THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

Search for:

• FEATURES
• THIS & THAT
• ARTS & IDEAS
• FICTION & POETRY
• LETTERS
• BLOG THIS
•  
• SUBSCRIBE
• BACK ISSUES
• SUPPORT THIS
•  
• ABOUT THIS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• CONTACT THIS
• ADVERTISE
• SITE MAP

Home » Blog This

April 30, 2009

ThisAbility #25: Love Connection

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 09:00 AM ET | Comments (0)

Today, just call me Chuck Woolery.

It seems like everyone has a pipeline for finding love online. The jews have JDate,christian values are covered by places like Christian Mingle and even cheaters have place to go at the controversial and highly publicized Ashley Madison Agency.

Online is also an important venue where many disabled daters believe they can leave their various limitations behind and just be themselves. Some choose to secretly assume the guise of able-bodied avatars on the popular online MMORPG Second Life and play out their fantasies that way, while others peruse the chatlines and profiles on various dating sites just for them.

Today, I'm assuming the role of the famed talkshow host, by running down what's out there online for disabled daters of all stripes, hoping one of you will find your own Love Connection.

Dating 4 Disabled

PROS: They have an internal instant message, blog and email system. There are plently of people with all types of disabilities from mostly the U.S. and the U.K. with Canada and parts of Asia bringing up the rear, so you can meet, date and network with people from all over the world. You can specify not just your disability, but also your level of mobility. This is an important distinction that makes sure all disabled people on the site are not painted with the same brush and adds a level of discernment for users looking for a mobility level similar to, or above their own. Also, there are many profiles featuring able-bodied people who are attracted to people with disabilities. (Hardly in an X-filesian way, but they are out there and they're not just fetishists or devotees).

CONS: Mixed in with people who have documented disabilities, are people who list their disability as, "Obesity" or "diabetes". Though I acknowledge that diabetes can lead to disabilities like blindness and amputation, last time I checked diabetes is a disease, not a disability. I also don't consider a weight problem a disability, but I know it can lead to diseases. I'm not a huge fan of huge people taking advantage of supports designed for genuinely disabled people. For example, handicap parking and scooters to get around. (Someone had to say it.) Also, there are way too many people looking for friendship or chat on this dating site, which may be indicative of the struggle of some people with disabilities for true socialization beyond their computer screens. I couldn't tell if any of the airbrushed hotties on the front page are actually disabled. As an added bonus, the orange page layout is truly eye constricting.

EnableLove

PROS: EnableLove offers the ability to search for your potential love connection to great specificity, including disability, mobility level, age, location, marital status and type of relationship. You can also pinpoint the various attributes of a partner, like religon, marital status and whether they have children. The site seems much more focused on encouraging its members to take their relationships offline and into the real world. It doesn't just accept disabilities, but markets itself towards people with other "Life Challenges" and diseases, thereby publicly broadening its reach past just disabilities and avoiding false advertising.

CONS: The profile layout is sparse and impersonal and comes across much more as a list of criteria than an actual story that reveals something about the person. In the profile details, members can list their full postal code, which in the age of Mapquest could be a stalker's paradise.

Soulful Encounters

PROS: Soulful Encounters takes the focus away from the disability starting with the name and stopping with the fact that it truly is a site managed by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities. They present themselves as a support group for the newly minted members of the disability community and parents of kids with disabilities. The site has numerous forums and chatrooms on any topic imaginable. The profiles are set up much like a Myspace page, with imported videos, graphics and a comments page. The customization level is unparalleled.

CONS: It's the type of site where members run the risk of spending their days getting lost behind a computer screen and never meeting their matches in real life. It tackles so many issues and tries to serve so many types of members that finding a realistic love match could easily be lost among those who just want to chat as friends, or those who aren't currently single. Its "Differently Abled" terminology is a little too much of a politically correct cliche for my taste.

Disabled Dating

PROS: This is the disabled community's answer to eHarmony. Their search program promises to take your character and values criteria and finds your match among the 5 million members they claim in their database. They report pinpoint accuracy and unlike eHarmony, they don't screen out the gay population and 5% of the people that use their site aren't unmatchable, so I'd at least have better luck here than I did on the real eHarmony.

CONS: The other sites listed above are free, while this one you have to pay for if you want anything more than a trial membership (receiving messages). Truly, whatever horse you bet on for a longterm relationship, has real money riding on it here. Plus, the site skews to an older, more clean cut crowd, but if that's your style, by all means...

Love Byrd

PROS: Turn! Turn! Turn! To everything there is a season...WAIT! STOP! that's The Byrds not Love Byrd. Love Byrd is like dating with a cyber coach at your side. While it features internal email, blogs and instant messaging, there's also a dating column written by a journalist named Tiff Carlson who happens to be a quadriplegic. I a dating etiquette guide for men and women and a Dear Abby-like advice column called, "The View". The beauty is, it's all accessible while you're chatting up your latest catch, so if you need to look something up, just scroll down the sidebar.

CONS: The interface is complicated and busy. I also had a strange sense that I had stepped into Oprah's "Remembering Your Spirit" segment. Everything seemed particularly geared to a middle-aged female audience. Sometimes there is so much instruction and advice, that actually taking that first step in meeting your match can seem very overwhelming because every little nuance in the dating game is intellectualized. This site is suffering from a serious case of T.M.I.

Hopefully, that was enough of a primer on the online disabled dating scene to help you make a Love Connection--Happy Hunting! As for me, as Chuck Woolery use to say before a commercial break, "I'll be back in two and two!"

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

April 22, 2009

ThisAbility #24: Domesticity with a Disability

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 10:26 AM ET | Comments (0)

Ever notice that when you combine the words domestic and toxicity, you get domesticity? Well, I'm chock full of 'domesticity'. I know first hand what happens when extreme heat is applied to a ceramic plate. You can literally hear it wane before it bursts into a million lethal shards and invades the tile island of your kitchenette. Now there is a blood river on my floor, thanks to that new deep gash on the bottom of my foot. Time to get a girlfriend, no? That, or at least an able-bodied roommate to bail me out.

That's by far the worst domestic disaster I've ever been at the centre of, so far. Much is written about inaccessibility in the disabled world, but I've never seen anything about how a disability affects your domestic aptitude.

Some might attribute my lack of finesse in this area to the fact that I'm a guy, but there are a lot of guys,even guys with disabilities, who can pull off wonders in the kitchen. For me, whatever I cook is about my own survival and saving money, not presentation. The bottom line is never whether I cooked it from scratch, but how soon I can digest it. The more complex the recipe, the more the preparation cuts into my eating time. I'd be kind of lying though if I didn't admit that my disability didn't affect my skill in the kitchen. Hell, there's a whole profession built around teaching people with disabilities the lifeskills necessary for daily living.

Occupational therapists [O.T.] taught me how to dress myself in preschool, and I remember them touring the kitchen at my parents house figuring out ways to help me bend down and transfer cookie sheets from the oven to the centre island without losing my balance. I forget what we came up with, but whatever it was, it wasn't good enough to stick. Though my balance is better now than it was at the time, and I could probably pull off baking the way my kitchen is configured, I still don't bake. The convenience of the bakery section is just too irresistible and though homemade baked goods have that nostalgic familial quality every time you bite into them, I can generally take them or leave them. Somewhere deep down, (really deep) I probably still fear the potential for my own Hansel and Gretel moment. It's like an adult version of that time you were a toddler and you were resistant to using the 'Big Boy Potty' because you were afraid you'd fall in, and just as irrational.

Most of the domestic tricks I learned didn't come from an O.T., but are just part of living, learning, and knowing older people with similar disabilities who already figured stuff out for themselves. For example, if I need to cross the room to take a glass of juice to my desk, I use a plastic cup with a lid on it to avoid spillage. I can transfer plates and bowls very easily, but sometimes the level of minute concentration that goes into keeping the plate flat and balanced is higher and more deliberate for me than for the average person. Technology helps too. I have very lttle of it, but it makes a big difference. Things like the One-Touch Jar Opener and an electric can opener saves me copious amounts of time.

A lot of my deficiency in the kitchen has to do with how I was raised. My younger brother is able-bodied and he became the de facto chore monkey in our household, so all the skill in the kitchen that mothers naturally pass to their children went to him. Not that I was totally incapable of cooking something had she bothered to teach me, but perception of ability (or lack thereof) went a long way in my household. A long time ago, mom decided to choose efficiency and speed for what she needed done around the house rather than use the work as a learning opportunity that may have served my longterm development and growth.

To be fair, I wasn't the most enthusiastic advocate for my development in this particular regard. My younger self milked my perceived lack of culinary ability for all it was worth to get out of any household chores that no one was making me do. As a result, any cooking skills I ended up with, came thanks to my grade 8 cooking class. Sure, I did contribute some at home. I loaded the dishes every night and did my own laundry, but when it came to meal time, I was always relegated to the menial prep tasks like washing lettuce. Obviously, I'm paying for it now, so to all parents of kids with disabilities, please teach your child all the culinary skills you have that were ever passed down from previous generations. The finished product may not look as good as you would like and it may take double the time it would if the able-bodied kid in your family did it, but your offspring with the disability will thank you in the long run.

