Georgia autistic teen writes sophisticated political blog

From WXIA-TV in Georgia:

DUNWOODY, Ga. -- Asher Newman sits at his computer, proofreading his latest entry aloud: "A better question is, are you better off than when Obama took office? My answer to that is, it depends."

It's a busy time of year when you're a political blogger. Everybody wants your predictions.

"I think Romney has a good chance of winning the popular vote," he said. "But I think Obama is probably going to win the electoral vote."

And everybody wants to argue your predictions. Asher sits in his living room, saying to his mother, "Israel's going to be fine, mom."

Asher has plenty of things that cut into his blogging time, like his duties as a ninth grader at Riverwood High School.

Still, there is little to deter Asher from his true passion -- politics, and his opinion. Here are a few of those opinions. "I feel we need a national sales tax, like two percent on top of the local sales tax, and we need a more simplified tax code. We need to raise the Social Security age because when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy wasn't even 65. Now it's 78."

Asher also has autism. He explains it this way. "It's kind of like you don't know what to do socially."
"Children with autism, they're very black and white," said his mom Susan. "There's no grey."

And Asher knows this could cause trouble for him down the road. "I feel like if I ever have to have a wife and she says 'Does my butt look big in this dress?' I'm going to say 'Yes it does,' and then she's going to get mad at me."

But Asher can deal with mad. He is a confident, mostly straight 'A' student whose encyclopedic knowledge of politics keeps him more informed than most, even his teachers.

Joel Kadish is one of Asher's teachers and is the Student Government faculty advisor. He and Asher discuss the election, including other races around the country.

Asked if he feels like he's talking to a 14 year old, Joel replied, "Definitely feel like I'm talking to someone beyond my years. The time it takes to be so informed about so many things. I mean, I teach the stuff."
Asher is holding his first political office -- class treasurer. He smiles. "No one ran against me, and I was pretty satisfied because I had to put in no effort, or speeches, or anything."

And while he gives the electoral edge to Obama, don't expect a ringing endorsement. "I am in favor of Obama being re-elected. I mean I don't like him that much, but the problem is I don't like the alternative either."

All that knowledge -- but no girlfriend, yet.

"I wish I did but I don't," Asher said. At 14, he is smart enough to know, there are some things even more complicated than politics. "I probably don't have good enough social skills for starters. I'm not exactly a charmer. I'm not Bill Clinton."

In Great Britain, 300-year-old manual reveals efforts to help deaf people speak

From MSNBC:

A 300-year-old, leather-bound instruction manual contains some of the earliest examples of attempts to teach the deaf to communicate. 

The manual belonged to Alexander Popham, a deaf teenager from a noble English family who was taught to speak in the 1660s. The leather-bound notebook was discovered in 2008 at a stately English manor called Littlecote House.

The finding suggests that one of the boy's tutors, John Wallis, was a few hundred years ahead of his time in understanding that deaf people needed their own language to communicate, said linguist David Cram of the University of Oxford.

Cram is presenting his findings at a Royal Society lecture Nov. 9 in London.

Wallis also likely made use of a rudimentary method of sign language, Cram said.

"Wallis made the point that in order to teach a deaf person our language, the language of the hearing, we had to learn their language," Cram told LiveScience. "He certainly would have made use of sign language and also of a writing system."

At the time, men who were mute were deemed incompetent and not allowed to inherit property or make wills.

"The tradition going back to the Middle Ages was that deafness and dumbness went together," Cram said. "If you couldn't teach people to speak, you wouldn't be able to teach them to communicate."

In order to preserve young Popham's social status, his family asked two Renaissance Men of the period, Wallis and William Holder, to teach him to speak.

Amazingly, Popham learned to communicate and speak (although historical records don't reveal how well), became a minor celebrity of the era and was even presented at court, Cram said. He eventually married the daughter of one of the leading intellectual women of the 17th century.

In later years, Wallis and Holder disputed who should get credit for teaching Popham to speak. While Holder was the first to tutor Popham and may have first coaxed the boy to say words, there's no doubt that Wallis was the one who taught Popham to use those words to communicate, Cram said.

"It's not clear that Holder was doing anything more than trying to get someone to produce words parrot-fashion," Cram said.

After Holder left his job as Popham's tutor, Wallis took his place.

The small, leather-bound manual written by Wallis reveals that he understood that deaf people could communicate and that speaking was separate from communicating — in other words, being able to produce sounds doesn't mean you can make yourself understood. Nor is speech the only way to communicate. The book contains detailed explanations of vocal articulation, but also figures and signs and exercises in phonetics, syntax and sentence construction.

"Wallis made the point that a really profoundly deaf person will need to be taught to communicate before they articulate," he said.

Wallis wasn't the first person to experiment with signs. Hundreds of years earlier, Benedictine monks who took a vow of silence also developed their own primitive sign language, which formed the basis of later attempts in Spain to teach the deaf to sign, Cram said.

Stand-up success for British 'Lost Voice Guy' comic with CP

From the BBC:

The 31-year-old from County Durham said he always wanted to be able to tell jokes and make people laugh

Born with cerebral palsy, Lee Ridley does not have a voice of his own. But that has not stopped him from braving the stage as a stand-up comedian.

The 31-year-old, from County Durham, dreamed of being able to make people laugh. Now, with the help of a voice synthesiser, he is doing just that.

Appearances at Newcastle comedy clubs have led to his debut at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Now, he has been offered a support spot with one of the UK's most successful comedians, Ross Noble.
The self-titled "Lost Voice Guy" has won over audiences with cutting observations about his own and other disabilities as well as more mainstream topics like politics and the media.

He has the support of his family and employer, Sunderland City Council, where he is part of the public relations department.

Lee uses a tablet computer to pre-programme his routine, which is then reproduced on stage and on cue through a voice synthesiser.

"I've always loved comedy, but I never thought about doing stand-up," he said. "Then last year some friends suggested it might work.

"I let the idea stay in the back of my mind until I eventually decided to give it a go."

He approached organisers of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, who offered the City Cafe as a venue. So far, two planned shows have turned into three after a surge in demand for tickets.

"I'm going to do some new stuff and some of my old stuff in Edinburgh, just to mix it up a bit.

"Most of it revolves around the funny side of my disability. I'll do a similar thing at Ross' gig.

"My family are coming up and we've had to add a third show due to demand."

He said he was "immensely pleased" to be offered a support spot with North East-born Ross Noble - one of the UK's most successful comedians.

Lee said: "He's doing a warm-up show for his tour at The Stand club in Newcastle in September and he asked me if I wanted to do the warm up spot for it.

"I could never turn down an opportunity like that. Ross has had such a big influence on me comedy-wise. I was over the moon when he asked. It means an awful lot.

"After Edinburgh, I've got more gigs around the UK. I'm just enjoying myself at the minute and not worrying about the future too much. But I intend to keep my job with Sunderland Council, who have been very supportive."

Call for proposals for Society for Disability Studies 2013 conference in Orlando

2013 SDS Call for Proposals

Call for proposals

26th annual meeting

Society for Disability Studies

Wednesday, June 26th – Saturday, June 29th, 2013

Double-by-Hilton at the Entrance to Universal Studios

Orlando, Florida 

(Re)creating Our Lived Realities

Submission system will open October 1, 2012

at http://www.disstudies.org

Deadline for submissions: November 21, 2012

In honor of its 26th annual meeting convening in Orlando, Florida – the land of make-believe, the home of Disney World and Universal Studios – the program committee of the Society for Disability Studies would like to encourage you to think about the ways in which we create and re-create our lived realities. We would like you to think not only about disabled people as complexly embodied historical actors, but also about the many social, economic, physiological, and political forces that shape, and often constrain, our lived realities. As people situated at the intersection of local and global histories, systems, and structures, we are constantly shaping and molding our social, cultural, and built environment(s). And they in turn affect us in innumerable ways. Nothing we do or say, or have done, can be divorced from its social and historical context, nor can it be isolated from the many human relations through which it emerges. While all proposals that explore these themes are welcome, the program committee especially seeks to solicit work that explores the interesting interactions among larger systems or structures, such as global capitalism, neoliberalism, militarism, and our immediate corporeal experiences – pleasure, pain, sex, illness, debility, a ride at Disney World or a walk through Epcot Center.

