The Pig War. An ironic revisiting of a war between the US and Britian that almost happened, but didn’t.

Update: I emailed the article’s author with a link to this ‘blog, and he sent back a reply almost instantly. He points out that I’m killing the messenger, which I probably am, and that he’s not an MD, which is true.

FemmeDeLaCreme brings to my attention an article about the intersection of Asperger’s Syndrome and bioethics. Titled ‘Would You Have Allowed Bill Gates To Be Born?, it treads on an issue important to me: The death of Bill Gates. No, wait. That’s not the important issue. Sorry.

Seriously, though: If I hear one more time that Asperger’s Syndrome is a ‘milder form of autism,’ I’m going to tear someone apart. Or at least pout. I’m so sick of my situation being described as ‘mild.’ It’s far from mild.

But the point being made is that advances in genetic testing might one day drive genius out of our gene pool through pre-natal testing and abortion. The real question is: What’s the value of the non-normal? And there’s a sort of fascist assumption behind the question, though the neurotypical might not see it that way, being typical. Why should the non-typical have to defend themselves by propping up Bill Gates (please, can we find a better example?) to justify their existence? And just what, exactly, is it that is meant by ‘value’ in this question? Why is Bill Gates’ contribution any more valuable than someone who’s catatonic?

Keep in mind that Gates has remained silent on whether he actually has an AS diagnosis. Yes, the author, an MD, is diagnosing Bill Gates with AS, a medical condition he might not have in order to promote his argument about the value of Aspies to society.

The author asks this question: “How can we draw lines between disabling diseases such as severe autism and more mild differences such as Asperger’s, which may give society some of its greatest achievers?” And this question, while asked in the spirit of solving a dilemma, actually carries forward an important assumption from earlier in the article: It implies, without disclaimer, that autistic people without Aspergers diagnoses are not and cannot be valuable to society the way Aspies might. It implies that it’s OK to abort more severe cases, because they can’t contribute to society. The moral dilemma our author is trying to solve is not whether it’s wrong to judge the future lives of the unborn based on their genetic makeup — that’s a given, because it will be happening, and in fact already is happening. No, according to him, the dilemma is where to draw the line between those who will be beneficial to society and those who are completely unwanted, either by their parents or society at large.

What’s disturbing to me about this article is that I’m someone who’s right on that very borderline. I’m the guy he’s talking about. As such, I feel a need to defend myself from this guy. Based on his argument, I feel a need to say, “Hey! I’m not a ‘useless eater’… I’m beneficial to society, just like Bill Gates!” But I shouldn’t have to defend myself in a humane world.

Just another example of how completely self-absorbed the neurotypical are. My loyal readership excluded, of course.

One of the good things about the article was a link to Aspies for Freedom, and after glancing at their web site, it seems like they’ve got their shit together.

I was browsing around on tribe.net, and it turns out there’s a tribe called ‘Bodhisattvas.’

Now, I had to wonder: Who would sign up for the bodhisattvas tribe on tribe.net? Maybe I’m just too serious about it, but that’s like having a tribe called ‘Catholic Saints.’ It’s a little bit different than that, in that many buddhists take a vow to become a bodhisattva, but still… So I poked around a little bit, and it was about as you’d expect: Some interesting folks, and some flakes.

But in one of the conversations there was a reference to bodhicitta, which was a piece of buddhist doctrine I never really understood back when I was learning that stuff. It was supposed to be something like the glue that holds the practice of buddhism together, but it always seemed vague. Even now, having just read some stuff about it, I’m hard-pressed to summarize in a sentence.

So while looking up bodhicitta on the web, I read a reference to a movie called ‘Chasing Buddha,’ about a former Catholic American woman who is now a buddhist nun, and teaches the dharma to prisoners in the American southeast. There’s a minimal entry on IMDB, but Amazon has never heard of it. She also has her own web site.

Here I was chasing a definition of ‘bodhicitta,’ and I came to chasingbuddha.org and Ven. Robina Courtin, and finally, to this picture (used here completely without permission):

And that, my friends, is a picture of bodhicitta.

Via boingboing:

I guess space aliens will be saved, too, by The Lowered.

