Characters, questions, and ice buckets.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Video Of The Day
So many amputees make it look easy, so it’s good to be reminded that there are still very real, practical impairments involved.
Disabled TV Character Face-Off
As I promised in yesterday's Disability.TV podcast, here is an initial list of competitors for the esteemed title of "Best Disabled TV Character Of All Time". It's just a draft list though. Before creating the definitive bracket and getting on with the individual face-offs, I'd like to get a few ideas from you. Who are your favorite TV characters with disabilities? Who is missing from this list? Are there any on the list that don't belong on it?
I don't have any firm rules for what kinds of characters should be in this competition. However, I would tentatively suggest that we not count one-time guest characters, TV movies characters, or truly background characters without dialog or involvement in a show's ongoing plot. Minor characters are fine, as are recurring characters who appear on a TV show more than one or two times. The character must have either a known disability, or one that is obvious to us the viewers, even if it is not acknowledged by the other characters on the show.
So here is the draft list, in alphabetical order:
Addie Langdon - American Horror Story
Artie Abrams - Glee
Becky Jackson - Glee
Bran Stark - Game Of Thrones
Chief Robert Ironside - Ironside
Claudius - I, Claudius
Corky Sherwood - Life Goes On
Daniel "Lifeguard" Borroughs - Wiseguy
Derek - Derek
Detective Robert Ironside - Ironside
Dr. Kerry Weaver - ER
Dr. Gregory House - House, M.D.
Geordi LaForge - Star Trek: The Next Generation
Hodor - Game Of Thrones
Jaime Lannister - Game Of Thrones
Jake Malinak - Becker
Jason Street - Friday Night Lights
Jewel - Deadwood
Jimmy - South Park
John Bates - Downton Abbey
Joey Lucas - The West Wing
Kevin Girardi - Joan Of Arcadia
Maester Aemon - Game Of Thrones
Max Braverman - Parenthood
Mel Fisher - Growing Up Fisher
Mike Henry - The Michael J. Fox Show
President Josiah Bartlett - The West Wing
Sheldon Cooper - The Big Bang Theory
Sherlock Holmes - Sherlock
Timmy - South Park
Tyrion Lannister - Game Of Thrones
Walter "Flynn" White, Jr. - Breaking Bad
Send your changes and additions to my email address: apulrang@icloud.com.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Disability.TV Podcast - Supplemental
Podcast Schedule
September 5
Ironside (New)
September 12
Guest Co-Host Maddy Ruvolo
September 19
Game Of Thrones - Tyrion Lannister
Guest Co-Host Alice Wong
September 26
Mini-Cast
October 3
Game Of Thrones - Jaimie Lannister, Bran Stark, and Others
Guest Co-Host Alice Wong
October 10
Mini-Cast
October 17
Guest Co-Host Cheryl Green
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Question For Discussion
I have a question inspired by a Twitter exchange I just saw involving @ollibean, @emily_ladau, @autselfadvocacy, and @AndyAUCD, about how a family can find help for a college student with disabilities who needs personal care assistance while at college.
Question:
Why is it so common for disabled people and their families to wish for programs and support services that already, basically, exist?
Are the programs too opaque and difficult to find? Are they under-funded? Are disabled people and their families not looking in the right places or asking the right questions? Do existing supports target the wrong problems and the wrong populations? Is it just poor PR and marketing skills? Are peoples’ expectations too high, so they don’t go for services that aren’t 100% perfect?
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in Comments.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
More Important, Not Less
Center for Medicare Advocacy
Medicare plans to stop approving purchase of speech devices … electronic machines that generate speech for people who can’t speak due to a disability … for people in health care facilities like nursing homes. Picture Stephen Hawking with his voice synthesizer.
The rationale, it seems, is that such facilities provide total care, so it’s less important for the patient to be able to communicate.
The same rationale use to be used … may still for all I know … to refuse purchase of electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters for people in nursing homes and other institutions. Someone in such a facility doesn’t need to be mobile in an institutional setting, because the institution does everything for them.
In both cases, this is a twisted rationale only a penny-pinching bureaucrat could come up with. I’m not knocking penny-pinching bureaucrats. It’s not horrible for someone to ASK whether these devices are still necessary for people in medical facilities. The problem is that other people with some knowledge of health care and disability (including disability rights) should answer that yes, they are necessary. In fact, they may be more necessary since even the “best” institutions tend to curtail patient mobility and healthy activity, and communication is the patient’s best protection from neglect, abuse, or medical error.
Let me say it again … it’s fine to question what some might see as “sacred cows”. But the accountants need to sit down and shut up when the items they want to skimp on are found to be, in fact, vital.
Click the link above to write to your Members of Congress.
When "Despite" Is Really "Because"
Harold Braswell, Washington Post - August 25, 2014
This is a good article on a timely and important topic. I would only add one thing.
I can't prove it, but I suspect that many police and a great many ordinary citizens think that mental illness is actually a justification for deadly force, not a reason to avoid it. It might not always be a conscious belief, but I think a lot of people still associate mental illness (a.k.a. "crazy") with unpredictability and violence. We say, "He shot the man, even though he was mentally ill", while on some level, it's really, "He shot the man because he was mentally ill, and therefore scary and threatening."
Unless this powerful prejudice is directly confronted and refuted with ironclad information and alternative strategies, this kind of thing is going to continue to happen to mentally ill people. I have somewhat higher hopes for change in how police deal with intellectually disabled people, like Ethan Saylor.
There's plenty of stigma to go round, but I think mentally ill people get the worst of it.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Photo Of The Day
Students with disabilities visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, 1922.
From the Metropoitan Museum of Art, via the Disability Visibility Project.
When Headlines Get It Wrong
Susan Hogan, Channel 12 WPRI - August 25, 2014
Let's be clear, shall we? Six Flags and their rules kept the man from riding the roller coaster, not the man's disability. The disability had something to do with it, but it was the company's decision. Whether or not the decision was unjustified is another question. I suspect they are a bit too cautious, particularly when partial leg amputation imposes relatively little in terms of practical impairment. But either way, it was an institutional decision, not a natural consequence of disability. That is a huge conceptual difference that people often get wrong get wrong all the time.
The Ice Bucket Challenge ... What's Next?
The other day I pretty much telegraphed that I wasn't going to argue about the Ice Bucket Challenge, and I'm sticking with that, more ore less. I have an idea though.
It's sort of a followup to the Ice Bucket Challenge that answers some of what bothers me about it, without contradicting or refuting it. Maybe if we find the right social media strategy it will catch on. Here's the idea.
We ask everyone who has participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS research to take an additional step ... a pledge that they will never again knowingly patronize a business that isn't fully wheelchair accessible.
Many people with ALS are wheelchair users. Encountering barriers to full, free mobility is one of the daily hardships of having ALS. So, in addition to helping fund better treatments for ALS, those who would also take the Accessibility Pledge would be helping people with ALS live better lives through equal access to their communities. One thing I like about it is that It sounds easy to promise, but it would force people to realize how difficult it actually is to stick with, because so many places are NOT wheelchair accessible.
It's also perfect for celebrities, because of the power they and their friends have to make an economic impact on businesses.
We could try to come up with a similar stunt to go along with it, but I don't think that would be necessary. We would be targeting people who have already done the Ice Bucket Challenge. We want to piggyback, not copycat. We want to say, “You have shown you care about people with ALS. Here’s another way you can help."
The first step is probably a Twitter hashtag, and maybe some parallel Facebook action, making sure to target celebrity Ice Bucket participants by name.
So, how about it? Can we get influential people to take the #AccessibilityPledge?
Monday, August 25, 2014
Writing Process Blog Hop
This is my response to a Blog Hop that came to me via Emily Ladau of Words I Wheel By.
What am I working on?