We offer the following broad questions to foster interdisciplinary perspectives and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration:

• What are the many ways in which disabled people have conceptualized and enacted changes to the built environment and to the many things with which we interact on a daily basis? What barriers do people who experience disability face? How have these things changed over time?

• What happens when local understandings, strategies, and ways of being meet up with more globalizing ones?

• What new possibilities for change do such intersections produce, and, alternatively, where do we find disconnects that thwart cooperation?

• How have various technologies–and access to them–shaped the formation of disabled identities and cultures, as well as interpersonal and group relationships?

• In what ways are the realities we create bounded or shaped by geographic location, institutional formation, identity politics, and other factors?

• What do collisions between the local and the global reveal about our experiences? What do they obscure?

• How have disability politics and activism shaped not only the built environment, but human relations as well?

• How does enduring poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the persistence of the medical and charity model shape / limit access to the many realities we create in our lives? How do these factors also open possibilities? How have these factors enhanced disability rights?

• How have the various disciplines within disability studies explored and analyzed the built environment? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?

• How have/might the various disciplines and fields within disability studies work across disciplinary boundaries to enhance the quality of our lives?

• How have/might disability studies reach out to local and national organizations and institutions to influence families, religious communities, service providers, political institutions, employers, etc.?

• How does a focus on Lived Realities influence research methods, theory, and the underpinnings of disability scholarship and practice?

• How have prevailing (contemporary) paradigms (or narratives) succeeded or failed in capturing “our lived realities”?

We welcome proposals in all areas of disability studies, especially those submissions premised on this year’s theme.

This year’s program committee is continuing the idea of specific “strands” that relate to the larger more general theme of the SDS conference. Each strand may have 3 or 4 related events (e.g. panels, workshops), organized to occur throughout the conference and in a way that will eliminate any overlap of sessions in an effort to facilitate a more sustained discussion of specific issues that have arisen as areas of interest within the organization.

Our planned strands this year are as follows. Others may emerge from member proposals:

• Florida / Southern movement history: The DRM has a rich history of disability activism in the South that offers tremendous opportunity for exploration.
• Communities / Identities and disability studies: Members would like to continue these areas of discussion from our conference last year in Denver. Explore challenges and possibilities that shape collaboration, culture, and community for people who experience disability.
• Power and privilege: Ongoing discussions among SDS board members, members of SDS caucuses, and others led to this strand, intended to look both at the workings of power and privilege broadly and within SDS itself.
• Professional development: This strand addresses a need identified by many of our members for professional development, including matters such as locating funding, pursuing academic and non-academic jobs, surviving the tenure track, etc.
• Translational research in disability studies and health sciences: Using translational research here to refer to research that translates between disciplines, and from basic research to applied research and to practice, the goals of this NIH-related conference strand are: (1) to demonstrate how disability studies theory contributes to the conception of health sciences research and practice; (2) to provide best practice examples of disability studies translational research and practice; and (3) to mentor a new generation of federally funded disability studies researchers and practitioners. We particularly welcome submissions from disabled clinicians/clinical researchers interested in cutting edge disability studies perspectives.

If you would like your proposal to be considered as part of one of these thematic strands, mark this in your submission.

SESSION FORMATS:

All submissions in formats A to F below are peer reviewed.

All session formats are 90 minutes in length, including all introductions, presentations, discussion, and closure.

Proposals may be submitted for presentations in any of the following formats:

• • Individuals may submit to present remote individual presentations in one of the following formats: video file, audio file, or audio Skype.
  • Remote presentations must be made accessible according to our presentation accessibility guidelines (forthcoming) and must be submitted to the program committee one month in advance (before May 19, 2013) or they will be removed from the program.
  • Presenters are responsible for the technology needed for creating accessible presentations and responding live (via audio Skype and/or Instant Message) during their scheduled presentation time.
  • Proposals for remote presentations should be for individual presentations only, not panels.
  • Access to these remote presentation slots will be highly competitive and will be reserved for presenters who are unable to present in person but whose presentation offers the richest, most unique and most innovative material related to the theme. If you have the resources and ability to travel and attend the conference in Orlando, we ask that you do not apply to present remotely.
  • We will not consider a presentation for both face-to-face and remote presentation formats. Only those individuals who cannot attend in person should apply to present remotely.
  • Please note, because remote presenters will enjoy professional exposure and opportunity for exchange and because presentations require infrastructure that is quite costly, remote presenters must register and pay a $100 registration fee. 

A. Individual Presentation: Individual presentations will be placed alongside three other panelists with a similar topic and a moderator chosen by the Program Committee. In general, we assume 15-20-minute presentations (if you are requesting a longer time, please specify and explain why). Presenters are required to submit 300-word abstracts for individual papers/presentations. List all co-authors, if any, and designate the presenting author(s).

A Note on Virtual Presentations: As a trial run for the 2013 conference, we will offer a small number of remote presentations slots during the face-to-face meetings. SDS is experimenting with ways to make our conference accessible to those who cannot travel while ensuring feasibility, reliability and accessibility for those present at the face-to-face meeting. Because this is a trial year, the spots are very limited in order to ensure quality and prepare for more remote and virtual options in 2014.

B. Poster: Individuals or small teams will be provided a common space and time with an easel (and/or table if requested) to present a display of a research, training, service, or advocacy project, or other work. Presenters should be in attendance at the poster session. Submissions for the poster session requires a 300-word abstract, complete contact information for anyone involved in the project who will attend SDS, and a designated lead contact person. We encourage people to submit proposals specifically for the poster session. Each year, SDS proudly awards the Tanis Doe Award for the best poster.

C. Panels: Groups of 3-4 presenters (each with 15-20 minutes), a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), plus an optional discussant, are encouraged to submit proposals around a central topic, theme, or approach. Panel proposals require BOTH a 300-word proposal describing the panel AND a 300-word abstract for each paper/presentation. List all paper/presentation co-authors, identify the presenting author(s), and provide biographical information for the discussant, if one is planned.

D. Discussion: A topical discussion with a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), but with only short (5-7 min.) presentations to start discussion, if any. Submit a 500-word proposal, including a description of how the time will be used, complete contact information for the designated organizer and each participant in the discussion, and a description of their roles.

E. Workshop: Engaged application of a specific program or exercise involving a minimum of 4 planners / presenters. Proposals should include a 500-word proposal that addresses methodology and learning outcomes. Proposals must describe the format of the workshop. How will you use the time? Please describe the credentials and role of each workshop participant, designate a contact person/moderator, and provide complete contact information for each planner / presenter.

F. Performance, Film, or Art Event/Exhibit: We encourage submissions of a creative/artistic event in any media by individuals and/or groups. All proposals should clearly list at least one person who will register for and attend the conference as the event presenter/host. Submissions must include a 500-word proposal, and sample of the proposed work (up to 2,500 words of text, ten images of artistic work, demo CD, YouTube or other Internet link, DVD, or other appropriate format). Send via email at SDSprogram@disstudies.org or postal mail to the SDS Executive Office at 107 Commerce Centre Drive, Suite 204, Huntersville NC 28078 USA. Samples must reach the SDS Executive Office by the submission deadline. Please describe the background and role of each artist/participant and designate a contact person / moderator.

