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Care Work is a book of essays by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I am still working through this book, but already so much of it has stuck with me. This book gives a first hand account of the disability justice movement, which centers Black, Brown, queer, trans disabled and sick people. This is a movement that, while incredibly powerful, was largely ignored by mainstream media. Piepzna-Samarasinha's identifies as disabled and sick and their essays provide a model for what true and meaningful care, love, empathy and compassion look like. I think this book is a must read for anyone in our line of work and honestly anyone in general!

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Dreaming Disability Justice

Finalist, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

In their new, long-awaited collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime disability justice activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centres the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Leah writes passionately and personally about creating spaces by and for sick and disabled queer people of colour, and creative "collective access" -- access not as a chore but as a collective responsibility and pleasure -- in our communities and political movements. Bringing their survival skills and knowledge from years of cultural and activist work, Piepzna-Samarasinha explores everything from the economics of queer femme emotional labour, to suicide in queer and trans communities, to the nitty-gritty of touring as a sick and disabled queer artist of colour.

Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.

Leah knows that the world we deserve is a world shaped by the honest, messy, skillful genius of disabled queer femmes of color. Reading this book allows you to live inside the gorgeous, uncomfortable, emergent, compassionate world that disabled femmes of color have been making all along. Leah cares for us all with this work, but not in the apologetic, default, mommy mode you may be trained to expect. This care is the survivor-sourced, survivor-accountable, saltysweet truthtelling we need to (guess what?) SURVIVE. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of M Archive and Spill, co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha has written a brave and brilliant book that captures the messy gestation and wildly liberating vision of disability justice. With passionate integrity, she tells the collective story of a movement that transforms the idea of care into a force capable of unraveling all the braided injustices of our lives. -Aurora Levins Morales, author of Medicine Stories and Kindling: Writings On the Body

Page after page, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha documents the necessity, power, and sheer brilliance of disability justice. Be prepared for her words, stories, and political thinking to shake up what you know about care and access, revolutionary dreaming, and present-day resilience. -Eli Clare, author of Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure and Exile

We have mad crip dreams. In those dreams there exists a decolonized, liberated future in which none of our bodies and lives are disposable. With Care Work, Leah LakshmiPiepzna-Samarasinha reminds us that turning these dreams into radical practices have already been done, are happening right now within disability justice movements, and will continue to build a future where we are all free. This book is a touchstone for our journey. -Qwo-Li Driskill, author of Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory

An instant classic, Care Work is equal parts on-the-ground dispatch from the disability justice movement and practical field guide to liberatory access. Rather than something to be begrudgingly tacked on, accessibility, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha shows us, might be joyous and collective. - Smithsonian Magazine

As a Black disabled activist, cultural worker, and collector of art, books and music by people of color with disabilities for more than twenty years, I'm excited and thirsty for Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's Care Work. As one of the original thinkers of Disability Justice, I'm overjoyed that artists and activists like Leah are writing books like this one that helps water the roots of Disability Justice. This book is coming from the bed, the streets and on stages that Leah has spoke, taught, performed and struggled on -- thats why it's so accessible and brings lived knowledge into our outdated, stiff institutions and activist movements. In this era of hyper capitalism, toxic hypermasculinity, and White supremacy, we desperately need Care Work. -Leroy F Moore Jr. , co-founder of Sins Invalid, co-founder of National Black Disability Coalition

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice is a collection profoundly necessary at this moment . .. the essays share a fundamental hypothesis: to achieve social justice, ableism must be destroyed. Personal narratives and accounts of organizing are voiced from Black and brown and queer disabled people, radically reimagining the ways our society is structured, uplifting visions and models for care webs that create collective access. - Broadly (Best Books of the Year)

Leah writes brilliantly about sick/disabled/mad/neurodivergent genius, collective care work, and all-too-familiar patterns of abuse and trauma that happen even/especially in radical spaces/marginalized people's communities. Care Work is a necessary intervention for those in queer/trans people-of-color spaces and white disability spaces alike, but more importantly, it's an offering of love to all of us living at multiple margins, between spaces of recognition and erasure, who desperately need what Leah has to say. This book is an invitation to dream and to build and to love, as slowly and imperfectly and unevenly as we need to. -Lydia X. Z. Brown, co-editor of All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism

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Finalist, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian NonfictionIn their new, long-awaited collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime disability justice activist and performance artist Leah ...

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Crip Camp is a documentary that came out on Netflix last year and was nominated for an Oscar. The movie documents the journey of campers at Camp Jened, a camp in the Catskills for people with disabilities. Many of the campers, including Judy Heumann, went on to be activists and leaders in the disability rights movement. This movie captures the powerful and close knit community at Camp Jened that catalyzed a movement of activists determined to fight against ableism and for accessibility and disability rights.

I was especially excited to watch this movie because it features two of my family friends, Denise and Neil Jacobson. I have known them my whole life because they go to my temple in Oakland. However, I did not know many of the details of their experience and story until I watched Crip Camp. I think this is an important move for everyone to watch in that it documents immense progress made in the disability rights movement with a focus on those disabled activists that worked to make it happen. However, I think it should be watched along with resources like Care Work that document concurrent struggles and activism happening in LGBTQIA and BIPOC sick and disabled communities that is often overlooked by mainstream media.

