gimpled

Dear LGBTIQ+ Community I would like to extend our love, support and solidarity today, the day after a decision where sixty one percent of our nation voted for you to have the same rights as other Australians. I am fifty. The year I was born, 1967, was the last time that the rights of a group of Australians were voted on.  But on that occasion, it was a referendum, not a plebiscite, which is effectively an opinion poll - which government are not obliged to act upon.  The referendum asked whether Aboriginal people should be included in the census and whether the Commonwealth government should make laws for First Nations people.  That included the 'right to marry freely'.  Three states voted against that right, and the Territories were excluded.  But that was fifty years ago, and this is 2017.   I can't help but wonder how it must have felt for those Aboriginal people to know that about 10% of the population did no...

Stop it.   Just stop it.  I’m talking about appropriation, manifested as your weird expressions of solidarity when you encounter someone with faceblindness.    There’s a name for this condition, which I was diagnosed with many years ago.   It’s prosopagnosia (from the Greek prosopon for face and agnosia for ignorance).   In my case, it’s a genetic, congenital condition, although it can also be acquired with damage to the brain.   It’s awful, and it’s getting worse. Last week, I enthusiastically kissed a public servant I met once and hugged a woman I really do not like.   I am routinely cold with friends until I work out who the hell they are and I fiercely detest the moment when I am expected to introduce one person to another person, because you can bet your bottom dollar I have no idea who one of them is.    People’s faces also serve as an important identifying feature in memory, so we faceblind people have diffic...