Shriver, you are really a piece of work. The Special Olympics are for people who could not participate in regular public sporting events. If they could there would be no Special Olympics. The terms denotes inability to play sports like most people can. To use the term SO only suggest that a person is not adept at a particular sport. Where is the humiliation in a simple fact. I would guess that many SO participants know they have limited abilities and are thrilled to have this opportunity. Regarding respect, I don't hear you railing against the pejorative phrase "that's so gay" which is actually humiliating to gay people. But then allegedly there are no gay people in the Kennedy family. And your mother started the SO because she had an intellectually challenged sister, not necessarily because she was concerned about other people's family members. If not for Rosemary, there would be no SO. Why is it that you are not engaged in abused and battered women issues? Many of your relatives have abused, taken advantage of, fondled and raped women. One was the cause of a young woman's death. Are these issues not important? Does a Kennedy woman have to be assaulted before the Kennedys react? Your family is quick to defend the criminal actions of its members -- often with payoffs. So get off your high horse and stop judging everyone else's motives. Stop writing these annoying commentaries and attend to your day job.

This is a good example of how an important mission (in this case, eliminating "hurt speech") can shoot itself in the foot.

Shriver's position on this issue is reasonable. When a president says something hurtful, it's a teachable moment. The Special Oympics folks are running with it, and many people's attitudes are likely to change as a result of their efforts and the campaign they're putting together.

However, a few months ago Shriver made a big fuss over the dialogue between two characters in a movie. In addition to leading a protest against the film (which he had not seen) at a theater where it opened, he wrote an impassioned column criticizing the use of this dialogue (which, again, he had read in a screenplay but not heard in film, which he did not see) and lecturing on hurt and humiliation.

Here's the problem. In the case of the film, the dialogue was used to underscore -- skewer, actually -- the heedless, self-involved, shallow, and utterly thoughtless behavior of some actors. That the two characters were parodying some of the worst of Hollywood's attitudes and excesses was part of the point. Use of the hurtful words was like a signal to the audience, and it established these guys as incomplete human beings. Kind of like when a white guy says "ni**er" in a film: you know he's a baddie -- or at least not one of the good guys.

Unfortunately, Shriver doesn't recognize these kinds of distinctions. He doesn't see that "bad" language has its place in communicating something about a society when used in an artform intended to reflect that society back to itself. And it doesn't help, either, that he based his opinions on having read some dialogue from a screenplay and that he launched his boycott without ever having seen the film.

This boy-calling-wolf thing will undermine Shriver's efforts as long as he continues to decry every instance of the use of "hurt speech" without evaluating context, message, intent, and result. To be effective at changing a society's behavior, one has to choose carefully the incidents to be showcased.

President Obama's thoughtless slip of the tongue was an excellent opportunity, in part because the president "belongs" to all Americans as a kind of extended family member. He made a mistake, felt sorry for it, and apologized. That's what decent people do.

Conversely, making a soapbox example of a movie that uses "hurt speech" to define a person's character is silly and naive, at best. At worst, it's damaging to the mission of raising social consciousness because it exposes to mockery the effort we all should make to treat others with sensitivity and compassion no matter what their abilities may or may not be.

I have a brother with Downs Syndrome who used to play in the Special Olympics. What he, and others like him, want most is to be treated normally. And that includes being able to joke about themselves, just like the rest of us can.
My brother would have laughed at Obama's comment, and understood it just as it was intended. Mr. Shriver, you are over-thinking this and blowing it all out of proportion. Chill out. Lighten up.

Oh jeez, Obama wasn't making fun of anyone who actually participates in special olympics or who is disabled. I don't think we should make fun of people with disabilities, but even I had to laugh at Saturday Night Live's portrayal of Governor Patterson of New York. The comedian's line that he had not been "yelled at like that since I took that archery class" was truly, truly funny.

Can we please be allowed to have a simple laugh in these dark days?

Mr. Shriver,
Yes, this was a teachable moment, but let it end there. It is naive for you to be "overwhelmed" by the "deep divide" in the posted responses. There are still racists, homophobes, religion haters, and other sundry despicable people in every community, let alone people who have no concept of individuals with "special needs." Keep on teaching, but realize that paradise is a long way off.

