Show 3 was a mixture of news, music and opinion.

<Superstitious - Stevie Wonder>

Hello. Good afternoon. This is Technical Difficulties. Equalising the Airwaves.
I’m Tim Abbott and that was Stevie Wonder - United Nations Messenger for Peace. He
stood in front of the UN’s intellectual property board (link) this week and
released his declaration of freedom for people with disabilities.
“We must declare a state of emergency and end the information depravation that con
tinues to keep the visually impaired in the dark. We must spread the word that
the untapped genius of the 300 plus million who have a visual disability are in
need of our love and action today. Not tomorrow, today.” he insisted. He added ““While
I
know that it is critical not to act to the detriment of the authors who labour t
o create the great works that enlighten and nourish our minds, hearts and souls,
we must
develop a protocol that allows the easy import and export of copyright materials
so that people with print disabilities can join the mainstream of the literate
world,”
He finished by urging consensus on the many proposals on the table that will cre
ate a safe clearing house for the exchange and translation of books for the
accessibility of people with visual impairments.
This month began with a survey of just over 2000 people by Scope from ComRes. Da
ta was weighted to representative of the demographics of the country and in
that demographically balanced group, nearly 40% of the non-disabled people surve
yed who do not have a disabled family member did not know any disabled people.
90% of non-disabled people surveyed say they had never had a disabled person to
their house for a social occasion. And only 21% had had a chance to work with a
disabled colleague.
Whether there are disabled people in these lives who have no identified themselv
es as such, or are not identifiably obvious as such, was not made clear. After a
ll,
many disabilities are not apparent to those without them.
The charity also highlighted a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies earlier
this year which argued that 20% of recipients of Disability Living Allowance mi
ght lose
their entitlement to that benefit as part of the system reform.
Congratulations to the Government on that particular statistic.
In other news, this month is Hydrocephalus awareness month. I would have told yo
u earlier but I myself was not aware.
Hydrocephalus is a condition that has been in the background of my life since I
was diagnosed at age 2. In common with many who have the condition, I have a
plastic tube draining excess fluid running from my skull into my gut. Like most
embedded objects, it can become dislodged or infected and clearly that’s not a
particularly healthy state to be in.
It is up to those of us who carry this condition to be aware of the risks and sy
mptoms of the tube failing, so if you have hydrocephalus and don’t know the warnin
g
signs check out this page (link: asbah.org.uk)
Those of you lucky enough not to have this condition, the same site offers infor
mation on the condition and details on how to fundraise for its treatment.
Let’s have another musicial interlude, this is Station Siebzehn with the suitably
thematic “Without rain, there would be no rainbow”
<Ohne Regen, kein Regenbogen - Station 17>
That was Station 17 from their new album Golden Variations with their fellow Ham
burgers Fettes Brot, North German hip-hop - quite an unusual combination...
These are the open airwaves, you’re listening to Technical Difficulties with Tim A
bbott
Back on the news round-up, the Office for Standards in Education within the UK g
overnment has argued that up to a quarter of pupils within the Special Education
al
Needs systems should not be in those systems. 54% of those within the systems ar
e those deemed able to integrate into regular schooling - they are assessed for
assistance by their schools whilst only 2.7% are deemed to be worthy of entering
the Statementing system and by most benchmarks considered to be a disabled
pupil.
I wasn’t statemented myself but I did go through a weighing up process, after whic
h I headed into that 54%.
What strikes me about these statistics is that they are basing these things enti
rely on someone else’s labelling - and someone did make this point in the Guardian
newspaper earlier on in the week. Interestingly, the teaching unions didn’t object
to the statistics: they objected to the implication that too many pupils are be
ing
classified SEN, rather than “the reason these figures are too high is because the
system itself is disabling these pupils”. Certainly, the NUT came out forcefully
against the suggestion that its members were not doing a sufficiently inclusive
job.
In other news that caught my eye, and since we began this series talking about t
he use and suitability of language - and in fact I had a conversation on this to
pic in
the build-up to this programme - was that in the past year both the Chief of Sta
ff for the President of the United States and the actress Jennifer Aniston have
both
used the word “Retard” to describe a negative set of circumstances.
Rahm Emmanuel described plans as being “retarded” - a bit like describing a transpor
t network as being ‘crippled’ by strikes I find this label completely illogical sinc
e
networks and plans cannot have human traits - and stigmatising. In my experience
, this use of the word is much more common in the US than the UK and more
frequently the result of a lack of respect rather than a deliberate intent to in
sult people with intellectual disabilities. Although, his outburst came at a cur
ious time when
his colleagues in the Senate are passing a revision to US statute to strike the
word “mental retardation” from law and replace it with the internationally adopted
Intellectual Disability.
And Jennifer Aniston... she told an NBC light entertainment presenter that she “dr
esses up for a living, like a retard” - AGAIN, how dressing up for a living relate
s to
intelligence has been lost to the vagueries of vapid light entertainment discuss
ion but sadly the presenter Regis Philbin did not tell his very large prime time
audience
on or off-air that the actress had said anything wrong.
And the actress herself? Has thus far not apologised.
You’re listening to Technical Difficulties. This is Resonance One oh Four point Fo
ur F-M. We are the Art of Listening and these are the open airwaves.
We’re going to have another musical interlude - like quite a lot of disabled peopl
e, Signmark is against the wall.
<Against the Wall - Signmark>
This is Technical Difficulties, I am Tim Abbott and this is Resonance 104.4fm.
Last of all in this week’s news round-up, the psychiatric profession is working it
s way through the latest revision of the DSM - commonly known as the psychiatris
t’s
bible - which sets the benchmarks of mental illness and wellbeing as well as the
terms used to describe those conditions.
Details of those revisions are online here. Interestingly, one of things they’ve d
one is remove the barrier between Aspergers and other Autistic Spectrum disorder
s.
From what I’ve gathered, this is not universally popular and it seems strange to r
emove a label that people were quite happy to use without consulting the people
who
use that label.
It is from that corner of the disability world that we play you out. This is aut
istic artist Anya Ustashewski with Zippy. For all the Technical Difficulties cre
w, I am Tim
Abbott.
Wear your scars with pride and remember, we all have technical difficulties. Goo
dbye.