As bad as the NHS in the UK can be, there are times when you get to hear about some damned good specialists.

In this case, the BBC News website reports on a 15-year old from Pontefract.

Tom Lemm fought cancer for three years, but a tumor in the upper part of his left arm meant surgeons were faced with having to amputate the entire arm, at the shoulder joint. Normally, amputating a limb at the joint (shoulder/hips) means the patient can’t use an artificial limb - there’s no stump left to attach one to.

I guess someone looked at the arm beforehand and realized that there was a large amount of it would be “wasted”, unaffected by the cancer but having to be removed in the process nonetheless.

Now I’m no orthopod, but even I can hazard a guess as to just how complicated their solution would end up being to implement.

The surgeons took the unaffected elbow, and tissue, to fashion a new shoulder joint, of sorts.

Of course, that’s no “replacement” for an arm, but it did change the outcome for the better. By taking the elbow, the surgeons were able to craft enough of a “shoulder” and stump so an artificial arm can be used in the future.

Perfect, no, but it’s got to be better for a 15-year old (or anyone else for that matter) than having nothing there at all.

According to the article, this type of operation has never been performed in the UK or Europe before, although it says it’s been done in Japan in the past. How effective it will be in the long run is up in the air, I guess.

I don’t usually have anything good to say about the NHS - but in this case, they’ve shown the doctors themselves still rank right up there!

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I noticed this on the alt.support.mult-sclerosis Usenet group the other day (it was also cross-posted to alt.support.cancer.prostate), and figured it was worth reposting here.

Hi all,

You may remember I posted on here a few weeks ago asking for volunteers to be interviewed as part of a new product innovation programme which we’re undertaking for a leading provider of continence and bowel care solutions.

Firstly, thank you to those of you who got in touch and took part.

We’re now interested in hearing the thoughts of more people and are looking for volunteers who would be willing to fill in an anonymous, on-line survey about their use of continence and / or bowel care products. As before, we will pay each respondent a fee by way of a “thank you”.

We want to identify breakthrough solutions to bring about a major positive change in lifestyle for those living with multiple sclerosis. Completing this survey is one way you can get your needs for continence and bowel care in front of the manufacturers. Through previous research like this, Strategyn created one of the most successful medical products ever. We hope to repeat that success here.

Details are as follows:

The survey is open to anyone over 16 in the UK or US and who lives with multiple sclerosis.

We will pay each respondent a fee of £20 (or $40 if you live in the US) for a completed survey. Additionally, all names of respondents will be entered into a draw to win an extra £100 (or $200).

To qualify for the survey you must use one of the following solutions for continence or bowel care (if you don’t meet these criteria but know someone who does, please pass this message on to them).

Intermittent or indwelling catheters
Urine drainage bags (leg or night bags)
Penile sheaths
Vaginal guards
Incontinence pads
Bowel management products / solutions (anal plugs, anal irrigation systems, fecal collection bags, enemas, laxatives, suppositories, manual bowel stimulation)

If you think you would be interested in completing this survey and helping to develop the next generation of continence and bowel care products, please send me an email at:

uk@strategyn.com

In your email, please state whether you are from the UK or US and tell us that you have multiple sclerosis (we are also looking at other user groups).

We’ll then send you details of the survey in the coming days. Depending on which products you use, the survey will take 30-45 minutes to complete. You can complete this in one go or save it and return to it at a later time.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Nicki

Strategyn UK

I sent them an email, and got a response. As would be expected, there’s no indication of who the survey is being carried out on behalf of (other than it “is being undertaken on behalf of a leading manufacturer of continence care products”).

I repost it here in case anyone else is interested in participating.

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Back in April 2008, I wrote about the work that was done on our nearby park by M-NCPCC.

Shortly after that entry, they got back to us via email, saying

This situation will be corrected and you will once again be able to access the pathway that leads under Riverdale Road.

Unfortunately, there’s apparently still been no movement on this, the railing still cuts right across the park from one side to the other - and, in fact, it’s even worse now once you get past this huge metal barrier, because subsidence has caused a great big crack to appear in an older section of sidewalk.

So, despite their acknowledging that they’ve put a huge barrier to accessibility up across the park, four months have gone by with nothing visible happening.

This begs the question - do we have to begin legal action before they will actually rectify their own accessibility failure?

I can understand their reticence not to do something that is based on common sense with regards to the slope on the other side of the bridge - though I seriously doubt they’re even remotely ADA compliant with that slope.

