Author: stevekuusisto

I'm trying to keep from crying, been jobless with a disability, remember vividly what food stamps and section 8 housing were like. Many of my creative writing and academic friends have luckily not been quite "there, there" which is to say I'm generalizing but I hear so much chatter about fellowships and Fulbrights and teaching gigs and book tours but very little visceral and collective tears for the long time unemployed.

I reckon this is the kind of Facebook message that wins no friends. But I'm very sad about the growing population of poor people in this nation. Gandhi said it: "Poverty is the worst form of violence."  I also like the observation by Mother Teresa: "Is is poverty to decide that a child must die so you may live as you wish."

Let's remember our fellow citizens this long weekend.

S.K. 

Hei Mister, joka on minut ylös Juke Box
Minä olen se laulaa tämä surullinen laulu

There's a terrific article this month by LynNell Hancock at The Smithsonian Magazine about Finland's eduactional system. What works? Interacting with kids, all kids; and yes, not obsessing about tests. I joked with a friend: "Yes, and think about how "Green Friendly" this is: by not obsessing about tests they save a lot of paper!"

Jokes aside, education that's human centered and seeks to value individual students reflects Paolo Freire's critical distinction between imagination and conformity as outcomes. Freire: 

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

The practice of freedom is participatory as both the Finns and Freire have shown. 

S.K. 

Finland Employment Study Finds People With Disabilities Are Underused Economic Resource (YLE News) August 30, 2011 HELSINKI, FINLAND– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] As a group, the physically disabled are an underused, significant economic resource, according to a report released by the Sitra Finnish Innovation Fund and VATES Foundation. The implementation of work experience training programs for the disabled could help more people get long-term employment, Jukka Lindberg, Development Manager at VATES, said. Examples from England and Sweden show that work experience and training in the workplace significantly improves employment prospects. However, as a group people with disabilities often don't find their way into employment programs, and Lindberg said the reasons behind this roadblock will be looked at more closely. Entire article: Study: Disabled struggle to find work http://tinyurl.com/3jdcmb3

I remember Pablo Neruda wishing that he could do something as workman-like as making a broom. 

Neruda knew that the dignity of work and the elemental utility of a simple tool are as necessary to human life as vitamin B12. 

Here’s to Neruda’s broom on a rainy morning in these difficult times. 

A friend was explaining something yesterday and using the analogy of tuning a radio. We laughed as no one tunes a radio anymore, not with a knob, so of course the variability of listening to static is gone. Poof! No more analogy for zeroing in on a problem. This of course made me think of the island of broken toys. It made me think of my grandmother's Victrola. It's been decades since anyone said: "Crank up a song!" 

Yesterday I went to the bookstore at Syracuse University. It was a mob scene because yesterday was also the opening of classes. Entering the store felt like boarding the subway on Lexington In New York City and I crammed and squeezed my way forward and then it happened: a well meaning man wearing a very orange tee shirt raced up, ostensibly to help me, but really he wanted to pet my guide dog. He didn't ask permission, just settled into a loving session which caused Nira to forget that she was "in harness" and on duty. This fellow went on at some length about his own dog, and meanwhile, there among hundreds of people I struggled to keep control of my dear working companion who was in danger of getting out of bounds.

I didn't reprimand the fellow. Didn't tell him that when a guide dog is wearing its harness you shouldn't talk to it or pet it. Didn't explain that this consistency has everything to do with keeping the dog's owner safe from falling on ice or stairs because the dog has decided to get some attention. Didn't explain that "working a dog up" with petting can make it lose all focus. That the reason guide dogs can go everywhere is that long ago blind activists proved that their dogs were impeccably trained. I didn't say any of these things. 

People are lonely. We cover it up with fashion and goo-gaws. We talk our way out of it–almost. And for a moment I saw it there in that crowd. So I just let the whole guide dog thing go. 

I have to remind myself that my own safety is at stake. Empathy stops at the street's edge.

S.K. 

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

Lest anyone doubt the matter, I'm terrified. Quite. 

S.K.

The following comes to us via Inclusion Daily Express

Hundreds Of Psych Hospital Patients Protest New Rules
(Star-Ledger)
August 26, 2011

PARSIPPANY, NEW JERSEY– [Excerpt] Nearly half of the 432 patients at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital have signed a petition or boycotted therapy sessions this month to protest new rules they say further limit their activities and force them to attend programs that don’t help in their recovery, patients and an advocacy groups say. 

The conflict arose Aug. 1, when managers at the hospital in Parsippany reduced the number of visits allowed to the Park Cafe, a commissary and meeting place for patients, from every weeknight and weekends to twice a week. 

The hospital also limited access to the library and a computer room, according to the petition. 

The changes at Greystone led to the petition enumerating 17 complaints, ranging from "neglect of low-functioning patients" to cold food to the medicating of agitated patients instead of seeking "a resolution to the problem."

Entire article:
Parsippany psychiatric hospital patients boycott therapy sessions, protest new rules
http://tinyurl.com/3hf8ruv