The Best of Disability Blogs and Banter

This is What Disability Looks Like
A few of us are starting a visual culture campaign featuring images of people with disabilities that do not pander to sentimentality, inspiration and/or paternalism like many images that have circulated around social media of late.

This is a community love project to spread the word that disability is awesome and natural.

Email photos and tag-lines to disabilitylookslike@gmail.com, and follow the project on Facebook.com/ThisIsWhatDisabilityLooksLike.

ESPN’S Lack of Coverage is Totally Indefensible
ESPN’s decision to ignore the Paralympics is perhaps less shameful than TV rights holder NBC’s move not to broadcast any of the games live. But ESPN’s lack of coverage is still indefensible. There is no full-time ESPN staffer — online, radio or television — in London to cover the world’s second-largest sporting event (4,200 athletes, 165 countries). The worldwide leader essentially defines what is and isn’t sports news in this country, and the company’s call to disregard the Paralympics has relegated the event to eighth-tier status.
— Josh Levin, www.slate.com/blogs

Artist Sue Austin Puts Under-Water Wheelchair to Test
Sue Austin, who has been a wheelchair user since 1996, developed [an underwater] chair with help from dive experts and academics.

The model is powered by two dive propulsion vehicles and steered with a bespoke fin and foot-operated acrylic strip.

Austin, from north Devon, UK, says she first had the idea after learning to scuba dive in 2005.

“When we started talking to people about it, engineers were saying it wouldn’t work, the wheelchair would go into a spin, it was not designed to go through water — but I was sure it would,” she told the BBC.
— Zoe Kleinman, www.bbc.com
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