The Edale Cat Strikes Again
Busker Playing the Didgeridoo
Black and White Portrait
RedBubble
Some Photos I Wish I'd Taken
Abandoned Shopping Trolley
Raising the Flag
Autumn Colours
Poor Old Lily
NaBloPoMo
About me? Mad, disabled, in debt, feminist, radical, angry, pacifist, warrior, radio 4 listener, geek, flower-power chick... About Hippie blog? Ramblings, photos, fury, giggles and musings about love, peace, friendship, madness, happiness, the state of the world, my life, cool pics, my health and general ranting...
Alice Walker on expectations, responsibilities and a new reality that
is almost more than the heart can bear.
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us
being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you
know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history.
But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried,
year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to
be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is
almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not
intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed,
because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a
different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through
all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the
spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would
actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take
your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and
character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only
sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster
that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for
bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you
do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make
a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your
gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your
family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon
become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their
wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have
smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no
way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of
thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse
not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real
success, which is all that so many people in the world really want.
They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the
attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is
because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside
job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most
damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain.
Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess
a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to
have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in
disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of
the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this
we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting
a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the
sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more
torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit.
This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women,
children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented
by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he
confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally,
it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible
leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection
to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges,
purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch
you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and
lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that,
kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of
us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy, Alice Walker
- I believe that the husband and wife should vote as one: meaning that, after discussing the possible options, both come to a mutual decision and the wife strengthens the husband's vote with hers. I think it's a shame if the wife disregards her husband's opinion and "cancels" his vote by choosing the opposite. And in my opinion, the same is true for adult unmarried daughters - they are under their father's authority until marriage.
- But imagine some stranger came knocking on the door of your house and asked if he could move in and live with you. How much would you welcome him? You would certainly see him as "the other," and in many ways he is. He is not part of your family.
The request of gays to be "married" might be similar, even for a tolerant person like myself. The request to be married is a request to move into my "house"--the order of my society that has been traditional for thousands of years.- If those 40 million babies had lived, there wouldn’t be so many jobs for illegals to steal from Americans!
- I believe it's in the heart of the earth. I suspect that earthquakes happen because hell is enlarging itself. But's that's my opinion.
- In the 7th grade we always said grace before leaving the classroom to go to lunch and the whole class recited the 100th Psalm each morning. You weren't afraid to walk your own neighborhood after dark or even considered closing your windows at night since we had no AC in those days. Lock your car at night? What for? No reason to do that. They're wasn't car hijacking back then either. No one committed suicide either.
- But Andrew, I beg to differ. All that science is really BS. If you have a penis, you're body automatically wants to find its way into a vagina, not into another dude's asshole.
- God help us. We just voluntarily put an Antichrist in power. Hope you all enjoy socialism which will invariably take even more of your rights away. When you realize that I will say I told you so.
- "An Anderson (SC) man who had alleged his father attacked him with a baseball bat "to cast the demons of homosexuality out of him"
Wishful thinking. More fathers should have such courage and take moral responsibility.- He explained that the ham came from a type of black-hoofed Iberico wild pig that wanders around eating acorns, "which turn into delicious fat in its muscle tissue, and also make it really healthy for you." That drew a chuckle from the reporters Obama had brought along. "All I know is it tastes good," said Obama. "That was delicious."]
Obama is a pork eating muslim to throw us off the trail- It is sad to see how mislead some of you people are. Abortions don't turn a profit? Not true! Aborted babies are used in vaccines and the medical establishment is trying to get more women to have abortions because the demand for vaccinations have gone up in recent years!
- I accept and agree with equal rights. They already have these though. Every single homosexual is entitled to marry someone of the opposite sex anytime they so choose.
- CHRISTIANS I HAVE BAD NEWS
OBAMA WON!
NOW PRAY HARDLY THAN YOU EVER PRAY BEFORE CAUSE ARMAGEDDON IS NEAR THAN EVER BEFORE!- Woman seem to think they are only beautiful when they are undressed as they show their flesh off?
I find it funny. Woman are just our slaves and they will always be. God puts woman to slave them selfs to only one man their mate. Which by the way is suppose to be someone that loves her. The devil slaves her to all the world.
The annual Greetings Card Campaign brings people across the world in touch with each other in a simple way - sending a card with a friendly greeting or message of solidarity to someone who is in danger or unjustly imprisoned. These are prisoners of conscience, people under sentence of death, human rights defenders under threat because of their work, and others at risk.
