Back during the early 90s, there was a popular urban legend doing the rounds that, being culturally unfamiliar with the foreign religious festival of Christmas, an unnamed (because actually non-existent) Japanese shopping centre had traumatised the tiny toddlers of Tokyo by producing an alarming in-store advertising display consisting of a bloodied yet smiling Father Christmas nailed to a cross, to sell customers their festive toys and tat.
The myth seemed to function as a metaphor for the looming potential danger that the Japanese, with their then-booming economy and penchant for buying up significant U.S. and European companies like Columbia Pictures, could not be trusted with the West’s cultural traditions: through sheer incomprehension and corporate greed, they would only end up subverting them to serve their own self-interested ends. The true guardians of beloved figures like Father Christmas, the fable implied, were our own domestic kith and kin, who could be relied upon never to subvert Santa for profit or strange ideological ends.
Well, maybe that was indeed the case, back in about 1993. Thirty years later, personally, I’d rather trust Tokyo with continued custodianship of Mr. Claus’s wellbeing than the governing wokerati of Washington, London or Brussels: at least when the Japs supposedly crucified him, it was an acknowledgement of the actual existence of Christianity. With that in mind, here’s a two-part Daily Sceptic Christmas special in which we examine a few of the more egregious ways in which everyone’s favourite festive chimney-penetrator has been politically abused throughout the U.S. and Europe in recent years. First up: Covid-Safe Santa!
One Sick Santa
In the run-up to Christmas 2020, at the end of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, the new North Pole junta of public elf officials, as embodied by America’s own Dr. Anthony Fauci, benignly reassured worried youngsters Christmas that year would not be completely ruined by lockdowns after all: like the virus itself, Santa would remain airborne across the planet. In an interview with USA Today, Fauci announced that Father Christmas was “exempt” from all the usual quarantine rules, as his many “good qualities” meant he “has a lot of good innate immunity” to the disease.
Politicians in Europe soon followed suit. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon declared Santa a “key worker” who would be spared prosecution for breaking lockdown rules due to both his “magic powers” and the alleged innate goodness of his cause, a bit like Black Lives Matter protesters, whilst Boris Johnson tweeted that Santa could continue his deliveries, at least “provided Father Christmas behaves in his usual responsible way and works quickly and safely”, like low-paid Amazon drivers still had to do.
Italy’s then-PM Giuseppe Conte advised bambinos to leave out not the customary brandy, but a bottle of hand sanitiser for St. Nick; then he could always just drink it for its alcohol content. Most bizarre was a joint open letter to Santa from Belgium’s Health and Interior Ministers, permitting him to visit the nation’s homes on December 24th, provided he wore a face-mask. “A Spanish virologist also confirmed to us that your beard protects you sufficiently and serves as a mask,” they added, thus explaining why sales of PPE were so slow across Afghanistan.
In Poor Nick
One of the oddest products of this feverish period was a paper, ‘How Covid-Safe Santa Can Save Christmas’, which originally appeared in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. This was joint-authored by two public health academics, one of whom had previously written an assessment of the likely consequences of patient Claus’s clinical obesity for the British Medical Journal in 2009, titled ‘Santa Claus: A Public Health Pariah?’
Although a partial joke, some of the paper’s recommendations for Santa-related public health did actually come true, like many a Christmas wish upon a star. The authors spoke of the potential need to create “virtual Santa, Zoom-Santa and click-and-collect Santa” services to avoid kids coming into direct contact with the bearded wonder himself: such Covid-friendly services soon appeared catering to home-trapped families for real, with names like JingleRing.
Furthermore, “Additional precautions to adopt include making Santa’s sleigh Covid-safe with fibreglass screens”. Ha ha ha. Except, in shopping malls across the world, Santa was indeed placed behind just such protective screens away from any visiting, germ-ridden kids, almost as if trapped within a snow-globe forever by some wicked witch of winter. But never mind, they were cunningly relabelled as “Magic Santa Shields” by ad-men, thus making it all okay: some mall-visitors may actually have preferred to see him being crucified.
Other statements in the paper included: “Visiting every house on Earth [even in Brunei?]… provides a significant infection control challenge”; “We know that Santa’s older age, tobacco use and obesity are important risk-factors for COVID-19”; and, “We should use disposable cups and plates… in the unlikely event there are leftover brandy or biscuits, mum and dad should resist the temptation to finish them off and instead safely dispose of them” in a nearby incinerator.
