It's Blogging Against Disablism Day, what can I do?

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day.  Feminists with Disabilities has a list of ways you can get involved.  "Disablism," which is synonymous with "ableism," refers to discrimination, derision, and mistreatment toward persons with disabilities.  Ableism can appear in our lives in many little ways, from commenting/glaring scornfully at the person who gets in to the elevator to go one floor, without considering that he or she might have a disability, to not recognizing the ways our work or living places may be inaccessible and hence unwelcoming to people with disabilities, to using language that makes disabled people uncomfortable or employs words previously used to deride disabled people to describe unrelated negative things.

Although I have always tried to be conscious of and considerate toward the needs of people with disabilities, I have only recently begun reading and thinking about the little ways I display ableism in my daily life, and what the implications of this are.  Feministe has an interesting post up on ableist language, which is one of the hardest habits for us non-disabled people to break.  These words are so ingrained in our descriptive lexicon, letting them go makes us feel unable to describe things...at a loss for words.  The problem with these words is twofold: one, we're associating people with disabilities with negative behavior, and two, we're obscuring the real problem with the behavior--AZ didn't pass the anti-immigration bill because its lawmakers are crazy, they did it out of racism, oppression, and vote-pandering.  This comment from Kowalski on the Feministe post sums up the issue with employing oppressive language to (ironically) describe oppressive people:

Another thing I notice a lot on many feminist blogs is how often the words moron, idiot, imbecile, and cretin, etc are used to describe reprehensible and oppressive people.
These words have been used to dehumanize people with developmental disabilities like myself and it really is worth considering how obnoxious it is to use these words to insult misogynist, racist, or homophobic people.

And here at femonomics, we're guilty as charged.  Take a quick scan down our homepage, and you'll see we've described things as "crazy" and "insane" many times, just in the past week!  In my earlier post on advocating for others, I admitted to not being ready to give these words up.  Well, today, on Blogging Against Disablism Day, I'm challenging myself to get a thesaurus already, and stop using ableist language in my blog posts.  It's not much, but that's what I can do.  What about you?

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: Chemicals and autism, David Patterson, wrongly accused, and more

Nicholas Kristof has an interesting piece today on the possible chemical roots of autism. It's interesting to see the broad environmental factors theory go mainstream at the same time as the vaccine hypothesis has been discredited, and time magazine is implying Jenny McCarthy is a little nuts. Also in the NYTimes, the internet may help boost TV ratings (as opposed to pirating music, which still doesn't increase record sales), and naps are nice.

And in other New York news, the dirt on David Paterson really is that bad this time. Apparently his administration tried to intimidate a woman pressing domestic violence charges against a staffer? Including a personal call from the governor. Just...no. Gawker thinks the end is near.

Speaking of domestic violence, does anyone else wish Chris Brown would shut the eff up? No, Chris, beating someone to a bloody pulp is not a "hiccup," and we don't all know you're a "good person" underneath. Also, we don't want to talk about your music. We want to talk about why you're not in jail.

EW's Owen Gleiberman has a blurb on Johnny Depp taking up the case of three (possibly wrongly) convicted killers. I hate miscarriages of justice in any form, but, much like John Grisham's Innocent Man, I'm troubled that the only time we can get riled up around shoddy legal work are in the (very few) instances where the accused are white. That's not to say this case needs any less attention, but believe me, there are plenty of cases of black men imprisoned or on death row for crimes they did not commit. Do we not find them as photogenic?

In other totally random news, two really cool tools that let you see changing demographics in interesting ways. This generational look from Pew, and a real-time update from worldometers (are they trying to go political with the abortion stats, though?). And I know it's only the wee hours of recipe Friday, but I was browsing the food blogs today, and came across these two neat-o things: 1) vegetarian Greek recipes for Greek Orthodox fasting and 2) a yummy looking pull-apart bread shaped like grapes.

[hat tips BB and ebert]

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: Kevin Smith vs. Southwest, Sarah Palin vs. Family Guy, and Fashion Week vs. the Recession

Two epic feuds and one made up one.  Read on.

Kevin Smith vs. Southwest
As you've probably heard by now, Kevin Smith was ejected from a Southwest flight when the captain decided he was too fat to fly safely.  Southwest has a longstanding "customers of size" policy, which dictates that passengers that cannot sit within the armrests of a seat must purchase an additional seat prior to travel.  The cost of the seat is refunded if there are extra seats on the flight.  The policy doesn't seem all that crazy, and is something many other airlines have recently adapted.  What's ludicrous is the capriciousness and insensitivity with which it is enforced.  Smith was ejected after he was seated on the flight, his carry-on was stowed, a desk agent had approved him flying with only one seat, and he had demonstrated he could sit completely within his seat, with both armrests down.  Smith's plight brought light to the issue, but reading the comments on Southwest's blog post revealed other customers with similar experiences, who had been ejected from flights in front of their peers or otherwise treated with insensitivity.