Cat Watching

As I walked back from the local shops this evening a cat strayed across my path. I watched the cat watching me. Cats are naturally set up to notice the smallest deviations in their environment and to see that as either a potential danger or a source of opportunity. I have never known a cat to miss a source of opportunity.

And so it is today that after some little local difficulty over fee levels I have registered again at the University. Two years left now and time to think about the end game.

It gets tougher as time goes by, not because of the diminishing time to complete my work, there is no objective reason why I should not be capable of it. No what worries is what former Tory Prime Minister Harold MacMillan called "Events"

For sure some of those "Events" are coming home to roost upon our current Tory Prime Minister and his end game may be closer than he would like, but it is the financial rigour of his party and their allies vendetta against "the poor and disabled" who have been scapegoated in the Murdoch press for the sins of Murdoch and Cameron's class allies, that will do for me in the end I fear.

Personally I would like to line them all up against a wall and have them shot, though whether that is more economical than hanging them from lampposts I don't know. Forasmuch as I would like to do that to them I am sure they would equally like to send me to a penal colony picking peanuts to feed to the other monkeys like me.  I still think they have a better chance of achieving the latter than succumbing to the former, worst luck.

So it is that the greatest threat to the completion of my degree is financial, and then after that what? If I get that far I will be 58 and that is rather an advanced age to be considering a career change. It was at that age my dad made his final career change from this world to the next, and my mum did not live that much longer after either.

One thing is fairly certain, I cannot expect this government or the next to provide for my old age, not being entitled to anything more than a derisory state pension which would be less than I have to live on now.

Realistically speaking, just as there was someone else who had superior "qualifications" to succeed to the chair of the NAS, there will be a plethora of younger, more agile and "able" people to fill any academic posts that may be available locally, notwithstanding the future for academia is itself uncertain, given the potential fallout from the disastrous fees rise starting this year, I'd have as much chance of going the Grayling route and setting up a University of my own as of getting any secure teaching position.

Likewise the paper chase after a post doctoral fellowship or research post may be unachievable in terms of having to uproot myself from Coventry and chase after something even more distant than Birmingham. Too much shuttling between Birmingham and London has been both economically and physically crippling on me already, I don't have the wherewithal and I don't have the stamina any more.

It leaves the third option, which is to set myself up as an autism/disability consultant, and I have been spending an intense 6 weeks recently on a course designed specifically for that. I have no illusions how difficult that will be either, it is not as if I have never been self employed before to know the challenges, and without the capital behind me this time that I had from my mum's legacy.

I suppose then it would really suit me to go out into that great goodnight at the same age as my dad then, having achieved as much as I was able, and facing nothing but poverty and mental and physical decline if I go on.

Who knows? Only God, but this train is travelling on to whatever destination the rails confine it to.

Chiasmus

I am oft reminded of a phrase spoken by the fool in twelfth night:

"Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling!     
Those wits, that think they have thee, do very oft       
prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may        
pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus? 

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit"

That might be taken as a general truism that wisdom is found in unexpected places, and not necessarily in the sayings of the experts.

One can also play the academic game and try to discover the source of Feste's appeal to the authority "Quinapulus", what in rhetoric is termed an appeal to authority or "argumentum ad verecundiam" if you want to be all pompous and latin, which brings me to that erstwhile Elizabethan authority Francis Bacon,

Now I am not going to argue from any authority that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, indeed I feel that in Feste's occasional resort to cod latin and faux authorities, Shakespeare is sending up Bacon's essay's in some reconnaissance word play totally obscure to the current mind.

Anyway I cite Bacon rather than Quinapulus, because Bacon is often taken to be one of progenitors of the modern "scientific method". Indeed the following quotation has been paraphrased by many since including John Henry Newman because of it's self evidence in the latter day perspective.

"Another error that hath some connection with this latter is, that men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines with some conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences which they have most applied, and given all things else a tincture according to them, utterly untrue and improper. So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the nature of the soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony, saith pleasantly, Hic ab arte sua non recessit, &c.

But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant. "

In sum what he is basically saying is that some pundits tend to emphasise there opinions by appeal to whatever authorities are their particular favourites, which is something you can see in the writings of many "experts" on autism. It's another way of saying nobody is unbiased, or as I like to say, if I want to know something of the validity of a paper, I want to know what is on the authors bookshelf.

The joke of course is that Bacon is playing the same game himself with the obscure Latin, for as Quinapulus might well have said "Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur" (whatever is said in Latin sounds lofty)

Maybe the Latin was not so obscure to the average Elizabethan schoolboy (Shining morning face, small Latin and less Greek, whatever) and in fact a little research will indicate the source and meaning of the quotations without much foreknowledge of Latin

The first being a truncated version of "He adhered steadily to his system and yet he said something, the nature of which, whatever it was, had been detailed and explained a great while before by Plato"

And the second "He that takes a narrow view, easily makes up his mind"

Of course anyone who cares to look up what Chiasmus means, will see the joke is on me here, for what am I doing in this post but infecting my meditations, opinions, and doctrines with some conceits I have most admired, mine being literary rather than scientific?

The moral to this tale, for there has to be a moral, is that playing the citation game is not enough, the enemies of "science" can play it well enough by appeal to the authority of their fellow pseudo scientists. We have seen this with the mercurian persuasion, The discredited Geir's and Wakefields who tend to review and publish each others papers in a distorted mirror of the "established" academic press.

On the other hand we see it all too often amongst the establishment, particular amongst those insecure academics who seem afraid to hold an opinion of there own and have to wrap everything up with a citation from previous literature. Alas the joke is on them too, for often those citations are no more valid than the customary appeals to the classics in Bacon's time.

When I cite, I like to do so from as wide a number of sources as possible, not the tired favourites, for that way if any cares to follow them up they will be sure to be extending their knowledge outside of their narrow field.  

"But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant" :)

An opportunity not to be missed.

Chair





The National Autistic Society (NAS) was founded almost 50 years ago by a group of parents who were passionate about ensuring a better future for their children. Today, with a turnover of nearly £90 million and over 3000 staff, the Society has 20,000 members, more than 100 branches, and provides information, advice and specialist services to 100,000 people living with autism every year.

