Sticker Collages

Here are some Sticker Collages I recently made.

Guardian Demon

All those people who claim to do good but only cause damage

Empowerment/emancipation can be fun.

Grr

Means nothing, just a fun image.

Drog 5 - The Box

One little request, I'm a bit dyslectic so please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes

Rant: Your Logic is SO Faulty!

Great post at FWD/Forward. Rant: Your Logic is SO Faulty!
FWD is my favourite feminist blog.

Global warming

Today is Blog Action Day and the subject is Climate Change so let's talk about it.

But immediately There is a little problem, even as a kid I always wanted to know the why and what on any giving subject, if a teacher at school said something I wanted proof. Some teachers liked this, some hated it. This might be a symptom of autism (a really cool one) or maybe I'm just a smart ass.

And with global warming there is evidence that it is happening and that humans are involved in it. But we just don't know how, when somebody says that the Netherlands will flood in 50 years he is really saying that the worst case scenario is that we will drown over here, not that it will definitely happen (the chances for these worst case scenarios are very small). Saying that everything is allright and that there is nothing going on is on the other hand just lying and stupid.

So on one side of the debate people are exaggerating and the other side is lying, so what now. We could try to read the research and make up our own mind but to be honest the science involved is way beyond my understanding. So from now on we enter the realm of my personal interpretation and opinion, feel free to disagree.
The climate is changing and we are partially to blame but the climate is always changing and it doesn't always make sense ,apparently there was a miniature ice age a few hundred years ago which provided some spectacular winters over here, you can see paintings of this on a lot of Dutch Christmas cards.
I don't believe that the climate will change dramatically within the next ten years or that it is to late. Should we do something about this, yes but we should be reasonable about it and make sure that what we do actually helps and that it is not something we do to make us feel better. This might sound cynical but green has become one of the biggest marketing tools of the last few years.

For example, here in the Netherlands there is this hype for green electricity, pay a bit more and a certain amount of your electricity will be generated by the sun and the wind. Sounds great but how will they do that, my power comes trough the same wire as that of my neighbour so we get the same amount of green power but my neighbour pays more so he can feel good about doing something for the planet.

There are loads of these examples, flying around the world and buying a piece of rainforest to feel good, the trees need about 40 years to undo your damage and sometimes the trees don't exist, or are sold several times or cut down for economical reasons.

Hybrid cars are just as good/bad as a good diesel car, on a simular note ethanol isn't the answer to.

A lot of these easy but sometimes expensive solutions are a marketing trick to sell to you the feeling of doing something good. Global warming is a serous and complex issue, it can not be solved by one liners in adds.

I don't have all the answers but I will keep looking for them and in the meantime I will do the little things like using environment friendly light bulbs, don't keep the heater on all day, reuse my plastic bottles and just generally be sensible about this.

Source
Global Warming
Ethanol in Cars

Logo?

Is the puzzel ribbon really the best symbol for autism?

The ribbon links it with deceases like AIDS and Breast Cancer which are important causes but autism is different, it's not a decease (even though the anti vaccination lobby tries to convince people it is).

The puzzle piece as a symbol for Neurodiversity is a nice idea but it's meaning got lost when people started using it who are not in favour of Neurodiversity (Autism Speak just to name one).

It's also a very ordinary looking logo and with so much talent within the spectrum we must be able to come up with something better.

But to be honest I don't have any idea right now.

PS. I'm posting a poll in my sidebar about this.

Jenny McC has a small P

I don't like Jenny McCarty.
As an actress/presenter/comedienne (I've never been really sure what she is), I always found her very annoying but as a fake autism expert/activist I really hate her.

Why not let her say what she wants to say, how about free speech? The reason is that some of the things she says are very harmful and even dangerous.

So I'm going to say some nasty things about het but for legal reasons I'm going to start with the claim that she has a very small penis.

• The claim that Autism can be cured.
  
  • This is just not true.
    
  • It hinders proper autism research.
    
  • The claim that autism is a disease, that there is something wrong with me is in my opinion racist.
• The claim that vaccination causes autism.
  
  • Once again not true and it also gets in the way of research.
    
  • It makes the vaccination rates drop to a dangerous level.
• The claim that there are no adults with autism.
  