However, the scientists generously conceded, as there were no reported cases of COVID-19 from the “low-risk ‘green’ jurisdiction” area of the North Pole, it was highly unlikely Claus would be asymptomatically infected prior to his sleigh’s initial 2020 take-off. Therefore, the main risk was of him contracting it in someone’s home en route. Yet, due to the virus’s incubation period, “As the total time spent delivering presents from start to finish is 24 hours, he would finish his deliveries before becoming infectious”. Thus, “we are only asking him [and his reindeer!] to wear a N95 mask in our recommendations, and are not requiring him to wear full PPE, which would make chimney descents particularly difficult, if not dangerous”. If St. Nick followed all these public health guidelines to the letter then “Covid-Safe Santa will be a super-spreader of goodwill and joy to all in 2020” – just like the scientists themselves!
Sleighing Santa
Another precaution the paper’s authors dispensed was that, “Given the high-risk nature of his job, [Santa] will require a negative test before flying”. This was also the basis of a 2021 festive advert for Tesco, which prompted thousands of complaints as it featured a fake newsreader warning the audience: “Santa could be quarantined” that year. These fears were then dispelled by Father C turning up before British border-control officers – a breed of mythical beings far more fictional than Santa himself – and waving a green Covid-pass to them from his smartphone, thereby demonstrating he had been successfully vaccinated and was thus free to fly.
Complainants argued the piece functioned, deliberately or otherwise, as yet more mainstream media propaganda coercing viewers to get jabbed, thereby encouraging “medical discrimination”. The Advertising Standards Agency disagreed, dismissing the prospect most people would take the brief scene as anything other than “a humorous reference” to current events, but it still garnered some 5,009 complaints, making it the second-most complained about advert of all time: number one was a quite brilliant 2014 campaign from gambling firm Paddy Power during the murder-trial of disabled athlete Oscar Pistorius, offering punters their “money back if he walks”.
Far more questionable in taste than the Tesco ad was another 2020 short film put out online by the NHS, called ‘The Gift’, which depicted a Covid-ridden Santa apparently dying in hospital with an oxygen mask over his face. Although by the end of the advert, he recovers – “Come into an NHS hospital and walk out dead!” may not have been a good PR-message to spread – parents protested that seeing the piece may upset their young children, and it was swiftly withdrawn.
The NHS said the piece wasn’t aimed at young children, but a cross-country NHS campaign involving local Santa impersonators turning up at vaccination centres and being jabbed before waiting cameras surely was aimed at getting kids to nag their parents into going along and doing likewise. Santa successfully reported for vaccination in Sefton on Merseyside, for example, boasting that “all of my elves have also had their booster jabs”, thereby confirming the possibility of inter-species transmission, whilst another Santa visited St Thomas’ Hospital in Southwark, punning that “If you’ve not yet had your jab, ho-ho-hop over to your nearest vaccine centre and they’ll be happy to help you”.
Subordinate Claus
As with the Japanese in the old urban legend, others were eager simply to make money from this new angle on St. Nick’s image, with several self-published children’s books with titles like When Santa Got Covid and Santa Claus has COVID-19! appearing in time for Christmas 2021.
The first title mentioned above was actually written by a small child, demonstrating how successfully the image of Santa contracting the virus had by this point infected young minds. You could even head across to the website of Santa Letter Direct, who provides customers with personalised missives to their own child from Father Christmas, with their name and other personal details printed into the gaps, which included paragraphs like the following:
Mrs Claus helped me put up a big rainbow in our windows, so all the amazing doctors and nurses of Lapland could see how thankful we are for their hard work. We know it has been super busy at Happy Holiday Hospital, but they have been doing a great job, just like all of the key workers in [HOME-TOWN]. They are not the only ones who have been working hard this year – I heard that you [INSERT ACHIEVEMENT HERE], what a clever [BOY/GIRL] you are!
“Just imagine their face when they read that Santa Claus knows so much about them!” the website promises. Yes, he’s been constantly monitoring them on their parents’ phones with highly intrusive data-harvesting, geo-location, infection-notification apps.
