Bored with the election talk? Here’s a discussion you won’t hear on pop news media outlets or NPR. Laura Wells Edie Hallberg from the Peace and Freedom Party and Laura Wells from the Green Party join us to talk about disability election issues. Given the extreme absence of discussion of these issues in the Republican and Democratic election bru-ha-ha, should people with disabilities vote a third party ticket? Pushing Limits host, Eddie Ytuarte, asks this question and leads us into a thought- pro...
Apr 01, 2016•4 min
[Transcript] Attorney Haben Girma works to increase access to technology for people with disabilities. She helped achieve victory in National Federation of the Blind v. Scribd, one of only two decisions to hold that the ADA applies to virtual businesses. In 2013, she came to Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) as a Skadden Fellow. In 2015, she became a DRA staff attorney. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Haben Girma has given a Ted Talk, (Transcript) introduced President Obama and Joe Biden at th...
Mar 18, 2016•4 min
Corbett O’Toole. Photo by Karen Nakamura Corbett Joan O’Toole’s new memoir, Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History, is arguably the best history to come out of the Disability Rights Movement of the past four decades. She joins us in the studio for a lively discussion. We are offering copies of Fading Scars as a thank you gift for your $60. membership in KPFA. Call (510) 848-5732 or toll free at 800-439-5732. Arriving in Berkeley among the first wave of people with disabilities, Corbett O’Tool...
Feb 19, 2016•9 min
Organizer, HolLynn D’Lil with her new book. Sometimes, we take accessible buildings for granted; but they aren’t always accessible for people living with disabilities and our rights aren’t always granted. Every now and then we have to make some noise, show up and be counted, prepare for a smack down… So it was at the California Building Standards Commission last week. Couldn’t make it to Sacramento? Didn’t really understand the issues? Wondering what happened? Advocate Delores Tejada. We’ve cond...
Feb 05, 2016•4 min
Madelaine Kelly. “I put on the cat ears and then forget I have them on but other people look at me and smile. So, I am surrounded by smiles all day long.” Labeled a difficult child and unable to connect with other human beings, Madelaine Kelly made a cry-for-help suicide attempt before she was twelve. Today she has a loving family, a successful business and a globe-trotting life style. Shelley Berman and Adrienne Lauby talk with Madelaine Kelly. Here’s a preview: I started to run when I was basi...
Jan 29, 2016•4 min
Catherine Kudlick Executive Director Catherine Kudlick of the Paul Longmore Institute at San Francisco State University is our guest. The Institute was named after one of the more prominent contemporary historians/scholars in the disability community. Part think-tank, part cultural center, the Longmore Institute introduces new ideas about disability and disabled people. The work at the intersection of disability history, the arts, education, and policy, pairing SF State students and faculty with...
Jan 08, 2016•4 min
Juanita Chapple Due to 12 years of budget cuts, people with developmental disabilities are taking care of aging parents by themselves, dying alone in single occupancy residences (SROs), and facing a host of other problems. They rallied in six locations across California early this winter to fight for themselves and each other. They rallied to the cry of a “10% increase.” Dana Hale, Mike Keener, Juanita Chapple, Shira Leeder and Tim Hornbecker attended the Berkeley protest. Sheela Gunn-Cushman wa...
Jan 01, 2016•4 min
Corbett Joan O’Toole. photo by Karen Nakamura Highlights from Corbett Joan O’Toole’s reading from her new memoir, Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History. Partial transcript available here. Arriving in Berkeley among the first wave of people with disabilities, Corbett O’Toole experienced the creation of the west coast Independent Living Movement first hand. In this book, she brings those early days to life. But that’s just the beginning. With her signature intelligence and humor, she takes us ...
Dec 04, 2015•4 min
Charlene Love. Photo by Shelley Berman Oh, the dreaded holidays…have to find time to clean the doggone house…but… What if you didn’t have a house to clean? What if you were homeless, not only for the holidays, but everyday? Meet Charlene Love—formerly homeless, on the fringe, disabled, and an activist. We usually don’t think of homeless people as part of the disability community but in Sonoma County, just for one example, nearly two-thirds (63%) of the homeless reported one or more health issues...
