Friday Music: Mark E. Smith and The Fall

The times they are a-changin', just a little, I think. The music news site TwentyFourBit reports:

"Taking the stage in a wheelchair after your hip breaks for the second time is pretty punk rock, we think."

Image description: A black-and-white photo of Smith giving a grimacing smile or snarl to the camera. He's 52 now (though he looks older) and missing a couple teeth.

When Mark E. Smith, lead singer and sole original member of the post-punk rock band, performed with his current line-up for The Fall this past Tuesday and Wednesday, he sang first from the wheelchair he is currently using and then, for the end of the Wednesday show, from the dressing room backstage. NME has further details, including a somewhat less punk rock subheadline (in italics):

Recovering singer adopts unusual singing position as he recovers from hip injury

The Fall played London's KOKO last night (April 1), with Mark E Smith performing most of the gig from a wheelchair - before he abandoned the stage altogether and sung from his dressing room.

Currently recovering from a broken hip, the frontman, dressed in a black leather jacket, wheeled himself around the stage to alter settings on the band members' equipment before moving to sit behind a guitar amp for most of the concert.

The last three songs were performed with Smith singing from the dressing room, and changing the lyrics to 'Blindness' to say: "I refused to go onto the stage at one point / You'll get over it in the morning".

The song "Blindness", from the 2005 album Fall Heads Roll, has rather impenetrable lyrics (at least two previous versions) where the first-person narrator only has one leg. I am not enough of a cult follower of The Fall to know if this is or is not a reference to Smith's first hip injury in 2004 when he completed part of an American tour from a wheelchair before pain and medication reportedly caused some canceled dates.

Anyway, here are those lyrics:

BLINDNESS

The flag is evil
Welcome: living leg-end

I was walking down the street
I saw a poster at the top

I was only on one leg
The streets were fucked

And the poster at the top of street said:
“Do you work hard?”

I was only on one leg
The road hadn't been fixed
I had to be in for half six

I was only on one leg
My blue eyelids were not (?)
There was a curfew at half nine
For my kids

There was a poster at the top of the street
Encapsulated in plastic
It had a blind man

So I said: “Blind man, have mercy on me.”
I said: “Blind man, have mercy on me.”

The flat is evil and full of cavalry and Calvary
And calvary and cavalry.

“Do you work hard?”
It said, “I am from Hebden Bridge.
Somebody said to me: I can't understand a word you said."

Said: “99% of non smokers die”
“Do you work hard?”
“Do you work hard?”

I was walking down the street
And saw a picture of a blind man

The flat is evil
Of core? cavalry and calvary

Of core(?)
Blind man, have mercy on me
Said, blind man, have mercy on me

??
I am a ?
My blues eye get…ID/I get
My curfew was due half eight
Now its half past six

My curfew is at 9:30
I said. “Do you?”
Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me

I’m on one leg
My eyes can’t get fixed
And my kids
Can’t blue eyes get fixed

Blind man! Have mercy on me
Blind man! Have mercy on me


BLINDNESS (Peel session version)

And all humans
Cavalry or calvary
And not a drop of water
Or paper
Or paper
J.W. said "walking bass, walking bass"
Don't forget, don't forget
He expected Aristotle Onasis
But instead he got Mr James Fennings from Prestwick, in Cumbria
Do you... reflect this evil?
Thought of cavalry and calvary
His first appearance was on Moscow Road
The poster came at first
At first I thought it was just a poster
I was talking to James Seymour
Eyes wide open
The neck was slightly dislocated
But then I walked up the street
There was a repellent plastic
Said poster with a picture
Do you work?
I was on one leg
At the top of the street
There was a poster
A plastic front
From Moscow Road it came
From Deansgate it came
From Narnack Records it came
I was on one leg
I had to be in by 9.30
I said walking bass
Paper times 2
Paper times 2
Paper everywhere and not a drop of water to be seen
I said
I was by the ocean
I saw a poster
I am [?]
I am [?]
Everywhere I look I see a blind man
I see a blind man
Everywhere I look
I see a...
I can't get my eyes checked
My blues eyes can't get checked
I'm only one leg
I said to poster, "When's the curfew over?
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
I said, "Blind man, have mercy on me."
Blind man have mercy on me
Oh Great One I am a mere receptacle
The egg tester for your sandlewood and other assorted woods
In dark green
Blind man have mercy on me
I got a metal leg - truth
Flat is the evil of calvary and cavalry

Anyone want to interpret that?