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Watch Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution | Netflix Official Site

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A groundbreaking summer camp galvanizes a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement, forging a new path toward greater equality. Watch trailers & learn more.

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This book was written by a 13 year old autistic boy, Naoki Higashida. It was initially written in Japanese and published in English in 2013. From the unique format of questions and answers to the imaginative stories throughout, The Reason I Jump is a remarkable book that I could not put down and ended up reading in one sitting. In the book, Naoki speaks directly to educators and care givers who support and work with people with autism. Reading this book influenced the way that I see my role.

When considering this book, however, it is important to consider the context in which it was written. Higashida wrote the book in Japanese. The book was then translated to English with no involvement from Higashida. The translator had a great amount of influence on the style and diction of the English version that I read. While the translator is a parent of an autistic kid, he is not himself on the spectrum.

The book has now been turned into a movie. It is on my list to watch.

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The Reason I Jump – Official U.S. Trailer

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Parenthood is a TV show that ran on NBC from 2010-2015. It is about an extended family that lives in Berkeley, CA. One of the siblings in the family has a son, Max, who is autistic. I watched Parenthood when it came out (it ran from 2010-2015) and it is definitely one of the first shows I ever saw that depicted an autistic character. I imagine many other people of my generation felt the same way.

In researching for this project, I learned that the showrunner of Parenthood has an autistic kid and created the character Max to reflect his own personal experience as a parent. While the actor who plays Max is not autistic himself, he did fully commit to the role and gain the favor of many in the autistic community with his portrayal. The show depicts many important aspects of raising an autistic kid, such as first having the conversation with your kid about what it means to be autistic. While this show is not perfect, I do think it depicted Max and his family's experience as relatable and generally raised autism awareness given the wide reach of this NBC show.

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Love on the Spectrum is an Australian reality TV show that follows young autistic people as they navigate the world of dating and relationships. I was highly skeptical when I first saw this show on my Netlix feed, as my thoughts turned to American dating reality shows I have watched, like the Bachelor, which are overly dramatized at the cost of any genuine depiction of the participants. However, this show ended up exceeding my expectations. The characters on the show are relatable and loveable. I found myself completely empathizing with their experiences dating. The show felt like a celebration of differences and a call for compassion, while being honest about the hardships of forming romantic relationships on the spectrum or not. I also appreciated that the show represents queer relationships without making it a big deal or over analyzing like some American shows do.

After watching, I did read some reviews written by autistic people that pointed out some downfalls of the show. There are many moments that are infantilizing, such as when a couple that has been together for a long time and is moving in together are asked if they have "consummated" their relationships. The show often includes more interviews with family members than with the autistic person themselves. Further, the relationship counselor in the show does not give realistic advice. She teaches specific behaviors, such as pulling out a chair for your date, that come off as unnatural and ingenuine in practice.

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I'm autistic, and I got engaged in July. We don't have any couples' pictures - it's hard to ask someone else to snap a photo for you during a pandemic. But otherwise, it was perfect. My partner and I spent the day hiking in the woods and wading in the Patapsco River in Maryland. After, we sat on a bench to eat sandwiches I'd packed. He didn't kneel. He just handed me a small ring box and smiled like the sun.

Anecdotally, many parents worry about whether their autistic children will ever find love. I know my parents did. Because autistic people can struggle with social and emotional communication, we don't form relationships as easily or in the same ways as our neurotypical peers. And that can be a major source of anxiety for our families, and even more so for ourselves.

Some may find reassurance in watching "Love on the Spectrum," a new reality dating show on Netflix that follows several autistic and photogenic 20-somethings as they explore relationships and dating, some for the first time. Unlike most reality television, the production crew isn't trying to stir up drama. No one gets voted off the island. No one is told to pack their anime figurines and go. Although I was not completely pleased with "Love on the Spectrum," it is kind, and I respect the creators' good intentions.

One issue I have with the show is how unrealistic it is. Olivia, a fiery-haired woman who loves Harry Potter and her theater company, claims at one point that only 5 percent of autistic people ever find love. The production crew doesn't contradict her, and her statement is framed as fact. But it isn't clear how many autistic adults find successful, lasting relationships, let alone how many date or, heaven forfend, have hookups or one-night stands. The data are scarce. Where did Olivia's number come from?

The factoid probably came from a 2018 study of mid-life social outcomes, which found that 5 percent of the autistic participants had been married at least once. But that's a far cry from stating that only 5 percent of autistic people ever find love. Also, even those marriage results may be skewed: The age range for the study, from 22 to 51 years old, was quite broad, and it would be unusual for a 22-year-old to have ever been married, whether the person is autistic or not. The results do not reflect how successful autistic people are at large in the dating world.

The show is also riddled with bad advice and is frequently infantilizing. There are more interviews with parents than with the people the show is ostensibly about. The musical cues would be more appropriate for a documentary about clumsy baby giraffes than for a reality series about adult humans. In one particularly galling moment, the production staff ask Sharnae and Jimmy, an autistic couple who are moving in together, if they have "consummated their relationship" - to which they sort of laugh and confirm that they have. They are a couple in their 20s. They are moving in together. They sleep in the same bed. For any readers in doubt, I can assure you: Autistic people have sex, just like anybody else. Jimmy and Sharnae have had sex. It was a bizarre question and supremely uncomfortable to watch.

