click Happy 17, ADA! to read more at The Gimp Parade
Press Release: Edwards Recognizes the Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act – Calls for strengthening the law
Hillary Clinton’s Agenda: to Expand Economic Opportunity for Individuals with Disabilities
Breaking News: Obama First to Answer Candidate Questions!!
The following message was forwarded to us by Scott Lissner, ADA Coordinator, The Ohio State University. Here it is in its entirety:
—–Original Message—–
From: Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 4:09 PM
To: Grossman, Paul
Subject: Urgent Action Alert: Sponsors Needed for the ADA Restoration Act
Support Needed Now to Restore ADA Rights
July 23, 2007–This Thursday, July 26, on the 17th anniversary of enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) will introduce the ADA Restoration Act of 2007.
Court decisions have seriously eroded the rights of people with disabilities under the ADA, creating a Catch-22 that allows employers to say a person is "too disabled" to do the job but "not disabled enough" to be protected by the law.
People with conditions like mental illness, epilepsy, diabetes, HIV, cancer and hearing loss who manage their disabilities with medication, prosthetics, hearing aids, etc. – or "mitigating measures" – are viewed as "too functional" to have a disability and are denied the ADA’s protection from employment discrimination.
People who are turned down for a job or fired because an employer mistakenly believes they cannot perform the job – or because the employer does not want "people like that" in the workplace – are also denied the ADA’s protection from employment discrimination.
This Is Wrong!
Congress should correct this to ensure that the courts will interpret the ADA fairly, and as Congress intended. Many voices are needed now to help Congressmen Hoyer and Sensenbrenner gather as many original co-sponsors as possible to show strength and support for this effort.
Please Act Now!
Call your Representative immediately at 202-224-3121 and ask him or her to become an original co-sponsor of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. (You can also get a direct phone number at http://www.congress.org.) Ask your Representative (or the staff member you speak to) to contact Representative Hoyer’s (ext. 5-3130) or Sensenbrenner’s (ext. 5-5101) office today to sign on as an original co-sponsor.
Forward this Action Alert to your network to get as many people as possible people to call their House member immediately with the same message.
What if you miss Thursday’s deadline? Not to worry! Co-sponsors will still be needed after July 27th, so do call your Representative’s office.
Here are talking points on the ADA Restoration Act and, below, a sample telephone message for seeking original cosponsors:
"Hi. My name is_______ and I live in ________. I would like Representative______ to be an original cosponsor of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. A Dear Colleague letter was just sent to you on Friday, July 20 from Representatives Hoyer and Sensenbrenner to let you know that they will be introducing the ADA Restoration Act this Thursday, July 26, the 17th anniversary of the original enactment of the ADA.
"People with disabilities are still too often treated unfairly in the workplace. When they go to court with a claim of discrimination, they are treated unfairly again, often by a court that says they do not even have disability and are not eligible for coverage under the Americans with Disabilities Act – even when they have been fired or refused employment because of their disability! The ADA needs to cover the people the U.S. Congress originally intended it to cover when it was passed in 1990, people with mental illnesses, epilepsy, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, intellectual and developmental disabilities or cancer. But that is not what is happening now.
"Please solve this problem by becoming an original cosponsor of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007."
* * *
If you find our Action Alerts and Reporters useful, please consider making a contribution in support of the Bazelon Center’s advocacy for people with mental disabilities. You can donate safely online at http://www.bazelon.org/support.
Early this morning I was treated to the happy sounds of a family as they taught the art of water skiing to their youngish children. Oh how happy they were! The kiddies squealed and chirped; daddy-o barked his good natured encouragement; mommy-o offered sensible suggestions regarding matters of posture–the moment was Jeffersonian in its mimesis. The pursuit of happiness was right there before me.
I know I should champion this very principle: attendant and collective happiness is the "stuff" of democracy.
But I felt like the Grinch of democracy. I shut the windows and doors of the cabin and went about my business with a sneer.