Jonah’s Wail
Whether one approved of lockdowns or not, this constant repurposing of a fictional kids’ character for blatant purposes of indoctrination and population control – and good old-fashioned profit too, of course – could easily be viewed as somewhat dubious. But has it really had any meaningful lasting effect upon vulnerable infant brains? To judge by the case of Jonah Simons, a 10-year-old Florida boy who made headlines in America after writing to Santa requesting he develop a COVID-19 vaccine for the world back in 2020, maybe so.
According to Jonah’s mother, the child “sent his Xmas wish out into the universe and it came true”, a fact which apparently made young Jonah, who had already been fraudulently dressing as a medic since he was three years old, even more determined upon pursuing a future career in medicine; or, as CNN put it, “He’s a would-be doctor whose medicine is love”. He certainly sounds as if he’d be a dab-hand at administering emetics. Apparently, Dr. Simons wishes only to visit the sick “and prescribe his love-medicine”, which sounds enough to get him struck off to me.
Or, is this all actually still so? Having had plenty of time on his hands to think big thoughts during lockdown, Jonah has now decided that, rather than being a mere medic, “he can make a bigger difference as the leader of the Free World [sic]”. According to Jonah himself: “My best goal is to be a President. That way, I can make changes to a lot of things and make decisions that help other people.” What, you mean just like how all our adult leaders did back during Christmas 2021?
Thanks, Santa Simons, but forcing gifts like lockdowns and furloughs onto some people who might not actually want to receive them isn’t really how Christmas is supposed to work, you know.
Steven Tucker is a journalist and the author of over 10 books, the latest being Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science: When Science Fiction Was Turned Into Science Fact by the Nazis and the Soviets (Pen & Sword/Frontline), which is out now.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
It seems as if we are increasingly in desperate need of a new kind of renaissance that reaffirms talent, ability, excellence and the kind of values that are elevating.
It needs to be done confidently and unapologetically.
OF COURSE we need to be kind to those who aren’t as able. We’ need to be kind to everyone really. But to celebrate disability and biological deficiencies as things to be proud of is just self loathing and self destructive.
Being gay isn’t great. It means you won’t procreate which means you are an evolutionary dead end. Not good.
Being trans, same, but on top of it with an urge to self mutilate. Another evolutionary dead end.
Being autistic means you can’t relate to others as well. We are a social species. Less likely to procreate. If not a dead end, not the best of paths.
In a society that is barely producing half the babies required to sustain itself, we sure don’t need to celebrate all the things that are clearly evolutionary dead ends.
I wonder when the renaissance will begin.
I honestly don’t see the problem with not wearing shoes in the office. As long as your feet don’t stink I guess
Most shoes are bad for your feet. In carpeted offices, why bother wearing them? Let your feet spread, let them breathe.
People get wound up about the strangest things. We wouldn’t expect everyone to wear gloves, would we?
Next we’ll be told we have to cover our faces. Oh, wait…
Wandering around naked, obviously not. That would be a distraction from work
I am a great believer in keeping things simple and in the case of the clearly un-hinged Lydia X.Z. Brown I conclude that the correct course of action is to have this woman declared MAD. With that diagnosis out of the way she can then be locked up. Normal people should not have the clearly insane forced upon them.
I know a fair few people on the austistic spectrum and they are focused on being themselves, not “being autistic”, and don’t feel their autism defines them, they are neither ashamed nor proud of it, it’s just a fact, and like the rest of us they modify their behaviour to suit the occasion – they probably have to put more effort into this than non-autists because the world is mainly composed of non-autists. I have never heard any of them mention “Austistic Pride”. Some of them are concerned when people talk about “curing” autism and also concerned about pre-natal tests for autism leading to abortions and effectively eugenics – I think this is understandable.
Some good points, well said. I certainly hope they do not find a cure for autism, I have also known quite a few who would not want a cure, and I will qualify that by saying I believe that there are a lot of creative intelligent people who if analysed par se, would be on the autism spectrum. This constant search for a new minority identity to worship only increases the prejudices they wish to supposedly remove. I, for one, would not want a cure for what I was, to be what? Like them?
I would welcome the minority of one, where you are judged by who you are not what claque you wish to be associated with. Now there’s a thought.
Thanks. My fairly anecdotal, unscientific take on the “cure” business is that there are some disorders that look like autism that are unpleasant for the person with the disorder that may be triggered by dietary, environmental or medical intervention factors, which may be better “cured” or “prevented”, but that autism is fundamentally a way of being that is determined by brain wiring that is set during gestation or very early in life – after that I think it’s question of helping that person be well in themselves and with the world, just as we do for any child/adult, not “curing” them.