NAS’s vision is that everyone living with autism will: get the support, education and training they need; live with dignity and as independently as possible; be a part of their community and wider society; be understood by all professionals who support them and be respected for who they are by a knowledgeable public.

The current Chair is due to step down this year and NAS is now actively seeking a successor to lead the Society’s agenda. The role is unremunerated and travelling expenses will be reimbursed.

For further information and details of how to apply, please visit www.odgers.com/34634.

Closing date for applications is 13th May 2010.

The Role:

•  Take the chair at meetings of the Board; attend
  meetings of Council; and attend meetings of Board
  sub-committees and of other stakeholder groups as
  required.

•  Ensure that the charity plans strategically and that
  management effort is effectively directed within a
  framework of clearly stated strategies and key tasks.

• Act as a key spokesman for and ambassador of the
  charity.

The Candidate: 

• Board level experience in a large/complex/changing
  environment.

• Proven leadership, organisational, and management
  skills including fairness, impartiality and openness to
  new ideas.

• Understanding of and passion for the issues
  confronting people with autism and their families
  and carers, and the impact of those issues on them.

11 Hanover Square,
London W1S 1JJ
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www.odgersberndtson.co.uk
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51 offices in 24 countries

African Dictators and all that

Little did I know that shortly after I had posted my little recollection of times past with former African heads of State that a new scandal was about to break loose.

Had I lived a little later and gone to the LSE instead of Warwick I might have rubbed shoulders with the scion of the Gadaffi family instead of General Gowon.

Well whatever I don't know what is more scandalous, that unlike the likes of me, he did not have to work hard for his doctorate, or the fact that there are academics up to their necks in it, caught with their pants down who just don't know how to do the decent thing and admit they were corrupted by the money and scared of the Gadaffi regimes propensity to employ roving assassins armed by courtesy of the diplomatic bag.

No the real shame is not that there are academics who are quite prepared to justify this current scandal but that there remain those who justify the even more bizarre convention of the honorary doctorate awarded to wannabe's and celebs who don't even have to employ a second rate ghost writing hack to earn their honorific.

Well Mr Vice Chancellor of Birmingham, you know I do not approve of your proposal to raise undergraduate fees to the max. (because I replied to your general email on the Browne report to say so) I'll bet you didn't know this, I was on the point of applying for your current job when it fell vacant, went so far as acquiring the forms and all.

I regret I did not go through with it now as I had not enough confidence to realise that it's not all foreign travel and dinner parties with the rich and influential, it is integrity that counts. Straight forward academic integrity, and that cannot be bought, for a £9000 annual fee, a VC's salary or some wealthy foreign potentates endowment.

When (if) I graduate with the coveted 666 mark of the shiny aspie, I will have earned it. Never mind the extent to which it will have been devalued by all the base currency of honorary doctorates and the degree mill antics of Universities who ought to have known better.

A little interlude from my interesting past

I was thinking today about all this turmoil in Egypt and what I expect will be the imminent departure of Hosni Mubarak, but does anyone wonder what ever becomes of such past bêtes noir when they have been ousted?

I am going back now to an incident in my history when I was a student at Warwick University. It was considered in terms of the student body to be a rebellious and a revolutionary body, there was the famous occupation of 1969, and the occupation of 1975, still recorded as the longest in student history and I was part of that and so was Brian Deer. (Yes that one)

Well Brian Deer and his ignominious later career excepted I am taken back in my memory to a Christmas party in  75 I think. Earlier in the day I had been on a field trip organised by Lincoln Allison (now retired I believe) which included a little tour around those parts of Warwickshire I was well familiar with but my fellow politics students not being natives were not. Anyway forgetting the Dassets spattered with snow, and the journey back in a rickety car with a failing alternator (what is new there) I can recall ending up in one of those Victorian Villas in Leamington, inhabited by my personal tutor Prof. Malcolm Anderson. That was a curious situation because everybody was there, and it was there I met with General Yakubu (Jack) Gowon. This was indeed an odd situation because the student's union had vehemently protested against his presence at the University, yet this was a politics department party, and everybody was there, lefties included, protesters and all. (yeah me too)

How does a twenty year old rebel react to being face to face with a bogey such as Jack Gowon? Well it I don't know, I am glad I have never met George Dubya or Tony Blair because they might scare me.

There is much said about the banality of Evil and I can well ask is my MP a guy I know quite familiarly as  Bob Ainsworth any more evil than Jack Gowon? Who has brought about the greatest body count? We just don't know do we? Bomber Harris of WW2 fame maybe, and where does that morality leave us?

For that matter before we heap on the guilt consider, you and I will never know our own body count when the final judgement comes. Should I never have eaten Cadbury's chocolate, and ought I not to  bank with Barclay's you might guess the score....

I guess Jack Gowon was civil and a gentleman, how could I hate him? I cannot imagine what our encounter might have been in  circumstances other than those in which we met. Never mind that you cannot imagine in those days can you? I was dressed for a "civilised" party and I  was wearing my combat fatigues, very Fidel Castro. I can recall Jack helping me on with my coat at the end of the party. He picked up my jacket and found it heavy and he said to me "what have you got in your pockets gold bars?"  It makes you wonder doesn't it?

Apart from that I did have a keen political debate with him, he was at the time a Freshman and I was in my second year. That was an amazing debate that I recall, me a working class nobody talking to this guy who had headed a nation and been involved in a controversial war, and I lectured him about politics, and he listened and said that he had a lot to learn. In retrospect I didn't know a lot at all but there I was in conversation with an international pariah of the time and I was introducing him to new concepts he was not aware of as a de facto head of state. I mean what does that feel like, I was heavily into Hobbes at that time, very relevant.

Hey Jack where are you now? It is easy to write him off as a monster, but when I met him he was a human as anybody else, there was no aura of evil, if anything there was an aura of naievity. I cannot make a judgement and say he was/is any more evil than Tony Blair, or Colonel Gadaffi or Larry Arnold.

