Okay, I'm not a cyclist, and I will admit to being irritated by cyclists on the road in general. I will admit that some cyclists need to be on the road for whatever reasons, and that I do not know enough about people's individual circumstances to complain about them being on the road, and that it is unreasonable for me to begrudge them the road to use, but there is a large number of cyclists who do a particular unsafe thing on the road, particularly at this time of year, and I would like to take this opportunity to educate them on a widespread, yet illegal, practice. This is the unforgiveable crime of... FLASHING LIGHTS.
Flashing lights on bicycles is one of the least acceptable things on the planet for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, as I have stated several times already in this blog post, it is illegal. Yep. The law to consult regarding lighting on a bicycle is The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 (which is actually a thing, as you will note) and Part II, Section 13, Paragraph 1 states "Save as provided in paragraph (2), no vehicle shall be fitted with a lamp which automatically emits a flashing light." The "paragraph (2)" this refers to is a list of exceptions, which include "direction indicators, a headlamp fitted to an emergency vehicle, a warning beacon or special warning lamp, a lamp or illuminated sign fitted to a vehicle used for police purposes, a green warning lamp used as an anti-lock brake indicator, or lamps forming part of a traffic sign." These are the only exceptions. You will note that "standard bicycles" are not on the list, unless you are using the bicycle for police purposes or you have modified your bicycle to use direction indicators. You will also note that nobody does either of these things. Therefore, any flashing lights on a bicycle are illegal, and further perusal of the RVLR 1989 (specifically, the table shown on Schedule 1) shows that bicycles are required to have a continuous dipped-beam headlamp, for which the only exceptions are "a vehicle having a maximum speed not exceeding 15mph, a vehicle used before 1st April 1986 being an agricultural vehicle or works truck, or a vehicle used before 1st January, 1931". This means that your bicycle is not exempt from having a continuous dipped-beam headlamp unless it's extremely slow (this does not include one's personal performance on the bicycle, but the bicycle itself), or more than eighty-three years old. A continuous rear position lamp is also obligatory, with no exceptions whatsoever. So, even if you're riding a rickety old penny farthing which is more than eighty-three years old, you're not getting out of that one.
Now we have examined the law minutely (I should totally be a lawyer), we must consider why these laws exist. Having pondered the phenomenon of flashing lights at length, I have come to the conclusion that some cyclists opt for flashing lights because they are under the mistaken impression that they make the cyclist easier to see. This is a myth. There have been no studied indicating that flashing lights are easier to see than continuous ones, and I would argue that flashing lights are actually incredibly dangerous for a number of reasons.
The first example which immediately comes to mind is that flashing lights are inherently distracting. Say you're somewhere dark and you see a blinking light ahead of you. Where do you look? The flashing light. And then you're not concentrating fully on everything else around you, even is the light is miles away. If you were driving and you were distracted by a flashing light in the distance, if, say, a child were to run out in front of you, the chance of you seeing the child in time to avoid hitting them would be significantly diminished, and the cyclist would be at least partly responsible.
Secondly, I would like the reader to consider the concept of parallax. For anybody who doesn't know what parallax is, this is the concept which considers the fact that if you move your head from side to side, for example, objects that are closer to you will appear to move more in relation to objects behind them. When driving, this is an important method used subconsciously by the driver to determine how far away obstacles are, particularly in the dark when the only visible part of a bicycle is the light. If the driver can see a bicycle's light hardly moving at all, it can be deduced that it's still quite a way away and that action is not required imminently to avoid it, whereas if it's moving more the bicycle would be closer and the driver would need to take action to avoid it more quickly. However, if the driver can only see a flashing red light, it is impossible to tell how far the light has moved in between flashes, and so the tool of parallax is rendered meaningless. Therefore, it can be very difficult indeed to tell whether the flashing light of a bicycle is a mile away, or five metres.
My third example would be that there would be a possibility, however small, that a flashing light could possibly trigger epileptic seizures in certain road users. While my understanding of the law is that epilepsy sufferers are not allowed to drive unless they are taking medication for it, the small possibility remains that there may be undiagnosed cases among road users, which if triggered needlessly could result in disaster.
I would like to finish this blog post with a brief summary: flashing lights are illegal, potentially extremely hazardous, reduce your visibility and put everybody on the road, particularly the cyclists using them, in danger. If you are a cyclist, I would urge you to ditch the flashing lights and get a continuous pair instead. I get that a lot of drivers drive dangerously around you, and have no patience at all for you, and I will admit to being guilty of this myself on occasion, but it would be a mistake to say that cyclists are entirely blameless. It is difficult to have sympathy for the people who do not understand the effect their actions can have on other people, and this goes both ways. I think it's entirely reasonable to say that if you respect the law, we drivers will respect your rights to the road. Fair? :)
Thank you for reading, and please pass on this message to as many people as you can. Let's make the roads a safer place for everybody to be on.
