Red

A shoe with a story to tell...

Drying out

Along Dale Street

Ripe

Grilles

Ocean Beach on Sunday

 Green Hornet's Wheels at Comic-Con on July 24

Sky Line

On a sunny San Diego afternoon

Fishy

World-famous Comic-Con embraced downtown San Diego last weekend. It was a blast just to wander around and watch the people. See  http://www.flickr.com/groups/1449190@N24/ . Here, however, is a sight that I never hope to see. In a public parking lot, this van stradled two disabled parking spots. Somebody even put black plastic bags over the disabled parking signs. A friend saw this siht on Friday, and I found it on Saturday. The 5 Star parking lot attendant said it was a public lot, meaning anyone could park in the lot if space was available. So what's with this fishy vehicle? No disabled plates or placard. And taking two spaces. One wasn't enough?

Shame on him or her! And shame on 5 Star Parking for allowing it. "It Ain't Right!" as a local TV troubleshooter bellows. It stinks. Who's going to police this stuff?

It was 20 years ago today...

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. Since that day, the ADA has been changing the face and landscape of America. People with disabilities now can circulate more freely and participate in the life and activities of their communities. Increasingly, we see signs:

signifying access. This universal sign for access for people with disabililities is a welcome sight.

Mostly.

But, it ain't necessarily always so:

 This place is stepping up -- for foot traffic maybe. No ramp in sight.

And then another business. Same thing?:

But wait!

Oh, I see. It's clear to me now:

OK. But where's the "associate" to ask? I see the statue holding the wrenches there, but it looks as if I'm screwed if I want in here.

Up the block (all these sights are to be seen along 5th Avenue in downtown San Diego) here's one place trying to be helpful:

Looking at this, I decide I really need a drink. Hey, where's the assistance?

At least, I guess people realize they ought to do something. 

Ideally, one of these days, the need for such signage will disappear because everyplace will provide access. That day is a long, long way off. I wonder how many people with disabilities complain to these businesses and others like them. More and more people with disabilities are getting out into their communities and they have higher expectations for access.

Getting in the door is a first, er, step. Getting customers with disabilities in the door seems like a no-brainer for businesses, but so many businesses fail to grasp such a simple idea. Twenty years on, you would think business owners would get the message. 

Hello out there!

Lily pond bloom

Pedestrians Only

Waiting room chair

Lady in purple hat

Heading Out

The John Stennis leaves home port San Diego

Look, Ma -- No hands!

He stacks rocks along the walkway at Seaport Village on San Diego Bay. No glue, no magnets. It's all in the "feel," he says.

Roost

At the San Diego Unified Port District building.

... and another

Fireworks

Not from July 4th celebrations today, but still...fireworks,eh?

The Doctor will see you now...

Shannon in Shadows

Man in vest

Tools or Toys?

Locked

Bench at a mall

Taking a break at the beach

At Ocean Beach

Creatures of Paradise

Mixed material

Where's the beef?

ATM

Red abstract

Around home...

Veterans Day in San Diego

Yellow Steps

Red truck with a kick

19 and growing up

President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA 19 years ago today. A great deal of positive changes prompted by the ADA are still transforming the landscape of America, and even are having an influence abroad. Having said that, much, much remains to be done as many others have been saying. Too many people are warehoused in institutions instead of having the choice to live independently in communities with the support they need. Congress still drags its heels on passing the Community Choice Act. Celebrate the ADA by calling your Congressional representatives and Senators - yeah, and the President, too - and tell them to pass this legisaltion. And tell them that real health care for all must be inclusive.

Happy Easter

Fallout from bowling...

All’s fair in politics. Gov. Sarah Palin has criticized President Obama for his dismal remarks about bowling and the Special Olympics (see item below).

“I was shocked to learn of the comment made by President Obama about Special Olympics,” Palin said in a statement. “This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world."

Palin, of course, is the new mom of a baby with Down Syndrome. And she’s right to be miffed by Obama’s remarks. But let’s be real clear here. For Palin to characterize people with disabilities as “our world’s most precious and unique people” is as condescending and patronizing as it gets.

