Year of Our Lord book

Introduction to T.R. Pearson's Year of Our Lord: Faith, Hope, and Harmony in the Mississippi Delta_ featuring photographs by Langdon Clay and music by the Trinity House of Prayer choir with Lucas McCarty from Mockingbird Publishing about a member of a church choir with cerebral palsy.

Microsoft Surface: Cerebral Palsy Touchscreen Therapy Demo

Man with CP harassed daily while trying to work

Just saw this story about Jamie Johnston, who has cerebral palsy and works as a sign holder outside a Halloween store in Texas. People are reporting this to Adult Protective Services , complaining to his employer , honking, and calling the police. Jamie says he just wants to work.

The video attached to the article at the above link is worth watching. The story reflects why so many people with disabilities remain unemployed.

Getting it Done- The Little Sisters

via YouTube

Jorden is away for the week...as a family we have had to do a lot of stuff that we are used to not doing because Jorden steps up and helps tremendously. Every time we go somewhere Jorden helps Erin by putting her walker in the car... We were on our way to dinner and I told the girls to get in the car...and I found them working together to put Erin's walker in the trunk. Even though it such a challenge for both of them...then don't give up! What an example for all of us to live by!

Eden Little is a Mom of three children who all have cerebral palsy. She is writing a daily blog about how it is to raise three children with cerebral palsy as a single mother and a Special Education Teacher. See her authenticity as she gets through the daily trials while living and playing life to it's fullest! To follow the Little Family daily go to www.thelittlelife.net

Rod Keskiner makes his bar mitzvah - at 39

Rod Keskiner made his bar mitzvah when he was 13 years old, but felt as if he was just going through the motions. Today, twenty six years later, after finding a "new temple family that embraced him", he will celebrate his bar mitzvah again with his new temple family.

The idea came from his rabbi who wanted Rod to experience the rite in a meaningful way.

Keskiner, who has cerebral palsy and uses technology to talk, is a college graduate and has worked at St. Petersburg College on the Clearwater campus for 16 years. His coworkers plan to attend today's event.

Dr. Bob Segalman and Speech to Speech

Dr. Bob Segalman, who has CP, uses IntelliKeys to run Speech to Speech, a free relay service for people with speech disabilities.



Speech to Speech is a free national phone relay service available in the US. It provides communication assistants for those with speech disabilities for phone calls and doesn't require typing or registration. You can find out more here.

Community Asks for Justice for Cory

Wheelchair Pride is blogging about Cory Miller, the 16 year old with CP in Havana, Illinois who has been attacked three times in the past two years by juveniles who have kicked him in the groin, held his head under hot running water, taken his belongings, fed him a heated white powder and pushed his wheelchair to a park where they assaulted him.

Yet no one has been held accountable for these hate crimes in the small town. Wheelchair Pride has posted a letter by Ruth Burgess Thompson, the the new Executive Director of the Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities in Illinois , to the mayor of Havana. It can be read here. She expresses her outrage at the failure to hold those responsible for these acts accountable, as well as noting the community's rally on Cory's behalf. (see video below)

The description of the attacks against Cory at RightJuris.com shows that these attacks have escalated. In the latest incident, on July 3, 2010, a substance was sprayed into Cory's eyes. His stepmother stated that Cory was spat on and sexually assaulted by the perpetrators, who wore surgical gloves, after they undressed him.

“Five of them took him out of his wheelchair, which they would have had to unbuckle his seat-belt and his feet. The teenage boys picked him up and took him into a bathroom.
They undressed him completely, even took off his shoes and socks.”




A Justice for Cory Miller page has been set up on Facebook. You can join it here.

A college student with CP talks about assumptions about disability: "It's not that I'm not able"

via YouTube:

A University student with a disability, Ashley Anderson, discusses the struggles of campus life in a wheelchair and misconceptions about her disability in a strikingly honest way.
Filmed and Edited by Eva Andersen

French parents plan to broadcast life of 32 year old daughter with CP via web

The parents of 32 year old Anne Lamic plan to broadcast her everyday life via the web, saying they want to "allow people to see handicaps in ways that are real, everyday and familiar". They do not plan to film private moments, such as baths and the site includes a warning about her seizures.

