This is an article written by David Seagrave about Contributionism, which has appeared in the publication Asperger United.
Contributionism: a psychic lifebelt?
I was diagnosed with AS at age 62. As early as age 9, in 1950, I saw a yawning disparity between my parents' religion and the world I was growing into. My parents practised Thomas-the-Tank-Engine Christianity - that is, Christian dogma at a reading age of 7. My short story Saint James the Less has the boy of 10 meet the man I was to become in 1984.
In 1953, I was dared to commit pranks with a sexual content and I was expelled. This inflicted inextirpable irrational guilt which was greatly worsened by chronic unemployment. My father made me out to be flawed from head to toe. My very name stank of abject ignominy. I was sent to Red Hill Remedial School which moulded my character.
Following a narrow escape from a railway accident I had a major row with my father who insisted that God had contrived me to miss the doomed 7:43 from Hastings that was preordained to crash at Hither Green to warn the world that He is in charge. I was so sickened by this claptrap that I should repent and attend Church regularly and go to bed at 9pm sharp! So I created a plausible myth about Alan, aka the Socrates of Charford.
Alan may be the pseudonym of a real old Redhillian. He dares to invent a better code of behaviour than Christian morality after he too misses that 7:43 train in 1967. He too was taught to question the wisdom of our elders, so his brainchild, Contributionism, amounts to a moral Highway Code as logical as arithmetic.
Contributionism incorporates de Chardin's idea that humans are cells in God's brain, so it is possible definable as a religion. In also incorporating the Pelagian heresy, that we do not need to pray to God, and the concept of reincarnation in parallel universes, it is arrant heresy to Christians and has landed me in trouble for expounding its tenets.
When I took up climbing lofty mountains, I underwent a metamorphosis which I describe in many of my literary works. I also underwent convulsive paradigm shifts at Red Hill. When I was maimed I had to redefine myself and a decisive moment was the ascent of Cader Idris with false leg. I call this change of life-perspective "growing dragon's wings". All of us can view society from aloft, so we see through the myths, lies and half-truths forced on us by the people in power.
I would earnestly wish to liberate Neil and all the others, who were squashed in the name of God, by taking them on excursions to the wild beauty in Fife, and teaching them my hobbies. As a young man living in London, every Sunday I went on hikes along then-just-closed railways where I would melt into the landscape and unravel my mind.
Following an assault in my home, I am so traumatised that I want to move to a quiet cathedral city environment, perhaps Dorchester, there to set up exactly the supportive community which Alan operates. If I was to set up a supportive community at Prince Charles's eco-town of Poundbury near Dorchester many Aspies could reach me from London and nearby. Then at last I could play Plato to Alan's Socrates and provide a psychic lifebelt to all.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Monday, December 21, 2009
Genetic selection against us
Genetic selection to prevent our existence is now demonstrably happening. See this page by Helen Keeler on fertility services rejecting eggs from women who have had aspie kids.
the-newrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/12/genetic-screening-for-as.html
the-newrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/12/genetic-screening-for-as.html
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Mentoring Aspies and providing them with Moral Armament
We Senior Aspies have a paramount duty to young Aspies who have just set out on Life's journey in a manifestly evil world. When I left school in 1960 I admit that I was still emotionally a schoolboy until my mid twenties. I did NOT fall prey to charlatans as have so many young people today thanks to the lifeskills I learned at Red Hill Remideial School which decisively moulded my character in a quite unexpected way. Today a young person is readily drawn into gambling, binge drnking, indebtedness, drugtaking, and violence. Young Aspies are naive and gullible; so very much at risk from people with thoroughly ulterior motives who see them as soft targets - easily exploited. MORAL ARMAMENT of the kind I had learned at Red Hill Schiool enables young Aspies to see through deceptions and adopt measures to thwart the nefarious goals of people with evil inclinations.
Our duty to young Aspies is to provide them with this MORAL ARMAMENT. Our goals must always be kept in mind; our proteges deserve rewarding careers, happy marriages, the joy of parenthood, friendships and widening horizons that come about by the development of all their latent abilities.
(Important: Do not confuse Moral Armament with MORAL REARMAMENT a religious movement founded by a German that flourished for about 40 years and is now quite moribund).
Despite our Aspergerisms and ingrained autonomous relexes that give rise to distressing behaviours, we can overcome these Aspergerisms by acceptance, understanding and the lifelong exercise of STERN WILLPOWER. So each is destined in his own right way, an exemplary life to display (Q.v. below: "Exemplary Life Movement") We have apparently intractable problems to solve. The young Aspie who sees through the shallowness of modern society may well retreat into his private obsessionalisms and become totally isolated in what amounts to a private fantasy world. This is no less damaging than being corrupted by his peers and so acquiring a criminal record. IF Senior Aspies befriend such vulnerable young people it is OUR DUTY to provide them with a varied menu of life-affirming pursuits and training in vocationally related lifeskills.
We need a better Code of Behaviour than traditional morality.
