See full story: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19282441

I had the privilege of speaking on Friday last at the 40th anniversary celebration of Syracuse University’s Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies. The honor stemmed from finding myself in the company of some very principled and accomplished activist-scholars. SU’s commitment to establishing the rights of people with mental illnesses and people with profound disabilities goes back to the late sixties. Faculty at Syracuse like the late Burt Blatt, and the still extant Steve Taylor and Doug Biklen helped to lead the charge that brought the criminal conditions in our nation’s mental hospitals to wide public attention. In recent years they have lead the effort to assure equitable and inclusive public education for children with disabilities. Why should I be grumpy? Because I see how few academics, even in fields like disability studies wake and sleep with the knowledge of institutional and political abuse regarding people with disabilities. The GOP’s basic plan to slash “entitlements” (a term I do not like–as if asking to live was some kind of social privilege) is built on the premiss that our nation’s most vulnerable citizens should be allowed to lose all hope for health and education. There is not a modicum of exaggeration in this claim. Amazing enough. Meanwhile I see calls for papers theorizing the disabled body, as if life in the streets was simply a settled matter. I see in the literary sphere conferences like the redoubtable Associated Writing Programs, the “AWP” where, if you examine the panels of academic creative writing types you would never know that human rights violations against people with disabilities are legion or that the Los Angeles County Jail is the US largest psychiatric hospital. I have the utmost respect for scholars who believe ardently in scholarship that transcends the ingrown and static preoccupations of much that merely passes for progressive teaching and research in our time. I am worried that non-speaking people with autism who are keenly literate may never find jobs. I worry a good deal. I discomfited alright. And I’ll be darned if I’m going to shut up.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Viaticum

When you go ten miles away

I'll go along for nine miles.

Then I'll leave you a hairpin

As a compass for your route.

Pao Yu

(Translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Serotek conquers a new frontier for blind veterans

Media Contact: pr@serotek.com

(612) 246-4818. Ext. 104

Technical Contact: info@serotek.com

Minneapolis, Minnesota – November 11, 2011 – More than 13% of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered severe eye injuries that result in blindness. In recognition of this year's Veteran's Day celebration, Serotek Corporation is offering all blind veterans a lifetime subscription to its popular System Access Mobile Network (SAMNet).

SAMNet is Serotek's renowned Internet communication portal that delivers the most complete content ever assembled for the blind. With email, news, blogs, podcasts, streaming radio, described video service for thousands of movies and more, veterans will have access to a new world of communications right at their fingertips.

"For many veterans sight loss is the new battleground," says Serotek's Chief Executive Officer, Mike Calvo. ""We want to do our part to help them face the challenges ahead with the same tools and confidence they showed in service to our country."

To that end, Serotek is offering lifetime access to SAMNet for all legally blind U.S. veterans. Individuals who can provide proof of status as a legally blind veteran will be eligible for the program, which will officially kick off on December 15. In addition to the wide array of content already available on SAMNet, Serotek will further customize the service by creating chat rooms, forums and other exclusive communication channels to help facilitate networking opportunities among veterans.

To stay on top of this latest initiative, please subscribe to the SAMNet-vets mailing list, where you can learn more about SAMNet and the program specifically designed for this segment of the country's wounded warriors. You can also get an overview of SAMNet and other Serotek products, and you can begin a 7-day free trial of these products and services by visiting http://www.satogo.com. Serotek looks forward to welcoming veterans to the SAMNet community, and the company is proud to offer this simple, intuitive means of connecting with family, friends and the world.

About Serotek

Serotek Corp. is dedicated to accessibility anywhere for blind and visually impaired people around the globe. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the company is led by a growing staff of blind visionaries dedicated to expanding an accessible digital lifestyle through innovative, affordable and easy-to-use products. To learn more about the company's growing range of products and services, visit http://www.serotek.com

Activate this link to stop receiving Serotek announcements.

Shocking New BSDC Abuse Details Emerge After Newspaper Pushes For Records Release
(Omaha World-Herald)
November 8, 2011

BEATRICE NEBRASKA– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] The special-needs resident kept taking off his shirt one hot day last summer at the Beatrice State Developmental Center. 

And that annoyed Cameron Barnes, the man's caregiver.

So when they entered an elevator, Barnes told another employee who was with them, "You might want to turn around for this one." Then Barnes slammed the resident's head into the elevator wall at least six times, eliciting screams of pain, according to an arrest warrant affidavit unsealed Wednesday in Gage County Court.

Moments later, Barnes encouraged the co-worker to feel the bumps on the right side of the resident's head.

It's just one incident of abuse described in affidavits from a Nebraska State Patrol investigation that has produced more than two dozen felony charges against five former staff members at the center.

The court records became available Wednesday after The World-Herald raised a First Amendment challenge to keep an important judicial case open to the public.

Entire article:
Beatrice chokings, punchings detailed
http://www.omaha.com/article/20111103/NEWS97/711039917
Related:
BSDC arrest warrants unsealed (Beatrice Daily Sun)
http://tinyurl.com/84yhs6w
More details released in alleged BSDC abuse (Beatrice Daily Sun)
http://tinyurl.com/7hd3aa4
Beatrice State Developmental Center (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/neb/bsdc.htm

Top of page

# 3 EUTH

Dear Stephen

Together we have scored a victory for the St. Mark’s Bookshop and the Lower East Side!  Cooper Union has agreed to a new one-year lease to reduce their monthly rent to $17,500.  The bookshop has a $2,500/month rent reduction and Cooper Union will forgive back rent owed. This is a $37,500 win for the bookstore. We won through a lot of organizing — including your signature among the 44,128 on our online petition. Thank you!

