Global Crisis

The Star Tribune has a great  five-part series about disability and work, focused on Minnesota, but looking more broadly - Failing the Disabled.Here's one I like, because it's a positive outcome.With her zest and ambition, Wollum personifies the remarkable strategy that has made Vermont a leader in the civil rights movement for adults with disabilities....

Quick post today as I am in transit. Anti-vaxxers and pro-cure folks in the Autism community are making much of the claim that Autism rates are now 1 in 45. As always - there is no autism epidemic.The great Emily Willingham has more:For the 2011-2013 survey, parents answered a series of three questions. The first asked if their child had intellectual...

 Lincoln reveals a newly designed MKZ today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show (LAIAS) focusing on areas most desired by today's luxury midsize sedan customer quality, performance and style. The new MKZ is powered by a Lincoln exclusive 400 hp,3.0-liter GTDI V6 eng...

 The Infiniti QX30 premium active crossover is making its simultaneous global debut at the 2015 Los Angeles and Guangzhou international motor shows – signalling the next phase of the company’s global growth strategy.Created for a new generation of premium buyers who appreciate...

Last Wednesday, a group of African-American students staged a public protest against racism on our campus. You can see video and read about it here. They chanted, "Silence no more," vowing to call out the racism that they saw.As of yesterday, faculty response coalesced around the phrase "Complicit no more." There will be an in-person show of support...

 The popular Ford Escape SUV is newly engineered to make customers feel unstoppable – with even more driver-assist technologies to help enable safer and easier driving, new mobile connectivity that allows owners to interact with their vehicle from anywhere through a smartphone...

The Twitter account @HistOpinion (Curated by historian Peter Schulman), has been posting historical poll data about the refugee crisis of the 1930s. Some examples:US Apr ’39: If in Congress, would you support a bill to open US to larger number of European refugees? By Religion. pic.twitter.com/pWsqyRXZoW— Historical Opinion (@HistOpinion) November...

UPDATE: Dominican Star article on the protests. Administration has been speaking out in solidarity with the students and we'll see what happens. Meeting today at 8:30 of Faculty to discuss actions.Last week African-American students at Dominican University protested racism on campus. Here are two videos. The first is a short protest in the cafeteria....

The i3 Shadow Sport Limited Edition is comingThinking about getting a BMW i3? Do you like to own low-volume special edition cars? When it comes to cars, a special edition where only 50 copies are made guarantees the owner will be in pretty exclusive company.That's exactly what BMW...

I wrote two pieces about presidential debates:Politicians are Ignoring Americans with Disabilities (Al Jazeera America, 11/10/15) - this is a big one for me, and a theme to which I expect to return a lot. Yesterday, for example:Reminder: My @ajam piece: disability's invisibility in presidential election. #DemDebate https://t.co/rgHqJVsyM3 https://t.co/CHDtv4AnfA—...

My son and I went for a walk in our little suburb. It's a beautiful day. These are un-retouched photos. There's a little comment at the end about parenting and disability.We threw sticks in the water from a bridge. (Image: Boy in minion sweatshirt throwing something off a bridge).Then...

Roxane Gilmore, former first lady of Virginia, believes that disabled people should enter the governor's mansion through the basement, for "aesthetic" reasons.A plan to build a wheelchair ramp at the Virginia Executive Mansion is turning into a tussle between old and new Richmond, with Gov. Terry McAuliffe saying the alteration will create a more dignified...

 Later this year, Hyundai will be the first mainstream automaker to launch an augmented reality owner’s manual app. The Hyundai Virtual Guide app is the brand’s modern take on the traditional owner’s manual, allowing consumers to use their smartphone or tablet computer to...

There is new video of the death of Linwood Lambert.If police want to have TASERs, which they do and they should, then the people who abuse them have to be held accountable.When three Virginia police officers put Linwood Lambert in a squad car around 5 a.m. on May 4, 2013, they said they were taking him to the ER for medical attention because he was...

Poster for Different Lenses, One Vision conference. Next Wednesday, November 18, I will be offering a public lecture on police violence and disability at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for their "Different Lenses, One Vision: A collaborative discussion on 'otherness'"...

Yesterday 11 Alive News Atlanta wrote a story about the murder of Dustin Hicks with the headline: "Dawsonville mother kills son, self, in possible mercy killing." They followed that with the lede: "Murder-suicide or mercy killing?"As social media began to comment on the phrase, the headline changed to "Dawsonville mother shoots disabled son, self."...

This CCS DC Quick Charge station is located on my property at 148 Valley Road, Montclair, NJBack in August I posted an article that announced the opening of the first DC fast charger in the East Coast Express Charging Corridor. That station was installed in Hartford, Connecticut....

A woman murdered her disabled son in Georgia. It's a tragic story. His father discovered when he came to pick up his son for a visitation. This is just brutal:The boy’s father came to pick him up for regular visitation but when he got there, no one came to the door. And that wasn’t...

Elsevier, the giant journal-publishing monster, has always sounded to me like something out of Tolkein, a fallen Elvish city now inhabited only by ghouls and barrow wights, maybe. Yes, I'm a nerd (though not an exceptionally good Tolkein nerd; I never finished The Silmarillion). Here's a new article that argues academic journal "impact factors"...

This was a pretty special week. I participated in a Poynter Workshop on Disability Journalism with some outstanding local reporters and the great Joe Shapiro, of NPR fame. Truly an honor. Later in the week, I spoke to educators and folks from the corporate world about disability and diversity. Meanwhile, though the semester's labor is thick...

Attention Atlanta Drivers!!!! According to vox.com, I-285 was ranked the deadliest interstate in AmericaGeorgia DOT is reporting that the number of roadway fatalities climbed to 1,166 in 2015, compared to 989 in 2014. Georgia is on pace to see its first increase in traffic-related...

Yesterday at The Conversation, Cecilia Gaposhkin, a medieval historian at Dartmouth, wrote a piece arguing that STEM are not distinct or in competition with the liberal arts. They are the same thing.The idea that STEM is something separate and different than the liberal arts is damaging to both the sciences and their sister disciplines in the humanities...

Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes, has won the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction, a prestigious U.K. award. It's the latest of many prizes, glowing reviews, and appearances high on best-seller lists for this magnificent work on the history and meaning of autism. It directly challenges all the pity and tragedy narratives, without erasing lived...

 On Sunday, Ford Motor Company hosted its “Culture Collabs” campaign in Venice Beach. The event included an audiovisual collaboration by iconic music producer Alchemist and artistic crew The Seventh Letter, a DJ set by director, designer and DJ Vashtie Kola, and s surprise...

This case is from 2012, but I first noticed it on this DailyKos diary. It's a perfect example of the "cult of compliance," a phrase I've been using since 2013 to link otherwise discrete incidents of police brutality, creeping authoritarianism, and broader examples of cultural discourse that venerate compliance as the greatest of all virtues.Here's...