Aside from actual blogging, I am working on my new podcast, Disability.TV, which is about how disability is portrayed on television. It’s going pretty well, I think, though I am much better and more comfortable writing than speaking. So far I have reviewed the original Ironside (the one with Raymond Burr), and this week I’ll be discussing the new Ironside, starring Blair Underwood). I have some guest hosts scheduled as well, which I think will make the podcast much more lively.
Meanwhile, I am starting a part-time job as a writing tutor at a local community college. I really hope I end up being good at it, because on paper it’s the perfect job for me … not too many hours, involves writing, and it helps people I greatly admire, people working really hard, often against formidable obstacles, to further their educations.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
When I started the Disability Thinking blog over a year ago, I promised myself that I would write something on it more or less every day, barring illness, life interruptions, and the occasional day off to enjoy sunshine. One of my blogging role models is Duncan Black, who has been running his political commentary blog Esctaton since 2002. He posts at least 3 or 4 things every day. Sometimes it’s just a single thought, expressed in a few sentences. In fact, he almost never writes essay-length posts. A lot of his posts are responses to stuff he’s read. I do that, too. I want to make Disability Thinking a place where you can visit every day and be pretty sure to find something new to read about disability. It won’t always be brilliant or even very original, but there should always be something to think about or read further about, and I cover a lot of topical ground, from politics to popular culture.
Why do I write what I do?
Why disability? Because a. I have had disabilities all of my life, b. I spent over 20 years working in the disability rights / independent living field, and c. there are a LOT of things I haven’t figured out yet about disability. Also, it seems like the field of disability blogging is comparatively small. It isn’t nearly as small as I thought it was when I started out, but it still feels like all of the “serious” (i.e. consistent) disability bloggers in the world could meet in a medium-sized meeting room.
How does my writing process work?
It all usually starts by jotting down ideas for longer essay posts and shorter observations at various times during the day, using the Apple “Notes” application for the Mac and iPhone. I usually have 4 or 5 topics going that eventually might become posts. Every morning, I also check out news items and other bloggers’ posts related to disability, sometimes queueing them up to read later. These might inspire the posts where I link to articles and other blog posts, and add some comments or ideas of my own. I have a list of bloggers I read all the time, I check Twitter, Tumblr, and somewhat less often Facebook. I also have my Google News page set to highlight stories related to disability. This is a pretty effective tool, expect for the articles mentioning professional baseball players who are on “the disabled list”.
Once an idea reaches a certain state of completeness in my mind or my notes, I usually write it in about an hour or maybe two. Then I spend about half an hour or so editing, add graphics when possible, and post. I try to post at least one piece of writing by early afternoon, and one other item … an interesting picture, video, or brief thought … by dinnertime. I also cross-post most things to my Tumblr site, and I post links to everything I do to Twitter.
This process works for me, in that I have mostly managed my goal of daily activity on the blog. One thing I’d like to improve is my editing process … ideally giving most longer pieces a full day to edit before posting. That takes willpower, though, and so far I’ve had a hard time resisting that “Post” button.
This is a Blog Hop, and I am tagging the following disability bloggers: Ellen Seidman of Love That Max, Christina Stephens the AmputeeOT, and Sarah Levis of Girl With The Cane. I look forward to seeing their responses!
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Buy It: "The Other Sister"
This film is underrated, despised, actually, by most of the pop culture enthusiasts and movie critics I respect. The reason, I think, is that it is an unusually pure example of a bad movie with very good disability depictions at its heart. Yes, once again we have non-disabled actors portraying disabled people. To be sure, Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi go overboard and seem to have their eyes fixed on intensely craved Oscars. At times, the characters’ adorableness drifts into condescension. Yet, through it all, we get a strong statement in support of freedom, integration, and the dignity of risk for people with intellectual disabilities. Plus, if you care to dig a little deeper, the film can prompt interesting discussions about disability and social class. At the very least, this should be required viewing for anyone applying for direct care and support jobs in the developmental disability field.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Followups, weirdness, and some of the finest disability stuff on the Interwebs.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
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