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Is it that hard to see? I just don't want to be cool
Here's how my day is going: I left the house to walk to the library and came back with blisters on both heels, because my socks had spontaneously committed suicide in transit. That is even shabbier than my usual aesthetic. I am going to need new socks. Also my heels hurt.
On the other hand, Craig Laurance Gidney is enjoying my "dense opiated prose." Any favorable comparison to Tanith Lee improves my afternoon.
These links are a mix of things.
1. I have just learned from Anu Garg that tosspot words are a particular class of compound noun rather than words that are frequently hungover. I had no idea there was a name for them in English. "What does a scarecrow have in common with a pickpocket?" feels like an outtake from Lewis Carroll.
2. I suppose it is appropriate that I read this article for Tisha B'Av. I certainly consider Netanyahu and his administration a disaster for the Jewish people.
3. I don't know that there's ever a good time to read that the roots of autism as a diagnostic category are intertwined with Nazi eugenics. I keep reminding myself that thinking of myself as a profitless and unconscionable waste of other people's resources and time (on repeat these days) is the same kind of idea and I should stop it.
4. For those unaware of the recent trash fire regarding Worldcon 76, the Daily Dot has a good overview. The con chair has just responded on Facebook and Twitter.
5. I have to say that I'm not sure if Alan Turing chained his mug to the radiator because he loved tea that much; I think he might just have hated people stealing his mug.
On the other hand, Craig Laurance Gidney is enjoying my "dense opiated prose." Any favorable comparison to Tanith Lee improves my afternoon.
These links are a mix of things.
1. I have just learned from Anu Garg that tosspot words are a particular class of compound noun rather than words that are frequently hungover. I had no idea there was a name for them in English. "What does a scarecrow have in common with a pickpocket?" feels like an outtake from Lewis Carroll.
2. I suppose it is appropriate that I read this article for Tisha B'Av. I certainly consider Netanyahu and his administration a disaster for the Jewish people.
3. I don't know that there's ever a good time to read that the roots of autism as a diagnostic category are intertwined with Nazi eugenics. I keep reminding myself that thinking of myself as a profitless and unconscionable waste of other people's resources and time (on repeat these days) is the same kind of idea and I should stop it.
4. For those unaware of the recent trash fire regarding Worldcon 76, the Daily Dot has a good overview. The con chair has just responded on Facebook and Twitter.
5. I have to say that I'm not sure if Alan Turing chained his mug to the radiator because he loved tea that much; I think he might just have hated people stealing his mug.
no subject
Thank you. It may not be necessary. I was not hurt in the moment so much as I couldn't tell if the anger at Sheffer contained anger at me for propagating the information/believing her interpretation, which is why I appreciated the clarification.
no subject
So my impulse was more NO SCHEFFER IS WRONG AND WHILE THIS IS UPSETTING INFORMATION IT'S NOT AS UPSETTING AS SHE WANTS TO MAKE IT.
(And then I realized oh shit it might sound like I was angry at you.)
no subject
Good night and I hope sleep finds you at an appropriate point for your time zone.
no subject
Thank you! Sleep well likewise.
no subject
That was extremely thoughtful and hadn't occurred to me! Thank you.
(I do have a non-standard brain and that phrasing is acceptable to me. I come by it on both sides of my family and I have come to realize that I got very lucky in that my parents gave me neutral language to talk about it as far back as I can literally remember. People have joked at me for years that being raised by a mad scientist and a child psychologist clearly explains a few things about my current state, but I think actually it was extremely healthy.)
I was upset by the news about Asperger, but not in the sense that the concepts he pioneered now feel irrevocably tainted, more in the "dammit" sense. He was a German scientist who worked and kept his job through World War II. It was an unpleasant but not total shock. I think I am more upset by Sheffer's declared desire to abolish the label of autism by tarring it with the Nazi brush. That isn't how information should be used. Thanks to the construction of the civilizations in which we live and from which we inherit, damn near everything we know comes to us through some compromised mechanism or has been put to some compromising use; that fact may be real, upsetting, and consequential, but it should not be treated as a "gotcha!"
I will be interested to see the wider reactions in the autistic community. It sounds already as though Sheffer's conclusions are not being blanket-welcomed. I hope it is not too hard on her son.
no subject
Where "she" = Scheffer, not you. Hopefully obviously.
no subject
No worries. That, I did understand.