(WNYC)
August 28, 2012

NEW YORK, NEW YORK– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] A Federal Court Judge will hear testimony Monday about how to make city polling sites more accessible for people who use wheelchairs or have vision impairments.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts ruled there were pervasive barriers at sites — from inadequate signage to locked entrance doors — for people with disabilities.

The suit was filed two years ago, alleging the Board of Elections violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Denise McQuade, who uses a wheelchair, faced several obstacles when she tried to vote in 2010 because her polling place in Bay Ridge was inaccessible.

“The door was hard to get through in a wheelchair and then I immediately faced a steep ramp that was more for deliveries than wheelchairs because it was on an incline and it was impossible to go up or down it by myself,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time McQuade had problems trying to vote.

Entire article:
Looking to November, Disability Advocates Call for Accessible Polling Places
http://tinyurl.com/ide0828123

Notes on the 1860’s:

My great great grandfather did not read Baudelaire–he was a wheelwright, 

hammering slats for infant coffins in the north–snow at the windows,

insatiable appetites in the age of epidemics. 

Landscapes in faces; songs beginning slowly;

people dying so easily 

many in early morning. 

From the Autistic Self Advocacy Network 

On August 22nd, 2012, The Washington Times published an editorial entitled, “Holder’s ‘Severe Mental Deficiency’“, attacking affirmative action for people with disabilities seeking to enter the federal workforce. In response, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network has issued the following statement:

The Washington Times‘ recent editorial attacking efforts by the federal government to act as a “model employer” for people with disabilities is full of both blatant factual inaccuracies and statements calculated to denigrate the contributions of workers with disabilities. Not only does the Times ignore the reality of widespread discrimination against disabled people – it also accepts such discrimination as natural and desirable.  To the Times’ Editorial Board, “most employers would balk at even minor mental disabilities in hiring a lawyer,” and federal disability hiring initiatives propose to employ “those who are teetering on the edge of sanity.” This attitude ignores the legacies of pioneering disabled attorneys like Paul Steven Miller and Evan Kemp, both of whom faced down prejudice and dedicated their careers to advocating on behalf of the disabled community. Today’s generation of lawyers with disabilities deserve no less respect.

According to The Washington Times, disabled people are hopelessly damaged goods: we are automatically unqualified or poorly qualified for positions within the Justice Department, and inherently incapable of providing taxpayers with a “superior level of public service.”  The author ignores the long-standing and deeply entrenched ableism that pervades hiring processes in the public and private sectors.  Along with perpetuating damaging stereotypes about disabled people—particularly those of us with developmental and psychiatric disabilities—the author makes bold assertions based on factual inaccuracies. Despite the author’s protestations about “special treatment” and the potential for abuse, Schedule A requires extensive documentation and has nothing to do with Standard Form 256-which asks only those who have been hired to voluntarily self-identify as disabled for statistical purposes. Schedule A also does not allow for the hiring of unqualified employees. 

Although the Times’ editorial evinces a tone of shocked indignation, as if the idea of regarding disabled people as a minority subject to historical and ongoing injustice is novel and outrageous, such affirmative action policies are neither new nor unique to the Justice Department.  The initiative to provide disabled applicants with opportunities within the federal government dates back decades, and the Obama administration’s executive order has simply increased the effective implementation of a long-standing policy across federal departments. 

Ultimately, The Washington Times grossly mischaracterizes a policy that is delivering meaningful employment opportunities to qualified candidates with disabilities, thereby improving the diversity and talent within the federal workforce.  American taxpayers are themselves an incredibly diverse population, and they deserve to be served by public employees who reflect that diversity.  That such an editorial was published at all demonstrates how sorely such policies are needed, and how far we have to go to attain equality and inclusion for the disabled community. 

Media Contact:
Melody Latimer
Director of Community Engagement
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
mlatimer@autisticadvocacy.org
(202)630-7477

Guide dogs go back so far we are surprised when we look. Paintings from Herculaneum show blind people walking with dogs in 79 BCE. The idea was always there. And why not? Everything is in motion in this world and then the dogs come running to our sides. The dogs come rushing.

When the dog arrives, some peace comes. And a new brand of pertinacious strolling comes. Even in Herculaneum, a blind man walked to the village square, received water from a fountain, told a story about two snakes and an owl. And his oversized, white dog was pleased by the words. I saw it this morning in my own dog.

I want you to understand me. I come from one or two regions beyond the blurry pasture. The dark pines are engraved with the bold eyes of my sleep. Here I am, new to this day. 

What should I do? 

I will dress, eat, drink my coffee, then take a local train far far into the suburbs where the concrete apartment buildings stand like water birds in a swamp and I will climb to the roof of a building I do not know and I will sit there for a time. 

The world is barbarous and filled with shadows. It’s proper to find a neutral spot where you can think about it. 

Late in the Day

—In late September many voices

  Tell you you will die.

  The leaf says it. That coolness.

  All of them are right.

–Robert Bly

I am troubled as shadows lengthen under the apple trees in my yard. It’s a kind of princely trouble, associational, a problem from the back of the head. According to what little I understand, the problem has nothing to do with success or failure. It’s just something that uncoils in my eyes. Then I carry it away from the window and into my house where it rests, filled with transfiguring omens among the books. This unnamable iteration is like the many armed figure of Durga waving her axe, riding a lion over a mound of skulls–but it’s the smallest Durga in the world, small and yellow as the end of September. 

Tenderness is not in the light. The air smells of fading chrysanthemums. I walk the dogs around the trees heavy with apples. 

Fathoms down, walking beneath the waves. My long, informal apprenticeship.        

What do dogs who guide the blind have? Placidity in the face of tides, knowing how to move the boat among rocks, landing softly on the shore just as we had wished.  

One night when I was visiting an artist’s colony in the woods of New Hampshire I went to a cottage with a group of writers to hear a talk. When the talk was over it was richly dark outside, a night without stars, the pine trees close as statues. No one had a flashlight and there was the kind of mild panic that always happens when people face an unpleasant option. And I said follow me, and guide dog Corky took us down the obscure paths all the way back to the big house where lights were blazing at the windows. It was just as we had wished. And those who trailed us learned a little something about trust. 

death has ten fingers over his face 

waggles them according to algebraic principles

it’s a dull job a human resources stinker

he doesn’t remember how he got it

and human longing is a storm at the window

and his neighbor, birth, sings 

behind the hedges old Viennese love songs

poor bastard, hands covering his eyes

hearing always the Merry Widow Waltz