Re:Generation Music Project: DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Skrillex, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method re-invent five traditional styles of music. From classical symphonic recordings to New Orleans jazz, these five DJs collaborate with some of today’s most prominent musicians to discover how our musical past is influencing today’s sounds.
Continue reading Blind Film Critic: “RE:GENERATION MUSIC PROJECT” review
Featured Post
Disability News: Be a good sport
Sunday, February 19th, 2012
Paralympic skier does backflip on sit ski
Josh Dueck, a member of the Canadian Para-alpine ski team, this month became the first athlete to complete a backflip on a sit ski. “In the powder, I’m just floating around,” he said. “It feels like I’ve got no weight in the world. I’m just literally skipping off a cloud. The sensation I got when I was flipping, it really brought me back to a life without barriers.” Dueck, who was paralyzed after a skiing fall in 2004, started the backflip project about three years ago, practicing first by flipping into foam pits at an indoor training facility in Copper Mountain, Colo., then moved to the slopes, landing on an airbag. His next goal? “I think something that would be pretty cool to start looking towards is big mountain skiing,” he said.
Tyler Summitt battling alongside his legendary mom
This great story comes from Yahoo! Sports, where columnist Pat Forde relates his experience as the son of an early-onset Alzheimer’s patient to the situation in front of Tyler Summitt, son of legendary Tennessee basketball coach Pat Summitt. “It took 18 years for Alzheimer’s to finish cruelly killing my mom,” Forde writes. “She was remarkably healthy physically, so her body kept going long after her mind had been robbed of almost everything. … Alzheimer’s is undefeated. Nobody beats it.” He finds inspiration in Tyler, who knew something was wrong with his mother when “maybe she could only do four things instead of seven. She just wasn’t ‘Wonder Woman’ for a while. We just knew something was amiss.” Although just a college sophomore, Tyler has an impressive outlook: “I don’t focus on what I can’t control,” he said. “We can control the memories we still make together. I’d rather focus on the new memories and the life at hand than worry about losing the past.”
Pat Summitt of Tennessee celebrates with her son Tyler in 1996. (Getty Images)
Paralyzed woman to walk London Marathon
Doctors told Claire Lomas she would never walk again after a 2007 horse-riding accident. On April 22, Lomas will attempt to walk 26.2 miles with the help of a special robotic suit. “The technology comprises a number of motors and gears strapped to the user’s lower body, while sensors attached to the upper body help to control the motion,” Digital Trends reports. “A computer, together with a rechargeable battery power source, is located in a backpack. Once mastered, a user can even use [the suit] to climb stairs.” “It is physically hard work and incredibly frustrating at times to get the technique right, but when I make progress, it gives me a fantastic feeling,” Lomas said.
Every corner is blind for devoted French Formula One fan
Charaf-Eddine Ait Taleb travels on low-cost airlines and public transportation to Formula One races, usually taking a tent to camp within easy distance of the paddock. “I go to the corner where you need to brake because I love to hear the gearbox, pum, pum, pum. When you are near it is fantastic, you feel it in your body,” he says. Ait Taleb, 29, lost his vision a decade ago, and the Frenchman has been embraced by the Formula One community, with teams and drivers helping him gain access to the paddock and garages and giving him the inside track, Reuters reports.
More reading:
Why I Don’t Love The Things That Make My World Accessible
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
When Dave Hingsburger from Rolling Around in My Head (http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/) mentioned that he was hosting the February Disability blog carnival and that the theme was ‘love we have for the things that make our world accessible’ I was excited. I was full of ideas. I was going to write about how much I loved my chair (again) or I was going to write about how I loved when places are completely accessible without having me to ask for help.
And I kept thinking and thinking. I began writing multiple times only to hit the backspace and start over. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Dave’s blog is about how uniquely positive it is. The chance that I’ll click on the blog link in the morning and be likely to read a heartwarming story about children who just ‘get’ things is often far greater than the chance of reading a post that makes me want to rage against the world. His blog tends to make me feel as if I’m astoundingly negative about the world, and I’m afraid that this post won’t change that one bit.
My wheelchair makes me free
If I wanted to be positive I would write about how free my wheelchair makes me. But one, I’ve already written that post, and two, all I can think of at the moment is how absurdly difficult that process was. I’ve had so many people tell me I didn’t need a wheelchair that I’m often afraid to move my legs while in it. I cringe when I go shoe shopping because I’m afraid someone’s going to run up to me and yell ‘you don’t need that!’. I hate explaining that while I can walk assisted, I can’t actually go up certain steps.
My wheelchair makes me free. It doesn’t make the world accessible to me.
Things that make the world accessible to me
The things that make the world accessible to me are the most common disability modifications. I need ramps, elevators, and widened doorways or aisles. Should I love them? Should I love seeing a ramp next to the handicap parking? Should I love seeing an elevator when I need to go to the second or third floor? Should I love being able to get through aisles without a problem?
Part of me immediately says yes. That’s the part that is just so relieved that I can go somewhere, that I can go to the store or the school or the public office building. And it is wrong. The rest of me is screaming NO.
How many people love the fact that there is a flight of stairs to get to their second floor apartment? Do they greet the stairs with a happy and relieved smile? Do they have to make plans on what to do if there were no stairs to their apartment?
No.
So why should I love these things? Should I love them because they’re surprisingly rare? Should I love them because my favorite shop finally became accessible to me again? Should I love it when employees treat me like a human being instead of a prop or an exciting story? Should I love it when parking lots shovel the snow and move the snow somewhere that actually isn’t the handicap parking spaces?
No.
Should I be grateful?
No.
Will I love these things anyway? Sometimes. Will I be grateful anyway? Sometimes. Will this inconsistency drive me up the wall? You bet.
Right now, I refuse to love ramps, curb cuts, and elevators. They might make the world accessible to me but I refuse to love something that should be taken for granted.
Related Posts:
Originally published at: Gimp ‘Tude
Image Credit:
Some rights reserved by mélomane
Social vs Medical Model Evolved
Monday, November 21st, 2011
Models Of Disability
Disability activists and advocates have been trying to frame disability and surrounding issues using a social model of disability since at least the 1980s in an effort to distance discourse from the (still) predominant medical model that rules many of our lives. This switch in models was to frame disability in a way that made it clear where many people face barriers and how those barriers can be addressed. However, the vast majority of people have still never heard these terms or understand the implications of these thought frameworks. Of those who have, even within the disability community, there is a sense of division between those who embrace the social model and those who don’t feel it is an accurate description of their reality. So, what are these models and how can we bridge the gap?
Medical Model
The medical model of disability focuses on the impairment (physical/health/mental/etc.) as a person’s barrier to a “normal” level of functioning in their daily lives and in society. This model focuses on curing the cause of the impairment or correcting that impairment through use of equipment, medication, etc. in order to enhance the individual’s quality of life. This has long been the most commonly used model by the medical field, as well as many other organizations. It is by far the one that most people are familiar with and are used to working within. (For more information, see the table below.) Continue reading Social vs Medical Model Evolved
Copyright © 2010 - 2012 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
