From New York Times, Associated Press/Greensboro [NC] News & Record, Charlotte Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, Shelby [NC] Star:

Martha Mason, author of the memoir “Breath,” died in her North Carolina home last week shortly before her 72nd birthday. Mason had lived more than 60 years in an iron lung after a childhood bout with polio left her paralyzed from the neck down.

Mason was one of the last handful of Americans to live full-time in an iron lung. An official from the March of Dimes said there was no documented case of any American who had done so for quite so long.

From her horizontal world – a 7-foot-long, 800-pound iron cylinder that encased all but her head – Ms. Mason lived a life that was by her own account fine and full, reading voraciously, graduating with highest honors from high school and college, entertaining and eventually writing.

She chose to remain in an iron lung, she often said, for the freedom it gave her. It let her breathe without tubes in her throat, incisions or hospital stays, as newer, smaller ventilators might require. It took no professional training to operate, letting her remain mistress of her own house, with just two aides assisting her.

Mary Dalton, an associate communications professor at Wake Forest University, produced a documentary about Mason’s life in 2005. “She always wanted people to see she was a person, separate from the iron lung,” she said. “Once you got engaged in a conversation with her, you forgot about the iron lung. … She was really funny, she was really smart … She never wanted to be pitied.”

(Photo from the Charlotte Observer)

American artist Andrew Wyeth died this week at the age of 91. His iconic painting “Christina’s World” was one of the best known artworks of the 20th century.

From the Museum of Modern Art catalog:

The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist’s neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, “was limited physically but by no means spiritually.” Wyeth further explained, “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

From the New York Times obituary:

Wyeth had seen Christina Olson, crippled from the waist down, dragging herself across a Maine field, “like a crab on a New England shore,” he recalled. To him she was a model of dignity who refused to use a wheelchair and preferred to live in squalor rather than be beholden to anyone. It was dignity of a particularly dour, hardened, misanthropic sort, to which Wyeth throughout his career seemed to gravitate.

Special thanks to Johanna Mattern Allen for the tip.

(Graphic from Museum of Modern Art)

From the New York Times:

Heba Said Ahmed (left) won a gold medal for power lifting at the recent Paralympic Games in Beijing, and broke a world record.

But when she left Beijing and returned home to Egypt, Ahmed once again faced a society that views her as a second-class citizen because she cannot walk, a disability caused by a childhood bout of polio. An excerpt:

“I want to prove to society that I am better than what they think of me,” she said. “In Egypt, they think a handicapped person should just stay in bed.”

It is hard to overstate how different Ms. Ahmed is from many of those around her. It is all about attitude. Egypt is filled with people who face adversity, most often a function of poverty and systemic indifference. It is a class-based society with an unwritten contract that many people believe condemns them to live as they were born, poor and marginalized. There is a pervasive feeling of impotence, a collective belief that fighting back is futile.

But Ms. Ahmed never refers to fate; she talks about choices. She does not talk about obstacles; she talks about challenges.

… “There is no such thing as a handicap,” she said. “A handicap is in your thinking, or in your heart.”

Guest commentary:

What Kind of Advocacy

Do Americans with Disabilities Really Need?

By Paul K. Longmore

Ever since Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech, the “needs” of children with disabilities have gotten a lot of press. Palin pledged to be a “friend and advocate” for those children. News stories have reported the excitement of parents and other people in the disability rights constituency that disability issues are finally getting some attention. Some of them have decided to support the election of Palin and John McCain. But do the Republican candidates offer the kind of advocacy Americans with disabilities really need? I don’t believe they do, and I want to explain why I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden instead.

(more…)

From The New York Times:

Iraq, which has been in three wars in two decades, has a robust Paralympic team. Twelve of the 20 athletes who have qualified for the Paralympic games are disabled war veterans.

“As a country that participated in many wars since 1980, we have many disabled people,” said Ahmed Abid Hassan, a wheelchair fencing coach. “Our Paralympic team is better than our Olympic team.”

Above, Rasul Kadhim, a weight lifter with a paralyzed leg. (New York Times photo)

From the Los Angeles Times:

Harlan Hahn, a longtime USC professor of political science and champion of disability rights who successfully sued the university to improve access for disabled people campuswide, died April 23 at his Santa Monica home. He was 68.

The cause was a heart attack, said his daughter, Emily.

Hahn was already in the vanguard of the disability rights movement when he joined the USC faculty to teach political science in 1972. He pushed for the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibited discrimination against the disabled, and the more sweeping Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

Hahn, who had polio as a child, brought a lawsuit against USC in 1998 to remove physical barriers that limited the mobility of disabled individuals. The suit was settled in 2001 when the university agreed to embark upon a major barrier removal effort.

He also wrote or co-wrote a dozen books, and filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the 1983 case of Elizabeth Bouvia, a woman who was paralyzed and petitioned the court to let her starve to death. Hahn argued that disabled people needed better support, not help in dying.

“Ultimately, a disability is not an organic deficiency,” Hahn wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1983, “it is the product of a disabling environment. . . . To deprive any member of the disabled population of the mental and emotional strength that he or she can contribute to others would be an unforgivable act.”

See also the press release from USC: In Memoriam: Harlan Hahn, 68; The USC College political scientist was a major force in the disability rights movement

From Northumberland [Ontario] Today:

Ontario Lt. Gov. David Onley, who himself had polio and uses a motorized scooter, says there are strong economic reasons for employing and serving people with disabilities. An anticipated labor shortage, tied to the graying of the baby boomers, makes it vital for employers to take another look at the approximately 15 percent of the population who have disabilities, he said

Contrary to what many employers think, usually there is little that needs to be changed or expense incurred to bring a skilled disabled person into the workplace, Mr. Onley said.

Onley cited the following benefits for employers hiring people with disabilities:

– Studies show they meet or exceed job performance requirements;

– Retention is high and absenteeism is low;

– There is a network of agencies and services to assist such hiring; and

– When you hire persons with disabilities, you build an inclusive, effective and productive work force.