As for the other domestic chores, spilling fabric softner can be avoided with either a Downy Ball or some Dryer Balls. Also, liquid soap comes in lighter containers than powdered soap, but if you only have powdered soap and your laundry room is down the hall, a cup with a lid works well for transport.

By far the biggest key to keeping my place clean is my wonderful cleaning lady. Mine comes once every two weeks. I just hired her this year (too proud to relent and ask for help in previous years) and she has been manna from heaven so far. I found that the constant bending required for vacuuming and cleaning the washroom really put stress on my lower back. I could never really put my sheets back on my bed and have them stay there for very long and there are countless odds and sods I have no hope of doing myself, like hanging pictures. After initial skepticism, I went to Craigslist to find Angela, and now I highly recommend it.

My last bit of advice is don't be afraid to hire help when you need it. Too many men seem to rely on their significant others to maintain their household. Look at it this way, if a third party takes care of it, you reduce the potential for argument and have lots of time for other extracurricular activities.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted. Email: aaron.broverman@gmail.com

More entries on: ThisAbility

April 07, 2009

ThisAbility #23: House Call

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 02:26 PM ET | Comments (1)

That air rocker on the right, with the sunken face, is one-half of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, British actor Hugh Laurie, but that's just in real life. He is better known to North American TV watchers as Gregory House, the brilliant, cantankerous, Vicodin-addicted, prostitute-purchasing, don't-give-a-shit, diagnostician at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

House's biting wit, deductive skills and drug-seeking behaivor brings to mind Sherlock Holmes for most, but for me he also represents an aggresive push-back against the way people with disabilities are depicted in popular culture.

I would even go further and say that like Murderball before him, the character has provided an antidote to the saccharine apologist attitude people choose when relating to people with disabilities in their community. Like Murderball, House has put people on notice and has become another reactionary answer to a society that still struggles to take disabled people seriously. However, while Murderball responds with physical aggression, House responds with aggressive intellectualism.

Obviously, House can't ever fully be a catalyst for a shift in the way able-bodied society relates to people with disabilities because Hugh Laurie is not a disabled actor. I recognize that this will always impede the beacon the character otherwise represents, but Laurie should still be given mad praise for losing himself in the character so fully that, in the moment of the show, it doesn't really matter.

Putting that flaw aside, House reprsents a "Finally" I've been waiting to yell at my TV for a long time. I delight in the disabled prick. When I first saw Murderball at the Hot Docs Festival in 2005, someone offered to hold the door open for me as we left the theatre and another audience member shouted, "You better do it, or he might hit you with his chair," refering to the aggressive, "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" attitude the wheelchair rugby players in the film display.

The film worked. The realization that disabled people aren't all quiet little lambs had started to sink in. Sure, he was joking, but the first place people go when they're slightly uncomfortable is humor and hopefully through humor, the absurdity of their previous assumptions dawns on them and change happens.

House holds this mirror up to people as well, using biting wit and sarcasm to play on his co-workers assumptions about weakness, frailty and the traditional gently P.C. bedside manner we've all come to expect from doctors. He is disarming and it's in the "Oh my god, I can't believe he just did that!" moments that real realization occurs. The, "Oh right, not all people with disabilities are soft, sympathetic and positive all the time; they can be assholes too."

It's 'assholedom' driven to showing you how ridiculous your assumptions about capability can be. House doesn't pick sides either, it's not like the disabled are completely infallable and everyone is screwing them over. This is explicitly represented in the season 3 episode Needle in a Haystack when House takes on a wheelchair-using hospital employee so he can get his handicap parking spot back. The crux of the episode has House trying to convince his boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, that use of a wheelchair has no bearing on parking spot priority because "using a chair is easy and not limiting in the slightest." He decides to illustrate this by betting her that if he can get around in a chair for a week, she must give him the parking spot.

See a few clips from the episode below:

Not only does Needle in a Haystack play on the tendency of instituitions to avoid relating to people with disabilies on an individual basis, (instead choosing to staunchly stand behind legislation and mandated requirements beyond all logic) but the episode also plays on the unspoken beefs the able-bodied population has with disabled people who exploit their circumstances for personal gain — "Did that bastard in a wheelchair just cut me off?"

House is a catharsis for me. Most of what the good doctor says is probably what I would say to you if the inhibitors in my brain were completely shot.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

April 01, 2009

ThisAbility #22 Are We There Yet?

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 03:06 PM ET | Comments (0)

"Keep control gentlemen, keep control." Ah, the sound of the stern classroom reprimand of yore, really takes me back. I have to remember though, I'm not a student in this group (even though I don't look a day over 15 to most people). However, I am a little jealous because this group of junior students from Streetsville and Mississauga secondary schools has arrived at Toronto's Lorraine Kisma Theatre for Young People to see Are We There Yet? for the first time.

Back when I was in school, sexual education started in grade one, with a purple and yellow rooster puppet named Rusty, who counseled kids on inappropriate touching (some psychiatrist somewhere is definitely making a living off of stories about this puppet). In the later grades, there were PBS specials featuring a camera up the birth canal and a repetitive jingle that's still stuck in my head, "My body's nobody's body but mine/You have your own body, let me have mine." There wasn't anything like Are We There Yet?

Edmonton's Concrete Theatre has been touring this award-winning play for grade 9 students to schools across the country for 12 years. Many of the students who've seen the show over its history, have come back to tell the company how the play helped them navigate sexual pitfalls later in life, or prevented an early pregnancy. They've performed in front of kids with special needs before (for a deaf audience, it took two hours just to do the first half), but the heavy participatory nature of the play itself, means its different for every audience who sees it, and every cast who performs it, every single time.

Today, the students from Streetsville and Mississauga just happen to have Autism or Asperger Syndrome and I'm playing the part of Jane Goodall, the outside observer. A piece of all of us here (cast, crew, me) is excited to see how a highly interactive sex-ed play would play in front of this audience. Actually, the fact that we assume it could be remarkably different(even the fact that I'm writing about it now) says more about us than it does about the students in the audience.

Autism: The Musical probably set the current standard for the public as a window into the arts as therapy for autistic children, but (surprise, surprise) today's show wasn't full of uncontrolled outbursts or complete emotional shutdowns typical of autism's public face. So, if this isn't going to be a blow-by-blow of the challenge faced by cast members in kid wrangling, why did it make ThisAbility this week? First of all, the attitude that we should even be educating people with disabilities (much less those with mental disabilities) about sex, in a way that isn't disability specific, is still much rarer than it should be.

Are We There Yet? represents the blatantly correct assumption that disabled people are, and continue to be, sexually active, so they should be educated sooner rather than later. If anything, the fact the students had autism and aspergers enhanced the experience, as many of them had insights and perceptions beyond even the adult test audiences early in the show's run.

Disabled audience or not, Are We There Yet? attacks the subject matter in a way that nobody I know of has. Penned exclusively for schools by playwright Jane Heather and directed this time by one of Concrete Theatre's founding members, Mieko Ouchi, the show operates from the premise, "What if sex-ed was taught in the same public way as drivers-ed?" Suddenly, words like "headlights", "stick shift" and "glove compartment" are rife with sexual innuendo; even the act of driving is one big double entendre. However, this aspect is rudimentary compared to the level of participation the play demmands from its audience. The show's cast of two men and two women (Ryland Alexander, Nick Green, Monice Peter and Nadien Chu) each play characters trying to navigate their personal boundaries, or wondering how to bring up the topic of using condoms with their partner. In each scenario, they're turning to the audience for help.

Great, nobody knows more about personal boundaries than these students. Personal boundaries, and how not to violate them, is the first day issue of every special ed class I've ever sat in on. Once it was established that the characters on stage didn't want to break up, the level of frankness and practicality with which the teens in the audience dealt with relationship issues, shocked many of the people on stage, and many of the teachers in the back row. You could hear it in the momentarily bewildered "How do they know this?" tone coming from the actors when taking the student's suggestions.

It's because of a precocious kid in the front row, who suggested to the character uncomfortable with putting on a condom that he, "make it entertaining and add some whipped cream," I learned that whip cream is okay for play because it's water soluable, but Cool Whip is not because it's petroleum based and will break down the condom. Sure, Shawn Fowler from Planned Parenthood Toronto filled in the gaps, but if it weren't for my buddy in the front row, the topic wouldn't have been on the docket for discussion. So, my friend, if you're sitting in your school's computer lab right now and seeing this, here's a cyber fist bump straight from me to you.

Like most of us who see Are We There Yet?, by the time they get to the part where you get to create your own teen guy (if you're male) and teen girl (if you're female) you're already so invested in the process that you legitimately want to see your boy succeed in his relationship, like some proud parent. The students from Streetsville and Mississauga took this coaching responsibility to the nth degree, with one going as far as role playing to Nick (the actor) exactly what he wanted him to do. Many of them became adamant enough to channel Cus D'Amato as he trained Mike Tyson, or Burgess Meredith when playing Mickey Goldmill in Rocky. I actually saw a student massage Nick's shoulders and literally say, "Get in there!"

