When the wheels make the man, part 7

From newsday.com, we get this headline:

Woman accused in wheelchair death faces homicide charge

Yeah. The death was actually that of a human being, a man using a motorized wheelchair. It was a hit-and-run. The woman appears to have been intoxicated. Also, the man who died, Ranford Beckford, 51, was driving his wheelchair on the road's shoulder about a mile from his home.

My personal opportunities for driving along a roadside usually were caused by either lack of curb cuts or lack of adequate, accessible transportation. Or both.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this series.

When the wheels make the man, part 6

For the first time in this series, the wheelchair makes the woman instead of the man. Not really an improvement.

From the Australia Courier Mail, a headline about a man stalking a woman:

Man, 82, accused of stalking wheelchair woman, 65

Actually, both people in this report use wheelchairs though the headline characterizes only her as a "wheelchair person." If the news report can be trusted more than the headline, the woman's request in court to have the man designated as a stalker is based on one experience where the man "drove straight at her, swerving away only at the last moment."

That's understandably frightening. But in itself it could indicate the man's lack of driving ability of own wheelchair rather than stalking. The report doesn't indicate he followed the woman or repeatedly drove at her. If malice was intended, that would be reason to mention a wheelchair in the headline, with respect to the suspect and not the victim. It would be nice, when a news agency covers a story, if they'd not selectively use one person's status as a wheelchair user as a de facto indicator of victimhood.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this series.

When the wheels make the man, part 5

From Dayton, Ohio, a man who uses a wheelchair burgles a restaurant four times in one week. Naturally, the headline about it reads:

Wheelchair burglar raids restaurant four times in week

It wouldn't have to read as if the man was stealing wheelchairs too. In fact, it wouldn't have to mention the wheelchair at all, except that is apparently what makes this crime newsworthy.

Here's an actual, alternate headline:

Police: Man In Wheelchair Is 4X Burglar

The body of both stories is exactly the same AP report.


Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this series.

Things that crack me up #51

Image description: A color photo of a nice little sign for restrooms showing a female figure, Wheelchair Dude (I consider "Dude" gender-neutral -- dooooode), and a male figure, all in variations of the classic access symbols. The sign has a brown wood frame and is in shades of brown, green, black and white. The female figure wears a brimmed hat and a brown and green dress. The male figure has brown pants and a black top with a white button-down shirt underneath. Wheelchair Dude's chair is white and she's dressed in black. Both Wheelchair Dude and the male figure wear sombreros. Arrows underneath the figures point, presumably, toward equally charming restrooms.

Photo posted to Flickr by mwboeckmann who also posted Viking Wheelchair Dude.

Things that crack me up #50

Image description: A color photo of a sign that has Wheelchair Dude and several other access symbols in a row above writing in an Asian language, with English below that. Along with Wheelchair Dude there's a person with a cane in profile looking about to sit down, though there's no chair behind her. Also, there's an adult holding a child's hand and a pregnant woman. The English translation of the Asian writing reads simply "Please Use Anyone."

h/t to Shiva of Biodiverse Resistance

Tomorrow is Wednesday again

It's also International Human Rights Day.

Wednesday is, you may remember, the day on which, most weeks, Ray Sandford of Columbia Heights, Minnesota, is woken up early and taken to a nearby hospital for forced electroshock treatments. Here are some things to know about Ray, from an extensive FAQ provided at MindFreedom International:

Ray is a 54-year-old Minnesota resident who has regularly been receiving "Involuntary Outpatient Electroshock."

Like all other USA states, Minnesota has loopholes allowing citizens to receive electroshock over their expressed wishes.

Ray says the weekly forced electroshock is "scary as hell." He absolutely opposes having the procedure. He says it's causing poor memory for names such as of friends and his favorite niece.

"What am I supposed to do, run away?" Ray asks.

Ray has been in and out of the mental health system for more than 30 years, with a diagnosis of "bipolar." According to his mother, the mental health system mainly tried psychiatric drugs on Ray, and when those didn't worked they turned to electroshock. Apparently, other alternatives have not been offered to Ray and his family beyond psychiatric drugs and shock.

He is not being forcibly shocked for any criminal justice reasons. According to more than one authority, Ray has no serious criminal convictions, at least for the past number of years.

The bottom line is, there is no good reason to forcibly electroshock anyone, it is inherently intrusive, traumatic and brain damaging. Despite his experiences, Ray remains crystal clear that he does not want his forced electroshock, and he wants to tell the world. Especially, forcibly shocking someone out in the community makes everyone even in their own homes unsafe.

After months of forced electroshock, Ray got desperate. Ray phoned his local public library's reference desk and asked about human rights groups. The reference librarian referred him to MindFreedom International.

Taxpayers are paying for Ray's electroshocks, including the more than a dozen personnel -- such as conservator, guardian, judge, psychiatrist, court-appointed attorney, anethesiologist, attendants and more -- who surround Ray. Other proven alternatives beyond psychiatric drugs and electroshock tend not to get as much funding.

The national media speculates that Governor Pawlenty may have higher political aspirations. He has campaigned for a "get government off our backs" philosophy. He has been Governor since 2002.

What can you do to help?

It is time to take the Ray Campaign up a notch, peacefully but strongly!

Let this become a top issue in the Governor's office.

Telephone Governor Pawlenty's office *NOW*:

Call any day, but especially call *before* Ray's scheduled electroshock next Wednesday, 10 December 2008.

Call from anywhere in the world phone (651) 296-3391.

From inside Minnesota phone toll free (800) 657-3717.

You have the best chance of reaching staff from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Central Time weekdays.

Read more about Ray at MindFreedom International and read the only local (or national, really) news coverage on Ray here.

New books on theology and disability

I haven't read a book on disability and religion since The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability by Nancy Eiesland came out in the mid-'90s. That's a great book, by the way, but it's exciting to see three brand new books on disability and religion -- and a thoughtful review introducing them over at The Christian Century.

The three books discussed by Brian Volck are:

Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity by Amos Yong,

Spirit and the Politics of Disablement by Sharon V. Betcher, and

Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality by Thomas E. Reynolds.

