What the heck is going on at KPFA?

Pushing Limits' Members answer:

picture of Super Magawatt Grover

Eddie Ytuarte (3:34)
Adrienne Lauby (4:38)
Super Megawatt Grover* (3:39)
Mary Ratcliff, Editor of Bay View Newspaper (20-30 min interview by Kate Raphael on KPFA's Women's Magazine.

The world is in a terrible place and desperately needs the ideas, the energy, the enthusiasm, the positive spirit of the people who are on the bottom, who are fighting to rise to the top. That's where the energy is, where the ideas are, that passion needs to be heard on KPFA every hour of every day. And, there are so many people who are dying to be heard on KPFA, dying, literally dying, to be heard and can't get on the station as it is currently prioritized.
- Mary Ratcliff on KPFA's Women's Magazine, 11-22-10

*aka Shelley Berman

Rants, Stories and Lies #3

Listen

Short opinions, satire, interviews and commentaries from the disability community.

Guests: Bruce Allison, S.F. city hall reporter for POOR News Network  and author of “You’re Retarded; You’ll Never Amount to Anything”;

Photo: Bruce Allison makes a banner for a street protest.
Jon Reed on the left.

Randall Wright, of Berkeley’s Fourth Friday Disability Night Out on how visibility combats discrimination;

Two members of the Sacramento addiction
& recovery community, Hurley Merical,
Executive Director of Oak Park Outreach
& MedMark Treatment Center and
Starvel Junious of Core Medical Clinic.

Eddie Ytuarte, Adrienne Lauby and Shelley Berman of the Pushing Limits Collective with personal opinions on current problems at KPFA.

Shelley Berman hosts.

Original air date: 10-17-10

Beyond the IEP

(Individualized Educational Program)

Listen

Cynthia Molina and Christine Zimmerman, mother-advocates for students with disabilities in Oakland's Programs for Exceptional Children talks with cohosts Eddie Ytuarte and Leah Gardner. What is it in the institutional culture that helps students succeed beyond the Independent Educational Program.

With a commentary by Shelley Berman on the upcoming elections.

KPFA

Photo: Three young children face a teacher with her hands up, palms out.
Their faces reflect excitement, withdrawal & caution.
Courtesy Furman University Libraries, Special Education Resources.

Original air date: 10-29-10

AB 2072 and the Battle for ASL

Listen 29 min.
Transcript
Passion, strategy, big money opponents, race issues, counter narrative discourse, and children. The Deafhood Forum was nothing if not stimulating. Challenge your ear-to-mind connection.

GUESTS:
--Butch Zein, Executive Director of the Deafhood Foundation,

--Jim Brune and Tanja Bierschneider of DCARA,

--Rory Ostrink, the 2nd person to have a cochlear implant in the U.S.,

Photo courtesy of Tanja Bierschneider

--David Eberwein, Conrad Baer, Philip Smith, and many others.

Shelley Berman and Adrienne Lauby join a meeting organized to oppose the fiendish AB 2072 and learn the context of that fight. This law would send parents of newborn deaf and hard-of-hearing children down a path to partial fixes, medical intervention and adult isolation. The deaf community shines a light on the lesser-known road of ASL where adults communicate with fluency and affection.

More about AB 2072

DEAFHOOD RESOURCE LIST

Virginia State School for the Deaf, Hampton VA
mid-19oos, The Black ASL Project

Air date: May 7, 2010

Among Ourselves

LISTEN 29 min

What do people with disabilities talk about when no able-bodied person is in the room?

Starring Kris Yates & Mary Ann (Tidwell) Boussard

A scene from the original play, Blind Man’s Bluff: Our heroine Geri interviews for a job at the Independent Living Center.

Also starring Doyle Saylor, Leah Gardner, Jan Santos & Patty Nash.

From the memoir of the same name by Geri Taekens.

---

"I wanted to be the innkeeper where people could come and sit by the fire and tell stories."

Stephanie Sugars talks about a community of 200-350 people who live with Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome, a rare genetic disease. She facilitates the on-line group.

Photo courtesy Stephanie Sugars

The Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome E-group
Hosted by ACOR

Stephanie's peutz-jeaghers syndrome Resource List

Original air date: 4-10-10

Blind Man's Bluff

LISTEN
Air date: April 16, KPFA. 94.1 fm, www.kpfa.org

Original drama, Blind Man's Bluff,
Starring Kris Yates & Mary Ann (Tidwell) Boussard

Adapted from Geri Taecken's memoir of progressive blindness and coming of age in the disability movement.

