Thursday, February 26, 2009

No crip left behind?

I feel out-of-date - literally.
It is bad enough that I’m stuck here, wondering how I will get the converter box hooked up to my T.V in time for the impending switch, now scheduled for June, to digital signals. I got the coupon and bought the converter box; that was easy. I need someone to hook it up for me, and even my more technically savvy attendants are having difficulty doing so, at least so that I can also use my V.C.R (yes, I don’t have cable or satellite, but I do have a V.C.R and know how to program it and can do it myself, thank you! And it looks like I may well be no longer able to tape a program while I watch another once the converter box is hooked up.). They - whoever "they" are - say it’s easy, but that’s a lie, and the make-life-harder Republicans did their damnedest to block a delay of the switch from earlier this month. What am I to do? I am on a fixed income and don’t want to have to pay buku bucks for a handyman to come assist me. Do I call my social worker? Where are the army of helpers going door to door that I’ve read about? Not in my neighborhood. I wonder how many other folks like me - and seniors and others with low incomes - are looking at the prospect of a blank television screen come June.
But, then, there are C.D’s and D.V.D’s. Sure, they may sound and look way better, but they, unlike with supposedly any child these days, leave me behind. D.V.D’s and C.D’s are all but impossible for me to use, especially without scratching them. I can use audio and video cassettes all on my own, but they are getting as hard to find as dodo birds. This means I need an attendant to assist me when I want to listen or watch something. Not only does this entail more planning and all that, it’s not so cool when I want to sleaze out and watch Jackass 2 or some porn, not to mention gay porn. No doubt there’s some snazzy device that enables me to use C.D’s and D.V.D’s, but there’s also no doubt that it costs plenty, and I don’t have the big bucks - wanna bet that Medi-Cal will pay for it? - or strong desire to make someone richer off my disability.
And don’t get me started on those tiny iPods and iPhones! I thought technology was supposed to make me less disabled, not more.

1 comment:

  1. I am by far the more technically challenged when it comes to owning a cell or taping shows, as well as learning the operating of a PC. My hope is not that I can adjust to the new high tech world of phones and Tivo, but to have my attention drawn to the social aspects of direct contact versus using a computer or screen to lessen the hardships I am usually under with my own admitted disability of getting out of a comfort zone to have a more social experience. My T.V. allows me to veg out and isolate. Now, that said I have desire to change when the effort I usually go through is side tracked by the common thread of procrastination and action.
    Don't get me wrong, since I have known John, I always have said, to friends and to myself, that the way I have been more active in the past several years has given me more insight on how the activity and socialization is more often than not a lifestyle only accomplished through the attending work, as I am a part-time attendant and have had John and his more able than most people without a disability, find his lifestyle inspires and has rubbed off on my personal development to get out and live!
    This is a time to say the relationship of being freinds and employee have had perks I would never had thought to appreciate on my own, like theatre, northern trips with festivals and journeys to L.A., where getting out is the least of my problems, as I have requirement to be on a positive influence. As I had said to everyone who knows me and who knows or doesn't know yet about my employer and friend, the more I am with him, the more I feel the way to enjoy a more active lifestyle is to be bold and break down the wall of fear, and do the dream without dreaming to do it. My hat is off for the knowing and the experience I have had and keep having.
    As to the way the opinions of whether this budget or that budget is made, without taxing the more than less fortunate, politically it has a record of giving more or less credence to the people who don't need the money, with the acts of those incapable to bend a fairness to all. Instead the debate is down party lines and not without putting social programs at risk.
    To close I would like to add the work in progress I have been going through is not to further let the routine of T.V. and isolation stop me, since I have learned and know this life we live is too short to squander. May all you do for yourself, always be kind to what is true, and love who you are. My life lesson has taught me to be loving and giving, without blaming and projecting fears and distorted thinking, on the victims of societal financing, for those in real need of funding, without a doubt is probably the most obcene way we treat the people needing services. It is a shame we can not see the contradiction of calling ourselves a great nation, when we always have the problems of real life consequences, putting political rhetoric first, and leaving behind the policies of change. I have learned like the quote from Gandhi, "we must be the change we wish to see in the world".

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