From Orlando Sentinel in Florida:

Though she was born without hands, Katie Champagne does things many with two cannot. At age 17, she's a masterful equestrian and an aspiring artist and photographer.

That's why, when the tourist from Michigan was removed from a roller coaster at SeaWorld Orlando this week — one she had been on before — it was beyond frustrating.

"It was humiliating," she said.

According to Champagne and her parents, the episode Thursday on SeaWorld's Kraken coaster wasn't the first time that she has been kept from enjoying a visit to a Central Florida theme park.

In December, Champagne, a self-described Harry Potter superfan, says she was removed from the line outside Hogwarts Castle at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure park.

In both cases, Champagne says, she was told that her disability prevented her from safely holding onto restraints during the ride.

But Katie and her parents say she's capable of that and much more. Now, the family is determined to change the way some theme parks approach the disabled.

When she arrived in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in December, "Me and my cousin were so excited to be there," Katie says. "We were taking pictures of everything."

"We were just flipping out, really," she said with a laugh Friday. "I mean, it was a little embarrassing."

They got into line for the main attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. But soon, Champagne and her parents say, they were approached by a park employee, who told Katie she couldn't ride. Her parents say they discussed the situation with several park officials and their tickets were refunded.

On Thursday, Katie was back in Orlando, this time at SeaWorld. She says she boarded the Kraken, but the ride didn't start. She could see workers discussing. She knew what was coming.

Katie was born without hands, and without her left arm almost to the elbow. Without the use of prosthetics, Katie is co-captain of a state runner-up high-school equestrian team. She can rope climb, draw and carve pumpkins, to give a few examples.

Her parents have a photo of her riding the Kraken in December. As far as the Champagnes are concerned, the park's inconsistently applied policies ruined their SeaWorld trip.

"You can't put a price on taking a day of someone's life and turning it into a bad experience," said her father, Lt. Col. Doug Champagne, an Air Force veteran who has served six tours in the Middle East.

In a statement, a spokesman for SeaWorld Orlando said that the park regrets "any inconvenience or embarrassment this incident may have caused for the Champagne family."

"Our policies regarding guests with disabilities were written in consultation with ride safety experts, ride design consultants and manufacturers of each of our attractions," spokesman Nick Gollattscheck said.

Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said the park doesn't generally discuss "specific guest situations."

"Our policies treat the safety of our guests as a top priority and reflect everything from our own best practices and years of experience in this area to manufacturer guidelines," he said.

James Barber, a member and past president of the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials, said that it's important for theme parks to have specific rules and follow them.

He said making exceptions opens theme parks to liability and park-goers to danger. Safety rules, he says, "aren't just put there arbitrarily. They don't put those restrictions there to be mean."

Schroder said that, for "dynamic attractions," Universal guests "must be able to continuously grasp the shoulder restraint with at least one upper extremity."

In its statement, SeaWorld said a guest without hands cannot ride Kraken, "because the manufacturers guidelines require that a guest be able to grasp the pull-down harness with at least one hand."

Richard Bernstein, a blind Michigan attorney who represents clients in pro-bono federal disability suits, has been working with the Champagnes.

Bernstein says the requirement for Katie to grasp the harness "with at least one hand," rather than her arm, is an unnecessary distinction and possible violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"It doesn't matter what you grasp it with," Bernstein said. "It just matters that you can grasp it. You're not saying, 'Can you do this?' You're saying, 'You have to do this this way.' "

Bernstein and the Champagnes have been in contact with the U.S. Department of Justice and say that they're hoping to initiate an investigation of the theme parks' policies regarding the disabled.

"This is not a civil lawsuit," said Doug Champagne, who spoke with the Sentinel on Friday during a break from a day at Disney's theme parks, where the family rode all of the roller coasters and had no issues. "This is to get a policy fixed."

Katie Champagne doesn't like to ask for help and doesn't consider herself to be handicapped. She does have one request: "Don't put me in a box."

"Don't judge somebody just because they don't have hands or something like that," she said. "We can do everything you can do."

From The Jakarta Globe in Indonesia. In the picture, a blind man casts a ballot during a voting drill for disabled people at the Yogyakarta Election Commission in November.

Electoral laws must be amended to guarantee that people with disabilities are able to run for public office and vote freely, officials said on Feb. 1.

Hafiz Anshari, chairman of the General Elections Commission (KPU), said this guarantee was missing in the current legislation governing polls. The 2008 Law on Legislative Elections only states that those allowed to run should be “well-spoken and literate.”

“What I wish to see is for lawmakers to include a provision that explicitly states that those with disabilities may run, because in the prevailing law that guarantee is only implied,” he said.

Hafiz, speaking at the opening of a regional dialogue hosted by the Asean General Election Network for Disability Access (Agenda), stressed that it was important that people with disabilities be given the same chance to run as everyone else.

“Whether they go on to win or not is up to the voters and the political parties backing them, but what’s crucial is that they are first acknowledged,” he said.

“Our laws must provide them more room to participate as legislative candidates. The technical details are something that the KPU can work out.”

Ariyani Soekamwo, chairwoman of the Center for Elections Access for the Disabled, told the dialogue that although the right of disabled people to vote was enshrined in law, the reality on the ground was that they were often left out.

She said this was because of the lack of facilities for them at polling stations and a general lack of training for polling officials in dealing with the disabled.

“They often have to vote in booths that are too narrow [to accommodate a wheelchair], or they find that they have to go up a set of stairs to cast their vote,” she said.

Ariyani, who is blind, also said that not all polling stations provided sufficient ballots in Braille.

“In the 2009 presidential election, [Braille] ballots were provided, but there weren’t enough of them,” she said.

She urged the government to provide more funding for facilities that would make it easier for people with disabilities to vote, and also for training for polling officials.

“Even though the law guarantees the disabled a vote, the implementation is weak because officials don’t understand,” Ariyani said. She cited the case of a blind man who was barred from voting while his wife, with no disabilities, was allowed to cast her ballot.

“It’s a major human rights violation when a person is not allowed to vote because they are disabled,” she said.

Wardana, the deputy foreign minister, said there needed to be a change in the public mind-set to ensure that the disabled were allowed to stand for election and vote without hindrance.

From The Guardian in the UK:

Protesters against Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the wrap that will surround the Olympic Stadium (pictured) have opened a new front in their campaign, after Indian Paralympians issued fresh calls for a boycott of the London Games.

Girraj Singh, a silver medallist at the Asian Games and an Indian Paralympic triallist, said: "All Indian para‑atheletes should boycott the London 2012 Paralympics until Dow Chemical is dropped as a sponsor. The Indian Olympics Association (IOA) and Sports Ministry of India should show stronger protests against this sponsorship."

Other Indian Paralympic athletes including Trivendan Singh, Sonu Gupta, Bharat Kumar and Pradeep Raj also called on India to boycott the Games if the Dow link remained.