The therapy and assistance offered to the young people featured on the show is similarly out of touch. Jodi Rodgers, a relationship counselor, coaches several of the autistic people on the show, and unsurprisingly, none of her clients have any success. Rather than teaching them how to make any kind of emotional connection, she teaches a series of behaviors: Hold out a chair for your date, make eye contact, don't talk too much about what you love. Some of the autistic adults also attend the PEERS program, which encourages loveless enrollees to point out each other's failures in order to adequately perform 'neurotypicality.' The therapists mean well - they clearly see it as helping their clients put their best foot forward. But the behaviors they're encouraging aren't natural or real. And they are especially odd on dates between two autistic people. What is the point of having someone go through motions when the other person may not even notice or care? Why instruct two autistic people to look at each other's faces and smile?

The successful dates and relationships on the show - Chloe and Lotus, Thomas and Ruth, Jimmy and Sharnae - embrace each other's autism. In one particularly heartwarming moment, Jimmy, nervous about a big surprise he has planned for Sharnae, insists that he needs to go to a store to get navy blue socks. He becomes increasingly agitated that his socks are black. Sharnae doesn't roll her eyes or tell him to behave better. She goes with him to the store. They get the socks, and then they go on to have a lovely evening. It's a moment of love and acceptance that I am grateful to have experienced in my own relationship from time to time.

Another positive thing about "Love on the Spectrum" is the way it portrays queer relationships. Chloe, a lovely autistic woman who is also deaf, dates both men and women over the course of the series, and it is treated as utterly unremarkable. Chloe's date with Lotus is one of the series' highlights and has rightfully emerged as a fan favorite.

If anything, it's strange that there isn't more LGBTQ representation in the series. There is emerging evidence that autistic people are significantly more likely than the general population to be gay, bisexual, transgender or otherwise queer. Few of the autistic adults I know are straight. It would have been nice to see that reflected in the show. Similarly, although the show balances gender well - it features plenty of autistic women - it does not do so well on race. Almost the entire cast is white. People of color face major diagnostic disparities, and "Love on the Spectrum" does little to challenge the unbearable whiteness of TV autism.

"Love on the Spectrum" probably won't educate anyone about autism, or even about the realities of autistic dating. It isn't science. But if you want to watch a dating show in which everyone is treated with kindness, you might want to add it to your Netflix queue.

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Review: 'Love on the Spectrum' is kind, but unrepresentative | Spectrum | Autism Research News

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I'm autistic, and I got engaged in July. We don't have any couples' pictures - it's hard to ask someone else to snap a photo for you during a pandemic. But otherwise, it was perfect. My partner and I spent the day hiking in the woods and wading in the Patapsco River in Maryland.

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I found this video really helpful in understanding the experience of ADHD. Salif’s twist of ADHD and heightened involuntary attention as an evolutionary gain, adaptive for survival, is really powerful. He also lists a bunch of talents that he sees himself as having with ADHD, like his ability to brainstorm ideas quickly and effectively. He can navigate outside of his comfort zone because he is so motivated to explore and figure out what he likes, loves, and hates. He also talks about being resilient from the experience of having ADHD in this society. He can move away from negativity really quickly and adapt to different experiences and situations. He makes a point at the end that depression being associated with ADHD is in large part due to the way that others respond to people with ADHD. I would really love to show this video to parents and teachers of students with ADHD. Salif is funny and smart. He speaks so genuinely and honestly about the struggles, but also the huge advantages, to living with ADHD.

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ADHD sucks, but not really | Salif Mahamane | TEDxUSU

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I have only watched the trailer for Music, but I included it in my project because I vividly remember when this trailer came out and the outrage in the disabled and autistic community. Music was created by the Australian pop star, Sia. The main character in Music is autistic, but played by a neurotypical actress and dancer. The film also depicts physical restraint of the autistic character that could be triggering for many viewers. When the trailer came out, Sia was criticized for not casting an autistic actress to play the main role. Rather than apologizing and self-reflecting, Sia responded by defending the choice and claiming that an autistic actress could not have played this role. This caused even more outrage.

Despite autistic actors and activists criticisms, the movie still came out and was nominated for a Golden Globe.

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Luca, the newest Pixar movie, is about an Italian sea monster who runs away from his family to live in the human world. It is a sweet movie about friendship and acceptance of differences. One of the characters, Massimo, the father of Luca's human friend, is a fisherman with a limb difference. He reveals during the film that he was born with one arm, but it is not a central plot point. I think this casual inclusion of a disability is important and could be seen as a model for other films. Characters with disabilities can, and should, be included in movies that aren't about disability. Massimo is a character with one arm, but he is also a loving father and a talented fisherman. This is also an important counter point to other kids movies that depict characters with limb differences as evil villains (e.g. Captain Hook).

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Disney and Pixar’s Luca | Official Trailer | Disney+

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While doing some online shopping, I noticed a model with a limb difference. This felt really important to me as it was the first time I had seen a model with a visible disability. This clothing company is known for using sustainable materials, transparency in how their clothing is made, and a focus on making a positive change in the world. I really appreciate that they include models of many body types, including models with limb differences. I hope other clothing companies follow their lead and break away from the idea that a model must look a certain way.

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Pay in 4 instalments with

A cutesy, cropped shirred top made from 48% organic cotton, 47% FSC certified Viscose and 5% Elastane.

Comfy and cool? You've got it!

