56 Million People with Disabilities Live in the United States

Sophie, 2007

I know I read somewhere that this year's election is costing something like 10 gazillion dollars -- all money that goes toward television ads, giant billboards, staffing, plane rides, dinner parties and barbecues and vote-buying, I imagine. Or influence-buying or whatever. And yeah, I know that some of that influence peddling is for causes that I support and believe in. But, whenever I hear the numbers -- from whatever side -- I feel nauseous for obvious reasons that I'm not going to talk about here. When the DNC calls me on the phone, asking for money, I hang up. I have donated absolutely nothing this year to the Obama campaign, NOT because I don't want him to win the election, but rather because I'm making, albeit ineffectually, a tiny little protest about the obscene amounts of money thrown around. I want to be able to say, in my heart, that I haven't contributed to the oligarchy -- at least in any meaningful way.

Allow me to be a bit narrow-minded in this space and pluck one issue out of the ether -- the issue of disability -- and judge the candidates running for President.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's economic and social platforms, particularly Ryan's Medicaid plan, spell disaster for children and adults with disabilities. Nearly every major disability policy expert, as well as non-profit foundation censures the Ryan plan.  I don't pretend to understand the complexities, although when I hear the word "voucher," I imagine myself shopping for healthcare for Sophie in the "free market" which makes me think about poking my eyeballs out with ice-picks. You can read about them (not my eyeballs -- the Ryan Plan and what it means for the disabled) HERE  and HERE.

“For each of the two years that Paul Ryan has been chair of the House budget committee, he’s produced budgets that we’ve opposed,” said Katy Neas, senior vice president for government relations at Easter Seals. “The pick of Paul Ryan gives people another opportunity to look at the policies that he and the other candidates have proposed.”

The website disabilityscoop.com  has good discussions about disability and politics, if you want to explore the issue further.

President Obama recently met with a group of youth with disabilities to discuss the needs of the community. While there was no one there with a severe disability, like Sophie, the issues addressed -- unemployment, inequality, access, inclusion, healthcare and medication -- were met by the President with seeming sincerity and seriousness. Aside from the Affordable Care Act, which is far from ideal but makes inroads for those with disabilities, it remains to be seen what progress will be made. Something tells me that true awareness and empathy for the most vulnerable in our country is a great step forward.



I'm waiting anxiously as are 56 million others in this great country.

Smells Like Bullshit, Part 3,456,789

There's not much meat on it anymore, but I've got a bone to pick. Maggie's mother posted this article on Facebook yesterday, and it riled me up. Actually, it didn't rile me up as much as make me sigh and grit my teeth and begin percolating. In a nutshell, California Children's Services Medical Therapy Program that serves disabled children, is on the chopping block again, and nearly 5,000 children will lose their physical and occupational therapies. The move will be carried out as part of a larger plan to balance the California budget which faces a $15.7 billion shortfall. Families making over $40,000 are being asked to pony up and pay their share.

Everyone has to sacrifice something, right? The policy-makers are said to have to make "very difficult decisions," but I smell bullshit. According to spokeswoman Michele Stillwell-Parvensky from the non-profit Children's Defense Fund of California, these cuts should be considered "cascading cuts, that have hit children -- particularly disabled -- in recent years as federal, state and local governments withhold money from school, health and childcare budgets." Just like the bone picked dry, the backs of these children with disabilities and their families are bent under the burden of incremental cuts made in the service of the "larger good."

I look around every single day and really don't see the sacrifices called for as being equally distributed. I see people driving enormous new vehicles that probably cost nearly $100.00 to fill up with gas that lasts for less than twenty miles. Many of these people believe it to be an American right to drive whatever car they desire. I see people buying multi-million dollar homes that demand enormous amounts of energy to heat and cool, their properties used as tax write-offs. Presidential contender Mitt Romney evidently has a three million dollar house in the tony coastal town of La Jolla that he is looking to tear down to build a bigger, eight million dollar one with a car elevator. But hey, here in America, if you make that kind of money, it's your right to spend it as you choose. And park it somewhere that you choose, too. The movie studio that produced The Avengers is paying one of its stars, Robert Downey, Jr., over $50 million for his role in the blockbuster, a movie that has pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars since it opened. And then there's the trillions spent in the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the madness of bombing people and children, sacrificing young men and women with the fake objective of liberty and justice for all.

I'm not going to belabor a point that I've made over and over again. Balancing the budget on the backs of disabled children and their families as "shared sacrifice," is bullshit in this country. And if we can't come together as a people who know lives of the greatest economic and military power and luxury that the world has probably ever known and make cuts and sacrifices elsewhere, well then, we're pathetic.

It's Time for Another Round of -- Part 5,652

Yes, I know there are many of you that are going to click off right about now, because you just don't like the controversial stuff, the ugly stuff, the politics. But I know there are many more of you that enjoy the dialogue and the conflict, the choir and the perverse, so I'm just going to continue until it's time for me to click off and do something constructive, like the laundry and the bed-making and the calling the insurance company.

Today I read that Mitt Romney spent $18.7 million dollars on his campaign last month. Okay. It's said that his money-making machine is drying up, and he might have to delve into his personal fortune (which is, I believe numbered in the billions, but correct me if I'm wrong) to keep going. Okay. I'm going out on a limb here and stating that I'm perfectly aware that this sort of obscene money is being spent and raised by the Democrats, too. Okay?


