I hate when people sit in wheelchairs who don't need them...

While driving to Minnesota from Chicago this summer, we stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom and stock up on root beer. As you can see in the photo, a delivery truck parked sideways across 3 handicapped parking spaces. Luckily for us, there was one more available for us to use.

On our way out, we ran into the truck driver who shared this gem with us: "I'm so glad you actually need a space...I hate it when people take up the handicapped spaces when they don't need them!"

Maybe he should look in the mirror? What about people with disabilities that aren't as visible? Maybe they need those 3 spaces he's taking up. Maybe we want to go there as a team after a wheelchair basketball game, but theres only room for one of us now.

Great job McDonalds somewhere near Janesville, WI. You and your delivery man successfully alienated wheelchair users from your restaurant.

Dancers featured on Fox's SYTYCD, use wheelchairs

Derin has a slight (massive) obsession with the hit Fox summer show, So You Think You Can Dance. Set much like the American Idol format, but with dancers, the Thursday night results shows in recent years have always featured guest artists such as Lady Gaga and professional dancers (Alvin Ailey Dance Company to name one).


Two weeks ago, the guest performers were members of the AXIS Dance Company, a non-profit organization whose mission is:

• to create and perform contemporary dance that is developed through the collaboration of dancers with and without disabilities
• to teach dance and educate about collaboration and disability through community education and outreach programs
• to promote and support physically integrated dance locally, nationally and internationally

The dance performed was done by one wheelchair user, and one able-bodied dancer. It was beautifully done, and most importantly, it didn't baby the wheelchair user in any way. This was not a pat on the back kind of dance. The man using the wheelchair was moving, lifting, and dancing just as much and just as effectively as the able-bodied dancer. Not only does this send the message that wheelchair users can do more than you or they think, but it also shows that able-bodied people don't need to be afraid to interact with them as they would anybody else. Well done to the AXIS Dance Company, and to FOX and SYTYCD for giving them a platform and including wheelchair users as performers and dancers too.

See the video below to watch AXIS perform: 

Spoke benders: Quick hits for the week

We often have readers send us links and articles that they find interesting. Unfortunately, we don't always have time to turn those leads into a lengthy post, but we want to still pass them on to you, our loyal readers. So today is the beginning of a new series, spoke benders, where we'll pass along a series of links that you will probably find fascinating (or not, but we're giving them to you anyway!).

• Here's the amazing story of Anthony Robles, a one-legged wrestler from Arizona State. Last week, Robles won the NCAA national championship in the 125-pound division while finishing his season 36-0. After graduating, Robles says he plans to travel around the country as a motivational speaker.

• Based on past experiences, it comes as no surprise that Northwest/Delta Airlines has been fined $2 million by the Department of Transportation for improperly treating passengers with disabilities.

• This may be the first superhero ever created that uses a wheelchair.

• Finally, here's our latest entry for the Yahoo! Accessibility blog. It's an updated version of our original Kids Say the Darndest Things post. Enjoy!

If you have any links or articles that you find, please pass them along. You know where to find us!

Happy Birthday Chris!

Happy Birthday today to a member of our Different Spokes team, Chris Sanchez! He's in Florida enjoying the warm weather while we freeze up here in Chicago. Have a great day Chris!

New surgery decreases risks of Spina bifida

We'd like to thank Meryl in Scotland, Hannah in New York, Mike in Georgia, and Carol in Michigan, as they sent off a barrage of emails and phone calls about this new study. According to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, surgery on babies while they are in the womb has an enormous rate of success at limiting Spina bifida's effects once the baby is born.

In fact, as the article above states, babies who had surgery while still in the uterus are "more likely to walk and experience fewer neurological problems if operated on before being born rather than afterward." The surgery also helped limit the necessity of a brain shunt, which is the cause of many difficulties later in life. Indeed, the study was so successful that those running it cut it short. Rather than randomly choose some babies to have surgery after their birth, it was determined that every baby should have the relatively safe, prenatal surgery.

It's hard to say what the long-term repercussions of this study will be. But it's even harder to think of any that will be negative. Maybe costs are high at first and maybe doctors will need to be specially-trained. But those are small prices to pay for the trade-off of potentially limiting the effects of one of the most common types of birth defects.

