Third-class citizen ... again

I went to an information event today about Personalisation [a way for disabled people to be more independent in their day-to-day lives - or at least those disabled people who meet the criteria]. The event ran from 12-5 but I left after about an hour, thoroughly depressed, frustrated and furiously angry.

About a dozen organisations or charities had tables at the event, all with leaflets, booklets, and such – and not one of them had anything in large print or alternative format.

Let me say that again: at an event run to inform disabled people of disability help options, NOT ONE organisation or charity out of a dozen had ANYTHING that could be immediately accessed by a visually impaired person in the same way that a sighted person could pick up a leaflet and read it then and there.

NOT ONE of these disabled organisations or charities had apparently thought that a person could have “their” disability AND be visually impaired, so they’d better do a little something just in case.

It seems that the only organisations or charities that acknowledge the existence of visual impairment are visually-impaired organisations or charities themselves. For the rest, we’re not even on the fringes of their radar.

Granted, alternative format comes in many shapes and forms, and at varying expense: but not one even had a “who we are and what we do” leaflet in large print.

Okay, so they may not come across a lot of visually-impaired people in their usual line of work, but they should at least accept that it could happen, and make even a tiny nod in our direction. They could at least acknowledge that we exist – even if it’s just the organisation’s name and phone number in large print.

How would they like it if they attended a disabled information event, and found that all the information was in Braille and inaccessible to them? How “included” would they feel then? But that’s what they’re doing to us.

This is by no means the first time this has happened, and I very much doubt that it will be the last. But it makes me so damn angry that I’m not even regarded as second-class – I’m the underclass to the underclass.

On the way home, I stopped off at the local education centre that had a large sign “pick up a course guide here”. True to form, they had nothing in alternative format either.

Sometimes I despair, I really do. There's oceans of information that would help me greatly - if I could access it. But I'm denied the chance to find out how to improve my quality of life because I'm visually impaired and so not a real person.

What's the point in trying to do anything? Just what is the bloody point?

Carthage v Rome

Just been watching a documentary on Hannibal Barca, and had a thought.

It said that Rome was a burgeoning city-state then, nowhere near as big as she later became, and that that expansion was due in large part to the Punic Wars: Rome had to reorganise pdq to meet and defeat Hannibal – and from there we got the Roman Empire and history as we know it.

Now comes my thought: what if Carthage had defeated Rome? Rome would have been destroyed, its power broken forever, or for the foreseeable future, at least. Presumably the Carthaginians would have gone home again, having won control of the Mediterranean Sea, which was their original aim.

Which would mean that there would have been no Roman Empire to “civilise” the rest of Europe – the Germanic and Celtic countries would have stayed Germanic and Celtic; there would have been no Roman invasion and subjugation of Britain.

Would Carthage have been content just to gain control of the Mediterranean and be its only superpower? Or would there have been a European empire nonetheless? Even if so, its capital would have been in north Africa, not south Europe; how much difference would that have made? Would the Carthaginians have needed to subdue troublesome tribes in Europe?

Would public schools now be teaching Classical Carthaginian? Would there now be a Carthaginian Catholic church? Would The Life of Brian have asked “What have the Carthaginians ever done for us?”

A comment on even more cuts in educational spending

(to the tune of Jimmy Crack Corn)


My daughter came home from school last night;
she'd just started learning to read and write:
it's the saddest thing I've ever seen –
because my daughter is seventeen.

chorus
But it's a state-run school and the state don't care,
a state-run school and the state don't care,
a state-run school and the state don't care,
the future's gone away.

Sixteen kids share a tattered book,
all of them trying to get a look;
around the kids the books all pass,
even though there's forty in a class.

Tomorrow's people will be in a state –
a world to which they can't relate;
in a sea of national apathy –
it could never happen to you and me.

One day all people will be the same,
unable to read, or write their name,
totally unfitted for
anything but manual labour.

The bosses, of course, will be the few
who've got more money than me and you;
and, being well-off financially,
can send their kids to university.

A two-class system is evolving now,
but this thing we must not allow;
a national of menials, working at low wage,
a technological Dark Age.

A people who can't read or write
won't put up much of a fight;
the ruling class can steal them blind ...
Could this be what they've got in mind?

Cos it's a state-run school and the state don't care,
a state-run school and the state don't care,
a state-run school and the state don't care,
the future's gone away.



1989 – sadly still as relevant these days