Journalist – Historian – Speaker
(Reposted from 9/18/15) Last night Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism. It’s important to remind you of a few things. 1) They don’t. 2) The notion that autism is worse than a deadly disease reveals deeply ableistic ideology. 3) See point #1. Here’s a link to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s statement: While no link …
(Reposted from 9/16/15 on a defunct part of the site) In West Virginia, a young man with Down syndrome is being told he can’t attend the inclusive school near his house. It all started when Roy’s parents noticed he was becoming more disinterested in school while attending Magnolia High School during his freshman year. In …
(Reposted from 9/14/2015 on a defunct piece of the site) Pope Francis is coming to America. Here’s a media guide to his visit from John Allen at Crux (From the Boston Globe). I owe my media career to the popes. I had just turned in my tenure file and my book manuscript when Benedict retired. That morning, I …
Thismess.net is moving to a new site. There will be no new content here until it’s ready. Expect the blog to be back up and running soon.
I wrote about Autism Speaks a few weeks ago, and my email box has been lively with parents telling me to “check my facts” or sorrowfully wanting correct my “”unsound and terribly flawed” information. One of the issues with Autism Speaks is that they define Autism as tragedy. Then, when confronted by autistics who are …
Yesterday, I wrote my first piece for The Mary Sue, an awesomely nerdy and feminist website. It’s on the show Switched at Birth, a “Peabody-award-winning family drama on ABC Family.” I’ve been interested in the show for awhile, as it addresses disability issues in a more centered and interesting way than anything else of which …
The Pope suggests abortion can be forgiven. Earlier this year, he talked about big changes to its position on the family. Does he mean birth control? People forget that before Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical against birth control, there was widespread hope and reasonable arguments among more liberal theologians that birth control would be approved. …
Last December, I finished teaching and went on sabbatical. Tomorrow, I go back in the classroom again. I worked very hard, and these last nine months mark a major career transition for me. I suspect I produced well over 100,000 words, and it could be a LOT more if you count each blog post, talk, …
I have a new piece up at Al Jazeera America today on disability and upcoming television shows that have, in the past, done a good job with disability issues. None are perfect shows, but it’s ok to admire the good even while criticizing the bad: Since the emergence of the newly renamed Bechdel-Wallace Test, which is …
One of the great pleasures of my summer was meeting and interviewing Claudia Gordon. She works for the labor department now, but ten years ago she was at the Office of Homeland Security, her attention focused on people with disabilities in the aftermath of Katrina. Her video, shared below, talks about her development in the …