Performers should be aware that SDS does not have the ability to provide theatrical and or stage settings in the 2013 venue. While every effort will be made to provide appropriate performance spaces, proposing performers are advised that special lighting, audiovisual equipment, and staging requests cannot be accommodated. All film entries accepted for presentation at the 2013 Conference must be provided to the SDS Executive Office on DVD not less than 30 days prior to the start of the Conference in open-captioned format, and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. As SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings, the provider of the film is fully responsible for securing any necessary permissions from trade and copyright holders for public showing. Sponsors of accepted films must register for and attend the conference, host the screening, bring documentation of rights clearance to the Conference and make it available during the film screening. SDS may request the right to schedule more than one screening at the conference. SDS program committee may request more samples and cannot return materials that are submitted for consideration.

G. Student and Other Interest Groups/Caucus/Other Meetings (non peer-reviewed): Various ad hoc and organized SDS or other non-profit groups may wish to have business, organizational, or informational meetings or some other kind of non-peer reviewed event or exhibit space at the meetings. Anyone hoping to host any such event should request space by December 1, 2012 by using the proposal submission form. After December 1st, space will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. No meetings can be planned through SDS after the early-bird deadline of April 15, 2013. All presenters at such events must register for the conference. Requests from groups not affiliated with SDS may be assessed a share of cost for space and access arrangements. Please provide the name of group, a description of the group and/or meeting purpose and format (in 300 words), and contact information for at least one organizer and a designated moderator. SDS will provide ASL/CART as needed. Organizers should contact SDS if they want catering or any other special arrangements.

A Note on Films / Film Shorts: Films and film clips may be submitted as part of any of the format categories described above. Follow the category appropriate instructions above. Participants proposing films within any of the proposal formats must be registered for and attend the conference. Ideally, film length should not exceed 60 minutes under any category, to allow time for introduction and / or comments. All film entries must be captioned and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION:

• All participants must register and pay for the conference through the SDS website (http://disstudies.org/) by the early bird deadline: April 15, 2013, or they will be removed from the program. Please note: low income/student/international member presenters are eligible for modest financial aid for meeting costs. Applications for financial assistance will be available via the SDS listserv in the coming months.
• Participants MAY NOT appear in more than TWO peer-reviewed conference events, A-F above (excluding evening performances, non-presenting organizer, non-presenting moderator, New Book/Work Reception). Individuals with multiple submissions will be asked to rank order their preferences for participation. The program committee will prioritize spreading program slots across the membership before offering multiple slots to any one participant.
• Any participant with a book or other materials (e.g., DVD, CD) finished within the last three years (2010, 2011, 2012) is welcome to participate in the New Book/Work Reception. At least one person must register and be in attendance to host your reception display. You will be provided a table for display and the opportunity to interact with conference participants. The fee for representation in the New Book/Work Reception is $40.00. You will have the opportunity to register as an author attending the New Book Reception when you register for the conference.
• Any participant is welcome to request meeting space on behalf of a group. Requests for meeting space should be made by the December 1st submission date. Requests will be accommodated thereafter on a first-come, first-served basis and must be received by the SDS Executive Office in writing as in G above to SDSprogram@disstudies.org no later than April 15, 2013.
• Please indicate on the submission form whether you are willing to serve as moderator for a session.
• If you intend to participate in multiple events, please complete the submission process for each event.
• Participants will be notified of the status of their proposal by January 14, 2013.
• Any cancellations and requests for refunds after April 15, 2013 (the early bird deadline) may incur a cancellation fee. Any participant unable to attend must notify SDS in a timely fashion.
• Accessibility: In keeping with the philosophy of SDS we ask that presenters attend carefully to the accessibility of their presentations. As a prospective presenter, you agree to:
  • Provide hard copy and large print hard copies (17 point font or larger) of all handouts used during the presentation.
  • Provide an e-text version of papers, outlines and/or presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides and a summary of one’s presentation with a list of proper names, terminology and jargon in advance of their delivery (for open captioning, distribution to attendees who experience barriers to print, and to assist ASL interpreters with preparation). SDS will also use this material to create an on-line forum of all work submitted by June 10th in the hopes of facilitating a more inclusive and richer discussion on-site. After June 1, 2013 work cannot be added to the forum. Participation in this forum is optional, but strongly encouraged.This forum will be password-protected and available only to those participants who have registered for the conference. The sole purpose of this forum is to further enhance intellectual access and participation for attendees at this year’s conference by allowing attendees advance access to the content of your presentation. All participants in the on-line forum must abide by the strictest conventions regarding the intellectual property rights of authors:
    • Do not cite or another author’s work anywhere or in any way without the expressed, prior, written consent of individual author(s).
    • Do not share work posted in the forum with someone who does not have protected access to the forum (someone who has not registered for the conference).
  • Make allowances for a “Plan B”: consider bringing your presentation on a jump drive and projecting the text of your paper to enhance captioning.
  • Provide audio-description of visual images, charts and video/DVDs, and/or open or closed captioning of films and video clips.
  • Contribute to improving intellectual access at the conference: consider your presentation as an opportunity to engage your audience.
    • Avoid reading your paper.
    • Plan your presentation to accommodate captioning and ASL interpretation. Avoid using jargon, and slow the pace of your presentation to allow time for eye contact and spelling proper names and terminology.

AUDIO / VISUAL INFORMATION:

Presentation rooms* for the SDS 2013 Conference will be equipped with:

• 2 (two) microphones for use by presenters;
• 1 (one) LCD projector, screen, power source, and cables;
• Head table suitable to comfortably accommodate 4 (four) people;
• Both table top and podium presentation spaces; and
• Non-dedicated, WIFI Internet access (i.e. not functional for audio/video download reliably)
• SDS does not provide computers, overhead projectors, or other audio/visual equipment as a matter of course. Presenters are responsible for ensuring that presentation structure and planning works well within these audio/visual parameters.

*This information may not be applicable to film showings and some other events.

AWARDS:

The Tanis Doe Award for best poster will be judged and awarded at the poster session of the SDS conference. The Tanis Doe Award includes a cash award, a certificate of recognition, and the posting of authors names on the SDS website. The Tanis Doe Award is open to everyone at all levels of education and experience. Additionally, this year, we will award “Honorable Mentions” for posters with student first-authors at each level of education: community college, four-year college/university, and graduate school as a way of encouraging student participation in the poster session.

SDS also honors the recipients of the Senior Scholar Award, and the Irving K. Zola Award for emerging scholars at the annual conference. Please see the Call for Nominations via the SDS listserv and website. Decisions regarding these awards are made prior to the conference. Award winners will be invited to present during the program and receive recognition at the SDS business meeting. The Zola Award also includes publication in a future issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Other awards may also be presented at the SDS business meeting.

SUBMISSION AGREEMENT:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. YOU ARE AGREEING TO ALL OF THESE CLAUSES.
By submitting to SDS 2013 in Orlando, you give SDS full permission to publish your abstracts, photograph you, publish such photographs on the SDS web site or other publications, audio or video record your presentation, transcribe the presentation for access needs, and transmit or post and archive such recordings and transcriptions via live-streaming, podcast form, or any other electronic means. If submitting on behalf of multiple presenters and authors, you certify that each presenter and author has granted his/her permission to Society for Disability Studies for purposes described in this paragraph. By giving this permission, you understand that you retain full rights to your work but give SDS the right to use your presentation in the context of the 2013 conference, including (but not limited to) charging attendees and others for access to derivative audio or video products, recordings or podcasts.