About the times a-changin': If singing from a wheelchair is now considered "pretty punk rock", recall that in 1974 Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine, performing on the British TV show Top of the Pops just a year after an accident left him paralyzed, was considered "not suitable for family viewing" because of his wheelchair.

On the other hand, when has punk rock ever been suitable for family viewing?

Further sources to enjoy:

BBC News interview with Smith in May, 2008

The Fall wiki

Mark E. Smith wiki

the band's website

YouTube video of "Victoria", perhaps The Fall's most recognizable hit, from the 1988 album The Frenz Experiment

YouTube video of a live performance of "Blindness"

YouTube video of a concert performance of "Totally Wired" from the 1980 album Grotesque (After the Gramme)

When the wheels make the man, part 7

From newsday.com, we get this headline:

Woman accused in wheelchair death faces homicide charge

Yeah. The death was actually that of a human being, a man using a motorized wheelchair. It was a hit-and-run. The woman appears to have been intoxicated. Also, the man who died, Ranford Beckford, 51, was driving his wheelchair on the road's shoulder about a mile from his home.

My personal opportunities for driving along a roadside usually were caused by either lack of curb cuts or lack of adequate, accessible transportation. Or both.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this series.

When the wheels make the man, part 6

For the first time in this series, the wheelchair makes the woman instead of the man. Not really an improvement.

From the Australia Courier Mail, a headline about a man stalking a woman:

Man, 82, accused of stalking wheelchair woman, 65

Actually, both people in this report use wheelchairs though the headline characterizes only her as a "wheelchair person." If the news report can be trusted more than the headline, the woman's request in court to have the man designated as a stalker is based on one experience where the man "drove straight at her, swerving away only at the last moment."

That's understandably frightening. But in itself it could indicate the man's lack of driving ability of own wheelchair rather than stalking. The report doesn't indicate he followed the woman or repeatedly drove at her. If malice was intended, that would be reason to mention a wheelchair in the headline, with respect to the suspect and not the victim. It would be nice, when a news agency covers a story, if they'd not selectively use one person's status as a wheelchair user as a de facto indicator of victimhood.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this series.

When the wheels make the man, part 5

From Dayton, Ohio, a man who uses a wheelchair burgles a restaurant four times in one week. Naturally, the headline about it reads:

Wheelchair burglar raids restaurant four times in week

It wouldn't have to read as if the man was stealing wheelchairs too. In fact, it wouldn't have to mention the wheelchair at all, except that is apparently what makes this crime newsworthy.

Here's an actual, alternate headline:

Police: Man In Wheelchair Is 4X Burglar

The body of both stories is exactly the same AP report.


Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this series.

Things that crack me up #51

Image description: A color photo of a nice little sign for restrooms showing a female figure, Wheelchair Dude (I consider "Dude" gender-neutral -- dooooode), and a male figure, all in variations of the classic access symbols. The sign has a brown wood frame and is in shades of brown, green, black and white. The female figure wears a brimmed hat and a brown and green dress. The male figure has brown pants and a black top with a white button-down shirt underneath. Wheelchair Dude's chair is white and she's dressed in black. Both Wheelchair Dude and the male figure wear sombreros. Arrows underneath the figures point, presumably, toward equally charming restrooms.

Photo posted to Flickr by mwboeckmann who also posted Viking Wheelchair Dude.

When the wheels make the man, part 4

Out of Spokane, Washington, news of a man who uses a wheelchair falsely reporting being assaulted. The Washington state TV station KXLY offered this headline on Tuesday:

Police: Man made up wheelchair assault story

No, a wheelchair was not assaulted or even alleged to have been assaulted. The man who made up the assault uses one to get around.

