KPFA - Pushing Limits

Facing a transplant of both heart and liver, Christopher Bowers and his wife talk to us about massive anxiety, heart-felt gratitude and sustaining love.

In his 45 years, Christopher has squeezed every beat of life outta his congenitally-fragile heart.  He’s living with congestive heart failure and a liver compromised by the many treatments.

Now, if the planets align, he will soon undergo a double organ transplant.

Christopher Bowers is a musician and father of a two-year-old son. After high school he worked with Positive Images, an LGBTIQ group for youth, as a straight ally and speaker.  He went on to challenge his white privilege in an anti-racism group, become a social worker and advocate for homeless people in Sonoma County, California.

Now, his project is his own body.  We talk about the cost, the logistics and the necessary support for such a massive undertaking.  But, we focus on the mental and emotional mindset of this remarkable family.  It’s not all hearts and flowers; it’s realistic trade offs.  It’s putting aside individual needs at the same time fiercely, radically taking care of oneself.  Impossible?  Of course.  And, yet… it’s the only way.

Produced and hosted by Shelley Berman with assistance from Adrienne Lauby.

If you would like to follow Christopher’s journey and his race to $75,000, go here.  A tax deductible donation site is available here.

The post Christopher Bowers: Heart-Liver Transplant – Pushing Limits – November 20, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

Stuttering is caused by differences in the brain and there’s no cure for it.  What there is is significant stigma and judgment from others. Yet. . .   All the same. . .

Bailey Levis says he loves to stutter.

Bailey Levis says he loves talking about stuttering, loves teaching about stuttering, and supporting people who stutter and their families. Bailey Levis says people who stutter are not broken and don’t need to be fixed. Instead, he says, they are brave and resilient.

Today we talk to Bailey Levis about his work at the San Francisco Speech and Fluency Center, his experience as someone who stutters, and the community of those who stutter.

A new children’s book, I Talk Like a River, amplifies Mr. Levis’ message as does the wonderful organization, which is based in the bay area, the National Stuttering Association.  Videos of their recent conference are available free on line. And, here’s 13 year old Brayden Harrington speaking at the 2020 Democratic Convention about his stuttering and the election.

This program is hosted by Josh Elwood and Sheela Gunn-Cushman.  Production by Rod Akil, Sheela Gunn-Cushman and Adrienne Lauby.

Bailey Levis, M.S., CCC-SLP, is a Licensed Speech and Language Pathologist who stutters. He is the founder of the San Francisco Speech and Fluency Center, and has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses to budding Speech-language pathologists at San Francisco State University and California State University, East Bay. He has also provided trainings on how to work with stuttering to school-districts around the Bay Area.

The post Stuttering with Bailey Levis – Pushing Limits – November 6, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

W-E-L-C-O-M-E! TO THE WIDE WORLD OF VOTING!!!

Without doubt, this is THE strangest election in recent history…perhaps in all of this country’s history. In addition to the usual bonds, props, “Yes” means “No”, “No” means “Yes”, bickering candidates and plethora of conflicting messaging that are the features of a normal election, ALONG COMES COVID-19, and EVERYTHING changes.

So how does one vote in the most critical election EVER while not breathing ANYONE else’s air? What if vote-by-mail is not an option for me? What if the Remote Accessible Vote by Mail…isn’t…really…accessible?

FEAR NOT! The good crew of the Pushing Limits Collective has GOT this!

* frequently asked questions about accessible voting,

DON’T be overwhelmed.  Come, learn, prepare–and VOTE!…If you haven’t already.

Sheela Gunn-Cushman and Mark Romoser co-host.

If you are looking for an answer for your individual access, try these links.

Want to encourage others to vote but don’t know where to start?  Try this:

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IN-HOME SUPPORTIVE SERVICES

NEW ELECTRONIC VISIT VERIFICATION SYSTEM

The Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) has given the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) further guidance on how the strictures of Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) should be carried out.

1. (Good news:) Live-in care givers will be EXEMPT from EVV requirements.

2. (BAD NEWS!:) Location of care givers who do not live with their clients must be captured electronically at beginning and end of each shift.

Stakeholder meetings will be held to discuss each of these things separately, but the meetings HAVE NOT YET been scheduled.

Please check here for information as it becomes available. You may also submit comments or ask to be added to the list for updates by writing:

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PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ~ P.G.&E. POWER SHUT-OFFS

PG&E and the CPUC aren’t tracking who’s being affected by their shutoffs- why not?

Eerie orange skies. The largest wildfire season in history. And just this week, over 50,000 Californians may have their life-giving power shut off by corporate employees at PG&E. Again.

As the Reclaim Our Power Campaign fights for the transition to a safe, renewable, community and worker controlled energy system, we continue to uncover the failures of our Wall St.-owned corporate utility. We’re joining with our allies at the Initiative for Energy Justice to look at who the 2019 shutoffs impacted, and whether PG&E or the CPUC even cared to keep track.

*We hope you’ll join us and register for this webinar on Tuesday, October 27th at 11 am PT.  Let’s take action to demand that California regulators and utilities center the needs of people with disabilities, low income people, and everyone who needs power to live!

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PROTECT DEMOCRACY ~ POST ELECTION RESOURCES

Protect The Results

Choose Democracy

The Frontline

Other organizing groups

Support Florida Former-Convicts Movement

Photo above from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinfoilraccoon/3005537118

The post Voting While Disabled ~ Pushing Limits – October 23, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

A half-hour radio show providing critical coverage of disability issues and bringing the insight of the grassroots disability movement to the general public. The show alternates weekly and airs on Odd weeks Friday 2:30pm.

The post Pushing Limits – October 9, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

During a pandemic, if you are a renter and can’t pay your rent, you don’t go directly to eviction. But, the current tangle of federal, state and local eviction moratoriums does not give most poor and disabled people the sense of housing security we need.

Click here for local help!

Christina Collins, a prominent eviction attorney, comes to KPFA to lay out the landscape these largely temporary measures.  She will detail the strengths and weaknesses of the moratoriums and tell us how to stay in our homes even if we’ve lost much of our income because of the stay-at-home lockdowns.

Today’s program gives its producers the opportunity to be part of the fall fundraising marathon on venerable KPFA-fm (94.1)

Eddie Ytuarte, Shelley Berman and Adrienne Lauby co-host.

Christina Collins, is an associate attorney at the law office of Tobener Ravenscrott which has offices in Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose.  She earned her juris doctor from Golden Gate University School of Law in 2005 and received her undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from San Francisco State University in 2001.

Christina has counseled more than 1000 tenants on matters such as habitability, illegal rent increases, just-cause eviction protections, nuisance neighbors, and landlord harassment.  She enjoys helping tenants understand their rights and advising them on the best course of action to take to enforce those rights.  Christina has authored several landlord-tenant articles, including on the San Francisco Rent Ordinance, the Alameda Rent Ordinance, security deposits, right to repairs, landlord sexual harassment, mobile home tenancies, and breaking commercial and residential leases.

The post No Pandemic Evictions – Pushing Limits – September 25, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.