Sometimes the students were so passionate, the actors had trouble keeping up with the suggestions. Creating their ideal man or woman by shouting out characteristics, quickly became a verbal Jackson Pollock painting. Suggestions were thrown out every which way and then the group sat back to see what stuck on stage, admiring their work through the organized chaos of its creation.

In a way, Are We There Yet? shows kids that when you first start out, sex is just that, (barely) organized chaos. So, who better to contribute to the performance, than a group of students who are pros at learning how to deal with the chaos in their own heads on a daily basis?

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

March 24, 2009

ThisAbility #21: Faking it

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 03:29 PM ET | Comments (0)

I've often said that one of my concerns about dating a person with a disability is how limiting it could be, if it's not the right situation. You spend all your life figuring out exactly what your capability level is (how far you can walk, whether steps are an issue, how much you can carry or balance etc.) then, when another disability is introduced into the equation, suddenly you have to be mindful of that person's ability level on a more constant basis. The more time you spend together, the more you're passing up opportunities to hang out in various places in favor of more accessible options. Places you used to go by yourself are not really an option together, if she can't get in. If you use a scooter and she uses crutches, you have to go places that she can easily get to.

The issue comes down to finding someone of a similar ability level to your own. Although, there's another aspect to this that I never really considered until recently. At one time or another, every person with a disability has probably faked it.

Now, I'm not Elaine Benes, I'm not talking about faking orgasams here. I'm talking about faking ability, or a lack of ability, to get what you want from the able-bodied population. Everybody has had their moments of lying to get what they want. Pretending you can't get in somewhere to make a point about the inaccessibility of a location or get closer to the person who is helping you (you may want to use them for support just for the physical contact). It works the other way too, there are people who have feignned a level of capability they don't really have, in order to make themselves feel better about their circumstances so they can feel more equal to, or escape judgement from, their friends or lovers.

Even though there maybe momentary benefits to faking it, (hey, you got into that bar without any effort) it eventually all ends badly. It sucks to know that you've been possibly passing up various places to go because of your understanding of a person's ability level, when you really didn't have to in the first place. Or that the person you've been hanging out with has been suffering in discomfort just to keep up with you.

Faking it doesn't really help you in the long run. If someone helped you because they legitimately thought you needed it, and then they found out you didn't, they'd never help anyone with a disability again. At minimum, it's bad for the rest of us; it could come back to haunt you down the road. It's hard enough to get people to come forward and do the right thing on a good day; most are secretly afraid they'll get run over by a scooter anyway, so when you introduce this extra deceptive layer, you're just breeding cynicism in people. Honesty should still be the best policy. People need to be honest with themselves about what they can do and they need to be all about honest disclosure, or they're just shooting themselves in the foot and setting the rest of us back.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

March 17, 2009

ThisAbility #20 Cash that Really is Cold and Hard

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 02:57 PM ET | Comments (0)

It's amazing the things you learn from TV. One lesson, a few weeks back, came courtesy of John Quinones and his ABC Primetime series What Would You Do?

It's a hidden camera show that tests whether people would intervene in various situations. It was on this show that I learned the United States of America is the only country in the developed world that doesn't have accessibility features for the blind on their money.

Leading to incidents where clerks short change their customer because they know those customers can't tell what denominations they're getting back. It appearently happens on a more frequent basis than you may think.

All American bills are the same size, texture and colour, which makes it extemely difficult to differentiate between a $5 bill and a $20 bill without the aid of machines or sighted people, leaving America's blind population at a severe disadvantage when compared to the visually impaired in other countries.

It may not be noticeable to the naked eye, but every Canadian banknote has raised tactile dots on the opposite top corner from the smaller printed number. The higher the denomination, the more dots there are.
The Euro is the gold standard for accessibility, each demonination increases in physical size as you move up the value scale and each number on the note is a raised surface.

Other countries have recognized that in order to act in accordance with their own bill of rights and practice what they preach in terms of non-discrimination, they must have accessible currency. Not having any is arguably the highest form of instituational discrimination.

It's only recently that processes have been set in motion to make accessible currency a reality in the U.S. The American Council of the Blind won a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury in May 2008, demanding that they make their currency accessible in accordance with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as soon as possible.

Of course that's extremely vague, the first time we see accessible currency in the U.S. will be whenever the next currency redesign is (possibly five to eight years from now), but with the economy in shambles it's easy to put a ruling like this on the back burner. The treasury still has an opportunity to Appeal, so who knows.

Just be thankful you live in Canada where banks issue free bill reading machines to the blind. The U.S. is a country where the Bank of America has made significant strides in making ATM machines accessible through braille keys and audio menu delivery, but it takes this long to even think about making the money that is spit from the machine accessible? However, the U.S. Treasury has to be sued before they'll even consider it. What's up with that?

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

March 11, 2009

ThisAbility #19 Buyer Beware

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 08:56 AM ET | Comments (0)

This particular entry has been on deck for a while. It concerns something everyone who ever buys assistive devices should know.

I bought a new scooter a few weeks back, a Pride Victory Twin with a set of twin wheels in the front for increased stability (the better to grip snow with, my dear). Most people who buy scooters in Ontario (other provinces have their own funding programs) do so through Ontario's Assistive Devices Program [ADP]. If you already receive income support from the government, 100% of the cost of your scooter will be covered. If you're like me, and don't currently qualify for income support, 75% of the cost of the scooter is covered and the customer pays the other 25%.

That's not the issue, paying for part of the scooter means it can be delivered to you faster, since the dealer gets at least part of the money they're owed. No, the issue comes from what the dealer charges relative to the manufacturer's suggested retail price. A mark-up so severe, it would never stand without a literal captive audience.

I was told by my dealer,Medichair Etobicoke,that they typically sell the scooter I was buying at a $2000 retail price with all the amenities like cane holders, shopping bag clips, charger backpacks, and whatever other external doohickies I need, thrown in for free.

This price jived with the suggested retail price from PRIDE,the manufacturer, but I was told by Medichair that Ontario's ADP would not cover my scooter at the $2000 retail price because five years ago, the ADP set the prices of every assistive device they cover and that price is $3264 for all scooters. Since this price was set by the government, no matter which dealer I go to, whether its Motion Specialties, Therapist's Choice, or Medichair, I was told that I'd be paying 25% of $3264 ($816), not 25% of $2000 ($500). The only way I'd be offered the retail price is if I bought the scooter outright from Medichair without ADP funding.

So, naturally, I phoned the ADP program to try and find out where they got the arbitrary price of $3264 from, where the extra money goes, and why they couldn't just cover 75% of the retail price. I spoke to Ian Lowe, the program coordinator for the ADP,(who, I found out later, used to sell scooters for Medichair and was trained by the guy who was selling me my scooter) and Lowe told me that they would absolutely cover the $2000 retail price and that $3264 was only the MAXIMUM amount that they would cover.

I went back to Medichair with this information and asked them to charge me the properly acceptable retail price and what they said was absolutely dumbfounding. What they said was, "We normally charge the maximum amount because it takes five months to receive the full payment from the government."

That means that until someone smart enough to call them on it came along, they have been forcing the customer to pay more just because the government takes a long time to pay them. Obviously, they should not be forcing the customer to take the financial hit, the customer has nothing to do with the delay of payment. If anything, Medichair should be asking ADP to expedite their approval and funding, so that the customers don't have to cover for the process.

At first, I felt extremely conflicted about calling them out because I was concerned that refusal to acquiesce to their mark-up would mean I wouldn't get the scooter that's vital to my ability to get around. Of course, I realized that's what Medichair and other dealers are counting on. They know just how dependent their customer base is, and that even if they decide not to get a scooter for the time being, chances are good that they'll come (literally) crawling back.

That's what pushes this practice way past just simply being taken advantage of by opportunistic, crooked sales people. This isn't just about selling a product, this is about selling a person's ability to move, and to play games with someone's right to move freely about their surroundings is a new level of screwjob.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

March 03, 2009

ThisAbility # 18: Breaking Bad and Breaking Barriers

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 05:15 PM ET | Comments (2)

You're a genius level chemist with terminal lung cancer, stuck teaching the periodic table to high school students. No teacher's salary can pay mounting medical bills and still have money left over for your family after you're gone, so the only obvious thing left to do is cook meth.

This is the premise behind AMC's original series Breaking Bad It stars Bryan Cranston, who played Hal the dad with the hairy back on Malcolm in the Middle , as Walter White, chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin. He won an Emmy for the role last year, but that's hardly why I'm discussing it on the ThisAbility blog.

Breaking Bad features one of the only well rounded disabled teenage characters ever on television. Walter White Jr. has cerebral palsy, but unlike past depictions of disability, this isn't the distinguishing feature of his character.