They’re more likely to pay exhorbitant amounts of money to professionals with degrees in every kind of engineering imaginable, do surveys, put it out to tender, bid it, rebid it, then muck around for several months before they just bow to the inevitable and put in a “hard” version of the switchback path people have already carved out in the dirt there.

But …

What’s the delay in figuring out they’ve gone and put a great big metal railing across the park on this side, and it needs a gap made in it?  I don’t know, not having all those important sounding engineering degrees, maybe it’s a case of waiting for the tides, or the planets to be in alignment, or something.

But I do have to wonder … Four months and no activity on their part to allow wheelchair access through the park once more, access they removed, access they’re denying us - If they’re going to say they’re still “looking into it”, then perhaps the State should start investigating why it costs them so much money to figure things out, especially things that I managed to figure out in, oh, 30 seconds?

After all - it’s my money too that they’re getting.

Perhaps indeed it is time to start demanding a refund via an ADA lawsuit.

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Lisa Takeuchi Cullen runs a blog on Time Magazine’s website, “Work In Progress“, which sometimes can be almost close to approaching nearing the level of cynicism I occasionally use here.

Recently, she ran a blog entry, “Equal pay isn’t a partisan issue. Is it?“, explaining that the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act had been filibustered in Congress by the Republicans.

The Act was intended to be

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

In other words, to change those laws so that the Statute of limitations regarding lawsuits brought because of unequal pay start with the last time a paycheck was issued.

This Act was in response to a recent SCOTUS 5-4 ruling in an unequal pay lawsuit that decided the statute of limitations “clock” begins at the date of hiring, and runs for 180 days from that date.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen asks at the end of her blog entry:

Senate Democrats blame Republicans for blocking the vote to protect employers from litigious workers. But what about protecting workers from employers who seek to pay them differently based on gender, race or religion? Can somebody clarify this for me?

The excuse the Republicans have offered for blocking the bill was “protecting employers”. It makes me wonder - just how much do Republicans think unequal pay is prevalent in the workplace?

The Supreme Court has effectively ruled that the laws for equal pay are totally unworkable, and has practically stripped employees of protections against such discrimination. It’s virtually impossible for employees to detect pay differences within 180 days of their hiring date, as the Supreme Court has ruled must occur for them to seek redress.

So all an employer has to do is keep unequal pay a secret for 180 days, and then they can go right ahead and totally screw employees at will, with the practical blessing of the Supreme Court - and the implied blessing of Senate Republicans.

Likewise, they could hire someone for 180 days, give that person’s peers a pay rise later, and the employee with the unequal pay has no recourse.

The justification Republicans claimed for the filibuster is an admission that unequal pay exists in the workplace - they blocked it because they expect this endemic state of affairs to result in large numbers of lawsuits if the bill passed.

They admit to this expectation, quite freely.

“We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount of new litigation in our country, and I think that is the reason for the resistance to its passage on our side,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is quoted in a Los Angeles Time report.¹

An expectation they could only arrive at with awareness of the scope of the issue.

It’s the only logical explanation behind their filibuster - If they’re expecting so many lawsuits should the Act become law, they must know that the situation is endemic.

In filibustering the Act, they send one clear message to already-struggling businesses and employees - They’re going to permit and perpetuate discrimination rather than allow it to be resolved the only way possible - through the courts.

The filibuster tells employers they can discriminate against employees, including members of so-called “protected classes”, for any reason when it comes to unequal pay, without any fear of being held accountable.

The Senate Republicans, through this filibuster, have effectively demolished another part of anti-discrimination legislation.

Now, employers can legally escape the consequences of paying people with disabilities far less than their able bodied peers.

So now not only can businesses continue their practices of hiring people with disabilities to fulfill phantasmal quotas to give the appearance of “equal opportunities”, they can do it on the cheap.

It’s only a few steps removed from slavery.

Does anyone really believe employers aren’t going to jump at the chance?

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen asks about protecting employees from unequal pay based on “gender, race, or religion”. Even as a Time reporter, however, she doesn’t seem to have thought that people with disabilities are also likely to suffer from unequal pay.

It’s understandable, I suppose, that people will think first about the effect on women’s rights, or religious rights, but the rights of people with disabilities are also affected.

Not to mention it’s possible she just forgot to include people with disabilities when she wrote her blog entry.

But we need to remind everyone that we, too, are a part of those affected, especially now - if the bill is resubmitted to the Senate in the future, it might get “amended” to make it more palateable.

