#brooklyn center for independence of the disabled

[liminalweirdo]

the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled speaking sense re the proposed mask bans in NY.

[valkyries-things]

JUDY HEUMANN // ACTIVIST

“She was widely regarded as "the mother" of the Disability Rights Movement. At 18 months old, Judy contracted polio in Brooklyn, New York and began to use a wheelchair for mobility. She was denied the right to attend school at the age of five because she was considered a "fire hazard." Later in life, Judy was denied her teaching license by the same school district. After passing her oral and written exams, she was failed on her medical exam because she could not walk. She then sued the New York Board of Education and eventually went on to become the first wheelchair user to teach in the state of New York. In 1977, Judy was a leader in the 504 Sit-In in San Francisco, a 26-day protest (the longest sit-in at a federal building to date) that led to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act being signed into law. Judy was instrumental in the development and implementation of other legislation including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. These pieces of legislation have been integral in advancing the inclusion of disabled people in the US and around the world. Judy is a founding member of the Berkeley Center for Independent Living and a co-founder of the World Institute on Disability (WID).”

[todayshomecareinc]

Everything You Need to Know About Seniors Care Services in Brooklyn

From assisted living and nursing support to specialized care, seniors care services in Brooklyn offer diverse senior service solutions, allowing the elderly to age comfortably despite health conditions or disabilities. This blog serves as an exhaustive resource on the types of senior care services in Brooklyn available today and key aspects families must consider before selecting options.

Types of Senior Care Services

In-Home Caregivers

For seniors needing occasional assistance with daily tasks like meals, home help, medication reminders, and companionship, non-medical in-home caregivers are ideal. These assistants typically visit a few hours every day, helping with chores, errands, etc., while allowing seniors to live independently.

Home Health Aides

For more advanced medical care like wound dressing, injections, physical therapy, etc., without facility admission, home health aides offer clinical in-home support under a doctor’s oversight. Trained nurses and therapists create care plans and instruct aides assisting clients.

Adult Day Health Programs

These centers offer daily therapeutic group activities and care professional agency for seniors still living at home but requiring supervision during work hours when family cannot assist. Transportation and meals are also arranged at these social centers.

Assisted Living Communities

For the elderly needing round-the-clock care and oversight for advanced age or severe medical conditions, assisted living facilities provide residence, customized support for daily tasks, medical care, physical therapy, and engagement activities in a community setting.

Key Aspects to Consider for Care Decisions

Health Conditions and Level of Assistance Needed

The type and severity of physical or cognitive conditions requiring help will determine whether in-home caregivers, home health aides, adult day centers, or intensive assisted living suit them best. Evaluate capabilities versus daily living challenges.

Care Customization Options

Review if facilities offer flexibility in services to address changing needs over time related to mobility, therapies, dietary preferences etc. without necessitating location changes repeatedly.

Types of Services Covered

Understand all basic and specialized senior home care service in Brooklyn offered under each care option along with exclusion criteria before committing. This prevents service gaps or forced upgrades later.

Staff Qualifications and Training

Vet training levels and competencies of hired staff at facilities or agencies. Do they fulfill state licensing mandates? Are rigorous background checks conducted? Such factors determine care quality and credentials.

Location and Access Considerations

Assess convenience factors like distance from family homes, accessibility through public transport etc. Ability to visit and participate in care routines makes oversight easier. Also, evaluate safety and infrastructure around locations.

Cost Implications – Insurance Coverage/Personal Fund Status

Evaluate personalized out-of-pocket expenses across different services based on specific insurance plans, personal finances, and family budgets. Factor in current and future costs fully before deciding.

Conclusion

In summary, seniors care services in Brooklyn offer wide-ranging senior home care options spanning assisted living, medical support, and activity programs. While assessing solutions, consider health factors, location, costs and custom care abilities at facilities to determine the optimal solution matching one’s unique needs and constraints. Roping in professional consultants offering advisory services on care, professional agency assessments, and senior living also goes a long way in making informed decisions to secure a loved one’s well-being.

[independentlifestyleservices]

In Home Care Providers Near Me

There is no place like home, especially for the elderly or disabled, whose day-to-day needs may have become too challenging to handle on their own. Unfortunately, a variety of health problems can make independent living quite difficult, so many end up moving to care centers or nursing homes to receive help and medical treatment. For those who wish to stay at home, there is a range of in home care providers near me available, including agencies that provide non-medical and medical services. This article explores the options and provides resources that can help individuals find a home care provider that best suits their needs.

The first step is to create a list of care needs. This will be used to screen potential providers and will also serve as a guide to discuss with them how those needs are expected to be met. It is recommended to interview at least three prospective providers and be sure to discuss each one’s experience, training, and background. Also ask for references from past clients and whether criminal background checks have been conducted.

It is important to understand the difference between personal care agencies and traditional home health agencies. Non-medical or personal care agencies offer support services such as shopping, errand running, meal preparation, and companionship. These agencies are not paid by Medicare or Medicaid. Traditional home health agencies are licensed by a state and provide medical services, such as physical therapy or speech therapy. Typically these agencies are required to give free home care assessments and have a staff that is trained to understand cultural sensitivities.

Choosing the right home care provider can be a complicated process. Fortunately, there are many helpful online resources that can help individuals research and compare services. Often people will begin their search for home care by asking for recommendations from family and friends. They may also contact their healthcare providers, who can provide them with a list of options. Local community organizations and senior centers are another source of referrals. The National Care Planning Council is a good resource for information on local and national home care providers.

