Dr. Jeniffer Simon, a caring and experienced urologist, Geissinger Medical Center, State College PA showed me on her computer this image–a cancerous tumor surrounding my right kidney, referring me to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “Unless you have surgery quickly, you will be dead in 10 years.” The date: April 5, 2013, […]
power chairs
Pictorial essay on how Penn State’s “football culture” adversely affects disabled students
[Readers: Sadly, in July 2012 nothing has changed to guarantee the safety of disabled students regarding the hazards described in this photo essay written in 2006. See note at the end of the essay for more information on how this essay came to be written and why nothing has yet been done to secure the […]
Marilyn Tavenner Confirmation Watch June 19th Update: Who cares if anyone runs Medicare?
June 19, 2012 update on Marilyn Tavenner’s confirmation (don’t hold your breath) hearings: “So what did Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) say when HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asked him to hold a confirmation hearing for Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of CMS? “’It’s going to be difficult to proceed with the Republican opposition,’ said Baucus, chairman of […]
My mother Dr. Miriam P. Schmerler
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 […]
“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 […]
Protect disabled, elderly from fires and disasters
From Where I Sit: My column in Voices of Central Pennsylvania, November 2010 My only experience with an earthquake was in the Silicon Valley of California. I was staring at my broken computer when the earth moved beneath me. The following day The San Jose Mercury News put the earthquake on page one because of […]
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 […]
Helen Keller, Blair/Clearfield County Association for the Blind, and Disability Rights Attorney Peter Pinnola Answers Questions
From Where I SitDisabilities Info Expanded at Voicesweb.org [The following is my April, 2010 column for Voices of Central Pennsylvania.] I learned something 15 years ago when I became unable to walk. Yes, there was the grief over losing a power I had once cherished I loved to walk. At Columbia, I walked routinely from […]