This is my new Olympus XA, mounted on a tripod.

This is how it was price-marked.

In fact, Memorial Day is half-off-everything day at Value Village, so I actually paid something more like $1.50. I almost felt guilty buying it.

Other items I didn’t feel guilty buying: A 28mm/2.8 and 2X Teleconverter, both JC Penny branded. They were in a Sigma lens case so I was initally very excited, but alas, no. JC Penny inside. The previous owner had felt the same way, it would seem, because the big giant JC Penny logo on the lens cap was taped over with electrical tape. I’ll probably leave it there, too.

But the upshot is that I bought an Olympus XA, a k-mount 28mm lens, and a 2X teleconverter for less than $10. I can quit going to thrift stores now.

Plungercam, the ugliest camera known to man.

Dreamtime hippie gathering arts festival. It’s on the west slope in Colorado. I came across it as an ad on tribe.net.

I remember the first time I drove across the continental divide. I stopped in Steamboat Springs, got supplies at a health food store, and found a copy of Mountain Hippie magazine. I started wondering how many little enclaves of the kind folk were stuffed back in the crevices and canyons of the Rockies.

Since the advent of the internet, however, it’s pretty easy to find out. Though I have to admit, the ‘reviews’ of ‘Hippy Havens’ are more than a little naive. But that kind of goes with the territory, yes? The implication is that you can show up in Boulder, CO, and someone will take you in because you wear hemp clothing, you think war is bad, and you might have a joint to spare.

I have half a mind to start writing murder mysteries that exploit the hippy subculture the way Tony Hillerman has exploited native cultures of the southwest. Rainbow Granola Anubis is a past-life, shamanic crimefighter, who calls on her spirit guides and uses macrobiotic dietary rules to bring evildoers to justice, NO MATTER HOW KIND! Follow along as she totally mindfucks the cops into arresting the right guy, and then scoots away without a possession rap.

I think it has promise…

Meantime, in the 21st century…. couchsurfing.com

My eyes have been glazing over a lot. I haven’t been hiking lately (waiting for Monday, when theoretically there won’t be as many folks out and about, but then again it’s a three-day weekend). I’ve been going through stuff, throwing junk away, worrying over what to do with the good stuff, deciding the good stuff isn’t all that good, deciding to junk it.

Entertaining the notion of getting a truck, so I can put a camper on the back, so I can.. well.. camp in my truck. I can’t shake the image from the time I drove my car out the forest service road to the Sunrise Mine trailhead. There was a guy who had parked his truck camper on a pull-off next to the road, and the shoulder of the road wasn’t a shoulder at all, but an 800-foot drop straight down, and back up the other side of the valley to a view of granite mountaintops iced with glaciers. Dude was sitting in a lawn chair under an awning hanging off his camper, drinking coffee, just watching the glaciers melt.

But the eyes glazing over thing.. I’m in serious need of new input. That’s the measure of sentience: Input, processing, output. I’m behind on the output, but then again I’m autistic. So neener. Need. New. Input.

Hey, check it out: Scott McClellan refuses to say that the US invaded Iraq:

Q The other day — in fact, this week, you said that we, the United States, is in Afghanistan and Iraq by invitation. Would you like to correct that incredible distortion of American history –

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we are — that’s where we currently –

Q — in view of your credibility is already mired? How can you say that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I think everyone in this room knows that you’re taking that comment out of context. There are two democratically-elected governments in Iraq and –

Q We’re we invited into Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are two democratically-elected governments now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments, and we are there today –

Q You mean if they had asked us out, that we would have left?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, Helen, I’m talking about today. We are there at their invitation. They are sovereign governments –

Q I’m talking about today, too.

MR. McCLELLAN: — and we are doing all we can to train and equip their security forces so that they can provide for their own security as they move forward on a free and democratic future.

Q Did we invade those countries?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Steve.

Q Is Prime Minister Abbas doing enough to crack down on terror?

This week’s photo challenge on the Photo Challenge blogring is ‘zoom in.’

The lens is the Tamron 70-210 at the tele end, something like f/3.5. Connected, of course, to the Pentax *ist DS.