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I had a very pleasant 70-year-old patient in today. He is disabled from multiple sclerosis and bound to a motorized wheelchair. I was evaluating him for hand weakness. He mentioned that his weakness was leading to malfunctions when shooting his Glock 19. I mentioned limp wristing, and he picked up that I was also a shooter. That led to a very pleasant discussion . . . He mentioned that he does not carry a pistol anymore due to his weakness and is considering a Taser. He wears a fanny pack with various essentials front and center and I think it...

Bobby Schindler New York City, N.Y., Nov 18, 2011 / 10:55 am (CNA).- Reports that one in six disabled persons in New York over the last decade have died from preventable causes has drawn sharp criticism from local media and disability advocates. “We are devaluing these people,” Bobby Schindler of the Life and Hope Network told CNA, and “we are seeing” this kind of treatment “rationalized and justified everyday.”The New York Times outlined death reports on Nov. 5 of developmentally disabled persons throughout the last 10 years. The newspaper found that those receiving care in New York died from...

Robert Haynes and his wife, Patricia, take care of their cerebral palsy-stricken son and daughter in their Macomb Township home. Taxpayers help out with monthly checks to the Haynes family. The checks, which are sent by the state, allow them to keep their son and daughter at home instead of having them institutionalized. But some of the taxpayer dollars that are supposed to go to the Haynes family are being siphoned off. The state takes a $30 monthly deduction from the checks and sends it to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This deduction is the result of the forced...

Now, Apple has always gone to considerable lengths to make the iPhone usable for people with vision and hearing impairments. If you’re deaf, you can have the LED flash to get your attention when the phone rings. You can create custom vibration patterns for each person who might call you. You can convert stereo music to mono (handy if you’re deaf in one ear). If you’re blind, you can literally turn the screen off and operate everything — do your e-mail, surf the Web, adjust settings, run apps — by tapping and letting the phone speak what you’re touching. You...

JERUSALEM, November 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - “Wrongful life” lawsuits, in which doctors are held liable for not discovering fetal abnormalities that might have prompted parents to abort their child, have become so common in Israel that the government has set up a committee to investigate the issue, New Scientist reports. According to magazine, wrongful life claims are more prevalent in Israel where a higher rate of genetic disorders caused by consanguineous (connected by kinship) marriages has fueled a “pro-genetic testing culture.” The county has seen an estimated 600 wrongful cases since the first in 1987. While similar lawsuits in the...

Almost one million people will be stripped of their incapacity benefit payments and forced to look for jobs under major reforms to the welfare system over the next three years, research has found. The Coalition’s tougher rules on who can claim incapacity allowances will be felt most strongly in Labour’s heartlands of the north of England, Scotland and Wales, according to the study, which criticised the plan. The report from Sheffield Hallam University, in the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s constituency, warned that that “vast numbers” of people will be impoverished and left in distress as a result of the...

eptember 23, 2011 Handicapped Kids...Better Off Dead By Peter Heck For those of us committed to the fight of saving Western Civilization from collapse, stories like the one that recently emerged from West Palm Beach, Florida are not reassuring. It seems that Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana, the parents of a young disabled boy named Bryan Santana, have received a $4.5-million court victory over a doctor and ultrasound technician they accused of malpractice. What makes this story uniquely disturbing is the alleged offense of the two medical professionals. According to the Palm Beach Post, "[the parents] claimed they would have...

Filmed Saturday, March 19, 2011, this a clipped version of the events that unfolded at the downtown Hyatt, Sacramento, CA during the Republican State Convention. E+ Productions had a crew there to capture the protest to use within their documentary feature film, "WHERE'S FRANK?" , but no one could have predicted what would happen next.

(full title: Has Lady Gaga finally taken things too far? Singer is slammed by disability groups after performing on stage in a wheelchair) "She has been criticised for her use of religious symbolism, slammed for some of her song lyrics and had animal rights groups up in arms over her meat dress. But Lady Gaga might have pushed her critics over the edge last night after she came on stage in Australia in a wheelchair. The able-bodied star has caused outrage among disability groups"

The darkest hour is just before dawn. A huge swath of this planet, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Philippine Sea, has been held in a synthetic,forced nightfall for nearly fourteen centuries. But the sunrise is coming, it is coming sooner rather than later, and this light will be the life of men. Everywhere in the western world, people look at the savage violence that is a daily occurrence in the Muslim world and shake their heads in stunned disbelief. A pastor of a very small Christian flock in Florida burns a Koran. Weeks later at literally the global...

