My hero this week is pictured in the above photo as a champion, though his high school basketball team hasn't won their title yet. He is Jason McElwain of Greece, NY. Jason has autism. As some of you may know, my brother also has autism (Asperger's Syndrom, a "high-functioning" form). Though the type of autism Jason has is different from my brother's there are similarities across the "spectrum" of autism. Jason served as the team manager, too small to play varsity, but the coach allowed him to play in his final home game, after being put in, he "proceeded to hit six 3-point shots, finished with 20 points and was carried off the court on his teammates’ shoulders." The disorder especially makes social interaction difficult, and hearing Jason's story, of the autistic team manager turned showstopping athlete, warms my heart. Way to go, Jason.


My hack this week is not Larry Summers, but the institution that shunned him, Harvard University. Summers posed a question, the feminists, rather than allowing for open discourse, riled against him. Earlier this week, he resigned. Robert McHenry, writing at TCSDaily, elaborates:

At Harvard, Mr. Summers faced neither sticks nor stones but an altogether more formidable weapon, the feminist fantods. The utter depravity of his crime -- suggesting that the possibility of innate differences between the genders was one among various hypotheses worth testing in the search for an explanation of the relative scarcity of women in the top rank of science and mathematics -- was first indicated by the reaction of an MIT biologist, who said she fled the scene lest she "black out or throw up." No subsequent elucidation of the nature of Summers' offense ever improved upon that formulation.

More here too.

Posted by Ryan S. on Friday, February 24, 2006 at 12:04 AM | Permalink |