Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University

Disability, Children, and Human Rights

As a blind child I was treated poorly in public schools on more than one occasion. Stories like this continue to outrage me. Abuses of all children occur in our schools but it's clear from the national evidence that kids with autism are targets for the Dickensian nut jobs who are allowed to enter classrooms across the country. S.K.  

 

Parent Advocates Confront District About Vinegar, Soap, And Exercise Punishments
(Katy Times)
October 3, 2011

KATY, TEXAS– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] Residents concerned about the treatment of special education students in Katy Independent School District asked for the board's consideration of an alleged case of abuse at Exley Elementary as evidence for a new plan of treatment of special education students. 

Leslie Phillips, board member of the National Autism Association and Katy Autism Support, described the dangers of using aversive intervention. 

"The vast majority of education and mental health professionals agree that these techniques are not therapeutic, evidence-based practices," Phillips said. "They are not an effective means to calm or teach children, and . . . cause loss of skills or regression." 

Phillips described the practices as overexertion on a treadmill and putting cotton balls soaked in vinegar and soap in the mouth of nonverbal, autistic students.

Superintendent Alton Frailey responded to the comments, describing the case in question as "not something we want to have in our school district."

Entire article:
'Aversive' procedures ruffle feathers in KISD
http://tinyurl.com/3gjofax
Related:
School uses vinegar to discipline children (The Imperfect Parent)
http://tinyurl.com/3clamzy


 

Disability Employment Proclamation from the White House

The White House

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release October 3, 2011

 

NATIONAL DISABILITY EMPLOYMENT AWARENESS MONTH, 2011 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;   A PROCLAMATION 

 

Utilizing the talents of all Americans is essential for our Nation to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. During National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we recognize the skills that people with disabilities bring to our workforce, and we rededicate ourselves to improving employment opportunities in both the public and private sectors for those living with disabilities.

 

More than 20 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, individuals with disabilities, including injured veterans, are making immeasurable contributions to workplaces across our country. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities remains too high — nearly double the rate of people without disabilities — and reversing this trend is crucial.

 

In both the public and private sectors, we can increase employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities. My Administration is promoting competitive, integrated employment for persons with disabilities and the elderly through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Last year, we also recommitted to making the Federal Government a model employer for people living with disabilities. Agencies are working harder than ever to promote equal hiring practices and increase retention, while also expanding internships, fellowships, and training opportunities.

 

We know education is the foundation on which all children can build bright and successful futures, and no child should be limited in his or her desire to learn. In September, we announced the final regulations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C, to improve services and outcomes for infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families during the critical years before kindergarten. The educational environments we are creating for children with disabilities will ensure they are better prepared to succeed in the classroom and later in the workplace, helping position our Nation to lead in the 21st century.

 

Work accessibility is just as vital to success as ensuring educational and hiring opportunities. Public transportation is a service that should be available to all Americans, and rules instated this year by the Department of Transportation require new rail construction or renovations to ensure accessibility to persons with disabilities. We are also improving our compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to make Federal agencies' electronic and information technology more accessible to individuals with disabilities. This will ensure all applicants have equal opportunity to apply for jobs, and it will allow Federal employees to better use technology at work.

 

To win the future, we must harness the power of our Nation's richest resource — our people. Americans with disabilities, like all Americans, are entitled to not only full participation in our society, but also full opportunity in our society. Their talents and contributions are vital to the strength of our Nation's workforce and our future prosperity. Together, we can ensure persons living with disabilities have equal access to employment, and to inclusive, supportive workplaces.

 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 2011 as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. I urge all Americans to embrace the talents and skills that individuals with disabilities bring to our workplaces and communities and to promote the right to equal employment opportunity for all people.

 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

 

BARACK OBAMA

 # # #

 

Recipe for Voice

 

In the old haiku, geese fly through snow, directed by their voices. Now add Gandhi:

“The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.” 

Stir in Virginia Woolf: “Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.” 

Pour in Audre Lorde: “I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.” 

A jigger of Neruda: ”I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”

A splash of Marianne Faithfull: “The voice of God, if you must know, is Aretha Franklin’s.”

 

S.K. 

 

Life Sentence for Mental Illness, A Human Rights Issue

Prisoner Gets 97-Year Sentence For Mental Illness Symptoms
(American Civil Liberties Union)
September 30, 2011

TAMMS, ILLINOIS– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily] Anthony Gay was sentenced to an incredible 97 years in prison for throwing feces out his food slot, behavior experts characterize as symptomatic for severely mentally ill people held in solitary confinement. Yesterday the ACLU joined the National Disability Rights Network, Mental Health America and many others in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in Gay's appeal, calling the sentence "an unconscionable and shocking criminalization of his mental illness." 

Anthony's story is a tragic, but all too common, tale in our criminal justice system, where the severely mentally ill are routinely held in solitary confinement for months, years and even decades — their condition, and the punishment for it, worsening.