The New York City area is full of choices for home care. Galaxy Home Care is a reputable and trusted provider of a wide range of home healthcare services. Founded in 1998, the company is committed to providing quality services and fostering independence for their customers. Their team of professionals includes geriatric nurses, occupational and physical therapists, as well as certified care managers who can assist with care coordination and management. The company serves clients in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Westchester counties. The company offers a free home assessment and a variety of live-in and hourly care options. The company also offers a free care planner booklet that is available on their website.

At Independent Life Style Services, our key priority is to deliver top-of-the-line disability services that focus on home care for disabled people, young and old. Our operations and perspectives are guided by a mission, a vision, beliefs and core values that focus on supporting people with disabilities enjoy a fulfilling life.

[prudentiacare]

Community Access Care

For many people, going out and about is a normal part of life. However, for those who need assistance with community access, it can be challenging.

Access specialists work to address these barriers by focusing on the social determinants of health. They also provide culturally appropriate care through interpreters.

What are the Benefits of Community Access Care?

A community access care center is a non-profit program that provides information and assistance to consumers with disabilities. It operates under a philosophy of consumer control, in which individuals with disabilities direct the organization’s operations and policies. Typical services include providing access to medical, dental, and mental health care; insurance (Medicare or Medicaid enrollment); translation and transportation services; and housing, food, and education. Community Access Centers are also known as Centers for Independent Living. CAC is a member of the California Association of Community Access Centers.

How Can I Get Community Access Care?

Community Access is one of the largest and longest-standing New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) approved Case & Care Management providers, serving participants across the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens & Brooklyn. Our caring staff are available 24 hours a day to help participants stay healthy, independent and connected to quality social, home and medical services. Do you have the skills and life experiences to join our team? Please click here to learn more about our rewarding career opportunities.

[endashemdash]

Visiting the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled

I was walking home from the subway and just looking at storefronts, and saw this piece of paper in a glass door:

I popped in today, and the staff there was super nice, though a bit annoyed at first (I should have called ahead!). I mainly spoke to Sandrina, the Program Manager at BCID.

I explained that I was a student doing a master’s thesis on assistive technology in the home, and she told me what BCID offers in terms of training, independent living skills classes, a venue for support groups, among other services (and they’ve been around since the 1950s!). Then I described to her my robot furniture idea and showed her an animated rendering of one example, and was happy (and surprised) to see her eyes light up. She seemed to get the idea pretty instantly, and called over her colleague Veronica to take a look as well. Veronica, who was using a powered wheelchair, also got the concept right away, and immediately thought of two of BCID’s clients that she wanted to show it to.

It was validating to see that folks who work with people with disabilities every day were able to see value in the concept without much explanation on my part. This was much different than the reaction I normally get, which is usually “I don’t get it.”

Of course, a few questions came up:

Why are you here? Sandrina wanted to know what I wanted from the moment I walked in the door. It seems that a lot of students visit BCID, many wanted internships on short notice.

What is your dream outcome? Sandrina asked this, very matter-of-factly. It caught me a little off-guard, because I don’t really think I’ve visualized what my dream outcome would be. I was there to learn about the population I want to serve, and Sabrina was asking me about my own desires.

How do you expect people to control this thing? I was happy to hear this question, because it’s one I don’t have the answer to but want to try and prototype ideas for soon. We talked about joysticks (her idea), voice interfaces (my idea), and gestures.

On the other hand, there were questions I was expecting that weren’t asked:

Who is this for? I thought that I would be grilled on my intended audience, but that never came up. This is in direct contrast with most designers I’ve shown this to, who always want to anchor things in a target user group.

How much would it cost? I think this is something I’ve been worrying about: would this solution make economic sense for the end user? Or would it cost less to get an assistance dog or do a simple home remodel? Perhaps this question will come up later on in the process.

Why are you making this? I was worried that I would be asked about my motivations. I shouldn’t have worried so much.

I’m super grateful for the time Sandrina and Veronica spent with me today at the Center, and I really wish I had found them much sooner in my process. I’m excited to continue to develop this relationship. Sandrina invited me to present my idea to one of their support groups next Thursday, February 22nd. I’m hoping to have a mostly-working works-like prototype by then, to get some reactions from the audience. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some one-on-one time with people after my presentation as well.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Github pledges legal aid for interoperators

Last October, the RIAA launched a bizarre campaign of legal bullying against youtube-dl, a free/open library that lets people save Youtube (and other) videos for a variety of purposes, including critical analysis, offline viewing, archiving and remixing.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/1201-v-dl-youtube/#1201

The RIAA attacked youtube-dl under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA1201) a 1998 law that indiscriminately bans helping people remove DRM, even if no copyright infringement takes place.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/28/trumpcicles/#yt-dl

DMCA1201 is a pure hazard. For decades, manufacturers have weaponized it to prohibit otherwise legal uses of their products: if a product is designed so that a use requires removing DRM, then using it that way becomes illegal.

That’s true even if no copyright infringement takes place — it’s true even if the DRM gets in the way of a copyright holder selling their own work to their audience.

That’s how Apple uses it, with the Iphone and the App Store: Ios devices are designed to reject programs unless they are delivered via the App Store, which takes a 15–30% cut from software authors, who hold the copyright to those programs.