And where is he now? Well believe it or not he has been and is in the latter days involved in what would generally be considered humanitarian causes, so we might consider nobody is beyond redemption, hey even me.

I do not think by any means Jack Gowon was the most evil person I ever met, he may have been involved in decisions and acts that killed thousands, but your next door neighbour may be filled with a hate that given the opportunity would do as bad, is there really any moral difference?

Owning Autism

I guess the fact that my Supervisor and I have just submitted an abstract for a poster at the 2011 IMFAR is enough to put the wind up some, but having got that out of the way I shall now be working up a proposal for something much closer to home. I enclose the call for proposals below. Out of respect for Autscape I am not accepting any comments on this.

AUTSCAPE 2011: OWNING AUTISM

Monday 22 August to Thursday 25 August 2011  West Yorkshire

C A L L   F O R   P R O P O S A L S

Deadline for submissions: 18 February 2011 Submission form: http://www.autscape.org/proposals/proposalform

Please distribute widely.

____ Contents ___________________________________

1.                What is Autscape?

2.                What we are looking for 

3.                Theme 

4.                Audience 

5.                Examples 

6.                Non-verbal workshops 

7.                A few notes of caution 

8.                What do we expect from you?

9.                What can you expect from us?

10.            How to submit your proposal

____ What is Autscape? ____________________________

Autscape is a conference run by and for autistic people. Non-autistic people are also welcome, but the environment and content of the event are centred around autistic people's needs, interests and sensitivities.

Lectures are about autism. Workshops and leisure activities do not need to be specifically about autism, but do need to be suitable for autistic people. 

____ What we are looking for ______________________

We are now accepting proposals for lectures and workshops to be presented at Autscape 2011.

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL BY FEBRUARY 18th 2011

Suggestions and proposals for informal activities will be called for in the near future. These may include leisure sessions and discussion groups.

____ Theme ___________________________________

The theme for this year's Autscape is Owning Autism.

Autism Spectrum Conditions (including Aspergers Syndrome) can be

officially diagnosed by clinicians. They are examined, thought about, and commented on by academic researchers, journalists and parents. These people contribute to defining what autism means in society. However, autism is experienced from the inside by autistic people.

We want to examine who currently "owns" autism and how ownership is

expressed. We invite consideration of the ways autistic people own our

condition.

Presentations which seek to develop this theme will be given priority however any suitable topics will be given consideration.

We wish to explore a broad range of perspectives on being autistic in many different ways. This can be through formal presentations or workshops, and may be theoretical or practical. Many different types of input are welcome: traditional lectures, creative expression,  physical activity, interactive workshops and more.

____ Audience _____________________________________

Although we welcome non-autistic professionals and family members, this event is primarily for autistic people, not about us! Workshops geared towards parents and professionals may be accepted, but must be positive in their support for autistic people and our right to be different.

____ Examples ______________________________________

For some examples of what has been presented at Autscape in the past, see last year's presentations at: http://www.autscape.org/archive/2010/

We are also likely to enjoy similar workshops to those that have been  presented at Autreat, in the USA. See: http://www.ani.ac/

____ Non-verbal workshops ___________________________

Although many of the autistic people who are attracted to an event such as Autscape are highly verbal, others may have difficulty with an event centred around language. We want to welcome and fully include all kinds of autistic people, including less 'wordy' ones. Therefore we are also seeking workshops which are not primarily focused on the spoken word. (Presenters may still use speech; it is just not the main content of this type of workshop). Examples: dance, relaxation, music, art, construction of some kind. These workshops are different from casual leisure sessions in that they have more structure, preparation (from the presenter), relevance to autism and  the event's theme, and duration.

____ A note of caution ________________________________

Cures: Workshops about curing or preventing autism are likely not to go over well at all and are best avoided altogether, unless it is from an advocacy standpoint.

Personal Experience: We all have personal experience of autism. If your presentation is primarily based on your personal experience, think carefully how it can help attendees to find new understanding of their own situation. Please let us know what you're hoping those present will gain from your presentation.

Suitability: Every workshop, no matter who it is targeted towards, should be suitable for autistic people to attend without feeling objectified or put down.

____ What do we expect from you? __________________

* Reliability: You need to be able to assure us that except for unforeseen circumstances you will be there to present as agreed.

* Presentation materials:  Please send copies of any handouts and computer presentations (e.g. powerpoint) by the date requested (to be confirmed, approx 2 weeks before Autscape). These will be made available for download and printing by Autscape participants. In addition we can printed a limited number of pages for handouts.

* Your details and presentation summary:  We would like to include your presentation summary, biography and any electronic handouts you provided in our website's archive area.

* Permission to record: Please allow us to video or otherwise record your presentation. These records may be made available to others by Autscape. Some participants may also audio record presentations for their own use. If you submit a proposal we will assume you are happy with these expectations. If you have any questions or objections, please let us know so we can discuss it.

* Presenters are encouraged to run a discussion group on their topic later in the day, for those who would like to explore the issue further. If you may have problems with this we will try and find a volunteer to help.

____ What can you expect from us? ___________________

* For Presentations: You will receive a day’s attendance at Autscape free of charge. Presenters will be accommodated on-site for the day of their presentation including the night before or after. Only one such place can be offered for each presentation, regardless of the number of presenters. Unfortunately, due to the funding situation we cannot offer free attendance at all of Autscape this year. Whenever you are not presenting you can enjoy the event, including other workshops and the setting, just as any other participant.

(Please note, this does not apply to informal activities such as leisure sessions however for these we will pay reasonable expenses for materials required)

* Involvement:  One thing you can expect by joining us is the opportunity to shape an emerging self-advocacy event and autistic community. There will be opportunities at the event to get involved in the future of Autscape.

* Audience: A rare opportunity to be heard by a significant number of autistic people. A chance to have some influence and get some feedback from the people who matter most in the field of autism.

* Respect and consideration. We will let you know as soon as possible if your proposal has been accepted and will try our best to accommodate you at a time that suits you.

