British Businesses Say No To The Blind

by Sophie Huskisson The Daily Mirror    Twenty percent of businesses say they would not be willing to adapt their workplaces to employ a blind or partially sighted person, research has found.    One in five companies said adjustments to make their firm more accessible would be too costly, with nearly half not knowing how …

Updates on Robinson Statue, Dirty Dancing

by Kevin Burton    Wichita police have arrested 45-year-old Ricky Aldrete for multiple crimes, including the theft and destruction of a bronze Jackie Robinson statue, according to published reports.    Page 7 reported on the story after Major League Baseball stepped forward to pay for replacing the statue, (MLB To Replace Vandalized Robinson Statue, Feb …

MLB To Replace Vandalized Robinson Statue

by Kevin Burton    From something heinous, comes something great in Wichita. And who knows how far it will go?    The Statue of Jackie Robinson which was stolen Jan. 25 from McAdams Park in Wichita was found broken beyond repair and burning in a trash can at nearby Garvey Park Tuesday.    But yesterday …

Violence-Ready Militia Hiding In Plain Sight

by Tim Dickinson Rolling Stone    There’s a new power player on America’s extremist scene. White nationalist “Active Clubs” are growing explosively, and filling a void created by the prosecutions that decimated the leadership of oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.    “The Active Clubs are who the Proud Boys thought they were,” says Jon Lewis, …

Does ADA Cover A Worker’s Commute?

by Carol Warner Hrmorning.com    When do employers’ ADA obligations kick in? Do compliance requirements start as soon as employees get to work? Or do they begin during the commute — before workers even arrive at the job site?    A newly filed lawsuit puts the question to the test. According to the Equal Opportunity …

Students Sue District Over Free Speech

by Katie Stavick The Frontiersman    Wasilla, Alaska – Two students filed a lawsuit against the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District Nov. 30, stating that the district has violated their right to free speech.    The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Ben Kolendo and Quinlen Schachle, both seniors in the District-Kolendo is a senior at Career …

Syracuse Turns Its Back On The Disabled

by Stephen Kuusisto     (Nationally-known poet and disability advocate Stephen Kuusisto writes the “Planet of the Blind” blog on WordPress. The following is from his posts of  Nov. 28 and Dec. 2.)    When Helen Keller attended Radcliffe she observed that the experience was a “largely lonely triumph” and described how she was ignored by …

Papa John’s To Pay $175K For Discrimination

by Kevin Burton    Giant pizza-delivery chain Papa John’s will cough up a big chunk of dough, for employment  discrimination against a blind man, according to multiple published reports.    Louisville-based Papa John’s is the fourth-largest pizza delivery chain in the US,  according to USA Today. On its website, Papa John’s lists “the values that …

More Words For Crimes And Misdemeanors

by Kevin Burton    Children utter phrases such as “cross my heart, hope to die” to self-administer a kind of playground oath. But it’s not binding.    Today our friends at Merriam-Webster bring us words dealing with what we say, or refuse to say, under a legal oath in a court of law.    But …

Words From The Wrong Side Of The Law

by Kevin Burton    Some of the entries on today’s word list from Merriam-Webster I learned as a wee lad, by following the news about the federal government.    If it hadn’t been for the Nixon Administration and the Watergate scandal, I would have thought hush money was money a parent spends to keep the …