The flip side of conformity...

One of my cousins had the following as his Facebook status for this morning: "My wish for 2010 is that people will understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease; children with disabilities are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE........93% of people won't copy and paste this."

Well, consider it copied and pasted, albeit not on FB. Tolerance and acceptance can be tricky. There are a lot of different people out there, and in general, people are afraid of things they aren't completely familiar with. The late, great Mitch Hedberg made a joke about that phenomenon, "Some people say 'I don't care if they're black, white, or purple...' Now hold on, we have to draw the line somewhere. F*** purple people!"

I am in the camp that supports purple people, so I was really pleased to see the following two stories. Baltimore Magazine did a write up on the Allied Sports program a few months ago. The program is a Baltimore County School System initiative for high school students with disabilities. The 16 year-old program puts a 50/50 mix of children with physical and/or learning disabilities and children without them on soccer, bowling and softball teams. Eighteen of the 24 schools have at least one Allied sport. The program promotes "sameness," the chance to shine for children who often get lost in the background.

Canada's Parent Central website posted an article on a little girl's ballet class. Normally a common subject, this particular class deserves a second look. Founded by mom Sarah Nixon-Suggitt, it is Toronto's first ballet class for physically challenged little girls. Three year-old Katie Suggitt, who has cerebral palsy, wanted to dance just like her twin sister. Suggitt's occupational therapist Barbara Lynch worked with the dance instructor to modify the beginner's class for Katie and little girls like her. Each class is staffed by older dancers at the school who volunteer their Saturday mornings. "The best thing, the beautiful thing, is this lets Katie be like every other girl," says Nixon-Suggitt. "We know these girls with special needs can do it too. They just do it a bit differently."

(Photo is courtesy of Angelina Ballerina)

A few flowers poking out of scorched earth...

It is perhaps ironic that the first proponent of the "scorched earth" policy in warfare, William Tecumseh Sherman, is the one who said "war is hell." War is also an unusual topic for a good news blog, but might as well face it since we're surrounded by it daily in all parts of the world, whether it's a war of words between neighbors, a war of ideals like the controversy swirling around Burma/Myanmar's recent sentencing of Suu Kyi or actual war in "insert a Middle Eastern/African nation here."

All of these wars have obvious effects, but the stories I have for this morning shine the spotlight on a few little-examined or even forgotten "side effects" to war. 

CNN.com posted a story on a man named Brad Blauser, a Texan who went to Iraq as a civilian contractor and stayed as an angel for children. Bartering security consulting for room and board (read: no income), Blauser works with charitable organizations to distribute pediatric wheelchairs to disabled children. Most of these children were not injured by bombs or guns; they simply suffer from physical handicaps from birth or resulting from disease. They are stigmatized and receive little help due to the health care shortage from the war. Blauser has provided over 650 wheelchairs to children and their families over the last four years. 

Wheelchairs are a frequent sight around the American Links Veterans' golf course. Staffed and run entirely by donations and volunteers (who average 72 years of age), the golf course is a haven for soldiers who come home from battle to combat physical and emotional injuries. MSNBC.com posted a video awhile back that profiled the golf course; its resident pro, Korean war vet Pepper Roberts; and some of the former soldiers who now play there. 

According to Haaretz.com, a 13 year-old bar mitzvah boy from New York has donated the $40,000 he received from his celebration to the town of Sderot, Israel. Better known as "Missile City," Sderot sits on the Israeli border and has been hit by tens of thousands of Gazan rockets during the war. Benjamin Sternklar Davis traveled to Israel to present the donation to the town, which he has asked be used to build a playground for Sderot's children, many of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

(Photo courtesy of CNN.com)