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1993-04-06
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(21) Sat 6 Mar 93 7:21p
By: Anthony Seebeck
To: All
Re: Budget Cuts
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--> Note:
Copied (from: BLINKTALK) by Anthony Seebeck using timEd.
Hello Everyone!
I also get a news letter for the Light House from the Blind and there
was an article that I thought I would post.
PROPOSED STATE BUDGET CUTS CAUSING CONCERN
According to the Texas Commission for the Blind, the Texas Legislative
Budget Board (LBB) released its recommendations, which include major
cuts in Texas social service programs.
How may this affect you? The recommendations of the LBB would mean
cutting services to more than 6,000 Texans who are blind or visually
impaired. Proposed cuts of $4.7 million in state appropriations for
the Commission for the Blind will mean a loss of $14.5 million in
federal matching funds for the fiscal years '94 - '95.
The Legislature is moving fast to come to terms with the State's
budget shortfall in the face of increasing demands.
For updates on this issue, contact the Public Information Office of
the Texas Commission for the Blind at 800-252-5204.
If you would like to comment on these recommendations, you may write
to your State Senator or Representative at the following addresses:
State Senators (*)
P.O. Box 12068
Austin, TX 78711-2068
* State Senators
Florence Shapiro, District 2
O.H. Harris, District 8
David Sibley, District 9
Chris Harris, District 10
Mike Moncrief, District 12
John Leedom, District 16
Jan Nelson, District 22
Royce West, District 23
Steven Carriker,District 30
State Representative (**)
P.O. Box 2910
Austin, TX 78768
** State Representatives
Nancy Moffat, District 98
Kenny Marchant, District 99
Samuel Hudson, III, District 100
Bill Blackwood, District 101
Tony Goolsby, District 102
Steven Wolens, District 103
Roberto Alonzo, District 104
Al Granoff, District 105
Ray Allen, District 106
David Cain, District 107
John Carona, District 108
Helen Giddings, District 109
Jesse Jones, District 110
Yvonne Davis, District 111
Fred Hill, District 112
Joe Driver, District 113
Will Hartnett, District 114
73's Anthony AA7KV
* Origin: ??? (1:124/5118.5207)
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(23) Sat 6 Mar 93 9:38p
By: Richard Webb
To: All
Re: Blind Workers Fight Back
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The following was forwarded by Silver Xpress mail system:
FROM: John Dragona Area # 10 ( Blinktalk )
TO: All Subjects MSG # 127, Feb-28-93 7:00pm
SUBJECT: BLIND WORKERS FIGHT BACK
This article was published in Sharing Magazine, February, 1993.
TIME TO FIGHT BACK
For years, blind and visually impaired home instructors at the New
Jersey Commission for the Blind have been trying to get their salary
up to par with sighted professional co-workers. Every diplomatic
route was taken; every argument, meticulously detailed. The message
they got? "Blind people aren't worth equal pay."
The Commission has a rehabilitation center where separate sighted
people teach braille, typing, activities of daily living, cooking,
sewing, home maintenance, crafts, etc. CBVI's home instructors,
though, teach all of these skills, in their clients's homes, not in a
familiar surrounding. Yet, the instructors at the Rehab Center are
paid $12,000 more per year than are the home instructors.
Home instructors have to be academically qualified and have experience
working with blind people to take a Civil Service test for the job.
In addition, they must be able to teach the skills they've learned as
blind people. To be a vocational counselor in that agency, on the
other hand, a B.A. isn't even necessary. Yet, counselors can climb
the career ladder to senior vocational counselor, career placement
specialist and supervisor, while home instructors have no career
ladder. A person who never entered a social work class can climb from
social worker #2, to #1 to supervisor. But, of course, these two
positions have been traditionally off limits to blind people, while
their occupants also earn $12,000 more a year.
Although there are other examples, it should suffice to say the home
instructors finally got fed up. Thirteen of them hired an attorney,
Robert Gasser of Toms River to represent them.
Shocked at the prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices at
the Commission for the Blind against blind staff, Mr. Gasser writes:
"The creation of a wage differential between the sighted and blind
instructors ... for equivalent work performed, constitutes wage
discrimination and is contrary to both federal and state law on
discrimination." He has since filed suit against the Commission for
the Blind, the NJ Department of Human Services, the NJ Department of
Personnel and the Communications Workers of America.
In addition to this major civil suit, The U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunities Commission and the Communications Workers of
America are presently working on cases of discrimination against the
New Jersey Commission for the Blind because of its discriminatory
practices against blind employees. Look for progress reports.
RICHARD WEBB
... "IF I WANTED WINDOWS, I'D LIVE IN A GREENHOUSE"
* Origin: Karma *VS* Dogma (1:290/6)
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(48) Tue 16 Mar 93 7:56p
By: John Covici
To: All
Re: Group charges disabled en
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GROUP CHARGES: STARVATION OF BUSALACCHI ENDANGERS ALL DISABLED U.S.
Justice Department Snubs Discrimination Complaint
CLUB OF LIFE
by Linda Everett
A St. Louis hospital, several physicians, and a man who is trying to
starve his disabled daughter to death because he believes ``she is
better off dead,'' have been charged with discriminating against the
disabled.
The group making the charge, WATCH of Kansas City (We Are Together
Concerned for the Handicapped), which consists of handicappers and
caregivers of the profoundly disabled, filed a complaint with the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights
charging that Barnes Hospital, its doctors, and Pete Busalacchi are
discriminating against Christine Busalacchi by denying her food and
water, solely because she is disabled.
When presented with all the facts, court and hospital records, and the
reality that several Missouri laws are being ignored by the parties
charged, the Civil Rights Office said only that this was
``interesting.''
Yvette Williams, who filed the complaint, works closely with eight
profoundly disabled individuals in a group home. Although they do
small jobs, their daily lives depend on caretakers like Yvette, who
told the Club of Life, ``If they can get away with killing Christine,
no one with disabilities is safe.''
- `A Family Matter'? -
In 1991, Pete Busalacchi petitioned the court for the right to murder
Christine, who had suffered brain injuries in a 1987 accident.
Through two years of court battles, the state of Missouri blocked his
starvation petition and appealed it--until this January, when
Missouri's new Attorney General, Jay Nixon, revoked all state
protection for Christine. Although Missouri law prohibits starving any
patient to death unless the patient's ``request'' is in writing, or
there exists ``clear and convincing'' evidence that starvation was
(incredibly) a patient's wish, Nixon announced that what Pete
Busalacchi wanted to do to his daughter was a ``family matter.''
Really? As Yvette Williams says, ``If the guy next door decides not to
feed his kids, is that just a `family matter'? If so, we should get
rid of all those child abuse laws right now!''
On Feb. 24, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected petitions filed by
Betsy McDonald of St. Louis, who asked the court to appoint her
Christine's guardian in place of Pete Busalacchi, on grounds that he,
with his insistence that Christine was ``better off dead,'' was not
acting in her best interest. That's putting it mildly. Busalacchi was
active in his assaults on her. For example: Christine was able to take
her meals orally, and to swallow. But, since Missouri law prohibits
the starvation of anyone who receives his meals orally (rather than
by, say, nasogastric tube), her father ordered the oral meals stopped.
Then, the lies were spread. The media, like UPI, falsely claim
Christine ``cannot chew or swallow.'' The ``ethicist'' and nominally
Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Kevin O'Rourke of St. Louis
University, says that Christine's feeding tube ``circumvents the
pathology--the inability to chew and swallow. But it doesn't help the
patient to think, to love, or to relate to other people.''
Not only is O'Rourke lying. He is using the same rationales the Nazis
did to exterminate people. According to his thinking, anybody who
can't ``relate'' or ``think'' or ``love'' the way he says they should,
can be eliminated. Is that what he proposes for the severely
handicapped individuals Yvette works with? Or for the insane, who have
trouble ``relating''? Either way, Hitler did it first.
- And Now--`Vegetable' -
The doctor who said that Christine was not in a ``persistent
vegetative state,'' but claimed, nonetheless, that she was ``not
human,'' recently had her transferred to the Barnes Hospital in St.
Louis for ``neurological tests.'' Then, on Feb. 24, doctors at Barnes
announced to the press that she is in a ``persistent vegetative
state'' (PVS). That was her death sentence.
The label PVS, a term neither medical nor scientific, gives no
indication of what can be done for the patient. The label of vegetable
is meant to convey one thing to the public: This is a life not worth
living, and it will be disposed of.
A Barnes spokesman said the hospital will make no other statements
about Christine's condition, including whether her feeding has been
stopped.
The U.S. Justice Department refused to hear the WATCH complaint, even
after it was recommended to them by the HHS Civil Rights Office.
Somehow, the DOJ doesn't think the disabled deserve its attention--or
food and water, for that matter.
From New Federalist V7, #10.
* Origin: The Lincoln Legacy 703-777-5987 1200-14400 HST DS
(1:109/909)
[Editor's Note: See related stories re Christine Busalacchi in
9303EU.ANR.]