in the same way that there was a kernel of enlightened progressive thinking behind "inclusion" until successive governments realised it was a great smokescreen for closing important specialist schools and colleges
― Wyverns and gulls rule my world (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:34 (one year ago) link
Patients have become far better informed at self-diagnosis.
Is there one shred of evidence to support this? I say this as someone who was dismissed by a GP for a health concern which an online forum helped me successfully diagnose.
― kinder, Friday, 13 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink
If there is evidence Jenkins doesn't let us know. If you are going to change how healthcare is delivered 'google/AI will replace a doctor' needs work.
But ofc it's not about that.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:44 (one year ago) link
among this bunch of fantastic and rich western democracies in the G7, I've seen multiple graphs illustrating that the UK has measliest and most punitive benefits system. And probably is the worst so called wealthy country for disabled people to live in amongst them. This is something (no it wasn't really that much better before 2010) that has been a cross party project for decades, and now the opposition party are basically saying that level of Cameron austerity is the best we can realistically expect. No wonder some people just give up altogether.
― calzino, Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:50 (one year ago) link
I managed to survive the last few rounds of culling-the-surplus-population (if you call this living) but it feels like I'm on borrowed time
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:53 (one year ago) link
i feel like the social presence of the self-informed has an increasingly massive weight in the whole of present-day politics, given the fact of a colossal and ever-expanding archive of information (which is often intensely contested of course)
it is for example at the root of the distaste for "populism" and the worry at the swelling (often-partisan) distrust of technocratic expertise -- the culture-wars assault on facts and logic blah blah
what's the politics of this as a general effect? "too early to tell" — zhou enlai
― mark s, Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:55 (one year ago) link
my partner probably hasn't got that long left to live, is wracked with MS and is developing dementia. A DWP letter dropped the other day to inform her that they are only just starting a PIP renewal review, 2 years after the form was sent in. I'm not taking it for granted that the renewal will be successful. That's how shite the system is.
― calzino, Saturday, 14 January 2023 13:59 (one year ago) link
without going into too much personal work-life detail let me just say that the DWP is in full "hassling people to get jobs by referring them - often against their will - to job support schemes that are frequently inappropriate" mode
― Wyverns and gulls rule my world (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:03 (one year ago) link
That shit makes my blood boil calz, sorry you’re all going through it
― pilk/pall revolting odors (wins), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:18 (one year ago) link
Left too and anyone else on the sharp end of these cunts’ miseries
― pilk/pall revolting odors (wins), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:19 (one year ago) link
Fucking hell calz, my heart goes out to you. This is appalling.
― bit high, bitch (gyac), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:19 (one year ago) link
And yes, sorry Left, I hadn’t scrolled up
― bit high, bitch (gyac), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:20 (one year ago) link
Really sorry, Calzino. Really hope your partner gets the support needed.
Left too..
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:21 (one year ago) link
So sorry Calz. Have had my eyes opened in the last few years as to how people with disabilities are basically bottom of the pile. Obviously I have also seen some great support but it's stretched so thin it's transparent.
― kinder, Saturday, 14 January 2023 15:24 (one year ago) link
Calz, I am so sorry you’re going through this xx
― put a VONC on it (suzy), Saturday, 14 January 2023 16:26 (one year ago) link
thanks all, the upside to this is I've become quite calm and stolid in the face of crisis - a crisis expert almost, which you need to be these days!
― calzino, Saturday, 14 January 2023 17:16 (one year ago) link
glad you're holding up, it's a fucking war
― Wyverns and gulls rule my world (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 January 2023 17:20 (one year ago) link
Best wishes for you and your partner, Calzino, for whatever that's worth.
― Andrew Farrell, Sunday, 15 January 2023 00:49 (one year ago) link
echoing the support from others, calz and Left <3
― fentanyl young (Neanderthal), Sunday, 15 January 2023 01:06 (one year ago) link
Just been reading the current LRB and I am increasingly convinced Iain Sinclair and Simon Jenkins are the same person— Alex Harrowell (@yorksranter) January 21, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 21 January 2023 14:56 (one year ago) link
Nothing says "change of senior editor" at The Guardian like a piece presenting wild swimming as anything other than a panacea for all the worlds ills being published.
RIP wild swimming. Nature’s ‘cure all’ has thrown in the towel | @EvaWiseman https://t.co/bfzWzDmmFn— Observer Magazine (@ObsMagazine) January 22, 2023
― Hello I'm shitty gatsworth (aldo), Sunday, 22 January 2023 13:02 (one year ago) link
breaking news: swimming in raw sewage is not as beneficial for your health as previously stated every week in the graun
― calzino, Sunday, 22 January 2023 13:47 (one year ago) link
my dad liked roger deakin's books (bcz he liked to read abt trees) so i read waterlog when it came out, as it was sitting there by dad's bed: its concept of wild swimming was more like hiking across the wild countryside and being sure to take a dip if/when you found open water like a sparkling stream or a cool calm lake miles from anywhere -- which i can't imagine myself doing tho i can see dad doing this when he was much younger (and not bed-ridden)
i.e anyway NOT swimming at the normal ordinary seaside! (dad liked beaches but i bet deakins despises them!) (lol even more now that they're mostly knee-deep in human waste lol)
― mark s, Sunday, 22 January 2023 13:55 (one year ago) link
wild swimming but it's at a lido south of the thames 😨
― mark s, Sunday, 22 January 2023 13:56 (one year ago) link
I've been in the sea at Newquay before in a wetsuit. And that was too cold for my liking, ankle deep is about as far as I can bear cold water.
