41 posts tagged “advocacy”

I told ya before, they'll do ANYTHING to bash we "California, Hollywood liberals" and Obama both.  Though I suppose technically Obama IS one even if he's not from California, we all know he's buddy with us... er, them.  I've reformed as you'll see in this post ;) 

What did we do now?  We... are you ready for our horrible horrible crimes against humanity?  It's realllly bad this time... we... I'm not even sure I can say it... We... we... fine I admit it, we do charity work and / or encourage it.  I know, it's the worst thing I can think of.  I mean Republicans did tell us that people like me without insurance are supposed to ask for charity if we get too sick and need help.  But we all know they don't believe in anything they say.  Charity?  Hahhahah.  As if.   Volunteer?  Who in the hell does THAT???

Thank you Glenn Beck for telling me the error of my ways.  Video here.   Without you I would have thought that Brian donating his time to Special Olympics, food banks, etc was a GOOD thing.  He's a Hollywood guy.  DAMN HIM!!!  It's true.  Friggin Hollywood bastards.  Oh, Glenn Beck, your conspiracy  theory is true.  OMG Hollywood is out to get us!!!  And Obama is behind it all.   And, I mean Brian did do this before Obama was elected but, still... Oh hell, this is  totally communism.

Because of my health, I can't do the things Brian does.  Also I don't work so I have little money of my own but when I do I try to give to the Christopher and Dana Reeve foundation.  Ohh... Dam.  Christopher Reeve was Superman, in HOLLYWOOD!  Drats.  Again, you're soooo right.  Damn them!

My nephew does the MS walk every year for the NMSS.  They got to him too!!!! We're all dooooooooooooomed!!!!!!!!  I thought he did it because I have MS.  But now that I think of it, he loves his uncle Brian, who works in HOLLYWOOD. Friggin hollywood liberals and their damn agenda to influence us to do such horrible things.  To work for bad bad bad evil causes.  I... I'm gonna go cry and repent for all of the bad things we've done!

My own mommy person shamed me by asked me how I missed posting this... yes I am a bit late, but here you go.  From their description:

A french video response from http://www.GayClic.com readers to the Stevie Bee Bishop's "Big Fat Gay Collab". Posted on the International Day Against Homophobia, 2009, May 17th

I'm watching the Christopher Reeve Foundation press conference... Woah.

So the announcement?  Basically it's that there's 1 degree of separation in America when it comes to paralysis.  Obviously I'm not paralyzed but I do have spinal cord damage via illness, I suffer from on again off again problems with my limbs because of it.  So this is a cause I care very much about.

They'd gotten together with other medical groups to try to really get together a decent idea of what the paralysis community looks like.  What they found was that no one was really keeping real numbers.  Some places were keeping lists based on their mailing lists.  Yeah great way to determine how many people are paralyzed.  Others were including people who were seeing them for other things.  Given that you'd think ok so the numbers were skewed and actually there are less people that are paralyzed than we thought. 

Wrong, seems when they got really into truly tracking down who suffers from paralysis, it's much higher than they thought.

"Approximately 1.9 percent of the U.S. population, or 5,596,000 people reported they were living with some form of paralysis, defined by the study as a central nervous system disorder resulting in difficulty or inability to move the upper or lower extremities. This is about one-third more Americans living with paralysis than previously estimated (4 million).1 The leading cause of paralysis was stroke (29 percent), followed by spinal cord injury (23 percent) and multiple sclerosis (17 percent)."

"Spinal cord injury is also more prevalent than previously estimated. Data indicate that 1,275,000 people in the United States are living with spinal cord injury—more than five times the number of Americans previously estimated in 2007 (255,702).2"

They're also poor and according to the live press conference many have no insurance:

"People living with paralysis have households with lower incomes. Household income for those with paralysis is heavily skewed towards lower-income brackets and is significantly lower than household income for the country as a whole. Roughly 25% of households with a person who is paralyzed make less than 10k per year, compared with only 7% of households in the general population."

"Specifically, this study based the definition of disabilities used by the World Health Organization (WHO), which uses function, rather than impairment (the medical model), as its frame: A central nervous system disorder that results in difficulty or inability to move the upper or lower extremities. Individuals, therefore, who were included in this survey as respondents were those who said “yes” to two questions: 1) “Do you or does anyone in this household have any difficulty moving their arms or legs?” and 2) “Can you give the specific cause of that difficulty?”"

By that definition, there have been / are days when I fit into that definition, that's what got me into the medical system and got me me my first MRI.  I'm lucky (not being sarcastic).  The times my arms or legs failed me totally luckily were rare, I've adapted to the worst of the worst attacks now and have learned to move through them slowly and not to try to do something dumb that would frustrate me like say hold things etc during them.  Instead of canes etc I decided eh pass.  Mom's recommended renting wheel chairs during anything where I may be on my feet too long, I refuse.   It has been that bad at times but something about sitting my butt in a wheelchair when I feel "normal" when we do something like walk through the gates of Disneyland seems stupid.  By the time we leave I can't really walk and am about in tears.  My body can't handle being pushed.  Especially in heat, it tires easily. 

So yes, this cause means a lot to me.  I hope that having reputable medical centers saying it's a bigger problem than previously believed will make people may attention.   Apparently the numbers of paralyzed or spinal cord injured people weren't really ever going up.  Sure some die, or improve, etc.  But to never change?  A new study is nice.  To be more prevalent than thought isn't surprising I guess given which of the two definitions they used.  But as someone who, one a few days can fall into that one definition, those days suck enough they can stop you from doing anything.  Limbs not working correctly is a horrible thing.