Campaigners believe that Dow has continuing liabilities relating to the 1984 Bhopal disaster that killed up to 20,000 people and seriously injured tens of thousands more. Dow argues that all liabilities stemming from its 2001 acquisition of Union Carbide, the company that owned the plant at the time of the disaster, have been settled in full.

The IOA has written to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games [Locog] to protest against Dow's sponsorship of the £7m wrap that will surround the stadium at Games-time, but it has dismissed talk of a boycott.

The issue of Dow's sponsorship was again placed in the spotlight last week when Meredith Alexander, one of 12 commissioners at the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, resigned in protest.

Barry Gardiner, the MP who is chair of the Labour Friends of India group which led a coalition of politicians protesting against the sponsorship, said: "Last week a sustainability commissioner resigned over Dow's Olympic sponsorship. Today Indian Paralympians have called for a boycott. These Paralympian athletes have worked their whole lives to take part in the Olympics. The fact that they are now calling for a boycott shows the strength of outrage should not be underestimated. These protests will only grow louder until Locog acts."

Tessa Jowell, the London 2012 board member and shadow Olympics minister, and the London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone have also called on Locog to drop Dow as a sponsor.

But London 2012's chairman, Lord Coe, has continued to defend the decision.

This week he said: "I of all people do understand the nature of the disaster in Bhopal. Half of my family live in India. I'm not hermetically sealed to this. But at the risk of sounding a bit like a cracked record, they were not the owners of the site at the time of the disaster, they were not the operators of the site at the time of the disaster, they were not the owners and operators of the site at the time of the first and full settlement that was then upheld on two separate occasions by the Indian supreme court.

"There are issues for the Indian government and the state of Madhya Pradesh to be dealing with, but this is not something Dow are responsible for. Dow have been an IOC sponsor since 2010."

Asked whether the controversy would overshadow preparations for the Games, Coe added: "Delivering an Olympic Games means you are permanently monitoring thousands of things. This is one of the things alongside lots of other things you are permanently across. But I think it's very important not to confuse two issues. Nobody for one moment is remotely unaware of the size and scale of that human disaster in 1984. But they were not operators or owners at the time, nor at the time of the final settlement."

From The LA Times:

An Iraq war veteran from Pasadena filed suit against the Department of Veterans Affairs on Wednesday over its refusal to pay her full disability benefits because she is in a same-sex marriage.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles by Tracey Cooper-Harris seeks a federal court ruling that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it discriminates against gays, lesbians and legally married same-sex couples.

Cooper-Harris, who earned the rank of sergeant and more than 20 medals during a dozen years of Army service, was honorably discharged in 2003 and married her spouse, Maggie, during the six-month period in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California. The veteran who trained and provided care for military animals in the war theater, such as explosives-sniffing dogs, has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since returning to civilian life and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010.

The regional VA medical center determined that Cooper-Harris' illnesses were "service-related," and she has been collecting benefits since the diagnosis, but at the lesser rate paid to single veterans. In her lawsuit, she notes that in the event of her death her surviving spouse won't be entitled to receive the compensation that would be paid if she were married to someone of the opposite sex.

"There is a good likelihood that multiple sclerosis will cause my death, and I just want to make sure that whatever benefits are available, that Maggie gets them if I do die," Cooper-Harris, 38, said in a telephone interview from Washington, where her lawsuit was announced.

The VA policy of recognizing only opposite-sex spouses as eligible for benefits "sends a disturbing message to gay and lesbian service members that the courage, commitment and sacrifice they make on behalf of their country are not valued as much as the service of heterosexual military veterans," said attorney Randall Lee, whose law firm is representing Cooper-Harris pro bono.

The Obama administration said a year ago that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the payment of any federal benefits to same-sex couples, in court after Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. issued an opinion that the 1996 statute is unconstitutional.

Justice Department spokesman Charles S. Miller did not immediately return a phone call for comment on the lawsuit filed against Holder and the VA.

Several challenges to the 14-year-old statute are making their way through federal courts in the Northeast. Cooper-Harris’ suit is the first to seek a ruling on the denial of military disability benefits on the basis of sexual orientation, Lee said.

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

A federal magistrate has refused to dismiss a suit by deaf Californians against CNN for its refusal to add closed captioning to news video clips on its website.

The lawsuit only alleges discrimination in the way the network delivers its news online and is not an attack on free speech, U.S. Magistrate Laurel Beeler of Oakland said Feb. 2.

The suit accuses CNN and its owner, Time Warner, of violating state disability laws by denying full online access to more than 100,000 Californians who are functionally deaf. CNN provides closed captions on television, as required by federal law, but its CNN.com website does not caption the brief video segments that make up most of its programming.

The network had argued that closed captioning can cause delays and inaccuracies and should be imposed, if at all, only by government regulations that cover all online news outlets.

Thomas Burke, a lawyer for the network, said in court papers that requiring a single news organization to use expensive technology would violate the First Amendment. He also argued that CNN acted within its "free-speech rights when it decided not to unilaterally use closed-captioning technology for Internet videos that would violate its editorial practices."

Lawyers for the deaf said modern closed captioning is both fast and accurate and would not affect CNN's message. At Thursday's hearing, Beeler said the suit could proceed because it was unrelated to the content of the newscasts and was directed instead at their delivery in a form that the plaintiffs could understand.

The ruling leaves other issues unresolved, such as whether CNN is bound to follow California's disability law or can rely on federal law, which does not require closed captioning of online video clips.

The Federal Communications Commission recently ordered captioning for full-length video programs on Internet newscasts, but its regulations do not cover video clips that last two or three minutes, said plaintiffs' attorney Laurence Paradis of Disability Rights Advocates.

Nevertheless, he said, the ruling should send a message to CNN and other networks that they are bound by civil rights laws.

"This case is going to set the precedent for the whole industry," Paradis said.

CNN did not respond to requests for comment.

The first part of the story in the Wall Street Journal:

DALLAS — The night Katie Brickman met Ian Welch at the bar, she knew right away the Iraq war veteran was the man she wanted to marry. (Both are pictured.)

That made it all the more jarring when he asked a favor as they said goodbye in the parking lot: "When you see me again, just say, 'Hi, Ian, you remember me,' so I'll know that we've met before."

So began the wartime love triangle of Ms. Brickman, Mr. Welch and his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Welch's amnesia, induced by the combination of PTSD and traumatic brain injury, leaves him struggling to remember events, words and friends, even Ms. Brickman. Most days, Mr. Welch doesn't change out of his pajamas. Small surprises—a traffic jam, a crowded waiting room, a loud noise, a change in plans—trigger anxiety and anger, echoes of the violence he dealt and endured.

The Iraq war is over for America and the end of the Afghan conflict is just over the horizon. But a generation of military families will face its physical and psychological consequences for years after most other Americans have put the wars behind them.

