I would like to send this to everyone who's ever thought I "must" dislike them because I'm not very verbal around them/can't process their speech, even though I've always been able to express myself through/understand the written word.
From Wikipedia, yes, that gem of all sources -
"In hyperlexia, a child spontaneously and precociously masters single-word reading. It can be viewed as a superability, that is, word recognition ability far above expected levels. The more common definition also includes difficulties with comprehension of printed material beyond or even at the single-word level. Many hyperlexics also have trouble understanding speech. Most or perhaps all children with hyperlexia also lie on the autism spectrum.
Hyperlexic children are often fascinated by letters and numbers. They are extremely good at decoding language and thus often become very early readers. Some hyperlexic children learn to spell long words (such as elephant) before they are two and learn to read whole sentences before they turn three. An fMRI study of a single child showed that hyperlexia may be the neurological opposite of dyslexia.
Often, hyperlexic children will have a precocious ability to read but will learn to speak only by rote and heavy repetition, and may also have difficulty learning the rules of language from examples or from trial and error, which may result in social problems.
Despite hyperlexic children's precocious reading ability, they may struggle to communicate. Their language may develop using echolalia, often repeating words and sentences. Often, the child has a large vocabulary and can identify many objects and pictures, but cannot put their language skills to good use. Spontaneous language is lacking and their pragmatic speech is delayed. Hyperlexic children often struggle with Who? What? Where? Why? and How? questions. Between the ages of 4 and 5 many children make great strides in communicating.
Social skills often lag tremendously. Hyperlexic children often have far less interest in playing with other children than do their peers."
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Whee!
I'm not continuously miserable any more!
Living as a woman, I was always down.
Now I'm only sometimes miserable.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating...
I say, it's lunchtime!
But I oughtn't really to leave the office empty. The other chap is having some difficulties moving house, so isn't here - incidentally, when Hagrid helped Kim to move house, one of them tidily packed his car keys. Or was it the new house keys? At the bottom of the bottom box.
Anyway, yes. Don't know why I just told that scintillating story.
Oh yes - I'm very pleased with myself. Here's why -
I was at the supermarket last night, when a charming youth ran up to me and shouted, "WHY ARE YOU WEARING FUCKING MAKEUP YOU FUCKING POOF" in my face.
This pleases me for two reasons.
Firstly, I've been practising keeping my temper. I very rarely lose it with someone I know, but when chavs hurled abuse (at me or anyone, especially girls or vulnerable-looking people) I used to hurl abuse back, and hurl my whole self at them if I figured I could take them on (which was rare, because they obviously hunt in packs).
That was why I got so many beatings at school - I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and didn't have the physique to match my testosterone levels...
(Actually, I reacted quite differently to bullying from males or females. I'd get really fucking angry at boys, but girls always managed to make me cry).
So, I'd have a problem if I tried to follow the advice they give to mugging victims - don't make eye contact, just hand over the stuff, it's worth less than your life, etc. I know that I'd say "No, fuck you, that's my stuff," and stare them straight in the eye.
I was incredulous, and impressed, when my friend recently followed the advice to the letter. I would be in hospital if our places were exchanged, or I would have died too young to decide upon a decent funeral playlist (actually, those particular muggers weren't too hardcore - just hospital).
So, I have to keep reminding myself, "Someone mental enough to randomly scream at you or mug you is certainly mental enough to stab you in the gut. Which, I've heard, is unpleasant. Oliver, don't react."
And I didn't react yesterday... OK, that's a lie. I did call him a cunt - but only when I was out of possible knife-range.
That's progress, right?
Secondly, the more obvious reason: WHEE! O superbly passable me! I got called a poof! And I am a poof! EXACTLY RIGHT! Fifty points! And I obviously wasn't trying - the eye make-up.
That makes up for several of the latest people assuming I'm a butch dyke.
Which, incidentally, makes me wonder whether any of those people have eyes. How butch am I, exactly? Where is my pickup truck and my ability to lift pianos? How many seconds of sports talk does it take before I beat myself into unconsciousness?
Living as a woman, I was always down.
Now I'm only sometimes miserable.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating...
I say, it's lunchtime!
