National Council on Disability Partners with U.S. Department of State to Recognize International Day of Persons with Disabilities

WASHINGTON—The National Council on Disability (NCD) is cosponsoring three panel discussions with the U.S. Department of State in observance of International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3. The panels will include discussions on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), violence against women and girls with disabilities, and HIV/AIDS and disability.

The annual observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3 was established by the International Year for Disabled Persons in 1981. The Day is set aside topromote a better understanding of disability issues with a focus on the rights of people with disabilities and societal gains that com e from the integration of people with disabilities in every aspect of the political, social, economic, and cultural life of their communities. The World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons developed the goal of full and effective participation of people with disabilities in society and development, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1982.

”NCD has a long and rich history of involvement with the international community in advocating for the rights of all people with disabilities. We are proud to have worked in collaboration with so many on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted in 2006 and signed by the United States. We must continue to work together to create measurable goals to increase the inclusion of people with disabilities in every corner of the globe,” said Joan Durocher, NCD’s General Counsel and Director of Policy, who presented at the World Standards Cooperation accessibility workshop held recently in Geneva, Switzerland. NCD also participated in the recent meeting of the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT) forum co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and George Washington University, where Ms. Durocher discussed NCD’s upcoming overseas accessibility study, which examines Article 32 of the CRPD and the inclusion of people with disabilities around the world.

According to NCD Chairman Jonathan Young, “We are delighted that this collaboration continues today with NCD participating in the State Department’s observance of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It is our intention to continue to work with people with disabilities around the world to achieve equal opportunities to better themselves as they live, learn and earn their way to success as they define it.”

“It is estimated that there are 50 million people with disabilities in the United States and 650 million people with disabilities worldwide. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we know that our work is far from over. We have made great accomplishments in this country and around the world, but much more needs to be done,” said NCD Executive Director Aaron Bishop.

NCD is an independent federal agency charged with advising the President, Congress, and other federal officials and entities on all policies, programs, practices and procedures affecting people with disabilities. NCD’s mission is to further the goals enshrined in the ADA of 1990: equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency for all people with disabilities. NCD also provides technical assistance on disability issues to countries around the world.

For more information, please contact NCD’s Director of Communications, Mark Quigley, at mquigley@ncd.gov or by telephone at 202-272-2004.

Video on air travel with a power chair

So as not to scare off people with disabilities when we hear stories about bad travel experiences, I'd like to remind readers that many people with disabilities travel every day without mishap. One of the keys is preparation and that comes from learning from those who have travel experience. This video is a good start.



I also am a member of Tour Watch, whose members can offer valuable resources for travel for people with disabilities.


Visit Tour Watch

New Institute will study disability and bioethics issues

"Regent University, the Christian college in Virginia, has launched a new institute that will study how abortion and euthanasia are targeting the disabled community. The new organization will examine how the practices have created a multitude of human rights abuses ranging from sex-selection abortions to discrimination.
Billing itself as a "multicultural response to medical and cultural trends impacting people with disabilities, the Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics will examine these sensitive topics.

Mark P. Mostert, who will oversee the new center, calls the targeting of the disabled a global “silent war."
-via lifenews.com

To read the rest of the article, click above.

Free 411

There's a new free service called 1800FREE411 for those of you who have trouble dialing the phone - or just need directory assistance. The company inserts ads during the service that you have to listen to in order to get the number. (Looks like it's for everyone, not just disabled.) And don't forget - if you have a disability that prevents you from dialing the phone, you can apply for free 411 from your phone company. And that's ad free!

Gunshot survivor writes graphic novel

Central Comics Zone blog features a new graphic novel by Percy Carey (aka MF Grimm) called Sentences, about a main character who is shot and paralyzed by a bullet.

The book is autobiographical . MF Grimm, remembered for appearing on Sesame Street as Percy, survived eleven shootings in 1994 which orginally left him deaf, blind and paralyzed. He regained his sight and hearing but remains paralyzed. The blog says:

"Percy Carey (aka MF Grimm, aka Jet Jaguar) begins the story of his life in the middle of its most intense moment: the day a bullet left him paralyzed from the waist down. It's a scene of incredible violence and chaos that leaves our narrator lying on the snow, bleeding out. And from there we naturally cut to... Sesame Street, where young Percy has an acting gig.