We have enough to do to carve real lives out of the smothering hostile jungle of discrimination clothed in hostility or paternalism without the characterizations of Palin or Obama. The difference with Obama is that he has the great opportunity to take action and create policy to advance our inclusion in society. We’re watching…

Bowling Lessons ...

President Obama’s throwaway line about his bowling score in the White House being like “the Special Olympics or something” has generated predictable reaction. From criticism for insensitivity on one hand to cries of “lighten up” are all over the place. And almost immediately after Obama’s appearance on the Leno show the White House was issuing an apology.

The best responses, with which I agree, come from a couple of insightful bloggers. Stephen Kuusisto at Planet of the Blind and William Peace at Bad Cripple forcefully make the point.

Sure, many people like the President explicitly endorse disability rights and the importance of laws to ensure those rights. But prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities are deeply ingrained in our psyches, so much so that we are unconscious to it.

Quoting now from William Peace:
“The prejudice people with a disability encounter is different than the blatant civil rights violations women and people of color have experienced in the past and present. Disability prejudice takes many forms and at a deeply rooted symbolic level is not recognized as a civil rights violation. This is why the audience laughed at Obama's joke. People with a disability are inept physically and socially. Our complex and highly developed society is not designed to incorporate people with a disability. As my son has told me repeatedly "people without a disability rule the world".”

And Stephen Kuusisto:
“… when physical challenges are used as an analogy for able-bodied ineptitude the symbolic exchange values are skewed away from humor and toward bigotry. Like it or not President Obama must be held to a higher standard given his ardor for change and his well demonstrated sensitivity regarding people who have been historically marginalized in America.”

Obama’s so-called “gaffe” comes in the wake of reports of abuses against people with disabilities in state institutions in Texas ( see here) and against others in commercial businesses in Iowa (see here).

But, hey, don’t be so serious! Take it from comedian Craig Robinson, who’s in a new comedy called “Miss March.” Asked in an interview with the Chicago Tribune about the use of the word “retard” in the movie, “Q. … is that just a toxic word now? A: It does seem to be. You can see it from a parent's point of view. But the way they use it in the movie is funny. It's silly. It's not going out to hurt anybody. It's definitely not coming from an evil place; it's just coming from the way people talk. “

Sure.

Where's the Ramp?

Here's a White House photo of the President inking the order to open up stem cell research. Notice that Congressman Langevine is sitting in his wheelchair down front -- because there's no ramp for him to get up on to the dias with the other members of Congress. For shame!

A Pat on the Back -- and a Proposal

President Barack Obama has established a new interagency panel devoted to the concerns of women and girls. The panel’s mandate will be to make sure that all federal agencies take into account how their policies and actions affect women and girls. “We need to take a hard look at where we’re falling short,” Obama said.

According to Politico’s Josh Gerstein, Obama said the new White House Council on Women and Girls would be chaired by his longtime friend and senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett. The director of public liaison at the White House, Tina Tchen, is to serve as executive director of the group. “It will meet on a regular basis,” the president said, without elaborating.

Good for Obama for taking this action.

Now, let’s see something on the same model for disability issues, which cut across government departments and agencies. There has been an interagency committee on disability research, but it falls short of the scope of this new council on women and girls. Plus it functions at a departmental and agency level outside the White House.

Clearly, with issues ranging across civil rights enforcement, education, housing, employment, health, transportation, Social Security, to name a few, a Council on Disability with high visibility in the White House might go a long way toward making good on a lot of promises made since the ADA was signed in 1990.

An Historic First -- Read It and Weep

Disability statistics guru and all-round good guy Andrew Houtenville reports today: “An historic event occurred this morning in the field of disability statistics. For the first time in history, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in collaboration with the Office of Employment and Disability Policy (ODEP), released the “official” unemployment rate for people with disabilities. In January 2009, 13.2 percent of people with disabilities were unemployed. This is substantially higher than the 8.3 percent unemployment rate for people without disabilities.”

