Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

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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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

Left too and anyone else on the sharp end of these cunts’ miseries

pilk/pall revolting odors (wins), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:19 (two years ago)

Fucking hell calz, my heart goes out to you. This is appalling.

bit high, bitch (gyac), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:19 (two years ago)

And yes, sorry Left, I hadn’t scrolled up

bit high, bitch (gyac), Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:20 (two years ago)

Really sorry, Calzino. Really hope your partner gets the support needed.

Left too..

xyzzzz__, Saturday, 14 January 2023 14:21 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

Calz, I am so sorry you’re going through this xx

put a VONC on it (suzy), Saturday, 14 January 2023 16:26 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

glad you're holding up, it's a fucking war

Wyverns and gulls rule my world (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 January 2023 17:20 (two years ago)

Best wishes for you and your partner, Calzino, for whatever that's worth.

Andrew Farrell, Sunday, 15 January 2023 00:49 (two years ago)

echoing the support from others, calz and Left <3

fentanyl young (Neanderthal), Sunday, 15 January 2023 01:06 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

wild swimming but it's at a lido south of the thames 😨

mark s, Sunday, 22 January 2023 13:56 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

holy shit

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 14:57 (two years ago)

metadata harder to kill:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/lgbt-rights

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 14:58 (two years ago)

times are hard at the Graun, the cost of those extra Ts adds up

Kieth Encounter (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 17:42 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

dammit did i just get outraged for no reason??

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 23:59 (two years ago)

no because fuck the ONS

your original display name is still visible (Left), Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:10 (two years ago)

Do you hate stats too?

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 January 2023 00:13 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)

i’m white (other) and proud!

Tracer Hand, Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:17 (two years ago)

(nb not really)

Tracer Hand, Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:17 (two years ago)

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 (two years ago)


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