Really, Mr. Shriver, stop whining. The teachable moment was a powerful one and you made your point well ten days ago.

I think the statute of limitations on the President's comments has expired along with any need you feel to continue "teaching" us on the basis of those comments.

1) Shriver basically gave the president a pass on this so giving him a hard time about dragging the pres over the coals in this is laughable.
2) The president should have taken a better role in setting his own expample and responding to special needs individuals more directly by discussing his administrations special needs programs in the couple of days afterward.
3) The other posters on this board simply can not allow any criticism of Barack Obama, even going so far as to rationalize that his statements: "relax. Have a sense of humor. There's no malice in a joke."

If the joke involved African Americans, Homosexuals, or was credited to a Republican how much traction would this story have recieved? Anyone seen Rev. Sharpton? How about Sean Penn? Nah, nothing to see here.

Welcome to Earth: We are ALL funny, we are ALL human, we ALL have our problems; we ALL want to be important; we ALL want to be taken seriously; we ALL make mistakes.

There's a time to laugh. This is it. Please start.

Thank you, Mr Shriver, for another excellent column and for continuing to try to raise the consciousness of those who don't get it. The word "retard" in ANY context grants permission to the schoolyard bully to pick up that word and aim it my son - an 11 year old who has Down syndrome. The choice to mock Special Olympics diminishes my son. He's a magnificent, funny and engaging person who deserves to be treated with respect, by the President and by kids at recess, rather than being singled out for his intellectual disability and mocked. Why is that so hard to understand?

I don't think this would have been a "teachable moment" or a "let it go moment" if a republican or white person of note would have made an ethnic slip about a group of people.

It's one of these moments because it was said by President Obama and no one else.

I agree with grg6's comment. I think something like this is about as consequential as a "fart in the wind."(SSR) I think you should accept the fact that our President was good enough to call you and say he meant no harm. That should be it. But if you want to bring self-awareness to yourself, and let's make no mistake that's what this article is all about, then you failed. As a Catholic you should practice humility like Christ espoused, not self-promotion. Don't be a Rush Limburger. Just shut-up and leave it be and do good works.

You idiot!

good luck with the faux-outrage, Shriver. Are donations up, has it worked?

Mr. Shriver, you write that President Obama realized his comments were hurtful "immediately" and, therefore, subsequently called you to apologize. In other words, you give him a pass.

But if he had indeed realized it "immediately," then he would have corrected himself before walking off the Leno stage. But he did not.

It was only when the Obama handlers accompanying him clued him in to his misstep and what the fall-out would be that he did damage control by issuing an apology -- an apology that all of the news accounts have gone out of their way to point out was received "before" the program aired. As if that were relevant.

Only two points are relevant. One that the show was taped in front of a live audience so the remark could not have been edited out.

And two, if Obama truly realized that he had said something wrong, then he would have known this as soon as he uttered it and would have been sure to clear it up while still sitting in the chair chatting with Leno.

ummm....what does this have to do with faith and religion?

It would seem that all parents of special needs children fell into the categories of hurt, angry, and really angry (wanting payback). How about those who took it as an off the cuff mistake, quickly apologized for. As the father of a special needs child (autism), that's how I took it.

BB

Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, was paid more than $715,000 over the preceding three years for his work as president and chief executive of the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games Alaska.

As a source of high-paying jobs for the well-connected, this is why I have stopped supporting Special Olympics.

I saw absolutely nothing wrong with President Obama's statement, and only someone who is fishing for criticism would take any offense at this harmless comment. Quit whining and feeling sorry for yourselves and get a life...

Not long ago I had to censure some high school era friends on Facebook for using similar language in the context of an American Idol competitor. They brought up the thought police comment, as they hadn't been using the word "at" anyone, rather, "about" someone behind her back.

I have read the "thought police" comment.

No, we can't stop it on Facebook when it is at someone on TV. We can't stop it on the street. We can't stop it in a text message on a cell phone. We would be hard pressed to stop it on the playground.