Thickening the plot further is the fact that the actor who plays Walter White Jr., RJ Mitte, also has cerebral palsy, but it's actually less noticable than his character's own cerebral palsy diagnosis. While Walter White Jr. uses forearm crutches and has pronounced speech impediment, Mitte can pass as able-bodied in public and his speech symptoms are less noticeable in real life. The acting challenge for him is playing up the disability. Something he told me is a constant reminder of the hard work and perseverence it took to get to the ability level he currently enjoys. For Mitte, some days are better than others.

The show itself gives his teenage character three dimensions, it doesn't pretend we're all just superheroes for stepping out into the world and living our lives. Sometimes Walter Jr. is a smart alec jerk, sometimes he's a whiny bastard and sometimes (perish the thought) he's trying to bribe liquor store patrons to buy him beer.

This regular teenager, who just happens to have a disability, comes from the mind of series creator Vince Gilligan (The Lone Gunmen) who was inspired to create an authentic disabled teen because of a friend with cerebral palsy in college.

RJ Mitte and his Walter White character represent a shift in possibility for disabled characters on television, but at the same time, we shouldn't get too excited too fast. The industry still has a long way to go and a lot more disabled actors, creators and crew to employ. It is unfair to think that one 17-year-old teen with cerebral palsy should carry the hopes and dreams of millions of disabled viewers on his back. The load still needs to be spread around and new disabled actors have to enter the industry without reservation.

It's going to be difficult, it still is, even with organizations like I AM PWD bringing the issues to the public, but nothing will change as long as people with disabilities stay out of the industry because they think they'll never make it. To break into the Hollywood system actors with disabilities need to shoot for something higher than just fame. Fame won't happen, but for every actor with a disability that makes it, and plays not just roles written with disabilities, but takes a chance on regular roles, a mind will change and influence the landscape. With enough repetition hopefully seeing disabled people in rich and diverse roles in media will be as normal as seeing black people do the same today.

No one's just going to give us opportunity, so we can't be afraid to take it.

Breaking Bad Season 2 Premieres Sunday, March 8 2009 on AMC at 10pm EST/PST

For more on this issue, read my article "Coming Attractions" in the Winter 08/09 issue of Abilities Magazine available through abilities.ca or at various bookstores nationwide.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

February 17, 2009

ThisAbility #16: The Cycle of Dependence

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 03:11 PM ET | Comments (4)

The government of Ontario and other provinces across Canada recognize that many people with disabilities are unable to work and need income support in order to cover their living and medical expenses. In Ontario it's called the Ontario Disability Support Progam (ODSP) and it provides a maximum amount of $900 a month, along with a monthly dental and drug voucher. On its face it sounds excellent, and it does really help those with no alternative. But needing your every need provided for is only one extreme on the entire ability spectrum.

Way back in the day, I wrote a ThisAbility entry called Walking Between Worlds that this same phenomenon affects many people with disabilities in a major way when it comes to their potential employability and their need for income support. Most people are capable enough to have a job, but disabled enough to need income support because if you can, have, or do work, your disability, in many cases, still restricts your options. I couldn't just take a job in construction or as a server in a restaurant, and I always have to be mindful of how far my place of employment is from my home. I have to make sure I can either drive my scooter there or that public transportation is nearby. I also have to make sure I can actually get into the building and that there are only a few stairs. These factors greatly restrict where I can work compared to the able-bodied population, so I do qualify for income support. However, like most government programs, there's a lot of fine print you don't see from the outside looking in. In fact, ODSP doesn't really give you a hand up under my circumstances. It does a lot more to keep you down and dependent.

ODSP takes full advantage of the phrase "some restrictions apply". Just because you have a disability and qualify for the program doesn't mean you automatically receive the stipend every month. In order to get the maximum amount, all of your assets, bank accounts, and investments can't exceed $7,000. You can work, and ODSP will even provide you with a wardrobe and transportation budget, but you must disclose every dollar you make so that every month they can deduct 50 cents of every dollar you earn from the ODSP allowance. The real salt on the wound is that as long as you still need the income the government provides, you can never get ahead and save money. As soon as your total asset limit exceeds $7,000, you must notify them and they stop sending cheques. If you forget to report that your assets have topped $7,000, you must pay back every last dollar over that amount. Plus, if you happen to feel that the government should not be privy to all the ins and outs of your finances and knowingly omit your asset total and they happen to find out, they could put you away for fraud.

Unfortunately, life is not an either/or scenario. For many with disabilities, it's not the case that you can work and you don't need the cheque, or you need the cheque and can't work at all. Most people aspire to be free and clear of the cheque one day, but are still on the way. The way the system works though, you stay dependent while the government gives with one hand and takes with the other. How can you ever overcome the cheque and move toward fully employed financial independence if you're always hitting the $7,000 ceiling? How can a government pretend to be progressive and encourage people with disabilities to work, when their actions say, "Oh yeah, you can work, but don't work too much. Don't try to build a future for yourself at all. If you need a house, please apply for subsidized housing, and do not attempt to pay for it free and clear."

Of course, it's already a given that if you only get income support, you'll need subsidized housing. If you don't, your entire monthly amount of $900 would be needed just for the rent, and forget ever owning your own house as long as you still are trapped in the noose of ODSP. They may be providing a small amount for your work wardrobe and transportation, but if the job you're applying for isn't paying a rate significantly above the maximum amount of the cheque, you might as well stay home and not even bother, because 50 cents off of every dollar will be clawed back. This system actually discourages you from working. Of course, our capitalist system is hierarchical, so you need the lesser paying jobs in order to get the higher paying jobs that give you any hope of overcoming the cheque. Instead of concentrating on your financial future, you spend all your time calculating and tabulating your finances so that you don't go over $7,000, or get nailed for fraud. All this work so that you can keep getting the help you need. I ask, what kind of hypocritical B.S. is that? This is the very antithesis of empowerment and helping people rise above their circumstances. It's like they're waiting for you to slip up and baiting you to make a mistake. Some people are so outraged that they create hidden bank accounts that they never reveal to the government brass as a form of protest against this cycle of dependence. It's their middle finger to the establishment and if they're brave enough to attempt to get away with it, I say, "Wave it proud."

However, ODSP income support is only the symptom in a greater societal mentality. People are under the mistaken impression that disability comes from a diagnosis. They think that disability is the space between those with a normal physical or mental capacity, and those who don't have those functions at a normal capacity. However, real disability exists in the wide breadth between a society's current accessibility, and what it would take for them to be fully accessible.

Think about it. If I could get in to every building the able-bodied population can, and every opportunity open to a regular able-bodied citizen was one I could take advantage of, then suddenly, whatever differences my diagnosis created from birth are nullified. My disability suddenly becomes a non-issue and has no bearing on my life's success or failure.

Instead, the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is still three to four times higher than it is in the able-bodied world, and we support those who can't work by just giving them money. Why set up a system like income support, where you are continually giving a man a fish, but within that system you're putting up barriers and restrictions that prevent you from teaching that man to fish for himself?

The only explanation is that someone wants to maintain the disability population. They are happy placating and plying us with $900 cheques, and have no real desire to see us move past our diagnosis and become fully self-sufficent, contributing members of society. The income support system was built with the intention of aiding us toward equality, but instead it just emphasizes how different we really are — and if nothing happens, how different we will stay.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

February 11, 2009

ThisAbility # 15: Sexcapades

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 09:28 AM ET | Comments (0)

It's Valentine's Day this week, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to address a topic that doesn't get enough play in the disability community — sex. That's right people: we do have it, and if we're not having it, we want it (shock of shocks). Of course, our current cultural landscape has other ideas, just take a look at this long decried commercial from Mothers Against Drunk Driving that made me want to sponsor an organization for Fathers Against Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

According to MADD, as soon as you acquire a disability you're screwed. But worse than that, no one is screwing you. (Well, some people are, but not in the way that feels good.) For MADD, if someone was ever having sex with you, you can bet they've long since re-invested the future of their family tree into strong, capable, 100% pure, grade A, able-bodied stock. This type of rhetoric is all over the place.

There's a scene in an episode of Sex in the City that has always stuck with me. Steve shows up at Miranda's apartment an emotional basketcase because his doctor just removed a cancerous testicle. With only one ball, he questions whether he'll be able to perform, or if any woman would ever sleep with him again. Putting his worries to rest, Miranda gives him the ultimate confidence boost and mauls him right there. Now, that's a great message to send. The only way anyone would sleep with a disabled guy is out of pity. (Of course, they're doing us a favor out of the goodness of their hearts, we should applaud their effort.) I think I'd rather pay for it, thanks.

It's not just that the culture takes us out of the game as viable sexual partners and possibilities, (Ladies, how many times have you been in a club and mentally undressed a guy in a wheelchair? Maybe you stopped at the waist? Or maybe you continued, but your practical side stopped short of the approach) it's our biases and preconceived notions, on both sides of the ability line, that do too. A relationship with a disabled person means different things to different people.

