It’s been awhile since I posted a photo here.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Throwback Thursday
A year ago in Disability thinking … Vigil Followup.
Thoughts after last year’s Day Of Mourning. I’d still like to know more about the legal outcomes of these situations.
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Wednesday, March 4, 2015
The Politics and Policy of Home Care
Jane Hash, The Mobility Resource - February 28, 2015
I’m sure there are all kinds of quasi-budgetary, quasi-reform proposals currently meddling with generally functional home care systems in other states. I’m blogging on what’s happening in Ohio for two reasons.
One, I’ve been reading Tweets about home care in Ohio for months now, maybe a year. Two, this is the first full explanation of the issues I have seen so far. Three, it’s written by Jane Hash, who I met virtually when she discussed American Horror Story: Freak Show with me on my Disability.TV podcast.
It still amazes me that there aren’t more Republican politicians who buy into consumer-directed models of home care. It’s less bureaucratic, it relies on lots of individual responsibility, and, more cynically, consumer direction has an uneasy relationship with unionized nursing. It shouldn’t, but it does.
Of course, the sticking point is that it involves taxpayer money, comparatively large amounts of it, essentially being given, directly or indirectly, to low-income severely disabled people to manage home care for themselves. Personal responsibility may be a cherished value of conservatism, but giving poor people lots of money and services is definitely not.
I am curious about the issue of the alternative program mentioned, which would, apparently, make consumers the “employer of record”. In one sense, this sounds like a reaffirmation of consumer control. On the other hand, it makes it an all-or-nothing proposition … either you take ALL responsibility on yourself, or you give up all of it to a home care agency.
In New York State, where I live, consumer-directed home care typically involves non-profit agencies that act as “fiscal intermediary”. They don’t decide who to hire and fire, and they don’t train the workers. The consumers do that. But the agencies pay the taxes, cut the paychecks, and even provide decent health insurance to the workers, still at a lower cost and slightly better pay to the workers.
All of this aside, it seems like a bad idea to shake things up too often, even if it’s to implement possibly good ideas. Home care is an extremely delicate, intimate thing. If you’re able to find the right workers and create a healthy, functional system for your care, you don’t need loads of bright ideas imposed on you whenever its budget time again.
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Tuesday, March 3, 2015
A Bit Of Word Wonkery
He is disabled, but ... (something positive).
He is disabled, and ... (something positive).
Both are ways that people say and write nice things about disabled people, but it makes a huge difference whether they use “but” or “and."
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Followup: 2015 Day Of Mourning
Alice Wong, Disability Visibility Project - March 3, 2015
This address by Alice Wong, at one of Sunday’s Day Of Mourning 2015 events, is heartbreaking and empowering all at the same time. It’s always tricky to imply, “My life is pretty great so yours can be, too,” but we’re talking about life and death here. Those three kids weren’t allowed to even try.
I still don’t have much appetite for punishment. But the contrast between what life with even the most “severe” disabilities can be, and how hopeless these killers and the news media just assume it is, shows just how far apart and confused we still are about the nature of disability. It’s a vital reminder to the disability community that “disability awareness”, so easily trivialized, really is important. Somehow, we’ve got to penetrate the brick wall between people with disabilities who are happy and glad to be here, and the parents, professionals, and news media who think disability equals suffering and hopelessness.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Old Timey People
Were the “old days” really as terrible for disabled people as we tend to think? Were people back then just grossly ignorant and callous about disability? Or, is that an assumption we make, or a useful conceit to help people today feel superior?
If you go back far enough in history, I’m sure you can find eras where most people really did think you could “catch" cognitive impairment, that a club foot was a punishment for the sins of great-grandparents, or that blind people were psychic. But we tend to talk about more recent history as if only 2 or 3 generations ago, people's beliefs about disability were universally medieval, and that’s why we had asylums, forced sterilization, and ugly laws.
I think that maybe institutions, laws, and taboos were a lot more terrible than they are today. I’m not sure people were that much worse though. As with slavery, there must have been non-trivial percentages of people in, say, the 1910s who didn’t buy disgusting ideas about disability any more than we do today. If that’s true, it seems unfair to forget about them. On the other hand, one wonders, then, why more people didn’t object when the rest of society was treating disabled people like crap.
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Sunday, March 1, 2015
2015 Day Of Mourning
I can't speak for the organizers, but it seems to me that what this event isn't about is as important as what it is:
It isn't about saying that caregivers who kill are monsters.
It isn't about demonizing "special needs parents".
It isn't primarily about punishing the killers more harshly.
It is about accountability for crimes.
It is about ending a double standard ... acquittals and lighter sentences when the victims are disabled.
It is about changing the media narrative that reverses the roles of victim and victimizer.