But the Special Olympics Web site is to be commended for stopping hate language in near real time as we are talking about vulnerable people. The schools must, to guarantee the best possible learning environment, provide just as much as a zero-tolerance environment to silence improper language between colleagues.

My office, DTI Associates, would. Harassment on any dimension would be at the immediate peril of the offender. Think NATO Operation Deliberate Force air strikes in Bosnia-Herzegovina taking out ground artillery. Many workplaces treasure diversity and defend it. The young ones need to know respect for colleagues (classmates) early no matter how different they are.

The negligence of school leadership and faculty to act leads to many tragedies, most notably, Columbine.

My Waldorf high school was not much of a picnic, and the only thing I learned socially was to withdraw underground, until three semesters into college. Why not? I had the perfect excuse, a killer homework load to get into college. The fact that the teachers cared, the smarter students were not jerks, and that I was certainly going to college prevented me from considering violence to myself or others.

We with Asperger are perfect magnets for abuse. If there is violence, it is almost always suicide. Other problems continue later: even with advanced education, average people are not comfortable with us, and would rather hire a lesser-educated, lesser-skilled, lesser-experienced average person. The same principle naturally holds true in relationships. The employment problem can be mitigated in a low-competition occupation like technology.

Different gifts in the body of Christ: we with Asperger can run your technology, if you don't mind.

No group should be insulted based on their biologic or social status. That being said please don't claim that SO is a civil rights organizaion.A group that after decades still promotes separate but equal rather than integrative activities is not promoting civil rights.SO needs to move to include its athletes in mainstream activities and job opportunities before it claims to be a civil rights force.

I have very bad news. Even some of those who volunteer to help with SO make jokes about it.

It is human nature and if you look at President Obama's words, he didn't make fun of Olympians, he simply said his bowling was of that class. Is it discriminatory to say I can't play ball in the big leagues but can only play in the minors? Is that making fun of minor league players?

I also find it disturbing that Mr. Shriver accepted President Obama's apology and then felt it necessary to write a critical opinion piece.

Almost nobody knows how to deal with intellectual disabilities. The most enlightened of us have inward fears for these kids, and maybe a hidden (irrational) fear it might happen to us, but at least the brains (emotional intelligence) to shut up if we can't contribute.

That is more than I can say for the ones who say hurtful things.

I think the ones who need a cure are the "normal" ones. They need to be cured of their emotional issues with intellectual disability.

Why is life with "intelligence" so important?

Because we cannot imagine the alternative to 12 years of high school, 4 years of college, 40 years of working in the "middle class", probably marriage, possibly kids, then retirement?

The lack of imagination is our disability, not theirs.

Incidentally, intelligence is something you could lose by accident or illness, even if you are an educated genius. If you barely survived, you could be left with an intellectual disability and would need to re-learn certain things over again.

Christopher Marsh, MA
Marshall University

Web Developer

I love how laid back all of the Obama supporters are when it is their guy who is criticized.

These are all the same people who lose their mind over every comment that comes out of a Republican's mouth. The hypocrisy is what's laughable.

To be honest, I didn't think he was making fun of athletes with special needs, but rather Leno's patronizing attitude. Obama was telling him about his terrible game, and Leno kept saying, "Oh, that's good!" even though it really wasn't. It was still a goofy thing to say and I'm glad he apologized, but I was surprised to see it interpreted in other ways.

Anyway, why does every Kennedy seem to have that same gigantic hair? Is that like a requirement to be part of the clan or something?

If you have to choose between being mean and being retarded, go with being retarded. Being mean is worse than being retarded.

Fine by me, Tim. We won't use the R word anymore to make fun of anyone. From now on we'll make fun of your sister Maria's lethally sharp chin. I'll bet the Governator has scars from it.

President Obama made an offensive comment and apologized. That is fine but the problem no lies with the reaction of society who feel his commenst are "funny". This is no joke indeed. This si offensive. There is a civil rights movement going on for the physically and mentally disabled. For those who feel we are all individuals with equal rights and dignity and all deserve equal opportunites should view this website www.mrblueskymovie.com as a means to fight against intolerance and injustice and the use of degrading terms such as the "R" word.
www.mrblueskymovie.com

The comments are distressing to say the least and portray perfectly WHY this issue is important. Why are we told we are whining when we ask that you show respect to our loved ones who have developmental disabilities?

