Song Lyrics:
I'm reading and much enjoying Alex Long's [Insert Song Lyrics Here]: The Uses and Misuses of Popular Music Lyrics in Legal Writing. Here's one observation that I kick myself for not having made myself, about the Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go?: "If one’s trouble is doubled by staying, as opposed to going, then one is posed with a fairly easy choice. If those are the only two options available, one should of course go. The question, at best, appears rhetorical."
What is a "poontang?" Why do people expect an autistic reader to know words like this?
liberty, it would appear more likely you are projecting what you want (to stay) into the story and attributing your feelings to create consequences where maybe there are none in the song?? I am just wondering (as an autistic) why it is so hard for social people to just focus on the objective two (or three) choice call of the question logically without having to read all this other touchy feely fluff into it. What if, staying is not trouble, and leaving is not trouble? See, what you did is turn a simple two (or three choices) into a game of combinations and permutations, complicating the scenario unnecessarily. And it Friday night, for Heavens' sake.
I forgive him, though, because of his great satire of law review articles.
Please stop laying waste to Clash songs. They are special and do not deserve to be treated glibly.
Pardon me if I butchered the non-English bit.
The great irony is that, in my view, the Clash used "whom" incorrectly here. The lyric is no masterpiece of grammar, but I'm fairly sure we are looking at a predicate nominative. Perhaps one could argue that "supposed" is taking an object, whom, but I don't think so. Anyone?
Since you brought this up, I hope you won't mind me asking -- is your actual diagnosis autistic disorder, as set forth in DSM-IV, or is it another pervasive developmental disorder?
I ask because my understanding is that a diagnosis of autistic disorder requires an impairment in communication that is marked and sustained and affects both verbal and non-verbal skills. Your non-verbal communication skills -- blogging for example -- appear quite extraordinary for someone with autistic disorder.
On the other hand, I have known several people with Aspergers who refer to themselves as "autistic," apparently reflecting the view that Aspergers is at one end of the autism spectrum disorders. They also write wonderfully. Do you fall into this category perhaps?
I think you are assuming (wrongly) that autistics cannot benefit from higher education. The problem is, most non-autistic people go about how to educate autistics all wrong. Most of us were locked up isolated in institutions until recent history. My mother (A+ atomic physics member of MENSA), cut off almost all television and made me read incessantly. My husband jokes that he is now having to get me movies and find television shows because I don't know anything about American culture. My mother also supported my horseback riding because it took away my deficient of motor skills. I am very good only at a narrow range of subjects. I have extreme noise and bright light oversensitivities, oversensitivities to many smells (garlic is to me like daylight to a vampire), and allergies to more than 40 foods. It takes me a lot of energy to do a lot less than most other people, and then I fatigue and have to have recovery down time. Ask anyone who knows me, my autistic behavior drives people nuts.
I think you are making the mistake so many people make who refuse to accommodate my speech recogniton assistive device -- assuming (wrongly) the communication you see orally-spoken to my machine that converts it into written format (the end result) means my communication without my device is not markedly impaired. But if you want to know what people think about my unaccommodated communication, well, why don't you ask Hon. James D. Whittemore who has struggled through it.
I also think you are confusing the idea that to be autistic a person's IQ must be somewhat in the retarded range, therefore the resulting communication is non-verbal. This really stereotypes those autistics who are savants wth high IQs, but have developmental imbalances.
"Your non-verbal communication skills -- blogging for example -- appear quite extraordinary for someone with autistic disorder." And, now you have me scratching my head. Blogging is "verbal" comunication, not non-verbal communication. But I think what you meant to say, is how can a person be autistic if they can talk. Again, another unfortunate stereotype, like thinking all autistics have diminished capacity, are incompetent, or blind. I have even been called a Cyclops.
No, I do not have Aspergers, but Autism, defined by my language regression before age 3, and meeting the many other defining Criteria, which distinguishes the two. I would urge you to learn more about autism. Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson are thought to have been autistic.
But getting back to your quote of my first question, autistics communicate literally, and not from context, social clues, or somehow *getting the gist* of a conversation. If one step is left out, an autistic will not understand what people are talking about or will misunderstand the conversation.
Speaking of proper grammar appearing in rock songs, Morrissey's Last of the Famous International Playboys avoids a dangling preposition: "And these are the ways on which I was raised!"
Maybe this is one of those cultural things of which you are unaware, but garlic to you is like garlic to a vampire, too. :)
My twins lack conversational speech, so I am particularly interested in your very capable written communication skills. I have seen the word "autistic" applied to a wide range of conditions, and simply wanted to determine the extent to which your situation compared with theirs.
I would love to discuss this further; if you are so inclined perhaps you can hit my e-mail link.
Leave it to the Smiths. And I think their usage not only rhymed, but was correct! Many thanks.