____ How to submit your proposal ___________________

 To submit your proposal, please use one of the following:

       * online form: http://www.autscape.org/proposals/proposalform 

Please include the following information:

ABOUT YOU

Name

Country

At least one way to contact you of:

- Email address (preferred)

- Phone number

- Postal address

Experience (a summary of your relevant experience, including presentations/education/advocacy, and the nature of your interest in autism and/or in general disability issues)

INFORMATION FOR THE PROGRAMME

Your name or alias (for public use)

Biography (50-100 words)

Presentation title (1-12 words)

Summary (50-150 words)

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTATION

Type of session (choose one):

-        Lecture (audience mostly listens)

-        Workshop (audience participates verbally)

-        Hands-On (audience participates physically)

-        Other (please describe)

How does your presentation relate to this year’s theme “Owning Autism”?

Please describe your presentation or activity for the decision makers.

OTHER COMMENTS NOT ADDRESSED ABOVE

All proposals must be received by 18th February.

What happens next

The committee will decide which presentations to accept for autscape and will inform everybody who has made a proposal of their decision by 23 March

A beautiful Mind

No the author is not talking about himself here he is talking about the movie.

I have recently been re-watching the movie, and a few things have struck me about it. I don't intend to do the obvious here, play Lili Marlene's game and attempt to slap a dx of my own on the guy, but there are parts of the Russel Crowe's interpretation of the part that reminded me of myself at Uni as a loner not knowing how to engage people, and fearing that nobody liked him. Well to be honest I have not changed a lot there..

However John Nash  himself is not a part played by a famous movie actor, he is a real person and in person quite different. To some peoples chagrin he might well make a good recruit to so called Neurodiversity's "cabal" given his real views on mental illness, which are somewhat different from the movie portrayal and from which I quote here:

“When there are large populations and behavior of a complex structure, it observably turns out that the individuals of a species can have quite varied forms of behavior and that they may serve the interests of a nest or family or tribe in quite varied fashions,”  

and ...

“It is conceivable that the susceptibility of humans to depression or to bipolar disorder may correlate positively specifically with the composition of poetry,” 

And there's more ...

 “One thing about diversity in natural species that is well understood by evolutionary biologists is that the natural phenomenon of mutations serves to prepare a species for adaptation to changing conditions or for improved adaptation to an existing level of environmental circumstances,” 

 leading to: -

 “So a possible, but perhaps questionable, inference is that humans are notably subject to mental illness because there was a need for diversity in the patterns of human mental functions,”

Ok so I have cherry picked here, the full article can be found elsewhere: -

Nash Suggests Schizophrenia May Serve Adaptive Function.

Thing is, I have met John Nash and conversed with him. We met at the 2005 Warwick University Economics Summit, when I had the good fortune to be a VIP Alumni guest (chosen by lot from ticket applicants) and so had the opportunity to share some time with him and the other speakers.

I can tell you he was a lot more impressive than the majority of autism academics it has been my misfortune to have to correct in the middle of lectures. During his lecture (where he had his back to the audience throughout) one had to submit written questions, and if he thought that the question was rubbish he would say so and go onto the next.

I therefore felt privileged that he accepted my question as a worthy one, where I dared to suggest that his asymptotic ideal money, (The subject of his lecture) was essentially a self referring definition prone to error because of the variables chosen (a concept one gets quite familiar with when one reads the dross that passes for autism research) and to my surprise (because I was aware I was up against a formidable brain  here, that, whose considerable knowledge of mathematics could easily be insulted by my scraping the bottom of the barrel of my undergrad economics and shaky maths), he conceded that I had a point, but that he felt the concept was better than any other in terms of a new "gold standard" (gold standard in the literal sense here, not the metaphorical sense it is used when speaking of diagnostic schedules.

Anyway having asked him a question gave me the opportunity to follow that up in a lengthier conversation later where the subject turned to Post Modernism.

It was there that I realised that although we have the same desire for there to be certainties, I am more comfortable in seeing that no such exist and that even mathematics is a relative subject dependent as much upon human psychology and biology as any real platonic existence. Qv that Bogey of mathematicians  "George Lakoff"

Well we did not talk about "mental illness" at all, as I recall, but is interesting to see in the article I have referenced that he does indeed share similar views about that to mine, especially the notion coming out more and more in research that Schizophrenia and Bipolar are not too nosologically inseparable biologically determined absolutes, but that they live together in a more complex relationship.

Now whilst people can (and do) accuse myself and colleagues of a like mind of romanticising Autism as a 'difference which has it's positive aspects', I do not think anyone can accuse John Nash of the same romanticisation of his condition, and get away with it. For here is a man who has clearly suffered the unfortunate consequences of his own negatively nuanced difference, yet come to terms with it in a particular way, something that exists for all it's confusion and chaotic appearance, in a rational framework.

Apart from anything else, John Nash is relevant to our autism blog world, in another way, in terms of his Game Theory. It is quite clear that there is a middle ground to be found amongst our rival fraternities if we play rationally. Alas we seldom do.

Ethics and Confidentiality and personal story in the third person

There is a conference presentation that has done the rounds, maybe is still doing it, where one of the slides contains a quotation from one of the "anonymous" participants in the research.

I have seen this three times now, and each time, there is a certain tension in that the presenter has indicated that the author of that comment may well be in the audience. Indeed the author of that comment has a certain linguistic style that makes it somewhat unlikely that anyone else would have expressed the same sentiment in that particular way. I don't think the author really worries about that, but he (and it is a he, since the "anonymous" does possess a pair of bollox last time I looked) does consider every time just how confidential research can be private parts notwithstanding.

The participant in question has recently been getting accustomed to writing of himself in the third person, as this is apparently proper academic procedure, but at times he does also think bollox to that and all because his research cannot possibly have originated in a situation other than the one he finds himself in, and if you follow the link to this particular authors other blog you will see the connection there.

Sometimes anonymity is not the best thing, because the personal is political (I forget who said that, nobody is perfect) and in writing up my research it is personal.

However elsewhere on the internet the researcher can be found as participant, and not as anonymous to those who know his various internet moniker, as he ought to be.