But I oughtn't really to leave the office empty. The other chap is having some difficulties moving house, so isn't here - incidentally, when Hagrid helped Kim to move house, one of them tidily packed his car keys. Or was it the new house keys? At the bottom of the bottom box.
Anyway, yes. Don't know why I just told that scintillating story.
Oh yes - I'm very pleased with myself. Here's why -
I was at the supermarket last night, when a charming youth ran up to me and shouted, "WHY ARE YOU WEARING FUCKING MAKEUP YOU FUCKING POOF" in my face.
This pleases me for two reasons.
Firstly, I've been practising keeping my temper. I very rarely lose it with someone I know, but when chavs hurled abuse (at me or anyone, especially girls or vulnerable-looking people) I used to hurl abuse back, and hurl my whole self at them if I figured I could take them on (which was rare, because they obviously hunt in packs).
That was why I got so many beatings at school - I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and didn't have the physique to match my testosterone levels...
(Actually, I reacted quite differently to bullying from males or females. I'd get really fucking angry at boys, but girls always managed to make me cry).
So, I'd have a problem if I tried to follow the advice they give to mugging victims - don't make eye contact, just hand over the stuff, it's worth less than your life, etc. I know that I'd say "No, fuck you, that's my stuff," and stare them straight in the eye.
I was incredulous, and impressed, when my friend recently followed the advice to the letter. I would be in hospital if our places were exchanged, or I would have died too young to decide upon a decent funeral playlist (actually, those particular muggers weren't too hardcore - just hospital).
So, I have to keep reminding myself, "Someone mental enough to randomly scream at you or mug you is certainly mental enough to stab you in the gut. Which, I've heard, is unpleasant. Oliver, don't react."
And I didn't react yesterday... OK, that's a lie. I did call him a cunt - but only when I was out of possible knife-range.
That's progress, right?
Secondly, the more obvious reason: WHEE! O superbly passable me! I got called a poof! And I am a poof! EXACTLY RIGHT! Fifty points! And I obviously wasn't trying - the eye make-up.
That makes up for several of the latest people assuming I'm a butch dyke.
Which, incidentally, makes me wonder whether any of those people have eyes. How butch am I, exactly? Where is my pickup truck and my ability to lift pianos? How many seconds of sports talk does it take before I beat myself into unconsciousness?
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Thoughts...
Firstly, here's my tattoo (the angle's a bit off, so it looks a bit squashed, but it's the only pic I currently have).
OH YES, five hundred geek points please. Kthx.
More pensively:
Here's a murder trial ruling that has escaped the usual "disability panic" defence.
People are slowly, slowly starting to get the idea that murdering a disabled child is not a "mercy killing" or "for the best" - comments that have been everywhere after reports of similar murders; not just in the more fascist corners of the internet and in the more fascist newspapers, but everywhere.
However, the progress of this understanding that disability is not the end of the world has come too late for the little girl in question, Naomi Hill.
And over in the US, a "trans panic" defence has been (almost, this is a preliminary hearing) thrown out, ensuring that the killer of a young trans woman named Angie Zapata will be charged with first-degree murder (anyone who assumes that a murder charge for the murderer of a trans woman is normal needs to do some extensive reading on the thousands of similar cases).
Two signs of real progress, and two reasons to hope. Maybe the world, after all, is becoming a more humane place.
But, again, too late for Angie Zapata and Naomi Hill.
I'm not sure what to think.
OH YES, five hundred geek points please. Kthx.
More pensively:
Here's a murder trial ruling that has escaped the usual "disability panic" defence.
People are slowly, slowly starting to get the idea that murdering a disabled child is not a "mercy killing" or "for the best" - comments that have been everywhere after reports of similar murders; not just in the more fascist corners of the internet and in the more fascist newspapers, but everywhere.
However, the progress of this understanding that disability is not the end of the world has come too late for the little girl in question, Naomi Hill.
And over in the US, a "trans panic" defence has been (almost, this is a preliminary hearing) thrown out, ensuring that the killer of a young trans woman named Angie Zapata will be charged with first-degree murder (anyone who assumes that a murder charge for the murderer of a trans woman is normal needs to do some extensive reading on the thousands of similar cases).
Two signs of real progress, and two reasons to hope. Maybe the world, after all, is becoming a more humane place.