Nov 20, 2015•4 min
A typical Facebook post of inspirational porn. The term ‘inspiration porn’ has hit social media with great energy. Inspiration porn is a cultural phenomenon. It appeals to the goody-two-shoes segment of society who feel warm and fuzzy when the able-bodied world does something for people with disabilities. “Here’s a free sports event… get your picture taken with a star athlete. . . have your photo circulated around facebook because you look like a cute puppy. I’ll “like” that.” Does this help or ...
Nov 06, 2015•4 min
Arlene Moore We speak with Arlene Moore who simply can’t be knocked down without getting up again. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, scoliosis, stroke…who cares? Arlene rises to the challenge and, with the love of her husband Gary Moore, finds the strength of mind and character to live life to its fullest. Arlene’s Neck Basket It’s the day before Halloween and we have skeleton photos for you. And the engraved crystal award Arlene got from starting pitcher Kyle Kendrick and the Philadelphia Phillies. ...
Oct 30, 2015•4 min
How to find housing — and survive the process. Sheela Gunn-Cushman offers Housing 101, a program that takes us through everything from mental attitude to directions for setting up application and documentation files. A half-hour of practical, specific and well-thought-out information for those who need extremely low income housing in the bay area of California. MORE: Ideas and Forms to Supplement the Radio Program Sheela’s Affordable Housing Resource List, 2015 (Modify these templates and letter...
Oct 16, 2015•4 min
First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare’s revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation. We interview Eli as the book is republished with a new intro...
Sep 18, 2015•9 min
We take you to the opening of Patient No More! People With Disabilities Securing Civil Rights, an accessible, interactive exhibit celebrating the Bay Area’s contributions to the disability rights movement. The opening ceremonies focus on the participants in the ground-breaking 504 Occupation of the U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco in 1977. The exhibit continues at the Ed Roberts Center in Berkeley through December 18, 2015. For 29 days, more than a hundred women and men held a 24 hour prot...
Sep 04, 2015•4 min
Jean Stewart, marching with “Animals AgainstExtinction,” in the Oakland Climate March. Feb. 2015 On Tuesday, environmentalists will stand in front of the Berkeley office of the Sierra Club at 2530 San Pablo Ave and burn their membership cards. Today we spend the half hour with one of the organizers of that action — disability rights and environmental activist, Jean Stewart. Jean is part of a disability organization, CUIDO which is deeply involved in the fight against a $4.65 million dollar FEMA ...
Aug 21, 2015•4 min
Dorian Taylor (Due to a technical error, this program was cut short last week. We are running it again in it’s entirety. It holds crucial information, not just about Dorian Taylor, but the many others who live with mental disabilities. Our apologies for any inconvenience.) Paralympic hopeful, Dorian Taylor has heard a cacophony of NO in life but Dorian Taylor is a force of YES. Dorian speaks with humor and finesse about competitive kayaking and life on the spectrum — both gender and autism. Inju...
Aug 07, 2015•4 min
Dorian Taylor (Due to a technical error, this program begins 5:31 into the half hour and ends abruptly. Our apologies.) Paralympic hopeful, Dorian Taylor has heard a cacophony of NO in life but Dorian Taylor is a force of YES. Dorian speaks with humor and finesse about competitive kayaking and life on the spectrum — both gender and autism. Injured in a brutal police tasing, raised in the foster care system, unable to access social services and even diagnostic health providers, Dorian lives with ...
Jul 31, 2015•4 min
Who doesn’t support the concept of “Affordable Housing?” As rents climb to ever-ascending heights and ever more people are pushed from their housing, ‘affordable housing’ is like motherhood and apple pie for activists and elected officials alike. But are affordable homes truly affordable to people with disabilities who are low income or have SSI as their only income? Today, Lynda Carson lays out the harsh reality in conversation with Eddie Ytuarte. They will be joined briefly by Christine Webste...
