Machines

The thing that is the worst for me is to think of people as workhorses, machines, automatons, robots, or mechanical devices. We are breathing, feeling, needing to be self-actualized human beings. I have never felt as if I was quite like other people. What was said by a speaker at the donor appreciation lecture for the Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired was that (and this is rhetoric to me) that the bigger one's life, the smaller the disability. I agree that confidence is great, and we should all build each other up. It is much easier to put someone down than to build someone up. see so much bullying on one end and fear and pretention on the other. . Either you are hoisted on a pedestal or kicked to the curb if you are disabled. There are the poster children or adults, and they, and only they are the exception to the rule. I once heard Louise Rude say something like we did not want to have to prove ourselves or have to be better than anyone else. We just wnated to be mediocre. Louise Rude helped to initiate AIRRES the Alaska Information Radio Reading and Education Service. She was also, arguably, the first Director of the first Independent Living Center, but was not happy about the bureaucracy and politics, I have heard. Louise Rude died of cancer in March, 1993. The Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired was a concept that was initiated by Sandy Sanderson and Louise Rude. Their website is www.alaskabvi.org. So, why we view ourselves may be different but the stereotype of us being courageous or amazing, I have discussed before. Koraling Lynne