For further information contact the Program Committee of the SDS 2013 program committee at SDSprogram@disstudies.org.

Free speech wins in Ohio 'crippled girl' case

From The Cincinnati Enquirer:

CINCINNATI — A Kentucky man committed no crime when he asked groups of people at an event in a public park here if they wanted "to laugh at the crippled girl," a Hamilton County jury decided Nov. 1.

The win for Forest Thomer II, 25, of suburban Cold Spring, Ky., also is a win for free-speech rights, he said.

"I think we've taken a negative situation and turned it into a positive situation," Thomer said after Thursday's verdict.

Thomer was doing what he called guerrilla marketing when he went to the May 23 Party in the Park event, hosted by the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce. To promote the comedy career of his friend, Ally Bruener, Thomer walked up to groups of people, pointed at Bruener — who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair — and asked, "Do you want to laugh at the crippled girl?"

As the people were trying to recover from the seemingly inappropriate question, Bruener wheeled up, told a joke and then announced when and where her next performance would be.

Lori Salzarulo of the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce complained to police about Thomer's comments. Police threatened to shock Thomer with a Taser then arrest him.

Cincinnati Police Officer Dan Kreider charged Thomer with disorderly conduct, accusing him of "grossly abusive language."

The charge is a crime that could have sent Thomer to jail for up to 30 days and, Thomer insisted, also violated his right to free speech.

After Thomer accused the police of censorship, the city twice changed the charges, finally deciding to try him on a charge of "turbulent behavior."

Thomer and his lawyer, Danielle Anderson, believe Salzarulo wanted Thomer thrown out because she feared his kind of humor would ruin the chamber's event.

But her displeasure doesn't trump free-speech rights, even for Thomer's shocking language, the jury decided.

"It might be tasteless and you might not agree with it, but it's legal," Anderson said. "No one else (other than Salzarulo) came forward to complain."

Bruener, also of Cold Spring, testified at the four-day trial. She said Thomer was arrested for something he didn't do.

"It was unnecessary from the beginning," she said. She has said she is on a crusade to destigmatize the word "crippled."

After his acquittal, Thomer wouldn't rule out a possible civil suit against the city.

"We'll have to see what happens," Thomer said.

CFP: Fantastic! Heroic! Disabled? 'Cripping' the Comic Con will be April 2013 at Syracuse University

Call for Proposals

Michael Bérubé tells us that “every representation of disability has the potential to shape the way ‘disability’ is understood in general culture, and some of those representations can in fact do extraordinary powerful—or harmful—cultural and political work” (1997, p. B4).

This symposium will provide participants with the opportunity to engage in a broad array of reflective discussions about the representations of disability that exist “beneath the surface” and explicitly within mainstream popular cultures both nationally and internationally, particularly the popular culture phenomena that are comic books, graphic novels, and manga.

Submissions incorporating genres that do not typically receive sustained attention in mainstream scholarly spaces are encouraged. These include but are not limited to the following:

• comix, anime, motion comics
• films, movies, videos, television shows (including reality TV, animated TV)
• advertising, newspapers, magazines
• comic cons, dragon cons, geek cons, movie cons, cosplay, cult fandom, the “geek syndrome”
• visual arts, painting, photography, deviantART, alternative and alternate art forms
• poetry, expressive arts, popular fiction, imagetext, fanfic, slash, alternative and alternate forms of literacies
• material culture, multimedia, social media, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
• websites, blogs, memes, zines
• games, gaming, toys, action figures

This event is meant not only to meet unmet needs in scholarly spaces and beyond but also to address these vital areas/concerns:

1. Popular culture studies and literature do not pay consistent or adequate attention to disability; when this attention is paid, it is often via “special issues” of journals, etc.
2. Further, “Popular culture is…the discursive terrain on which larger social issues are played out, often unobtrusively and masked as entertainment–and this is precisely why pop culture needs to be examined even more closely...” (Nayar, 2011, p. 172).
3. Popular culture studies and literature continue to have a mixed reception within certain mainstream academic spaces. Because popular culture is still sometimes not taken seriously within some of these spaces (even among some disability studies scholars and practitioners), its status remains, for some, “discounted” (at times, popular culture studies may even be perceived as “deviant”). Consequently, this symposium’s organizers aim to: (a) critique what is often described as “deviant” and (b) question and disrupt what “counts” as academic, mainstream, and normative
4. The symposium organizers seek to create opportunities for all participants—particularly students and any emerging scholars—to share their work, and to make any information provided or presented accessible and usable. We all benefit from discussing and learning about disability and popular culture in ways that include and welcome everyone’s participation. The symposium organizers and the proposal review committee strongly support the notion that “academics have a responsibility to make their work relevant for the society they exist within” (Jurgenson, 2012), and this of course includes making disability studies relevant and accessible to the disability community (Ne’eman, 2012).
5. The symposium will be consistent with values that underscore the disability rights movement: we seek to make collective investments in disability pride, identity, and cultures. In “cripping” the status quo, we assert, purposefully, “Nothing about us without us.”

Submission Guidelines and Instructions

Proposal types and formats may include, among others:

1. Individual presentation
2. Panel presentation
3. Discussion/workshop/roundtable
4. Performance/video/film/art entry
5. Poster session

Please note that other forms of proposals are fully welcomed, and the above list is not exhaustive. If you have something particular in mind, please explain the details and parameters of what you imagine, via your proposal submission(s). You are also welcomed and encouraged to submit more than one proposal.

If your submission is a performance/video/film/art entry, you are responsible for securing permissions and rights for public viewing. Videos and films should be open captioned and descriptions of any artwork will be required.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 11, 2013

Each proposal must include:

1. Name
2. Affiliation (if applicable)
3. Contact information (including email and phone/voice phone)
   a. if there is more than one presenter, please indicate the main contact and lead presenter (if these are two different individuals, please indicate this information)
4. Title of presentation/activity/etc. (15 words or les)
5. Short description (50 words or less)
6. Full description (1000 words or less)

How to submit your proposal(s) -- please choose one of the following options:

1. Via email to cripcon@gmail.com. Submissions can be sent as an attachment (Word, Word Perfect, Text, Rich Text Format or PDF) or with text pasted/embedded in the body of your message. Please put CRIPCON SUBMISSION in the subject line.
2. Via Fax: 315-443-4338. Please indicate CRIPCON SUBMISSION on Fax cover sheet.
3. Via regular mail:

Fantastic! Heroic! Disabled? Cripping the Con
c/o SU Disability Cultural Center
805 S Crouse Ave, 105 Hoople Bldg.
Syracuse, NY 13244-2280

Additional Information

Information and content produced as a result of this symposium will be published, with participant and presenter consent, via Beneath the SUrface (BtS), an open source digital repository on disability and popular culture to be launched at the conclusion of the symposium. BtS will then become available to the academic community as well as to the general public, and will include an array of resources regarding disability and popular culture.

Each day of the symposium, there will be a designated time slot during which poster sessions will be offered concurrently with “open space.”

Open space will be an opportunity for participants to create spontaneous and/or planned topical interactions with other participants—in other words, open space will be a venue for you to create your own symposium “sessions,” during specific times and in specific locations.

All confirmed participants (whether presenting or not) will receive information on:

1. Completing registration
2. Requesting disability accommodations
3. Expressing dietary preferences (some but not all meals will be included)

All participants will be responsible for the cost of their own lodging and travel.

To keep informed, visit us online!