Model sizes

Louisa and Grace are a UK size 8 and wears an XS

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Pay in 4 instalments with A cutesy, cropped shirred top made from 48% organic cotton, 47% FSC certified Viscose and 5% Elastane. Comfy and cool? You've got it! Model sizes Louisa and Grace are a UK size 8 and wears an XS

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Rightnowish is a KQED podcast that recently did a series of episodes called Roll With Us that features various sports on wheels. One of the episodes was about Wheel Chair Motor Cross (WCMX) and featured two leaders in the chair skating community in CA. I really appreciated that this podcast introduced WCMX as they would have any other sport and heavily featured the voices of the athletes. It was awesome to hear their first hand account of chair skating and doing tricks.

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Santa Rosa's Randy Harlan and Bolinas' Garnett Silver-Hall are known for using wheelchairs the same way others use skateboards-- grinding on rails and riding off ramps. The duo are both adaptive athletes in the "chair skating" community and founders of Northern California's Wheelchair Motor Cross...

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99% Invisible is one of my favorite podcasts. They have done a few episodes about disability, but one that really stuck out to me is called Curb Cuts. The episode goes into details about Ed Roberts journey to UC Berkeley in a wheel chair and how he fought against ableism. It then documents a specific history of disability rights activism by disabled organizers that eventually resulted in the ADA. I appreciated that this popular podcast did an episode on this specific history that is often forgotten.

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If you live in an American city and you don’t personally use a wheelchair, it’s easy to overlook the small ramp at most intersections, between the sidewalk and the street. Today, these curb cuts are everywhere, but fifty years ago — when an activist named Ed Roberts was young — most urban corners fe…

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Walter Greaves, the Vegetarian, One-Armed Cyclist Rode Further than Anyone

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Walter Greaves, the Vegetarian, One-Armed Cyclist Rode Further than Anyone

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I really like to bike and I get a newsletter in my email inbox each week about biking. It usually features some article to read with a quick description. This article about Walter Greaves was in the most recent newsletter with the caption "What Disability?" I found this caption to be completely ableist. It follows the all too popular narrative that disability is something to overcome or to fix. The article itself tells an exciting historical narrative about a cyclist who lost an arm in a car accident and went on to bike more miles in year than anyone had ever ridden before. However, the caption "What Disability" made me unsubscribe from the newsletter.

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Walter William Greaves was never marked for fame or fortune. He came of age in the late 1920s in Bradford, a gritty mill town in the north of England, the oldest of five surviving children of Martha and Albert. His dad was a patent-medicine salesman, part-time blacksmith, and confirmed drunk. At 14, Walter was hitching a ride on the running board of his father's car when the elder Greaves veered into a lamppost. Young Walter lost his left arm below the elbow, and gained a lifelong aversion to drink.

Bradford was a rough place, and soon after the accident a boy he'd once beaten in a fistfight thrashed the one-armed Walter without mercy. Friends said such experiences fueled his determination not to let his handicap slow him down. He played rugby with some success, ran the 100-yard dash in less than 11 seconds, and became an expert ballroom dancer. He also was an avid cyclist, making do with a machine cobbled together from junk and spare parts.

"While other riders ate their ham or potted meat sandwiches, Walter would pull out half a raw cabbage and munch his way through it saying, 'Meat is second-hand vegetables.'"

Work in Bradford was hard to come by between the world wars, even for men with two good arms. Greaves's prospects were further dampened both by his disability and his politics. He made no secret of his socialist views and quickly developed a reputation as a troublemaker, if not a terribly effective one. "Walter tried to make you sign up for the Young Communists, but nobody took much notice," recalled his friend Tim Teale.

Greaves found work as a Hoover vacuum cleaner salesman and part-time mechanic, but spent most of his 20s unemployed and broke. That was his condition in 1933, when a friend offered Greaves a life-changing tip.

"Does ta want to win some brass, Walter?" the man said and offered the name of a horse. According to his biographer Aled Owen, Greaves borrowed two shillings-ostensibly for food-and played it all on the horse, which won and paid 25-1. Greaves took his 50 shillings straight to a bike shop and made a down payment on a 20-inch Sun Wasp bicycle, Owen writes in his delightful 2020 biography, Walter Greaves: True Yorkshire Grit.

The following Sunday he joined the West Bradford Cycling Club on a 110-mile run to Ribblehead, where he picked up the predictable nickname "one-arm" and an invitation to ride an upcoming 25-mile time trial. He rode the distance in one hour and twelve minutes at his first try, and before the year was out had lowered the mark to 1:07-an impressive time on a single-speed bicycle of the era, especially considering he hadn't yet come up with the scratch to buy toe clips or proper cycling shoes.

That was remedied when Greaves found work at an auto-parts concern, and though the job left him little time to train, he put up some creditable solo time trials, including 100 miles in 4 hours 43 minutes, and 192 miles in 12 hours. When he was sacked from the auto-parts job he doubled down on training, despite barely having enough money for food.

A strict vegetarian from the age of about 20, Greaves spent half his weekly dole on milk, brown bread, butter, potatoes, and bruised bananas. The rest went to rent and race entries, with a shilling left over for tea at local cycling cafes. "While other riders ate their ham or potted meat sandwiches, Walter would pull out half a raw cabbage and munch his way through it saying, 'Meat is second-hand vegetables,'" Owen writes.

