KPFA - Pushing Limits

We take you to the opening of Patient No More! People With Disabilities Securing Civil Rights, an accessible, interactive exhibit celebrating the Bay Area’s contributions to the disability rights movement.  The opening ceremonies focus on the participants in the ground-breaking 504 Occupation of the U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco in 1977.

The exhibit continues at the Ed Roberts Center in

For 29 days, more than a hundred women and men held a 24 hour protest demanding their civil rights.  It was the longest occupation of a U.S. Federal Building to date and paved the way for so many of us and the passing the ADA thirteen years later.

We listen to some of these brave protestors, and experience the chants and music that kept them going.

Then, we take you to a San Francisco Celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of MediCare, the wildly successful federal program which provides health care for seniors and people with disabilities.  Venerable activist Delores Huerta was on hand, as were California politicians Betty Yee, Dave Jones, and Tom Ammiano.   Listen in as this celebration of the need for and strength of MediCare becomes a rally for Single Payer Health Care and MediCare for All.

Sheela Gunn-Cushman gathers the audio, hosts and produces the program (with some editing assistance from Adrienne Lauby).

The “Patient No More” exhibit was produced at the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University.   Pino Trogu and Silvan Linn, Assistant Professors of Design and Fellows at the Longmore Institute, coordinated the work of twenty design student interns to design and develop the exhibit.

The post Patient No More! Exhibit; 50 Yrs of MediCare appeared first on KPFA.

On Tuesday, environmentalists will stand in front of the Berkeley office of the Sierra Club at 2530 San Pablo Ave and burn their membership cards. Today we spend the half hour with one of the organizers of that action — disability rights and environmental activist, Jean Stewart.  Jean is part of a disability organization, CUIDO which is deeply involved in the fight against a $4.65 million dollar FEMA Plan for the de-forestation of the Berkeley and Oakland hills.  The Sierra Club card burning is part of that work.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has approved a plan to cut between two thousand and 450 thousand trees in the East Bay hills of coastal California.  Two thousand or 450 thousand? The difference in those numbers reflects the gap between the two sides of this issue, a harsh fight* with grassroots activists and environmentalists on both sides.

Jean Stewart speaks about the herbicides that caused her disability, her anguish at the ongoing planetary destruction and how it comes home in this local struggle.

The affected parks are Anthony Chabot, Claremont Canyon, the Huckleberry Preserve, Lake Chabot, Leona Canyon, Miller/Knox Shoreline, Redwood Park, the Sibley Preserve, Sobrante Ridge, Tilden Park, and Wildcat Canyon.

For more information and to contact the organizers, click here.

Produced and hosted by Adrienne Lauby.  Audio editing by Sheela Gunn-Cushman.

*Pushing Limits spoke with organizers who favor the FEMA plan but, so far, they’ve been unable to find someone with a disability to bring that side of the controversy to you. Our website has links to the opposing point of view.

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(Due to a technical error, this program was cut short last week.  We are running it again in it’s entirety.  It holds crucial information, not just about Dorian Taylor, but the many others who live with mental disabilities.  Our apologies for any inconvenience.)

Dorian speaks with humor and finesse about competitive kayaking and life on the spectrum — both gender and autism.

Injured in a brutal police tasing, raised in the foster care system, unable to access social services and even diagnostic health providers, Dorian lives with lupus, PTSD and partial paralysis, a thoracic syrinx that goes from the T3 to the T11 of the spinal cord — and many hours on beautiful Lake Washington in Seattle.

A unique life. A unique goal. An athlete to cheer for as Dorian Taylor heads for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

You can reach Dorian on Facebook here.

The post Dorian Taylor – Sprint Kayaker appeared first on KPFA.

(Due to a technical error, this program begins 5:31 into the half hour and ends abruptly. Our apologies.)

Dorian speaks with humor and finesse about competitive kayaking and life on the spectrum — both gender and autism.

Injured in a brutal police tasing, raised in the foster care system, unable to access social services and even diagnostic health providers, Dorian lives with lupus, PTSD and partial paralysis, a thoracic syrinx that goes from the T3 to the T11 of the spinal cord — and many hours on beautiful Lake Washington in Seattle.

A unique life. A unique goal. An athlete to cheer for as Dorian Taylor heads for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

You can reach Dorian on Facebook here.

The post Sprint Kayaking – Dorian Taylor appeared first on KPFA.

Who doesn’t support the concept of “Affordable Housing?”  As rents climb to ever-ascending heights and ever more people are pushed from their housing, ‘affordable housing’ is like motherhood and apple pie for activists and elected officials alike. 

But are affordable homes truly affordable to people with disabilities who are low income or have SSI as their only income?  Today, Lynda Carson lays out the harsh reality in conversation with Eddie Ytuarte.

They will be joined briefly by Christine Webster, a tenant organizer and stroke survivor from Healdsburg, California.  Mass evictions of 21 Latino tenants by a racist property group recently spurred calls for rent control in that city.

