Five for Friday, October 18th
Five for Friday, October 18th
Local Politics, Autistic-Cop Simulation, "Work", Writing Tips, ICYMI
This week was a weird one, with many unscheduled interruptions and crises. Today was my only chance to get any real writing done, so I just spewed out three newsletters all in one day. Not recommended.
Tomorrow morning, I’m running a local 5K. Wish me luck!
Local Politician Harassment
NJ.com — one of the few New Jersey news outlets that has survived the killing fields of local media — did a great series on the awful harassment that happens to local government officials in my state. Most of these political leaders receive NO salary. They work for free, and they get utter crap from social media and extremists.
Last year, my older son got a little too involved in local politics. He created a chart of all the towns that were running “Moms for Liberty” candidates in their local Board of Election races, and posted it anonymously on Reddit. In two days, the chart was viewed 100,000 times. He got death threats. Someone figured out our address from his IP address and sent him a picture of our house. He immediately took down the post.
Neurodiverse Drivers Education
Yesterday, a local mom organized an event where law enforcement conducted simulations with drivers with autism and other disabilities. These guys are smart enough to get their licenses, but can get totally freaked out when they get pulled over for something little like driving too slowly. So, the autistic teens drove their cars around a parking lot. The cops put the lights on their cars and went through a typical encounter.
This event was a great way for law enforcement to get to know our kids better and become more familiar with their oddities.
Pictures here.
“Work”
While the kids were young, I was always busy. I was either running to a college to teach a class or rushing to make a writing deadline in my home office. I’m really bad at bragging, but I did pretty well for myself.
At the same time, I also raised two kids and all that entails — driving them to school, helping with homework, going to f@cking IEP meetings, making dinner, and a million other things. I was always working in one fashion or another.
I’m still working. Now, I’m working on a book, writing two newsletters, managing a consultancy business, and getting interviewed by reporters. I’m driving Ian to his community college and making sure that he’s managing his classwork. We spend our weekends taking him on little trips to keep him busy. This week, we were managing his healthcare needs.
This week, I got surprised by some random people, who insinuated that their traditional 9 to 5 jobs were more worthy of respect. I thought that we had moved past that nonsense.
Substack Tips
Great advice on “how to substack” from Max Read: Be consistent. Have a strong voice. Write two or three times a week.
What most successful Substacks offer to subscribers is less a series of discrete and self-supporting pieces of writing--or, for that matter, a specific and tightly delimited subject or concept--and more a particular attitude or perspective, a set of passions and interests, and even an ongoing process of “thinking through,” to which subscribers are invited.
ICYMI
My kid had a lot of problems with epilepsy this week; we even had one trip to the hospital. I was also over-committed with volunteer work and work-work. So, my substack writing got pushed off until today. I’m publishing a bunch all on the same day, which is NOT good substack writing protocol. But whatever.
I wrote “What If” for this newsletter in the morning. Then I published a section of my book to help autism families for my other newsletter.
I enjoy reading your posts.