Born with a rare neuromuscular myopathy, Jeff has spent his life dedicated to advocating for himself and others with disabilities. With a PhD in Media Studies from Western University, Jeff's research focuses on the representation of disability in popular and digital culture. Jeff is currently an Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at King's University College @ Western University in London, ON.
Ensuring the Western Fair is accessible for people with disabilities has been a big problem, specifically a decision made last year to begin charging individuals with disabilities entry (which you can read about here). While I fully endorse PWDs paying full fare for entry, I do believe it’s unfair to ask the same of their support workers. As it turns out, Western Fair is taking steps to overcome this barrier by developing an “access card” which will allow people with disabilities to bring a support worker with them to the Fair for free.
Check out a recent visit to the London Accessibility Advisory Committee for more information about the Western Fair Access Program, courtesy of Greg Fowler from From My Bottom Step:
This past weekend I was at the Youth Activist Forum, put together by Citizens with Disabilities — Ontario (CWD-O). Presenting a workshop on my webcomic and creative resistance and a keynote on my trip to Ottawa in ’08, it was great spending time with some young activists out to change the world. A huge thanks to Chrissy, Dale and Erika for inviting me to take part in this great event and a warm hello to all my new friends from the conference. You can see a comic strip I put together about the conference here.
In a recent interview, Stephen Hawking made the claim that heaven exists only in fairy tale to comfort those afraid of death. This shouldn’t be a surprising revelation given his past comments that God doesn’t exist nor did he create the universe. We have unconfirmed reports that he did not consider the Chocolate Lab Paradox before making this claim.
Perhaps in a bid to become relevant again, Kirk Cameron (former actor and village idiot) decided to throw off his actors clothes and put on his scientist smocks, claiming that Hawking was wrong because “he cannot provide evidence for his unscientific belief that out of nothing, everything came.” Cameron then went on to roll out all of his scientific evidence that God created everything and heaven exists. Just kidding, he has nothing. So it appeared as though we were on our way to the academic battle of the century, which makes sense because of how their educational histories are so comparable. In Hawking we have one of the most important scientific minds in human history and in Cameron we have someone who was a sitcom shill until he drank the kool-aid and tumbled down the evangelical rabbit hole.
Unfortunately, though, there will not be an intellectual throw-down because Cameron doesn’t think it would be a fair to pick on a cripple (via E! Online). Yep, Kirk Cameron actually said to E! News:
“To say anything negative about Stephen Hawking is like bullying a blind man. He has an unfair disadvantage, and that gives him a free pass on some of his absurd ideas. Professor Hawking is heralded as ‘the genius of Britain,’ yet he believes in the scientific impossibility that nothing created everything and that life sprang from non-life.”
Cripple Defender
To be fair, Kirk, I think it’s actually a bit more like bullying a man in a wheelchair. It’s fun to snicker at the “He has no proof, and therefore, my proofless claim is more true” statement, but I am truly astonished that more people aren’t piling on this horrifying example of ablism. It is offensive and wrong to denigrate all the work Hawking has done by implying he has only been able to do what he has done because no one will question him because of his disability. I have no doubt in my mind, largely because of the huge amount of evidence, that Hawking’s work has gone through the same rigorous scrutiny that other scientists go through. Further, to belittle his ideas simply because he’s in a chair is flabbergasting.
But maybe Cameron is right. Maybe us crips do get a free pass for some absurd ideas. Therefore, I submit to you the following list of truths which you are not allowed to question because I’m in a wheelchair:
Gravity is the physical manifestation of the Earth’s sexual attraction to humanity. If the Earth discovers we are cheating on it with Mars, we are sure to be jettisoned into space.
Nuclear Power Plants generate power by forcing Giants to rub their feet on a giant piece of carpet and then touching a wire that blasts the power to our home.
Windmills are warping our brains and killing us with super sonic sounds.
Mayor Joe Fontana is actually a robot sent from the future to save us from death by taxation.
Rain is just God’s pee. You don’t want to know what snow is.
Last night’s election treated Canadians to historic results–the first Conservative Majority, the first NDP opposition and the worst results ever for the Liberals. Meanwhile, online, young people (mostly…I’m assuming) are left wondering what the hell happened and how we’re going to survive 4 years of a Harperdom. Harperocracy. Harperbabyrapeicide.
Something didn’t seem right…after all, do you know anyone who voted for Harper? I probably know 10 people who voted for him, but I’ve talked to hundreds of people who were voting ABC (Anything But Conservative). Admittedly, I’m a young left-leaning university student who generally associates with progressive people, so this is by no means an accurate survey of the feelings of most Canadians. But the results have many left questioning…is Canada swinging to the right? Are socialists not welcome anymore? Do I need to buy a wind suit made out of a Canadian flag?
Ultimately, I had nothing left to do but cry myself to sleep and consider moving to a nice Scandinavian country (just not Sweden…a lot of neo-Nazis there now…).
Waking up this morning, though, I decided to do a little research. Did the majority of Canadians really support Harper? How big of an issue was vote splitting? What if the Liberals and NDP combined forces? With talk of a merging on the left, in the same way the right merged to form the Conservative Party several years ago, I decided to look and see how many ridings would have been won IF the NDP and Liberals become the “Liberal Democrat Party” and only ran 1 candidate in each riding instead of two. The following results are not scientific and do not take into account the number of right-wing Liberal voters who would swing to the Conservative Party or the left-wing NDP voters who would swing to some other party if this merger took place. Rather, I simply added up the NDP and Liberal numbers to see if they received more votes than the Conservatives. By my calculations the government would look a little different this morning:
The Liberal Democrats would have won 177 seats and would form a majority government.