Lowri :D
EDIT: So apparently some twonk amended the law in 2005 to allow flashing lights instead of continuous ones. I stand by my argument that they are unsafe, although I retract my claims of illegality. In their place, I would like to insert a "they SHOULD be illegal" message on the grounds that I stand by the rest of my argument.
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Do Re Mi... Harry Potter Style
So, I got bored and decided to turn a classic song into a Wrocky song. You know the tune, now sing along!
Doe, *SPOILERS*
Ray, what Harry shot at *SPOILERS*
Me, the one I ship with *SPOILERS*
Far, the location of *SPOILERS*
Sew, how the Healers fixed up *SPOILERS*
La, the song of the *SPOILERS*
Tea, a beverage offered to Harry by *SPOILERS*
And that brings us back to doe, doe... *SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS*
I don't actually ship myself with anybody but I couldn't think of anything funnier so, er, yeah. Just go with it.
Doe, *SPOILERS*
Ray, what Harry shot at *SPOILERS*
Me, the one I ship with *SPOILERS*
Far, the location of *SPOILERS*
Sew, how the Healers fixed up *SPOILERS*
La, the song of the *SPOILERS*
Tea, a beverage offered to Harry by *SPOILERS*
And that brings us back to doe, doe... *SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS*
I don't actually ship myself with anybody but I couldn't think of anything funnier so, er, yeah. Just go with it.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Obligatory Autism Awareness Month (OtAmAMon?) post
It hasn't been long since my last post but there are a couple of things I really wanted to say right now, and of course my style is completely erratic. No posts for months, then two in a week. Yeah.
I make no secret of the fact that I'm on the autism spectrum (diagnosis pending) and obviously April has been dubbed "Autism Awareness Month" by certain organisations. These are pretty much headed by one charity, Autism Speaks, and as such they offer a very one-sided view of the topic and the sort of awareness raised doesn't encompass everything it ought to. As such, this is a post on autism awareness from the perspective of somebody who is actually autistic with the sorts of things YOU ought to know about autism that charities headed by allistics (non-autistic people) don't, or can't, tell you.
There are already hundreds and hundreds of posts from other aspies and auties detailing precisely why nobody ought to be supporting Autism Speaks as a charity, so I shan't go into that here. However, I can say that the sort of support they raise over the course of the Awareness Month is typically of the collecting money (most of which will be spent on researching for a cure - therefore a waste of money) sort, in addition to spreading scaremongering about how "autism is a terrible thing" or "autistic people really want/need a cure!" or "look at the poor parents of these autistic kids who have to deal with a dependent behaving oddly all of the time!"
To those, I say: rubbish. While it's true that a select few aspies/auties wish for a cure, the vast majority of us don't. As an example, I wouldn't accept a cure if I were paid to - my autisticness makes up a large part of my personality, and although I am definitely eccentric, which some of the world might see as a bad thing, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my unique way of looking at things and penchant for logical thinking. Granted, a lot of people don't like me very much, but that doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't matter to you either.
Something Autism Speaks is particularly guilty of during the Awareness Month is drumming up loads of support for parents of autistic kids instead of the people who are actually autistic. Quite frankly, while it's fair to educate allistic parents about what sorts of behaviours to expect from their autistic kid, I think it's completely unreasonable to instead arm these parents with ways to suppress their kid's autism because they are unable to deal with the embarrassment of being the parent whose kid does and says some unusual things. Of course, letting parents know what to expect still isn't particularly important compared to educating autistic people. Seeing as the world was largely designed by allistics for allistics, there are many things about it which don't make sense to US. For example, I would be a happy bunny if somebody could write me out a guide with every "good" response to everything I could ever have said to me, so that I could avoid accidentally offending people (which is something I have a knack for), or some guide telling me exactly how to read people's intended implied meanings from their vocal intonation and facial expressions. However, that's not going to happen any time soon.
SO, seeing as we autistics are stuck in an allistic world, instead of trying to mould ourselves to that world and harming ourselves in the process (just trust me on that last bit, it can be harmful), it is quite right that allistics ought to just try slightly harder to make provisions for us, on the grounds that in doing so they really won't be going very far out of the way. As such, I propose that "Autism Awareness Month" be renamed "Autism ACCEPTANCE Month", as while "awareness" itself does pretty much nothing helpful to the group it's trying to help, acceptance that some people are autistic and have different requirements from other people is far more valuable.
Right, now I've established that, I'll start by giving you a short list of behaviours to expect from autistic people, the reasoning behind them and why you should be accommodating for them.