Further coverage has been somewhat better. The Seattle Times reports that depression over the holiday season led Kenneth Koch to stab himself, then lie to a friend who took him to the hospital for treatment of the wounds. From there, police were called and the lie snowballed into media coverage and people offering the man money.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series.

Things that crack me up #49

Wheelchair Guy becomes an astronaut. The photo from failblog.com shows a parking space with Wheelchair Guy, the international symbol of accessibility, painted in the space. Except the wheel part of the symbol is not under the guy, it's over his head like a big bubble. I suppose the two-piece template for painting the symbol got botched up. Either that or visiting aliens will now be competing for prime parking spots.

When the wheels make the man, part 3

From the Sunday Mail in the UK, we get this headline:

Wheelchair pervert David Bennie jailed for decade of child abuse

No, the man was not being perverted with a wheelchair. He just sits in one, though the brief news story does end with the suggestion that he's faking his disability:

A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND paedophile has been jailed for four years for a decade of sex attacks.

David Bennie, 47, won three children's trust before subjecting them to depraved attacks.

The widower would strip during "naked nights" at his home and urged the youngsters to do the same.

He abused two sisters from when they were 12 until they turned 16.

Bennie also tried to force a 16-year-old boy to have sex with another man.

He showed hardcore porn to the children at his home in Irvine between 1996 and 2007.

The ex-railwayman was jailed at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court last week after being earlier convicted of lewd and libidinous behaviour and sexual assault. He was put on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Bennie was wheeled into court by relatives but one victim claimed it was a sham and that he chased her upstairs and into the garden, stopping when he feared being seen on his feet.

Of course, use of a wheelchair never precludes the total ability to walk -- many, many people use wheelchairs because they help with various details of mobility, not because they are incapable of walking at all.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See parts 1 and 2 of this series.

7 Wheelchairs reviewed by NYT

Image description: Color photo of Gary Presley's book cover for "7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio." A close-up photo of one back wheel of a manual wheelchair.

Gary Presley's new book, 7 Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio, receives a rave review from the New York Times:

Those who prefer their miracles in subtler and more secular form might turn instead to Gary Presley’s extraordinary memoir of a life after polio. No one rises from a wheelchair and walks again in this book, yet the miracles clearly abound.

Mr. Presley was part of the last generation of polio patients in the United States: he became sick in 1959, right after receiving a booster shot of the old Salk vaccine. Whether the illness was from the vaccine or despite it was never clear, and in the end made little difference: within a week both legs were paralyzed, both arms drastically weakened, and he could not breathe.

The primitive respirators of the time saved his life. For months, an iron lung encased him like an oversize Tin Woodsman’s costume, doing the work his own muscles could not do. He was flat on his back, his world limited to what he could see in a small mirror affixed to the top of the machine. (With the mirror tilted correctly, he could watch “noitartnecnoC” and “drowssaP” on television.)

Eventually he graduated to a smaller, more portable lung — a metal carapace that let him sit upright. At night a rocking bed turned him violently on his head and back again to force air in and out of his lungs. Then the hospital sent him home to a small isolated Missouri dairy farm. He was 18 years old.

Mr. Presley writes with candor and precision about every facet of the next five decades. He learned to breathe without machinery, but he never walked again. A voracious reader, he skipped college and settled into a clerical job in a local insurance office. His wheelchairs became faster and sleeker, but his parents helped him dress and bathe until they died. As for toileting: Mr. Presley’s chapter devoted to the mechanics of urination and defecation in the face of paralysis is a tour de force that should be required reading for all.

Who could predict that, finally living on his own in his late 40s, he would fall in love with one of his hired aides? Or that, now approaching 70, his anger and depression faced and pretty much conquered, he would be happily married, healthy, vigorous, productive, in his words, a lucky man? A miracle, indeed.

Congrats, Gary!