Traditional Judaeo-Christian morality is very much a packhorse bridge truly collapsed under the traffic of modern wrongdoing. This morality was satisfactory for a quite primitive agricultural society. Its prohibitions are no longer appropriate to our world. Hence it is rightly rejected. But as the French philosopher Durkheim observed a century ago:
"the central problem of every civilisation is the restraint of greed" and
"those most in need of morality are those most likely to reject it"
I owe my late, devoutly Christian father an enormous backhanded compliment following his fatuous fulminations during a row about religion in 1967. This spurred me to construct a Rational Code of Human Conduct thjat made God redundant, that came to be known as Contributionism. As 1967 was the year of the Gay News blasphemy trial I feared that I would be charged with blasphemy if I was found to be the author. So I invented a myth that it was the work of a schoolpal called Alan Wright, and this mythology has given rise to my greatest achievement in life, my trilogy of novels about Alan Wright, a.k.a. The Socrates of Charford (q.v. Appendix)
Functional and Dysfunctional Prohibitions
Orthodox Judaism lives in the past and its practitioners share a corporate obsessional compulsive disorder. It has failed to come to terms with science and the need for society to operate continuously day and night. Never more so than the Sabbatarian restrictions. A reliable source told me about an Orthodox Jew who alighted in a tiny Shropshire town just before dusk on a Friday in December because his religion FORBADE HIM TO USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT after dusk on Fridays and the train was delayed. He is said to have made a thorough nuisance of himself and eventually was taken willy nilly by police car to Shrewsbury! He lacked the intelligence to realise that no harm could come to him by travelling by train after dark on a Friday!
All those dogmatic religious people whom I have ever suffered were those who lacked the intelligence to cope with the world as we find it. That included my late parents, for whom, the correct wine to serve with roast beef was far more important than my schoolwork. I have yet to meet Christians who understand the elementary general science I had mastered even at age 12. All too often I meet Christians who are dangerously incompetent at such matters as using electricity. At Red Hill School, boys were encouraged to find out for themselves so I read science textbooks. Ar age 12 I had understood the principles of flight so well as to design and build a small model aircraft with swept back wings like the then state of the art Hawker Hunter fighter. My father sternly frowned upon my scientific hobbies particularly model railways. It was through model railways that I decisively overcame one major Asperger handicap - clumsiness with hands, and absorbed far more applied maths than I learned in school. Today however Christians in the Blair government are bent on prohibiting all those life affirming pursuits which form good character in young people.
YET self-destructive behaviours are tacitly condoned indeed encouraged (e.g. by the extension of licensing hours).
I have coined the word GRICEHOOD from the German GREIS, stupid old man, to denote a state of self-inflicted stupefaction. Our society is GRICEBOUND, incapable of rising out of this stupefaction. Advertisers GRICE (maliciously stupefy) the public.
What grices, diminishes people, and is evil. A rational code of behaviour would prohibit anything that diminishes anybody in any way. So to a total ban on smoking, gambling, and the consumption of substances which impair mental or physical functioning. It would however encourage every possible kind of life-affirming, mentally expanding activity. The outcome would be a society of polymaths such as I describe in my novella WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET (q.v.).
Moral watertightness is expected of Mentors.
All in a fellowship of Mentors have to struggle to live exemplary lives and abstain from any behaviours that diminish themselves or anyboidy else. They must therefore be teetotal non smokers who do not gamble, do not get into debt and do not over eat. Yet they can be excused minor peccadilloes which can be the vices of their virtues. It would be inconsistent of a Mentor for example to jump on anybody with bad handwriting if he wrote with an illegible scrawl. But Mentors can be excused such traits as parsimony, untidiness and scatterbrainedness.
Young Aspies at risk of psychotic breakdown if rejected by their peers.
We Senior Aspies must reach into the hurt minds of such people and gently guide them into as wide a range of wholesome challenging intelligence-enhacing pursuits as possible. Othersise as they are rejected by their peers they will be locked into their own private fantasy-worlds and never acquire either the lifeskills or the motivation to hold down jobs, still less find partners and ultimately when their partners die they will be totally incapable of fending for themselves.
Conflict with Religious Fundamentalists.
Aspies from Muslim, Catholic or fundamentalist Christian homes need very special care. There is a likelihood of a head on clash with paretns or siblings and priests because AS is seen as a besetting moral failing to be extirpated by cruel and ineffective "treatment". The client needs to be taken away from the damaging home environment and transplanted into a community where his latent abilities are drawn out (e.g. by taking up challenging outdoor activities). So to redefining himself in terms of his new found prowess and so to a convulsive paradigm shift, a penetrating change of attitudes, values and behaviour. Then (as I portray my characters in my Socrates of Charford scripts) the young person finds a partner and lives happily ever after in the felowsip of insightful people. However (as I have portrayed in a few of my scripts) it is likely that the young person will abruptly and painfully regress to his former self when in the company of culprit kinspeople. Then the young person needs a Mentor and Guide of the calibre of Alan Wright who always scorches the culprit kinspeople with righteous wrath. Aspies from fundamentalist backgrounds desperately need champions of the downtrodden, of the calibre of Alan Wright.
Conflict with "Mammonism"
The young Aspie has to live in a society bent on self-destruction. I am one of many who foresee the imminent breakdown of civilisation. Accordingly I have described a Successor-civilisation in my novella WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET. Here American businessman Lincoln Steen has a severely emotionally disturbed son who will not talk. He flies to "Avalonshire" in south Wales to observe Alan Wright's Contributionist civilisation - a society of polymaths whose only passion is to share the fruits of their self-createdness with their neighbours and Distinguished Foreign Visitors. Alan Wright agrees to treat Steen's son and his son moves to Avalonshire to flourish ever after. The basis of this civilisation is moral deveopment to Alan's own lofty level. This is quite independent of any pre-existent religious teaching but its ethics are congruent with those of Judaism, Nonconformist Christianity and to a certain extent, Buddhism. Masefield's poens SEEKERS and A CREED synerae to form much of Contributionst theology so that the fictitious Welsh city of Romanbridge becomes the "City of God, where Radiant people meet" in SEEKERS, whilst A CREED's Reincarnationist Strict Consequentialism is a more certain moral sheet anchor than any Christian prohibitionisms. So I portray a society where people with distressing peculiarities of every possible kind redefine themselves by their Contributions to the Common Good; and paramountly their practice of the Higher Loves.
"Love" is an utterly devalued word.
I replace it with the Greek words AGAPE, CARITAS and DELPHILY.
AGAPE is the general duty to care for the planet in every possible way.
CARITAS is the universl obligation of every adult to one another - "good Samaritanism".
DELPHILY is the highest of loves; care for someone as a Vessel of God, Willingness to make sacrifices for that person and in the ultimate resort, the duty to take such steps as are necessary to prevent a self-harming loved person from further harm. That may sadly include "sectioning".
Can we Aspies initiate a life-affirmation movement that might yet save Earth from Mankind?
There is NO active influential life-affirmation movement comparable to the Temperance Movement of a century ago. This was backed by the Nonconformist Churches and Scottish Presbyterianism. It provided wholesome pursuits for vulnerable young people and even operated an alcohol-free paddle steamer that took poor Glaswegians to fabulous distant places like Kilcreggan!
I put it to ELAS and PHAD and the Glasgow Autistic Centre.
I am now 64 years old and I have a paramount duty to pass on all my lifeskills, expereince, knowledge, insights and supremely my values to young Aspies before I die, so that they shall develop all their latent faculties and pursue careers, enjoy happy marriages, parenthood, friendships, widening horzons, fulfilment despite what we must all come to terms with. And so become what I term CARYATIDS after the statues in the Erectheum on the Acropolis - people who by their exemplary lives affirm the God Within Themselves and form the moral engine of society. So giving rise to that indefinitely sustainable society I describe in WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET. Accordingly I seek FEEDBACK from this Account and the next stage will be to draw up a programme with my commitment to give all of myself to the service of my fellow Aspies until I drop dead. Thus my life preaches my faith.
I anxiously await that Feedback from Readers of this Account.
David Seagrave, Kirkcaldy 3.1.2006
Our duty to young Aspies is to provide them with this MORAL ARMAMENT. Our goals must always be kept in mind; our proteges deserve rewarding careers, happy marriages, the joy of parenthood, friendships and widening horizons that come about by the development of all their latent abilities.
(Important: Do not confuse Moral Armament with MORAL REARMAMENT a religious movement founded by a German that flourished for about 40 years and is now quite moribund).
Despite our Aspergerisms and ingrained autonomous relexes that give rise to distressing behaviours, we can overcome these Aspergerisms by acceptance, understanding and the lifelong exercise of STERN WILLPOWER. So each is destined in his own right way, an exemplary life to display (Q.v. below: "Exemplary Life Movement") We have apparently intractable problems to solve. The young Aspie who sees through the shallowness of modern society may well retreat into his private obsessionalisms and become totally isolated in what amounts to a private fantasy world. This is no less damaging than being corrupted by his peers and so acquiring a criminal record. IF Senior Aspies befriend such vulnerable young people it is OUR DUTY to provide them with a varied menu of life-affirming pursuits and training in vocationally related lifeskills.
We need a better Code of Behaviour than traditional morality.
Traditional Judaeo-Christian morality is very much a packhorse bridge truly collapsed under the traffic of modern wrongdoing. This morality was satisfactory for a quite primitive agricultural society. Its prohibitions are no longer appropriate to our world. Hence it is rightly rejected. But as the French philosopher Durkheim observed a century ago:
"the central problem of every civilisation is the restraint of greed" and
"those most in need of morality are those most likely to reject it"
I owe my late, devoutly Christian father an enormous backhanded compliment following his fatuous fulminations during a row about religion in 1967. This spurred me to construct a Rational Code of Human Conduct thjat made God redundant, that came to be known as Contributionism. As 1967 was the year of the Gay News blasphemy trial I feared that I would be charged with blasphemy if I was found to be the author. So I invented a myth that it was the work of a schoolpal called Alan Wright, and this mythology has given rise to my greatest achievement in life, my trilogy of novels about Alan Wright, a.k.a. The Socrates of Charford (q.v. Appendix)
Functional and Dysfunctional Prohibitions
Orthodox Judaism lives in the past and its practitioners share a corporate obsessional compulsive disorder. It has failed to come to terms with science and the need for society to operate continuously day and night. Never more so than the Sabbatarian restrictions. A reliable source told me about an Orthodox Jew who alighted in a tiny Shropshire town just before dusk on a Friday in December because his religion FORBADE HIM TO USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT after dusk on Fridays and the train was delayed. He is said to have made a thorough nuisance of himself and eventually was taken willy nilly by police car to Shrewsbury! He lacked the intelligence to realise that no harm could come to him by travelling by train after dark on a Friday!