Websites: http://crippingthecon.com and http://crippingthecon.info

Twitter: @cripcon

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References

Bérubé, M. (1997, May 30). The cultural representation of people with disabilities affects us all. The Chronicle of Higher Education, B4-B5.

Jurgenson, N. (2012, May 11). Making our ideas more accessible. Washington, DC: Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 19, 2012 from: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2012/05/11/scholars-must-make-their-work-more-available-and-accessible-essay.

Nayar, P. K. (2011). Haunted knights in spandex: Self and othering in the superhero mythos. Mediterranean Journal of Humanities, 1/2, 171-183.

Ne’eman, A. (2012, May 14). Making Disability Studies accessible. Washington, DC: Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN). Retrieved September 19, 2012 from http://autisticadvocacy.org/2012/05/making-disability-studies-accessible/.

Helen Hunt, John Hawkes talk about playing real people, portraying sexual honesty

From The LA Times:

If truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction, sometimes it's also more compelling. In their new film, "The Sessions," costars John Hawkes and Helen Hunt found plenty of inspiration in their characters' real-life counterparts: the late Mark O'Brien, an author confined to an iron lung after contracting polio as a boy, and Cheryl Cohen Greene, the sex surrogate he enlisted to help him lose his virginity at age 38.

At a recent installment of The Envelope Screening Series hosted by Times film reporter John Horn, Hawkes said he based much of his performance on the real O'Brien, having read his autobiography, "How I Became a Human Being," and watched Jessica Yu's Oscar-winning short documentary about O'Brien, "Breathing Lessons."

"There was Mark's body, and there was his voice," Hawkes said, referring to Yu's film. "And so I didn't invent a lot. I just tried to really take as much of the Mark that I saw and tried to make it my own, to embody him."

Hunt, for her part, said she has played real people in previous films but always relied on her own thoughts and ideas about the character to guide her. This time, however, she "had no plan" and didn't expect to experience a "burning-bush moment” upon meeting Greene.

Fortunately, Hunt was struck by Greene’s enthusiasm and openness, and found her inspiration there. "I took everything," Hunt said. She added, "Grabbing at my version of her aliveness was the best idea I had, so I did it."

Cardboard wheelchair set to roll out from Israel

From Israel21c:

Israeli entrepreneur Nimrod Elmish is positive that the idea for a wheelchair made out of cardboard has crossed many people’s minds. But it took an Israeli team to make it a reality.

“Welcome to the startup nation,” says Elmish, an expert in leading early-stage startups to maturity. “We have seen you can build agriculture in the middle of the desert. We recognize a major problem in the world and we find the best solutions. We can always find a solution – you just need persistence and patience.”

With great feedback and global interest in their first venture – recyclable cardboard bicycles – Elmish and automation expert Izhar Gafni of I.G. Cardboard Technologies have quietly added the cardboard wheelchair project to their operation. It’s made of less than $10 worth of durable recycled cardboard, plastic bottles and recycled tires.

“Anything that you make out of wood, plastic or metal can be made out of our material,” Elmish tells ISRAEL21c. “Cardboard bikes, wagons, wheelchairs, chairs for airplanes or trains, toys, even cars. We’re not building cars yet. But I say, ‘yet.’ We believe that nothing is impossible and anything is possible.”

Wheelchairs for Africa
An international non-profit organization dedicated to providing free wheelchairs for the disabled in developing nations heard about the cardboard bicycles and got in touch with ERB, the parent company of I.G. Cardboard Technologies.

Since 2001, the organization – which requested anonymity – has bought 120,000 metal wheelchairs from Chinese manufacturers every year to ship to Africa, at an annual cost of more than $6 million.

“It will cost him a one-time fee of $6 million to build a factory for the production of cardboard wheelchairs in Africa and then almost nothing to produce them,” says Elmish, CEO of I.G. Cardboard Technologies.

“He can produce as many wheelchairs as he wants once the factory is running. All we need is access to old car tires, plastic bottle recycling and cardboard recycling.”

The maintenance-free cardboard wheelchair, weighing eight or nine kilograms (less than 20 pounds), can withstand water and humidity, and can carry riders weighing up to 400 pounds. It is even cheaper and simpler to create than the cardboard bicycle.

Elmish says the chairs would be made on largely automated production lines supplemented by a workforce comprising people with disabilities.

“There are no financial benefits to making the wheelchairs in cheap labor markets. We choose the country [where the factory will be set up] with incentives in mind,” he explains. “Our factories will always be local in order to receive government grants for the manufacturers.”

Rebates for using “green” materials would cancel out production costs. The wheelchairs and bicycles could thus be given away for free in poor countries.

“Our partners and manufacturers [will] receive almost all of the production costs of our products back from governmental and global incentives, making our products available to almost any person in any philanthropic or commercial business model,” according to the company’s mission statement.

Origami meets Israeli technology
Making a cardboard bike or wheelchair looks like an exercise in origami with enormous blocks of cardboard.

“People look at cardboard as a material that looks like something strong. But the secret is how to make it strong,” says Elmish. “Izhar Gafni developed the theory of how to make it stronger. If you only fold the cardboard it will hold nothing. You need to find ways to give it strength that the regular material doesn’t have.”

The Israeli mindset played an important role, he adds: “The thinking of the resources, the social model, the thinking behind employing disabled people, the thinking of giving back to the community.”

Governments, politicians, manufacturers, consumers and non-profit organizations have all shown great interest in the cardboard vehicles.

“The feedback is amazing,” says Elmish. “A year and a half ago, the most common reaction we got was that no one would even think of buying our product and that the markets would reject it. Now that’s the least of our problems. Everyone wants a part of this.”

The hype has been so great that Elmish had to hire two people just to sort through his 300 to 500 daily emails from fans and potential sponsors.

“One year from today our four products will be on the market — youth bikes, children’s balance bikes, wheelchairs and electric bikes,” he predicts.

Several European railroad operators have expressed interest in placing the bikes outside stations as a way of enticing people to continue by bike to their destination. “The whole idea is to take the cars out of the city,” says Elmish.

While naysayers still abound, Elmish says the prototypes have proven their mettle.

“There are a lot of smart guys who still say it cannot be done,” he says. “So we’re building a small factory in Israel to show how it’s done.”

Why Syfy’s superhero series Alphas is TV’s best show about mental illness

From Todd VanDerWerff  for The AV Club:

TV has always had trouble tackling mental illness as a topic. The idea of doing a series about depressed, manic-depressive, or schizophrenic characters is daunting: Where is there room for the semi-standard weekly moments of uplift? HBO’s In Treatment took viewers through several weeks of intensive psychotherapy with a variety of patients, but it never delved too deeply into actual mental illness; instead, it focused more on people with debilitating problems in their past that could be overcome with diligent talk therapy and lots of focus. (To its credit, the show never suggested these people could be “cured” in a matter of weeks, but it did speed along the process leading to their breakthroughs.) The Sopranos and Homeland revolve around protagonists with mental-health issues, but this is a color around the edges of the show, an element that informs the other stories going on at any given time.

TV’s best current show at tackling the topic of mental illness (and many other issues as well) is a science-fiction series that seems, at first, to have nothing to do with the subject. Syfy’s Alphas, ending its second season on Monday, October 22, appears to be the most successful superhero show in many years, though it never calls its characters superheroes, or involves them in typical comic-book stories. For the most part, it’s a superhero procedural, in which the central “team” of Alphas use their powers—everything from super-senses to the ability to read the electronic waves floating all around us—to track down villains who are using their own abilities to evil ends. The show’s second season ties this all together into an overarching narrative about the team’s battle with the seemingly immortal Stanton Parish, who wishes to wipe non-Alphas from the Earth. Which may sound a little like an X-Men plot, because it is.