 Indeed for those who know where to look there is a complete medical history of a particular neurological syndrome including private emails.

Anyway this researcher would not actually be engaged in this endeavour at all had he been more satisfied with his experiences as a volunteer participant generally for he has figured in more than a couple of Cambridge's more well known studies, and so plays his own little part in the construction of that particular perspective on autism whether he approves of it or not. Damn it he is even using some of that research to partially ground parts of his own study. Well that is intertextuality for you.

He has helped at least one person to their doctorate and has a good feeling about that where he has been interested in the research at more than just a casual level of a trip to Cambridge and all expenses inadequately paid. The best of research has involved a couple of drinks in the pub afterwards, I am afraid that doesn't happen at Cambridge to my knowlege. I doubt it often does at Birmingham either

Well if people think (and my legal watchdogs) I am having yet another dig at Saint Simon, well perhaps I am, but not to worry if you are reading this me old pal me old beauty, I'll see you on Monday :)

And before I sign off, my emergent research is going to be interesting because it already has something not often seen in the genre, and that is a critical faculty since I will rubbish my own methods and failings in more ways than the more acquiescent reviewer is likely too, but that is the way to go isn't it?

Anonymity? Well if you are a participant reading this, unless you out yourself in the comments box, I remain true to the proper conventions, however if I ever do ever  quote you in a presentation I will ask if you would like a proper academic citation first :)

An irritating and expensive day.

Ever have one of those days?

Got up ridiculously early to drive 80 miles to a meeting that isn't until next week !

Never mind that the clutch is playing up so I am not sure I will be able to risk driving that far again next week for the proper date without getting it seen to first, which could be horrendously expensive, considering this month I have to pay my car tax too, and I was overdrawn again last month.

Not only that to contend with, I lost my keys when I got home  and found myself driving 20 miles back to a layby where I last remember having them. It worked though, I hadn't left my keys at the layby, thank goodness, because if they had fallen out of a pocket there, someone else would probably have them by now as there were a lot of cars in the layby when I stopped, but at least being in a different place and somewhat calmer prompted me to check something in the car I had not done before. I moved the back seat, to discover they had fallen behind.

Is it because I is autistic? No it's just rotten luck and concentrating too much on some details to the point of missing important ones out. If I had not been so fixated about making sure I had everything ready for the meeting to make an early start in order to beat the traffic, I would have maybe had time to check the date just to be sure. If I had not been in such a tiz when my keys did not materialise from my pocket at home, and had been a bit more methodical rather than turning out my pockets and bags twice over, looking on the grass outside etc etc, I would have remembered something simple like moving the seats in the car.

As for the clutch, well I guess that was inevitable, it's only the long journey's that show up things like that.

Oh well at least it was pleasant weather and I took the scenic route home.

All ship shape and Bristol Fashion

I awoke this morning in the midst of a very strange dream, I am sure it will give the old fashioned analysts a field day, and some of my less sympathetic readers too, but so what, I am going to show and tell.

To begin with I was on the regular 33 bus travelling toward my old college at this current time, and on the way I encountered a number of people who were students with me, on the way to enrol for a further year. They each asked me if I was doing the same. "No" I said, "I am going to join the Navy"

Now if that is not bizarre enough, in the context of the dream I was about to do just that and more, in fact I was about to join the Navy and take immediate command as the Captain of a brand new aircraft carrier.

Now if you follow the link to this blog you will realise that Aircraft Carriers have been in the news lately. Apparently it would cost more to cancel the contract than to build one and mothball it.

Well to continue with the dream theme, I was supposed to report to an airbase to the north of Coventry (no such actually exists) where I would be flown out to take charge of my new ship, and I had got so far as presenting my identity at this fictional airfield, which in my dream more resembled a railway station when the alarm went.

Of course a little over an hour later as it turned I was indeed at a railway station adjacent to an international airport, not waiting for a plane, but a train to London for an NAS Council meeting.

I can't bore you with the details of the meeting, but the outcome of it was, that I was back on the board. Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

I may not be the Captain of the ship, but we are sailing into to stormy waters I think, faced like every organisation and every individual alike with the Government's desire to pull the plug on big spending.

Now the question is, having got back on board me hearties, will I stage a mutiny and make Cap'n Colin walk the plank?

Only in my dreams :) I've got to hand it to Cap'n Colin, he was actually one of my sponsors for election never mind having thrown down the gauntlet on the odd occasion.

In some ways the NAS is a bit like an aircraft carrier, it is huge, too vast to know every knook and cranny on board ship, and difficult to steer as it takes a huge amount of space to turn in, but inspite of that I am glad to be back in there with a chance to influence the direction again. It's a very considerable responsibility not to be taken lightly at all.

Catching up

I can now reveal that the mysterious endeavour of my last blog was not successful, yep I failed. In what you might ask? Well that would be telling, and I am not inclined to share all my failures, they would be too many.

So what has happened in my rather unusual life recently?

Well I am nursing a swollen ankle again, having injured it on the last day of Autscape after an evening's stargazing at the Perseids I was told by the Dr to rest it. Well I got impatient after a week and took it up Snowdon, no wonder it has returned to plague me now, as I don't suppose a week was really enough to let it heal. As for my two big toes, you do not want to see them, under the nails they are black.

So today my ethics poster has had its final (?) outing at one of the Festival of Science events at Birmingham in what was optimistically described as a showcase for the very best of postgraduate research at Birmingham.

Well that leads me on to the week prior to this where I ended up dashing down the motorway from Lancaster to Cambridge to experience culture shock in more ways than one.

I was presenting my ethics paper, the one that is complemented by the poster to the Disability Studies Association biennial conference. That to me is now a comfortable place to be presenting in that my paper was a well received as other recent presentations were, but I do feel there however that I am preaching to the converted and that is not where my mission lies.

At Cambridge on the other hand I was not amongst what I would regard as allies, and I have to say I found a lot of the presentations there very hard to stomach.

I'm not naming names but there was guy there, part of the main event who trumps me for academic arrogance anyday, who was asserting that he might have the equivalent of the grand unification theory for autism.

