Just finished watching the Louis Theroux series of documentaries in USA's Dark States. Powerful stuff: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09c4ppc/louis-theroux-dark-states-3-murder-in-milwaukee That's the last episode in the above link. Milwaukee is an area where, contrary to a trend, where homicide gun crime is actually falling, here it is going through the roof. Louis asks his usual questions that others can't quite bring themselves to, or don't understand, or sense situations, well enough to think of the right questions to ask on the fly. As usual, he seems able to converse with any group or individual, and that's his real power. Sadly he didn't ask the obvious question, at least on-camera, and if he did off-camera he kept it to himself. So, in answer to the person who advised me to watch these... Ta, worth watching. Now to get around to the Asperger's Syndrome programme.
Brilliant series. We're on part 4 and so far the sum total of facts that have come up that I already knew was that the French were the original colonial power. Literally every single other bit of information has been new to me. If you want some background on it, Sam Harris interviewed the creators on his Waking Up podcast (that's what got me onto the series in the first place). There's some good stuff in there.You find out why the music's so good - the Beatles and Bob Dylan offered their music for a very low royalty because they wanted the story to be told, and all the other artists fell into line. https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-impossible-war/ In passing, Sam Harris's Waking Up podcast is, IMO, the best and most thought-provoking podcasts around. Covers tough subjects but never shrinks from them. Vin
Do something to help someone else today. Get yourself on the bone marrow stem cell donor register. You can donate if you're in decent health and under 69. Took me all of five minutes to register this morning while waiting for a customer. Now I have to give a cheek swab, then that's my effort over unless I turn out to be a match for somoeone who needs what I have. Genuinely, five minutes maximum. One of my customers died aged 45 for the lack of a donor. http://www.dkms.org.uk Vin
Just tried but it said I needed to be between the ages of 17 - 55. I is too old. Good for you for doing it.
I got a strange text message this morning . The letters were GBNA , I think it was bang out of order !
Ah, sorry. I assumed the message that I'd stay on the register until I was 69 meant people could register up to 69. My mistake. Ah, well thanks for trying! Vin
Finally watched Chris Packham and his Asperger's programme: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09b1zbb/chris-packham-aspergers-and-me Very uplifting in the end, although my emotions were about the place. I'm quite empathic, so I can do something that Chris finds it difficult to do, which is that I can feel his sadness and his joy, whereas he couldn't really sense it the other way around. That's my power and weakness, and that's his power and his weakness. He has learned to maximise his potential in a way that he can, and so live the life that he wants. In a way he's lucky because most people don't hit upon it. They pass their dreams, often without even knowing they were there close by. You can see the programme has made me go off down a thought avenue, and that's good. Thought provoking. I agree with him about individualism. Society needs to accommodate autism, rather than merely try to eradicate it, so as to make everyone 'normal'. Society needs to accommodate and include a lot of things, rather than exclude and put up barriers. However, specifically, there is autism and autism, and from Chris's 'comfortable, pragmatic and functioning' point of view many things are possible. That isn't true for everyone because society simply isn't prepared to go far enough to accommodate them and include them. But society is prepared to try to make them 'well'. Some people may think that those who have autism should be grateful for that much. Really, agreeing with Chris's opinion depends upon how you want society to be. 'Caring and sharing', to write the cliché, or 'dog eat dog', for the flip side of that coin. Anyway, cheers for pointing it out.
Agree completely; it's an incredibly tough situation to try and solve. I do know though that society as a whole is failing the large majority of autistic people in the world and as bad as it is in the developed world it must be 10x worse in the poorer parts of the world. The Chris Packham programme reminded me of another similar documentary made by Sally Phillips for the BBC last year. It's an interesting documentary that raised a similar idea about whether there should be a cure for Down's syndrome through modern day screening tests. I've linked the Youtube version in case anyone is interested in watching.
I quite enjoy the daily top ten lists in the i newspaper. Today’s has me flummoxed though. It’s the top things we’re scared of. At number one is politicians (56% since you ask), which is fair enough. Number 2 is heights (I feel you bro). Again no problem. Spiders, clowns etc all make obvious appearances. Number seven though? In between drowning and debt (two unpleasant things indeed). What do we have? Coriander. For **** sake Britain.
Oh no, tarragon chicken is a lovely dish. One of the few things that could make me go to mother-in-law's house.