Thank you Mr. Shriver for being our voice in these dark times... darkened more by the lack of respect for our community than any other single issue that I know of.

By the way I am an Obama supporter and do realize that his gaffe was not intentionally meant to disparage our loved ones. But that is exactly the point. The use of such denigrating humor towards those w/developmental disabilities is so widely accepted in our society that even the President is not immune from such slip ups in public. THAT is the point, if those of you who have a heart will try to be open and see our point then the world WILL be a better place for our families.

"But the Special Olympics Web site is to be commended for stopping hate language in near real time as we are talking about vulnerable people."

Yes, this is very true.

One change I'd really like to see, though, is using the term "hurt speech" or "hurt language" instead of "hate speech/language."

"Hate speech" is significantly different than "hurt speech." It targets groups -- or individuals who are part of these groups -- with the intent to harm or eliminate, not to make fun of.

"Hate speech" is intended to -- and often does -- incite criminal acts or violence: think cross-burning, defacing property with swastikas, attacking people (Mathew Sheppard, James Byrd).

"Hurt speech," on the other hand, can be intentional or unintentional. When it's intentional, its goal is to embarrass, humiliate, diminish, or ridicule -- often through the use of "humor" that isn't funny.

When it's unintentional, though, it's often the outgrowth of attempted humor that a person carelessly throws out without thinking about what it really means. "Hurt speech" is not intended to inflict pain (that would be "hate speech"); more often, it's someone being clumsy, thoughtless, or insensitive.

It's important to make the critical distinction between "hate speech," which is threatening and intimidating (and sometimes physically painful or lethal), and "hurt speech," which makes victims of people who aren't able to defend themselves in kind. Both are forms of mistreatment, but the intentions behind them and the remedies available to mitigate them are worlds apart.

Tim, enough! All you did was state the obvious about a slip of the tongue that isn't going to lead the populace to suddenly lose all sensitivity toward children with special needs. Enough, get down off the pulpit and focus on important issues, not a faux pas. The horse is dead, it ain't gettin up.

Sheesh.

First off, Obama was responding to Leno's mocking 'that's an excellent score' comment.

He was poking fun at the 'we are all first place winners' mentality that has infected so much of our culture these days.

And second, get a dang sense of humor already. If you take this too seriously you are going to alienate a whole bunch of people like me - people that fully support Special Olympics but realize that a joke is a joke is a joke, as long as there is no ill intent behind it.

So get over yourself, Tim.

Not funny!! Are you kidding? Have you seen those retards run? It's funny!

Take the teacher out of the classroom and it is a safe assumption one or more of the "normal" kids are going to gang up on the "special" kids, just like the Serbs overran several UN safe havens in Bosnia.

That's why we had Operation Deliberate Force. We didn't have the political will to introduce ground troops before the Dayton Peace Accords, but we did have the political will to hit artillery threatening other safe havens with NATO fighter jets. You remember the downing and rescue of Scott O'Grady? You watched Behind Enemy Lines, the Hollywood version?

NATO had to play the grown up in the classroom then and later on during Operation Allied Force (the NATO Kosovo mission).

That's why we have zero tolerance-- to have a learning environment optimal to learning, without distractions, just like a business has an optimal work environment without distractions. To let students know they are valued by the school system even if they are disabled or different. And also to a lesser extent to prevent tragedies like Columbine.

This is fair and balanced- it doesn't try to follow kids around 24/7, but it does try to provide a positive learning environment during the school day.

If you want to laugh at someone else's expense, even by label, go ahead. I'm glad I'm not you.

The only thing worse that the President's comment was the unhinged eruption of political correctness in response to it.

In 8 years, never heard Bush make a tasteless joke like this. Shriver gave Obama a free pass, typical liberal double standard. No more donations to SO from me, sorry to say.

Can we stop the madness? Nobody is perfect! Nor politically correct 100% of the time. Please, just get over it and get on with life. If you choose not to laugh at something, so be it, but my friend, life is too short to be stock in a box of "correctness" just checking for something that will offend you and assume that it offends others.

