“In none of the endless presidential candidates’ debates has there been a meaningful discussion of the rights of disabled Americans,” says columnist Nat Hentoff in a column in the Sacramento Bee.

Hentoff takes Barack Obama to task for his recent statement of regret at having voted with the Senate to ask the federal courts to review the case of Terri Schiavo. By making the remark, Hentoff says,

Obama casually and ignorantly revealed his misunderstanding of the basic issue in the highly visible and still-resonating official death sentence of a disabled woman.

Hentoff says Obama failed to understand the basic message of 29 major disability-rights organizations on the case: that this was not a right-to-die case, but a case about a woman’s right to continue living.

Says Hentoff:

[Obama] should be proud of the Senate vote he now recants — and learn a lot more about the disabled.

From Joseph Shapiro of National Public Radio, another extended feature on wounded Army Sgt. Tim Ngo of Minnesota. Ngo almost died of a head wound in Iraq four years ago.

Like many injured soldiers, Ngo relied heavily on a dedicated family member to help him through the laborious rehabilitation process. His mother stuck by him as he learned again to walk and talk, and to cope with everything from short-term memory loss to unexpected bursts of anger.

Although Ngo has made great strides, his relationship with his mother is now badly frayed; they aren’t even talking to each other. He and his girlfriend (above) are moving to Texas. “I don’t know how to fix it,” says his mother, Hong Wyberg. “I don’t know how to change it except to let him go.”

‘Now is the time to act to protect the disabled’

From the Chicago Tribune:

Lynne Landsberg, a rabbi who sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, urges speedy action on the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. It is needed to close loopholes in the ADA and ensure the comprehensive civil rights protections the 1990 bill was meant to provide, she writes.

Before my brain injury, I belonged to one minority that was strong and articulate — the American Jewish community. Now, I belong to a second minority that is daily the victim of discrimination yet remains powerless and barely heard — people with disabilities.

… Even with résumés that indicate they are qualified for the job, [people with disabilities] must convince employers that the discomfort disability engenders will not impede their work ethic.

Unfortunately, thousands of Americans face unconscionable acts of disability-related discrimination in the workplace every day.

… We must encourage Congress to recognize that people with disabilities are human beings with full civil rights who want to work, support their families and live their lives.

More on Lynne Landsberg from Washington Jewish Week.

Why soldiers with traumatic brain injuries and permanent handicaps are considered partially disabled

One in a series by Bob Woodruff, ABC News:

As veterans continue to face the everyday challenges of living with a brain injury, some also must struggle with the military to get the disability payments they believe they deserve.

Marine Cpl. Jeff Landay suffered a severe brain injury when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in May of 2006, and had to have part of his skull removed to relieve the pressure on his brain. He received a rating of 10 percent disabled, well below the thirty percent mark that allows soldiers to receive medical retirement with full benefits.

“He fought for his life and now he is having to fight for his rightful benefits,” said his wife, Michelle. “And that’s shocking. And I’m outraged.”

The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs acknowledge that the disability rating process is confusing and often cumbersome. The two departments rate disabilities in separate processes, which are separate still from the Social Security disability process. A presidential commission last summer recommended sweeping changes, but little has changed.

Writing in the [London] Sunday Times, India Knight analyzes ‘When the Bough Breaks: A Mother’s Story,’ currently the fifth-highest selling biography on the UK Amazon website. The book is a memoir by opera director Julia Hollander that details her decision to put her brain-damaged baby daughter Imogen in foster care. Knight is the mother of a child with a disability. Her website is here.

An excerpt:

… in my opinion Hollander is a person in pain seeking public atonement by using “honesty” as a bogus and self-deluded way of achieving it. She is promoting her book, making money and garnering idiotically misplaced media sympathy for her “bravery” and “honesty” from people who haven’t a clue what they’re talking about and care more about the “rights” of women to feel joyous at all times than about pathetically vulnerable babies. Hollander has returned to her arty middle-class lifestyle in leafy Oxfordshire with her other “normal”, photogenic children.

That is her choice but to present it as being in any way “brave” is insane. It is selfish and self-serving and monstrous. Bravery is picking yourself up and getting on with it; bravery is the lioness instinct to defend your vulnerable child with your life – and, if needs be, your sanity. Bravery is dumping the loser husband who’s taken to eating separately because he can’t cope. Bravery isn’t pretending that the inconvenient truth never happened.

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From National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition:

Four years after a serious car accident, Melody Gardot used the experience as a springboard to musical success she might never have achieved otherwise.

The singer, now 23, was hit by an SUV while riding her bicycle. Her injuries were serious and left her unable to sit up for more than 10 minutes. She suffered short-term memory loss and acute sensitivity to light and sound.

Gardot had played the piano before the accident, and a doctor suggested that she use music as a kind of recovery therapy. Since she couldn’t sit comfortably at the piano, she picked up a guitar. Now, she’s a professional musician, and her debut full-length album is called Worrisome Heart.

The NPR site carries audio of Gardot’s interview with Scott Simon, as well as some of her music.

From the Boston Globe:

It is her album, not her personal story, that could get her the best new artist Grammy next winter.

From the [UK] Times:

… Buy this album because it’s a charming debut by a remarkable talent - or, if you like, just to help out a young woman with her medical bills.

A man and two youths kicked a man to death over a five-pound bet; Judge calls the act ’sadistic conduct on an extremely vulnerable victim’

From the BBC, [UK] Independent, [UK] Times, Sunderland Echo:

A gang of three must serve life terms in prison in the murder of Brent Martin, a man with learning disabilities who was punched, kicked and stomped to death for sport.

The three placed a £5 bet to see who could knock Martin out first, then chased him a mile and a half through the area near his home in the northeast England city of Sunderland last August before beating him. The drunken gang then stripped Martin of his clothes and left him dying next to a parked car while they posed for photographs.

Martin, who was 23, was described by Judge John Milford as a “gentle and caring person” with a long history of disabilities who was simply looking for friends.

… Ian Macrae, editor of Disability Now magazine, said: … “we are disappointed that the judge did not mention the fact that Mr Martin was clearly targeted because he was disabled and that his horrific murder was aggravated by hatred towards his impairment.

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