CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

A simple progression of warning, then confiscating explosives, then issuing tickets and ultimately arrest – would give people time to change their behavior without suffering dire consequences on the first offense.

Independence Day weekend is approaching.

I dread it, because I will get only a few hours of sleep on July 2, 3, 4, 5…

Fun can be had without detonating illegal, dangerous explosives into the wee hours.

I sincerely hope our Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager and police can tame this beast and improve our quality of life.

CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

Many people are elderly or have a disability.

Many take medications that create noise sensitivity.

Most of us work for a living and cannot suffer with a noise from dusk till 3 a.m. for three or more nights leading up to and including July 4, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

Little to no sleep, for days on end, three holiday time per year, negatively impacts health.

To restore tranquility while acknowledging some partying, I suggest a compromise.

Even though most of these dangerous explosives are illegal, have “suspend the rules” period twice per year.

From 10 pm. to 12:30 am. on July 4 and Dec. 31 – people can set off all the fireworks and noise makers they want.

The police will not intercede.

All other times outside those two “immunity” windows, the police must go to the offending homes.

 

CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

For more than a decade, I have rescued dozens of cats by getting them trapped, neutered and released so they cannot add to the stray population.

Some live inside and others in houses that I have built for them.

The cats suffer with the noise.

Some have ran away, never to return.

Any vet or pet owner can verify that hours of loud fireworks are torture for dozens of kinds of house pets.

I understand that people stay up till midnight on New Year’s Eve.

I can put up with the sound of folks talking to each other at the backyard barbecue.

I understand that Dec. 31, I will hear music playing past bedtime.

I will tolerate it, so long as it is not thundering at South Beach nightclub level.

But night after night of noise that sounds like military artillery?

No, that is not appropriate for any place.

 

 

CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

The fireworks noise must stop.

It is abusive.

Endless noise -- that terrorizes pets and triggers PTSD in humans -- is not essential to celebrating a holiday. 

My house is old with thick cement block for an exterior.

It has noise-insulating impact glass in all windows.

None of that holds up to be bombardment that denies sleep.

I have purchased white noise machines and turned them up to the max.

I have tried earplugs and noise canceling headphones.

None of it comes close to canceling out the terrifying artillery noises.

CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

In most of the nation, the noise and terror for pets is limited to July 4.

Because of the warm winters, people fire them off on Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Miami.

Shenandoah is one of dozens of neighborhoods where the ear-splitting bombardment has gotten out of hand.

When I first moved here nearly a quarter of a century ago, the noise was roughly limited to about 9 p.m. till 12:30 a.m. on July 4 and Dec. 31.

Now, it takes place from a dusk till 3 a.m. on Independence Day, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

People also fire off hundreds of these noisemakers – long past midnight -- for days leading up to each holiday.

 

 

 

 

CURB DANGEROUS AND NOISY USE OF FIREWORKS

THE CITY OF MIAMI MUST PROTECT QUALITY OF LIFE

I have proudly lived in Miami’s historic Shenandoah neighborhood for 24 years – pouring a good chunk of my life’s savings into restoring, repairing and maintaining a 100-year-old home just blocks south of Calle Ocho.

Most of the year, I have great neighbors in a great neighborhood close to everything.

But there are two times when life is unbearable.

Miami people love to shoot off fireworks and set off illegal explosive devices – firecrackers, cherry bombs, M-80s, etc. – on holidays.

Virtually none of these explosives are legal for home use and each year they cause many deaths and serious injuries around the nation.

 

 

ON THIS DAY OF RENEWAL

WE RENEW OUR PLEA TO STOP SCOFFLAWS FROM USING ACCESSIBLE PARKING SPACES THAT THEY DO NOT NEED OR DESERVE

Half the vehicles parked in accessible spaces in South Florida don’t belong there.

Young people “borrow” placards of dead relatives to get a prime space.

Selfish able-bodied jackasses use placards of legitimately disabled family members (who are not present to make use of the blue and white placard legal) to avoid paying for parking.

This denies access to people with disabilities who need safe, van-width parking.

May karma deal swiftly with them.

Quoth the Raven: Nevermore.

HOTEL ARCADIA BLUE

WHEELCHAIR-ACCESSIBLE ROOMS IN SULTANAMET, ISTANBUL, TURKEY

Hotel Arcadia Blue Istanbul, recently renovated, re-opened its doors in May 2013.

Its current architecture is very modernistic and elegantly lean, where Norm Architects with their contemporary style, gracefully established a relationship with the Sultanahmet 4-star hotels area, where the hotel is located.

Namely a district, where the historical texture of İstanbul is the most intensive.

For guests who manage to withdraw themselves from the comfort of our hotel in Sultanahmet, there are an infinite number of historical artifacts and museums in just a few minutes' walk.

The hotel's prevailing view of Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Bosphorus and the Marmara Sea, fascinates the guests in the restaurant and on the terrace, as well as in the rooms.

