Category: Uncategorized

 

 

Disability activist and poet Neil Marcus writes:

 

“How can I speak of cripple and not mention the wind.
How can I speak of crippled and not mention the heart.
Heart, wind, song, flower, space, time, love. To leave
these absent is to leave cripple in stark terms.
As if we were made of medical parts and not flesh and bone.

There is always wind in my cripple….

Cripple is not extraordinary or ordinary.
Cripple is a full plate….”

 

 

I was thinking of Neil’s lines this morning–in fact I was talking to myself like one of the old savants of Lapland and I felt gratitude that Neil had written these lines.  

 

So I’m sharing my gratitude! Thank you Neil Marcus! 

 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/14-0

Stephen Kuusisto
Director
The Renee Crown University
Honors Program
University Professor
Syracuse University

"Before I decided to write this book My Twenty-Five Years With Gertrude Stein, I had often said that I would write, The Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With. I have sat with so many. I have sat with wives that were not wives, of geniuses who were real geniuses. I have sat with real wives of geniuses who were not real geniuses. I have sat with wives of geniuses, of near-geniuses, of would-be geniuses, in short I have sat very often and very long with many wives and wives of many geniuses. Fernande, who was then living with Picasso and had been with him a long time that is to say they were all twenty-four years old at that time but they had been together a long time, Fernande was the first wife of a genius I sat with and she was – not the least amusing. We talked hats. Fernande had two subjects hats and perfumes. This first day we talked hats. She liked hats, she had the true french feeling about a hat, if a hat did not provoke some witticism from a man on the street the hat was not a success. Later on once in Montmartre she and I were walking together. She had on a large yellow hat and I had on a much smaller blue one. As we were walking along a workman stopped and called out, there go the sun and the moon shining together. Ah, said Fernande to me with a radiant smile, you see our hats are a success." from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

From The New York Times:

OPINION: Capitalists and Other Psychopaths

Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior. This should hardly be news.

http://nyti.ms/J8DpWp

 

For the dead are not far

Nor are they neighbors

In fashions

Of ease. Instead

They speak

Like working men

Or the women

Who saved Finland,

Voices resolved

Still to love, half

Of unreason

For when alive

They were fluent with sadness

but never fooled.

Dear Governor Romney:

When I read the article at the Atlantic Monthly today detailing your "high school hijinks" (link below) I was thrown back into my own adolescence which, I assure you, was a time of terrible struggle and pain. I was like your teacher who had the thick glasses–a teacher who you side-swiped, presumably for a cheap laugh. I was the kid with glasses thicker than Coke bottles–they were as thick as padlocks. I walked bent over. I struggled to read the printed word. I belonged to no known social group. I was harassed by able bodied kids in the hallways. By my junior year I was hospitalized with anorexia and exhaustion. I was, in short, the kind of person you would have gleefully victimized. I don't think the word "hijinks" quite captures what you did, Sir, for cruelty is steeper than easy shenanigans. Cruelty to people who have disabilities or who are gay requires a penchant for stigmatization, an intellectual property that balloons inside unreflective and judgmental human beings.

Do I believe that people can grow? Certainly. But there must be evidence, and given your wholesale support for the Ryan budget plan, a plan that calls for cruel and unnecessary cuts to the social programs that help people with disabilities actually live, I'd say that there's no evidence to date that you've grown one iota. 

I have never thought of blindness as an antagonist, merely the people who make the way harder. Of this I am certain: you know plenty of those folks.

 

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/05/time-when-mitt-romney-was-bully/52151/

 

Stephen Kuusisto 

Yep. Gay people and folks with thick glasses were fair game for the Mittster:

The Time When Mitt Romney Was a Bully

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/05/time-when-mitt-romney-was-bully/52151/

(Sent from Flipboard)

Stephen Kuusisto 

Director

The Renee Crown University Honors Program 

University Professor

Syracuse University

 

 

 

 

If you support the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities  ask the White house to submit the Convention to the Senate for ratification without delay.   With campaigning under way this critical protection for U.S. Citizens abroad (vacationers’, students, individuals working or doing business) with disabilities is unlikely to get the attention it deserves unless you make yourself heard.   Ratification by September is necessary If the U.S. is going to participate in in a leadership role during the next three years.   If you agree with me and think this is important contact the White House:

 

·         White House Comment Line: 202-456-1111 (TTY/TTD: 202-456-6213)

·         Email White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

The simple accessible form allows you to send an e-mail.  Please use “Foreign Policy” for the category and ask for a response.

 

Feel free to use the bullet points (or the entire message) below: 

 

I am writing to urge the White House to send the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to the Senate with haste and to vigorously promote its ratification.  Ratification of the CRPD is a human rights issue; congruent with the administration’s stance, current federal law and U.S. public policy on disability.  In fact obligations under our own laws negate the  concerns over “sovereignty” that are sometimes leveraged in opposition to engaging in international treaties through the U.N.  If the Senate fails to ratify the CRPD, America’s role as a world leader, particularly when it comes to human rights will significantly diminish along with our voice and our influence in international affairs. 

 

It is essential that this treaty be ratified by the US Senate prior to the September CRPD Committee meetings when election that will guide treaty implementation will be held.  The next window with of opportunity for high level  participation and leadership is 2015.  Following ratification, the U.S. will:

·         Have an opportunity for a U.S. disability leader to be elected to the CRPD Committee to guide implementation of the convention across the globe

·         Ensure global initiatives on disability issues and rights will continue to be influenced by U. S. disability leaders

·         Ensure students with disabilities from the U.S. and all countries will have opportunities for accessible, inclusive education including higher education. 

·         Ensure that U.S. travelers, entrepreneurs and employees with disabilites working abroad have can access transportation, housing, retail and commercial facilities.

·         Take its proper place among 112 nations including Australia, Canada, France and Japan in ratifying this 21^st century treaty affirming the rights of the disabled around the world, including disabled veterans.

 

Thank you for continuing this work with allows  disabled individuals from our country and around the world to take their proper place in our increasingly global society.. 

Sincerely,