Coming Soon ... "Disability.TV"

I have been toying with the idea of starting a podcast on TV depictions of disability for quite some time, but I think I’ve finally reached the point where a vague idea is ready to turn into reality. If all goes well, I’ll have an introductory episode of “Disability.TV” out on August 1st. I will probably post it initially on SoundCloud.com, but eventually it should be added to iTunes as well, so people can download episodes to their computers and mobile devices.

Each episode will focus on a single TV show and its disabled characters. My main goal throughout will be to answer the question, “What do we want in TV depictions of disability?” In the process, I hope listers will enjoy a tour of past, present, and even future TV shows featuring disabled characters and themes. To get a good head start, here is a tentative list of episode topics: 

Ironside - Original Series - Chief Robert Ironside

Ironside - New Series - Detective Robert Ironside

The Michael J. Fox Show / Growing Up Fisher - Mike Henry / Mel Fisher

Friday Night Lights - Jason Street

Game Of Thrones - Tyrion Lannister

Game Of Thrones - Jaimie Lannister, Bran Stark, and Hodor

Glee - Artie Abrams, Becky Jackson

Big Bang Theory - Sheldon Cooper

Parenthood - Max Braverman

Red Band Society - (New Fall Show)

Breaking Bad - Walter Jr. “Flynn” White

Star Trek - The Menagerie 1 & 2 - Captain Christopher Pike

Star Trek: The Next Heneration - Ethics - Lt. Worf

Star Trek: Deep Space 9 - Melora - Ensign Melora Pazlar

American Horror Story - “Freak Show”

ER - Dr. Kerry Weaver

ER - Mental Illness

Downton Abbey - Mr. Bates, Thomas Barrow, Matthew Crawley

The West Wing - President Josiah Bartlett

The West Wing - Joey Lucas

Life Goes On - Corky Sherwood

I think I have everything I need to get started … except for one thing. I need ideas, insights, and most of all, some co-hosts! If you are tuned in to disability issues and popular culture, have a look at this list, and if you see something that interests you, let me know. Hopefully, we can work out the technical side of long-distance podcasting and make these episodes real discussions rather than monologues. Two viewpoints are almost always better than one!

Stay tuned for the first, introductory podcast!

What Are We Arguing About?

When you start reading around the disability blogs, as I did a year and a half or so ago, you get the impression that there are some pretty big arguments going on just under the surface of things. People with opposed views on disability topics rarely clash with each other directly, but there are obviously some high-stakes disagreements and misunderstandings sparking a lot of passion. The problem is that the terms of debate are almost never spelled out, and a newcomer to disability culture can become easily confused. What’s it all about?

I don’t want to fan the flames, but it might be useful once in awhile to try to articulate just what it is we are fighting about … or being passive-aggressive about as the case may be.

For example:

- Is disability a complex web of medical, social, and political factors that all affect how people with specific impairments live? Or, is all the social and political stuff a sort of mirage, distracting us from the pain and hardship of unpleasant medical conditions we should be trying to solve? This argument is at its most concentrated when there is a clash between efforts to eliminate certain disabilities entirely, and a view that doing this would be tantamount to genocide. However, a more moderate but similar argument goes on over where people prefer to direct their attention and money … to making life better for disabled people, or to ridding people, and society, of disabilities?

- What is autism? Is it a baffling and often debilitating brain dysfunction that kids and families suffer greatly from? Or, is it a very particular kind of brain and perception difference where autistic people are essentially ok if they’re allowed to be themselves and use their coping mechanisms, but parents and other “neurotypicals” make them miserable by trying to force them to “act normal”? It’s hard to stake out a middle ground here. It feels like one or the other side is not only wrong, but tragically, horrifically wrong. People disagree over the true nature of a few other specific disabilities, but autism seems to be the most divisive.

- Are most intellectually disabled people quite capable and fully self-aware, and just in need of some extra help and guidance to live satisfying lives? Or, are most of them severely impaired and in need of constant, life-long care and supervision? Most people would say some of both, and lots of in-between. But, one side tends to stress a more minimalist, positive view, while the other side focuses more strongly on needs and what they see as serious, insolvable deficits. The two sides seem to be looking at two different groups of people, while speaking as if to encompass them all.