If experience is anything to go by, people with disabilities are likely to be disadvantaged in the process.

The Senators who voted to filibuster the Act, are listed below (House Majority Leader Reid allegedly voted “No” in a procedural move to keep the bill alive for the future).

Call them.

Write to them.

Ask them just what unequal pay situations they’re aware of, that causes them to want to effectively block employees being able to sue to stop discriminating practices.

Ask them why they are supporting unequal pay and discrimination, and are willing to perpetuate discrimination in the workplace.

• Alexander (R-TN)
• Allard (R-CO)
• Barrasso (R-WY)
• Bennett (R-UT)
• Bond (R-MO)
• Brownback (R-KS)
• Bunning (R-KY)
• Burr (R-NC)
• Chambliss (R-GA)
• Coburn (R-OK)
• Cochran (R-MS)
• Corker (R-TN)
• Cornyn (R-TX)
• Craig (R-ID)
• Crapo (R-ID)
• DeMint (R-SC)
• Dole (R-NC)
• Domenici (R-NM)
• Ensign (R-NV)
• Enzi (R-WY)
• Graham (R-SC)
• Grassley (R-IA)
• Gregg (R-NH)
• Hatch (R-UT)
• Hutchison (R-TX)
• Inhofe (R-OK)
• Isakson (R-GA)
• Kyl (R-AZ)
• Lugar (R-IN)
• Martinez (R-FL)
• McConnell (R-KY)
• Murkowski (R-AK)
• Reid (D-NV)
• Roberts (R-KS)
• Sessions (R-AL)
• Shelby (R-AL)
• Stevens (R-AK)
• Thune (R-SD)
• Vitter (R-LA)
• Voinovich (R-OH)
• Warner (R-VA)
• Wicker (R-MS)

Then go read Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s blog, it’s funny!

(With apologies to Lisa Takeuchi Cullen for calling her Lisa Takeuchi Cullen in this entry, since I don’t “know” her it’d be rude for me to just call her “Lisa”)

1. AHN - Senate Republicans Deny Democrats Consideration Of Fair Pay Act [back]

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Or, if previous experiences with crowds are anything to go by, at the very least loses all common sense and intelligence, and becomes totally oblivious to their surroundings.

Yep, we have the Pope coming to visit.  Staying true to form, as with any time something memorable occurs, everyone’s running around like headless chickens.

Now, admittedly, the DC area tends to run around like headless chickens when more than 3 snowflakes fall, 5 raindrops fall, or some “professional” sportsdrone we’re supposed to have heard of shows up, but this time it’s the worst example of decapitated poultry behavior I’ve ever seen - even down to the “most powerful man in the world” (George W Bush, allegedly) playing chauffeur to the guy.

For people with disabilities, it’s going to be an interesting time.

In the Chinese sense.

The Metro region is going to see a huge influx of tourists and others - so going back to past experience, several things will occur.

1. Whole hordes of people with perfectly working legs will suddenly discover a phobia of escalators, and stream lemming-like into the very small elevators at every MetroRail station.
   In the process, they will assume their need to get to street or mezzanine level is far more important than the need of people in wheelchairs to do the same.
   The zombie-like stares such step-phobic people will aim towards the hapless wheelies prevented from getting on the elevators will terrify small children.
2. Service animals will wish they had, indeed, both their tails docked and that someone had invented steel-toed paw-boots.
3. Service animals will be petted more in the next week by total strangers than they have been in their entire lives by their handlers, their handler’s families, and their own mothers.
4. Blind people will get dirty looks aimed their way by oblivious people who seem incapable of noticing the cane swinging until it hits them in the kneecaps.  For some reason, such oblivious people feel safer doing so on the assumption a blind person won’t notice.
5. Deaf people will be envied by many for not having to listen to the noise of so many people who either assume the person stood next to them is deaf, or just have no volume control to begin with.

Thankfully, people with disabilities have the same opportunity to exact some measure of satisfaction as any other resident of the area does on this horde of tourists:  When they ask for directions, tell them they need to get off somewhere “better” to avoid the crowds.  For example, every local knows Shady Grove Metro station is far closer to Nationals Park than the Navy Yard station.

Actually, I feel sorry for the MetroRail Station Managers - they’re not allowed to give such “helpful” directions to hordes of clueless idiots wandering through.  For some obscure (and possibly perverse) reason, they’re required to be “professional” and actually help these people!

Ahh, the sacrifices they make!

Don’t get me wrong, I know a load of those descending on the area are filled with religious zeal, and quite probably are really nice people.

