Lot's of head-scratching going on right now from the powers-that-be.  This
gives me a little time to come out from my "bumker", dial-in and respond to
some emails:

I've done a lttle research on the topic, though my "sources" are not handy
right now.  Anyway, the vast majority of CPers are either hemis or
diplegics, with "mild" CP.  This also translates to most CPers working
full-time in either mainstream jobs, or jobs associated with disabiliies
(for example:  all of the office workers at my physiatrist's university
clinic are disabled with some sort of motor disorder, or they are amputees.

With these stats in mind, I'm not sure how Bobby's remarks could be seen as
offensive.  Our capitalist system favors brain over brawn.  If one is the
least bit creative, it's not difficult in this country to find work.

I do think, however, that our's is a "culture of complaint".  I'm as prone
as anybody to the "victim mentality" so prevalent in our culture.  The sad
truth for the chronic "victim" is that it's the same capitalist system that
creates enough largess so that anyone can become a victim.

If you want to see true "victimhood", take a trip sometime to South East
Asia, where hundreds of thousands of Cambodian kids have an incredibly bleak
future.  Why?  because they've had an arm or leg (or both) blown off by a
landmine.  Their culture shuns the "defective", so they are outcasts in
their own country, usually living at a below-subsistence level.

I have a friend who has a prosthetics business in Pnom Penh.  He trains
young people (amputees) to make prostheses and then sends them back to their
own village to start "cottage industries", making prosthetics for others.
Many of those kids go on to work for the original amputee, thereby growing
the business.

They do this with the most rudimentary of tools, often using hand tools as
they have no electricity in many of the outlying villages.  We have so much
more than they, yet they still have no sense that they are "victims".  It
can be pretty humbling.

Back to work...

-Kyle



-----Original Message-----
From: SteveWalline [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 4:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: butt load of pocket change


Kinda tacky to use that term when many people with CP are getting by on
SSI.Many
disabled aren't able to work even long enough for SSDI.We all admire
success,lets remember peoples feelings also.