Autism, arete, and the ‘Duck Dynasty’ guy

• From Steve Sailer: Defining autism. Maybe it’s just an artificial catch-all so the high-functioning and full-blown kinds aren’t the same.
• Related as it’s where the normal and the autistic overlap: Cracked on what is and is not a nerd. I don’t find “The Big Bang Theory” all that funny; it’s too obvious like lots of sitcoms. (Studio and canned laughter: “closed captioning for the humor-impaired.”) I like Cracked’s earlier Photoplasty entry on it, retitling it “Your Dad’s Idea of Nerds” (True Nerds Are Watching “Community”!). Is that still on?
• From Bob Wallace: Eros, arete, and eudaimonia.
• Ex-Army on Phil Robertson. I’ve never seen “Duck Dynasty.” From what I gather, this is another skirmish in the culture war. A conservative Southern man believes homosexuality is a sin against God and nature, and says so; the elite has promulgated that Gay Is Good. Some libertarians are arguing that at-will employment is a fair, voluntary arrangement; A&E had the right to suspend him. Be that as it may, emotionally of course I say Phil’s right and A&E are jerks. Reminds me of Sailer’s post that a lot of the elite’s recent ridicule of the church is really just a cover for complaining about homos hitting on teenage boys (not children; it’s not “pedophilia”), which otherwise you can’t say anymore in polite society. By the way, here’s what Phil looked like before the West went to hell.