Greaves became a standout member of the Vegetarian Cycling and Athletic Club, riding the organization's 24-hour time trial in 1935, riding 327 and 7/8 miles despite spending a good amount of time on the side of the road, incapacitated by soggy tomato sandwiches a well-meaning vegetarian had handed up to him. The feat gained the attention of the club's press agent, Norrie Ward.

The record for the greatest distance ridden in a single year was 43,966 miles, set in 1933 by Australian professional Ossie Nicholson. Ward asked Greaves how far he thought he could ride in a year.

"With good luck and no unreasonable delays, 47,000 miles," the one-armed rider replied.

That was all Ward needed to hear. Soon the impresario was sending press photos to local newspapers and sponsorship enquiries to bicycle companies throughout England-including a breakdown of costs. In Owen's account, based in part on Greaves's own unpublished memoir, Ward "sat in his swivel chair, stretching his full five-foot three inches frame to rest his feet on the mantelpiece and dictated to his secretary: '£10 a week manager's salary, £3 a week rider's expenses.'"

When Greaves protested the arrangement, the promoter snapped back. "Any bloody fool can ride a bike-it's the manager that makes the ride."

Greaves proposed to start on the first day of January, 1936, but with barely more than a week to go Ward's letters had garnered nothing but rejections. On December 23, Greaves decided to pay a last-ditch visit to one of the leading prospects, Coventry Bicycles. For some unknown reason he set off on the 130-mile ride at 10 p.m. in a snowstorm. He arrived the following morning in a somewhat bedragged state, seeking an audience with the firm's owner, a Mr. Downes-who announced on the spot that he'd already decided to sponsor the attempt.

Greaves pedaled back to Bradford through the ice and snow, believing that his epic mission had been unnecessary. Only later did he discover that Downes had not posted his sponsorship letter until after Greaves had left his offices.

"Greaves' ride had clearly sealed the deal," Dave Barter wrote in The Year: Reawakening the legend of cycling's hardest endurance record. "The pluck of the wily Yorkshireman in dealing with the distance and inclement weather had convinced Downes that in Greaves he had a real contender. And Greaves had the sponsor he needed."

Though the sponsorship provided what Greaves needed, it was lacking in many ways. Coventry didn't make a lightweight racing bicycle, and the model Downes offered was not even the top of the line. The machine had just three gears, in the knee-busting ratios of 59, 71 and 79 inches (a 59-inch gear is equivalent to 42×19 on a modern road bike). Riders familiar with the hilly route he planned were amazed that anyone could ride it on such a machine, let alone with only one arm.

Worse, the bike wasn't ready for Greave's planned start on Jan. 1. He waited nearly a week for the bicycle to arrive, during which a rival record-seeker, Bob Walsh of Manchester, spun off more than 610 miles.

When the bicycle finally arrived Greaves spent a day making modifications, notably adding a twist-grip gear shifter of his own design, routing both brakes to a single lever, and chopping the left side of the handlebar clean off. He also attempted to soften the hard leather saddle, which he hadn't had time to break in properly. Greaves and a friend rubbed the seat with butter and pounded it with the shaft of a hammer. It did little good; at the end of his first day Greaves recalled that his "sit-upon part . . . was terribly bruised, being swollen to over an inch thick."

The next day he learned that his rival Walsh had been hit by a truck and was out of the competition. The contest was now with himself and Nicholson's record of 43,996-3/4 miles-which after accounting for the late start worked out to just over 122 miles a day. What's more, the Australian had ridden in good weather conditions, often on smooth racing tracks. Greaves was setting off in the middle of a Yorkshire winter, on poor roads and a heavy touring bike. While Nicholson had a masseur, a mechanic, a spare bike and a chase car, Greaves "had to live and ride on his wits alone, watching the pennies of his meagre sponsorship to buy his food, find his lodgings and maintain his machine," Owen writes. "He also braved the British weather."

He got a full measure of weather on his fourth day, when a gale raked the Yorkshire countryside with winds touching 60 mph. Greaves pedaled into the teeth of it for hours, determined to meet his daily quota of 130 miles. By nightfall he'd traveled only just 81, so he continued by moonlight, bulling his way through the headwind toward home until sensibly deciding to give up the prospect of his own bed and turning downwind. That created a new set of hazards, as the one-armed cyclist skittered along at high speeds, falling repeatedly on patches of icy road, narrowly dodging a truck and debris from a building that had been blown down in the storm.

Greaves made his miles, bringing his four-day total to 500 miles and 19 falls. The next morning he had his ears treated for frostbite, and rode all the way to London for a V.C & A.C. dinner. On the icy roads he found it better to trust the gyroscopic effect of his wheels at speed rather than caution to keep him upright. "The choice was between a slow ride with many minor falls or a faster ride with the threat of a severe spill," Owen writes . "He chose the latter."

Later that month Greaves paid a visit to Walsh in the hospital, and carried on, increasing his daily mileage as the days grew warmer. With the longer days he notched as many as 275 miles in a single day, and 374 miles without pausing to sleep. Greaves collided with a car in July, and developed an abscess that required surgery and 13 days off the bike. When he returned to the roads he upped his average to 160 miles a day in August, then 180 miles a day in late September and early October.

He fueled himself with a gallon of whole milk, 1-1/2 pounds of whole meal bread thickly spread with butter, and up to two pounds of apples each day. He later found dates and figs to be a rapid cure for hunger knock, and added up to two pounds of them to his daily menu. He drank water and occasionally ginger beer, but never a drop of alcohol.