Ten or fifteen years ago, when I worked with the March of Dimes, we stressed the importance of women taking folic acid during pregnancy in order to help prevent birth defects. While prevention remains a vital goal, it's encouraging to know that we have progressed to the point where we can possibly "repair" a baby even after the early onset of a birth defect. It may not be a perfect solution, but the recent study is an enormous milestone for researchers, doctors, and of course, all of us in the disabled community. Let's keep up the good work!

Selfish disabled people use their own parking passes...don't they know we need them?

Recently, a fellow at the University of Minnesota got into trouble for using his dead mother's handicapped parking pass. There are so many things I could say about this, but none of them would be as spot on as an email I received from reader Will about the story:

Shake your head? But you don't understand!

1. Parking is very, very important.
2. Handicapped spaces are in the best locations, and
3. It is much easier to swipe a handicapped permit from a dead person, as those people tend to selfishly use the permits for their own disabilities when they are alive.
4. These are not ordinary people, she's a nurse and he's a dentist. So they are just using dead people's handicapped permits to help them care for other people more conveniently. THEY KNOW BEST!

Ah yes, 'tis sometimes better to laugh at idiots than to chastise them. Well done Will, well done.

SnOMG!

Those of you in the Chicago area, or the Midwest for that matter, can commiserate with the giant dumping of snow we all got yesterday, in the form a flying, hurricane-like, windy blizzard. We have a post going up about snowfall for Yahoo! Accessibility at the end of the week, but we wanted to give you a glimpse of what we got, and why you shouldn't let using a wheelchair stop you from going out and playing in it! Side note-Chris was a big wimp and escaped to Florida before the snow came, but we'll try not to judge him.

Across the street from our apartment-this street still isn't plowed.

Taking the road since the sidewalks haven't been shoveled yet

11:30pm-right when all the bad stuff hit!

In front of our apartment

The next day-snow stopped at 11:30am

Happy Birthday!

Huge shout-out today to Different Spokes blogger Daniel, for turning 28 on the 28th!

 Happy Birthday to you from Team Different Spokes!

Saving Private Welsh-Ryan from inaccessability

Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill (our alma mater), has announced that they're hiring a firm to look at ideas to improve the athletic facilities across campus. We've attended numerous athletic events at Northwestern, including football, lacrosse, basketball, softball, and volleyball. Here are some of our suggestions on how to make the venues, specifically Welsh-Ryan arena where the basketball games are played, more friendly for customers who use wheelchairs. 

When you wheel/walk into the arena, the first thing you need to do is get over the hard plastic speed bump covering TV cables. This obstacle has a pretty steep incline, so it's difficult to get over if you're a manual or power wheelchair user. Dan has to pop a wheelie to get his front wheels over it and Chris has to line up perfectly or he gets stuck on it and has to be helped off of it. 

Once inside, you have a tiny elevator, usually filled with able-bodied people, that moves at a snail's pace. It's unclear which level you should go to, One, M, or B? Your tickets don't tell you, the elevator doesn't tell you, and out of state fans think you're dumb because your school can't just use numbers. Add to that the lack of signs that direct you to the elevator, and we're lucky we've been there before, because otherwise we might not find our way in until halftime. 

Our view from the handicap "section" at Welsh-Ryan.

Finally, once you're out of the elevator of doom, there are zero signs that direct you to handicapped seating, your section number actually refers to the bleachers, and you hover in the doorway waiting for the event staff to come help you. There are no marked seat numbers for wheelchair users, so usually you have to chase people out of your section, which to be fair, is just an area in front of the railing, so how would they know? You finally find your seats, and look to the court, and a beautiful set of green bars are directly in front of you. For a taller wheelchair user like Chris, you have to look above or below the top bar because it's in your line of vision. For a shorter wheelchair user like Dan, you have to lean down and watch the entire game from in between two of the bars like a prisoner. We'd look up to see what happens on the Jumbotron, but Northwestern is one of those great schools that doesn't have a video screen on it's giant, 90s style scoreboard. 

When and if Northwestern does decide to upgrade its facilities, we'd like to see a clearly marked handicapped area with designated seats. We'd love for no visible obstructions to our line of vision, because let's be honest, NU needs all the basketball fans it can get. You'd get us there a lot more if we could see the court and sit somewhere nice like everybody else. While you're thinking on it, we'd like to put in a request for a new head coach too. May we suggest ABC (Anyone But Carmody)?

