Not really feeling it today...

But I'm going to try to make an effort to put at least a little something up every day.  As much to develop the habit and run the groove (rut?) as anything else...

I'm running a pretty nice cold and am in a medicated haze at the moment, so I'm not sure I have much of my own to offer at the moment.  So I'll step aside and throw a couple of links up tonight.  Just a couple of things that have caught my eye, caught my mind, recently.

For the first one, I'd like to introduce you to the Red Shirt Guy if you've not seen him before.   He showed up on the internet a few weeks back, maybe a month or two.  Something like that.  If you don't know what he's talking about, you're probably not alone.  He basically showed up at a gamers convention and called out the developers of the game for fucking up their own storyline.  And for doing so, was dubbed the nerd that out-nerded every nerd, ever.  There was a bit of a backlash when the video first circulated.

It was fairly obvious to a lot of the people that saw the clip that the Red Shirt Guy falls somewhere to the Asperger's end of the spectrum.  And quite a few voices started questioning whether it was okay to mock the kid for his disability.  The general tenor of their responses was one of condescending pity.  They felt sorry for the guy.

A few days after the initial video showed, the Red Shirt Guy posted a response, in which he confirms that he has Asperger's.  

You may look at the initial video and watch with a smug grin.   Or you might watch the second one and feel a sorrowful pity.

I don't think either of those responses are justified.  One of the things I love about talking to people on the spectrum...  It doesn't matter to them whether or not you think what they're doing is cool or hip or whatever.  You get their passion, regardless of what you or anyone else might think of it.  You get truth, regardless of the social acceptability of that.  And that's something I respect.  I say much props.

And as a secondary, I'll post a link to a piece that my friend Debi threw up on FaceBook today, where Jenny Browne argues that "We Should Dance While We Can."

That baby is 4 now, and we talk to her about my father, and about Wynn, knowing all she will remember are stories. We don’t talk about Scott tracing dead-end e-mail trails night after night, researching mental illness, raging at his lost brother and at me, digging futilely for answers.

We talk.  We don't talk.  We speak of.  We deny.  We acknowledge.  We ignore.

I can't help but think of Audre Lourde, saying "Your silence will not protect you."