It is about fighting the popular perception that caring for disabled people is some kind of hell.
It is about remembering the people we've lost, who are too often forgotten.
Please take part however you can, and we’ll all remember together.
It isn't about saying that caregivers who kill are monsters.
It isn't about demonizing "special needs parents".
It isn't primarily about punishing the killers more harshly.
It is about accountability for crimes.
It is about ending a double standard ... acquittals and lighter sentences when the victims are disabled.
It is about changing the media narrative that reverses the roles of victim and victimizer.
It is about fighting the popular perception that caring for disabled people is some kind of hell.
It is about remembering the people we've lost, who are too often forgotten.
Please take part however you can, and we’ll all remember together.
Autistic Self-Advocacy Network
Savannah Nicole Logsdon-Breakstone
Autistic Self-Advocacy Network
Weekly Wrap-Up
Monday, February 23, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Is Cross-Examination The Answer?
Tulsa’s Channel 8, ABC - February 27, 2015
I’m ambivalent about this kind of news story. It is true that people who knowingly pass off “pets” as “service animals” make things worse for disabled people who rely on service animals. People are already primed to suspect anyone who isn’t obviously blind who has a service animal of trying to put one over on them. People who might think its harmless to fudge the issue should be reminded of the harm they do.
On the other hand, how common is this really? Since we’re not cross-examining everyone who claims their pet is a service animal, and many legitimate disabilities are invisible, how do we actually know there’s widespread cheating?
Plus, if we require tighter regulation and credentials for service animals, and empower basically everyone to demand at will to see a dog’s certificate or whatever, will that make things better for disabled people or harder?
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Friday, February 27, 2015
Disability Blogger Link-Up
Use the thingamajig below to post a blog post or article on something related to disability … something you want others to read.
To make the articles easier to browse, in the “Your name” blank, type the title of the article. In the "Your URL" blank, paste the whole website address of the thing you are posting.
Then click the "Enter" button. That's it!
Note: If your post doesn't appear immediately, try "refreshing" the page a few times. Sometimes it takes a little while to show up. Also, feel free to post more than one item. Finally, you might want to add a comment at the bottom of this post, to identify yourself or add an explanation or comment about the items you are posting.
Have fun posting and reading! This Link-Up will close at Midnight Eastern on Sunday.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Throwback Thursday
The New York Times Columnist pushed for ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Wanted: Finance Guru For The Disabled
Danielle Kurtzleben, Vox.com - February 25, 2015
(Note: This article isn’t about making money as a blogger, it’s about a more general strategy for handling money, saving, and investing).
I am tempted to say that personal finance advice like this is irrelevant to most disabled people, especially those of us who are unemployed, underemployed, and rely on benefits for a significant portion of our incomes. Still, a lot of what the man says about frugality is applicable to us, maybe even more than to higher income folks.
Are there any good, level-headed personal finance gurus out there who have done the research to figure out ways to do more than survive financially, for disabled people with low incomes, benefits rules to follow, unreliable capacity to ramp up work as needed, and fixed disability-related expenses? Are there any geniuses out there who have solved the puzzle of how to get ahead when you are disabled?
Without digging too deeply, it seems to me the biggest barrier we face is the disincentive to invest and build wealth. I think a lot of us could do so modestly, slowly, partially by cutting back on comfort products like this guy suggests, if it wasn’t counterproductive to invest at all. The ABLE Act is the best attempt so far to remove that particular glass ceiling, but a lot of people won’t be able to use it because of the age when their disabilities set in. And in any case, it’s more of a workaround, not a direct change in benefit programs’ asset limits.
Surely there must be someone out there who could come up with a better system for handling money than most of us use. This guy’s retired. Why doesn’t he take a few months … just out of curiosity … to see what he can adapt for us? Or, maybe the wisdom likes scattered among all of us. Maybe if we share our individual “one weird tricks” we might come up with something.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Disability In The UK, Viewed From The US
Guardian Staff, The Guardian - February 23, 2015
I’m not that interested in this article specifically. I’m citing it only because it got me thinking about how disability issues and disability culture in the United Kingdom are different than they are in the United States. They’re different, but in subtle ways I haven’t quite mapped out yet.
- It seems like ableist slurs and personal harassment get more mainstream press in the UK than they do in the US.
- It also seems sometimes like disabled people in the UK fight more for benefits than they do for civil rights. If so, it’s probably because they are forced to, and I worry that we’ll soon have to do the same here in the US.
- I have also noticed that there is a lot less discussion in the UK over terminology. It seems like either they settled all those questions years ago, or else they just do care about it as much. Everyone seems to use “disabled” and “disability” and leave it at that.
I guess this is a comment thread. I’d like to know, from both British people and American observers, what’s different about disability in the UK?
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