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Welcome back!

After a hiatus from blogging due to our busy non-blogging lives, we're back to blogging and back on blogger. We appreciate the opportunities and experiences we got with ChicagoNow, but are ready to come back to our own blog. We've also started writing twice a month for Yahoo!'s Accessibility Blog, which has a lot of diverse entries. We hope you'll continue to read with us, and offer ideas, questions, or comments on our thoughts. We've enjoyed blogging so far, and hope to continue to do it for many years to come!

The Different Spokes Team

We're moving!

Dear Different Spokes readers, 

We're very excited to tell you that we're moving! Not house, or state, but blog! 

Starting today, we're going to be blogging at ChicagoNow, which is a blogging site connected to the Chicago Tribune. ChicagoNow is a site that hosts blogs about every subject imaginable, including thoughts on living with a disability and getting through life if your name is Derin, Dan, or Chris.

We're going to be doing the same kinds of posts, and the same kind of writing, even the same name, just at a different address. We hope you'll join us over there and that you continue to enjoy our blog.We will be reposting many of our past entries, but we're putting up new ones at the same time, so don't let the sight of a familiar post deter you from checking back. 

While we have your attention, we'd like to briefly thank you all for the support you've given us thus far. One of our main goals with this blog is to educate and open your eyes to the possibilities you haven't thought of. A lot of you have let us know if we've written something that you never thought about, or gave you a new way of looking at something. We love to hear that you've learned something, and we love when you give us suggestions of things you want to hear about or have always wanted to know, so please keep it coming. Thank you all!

Again, we can now be found at: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/different-spokes-life-with-a-disability/

Derin, Chris, and Dan

Reader Question: Cutting in line at amusement parks or fairs

Here's a reader question from Wilson, in Florida. Wilson says:

"One question I'd love for you to discuss is the "cut to the front" line at Disney World for those in wheelchairs. Your brother loved this ancillary benefit but I wonder how you feel about it... Is it necessary or not necessary?"

We touched on this briefly during one of our "Why Being in a Wheelchair Doesn't Suck" posts, but here's a more serious perspective.

Dan's Take: I personally love the benefit of not having to wait in line for an amusement park ride. Not only that but you get to stay on the ride twice without getting off. With the difficulty it takes to get out of your wheelchair and on to the park ride, it makes perfect sense for this policy to be in place. That being said, I can understand some people's frustrations when they spend 6 hours at an amusement park and can only ride three or four roller coasters due to the lengths of the lines. Meanwhile we can squeeze in ten or eleven different attractions during that time. One thing that people have to take into account is that there are a number of rides that we are not allowed to go on, due to back problems, height, balance, muscle strength, issues with seizures, etc. While I actually don't have a number of physical reasons that I can't wait in line, this is not the case for everyone with a physical disability.

Chris's Take: I can understand why seeing someone being able to cut hours in front of you in line could cause frustrations. Some people with disabilities do not really need to be able to do so. However, in my case, I would need to avoid extensive time waiting for a ride or attraction. I have heart and respiratory conditions, which make it difficult and often dangerous for me to wait in excessive heat or in damp or cold weather. In addition, because I have a muscle related disease, I get tired more easily than almost anybody else. I am even more limited than Dan in what I can do at an amusement park. While this policy does not always seem to make sense to the average amusement park visitor, extreme circumstances dictate that it must still be maintained. The workers cannot decide if one person is more "disabled" than someone else.

Why Being In a Wheelchair Doesn't Suck

Part six in a sometimes-weekly series.

Let's face it: there are a lot of times when being in a wheelchair sucks.You can't go fly-fishing in Montana, you can't play hopscotch on the playground, and you can't steal batteries from the smoke detector to put in your remote control when the White Sox are on.

But there are times when being in a wheelchair doesn't suck. One is that you don't have to remove your shoes when you go to somebody's house. Since our shoes don't get dirty, our logical substitute are our wheels...and  how ridiculous does this look?

Imagine trying to take Chris's wheels on and off his 400 pound chair!

Our wheels may be our shoes, but you won't get a very nice reaction if you ask someone to leave their wheelchair at the door.  Just try it! Never having to remove your shoes means that you never have to learn how to tie them, since you don't have to take them off! Shoes last 5-6 years more, since they never wear out, and it saves you a ton of money. You don't have to replace your shoe polish as often, and you'll probably never snap a shoelace.

