Huh. I just realized that I've got a totally crazy weekend coming up. Friday night - Rosh Hashanah services. Saturday day - KBD's mom, sis, and neicephews are coming over. Saturday night - out with my family for my birthday. Sunday - C-boro music festival - free, around 30 stages, starts around noon and goes into the night. I think my parents might be coming to that, too.

Oy. My birthday is next Monday, and I am *definitely* taking the day off.

Seska - I'd be pissed if I were you.

Barb - sounds like the best answer you could have given. I hope she listens.

Me: Nothing. Don't do it. It's called libel. Seriously, I don't care

I admire your restraint. Heck, I'd admire your restraint if you'd gone with "I'll drag you to the highest court in the land, Mom."

I feel you Barb. I had to have a come to Jesus meeting with my mother about how I wasn't a lawyer anymore so she had to stop a) asking me for legal advice and b) getting mad at me when I couldn't/wouldn't provide it. (i.e. writing her will, which I cannot give because I am a beneficiary)

eta: I'm happy to work with regular people about legal stuff, but my mother didn't know where to draw the line.

Seska, don't have much to offer, but BTDT.

erika - Cheers. Good to know it's not just me. I think the reason I was so annoyed was that I am massively invested in the group's current campaigns for better care services, and it's a crucial time as the government is planning to cut more and more types of care support. And I know that it's not an issue that affects every disabled person. I, for example, am lucky enough to have an awesome, strong-willed, fairly comfortably-off partner who will ensure I never go without the services I need. That's not the point. I don't do these things for myself. Surely that's what campaigning for civil and human rights is all about...?!

But I really will stop ranting now. I'm having a nice glass of wine to help calm down. It is very good.

Seska, totally not just you. I can't tell you how many times in work situations I've had to basically say, "Please come with ideas to the next meeting as I don't want to continue having the same bitchfest over and over and over." Annoying.

Of course.Every fight is not just about getting yours...in my case that includes fighting for minimum wage increases and against discrimination of gay people(although I'm not quite as straight as I thought when I came here.) Although in some ways my disability awareness expanding has made me more liberal since I know what a gas poverty is, and also what a headfuck it is when you think the institutions of your nation are backing you up, only to come out of school and find the American Dream almost completely inaccessible...the most conservative thing they could have done would be to give me a challenging day job. Honest. I would have stayed out of politics and into shopping and safe Tipper Gore lite-Dem complacency. Now, I wonder if I *am* unemployable, if not for the reasons They think. I think maybe I shouldn't have been so scornful about that Wal-Mart job...I'd fuckin' dare the goons of Bentonville to mess with me more than God already has. How would that look? I will not join you in wine as it's 9:30 AM here, and that might make for a short day for a lightweight like me

erika - Good points. I too have learnt through disability rights campainging about supporting/campaigning with other groups fighting for their rights. For example, I'm involved with a general anti-poverty group that has supported my disability rights group in our campaigns against benefit 'reform'. They have no particular interest in disability, but were concerned about the number of disabled people experiencing severe poverty in our area. I've joined them in co-solidarity, because I was so impressed to see non-disabled people supporting our cause.

As for becoming more liberal, and questioning things like why people might be unemployable - I'm with you there. It's why I started studying the sociology of disability. At least, next time I'm job-hunting and the benefits people offer me work as a cafeteria server, I'll be able to explain to them that their expectations are disablist. (Not that there's anything wrong with being a cafeteria server. Just that when you're an experienced teacher with PhD ambitions, it exposes rather a lot of prejudice when your benefits advisor sees such a job and stops looking there.)

Maybe wine for you later then. It's 6pm here. I did not achieve a lot today. I have organized my desk. This should mean I can re-start work on The Dissertation. The wine will get in the way, though, so I won't...

Wrod, this. I love ACORN people, for instance...have met bunches and found them unfailingly awesome...(if also unfailingly hamstrung by guilt about able-bodied privilege...I could have had minions if I were down with that...then maybe ACORN would be as compromised as the right thinks) I mostly got "Well, sweetie, how fast can you type?" Very Peggy Olson, huh? I don't type that fast, but I would make up for it. But we rarely got that far, but, seriously, people, there's no short bus to journalism school. Well, there wasn't before Rupert the Pirate owned everything, anyway.