- Are people with substantial care and assistance needs better served in their own homes with visiting nurses and paid personal assistants? Or, do they get better, safer care in specialized care centers like nursing homes and “assisted living facilities”? This argument is inseparable from the question of which model is more financially sustainable. Not to mention … whose needs are paramount, the person with a disability, family, or care providers?

- Which is more crucial to successful life with a disability … positive thinking and good behavior of the disabled person, or accessibility, accommodation, and respect from society, towards the disabled person? How we answer this question seems to depend a lot on which we believe is easier to change … ourselves or society. The answer to that is not obvious, either way.

- Is disability prejudice the result of ignorance or evil, confusion or hostility? Does it make a difference?

If you have read even just a little bit of this blog, and of other blogs by people with disabilities, you should be able to guess how most of us would answer these questions. Yet, they are questions, and the opposite answers are not so easily dismissed, once they are fairly laid out.

I have no grand point here. I just think it’s important that we remind ourselves of what we believe, and of what others believe who disagree with us.

Recommended: Excellent CRPD Information

A Time Line of the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of Disability Treaty (CRPD)

Andrea Shettle MSW, Rambling Justice - Updated July 22, 2014

This is by far the best thing I have seen so far explaining the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and providing everything an advocate would need to help push for ratification.

I would also like to give a qualified, cautious endorsement of @FightingCRPD, a Twitter feed satirizing the beliefs that have prevented the CRPD from being ratified. It is satire, right? RIGHT?

The Guaranteed Income Idea

A guaranteed income for every American would eliminate poverty — and it wouldn't destroy the economy

Dylan Matthews, Vox.com - July 23, 2014

I wonder how many disability policy problems would be solved or simplified if every American 18 or over could start each year with, say, $20,000 of guaranteed income? As Dylan Matthews points out, the idea is probably politically infeasible, and for a lot of people morally upsetting, but it’s not economically impossible.

From a disability perspective it would not only give all of us a firm … but not lavish … base to work with. It would also eliminate a lot of the anguish over eligibility we go through to get support. If everyone got a guaranteed income, it wouldn’t matter whether or not we have someone else’s conception of a “qualifying” disability. We might need to prove greater, more specialized need if we needed services in addition to income, but for many of us, that wouldn’t be necessary.

Thoughts?

T-Shirt Of The Day

From the Writers Inkorporated Tumblr blog, via Cripple Fabulous: Hell On Crutches.

Recommended: Hashtag & Podcast

Maddie Ruvolo and Emily Ladau, who started a new podcast yesterday, Disabled Girls Talk, also started a great Twitter hashtag: #BecauseOfTheADA. This morning they posted a Storify page showing some of the resulting Tweets.

If you are the Twittering kind, why not keep the hashtag going? Also, be sure to listen to Disabled Girls Talk. In Episode 1, "Generation ADA", Maddie and Emily discuss what it has been like for them to grow up with disabilities in a post-Americans with Disabilities Act world.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Sunday, July 13, 2014

• Maria Bamford

Monday, July 14, 2014

• A New Disability Show, Maybe?
• Buy It: The Revolution Was Televised

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

• Oh, Weird Al …
• Video Of The Day

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

• Digging Up Disability History
• More On The CRPD

Thursday, July 17, 2014

• Open Thread

Friday, July 18, 2014

• Two Bills To Fight For
• “Criptiques” & “Criptionary”

Saturday, June 19, 2014

• ADA 24th Anniversary
• Guest Post at the Disability Visibility Project: The ADA - Three Disappointments, Three Victories

Guest Post at the Disability Visibility Project: The ADA - Three Disappointments, Three Victories

I am very excited to have a guest blog post on the Americans with Disabilities Act, at the Disability Visibility Project website.

Guest blog post: The Americans with Disabilities Act: Three Disappointments, Three Victories

by Andrew Pulrang

Big thanks to Alice Wong, of the Disability Visibility Project for inviting me! I highly recommend following her on Twitter: @SFdirewolf.