The jump from bloody murder to such innocent surroundings creates a nice bit of cognitive dissonance that sets the tone for the rest of the book. Throughout the rest of Carey's childhood, we see him constantly pulled between "good kid" and
"bad kid". It seems like he could fall either way at any time, and he often does."
via Centralcomicszone.com

An excerpt can be found here.

Endeavor Freedom TV

And here we have the start of another TV channel for pwd. Received an email from this nonprofit organization this morning. Their site reads:

"...based near Athens, GA, founded in 2001 to assist people with disabilities in transitioning from nursing homes and institutions back into the community.

This year Endeavor Freedom, Inc. received a grant to create a media organization for people with disabilities run by people with disabilities".

The idea came into being when advocates realized that disability issues weren't receiving coverage from the mainstream media. The site reads:

"People with disabilities make-up 20% of the population and yet disability news, stories, and events make up less than 3% of what the corporate media reports on. If you happen to be in a minority with a disability you are represented even less, and if you are poor and a minority with a disability, then truly nothing in mainstream culture reflect your/our everyday experience of life. EndeavorFreedom.tv wants to change all that. We want to capture and relay the everyday stories of everyday struggle by everyday people with disabilities just trying to manage the American dream here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We want you to be the hero, the star, the story and we want you to share with us the stories that you consider news, issues which are important to you, that are rarely if ever seen on corporate news."

I went over to YouTube and looked under endeavor freedom and found quite a few videos. Here's one that's a great example of the power of media for pwd. It's called "About being considered retarded". This six minute long video is well worth an entire watch. One of the most important messages is toward the end, and deals with observations about how society has difficulties treating people with cognitive disabilities as other than non-persons. It's a powerful message.

What's your body worth?

[visual description: "Tsunami" Kobayashi is shown digging into a hot dog during a competitition.]

It was a headline I just couldn't resist blogging about : "World Hot Dog Eating Champion Crippled By Jaw Injury". It seems that this hot dog eating champion has developed arthritis in the jaw from competitive food eating and has to retire from the sport.

This comes on a day when Congress held hearings on the NFL's policy toward disabilities players develop. One of the players who planned to testify suffered concussions resulting in what he and doctors say is permanent disability with longstanding symptoms, yet he, like others, wonders at why so very few NFL ex-players wind up being classified as disabled.

So what does all of this have to do with the subject of disability? I think it shows how complicated an issue even defining disability is. For a hot dog eating champ, arthritis of the jaw is a career ending injury. Yet how interesting that the word 'crippled' appears when this young man's injury really isn't , in the scheme of life, that serious. Except to world champion hot dog eater.

And what about the NFL players? I'll bet their claims of disability are often true based on the beating their bodies take. Yet some of my readers may be sitting there asking themselves "Well aren't these disabilities the result of playing a sport and pushing the human body beyond its limits? Isn't that a risk these people assumed?"

If the hot dog eating champ was wise enough, he could have purchased insurance on his jaw perhaps, but only years ago before he began to develop an injury. Lloyds of London has insured others along similar lines.

Because let's face it - certain body parts and certain bodies seem to be worth much more for some than others.

[click above to read about the champion hot dog eater.]

Alive in Truth: Oral Histories from Katrina survivors

This website is dedicated to New Orleans and Katrina survivors. There's a great deal of information on here, including oral histories from people who lived through Katrina. Some of them have disabilities.

I read a few of them. One disabled man said that he was able to get up on his roof during Katrina with his pet and waited the storm out. By the time the storm was over, everything he owned was ruined. A neighbor assisted him afterwards getting to an area where he could get help and he moved to Austin Texas without anything.

People in Austin helped him get a mobility scooter and the basics : a bed, chair, table, etc. and he remains there, hoping that his son will join him some day. He doesn't want to return to New Orleans.