The campaign, which runs from 1 November to 31 January, offers hope and encouragement to the people who receive our cards. It can also help bring about change - the impression their international mail makes on police, prison staff or political authorities can help keep them safe.
. Non-disabled feminists continue to treat disability as a
side issue, an optional extra and in no way part of the so-called mainstream
academic or political debates. The disabled people's movement - while
many and sometimes the majority of its activists are women - is still
informed by political and theoretical debates which strangely sideline
women's experiences and issues.
[...]
A failure to understand the social model of disability lies at the heart of the
dominant reaction to the situation where children are having to provide
support to their disabled parent. Challenging the medical model of
disability and the dominant concepts of independence and dependence can
help us to promote disabled women's human and civil rights.
[...]
As Liz Crow writes in Encounters with Strangers, we need to put back the
experience of impairment into our politics. We need to write about,
research and analyse the personal experience of our bodies and our minds
for if we don’t impose our own definitions and perspectives then the non-
disabled world will continue to do it for us in ways which alienate and
disempower us.
The author discusses shortcomings in the women's therapy community's response to disabled women and suggests some analysis of the phenomenon of what she calls the "active unwillingness to know."
[...]
DePauw reflects on the often misunderstood and ignored intersection of gender and disability, an intersection she sees as a "final frontier." Feminist issues often have revolved around the female body and the exploitation of it; when disability issues are raised, it can work to disrupt and complicate issues of exploitation and control of female bodies and identity.
[...]
The feminist movement is not sufficiently conscious of its own "ableism." Feminists who criticize the traditional sex roles of wife and mother are insensitive to the fact that women with disabilities are taught that they are asexual, as oppressive a message as that conveyed by heterosexism. What is more, feminism's strategy of complete separation from patriarchal society ignores the fact that women with disabilities experience constant and tangible barriers such as physical inaccessibility. The writer suggests that women with and without disabilities need to communicate, so that a new critical feminist anthropology can be engendered; an anthropology that will take not only gender into account, but also sickness, disability, and age as powerful shapers of self and society.
[...]
This paper analyses how disability informs and complicates gender identity for women with disabilities and demonstrates that disability is a feminist issue. The first section underscores the dual silence of women with disabilities who remain largely unheard of, both in feminist literature and in the disability rights movement.
[...]
The second section of this paper suggests possible points of entry into several debates within feminist literature that would be broadened or transformed by a disability perspective. Issues of reproductive rights, control of women's bodies, newborn's right to treatment, the construction of gender as informed by disability, and sexual representations are among the issues analyzed.
[...]
the last section of this paper analyzes various strategies for change, including standpoint or minority models and strategies within feminist thought that may be useful or emancipatory for women with disabilities.
[...]
how applying a “disability lens” and reflecting the values and vision of disability feminism can help us bring the voices and visions of disabled women and girls to the policy arena and to feminist research, policy and advocacy agendas.
[...]
feminist critical analysis does not usually recognize disability as a category of otherness (as it does with race, class, and gender) unless the study specifically states this focus.
[...]
an articulation of feminist Disability Studies as a “major critical subgenre within feminism.” She asserts that feminist Disability Studies can be located in the broader area of identity politics if discourses of the body marked as deviant are included.
[...]
Feminist disability theory augments the terms and confronts the limits of the ways we understand human diversity, the materiality of the body, multiculturalism, and the social formations that interpret bodily differences. The essay asserts that integrating disability as a category of analysis and a system of representation deepens, expands, and challenges feminist theory. To elaborate on these premises, the essay discusses four fundamental and interpenetrating domains of feminist theory: representation, the body, identity, and activism, suggesting some critical inquiries that considering disability can generate within these theoretical arenas.
[...]
[Feminist disability studies] situates the disability experience in the context of rights and exclusions. It aspires to retrieve dismissed voices and misrepresented experiences. It helps us understand the intricate relation between bodies and selves. It illuminates the social processes of identity formation. It aims to denaturalize disability. In short, feminist disability studies reimagines disability.”
[...]
The nature of the problems faced by disabled women are such that they need to be addressed by both the feminist and disability movements. But the fact is that they remain invisible within the women's movement at large.
[...]
The author examines disability from the perspective of disabled women. She focuses on the social model of disability rather than a medical model and asserts that disability is another form of oppression experienced by women. She argues that disabled women have been excluded from both the women's movement, which is oriented toward non-disabled women, and from the disability rights movement, which is oriented toward disabled men. Using the history of black feminism, the author argues for a reframing of the analysis in which to explore the simultaneous experiences of gender and disability.
