( via / via )

Grasshopper into landscape & back again.

   The whole "people with..." construction is one of those things that has kind of backfired, especially in a time when so many people seem to think fixing words is a good substitute for fixing reality, but the real culprit in this case is Autism Speaks, whose strategic use of "people with" has been seen to mask not just the wish to do away with autistic people (from the viewpoint of horrified parents who dream only of having a "normal" kid) but also the abusive treatment--even to the point of torture--known as Applied Behavioral Analysis, or "ABA" (nowadays soft-pedalled but still not disavowed by them). So we have a situation where the only organization most laypeople have heard of, is despised by the majority of the group they are supposed to be dedicated to helping. --But i'm not one of those who feel that using the "wrong word" should be equated with the very worst crimes, just by internet flimflam. There's plenty of real villains running around loose, without the need for virtue-policing the people of good will.

I've stopped paying much attention to the so-called "spectrum" community online. They went overboard about the "A-word" (Asperger's); they got all hot & bothered about "high-functioning" & "low-functioning" (which i proposed to call "more affable "& "less"); & when the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic started being used as a weapon & hostilities commenced between the Doctor-diagnosed & the Self-diagnosed, i said, "This is like one of those movies where people in a lifeboat want to fight with each other instead of fighting for survival. But real lifeboat people don't do that. Only: people who don't yet realize they're in a lifeboat."

Helplessly Hoping.

"Poor withered rose and dry,
   Skeleton of a rose,
Risen to testify
   To love's sad close:

Treasured for love's sweet sake,
   That of joy past
Thou might'st again awake
   Memory at last."

— Robert Bridges (via @isidro_li)

"...the work some praise/ And some the Architect..."