The question: "Who is Temple Grandin?"
What I learned:
Temple Grandin is one of the rare speakers on Autism that can speak from personal experience and not guardian, parental, or doctorial experience. She was born in 1950 and diagnosed as brain damaged, though she really had autism, and didn't speak until she was 4. She had lots of support as she grew up - which a lot of autistic children, especially those in low-income sitautions don't have - and though she still describes herself as thinking in visual rather than linguistic ways, because of this upbringng she has stood in front of audiences to speak, has revolutionized the way that commercial cows are led to slaughter, and has even won awards from PETA to Societies of Biological Engineering.
I saw her on the list of 100 most influential people that TIME magazine just put out and wanted to read more about her. Unbeknownst to me, there's TONS of information about her out there. And though I really want to learn about the autism, right at this second I'm more interested in the humane treatment of cattle.
(Don't ask me why, I just let my brain do what it wants WHEN it wants.)
At her website she describes how she came to realize how livestock 'feels' and how changes to working with animals would reduce stress. When PETA awards someone for making cattle's lives better as they head to the slaughter, you know this has to be a breakthrough.
As I read throughout her page, its obvious how much she got into the animal's minds and that's something that I can admire. I'm not a PETA person. I do like eating animals (sorry!) because they are tasty and I have sharp teeth designed for that. But, i do still eat veggies (I've rediscovered zucchini lately and boy, is it damn good!) and I would never HURT an animal on purpose (except for bugs, but are they animals? I'm territorial when it comes to bugs). But I agree that there is no need to torture the animals used for food products. If they have a short life, then make it as good as we can. Who knows if this will bring us to Heaven or some other place, but it sure is comforting to someone personally...
I like sounding intellectual sometimes even though I'm not. The above is full of grammatical errors and ridiculous sentences and still, I think it sounds pretty damn smart. :D
Anyway, back to Temple. Or Dr. Grandin as it were. I hope that there are other people out there that do similar things, trying to make lives better for animals. Because no matter what, they have no voice. No voice in society, politics, life. They can't speak and even those that can (like the signing monkeys) are still tortured and treated horribly. I always advocate for helping animals over people because they are truly without any way to help themselves in this human-run world.
Although, there's no way I'm like this chick:Death Gets the Girl.
"You can't hug your children with nuclear arms!!" Oy!
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