He passed Nicholson's total on December 13 in London's Hyde Park, riding laps of the Serpentine with thousands of other cyclists until the record was his. At a reception that evening, journalists offered champagne to celebrate, but the vegetarian teetotaler was having none of it.

"When I want to poison myself, I'll do it with arsenic," he said.

The next day he was back on the bike, padding his lead. He finished the year at midnight on New Year's Eve on the steps of Bradford's town hall. He'd ridden 45,383 miles in the year 1936, despite his late start and hospitalization.

The very next day, three men set out to break the new record, including Briton Bernard Bennett, French WWI veteran René Menzies, and Nicholson himself. All three would beat Greaves's mark-Menzies and Nicholson surpassed it on the same day-with Nicholson claiming the new record of 62,657 miles in 1937.

Two years later Englishman Tommy Godwin raised the bar to 75,065 miles and kept going, ultimately setting a new record for cycling 100,000 miles in an even 500 days-records that stood until 2015 and 2017 respectively.

After his record-setting year, Greaves became a leader in the Yorkshire cycling community. He founded the Airedale Olympic cycling club, and opened a cycle shop and later a café. He built bicycle frames noted for their innovative style and clean bronze welds. He died in 1987, aged 80.

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Walter Greaves, the Vegetarian, One-Armed Cyclist, Rode Further Than Anyone

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Walter William Greaves was never marked for fame or fortune. He came of age in the late 1920s in Bradford, a gritty mill town in the north of England, the oldest of five surviving children of Martha and Albert. His dad was a patent-medicine salesman, part-time blacksmith, and confirmed drunk.

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I really liked the show Sex Education on Netflix. In the second season, we are introduced to Isaac. Isaac is a confident and witty trickster and a wheel chair user who becomes friends with one of the main characters, Maeve, when he and his brother move into her trailer home park. Isaac is played by  George Robinson, an actor who broke his neck in a rugby accident when he was 17. This accident resulted in his paralysis below the neck. I read an interview with George Robinson where he spoke about growing and learning through playing Isaac's character.

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Watch Sex Education | Netflix Official Site

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Insecure Otis has all the answers when it comes to sex advice, thanks to his therapist mother. So rebel Maeve proposes a school sex-therapy clinic.

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'Transition is Upon Us': One Oakland parent of a student with special needs shares her journey

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'Transition is Upon Us': One Oakland parent of a student with special needs shares her journey

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This article was published in Oaklandside in April 2021. I remember reading it and appreciating reading a parent's open and honest perspective around navigating her son's special education services in OUSD from when he was 3 years old til now, graduating high school and handling the "transition." One quote in particular stood out to me, "If we parents and guardians can figure out how to share our knowledge more often, in more ways, with more people, maybe we can lessen the obstacles for others in the future." The author continues by acknowledging that many parents don't have the time and energy to be a squeaky wheel, and her worry for kids who don't have an advocate. I often wonder about how we as special educators can make sure to lessen this inequity by not focusing only on those parent's who are always in our faces and support parents who don't have as much bandwidth. I think this is an important, relatable read for all parents as well as teachers.

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The first time I heard the words "transition plan," I was navigating the halls of a local community college at something called a Transition Fair. When a friend had first shown me the event flier, I had no idea such things existed. It mentioned panels on IEP advocacy (IEPs are federally mandated, individual education plans for public school students with special needs), applying for SSI, and programs on independent living skills, three things that piqued my interest. My son, Cosmo, was a 10th grader at the time, receiving special education services in Oakland Unified School District, and I was happy to find more information on how best to support him.

Cosmo has had multiple diagnoses over the years. Most have been medical rather than psychological, but a number have impacted his intellectual, social, and emotional development. Cosmo qualified for OUSD services when he was three years old (as a preschooler he was enrolled in OUSD's Programs for Exceptional Children, now more commonly called the Special Education Department), and by the time I was making my way around the Transition Fair, he'd been receiving services from OUSD for over a decade. He's received home and hospital instruction, speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, adaptive PE, and modifications on school assignments. In middle school he was given an FM system-a wireless audio device-in every classroom to help with his diminished hearing. He's had academic, psychological, and physical evaluations every three years. Once, to help with his fourth-grade standardized testing (for which he was allowed unlimited time), his special education teacher jerry-rigged a computer mouse to jiggle every 10 minutes over the course of several days so that he wouldn't be locked out of the computer program between testing sessions.

"Transition, I discovered, is an all-encompassing word used to describe that period at the end of high school for students with special needs."

For my own part, I've cajoled and begged teachers, wept in front of administrators, and even filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in response to what I felt was OUSD's mishandling of a mediation to resolve a dispute over resources that Cosmo-who has difficulty listening to lectures and taking notes at the same time-needed to succeed in the classroom. My determination to advocate on behalf of my son hasn't always been well received. Once, my husband and I were ordered to a principal's office to be upbraided and indelicately told that we might find another school more to our liking. When I asked the principal what he would do as a parent with a student facing circumstances similar to Cosmo's, he stared at me blankly, then hurriedly ended the meeting. On another occasion, I was told I could not contact one of my son's teachers directly "because of the union."

