Recent Things...

Some of the things I have been up to lately.

• I co-wrote a blog post at The F-Word with Helen G, Jess McCabe and zohra moosa, about Julian Assange speaking at #occupylsx: We are the 49%?
  
• Marks and Spencer were only marketing their astronomy toys to boys. I wrote about women in astronomy, and their quick response to correct their mistake: Reach for the stars, girls
  
• My post, It's World Mental Health Day, so stop stigmatising my pills, was picked up by Gender Focus, in their round-up post
  
• It was also mentioned, and quoted (squee!) in Society Guardian's World Mental Health Day round-up
  
• This morning I saw Eamonn Holmes say to a rape victim, "Well, I hope you take taxis now". So this afternoon I blogged about it at The F-Word: Victim-blaming on daytime TV

[The image is a photograph of dozens of brightly-coloured sweets in the shape of flowers.]

Round-Up Post

There are plenty of must-read articles and blog posts which I haven't had the time or the spoons to cover. All of the following are well worth a look.

• Scope are running a survey about the real costs of being disabled, which you can fill in here.
  
• "On the Shoulders of the Vulnerable", an article from Morning Star with information about ATOS and how ESA medicals are failing disabled people, especially those of us with mental health problems.
  
• A Guardian article, Housing Benefit Cuts: What's the Real Truth?
  
• Laurie Penny in the New Statesman writes Strictly Come Scrounging, Anyone?, about The X Factor vision of society [which] blames the poor for their predicament.
  
• Hopi Sen and Left Futures point out the contradiction in David Cameron criticising those claiming over £20,000 in housing benefits, compared to his own expenses claims for his second home.
  
• Crisis, a national charity for single homeless people, have created a comprehensive, myth-busting press release full of information on how the government are 'peddling myths' to sell the Housing Benefit cuts.
  
• Lenin's Tomb deconstructs a Daily Mail article decrying 75% of Incapacity Benefit claimants as 'fit to work'.
  
• The same article is looked at on This Is My Blog, who looks in depth at 'abandoned claims' and why they might really happen.
  
• Susannah posts a plea for help, describing how the removal of the Mobility Component of DLA from people in residential care will directly affect her brother.
  

(Cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?)