“On the street I saw a small girl cold and shivering in a thin dress, with little hope of a decent meal. I became angry and said to God; ‘Why did you permit this? Why don’t you do something about it?’ For a while God said nothing. That night he replied, quite suddenly: ‘I certainly did something about it. I made you.’”
It’s not uncommon for blind gamers to feel invisible in addition to visually impaired. For instance, when gamer Brandon Cole wrote [game developer] THQ a letter suggesting changes to make its Smackdown series of WWE wrestling games more accessible to the blind, he received a form letter back thanking him for his appreciation of the game’s graphics.
But now, one visually impaired gamer has gone beyond simply requesting accessibility features and is demanding them by way of a lawsuit. Last month, disabled gamer Alexander Stern filed suit against Sony, Sony Online Entertainment, and Sony Computer Entertainment America in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The suit alleges that Sony is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to implement features to make its games accessible to visually impaired gamers.
The Americans with Disabilities Act states that, “No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.”
According to the suit, Sony ignored repeated … Continue reading this article on gamespot.com
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When Rob Buren broke his back mountain biking last October, he lost more than the use of his legs—he lost the physical confidence his 6-foot-2 frame had always given him.
And though the 38-year-old father of two quickly learned sporting activities such as hand cycling and sit skiing, it wasn’t until he took a new self-defence class for wheelchair-users that he began to feel at ease with his new paralyzed status.
“When you become a paraplegic and are in a chair, physically your world changes. You’re looking up all of a sudden,” he says. “(The class) was a great way for me to get to know my body again, to get comfortable in the chair and to build up a sense of confidence.”
The course, taught at Neuro Core Physiotherapy & Pilates Centre in Richmond Hill, [Ontario] was developed by Grant Murray, a taekwondo black belt, and Rich VanderWal, a recreation therapist at a rehab facility.
Each class begins with … Continue reading this article and watch a corresponding video on thestar.com
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A 47-year-old wheelchair-bound mother who had a stroke 18 months ago has been forced to do her banking on the street after staff at her local NatWest branch refused to lift her up two steps “for health and safety reasons.”
Is this the 21st century??
According to an article written by Heather Claybrook:
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Read Irked posts tagged “disability”
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You know how much homeless blogger Tony Clemens’ recently prescribed medications cost per month???
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In other news, Tony’s been “evicted” by the new guys in town >>
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Quoting Tiffiny’s October 5th column for disaboomlive.com:
I love hearing stories about sex doing more for humans [than] just helping them procreate. When sex is literally, as silly as this sounds, doing God’s work from making women feel beautiful again to helping men maintain healthy cardio health, I smile inside. When naughty “bad” things are actually good for you? Yeah, that makes life worth living. So when I read about a disabled man in a group home, paralyzed from the neck down and unable to talk, who was running over nurses and spilling trays, basically earning the title of “Official Group Home A**hole,” who was cured of his asshattery after getting some much needed manual stimulation (from one of the nurses no less) I thought, “Wow what a great nurse!” Obviously, it isn’t too surprising that after this 22 year old got some much needed release he was more pleasant to be around, but going from “belligerent” to “serene,” now that’s a big change. It exemplifies just how important sex is to the human psyche (and to overall mental health). But it makes you wonder how priests and nuns, and all the other celibates of the world, do it. Is it unnatural to abstain? A lot of people with disabilities are NOT getting laid. They’re not finding partners and for millions of them, it’s a frustrating daily predicament that never goes away. Try and finagle as they might, whether all they want is to masturbate, or find something even crazier like actual sex, it’s a disappointingly illusive endeavor. Can you imagine being shot down time and time again? This is why Belgium pays for it’s disabled citizens (if they want it) to have a sex worker visit on a monthly basis. The sad part about this story is that someone walked in on the nurse one day, she was swiftly fired, and the guy went back to being an insufferable a**hole. Life isn’t fair. It’s really too bad they weren’t more smart about it and did it off-site. What’s your opinion on all of this? As long as both adults are consenting (despite what the laws say), do you think it’s morally sound for a professional to provide sexual release for a person with a disability, in a group home environment?
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Huffington Post:
“After a whirlwind week that saw their family featured on the front page of The Huffington Post (and Irked!) and $30,000 raised to help them pay their overwhelming medical bills, the Stein family is back with a message of gratitude and hope for the HuffPost community. TampaBay.com visited the Steins at home on Sunday morning. They discuss how amazed they are that the [online community] came out in such strong numbers to support them. Gary Stein thinks of them as a symbol of the hardships faced by families across America.
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Dear Caitlin “Lulu” Wood and Toshio Meronek,
Keep up the G-R-E-A-T work! Your website, www.whereslulu.com, is truly phenomenal. But please add more cities to your database, because we neither live in Portland nor San Francisco…
We hear Boston and New York are “coming soon.” Can you add some rockin’ Canadian cities to your site, too! Add Halifax! Add Montreal! Add Toronto and Vancouver and Ottawa and Calgary and Saskatoon and Victoria and St. John’s and Charlottetown and Miramichi and Whitehorse and Winnipeg and and and…
Keep growin’.
Sincerely and gratefully yours,
Irked Magazine
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Quoting The Huffington Post:
On September 28, HuffPost featured the story of Monique Zimmerman-Stein, a mother who shares a rare genetic disorder with her children that causes blindness. Though Zimmerman and her family have health insurance, they are still saddled by astronomical debt from medical bills, which has forced this mother to save her daughters’ sight by sacrificing her own. Many readers, touched by the Stein family’s story, have asked for a way to help them. HuffPost Impact got in touch with Gary Stein, Monique Zimmerman-Stein’s husband, a Hillsborough County health department employee, who reported that the family’s medical bills have continued to amass. A few months ago, Stein had a heart attack scare and his daughter had a playground accident that sent her to the emergency room. After tests and scans came out clear, both hospital visits were deemed medically unnecessary and the family was charged additional co-pays, which have since gone into collection. A few weeks ago, Zimmerman-Stein had a minor stroke, known as a TIA, possibly caused by stress. She suffered no lasting side effects… other than the bill for the three-day hospital stay, which so far is $5,000—after insurance—and mounting. Despite this, Stein says “we find, every day, a reason to be brave because our system is difficult. I have a family to support and we make tough decisions every day on how to move forward and how to be normal.” Stein says they know they aren’t the only ones struggling to remain hopeful in the face of mounting health care debt. ”It just wrenches your gut to think that we live in such a great country but people can’t get the medical care they need and that they have to make decisions on what bills to pay, what things to forgo.” The Steins are acutely aware that their story is just one of hundreds of thousands, and Zimmerman-Stein is adamant in her belief that free clinics need to be supported and that our representatives need to be held accountable. “I don’t care who you are, everyone in this world gets sick,” she said. To help the Stein family, [The Huffington Post has] created a widget (see below) where readers can make a direct impact . . . You can give directly to the Stein family via their PayPal account by clicking on the widget below (the PayPal account should read “Just Dolphins”).
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UPDATE: Due to an “overwhelming response,” The HuffPost is extending the length of this fundraiser and have raised their goal to $30,000 (they were originally hoping to cover the latest round of the Stein’s medical bills—but, thanks to your generosity, they are able to help out with their other outstanding bills). Over 860 contributors have given more than $26,000 since last Tuesday afternoon. Quite an amazing accomplishment for the first day of the Impact section! Gary Stein, Monique’s husband, says the family is absolutely overwhelmed by the response from the online community. “We’ll do whatever we can to pay it forward,” he says. “I hope and pray that this amazing response can be repeated.”
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