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., March 30, 2011 – Sheila James threw her arms up in joy, flashing a smile that stretched from ear to ear as she celebrated a personal victory during the 25th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic here yesterday. Elden Miller, a former Army sergeant blinded during a truck explosion at Fort Carson, Colo., finds the “Miracle on the Mountain” while blazing independently down the wide-open spaces of Colorado’s Snowmass Mountain at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, March 29, 2011. Accompanying him is volunteer ski instructor Jerry Miserandino. DOD photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution...

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., March 28, 2011 – Deputy Veterans Affairs Secretary W. Scott Gould called on more than 350 disabled veterans last night to strive for new heights as they participate here this week in the 25th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic. Disabled veterans arrive for opening ceremonies of the 25th National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic at Snowmass Village, Colo., March 27, 2011. DOD photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Speaking during opening ceremonies alongside Vice President Joe Biden and Disabled American Veterans National Commander Wally Tyson, Gould praised the success of what has...

A British court still needs to decide whether to authorize the sterilization, at her mother’s own request, of a mentally disabled woman (see e.g. here and here). Reading only the headlines and initial paragraphs of the news entries devoted to the case, one might become worried that we are seeing here a resurgence of an abhorrent practice that gained much favour in the first half of the 20th-Century, in countries like Germany or the United States: i.e. the compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for eugenic purposes. However, it is important to look at the particulars of this case in...

The U.S. Transportation Department fined Delta Air Lines $2 million for failing to adequately assist disabled passengers, in violation of federal rules. The fine against one of the nation's largest air carriers is the biggest non-safety-related penalty ever imposed on an airline by the department. Delta has agreed to pay the fine by signing a consent agreement. In a statement, the air carrier said the airline takes "the responsibility of serving customers with disabilities seriously and has made significant investments in technology, feedback assessment and training." In response to complaints by disabled passengers, the Transportation Department's Aviation Enforcement Office investigated...

This week, state Sen. Michael Rubio will introduce legislation that would prohibit food stamps from being used to purchase "junk food" or prepared meals at fast-food restaurants. "The question is what should we be using taxpayer funds to purchase," the Bakersfield Democrat said Tuesday. "In my opinion, we should be focusing on what people need, not what they want." Those needs include foods found in the traditional food pyramid, he said, including breads and cereals, meats, beans, nuts, dairy products and other protein sources, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Rubio's idea is not yet an official Senate bill. But...

A gang of sex attackers captured on video raping ten severely disabled women are being hunted by police. One of the perverts is a paraplegic and some of the victims were so mentally defenceless they wore nappies. Artist sketches and photographs of the suspects were released by Los Angeles police after a computer hard drive containing 100 hours of video footage was delivered to them anonymously.

Specially-trained Capuchin monkeys in the US are helping physically disabled people with the housework by performing tasks such as removing garbage, fetching the telephone or switching on the microwave. The furry companions are also helping paraplegics cope with loneliness. It's her small hands that make Minnie especially useful. Hairy and slender, with slim fingers and black nails, the Capuchin monkey's hands are just right for twisting open a bottle of juice or fetching the telephone. And when Craig Cook's head itches, Minnie comes and scratches it until he feels better. "She is more human than you would think," Cook says....

Audio, NY Assemblymen Bob Reilly in conclusion to a debate mimics young man with cerebral palsy: http://www.talk1300.com/CMT/podcast/bobreillyimitatespersonwithcp.mp3

Since it came to light that council money handed out to disabled people has paid for visits to lap-dancing clubs, prostitutes and sign-ups to internet dating sites, newspapers and radio phone-ins have been jam-packed with indignant voices. Some object to a ‘mis-use of public funds’, some have expressed concern about the immorality of promoting ‘loveless’ sex as a social service, and some have even suggested that the state putting money into the hands of a sex-worker is ‘evil’ and/or ‘sick’. It never ceases to amaze me how energetic people can get disapproving of acts of compassion being visited upon those...

Retiree and Annuitant Pay: Change to CRDP AmountJeffrey Johnson, Deputy Director of DFAS Retired and Annuitant (R&A) Pay, Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:01 AM Beginning with the June 1, 2010 paycheck, Concurrent Retirement Disability Pay (CRDP) will be rounded down to the nearest dollar amount, rather than paid to the exact penny. This change will be applied to all future payments including any future retroactive computations. Because this change represents less than one dollar per month, we will not recoup previous payments that were not rounded down. The law requires that all amounts computed under Chapter 71 of Title...

