Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Last week I blogged about Candida Moss’ piece on relics and commerce. She’s got another piece out, this one on historical prosthetic limbs. Excavations of an ancient tomb near Turpan, China, have uncovered the 2,200-year-old remains of a man buried with a hoof-tipped prosthetic limb. In a paper recently published in the Journal of Chinese …
In response to the recent shooting of Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones, embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel has made a decision – give all cops Tasers. Chicago’s mayor and police superintendent will announce Wednesday afternoon that every police officer who responds to service calls will be equipped with a Taser and properly trained to use it …
I wrote a piece for Pacific Standard that many people seem to have read (it was their most popular story on the site for 5 days or so. I gather that must mean something) on the systematic abuse of disabled children by teachers and other staff in schools and institutions across America. In the piece, …
The Mighty is a well-funded website that publishes personal essays about disability. Narratives tend to be parent-driven or illness-driven, but they throw a huge amount of content out at the internet without much editorial oversight. The editors search through the vibrant disability-related blogosphere and ask to republish essays for free as well as publishing essays …
Back in June, Morgan Wheeler saw a wheelchair user and asked if she could help. He said no. She started pushing him anyway. He asked her to stop. She kept pushing him. He asked her to stop again. She kept pushing him around. 1. This is likely illegal. Battery? Kidnapping? Assault? 2. Morgan decided to …
As I (and many people smarter than me) frequently say – there is no autism epidemic. Rates are increasing largely, perhaps solely, due to changing how we diagnose autism. Now Jessica Wright, for Spectrum (and republished by The Atlantic), has written an enormously important piece on the “missing generation” of autistic individuals. Last year, Scott Hartman moved …
Cincinnati has a new red and white placard that deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers can place in their car to inform police officers of their disability. Here’s an image from a local news tweet. .@CincinnatiPD & students at @uofcincy help design traffic stop safety placards for the deaf & hard of hearing. pic.twitter.com/M6C6fOcGvn — Angela Ingram …
Explosive new report of abuse from the Massachusetts Disability Law Center. UPDATE: You can see the whole report here. 1. The Cult of Compliance (from Boston Globe): The investigation uncovered a school culture in which aggressive discipline of students had become ingrained, Eichner said. Many students suffered injuries, including scratches and bruises, and one student was …
The National Center for Disability Journalism at Arizona State University has released a new style guide for writing about disability. Here’s the press release. There’s also a “words not to use” document. As a disability-rights journalist, I like the NCDJ a lot. They do great work and this is an important guide. These tools are …
Donaldson has a disability, uses a wheelchair and is living on limited income. “You have to decide between living day-to-day and rent,” she told me. Finding an accessible home that she can afford is a challenge, and the struggle is compounded by landlords who turn her away because she is in a wheelchair. “When you …