Author Archives: Indigo Jo

Can we stay in Afghanistan for the women?

Raising hope for women in Afghanistan | World news | The Guardian This article, by Samira Ahmed, is about how the war in Afghanistan has been framed as a “feminist experiment” and the plight of Afghan women has been referred … Continue reading

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Posted in War in Iraq & Afghanistan | 1 Comment

Steve Jobs’s death leaves me cold

So, Steve Jobs, the man who invented the Mac, the NeXT box and then merged the two together, is dead. Actually I’m sure a few people helped Jobs on the way, like actual programmers and graphic designers and, well, you … Continue reading

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Posted in Mac | 3 Comments

British schools: the leaving age and “Apartheid”

Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of British schools, has been in the news twice this week, the first occasion when he proposed that the school leaving age should be 14, so as to “give less academic students a better … Continue reading

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Posted in Education | 6 Comments

Free Kimberley Robbins!

While I’ve been following the case of Ayn Van Dyk, the autistic girl seized from her father for ridiculous reasons in British Columbia in June and still in care (see earlier post), there has been another saga involving a person … Continue reading

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Posted in Disability | Leave a comment

Feel the autism?

OK, so after posting that long article criticising disabled and/or autistic self-advocates for forgetting how hard it was to raise a profoundly disabled or severely autistic child, I had this tweet today: Yesterday,a daycare child woke from nap & fingerpainted … Continue reading

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Posted in Asperger's / autism | 6 Comments

Can anyone speak for all disabled people?

Many years ago, there lived a scholar who asked an old rabbi what could be learned from the Talmud. The rabbi told him of two men who fell down a chimney. One arrived at the bottom dirty, while the other … Continue reading

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Posted in Disability | 5 Comments

Remember Kercher, prosecutor tells jury

BBC News - Amanda Knox appeal: Jury told to remember Kercher Italian prosecutors have urged a jury considering an appeal by two convicted murderers of British student Meredith Kercher to remember her family. … Before a packed courtroom, prosecutor Giancarlo … Continue reading

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Posted in Crime, Europe | Leave a comment

The human and financial cost of ME

Last week, the University of Bristol published a study partly funded by Action for ME which highlighted the economic cost of ME and “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” (more accurately, the cost of illness to service users at NHS ME and chronic … Continue reading

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Posted in M.E. | Leave a comment

Flather’s attack on Muslims is not brave

UK immigration: Polygamy, welfare benefits and an insidious silence | Mail Online This article by former Tory peer, Baroness Shreela Flather, appeared in the UK Daily Mail on Friday, and consists of a broad-brush attack on Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim … Continue reading

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Posted in Islamophobia, Media, Secularism, Windbags, Women | Tagged | 3 Comments

Government planning individual voter registration

Shocked MPs told electoral plan could remove 10m voters | Politics | The Guardian The Government is planning to introduce voluntary individual registration for coming elections alongside massive changes to electoral boundaries, to replace the current system of household registration … Continue reading

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Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

Is £500,000 worth it for Dahl’s hut?

A shrine for Saint Roald and Saint Rowling (from today’s Guardian) Roald Dahl’s family is seeking £500,000 (US $790,300 at current rates) to transfer the hut in which the late author wrote some of his famous children’s novels to the … Continue reading

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Posted in Arts | 1 Comment

Facebook troll jailed — why can’t people be adults?

BBC News - Reading man jailed for dead girl 'trolling' insults A man has been jailed for 18 weeks for posting insulting messages on Facebook pages dedicated to young people who had died, in one case a 15-year-old girl who … Continue reading

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Posted in Asperger's / autism, Civil liberties | 2 Comments

Eurabian nightmare

The end of Eurabia - FT.com Ths image is from the Spectator, the British political magazine, and represents what passed for journalism on the European and American right during the post-9/11 era. The occasion for this was a series of … Continue reading

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Posted in "Eurabia", Media, Terrorism, Windbags | 2 Comments

Blood donation rules: no sense then or now

On Thursday it was announced that the rules governing who can give blood in the UK was changed; previously, any man who had ever had sex with a man was permanently excluded; the new rules state that he is banned … Continue reading

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Posted in Health, M.E. | Leave a comment

Ayn Van Dyk: where child protection defeats itself

BC Local News: Abbotsford dad still fighting to have daughter returned home Over the past few months I’ve been following the case of Ayn Van Dyk, a 9-year-old autistic girl from British Columbia (Canada) who was taken into care very … Continue reading

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Posted in Asperger's / autism | Tagged | 9 Comments

Vivint vote appeal, ME and mental illness

Yesterday it was announced that the Whittemore-Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada had won a long-running campaign for a $100,000 grant from the Vivint home security company (formerly APX Alarm) called the Vivint Gives Back Project. The overall winner was the … Continue reading

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Posted in M.E. | Leave a comment

Charges against saline case nurse dropped

BBC News - Stepping Hill saline deaths: Nurse Rebecca Leighton charges dropped Remember the case of the several people who died after someone spiked the saline at a Manchester hospital two months ago? And that nurse who was accused of … Continue reading

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Posted in Crime, Health, Media | 3 Comments

Why I support banning the EDL’s march

Of late I’ve seen a number of tweets and blog articles questioning why some “good liberals” suddenly go hard-line when it comes to allowing the English Defence League to have their marches, and start supporting banning them, particularly the one … Continue reading

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Posted in Civil liberties, Far right | 8 Comments

Pauline Pearce: why jail drug mules?

“Hackney heroine” tells why she confronted rioters (from last Monday’s Guardian) Pauline Pearce was the woman caught on camera lecturing rioting youths in Hackney that they should “fight for a cause” rather than tearing apart their neighbourhood, and the footage … Continue reading

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Posted in British justice, London riots | Leave a comment

What makes appropriate school dress?

School skirt ban is just the latest battle in the uniform wars | Education | The Guardian Recently a secondary school in Ipswich (the third in the town) changed its uniform code making trousers compulsory for all pupils, boys and … Continue reading

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Posted in Education, Gender | 6 Comments