Bill seeks to make electronics accessible to blind, deaf By Cecilia Kang Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 17, 2010; A10 Blind and deaf consumers, who have fought to make home phones and television more accessible, say they are being left behind on the Web and many mobile devices. Touch-based smartphone screens confound blind people who rely on buttons and raised type. Web video means little to the deaf without captioning. But legislation is in the works to put pressure on consumer electronics companies that revolutionized an earlier generation of technology for the vision- and hearing-impaired. "Whether it's a Braille...

In fact, I shouldn’t have been here for most of my life. Friday is June 18. On June 18 exactly 50 years ago, I was returning home from two weeks’ annual active duty in the Army Reserve. It was peacetime, so I never heard a shot fired in anger − unless you count people at the rifle range who were irritated by their low scores. But I still came within inches of being killed in the line of duty. I was driving north on U.S. 101 near Camp Roberts, when an elderly couple entered the freeway driving south. The problem...

A House panel has voted to give the military a 1.9 percent pay raise next January. That would be a half percentage point higher than what the Obama administration wanted simply to match private sector wage growth. The House armed services subcommittee on military personnel panel also endorsed increases next year in hostile fire pay and family separation allowance, enough to restore the relative value of these payments to what they were in 2004 when they last were adjusted. But the same panel said the money tap is off for expanding entitlements to reserve personnel, disabled retirees or widows. “The...

4/30/2010 - TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan (AFNS) -- Airmen from the Transit Center at Manas helped disabled children at a Kyrgyz children's center learn to sign, draw and study during a visit April 27. Some of the children have autism, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy; some are just physically handicapped, said Sam Duechenbi, a German translator for the Nadjeshda Children's Center, who met with Airmen during their visit. Some board at Nadjeshda; some go home to their parents at night. But they all benefit from the myriad therapy techniques provided by the children's center, he added. "Many Kyrgyz people...

Sarah Palin was ridiculed for using the term “death panels.” But what would you call unelected, unaccountable, faceless bureaucrats who will decide which treatments you or your loved ones can receive − and which you cannot receive − on the basis of their notion of “cost-effectiveness”? You can call them aarkvarks, for all I care.

(CNSNews.com) - The Senate defeated three separate amendments offered to the health-care reconciliation bill on Wednesday night that would have abolished or limited the impact of a new tax on medical devices—including prosthetics, such as artificial limbs—that was enacted in the new health-care law President Barack Obama signed on Tuesday.

FAIRFAX, Va., March 25, 2010 – Doctors once told Matthew Bilancia that playing sports and competing in athletic competition would be difficult, if not nearly impossible. Air Force veteran Matthew Bilancia rides a spin bike during a workout March 24, 2010, at a health club in Fairfax, Va. Bilancia is training up for the inaugural Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo., May 10-14. DoD photo by Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. But the Air Force veteran is defying those odds with a demanding workout regimen and by being selected to participate in...

"To give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation [concentration camps] or sterilization", advocated the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger in April 1932 ("A Plan For Peace", Birth Control Review; see 'appendix' for this full unabridged seminal article). Which country pioneered forced sterilization in the 20th century, Germany or the United States of America? The German program began in January 1934, but the U.S. state of Indiana passed a forced sterilization law (for mental defectives) in 1907 (when Adolf Hitler was 18 years old). Before the German...(cont'd http://www.spectacle.org/997/richmond.html)

Family: ‘Friends’ torture, kill disabled womanSix charged in death of 30-year-old whose body was dumped at Pa. school updated 5:16 p.m. ET, Fri., Feb. 12, 2010 GREENSBURG, Pa. - Jennifer Daugherty's mom and stepdad didn't press for details when she mentioned she had made some new friends. The 30-year-old had the mental abilities of an adolescent but wasn't the kind to get in trouble, and she was even thinking about getting her own place soon. Police found her body Friday stuffed into a garbage can in a school parking lot; they say she had been forced to consume detergent and...

Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Monday called for President Obama to fire his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, because of an offensive comment he reportedly made. At an August strategy session of liberal groups and White House aides, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Emanuel told liberals they were "F-ing retarded" for planning to air attack ads against conservative Democrats opposed to health care reform. Palin, whose youngest child has Down Syndrome, said in a Facebook note that "our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm's recent sick and offensive tactic." "I would...