Our rooms for disabled are fully adapted to wheelchair height, so that light switches, remote controls, wardrobe shelves and everything in the bathroom can be easily reached, and well equipped for wheelchair access.

http://www.hotelarcadiablue.com/en

Real, Vibrant and Not-to-be-Ignored

EDUCATION OF ALL CHLDREN

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

2015 marked the 40^th anniversary of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), landmark federal civil rights legislation that allows kids with disabilities to sit in school desks alongside non-disabled students. Before 1975, the U.S. was a nation in which the educational needs of eight million “handicapped children” were not being met, with one million such children excluded entirely from the public school system.

The most severely disabled children were forbidden by law to pass through the schoolhouse doors. Among the other seven million, most attended segregated schools with very rudimentary curricula or were sequestered within segregated classrooms. Most were tasked with just busy work and training for menial jobs. 

Like the Sex Pistols sang in “God Save the Queen”: No future, no future, no future for you.

The EHA later evolved into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which defines kids eligible for services as those who have “a disability that adversely affects academic performance.” Of the eight million children mentioned in the EHA, it’s likely that many had orthopedic that didn’t impair the ability to learn but pushed them into segregated settings. Today, approximately 95 percent of kids with disabilities are attending regular public schools. About two-thirds pass school days alongside their non-disabled peers.

But don’t uncork the champagne just yet.

While U.S. law creates a framework for an integrated setting, good intentions don’t always add up to a meaningful education. Parents, students, school administrators and teachers must still shape a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.

Intrigued?  Check out Pentimento magazine at: http://www.pentimentomag.org/issue-6-toc

My non-fiction memoir piece, “Crip Cargo,” appears in the current issue of this literary magazine for the disability community. An accessible, balanced platform where a piece about a promising future can sit next to a glimpse into a bleaker reality. Readers look together into the dark and the light and connect to both. To see and see again. To see beyond disability.

Don’t expect the usual mass media-crafted tropes of super-crip, inspirational gimp or pathetic victim. The pieces relate indignities, triumphs, and moments of silent or not-so-silent joy. At the heart of any education lies communication. Telling our stories makes us real, vibrant and not-to-be-ignored. 

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2016/04/real-vibrant-and-not-to-be-ignored.html 

To the Caregivers I’ve Known

FROM THE EARTHBOUND TOMBOY FILES OF HEIDI-JOHNSON-WRIGHT

 

by Heidi Johnson-Wright

 

Being cared for by others over your life should be a reverse bell curve. You start out requiring a lot of help, gradually need less and less, live decades independently, then your needs return toward life’s end.

 

Once upon a time, I was in lock step with this blueprint of how we insist normal life should be. I was an eight-year old who rode a bike and climbed trees, a healthy third-grader who had mastered most personal care chores. Then rheumatoid arthritis fell from the sky like a white-hot shower of napalm. In a matter of months, dressing and grooming and cutting up food became monumental tasks. From then on, I have had to depend on caregivers for many simple and highly personal tasks.

 

I have had many caregivers thus far in life: a few dedicated family members who have done it for free and the vast majority who have been paid for their services. Sometimes family helps out of love and other times – let’s be honest – out of moral obligation. We then assume that the ones who get paid see dollars as their goal when sometimes they also stick around for the personal connection. They develop something of an emotional investment in the client.

 

Much has been studied and written about the burdens of caregiving for disabled offspring or how the sandwich generation are ground down to a nub by their obligations towards both kids and elders. All of it is valid and worthy of discussion. But what about the recipients of care, especially us adults who are supposed to be able to wash our own hair and pare our own nails?

 

When I was a teenager, I felt especially self-conscious. I was less concerned about needing help than I was sensitive to my personal appearance. I passively accepted my gimpdom but felt embarrassed to get naked in front of strangers. 

 

When I started college at 17, I hired my first personal care attendant. I was anxious about the arrangement. Could I depend on her to get me up and ready so I wouldn’t miss my van ride to class? We quickly built a relationship of trust. I soon felt a bond with Lexie, the punk poetess who would be my caregiver and roll model throughout my four years of undergrad.

 

One time, Lexie was stricken with a devastating flu and bout of laryngitis. She was much too sick to work, so I temporarily hired an attendant already employed by another girl in my dorm. The sub was pleasant and punctual and resembled Dick Butkus in bibbed overalls.

 

She’d never heard of Captain Sensible nor seen I Am Curious (Yellow.) I soon developed an irrational dislike for the poor woman though I tried not to show it. I deeply missed Lexie and fretted about her health.

 

Finally, after two weeks, my door swung open one morning.

I thanked God Lexie – Sally Bowles to my Heidi of the Swiss Alps -- had been returned to me in fine fettle.

 

Lexie was always dependable, but other paid caregivers were not. As I got older, I realized I would much rather have an inexperienced attendant who is reliable, personable and shows initiative than an experienced one who is always late or I can’t bond with.

