Water Damage is Just Liquid Revenge
You look up at the ceiling
and find something other than
clouds.
Water damage is just liquid revenge
best I can figure it.
We’ve done so much to the oceans and lakes
and rivers and creeks and streams
that you have to expect some
push back.
I’m surprised there is not more,
but then I am surprised by
many things.
There is a fine line between idiot savant
and genius
and I am nowhere
near it.
I once tried to hold my pants up
with a broken fan belt
to make my car
jealous.
It didn’t work.
Idiot Savant -- Igor Postash
In 1858 John Langdon Down became the medical superintendent of the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Redhill, Surrey, the first establishment to educate people with developmental disabilities; previously they had been housed either in asylums for the mentally ill or in workhouses. The institution had opened in Highgate in 1848 and moved to its permanent location in 1855. In 1866 he published "Observations on an Ethnic Classification of Idiots" in which he classified different types of conditions by ethnic characteristics, in particular what he described as Mongolism but which is more generally known as Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder that is typically associated with physical growth delays, characteristic facial features, and mild to moderate intellectual disability. Two years later he left Earlswood and set up his own private home for the "mentally subnormal" at Normansfield (the modern Langdon Down Centre). In 1887 he coined the term “idiot savant” (French for "learned idiot") to describe someone who demonstrates one or more prodigious capabilities far in excess of what would be considered normal, while also showing significant deficits in other areas of brain processing. The most dramatic examples score very low on IQ tests but have exceptional skill in specific areas such as rapid calculation (hypercalculia), art, memory, or musical ability. About half of them are autistic, and about 10% of people with autism have some form of savant abilities. Just as “Mongolism” has come to be considered derogatory, so has the term “idiot savant;” savant syndrome has became widely accepted.
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