So Apple can use copyright law to stop a software author from selling a program to a software user, that the user wants to run on a device they own, unless the author gives Apple 15–30% of the price. This doesn’t protect copyright — it protects Apple’s business model.

If the software author were to supply a tool that jailbroke their customer’s Iphone so the customer could install the program they just bought, that would violate the criminal provisions of DMCA1201, with a $500k fine and 5 years in prison for a first offense.

This is “felony contempt of business model” (in the memorable phrasing of Jay Freeman), and it’s everywhere — it’s how car and tractor manufacturers ban independent repair — and how Keurig locks you into using its coffee pods (and how HP locks you into using its ink carts).

DMCA1201 is a dumpster-fire and it should have been repealed a long time ago. EFF has a long-running lawsuit to overturn it on constitutional grounds:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate

But even in a crowded field of abusive corporate DMCA theories, the RIAA’s attack on youtube-dl was a new low. Youtube-dl doesn’t bypass any DRM! It just de-obfuscates a hidden URL. The idea that finding a hidden URL is the same as bypassing DRM is legally laughable.

Nevertheless, Github responded to the initial demand by removing youtube-dl. But the good news is that once EFF lawyers worked with Github’s counsel to assure them that the RIAA’s theory was bunk, Github restored youtube-dl.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/16/pill-mills/#yt-dl

Github also pledged $1m to a legal defense fund for bogus DMCA1201 claims, and this week, they rolled it out, and it’s just amazing.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/07/27/github-offers-open-source-developers-legal-counsel-to-combat-dmca-abuse/

The fund doesn’t just make money available to pay software authors’ legal fees — it also establishes a partnership with Stanford law school, which means that programmers will have a much larger pool of legal talent to draw on.

And those law students will graduate with real-world experience of fighting bogus DMCA1201 claims.

This is a fantastic outcome, and it has historical precedent.

Back in 2005, Stanford’s Center for Media and Social Impact produced a groundbreaking “Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use,” which demystified the farcical world of copyright clearances for docs.

https://cmsimpact.org/code/documentary-filmmakers-statement-of-best-practices-in-fair-use/

Documentary filmmakers had been forced into a cramped and legally incoherent practice of paying for — or avoiding — even the most incidental uses of copyrighted works, because their insurers demanded written permission for every use.

The CMSI statement — and access to a huge pool of law students who’d work on cases — prompted the Media/Professional insurance company to offer fair-use friendly policies to filmmakers, and completely changed how doc makers related to fair use.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070225090909/https://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003713.shtml

It’s not just elite law-schools like Stanford’s that can make this kind of difference. Brooklyn Law’s Jonathan Askin and his law students run a successful clinic that overturned bullshit patents wielded by trolls against local startups.

https://blipclinic.wixsite.com/blipclinic

And as Derek Slater pointed out in his seminal #noimnotgoingtolawschool essay, this kind of clinic work is crucial to equity for law students.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12RirEN-FcQB3vTfb0aMqPD-V26aqVhUhKY1hQ2dipJU/edit?hl=en_US

Without clinic work, law students graduate without actually knowing how to practice law (!), and must go into harness for large firms that can get away with horrific abuses as a result (law school debts are massive).

These kind of clinics don’t just provide an invaluable community service that checks corporate abuse — it also equips new lawyers to resist the workplace abuses of Big Law.

There’s no better subject for a tech-law clinic than fighting DMCA1201 abuse — because that’s the law that is most often invoked to shut down Competitive Compatibility (AKA comcom/Adversarial Interoperability).

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Without comcom, we will live in a high-tech society whose devices and systems are designed to configure US, rather than the other way around. Every one of us will eventually have a need, a disability, or a desire to do something that a product wasn’t designed for.

If we let companies pursue felony contempt of business model as a strategy, those needs will be forever subordinated to the corporate priorities of tech giants. That’s not a pretty future.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

[skippyv20]

What happened today in History?

1643 Isaac Newton was baptized in St Johns Church in Colsterworth England

1801 Giuseppe Piazzi discovered 1st asteroid named Ceres

1801 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Established

1804 Haiti gains independence From France

1808 US Congress prohibits importation of slaves

1848 Britain takes Mosquito Coast from Nicaragua

1863 Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln

1892 Brooklyn merges with NY to form present City of NY

1892 Ellis Island became reception center for new immigrants to US

1894 Manchester Ship Canal in England opened to traffic

1898 Lightship replaces whistling buoy at mouth of San Francisco Bay

1899 Cuba liberated from Spain by US

1901 Commonwealth of Australia established

1902 1st Rose Bowl game held in Pasadena California

1908 News Year Eve Times Square Ball Drop

1912 1st running of San Francisco’s famed “Bay to Breakers” race (763 miles)

1912 Republic of China (Taiwan) created

1913 Post office begins parcel post deliveries+

1915 Formidable a British Ship Sunk

1919 Henry Ford Stands Down

1920 United Kingdom becomes member of ECC with Ireland and Denmark

1934 Alcatraz officially becomes a Federal Prison

1934 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (US Bank guarantees) effective

1936 1st newspaper to microfilm its current issues NY Herald Tribune

1937 Great Britain glass manufacturers required to make safe glass

1937 Old Age Pensions Started

1942 US Government stops civilian car production and manufacturers military vehicles only

1942 United Nations established

1946 Emperor Hirohito of Japan announces he is not a god

1946 Japanese Soldiers surrendered on the Island of Corregidor

1947 Coals Mines Nationalized in Great Britain

1947 Canadian Citizenship Act First Person to become Canadian Citizen was Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie

1948 1st newsreel in color Pasadena CA

1948 British Railways Nationalization

1951 Pay Per View Movies tested

1953 Hank Williams Dies

1954 Rose & Cotton Bowl are 1st sport colorcasts

1956 Sudan gains independence from Britain

1957 International Geophysical Years begins

1958 European Economic Community (Common Market) starts operation

1959 Bastista Flees Cuba and Castro Takes Over

1960 Cameroon gains independence from France

1962 United States Navy Seals created

1962 Beatles Decca Audition and were turned down

1962 Western Samoa gains independence from New Zealand

1965 International Cooperation Year

1966 Vietnam War

1966 Subway Strike in New York

1966 Canada Pension Plan Started

1966 Early Adopter of Warnings on Cigarette Packets

1971 Cigarette advertisements banned on TV

1972 International Book Year

1973 Britain Ireland & Demark join Common Market

1974 World Population Year

1974 Watergate

1975 International Women’s Year

1978 Pres. Ford Signs 1st major revision of copyright law since 1909

1979 International Year of the Childe

1980 Decade of Water and Sanitation

1981 Palau (Trust Territory of Pacific Is.) becomes self-governing

1981 International Year for Disabled

1983 World Communications Year

1984 AT&T broken up into 8 companies

1984 Brunei gains complete independence from Britain

1985 International Youth Year

1985 British Comedian Ernie Wise makes first Mobile Phone Call

1986 Spain & Portugal become 11th and 12th members of Common Market

1986 International Peace Year

19687 International Year of Shelter

1988 NY Carnegie Deli’s owner Leo Steiner dies

1989 Montreal Protocol phase out for hydrocarbons

1991 Canada Goods and Services Tax Introduced

1993 Czech Republic and Slovakia Created

1994 North American Free Trade Agreement

1995 Fred West Serial Killer found hanged

1995 World Trade Organization successor to the GATT Organization established

1998 European Central Bank Created

1998 California implements Anti-Smoking Laws

1999 Eleven nations make the Euro their currency

2000 New Millennium

2000 US hands over the Panama Canal to Panama

2002 12 of 15 European Unions have the new Euro currency today

2004 Property Prices Boom in the UK

2005 Tsunami Death Toll

2006 Australia temp the hottest on record hits 45 degrees Celsius

2007 Adam Air Flight 574 disappears near Polamalu in Sulawesi 102 dead

2008 Kenya Ethnic Violence

2008 Cyprus and Malta Adopt the Euro

2008 France implements Anti-Smoking Laws

2009 Slovakia adopts the Euro

2009 Russa Ukraine Gas Talks collapse

2010 Pakistan Suicide Bombing

2010 Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen #1 Chess Player

2011 Tornadoes hit Sothern Midwest States

2012 Ethnic Clashes in Nigeria

2013 North Korean Leader gives Speech

2014 Latvia Joins the Eurozone using the Euro

2014 Colorado Sells Marijuana

Who knew so much happened in History?  And I bet other Anons will have other things that happened that I missed.

Wow,  thank you....very cool!😊❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

01/21

[independentlifestyleservices]

Homeless Family Emergency Accommodation

If you are a family who are homeless, you may be offered emergency accommodation. This can be a hostel or bed and breakfast home, but it also includes privately owned hotels.

You can contact a family emergency accommodation council and ask them to offer you this type of accommodation. Generally, this housing is a lower standard than temporary and longer term accommodation.

It is against the law for the council to refuse you accommodation if it is suitable. You should be offered accommodation as soon as possible. The council will consider if the home is safe for you and your children and whether it is safe for any other members of your family. If you have any health or safety concerns you should tell them.

The city is planning to open a second intake center for families in Brooklyn or Queens in addition to the only one now in the South Bronx. The move should significantly cut the distance that families with kids have to travel to apply for shelter. In the past, it has been common for families with kids to have to go to three different boroughs with their kids before being able to get into the city’s system. A pandemic-era rule waived the in-person requirement for families with kids who reapplied after being turned away from the system, but that waiver expires next month. For many families, the extra travel is not worth it. They want to be closer to schools and jobs. They are struggling to find the money for a deposit and rent.

At Independent Life Style Services, our key priority is to deliver top-of-the-line disability services that focus on home care for disabled people, young and old. Our operations and perspectives are guided by a mission, a vision, beliefs and core values that focus on supporting people with disabilities enjoy a fulfilling life.

[evoldir]

