sundries

[rm]

Patty's brother and guest have arrived. We had a nice time last night and tonight we'll be taking her for her first sushi! So that'll be fun. The text message from them being lost while we were having sex trying to sleep was a little less pleasant, but what can you do?

LJ comments: still fucked. Film at 11.

I had heard there was something up regarding VividCon, but while I really dig vids, I don't make them and I'm not really a part of that community, and as such hadn't quite found my path to what the story was until this morning.

vom_marlowe has the story which involves disability-related fail, a side of transphobia, a bit of internalized misogyny and a whole lot of bad attitudes.

I have a few thoughts, that are oddly related to some thoughts I have about what jimhines has to say about rape and the police.

Actually, I have one big thought: People, the presence of rare or hypothetical bad actors in a given situation is not a reason to deny people accommodation or redress so that they may coexist comfortably, equally and fairly.

The fact that false rape accusations do happen once in a rare while is no reason for police to treat people reporting rape as criminals and dismiss their claims in a hail of threats. The fact that a person could theoretically claim an invisible disability to get someone into a vid show for free as a personal aide is no reason to make it onerous for people with disabilities to attend events, scold them for needing assistance and require that they are only the bare minimum of comfortable compared to other event guests while taking unnecessary, potentially humiliating and/or dangerous personal risks.¹

Also, don't joke about the bathroom thing. For trans people and sometimes for butch women, this can be a life and death thing.

And look, when I go to a restaurant, I understand I am taking a risk due to my celiac disease and that that risk is on me. HOWEVER, it's also perfectly reasonable for me to ask someone at the restaurant what's in the food and then make an educated decision for myself.

So if someone wants content information about your vid show due to things like migraines, epilepsy or content that they feel would be harmful to them in some way, you are not being unfairly burdened. They are being responsible and trying to make active choices for themselves and you should know what's in the tin you packed and be willing to share in such circumstances. In fact, you could save everyone a lot of misery by providing a write up on such in advance as part of your production process so that those with such concerns could research in advance without interrupting you or revealing information about themselves they might quite reasonably prefer to remain private.

Why is it, in the broadest sense possible so hard for us, as a species, to err simply on the side of kindness?

Also, a relatively trivial side note in all of this, but one I think is important in terms of how we think about ourselves and others: Enough with the tall poppy syndrome. People aren't dicks for being popular. They're dicks for being dicks about being popular or they're dicks because they're being dicks and happen to be popular. The popular (or successful or rich or whatever) isn't the inherent problem and obscures the conversation. I'm tired of it. Be grand, damn you all!

What exercise science doesn't know about women.

It may be possible to predict extreme longevity with significant accuracy.

Google is buying ITA and this could be very significant down the line, at least if you travel a lot.

Google is also supplementing the pay of employees with same-sex partners who receive insurance through them to neutralize the tax penalty these employees are hit with because of DoMA.

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¹ I do not in any way intend to equate rape and disability here. Rather I am trying to equate people's bad attitudes about addressing rape and addressing disability accommodations as coming from related "logic" sources.

Comments

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Why is it, in the broadest sense possible so hard for us, as a species, to err simply on the side of kindness?

With regards to disability, I am beginning to wonder if here in the States we have a bizarre "moral hazard" POV towards it, and illnesses as well. Look at the freakout in some quarters over the passage of health care reform. Illness and disability are seen as consequences for "mistakes", the whole concept of "shit happens" doesn't seem to cross some peoples minds. Bad falls, car accidents, and surgical errors happen to other people, and wheelchair ramps will bring on a rash of folks going out and getting spinal injuries for fun, apparently.

I don't get it either.

Then again, accepting that one is really only temporarily able-bodied and you can never really know what tomorrow will bring is both humbling and unsettling.