Most of the time.

But when there’s a huge crowd, people’s manners tend to go out the window, and it’s very hard to remember isolated instances of civilized behavior when surrounded by throngs of the ignorant and oblivious.

The Pope showing up is a “once in a lifetime” event for most people, and they’ll be damned (literally?) if they’re going to let anyone else get in the way of seeing it.

The true measure of a culture is how it behaves in times of stress or emotion, and whilst Ratzinger will never be even close to a John Paul II, the position he holds still carries some odd sense of awe in itself that has people beginning to stop thinking rationally.

This is actually a great time for someone like myself, who revels in “people watching”.  If there’s ever a chance to observe the “human condition”, this is one of them.

Thankfully, it also means we only have to put up with this whole circus for a few days, then we can get back to “normal”.

But for the interimn, if you’ll excuse me I need to see if I can find Ben Hur hubs and a very loud air-horn for The Tank

Comments

• April 15, 2008, MadBudgie writes: Yes, this Thursday will overwhelmingly prove the adage "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in numbers"
• August 25, 2008, nativedancer5 writes: Okay when your done with those hubs I need them down here.
• August 29, 2008, Moonwolf writes: For you, we could always put scythe blades on your running boards :)

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[Updated April 9th 2008]

We live next to a wonderful park, beside a branch of the Anacostia River as it wends its way down towards DC and environs.

Until recently, it’s been impossible for us to use that park to get to the main road leading into town though.

The reason? This bridge over one of the drainage ravines to the Anacostia itself. The bridge is old, too narrow for wheelchairs, and has a virtual step up at either end where it meets the ground.

It’s been this way for seven years, so imagine our surprise and delight when M-NCPPC recently started working on that entire area, adding a new, wider, wooden bridge, and tarmac paths!

The new bridge is great, and makes it possible for people in wheelchairs to cut over 6 blocks of travel (some of it on roads that have no sidewalks), including bypassing an extremely busy major intersection, to reach the nearest bus stop and shopping area.

Except …

At the same time they were building the bridge, they also put this fence up.

It cuts off the far end of the park (as far as wheelchair access is concerned) from being able to go directly through the park. In what can only be considered a planning idea of Escher-esque proportions, this new fence means that someone in a wheelchair (i.e. myself or my husband) wanting to use the bridge has to go out, up the street, along a side street one block, back down another street, to reach the park. When we get to the park, the horizontal distance from where we started is about 200 yards - but this new fence means having to travel 3 blocks worth of distance.

I have no idea what bright spark decided to put a fence from one side of the small park to the other, right next to a property line at one end and impassable undergrowth on the other, or the rationale for the fence.

All I know is - someone’s decision means that people in wheelchairs are unable to go across the park, and it is now even less accessible than when they started.

Which is kind of strange, given M-NCPPC claims in the “Accessibility Statement” on its website

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission encourages the participation of all individuals in its programs and facilities.

This little stretch of park doesn’t qualify as a facility?

This isn’t the only “failure of common sense” M-NCPPC has come up with locally. Take this little incline nearby where the American Discovery, Northeast Branch, and Indian Creek Trails meet that main road, on the other side of the Anacostia.

This is, apparently, what M-NCPPC considers a “flat, barrier-free trail system“? Even they realize that the incline is severely steep, they have warning signs at the top and bottom for bicyclists warning them to dismount!

There’s a recreation center further down the trail, from this incline. In seven years living in the area, despite being able to see it from our front yard, we’ve never been to it - taking that incline is an invitation to get dumped, with no way to get back up it even if we survive the descent!

I’ll readily admit, we raised the issue about the bridge many years ago as well, and it’s finally managed to be resolved - the fence being erected, effectively making us have to either drive over someone’s daffodils or go play loop-de-loop to bypass the thing to get to the bridge, makes us think it’s safe to assume however that our raising this issue wasn’t the reason the bridge was replaced.

It’s that, or it was our bringing it up that caused the work to be done, but they then just totally ignored the fact that it was raised by people in wheelchairs, a much less salutary conclusion to draw.

The incline problem on the other side of the river could be easily resolved with a simple “switchback”-styled path right next to the gradient, but despite having raised this before with M-NCPPC, nothing has ever been done (although foot traffic has managed to cut something similar through the undergrowth beside the incline - unfortunately, it’s still impassable for wheelchairs).

