Journalist – Historian – Speaker
In the book History Matters, as well as the focused studies on which the book is based, Judith Bennett discusses the curious history of the medieval village alewife. She tracked the way that the internal ale-based economy worked, then, as ale shifted to beer, suddenly men took over the field. It turns out that beer, …
The worst elements of inspiration porn appear in local papers, then move outward. So I was pleased to see the local River Falls, WI, paper respond to a disabled student winning a big scholarship by just talking about Alma’s dreams and academic achievements. This is a screenshot link, so I don’t have an accessible version, …
“Ally’s story, and Penny’s story, don’t negate the significance of these new neurological findings, or the fact that drug interventions for cognition will come as good news for some people with Down syndrome. I am not certain that Penny needs medical interventions to improve her cognition, but I know she needs a social context that …
It’s voting day in Illinois. Today I’m going to vote in my first consequential presidential primary of my life. In all other primaries since 1992, the decision had been pretty much made by the time the primary got to me (except in 2008. IL was consequential, but Obama was obviously going to win his home …
Today at the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, CA, I’ll be attending a showing of Where is Hope, a film on police violence and disability. I’ve seen the film, and it’s direct and powerful, forcing viewers to really think about the experience of violence at the hands of law enforcement, and particularly why that violence …
Charles Pierce has a piece on the many victims of the Cold War in Latin America. It’s being raised as an issue versus Sanders (and will be used to hammer him in the general, if he gets there, because much of America remains afraid of “socialists” and “Communists”). History in public!
Yesterday the Ruderman Family Foundation published their White Paper on Media Coverage of Law Enforcement Use of Force and Disability. I have been working with Lawrence Carter-Long on this for months, tracking hundreds of newspaper stories. We see disability as a missing piece in so many of the critical conversations about police use-of-force and hope …
Yesterday I wrote about an ID Card for autistic drivers, with links to similar stories. Now we have “autistic wrist bands.” These are well intentioned efforts to stop police from hurting neurodiverse people. There’s a better way, though, and that’s to train police not to hurt people who aren’t causing active threats. As always, I …
There are three new bills working their way through the Florida legislature on policing and disability. One of the interesting things about disability is that even people who refuse to consider most structural reforms to policing and reject the #BlackLivesMatter movement are still willing to push for reforms when it comes to disability. That’s actually …
One of the continuing issues I address is inspiration porn, media that may seem to praise disabled people, but in reality objectifies and dehumanizes. I wrote on it recently here. After it came out, Lydia Brown, one of my favorite writers, let me know that they also had a recent post about the “Down syndrome …