"Them and Them." "Rockland County, New York's East Ramapo school district is a taxpayer-funded system fighting financial insolvency. It is also bitterly divided between the mostly black and Hispanic children and families who use the schools and the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish majority who run the Board of Education and send their children to private, religious schools." Also see:
A District Divided.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 24, 2013 -
168 comments
"Premature babies born at the edge of viability force us to debate the most difficult questions in medicine and in life. After just 23 weeks of pregnancy, Kelley Benham found herself in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with a daughter born so early neonatologist doctors would call her a "micro preemie." New technologies can sometimes keep micro preemies alive, but many end up disabled, some catastrophically so. Whether to provide care to these infants is one of the fundamental controversies in neonatology. This is the story of how Benham and her husband, Tom French, made the difficult choice:
Fight for the life of their micro preemie baby or let her go?"
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Dec 8, 2012 -
70 comments
American paratrooper Arthur Boorman suffered debilitating injuries during the first Gulf War. Doctors told him he'd never walk unassisted again.
15 years later.... [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 27, 2012 -
16 comments
Six years ago, US Army Captain Ivan Castro was severely wounded in a mortar attack in Iraq that left him permanently and completely blinded. Today, he's one of only three blind active duty Army officers, and the very first to serve in the US Army Special Forces. Thirteen months and 36 surgeries after the attack, Castro ran the 2007 Marine Corps Marathon in 4:14 and
the Army Ten Miler in 1:25. And he's still going: In the last 15 months, he's completed 14 marathons. Why?
"Because I still can. Because people need to see what's possible." [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 13, 2012 -
17 comments
824,273 disabled veterans are currently awaiting a response on claims from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. On average, it takes the government 257 days to respond, and there has been a 7.2% growth in claims over the last 1.3 years -- so the delays are growing. While they wait, veterans often cannot access health care from the agency or receive disability compensation. Plus, the backlog on claim appeals is at least 3.5 years. So how can veterans avoid the backlog? A special investigation by the Bay Area Citizen shows that processing speed is a matter of geographic location:
veterans in sparsely populated areas have their claims filled faster than those living in urban centers. Interactive Map:
Where is Worst Backlog? Related
video and transcript.
posted by zarq
on Aug 30, 2012 -
33 comments
Right now Baltimore, MD plays host to
FemmeCon, a biannual gathering for those who "seek to explore, discuss, dissect, and support
Queer Femme as a transgressive, gender-queer, stand-alone, and empowered identity and provide a space for organizing and activism within Queer communities". Some of the issues faced by queer femme culture include
femme invisibility in larger queer culture, the
lack of non-stereotypical role models,
being classed 'femme' by default, dismissal as
"too much", as well as intersectional issues of femme with
race,
gender, and
disability. In the meantime, femme subcultures such as
tomboy femme,
hard femme, and
FEMME SHARKS as well as
femmes in specific regions come together for
inspiration,
expression,
power,
creativity and support from each other - as well as from
appreciative butches.
posted by divabat
on Aug 18, 2012 -
111 comments
Nearly a decade ago, Sun Jifa lost his hands in a fishing-related explosion (he was building a bomb for blast-fishing). He soon realized that he couldn't afford the prosthetic hands recommended by the hospital. Undeterred, he decided to build his own bionic hands.
Eight years later...
posted by unSane
on Aug 17, 2012 -
46 comments
We're not here for your inspiration says Stella Young on the ABC's "
Ramp Up" disability gateway.
Pictures of people with disabilities going about our everyday lives posted on facebook and twitter as "inspiration porn" shame and objectify those of us they pretend to represent.
posted by wilful
on Jul 10, 2012 -
49 comments
You may have seen these
small little triangular shaped cars riding around on the bicycle paths in Holland. Called Cantas, these are sold exclusively to people with disabilities, though there is a lively secondhand market in them as more people turn away from cars to much cheaper scooter mobiles. Only Cantas are legally allowed to ride on bicycle paths or pavements though and only Cantas have had
a ballet designed for them.
[more inside]
posted by MartinWisse
on Jul 1, 2012 -
27 comments
Following the announcement of
plans to replace the Disability Living Allowance, eliminating benefits to 500,000 people via new criteria and the already-controversial
Work Capability Assessments, and
concerns that the change will undermine the legacy of the Paralypmic Games, public transit access to the Olympics for wheelchair users is
put to the test (autostart video). For reference, the TfL suggests form Trafalgar Square to Stratford takes 35-40 minutes without accessibility considerations and approximately 50 minutes using wheelchair accessible routes.
