You Can't Ask That

Happy New Year! Long time no talk to! No need to bore you with excuses for my prolonged absence. Real life just gets in the way. Of course I'd like to blog more regularly. For that, I need more self- discipline and help from my readers. If you might take the time to send a comment to this site or a quick email, with any feedback, that might give me the kick in the pants  I need. No long essays required - just a quick yay or nay would be appreciated. Many thanks.

I'd like to get back to this blog by recommending a tv show on CBC.  It's called You Can't Ask That. Here's a description from their site:

"Each episode asks a group of people with the same disability the awkward, inappropriate or uncomfortable questions you are too afraid to ask. It's an audacious, touching and funny series that is guaranteed to challenge everyone's assumptions about life with a disability."

That may not sound like riveting  entertainment but it is. You can't help but watch and listen, as these very brave individuals answer extremely personal questions. So far we have seen an episode with wheelchair users and another with people living with Tourette Syndrome. It's very touching to listen to their responses. If I needed another new years resolution, it would be to try to remember the experiences of these people and to act with increased understanding when I meet people with disabilities. The physical differences are obvious and should be more easy to appreciate. However, there are often invisible handicaps (like Tourette Syndrome) which require more patience and understanding than many of us often exhibit.

Congratulations to everyone involved with this excellent production, which airs on Friday evenings at 8:30.
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A series of coincidences, perhaps?

After posting that on Saturday, I listened to Mary Hynes show, Tapestry, on CBC radio on Sunday. She had a very interesting discussion with California writer s.e.smith, about how disabled people are depicted in modern media and how this contributes to social stigma.

"A pretty big percentage of disability is actually what some people call invisible or non-evident disability," they said. "Where you see someone sitting on a seat on the train who looks just like a non-disabled person, or you see a popular actress appearing on a daytime talk show, and she looks like a non-disabled person, but maybe she has a mental health condition or maybe she has a congenital illness that is not visible."

Click here to listen to the whole program.

And last but not least, in  Saturday's Ottawa Citizen, I read about a one armed golfer, Canadian Laurent Hurtubise, who recently got a hole-in-one at a PGA event in California! 

Yet another reason to re-think our attitudes about folks with "disabilities."