Archive for August, 2009

Shift Journal at One Year

Imagine, just as an exercise, that beyond the one percent of the population diagnosable with autism, there is another four percent whose cognitive style is describable under the less rigorous category of the Broad Autism Phenotype, or BAP—a total of five percent for whom an autistic experience of the world is the norm.  Again just as an exercise, imagine the weight that norm would carry if the total autistic population were ten percent (roughly that of gays and lesbians).  Imagine it again at twenty percent, and then forty—still a minority, but a sizable one, and one that can begin to rival the remaining sixty percent as “the” defining neurology for the population.  Imagine it at fifty, and then sixty—at what point might the diagnosed autistics mysteriously become more “able,” living in a world where the social and environmental standards were increasingly defined by their own phenotype?  Imagine the world they’d be living in were their numbers to combine with the B...[Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 09/3/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

Emergence

On the autism rights and neurodiversity blogs in July last year, fury erupted around the radio show host Michael Savage’s comments that autistic kids were brats. Savage said that autism was a “...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 08/31/09 | No Comments | Read More

Chills

I can't exactly remember when the chills first started. When I was in summer camp when five or six, I remember concentrating on placing my right hand over my left side to be able to say the Pledge of...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

They Call Me Quiet, But I’m A Riot

Ebulliently defiant on your car radio, Katie White—no matter what friendly guess or nickname she’s offered—is all sass and holding her ground: that’s not her name. Performing live, thoug...[Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

paradox of words

Of the seemingly infinite number of paradoxes that go with being human, there is the one where we find ourselves experiencing experience as an individual, a separate being, often alone while seeking t...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Neurodiversity: A Pre-emptive Reply

Hello, there.  I’ve been expecting you.  While the focus here at Shift may be a good bit more broad than that found at, say, Ballastexistenz, aspie rhetor, Whose Planet Is It Anyway?, or Asperge...[Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Tail Swallower

The symbol of our earliest known religions, back when goddesses ruled the world, was the serpent. The goddess had several familiars or manifestations. The serpent was unique. “The snake is life f...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Notes on Five Spectrums

I. Intelligence Intelligence, as most everyone will cheerfully agree, is distributed unevenly; some people have more of it, some have less.  Rare, though, are those who will identify themselves as...[Read More]

Mark Stairwalt on 08/28/09 | 1 Comment | Read More

Evolution and Succession of Obsessions

My father was a collector.  He maintained a stamp and coin collection.  He also had a large collection of tools, including the various gadgets and accoutrements targeted to achieving something usefu...[Read More]

Andrew Lehman on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More