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What does it mean to be brutally poor in America? Don’t ask the Romney campaign. In secret they are imagining the most radical cuts to the social safety net in this nation’s history. One shouldn’t imagine that Mitt is just another neo-liberal. He’s as heartless as Paul Ryan, and worse, he’s more ambitious. If Democrats stay home this fall we wil get a national government that’s directed to put the weakest citizens in the streets.

From The New York Times:

OP-ED COLUMNIST: A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame

For returning soldiers, home has been deadlier than the battlefield. Some say the V.A. isn’t doing enough to help.

http://nyti.ms/HMaqJu

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

From The New York Times:

EDITORIAL: More Help for the Wealthy

Under the guise of helping small businesses, Republicans want new high-end tax cuts that would favor the wealthy and starve the government of needed revenue.

http://nyti.ms/InSaG4

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

“The measures now being contemplated would betray the election promises of both parties in Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition to be more protective of traditional British civil liberties than their Labor Party predecessors.”

From The New York Times:

EDITORIAL: From the Birthplace of Big Brother

Britain is debating a vast expansion of eavesdropping that would bypass judicial warrants. Such sweeping powers would compromise the privacy and liberty of law-abiding citizens.

http://nyti.ms/HLErLD

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

So you want to have a dialogue with your heart? Very well but first you must call it by its true name. Summer and condensation on a green bottle; women beating dust from their carpets on balconies; old man probing a long white hair in his ear. The heart is wide awake as any abandoned child. Call it by its proper name. Hat pin; boulevard; rag doll; blue finch; Venus discovered through a broken window.

Gervais’ History On Disability Insults Leads To Suspicion Over ‘Derek’ Character

(BBC News)
April 12, 2012

LONDON, ENGLAND– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] Ricky Gervais has defended his new Channel 4 programme, Derek, following suggestions he was mocking people with learning difficulties.

The one-off comedy is billed as the story of “a simple, vulnerable man working in an old people’s home”.

Some, including fellow comedian Stewart Lee, have said the character makes light of the “mentally handicapped”.

But Gervais, who plays the title role, said Derek was not intended to have a “specific and defined disability”.

“Derek is a fictional character and is defined by his creator, me,” he told disability rights campaigner Nicky Clark.

“If I say I don’t mean him to be disabled then that’s it. A fictional doctor can’t come along and prove me wrong.”

Gervais was interviewed for Clark’s website ahead of the first screening of Derek on 12 April.

The campaigner has previously been a vocal critic of the comedian. Last October, she took him to task for repeatedly used the word “mong” on his Twitter feed.

Entire article:
Ricky Gervais defends comedy show Derek
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17656633
Related:
Ricky Gervais talks about Derek, Karl and collateral damage (Nicky Clark)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0412125b
Ricky Gervais, there is no justification for this lazy cruelty (Guardian)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0412125c
Ricky Gervais Defends Derek Against Disability Rights Groups (WorldTVPC)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0412125d

Mass. group hails defeat of Vermont suicide bill

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/04/14/mass_group_hails_defeat_of_vermont_suicide_bill/?s_campaign=MobAppShare_EM

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

Military veterans’ disability claims are buried under so much paperwork that the average wait for processing and a decision in the Bay Area is now 313 days. http://nyti.ms/JdyBia

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

“When the Man waked up he said,

‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’

And the Woman said,

‘His name is not Wild Dog any more,

but the First Friend,

because he will be our friend

for always and always and always.'”

— Rudyard Kipling

(The Guardian)

April 10, 2012

LONDON, ENGLAND– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] As marketing moves go, Channel 4 has hit a near impressive level of crass in its promotion of The Undateables, a series following people with disabilities in their quest for love. This is a title that looks bad on paper but even worse when put on a billboard, where towering images of people with a facial disfigurement or a wheelchair have the title Undateable emblazoned next to them. You do wonder why Channel 4 didn’t go the whole hog and just use the title “You’re weird and no one wants to have sex with you”.

According to Channel 4, the title of The Undateables refers to society’s preconceptions — although I’d argue that it’s optimistic to think this sort of analysis has gone through the mind of many drivers who’ve passed the ad on their morning commute. Most will have taken the branding at face value — that disabled does mean asexual. Rather than dispelling the myths around relationships and disability, this marketing is more likely to have entrenched them.

That’s a pity, not least because for the most part the show is done beautifully. Despite a voiceover that sometimes verges on patronising (“First EVER date!”), when those involved are left to speak for themselves we get an honest, personal depiction of what are universal experiences.

This seems to be the point the show is simultaneously missing and making. Viewers are told from the opening that they’re about to see a group of “extraordinary singletons” when in fact we see the opposite: six single people who happen to have a disability.

Entire article:
The Undateables? Disability rights, but Channel 4 wrongs
http://tinyurl.com/ide0410123a
Why is the undatables unwatchable (European Disability Forum)
http://www.edf-feph.org/Page_Generale.asp?DocID=13855&thebloc=29719
The dating world of disabled people (BBC News)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17584953
Going out on a date, complete with TV crew (Guardian)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0410123d
Are disabled people really ‘undateable’? (Guardian)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0410123e