Auslan detracts
AN Auslan sign language interpreter for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s updates on Cyclone Marcia has been praised as “hypnotic, mesmerising and poetic” on social media.
The animated sign language expert captured the attention of television viewers as he translated the Premier’s updates on the cyclone at Emergency Management Queensland Headquarters at Kedron.
The trouble is he becomes the centre of attention rather than the person giving the message. It is so distracting that as soon as I see a person gesticulating I flick channels.
There are approximately 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss and if they don’t have a caption function on their TV then give them one at public expense and let the other 23 million who don’t understand the frantic finger and hand language, concentrate on the message.
At the very least put the translator in the little box in the corner where he belongs.
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It certainly has become a joke.
Detracts from the gravity of the situation.
Worth tuning in now just to watch the court jester waving his hands around as if the tendons in his wrists have been severed.
The facial contortions are consistent with him having a live gerbil (and a very active one at that) shoved somewhere we don’t need to know about.
All in all most distracting from the “L-plate” premier’s message.
One imagines that any distractions are much needed for the training wheels premier. The woman is running Qld’s biggest company, but hasn’t the ability to be the tea lady.
The woman is running Qld’s biggest company
Since when has an Australian state become a “business”?
Newman got booted out because he tried to run Queensland as if it was a corporation.
Corporate managerialism is a far greater threat than terrorism.
Yeah – those wheelchair things are a bloody nuisance as well – cluttering up the place and getting in the way of ambulant people – should all be banned……
(sarc)
The joke’s on you.
I don’t understand your wheelchair line but the TV presentation was about the messages from the Premier, not the Auslan interpreter, thus he should be backgrounded or minimized. He shouldn’t dominate the tv screen.
I don’t understand your wheelchair line
Perhaps I should have avoided sarcasm.
The point I was making goes something like this –
This weird mean and selfish meme is infesting conservative blogs.
It Takes various forms, manifesting the Right’s incapacity to acknowledge and cater for disability.
In over 40 years in the field I’ve come across –
“Access ramps are ugly and should be banned.”
“Acoustic pedestrian crossings are noisy and should be banned.”
“Hearing aids are unsightly and should always be hidden.”
“Cochlear implants are gross and should be hidden.”
“Prostheses are offensive to the other children and shouldn’t be worn at
school.”
And so on……
It’s reflective of the conservative mindset which is uncomfortable with the notion of universal provision for disability. This same mindset resists the concept of universal design, an idea, that if accepted, would save the community a motsa by eliminating the necessity to modify buildings post construction. The Rudd government’s BER scheme will, in the long run, save the Queensland taxpayer a fortune, as every construction met ABS standards for access, something that schools in Queensland, especially in the bush, lack.
Universal design is a no-brainer – http://www.universaldesign.com/about-universal-design.html
Perhaps I’m out of step with reality, but I see a world where special provision for disabilities enhances quality of life for everyone, rather than detracting from it.
On a more basic level, if the sight of an Auslan interpreter offends – just look away. You can always hear what the person up front is saying. A person with a hearing impairment can’t.
It Takes various forms, manifesting the Right’s incapacity to acknowledge and cater for disability.
“In over 40 years in the field I’ve come across –
“Access ramps are ugly and should be banned.”
“Acoustic pedestrian crossings are noisy and should be banned.”
“Hearing aids are unsightly and should always be hidden.”
“Cochlear implants are gross and should be hidden.”
“Prostheses are offensive to the other children and shouldn’t be worn at
school.”
And so on……”
Ah yes, nobody on the right has ever had a disability have they?
Here we have the classic numbers bullshit, utterly unprovable and certainly a lie.
Given your track record of lying, why do you think anyone would believe this particular set of lies?
As a matter of interest, how would you know the politics of the imaginary people saying the above?
Oh and just to save us all some time, if you can’t provide documentary proof, don’t bother, I know you lie routinely.
As an aside, if we pretend for just a moment that numbers isn’t making this stuff up (as is his SOP), he gives 5 examples that he claims are spread over more than 40 years – what a sad, petulant little princess you’d have to be to care that every 8 years you hear an insensitive comment from someone that you believe is from the right.
So numbers, which is it – are you a liar or just another petulant little girl, trying to craft a storm in a teacup?
Me, I’m backing “all of the above”.
I’ve never come across people, even those from the dreaded “Right”, complaining about wheelchairs etc and I’m just saying that the interpreter should not get equal visual billing with the person giving the message. It’s basic TV work and the fact that he is getting equal billing has a PC background.
Enough said on a minor matter
Real or imagined “right wing” disdain for disabled aside (Do disabilities really only strike the non-right?).
The point stands. The …er… energetic… performance of his duties by the sign interpreter serve to distract from the message.
How many people fluent in reading Auslan sign language, are sufficiently illiterate to be unable to read the printed word?
The sign language he is using is Australian specific, Americans for example, who may be visiting to cyclone affected areas, are totally unable to understand him.
But they can read printed English.
My favourite bit of his interpreting? When he translated, without missing a beat, the part where the new Premier said “Y’all listen to the radio and take good notice of the regular updates”.
I think throwing political alignments and response to disability is a specious argument.
My qualifications, first I’m right of centre in a lot of things just not welded to an ideology and second RAK amputee.
Lions and Rotary and RSL are hardly what I would call left wing organisations, but they work with disability, similarly many so called right wing institutions.
People who Numbers refers to are just selfish individuals, I say leave the politics out of it.
The issue is people don’t like looking at disability. It’s not a good fit to their world picture.
The only people outside of medicals truly comfortable with it easily are small children.
Most people take a while to get used to it, anyway this one time at band camp, this pretty young thing was stroking me thigh during dinner one night at a do, I said to her I wasn’t getting much out of it lol and this other time at band camp, a bloke was big noting. fight this and fight that, me mate said to him you think you’re tough and slammed the birthday cake carving knife full tit into me thigh, bloke and women grabbing kids ran everywhere, me I just looked at the mate and said wrong thigh and don’t get me started on false shark alarms I started on crowded beaches.
Us disabled need a sense of humnour, cos you bipeds are all up yourselves.
ROFLMAO