Unlike most couples coping with the aftermath of war, Ms. Brickman, 23 years old, and Mr. Welch, 28, fell in love more because of his wounds, than despite them. Both say they wouldn't be a couple if they had met before his wartime service. "I'm so happy with who he is, and he wouldn't be that way without his…experiences," said Ms. Brickman.

But, like others, their relationship is precarious. Devoting herself to Mr. Welch has put Ms. Brickman's own dreams on hold. She is both Mr. Welch's girlfriend and his government-paid caregiver under a new federal program for badly disabled veterans. She lives with the pressure of knowing if she ever left, he might slip deeper into the despair and confusion that mark their lives.

One recent day, Ms. Brickman asked Mr. Welch to drop a comforter at the dry cleaner, but when it was ready, he had forgotten which shop. The lapse embarrassed him, and he lashed out during a car ride.

"Katie, I need you to talk to me right now and explain how this is going to be OK," he said, frantically lighting a cigarette.
[PTSD_A1] Gilles Bassignac/Gamma via Getty Images

Ian Welch reported to boot camp on Sept. 10, 2001. After three tours of duty in Iraq, he retired on Feb. 27, 2010, for medical reasons, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Later, as Ms. Brickman hunted for a receipt, he said: "I feel like I'm weak. I feel like I'm stupid. How am I going to remember to drop my kids off at school? How am I going to remember what school they go to? How am I going to be a father?"

The questions also bedevil Ms. Brickman. "I don't worry about us as a couple," she said during a moment alone. "I worry if we have kids, will he get mad at them?"

Mr. Welch was born near College Station, Texas, where his mother and father dated and married while attending Texas A&M University. He was an easygoing boy, artistic with a goofy side, a B student who threw himself into art and English. His best friend remembers him showing up at high school with a breakfast of hash browns in one pocket and a toothbrush in another.

The field work of his father, John Welch, an entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, took the family to Central America. His mother, psychologist Nancy Welch, worked as a therapist during their years abroad.

As a boy, Mr. Welch imagined his G.I. Joe toys planting the Marine Corps flag he received from his mother's stepfather. When he was about 11 years old, his paternal grandfather, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, shared memories from his service in the Pacific. His grandfather talked about leading patrols and losing friends. He described the guilt he felt for failing to spot the ambushes that killed them.

That night, Mr. Welch said, he decided to join the military. At the end of high school, he visited the Marine Corps office in College Station and told the recruiter he wanted to be an infantryman. He reported to boot camp on Sept. 10, 2001, standing 6 foot, 2 inches and weighing 120 pounds—wraith-thin, just like his grandfather.

He was also a grunt like his grandfather. On April 7, 2003, Mr. Welch's battalion was outside Baghdad, pounding Iraqi positions and waiting to attack across the Diyala bridge. Mr. Welch knelt with his back to an armored vehicle, cleaning his bullets. On each, he wrote the name of a friend or relative.

Moments later, a 155-mm artillery shell landed inside the top hatch of the vehicle behind him. The explosion knocked Mr. Welch unconscious and killed two men inside. When he came to, his vision was blurred. Blood dripped from his ears. Wounded men nearby screamed for help.

Gunnery Sgt. Jean-Paul Courville saw Mr. Welch standing in the open, disoriented and exposed to enemy snipers. "What's going on?" Gunnery Sgt. Courville, now a sergeant major, recalled Mr. Welch asking. He told Mr. Welch to help tend to the casualties.

Mr. Welch's memories are hazy. But he recalled seeing the vehicle's interior painted with blood and realizing he was stepping on someone's brains. He vomited. Then he helped collect the dead men's remains in a sleeping bag.

From Horse Talk in New Zealand:

Could paralympic equestrians one day be competing against their able-bodied counteparts at the Olympic Games?

Research by the University of Liverpool predicts that the rise of human enhancement and prosthetics could lead to the end of a separation between Olympic and Paralympic competitions.

Dr Beatriz Garcia, from the University of Liverpool, and Professor Andy Miah, from the University of the West of Scotland, say that the rise of human enhancement and prosthetics is rapidly changing the rules of the Games.

This is blurring the agreed view of what constitutes an unfair advantage for an athlete and could lead to the merger of the Olympic and Paralympic competitions.

"Paralympians like Oscar Pistorius (pictured) signal the rise of athletes whose biology is given a boost by technology," Garcia said.

"He is the first of a coming generation of athletes who will challenge the legitimacy of separating the Paralympics from the Olympics.

"We envisage that in 50 years, people will prefer to watch prosthetically enhanced Paralympic sport. The Olympics will seem far too primitive by comparison. This will dramatically change society's approach to disability.

"The Games also contribute to breaking the perceived boundaries between abled and disabled bodies by presenting a joint cultural programme that brings the disability arts movement into the mainstream and forces us to blur distinctions between abled and disabled artists."

The researchers also predict that London 2012 will be the first 'Twitter Olympics' and a showcase for 'citizen journalists' using their mobile devices to share their Games experiences worldwide.

The rise of social media will have future implications for the Olympic Games financial base, as traditional broadcasting media battle to retain control of their exclusive content agreements.

The researchers explore the most critical issues facing the Olympic games in a new publication, "The Olympics: the Basics".

The rise of the Games as a commercial entity leads the authors to call for the implementation of a term length for Olympic sponsors to avoid over-commercialisation and the corrupting influence of exclusive partnerships.

They also argue for the formation of International Cultural Federations to more effectively stand up to the dominant sports industries, as they argue the Olympics is not just about sport.

Garcia has undertaken research at six Olympic Games and notes: "The Olympic Games have been overwhelmed by the sports industries but, while the athletes are the heart of the Games, the Olympics also need other vital organs to function.

"Education and culture are those organs, but to really shape the Olympics they need to re-organise and, especially, create an infrastructure of knowledge transfer that operates from one Games to the next.

"We hope this research will fill in the gaps for many people, as they are overwhelmed with mostly official Olympic messages.

"The publication is written for general interest, covering all dimensions of the Games, and aims to reach beyond academia. People need to know what is about to happen here in the UK, beyond what they are told through the official Olympic channels.

"Our book aims to put 2012 in context and highlights radical changes ahead for future Games editions."

• Dressage is currently the only equestrian sport included in the Paralympic Games. In recent years there have been moves by the British Para Show Jumping Association to have jumping included in the Games.

From Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles may be the land of the freeway, but it is notorious for its bad sidewalks — buckled, cracked and sometimes impassable. By the city's own estimate, 42% of its 10,750 miles of pedestrian paths are in disrepair.

Now a series of civil-rights lawsuits against Los Angeles and other California cities is for the first time focusing attention — and money — on a problem that decades of complaining, heated public hearings and letter-writing campaigns could not.