But, what would I know, I’m just a wheelchair user, without some high-falutin’ civil engineering degree that explains how such an incline is “flat, barrier-free”, or how a fence across a park encourages participation of people with disabilities in the facility (unless you count bringing up such astounding failures of common sense to be “participating”).

Compare this to our town’s Council and Department of Public Works. They are fantastic. When they were resurfacing roads recently, the work managed to prevent us being able to leave our street - one phone call to the town office, and the Director of Public Works was out to see us inside of an hour, apologized respectfully (i.e. he meant it!), asked us how they could temporarily fix the problem while the work was in progress - and then got the workers to resolve it. All this on a Friday afternoon, whereas in most places you’d have gotten a shrug and a “We’ll get around to it”.

M-NCPPC is a state-funded agency, and we’re tax payers. If they’re going to claim accessibility, they have a responsibility to actually provide it. It doesn’t matter that this is two very small parts of the mammoth area M-NCPPC has under its control. Common sense explains why natural barriers restrict access, and most people with disabilities are resigned to understanding that there are some things are simply not easily resolvable - but these issues aren’t natural barriers, they’re man-made.

M-NCPPC, who made these barriers to begin with, has a duty to resolve them, both under the ADA but perhaps more importantly a moral duty.

We want to enjoy the park, trails and community center too. It’s their job to make such things as accessible as possible, using common sense to provide reasonable accommodations - and in both of these cases, they’ve done the exact opposite.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan …

M-NCPPC, tear down this fence!

[Update April 9th 2008]

Pat sent an email to M-NCPCC, and received this reply:

Hello and Thank you for using our electronic website to contact us. We have received your comments regarding the new bridge in Riverdale located north of Riverdale Road. Thank you for the positive feedback. I am also in receipt of your other two comments regarding the new railing adjacent to your property and the steep slope along the trail on the west side of the NE Branch at Riverdale Road. I visited the both of these sites with my supervisor and we could see where we have cut your access short. This situation will be corrected and you will once again be able to access the pathway that leads under Riverdale Road.

Finally, with regards to the west side of the NE Branch near Riverdale Road. The slope is very steep in this location. We will need to assess this situation in more detail before we can determine a viable solution. Thank you for your comments. I hope this email response has been helpful to you.

Ummm. As mentioned before, I don’t have one of those pieces of paper that says “Civil Engineer”, but - how much “assessment” does it take to figure the switchback path is “viable”? Given the distance from the road to the bridge at the incline, it’d be a huge undertaking to try to redo the incline or the bridge themselves, a switchback would appear to us to be the most viable solution (assuming M-NCPCC controls or can get control of the land there).

But, you have to give them credit for coming out and seeing the fence across the park is a particularly dumb idea. We’ll see if they actually get anything resolved some time this year.

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… But not as we know it.

British Airports Authority (BAA) spent £4.3 billion on creating their brand spanking new Terminal 5 (T5) at Heathrow Airport in London, England. After months of preparation, including “live” testing of operations, it went operational today to much fanfare.

And promptly fell into total chaos.

The most embarrassing failure? The vaunted baggage handling system, supposedly designed to process over 12,000 pieces of luggage every hour - apparently, the workers were unable to log in to the system, resulting in flights being cancelled, and several that weren’t left with passengers but without their bags.

This is incredible borkage for British Airways (BA), which already is reported to have the second worst record when it comes to misplacing baggage. BA has exclusive use of the new Terminal 5, so I wonder how today’s travesty is going to be recorded in their metrics?

BA (and BAA) played down the whole thing, with Heathrow’s Logistics Director saying there was bound to be a “bedding in period” - perhaps not the best phrase to describe when referring to airports, given the number of people sleeping on benches because of delayed flights most of them have.

Whilst any major operation is bound to have a problem or two, an entire baggage handling system failing, despite claims of testing before the opening of the new terminal, seems to be in keeping with Heathrow’s usual level of (in)efficiency. All the baggage handlers who were unable to log into the system only just discovered this, today?

What are they going to do when they start getting regular arrivals and departures of Airbus A380s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners, with the increase in passengers per-plane those will bring? Throw up their hands once more, offer a half-hearted “mea culpa” whilst trying to gloss over the implications this level of failure offers of their abilities, and hope no-one notices?

BAA/BA have had months of testing, months to train people, and still their system came crashing to the ground on its very first day. Why weren’t they ready for today, why did they have people without sufficient training working airside, and why is no-one bothering to ask them to explain events?

