BEST PLACE SCENARIOS
Our story about a legal appeal filed to stop a settlement allowing people with intellectual disabilities to move out of state institutions into small group homes [“Segregation Anxiety,” Samantha Melamed, Oct. 25, 2012] received several responses supporting each side of the debate. Julie Huso, executive director of VOR, an organization that advocates for a full range of residential options for people with disabilities — and which participated as amicus curiae in the appeal — wrote in an email: “There simply can be no comparison between a White Haven Center resident, whose cognitive ability equals an infant, and Jean Searle, who was inappropriately institutionalized 30 years ago and has since received support and has been working as a receptionist. Would society demand that an infant has the right to live in an apartment and work in an office? Of course not. Yet that is what [institution] closure advocates and the state call for in a legal settlement that will displace hundreds of fragile people. Citizens are encouraged to trust that dedicated families — not advocates or government lawyers — know best.”
Citypaper.net commenter Jordan Gwendolyn Davis started by noting, “I have a sister with microencephaly who, like [the sister of Carl Solano, who was quoted in the story], has the mental capacity of a 1-year-old. … While cases in which functional level is extremely limited may warrant placement in [state-run Intermediate Care Facilities], it should be ONLY a last resort. Community-based care needs to be encouraged and grown, the investment would save a lot of money for the state, and it would help those with disabilities to live fulfilling lives without having to unduly wait for a space in a community-care program to open up. There are many wasted lives and hidden years in institutions.”
TO HAIR IS HUMAN
Last week’s “Queer Bait” column in which Liberty Bears president Thom Caggiano offered some advice for snagging a bear daddy at this week's Leather Pride 2012 events [“Bear Necessities,” Josh Middleton, Oct. 25, 2012] prompted online commenter JudeThom to offer several opinions: “Manscaping is fussy-wussy and girlish. When straight men shave their legs, the gods barf. A little cologne is nice and a little underarm ‘natural’ smell is even nicer. No man should ever shave his chest, and the only men who shave off all their pubic hair do that to take the attention away from their small endowment. In-shape bears are best, but bears with huge stomachs are, well, lower-tier bears.”
