Disability Thinking is moving. I am working on setting up a Squarespace website where this blog will reside, alongside a bunch of other disability-related content. Blogging here will be light for the next few days, while I make the new place presentable.
Once I do move, I'll announce it of course and put up a link to the new site. Also, I'll leave up this Blogger blog indefinitely. All of my old posts will make it over to the new site, but I think I might be losing my subject tags.
Stay tuned for updates.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Disability On TV Update
Some specifics ...
The Michael J. Fox Show - Episode 4 "Hobbies"
• The words "flop sweat" showed up a lot in early reviews of this show. At first I thought that was overstating things, but now I'm not so sure. The show feels even more rushed, desperate to make us laugh, than it was when it started a few weeks ago.
• For a show that carefully spells out its lesson for the day at the end of each episode, its lessons are awfully mixed up. Is Twitter a fun medium for snarky aspiring writers, or an appalling weapon of digital bullying? Is Mike basically wrong and paranoid about his newsroom rival, or is she the real sociopath?
• The only reference to Mike's Parkinson's Disease was when he said he was more coordinated on the ice. Actually, I'm not sure that was a Parkinson's reference. If it was supposed to be, they should have connected the dots a bit more … maybe note how it's like stutterers who don't stutter when they sing. Sometimes, you really do have to explain the joke.
• Best moment: The hockey dads have ended up playing each other while the kids watch, bored and literally sidelined. When Mike's wife Annie shows up at the rink, one of the fathers calls out, "Wife!" exactly like Wayne and Garth shouting "Car!" while playing street hockey in the "Wayne's World" movie. It was funny, yet they even let that one drop, because the other players didn't react. They should've stopped skating and gaped at her or something.
Ironside - Episode 2 "Sleeping Dogs"
• This episode was not bad. I actually got into it. They set up a couple of intertwining mysteries that keep my interest. I really wanted to find out what they were all really about. Also, the dialog and one-liners were a little better, funnier, more natural. Everyone seemed more relaxed.
• A few disturbing patterns established in the Pilot seem set to continue. For one thing, if they're going to have Ironside sleep with every sexy woman he flirts with, in every episode, it's going to get stupid and offensive, fast. Also, kind of like the "Fox" show, "Ironside" seems to be shooting for sophisticated moral ambiguity, but missing it and hitting confusion instead. It seems like we're supposed to understand the lesson Ironside learns about child abuse when observing what happened to his former partner's nephew, but I really didn't get what the lesson was supposed to be. Which would be fine, except that it didn't seem to be inviting me to ponder the lesson. We were supposed to understand it, and it wasn't understandable the way they depicted it.
• Given my squeamishness at the Pilot's celebration of police brutality, I did like the little nod in this episode to the idea of cops not shooting people as soon as they appear threatening. The cop physically disarms the suspect instead, then holsters his gun, saying, "Yup, this thing is definitely not working."
• As I hoped, we may be starting to learn about each of Ironside's team, and why he chose them. Presumably, each of these first few episodes will focus on one of them. But the face in the spaghetti moment was odd and weak, especially as a capper to the whole episode.
• As of right now, the new "Ironside" is about at a level of quality that would have made it a solid, not spectacular hit in the early '70s … the equivalent today would be one of the CSI or Law & Order spinoffs. For many reasons that's just not good enough anymore. For starters, the schedule already has enough mid-level police procedurals. However, the thought did trigger another. If "Ironside" doesn't work out, why not add the Ironside character to one of the more established procedurals? Or, have him make an occasional guest appearance? They seem to operate in roughly the same universe … just a slight fictional step back from our real world.
• Maybe I'm grasping as straws, but I just wonder whether a detective in a wheelchair is enough of thing today to base a whole show on. That would be progress, I suppose. If so, it might still be enough for an guest star collaboration with Ice-T and Mariska Hargitay.
• Best moment: "If you're going to stare, at least get the hell out of my way, alright?" -- Sgt. Ironside. Now that is a genuine disability line.
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Ironside - Wednesdays, 10:00 PM Eastern, NBC.
The Michael J. Fox Show - Thursdays, 9:30 PM Eastern, NBC.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Photos Of The Day
What's It All About: Ableism
If the implied imperative of sexism is something like: "Women must be dominated and subservient", then what do we think is the implied imperative of ableism for people with disabilities?
- You must be made normal, acceptable
- You must be covered up, disguised, hidden
- You must be less disturbing, disruptive, upsetting
- You must be eliminated, phased out
- You need protection, supervision, monitoring
- You must make us feel good, otherwise you'll make us feel bad
I think all of these describe part of what people with disabilities experience as "ableism". At the same time, I don't think it's enough to apply the "ableism" label to, "all bad things that happen to a disabled person."
So, what IS ableism all about?
Late Night Music
Josh Caterer of Smoking Popes covers "Ask" by The Smiths on Tim's deck
For more Morrissey mash-ups of a different kind … This Charming Charlie.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
More About Sheltered Workshops
Sean Dobbin, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle - October 8, 2013
Lohr McKinstry, Plattsburgh Press-Republican - October 7, 2013
These two articles on New York State's plan to phase out funding of sheltered workshops bring up a couple of surprisingly (to me) valid concerns. At the same time, they don't give nearly enough explanation for why the state is implementing the policy.
First of all, if it's true the state is vague about what they'll consider an employment "success" for someone phased out of a sheltered workshop, then that's a problem. Without knowing any of the details being discussed, I would suggest something like an individual assessment, where "success" means integrated, non-sheltered employment of at least equivalent hours and / or take-home pay.
The second, even more potent concern is that maybe right now isn't the best time to make this change. Sheltered workshops should have been phased out when New York State was at or near full employment … during the later 1990s, or 2005 to 2008 … when a variety of jobs were easier to find, even in more impoverished places like Essex County.
Still, to read these articles, you'd think the whole thing was some sort of pointless bureaucratic "innovation" nobody really wants. That's not true. The "supported employment" model for people with significant developmental disabilities is the state of the art, and organizations that still operate sheltered workshops are behind the times. Sheltered workshops are textbook examples of social work models that were once radical and progressive, but which are now seen as antiquated in comparison with newer ideas. Sheltered workshops were always benevolent in intent, but were from a time that assumed the need for a degree of protectiveness and constant supervision that simply doesn't hold up today. Most people with developmental disabilities and their families want more than a pretend job in a closed, protected, minutely regulated environment, and know that it's possible … or would be in a more or less smoothly running economy.
So, part of me feels that the Essex County agency is right to doubt whether the open job market can do better for their workshop employees. But another part of me has seen two substantial periods of extended economic growth come and go, which people with developmental disabilities basically missed because it was always "too soon" to think of trying something better than sheltered workshops.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Picture Of The Day
Don't Forget Sen. Coburn ...
While we are (rightfully) calling out "60 Minutes" for the terrible journalism in their "Disability, USA" story ... can we remember also to direct some ire at the main man hyping this SS Disability panic, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla)?
Sen. Coburn's official website: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/
Monday, October 7, 2013
What's it all about? *
I think that there is a significant number of Americans who believe that there's an epidemic of people either faking disabilities, or cynically appropriating the "disability" label, in order to bankroll their laziness or inadequacy. It's the common denominator behind Social Security Disability panic, outrage about Disney World line-jumping, scoffing and eye-rolling at people with chronic pain and other invisible disabilities, grousing about how many school kids are "labeled" as ADHD, and the incoherent rage dumped on people who have the temerity to walk, hobbling perhaps, from their cars parked in handicapped spaces. The vestiges of their grade-school morality won't quite let them hate on quadriplegics and blind people, but anyone else who says they are disabled is fair game.
I'm not saying there are no cheaters. Of course there are. But, it's all a matter of scale, and it seems to me that the level of outrage about these things is way out of proportion to their real prevalence and impact.
And in case we are tempted to think of this as simply a cultural or social issue, the same impulse has caused a wholesale restructuring of disability benefits in the United Kingdom, in which every disabled person has to re-prove in minute detail their disability and its precise extent … with a private, for-profit company paid to do the evaluations, by a government committed to rooting out "benefit scroungers."
* Note: Atrios, the lead blogger at Eschaton.com often uses the title "What's it all about?" when he tries to give his broad perspective on what's actually going on with some political or public policy controversy or other.
Photo Of The Day
Nice Going, "60 Minutes"
Well, I guess I called it …
The only upside to this media excretion is that it's managed to raise some outrage and incredulity from mainstream / non-disabled journalists and bloggers. They are generally on the liberal side, but none of them are people who typically write about the disability experience. Once in awhile, it's nice to see people other than ourselves defending us, and doing it with some wit and skill.
Disability, USA, "60 Minutes" - October 6, 2013
The only upside to this media excretion is that it's managed to raise some outrage and incredulity from mainstream / non-disabled journalists and bloggers. They are generally on the liberal side, but none of them are people who typically write about the disability experience. Once in awhile, it's nice to see people other than ourselves defending us, and doing it with some wit and skill.
Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times - October 7, 2013
"Is it possible for a major news organization to produce a story about the Social Security disability program without interviewing a single disabled person or disability advocate?"
"That's the experiment "60 Minutes" conducted Sunday. The result was predictably ghastly."
Hannah Groch-Begley, Media Matters - October 7, 2013
"The myths pushed by 60 Minutes have been repeatedly debunked by experts. The report admitted that the vast majority of people applying for benefits are denied, but ignored the fact that the majority of appeals are also denied, and that award rates have actually fallen during the economic recession. In April, the Wall Street Journal called the claim that federal disability benefits were to blame for people leaving the labor force "exaggerated," explaining that disability was in fact the least common reason individuals left the workforce."
Charles P. Pierce, Esquire Politics Blog - October 7, 2013
"It simply has become reflexive behavior on the part of too many news organizations -- This American Life? Oh, Ira.-- to believe that we are beset by greedy poors who are gaming the good citizens. It is not easy to be poor in this country. That should be something our elite media takes as a given."
Atrios, Eschaton.com - October 7, 2013
"When kicking the poors isn't giving you that buzz anymore, you have to start kicking the disabled poors."
Atrios, Eschaton.com - October 7, 2013
"… but there must be a story behind how all the major media outlets are falling all over themselves to talk about the scourge of disabled people going through immense amounts of major red tape and legal hassles in order to maybe, just maybe, score the golden ticket of $1000/month benefits. I mean, what the fuck? What is wrong with you people? I bet most of you occasionally drop a grand on your wine bill at dinner."
On the other hand, there's Salon.com, which first posted the "60 Minutes" story as a "Must-see morning clip", followed by a short and entirely uncritical summary, where the segment's conclusions were restated as fact. The article's author, Assistant News Editor, Prachi Gupta, later added an update referencing the LA Times's criticism, including two paragraphs from that article.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
A Twitter-Sized Thought
No, I don't "let my disability define me", but I do let my disability influence me. It would be delusional not to.
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