Jul 17, 2015•4 min
From the U.S. Social Forum Logo Last week, the U.S. Social Forum took place simultaneously in San Jose, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Jackson, Mississippi; and Tijuana, Mexico. We bring you a mock tour through the San Jose event, where over 500 activists converged to attend more than 150 progressive workshops, sing songs with Occupella, and make connections to “Grow the Future.” We’ll meet a few of the disability activists who attended, including Mark Romoser, Sam Rubin, Terri Carter, ...
Jul 03, 2015•4 min
As low income renters continue to receive rent increases of $200-500. a month, people with disabilities and others on fixed incomes live in fear of becoming homeless. Raising the rent, as they skirt or ignore laws meant to protect tenants, is the corporate landlord way. But, some of them are getting organized. In California, the cities of Richmond and Santa Rosa, pressured by grassroots organizations, recently added rent control to their agenda. Others are also looking at new protections for ren...
Jun 19, 2015•4 min
Sixteen months! That’s right… It took our producer Sheela Gunn-Cushman one year and four months to find an affordable place to live in the high-rent east bay of Northern California. Her story is a mythic saga of slogging through swamps, fording rushing streams and (here and there) stumbling across a golden ring. It’s a story many of us on fixed incomes know only too well — as we struggle to find a place we can call home. And, you can hear it all, right here, on June 5 at 2:30 pm. For a list of t...
Jun 05, 2015•4 min
The phone lines are open for anyone from the disability community. (510) 848-4425 At Chicago’s Disability Pride March You’ve probably seen inspirational porn, those pictures of someone with a disability matched with an encouraging slogan? Remember the facebook photo of a kid with Down Syndrome running a race and the words, “Before you quit, try.” How does it feel to be someone else’s inspiration? How’s your housing? Are you insecure about the next rent increase? Staying with friends, desperately...
May 29, 2015•4 min
From bionic limbs and neural implants to prenatal screening, researchers around the world are hard at work developing a myriad of technologies to fix or enhance the human body. Fixed: The Science/ Fiction of Human Enhancement takes a close look at the drive to be “better than human” and the radical technological innovations that may take us there. What does “disabled” mean when a man with no legs can run faster than most people in the world? “Fixed” combines some of the most challenging question...
May 15, 2015•9 min
Grassroots disability organizations are demanding the resignation of Peter Singer after he advocated the killing of disabled infants for economic reasons on a radio talk show. Singer is an important figure in the Animal Liberation Front and a tenured bio-ethics professor at Princeton, Eddie Ytuarte talks to Steven Drake of Not Dead Yet about Peter Singer’s latest dangerous statements. The on-line petition protesting Singer’s philosophy garnered 460 signatures in three days, many from people who ...
May 01, 2015•4 min
Preparing Food at the East Bay Center for the Blind. Naomi Ortiz talks with Adrienne Lauby about how caring for others affects people with disabilities. What kinds of questions arise as we offer help? What trade offs do we make? Then, we visit the East Bay Center for the Blind in Berkeley to talk to those who enjoy, staff and manage this innovative grassroots community center. Naomi Ortiz is a writer, poet, and painter living in the US/Mexico Borderlands. She is currently writing a book on self-...
Apr 17, 2015•4 min
Preparing Food at the East Bay Center for the Blind. Those of us who live with a disability are often typecast as burdens. Because we’re limited in some ways, the ways we give to others and participate in community work often go unnoticed. Naomi Ortiz talks with Adrienne Lauby about how caring for others affects people with disabilities. What kinds of questions arise as we offer help? What trade offs do we make? Then, we visit the East Bay Center for the Blind in Berkeley to talk to those who en...
Apr 17, 20150
Disability Radio The post Pushing Limits – April 10, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.
Apr 10, 2015•4 min
This April Fools Friday, nothing’s off limits on Pushing Limits. Sheela Gunn-Cushman hosts. Shelley Berman puts Robin Williams and Eliahu Ha Navee in the same paragraph. And Josh Elwood hands nuggets of wisdom to some politicians who particularly need them. The post It’s A Fools Game appeared first on KPFA.
Apr 03, 2015•4 min
Disability Radio The post Pushing Limits – March 20, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.
Mar 20, 2015•4 min
Disability Radio The post Pushing Limits – March 6, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.
Mar 06, 2015•4 min