Things that crack me up #47

Image description: A color photo of a modern, high-backed wheelchair all in a shade of light gray similar to office computers. The seat pictured is one option -- with a cut-out in the middle to acommodate the toilet underneath. The whole seat, with high back, headrest, and slim minimal armrests, looks a lot like modern office furniture with foot platforms attached and a different wheel base.

So, there are some cool things about this "high-tech wheelchair" called the Home Chare. It's a design project, I believe, not something actually being manufactured anywhere yet. The concept is basically a chair for everything but sleeping -- it can lie flat so as to be a level transfer height from a bed, it can detach from it's wheeled base and attach to a stairway lift, and you can poop in it by simply wheeling the chair over what looks like a standard size toilet.

Though for that last to work, as noted at Student Tech News, the wheelchair user needs to be pantless. That's the part that has me giggling:

"I have a modern new wheelchair! But there's one catch: I will no longer be wearing pants of any kind!"

In all serious, there's some design genius and also some serious flaws here, unless this is still meant to be an auxiliary chair to a person's main power wheelchair as even the large back wheels of a manual chair have to be attached for this to be maneuverable from a sitting position. Like the wheel base that accommodates a toilet beneath it, large wheels that a user can touch and turn while in the chair seem to be an accessory rather than a built-in feature, and since there's no motor or power mechanism of any kind, this is a chair to be pushed around in rather than to use for oneself. It's for ease of care-giving, not the ease of a wheelchair user. And that's fine if this is an auxiliary chair to the one the person can use independently.

Other possible flaws that I see include the tiny armrests, which I would try to lean on or use to shift my weight and find myself on the floor because they are not big enough to keep anyone who needs support from flopping out. Also, while this would make an awesome shower chair -- or poop chair, I guess -- I do not want to spend all the hours of my day in a chair lacking cushiness. Disabled people's asses, what I know of them, are rarely impressed by very modern, thin seating, even if it does include gel cushion. Padding everywhere, please, if I'm sitting here all week.

Finally, I kind of like wearing pants.

Wheelchairs in modern furniture design

David Pompa, an Austria-based designer, has created a collection of office furniture called Surreal Minimalism that includes eight chairs created by combining a variety of upholstered seats with different metal bases. Some of the metal bases are lifelike shiny metal human legs and feet, and other bases are wheelchair-like.

The first photo here shows a red seat attached to a metal base that is a minimalistic take on what a manual wheelchair looks like, with two big rear wheels and two small front wheels. It's not clear if the wheels are functional, but I don't think the back wheels would turn and while all the wheels are, of course, round, none of the edges anywhere appear to be rounded to accommodate gripping and pushing with hands.

Created as a project for his graduate studies at Kingston University in London, Pompa says, "Interaction is often reduced to a functional basis; this collection is an approach that objects and humans can interact on an emotional level with the aim of stimulating creativity."

The second photo here shows the same red seat with a metal base that looks like two silver human-shaped calves and feet that rest on short metal strips that look a little like truncated skis. From this angle you can better see the bright red seat which looks a little bit like a Lego with a cushy inner seat carved out of it. The armrests are the same solid unyielding plastic-like material as the rest of the seat's shell, and from this angle you can see it would be impossible to reach around these sharp-edged arms to push oneself with the wheelchair-base. By "sharp-edged" I simply mean the edges of the seat are not rounded off anywhere but are perpendicular corners. The top is blocky and the bottom is human-shaped.

At dezeen, Pompa clarifies in comments that the "objects are not meant to be comfortable, aesthetic, or usable furniture. the objects are symbols to question the stereotypical situation many people face in their office enviroment. there is no intention of putting these objects into an office enviroment and i am still at the beginning of their design process."