The organization that led this fight — the Cooper Square Committee –  knows that bookshops are a crucial part of our beloved Lower East Side community. We have organized for over 52 years to ensure that the Lower East Side remains an affordable home to the diverse multi-ethnic community of working people and artists that has continued to draw so many people to it. 

Join Our Victory Celebration and Mark their 34th anniversary serving the community 

St. Mark’s Bookshop:                        
  31 Third Avenue (corner of 9th Street) 
  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2011
                5:30-7:30pm
* Celebrate our win, meet up with friends and neighbors    
* Learn more about our community
* Learn more about the Cooper Square Committee (You can also learn more about the Cooper Square Committee — its history battling Robert Moses and later gentrification, and its current tenants’ organizing – 
here: http://www.coopersquare.org/) 

If you can't come in person, check out the St. Mark's Bookshop website: http://www.stmarksbookshop.com/
Peace with justice,

Joyce Ravitz
Chairperson
Cooper Square Committee
61 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003

tel (212) 228-8210
fax (646) 602-2260

e-mail: Joyce@coopersquare.org
web http://www.coopersquare.org 

 

This message was sent to Stephen by Joyce Ravitz from the SignOn.org system. MoveOn.org Civic Action sponsors SignOn.org, but does not endorse specific campaigns or the contents of this message.

To unsubscribe or report this email as inappropriate, click here: http://www.signon.org/unsub.html?i=1078-573593-S1Av0x

The child in the adult waves behind a wall of glass, for the old woman is reaching for the shelf. Every book is the house of a friend. Each page speaks from the bottom of time. Soon we will see yellow leaves at the end of summer. Soon we will see flowers, after their kind, flutter and scatter just as they do in the poems of Li Ch’ing Chao. And we will see words coming from beyond the clouds. The old woman’s books are promising. They will unwind like cocoons, as every child knows. 

By Andrea Scarpino

I have Thalassemia. This may seem like a big, scary admission, but it’s not. Basically, I inherited from my father a genetic mutation that causes my body to produce less hemoglobin—the part of our red blood cells that carries oxygen—than is considered “normal” (of course, as we know, “normal” is a construct).

What I love about Thalassemia: the word comes from the Greek words for sea and blood. And my funky blood is shared by many people from Mediterranean regions—Greeks, Italians, North Africans—possibly developed as a protection against malaria. Malaria can’t insert itself into my red blood cells very easily, which is a pretty handy thing given my ancestor’s proclivity for living in malaria-rich regions. And the word itself—just say it: Thalassemia. It’s a great word. Blood and sea.

What makes me cranky about Thalassemia: other people’s hysteria.

Case in point: last week, I met with a new primary care physician. I told her I have Thalassemia. I even wrote it on my chart. I asked for blood work, which I get every couple of years just to make sure my numbers are normal-for-me. She agreed. Two days later, she called me on the phone in a panic.

“This blood work is very abnormal,” she said. “Can you get to Marquette General Hospital right now?”

I’m usually the first person to panic. I will be dialing 911/running around unhelpfully/screaming hysterically before anyone else even knows there is a crisis. And yet, I had a feeling her panic was overdone. I asked her to read my hemoglobin count; it was higher than the last time I had blood drawn. She wasn’t convinced by that bit of good news. She had spoken with two other doctors and none of them could make sense of my lab results. My bilirubin was elevated! My spleen may be destroying my red blood cells!

I giggled. Just say it: bilirubin. It’s hilarious—just hearing it in my head as I type makes me giggle. And she kept saying it. And I kept giggling.

The doctor finally agreed to hang up when I agreed I would get more blood drawn from Marquette General that afternoon. Minutes later, the hematologist’s office called to schedule an appointment. “I just have Thalassemia,” I told the nurse. No matter.

So this morning, I waited patiently in the hematologist’s office. My mother—who had laughed pretty hard as I recounted the situation and even suggested I was lucky the doctor hadn’t called the CDC—had made me promise I wouldn’t be “a brat” about things. The doctor walked in, introduced himself, shook my hand, said, “So, it looks like you’ve really panicked some folks!” And then he laughed. Loudly. And shook his head in disbelief.

When he finally collected himself, he said, “So. . . (long pause as he looked through my chart). . . you have Thalassemia.” And I laughed. And he laughed again. Then, “You’ve probably known your whole life, right?” I nodded. He laughed.

It was a lovely thing, to be meeting with a doctor who understands absurdity, to feel like we were in on a joke together. He showed me my primary care physician’s notes on my lab results—there were circles and question marks and underlined writing like, “what does this mean?”

“Oh dear,” the hematologist kept saying, wiping his eyes. Because for someone—anyone—who understands Thalassemia, my blood work was fine, was normal-for-me. There was no reason to act like my body was imploding—well at least not like it was imploding any faster than usual. Basically, my doctor made a crisis out of her own ignorance.

Finally, the hematologist shook my hand again, and I got up to leave. “Well,” he said, “I guess I won’t see you again until you panic the next doctor!”

“I’ll look forward to it,” I replied.

And that was the truth. The hematologist is clearly the best doctor I’ve had in Marquette—and in all likelihood, I’ll have no reason to go back to him. Thalassemia like mine doesn’t require much treatment—good eating, a generally healthy lifestyle. If I were to have biological children (see last week’s post), I would want to do some genetic counseling. But mostly, I’m treated through monitoring, periodic blood work. Periodic panic-inducement.

Of course, I’ve lost complete faith in my new primary care physician, which I guess is too bad. But the good news is, I’ve been laughing all day.

Poet and essayist Andrea Scarpino is a frequent contributor to POTB and one of our heroes. You can visit her at:

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Marquette, MI