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Lady Bracknell, who was recently granted temporary sick leave from these pages by the Crippled Monkey, is back with what may well be her most cringe-inducing 'news' item to date.

If you've ever stopped to ponder the eternal question of why you were put on this earth, Daniel Allott, writing in Human Events Online, . (Well, it's an answer. Of sorts. Depending on your point of view.)

Yes, the good news is that disabled people offer "something invaluable in today's world". Would that be our resilience, perhaps? Our sense of humour? Our problem-solving skills? Er, no. The purpose of our otherwise pitiable lives is, apparently, to show non-disabled people "how to love, and thus, how to live".

"People with disabilities awaken our hearts because in order to care for them properly we must do more. Our hearts must enlarge for them or the love dies, and often they die."

The assertion that we'll all die if non-disabled people don't love us enough has come as rather a nasty shock to Lady Bracknell, who is far from convinced that she is intrinsically loveable and is now a bit worried that she may, on occasion, have behaved in a less-than-suitably-subservient manner towards those people on whom her continuing existence would seem to depend. And that it may be too late for her to change her ways.

Mr Allott's paean of praise to us goes on:

"Loving the disabled is not simply about doing good deeds but also about being open and vulnerable to them, in order not only to give love but also to receive the genuine love that they yearn to express."

Lady Bracknell can't help but suspect that the average Ouch reader may at this point decide that, while there is definitely something they are yearning to express for Mr Allott, that something couldn't accurately be described as "genuine love".

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