Help A Whisper Out!

who wants to buy this book I will never get around to writing

(ChorpSaway) 8-bit Sanctuary arrangement

People like that…corporations like that, they have all the money, they have all the power, and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now, you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide…Leverage.

~Nathan Ford from Leverage

Could somebody be a paramedic if they were missing a forearm?

Y’know, sometimes a question comes along that exposes your biases. I’m really, really glad you asked me this.

My initial instinct was to say no. There are a lot of tasks as a paramedic that require very specific motions that are sensitive to pressure: drawing medications, spreading the skin to start IVs. There’s strength required–we do a LOT of lifting, and you need to be able to “feel” that lift.

So my first thought was, “not in the field”. There are admin tasks (working in an EMS pharmacy, equipment coordinator, supervisor, dispatcher) that came to mind as being a good fit for someone with the disability you describe, but field work….?

(By the way, I know a number of medics with leg prostheses; these are relatively common and very easy to work with. I’m all in favor of disabled medics. I just didn’t think the job was physically doable with this kind of disability.)

Then I asked. I went into an EMS group and asked some people from all across the country. And the answers I got surprised me.

They were mostly along the lines of “oh totally, there’s one in Pittsburgh, she kicks ass” or “my old partner had a prosthetic forearm and hand, she could medic circles around the rest of her class”. One instructor said they had a student with just such a prosthesis, and wasn’t sure how to teach; the student said “just let me figure it out”, and by the end of the night they were doing very sensitive skills better than their classmates.

Because of that group I know of at least a half-dozen medics here in the US with forearm and hand prostheses.

So yes. You can totally have a character with one forearm, who works as a paramedic for a living.

Thanks again for sending this in. It broadened my worldview.

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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justin mcelroy has said many powerful things but honestly no set of words in the english language conveys the same energy as “that’s a funny trick to play on god”

Game idea: You play as a humble peasant who must fight off waves of adventurers who feel entitled to just waltz into your house and loot whatever they please.

reunited with Macayo, one of my oldest and wisest friends. he says 2018 is going to be a perfect year and that my hair still smells like crayons. (p.s macaws can live to be 90! that’s straight up the same bird in both pics. whaaaaat?)

If you think about it, all these thinkpieces about how Millenials are “killing” various industries reveal a pretty colossal sense of entitlement.

Under normal circumstances, if a given industry finds itself unable to sell products to a given market demographic, we’d say it’s that industry’s fault for failing to offer products that that demographic is interested in buying.

It only makes sense to blame the target demographic itself is if we’re assuming that the established industries have some intrinsic right to that demographic’s disposable income that’s being denied - which is clearly nonsense.

And I thought Millennials were supposed to be the entitled ones?

SwordTember day 4, Dragon Slayer!

A little bit of nostalgia for this one. Growing up, my brothers and I would go on quests outside. On one quest we stumbled upon, “The Dragon Buster” a legendary blade in our little game. 🐉 🗡️