From the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, New York Daily News and elsewhere:

Veteran journalist John Hockenberry and former CNN reporter Adaora Udoji have started co-hosting a new public radio morning news program this week. “The Takeaway” will feature lots of live material, and is designed as a counterpoint to NPR’s staid “Morning Edition.” Listeners will be encouraged to interact, respond, and take part in the development of editorial content.

Hockenberry has used a wheelchair since he was 19, a fact that’s not mentioned in the reporting about his new show. Fair enough, since disability is not a focus of the program and probably wasn’t factored into its boosters’ promises that the show will deliver “an unprecedented diversity of news coverage.”

But to give Hockenberry his due, this is as good a time as any to celebrate his 1995 memoir “Moving Violations,” a brutally straightforward explication of the American disability experience (or, as Hockenberry would say, “crip world.”) Pico Iyer, writing in the New York Times, compared Hockenberry with Ralph Ellison, saying his book “could, in fact, be described as an ‘Invisible Man’ for the disabled.”

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First-time author Patricia Wood among finalists for Orange Prize for fiction by women; Movie rights bought by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

From the International Herald Tribune, Honolulu Star Bulletin:

Honolulu-based author Wood, 54, was nominated for her debut novel “Lottery,” about a man with an IQ of 76 who wins the lottery. The tale is told from his point of view.

Here’s an excerpt from a review in the Library Journal:

Wood keeps the reader guessing as to how the story will end, and the resolution is satisfying. She meets her goal of portraying a mentally challenged person as a fully realized, functioning human being. Perry’s worldview is so charming and fair that by the end, you might think he’s the smartest character in the whole book.

Ronald M. Green, writing in the Washington Post, foresees a future in which assisted reproductive technology routinely allows people to prevent the occurrence of genetic disease and disability in their children. He predicts that people will be able to use genetic technologies to avoid having children who might have cancer, obesity or dyslexia, among other things, and rejects criticism that these developments could lead to a society in which eugenics replaces human love and compassion.

Genomic science is racing toward a future in which foreseeable improvements include reduced susceptibility to a host of diseases, increased life span, better cognitive functioning and maybe even cosmetic enhancements such as whiter, straighter teeth. Yes, genetic orthodontics may be in our future. The challenge is to see that we don’t also unleash the demons of discrimination and oppression. Although I acknowledge the risks, I believe that we can and will incorporate gene technology into the ongoing human adventure.

Ronald M. Green is a professor of ethics at Dartmouth College. His most recent book is “Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Choice.”

Melissa Riggio, whose life helped prompt the publishing industry to pay more attention to the expanding market of people with disabilities and their families, died Monday of leukemia, her family announced today. The daughter of Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio, she was 20.

Ms. Riggio, who had Down syndrome, was the inspiration for Barnes & Noble’s creation of a special section of books about children with special needs. In an interview with the New York Times in 1991, Mr. Riggio said he realized after his daughter’s birth that books about children with disabilities were scarce and often difficult to locate.

That year, when Ms. Riggio was three, the company celebrated the nationwide debut of its “Children with Special Needs Collection.” It contained about four dozen titles about disabilities like autism, cerebral palsy, dyslexia and speech and hearing impairments, most of which were not widely circulated.

Mr. Riggio said at the time that he hoped the company’s efforts would lead to the publication of more books about childhood disabilities. (more…)

From the Washington Post:

The television production of the Kim Edwards novel, about a father who rejects his newborn daughter with Down syndrome, includes actors with Down syndrome.

[Executive producer Howard] Braunstein said he consulted with various Down syndrome groups to find the actors. He called the film “an enormously positive message for Down children.”

“The movie starts with the ignorance of the doctor, who calls them Mongoloids, and then you see Caroline, who is so determined for Phoebe to have a good life,” Braunstein said.

Actress Gretchen Mol (above) described Krystal Hope Nausbaum, who portrays Phoebe from age 13 to 22, as “such a force.”

“All I had to do was look at her face and the way she beamed back at me; she just had this part completely,” Mol said.

“When you look at that Down baby, you wonder how [society] could have pushed this whole group of people off the world. These people [with Down syndrome] were the magic spot in this film.”

If only Braunstein and Mol had learned to say “children with Down syndrome” instead of “Down children.”

Also starring Emily Watson and Dermot Mulroney. The show airs Saturday at 9 on Lifetime.

From the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, National Public Radio:

Investigative reporter Benjamin Skinner spent four years traveling the world as he researched modern-day slavery for his new book, “A Crime So Monstruous,” and says there are more slaves today than at any point in human history.

When he was in a seedy brothel in Bucharest, Romania, posing as a slave trader, he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.

… I could have done one of a few things: I could’ve paid to redeem her. I was with a couple of guys and I could’ve fought physically with the traffickers to get her out. Or I could’ve gone to the police the next day to tell them, which is what I did.
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Book by Darby Penney and Dr. Peter Stastny; Review by Abigail Zuger, M.D., in the New York Times:

A new book attempts to catalog and explain what was found in suitcases left by patients at Willard State Hospital, a gigantic institution that housed people with incurable mental illness from 1869 to 1995. The book, which follows an exhibition, includes a collection of “transfixing” photographs of the residents and their possessions. Dr. Zuger finds the authors’ reasoning “problematic.”

Stories about the experience of illness are in vogue these days. Some seek to humanize medical science, while others (like those in the movie “Sicko” from Michael Moore) aim to change health policy with the brute force of anecdote.

The authors, Darby Penney and Dr. Peter Stastny, are in the second camp. Both are prominent patients’-rights advocates: Dr. Stastny is described on one advocacy Web site as a “dissident psychiatrist” and Ms. Penney as a “long-time activist.” Their platform is clearly stated in the book’s first pages: much mental illness is “understandable reaction to stress,” orthodox psychiatry often “stands in the way of healing” and even the most “distressed” patients will fare better outside institutions.

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