This has a plethora of advantages. Your feet stay warmer. You don't have to worry about foot odor at a party because you can hide behind your snazzy hightops. In some cases, you don't even have to worry about comfort, so you can buy those Manolo Blahniks that don't come in your size and sacrifice nothing for beauty. You can't track dog or bird poop through the house on the carpet your mom just washed. Puddles cower in your presence, and airport security is a breeze (until you factor in the personal pat-down). Overall, not having to remove your shoes is a benefit not many get to enjoy. Now having all these things happen to your wheels...that's a story for another day...

Reader question: Would you prefer able-bodied friends to "stoop to your level?"

We got a reader comment from Jeff, of Michigan, asking which we prefer: that an able-bodied person bend down to talk to us, kneel down, or stay at their own height? Here's what Jeff had to say:

 

    "A lot of people, myself included, would prefer to just talk to someone instead of them bending down to "our level"...I think some people feel like it makes them feel like they are a kid again."

 

Chris's Take: As far as I'm concerned, I view it as a sign of respect when someone makes the effort to come down to my level. Ideally, the best way to do this is to kneel down or to pull up a chair so that we can have a conversation and be able to hear each other. It's also very useful for everybody to fit into a shot for a picture being taken. However, it can be awkward when someone leans against your chair for purposes of conversation, pictures, etc. It feels like an invasion of personal space, even though the person is probably well-intentioned. Also it can cause problems with your wheelchair where it may cause you to crash into a wall or someone else. In the rare instance where a person leans in almost as a false gesture the same way they would lean in towards a child, then it can be awkward and disrespectful. I have noticed that often it is adults who take the initiative to create and maintain eye contact. In my experience, the longer many people have been around, the more they realize that it is important to relate to others. I would rather have someone take steps to relate than to not even bother to do so at all. 

Dan's Take: I personally really enjoy when somebody kneels down to my level. It allows me to make eye-to-eye contact with them, which to me creates a more personal connection. The physical motion of somebody looming over me to listen does make me feel like a child in some sense, as it creates a more intimidating atmosphere. In terms of taking a picture, I would never get upset if someone kneeled down to my level. In fact some of the best pictures I've taken are when friends or family are next to me and we're all at the same head level. It makes me feel like more of an equal. This is all personal preference of course, both for the person with a disability and the able-bodied person with whom he's conversing. 

These are our views, but we'd love to hear some of yours, so please share!

It's not always your fault...

Many times, Chris and I accidentally crash into a stranger on the street. There are times where we may cut you off on the sidewalk without realizing it. And believe it or not, when those things happen, it's our fault!

Too often, when we run somebody over, we are told "sorry" by the victim. Instead, we should be the one apologizing. The fact is, we don't always bother to look where we're going, and just because we use a wheelchair doesn't mean we shouldn't be held accountable for our actions. By apologizing when we're the ones at fault, somebody is unknowingly portraying the idea that we have no control over our actions.

The point is, strangers should treat individuals in wheelchairs the same way they would treat everybody else. For instance, we don't expect you to hold the door open for any other reason than common courtesy. I mean, if you have a stroller, a family of seven, or if you'll unintentionally block the doorway yourself while holding it open, then by all means head on through! We'll take care of it ourselves. If you do want to help by holding the door open for us, stand on the outside of the door. That will clear the way for us to pass through and won't lead to a traffic jam as you block our path. 

You also don't need leave us a 10-foot-wide radius as we wheel down the sidewalk. All we need is enough space for our chair to get by. And you don't need to rudely announce in the middle of a crowd that there's a "wheelchair coming through!" We're not wheelchairs, we're people. Chris and I go to baseball games all the time, we've done this before...

We've even had cars stop for us at green lights while we are patiently waiting to cross the road. This creates a dangerous situation. Do we go so you get the satisfaction of being a nice person? But what if other cars are coming that don't plan on stopping at a green light? In the end, the nicest thing to do would be to follow the traffic signals. We plan on doing that. It's why they're there.

In the end, we don't expect you to go out of your way to make our lives easier. If we're out and about in public, it's because we can fend for ourselves. And if we do need help, we're big boys and we'll ask for it.

Which brings me back to my original point. Don't go out of your way to have sympathy for us. If we screw up and run into you, let us apologize for it. Let us live our lives and learn from our mistakes so that we will improve upon them the next time.  Don't get us wrong, we appreciate your good intentions, we just don't need help all the time.