Here’s the link:


FIRST OFFICIAL DISABILITY EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS RELEASED
Today, the U.S. Department of Labor released the first official data on the employment status of persons with disabilities. In January 2009, the employment rate for persons with disabilities was 23.1 percent. The unemployment rate for those with disabilities was 13.2 percent.These data provide, for the first time, an official monthly measure of the labor force situation for people with disabilities. The Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) sponsored the addition of new disability questions to the Current Population Survey (CPS) starting in June 2008. The addition of these questions to the CPS will allow the analysis of the labor force situation of persons with disabilities to be based on the same concepts that are already used for other groups. In addition to using the data to formulate policy recommendations, ODEP will use them to target its training, technical assistance, research, and dissemination efforts.

How much is a resignation worth?

A spokesman for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says the governor hopes to "return to normalcy" two days after his arrest on corruption charges. Will the Gov. resign? “That’s something that obviously he’ll decide on his own,” the spokesman said.

Hmm. He’s accused of trying to sell appointment to President-elect Barack Obama’s now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. So, could he be hawking his resignation, too? How much will someone ante up to persuade the Gov. to go? Is Blago putting a price on his own buyout?

Overcast, but no rain in Paradise

A Few Leaves Remain

Foggy day at Cabrillo National Monument

Change dot gov. Are we ready to act?

Time is ripe for urging, encouraging, pushing or even hectoring folks to start applying for jobs in the new and historic Obama Administration.

People with disabilities especially ought to be sending resumes to change.gov ASAP. We want more than the traditional crip slots. Our people can excel throughout the Executive Branch. Let’s show that this new generation can outdo the last.

Applying for jobs isn’t the only important thing.

If people with disabilities want to make an impact, if we truly want to make change, we’ve got to do more.

Today the Obama transition announced team leaders for Policy Working Groups.

We have seen – and can still see – Obama’s agenda regarding disability.

But as has been pointed out in other areas, those who sit by patiently and passively awaiting the Obama Administration to implement and execute the stated agendas are very likely to be greatly disappointed.

Now is the time to be organizing and pressing OUR ideas to flesh out disability policy on the transition people. We must raise our voices and strongly advocate to ensure that we get good people into the Administration, and good policy initiatives to implement. Lots of names are coming out. Do we know any of them? Susan Daniels, for one, is looking at Social Security – that ‘s good. What about others?

And, I suggest, we ought to be advocating for policies in areas other than disability policy where we, as citizens, have interests.

Eternal vigilance and action are vital. Let us not miss this opportunity.

It's Nice to Be Noticed

Over at the Disability Studies blog, there's a recent post that takes note of a piece I wrote several years ago in MAINSTREAM magazine. The magazine is no longer published, but this piece on Tiny Tim lives on. By the way, it's also posted on this site down below from last Christmastime. Read and enjoy. And thanks much to Penny Richards for pointing out the piece.

Look Who's Against Us

You know that the ADA Restoration Act is moving though Congress with a ton of supporters in both houses. And yet, there's another ton of people opposed to fixing the ADA so that it clarifies the intent of the original law protecting the rights of all Americans against discrimination on the basis of disability.
Over at National Council of Independent Living, they've got a post and a link to the list of organizations opposing the Restoration Act. Check it out. Take a minute and tell one or more or all of them to straighten up and fly right.

Here's the list:
Opposed to The ADA Restoration Act:
Associated Builders & Contractors
Food Marketing Institute
HR Policy Association
International Foodservice Distributors Association
International Franchise Association
National Association of Convenience Stores
National Association of Manufacturers
National Council of Chain Restaurants
National Federation of Independent Business
National Restaurant Association
National Retail Federation
National Roofing Contractors Association
Retail Industry Leaders Association
Society for Human Resource Management
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Jerry Lewis shows who matters

Labor Day again, and that clown Jerry Lewis staggers through a numbing day, rattling his tin cup for money for MDA. Crips have been complaining and protesting for years about Lewis's attitude and derogatory decriptions about people with disabilities. The mainstream media has taken little note. But this time, Jerry let fly a crude anti-gay remark -- and you can read about it, and hear about, just about everywhere. The gay community has media clout. Good on 'em.

The disability community has a long way to go to match that clout. We're working on it, and making headway. But it always seems to be somebody else's job.

We even have trouble getting other groups interested in our issues.

Last weekend, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Assocation held its annual meeting in San Diego. I was on a panel about disability and coverage of disability issues. There were five panelsts named; one was sick and could not come; two failed to show. Not that it mattered much; only three people turned up to hear the discussion.

