Lory Of A-Pack

DAILY FIND: Sometimes the Internet is a crappy place full of crap. But today I’m reminded that it’s an amazing trove of free and good information from reliable sources: The University of Illinois Extension has created a searchable index of every stain known to man and stain removal solutions for each. The tool will even tell you what your window of stain-treatment time is to achieve optimal results.

Ask them if they’re a high functioning or low functioning non-autistic.

Tell them that they must be autistic, because you have a 5-year-old non-autistic cousin who they’re nothing like.

Compliment them by reassuring them that they seem autistic and that you’d never guess that they weren’t. 

Every time they do something, ask them if they do it because of their lack of autism.

Assume that everyone becomes autistic after a certain age.

Expect them to get along with someone if not being autistic is the only thing they have in common.

You’re thinking about disability in terms of the medical model. The issue with this is that many disabled people don’t. For example, for many autistic people, their autism is an inherent part of who they are - it shapes their behaviour, mentality and personality to an extent that without it, they would lose all sense of their identity. Suggesting that they should be cured suggests that there is something inherently faulty about them - that who they are is bad and wrong and they need to be turned into a new person, instead of wider society being educated about autism and there being less pressure to behave and process information in a certain way.

Now, some disabled people do want a cure. I suffer from joint hypermobility syndrome, a chronic pain condition which makes everyday living very unpleasant a lot of the time, and I would love for that to be cured, but that is because only the medical model can apply to me. There is nothing that could be changed about society that could make my condition easier to live with, the only way my life could be improved is if my joints stopped hurting. Also, my condition doesn’t affect who I am other than hindering me due to the constant pain - without it, I would still be me, just more comfortable.

you’re both right :) a wagging tail means the cat is highly stimulated (think coiled spring, ready to go off). depending on the situation, this can be interpreted differently - just like people can smile nervously at job interviews vs. happily grin at friends.

in most cases, it’s safe to interpret overstimulation as ‘you’re doing something to amp up the cat & it wants you to stop’ (ex. unwanted petting). it should be seen as a warning; all that pent-up energy COULD be released as a swat or bite.

my trial is over and i can talk about it.

the DA didn’t make the case for the crime and i went into the deliberation room knowing that. i also knew a half-dozen white orange county folks might not see it that way. the defendant was latino, there was a gang charge in addition to robbery.

sure enough, as we went around the table to give our first impressions, the white ladies used language around “gut instinct” and “he shouldn’t be hanging out with bad people” and the like. others were undecided because there was so much unreliable testimony.

they got to me and i flatly said “i have reasonable doubts.” i stated some of my reasoning and heads started to nod. the next 3 jurors to talk after me were hispanic. they stated that they understood why this might be confusing, and then gave some personal perspectives about growing up in disadvantage neighborhoods, how not everyone is a gangster just because they live there. one white lady said “well, you know, they should really move if that’s the case.”

the discussion opened up and it went right to gangs, right to how the defendant shouldn’t be hanging out with gang members. everyone had an opinion about how the defendant looked, or talked, or that he was drinking a 40 just before the robbery, or that he was related to a gang member. they went right to that.

but that’s not what we were supposed to decide on. we were there for a robbery as the primary charge. a robbery that i very clearly felt the state had not be able to pin on this guy.

so… being the loud mouth that i sometimes am… i interrupted and said “let’s all turn to page 14 in the jury instructions and go through what would make the charge ‘guilty’, line by line, and see where we all stand.”

sure enough, when we focused on the actual charge, and the facts actually required for someone to be found guilty, most in the room agreed it wasn’t there. well, except for two white ladies.

so i, also a white lady, helped to walk them through the list. when “gut instinct” or “it’s a bad neighborhood” came up, i kindly pointed out that those are not facts of the case. when i requested that they use the facts of the case to provide reasoning for their position, they both quietly agreed there weren’t any.

and that’s how, in about an hour, we came to a unanimous decision of ‘not guilty’.

i don’t have experience with the court system. and i don’t watch court room based tv dramas. so i was really a blank slate to all this.

i was taken aback at the very clear inherent bias that some jurors displayed, and all the while realizing they didn’t think of themselves as bias. but i was also taken aback by how focusing on the process, the rules, and the facts quickly squashed that line of reasoning.

For people who are actually interested in how viking music might have sounded, “Drømde mik en drøm i nat“ (/I dreamt a dream last night) is the earliest music (and lyrics) known in Scandinavia preserved on the last page of the (~1200-1300) Codex Runicus as rune notes.

The song and melody is still known and used today in most of Scandinavia, as a sort of folk-standard. This version, deceivingly slow in the beginning, is presented as close to the original sound of the years 900-1000 as historians think they can come.

This song might have survived because it was a gigantic hit, like the viking’s very own “Billie Jean”. A total pop slayer that stayed around long enough for music notes to be invented.