So next time I run into you on the sidewalk, assess the situation. If it's your fault, apologize. If not, let me do the same and we'll both go about our days as if nothing happened...

Minnesota Public Radio commentary by Haddayr Copley-Woods: Etiquette when interacting with the disabled.

We'd like to give a shout-out to Haddayr Copley-Woods, a fellow blogger, wheelchair user, and frequent commenter on this blog. She recently did a piece for Minnesota Public Radio about the "Dos and Don'ts when interacting with the disabled." Not only do we agree with everything she said, but we laughed a lot, and think you should read it too, then search her name on the MPR website and read some of her other commentaries. A few of our favorites are below:

"DON'T 'Help' without asking. If someone in a wheelchair has rolled up to a door, they probably have some sort of a plan. Leaping over us and flinging the door into our shins is not a noble gesture. And NEVER just grab the back of someone's wheelchair or a blind person's arm and start 'helping.' Imagine how startling it would be if random strangers started shoving you around.

DO Acknowledge us without staring. This means letting us place our own coffee orders and noticing when we are trying to get around you in crowds.

DO Give up your seat on the bus or train for disabled people if you were sitting in the accessible seats.

DON'T Look around beaming, expecting praise for this selfless humanitarian gesture. You did not just save ten children from a landslide."

Haddayr also has her own blog, which touches on current events, links to interesting stories, gives updates on her writing progress, and sometimes previews disability pieces before they are submitted elsewhere. Go check her out!

Why being in a wheelchair doesn't suck:

Part five in our non-weekly series.

Let's face it: there are a lot of times when being in a wheelchair sucks. You can't dance the Cha Cha Slide at weddings, people who are 5'2" make you feel short, and sagging your jeans doesn't have the same effect as it would if you were able-bodied.

But there are perks to using a wheelchair. One reason is that you are memorable. This can be an advantage and a disadvantage. Let's take a look at some pros and cons.

As wheelchair users, we stand out in a crowd (even though we can't stand). We're recognizable after fewer meetings or visits than the average Bartolo. First impressions are always important, and we make a pretty unique one.

The advantages to always being recognized is that you often get better service in a restaurant. They will know you as a frequent customer and make sure your rootbeer doesn't have ice and your salad doesn't have cheese. You may get a nicer table, and faster service. Being more recognizable also helps you keep acquaintances and contacts longer without having to do any work. This can lead to more connections, opportunities, job offers, and friendships than you may not have had otherwise. You also stand out to girls (or boys if that's your preference) and have an aura of mystery over other males (or females).

The disadvantages to being so memorable is that you are then expected to know who all of these people are. People honk at you as they drive past in their cars and make you feel like you're being stalked. Professors stop you on the sidewalk to chat and you don't remember them. This makes it difficult to introduce others, because you don't want to admit you don't remember them, and they just know you because you were the token wheelchair user in their classroom.

Our advice for this situation is to introduce your friends and ignore that the person you're talking to has a name. Try not to suddenly shout out their name once you remember them, as this will draw attention to the fact that you didn't recognize them in the first place. And always travel in pairs, so your partner in crime can introduce themselves and save a potentially sticky situation.

If these solutions don't work for you, the best way we can think of to be less memorable is take what you can't do, and just do it. Get up and walk.

Reader email! What is proper bathroom etiquette?

Sometimes we get a question from a reader regarding posts that we've written. And we're nice people, so we like to respond to those questions! Both Chris and I offer our responses to this recent question from Liz in Washington, D.C.,

"A couple posts ago you mentioned that the accessible bathroom stalls are necessary to fit your wheelchairs in and I was reminded of a Dear Abby question I read once a few years ago that I felt never really got answered in the response...At a sporting event or such, if there are a lot of people in line, when does someone let a wheelchair user go ahead of them so that he can have the accessible stall - when the person using a wheelchair gets in line or when he gets close to the front? I was just wondering what your thoughts were on the issue. People got all sorts of angry on both sides in the comments if I recall correctly."