Maybe you think you'll have to help them physically, but you don't think you're strong enough. Maybe you just don't have the patience to wait for things that might take a little longer, or maybe your life's going along swimmingly, so why complicate things when the abundance of able-bodied candidates could potentially eliminate the hassle.

Even I have reservations about dating someone with a disability because I feel like I don't want to take on the extra challenge of assisting someone else, when my own disability already gives me enough to manage. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think dating an able-bodied person wouldn't make my life easier in a practical sense. Of course, all of these care giving/home management issues can be solved by a third party — A fact so many forget to think about. If someone who hates to clean can hire a cleaning lady, then someone who needs help can hire a staff person. No one else knows how to manage their disability better than the person who has it, so why not leave it to them? (Unless they ask for your help specifically.) All of this then leaves you both time to make the relationship the primary focus. In some ways it's more complicated than that (As much as I try, I can't manufacture attraction or chemistry). But maybe next time you walk into the club, you'll make that approach, and know that everything else can be handled as you both go along.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

February 03, 2009

ThisAbility # 14: "Oh, by the way..." The High Cost of Living

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 11:18 AM ET | Comments (0)

If you read ThisAbility #8: Condo Conundrum, you'll know that I recently moved into a one bedroom condo. Since my former place was a one room bachelor apartment, it was time to fill my condo with some furniture. I wanted a one-stop shop, so I went to everyone's favorite Swedish furniture self-serve community,IKEA, and suddenly my place was a little more unboring. Like Edward Norton's apartment in Fight Club, my rooms started to match the catalogue. I now had the GAlANT desk, the RAMVIK coffee table and the HOPEN dresser and night table set. All in, it was $1,191.21, which is shipping, handling, delivery and furniture pieces. The price wasn't too bad, but they forgot to mention what my friend calls, "The Disability Tax."

To an able-bodied person, having the option of getting your furniture built, through an IKEA referral to an outside contractor, is a nice, optional perk for shopping there. For a disabled person, getting their furniture built is not an option -- it's a necessity. With all the parts and pieces of varying weight, you just can't physically get it done any other way, and you have no other option. Obviously, these IKEA furniture building companies are not charities and they charge for their services, but, as a disabled person, you're not paying for a privilege, your paying for a need. IKEA furniture only comes out of the store one way, so why should I have to pay to compensate for circumstances I can do nothing about? If I didn't have a disability, I wouldn't have to pay this disability tax that comes just because I need functional furniture.

I understand that people should be paid for the labour it takes to build furniture. IKEA should pay them, not me. IKEA chooses to provide their furniture in disassembled form and they want the business of seniors and disabled people. As far as I'm concerned, offering free assembly to those who can't build it themselves is nothing but the cost of doing business. This could also be a marketing opportunity for them. They could offer free assembly to anyone who buys furniture over a certain dollar amount.

The phenomenon of The Disability Tax isn't just limited to corporations like IKEA. The government is notorious for giving with one hand, and taking with the other. I'm currently in the throws of getting a new scooter through funding provided by the Ontario Adaptive Devices Program. In order to qualify for funding, you have to be assessed as a true disabled person by a regestered physio therapist. This is a requirement that can't be avoided.

So, when on the way to do the assessment yesterday, the physio said, "Oh by the way, I hope someone told you, but my normal fee is $125," I almost dropped the phone. Once again, someone was profiting from my disability. If I didn't have a disability, I wouldn't need a scooter. If there weren't barriers to employment because of my disability, I could probably afford to get a scooter without funding. In that case, I wouldn't need the physio, who wouldn't get my hard earned $125.

Thinking about the cycle that way, shows that there's an entire industry built around my circumstances: physios, O.T.'s, doctors and cleaning ladies could all salivating at the earning potential my disability provides them. It could make you crazy just thinking about it.

Requiring people to buy other services in order to benefit from funding, means your just taking advantage of their desperation. Those who provide the funding and require proof of disability, should pay the physio therapist they require to do the assessment. It's not like filling out forms is labour intensive, all the physio really needs to pay for is gas and postage. Other than those expenses, she's getting her expertise from a degree she has already earned. Filling out forms is not even a physio's primary job description. She's only exploiting a need, and in my case, leveling her fee at the last possible moment, when it's too late.

"Whoever invented the term, 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole."-- George Carlin

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

January 27, 2009

ThisAbility #13: Parental Control

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 04:08 PM ET | Comments (0)

When Lenore Skenazy admitted, last spring, that she let her nine-year-old ride the subway alone, she set off gasps from many fearful and concerned parents. After all, her son Izzy was still single-digit age and the world is a "Dangerous place these days" and "Who knows what could happen." I could call bull-shit on those theories, but Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller already did in an episode of their infotainment show, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on stranger danger. See the episode below, if you like:

So what does all of this have to do with disability? Well, while it's true that everyone has their mommy and daddy issues and parents of able-bodied kids worry about strangers, food on the floor and swimming after eating. All that paranoia can get ramped up tenfold when you have a disability. Parental support (or not) can very much mean the difference between an independent adulthood or a lifetime of dependence. Parents of disabled kids need to take a page from the "Book of Skenazy."

I know what all you worried parents of disabled children are thinking: "Wait just a minute, Izzy didn't have a disability! Doesn't that change the game?" Well no, not really. Look, I know that there are some disabilities that make it impossible for those that have them to leave their house without assistance. Some people really don't have the capacity to make the descisions to keep themselves safe, but that doesn't mean they can't use what they do have to live a life as independently as possible. Able-bodied people are paid regularly to be the physical bodies for their disabled clients and everyone should be given the opportunity to fail and learn from their mistakes. Just because it's obvious someone can't be independent in one way, doesn't mean they shouldn't be given every opportunity to be independent in other ways.

What I'm talking about here is not degree of disability, I'm talking about an attitude. It's an attitude that can be adopted by any parent, no matter what their child's disability is. For most parents, it doesn't even matter how disabled their child is.

For example, I moved to Toronto from Vancouver with almost the full financial backing and logistical support of my parents almost six years ago. I knew that if I stayed in Vancouver, it would be way too easy for me to rely on my parents (with mom checking in regularly). I would never really know my full capabilities, my accomplishments would always be coloured by the parental asterix. I wanted to live or die purely by my own hand and I do. I live on my own, I clean my own house and make my own money, they all approve, and yet, at 23, with six years of independent living under my belt, I still have the types of conversations with my mother that rely on the worst case scenerio as their central tenant. I remember when I was moving to Toronto, my jacket was open and her reaction was: "You'll never be able to survive in Toronto, if you can't do up your jacket."

It's frustrating because I know that there's "The Skenazy Parenting style." The one where the parent feels the fear and the worry, but bites their tongue for the benefit of their child's own self-concept. I know parents of friends with disabilities whose reaction to expanding one's horizon's is always, "Great, go. I'll be here when you get back." Their reaction to catastrophe is not, "I told-you-so," it's, "Figure out how to fix it and if you need my help, ask." They are believers, who use their kid's prior behaivor as evidence of their kid's competence in a given situation. They worry too, but they trust their kid and let faith do the rest.

I would argue that this attitude is more cruicial for disabled children because many of them already have enough people telling them what they can't do beyond their family. Problem solving is a skill they're going to have to use more often than most and their parent's won't be there forever. That's why Lenore's Free Range Kids philosophy should be trumpted by parents of people with disabilities everywhere, especially when the statistics are against these children when it comes to ever leading an independent life.

I should mention too, that if you're a disabled person whose parents are giving you every opportunity to prove yourself. You should routinely thank heaven for your luck. It's you're responsibility to match their support in every way that you are able, and be motivated enough to take advantage of every moment presented.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

January 21, 2009

ThisAbility # 12: American Idol has blinders on

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 10:46 AM ET | Comments (0)

It has been a long time coming, but I'm finally back to my muck raking ways. Last week, I was packing in as much as I could during my last week on the westcoast, so ThisAbility fell by the wayside. Then, not wanting to overshadow the Obamascension activities on Blog This! yesterday, I decided to put this week's entry off by a day.
Barack Obama's mention of people with disabilities at the end of voting night was not missed here, so it's probably the least I could do.

Anyway, last time we were all together, I mentioned my quest to deconstruct the conflict between the medical model and social model in my own life, but then I saw yet another example of how the attitude that permiates the medical model has unconsciously infiltrated the most watched show on television--American Idol.

Scott MacIntyre auditioned in Pheonix on the season premiere. He is a man who is legally blind, and plays the piano, so he was immediately given the full inspirational-superhero-savant treatment with all the trappings. "Wow it's really brave what you're doing," I heard one of the judges say. Only Simon didn't seem to be fazed by the appearent bewilderment that came with MacIntyre actually leaving his house, making the trip and singing so beautifully. The medical model was there as subtext: How could he possibly show up and do this so well? Aren't you supposed to be damaged? Aren't you less than normal?

Obama coined the Audacity of Hope, but for the judges of American Idol, this was the audacity of a disabled man following a dream--how dare he!

