30/08/2012

Paralympics - F***-off your disability doesn't count!

I didn't watch the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games; I had the broadcast flagged to auto view, but the first comment on the programme was this programme contains flashing images - a warning to people, like me, who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy that this is a programme that would be injurious to our health. In other words – fuck off –your disability hasn't been catered for!

It wasn't an unfortunate oversight; the warnings about excluding people with epilepsy were made way back in 2007 when preparations for the games were beginning! I'm almost glad that my disability isn't deemed good enough for a fortnights worth of unionjakery!

18/08/2012

Pussy Riot Hypocrisy

If a punk rock band performed a blasphemous song using crude and vile expletives criticising the Queen or the British Government in Westminster Abbey, the Daily Mail would be outraged and wold be calling for the stiffest prison sentences, if not the death penalty. The paper would have a front page outraged editorial in response to a lenient two year gaol term for such offenders.

Given the severity of custodial sentences meted out by the English Judiciary to people who stole a 30p bottle of water or made silly comments on Facebook and Twitter last August, could a punk rock band invading the sanctity of St Pauls Cathedral expect less than two years from an English court?

If Pussy Riot had performed illegally in York Minster would William Hague condemn the judge and the legal system that imprisoned them? Not bloody likely!

Of course the members of the group shouldn't have been imprisoned for making a valid political point, but there is something sickening in the British Establishment jumping on the bandwagon of Pussy Riot supporters when there is overwhelming evidence that Pussy Riot couldn't have expected better from a British court of law.

As the Bible says:
How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

01/08/2012

Disabled Scounging Bastards

I live with epilepsy and a severe hearing loss. Neither disability means that I am incapable of any sort of work.

I have known about my hearing difficulties since the late 1960's and my epilepsy since the late 1970's neither were a job problem in my prime. I have had some fairly important jobs despite those disabilities. I have been a Senior Nursing Officer in the NHS; a Company Director in private health care and an education and training advisor in the University sector.

Until 1997, neither of my disabilities had stopped me from working. In 1997 I crashed a car that I was driving into a neighbour's car in the car park outside my house because I had an epileptic fit whilst driving. It was in a car park, I was reversing slowly into a parking space, but putting my foot on the gas during the fit wrote off both cars!

I had two baby children at the time, the thought that the fit could have happened on the A55 with the babies in the car was sickening, I haven't driven since and I never ever want to drive again.

Even if I wanted to drive again, once the DVLA discovered that I had a fit whilst driving they cancelled my driving licence anyway! Because I lost my driving licence I lost my job!

The Government decided that I could receive "incapacity benefit" as a result of losing my job.

I objected.

As a lip reader I thought that I could train to be a lip-reading teacher,(they are few and far between in Wales. At the time none of them could teach lip-reading in Welsh), but I was told NO – I would have to pay for my training and lose all benefits because training would prove that I am not "incapable" of working.

So I remain, a scrounger, a sponger, a ne'r do well, a person left on the scrap heap, because I was useful as one incapable by the last government to hide true job seeker numbers but one deserving of opprobrium by the current government as a scapegoat for the burden on the public purse.

But not considered by either as a person living with a disability who can make a positive contribution to society.