How to Run a Special Needs Ministry

My first piece of advice when running a group for people with special needs or any mental health condition is contrary to the typical rhetoric surrounding these things in contemporary culture. The first rule of safe spaces are to set boundaries and expect delicacy. That’s a problem for the obvious reasons that when handling mentalContinue reading “How to Run a Special Needs Ministry”

Are Autism Experts Experts in Autism?

No, I recently had an email exchange with a psychology professor at the College of Charleston who specialized in autism and it didn’t go well. I was working with her on creating sensory-safe parties and other special needs support on campus. I’m not going to recount it all here but that would be tangential. TheContinue reading “Are Autism Experts Experts in Autism?”

How Autistic Am I?

Very. Yet, I am not of the most common subtype. I share plenty of traits with them with the most common subtypes. I make deep connections with people quickly and am much less censored in my topics of conversation. I memorize social rules much more than I read social cues. I tend to come acrossContinue reading “How Autistic Am I?”

Giving Toxic Relationships Happy Endings

It used to be a cliché that bad boys were faustian bargains and ultimately girls would be hurt by them. In the last few decades, they did a Taylor Swift and rewrote the ending so that Edward Cullen and Christian Grey, bad boys with so many red flags they may as well have been Soviet,Continue reading “Giving Toxic Relationships Happy Endings”

Murder Victims and Cancer Patients

Recently, I was reading an article by The Marshal Project which spoke of the evolution of sentiments about the death penalty. They said something in a way that wasn’t worded well. They claimed that in the 1990s, capital punlishment became about restitution to the victims. That’s not true. Revenge on the part of the victimsContinue reading “Murder Victims and Cancer Patients”

The Path to a Social Japan and the Birth of a New Paradigm

As touched on in the article I wrote about the anti-catcalling laws, the over-punishing of minor anti-social behavior is not the result of progressive politics even if it manifests itself in it. It is the bourgeois, suburban, fears of the uncanny and the marginalized. I referenced an The Atlantic article by Conor Friedersdorf where heContinue reading “The Path to a Social Japan and the Birth of a New Paradigm”

The War for a Bourgeois Utopia

I am against catcalling but with regards to the wave of new laws against it, I’m against those too. What frustrates me about the anti-catcalling laws is this. To reduce mass incarceration, we need a united left that doesn’t advocate for criminalizing minor anti-social behavior. If a hobo calls you “sugar-tits” then just roll yourContinue reading “The War for a Bourgeois Utopia”

Cultural Relativism and the South

When I was a freshman in college, I took an intro to Antrhopology course and in the course of it we were taught the traditional postmodernist line that we should respect the customs and morés of cultures. This made me boil with rage and seethe with anger. At that time, I was in the middleContinue reading “Cultural Relativism and the South”

The Culture Shock They Never Mention

On September 7, 2021, I was working as a legal asistant and legislative aide for state legislator and in this capacity I recieved texts and a call from someone who was supposedly his client. He claimed to be a schizophrenic bipolar person in the Al Canon jail on a contraband phone. It soon devolved intoContinue reading “The Culture Shock They Never Mention”

The Spectrum Between Romance and Platonic Realtionships

As a heteroromantic asexual, I view it as inappasite to classify the type of relationship I would want to be the same as a hetererosexual. Fundamentally, a heterosexual wants different things. Also, as someone with a disability, I have different needs. For example, for someone with a lower-functioning disability, combining maternalism and romance may beContinue reading “The Spectrum Between Romance and Platonic Realtionships”