Dear noisy family outside with pots and pans....

It's been 2007 for six whole minutes now. The year is no longer new. Stop banging your pots and pans, stop shouting "Happy New Year" with more and more enthusiasm by the minute, and go inside and go to sleep. Get drunk, for all I care, even the kids.

It's now been seven minutes. Your own baby is crying. While this adds to the noise level, it's not exactly a good omen for the coming year, now is it? Some of us stay up past midnight every day. It's not that special.

I rang in the new year by moving boxes to the basement. I'm not inclined to be generous.

(Eight minutes and counting.)

Twelve minutes.

GO TO BED ALREADY.

OR AT LEAST SHUT UP.

On expanding pre-natal testing for Downs syndrome...

Here's a quick summation, better than typing my own thoughts.

I think that one of the reasons people tend to abort disabled fetuses is that they don't know anything about how the kid could grow up, so they jump to terror scenarios.

No, I know that.

I don't, of course, know anything about what it's like to live with Downs Syndrome.

I do know, from paying attention, something about false expectations. There's a woman at the SICM who has Downs Syndrome. I pay attention - I see that she runs at least one program without extra supervision, I see that she goes to and from work by herself (she takes our bus) - my conclusion is that I should assume she can do something, until she says otherwise.

Other people, I don't know what they see. ( Read more... )

This anecdote proves nothing, I know. But it's another one of those stories that's been swinging in my mind lately, and it very loosely ties in to current events, so here it is.