This third photo is of an entire room with several pieces of furniture that have regular furniture legs combined with either wheels or human-like legs. The furniture is either yellow and white or pink. A long oval yellow conference table has ten different "legs," one pedestal leg, several large round posts of varying styles and several that are either clearly human-shaped or mimic the organic curves of the human-shaped but lack an actual foot at the bottom. The chair at the table is like a basic dining chair with upholstered seat and back, and wooden arms and front legs. The back legs are replaced with yellow-tired wheels complete with handrims. Against a far wall is a chaise-like yellow upholstered sofa where the two back legs are replaced by slightly scaled-down versions of the yellow-tired wheels. A pink easy chair with ottoman looks quite comfortable. The ottoman has a metal pedestal base with four legs to the pedestal. The chair has half of that metal pedestal and is balanced in the back by pink-tired wheels with handrims. Between these last two pieces is a lamp that has small wheels (about the size of the front wheels on a manual) as part of its base. Obviously these chairs would not roll unless you lifted the half without wheels off the floor, but these are clearly images of a basic manual wheelchair worked into otherwise classic-design furniture.

Do you like what you see and how Pompa uses the wheelchair in the same way he uses human form in these designs? I wasn't sure how I felt about them until I read this analysis at notcot:

why do we always think about functions when we talk about inclusive design? design icons are icons for an exclusive range of our society. why?

I'm not sure if that's a writer at notcot or Pompa further explaining his design, but I like that very much. I think that inclusiveness is still not nearly a big enough part of even design discussions about function if the design of everything around us is an indication of what's being talked up, but hey, I'm all for inclusive design icons too.

That third photo above clarifies for me how furniture design could naturally incorporate the iconic wheelchair image so typically used as a symbol of inability and pity into design without it looking medical or unwelcoming. That's far more interesting to me than the first two chairs or the other variations in the collection that can be seen here.

Browsing Pompa's website, I found this last image of the design for what looks like a fashion show or possibly a nightclub. It's a big room with many tables, seating perhaps a couple hundred though there are no people in the photo. There's a bar seen dimly at the very back and a long runway or stage through the center of the room. Above it is some interesting angular architectural design. There are several stairs at each end of the long runway stage, but angling off from the stage's center are wide ramps that slope into the audience at either side. The ramps are a natural part of this whole angular stage and design above it. A half dozen big globe lights hang over the runway as a contrast to all the crisp corners and angles. Everything is white and stylishly accessible.

When the wheels make the man, part 2

Each incarnation of an ugly news story out of Darwin, Australia, continues to boggle my mind. A 26-year-old man had sex with his disabled, wheelchair-using mother who, when able to get away, told her doctor about the assault.

The first story I saw on this had the lovely headline "Desperate man had sex with wheelchair-bound mum." Apparently, he was so distraught that the ladies don't fancy him that he became "desperate."

And now there's this headline:

Wheelchair incest man jailed in Darwin

Note for clarity's sake that no one committed incest with a chair. Note also that the man was not a chair-user. It's his mother, the victim of sexual assault, who is reduced to being a modifier for her son's act: "wheelchair incest." And finally, note that the man is serving time for incest (because it's illegal to have sex with a close relative), but not for sexual assault or rape.

Because you are nothing without your assistive equipment. See similar post here.

When the wheels make the man

The Desert Sun of Palm Springs, California, ran a short story last week with this headline:

Wheelchair stabber's sentencing delayed

The news is about a man convicted of stabbing and killing a friend over a dispute about a bicycle. No wheelchair was stabbed. No man in a wheelchair was even stabbed. In fact, it's the guy using the wheelchair that committed the crime.

Nice, eh?

Things that crack me up #44

A disabled access restroom for vikings!

Image description: A color photo posted to Flickr by mwboeckmann of a handmade restroom door sign. The background is red with a Celtic black boarder of serpents. Inside this frame is a green -- maybe aged brass or bronze? -- figure of a guy wearing a metal helmet that has a nose guard. He's parked in Wheelchair Guy position, facing rightward, and the wheel of his chair could also be a round shield.

Yes, it's exactly like Sophie's Choice

From Inside Higher Ed, here's the story of a seven-year-old ADA case against Louisiana's McNeese State University for failure to make the student union accessible to the disabled. In 2001, a student using a wheelchair injured herself while trying to pry open a restroom door. (For those unfamiliar with this particular access dilemma, imagine sitting in a chair that rolls while trying to open a heavy door towards yourself and hold it open while you pull yourself through, all in a usually very confined space.)

