1. The celebrated and unmentionable Nutrinomicon.
(No reason for that except pure weirdness.)
2. Whoa. Someone's making a movie about Temple Grandin.
I hope to god they do her and the issues justice.
3. An interesting -- if at times infuriating -- article about Australian Aboriginals. Mostly interesting to me due to the parallels with the US government's treatment of Native Americans. Though you don't see that issue getting as much publicity as the Australian counterpart....
Instead the nation was looking ruefully back into the past and apologizing for certain welfare policies between 1910 and 1970, a period when Aboriginal children were sometimes removed from their homes and parents for what was believed to be their own wellbeing, were taken elsewhere to be fostered or adopted, and were ‘brought up white’.
And almost the exact same thing happened to Native Americans....
Most provocatively, and absurdly, the report concluded that the removal policy constituted "genocide".
Well, I agree that exact word doesn't quite describe the situation. No one was killed. But equally strong language is called for here, I believe. The government was aiming to eradicate an entire culture. Possibly with benevolent intentions, but still.
On the front page of the issue for March 14, 2008, readers learnt that tribal elders at a place called Aurukun “are calling for children to be removed in the face of a comprehensive breakdown of social norms.”
Well yeah, but those horrible conditions wouldn't have occurred if the Australian government hadn't put them in that position....
How is it that at the very time when nothing remotely resembling traditional Aboriginal culture any longer exists at places like Aurukun, where the community has fallen into a cesspit of mutually reinforcing pathologies, the Australian intelligentsia adheres to a vision of indigenous culture that exists—if it exists at all—largely in the metaphysical realm?
How? Guilt. They feel justifiably guilty for eradicating indigenous culture and turning it into a 'cesspit of mutually reinforcing pathologies.' Sure, an apology alone won't create tangible change. But it's a start. And possibly a necessary step toward more practical solutions.
Oy. I can't take re-reading that article anymore. So many wrong-headed assumptions. So many misunderstandings.
4. Fucking Scientology. Someone seriously needs to shut them down. How many people have died because of their 'beliefs'?
Regardless of whether the kid legitimately had Kawasaki's or autism or whatever, he clearly had a seizure disorder. Most of those can be medicated to prevent or at least minimize the occurrence of said seizures. What do you wanna bet the Scientologists told Travolta not to give his son those meds? What do you wanna bet he wouldn't have fallen and gotten himself a fatal head wound if he hadn't had a seizure in the first place?
5. Braille's harder than it looks:
The reason why it was necessary to write from right to left was that, in those days, without the sophistication firstly of mechanical and then of electronic Braille production, the dots had to be pressed downwards and, when turned over, would provide a mirror image.
It was therefore not only necessary to write from right to left, but also to reverse the actual letters so that with the exception of letters like A and C, other parts of the alphabet had to be reversed.
Damn. Makes learning to write a tad more complicated....
Invented by Louis Braille at the age of 15, the idea came from a soldier who had served in the Napoleonic army in Poland and had attempted to devise a system that could, with night-time manoeuvres, allow messages to be sent and instructions to be passed from hand to hand.
Huh. Didn't know that.
You can't simply write Braille in large form so that as with print you can "catch your eye" on something that it is absolutely vital to deliver or to emphasise. Underlining is possible, but more out of technical form than in terms of being able to quickly highlight what needs to be referred to and at what point.
Again, never thought of that. Interesting.
(No reason for that except pure weirdness.)
2. Whoa. Someone's making a movie about Temple Grandin.
I hope to god they do her and the issues justice.
3. An interesting -- if at times infuriating -- article about Australian Aboriginals. Mostly interesting to me due to the parallels with the US government's treatment of Native Americans. Though you don't see that issue getting as much publicity as the Australian counterpart....
Instead the nation was looking ruefully back into the past and apologizing for certain welfare policies between 1910 and 1970, a period when Aboriginal children were sometimes removed from their homes and parents for what was believed to be their own wellbeing, were taken elsewhere to be fostered or adopted, and were ‘brought up white’.
And almost the exact same thing happened to Native Americans....
Most provocatively, and absurdly, the report concluded that the removal policy constituted "genocide".
Well, I agree that exact word doesn't quite describe the situation. No one was killed. But equally strong language is called for here, I believe. The government was aiming to eradicate an entire culture. Possibly with benevolent intentions, but still.
On the front page of the issue for March 14, 2008, readers learnt that tribal elders at a place called Aurukun “are calling for children to be removed in the face of a comprehensive breakdown of social norms.”
Well yeah, but those horrible conditions wouldn't have occurred if the Australian government hadn't put them in that position....
How is it that at the very time when nothing remotely resembling traditional Aboriginal culture any longer exists at places like Aurukun, where the community has fallen into a cesspit of mutually reinforcing pathologies, the Australian intelligentsia adheres to a vision of indigenous culture that exists—if it exists at all—largely in the metaphysical realm?
How? Guilt. They feel justifiably guilty for eradicating indigenous culture and turning it into a 'cesspit of mutually reinforcing pathologies.' Sure, an apology alone won't create tangible change. But it's a start. And possibly a necessary step toward more practical solutions.
Oy. I can't take re-reading that article anymore. So many wrong-headed assumptions. So many misunderstandings.
4. Fucking Scientology. Someone seriously needs to shut them down. How many people have died because of their 'beliefs'?
Regardless of whether the kid legitimately had Kawasaki's or autism or whatever, he clearly had a seizure disorder. Most of those can be medicated to prevent or at least minimize the occurrence of said seizures. What do you wanna bet the Scientologists told Travolta not to give his son those meds? What do you wanna bet he wouldn't have fallen and gotten himself a fatal head wound if he hadn't had a seizure in the first place?
5. Braille's harder than it looks:
The reason why it was necessary to write from right to left was that, in those days, without the sophistication firstly of mechanical and then of electronic Braille production, the dots had to be pressed downwards and, when turned over, would provide a mirror image.
It was therefore not only necessary to write from right to left, but also to reverse the actual letters so that with the exception of letters like A and C, other parts of the alphabet had to be reversed.
Damn. Makes learning to write a tad more complicated....
Invented by Louis Braille at the age of 15, the idea came from a soldier who had served in the Napoleonic army in Poland and had attempted to devise a system that could, with night-time manoeuvres, allow messages to be sent and instructions to be passed from hand to hand.
Huh. Didn't know that.
You can't simply write Braille in large form so that as with print you can "catch your eye" on something that it is absolutely vital to deliver or to emphasise. Underlining is possible, but more out of technical form than in terms of being able to quickly highlight what needs to be referred to and at what point.
Again, never thought of that. Interesting.
Labels: anthropology, autism, disability, fundamentalism
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