From Where We Stand or Sit

Gordon Cardona lives in Malta.  He has been blogging about the
efforts of the Maltese Labor party to create a new institution for people with
disabilities and in turn, Gordon is arguing for getting pwds into the
community.

This issue of institutionalizing people with disabilities remains a problem worldwide. Here in the great state of Iowa there are people even as I type who are in hospitals who would like to be in their communities.

It is safe to say that people with disabilities are only as free as the civic “ethos” of their local communities.

One thing that Gordon’s post reminds me of here in the United States is that people with disabilities are equally ignored by the GOP and the Democrats.

Shuffle Shuffle, Drool Drool

Our friend Kay Olson over at The Gimp Parade has a post about two Hollywood casting calls that are looking for physically deformed or oddly shaped people for two upcoming movies: one about "the hollers" of West Virginia; the other having to do with Cormac McCarthy’s novel "The Road" which is a post-apocalyptic vision that features ghastly survivors.

Kay’s post Is "spot on" about the dilemmas of using real disabled people in exploited roles. Just so, she wants to see people with disabilities get the chance to play themselves. The problem is in the scripting of course. Nowadays Hollywood is a cartoon industry rather than a cinematic one. Film after film presents real life actors playing two-dimensional cartoon characters. Disney did this a few years ago with a version of "Mr. McGoo" starring Leslie Nielson. But you can find thousands of examples from "Pretty Woman" to "Edward Scissorhands" and beyond. The days when Hollywood jumped at the chance to film a complex novel featuring three dimensional characters are largely over. I saw only one such film making the rounds this past year. ("Atonement").

Physically challenged people are perfect for 2D roles because in the second dimension they are of course merely symbols for atavistic impulses like the belief that if you see a blind person first thing in the morning you will also go blind; or if you meet a little person you will be crushed by a falling tree. Or worse: physical difference means that you’ve been punished or rewarded by supernatural forces or the gods. This is the kind of stuff that continues to set back the public’s understanding of disabilities and I know whereof I speak for far more often than you might suppose I am accosted by people who want to pray for my recovery.

And why not? Film after film shows us to be in the hands of a twisted power.

I have the feeling that Karl Rove might have a new career in some of these films. He’s small. He has a funny looking head. He’s mean as can be. But I digress.

S.K.

Crimes Against People with Disabilities

Crimes Against People with Disabilities: A brand new blog and A Place to Tell It Like It Is 

In 2002, Professor Mark Sherry, then at the University of California, published an intriguing article about the grievous underreporting of hate crimes against people with disabilities in the United States.

The most important dimension of this piece resides in the FBI’s
suggestion that hate crimes against the disabled are statistically
negligible. The findings of an accompanying study by the UC Berkeley’s
program in disability studies suggest that police and law enforcement
officials are often reluctant to categorize crimes against people with
disabilities as hate crimes because officers aren’t sufficiently
trained to identify biased based crimes. Additionally, it is easier to
classify a crime as simple assault.

Alas, not much has changed in the six years since this article was
published even though disability rights advocates have continued to
point out the seriousness of this underreporting problem.

The aim of this blog is to give people with disabilities and their
fellow advocates a place to publicly record narratives of abuse against
PWDs. These narratives might be first person accounts or associated
stories drawn from the news media or the internet. They might be links
to blogs or links to announcements concerning public policy and law
enforcement initiatives aimed at addressing these problems. Other posts
might include articles or bibliographies about these issues.

Above all
else it’s safe to say that the gathering of this information will be
timely.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv

In Memoriam: Lawrence King

We at Planet of the Blind received the following e-mail from the
Society for Disability Studies. The post is by Professor Warren J.
Blumenfeld of the Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.  Since the
intersection of disability rights and all human rights is not far from
our thoughts I wanted to share Dr. Blumenfeld’s post with our readers.
We do so with his kind permission.

S.K.

In Memoriam: Lawrence King
By Warren J. Blumenfeld

Continue reading “In Memoriam: Lawrence King”

Listen to Steve's Interview on Iowa Public Radio's "The Exchange" with Ben Kieffer

Thank you, Ben Kieffer, for this opportunity!

                  


                      Fri 02/22/08
Real
Audio
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                    An interview with University of Iowa Professor Steve Kuusisto. He’s an author, educator and advocate for people with disabilities. Blind since birth he says sometimes even those working to help people with disabilities consign the disabled person to a second-class, defective status. That thinking is something Kuusisto is working to change.

Morning on the Bus

I rode the bus to campus this morning and overheard a conversation between the driver and a passenger. The two men talked ardently about the distinction between theology and religion or religious practice. The bus rumbled through corn fields and housing developments on a cold, snowy Iowa day and these two unassuming guys had a smart conversation about Zen Buddhism and the parables of Jesus and then, as the bus pulled up alongside the big shopping mall downtown they promised to get together for coffee. Some days it’s nice to live in a college town where everyone is most assuredly not what they appear to be. I mean that in the best sense. I mean this the way Walt whitman meant it when he said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself." I wish more Americans had the luxury to live out their contradictions with curiosity and support from their neighbors. Why then we would be free of course. Why then we would be free.

S.K.

Run! It's Brother Nader!

As I type these words Ralph Nader is appearing on NBC’s "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert to announce that he’s decided to run for the presidency. I greet this news with the neurological equivalent of a foot cramp.

Ralph Nader is the monk who none of the other monks will sit next to in the monastery. It’s not that he smells bad. It has nothing to do with his ideas.

No, the problem for Brother Nader is that post-industrial global-corporate society actually wants him to run. And he of course doesn’t possess enough personal irony to sense this.

Ralph, Ye Hardly Knew Ye.

S.K.

TV Land Strikes Again

TV Land Redux Redux

So last night Connie and I were channel surfing while eating dinner and between the game show where the husband and wife are asked to disclose the kind of sound their bed springs make and the prison show where we’re asked to become complicit "gazers" as underprivileged and undereducated people are incarcerated—between these shows we found ABC’s program 20/20 (their version of Dateline) and lo and behold they were doing a segment on people who have serious genetically transmitted birth deformities and neurological illnesses. What caught my attention was the "framing language" that the producers were using: one woman’s illness was introduced with a sinister analogy: "Like a poisoned apple from a tree, (insert patient’s name) this illness befell her, etc." The implication is of course layered with cultural meanings. Like Eve this woman ate the taboo apple? Like Snow White she ate the poisoned fruit? I couldn’t believe my ears! Genetically inherited diseases do not manifest themselves like the fruits of superstitions or biblical narratives. The uncomprehending television viewer, hearing this without analysis would be inclined to think that genetic misfortune may be a kind of divine punishment. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Tobit, in the Old Testament is blinded by the Lord. Tiresias is blinded by Hera in Greek mythology. Certainly if you have a disability you’ve done something wrong where the gods are concerned. I was absolutely dismayed to see ABC using this kind of nonsense as a framing device for their story about real people. Thank God the phone rang! Perhaps the phone rang like a poisoned apple falling from the tree of life?

S.K.

Mutant Fly

Oh my gosh!

It’s the middle of February.  In Iowa.  There is a foot of snow on the ground.  It has been "unseasonably" cold for weeks now, or so I’m told.  (This is not a great "first year experience" for those of us who have just moved to Iowa.)

A fly has suddenly appeared on the lampshade in my study, not four feet from where I’m sitting.  Out of nowhere I tell ya. 

What could this possibly mean?

~ Connie