Number One Thing NOT To Say To An Empowered Disability Self-Advocate..

Do as I say..

Alternately :: Because I said so..............

You are most assuredly more than welcome to offer your opinion as to why you think something should occur a particular way.. Beyond that, though, you start seriously stepping on individual human and civil rights along with the dignity of the individual when you place a demand that another perform specifically as you say..

:raises left brow:

Least the above seem somehow trifling, please never discount that, in precisely the same manner that the ADA benefits all persons, the disability self-advocacy Voice likewise is among the leaders in the legions of those striving to empower all disenfranchised individuals, not just those with disabilities..

Indubitably. :wink:

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

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The Calf Path..

And from that day, o'er hill and glade.
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about;

And uttered words of righteous wrath,
Because 'twas such a crooked path.

But still they followed - do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf.

~S.W. Foss

USF University of Law :: How The ADA Benefits People Without Disabilities..

Found the following while surfing over around the Disability Law 2.0 blog a little bit ago.. As one of my cyber friends over at the ADA-Laws Yahoo! group said, this is something nice for a change:

• Lashing Back at the ADA Backlash: How the Americans with Disabilities Act Benefits Americans Without Disabilities
  TinyURL :: tinyurl.com/4hhb52..

This University of San Francisco - School of Law paper applies Professor Derrick Bell's interest convergence hypothesis to the disability context. It identifies that the ADA benefits nondisabled workers and challenges the notion that advancing equality for individuals with disabilities necessarily comes at the expense of the nondisabled workforce.

The above referenced webpage is "just" the abstract.. It also has a downloadable 65-page 300+ .pdf file that goes with.. The link to the article that immediately begins to download is at the bottom of that same page..

A(nother) new resource for me, the above article's hosting website is called Social Science Resource Network and is found at:

• www.SSRN.com

For those playing over at Digg.com, I've got it dugg in the Business and Finance category..

Yeah....... Something nice.. Something that just feels supportive for a change..

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

Universally Inclusive Communities :: One Size Fits All Political Rah-Rah Rhetoric..

Enough with Bittergate.....

Enough with sweetie.....

Enough with separatist catch phrases like low class and Ordinary People..

And all the positive campaign rah-rah rhetoric in the World will only carry a fella, any fella, just so far in this Life..

If any political parties plan on remaining in the running for much longer, now is the time to start large scale, proactive, united discussions on how we are going to work together at the local community level across our entire Nation to develop universally inclusive programs like housing, employment, and transportation for everyone..

Likely very few communities anywhere that are healthy for long from within without these fundamental Societal Lifelines..

It's not like we don't already have centers for independent living (CILs) scattered throughout our country and possessions, employees and volunteers, alike, with their noses resolvedly to the proverbial grindstone formulating exemplary battle plans of actions towards the same even as the rest "rah"..

Yeah, I dream.......

A lot.

Surely, one of these days one of those Dreams is going to come true.. :wink:

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

Wakeup Call :: An Unknown Suicide Jumper On Atlanta's I-285 Spaghetti Junction..

The words just won't come after having seen yet another news report of this nature:

• I-285 West Reopens At Spaghetti Junction; Dekalb County, Georgia; Posted 4:47 pm EDT, Updated 5:22 pm EDT, May 19, 2008

Somehow unexplainedly to these Fingertips through the Tears, this, just the very latest this second of similar pieces echoing across our Country, symbolizes all that is wrong in our World..

Traveled over to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), to see what, if anything more, they had to add to WSBTV's short blurb, and things got just that much worse.. There, right below their own story of the Spaghetti Junction overpass suicide jumper, is a teaser for an article on.......

Taking tourist bus tours to view the destroyed Lives of others in the form of their foreclosed homes:

• Bus tour gives people look at foreclosed houses; Kevin Duffy; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Published 05/19/08..

The white shuttle bus came to a stop and Damon Borozny joked to the passengers, "All right, time to scare the neighbors."

Borozny, a product manager for an office supply business, was helping lead a new kind of tour for Atlanta - the home foreclosure tour.

A dozen people paid $49, or $65 per couple, to spend five hours Sunday checking out other people's broken dreams and possibly find a deal.

One unfortunate set of people's Lives are being shattered forever because of endlessly skyrocketing food and fuel prices even as these other wonderful folks are trading humorous barbs over the same while carelessly rummaging where tiny feet of Hope, Love, and Joy once pitter-pattered.. Seeing that article couldn't help but bring back to Mind the similarly minded individuals who graciously provided anxious sightseeing tourists with bus tours immediately following Hurricane Katrina's deaths and devastation in New Orleans, Louisiana..

Our World just keeps sicker by the keystroke.. Predatory lending has now led to predatory sharks very publicly, visually sucking off the blood of permanently wounded homeowners..

For all we know, it was something precisely like this bloodsucking predatory entrepreneurship that was the last straw for the Spaghetti Junction suicide jumper.. Someone somewhere knows the History, the Truth behind what happened today.......

We have GOT to start coming together and support each other for everything we are..

Every Life was someone's Child once..

Every Life had a Chance once to be a productive member of our Society, of our local Communities..

Every Life has Value now in this, our Own one and only, if given a Hand back up towards that Chance..

It begins with Compassion, Human Compassion for another from deep down within our own Souls..

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock........

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In my Mind's Ear, listening to.......

Against all odds
Against the grain
Love finds a way
Some people change.

Thank God for those who make it
Let them be the light.

~Montgomery Gentry..

Dear Barack and Roy :: Straight jacket..? Not so much........

Caught up with M.S. Bellows, Jr.,'s/Jr.'s (how does one punctuate that, anyway..?) latest, Former Clinton-Gore Campaign Chair: "This Race Is Over, Over.", over at Huffington Post just now.. Not sure quite what to think..

Yes, as the receiver of the endorsement, Barack Obama is not in full control of the comments appended to the why-fors of people choosing him over Hillary Clinton..

But.......

Straight jacket..?:

This nation is evolving. Colorado is one of those states you call a red state... [but] I don't think Colorado is the same state it was 20 years ago. I think we need to get out of the straight jacket, 'this is a red state, this is a blue state'.... We need a candidate who can appeal to the evolving nature of U.S. politics."

Oooh.. It just got that much better.. First time 'round, I got so hung up on just seeing "straight jacket" tossed about so nonchalantly, I missed that they're recognizing the World is indeed changing..

Most respectfully, word to your camps: Disabilism.. Using terminology like "straight jacket" when you (at least from here on out) know it is offensive to many because of the post-traumatic stress visions of in-hospital abuse and torture it invokes..

Won't go there here, but I can guarantee to you that, betweenst you and I, I'm sure that we could insert in its place something ethnic-based or sexist-based, and you'd suddenly take heed of the comparable pain induced to other sets of demographics.. Works exactly the same for people with disabilities..

They call it dadgum basic Human respect for and acknowledgment of the circumstances of another.. It's not hard to do if it is indeed who you genuinely are deep, deep, down inside.. And when you willingly put yourself out there in politics, it additionally becomes a permanent part of your job description..

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..