12 Bends - An Astounding Journey of Self Discovery

https://www.dailycal.org/2019/08/30/12-bends-is-astounding-journey-of-self-discovery/

I wrote a review for the Daily Cal on the documentary 12 Bends. What an amazing and powerful documentary of self-discovery and inner transformation by Prof Victor Pineda.

I was just mesmerized.

Absolutely resonated on so many levels. The best moment for me was when he came back on the boat uttering, yes yes yes which then became mere guttural sounds.

Really there is nothing quite like that experience of completely submerging yourself in the waters of the Ganges - its transendal.

Brought to mind my own experiences last summer in Haridwar and Rishikesh which are on the banks of the Ganges and the journey up to Badrinath in the Himalayan foothills.

At the screening of the documentary at SF House. 

First Week on Sproul

Always love the energy of first week on Sproul

Summer Yoga Camp in Pleasanton

Back to Donner Lake

Another fun day at Donner Lake with the folks from Achieve Tahoe

Kedar's Engagement

Kedar used to volunteer with me as a high school senior at Archbishop Mitty School

Week at ASAN

Gallaudet University

Gallaudet University

Our week-long ACI conference was held at the Kellog Conf Hotel located on the campus of the lovely Gallaudet University.  It is unique in that it is the first university dedicated to the education of those in the deaf community and hard of hearing. It is officially a bilingual university - English, and ASL (American Sign Language).

Gallaudet has made its own mark in the Disability Rights movement. In 1988 deaf students were outraged after the appointment of yet another 'hearing' president for the university and started 'Deaf President Now' movement. After all the underlying principle of the disability rights movement is "Nothing about us without us."

What was interesting was that many of the staff at the hotel were also from the deaf community. My gluten-free loaf of bread had been kept in the hotel's fridge and we went to request for it before breakfast on the second morning. The receptionist immediately gave us a piece of paper and pen to write our request. Similarly, the restaurant also was staffed by folks that were deaf, their workaround was simply to point to messages on their badges or ask us to write our requests. It was an interesting interaction and very efficient actually. No wasted words. 

The Sights in DC

I spent a week in DC for the ACI conference organized by ASAN. The conference schedule was pretty hectic, so there was barely any time to see the sights in DC. I had never been to DC so wanted to see at least a couple of the historic landmarks. 

National Mall

The conference on Sunday was starting only at 2pm, so we used that opportunity to go see the National Mall that morning. It was a blistering hot day. Had not expected the weather in DC to be this hot - in the 80s and 90s. Apparently, DC is both cold in winter and equally hot in summer. Showers were also expected that day so we had to take rain jackets as well which was a bit of a drag. Luckily it did not rain when we were walking around. We did not have a lot of time so had to rush to see a few things and could not linger at any. 

The über dropped us off in front of Lincoln Memorial. Wow - Lincoln Memorial is more impressive live than on TV. What can I say? 

Lincoln Memorial

The 36 columns in the Parthenon-like Lincoln Memorial building are the 36 initial states. The 19 ft tall marble Lincoln sits in deep contemplation, perhaps pondering the state of our country then and now. On the walls is his second inauguration speech.

Abe Lincoln

Marble Lincoln 19 feet tall

Glory days etched on towering column and wall

Bothered not by milling crowds

Determination, Compassion

Bent in contemplative reflection

Witness of democracy

mirrored in the reflecting pool

Things of past, sights of present
and protests in between

I wonder....

What would you say Abe?

If you were now given a voice?

If you were given a voice?
What would you now say, Abe?

We walked on the trail around the Tidal Basin all the way to Jefferson Memorial. Along the trail are many of the monuments like the Korean War Memorial, MLK Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial, etc. What a grand and wonderful tribute to the ideals of democracy and our history.  

We could stop only at a handful of them as we had to get back. Washington Monument was closed for repairs unfortunately so could not get an aerial view of DC. Next time.

MLK Memorial

Washington Monument

Jefferson Memorial

Korean War Memorial

"Freedom is not Free"
- Korean War Memorial

"Out of a Mountain of Despair, A Stone of Hope"
- MLK Memorial

"Among American citizens, the should be no forgotten men and no forgotten race"
- FDR memorial

"The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. "- FDR Memorial

Lovely sentiments
Powerful messages
Set in stone, eons ago.

But what do we do?
We read, we admire... the words, the history.
We think we contemplate the meaning and grandeur of it all
We think we understand.
We really think we understand.
We really really think we understand.
We think we come away better folks.
Oh yes, we are now better folks.

But PRACTICE..... Oh No, that we do not. 
That we do not. 
Oh No, that we do not.  

Glanced at words, easily forgot.
Post on social media, then forgot
It's back to 'real' life, says we


The White House
A second sightseeing jaunt happened after our Hill Day visit on Friday, Jun 21 evening. Can't leave DC without a peek at the White House. 

Two of my ACI friends Lia and Rebecca accompanied us.  I'm so glad they both came along as they really enlivened the outing with their lively chatter and comments. 

Though The White House is just a little more than a mile away from Capitol Hill, it took forever for the Uber Driver to get to us on the steps of the US House of Representatives Building and then take up there as the traffic is pretty congested in DC. 

The White House

Opposite The White House was a man camped out under an umbrella surrounded by protest posters. Deja Vu! It so reminded me of all the protest posters that line Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus. 

Poster reads "Wanted: Wisdom and Honesty"
- opposite The White House

I even met another Cal (UC Berkeley) student there. She came up and asked if I was going to Cal and nostalgically remarked that she's just graduated. And added, "Go Bears!!"

