My comrades and I are drinking...Three Floyds Pride & Joy. Advertised as a "Mild Ale," but really a hoppy Bitter, without the ESB alcohol. I've quickly become a fan . Here's a low alcohol session beer for hop/IPA lovers. It's a little thinner than the trendy big beers, but it's a keeper.
And I raise this glass to the good people at ADAPT, who thwarted my Tuesday plans to get my Illinois license. Illinois DMV makes NJ and NY seem easy, so this was actually my second trip to the Thompson Center/State of Illinois Building (shown at right, designed by defiler of the Chicago skyline Helmut Jahn). When I arrived, most of the doors were blocked by police tape, and folks in wheelchairs stuck in the revolving doors. I was about to help, when I realized that they were involved in a spot of civil disobedience. Shut down the whole building--even the CTA entrance.
When I read the short flyer handed to me, I couldn't believe my eyes. Their "main goal...is to end the institutional bias in Medicaid that forces people with disabilities from their home [sic] and families into expensive institutions and nursing homes." On the back of the flyer, they had a rhetorical "What If.." list for all of the inconvenienced. Number 3 on the list: "What if you could only have alcohol on special occasions , and only if you were 'good'?" It was a modern day Lager Beer Riot! Down with a demeaning nanny government! Check them out. They seem to be doing good stuff. Now if they could only come back and pull a Ronald Reagan on the Berlin Wall--"Mr. Jahn, tear down this building!"
13 comments:
You are awesome! Thanks for the support for my brothers and sisters representing all people with disabilities on Tuesday. I am a huge beer lover! My uncles gave me my first taste when I was barely school-aged and I've loved it ever since. To me, every red-blooded American adult should be able to decide what they are going to put in their body without having to ask someone else's permission first. *sigh*
Well, at least Tuesday was a good start! Thank you for taking the time to get a flyer and find out what was going on.
I raise my bottle (of Oscar's Chocolate Oatmeal Beer) to you, my friend!
P.S. Find this beer. You'll love it! Trust me!
Inseparable for me are hearty beers, button box polkas and my aunts and uncles multi-part harmonies that became "slurrier" but more beautiful to me as the evenings progressed at our Slovene family gatherings. Thanks for stirring a very nice family memory.
Thanks also for acknowledging that quality of life issues are life issues for my brothers and sisters with disabilities. Your entry restores my faith in humanity, and the power of hops to cure the world ills.
To Lager Beer Riot... [raising a glass of Rogue Ten Thousand Brew Ale] Yer' All Right.
Thanks for your support! You rock! We actually got lots of support from the People of Chicago, even the police!
Great post! ADAPT sent your link out to all our people. Smile. Yes, we'd all much rather be able to have a beer of our choice with our friends and families in our own homes, not nursing homes.
Thanks for supporting the resistance!
Your Blog made it to "Crip Humor ~ By and For the Severely Euphemized" and you are now part of the archives. Want to see? Go to http://www.topica.com/lists/CripHumor and click on Read List. Thanks for 'getting it' and writing about your experience in such a compelling manner.
oh god, it was good to see this after reading all the people who were angry about the short inconvenience and didn't understand the implications of the action.
props to you!!
I'll have to raise a metaphorical heffeweisse to you, Lager Beer Riot (don't have any beer in the fridge, how can that be?)--but I raise it with gusto. I'm always thrilled to know that someone actually read the flyers at a protest, and thought about what they read! That's a victory right there.
I don't have any beer, not even a bottle of tonic, but I do raise my glass of water in full honor of your stand. I was one of the folks in Chicago blocking off those doors. Our battle is for everyone. The temporarily ablebodied are only a banana peel away from joining our ranks.
FREE OUR PEOPLE!!!!
Bunny
At first I read your blog title as "Large Beer Riot," which works too, for the indiscriminate, anyway, right? I clicked over from the link at Not Dead Yet.
Thanks for your support. And I hope your return to the DMV did or does go well.
Thanks so much for your support! I was one of the ADAPT members blocking the entrance to the CTA. You Rock!
I love it!!
I'm linking to your article on my disabilities rights blog.. (I have 4 blogs on here..lol) "Ordinary Liberties"
I'm glad ADAPT was able to get through to you and let you see yourself in their place by reaching your heart of hearts.. living w/o alcohol.. yep.
When I was a paid advocate, I helped over a dozen people leave nursing homes and move back into the community.. and yes.. one of the first things many of them did was DRINK ALCOHOL!
Coincidentally, last month our local adapt chapter got a call from a nursing home saying that they were throwing a 40 year old guy out effective in 2 weeks and they wanted us to get him out the sooner the better! He had just committed the most intolerable infraction....He was caught sitting in the lobby with a beer that he was drinking. This was the last straw!
We got him out and got him to Wing Night at the Bradford Lounge the next evening and he bought us all beer.
He's doing ok and glad to be out of the prison he had been in for 18 months. He had fallen off a scaffold at work and broken his back. For this he did not deserve prison and no beer!
This is true and not any bull.
Right On...it's great to hear from someone that was witness to our 'organized mahem' and most encouraging when we hear from someone that supports what we are standing for(or sitting for in my case).
I, too, was one of the folks who held the ground at the CTA turnstyles.
After reading from someone who actually get's what we are doing and has taken the time to write in support of us, I have been inspired to head out, find an accesible bar or tavern and raise a mug in your honor! Oh how I love this spontaneity...
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