The Lucky Pumpkin

Just a quick Aaaauuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhh over the horrible things I just read. This is a horrible story from the Strib, (the Minneapolis Star-Tribune,) which tells of a 16 year old girl who lied to her boyfriend that a “mentally challenged” young man hit her. She egged her boyfriend and three of his friends to get the man, repeatedly beat and torture him, tie him to a tree, and leave him for dead. (I am not sure what “Mentally challenged” means, but of course, it is horrible even if he had a genius IQ!) http://www.startribune.com/local/south/31025409.html?elr=KArksUUUU

Then, I was reading the blog of a former colleague and she had a picture of herself and her daughter with the caption, “My hat looks so retarded in this picture.” What the #$@%? This person teaches music to close to 1,000 elementary kids weekly. If elementary teachers can’t model the correct language and respect to people with developmental disabilities, then they shouldn’t be teaching!

Jon Stewart, you jerk! I wrote a post supporting you during the writer’s strike, and have been a long-time fan. I know, you are in the comedy business, and you comedians always use that as an excuse to say hurtful things about groups of people, (”It’s just a joke, lighten up!”) But the segment John Olliver did on the “Stupic Vote,” where you compared uninformed voters who can screw up an election to “Fuc$tards,” was way over the line. I won’t even get into the “stupic vote” part, because first things first, I know you think you are so clever with your little contraction of “Fuc$ing” and “Retard,” but just like the movie Tropic Thunder, you are watched by so many young people. They repeat what you say on your show. Imagine if your young child had a developmental disability. Would you want him or her to be called a “fu@ktard?” Do you even care, or are you all about the ratings?

Finally, Oprah, Oprah, Oprah. Of all people, I expected you to support people with developmental disabilities, but you let a golden opportunity slip through your fingers when you had Ben Stiller on and you gave him a pass. You never once mentioned Tropic Thunder, or gave him a chance to apologize for promoting hate speech. In fact, you asked him if he was all right for the first time on your show at the end, putting your arm around him. Yes, the big bully needs protecting from THE OPRAH, not the voiceless people with developmental disabilities who now have to go to school and hear comments like, “Never go full retard,” thanks to the bully’s film. I am so disappointed in you!

I read this letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/30398869.html?page=2&c=y

I really liked the comment, “Choosing life is not about what happens in utero, but about what follows.” Yes, finally someone else gets it! This is what I wanted to say to the people who were picketing outside the Planned Parenthood building in Rochester the other day. I respect them and their right to protest, but like I said about the one-issue voters, it is so much more complicated than that! I do not believe in abortion, and I never have, but I recognize that it is a symptom of major society ills that most people who protest against abortions never acknowledge, let alone offer solutions for. I wanted to talk to those protesters who were spending so much time and energy trying to stop abortions to ask them to financially, emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way possible, support the baby that they are asking women to bring into the world for that baby’s whole life. If we as a society stopped the negative energy that goes into vilifying these often young, scared women who get abortions, and instead invested in real solutions for the poverty, lack of affordable upper education, lack of day care for the young mothers so they can go to school, and lack of affordable health care, I think the abortion rates would go down dramatically.

One thing I learned in fifteen years of teaching, is that you can’t make a person do anything. (Even torture often doesn’t work for military prisoners. If they can’t make a person do something, an abortion protester who tries to make a woman feel ashamed isn’t going to be able to make her stop, either.) You can only try to win people over to your way of thinking through love and respect. I think that choosing life is an excellent choice, so let’s try to vote for people who give us real solutions to the problems mentioned above that contribute to the despair that often leads to a woman having an abortion.

Also, in regards to the women who are aborting after they find out their child has Down syndrome, the only thing that will slow down this trend is to become an advocate for people with Down syndrome and get out the message that there is hope. The best thing that happened to us when Emily was born was to read the information packet given to us by the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota. It was called the Down Comforter, and it had letters from other families, and pictures of these families doing normal things and having a great time with their kids. I can’t tell you the relief that literally flooded over me when I read these letters. I knew it would be all right. Things would be good, just different from what we imagined. (Now I know that they are even better than I imagined in many ways!)