Postdoc: ColumbiaU.EcoEvoEpiLymeDisease

A postdoctoral fellow position is available in Maria Diuk-Wassers EcoEpidemiology lab at Columbia Universitys Dept. of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B). The postdoc will join a collaborative project with Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis (SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY), Yi-Pin Lin and Laura Kramer (Wadsworth Center, NY State Dept of Health, Albany, NY), and Ben Adams (University of Bath, Bath, UK) to study strain dynamics and host specialization in Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease bacterium, recently funded by the NSF Div. of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS). This project offers a unique opportunity to integrate long-term field data collection, lab transmission experiments, molecular evolutionary epidemiology, and mathematical modeling to examine the processes driving B. burgdorferi diversity and host specialization. For more info on the research teams: - Maria Diuk-Wasser [eco-epidemiology] at http://bit.ly/2AI23m6 - Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis [molecular evolution] at http://bit.ly/2EUUWdS - Yi-Pin Lin [host-pathogen interactions] at http://bit.ly/2EVN8sz - Laura Kramer [host-pathogen interactions] at http://bit.ly/2AGJ1fS - Ben Adams [biomathematics] at http://bit.ly/2AGJ2QY Candidates should have a doctoral (or equivalent) degree in evolution, ecology, epidemiology, microbiology, or related fields. Background in molecular biology methods is required, in addition to skills in one or more of the following areas: molecular evolution, population or community ecology, dynamic modeling of microbes/vectors/vertebrate reservoir hosts, high-throughput sequencing methodology and relevant bioinformatics. Highly desirable skills: field and laboratory animal handling. The successful candidate must be capable of working independently in an interdisciplinary environment and have strong quantitative and writing skills, evidenced by scholarly publications. The postdoc will be based at Columbia (Manhattan) and interact closely with SUNY Downstate (Brooklyn). In addition to the formal collaborations, opportunities exist for collaboration with the Columbia U Mailman School of Public Health, the Columbia Earth Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, the Wildlife Conservation Society, EcoHealth Alliance, and the NY Genome Center. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Columbia University is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the ADA. Columbia University encourages all qualified individuals to apply, and does not discriminate on the basis of any protected status, including veteran and disability status. Application deadline: January 1, 2019. The position will remain open until filled. Expected start date: May-June 2019. Salary is commensurate with experience. Applications must include a CV, a statement of research interests, and the contact information of 3 referees in a single PDF file to be sent to mad2256@columbia.edu. Maria Diuk-Wasser, PhD Columbia University Dept. of Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology New York, NY, USA Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, PhD SUNY Downstate Medical Center School of Public Health Dept. of Epidemiology & Biostatistics Brooklyn, NY, USA koloko@amnh.org via Gmail

[xtruss]

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dies At 87

— AP | September 18, 2020 | By Mark Sherman

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.

Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Her death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known.

Chief Justice John Roberts mourned Ginsburg’s passing. “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice,” Roberts said in a statement.

Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.

Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace the court’s Jewish grandmother, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defense of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.

Those health issues included five bouts with cancer beginning in 1999, falls that resulted in broken ribs, insertion of a stent to clear a blocked artery and assorted other hospitalizations after she turned 75.

She resisted calls by liberals to retire during Barack Obama’s presidency at a time when Democrats held the Senate and a replacement with similar views could have been confirmed. Instead, Trump will almost certainly try to push Ginsburg’s successor through the Republican-controlled Senate — and move the conservative court even more to the right.

Ginsburg antagonized Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign in a series of media interviews, including calling him a faker. She soon apologized.

Her appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1993 was the first by a Democrat in 26 years. She initially found a comfortable ideological home somewhere left of center on a conservative court dominated by Republican appointees. Her liberal voice grew stronger the longer she served.

Ginsburg was a mother of two, an opera lover and an intellectual who watched arguments behind oversized glasses for many years, though she ditched them for more fashionable frames in her later years. At argument sessions in the ornate courtroom, she was known for digging deep into case records and for being a stickler for following the rules.

She argued six key cases before the court in the 1970s when she was an architect of the women’s rights movement. She won five.

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not need a seat on the Supreme Court to earn her place in the American history books,” Clinton said at the time of her appointment. “She has already done that.”

On the court, where she was known as a facile writer, her most significant majority opinions were the 1996 ruling that ordered the Virginia Military Institute to accept women or give up its state funding, and the 2015 decision that upheld independent commissions some states use to draw congressional districts.

Besides civil rights, Ginsburg took an interest in capital punishment, voting repeatedly to limit its use. During her tenure, the court declared it unconstitutional for states to execute the intellectually disabled and killers younger than 18.

In addition, she questioned the quality of lawyers for poor accused murderers. In the most divisive of cases, including the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, she was often at odds with the court’s more conservative members — initially Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The division remained the same after John Roberts replaced Rehnquist as chief justice, Samuel Alito took O’Connor’s seat, and, under Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court, in seats that had been held by Scalia and Kennedy, respectively.

Ginsburg would say later that the 5-4 decision that settled the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush was a “breathtaking episode” at the court.

She was perhaps personally closest on the court to Scalia, her ideological opposite. Ginsburg once explained that she took Scalia’s sometimes biting dissents as a challenge to be met. “How am I going to answer this in a way that’s a real putdown?” she said.

When Scalia died in 2016, also an election year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to act on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump’s surprising presidential victory. McConnell has said he would move to confirm a Trump nominee if there were a vacancy this year.

Reached by phone late Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, declined to disclose any plans. He said a statement would be forthcoming.

Ginsburg authored powerful dissents of her own in cases involving abortion, voting rights and pay discrimination against women. She said some were aimed at swaying the opinions of her fellow judges while others were “an appeal to the intelligence of another day” in the hopes that they would provide guidance to future courts.

“Hope springs eternal,” she said in 2007, “and when I am writing a dissent, I’m always hoping for that fifth or sixth vote — even though I’m disappointed more often than not.”

She wrote memorably in 2013 that the court’s decision to cut out a key part of the federal law that had ensured the voting rights of Black people, Hispanics and other minorities was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Change on the court hit Ginsburg especially hard. She dissented forcefully from the court’s decision in 2007 to uphold a nationwide ban on an abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. The court, with O’Connor still on it, had struck down a similar state ban seven years earlier. The “alarming” ruling, Ginsburg said, “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”

In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and received radiation and chemotherapy. She had surgery again in 2009 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in December 2018 for cancerous growths on her left lung. Following the last surgery, she missed court sessions for the first time in more than 25 years on the bench.

