New York walks to support the 2013 AIDS walk

If as Ella and I are you are a proud member of the lgbtq community aids and HIV has hit you, your friends and family hard but you dont have to be gay to be affected in fact more straight people get infected each year than gay.

GMHC is a proud organization in new York on the fore front of the fight for service support and dignity and upholding of the rights of the infected community. No one fights harder or works harder than GMHC but the government thinks nothing of regularly cutting their funding.

Because of the constant fight for funds the yearly aids walk is a vital life line for the funding so urgently needed. For the last four years Ella and I have fund raised and rolled and walked the six miles of the aids walk to do our part. Over the years friendships have been formed and a sense of family built friends like Craig de Thomas a member of GMHC ‘s board is such a person.

Yesterday Ella and I and for the first time Zeus my service dog not only walked but had his own fundraising page and was a sponsored walker.

30,000 plus people braved the torrential rain that never stopped and as one we walked and rolled and as a community raised over $5,000,000 . If you really believe it takes a village to raise a child there is always room in the village of caring people who walk each year for you so see you next year.

DSM revised, the first time in nineteen years

The DSM is the official medical dictionary of mental illness, like most things in the medical world it can take decades for any change good or bad to happen. It took decades for aspergers to be included as a diagnosis and even longer for the medical community to take it seriously, it’s only in the last twenty years mental health experts decided to specialize in aspergers as a separate diagnosis to autism.

My beautiful son has grown up living with aspergers so this weeks decision to deregister aspergers as a diagnosis separate to autism is personal and has the possibility to set back treatment many years. When a diagnosis is accepted and taken seriously by the medical community research funding is made available and because of that advances in treatment are made.

It is my feeling that now it is lumped back in with the rest of the autism spectrum funding will be reduced from plentiful to sharing the already small pie that has to be divided already too many ways amongst the large spectrum that is autism. This action by the powers that be who decide what’s in and out doesn’t just cut funding and therefore quality of treatment for those with Aspergers, but all with autism because of the fact they have to now share their money with one more group of patients .
Can the medical community please stop hurting those already hurt? can we not go around telling families the illness their child and therefore they also live with no longer matters. The DSM may have decided on a Monday it’s no longer an illness ,but come Tuesday there were still millions of families struggling with it.

Service dogs? please understand what that means.

Service dog; a trained animal for the purpose of assisting with the life of a person with disabilities or who is medically compromised physically ,emotionally or mentally.

A service dog wears an identifying harness and or vest and the owner /handler carries identifying licensing or identification.

So folks here’s why I am writing today, I am sick and tired of stupidity. For 10 years before I was ever disabled I knew what a service dog was and I knew what it did and more importantly I knew they were a highly trained animal that was non aggressive.
Yesterday was the final straw in over 12 months of screaming running hiding climbing fences by uninformed dolts, who no matter how much you tell them he’s safe he’s not aggressive they run screaming.
If I had a dollar for every time a mother has picked up her children and ran screaming” no dog” or “no pero” or a woman who would rather step into fast dangerous oncoming traffic with her family and risk death than simply walk past a small obviously not yet full grown pup on a short controlling leash wear ins a bright red vest with the words SERVICE DOG an inch high in not one bur three places I would be a rich girl.

So back to yesterday, It was my baby’s birthday so I had a lot of organizing to do in a short time in the morning because we had a lunch date and it had to be perfect, now we live in a small out of date non wheelchair accessible studio that is long over due for renovation. So as I was rolling from the restaurant to the florist, I rolled past a kitchen renovation business with the words “WE SPECIALIZE IN DISABLED FRIENDLY RENOVATIONS” on the window so in I went. Just as Zeus became visible over a display an expensively dressed Latino woman in her fifties jumped on to the desk then jumped off and ran for the stock room some 30 feet away? Wtf so I asked what the problem was? to which she replied “the dog they’re monsters” she had a male counterpart and he said in a very calm “no it’s a service dog” as she was having her break down 3 other very wealthy looking couples left nervously, she said she had no idea what that was but the dog would attack she was sure.

Now to refurbish our apartment is at least 50 thousand dollars and this woman can sell 6 figure renovations deal with manhattans richest but a 24 inch high non aggressive dog sends her onto the very furniture she sells screaming like she saw a spider.
Folks don’t encourage your children to adopt your phobias, if you see a service dog with your children it’s a learning opportunity and don’t get me wrong there have been some parents who do ask if the kids can come close and ask me to explain what he does and I love it and the kids sometimes blow my mind by already knowing everything and telling their parents.

