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There's a good press release from Brandeis University highlighting their special collection of materials devoted to the history of disability studies. Here's a quote:

"Special Collections Spotlight's latest offering showcases collections from the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center's Samuel Gridley Howe Library. These collections document the field of disability studies and the history of advocacy from the early 1800s to the recent past.

The collections include several hundred books by scholars and experts in the fields of science, medicine, and disabilities; the papers of Irving Kenneth Zola and of Rosemary and Gunnar Dybwad; and thousands of pamphlets, case studies, and journals on topics ranging from what were then called feeble-mindedness and cretinism to eugenics and crime."

For the full article visit: http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2011/september/disabilities.html

I was singing and there were animals near. No grizzlies. But no Disney either. The otter had soulful eyes…a useful dream withal…

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I have only this: a fortune of crickets. When I was a child I used to sit by an abandoned furnace and listen to the crickets singing inside. The blind kid's radio…

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single vice-president in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of weapons of mass destruction.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish so they waterboarded him.

“When Dick Cheney was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “he made the nipping off of Deomcrats’ noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward him, waltzing around him, hypnotized with longing.”

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, the turd blossom knows.

In a few moments now I shall go and shave my old face. What’s a bear to do?

I shall pack my little lunch (honey comb) for my upcoming day–I’m a greeterat Honey-Mart. “Hello, welcome to Honey-Mart,” I’ll say, as Christopher Robin comes in with his walker and Piglet with his electric scooter. We strive to remain cheerful here in the corporate woods. 

Many years ago when my first memoir Planet of the Blind came out I was roundly attacked by the National Federation of the Blind. As near as I can tell their complaint about the book was fueled by the ableist lingo of certain book reviewers who said all kinds of predictable junk about overcoming blindness and miracles and the like. What the NFB did was to attribute reviewers’ positions as being emblematic of my own thinking, which is silly. 

There are other people in the disability rights community who don’t like me because I’m outspoken. I have a habit of talking about human rights without declensions–that is, I don’t categorize types of injustice as an excuse for not speaking up. As Howard Zinn says: “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.” I have often labeled social service organizations and charitable foundations as being part of what we call in disability studies “the defective people industry” and when you do that you invariably alienate some folks. In the United States we spend less money annually on curing eye diseases than is budgeted for the Broward Country (Fla) Sheriff’s Office. You can look it up.  There’s no doubt that I’m irascible. 

Some disability advocates think I’m too “mainstream” which means that my books are published by well known houses and ergo, I’m not down in the trenches with the fighting masses. You see how this goes. 

Some years ago I published an article in the New York Times Magazine where I said that Braille needs to be saved from technology. Then I went to a bookstore someplace to give a reading and some blind people accosted me, saying that I was opposed to Braille. People can give you plenty to say. It’s no different in the disability world than in politics or business. 

If you want to be liked, keep your mouth shut and stay home. 

Bernard Berenson said: “Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.”

I suppose that’s only conditionally true but it’s a comfort of sorts. 

In summary: I’m a progressive, anti-war, poetry writing communitarian who helps strangers whenever I can. Though I’ve taught at four colleges and hold a professorship at Syracuse University I’m not inpressed by titles. Every day I think of the blind child in Kenya who made me a decorative dog from a discarded Coca-Cola can. I don’t like people who insist on being called “Doctor” if they’re not carrying a medical bag. 

No wonder so many people don’t like me.  

I took my lamb to market where I tried to sell it

But the lamb was too lovely–strangers came close

Then backed away, hands stretched out

& so I looked around to see what was behind me

Just a lamb at sunset, the sun reflected evenly in her eyes

We were young once

I remember

You sang when you brushed your hair

This morning I picked apples alone

But I could hear you singing like you were beside me

And not far away in the world 

There is a famous Ben Shahn triptych at Syracuse University commemorating the tragedy of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Each day as I walk past it, I think of the poet Kenneth Rexroth who can be seen here reading his famous poem about the fish peddlar and cobbler:

When I was very young

I thought God lives inside the radio

Now I see the radio lives insideGgod 

And someone else does all the talking 

Kun olin hyvin nuori
Ajattelin Jumala elää sisällä radio
Nyt näen radio elää sisälle Jumalan
Ja joku muu hoitaa kaiken puhumisen