From Kara Parker of Victoria, MN:

December 27, 2007
Nevada Elementary School, Nevada, IA
Craig Parker, Wesley Parker, 3, Sen. Obama

Kara Parker’s photo shows her husband and son with Sen. Obama after a rally in her husband’s hometown last December. Wesley gives Senator Obama a high five.

“Wesley sat quite patiently during the speech portion of the rally, entertaining his neighbors as usual.  Craig rushed to the handshake line at the end of the speech to get a closer look … and get a picture for Wesley’s scrapbook. “

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From Jeanne Devine Bolewitz of Rochester Hills, MI:

September 5, 2008
Freedom Hills Amphitheater, Sterling Hts., MI
Jeanne D. Bolewitz, Josh C. Bolewitz, 5, and Gov. Palin

“I then shook hands with Sarah Palin and asked if she would take a picture with my son (whose face was buried in my shoulder) and she said, “Of course!”  When he lifted his head and she saw his beautiful little face, her eyes lit up and she said “OH!” She was so excited to see a child with Down syndrome. She asked how old he was as we stood very quickly for pictures and as she moved on still shaking hands with other people in the line, she kept looking back at my son, Josh, and me — and she shouted to us “That’s my Trig!” And I said, “Yes! And Trig will be great.” She had tears in her eyes at that point.”

Editor’s note:

Readers, if you’d like to have your snapshots included here, please send them to patricia@patriciaebauer.com. We’re looking for shots of people with Down syndrome alongside Sen. Obama, Sen. McCain, Sen. Biden or Gov. Palin.

Please enclose the following information: Your full name and city or town; where and when the photo was taken; IDs and relationships of the people in the photo (and ages, for kids), and a few lines about the circumstances. Please also let us know where we may contact you. By sending photos, you are granting permission for their publication.

‘Dialog in the Dark’ exhibit simulates blindness — Associated Press in the Boston Herald

… “It is not blindness that is the disability. It is fear.”

Fear of the unknown, of what we cannot see, is indeed a scary thing, and I recognize for the first time how right he is. We leave the room and enter a corridor that gradually reintroduces us to the light.

I emerge squinting and probably more than a little relieved, but determined to see the world with new eyes.

‘Unconditional love is a good name for it;’ Parents adjust to children with Down syndrome – Rapid City [SD] Journal

Wichita special ed has fewer kids, costs more — Wichita Eagle

Blogging the world, from a wheelchair’s view — Boston Globe

Op-ed: Teachers need training to handle diversity, disabilities in class — Newsday

Utah parents fear special ed funds were siphoned to sports — Salt Lake Tribune

Kids with disabilities run coffee shop, create a buzz — Arizona Daily Star

Novelist Ann Bauer (no relation) writes in the New York Times about her son’s journey from autism to schizophrenia. When he stole her car, she decided to press charges. An excerpt:

In his deliberate, troubled way, my son had done it: he had found his way to adulthood. And although I didn’t know it then, he would find his way through this, too. But he needed to go through it, not back, and not around. Maybe that’s what he knew better than any of us.

Andrew gave me a glimmer of a smile before facing the judge and narrating, in clear language, the story of his crime.

Earlier piece by Ann Bauer is here.

Renate Lindeman, writing in the [Halifax, Nova Scotia] Chronicle Herald, says women who undergo prenatal screening and testing for Down syndrome should first be provided with accurate information about the happy, healthy lives that are increasingly being led by people with an extra chromosome.

In Holland, Lindeman says, a government-sponsored program to provide balanced information about genetic conditions to healthcare providers and the general public has led about 50 percent of pregnant women there to decline prenatal screening. But such an effort in Canada would be unpopular with businesses seeking to capture a share of a multi-billion dollar market. An excerpt:

While medical biotechnology increasingly impacts our lives in legal, economic and moral ways, the Canadian government is doing little, if anything, to inform or engage the public in policy development. The lack of interest and funding to ensure proper counselling and real, balanced information about Down syndrome for women, before they are offered screening, raises some serious ethical questions.