There is no logical reason for you to grab your children who are smiling and saying “look mommy puppy” and time and time again imprint your fear onto their emotional make up. just to be fair I must be clear I keep saying “she” or “mom” but I have had just as many grown men act just as ridiculously.
Before you jump on me about how I should understand phobias , the people with phobias I have met stand back as far as they can and simply stand motionless till I pass. the other people whether phobia or not act in a manner that is dangerous to themselves, me,Zeus and everyone around them . Zeus sat in a restaurant and quietly and went to sleep under the table as Ella and I celebrated her birthday. He does the same at my favorite coffee shop in the morning and when sids bicycles do repairs he sits and quietly watches them work on the chair. He goes rock wall climbing and is surrounded regularly by dozens of school children attending with their school.

When I am at the doctors he sits at the bottom of the examination table. Zeus has travelled the full extent of the new York subway system since he was 9 weeks old and never a problem and in september will travel Amtrak New York To Toronto.

Zeus is not the exception folks he is the rule if a service dog ever shows aggression I public he is bounced out of the program immediately . so next time you see a dog wearing a vest like the one above if you see it far enough in advance and you can’t get over your fear cross the road safely or step into a business but please lose the hysterics you are damaging your children and their ability to process fact from your fiction why would you want your children to grow up living with the horrible fear and stress that damages your life? It’s nothing short of child abuse.

Australian child advocates Bid to change tasmanian “I thought she was old enough” sex law

reposted from a story by MATT SMITH | May 14, 2013 12.00am

TASMANIANS will no longer be able to use mistaken age as a defence for having sex with children aged 12 and under if legislation is passed by State Parliament.

Attorney General Brian Wightman will introduce the legislation next week after receiving Cabinet approval yesterday.

The Government ordered a review into the crime of sexual intercourse with a young person following the prostitution of a 12-year-old Hobart girl in 2009.

Under the current criminal code, if someone is charged with having sex with a person younger than 17, they can argue that “on reasonable grounds” they believed the child was of legal age.

The proposed no-defence age will mean defendants will not be able to use the argument that they did not realise the person was underage, if the child is aged 12 or under.

Mr Wightman said legislation would also be introduced making Tasmania the first state in Australia to require that before an accused could rely on the defence of mistake as to age, they must show they took all reasonable steps to ascertain the age of the young person against whom they committed the sexual offence.

Mr Wightman said the amendments would create greater consistency by making the onus of proof consistent in relation to all sexual offences against young people.

“In line with the traditional approach, the onus of proof in all cases will be on the prosecution,” Mr Wightman said.

The Bill will also strengthen the charge of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person that requires the proof of three separate sexual offences, by allowing prosecutors to take into account interstate offences.

“The law will be clarified and strengthened by these changes,” Mr Wightman said. “These legislative changes will ensure that Tasmania’s children and young persons are afforded the protections they deserve and send a clear message that sexual abuse of children and young persons is simply unacceptable.”

The no-defence law is in contrast to a Tasmanian Law Reform Institute report that recommended against such a move.

However, the report did recommend tighter restrictions on the legal defence of “making a mistake”.

Kathy lee and Hoda, what’s wrong doesn’t a wheelchair make good television?

The channel 4 morning show from 10am to 11am every weekday is hosted by Kathy lee and Hoda, about 2 years ago they started highlighting people who have gone above and beyond with weight loss .
In the beginning they had people who had lost huge amounts and beaten illnesses like diabetes and cardiac problems, and it was a wow moment once a week.
well as my regular readers know since April 17th 2009 I have gone from the picture below over 525lbs

to the one below it and still losing so far very close to 300lbs in weight loss My BMI has dropped from 80 to below 30 and still dropping all my vital signs have gone from life threatening to normal and I have now for almost 2 years been cured from type 2 diabetes all while spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair from a neurological disorder plus a few more disabilities.

Every time I send in my pics and statistics I hear nothing or a polite wow good luck, then they have a woman who dropped 3 dress sizes for a wedding losing sometimes as little as 20lbs. Yes they still have the occasional wow factor, but what is it kathylee and hoda doesn’t the wheelchair make for good television? because when you over look 300lbs for 20 lbs and you overlook that it was done without the ability to walk or do any of the normal exercise and there was so lap band or stomach stapling just sensible pure food and hard work in a wheelchair I can think of no other reason than the chair isn’t good television ? Disagree prove me wrong read my application and give this gimp a chance.

Disability Rights: Cornish Councillor Colin Brewer Compares Disabled Children To Deformed Lambs

Reposted from a story in the Huffington Post UK | By Felicity Morse Posted: 11/05/2013 15:23 BST | Updated: 13/05/2013 16:20 BST

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Colin Brewer, councillor for Wadebridge East, said he is not the “ogre” he has been made out to be The Cornish councillor who was re-elected despite saying that disabled children “should be put down because they cost too much money” has again insisted that there may be a case for killing some disabled children with high support needs.

