Gameshow for disabled vs able bodied... things are going too far....

www.ananova.com...

its china they gotta lot of odd show there nottin new

They'll do anything for ratings!

blames big brother pop idol etc etc for this shoddy t.v programmes

are a staple of Chinese and Japanese television... I'm not surprised...actually, I was expecting much worse than what I read in the article...

Hey, I think it is a good idea. People with disabilities have been lobbying for equal treatment for years, rightfully so. It is about time that they got some exposure. I'm not going to play the pity game, they are choosing to do it and I have no choice but to respect their decision. I'm not going to keep them down.

This kinda' reminds me about the controversy surrounding the old "Dwarf Throwing" contests a few decades ago (Yes, I'm old enough to remember that first-hand)...Then it all died down after it was learned that the dwarfs involved *volunteered* for the contests & even enjoyed it. Those dwarves were active participants & they trained pretty hard to be able to coordinate their moves with the thrower to get maximum distance.

If the disabled (& normal) people involved in these new contests are willing to participate & have fun doing it, who are *we* to deny them the "pursuit of happiness"? Besides that, this may even get "normal people" to realize that the disabled have a lot fewer choices open to them *because* of those disabilities. Perhaps...Just perhaps...The "normals" will learn to appreciate the advantadges that they have.

"There, but for the Grace of God, go I."

Another useless controversy, anyone?


[Edited on 11-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

I agree with MD - they are volunteers so what's the problem?

sometimes they win too - I used to play wheelchair basketball and the able bodied lost everytime! Also remember playing 5-a-side football against a team of teenage boys on iron crutches, and the dirty dirty tackles....

Probably the main reason that disabled people win so often against "handicapped" normals is because they've had years (if not a lifetime) to grow accustomed to compensating for their handicaps.

For example, a person who was blind from birth is going to be capable of hearing things that someone merely wearing eyeshades wouldn't even be able to detect.

Over a period of time, a person gets used to handling their disability & having one or more of a human's natural senses disabled causes the *other* senses to heighten themselves to help with compensation. Some blind people seem to get around more efficiently than many sighted people do...Simply because some of those who have sight take it for granted to the point where they simply don't *watch where they're going*. The blind person learns to focus their memories as well, because they learn to "count their steps" while walking around in familiar territory.

Some other examples of how, say a blind person, learns how to compensate:
They measure out their toothpaste by squeezing it on their finger, then put it on the toothbrush.
They stick a finger inside of a cup when they pour a drink of water so they know how full the cup gets.
They may use an analog watch (Still has the hands on the dial-face of the watch...No digital display) that has a hinge on the crystal. They simply open the crystal & feel the position of the hands to tell what time it is.
They have better memories for the locations of commonly-used objects...Unless someone *else* moves their stuff around, they never "misplace things" as much as a sighted person does.

If a sighted person is blindfolded, it takes a lot of time to learn techniques like this...They have to learn how to focus their memories so they don't get themselves "lost" a lot. In games like the ones described above, the disabled person *has the advantage*!

The list is pretty well endless, when you also consider the other ways that people use to compensate for other disabilities.


[Edited on 11-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

Very true MD. I recently saw an episode of Ripley's Believe it or not where they had a blind skiier following another skiier down the hill. The blind skiier was wearing a headset and taking instructions from the skiier in front of him with just three commands, left, right, and straight. They then blindfolded a world class skiier and he was unable to keep his balance for more than ten feet, let alone pay attention to the commands. It was pretty amazing.

I saw a show a year or two back where this blind guy "clicked" his way around. Kinda like how a bat uses sonar. He claimed that he clicked using his tongue and listens for the echo that comes back. He was riding his bike dodging poles and stuff, and was passing a row of parked cars and was like "over here is a mini van.... next is a car... " etc... It was pretty cool!