Last Wednesday in Manchester, a 64-year-old man with learning disabilities, David Askew, collapsed and died after two youths broke down his garden gate and tampered with his mother’s scooter. He had not been physically assaulted, but had been the subject of a campaign of intimidation by a gang of local yobs. Neighbours described […]
Continue reading about Harassment “commonplace” for those with learning disabilities
Yesterday I had a brief exchange of tweets with Organica, who told me of her enthusiasm for the British comedian, Ricky Gervais, best known for writing and starring in The Office, his stand-up shows, and most recently the critically very unacclaimed film titled The Invention of Lying. She was enjoying learning British English from […]
Continue reading about Ricky Gervais on ME, and other bad comedy
The other day I had a debate with Clair Lewis, a British disability activist and blogger, about the public reaction to the Kay Gilderdale case. Lewis was appalled by the show of public sympathy towards Kay and the way she was let off the hook after what she regarded as a 30-hour assault on […]
Continue reading about Gilderdale, Schiavo and models of disability
At the end of December there was an article by Hadley Freeman in the Guardian, characterising the past decade as a decade of fakery: fake science, fake politics and fake friendships connected only by Facebook. At the time, I criticised the article, but things I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks have put […]
Continue reading about The real value of online friendships (Hadley Freeman revisited)
Does anyone remember what Robert Kilroy-Silk was like before he wrote that column in the Daily Express — AKA Daily Spew — saying that the West owes Muslims nothing, being as we are all limb-choppers and women-repressers etc., and then tried to make a name for himself by getting involved with UKIP?
A YouTuber who suffers […]
I’ve been following the media coverage of the Lynn Gilderdale attempted murder trial with some interest as I found it quite emotionally affecting, and have found most of the coverage to be sympathetic to Lynn’s mother, Kay Gilderdale, who was acquitted last Tuesday. It now turns out that Panorama, the BBC documentary series, had […]
Continue reading about Panorama and other media coverage of the Gilderdale affair
Last week, Apple launched its long-awaited tablet computer, which was something of a surprise to me as I had read that Steve Jobs had earlier given an explanation, at length, as to why he thought tablet computers were not a good idea. Now that Apple have made a success of their iPhone, they’ve upscaled […]
Earlier this week, a mother named Kay Gilderdale was acquitted of the attempted murder of her daughter Lynn in December 2008. Lynn Gilderdale had been bed-bound since the age of 14 with severe ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). She was paraplegic (earlier on in her illness, she had been functionally quadriplegic, but she remained without […]
Continue reading about The differences between the Inglis and Gilderdale murder cases
Yesterday a man who attacked someone who had burgled his house and terrorised his family had his sentence cut and suspended (having had his conviction overturned) and released. Also yesterday, a woman who had killed her brain-damaged son by giving him an overdose of heroin was jailed for life, with an unusually low tariff […]
Yesterday William Peace AKA Bad Cripple commented on a recent case in Canada in which a French family were denied permanent residency because they have a daughter who has cerebral palsy (and, according to the authorities, “developmental delay”). David Barlagne and his family were advised when in France that his family would have no […]
A while back, I read a heart-warming story about a woman who was paralysed in an accident during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 while she was serving with the US Navy who had a baby boy earlier this year. However, not long after she had the baby, Kaney O’Neill ended the relationship with her boyfriend, […]
Continue reading about Kaney O’Neill: who’s an unfit parent then?
The bookshop chain Borders UK is set to close next Tuesday, with all 45 remaining Borders and Books Etc stores closing (a few, and most of Books Etc, already have), and the place looks eerily like Woolworths did this time last year, with bright red and yellow “Store Closing” and “Last X Days” signs in […]
Continue reading about Borders turns off lifts for last week
Doctors said my son’s brain was damaged — but he was bright | Life and style | The Guardian
This article is by Rahila Gupta whose son, who died in 2002, had cerebral palsy and had extreme difficulty communicating, but was not mentally impaired. She spent much time during his life trying to persuade professionals […]
Continue reading about Two sides of the facilitated communication debate
How far should we go to avoid the hypothetical possibility of offending someone? The other day, I came across a video posted on the disability group blog FWD/Forward in which members of the Disabled Young People’s Collective, based in North Carolina, give examples of derogatory terms used on people with disabilities (and also mental […]
A mother has died in a fire while trying to save her son, after bullies set fire to their house by posting a lit firework through their door last night (5th Nov, Guy Fawkes night). The thugs had been bullying Raum Fox, aged 17, because he has learning disabilities:
Friend and care worker […]
Continue reading about Learning disability bullying claims victim’s mother
Father fights to stop hospital withdrawing life support for baby son
I read a disturbing story in the Guardian this morning, which was reported across various other newspapers and in the BBC, that the parents of a young boy were fighting each other in court over whether to turn off his life support. The boy […]
Continue reading about Fight over life support for disabled boy
Brother Abu Sinan, who some of you may remember as a regular on Umar Lee’s blog, has appealed for help as he needs treatment for his autistic son, Sinan, which is starting to get expensive as medical insurance does not cover the only effective treatment:
We took our little Sinan to the Children’s National […]
Last Sunday, the New York Times ran a feature on a young woman, Stephanie Smith from Minnesota, who became paralysed and brain-damaged after eating a home-cooked hamburger contaminated with a virulent strain of E-Coli bacteria. Such bacteria gets into the meat because of poor meat hygiene at the processing plants, which allows excrement to […]
Last week, there was an inquest into the suicide of a young woman, Kerrie Wooltorton, who drank poison and called an ambulance, supposedly because she did not want to die alone. The 26-year-old had been suffering from depression because of infertility, and hours earlier had written a “living will” stating her intentions. The […]
Back in late 2008, I got contacted by Emel magazine, a British Muslim lifestyle magazine, for a feature on Muslim bloggers. The process of getting the material over there took months, and I dealt with two different sisters as the first one left the magazine, but I finally got word last week that it […]
Continue reading about Hey Emel, what have you done to my avatar?
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