Is this for real???  Obviously Saracrewe is not interested in hearing
others views on this topic that aren't her own.  Personally speaking, I'm
removing myself from responding any further to this self-righteous
campaign she is on and I would encourage you all to do the same.

Happy holidays!

Laura Mahoney
Office of Sponsored Projects
Smithsonian Institution

>>> SaraCrewe <[log in to unmask]> 12/18/96 03:53am >>>
<<Actually, (TAB) is not just any stupid label.  It highlights the fact that
there are people out there who assume that everyone for every purpose
has no limitations....The only reason some people are unable to
participate to the fullest extent is the fact that they are stuck in an
environment that was created on these misinformed assumptions.>>

Nope. TAB is an idiotic label. Walking is the norm. Walking is NOT an
abberation; most people can walk. After reading your post..."misinformed
assumptions," indeed!....I now realize that some people cannot THINK.

<First of all, look at the issue of human dignity.>> I am; I didn't realize that
offering help, or accepting help, was degrading. I was always under the
impression that generosity and kindness on both sides were vital to
human relationships. Oh, sorry. My mistake. (I must have been confusing
dignity with impoverishing people by overbearing tax burdens! How silly
of me!)

<<There is dignity in doing things for yourself. >> You mean in creating
the illusion of it. Hey, no problem. I just think you personally should be
taxed much more heavily than everyone else, since you champion
bleeding public coffers to enforce ADA. To do otherwise would be highly
hypocritical; so, why don't you give another 20 or 30 percent of your
disposable income immediately for this cause. I'll be waiting for that good
example....I expect it to happen around the time Jimmy Hoffa returns
home.

Then there's my favorite: << Are you going to be the one to help bring
someone in a wheel chair up those few steps.  I would very much like to
see you even try (even assuming the person in the chair even trusts you
to try). >> Well, you overbearing, ignorant little weasel. My father is in a
wheelchair, you bonehead, and I am VERY well aware of the logistics
involved in helping him gain access. It's a cooperative effort, no thanks to
pinheads like you. My family gets along fine, and all astonishingly without
government assistance! (Oh, but you're from Canada, right? Great
government-funded health care system you guys got! That's why there's
a two-year wait for routine MRIs, and Canadians run across the border
to private U.S. hospitals for their personal care. Gee, a lesson here?)

And more drivel, to wit, <<Do you at all acknowledge human rights, that
all people have the right to access all things equally...>> Sorry. The
Right to Equal Access must have been written out of my copy of the U.S.
Constitution. Nope, not in the Bill of Rights. Hey, maybe you're confusing
it with that wonderful government-funded (and almost bankrupt) health
care system you guys got up there?

Nope, can't see where spending a quarter of a million dollars on a
handicapped elevator reach two small bedrooms on the second floor of
a historic building is a civil right. You explain it to me....I bet you really use
your share of the mental health provision of that great
Canadian health care system up there!

<<Sure there might be cost and everyone must acknowledge that fact.
>> I do. That's why I INSIST you be taxed 20 to 30 percent more and
show the rest of us how it's done. You first, bub. It's not like the
handicapped (and other newly-minted civil rights groups) don't have a
legitimate claim to your income.

<<Have someone hold (a non-electric door) open if you can.  That is as
good an intervention as any given the circumstances.>> Well, duh! How
much money do they pay you to come up with these brainstorms? A little
common-sense shortage north of the border (along with MRI machines!)

<<Able-bodiedness should not be seen as a permanent norm.  Western
health care would like to cast it as such...> Well, not in CANADA,
anyway! Hey, babe, being alive isn't a "permanent norm," either; I think I
smell a civil rights issue for the "morbidly challenged"!

<<When I read this whole post I thought that it was some sort of joke...I
had to realize that ignorance just isn't confined to political parties.>>
You're right. Some Canadians are absolutely riddled with it!