All those dogmatic religious people whom I have ever suffered were those who lacked the intelligence to cope with the world as we find it. That included my late parents, for whom, the correct wine to serve with roast beef was far more important than my schoolwork. I have yet to meet Christians who understand the elementary general science I had mastered even at age 12. All too often I meet Christians who are dangerously incompetent at such matters as using electricity. At Red Hill School, boys were encouraged to find out for themselves so I read science textbooks. Ar age 12 I had understood the principles of flight so well as to design and build a small model aircraft with swept back wings like the then state of the art Hawker Hunter fighter. My father sternly frowned upon my scientific hobbies particularly model railways. It was through model railways that I decisively overcame one major Asperger handicap - clumsiness with hands, and absorbed far more applied maths than I learned in school. Today however Christians in the Blair government are bent on prohibiting all those life affirming pursuits which form good character in young people.
YET self-destructive behaviours are tacitly condoned indeed encouraged (e.g. by the extension of licensing hours).
I have coined the word GRICEHOOD from the German GREIS, stupid old man, to denote a state of self-inflicted stupefaction. Our society is GRICEBOUND, incapable of rising out of this stupefaction. Advertisers GRICE (maliciously stupefy) the public.
What grices, diminishes people, and is evil. A rational code of behaviour would prohibit anything that diminishes anybody in any way. So to a total ban on smoking, gambling, and the consumption of substances which impair mental or physical functioning. It would however encourage every possible kind of life-affirming, mentally expanding activity. The outcome would be a society of polymaths such as I describe in my novella WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET (q.v.).
Moral watertightness is expected of Mentors.
All in a fellowship of Mentors have to struggle to live exemplary lives and abstain from any behaviours that diminish themselves or anyboidy else. They must therefore be teetotal non smokers who do not gamble, do not get into debt and do not over eat. Yet they can be excused minor peccadilloes which can be the vices of their virtues. It would be inconsistent of a Mentor for example to jump on anybody with bad handwriting if he wrote with an illegible scrawl. But Mentors can be excused such traits as parsimony, untidiness and scatterbrainedness.
Young Aspies at risk of psychotic breakdown if rejected by their peers.
We Senior Aspies must reach into the hurt minds of such people and gently guide them into as wide a range of wholesome challenging intelligence-enhacing pursuits as possible. Othersise as they are rejected by their peers they will be locked into their own private fantasy-worlds and never acquire either the lifeskills or the motivation to hold down jobs, still less find partners and ultimately when their partners die they will be totally incapable of fending for themselves.
Conflict with Religious Fundamentalists.
Aspies from Muslim, Catholic or fundamentalist Christian homes need very special care. There is a likelihood of a head on clash with paretns or siblings and priests because AS is seen as a besetting moral failing to be extirpated by cruel and ineffective "treatment". The client needs to be taken away from the damaging home environment and transplanted into a community where his latent abilities are drawn out (e.g. by taking up challenging outdoor activities). So to redefining himself in terms of his new found prowess and so to a convulsive paradigm shift, a penetrating change of attitudes, values and behaviour. Then (as I portray my characters in my Socrates of Charford scripts) the young person finds a partner and lives happily ever after in the felowsip of insightful people. However (as I have portrayed in a few of my scripts) it is likely that the young person will abruptly and painfully regress to his former self when in the company of culprit kinspeople. Then the young person needs a Mentor and Guide of the calibre of Alan Wright who always scorches the culprit kinspeople with righteous wrath. Aspies from fundamentalist backgrounds desperately need champions of the downtrodden, of the calibre of Alan Wright.
Conflict with "Mammonism"
The young Aspie has to live in a society bent on self-destruction. I am one of many who foresee the imminent breakdown of civilisation. Accordingly I have described a Successor-civilisation in my novella WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET. Here American businessman Lincoln Steen has a severely emotionally disturbed son who will not talk. He flies to "Avalonshire" in south Wales to observe Alan Wright's Contributionist civilisation - a society of polymaths whose only passion is to share the fruits of their self-createdness with their neighbours and Distinguished Foreign Visitors. Alan Wright agrees to treat Steen's son and his son moves to Avalonshire to flourish ever after. The basis of this civilisation is moral deveopment to Alan's own lofty level. This is quite independent of any pre-existent religious teaching but its ethics are congruent with those of Judaism, Nonconformist Christianity and to a certain extent, Buddhism. Masefield's poens SEEKERS and A CREED synerae to form much of Contributionst theology so that the fictitious Welsh city of Romanbridge becomes the "City of God, where Radiant people meet" in SEEKERS, whilst A CREED's Reincarnationist Strict Consequentialism is a more certain moral sheet anchor than any Christian prohibitionisms. So I portray a society where people with distressing peculiarities of every possible kind redefine themselves by their Contributions to the Common Good; and paramountly their practice of the Higher Loves.
"Love" is an utterly devalued word.
I replace it with the Greek words AGAPE, CARITAS and DELPHILY.