1. AVERSIONS: When an autistic person has a particularly bad aversion to something (be it texture, smell, taste, sound, colours, whatever) DO NOT force them to endure it if they don't have to. These aversions are caused by peculiarities in perception from sensory input, which is genuinely a thing, however hard you may find it to imagine, and the aversions can cause really quite serious sensations of disgust. For example, if I'm eating something and I find myself biting down on a piece of onion, however small, the texture causes mental discomfort that is so bad my brain starts screaming and I want to tear my own face off. Okay, I'm very slightly exaggerating that last bit, but it genuinely does make me want to curl up into a ball where I am and cry for days. Similarly, accidentally scratching cardboard or anything with a rough texture gives an uncomfortable shivering sensation which lingers for several seconds after contact with the surface has ceased. In short, some sensations must be avoided because of sheer overwhelmingness, and forcing an autistic person to deal with it is really not cool.
2. STIMMING: If an autistic person is drumming their fingers in a desk, flapping their hands about, jogging their leg, rocking or anything else along those lines, leave them to it. Don't draw attention to it, as this is how auties/aspies deal with aforementioned aversions. The way it works is that, as an example, the shivering sensation mentioned above might go away faster if the texture is replaced by something which feels nice, like the outside of an avocado. In situations involving movement, like hand-flapping, the movement gives the aspie/autie something else to focus on to drive away the overwhelming sensation of something unpleasant. Telling somebody autistic to stop stimming is the absolute least helpful thing you can do, as if we can't stim the unpleasant sensations don't go away, instead building up until our brains are screaming and we end up in a meltdown.
3. MELTDOWNS: These are like when an autistic person goes Blue-Screen of Death. Depending on the individual and severity of whatever drove us to a meltdown, this can vary between going non-verbal and unresponsive, abandoning whatever we're doing and just crying, general agitatedness, screaming fits and the like. The best thing you can do here is to check if the autie/aspie needs anything, like an avocado (or other stimming device), and just being patient. If the person tells you to go away, go away. Do not, under any circumstances, tell them to "grow up" or "stop it" or anything along the lines of "don't be silly, stop making things up" as this will likely prompt unstoppable rage and/or deep upset. Nobody ever fakes a meltdown as that would be totally pointless. Just accept it and be as helpful as you can. Do NOT attempt to force the autistic person to stop it as if we could, we would, and the knowledge that we're upsetting others makes US more upset (see? We're not empathy-lacking sociopaths) which only makes the meltdown worse. Remember, we're not doing this to inconvenience you.
I might add to this list as and when I can be bothered but I'm bored of writing at the moment so I'll leave it there for now.
But yeah, if you feel the need to donate to Autism Speaks this month, please don't. Give the money to the Autism Self-Advocacy Network instead. :)
I make no secret of the fact that I'm on the autism spectrum (diagnosis pending) and obviously April has been dubbed "Autism Awareness Month" by certain organisations. These are pretty much headed by one charity, Autism Speaks, and as such they offer a very one-sided view of the topic and the sort of awareness raised doesn't encompass everything it ought to. As such, this is a post on autism awareness from the perspective of somebody who is actually autistic with the sorts of things YOU ought to know about autism that charities headed by allistics (non-autistic people) don't, or can't, tell you.
There are already hundreds and hundreds of posts from other aspies and auties detailing precisely why nobody ought to be supporting Autism Speaks as a charity, so I shan't go into that here. However, I can say that the sort of support they raise over the course of the Awareness Month is typically of the collecting money (most of which will be spent on researching for a cure - therefore a waste of money) sort, in addition to spreading scaremongering about how "autism is a terrible thing" or "autistic people really want/need a cure!" or "look at the poor parents of these autistic kids who have to deal with a dependent behaving oddly all of the time!"
To those, I say: rubbish. While it's true that a select few aspies/auties wish for a cure, the vast majority of us don't. As an example, I wouldn't accept a cure if I were paid to - my autisticness makes up a large part of my personality, and although I am definitely eccentric, which some of the world might see as a bad thing, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my unique way of looking at things and penchant for logical thinking. Granted, a lot of people don't like me very much, but that doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't matter to you either.
Something Autism Speaks is particularly guilty of during the Awareness Month is drumming up loads of support for parents of autistic kids instead of the people who are actually autistic. Quite frankly, while it's fair to educate allistic parents about what sorts of behaviours to expect from their autistic kid, I think it's completely unreasonable to instead arm these parents with ways to suppress their kid's autism because they are unable to deal with the embarrassment of being the parent whose kid does and says some unusual things. Of course, letting parents know what to expect still isn't particularly important compared to educating autistic people. Seeing as the world was largely designed by allistics for allistics, there are many things about it which don't make sense to US. For example, I would be a happy bunny if somebody could write me out a guide with every "good" response to everything I could ever have said to me, so that I could avoid accidentally offending people (which is something I have a knack for), or some guide telling me exactly how to read people's intended implied meanings from their vocal intonation and facial expressions. However, that's not going to happen any time soon.