  • I'm 34 and I have autism so Fuck You.

She tells people based on some weird paranoia idea not to vaccinate their kids, she tells people to withhold their kids a basic medical treatment. This is a form of neglect.
As far as I am concerned this is a form of passive child abuse.

Maybe all of this is a bit harsh but she is one of the people who yells that a generation of kids is being stolen and that the government is poisoning babies so as far as I'm concerned the gloves are off.

Thank you for letting me rant.

Sickening

Found this link to a magazine article at Turner and Kowalski's blog.

It's an article about autism treathment from 1965 and it describes therapist screaming at autistic kids, hitting them and the aplication of Shock Therapy.

This is torture. This is a direct violation of the Universal decloration of Human Rights, article 5 - No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The realy sad part is that these kinds of things still hapen at places like this.

Not only is this totally useless, but this is really harmfull.

This leaves me sick and really pissed off.

Video on Vaccination

Found this at Autism Nostrum.

Bye Bye Sint

This post will at first glance makes no sense to non Dutch people because it deals with Sinterklaas. I have once described Sinterklaas as Santa Claus but with more dignity and a bit racist.
For months children are bombarded with the coming arrival of Sinterklaas, and when after a few weeks when he leaves on the fifth of December, thats it.

Now a group of parents of children with autism has begun an action to get Dutch media to not only report the arrival but also the departure of Sinterklaas. Some autistic kids are just confused about where he has gone while other are stil afraid of him and Zwarte Piet (Sinterklaas doesn't just reward good behavior but also puninesses bad kids).

While I think it a nice idea I'm not convinced it's only autist kids that have this problem. Personally I was never afraid of Sint and Piet but I knew a lot of kids that where confused and scared by this whole thing.

Some random Sint Trivia

• One of the most populair Sint songs is “Sinterklaas Kapoentje”, a kapoen is a castrated rooster, some people say this is a reference to Sinterklaas being circumcised which in itself could be a reference to Sint being a foreigner.
• Although modern mythology makes Sinterklaas come from Spain (he lives there most of the year) he officially comes from Turkey.
• Nowadays he is a very nice and gentle man, the historical figure was a bit of a hard ass (apparently he beat up some other priest).

Autie Kitty

I sometimes come across the terms Autie and Aspie to describe Autism and Asperger and they just rub me the wrong way. If somebody stands on your feet you have a boo-boo but if somebody hits you with a baseball bat you got a concussion, not a boo-boo. Autism is a serious subject, don't cute it up. Don't Hello Kitty it.

If someone would do this with something like cancer people would be pissed so why do we do this to ourself? The following examples would and should not be accepted.

• I got a Tummie Wummie in my head.
  
• My Hiv Wif is not progressing.
  
• I broke my legs when a car went Boom Boom.
  
• My bone marrow is a bit Leukedelic.

If we want the rest of the world to take us serious we should start with taking ourself and our condition serous. We are not five year olds (unless you actually are five years old, in that case, go play with your Lego).

Stop with the silly names, its embarrassing.

The Cure

Turner and Kowalski's Blog has begun with a response to the "I am Autism" video called "I am Autism Speak". They ask readers to send pictures ridiculing Autism Speak and it's ville video.

This is a picture I send to them. I really like T&K's blog, at times it rude and a bit naughty (they have used the phrase "LBRB on acid").
It makes the connection between all the different forms of civile right with a clear focus on the Autistic and LGBT community.

48 Hour

last weekend the 48 Hour Film Project visited Utrecht, in the past I have participated but not this year.
In the last two and a half year I have become a fan of the 48HFP, even if I'm not making a film myself, I try to go to the screenings in Amsterdam and Utrecht and sometimes volunteer to help at the screenings.

Yesterday the films made last weekend where shown in Utrecht and Richard Schut (the organiser of 48HFP in the Netherlands) asked me why I didn't enter a team this time, after a few basic answers (no time, busy, broke) I said that I had a strange year, when he asked me what I meant I decided to tell that I was diagnosed with Autism.

This was one of the first times I told anybody about it (I told my direct family and one person at work) and to my pleasant surplice Richard didn't freak out or started to treat me like an imbecile. He asked what it meant to me and how it related to film making. This felt good and it gives me hope that the rest of my coming out will be easier.