In Which Bohemian Crip Could Kill Your Fun Accident Game In One Word...

 GAME: Name one thing that almost killed you.
BC: Birth.

We've All Been Becca Myers...

 otherwise known asthe Paralympic swimmer who couldn't come to the Paralympics without her mom as attendant. I can't swim at all, so I've not literally been where Ms. Myers is, although my own personal-care needs, though different, are extensive enough that, no, I can't really teach them to somebody I've just met.

As disappointing as this is coming from an organization designed to center disability, I think it just illustrates our culturally two-faced attitude about the value of caregiving generally, in the way it looks better from a fuzzy distance where neither providers or consumers ask for anything.

Bohemian Crip Watches Movies: Give Me Liberty

Give Me Liberty  may be the single most representative non-documentary I've ever seen(I'm 47). As such, it's not exactly a restful viewing experience as it reminds me of about a year's worth of paratransit trips, complete with noise, chaos, missed intentions and a destination that's "ten minutes away, tops," but seems to be receding in the distance.Everyone with a disability in the movie has a disability, which is rare enough that some viewers, including my mom, found it off-putting at times.  I think it's pretty awesome, even if every other movie I've ever seen sort of makes me think that the most "mainstream-salvageable" riders will both have a meet-cute and hit Publisher's Clearinghouse and somehow be rescued from being who they are.

Paratransit driver Vic has already brought his work home, living in a senior-living complex with his grandfather while he drives clients around working-class sections of Milwaukee, pretty much knowing going in that doing his job for one client may mean disappointing someone else, and always keeping dispatch(the closest to The Man that this story features) one step behind. Somehow, he ends up driving Grandpa's posse of old-timers on a day when there's a protest march in the city and a full complement of disabled riders(Some of whom run late all the time because they don't have enough support at home, which is often the fact, Jack. Although there are little wins in this movie, it doesn't try to tell us the United States leaves no crip behind.)

25 Years Ago...

 if I'd written about states ending sub-minimum wage it would have been very different, both because disability writing occasioned in me a sense of queasy obligation, and because, twenty-six years ago, I boarded paratransit with a resume that was barely a thought clutched in one hand and "What Color Is Your Parachute?" clutched my in my other, exceptional hand. I told the driver, who was black and probably had his own problems that I was "sort of" on a job search and what a trial it had been...I told him more than I needed to because I didn't need to be a success for him and prove that my education had been worthwhile. He thought he was helping when he suggested Local Workshop Provider, but I was a little offended. You know, I went to school,  I was the only crip in the room for a reason. Just ask me, I'd tell you how unusual I was. I didn't take him up on that whole piecework thing, and I moved away, and I thought I'd forgot most of the cravings of my "Suzie Mainstream" period like all the pink sweaters I wore back then.

Although, today I might say that the faith in workshops for disabled people and the mainstream's faith in "Parachute" might come from two sides of the same delusion about the power of individual intangibles like "work ethic" to be the one ingredient that separates the successful from the also-ran.(as opposed to luck of the draw, social class or whether this blog is ever sweet enough to get hyped on "The Ellen Show? Not usually.)

I'm not especially informed on the payment issue, but I do think if these people are workers their work matters they should get paid more for it, however, my experience makes me ask different questions Like, why is "a sense of dignity and purpose" tied up with a job anyway(Let alone with a job that many companies kind of present as them providing a service to the community that's not strictly essential.)

Why can't these co-workers just hang out together without pretending they have to be in the same workspace at 9:03 Monday-Friday if that's what they really care about?(Although, yes, it's probably easier to find transportation to one regulating box than any number of locations, but that's wrong, too and needs to be addressed.)

Are disabled people ever allowed to do anything that's not Improving?(asking for millions of friends)

Is any American who is not taking a phallic substitute in space allowed?

What about The People Who Aren't Lauren?

 I don't think David Axelrod(or Kurt Warner, (who is what this recent op-ed discussion made me think of, because local press would make you think that Mr Warner invented housing segregated by ability level and it's a great new idea that being a quarterback gave him vision for.) are wrong for wanting "pleasant tree-lined streets" and friends their adult children relate to. Those are nice things that maybe everyone should have a shot at having.

Residential placement was different for me than it is for Lauren, because my parents aren't bold-type names who know donors who they can tell to take their toys and go home when they feel that she or they have been disrespected. (thankfully, all I was was disrespected, which takes a toll, but not like the ones taken by abuse or more serious neglect. I avoided most of the real "snakepit" scenarios, but I bet Lauren's place isn't understaffed, with a great many of the people being glad to  work there cause they don't have to wear the dumb hat, like at Del Taco.(A lot of us were nineteen) At the time, both sets of parents(again, different for Lauren...the odds of both sets of 'rents and me agreeing on what should happen next? Close enough to nil that maybe the mathematician from "Numbers" could have found the actual number.) They were both running businesses and didn't really have the inclination or connections to build me my own planet.(Do I want one? Sometimes. More than I want to talk about my goals with another near-stranger who's trying to seem friendly while keeping an ear out to make sure my story doesn't change too much....I'm not here to make the argument that the institutional alternatives as they currently stand are anything like what most people need.  Just feeling that the Axelrod/Warner vision is a bit less than small-d democratic.)

How much does Axelrod know about what his daughter wants?(All right, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe you don't write op-eds about people you're not close to, right?) But even now, I live with my mother and she's not above nudging a little about something that "we talked about" or "we agreed" so I could imagine that maybe "Axe's" own fear about the homestyle placement instead of the dorm one dominates the conversation enough that she doesn't share anymore if she thought about something else.

I'd Call It A Protest...

but I haven't been out on the Fourth in ages.

Not happy with how things are going though.

Also, the political press has no idea what blistering statements really look like, for real, although this is shorn of typical Biden meandering. wouldn't mind if he let more anger came through, as long as  he didn't , say, try to "take" voting-rights opponents.

Although, I'm pretty sure that Presidents shouldn't aim for David Simon blistering, as much as I might enjoy it from the Left.  but unless you read something and really do think "Damn, that'll leave a mark," stop writing "blistering"