The lawsuits were filed by disabled people who say broken sidewalks make it impossible for them to get around and seek repairs or improvements. The plaintiffs contend that the conditions violate the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, a tool that has been used across the country to force better access at restaurants, department stores, movie theaters and the like.

The tactics are already paying off. In the biggest sidewalk-related settlement in California, the California Department of Transportation in 2009 agreed to spend $1.1 billion over 30 years to fix state-controlled sidewalks, crosswalks and park-and-ride facilities.

Sacramento settled a similar case by agreeing to allocate 20% of its annual transportation fund over the next 30 years to make repairs and install ramps.

In Los Angeles, the city has settled two cases for about $85 million. That money will be used over the next two decades to build thousands of sidewalk access ramps at curbs.

But there are four other cases pending that could leave the city on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fixing all of Los Angeles' sidewalks would be a daunting task: Officials estimate the cost of improving them all would top $1.5 billion. But advocates for the disabled hope they can make a measurable dent in the problem.

"The city has never developed a comprehensive plan to address this issue, even when economic times were good," said Surisa Rivers, an attorney with the L.A.-based Disability Rights Legal Center. "Such failure hasn't been a story about the city's inability to finance disability access, but the lack of political will to do so."

The campaign is being led by the disabled but is also winning support from advocates of alternative transportation. They argue the city spends far too much fixing roads and not enough making L.A. a more walkable place.

"We need to think of our streets as a place that we move people not just in their car, but on their feet, on a bike and on a bus," said Deborah Murphy, founder of L.A. Walks. "That's our public space…our streets are where we get together."

There is little dispute that the sidewalks are an embarrassment. But some officials question what the city can do when it already faces a $72-million budget shortfall.

"We got at this point because the city is not invested in its infrastructure," said Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who added that the problem is difficult to solve because "there is no money."

Disabled residents like 53-year-old Brent Pilgreen say bad sidewalks mean they are effectively unable to safely leave the block they live on. Pilgreen, who is quadriplegic and uses a motorized wheelchair, is a plaintiff in one of the cases.

"I can't make it north, south, east or west to any commercial business without having to go through some sort of gantlet or ride in the street and compete with cars," he said.

As a test, Pilgreen recently embarked on an arduous journey to the Denny's a few blocks from his home in Sherman Oaks. Even with a few recent improvements to the sidewalks, he couldn't make it because of a metal sign pole stuck in the middle of the path.

"If I want to go out of my house ... If I want to go up to the corner and buy an ice cream or anything, a soda pop, I can't go there," he said. "I have to have a secondary person with me to spot me and prevent me from falling."

City lawyers believe they can successfully defend against the lawsuits.

While repairing and maintaining roads has long been the duty of City Hall, the responsibility for sidewalks has a more murky history. Decades ago L.A. homeowners had to directly pay for their sidewalks through an assessment process.

That lasted until 1973, when residents complained and the City Council assumed responsibility for needed repairs because of damage from tree roots. Money for that work quickly ran out and officials have tried to reinstate the previous practices with little success, often maintaining that property owners already own the sidewalks and are responsible for repairs.

Nazario Sauceda, head of the Bureau of Street Services, said that for several years his department has received no funding for permanent sidewalk repair, which can cost $250,000 to $300,000 per mile.

Instead, city workers mostly rely on temporary measures: pothole-repair trucks dumping hot asphalt on cracks and breaks in the concrete pavement. But that can be an obstacle in itself because the asphalt creates protruding black bumps that are difficult to navigate in a wheelchair.

The sidewalks in Judy Griffin's West L.A. neighborhood are in such bad shape that she often rides her wheelchair in the street because she refuses to be sequestered in her home.

But it isn't easy. She has tipped over on Westwood Boulevard while trying to get to a physical therapy appointment, was struck by a motorist who didn't see her crossing an intersection, has powered through low-hanging branches and has fought seemingly endless battles with City Hall to improve the sidewalk on her own street.

Griffin said she often feels like a second-class citizen and is frustrated that city officials are not more empathetic to those with disabilities and have bigger projects in mind than fixing sidewalks and curbs.

Pilgreen in a class-action suit. "It's very easy to go for the big gold, to go for the stadium, rather than patch up the sidewalks for people you don't value."

From The Jewish Week. Pictured is the film Ocean Heaven, a Chinese film about an autistic son and his father (played by Jet Li in his first dramatic role), which will open the ReelAbilities NY Film Festival Feb. 9.

What is the largest minority group in the United States? Hint: it is the only minority group to which anyone may belong, a group that many of us will join with the passage of time, but a group that is woefully underrepresented in many elements of American life, including the arts.

As the U.S. Census defines members of this group, they are “persons with a limitation in a functional activity or a social role,” more commonly referred to as people with disabilities, and they make up 20 percent of the population. But, as the fourth annual ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival, which runs from Feb. 9-14, reminds us, a frustratingly small percentage of the films made here touch on their lives.

“America is not leading the way, unfortunately,” says Isaac Zablocki, director of film programs at the JCC in Manhattan, which organizes and hosts the event here. “The fewest films in the festival come from American filmmakers because they exist in a commercial system with almost no governmental support. Audiences shy away from the topic.”

The programmers for ReelAbilities have a simple solution.

“We scare the shyness out of them,” Zablocki says, chuckling. “People come away from the festival saying, ‘I want to see more.’”

The connection between the JCC and ReelAbilities is typical of a growing awareness in the Jewish communal world of the neglect of people with disabilities both in the Jewish community and the world at large. As recent stories in this newspaper have underlined, Jewish organizations have been taking a more proactive stance on these issues.

“Minorities frequently find one another,” Zablocki says. “The JCC doesn’t position this as a specifically Jewish event; we try to be as inclusive as possible. But this has been a conscious mission of the Jewish community, and I would hope we would be as active at the forefront as we were in the beginnings of the civil rights movement. We receive generous support from UJA-Federation [of New York], and as we go around the country promoting the festival we find the Jewish community heavily involved.”

The very fact that ReelAbilities is promoted around the country sets it apart from most film events. Quite simply, the festival is promoted around the country because, by design, it is held around the country. It is a national event that will take place in a dozen cities this year, as well as in 23 locations in the New York metropolitan area.

The criteria by which films are judged for selection are unique as well. Of course, the committee that programs films for ReelAbilities is looking for good films. But it is seeking something more.

“We look for great films, but a film’s approach to disability is equally important,” Zablocki explains. “A lot of films take a pity approach or condescend to their characters with disabilities. We take a more progressive approach. We favor films that are about the people, not the disability. We are looking to give viewers access to a world in which some of the characters happen to have a disability.”

The programmers are also looking for a no-holds-barred tone.

“We’re not afraid to be in-your-face, not afraid to show anything,” he continues. “Frankly, we’re more impressed by movies that have it ‘in-your-face.’ They’re often the better films. Any film that needs to dance around the topic is not going to present it realistically. No pity. No shame. The films that really put it ‘out there’ are the most honest pieces.”

