-----Original Message----- From: Ragged Edge [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 17:17 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Ragged Edge E-Letter 1/19/2005 ** THESE MOVIES ARE JUST KILLING US... Million Dollar Baby has just brought Clint Eastwood a Golden Globe for Best Director. The Sea Inside has brought Alejandro Amenábar a Golden Globe for best foreign-language film. What links both movies? The message that it's the kind thing to do to kill someone who's become a quadriplegic. "A corny, melodramatic assault," says Not Dead Yet's Steve Drake in his review of Eastwood's latest. http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/reviews/drakemillionbaby.html The Sea Inside opens with the sound of quadriplegic Ramon Sampedro breathing. Jessica Yu's 1996 Academy Award winning Breathing Lessons started the same way. Yu's film celebrated disability, says Art Blaser, while The Sea Inside is "a seductive but socially irresponsible film of what can only be called disability defamation." http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/reviews/blaserseainside.html Disability groups are starting to raise a stink about these movies. Not Dead Yet activists are picketing and distributing protest leaflets at this evening's Chicago Film Critics Association awards gala at the Union League Club of Chicago (info at http://www.notdeadyet.org/docs/bigotpr.html) The National Spinal Cord Injury Association has just issued a news release calling Baby "a brilliantly executed attack on people with spinal cord injury." Check PR Newswire at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/ to read the release. Steve Drake offers suggestions as to what you can do to protest the movie, too. http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/reviews/drakemillionbaby.html#resp Ragged Edge editor Mary Johnson wonders about the appearance of two crip snuff films at the end of 2004, propping up what is likely the most contentious public issue since abortion. http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/mediacircus/killingkindly.html ** DID YOU MISS?... Cal Montgomery looks into what's happening for disabled people in the regions hit by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Many disabled people are part of the global effort to help disabled and nondisabled people rebuild their lives, she reports. The broader issue is emergency preparedness for disabled people. There's a lot to do everywhere. http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus/tsunami0105.html William J. Peace reviews Gary Karp's and Stan Klein's compilation of stories from survivors of spinal cord injury, From There to Here. http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/reviews/peacethereherekarp.html YOUR NEXT E-LETTER will arrive Feb. 2, 2005. ** TALK BACK TO US! Have comments about what you've read in this e-letter or anything else on our websites? Let us know what you think -- email us at [log in to unmask] ****************** The Ragged Edge E-Letter will arrive in your mailbox on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. To stop getting this e-letter, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.