From the Huffington Post. More great photos at the link.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
ADAPT Actions in DC
Yesterday, Monday, September 30th - House Speaker John Boehner's Office
Today, Tuesday, October 1st - The White House
The end of the second article notes that these actions might be poorly timed, as the big budget / shutdown showdown, and the rollout of Obamacare, might overshadow the protests. I think that one of ADAPT's great virtues is that it's message stays remarkably consistent, no matter what's happening, year in, year out, because the goals of people with disabilities stay pretty much the same, year in, year out. ADPAT keeps up with daily and hourly changes in legislation, and is very capable of making deals and compromises. But, their main goals, principles, and strategies don't change, regardless of the year, decade, administration, or party in charge.
The best way to follow ADAPT actions is with Twitter … @NationalADAPT.
My Obamacare Experience, Part 1
"Attention:
Due to overwhelming interest in the NY State of Health - including 2 million visits in the first 2 hours of the site launch - the health exchange is currently having log in issues. We encourage users who are unable to log in to come back to the site later when these issues will be resolved."
… And when I click the big, prominent "GET STARTED" button, I get a raggedy error message.
There's plenty of time left in the open enrollment period so I'm not worried about the website's glitches. I won't get mad about it unless it's still like this in a few days. Actually, I'm hoping that maybe trying it out after 10 PM or so might do the trick.
Right now I am paying out of pocket for extended heath insurance through my former employer, so I'm actually not sure what new options I'll have under Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act). Maybe it'll just say "You're good, come back next year." Sooner or later though, it's going to be important, and I'd like to know my options as soon as possible.
By the way, my brother and his family live in Vermont. Just for fun, I tried Vermont's Health Benefit Exchange website, and it seems to be working fine. Of course, Vermont has like 12 citizens … 20 during ski season … so it's easier for their website to handle the strain.
Here are two very good Obamacare explainers …
• The other a flowchart, if you're into that sort of thing.
I plan on blogging about my experiences with Obamacare for as long as my initial inquiries and ... possibly ... enrollments happen. I should also disclose out that I strongly supported health care reform, and although I'd prefer something like a Canadian-model single-payer system, I do believe the Affordable Care Act will turn out to be a vast improvement, if not for me, then for millions of others and for all of us in the long run. In other words, for the time being at least, I am PRO Obamacare.
No matter where you live in the U. S., if you want to know where you stand, start here: HealthCare.gov.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Flynn's Moment
Anna Mae Duane, Salon.com, September 29, 2013
I read this Salon.com piece, which lays out an interesting case that Walter White, the mild-mannered teacher turned murderous meth kingpin in "Breaking Bad", lacked his son's understanding and acceptance of the body's imperfections, and I thought, "Um, okay. I guess." I thought the article was going to be all about Flynn's long … very, very long … delayed moment of empowerment, in the next to last episode of "Breaking Bad". It was certainly a moment I feel like I appreciated in a different way than probably most viewers.
Flynn was the "real hero" of "Breaking Bad" because after sixty-some episodes during which he was literally the last one to know about the crucial thing happening in his family, he took less than a minute after having it all laid bare to choose the right side and physically throw himself between his mother and his knife-wielding father. Sprawled awkwardly over her, his Canadian crutches every which way, but with his powerful eyes never leaving his attacker, Flynn got out his cell phone and, still facing the point of Dad's knife, called the cops.
A couple of times after that, in a less violent but no less powerful way, Flynn similarly cut to the chase with Walt. Flynn was arguably the one who delivered the final blow to Walt's house of cards, thoroughly rejecting his eleventeenth attempt to rationalize his way back into the family's favor, and asking, with rage and strength in his shaky CP voice, "Why are you still alive? Why won't you just die already? Just die!"
Those brief but pivotal scenes had to have been one hell of a payoff for actor R. J. Mitte, who spent pretty much the whole series being clueless, immature, and breakfast-obsessed, while his family went to hell. He had a few moments early on when we saw hints that Flynn might be the voice of reason … when his father Walt considered not treating his cancer, and when Uncle Hank was all pissy about being crippled from his gunshot wounds. But those moments came and went pretty quickly. The rest of the time it was all about what a "bitch" his Mom was being to his poor, misunderstood Dad, which awesome car Walt would buy him, and whether to have eggs or pancakes. He seemed, for much of the series, like a wasted character … a wasted disabled character to boot, played by a disabled actor.
