Filed under: Themes, Deaf Jam, Interviews

Kathie Snow is a highly-acclaimed public speaker, trainer, author, filmmaker, and consultant on disability issues. In addition to being Benjamin’s mom, she also runs the excellent website disabilityisnatural.com.

Karen Putz is an insightful, talented and entertaining freelance writer. She provides early intervention services to families with deaf and hard of hearing children. She serves as a board member for Hands & Voices (www.handsandvoices.org) and runs Illinois Hands & Voices in her state. She’s also a deaf mom to three deaf and hard of hearing children, and her husband is deaf, too. Learn more at karenputz.com.

Karen recently interviewed Kathie for Disaboom.
Here are the highlights:

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Filed under: Regular Contributors, Philip Patston, Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Wheelchairman of the Board

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http://poetry.philippatston.com
http://thirstydog.co.nz

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Filed under: Uncategorized

From disabledcomedytour.com:

The Blue Collar Comedy Tour featured southern, white comedians. The Kings of Comedy—black comedians. Latin Kings of Comedy—Mexican American comedians. The Disabled Comedy Tour follows the same model, producing the next groundbreaking comedy tour . . . The Disabled Comedy Tour is a two hour stand-up comedy show featuring five fantastic comedians with disabilities, supplemented by one of the following, more intimate, events with the comedians:

• Post Show Q&A
• Pre or Post Show Panel Discussion
• Pre or Post Show Private Reception

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Meet the Comics:

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Tanyalee Davis

3′6″ Tanyalee is the Ferrari of comedy—low to the ground and kind of racy!
(A stand-up-on-a-chair comic!)

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Charles Walden

Funny, sarcastic, laid back, fresh and urban—with a splash of Cerebral Palsy!

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Patrick Deguire

Legally blind comic who first ‘discovered laughter as a means of self therapy.’

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Josh Blue

The comedian who puts the cerebral in Cerebral Palsy!

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And…Mr. David Roche

Brilliant author, performer, motivational speaker, and comedian who has a facial disfigurement

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disabledcomedytour.com

Then…

Read all Irked posts by Josh Blue

Read all Irked posts by David Roche

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Filed under: Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Campaign Watch

On Monday, we clued you into the situation.

Today…

Read Glenda’s “Response to Nurse Ratched”!

& then…

Buy Glenda’s truly inspiring book!

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Filed under: Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Wheelchairman of the Board

WindReach Farm

312 Townline Road, Ashburn, Ontario, Canada L0B 1A0

Tel: 905 655-5827

Nestled in the rolling countryside in southern Ontario, WindReach Farm is a 109-acre nature property designed to meet the needs of individuals with different abilities. Wheelchair accessible pathways, buildings and barns combine to make a wonderful experience. Offering five main programs (see below), WindReach welcomes both the special needs and able-bodied communities. Officially opened in 1989 by the founder Sandy Mitchell, who has cerebral palsy, WindReach Farm is the result of his primary life-long interest to work outside on the land. After he purchased his 109 acres, Sandy was able to integrate this desire with providing a similar opportunity to other persons with disabilities. His own past experience as a young man working on a farm in Scotland and then in a farming community for Down’s Syndrome, helped him realize that one day he wanted to help persons with disabilities lead a more productive life. Facilities are also available to rent for special events, overnight visits, meetings, conferences, etc.

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Filed under: Themes, Cerebral Ballsy

Glenda Watson Hyatt (aka The Left Thumb Blogger, aka The Red Hot Motorcycle Mama) is a phenomenally talented writer, public speaker and entrepreneuse. On her award-winning and always-fascinating blog, she regularly shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and their own world around them. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!

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CLICK HERE to read a very, very,

very, very, very, very, very, very,

very, very, very, VERY powerful

essay that Glenda wrote recently

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And click here to read all of Glenda’s Irked posts

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Filed under: Themes, Wheelchairman of the Board

Serena’s Song is the World’s First Wheelchair Accessible Hot-Air Balloon approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Since its first launch in 1985, Serena’s Song has carried over 15,000 disabled passengers over countless miles, all over the U.S. (And, recently, the balloon celebrated a milestone as it took its first Canadian flight—in Ashburn, Ontario—to help WindReach Farm celebrate its 20th anniversary!)

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Filed under: Regular Contributors, Philip Patston, Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Wheelchairman of the Board

Hats off to the bees

by Philip Patston

Usually I wear a lot of hats, all at once. Luckily they are metaphorical, otherwise I’d look a bit odd. But it takes a bit of doing and I often need to change the order in which they are piled on my head mid-way through an event. It’s an art in itself really, changing hats in a fluid, discreet way: part modelling, part juggling, part brain gym. Vaguely discombobulating but strangely gratifying. Try it.

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Filed under: Regular Contributors, Philip Patston, Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Wheelchairman of the Board, Art Gallery

Quoting from creativemomentum.wordpress.com:

As part of his show, A Bit of What He’s Got, in the 2009 NZ International Comedy Festival, comedian and social entrepreneur Philip Patston has launched the Diverse Perspectives Portrait Project (D3P) to explore the interaction of attitude and perception using portraiture. Unitec Fine Arts students have contributed over a dozen portraits of the gay, disabled comic informed by different attitudes, which will be hung in the foyer of the Herald Theatre…

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Filed under: Regular Contributors, Philip Patston, Themes, Cerebral Ballsy, Wheelchairman of the Board

Reviewer Rachael McKinnon attended Philip Patston’s May 2nd performance in Auckland, and wrote a glowing review for TVNZ. Here are the highlights:

From the moment you walk—or wheel—into the Herald Theatre for Philip Patston’s New Zealand International Comedy Festival Show, “A Bit of What He’s Got,” it is clear that you are not in for an hour of conventional stand-up comedy.

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