The noteworthy aspects of this specific case are 1) that the university president has stated that access to the student union -- where the school newspaper, yearbook, student government offices and the two major cafeterias on campus are located -- was not a high priority, and 2) that the school's legal team is arguing that the plaintiff, a former student with epilepsy who was recovering from several surgeries to a knee at the time of her restroom injury, was not completely incapable of walking and thus had no business using the wheelchair in the inaccessible restroom.

From the article:

In a 2007 summary judgment, a Louisiana district court ruled that McNeese had failed to meet its obligations under the federal disabilities law. The act required that the Old Ranch [nickname for the union] be equipped with an accessible bathroom because the building had been renovated after 1990, the court found.

McNeese is now appealing the judgment, arguing that [the plaintiff, Collette] Covington — who didn’t absolutely need a wheelchair, according to McNeese officials — isn’t entitled to coverage under federal law. Covington had started using the wheelchair about a week before the accident, not because she couldn’t walk, but because she wanted to get around campus “at a faster pace,” according to statements attributed to Covington in court documents.

“It is reasonable to assume, then, that Covington could have stepped out of her wheelchair temporarily in order to use the restroom,” McNeese’s lawyer wrote in an appellate brief.

Also noteworthy is that the author of the linked article on the case describes the university president's position as follows:

Under the harshest interpretation, Hebert’s words could mean that he simply doesn’t view giving disabled students an “education” as a “high priority.” In the broader context of his deposition, however, Hebert noted that McNeese was confronted with something of a Sophie’s Choice. Forced to choose between making classrooms accessible and making the union accessible, he said, McNeese chose the classrooms. Whether McNeese lacked the funds to do both, however, is disputed in the lawsuit.

Because deciding how to use public funds for a public facility is exactly like choosing which of your children to let the Nazi's kill.

The good news is this: As I post this, comments below the article are 100 percent positive and supportive of the ADA and following the law to provide disabled access, including this comment by Jane Jarrow, president of Disability Access Information and Support:

From the article, it appears that both Covington’s lawyer and InsideHigherEd missed the obvious in this case. The ADA was passed in 1990, but the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (with it’s Section 504 regulations) was implemented in 1977. While the Rehab Act had somewhat less stringent requirements for architectural access than does the ADA, basic access to restrooms has always been... basic! McNeese State, as a public institution has had more than 30 years to respond appropriately to federal mandates for equal access for persons with disabilities. Moreover, it appears that McNeese has resorted to an Appeal to Spite in its denial of wrongdoing. Covington asserted that she was injured because the bathroom door was not in compliance with access requirements. McNeese responds that because Covington didn’t NEED to be in a wheelchair (an “iffy” assertion, at best), the fact that they failed to meet their 30+ year responsibility for access shouldn’t matter. Huh? Meantime, InsideHigherEd also seems to need a refresher course on disability law. The article states that, “The ADA, which applies some of its most stringent rules to public universities...” There is simply no basis for this bald statement unless the suggestion is that the Title II regulations (which apply to public entities of all kinds, including colleges and universities) are among the “most stringent rules” of the ADA. If that were the intent of the comment, it still misses the mark, as the requirements for architectural access (ADAAG) under discussion in this case appear in Title III of the ADA. While the letter of the law for both the ADA and Section 504 focuses on legal requirements for *access* to programs and facilities, the spirit of the law has always suggested that indepence, safety, and dignity are important issues in assessing how well those legal mandates for access are met. It would appear that McNeese State has lost sight of all three.

That's something, right?

Slumgullion #45

Yeah, I'm still here. I got new eyeglasses this weekend, and while it may take a few days to adjust to the bifocals (!) I hope to be spending less time squinting and more time online again.

In the meantime, this is the news I'm catching up on today:

"What happens when chronically ill kids grow up?" -- A June article in the Houston Press explains the gap in health care for disabled children who come of age. It's an important topic I haven't seen covered in such depth before, but, hello... the "first large generation of chronically ill pediatric patients to reach ­adulthood"? I'll be 40 in October, and I'm really tired of hearing how all the seriously disabled children before now died before needing adult health care. We're here. We've been here. A number of us have even been blogging online for quite some time. It's just that we're mostly invisible to the mainstream media.