The festival also actively seeks out films made by people with disabilities, films that offer “an insider’s look at these stories,” as Zablocki puts it.

The bulk of the films in the festival come from countries where subsidies are available to filmmakers and where — regardless of other political circumstances — there is a strong governmental impetus to support people with disabilities.

“We get a lot of films from China,” Zablocki says. “This year’s opening night film, ‘Ocean Heaven,’ is Chinese. There appears to be a real interest in these issues from their government.”

“Ocean Heaven” is the story of a father trying to teach his autistic son to manage on his own. Interestingly, the father is played by martial-arts star Jet Li, in his first dramatic role. For Li the film was a labor of love, connected to the charitable foundation he heads.

One of the films about which Zablocki is particularly enthusiastic is the Iranian feature “Mourning.”

“This is a fantastic film about a deaf couple trying to find a way to tell their nephew that his parents have been killed in an accident,” he says. “We actually kept the door open a bit [past our deadline] so that we could have the film in the festival.”

The continued success and steady growth of ReelAbilities may be a reflection of a greater global sensitivity to issues of disability both in and outside of the film industry. Zablocki takes hope from the success of “The Surrogate,” a film about real-life poet and journalist Mark O’Brien, who as a child contracted polio, which paralyzed him from the neck down. Written and directed by Ben Lewin, a Jewish polio survivor, the film won the Audience award for dramatic features at this year’s Sundance festival, and was acquired for theatrical distribution by Fox Searchlight.

In the meantime, Zablocki expects the event to grow, with the addition of an on-line presence and more venues in the years to come.

“Hey, we haven’t done an event in California, yet,” he says. “We’re not limiting our growth at all.”

The fourth annual ReelAbilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival runs Feb. 9-14 all over the city. In addition to the film screenings, there are many programs with speakers, Q&A sessions with filmmakers and more. For locations, schedule and information, go to http://newyork.reelabilities.org.

From the United Nations:

The United Nations welcomed Jan. 30 the ratification by Iraq of a convention that protects, promotes, and ensures the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified last week by the Iraqi Government, covers a number of key areas such as accessibility, personal mobility, health, education, employment, habilitation and rehabilitation, participation in political life, and equality and non-discrimination.

“The ratification of this convention by Iraq marks a historic step in ensuring that persons living with disabilities enjoy full participation in the Iraqi society and can contribute to the community to their full potential,” said Francesco Motta, chief of the human rights unit of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Iraq.

Mr. Motta stressed that the ratification represents the Government’s recognition of the “potential contribution which persons with disabilities can make to society if given the same opportunities enjoyed by other Iraqi citizens.”

UNAMI noted in a news release that the ratification requires Iraq to introduce measures such as anti-discrimination legislation, the elimination of laws and practices that discriminate against persons with disabilities, and considering these persons when adopting new policies and programmes. Other measures include making services, goods and facilities accessible to them.

“The important thing now is for the Government of Iraq to ensure that the provisions of the convention are implemented,” Mr. Motta said. “The best way to do this is in consultation with civil society organizations and representatives of people with disabilities so as to ensure that measures taken to implement the convention promote and protect their right to participate equally in the economic, social and political life of Iraqi society without discrimination.”

from UPI:

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia hospital that initially denied a kidney transplant for a 3-year-old girl is now willing to consider the procedure, the girl's parents said.

Chrissy and Joseph Rivera said they met with medical personnel at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Friday about the possibility of a transplant for their daughter Amelia, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday. The Riveras said they were not told if Amelia would be medically eligible for the transplant.

"As of now, we're taking this as a positive sign," Chrissy Rivera said.

Amelia, who has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, received national attention when Chrissy wrote a blog post accusing the hospital of denying the kidney transplant because of the girl's mental disability. Chrissy said the girl's chart initially listed mental retardation as a reason not to perform the procedure, though those words were later removed.

"If there's a medical reason" a kidney transplant would be a bad idea, Chrissy said, "of course we're not going to do it."

She said Amelia's case will be further reviewed to determine if she's a good candidate for the procedure.

As of Monday, 37,000 people had signed a petition on change.org, asking the hospital to allow the transplant, the Inquirer reported.

From Sun-Times Media Wire:

CHICAGO - The city announced Jan. 28 it has filed 15 separate lawsuits against cab owners not in compliance with current wheelchair accessibility requirements.

A city investigation found the owners were not providing the required number of wheelchair accessible cabs, according to a release from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office.

Recently adopted ordinances require cab owners with more than 20 medallions to have at least five percent of their fleet as functioning wheelchair accessible vehicles, the release said.

“We are committed to providing better, more accessible taxi service for disabled Chicagoans,” Emanuel said in the release. “Today’s efforts, in conjunction with the taxi reforms passed by City Council this month, mark important steps toward this goal.”

The city is seeking the revocation of the medallion licenses that were required to be wheelchair accessible vehicles, the release said. The cases are up for first status hearings March 2012 in front of the city’s Department of Administrative Hearings.

“Taxicabs are a critical transportation option for people with disabilities living in or visiting Chicago,” city Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Rosemary Krimbel said in the release. “Today’s actions reflect our commitment to ensure that the rules we have in place to protect the rights of people with disabilities are enforced.”

The new ordinance also provides incentives for cab owners to place more wheelchair accessible vehicles into service.

Intro to the story in the Kansas City Star. Pictured is Becky Noland, who has muscular dystrophy, has been collecting Social Security disability benefits for years. Her fiance, John Hale, has been trying to get benefits for years, but hasn’t succeeded. They live in Lincoln, Mo.

WARSAW, Mo. -- Around this rural county seat 100 miles southeast of Kansas City, 1 out of every 8 people of working age is home collecting disability checks from the Social Security Administration.

That compares to about 1 in 20 for the Kansas City area — which may sound low, but it’s climbing here, too.

Everywhere, Americans below retirement age are surviving on Social Security disability benefits and, with baby boomers aging in a slow economy, applications are exploding. Each year since the onset of the recession, more than 400,000 have been joining the system’s disability rolls, where they collect a monthly average of about $1,000.

But where are they most apt to collect it? A recent tabulation of data nationwide reveals the highest concentrations of communities subsisting on disability benefits, per capita, to be in historically poor, rural settings.

They’re often places where two-lane highways wind around wooded hills, where mining or manual farm labor once put food on the table, and access to medical care has long been limited.

Poverty begets bad health and greater rates of disability, experts say, and disabilities often lead to deeper poverty.

In Benton County, Mo., where city folk enjoy camping and shopping for antiques around Truman Lake, Becky Noland, 32, lives on little more than the $716 monthly allotment that Social Security provides. Both of her parents collect disability, and a fiancé is trying to after three back operations plus a stroke that weakened his right side.

Noland said she knows people who game the system. One bought a motorcycle with disability benefits awarded on a claim of being legally blind, she said.

“That makes me angry,” Noland said from her wheelchair. Muscular dystrophy has withered her legs and curled her fingers.

The maladies afflicting some of her countryside neighbors are far less visible — back pain, mood disorders, heart issues, the whole range of physical and emotional side effects from serving in Vietnam or the more recent theaters of war.

Not all of this region’s disabled grew up here. Many moved in from the cities because life is more affordable in a mobile home outside Warsaw or at an RV park lakeside.

In four contiguous west-central Missouri counties — Benton, Hickory, St. Clair and Morgan — the unemployment rate ranges between 9 percent and 12 percent. Add to those jobless rolls the 10 percent to 13 percent of residents between ages 15 and 64 collecting Social Security disability checks.

That’s according to an analysis of 2009 data by Mississippi State University researcher Roberto Gallardo and the nonprofit Center for Rural Strategies.

The per-capita rates of disability beneficiaries were higher yet in the Missouri Bootheel and rural parts of Alabama, Arkansas and the Appalachians. The website Daily Yonder reported that Buchanan County, Va., led the nation with 27 percent of working-age people on federal disability benefits in 2009.

The national average for working age but disabled?

It’s calculated at 4.6 percent, up from about 2.5 percent of the nonelderly adult population in the mid-1980s.

“You find higher rates in counties historically reliant on extraction industries — mining, agriculture, forestry,” said Tim Marema of the Center for Rural Strategies.

Where the mining has vanished, as in parts of west-central Missouri, generations of workers have been afflicted by struggling economies, low-paying jobs, poor access to health care and long, hilly drives to the nearest hospital.

Other experts say an array of factors — including the erratic, subjective system for determining who gets benefits and why — might figure into one community’s high reliance on disability income versus another’s low reliance.

In several rural and economically stressed counties in the Kansas outback, for example, the share of beneficiaries was calculated to be well below the national norm.

From The NY Times:

New York City’s health watchdogs warn that drinking too much sugary soda could cost you a leg. But you also might lose a limb if you appear in one of their ads.

A blunt new poster from the Bloomberg administration shows an overweight man on a stool, his right leg missing below the knee. A pair of crutches leans against a wall beside him. The advertisement, being placed throughout the subway system, warns that ever-growing portions of fast food and sodas could cause diabetes, which could lead to amputations.

But it turns out that the person shown in the advertisement did not need crutches because his legs were intact. The health department confirmed on Tuesday that its advertising agency had removed the lower half of the man’s leg from the picture to make its point: the headline over the image reads “Portions have grown. So has Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations.”

When city officials announced the campaign on Jan. 9, they did not let on that the man shown — whose photo came from a company that supplies stock images to advertising firms and others — was not an amputee and may not have had diabetes. The city did not identify the man, and efforts to reach the agency that supplied the photo were unsuccessful. The photographer who took the picture, Morten Smidt, said he did not know the man’s name.

Mr. Smidt said on Tuesday that he had not seen the advertisement. In response to a description of it, he said, “Well, it is an illustration now, clearly not the picture I did.”

In a news release about the campaign, the health department said that in 2006, nearly 3,000 New Yorkers with diabetes were hospitalized for amputations. The advertisements are the latest in a series of attention-grabbing messages about the dangers of smoking, drinking and consuming too many sweets and fatty foods. Other advertisements that the health department sponsored featured a grizzled smoker who talked through a voice box and a woman named “Marie” from the Bronx who showed off what appeared to be fingers whose tips had been lost to smoking.

City officials said those advertisements were testimonials that showed real people and real consequences. But they said that doing so was not always feasible. “Sometimes we use individuals who are suffering from the particular disease; other times we have to use actors,” said John Kelly, a health department spokesman. “We might stop using actors in our ads if the food industry stops using actors in theirs.”

The American Beverage Association, which opposes the city’s efforts against sodas and fast food, called the advertisement overwrought. “This is another example of the ‘What can we get away with?’ approach that shapes these taxpayer-funded ad campaigns,” Chris Gindlesperger, the association’s director of communications, said in a statement.

Bob Garfield, a commentator for Advertising Age and National Public Radio, said that the misrepresentation “was lazy or cheap or silly, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.” Still, he said, “Why people lie when there’s no penalty for telling the truth is an absolute mystery to me.”

From United Cerebral Palsy Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington. Pictured is a sheltered workshop in Minnesota. For the complaint, a fact sheet, and press coverage, click here.

PORTLAND, Oregon – – Advocates for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities filed a class action lawsuit January 25 challenging Oregon’s failure to provide supported employment services to more than 2,300 state residents who are segregated in sheltered workshops where they perform mundane tasks, such as folding UPS bags.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, charges state officials with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by confining individuals with disabilities to segregated settings where they have little – if any – interaction with non-disabled peers. Moreover, they are paid far below the state’s minimum wage of $8.80 for doing rote tasks that offer no training, no skills, and no advancement.

For more than a decade, lead plaintiff Paula Lane, 48, has had the same request: “Find me an outside job.” Instead, she and 137 other people with disabilities package gloves or put parts into boxes on assembly lines in a noisy and crowded sheltered workshop in Beaverton. Despite her request for competitive employment and her high performance scores, her individualized service plan has no goals related to employment. She lives in an apartment with staff support, and would like to go to a country music concert or attend an Upward Bound camp, but her resources are limited. Over a 12-month period in 2010-11, she made a high of 66 cents an hour.

Another plaintiff, Lori Robertson, 51, performs mundane tasks at a sheltered workshop in Gresham. She has been assigned to these segregated settings since 1981. Robertson earned $126.15 for 53.9 hours of work in December 2011 – which works out to $2.34 an hour. She lives in a group home and would like to earn at least minimum wage in an integrated job in the community. She also would like to go bowling or horseback riding, but has little money left after paying her bills.

According to the lawsuit, Oregon currently spends $30 million a year confining individuals with disabilities to sheltered workshops. The plaintiffs contend it would be much cheaper to fund programs that promote integrated, supported employment. They cite a 2010 Call for Action Report issued by the state’s Office of Developmental Disability Services that recognized “cumulative costs generated by sheltered employees may be as much as three times higher than the cumulative costs generated by supported employees – $19,388 versus $6,618.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Disability Rights Oregon, Miller Nash, Perkins Coie, and the Center for Public Representation.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act recognizes that discrimination against individuals with disabilities includes intentional segregation and relegation to lesser service jobs,” said Bruce Rubin, partner at Miller Nash. “This law protects individuals with developmental disabilities, like the named plaintiffs in this lawsuit.”