Yet Alphas contains a surprising emotional resonance for a series that seemingly aims to be just another Syfy case-of-the-week show. Alphas is good at bread-and-butter sorts of things, with teammate banter and action sequences that are a cut above other Syfy shows. Yet the show is capable of moments of superb feeling and beauty, and it’s always striving to do much more than simply tell superhero tales in a modern setting. After just a superficial look at the show, it becomes clear what it’s really about: a group of mental patients coming together to work through their issues in a group-therapy setting. (It’s no coincidence that the show’s ostensible protagonist and team leader, played by David Strathairn, is a psychologist.)

To be fair, this is easy to miss. I certainly did, and I’ve reviewed two seasons of the show so far. What turned me on to this undercurrent was this comment by The Real Dylan Toback on a recent review. Toback points out the similarities between the way the show frequently shows the more negative flipside of the characters’ powers and the mental illnesses that would most commonly be associated with those sorts of powers. For example, Rachel, the character who has super-senses and can focus all of her ability into one sense or another to, say, track an escaped Alpha by his scent, also has to keep her distance from other humans and has to have things in a certain way, so as not to set off her too-keen senses. The show has frequently portrayed this downside of her power as something akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it’s made the scenes this season where she learned to let her first boyfriend in several years into her personal space all the more affecting.

Toback’s comment unlocked a world within the show for me, one that had always been lurking underneath its surface without really calling attention to itself. Team member Bill—who’s capable of immense brute strength when provoked—is dealing with rage issues, while Hicks—able to make incredible shots with only the slightest moment to aim—has little patience or empathy for those who won’t do things his way. The show’s newest character, Kat, and a prominent guest character this season, Mitchell, offer resonant takes on amnesia and Alzheimer’s. Kat can only remember about a month’s worth of her experiences. This rapid short-term memory cycling allows her to pick up anything she wants in short order, but it’s also kept the truth about her past from her. (In a devastating reveal, a memory she had of her mother turned out to be a memory of a TV commercial.) Mitchell, meanwhile, has the opposite problem. He’s able to take on any memory anyone else gives him, becoming a sort of journal of Alpha experience, and obscuring his own memories. The two play out different sides of the memory-loss coin, with Mitchell rattling off memories from others that have no meaning to his present company, and Kat creating endless video diaries to remind herself of things she already knows for when she no longer knows them.

The series similarly builds up its mental-illness analogies in its structure and mythology. Straithairn’s character, Dr. Lee Rosen, assembled the team because their particular abilities would be helpful in capturing the bad guys, sure, but the characters also frequently talk through their problems, hopes, and aspirations, as would be common in a group-therapy setting. Rosen, for his part, aims to do his best to help them move past the downsides of their abilities, to become more fully realized human beings and celebrate what’s good about their powers, just as anyone suffering from mental illness will eventually have to come to terms with how it’s a part of their life. The villains of the week tend to be characters whose Alpha powers have relegated them to the edges of society, where they vainly struggle to belong, or use their powers for ill-gotten gain. These stories also frequently deal with the Alphas having to cope with situations they don’t entirely understand because their own powers (or illnesses) keep them from doing so. For instance, recurring character Skylar (played by Summer Glau) is attempting to build a better life for her Alpha daughter than the one she had. Even the series’ most horrific end for the Alphas—a place called Building Seven at a facility in Binghamton, New York—strongly resembles a mental hospital in almost every way, right down to the way Alphas sent there are essentially sedated, so they don’t have access to their powers.

The show’s second season has focused the most attention on three characters who drive home the series’ fascination with mental-health issues even more. One character, Gary (played by Ryan Cartwright, in one of the best performances on TV right now) became prominent simply because he was so popular in season one. Yet the show is careful to depict how the flipside of his power—the ability to read those waves floating out in the ether—becomes a kind of debilitating autism, one that was keeping him from meaningful human interaction with anyone other than his mother until he joined the team. He hasn’t been cured, or anything close to it, but he’s learning, through his proximity to the others in the group, how to function in society, to the point where he moved out of his house this season and began to work through the trauma incurred during a stint in Binghamton.

Much of the season’s first half focused on Rosen’s daughter, Danielle, a character with ties both to her father and Stanton, the season’s Big Bad. Danielle’s power, the ability to feel what anyone else was feeling and then communicate that to someone else, was in some ways the flipside of Hicks’ ability: She had too much empathy, where he had too little. (Naturally, they started sleeping together.) A closer read of Danielle’s arc—she died midway through the season, in a moment of self-sacrifice that seems remarkably close to outright suicide—reveals that she was the show’s take on depression, on finding the world and its emotions a little too close to the surface, and too difficult to take. It wasn’t always clear what the show was doing with this character, but once she was gone, Alphas became even more pointed on this particular notion: Rosen spent his life trying to save his daughter from the demons he knew would inevitably consume her, and he failed. The situation sent him spiraling.

But the strongest work of the season in this regard came from Nina (Laura Mennell), one of the characters fans least liked in season one. Nina’s power involves being able to look into anyone’s eyes and give them orders that must be obeyed. The show calls this ability “pushing,” and the downside of has been portrayed as something akin to addiction or narcissistic personality disorder. Nina has an all-encompassing need to control the situation around her, to make everything go a certain way, and when the season begins, she’s splitting off from the group, ready to go her own way and abuse her power to get whatever she wants. In a terrific episode called “When Push Comes To Shove,” the series not only depicts how this becomes her psychological nadir, but also how events in her childhood—when she realized she could use her power to force her parents to stay together—cycled outward to create the damaged wreck she is today. The episode is impressively dark, though it ends with a moving moment where Rosen chooses to trust her not to push him, so he might help her get better. The episode contains a moment of naked recognition of what anyone suffering from a mental illness goes through, a moment when Nina looks into a car window at her own reflection and tries to push herself into feeling better. It doesn’t work. She can’t escape the cycle by herself. She needs help and diligence, and the only place she can find them is in that therapeutic setting.

Alphas hasn’t yet figured out how to escape the dilemma of all series whose leads have mental illnesses—namely the idea that such illnesses make the characters such super-bad-ass crime solvers that their powers become enviable. (For an execrable example of this, check out TNT’s Perception from earlier this year, about a crime-solving professor with schizophrenia.) This is, perhaps, the sort of thing the series will never escape, given that superpowers will always seem cool on their surface. Yet the series has committed so successfully to portraying how these powers line up with real-world mental illnesses that it mostly sidesteps this question. Yes, there are cool moments, and yes, there are moments when the guy who seems least likely to save the day does so, but there are also the dark hours of the soul, when all seems lost and nobody knows what to do. At its core, Alphas is a series about healing, but it also realizes that all healing is only temporary. These people can—and will—always be wounded again.

Canadian writer says Hollywood gets it right for once in portraying disability in "The Sessions"

From The Globe & Mail in Canada:

In the film The Sessions, the actor John Hawkes plays the poet Mark O’Brien, an intellectual acrobat who was struck by polio as a child and lived mostly in an iron lung. He had sensation but was paralyzed except for a few muscles, including one in his neck and one in his jaw.

By nature, I am suspicious of any film that’s determined to soar my heart or triumph my human spirit. All too often, disabled people on screen are props for the emotional epiphanies of able-bodied characters. Radio, The Other Sister, Forrest Gump, Rain Man – all use disabled characters as so-called “magical negroes,” the equivalent of black subordinates awakening the consciousness of white bosses.

But The Sessions is the rare film where the consciousness of a disabled character fills the foreground. The reason The Sessions works, and deserves to set a precedent for all cinematic depictions of disability, is simple: sex.