A male street performer spoke about how TV coverage is sometimes limited to showing the fixed up areas where businesses have reopened in the French Quarter, but that four or five blocks away it is bedlam. He speaks of cleaning out Burger King after the storm wearing a gas mask due to the stench. He said one problem that is happening is employers can't find people to hire yet people lack transportation and access to records employers want to hire them. There seems to be an endless circle of problems that keep progress from happening because the regular rules of business either aren't waived or made flexible to help get people back on track, yet people lack the help they need to meet the usual requirements.

One thing I know- getting mired down in bureaucracy at a time when growth is essential isn't the answer. I'm reading in the paper that New Orleans has a 46% higher death rate now and newscasters are saying doctors had to leave because their equipment was ruined so there isn't enough medical care. Medical records were lost, leading to poor care. On and on and on.

A lack of basic necessities like housing, employment, medical care amidst the ghoulish reminders of a landscape that still bears the scars of the storm - these are situations that face many.

**

Did you know:

In New Orleans, La., a city of about 484,000 people, 23.2 percent of residents are people with disabilities. There were 102,122 people with disabilities five years of age and older who lived in New Orleans.

via ablenews.com

One in seven

"We are, without a shadow of a doubt, the most diverse minority group on the planet. We are everywhere you look, and yet you do not see us. We are one in seven*.


We have two things - and only two things - in common with one another:

1. we have some degree of physical or mental functional loss or difference (we have impairments); and
2. we are excluded from full participation in society because we have impairments (we are disabled)."

We are

one in seven

click above to read the rest by Lady Bracknell..

Two Australian professors suspended in the Laughing at the Disabled film/thesis controversy

...and from The World Today, an Australian radio show:

"PETER CAVE: The Queensland University of Technology has defended a decision to suspend two academics who raised concerns in the media about a PhD thesis called Laughing at the Disabled. The project involved a reality television style comedy starring two men with intellectual disabilities.

Doctors Gary MacLennan and John Hookham from the university's film and television school spoke out about the PhD project because they felt it was offensive and unethical, and set the men up to be ridiculed.

Well, they've now been suspended from the university for six months but QUT's Vice-Chancellor says the two academics breached the university's code of conduct.

Kathryn Roberts reports.

KATHRYN ROBERTS: In a newspaper editorial earlier this year, QUT academics Gary MacLennan and John Hookham went public with their concerns about a PhD thesis project involving members of the disability community.

The project by a film student was entitled Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains.

The two academics aren't talking today, but on the Internet site YouTube, they've posted a video about the serious misconduct charges brought against them as a result of the newspaper editorial."

Click above to read the rest of this interview.

****


Contrary to some of the assertions in this video, the disability community has varying opinions on what/how/when humor juxtaposed with disability is appropriate.

This is an interesting scenario because it pits freedom of speech against freedom of speech. Is the student entitled to complete freedom in his exploration of the subject of disability? Some would say that any other conclusion would "chill" future student work.

Keeping in mind that it's a thesis done by a student, what are the ramifications of suspending two professors for going public with their concerns about a PhD thesis project? Some will argue that the university has the right and even an obligation to discipline these professors for writing a newspaper editorial. Others will see that issue in itself as an encroachment on their right to free speech.

What to do what to do!

[visual description: A stick figure scratches his (her) head.]

I'm facing (yet) another medical equipment issue and, of course, options always exist but-

I'm always amazed how when I follow the standard advice given, it's a waste of my time .

Which is why I've developed a habit, like many of my disabled friends, of depending more on peer advice than professional advice when it comes to decisions like this. I'm certainly not unique in any of the issues I face as a quadriplegic - many have gone before me and will come after me - and it's at times like this that I need to let other people share resources with me that they have used, soutions that have worked for them - and ask for prayers and positive thoughts!

Just think - when I'm through this one, I can share what I've learned with other folks.....and ain't that what it's all about?

Of wayward whales, unnatural habitats and the suicide of a double amputee

Over the past several days, scientists have been experimenting with various sounds to lure an injured wayward whale and her calf who are stuck in Sacramento about 90 miles from the sea into their natural habitat. There was a news conference where the public were urged not to overreact because the animals are fairly safe and it could take weeks before scientists are able to coax the animals back to the sea. Apparently so many folks are concerned about these whales that they need to calm them down. Pietr Folkens of the Alaska Whale Foundation said there is no sense of urgency and that the whales are not in bad shape.