So it goes at most such events. The panel almost always outnumbers the audience at disability sessions at journalism gatherings. Nobody wants to be disabled -- or think about it. If they have a disability, most journalists don't want to admit it. Journalists, like most people (I would say), think of disability as an individual medical issue, not as a social-political-economic issue encompassing a huge class or group of people.

It is ironic that on Labor Day many people with disabilities have to protest and demonstrate to claim our basic human rights instead of focussing attention on our epidemic unemployment and poverty.

I Hate Tiny Tim

It's nostalgia time. Again. The following is a piece I wrote several years ago for MAINSTREAM magazine (I was the editor). I trot it out every year or so. Enjoy.

I hate Tiny Tim.
TT is on the ropes in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Sickly and dependent, TT is getting shakier and shakier on that homemade little crutch. But he is saved from death by old Ebeneezer Scrooge, who sees the light in the nick of time.
Now, before you go apoplectic at my assault on wee Tim, think about how he helps shape some of society's most cherished attitudes -- charity, pity (for poor little TT), for example. Tiny Tim, plucky, sweet and inspirational, tugs at the public heart.
TT has become Disabled Everyone in popular culture. TT is Jerry's Kid.
Society idealizes this sentimental image of disability as a pitiful child in desperate need of help. People feel better when they give a few bucks or a little toy for a kid with a disability.
As an enduring symbol of modern Christmas time, Tiny Tim resonates with a deeper, darker meaning for people with disabilities. The problem is that not all people with disabilities are children, but we all tend to be treated as if we are Tiny Tims.
When I'm in the stores and malls this time of year I get a lot of smiles meant for TT. How do I know? Well, I am a middle-aged bearded and balding adult in a power-driven wheelchair. People, mostly women but some men also, flash smiles at me. Not the kind of smiles most men would hope for from a woman, nor the neutral courtesy smile exchanged by strangers passing on the sidewalk, but that particular precious smile that mixes compassion, condescension and pity. It's withering to the person on the receiving end.
I hate it.
I hate it because this Tiny Tim sentimentality stereotypes people with disabilities and contributes to our oppression. When you think about a person with a disability as someone to feel sorry for, as someone to be taken care of and looked after, it is difficult to think about hiring them as a teacher, an architect or an accountant. That's part of the reason why the jobless rate among working age people with disabilities consistently hovers around 70 percent.
And because family, friends and reborn Scrooges nourish and protect Tiny Tim, the rest of society doesn't have to worry too much about making sure people with disabilities have equal access to education, adequate housing, transportation, and other public facilities.
What about the highly touted Americans with Disabilities Act, you ask? Good question -- and good law for the most part. But complaints about violations of the ADA are piling up faster than federal agencies such as the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can handle them.
Inadequate resources are available to enforce the law. And local authorities moan and groan about unfunded federal mandates that they can't afford to implement -- such as providing access to all citizens.
Every year this country spends more than $200 billion on programs that essentially keep persons with disabilities in a state of dependence, severely restricting us from getting a good education, going to work, or even getting married.
Not all of that money could be saved by removing the penalties on people with disabilities, but billions unquestionably could be saved. Not only would people with disabilities gain independence, but thousands of us would become taxpayers instead of tax users.
These are serious issues affecting people with disabilities and our struggle to be included fully in American life. Remember this the next time those facial muscles begin to activate that Tiny Tim reflex.
TT belongs to Christmas Past. And that's no humbug.

Jerry Lewis siding with us????

Jerry Lewis and MDA have join the disability rights movement campaign to get the government (in the guise of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) to back off draconian new rules on providing power chairs and scooters to people with disabilities. The new rules, set to take effect in two weeks, will make it even more difficult to get the equipment we need to live reasonably, let alone independently.

These new rules affect everybody who uses powered mobility equipment. It's not just people "confined" to their homes, as Medicare likes to think of it. It's all of us who work, go to school and otherwise participate in the life of our communities. That's because most if not all health insurance providers follow Medicare standards in supplying mobility equipment.

On the one hand, the Government talks loftily of promoting the independence of people with disabilities in education and employment, and access to everything the ADA promises.

