Back of the Envelope

This is interesting. From a Wired article on autism:

The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?

But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.

And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.

Baggs lives in a public housing project for the elderly and handicapped near downtown Burlington, Vermont. She has short black hair, a pointy nose, and round glasses. She usually wears a T-shirt and baggy pants, and she spends a scary amount of time — day and night — on the Internet: blogging, hanging out in Second Life, and corresponding with her autie and aspie friends. (For the uninitiated, that's autistic and Asperger's.)
...
Like many people with autism, Baggs doesn't like to look you in the eye and needs help with tasks like preparing a meal and taking a shower. In conversation she'll occasionally grunt or sigh, but she stopped speaking altogether in her early twenties. Instead, she types 120 words a minute, which the DynaVox then translates into a synthesized female voice that sounds like a deadpan British schoolteacher.
...
I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must have had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers. Her inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are telltale signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are expected to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.

People like Baggs fall at one end of an array of developmental syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders. The spectrum ranges from someone with severe disability and cognitive impairment to the socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome.

After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. "My care provider wouldn't even know how to work the software," she says.

It's a long quote, but it's a long article: that's just the beginning.

There are, I think, two dangers here, and psychiatrists have been guilty of both in the past. The first is to define every eccentricity, every deviation from a mythical norm, as a mental illness. Psychiatrists have long since taken homosexuality off the books as a mental illness, but there are still plenty of them who want to put conservatism and religious belief on. The second is to define nothing as a mental illness--people are just different, that's all.

I think that if you no longer call autism a mental illness, then mental illness doesn't mean anything at all. Amanda Baggs clearly has a high level of functionality, but she is still incapable of the basic tasks needed to survive in today's society. This isn't an alternative lifestyle she has chosen to live--she's simply chosen to embrace the limitations she can't overcome. Perhaps it is the most healthy thing for her at this point, but it doesn't make the disability any less real.

On the other hand, I do think there's a lot of truth in this:

Mike Merzenich, a professor of neuroscience at UC San Francisco, says the notion that 75 percent of autistic people are mentally retarded is "incredibly wrong and destructive." He has worked with a number of autistic children, many of whom are nonverbal and would have been plunked into the low-functioning category. "We label them as retarded because they can't express what they know," and then, as they grow older, we accept that they "can't do much beyond sit in the back of a warehouse somewhere and stuff letters in envelopes."

It quite possible that autistics are, by and large, no less intelligent than other people. A lot depends on how you define intelligence. Is it just what goes on in the brain? Or is how well you communicate with other people also a part of it?

Since I've been sort of moving to a monthly format anyway...

Sluggy Freelance — Zoe tries to put the gang to work, but she should know by now how that works out. Torg buys a Global Peanut butter Positioning System, and attempts to make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches using Gwynn as a guinea pig. One clutter golem later, Zoe kicks Gwynn, Riff, and Torg (along with the clutter monster) out of the apartment, even though it technically belongs to Torg. They can come back once they clean it up. Torg, Gwynn, and Riff make up, at least, and Torg manages to recruit one of those home improvement shows to help him clean up. And then, since Zoe said he has to get a hobby, he draws a comic book, which has shown in all it's, um, glory, this past week.

Day by Day — Sam convinces Damon and Jan to do a political podcast, mainly to keep them out of the new parents' hair. So that's what they do. We get numerous comics of the two of them discussing politics for the podcast, and talking to callers, a few of whom want to discuss politics too. Damon's has a hard time dealing with the fact that McCain's the de facto Republican nominee. Of course, Obama's throwing the Democratic side of the election for a loop. Even Damon's thinking of voting for him, mainly because he thinks Obama will unite Republicans against him later on. Oh, and I just noticed: Zed's wearing a Schlock Mercenary t-shirt in this one.

