Bird Pictures and Other Stuff

Sharing some of the best recent finds from the internet, and also some of my own photographs.

INTRODUCTION

I have some bird pictures to show you from earlier today, and also a lot of fabulous pieces I want to share with you. I will start with the sharing and finish with the pictures.

NET NUGGETS

I start with a gem from whyevolutionistrue, titled “An open letter to Charlotte Allen, an ignorant, evolution-dissing writer“, which takes the person it is addressed to to task for a poorly written, ill-informed (indeed virtually uninformed) article.

All the rest of the pieces I am sharing with you have to do with…

AUTISM

I start with a piece from a blog which is new to me, anotherspectrum, and a piece title “I am atheism“. The piece tackles a particularly vile commercial put out by anti-autistic hate group masquerading as autism charity Autism Speaks, the title of which was “I am Autism”.

Another  new find is Discovering My Authentic Self, and I point you to “Autism Resources“, which is precisely what you might expect from the title.

My third autism related share comes with a challenge attached. It is Autism Mom’s piece “THE CONFUSION OVER THE LITTLE WHEELCHAIR” which tackles a problem that the recognised symbol for disability reinforces – the assumption that disability always means physcial disability. The challenge is this: can you come up with a replacement symbol for disability that acknowledges the full range of disabilities? If you create a post about your idea, linking back to this post, and I am impressed by it, I will reblog you.

I end this section with a reference to The Autistic Bill of Rights. The success of the original post on this theme from stimtheline has resulted in a shareable image from the same source (I printed one out at the library today), reproduced below:

Autistic Bill of Rights.pub

Please follow my example in sharing this as widely as you can!

INFOGRAPHICS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

For the first time in its 154 year history Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack has a woman on it’s front cover. Anya Shrubsole who bowled England to victory in the 2017 World Cup is the woman thus honoured:

WisdenWomen

Identifor produced this gem earlier today

Identifor

Finally we come to my photographs…

gullblackbirdOystercatcher IOystercatcher IIGullsMuscoviesbrown muscovyPair of muscoviesswimming muscovytrio of muscoviesDark muscovytrio of light muscoviesLight muscovyBlack Muscovygrey backed muscovycontrasting muscoviesmotltled muscovyBrown backed muscovyClassic muscovy

 

 

Autistic Bill of Rights Shareable Image

Following on from yesterday’s splendid introduction to the Autistic Bill of Rights, stimtheline has now produced this splendid shareable image…

Stim the Line

The Autistic Bill of Rights post that I made earlier has gone over so well, that I thought making an image of it would be a good idea.

These ten “amendments” cover what I see as the most important issues facing our community right now, although these all come from my experiences, which I recognize are not universal. I’d love to get more voices involved, and to put together a community approved Bill of Rights, so if that’s something you’re interested in. or would like to share with a wider audience, please contact me!

Autistic Bill of Rights.pub

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Monday Medley

Links to some of the best pieces from today, includign several about autism, a solution, a problem and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

This post is divided into three main sections – a sharing section, because there has been some truly outstanding stuff come to my attention today, a problems and solutions section and some photographs. 

THOMAS’ PICKS

To clear the deck for the rest of my shares, which are all around the same theme I start with this little gem from Atheist Republic titled “5 Major Reasons Why Creationists are Dead Wrong

For the rest of this section we will be using shades of #RedInstead because all these pieces relate to…

AUTISM

I start this section with an old post from Autism Mom titled “10 WAYS YOU CAN DEMONSTRATE AUTISM ACCEPTANCE

I have already reblogged stimtheline’s magnificent Autistic Bill of Rights, but I take the opportunity to point you all in that direction once again, complete with a jpg of the suggested Bill of Rights…

ABR

My remaining shares in this section are all from a new find…

TO ASPIE OR NOT TO ASPIE

Not many people have produced three full-length posts in the space of a day that I am eager to share, but this blogger has managed it with the following:

  • Think Different, on of the best pieces I have ever seen on the theme of embracing one’s diversity, in this case neurodiversity.
  • The Nuances of Discrimination, which deals with protecting autistic people from discrimination, and is an absolute must-read.
  • Is Autism a Disability? A wonderful post which tackles head on some of the ways in which the conversation about autism is currently cooked against us from the start. I quote the closing lines of the post as an appetiser:

    It’s a label that holds me down and pushes me into a box I can’t escape from.
    Give me some new words to define me.
    Or better yet, let me define myself.

A SOLUTION AND A PROBLEM

First, a solution to the problem I posed on Saturday in “Failing to Convert“:

Logic Solution

Here is Hamz George’s explanation of why this is so:

Hamz Jeorge 
Jan 6, 2018

Relevant wiki: Truth-Tellers and Liars

Since every statement is false, let us convert them into true statements, and number each statement:

Ann: 1) One of us took the painting. 2) The painting was gone when I left.

Bob: 3) I arrived first, third, or fourth. 4) The painting was still here.

Chuck: 5) I arrived first, second, or fourth. 6) The painting was gone when I arrived.

Tom: 7) Whoever stole the painting arrived after me. 8) The painting was still here.

According to statement #7, Tom is not the thief. #8: Since the painting was there when Tom arrived, he could not have been the last to arrive. Tom must have gone there first, second, or third. #6: The painting was gone when Chuck was there, so he didn’t arrive first. #5: So Chuck got there second or fourth. #4 and #8: As two other members (Bob and Tom) arrived to see the painting, Chuck didn’t get there second, either. So Chuck arrived fourth. #3: This means Bob arrived first or third. #2: Since the painting was gone when Ann left, she didn’t arrive first. Otherwise, no member after her would have seen the painting. So Ann went there second or third and Chuck arrived fourth. But since two other members (Bob and Tom) saw the painting when they arrived, Ann didn’t go there second, either. So Ann arrived third. #3: Therefore, Bob arrived first, and Tom arrived second.

In summary, Bob arrived first. Tom got there next and the painting was still there, so Bob was not the thief, and neither was Tom. When Ann arrived, the painting was still there, but it was gone when she left. So Ann was the one who stole the painting. Chuck arrived last and discovered that the painting was gone.

Yes, Charlotte, you were right.

A NEW PROBLEM FOR YOU TO TACKLE

Another one from brilliant

GCDs

PHOTOGRAPHS

Although not as dramatic as a few weeks back, The Walks, King’s Lynn’s best known park, is still somewhat lacustrine, which has led to it receiving a most unusual visitor – an Oystercatcher, a wading bird which would normally visit a park and for which King’s Lynn would be the extreme South of its possible living area…

gull and oysercatcher
The oystercatcher in shot with a gull.
Oystercatcher
A close-up of the oystercatcher
Oystercatcher - vignetted
a second close-up of the oystercatcher
Oystercatcher BB
What my bird book has to say about the oystercatcher
Oystercatcher range
The Oystrecatcher’s range

As you will see there were a few other fine birds on show today…

Library display
Close examination of this display of local publicity materials just inside King’s Lynn Library, will make my contribution to it obvious – it has looked like that for some time.

lacustrine walksmudlump Imudlump IImudlump IIIBlack muscovyGullsMixed muscoviesMoorhenMoorhensmuscovies x 3Muscovy ducks x 4Muscovy ducksMusocyv ducks x 2Swan 1Swan abd drakeSwans and muscoviesSwans IISwans IIISwans IVSwans VSwanstwo muscovy ducksWater birds

 

Autistic Bill of Rights

What an excellent idea – this deserves to be shared widely…

Stim the Line

If you’ve been through the American school system, you probably remember learning about the Bill of Rights. If you’re not from the US, or you slept through a decade of history classes, what we call the Bill of rights is just the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. With the exception of the 10th Amendment, 1-9 cover the guaranteed rights of an individual person.

Now, we all know that when the writers pictured a “person”, they thought of a Christian, white, male who owed property, so clearly, the Bill is not as comprehensive as you’d think.

Some groups have used the official Bill as a template, writing things like The Patients Bill of Rights, and The Students Bill of rights, and I think that it’s about time that we made one for ourselves.

Note: Some of these cannot apply to young children, but they should take effect as soon…

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Musical Keys and a Meme

An account of my Musical Keys session on Saturday and a meme that I created.

INTRODUCTION

Saturday was a Musical Keys day in King’s Lynn. This post shows you what I did during that session.

RETURN TO REAPER

Those who read my post about the session on January 6th will recall that in that session I was on a keyboard, which when you add Christmas in to the equation meant six weeks since I had used Reaper, so I was particularly pleased to get back to using Reaper. Once I had re-acquainted myself with what I had already done I moved on and created another major piece. I will met some photographs of my Reaper screens tell the rest of the tale:

Reaper 1
The first five pictures are from the first half of the session.

Reaper 2Reaper 3Reaper 4Reaper 5

Big piece 1
These last five shots deal with my new big piece.

big piece 2Big piece 3big piece 4big piece 5

THE MEME

A number of recent posts on this site have been about or have touched on the themed of “autism acceptance months” (here, here and here). During the weekend I created an #autismacceptancemonths meme for sharing on social media which has had some success, and for the benefit of those of my readers not on social media I reproduce it below:

Meme

 

The gift of autism

An excellent piece from a blogger who is going through the process of diagnosis – it is in keeping with the theme of #autismacceptancemonths brought to my attention by Jennifer Lisi. Please read it in full and post comments on the original.

Autism Acceptance Months II – Luke Beardon Joins The Fray

Sharing a wonderful post on the theme of autism accpetance from Luke Beardon. As this is a pure sharing post comments are closed – please comment on the original.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday I was inspired by a wonderful piece of work done by Jennifer Lisi to create a blog post titled “Autism Acceptance Months“. Well I was not alone in being inspired by it, and I now share with you a post created by Luke Beardon titled “Inspired by Jennifer Lisi“. Because this is a pure sharing post I am closing it for comments – to comment please visit Luke’s post, linked to above and in the next section.

INSPIRED BY JENNIFER LISI

Below is the opening of the post, and a screenshot showing a bit more of it:

Are you aware that there are moons and stars?
Are you aware that there is a theory of relativity?
Are you aware of the music of Mozart?
Are you aware that cars have engines?
Are you aware that houses need careful planning when built so they don’t fall down?
Are you aware that there are creatures living in the sea?
Are you aware that pacemakers help people with heart problems?
Are you aware of Harry Potter?

LB

JENNIFER LISI’S NEW MEME

Having set the ball rolling by providing the inspiration for both my and Luke’s posts, Jennifer has subsequently created this lovely meme:

AAccMeme

Autism Acceptance Months

Inspired by Jennifer Lisi on twitter, who created the graphic at the heart of it, this post sets out aspi.blog’s stall, taking autism acceptance is starting point and looking ahead to autism appreciation.

INTRODUCTION

This is a post about something magnificent I have just seen on twitter and wish to share with all of you. The text of this post is #RedInstead because it is specifically about autism.

AUTISM ACCEPTANCE MONTHS

To start with, below is a screenshot of the tweet, by Jennifer Lisi,  that prompted this post:

AAM

Now we move on to some extra thoughts of my own:

  • Although I will on occasions, when I believe people are doing it for the right reasons share stuff about “autism awareness” I will not use the phrase on my account because…
  • We have been banging on about awareness for ages, and I do not believe there is a problem any more with people not knowing of the existence of autism and autistic spectrum conditions, though there are a raft of problems when it comes to understanding of such conditions.
  • For me Autism Acceptance as shown in the graphic above is what we should be considering as our basic start point, with the hope that acceptance of us for who and what we are will lead to…
  • Appreciation of our strengths and good qualities.

Thus the journey we look to trace out runs not awareness-understanding-acceptance  but awareness-understanding-acceptance-appreciation.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I end this post with some photographs, in this case with a cormorant in the starring role:

lapwings close up
We lead in with four pictures featuring lapwings…

Lapwings group shotlapwings Ilapwings x 8

Cormorant and lapwing I
…this picture introduces the cormorant who is present in all the remaining shots.

Cormorant ICormorant IICormorant and lapwingsCormorant, lapwings, church, flying gullCormorant and lapwings IICormorant IIICormorant and lapwing IICormorant IVCormorant, lapwings, churchCormorant VCormorant VICormorant with spread wings

Autism and Music

An account of the first Musical Keys session of the new year and some autism related links.

INTRODUCTION

This post comprises two elements – one an account of the first Musical Keys session of 2018 and the other sharing some excellent recent stuff about autism. Because it is an autism themed post I am using #RedInstead text (scarlet for headings and links, maroon for body text). 

MUSICAL KEYS

Musical Keys is an activity run for autistic people who enjoy music. Generally speaking it is run fortnightly, with a session for youngsters between 3PM and 3:45PM and a session for older participants from 4PM to 5PM. I had initially been expecting to renew my acquaintance with Reaper (a computer program for composing music – see here for more details) but circumstances dictated otherwise, and I actually ended up on a…

KEYBOARD

This machine can function as a wide range of instruments/voices and in a wide range of styles, and I explored a lot of the instruments in the course of the time I spent on it.

Keyboard

John, one of the two people who run these sessions, showed me how to play chords as opposed to single notes, and I experimented with playing varying numbers of notes simultaneously, and using the whole range of the keyboard. 

I created a few chords where the notes played could also form words, such as face/cafe, cabbage etc. I enjoyed making the acquaintance of this keyboard and learning something of its capacities.

Chord
These notes could form the word ‘cabbage’ (there being 2 as, 2 bs, 1c, 1e and 1g. Kirsten Murray, who helps John to run the sessions, took this picture with my camera.
Face
Here you can see the notes – I played this with my left hand, while photographing with my right.
Screen
A close up the central screen.
Voice
The screen with more of its surrounds, including detail about the ‘voice’ settings.

AUTISM RELATED LINKS

This section starts with a post from Rhi that I regard as being the last word on “mild autism”, published under the title “Autscriptic: Mild Autism“. 

My next piece comes from the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, written by Shannon Des Roches Rosa of squidalicious.com under the self-explanatory title “Eleven Ways You Can Make Your Autistic Child’s Life Easier

The next two pieces in this section are both from the blog “Autism is my Superpower

TO SIRI REVISITED

I have linked to a number of reviews of Judith Newman’s book “To Siri With Love”, although since I have not read the book I can offer no direct comment about it, and here are a few more pieces about that book:

AN ANTI-AUTISTIC HATE GROUP
MASQUERADING AS AN AUTISM CHARITY

The organisation who are the subject of this little section go by the name of Autism Speaks, who you will also see referred to as Autism $peaks, Auti$m $peak$ and A$ in various places. 

  1. From care.com comes this story, whose title “Autism Mother Sues Autism Speaks For Disability Discrimination” gives you more than a hint of the truth about this vile organisation.
  2. The website ownshrink.com has a piece titled “Autism Speaks: Torturing autistics for profit” which is as damning an indictment of an organisation that claims to be an autism charity as you could find anywhere.

 

8 Favorite Quotes About Autism

These are some splendid quotes about Autism – though I would prefer the fourth one down to be in shades of #RedInstead rather than blue!

Stim the Line

If you interact at all with social media, you’ll know that quotes are everywhere. They’re usually posted on top of images on mountains or sunsets, and are more often than not credited to ‘anonymous’. Not to say there aren’t some good quotes out there, especially ones that describe experiences, instead of forcing vague positivity on the reader. It can be hard to sort through Autism quotes, because a large percentage of them are made about Autistic children by Neurotypical adults. These often border on inspiration porn- and they infuriate me.

So, in order to combat these, I’d like to share some quotes about Autism that I enjoy.

Image result for quotes about autismSee the source image

See the source image

See the source image

See the source image

See the source image

See the source image

So here they are! If I had to pick one, I think that the square peg one is my favorite, but there’s some may quotes out there, that I’ve probably missed some great ones! So, dear reader, if you’ve got a quote you…

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