[more inside]
posted by hoyland
on May 21, 2012 -
29 comments
Have a seizure. The non-disabled can have a lot of trouble coming to grips with a friend's disability, especially if it's something that doesn't show up well from the outside. As the writer puts it, "... she knows I have MS, but she's never actually seen my disease, and there are miles between those two things." There are a whole host of bad ways for someone to react to seeing the disease. And then there are the good ones.
posted by MShades
on Apr 20, 2012 -
23 comments
Autistic and Seeking a Place in the World. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Amy Harmon spent a year observing a young man with autism named Justin Canha, who took part in a new kind of “transition to adulthood” program for special education students at Montclair High School in NJ. The experimental program was intended to ready him for an independent life as an adult and integrate him into the community.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 18, 2011 -
26 comments
This week
Pat Robertson (controversial as always) addressed an uncomfortable question. What are we obligated to do when our spouse becomes completely incapacitated? This is a relatively common situation for the elderly, one person declining faster than the other, but the same questions remain as with a couple in their thirties. Do you live with celibacy, divorce or commit infidelity?
Dan Savage’s rules on cheating include a pass for caregiver/spouses in this situation to preserve the marriage. Things can become more difficult when the
sexual relationship does not end after a partner becomes infirm.
posted by Blisterlips
on Sep 15, 2011 -
96 comments
"One day a little boy came up, he must have been about four and he saw me taking off my (prosthetic) legs and he started with the 'why' questions, you know, 'why haven't you got any legs', etc. And I said 'have you heard of The Little Mermaid?' and he said 'yes' and I said 'I'm a mermaid' and he got this look on his face and he said 'wow that's cool' and ran off to tell his dad.
I'll have to turn up to that beach again sometime with my tail - just in case he's there."
Weta Digital are the special effects team behind the costumes, weapons and creatures of the
Lord of the Rings movies,
Avatar and even
a sonic screwdriver prop that could be making an appearance on the next season of Doctor Who. In 2009, they
created a fully functional mermaid tail pro bono for Nadya Vessey,
an Auckland woman who is a double leg amputee. Video News Report:
1,
2.
posted by zarq
on Apr 5, 2011 -
37 comments
“
Water” is a film about a young boy’s struggle to accept his fears, his mentally disabled father and his possible future duty.
[more inside]
posted by querty
on Nov 18, 2010 -
4 comments
'American Able' intends to, through spoof, reveal the ways in which women with disabilities are invisibilized in advertising and mass media. I chose American Apparel not just for their notable style, but also for their claims that many of their models are just ‘every day’ women who are employees, friends and fans of the company. However, these women fit particular body types. Their campaigns are highly sexualized and feature women who are generally thin, and who appear to be able-bodied. Women with disabilities go unrepresented, not only in American Apparel advertising, but also in most of popular culture. Rarely, if ever, are women with disabilities portrayed in anything other than an asexual manner, for ‘disabled’ bodies are largely perceived as ‘undesirable.’ In a society where sexuality is created and performed over and over within popular culture, the invisibility of women with disabilities in many ways denies them the right to sexuality, particularly within a public context.
[more inside]
posted by heatherann
on May 5, 2010 -
99 comments
“Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable” is an “intrusive and unpleasant game” featured on
Ouch, the hour-long monthly BBC
podcast talk show on disability. In it, the show’s hosts must figure out a caller’s disability by asking “fiendish” questions, to which the caller may answer only yes or no. (When it’s all over, Daleks holler out the answer.) This is only one of the many scabrous, puckish, and unskittish ways in which
Ouch covers life as a “crip,” a term the show uses unabashedly.
posted by joeclark
on May 5, 2010 -
39 comments
Disabled traveler Rachel D. took a
harrowing flight with United recently. Despite their
stated policy, she was told repeatedly that "It's not in our contract to assist passengers with their luggage and we reserve the right to refuse assistance to anyone." This is
not the first time United has had a problem with disabled people. (For reference, the federal
Air Carrier Access Act that prohibits discrimination towards disabled passencers.)
posted by restless_nomad
on Apr 12, 2010 -
102 comments
"Melissa" (name changed for privacy) is a transwoman who was badly injured in a car accident and is in hospital in critical condition. While in treatment, some of the medical staff and her family decided that since she still had a "male" body, to make things "less confusing", they will
erase 4 years of her female identity by referring to her as a man and taking her off her hormone therapy. (Warning: possible triggers) As little light puts it:
And if she woke up as from a deep sleep, she’d wake up into a world where her best friend was dead, where her body had been forcibly edited back to its pre-transition state and given a few more years of the influence of testosterone to boot, where her memory and self were hazy and confusing and nobody was calling her by the right name and pronouns, they were in fact pretending four years of her life, the four years she finally got to be honest and true to herself, those had never happened, and shh, she’s just confused, shhhh, calm down, let’s work on fixing your memory some more.
[more inside]
posted by divabat
on Jan 13, 2010 -
147 comments