In 8 years, never heard Bush make a tasteless joke like this. Shriver gave Obama a free pass, typical liberal double standard. No more donations to SO from me, sorry to say.
Posted by: JCM-51 | March 31, 2009 9:55 PM

Allow me to remind you that while men and women were dying for George W. Bush's self-admitted mistake over WMD in Iraq, he tastelessly joked at the WH press dinner by looking for WMD under the table and behind the podium. Nope, not here!

I wonder how funny that was to those with TBI, missing limbs, and sacrificed lives?

Excellent article Mr. Shriver and thanks for defending the rights and dignity of people with learning disabilities.

"The only thing worse that the President's comment was the unhinged eruption of political correctness"

Some of the posters on here make Mr. Shriver's point over and over in what I would describe as an "unhinged eruption" of contempt for people who are different from them, people who work harder every day of their lives to try to get a foothold in society, than Barack and Michelle Obama have worked in their whole lifetimes.

How big a chip on your shoulder do you people need to have to think people with special needs are good for a joke?

And please posters, drop the comparison with Bush! I never voted for Bush and I voted for Obama. I thought Obama would show some respect for his most vulnerable citizens. Apparently not. Maybe the chip on his shoulder affects his judgement. I hope it doesn't affect his judgement in other ways.

Not only has Obama ridiculed people with special needs, but he has alienated families who voted for him in massive numbers.

He has just lost one of his constituencies.

People like myself who saw nothing malicious in the presidents comments have reasons why we feel the way we do. My older brother was born with polio, cerebral palsy and infantile paralysis. My brother experienced many episodes of callousness and hate from the public his entire life.

You would think that he would be bitter. Instead my brother, first of all does not comprehend the treatment that he received and secondly my brother wants to be left alone and allowed to live his life the best way that he can under his circumstance. Most of all he hates pity.

If we quit living our lives through our loved ones perceived handicaps our loved ones would be better off and president Obama remarks would have been seen as an ill chosen way to say that he is a crummy bowler and not as a disparage against the handicapped.

Mr. Shriver should read, "Dreams from my Father"by President Obama. Our President knows a lot about being "different." Perhaps we need to let go of the word, "special" In l961, the Peace Corps was blessed with S. Shriver...who was bright, organized, a leader - Special. Now he has dementia...and he is Special.

While being in great sympathy with Mr. Shriver's desire to shore up dignity for the innocent, whoever named Special Olympics is guilty of setting it up as joke fodder.

Had it been truthfully named, no decent person, which I hope we can agree President Obama is, would have slipped it into a casual remark.

Trouble is the word "special" is a whitewash for intellectually retarded. "Special" is a meaningless generality that suggests the founders weren't able to grant dignity to the reality endured by their constituents.

Placing the truer word, retarded, outside the bounds of standard speech, made it the insult it never was prior to it being deemed an insult by those who relegated it to that status.

I recall well when retarded was not a joke, but a status of people respected for their gentleness and hard work in struggling to make it in a harsh world, where intelligence has nothing to do with those fine qualities.

Tim - this is old news. get over it.

Shriver, you clearly demonstrate, despite all your sweetness and light pontifications, that you are just another intolerant neochristian who have infested America with their Limbaughian political agendas in the name of poor old Jesus.

The man admitted he made a mistake and apologized (which is something we never heard from the "Christians" darlings Cheney or Bush. How "Christian" of you is it to continue to harp on this and use it for your political gain?

fr jcm-51:

>In 8 years, never heard Bush make a tasteless joke like this....

Number one, President Obama immediately called Mr. Shriver fr Air Force 1 to apologize. That's MUCH more than your buddy Dumbya would have done.

Number two, Dumbya is finally out of the White House. Thank Heavens.

Mr. Shriver,

I would suggest that you get a life! PLEASE. Your sensitivity is misdirected.
Certainly, "he who lives in glass houses, should not throw stones." The President meant no offense. However, your diatribe is offensive and unfounded.

Retarded is just as hurtful a word as the word starting with N that rhymes with trigger, even though the adjective is used in other contexts, because the application to intelligence eclipses all other meaning in American culture. That is why the organization formerly known as the Association of Retarded Citizens now simply calls itself The Arc.

