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Wednesday, April 20, 1983
Daily Nebraskan
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This is not an objective column. It is a challenge to the
able-bodied not to reject people with disabilities. It is also
an explanation of why everyone must look beyond the
wheelchair, beyond the white cane, beyond the sign
language, beyond the seizures, beyond the retardation to
see the valid person - who is invalid only because society
says so.
Through the years, people with impairments have been
regarded as being saints, possessed by the devil, children,
untouchables, clowns or tragedies. Rarely as humans.
To see the real me, one must overlook many things. I
have cerebral palsy - one of the most misunderstood dis
orders on the face of the earth.
Cerebral palsy is a brain disorder, which is caused by a
variety of factors, such as lack of oxygen to the brain, the
Rh-factor, an illness during infancy or a head injury.
Cerebral palsy affects people in countless ways. It can
leave a person with only a slight limp, physically able but
mentally retarded or mentally competent but physically
disabled. It is not inherited, terminal or contagious.
Cerebral palsy has left me without hand use, without
vocalization and without walking skills. It has, however,
left me with the capacity to think, to remember, to hear,
to see and to feel skin sensations as well as emotions. In
other words, I can (or have the potential to) understand
anything in my social world. But the social world does not
understand me, and what people can't understand they
often don't accept.
Having others understand me and others like me was
what motivated my suggesting an editorial and series to
explore the issues, concerns, problems and aspirations of
students with disabilities.
For five years of my college life, 1 had to live on a
freshman floor where I wasn't regarded as an equal. But I
was an equal, just as those who wear eyeglasses are equal
to those with 2020 vision. The only difference between
nearsighted or farsighted people and individuals with more
severe disabilities is that society has integrated them.
In January 1980, my junior year at UNL, I had the
fortune to be featured in Life magazine.
The response to the article was overwhelming and fell
into two types: the able-bodied people told me how
wonderful they thought I was simply because I had sought
to live a reasonably "normal" life, and the people with
disabilities thanked me for articulating what they had felt
but couldn't say.
I do not pretend to be the spokesperson for the
population with disabilities. I don't feel that all people
with disabilities should be judged by what I say or do.
But I also think that all people in wheelchairs have
cursed steps or ridiculously steep gradients of ramps, that
all people without speech have dreaded hearing the phone
ring, and that people without use of their hands have
missed touching a special friend or a loving parent. And, I
know all these individuals are tired of being treated like
invalid people in a world that associates validity with
physical beauty and prowess.
Nor did I seek to be Mr. Wonderful. The Life article
had a picture of me in a T-shirt which proclaimed "I am
not Superman." That T-shirt was right. 1 am neither super
human - nor subhuman. I am merely human - with all
the failures and gorlies of our species.
This editorial is, then, a challenge to all of you readers,
especially those of you who have been blessed with per
fect bodies and unimpaired minds. Can you look at those
of us who have physical or mental limitations and still dis
cover the valid human being? Can you stop treating us as
invalids?
I challenge you to pick up the gauntlet which was first
thrown out years ago by my parents when they formulat
ed their unspoken creed for dealing with disabilities:
This is a baby. He needs what all babies need.
This is a child. He needs what all children need.
This is an adolescent. He needs what all adolescents
need.
This is an adult. He needs what all adults need.
Oh, by the way, he has a disability.
Bill Rush
It would make an interesting scene:
Pollster Louis Harris, flanked by brawny
U.S. Secret Service men and women,
walking quickly up the stairs to the White
House with a black briefcase chained
securely to his wrist. Jostling reporters
would be calling out, "What're the nun
bers?!", but Harris would ignore them,
knowing that within his briefcase rested
the information Ron Reagan dreaded but
would soon know - whether he could
keep his job.
Fortunately, this scene will not lake
Dave Milo
Mumgaard
place. But wouldn't it be nice (in its own
clean, efficient way) if the president had
to resign as soon as a substantial majority
of Americans turned thumbs-down on the
president's performance? Or if a majority
of Americans agreed, "Ron, please, please
don't run again."
This week the Harris Poll reconfirmed
that a majority of Americans (54 percent)
do not think Reagan should run again in
1984. I don't think people are being
liberal, conservative or even radical in
saying he probably should not give it
another go; they're just being realistic.
After all, one naturally feels a bit uneasy
when political decisions are being made
based almost entirely upon ideology.
Right-wingers are as guilty of this as are
left-wing," dogmatic-socialists. Both are
guilty of sacrificing people for the sake
of principle. The fact is, Reagan is sacrific
ing more than people: he apparently has
no qualms about sacrificing the environ
ment, public health, civil liberties and
economic sanity.