ADA 24th Anniversary

24 years ago today, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. Here are some videos to help you celebrate!

"Criptiques" & "Criptionary"

Criptiques Podcast Episode 3: Maria Palacios

Caitlin Wood, Criptiques - July 23, 2014

There's another great "Criptiques" interview out! Follow the link above to hear Caitlin Wood interview poet, performer, and disability activist Maria Palacios. Someone should really collect writings from all of these amazing people Caitlin is interviewing, into some sort of book. Oh, wait ...

During the interview, Catilin and Maria refer to Maria's book, "Criptionary". I haven't read it yet, but I have read a few sample definitions from the book, and they're hilarious.

If you want to know a little more about the book before you buy, visit the "Criptionary" Facebook Page.

Two Bills To Fight For

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD):

I regret sounding overly pessimistic about the CRPD the other day. Andrea Shettle, who has been keeping the Internet up to date on the CRPD left a comment that basically encourages everyone to keep the pressure up, and remember all the legislative barriers the disability community has faced and overcome in the past.

Objections to the CRPD are, in fact, ridiculous. It’s mainly a tiny sub-group of voters who hold these beliefs about how it would affect U.S. sovereignty or home schooling. One reason they stick, though, is that the vast majority of Americans aren’t even aware that the CRPD exists. If more people knew what it was, and heard exactly what has kept it from being ratified, they would be disgusted. So, tell your friends! Bloggers, tell your readers!

Meanwhile, you can click here to contact your Senators … especially the ones who are “on the fence” at the moment, or who voted "no" in the past.

The ABLE Act:

I wrote about the ABLE Act for Shared Abilities a few months ago. The bill has been active again this week, so Shared Abilities’ CEO, Julie Steckel, reposted my piece on her Facebook page.

I also recommend reading this more recent article on the ABLE Act,l on the MSNBC website. 

The bill still seems to be promoted mostly as a solution for parents of disabled children, which it is … but that’s not all it is. It is worth remembering some key aspects of the ABLE Act:

- In addition to being tax-free, ABLE Act savings accounts would allow people with disabilities to set aside savings above $2,000, up to $100,000, without losing eligibility for benefits like SSI and Medicaid.

- Savings could only be used for disability-related goals, not everyday living expenses. However, these funds would be more flexible and less restricted than Special Needs Trusts or PASS Plans.

- The law would also allow self-directing adults with disabilities to set up and manage their own accounts, without needing a third-party trustee or manager. They could accept gifts from others to build their accounts, but also deposit some of the money they earn in jobs, which would then not be counted as monthly income, helping preserve benefits eligibility. This would help reduce work “disincentives” … the common situation where people with disabilities hold back on work and promotions because they can’t afford to lose key benefits.

The ABLE Act has broad, bipartisan support in Congress. It looks like it is on a path to being passed in the House and Senate in September. In a situation like that, the most valuable thing for advocates to do is to contact their Senators and Representatives and urge them to keep up the pace. The bill seems unlikely to face opposition, but even a popular bill can fade from apathy.

Call your members of Congress. Don’t let them forget about the ABLE Act!

Open Thread

I am going to be very busy today with life stuff, so I thought I’d try an Open Thread. This is where a blogger publishes a post without actual content, purely so people can discuss whatever they want in the Comments section of the post. I’d like to keep it disability-related, but obviously that covers a lot of ground, so … what’s on your mind? Add your comments below!

More On The CRPD

Return of the GOP Dung Beetles

Anne Laurie, Balloon Juice - July 23, 2014

Here is a mainstream take on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By mainstream I mean not from a disability advocacy group. It is, obviously, from a fairly liberal, Democratic blog. Still, liberal blogs don’t always quite get the point on disability issues, even when they're on the right side. This post doesn’t say much about the disability aspect, but it does, correctly I believe, identify the real problem, which has nothing whatever to do with disability, and everything to do with right-wing, “black helicopter” paranoia. I hate to be pessimistic, but how do you fight that?