National Forum on Disability Issue in Columbus, 7.26.08

Today, as a representative for the Ohio Association of the Deaf, I’ll be attending the National Forum on Disabilitty Issue at the First Church of God’s Conference and Technolog Center just about south of Columbus. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) will appear live via satellite link from his home in Arizona and Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), standing in for Senator Barack Obama, still out of the country, will participate in the debate.

Keep your eyes to this blog later in the day or evening as I’ll be posting some pictures of the today’s event.

UPDATE 7:00 pm, 7.26.2008

It was a very interesting but pretty much low-key event today. There was approximately 700 people who’d attended, some from several non-profit organizations and community groups but most of the people came on their owns or by buses designated for those on wheelchairs or motorized chairs. A friend of mine, Jesse, showed up as I was lining up at the booth and I was pleased that she came for the event, since she’s interesting in studying law relating to people with disabilities and the deaf, she’s very curious about it and hoped to see Senator Obama and Senator McCain in person (after telling her, she was let down a little). There weren’t any recognizable face I know from the deaf community in Ohio but four ASL interpreters and closed captioning were provided on the big screens for whoever deaf/HOH attending.

A great highlight of the event started off with a pleasant and humorous speech by Robert David Hall, the disabled actor who played the coroner from the popular CBS TV show, CSI. He walks with two prosthetic limbs after having his legs amputated from a horrible accident in 1978.

Today was the 18th anniversary of the signing Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 into law by President George H. W. Bush and the man who made it possible came to the event, speaking as the Disability advisor to the Obama campaign: Senator Tom Harkin, who showed up about half-way through the event, just after the completion of a very good panel discussion moderated by Judy Woodruff from PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The only disappointment, as Jesse pointed out, was the lack of a deaf or a deaf-blind person on the panel discussion, telling what life is like for a deaf or deaf-blind person and how to overcome the problems with discrimination and so forth. One panelist made an apt point about the society (consisting of people who are not disabled) needed to stop treating people with disabilities like second-class citizens. The panelists were from organizations such as Institute for Educational Leadership, United Spinal Association, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered and Oregon Developmental Disabilities Council.

Then Tom Harkin made a long, passionate speech about how the past Supreme Court decisions are hurting people with disabilities when it comes to jobs, business or public accommodation, discrimination and so forth, boiling down to the Supreme Court’s specific interpretations on the definition of one’s disability. He had a big sign brought out to emphasize that all the disabilities are covered under ADA, as seen below.

Senator Harkin was asked with few questions from Woodruff, touching upon issues on the future of people’s disabilities under an Obama administration, the threat of Social Security solvency, the needs of community outreach services to help people with disabilities, helping wounded or disabled soldiers and veterans and so on. He spoke about his deaf brother briefly and the discrimination and lack of accommodation his brother had endured.

After Harkin, there was a live music performance by Jeff Moyer, who is progressively blind and late deafened, and a well-known activist for the disabled. He did performed 18 years ago after the signing of ADA at the U.S. Senate. During the performance, I had the chance of getting to Senator Harkin in the hallway, as seen below (or click on the pictures):

I am aware that the Senator know sign language, having been taught by his brother. We’d communicated for a bit about getting the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 to pass. He is a very likeable and pleasant fellow (even though, I don’t agree with him on some domestic and foreign issues, not relating to disability issues). Then it’s back to the conference room for the live satellite appearance of Senator John McCain from his home in Arizona.

McCain kept his speech short and to the point, touching on the importance of Americans with disabilities of being participants, not as bystanders, in the American politics and community activities when it comes to disability issues, stopping discrimination and jobs. He stressed that he’d worked with Senator Harkin on the ADA Restoration Act and getting the Republicans in Congress involved in supporting it, in spite of his defense of the Supreme Court decisions on ADA cases. He’d explained that the job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the laws, not legislate them from the bench, given his repeated emphasis of the dangers of one branch of government doing the work of another branch of government or vice versa, thus undermining what the Founding Fathers had intended under the U.S. Constitution. McCain also warned of the solvency of the Social Security for the disabled Americans in the future, creating a greater risk that would put most of them into near-poverty or poverty levels.

He touched on the importance of supporting wounded or disabled soldiers and veterans, since they do make up half of the majority of Americans with disabilities across the country. After few “softball” questions from Woodruff, he ended it by emphasizing the needs of advocates, activists and organizations for the disabled Americans to work with him once he became elected President in the fall and work out the details in getting the ADA Restoration Act to pass.

After the end of McCain’s live satellite appearance and upon the closing of the event, thanking Judy Woodruff for moderating the “debate”, I had the chance to catch Judy Woodruff in the hallway, since my mother is a big fan of PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and like Woodruff, so I had taken a picture of her for my mother, this is her below:

Pleasant lady, she is.

I also had the chance to take a picture with Robert David Hall of CSI fame as well:

Of course, I did not bother to ask him if he cuts up real dead bodies or fake ones while playing his character on the TV show. Just leave it to the imagination.

In conclusion, my two disappointments are – firstly – for the panel discussion, there was the lack of an experienced deaf/Deaf representative/activist (someone with years of organizational representation and activism in the deaf/Deaf community, I do not qualify for that, to be perfectly frank) or an actual deaf-blind activist (I know there are few up in Cleveland but they were not in for this event). Secondly, for the event involving two Presidential candidates to debate about the disability issues, it was not a real debate between two candidates live in person and in front of the audience. If it is, it would have been a snoozer for the majority of non-disabled Americans, probably cause them to switch channels if it is live on CNN or NBC. Earlier, one panelist said, with a warning, that those who are not disabled now may become disabled unexpectedly in the future and find out the very hard ways themselves. Many in the audience applauded hard on that.

All in all, it is an educational, informative, and fun event for me. The majority of the attendees are people with disabilities, as well as those who are not disabled but only a very sparse number of deaf/HOH attendees. Something tells me about that, however, that’s for another day, another blog.

Sorry if the few of the pictures aren’t great. My camera is a Nikon CoolPix model, only less than 3 years old and it’s really good for quick snaps or outdoor snaps but is really lousy for indoor photographic snaps (as you can see, for example, with the first picture of Harkin and his sign above). I tried a variety of exposure or white balance settings and it has no stabilizer. Oh, well. You can see few more below:

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