The show seemed to be giving itself a pat on the back for sending this guy to the next round, like they bestowed upon him an opportunity only they could give. Not to take away from his talent or self-determination, but, in reality, he is only the latest in a series of piano playing blind singers. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Andrea Bocelli all paved the way that made Scott MacIntyre a "safe" competitor for a record contract. Real change would've been to send a singer in a wheelchair to the next round. How often do we see that? Does the world really need another blind piano playing vocalist?

Of course, a blank cheque for achievement is even worse. Sending a no-talent hack in a chair, just because you want to be progressive, discredits the disabled community even more. It shouldn't be a news flash, but we all want to compete on our own real merits like the rest of the world. How MacIntyre is treated in the next few rounds will really tell the tale,I guess.

What happened during the post-audition interview maybe a thornier issue, but it's all in how you interpret it...

Yes, Ryan Seacrest tried to high-five a blind guy. For most people, (just read the comments) this is dumb and disrespectful on his part. If Scott could see Seacrest's awkward "expectant hand in waiting" moment, his response may have been, "Uuh Ryan, you dolt, I'm blind!" Seacrest knew Scott was blind going into the audition room and it's not like he doesn't have personal experience melding a person's disability with social grace. He is, after all, the chosen protege of Dick Clark, someone who deals with the after effects of a stroke everyday. You'd think that their close working relationship over the last few years would give Seacrest unique insight into the general social etiquette associated with disability. Or at least, give him enough pause to think through his next move.

Then again, isn't Seacrest's natural respose in this instance exactly what should've happened in the audition room moments before? His momentary lapse means he legitimately forgot to see Scott's disability. He saw the person first, isn't that true equality? Too me, reaching for Scott's hand was more of a no-no, as an invaision of personal space. Seacrest would be better served letting McIntyre handle it his own way by saying, "I want to give you a high-five, is it okay if I grab your hand?" After all, how does Ryan really know how Scott takes on high-fives in his own daily life?

People shouldn't feel uncomfortable in voicing their legitimate questions about disability, it's not like there's anything in media teaching them what is proper. How can we really expect people to know how to interact with disabled people when they're barely ever seen at all? When in doubt, ask the question because making assumptions is where we get in trouble.

Scott Macintyre photo courtesy of www.myspace.com/scottmacintyre

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

January 05, 2009

ThisAbility #11: Model Building

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 07:48 PM ET | Comments (0)

As 2009 begins, I enter the new year brimming with optimism, especially when it comes to the essential goodness of my fellow man. This is because just yesterday (as we still battle the snow, and an apathetic city, here in Vancouver)my friend Kent and I were refused pick up by a local cab, only to be taken home by a father and son team in their BMW. So Don and Alex, wherever you find yourselves on this day, this blog is for you...

I also have high hopes for ThisAbility in 2009. I hope to delve deeper into the many issues and permutations of disability in all their forms. I also hope to replace the Eastern European jibberish spam in the comment fields with actual english comments, but since the second resolution is up to you all, I figure I'll just focus on the first.

But before I start wading into more complex territory, it occurs to me that I must prepare my audience with a lesson in terms. The disability civil rights movement is intimately familiar with the ying and yang of philosophies proposed when relating to disability on a macro level.

On the one side, is The Medical Model: The idea that disability is a flaw in the person caused by a physical or mental impairment that must be controlled and whenever possible fixed through sustained, individual medical treatment. The focus is on a cure or a change in behavior that would at least reach an almost cure.
Responsibility rests on the medical care and the individual person. For example, "If they just didn't sit that way, or tried a little harder. or if there was better medical care, they wouldn't be as bad off as they are. Isn't that too bad."

On the other side, there is The Social Model: The idea that true disability is the result of social problem. Here the responsibility rests not with the idividual, but with people with disabilities not being fully intergrated into society. This is caused by a variety of factors in the social environment, traditionally combated through activism and social awareness. The Social Model places disability as a human rights issue, not a medical one. Someone who believes in The Social Model feels that it's not their diagnosis that puts them at a disadvantage, but a society that prioritizes the able-bodied world. Barriers and prejedice (whether purposely or indifferently) are the real determining factors for who is disabled and who is not in the world.

Obviously, this blog leans toward The Social Model most often. In the next couple entries, I will begin to expose the conflict between the medical model and social model in my own life. There are times it will be me vs. the world, me vs. my relationships or me vs. myself. There are a lot of flaws in leaning too far toward one model or the other, but the central question of this blog will always be, where does personal responsibility for one's disability end, or social responsibility begin and vice-versa?

Together we may not ever find a difinitive answer to this question, but at least, by the end, the light on these issues will shine brighter.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

December 23, 2008

ThisAbility 10: Deathly Cold

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 05:17 PM ET | Comments (0)

Forgive me for being so ominous less than two days from Christ's birth. However, as a chill, unseen in years, strands most of the country for long stretches, I don't care about stranded holiday travelers, annoyed, but warm in airports because I'm thinking about this man and woman and how easily they could be me, or any disabled person, under the right set of circumstances...

In fact, early in 2008, mere feet from my front door, on a harrowing night in February, I came dangerously close to sharing their fate...

The scooter was charged. Everything was good and I even drove on the main roads, which were plowed by now. I was going to make it home. I made it all the way to my street, mere feet from my building. I could see it, a beacon of white in the darkness. I'm driving on the road and then a car comes the opposite direction. I go to back up, to let it through, and i'm stuck.

I look over at the crackheads sitting on the stoop across the street who could be helping, but they're laughing and one of them yells to the car, "Hit'em! Hit'em! Run'em over." Neither the car, nor I, are going anywhere, and there's nobody on the street but me, a car, and two crackheads. It's 1 a.m. Finally, one of the men on the stoop pushes me to the sidewalk, figuring he can bum a ride off the car by helping the situation.

The whole time, he's whispering menacingly into my ear, "If this piece of junk dies one shone toward me.more time, i'm leaving you in the middle of the street you little sh--t!" Then he goes back to negotiate with the driver and they leave. I start down the sidewalk alone. the streets are deathly quite and suddenly the scooter hits thick powder and quits again --except this time, there's no one around for miles and I can't feel my fingers or toes.

I try to gut it out, but after two hours, it's clear: I've run out of miracles. I try the cellphone, but I forgot to charge it and my fingers burn with pain. Soon, they're too dead to make anything close to a phone call. There's snow in my boots, on the foot rest, and everything is cold. I am alone.

By hour three, I rub my eyes and icicles are coming off my eyelashes. I'm screaming out the most blood curdling wail. I can see my neighbors looking out their windows, one of them, I swear one looks right at me, but goes back to bed.

By hour four, i'm resigned to the inevitable. No one will find me until morning and by then I'll be dead.

Hour five brings violent shivering and teeth chattering. I can't focus. I try to move my feet and fingers--I can't. My breathing is becoming more labored. I'm getting sleepy. It's tough to keep my eyes open. Periodically, my eyes snap open. I gotta stay awake...

Okay, just when I have you at my narrative mercy, I need to interject...

There are unspoken laws governing every disabled person's ability to survive the winter(some are my responsibility and some are my city's responsibility. I didn't have any of them going for me at the time.)

1. NEVER go OUT WHILE it is currently SNOWING, no matter where you are. (This is a literal life and death decision, as the snow has the power to overtake you and there is a better chance things will get worse before they get better. Here, a potential dinner date and my stubborn independence clouded my judgement.)

2. VIABLE, ACCESSIBLE public transportation is A MUST. (When the buses are down and the subway isn't close, only an accessible taxi will work. In places like Vancouver, you are charged the average metered rate and theTaxi Saver Program means all your rides can be half price. Places like Toronto, charge a $30 flag minimum for any accessible taxi ride, no matter how far you have to go. They also don't have a Taxi Saver Program. Both circumstances force more people with disabilities into life-threatening situations.)

3. AlWAYS CHARGE your CELLPHONE. (Duh.)

Now, to the night's conclusion...

Suddenly, out of the shadows, I hear, "Are you Okay? Do you need help?"

It's two guys from the nearby hotel on the way back home from their shift. They saw me, stopped what they were doing, and effectively saved my life. Now, if that isn't proof of the lord, it'd be hard to know what is. They could've walked away just as easily. They pulled, and tugged, and lifted, and wrenched, my scooter to the door. As soon as the snow-covered behemoth was indoors it worked again. I was so happy, I waved cash at them both, but they wouldn't take the money.

Which brings us to the lesson I want you to take home from all of this (not just during the holiday season, but every season, rain or shine, good day or bad day.) It is the last law that is universal to everyone, but is especially true for all people with disabilities.

4. WITHOUT the KINDNESS OF STRANGERS, WE are NOTHING. (So many people passed by me that night, but the two that stopped to help made all the difference.)

The next time you see someone, anyone, in need don't be glad that's not you and move on. Reach out, even if they refuse, because yours could be the helping hand they never knew they need and the literal gesture that allows them to live another day.