The President got off too easily. He walks and talks like his constituents rather than setting an example. Good heavens, a Florida teacher plays Survivor in her kindergarten class with an Asperger kid in it. Classmates are out of line, teachers are out of line, the President is out of line.

I don't watch Survivor because I played Survivor too many times interviewing for a job between 1996 and 1998.

People expected better from the President and that is why it hurts. I hoped Obama would be a radical departure from the Bush-Cheney era. We were glad to see Obama reach out to the disability community. And then his remark. You bend something one way and then the other and it breaks.

We didn't elect Joe Sixpack. We elected someone with integrity, The President. And a simple mea culpa isn't going to heal our wounds.

I think the President needs to acknowledge that he let down a lot of people who believed in him by succumbing to a remark almost anyone could have made, at least under one's breath or in one's mind. A press conference.

That is what a lot of readers don't seem to understand. But it isn't their problem is it?

At least I try to understand and take a stand for other people's problems, prejudice against the gay community and the legal opposition to gay marriage, for example.

Christopher Marsh, MA
Marshall University
Asperger

Social Research Assistant 1995-1996
Career change by Maryland VR system
Web Developer 1999-

I thought the best comment on the whole situation was the special olympian who said he would take Obama on anyday. Apparently he is an exception bowler and he didn't get mad and take offense, he stood up and said Obama can say whatever he wants, I know I'm better than he is when it comes to bowling. People can be gifted in different ways and thats how that comment should have been taken by everyone.

A bad joke never goes unpunished. The President misspoke and apologized. Letterman and Leno are too smart to make politically incorrect jokes about people who have challenges. Don Imus found out that picking on innocent people by calling them names can put a career in the ditch. Good. When public figures make stupid remarks they cause a stir. When private people make stupid remarks they just label themselves stupid.

What do you think of Gene Weingarten's argument?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/03/17/DI2009031701819.html

Here's Gene: "Obama is reacting to Jay Leno, who is wildly applauding the president's (poor bowling game), while making it clear through eye rolling and body language that he is being condescending. It's that condescension that the president is picking up on, and applying to the Special Olympics: He is laughing about how we make a big, ol' slaphappy hypocritical fuss over these kids' sometimes klutzy performances: That we are rewarding less than stellar athleticism with undeserving, uncritical applause."

I can see Gene's point here. When we uncritically applaud the Special Olympics athletes, are we really exploiting them for our own ego benefit? Are we simply congratulating ourselves for being sensitive about people with disabilities? Can the uncritical applause have the opposite effect, discouraging the athletes from giving their best efforts? I don't have the answers, but these questions should at least be considered.

Good variety of comments so far, and lots of "thinking" and analysis---why can't we have more of this "analysis" at higher levels? Appallingly lacking in the last 8 years!
So..."retardation" has suffered the fate of so many words in our society, that once meant one thing and now mean another--it once was a clinical word that we all used with a common meaning, along with "retarded"--no derogatory meanings attached--but now...whoa!..our society seems to foster so many negative connotations to words, and even opposite connotations to the accepted and official definitions of words... this is horribly destructive of effective communication, even though it might be considered "cute" and "creative" by some, or even by many. But the unintended result is that a person may use a word in a totally proper and official way, yet have a few or even many "mis"-understand it from a partial to an entirely opposite degree! This then tends to leave proper language at the mercy of slang--(because of television, otehr media, "bites", etc.)
I, for one, do not agree that effective communication should be sacrificed at the altar of "creativity" and "personal/unique definitions" of words. And often it is a negative consequence that results, and at the expense of someone powerless to defend.

I don't watch Survivor because I played Survivor too many times interviewing for a job between 1996 and 1998.
------------------------------------
It is a bit of a shame. A Maryland state agency decided to make a correlation, causation really, between nearly three dozen failed job interviews and its own confirmation of an Asperger diagnosis, and add me to the experimental first graduating class of computer programming students in a VR program in Baltimore through the community college. Circumstantial evidence? Perhaps.

I had quite a bit of education already, but the state agency asked me to stand down that career to pick up a new one.