Reagan is not a bad man. On the con
trary, he chats amicabily with children,
has genuine concern for individuals with
problems and is able to practice self
deprecating wit. He also reportedly believes
in tithing (the practice of giving 10 percent
of his income to charity), even though he
gave only $15,563 of his 1983 income of
$741 .253 to charity, a mere 2 percent.
Reagan also is a strong fundamental
Christian, which makes me wonder if
he has read the story in the Bible about
the widow who was more blessed because
she gave all she had - a mere penny -than
the rich who gave thousands upon
thousands, but very little of their total
personal wealth.
I am very uneasy when I remember
what Reagan has done since taking office.
He has consistently insisted he has a
"mandate" from the people to do what
he wants, but then also insists, as he did
recently about his unpopular monumental
defense increases: "When are we going to
have the guts to do not what's popular
but what's right?" He obviously sees it
as working both ways, which can be
dangerous, especially since what he
considers as being right is irresponsible
to the extreme.
His record is a sad litany of attacks
upon the equalitarian and libertarian
ideas this country was built upon, upon
reasonable attitudes toward how this
country should defend itself, and upon
the idea that there is more to life than
just expanding business, business, business,
and damn the aftereffects. For instance,
he and his fellow ideologues have limited
free speech through restrictions on the
information a government employee can
talk about, expanded the FBI's ability to
monitor non-law breaking organizations
and prevented foreign opposition speakers
from coming into this country to talk.
He also has stood by an Environmental
Protection Agency which thought it was
all right to consider if, by cleaning up a
poisoning toxic waste dump, it would
help get some Democrat elected. He also
tolerates Interior Secretary James Watt,
who sees totalitarians behind every tree,
and who 'forgets why wildernesses are
protected: because they exist, and if we go
in there after uranium they never will
again. He also would rather destroy
inflation at the expense of 11 million
unemployed breadearners, because, after
all, he and his friends made at least
$741,000 last year, and they'd like to
continue to keep it at that level. He also
believes that the way to earn respect from
the Soviets is to have thousands more
nuclear bombs than they do, and to have
a chief arms control negotiator, Ken
Adelman, who said when asked if he
thought limited nuclear war is possible:
"I have no strong opinions on that." Of
course, it is difficult to forget Reagan's
stand on gun control (against), prayer
in public schools (for), and abortion
(against), since the vast majority of
Americans time and again disagree with
him on each one.
Louis Harris is undoubtedly relishing
his next poll, especially if he asks the
question: "Do you think President Reagan
is in touch with the real world around
him?" Marking the "no" box for every
respondent will make his job an easy one.
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Kajagoogoo, Idol, 'I Eat Cannibals
Fat Larry in weird Aussie Top 40
NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia -1 got
ahold of an "official Top 40" listing for
either Sydney or Australia, I'm not sure
which. It's compiled by an AM radio
station, but most of the songs are played
on the FM station I listen to on my trusty
AM-FM transistor that I brought over
1 - l I 1(1 III
Bob
Glissmann
from the states. Only 12 or so of the hit
singles listed are from American soloists
or groups, but of the top 10, six are from
the states.
Most of the groups on the list are
English - only six are Australian. But
there are some good Aussie bands -Icehouse,
which has British and Australian
members; Australian Crawl; Goanna, whose
"Solid Rock" and "Razor's Edge" sound
like they belong on the U.S. pop charts;
Moving Pictures, the band I saw a couple
weeks ago; Mental As Anything; the
Di vinyls, who are now touring the state;
1NXS, which has "To Look at You" at No.
39; Madness, which has a stupid single
out now called "Our House," but whose
other music is OK; Midnight Oil; and, of
course, Olivia Newton-John, the Little
River Band and the pride of all Aust alia,
Men At Work.
When I first arrived, about two months
ago now, a lot of kids asked me about
Men At Work. "Are they big back in the
states? They're tops, I reckon," was a
common questionanswer I didn't
need to say a thing. When the group won
the Grammy Award for Best New Group,
you could see how some people took
that success as their own, and it wasn't
surprising when the concerts slated for
next week in Sydney sold out soon after
the concerts were announced.
A lot of the songs on the list had been
around for a while back home - Laura
Branigan's "Gloria"; "Africa" by Toto;
"You Can't Hurry Love" by Phil Collins
and "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye,
both of which began to bug me long before
the 1,000th time they were played;
Christopher Cross' "All Right"; Dionne
Warwick's "Heartbreaker"; and the No. 1
song, and also the Oscar winner, "Up
Where We Belong," by Joe Cocker and
Jennifer Warnes.
Continued on Page 5