Ironically, throughout the 1980s, Oregon was at the forefront of a national movement to reduce the number of sheltered workshops and increase opportunities for integrated and supported employment. However, beginning in the mid-1990s, the state changed course and the raw number and percentage of people served in sheltered workshops more than doubled, while the number and percentage served in supported employment has almost halved. This reversal, ascribed to a lack of commitment to expanded supported employment programs and to a drop-off in federal monies for such programs, coincided with the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Olmstead v. L.C. that ordered states to develop concrete, measurable plans to integrate disabled persons into the general population.

“Requiring integration in employment is the next natural step for obeying the integration mandate required by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Department of Justice,” said Steven Schwartz, litigation director at the Center for Public Representation.

“It is time to require that the State of Oregon follow the law,” said Bob Joondeph, executive director of Disability Rights Oregon.

“We want the state to provide supported employment programs in integrated employment settings and to develop measurable plans that describe modifications to the state’s employment service system,” said Lawrence Reichman, partner at Perkins Coie.

Joondeph cited the plaintiffs’ segregation and inequitable wages, and added, “They deserve better.” For example, 28-year-old Sparkle Green wants “a community job,” but no one has discussed integrated employment options with her or offered her supported employment services. She has almost perfect performance scores at the Beaverton sheltered workshop, but earned less than 46 cents an hour in August, 39 cents an hour in September, and 29 cents an hour in October.

Gretchen Cason, 27, was referred to a sheltered workshop that purported to provide employment services, but instead offered only crafts projects, and she spent three years watching television or coloring. If she ever has the chance, she would work in a music store or an ice cream parlor. As she explains, what she wants is “a job that’s not boring.”

Andres Paniagua, 32, works with 66 other individuals with disabilities in a sheltered workshop that cuts steel. Mr. Paniagua has worked in every department from the machine shop to the front office. Despite his demonstrated ability, interest, and repeated requests for outside integrated employment, he has not been afforded any community-based options. Rather, the goal outlined in his “individualized” service plan calls for more segregation: “opportunities in employment in a workshop setting and for activities and socialization with other people with disabilities.”

The other named plaintiffs are Angela Kehler, 48, who has been forced to remain in sheltered workshops since she was laid off from a successful job placement at a drugstore; Elizabeth HarrahZavier Kinville, 27, who is stuck at a sheltered workshop, awaiting an opportunity for integrated community employment. Kinville has volunteered in the community, where his favorite job was reading to children.

United Cerebral Palsy of Oregon and Southwest Washington (UCP), which serves adults, children, and families experiencing cerebral palsy and intellectual and developmental disabilities, is an organizational plaintiff in the lawsuit. UCP executive director Ann Coffey said its efforts to increase supported employment programs have been frustrated by the state's diversion of resources into sheltered workshops. As alleged in the lawsuit, thousands of individuals with disabilities are unable to get supported employment services because the Department of Human Services (DHS) administers and funds an employment system that relies primarily on sheltered workshops.

The plaintiffs are asking the federal court to direct the state to end their needless segregation in sheltered workshops and to provide supported employment services to enable them to participate in competitive employment in integrated settings as mandated by federal law.

The lawsuit, Lane v. Kitzhaber, names as defendants Governor John Kitzhaber; Erinn Kelley-Siel, DHS director; Mary Lee Fay, administrator of the Office of Developmental Disability Services; and Stephanie Parrish Taylor, administrator of the DHS Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services.

From WMAR-TV in Baltimore:

Disturbing video has surfaced of a autistic boy in Cecil County who is punched by another boy while other children watch.

The victim, Kaleb Kula, (pictured) is a sixth-grader at Elkton Middle School.

“I knew I was probably going to get injured,” he told ABC-2 News. “I wasn't really scared because I knew what would happen.”

Kaleb also said he’s been the victim of bullying at school for years. He's been diagnosed with a form of autism, along with attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder.

“At least kids that don't have special needs can defend themselves a little bit more. He's pretty much defenseless,” said his father, James Kula.

During a typical day at school Kaleb says the other kids: “Call me homosexual. They try kicking me, pushing me, punching me, and a lot of other things.”

His parents say they've made dozens of requests for help.

“It’s very stressful I mean you worry all the time, is he going to have a good day, are they going to do anything about when he has trouble with other students,” said Kaleb’s mother, Jessica Kula.

School officials declined to speak about Kaleb's case specifically, but they say offending children can be disciplined. And they also bring parents together to discuss issues between students.

Elkton Police tell ABC-2 News the boy in the video who hits Kaleb Kula has been charged as a juvenile with second-degree assault.

But the Kulas say the school system never did anything until last year, when they were told to fill out a form officially reporting that their son was being bullied.

“We have a policy that we follow, the investigation is conducted and no matter how that report gets to those administrators they will follow through and look into the situation,” said Kelly Keeton, of the Cecil County Public Schools.

The child who took the video posted it on his Facebook page where it was viewed by dozens of students and also Kaleb's parents. “It feels terrible as a parent to watch that happen to your son. And I just can't believe that kids can be so mean,” said Jessica Kula.

Kaleb hasn't been back to school since Tuesday; his parents say he will try to go back again on Friday.

“I'm going to try to put this behind but then it's going to come running back in front of me and confront me again. That's what I think will happen,” Kaleb said. “It's like a groundhog trying to run from its shadow.”

From KOMO-TV:

Some would say that sight AND sound are essential for a truly enjoyable movie experience. So, when the University of Washington unveiled a plan to organize the Seattle Deaf Film Festival- the first of its kind in the Northwest- the challenge was set.

Kicking off March 30 through April 1, the festival hopes to create a truly one-of-a-kind movie experience for people unable to hear the action on screen. UW’s ASL and Deaf Studies Program has partnered with Deaf Spotlight, a nonprofit that focuses on the culture and creativity of the deaf community, to make this festival happen.

“Our program aims to create awareness of deaf culture,” Lance Forshay, lecturer and coordinator of the ASL and Deaf Studies Program, told UW’s Perspectives newsletter this month. “This festival is an opportunity to do that.”

The films are special in that they are created by, for, or about the deaf community. They span genres one might not expect of non-sound films, from documentary to drama, comedy and animation. The films have been submitted from the U.S., England, France, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, South Africa, and Mexico.

Deaf listeners will be able to follow the stories with help from subtitles. Non-signing audience members will also have subtitles when the actors sign rather than speak.
“That’s for the sign language impaired,” Forshay told Perspectives.

The Seattle Deaf Film Festival will be held in 120 Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus.

From The Gazette in Canada. (Thanks to Laurence Parent for sending me this story.):

MONTREAL - Laurence Parent advances her motorized wheelchair to the top of the escalator at Beaubien métro station and gazes down at the platform far below.

The PhD student at Concordia University longs to be able to use the rapid transit system most Montrealers take for granted. But in 90 per cent of the métro system, the closest she can get is here, to the top of an inaccessible escalator or flight of stairs.

“You’re so close but so far from the goal,” says Parent, 26. “You can see the end of the escalator, but it’s really like Mount Everest.”

For disabled Montrealers, full access to public transit is still an unattainable dream. In 2008, Montreal vowed to catch up with cities around the world by making its subway system accessible by 2028.

But the speed of improvements has been slower than expected. Just seven stations out of 68 – 10 per cent – are wheelchair-accessible today. At that rate, it will be 2085 before people in wheelchairs can use the entire network, disabled users say.

In contrast, 43 per cent of Toronto’s 69 subway stations are accessible, with that city on track to make its entire network accessible by 2025.

That’s why Parent, vice-president of the Regroupement des activistes pour l’inclusion au Québec

(RAPLIQ), is among 11 disabled commuters who have lodged complaints with the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission, charging the Société de Transport de Montréal with discrimination under the province’s human rights charter.

The case – the first of its kind in Quebec – seeks $20,000 in damages for each complainant.

On Monday, the group will hold a session to explain to other disabled transit users how to join the campaign. An organization representing blind and partially sighted people, the Regroupement des aveugles et amblyopes du Montréal métropolitain (RAAMM), will be on hand to explain obstacles facing visually impaired travellers.

Time was when the complaints over transportation for people with disabilities focused on problems with adapted-transit minibus service.

But in recent years, users like Parent have stepped forward to demand access to regular transit service.

“We have to get back to basics and remember that accessibility to public transit is a right. It is recognized by the Charter of Rights. It is technically recognized by the law on the integration of disabled people,” Parent says.

She knows what she’s talking about. A native of Lemieux, a village of 300 in central Quebec, Parent holds a master’s degree from York University, where her thesis was on lack of accessibility in the Montreal métro. Her doctoral research is on the history of the exclusion of disabled people.

Until moving to Montreal in 2002, Parent, who is wheelchair-bound due to a form of dwarfism, assumed the transit system would be accessible.

On her first day in the city, she discovered the métro was off-limits for wheelchairs. The next day, she tried to take a bus but the ramp didn’t lower properly.

“The big problem is that the STM is not doing the maintenance,” Parent said.

In September, RAPLIQ members surveyed 64 buses across the city and found almost two-thirds were unable to take disabled people on board because of various mechanical problems, like wheelchair ramps that did not deploy properly.

Parent says her local bus, the No. 30 on St. Hubert St., only comes twice an hour. “If it isn’t working, I have to wait another half-hour. It could be cold. It could be nighttime,” she says.

Critics of Montreal’s commitment to accessibility argue the cost of installing elevators – at $15 million per station, according to the city – is prohibitive.

But Parent points out the Montreal métro lags far behind the rest of the world. A 2002 Quebec study said the city ranked last among 30 subway systems internationally, of which 89 per cent were fully or partly accessible. The aging of Montreal’s population means demand for accessible transportation will only rise in the coming years, the study noted.

Montreal had no wheelchair accessible stations until 2007, when three new stations opened in Laval. Since then, Côte Vertu, Lionel Groulx, Berri-UQÀM and Henri Bourassa stations have been retrofitted with elevators.

But Parent said the slow pace of investment to make other stations accessible shows the city isn’t really serious about fulfilling its commitment.

“They want to increase ridership by 40 per cent,” she says. “What we’ve realized is we aren’t part of the 40 per cent.”

STM spokesperson Isabelle Tremblay refused to comment.

from DCist:

Outside the Wilson Building this afternoon, Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) showed off one of the city's relatively new wheelchair-accessible taxicabs ahead of a hearing next Monday at which the D.C. Council will consider a sweeping overhaul to the city's taxicab regulations.

Cheh, who chairs the Environment, Public Works and Transportation Committee, inspected the accessible cab, a 2010 Toyota Sienna minivan converted to incorporate a wheelchair ramp extending from its rear door. The van is one of 10 operated by Yellow Cab Company of D.C.; Royal Cab also operates 10 of the vans.

The accessible taxis were first deployed in May 2010 as a pilot program for wheelchair friendly livery service. The vans, which normally cost $33,000 plus another $12,000 to retrofit for accessibility, were paid for largely by a grant administered by the Federal Transit Administration. The grants, authorized in 2008, paid 80 percent of the cost of each vehicle, with the remainder assumed by the vans' operators.

But 20 cabs is a tiny fraction of the District-wide fleet of about 8,500 cars. Wendy Klancher, a transportation planner with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which oversees the pilot program, said that in most neighboring jurisdictions wheelchair accessible taxis make up one to three percent of fleets.

At the hearing next week, Cheh will also consider an amendment introduced last month that would mandate taxicab companies in the District make 10 percent of their fleets wheelchair-accessible. Cheh said that target could fluctuate, though. Klancher said three to five percent would be a good number to aim for.

"It may well be we should figure out the need," she said. "What I'm hearing is that five percent of fares may involve disabled [passengers]."

Roy Spooner Jr., Yellow Cab's general manager, said the pilot program has been a success, but he was unsure if there was greater interest among drivers in operating wheelchair accessible cabs. Right now, he said, Yellow Cab and Royal are giving between 400 and 450 rides a month to customers with wheelchairs.

One of the reasons the deployment of the vans has worked out so far is that in addition to the subsidized cost of the vehicles, drivers who ferry wheelchair-bound riders receive a $2 surcharge, paid for by the cab company and the grant program, to compensate for the fact that meters are not permitted to be turned on until the disabled customer is secured.

from WJLA-TV:

It might look like just a regular building under construction. But to Gallaudet University students like Colin Whited, it's a place they can call their own.

“They really handed over the ball,” Whited says. “That had never happened in the past.”

The state-of-the-art building, based on the vision of students and faculty, is designed to make it easier for signers to communicate and understand their surroundings.

“It's incredible because typically those who design buildings don't understand our desires... as deaf people,” says one.

Out of those dreams, deafspace was born.

The new architecture will have sloping sidewalks, wider stairs and hallways and rounded corners - all to make it easier for signers to maintain uninterrupted eye-to-eye communication. To heightened sensory awareness, special lighting and color contrasts are strategically used.

The building is expected to be completed in the summer and will be ready for Gallaudet students by the fall.

Architect Hansel Bauman says vibration awareness is another key component

“You can wrap on a table, instigate you want to communicate, the awareness of the vibration, that's what’s unique,” Bauman says.

One room, dubbed Colab, will remain in its current form to inspire creativity. And then there's the social space - a wide open room to promote more student interaction that is unlike anything Gallaudet has had before.

Deafspace specialist Robert Sirvage, says the building is an expression of his culture.

“We are the only ones who know what we need,” Sirvage says.

Whited says he hopes this "first-of-its-kind" dorm will become the new norm.

"This is groundbreaking,” Whited says. “Sets the tone for deaf architecture."