Fly-tying gained much of its momentum in the Victorian period. I love the Victorians, but so many of thSome thoughts on topics brought up in the book:
Fly-tying gained much of its momentum in the Victorian period. I love the Victorians, but so many of their confidently-asserted “facts” about science and history have since been proved wrong as we’ve built upon the collective knowledge that they’ve passed down to us. You wouldn’t listen to any advice from a Victorian physician, and we know now that fish don’t care about these rare feathers in lures, so using them is at best superfluous and at worst destroying birds, but this vestigial practice continues. Fly-tying does seem like a fun hobby that could be an outlet for creativity and stress, but some participants insisting on using materials that are stolen or poached just to follow Victorian junk science that we know was completely made up to sell books back in the day – that’s where even a rejuvenating hobby can instead take a dark turn.
Rant imminent: I’ve worked with and been close to many autistic people, and in this book the way autism was viewed by the justice system – letting criminals with a diagnosis walk free because of that diagnosis – made me viscerally angry. Autism does NOT impair a person’s ability to tell right from wrong. What autism (ASD) does affect, to varying degrees, is a person’s ability to perceive and, according to NTs, “appropriately” act on the social expectations of neuro-typical (NT) individuals. This is especially true when ASD individuals are never given verbal explanations or social education, but just left to “figure it out,” when not being able to intuit NT social norms is part of the core of autism. A rule that is explicitly stated throughout all our lives, like do not steal, is just as well understood by an ASD person as by an NT person, unless some other factor is at play, like severely diminished IQ, which can occur in either the ASD or the NT population regardless of neurotype. Not recognizing or understanding how to react to NT social cues has NOTHING to do with understanding moral right and wrong in the very vast majority of situations. ASD people should not be treated by the justice system as too damaged to understand when perfectly capable of understanding. It really bothered me that two judges who had no understanding of ASD were making case law about how the law should view ASD people.
Erroneous terminology was used in the text to describe ASD, which may have come from the author or his sources, such as calling ASD a psychological and mental disorder. ASD is not either of these, but neurological. This is important because neurology is the physical structure of the brain. While a psychological or mental disorder means that someone is experiencing a disorder where their thoughts have become in some way unhealthy, and treatments can be explored with the goal of restoring health, ASD being physical means that ASD brains are in fact functioning exactly the way they are built to function, and doing exactly what they are supposed to do. An ASD person can have additional mental difficulties, just like an NT person can have additional mental difficulties that affect their understanding in certain situations and could legitimately affect legal sentencing, but in neither case is just being born into a neurotype an automatic mental impairment.
The word “suffering” kept being used. People do not suffer from being autistic. It is who they are. It is also difficult, but this is not because there is something innately wrong with being ASD. Being neuro-typical is also difficult, but NTs have the added privilege of living in a society structured and maintained by people who think and function on the same basic pattern that they do. Society has been built to facilitate being an NT. When an ASD person has to function within a structure that was set up by others for others, it can be exhausting, frustrating, and isolating. Common ASD struggles, like insomnia and sensitivity to sensory input, are often not societally accommodated: jobs are still mostly nine to five and traffic armed with blaring sound systems is everywhere. ASD characteristics are often not tolerated: summoning the energy amidst a very stressful sensory overload to ask for quiet is usually framed as being annoying and nitpicky; and inconsistent eye contact is touted to indicate that someone is a liar, untrustworthy, or uninterested in a social relationship. If society and social norms had been constructed by an ASD majority, NT people would be considered to have a disorder, unable to perceive numerous sounds and textures, or to comfortably have a conversation with anyone without looking them in the face to see their eyes and mouth.
The two main autistic “symptoms” that were brought up were lack of eye contact and “ticks.” ASD is not an illness; it does not have symptoms. ASD people do have a different system of body language than NT people. Just as NT body language is not a symptom of an illness, neither is ASD body language. Less eye contact is better described as a common characteristic. By “ticks,” which are not a common characteristic of ASD, I assume everyone in the book meant stimming. Stimming can take many forms and, unlike ticks, can be consciously controlled. Stimming could be rocking, foot tapping, wiggling a pen back and forth, lots of things – but the point is that it is a self-calming action. It is a natural solution ASD people use to ease anxiety, a common source of anxiety being social interaction with NTs and their expectations. Young children are usually socially conditioned to stop obvious forms of stimming, which is misinterpreted by NTs as being disrespectful or disruptive, when actually stimming helps ASD people feel more comfortable and focus more easily. This NT social pressure usually results in ASD adults stimming in ways that NTs don’t notice, or not stimming at all, which is detrimental to managing stress and contributes to “the cost of passing”: strains that accumulate for ASD people due to having to go against natural ways of being in order to fit in with NTs.