But, again, too late for Angie Zapata and Naomi Hill.
I'm not sure what to think.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
And Part III...
It would also be nice if they could decide what they wanted *before* they sent out the email telling us, supposedly, what they want...
Then everybody would get fewer indignant emails going "We're having to amend this and send it out again! We asked for 30-something men last week, and didn't get any 60-something women! Not one! Why not? The audition is in 6 minutes in Belgium, so you'd better jump to it!"
Today, somebody was casting a musical adaptation of His Dark Materials (incidentally, three of the Best Books In The World Ever, currently also being adapted into the Three Worst Films Ever, but that's a whole other opportunity to watch me spit with rage).
They're trying to cast Mrs Coulter, but have failed to mention that the character is physically attractive - no, make that stunningly beautiful. The whole point, at first, of the character is that her looks allow her to get away with pretty much anything, as she captivates powerful men; and even manages to con her cynical, monstrously intelligent 11-year-old daughter.
Now, I can tell from the rest of the breakdown that they're not altering the plot, or any of the characters - they want a pretty faithful adaptation, it's just that they're expecting the usual mind-reader on the other end of the Interwebs. And they'll actually lose faith in this mind-reader, and all connected with hir, if ze sends in a load of normal-looking people...
And now I have to tell a load of normal-looking people, those that want submitting for the part, that they're too ugly...
Then everybody would get fewer indignant emails going "We're having to amend this and send it out again! We asked for 30-something men last week, and didn't get any 60-something women! Not one! Why not? The audition is in 6 minutes in Belgium, so you'd better jump to it!"
Today, somebody was casting a musical adaptation of His Dark Materials (incidentally, three of the Best Books In The World Ever, currently also being adapted into the Three Worst Films Ever, but that's a whole other opportunity to watch me spit with rage).
They're trying to cast Mrs Coulter, but have failed to mention that the character is physically attractive - no, make that stunningly beautiful. The whole point, at first, of the character is that her looks allow her to get away with pretty much anything, as she captivates powerful men; and even manages to con her cynical, monstrously intelligent 11-year-old daughter.
Now, I can tell from the rest of the breakdown that they're not altering the plot, or any of the characters - they want a pretty faithful adaptation, it's just that they're expecting the usual mind-reader on the other end of the Interwebs. And they'll actually lose faith in this mind-reader, and all connected with hir, if ze sends in a load of normal-looking people...
And now I have to tell a load of normal-looking people, those that want submitting for the part, that they're too ugly...
Casting Directors, Part II
Now, away from casting directors' enlightened views of racial minorities, poor people and Northern people, and on to their similarly enlightened views of the LGBT community (yes, I'm aware that these sets of groups often contain the same people, who I'm sure are quadruply happy to know that those who control our media are portraying them so well).
My favourite today:
"However in our story, there is a possible slight sexual ambiguity towards the end of the piece (it is a comedy after all!!) so not too macho for this one."
Lollerskates, those comical gays.
I also like:
Male transsexual (MALE) (note: the only description).
EPICALLY UNBELIEVABLE LOGIC FAIL.
To be fair, some casting directors do not live in cloud cuckoo-land. One of them has just forwarded this quotation from Eve Ensler to DPM's inbox - presumably because she liked it, though it comes with no explanation...
"This is from Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will s hould have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"
Is true, no?
Though how we over here are supposed to influence the US elections I have no idea. Let's register our new kitteh as an American voter (what? That'd work if we were voting for McCain/Palin, methinks).
My favourite today:
"However in our story, there is a possible slight sexual ambiguity towards the end of the piece (it is a comedy after all!!) so not too macho for this one."
Lollerskates, those comical gays.
I also like:
Male transsexual (MALE) (note: the only description).
EPICALLY UNBELIEVABLE LOGIC FAIL.
To be fair, some casting directors do not live in cloud cuckoo-land. One of them has just forwarded this quotation from Eve Ensler to DPM's inbox - presumably because she liked it, though it comes with no explanation...
"This is from Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will s hould have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"
Is true, no?
Though how we over here are supposed to influence the US elections I have no idea. Let's register our new kitteh as an American voter (what? That'd work if we were voting for McCain/Palin, methinks).
Monday, 22 September 2008
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