How can we get the message out that people with Down syndrome are, “More Alike Than Different”? Write letters or emails to companies who hire people with Down syndrome. (Nordic Ware, Kowalski’s Market, Warners Stellian, in the Twin Cities, just to name a few.) Write to companies like Coca-cola who featured people with Down syndrome in their commercials. Support the ban on hate speech and movies like Tropic Thunder and write to the companies involved in making them to let them know why we as a society won’t tolerate hate language anymore. Donate money to your state or national Down syndrome group. (Minnesota’s group sends information to obstetricians so they can give it to newly diagnosed couples.)

By banding together with love and support of all women, we could dramatically reduce the number of abortions in this country and clean up our nasty inequities that often are the root cause of the problem in the first place.

I watched the debate last night hoping that I would like Sarah Palin. I have always been critical of people who are one-issue voters because they tend to over-simplify things, but I was trying to become one of them this time. I think that it would be wonderful for someone who has a special-needs child to be in a position of power and influence in Washington. So I was willing to overlook a lot last night, but she just doesn’t do it for me. First of all, her accent is annoying. I know that has nothing to do with the issues, but it is just hard to listen to her. Her folksy speech reminds me too much of W., and we all know where eight years of that lead us…

Who the hell is Joe six-pack? Yeah, I get it, but seriously? How condescending, to say that the “average Joe,” is someone who would be drinking a six-pack! I think of myself as an average American, and I don’t drink at all. (Not because I think people shouldn’t be able to drink if they want to, but I don’t like it myself.)

Secondly, she totally dodged the questions, and kept the conversation on her few talking points. I wanted to nudge Gwen Ifill to tell her to make Palin answer the questions that she asked. She even made the statement that she wasn’t going to answer the questions like the moderator would like, and later complained about the “filter” of the main-stream media. By that, I am assuming she means that they check what she says and makes sure that she is telling the truth about McCain’s record, etc. We need the media to check these things. They should be checking what both candidates say for accuracy, it is their job!

Thirdly, her lack of respect for history is scary! She stated that it doesn’t matter what caused global warming, what mattered was, yes, you guessed it, energy independence! (Of course, energy independence is important, but that was about all she could say last night, it was like Giuliani and 9/11.) Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it, everyone knows that! Also, it appears that she doesn’t know that the USA did not win the Viet-Nam war. She made the comment that, “And John McCain knows how to win a war!” Really? What war did he win? I am not downplaying his service to our country. Being a prisoner-of-war must be one of the worst things a person could go through, but neither McCain, nor any of our troops, won the Viet-Nam war!

The more I am exposed to her, the more I dislike her. I am very disappointed. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that she probably wouldn’t be much of a help for special-needs children anyway. Her son is only about six months old, and her commitment to him and his care is not admirable. I can’t imagine agreeing to take on a Vice-Presidential run when Emily was so little, or even now that she is a year and a half. I am not anti-feminist, I strongly believe in women’s rights, but I do think that we can’t have it all at the same time. There is a time for focusing on your career, and a time to put the family first. When your child with Down syndrome is an infant, that is the time to put the family first. I am sorry, I know that is not a popular thing to say, but that is my belief. I know some women who work full-time outside the home when their children with Down syndrome are infants, and they do all right. But that is a normal, 40 hour a week job, not the type of commitment that it takes to run for Vice-President, which surely is at least 80 hours a week. Also, judging from her anti-government comments and her desire to cut services to the bone, I don’t see any evidence that she would support more government financing of special education, or services for developmentally disabled adults, either.

One positive thing I heard last night regarding education was Biden’s comment that the problem with No Child Left Behind was that they didn’t finance it! That is ONE of the problems with it, but that is a start that a senator is acknowledging that!