O’Brien was a writer based in Berkeley, Calif., who died in 1999. The film is about his quest to lose his virginity at age 38, with the help of a sex surrogate, played by Helen Hunt. O’Brien was also the subject of an exceptional Academy Award-winning documentary called Breathing Lessons, and Hawkes’s interpretation, from the nasally voice to the moon-pie eyes, is a ringer. But the role isn’t mere mimicry, and the disability isn’t inherently heroic. Hawkes creates a fully realized person, artful and funny, a little raunchy, and only occasionally cute (twice, involving shopping for shirts).

The film dares to depict a man whose body is broken but still intensely carnal. Sex and disability rarely go together in popular culture, except as a punchline. Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man was as neutered as a Muppet, and certainly didn’t have to contend with premature ejaculation. The Sessions doesn’t just pay lip service to the idea of “visibility,” selectively clear-cutting around the body’s deepest needs. It shows the fullness of one man’s life, confronting the tittering question: “But can a disabled dude do it?” The body, in all its chaos, is truly made visible.

A few years ago, the film-within-a-film comedy Tropic Thunder took heat for a scene where Robert Downey Jr., playing a method actor (in blackface, no less) chastises his co-star (Ben Stiller) for a poorly received performance as a farmhand named Simple Jim: “Never go full retard,” warned Downey. The cascade of complaints from disabled-rights organizations apparently didn’t reach conservative pundit Ann Coulter’s ears, who tweeted the same word about Obama just this week, proving daily discourse isn’t much more enlightened than crass comedy.

The language may have been bracing, but the point was legitimate: Playing disabled – or a certain kind of sanitized disabled – is a fast track to an Oscar. Women go ugly; men go handicapped. In Hollywood, it’s a virtuous act for a beautiful actress to put on a prosthetic nose or gain some weight.

Even more pandering is an actor like Sean Penn rounding out his “challenging parts” repertoire by playing a Starbucks employee with the mental capacity of a seven year-old (that queasy film, I Am Sam, is so sentimental that it’s like being pinned down and force-fed lavender sachets while watching 26 hours of Susan Boyle videos, Clockwork Orange-style). The worst part of thespian disability is the slow clap the performers earn for a few weeks of exaggerated muscular spasms. A slew of recent articles have described how Hawkes pulled it off in The Sessions, craning his neck to the point of agony, and spending a week learning how to dial a phone with his mouth. That’s great, but also, you know, temporary.

Roland Barthes wrote that “the Other is a scandal which threatens … existence.” A disabled body, always “Other,” is profoundly at odds with Hollywood’s central impulse: to lull and affirm the status quo. Hollywood doesn’t like uncomfortable, and disability is. It’s uncomfortable for most of us to be confronted by reminders of the body’s possible frailty. So Hollywood plays it safe, and our own anxieties go unchallenged.

Of course there are movies that do confront that discomfort: Julien Donkey-Boy; a slew of documentaries, including Bonnie Sherr Klein’s Shameless: The ART of Disability; maybe even the Farrelly brothers’ There’s Something About Mary. But when it comes to disabled characters – like the magical negroes and the noble savages before them – mainstream cinema prefers a little swelling of our able-bodied hearts to a tweaking of our complacent minds.

In The Sessions, O’Brien is allowed only six encounters with his therapist, but a lot happens each time, with frankness and tenderness. As the physical stakes heighten, so do the emotional ones. In one scene, O’Brien becomes concerned with the pleasure of the woman astride him. I had my own (able-bodied) epiphany: Explicit sex between consenting adults that isn’t porny and waxed or bottom-lip-biting comical is almost as rare on screen as disability. Finally, my spirit was triumphant: I got to see desire, up close, in all its forms.

"Breaking Bad" star RJ Mitte shares his experiences on being bullied as a kid

From CNN:

On Thursday night, “Breaking Bad” star RJ Mitte joined HLN’s Dr. Drew. Mitte has cerebral palsy.  He talked about how how he survived bullying while growing up.

“I was choked out when we were in P.E.,” he said. “Somebody [also] grabbed my sweatshirt and I had my hand broken. [There was ] name calling [as well].”

But Dr. Drew pointed out, “You haven't allowed anything about you to hold you back in any way. You're a famous actor and you have what would be thought of as a disability and you've turned that into a feature of your career.”

Mitte replied, “The biggest thing is being disabled doesn't mean you're disabled. You can do anything you want.”

Conservative political pundit Ann Coulter blasted for use of R-word

From CNN:

Parents of children with special needs are demanding an apology from conservative political pundit Ann Coulter (pictured) for tweeting after Tuesday's foreign policy debate that she approved of "Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard."

It appeared to be a response to critiques of Mitt Romney's debate performance, but it wasn't the first time Coulter used the "the r-word" during this election season. And, it's not the first time blogger Ellen Seidman has called her out on it.

"At this point, I'm thinking the woman must surely be aware that the word is offensive, and she chooses not to care. That's pretty vile and heartless," said Seidman, the mother of a special needs child who shares her world on the blog "Love that Max."

"You want to slam the president, go ahead. But you can't think of any other word to use? Come on."

The word "retard" demeans Max and millions more with intellectual disabilities, Seidman tweeted at Coulter. Still, the comment was favorited 1,215 times and earned 2,993 retweets as of this writing, presumably by a number of people who didn't find it offensive. But sentiments from those who chose to respond to Coulter on Twitter ranged from disappointment to outrage.

"You disgust me. That man is the president of this country. (& I'm sure all of the disabled children in America appreciate you.)," actor Sophia Bush tweeted.

"Politics aside, this tweet from @anncoulter was offensive & disgusting. ANY use of the "R" word is unacceptable," @amurphy217 said.

The Special Olympics also condemned her use of the word, saying that it was "sad to see @AnnCoulter continue her use of hateful language by using the #Rword in her discourse."

Even people known for their sense of humor came out against it. Comedian and Twitter personality @UncleDynamite resurfaced a 2-year-old post from his tumblr in which he explained why he would no longer follow anyone he saw using "the r-word."

He re-posted it after seeing people retweeting and favoriting the tweet, which he found disturbing coming from a a "well-educated, self-described Christian with such a huge public presence."

He hopes she'll read it and maybe have a change of heart, but he's not necessarily counting on it.

"Based upon Ann's tweets today, I'd say she's dug in and unrepentant," he said Tuesday in an e-mail. "She must not know, love or respect anyone with an intellectual disability, then, and more's the pity. I'd like to see her after a great day of volunteering at a Special Olympics or Best Buddies event. I'd lay odds she'd never think or say the r-word word ever again, and she'd probably be quick to anger if someone she heard did so."

Others observing the controversy surmised that Coulter used the word solely to draw attention.

"Guys. Ann Coulter is trolling you. Always. Outrage gives her strength. The only thing that will kill her? Complete & utter indifference," @PaprbakPrincess tweeted.

Congress banned the use of the words "retard" and "retardation" in 2010 in federal health, education and labor laws in favor of using the words "intellectual disability." The American Psychiatric Association also plans to replace the term "mental retardation" with "intellectual development disorder" in the fifth version of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, to be published by in 2013.

Then why do people cling to the word, Seidman and people like her wonder. She has posed the question before in her blog, which is probably why she woke this morning to find a slew of tweets and e-mails asking her to call out Coulter again for repeatedly using "the r-word" to describe President Obama.

The last time was just a few weeks ago in a blog post called "Let's talk about people who cling to the word 'retard.' " In the post, she recounted a series of recent examples of the word being used: in a New York Times article, in the comments of a YouTube video she made for the Special Olympics' annual campaign to end the use of the word, in the comments section of a CNN.com article.