But then at the same time they pull the rug out from under us with this kind of ruinous action. It is inside out and upside down.

The statement by Jerry Lewis and MDA gets it pretty much right:

"Under the new policy, applicants who can transfer from bed to wheelchair by standing and pivoting, with or without assistance, won't be eligible for power wheelchairs with more than basic features. This assessment doesn't account for disease progression and fatigue, crucial factors when determining the wheelchair needs of a person with neuromuscular disease, Lewis said.

More complex features such as tilt, recline, stronger motors, custom headrests, and ability to navigate uneven terrain provide wheelchair users with more independence and safety. For instance, tilt-and-recline features assist users with self-transfers, are safer on steep inclines and help prevent pressure sores.

If chairs have fewer features needed for independence, the result may be to force people out of their homes and into long- term care facilities.

In addition, the new fee schedule places a greater financial burden on low-income people with severe disabilities and the nonprofit organizations that serve them."

These new Medicare rules put crushing pressure on people with disabilities for no good reason but to save a buck. It's not medicare, it's mediterror.

We need to see more of this from DOJ

Accessible, affordable housing is a critical need for people with disabilities across this country. Today, your Department of Justice struck a blow for our side: Settling a suit against a group of developers, builders, architects and engineers who built two apartment complexes in Olathe, Kansas leaving out legally required access features. The Ridgeview and Indian Meadows apartment complexes will have to retrofit parking areas, paths and walkways, public and common-use areas, as well as interiors of ground-level units to enhance access -- at a cost of about $1.2 million. Plus these losers will cough up $200,000 for access features on request, $200,000 for damages to unidentified victims, and $50Gs in penalties. Oh, and they have to get training on the requirements of the Fair Housing Act and the ADA -- so they don't do this crap again. Good.

Murdering for purity

Given all that we have heard about life and dictatorship in North Korea, this should not be surprising. The report from the Times of London is chilling. I found the link from Andrew Sullivan.

THE North Korean regime’s obsession with racial purity has led to the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by Chinese fathers, according to a growing body of testimony from defectors.
The latest description of Kim Jong-il’s policy of state eugenics came from a North Korean doctor, Ri Kwang-chol, who escaped last year and told a forum in Seoul that babies with deformities were killed soon after birth.

“There are no people with physical defects in North Korea,” Ri said. Such babies were put to death by medical staff and buried quickly, he claimed. He denied ever committing the act himself.

Exiles in Seoul said Ri was now keeping a low profile, fearing retaliation by North Korean agents, who have assassinated foes in the South Korean capital before. But his account added to the evidence that the Kim family dictatorship is founded on mystical notions of Korean racial superiority rather than Marxism — a reality that explains its deepening estrangement from China.

Eugenics. Murder.

Carnival arrives in town

Check out the first Carnival of Disability Blogs by Penny Richards at Disability Studies, Temple U. There's a lot of terrific stuff out there. And let me add, as have others, that it's good to see Mary Johnson back.

Not-so-free speech cancelled

San Diego has long been known as a conservative town. Very conservative. Sizzling growth over the past decade or so may be reshaping the old image. One sign: Today's Union-Tribune (forever sneered at by many as a parrot for far-right-wingers and the local establishment) carries a small item about a "Speakers Series" biting the dust before a word was uttered. Poor ticket sales ($60 each) were blamed for the cancellation of the series, which was to be highlighted by former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani and political shouter Ann Coulter. Bob Dole and not-so-conservative James Carville and Wesley Clark were also on the bill. Maybe the conservatism is morphing into ennui.

Rough Ride: Segway bumps into total recall

I haven't seen much comment about the big recall of the much-ballyoo'd Segway this week. The company is calling back ALL 23,500 of the wheely toys that it has ever sold because of what's termed a software glitch that can cause the wheels to reverse course and maybe toss the driver off. What I find most interesting is that after all the hype only 23,500 Segways have been sold since 2002. That doesn't seem like very many worldwide. But then, they cost from $4,000 to $5,500 a pop. Even selling that few is a lot of money. A lot of money.

