The problem with liberalism is that one never knows where one should stand. Two stories in the news illustrate this quite well. First, on Tuesday we had an up raw over whether or not nick griffin should be allowed to speak at the oxford union. Now, all reasonable people loathe griffin and his racist beliefs; yet, at the same time, one must uphold the position that all people should have a right to free speech. My own personal thoughts were that he should have been allowed to speak, and then, in the ensuing debate, have been shown to be the moron he undoubtedly is.

The second, slightly more complex issue is the British teacher in Sudan jailed for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Mohammed. On the one hand, I think we have to respect the will of the Sudanese people and judiciary; on the other, I, as a liberal atheist, don’t see the point of getting het up about the name of this bear. I don’t see how it insults Islam. Were I to call my bear Jesus, would that insult Christianity? I don’t see how it would. Religion, I think can be taken too far. Do I believe, therefore, that the British authorities should get involved? That is a good question. Part of me says her jailing was wrong, but another part says we should respect the Sudanese people.

Mind you, I just checked bbc news – ” Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.” – I can never condone capital punishment, Sudanese sovereignty or not.

Thus we have the paradox within liberalism. It’s a whole bunch of contradictions really, but while some have used this fact, rather inanely, to discredit liberalism, I think it precisely mirrors the uncertainty of reality. Objectivity is a myth. Unlike conservatism, liberalism acknowledges that there is always more than one side to every story, and therefore only it can be held up as a rational political ethos.

this video has set something of a debate off within me. It concerns a family’s fight for a wheelchair the mum needs. Ordinarily, I’d have no problem with this, only they’re demanding an ibot. On the one hand, I think ‘why not? Fair game to her.’ On the other, I think it arrogant for her to demand such a high-spec chair when there are hundreds of disabled kids with woefully inadequate chairs.

I guess I might just be jealous, or have congenital-crip bias. Anyway, tell me what you think.

Just a quick one tonight. Been a much better day – watched a cool film, got about 500 words down about it, and went to watch gospel. I’ve been in a funk since Monday, but Wednesdays cheer me up. Beer discos and pink stuff, innit?

Anyway, here’s a blog by a fellow CPer in the states. He’s got a few highly perceptive entries, especially on inclusion, which I think are worth a read. Enjoy.

About midmorning yesterday I got an email from lee; he was wondering if I was free anytime this week to go and try to find Richard’s grave. Although I was supposed to be working, some things, I think, must take priority. I’ve always wondered where my friend was buried.

Lee came yesterday afternoon, and drove us both to Nantwich cemetery, where, he had heard, our friend was buried. He did not, however, know exactly where rich was, and explained that we needed to hunt. The cemetery itself is overgrown and unkempt, so this was easier said than done. We were both stumbling around this infernal place, looking for the grave of our friend, and it struck me what a shitty state of affairs it was. I keep thinking about rich, about the boy I once knew and now will never talk to again. About how this was the product of the special school system; about how this was what you got when you grew up in such a place, searching for a name on a gravestone. And how it was wrong. It isn’t that I’m not proud to have known guys like Simmo; its just that I consider what we special school survivors had and still have to witness nothing more than barbaric.

In the end we didn’t find it. It was getting dark, we were both starting to fall over, so we gave up. I knew I’d be expected home by jen. It’s just sad we didn’t find it. Poor Richard. I could do with some of his wit right now, but…..

This weekend saw the Onevoice winter conference. Because dad is the only one who can put my chair in the van, and he had to fly out to basil, turkey, yesterday, I had to cut my stay short. This was, of course, unfortunate, but I suppose it couldn’t be helped. At least I got to help a bit.

It was, of course, fun, and I’m getting used to the format. This time, I brought two Pas – jen and ash. They did their job splendidly. Bringing them both may have been overkill, but the truth is I wanted them both to experience it. Onevoice is my ‘other world’; it is the world of disability, which, outside of internet message boards and msn messager, I don’t have much contact with these days. That is, of course, as it should be, but at the same time it feels like going back to your roots – a homecoming, of sorts.

I think that’s how the kids there feel too. At Onevoice it’s as if they are the normal ones. If I can help facilitate that, then it’s all good.

For now, though, its back to my other world – the world of books and learning. In this world, I’ll always be something unusual; there’s nothing bad in that, and I don’t mean it in a negative sense, but its nice, every so often, to go to somewhere where I am the norm.

When I got back to the wes earlier I noticed the neater eater had been fixed. I owe the maintenance guys a drink, it seems.

The footballers, however, are not off the hook.

I blame the footballers. I know it was one of the sports students anyway because only they are empty headed enough to do such a thing. My neater eater is broken. When I got into the wes for tea yesterday, I found the little metal cylinder which goes into the spoon bit had been turned around. Given it was okay at breakfast (I didn’t use it for lunch yesterday) I think someone has been fiddling with it.

Now, I know its being biased and irrational, but I just know it was one of the sports students. They seem to have the brains of Neanderthals. Come on, ‘studying sport’? how imaginative. It’s as if football in our society is the arbiter of masculinity – to be ‘a man’ you must like football. Well its not. Its just 22 overpaid fuckwits kicking a ball around a field. There’s nothing manly or clever about it: it’s just a moronic game which breeds a culture of morons. Morons who break neater eaters. looks like it’s back to ‘here comes the train’ for a while.

I just got the following from my friend eunice, from australia (the weather has been making me want to return there asap). if you ask me, she has it all wrong hampsters are a nice alternative to turkey.:

”A trio of nice local kids arrived at the door last night selling raffle tickets for the school. ‘The second prize is a hampster’, said the little girl aged around ten very importantly. We discussed costs and I filled in four tickets.. The second time she said the second prize was a hamster, I thought I had better disillusion her. ‘Hamper’, I said, ‘did you mean Xmas hamper. ‘Yes, hamster.’ ‘A Xmas hamper is full of food’. I said, ‘we wouldn’t want to eat a hamster!’ Her little face fell, and I felt really mean, like I had told her there was no Santa Claus, but better she knows that some people get more excited about a basket of goodies than a cute little furry, gerbillike creature as second prize. How lovely to be young again and think a hamster for a prize was the best thing in the world. I will be almost disappointed if we dont win one, and have to put up with bottles of wine, chocolates and Xmas pudding!”’

I hate hypocrites. How can the Tories talk about improving schools when, under them, millions of disabled kids would be left behind in seriously substandard special schools (haws that for alliteration). Today, over breakfast, I saw CaMoron’s on about creating new academy places. The bbc website reads: ‘The Conservatives say they will expand the number of academies in England to create at least 220,000 ”good school places” over the next nine years. The plans focus on almost 32,000 children in deprived areas, who appealed unsuccessfully against the secondary schools they were allocated. ‘

This may sound good, but then, its intended to: the Tories are desperate for sound bytes which appeal to the electorate. But when we remember their stance on inclusion, we see their education proposals for what they are: the maintenance of a tiered system, manifestly unfair, and designed, in fact, to take us back to the seventies! Is it not the case that the Tories want to see a return to grammar schools? Thus, despite their jingoism and pseudo-progressive language. Cameron’s Tories are no different from Thatcher’s or major’s, and no less deserving of the electorate’s distrust.

link

While articles on ouch are what I term ‘okay’ – usually well written, raising a few good points but otherwise unnoteworthy – this article from tom Shakespeare raises something of an odd irony. Shakespeare points out that, in a strange way, wars are good for disabled people because, afterwards, people feel guilty about ex-servicemen maimed in wars and therefore endeavour to improve accessibility. How ironic? Of course, he sys a lot of other things too, so I suggest you go read.

Another fairly relaxing weekend at home. I am really fortunate to have a uni so close to home: far enough away to evade my parents, close enough to call them if needed. This suits me: it gives me a taste of independence, but I know that, if I screw up – as I do every so often – I know I have their safety net. It is exactly what I need, and would encourage any fellow crips reading to put any stupid notions concerning pride aside and do something similar. Without this system, I wouldn’t be able to go to uni.