Speaking to Disability News Service, Colin Brewer said he was not the “ogre” he had been made out to be, adding that constituents in his rural ward had shaken his hand and congratulated him, despite his controversial comments.

Looking for analogies to support his view, Brewer compared disabled children to farmers’ treatment of animals, telling the agency: “If they have a misshapen lamb, they get rid of it. They get rid of it. Bang!”

He continued: “We are just animals. He [the farmer] obviously has got a point… You can’t have lambs running around with five legs and two heads.”

Brewer said: “It [the lamb] would be put down, smashed against the wall and be dealt with.”

He said the financial “burden” of the disabled wasn’t just his own personal concern”, adding: “If you are talking about giving services to the community or services to the individual, the balance has got to be struck.”

Brewer said: “I keep as far away from health in the council as I can.”

However he sought to justify his original comments by saying that that had suffered a series of strokes before the incident, which might explain why he “flared up”. “People have said I have changed since those strokes,” he added.

Independent councillor Brewer made the comments to Theresa Court, who works for Disability Cornwall, while she was manning a stall at the County Hall in Truro in October 2011.

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Despite facing calls to resign, he remained defiant over his right to remain in his councillor role and gained 335 votes in the last election, beating the Lib Dem candidate by two votes.

He wrote a letter of apology to Theresa Court and said at the time: “I have no intention of resigning. I don’t think I have done anything wrong. I have apologised.”

Theresa Court told the Huffington Post UK earlier this year it was “quite frankly an insult that he had to be told to apologise after a year and a half.”

She said the manner in which the letter arrived was like he was making a stand, with “a second class stamp and folded into no less than eight pieces.”

Disability Cornwall said after hearing the latest comments that they were “a sad indictment of our so-called ‘civilised’ society that disabled children are increasingly discussed within a context of affordability, as if they were goods on a shelf that can be picked up and discarded at will, dependent upon what’s in the public purse.”

They added in a statement: “Colin Brewer and others, it would appear, believe a disabled child has the same value as a deformed lamb and should be dealt with in the same way.”

Mr Brewer has not responded to a HuffPost UK request for comment, but Cornwall council released the following statement:

“The recently published comments which are attributed to Councillor Brewer are completely unacceptable and are contrary to the Council’s policy of supporting all people with disabilities.

“Such views have no place in local government. These remarks represent the personal views of Councillor Brewer who does not speak for the Council or the people of Cornwall.”

The world thinks technology will make the lives of disabled amazing but so will common decency.

As an advocate for the disabled I am constantly attending product launches for new wheelchairs or prosthetics that are almost able to think for themselves, and body frames that when strapped on can allow even a Quadriplegics to walk again and all this is amazing.
On any given day in schools like MIT and private think tanks worldwide, people with more degrees than the alphabet are working tirelessly to make my life and those of all dis and other wise abled peoples life better.
I push a chair that benefits from all that technology, but no one can push a chair with ten kids blocking the sidewalk while their mothers look on without care, I can’t get my state of the art chair down to a subway unless the MTA gives a damn. My point is we can stack all the technology up a mile high and doesn’t matter a tinkers damn without common decency.

Teaching your children the right thing to do doesn’t take a PHD it takes a caring parent, teaching your children that pushing a wheelchair out of an elevator designed for wheelchairs because they don’t want to use the stairs doesn’t use a think tank it takes a voice of authority to let them know their actions are unacceptable, and you didn’t raise them that way.
When an elderly person or a pregnant woman or a person with MS using calipers gets on the train, I don’t care how hard you’ve worked it’s not as hard as they work each day just to have a decent life so stand the hell up, it’s just common decency and manners.

Yes we need technology but when did manners and common decency old fashioned? When did parents stop teaching caring for your fellow human and start phoning in responsibility? I don’t care what socio economic level you live at it’s no excuse.
My mother might have fell down on a lot of things and she did, but she was a single mother of 7 children and so many who just called our house home but when a woman walked into the room you stood the hell up when you got to a door the elderly the pregnant the disabled went through first. Food on our table might cost most of her pension and the roof over our head the rest, she might have made everything we wore and we were a clan to be reckoned with and we stuck together but the one good thing everyone had to say about us is you never met a more well mannered group of children and young adults in your life.
My chair cost the same as a four cylinder car and took one genius man over 400 hours to make, but “please maam take my seat” cost nothing try it tomorrow,today, right now or next time you go to push in front of the wheelchair to steal their spot on the subway stop breathe and try a little decency it cost you nothing.