Volck looks at each book separately but here's an excerpt on his general thoughts on the topic:

These authors present twin challenges to theologically informed, able-bodied Christians. First, they challenge us to move beyond the relatively easy tasks of redesigning church sanctuaries and striving for visible diversity in liturgies and committees, and to begin engaging the far more difficult mystery of desiring and entering into communion with one another. What liturgical and ecclesial practices can we embrace that will make clear our human interdependence in Christ without allowing us to merely collapse into trivializing sentimentalities like, "Everyone is handicapped in their own way"? We may face greater challenges in becoming interdependent with persons who have intellectual disabilities than with those with physical disabilities. The practices and experience of Jean Vanier's L'Arche communities have much to teach us in this regard.

Second, disability raises thorny questions about traditional interpretations of Christian doctrine: Does God will severe disability? Does salvation through faith imply personal intellectual assent? What does it mean to be formed in the image of God? Does disability persist in the resurrection of the body? Once again, severe intellectual disability may present the greatest challenge.

Yong, Betcher and Reynolds do not present systematic theologies of disability. Instead, they offer stepping-off points for theological reflection. More important, they challenge readers to interrogate their own lives and assumptions, moving discussions past the self-satisfying mantras of inclusion and diversity and into new, potentially frightening and grace-filled territory.

While you're over there, check out an article on musician Curtis Mayfield, the legendary Chicago bluesman who was paralyzed in an accident while on stage in 1990 and died in 1999.

Friday Music: Neil Young

Image description: From 2007, a color photo of Neil Young from the waist up. He's giving the peace sign while standing at a microphone dressed all in black save for a silver bolo tie.

The casually listener and fan may not be aware that Neil Young is yet another famous musician with disabilities. In 1951 at the age of six, Young contracted polio. Since childhood he's also reportedly had diabetes and epilepsy. In 2005 he had successful surgery for a brain aneurysm. He also has two sons with cerebral palsy and in 1986 he and his wife started the Bridge School in San Francisco, a learning center for disabled children. A 1989 alternative rock compilation album raised money for the school.

So, those are Young's numerous "credentials." Here are some fun details:

His song, "Helpless," is about his experience with childhood polio. Here's a link to a YouTube video of an old stage performance (my guess is early '70s), and here are the lyrics:

There is a town in north Ontario,
With dream comfort memory to spare,
And in my mind I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us.

Helpless, helpless, helpless.
Baby can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow.

Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Yellow moon on the rise,
Big birds flying across the sky,
Throwing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us.

Helpless, helpless, helpless.

From the 2002 Salon review of Shakey: Neil Young's Biography:

Everyone who's heard Young's "Helpless" (which means everyone who's been in earshot of a radio or stereo in the last few decades) knows that he comes from "a town in north Ontario." It was in that town -- Omemee -- that Young, now 56, contracted polio when the virus swept through Canada in 1951. It transformed the pudgy 6-year-old and nearly killed him. "Neil got polio and lost all his girlish curves," Rassy, Young's indomitable mother and a central character in "Shakey," tells McDonough. "Damn near died. Gawd that was awful ... Christ, he looked like hell on the highway. Skin and bones. He never got fat again ... We didn't know if he'd ever walk." When he came home from the hospital "fresh from a disinfectant bath, his black hair in spikes," Young asked the adults, "I didn't die, did I?"

I remember when polio was the terror that stalked the nation, when approaching standing water, say, would earn the harshest of parental rebukes. One of my oldest friends got it in '53 and has been crutching it for half a century; another acquaintance of mine spent most of his 49 years in an iron lung thanks to polio. What an experience like that may do to you -- assuming it doesn't kill you -- is radically alter your perspective and imbue you with a certain bravado and fearlessness, not to mention a sometimes trenchant honesty. Once you've been to hell and back, the things the rest of us find anxiety-inducing -- the scary odds against making it as an artist, for example -- aren't all that scary. Pam Smith, a girlfriend of Young's when he was a teenager, recalls, "Neil was insecure as a person -- I think that's why playing music was so good for him. He had all the confidence in the world in that role."

McDonough's exploration of Young's often tenuous physical state -- he's also epileptic and used to have seizures on stage early in his career -- is one of the more intriguing threads in the book and a key, perhaps, to the singer's sometimes irrational confidence and indefatigable persistence even when those all around him -- Stephen Stills among them -- voiced nothing but discouragement about his abilities.

Musical abilities, that is. Young doesn't have a pretty voice, but everyone knows at least one or two (or dozens) of his songs. Here's a live performance of "Ohio" recorded at Massey Hall (a Toronto theatre) and "Heart of Gold," both stage performances from 1971.

From Neil Young Quotes:

Polio fucked up my body a little bit. The left-hand side got a little screwed. Feels different from the right. If I close my eyes, my left side, I really don’t know where it is - but over the years I’ve discovered that almost one hundred percent for sure it’s gonna be very close to my right side… probably to the left.

- Neil Young interviewed by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 22nd April 1988

My favorite fun fact about Young: In the late 1990's Young bought the Lionel Toy Train company to delight his son Ben. According to Rolling Stone magazine, much of Young's 1980s musical output reflected his frustration at difficulties communicating with his son Ben who, along with an older brother, has cerebral palsy.


Wiki on the song "Helpless"

An extensive Rolling Stone magazine biography

Neil Young News -- a blog on everything you could possibly want to know about the artist

YouTube video of an October 2007 interview on BBC 2. It features commentary by a guy who was "converted" to the beauty of Young's music at a concert. He discusses Chromes Dreams II and the evolution of Young's work with the artist. If anyone locates the transcript for this, please link to it in comments.

Famous people with polio

Call for submissions on feminism, disability & activism

From the f word:

The Feminist Activist Forum is calling for submissions for a zine on feminism, disability and activism:

Disability has been treated as an unglamorous side-issue within feminist activism.

We are looking for writing and artwork that addresses attitudes to disability within the UK feminist movement.

• Have you experienced exclusion from feminist groups and events because you have a disability?
• Are there any areas of feminist rhetoric that you find dis-ableist and alienating?
• Do you have ideas about how feminist groups and events can be made more accessible and inclusive?
• Can you tell us about positive experiences of access and inclusion?

Anything else on the subject also welcome!

We are interested in personal accounts, poetry, art, research and practical tips.

Please email drafts, abstracts, ideas, or questions to disability@feministactivistforum.org.uk

Deadline for drafts: 30th January 2009

When the wheels make the man, part 4

Out of Spokane, Washington, news of a man who uses a wheelchair falsely reporting being assaulted. The Washington state TV station KXLY offered this headline on Tuesday:

Police: Man made up wheelchair assault story

No, a wheelchair was not assaulted or even alleged to have been assaulted. The man who made up the assault uses one to get around.