― calzino, Sunday, 22 January 2023 14:01 (one year ago) link
yeah an afternoon paddle in August at Hornsea with the icy North Sea rattling the shingle up your legs is about my level
― Kieth Encounter (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 22 January 2023 14:47 (one year ago) link
Enjoyed this column quite a bit. Pretty ruthless on someone who claims they will "self-destruct":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/22/ask-philippa-perry-im-single-about-to-turn-40-and-fear-i-will-self-destruct
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 22 January 2023 16:41 (one year ago) link
Roger Deakin loved the seaside, some of the best bits of Waterlog are about beaches. He actually seemed to like people, unlike eg Sinclair.
― fetter, Sunday, 22 January 2023 18:01 (one year ago) link
ok busted it's like 20 years since i (skim)read waterlog but beaches still aren't wild swimming
― mark s, Sunday, 22 January 2023 18:12 (one year ago) link
Guardian leading the way in removing the 'T' from LGBT with their 'LGB+' designation, no doubt at the behest of the sensible middle-class white person lobby
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/25/young-people-england-wales-twice-likely-identify-lgb-overall-population
― a mix between aphex twin and nirvana with the swagger of count basie (Matt #2), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 14:49 (one year ago) link
holy shit
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 14:57 (one year ago) link
metadata harder to kill:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/lgbt-rights
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 14:58 (one year ago) link
times are hard at the Graun, the cost of those extra Ts adds up
― Kieth Encounter (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 17:42 (one year ago) link
Thank you Bill.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/bill-gates-startup-cow-burps-methane-emissions
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 19:42 (one year ago) link
I was also surprised at the usage of LGB+ but I think it is because there is a separate section in the ONS census data around trans identity.
― AlanSmithee, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 20:27 (one year ago) link
Yes, in census terms the letters LGB (sexual orientation) and the letter T (gender identity) represent different kinds of information. Every newspaper that reported on this story used LGB+ in this way (presumably because that's what the ONS used in their own reports on this data).
― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 23:55 (one year ago) link
dammit did i just get outraged for no reason??
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 23:59 (one year ago) link
no because fuck the ONS
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:10 (one year ago) link
Do you hate stats too?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:13 (one year ago) link
well it was the main reason I failed at maths and physics
I don't think I need to make a case for why british state bodies that monitor and classify population(s) have never been a benevolent force in the world
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:39 (one year ago) link
also not to sound like a reactionary but I hate the alphabet soup even though I use it sometimes - it seems to be a recipe for D&Q (and reflects general longer term masculinisation and gentrification and cissificstion of gayness in particular) - despite what some gay and trans activists seem to believe sexuality and gender identity and sex aren't discrete and only sometimes coincidentally overlapping spheres of being or whatever
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:54 (one year ago) link
D&Q stands for divide and quonker I guess I'm sleep deprived
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:56 (one year ago) link
i don't think that's really the effect of lgbt as an acronym, which is inclusive of both sexuality and gender identity?
of course, people using lgb is a blatant attempt to divide & conquer outside of some very limited cases where it makes sense (stats like those above probably are one)
― ufo, Thursday, 26 January 2023 04:17 (one year ago) link
No capture of stats is simply an attempt to take a snapshot of "the world as it is" tho, and every rationale given for where the limits are drawn needs to be, at least, heavily scrutinized
― Kieth Encounter (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 26 January 2023 06:48 (one year ago) link
― your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink
Do you think those ideologies inform the work at ONS today?
It sounds like ONS doing more work on trans identity and how that's captured could be more accurate and representative? But the other issue is some of the people that use it and, in this case, the people that report on it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 January 2023 10:08 (one year ago) link
iirc the relevant census question in 2021 were considered best practice re: trans status/gender identity etc. (or at least decent enough) but then partway through the census the ONS caved to a transphobic campaign and updated their guidance re: the question on sex (to insist on sex as recorded on birth certificate only, not passport which is much easier to change for trans people in the uk) so it's possible that just mangled the data but i've seen people say the data seems generally reasonable despite that potential issue
― ufo, Thursday, 26 January 2023 10:28 (one year ago) link
Worth mentioning that while I understand where Left is coming from, the absence of a state body that monitors and classifies population(s) in the context of race comes in very useful whenever countries like France want to dismiss the concerns of minority populations.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:04 (one year ago) link
Did mention at a FAP once that I find it amusing that UK census distinguishes between "white british" and "white (other)", could not imagine any other country I've had contact with doing that.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:05 (one year ago) link
i’m white (other) and proud!
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:17 (one year ago) link
(nb not really)
The explanation for this I think is mainly originating in tracking Irish populations, for some of the reasons the census is supposed to (ie for measuring needs for services etc) and obviously this is even more meaningful in NI. That it also encompasses other white ethnic groups is a springboard off this, I would imagine. Ireland’s CSO measures it as “any other white background” fwiw. It may be used similarly across Europe to measure order minority populations?
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:22 (one year ago) link