Alas it was very apparent that he did not, all that he had was to put it into the popular jigsaw analogy, was an unfortunate and embarrasing delusion that the picture he had completed resembled in any way the one on the box, since it was readily apparent to anyone with a bit of critical nous that far from being a complete 1000 piece puzzle, what he had before him was a set of pieces which included a large number from a completely different puzzle and consequently missing a lot of the genuine pieces, in that he was putting together a theory which excluded a lot of recent developments and included a lot that has been increasingly losing ground.

Could he be told that? No of course not, he was an established academic, they cannot be corrected. In contrast I have to say I was more impressed by more recent and sceptical researchers who have yet to be convinced of their own invincibility.

There were some good posters, some bad, and some plain ugly. It was ironic that another delegate had elected to put a poster beneath mine which was the very epitome of what mine was warning against. That is to say it was the poster from a company (Gawd only knows what they were doing there?) whose claim is to be putting genetic research into practice...  Aaaaaargh.

Which is as good a point to go back again to the disability conference where one of the keynote speakers was a disabled film maker Liz Crow which Godwins law notwithstanding was a timely reminder that the same rhetoric that led to disabled people being the first in the gas chambers is abroad today, with talk of the cost to the economy and of lives not worth living.



 Well shiny shiny boots of leather and all, you can protest I am one of the shiny academic glitterati, but there is a consistent theme in all this, and swollen ankles apart, there is a cost to what I do, I seem to be shuttling up and down the country a lot recently and it goes on, I am back down in London next week for the first meeting of a new group comprising of academics and activists that is addressing the ethics and outcomes of autism research.

If you want to hear what I, and others had to say at the day conference at the UCL which seems like months ago now, but was part of my hectic summer activities, it's all online here.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/cpjh/autism.

Well at least kept my clothes on for that one :)

Domine ad adjuvandum

Well whatever.

I am about to endeavour on something which I am not really inclined to tell anyone what it is. If it is successful then I have no doubt you will get to hear about it (and in some cases be truly apalled and afraid no doubt), but if I do not succeed (and I do not expect I will) then it will be like most of my endeavours merely "mingiare ad ventum" as the saying is in Eeyore land.

Mind you even to make the first step I have been procrastinating these days past as I have had other administrative nonsense equally mingiatoral ad venti windmills notwithstanding (which they tend to do)

I figure that I need to be intensively wrapping up and writing my research in case the curtains fall prematurely, in order to give myself at least a fighting chance.

My mum had a wierd expression in times of financial hardship suggesting that one had to pull ones horn's in. I have no idea where that expression comes from but it means apparently the same as tightening ones belt.

That is to say unless I can get people to actually pay me to do half of the stuff I have been doing over these past few years on the academic roller coaster ride.

I have a word for all of those researchers who ride on our backs to keep themselves in a living and it is not a polite one. You use us up and spit us out, but where are you when our backs are against the wall?

Oh well only time will tell.

Time will tell what is to come
Only if we dwell on what will be told.
What will occur as we grow old
Weary of waiting, anticipating another age
When all will be well, well only time will tell

To scan or not to scan, that is the question

New brain scan to diagnose autism

By Jane Hughes Health correspondent, BBC News

This is the story that broke whilst I was off away being Autistic (with a capital A) in the temporary UK capital of Autism at Autscape this year, enjoying an autistic paradigm (no that is not a malapropism)

Whilst others have beat me to the blog my response will be measured and will have to wait until I am back from my continuing vacation.

One thing I hope is that it will be presented at the Cambridge conference where I am due to put my own groundbreaking (in terms of the acceptance of a paper critical of science) poster up to challenge the usual suspects' concepts of ethics.

I have already contacted Declan Murphy with so many questions to ask. Until they have been answered you will have to wait for my opinion.

In the meantime you will have to seek out those posts I have made on Left Brain/Right Brain and the New Republic to get the gist of where I am going with this.

The train it won't stop going no way to slow down

In the shuffling madness that is Birmingham New Street station, I got on the wrong train today. It would not have been so bad if it had just been the wrong train going in the opposite direction as I would have got off at the next stop and hoped nobody checked my ticket on the way back. However I got on a train totally devoid of passengers going to no station at all.

I suppose it was all too good to be true, I heard the announcement for my train, platform 6a, and got on at the bottom of the steps. The carriage seemed very peaceful and I stuck my head into a book. By the time I noticed the train pulling out of the station I realised something was up, it was going in the wrong direction, not only that the train was totally devoid of passengers, I had got on a train that had made it's last run for the day and was on it's way to the depot.

Now in something of a panic, I avoided the temptation to pull the handle, (penalty for inappropriate use etc.) and instead made my way up the train - well it's better than crawling down the corridor on my hands and knees, that was in the days of steam :) - I dare say the driver got a bit of a shock when someone started banging on his door, a bit like that old Hancock test pilot sketch with Kenneth Williams outside of the aeroplane.

Well I had to wait for the  to pull into the depot and then follow him down to the other end and climb out of the other cab, as there are no platforms at the depot. Fortunately I was able to travel with him in a taxi back to New Street.

What had happened was that the train I wanted was further down the platform, and I had mistakenly assumed the carriage I got on was connected to that.

Oh well at least I wasn't dragged off kicking and screaming like this guy:-

Nothing to do with autism

Yesterday I returned from a conference, which took place in the rather scenic building you see here.

It's the first conference for a while where I wasn't presenting, and the first conference that has had nothing to do with either autism, disability or education so it made a refreshing change.

In fact it was a conference on research ethics in the generality, my interest in attending being informed by my increasing concern over the ethics of autism research in particular, as has been reflected here and elsewhere.

It was certainly worthwhile for me to attend for a variety of reasons concerned with my academic development, career and of course campaigning effectiveness.

Firstly and foremostly I was there to learn, to learn more about what the current discourses in ethics are, from the various philosophical, practical, legal and medical perspectives and to understand them in the context of "doing ethics" that is to say the usual procedure that any research student has to go through in order to gain approval for their particular enquiry.