But Vince Gilligan and Mitte made up for it all in the end. I'm biased, of course, and I tend to see disability themes where the probably weren't intended. I don't buy into the author's intent theory though. I didn't have to think and dig and parse and interpret to see a very personal empowerment in Flynn's almost-final scenes. I felt it instantly, like a hit of blue meth.
Flynn rose to the occasion, as just about nobody else on the show ever did, fueled by his sense of right and wrong, and maybe by a bit by rage that for so long, everyone thought he needed to be protected. It felt like there was an almost private, inside theme there, shared with everyone of us who grew up with disabilities, always in the position of being protected and cared for, and often underestimated at the same time. Finally, Flynn got to call bullshit on what was bullshit, and protect his mom and baby sister for a change.
I felt proud of him, and to me, his confrontation, and later his telephone dismissal of Walt, were highlights of the series.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Full Review: The Michael J. Fox Show
Episode 2, "Neighbor"
Spoilers Ahead? … Yes, I reveal a few punchlines, but it's not clear yet whether this show is going to feature long-running story arcs with big secrets to keep from late viewers.
What's It About? …
Mike Henry was a beloved local news anchor in New York City, and some time ago left the job due to Parkinson's Disease. We meet Mike and his family as he decides to go back to his old job behind the anchor desk. His family is happy, because they have become the only outlets for Mike's natural enthusiasm, driving them crazy as he benevolently meddles in their everyday lives. His former producer, Harris, is glad, partly because he can parlay Mike's "inspirational" return into higher ratings. Henry is given a new assistant, a young woman who's admiration for him borders on worship. Meanwhile, his wife and three children … and his permanently irresponsible sister … deal with their own lives and quirks.
Background Information …
The big news, obviously, is that Mike Henry is played by Michael J. Fox, who actually has Parkinson's Disease. How much of a difference will this make to the insightfulness and authenticity of the show?
Annie Henry, Mike's wife, is played by Betsy Brandt, who has just finished a long and excellent run as Marie Schrader on "Breaking Bad". Here she may be able to let her comic talents shine a bit more.
Harris Green, Mike's producer at the TV station, is played by Wendell Pierce, who was Bunk, McNulty's partner on "The Wire". Will Harris become more than just a TV news version of Bunk?
The Pilot episode used several real-life NBC personalities to establish the kind of world Mike inhabits. How often will the show continue to use Matt Lauer cameos?
In Episode 2, the sexy neighbor is played by Tracy Pollan, who is Fox's wife.
The Good ...
The show kicked off with two episodes broadcast back to back, and gave us two important and relatively sophisticated disability themes right out of the gate. The Pilot episode beautifully introduced us to the concept of "inspiration porn". It didn't use that term, (I would LOVE IT if a future episode used that phrase!), but by showing us how silly it is when people over-praise and sentimentalize disabled people, it got the idea across better than an academic explanation or a direct complaint. There were three main points where the message hit home:
• When Mike predicts how the network will use slo-mo footage and heroic music to promote his return, his producer denies it, while exactly such a promo plays on the newsroom screens behind them.
• When daughter Eve's teacher gives her an F for her documentary film about Mike, because of how sentimental and phony it is.
• A throwaway moment, easy to miss, when Mike's boss unwittingly illustrates the cynicism of "inspiration porn" by suggesting that an equivalent option would be showing footage of pandas. Overcoming disabled people / cute pandas, same emotions, right?
Both "sides" of the issue get fair play. Mike isn't depicted as bitter or ungrateful for his dread of effusive praise, while his wife gets a moment when she maybe speaks for most viewers. When Mike fears that he'll get a standing ovation from his coworkers at the station, she responds, "Standing ovation? Ugh, those sons of bitches!"
Both "sides" of the issue get fair play. Mike isn't depicted as bitter or ungrateful for his dread of effusive praise, while his wife gets a moment when she maybe speaks for most viewers. When Mike fears that he'll get a standing ovation from his coworkers at the station, she responds, "Standing ovation? Ugh, those sons of bitches!"
