Category: Uncategorized

America, 2012

Here is the story as I understand it. The wind comes through the silver birches and it is a god. My friend X is stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike because his car broke down. His car broke down because there is a demon. In America nowadays, everything runs according to Orphic principles, even the Pentecostal types. There’s a crack on the sidewalk. If you step on it, Jesus will never come back. Don’t kid yourself, America is officially nuts. Here is the story as I understand it. America was always nuts. Gods are fighting in my privet hedge. They just happen to look like magpies. There’s a demon in my friend’s 1993 Ford station wagon. The mechanic can’t find it. I know why: the Devil lives in the water cooler at the Pep Boys in Brunswick, New Jersey. He’s been there for about five years. He used to be at Princeton. He gets around. He used to live in my gas stove. 

 

Disability Rights Activists Focus On Proposal To Cut $800 Billion From Medicaid

We at Planet of the Blind wonder why The Rachel Maddow Show or other progressive news outlets are not covering the story of disability protest of the Romney-Ryan Plan.

(Between The Lines)
June 20, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] On April 23, 74 disability rights activists were arrested in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., there to protest the Republican-led House of Representatives’ proposed plan to cut $800 billion from the federal Medicaid budget. The protest was part of the disability rights’ group ADAPT’s My Medicaid Matters Campaign.

ADAPT used to stand for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, but with the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in the early 1990s, that battle was largely won. ADAPT now stands for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, emphasizing the need for personal care assistance to help disabled citizens to remain in their own homes and not be institutionalized.

Actor Noah Wyle, a star of the “Falling Skies” TV program, was among the ADAPT activists to be arrested at the April protest. ADAPT says that like Americans of the past, disability activists are practicing nonviolent civil disobedience to prevent the nation from stepping backward toward oppression and segregation.

Elaine Kolb was one of those arrested in the April protest. She uses a wheelchair as a result of a stabbing injury many years ago. This was her 19th arrest since joining ADAPT in 1987. She is also a singer/songwriter whose work focuses on disability rights issues. Between the Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Kolb, who explains why she participated in this latest protest, as she considers what the future may hold for Americans with disabilities.

Entire article:
GOP Proposal to Cut $800 Billion from Medicaid Budget Focus of Disability Rights Protest
http://www.btlonline.org/2012/seg/120622cf-btl-kolb.html

Hallelujah

The Lute Player

By Andrea Scarpino 

While walking the city our last day in Budapest, Zac and I wandered into a craft market wedged between two buildings. Table after table was filled with hand printed tee-shirts and skirts, handmade copper and silver rings and earrings, stationary, black and white photographs, felted purses and hats. We moved slowly from one table to the next, sunlight streaming down between the buildings, and right in the middle of that long, slow procession was a woman, guitar case open at her feet, playing guitar, singing—in Hungarian—Leonard Cohen’s famous “Hallelujah.” 

We squeezed into an empty space around a table of felted purses, the crowd around us pushing forward, and listened to her voice, a clear, lovely voice, singing words I couldn’t recognize but know by heart. Words I couldn’t recognize except for one: hallelujah. 

Over and over: hallelujah: “an expression of worship or rejoicing.”

I felt, in those three weeks of travel, that I was constantly rejoicing, full of gratitude for the chance to visit new places, for time with Zac, for meeting family. It was the first time in five years that I traveled without my computer, that I checked email only sporadically, that I allowed myself to just be, just be in a place without a schedule or timeline or expectations of what should happen next. I felt lighter than I have in a long time, free of any responsibility other than to get to the train or bus station on time for the next leg of our journey. 

Sometimes I felt overwhelmed with lack of direction—when I was brought from house to house meeting new relatives, for example, and had no idea how many relatives were left on the schedule to meet. But those moments were fleeting. Most of the time, I rejoiced in just being present where I was taken, in allowing myself to be led, in absorbing everything I could possibly absorb. Zac remarked frequently on how relaxed I looked, how free of stress in my face.

Now, of course, I’ve returned to responsibility. My next semester starts in two weeks, and even though June is officially reserved for faculty research, I’ve been spending hours in phone meetings, answering emails, preparing for July’s Residency. I’ve grown weary of beginning another semester in the middle of summer when the rest of my teaching friends and colleagues still have two months of break. I’ve grown weary of the mundane responsibilities, personality conflicts, petty disagreements probably present in every working environment.

And I’m trying to find, again, that sense of lightness, joy, rejoice. Gratitude that I have a job when so many I know do not. Gratitude at the beauty of summer in Marquette : hundreds of miles of trails to explore, rocky beaches, moderate temperatures, light until 10:30 or 11 at night. Gratitude for visiting friends, for friends wanting to visit. There is much in my life about which to rejoice, about which to feel grateful. The challenge, I’m beginning to understand, is to bring the lightness and joy I felt during three weeks of vacation into my everyday life. To remember how I felt standing in an alley in Budapest filled with color and light and music and a woman’s voice, again and again, singing hallelujah. 

 

Olmstead Anniversary

This week marks the thirteenth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., where the Supreme Court recognized that the civil rights of people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are violated when they are unnecessarily segregated from the rest of society. The promise of Olmstead is that people with disabilities will have the opportunity to live like people without disabilities – to have friends, work, be part of a family, and participate in community activities. As the Department of Justice commemorates the anniversary of the Olmsteaddecision and reaffirms our commitment to its enforcement, we are pleased to present “Faces ofOlmstead,” a website profiling stories of some of the thousands of people whose lives have been impacted by the Olmstead decision and the Department’s enforcement efforts. To learn more about theOlmstead decision and the Civil Rights Division’s enforcement activities, please visit our Olmstead: Community Integration for Everyone website. For more information about the ADA, you may call our toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 or 800-514-0383 (TDD), or access the ADA Website atwww.ada.gov.