have survived on the board of the NAS, to have built a web domain as large as mine, but again what counts is first impressions at an interview, or on the phone.
I have offered my services as a volunteer to a local organisation (not the NAS) as I think the work experience might be useful to me with regard to my studies next year, but the organisation turned round and said that they do not take volunteers, I believe that to be an outright lie, they meant that they did not take awkward autistic volunteers (and they an autism charity too)
I have been let down and lied to so many times by those who are supposed to be looking after or promoting my interests. My art is not promoted, my DVD's are not promoted, I am a side line.
Well I will promote myself here, you can buy my DVD direct from me and I will be the one who benefits for once http://www.shiningcityvisions.com/
If you buy from the NAS I am not allowed to profit from any of the sales via that route, though the NAS profits enough by my being on their board I might add, but Charity rules are one way and out of date, made for the leisured middle classed who can afford to give their time for nothing, not the forcably leisured hoi polloi who can't.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Whatever Happened to Real Ale?
Back in the seventies I remember when the Campaign for real Ale started. Nowadays it seems in fashion again, but how real is it? We need real pubs to go with it and however many pubs sell "old todger's" or whatever retro confection the advertisers have come up with served from olde worlde beer pumps the real industry has been decimated.
I was travelling back on the train from that disaster of a supposed aspies consultation Aspect (which I do not even deign to link to), which I considered to be thoroughly stage managed, and I saw the old Springfield Brewery in Wolverhampton devastated by a recent fire.
I resolved to go and photograph what remained before it was lost, in the company of a couple of neurodiverse friends who were with me on my media course
Here is the result
http://www.larry-arnold.info/photography/Wolverhampton/index.htm
One of those friends if you want to look him up, maintains the wikipedia pages for Rugby and Coventry
I was travelling back on the train from that disaster of a supposed aspies consultation Aspect (which I do not even deign to link to), which I considered to be thoroughly stage managed, and I saw the old Springfield Brewery in Wolverhampton devastated by a recent fire.
I resolved to go and photograph what remained before it was lost, in the company of a couple of neurodiverse friends who were with me on my media course
Here is the result
http://www.larry-arnold.info/photography/Wolverhampton/index.htm
One of those friends if you want to look him up, maintains the wikipedia pages for Rugby and Coventry
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Not so much a Blog, more a message of doom.
And I hate reading gloomy stories about how bad it is being autistic, but my excuse for this as it ain't the autism thats the problem right now, yest this is mostly politically right on social model ranting ....
Well not quite entirely to begin with as medically speaking I was feeling bad enough with a dose of what is euphemistically called around here "the galloping trots".
However notwithstanding my worries as posted in my last blog, the proverbial bombshell has dropped in the form of a letter which announces that on June the first I will be informed when my flats are to be demolished (so cue lots of anxiety because I want to know now!)
This has been hanging over me for some time, I even got to video the neighbouring flats being flattened, but I have been able to put it to the back of my mind as the date has been put off and off by various administrative machinations beyond my ken.
I know it is to my advantage if I am in the final wave, I might have a couple of years reprieve, time to get University out of the way, but my biggest fear right now is that it could be as soon as in the new year, the worst possible time.
The only upside is I will have a rough date (because I doubt if they will keep to schedule anyway)
Well I suppose the compensation will allow me to pay my University fees without a loan, something I have been cynically calculating on, however what if the amount of stress this takes, not to mention all the packing (which is a major job as I have too much stuff) really eats into my study time.
I have no end of anxieties over the whole process because I am in fear of moving to an unknown place and situation, where everything I am now familiar with is gone, and where I have to sort out all manner of daily exigencies, from where to park my Landrover (not always easy even now) to whether my neighbours will tolerate my noise, or I theirs.
Well I was supposed to have a social worker to helpe ease things, to negotiate with the various authorities in finding a suitable replacement flat, to assist with organising my move, but where is he? On holiday of course, but I doubt he even had any inkling of what is happening, and of course he is supposed to keep himself informed.
I am on my own as usual.
Can it get much worse? Well if you do factor in some other non autism related medical factors, like my being temporarily incapacitated after a couple of operations, just at the wrong time, because this is another of those unknowns I am waiting for.
Watch this space, what I have done to merit the Chinese curse of living through "interesting times" which seems to be my lot :(
Well not quite entirely to begin with as medically speaking I was feeling bad enough with a dose of what is euphemistically called around here "the galloping trots".
However notwithstanding my worries as posted in my last blog, the proverbial bombshell has dropped in the form of a letter which announces that on June the first I will be informed when my flats are to be demolished (so cue lots of anxiety because I want to know now!)
This has been hanging over me for some time, I even got to video the neighbouring flats being flattened, but I have been able to put it to the back of my mind as the date has been put off and off by various administrative machinations beyond my ken.
