Manifestly Abusive #BADD2015

Manifestly Abusive is my post for Blogging Against Disablism Day 2015 (which was yesterday), and looks at disablism in UKIP, Tory and Lib-Dem campaigning for the election. You should read it in conjunction with How many politicians does it take to throw 18% of the population under a bus? from Lisa Egan, which picks up on elements of the Labour and Green manifestos I'd missed. Together they give a survey of disablism across the platforms of all five major parties.

The BADD 2015 index post is here. I'm still working through the posts, but Christopher John Balls' What Are YOU Looking At? is an all too sharp look at on-street harrassment (BTDT {sigh}), while Kathryn Allan's Ableism, Academia and Science Fiction looks at problems in being a disabled academic, the near absence of disability in SFF, and problems in getting academia to adequately include discussions of disability in fiction in amongst all the other discussions of diversity (I was very strongly struck by the resonance with a paper I saw yesterday which talked about the near erasure of disability from children's early reader books). Indigo Jo has a horrifying look at disabled kids forcibly detained in secure and semi-secure units hundreds of miles from home, the harm it does and the lives it has taken: Sometimes it’s the miles. Sometimes it’s the care. Sometimes it’s both and Blogging Astrid looks at the demands society places of people in institutions in You Can't be in Society Like This, which in many ways could be extended to cover all disabled people and society's demand we conform to their norms.

BADD is seldom comfortable reading, but that discomfort makes it a reality society owes it to us to address

Currently Reading - 2-May-2015

Jingo, Terry Pratchett.
Ankh-Morpork works itself up into jingoistic frenzy over a piece of worthless land that emerges from the sea between it and Klatch, immigrants are harrassed out of their homes, the Patrician is forced to step down, and noble leaders like Lord Rust step forward to lead the crusade... There's so much resonance with the rise of UKIP I found myself in the unusual position of finding a Discworld book almost too depressing to read. Of course Captain Vimes isn't happy, a crime has been committed, and he isn't being allowed to investigate it, nor the even bigger crime likely to be hiding behind it.  Pratchett is as clever as always, while still throwing in surprises, Carrot as T E Lawrence fits perfectly,  but for once even Carrot's naivete isn't sufficient to let him clearly see the truth, while 71 Hour Ahmed confuses by being at times clearly a Klatchian Vimes, and at other times clearly not Vimes,a lawman for a simpler, harsher, more complex environment, but I can't help being disappointed at the resolution. He takes Vimes to the point of arresting a war, after repeatedly riffing on the point that policemen serve the law and not the forces of government, and then the Patrician steps in at the last moment, planning several steps beyond everyone else, to ensure that Ankh Morpork wins by surrendering and that Vimes is denied his arrest. It's a clever resolution, a very Vetinari solution, but this time I felt cheated, that Pratchett had walked up to a larger story and then shied away from telling it.

Pocket Apocalypse, Seanan McGuire
The latest Incryptid book, cryptozoologist Alex Price is off to meet his girlfriend Shelby's family, and their living in Australia is only the start of his problems. For a start there's the werewolves, which in the Incryptid universe are any mammal (including marsupials) infected by a shapechanger version of the rabies virus which has hopped the species barrier. Things go from bad to worse when he meets Shelby's family, and daddy-dearest quite clearly doesn't approve, though fortunately Shelby's sisters are no worse than his own (which considering how lethal his own sisters are isn't actually that reassuring), and worsen further when Alex tries to go to work, and the werewolves  refuse to cooperate by acting like the Price family field guide says they should. It's another good entry in the series, but it is a series, and this isn't the place to start (that would be either Discount Armageddon, the first book about his sister Verity, or Half-Off Ragnarok, the previous book about Alex). If I've got a criticism it's that we don't see enough Australian cryptids, I'd really have liked to see Alex encountering a drop-bear or the like, rather than the focus on an imported problem.

Heartache. 20 Sided Sorceress Book 5, Annie Bellet
Sorceress Jade Crow is still holed up in Wylde, ground-zero for US supernatural folk. waiting for psychotic ex-boyfriend Samir to show up and try and eat her heart (which is how sorcerors gain power). As of the last book Samir has spent all of his apprentices/proxies, the only person left to send is himself, and if Jade isn't a match for someone who may be a couple of millennia old, then she has at least surrounded herself with allies, and taken as many steps as possible towards maximising her power. The point of this episode seems to be to tell her it wasn't enough, her most powerful allies are called away for various reasons, and then Samir comes calling, and people die. It's difficult not to think of this in The Empire Strikes Back terms, the good guys spend most of the book been progressively beaten on, and even Samir professes himself bored they aren't putting up a better fight. There are hints of other stuff going on, the plot arc about the dissolving of the shapeshifter Justices (like Jade's boyfriend Alek) is clearly going somewhere, and the whole story pauses in a  'Hang on guys, I've got a great idea' moment, but this isn't a comfortable read, nor one that brings anything to a conclusion. It's clearly going to feel weirdly incomplete until book 6 comes out.