Year: 2011

Dozens Arrested As Seniors And Activists Occupy Chicago Over Cuts
(Huffington Post)
November 7, 2011

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] More than 1,000 senior citizens and their supporters marched from Chicago's Federal Plaza to the intersection of Jackson and Clark Street Monday morning to protest proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Housing and Urban Development. At the intersection, more than 40 protesters, 15 of them seniors affiliated with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, stood or sat in the street, arms linked, blocking traffic. 

Amid chants demanding that the cuts be forestalled — with suggestions for alternatives, including tax hikes — 43 demonstrators were escorted from the intersection by police and issued citations for pedestrian failure to "exercise due care," or for blocking traffic. Those cited included four protesters using assisted mobility devices and at least one centenarian. 

Judy Moses said she was glad to receive the citation–her second in her quest to maintain funding for programs that benefit seniors, following an arrest for blocking traffic in December at a similar protest.

Before the traffic-stopping demonstration, an estimated 1,500 people turned out for a rally at Federal Plaza, where community members and activists spelled out the damage that individuals, and the greater Chicago community, stand to bear if funding is cut from welfare programs that benefit seniors. After decades of payments into social security with the expectation of returns, Chicago's senior citizens expressed shock that the federal support they rely on could be reduced.

Entire article:
Seniors Join Occupy Chicago, Protest Cuts To Medicare, Social Security
http://tinyurl.com/cx7gatm
Related:
Occupy Chicago, seniors arrested for civil disobedience (Examiner)
http://tinyurl.com/cd7ksnp

See the announcement below:

Dear Colleague:

Edited by my colleague Michael Shwartz of Syracuse University's program on law and disability. See it here.

In the last few days I have found myself once again traveling extensively and as usual, experiencing the highs and lows of disability travel. In Chicago where I was speaking at The University of Illinois Chicago campus about blindness in the 21st century I got yelled at by a mean spirited doorman who didn’t like the fact that I was letting my dog take a pee in the dead flowers outside the hotel. Trust me, there was no other place to go. His mean spiritedness was the issue. It’s not uncommon as a person with a disability to find yourself in a hieratic and miserable state of diminishment–it’s a caste system implicit in American social circles. The people with the disabilities can still be treated with contempt at the drop of a hat. Or use your own favorite cliche: whenever the mood strikes. 

Because of this spontaneous contempt factor I always wear a suit and tie when I travel. My costume (for that’s what it really is) is designed to say, “It’s Mr. Disabled Guy, to you, buddy.” I wear the proper getup for citizenship. No dirty tee shirt and bad haircut for this blind guy. I’m serious. I’m dead serious. Watch out. I might just be a professional person you stinker, you. 

Meantime, despite the bad reception from the doorman, I had a police officer at O’Hare airport hail me a cab–that is, he offered to hail me a cab. Then told me his cousin is losing his vision and his hearing owing to Usher’s disease. I told him about Guiding Eyes for the Blind which trains guide dogs for people with Usher’s disease. We had a human talk, a moment of soulful contact. We also talked about the Chicago Cubs. That was an uplifting moment. It was also a moment made entirely possible because of my disability. This is the flip side of the homunculus doorman. People with disabilities can tell you tons of stories that reflect this up and down dynamic of physical difference and social attraction-repulsion. It’s possible to argue that this is the same up and down dynamic we all face, regardless of physical difference–that is, if you’re just a normal looking person (whatever that might mean?) and someone treats you poorly at the supermarket checkout, you might then find, just moments later a person who does something kind for you. My point is not that disability makes for a different experience of the social circle, but that it simply intensifies the experiences. This is because of the inherent stigma associated with physical defect on the one hand, and the compensatory decency of civilized people on the other hand–but both principles involve something heightened, a mode of human activity that’s spurred by symbolism. God Almighty, one gets tired of it.

In New York City I had a limo driver (who I had paid to pick me up in advance) throw a fit when he saw my guide dog. He wasn’t going to take me to the airport. I had told the limo company about the dog. But they didn’t tell him. He was from India. He thought the dog was unclean. He was snotty. Eventually he took me to the airport but it was a frosty ride to say the least. 

And yet, just the evening before, while walking my dog near Central Park, a young Latino policeman came up to me and said how much he admired my dog and my ability to work with her. A nice moment to be sure. A human minute. Something that harkened back to our earliest times on earth when we had to be social creatures. 

This up and down business of disability is always heightened by travel. No wonder some people would rather stay at home. But compensatory judgements are always wrong. People are most often better than we suppose. I think that’s right. I think it’s right most days. I say so it’s so. My dog agrees.

  —Say it, no ideas but in things—   nothing but the blank faces of the houses   and cylindrical trees   bent, forked by preconception and accident—   split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained—   secret—into the body of the light!

via lancemannion.typepad.com

A great post this morning from Mr. Lance Mannion!

I feel like you friend. The autumn wind blows clouds about the sky. 

I feel like you friend. Grass turns brown. Leaves fall. 

I was young only a little while.

I feel alive in the blue morning, as if someone is about to visit. 

See Al Franken's important message at Huffington Post:

  This week, the free and open Internet millions of Americans have come to depend on is under attack.

AL FRANKEN: Net Neutrality Is Under Attack… Again

I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else.

Sent from my iPhone

The following story at Huffington Post convinces me that the utter decline of our nation has already occured, that we're living in the greasy and smeared streets of what once was a decent nation:

Here's the opening of the Huff Post article:

"KPHO in Phoenix reports that a Facebook group is offering parents the opportunity to receive lollipops in the mail that have allegedly been infected with chicken pox. The parents seeking these disease-riden sweets want their children to get chicken pox when they're young so they can become immune to the disease and avoid getting it later in life.

KPHO also found parents looking for people to send measles, mumps and rubella."