Disability has lately been a constant in the US news: Pope John Paul II, Terri Schaivo, and Christopher Reeve drew attention to end-of-life issues.
This near perfect storm encircling the drama of death has provided a wealth of intelligent writing from the disability community. What has become available, for those who know to look for it, is a fascinating anthology of thought and commentary presenting mainstream and dissenting opinion within disability culture.
The saga of Janeal Lee, Ms. Wheelchair Wisconsin, has the advantage of moving public attention closer to issues of social participation on the daily level – much like the lawsuit before the Supreme Court about disability discrimination on sea cruises, Spector et. al vs. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., has done.
But I give this week’s Think Globally - Act Locally! Award to what is, literally, a more pedestrian project – The Neighborhood Access Group. Yes, appropriately enough, that’s “NAG.”
What this group is doing is an inexpensive addition to anyone’s “inclusive development toolbag” and ought to be replicated widely.
Add NAG to the growing list of theatrically-savvy campaigns for public education and justice like SCOPE’s Free 2 Pee, Project for Public Spaces' Faking Places spoof on their Making Places newsletter, or the photo “outing” underway at Gimp Eye for the Clueless Guy.
What is being debated is an anthropology – a definition of what it is to be human.
The Rolling Rains Report subscribes to the new paradigm of disability that begins to answer that question by accepting disability as a normal occurrence; natural variability of human capacity and experience.
Disability does not negate the essential humanity of the person who experiences it. Changes in functionality over the lifecycle guarantee that all people are disabled at least at the earliest and latest stages of life – and some of us throughout the intervening years as well.
Further Reading:
“What Defines Disability?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4581539
Overlooked in the Shadows
By Harriet McBryde Johnson
Friday, March 25, 2005; Page A19
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64571-2005Mar24.html
Reasons To Oppose PAS
by Paul Lomgmore
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=47&ItemID=2092
Not Dead Yet
http://www.notdeadyet.org/
Neighborhood Access Group – NAGhttp://www.disabilityexchange.org/newsletter/article.php?n=35&a=182
Project for Public Spaceshttp://www.pps.org/
Gimp Eye for the Clueless Guyhttp://parking.textamerica.com
Posted by rollingrains at April 10, 2005 09:29 PM