Tag Archive for camp

Recommendation: Crip Camp

I don’t often recommend movies or documentaries, but I think this one is worth watching. Full disclosure: I grew up with a disability (post polio), and this documentary is about kids with disabilities.

I identify with some of the kids at the camp (10 years earlier I attended Easter Seal Camp) and at the protests (I participated in anti-Nam protests). But some of what the film presents was new to me — like us “Polios” being considered at the top of the disability ladder and “Cerebral Palsies” being at the bottom.

Whether or not you have a disabled child among your friends or family, this is a worthwhile film to watch. The kids aren’t “brave” or “admirable” or “inspiring” or any of the other terms people use that grate on our nerves. They’re just what we all are — people standing up for their rights.

(Warning: sex, smoking, and pot are involved.)

If you, like me, grew up with a disability, you should watch this, too. And, by the way, fellow “crips,” remember that our group is among the lowest in voter turn-out, and nobody else will push for our rights, so VOTE!

And watch “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” on NetFlix,

Let It Never Happen Again–to Anyone

The ultimate example of man’s inhumanity to man was put to an end 74 years ago, on January 27, 1945, when Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, was liberated.  It imprisoned people who were torn from their families and lives simply because they were Jewish.  It was a place of unspeakable conditions, torture, and death.  It used human beings for ghastly experiments because, after all, these weren’t people  in the Nazi mind but sub-humans, so it didn’t matter if they suffered.  Some 200,000 people were able to leave the camp, but not without physical, emotional, and spiritual damage that has lasted even to today for those thousands of survivors still alive.

Auschwitz is still fresh in our minds on this anniversary and, to many, every day.  As it should be–so that we never allow that to happen to any group of people ever again.

Let ‘Em Camp Out

Landlords can raise rents.  No rent freeze in a city I saw on the news this morning.  They were debating a freeze as part of their plan to help their homeless population find shelter and get off the streets. Their final decision was to allow rents to continue on their spiral upwards.  As for the homeless, the city’s plan is to provide money for them to live, temporarily, in motels and campgrounds.

I have to admit, that’s getting some of them off the streets–and out of the good citizens’ sight–at least for awhile.  As far as a start toward a solution to the problem of people living inhumane lives on the streets, well, you be the judge.