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Adventures in Modern Life: August 2013
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Tuesday, August 20, 2013. The New "Ironside": Good or Bad for Crips? When NBC announced a reboot of “Ironside” was coming this fall, you might have dismissed it as just the latest Hollywood rehash. But for wheelchair-users like me, it’s either cause for celebration or an omen of despair. The old Raymond Burr series about a tough-as-nails paraplegic ex-police chief was never exactly enlightened. I came to rely on him as a kind of lifeline. 8220;...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: September 2012
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Tuesday, September 11, 2012. A BERKELEY STATE OF MIND. It's widely reported that a certain famous novelist has a new book out that takes place on and around Telegraph Avenue- that multicultural boulevard running through Berkeley and Oakland, California. A worthy landscape, to be sure, but I can't help wondering if his fiction will do justice to that area's seminal role in the disability-rights movement. Small to you, that is. Does he reference ...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: February 2014
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Saturday, February 22, 2014. The realization came in the course of searching for a new cushion for my wheelchair. I use a wheelchair every day, all day long, and have my whole life. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative neuromuscular delight, I've never stood or even tied my own shoes- but I know a thing or two about wheelchairs and have bought cushions before. This time turned out to be a fiasco. At the appointment, after presentin...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: June 2013
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Sunday, June 16, 2013. In retrospect, wish I had spoken more about disability history—the importance of teaching kids with disabilities about their place in the continuum of progress, imparting them with a sense of pride and justice. The big picture, to me, is what's most inspiring. But at the Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy conference, parents seem so desperate for solutions, for coping strategies. Understandable, to be sure. So I winged it.
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: October 2012
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Thursday, October 4, 2012. THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES…. Got off to a rousing start last night (yawn! But one key issue- one attribute- was conspicuously absent:. Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis. In the past, she and hubby Mitt have made a big deal about this. For a while there it seemed everybody wanted to get on the MS bandwagon. But why? If experience with multiple sclerosis makes one better suited to be president, then I should run for emperor!
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: October 2014
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Saturday, October 25, 2014. Conversations about Inter-Abled Romance, part 2. Perhaps he sensed my hesitation. I didn't think too much about it," he said then, "but it upset me if. I thought about it.". He continued his story, letting me know that everything had changed. It changed because of his blog. Shane practically lives in his blog. For people with mobility impairments, the computer can be like a passport to the world. So honestly, just fo...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: September 2014
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Monday, September 22, 2014. TOMORROW," IT SEEMS, IS STUCK IN 1977. A friend in theater recently emailed me a perplexing question. He's working on the touring company of "Annie" – you know, the musical –. And wanted to discuss the curtain call. "There is some debate as to whether FDR bow in his wheelchair. What do you think? Is there something ableist about an able-bodied actor leaping out of a wheelchair? To me, it would feel as if the actor we...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG DISAPPOINTMENT *
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Wednesday, June 18, 2014. BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG DISAPPOINTMENT *. With all due respect to my good friend @JayMcInerney). Ou are not the kind of guy who would be in a place like this at this stage of Obamacare. With your biography, you could've been its poster child, but now you're in danger of becoming one for the opposition. By now, everyone has an Obamacare story to tell. It gives you what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. You were born w...
benmattlin.blogspot.com
Adventures in Modern Life: September 2013
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Adventures in Modern Life. How We Cope. (No rants, please.). Wednesday, September 18, 2013. FAIRNESS FOR DISABLED WORKERS (AT LAST)? In the last week of August, just in time for Labor Day, Vice President Joe Biden announced. That the Obama Administration would pursue requiring federal contractors to fill at least 7 percent of their workforce with people with disabilities. It follows upon President Obama's earlier promise to make the federal government itself a model of equal opportunity employment. It to...
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