Human RightsCategory Archives

People with Disabilities and RVs

There are plenty of people who love the freedom of the open road that they are drawn to like a moth to a flame and owning an RV is one of the best ways of expressing that desire to drive to wherever your heart takes you and set down wherever you want to. You can do this without having to worry about motels or generally finding a place to sleep for the night.

But what about people with disabilities who might have those same yearnings to throw off the shackles of the limited choice of motel chains that cater specially for handicapped visitors? Are there RVs adapted for handicapped use? You bet!

There are several manufacturers that also make customizable accessories that convert a regular RV into a wheelchair accessible RV and even some that manufacture them to order. They encompass the many needs of the individual, which of course will vary from person to person but generally will adapt a vehicle so that they can be driven and used by a person with disabilities, of course as long as those disabilities are not so severe that would really make it dangerous to undertake, every bit as much as anyone else.

The driver section can be customized with driver controls to enable those with limited or no use of their feet or legs to drive. This is achieved using controls mounted on or near the steering wheel in much the same way as the smaller disabled automobiles are designed.

As for the mobile home section of the RV is concerned, there are customizable extras as well as wider aisles to accommodate wheelchairs, specially adapted showers and bathtubs with handrails and non-slip surfaces. There are kitchen accessories that make them easy to use with special faucets and levers that turn on and shut off at the lightest touch.

Special ramps and powered wheelchair lifts aid the user’s boarding and disembarking from the vehicle. For internal convenience in reaching those items from wheelchair level, things like lighting and plugs can be re-sited for easier access.

Above all, being able to hit the road in your own RV even if you are a wheelchair user or have some form of physical disability that might otherwise exclude you from this pursuit is a real pleasure. You can join the happy throngs of RV’ers who enjoy their freedom anytime and make the open road your home wherever you feel like setting down. To find out more, please visit: HandicappedRV.com for a full, detailed explanation of the whole process and more besides.

May 8, 2013
Human Rights

The Harlem Dance Protest

We have seen through the Arab spring how the internet is playing a big part in organising and coordinating protests across the middle East.  But now we seem to be seeing something new spreading again from Tunisia and Egypt, where young people are rising against the strict religious conservatism which is threatening their new found freedoms.

The phenomenon is based on an internet dance craze that if you’ve surfed the web in the last year you’ve almost certainly come across. It’s called the Harlem Shake and involves two scenes – first a single person dances to the Harlem shake song whilst people carry on around regardless, then all hell breaks loose and everyone joins the dance in various crazy ways.

It’s just some fun and has been mimicked by all sorts of group from offices, emergency services and colleges across the world.  However it is considered immoral and provoacative by many conservative religious groups in many middle eastern countries.  One group in Tunisia the Salafi’s who are attempting to gain a foothold in the country are calling those participating in this dance as unbelievers.  Of course in Religious loony land – unbelief equals apostacy which usually ends up meaning the death penalty.

However the young protesters don’t seem to care and more and more of  these videos are being uploaded, recently spreading across to Egypt and Palestine. Many are being cordinated by tech savvy students who use technology and proxies based in different countries like this one – http://www.proxyusa.com/usvpn. This video is actually outside the Egyptian leaders office – President Morsi.

There are hundreds of people protesting via the dance, deliberately taregting the offices of teh Muslim Brotherhood.  It was also a direct reponse to the arrest of four students the previous week who had danced to the song in another protest.  Their crime was doing it in their underwear and thus violating the country’s decency laws.  Thta’s got to be bad news for sequinned belly dancers who are so popular in Cairo !

The protests are fantastic, check them out lots more on YouTube. 

 

March 29, 2013
Human Rights

The Right to Enjoy Good Health

When we think about fitness and health, we often think of a combined effort through exercise and good diet to bring about the kind of results that we want to see in ourselves. But what if we take each concept individually and look at them. In the last post we looked at the concept of exercise for health and fitness, so in this post, we will look at the importance of diet for promoting health and fitness.

When it comes to dieting for health, fitness and also weight loss, there are certain things that need to be borne in mind if success is to be achieved. The most important factor is in ensuring that the diet is well balanced, as natural as possible and contains all the nutrients necessary for the body to maintain a healthy aspect. There are several ways of going about this but one of the best ways is to make use of the services of a qualified nutritionist who will be able to ascertain your own personal requirements and match them to your body shape and size while formulating a personal diet plan that is best suited to you as an individual.