How is it that I can be offended by the joys of others? If I lie to myself, this is simply a matter of intellectual inconvenience–you know, the artist interrupted at his desk by the happiness of neighborly tots. Oh but when I try that explanation on for size I remember that Einstein used to work on his calculations while his children played all around him. No honest desk jockey can use the distant cries of the neighbors as grist for the mill of melancholy.
Okay, I thought, what about this: I had an unhappy childhood. I have difficulty hearing the casual joys of others.
Nah. This won’t work. Surely if this kind of cheap reaction formation was the crux of the biscuit, then it would follow logically that I also take pleasure in the unhappiness of others. "Aw, too bad little Johnny got his water-ski stuck and fell sidelong into that water buoy and therefore has to wear that intricate nay, even Rococo body cast for months."
No, I don’t get any pleasure from the pain of others. I know that W.C.Fields said that the pain of others was an essential element of comedy. But he was W.C. Fields and the man died friendless and yes, his kids hated him.
Maybe I’m the Grinch of Democracy because while I must favor the happiness of others I don’t want to know about it. This gets closer to the truth.
This is why democracy is such a challenge.
This is why the rich don’t have to think about democracy very much.
This is why the poor and the middle classes must reaffirm and reeducate themselves about the history and nature of American representative government.
Not long ago I was asked to speak at a city council meeting in Worthington, Ohio. Some local blind folks were asking the town to put some talking street signs at a handful of busy street crossings.
The city of Worthington voted to put in the talking street signs but the debate leading up to the decision was really interesting. One citizen showed up and talked at great length about how a talking street sign would keep his children awake.
When it was explained that the sign would be discreet and that it wouldn’t really affect his household, this fellow began whining about the cost to the general public of putting in such a street sign.
I didn’t argue with the fellow. My role in the affair was to simply outline how the signs could be purchased and to help the city council remember that under the ADA the request for safe street crossings was in fact a "reasonable accommodation" and everyone agreed.
I didn’t have time on that particular evening to provide an informal civics lesson to this angry citizen who felt that helping the blind was both a personal and a pecuniary inconvenience.
But this morning I remembered that moment standing before the Worthington city council. The happiness of others is critical to our collective success.
It doesn’t really matter why I’m an occasional grinch.
What matters is that in a democracy the grinch can put it all in perspective.
S.K.
David, from Growing Up With a Disability, has put up an amazing post chronicaling his trip to Costa Rica as an ambassador for Mobility
International’s 2007 US/Costa Rica: Youth Leadership and Cross-Cultural
Perspectives on Disability Rights Exchange Program.
His post is a wonderfully organized slide show actually. The photos are beautiful and the "show" is enhanced with David’s comments and reflections, and music – it’s a "must see" really if you ask me.
Come to think of it, I think this is must see [with]tv material! David, I hope you don’t mind if I pass this along to Howard Renensland and Hal Rosengarten. I have a feeling they’ll be equally impressed.
~ Connie
My New Hampshire house faces the Ossipee Mountains and I find that my dreams are more intense when I am here. Lately I’ve found myself having those rare dreams in which one finds oneself among total strangers all of whom seem to be acquainted with the dreamer. People come and go in a casual manner like relatives in old home movies.
I take comfort from these dreams. "My father’s house has many mansions." Here in New Hampshire, sleeping on the island, I sense my kinship with other dreamers.
Carl Jung believed that it’s possible for all sleeping people to share the same dream. His vision of a "universal unconscious" also worked across time: Jung thought it was possible for people to dream of the past and future. He surmised that all cultures throughout history are connected by means of the universal unconscious.
Jung got some of the impetus for this idea from Jacob Boehme, the 16th century German mystic who wrote a treatise on the invisible but present energies of God entitled "The Signature of All Things". A "signature" is, among other things, the stitching that holds the binding of a book together. Boehme saw that God holds everything together, both visibly and invisibly.
The American poet Kenneth Rexroth wrote a remarkable three part poem called "The Signature of All Things" which you can find in the Collected Poems of Kenneth Rexroth, edited by Sam Hamill and Brad Morrow, and published by Copper Canyon Press.
