I have a disability, and I am pro-choice.(Although I can't always say that my life has been all about exercising a plethora of choices, more about coping with scarcity, but that is a topic for another time). However, I think it is because I know what it is like to have my bodily autonomy questioned or attacked outright, that I am solidly in favor of women making the decisions about the children they have or do not have.

Dear Americans with Disabilities,

It's a pleasure for me to join you in celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Americans with disabilities are an essential and underutilized part of our workforce. As President, I will work hard to help you achieve full equality - in the workplace, in education, and in all aspects of life.

I don't have to tell you the dismal statistics - an employment rate 40 points below that of working-age individuals without disabilities and a federal failure to meet the disability employment targets of Executive Order 13173.

I hope this will be an entertaining Pop Culture Thursday double-header this week. It's funny how that happens sometimes; some weeks there is nothing and now there are two in one day, just out of synchronicity.

With all the talk about Downs Syndrome in the news lately, it made me think about a book that has been hanging around our house for months. Despite watching a well-acted but ultimately disappointing "Lifetime" movie adaptation, I strongly recommend this book.

Though The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a work of fiction, it is immediately apparent that Ms. Edwards has done a lot of research among people with Down's Syndrome and their loved ones to bring her vision to life, and it's in the little details with which she excels.

Editors note: From time to time I publish guest articles to the DisabilityNation site. The following was written by Katherine Schneider, Ph.D. Ms. Schneider is a retired clinical psychologist and Senior Psychologist, Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

I can't decide whether or not to picket the movie "Blindness" when it comes to a theater in Eau Claire. It's an allegory, I know, but the images in it of blind people groping and behaving badly will stay in the back of people's minds. I know--I've been blind from birth and have battled those negative images for 59 years.

This news comes from Bob Kafka of ADAPT.

Dear Advocates:

The legal prong of the "Pitchfork Approach for Social Change" has been active and notching up victories. Individuals in nursing homes, going to Court with assistance from AARP, P&a's and Social Justice lawyers, have won victories in Oregon, Illinois and Florida. (See short summaries below). Advocates efforts to get folks out of nursing homes must continue aggressively. This begins by identifying individuals who want out. This requires advocates to go in and directly speak to the folks in nursing homes to let them know there are opportunities for services in the community.

Interesting and disability-positive editorial from the The Washington Postthis week, although maybe I have become so accustomed to invisibility any coverage is like crumbs to a starving person

This week's Pop Culture Thursday(sorry I'm late again) once again centers on the able-bodied actor I'd most like to claim as an honorary crip, Hugh Laurie and his iconic alter ego, Dr. Greg House.It's funny that I found myself awaiting the chance to catch up with Season 4 so eagerly...at the beginning of the series I rolled my eyes at the thought of watching some British actor "gimp it up".(I've been burned a lot...what can I say?) Now, it's totally hard to believe Laurie doesn't walk like that all the time.

I admit I am prepared to believe the worst about Sarah Palin, first for the idiotic Clinton pander and the somewhat unappetizing combination of aw-shucks girliness with Church Lady sanctimony, that for whatever reason a great number of my countrywomen eagerly embrace. And you can't follow electoral politics long without recognizing holes between behavior and stated rhetoric.

So I was prepared to believe it when segments of the blogosphere claimed "Palin cut Special Needs Funding."

Please note that you will likely not see much in the way of new content on the DisabilityNation site for the next two weeks. I'm going on vacation and will be trying to unhook from the world of technology. No blogging and no podcasts. Its possible that Erika may have a few items to post but I will not be publishing anything until October 1.

Thanks for your understanding.

The Palin pick reminds me of nothing so much, as this.

A few springs ago, during one of the latest rounds of budget "chicken"(wherein Republicans insist they're going to cut everything, and Democrats insist we win if everything is about the same as before) I went to a protest, no doubt staged by those wily, do-nothing community organizers in between latte lunches and a few brisk hours of heartland bashing, to protect the Division of Developmental Disabilities community-based attendant program, which I benefit from.

Those of you in the Nation who have been advocating for years for closer examination of the financial picture relating to funding and operations of institutions and nursing homes probably know this. However, for the benefit of everyone else I want to make a point of identifying just how much of an economic engine locking away our brothers and sisters with disabilities has become for states across the country. In this case, its the state of Kentucky and an all to common problem. Housing people with disabilities in institutions generates revenue and jobs for areas where both are extremely hard to come by.

I think that "King of The Hill" is one of the great underrated satires on television, despite constantly losing column inches to the more gag-centered "Family Guy(although the talking dog and evil baby sometimes kill me too.)

I happened to catch one of my favorites on repeats last night, although if you are cautious regarding "King Of The Hill" and disability humor after the painfully unfunny set of ADA- mocking jokes in season 3's episode"Junkie Business" you are not alone.

I must admit to not being a disability-studies powerhouse like Miss Crip Chick.

I came late, and rather haphazardly, to anything that resembles crip theory. Maybe that's why I'm so interested in how those of us with disabilities are perceived within the larger culture; I was well into my adulthood before I realized that we had anything like a unifying culture of our own. Of course, I was seventeen before I ever got to experiment with the internet, so in many ways I already feel that my understanding is a bit...antique on many issues

. Reading last year's Telethon Blog Carnival brought back so many memories.