Peace, See you all blessed and refreshed in the new year.
-A
NOTE: Aaron's account of the night originally came from his personal email correspondence.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

December 15, 2008

ThisAbility 9: Accessible or Accessi-bull?

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 11:28 PM ET | Comments (0)

This week I'm coming to you live from Morinville, Alberta snuggled around the fire with the aunts and uncles. It's not as frosty as liquid nitrogen here, but at -30°C my body might as well be experiencing the final round of a Japanese game show.

At least we have each other, right?

While my body keeps warm in Morinville, my mind is still on Toronto and this new initiative that has been slowly cropping up around town...

It's called Accessible Toronto and businesses, restraunts, clubs and pubs have just began sporting their "Accessible Toronto Certified!" stickers on their doors. Basically, it's a website and online community whose administration and membership have started rating places around the city on accessibility.

Now you can look up business and check out the "Wheelcool" rating. It's the lamest name, but the higher the rating, the more accessible the location. The site also centralizes other info any disabled person should need (like the process and contact number for booking Wheeltrans). The site claims to be the first of its kind in Canada and was started by an enterprising Torontonian named Chris Karatsoreos It's a typical story: Guy acquires a disability and finds there is a woeful lack of accessibility information in his city, but this guy actually decided to do something about it (I know, right?). He even has designs on taking his little project national.

This thing just started (yet another disability initiative in its infancy, hopefully it gets past the starting gate), but there's one promising glimmer — it's set to at least make money through advertising and sponsors people with disabilities would be interested in. There aren't a lot of real locations (or advertisers for that matter) and their forum membership includes five people, including the administrator, but at least this dude has chutzpah and isn't just starting his sentences with, "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

So check it out and phone them with more business to audit because we already know the city won't do it.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

December 09, 2008

ThisAbility #8: Condo Conundrum

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 12:48 PM ET | Comments (0)

Hey loyal readership, (here's to hoping there are at least a few of you)

I am in the midst of moving from my bed-bug-invested-cesspool-complete-with-ineffectual-management bachelor apartment into my first condo. (What? Disabled people can afford condos? With some subsidy, my friends — like Obama — YES WE CAN!) and the first question is always, "Where can we put the scooter?" (See: Human Frogger for more on issues related to this lovely little device.)

I can't park it in the hall next to my suite door because, as I was so eloquently reminded by my up-on-current-events neighbour, "It's a fire hazard!" If you know someone who would've been able to flee a burning building if not for the granny scooter parked flush against the wall in a two-lane hallway, then please let me know where they're buried so I may pay my respects.

Most people would say, "Just park it in the suite, you safety-obstructor of pure evil." However, that is where you are wrong, my friends. The door to my suite is not automatic, so I may scratch its Brazilian teak finish and have to pay for the damage. Not to mention the water from the slush outside being tracked in onto my carpet.

What is a man to do?

In this case, my building and strata council are being ever so accommodating and "allowing" me to park in the Bike Room. There's just that little matter of the waiver saying they're not responsible for any damage to my scooter (negligent biking residents or not).

I am grateful, don't get me wrong, but if you're going to open your building to residents with disabilities, why does the idea of accommodating a scooter sound like touching a porcupine to most people (complete with the necessary precautions)?

People really do fear what they do not understand.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

December 02, 2008

ThisAbility #7: Not all Buildings are Created Equal

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 02:09 PM ET | Comments (0)

As a follow-up to last week's entry called Riddle Me This I got in touch with Michael Swan, the man in Toronto City Hall who can answer all your pressing Ontario Building Code questions. I had more than a few. Most of my questions pertained to buildings that feature some accessibility features like automatic door buttons, but have other barriers to access like stairs in the same location. The Econo Lodge at 335 Jarvis St. was used as an example last week (look carefully at the photos on that website and you'll see the problem), but there are plenty of buildings that seem accessible on the outside, but are obviously inaccessible without the power of levitation or divine intervention.

The reason, at least in Ontario, is that buildings cannot be forced to conform to the current building code accessibility regulations. The only time a building needs to conform to the building code is at the time it is awarded its permit. The Econo Lodge has existed as a hotel of one kind or another since it received its permit in 1971, well before accessibility requirements were first established in 1983, so it doesn't have to be an accessible building and any accessibility improvements it does make, like the automatic door button, are up to them.

From 1983-2006, the accessibility portion of the building code was upgraded six times. Only buildings created from 2006 onward must meet the most stringent accessibility requirements. Buildings with permits dated before then, only have to be accessible enough to meet the standard from the year they were erected and don't have to meet the current standards, which means many Toronto buildings will remain only partially accessible for as long as they stand.

Sure Ontario has goals to become fully accessible by 2025, when the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act becomes legally enforceable, but by then I will be 40 years old and there is no guarantee that I'll even live long enough to see it in action. Even Michael Swan says that based on current building code laws, the idea that every building in Ontario will be forced to be completely accessible is, "Wishful thinking."

Plus by 2025, Ontario will be decades behind other provinces in Canada. British Columbia will be fully accessible by 2009 with the arrival of the Winter Olympics. In Ontario the permit is the least expensive part of making your building accessible, the renovations recommended by Toronto's own accessibility guidelines — and that's all they are, guidelines — could run up a hefty bill.

Obviously, in Ontario at least, "equality" is just a buzz word meant to stroke the ego of politicians. As long as the bureaucrats sit on their hands while flapping their gums, accessibility begins and ends with the common man. Next time you run into a person with a disability do the following: hold a door open, pass up elevators in favor of the stairs and above all, ask what it is you can do to bridge the gap between getting in and staying out.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

November 25, 2008

ThisAbility #6: Riddle Me This

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 10:32 AM ET | Comments (2)

Why does the Econo Lodge at 335 Jarvis St. have a push button automatic door with a handicap logo on it, but a single staircase that leads inside? Why does Bar Burrito on Yonge & Sheppard have a step leading into their restaurant, while the restaurant right next door is on level ground? Why does the Quiznos across from College Park have a step outside the front door, when other places on the same strip are fully accessible? Perhaps the biggest riddle of them all, why are Toronto buildings failing where buildings in other cities across Canada succeed? Sure, there are other buildings all over the place that are inaccessible, but Toronto is the only one I've lived in that defies logic and juxtaposes accessible and inaccessible features in the same place, like the automatic door button together with a set of stairs.

After last week's entry, Walking between Worlds, one reader encouraged me to investigate Toronto's real accessibility polices. Was Salad King violating the building code? I decided to find out, and I found the guy responsible for answering any Toronto developer's nagging building code questions. However, in typical bureaucratic fashion, he is slow. So stay tuned next week, when I get to the bottom of the accessibility portion of Toronto's building code.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

November 18, 2008

ThisAbility #5: Walking between worlds

Posted by Graham F. Scott at 12:42 PM ET | Comments (2)

I have a favorite Thai restaurant, here in Toronto, called Salad King. There's nothing I love more than selecting how many chilies I want with my mango chicken, but I can't take anyone I know there — or at least, not unless they can conquer the huge front step outside the front door.

But in typical able-bodied fashion, I usually don't even notice. I just park the scooter outside and walk right in. I've caught myself almost inviting those who can't get in to eat with me there without thinking. I wish I could say it's just at Salad King, but at every typically inaccessible place I want to be. I just leave the remnants of my disabled life at the door and walk right in. It's part of the blessing of being able to walk reasonably well, but it's also part of the curse. My more disabled friends (many of whom with an annoyingly stringent social conscience) wag their finger at me and tell me I should boycott inaccessible locations on principle, even if I can get in. I should flex that empathy muscle and think of them stuck outside.

They're right. They're absolutely unequivocally right, but the mango chicken usually wins out. What can I say? I'm a gluttonous, selfish, hedonistic bastard, especially when it comes to food. I always come to the same conclusion: Why punish myself? I do it because I can and if they could, they would too. This is a battle they're best suited to fight on their own. After all, they have the largest most vested interest of anyone, so they can fight it better than I can.

But then the meal ends, goal accomplished and I'm left with that damn self-awareness. I can't just leave it alone. I know I'm straddling the thought process of the average unenlightened able-bodied person on one side: "I'm sorry for your situation, but this just isn't my problem — let someone else do it," and the temperament of the uptight disabled activist on the other: "I won't rest until all the letters are written, all the protests are marched and all the eyes are open." I'm stuck in the middle, too disabled to be on equal footing with the two-legged uprights and not disabled enough to speak on behalf of the disabled community.

The battle within my head is a microcosm of one of the many central keys that prevent the disabled population from mobilizing in great numbers the way other minorities have. Disability is too broad a spectrum and no one can represent the interests of everyone. Many moments go by when I hear, "You think you're disabled? You don't even know what it's like for the rest of us down here. How dare you speak for us?"

The disabled community has always been a better divider than uniter, probably because we're so used to putting our own interests ahead of our brothers and sisters, and we're so used to fighting for our own survival in this world that we put the rest on the back burner.