My favorite direct Parkinson's Disease joke was at the breakfast table, as Mike sloooowly moves to serve his wife a scoop of scrambled eggs, until she interrupts, grabs the spoon, and says, “Can you not have a personal victory right now? We are starving.” It is a joke at the expense of his disability, and how it annoys others, but it's gentile and truthful. It also works because by this point the show has well established that Mike is belittled only the way all sitcom (and real life) Dads are in their families. His disability is just one unique quirk that sometimes makes his family roll their eyes. He is emphatically not a dependent or lesser member of his family.
In fact, I think a key to how this show handles disability is that so far, what silliness there is in Mike isn't mainly about his disability. It's more that he's kind of an eager-beaver … an enthusiastic, straightforward optimist in a family … and a profession ... where everyone has a layer of feigned weariness and cynicism. He's a goofy, slightly out of touch Dad. We love him, but he's a little embarrassing. Nobody says it, but it feels like he probably was always that way, well before he got Parkinson's.
The second episode, titled "The Neighbor", should have been titled "Self-Image". That seems to me to have been the episode's main theme … how people see themselves and how twists in their self-image can mess them up.
First, Eve has an image of herself as a progressive person who embraces a carefully assembled group of diverse friends. She seems really excited to have found a lesbian friend, but worries that clumsy comments from her family will ruin things when the friend comes to visit. Clearly, none of them could care less either way. It's Eve who is all wound up about it, to the extent that she even gets it wrong … her new friend isn't a lesbian. She just kind of vaguely looks and dresses like a certain stereotype of lesbians, so Eve just assumed.
Meanwhile ...
Mike meets a sexy new neighbor, and makes a mild fool out of himself in seemingly having a "crush" on her. Later he tells his wife that it's not so much that he had a crush on the neighbor, but that the neighbor kind of had a crush on him. This pleased but also discombobulated him because it ran counter to his feeling that since his Parkinson's, he might not be desirable anymore. Well, the neighbor really was flirting with him a bit, and Mike's wife makes it absolutely clear that she's still attracted to him.
So far, "The Michael J. Fox Show" not only gets the disability stuff right, it digs surprisingly deep, past bland, entry-level disability awareness platitudes.
The Bad ...
I can't believe I'm saying this, but everyone talks too fast. Mike, especially, and that may be an effect of his Parkinson's Disease. I hope I'm just imagining this, or that either I get used to it or they actually manage to slow down a little.
So far, the older son is kind of a confusing mess, the younger son is a blank slate, and Mike's older sister is shaping up to be really annoying … to us, the viewers, not just to the Henry family.
I don't really like having the morals spelled out for us by characters addressing us through the camera. Maybe it's necessary, to help reinforce the fairly ambitious disability themes the show seems to be laying out. If every episode has what my favorite Star Trek podcast calls a "You see Timmy …" moment, it will take the show down a notch.
As some critics have said, the show isn't very funny. I'm not saying they need "More Jokes!"; there have been several comedies in recent years that were hilarious without being dueling standup routines. I just hope as the rest of the characters fill out they'll each pack in more laughs by being themselves.
Conclusion …
If the show itself can improve enough to survive, then "The Michael J. Fox Show" could actually do what we always hope disability stories and characters will do, change how real people understand disability.
Further reading …
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, USA Today
Words I Wheel By, by Disability Blogger Emily Ladau.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Up Next: "Ironside"
The pilot episode is already on Hulu Plus, but I’m waiting to see it on NBC this Wednesday, October 2, at 10 PM. Also on Hulu Plus is the original “Ironside”, worth a look to compare!
Friday, September 27, 2013
The Michael J. Fox Show - First Impressions
The first two episodes of "The Michael J. Fox Show" were in some ways better than I thought, and at the same time a bit disappointing. And the two qualities are reversed from what I anticipated. I thought the most likely outcome would be that the show itself would be funny and energetic … promising for it's overall future and survivability … but problematic in regard to how it handled disability, despite the fact that Alex P. Keaton (sorry) Michael J. Fox knows whereof he speaks in regard to his main character's Parkinson's Disease. As it turned out, I found the show overall kind of lackluster and … frankly … poorly executed. Yet, the disability themes were much more sophisticated and pertinent than I had hoped. If this show lasts long enough, it might actually move viewers to a more nuanced understanding of disability.
More details to come in a few days ...