When I look at my daughters, both living with Down’s, I don’t see the genetically flawed retards, with stunted growth, that prenatal screening is trying to eliminate. I see kind-hearted, happy children who are giants in loving and living, who enrich our human genetic diversity, and who teach me, every day, the most important lesson in life: to feel.

If we let profits be our only guidance in developing policies, will we end up with the Canada we want?

Renate Lindeman is co-founder of Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society and spokesperson for Down Syndrome Belongs. See earlier post about their video, “Be.”

More than two weeks ago, I kicked off the public conversation about the use of the word “retard” in “Tropic Thunder” and its marketing materials with this post: ‘Tropic Thunder’: Once upon a time … there was a retard.

Since then I’ve been bringing you up-to-date coverage of the controversy, and have provided a forum in which people have been able to express their views. I’ve frankly lost count, but I think  the number of comments here currently stands at something around 700. It has been a lively discussion, with many differing and often emotional opinions expressed.

Now I’ve weighed in with some opinions of my own. They can be seen in the Sunday Opinion section of the Washington Post: A movie, a word and my family’s battle. My point: The thoughtless and widespread use of the word “retard” as an insult sets back progress that has been made toward including and accepting people with disabilities, and hurts us all. Here’s how the piece starts:

Margaret and I were lingering in front of the multiplex one evening last summer, a mom and her adult daughter laughing about the movie we’d just seen, when a gaggle of cute pre-teen girls sauntered past.

The one in the lead jerked a thumb in our direction and made a goofy face to her friend. “Look. Retard,” we heard her say, and Margaret wilted. Her chin trembled. One by one, the other girls turned to look, nudging one another and whispering. The last girl spun all the way around as she slowly walked by, eyes fixed on my daughter.

The piece is accompanied by an edited version of the “full retard” scene from the movie.

You can also see me expressing my views on “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet,” a national Fox talk show. Appearing with me were David Tolleson, executive director of the National Down Syndrome Congress; Eddie Barbanell, a star of “The Ringer,” and Gitesh Pandya of boxofficeguru.com.

[And in case anyone wonders if I've seen the movie: Yes, indeed, I have. Check my post on it here.]

From the Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch:

Preparing to anchor the presidential forum on disability issues, broadcaster Judy Woodruff says her 26-year-old son Jeffrey, who has spina bifida, has opened her eyes to the way the world looks from a wheelchair.

Having somebody in the family who is disabled is a lesson every day — in humanity and how much we shouldn’t take for granted.

Jeffrey was only mildly impaired by his condition until a routine surgery at age 16 caused unexpected complications. He emerged with profound disabilities, and cannot walk or use the right side of his body. He’s now a student at a small college in North Carolina.

Woodruff is senior correspondent and 2008 political editor for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer on PBS.

The country has come a long way since the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. Having said that, just look around and you can see we have a long way to go. The disabled still can’t get into some places, some stores and many homes.

Of course, there’s such a wide variety of disabilities — hearing, visual, physical, a cane or a wheelchair, developmental delays. Part of what the disabled community has to do is educate society about the vast differences and that many with disabilities are perfectly capable of holding down a job and learning.

(PBS photo)

By Amy Julia Becker in the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sunday Currents section:

Becker says medicine’s “evidence-based standards of care” are skewed in favor of eliminating children with Down syndrome like her daughter Penny, with many women terminating pregnancies based on probabilities, fear and misinformation. Now expecting another child, Becker says she wishes obstetricians would update their ten-year-old brochures and

… include the fact that the life expectancy of people with Down syndrome has doubled in the past 25 years, or that the average IQ of a person with Down syndrome has doubled over the course of the 20th century, or that many physical “defects” can be corrected relatively easily because of advances in medical care. (Penny had a hole in her heart, for instance, that may well have killed her a few decades ago. Now, it didn’t even warrant an overnight stay in the hospital.)

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