Ginsburg also was treated with radiation for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. She maintained an active schedule even during the three weeks of radiation. When she revealed a recurrence of her cancer in July 2020, Ginsburg said she remained “fully able” to continue as a justice.

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, the second daughter in a middle-class family. Her older sister, who gave her the lifelong nickname “Kiki,” died at age 6, so Ginsburg grew up in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section as an only child. Her dream, she has said, was to be an opera singer.

Ginsburg graduated at the top of her Columbia University law school class in 1959 but could not find a law firm willing to hire her. She had “three strikes against her” — for being Jewish, female and a mother, as she put it in 2007.

She had married her husband, Martin, in 1954, the year she graduated from Cornell University. She attended Harvard University’s law school but transferred to Columbia when her husband took a law job there. Martin Ginsburg went on to become a prominent tax attorney and law professor. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. She is survived by two children, Jane and James, and several grandchildren.

Ginsburg once said that she had not entered the law as an equal-rights champion. “I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other,” she wrote. “I have no talent in the arts, but I do write fairly well and analyze problems clearly.”

[bigyack-com]

Marilyn Saviola, Disability Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 74

Marilyn E. Saviola, who after childhood polio left her a quadriplegic spent much of her adult life advocating for people with disabilities, pushing for the removal of both the physical barriers and the attitudes that hinder people like her from fully participating in society, died on Nov. 23 at her home in Brooklyn. She was 74.Independence Care System, which supports people with disabilities and chronic conditions, and where Ms. Saviola was a senior vice president, posted news of her death on its website. The cause was not given.Ms. Saviola joined the battle for the rights of people with disabilities back when it was still relatively new, while in college in the late 1960s. She was executive director of the advocacy group Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York from 1983 to 1999 and then spent the next 20 years with Independence Care System, running its advocacy and women’s health program.Those roles put her in the midst of the push for obvious accommodations like curb cuts in sidewalks and less obvious ones like financing for personal aides for people who need help dressing, bathing and getting in and out of wheelchairs. Over the years her wide range of activities included blocking buses in her wheelchair in transportation-related protests and organizing a singing group for people with disabilities. This past summer she was honored at the opening of a newly renovated radiology unit at NYC Health & Hospitals/Gotham Health in the Morrisania section of the Bronx that typifies her impact. The new unit, equipped with lifts, movable examination tables and a modified mammography machine, is designed to make it easier for women who use wheelchairs or have other disabilities to receive mammograms and obstetric and gynecological care.“Marilyn Saviola’s steadfast advocacy has ensured that the needs of the disability community are at the forefront of health care policy discussions,” Victor Calise, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities, said at the time.For Ms. Saviola, such services and facilities were a civil right on a par with those fought for by black people and women.“Our goal is not to get to the front of the bus,” she told The New York Times in 1997, “it is to make government pay for technology to get us on the bus.”Marilyn Elizabeth Saviola was born on July 13, 1945, in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx. Her father, Peter, and mother, Camilla, immigrants from Italy, owned a candy store and luncheonette. But her life changed drastically in August 1955, when she became sick while visiting relatives in Connecticut.Polio was diagnosed. The first vaccine for it had recently been developed, but she hadn’t yet received it.“I was supposed to do it when I went back to school in September,” she recalled in an oral history recorded for the Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Project in 2001.She was taken to Willard Parker Hospital in Manhattan.“I was in this huge room where I guess there were maybe four or five other people,” she recalled, “and they would always die. Apparently I was one of the few people who ever survived in that room.”She spent time in an iron lung and, when she came out of it, had to use a respirator to breathe. She was transferred to Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island, which provided long-term care for people with disabilities and chronic conditions, but eventually was sent home.There, in her family’s two-story home, with stairs to negotiate, her life became more limited as she grew larger and her parents couldn’t easily lift her. In her teens, she decided to return to Goldwater to live.“I had a lot of friends, but when you’re getting to like 16 and 17, they all would go out and I would be stuck alone,” she said. “So I had nothing. At least in Goldwater I had a peer group, you know, and I got out.”She began to think about her disability and why it was easier for her to live in an institution than at home. She finished high school at Goldwater — there were tutors there — and was accepted at Long Island University. At first she didn’t go to classes in person; she took them via a speaker phone.“It was horrible,” she said. “All I had was the work and none of the fun of going to college.”She began attending classes at the university’s buildings in Brooklyn, using a motorized wheelchair. That had its challenges.“Going to the library was a joke because it really wasn’t at all accessible,” she said, “nor could you get any help unless you brought an able-bodied person with you or a person whose disability was less than yours.”Yet she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology there in 1970. Two years later she received a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling at New York University. While in college she became involved with others who were turning the activism of the period toward issues faced by people with disabilities. “We were beginning to get much more militant about our movement,” she said in the oral history. “Wanting for change to occur through the goodness of well-meaning — this wasn’t enough.”She participated in demonstrations with groups like Disabled in Action (later becoming its president), and she began to realize she wanted to leave Goldwater Memorial and live on her own. In 1973 she moved into her own apartment. She was surprised when friends and family members kept telling her how brave she was.“The thing was that I wasn’t scared,” she said. “It was much scarier for me thinking about remaining the rest of my life in Goldwater than leaving the institution and living on my own.”In the ensuing decades she was a strong voice on issues including transportation, housing and education for people with disabilities. In the 2001 oral history, she noted a simple sign of progress.“Ten, 15 years ago, if I wanted to go to a movie, the way I would go is find out what movie is playing at the theater I could get into, as opposed to what movie is it that I want to see,” she said. “Now it’s so much easier, because so many of the theaters are accessible.”Ms. Saviola is survived by her partner of many years, Robert Geraghty.Although Ms. Saviola knew that in many ways the push for disability rights is still in its early stages and that the gains made by advocates like her can be undone, in a video interview with The Times in 2010 she noted one clear sign of progress, at least in New York: visibility.“One of the greatest changes is, I’m not the only one,” she said. “I’ll go to an event, a concert, I’ll go into a store, there are other people who are wheelchair users. That didn’t happen 30 years ago.” Source link Read the full article

