listen to Chuck

A little more than four years ago, I walked to my neighborhood polling station and cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.

I had mixed feelings about the vote, because she hadn’t been my preferred candidate and because I had not been immune to the GOP’s twenty-year campaign to taint her in the public perception, but also I could hardly deny my feelings that it was well past time for a woman to be president and that she would do a respectable job of it. I was, like all decent people, disgusted by the vile personage that was her opponent, but despite my general pessimism I didn’t think he had a serious chance of winning. I thought surely not enough people would be taken in by the con. Surely the majority of people had to see that the most unqualified candidate in the history of the race was running against arguably the most qualified.

At the time, I had recently begun dating someone indescribably wonderful and I was certainly under the spell of new love. That’s how I account for my uncharacteristic optimism. I understood the danger posed by Donald Trump, but I believed we would pull together to reject him.

This was my face after waking up to the news on November 9th, 2016.

I knew they were there, and powerful, but I underestimated the Titan strength of misogyny and white supremacy in this country — a breathtaking reveal that has continued as an unrelenting assault since that day.

What followed over the course of the next four years was as turbulent and often grim in my personal life as it has been on the national scale. Silencingly so. The scale of what has been wrong these last four years has rendered me largely incapable of forming my own words about it except to exclaim in truncated horror in Tweet-sized blurts.

This blog post by Chuck Wendig, in its entirety, does a fine job of voicing much of what I feel but have been unable to articulate.

“This Grievous Wound” by Chuck Wendig

You should give it a read.

no more – a letter to suzanne wright

“They need to know that while it is absolutely true that there are Autistics and their families in desperate need of immediate support, and that there is indeed an urgent need for both short- and long-term plans of action for them, they are not to be feared.

“They need to know that autism is only a death sentence if we continue to allow people like you to spew rhetoric like this from on high – rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes our loved ones, telling them that they are a tragedy, a burden — a thing to be feared rather than people to be included, supported and loved.”

A rousing call from one mother to Autism Speaks. No more.

a diary of a mom

My girl cracking herself up with scripts last night

I was once asked, “If you have so much trouble with the fact that Autism Speaks uses the words “disease” and “cure” in its marketing materials, what would you have them say instead?”

I thought about it for a moment, and said, “Well, I suppose I’d like them to implore the public to help us find ways to mitigate the disabling aspects of autism while recognizing and celebrating its more positive attributes.”

My questioner cocked his head. “Okay, so how does that read on a sign?”

I’ve never felt more awkward (this is a lie, but go with it) than when I answered, “Celebrate diversity! Mitigate Disability!”

I recognized the folly of my attempt at copy writing long before he said, “Wow, you suck at this.”

He was right. I do.

Because for me, trying to reduce autism awareness / education / advocacy…

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Star Trek, Data and Lal, Autism

Star Trek, Data and Lal, Autism.

Amazing post by unstrangemind on the experience of watching the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Offspring” through the lens of autism and finding resonance with Lal.