SO, seeing as we autistics are stuck in an allistic world, instead of trying to mould ourselves to that world and harming ourselves in the process (just trust me on that last bit, it can be harmful), it is quite right that allistics ought to just try slightly harder to make provisions for us, on the grounds that in doing so they really won't be going very far out of the way. As such, I propose that "Autism Awareness Month" be renamed "Autism ACCEPTANCE Month", as while "awareness" itself does pretty much nothing helpful to the group it's trying to help, acceptance that some people are autistic and have different requirements from other people is far more valuable.
Right, now I've established that, I'll start by giving you a short list of behaviours to expect from autistic people, the reasoning behind them and why you should be accommodating for them.
1. AVERSIONS: When an autistic person has a particularly bad aversion to something (be it texture, smell, taste, sound, colours, whatever) DO NOT force them to endure it if they don't have to. These aversions are caused by peculiarities in perception from sensory input, which is genuinely a thing, however hard you may find it to imagine, and the aversions can cause really quite serious sensations of disgust. For example, if I'm eating something and I find myself biting down on a piece of onion, however small, the texture causes mental discomfort that is so bad my brain starts screaming and I want to tear my own face off. Okay, I'm very slightly exaggerating that last bit, but it genuinely does make me want to curl up into a ball where I am and cry for days. Similarly, accidentally scratching cardboard or anything with a rough texture gives an uncomfortable shivering sensation which lingers for several seconds after contact with the surface has ceased. In short, some sensations must be avoided because of sheer overwhelmingness, and forcing an autistic person to deal with it is really not cool.
2. STIMMING: If an autistic person is drumming their fingers in a desk, flapping their hands about, jogging their leg, rocking or anything else along those lines, leave them to it. Don't draw attention to it, as this is how auties/aspies deal with aforementioned aversions. The way it works is that, as an example, the shivering sensation mentioned above might go away faster if the texture is replaced by something which feels nice, like the outside of an avocado. In situations involving movement, like hand-flapping, the movement gives the aspie/autie something else to focus on to drive away the overwhelming sensation of something unpleasant. Telling somebody autistic to stop stimming is the absolute least helpful thing you can do, as if we can't stim the unpleasant sensations don't go away, instead building up until our brains are screaming and we end up in a meltdown.
3. MELTDOWNS: These are like when an autistic person goes Blue-Screen of Death. Depending on the individual and severity of whatever drove us to a meltdown, this can vary between going non-verbal and unresponsive, abandoning whatever we're doing and just crying, general agitatedness, screaming fits and the like. The best thing you can do here is to check if the autie/aspie needs anything, like an avocado (or other stimming device), and just being patient. If the person tells you to go away, go away. Do not, under any circumstances, tell them to "grow up" or "stop it" or anything along the lines of "don't be silly, stop making things up" as this will likely prompt unstoppable rage and/or deep upset. Nobody ever fakes a meltdown as that would be totally pointless. Just accept it and be as helpful as you can. Do NOT attempt to force the autistic person to stop it as if we could, we would, and the knowledge that we're upsetting others makes US more upset (see? We're not empathy-lacking sociopaths) which only makes the meltdown worse. Remember, we're not doing this to inconvenience you.
I might add to this list as and when I can be bothered but I'm bored of writing at the moment so I'll leave it there for now.
But yeah, if you feel the need to donate to Autism Speaks this month, please don't. Give the money to the Autism Self-Advocacy Network instead. :)
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
It would be ace if ace aces got ace rights also
In typical Lowri fashion, I have come up with yet another ace idea which would solve all of the world's problems. Well, perhaps not all of them, but it's an issue I think a lot about. I have written before on the world's obsession with gay marriage, and I would like to propose a new three-type system (which would definitely NOT be tiers, as all would get the same legal rights) to deal with different requirements, while also clarifying some things I have previously argued.
I would first like to propose that the institution of marriage is the largest and most standardised of the three proposed classifications and would continue to be recognised by the Church. Under my definition, marriage would remain a romantic and physical bond between a man and a woman for the purposes of lifelong companionship and procreation where applicable (not everybody wants, or is able to have, kids). Simples.
I would like to continue by clarifying that while I do not support gay "marriage", this does not mean I'm homophobic or anti-gay. I personally believe that as a Christian I am called to love everybody equally (or rather, despise everybody equally as I am too flawed to love everybody - I make no secret of the fact that I am no messiah yet I am not particularly proud of my cynicism, however large a chunk of my personality I permit it to comprise) and to leave any and all judgement to God. I fully appreciate that being gay is not a choice and as such I do not think gays ought to be denied the legal rights an heterosexual couple would receive by being married. However, I do not think it would be correct to refer to such a legal partnership as marriage as the term "marriage" has always meant the joining of a man and woman in the eyes of the Church, and historically procreation. Seeing as many in the Church may not be willing to recognise such a partnership and procreation is definitely not a possibility, I think it would be a better idea to stick with the system currently in use in the UK which offers "civil partnerships" which carry the same legal rights as marriage and give gays the option to form a romantic companionship with another person in the eyes of the law.
