Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity.

* Janine at StroppyBlog: Legal Step Forward on Disability Rights

The delicious irony in this particular case, the employer concerned was a firm of solicitors, who appeared to think they should not be excessively punished for mistreating an employee with a disabled kid.

Mrs Coleman, a legal secretary, gave birth in 2002 to a disabled son who required specialist care. She claimed that her employer refused to allow her to return to her previous job when she came back from maternity leave; refused to allow her to work flexibly; and subjected her to abusive and insulting comments about her child.

* amandaw at Three Rivers Blog: I have one question for you.

Where have you been for all the women stuck in nursing homes and institutions and all the women who are managing to live independently who will have their services taken back from them and be forced to move into nursing homes and modern institutions?

Because this is just as urgent an issue. And just as timely: it is being considered in the current health-care reform package. This one. This same one with Stupak (or analog). This same one you are fighting to improve for the sake of women.

Where have you been for years on the Community Choice Act?

* Rebecca at The GFCF Cookbook: Every celiac’s nightmare

News spread quickly: there was a gluten-free bread vendor, Great Specialty Products, with a table at the fair. His name was Paul Seelig, and he baked his loaves one small batch at a time in his Amish kitchen with all fresh ingredients delivered from his family farm in Ohio. His table was full of samples that were met with rave reviews by celiacs and non-celiacs alike. The bread was so good. It tasted just like real bread. It was crusty and soft and chewy, just like a good loaf of bread should be. […]

We jokingly began to call Paul “The Bread Alchemist.” We ordered two more times within a two week period, eager to try everything he sold.

And when Malachy, our little celiac, broke out in a strange rash two days after our first order, we didn’t make the connection. We thought he had chickenpox. We continued to buy and eat the bread, and the rash spread all over his body. Our pediatrician was mystified. Bug bites? A viral rash? Nothing made sense.

We weren’t the only ones in the community getting sick. […]

Paul was re-packaging Tribeca Oven’s bread and selling it as gluten-free Great Specialty Products bread.

IN THE NEWS: Special Travel Edition!

* The Consumerist: Man In Wheelchair Unimpressed With Greyhound

Along with being ignored and forgotten on the buses during many rest stops, I experienced wheelchair lifts which were barely operational that briefly trapped my chair, doors that would not close unless the driver banged on part of the frame with a hammer, and finally, a wheelchair lift door which would not open, which trapped me on the bus for over 12 hours. That required a mechanic and support personnel to fix at a station. Oh yes, and one driver who strapped down my chair when I boarded, who refused to release my chair at rest stops, since I “should have had an attendant” and “it wasn’t his job”. From my position, I wasn’t able to reach the release buttons, and was stuck.

* Sydney Morning Herald: Airline ‘erred’ on aid dog

Tiger Airways has admitted it blundered, again, after it told a disabled woman she couldn’t fly on the airline because it does not carry medical-alert dogs.

The disabled woman complained to the Human Rights Commission after she was told the only assistance dogs the airline allowed were seeing-eye dogs – a stance that is at odds with the airline’s own policy published on its website.

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes warned that airlines faced government regulation if they did not establish plans covering disabled travellers’ needs.

* wcbstv: Disabled Man’s Ordeal Leads To Bus Matron’s Arrest

Rivera didn’t arrive home Wednesday night. His special needs bus, ironically named Outstanding Transport, should have dropped him in East Harlem, but investigators found him almost a day later — miles away in a Brooklyn bus yard. Sources tell CBS 2 HD Rivera was strapped in his seat directly behind the driver’s seat. […] The source said Hockaday admitted to knowing that Rivera was still on the bus when it was locked up on one of the coldest nights of the year. Her rationale for leaving? She apparently didn’t want to be late for church.

* The Star: Company helps blind travellers

For me, an experienced traveller who is blind, this was my 26th country, my first time on South America, and I was excited about the places I was about to visit. […]

Liz Frankland, one of my fellow participants observed: “There are plenty of sighted people who find it strange that a blind person would want to travel anywhere, but they seem to overlook the pleasure and excitement of being indifferent places thanks to the atmosphere.

“It can be quite exhilarating being in a busy city like Lima, just to be there. Looking around and drinking in the noise and scents of a market, particularly in somewhere so different as Peru, is really interesting, especially when there is food we never see at home.”