Gawker's bigotry is flaring

Height, or maybe depth, of criticism. Clever wordsmith Gawker is so quick with a smart remark today, commenting on Katie Couric's farewell to the Today show. Here's his smirk:

"Drooling Americans Say Bye-Bye to Katie"
It was hard to choose a clip from this morning’s Today show — so many montages, so many egregious and offensive instances of sap. But eventually we settled on a shame-inspiring reel of taped farewells from Couric’s fans across America, all of whom should be promptly given helmets and placed on a very short bus. If ever there were something to spark another terrorist attack…

Carrots, hammers, clout and even fun

Everyone talks about the 80-20 rule. You know, out of any group, 20 percent of any group will actually do something, while the other 80 percent won't do much, if anything at all. If there are 54 million people with disabilities in the U.S. (and that's not agreed by everyone), then you might think there are nearly 11 million active crips. What a glorious notion! It's not remotely true though. In my home state of California, the population is about 33 million. Taking a conservative track, let's say about 14 percent of those folks have a disability. Works out, um, to about 4,620,000 people with disabilities. Following the 80-20 rule, we should have nearly 650,000 active crips. Maybe we should consider a 95-5 rule. That would be 231,000. The other day I saw a newsletter from a statewide disability organization (that, granted, ain't what it used to be) reporting that its membership was about 650 -- 650, less than one frigging thousand. OK, full disclosure: I am a lapsed member of said organization. I have some issues with them. But I expect to re-up one of these days because its goals are worthwhile.

I worry about our ability to organize ourselves so that we can wield influence on legislators, policy makers and government entities. If the non-disabled world doesn't see us as a constituency with voting power or economic power, we won't be taken seriously. We've managed to put legislation on the books nationally and in many states, but getting implementation and enforcement is a different story. We need clout. We need number and activism to have clout.

Now we get a dribble of lawsuits that opponents used to create a hostile backlash against greedy lawyers and lawsuit happy crips, who often are portrayed as gullible dupes of those greed lawyers.

By and large we have failed to organize ourselves in sustainable action groups. Filing lawsuits has produced a mixed bag of results.

And that leads me to Mary Johnson's perceptive blog entry today, riffing on things we in the United States disability rights movement might learn from our peers in Britain. I like this particular approach the SCOPE group organized.

Make it a campaign.

Make it fun.

In my home town, the local ILC has been developing what they call "Blue Ribbon Week" during which staff and volunteers try to find businesses that are providing access, or making a real effort to do so. Such places are recognized publicly by the ILC. Businesses that fail to measure up, or which resist barrier removal, are given notice of what they have to do to get into compliance. They get follow-up visits. The ILC has not yet worked out an effective hammer to use on this miscreants, but that's developing. I like the carrot-and-hammer approach. It may not slake the thirst of some crusaders for blood, but it may advance the cause of access and inclusion.

Heaven knows, it's time to do something to ignite some excitement and momentum. And fun, too.

BADD, BADD, BADD -- Beautiful!

Wouldn't you know. Blogging Against Disablism Day sweeps the blog-ether, and most people (at least here in the Etats-Unis) are obsessing on the day without immigrants -- marches and one-day economic boycott mounted by mainly Mexican and Latin American immigrants, legal and illegal -- in protest of draconian immigration laws being proposed in Congress. Nonetheless, BADD is beautiful. Organized by Diary of a Goldfish, Blogging Against Disablism Day was embraced by more than 100 bloggers. Disablism is more often called Ableism in North America. But the meaning is the same: discrimination against persons with a disability. It is so pervasive as to be unrecognized even by many people with disabilities. It is like the water of the ocean to a fish, or the air we breathe. Many non-disabled people think they are being compassionate and caring, when in fact they are putting us in a box on a less-than shelf. Like most people with a disability, I have stories. Of learning that a supervisor thought I "could never hope" to rise above the entry level position I held out of college. Of learning later on in my career as a newspaperman, that a supervisor "thought I was not interested" in a certain promotion and so never asked me about it. At least I was never sentenced to life in a nursing home by somebody who couldn't see past his or her stereotypes. For more BADD, check out Ragged Edge Online , and the long list at Diary of a Goldfish. Let's not let this exercise be a one-time event. Be BADD everyday. BADD is beautiful.