Special People: Why Listening to the Disabled is One Way to Combat Bullying

by Nomad

I hope you won't mind that I decided to take a small break from politics in order to share a recent YouTube discovery. I have literally spent hours in the last week, watching video after video, sometimes laughing and sometimes with eyes full of tears.

I feel enriched- for want of a better word- as a result of meeting some pretty awesome people. If you have the spare time to watch some of the videos, it will be worth every second.

How to Enable Bullies

For many of us, as jaded as we think we are, it is still difficult and depressing to understand that we live in a world in which bullies (and villains) often go unpunished.
It offends my sense of justice.
We live in a world where such people can even become presidents and still worse, where their perverted and intolerant notions can become public policy.

"Mr. Irrelevant" Finds his Calling Redefining the Limits of the Disabled

by Nomad

Meet David Vabora, former NFL linebacker, and gym owner.

Elderly Blind Man Wins Lawsuit in Police Brutality Case

by Nomad

(Reprinted from Copblock.org.)

On Friday, a federal jury ruled in favor of an elderly blind man who had been assaulted by a Denver police officer. Philip White was awarded  $400,000, which consisted of $100,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages.

The full story makes pretty grim reading.

Blind Man Wins Lawsuit After Cop Slams Head Into Counter

An elderly blind man that had his head slammed into a counter by a Denver Police officer after asking him to allow him to feel his badge to prove he was a cop, won an excessive force lawsuit against the department on Friday.

80-year-old Philip White, who is a retired school administrator with a Master Degree in Education, was at a downtown Greyhound Bus Terminal in Denver on May 22, 2012.

He was attempting to board a bus in order to go to Vail where he was to take a van to his home in Eagle – but was told the bus was full.

How Blind Woman and Dog Struggle to Put Lives Together After Hit-and-Run Driver

by Nomad

Hit-and run accidents are on the rise across the country. Here's a story about how one accident has shaken the confidence of one blind woman. 
Still, the problems don't stop there. 

Most of us have a hard time trying to imagine what life would be like without our independence. We just take it for granted that we can go  where we like wherever we wish. For the disabled, of course, it is quite another story.

The US has made great strides in allowing the disabled to live more independent (and therefore more fulfilling) lives.  In fact, The United States of America was the first country to pass laws protecting the right of blind individuals to enter public establishments, and to  travel on all modes of public transportation accompanied by a guide dog. It's called progress and it is something that America should be proud of.   

So when I read this news story out of St. Louis, it made me more than a little angry. Denise Hollinshed, a crime reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, describes how, in one week, the life of one blind woman has been turned upside. All due to the carelessness and lack of compassion of a driver.