[...]
Disabled women activists have, however, been equally critical of the failure of mainstream feminism to recognise the disability perspective.
[...]
the incompleteness of feminism without the inclusion of a disability perspective.
[...]
The author discusses her anger and frustration with feminism in two ways: first, that disability is generally invisible from feminism's mainstream agenda, and second, that when disability is a subject of research by feminists, the researchers objectify disabled people so that the research is alienated from their experiences rather than attempting to understand the experiences of disabled women.
[...]
[she] calls on nondisabled as well as disabled researchers to continue to study the ways in which the nondisabled society oppresses its members with disabilities. Lastly, she argues that disability research is of great importance in the general understanding of the perpetuation of inequalities in society.
[...]
leading activists explore the ways feminism can and must acknowledge disabled women for the benefit of all. Revealing the ways in which disabled women have been rendered nearly invisible, it shatters received feminist wisdom on a wide range of core issues. Offering cogent evidence of the many ways in which disabled women's experiences would revitalize feminism today, Encounters with Strangers makes an invaluable contribution to a more inclusive understanding of disability rights, outlining how new and vital alliances may be achieved.
[...]
Unfortunately, little research has been conducted on this issue as it effects the lives of women with disabilities, which may reflect the belief that the lived experiences of many women with disabilities are not important nor perceived as valid by mainstream researchers.
[...]
It is part of my work as a nondisabled feminist to interrogate my own ablism and to look for the opportunities disability analysis provides for fuller theorizing and activism.
[...]
Disabled women's issues, experiences, and embodiments have been misunderstood, if not largely ignored, by feminist as well as mainstream disability theorists.
[...]
Beginning as separate enterprises that followed activist and scholarly paths, gender and disability studies have reached a point where they can move beyond their boundaries for a common landscape to inspire new areas of inquiry.
[...]
the cross section of oppressions that is created when a woman is black or a lesbian is much more mediated than the cross section of oppressions created when a woman is also disabled.
[...]
one of first articles reporting on the exclusion of women with disabilities from the “mainstream” women’s movement,
[...]
feminist critiques of these norms have virtually ignored the pressures on women who do not have full use of their bodies.
[...]
by arguing that the myth of bodily perfection and appearance norms which deny the experiences of disabled women contribute to the denial of disability and therefore are oppressive.
[...]
One group, however, continues to remains mostly invisible in feminist research; disabled women. Disabled and non-disabled feminists have expressed their deep concerns that the voices of disabled women have been missing in most feminist texts so their lives are unknown, their contributions unrecognized and the effects of social discrimination and inequality in their lives ignored.
[...]
We need a feminist theory of disability, both because 16 percent of women are disabled, and because the oppression of disabled people is closely linked to the cultural oppression of the body. Disability is not a biological given; like gender, it is socially constructed from biological reality. Our culture idealizes the body and demands that we control it. Thus, although most people will be disabled at some time in their lives, the disabled are made "the other," who symbolize failure of control and the threat of pain, limitation, dependency, and death. If disabled people and their knowledge were fully integrated into society, everyone's relation to her/his real body would be liberated.
[...]
feminist theory has neglected to incorporate the perspectives and experiences of women with disabilities, and that these perspectives must be included in future discussions of feminist ethics, the body, and the social critique of the medical model.
Disability Rights are a feminist issue because women know what it’s like to be infantalized and treated as lesser people. And we should know damn by well that it isn’t right. Not for us, and not for anybody.
When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.
Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".
So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.
"When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," said journalist Dylan Iorwerth.
Swansea council became lost in translation when it was looking to halt heavy goods vehicles using a road near an Asda store in the Morriston area
All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only".
The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.
The notice went up and all seemed well - until Welsh speakers began pointing out the embarrassing error.
The sign was lost in translation - and is now missing from the roadside
Welsh-language magazine Golwg was promptly sent photographs of the offending sign by a number of its readers.
Managing editor Mr Iorwerth said: "We've been running a series of these pictures over the past months.
"They're circulating among Welsh speakers because, unfortunately, it's all too common that things are not just badly translated, but are put together by people who have no idea about the language.
"It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help.
"Everything these days seems to be written first in English and then translated.
"Ideally, they should be written separately in both languages."
A council spokeswoman said : "Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road.
"We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible."