#to deny disabled people access to things just because it isn’t essential to living…as if they don’t deserve to have fun?

[enigma-the-anomaly]

Read a well-written article from ign by grant stoner, detailing how a new weapon in splatoon is negatively impacting disabled players’ health and caused them to stop playing until Nintendo hopefully fixes the issue. I go to the comments. It’s full of people saying that if you are photosensitive or otherwise disabled, you shouldn’t be playing in the first place and that it’s unreasonable to demand changes in accessibility.

Victim blaming and ableism, gotta love it :/

the article in question:

[dovesndecay]

You may have heard that Biden has opened up a Special Enrollment Period for people to apply for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. 

(I’m not going to comment on how people are suddenly actually calling it the ACA instead of “Obamacare” now that Biden is in office. But please know that I’ve noticed.)

Back in 2015, I worked for the ACA at one of their call centers. My job was to take inbound calls from consumers seeking to apply for health insurance or seeking more information about it. 

Note: Don’t pay an agent to help you, if you can help it. The ACA call centers are free and they have provisions for accessibility. 

So I’m gonna give you the down & dirty shitty information about the ACA. 

[A Disclaimer: Some aspects of the program may have changed since I worked for the call center. If you currently work for the program, and you know of any information here that is outdated, please feel free to let me know! And if any of it is confusing, please don’t hesitate to contact their call center! I’ll put contact information at the very bottom of this post.]

It’s entirely based on your projected income for the year of your coverage and the size of your household -- that’s the number & ages of the people that you’ll be putting on your taxes at the end of the year. 

If that number changes, report it as soon as possible. If you have another kid, get married, someone dies, etc, report it. This will give you your own Special Enrollment Period, and your eligibility results will likely change. This also applies to moving homes, any change in your income, job, etc. Not all of these will open up an SEP, but you still need to report it because it is going to affect your taxes. [You’ll get a form that you need to file at the end of the year with the rest of your tax information]. 

For the record: Cancellation of your policy due to non-payment will not open a Special Enrollment Period. You have to pay the first premium BEFORE the policy starts. Call the provider and do it as soon as possible. I can’t tell you how many people I had to explain this to, and that’s why it gets its own bullet point. 

Depending on that number, you may qualify for an “premium tax credit.” 

This is essentially putting your estimated tax return towards your health insurance for the year instead of getting it back when you file your taxes. 

If you qualify for the PTC, you have the option to not use it. In this case, however much you qualify for will simply be sent to you as your usual tax refund, just like always. 

If you qualify, and you use it, your monthly payment will be lowered. You can even choose how much of it to use. But you won’t get that money back when you file your taxes. 

You may be asked to send in supporting documents for information you put in your application. If you fail to do this, your policy may be canceled and you may lose your PTC. If you make your own HC.gov account, you will be able to upload your documents into your account. If you call in to do it, you’ll have to actually mail the documents out. 

Okay, so what’s the best and worst possible outcomes of using the Premium Tax Credit? 

The Worst: If you make more than you expected when you filled out the application, you will owe money to the IRS. Yeah, you gotta pay that back. 

The Best: If you make less than you expected, you may get some money back when you file taxes. Yay? 

What if I don’t have any income? Or not enough to qualify for any help?

Most likely, your information will be automatically forwarded to your state Medicaid department to see if you qualify for that program. 

Here’s the kicker, though. 

Although all states were given the option to expand their Medicaid programs to include more people, not all of them chose to do so. There was no deadline on it, so states that haven’t yet expanded could do so at any time. 

If you live in a state that expanded their Medicaid program, great! You’ll simply follow up with Medicaid, and go from there. (I have no insight into Medicaid and their requirements for qualifications, so more information on that will have to come from a different source.) 

If you, like me, live in a state that has not expanded their Medicaid program, well...honestly, we’re just shit out of luck. Your eligibility results from Healthcare.gov will still tell you that they send your information to Medicaid, but ultimately, it’s useless. Unless you’re actively pregnant or disabled in a specific way, they’re going to deny you, and send you back to the ACA. 

The ACA’s cheapest plans are “Catastrophic Plans.” These basically only cover you if you have a horrible car accident, for example. You’ll be paying hundreds of dollars a month to have shitty insurance that won’t cover you until you’re thousands of dollars in debt to a hospital. The deductibles -- which is the amount you have to pay in to the insurance plan before they’ll start cover things -- are disgustingly high. 

I’ve seen the ACA make things easier for a lot of people. I really have. But I’ve also had to listen to people sob over the phone because they didn’t qualify for any assistance, even though they had a desperate need for the help and the coverage. 

The ACA was a bad idea but not for the reasons a lot of conservatives think. It was a bad idea because it doesn’t help everyone. 

If you can get a good plan through the ACA, great, good for you. But this is the time when you need to be advocating for Medicare For All, because there are too many of us -- so many in vulnerable positions who desperately need care and can’t get it because this program isn’t accessible for everyone. Start yelling at your representatives to push Medicare For All, because we need it. 

Contact Information for the Affordable Care Act:  healthcare.gov | 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325)

[screaming-towards-apotheosis]

genuinely asking, how is it ableist? all i’ve seen people say is “this isn’t plausible, if rainbows/rainbow tape were a migraine trigger he wouldn’t have been cleared to play or they wouldn’t have incorporated that aspect for any player” which, yeah. like at least to me it didn’t come across as ableism just “oh this obviously wrong take is wrong and kind of funny” so maybe i’m missing something

Okay so here is the thing: Migraines are not simple. Symptoms, triggers, and everything else surrounding them is not simple.  The conditions under which he can play? We don’t know them. We don’t know what the triggers are and how he is being treated. Specificaly about the pride tape itself:  It is not just a bright color; it is a bright color in a small geometric pattern, and if it is on his stick? It is also very close in his field of vision.  Someone else’s stick would not have the same combination of color/pattern/movement/distance. It’s not straightforward at all. He could be sensitive to the dye used in the rainbow tape, for all we know.   And with everything he has been through? I do not blame him not wanting to take any risks if he can avoid them, if that is indeed why he did it.   But beyond the specifics of the thing? When people say “hey this could be an accessibility issue”  immediately denigrating them and denying this is the case is ableist. People default to “they’re just making excuses” all the fucking time, and it is not just when it is a fandom favorite white boy. This sort of a reaction makes people afraid to bring up potential accessibility issues, and gives more fodder to the people who think accessibility is special snowflake fodder.  There is no such thing as an “obviously wrong take” when it comes to talking about accessibility and accommodation. Here is a tumblr post where the OP talks about their triggers and how people denigrate and threaten them over it until they explain it and are like here is a detailed description why these are my triggers and why saying i am making it up is shitty.   Multiple people here on tumblr have opened up about their own migraines and traumatic brain injury history to say they think it is a very real possibility.  And saying it’s impossible because someone on the internet knows their lived reality as disabled people better than they do.   So yeah, it’s essentially a twofold issue in this case. Do not dismiss accessibility concerns even if they seem unlikely, and listen to disabled people.  

[hillbillyoracle]

Witchblr (for the Most Part) Doesn't Have the Gatekeeping Problem It Thinks It Does

I've been seeing this crop up in more and more posts, bios even - anti-gatekeeping statements. And I've tried to keep an open mind about it, to go "well maybe I'm just not seeing what they're talking about" but as I run into actual posts where gatekeeping is claimed, I'm really starting to think that Witchblr might not fully understand what the term means and why it's essential we don't adopt it from the groups who need it to articulate a very specific experience, one that Witchblr isn't capable of having just within itself as far as I can tell.

I don't know for a fact where the term originates but my first introduction to the term gatekeeping was through the trans community. A friend of mine was having to see a therapist, weekly, for 6 months, before she could get her therapist to write a letter that would enable a doctor to prescribe her the hormones she wanted to take. She'd researched them thoroughly, knew the risks and benefits very well, was fully consenting - but was being denied a substance vitally necessary to her mental, physical, social, and emotional well being.

Gatekeeping usually best describes folks who are not a part of a group getting to decide who is a part of said group. In this example, cis doctors and therapists getting to decide who is trans enough to access medical care they need. This is especially potent when other folks outside the group have easier access to the means than the group being gatekept. Such as when cis women have an easier time accessing HRT than trans women. That doesn't seem to mirror what I'm seeing in Witchblr posts where the word is used.

The power behind gatekeeping requires a level of organization that Witchblr as a community doesn't seem to have. And what's being denied are not things that are vital to folks' material well being but rather recognition and validation. I understand the confusion on some level. When forces with organized power deny folks validation and recognition, it often comes with the denial of material and social goods they need to survive. But the individuals out here writing their blogs largely cannot withhold what is vital and necessary to your continued existence. While we all do better with support, not everyone owes us that support and it requires an exchange to make it sustainable. Reading someone's work, even regularly, doesn't fit the bill. In my book, if you're in need of validation and support, you go to those people who already do or cultivate new reciprocal relationships with people who will.

The few cases where I've seen gatekeeping used to describe intracommunal affairs is in cases where the community is not equally privileged. And while there are a mix of privileged and marginalized folks in the Witchblr community, as far I can tell there's not a cohesive group that is considered more acceptable by folks outside of Witchblr who, through that acceptability, are shielded from the full weight of community specific oppression and ostracize less acceptable folks from collective resources to maintain that sheild. The closest I've seen to this (that isn't rooted in other intersections of identity) is that folks who who maintain a psychological view - "It's all in our heads but isn't that still real?" - of deities, magic, and divination seem to get a better reception than those who believe in other models and sometimes distance themselves from folks who believe otherwise but even then...doesn't quite fit the bill.

For internet communities in particular, I have a very hard time seeing the structures in place needed to enforce gatekeeping. Someone doesn't agree that you are [insert term]y enough for the [insert term] group they're personally a part of? Well there are likely a bunch more groups already established who would accept you. You also have the power to create, grow, and maintain your own. You have both resources and agency.

What I think Witchblr's usage of gatekeeping more often speaks to is many folks crave the validation of other people. They stake their worth and well being on disproving people. When someone says "you're not a witch if you don't do xyz" = they don't stop to think about what power that person has over their power or their practice. They just react. Someone is wrong on the internet and it's perceived as a threat.

Part of the issue is that Witchblr has a tendency toward projecting a practice rather than actually practicing. It's been my experience that when you spend more of your time doing your practice and you have a deep sense of your foundations - whether someone agrees with you or not quickly becomes irrelevant. What so many of the conversations on gatekeeping show me is that many folks do not have a strong enough foundation in what they believe and what they practice to understand who they are and what's relevant to them. They're filling that void with external validation.

Where Witchblr's "gatekeeping" usage becomes outright destructive or even dangerous is with it's continual insistence that people articulating positions well grounded in research and primary records are some how gatekeeping other people they don't agree with. Previous education does help but acting like every person who can defend their positions with source texts automatically has a degree or several is weirdly classist to me.

I went to rural schools the vast majority of my life. I have multiple learning disabilities, struggled hard, and never completed a college degree despite attempting twice. Money and my health stopped me. I was working class and now unemployed. I did not have internet at home for most of my adult life (and only part of my childhood). Like I am so close to the examples I see thrown around in these conversations and yet I have been told that by citing reliable sources that I'm elitist and classist.

Something we don't talk enough about as a community is that expertise has a lot less to do with privilege and a lot more to do with sacrifice. I chose to spend what free time I could practicing and researching. I could have spent that time watching Netflix, hanging out with friends, going hiking, etc. While it was also out of poverty, I chose not to accumulate things in my home that would take a lot of time to care for. I had a second hand hospital mattress on the floor and that was it - that was a sacrifice of comfort. I did not have a pet for the majority of the time I did my most intense studying so I could focus on my work - that was sacrifice. I did not have internet at home, largely because I couldn't afford it, but I embraced it as it created the ability to download a work at a public connection and take it home and sit with it deeply so that I couldn't reach out for other people's comments to filter it through. I only maintained romantic relationships that were low energy input and were thus less satisfying or close so that I could focus on my work - that was a sacrifice.

All this is to say - you don't see half the sacrifices people who have a level of expertise make. There's an assumption of ease where there absolutely should not be one. No one is asking you to sacrifice like that. No one is saying you're lesser for not making that sacrifice. What folks are saying is respect the sacrifices they made to get the knowledge they're trying to share with you. They're often trying to give you what they had to pay with a good chunk of their lives for. Take it or leave it, don't attack them. It is not gatekeeping to recognize that, where spirituality overlaps with history and other topics, there are correct answers that can be found if you look. That's just reality.

Also learning on your own is not the same as having access to an education or to the internet even. Our ancestors did not always have people to study from. Practices like spirit work, divination, and magic developed independently all over the world. There were plenty of interrupted lineages in there too. I think people forget that you can learn these skills through experimentation and observation. People literally can't keep you from this path of learning. Whether you choose to take it is up to you. Whether it's worth the sacrifice - only you can say.

So vast majority of ways I’m seeing people use the word gatekeeping just do not meet the criteria. Watering that word down robs it of it’s ability to name a very specific threat which is especially damaging to use trans folks who use it to call out medical discrimination. The vast majority of instances I see it used in are where someone is expressing an opinion. They may be wildly off base but as long as they’re not spreading truly harmful ideologies, they're entitled to it. Different opinions are not gatekeeping - they’re a natural part of any community and we have to have a level of tolerance for that. That discomfort you feel is an invitation to meet your shadow, understand your discomfort, and prioritize what actually moves your practice forward.

[ispyamoose]

I am overwhelmed.

I have lots of family on Facebook, so I generally don’t post stuff like this there. On my Twitter, I occasionally share short-form woes, but didn’t really want to put this there.

There is so much going on in the world. In addition, there’s so much going on in my life. So much feels like it’s piling on. And, before anyone might ask, YES, I’m seeking therapy. I’ve recently had to switch therapists and am still waiting on an appointment. But I AM seeking real help. I just need a place to shout into the void, and I’ve got some H E A V Y shit to share.

My mom has been in increasingly poor health. She has COPD, has had dozens of hospital trips in the past year, and has been on oxygen since September. That came out of nowhere. She hadn’t been hospitalized in something like 15 years for her COPD, and then WHAM, so much deterioration happened at once. 

She receives palliative care, which is basically a step below hospice care, for those who don’t know. Palliative care is when you have a serious medical illness, and a nurse comes by a few times a week to check vitals, give you a basic examination, and is able to advocate for you more easily. If they suspect an infection, they can call your doctor for you and get antibiotics ordered without needing to go to the doctor’s office. It is designed to save you hospital trips, because your immune system is at risk of ANYTHING you come across.

My mom was told, last week, that she is in the end stage of her COPD. We were preparing for this, it was suspected, but it was different to be told that for sure by the doctor. Home hospice care was recommended for her, despite her already having palliative care. This is probably because palliative care still has more hoops to jump through to gain access to higher strength pain management medication, etc. 

She also recently developed 4 compression fractures in her spine. T4, T5, T6, and T8. She has osteoporosis and RA. She has a brace for this so her spine can heal. She has a hunch now because of the fractures, and the hunch is permanent.

This hit me like a TON OF BRICKS. Anyone who knows me, knows my mom is my best friend on this entire planet. Yes, my dearly departed best friend Toni, and my Rachel Squared bestie are my best friends. But, I am SO incredibly close with my mom. I tell her everything, even the uncomfortable stuff that people often don’t share with their parents. Losing her would be unfathomable to me. And, yet, I have to start accepting that it may happen sooner, rather than later. Yes, she could live a very long time in the end stage. That doesn’t have to define her. Some people still live 10-20 years. But the vagueness of the situation is what eats at me. Could she live another 10 years? Of course. But would it be a surprise to any doctor if she passed in a few months? Not at all. And that’s what eats at me. I don’t want to live every day thinking that this is going to be the day I lose her, but my anxiety takes over and I do think that.

She just went back to the hospital the other day, for what we thought was a bowel obstruction. She hadn’t gone since she got home from the hospital last week. Nope. Not an obstruction. Good, right? Well...she had a HOLE in her INTESTINE. Part of her intestine is just paralyzed and not working, likely because of this perforation. So she had to have emergency surgery. It was successful, but recovery could take 6+ months, and she has an ostomy bag for at least a few months. 

I’m glad she’s okay. I talked to her this morning. But, of all people these things happen to, it shouldn’t be her. My poor mom has been through hell and back. And, somehow, she’s still positive and SUCH a trooper. And it makes me sob. I love her so much and would bear all the pain for her if I could.

Besides my mom’s struggles, my son has a developmental delay, isn’t saying words, (but makes noises and single syllable sounds) and will be 2 this month. He’s being referred for autism screening. I love my son, he’s ADORABLE and is such a good kid. But the hard times with him are HARD, and it’s becoming harder and harder to manage on my own. (COVID still has things closed, and his Early Intervention visits are all teletherapy currently) He’s also got partial hearing loss, that we’re unsure is permanent or not. COVID has prevented him from seeing ENT until the end of July. All we have to go on right now is from the audiologist. He doesn’t hear until 35 decibels, and that’s a whisper for him. He has Sensory Integration Dysfunction, and seeks out sensory input he’s not getting. This results in him pushing over heavy furniture, which appears to be destructive behavior, but is him trying to participate in heavy play so his senses are stimulated. Reid is the light of my life, but it is exhausting. I will love him no less if he’s autistic, but I grew up with developmental delays myself, and it’s not a life I necessarily wanted for him. I don’t want things to always be harder for him. I want things to be easier for him than they were for me.

And, I’m filing bankruptcy due to massive medical bills from 2018. Basically, I worked at Cigna, and while I was pregnant, I had medical problems that didn’t affect Reid, but affected me, leaving me out of work. I had short-term disability from December through the middle of February. From February through May, I was supposed to have FMLA, and then from May-September was supposed to be maternity leave. I ended up leaving in September because I couldn’t afford to work and pay for childcare. Because I left, it caused a catalyst. FMLA retroactively denied, which caused my maternity leave to deny, because FMLA needs to be approved for maternity leave to approve. Because none of this approved, my health insurance from February-September essentially went retroactively unpaid. Because that happened, my insurance coverage terminated all the way back to February. Cigna recouped all the payments they made for ALL my health issues, and Reid’s birth, etc. So 6 months of insurance premiums AND every single doctor charge was on me. AND, to make matters worse, too much time had passed for Medicaid to pick up any of these bills. (You can only submit bills that are within 3 months.) So, I’ve been saddled with an insane amount of medical bills I just cannot pay.

I have multiple medical issues that require surgery. I require bladder surgery, and hip/pelvic surgery to correct dysplasia. My doctors won’t do it until I’m done having kids...all because I want one more in a few years. The pain and dysplasia with my hip/pelvis/low back prevent me from doing a lot of bending, walking, and lifting. This prevents me from doing much around the house. I feel miserable, like I’m useless and not enough of a person for my partner, because I’m not contributing as much as I feel like I should. If I clean the house, I can’t do anything else for the whole day. If I walk through a Sam’s Club, I’m done for a day or two. It’s a bad mental space to be in.

Sooooo, that’s my life right now. Then, add in touch deprivation because of the pandemic depriving me of the people I love. Add in my dread because of the state of the world. (#BlackLivesMatter, kiss my ass if you disagree) Aaaaand, I’m a million degrees of overwhelmed.

[fortunatelylori]

Let’s talk about the trailer ... because what else are we going to do on a Wednesday afternoon?

I was reluctant to write a meta on this trailer since there isn’t much in terms of narrative to analyze but since I don’t think we’ll be getting much content aside from it, let’s strike the iron while it’s hot, shall we?

The first thought I had upon finishing this was that this is most likely a collection of shots and scenes from the first 3 episodes. There is not one shot in this trailer that I couldn’t comfortably place within what I believe the first 3 episodes will be about: namely the White Walker war. 

It’s also a suspicion that is given even more credence in my mind by the EW article that was released a day prior in which the vast majority of coverage is on the white walker battle and the struggles of the production crew, actors and director Miguel Sapochnik with one of the most grueling night time shoots I’ve ever heard of in my life (55 days of exclusive night shoots! 55!). 

Considering that I assume the reason why they spent 55 nights filming is because the Long Night will actually descend upon Winterfell with the arrival of the White Walkers outside its walls, I feel pretty confident in going even further in my speculation regarding the trailer and say that most of the scenes we see in this trailer are from episode 1 and 2. 

That being said, it’s rather difficult to make out what could happen in those 2 episodes because we get a lot of different, seemingly unrelated shots of the principals without much of a hint in terms of the narrative conflicts that will undoubtedly occur during what I assume will be 2 drama filled episodes. 

As a general conclusion, I believe there are three narrative strands that the trailer blends in, namely: 

The White Walker threat 

Cersei and the Golden Company

Jon/Dany and the dragons

The interesting thing about the White Walker conflict is that we are first introduced to it in the trailer not by Jon, who up until this point has been the public face of the Human Race defense squad, but Arya. 

Seeing this opening: 

Followed up with this: 

And coupled with Arya’s VO: 

Arya: I know death. He’s got many faces. I look forward to seeing this one.

Feels like it gives me a pretty good grasp of what Arya’s arc will be thematically. Incidentally, Maisie already hinted at it in the EW article and this trailer just comes to confirm that: 

Maisie Williams: “There’s this split with Arya between trying to be who she wants to be — getting back to that naiveté and innocence with her family — and her unfinished business.”

This opening seems to emphasize this vacillation between Arya’s vulnerability and humanity and her Faceless Men training. It also brings up the possibility that the Faceless Men will be making a come-back in her arc, which would make sense considering it was never truly concluded. 

We are then thrown into Bran’s VO who is conspicuously absent from this trailer, which is disappointing. I think this is in part because whatever role he is going to play in the War for the Dawn is something that the Ds most likely want to keep hidden but also, and I’m sorry to say it, because his physical disability would impede them from showing the type of dynamic, action filled shots that they use a lot of in this trailer which frankly shows a lack of creativity and a blatant lack of interest on their part for his character, two issues that has plagued Bran for seasons now. 

Out of all the VOs, Bran’s is probably the most generic. People have speculated that this is something he will say to Jon and that’s a possibility but I have to say that while I was watching the trailer, I assumed he was saying it to Arya, as a way to help her reconcile the struggle between the two sides of her personality. 

Bran: Everything you did brought you to where you are now. Where you belong. Home. 

But really it could be about any of the Starks and it could also be about everyone in the show. Essentially, what this VO conveys is the journey all these character have been on and what led them to reach the place they are now. And it’s placed over images that show that: 

We have the Golden Company arriving. As well as confirmation that Tormund and Edd are alive! Yay. We’ll just ignore Beric, shall we? He’s just a bonafied torch as far as I’m concerned We also get establishing shots of King’s Landing and Cersei. 

Then it gets more specific and focuses in on Winterfell. This VO is mainly used as exposition for all of these separate entities coming together in the North for the Great War: 

These shots are among the most beautiful and sweeping of the trailer. They’re breathtaking actually. But I can’t help but feel the same amount of apprehension that Sansa has plastered all across her beautiful face. And that’s because it also feels a little bit like a home invasion of sorts. Jon and D*ny are advancing towards Winterfell in the midst of a huge army. Sansa watches from the battlements as the dragons begin circling her home. This is not all together uplifting, optimistic imagery if looked at from her perspective and her perspective is really the only one we get in these shots since Jon and Dany are presented from the POV of the people that have come out to watch the procession, namely this kid: 

Hello potential food for D*ny’s dragons. How’s medieval life treating you?  Ready for some nukes to destroy your hut?

Also this marks the first transition from Jon/Dany to Sansa in the trailer. It’s not the last. 

Then we jump into Jon’s VO: 

Jon: They’re coming. 

Jon: Our enemy doesn’t tire.

Ok, a bit unfair. Jon’s VO is patently about the White Walkers. However if the shoe fits, you can’t help yourself from walking in it

I won’t deny it. Seeing D*ny in the Winterfell crypts is uncomfortable for me. Not least because once again it feels like she’s breaching Jon’s personal space without being invited. She seeks him out. She gets near him while he looks down and broods, which is something he does a lot of when she’s around him. 

Just like Sansa seeing the dragons fly over Winterfell and the Winter Town kid watching D*ny’s armies marching, this, once again, feels like an invasion as opposed to the benevolent savior coming to protect the North. 

The VO continues with images of Gendry forging weapons and Jaime fighting: 

Jon: Doesn’t stop. Doesn’t feel. 

The feel bit is interesting because we get this: 

Jon and D*ny are supposed to be the epic love story on this show and yet the only kiss we get is for Missandei and Grey Worm?!? 

It also marks these two as the doomed couple that will die a doomed death this season so sorry about that, Missandei/Grey Worm fans. 

However, the entire sequence doesn’t actually end there. It continues with various quick shots, only to end on this: 

I don’t know about you guys but this indicates to me that the trailer is setting Cersei apart from the enemies that Jon is talking about. Of course, that makes sense on a surface level simply because Cersei is human unlike the White Walkers. But why go out of their way to make Cersei sympathetic since aside from the Night King, she’s supposed to be the Big Bad? My guess is because she isn’t and her story this season is about something else than another villain Jon and D*ny will slay with their epic love.  

The last VO we have is from Jaime. This trailer is very VO heavy and Jaime feels like an odd choice. What he says is very much in line with his season 7 finale sentiments, so not many surprises there: 

Jaime: I promised to fight for the living. I intend to keep that promise. 

However, you know who else made such a promise? One that was reiterated in season 7? 

Jon Snow: I am the shield that guards the realms of men. 

I probably wouldn’t have made this association if the trailer didn’t make sure to link Jaime’s VO with shots of Jon: 

Jon in front of the Heart Tree ... you know the same type of tree where he first made his pledge to protect mankind, back in season 1. 

Jon Snow running through a field of fire, looking remarkably similar to his Night Watch self. 

Jon Snow walking towards the creatures he bent the knee for and almost died trying to acquire in order to save the world. 

This last shot is fascinating for 2 reasons: 

It marks the first time Jon is actually in the same shot as Rhaegal. And he’s positioned right in front of him. 

This gives me so many Dance of Dragons vibes, I can’t even begin to fully describe them. To make things clear, I don’t think this scene will end with Jon riding Rhaegal. This is probably Jon and D*ny visiting with the dragons or inspecting that they are in optimum shape for the battle. However, the hint is there visually nonetheless. 

Coupled with a VO that talks about fighting for “the living” it’s even more disturbing to see the graveyard of bones littered all around those creatures. 

To clarify, the choice of having those bones there could be entirely avoidable. Jon and D*ny could come upon the dragons just sitting there, without charred bones all around them. Or if the scene absolutely demands that bones be there, they could have just not included the shot in the trailer at all. But they did. 

Also: 

Hello, Sansa! What are you looking at? And why do I want to hug you right now?

Obviously I doubt these two scenes follow each other within the context of the actual show but in terms of the transition, once again the idea of a love triangle is inserted, albeit in a very subtle way. 

Miscellaneous thoughts: 

Cersei and Sansa’s reunion:

Firstly, let’s just all stop for a second and bow to the brilliance of Lena Heady, shall we? Just look at how much she conveys with just a few seconds focused on her face. I LOVE THIS WOMAN!

Anyway, because Lena is so brilliant and I feel like I have so much access to Cersei through this expression, I’m going to speculate that the reason why Cersei is brimming with barely concealed satisfaction and contained savagery is because in this scene she is actually being presented with a kidnapped Sansa. That’s where my mind went the moment I saw the shot and I’m sticking to it. 

Ascots: 

I HATE THE ASCOTS! HATE, HATE, HATE THEM! For all that is holy, Clapton, release Sophie and Emilia’s necks from the neck chokers of DEATH!

Dothraki? What Dothraki? 

There are no Dothraki in sight! Not during the arrival at Winterfell. Not during the scene of Missandei and Grey Worm kissing. Not during the final shot of the Winterfell army getting ready for the White Walker attack. 

Where are they? I’m willing to bet something happens to at least some of them along the way. 

White walkers and the Night King: 

These are supposed to be the ultimate Villain that all the good guys are going to band together and fight. This trailer is nominally about them. And yet all we actually get of them is this: 

There’s actually no reason to hide the White Walkers from sight. We know they’re coming, we know what they look like. A few shots of them marching isn’t going to spoil anything. 

However, the trailer seems far more interested in showing the struggles and hinting at conflicts and tribulations between the characters, namely those stuck together within the confines of Winterfell. 

Because, of course, it is. This series has never been about the White Walkers. It’s about: “the human heart in conflict with itself”. 

Bring it on, show! Bring it on!

*none of the gifs are mine. thank you to the artists!

[yeonchi]

The case for vaccines and the shadow rule of the minority

Currently, Melbourne is in the midst of a sixth coronavirus lockdown, which was announced at the start of August, less than two weeks after the fifth lockdown at the end of July and originally scheduled for 7 days only to be extended twice (potential extension notwithstanding) with a curfew slapped on the top of it. How’s that “7 days to stop the spread” working for you guys, huh? Look, to be honest, I’m getting sick of these lockdowns and I’m sure many other people are, but lately, people and governments are touting vaccines as a panacea to end lockdowns, much to the point that they are teetering on forcing people to get vaccinated. Personally, I don’t think this approach is as good as other people might see it and I’ll explain why through my understanding.

Development of the coronavirus vaccines have been expedited due to the situation of this pandemic, with the first (mainstream) vaccine, namely the Pfizer vaccine, being approved by the UK, the US and Switzerland in December 2020. While trials have been conducted on such vaccines, they essentially had to be rushed through in a year. Never mind the fact that we have to get two doses instead of one to be “fully” vaccinated, I’m hearing that the efficacy of the existing vaccines are under question, particularly due to variant strains such as the Delta strain (that mutated in India because fuck political correctness) and that we potentially may have to get booster shots (like the flu, get it?) if the virus were to mutate even more. Combined with the potential side effects of these vaccines, I don’t necessarily feel ready to get one at this point in time. Keep in mind that the vaccines were created to deal with a virus that originated in China.

The absurdity of vaccine passports and mandates

There are four stages in Australia’s national reopening strategy and the second stage is expected to be triggered when double vaccination (2 doses) rates reach 70%. Last year, during the second wave, the strategy was to “flatten the curve” and achieve zero daily cases, but this year, it is beginning to prove impossible with the Delta strain. As daily case numbers continue to rise, Victoria and New South Wales have decided to abandon that goal and instead focus on buying time so they can get more people vaccinated. New South Wales has drafted a roadmap out of lockdown that involves more freedoms for those who are double vaccinated, while Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has stated that they are going to “lock out people who are not vaccinated and can be” and are trialling some new rules in regional Victoria. In both states, the enforcement of these new rules will depend on the use of a vaccine passport.

In my opinion, vaccine passports are not a good idea, particularly in some settings due to practicality reasons. If vaccine passports have to be implemented, then they should mostly be implemented in settings where you have to buy tickets, such as sporting events, indoor/outdoor entertainment events/venues and long-distance transportation (airports and train stations etc). In other settings, vaccine passports aren’t so practical; in hospitality settings, if only vaccinated people can eat inside while unvaccinated people can only buy takeaway and wait outside, there is a risk that one could infect the other. Same in shopping centres - the NSW roadmap states that unvaccinated people can only access essential services, so if other stores are only open to the vaccinated, then the two groups could still come into contact. And what about outside gatherings? I think you get where I’m going here.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stated that any business has every right to deny entry or service to those who are unvaccinated, with bootlicking NPCs around the world seemingly parroting this point as well. Australia’s anti-discrimination laws make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race, age, gender or disability (health status?), so why are they suddenly creating another discrimination category and justifying it for the sake of public health because there just so happened to not be any laws preventing it? Well you know what? Fuck this noise. Businesses don’t deserve to exercise that right if they aren’t prepared to serve unvaccinated people (with the necessary precautions lol). In a world where businesses, corporations and governments don’t listen to the people they serve or are meant to represent, it’s only natural that people justifiably become “entitled”.

A similar principle applies to businesses mandating that their employees be vaccinated before they can work (the NSW roadmap states that only vaccinated people will be able to work in hospitality or retail). I largely disagree with this; instead, governments should be easing up on coercive tactics like vaccine mandates and passports and instead continue encouraging people to get vaccinated on their own free will, particularly with people who work in industries requiring them to come in contact with other people (including tourism and healthcare) as they are responsible for their lives as well as their own.

There is one big thing that is missing from all of this; how long can we expect these restrictions and vaccine mandates to continue? At what point can we say that vaccine passports aren’t needed anymore because everyone has been vaccinated or we actually managed to flatten the curve somehow? Let’s not forget that the vaccines are in high demand, with long lines at major vaccination hubs, and that getting vaccinated won’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus (aside from lessening the symptoms if you were to catch it, but your mileage may vary). And what about those who are just waiting to get their vaccination (first or second)? People can say that this isn’t about control, but for public health, but I just think the government is using public health as a justification to exercise more controls on people, which to some, is just a milder way of saying that this isn’t about health, but power and control.

Holy shit, when I write sadposts on the Waifu Network I didn’t expect them to become more relevant as time went on. “Our civil liberties are curbed in times of crisis.” “We are never truly free.” “The current political climate is enabling people to become pettier and pettier and it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to take a stand against it.” “It’s so ironic when the right people support the wrong things and the wrong people support the right things.” “Some people and businesses unironically exercise rights they don’t deserve to have.” The cope is real, ladies and gentlemen. But hey, I should have expected this when my ramblings and musings are based on politics and current affairs.

Vaccine supremacy and the dictatorship of the minority

What is probably the funniest and most ironic thing about this is that the topic of vaccine mandates is causing yet another divide in society and leading to a dictatorship of the minority. To give you an example, we have to go back to April 2021 Hong Kong, a place where the government’s laws have been oppressing people before vaccine mandates were a thing. The government decided to relax restrictions under a “vaccine bubble” program for restaurants that would see them split into four tiers based on whether the staff and/or customers are vaccinated and using the LeaveHomeSafe app, which has raised concerns with Hongkongers given recent events. The four tiers are as follows:

Tier A restaurants, who do not require their staff and customers to be vaccinated, can only have two people per table at 50% capacity and they can serve dine-in customers up to 6 PM, with a maximum of 20 people for banquets.

Tier B restaurants, who do not require their staff and customers to be vaccinated, but are following contact tracing guidelines by using LeaveHomeSafe or having customers leave their details on paper, can have 4 people per table at 50% capacity and they can serve dine-in customers up to 10 PM provided that staff get tested every 14 days (changed to 7 days from August 2021) or vaccinated.

This is where it starts to get crazy. Tier A and Tier B were in place before the “vaccine bubble” program, with the next two tiers being introduced as a part of it.

Tier C restaurants, who require their staff to have had their first vaccine dose, can have six people per table at 50% capacity (later changed to 75% capacity) and they can serve dine-in customers up to 12 AM. However, customers must check in with LeaveHomeSafe and restaurants must have a defined “clean zone” (like a fucking hospital, I assume the rest of the restaurant is just the “dirty zone” then?) for dine-in customers and vaccinated staff.

Tier D restaurants, who require their staff to have had 14 days pass after their second vaccine dose and their customers to have had their first vaccine dose, can have 8 people per table at 75% capacity (later changed to 12 people at full capacity as long as at least two-thirds of the table, so 8 people, have had their first vaccine dose) and they can serve dine-in customers up to 2 AM. They can also serve a maximum of 100 people for banquets (later changed to 180 people as long as at least two-thirds blah blah blah, so 120 people). Tier D restaurants must also have customers check in with LeaveHomeSafe and have a defined “clean zone”, same as with Tier C.

God, these rules are so complicated they make me want to kill myself. Anyway, where does the dictatorship of the minority come in?

Pro-government and pro-Beijing businesses are likely to embrace vaccines, so they are more likely to become Tier C or D restaurants. Pro-democracy businesses are more wary of vaccines (particularly Sinovac) and LeaveHomeSafe, so they are more likely to become Tier A or B restaurants (because they can get away with signing in on paper and maybe getting tested). The likewise applies for customers - pro-government customers are more likely to get vaccinated while pro-democracy customers are more likely to hold out on doing so.

Unvaccinated customers can only go to Tier A or B restaurants while vaccinated customers can also go to Tier C or D restaurants. When there is a significant proportion of unvaccinated customers, it is more than likely that there will be at least one “stubborn anti-vaxxer” in a group of (mostly) vaccinated customers, meaning that all the vaccinated customers have to eat at Tier A or B restaurants because of that guy.

Eventually, what ends up happening is that Tier C or D restaurants will find themselves unable to serve a diverse base of customers (not that they could already keep milking pro-government boomers who probably only give a fuck about the rules being enforced because they hate pro-democracy millennials and the rules don’t affect them, note that zoomers in Hong Kong are more than likely to be pro-Beijing) and as a result, struggling to choose between serving the unvaccinated or having a few more people on their tables and serving dine-in customers for a few hours longer. In the end, they have to pander to the unvaccinated and become a Tier A or B restaurant. It’s kind of like having to pander to Jews and Muslims because they can only eat Kosher or halal food or people with allergies (not that they could do their own thing already).

There are a couple of people I would like to credit for this section. The first one I would like to thank is Janelle Leung for creating the infographics that inspired this section. She was a pro-democracy member of the Kwun Tong District Council who was jailed for four months as a result of attending the “unauthorised” 4 June commemoration event (which is usually held yearly in Hong Kong but was not approved due to coronavirus restrictions being “conveniently” extended) last year and was disqualified from the District Council as a result. Our thoughts and prayers go to her as with other pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong (most of whom have resigned from their positions due to the passing of stricter laws). The second person I would like to thank is Nassim Nicholas Taleb who wrote the chapter that inspired the infographics, The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority in his book Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. You can read the chapter online on Medium.

Sadly, however, recent events have lead to all this not ageing well. As the Delta variant continues to spread and more people get vaccinated, the vaccinated have gone from the minority to the majority while the opposite applies for the unvaccinated, leading to more support for vaccine mandates. This isn’t a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, it’s a “dictatorship of the vaccinated”. At this rate, the “dictatorship of the minority” is going backwards with no recourse for the unvaccinated. Freedom with caveats is NOT true freedom. Either everyone is locked down or no one should be.

This isn’t an issue of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative or even Labor vs. Liberal, particularly because the premiers for Victoria and New South Wales, namely Daniel Andrews or Gladys Berejiklian, are from the Labor and Liberal parties respectively. If this doesn’t convince you that the main parties in a two-party system are just as bad as each other, then I don’t know what will.

My view on the debacle

Now look, I am by no means an anti-vaxxer and you’re retarded if you assume that I am, particularly if you’ve read everything up to this point. I can foresee myself getting vaccinated eventually, whether it be of my own volition or pressure from my family or work (ironically, I don’t have enough power to decide my own destiny). However, if I can, I want to hold out until I at least know how long the vaccines will last, whether the vaccines will be effective against newer variants of the virus and whether I will end up needing to get booster shots. Heck, I feel like making this into a social experiment to see how long I can get away without getting the vaccine. If I get vaccinated, then I’ll probably look like a hypocrite for saying all this, so I would just like to reiterate that I am pro-choice and anti-vaccine mandates.

“HahA YoU’re aFRaId OF GETtiNG VaCcInaTeD LOL” If it were that simple, then there’d be no point in me writing this post. Everything I’ve said in this would be the same even if I weren’t afraid of getting vaccinated. Speaking of which, how’s things going with that needle-free vaccine I’ve heard so much about? I’m surprised they still haven’t finished studies on it, but if they have, I’m surprised it isn’t mainstream by now.

“buT yoU HAD TO get VAccIneS AT ScHoOL“ Yes, I did, but keep in mind that the coronavirus was discovered right at the start of 2020 while other vaccines have been studied for at least five years. Sure, they gave you permission slips for your parents to fill in, but it’s not like you had any choice in the matter. “They came for kids like me, but I could not speak out because I was under 18 and my parents were legally the ones who could decide my fate.” I remember that one year where I had to get three vaccines for HPV. Good times.

If you want to get vaccinated, then get vaccinated. I’m not going to stop you and you shouldn’t let anyone else stop you either. But at the very least, have some respect for those who don’t wish to get vaccinated because they are human too and they have the same rights as the rest of us, and if they work in an industry like tourism or healthcare, calmly convince them why they should take responsibility for the health of others as well as themselves instead of forcing them to do something they don’t want to. I know that’s what adult life is all about these days, but people need to remember that others have the right to choose and that not everyone sees things the same way they do. I would say that it is possible to find a balance between liberty and safety, but people need to learn to live with the virus (in a controlled manner) and they should not have to sacrifice personal liberties for the sake of public safety. It’s absolutely weird how people are happy to throw other people’s rights out the window when it comes to vaccine mandates. Anyone who supports them is just as selfish as the anti-vaxxers or anti-lockdown protesters they happily scorn.

Once again, getting vaccinated won’t stop you from getting or spreading the virus, so it is still important for everyone to wear masks and practice social distancing when going out. Masks are a better example to compare seatbelts to over vaccines, even though people are saying that they aren’t enough to keep people safe. Let’s calm the hysteria down and show respect for our fellow human beings, because while we aren’t exactly China, North Korea or Afghanistan per se, we sure are sliding down the slippery slope to dictatorship.

[him-e]

Due to SW I've been thinking about our perceptions of power and of course ended up thinking about ASOIAF. Would you say that power-hungry Tywin did raise his kids in a way that they can't see the power they actually have? While all his children crave power (in different ways), they constantly end up at the mercy of others, often by their own design. Cercei reduces herself to her vagina, Jaime to his sword, Tyrion to his Imp image (though he does it the least, prop because of his intellect).

Any examination of power and whether the lack thereof is real or perceived and how this can be a consequence of parental abuse needs to take into account the fact that Westeros is a deeply unbalanced society because of its rampant sexism, ableism and classism. So when you say that Cersei and Tyrion can’t see the power they actually have, the obvious objection would be: do they really have power? I mean, they both do compared to the lower classes—Cersei is the queen, and Tyrion is the son of a high lord, lives at court, has been hand of the King for a while etc. But the class privilege they possess is incessantly undermined by how Westeros’ society sees respectively Cersei’s gender and Tyrion’s disability as things that make you inherently less human—that happens when the default human being is thought to be male and able bodied—thus incapable, or unworthy, of wielding actual power.

It’s a combination of Tywin not valuing any type of power that doesn’t come from being male, straight, able bodied and rich by birth and transmitting this ideology to his kids, and the fact that by societal norms they have very little power compared to what an able bodied male would have in their exact social position. This lack of power makes them lash out and/or overcompensate, which inevitably leads to technical/tactical mistakes. They actually lash out more, and more messily, than most characters in a similar position do (which means they particularly attract this sort of “why can’t they use their power properly” discourse), and that’s because the only role model they have is Tywin who is the epitome of the kind of violent, aggressive masculine power that they both cannot access to no matter how they try. 

So there’s a huge dissonance between what Cersei and Tyrion are told they are allowed to do and what House Lannister is supposed to be.They’ve been simultaneously taught that they have to be Tywin to be powerful and that they’re unfit to be Tywin because of things outside of their control. They know that to make father proud they have to behave “properly” i.e. not exceed the limits of their gender and disability, but at the same time they understand that this sort of behavior is the opposite of What Tywin Would Do. For example, Cersei gets told to be a good broodmare and just shut the fuck up, but it’s no wonder that she struggles with the idea when it’s so clear that Tywin despises all things culturally feminine and prioritizes aggression and violence. It’s also no wonder that, being raised to believe that her only value is in her reproductive parts, she weaponizes those and remains blind to other ways to climb her way to power. Because those ways are inherently harder and imply a much greater defiance of societal norms that Cersei, who deep down still wants to please Father, isn’t ready to commit to.

The thing with House Lannister is that it replicates (exacerbating it) everything wrong with Westeros’ culture on a personal, familial scale, showing very clearly how bad it is to enforce a patriarchal, gendered idea of success and power on people who cannot adhere to it, and then punish them for trying. To make things worse, the current generation of Lannisters has no idea how to incorporate the feminine in their “hear me roar” mindset, in no small part due to the tragic absence of a matriarch in the house, one that could stand her ground against Tywin, show their kids that he’s not an absolute, and that different outlooks on power are possible. (for all that GRRM’s abuse of the *dead mother* trope is despicable, he has done his homework and knows that the easiest way to fuck a character up is to deny him (or her) access to their inner Feminine. And in turn the easiest way to do that is to prematurely sever their bond with the Mother)

Tywin’s role model is so toxic and unattainable that it fucked up even the one among Tywin’s children who was both male and able bodied. Jaime was, on paper, capable of “becoming Tywin” one day, according to Westeros’ cultural rules. But he ended up crippling himself LONG before he was physically maimed in ASOS. He joined the Kingsguard, essentially giving up his birthright; and then killed Aerys, utterly destroying his social respectability. Beyond the material reasons behind these actions—he killed Aerys because Aerys threatened to blow the entire city up and took the white because Cersei asked him to, of course—it would be interesting to analyze the ways in which those things might be a subconscious reaction/middle finger to the pressure of being ~Tywin’s designated heir~ and by extension a rejection of his ideology (though an incomplete, flawed one). (in fact, I would put the twincestin this category too, as it’s something that effectively taints Tywin’s legacy and hyperpatriarchal ideal of perfection)

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 (1 of 6)

Ok, I’ve been procrastinating on this for a while, so without further ado, let’s renew our look into episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation by warping into the start of the show’s fourth season, beginning with the conclusion to the ground-breaking two-part story “The Best of Both Worlds”.

Episode 1: The Best of Both Worlds (Part 2)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The discharge fired from the Enterprise’s deflector dish has no effect on the Borg cube; Locutus reveals that the Borg had prepared for the attack using Captain Picard's knowledge. The Borg cube continues at warp speed towards Earth, with the crippled Enterprise unable to follow. Upon reporting their failure to Admiral Hanson, Commander Riker is promoted to Captain and makes Commander Shelby his first officer. The crew learns that a fleet of starships is massing at Wolf 359 to stop the Borg. Guinan suggests to Riker that he "let go of Picard", since Picard's knowledge is being used to thwart Starfleet tactics, in order to defeat the Borg and possibly save Picard's life.

 The Enterprise arrives at Wolf 359 to find that Hanson has been killed and the fleet destroyed, including the starship Riker had been offered command of in Part 1. The Enterprise then follows the cube's warp trail to an intercept point and offers to negotiate with Locutus. The request is denied, but the communication reveals Locutus's location within the cube. The Enterprise then separates into saucer and stardrive sections. Although Shelby suggested attacking with the stardrive section, Riker does the reverse and orders the saucer section to fire an antimatter spread near the cube, disrupting its sensors and allowing a shuttlecraft piloted by Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Worf to pass the Borg shields and beam aboard the Borg cube. They kidnap Locutus, although the Borg ignore this and continue to Earth.

 Data and Dr Crusher create a neural link with Locutus to gain access to the Borg's collective consciousness. Data attempts to use the link to disable the Borg's weapons and defensive systems, but cannot, as they are protected by security protocols. Picard breaks free from Borg control and mutters, "sleep". Dr Crusher comments that Picard must be exhausted from this ordeal, however Data deduces that Picard is suggesting accessing the Borg regeneration subroutines, which are less protected than key systems like weapons or power. Data issues a command to the Borg to enter sleep mode, causing their weapons and shields to deactivate. A feedback loop builds in the Borg cube, which destroys the vessel. Dr Crusher and Data remove the Borg implants and augmentations from Picard.

 The Enterprise is awaiting repairs at an orbital shipyard, and Riker, although offered command of his own ship, insists on remaining as first officer. Shelby is reassigned to a task force dedicated to rebuilding the fleet. Picard physically recovers, but is still psychologically disturbed by his ordeal.

Review:

While Part 1 was great for the first season-bridging two-part cliff-hanger of TNG and of wider Trek lore ever to be done, the second part comes to drop the ball a little on delivering follow-through to part 1’s set-up.  Granted, we still get some decent character performances and a good plot with what little decent action the episode could afford, but it’s ultimately failing to deliver on the level of action that is at times promised.  Anyone coming into this from watching some later Trek productions like DS9’s story lines with fighting first the Klingons and then the Cardassian-Dominion alliance will see just how much this episode falls short on the action front; indeed, it’s not until DS9’s pilot episode that we get to see the infamous Battle of Wolf 359 in any real detail, as opposed to a DS9 episode like ‘Sacrifice of Angels’ which is almost wall-to-wall starship action at times.

 The solution also seems to come too quickly and is almost too convenient.  Part of this is because the first part was written without a solution ‘waiting in the wings’.  If Memory Alpha is to be believe, Michael Piller waited until he knew he would be staying on as TNG’s story editor before trying to write his way out the seemingly impossible-to-escape cliff-hanger he’d created in part 1.  Now while I can understand that desire not to tie yourself into a solution to something that might not be your problem, I think in any kind of continual story-telling, early parts should always be written to leave a few options open.  Even if you’re not writing the solution because you’re doing a form of writing like TV or film where you’re not guaranteed to write the next instalment, I think it’s just good manners to fellow writers and to your audience not to write a hard-to-solve cliff-hanger.

 As it is, I can’t help feeling TNG might have benefited from extending part 2 a bit more and potentially turning this into a trilogy, much as DS9 did with its season 2 opening episodes.  Still, I suppose it ends well enough, and I’m glad this episode and later ones gave us a sense that Picard remains affected by his assimilation experience.  Not only is this ground-work that later ex-Borg characters like Voyager’s Seven of Nine would rely on simply to exist, but it’s another move by the show away from being just an unending array of one-off adventures with little to no consequences for anyone involved.  That kind of overly simplistic and unrealistic story-telling just isn’t Trek-worthy, and I’m glad it was starting to die out here.  Overall score for this episode, 8 out of 10.

Episode 2: Family

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is docked at Earth Station McKinley, undergoing repairs and refitting following its battle with the Borg. The episode follows the interactions of three members of the crew with their family members. Lt. Worf's adoptive human parents, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko visit the Enterprise, having learned about his discommendation some time ago, but also having been unable to support him as they would wish due to being lightyears apart. Worf, though embarrassed and uncomfortable with their doting behaviour at first, but in the end appreciates their concern. Dr Beverly Crusher retrieves a chest, kept in storage on Earth, containing her late husband Jack's mementos, including a holographic recording he made for Wesley when their child was only 10 weeks old. Beverly, though worried that the two of them have only recently truly come to terms with Jack's death, eventually gives the recording to Wesley. Wesley runs the recording and is given some degree of closure by the message.

 Captain Picard, recovering from his Borg assimilation, visits his family's vineyard in La Barre, France, which is run by his elder brother Robert along with his wife Marie and son René. Jean-Luc considers a position on Earth with an underwater research project called Atlantis. Robert has always been jealous of his brother's success and is concerned that Jean-Luc's presence will drive René to also join Starfleet. The two have a bitter argument and end up wrestling each other in a mud puddle, eventually culminating in an emotional reunion, with Jean-Luc breaking down and crying, admitting his sense of powerlessness and guilt at the things he was forced to do while under the influence of the Borg. Robert states that Jean-Luc will have to learn to live with what he did, regardless of where he goes. Jean-Luc decides to go back to the Enterprise. The two spend the night getting drunk as they resolve their differences. After Jean-Luc leaves, Robert decides to let René follow his dream to join Starfleet as René sits under a tree and looks up at space.

Review:

This episode really helps the previous one in terms of moving TNG away from being a series without consequence.  While Wesley’s storyline is little more than filler covering a bit more screen-time that the other plots could have made better use of, Worf’s part in the episode is our first real sense of follow-on from ‘Sins of the Father’.  At last, Worf’s discommendation gets its first notable repeat mention, and at the same time we get to see our first glimpse into the human family that raised Worf. Their part in this episode brings up some great little messages about good parenting, and as Guinnan points out, there are a lot of parents out there who could stand to learn something from the Rozhenkos.

 However, the real sign that TNG is starting to take the idea of multi-episode story-telling seriously in this episode is Picard’s story.  ‘Best of Both Worlds’ essentially hinted that Picard remained shaken by his experiences with the Borg, but that was as far as it went.  ‘Family’ brings Picard down to Earth, literally, by having him go home and be cajoled into dealing with those experiences by the only people who could do that; his family.  Ultimately, that’s the role that Picard’s family, or more accurately his brother, has to play in this episode; to be the spur that forces Picard to drop his outer reserve and let himself feel what he needs to in order to better deal with the mental trauma.

 In many ways, it’s not unlike the kind of mental cajoling and breaking through a therapist might use in helping a patient deal with mental trauma, and I think the only reason Troi doesn’t provide this is because she’s part of Picard’s crew, and there’s only so far Picard would ever go to open up around those under his command.  Ultimately, it has to be Robert that pushes his younger brother into opening up, and who points out that no matter what Picard does, the experience isn’t going to go away whether you avoid anything related to the source of that trauma or not.  It’s a great message that I imagine many people suffering with psychological traumas could identify with and take as advice themselves, which adds in what defines Trek at its best; issue exploration through metaphor. Discounting the wasted time on the Wesley plot, I’d give this episode 9 out of 10.

Episode 3: Brothers

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

A misguided prank between two young brothers exposes the younger of them to a toxic parasite that cannot be treated aboard the Enterprise, but Dr Crusher is able to stabilize his condition in a controlled environment in Sickbay while the ship sets out for a starbase that can cure the boy. As Lt. Commander Data escorts the older brother to visit his sibling, he suddenly stops and returns to the bridge where, unseen by the crew, he sets a new course for the ship and triggers a life support alarm, causing the evacuation of the bridge to be ordered. Captain Picard orders navigational control transferred the controls to Engineering while the rest of the bridge crew evacuates, but Data remains on the bridge, mimics Picard's voice and locks down control of the ship with a complex access code, preventing any interference with his actions. The crew discover Data's lock-down and manually disable the transporter's site-to-site function to prevent Data from easily moving about the ship. Once the Enterprise is in orbit about the planet Terlina III, Data creates a programmed sequence of force fields to allow him to move from the bridge to the nearest transporter room without being stopped by security, and then beams down to the planet, leaving the Enterprise still under his lock-down. Picard orders his crew to attempt to override Data's lock-down of the ship, while Dr Crusher attempts to keep the infected boy stabilized.

 Data finds himself in the home of his creator, Dr Noonien Soong. Soong states that he called Data to him using a form of automatic recall and makes a manual adjustment on Data to return him to normal. As they talk, they are joined by Lore, inadvertently also drawn by the same recall that Data received, since Soong assumed that Lore was still disassembled. Lore expresses resentment towards his creator and starts to leave, but stops when Soong tells both of his creations that he is dying and wishes to give Data an "emotion chip" he has created. Soong decides to rest before implanting the chip, leaving Data and Lore to talk. When he returns, he proceeds to implant the chip but discovers too late that Lore had managed to deactivate Data and switch clothing with him, so that he now possesses the emotion chip. Soong tries to warn Lore the chip is not meant for him, but Lore instead injures Soong and transports off the planet.

 The crew of the Enterprise find a way to beam down an away team to the planet, where they discover the dying Soong and the deactivated Data. After Data is reactivated, he cannot recall any of what he did on the Enterprise to arrive at this planet, until Soong reveals to him where he can find that information stored in his memory files. Data apologizes to Soong that he will not be able to grieve for his loss, but Soong tells him he will grieve in his own way. After Soong states that he wishes to die on the planet, the Enterprise leaves and returns to its course to the medical facility, where the sick boy is successfully treated. Data observes the brothers at play after forgiving each other for the accident, contemplating his own relationship with Lore.

Review:

This episode is the second in a trilogy that covers the concept of family, although this time we’re exploring it through Data being reunited with his creator, as well as fellow android Lore; in essence, the reunification of a somewhat dysfunctional father-and-sons dynamic that bears echoes of the Thor-Loki-Odin relationship of Marvel lore.  Not only is this a great little character piece for Data, but Brent Spiner actually plays all three members of this family.  It’s a remarkable enough technical feat to see one actor play two roles, such as when Lisa Kudrow would play Phoebe Buffay’s twin sister Ursula in episodes of Friends or the earlier TNG episode ‘Datalore’ where Spiner played Data and Lore.  Playing three characters in one episode, however, is all the more remarkable.

 The main plot is very good, albeit lacking any real issue exploration because it is ultimately just a character piece.  We also get to see some of Data’s more advanced abilities unleashed, such as his voice emulation and higher-level computer programming abilities.  For anything close to issue exploration, it’s the guest siblings, or rather the younger one, that makes the closest thing to a salient point about anything of note. When Dr Crusher is trying to convince the kid to forgive his older brother for the prank gone wrong, the lad claims he’s never played practical jokes on anyone, even for April Fools, because he feels “it’s not funny for the person being pranked.”

 As someone with autism who can’t generally separate practical jokes from bullying and sees the two of fundamentally synonymous except where the victim has behaved so poorly that a practical joke is equitable punishment, I totally agree with this kid’s assessment of practical joking.  Such pranks, outside of punishing truly horrendous people and the slapstick antics of something like Looney Toons, are little more than the cruellest, stupidest and generally most immature of all humour forms imaginable.  It’s not funny because it is essentially humour in weaponised form, laughter directed against a victim in mockery and shame, and in any truly enlightened society it simply has no place, save for an occasional punishment of necessity.  Likewise, anything that encourages practical jokes as a generally accepted form of humour like April Fools should be banned.

 Hell, April Fools only started because some idiots several centuries back refused to shift from an old model of calendars to a new one.  How the hell does that justify all the stupidity of April Fools all this time later?  The answer is simple; it never has, and the only true fools are the ones who still celebrate the custom instead of opting out. Frankly, the fact that pranks and April Fools haven’t been edited out of society by the time TNG is set is a flaw in the supposedly utopian world of Trek.  If humans are still using humour as a weapon like this by the 24th century, if we haven’t grown up properly by then, how the hell have we managed to establish the kind of world that Trek claims to be.  To say I am disappointed by this facet of this episode, and Trek as a whole, is to woefully understate things.  Because of this, what might have been a top-scoring episode despite an otherwise total lack of issue-depth becomes worth 8 out of 10.

Episode 4: Suddenly Human

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from a Talarian vessel. They rescue five teenaged crewmembers - four Talarian, and one human, Jono.

Jono keeps to himself, but shows strict obedience to Captain Picard, which together with some unexplained past injuries leads Dr Crusher to suggest Jono may have been physically abused. It is determined that Jono is Jeremiah Rossa, a long-lost Federation citizen. His grandmother is a Starfleet admiral, and he was orphaned ten years ago when his parents were killed in a skirmish with the Talarians.

 When the Captain introduces the topic of Jono's human family, Jono becomes angry. After persistent effort by Picard, Jono's memories of the attack begin to return and a friendship develops between Jono and Wesley Crusher.

 A Talarian ship arrives. Its Captain, Endar, asks for a status on his son, who happens to be Jono. Ten years ago, Endar claimed Jono after Jono's parents were killed. This is part of the Talarian custom of adopting the children of slain enemies to replace their own children who have died in battle. Endar explains Jono's injuries as the products of a boy trying to impress his father by participating in high-risk activities; Picard seems satisfied and observes that Endar seems to care for Jono. Picard allows Endar to see Jono, but when Jono says he wants to stay with Endar, Picard suspects the boy is afraid to say he wants to stay in the Federation. Endar insists that Jono will come back with him, even if the result is war between the Talarians and the Federation.

 Returning to his vessel, Endar calls for reinforcements, as Picard decides to try to convince Jono to stay. After Jono receives a message from his grandmother, Picard takes the boy to play a form of racquetball, where Jono breaks down and cries due to the sounds of the game triggering long-buried memories of his human parents being killed. The crew believes they are making progress with the boy, but that night, Jono stabs the Captain. The dagger is deflected by Picard's sternum, and the wound is minor. The problem of where Jono should live is now compounded as Jono has committed a crime.

 When Picard learns that Jono feels he cannot betray Endar by befriending Picard, the Captain realizes he has been trying to impose his wishes on the boy. Just as Endar's patience is about to run out, Picard contacts the Talarians and lets them know he will let Jono go back. Jono bids Picard farewell with a Talarian ritual that is normally reserved for family members.

Review:

This is the third episode on the trot that covers the theme of family, and again we get a different perspective.  The apparent intention behind it was to explore something the show normally looks at using Worf, namely if you raise a child of one culture in another culture, can they ever be of their birth culture or do they inevitably revert to the culture they were raised in.  However, exploration of this is partly muddled by the fact that the episode raises issues of child abuse regarding the Talarian-raised human teenager that the episode focuses on.  Some less observant and more reactionary viewers seem to think the conclusion of the episode effectively condones child abuse, since those the Enterprise crew suspect of abusing the child get custody in the end.  However, the episode clearly shows Jono’s injuries result from the physically harsh games of the world where he grows up, and as such are simply accidental injuries rather than intentional ones.

 I think if there is a message regarding child abuse and custody cases in this episode despite the intentions of the writers, it’s not to let your suspicions and the personal emotions that stem from those suspicions cloud your judgement.  While better safe than sorry is undoubtedly a wise policy for anyone to adhere to, I think that some people can be inclined to wrap their children up in cotton wool for fear that if their child gets injured even by accident, the state will use it as an excuse to label them as abusers to satisfy themselves.  Such fears are perfectly understandable, as this episode clearly shows how easy it can be even for the supposedly enlightened and more rational humanity of the 24th century to leap to the worst possible conclusions and act from those rather considering all the facts.  As soon as they see Jono is human, and once Dr Crusher finds broken bones and assumes abuse, the crew is hell-bent on winning Jono back to humanity, even when the broken bones are explained away as accidental, all because the Enterprise crew values its own assumptions over actual fact.

 I also think the episode is a victim of when it was made; the later TV franchise of CSI shows the medical examiners of their various shows identifying whether certain injuries could be accidentally or deliberately inflicted, and the earliest of those shows began about a decade after this episode.  This makes me wonder if forensic medicine had yet to develop this science far enough in 1990 that a show like TNG could capitalise on it in the same way.  After all, if early 21st century MEs can determine the difference between an accidental bone fracture and one caused by an act of abuse, you’d think a 24th century doctor like Beverley Crusher could make similar determinations.  As it is, this lack of diagnostic accuracy on Crusher’s part only adds to the error committed by Picard, and it’s only at the end when Jono is driven to violence that anyone realises ‘ok, we’ve messed up and mis-read the entire situation.’

 What makes the whole thing really stupid, however, is that Jono’s situation is something of a mirror to Worf’s, and yet Worf is among those seeking to insist upon Jono throwing off his adoptive culture for his birth one.  That seems very hypocritical coming from a Klingon who has gone into Star Fleet; if Worf were to live by the gospel of this episode, he’d have gone back to the Klingon empire as soon as he was old enough.  Has he done that?  No, he’s the tactical officer and chief of security for the Federation flagship, for crying out loud.  For someone from a race valuing honour so heavily, it’s just stupid and inconsistent to have Worf follow everyone else’s assumption and not argue in Jono’s corner. I won’t even start on the stupid howling ritual that had me muting the episode every time it came on.  Bottom line, this episode only gets 5 out of 10 from me.

Episode 5: Remember Me

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The USS Enterprise docks at Starbase 133, where Dr Beverly Crusher greets her elderly friend and mentor, Dr Dalen Quaice. After taking him to his quarters, discussing the loss of old friends, Dr Crusher visits her son Ensign Wesley Crusher in Engineering. Wesley attempts to create a static warp bubble, but the experiment appears to fail. As the Enterprise leaves Starbase, Dr Crusher finds that Dr Quaice is missing, with no record of him coming aboard the ship. As she performs a medical test on transporter chief O'Brien, she realizes that her medical staff is missing; further investigation and discussion with the crew show that she has always worked alone in sick bay.

 Dr Crusher continues to try to track down the disappearing people and finds more and more crew members that she remembers being completely unknown to the crew or the computer. At one point, a vortex appears near Dr Crusher and attempts to pull her in, but she is able to hold on to a fixture until it dissipates; the ship shows no record of the vortex's appearance when she investigates. Eventually, no one but Captain Picard and herself remain on the ship, but Picard believes that the situation is normal. Dr Crusher orders the computer to give Picard's vital signs over the ship's speakers so she knows he is still there, but shortly thereafter, even he disappears. Then, the vortex reappears, and once again tries to claim Beverly. She is blown across the bridge, but she manages to hang onto the chair for the Ops position until the vortex disappears.

 At this point, it is revealed that the actual Enterprise, where Wesley had successfully created the warp bubble and accidentally trapped his mother within it, is trying to rescue Dr Crusher. With the warp bubble collapsing rapidly, Wesley's fears lead the Traveller to appear and help Wesley attempt to stabilize the bubble. The Traveller recommends the Enterprise return to the Starbase, where the warp bubble was formed and may be more stable.

 Within the warp bubble, Dr Crusher attempts to direct the Enterprise to the home planet of the Traveller, but soon finds the ship is unable to set that destination, as it no longer exists. More of the universe she knows disappears, soon leaving only the Enterprise. She recognizes the shape as being that of Wesley's warp bubbles, and determines that she is trapped, the earlier vortex being the Enterprise crew's first attempt to save her. As the warp bubble shrinks, erasing parts of the Enterprise, she races for Engineering, the centre of the warp bubble, and finds a vortex waiting there. She jumps in at the last moment, finding herself back in Engineering along with Picard, Wesley, Geordi La Forge, and the Traveller. She embraces her son and obtains confirmation from Picard that the Enterprise's population is 1,014, including her guest Dr Quaice), which is the correct number.

Review:

Here we have another example of a cost-saving bottle episode made to save money where earlier episodes perhaps involved an over-spend.  It’s not up there with the like of ‘The Offspring’ for quality; it’s taking an item that was apparently intended for the earlier episode ‘Family’ and got for time, turning it into a stand-alone episode and then bringing back the Traveller, a guest character not seen since his only prior appearance in TNG’s first season. As a result, we get a re-hash of the ‘thoughts making reality’ premise from the Traveller’s one previous episode, albeit focused entirely around Beverley Crusher.  Gates McFadden does a wonderful job taking centre stage for this episode, but there’s only so much she can do to raise its quality; there’s simply not enough substance for her performance, and the performances of the other actors, to bring to life.  No character exploration, a recycled issue from a past episode.  The only reason I give it 6 out of 10 and not less is that we’re at least getting a break from the kind of stupid we got on the previous episode.

[destroyyourbinder]

Questions They Implicitly Ask To Check Your Progress in Treatment for Gender Dysphoria, Because There Aren’t Even Clear (But Wrong) Functional Standards for Any of This

I wrote this as part of a reply to a chain of conversation you can find as the previous post on my blog, but since tumblr is all about the short and snappy shit, I thought I’d repost it as this in case people didn’t want to clog their blog. 1. Did they let us change their self-narrative? Do they see themselves as having an internal, individual problem with gender and sexuality? Do they understand themselves as a transgender person rather than a type of gay person who is naturally expressing themselves but running into problems in society? Do they see their depression or functional issues as coming from their having gender dysphoria, having the “wrong body”, or having their “true gender expression” be stymied? Do they believe they can and do have the mind, soul, or brain of a different gender? Are they less confused about their personal understanding of their gender and sexuality history, even if it is a distorted or incorrect understanding of factual details of their life? Do they see their current relationship to gender and sexuality as inevitable and the final outcome of a long string of internally-generated events that started in childhood or even at birth or before? Were they happy to find out these things about themselves? Did they seem relieved when we told them or that this was their “real” problem? Did it make them seem less worried and less apt to hate themselves when we told them that it’s gender dysphoria and not something else? Did they seem like they were having real insights about themselves when they began to use our narrative for self-understanding rather than their own?

2. Did they comply with the medicalization of their distress?

Did they begin to see that their issues with gender and sexuality are a medical problem, or at least an appropriate issue to bring to a doctor or psychological professional? Do they trust doctors (me) to handle their issues with gender and sexuality? Do they prefer to get this issue resolved through medical treatment rather than trying to resolve it through other means? Do they understand that medical treatment is the only real way to get rid of their distress about gender and sexuality, and that if they try other strategies, they’ll be futile? Have they transformed their personal narrative so that they see that they’ve tried to handle their “gender dysphoria” on their own but failed, and need expert help now? Do they now collapse their ineffective, self-harming strategies for coping with gender and sexuality-related distress with any other, non-medical strategy for helping themselves?

Do they now use strategies to help their gender and sexuality-related distress that make them dependent on the medical system, a particular doctor or therapist, or a medicalized understanding of themselves? If all doctors disappeared tomorrow, or the medical system failed, would they be screwed? Do they have to keep coming back to the office or clinic to make sure they’re ok?

Do they now understand that transition would be best for them? Do they see transitioning as the natural outcome of their life course? Do they think that using medical tools to transform their body is the best way to make their feelings about their body and their social position go away? Do they think we doctors and psychological professionals will be helpful, and will they turn to us to make those changes to their body?

3. Did they prove that their distress is a very serious issue to us by letting us enact our medical authority on them?

Were they treatment-compliant? Did they agree to their diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the course of treatment recommended? Did they jump through all of the hoops to make sure this was absolutely right for them, and listen to our rules and regulations? Did they spend the appropriate amount of time in waiting, or articulate their narrative in the correct way? Is their gender presentation in line with what we expect from someone who has such a serious problem, or do they seem not to care about our narrative enough for us to think they’re for real?

Did they take in the narrative well enough that now they are begging us for medical intervention? Do they seem eager to start hormones or to have surgeries? Do they seem to be ambivalent about anything or are they able to stuff down doubts enough to make their problems easy for us to deal with? Do they make us feel like we are coercing them into anything? Are they making us make hard choices about whether this is right to convince someone to do this to solve their problems? Are we talking to a parent of a preteen, a caretaker for someone disabled, an individual who formerly very strongly saw herself as gay, or a freaked-out mess of a person? Are they really a good candidate if they are one of these people and should we just give up on treating them like a person? Or are we here to affirm people’s identities and feel great about helping them in their gender journey, no matter who they are, except when they are too difficult and we can set a boundary around caring about them? Are they giving us a lot of shit about being confused about what to do, or going on and off hormones, or ending up in the psych hospital again, or putting off surgery, or asking for it early, or not following aftercare instructions? Or are they listening and following our recommendations calmly and nicely, as if we know what we are doing, and we’re helping them?

4. Did we get them to stop being such a pain in the ass after they proved how serious they were?

Do they bother us with their problems now that they got a name change and are on hormones and had surgery? Are they still in therapy or can we give their slot to someone else? Are they still confused about gender or having issues with gender and sexuality or have they learned to shut up? Do they voice complaints about transition or do they recommend it to others as a way to solve their problems with gender and sexuality?

Are they still depressed? Ok, but are they depressed because they’re the wrong gender or because their life is still crappy (because we never said it would fix their life, you know)?

Really, in the hospital again?

Did they stop talking to everyone who gave them crap about gender and sexuality? Are they either completely stealth and pretend this never happened, or do they live in an artificial progressive bubble and never come out? Is it visible that they’re transgender and think gender standards are bullshit, and are they still making a scene about the whole thing? Have they considered maybe transition wasn’t right for them if they are still having so many problems?

Have you heard from Jake since his top surgery? I heard he never came back to the clinic for followup, do you think he just moved on with things and didn’t need our help anymore? Isn’t that so typical?

5. Is their current narrative one which is a completion of or natural end to the one we installed in their head?

Do they tell us that they think their life is better? Do they tell us that they think they solved their problems? Did they tell us everything is better now?

Do they talk about their body in the same way, as if it’s the thing that’s bothering them, or do they talk about how awesome it is that we changed it for them? Are they unsatisfied with what we did for normal reasons or really stupid ones that make us feel like we did something bad? Do they know surgery has limitations, because like, come on, we can’t give them a real dick, you know, and if they’re still sad about that then we can’t do anything?

Do they tell themselves all the time that they made it, they did it, they achieved what they needed to in order to be happy? Well, we just gave you the tools to be happy, didn’t you know that people can choose their life direction and it’s in your hands now if you decide not to actually be happy?

Did they settle? Did they settle enough? Do they know this is the end and we can’t do anything else for them, and do they accept that?

Do they feel like a man now? Do they think there is no such thing as a “real man”? Can they tell themselves something, anything, that says that there’s no reason for themselves to be upset anymore about this gender and sexuality stuff and actually believe it? Is it written on their bodies and in their history now that they have no reason to object? ---- I want to note here as part of this piece that I think most trans people are intensely aware of a lot of this already. Except: since they are so motivated by their own horrible distress and have been captured by a narrative that says transition is the only solution to said distress, they still are coerced into buying into the narrative at least somewhat. Otherwise they cannot transition. This is why you often see trans people criticize elements of this (transition gatekeeping by professionals, the idea that being trans is a medical pathology, that you have to be “born trans”, that transition has to be “complete” or end up making you gender conforming, etc.) but rarely does anyone name the full set of conditions defining “gender dysphoria” and the way the medical system deals with it. The most threatening condition to name is the idea that level or legitimacy of distress has something to do with transition, because otherwise transitioning makes no sense. So-called “transmedicalists” will name it, but in the wrong direction (that being distressed means that you must transition) rather than the way that medical professionals level it, which is that agreeing to transition proves that your distress was legitimate and worthy of care and not just a lady-problem or a faggot thing. The most radical of queer types will sometimes deny that transition ever needs a reason, but this is essentially a coping mechanism for those who wish to access transition but know they are poor traditional candidates or who cannot get their distress ever taken seriously (because of demographic characteristics or because their distress is too unseemly to witness). Denying that anyone needs a reason to transition, and demanding access to it without justifying this access, leads to new forms of abuses of medical control. The process of transition becomes “informed consent” model treatment, without any limits, as a very serious and life-altering body modification option subject to all sorts of unbounded pressures. Transition without justification has also dissolved bonding and shared experience within transgender communities, as it used to be understood within these communities why and how and with what mentality people transition. Now it is not even clear to me what “transgender” means, or what someone who uses alternative pronoun sets (for example) is even attempting to communicate to me or wants from me as a standard of respect. What is lost in all of this is the origins and historical use of medical transition, which was heterosexual men in power feeling gracious enough to do something about gay people’s distress by deigning to feel bad about shocking the shit out of their brains or throwing them in jail. They came up with transition as an alternative to the horrific abuse and punishment of gay people; transition was modeled on historical ways gay people chose to deal with homophobia, i.e. by passing as or taking on characteristics of the opposite sex. Gay people in a heterosexual world, especially isolated or young people, have little way to understand their experience except through a lens that makes them feel like an abnormal example of their sex and therefore “more like” the other one. It is absolutely normal for gay people to feel this way and to communicate their feelings through this lens, but heterosexual men in the medical world interpreted it completely literally. It was the only way they could understand why gay people were the way they were (”inverts”) and not stigmatize them at the same time. When gay people saw they could get their distress finally heard by important people who claimed they could do something about it, but they could not actually be heard or seen except when they took on a literal and medicalized narrative of “being the wrong sex”, many simply went along with it. Transition has taken on a life of its own since then, being applied to children and non-gay deviant populations, and being taken up as the culmination of a personal identity by various modern subgroups who have little knowledge of its original history.

[johnleeclark-blog]

Distantism

It is with a wry shake of my head on your arm that I find myself introducing a fancy new word. As a poet, I dislike jargon. But sometimes we do need a new word, and it can change the way we see everything.

That’s what happened to the sighted Deaf community with “audism.” Although it was first coined in 1975, by the Deaf scholar Tom L. Humphries, it didn’t receive a full discussion until after the hearing-sighted linguist Harlan Lane used it in his 1993 book “The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community.” Sighted Deaf people had always known that hearing society discriminated against them, but the new word suddenly made it much easier to identify and analyze.

As is typical of our community, several DeafBlind folks proposed variations on the Deaf theme. But none of them caught on. More recently, however, “vidism” has gained some traction. It’s a helpful concept for two reasons. First, it places a finger on some of the ways the sighted Deaf community has excluded us. Our brother Bryen Yunashko has done important work in this direction. The second reason is that the hearing blind community did not yet have a term to describe sighted privilege and bias, other than the generic “ableism.”

Yet addressing both audism and vidism still leaves too much behind glass. I knew there was something bigger there, and I longed for something that would shatter that pane of mystification. Something that would allow me to wrap my hands around its throat and say, “I’ve found you out, you old serpent!”

The sense of that malaise which affects all of us, DeafBlind and non-DeafBlind alike, had been growing stronger and stronger ever since the Protactile movement started in 2007. It has taught us so much about who we are. About what is natural and true. About how to live. About language. What we once put up with we can no longer tolerate.

What, I wondered, is the opposite of tactile? Researching our community’s history, I see that we have always been tactile. But hearing and sighted people have always attempted to keep our tactilehoods in check. We’ve always been denied access to some of the most basic human rights. What should we call this force of suppression?

A Standing Apart

I propose to call it distantism. The English word “distance” comes from “distantia,” Latin for “a standing apart.” A point could be made that distantism refers to the privileging of the distance senses of hearing and vision. The ways in which many cultures have evolved on the almost exclusive basis of these two senses have indeed been harmful to us. That insistence on sight or hearing to function in society means only one thing for us: death.

But that would be putting it too simplistically. Each form of social bigotry has its distinctive personality and its unique set of intertwining evils. So I would like to dwell on the concept of distantia, or a standing apart, which lies at the heart of distantism. We already have a Protactile word that describes people who pull away from touch, who refuse to connect. It is an attitude and a behavior. Many hearing and sighted societies prize it highly, and their members seek to maintain physical distance, however thin those margins may be. Their rulers and heroes stand alone-- the more remote they are, the more highly esteemed they are. Even when the less privileged are squeezed closer together due to poverty, exploitation, or as punishment, distantism manifests itself in the long lines, tight cells or dubicles, and above all, their being removed out of sight and hearing. For all the hype around its ability to connect the world, technology has often served to isolate people in every other way.

Are sighted and hearing people wrong to use their distance senses and let it affect how they live? No. If they wish to be all eyeballs and flapping ears, they are welcome to such an existence. There’s nothing wrong with being organized or efficient. But we have problems when they impose their distantism on us.

Let’s read a classic distantist statement:

“The loss of both sight and hearing constitutes one of the severest disabilities known to human beings. Essentially, it deprives an individual of the two primary senses through which we acquire awareness of and information about the world around us, and it drastically limits effective communication and freedom of movement, which are necessary for full and active participation in society.”

It used to be impossible to argue with a statement like that, but with a critique of distantism we can begin to break it down. It’s an old trick, blaming injustice on its targets so that the privileged can pretend there’s nothing wrong. We are at the bottom of society because, what? Because we are DeafBlind. Which cannot be helped. Therefore, we belong at the bottom of society. It’s an amazingly easy trick to pull. They take things out of our reach and then they say we have limited awareness. Whatever they do is our fault.

I wish I could share everything this critique has unearthed for me, but it would take years to write! For now, I would like to touch on a few things that I think tell us a great deal about how distantism works.

Intervenors

Despite the many barriers we encounter in society, we can gain much awareness about the world around us. But when we go exploring or when we just exist, sighted and hearing people rush in to intervene. Can they help us? Please don’t touch. They will be happy to describe it to us. They will guide us. No, they will get it for us. It’s much easier that way. Hello! My name is Katie and I’m your Intervenor!

One of the things I have pondered is why, very early in the history of education of DeafBlind children, they started assigning each one of us a special teacher-companion. This wasn’t always the case. There were some classes where we shared a common teacher and we had each other. We can see in the record how distantism set in, and how hearing and sighted people wanted things to look right. It didn’t look good when we went around “groping in the dark.” It didn’t look good for us to cluster together and have too much fun. Education meant we had to sit behind a desk.

The solution was to assign each one of us a sighted companion. Such teachers made it possible for us to sit apart and for the classroom teacher to stand in front of us. They made us hearing and sighted by proxy. Even though we would be in constant contact with our special teachers, the pair of us made for a tidy unit that could and did stand apart. It also made for a most inspiring sight, the self-sacrificing teacher laboring as our only link to the world. It isn’t a miracle unless there is a miracle worker.

Today those special companions are called Intervenors or Interveners. The title is altogether too apt. Intervenors who eavesdrop on this article will protest, “But I let Jimmy touch anything he wants to!” No. It’s not just a matter of letting or encouraging. There’s a whole cultural element involved. There are distantist modes of touch and there are protactile modes of touch. A distantist cannot truly teach or empower our children to live and learn as tactile people. Yet the field of education of DeafBlind children has never included us as teachers. Why is that?

The Road Not Taken

September 30, 1841, might have been the beginning of a wonderful alternative history. On that day, our brother Oliver Caswell, then eleven years old, entered the Perkins Institution, where our famous sister Laura Bridgman had already been a student for four years. He met many people on that day, but he was immediately drawn to her, and the two latched together. Samuel Gridley Howe, the school’s hearing-sighted director, was the most insufferable distantist imaginable—a man who, for example, decided that blind people must read raised lines resembling print—but on this occasion he allowed Bridgman to serve as his auxiliary for Caswell’s first lesson. Thereafter Bridgman eagerly continued to teach Caswell, devoting many hours each week to the enterprise. Fortune also hugged them when Howe and his new wife departed on a long honeymoon in Europe. It was during his absence that a portrait was painted of Bridgman teaching Caswell to read and write.

In Deaf education, Deaf teachers were involved from Day One. Many graduates were promptly hired as teachers, and Deaf teachers would go on to found schools all over the world. Blind graduates of early schools for the blind were also hired as teachers and continue to play a leading role in that field. But in the education of DeafBlind children, we have not seen the same pattern. There are thousands of Intervenors working today. There are hundreds of teachers proper who work with our children in Deaf, blind, and public schools. There are hundreds of early-intervention specialists. None of these professionals are themselves DeafBlind. What happened to cause so complete a shutout of tactile teachers and leaders?

When Howe returned to his post at Perkins, he found that Bridgman had mingled too much with teachers and fellow students. She had learned too much and had many questions. He considered his neat experiment ruined. He immediately made some radical changes, and, later, for a period of five years Bridgman was in the company of one single teacher. Any suggestions of a future in a widening social circle was abandoned. Perkins would set an example for the world of assigning each one of us a special teacher-companion. They were to help us, keep us safe, protect us from bad influences, and, we can now see, make sure we aspire to the distantist ideal.

It is a common outcome of some forms of oppression that their targets must fit in a narrow space of cooperation and gratitude. The idea with distantism is that we can never uphold it perfectly, but we should make a continuous failed attempt to do so. This continuous failed attempt reassures society that we agree with their values. We are to be good, but never good enough. The field, which Howe firmly sent on its current course, excludes us because it needs to maintain a certain level of failure. If it was its goal to succeed completely in educating us, it would embrace our tactilehood and value us as teachers and leaders. Instead, distantism is the first condition, and for that to make sense, the field needs its work to be difficult and expensive, not easy and effective.

Under Different Names

We adults also receive intervention that serves a similar function. In the United States we have Support Services Providers and in the United Kingdom they are called Communicator Guides. In Canada, they don’t bother to pretend it’s something different. Their Intervenors serve both children and adults.

I am not saying that we don’t need sighted assistants. After all, we do live in a distantist society, and we should avail ourselves of distance-information readers. However, the way our SSP services are performed can be smothering. That’s why a key concern of the Protactile movement is autonomy. When I teach Protactile, I like to make it easier to remember what it means and how to spell it by breaking it down into three parts:

AUTO: They do a lot of things automatically, taking over, making decisions for us, making assumptions.

NO: We need to say “No!” to such automatic actions.

MY: We need to say “My!”—we will do things our way and make our own decisions.

Sometimes I get a new SSP and she asks for my shopping list. She is ready to take charge and have me merely tag along, holding on to the cart. She’s confused when I do not give her a list and I take charge, directing us toward the places where we will find what I want. She is now more like a detector, or a device that I take out of my back pocket to consult. Only she is far more intelligent than any machine could be and there’s a wonderful rapport—that is, if she is able to unlearn her distantism. It is my responsibility to learn and know the world around me; it is part of her job to help me update that knowledge as we go along. But it is not her job to retain any of this knowledge herself.

Having a SSP is still useful, but it makes such an enormous difference how it’s done and when. Sadly, most SSP, CG, and Intervenor programs leave the professionals’ distantism intact. As a result, they often take charge, make assumptions, push our canes away from making contact, pull us back from people, put themselves in the middle of interactions instead of support our direct communication with others, and guide us in such a way as to maintain a margin between us and the world around us. No wonder we have limited awareness!

Their distantism finds its ugliest though unconscious expression at many of our gatherings, conferences, and retreats. You know the routine: We are each assigned a SSP. Instead of helping us connect with each other, they end up being the ones with whom we talk the most. Their presence creates a network of distantism that separates us from each other or makes it harder for us to find each other. They also can destroy moments when we cluster and go tactile. A friend shared with me an experience he had with a yoga activity at a retreat. The yoga instructor was a sister, and she wanted the group to do it in Protactile style. So there was a happy clustering, and people helped each other and passed on information. But it didn’t look right, and one of the SSPs standing back intervened by going to her “client” to correct his position. “That’s not what the position is, it is this.” Soon the other SSPs slipped into the group. In a few moments there was a nice straight row, everyone paired off and standing apart.

The White Cane

Even when we shake off those pesky intervenors, distantism follows us still in the form of the white cane. Now, I love my cane, but it was also one of the first things that told me there is something wrong. As I pointed out in my essay on protactile design, “My Dream House,” it is not our home if we need a cane. What this means for our present discussion is that the instant we feel the need for a cane, we are in distantist territory. One of our long-term goals should be to claim more and more territory where we do not need a cane at all, because the design of these environments is tactilely accessible and appropriate.

For going out in the public, I think we still need to ask the question: Why were we given the white cane? The three words Orientation and Mobility specialists repeat like a mantra are “independence,” “freedom,” and “safety.” Our brother Robert Sirvage has observed that in Amerikcan Sign Language all three are said the same way. Our crossed wrists turn away from each other and move apart, as if breaking out of handcuffs. That’s freedom, and also independence and safety. I now realize that this is the ultimate distantist fantasy.

The white cane makes it possible for us to go many places over a wide variety of terrain all the while avoiding contact with our environment except through our cane. It is a magic wand that conjures up a bubble for us to float in. Sighted Orientation and Mobility instructors have always taught us one-on-one, the better to dance circles around us and make sure the bubble grows stronger. They like to scout out a location first, find a path through it, and then bring us there, saying, “Go straight until you feel a curb, then take a 45-degree turn and walk until you encounter a railing.” A code of aimed turns and sailing until we hit something then another turn.

The field has yet to accept any DeafBlind instructors, adamant in the belief that we cannot teach each other to travel. They are right—we cannot possibly teach each other how to travel in their sterile, desolate, meaningless mode where the goal is for us to go down the middle, in a straight line. They want us to disturb the world as little as possible. Ironically, sighted people make that easy to accomplish by parting like the Red Sea before our rod. Joke: How am I supposed to find anyone if everyone runs away from me?

The bubbles they put us in are sometimes so thick they are more like tanks. I cannot count the times I would approach a brother and sister and get the feeling I’d just interrupted their process of steaming forward. Often they’d be holding something in their other hand, and I must wait for them to disassemble their tank-bubble before we can interact. That’s why I have worked on making my bubble as thin as possible, ready to pop the instant there’s an opportunity for connection. For me, this has meant finding the right cane: a slender beauty made of fiberglass. It’s so light that I can hold it like a pencil if I wanted to, with just two fingers. It’s no tank. It’s a mere whisker, sometimes feeling ahead, sometimes tucked in favor of other modes of experience.

One of these other modes is traveling and exploring together. I agree with Sirvage’s suggestion that we need community-based approaches. This would go against the whole thrust of the rehabilitation system, which is a monument to distantism. It’s built on one-on- one instruction, which effectively isolates us and tells us that we are broken and need to be fixed.

Final Irony

Before I bring up one more thing about distantism, let’s read that quote again:

“The loss of both sight and hearing constitutes one of the severest disabilities known to human beings. Essentially, it deprives an individual of the two primary senses through which we acquire awareness of and information about the world around us, and it drastically limits effective communication and freedom of movement, which are necessary for full and active participation in society.”

The final irony is that a DeafBlind man, the late Robert J. Smithdas, wrote these words. Many hearing and sighted people have expressed the same sentiments, but distantism is so pervasive that we all have internalized it. Helen Keller spoke of us as being imprisoned in the “double dungeon of darkness and silence” and that we are “the loneliest people on Earth.” She was being fanciful, but what is true is that the marginalization we experience is too often literal, involving physical margins.

That we find distantism even in ourselves is good news, for it proves that it is a serious, society-wide sickness. When our sisters, the magnificent Jelica Nuccio and aj granda, launched the Protactile movement, we knew it was a historic event. Now that we know more about distantism and how poisonous it is, their achievement seems all the more astonishing.

Think about it. Billions of people on this planet, and all of them agreeing that hearing and vision are required for leading full, normal lives. Billions of people of one mind that being DeafBlind must be an unendurable fate. Billions of dollars poured into the hope of medical cures. Distantism, that old serpent, held the whole world in its remote-control spell.

And then our sisters from Seattle had the audacity to say that there’s a DeafBlind way. To say that hearing and vision are not necessary. To say that the only cure we need is each other. Can you feel the world shaking as it starts to, finally, come together?

[lncw-blog]

The Crooked Government: Social Security Disability

           It has long been a fact that the various departments of the U.S. Government have been corrupted, and actually harm the citizens more than helping it – this is evident in the fact that the 16th amendment and the Federal Reserve Act actually were passed, but today my focus isn’t on these or the Internal Revenue Service. Today, my focus lies on Social Security Disability and mistreatment of citizens by this organization. It is perhaps easiest to simply relate my story in regards to this organization and my personal experience in order to help others gain a view of the way this agency is destroying lives.

           It started in January of 2013. I was in a car accident and my calcaneus was shattered. I couldn’t walk, even worse, I couldn’t even stand up straight when my foot wasn’t touching the ground, because by standing up blood rushes to one’s feet, and the pain caused by this was like someone slamming concrete blocks on my foot over and over again. It was excruciating, but in addition to this, parts of my foot were paralyzed. I could not move my toes or bend my foot, or do many of the things we take for granted every day. Even taking a shower became a complicated task as I was told I could not get my foot wet. The doctor’s assistant was overheard saying that she did not think I was going to ever walk again. One thing was for certain, my life would never be the same.

           About 6 or 7 months into the surgeries and rehabilitation therapies, I applied for Social Security Disability. I was sent form after form to fill out and told to mail them back to them. At one point, I received notice that they needed supplemental information before approving my disability and I had just a few days to get that information to them from when I received the notification. I filled out the paperwork immediately, and mailed it to them and waited to find out if I would be approved. The same day I mailed the supplemental information to the Social Security Disability Office, was the day they rejected my claim. I received a letter dated that it had been mailed that very same day. I was disheartened. I couldn’t work and was running out of money, living on pennies and about to be out on the street. That is when I learned that they had denied my cousin, who was a teenager at the time, a cancer survivor and an amputee. They informed him that he did not meet the eligibility under their guidelines for disability – the same thing they told me.

           So, as it goes, Social Security Disability is generally known for denying everyone the first time they apply – amputee or not. I decided to write them a letter disputing their decision, and informing them that I was aware that they denied my claim without reviewing all of the relevant information, and that when the case came before the judge that I would be sure to mention this issue. Suddenly, I was approved for disability. Suddenly, a year and three months after my accident. I also, they said, would be qualified to receive Medicaid for the remainder of my life due to the nature of my injury, and if I wanted to go to work at some future time that I could go to work. At this point I had lived on my brother’s broken couch in his tiny apartment for just over a year.

           But, some good news came. My brother was accepted to Yale University. I had to forge out on my own again, and the disability check was not quite enough to eat and pay rent somewhere, so I had to start working. At first I was part time, but a hospital visit that did not get covered by my Medicaid would soon change this. I found out when a hospital visit did not get covered that they had taken my Medicaid away from me. I reapplied, and was told to watch the Florida Access website to see any updates, and that it would eventually be reinstated. It never was, but further, all the paperwork I filled out to get it reinstated and handed in, in person, just vanished. It disappeared and allegedly there was no record of its ever having existed.

           Still, I needed to see doctors, both for issues related to my foot and for other health issues. Trying to figure out what to do about this situation, I went in person to the Social Security Disability Office in Tampa, Florida and asked them about working. They informed me in that office that I could work. I could make $1,800 a month in addition to my Social Security Disability. This sounded wonderful to me, because in all my years of working full time I never made that much with the exception of 2006, where part of the year, working 80 hours a week, I made a bit more than that after taxes. Also, returning to work full time would allow me to get the insurance I needed to once again see the doctors that I needed to see. This was the important part for me as it was a matter of my health. I made contact with an old boss who made accommodations for me and created a mostly sit down job that was not previously in his payroll.

           Returning to work full time, I thought little else of it, as I never made more than the amount that the Social Security Disability Office informed me that I was allowed to make. Then early 2017 came. I am in a cheap run-down apartment because rent has increased so much in the Tampa area, and this only following a brief homelessness of a few months, when I get the letter from Social Security Disability, claiming that because I am working full time I was no longer eligible for disability and have to pay nearly the entire amount back: $20,000 in 30 days. This prompted a new visit to the SSD Office in Tampa, and me explaining that I never made over what they told me I was allowed, and that I had no choice but to work because of them taking away my Medicaid. There response: “$1,800 is only the amount for blind people, I don’t know who told you that, but you are not blind are you?” My response: No, but that does not change the fact that I was misled by your office.

           So now, it is almost a year later. I am getting bills from them. I have filed a plea to have a meeting with them so that I will not have to pay it back. Essentially, I paid into this system my whole adult life, often from incomes from two jobs, and when I needed it they used it to hurt me. After 3 months of not hearing back from my initial filing of the plea, I went back to the Tampa Office and was told there was no record that I ever filled out any such paperwork and that I have to fill it out again, and collect all current documents pertaining to my situation anew. While in the process of doing this, I received a letter that they received my plea and will be setting up an appointment for me to come make my case. I waited, and waited, and waited, and received another bill for repayment as well as one that claims they are increasing the amount of my SSD checks – this must be the checks that I no longer receive.

           Finally, one day out of nowhere I get a call and am told that they have my appointment for the next week. I go to the appointment location and it is a doctor’s office. A doctor that works with disability and generates nearly all of his business by doing so. It is not the appointment they told me I would get, and it is not to make my case about why I should not have to pay them back, but rather it is so the doctor can make a case that I do not need disability. Sure, he asked my relevant questions, but then only recorded half answers.

Doctor:           “Do you experience any pain here and does it prevent you from working?”

Me:                  “I experience pain every day, but have had to push through it to survive.”

Doctor’s Notation: Patient is able to work a full time job.

The next letter I got from disability was to inform me that they no longer consider me disabled.

           A few months have gone by again, and now I just received a new letter to inform me that they have adjusted the amount I owe, and added $3,000 to the total, and that they have explained this in a previous letter which they sent me, and which of course they did not. Now I am contacting attorneys, all of which pretty much tell me the same thing, that it is a losing case, but that if I want to hire them to fight it there will be a $3,000 or more retainer, plus any other fees. I don’t have it. I imagine soon, Social Security Disability will begin garnishing my wages and I will be left homeless, unable to pay my rent. Because I was once the young naïve man that believed our government to be just and because I believed in the programs it offered to help the down trodden, not yet realizing that these programs are in fact there not to help the down trodden, but to trod them down further!

           At the time I am writing this, I do not know what will become of me. I do not know that I will be able to survive another year with the weight of the government bearing down on me and ready to heartlessly devour me at every turn. Am I angry? You bet I am. Just tonight I was yelling into the wind, “Fuck Social Security!” Did it do me any good? Probably not.

           Tonight, I will probably go to bed, wishing I could still cry at how my life was ruined, first by an accident, and then by a greedy government that discards its own citizens and tramples their rights. I will go to bed realizing that I will never be able to qualify for the best jobs in my field because of an injury, and never be able to pay this fictitious debt our government now says I owe. I will never be able to support a family, and my life actually ended in January of 2013.

          Did I mention, I had decided to go back to school about a year before the accident. The student loans by themselves where able to be managed, but when combined with what Social Security Disability is doing to me, I will die in debt one day, at this rate, likely sooner than later.

��ۂ��

[bellamilroy]

Reclaiming Lazy

Inspired by the wonderful Annie Segarra’s (@annieelainey) latest video on disability and laziness, I want to talk a little about this. I don’t get called lazy often, but it’s something older people joke with me when I use my scooter, a kind of, “what do you need one of them for?! I could do with using one eh?!”. One thing I’ve realised over the last year or so is just how profound the internalised ableism that I was carrying was as a result of this perceived of laziness. Because society hates disabled people so much, using laziness as a way to morally judge the ways we live and the tools we need from straws to wheelchairs (as Annie brilliant describes), I spent a lot of time when I first became unwell in the mind-set of being the best, most dedicated, most determined kind of disabled I could be. Because we really only like one kind of disability don’t we? The cute, agreeable, inspiring, pretty (white), drool-free no-mess kind. The kind that doesn’t leave us feeling too uncomfortable. I now know that I was battling with my own ableism, so stuck in the mind-set that I genuinely believed that I just needed to try my absolute best at everything in order to meet societies criteria of “acceptable” disabledness.

I had a little script that I would say to myself and others whenever confronted with any kind of prognosis, you know, those little chronic-illness-catchphrases you come up with? I used to say, “I refuse to accept that this how my life is going to be forever”, often accompanied with a firm tone and punctuated with an exclamation mark. Uffft, I feel for the doctors that I used to say that to when they’d tell me that my bloods came back all good and they can’t find what’s wrong with me! Essentially, what I was saying when I said that was, “I’m gonna eat myself well, clean myself well, medicate myself well, meditate myself well, exercise myself well (wtf?!)”...the list goes on. Being disabled was rock bottom and it was simply a case of climbing back up, all it was going to take was a tonne of effort and sheer determination. And whilst I think I can give myself some credit for the notion of things not remaining as they were - my life is different now in lots of ways, so much better than it was when I first said those words - but my health isn’t. I’m still the same disabled as I once was, and it’s not for lack of trying. I think when we equate laziness with disability, what we are really saying is that you are just not trying hard enough. Once again, it’s on us to figure all this out, it’s our fault that things don’t improve, that we don’t “get better”.

The thing is, whilst we collectively subscribe to a societal hatred of laziness, we condone it all the time in so many ways without repercussions of condemnation. Think of airport flat moving walkways, TV remotes and contactless card payments, all spaces claimed for able-bodied people. Think of duvet-days and sun-loungers, home and online shopping, Deliveroo and Uber Eats, even washing machines and dishwashers. And lets not forget the economies of such acts. Think of the way in which so many of these acts required labour either prior to them or removed labour as a result of them. You had to do the work to get the day off to lay in bed all day, and having a washing machine means you don’t have to spend labour on scrubbing clothes, instead you can work longer hours in your zero hours job that doesn’t pay a living wage. In these contexts, able-bodied people within the capitalist nature of our economy claim these acts for themselves in such exclusionary ways. Having a dishwasher is herald as contributing to opening the door for working mums to access the labour economy, not as giving disabled people independence, ease and freedom within the home. Laziness and labour go hand in hand; it’s only acceptable to be lazy when it punctuates the majority of time spent carrying out paid work. When so many disabled people are shut out from paid work, condemnations of fecklessness is the resulting label. Laziness/leisureness/easiness is an exclusive club with explicit terms of entry, a place where once again disabled people are denied access.

I’ve realised recently that in reality, there’s no gold star for trying harder when it comes to chronic illness, that I am not to blame for my ill-health, despite how hard I work to change this. Like so many fellow disabled people, I’m an extremely hard working, determined and disciplined person in a myriad of ways. Would it make me a lesser person if I weren’t? Why is our inherent value tied up with our ability/inability to contribute to the never-ending productivity cycle that we are all subjected to and ultimately harmed by? Would you feel more comfortable if i told you I was on an extended gap-year instead of being disabled when you ask me what my job is? As well as this, sometimes it’s often difficult to recognise what hard work looks like. I’m working just as hard at managing pain when I’m laying down and can’t move or speak as I am when I’m getting on with emails or working in the studio. Again, we are at the mercy of how society perceives us in their own image of what disability looks like.

We as disabled people live in fear of being called lazy; it’s a term that signals danger in society’s judgment of us. It’s a very slippery slope from lazy, to scrounger to sponger to worthless. Can’t we let disabled people just be? I wonder what inclusive laziness would look like, I’m thinking; hoists in the hot-tub; neck roll supports designed by McQueen; advertisements during daytime telly hours specifically aimed at youth culture, not just life insurance and funeral care; comments of how hot my scooter looks next time i roll through the supermarket. Committing to a kind of accessible, achievable or even aspirational laziness and disability targeted easiness on a broad and open scale is critical to dismantling the stigma disabled people face when we are shrugged off as lazy. So here’s to reclaiming laziness - disabled people across the world unite! We shall be lazy! We shall watch endless episodes This Morning, Homes Under The Hammer, and Come Dine With Me! We shall skip cues and whizz past ableds on scooters and powered chairs, laughing in their faces when we do! We shall cook with pre-cut vegetables and slurp with straws, and for once we shall feel good doing it!