BAA wants to expand Heathrow to add a third runway (in the process destroying the village of Sipson) - If they can’t even get the infrastructure working on the first day of the new terminal being operational, I dread to think just how badly they can bork that project as well!

Given the British predilection for giving the appearance of accessibility whilst avoiding anything to do with providing accessibility, I can’t help but wonder how many people with disabilities were left stranded by this wholesale failure of T5s infrastructure without any recourse too. Baggage going missing for someone without disabilities is bad enough, but was any of the baggage that was unable to be checked in wheelchairs, or other essential items?

When she opened T5, the Queen called it “a 21st Century gateway to Britain”.

It just seems people will have to wait until the 22nd century before their baggage catches up I guess …

My advice? Book your flight to Dublin Airport instead - Ireland’s a nicer place to visit anyways
[Updated 3/27/2008 @ 1803 EST]

It seems checking in baggage at T5 is suspended until Friday, according to the BBC News Online website. There’s no word about what happens to inbound baggage though - I imagine those using British Airways on flights from overseas will be prevented from checking in their baggage. This should make for one cute nightmare for those returning from holidays - where are they going to leave their bags in the meantime?

[Updated 3/27/2008 @ 1911 EST]

Yep, the glorious British attention to accessibility does seem to be at work, with this news (again, from the BBC News Online website):

One passenger in a wheelchair was stuck on a flight arriving into T5 from Glasgow for more than an hour - and then when he was transported to the terminal he realised he could not get up the kerb.

“I couldn’t even get into the building without getting up a step,” Matt Duffy told the BBC.

“It is totally unbelievable as far as I am concerned.”

Oh come on, it’s perfectly believable!

I just wonder if BAA managed to finagle themselves an exemption from the seemingly useless and practically toothless “Disability Discrimination Act” similar to the ones bus and rail operators managed to obtain, meaning BAA wouldn’t have to actually care if they have kerb cuts or not.

Comments

• March 28, 2008, MarkHB writes: ...and I'm meant to be flying out of there early next month.

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Losing both of your legs and one arm while serving in a war zone: £214,000
Spraining your thumb typing as a civilian Ministry of Defence (MoD) employee: £484,000

Value of veterans in the eyes of some: Worthless.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw in light of the recent atrocious decision by the MoD to grant such a small amount of compensation - less than the maximum possible amount of £285,000 to boot - to Royal Marine Mark Ormrod, for injuries he suffered in Afghanistan in 2007.

It’s hard for me to decide which is the bigger insult to those who wear the uniform of their country and put their lives on the line - that a bunch of faceless civil servants can put such a low value on the sacrifices those veterans make, or the civilian employee who was able to milk the system for so much more.

The UK government, and the MoD itself, are breaking the faith, the covenant between those who serve and those they serve. Decisions made solely on financial grounds, as compensation claims seem to be adjusted downwards accordingly by, makes service men and women nothing more than mercenaries. These decisions place a disgustingly low monetary cap on the value of the service of disabled veterans, decisions made by people who likely have never, and will never, willingly face the same risks. If a typist can settle for £484,000 but someone who loses both legs and an arm doesn’t even qualify for the most compensation available (which is still half what the typist made) then something is wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!!

The Royal British Legion is currently running a campaign highlighting how badly veterans are being treated in the UK. I strongly urge those who read this site to go to the site, register, join up, and help press for needed changes in the MoD so that those who risk their lives for others are cared for properly when they return.

Freedom isn’t free.

But it’s not supposed to be bought this cheaply either.

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Tom Simonite over at New Scientist magazine reported recently about a new development in thought-to-* devices.

Named “Audeo”, the device intercepts and interprets the nerve impulses your brain sends to your vocal cords, reproducing the words you thought to speak electronically. Outwardly, it’s just a neckband, but it’s hard to determine from the information what other equipment is needed, assuming the neckband is just the “receiver” that catches the impulses.

The device was “unveiled” at a Texas Instruments conference, with Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient Corporation, demonstrating the device in a cross-stage phone call.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Going by the video of the device above, there are obviously some technical issues still to be worked on. Currently, it only recognizes around 150 words, although the company plans to release a new version that detects the impulses of phonemes themselves. This will remove the reliance on a “dictionary” of words, in theory making the device’s vocabulary unlimited. It looks from the video that triggering the device not only requires training, but also a lot of concentration, given what looks like lag in speaking.