Scary Go Round — Amy decides to help Ryan get a girlfriend, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Hugo tires of their antics and gives Amy money to go get a hobby while taking Ryan under his wing. So Amy starts an antique store, and all's going well, until she meets her rival at a garage sale. Mr. Lovelace challenges her to a contest, and it turns out that Amy's met someone she can't outdrink. It looks like the two of them are rapidly bonding though, much to the distaste of the two old ladies who own the competing shop across the way. They've decided to start a smear campaign on Amy's character. One would think that they wouldn't have to make up dirt.

Dominic Deegan — The Oracle Huntress has tracked down Dominic, stabbing him and infecting him with a nasty virus, which he manages to fight off. But it's not pretty. Unfortunately, she's coming back, after the revelation that she's Dominic's half-sister. The defenses they put up against her aren't enough, and she soon finds Dominic. He may be more than she can handle, though.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — The catfight between Marsha and April is interrupted when the Dragon shows up and one of her goons shoots Marsha. I'd say it was a good thing to keep Marsha from murdering April, except, first, I'm not sure Marsha survived, and second, being captured by the Dragon is even worse. When she discovers that April is pregnant, the Dragon has ideas. Meanwhile, Blue brings Dave to meet up with Marsha and go a-murdering, but Dave wants nothing to do with it. Blue kicks Dave out of the car, and immediately goes back once she calms down, but Dave's gone (sounds like Jay got him). So she goes to the circus where April should be and finds that that's gone too. All in all, not a good night for Blue. Or Dave. Or April, or Marsha.

Schlock Mercenary — Having been captured, Tagon's crew is facing execution for knowing too much about Project Laz'r'us. Fortunately, Petey is on the case and able to threaten revealing it to the world, and Dr. Bunningus is able to offer up an alternative: modify the crew's memories to erase the knowledge. It's agreed, but Schlock manages to keep a small bit of himself unaffected, so he can take revenge for his mistreatment.

Jonah Goldberg has set himself a difficult task. He wishes to show that fascism, far from being a right-wing phenomenon, is a quintessentially left-wing endeavor, deriving from the same progressive movement that gave rise to socialism and modern liberalism. This is difficult not because it's hard to do--there is no shortage of approving quotes about Mussolini from early-twentieth century American progressives, nor is it hard to trace fascism's poltical roots from socialism and pragmatism--but because conventional wisdom has defined fascism as right-wing, and most liberals will try to shout you down if you say otherwise. It shouldn't be hard: fascism has always been a revolutionary ideology, which by definition is un-conservative. The fact that American Conservatism is based on Classical Liberalism, the belief in individual liberties and property rights, both of which are antithetical to fascism (or any form of statism), should make his case a no-brainer. Nevertheless, he makes a thorough argument concerning the origins of fascism, presenting as its basis a national form of socialism, similar but opposed to the Marxist international socialism.

One part I particularly enjoyed was his chapter on religion and fascism. His definition of fascism as a civil religion fits its origins neatly. Communism, after all, is an atheistic religion, and coming from a similar origin, it is no surprise that fascism is a civil religion with nationalism as its central component. Speaking of nationalism, Jonah also makes the case that nationalism and patriotism are not the same thing. Patriotism is a reverence for the institutions and ideals of a nation (although not without regard for its faults), whereas nationalism believes in the nation, or often, the race, even while trying to tear down the institutions and ideals. It does not have to do away with the original religion--although it often does--if it can subvert it. Jonah cites plenty of evidence of this, and has sufficient quotes to show that the argument that "Hitler was a Christian," which I've heard before, simply does not hold water. Consider, for example, these words of Hitler: "Christianity will disappear from Germany just as it has done in Russia... The German race has existed without Christianity for thousands of years... and will continue after Christianity has disappeared... We must get used to the teachings of blood and race."

Or this campsong used by the Hitler Youth:

We are the happy Hitler Youth;
We have no need for Christian virtue;
For Adolf Hitler is our intercessor
And our redeemer.
No priest, no evil one
Can keep us
From feeling like Hitler's children.
No Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!
Away with incense and holy water pots.