Getting a good balance of all the essential nutrients and food groups is essential for good health. These are proteins, carbohydrates, fats and dietary fiber. carbohydrates can be subdivided into low and high glycemic index versions, with the low GI version most beneficial as the sugars are released more slowly and don’t produce the glucose “hit” which floods your blood with high sugar levels fast as does the high GI carbs.

Fats can also be subdivided into saturated and unsaturated fats, with the unsaturated ones being further subdivided into polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. There are the omega fatty acids that are essential to health and olive oil provides the best source of monounsaturated fats.

Another option which is favored by people who lead busy lives is to pay for a propriety diet plan that is delivered to their home and is ready to go in a convenient package. This type of diet is generally an acceptable alternative when no other option is viable. There are several major diet companies that provide this type of diet. More information and details about Nutrisystem can be found at this site: http://nstuf.com, which specializes in information from Nutrisystem, one of the most popular and best known of the diet food delivery companies.

Whichever way you go about dieting for health and fitness, you should still make a point of combining it with an exercise plan. This is in order that you gain the maximum benefit from the food you are eating and the diet’s own nutritional benefits to enjoy the right to good health for all of your life.

March 5, 2013
Human Rights

Is Internet Access a Basic Human Right?

It was only last year that the UN finally agreed that access to the Internet is a human right.  Furthermore deliberately disconnecting people from accessing the network is a violation against those rights and also against international law.  Now of course many might think that the right to browse facebook or flick through an online newspaper a little far from a basic human right, certainly for the huge number of people who have never accessed it at all.  However the ruling really is focused on ensuring that the basic human right of freedom of expression exists everywhere irrespective of the medium used.

The idea that the rights in the digital world should be protected to the same extent as the physical world is an important step in the development of the internet.  Many countries are beginning to recognise the potential the internet has for global development too.  It is important that all citizens of the world have access if at all possible.

There is a growing concern at how access to the internet is being increasingly filtered and censored.  Even in UN member states like Cuba and China extensive filtering and selective blocking takes place.  The Great Firewall of China blocks many thousands of sites and delivers heavily filtered pages on many subjects.  Of course it is possible to circumvent using proxies and VPNs like this site demonstrates - http://thenewproxies.com/, but again this creates a privileged class of people who have either the technical knowledge or resources to pay for such services.

The internet might be taken for granted in many countries, but in places like China,Iran and Syria to name just a few – that right is being controlled and eroded firther every single day.

 
December 11, 2012
Human Rights

The Right to Life

There is a basic right that every human being is entitled to and that is the right to live and grow. In the western world, this is recognized and accepted. Most people in countries where human rights, law and order prevail are seeing this and for many, life can be as good as any person is willing to allow themselves to achieve in our increasingly upward bound way of life.

But even within these forward thinking and prospering nations, there are many who are being left behind in terms of their lifestyle and the knock on effect this has on their health and life expectancy. In many cases, it is the individual, not the system that is at fault for their situation.

You Reap What You Sow

It is said that God helps them that help themselves. And in that sense, modern civilization complies by providing the circumstances for anyone to prosper if they choose to do so. However, that doesn’t mean that prosperity should be handed to everyone on a plate.

Far too many people feel that life owes them a living and they are going to collect that benefit in any way they can as long as they don’t have to work hard for it! Of course, if a person has that attitude, they are hardly likely to ever succeed at anything and as a result may find themselves at the back of the queue when it comes to the payout.

To achieve anything and that includes prosperity, good health, happy relationships and contentment in life, a certain amount of input is required from the person who wants those things. You get out what you put in, or you reap what you sow.

Things that Do Not Grow On Trees

There are many things that we would like to have from life that are there for the taking. We just have to put in the work to get them. The old saying that money doesn’t grow on trees is quite true in every sense. By the same token, good health, happy relationships and achievement of life goals do not grow on trees either. They have to be achieved!

At the root of all things in life worth having is good health. With that, a person has nothing because when in poor health, their life is apt to take on a dreary, gloomy aspect. Poor health means experiencing physical pain, limited mobility and heavy reliance on doctors and medicines.