On the way to the White House, there was a quick photo stop in front of the Treasury Building. 

US Treasury

It was a super hot day and my suit jacket just got soaked with sweat. So off came the tie and jacket but could do nothing about my long sleeve shirt. 

The Smithsonian
We were also hoping to catch a Smithsonian Museum if one was still open. Turns out the Smithsonian American Art Museum was still open. 

Smithsonian Museum of American Art

Feb 22 - I share a birthday with George Washington

Nice attempt at accessibility features in each gallery. 

Except the Spanish large print book had the English version inside and vice versa. 

A braille version too. My train of thought immediately went to what I'd read in Georgina Kleege's book, "More than meets the Eye: What Blindness brings to Art," and the interview I'd done with her for the A&E at the Daily Cal. 

I wondered what the braille print book said - did it give a sensory description of each image or did it just verbatim copy the explanations on the wall by each picture - meant for visual people. 

I'm a tactile person too in many ways, I was hard-pressed to not touch impulsively touch the images.  

My class with Prof. Victor Pineda last semester also really made me think of accessibility in a whole new way. 

Accessibility at the Museum

The president who happened to sign the ADA

What a lovely visual - showing the "emergence" of the Special Olympics

The story behind the Special Olympics is not so pretty. JFK and Eunice Kennedy Shriver's sister Rosemary was dx with ID and made to undergo a lobotomy by her father at age 23, supposedly to help with mood swings and her interest in the opposite sex. The lobotomy was a failure and reduced her to the level of a 2 year old with no speech for the rest of her life. None of her siblings knew of the lobotomy for nearly 2 decades as she was kept secluded. 

Pictures of earlier presidents in the Presidential Gallery were very formal and "portrait like"

JFK was a nice change - kinda nifty abstract arty. 

Picture taken for the beautiful "Capitol Hill" building that we spent all day in

A fitting message for us advocates from Barbara Jordan

"If you are dissatisfied with the way things are, 

then you have got to resolve to change them" 

Hill Day Visit

The culmination of the weeklong ACI leadership training is a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with congressional staffers. 

All dressed up and ready for "Autistic Prom" - inside joke.

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Stop 1 of 3 in making a case to our congressional staffers.

Senator Kamala Harris's office in the US Senate.

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Pinning our CA location inside Senator Harris' office

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Meeting 2 of 3 at Senator Diane Feinstein's office in the US Senate. 

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Meeting 3 of 3 in the afternoon at Representative Barbara Lee's office in the US House of Representatives Building.

Rep Lee is a Cal Alum. Go Bears!!

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Got to ride on the "Secret Train," underneath the US Senate Building.

Too Cool 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 to ride on a secret train. Icing on cake during Hill visit.

A congressional staffer has to agree to take you and has to accompany you. The Feinstein staffer got a Cal (UC Berkeley) intern to escort Ari and me on the train (Go Bears!!).

There is a separate security check to go on the secret train and you are issued a new badge. No food of any kind allowed on the train - so out went my chips as well as the water.

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The secret train only takes you from the Senate Building to the Hill. You still have to walk the rest of the day from the Hill to the House Building through a long underground tunnel featuring lots of artwork on the side. 

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Now have to plan and type the follow-up emails post-meetings.

Thu Jun 20 - Hill Day Prep

Part of the ACI Leadership Academy Training was the prep for our “Hill Day” on Friday where we get to meet our Congressional staffers at Capitol Hill to discuss several disability policies with them. Specifically we discussed three policies in Thursday's sessions.

TCEA - Transition to Competitive Employment Act. In a nutshell there are two issues here - segregated sheltered workshops and payment of minimum wage. TCEA would essentially close the sheltered workshops which pay disabled people a sub minimum wage for so-called “work” which basically amounts to adult daycare. This bill would provide states and companies the time and money they’d need to phase out these workshops and create substantial, gainful employment for citizens with disabilities in mainstream society. 

KASSA - Keep All Children Safe Act. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that students of color or students with disabilities, are more likely to be restrained or secluded in schools. For example,  In December of 2018, 13 year old Max Benson of El Dorado Hills, CA,  died after being physically held face down for an hour. It can be hard to breathe when being held down. KASSA would ban the use of mechanical, chemical and physical restraints that make it hard to breathe as well as  seclusion. Kassa would limit the use of physical restraints to situations where there is imminent risk to safety.. There are other ways of working with challenging behaviors. With adequate training, a vast majority of seclusion and restraint can be prevented. The school must inform the parents and the states would have to provide congress data on how many students are restrained. Right now the OCR watchdog has found that states underreport, some states even reporting zero restraints.   

JRC - At the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts, electric skin shocks are still routinely used on disabled individuals for even trivial non compliance things like getting out of the chair or not taking off their coat. The shocks are administered remotely via a battery powered device that individuals are forced to wear.  Putting it plainly, American citizens are still being tortured in 2019 just because they are disabled. We would not accept this kind of so-called treatment for able-bodied and neurotypical individuals, and so we shouldn’t tolerate it for disabled people. 

After the policies were discussed in Thursday’s sessions, we all sat late discussing how we would present our case at each of our meetings at the offices of the 2 senators and that of our respective local representative. Ari was from Mills college in Oakland so we would have the same three meetings in common. Shanna was from UC Santa Barbara, so would be there for the senate meetings then go to meet her own rep. Being nonspeaking meant I have to plan ahead as to what exactly I would have to say and coordinate with the others as to what would be spoken by them and what would be through the text to speech on my computer. That idea always takes a little while for speakers to get but it works out and we figured out how to divvy it up.