How then did fascism come to be thought of as right-wing? It essentially came from the Communist playbook. Communism and Fascism are largely opposed to each other (although not always: the German Communists originally saw Nazism as a stepping stone to true Communism), but it is the opposition of cousins with irreconcilible differences, not the opposition of antitheticals. So when the Communists were trying to paint Fascism in a negative light, despite the fact that it was doing many of the things the Communists said they were for, the Communists painted fascism as right wing, as the last gasp of the ruling class in an attempt to lure the people from the true way. As fascism fell from favor at the end of the Second World War, Communists took to calling everyone they disagreed with fascist. And since Communism remained largely in favor on the American Left, they followed the Communists' lead.

While this "civil religion" definition of fascism is useful, it does lead Jonah to some weaker arguments at the end of his book. Pointing out how modern liberalism is a statist civil religion for many people, he then goes on to point out fascism at work in the modern liberal. I think his arguments could have been stronger here if he'd only used the term fascist less. Yes, a lot of today's politics, mostly on the Left but also on the Right, draw from the same wellspring that gave us fascism, even draw from fascist ideas, but I don't think that's the same as being fascist. And even if it is, calling it such only sounds like name-calling.

Even so, I think Liberal Fascism is worth reading. It's a useful corrective for all the misinformation about fascism that has reduced it to a nasty name to call someone and stripped it of its actual meaning.

Over at the Black Gate blog, Howard has some good things to say about Avatar: The Last Airbender:

There’s one fantasy show on television today that I don’t really hear people talking about. I mean fantasy in a stricter sense, not in the broad sense that would include science fiction or urban fantasy or horror; I mean epic fantasy in an imaginary land with simpler technology where magic works.

The show has vibrant and compelling characters, a richly textured world and mythology, and crisp, clever writing. To these eyes it is the best fantasy show yet produced for television; certainly it is hands down the best written animated show on TV today.

I am referring, of course, to Avatar.

What is Avatar? As Howard says, the short version is that it's a kid's show. But similar to the Harry Potter books or Pixar movies, there's plenty for adults to like, too. A rich plot, complex characters, and entertaining fight scenes make it definitely worth watching.

So, what is it about, really? The world of Avatar is Asian themed, based around the four elements, with nations corresponding to each of them. There are two Water Tribes, at the North and South poles, with civilizations based on the Inuit (eskimo tribes). At four Air Temples, one each for the four cardinal directions, live the Air Nomads, whose lifestyle is similar to the Tibetan monks. The Earth Kingdom is the largest, based on Chinese culture. Finally, there is the Fire Nation, roughly an analogue for Imperial Japan. In each of these nations, there are people who can manipulate, or bend, the native element. Firebenders can shoot fire from their hands and feet, waterbenders can use water as whips, earthbenders can bring rocks out of the ground and throw them at their enemies, and airbenders can fly. Doing so is not simply a matter of mind over matter. Each bending discipline is performed using a different style of martial arts. In addition to benders of each of the four elements, there is the Avatar, a spirit who is reincarnated every generation, who is capable of learning all four bending disciplines.

A hundred years before the start of the series, the Avatar vanished. At roughly the same time, the relatively technologically-advanced (steam power, but no gun powder) Fire Nation launched a war of conquest, wiping out the Air Nomads and attempting to conquer the Earth Kingdom (with frequent raids against the Water Tribes as well). Just when it looks like the Fire Nation will succeed in its conquest, the Avatar is found in a iceberg, where he has been frozen for the last one hundred years. Unfortunately for the world, the Avatar is a 12-year-old Airbender named Aang, who, while he's mastered airbending, has yet to learn any of the other elements. Joining him in a quest to learn each element, starting with Water, are the two teenagers from the Southern Water Tribe who found him: Katara, the only waterbender at the south pole and thus untrained, and Sokka, her warrior brother. But learning waterbending will not be easy, as standing in their way is sixteen-year-old Zuko, the scarred Fire Nation prince who was banished by his father and can only return if he captures the Avatar.

