welcome
to my site! "No Brakes: Mobility and Self-determination for All" is designed to create an innovative platform around the new generation concepts surrounding disability rights. "No Brakes" carries with it an implicit double-meaning. First, that we as individuals with a disability do not request "brakes," or unnecessary restrictions, placed upon us. We are autonomous individuals for whom self-determination must be achieved as a key component of disability rights. Second, that we do not request "breaks" in life, or to have expectations of our capabilities lowered due to persistent stigma. If placed within a accessible social and physical environment, we expect to be challenged to life up to our full potential as individuals. Please explore No Brakes to better understand how my life may be viewed as one small example of this, and more importantly, how these concepts may be more broadly applied to promote motility and self determination for all.
Help us to celebrate December 3, 2010, as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities! Today we embrace the extraordinary abilities and contributions of persons with disabilities in all corners of the world and recognize that, although we have achieved so much, the global push for full equity and inclusion must go on. Cheers, let's celebrate!
Our Long Walk to Freedom
On January 10th of this year of embarked upon a task of herculean proportions, a feat that I knew would take me to the ends of the Earth, an intellectual journey riddled with risk, challenge, triumph and tragedy. My task: to finish all 751 pages of Long Walk to Freedom, the autobiography Nelson Mandela. For those to whom encyclopedia reading is a daily endeavor, I’m sure you’ll be tempted to chuckle at my overdramatic description of… a book. To me, however, this was a monumental life journey.... Read More »