I mention all this to demonstrate that I was hardly a novice when it came to advocating for my son. And yet, there I was, at a resource fair for students with special needs, having never heard most of what was being discussed in relation to "transition." There was a seminar on transition planning, and another on transition opportunities. There were transition services, transition programs, and post-transition employment opportunities. When I explained to one speaker that my son was only in 10th grade, she looked at me intently and said, "You must begin planning for transition now!"

That was over two years ago, and now lo and behold, transition is upon us.

Transition, I discovered, is an all-encompassing word used to describe that period at the end of high school for students with special needs who have an IEP or 504 plan, which guarantees services and accommodations for students with disabilities. I am not an expert on special education, and my understanding is limited to what I've learned over the course of my own child's journey. But I do know that for many parents and guardians of students in special education, navigating their child's path to a high school diploma can become extremely contentious, stressful, and ultimately heartbreaking. Cosmo will graduate with a diploma as a 12th grader this spring, but many students with an IEP or a 504 plan won't. Some will receive a certificate of completion instead, and others will remain enrolled in OUSD until they are 22, in the district's Young Adult Program, which provides academic and life skills classes for moderate to severely disabled students.

Armed with the intelligence that we needed to start transition planning right away, but not entirely sure what we were asking for, my husband and I began requesting such a plan during our son's IEP meetings. Cosmo's special education teacher obliged, and asked us what options he might have after high school. We had very little idea, and it wasn't that clear how OUSD could assist us in figuring it out. Cosmo regularly peppers his conversation with five syllable words and is my go-to household handy person when it comes to building Ikea furniture, but he has trouble safely crossing busy streets. He loves coding and programming (he's a Python enthusiast), but has a brain processing speed in the fourth percentile. What exactly are we going to transition him towards? Who, we wondered, could help Cosmo figure out his next steps?

'Grinning ear to ear': a diagnosis unlocks services

When my son was a baby, he'd qualified for services through the Regional Center of the East Bay, one of 21 non-profit regional centers across California that contract with the state to provide services for persons with developmental disabilities and their families. (We were lucky to connect with the RCEB when we did; if your child does not exhibit signs of delays, or you don't know how to recognize them, it can be easy to miss the window for RCEB's early childhood services, and kids can enter Kindergarten with intellectual or developmental challenges having never received any early intervention.) I no longer recall how I learned about the center, but I do remember that accessing its Early Start program for children 0-3 years old was relatively uncomplicated. Cosmo was 12 months old, and I'd just moved back to California from Washington DC. I knew by then that my son was delayed in reaching developmental milestones, and I was looking for help. Cosmo was quickly assessed and referred for services, and soon the center was arranging for physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists to come to our home on a regular basis and work with him.

But when Cosmo turned three, he aged out of the Early Start program, and we were told that he no longer qualified for RCEB services since he'd never technically been diagnosed with a developmental disability. And so just like that, services ended. One door was closed, I'd thought, but OUSD's door was open, and so my son entered the district's pre-K program for children with speech and other delays.

"My head is swirling with questions. What jobs can he be successful at? Who can help him, and us, figure this out?"

Cosmo is sweet, curious, and funny. He does well in school with extra supports, and is generally liked, but has few friends. He has some mild tics, verbal and physical. He finds social situations tricky to negotiate, and will tell you he does not always understand what he is doing wrong. He is very trusting and can miss the signs that someone is acting unkindly. To best meet his needs, OUSD placed him in a program designed for high functioning students on the autism spectrum, even though he'd never been diagnosed. Cosmo had been periodically evaluated by neuropsychologists at Children's Hospital Oakland, but amidst the many studies of his symptoms and behavior, there was never a suggestion that he should be evaluated for autism. The truth was that we thought it did not really matter. He had assets and deficits, and he was being supported at school for those assets and deficits.

Cosmo outside of MetWest High School in Oakland, where he'll be receiving his diploma at the end of this year. Credit: Amir Aziz

It was an expert in child development who'd advised us years earlier on appropriate school settings for Cosmo, who suggested that we consider applying to the RCEB again, as she thought there was a possibility that he would meet the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. We had not really understood the range of clients served by the regional center and had mistakenly believed that Cosmo's IQ was too high to meet its criteria for an intellectual disability. So I thought, why not? The RCEB website touted much-needed support services, and could help Cosmo with things like independent living skills training, travel training, job training, applying to colleges and securing needed accommodations, and could even help him to find affordable housing.

We applied for RCEB services for the second time when Cosmo was 15 years old. The application included paperwork, submission of Cosmo's IEPs, past neurological evaluations, and several interviews. My husband and I went together to Cosmo's final interview. Afterward, we were asked to speak with the doctor and psychologist who had conducted the evaluation. We entered the room, and all sat there quietly for a moment. The doctor looked perplexed. He asked, why had we not sought an evaluation earlier? We seemed like we were engaged advocates, so how had our son's autism spectrum disorder been overlooked for so long? Cosmo qualified for RCEB services.

I can only imagine that for most parents, hearing that your child is on the autism spectrum is a difficult moment. But for us, after 14 years of dealing with far scarier medical diagnoses with Cosmo, the news came as a relief. My husband and I left the RCEB offices grinning from ear-to-ear. Most of the services Cosmo could use would kick in after he finished high school. We had a couple of years to sort out next steps.