Secondly it was an opportunity to step back from my current fields (although of course there are the obvious overlaps) and realise here is a new and exciting area for me to take an interest in with a variety of opportunities presented in terms of both future involvement or possible research.

And finally an opportunity to realise that I do not have to remain a "one trick pony" in terms of how I can ultimately progress beyond my doctorate, which having provided me with the tools for academic enquiry and discourse does not necessarily have to progress in the direction of autism. I have much more potentially to offer than that, and indeed given the current climate in the higher education sector I do need to consider as many alternatives as possible when looking for what follows as I certainly cannot ensure getting a post involved in education and autism specifically.

Not that I leave my autism behind particularly, because it is always there for those who have the ability to recognise what they see, and some of them certainly did see it.

The session in the pub afterwards was as instructive as any of the formal sessions (as these sessions usually are) but had to be tempered with a certain amount of curiosity about me. For instance: the following progression of beer fuelled questioning: - "I hope you don't mind me asking but ......  I hope you don't mind me asking an awkward question but .... I hope you don't mind me asking another awkward question but ..." Me: - "no I don't mind because you are obviously going to ask it anyway"

Or elsewhere the inevitable social enquiry as to what one is studying and why one is interested in it, where although it is not my intention to overtly "out" my diagnosis it does emerge as my reason and motivation for having an academic interest in autism to be followed with the sometimes inevitable comment "
"You must be very high functioning then, because you are nothing like x's autistic child I know"

Oh woe is me, out comes a long line of explanation, and the unstated response "Of course I am not like the child you know, you are obviously a very high functioning neurotypical to be at University because you are not like y's neurotypical child I know"

Children and adults, never the same the thing so why the comparison... Ho hum, that I suppose is one thing I will never escape even if I do escape into an alternate academic engagement.

Well I am Larry Arnold, I am autistic (with a better knowledge of what that means than the armchair diagnostician, or the person who has only seen one autistic person)
I am not Temple Grandin, or the rain man, or even Shakespeare's stereotypical infant "mewling and puking in the nurses arms" Have you got that yet?


My success is nothing to do with Autism, it's what I do, and if I didn't would it matter to you ?

Abandoned Cars

I scanned Autismo this morning with a sense of despair. There they are the "usual suspects" going about their business as if there were no progress in the world. Blindly adhering by faith and obstinacy to their pet theories as if they made any difference to the world outside.

"ABA good, anything else bad" as if all one needed for life is one pair of trousers one never outgrew and that ever fitted one, suitable to be worn for weddings, funerals, a saturday night out and mucking out the stables.

"Poor Bugger me, the postman did not call today, nor I did not win the lottery because I have the autism pox" As if there were never any other external factors in ones misfortune and that by wallowing in it one could change it.

And so on and so on.

I think these bloggers are like abandoned cars on the highway in various states of destruction. Long ago ceased to be of use and therefore not going anywhere, just steadily reverted back into the landscape. Landmarks of despair not any hope of a destination.

Don't even bother to comment if you see yourself implicated there, I am not inflating your tyres so your wreck stands any prouder, get yourself a new motor and get back on the highway.

As for me, I have plenty to whine about, always have, I mean we all have now in terms of the coelition government cutting right left and centre, we are all victims there, forced to fight like dogs for the spoils.

If I can get it together for my University fees next year, everything else is on track, so as long as I can gas up my academic motor, it still stands a chance of making to the destination without being abandoned on the highway of despair.

Same goes for my real life motor, which is visiting Kwik Fit today. So long as I can afford the diesel it will be taking me to Wales next month. "In the mountains, there you feel free."

The Lions Den, or to Cambridge then I came.

I don't suppose too many people had an interest in my cryptic last blog, for those who are still curious, it was from the Norse Eddas, Havamal, to be precise.

Well we don't know our fate, and I don't know if we even make it or not, it is la Machine Infernale, as Cocteau put it in his famous play.

But my topic for today is neither the Greek nor the Norse classics, without a passing knowledge of which I do not consider anyone who calls themselves a scientist to have a proper education at all :) No, even physicist Robert Oppenheimer was predisposed to resort to the Baghavad Gita in describing the awe (if that is the appropriate word) that the real world  demonstration of his theorems gave him.

It's an appropriate place to start, he wrote to his brother

"I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity, and a certain small but precious measure of the freedom from the accidents of incarnation, and charity, and that detachment which preserves the world which it renounces. "

I can't be sure that either he, nor his brother, nor anyone else has any more clue what he is on about there, than they are about my equally obscure allusions to the Norse equivalent of Karma, in my last post "Ragnarok" but there is no mistaking the application of these words from the Baghavad Gita, describing Vishnu's destiny, as beheld in the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki :

"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"

 It is perhaps the ultimate statement about responsibility in science.

And so I am pleased to announce that my abstract for a poster at the third  Autism Neuroscience Conference at Cambridge has been accepted. This one alludes not to the destruction of worlds, so much as the worlds apart of the un lettered scientist and the scientifically illiterate humanist. Not so in Erasmus'
 time, or even Darwin's.


I am pleased that it has been accepted because at last the little cul de sac of autism neuroscience is recognising a moral dimension to what they research and hope to achieve. Something that recent Imfar conferences have failed to recognise, and I have come on some way since my abstract for a paper at Imfar was rejected. Persistence pays off, but only if there is a truth in that persistence that cannot be denied forever as being irrelevant.

Whatever my destiny is, and whatever the old gods of Olympus and Asgard would have in store for me in these forthcoming "interesting" economic times I hope I shall live through their twilight into a new Renaissance, where the sciences and arts and humanities are not mutually unintelligible to their respective acolytes.

Ragnarok

 
Veit ec at ec hecc vindga meiði
netr allar nío,
geiri vndaþr oc gefinn Oðni,
sialfr sialfom mer,
a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn. 

Við hleifi mic seldo ne viþ hornigi,
nysta ec niþr,
nam ec vp rvnar,
opandi nam,
fell ec aptr þaðan.