That's why when I read about the State of California and other states round the nation cutting programs for the disabled because there's no money, I smell bullshit. And when people argue about welfare queens and corruption and complain that food stamp collectors are just lazy and have enough money for manicures and pedicures and flat-screen televisions -- well -- I smell bullshit. And when people dismiss all of it and say that the government is bad and all politicians lack integrity and in so doing (dismissing all of it) absolve themselves of fighting for what they know is right, well -- I smell bullshit. And when the Catholics, the Orthodox Jews, the evangelical Christians and the Mormons claim their religious liberty and freedom is being threatened and trampled upon because the government of the United States, (of the people and for the people), insists that women's preventive health and  reproductive freedom is paramount over the insurance industry, I smell bullshit. I'll go out on another limb and say to these religious people, Are you out of your minds? Is your faith in God  and your Church so fragile that you feel under siege when you can't shove your beliefs down every throat?


I might be stupid (I did receive a C in Economics 101 in college, but damn, that was a boring class), but there's money enough in this country to keep caring for the disabled and the elderly, to keep educating the children and young adults and to ensure that every person has a flat-screen television. Just kidding on the last one -- I'm not sure anyone is reading this, by now.

Here's a great video of John Stewart's I Smell Bullshit:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Now I'm off to do my chores and refill my aerosol can with some sort of air freshener.

Sarcasm, not just implied

Romanian institution for disabled children, 2006

Funding for home health aides would be cut by 20%, and services for the disabled would be slashed by $100 million -- on top of deep reductions already made in those programs.


That could be the last straw for Michelle Franklin, 45, of Stockton, who receives just under $800 a month from the state to care for her schizophrenic son and an elderly neighbor. If her payments drop by 20%, she said, she may have to commit her child to a state mental hospital. "I love my son dearly and it's going to break my heart, but if they cut my hours I may have to make the decision to let my son go," Franklin said. "That's going to end up costing the state a lot more in the long run."



-- Los Angeles Times, Thursday, November 17th, 2011, in an article spelling out upcoming California budget cuts if revenue is not as expected in December.

"I earn my pay," adding, "Republicans earn their money."

-- GOP state Rep. Lou Blessing, Speaker Pro Tempore of the Ohio House of Representatives, in response to a proposal to cut taxpayer-financed politicians' salaries as a balance to cuts in teachers' taxpayer-balanced salaries, November 6th, 2011


(I was going to post a number of quotes from Newt Gingrich about shared sacrifice, and some information about the enormous amounts of money the man and his lovely wife have spent at Tiffany's over the years, all while espousing his individual "frugality," but I threw up a little bit in my mouth as I perused the stories and decided to call it a day.)

I know it's not simple,

but I'm wishing today that California Governor Jerry Brown hadn't vetoed adult day healthcare legislation. It sounds to me that once again, the elderly, the poor and the disabled are getting the shaft with only a weak argument from the old liberal himself.

Shame on you, Governor Brown.

Honestly? Can we keep the elderly and the disabled out of the budget? Or are we headed toward Depression times when the old, the infirm and the destitute were left in the streets to starve or perhaps caged in filthy, abusive institutions?

Shame on anyone who thinks the infirm and the disabled have to make sacrifices for our greater good.

For Robert Williams, 51, that combination of services has been invaluable. He moved across the country to care for his 81-year-old sister, Shirley, when Nolcox’s center alerted him that her memory had deteriorated to the point where she should not be living alone.

"She loves going to the daycare center," he said. "She has camaraderie, they keep her active, they exercise.... It gives her a reason to get up every day."

It took Williams nine months to find a job with a security company. Now he’s afraid he might have to quit if he can’t find another program for her.

"My sister is just one of thousands of people who need these services," he said. "And for them to be taken away is really a grave injustice.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Buster Keaton, absurd behind bars

I'm currently involved in a scintillating argument with the Powers that Be, trying to prove that an erroneous statement on an important document that says "mild retardation" should actually say "severe retardation" and thus be shuffled onto another pile altogether, the pile that warrants a bit more help, some protective supervision is what it's called and might be the cause, the reason for the extra help to prevent the sort of fall that causes bloody noses, bruised and bumped. Said argument entails numerous telephone conversations and back and forths, the requesting of letters and papers with official stamps, the clock keeps ticking eighteen months, the choice between acceptance of mild and wanting severe making my heart shrink, grow cold and a layer of bars.

Thinking about

1. this:

I will not tell families that have children with disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

Barack Obama

March 13, 2011

because it's about time and because it renews my hope that Obama and our country will do the right thing and because I was losing hope if not completely than nearly completely, particularly in regard to Obama. And I'm perfectly aware that this is entirely dependent on endless negotiations that will perhaps be fruitless, but I'm hoping it's not all talk --

2. and this:

the person on my Facebook page who brought up the birther -- what do I call it? -- shitstorm as a response to the above quote that I'd posted, stating that Obama has spent millions of dollars on lawyers to hide his birth certificate instead of giving it to organizations that help children with disabilities. I'm not going to think about it for too long, except in the context of how insensitive and ignorant the comment was and how it underlies a greater ignorance in our country and perhaps our world and how grateful I am to have the opportunity, the education, the smarts and the sensitivity to dispel ignorance about disability in general.

2. and this:

If you ban it, they will read it. That seems to be true thus far in the case of Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s 2007 book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops suggested should be banned from Catholic schools in a statement on March 24.

Read more HERE.


3. and the blog NERD BOYFRIEND because it's not all about strife and conflict

I'm Astonished

I was reading a fellow blogger's post today and am left speechless. Astonished. Her blog and mission is great -- but this post is particularly meaningful to those of us with children with severe disabilities. I'm not sure how difficult it is to get the services she describes as available, but the array is SENSATIONAL. She is a resident of our northern neighbor, Canada.

OH, CANADA!

Check it out HERE.

And then tell me what you think.