[epistolizer]

Hit and Run Commentary #123

In an interview about artificial intelligence and transhumanism conducted by the Singularity Weblog, philosopher Peter Singer let it slip that he did not particularly love animals. He also revealed that, while mostly vegan, he did not think it was that big a deal if he did occasionally consume animal products, As such, given that he does not think human beings are to be valued above animals, does that mean he doesn’t have any problem with cannibalism?  

Trump assures that he is in no hurry to denuclearize North Korea. So like numerous Presidents before him that he no doubt criticized, he is kicking this ball down the corridors of time for some future commander and chief to deal with.  

A comic book is being published featuring the superheroic adventures of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,  A portion of the proceeds are supposedly going to charity. However, to truly embody her spirit, shouldn’t 75% of the profit derived from sales be seized and squandered on bloated government programs aimed at expanding tyranny and human misery?

Apparently Trump is nearly as naive as Dennis Rodman in regards to the North Korean dictator.  Will similar capitulation on the border wall be far behind?  

If the Peace Cross memorializing specific World War I veterans is to be removed as symbol of Christian belief, shouldn't the Washington Monument also be removed as an obelisk is a symbol of pagan ritual?  

Cory Booker has introduced legislation to legalize pot on the national level.  Yet this Senator, if given the opportunity, would curtail the access of the average American to meat.  

If corporations can now determine access to goods and services on the basis of how they will be utilized in propagating particular wordviews, what is to prevent individuals from being denied access to utilities, transportation and food supplies for failure to ideologically comply with prevailing herd mentalities?  

If it is bigoted to vocalize concern about the deleterious impact of dual loyalty in politics, how long until votes in Congress are taken to condemn those holding that Christ as part of the divine triune Godhead is the only valid path to salvation because adherents of certain other world religions harbor their own animus to such a theological proposition?  

Simpsons producers have agreed to essentially expunge the episode guest starring Michael Jackson from the collective consciousness.  It will no longer be available in streaming, syndication rotations, or as part of DVD box sets. So just how far should this cultural manipulation extend? Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson as well as other characters in the series, is a Scientologist. Does that mean the existence of the entire series must now be erased from the space/time continuum?  

In a jab believed directed at President Trump, Obama lamented how people want their own facts.  He patted himself on the back that his own administration was successful because he believed in things like facts and logic. So what exactly constituted a fact during the Obama regime: that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor? Does Obama also renounce his multiculturalist allies that for the past three decades conditioned generations of students into denouncing logic and facts as White heterosexist modalities of cognition?  

In a homily posted at SermonAudio titled “Understanding Cults” a pastor lamented that those that study about cults and share this information are not really doing much. But is this not along with familiarizing oneself with the tenants of sound theology the first step in developing a defense against these sects? How does the minister know that this passed along knowledge won’t be what frees a soul from this variety of spiritual entrapment?  

A Christian lad forfeited a wrestling match because, he told the media, it violated his conscience to get aggressive with a woman in such a manner. If a woman wants the snot knocked out of her, that is her business. However, the more important question it seems that the spineless media is afraid to ask is, if a male is tussling with her on the mat and has an erection, will he be accused of a crime or harassment?  

A missionary reflected that when he commenced his career in 1986 that there were sixty people in the orientation class sponsored by his missions board.  However, this year, he lamented, there were only ten. So why are believers obligated to feel guilty if God is no longer leading souls to minister through a particular organization mentioned nowhere in Scripture?  Can the missionary produce statistics that the decline in numbers for one organization have not been made up for by another or more are not being reached through more efficient technology and deployment of resources?  As Ann Coulter remarked about missions, is there not enough that needs to be done here in the United States?  

The Wall Street Journal reports that fewer men are purchasing suits as business casual becomes more the fashion norm. A female WMAL host lamented the trend because she liked how a man looks in a suit. But if a man really has no real prospects of getting ahead and if this form of clothing isn’t even any longer required and if an individual is overlooked by women in the first place, why ought they even to care?   Secondly, would it be tolerated on early morning drive time radio if a male broadcaster handed down similar condemnations of female frumpiness?  

Jussie Smollett is a reprehensible individual. But so is a policy that attempts to stick with the cost of a police investigation an accused individual that has not been found guilty in a court of law. What is to prevent the government from employing this tactic to seize funds from other unsuspecting citizens?  

The ones yammering the loudest about the proposal to cut federal funding for Special Olympics are the same ones that often insistent that the Special Olympians should have been denied the right to be born in the first place.  If you think the lives of the disabled will be diminished without the opportunities provided by Special Olympics, just think how miserable they are going to be when the entire economy collapses because of shyrocketing debt.  

Apparently the push now is for the issue of reparations to be studied. In other words, significant money will be squandered on how to squander even more money.

Will the likes of Bernie Sanders advocating imprisoned felons voting still support the proposition if the convicts vote Libertarian?

The March 27, 2019 cover of The Nation Magazine reads “What all parents can learn from Black mothers”.  Because as of late they have been doing such a superb job. From the wanton procreating with any dude that comes along irrespective of quality to the failure to control the offspring that happen to elude the abortionist’s hacksaw as these tramps are out having additional tykes by as many fathers often with so many potential fathers that Maury can get repeat appearances by the same core guests.   So will the Nation have an accompanying article titled “What all parents can learn from White mothers” or gasp, White fathers?

Outrage erupted over Fox News posting “Aid Cut To Three Mexican Countries”.  But aren’t radical multiculturalists in part at fault for creating the impression regarding the interchangeability of Latin American countries and cultures?  

If Judge Jeanine is obligated to articulate nothing but adulatory praise over legislators adorning themselves in the garments of Islamist oppression, why should tolerancemongers give a flip if a Fox News correspondent wore a bulletproof vest while reporting from the border? Isn’t it his body, his choice?  

A number of individuals having lost family in mass shootings have committed suicide recently over their grief. Wouldn’t the gunmen bear more responsibility for that than an organization such as the NRA?  

By Frederick Meekins

[spacetortilla]

That these later ads leave out any larger agent responsible for the body image epidemic isn’t a mistake. Dove and its ad agency had picked up on something important in the positive response to its first ad: They didn’t need to take responsibility or propose a solution.

The cultural narrative about women’s bodies was so bad that simply identifying the problem would get Dove full credit and move plenty of product, but the urge to talk about a broad cultural problem while refusing to name a bad actor left the blame squarely on the shoulders of the women who had the temerity not to love themselves sufficiently.

In the context of advertising, women’s self-perceptions are invented out of whole cloth, with no apparent connection to the circumstances of their lives. And so we have the marketing landscape as we know it now, courtesy of Dove: gentle, millennial pink, and passive-aggressively reproachful of women who have allowed themselves to feel bad about their bodies. On top of all the old, existing insecurities, Dove posited that women might adopt a lucrative new one: shame over feeling bad in the first place. The brands had become self-aware, and an idea broadly known as body positivity hit the big-time.

[Body positivity] it started out radical and fringe, as a tenet of the fat acceptance movement of the 1960s. Back then, body positivity was just one element of an ideology that included public anti-discrimination protests and anti-capitalist advocacy against the diet industry, and it made a specific political point: To have a body that’s widely reviled and discriminated against and love it anyway, in the face of constant cultural messaging about your flaws, is subversive. Now body positivity has shed its radical, practical goals in favor of an advocacy that’s entirely aesthetic and a problem that can be wholly solved by those looking to sell you something. The brands previously thought you should feel one way about yourself, and now they have decided that’s no longer appropriate for their goals. How you talk about yourself should change, even if nothing has changed that would materially affect how you feel.

The way these companies see it, our self-perception is unrelated to the external forces that determine the circumstances of our existence, which is why they think telling us to do better is enough to absolve them of responsibility.

What brands and individuals alike are less enthusiastic to talk about is how having a noncompliant body — whether it’s fat, nonwhite, trans, disabled, or some combination thereof — impacts someone’s life, how those external conditions affect someone’s sense of self-worth, and how corporate interests have long benefited from and upheld the structural forces that create inequality. Instead, corporatized, media-friendly body positivity as we now know it puts the onus on people living in marginalized bodies to turn their criticism inward, which is essentially the same thing brands selling clothes or underwear or personal care products have required of us all along. This time, though, those people are told not to be ashamed of their physical selves, based on the premise that there was never anything wrong with them to begin with, as though the same companies that claim to be guiding this “movement” haven’t been selling insecurity for years.

What none of this addresses, of course, is why someone might hate their body. There is no inherent unhappiness to womanhood, or to fatness, or to blackness, or to anything else that American beauty standards have long treated as a problem. The conditions under which we loathe ourselves are socially constructed, but in practical terms, they’re very real. Having certain types of bodies makes you more likely to die an early and unnecessarily painful death that will be blamed on you before your body is even cold, so I’m not sure why it’s so mystifying and dismaying to the world at large that people in those bodies might not think much of themselves.

Contemporary body positivity makes it incumbent on people with nonconforming bodies to change their own self-perception without requiring anyone with any power to question what created the phenomenon in the first place. Nothing has changed in how most people feel about themselves; instead, it’s simply become very gauche to articulate any of those negative feelings. That wouldn’t be very body-positive of you.

These companies, with all their resources and reach and ability to manipulate public opinion, have done something they do frequently: They’ve conflated identifying a problem with solving it, and if we let ourselves be convinced these issues are headed in the right direction and our problems really are internal, then we ignore the very real reasons so many people don’t feel good about being the people they are in the world we live in.

When you peel back all the layers of infantilization that Dove and its marketing progeny have heaped on us, though, you get something that’s pretty simple: A lot of people are genuinely sick of being pushed to feel bad about themselves all the time, and they probably also don’t want to expend the energy required to performatively love themselves in the body positivity mode preferred by the idea’s advocates online.

They probably just want to buy and use soap that works, have access to clothing in their size, and not think about their physical selves so much. They also probably don’t want to be denied job opportunities or refused lifesaving medical care because of what they look like. None of that requires a body wash brand to weigh in on anyone’s self-worth, and maybe the most helpful thing brands could do for all of us is shut the fuck up.

[gopashionistas-blog]

The Crash Course on Ableism You Didn’t Realize You Needed

You may have heard the word “ableism” being thrown around in feminist discussions every once in a while. Or you may not have. Either way, it is essential to understand what ableism is in order to fight it. Here is a crash course on ableism. 

First, what even is ableism? It is the systemic and interconnected discrimination against people with disabilities. It comes in many forms and varies quite a bit from person to person and from disability to disability. 

You may have a picture of a person with a disability in your head as simply a wheelchair user. However, disability is much broader. Sometimes, you can’t even tell when someone is disabled; this is called an “invisible disability,” or “invisible illness” and is no less of a disability. 

Disabilities also aren’t always physical, and some disabilities’ portrayals vary from day to day: one day someone may need a mobility aid, and the next they may not. This does not mean their disability is suddenly gone, it just means it’s presenting itself differently that day. 

So what exactly constitutes a disability if there isn’t just one kind? It is widely accepted that a disability greatly impairs your ability to do daily tasks at all or without serious consequence. 

Now that you know a bit more about disabilities themselves, let’s talk about the ways that ableism exists**:

Accessibility. This is likely a kind of ableism you have heard of. Accessibility (or lack thereof) is used to describe whether or not somewhere allows access to people with disabilities to the same degree as their abled counterparts.

When you hear the word accessibility, you often think of wheelchair ramps and handicap parking spots. And while those are both incredibly vital to accessibility, it goes beyond that. Accessibility means something different for everyone. Sometimes for somewhere to be accessible, it has to not be overcrowded, or have braille wherever there is print, or not have bright or flashing lights.

Of course, the world was not made for people with disabilities; it was made for abled people, so most places are not accessible in one way or another. It may never be, but it is our responsibility to fight for an accessible world and that starts with an understanding of the complexities of accessibility.

Healthcare. Healthcare can be especially important to people with disabilities and it is often a life or death matter. However, healthcare spaces are often where much of ableism is faced. Insurance providers do not want to give us insurance because we often require more expensive and specialized care. When we don’t have access to that care, it can be detrimental.

Moreover, we are often not given adequate care. Many times, especially in the cases of people with invisible disabilities, healthcare providers accuse us of faking or exaggerating for attention.

Medical kidnapping is very real and it is a very real fear for disabled youth, including myself. Medical kidnapping is when healthcare providers (usually in a hospital setting) take a disabled child or teenager out of the care of the child’s parents on the basis that the child is not truly disabled and not needing the care they are receiving, and the child is put on psychiatric hold, without the medical care they need for their disability. This happens far too often. I have been accused by countless medical professionals that I must be faking my disability and denied the care I needed.

Education. Navigating the public education system as a person with a disability can be very complicated and frustrating. There are laws in place to ensure that students with disabilities have the same opportunities as their abled counterparts, but this doesn’t mean that schools will always enforce these laws. Most students with disabilities require many accommodations, such as extra time on tests, breaks, additional material, alternative materials, extra time between classes, etc.

Schools can also be inaccessible. Often times, schools do not adequately help to ensure a student with a disability gets all of the same opportunities and students are often forced to switch schools or do home schooling, which can put a strain on the entire family. The bottom line is that students with disabilities deserve the same education as abled students.

Interpersonal Discrimination. Interpersonal ableism is simply the ableist behaviors that many people portray in everyday life without even realizing.

This can include ableist remarks such as: “It must be nice not having to walk everywhere,” “You’re pretty for a disabled girl,” “Oh don’t worry, someday someone will take pity on you and love you,” “It must be hard for your parents to have a disabled child, I could never do it,” “Being disabled must be the worst thing ever.”

Often, when people make these remarks they don’t think it is wrong; they may even believe that it’s a compliment! But it’s not, it’s insulting and hurtful.

Tokenism. Tokenism is the belief that disabled people’s only purpose in life is to make abled people feel better about themselves and their lives. It’s the “at least you’re not in a wheelchair” rhetoric. By saying this, you are telling every wheelchair user that it must be impossible for their life to amount to anything because they are in a wheelchair and that is the worst imaginable thing in life.

Wheelchair users and people with disabilities in general are as complex and capable as their abled counterparts. So don’t ask the person with a disability to prom to get brownie points, don’t think you are a hero or a savior for treating a person with a disability like a human being, and don’t use us as your token to make you feel better about your life.

**This is in no way a comprehensive list; this is just a starting place. So start here, but don't stop here, learn more, hear more disabled people’s stories, and bolster the voices of disabled people.