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Special Needs Truth ‘08

What are the positions and records of the 2008 presidential candidates, and how will they impact children with special needs and their families? Don’t let any candidate play politics with your children. They deserve better. And as a voter, you deserve the facts.

While I am happy that the election has brought the idea of disability out in the open I hate that I have the icky feeling that Trig is nothing more then a prop for his mother. Sure he’s cute now, but will he still be so cute when he’s 2 or 3 and still delayed? What about when he’s 10, 15, 25? How many services will he be needing that won’t be there?

This post on the blog strikes me:

But the truth of the matter is, with Trig being only 4 months old, Palin still doesn’t know what it’s really like to be a ’special’ parent. She’s never had to negotiate early intervention plans (EIPs) or independent education plans (IEPs). She still hasn’t taken her kid to Wal-Mart and watched all the kids stare and the parents avoid eye contact.

We’ve been there and while in our case it was temporary- it was there. We took the boy to a parade and had people avoid us because he was in the spica cast. I’ve had the “joy” of having to change an ostomy appliance in public… which was even more fun the just having to squeeze the poop from the bag.

I’ve had the joy of having an uninterested Service Coordinator (you mean I could have been getting mileage for the one therapy I had to drive to get to?). I’ve also had the joy of helping another mom get the services she needed for her severely disabled son (in that I am lucky to have a great PT who is willing to clean up the mess the previous PT made in not getting services and equipment for the child).

A child being used as a prop for a campaign does nothing to help those already dealing with the system. Especially when its a system (and a party) that has done little in the past to help. Heck, just take a look at how it treats our disabled veterans. How can we expect them to help the children?

And for fun:

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

This was part of an article in the New York Times.  This scares me.  As a reader I do not want to go to the library or bookstore and find out that people are blocking what I want to read.  I grew up reading whatever I wanted- my parents never censored what I brought home from the library.  I have serious issues with even the thought of this.  Heck, I hate even throwing out books that are totally falling apart.  The idea that someone who has advocated the banning of books having the possibility of being president scares the crap out of me.

I’m trying to sort of stay out of the whole 17 year old pregnant daughter of the VP choice… but this is too funny: