Anyways, I bit the bullet and set up and an account on twitter and plugged the feed onto this site. My goal is to use it highlight things that I run across that are interesting but I don't have the time to write about. We will see how it goes. If you find it interesting or useful, please let me know.
And speaking of twitter, I started poking around to see how other people are using twitter to talk about autism and ran across the following tweets from someone calling themselves AutismSheri. This person's bio says that they are "out to prove to the world that Autistic people are awesome!" and some of their messages are, well, interesting to say the least -
PPL! #Autism Say what u want 2 me,I care NOT! Hurt 1 Autistic person who reads ur CRAP&U WILL deal with me! Autistics Rock! Acceptance PPL!
PPL! I'll say this again! #Autism There is none so TRULY BLIND as those who CAN'T C the BEAUTY&LIGHT that is an AUTISTIC PERSON! GodBless:-)
PPL! #Autism I'm NO hero,NOR am I here 2 SAVE any1! We do NOT need SAVING, WE NEED ACCEPTANCE! WAKE UP PPL! Autistics Rock! God Bless! :-)
PPL! #Autism If u refuse 2 ACCEPT ur child, Do u really think others around u will! U CAN'T change bin AUTISTIC! ACCEPTANCE Is Key! WE ROCKThere are many more messages like these. I am guessing the point is to accept autism and not treat it, that autism is related to the hard substance that the Earth is made of, or that people with autism glow in the dark - I can't be sure from the limited context. I don't remember ever seeing my children glow in the dark but maybe they only do it after we go to sleep...
People will be people no matter were you go and I guess when you only have 140 characters to complete your message I guess you turn down the brain cells and turn up the emotion.
If this is the best that twitter has to offer my experiment may be short lived.
autism sheri's views are not unique. I have been dealing with the neurodiversity movement in one way or another for around 15 years now, going back to 1994 when my acquaintence who was friends with Jim Sinclair talked me into joining ANI when they first formed. At that time, 1994 I would have thought anyone thinking a cure for autism would be bad was crazy. I now have a blog that is largely devoted to anti-neurodiversity topics, as you know.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how to do a feed from twitter on my blog I wish I did. I set up an account on twitter and have a few tweets myself under autism's gadfly in case you are interested, but it is really hard to write about anything substantive for me in 140 characters or less so I am not much of a twitterer and I don't use the account much.
Johnathan,
ReplyDeleteI guess I still have a hard time understanding how anyone can be against curing something like autism.
It is pretty easy to plug twitter into your blog, you just need to add a gadget for twitter to you page (search for twitter). If you would like some help, drop me a line via the contact link on the left and I can e-mail you some instructions.