Happy ADA Anniversary!!! History was made today!!!

Twenty two years ago today, July 26 , the ADA was signed and NOW… today July 26, 2012  the CRPD was voted favorably out of Committee and to the Senate floor! Thank you for all of your emails, letters and phone calls. This victory belongs to you!!!!

What’s next? The CRPD is now entering its final stage for a full floor vote in the Senate.  We believe there is still time for floor action in the next week before the August recess.  We have to make sure that every Senator hears the disability community’s support behind this important treaty in order to achieve successful ratification! WE NEED a 2/3 VOTE TO RATIFY THIS TREATY… THAT MEANS A 50 STATE STRATEGY! We will not get floor time next week if we cannot show that we have the votes to block a filibuster. There is very little floor time left. As you know the Senate switchboards have been ringing with the homeschoolers, Phyllis Schlafly and Rick Santorum supporters.  But our networks (YOU!) have shown the Foreign Relations Committee that we will not stop until this treaty is ratified… now we need to show the WHOLE Senate.

So here’s what is next:

ACTION: We have just one week before the August recess! Activate EVERYONE to call, email, and visit your Senate offices! Tweet #CRPD and Facebook messages of support! EACH call and contact makes a difference!

MESSAGE: “On July 26^th, the anniversary of the ADA, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in favor of the CRPD with bipartisan support! Please support the CRPD as it comes to a vote in the full Senate – this is important to the disability community!  This is a Disability Issue!!“

CONTACTS: The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.  Ask to be connected to your Senator’s office and call both Senators! Or, you can find Senator’s contact information at this link:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Mark your Calendar: National Call for Advocates on July 30^th!

Finally, please join DREDF and USICD for a national teleconference for updates on today’s vote and important details of this final step!

Date: Monday, July 30^th

Time: 2PM Eastern/11AM Pacific

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

Victory is only ONE VOTE AWAY!

From: “Vivian M. May” <vmmay@syr.edu>
Date: July 27, 2012 8:18:36 AM EDT
To: <WGSFACULTY@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Fall course: feminist theories of knowing, WGS 740
Reply-To: “Vivian M. May” <vmmay@syr.edu>

Dear Colleagues,

if you have graduate students who would be interested in taking a feminist theory course focused on epistemology and the politics of knowledge, please let them know about my fall seminar, WGS 740!  A description is below….

Feminist Theories of Knowing, WGS 740

Wed 3:45-6:30

Professor Vivian May, vmmay@syr.edu

 

How do power & privilege shape what “counts” as knowledge & who “counts” as a knower?

This seminar explores a number of questions about the knowledge/power nexus, including:

• What is epistemic hegemony and how does it play out?
• What are strategies of epistemic resistance or insurgency?
• Whose knowledge, and what forms of knowledge, have been considered valid, and why?
• What roles do affect and embodiment play on knowing?
• What are the contours of thinking margin-to-margin (& not just margin to center)?

Drawing on a range of theoretical texts, course readings are organized around several key themes:

• Epistemologies of resistance
• Situated  knowing: Affect, embodiment, identity
• Decolonizing knowledge and decolonial feminisms
• Thinking across borders
• Ignorance and hauntings

Three of the most celebrated chefs in Central New York — Kevin Gentile, Yann Guigne and Eva Zaczynski — will show off their skills for a cause Sunday in an event called Philanthropic Foodies.

It’s a food-tasting fundraiser 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Gentile’s Restaurant, 313 N. Geddes St., Syracuse.

Here’s how it works:

Gentile and his friend Guigne, who is co-owner and chef at L’Adour Restaurant Francais, 110 Montgomery St., Syracuse, will work at stations in the downstairs dining room, each offering about a half-dozen tasting plates or appetizers. Each will also prepare two buffet-style dishes served in the upstairs dining area.

Zacynski, owner of Eva’s European Sweets, 1305 Milton Ave., Syracuse, will prepare desserts, also in small-plate portions.

Other stations will feature locally sourced cheese and produce, and there will be a beer and wine bar and music.

Proceeds benefit the Samaritan Center, which serves hot meals 365 days a year to homeless and needy men, women and children, and The Friends of Dorothy House, which provides home-based hospice care for people with AIDS and terminal illnesses.

A minimum donation of $100 per person is requested. For reservations, go to philanthropicfoodiessyr.eventbrite.com.

(PBS)
July 25, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] As the United States prepares to observe the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act Thursday, it’s tempting to say, “hold the celebration.” That’s because for those with disabilities, the employment picture has, sadly, not improved since the ADA was signed into law 22 years ago.

In fact, during the recent recession, it deteriorated five times as badly as did employment for the rest of American workers. While the non-disability workforce shrank by about 2 percent, for people with disabilities, the number working fell by over 10 percent. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the picture has remained grim as the economy has begun its recovery: While 3 million new jobs were added to the able-bodied work force, workers with disabilities have seen their ranks shrink further.

The chief voice spreading the word about this depressing situation is Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, and a long-time passionate advocate for those with disabilities.

Harkin has just released a report that calls on Congress, the president and his administration, private business and Americans everywhere to make finding jobs for people with disabilities a national priority. What sets the report apart is that it’s not limited to an assault on our guilty consciences.

