Dual Standards

Seeing a lot of disabled people commenting on twitter about how everyone seems to be condemning Will Smith, but no one seems to be discussing Chris Rock using a world-wide bully-pulpit to punch down at a woman with an auto-immune disease. (And everyone else with a visible difference).

As a friend noted, that just an hour on from an actually disabled actor getting an Oscar for a film about disabled people.

Good video on the limits of interpreting video clips from Ukraine

Nick Moran, aka 'The Chieftain'* on military Youtube, on how the way things are edited can totally change the story being told.

Watch on YouTube

Basically another version of "The map is not the territory" **

 

* He's a military historian whose area of expertise is tanks, and a US Army National Guard Lt Colonel, so he's well qualified to comment.

** Which I was convinced must have come out of the military because the applications are so obvious, but no, Alfred Korzybski created the discipline of general semantics.

Le Sigh

I popped into town this afternoon to pick-up a prescription (which took about twice as long as it should have due to three sets of roadworks).

Parking was okay for once, but once I got onto the high street I had one of those 'ableds are weird' moments. Because the pavements are lousy (awkward paving, lots of cobbles cutting across them, steep camber, lots of signs and tables and chairs) I tend to use the road where practical - it's technically only a pedestrian zone on Saturdays but there isn't a great deal of traffic through the week. And if possible I roll down the exact centre of the road because then you don't have the camber dragging you to one side or the other. But if there's a car coming up behind me then I will tuck into the gutter to let it pass and despite being one way it is wide enough for two cars to pass, never mind car and wheelchair. So I realised there was a car about 30 metres behind me and pulled into the gutter. The car also pulled over, so I gave it a few seconds to be sure they could pass if they wanted, then shrugged and rolled back into the middle of the road and carried on for the next hundred metres until I got to the kerb cut I was aiming for. Reader, the car followed me all the way, and even hung back for an extra 20s after I had wheeled up the kerb cut and gotten myself onto the pavement, before finally passing me. (And it was an Audi TT, so presumably not a car whose driver prefers to go slowly). Ableds are weird.

First thing I noticed at the chemist's was the sign on the door "We're out of free lateral flow kits and won't be able to issue them at all from the 1st" Grr!

But I went in and the guy at the counter and the woman waiting were both masked, so good. So was the pharmacist when she came out to deal with my prescription*. The next three customers to arrive weren't. Grr!!

So I headed back home, and the roadworks delayed me enough to hit peak rush hour. Grr!

But at least I arrived just in time to pick up my Amazon delivery. (They may actually have been waiting for me, weird).

And then my mother rang to say that my brother-in-law has tested positive for Covid**. *headdesk*

After she'd been helping him put in eye-drops at lunchtime. *headdesk* *headdesk*

So far she's testing negative, but neither of them are good candidates for it.

ETA: Just to add to the bizarre, Youtube is advertising frilly bras at me.

* I notice she didn't want me to sign for the prescription, even though they've been back to having me sign the forms for the past several months after ditching it at the start of the pandemic.

** Lead candidate for infecting him is possibly the local hospital, where he had cataract surgery last week and was unmasked during it. When he had the pre-op Covid check a couple of days beforehand the tester was delighted to tell him they were having an outbreak there. OTOH second candidate is the local pub, which may be more likely.