I know it is to my advantage if I am in the final wave, I might have a couple of years reprieve, time to get University out of the way, but my biggest fear right now is that it could be as soon as in the new year, the worst possible time.
The only upside is I will have a rough date (because I doubt if they will keep to schedule anyway)
Well I suppose the compensation will allow me to pay my University fees without a loan, something I have been cynically calculating on, however what if the amount of stress this takes, not to mention all the packing (which is a major job as I have too much stuff) really eats into my study time.
I have no end of anxieties over the whole process because I am in fear of moving to an unknown place and situation, where everything I am now familiar with is gone, and where I have to sort out all manner of daily exigencies, from where to park my Landrover (not always easy even now) to whether my neighbours will tolerate my noise, or I theirs.
Well I was supposed to have a social worker to helpe ease things, to negotiate with the various authorities in finding a suitable replacement flat, to assist with organising my move, but where is he? On holiday of course, but I doubt he even had any inkling of what is happening, and of course he is supposed to keep himself informed.
I am on my own as usual.
Can it get much worse? Well if you do factor in some other non autism related medical factors, like my being temporarily incapacitated after a couple of operations, just at the wrong time, because this is another of those unknowns I am waiting for.
Watch this space, what I have done to merit the Chinese curse of living through "interesting times" which seems to be my lot :(
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Destructuring nightmare
No this is not another post modernist critique of structuralism, but my imminent fears.
I have just completed seven years of college education, having started part time, and ended part time.
However I realise I am about to lose an important structure in my life, a reason to get up at a particular time in the mornings, and inumerable rituals over when and where I eat.
You might not think that is so bad, but I am looking back as well as forward, to the time in my life after my mum died, and all the structure in my life fell apart.
Unable to find work, when the work as a photographer started tailing off, my life really hit the rocks and that is somewhere I do not want to go again.
You see it is actually hard for me to organise myself without an external structure, and it is my concern that I am going to have to do this as a distance learning student.
Is there anyone to help me, well no I have virtually no support at all at present.
Is that going to destroy me.
Well no, because I am going to find a way.
It is not that I lack things to do, it is more a question of getting them in order so that any one of them gets done at all.
I have lists of course, but I need to keep them up to date.
The other danger is of withdrawing from social contact over time. I have friends, but there is little to persuade me to keep up with them, it is more a case of them continuing to pester me, else the same will happen that happened when I left Uni, I will simply get more and more out of touch.
Well what else is happening in my life.
Plenty, from hospital appointments to the neurodiversity group which I facilitate.
I am concerned right now lest I do not get re-elected onto the board of the NAS, because my business there is certainly not completed.
Life appears to suck at times, when you look around for what you want, what you think you need, and realise it is not going to happen.
It is like that pre mobile phone, and breakdown cover age, when I broke down on my scooter, somewhere close to the borders of Wales.
What could I do, after realising I could not push it all that far over those hills I did the only thing I could, abandoned it and started walking toward any farmhouse in the vicinity.
Well these days I have full breakdown cover and a mobile phone. With my land rover I need them :)
Would that the same were available for the rest of my life.
I have just completed seven years of college education, having started part time, and ended part time.
However I realise I am about to lose an important structure in my life, a reason to get up at a particular time in the mornings, and inumerable rituals over when and where I eat.
You might not think that is so bad, but I am looking back as well as forward, to the time in my life after my mum died, and all the structure in my life fell apart.
Unable to find work, when the work as a photographer started tailing off, my life really hit the rocks and that is somewhere I do not want to go again.
You see it is actually hard for me to organise myself without an external structure, and it is my concern that I am going to have to do this as a distance learning student.
Is there anyone to help me, well no I have virtually no support at all at present.
Is that going to destroy me.
Well no, because I am going to find a way.
It is not that I lack things to do, it is more a question of getting them in order so that any one of them gets done at all.
I have lists of course, but I need to keep them up to date.
The other danger is of withdrawing from social contact over time. I have friends, but there is little to persuade me to keep up with them, it is more a case of them continuing to pester me, else the same will happen that happened when I left Uni, I will simply get more and more out of touch.
Well what else is happening in my life.
Plenty, from hospital appointments to the neurodiversity group which I facilitate.
I am concerned right now lest I do not get re-elected onto the board of the NAS, because my business there is certainly not completed.
Life appears to suck at times, when you look around for what you want, what you think you need, and realise it is not going to happen.
It is like that pre mobile phone, and breakdown cover age, when I broke down on my scooter, somewhere close to the borders of Wales.
What could I do, after realising I could not push it all that far over those hills I did the only thing I could, abandoned it and started walking toward any farmhouse in the vicinity.
Well these days I have full breakdown cover and a mobile phone. With my land rover I need them :)
Would that the same were available for the rest of my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