Entire article:
A Call to Focus on Finding Jobs for Those with Disabilities
http://tinyurl.com/ide0725122a
Related:
Reports to the President Disability Employment Statistical Reports (U.S. Office of Personnel Management)
http://www.opm.gov/diversityandinclusion/reports/disability/index.aspx

TCM to Examine Hollywood’s Depiction of People with Disabilities in The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film in October

Lawrence Carter-Long Joins TCM’s Robert Osborne for Historic Month-Long Film Exploration, Presented in Collaboration with Inclusion in the Arts

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will dedicate the month of October to exploring the ways people with disabilities have been portrayed in film. On behalf of Inclusion in the Arts, Lawrence Carter-Long will join TCM host Robert Osborne for The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film. The special month-long exploration will air Tuesdays in October, beginning Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. (ET).

TCM makes today’s announcement to coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) on July 26. And in a first for TCM, all films will be presented with both closed captioning and audio description (via secondary audio) for audience members with auditory and visual disabilities.

The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film features more than 20 films ranging from the 1920s to the 1980s. Each night’s collection will explore particular aspects, themes, or types of disability, such as blindness, deafness and psychiatric or intellectual disabilities. In addition, one evening of programming will focus on newly disabled veterans returning home from war. 

TCM’s exploration of disability in cinema includes many Oscar®-winning and nominated films, such as An Affair to Remember (1957), in which Deborah Kerr’s romantic rendezvous with Cary Grant is nearly derailed by a paralyzing accident; A Patch of Blue (1965), with Elizabeth Hartman as a blind white girl who falls in love with a black man, played by Sidney Poitier; Butterflies Are Free (1972), starring Edward Albert as a blind man attempting to break free from his over-protective mother; and Gaby: A True Story (1987), the powerful tale of a girl with cerebral palsy trying to gain independence as an artist; Johnny Belinda(1948), starring Jane Wyman as a “deaf-mute” forced to defy expectations; The Miracle Worker (1962), starring Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan and Patty Duke as Helen Keller; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), with Jack Nicholson as a patient in a mental institution and Louise Fletcher as the infamous Nurse Ratched; The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the post-War drama starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy and real-life disabled veteran Harold Russell; and Charly (1968), with Cliff Robertson as an intellectually disabled man who questions the limits of science after being turned into a genius.

The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film also features several lesser-known classics ripe for rediscovery, including the atmospheric Val Lewton chiller Bedlam (1946), the intriguing blind-detective mystery Eyes in the Night (1942); A Child is Waiting (1963), with Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland; the British family drama Mandy (1953); and a bravura performance by wheelchair user Susan Peters in Sign of the Ram (1948). A complete schedule is included.

Each year since 2006, TCM has dedicated one month toward examining how different cultural and ethnic groups have been portrayed in the movies. Several of the programming events have centered on Race and Hollywood, with explorations on how the movies have portrayed African-Americans in 2005, Asians in 2008, Latinos in 2009, Native Americans in 2010 and Arabs in 2011. TCM looked at Hollywood’s depiction of gay and lesbian characters, issues and themes in 2007.

“The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film is a valuable opportunity to take a deeper look at the movies we all know and love, to see them from a different perspective and to learn what they have to say about us as a society,” said Osborne. “We are very proud to be working with Inclusion in the Arts on this important exploration. And we are especially glad to have Lawrence Carter-Long of the National Council on Disability with us to provide fascinating, historical background and thought-provoking insight on how cinematic portrayals of disability have evolved over time.”

“From returning veterans learning to renegotiate both the assumptions and environments once taken for granted to the rise of independent living, Hollywood depictions of disability have alternately echoed and influenced life outside the movie theater,” said Carter-Long, who curated the series. “Twenty-two years after the passage of the ADA and over a century since Thomas Edison filmed ‘The Fake Beggar,’ TCM and Inclusion in the Arts provide an unprecedented overview of how cinematic projections of isolation and inspiration have played out on the silver screen – and in our lives. When screened together, everything from The Miracle Worker to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest reveals another layer where what you think you know is only the beginning.”

“As soon as I hear about this shooting, I knew who it was. I knew it was a young, white male, probably from an affluent neighborhood, disconnected from society — it happens time and time again,” said Scarborough. “Most of it has to do with mental health; you have these people that are somewhere, I believe, on the autism scale. I don’t know if that’s the case here, but it happens more often than not.”

Really? Joe? Did you know that people with mental illness or disabilities are less likely to commit acts of violence than the general population? Of course you didn’t know this. I’ve seldom seen facts get in your way as you opine about everything from the economy to women’s rights to the tax code. 

But there are real lives in the balance. People with autism or asperger’s (which I like to call “aspirer’s syndrome) have a hard enough time navigating in this world without you, Mr. Joe, adding to the misconceptions about neurological differences. 

Joe: here’s a hint. Switch to decaf. 

Here’s another hint: use your program to have a thoughtful segment on the fact that people with mental illnesses and neuro-differences are in fact less likely to commit crimes. 

In general this is called a teachable moment. I’m happy to help. Meantime, try the Starbuck’s “blonde” de-caf, okay?

This article is part of a Huffington Postseries on the global impact of austerity — “A Thousand Cuts” — from affordable housing funds lost in San Francisco to increasing class sizes in New York, food inspector cuts in Canada, disability benefits taken away in the United Kingdom, decimation of France’s solar industry, and more. Click here for information on how you can help people affected by these measures.