North of the Stupid Line

I have to say that I’m really pissed off with MM who keeps deleting and creating new blogs all the time. The latest incarnation is this one: HIVIEW. What’s particularly annoying is the fact that he will not allow comments, so his posts end up being totally one-sided and not discursive. That totally goes against the grain of blogging, and why we set up deaf-blogs.com in the first place. So, I’m having to respond to MM’s latest post via my blog.

There are a few things I would like to clarify:

deaf.blog posters

There are no ‘deaf.blog posters’ at all. What MM has forgotten is that no one actually posts to deaf-blogs.com. Deaf-blogs.com is an aggregator. It brings together large amounts of feeds into one so that it is easier to find blogs written by d/Deaf people. The aim is that a visitor will look at deaf-blogs.com and read the posts listed. If they enjoy reading a particular post, they can then read it in full on the original blog and then add that blog to their personal feed aggregator, e.g. Bloglines, which is what I use. What deaf-blogs.com is not is a forum. A forum is where people post their comments and views in one centralised spot. It is totally different from blogs, and MM has yet to realise this.

went to the RNID site because web sites and forums the ‘Deaf’ set up are bloody useless and biased, so unusable

*coughs* Erm, I’ve seen the RNId forum myself, and I could see for myself that it was a forum for certain individuals to attack individuals without merit and more alarmingly, without hesitatation. Whatever happened to respect for fellow human beings? HIVIEW carries on MM’s old tradition: attack, attack, attack. It worries me that someone is capable of being so bitter and rude about others, and not allowing the people he attacks to defend themselves.

I’ll say one thing though. I agree with MM when he raised his disillusionment with the RNId by closing down the RNId forums:

we preferred the RNID forum, and we wanted (Some of us), to raise issues of exclusion at the RNID itself. This rattled the RNID they wanted a fawning forum, they didn’t get it.

I totally respect that. However, what the RNId have done doesn’t surprise me in the least. They’ve never had any respect for the Deaf community, and still don’t.

Anyway, the point of this post is to ask MM:”Why? Why do you insist on trying to rile the so-called “deaf activists”? What do you hope to achieve? Why can’t you just let it be?”. Deaf activists are entitled to their opinion as much as you are yours, but we don’t launch personal attacks on individuals that we don’t agree with.

Knowing you, you’ll probably consider this post as a personal attack on you; that’s not my intention. Think of it as a wake-up call; I’m a fellow Newportonian, and I’d be interested in your views on a wide range of topics, but your attacks just put me off. Some food for thought … ?

It’s assignment time again for the LLM, although this is the last assignment of the whole Masters!  After this, I’ve only got a 15,000 word dissertation to do (ha! only?!).

The title this time is:

‘The so-called positive and negative freedom of association are not simply two sides of the same coin or two aspects of the same freedom. There is no logical link between the two.’

Per Judges Sørensen, Thór Vilhjálmsson and Lagergren (dissenting) Young, James and Webster v. United Kingdom [1981] IRLR 410, ECHR

Explain and illustrate how the doctrine of freedom of association informs the law on the regulation of trade union membership and activity. What current difficulties are faced by employers and by trade unions in the application of this law?

This is an area of law I haven’t studied in any great depth before, and it seems interesting so far.  The deadline is 31 March 2006, so if I don’t post for a while, you know why.

I’m sure some of you didn’t realise that I was off work last week, just to recuperate and recharge my batteries, and to spend some time at my home with my lovely fiancée.

It wasn’t much of a relaxing week really – there’s always something to keep me busy, not least my next LLM assignment, which I will post separately about.  Some people, notably my boss, have pointed out that I never seem to stop, and that they can’t imagine me ever stopping.  This was true of last week.  I did have a few hours of chillin’ here and there, but most of the time was spent with family, wedding preparations, suit fittings, shopping etc.

To sum up, the best parts of the week were:

1. Actually spending a whole week with Rachel;
2. Seeing my best mate Stuart on Saturday (it’d been about eight months since I last saw him); and
3. Sorting out the suits for the wedding, particularly seeing my dad looking very dapper in a morning suit with tails!

I won’t be having another week off now until August (sniff).  Woe is me!

I had a very pleasant weekend – Ian came down from Leicester specifically for a suit fitting (he’s one of the ushers at our wedding) and spent the weekend with us, as we went about our usual weekend activities i.e. cooking, visiting family, family visiting, blah.

While we were having lunch in Da Vinci, a cafe in Newport, we were rather bemused to have this guy come up to us and hand us a business card with a message saying something like “I’m deaf and I don’t expect charity, but I need some money, can you help?”.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Asking US three for money because he was deaf was NOT a good idea.  After all, we’re Deaf, and we don’t go round asking for money because we’re Deaf!   The guy noticed that we were deaf, and started signing to me, and I signed back.  He said that he was from London, so I promptly informed him that I work in London.

When he went, the three of us wondered: if he needs money, where did he get his clothes from, as he was quite well dressed; where did he get the money to get a train from London to Newport and; how did he afford to get these business cards printed (they were quite good quality)?

On a more serious note, I was saddened to see a Deaf individual resorting to begging.  He said he wasn’t begging, but he was.  There is no other word for it.  Also, I felt that it put us Deaf people in a bad light; reinforcing the idea that Deaf people can’t cope with life, money, get jobs etc., when we certainly can achieve a great deal in our lives.  That kind of activity isn’t going to improve Deaf people’s lot, and personally, I think it’s quite a lazy enterprise: just get a job or enrol on a course or something.

Am I the only commuter in London who absolutely detests the Transport for London’s JourneyPlanner?

It is seriously pathetic. Okay, it’ll tell you how to get somewhere. But jeeeeeeez, I’m sure it tries to make you change as much as is humanely possible at this or that station, walk here, walk there, blaaah.

Another thing: it never tells you the easiest routes. I have found routes to places that TfL JourneyPlanner never even remotely comes near to mentioning. I usually find routes myself that require the least amount of changes to get to a certain place, and which are actually quite pleasant journeys. For example:

• Liverpool Street : TfL tells you to get a train from East Croydon to London Bridge, go on the Northern Line to Bank (one stop) and get on the Central Line to Liverpool Street (one stop).

I just get a direct train to Farringdon and get the Metropolitan, Hammersmith & Shitty Line or Circle line from there to Liverpool Street!

• East Ham : TfL tells you to get a train from East Croydon to London Bridge, go on the Northern Line to Bank (one stop) and get on the Central Line to Mile End (three stops) and then District or Hammersmith & City Line to East Ham.

I just get a direct train to Blackfriars and get the District line from there!

I wonder what TfL are trying to achieve. I don’t think they make more money out of making gullible fools change umpteen times; or do they?