My dreams by the lake are influenced by the forest and perhaps by my nightly swims. Perhaps the feeling I want to share is best conveyed by these opening lines from Kenneth Rexroth’s poem.
I will go now for my nightly swim.
S.K.
My head and shoulders, and my book
In the cool shade, and my body
Stretched bathing in the sun, I lie
Reading beside the waterfall–
Boehme’s "Signature of all Things."
Through the deep July day the leaves
Of the laurel, all the colors
Of gold, spin down through the moving
Deep laurel shade all day. They float
On the mirrored sky and forest
For a while, and then, still slowly
Spinning, sink through the crystal deep
Of the pool to its leaf gold floor.
The saint saw the world as streaming
In the electrolysis of love.
I put him by and gaze through shade
Folded into shade of slender
Laurel trunks and leaves filled with sun.
The wren broods in her moss domed nest.
A newt struggles with a white moth
Drowning in the pool.
The hawks scream,
Playing together on the ceiling
Of heaven. The long hours go by.
I think of those who I have loved,
Of all the mountains I have climbed,
Of all the seas I have swum in.
The evil of the world sinks.
My own sin and trouble fall away
Like Christian’s bundle, and I watch
My forty summers fall like falling
Leaves and falling water held
Eternally in summer air.
This is just too funny not to share.
Last November we acquired a lovely Golden Retriever, Maggie, who needed a home. As happy as I am to have this dog in my life, I could be just as happy if we found someone else with whom to share the joy. (Translated: we also have two Labradors. Do we really need a third big dog?) 
(The photo above is of Maggie sitting at the water’s edge at Lake Winnipesaukee, the wind blowing through her golden locks.)
A few months ago I had a conversation with my friend Anne. She and her husband Clete live in NH and they too own a cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee. Anne mentioned they were thinking of getting another dog as a playmate to the one they already have but that they were too busy for a puppy right now. I said "oh, perhaps you’d like to give Maggie a try?" I was planning a trip to NH so the timing was perfect.
"That’s an idea" she said. "Let me talk to Clete and get back to you".
Maggie and I drove the 16 hours to NH. She’s great company so I would have taken her with me anyway. It’s a good thing because when I got there Anne and I spoke again and she then revealed that "Clete really doesn’t think he wants a Golden Retriever. They’re wanderers, their coat is too much maintenance and besides, they get dingleberries."
"Dingleberries!" I said with a laugh. "Dame Maggie NEVER gets dingleberries. She’s much too much the lady… She’s not a wanderer either. Really. She’s a lovely dog."
"OK, I’ll talk to him again"
Relaying this to my husband later that evening he said "Dingleberries! Clete is a gastroenterologist for God’s sake. He does colonocopies all day. He wears a sweatshirt at camp with "colon crusader" written across the back of it. What’s a dingleberry or two to "The Colon Crusader?"
Anne and Clete decided to give Maggie a try. I visited Anne for lunch the next day. I was prepared to leave Maggie with her, which I did.
Maggie, however, was NOT pleased and I knew it. She did not relish the idea of being the "playmate" to this big, shall I say young, neutered but very amorous German Shepherd. Jackson, as he is called, would not leave her alone. I mean, he was all over her. While it is possible for a neutered male to have his way with a female it wouldn’t be pleasant for her. Especially for Dame Maggie. Her solution to the problem was to lie down and not get up – not unless she absolutely had to.
Ever the optimist, and as a former guide dog trainer, I knew that there would be an adjustment period for Maggie and that it could take days. My hope was that Jackson could learn to "play" with Maggie with out needing to hump her obsessively. I also knew that the success of this "experiment" would hinge as much on the dog handlers as on the dogs themselves. How much did they really want this to work? Neither dog was aggressive. One was just much "busier" than the other.
Fast Forward -> 24 hours later….
I’m back at my cabin realizing I’m kind of missing Maggie when I get the phone call.