Dan: To me, I don't think I deserve to move to the front of any line simply because I'm in a wheelchair. So in a crowded bathroom, if the accessible stall is freed up, the next person in line has every right to take it. However, if there is more than one stall available, please leave the wheelchair stall empty. It's the only one I can use, while an able-bodied person can use any other stall. The one caveat to this would be if I were at a specific place in line where I happened to be directly in the doorway. This would block flow of traffic both in and out of the bathroom. Therefore, it would be justified to allow me to take a different place in line so everyone can move freely. To be honest, I feel weird if a person three spots ahead of me tells me to go first into the accessible stall. While I know it's just other people being nice, it seems as if I'm being singled out and being given special treatment.

Chris: Simply stated, handicapped accessible stalls should be reserved for users of wheelchairs. Obviously, crowded bathrooms like those at a sporting event or concert present a different set of issues. Perhaps one should use the 1-10 level of urgency scale. If the number is 7 or higher, please use the stall. I think it would be a bit narrow-minded to think that only people with disabilities should use the stalls. We should be given priority because those are the only stalls our wheelchairs actually fit into. But as far as I am concerned, if you take a little time to evaluate the situation, then no worries. Just realize that if you use the handicapped stall when other ones are open, when you come out and see someone like me or Dan waiting, then you will probably feel pretty stupid.

Training in a new personal assistant

As personal assistants come and go, simply finding a new one is not the only challenge. You also need to take the time and effort needed to properly train one in.

The most important thing is to make sure that he or she can take care of your needs. A personal assistant needs to be able to complete your routine each day. They have to be able to help you get positioned in your wheelchair or in bed. Of course, they also need to show that they can be on time, be responsible, and communicate. The specific requirements for a personal assistant are different according to the person they are helping.

A huge part of training a PA involves building trust with that person. After all, it is a relationship which includes trusting your physical well-being largely to someone other than yourself. In all honesty, this takes the most time to develop. It is impossible to know that a person can assist you until they have actually done so a number of times.

It is important to play down any anxiety you may be feeling as you train in a new PA. If you believe that you have hired the right assistant, then that is usually the case. It is not likely that they will drop you, start arguments or crash your wheelchair into the wall. One must also learn to develop and exhibit a large amount of patience with your personal assistant. This will make the transition as easy as possible. Even though I have not covered everything, this should give you a brief overview of the types of things to look for when finding the perfect PA.

Giving credit where credit is due

A few weeks ago, the hit show "Glee" started airing the second half of its first season on FOX. It's one of the few shows on television that has taken a character with a disability and completely integrated him within the storyline. Artie, played by 21-year-old Kevin McHale, is a high school student who uses a wheelchair. In his school, and the glee club he's a part of, Artie's disability is never thought of as a big deal. The following is a clip from an episode in which the glee club director has each member use a wheelchair for 3 hours a day in order to put themselves in Artie's wheels and see what life is like for those with a disability.



This clip, and the message the show is portraying, is fantastic. None of the characters are being pushed around by others, Artie is shown as being "just another student," and there's never any excuses made if there's something he can't do. This is the first mainstream show I can remember where a person with a disability is seen as just a part life, just as many of us are in our workplace, school, etc.

However, many in the disabled community are upset that an actor with a disability was not chosen for the role of Artie (McHale is able-bodied). In an article published in USA Today, Gloria Castaneda of the Media Access Office says, "There are very talented performers with disabilities. ... We just don't know what producers are thinking." I know what the producers are thinking. He or she is trying to find the best actor for a specific role. The producer should not be forced to limit himself by solely searching for an actor that uses a wheelchair. Are there actors out there who use a chair? Sure! But that doesn't mean they could sing, dance, and fit this role as well as McHale does. Think about it this way. As much as I don't want to be passed over for a job merely because I use a chair, I also don't want to get a job merely because I use a chair. We can't have it both ways in the disabled community. We can't want special treatment (such as being chosen for a specific acting role), while at the same time push for full assimilation into mainstream society.

It seems that there are some in the disabled community who constantly point out the negative in any situation. We should be celebrating the message sent by "Glee," not criticizing the creators for choosing an able-bodied actor. If we constantly criticize the able-bodied community, even while they are making strides towards equality, what incentive is there for them to continue their efforts? They will start to believe that the disabled community will never be pleased. Because of that, we need to choose our battles wisely, and give credit where credit is due. In the end, baby steps are okay. And what "Glee" is doing is not just a baby step, but a fairly sizable leap towards acceptance of those with disabilities. So good work "Glee," keep it up!