"Girls parents and agency face charges in starvation" -- Danieal Kelly of Philadelphia was 14. She died in 2006 and the charges have just now been filed. Mark at The 19th Floor writes about Danieal and the grand jury indictment (pdf file with one very graphic photo) of nine people for her needless suffering and death.

"Immigrants facing deportation by U.S. hospitals" -- From a NYT series on how the government and others "compel illegal immigrants to leave the United States." Here's an excerpt:

Eight years ago, Mr. Jiménez, 35, an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Stuart, Fla., suffered devastating injuries in a car crash with a drunken Floridian. A community hospital saved his life, twice, and, after failing to find a rehabilitation center willing to accept an uninsured patient, kept him as a ward for years at a cost of $1.5 million.

What happened next set the stage for a continuing legal battle with nationwide repercussions: Mr. Jiménez was deported — not by the federal government but by the hospital, Martin Memorial. After winning a state court order that would later be declared invalid, Martin Memorial leased an air ambulance for $30,000 and “forcibly returned him to his home country,” as one hospital administrator described it. . . .

Mr. Jiménez’s benchmark case exposes a little-known but apparently widespread practice. Many American hospitals are taking it upon themselves to repatriate seriously injured or ill immigrants because they cannot find nursing homes willing to accept them without insurance. Medicaid does not cover long-term care for illegal immigrants, or for newly arrived legal immigrants, creating a quandary for hospitals, which are obligated by federal regulation to arrange post-hospital care for patients who need it.

American immigration authorities play no role in these private repatriations, carried out by ambulance, air ambulance and commercial plane. Most hospitals say that they do not conduct cross-border transfers until patients are medically stable and that they arrange to deliver them into a physician’s care in their homeland. But the hospitals are operating in a void, without governmental assistance or oversight, leaving ample room for legal and ethical transgressions on both sides of the border.

Indeed, some advocates for immigrants see these repatriations as a kind of international patient dumping, with ambulances taking patients in the wrong direction, away from first-world hospitals to less-adequate care, if any.

“Repatriation is pretty much a death sentence in some of these cases,” said Dr. Steven Larson, an expert on migrant health and an emergency room physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “I’ve seen patients bundled onto the plane and out of the country, and once that person is out of sight, he’s out of mind.”

"Taking the long way around" -- From Oceanside, California, an example of how higher gas prices and budget cuts that have led to more crowded public transit is pushing wheelchair users off the bus. We'll be hearing more stories like this, I suspect.

"Her new role is fighting old label" -- Ms. Wheelchair America is interviewed by the Houston Chronicle. Beauty contests for disabled women have been covered here before, but I do like the approach to her new job that the current Ms. Wheelchair America, Michelle Colvard, seems to be taking. She says:

They're two main ways that the media portray women who have disabilities. It's either kind of passive, needing help, victim, suffering. You hear a lot of those words, wheelchair-bound, these negative-word connotations. ... On the other hand, women with disabilities who have done pretty well for themselves are put up on a pedestal. I think sometimes that's a bad thing, too.

Things that crack me up #39

Cilla at Big Noise cracks me up. After my last published edition of what afflicts me with the chuckles, Penny at Disability Studies posted a similar example of restroom signage discrimination where disabled guy is denied clothes. So, Cilla created this Wheelchair Cowgirl for me. Take that half-naked nondisabled Hawaiian guy and Knott's Berry Farm Cowboy Dude!

Image description: Cilla's artwork takes disabled guy, the basic universal disability access symbol, and gives him a cowboy hat, sheriff's star pinned to his chest, fringed chaps (showing the fringes on the underside of his thighs), kickass cowboy boots with spurs, and a lasso swinging in the air from his arm. She's beautiful. Thanks, Cilla!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Apparently, "wheelchair guy" in Mexico is more interesting than his relative to the north.
















