Month: November 2009

 

Excerpt from The Inclusion Daily Express:

People With Autism Speak Out Against Autism Speaks
(The HillTop)
November 2, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt] Detached from the sea of walkers at the annual Walk Now for Autism Speaks fundraiser in D.C., was a group of about 15 autistic individuals who stood protesting.

Against the backdrop of the Washington monument, they chanted “Autism Speaks doesn’t speak for us,” and “Autistic people speak. Are you listening?”

Ari Ne’eman, founder and president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), led the protestors. Contrary to the mission of Autism Speaks, Ne’eman and members of ASAN allege that the organization is actually exploiting the autistic community instead of helping it.

“I saw that all too often, autistic people are kept out of the public policy discussion about us and decisions are put forward that don’t fit with our needs and don’t relate to what we want,” said Ne’eman, who, along with the other members of ASAN, is autistic.

Entire article:
Autistic Plea Less Pity
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/autistic-plea-less-pity-1.2046862
Related:
Autism Walk on National Mall Stirs Controversy (WJLA)
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1009/674094.html

Once while visiting the Chicago zoo I saw a very old man who was blind for he had a white cane and he was leaning close to the plate glass at the lion’s display. He was making faces at the lions, grand faces, grotesque faces like someone who could hide his appearance behind a Venetian mask. The lions for their part saw the man’s evident incomprehensibility as just another form of light. Don’t underestimate the power of a wall. That was one of my earliest lessons in art.

 

S.K.  

 

 

 

Iowa City

The University of Iowa ’s football team had an inexplicable turnaround on Saturday in their game against Indiana. Despite lackluster play and numerous mistakes, Iowa had a supernatural comeback against the Hoosiers, all after an instant replay ruling overturned an obvious Indiana  touchdown late in the 3^rd quarter. Fans at Kinnick Stadium watched as Iowa picked off a pass that actually hung in the air like a piñata, then saw hyper reality take over as the Hawkeyes scored 28  points in the game’s final 15 minutes. “Something happened,” said Ernest Dumpster, a honey dipper from Dubuque . “That was some weird shit, and believe me, I know shit.”

The explanation has to do with Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz who, according to insiders who asked to remain unnamed, sold his soul to the Devil during a television timeout late in the 3^rd quarter. Ferentz was unavailable for comment but a team insider said that a cloven hooved, humpbacked and be-horned goat-like creature with a face like former U.S. President Bill Clinton was seen escorting Ferentz into a gray van with just minutes remaining in the timeout.

Dag Darkling, a professor at Union Theological Seminary says that the game’s final score, Iowa 42 and Indiana 24 is the proof of Satanic forces being involved. “42” can be added into six, and so can 24, so that’s 66 and Iowa had five interceptions and a fumble so that’s another 6. And everybody knows what that means.”

“It’s the Devil’s odor that’s a real giveaway, he smells like burning glee,” said Darkling.

Now Halloween is over I think of autumn itself. “La Belle Dame sans Merci”–the season of language strange. Autumn who speaks the patois of the dead, who learned it from discarded long playing records, who waits for customers to depart the used clothing shops. Now she begins in earnest. Leaves fall during the night. In the morning the trees are bare. The sky settles for winter with a fast withering of fast clouds of fast grayness. Autumn with her wild eyes…

O Autumn will get you. She’ll make you hear old songs. You’ll hear them again as you fall asleep. The same songs you heard as a child when the old folks turned out the lamp. Autumn does these things though she doesn’t speak.

O the old familiar faces go.

I had been laughing. Autumn knocked.

The season is bound to traverse us.

 

S.K.

(with apologies to Samuel Johnson)

When first the blogging-rolls received his name,

The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;

Through all his nerves the promise of renown

Sparks with glory–he’ll have a place in town;

O’er Huffington’s or Beast’s his labor’s spread,

And Cyber’s mansion trembles o’er his head.

Are these thy views? Proceed, industrious youth,

And Labor guide thee to the throne of Truth!

Yet should thy soul indulge the spurious heat,

As evidence replies with long retreat;

Should Ardor steal thee with brightest ray,

And pour on misty doubt resistless day;

Should no false Readers lure to loose delight,

Nor Praise relax, nor Difficulty fright;

Should tempting novelty thy cell refrain,

And Sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain;

Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,

Nor claim the triumph of a lettered heart;

Should no Disease thy torpid veins invade,

Nor Melancholy’s phantoms haunt thy shade;

Yet hope not life from grief or danger free,

Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee:

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,

And pause awhile from blogging, to be wise;

There mark what ills the blogger’s life assails,

Toil, envy, want, the linkings, and the wails.

See readers slowly wise, and meanly just,

To buried merit raise the tardy bust.

If dreams yet flatter, or again attend,

Hear sordid life, and Nobility’s end.

 

S.K.