David Cameron (if that is your real name) and Ian Duncan Smith, do you think you can resist your destiny, your doom?

You are numbered!

The academic grind

My key note presentation at the Normalcy conference last week, went down a storm, the material I quoted from fellow blogger Chaotic Idealism was particularly well received. It was certainly the best presentation I have done so far and I don't think, for a variety of reasons, that it will be forgotten in a hurry.

But that is not the end of it. I have just about completed my poster on Ethics for the Birmingham Post Grad Poster conference and I have a couple of 'gigs' after that, starting with my appearance alongside Laurent Mottron and Dinah Murray at the UCL followed in July by a presentation for the Education School conference .  The theme of my next three outings is ethical research again.

That's enough to keep me busy into the summer anyway. I know my enemies will be hating this, but what the heck, this is what I do these days, I wouldn't be doing it if I had nothing to say that people were not willing to listen to. The University's motto is Per Ardua ad Alta, which means in English by hard work (or adversity) to the heights, and it is hard work as well, I didn't get here by accident.

My detractors ought to take notice, that it is not my "super shiny" aspieness that is getting me attention, it is the quality of what I say and my attention to detail in it all.

The can of worms

For Martin Luther it was the diet of worms, for me it seems a can of worms, I'm not going to eat them :-

It seems I still have not made myself clear enough. Over the past few days and if you look at Square 8 and LBRB you can see more discussion, hub bloggers have been indulging in even more navel gazing and recriminations, old wounds have been opened, disputes going back almost a decade, re unearthed.

This is not about who is or is not a "fake" autistic. I want to knock on the head the assertion that was made by a former prominent autistic speaker, that people like me should tote their diagnostic papers to conference organisers before being allowed a platform. I have said, that it would be an extraordinary requirement, and one unprecedented in the world of disability organisations in general. To begin with distinguished academics are accepted without having to hold their degrees and diplomas aloft. Parents do not have to put their children's birth certificates on display. Not only that it would certainly be illegal in the UK to treat one section of the community, a disabled one less favourably than the neurotypical, who ought in return to display a certificate that they have never even remotely been diagnosed with anything in the DSM. I'm guessing the same discrimination argument would hold elsewhere, it's a lawyers charter. It's the sort of idle speculation one can make in the public bar, along with other pledges to set the world to rights, but it does not belong in the real world, and it surprised me that any one with a respectable organisational and administrational pedigree (in the ASA) could ever make that suggestion. There is no discussion on this issue, don't bother to post to my blog about it. The issue is closed.

Of course for anyone to masquerade as something they are not is Fraud. This is an issue covered by Kathleen Seidell with respect to the qualifications of AoA's favourite scientists elsewhere,. It's something I probably cannot repeat directly on my blog, I don't have the protection of the first amendment. I am not really at liberty to play the popular parlour game of naming suspect celebrities either, those who have not already been open about their diagnosis, as given the current stigma that still surrounds "autistic spectrum disorder" a stigma I might say that is encouraged by the likes of Autism Speaks in the USA, to name any individual, even Bill Gates as Temple Grandin frequently does, could technically be considered defamation in the British courts.

Of course it is unlikely that Mr Gates would sue every individual who has ever perpetuated what is in effect nowadays an urban legend, however it does remain as impolite, and inaccurate to speculate about any living person's diagnosis, especially without the background details.

I wish I did not have to preface my post with all that, but there are matters that won't lie down. Especially regarding functioning level, which I covered in my last post. You might have thought that post was about Amanda Baggs. It was not, it was about my Mother.

I know what I have frequently been accused of on the internet, of being a "shiny aspie" that is to say one of the elite who is at University post grad level. And that is pursuing only one narrow section of interest. To repeat that assertion is a defamation as much as anything else. I do not think I would have been elected onto the board of the National Autistic Society on that basis at all. Neither is the National Autistic Society, as some have alleged, and organisation that only cares about one section of the autistic community. Far from it. The organisation is made up for the most part of parents still, and I would think it reasonable to assume that a poll of those parents would show that they are caring for offspring at every level on the autistic spectrum in the same proportion as such people exist in the general population. The NAS has pioneered care for people on what is sometimes called "the more complex end of the spectrum" and even on the hub there are parents whose children represent a variety of "ability"

I am not even going to use the word "severe" not because I dispute it, because experts do. When you only see what is closest to you, you don't see the whole picture. If I based my advocacy solely upon my own wants and desires, I would not be doing anyone a service least of all myself. Yet on AoA and elsewhere we constantly see parents whose only care (perhaps rightly so in the context of their lives) is only for their child, or children like their child. When that advocacy steps over the line and makes accusations at others and seeks to disenfranchise them either for advocating for their own proper rights, or those of others, that is no longer advocacy it is discrimination.

There is a post doing the rounds at the moment, regarding Amanda Baggs. I am sorry I still have to raise this topic. It says that she, at a much younger age than she is now, wished to advocate for the autistic children she worked with when she was hospitalised for schizophrenia . Is that a crime or something to be praised?

I have a friend, no doubt a shiny University aspie too now. (Though I knew her before then) who also works with autistic children. So did Claire Sainsbury author of "Martian in the Playground"

Mike Stanton, a parent of what many would call a "shiny aspie" is also a teacher of children with profound intellectual impairments. and so it goes on.

The difference with us and Harold Doherty for instance, is that do not draw a line above a notional IQ of 70, or a given level of functional speech and say, I don't care about the rest of you. We care about everybody.

And so did my mother, she was a leading light in a broad disability movement, that respected people with intellectual impairments and amonst the people she would assist, and who she worked with were parents of children with profound impairments every bit as "severe" as those portrayed in the negative focused videos that exist alongside ours on youtube.

Of course this ought to be an end of it, I fear it won't be. Feeding the Trolls is an exercise that never ends, the more you feed them, the hungrier they get.

I'll end on another poem entitled "the can of worms

The weary worms come out the can
Struggling in comprehension of
Who canned ‘em up
You, or I or some also ran
Canned up the worms
Can we then come to terms
With the lowly weary worms ?