AGAPE is the general duty to care for the planet in every possible way.
CARITAS is the universl obligation of every adult to one another - "good Samaritanism".
DELPHILY is the highest of loves; care for someone as a Vessel of God, Willingness to make sacrifices for that person and in the ultimate resort, the duty to take such steps as are necessary to prevent a self-harming loved person from further harm. That may sadly include "sectioning".
Can we Aspies initiate a life-affirmation movement that might yet save Earth from Mankind?
There is NO active influential life-affirmation movement comparable to the Temperance Movement of a century ago. This was backed by the Nonconformist Churches and Scottish Presbyterianism. It provided wholesome pursuits for vulnerable young people and even operated an alcohol-free paddle steamer that took poor Glaswegians to fabulous distant places like Kilcreggan!
I put it to ELAS and PHAD and the Glasgow Autistic Centre.
I am now 64 years old and I have a paramount duty to pass on all my lifeskills, expereince, knowledge, insights and supremely my values to young Aspies before I die, so that they shall develop all their latent faculties and pursue careers, enjoy happy marriages, parenthood, friendships, widening horzons, fulfilment despite what we must all come to terms with. And so become what I term CARYATIDS after the statues in the Erectheum on the Acropolis - people who by their exemplary lives affirm the God Within Themselves and form the moral engine of society. So giving rise to that indefinitely sustainable society I describe in WHERE RADIANT PEOPLE MEET. Accordingly I seek FEEDBACK from this Account and the next stage will be to draw up a programme with my commitment to give all of myself to the service of my fellow Aspies until I drop dead. Thus my life preaches my faith.
I anxiously await that Feedback from Readers of this Account.
David Seagrave, Kirkcaldy 3.1.2006
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
ELAS Weekend Away 2009 - Berwick-upon-Tweed
The Berwick Trip
This year, the local Edinburgh-based AS group, ELAS, located their long weekend break in Berwick with the plan of hanging out together and exploring the attractions of the town and neighbouring Northumberland area.
The trip was organised by members of ELAS and consisted of seven AS people and a NT support worker. The ensemble took over a charming guesthouse, very close to the historic town hall, which had an elaborate layout of rooms and included external metal spiral staircases and balconies.
On Friday, we walked round the impressive Elizabethan Walls and visited the Gymnasium Gallery to see a film installation of abandoned Soviet gymnasia from the Brezhnev era.
On Saturday, we spent the morning in the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. We looked at the ruins of the Benedictine Chapel and walked around the striking Lindisfarne Castle. In the afternoon, we went to Bamburgh, a town dominated by a mighty castle, though only one of us actually visited it, the others went into town or set off on a trek along the lovely beach and dunes to Seahouses – a fish, chips and mushy peas paradise.
On Sunday, we went to Alnwick. We all went to the gardens except one who visited the large castle. With the sun shining, the gardens were beautiful. There were lots of things to see including the great water cascade, the tree house, the poisoned garden and the serpent garden full of intriguing water sculptures.
On Monday, some of us left early while others walked around the town walls down by the quay and scrutinised the ruins of the castle, viewed incongruously from the platform of Berwick Train Station. The last party caught the 3:55pm bus back to Edinburgh.
We mostly ate out. My favourite haunts were the Castlegate Café, Sinners, the Castle and the Maltings Theatre and Arts Centre in Berwick, the Bamburgh Castle Inn in Seahouses and the incredible tree house in Alnwick.
This year, the local Edinburgh-based AS group, ELAS, located their long weekend break in Berwick with the plan of hanging out together and exploring the attractions of the town and neighbouring Northumberland area.
The trip was organised by members of ELAS and consisted of seven AS people and a NT support worker. The ensemble took over a charming guesthouse, very close to the historic town hall, which had an elaborate layout of rooms and included external metal spiral staircases and balconies.
On Friday, we walked round the impressive Elizabethan Walls and visited the Gymnasium Gallery to see a film installation of abandoned Soviet gymnasia from the Brezhnev era.
On Saturday, we spent the morning in the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. We looked at the ruins of the Benedictine Chapel and walked around the striking Lindisfarne Castle. In the afternoon, we went to Bamburgh, a town dominated by a mighty castle, though only one of us actually visited it, the others went into town or set off on a trek along the lovely beach and dunes to Seahouses – a fish, chips and mushy peas paradise.
On Sunday, we went to Alnwick. We all went to the gardens except one who visited the large castle. With the sun shining, the gardens were beautiful. There were lots of things to see including the great water cascade, the tree house, the poisoned garden and the serpent garden full of intriguing water sculptures.
On Monday, some of us left early while others walked around the town walls down by the quay and scrutinised the ruins of the castle, viewed incongruously from the platform of Berwick Train Station. The last party caught the 3:55pm bus back to Edinburgh.
We mostly ate out. My favourite haunts were the Castlegate Café, Sinners, the Castle and the Maltings Theatre and Arts Centre in Berwick, the Bamburgh Castle Inn in Seahouses and the incredible tree house in Alnwick.
Power to all our friends
When he became Prime Minister, Gordon Brown promised to reform our democracy. He said he'd listen. He said he'd learn. But he didn't act.
