Posts by Russell Brown
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Shulgin, I don't want to censor or ban you, but I need you to take it down a few notches, please.
And you've made your point about Stuart Mills (and Ross Bell) repeatedly now. Please, no more.
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Access: Words and Disability - The…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
David Cohen uses ‘autist’ – another interesting use.
David has a contrarian's take on these things. He once told me he was quite happy with "idiot" in its old sense of meaning "profound intellectual disability".
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Hard News: Illegal Highs, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Except someone else should do it, because I don’t think I have the expertise to know what questions to ask.
I meant to formulate a new request this morning, but things got busy.
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Access: Words and Disability - The…, in reply to Sacha,
urg, I shudder at ‘living with disability’
Oh, y'know, so long as disability pays its share of the bills and takes its turn at the dishes :-)
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Hard News: Illegal Highs, in reply to debunk,
whereas amphetamine was always regarded as a drug of the 50s!
Yes! We tend to forget that. I recall Harry Lyon, whose parents were active in the 50s Auckland jazz/dancehall scene, telling me about asking his mum about a tablet she took before going out and being told "oh, that's my pep pill".
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Thanks Damian. It's great to have some first-person reporting.
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Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to Tim Michie,
Also, Brian Fallow: Labour’s plan looks good.
That's quite significant. I see that Rob Hosking isn't dismissing it either.
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Hard News: Illegal Highs, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Yeah, and ISO9000 certified suppliers with certificates of conformity. It works well enough for $2 packets of paracetemol, so ought to be reasonable for $25 party pills.
Yup certificates of analysis are a requirement of the Code of Manufacturing Practice, which was finalised in January.
It would be interesting to know what is actually happening.
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So how do I reconcile my contempt for “person-first” language with my disdain for terms like “the blind leading the blind”. I think it comes down to this. “person-first” language trips people up, and is unlikely to change attitudes.
Few things are more likely to make me angry than such concepts being used to deliberately trip people up – that is, to score points or to assert power in discussions, typically by people who have no actual stake in disability.
I’m very glad you followed up with this one, because I noticed that in the discussion for your first post, there was a good deal of language based in the idea of vision. It’s actually wrapped so tightly into the language that it’s difficult and probably counterproductive to avoid (do you see my point?). I was interested in what you thought about that.
Phrases that depict disabled people as incompetent, no matter how common their usage, can actually make a significant, albeit subconscious, difference to the way we’re perceived. Those perceptions translate into job opportunities and inclusion. That’s why words sometimes do matter, very much
Good rule.
One thing I do – and it’s just for me, I don’t try and make everyone else do it – is avoid saying that some “has” Aspergers or “has” autism. It’s not a a disease, it’s who my sons are and and how they experience the world and I always say someone “is Asperger” or “is on the autism spectrum”. On occasion, I’ve had people remonstrate with me about it on a “person first” level. I try and be polite about it, but I do feel those people really miss the point.
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Relevant: last month’s Reserve Bank paper Structural adjustment in New Zealand since the commodity boom.