I wonder if the (or a) correct answer might also have been to assign me to state employment in the capacity I trained for.

I interviewed in January 1998 but the WV Department of Education did not like the idea. Small amounts of Food Stamps and a larger amounts of VR and Medicaid were more to the state's liking.

Sometimes, savant level Aspies do not have a problem unless somebody has a problem with Asperger. I think dad's side of the family could be full of savant-level Aspies in mathematics, the hard sciences, and technology, perhaps also music. It seems full of late marriers, if at all, and depression seems to be a problem (understandably). My highest level skill is technology but I have also noticed a facility with foreign languages as well.
Mathematics is a close third.

The social sciences have this in common with computer programming: both are creative, procedural, goal-oriented methodologies to solve a problem, perform a task, or answer a question.

With 1.5 years of database design and 8 years of server-side Web programming, I think it could have gone the other way. But I have too much invested in this career to quit and go entry level now.

A lot of the Aspies are trying to reach you and mean you well. If you give up trying on a dedicated savant-level Aspie, it is truly your loss.

I found myself agreeing with the article. We do need to be more sensitive to those with disabilities.

I'm not saying we should get a rope whenever someone makes a thoughtless comment (if that was the standard, I would have been toast a long time ago), but it doesn't cost anything to be aware of when words can hurt.

"So...'retardation' has suffered the fate of so many words in our society, that once meant one thing and now mean another..."

Yes, but that's the nature of language. It is not -- and never has been -- static. That's why, unless you're a scholar with a specialty in comparative languages, you wouldn't be able to read Old English at all and would struggle mightily with Middle English (keeping in mind that Modern English dates to around 1550).

As they progress through their lifespan, words pick up meanings, discard meanings, and often become something indistinguishable from their original forms. Dictionaries are not written prescriptively; they are written to record language usage at a particular moment in human history -- to reflect how language is used now.

Meanings of words change based on how society uses them over time. For instance, while we might like to use "gay" to mean "happy" or "carefree," that is simply not the socially dominant usage any longer; if we use the word, we will be thought to be saying something perhaps very different than intended.

Similarly, a word like "retarded," which replaced the earlier, more pejorative terms "feeble-minded," "moron," "idiot," and even "slow," has in its turn been replaced because it represents an earlier, less-informed understanding of neurological wiring. As medical science learns more about how our brains work and the variety of intelligences it's composed of, the currently acceptable term "intellectually disabled" is likely to be replaced by a word that is more accurately descriptive.

This is not just a bunch of "PC nonsense." Words change because people change. Because knowledge changes. Because we learn and discover things that can alter our perspective.

Certainly, one can assert the right to use a particular word with the defense that "this is how it's always been used." But this argument is disingenuous. When someone insists upon using a word whose meaning has changed, there is often another agenda going on. Frequently, it's simple meanness cloaked in an attitude of innocence -- a passive-aggressive maneuver of one-upsmanship.

So, to all the folks out there who continue to insist that "retarded" is a perfectly reasonable, useful, and accurate adjective to pair with "person," please think about what you're really saying -- that progress belongs only to those of us who can grasp its intricacies and manipulate its power.

I think Obama aaid what he really meant about people with disabilities. I am sure he didn't mean for it to come out, but it did. Obama is arrogant, thinking he is above everyone else on the planet. I don't think jokes should be made about people suffering from any type of disabilities. There is nothing funny about disabilities.

People with disabilities have a very difficult time in this society. It is still acceptable to demean those who have handicaps. However, most people forget that they will deal with disabilities. Either they or at least one family member will become disabled before death. I doubt those who thought Obama's "joke" was funny will be laughing when they are faced with having to deal on a daily basis with some form of disability themselves.

It is interesting to see all the comments giving Obama a free pass on this. I can just imagine the outrage if a Republican had said such a thing, if John McCain or Sarah Palin had uttered such a disgraceful remark. However, when it is a liberal, it is a different story. What stinking double-standard. All liberals are hypocrites.

Dear Dr Shriver

Wishing you a Happy Easter 2009! May the joy and strength of our Risen Lord guide you always!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia