Sunday, April 2, 2006
On the Chicopee Jail and Disability Rights
According to reporter Pamela H. Metaxas’s Springfield Republican article of September 20, 2005, the Chicopee women’s jail will cost $27 million to construct. Despite the myriad of problems associated with spending so much money on a facility designed to incarcerate women who are mostly convicted of non-violent, drug-related offenses including the fact that as our other speakers have mentioned these funds could be better spent on childcare, job training, post secondary education, housing, social...
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In Memoriam: Bob Blue
Bob Blue (7/31/48- 3/17/06) was a musician, an educator, a father, my friend, my good Scrabble buddy, and basically a rock in my life. I saw him nearly every week for the past year. He was first a friend and employer of my friend Laura Anderson, who become his last live-in personal care assistant, but we became friends separately from the fact that we both knew and loved Laura. At first, we just played Scrabble every Friday and talked not much, but gradually we begin to have good conversations...
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Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tennessee Action- Day Three
I am glad and sad that the action is over. We just had a final party and that ended about one hour ago. I danced some but not with Jenny, bah hambug! I made a few new friends and spent some money on sovieners. The nexrt action will be in DC in September. We get to see Bush again! Today we devided the group. Most went to the site of Tenncare (Tennessee long-term care program) and the local HUD office (when we finally pass MiCASSA where are people going to live?). I was one of about 20 folks who...
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Action Report- Day Two!
I went on an action at the Governor's house in Tennesee yesterday (anyone seen coverage?). He kept staring down at us from his window. Like he was afraid of us disabled people. What did he think we were going to do, blow him up? He also said that we were PAID to be here in Nashville. I think he's crazy. I paid 1500 bucks to come. He's an idiot. About 60 folks got arrested, not me. I was in the bathroom, but everyone came back last night. I was really proud of Sparky, who doesn't talk much but...
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Tuesday, March 14, 2006
In Memoriam: Karen, Teresa, and Dorothy
I lost three amazing women from my life today. My friends Dorothy Carter of Denver, Teresa Monroe of Georgia, and Karen Greeboan of Texas have all gone home to God in recent months and I just found out today while reading the latest issue of Incitement Magazine thanks to of ADAPT. I don't know what I am going to do with the knowledge that I will never see my friends again, except of course in heaven. Each of these women has had a major effect on who I am as a person today. Each of them took care...
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Monday, March 13, 2006
Disability and War...
So far according to the Northampton-based National Priorities Project. The war in Iraq has cost $247,191,869,001 as of 2:28 PM today. My own personal care assistance bill is $60,313.76 a year. I use more services than most people in the state, receiving 107 hours a week. My personal care assistants make good money at $10.84 per hour, about $2 more per hour than PCA’s in most of the country. The cost of war would pay for 4,098,484 years. That’s over 20 times the amount of American nursing home...
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Can You Believe This?
There was a Chicago law repealed in 1974, that said in part: "No person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person to be allowed in or on the public ways or other public places in this city, shall therein or thereon expose himself to public view, under a penalty of not less than one dollar nor more than fifty dollars for each offense." 1974… That’s just a little over 30 years ago and just two years before I was born....
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Sunday, January 22, 2006
Conversations...
As you all know I'm a pro-choice, but my good friend Laura and I had conversation about women's rights versus fetal rights today and I thought I'd post my thoughts for you. The basic question was should mothers who don't treat their premature babies, like really early, more than 3 months which would've been miscarried in earlier historical times? 1. Murder is a harsh charge, perhaps manslaughter would be more appropriate. If the infant can breathe on it's own it's own person with a right to...
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
In Memoriam: David Armendariz
My good friend and fellow disability rights activist David Armendariz went home to God today. The enormous, Latino, quadriplegic was bilingual and big-hearted. His battle with Greyhound Bus Lines was the stuff of disability rights folklore. You see Greyhound claimed that they didn’t need to provide lifts on their buses because their staff was capable of carrying anyone in a wheelchair up the stairs and simply store their wheelchair in the bus’s luggage area. Of course, several of us heavy folks...
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Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Boycott Missouri!
Did you know that as of September 1 (according to this article which I was forwarded by a fellow disability rights activist), Missouri residents on Medicaid will no longer be eligible for "durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, hospital beds, catheters and enteral nutrition feeding tubes. The state will make exceptions for pregnant women, children, the blind and nursing homes residents.". According to Governor Matt Blutt estate can no longer afford these...
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