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What We Value
I think it’s about time I revisited the concept of ‘disability’, both in its description and in society at large. It seems to me that the word itself is too value-laden to accept at face value. We are all disabled in one way or another and yet we may not see ourselves like that. And why…
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The Kingdom of the Blind
Sometimes, after waking up from a troubled sleep, it occurs to me that I live in a world to which I have become so accustomed that I wander down its streets like a horse with blinders. I see those things at which I am pointed and accept what I am told about the rest…
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Gender and Stress
Even the most ardent proponents of gender parity will admit that equality of opportunity does not imply equality of physiology. ‘The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal,’ as Aristotle said. Homogeneous –likeness, if you will- is not necessarily homogenous (a biological term meaning structurally similar due to common ancestry).…
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A Flicker of Hope
It’s interesting what catches our attention when we surf the apps on our smartphones nowadays. Some of the more provocative articles have dubious sources, of course, but with a little digging the original study can often be found and the claims checked. The problem, however, is that even these results need to be reproducible in…
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Happily Ever After?
I suppose we all revisit our childhoods from time to time –those memories have a special hold on us. But they are stories thick with varnish, and when analyzed too closely, soon fall apart in our hands like dreams. And yet, handled gently, stories are what we are –they are our names- and that we…
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For my Pains, a World of Sighs
What does pain look like? An intriguing question to be sure, but one I hadn’t even thought to ask until recently. Pain is one of those things that, like St. Augustine’s quandary over Time, presents a similar difficulty in defining. The International Association for the Study of Pain made a stab at it: ‘Pain is…
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Baa Baa Black Sheep…
Okay, I’ll admit I’m intrigued by investigations that attempt to prove things the rest of us simply take for granted. Things that seem so obvious, that I wonder why they ever extracted them from the background for analysis. When you live in a forest, why would you single out a tree? Do babies do better…