Finally, I would like to propose a third option for a different group entirely: asexuals. The asexual community is one I definitely think is underrepresented as a whole, and there really isn't a lot done for asexuals besides mocking/ignoring/ignorantly contradicting us. The third option is one I like to refer to as platonic companionship, for those who either just have no interest in traditional marriage or civil partnership, such as the aforementioned ace community, particularly the aromantic ones, or even groups such as childless widows/widowers with no wish to be married again who could join up platonically with friends or relatives for the legal benefits of marriage, such as next-of-kinship et cetera. Obviously, this platonic companionship can be between a same-sex or opposite-sex pair and would be fully dissolvable in the instance of one or both parties wishing to marry or enter into a civil partnership with somebody else, and if both parties wished it the companionship could at any point be redefined into marriage or a civil partnership, provided the legal criteria for either have been met (for example it would not be possible for a brother and sister to upgrade to marriage as that would be illegal and SERIOUSLY squicky).
(Quick disclaimer: obviously not all asexuals are also aromantic, and those who are demiromantic, heteroromantic, homoromantic or anywhere else on the romantic scale would be applicable for marriage or civil partnership instead if they wanted one. I'm just pointing out that there almost certainly those of us aces who would be happier having an easy non-romantic option if they wanted the legal perks, which they would be quite right to, or to demiromantics who might take a very long time to build up a romantic relationship who could upgrade later on.)
Well, I honestly don't see how anything I have proposed could have offended anybody at all (which makes a change, I have to say) and I think the idea particularly of platonic companionships is a rather brilliant one. Equal rights campaigners, get on this! If nothing else, a platonic companionship would be perfect for shippers of the Sherlock/John bromance, which coincidentally is a completely perfect example of when a PC would be utterly appropriate.
I would first like to propose that the institution of marriage is the largest and most standardised of the three proposed classifications and would continue to be recognised by the Church. Under my definition, marriage would remain a romantic and physical bond between a man and a woman for the purposes of lifelong companionship and procreation where applicable (not everybody wants, or is able to have, kids). Simples.
I would like to continue by clarifying that while I do not support gay "marriage", this does not mean I'm homophobic or anti-gay. I personally believe that as a Christian I am called to love everybody equally (or rather, despise everybody equally as I am too flawed to love everybody - I make no secret of the fact that I am no messiah yet I am not particularly proud of my cynicism, however large a chunk of my personality I permit it to comprise) and to leave any and all judgement to God. I fully appreciate that being gay is not a choice and as such I do not think gays ought to be denied the legal rights an heterosexual couple would receive by being married. However, I do not think it would be correct to refer to such a legal partnership as marriage as the term "marriage" has always meant the joining of a man and woman in the eyes of the Church, and historically procreation. Seeing as many in the Church may not be willing to recognise such a partnership and procreation is definitely not a possibility, I think it would be a better idea to stick with the system currently in use in the UK which offers "civil partnerships" which carry the same legal rights as marriage and give gays the option to form a romantic companionship with another person in the eyes of the law.
Finally, I would like to propose a third option for a different group entirely: asexuals. The asexual community is one I definitely think is underrepresented as a whole, and there really isn't a lot done for asexuals besides mocking/ignoring/ignorantly contradicting us. The third option is one I like to refer to as platonic companionship, for those who either just have no interest in traditional marriage or civil partnership, such as the aforementioned ace community, particularly the aromantic ones, or even groups such as childless widows/widowers with no wish to be married again who could join up platonically with friends or relatives for the legal benefits of marriage, such as next-of-kinship et cetera. Obviously, this platonic companionship can be between a same-sex or opposite-sex pair and would be fully dissolvable in the instance of one or both parties wishing to marry or enter into a civil partnership with somebody else, and if both parties wished it the companionship could at any point be redefined into marriage or a civil partnership, provided the legal criteria for either have been met (for example it would not be possible for a brother and sister to upgrade to marriage as that would be illegal and SERIOUSLY squicky).
(Quick disclaimer: obviously not all asexuals are also aromantic, and those who are demiromantic, heteroromantic, homoromantic or anywhere else on the romantic scale would be applicable for marriage or civil partnership instead if they wanted one. I'm just pointing out that there almost certainly those of us aces who would be happier having an easy non-romantic option if they wanted the legal perks, which they would be quite right to, or to demiromantics who might take a very long time to build up a romantic relationship who could upgrade later on.)
Well, I honestly don't see how anything I have proposed could have offended anybody at all (which makes a change, I have to say) and I think the idea particularly of platonic companionships is a rather brilliant one. Equal rights campaigners, get on this! If nothing else, a platonic companionship would be perfect for shippers of the Sherlock/John bromance, which coincidentally is a completely perfect example of when a PC would be utterly appropriate.
Monday, 17 September 2012
On that note, I crown myself Queen.