Petition: Disabled Veterans and Transportation
A local disability activist and the Independent Living Center where I used to work are collaborating on what at first seemed like a local problem, but now appears to have national scope. Like many communities, ours has a disabled veterans group providing van rides to medical appointments at facilities that are rather far away … for us it's often hospitals in Burligton, Vermont and Albany, New York. The problem is that none of their vans are wheelchair accessible, despite the fact that the organization is specifically for Disabled American Veterans. Not only that, but it seems to be a nation-wide pattern. Either they don't want to spend the money to buy vans with lifts or ramps, or their volunteers don't want the responsibility or perceived liability of transporting "non-ambulatory" veterans. So, if you can walk … with a cane, walker, whatever … you can get a ride. If you use a wheelchair, you're on your own.
At the ILC where I worked, we had a van for some years that we used to transport people with disabilities to doctor's appointments. It had a ramp though, and because of that we would only transport wheelchair users. We only had the one van, and we figured that if you could ride in any other kind of vehicle, you had more options. We reserved our service with people who had no other options. At the time I actually rather hated this policy, too, since we had to turn away people who didn't have their own cars, didn't have friends or family to drive them, or couldn't afford cabs. But at least the policy made some sort of sense for a disability organization.
There's a "Change.org" petition to sign:
"Currently, the jointly operated DAV-VA National Transportation Program offers free rides to Veterans needing transportation to Veterans Administration Medical facilities. Most of the vans are not wheelchair accessible leaving out the most (physically) disabled Veterans who use wheelchairs for mobility. In addition, there are written policies in place stating: "ambulatory only/no wheelchairs". This policy is discriminatory and must be changed."
Thursday, September 26, 2013
On Tonight!
The Michael J. Fox Show
9:00 PM Eastern, on NBC
I'll be watching, and here are some things I'll be watching for:
If the Parkinson's jokes are funny tonight, will they still be funny if they continue the same way week after week?\
Is the show strong enough to work if they tone down the Parkinson's stuff now and then?
Do the workplace problems and their solutions seem realistic?
Does it feel like the show is trying to teach us things about Parkinson's Disease or other disabilities?
Does the show explore different ways non-disabled people react to people with disabilities?
Does the show poke fun at non-disabled peoples' reaction to people with disabilities, as well as the disabled people themselves?
How strong and interesting are the other characters?
Am I going to watch it next week out of disability loyalty, or because I liked it?
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Recommended: Letters To Our Younger Selves
Letters To Thrive
There was a stretch of years in the early 2000s when one of the hottest topics in Special Education was "Transition". That's the name given to the topic of youth with disabilities in their final years of high school and what schools should be doing to help them make the best possible "transition" to adult life. Everyone wanted to figure out what combination of services and experiences would produce the best results in terms of general independence, students being more or less happy after graduation, and of course, gainful employment.
Most people interested in the topic seemed to settle on one or two general ideas. First, that schools should do more one-on-one counseling and planning with disabled students and their families, and start doing it further in advance of graduation day. Second, that schools should create more opportunities for disabled students to visit colleges and / or get work experience out in the community.
I have always been disappointed that peer mentoring didn't gain much traction. It didn't even get much in the way of proper testing and experimentation. Most funding went to training for teachers and counselors, and to work experience programs. It seemed to me that what students with disabilities needed most was real conversation, guidance, and support from adults with disabilities ... people who can speak with some authenticity about what the future can hold for kids with disabilities.
All of which I say just to explain why I'm so excited by the "Letters To Thrive" blog, where women with disabilities write letters to their younger selves. I hope either it expands to include men, or that someone else starts a similar blog for both men and women. Either way, it's a great format for the kind of wisdom it's hard to form into a curriculum or explain in a set of PowerPoints. I'm amazed something like this never came up that I heard in discussions about Transition.
I might try and write my own letter to my high-school-aged self.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Recommended: "Listen"
The Tumblr blog too brain fogged for this offers up what I think is a nearly perfect answer to an anonymously submitted question. The questioner seems to be reacting to the blogger's frequent posting about ways people with disabilities are treated poorly … and wants to know how people with disabilities should be treated.
The answer, in a word, is "Listen", but please do read the whole piece, it explains so much so well, so honestly, and so efficiently.
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