{"id":569,"date":"2004-08-16T19:14:54","date_gmt":"2004-08-16T19:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=569"},"modified":"2004-08-16T19:14:54","modified_gmt":"2004-08-16T19:14:54","slug":"follow_the_herd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=569","title":{"rendered":"Follow The Herd"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took a second look at the Edwards pictures after one of you complimented my moustache. I really must check myself in the mirror more often. Facial hair of any kind bugs the hell out of me. A couple years ago, I had the chicken pox and I couldn’t shave for three or four weeks. It was awful. I looked like a yeshiva school dropout. My problem is that my five o’clock shadow is more like a three o’clock shadow. Note to self: start carrying a razor with you for those evening engagements.
\nNPR has a story about a summer camp for kids with Asperger’s Syndrome<\/a>. Asperger’s<\/a> is a mild form of autism that is usually characterized by high intelligence and a minimal ability to recognize social cues. The camp is supposed to teach these kids how to socialize and “fit in.” Listening to this, I started wondering if this was a subtle effort at encouraging conformity to a set of social norms, whatever those are. I can sympathize with a parent’s desire to have their kids spared the teasing and ostracism that frequently accompanies being “different.” Yet I don’t necessarily think we should discourage these kids from expressing their true personalities, either. A lot of Asperger’s kids grow up to be brilliant thinkers with unique insights on the world around them. We should be nurturing that kind of growth and reminding these that while it’s important to recognize the thoughts and feelings of others, it’s also okay to be a little different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took a second look at the Edwards pictures after one of you complimented my moustache. I really must check myself in the mirror more often. Facial hair of any kind bugs the hell out of me. A couple years ago, I had the chicken pox and I couldn’t shave for three or four weeks. […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-9b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}