I would say, by how you conduct yourself, although maybe that’s sort of what you mean.
I think the exception though would be kids with autism who are profoundly disabled, non-verbal, behavioural issues due to their inability to effectively communicate as a result of their condition. As a parent you’d do anything to ensure you kid has as good a quality of life and reaches their full potential the same as all of their peers. There has been an awful lot of research into the effect of diet, especially the keto diet, in improving symptoms with kids, but I couldn’t cite anything off the top of my head. I think cleaning up one’s diet generally can have profound effects on many diseases and health complaints, including mental health.
What I will say though is that autism is way over-diagnosed now and I’m very wary of the methods used. It’s not like doctors run some blood tests or do an MRI and there’s your definitive proof and diagnosis. Something which relies heavily on questionnaires and observing behaviour as a diagnostic tool is seriously opening itself up to a significant margin of error and there is undoubtedly a lot of people walking around with an autism diagnosis ( ADHD is another over-diagnosed condition ) and they have no such thing. I’m very sceptical of the methods used because it inevitably is skewed towards getting a person ( usually a kid ) a label which will be with them for life and all the obstacles and prejudices this can result in, especially through their school years.
I would agree that there are quality of life issues that may be addressable through various interventions.
Can people just get on with being people – quirks, inclinations, colours, shapes, sizes etc etc – without having to be so bloody proud about it? All this constant need for affirmation reeks of egotistical and narcissistic BS spurred on by inclusivity fascists. What’s April 4th? People who haven’t got anything to be proud of pride day? April 5th? People with one leg slightly longer than the other Day?
Yes I agree. And another of my pet peeves is labelling of people, whether it be yourself or others. Okay, some may be acceptable, such as, ”I’m a Christian”, but I think, generally speaking, labelling is what people do to others when they wish to put them in a category, invalidate and/or control them. But humans are not rigid, we are not one-dimensional and we are subject to change over time. Labels are for jars not people.
So many people just seem to be looking for something to be offended by! Love of victimhood.
Drawing attention to differences, hardly seems the best way to avoid them becoming issues.
Nice one, April 5th. a good day to celebrate that we all are, perhaps, all quite the same, with one leg shorter than the other, for ever going around in circles before the epiphany of realising that perhaps one leg is longer than the other and consequently must identify with another group, equally going around in circles. As for me, I’m me, enjoy your day it’s all yours.
I’ve not really come across “anti-autistic prejudice”. I suppose it exists, but none of the autistic people I know have ever mentioned it. Smallish sample size though. Autists can come across as weird if you’ve not encountered them before, and that doubtless throws some people off balance for a while – not sure I would call that prejudice though.
I don’t really know what “anti-autistic prejudice” could be. But many people get seriously rubbed the wrong way when others always stick out because they’re othery.
To use an everyday example: When I stilled lived in Mainz, I made a habit out of standing at the bar in pubs after I had discovered that sitting at a table simply doesn’t work when you’re alone (not going into details about that here). This worked tolerably well for a while but ended with me being accused of “not doing anything except desiring to get onto the nerves of the bar maids” (I usually didn’t even talk to).
After I have moved to England, I thus decided to change my habits. Sitting didn’t work. And neither did standing because in addition to being accused of “wanting something” from perfectly random people I happend to be standing next to, it would also attract all kinds of would-be troublemakers. Hence, I decided to try walking next. I thus spend my evenings in a pub walking up and down the room while drinking a couple of pints (usually two, sometimes three). This still regularly gets me into quarrels and awkward conversations because apparently, that’s still not socially harmless enough although I have really no idea why. I’ve also specifically been thrown out of a pub once (The Monk’s Retreat in Friar Street, Reading) because – as the security non-lady told me – “You must not keep walking through the room looking at people!”
Does that count as prejudice?
I think the literal meaning of “prejudice” is to pre-judge someone on the basis of some random possibly non-relevant characteristic, which isn’t the same as reacting adversely to someone’s behaviour, which is what happened in the situations you describe. But “prejudice” now seems to mean “being horrid to people”.