Anthony originally entered prison on a low-level charge after violating probation on a seven year suspended sentence. Had he been able to conform to prison rules, he should have served three-and-a-half years in prison. Unfortunately, Gay's mental illness led to bizarre and disturbing behaviors. Rather than treating his mental illness, officials punished him repeatedly for his symptoms; his security level was raised and he was increasingly banished to solitary confinement.

Eventually Gay was sent to Illinois' "supermax" prison, Tamms Correctional Center, reserved supposedly for the "worst of the worst." Subjected to 23 hours or more of isolation a day in a small cell with little to no human contact, Gay repeatedly tried to commit suicide and began to engage in horrific self-mutilation . . . Yet he was still not given meaningful psychiatric evaluation or treatment.

Entire article:
97 Years in Prison for a Mentally Ill Man Who Threw Feces
http://tinyurl.com/3jcdjw5
Related:
Inmate wants out of Tamms; attorney says years of solitary confinement harmed his mental health (Belleville News-Democrat) 
http://tinyurl.com/3k33nc7

 

Disability On Theory Road

–after Pentti Saarikoski

 

In the morning on Theory Road

Ableists and doctrineaire landscapers accosted me

Told me I was sily wanting to go places like everyone else

A little higher up under my apple tree a fawn and her twins nosed fallen fruit

Malice, dressed as a bureaucrat told me to give up

His forehead wavy, eyes quite specific, didn't much like the blind he said

I climbed the steps to the dance floor

Late summer clouds calling me

To dance with them but I lay down on my back

& listened as if my life depended 

Some Poor Writing About Syracuse in the Chronicle of Higher Education

There's an article by Robin Wilson in the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "Syracuse's Slide" that seems, at first glance, to be a substantive news article. In a nutshell Wilson's piece asserts that under the leadership of Chancellor Nancy Cantor, SU has declined academically, dropping some five points in a recent ranking by US News & World Report–a rating mechanism that is relatively non-transparent and which is highly contested within higher education. What's troubling about the article is it's reliance on the rhetorical device known by the Greeks as "pathos"–it asserts a decline is underway at one of the nation's premier universities, thereby raising the emotional temperature of the Agora. Pathos is an excellent tool and it's the one you want if you seek histrionics and readerly credulity. Wilson seems to have been duped by a minority group of faculty who are increasingly unhappy because they do not share the Chancellor's vision of "scholarship in action"–a plan to make the pursuit of higher education and engagement with local educational and civic organizations into a model for 21st century American colleges. That such a plan would have it's critics is hardly surprising. Certainly the histories of contention in higher education would make a generous, if unreadable book. But it's the pathos of the Chronicle piece I find most surprising and disappointing. Pathos is distinct from facts (logos) but it pretends to facts. Enter Wilson's reliance on a disgruntled minority–they assert that funding dollars drawn from tuition have gone up for the administration at the expense of teaching. That this is untrue and that the claims come from an unreliable source seems to have evaded Ms. Wilson who also seems to have failed to question the assertion that Syracuse University's bold embrace of community based scholarship and civic engagement is responsible for a five point drop in the US News index. There is no evidence for this, only pathos, and the latter belongs both to bad writing and to the evident angst of the oddly selective group of faculty who Wilson seems to have consulted. It's interesting that she didn't talk to Deans or faculty with endowed chairs or University Professorships. In fact the article is so unbalanced that one simply returns to pathos in the absence of careful reporting. One wonders who is really responsible for the claim that Nancy Cantor's administration engages in "divisive" leadership? I can attest that having taught at two Big Ten universities and at a first tier liberal arts college I've never and I mean never been a part of such a diverse and energized intellectual community before. All of which makes me wonder about the term "divisiveness"–that can't be code for saying we're concentrating too much on the poor, can it?

 

SK

BBC E-mail: Germany returns Namibian skulls

Earlier, Ueriuka Festus Tjikuua, a member of the Namibian delegation, told reporters: "We have come first and foremost to receive the mortal human remains of our forefathers and mothers and to return them to the land of their ancestors."

I saw this story on the BBC News iPad App and thought you should see it.

** Germany returns Namibian skulls **
A delegation of Namibian tribal leaders visits Berlin to collect the skulls of 20 compatriots which were taken to Germany during colonial times.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15127992 >

** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want – when you want them, all in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/email >

** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have been verified.

Sent from my iPad

Stealing the Pears from a Blind Guy's Tree

Pear Tree

 

Someone has stolen my pears. I have a suspect in mind but I won't confront him (or her)–rather I shall say: "Have you noticed anyone in my yard picking my fruit?" 

Stealing pears from a blind dude. Man, does that ever stink!

Of course, there are so many dreadful occurences on this planet that my little pear tree's violation is as nothing…

But I hope they choke on my little Anjous. I hope they get gout! I hope they bite into a live wasp! 

Hey, maybe he or she will grow up to be a saint, like Augustine, regreting the theft of pears. 

I hope they get gout! 

S.K.