On the grounds that I rather like the idea of being a Queen I have decided to declare my own micronation (name to be decided).
This is the flag.
This is the flag.
I have chosen Magikarp to appear on the national flag as a reminder than the smallest and seemingly most useless are often the biggest BAMFs. I picked heliotrope and that particularly pleasant shade of near-mint-green because heliotrope is my favourite colour (and word) and Wolfram alpha showed the green as a complementary colour and I rather liked it so I chose it.
Magikarp and the heliotrope/green colour scheme are the national animal and colours respectively.
I haven't decided on a national anthem yet, but I have narrowed down the selection to the following shortlist:
Here We Go by Jason Gochin (from the Digimon: The Movie soundtrack because yes)
Liam's Got A Phone Call by The Liams! (or StarKid. Whatever.)
Because my micronation is a democratorship I shall listen to my subjects (if anybody is interested in joining my micronation) before going ahead and doing whatever I like. :)
The national religion shall be non-denominational Christianity but, in the same way that it is not compulsory to be Anglican in England, it is not compulsory.
Yeah, I think that's about it for now. Voting on the national anthem is encouraged in the comments, as is signing up to join. The country shall have open borders but you can defend your own property within those borders as fiercely as you like.
Saturday, 25 August 2012
The great thing about pessimism is that if your expectations of the world are low enough it is impossible to be disappointed.
There has been a lot of fuss in the last few days over the fact that GCSE results have been slightly lower than they have been in previous years, bucking the trend of going up and up indefinitely they had been following for the last goodness knows how long. Granted, the current educational system is a bit rubbish (or completely CRAP), but surely I'm not the only one who sees these changes as a good thing?
It goes without saying that results cannot continue to just improve until everybody is getting A*s in everything, the whole point of grades is to distinguish between the best students. As a solution to this problem, I should like to propose a massive overhaul of the entire education system (up to the end of secondary school at any rate) which rationally makes far more sense than the current one. Bear with me, however mad some of these ideas may sound (nobody likes change) they are actually far more logical.
To start with, to eliminate the problem of people complaining about grades, I propose that the current grade system be scrapped entirely and that students instead be given their percentiles, thus better showing exactly how they compare with their peers which would make it easier for universities/workplaces to decide which students to take on. This also has the added advantage of ensuring that it is possible to compare students in a variety of ways - in individual subjects, overall (combining marks from everything), over many years if you add different year groups into your sample, et cetera.
The next major change I propose is banning P.E. (most kids hate standing around in muddy fields first thing in the morning and get very little out of it) and instead splitting "biology" into "physiology" and "botany" and making it compulsory for students to attend at least one before-school (more on that later) sports club of their choosing. This would do a better job of encouraging pupils to be active and combating obesity than the P.E. lessons given currently as the students would be given more choice to actually do sports they want to do.
On the "before-school" clubs I mentioned in the previous paragraph, this is because it is widely accepted that students (teenagers in particular) do not work best first thing in the morning. My proposed school-day would start at 11:30am or so and finish at 7:00pm, with before-school sports clubs starting at around 10:00am. I think that this would work better because the physical activity before learning would do a good job of waking the students up nicely without tiring them out too much (obviously lunch would be at around 1:00pm, an afternoon break at 4:00pm or so and then students would eat their evening meal at home after school).
My next overhaul would be the qualifications students take in the first place. Instead of the current GCSE/A-Level system, I propose making it compulsory at sixteen to take a core qualification (worth less than a GCSE) in every school subject (currently on my list are grammar, rhetoric, logic, philosophy, literature, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, botany, Latin, history, geography, religious studies, computer science, music, art and psychology but I may add to it) to show that the student has a good academic grounding. In addition to this, the student would have the option to take further qualifications (instead of the core qualification and worth more than a GCSE but less than an A-Level) in a few of the core subjects of their choice with some additional options (extra languages like French, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, German, Russian etc., more specific branches of the sciences etc.) that would not be included as core subjects.
At eighteen, having finished their core qualifications students would take more further qualifications, possibly taking an even further one (worth two A-Levels) in the subject they intended to continue at university.
As you may have gathered from the above list of proposed core subjects I think it would be a brilliant idea to place more of an emphasis on the classic liberal arts in order to promote rationality and good communication, which I have noticed is something the world seems to lack and that you can never have enough of. The trivium shall be taught during what are now "tutorials" which will become times to collect valuable life skills, which shall also include a thorough grounding in politics, business and managing money among other topics.
In addition to the before-school sports clubs, there shall be clubs offering the equivalent of food technology (which will be renamed "cookery" to avoid pretentiousness), textiles, extra programming languages and basically anything else students want to explore. In some cases (programming languages, etc.) a certificate worth a core qualification might be offered.
Logically, I think that my changes would make for a brilliant system. Of course, it would take a lot of getting used to, but to my mind staying in a crap system just because you're used to it never helped anybody. I now call on my two readers (or something like that) to get me into office in order that I might implement my changes and improve this country for the better. Or to just not tell me that I'm rubbish. That would work too.
