I don't write a lot here about disablity issues or disability rights for a couple of reasons. First, I don't see my disability as defining who I am and, therefore, what I write about. Second, I think that most people probably find the whole subject to be both boring and depressing. I, however, find it to be both fascinating and frustrating.

Take a few minutes, if you would, to read the latest article from the Times Magazine by Harriet McBryde Johnson. I know it's long and the opening a bit odd, but it's really worth your time. You may remember her as the author of an article referenced here last year about her encounters with animal rights activist Peter Singer.

I, as you can probably guess, am far away from what Johnson appropriately terms the disability gulag. I have, however, seen it in action many times. I generally don't associate with disabled people. It really is a conscious decision on my part and certainly worthy of many hours of psychoanalysis. Primarilly, though, too many people see the gulag as their support and their fate. Even people with my level of disability (not even in the same stratosphere as those illustrated by Johnson) see the gulag as the path of least resistance and assimilate into it. It's like the Borg. Resistance, it seems, is futile.

I was born in 1969. Had I been born even three years sooner I would have certainly been immediately admitted into the gulag. Instead I spent five years on the edge of admission. In the early 1970's no mainstream school system would take a disabled child. As a result I spent pre-school through third grade at Ann J. Kellogg, a school for disabled kids in Battle Creek, Michigan. Built for one of the Kellogg daughters who was severely disabled, it drew students from far and wide who were denied entry into the mainstream. Basically it was a minor league team for the gulag. I made many friends in my years there and knew even then that most of them were destined for institutionalization. I only managed to escape when my mother took the school system to court. She's my Norma Rae.

I don't need a caretaker. I don't need assistance (although I've always wanted one of those kick-ass monkeys). But I firmly believe that those that do and want to fight the gulag should be given every single affordable resource to do so. There aren't many who are willing to put up the good fight. Those who do should go into battle fully armed. Viva la resistance!