Further coverage has been somewhat better. The Seattle Times reports that depression over the holiday season led Kenneth Koch to stab himself, then lie to a friend who took him to the hospital for treatment of the wounds. From there, police were called and the lie snowballed into media coverage and people offering the man money.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series.

Things that crack me up #49

Wheelchair Guy becomes an astronaut. The photo from failblog.com shows a parking space with Wheelchair Guy, the international symbol of accessibility, painted in the space. Except the wheel part of the symbol is not under the guy, it's over his head like a big bubble. I suppose the two-piece template for painting the symbol got botched up. Either that or visiting aliens will now be competing for prime parking spots.

Korean girl still to be cared for by family of rapists

Here's the story in its entirety from The Korea Times, the only English-language, non-blogger source I could find for it:

Court Ruling on Rapists Draws Anger

By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter

A court handed down suspended jail terms to four family members who repeatedly raped a teenage relative who suffered from an intellectual disability.

The Cheongju District Court Thursday sentenced an 87-year-old grandfather and two uncles of a 16-year-old girl to four-year suspended prison terms for sexually assaulting and raping the girl for the last seven years. Another uncle received a three-year suspended jail term.

The court acknowledged that their crime was ``sinful'' as they used the young girl, who is their family member, to satisfy their sexual desires. But it gave the suspended terms, saying, ``The accused have fostered the girl in her parents' place. Considering her disability, she will also need their care and help in living in the future.''

The court added it took the accused people's old age and illness into consideration.

Citizens strongly denounced the ruling, saying the punishments were too lenient for the grave crime. Internet users said it is absurd to release them to ``take care of her,'' as she needs help from others, not from rapists. They also said those committing such a crime do not deserve consideration regarding old age or illnesses.

Some bloggers are collecting signatures to oust the judge who made the ruling. The prosecution also decided to appeal. ``One of them even has a previous conviction for rape but was given a suspended term. The ruling is unacceptable,'' a prosecutor said.

English-language bloggers in South Korea have been passing this story around for a week now, mostly discussing their outrage at how bad the Korean justice system is at punishing sexual assault. This is juxtaposed against another news story of Korean prosecutors demanding a famous actress be jailed for 18 months for adultery, though bloggers are focusing little on the disability aspect and more on the sexual politics of the Korean judicial system and Korean culture. Disability, in the English-language analyses of this news, is mostly invisible. It's not clear to me how it rates in importance among Korean citizens.

h/t Feministing

When the wheels make the man, part 3

From the Sunday Mail in the UK, we get this headline:

Wheelchair pervert David Bennie jailed for decade of child abuse

No, the man was not being perverted with a wheelchair. He just sits in one, though the brief news story does end with the suggestion that he's faking his disability:

A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND paedophile has been jailed for four years for a decade of sex attacks.

David Bennie, 47, won three children's trust before subjecting them to depraved attacks.

The widower would strip during "naked nights" at his home and urged the youngsters to do the same.

He abused two sisters from when they were 12 until they turned 16.

Bennie also tried to force a 16-year-old boy to have sex with another man.

He showed hardcore porn to the children at his home in Irvine between 1996 and 2007.

The ex-railwayman was jailed at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court last week after being earlier convicted of lewd and libidinous behaviour and sexual assault. He was put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Bennie was wheeled into court by relatives but one victim claimed it was a sham and that he chased her upstairs and into the garden, stopping when he feared being seen on his feet.

Of course, use of a wheelchair never precludes the total ability to walk -- many, many people use wheelchairs because they help with various details of mobility, not because they are incapable of walking at all.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1 and 2 of this series.

Lame Duck

Image description: A color cartoon drawing of a white duck with George Bush's head and one hand, but a duck bill for a mouth. He's holding the red hotline phone and there's a cast on one duck foot. The cast has the seal of the president on it.

Like most people I know, it's been a refreshing change these past couple weeks to see how mostly toothless Bush appears after so many years of his callous destructiveness. But I tire of hearing the term "lame duck." It is ableist, of course, yet so ubiquitous most people don't think about it.

A "lame duck" is, literally, one that cannot keep up with the flock, and the primary definition provided by Merriam-Webster is "one that is weak or that falls behind in ability or achievement."

According to The Phrase Finder, the earliest recorded use of the term as a metaphor dates to 1761 and investors in the London Stock Exchange who couldn't pay their debts. Along with "bull market" and "bear market," "lame duck" was part of 18th-century stock trading lingo. How that came to be may or may not have something to do with the British game cricket:

In Horace Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, 1761, we have:

"Do you know what a Bull, and a Bear, and a Lame Duck are?"

In 1771, David Garrick, in Prologue to Foote's Maid of Bath wrote:

"Change-Alley bankrupts waddle out lame ducks!"

In 1772, the Edinburgh Advertiser included:

"Yesterday being the settling day for India stock, the bulls had a balance to pay to the bears to the amount of 23 per cent. Only one lame duck waddled out of the alley, and that for no greater a sum than 20,000."

We are still familiar with the terms 'bull market' and 'bear market', referring to rising and falling markets respectively, but 'lame duck' in the specifically stock trading context is now little used.

Why should someone who has no assets be called a 'duck'? Could it be related to the cricketing term, 'out for a duck' - used when a batman is out without scoring any runs? It seems not. That term is much later and refers to the zero on the scoreboard being similar to a duck's egg. First used in 1867, in G. H. Selkirk's Guide to Cricket Grounds:

"If he makes one run he has 'broken his duck's egg'."

The term made its way to American politics, with the first reference here in 1863 and the first presidential reference about Calvin Coolidge in 1926. Back then, out-going politicians had about 60 days longer to wreak havoc before newly elected representatives took office. The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also sometimes referred to as the Lame Duck Amendment, shortened that time to it's current length, with new Congressional members taking office on January 3 and the president on January 20 following November elections.

"Lame duck" is particularly ableist since its current use refers not only to the decreased political power of elected officials who are slated to be replaced but also to the lack of accountability those politicians face. The daily "Quackitude" report on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, for example, covers both instances where Bush seems to be conceding his position to Obama already and the executive orders that reveal a gross misuse of power by bypassing legislative approval of things like uranium mining along the Colorado River.

I love Maddow and her show, but here's the relevant part of the November 7 show transcript that puts it all together under "Lame Duck Watch":
MADDOW:

We elected a new president this week, but there are still 10 scary weeks left of the Bush administration when anything can happen and most likely will.

And so we are back with another installment of our public service series, the RACHEL MADDOW SHOW "Lame Duck Watch" because somebody has to do it.

On the agenda at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the last couple days, nearly nobody watched. Scrapping Mid-East peace. Now, there's an idea. About a year ago, the Bush administration invited officials for nearly 50 countries to Annapolis, Maryland for a meeting with Israelis and Palestinians to try to forge peace before the end of the Bush era.

It widely considered the president's attempt to save a sliver of his otherwise, rather soily international legacy. At the time, those talks were deemed a success by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. And the administration vowed to keep working on this until Bush left office. They said they would get a deal before the end of the year.

Well, yesterday, the administration announced, forget it. They called off plans for any further talks before the end of the year. Legacy shmegacy. We've got an environment to wreck while we still have a chance.

They didn't say that thing about the environment, but yes. President Bush's Interior Department is busy relaxing environmental protection rules on mining for uranium within three miles of the Grand Canyon, you know, where the Colorado River runs, the one that provides drinking water for Phoenix, Vegas and L.A.

"Mommy, I didn't ask for lemonade. It's not lemonade, Sweetie. It's the seepage off those radioactive tailings. How much better would it be if January 20th were like tomorrow?

Daily, Maddow links impotent power with irresponsible use of what power Bush has left. So does everyone else. So being a "lame duck" is not just about being ineffective (which is ableist enough by itself), it's also about being an asshole.

Friday Music Mix Tape

I'm trying something new, thanks to Grace. I did it for me, but then I thought I'd share it.

The above image of a cassette tape (with a vintage black-and-white photo on it from Warm Springs Institute of five women with polio using wheelchairs, each with one arm vigorously upraised in a wave to the camera) is a clickable link to a ten-song audio mix tape of former Friday Music artists. It's not all the same songs as featured before, and the clickable image isn't accessible for vision impairments. Below are alternative links to YouTube -- also not particularly accessible for various impairments, but the songs start there when the page loads so it's an alternative way to get the audio or see the artist.

Here's the playlist:

The Dresden Dolls - Girl Anachronism
Ben Harper with the Blind Boys Of Alabama - Take My Hand
Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me
Sinéad O'Connor - If You Had A Vineyard
Neil Young - See The Sky About To Rain
Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding
Kristen Hersh - Your Ghost
Warren Zevon - For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer
Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
Chavela Vargas - Paloma Negra

Ahem: I haven't posted on Neil Young yet. I shuffled posts around to accommodate the Thanksgiving weekend holiday and my reluctance to spend it typing much, but Young will be the very next Friday Music post.

Autism in Minnesota Somali community

I'm spending the day with family, but here's something interesting, controversial and meaty to read "On Autism, Somalis Feels the Chill in Minnesota," from Age of Autism. It's controversial for a number of reasons, including that the site is sponsored by a pharmaceutical company and because there is much discussion of vaccines and their relation to autism. Read it for info on one of the largest Somali communities in the U.S.

And then go read up at Autism Vox about the "cluster" of autism reported above. Or read more in depth there about vaccines and how there is no evidence that they cause autism.

7 Wheelchairs reviewed by NYT

Image description: Color photo of Gary Presley's book cover for "7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio." A close-up photo of one back wheel of a manual wheelchair.

Gary Presley's new book, 7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio, receives a rave review from the New York Times:

Those who prefer their miracles in subtler and more secular form might turn instead to Gary Presley’s extraordinary memoir of a life after polio. No one rises from a wheelchair and walks again in this book, yet the miracles clearly abound.

Mr. Presley was part of the last generation of polio patients in the United States: he became sick in 1959, right after receiving a booster shot of the old Salk vaccine. Whether the illness was from the vaccine or despite it was never clear, and in the end made little difference: within a week both legs were paralyzed, both arms drastically weakened, and he could not breathe.

The primitive respirators of the time saved his life. For months, an iron lung encased him like an oversize Tin Woodsman’s costume, doing the work his own muscles could not do. He was flat on his back, his world limited to what he could see in a small mirror affixed to the top of the machine. (With the mirror tilted correctly, he could watch “noitartnecnoC” and “drowssaP” on television.)

Eventually he graduated to a smaller, more portable lung — a metal carapace that let him sit upright. At night a rocking bed turned him violently on his head and back again to force air in and out of his lungs. Then the hospital sent him home to a small isolated Missouri dairy farm. He was 18 years old.

Mr. Presley writes with candor and precision about every facet of the next five decades. He learned to breathe without machinery, but he never walked again. A voracious reader, he skipped college and settled into a clerical job in a local insurance office. His wheelchairs became faster and sleeker, but his parents helped him dress and bathe until they died. As for toileting: Mr. Presley’s chapter devoted to the mechanics of urination and defecation in the face of paralysis is a tour de force that should be required reading for all.

Who could predict that, finally living on his own in his late 40s, he would fall in love with one of his hired aides? Or that, now approaching 70, his anger and depression faced and pretty much conquered, he would be happily married, healthy, vigorous, productive, in his words, a lucky man? A miracle, indeed.

Congrats, Gary!

Things that crack me up #48

Image description: A color photo posted to Flickr by Trevor Coultart shows a white rectangular sign with the black image of Wheelchair guy inside a red circle. To the right, the direction Wheelchair Guy faces, is one word: "HIDE!" also in red.

There are a few pellet gun holes in the sign all around the Dude, who is either fleeing or chasing, I can't tell which.

New book on Buck v. Bell

Image description: The cover of Lombardo's book shows sepia-toned photographs of two women and an infant. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell by Paul Lombardo

A new book by legal historian Paul Lombardo explores, in depth, the 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously declared "three generations of imbeciles is enough." This was the case that legalized involuntary sterilization of the "feeble-minded" and gave great credibility to the American eugenics movement.

Lombardo details not only the needless cruelty of Holmes' statement, but also it's utter inaccuracy. As described by USA Today science columnist Dan Vergano:

The three generations in the case, Carrie Buck, her mother, Emma, and daughter, Vivian, it turns out weren't imbeciles; Carrie was an average student and Vivian, taken from her mother and placed in the home of the family whose nephew had fathered her, made the honor role once in her short life.

"Buck earns a place in the legal hall of shame not only because Holmes' opinion was unnecessarily callous but also because it was based on deceit and betrayal," writes legal historian Paul Lombardo of Georgia State University in Atlanta, in his just-released book, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Scientists and lawyers, including Carrie Buck's defense attorney, conspired against her, Lombardo finds in old records.

The inaccuracy wasn't an accident. Carrie Buck was used and betrayed at every turn:

In reality, Buck was at the [Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded] because she had been raped and impregnated by the nephew of her foster family the year before. The family sent her to the colony, where her mother resided, to escape scandal. [Physician superintendent of the colony, Albert] Priddy "quickly began collecting information to demonstrate the hereditary defects he was certain linked Emma and Carrie," writes Lombardo.

The Buck decision was popular in its time and as a public policy even encouraged the eugenic Nazi philosophies of racial health and purity. From Vergano again:

It wasn't until national publicity about sterilization abuse in the 1970s that the practice ended. In 1942, the Supreme Court struck down involuntary sterilization of inmates, but the Buck decision has never been repealed.

"Eugenics still fascinates today," says Lombardo, invoked in debates over genetics testing, abortion and the future of medicine. "The attitudes are still around that fostered eugenics. They aren't going away."

Things that crack me up #47

Image description: A color photo of a modern, high-backed wheelchair all in a shade of light gray similar to office computers. The seat pictured is one option -- with a cut-out in the middle to acommodate the toilet underneath. The whole seat, with high back, headrest, and slim minimal armrests, looks a lot like modern office furniture with foot platforms attached and a different wheel base.

So, there are some cool things about this "high-tech wheelchair" called the Home Chare. It's a design project, I believe, not something actually being manufactured anywhere yet. The concept is basically a chair for everything but sleeping -- it can lie flat so as to be a level transfer height from a bed, it can detach from it's wheeled base and attach to a stairway lift, and you can poop in it by simply wheeling the chair over what looks like a standard size toilet.

Though for that last to work, as noted at Student Tech News, the wheelchair user needs to be pantless. That's the part that has me giggling:

"I have a modern new wheelchair! But there's one catch: I will no longer be wearing pants of any kind!"

In all serious, there's some design genius and also some serious flaws here, unless this is still meant to be an auxiliary chair to a person's main power wheelchair as even the large back wheels of a manual chair have to be attached for this to be maneuverable from a sitting position. Like the wheel base that accommodates a toilet beneath it, large wheels that a user can touch and turn while in the chair seem to be an accessory rather than a built-in feature, and since there's no motor or power mechanism of any kind, this is a chair to be pushed around in rather than to use for oneself. It's for ease of care-giving, not the ease of a wheelchair user. And that's fine if this is an auxiliary chair to the one the person can use independently.

Other possible flaws that I see include the tiny armrests, which I would try to lean on or use to shift my weight and find myself on the floor because they are not big enough to keep anyone who needs support from flopping out. Also, while this would make an awesome shower chair -- or poop chair, I guess -- I do not want to spend all the hours of my day in a chair lacking cushiness. Disabled people's asses, what I know of them, are rarely impressed by very modern, thin seating, even if it does include gel cushion. Padding everywhere, please, if I'm sitting here all week.

Finally, I kind of like wearing pants.

Slumgullion #49

The U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear an appeal by Californian Jarek Molski on whether he is a "vexatious litigant" no longer allowed to sue businesses over disability access without first seeking court permission. I've written about Molski in the past, here and here.

Popular Mechanics magazine includes a wheelchair design in its Top 10 Innovations of 2008. The winners, California Institute of Technology engineering students, have started the non-profit Intelligent Mobility International and are currently trying to lower the cost of their wheelchairs from $150 down to $40. (For the unaware, a folding lightweight manual wheelchair bought by any major vendor in the U.S. can easily cost a couple of thousand dollars.)

Rebalancing the scales of justice -- Columnists at the Guardian details how the U.S. Supreme Court has dismantled consumer protections against health insurers and what Obama must do to halt and reverse the damaging effects. Here's the up-shot, but see the column for details of what the Scalia Court has done to consumer health rights:

As the new president rolls out new proposals for ensuring health and economic security, he should not ignore the court's drive to roll back existing safeguards. If he acts fast, he could score some significant early wins, and send a clear signal that the new sheriff in town is serious about justice for ordinary citizens. Early in this Congressional term, it could be possible to legislatively "fix" decisions that distort major laws like Erisa (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) and the Civil Rights Act equal pay guarantees upended in the Ledbetter case. His agency heads can rescind the mass of Bush administration regulations and policies that pre-empt vital state legal protections. His justice department can press the federal courts to faithfully construe laws in line with their original reformist purposes, and stop importing stealth deregulatory designs recently in vogue. Most important for the long-term, the president, together with allies in the Senate, can sensitise new judicial nominees to the priority of robust enforcement of guarantees protecting Americans' pocket book needs.

The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently ruled that driving is not a "major life activity" under the ADA. Kellogg v. Energy Safety Services Inc. originates in rural Wyoming, where as stated at Workforce Management, "public transportation is virtually nonexistent and distances between towns are measured by hours rather than miles." The same conclusion about driving was reached back in 1998 and 2001 by the 2nd and 11th Circuit Courts, respectively, but passage of the recent ADA Amendments Act means that the logic behind this ruling should no longer apply to similar cases in the future.

Disabled rabbit gets a wheelchair -- The article says the American company that makes pet wheelchairs sells some for disabled pet skunks too. This will be something I ponder now and then for a while.

Woman in wheelchair sued after being hit by truck -- Apparently her being hit (while attempting to cross at an intersection that didn't have a crosswalk) caused a couple thousand in damage to the truck. The comments to this article aren't for the faint of heart: The prevailing sentiment seems to be that a woman in a wheelchair has no business in the street.

British film censors label new film with the warning that it contains "disability themes" -- Imagine any other group of citizens being considered troublesome enough to warrant a warning label: "Women doing girly things" or "Beware: Black folks!"

British teen wins right to refuse heart transplant -- One of a number of news stories out of the UK recently that focuses on assisted suicide and the "right" of people to die.

"Noel, is life really not worth living?" -- Ouch podcast host Liz Carr addresses Noel Martin, a man paralyzed in a 1996 attack by Neo-Nazis, who plans to travel to Switzerland to commit suicide. Carr says:

I know when people read your story, many will agree that yes, if they were in your situation then they would want to die too. Most people are so scared of illness, of disability, of getting older, that wanting assisted suicide is seen as an entirely rational desire. What scares me is that views like these will also be held by the doctors, the media, the courts, the government and all the others who have the power to decide if we live or die.

I'm sure by now you know how I feel about assisted suicide. Until the day when good quality health and social care are universally available regardless of age, impairment, race, gender or location, I believe there is no place for legalised assisted suicide.

I just think it's too easy for a society to promote assisted suicide as a right rather than work to overcome the barriers to supporting older, ill and disabled people to live fulfilled and valuable lives. Forget the right to die, isn't it more urgent that we campaign for the right not to be killed?

See also Bad Cripple and Secondhand Smoke for more on Noel Martin.

Then read a contrasting story, also out of the UK -- Sue Garner-Jones, a British teacher who has been paralyzed since an automobile accident 34 years ago, responds to the much publicized Swiss suicide of a former rugby player called Daniel James. By Swiss suicide, I refer to Switzerland's practice of legalized assisted suicide that an estimated 900 Britons avail themselves of each year. Garner says:

People make their own decisions about how to live their life. But there’s a lot of talk about bravery and courage for people who were opting out of living their lives. I didn’t like the inverse of that.

To call this action ‘brave’, ‘courageous’ and ‘selfless’ implies that those of us who battle on are ‘cowardly’ and ‘selfish’, which is unfair and untrue.

Here's the skinny on Daniel James. All this has been huge news across the pond. We've been a little self-involved with our elections, I suppose.

Friday Music: Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon would be an appropriate music post on The Gimp Parade because he was a well-known musician with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or because he was dogged by alcoholism for much of his adult life, or because he died in 2003 of mesothelioma (a cancer associated with asbestos exposure) after documenting his decline in health with a final album and a VH-1 documentary. But really, I just love his music.

This YouTube video of a 1978 live studio performance of "Werewolves of London" is intercut with brief shots of a werewolf man dressed in a tux and cape. Zevon plays a grand piano and sings while a four-man backup band stands in the background.



The lyrics:

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
walkin' through the streets of Soho in the rain.
He was lookin' for the place called Lee Ho Fooks,
gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.

Chorus:
Aaahoo, werewolves of London
Aaahoo(2x)

Ya hear him howlin' around your kitchen door,
ya better not let him in.
Little old lady got mutilated late last night,
werewolves of London again.

Chorus 2x

He's the hairy, hairy gent, who ran amok in Kent.
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair.
You better stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out Jim.
Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor.

Chorus 2x

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walkin' with the queen, doing the werewolves of London.
I saw Lon Chaney Jr. walkin' with the queen, doin' the werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinkin' a pina colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect.

ahhhooooo, werewolves of London
Draw blood

Zevon's wiki reads like a Who's Who of famous musicians, actors, and authors. His career sort of died several times, and he made come-back albums several times as he worked through addictions and other personal struggles. When he learned he had cancer, he began one final album and spent his last year recording it with good friends in a kind of long, public goodbye. He appeared as the only guest on The David Letterman Show about 11 months before his 2003 death, candidly discussing his short future and singing some of his best known songs.

YouTube video of Zevon on stage playing guitar and singing "My Shit's Fucked Up." Here are the lyrics, which he wrote several years before his cancer diagnosis:

Well, I went to the doctor
I said, "I'm feeling kind of rough"
"Let me break it to you, son
"Your shit's fucked up."
I said, "my shit's fucked up?
"Well, I don't see how--"
He said, "The shit that used to work--
"It won't work now."

I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it's all fucked up
It's shot to hell

Yeah, yeah, my shit's fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It'll happen to you

That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by
You wake up every day
Hang your head and cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can't quit
Let me break it on down:
It's some fucked up shit

YouTube video of Zevon on a stage alone with a guitar singing "Lawyers, Guns and Money" from a 1994 BBC Christmas program titled Words and Music: American Writers.

YouTube video, in four parts, of the one-hour David Letterman episode with Zevon as his sole guest, just short of a year before his death. Parts one, two, three, and four. Sorry, I don't have a transcript, and I don't have the typing ability to whip up this length of dialogue here. I can offer the brief description from Wikipedia:

On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" as his introduction. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon was a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman's television shows since Late Night first aired in 1982. He noted, "I may have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." It was during this broadcast that Zevon first offered his oft-quoted insight on facing death: "Enjoy every sandwich." He also took time to thank Letterman for his years of support, calling him "the best friend my music's ever had". For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" at Letterman's request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: "Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it."

Other sources:

Review in the NYT of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the posthumous biography published by Zevon's ex-wife.

A interesting list of famous people with OCD

Action Alert -- Update on Ray Sandford's forced electroshock "therapy"

Image description: A color photo taken by a concerned citizen who visited Ray Sandford after hearing about his forced electroshock treatments. Ray is a 54-year-old white guy with wire-rimmed glasses and a neatly-trimmed, graying beard. He's wearing a blue knit earwarmer headband.

According to MindFreedom International, the source of my post last week on involuntary outpatient electroshock in Minnesota, Ray Sandford's doctor has decided to "skip" a week of the torture. Here's the full update, posted as offered at MindFreedom International:

Ray Alert #3 - 16 November 2008

First the good news.

Within days of MindFreedom launching its Ray Campaign on 7 November 2008 to stop the weekly involuntary outpatient electroshock of Ray Sandford, his doctor has decided to "skip a Wednesday."

Ray says that this coming Wednesday, 19 November 2008, for the first time in months, Ray will not be escorted against his will, under court order, from his Minnesota home out in the community to his 34th involuntary outpatient electroshock.

So there's a reprieve for Ray.

For one week.

The bad news is that Ray's doctor said Ray's forced outpatient electroshocks will resume on Wednesday, 26 November 2008, the day before the USA holiday of Thanksgiving.

Ray said his involuntary shock will then continue every other week.

We don't know if the one-week reprieve is because of the MindFreedom campaign, but we know MindFreedom News readers are having an impact.

Since the MindFreedom first alert went out nine days ago, on 7 November 2008:

• Many people from all over the world have e-mailed and phoned the offices of the Governor of Minnesota, along with social service agencies, media, and the hospital where Ray receives his electroshock against his expressed wishes.
  
• For the first time, thousands of people are now aware of the existence of IOE -- Involuntary Outpatient Electroshock.
  
• A few national and local media are now actively investigating.
  
• Several advocacy agencies and human rights organizations are expressing concern and getting involved.
  
• Several volunteer attorneys are now in touch to provide assistance.
  
• Volunteers are visiting Ray and sending him their support, and Ray tells us he is grateful. One volunteer took the photo of Ray shown here.
• MindFreedom's "Zapback" e-mail list is coordinating the campaign.
• A disability professor and her class of students have called up Ray and are taking on his campaign as a project.
• And more.
  

Thank you, everyone.

Keep up the pressure and the support!

First, keep phoning and e-mailing, especially if you have not so far. Show there is national and international concern!

Here are the links to the original two MindFreedom alerts, which have information about how to e-mail and phone the Governor of Minnesota, and how to write or visit Ray:

7 Nov: Alert #1
http://www.mindfreedom.org/shield/ray-sandford

12 Nov: Alert #2 - Governor Phone-In Campaign
http://www.mindfreedom.org/shield/pawlenty-electroshock

Second, help MindFreedom answer the main mystery.

Despite all this public interest the question remains, "What is Governor Pawlenty's position on Minnesota laws allowing involuntary outpatient electroshock?

Is this Governor, who campaigns for "limited government," for such laws or against them?

Unfortunately, the Governor's office has not responded to any of the many e-mails or phone calls requesting his policy position. The Governor's office is immediately forwarding citizen inquiries to a voice mail, and then not replying to the voice mail.

We need media to ask the Governor for us. Please forward this alert to all media, small and large, from newspapers to bloggers.

Media can direct questions to:

Brian McClung

Director of Communications for Minnesota's Governor

phone: (651) 296-0001.

Media ought to ask, "What is Governor Pawlenty's position on Minnesota laws allowing involuntary outpatient electroshock?"

Sometimes the Governor's office is re-directing calls to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. At first that sounds good. But this office says it is only focused on determining whether narrow discrimination complaints are legally valid. A spokesperson said this department makes no statements about policy.

This Minnesota agency said they are planning a major one-day human rights conference and forum on 5 December. One barrier is the "forum" costs $200.

For information on this Minn. Dept. of Human Rights, and their "forum," click here:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/shield/ray/minnesota-human-rights-conference

You can also keep up with some of the latest developments about the Ray Campaign on the MindFreedom blog by MindFreedom director David Oaks, here:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/mfi-blog

Disclaimer: Because the State of Minnesota won't reply, portions of these alerts are based on Ray's personal statements. By Ray's own admission, he now has severe memory problems. Therefore, journalists and others may want to find a second source to confirm accuracy.

*****

And a suggestion from me:

After you call or email the State of Minnesota (numbers provided by MFI):

From anywhere in the world phone (651) 296-3391.

From inside Minnesota phone toll free: (800) 657-3717.

You can leave a message at any time. You can reach staff any non-holiday weekday from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Central Time.

Call any day, but especially call on Wednesdays.

Add Ray Sandford to your holiday card list:

Ray is open to visitors and supportive postal mail:

Ray Sandford
Victory House
4427 Monroe St.
Columbia Heights, MN 55421-2880 USA

Things that crack me up #46

Is this cute or disturbing?

Image description: A color photo posted to Flickr by geekmama76 of a sign on a restroom at a wildlife park in Perth, Australia. It's a 3-D sign, I believe. It's of a creature, like a groundhog (or a badger?), with a bandage around it's head and it's hind legs and back half resting in a tiny little silver wheelchair.

This is obviously an original piece of signage art. What I find disturbing -- or hilarious? -- is that it looks like a stuffed animal -- an actual animal, dead, but stuffed -- attached to the disabled access restroom door.

Sign language in Sia's videos

Sia, an Australian pop singer perhaps best known for her song "Breathe Me" which played during the closing sequence of the Six Feet Under TV series finale, has released a music video for her newest single "Soon We'll Be Found" that features American Sign language throughout:



Video description: As the music begins, Sia, a blonde woman, is in what seems to be a warehouse. She walks up to a bowl filled with milky white liquid and dips both hands into it. With a full-body view of her, she begins signing the lyrics (though I don't personally know how accurately). Editing cuts between close-ups of her hands signing and the full-body view. Then the room darkens around her and she stands in a spotlight while the editing back and forth continues. When the chorus is reached, the lights come back on and here are people dressed in black lined up, three to either side of her. They each have had their hands dipped too, but in a variety of colors. They all sign the lyrics together, their hands standing out colorfully against their black clothing. As the next verse begins, the camera shifts to follow Sia's signing in shadow on a wall where her hands are joined by the shadows of many others, some signing and some forming shadow puppets on the wall -- animals, trees, a Garden of Eden with a shadow puppet snake slithering by. A jumble of gracefully waving hands and arms eventually overwhelm the lighted wall and fade it to black. Then Sia dances alone in a blacklight, her white clothing, painted face and green hands showing brilliantly in the black with dozens of bluish hands -- just hands -- around her, as stairs beneath her feet, as a halo around her body. She continues to sign the lyrics while the halo hands flutter and editing cuts between close-up and full body views. Then the hands scatter and while she signs the chorus they appear as bluish streaks signing with her, indistinctly seen in the black. Then her hands and the disembodied ones begin painting in the blackness, a little like a toy LiteBrite -- a sun, trees, clouds, a landscape of colorful flowers. Blue hands perch as birds in the painted trees against the black background. Then suddenly Sia is in the white-walled warehouse again. The six people are gone but black clothing lays in piles where each once stood. Sia looks up and smiles as disembodied blue hands fly like birds into the rafters.

The lyrics to "Soon We'll Be Found":

Come along it is the break of day
Surely now, you'll have some things to say
It's not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it won't be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Well it's been rough but we'll be just fine
Work it out yeah we'll survive
You mustn't let a few bad times dictate

So come along, it won't be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of work
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

The music video has circulated fairly widely as it was a free download at iTunes a few weeks ago. On the making of the video, Sia says:

I’ve always been obsessed with the beauty of sign language. The movement and expression just appears, to ignorant-hearing-me as a dance… a beautiful, emotive dance. But the real beauty is that, hidden in these perfect shapes, is communication.