In order to sell you on this show, I want to give some insight into one of the characters. Not one of the heroes, but the villain, Prince Zuko, as he is certainly the most intriguing of the characters. To do so will require spoilers, so beware:


So, if you read that, you've seen how interesting and complex Avatar can make its characters, so you'll appreciate why I think the show is worth watching. If you didn't, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Overall, I highly recommend it. Avatar is available on DVD, almost, but not quite, up to what's aired in the US. You can also get everything that's aired in the US on iTunes, which I like--you can play your iPod on your television with the right connection, its cheaper than DVDs, you can get a season subscription even before the season's done, and you can download it today.

The 85th Storyblogging Carnival will be hosted by D. Kai Wilson at Avalon's Mistress. She's already soliciting entries. If you'd like to participate, please send your entry to donnakaiwilson-at-gmail-dot-com with the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• A word count
• A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A short blurb describing the story

Entries are due by Friday, February 29th, at 11:59 pm.

So I got a new printer the other day. I wanted a relatively fast duplex laser printer so I could quickly and easily print my stories, both for myself and for publishers. Duplex was a must. Relatively long documents become manageable when you print on both sides, and while software will let you do manual duplex, that's annoying and easy to get wrong. Also high on my priority was network readiness: I wanted to be able to print from my laptop without having to turn on my desktop. Of course, that's such a standard feature in laser printers that I didn't expect I'd have a hard time finding it. I wasn't planning to get a color laser printer, but when I saw how much the price on those things had come down, I decided I could afford one for the $500 I was willing to spend. That netted me this:

It's a Lexmark C530dn, priced at $499. I was frankly surprised at what I could get for that:

• Color
• Duplex
• Better than 20 pages per minute
• Network ready
• 1200x1200 dpi resolution

Its one downside is that its paper capacity is only 250 pages on the input and output. For most of my print jobs that's no big deal, but if I'm printing my novel, I may have to reload the paper tray halfway through. It's also not small, approximately 1.5 feet in every direction, but that's less a negative than something you just have to make room for. Fortunately, I had just removed an old computer, so it was able to take over the desk. Toner cartridges aren't cheap, of course. In fact, buying a complete set costs as much as the printer itself does. Fortunately, they'll print 3,000 pages (for the color toner) or 4,000 pages (for the black toner), so the total toner cost per page comes to 2.6¢ black and white and 14.3¢ color. All in all, I'm happy with it.

So the primary season has gone on forever. It seems like we've been talking about who the presidential nominees would be since 2006. I'm afraid that my interest in the whole process started to wane around mid-2007, and I've only been paying minimal attention since then. It looks like we'll get either Obama or Clinton on the Democratic side, and McCain appears to have the Republican nomination all but cinched up. The problem is that I don't really like any of the candidates. Hillary is, well, Hillary, and frankly, I could do without another four years of a Clinton or a Bush in the White House. Obama talks a lot about unity, but as he has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, I don't think he means compromise by that. Usually when someone highly partisan talks about unity, they mean that everyone else should stop arguing with them and do what they say. And finally, there's McCain. Ugh. He's not quite Republican in Name Only, but he's close. The famed maverick gave us McCain-Feingold, the travesty of a civil liberties violation which bears his name. He also sounds more like a Democrat than some Democrats when it comes to global warming, terrorist interrogations, and stem cell research. There is one big issue where I agree with him, and that's the war. Hillary and Obama both intend to withdraw from Iraq in short order, without much concern for whether the nation collapses in our wake. Regardless of your view on whether we should have gone there in the first place, that's irresponsible, and McCain at least realizes that. And despite his spottiness on how we should deal with the terrorists we have captured, he at least agrees that we should continue to capture them. So, while I don't like my choices, I have to say that there's really only one choice.

