It's an honor. . .

Over at A Creative Revolution, The Gimp Parade has been nominated for a Canadian F-Word Blog Award under the category of Best International Feminist Blog. (Thank you, Matt Bastard for the nomination.)

Disability blogs and the blogs of many of our great allies are well-represented throughout the categories. Competing with me in the same category, for example, are Bint's My Private Casbah, Daisy's Dead Air, As The Tumor Turns (Lymphopo/Grannie has kicked cancer's ass so seriously she's decided she doesn't need to blog about it anymore for now, btw), and Ms. Crip Chick, as well as many other people I love and blogs I love to read. Elizabeth's Screw Bronze! is nominated under Individual Blogs.

The first round of voting is now -- February 15-16. The final round of voting will be February 22-23 with winners announced on the 24th. To vote, go to the main nominations page and follow each link on the right sidebar to vote in each category.

And while you're over there, check out A Creative Revolution's fundraising initiative for WISE:

WISE (Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially and Economically) is one of many organizations who have been mightily screwed by Canada's Eww Government's cruel and unnecessary cuts to the SWC, because of the need to toss some raw meat to their socially conservative, classist, anti-woman base. WISE needs your generous help more than ever to continue providing leadership, training, awareness, and advocacy for low income women across Canada.

We know that you would help women in need out of the goodness of your heart - there is no doubt about that. However, to sweeten the deal, we have added a super-fantastic raffle which will entice you to give more!

Many disabled women are in the low income category of women WISE seeks to assist, of course. If the joy of voting for some of your favorite bloggers doesn't encourage you to make a small donation, maybe ACR's prize to the winner of a raffle for donators will get you interested: "It's a pair of fabulous, bodacious, hand-knit Teutonic Titpillows!" (Visual description of the image at the fundraising post link: Just what you might imagine. Two hand-knit plump-but-perky white-girl boobs.)

Best of 2007

I wasn't going to offer a Best of 2007 list of my posts this early because I'm an optimist and I like to think genius may strike me in the next three weeks. But for those who may be reading my writing for the very first time, here are five of what I think are my best blog posts of 2007. Plus a couple bonus posts.

Blind Rage and the legacy of Helen Keller -- Because I originally began The Gimp Parade to review books about disability, and more importantly, because Blind Rage is a fantastic book by a disabled feminist about the world's most famous disabled feminist.

I am tired -- My expression of how last winter's Ashley X debate affected me and the disability community online.

Miss Ability lays down on the job -- Recently, feminist blogs have written about the beauty contest Miss Landmine Angola. Here's my take on another beauty pageant for disabled women.

Anniversary -- Escaping institutionalization -- A personal story of perhaps the biggest drama of my life.

Is Roger Ebert a disability activist? -- When I wrote this, I inadvertently prevented comments to the post, so I never learned what others think about Ebert's "activism."

Bonus link: Because language use came up in comments to my Alas intro post, here's a blog entry on that topic: Linguistically disabled?

And because sometimes I amuse myself, my best blog headline of the year: Yes, the road to hell is paved, but that doesn't mean it's accessible

I'd nominate Cilla Sluga's post at Big Noise about Ruben Navarro as overall Blog Post of the Year.

Who would you nominate? And why?

Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog

Thinking bloggers

Trinity at The Strangest Alchemy has named me for the Thinking Blogger Awards. It's basically a meme with a fancy little icon to add to your blog,





but for me it means that Trinity, whose journal I've started reading fairly recently because of her great comments at Queer Dewd, finds The Gimp Parade worthy of suggesting to others. And that makes me feel good about this site. (Really good! Thrilled, actually!) Trinity blogs on disability, among other things, and I'm working my way through the archives over there.

In passing on my linky love, I'm listing five disability bloggers from my sidebar who always broaden my mind:

A Life Less Convenient -- Jen Burke's artistic blog diary of a life with chronic illness has been one of the reasons I've tried to be braver about describing the complexities of living with severe impairments and the societal consequences of disability status. Her eloquence on her frequent hospital and health care experiences aren't overtly political on disability issues, but show you don't need to be to add to the larger story.

Fit of Pique -- Thirza Cuthand's writing didn't come to my attention until the Ashley X case became big media fodder at the beginning of the year and she posted on her disabled sister, but every damn time I wander over there now, Thirza blows my mind. On mental illness and modern psychiatry, on queer issues, on being Cree and mixed race. Oh, just check it out, already!

From the Port -- Kathy Podgers lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her blog is an example of the tenacity needed to fight injustice locally. She documents the inaccessibility of local sidewalks, buildings and transportation, and currently shares her battle to be able to even attend city council meetings because of discriminatory bans on her service dog.

Gordon's D-Zone -- Gordon Cardona writes from Paolo, Malta. This post alone should explain my admiration.

The Trouble with Spikol -- Editor and columnist Liz Spikol blogs prolifically on mental health, tying together the social significance of pop culture, depressed celebrities, health care, and police treatment of those with mental ilnesses, among other things. If you read one blog on mental health news, this should be it.

The rules to this meme, set out by its creator, are as follows:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Attention

Go tell Amanda of Ballastexistenz that she rocks. Her site is a Yahoo pick of the week!

Saturday Slumgullion #22 -- Best of 2006

This is the last slumgullion of 2006, and like Hugo Schwyzer, I've gathered a list of what I feel like are my best posts of the year. They aren't the ones that created the most discussion, by any means -- and in any case, whatever controversy I managed to create occurred when I crossposted over at Alas. The top five posts listed below seem to all be fairly personal accounts of my disability experience. Make what you will of the fact that I am proudest of them.

Also, go ahead and look over your own blogging of the past year and either leave a link to your "best of" list, or put the list in the comments here as part of my last slumgullion. Disability isn't a topic requirement.

August 13: Until every single penny is gone

September 4: The joys of impairment

September 25: "Is your life hard or super-hard?"

November 6: My déjà vu

December 7: Last year

Don't expect any original content on my blog here for at least a week.

Happy New Year!