ASD needs to be properly understood by NTs so that the actual capabilities of people are considered. If this court case had been about someone with a low IQ being thoroughly assessed by an expert who understood the implications of that, and resulted in a suspended sentence that also offered support to that person to gain understanding and strategies so as not to repeat the theft, then fine. Instead, a quick test was administered, a questionable diagnosis given, and an erroneous blanket stereotype was reinforced that ASD individuals can’t understand or control their own actions so oh well. Finding eye contact distressing and so not conforming to a social convention has nothing to do with understanding that breaking into a building, stealing, and cagily fencing unique historical specimens for personal profit is wrong.
I’ve seen ASD kids missing out on an education, because it was assumed that they were incapable of following basic rules that they were perfectly capable of following with a minimum of understanding and support. So they were left out. This attitude is imparted to the NT kids, seeing an ASD kid as an outsider who everyone was suitably “tolerant” of by virtue of letting them hang around in the same room as long as they stayed quiet and didn’t attempt to interact. Essentially, ASD kids – even when demonstrating gifted level IQs and advanced skills – were seen by many NTs as perpetual infants with little to no potential and so only worthy of perfunctory effort. Deciding that people with ASD are too damaged to understand right from wrong is just another form of this exclusion from society. Just being ASD in and of itself does not diminish a person or make them less equal under the law. It isn’t kindness or inclusion to say that the rules don’t apply to someone who absolutely understands those rules and has the capability to follow them, just because that person is labelled as different. It’s another way of saying, “You’re not one of us,” when we’re all human....more
Written by the original head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, who burned the country's stockpiled elephant tusks in the 1980s to call attention to the nWritten by the original head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, who burned the country's stockpiled elephant tusks in the 1980s to call attention to the need for a ban on the ivory trade, this book offers many insights into the challenges of working with a government to save wildlife.
Some standout parts of the text: - learning about your random appointment to a government office through the news, just like the rest of the public - the government being very reluctant to arm rangers against poachers due to worries about potential political insurrection - Kenyan society's struggles with tribalism over racism - how easy it is for people in power to siphon conservation money to everything except conservation
A very interesting look into conservation issues on a national scale....more
This book is like a car accident you can't look away from. The author doesn't come off as sympathetic. She goes on and on about not being able to talkThis book is like a car accident you can't look away from. The author doesn't come off as sympathetic. She goes on and on about not being able to talk to anyone in her husband's village and feeling left out, but never bothers to learn the language. She gets malaria because she consistently refuses to sleep with the blanket over her face. During the Maasi warrior ceremony she sulks about not being the centre of attention herself. Up to three times a chapter she bursts into tears at not getting her way.
Infatuation is imagining someone is a handsome and "exotic" Prince Charming, whereas actual love includes trust, compassion, and understanding. There’s infatuation at first sight, but not love at first sight. The author briefly meets this man and gives up her home, relationships, and business to move to Kenya, without first telling him she’s returning or even finding out if he wants to be with her. She sacrifices everything for a romantic fantasy and unfortunately ends up getting conditioned by an emotional and physical abuser but, up to the last page, claims he didn't know what he was doing and that they were in love but he changed. (He is actually very consistent about falsely accusing her of cheating on him, starting only a few days after they begin dating, but she’s especially surprised at still being accused after their marriage. It made this quote come to mind: "When people show you who they are, believe them.") The author recalls some Kenyans telling her "all men are like this," but they are not, and her brother-in-law and his words more than confirm this. Her husband is responsible for his own actions. She’s responsible for how she continues to portray them. If this book had been about life lessons she wanted to pass on, to help others recognize the early signs of an abusive or codependent relationship, instead of continuing to romanticize and justify, then this book could have been really powerful....more
Didn't enjoy the science interlude articles scattered throughout. There were errors in a number of them, as the writers weren't necessarily stickin2.5
Didn't enjoy the science interlude articles scattered throughout. There were errors in a number of them, as the writers weren't necessarily sticking to their areas of study....more
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