Circa 2009-10 Like a lot of children of the ‘80s and ‘90s, I spent a lot of time in front of a television in my formative years. Somewhere in my mother’s house are stacks of videotapes of Looney Tunes, Seinfeld and Quantum Leap episodes that I watched again and again until their images started ... Read more
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Shemar Moore Issue
Circa 2009-2010
Articles in the Shemar Moore Issue; Humor — A Toast to Santa; Ashley’s Column — Abroad with Down Time; Book Excerpt — Get Off Your Knees; Power Soccer — More Than a Goal; Alia Malek — Amreeka the Beautiful; Book’s Cover — Judging Between the Lines; Hollywood Forum — IAMPWD, Disability and Actors; Multiple Sclerosis — MS v SCI; The Squigman — Squeaks by with Craftily Acting Saucy; Life Rolls On — More Fun Than a Barrel of Jesse’s; Quads 4 Quads — Riding Four Ways From Sunday; Bad Boys — EEOC Tackles Job Discrimination; Dream Writer — How to Write Right in the Light; Moore Care for a Cause — Hollywood’s Hunky Helper; ABILITY House — Building Dreams; Innovations for Accessibility — Wired for Better Health; ABILITY’s Crossword Puzzle; Events and Conferences
Multiple Sclerosis — MS v SCI
Circa 2009-10 Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of more than 80 diseases known as autoimmune disorders. Other notable autoimmune disorders include Systemic Lupus Erythematosis (“lupus” or “SLE”) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). These diseases operate by “confusing” a person’s immune system and attacking healthy cells within the body. Treatment of autoimmune disorders is tricky, particularly ... Read more
Quads 4 Quads — Riding Four Ways From Sunday
Circa 2009-10 The dust is sometimes too much for Ari Seirlis. It swirls around him, chunks of soil pelting his face, dry air burning in his nostrils. The sun is scalding, and so is the engine on his four-wheeler. And Seirlis is in love. September marks an annual trek for Seirlis: the Quads 4 ... Read more
The Squigman — Squeaks by with Craftily Acting Saucy
Circa 2009-10 Let’s begin with a little TV history: back in the 1970s and early ’80s, there weren’t dozens of cable networks doing original programming, or YouTube, or Facebook, or iPods, or a thousand other means of mass distraction. There were three TV networks, a nascent PBS, and radio. Back then, primetime network television ... Read more
Life Rolls On — More Fun Than a Barrel of Jesse’s
Circa 2009-10 At just 17 years old, Jesse Billauer was left paralyzed after a surfing accident broke his neck and severed his spinal cord. Despite his doctors’ prediction that he would never surf again, Billauer took back to the waves and immersed himself in the Life Rolls On non-profit foundation, using adaptive equipment to ... Read more
Book Excerpt — Get Off Your Knees
Circa 2009-10 As the summer after high school graduation fades, incoming freshmen await the start of college with some universal questions: Am I choosing the right major? Can I handle the workload? Will I get along with my roommate? But for John Robinson, determined to succeed in his first taste of living away from ... Read more
Ashley’s Column — Abroad with Down Time
Circa 2009-10 We’re in the middle of what is called “down time” in women’s motocross. This means we’re done with our racing season and that I won’t start back up again until April, when I head on over to Europe to race in the women’s FIM racing series. As you might remember, I broke ... Read more
Dream Writer — How to Write Right in the Light
Circa 2009-10 People always advise me that I can do anything I want, in spite of my disability. But my disability, stage-four Friedreich’s Ataxia, is a very complicated one. So I guess I cannot realistically be an astronaut. But I can be an astronaut on paper. It is human nature to have dreams. Within ... Read more
ABILITY House — Building Dreams
Circa 2009-10 Networking. I used to think of it as an awful, dirty word and an even sneakier and sly practice. From passing around cards to shaking hands, everything seemed fake and manufactured and disingenuous. Yet people applauded it, spoke so highly of the benefits and importance of this practice, this networking business. What ... Read more
Bad Boys — EEOC Tackles Job Discrimination
Circa 2009-10 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal laws prohibiting discrimination in employment. The following are recent cases brought about from the EEOC. CLAYTON GROCERY SUED FOR LEARNING DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION Clayton Ranch Market, a grocery store in Clayton, NM, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing to hire a qualified ... Read more
Innovations For Accessibility — Wired for Better Health
Circa 2009-10 Around the globe, health and mental health services grapple with two concerns that have reduced the effectiveness and increased the costs of health care: low levels of worldwide health literacy and a lack of effective support for self-care of chronic health problems. Recently, however, studies at the Westchester Institute for Human Development ... Read more
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Circa 2009-10 I recently participated in a workshop about organizational development. Everything about the learning environment seemed perfect: the class was small, the agenda looked interesting, and the presenter was engaging. I was ready to learn. We were asked to purchase two books for the course. One was titled, The Fifth Discipline: The Art ... Read more
Power Soccer — More Than a Goal
Circa 2009-10 Dakotah Smith had heard the traditional cries of doubt. “You can’t play. You’re a girl. Girls don’t play sports like soccer.” But those archaic statements never shook Smith’s determination—she had already faced more difficult doubts. Her desire to compete, to win, and to be part of a team trumped all the questions ... Read more
Alia Malek — Amreeka the Beautiful
Circa 2009-10 While driving home from a long day at the office, ABILITY Magazine’s Chet Cooper happened upon a National Public Radio (NPR) interview with a woman named Alia Malek, author of “A Country Called Amreeka”. In her interview, Malek described her book as featuring a cross-section of Arab-Americans in an effort to challenge ... Read more
Humor Therapy — A Toast to Santa
Circa 2009-10 It was colder this year at the North Pole. The summer had brought about a record snowfall, and the drifts were higher than Robert Downey, Jr. The wind chill had dipped lower than the OJ Simpson dream team, and apathy had settled in like a flea on the back of a slobbering ... Read more
Shemar Moore
Dec/Jan 2009/10 Actor Shemar Moore had an eight-year run as Malcolm Winters on the popular daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, as well as a supporting role in the feature film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Today he stars on the CBS drama Criminal Minds as FBI Special Agent Derek Morgan. ... Read more