Morrissey is to be commended for clarity, but of course the idea that one can't end a sentence with a preposition is just an old grammarian's tale. :) And I can't resist the old standby: it's also something up with which I cannot put.
How so?
Garlic is popularly held, both by European folklore and Hollywood films, to repel vampires.
ObRockGrammar: is anyone else bugged by this line from Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die":
"But if this ever-changing world in which we live in"? What's with that second "in"?
Doesn't it just make you want to give in and cry?
Stanley E. Cox, Would that Burnham Had Not Come to Be Done Insane! A Critique of Recent Supreme Court Personal Jurisdiction Reasoning, an Explanation of Why Transient Presence Jurisdiction Is Unconstitutional, and Some Thoughts about Divorce Jurisdiction in a "Minimum Contacts" World, 58 Tenn. L. Rev. 497 (1991).
Exactly whom I'm supposed to be
Diga me que tengo ser
Don't you know which clothes even fit me? "
I'm pretty sure that is who'm as a singing contraction for "who am"
As I said, the price to bring an autistic (even a savant) to any useful economically viable achievement through education and training, requires a hyperfocus on the skills taught at the cost of generally learned trivia more *normal* people take for granted. It is sort of the same methodogy being used now under NCLB (cut all other subject areas except teaching to the test in math and reading).
Maybe I have American cultural deficits (my husband says he is now going to have to get me a vampire movie), and have never been able to remember song authors or remember the lyrics, but on the other hand, I have read and digested more than 16,000 Americans With Disabilities Act, Rehabilitiation Act, federal preemption, and general federal procedural cases all of which are stored rather encyclopedically in my 100% photographic memory.
Alls that means, is I could perform the work tasks of a law associate perfectly, but not the social lunch out when American cultural trivia becomes the topic of discussion. But, I am open to anyone who wants to mentor me on becoming more cultural with songs, television, and movies ...
A startling quotation from Professor Volokh, given his extreme distaste for law review editors' edits.
"And if this ever-changing world in which we're livin'..."
Yeah, in my driving sing-alongs, I sing "And if this ever-changing world in which we li-ive..."
As to the question asked by the Clash, my answer has always been "Yes."
Enjoyed my visit :>
Right before the chorus in Cake's The Distance: "And thinking of someone for whom he still burns"
Well, I have never been goggled before, but many have googled my legendary disability assistive technology Americans With Disabilities Act civil rights struggle, which really is no different in kind than that of Terrance Hallinan and Virgil Hawkins. See, Hallinan v. Committee of Bar Examiners, 65 Cal.2d 447, 55 Cal.Rptr. 228, 421 P.2d 76 (1966) &Harley Herman, Anatomy of a Bar Resignation: The Virgil Hawkins' Story, An Idealist Faces the Pragmatic Challenges of the Practice of Law, fla. Coastal L. J., available at link.
And your point is ...? That you don't like people who have the courage to stand up for their civil rights, especially people with disabilities who are *different?*
So, what else is new?
To borrow the words of Brian Tamanaha, Sept. 16, 2006 post over at Balkanization, and apply it to those courageous individuals with disabilities fighting to free the chains of prejudice, isolation, and denial of equality of opportunity for which they have been robbed for more than 200 years by others:
"In a familiar movie scene, the Devil appears before the dying man with a compelling proposition: 'I will save your life,...in exchange for your eternal soul.'"
This signifies the *deal* several State Bars make with a handful of disabled people and the majority of *normal* people to allow the privilege of attorney licensure -- in exchange for selling out the civil rights of all the other disabled people by agreeing to do Americans With Disabilities Act defense work or in exchange for never raising the ADA at all, and in fact putting down those unpopular people who raise it.
"Predictably, a weak character will take the deal. And the audience knows that, even though he has bought some extra time, he is lost forever."
And this, is the fate of those who cooperate to discriminate against and exclude all the other worthy disabled people who keep knocking at the door of opportunity, only to be denied again and again.
"The hero, who loves life just as dearly, feels the temptation, but ultimately says 'no,' knowing that death is preferable to losing one's soul. The audience applauds this decision, for living--and sometimes dying--with integrity is what defines a hero."
One such hero was the great Thurgood Marshall, who had the courage to help Virgil Hawkins fight the Jim Crow laws of the deep South.
The lesson for you is, keeping my integrity in this 16- years long disability assistive technology civil rights struggle I have fought to break down the irrational barriers of prejudice and hate that effectively keep autistics out of the Bar and Bench, is far preferable to losing my soul, as have so many who refuse to tear down this 200-year old Wall of irreparable harm toward America's disabled.
Alls you do by attacking me, is advance my cause.
Most pertinently, I'm more puzzled over what the hell a jail guitar door is.