Maybe next time, I'll just get take-out.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

November 11, 2008

ThisAbility #4: The Sorry Syndrome

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 11:00 AM ET | Comments (0)

The "Sorry Syndrome" is a phenomenon I know I'll never fully understand. I don't even know whether able-bodied people know what they're doing or if it's just an apologetic, ass covering default they go to in a moment when they don't know what to do. It could be many things... I have my theories, but feel free to weigh-in.

Of course, you can't weigh-in unless you know what I'm talking about, so let me illustrate just one of the many instances:

It happened on the way to class at the Ryerson University Campus in Toronto. I was heading up the main artery of the campus (Gould St.) toward Yonge St. and I was looking straight ahead, not really paying attention...SMASH! Guy on a bike comes down an alley and T-bones my scooter. The dude flips over his handlebars, sails through the air across my lap and lands flat on his back on the other side of me. My mouth was agape, but this guy gets up, dusts himself off, opens his mouth and says, "I'm sorry man, are you okay?"

There it is. Right there. WTF was that? I was fine, but against all rationality, and potential injury, this guy says he's sorry and asks me how I'm doing? Sure it's a stand up move, but he just rammed rubber and aluminum piping at full speed into steel and plastic. When those two forces collide, I know who's getting the best of that exchange, and it's not going to be the bike or the rider. Yet, I'm the delicate flower? The whole thing was my fault.

This word, "Sorry" and its usage as it pertains to people with disabilities wouldn't be so perplexing to me if I didn't hear it every day. If I happen to be behind a group of people on the sidewalk, well back of their personal space, the first thing I hear is "Sorry" as they proceed to get out of the way. Where did this notion that disabled people want to be in front of everything come from? I'm perfectly happy following you. I put my cane down to use both hands and the first thing anyone does is pick it up and say, "Sorry about that."

Sorry for what? I'm sorry you feel you have to say that. I could brush up against you on a dance floor and sorry comes out of your mouth. Do all my actions look like your mistake?

I'm here to announce: it's not your fault. You're devaluing real apologies by doing that. You're afraid. Maybe I might fall, maybe you'll cause it, and maybe you won't, but so what? What's the worst that can happen? Maybe you're averse to physical contact from strangers — I think you need a hug. Maybe you dismiss people with disabilities because you just don't know how to deal, and sorry is your deflection shield. The next time you feel the urge to verbally excrete a "sorry," why not start a conversation? Start with, "Hi, my name is..." I know Canada was once a colony of a country that invented manners and decorum, but the "Sorry Syndrome" is getting so ridiculous I feel like, If I cracked a guy across the jaw for no reason, the first thing he would do is apologize.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

[CC-licensed image courtesy Steve Ford Elliott]

More entries on: ThisAbility

November 04, 2008

ThisAbility #3: Somewhere Stephen Hawking is drooling (on purpose) right now

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 01:40 PM ET | Comments (1)

Now for those of you who are actually paying attention: Last week, I promised that I would talk about a distinctly able-bodied affliction I’ve noticed called the "Sorry Syndrome". Well, I’m going to make like the government and put that disability issue on the back burner in favor of something I arbitrarily deem more important and more worthy of my resources.

At the beginning of our ThisAbility experiment, I told you I would interrupt my regular focus on attitudinal barriers to bring you transformative news that directly affects the disabled community at large. This is one of those times. It comes to us via the non-stop ticking of CBS's 60 Minutes. The story was called Harnessing the Power of the Brain and it focuses on a technological breakthrough worthy of Professor Charles Xavier and his Cerebro device from the pages of X-Men. The story centers on a technological marvel called the Brain-Computer Interface System: it's a skull cap peppered with electrodes that feed directly into a PC, allowing engaged minds trapped within useless bodies to control their world independently using only their thoughts.

This isn't mind control. You can't make your support worker's head explode just by focusing intensely enough, but you can type a word, letter by letter, just by consciously thinking about it. Every time you select a letter with your thoughts, your brain sends a signal to the computer and the word is written before your eyes. Another piece of technology,Braingate, negates the skull cap and implants electrodes directly into the brain. The first group who signed up for the clinical trials, can now pilot a wheelchair from afar using their minds (it's not yet safe enough to sit in the chair while thinking your way around the room). Braingate technology is also being used to develop hyper-realistic prosthetics that can be controlled within the brain, as if they were real limbs.

Of course, this is all great news, giving people who were formerly trapped inside themselves their lives back. Now they can communicate and go back to their old jobs as if they just went on vacation, instead of rehab. People with spinal cord injuries could get back on their feet again faster than Lee Majors ever did in The Six Million Dollar Man. A few more tests in the lab and they can rebuild people: they do have the technology. But who's to say that everybody wants to be rebuilt? Who's to say everyone wants to take the blue pill? Even if you want the "Super Soldier Serum" this neuron-powered technology provides, it has yet to be ascribed a price tag or wide release. When it is, it will most definitely be tough to afford on a disability pension, potentially shutting out those who could get the best use out of it. Maybe that's the problem with stories about futuristic, life saving technology. Shows like 60 Minutes dangle the carrot, only to have it yanked away by bureaucratic red tape when it's finally ready for public usage. It wouldn't be the first piece of medical technology marred by squandered potential.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

October 28, 2008

ThisAbility #2: Human Frogger

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 11:08 AM ET | Comments (0)

You are all afraid. I see the fear wherever I go, it's in how you move out of the way of my path, six feet ahead of me, before I'm even remotely close to your personal space. It's in how you carefully shuttle your partner out of harm's way, as I'm coming down the sidewalk. It's also in the relief on your face, as I somehow miss your toes while I navigate through a store.

I drive an electric, three-wheel, scooter and now I'm nominated for the "Most Likely to Commit Vehicular Bodily Injury Award" in the minds of most biped pedestrians. Even physical contact I actually want to make is perceived as accidental when I'm driving my scooter. When I go for the slightest touch, it's not unusual to hear an "Oh, Sorry," spouted on reflex. (More on "The Sorry Syndrome" next week) People are genuinely surprised that I am actually good at driving, that I made that turn, that I saw them behind me, and that I didn't just plow right into them full bore.

But maybe those people have a point; maybe it makes more sense for me to be a maniac bent on vehicular homicide. There are certainly disabled people of all types who don't deserve to be on the road, people like the 83-year-old woman who ran over this boy.

His mother is calling for regulations. While her suggestion that the scooter's power be cut as soon as we get too close to something, suggests we're all just a giant pile of uncontrollable impulses with zero discretion and judgment, I'm fully behind her call for competency licensing and moderate speed on sidewalks. But people, let's not forget that common sense goes a long way on both the disabled and able-bodied side of the safe scooters equation.

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I'm out on the street, I don't see people, I see pylons, and during every "driving test," I'm bound to hit a few. Not literally, but I wouldn't have this feeling, and I wouldn't have to keep it in check for your safety, if I didn't have to deal with so much pedestrian apathy and people were actually aware of their surroundings. I shouldn't have to compensate for reckless stupidity, but I do all the time. Then again, the scooter is electric, so you can't hear me when I'm coming. Plus, the horn doesn't sound like a horn, it sounds like I'm flatlining on an operating table. Like I said, two sides; but maybe if both the able-bodied and disabled populations worked a little harder for each other, we could both share the sidewalk without fear or frustration.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

October 21, 2008

ThisAbility #1: "So, what happened? Did you get in an accident, or something?"

Posted by Aaron Broverman at 12:59 PM ET | Comments (2)

[Editor's Note: Today we're launching the first in what will likely become a stable of BLOG.THIS columns. Aaron Broverman will be writing "ThisAbility," a column about issues of disability. ThisAbility will appear each Tuesday. Look for more soon.]

"So, what happened? Did you get in an accident, or something?"

No, but this is still ranks in the top three questions I, and I know a whole lot of other people with disabilities, get asked by the able-bodied population on a constant basis. It is right up there with "Are you okay?" and "How fast does that thing go?" So, as an introduction to me (your host on this journey through disability issues) and by extension this blog, I will tell you "what happened," just this once...

I have Cerebral Palsy, a congenital, non-progressive disability that usually affects the cerebellum part of the brain. CP comes with symptoms affecting balance, coordination, spasticity, posture and speech, along a varying spectrum of severity that comes to every individual differently. I like to use the maxi-pad analogy to describe it: I have Cerebral Palsy light. I walk with a cane outside the house and use a scooter for long distances. There is no speech effect and ladies — the plumbing works.

Enough about me, THIS and I have a blog to launch. We want this disability issues blog to be more about the attitudinal issues people with disabilities routinely come up against. Sure, we will cover those big systemic accessibility issues as they arise, and give you information on cool things in the community, but we don't want this club to be so exclusive that we're making people feel unable to broach particular beefs, questions or comments. Nothing is off limits here, and we hope to get a good, juicy dialogue going between writer and reader. Look for it right here, every Tuesday.

Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.

More entries on: ThisAbility

---

 Subscribe to the feed

---

Blog This Must-Reads

---

---

---

Blog This Archives

May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
March 2000

---