Over 2 years have passed since then and a few moments ago the PM finally promised a referendum on electoral reform - but not until after the next election. This is not enough.
Our democracy needs change. I know that you've already submitted your ideas to the POWER2010 campaign - you've already played an important role. But I need your help to spread the word. You can invite your friends to take part here:
http://power2010.org.uk/invite
Maurice - our movement just became all the more important. Today the Prime Minister had the opportunity to commit to real change, but he failed to do so. Delivering change now rests on each of our shoulders rather than his.
Together we can change our politics. But we need your help. Please invite your friends to tell us their ideas for change - it should only take you a minute or two.
http://power2010.org.uk/invite
The challenge has been thrown down - it's up to each of us to meet it.
Best wishes,
Pam Giddy
Director, POWER2010.
I justify this as relevant for this blog, because this is simply about ordinary folks' opportunities to participate in democracy, and if you like you can think of any particularly aspie ways it needs making easier to participate. Like maybe? Stronger ways of forcing committal answers out of them when you write to them, and avoid the need to struggle to to go to their "surgeries" and speak to them?
The idea I have submitted, is an automatic right that any person's knowledge about any ill-treatment that goes on as a result of regularly applied practices, that is not already wide public knowledge, to be published on a wide circulation scale. The stength of this idea is, it can be demanded not just proposed, because the state is seen to commit illegal vulnerable adult abuse if it refuses to actually implement this idea! Many of the unrealised wrongs that could then be publicised are aspie specific.
Maurice Frank
Over 2 years have passed since then and a few moments ago the PM finally promised a referendum on electoral reform - but not until after the next election. This is not enough.
Our democracy needs change. I know that you've already submitted your ideas to the POWER2010 campaign - you've already played an important role. But I need your help to spread the word. You can invite your friends to take part here:
http://power2010.org.uk/invite
Maurice - our movement just became all the more important. Today the Prime Minister had the opportunity to commit to real change, but he failed to do so. Delivering change now rests on each of our shoulders rather than his.
Together we can change our politics. But we need your help. Please invite your friends to tell us their ideas for change - it should only take you a minute or two.
http://power2010.org.uk/invite
The challenge has been thrown down - it's up to each of us to meet it.
Best wishes,
Pam Giddy
Director, POWER2010.
I justify this as relevant for this blog, because this is simply about ordinary folks' opportunities to participate in democracy, and if you like you can think of any particularly aspie ways it needs making easier to participate. Like maybe? Stronger ways of forcing committal answers out of them when you write to them, and avoid the need to struggle to to go to their "surgeries" and speak to them?
The idea I have submitted, is an automatic right that any person's knowledge about any ill-treatment that goes on as a result of regularly applied practices, that is not already wide public knowledge, to be published on a wide circulation scale. The stength of this idea is, it can be demanded not just proposed, because the state is seen to commit illegal vulnerable adult abuse if it refuses to actually implement this idea! Many of the unrealised wrongs that could then be publicised are aspie specific.
Maurice Frank
Saturday, September 26, 2009
America and the Royal Bank of Scotland
3 aspies in the Scottish scene, to my knowledge alone, have made recent or present visits to the United States. Others are more daunted by the fraught and risky pospect of that country's arbitrary and chancy entry barriers, which are on edge against any imperfection in foreign visitors, disabilities included, though this is never discussed in our media. It would very obviously be an injustice in the scene, if supportive chats and swapping of experiences should just accept easier US access for some than others. That the ups and downs of social experiences located in the US, for some, should be shared and receive support while not all are confident they would have access to that country at all. As a point of disability discrimination, such arbitrary difference between the accessibility of the same experience to folks with the same condition shouldn't be possible.
Now, more than just another protest that the big autism organisations will ignore as they always do with all ordinary aspies' issues. There is something timely to do about this one. While others have been having adventures in the US, I have had one concerning the US. Consider this. Read 3 paragraphs about a banking problem here at home, then see how it impacts on US travel. I have been writing the following to all the constitutional reform campaigns and others like Jubilee Debt.
**
The Royal Bank of Scotland, among the biggest players in the banking crash, has rejected doing a clear ethical duty for its customers against a blatant violation of a basic democratic principle: innocent until proved guilty. RBS is supposed to be getting cleaned up and showing us all so to rebuild confidence. Instead, there is now a reform to be forced in the West's basic standards towards its citizens by exposing that our second biggest bank is still offending.
There is now a security system around bank cards, that has never been publicly announced, in which your card can be blocked without warning while they check up on any activity that fits a profiling system's view of being suspicious. If you find your card blocked when you use it in a shop, you have to answer confusing security questions to RBS over the phone, which will take time, so unwarned you may suddenly face a choice between losing your card or missing transport and not reaching your next destination - on time or at all. It happened to me after I used my card to pay 50p for a coach seat reservation, because that is an unusually small transaction and card fraudsters often test systems with "dummy transactions" of this size. Okay if they explain this to folks, but I made a complaint about all the life situations I could think of where unfair effects can be caused if this can happen without warning and you don't know how to prevent it.
Anything at all that counts as "unusual", even just for you personally, can trigger a security block, so if you can think of anything unusual you intend to do with your card you are now advised to inform the bank first. This you only learn after having your first experience of a problem. Foreign travel is always one of the "unusual" items that you should notify.
Now - pair this with how this security includes profiling that makes assumptions about the customer, which means, about their character, and RBS itself says it does not know all the details of how the system it is using makes its assumptions! Apply this to travel to the United States. The Western superpower's immigration control system is in massive violation of the basic human rights standards the West says it stands for. It asks foreign visitors, as one question, "Have you ever been arrested or convicted" for any crime. It requires innocent people who have been arrested to declare the details just like a criminal record, it does not treat them as spotlessly innocent, burt as carrying a likelihood to be guilty that the US will pass its own opinion on regardless of the person not being found guilty in court. They may never even have gone to court.
The US has not signed up to the International Convention on Civil + Political Rights, but on any reckoning of international law and the standards that coutnries with uncorrupted law must show to each other's citizens, the US's entry control system is illegal. My complaint about the bank card problem gave RBS, which does business in the US too, an opportunity to lay claim to have the US's system abolished! because it is causing card security here in Britain to be undermined by an illegal human rights violation affecting customers here. This follows because if an RBS customer plans a visit to the US, known to the bank, then is refused entry on grounds of character tarring by an arrest, and by any other event the card security system discovers that the customer is not in the US when they should be, it can make assumptions about what has happened and about the customer's character. This is clearly a violation of the customer, on the human rights count of judicial propriety and on data protection. So RBS commits such a violation, upon its cardholders here in Britain, by leaving it possible for this to happen, by refusing to take the formal legal position I described towards the United States and all its business there. By taking this position, RBS could have forced the US to stop operating this outrageous system that most of the Western public are quite unaware of unless they have travelled there.
Now - by speaking out about RBS's failiure, you can force an end to this system. The ethical impact on the working of banks still stands despite RBS's silence on it. Others, reform campaigns, can publicise the fact instead. This is an actual case, an actual bank customer complaint, around actual practices in bank card security. To speak out what RBS should have done is to cite the same illegal violation by the US upon folks here, to make it known to be that - and so to actually force its abolition. All cooperation of law and police and business between the US and here will now collapse into illegality unless the US's use of a question about arrests is terminated forthwith, abolished not even as a policy shift but specifically as illegal. A major democratic reform, that affects folks' lives and character records here. You [meaning any reform campaign group I write this to] can force it to happen, just by exposing this bank issue. So please do!!
So will they?
Maurice Frank
Now, more than just another protest that the big autism organisations will ignore as they always do with all ordinary aspies' issues. There is something timely to do about this one. While others have been having adventures in the US, I have had one concerning the US. Consider this. Read 3 paragraphs about a banking problem here at home, then see how it impacts on US travel. I have been writing the following to all the constitutional reform campaigns and others like Jubilee Debt.
**
The Royal Bank of Scotland, among the biggest players in the banking crash, has rejected doing a clear ethical duty for its customers against a blatant violation of a basic democratic principle: innocent until proved guilty. RBS is supposed to be getting cleaned up and showing us all so to rebuild confidence. Instead, there is now a reform to be forced in the West's basic standards towards its citizens by exposing that our second biggest bank is still offending.
There is now a security system around bank cards, that has never been publicly announced, in which your card can be blocked without warning while they check up on any activity that fits a profiling system's view of being suspicious. If you find your card blocked when you use it in a shop, you have to answer confusing security questions to RBS over the phone, which will take time, so unwarned you may suddenly face a choice between losing your card or missing transport and not reaching your next destination - on time or at all. It happened to me after I used my card to pay 50p for a coach seat reservation, because that is an unusually small transaction and card fraudsters often test systems with "dummy transactions" of this size. Okay if they explain this to folks, but I made a complaint about all the life situations I could think of where unfair effects can be caused if this can happen without warning and you don't know how to prevent it.
Anything at all that counts as "unusual", even just for you personally, can trigger a security block, so if you can think of anything unusual you intend to do with your card you are now advised to inform the bank first. This you only learn after having your first experience of a problem. Foreign travel is always one of the "unusual" items that you should notify.
Now - pair this with how this security includes profiling that makes assumptions about the customer, which means, about their character, and RBS itself says it does not know all the details of how the system it is using makes its assumptions! Apply this to travel to the United States. The Western superpower's immigration control system is in massive violation of the basic human rights standards the West says it stands for. It asks foreign visitors, as one question, "Have you ever been arrested or convicted" for any crime. It requires innocent people who have been arrested to declare the details just like a criminal record, it does not treat them as spotlessly innocent, burt as carrying a likelihood to be guilty that the US will pass its own opinion on regardless of the person not being found guilty in court. They may never even have gone to court.
The US has not signed up to the International Convention on Civil + Political Rights, but on any reckoning of international law and the standards that coutnries with uncorrupted law must show to each other's citizens, the US's entry control system is illegal. My complaint about the bank card problem gave RBS, which does business in the US too, an opportunity to lay claim to have the US's system abolished! because it is causing card security here in Britain to be undermined by an illegal human rights violation affecting customers here. This follows because if an RBS customer plans a visit to the US, known to the bank, then is refused entry on grounds of character tarring by an arrest, and by any other event the card security system discovers that the customer is not in the US when they should be, it can make assumptions about what has happened and about the customer's character. This is clearly a violation of the customer, on the human rights count of judicial propriety and on data protection. So RBS commits such a violation, upon its cardholders here in Britain, by leaving it possible for this to happen, by refusing to take the formal legal position I described towards the United States and all its business there. By taking this position, RBS could have forced the US to stop operating this outrageous system that most of the Western public are quite unaware of unless they have travelled there.