This story is being covered nationally on TV and in newspapers. It is also on the web page of Seattlepi today. And on their front page further down is another story: Double amputee commits suicide with gun. The story indicates that a male double amputee confined to a nursing home shot and killed himself with a gun after a woman brought him a parcel during a visit.

And I thought of all of the efforts being put into those wayward whales to get them back to the sea and lure them into their environment and how people are so concerned for them. It's a good thing that we care for animals and protect them.

But it's sad that the buried news story about the double amputee won't get the same coverage and attention that the whales get. And it's also kind of sad that people don't really know or acknowledge how many people with disabilities lead desperate lives in nursing homes - which causes some of them to wish for suicide as a way to escape the confines of their unnatural habitat.

ADAPT is fighting for the passage of the Community Choice Act of 2007 which will change the current bias toward fiscal spending toward institutionalizing people with disabilities rather than the lower cost community care alternative preferred by many disabled people. Their site reads:

"(CCA, S. 799 and HR 1621). Introduced in March, CCA will end the nationwide institutional bias in Medicaid funding and give Americans with disabilities the real supports and services they need to get out of expensive institutions and rejoin community life."

If you believe that human beings as well as animals deserve to be in their natural habitat, click above to read about their work. And take a moment to read the stories of people who lived in nursing homes by reading the testimony post above.

Disability at top of HUD list for discrimination complaints

People with disabilities are being discriminated against in housing in large numbers according to this HUD report. Click above for a link to the article as well as information to help you if you need to file a complaint.

Frequently Asked Questions about Spina Bifida

Via Spina Bifida Association site

Spina Bifida

This video describes what causes spina bifida and explains why its severity varies from child to child.

Wheelchair user transferring from wheelchair to couch

In this video, a wheelchair user demonstrates how she gets out of her wheelchair (which is called transferring) onto a couch.

Please note the helpful cat in the background who paces along the couch waiting for his owner to be ready to pet him!

"Life in Medicare's Waiting Period"

In this USA Today article, the impact of the two year wait for Medicare benefits for people with disabilities is discussed. It reads in part:

"Each year, tens of thousands of Americans like McCutchan find themselves disabled and unable to work. After going through the process to get Social Security disability income, most are shocked to discover that they have to wait two more years to be eligible for Medicare, the federal health program for elderly and disabled people.
...There are no precise estimates of how many people, insured or uninsured, are in the waiting period, but the number probably ranged from 1.4 million to 1.5 million in 2003, says a report by researcher Gerald Riley published in the journal Inquiry in fall 2006. Of those, a National Institute on Aging Health and Retirement Study in 2001 estimated that 27% to 39% had been uninsured at some point during their waiting period.
Often, that's because they are too ill to qualify for private insurance, their Social Security income puts them over the limit for Medicaid coverage and they can't afford to continue insurance through their former employers."

Click above to read the rest.

Mental health and disability advocacy links

This is a great resource for mental health and disability advocacy resources.

Disability set to nearly double among children in UK by 2029...

"THE NUMBER of disabled children in the UK is set to nearly double by 2029 as a result of childhood obesity, increases in pre-term birth survival rates and persistent childhood poverty, according to new research.
...
The research also claims that by 2020, the majority of people in their 50s will be disabled or will self-report long-term health problems, and that too many families are still not claiming their entitlement to Disability Living Allowance."
...
The article goes on to say : ".. if you are disabled in Scotland today you are twice as likely to live in poverty, be unemployed and have low skills...

With a rapidly ageing population, we need to harness the skills of our whole community and not consign disabled people to being passive recipients of care. Inefficiencies and needless amounts of money wasted on red tape could go back into the system to help lift more of these families out of poverty."


Via the Sunday Herald

Homeless man with mental illness spends 17 months in jail - for allegedly stealing a soda

[Visual description: This is a photo of the top of an open can of soda.]

Jail officials in Indiana stated that they thought the man had been released, so when a psychiatrist came to interview him, the doctor was told the man was no longer there. He was sent to a mental health facility on February 7 when the mistake was discovered by a new warden who was reviewing all of the inmates' files.

Via FoxNews