[sabrinalikestoread]

The first part of this review was written in a bitter rage fit, and the second part is tempered and make amends for the rawness of the first.

This book is for readers who are fond of romantic stories with predictable endings and two dimensional characters. While it was interesting to read a love story centered around the experience of a women with Asperger’s trying to navigate the dating world by hiring a sexy male escort to teach her how to fuck men and be good in relationships, the story-line was weak, the descriptions corny (I get it, Stella has a great ass and Michael has an eight pack) and packed with cringe worthy dialogue. I really tried to like this book but I think I was definitely not the right audience for.

However, this book had the merit of luring me to a book club hosted by the amazing Café con Libros, an independent black-owned bookstore in Brooklyn NYC and allowed me to hear the thoughts entertained by a host of different women on the book. This book got us talking about relationships while being on the spectrum or being afflicted with an “invisible” disability, about the importance of consent and voicing what we want to get from a relationship (for example when Stella, the protagonist, drew up a syllabus of all the sexual activities she wanted to master, and when Michael actively asked her for her consent before kissing her and pleasuring her), about finding pleasure in a heterosexual relationship while being a feminist and the importance of being independent financially or, at least, the creative freedom and space that financial security can provide, especially for women of color.

Conclusion: this was an below average book for me but it generated such an important debate that I can’t even be mad at it anymore (but please please please stop it with the corny descriptions, I just can’t deal with them).

[metalarmproblems]

The Fourth

A/N: The following story is a one-shot in honor of Steve Rogers and the Fourth of July. There is no pairing; it is just meant as a bit of friendship fluff. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read it! Tags are at the bottom.

Warning: Language

Word Count: 1,191

For once, Steve Rogers was dressed exactly as someone who didn’t know him personally would assume he dressed: as a walking American flag. To be fair, he was wearing legitimate clothes: shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. They just all happened to be covered with American flag designs.

He exited his living quarters in Avengers Tower and was instantly greeted by a groan of disapproval. Sam dragged a hand down his face.

“I love my country just as much as you do, but please tell me you’re not seriously wearing that outfit to the party,” he joked, daring to take another look at his friend. “Shit. That’s really awful.”

“You have an American flag on your shirt,” Steve pointed out. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference? I’m also wearing khaki shorts. I don’t look like Betsy Ross threw up on me.”

“I highly doubt she threw up American flags.”

“You would know.”

“I’m not that old,” Steve laughed.

“But it is your birthday,” Natasha cut in, interrupting their good-natured teasing as she caught up with the pair in the hallway, “And we are going to celebrate.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure, Nat. This is Bucky’s first Independence Day back with us, and I don’t think a lot of loud explosions are really a good idea.”

“Look, I know Bucky’s been dealing with some shit, but we all have. You need to stop coddling him.” Sam’s voice had turned serious. “I know he’s your friend, but he isn’t the kid you knew back from Brooklyn anymore. He is a man and has been doing really well lately with dealing with his own shit. I think you can disable big brother mode.”

Steve looked to Natasha for support, but she just shrugged. “I agree with Sam.”

“You could at least pretend to agree with me on my birthday,” Steve sighed.

Natasha smiled and nudged Steve with her elbow. “Just trust us, okay? We want you to enjoy your birthday, but we also know that freaking the hell out of one of your best friends isn’t the way to do it. I don’t know if you noticed, but we aren’t idiots.”

Before Steve could respond, Bucky walked out into the hallway.

“Speaking of…” Sam mumbled, earning himself a playful smack to the ribs from Steve.

“Are you heading up to the party?” Bucky asked, jerking his thumb in the direction of the elevator.

“We are,” Natasha smiled, “Why don’t you walk with us?”

The group would have spent the entire elevator ride in silence if it weren’t for Natasha, who was an expert at dismissing awkwardness or tension whenever necessary. She pressed a button on the control panel and launched into a one-sided conversation about sidearms. Bucky hung on every word, which didn’t escape Sam’s notice. He rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh. Steve caught his expression and couldn’t help but chuckle, causing Sam to join in.

Natasha stopped mid-sentence. “What?”

“Nothing. Keep going,” Sam smiled.

Natasha narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but Steve cut her off.

“Why are we going to the 36th floor?”

“That’s where the celebration is,” Natasha explained as if it were common knowledge.

“I thought we were going to the roof,” Steve said, “That’s always where we have birthday parties in warm weather.”

“Well, my star-spangled friend, this year is different,” she informed him with a wink, “Don’t worry so much.”