A veteran community journalist, Carson frequently observes and critiques the non-profit housing industry in the East Bay area of California using the moniker Tenants Rule.  She believes “affordable” housing is often a misnomer because its income standards are too high for people with disabilities who receive SSI and other very low income people.  Aside from raising questions about who “affordable” housing actually houses, Carson has written about the dwindling of Section 8 housing and local elected officials who love to use their votes to enrich big-time housing developers.

Lynda Carson writes for Street Spirit, the S.F. Bay View, East Bay Express, Beyond Chron. and many others.   She can be reached at [email protected] 

The post Is ‘Affordable Housing’ Affordable? appeared first on KPFA.

Last week, the U.S. Social Forum took place simultaneously in San Jose, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Jackson, Mississippi; and Tijuana, Mexico.  We bring you a mock tour through the San Jose event, where over 500 activists converged to attend more than 150 progressive workshops, sing songs with Occupella, and make connections to “Grow the Future.”

We’ll meet a few of the disability activists who attended, including Mark Romoser, Sam Rubin, Terri Carter, Edith Halberg and Ellen Rollins.

Sam Rubin is a member of the Freedom Socialist Party who organizes at S.F. State with a student group called Rebel Voices.

Terri Carter lives with a spinal cord injury and left arm amputation.  She is working toward a degree in architectural drawing.

Edith Halberg works with the Peace and Freedom Party and the Gray Panthers.  She also sings with the The Labor Heritage/Rockin’ Solidarity Chorus.

Mark Romoser is the Community Advocate at the Silicon Valley Independent Living Center in San Jose.

Ellen Rollins represents SEIU National People with Disabilities Caucus, Local 521, Regional 1021. She is also the National CEO for the National Association for Juneteenth Lineage and an IHSS homecare worker.

The US Social Forum:  Enlightening, overwhelming, empowering, chaotic, frustrating, educational and. . . just the kind of fun we live for.

Produced & hosted by Adrienne Lauby.  Audio editing by Sheela Gunn Cushman.

The post Disability Activists at the U.S. Social Forum appeared first on KPFA.

As low income renters continue to receive rent increases of $200-500. a month, people with disabilities and others on fixed incomes live in fear of becoming homeless.  Raising the rent, as they skirt or ignore laws meant to protect tenants, is the corporate landlord way.

But, some of them are getting organized.  In California, the cities of Richmond and Santa Rosa, pressured by grassroots organizations, recently added rent control to their agenda.  Others are also looking at new protections for renters.

Doyle Saylor of the Alameda Renters Coalition, James Vann of the Oakland Tenants Union & Robin Earth of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living join Eddie Ytuarte.  They tell us about the suffering, discuss solutions, and take a look inside the movements that may resuscitate local rent control ordinances.

The post Will Rent Control Come To Your City? appeared first on KPFA.

Sixteen months!  That’s right…

It took our producer Sheela Gunn-Cushman one year and four months to find an affordable place to live in the high-rent east bay of Northern California.

Her story is a mythic saga of slogging through swamps, fording rushing streams and (here and there) stumbling across a golden ring. It’s a story many of us on fixed incomes know only too well — as we struggle to find a place we can call home.

And, you can hear it all, right here, on June 5 at 2:30 pm.

For a list of the resources in this program, click here.

The post Sheela’s Housing Saga appeared first on KPFA.

The phone lines are open for anyone from the disability community.  (510) 848-4425

You’ve probably seen inspirational porn, those pictures of someone with a disability matched with an encouraging slogan? Remember the facebook photo of a kid with Down Syndrome running a race and the words, “Before you quit, try.”  How does it feel to be someone else’s inspiration?

How’s your housing? Are you insecure about the next rent increase? Staying with friends, desperately cynical about Craig’s List, and watching your Section 8 voucher run out?

What are your thoughts on the proposal that California allow physician-assisted suicide?  Would you like to talk about a service or program that’s important to you?  Has your local disability center given you the brush off — or come through for you with a bang?

Punch in the numbers.  The phone lines are open for your questions and concerns. That number again:  (510) 848-4425

Eddie Ytuarte and Adrienne Lauby host.

The post Disability Community Speaking appeared first on KPFA.

From bionic limbs and neural implants to prenatal screening, researchers around the world are hard at work developing a myriad of technologies to fix or enhance the human body.

Fixed: The Science/ Fiction of Human Enhancement takes a close look at the drive to be “better than human” and the radical technological innovations that may take us there.

What does “disabled” mean when a man with no legs can run faster than most people in the world?

“Fixed” combines some of the most challenging questions facing the disability rights movement with the cutting-edge science of human enhancement. The result is eye-opening and raises provocative questions our civilization struggles to answer.  [Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education Defense Fund]

What does “normal” mean when cosmetic surgery procedures have risen over 450% percent in the last fifteen years and increasing numbers of people turn to “smart drugs” every day to get ahead at school or work?  With prenatal screening able to predict hundreds of probable conditions, who should determine what kind of people get to be born?  If you could augment your body’s abilities in any way imaginable, would you?

Featuring:

disability studies scholar and artist Dominika Bednarska

Also with:

Hosted by Adrienne Lauby, Sheela Gunn-Cushman and Josh Elwood. Produced and edited by Adrienne Lauby and Sheela Gunn-Cushman.

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