I'm always curious how Deaf people feel about their language being used as art by hearing people, particularly in video format where the full view of the person signing seems to me to often be mangled in order to make it artsy but, ironically, useless as communication. I don't know that the ASL is useless in this video, but its use has been discussed at The Deaf Edge where it's raised conflicting emotions and opinions.

Whether it's to her credit or just an interesting obsession, Sia also uses a bit of sign language in an older song, "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine":

Wheelchairs in modern furniture design

David Pompa, an Austria-based designer, has created a collection of office furniture called Surreal Minimalism that includes eight chairs created by combining a variety of upholstered seats with different metal bases. Some of the metal bases are lifelike shiny metal human legs and feet, and other bases are wheelchair-like.

The first photo here shows a red seat attached to a metal base that is a minimalistic take on what a manual wheelchair looks like, with two big rear wheels and two small front wheels. It's not clear if the wheels are functional, but I don't think the back wheels would turn and while all the wheels are, of course, round, none of the edges anywhere appear to be rounded to accommodate gripping and pushing with hands.

Created as a project for his graduate studies at Kingston University in London, Pompa says, "Interaction is often reduced to a functional basis; this collection is an approach that objects and humans can interact on an emotional level with the aim of stimulating creativity."

The second photo here shows the same red seat with a metal base that looks like two silver human-shaped calves and feet that rest on short metal strips that look a little like truncated skis. From this angle you can better see the bright red seat which looks a little bit like a Lego with a cushy inner seat carved out of it. The armrests are the same solid unyielding plastic-like material as the rest of the seat's shell, and from this angle you can see it would be impossible to reach around these sharp-edged arms to push oneself with the wheelchair-base. By "sharp-edged" I simply mean the edges of the seat are not rounded off anywhere but are perpendicular corners. The top is blocky and the bottom is human-shaped.

At dezeen, Pompa clarifies in comments that the "objects are not meant to be comfortable, aesthetic, or usable furniture. the objects are symbols to question the stereotypical situation many people face in their office enviroment. there is no intention of putting these objects into an office enviroment and i am still at the beginning of their design process."

This third photo is of an entire room with several pieces of furniture that have regular furniture legs combined with either wheels or human-like legs. The furniture is either yellow and white or pink. A long oval yellow conference table has ten different "legs," one pedestal leg, several large round posts of varying styles and several that are either clearly human-shaped or mimic the organic curves of the human-shaped but lack an actual foot at the bottom. The chair at the table is like a basic dining chair with upholstered seat and back, and wooden arms and front legs. The back legs are replaced with yellow-tired wheels complete with handrims. Against a far wall is a chaise-like yellow upholstered sofa where the two back legs are replaced by slightly scaled-down versions of the yellow-tired wheels. A pink easy chair with ottoman looks quite comfortable. The ottoman has a metal pedestal base with four legs to the pedestal. The chair has half of that metal pedestal and is balanced in the back by pink-tired wheels with handrims. Between these last two pieces is a lamp that has small wheels (about the size of the front wheels on a manual) as part of its base. Obviously these chairs would not roll unless you lifted the half without wheels off the floor, but these are clearly images of a basic manual wheelchair worked into otherwise classic-design furniture.

Do you like what you see and how Pompa uses the wheelchair in the same way he uses human form in these designs? I wasn't sure how I felt about them until I read this analysis at notcot:

why do we always think about functions when we talk about inclusive design? design icons are icons for an exclusive range of our society. why?

I'm not sure if that's a writer at notcot or Pompa further explaining his design, but I like that very much. I think that inclusiveness is still not nearly a big enough part of even design discussions about function if the design of everything around us is an indication of what's being talked up, but hey, I'm all for inclusive design icons too.

That third photo above clarifies for me how furniture design could naturally incorporate the iconic wheelchair image so typically used as a symbol of inability and pity into design without it looking medical or unwelcoming. That's far more interesting to me than the first two chairs or the other variations in the collection that can be seen here.

Browsing Pompa's website, I found this last image of the design for what looks like a fashion show or possibly a nightclub. It's a big room with many tables, seating perhaps a couple hundred though there are no people in the photo. There's a bar seen dimly at the very back and a long runway or stage through the center of the room. Above it is some interesting angular architectural design. There are several stairs at each end of the long runway stage, but angling off from the stage's center are wide ramps that slope into the audience at either side. The ramps are a natural part of this whole angular stage and design above it. A half dozen big globe lights hang over the runway as a contrast to all the crisp corners and angles. Everything is white and stylishly accessible.

Still more links

I mentioned these additions in comments to the last link love post, but these blogs deserve their own announcement too:

Followed Lingling as She Gave Lymphoma a Beatdown
The Sakurako Chronicles
Three Rivers Fog
Whose Planet Is It Anyway?

Disability Blog Carnival #49 at I Hate Stairs

Check out the latest Disability Blog Carnival over at I Hate Stairs where the theme is "Lists."

And contribute to the upcoming carnival at The Life and Times of Emma where the theme will be "I am." The carnival happens on Thursday, November 27, which is Thanksgiving in the U.S., and the submission deadline is the Monday before -- November 24. Submit a blog post through the carnival website or avoid the CAPTCHA thing there, if you wish, by submitting links via comment at Emma's, emailing Emma at emma @ wheelchairprincess . com (remove spaces) or through carnival organizer Penny at Disability Studies, Temple, U.

When the wheels make the man, part 2

Each incarnation of an ugly news story out of Darwin, Australia, continues to boggle my mind. A 26-year-old man had sex with his disabled, wheelchair-using mother who, when able to get away, told her doctor about the assault.

The first story I saw on this had the lovely headline "Desperate man had sex with wheelchair-bound mum." Apparently, he was so distraught that the ladies don't fancy him that he became "desperate."

And now there's this headline:

Wheelchair incest man jailed in Darwin

Note for clarity's sake that no one committed incest with a chair. Note also that the man was not a chair-user. It's his mother, the victim of sexual assault, who is reduced to being a modifier for her son's act: "wheelchair incest." And finally, note that the man is serving time for incest (because it's illegal to have sex with a close relative), but not for sexual assault or rape.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See similar post here.