The Conservative Party of Canada would have won 130 seats and ended up as the official opposition.
The Green Party of Canada would win 1 seat and likely still be blocked from participating in any debate because Elizabeth May is too nice to be a real politician.
And, most interesting of all, the Bloc wouldn’t win a single seat. I’ll let you decide whether or not that’s a good thing on your own (spoiler alert: it’s a good thing for Canada).
These results are starkly different and in no way indicate a majority of Canadians want Stephen Harper as their Prime Minister. In fact, it shows that left-wing/socialist thought is still the dominant ideology in this country (…except for Alberta…at least until the oil runs out).
So I guess the question is, will the NDP and Liberals join forces in four years, or will we have eight years of Conservative governments that a majority of Canadians don’t want? The ball is in your court, politicians…
PS. Yay Elizabeth May. She’s so sweet.
The following, in no particular order, are ridings the 41 ridings that the “Liberal Democrats” would have won according to CBC’s election map:
Clara and I love the "interpretive" wheelchair guy at the bottom. Totally vanguard art.
Over the past few years, much has been made about the lack of accessible polling stations across the country. While a bulk of the publicized concerns surround the use (or the lack) of technology to allow people with visual impairments to vote independently, the problems stretch much further. For instance, I will never forget reading about the polling station in Toronto that was located downstairs. Is it sick that my first thought was “Man, I wish that happened to me”?
Dreams of rabble-rousing aside, this little incident served as a bit of a wake-up call to Elections Canada, who are now actively working to make sure future elections will be accessible to all Canadians, regardless of their ability.
Just got this call for youth with disabilities to participant in a Youth Activist Forum in Ottawa. You should come, we’re going: Jeff will be making a presentation and running a workshop.
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Registration is open for the Youth Activist Forum hosted by Citizens with Disabilities-Ontario in partnership with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. This event will bring young people together to meet established and emerging disability mentors. The Forum will include a performance night with disabled artists, discussions lead by disability leaders from Canada and the United States, and workshops where youth participants will have the opportunity to showcase their talents and interests. We are looking for youth with and without disabilities aged 16-30 from across Ontario to attend this exciting event to be held at Carleton University in Ottawa, ON from June 3-5th. We are still fundraising, and hope to cover all or a portion of travel, lodging and accessibility costs for participants. Know anyone who might be interested?
To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Cripz: A Webcomic going online, we’re asking everyone to grab their caution tape and shut down as many stairways as possible.
What is Stairbombing?
Stairbombing was invented to help people understand (and empathize) with why accessibility is important, by “closing down” stairways with caution tape and a snarky “Out of Service” sign commenting on how annoying it must be to not be able to access a place they really want to go.
Why are we stairbombing?
Because, quite frankly, we’re tired of not being able to go anywhere! One of the biggest challenges for someone with a physical disability is the lack of accessible public spaces. From restaurants to schools, London is woefully inaccessible. The result is that people with disabilities are one of the most marginalized populations in our community simply because they can’t go to the same places as everyone else.
Invite all of your friends to the event and give us a few shout-outs on your social media (facebook, twitter, friendster, icq, etc)!
Write a blog about the event and why you feel accessibility is important.
Form a team of friends, bring a camera and meet us at the band shell in Victoria Park at 7pm on the 30th! We’ll provide you with all the supplies you need.
Head out into that big bold world and shut down as many stairs as possible!
If we all work together, we can shut down a critical mass of stairs and show the people of London just how inaccessible this city is!
When is it okay to tell jokes about disability? While I think the disabled population is overdue for a good ribbing, hence launching a webcomic about life with a disability, perhaps it’s not the best call for a Federal politician to be the one poking the fun. Yep, the other day Stephen Woodworth, the Conservative incumbent for Kitchener Centre, decided to take to the Internets with his witty, witty humour, tweeting “Cop says to falling down man outside tavern ‘You’re drunk’ Man replies ‘Thank goodness’ Cop asks ‘Why?’ Drunk: ‘I thought I was crippled!’” It’s weird because normally when people see my wheelchair they ask “What happened? What do you have?” not “Seriously bro, how shit-faced ARE you right now?!”
In a story reminiscent of the Rain Man, a 12-year old with Asperger’s in the US is putting everyone to shame and blowing through Graduate-level physics classes with ease. I caught this story on Disability Scoop yesterday, who explain the boy has an IQ of 170, which is about 160 points higher than me (give or take 10 points). Not only is he kicking ass and taking names in the class room, apparently he’s developed a new theory that could put him in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize. No big deal, what 12 year-old isn’t in the running for one of those?
You're lucky you have those stickers Mister, or I woulda run you off the road.
You know what really gets my goat? People who put those blue handicapped/wheelchair stickers on their personal van. While I was out and about last week I spotted this van in London, which was plastered with handicapped stickers, and could only grit my teeth and cringe at the sight. Why does it bother me so much? I’m not completely sure, but I think it has a little something to do with intent. Why would someone want to specify/identify their vehicle as being one that is carrying a “disabled passenger”?