Lowri
It goes without saying that results cannot continue to just improve until everybody is getting A*s in everything, the whole point of grades is to distinguish between the best students. As a solution to this problem, I should like to propose a massive overhaul of the entire education system (up to the end of secondary school at any rate) which rationally makes far more sense than the current one. Bear with me, however mad some of these ideas may sound (nobody likes change) they are actually far more logical.
To start with, to eliminate the problem of people complaining about grades, I propose that the current grade system be scrapped entirely and that students instead be given their percentiles, thus better showing exactly how they compare with their peers which would make it easier for universities/workplaces to decide which students to take on. This also has the added advantage of ensuring that it is possible to compare students in a variety of ways - in individual subjects, overall (combining marks from everything), over many years if you add different year groups into your sample, et cetera.
The next major change I propose is banning P.E. (most kids hate standing around in muddy fields first thing in the morning and get very little out of it) and instead splitting "biology" into "physiology" and "botany" and making it compulsory for students to attend at least one before-school (more on that later) sports club of their choosing. This would do a better job of encouraging pupils to be active and combating obesity than the P.E. lessons given currently as the students would be given more choice to actually do sports they want to do.
On the "before-school" clubs I mentioned in the previous paragraph, this is because it is widely accepted that students (teenagers in particular) do not work best first thing in the morning. My proposed school-day would start at 11:30am or so and finish at 7:00pm, with before-school sports clubs starting at around 10:00am. I think that this would work better because the physical activity before learning would do a good job of waking the students up nicely without tiring them out too much (obviously lunch would be at around 1:00pm, an afternoon break at 4:00pm or so and then students would eat their evening meal at home after school).
My next overhaul would be the qualifications students take in the first place. Instead of the current GCSE/A-Level system, I propose making it compulsory at sixteen to take a core qualification (worth less than a GCSE) in every school subject (currently on my list are grammar, rhetoric, logic, philosophy, literature, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, botany, Latin, history, geography, religious studies, computer science, music, art and psychology but I may add to it) to show that the student has a good academic grounding. In addition to this, the student would have the option to take further qualifications (instead of the core qualification and worth more than a GCSE but less than an A-Level) in a few of the core subjects of their choice with some additional options (extra languages like French, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, German, Russian etc., more specific branches of the sciences etc.) that would not be included as core subjects.
At eighteen, having finished their core qualifications students would take more further qualifications, possibly taking an even further one (worth two A-Levels) in the subject they intended to continue at university.
As you may have gathered from the above list of proposed core subjects I think it would be a brilliant idea to place more of an emphasis on the classic liberal arts in order to promote rationality and good communication, which I have noticed is something the world seems to lack and that you can never have enough of. The trivium shall be taught during what are now "tutorials" which will become times to collect valuable life skills, which shall also include a thorough grounding in politics, business and managing money among other topics.
In addition to the before-school sports clubs, there shall be clubs offering the equivalent of food technology (which will be renamed "cookery" to avoid pretentiousness), textiles, extra programming languages and basically anything else students want to explore. In some cases (programming languages, etc.) a certificate worth a core qualification might be offered.
Logically, I think that my changes would make for a brilliant system. Of course, it would take a lot of getting used to, but to my mind staying in a crap system just because you're used to it never helped anybody. I now call on my two readers (or something like that) to get me into office in order that I might implement my changes and improve this country for the better. Or to just not tell me that I'm rubbish. That would work too.
Lowri
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Autism: the issue that shouldn't be.
Let me just start off by saying that if you think that with that title I'm saying autism shouldn't exist, you can get off my blog right now because you're obviously an idiot who wouldn't be able to comprehend anything I am about to say.
I read an article in the Daily Mail today that made me exceedingly angry. While this will almost certainly surprise nobody, I feel compelled to clarify: the article in question was this one and although the reader was obviously meant to become angry about the idea that this boy supposedly may have been given autism by his MMR vaccine, I was angry for several completely different reasons. Let me explain.
For those who have not worked it out for themselves yet, I am autistic myself (Aspergers, to be precise). I am currently in the process of being referred to a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to get a formal diagnosis (which I almost certainly will), and I don't really give a dam who knows this - it is just something about me, like the fact that I am short, dark and consider myself Welsh even though I'm actually just as much (if not more) Irish.
With that established, the main reason why I was so affected by this article was because it felt like a personal insult. The tone of the article very much screamed "victory! This woman is receiving compensation because she was done an injustice!" which I have several big problems with. Even disregarding the fact that the original research showing a link was later revealed to be fraudulent (1) (2) (3) (4) and Andrew Wakefield, the man responsible for the research, was struck off the Medical Register for it, the mere fact that people are so worried about a potential link is rather offensive. The way I, and the vast majority of the autistic community see it, autism is not a disorder or an illness to be cured, it is an unusual and uncontrollable difference like being ginger or actually liking Nickelback. (Both of which I admittedly freely poke fun at, but I wouldn't seriously suggest eradicating all gingers or the entire fanbase of what I'm sure are some, er, very nice people?)