I think the furball is dead. The campus cat, brandy, has not moved from lying on a chair in reception for three days. Not even it can sleep for that long, so I say its dead. Mind you, Esther claims it blinked, so it might yet live.

It’s been a rough couple of days, really. All sorts of confusion over whether I’m allowed support for Thursday afternoons – my supervisor, Alan, asked me to attend his third year lecture, but now, three months into the course, the body which pays est to support me says I’m not entitled to cover for that/ I’m really finding al’s lectures this year useful – he seems to often adapt them specifically to suit me and I have already used some material from them in my thesis. However, I cannot attend these lectures without Esther’s help. I’m therefore a bit stuck and in short need to find another funding body. The M.A. itself seems to be going really well Alan seems to like what I’ve already produced, but I just wish everything could be sorted.

In some respects I’m jealous of Brandy: I wish I could fall asleep on my chair in reception for three days.

As an articulation of the problems faced by many disabled people, this video, by Georgina Studd, is first rate. To my mind, however, it is just a tad lachrymose, but then I could just be jealous. It won Channel 4’s FourDocs competition, where ten disadvantaged young people aged 13-19 were given the chance to write, direct and produce their own short documentary. In all, I guess its quite a neat little film, but if Georgina thinks bowlling’s fun, just wait till she gets to uni!

I demand to be rendered as a lump of plastic. Now! Why can’t I be made into a lump of placticine? It seems the fashionable thing for crips to do, now that ardman had made a collection of short animations on disability. The creators of Wallace and grommet, it seems, have been commissioned by the charity Leonard Cheshire to raise disability awareness. This, of course, interests me, both as a student of film and as a disabled person.

I have yet to see these films. I need to see them before I pass judgement. I’d like to train my analytical eye onto them; I wonder, too, what Alan would make of them.

For the time being, though, I think it’s a step in the right direction. Yes, I have a slight problem in the way it still renders disabled people as ‘other’ – the new characters are presented to the audience on their own, suggesting difference and separation – but the basic premise is correct. Awareness of disability must be heightened. If CaMoron’s about to ruin disability rights, this might represent a chance to salvage them.

link

I suppose all this research into cinephilia has brought out the cinephile in me. I’m becoming even geekier. Anyway, I was looking through the annals yesterday, and found a coincidence worth blogging. I’ve tentatively titled my thesis ‘the look of love’, for some obvious reasons. But get this: ‘the look of love’ by dusty Springfield was the theme song of the 1967 spoof casino royale! Hahaha.

It all goes back to bond!

Goddamn the fact I’m a liberal and believe in second chances. If I didn’t I’d have jumped on the return of Aitkin into the Tory fold like a ton of bricks. Fair enough, the man served his sentence, but he’s still a convicted liar. I just think it shows the Tory party for who they are: a bunch of crooks and liars. I missed CaMoron on parky on Saturday: I couldn’t stand to watch the smarmy little jackass try to ingratiate himself to the electorate. Friday’s ponderings on causality aside – I still maintain that, since absolute truth is unknowable, the human condition is to all intents and purposes chaotic* – I find it patently obvious that conservatism is a sham. Its designed to maintain the status quo, not improve society. CaMoron and co may prattle on about cleaning up society, about crime being up etc. they may pretend to care about society, but they only care about their selves. Conservatism seems to currently have two faces – the embracing of liberal ideas such as equality and social acceptance versus the attempt to maintain its traditional values. The two are incompatible, and the result is the obvious sham that is David CaMoron.

*I must say I agree with the conclusion Mark draws: ” I take issue with the idea that not being able to predict every action of every person means that the only valid approach is conservatism: in a broad sense, there are social and economic cause and effect, and these can be addressed by political action rather than laissez faire…” yet I’d maintain that one can never predict human action.

While I still maintain that conservatism, rather than being a true political philosophy,, is merely a set of id impulses (that is, it is focussed on the self) has it occurred to anyone else that postmodernism may have implications for politics? We learn from both Lyotard and Heisenberg that the truth is essentially unknowable; that cause and effect itself essentially depend on belief. Indeed, I suspect they too are symbolic constructs by which we make sense of the world. When all is said and done, we can never say absolutely whether one thing causes another.

