Disability As A Point of Pride

Now back to the other side of this coin as to whether or not someone would WANT to have a disability - as I have pointed out before, there is a certain very vocal contingency within the deaf community (oh, stop it ... you know what I mean) who believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being deaf - that certainly wouldn't want to be cured and, if I understand this correctly, if able, might DELIBERATELY try to have deaf children.

There's a deaf artist and designer named Tomato Lichy who explains it like this, "Being deaf is not about being disabled, or medically incomplete - it's about being part of a linguistic minority. We're proud, not of the medical aspect of deafness, but of the language we use and the community we live in."

Of course one wonders if this conversation can translate over to the autistic community - one really DOES have trouble imagining a couple "on the spectrum" DELIBERATELY wanting to have an autistic child.

On the other hand, it puts me in mind of my little teeny-tiny pocket-sized professor friend.

You see - she has a few Aspergian tendencies. Then again - I mean - I'VE never heard of a PROFESSOR with ASPERGER'S traits, have YOU.

But I believe she and I were once having a conversation about how much trouble she had when she was fool enough to try to work in private industry for a while. She was bitching quite precipitously about not being able to understand office politics and the like and I told her I always thought it was a fair trade.

She asked me what I meant by that and I told her that I had met a good number of people who did really well in private industry.

Not a one of them do I think was ever moved to tears by a piece of music.

Not a one of them could appreciate the piece of the Nick Meyer commentary track on Star Trek II where he says, "I'm not going to TELL you why Khan never takes off the other glove."

Not a one of them do I think ever had a "moment of transcendence" while studying Torah.

Not a one of them ever, as an adult, ever took a dump in the front yard either, but, like I said - these are matters of give and take ... :)