This was written the other day and didn't post due to a problem with Blogspot. I also just found a bunch of older posts that somehow got filed as "drafts" instead of posting.
C-SPAN (Washington Journal) is currently showing a program about ADA. Tom
Harkin, who sponsored it, has noted that it hasn't done a damn thing to
increase employment among the disabled -- still, 60% of the disabled are
unemployed.
Just because I have the legal right to a job does not mean that I can get
one. Employers are still resistant to hiring the disabled. As happened to
me once, they'll add something to the job description (in that instance,
"must speak Chinese") so that they're turning you down for reasons other
than your disability. Once they added that extra (unnecessary) item, I was no
longer qualified for the job.
There are plenty of jobs that COULD be done from home, but employers are
afraid you'll goof off instead of working, so they won't hire you to work
from home.
In my case, if I have to report to an office rather than working from bed,
I need "work when able", which the court has held is NOT an ADA-mandated
accommodation; someone who needs a flexible schedule can't insist on it.
Someone's just written in with the observation that it's not so easy to get
on Disability. Let's see whether that sinks in with any of these
closed-minded people calling and commenting about the number of fakers. It took
me 11 years, almost to the day, from the day I lost my job until the day I
was approved for SSDI. It's simply not as easy as walking in and saying
"I'm disabled, gimme money."
"It's the one minority group that everyone can join."
-- Curtis Decker,
Executive Director,
National Disability Rights Network
@NDRNadvocates
Video and/or transcripts should be available later at:
http://www.c-span.org/
C-SPAN (Washington Journal) is currently showing a program about ADA. Tom
Harkin, who sponsored it, has noted that it hasn't done a damn thing to
increase employment among the disabled -- still, 60% of the disabled are
unemployed.
Just because I have the legal right to a job does not mean that I can get
one. Employers are still resistant to hiring the disabled. As happened to
me once, they'll add something to the job description (in that instance,
"must speak Chinese") so that they're turning you down for reasons other
than your disability. Once they added that extra (unnecessary) item, I was no
longer qualified for the job.
There are plenty of jobs that COULD be done from home, but employers are
afraid you'll goof off instead of working, so they won't hire you to work
from home.
In my case, if I have to report to an office rather than working from bed,
I need "work when able", which the court has held is NOT an ADA-mandated
accommodation; someone who needs a flexible schedule can't insist on it.
Someone's just written in with the observation that it's not so easy to get
on Disability. Let's see whether that sinks in with any of these
closed-minded people calling and commenting about the number of fakers. It took
me 11 years, almost to the day, from the day I lost my job until the day I
was approved for SSDI. It's simply not as easy as walking in and saying
"I'm disabled, gimme money."
"It's the one minority group that everyone can join."
-- Curtis Decker,
Executive Director,
National Disability Rights Network
@NDRNadvocates
Video and/or transcripts should be available later at: _www.C-SPAN.org_
(http://www.C-SPAN.org)
Posts
"It has been known for decades that polio and myalgic encephalomyelitis traveled in side-by-side epidemics, and that those affected with ME were later found to be immune to polio."
Dr. Richard Bruno has studied both diseases. In 1988, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis was re-named Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to hide the severity of the disease that Dr. Bruno theorizes that "when polio was conquered, it left a vacuum which was filled by another enterovirus; CFS researchers have found an enterovirus."
Life as we know it: Dr. Bruno: Parallels in CFS/FMS/Polio
Since no one I knew at the time had CFS, it's clear that I got it from a stranger. Perhaps someone on the street coughed as I walked past. Perhaps someone who had it touched the faucet in the office bathroom and I picked it up after I washed my hands when I turned the water off.