Well, to stay within the example, lots of people stand at bars, sit at tables and sometimes, even walk through pub rooms without anyone considering that out of the ordinary because the “Don’t what this guy is up to, but I certainly don’t even want to know that!” assumption I’m usually being confronted with is missing.
Fair point – I think the way someone does something or just the way they look rubs people up the wrong way sometimes, and possibly autists are more likely to do that than others, on average. I don’t know if that’s prejudice as such – they probably don’t even know what autism is or who is autistic. I think it’s just being an a***hole – prejudice is that too, but a special form of it.
No, that’s not prejudice.
It’s not the best pub in Reading anyway, but next time I suggest you take a seat instead and watch the world go by.
There’s not going to be a next time. When someone sells a pint to me, I’ll expect that this means I may actually drink it provided I generally behave myself and mind my own business (for the record: This included a conscious effort at not looking at anyone in particular). When people have second thoughts about this after taking my money, I usually can’t stop them. But – once bitten twice shy – they’ll certainly never get any money from me again.
Since you go to the pub alone to stare at people instead of talking to them, staring being considered an act of aggression throughout the animal kingdom, why not drink at home?
I certainly don’t do that because I’m certainly unlike anything you (claim to) believe about me.
nobody sane is ever going to go around killing autistic people.
What a cute and innocent little girl you are, Steve. Never heard of nor can even imagine, people getting seriously violent towards social misfits on the grounds that “They are doing this intentionally to anger us!”. No, no, no, in Steve’s little beautiful world, stuff like this never happens. Unfortunately, it does happen in the real world. Because … guess what … not all autists are girls and violence against men (or boys) is perfectly acceptable if they’re “somehow weird” as they’re certainly up to no good then.
NB: This doesn’t mean people are actually planning to kill autists, it’s usually more like “Beat them up until the stop moving and then some.” I’ve always survived this so far.
This is just my opinion, but I can’t help noticing that you have told a lot of unusual stories on here about being victimised by Brits, always for no apparent reason, often in pubs, without ever mentioning anything that you might have done deliberately to provoke such reactions against you.
“While portraying oneself as a victim can be highly successful in obtaining goals over the short-term, this method tends to be less successful over time:
Victims’ talent for high drama draws people to them like moths to a flame. Their permanent dire state brings out the altruistic motives in others. It is difficult to ignore constant cries for help. In most instances, however, the help given is of short duration.
And like moths in a flame, helpers quickly get burned; nothing seems to work to alleviate the victims’ miserable situation; there is no movement for the better. Any efforts rescuers make are ignored, belittled, or met with hostility. No wonder that the rescuers become increasingly frustrated – and walk away.[4]”
There’s a whole website devoted to recording such Fake Hate Crime incidents:
fakehatecrimes.org
This is just my opinion, but I can’t help noticing that you have told a lot of unusual stories on here about being victimised by Brits, always for no apparent reason, often in pubs, without ever mentioning anything that you might have done deliberately to provoke such reactions against you.
But I wasn’t even writing about that. To tell a specific story: Once upon a time in the past, while I was living in Mannheim, I came up with a notion that it would be a good idea to travel to Heidelberg and spend some money drinking with the punks hanging out at the Neckar riverbank, presumably mainly because I felt lonely (I was a bit younger back than) and buying some people beer seemed like a good way to make a positive social contact with them. I thus did so and spent almost all of my remaining money on buying beer for these people. We sat there and drank for a while and ultimatively, I fell asleep. When I woke up again, still very drunk, my jacket and tobacco were gone (probably stolen by this very people but I didn’t think of this at that time). I thus started walking round in circles and asking everybody if he had perhaps seen my jacket or tobacco. I don’t know for how long this continued but ultimatively, some guy grew out of the floor in front of me and said something like “If you ever ask for your jacket or tobacco again, I’ll really beat the shit out of you!”. I didn’t consider this a threat I should capitulating to hence, I smiled at him and asked him “Did you perhaps see my jacket or my tobacco?”
– cut –
The next thing I remember was someone pulling the guy off me. I was heavily bleeding all over my face and everything seemed to be swollen there. I wiped the blood off my face, walked over to the same guy, smiled again and asked him “Did you perhaps see my jacket or tobacco?” and then turned round and left unmolested as this was clearly a dead end.
—-
BTW, I don’t remember ever asking you for help with anything and rest assured that I don’t ever will. I’m usually perfectly happy to be left alone.