Steve made a mental map of the Tower in his head, and all he could place on the 36th floor was what Tony liked to call the “media room,” which was a giant room with a screen that took up almost an entire wall and had comfortable seating spread throughout the floor space. The back of the room had a wet bar and snack area. To Steve, it was just a fancy movie room and he didn’t know what the difference was, but he knew better than to argue it with Tony.

When the quartet got off the elevator, the rest of the team was waiting for them in the media room. Red, white, and blue decor was everywhere. It looked like someone had looked up Fourth of July decorations on Pinterest and then actually made all of them. The smell of fresh popcorn wafted from the back of the room, and Steve looked back to see an unopened bottle of his favorite whiskey sitting on the bar.

“Not bad, huh?” Tony walked over with a proud grin. “Plus, it’s the most soundproof area in the Tower.”

For all the shit everyone gave Tony about being self-centered, he always seemed to come through when it counted. Steve pulled him in for a hug.

“It’s perfect. Thank you, Tony.”

Tony awkwardly patted Steve on the back. “Grab some food and take a seat,” he said, gesturing over toward the snack table set up near the bar.

There were a number of individual boxes of popcorn in addition to various other foods that Steve loved.

“Can I crack open this whiskey?” Natasha asked, holding it up. She had already lined up a few glasses with frozen stones in them on the bar.

Steve laughed, “Yeah. Knock yourself out.”

It took some time for everyone to gather their food and drinks for the movie, but eventually, everyone was settled in around the room.

Tony got up and walked in front of the screen, clearing his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to the media room on this most special of days: the anniversary of America’s independence and Steve’s birth.” He paused for a moment while the team clapped. “To celebrate, we are going to watch a movie that truly makes me proud to be an American every time I watch it. Nothing screams America quite like it. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…The Sandlot.”

“Is he kidding?” Sam whispered to Steve, who shrugged.

“I have no idea what The Sandlot is,” Steve admitted.

“You will!” Tony called from the front of the room. “It is about the great American pastime: baseball. You’ll also learn how to make a proper s’more, which is honestly something you could use a little work on.”

“Okay, okay!” Steve gave in. “Start the movie.”

Tony bowed and hit play on the remote as he returned to his seat.

The team ate and laughed together through the movie. Thor was especially entertained with saying, “You’re killing me, Smalls!” to anyone smaller than him, which was everyone.

When the credits rolled, everyone got more to eat and drink and lounged around, telling stories of both shared and individual experiences. As the night wore on into the morning hours, people began falling asleep in their spots around the room.

Eventually, Steve was the only one left awake. He looked around at his friends, who fought by his side and he trusted with his life. Settling in on the couch he had been sitting on, he quietly instructed F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn down the lights. Once the lights dimmed, a very grateful Steve Rogers fell asleep in the company of friends.

Tags: @partypoison @hisredhenley @themcuhasruinedme @mellifluous-melodramas @buckyappreciationsociety @armpratt @melconnor2007 @psychicwitchphilosopher @axelinchen

[evoldir]

Postdoc: ColumbiaU.EcoEvoEpiTickBorneDisease

A postdoctoral fellow position is available in Maria Diuk-Wassers EcoEpidemiology lab at the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B), Columbia University. The applicant will join a collaborative project with Yi-Pin Lin and Laura Kramer (Wadsworth Center, NY State Dept of Health, Albany, NY), Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis (SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY) and Ben Adams (University of Bath, Bath, UK) to study strain dynamics and host specialization in Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease bacterium, recently funded by the NSF Div. of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS). This project offers a unique opportunity to integrate long-term field data collection, lab transmission experiments, molecular evolutionary epidemiology, and mathematical modeling to examine the processes driving B. burgdorferi diversity and host specialization. For more info on the research teams, see: - Maria Diuk-Wasser [eco-epidemiology] at http://bit.ly/2AI23m6 - Yi-Pin Lin [host-pathogen interactions] at http://bit.ly/2EVN8sz - Laura Kramer [host-pathogen interactions] at http://bit.ly/2AGJ1fS - Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis [molecular evolution] at http://bit.ly/2EUUWdS - Ben Adams [biomathematics] at http://bit.ly/2AGJ2QY Candidates should have a doctoral (or equivalent) degree in ecology, epidemiology, microbiology or related fields. Background in molecular biology methods is required, in addition to skills in one or more of the following areas: population or community ecology, population genetics or dynamic modeling of microbes/vectors/vertebrate reservoir hosts. Highly desirable skills: knowledge of high-throughput sequencing methodology and relevant bioinformatics; field and laboratory animal handling experience. The successful candidate must be capable of working independently in an interdisciplinary environment and have strong quantitative and writing skills evidenced by scholarly publications. In addition to the formal collaborations, opportunities exist for collaboration with the Columbia U Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia Earth Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, the Wildlife Conservation Society, EcoHealth Alliance, and the NY Genome Center. Women and minorities encouraged to apply. Columbia University is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the ADA. The University encourages all qualified individuals to apply, and does not discriminate on the basis of any protected status, including veteran and disability status. Application deadline: December 1, 2018. The position will remain open until filled. Expected start date: May-June 2019. Salary is commensurate with experience. Applications should include a CV, a statement of research interests, and the contact information of 3 referees in a single PDF file to be sent to mad2256@columbia.edu. Maria Diuk-Wasser, PhD Columbia University Dept. of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology New York, NY 10027, USA koloko@amnh.org via Gmail