Disability advocates disagree, some "dismayed — especially because Anne Lamic, whose family says she has physical and mental abilities comparable to a 1-month-old infant, cannot have a say in the matter", according to the article. Others support it as a way to stop hiding those with disabilities and say that France trails behind the U.S. and Canada "on issues such as visibility and accessibility to public transport and buildings". Still others question why the parents don't take Anne out in public, to which her father, who used to work in a medical care center, said that she needs to be transported by ambulance since she has "to remain lying down".

The website is called Doudou World and can be found here.

CP Survival Guides by Parents

CP Survival Guides are now available for all 50 states. Designed by parents of children with CP, they help others find needed resources. You can find more information here.

How Mackenzie uses assistive technology

via YouTube :
Mackenzie Kench, who has cerebral palsy, uses a talk link device to communicate, which she operates with her big toe.

In this video, Mackenzie is shown attending school using the device and also at home with her family, who tell a very funny story about how her 4 year old friends reacted to the device when she first started to use it.

Mark Selvaka on the Mound

Mark Selvaka, who has cerebral palsy, made the varsity Manchester high school baseball team this year as a pitcher. Pitching scoreless innings, he now wears Jim Abbott's number 25.



Mark's interview brought to mind these words:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt
Paris, France
23 Apr 1910

Congratulations to Mark on making the team and his great season.

A transcript of this video can be found here.

Adam's tour

Adam, who has cerebral palsy, taped his neighborhood in Toronto and talks about living there.



Adam also blogs.

DJ's Dream

They said it couldn't be done when D.J. Gregory, who has cerebral palsy, decided to walk the entire 2008 professional golf tour. He did it - and talks about why.

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day at United Cerebral Palsy Association

Students from Long Beach Catholic did step dancing to make it the "best St. Patrick's Day ever".

New to the blogroll : Witticisms

Troy and Jodie Wittren blog over at Witticisms, where you'll find posts and articles about living and laughing with a disability.

Troy has CP and is married to Jodie - here's an intro from their sidebar:

Jodie and I have been married since 1990. We met in preschool (she was Jodie Hildenbrand back then), went separate ways in the fourth grade (mainstreaming) and we met up again 16 years later. In 1995 we had a son, E. Our lives were changed forever!

We both work full time for Child Welfare. Jodie is an office manager, and I am an administrative assistant. Jodie is a wonderful speaker; I am a writer.

Go on over and say hi to the newest addition to the blogroll this Christmas week.

Kelsey talks about living with cerebral palsy....

in this video. I'm adding it to the others tagged "learning about disability".

How's Your News?- coming to MTV

How's Your News began back in 1994 at Camp Jabberwocky, a summer camp for adults with physical disabilities where a film director worked with campers, resulting in news shows produced at the camp. This led to a film called "How's Your News?" featuring five of the campers who took a road trip across America. And THAT led to 2004 coverage of the elections, featuring interviews with Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Larry King and many more. Which led to more videos.

And now How's Your News is coming to MTV. Oh, did I mention they are a band? Yup. In fact, they are traveling in the Big Blue Bus across America as I blog (in New Orleans at present) and performing. You can read about their adventures at their blog. And you can read their bios here.

Exciting things like deliberately crashing their bus (oh don't worry, all safe) and meeting John Stamos and interviewing him. It's all over at their blog so go say hi to them and check out their travel photos and more information about their upcoming show. And you can also join in their enthusiasm and spread the word about their show by getting How's Your News stickers, T shirts and copies of their DVD's.

One of the shirts reads: Free the Media. Election coverage by people with disabilities? Very cool.

[visual description: Photo at left: Members of How's Your News cast are seated in front of a full size silver and blue bus with lettering across it that reads "How's Your News?;
Photo at right: The band members are shown performing in the Scoot Inn: Three male members play guitar toward the back of the stage, wearing blue How's Your News shirts, the lead female singer Susan is in the front and Larry, the percussionist, plays from his wheelchair. The other members are Jeremy, Sean, Ronnie, and Bobby. ]

New to the blogroll: Cow Bike Rider

I found this blog by a Catholic father, who recently entered the Catholic church, whose son has cerebral palsy. I was lucky enough to find it while visiting the blog Perfect Joy. I'm adding it to my blogroll so others may find it too.

One Little Boy: 18 Months Later is a wonderful post that I encourage everyone to read.

Georgina Goes Out

This award winning film for the Media Box and Channel 4 FourDocs Filmmaking Competition 2007 was made by Georgina who has CP.