However, I suspect that the Republicans are looking at defeat this year. It may be that a Democratic convention meltdown would cause a lot of Democrats to sit this one out, but barring that, I don't really foresee a Republican victory.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the founding of Back of the Envelope. Back in 2004, I started this blog to talk about politics, religion, and quantum computation. It went strong for about a year, but I've really let this place deteriorate recently. I've only been posting about once a week, and sometimes I let even that slip. Hmm, I just haven't put as much effort into blogging as I used to, and I'm not interested in going back to three posts a day, but surely I can do better than this. I think it's about time to get this place rolling again. For the moment, that'll mean three posts a week. I think I can manage that much... and I'll try my best to make them significant posts--long enough and interesting enough to be worth reading, and not just the maintenance posts I've been making. I'll be queueing up a few posts this weekend to try to cover the next month or so.

Welcome to the eighty-fourth Storyblogging Carnival. It took some begging on my part, but we have a ten stories this time, including some faces we haven't seen recently, as well as someone completely new. Plus, we have a few regulars as well. Please enjoy.

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Fisherman
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe Blog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

How catching fish is akin to life experience.

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Brief Respite
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe Blog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A man struggles with his wife's departure.

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How Future People Fly
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe Blog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

Interstellar travel requires more than just numbers.

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The Nudes
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe Blog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A man becomes aware of the beauty of women after he loses his sight.

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The Office of Second Chances
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
A 226 word brief story rated PG.

Less a short story than a premise for one, this answers the question of what happens when the hero fails to save the world.

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The Gathering of the Aetoi
by Brad of The Vega Mythos
An 800 word excerpt from a 16,000 word story in progress rated PG.

Vega Mythos is intended to be a contribution to the conspiracy theory genre. In the movie and novel Contact, Earth receives an extraterrestrial message from the star Vega. Shortly after seeing the movie I looked up the origin of the star's name. I thought it strange that Sagan chose a star whose name meant "The Falling Vulture". So I began playing around with the idea of there being something sinister about the star Vega. Thus Vega Mythos began. So far, The Vega Mythos has been an exercise in comparative religions for the most part. I haven't got around to addressing Contact, Sagan or wormholes just yet. It reads as nonfiction but the basic theme that ties the whole thing together is fictional, that is to say, it is a story. The excerpt I have submitted discusses the symbolism of vultures in the New Testement. Other chapters are listed to the left in a suggested order but it is a work in progress so it lacks continuity and completeness.

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The Morning After
by D Kai Wilson of Avalon's Mistress
A 1,529 word short story rated PG.

Written when a friend asked me what morphine felt like, in second person.

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Beasts
by D Kai Wilson of Avalon's Mistress
A 1,535 word excerpt from an continuing novel rated PG-13.

First chapter of a yet unnamed novel - talks about nuclear war and collecting material to record how the world once was.

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The Pathfinder: A Parallel Roads Novel (Prologue and Chapter 1)
by Lyle Skains of Hermitville
A 2,700 word excerpt of a novel rated PG.

At almost 25,000 miles in circumference, the Earth is a hard thing to lose. But lose it exactly what Gloria Walker does in the culmination of the worst day of her life. She awakens to a strange new set of worlds, where anything is possible, and where she alone is responsible for all of them.

The Pathfinder: A Parallel Roads Novel is a science fiction/fantasy novel that tells the story of the one unique person in the universe who can travel between parallel dimensions without machines or magic.
Susheel's conflicted love relations are complicated by his flickering perception of reality.

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An Arkham Welcome
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 5,138 word short story rated PG-13.

"It would be inaccurate to say that the Sage of Wales was pleased to be landing in Boston on this particular January morning. In fact, he would rather have been sitting on the opposite side of the ocean just passed over, reading by the fire, his dog Eden by his side. Alas, The Sage had been summoned by his Alma Mater to address them about some of his recent exploits in the study of and battle against Cthulhu."

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This concludes the eighty-fourth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.