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cathexys boosted a good piece from the HuffPost about the cruel impact of medical bigotry due to the obesity panic.
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/
begin quote But I also think that some day historians will pore over his many speeches to black audiences. They will see a president who sought to hold black people accountable for their communities, but was disdainful of those who looked at him and sought the same. And then they will match that rhetoric of individual responsibility with the aggression the administration showed to bail out the banks, and the timidity they showed in addressing a foreclosure crisis which devastated black America (again.) And they will match the rhetoric with an administration whose efforts against housing segregation have been run of the mill. And they will match the talk of the importance of black fathers with the paradox of a president who smoked marijuana in his youth but continued a drug-war which daily wrecks the lives of black men. I think those historians will see a discomfiting pattern of convenient race-talk. quote ends
begin quote But one of the advantages of comics is that you're drawing frame after frame after frame, so almost in the background scenes you can create this atmosphere that's following the reader around, that doesn't necessarily relate to the foreground action but is somehow always present. For example, the way the buildings look—I can show that over and over again in the background, so in some ways I think you can really put the reader in that place, just with all these repeated images. If there's mud in the background, you can show that in every frame, so the mud is following the reader around. If you're a prose writer, really what you're doing is just mentioning it once, you're not going to keep mentioning it ever few lines—"and by the way, it was really muddy." So it's this constant reminder of what the place looks like. quote ends
'Glee' wheelchair episode hits bump with disabled
LOS ANGELES — The glee club members twirl their wheelchairs to the tune of "Proud Mary" and in joyful solidarity with Artie, the fellow performer who must use his chair even when the music stops.
The scene in Wednesday's episode of the hit Fox series "Glee," which regularly celebrates diversity and the underdog, is yet another uplifting moment — except to those in the entertainment industry with disabilities and their advocates.
For them, the casting of a non-disabled actor to play the paraplegic high school student is another blown chance to hire a performer who truly fits the role.
begin quote Disability figures here in archetypal societally negative ways. We can't live actual physical lives, we live lives of the spirit and of the heart; our bodies are useless and broken. Disability is both a burden (sigh) and a passage to being a better human. No longer the rebel youth, Mr. Addison is now a societally useful person: a healer. And regardless of whether it is true that he lay on a slab in a morgue, does the story have to be one of rebirth -- rebirth into a crippled life that ultimately is his healing?
These are cliches. Broken. Useless. Spiritually barren cliches. How bad it is it? Well, what do people think? The NYT comments on this story are what you would expect -- of the "oh, this is so beautiful, so inspiring type." People know how to read this stuff. Ms. Jones even becomes an "angel" (Commenter #46). This is the danger of writing this story in the way that Ms. Jones does. It's an exoticized "chicken soup for the soul" memoir (my phrase). As a writer, Ms. Jones has a responsibility to do better. quote ends
begin quote And knowing [passing details of Native objections, exploitation of Japanese and Chinese workers] made it easier for me to deal with. Easier for me to just glory in the story telling and admire the nature porn.
But then last night, FOUR NIGHTS into the series, I find out that these little epicenters of light and DEMOCRACY—these pantheons of joy and DEMOCRACY, these schools of enlightened thinking and DEMOCRACY—were actually racially segregated until at least the late 1930s.
…
Overall—I am really glad that he made the series. I’ll even watch it again. He makes a compelling argument against unfettered capitalism that I think many mainstream liberals really desperately need to hear. …
He’s used his privilege and his power to put the environment and a different way to understand masculinity, public service and nationalism on the table.
quote ends
coffeeandink's Ablism: Comment policy clarification. I think the ground is being made ready to address some of the deeper issues: interdependence, disability hierarchies, the tyranny of "normal." begin quote It’s not okay to call a coward a pussy, or a bad thing gay, they argue, because there’s nothing bad about having a vagina or being homosexual. But there IS something bad about not being mobile! In fact, it’s no fun at all, just totally miserable. All other things held equal, isn’t it better to be not-lame than lame?
[... snip ...]
But even accepting that impairment to mobility is itself a sucky thing, MAYBE DISABLED PEOPLE DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING THE CULTURAL GO-TO FOR THINGS THAT SUCK. quote ends
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badgerbag's outstanding analysis, Deconstructing Dick Cheney's Inaugural Wheelchair, which challenges the "Evil Nuclear Villain in Wheelchair" trope, even when it's so so, apropos for Mr Former Vice President.sasha_feather ponders Disability in Battlestar Galactica, and there's lots of it. What does it mean? Join the discussion.chasingtides combines internal and external experience to address Wheelchairs and Shotguns: Handicapped Other in Supernatural Fandom, and there's more good discussions as well.
One thing to keep in mind regarding a request for reasonable accommodation is that the accommodation does not have to be tied to the substantially limited major life activity that established that the employee has a disability. For example, a person with cancer may establish that she has a disability because she is substantially limited in normal cell growth, which is listed as a major life activity under the “bodily functions” category in the Amendments Act. However, her accommodation request is related to fatigue and nausea resulting from her medical treatment. Once the employee establishes that she has a disability, then the employer must consider providing accommodations for any limitations she has as a result of her impairment, not just the limitation that established her disability.
branchandroot