Yet, being a sensible liberal, I believe, as social animals, humans exist in relation to one another. We are all part of a nexus which controls our actions. This is probably best illustrated when it comes to crime: liberalism states that, if someone commits a crime, it isn’t because they are ‘bad’ or evil, but the social sphere has driven them to a state that they need to commit crime.

Yet here we have a contradiction. If cause and effect are symbolic constructs, then we do indeed have free will. We might as well say criminals are evil because we cannot trace the spheres that lead him to the crime. I hope this makes sense. If the absolute truth is unknowable, then we exist in chaos; we are all free agents, and the symbolic sphere is irrelevant, just as conservatism says.

Oh bugger!

I guess I better blog bout this, even though I’m still rather shaken up by it. Yesterday afternoon I had a trip to Crewe, I had already finished my work and thought I’d just browse the shops. I found a rather cool store though where I bought Esther’s Christmas presents, then I decided to have around the town centre and found the war memorial. Apparently, there was some controversy over it – it was recently moved to another site. It looks fine where it is if you ask me. After I had finished looking at it I decided to head back to the bus station. I was about to cross over at a sharp bend and a car came round the corner. I’m not sure how it happened because it was too fast, but next thing I knew, I had hit it. My right footplate was broken and I was shook.

The driver got out and pretty soon other by standers came. I still don’t have my lightwriter; I didn’t know what was going to happen or how to talk to these people. I had my letter board, but I was shaken, to be honest it was the most scariest moment of my life. I couldn’t communicate for awhile. I realised I needed help so I gestured towards my bag and pointed towards the front pocket, hoping my address book was still in there. It was, and I got one of them to call Esther. Wednesday’s is her day off, but she lives in Crewe, not far from the centre of town, plus she understands me. She came down and was able to straighten out the driver of the car with my details and I gave him mine. The front left bumper of his car was rather scratched.

After that I went home with Esther. I was still rather shaken and scared and worried. She called my Dad to explain what had happened and Dad came over. Thank fuck I don’t live too far away, and thank fuck for Esther and her family. Dad put the wheelchair in the back of the van and took me back to campus. I must have the best parents ever.

In way, it is a serious set back to my independence. I don’t think I want to go out on my own again. Yet, on the other hand, the fact is I handled it: I got myself out of this pickle. Paradoxically, my confidence is both boosted and dented.

Last night was quite cool in the end. Bout 7.30 I was scouting about, wondering whether there was anything decent on at the arts centre – which there wasn’t – when I noticed them setting up for live music. I came back home, blogged and did a couple of chores, and headed back out about 8.30. Dan was organising it. His girlfriend, Vikki, graduated with me; she was there and we got chatting. It seems she now works at some kind of day centre for disabled people, running writing workshops. She explained to me how the ‘service users’ lack confidence. They constantly see barriers. Vicks told me about how she was trying to start a magazine with them, and asked me to write something positive for it.

Knowing today was going to be busy – I want 1000 more words on my thesis before lunch – I decided to go home to write. It only had to be short. I jotted the following:

” You often assume, being disabled, life will somehow be limited. You assume that many boundaries face you, and that you can never do the things your peers do. I one assumed this – I never thought I’d get to university, or have friends, or go on nights out. I was wrong, and it amuses me how wrong I was. I am now a graduate of Manchester metropolitan university, graduating with a first class honours degree, but there was a time when my parents were told I wouldn’t be able to do GCSEs. It would seem I have proved my teachers wrong.

As a masters student I live quite independently. I have Pas to help me get up in the morning, to help with meals, and to help with nights out. Boy, during my undergraduate years, I had some right laughs. I drank too much, often crashing my power chair. But then, that is basically what university is about – having fun. Being disabled does not exempt you from this. in fact, I found it made things more exciting.