Image description: Two identical simply-stenciled images in bright red paint on a wall. The universal wheelchair access guy holds a gun (rifle, machine gun?) in an upraised hand as he sits inside a five-pointed star. Posted at Flickr by rsinghabout, the image is indexed under "San Cristobal," "Chiapas," "Mexico," "2007."












Image description: On the slope where a sidewalk ramps leads into a street in Mexico City, Mexico, a variation of universal wheelchair access guy is stenciled in black over yellow paint. This guy faces left instead of right and has a very large round head. Posted on Flickr by daquella manera.












Image description: On a large post painted green a round white stencil graffiti painting. The background of the image is white and the wheelchair guy is the color of the green post. He's a completely stylized version of the universal symbol, facing left. He has a very large oblong head with giant eyes, like an alien or maybe a Day of the Dead skeleton. He doesn't appear to have legs but his torso looks a little like ribs, though that may be a function of the illustration since the chair cushion, the chair's arm and the guy's body are all the same color green and each is cleverly articulated despite he drawing's simplicity. The manual chair looks light and speedy. Posted on Flickr by ultraclay!

Things that crack me up #38

Which is more disturbing? That the disabled wheelchair symbol guy is naked or that the nondisabled stick figure guy is not wearing pants?
















Image description: A color photo of restroom signage in the Honolulu, Hawaii, airport, posted on Flickr by Wha'ppen. On a black or dark brown background two white stick figures for the mens' restroom: The universal access wheelchair guy, looking like he always does in simple white outline, sits next to the mostly universal stick figure symbol for the mens' restroom -- a nondisabled standing guy in simple white outline. Except the nondisabled guy is wearing a very festive Hawaiian shirt , yellow with red flowers. The effect of the colorful shirt on the otherwise white figure is that he appears to be wearing only a shirt. Disabled guy doesn't get a shirt.

Cop dumps quadriplegic man out of his wheechair

The story:

Police Suspended for Wheelchair Dumping

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Four Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies have been suspended after purposely tipping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair at a jail, authorities said Tuesday.

Orient Road Jail surveillance footage from Jan. 29 shows veteran deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant after a traffic violation.

Sterner said when he was taken into a booking room and told to stand up, Jones grew agitated when he told her that he could not.

"She was irked that I wasn't complying to what she was telling me to do," he told The Tampa Tribune.

"It didn't register with her that she was asking me to do something I can't do."

Jones has been suspended without pay, and Sgt. Gary Hinson, 51, Cpl. Steven Dickey, 45 and Cpl. Decondra Williams, 36 have also been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said.

"The actions are indefensible at every level," Chief Deputy Jose Docobo said. "Based on what I saw, anything short of dismissal would be inappropriate."

He said the officers' actions were an aberration.

Yes, just another story documenting the callous abuse of power by law enforcement. Unbelieveable, but... not, right?

But it's also an example of how inept the media is at covering disability. The Associated Press headline: "Police suspended for wheelchair dumping"

"Wheelchair dumping" is ambiguous, obnoxiously imprecise, and goes for the shock value at the expense of even mentioning the victim involved. "Man dumped from wheelchair by cop" would have preserved the news shock value while also speaking the truth.

In any case, "wheelchair dump" has another meaning. "Dump" (also known as "rake" or "squeeze") refers to the seat angle on a wheelchair. To a seasoned wheelchair user, a story titled "wheelchair dumping" suggests discussion of the intricacies of butt comfort, balance, and leverage to push oneself. To a wheelchair user, the headline is not only insulting, it makes no sense.

The video of the abuse shows the police officer walking behind the man in the wheelchair and abruptly tipping the chair forward so the seat is at much more than a 45-degree angle from normal. Sterner attempts, briefly, to hold onto the arms before falling forward head first and landing hard on the floor. He is then rolled around on the floor and searched before being placed roughly back in his chair. The TV news report showing this video includes footage of Sterner outside, wearing sunglasses and using his arms and hands with some difficulty. He explains to the news camera that he has no feeling from the chest down and did not know at first how badly he was injured from the fall, but thought he might have broken some ribs.