The Disability Movement's come a long way since 1968. But that depends upon how we or, say, President Clinton defines "Long." Or "the" for that matter. In 1968 Prof. Robert MacIntye, my USC Committee Chairman, came out of the room where my Post-Doc Oral Exam had just been held, shook my hand warmly, winked and spoke the words above. Bob MacIntyre's sense of humor was then as warped as my own today. Long ago he moved on to better things at Canada's McGill University and a deserved Professorship. That was then, this is now. We Shoot (or Dump)first, ask questions later. On this morning's "Today Show," Brian Stermer, paralyzed and wheelchair-bound, told co-Host Meredith Viera how a Florida Officer dumped him out of his wheelchair in Traffic Court in the belief Stermer could stand but was faking a "paralyzed act." Stermer brought the Court videotape along.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23144420/.
These are not swell times for people like Stermer, for those like him or for most Americans in general. Stermer seems a resiliant guy who eventually will get on with his life. The California Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled asked me to testify later this year on an 18% cut in funding for In-Home-Support-Services. Of course I will. These are minumum wage jobs and no fun for the semi-skilled people who take on the jobs. To repeat something I've said and written for decades: IF A POWERBALL LOTTERY EXISTED FOR DISABLED PEOPLE ONLY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, I WOULDA WON IT. TWICE! Governor Schwarznegger, Brian Stermer and I have our private respective and collective "400 Blows" in common as do we all. Life ISN'T fair, as JFK observed - or was it speech-writer Ted Sorenson?
Personally I date the birth of the present Acceptable Nastiness to then Governor Reagan's remark about the Vietnam-era U.C. Berkley student stikes: "If there's to be a bloodbath, then let's get on with it!" Every presidential candidate since Poppy Bush haas made his/her obesience to President Ronald Reagan.
It is strange to me that a footnote in Geoffrey Ward's definitive FDR bio "A First Class Temperament" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghu_UCXC3Wchynn_b7TJEH-YP6Tz477Fx8-944Zvov1ckot7kSpsLrZUjFgks3Q-52k90kCAsJOZi5L0CYLMS_Z14kDkslVtc0UtCPJWb32fv26zI5YHVaHUkRiXdsr4WmOY4rPXlwEA0/s400/reagan18.jpg" border=0 describes the future 32nd President as follows: Assured of the 1920 Democratic Veep nomimination and accurately foreseeing a GOP landslide ahead, a pre-polio FDR begged
ost-W.W.I hero and Nobel nominee Herbert Hoover to declare himself a Democrat and storm the Convention. The Great Engineer refused. Two-years later FDR was polio-stricken, on his back, no better nor worse off than Proles Like Us. 32-years later, future president Dicko copied FDR and similarly back-stabbed Ike's presumptive Veep choice, Earl Warren, in favor of himself. Warren's Consolation Prize was getting the Supreme Court to vote 9-0 on "Brown v Board of Ed."
Geoffrey Ward is a wheelchair guy like Stermer and me. We're no worse than 98-percent of y'all but then we're no damn worse either. 
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