"Connie, Clete really doesn’t think this is going to work out and I
have to say I agree with him. We want a dog that will play with
Jackson and we can’t get her to move! I kid you not, she has hardly
moved since you left her! I can’t get her to move. The kids can’t get
her to move. We did finally get her to go outside at one point and then she
started to wander – it was almost as if she was looking for
something – and she wouldn’t come when called. Clete had to go after her
with a leash. Honestly, if I didn’t know better I would think there was something wrong with this dog!"
"No problem Anne. I’ll take her back!" I knew Dame Maggie was not
happy. I knew she could/would adjust given the time. But I also knew
that Maggie wasn’t the kind of dog they were looking for. Maggie is my
kind of dog. Quiet. Gentle. Affectionate. Sweet. Well mannered. And not at all horny.
I knew then that she is my dog now and she is meant to be my dog.
Oh but wait! There’s more to the dingleberry story…
Alright. Mea Culpa. I have committed the age-old blunder of dull husbandry, namely I have asserted that I am privileged to be able to go alone to the woods for the purpose of writing. I knew (ever so dimly) that I was making a mistake when I typed that sticky little phrase.
I am now doomed. "Why don’t I just marry my dog?" writes one commentator. Yes, I appear to have been exulting about my Hemingway-esque "men without women" position here in the woods.
It does no good of course to try to extricate myself from this grievous blunder by means of mere rhetoric. There is no hope for me. If I told my readers that I fervently wish that my wife was able to be here with me, well, you know, as they like to say in Arkansas: "That dog won’t hunt."
So okay. We’re back to the dog thing. "The Queen" wants to know why I don’t just marry the dog.
The real answer of course is that if I married the dog then I would have to wear the dog’s harness. This should be fairly evident to any amateur student of marriage, no matter what kind of matrimonial view that student might hold. Everyone knows that "the one who is the husband" is "the one who wears the harness" and there’s a considerable amount of literature on this subject. I recommend Honore de Balzac’s famous "Manual of Marriage" but you could consult more contemporary sources if you like.
There’s only one harnessed creature in our nuclear family and it’s the dog. Things are going to stay that way.
As for protestations that I’d like to have Connie here with me, consider this: I bought the cottage and the wind surfer that’s sitting under the house solely for the mutual enjoyment of man and wife. Oh, but with teenagers at home it’s been ever so difficult for us to actually be here at the same time.
And as for the teenagers, who are lovely people, well they don’t really like to come here because "there’s nothing to do" which is of course the point of going to the woods in the first place.
And as for me: I know I’ll never get out from under the gravity of my flip and uncomprehending but mostly iddy biddy slip because as everyone knows, there are no iddy biddy slips in the game of matrimonial Scrabble.
I’m doomed alright.
"I will NOT wear that harness!"
SK
Taken from Steve’s last post:
"I have the additional privilege of being able to come here with just my
guide dog for company and I get to write and my dog gets to paint–the
way dogs do when they have the time."
"Ouch" I say. Hmmmmm.
Perhaps he should think about rephrasing that? Blue Girl? Jennifer?
What do you think? Georgia…where are you Georgia? Oh, and I wonder what TheQueen would have to say if her husband had said this?
It hasn’t happened very often in the past seven years but every now and then Steve and I get to rendezvous up there on Lake Winnipesaukee. The idea is that once we have an empty nest (soon!) then perhaps this will happen more often. Unless, of course, I’m intruding on the man and his dog bonding thing going on.
Let’s see, the last time we were up there together was in 2005…
Come to think of it – that was the last time that MY bathing suit burst into flames…Ellen, I thought it was just me!
~ Connie
Some years ago I was privileged to meet a trans-gendered acrobat who made her living by performing in a side-show at Coney Island. She performed as "the bearded lady" and her act involved riding a unicycle and talking rather directly to her audience. "Whatsa matter? Never seen a bearded lady before? Well, it’s like Toyota: You asked for it, you got it!" And she would wheel back and forth astride her unicycle, skirts ballooning, her long black hair and full beard glinting because, after all, one uses a good conditioner for the sake of showbiz.
