Moggy's mess o' stuff

Do these parents seriously think that people won’t somehow notice her other differences, or that if they do, it’s going to be helpful for them to be frustrated/angry with the girl when she can’t act/behave/learn 100% like a non-DS person?  Or less careful to keep a bit of an eye out for her so someone noticing her impairment can’t as easily take advantage of or sexually assault her? (Thinking about the situation many autistic women land in, where potential allies unaware that we’re different assume we’re capable of handling/sensing situations we can’t, and therefore don’t keep an eye out for or warn us against predatory types that do notice our vulnerability.)  This is certainly one case where it’d have been useful for society to be more aware of the boatloads of disabled kids/adults judged unfairly and often given a hard time because we don’t “look disabled” to one person or another.  It’s not a fun or beneficial situation to be in.

I’m watching this at the moment — first time I’ve seen the AS character Karla, and I was fairly surprised that they handled it that well.  I would have been happier if they’d said “she is autistic, it doesn’t affect her intelligence” rather than “she has Asperger’s” but she wasn’t wildly stereotyped, and the so-called “social cluelessness” (not quoting the show) was depicted in a way that also showed it in a positive light.  I wasn’t happy to see that her character sheet at the show’s website says she “doesn’t understand affection” — but on the other hand, that’s listed with her psychological issues rather than mentioned as part of being autistic, the overall profile was well-done (she wasn’t recognized as being autistic & bullied, so she was labeled a truculent troublemaker and inappropriately expelled repeatedly), they didn’t imply that AS is a psych issue, and linked to the UK’s NAS (essentially a good group) for more info.  I’m not sure quite what to make of the page for her intro episode, as it describes her entrance rather ambiguously, so I’ll have to grab & watch it before I can say more about that. Still, overall it looks like Waterloo Road is doing a much better job than I’d expect of anything in the media, especially compared to what I’ve heard about AS/Autism depictions in my own country.

(You can find a UK proxy at this Xroxy.com page — if one doesn’t work, try the next — the FoxyProxy extension for Firefox is the best approach I’ve found. Once that episode is off the site, you can get it through one of the private servers BTJunkie lists as carrying the show; I’ve found TheBox is a good one for BBC stuff if they’re accepting members.)

I had been quite disturbed over this recent controversial situation, so I am happy to see that it has been rectified: “A Cal State East Bay math teacher and practicing Quaker who was fired for refusing to sign a state-required loyalty oath got her job back this week with an apology from the university and a clarification that the oath does not require employees to take up arms in violation of their religious beliefs.”

This has to be the “WTF!?” of the *week* — someone seriously took the time to create a “unix-like software package” for a computer that came out in 1988? (Not that I should talk; I’m the one hunting down and downloading software to try out!)