To enjoy better health, it has to be worked for by taking good care of the physical body that is so important to each and every one of us. Feeding it the right foods, providing it with fresh air and exercise while treating it to lots of calm relaxation and freedom from unnecessary stress all contribute to a healthy aspect. You can read more about enjoying good health by visiting this excellent website: healthandfitnessinfo.com that explores many aspects of maintaining a positive attitude toward a healthy physical body and enjoying life along the way.

December 7, 2012
Human Rights

Promoting a Healthier House

There are so many ways in which a person’s rights are violated on a day to day basis, often without them even knowing about it. One of the most prevalent examples of this is the effects on their health that they have little or no control over. Whether they are travelling across the great outdoors, walking along a city street or just relaxing inside their homes, people are under assault from an environment that should be healthy for them but often is not.

So how do we recognize when our rights to a healthy life are being violated and what can we do about it?

Defining Right from Wrong

First of all, it helps to put a definition on how this actually violates a person’s own rights to be healthy.

Civilized society creates various laws to protect citizens from a variety of violations that can impact their lives. These include protection and recourse against personal injury, violence, robbery, fraud, libel and a whole host of other aspects of civilized life that a governing body of publicly elected people can confer on their charges. Those laws also protect an individual’s health up to a point, but become less effective when certain elements come into play.

Environmental Health

Governments will claim that they have little power to produce and then enforce certain laws over the way in which the environment happens to exist in any given place. For instance, it would be fruitless to attempt to control the weather or the tides, or to place limits on the amount of sunlight is available each day. But it can place controls on the way in which humans interact with that environment in ways that could bring  harm to others.

A major area is agriculture. Crops are routinely sprayed with a cocktail of lethal chemicals several times in every growing season. The existing controls in place over what chemical concoctions can or cannot be used are far too lenient and it is well known that extended exposure to these chemicals can be detrimental to a person’s health. Yet little is done to curb their use, with the excuse being made that we need the food to live and in order to make sure it is produced, we have to use chemicals to promote their production.

Keeping Your House in Order

While the individual can do little to sway the working practices of large industries such as agriculture, they can keep their own house in order. One way to do this is in only buying those foods that are certified organic and thus effectively snubbing the large growers and users of so many unhealthy chemicals.

A healthier house is a happier house and you can read more about it here: www.healthierhouse.com. Just make sure you do what you can. If every consumer did the same, large industries would be forced to change their working practises to obey and appease their customers and their human rights by ultimately falling into line with the way in which they spend the dollars in their pockets.

October 23, 2012
Human Rights

The Right to Equal Wages

It is interesting to note that politicians in democratic countries are forever making speaches paying lip service to the idea of human rights. These human rights include freedom of speech, the right to assemby, the right to protest, the right to procreate, the right to worship any god, and the right to equality.

The last right is a wide ranging one. Equality before the law means everyone gets treated equally. And yet those with money can employ the lawyers to improve their chances of escaping punishment. Equality in terms of employment; and yet women and part time workers are paid less around the world. The issue of pay is of vital importance to the vast majority of employees who are not given salaries comparable with bankers.

The difficulty with equality in wages is that increases wages can often have detrimental effects on the economy. In the UK at the moment the minimum wage has gone over 6 pounds an hour. It sounds great but the phenomenal increase in house prices at the same time as the minimum wage was intropduced in 1999 has left those who wish to buy property no better off.

In America the issue of the minimum wage is often siude stepped by employing illegal Mexican workers. Although the right wing moan about the porous boarder with Mexico the country that first put man on the moon says it can do nothing to stop the flood of immigrants over the border. It is obvious that secretly they don’t want to.

In Thailand the country is experiencing a boom time. This has meant that the government has had to increase the minimum wage. Hotels in Thong Nai Pan, Chaweng, Karon, Sairee and all the other tourist destinations in Thailand get round the problem of higher costs by employing illegal Burmese workers. Since these workers are illegal they don’t have to pay for any social benefits. As with Mexicans in America they are often regarded as second class citizens despite being essential to the economy.

Much of equality depends on legality and justice in the economic system of a country.

April 7, 2012
Human Rights