There it is, another tale of woe.
The last thing you took issue with was me never telling what I might have done to provoke such a reaction. Thus, a story where the provocation on my part was pretty clear and one involving neither Brits nor pubs. That should have made a difference.
Apart from that, it just happened in this way and wouldn’t have happened had I been less completely socially clueless.
Truly autistic people don’t use or understand sarcasm.
Yet your comment to the author of this article was dripping with sarcasm of a particularly unpleasant kind.
“Truly autistic people don’t use or understand sarcasm.” I know people who are most certainly on the autistic spectrum who certainly do understand sarcasm and could use it if they felt it was needed. It may not come naturally but autists like everyone else are able to learn things that don’t come naturally.
The author made a particularly unpleasant statement.
The Neckar-story I recounted above could be construed as having been my fault because I shouldn’t ever have been so stupid to do this to begin with and shouldn’t deliberatley have tried to set the guy off after he had uttered a serious threat. But there have been other situations in the past. People are dangerous animals and they do kill or maim other people, even despite the person who’s the topic of the article probably never really encountered something like this.
I don’t know which pub you’re talking about (Reading again?) , but I’d have taken the guy’s warning seriously and given up on the tobacco. He did at least warn you rather than simply smacking you. Some people have a hair trigger.
It’s also not a great idea to get so you pass out amongst strangers and a responsible landlord should have woken you and asked you to go home.
There are some rather good pubs in Reading, where conversations are welcomed as long as you behave. I frequent one such pub on a regular basis and it’s one of my favourite places.
That wasn’t in a pub at all, it was roughly 30 years ago in the Germany when I had the insane (insofar my present understanding goes) idea of trying to throw a party for a bunch of open air punks I had never talked to before.
You live, you learn. At least you have a story. Hope you find a pub you enjoy.
I quite like the two Spoons in Reading which are still left because they’re large enough that individual people soon fade from everyone’s attention and in particular, The Hope Tap, because it sports four book shelves which apparently function as dumping for books people really don’t want to have at home anymore. This has enabled to find quite a few interesting things to read I wouldn’t ever have bought for myself. Particularly noteworthy would be an 1881 translation of Thukydides’ Peloponnesian War, this being the first book I ever read twice in a pub.
Also worth visiting: The Nags Head, The Ale House and the Castle Tap, although much smaller than the Spoon, all serve excellent Ales.
The second one is my personal favourite – small but with places to hide away should you wish and there are frequent games of chess if that takes your fancy.
Two people have downvoted this
I hope the two of you have better lives from now on because on current evidence you are missing the point
Well, what you say may be true of some, it may even be true of RW (but I doubt it and we are just speculating) but surely you’ve encountered people who are just unpleasant, violent dickheads who love to pick fights for not much reason, any excuse will do, and one excuse is someone looking or acting “different” and furthermore someone who perhaps doesn’t look that streetwise so an easy target? I’ve seen plenty in my lifetime.
Well, after reading Steven Tucker’s interesting article, and the Ethnic Oriental woman’s own “autistic” blog, my considered opinion is that she is completely faking it to get attention, sympathy, and never having to work for a living. It reminds me of the “Mental” section of Dominic Frisby’s brilliant send-up performance “Far Right”.
It’s as if she spent years looking up all the symptoms of autism, then added a few of her own to her repertoire. Give her an Oscar for acting ability.
“Munchausen syndrome (factitious disorder imposed on self) is when someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing, and/or exaggerating an illness. They lie about symptoms, sabotage medical tests (like putting blood in their urine), or harm themselves to get the symptoms. Diagnosing and treating Munchausen syndrome is difficult because of the person’s dishonesty.”
Autists seeking publicity and even successfully so is highly suspicious.
The autistic guy with his flapping arms this is just a symptom. I’m sure we all have our issues in terms of how we cope with the toxicity of existence these days. I say welcome them in as part of the symphony. Same with any form of aberration. They are part of the human story. I love being surrounded by deformity and monstrosity simply because it is part of a clear depiction of our times. Far better than the fake smile and polished teeth of the corporate agenda.
Interesting article, the problem with autism is it is now becoming a condition many claim to have, but have never been diagnosed with, nor will be, yet genuine sufferers are being missed.
Another leftie, woke ‘crisis’ in the offing. They need to keep coming up with new ideas to get worked up about.