This is Alison, The Unabashed Autist’s take on the blogger recognition award. I consider it an excellent effort, and I thank her for producing it.
National Park Cities Thunderclap
Introducing the concept of National Park Cities, publicising a thunderclap about the same and displaying some of my own photographs.
INTRODUCTION
To take part in a Thunderclap you have to be on at least one of facebook, twitter or tumblr, so for the benefit of those among my readers who cannot take part I am also including some recent photos of my own that tie in well with this particular thunderclap.
NATIONAL PARK CITIES
The idea behind this thunderclap, set up the folks at team4nature is that there are recognized health benefits to people having easy access to nature. Among the potential pioneers of the concept of a National Park City is London, and you can declare your support here. To take part in the thunderclap click here, or on the image below, which shows the story in full:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are some of my recent nature pictures, which also feature the two main parks in King’s Lynn, The Walks and Lynnsport Park and sections of Bawsey Drain and The Gaywood River.
Blogger Recognition Award
stimtheline is the first of my nominees to produce a post of their own in response to being nominated and it is a splendid effort 🙂
Gratitude
First of all, I’d like to tell you all how pleased and surprised I am to have been nominated for a Blogger Recognition Award by Thomas of Aspiblog! I always see people doing these, and now that I’ve been given the opportunity, I feel so included! One of my favorite parts of blogging is getting to participate in my community, and the fact that I’ve connected with enough people to be included in something like this, well, it makes me feel like I’m doing something right.
What does Stim the Line mean anyway?
Stim the Line began as a compromise. My therapist, who is an autism specialist, get it into her head that I needed to write a book. She insisted that I was self aware, good at explaining things (especially to neurotypical people), and that people empathize with me. I pointed out that I’d never written anything, ever…
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Nominated For a Blogger Recognition Award
My official response to being nominated for a blogger recognition award.
INTRODUCTION
My thanks to thetshirtblogger for nominating for a blogger recognition award. This post is my official response to that nomination. This is the tshirtblogger’s own description of what they do:
The Tee Shirt Blogger focuses on diversity in the main, and rather the celebration of diversity, in many ways it is no different to my other blogs, l love the intrinsic rawness and freshness that eclecticism offers us in life for all the good, bad and of course downright ugly.
ABOUT ASPI.BLOG
I blog about a wide range of stuff, with my principal interests being cricket, public transport, nature, science, politics, autism and photography. Nearly all the posts that I produce feature some of my photographs, and this one will be no exception. As branch secretary of the National Autistic Society West Norfolk and an autistic person I have strong opinions on autism and they way in which autistic people are treated, and this frequently comes into the blog. When I share something from another source I will always acknowledge that fact, and link to my original source. If I make an error in a blog post I will correct it, and give the correction at least as much prominence as the initial error had (for an example of me calling myself out go here). For more detail please visit my page “About Aspiblog“.
PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE – BIRDS
These were taken on Monday:
ADVICE FOR NEW BLOGGERS
- Your blog is yours – blog the way you want to.
- Visit lots of other blogs and leave likes and comments – this helps you get noticed and increases the number of people who read your blog.
MY NOMINEES
I could just list my 10 nominees, but I actually going to say something about each of them as well.
- Fargaregardsanna. Anna’s pet subjects include nature, her home town of Trosa and her artwork. As a sample of her work I give this recent post titled “Save Trosa nature – Behåll och stärk Trosas natur“, which features a picture she created based on a comment of mine:
- Cindy Knoke. Cindy is a photographer with a great interest in nature. Her most recent post is titled “Punto Tombo~“.
- Ioinvaggio. An Italian blog which regularly features lovely pictures. I give you a link to a post titled “Io sono Volpina Blu”
- The remaining nominees all have some connection to autism, starting with stimtheline, and by way of an introduction I give you “8 Favorite Quotes About Autism“
- Autism is my Superpower. I was introduced to this blog by someone I will be mentioning later. I point you to the same post that was my introduction to the blog “Environmental (Over)Consciousness“
- Yarn and Pencil. This blog covers autism, sensory issues, knitting and various other stuff. As an introduction I offer you “Dunster Castle“.
- Autism Mom. An excellent blog about one family’s experience with autism. I have an additional reason for including this one – to show that autistic people do not object in principle to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing about their children – we object to neurotypical parents of autistic children writing in a way that contributes to the ‘othering’ of autistic people. Thus the post to which I link to introduce you to this blog is the self-explanatory titled “I Want to be Called Autistic“.
- International Badass Activists. This was American Badass Advocates, run by Eve Hinson, when I started following. It has since become first American Badass Activists and then International Badass Activists, while Eve Hinson has become Eve Reiland. I have been introduced to many interesting and important stories by this blog. As an introduction here is her Autistic Union Pledge.
- The Unabashed Autist. Although I am nominating this blog, I must also mention that its creator, Alison, also has a creativity blog called Alison Wonderland that is not to be missed. For my introductory post, here is one she put up yesterday titled ““Elaine, do you think I would go willy-nilly into a situation so obviously fraught with potential complications?”“
- Finally, we come to thesilentwaveblog. This splendid blog is run by Laina, who also has blog specifically for sharing aspergian/autistic writing called Laina’s Collection. As an introduction to thesilentwaveblog I give you my all-time favourite from that site, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Neurotypicality“.
PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE TWO:
MUSCOVY DUCKS
PARTCIPATION IN THE BLOGGER RECOGNITION AWARD
These are the requirements for those who wish to participate in the Blogger Recognition Award:
1. Show your gratitude to the person who nominated you and provide a link back to the person’s blog.
2. Give a brief story on your blog.
3. Share two or more pieces of advice for beginner bloggers.
4. Choose 10 other bloggers to nominate.
5. Comment on each blog, letting them know they’ve been nominated and provide a link to your award post.
I will shortly be attending to number 5!
Ashes Composite XI
My composite Ashes XI with reasoning and justification. Also some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
A common feature of final days of series is the selection of a composite XI based on performances in said series. This is my effort for the current Ashes series. I am going to name my team in batting order first and then explain/amplify/justify these selections.
THE TEAM
My team in batting order (England player names in dark blue, Aus in green):
- Alastair Cook
- David Warner
- Dawid Malan
- Steven Smith (Captain)
- Shaun Marsh
- Jonny Bairstow (Wicketkeeper)
- Mitchell Marsh
- Mitchell Starc
- Pat Cummins
- Nathan Lyon
- Jimmy Anderson
MY REASONING
The openers need no justification – the only major contribution from an opener not named Warner in the series was Cook’s monumental innings at the MCG. Number three is a thorny one. James Vince has demonstrated clearly that he does not belong there, and his huge score here at the SCG notwithstanding I remain skeptical about Usman Khawaja, hence my decision to promote England’s leading run scorer in the series to a position he occupies for his county. Number four, and with it the captaincy was the easiest selection of the whole lot. Shaun Marsh has not put a foot wrong since being called up to replace the inadequate Handscomb at number 5, and I regarded him as a must pick. Jonny Bairstow and Tim Paine have both had good series with the gloves, but I have opted for Bairstow as definitely the superior batsman. Mitchell Marsh has had a magnificent series, and was an absolute shoe-in at number 7, especially as Moeen Ali has had a terrible series – he has batted poorly in every match and his bowling average reads like a Bradman batting average. Of the specialist bowlers I have picked those at number 8,9 and 10 in the batting order are absolute stand outs. Number 11 was tricky, since Anderson with virtually no support has had a good series, and the better supported Hazlewood as also had a fine series. Accepting that even were it possible vivisection is not permissible (though ‘Anderwood’ is only one letter removed from a former test great!) I have opted for Anderson as I rate his the greater achievement.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Looking at the makeup of the team (and accepting that Hazlewood for Anderson and Khawaja for Malan would both be valid changes), Australian picks predominate in both batting and bowling, though it is especially the bowling, which in my team comes out at 4-1 (including all-rounder Mitchell Marsh) to Australia and is reality more like 4.3-0.7 (rating my selection of Anderson over Hazlewood as a 70:30 pick) which has split the sides. England have collected barely more than half of the 100 wickets that were available to them at the start of the series, whereas Australia assuming that they take the six England wickets that remain in this match will have managed 90, failing to take 20 opposition wickets only on the MCG pitch.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I always like to include a few photographs in my blog posts, so I end with these recently taken pictures:
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.
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.
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:
- First up, a quite devastating review on the right-leaning website Matthew Hopkins News, written by Dr Elena Chandler and published under the title “Guest Review of To Siri With Love“
- Next up, one of the few one-star reviews on Amazon that Newman and her cronies were not able to get taken down in spite of their efforts in that direction, headed “This book is a grotesque invasion of a child’s privacy, should have never seen the light of day“
- Following on naturally from the above is this piece from Ann’s Autism Blog titled “On how power silences marginalised groups“
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.
- 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.
- 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.
Save Trosa nature – Behåll och stärk Trosas natur
An excellent and important post from Anna, with some sp;lendid infogđraphics/memes/drawings – please read and share!
Läs detta före 9 januari 2018, så har du chansen att bidra till att bevara och stärka Trosas natur.
Read this before January 9 2018 of you want to participate in the efforts to save Trosa nature.
Du har antagligen redan läst att 2017 uppmätte de högsta medeltemperaturerna någonsin (sen vi människor klarat att mäta de värdena). I SvD uttalade sig professor Johan Rockström och sade följande: “Om vi ska kunna leverera på Parisavtalet får vi inte chansa. Om planetens förmåga att buffra våra utsläpp går ner måste vi minska våra utsläpp ännu snabbare.” Han sade också “Vad vi gör de kommande fem åren blir avgörande för klimatets framtid”.
You have probably already read about how 2017 was the warmest year ever since mankind started to measure temps. In the Swedish newspaper SvD the professor Mr Johan Rockström said “If we’re gonna live up to Paris agreement we can’t take…
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Imaging For January Auction Under Way
An account of my work on the stamp section of James and Sons January auction.
INTRODUCTION
Over the course of Thursday and yesterday I was finally able to start the work of imaging for James and Sons January Auction (30th and 31st January). I was dealing with stamps, and most of the rest of this post deals with the two days work in question.
A BANNER ON THE ARMOURER WEBSITE
One of the publications I contacted regarding a very rare Jutland medal group that will feature in our January auction was The Armourer, and although we were too late for their print deadline they agreed to put something on their website. Here is a screenshot of the top of their current homepage…
STAMPS – FRAMEWORK
The stamp lots in this sale are numbers 601-850. Over the course of the two days I imaged all the lots, moved them to where they were being stored prior to auction, labelled said storage area and made sure that this section was as complete as I could make it. Some of the items had already been imaged, and in those cases I located the images and transferred them to the new file. Otherwise I photographed the large items and scanned the small ones.
THURSDAY – LARGE ITEMS
I dealt with the big stuff first, and when that was all done I went through the smaller items deciding which could be scanned and which needed photographing, and photographed the latter, leaving the scanning and final organisation for the Friday.
FRIDAY – SMALL ITEMS AND ORGANISATION
My employer was at a collector’s fair in Diss, leaving me in charge at the Fakenham end of things. I scanned the small stamp lots, checked the image sequence for gaps, noted the gaps, created labels for the shelves where the stamps were being stored, and also for the binders and boxes containing the smaller stamp lots (A4 size sheets in binders, smaller lots in boxes). Labelling the binders involved measuring the width of the spines so that I knew how wide each line of text could be and could set appropriate margins. At the very end I created a document to go in the front of a binder containing stamp lots that had not been given their numbers which detailed which numbers in the stamp range had not been used thus far. This done it remained only to finish my ersatz ice-coffee (a regular cup of coffee which because I had not had time to drink it had cooled to become an ice-coffee!) wash the cup, make sure all the images were in the auction file, close my computer down properly, gather my stuff, turn out the lights, activate the alarm and lock the place up.
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!
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.
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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A Video From We Own It
A short video from campaign group We Own It.
INTRODUCTION
This short but powerful video was brought to my attention by an email from We Own It, and I am sufficiently impressed by it to share it here, so that those of my followers on this blog who do not use Twitter, Facebook or Youtube can see it.
