Fascinating story in The Guardian regarding crime against disabled people:

The statistics should shame us all. Nine out of 10 people with learning difficulties have suffered bullying or harassment – indeed, even as the thugs from Eccles were being convicted this week, cases emerged of a disabled woman being bottled as she arrived at her home in Essex and a Yorkshire woman tipped from her wheelchair and mugged. And there is at least one trial going on over the killing of a disabled person, with another looming.

There is no official data on hate crimes against the disabled, since the government does not think it is worth publishing. One helpline has fielded a near-doubling in the number of calls from disabled victims this year, but there have been just 576 prosecutions over the last two years, compared with 11,264 for racial and religious crimes over the last year alone.

We need to wake up to this whirlwind of hate, driven by fear of difference and a symptom of a society that fails to embrace those with disabilities. Communities must look out for those in need of help. Teachers must stop tolerating hateful language and bullying. Police and council officials must tackle the low-level abuse that devastates life for so many – and, as in the Pilkington and Askew cases, can end up with a funeral.

What on earth is going on? I know this is a report from the UK, but I imagine its findings are replicated here too.

What’s been your experience with bullying? Have you – or someone you know – ever been attacked?

After blogging about Countdown’s new inaccessible self-service kiosks, I was pleasantly surprised to find the following sign hung up adjacent to one of Countdown’s checkout aisles:

“Great!”, I thought. Low counter, reachable EFTPOS, pretty brunette on deck – here I come! So I made a bee-line for the identified checkout lane, only to discover…

Click ‘read more’ to find out!

The NZ Police have today announced a new text message service for deaf people who wish to report an emergency. It never really occurred to me before that members of the deaf community may struggle to report an emergency if they have to use a telephone to do so. Anyway, I think this is great news. Click ‘read more’ for the full news release!

From the NZ Herald:

An Auckland mother and daughter have been sentenced to community detention after admitting to defrauding the Ministry of Health of carer support payments of more than $40,000.

Let me say this, for the record: Everyone bends the rules. Life is tough when you’re affected by disability, be it your own, or a family member’s. For people who receive Ministry of Health funding, life is a hell of a lot tougher than those who receive ACC payments. So it pains me to see people being treated like criminals by Government when in reality, they’re only trying to get some flexibility around what limited support is available to them.

I’ll say it again: everyone does it. Disability support funding is limited, and the constraints around it are incredibly restrictive. For many parents of children with significant disabilities, it means they are unable to work, as they spend most of their time supporting their kid. Of course they’re going to attempt to get a small amount of compensation for this work – in this case, $40,000 over 8 years, of money that they were entitled to anyway. Yet the Ministry sees fit to chase them down and slam them with 5 months home detention.

It makes me sick.

On top of this, I know for a fact they’re investigating families who have been using family members as support staff, as I blogged about the other day. This despite the High Court ruling that family members should be allowed to be paid for providing support services. The Government, of course, are appealing this.

This bullying of innocent families (who, let’s be honest, have enough on their plate) must stop. The Government is relying on the apathy, relative inertia and fear of the disabled community to make life hell for the people who deserve it least. No other group in society is so reliant on the Government from birth as people like myself who are born with a disability. We must support each other, and band together to tell whoever is behind this vendetta against good, hard-working families who are dedicated to their kids, that enough’s enough.

P.S. – The Herald ran with the headline “Fraud brings detention” – doesn’t fraud usually mean people are better off? As a good friend of mine quipped, “In this instance, it probably means they didn’t starve quite so much”.

I’ve said it before: I’m a bit of a gadget nut. Last week, I posted my review of the Playstation Move and a few years ago I reviewed the original iPhone, both reviews written from a wheelchair user’s perspective. However, recent articles have come to light that make a single line in my iPhone review stand out:

Well, for a start I can say with confidence that it’s probably not the best phone for those of you who are blind or have a visual impairment.

Let it be known I am officially scratching that line from the record. I recently came across an incredibly emotional blog post from a blind guy who had just purchased his first iPhone, after having it recommended to him by a friend. He says it changed his life. Hear that? Changed. His. Life. A wee excerpt:

Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours… I have fallen in love.

Sounds incredible, right? He goes on to talk about how the iPhone is enabling him to see colour like never before. Check out his beautifully-written review in full by clicking here, and for those of you who are blind or vision impaired, maybe the time is nigh that you jumped on the iBandwagon!

Hi guys. Red asked me to write a guest post on my experience of the recent Canterbury earthquake as there hasn’t been much said from a disability perspective, so I jumped (and jolted) at the opportunity. Enjoy and feel free to comment. – Photo courteously of Stuff. I’m usually quite a big fan of shakes; milkshakes, handshakes, even the odd booty shake. But violent, earth-moving, over-seven-on-the-Richter-scale shakes? Not so much. Yet, that’s exactly what I awoke to at 4.35AM last

This will be the last time I talk about the U2 wheelchair ticket saga, I promise! But if you missed the story on Campbell Live last week, or just want to watch it again, you can check it out by clicking the link below. Enjoy!

Wheelchair user charged more for U2 tickets – Campbell Live – Video – 3 News

It certainly doesn’t appear so.

Let me detail the gross under-representation of disability issues on the campaign trail so far:

• Public meetings held at inaccessible venues (read: heaps of stairs)
• No mention of disability in any of the main candidates manifestos/policies
• No reassurance that current disability advocate roles within council will exist under the new Auckland Council

Quite simply, disability isn’t on the agenda. And given that the Rugby World Cup is just around the corner, not only is it an embarrassing omission by the mayoral candidates, it’s also downright stupid. You can expect many of the visitors to our shores next year will use a mobility aid of some kind, whether it be a wheelchair, cane, or even glasses. And don’t forget they’ll be bringing family and friends with them, so by ignoring accessibility issues (let alone making them a priority!) a huge economic opportunity is being wasted.

Come on now, really? Cerebral palsy and theatre don’t mix! And yet, Bats Theatre in Wellington is challenging that notion by staging ‘KatyDid’, the lead character of which does indeed have cerebral palsy. It’s almost worth a trip down to the capital to see it!

The play is proving so popular that they’re adding extra shows this weekend to cope with the demand. So if you live in Wellington, and fancy a bit of spice with your theatre, grab your tickets now!

Although I’m told, somewhat ironically, that the theatre itself is inaccessible to wheelchair users… sigh!

You know, when this grizzly affair involving the murder of Keith McCormack first hit the news, I wasn’t at all certain justice would be served. The accused, Eric Neil Smail, claimed self-defence, saying that it all became “too much” in his capacity as his best friend’s caregiver. One wonders how such a ghastly arrangement came to be in the first place.

Anyway, as it happens the jury did find him guilty of murder, and not manslaughter as he had so pitifully tried to plead. And today, he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

It’s a sad story all round, really, but I’m glad that it sends a strong, albeit painfully obvious message: disabled people’s lives are valued just as much as those of non-disabled people. I think there was a real danger of establishing a second class of citizen, should this verdict and sentence not have been reached.

You can read the full article here.