When I published a polite Op Ed about disabilities and public rhetoric in the Des Moines Register I did not expect to receive hate mail. My opinion piece simply argued that if Sarah Palin, Rahm Emanuel, or Rush Limbaugh want to talk seriously about people with disabilities they may well want to read up on the subject. Of course this was a silly thing to have said. I might as well have said: “People should stand on their heads in lightning storms” for all the perfervid and toxic reaction.
One of the readers of this blog wanted to know what the hate mail looked like. I cant’ bring myself to reprint it but suffice it to say that I was accused of all that is indecent and called names that even my buddy Hieronymous Bosch wouldn’t use. It doesn’t matter of course. But the anger deriving from the modest suggestion that people should read more is alarming and I think symptomatic of a nascent Fascism that’s overtaking the right.
Here’s an entry from an online medical dictionary that I think tells us a good deal about our friends in the GOP:
screaming/cursing syndrome = syndrome resembling the sham rage of animals, seen in
patients with bilateral lesions of the inferomedial and anterior parts of the temporal
lobes. The pathology is usually trauma or herpes simplex encephalitis. The patient
reacts to every stimulus with extreme belligerence, screaming, cursing, biting, and
spitting.
I always suspected the old elephant of having herpes simplex encephalitis. The poor creature got it from Nixon and not Goldwater.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
From now on, I should have been more complex when handling my tantrums because,I read this “screaming/cursing syndrome”!
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Hmmm-I’m afraid as a donkey, I might be developing symptoms of herpes simplex encephalitis. I hope it’s not a cross-species type of thing.
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SK, your suggestions in the Des Moines Register were quite well-directed as a person with a disability who has participated and contributed to the culture of disability. You were providing information to people who are in the public eye as spokespersons on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum on how they might better understand the issues and concerns of people with disabilities. Each of these people have recently demonstrated that they could use some guidance and additional perspectives in this regard.
Bearing a child with a disability doesn’t make someone an instant expert on disability. Having a disability oneself does not make one an expert on anyone’s disability but your own disability, and that usually takes years. And even (and especially) presidential advisors can gain awareness of people with disabilities by listening to their suggestions.
Argh! This whole incident, and the fact that certain people even ding you on guide dog etiquette as you sit in a cozy dining room far, far away, gives me pause to consider the downside of our miraculous cyberworld of instant communication. There was a time when a “retreat” truly was a way to disconnect. But here you are in paradise, with the whole wide world breathing down your neck. Is this a good thing?
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Of course, comparing them to people with an actual disease rather lets them off the hook – unlike sick people, they could, if they wanted, control themselves like adults. Maybe “tantrum” is a better word.
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