She also included Coulter's last tweet about a video the president made for the National Forum on Disability Issues: "Been busy, but is Obama STILL talking about that video? I had no idea how crucial the retarded vote is in this election."

"Many people think that using the word 'retard' to slam someone is fine—as long as it's not actually directed at a person with disability. I've had plenty of people argue with me over that distinction. What people don't understand is that every time someone uses the word 'retard,' they perpetuate the idea that people with intellectual disability, like my son, Max, are stupid or losers," Seidman said in an e-mail Tuesday.

"As I've said before, my son shouldn't be defined by ghosts of stereotypes past. He has enough to contend with in this world. Use. Another. Word."

"How's Your News?" reporters back with new documentary about covering 2012 political conventions

From Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. How's Your News? - "Election 2012" trailer from How's Your News? available on Vimeo.

 

Politicians are completely full of it, especially during interviews with journalists, and especially during an election year. So what happens when a news team consisting of only developmentally disabled adults tries to get past the vote-mongering spin and to the truth? A new movie shares their eye-opening, hilarious, and revealing journey to the center of American bullshit.

How's Your News? is a project that initially started 15 years ago, at a summer camp for developmentally disabled adults. According to the project's website, a video class at the camp wanted to include as many participants as possible in a project, and so they made a news program where campers reported on news stories and eventually did man-on-the-street interviews in a nearby town. They've done tons of projects since, from a series on MTV to an episode of This American Life. Their newest film is called Election 2012, and features footage of the three-person news team reporting from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and on the campaign trail.

This project is cool for a few reasons. First, it showcases the humor, drive, and humanity of adults with developmental disabilities (contrary to what Sarah Palin might say, people with disabilities are not magical angels sent down from heaven to teach us lessons; they're people with strengths and weaknesses and ideas, like you or me). Second, the way their subjects react to them is incredibly revealing and interesting of their character. Like the part in the preview when Ann Coulter is being gracious and kind and honest and not condescending to Jeremy? SO EMOTIONALLY CONFUSING FOR ME.

How's Your News describes the project as a "positive, empowering view of life with a disability." Check out the preview for free, or watch the whole thing at the project's website.

New book first 'to create a wide-ranging chronological American history narrative told through the lives of people with disabilities'

Scott McLemee's review of Prof. Kim Nielsen's new book, A Disability History of the United States, in Insider Higher Ed:

There's a mean streak at the heart of a certain kind of American optimism -- a rugged, go-it-alone, dog-eat-dog strain of individualism that is callous at best, shading into the sociopathic. It values independence, or says it does, but only by regarding dependency as a totally abject condition. The reality that illness or old age threw even the hardiest pioneer into reliance on others hardly factors into this worldview; the notion that civilization implies interdependence is, for it, almost literally unthinkable.

As I say, this outlook can manifest itself as optimism (the future is one of unbounded possibility, etc.) not always distinct from wishful thinking or denial. And it’s just as likely to pour out in resentment that is keen, if not particularly consistent. “I am a victim,” the logic goes, “of all those people out there playing victim.” Absent a frontier, the frontier spirit starts wallowing in self-pity.

The absence of pity of any sort from Kim E. Nielsen’s new book A Disability History of the United States, published by Beacon Press, is hardly the most provocative thing about it. Nielsen, a professor of disability studies at the University of Toledo, indicates that it is the first book “to create a wide-ranging chronological American history narrative told through the lives of people with disabilities.” By displacing the able-bodied, self-subsisting individual citizen as the basic unit (and implied beneficiary) of the American experience, she compels the reader to reconsider how we understand personal dignity, public life, and the common good.

Take the “ugly laws,” for instance. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, major American cities made it illegal for (in the words of the San Francisco ordinance from 1867) “any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” to appear in “streets, highways, thoroughfares, or public places.”

The laws were unequally enforced, with poor and indigent people with handicaps being the main targets. For one thing, the impact of the Civil War plus the incredible frequency of industrial accidents meant there were more unsightly beggars than ever. But while deformed and damaged bodies were being cleared from the streets, there was a pronounced public appetite for the exhibits at “freak” shows.

Now, the two phenomena in question have been studied in some depth over the years. A monograph on the ugly laws appeared not that long ago -- and while there have been more detailed studies of the world of “human oddities” than the late Leslie Fiedler’s cultural history Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self (1978), I doubt many have been nearly as thought-provoking. Nielsen’s historical narrative is presumably meant for undergraduates and the general public, so it’s natural to lose nuance in the treatment of either topic. But the breadth of the survey also means there is a gain in perspective.

No direct link exists between the policing of disabled bodies and their exploitation as entertainment, yet there is a connection even so. “In contestations over who was fit to be present in the civic world and who was not,” Nielsen says, “people with disabilities often found themselves increasingly regulated. Those not considered fit for public life were variably shut away, gawked at, [or] exoticized.”

It was a far cry from the norm of a century earlier. “The general lack of discussion and institutional acknowledgement of physical disabilities” in 17th- and 18th-century America “suggests that they simply were not noteworthy among communities of European colonists in the period before the Revolution,” Nielsen writes. “Indeed, it suggests that such bodily variations were relatively routine and expected – and accommodations were made, or simply didn’t have to be made, to integrate individuals into community labor patterns.”

Over time, in other words, disability became abnormal. Or at least it quit seeming “normal” in the way that it once did: a hard fact of life, to be sure, but just in the nature of things. Consider the way severely wounded veterans of the Revolutionary War reintegrated into the life of the new Republic. Citing recent historical work, Nielsen indicates that they “labored, married, had children, and had households typical in size and structures, at rates nearly identical to their nondisabled counterparts." They “worked at the same types of jobs, in roughly the same proportions” as well, and as a group they experienced poverty at the same rates as others of their background. The wounded returning from later wars had a much harder time of it.

Not all handicaps are created equal, of course. Nor is it self-evident that they should be lumped together (war wounds and birth defects, blindness and retardation, mental illness and dwarfism) under the common heading of “disability.” Nielsen sketches the changing ways political and medical authorities responded to the afflicted -- by trying to help them, or hide them, or both. In any case, the trend was to define them not by what they could do, but by their handicap. At the same time, attitudes towards the disabled were becoming tangled together with other prejudices. If certain people weren’t allowed to vote or otherwise exercise much power, it was only because their race, gender, or foreign origin left them physically or mentally unfit for it. Stigma and inequality fed off one another.

The very idea of being profoundly, inescapably limited in some way makes for anxiety when the cultural norm is the expectation “to create successful and powerful selves” that are ready to “stand on our own two feet” and “speak for ourselves.” Nielsen points out that the last two figures of speech are part of the problem. There are people who literally can’t “stand on their own two feet” or “speak for themselves.” While my exposure to the kinds of disability activists Nielsen writes about in the final pages of her history has been limited, they do seem to have an ironic and sarcastic (rather than po-facedly indignant) response to such "able-ist" imagery -- regarding it less as an insult than as evidence that the speaker is a bit thick. Which is usually true. The "unchallenged," as we might be called euphemistically, tend to be somewhat lacking in imagination and insight about their struggle for greater equality and autonomy.

And yet they have won some battles – by demanding help. By demanding a redistribution of resources on the basis of their intrinsic right, as human beings, to the dignity they could not enjoy otherwise. Someone in a wheelchair can zip around the neighborhood just fine, getting to her job at the pharmacy on time, provided the curbs are made accessible. And no, the person in the wheelchair is not responsible for paying for that, any more than her customers are responsible for mixing their own medications. Interdependence is not a failure of independence; it is the condition for enjoying the sort of independence that means anything at all.