Now - by speaking out about RBS's failiure, you can force an end to this system. The ethical impact on the working of banks still stands despite RBS's silence on it. Others, reform campaigns, can publicise the fact instead. This is an actual case, an actual bank customer complaint, around actual practices in bank card security. To speak out what RBS should have done is to cite the same illegal violation by the US upon folks here, to make it known to be that - and so to actually force its abolition. All cooperation of law and police and business between the US and here will now collapse into illegality unless the US's use of a question about arrests is terminated forthwith, abolished not even as a policy shift but specifically as illegal. A major democratic reform, that affects folks' lives and character records here. You [meaning any reform campaign group I write this to] can force it to happen, just by exposing this bank issue. So please do!!
So will they?
Maurice Frank
Thursday, September 10, 2009
further to the library
Sep 10: Further to my item in April, it's still current and I want folks to dig it out and remain aware of it coz this is important !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- on the library internet system being changed for a worse system, with a built-in time cut-off that can make you lose your work if you hit any technical problems over the net running slow when you are trying to save. Which is provenly bad for us if we are trying to use the web to communicate to organise to meet up with researchers and the like.
The change is going badly. At Newington library, computer users are being told that the one they have converted to the "Netloan" system that it's not working very well, and advise against choosing to use it.
Same as nobody uses it in the downstairs room at Central, where the first conversion to it was made. This is because the new system is a bad system, so bad it's not worth introducing - and the libraries trying it out are now finding that in practice.
Oct 28: The system's piecemeal further extension is a total shambles, and the system's own faults are visibly why, to every annoyed library user who is struggling with it. Timers are going wrong, starting their count with 2 minutes already missing that have not passed, just like in Fife. Sometimes computers are taking 6 minutes to log in, and the solution to slowness, available under the old system, of telling the previous user not to log out, is no longer available in this system. The system for staff to set bookings is working too slowly, so that you are frantic if they are racing against the timer to set an extended booking. Mostly the staff don't know how to work the extension system, either. There are blocks in the system that are meant to force a minimum time gap between users' sessions, the staff are struggling to override these in order to do extensions. These blocks shut you out of the system half the tmem and refute the chicken-and-egg idea that you are supposed to log in to the system just to book when you are going to log in!! I mean, what the ... At central reference where it used to be you could see exactly how long the queue was, you no longer have any idea when you will get a vacancy. Unless you stare over all the users' shoulders to see their timers, which is unlikely to be allowed or popular, so you have to bother the staff more than before and with a question it takes them a long time to answer, so the new system is not saving them work at all, and the answer is supposed to be that you have made prebookings that are difficult or impossible to get a chance to make for much of the time. Staff in every library where I have observed, which is many, are frustrated and stuck and apologetic the whole time.
Everyone can see none of this should be happening. Everyone can see only the old system worked. Everyone can see this is a disability injustice that was totally preventable.
Maurice Frank
- on the library internet system being changed for a worse system, with a built-in time cut-off that can make you lose your work if you hit any technical problems over the net running slow when you are trying to save. Which is provenly bad for us if we are trying to use the web to communicate to organise to meet up with researchers and the like.
The change is going badly. At Newington library, computer users are being told that the one they have converted to the "Netloan" system that it's not working very well, and advise against choosing to use it.
Same as nobody uses it in the downstairs room at Central, where the first conversion to it was made. This is because the new system is a bad system, so bad it's not worth introducing - and the libraries trying it out are now finding that in practice.
Oct 28: The system's piecemeal further extension is a total shambles, and the system's own faults are visibly why, to every annoyed library user who is struggling with it. Timers are going wrong, starting their count with 2 minutes already missing that have not passed, just like in Fife. Sometimes computers are taking 6 minutes to log in, and the solution to slowness, available under the old system, of telling the previous user not to log out, is no longer available in this system. The system for staff to set bookings is working too slowly, so that you are frantic if they are racing against the timer to set an extended booking. Mostly the staff don't know how to work the extension system, either. There are blocks in the system that are meant to force a minimum time gap between users' sessions, the staff are struggling to override these in order to do extensions. These blocks shut you out of the system half the tmem and refute the chicken-and-egg idea that you are supposed to log in to the system just to book when you are going to log in!! I mean, what the ... At central reference where it used to be you could see exactly how long the queue was, you no longer have any idea when you will get a vacancy. Unless you stare over all the users' shoulders to see their timers, which is unlikely to be allowed or popular, so you have to bother the staff more than before and with a question it takes them a long time to answer, so the new system is not saving them work at all, and the answer is supposed to be that you have made prebookings that are difficult or impossible to get a chance to make for much of the time. Staff in every library where I have observed, which is many, are frustrated and stuck and apologetic the whole time.
Everyone can see none of this should be happening. Everyone can see only the old system worked. Everyone can see this is a disability injustice that was totally preventable.
Maurice Frank
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