Eulogy for my mother Dr. Miriam P. Schmerler Monday, September 6, 2010, State College, PA “People do not wish to learn about how to deal with death until they are confronted by death, and when they are confronted with death they are not inclined to study how religion approaches it,” writes Maurice Lamm in […]
From Where I Sit Column
“Individuals with Disabilities Remain One of Our Nation’s Greatest Untapped Resources”
“Individuals with Disabilities Remain One of Our Nation’s Greatest Untapped Resources” A shot from the revolver of the Rhode Island policeman went off by mistake. The bullet hit Jim Langevin, a 16-year-old boy, who was a police cadet in a Boy Scout Explorer Program. It hit Langevin’s spine and kept going. The damage made him […]
Won’t ride ‘em cowboy: This is my final column
Note: The following is the text of my February, 2011 column at Voices where I announce the end of my From Where I Sit column. The hard copy text, complete with a photograph of me, is available at newsstands in Centre County. I am reproducing it here for two reasons. First a reader insisted that […]
Travel barriers limit lives of those with disabilities
The following is my June, 2010 column From Where I Sit for Voices of Central Pennsylvania: “Are you really my son?” my 84-year-old mother, who suffers from dementia, asks. Six weeks ago my mother, Dr. Miriam Pell Schmerler, stopped answering the telephone by herself. Our weekly calls were models of the bizarre, with my combining […]
New column speaks to disabled, elderly issues–from Voices of Central Pennsylvania
July 2017. State College/University Park, PA. Years later, this reflection on the Sandusky scandal still rings true: ++++ “As a former graduate student at Penn State with a disability and as one who is part of the elderly community, the focus by powerful officials on football-above-all has also been used to cover up exploitation of […]