Jodie Beckner demonstrated a move at Pilates Plus in La Jolla, where she teaches classes. Six years ago, Beckner suffered a permanent traumatic brain injury after a head-on collision on an icy Vermont road. She graduated from SDSU in December and hopes to go to nursing school. Peggie Peattie / Union-Tribune Mike Beckner was fixing dinner when he got the phone call parents dread — the one from a doctor trying to break awful news gently.Earlier that day, Nov. 11, 2003, his daughter, Jodie, had driven up a mountain to catch the first day of snowboarding season at a...

Fly fishing is a sport that was made popular by the book and movie A River Runs Through It. Some people like it to catch fish, some just enjoy seeing the brightly colored line sweep through the air over the water. And now, fly fishing is also used for healing. "You get in touch with nature and forget about all your problems, it's just a natural way to heal yourself," said military veteran Kenny Stanford who did two tours of duty in Iraq. It's that idea that has led to Project Healing Waters -- a group dedicated to the physical...

For several years, Jude Stringfellow and her Lab-chow mix have toured the country with a simple message: Faith walks. Born without front legs to a junkyard dog around Christmas 2002, Faith the puppy was rejected and abused by her mother. She was rescued by Reuben Stringfellow, now an Army E-4 specialist, who had been asked to bury other puppies in the litter. "Can we fix her? Stringfellow, then 17, asked his mom. "No, but maybe we can help her," she said.

Najari bin Jade Abbas, who lost the use of her legs after a kidney removal operation three years ago, gains the gift of mobility during a wheelchair delivery to the Qays Clinic in Radwaniyah, Nov. 22. U.S. troops of 150th Armored Reconnaissance Squadron, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, distributed 20 wheelchairs at the clinic courtesy of “Free Wheelchair Mission,” of Irvine, Calif. Photo by Spc. Ruth McClary, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team. BAGHDAD — U.S. forces answered a call from Dr. Qays Ibrahim Rashid, owner of the Radwaniyah area Qays medical clinic, who requested wheelchairs for mobility impaired patients in...

Disabled Iraq veteran, Luis Montalvan, says that he was repeatedly discriminated against at a Brooklyn McDonald's. According to Montalvan, these conflicts culminated in an assault that sent him to the emergency room. Now, Montalvan is suing McDonald's for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, discrimination, and assault and battery.

t's a custody battle that rages on in Horseheads. Sara Harvey is fighting to be the guardian of her husband, Gary, who has been in a vegetative state since 2006. But a judge has ruled she is unfit to take care of him properly. Our Vince Slomsky tells us just some of this complex story and what might happen next.   HORSEHEADS, N.Y. -- Sara and Gary Harvey met at work. They married each other in 1998. “We had a beautiful relationship. Just loving," said Sara Harvey. Gary was a relatively healthy person, until January 21st, 2006. He had a...

This is a two-fold story about an adaptive sports rehabilitation program for severely disabled US soldiers who are veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The first half focuses on a river rafting trip down the Salmon River in Idaho, the second focuses on the medical facility where these men have been rehabilitated. It is a story of how these men reach a point where they can embrace life again and feel a reason to go forward despite their permanent, often horrifying injuries. The three soldiers on the river trip are Major Anthony Smith, 39, an African American man who...

Every Dallas Cowboys fan wants the best parking spot available when they get to Cowboys Stadium. But a CBS 11 News investigation found game tailgaters in parking spaces that clearly didn't belong to them. In fact, the spots were marked for disabled drivers only. A record setting 105,000 fans, enough to fill the City of Lewisville, descended on Cowboys Stadium for the first home game and set out to look for a parking spot. That day Gabriel Garcia faced the challenge of wheeling himself to Cowboys Stadium from a Cowboys parking lot at the Rangers Ballpark. Garcia says the trip...

What Nick Vujicic lacks in stature, he makes up for in faith. Vujicic, a 26-year-old man born without arms or legs, spoke about hope and faith in Jesus Christ to approximately 5,000 people at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Saturday night. Vujicic is using his unique situation to spread the message of being born again in Christ. An Australian native, Vujicic now resides in California where he runs his Christian ministry Life Without Limbs. “The world sees something special in a man without arms and legs,” Vujicic said. “I love being able to be used by God.” People’s reasons...

Lakshmi('s)...mental age is said to be only around eight. She became pregnant after allegedly being raped in a government-run care home, and the state authorities petitioned the local courts to allow them to carry out an abortion. ... But then came the twist - her lawyers and several disability rights groups appealed to the Supreme Court. It overruled the original judgement - allowing her to have the baby she said she wanted to keep.

~ Guest Author William Chandler. Like all liberal policy, the health care bill is well-intentioned. Figures of 47 million have been thrown about like bales of hay in farm country. We have all been subject to the commercials telling of lower costs, less waste, less fraud and abuse, as well as affordable health care for all. Some even would like to invoke a ‘public option’ or a single-payer system, or the seemingly more palatable ‘co-op’ non-profit scenarios. Rehashing the arguments at this point is ridiculous. Commercials telling people of the care in the United Kingdom and Canada, about what the...

I'm visiting my sister in England and we see stuff like this. I took this photo just a little ago. This is what happens when you aren't paying enough attention. Oh...and this is my sister (wazoo1031).

Americans, even the disabled and the elderly, will not line up on railroad platforms to be taken away in box cars, either literally or figuratively. The strength of old people is that they remember how things used to be. If all else fails, the geezers may recall the words of Winston Churchill: “You can always take one with you.” Churchill was bracing the British people for an anticipated invasion by Nazi troops. A similar thought may occur to people who anticipate an invasion by Nazi-like ideas and Nazi-like methods. One should be careful not to give people the idea that...

There is a very interesting opinion piece today from the political website politico.com. The piece is written by Gary Bauer and Daniel Allott. Bauer is a former Reagan administration official, the former head of the Family Research Council, and a former candidate for President in 2000. Allott works with Bauer at American Values and has worked as a former community support provider for people with disabilities. There is probably no more polarizing figure in American politics today than Sarah Palin. A recent poll of Republicans showed that she has a 72% favorability rating within her own party - higher than...

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2009 – With more than 3,000 job openings, the creators of a new Web portal are hoping to attract disabled veterans seeking employment. “Our current project is to spread the word that we are here,” said Diana Corso, executive director of disABLEDperson Inc., a nonprofit group aiming to reduce the unemployment rate of disabled veterans. “We launched a couple of months ago,” she said. “We have jobs on the site, but not that many resumes. We are hoping to attract many more applicants. These positions are from employers across the U.S.” DisABLEDperson.Inc. hosts the nationally based online...

In the first time they hit pavement this month, the men and women of Operation Denali arrived in Talkeetna ahead of schedule Friday after climbing Mount McKinley.

Nancy Mayer-Whittington remembers it as though it were yesterday; the joy of learning she was pregnant followed by the news that her daughter's first day of life would be her last. Nearly 15 years later, she still weeps at the memory of how on the afternoon of Nov. 17, 1994, her gray-eyed daughter Angela lived barely 10 minutes, the victim of Trisomy 18, a fatal genetic defect. Pictures of the dark-haired little girl, robed in a white christening gown, are still scattered about her suburban Maryland home. She was the first woman her doctor knew who had decided to keep...

BAGHDAD -- Under the glare of a Humvee's headlights, Brad Blauser broke a sweat assembling a pediatric wheelchair as a small group of Iraqi soldiers observed quietly. The idea was to train the Iraqis so that when the time came to distribute the wheelchairs, Blauser and the 20 or so U.S. soldiers who coordinated the giveaway could fade into the background as Iraqi troops presented 32 fully assembled wheelchairs to disabled children. "We're trying to build rapport," said Staff Sgt. Craig Jackson, 34, of Pennsylvania, one of the squad leaders working with Blauser. "Show them that their government is trying...

SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., March 31, 2009 – Someone who has lived with a disability for more years than he cares to count knows exactly what newly disabled veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going through. Army Staff Sgt. Jake Leitz, a Montana National Guardsman who suffered a spinal cord injury when his car hit ice in February 2008, said the 23rd annual National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic gives him an opportunity to learn from other veterans in similar circumstances. With Leitz is his wife, Keallie, left, and daughters Katelyn, 13, in his lap, and Julia,...

Momlogic spoke with the mom of a Special Olympics athlete to get her reaction to Obama's unfortunate crack on "The Tonight Show." Carolyn McClamrock: Initially, my husband and I were just in shock when we heard Obama's comments about the Special Olympics on "The Tonight Show." Obama said a recent 129 he scored in the White House bowling alley had been "like Special Olympics, or something." It's almost like when you watch something and you don't believe you are hearing or seeing it -- that's how we felt. It just blew us away. Then we heard the audience laughing. It...