With the right help, anyone can achieve anything. This is why, when Vikki asked me to write this short piece, I jumped at it. Disability does not connote boundaries. You, me anyone can achieve anything they put their mind to. The sky is the limit.’

I printed it off and sped back to the bar. Vikki smiled – I think I’m in her good books.

I was looking through the interweb thing just now. I sometimes read the blogs of fellow crips, one of whom is an American student with cp. I found this entry – it seems she found the Onevoice video we made. How cool is that. Its only fair that I link back to her.

Off to watch live music in the bar.

Today was quite good. Research took a new direction. In order to locate the essence of the cinephiliac moment, I realised it was necessary to find and analyse my own. I set to work writing a list of all the moments in the cinema which inspire me – mostly from bond, Jurassic park and star trek – and went hunting. Youtube is almost the perfect tool for that sort of research, for on it are short, memorable clips. I’ve set myself the task of writing 3000 by the end of the week on this part of the research, which will bring the total wordcount so far up to 10,000. I don’t think that’s bad going. I already got 1000 words down. What’s more, I love this type of analysis. Its perfectly suited for a cripple, plus I get to relive all my favourite moments in film! Yay!

Yesterday was a bit depressing. My first November 5th without fireworks. The fates conspired against it. I thought that there was going to be a bonfire on campus, but about mid-afternoon, I saw a sign on the main gate saying it had been moved to the plough. I reasoned that everyone would be going there, but no. when I asked ash and jen at teatime, they weren’t going. They were going to stay in the bar till Chris (jen’s boyfriend) escapes his work there and then they were going to his place. I didn’t think I was invited, so I went home after they left.

Oh well, I don’t think I can complain too much. If I had really wanted to see the fireworks, I’d have gone myself. Getting ready for bed last night, I remembered the last firework display I saw – arguably the best firework display in the world! It was in Sydney, on new years eve. Our hotel overlooked darling harbour, and we got a prime view of the festivities. It was there, too, that I got my first ever ‘proper’ martini, in a real martini glass. After you have seen that, you can’t really complain about missing a few fireworks.

Yet on top of that, the two people I stayed here to see did not appear. Both Emma and Steve were supposed to be on campus this weekend, but I saw neither hide nor hair of either of them. I suppose it’s my fault for not organising a time to meet, but both campus and, for that matter, alsager, are so small that I thought I’d just bump into either of them.

Oh well. Perhaps today will be more fruitful. I’ll wager Emma will be in the wes at lunch, and if I meet Steve I’ll ask him to dinner in the plough. Fireworks or not, life’s still fun.

Short of anything else to write about – too hungry to think of anything – here’s a link to the most recent ouch podcast. Enjoy. I’m off to get dinner

This week, I’ve found myself getting rather short tempered at my inability to communicate with people. it is really very frustrating, leading me to get snappy. Yet, when I step back and look at the problem objectively, it’s not so bad. I could just hide myself away until I get my lightwriter back, but this would be boring. For one, Emma and Steve might be coming down this weekend, and I won’t want to miss their return.

There are ways to communicate other than my lightwriter. If I need to make a request in the library, I type it out, print it off and hand it to the woman on the enquiry desk (I owe Mary a box of chocolates). These days, in order to evaluate if film has a contingency, I need to get my head round reception theory, and I’m thinking about requesting a tutorial with professor fisher (incidentally at graduation this was the fellow reading the names). I need to do this without the ability to talk. Do I wait till I get my lightwriter back? No, this would waste too much time. I’ll simply write him a letter explaining my predicament and my request. Naturally, he may be busy today, but the odds are he’ll fit me in sometime. Of course, I’ll do the tutorial with Esther with me – she understands my speech better than anyone these days.

Technology is cool, but it’s prone to break. Therefore, one must not become too dependent on it that one ceases to function without it. That would be boring!

There’s a nasty rumour that, rather than being an excuse to dress up and drink too much, some guys at university actually do research. What’s more, it appears they’ve found something. 3 planets circling stars outside our solar system. How cool is that? Esther sent me this link yesterday. Okay, forget archaeology, now I want to be an astronomer!