Even so, given this may now be simply a matter of fine tuning the engineering work, the benefits of such a device are obvious, and thankfully Ambient Corporation seem to be fully aware of them (unlike Emotiv Systems and their EPOC neural headset). Plans apparently are to trial Audeo in the near future with people who have ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and to my mind there’s one person who should be right up on their list of candidates - Professor Stephen Hawking.

Audeo has also been used to control a wheelchair by “thought” it seems.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

With all these new neural devices being developed, assuming costs can be brought down to manageable levels and availability be widespread, we may be looking at a new era in assistive technology potential. The possibilities to increase the independence of people with disabilities are being expanded on a technological level - the question remains however if society can keep pace with the technology and grant social independence to members of the community at the same time.

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I love all these environmentally-friendly groups. They are wonderful examples of the heights of prejudiced stupidity political correctness can lead people to.

The latest bright idea these perfectly mobile people have come up with? Banning plastic grocery bags.

Now, this might not seem such a bad idea on the face of it. They take oil to make, and they’re possibly the most common source of unsightly trash littering the world, not to mention they’re not that biodegradable and are a choking hazard to children.

They also happen to be one of the best inventions for people in wheelchairs.

Now I’m pretty sure none of the Maryland General Assembly members are wheelies, and the local environmentalist on TV¹ certainly isn’t, so it’s a safe bet not one of them has bothered considering the impact on people with disabilities their half-baked idea is going to cause.

My wonderful purple wheelchair, my Tank, can carry 8-10 plastic bags of groceries when I make a grocery trip. Since the grocery store is only 4 miles away, it’s not hard to make such a trip just by traveling on my own to stock up for the week.

If I had to use paper bags, I could carry … well, one. And would probably drop half the contents on the way home.

A real benefit to my independent living ability, isn’t it?

It’s been suggested that people use some sort of canvas re-usable bag. This is another “sounds great” idea, but where exactly are people with disabilities going to find the money to buy these wonderful re-usable bags? It’s a safe bet they’re not going to have enough every time they go shopping, and so would have to buy even more pretty much every trip.

We don’t all have cars we can stick such things into, neither do we all have cars we can stack paper bags inside. There are limits to public transport options as well, even MetroAccess (DC Metro Area’s paratransit system) limits the number of bags that can be carried.

Plastic bags are great for people in wheelchairs. We can go grocery shopping and carry more things back in one go, regardless of mode of transportation to and from the store. Plastic bags are also useful to have with us for putting our trash into, covering chair electronics in the middle of an unexpected downpour … For the practical wheelie-about-town, plastic bags can be a lifesaver. I’ve even used a couple of the plastic grocery bags I keep attached to the arm of my chair for motion-sickness-emergencies to re-attach the POW-MIA and Patriot Guard Rider flags I flew attached to the Tank at the last Rolling Thunder.

But no, the General Assembly, or Ms Houlihan and her Envirobloggers, don’t consider those things. They’re “full steam ahead, plastic is bad, let’s ban it, sod it if it inconvieniences a few crips along the way because, after all, they’re saving the world!”?

For who, precisely, are they saving it, however? Chipping away at disability independence reduces our ability to participate in this world, so is it just them, the green-minded able-bodied, who are the beneficiaries of their efforts, alone?

Another case of able-bodied busy-bodies making wide-reaching decisions without a single thought about the effects on the rest of us.

I wonder how many wheelies will just stop bothering any more? Such a little thing, but it can have a huge effect on wheelies. Of course, that would have required the General Assembly or people like Ms Houlihan to actually have registered wheelies exist, and to consider the effects on us as they formulated this latest piece of political-correctness.All they’re worried about is “environmental impact”. What about “disability impact”? I’m not saying plastic bags are good, anyone with common sense acknowledges the harmful effects a consumer society causes - but not one of these people seems to have bothered to think about the issues outside of their own blinkered narrow experience of life. Ms Houlihan is the “Vice President for Research at the Environmental Working Group (EWG)“, how much “research” has anyone done in coming up with alternatives to plastic bags that are workable for people with disabilities? Or did they just consider the impact in their own two legged, hybrid car with plenty of trunk space, world?

I’m all for conservation and trying to repair the damage we’ve done to our world. I happen to be part of that world, though - is it really that unreasonable to expect a little common decency, to be considered in the decisions taken to try to save it? Some people will scoff, and think this a “storm in a teacup”, or another case of “activism”, but it isn’t, not really. Each little “storm in a teacup” is an issue that, in isolation, seems inconsequential, but each of them is another chip away at disability rights and freedoms. Each little decision made without consideration of the impact towards people with disabilities is another theft of our control over our own lives, another patriarchal decision made that affects us without our ever being consulted, considered, or respected.