I have lost touch with her and I regret this fact. I am just old enough now to have entered that stage of life wherein one can say without affectation: Where are they now?" (I prefer the Latin "ubi sunt" because it’s easier to say under your breath while you’re trying to replace a washer on the well pump.)
Ubi sunt? Where, I wonder, will my Coney Island friend go, now that the amusement park is closing so that the entire area can be Disney-fied. "Ubi omnia sunt?" Where will all of the different people go?
My friend’s "act" was a parody of the old fashioned carnival sideshow and the shabby acreage of Coney Island was exactly the right area for putting on that kind of show.
I worry about the Disneyfication of our nation’s liminal spaces. One can easily forget that parody as an art form requires real ground to walk upon. The current slogan of the National Endowment for the Arts is "a great nation deserves great art" and this is true, but the deeper truth is that "a great nation deserves great irreverent art" and we should all remember that. Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Jackson Pollock, and Judy Chicago are all "not quite ready for Disney" and I fear the evident erosion of free public space where the free thinkers can think.
This has been on my mind lately because I’m in New Hampshire at my summer cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee. I am a lucky guy to have such a cabin. It’s on an island and I have the additional privilege of being able to come here with just my guide dog for company and I get to write and my dog gets to paint–the way dogs do when they have the time.
My cabin faces north and if I could see I could espy the vacation mansion of Mitt Romney who as you know is currently a candidate for the Presidency of the United States.
The old, blue collar shoreline of my beloved New Hampshire lake has been taken over in the past decade by big spending folk who rip down the trees and build pasteboard immensities where there used to be granite boulders and birch trees.
In turn, public space has changed hereabouts. The little town where you could talk to the locals about the virtues of dynamite vs. shoveling when building an outhouse has become a place where one overhears people saying things like: "Let’s fetch this charming little moose-lamp for Grand-mama ,"and the men stand around and talk about the torque of their respective cigarette boats.
And so I find myself thinking about my friend from Coney Island as I blindly replace a nut on my well pump.
I wish for more bearded ladies who ride unicycles and who call the quotidian fashions of her audience into supreme question.
I worry that we’re losing more and more public unicycle space all the time.
By God, America is stuffed with vainglorious and wholly artificial public squares. Even I can see it, and I don’t see so good.
Ubi sunt?"
SK
If you know Lance Mannion, you know he likes to send post cards. Even if you don’t know him but you’ve read this post, you know he likes to send post cards
Well I don’t know how many of us there are, but I count myself among the lucky. Every year I receive a card from Lance, at least one, usually from Cape Cod. This year was no exception. I love the fact that he takes a few minutes out of his summer vacation, as if he has nothing better to do on Cape Cod, writes a personal message, then actually sends the thing off in the mail. Who does that anymore?
This year I could actually read what he wrote! And I figure that since anyone handling this little piece of mail as it makes its way from Cape Cod, MA to Columbus, OH can read what he wrote, he shouldn’t mind if I share it with you.
Dear Connie,
Admit it. You’re glad when Steve goes off to NH every summer and I know why you’re glad. You’re glad because it means you’re the one who’s there to get my post cards. My post cards the the highlight of everyone’s summer. Aren’t they? I should start charging you all for them. This one would cost five dollars.
~ Mannion
This may indeed be the highlight of my summer Lance. Thank you! My husband’s off enjoying Lake Winnipesaukee and I’m here packing boxes and painting walls as we get ready to move to Iowa. What a difference a little note scribbled on a card can make in the lives of some people. Remember that folks. Today I feel special because of one simple random act of kindness. What have you done today to make someone feel special?
Here’s what I’m gonna do. Knowing that Lance likes receiving post cards as much as he likes sending them…
"In fact, my wish is that when I get home from vacation 10 days from now
I’ll find my mailbox stuffed full of post cards from all around the
country and the world. My snail mail address is PO Box 263, New Paltz,
NY 12561."
…I’m sending him this "blog" card via this post until I can get my hands on a real card. Lance, this one’s for you.
(Photo taken a couple of years ago of my son Ross and I on a jet ski on a beautiful summer day on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH. We’re waving – to Lance of course.)
Planet of the Blind 