Posts by Rosemary McDonald
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Campbell Live: A Disturbance…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
You missed the point, Amanda was asking where would the journalists who left TV3 go.
No, I was kinda saying that I really don't care...not having watched telly in ages.
Why? Because even the news (on any channel) had become trite, drivelly dross.
Unbearably trivialised stories delivered by plastic people. The pain alleviated only by the ad breaks....which provided an excuse to mute and go back to my book.
Be strong people.
Campbell may be leaving your television screens, but there are alternatives...
-
Access: I'm not laughing, in reply to Christine Peet,
I"m 40. Mum doesn’t have to go with me, she’s just interested in what’s happening and it is often easier to get there with her help.
Hah! Peter no longer drives (shoulders stuffed after 45 years pushing a chair) and needs someone to transfer him....so I tag along. Also, he (10 years younger than me) comes from that generation who blindly and blithely accept every word the Dr utters as gospel. I have, on more than one occasion, butted in and asked questions when the learned physician is clearly going down the wrong path...with potentially fatal results. BUT...I hate doing this. For all the reasons Chelle is talking about.
Having said that, speaking with the wives/partners of other 60 plus year olds, not living with disability, it appears to be an older man thing...rather than a disability thing. If that makes sense.
Peter has three fairly regular hospital appointments...two of the doctors are very good. The other is a clinic type set up...and it was here that Peter himself put his foot down and flatly refused to see a couple of the senior doctors due to their abominable treatment of him in the past, both as a person with a disability and their complete ignorance of his particular impairment.
-
Hard News: Campbell Live: A Disturbance…, in reply to Amanda Wreckonwith,
And go where?
Simple.
Don't watch telly.
I've not watched more than an hour of telly in the last year.
Maybe two hours in the past 18 months.
Don't miss it.
However....the Young People are reorganising the household's internet service and when the transition is complete I intend to watch previous episodes of Brown Eye and Media Take.
The only programmes the YP watch....
We may watch CL tonight, to boost the ratings, just to annoy MW.
-
"Sometimes all I want is not to be noticed."
We had a tradesman in the other day to fix our water pump. I was flitting around doing what I do, Peter parked down in the garage while the pumpman did his thing.
Every time I passed through...pumpman spoke to me, asked me a question, TOTALLY ignored Peter....totally.
Like he was infuckingvisible.
Sometimes, just to be a bastard, Peter will force these nongs to engage with him.
-
Hard News: Campbell Live: A Disturbance…, in reply to Michael Meyers,
The Paul Henry experiment sees to have been a disaster ratings-wise. I’m surprised that he keeps showing up on screen.
Gross...but I liken Paul Henry to a dose of herpes....
-
-
Geeze, Chelle. So, so, so true.
Peter is very near to picking up his Gold Card and still gets this stuff.
His pet hate is the dear old biddy who slowly and clearly in that sing song voice asks him if he's "having a nice day out today dear?"
Mostly, he just smiles and nods.
Sometimes, if he's in the mood....
One thing that doesn't bother him is folk asking why he is in a wheelchair. He is quite happy to explain the whys and wherefores....he figures he's doing his bit to raise consciousnesses.
The thing that most pisses me off is the guy who stands over Peter and loudly tells the story how he broke his neck once and the doctors told him he'd never walk again but he was determined he was not going to spend the rest of **his**life sitting on his arse in a wheelchair....
-
Access: Right to die?, in reply to Hilary Stace,
In some ways it is a bit like planning a caesarean because you are scared of childbirth and have never been at a natural birth or known anyone who had one.
Slap bang on the head, Hilary.
The culture, the traditions, surrounding birth and death have changed over the years...almost in parallel.
Both used to be largely the province of women. The midwives, the healers, the army followers...there will be literature on this.
Birth and dying...both raw and messy, and inevitable. And completely and utterly natural.
And maybe that is part of this. Getting and being pregnant, giving birth, used to be a normal thing to do...it still is in some what we in the west might consider to be 'developing' nations. In the west it has turned into a medical and technical procedure...something, as you say, to be controlled....managed.
Dramatised.
Shared on social media.
We have moved so very far from what used to be considered 'normal'....you only have to read the comments from those who oppose home births.
I don't know, sometimes I think that we should insist that all young people experience disability care, elder care infant and child care etc...as part of their education...or as a form of national service (I think some countries do this).
-
Access: Right to die?, in reply to Sacha,
and they are human....
I was trying to transfer Peter from wheelchair to car one afternoon by the side entrance to the High Court in Auckland. We were parked on a slope, and things were not going to plan...disaster loomed. Up stepped besuited and begroomed well known QC, and he immediately held the chair in place while I hauled from the inside of the car.
How did he know that was exactly the right thing to do? Most folk tend to try and take the wheelchair away....
Turned out his son was born with a physical disability...nice guy, his wife was lovely too.
I was wondering today what he'd make of all of this....
-
Access: Right to die?, in reply to Sacha,
bloody lawyers
miserable, slimy, bottom feeding scumsuckers...
Having said that, with tongue firmly in cheek, foot in mouth, same lawyer spoke with equal passion and conviction on behalf of the HRC at the Appeal Court in Attorney General (for the Miserly of Health) v Margaret Spenser.
He seemed to 'get it'...I was moved...and I wonder if he has any idea of the possible impact of his words on behalf of this client, on those whose rights he was defending last October?
But...whoever pays the piper....
bloody lawyers...