So, GM and CAN are all allied and all...

Linkie!

And I was thinking about the whole Jerry Lewis telethon. I barely knew it existed until I read stuff from people who hated it. Since then, I don't think I've found somebody disabled who really likes it and what it stands for.

And people have written a lot of good stuff on the subject, too, very well-written, and you can isolate your reading and really believe that this is the majority view.

But then you realize there's a whole world out there who can only see it all as a good thing, everything about it, all the stuff people have complained about too.

And those people are the majority. They're winning by being louder, but mostly they're winning by the people who are against the telethon being fewer in numbers, while the majority doesn't know enough to have a real opinion, so they just sheep after the majority opinion.

If you ever say you're not for a cure to become similar and regular and like everybody else, people don't listen. Or they listen, but what they hear isn't what you say. And then the majority goes and makes itself even clearer, and the rest of the majority hears that, because that's what's obvious to them.

And that's why we're losing. Or, at least, barely holding steady. Don't have to lose, don't even have to have a conflict - but I'm beginning to think that the balance of the loudness is unfair. And the weight of the majority is going "cure! cure the children! sick little children! cure!" because... *shrugs*

That said, I'm gladdened to know that autism affects 1/166 children in the US, and that children with autism exhibit a wide variety of symptoms (and does anybody not know that by now?), but I'd like some information about the fact that I've got some friends who are kinda adults, all grown-up....

I have a question...

If I say "men are, on average, taller than women", people would just accept that as true, right? Because it is true, even when, without a moment's preparation, one can easily think of many women who are taller than the average man - even some who are exceptionally so, and many men who are shorter than the average women - again, even some who are exceptionally short.

Still, you wouldn't go "what about my aunt Bertha or my uncle Oswald?", would you?

What if I said "men, on average, have more upper body strength than women"? This is also true (though women tend to excel when it comes to endurance and lower body strength - I remember reading a report about recruits at West Point. Those female recruits who disdained the "aids" designed to help them do things like the male recruits were just as capable of, say, going over a wall - but they climbed the wall in a completely different fashion from the way the men did, using their lower bodies to pull them over), for whatever reason. Would this merit anecdotes about people who don't fit the slightly less exact statement "men have more upper body strength then women"?

Probably not.

So why is it that when you turn this statement into something vaguely controversial (no matter how backed-up your statement is by scientific studies), such as "children who were breastfed tend to have less allergies than children who weren't" or "chihuahuas tend to be yappy, vicious dogs", people start listing every single exception to the statement that they can think of? Do they suddenly think that their anecdotal evidence is going to disprove the facts of the situation, when it wouldn't if they told me all about Cousin Betty, who was 6'9"?

I just don't get it.

Thoughts on Firefly...

Some of this stuff would likely have been addressed if the series had continued - it may even be addressed in the movie. Other stuff... not so much.

( Read more... )

I have another question....

Gee, this is a change from my posting habits of late, isn't it?

You all have, of course, seen the article about the seven kids left alone, right?

( Cutted for ramblings involving my own prejudices )