Word: breslin
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...precisely 1:25 p.m. on Hayes Street near Franklin in San Francisco, Mary Lou Breslin's motorized wheelchair spat out a shower of sparks and died. Breslin, 50, disabled by polio since childhood, had been shopping with her friend, Kathy Martinez, 36, who is blind. "I haven't been dead in the water for years," Breslin muttered angrily. With that, she and Martinez began to "strategize," their term for improvising in the face of emergencies. As able-bodied pedestrians moved past in a hurried blur, Breslin pulled out her cellular phone and started making calls...
Nothing is simple in the life of the disabled. Breslin and Martinez not only live daily with such obstacles, they evaluate them as well. Breslin helped establish the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, while Martinez has traveled worldwide as a consultant on blindness (and she water-skis when she gets the chance). Despite Breslin's wheelchair breakdown, a day with them on the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area shows that commonplace life has improved dramatically for them since the advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Several years ago, for example, Breslin stopped at a drugstore near...
Later, at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Berkeley, Breslin had to wheel backward into a small, smelly elevator, while other people used escalators. Martinez, who also rides BART, feels safe there, thanks to bumps, or "edge detection strips" that warn the blind away from the edge of the platforms. Despite the tight-elevator problem, bart is regarded as a disability-rights pioneer. "It was such a treat to take this train when I came to California years ago," says Breslin, who was raised in the Midwest. "I'd never lived anywhere where there was access...
...when the train pulled into the San Francisco Shopping Centre, a mall on Market Street admired for its accessibility, the wheelchair lift refused to work. Breslin tinkered and finally made it move by asking a bystander to hold the bottom gate tightly shut while she pushed buttons inside. Later she spoke of the frustrations of "the Blanche DuBois life," a reference to the lonely, high-strung character in A Streetcar Named Desire who relies on "the kindness of strangers...
...China's most-favored- nation trading status? That's just what Maher does on Politically Incorrect, his Comedy Central show that features the most eclectic political round tables on TV. Maher has mediated between Harvey Fierstein and ex-Mayor of Washington Marion Barry; brought Martin Short together with Jimmy Breslin; made Tom Hayden lighten up and Corbin Bernsen look smart. All without causing the viewer to feel like a sleaze for watching...