NYT: "On Dec. 10, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights."
Subsequently the U.N. issued a "convention" which elaborated on the application of said "rights" to People With Disabilities. I hope it's not sixty years before we begin to take steps to demand those rights - above states' rights - for all humans.
As we march and shout in Spain "Derechos Humanos Ya!"
If you wondered what you would have done had you been a German in the 1930s when they took the crips and Gypsies away to test the gas chambers, now you can find out through self-examination. If you're into "I'm not a Gypsy so I don't care that they are all being murdered" then please stand aside so I can carry my sign and perhaps even bring legal action at an international level.
Love.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
More DUH!
From a spam notice: "Now you can talk and drive without using your hands."
No info on how the Bluetooth drives for you.
I am struck by how late to the dance are legislators, etc. who pretend that they are just finding out that distraction is the danger, not just using one's hands or eyes.
Particularly with aging I notice that just distractive thought is dangerous as are tuning the radio, looking at your passenger, and a host of other activities, but what we are getting are rules against texting and in some cases using the cellphone while at the wheel.
They have in some places forbade putting a TV where the driver might watch, but the GPS has eased this ban on visual distraction, although one could use the navigator in voice-only mode, but it doesn't work all that well.
Just as we made progress with seat belts and drinking/driving we will have to address distraction per se. The SKI Study on elder vision includes: "aging significantly reduces the effective visual field under conditions of divided attention (white circles, red line), and coarse stereopsis (depth perception) is also greatly impaired." and "Older persons self-restrict their driving based on several aspects of their vision, but not on the basis of deficits on attentional fields (measuring divided attention performance — one of the most important correlates of accidents). Testing and education is therefore needed."
And all Department of Motor Vehicle testing agencies still use the primitive visual acuity charts that are actually pretty useless.
Love.
No info on how the Bluetooth drives for you.
I am struck by how late to the dance are legislators, etc. who pretend that they are just finding out that distraction is the danger, not just using one's hands or eyes.
Particularly with aging I notice that just distractive thought is dangerous as are tuning the radio, looking at your passenger, and a host of other activities, but what we are getting are rules against texting and in some cases using the cellphone while at the wheel.
They have in some places forbade putting a TV where the driver might watch, but the GPS has eased this ban on visual distraction, although one could use the navigator in voice-only mode, but it doesn't work all that well.
Just as we made progress with seat belts and drinking/driving we will have to address distraction per se. The SKI Study on elder vision includes: "aging significantly reduces the effective visual field under conditions of divided attention (white circles, red line), and coarse stereopsis (depth perception) is also greatly impaired." and "Older persons self-restrict their driving based on several aspects of their vision, but not on the basis of deficits on attentional fields (measuring divided attention performance — one of the most important correlates of accidents). Testing and education is therefore needed."
And all Department of Motor Vehicle testing agencies still use the primitive visual acuity charts that are actually pretty useless.
Love.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
My Favorite App
For many years I've used a program called TuneIt! to tune musical instruments I build. It is also a lot of fun to use for ear training, voice control, etc. If you try it you will learn a lot about intonation with voice/whistling/instrument.
He will guide you to a free download for thirty days' trial. Even if you're not a musician it's nice to see the harmonic analysis of your voice, etc. parade across the screen.
Love.
He will guide you to a free download for thirty days' trial. Even if you're not a musician it's nice to see the harmonic analysis of your voice, etc. parade across the screen.
Love.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Protesteth 2 Much?
On this day (NYT): "On Nov. 15, 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War."
While we protested the troops continued killing and dying for three more years.
In the current spate of U.S.-sanctioned murder-for-hire the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially no human rights' enhancement excuse.
And after a while the futility of protest saps such activity, possibly because the invaders' losses are "only" a few thousand, although the "collateral damage" in Middle Easterners' lives is orders of magnitude higher.
Now the airplanes torching the area are unmanned, flown by computer gamers near Las Vegas and the ground level massacre is usually muted with most attention to the loss of U.S. troops to truck and suicide bombs.
The Freedom Fighters cum Insurgents have no "in memoriam" tributes on our TVs but the Americans (mostly quite young) are paid off with a few seconds of mourning by sad-voiced anchors.
Even electing a candidate promising to bring the troops home couldn't stop the warlords from continuing to bristle patriotically and continue to protect people in Wichita from potential terrorist attacks. Please tell the mothers of the kids struck by fragments of cluster bombs that in war "shit happens" and it's all for the best.
Love.
While we protested the troops continued killing and dying for three more years.
In the current spate of U.S.-sanctioned murder-for-hire the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially no human rights' enhancement excuse.
And after a while the futility of protest saps such activity, possibly because the invaders' losses are "only" a few thousand, although the "collateral damage" in Middle Easterners' lives is orders of magnitude higher.
Now the airplanes torching the area are unmanned, flown by computer gamers near Las Vegas and the ground level massacre is usually muted with most attention to the loss of U.S. troops to truck and suicide bombs.
The Freedom Fighters cum Insurgents have no "in memoriam" tributes on our TVs but the Americans (mostly quite young) are paid off with a few seconds of mourning by sad-voiced anchors.
Even electing a candidate promising to bring the troops home couldn't stop the warlords from continuing to bristle patriotically and continue to protect people in Wichita from potential terrorist attacks. Please tell the mothers of the kids struck by fragments of cluster bombs that in war "shit happens" and it's all for the best.
Love.
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