With this in mind, the idea that people would rather risk letting their child die from a potentially deadly disease than take a far smaller risk that they might develop autism makes me extremely sad. Are people really so eager to eradicate a character trait that is part of what makes me (and many others) who I am (or they are) just because they don't understand it? Personally, I don't even want a cure, I just want to be accepted, and to be treated like the intelligent human being I am. There is nothing wrong with me and I am not deserving of pity. Being autistic is not a tragedy and is certainly not deserving of the attention it gets from being (incorrectly) linked with a vaccine: my point is, frankly, that even if there was a link, it should be no big deal, unworthy of mass hysteria. Possibly some sort of a novelty, like it would be if the vaccine magically turned people into gingers or Nickelback fans. There is no real difference in the scenarios.
I find that although autism is covered a lot in the media the overwhelming majority of what gets reported is to do with the families of those with autism, endless explanations of how terrible, how difficult it is to live with somebody autistic because they do things differently from you that you don't understand, and hardly anybody pays any attention to the people with autism themselves. The end result is that everybody thinks they know autism, when in reality they have no chance of understanding what they have never experienced. I can't even put into words a lot of what goes through my head, and I can't show you my thoughts, so how can you ever know how my brain works? It is for this reason (among others) I disagree with the charity Autism Speaks - for an example, there is not one person with autism on the board. Would you support a charity called Womanhood Speaks if it were run by men, and dedicated to curing people of being female when the vast majority of women are perfectly happy as they are, thank you very much? Just some food for thought.
If anybody has any questions, you can leave them in the comments and I'll add a section at the end of this post to answer them.
Lowri
I read an article in the Daily Mail today that made me exceedingly angry. While this will almost certainly surprise nobody, I feel compelled to clarify: the article in question was this one and although the reader was obviously meant to become angry about the idea that this boy supposedly may have been given autism by his MMR vaccine, I was angry for several completely different reasons. Let me explain.
For those who have not worked it out for themselves yet, I am autistic myself (Aspergers, to be precise). I am currently in the process of being referred to a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to get a formal diagnosis (which I almost certainly will), and I don't really give a dam who knows this - it is just something about me, like the fact that I am short, dark and consider myself Welsh even though I'm actually just as much (if not more) Irish.
With that established, the main reason why I was so affected by this article was because it felt like a personal insult. The tone of the article very much screamed "victory! This woman is receiving compensation because she was done an injustice!" which I have several big problems with. Even disregarding the fact that the original research showing a link was later revealed to be fraudulent (1) (2) (3) (4) and Andrew Wakefield, the man responsible for the research, was struck off the Medical Register for it, the mere fact that people are so worried about a potential link is rather offensive. The way I, and the vast majority of the autistic community see it, autism is not a disorder or an illness to be cured, it is an unusual and uncontrollable difference like being ginger or actually liking Nickelback. (Both of which I admittedly freely poke fun at, but I wouldn't seriously suggest eradicating all gingers or the entire fanbase of what I'm sure are some, er, very nice people?)
With this in mind, the idea that people would rather risk letting their child die from a potentially deadly disease than take a far smaller risk that they might develop autism makes me extremely sad. Are people really so eager to eradicate a character trait that is part of what makes me (and many others) who I am (or they are) just because they don't understand it? Personally, I don't even want a cure, I just want to be accepted, and to be treated like the intelligent human being I am. There is nothing wrong with me and I am not deserving of pity. Being autistic is not a tragedy and is certainly not deserving of the attention it gets from being (incorrectly) linked with a vaccine: my point is, frankly, that even if there was a link, it should be no big deal, unworthy of mass hysteria. Possibly some sort of a novelty, like it would be if the vaccine magically turned people into gingers or Nickelback fans. There is no real difference in the scenarios.
I find that although autism is covered a lot in the media the overwhelming majority of what gets reported is to do with the families of those with autism, endless explanations of how terrible, how difficult it is to live with somebody autistic because they do things differently from you that you don't understand, and hardly anybody pays any attention to the people with autism themselves. The end result is that everybody thinks they know autism, when in reality they have no chance of understanding what they have never experienced. I can't even put into words a lot of what goes through my head, and I can't show you my thoughts, so how can you ever know how my brain works? It is for this reason (among others) I disagree with the charity Autism Speaks - for an example, there is not one person with autism on the board. Would you support a charity called Womanhood Speaks if it were run by men, and dedicated to curing people of being female when the vast majority of women are perfectly happy as they are, thank you very much? Just some food for thought.
If anybody has any questions, you can leave them in the comments and I'll add a section at the end of this post to answer them.
Lowri
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