A poignant, funny story
produced by a team of people
with disabilities
(and one able bodied engineer).

Original book cover

Cast

Geri ... Kris Yates .
Cheryl ... Mary Ann (Tidwell) Boussard .
Airline Steward ... Ammy Joseph .
Ticket Agent ... Shelley Berman
Conductor ... Doyle Saylor
Cliff ... John Healy
Nina ... Leah Gardner
Helpful Man & Bus Driver ... Patty Nash
Incidental Characters: Jan Santos, Adrienne Lauby, & Leah Gardner

Engineering by Lamont Young
Screenplay by Leah Gardner & Adrienne Lauby
Direction by Shelley Berman & Leah Gardner
Audio Editing and Sound Effects by Greeta Ahart & Adrienne Lauby
'Diary' music by J.S. Bach played by Ayaka Isono

Thanks to the Shoestring Radio Theater for sound effect assistance.

Author Geri Taeckens uses her website to raise money for health care for service animals. You can read all her adventures in her memoir which is available through her website, locally at Waldon Pond Books, or at the usual on-line booksellers.

Photo of Geri & her dog

poster for the broadcast

Haiti’s Disaster & Oakland’s Disaster Plan

Listen: 28 min

In a natural disaster like the Haitian earthquake, people with disabilities suffer the highest death rate. Moreover, for every person killed, three more are likely to become disabled.

We talk to Portlight Strategies, a grassroots group providing supplies and support for disabled Haitians.

Paul Timmons & friend with hospital beds

& other supplies ready to load.

We also talk to Karla Gilbride,

an attorney from

Disability Rights Advocates,

whose settlement* with the

City of Oakland brings

people with disabilities

firmly into Oakland's

planning for disasters.

What helps prevent death and injury to those who live

disability during an emergency? How can we support Haitian people with disabilities after an earthquake that killed two hundred thousand people?

Adrienne Lauby and Shelley Berman

pose the questions.

wheelchair with seat

repaired with a lawnchair

photo from: hishandsforhaiti.org

DRA Logo

Local shoe drive for Haiti:

A shoe drive for Haiti is accepting new and “almost new” shoes for the next two months. Askanez will collect them at 1317 San Pablo, any evening except Monday. The HUP Foundation (with local help) will ship and distribute them.

For Better or Worse:

The National Health Care Bill

Listen 28 minutes

Will people with disabilities, seniors and low-income
folks benefit if the health care bill is passed?

After nine months of political wrangling and back door
deals, the US congress was set to put a universal national
system for health care insurance in place. Then,
Massachusetts’ voters sent a Republican to congress --
and everything changed.

As we linger in the morass
of Congressional uncertainty,
we talk with BOB KAFKA,
a national organizer for the
grassroots disability organization, ADAPT.

He’ll tell us what to celebrate
if the bill is passed,
and why we can be happy
if it is not.

With an essay by Shelley Berman.
Hosted by Adrienne Lauby and Ruthanne Shpiner.

Original air date: 1-29-10

(If you know the cartoonist who did the picture above, please tell us.)

It's The Attitude

Listen 28 min

If you are one of these people, you should listen to this show:

Do you often know more than your doctor?

Do you freeze up when someone says, ”How are you?”

Have you ever done something

you know will make you sick?

Do you believe you personally

caused your own illness

or other problem?

Do you believe your disability

or other problems were caused

by the Great Sea Monkey?

Do you have cancer or know someone with cancer?

Do you hate chess?

Have you ever had to fight

with a drug or insurance company?

Do you like to laugh?

Carolyn's book recommendations:

Illness as a Metaphor

Susan Sontag

A Spot of Bother

Mark Hadden

Carolyn Epple, who lives

with bladder cancer and

chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy

(and happens to be a cultural anthropologist)

joins Shelley Berman &

Adrienne Lauby, the Asthmatic Amazon,

in the studio.

Halloween photos courtesy of

Redwood Rainbow Square Dance Club

The Reckoned and the Reckoning

Listen 28 min.

Drawing by Neil Marcus

We celebrate Winter Solstice,
the day the earth turns back to the light.

George Louie

one of the plaintiffs in the Contra Costa pedestrian access lawsuit,
speaks frankly about his role
in this controversial case.

In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) activists

Tom Ross
Carman Rivera-Hendrickson
Kenneth C. Johnson
Cheryl Powell Smith

Plus,
Shelley Berman, Eddie Ytuarte, Leah Gardner, and Adrienne Lauby
send out year-end honors,
raspberries to the inexcusable,
blueberries to the indestructible.

Janus (or Ianus), the Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings