Court tells disabled woman: just wet yourself
This post is also available at Where's the Benefit, and you can comment there or here. Ex-ballerina Elaine McDonald care ruling 'shameful' (with video) I wasn't aware of this case until I read earlier...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Simon Baron Cohen, autism and empathy
I recently got hold of two books by Simon Baron-Cohen which focus on the subject of empathy. The earlier, The Essential Difference, focusses on the difference in empathy and systemising between men and women;...
The dangers of over-generous parental rights
Pregnant? Wait till the boss hears | Life and style | The Guardian This article was about a woman (Danniella McClain, right) who worked for an upmarket estate agent's in west London, who informed...
Don’t hurt aspies, then play the aspie card
This past week it was reported in the news that Ryan Cleary, who had been arrested and charged over an alleged role in cracking the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which...
Sri Lanka: who makes the rules of war?
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields – 4oD – Channel 4 Last week I saw a programme on Channel 4, broadcast late at night (no doubt because it contains footage of people being killed), which purports...
As long as they’re anti-western
Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers — George Monbiot, The Guardian (the version with references is on Mobiot's website here.) This is about a tendency among the...
Emmerdale, assisted suicide and the drama imperative
I don’t plan to watch the Terry Pratchett assisted suicide show that is on tonight, but I did watch the sequence of episodes in Emmerdale in which Jackson Walsh, who sustained a spinal-cord injury...
Why the smartphone is no substitute for a computer
How the smartphone is killing the PC | Technology | The Guardian Charles Arthur is the Guardian’s tech correspondent (he used to edit the Thursday Technology supplement, but then they ditched it), and this...
Trailer for new film about severe ME
This is a trailer for Voices from the Shadows, a film about severe ME by Natalie Boulton, who edited the book Lost Voices (reviewed by me here), and her son Josh Biggs (her daughter,...
Shocking exposé of violence at Bristol hospital
Panorama last night broadcast an hour-long exposé of a locked ward for adults with learning disabilities and autism (although I did not notice anyone who seemed to have autism) on which the carers seemed...
ME Awareness month round-up
I know, ME Awareness week was a couple of weeks ago and work took too much out of me back then. However, the month ends in just under two hours (British time) and I...
First impressions: Fedora 15, GNOME 3
For many years, GNOME has been the default desktop for most Linux users — it’s developed a reputation for almost boring stability, and generally stayed out of the way and didn’t offer too much...
ME Awareness: Emily Collingridge’s appeal
This article is an open letter by Emily Collingridge (right), who is best known as the author of Severe ME/CFS: A Guide to Living, a guide for patients and those involved in caring for...
New phone
I took delivery of a new phone yesterday — a Samsung Galaxy S. Not the dual-core S II, which was well beyond my price range, but the Galaxy S was pretty much the top...
Sexualisation of children: start with the adults
Innocence Lost: What Happened to Girlhood? « Clutch Magazine The above article appears on a website mainly aimed at the African American community and I got the link from a Black American Muslim friend...
Who’s defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
Dominique Strauss-Kahn finds sympathy in Paris | World news | The Guardian The above article lays out some of the conspiracy theories people in France entertain about why the former head of the International...
Attraction doesn’t depend on surveys
I heard the discussion on the Vanessa Feltz show this morning about the recent “study” done by an evolutionary psychologist, named Satoshi Kanazawa, who is based at the London School of Economics, which purports...
Girl refused risky operation by mean Scottish health jobsworths
Little Leah’s cerebral palsy dilemma Pictures – CBS News I got tweeted this article by someone who writes a lot on disability issues, and it’s a photo-gallery feature (not mobile-friendly, although I managed to view...
The McCanns and Scotland Yard
Does Every Child Matter? – itsmotherswork’s posterous I had meant to post a longer entry about this issue, but was too busy watching the debate on The Big Questions (“Does Britain Have a Problem...
Calls for apologies for 1970s virginity tests
The Guardian have been running various stories lately over files released which show the extent of virginity tests which were being carried out on Asian brides, either on arrival at Heathrow or before they...