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The World Series of the Apocalypse?
October 27, 2016 By Chris Lamb In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world. Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct.…
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‘Diversity’ Doesn’t Include Disabled Veterans Like Me
Matthew Winans September 11, 2024 At college campuses nationwide, the newest students are starting class, but I’m not among them. Many medical schools rejected my application, and when I asked why, several told me that my service in our nation’s armed forces didn’t matter, and that I should have spent more time proving my commitment to “diversity” and “equity.” I served in the United States Army from 2012 to 2017. During my service, I intended to apply to the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, the military’s medical school, but health-related issues and a service-related disability cut my career short. After being honorably discharged, I set my sights on attending…
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Writing Disabled Voices
Journalists often struggle to cover disabled people. Here’s what experts say about getting the story right. Bonus: A primer on correcting the media when they get it wrong. By Ryan Prior October 6, 2022 We all want—need, really—to have our stories told. And it takes wise storytellers to do it, especially if we become unable to fully do it ourselves.As human beings, many of us, if not all, will be disabled at some point in our life. As journalists, our profession must take that fact into account, with stories portraying disabled people in ways that are dignified, accurate, and forward-thinking. One in four American adults lives with a disability of some sort,…
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Bureaucracy Doesn’t Allow Courage
May 27, 2022 Annie Holmquist The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, has shifted dramatically in the last few days from the horror of young lives needlessly snuffed out by a gunman, to the horror of why more wasn’t done to save them. Finger-pointing and blaming abound, particularly toward the police who responded to the shooting. Video footage and firsthand accounts have left many wondering why officials were so slow to respond and save the teachers and children who eventually died at the hands of the shooter. We can rant and rave and shout “coward” or “defund the police” as many on Twitter are doing in the face of such a tragedy.…
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3 Missteps of the Education System According to Mike Rowe
Annie Holmquist October 24, 2023 Everybody loves Mike Rowe. His matter-of-fact sense of humor, his humility, and his willingness to get involved in the many work sites featured on his “Dirty Jobs” show make him an endearing figure. But Rowe is also very intelligent. He has his finger on the pulse and problems of America in a way that many others often don’t recognize. Take the recent interview he did with Nick Gillespie of Reason in which he discussed how the missteps of the education system produced a generation of entitled young people who turn up their noses at blue collar or low-paying work. The absence of shop class is the first misstep Rowe…
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Judy Heumann
1947-2023 Disability rights advocate Judy Heumann transformed my sons’ lives — and mine Michelle Buzgon March 7, 2023 The ‘mother of the disabilities rights movement’ profoundly impacted my family My kids lost one of their greatest champions this week. Though a world-traveler renowned and revered for her trailblazing disability rights activism, the inimitable Judy Heumann took an intimate interest in the lives of so many people — our family included. I have my 20-year-old disabled son, Judah, to thank for my friendship with Judy. Judah has an extremely rare genetic mutation that science didn’t even identify until 2015, and wasn’t diagnosed in Judah until 2018, at age 16. Because of…
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‘Best friends I ever had’
Willie Mays’ treasured bond with a Jewish family Mays, who died June 18, 2024 at 93, counted Jacob Shemano as a friend and financial advisor — and golf coach By Louis Keene June 19, 2024 Willie Mays was in the prime of his career in 1963, but his finances were a mess. The Giants’ star outfielder had plunged into debt amid divorce proceedings, and even with more than half of his career home runs under his belt, was staring down bankruptcy. Then he met Jacob Shemano. Shemano was a banker whose kid, Gary, was shagging fly balls during warmups that day at Candlestick Park. They connected in the locker room afterward, where…
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Atlas Shrugs Twice:
Individualism Among Incompetency and Injustice June 10, 2024 One fateful day in March 2020, the incompetent men shut down the world with lockdowns. It was the opposite of the premise in Atlas Shrugged. Who is John Galt? Who cares? The incompetent people could stop the motor of the world too. Atlas shrugs either by disappearing competence, or by an overwhelming mass of incompetence too great even for Atlas’s broad, strong shoulders. Competency crises seem to be brewing left and right and are constantly on public display of late. Consider the self-interested testimony of Fani Willis. Jared Bernstein, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, caused an interview to go…
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Scribbling in Long-Handed Oblivion
The lost art of handwriting with a pen on paper Charles Krblich March 11, 2024 I remember the joyful, parental excitement I felt when we sent our oldest child off to kindergarten. I can recall his nervous agitation, not knowing what to expect, but also understanding that he was older now, and a big boy. At our first parent-teacher conference that year I noticed something that I had not thought much about until recently. The teacher — who was a fantastic kindergarten teacher — began writing her notes on the parent-teacher conference form. I noticed that her pen was not held, so much as it was grasped. Rather than a traditional writing grip…
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Inaccessible Airways
Kenny Fries March 5, 2019 Airlines deny disabled travelers their independence with patchwork policies and plain negligence “That is your legs gone. It is a basic human right,” explained BBC journalist Frank Gardner in March, 2018, as he recounted being left on a plane for more than an hour and a half after landing, because Heathrow Airport staff could not find his wheelchair. Months later, a video of paralympic athlete Justin Levene dragging himself through London Luton Airport went viral. Levene was suing the airport over the August, 2017, incident, which occurred when his custom-made wheelchair didn’t make it onto his flight. Upon landing, he was provided with a wheelchair that he couldn’t…
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Protests at UCLA
I’m a UCLA professor. Why didn’t the administration stop last night’s egregious violence? The university should have anticipated Tuesday night’s chaos — but security personnel were nowhere to be found UCLA, a prestigious public university in the United States, experienced one of the darkest nights in its 105-year history on Tuesday. Over the course of my 33-year career at UCLA, I have never seen anything so terrifying take place. Around 11 p.m., a group of masked counterdemonstrators made their way to the Royce Quad in the heart of campus and began to attack the encampment set up last week by demonstrators opposing the war in Gaza. They threw a firecracker…