Senior year

Like most other seniors this year in Oakland, Cosmo's last year of high school shrank down to the four corners of his Zoom screen. In a strange twist of fate, the pandemic made neurotypical students' worlds a lot more like Cosmo's-months stretching into a year of hanging out at home with only family. Socially and emotionally, Cosmo had over a decade to prepare for social distancing and he has managed it well. Planning his transition, however, has been more difficult. Even with the comfort of knowing Cosmo will receive certain services through the RCEB, my head is swirling with questions. Where can he find a post-high school academic program that will accommodate his unique strengths and weaknesses? What jobs can he be successful at? Who can help him, and us, figure this out?

"My son overcame hurdle after hurdle. He climbed mountains and forded rivers to reach this point."

It turns out that OUSD has transition counselors for students with IEPs. Ours, a kind woman, helped Cosmo with paperwork so that he could access services from the California Department of Rehabilitation (not to be confused with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation), the state agency that helps people with disabilities find employment. The DOR could be another helpful resource after Cosmo finishes high school, she told us.

About a month ago, we had a Zoom meeting with a DOR representative and the transition counselor. We learned that there were jobs in hotels, homes for the aged, filing jobs at the county clerk's office, and other positions that Cosmo could apply for. I explained about our son's difficulty crossing streets, and that he may need travel and independent living skills training. The DOR representative said that once Cosmo had a job, DOR could find a vendor to teach him how to take public transportation. The DOR could probably help with travel training, too. It depended on what we decided for Cosmo's transition, said the representative. We would see.

'Maybe we can lessen the obstacles for others'

A friend recently sent me a text saying that her daughter got into her first choice of colleges and was elated. I have an older son in college, but nevertheless I felt a momentary pang of jealousy. She knows what is next for her daughter who, like Cosmo, is about to graduate high school. But the more I thought about it, I realized that while some very big and important decisions had been made and problems solved, my friend is still facing all the worries and yearnings of every parent or guardian. Like my friend, I fervently hope Cosmo continues his education in some form, and that one day he will find employment that gives him dignity and independence, that he will make loyal friends, that he will have good health (and access to adequate health care), and above all else that he will be happy. And, if I am honest, I believe my son's completion of high school is more extraordinary than her daughter's. My son overcame hurdle after hurdle. He climbed mountains and forded rivers to reach this point.

I am sharing a little of Cosmo's story because I am certain that his experiences, and my own as his parent, are not unique. For every parent or guardian that has been outspoken in their advocacy, stood firm in school meetings, organized others to support OUSD's special education, and pridefully shared how their students' conquered challenges, I worry about those who are reluctant to talk about their students' special needs or who haven't had the benefit of learning from others. If we parents and guardians can figure out how to share our knowledge more often, in more ways, with more people, maybe we can lessen the obstacles for others in the future.

As this senior year comes to a close, I want to draw attention to parents and guardians of students with disabilities and learning differences, who repeatedly knocked on closed doors and pushed through side entrances to mobilize special education teams, access resources, implement accommodations, and wade through the murky waters of transition planning. And most especially I want to recognize those parents and guardians with inflexible jobs for whom attending a school meeting means a lost workday, or for whom English is a second language, or who have taken on the care of a foster child and do not have the most accurate record of their student's developmental or academic history. We are rarely the popular parents and our kids have won fewer traditional awards or accolades. On some of us, the strain of parenting a child with special needs has rubbed itself into a chip on the shoulder. For others, it has greatly depleted finances and ended marriages. I do not know anyone for whom it has been trouble-free. So, to all of us parents and guardians with bad eating habits, high blood pressure, and countless nights of lost sleep, I raise my glass to honor us and our kids. Who knows what the future may bring.

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'Transition is upon us': one Oakland parent of a student with special needs shares her journey

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Free Oakland news, written by Oaklanders, delivered straight to your inbox. Don't let Facebook's algorithm control your news. Sign up to get free Oakland news in your inbox. Thank you for supporting The Oaklandside and being a part of our community. Your donation makes this and all our other local reporting possible.

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Crosscurrents is one of my favorite podcasts for local Bay Area news and stories. This episode from 2017 interviews some members of an outdoors adventures group for people with physical disabilities. They go on hikes, camping trips and other outdoor adventures around the Bay. I liked that this podcast did not at all fall into the "super hero" disabled narrative, but rather just talks about disability as a way of life. I loved hearing about disabled participants supporting each other, such as a wheel chair user guiding someone who is visually impaired.

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Leading outdoor adventures for folks with physical disabilities.A San Francisco author's surf toward enlightenment.

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I don't normally watch horror movies, but I did watch A Quiet Place with a friend when it came out in theatres. The movie is about a family living in an apocalyptic world where they cannot make noise, or else they will attract killer creatures. The daughter in the family is deaf and played by a deaf actress, Millicent Simmonds. The family communicates throughout the movie using ASL, both for their daughter and because talking would alert the creatures. In the end, the daughter's cochlear implant ends up allowing them to defeat the monsters. It is powerful to have such a widely watched, mainstream movie almost entirely in sign language and often without sound.

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A Quiet Place (2018) - Official Trailer - Paramount Pictures

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Atypical is a show I recently started watching about an autistic teenager. The actor who plays the main character is not autistic, but the show hired some autistic actors to play his friends after receiving criticism. I found the show to be an accurate portrayal of one autistic persons experience, but am disappointed that they did not cast an autistic actor.

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When a teen on the autism spectrum decides to get a girlfriend, his bid for more independence puts his whole family on a path of self-discovery. Watch trailers & learn more.