 

Family caregivers can be wonderful because of the memories and private jokes you share. If they love and accept you, all the better. But I have always felt a greater indebtedness to family members than those I pay. That indebtedness can eat at your heart.

 

A loved one can hug me and tell me I’m not a burden, but the truth is, I sometimes feel like one. I love the concept of respite care but I also feel a sense of shame that it’s needed in the first place. Truth is, the simple tasks of my daily existence can weigh down those dear to me, can pull them down into depression and exhaustion. That can be very tough to live with.

 

Perhaps we could take a page from the book of countries who are – gasp! – a tad more democratic socialist. Places where tax dollars fund basic attendant care for folks with disabilities so the need for respite care never arises.

 

Once we accept disability is often a natural and expected part of the human condition, then maybe we can forge a society that cares for all.

 

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2016/04/to-caregivers-ive-known.html 

 

YOUR SECRET IS NOT SAFE WITH ME

 (What a load of patronizing, belittling crap)

FROM THE WORLD OF THE EARTHBOUND TOMBOY

by Heidi Johnson-Wright

 

Oh, yeah…you know you want to.

You burn to click on that link and watch the video clip with its provocative title. You want it to pull you in, to take your focus off the world around you for a few minutes. Maybe you even keep Kleenex by the computer, just in case.

Finally, you give in to your urges and cue up the video. And there it is: a one-legged guy running a 5K. You feel warmth surging through you. The tears well up and roll down your cheeks. You grab that handy Kleenex and wipe them away.

No, I’m not talking about fetish porn. I’m talking about inspiration porn: the objectification of people with disabilities as inspirational simply because they are living their lives. Non-disabled people do this for their own benefit, as if disabled people are not people but are merely props to make the non-disabled feel good. To make them feel inspired, all warm and fuzzy.

Well, I got news for you. If you feel the urge to compliment me simply for getting out of bed each day and pulling my clothes on, stick a sock in it.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy getting compliments. Tell me my blue eyes are gorgeous, and I’ll blush and smile back. But if you tell me I’m fiercely independent just because I drive myself to work, you’ll get a wilting glare.

Might as well tell me I’m a credit to my kind. You know, the gimpy kind. Those handicapped, the wheelchair people who shouldn’t be expected to do more than weave potholders and soil their diapers.

Seriously, if you need people with disabilities to make you feel good about your own situation, I suggest you find a good psychotherapist. 

Just leave me out of it. 

VISIT EARTHBOUND TOMBOY 

ON INTERNET MEMES...

...AND OTHER UNQUESTIONED ACTS OF BIGOTRY 

by Heidi Johnson-Wright

EarthBound Tomboy

Perhaps by now you’ve seen the Internet meme making the rounds of a drawing of a guy in a wheelchair. He’s looking back over his shoulder, a sad, pathetic expression on his face. Surrounding him are the following words: “If you're (sic) spouse became disabled for the rest of there (sic) lives, would you still be with them???”

Yes, dear reader, it is taking all of the strength I can muster to resist calling the meme’s creator a moron incapable of knowing the difference between "you're" and "your" and “their” and “there,” or even knowing how to use a software grammar check function. And, yes, I am irritated with the use of the pronoun “them,” as if the question poses the hypothetical situation that this is a pluralist marriage that includes multiple partners who “became disabled” all at once. Perhaps it’s implying the crash of a plane on which the multiple marital partners were flying, or they all contracted a rare tropical disease while on safari together.

I also believe it is quite likely that anyone who uses three question marks in a row probably dots every letter “i” with a tiny heart. For that reason alone, the meme’s creator should be placed a stockade in the village square and bombarded with rotten produce.

 

Nevertheless, it’s not the meme’s grammatical atrocities that have inspired me to write this post. It is the sheer butt-puckering bigotry of the question being posed. Why is it an acceptable question worthy of an answer?

 

Would it be appropriate to ask: “If your spouse sent in DNA to 23 and Me and learned he/she had African ancestry, would you divorce him/her?” Or “If your spouse told you his/her grandparents emigrated from Uruguay, would you make him/her relocate permanently to the guest bedroom?” Or perhaps “If your spouse converted to Judaism, would you toss him/her off a cliff?”

 I’d like to think that most decent human beings would be appalled by questions about whether a spouse remains worthy of love even if he/she is of a different race, religion or country of national origin. Yet when it comes to disability, many people – such as those that actually answered the question on Facebook – feel it’s fine to weigh the option of giving walking papers to the person they married.

I’m not sure whether to be pissed off or profoundly sad that a quarter century after the passage of the ADA – the most comprehensive civil rights statute ever enacted to protect disabled folks from discrimination – societal attitudes remain in the Dark Ages. We continue to deny that illnesses and health issues are inextricably part of the human condition. We still cling to hierarchies, to notions of “us versus them,” to assigning value to other human beings based on their ability to meet an often unattainable ideal.

 Perhaps I should buy a more comfortable mattress for the guest bedroom.

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2016/01/on-internet-memes-and-other.html