So, paper is going to be more environmentally friendly? I think the 8 plastic bags it takes for me to make a grocery run are a little less damaging to the environment than the six MetroAccess rides I will have to take to replicate a grocery run. 3 trips each way, in a wonderful polluting van, which not only pollutes as it takes me, but to and from those trips as well. A 3 hour grocery run will now turn into an all-day waiting game, hoping the transport will arrive.

Where does that plug into people’s “research”?

[Edit: March 11th 2008] Even environmentalists and governments can’t make their minds up about the threat of plastic bags:

But in Britain, scientists, politicians and marine experts have attacked the British Government for joining an anti-bag “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence.

“This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive.

“Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject, said plastic bags did not figure in the majority of cases where animals died from marine debris.

“The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands,” he said. “Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags.

“It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” Dr Santillo said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We’re not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue.”

Source: News.com.au

This should get interesting.

1. Jane Houlihan, as seen on WJLA ABC 7 2/6/2008 [back]

Comments

• March 7, 2008, Amanda writes: Hey, so, you know, banning plastic bags will be inconvenient for LOTS of people -- not just people with disabilities. It'll be inconvenient (to say the least) for people who can't afford canvas bags and for pretty much everyone who walks to and from the grocery store (we can't carry more than one or two paper bags either). But plastic bags are more than just "unsightly trash" -- they're a major contributer to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stew of plastic trash twice the size of Texas. Something's got to be done, and we're *all* going to have to adapt. I suspect that inexpensive reusable bags (like Ikea's, if you've seen them) are the wave of the future. In the meantime, you can always stock up on plastic bags and re-use them until they can't be used anymore.
• March 8, 2008, Moonwolf writes: Hi Amanda, Thank you for visiting my site and commenting, especially since I named Envirobloggers in my entry, so a response "from there" is appreciated. I'm very much in favor of environmentalism - my objections in *this* case are that no-one thought things through, as far as I can tell. No-one has come up with an equally effective and available alternative for people who rely on them. Some chains are now selling re-usable cloth bags (Giant, our local grocery chain, for example), but they are much more than the few cents plastic (or paper) bags cost the chains - costs passed on to "us". The General Assembly has decided to vote on the ban, but they're not doing anything to offset that impact - because, to be honest, no-one realized it would *have* an impact. That puts the burden of adaptation squarely on "us". What will be an inconvenience for most risks becoming a very real barrier (no matter how "small") to "us", as we already have fewer resources available to "us" to adapt. Someone with working legs can carry four or five plastic bags, or two paper bags - someone on a manual wheelchair can carry five or six plastic bags on the canes at the back of their chair - or *possibly* one paper bag in their laps, for example - they need both hands to move. The question is - what's the solution, and who provides it? Removing plastic bags is good for the environment, but if it places more of a burden on people with disabilities than will be felt by mainstream society, it's discriminatory - albeit inadvertently. Does this mean stores should find a solution that's equally as useful and practical for us, as their customers (which increases prices, since they'll almost *certainly* pass the costs on)? Should the legislature subsidize the stores in some way, or people with disabilities, since they're the ones trying to pass the law itself (which they'd never do because of "costs", or if they did they'd just tax everyone to pay for it)? Did anyone actually consider these questions in regards to people with disabilities when the movement against plastic bags gathered steam? I don't think anyone did, I think the only question asked was about how mainstream society would have to adapt. We should be considered at some point when the inconveniences of environmental reforms are being assessed, if only to make sure that we bear equal responsibility, feel equal impact, and receive equal consideration.
• June 7, 2008, Anna writes: So learn how not to rely on them. This is such a first world problem. Oh no, you won't have your plastic bags. Be innovative and figure out another solution. It's sad how little people care about something important when it impacts their comfort level.
• June 7, 2008, Moonwolf writes: Even sadder when people fall back on thinking it's got anything to do with "comfort level" - but then again, this is such an able-bodied world problem. Ironically, I bet my mode of transportation is far more environmentally friendly than your "level of comfort" on a daily basis. I'm 100% electric - how much are you paying for gas today? :P It's easy for you to say things are "important" when they won't affect *your* "comfort level". As I responded to Amanda - you should only remove something people with disabilities "rely on" when you can come up with a viable alternative. We have a solution, people just never bothered thinking about the ramifications of removing it. Be different, and realize there are more people in the world than just you.

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