Another Science Hoax

Keith Windschuttle, editor of Australian Right magazine Quadrant, and prominent culture warrior, has been hoaxed — publishing an article arguing essentially that genetic scientists should be allowed to do anything they want without the scrutiny of the public or media, because scientists know best.

The hoaxer outed themselves to another online magaine, Crikey, and has chronicled their misdeed in the blog ‘Diary of a Hoax.’ This is delicious.

Haller’s review of representations of disabled people on U.S. TV in 2008*

Disability Visibility in U.S. Entertainment TV in 2008

By BA Haller
Media dis&dat blog

The visibility of people with disabilities in entertainment media helps subtly educate diverse audiences about the disability experience in America. Many non-disabled Americans have little contact with people with disabilities in their daily lives unless they have friends or family with a disability. Therefore, they get much of their information about disability from the media and these images have the potential to change attitudes. (A 1991 Louis Harris poll showed that Americans surveyed were less likely to feel awkward around people with disabilities after viewing fictional TV or film presentations about people with disabilities.)

Read the entire review article here: http://media-dis-n-dat.blogspot.com/2009/01/disability-visibility-in-us.html

* The photo on the right above is of deaf actress Marlee Maitlin with her dancing partner on a segment of “Dancing with the Stars”. In the photo, Maitlin, who won an Academy award for best actress for her role in the film “Children of a Lesser God,” has both arms extended above her head and is wearing an unusual red dress with matching wrist bands. The photo on the left above is of Robert David Hall, a double leg amputee, who plays forensic scientist Albert Robbins on the crime-drama “CSI”. He is standing with a Canadian crutch and wearing a white lab coat.

Edmonton talk on history of eugenics in Britain

History of Medicine seminar:

Dr. Judith Friedman, Sessional Instructor, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta
“Psychiatry, anticipation and voluntary sterilization legislation in interwar Britain”.
Heritage Medical Research Building, Room 2-207, University of Alberta
12 noon – 1pm.

ALL WELCOME

NB: The “anticipation” refers to the genetic phenomenon associated with trinucleotide repeats, often causative for neurodegenerative disorders. Anyone interested in psychiatry, genetics, and eugenics will find this talk of particular interest.

Does your idea of reproductive rights include disabled people’s right to have children?

Disabled pair defied naysayers to create own kind of family: from the Sacramento Bee

Photo of the Willett family following Rebeka’s birth in 1990. Tammy is sitting in a wooden rocking chair holding a sleeping Rebeka to her chest. Clarence is standing to the right of the chair with one hand on the back of it.

By Leslie Albrecht
lalbrecht@modbee.com

Published: Thursday, Jan. 01, 2009

At 8 a.m. on a recent Wednesday you might have spotted Rebeka Willett on the Modesto Junior College campus. She was the 18-year-old in a Raiders T-shirt and jeans, giggling along with her classmates as she practiced arabesques in a dance class. You would have seen a student like any other: sleepy, but learning and enjoying herself.

This isn’t the way some people thought Rebeka Willett’s life would turn out. She is the child of two parents with disabilities. Her mother, Tammy Willett, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. She needs help to eat and to do other basic tasks. Rebeka’s father, Clarence, 43, is developmentally disabled.

Some questioned whether the couple could raise a child. A public health nurse once told the Willetts to give Rebeka up for adoption. She said Rebeka would never learn to talk because Tammy can’t talk.

This year Rebeka more than proved the critics wrong. She graduated – on time – from Grace Davis High School in Modesto. Now she’s studying to be a preschool teacher. If Tammy Willett could track down that public health nurse today, she would say, “You didn’t think I could do it? Look at us now!”

Read the entire article here: http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1510146.html

Acknowledgements to Beth Haller at media dis and dat.