The rest of their findings HERE.  

Almost forgot VOX, oopsie.  They had the option to post it on Facebook, MySpace, and LJ, but not here...  I did those.  I'm lazy and almost forgot since I have to post on VOX manually but hey it's one of my favoriet causes soooo a manual post it is.  The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation have a new site up.  You can add yourself to their google map to show your support to their cause.  Their little map markers let you choose if you're a researcher, someone who is paralyzed, suffering from another illness related to the cause (MS was one listed), someone who cares about someone affected by one of the illnesses listed, or just someone who cares about the cause.  Besides the map they of course they have links to donate, blogs, ways to sign up for their news on research, etc. 

http://www.campaigntocureparalysis.org/

The Portland, OR MS walk was this weekend.  For those who sponsored my nephew, thank you.  My sister sent me some of the official pics.  I figured I'd share.  They actually ended up in some, though not very clearly, still here you go:

PDX MS Walk '09 Karina & Keegan in crowd

Can you find our super duo?  They're right up front and colourful.

PDX MS WALK '09 - Karina on the right

Karina is following the little unknown kid's lead and going to plug her ears, hence the odd pose.  She was right in the middle of shoving her fingers up towards her ears she said. 

Karina and Keegan - MS Walk '09

I guess he's too grown up to hold mom's hand now.  Look how tall he is, geez he really is growing up so fast :(

Portland MS Walk '09

So Iowa legalized gay marriage.  And of course there's this:   Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) blasted the decision and vowed to effectively overturn it. "This is an unconstitutional ruling and another example of activist judges molding the Constitution to achieve their personal political ends," he said in a statement.

Let us break down this whole active judge crap, shall we?  I'm fond of dictionary.com
Activist
–noun

I've not read the full ruling, but the parts I've seen basically said the court has a constitutional duty to ensure that laws are upheld equally for all and that, that includes their marriage statutes.  Well they're vigorously advocating for the legal system to work.   That is activist judges, I suppose.   And that's a bad thing?  Is that not what judges do? 

Someday, the idiots of the world will understand that these marriage licenses ARE government issued and therefore apply to consenting adults gay or straight.   They're not church marriages.  If certain churches want to spew hate against gays and deny the marriages in their church, whatever, they won't want to marry there I'm sure  -- who wants to marry in a place they'd not feel welcomed or safe?  But the state cannot go around calling people sinners and telling them sorry no marriage and no legal rights that go with it for you. 

I still say just tell everyone civil unions for ALL.  But then again, it's almost more fun to keep it as marriages and watch the hateful people cry as they slowly, state by state start to lose in the courts.  I just hope California's courts are watching.  Our ruling on 8 is due soon, I think.  The irony?  The Iowa court apparently cited the original California ruling.  And now some are saying this ruling COULD affect the current ruling here IF any judges were still undecided.  Ohh how odd the courts can be.
 

Hair Adventure time:

Feria Cardinal - What I shall be dying my hair

See this hair colour?  Yeah, go into shock, this week, I'm gonna try this colour.  That's right, not my orange or bright red :(  I want to be those bright colours, oh boy do I .  BUT, I now live in a place with a tiny glass enclosure shower that'd be a bitch to clean and could get all dyed and I have a new UBER white kitchen sink instead of  a stainless steel sink which was easy to clean the dye off.  So I was debating -- go all blonde and maybe trying a little of the bright colours on just the bottom tips that wouldn't be too messy.  Or go way on the opposite end and go black.    Then while at the store I it was the reddish browns that said no pick me. I was asking Brian what he was thinking of this one, and well when my bright colours fade he's used to my hair looking orange'y blonde'y um weird but lighter so he's pointing to this much lighter red and telling me he's used to lighter colours on me.  So I tell him you think this one, holding the other box.  He says no, I'm just used to lighter on you and decides yeah the darker looks good to him.  He prefers blonde so I'm surprised and this wins. 

The trick here?  I have NO idea what it'll do in my hair ;)  I'm up for an adventure of course.  After all I've been dying my hair Vampire Red, and Pink'ish reds, and Napalm Orange, and before that Purple for years now.  What is the worst that can happen? heh.  But truly, I've no clue what'll happen.  My roots should turn out close to that colour.  The orange'y blonde'y formerly blonde then dyed red and orange and red and orange and now faded?  Welp, we shall see later this week. 

Milk:

I finally bought and watched Milk on dvd.  Wow.  I'm so glad I finally got to see that movie.  How did I not hear of this man before this movie?  Granted he's a bit before my time since I was a wee kiddie even as he died and he was in a different part of the state than I was in, but still.  Just... I gotta admit, I got teary eyed at the end, even knowing what happened, hell the beginning of the movie tells you that.  I was just touched anyway, I'm a sap.  The movie kind of upset me, well not the movie, but what it reminds me of  -- that here we are, all of these years later and the jerkoffs are STILL trying to legislate consensual adult sex and sexuality.  What a loss, if only he were still around fighting things like Prop 8.  

Obama just officially reversed the Bush policies on stem cells and he mentioned Christopher and Dana Reeve in doing so. 

Thank you sir, I love you.

Last year Keegan started his own tradition, to do the MS walk every year because of me.  It was his idea.  He was six. He's now seven and he's sticking to it.  I know times are tough, but if you can afford to donate anything to help him reach his goal, please click here and donate on his official MS walk page.  His goal is $500.  He reached his goal last year, he'd obviously like to reach it again this year  too.