I wrote this piece for my hometown newspaper, The Mt Pleasant Morning Sun. It appeared Sunday, May 13. I reprint it here for my regular followers. Read this to understand the controversy to which I refer.

I have followed the recent controversy at my alma mater, Sacred Heart Academy, with keen interest.

I have passionate feelings about the decision not to let Dominic Sheahan speak at the 2012 graduation ceremonies, but for many, those opinions would distract from the point of this commentary. I wouldn’t want to do that.

While I have empathy for everyone caught in this crossfire, my prayers and emotional connection have largely been with a man who I am quite certain has been saddened and hurt by events of the last month, Dominic’s grandpa, Jerry Sheahan.

Jerry Sheahan is one of the most pivotal figures in my blessed life. I have never publicly told him that. In this very difficult month for Jerry, and before either of us pass; it strikes me as important to tell him and the world. I also think the tale carries larger lessons for all of us.

I was born in Mt. Pleasant in 1949 with Arthrogriposis Multicongenita, a congenital birth defect that deformed my limbs. I required braces and almost annual surgeries.

One spring day in 1956 Jerry Sheahan called my dad, Jim McGuire, and asked if Tim could be batboy for Sheahan’s highly successful Little League baseball team. Sheahan and his co-coach (the late) Bob Wohlscheid were both parishioners at Sacred Heart. They had known my parents, Jim and Anita, for years.

Without much notice, a uniform appeared at the house and that evening I was in the Roosevelt Oil team’s dugout. I arrived at the West Side stadium that night more than a little confused. Jerry briefed me on my duties and I tentatively followed his instructions. I vaguely knew only a couple of the players. The game had barely begun when a photographer from the local newspaper, the Mt Pleasant Daily Times-News, showed up at the game.

The photographer took one picture of my back looking onto the field. My omnipresent braces are prominent in the photo. The second picture the paper published showed me handing a bat to a player well more than a head taller than me (Joe Feldman) and the caption said I told him to hit a homerun.

Both captions took considerable liberties describing me as a “gallant sparkplug’ and decreeing I “handled the bats like diamonds.” At the time I was no gallant sparkplug and I don’t think I had the good sense to tell anyone to hit a home run.

There would come a day, however, when I did handle those bats like diamonds and all those characterizations would become more or less true. Roosevelt Oil (later Leonard Refinery) and Little League became an integral part of my springs and summers for the next five years. Usually the season was close to complete by the time I headed for my annual summer surgeries and casts. I still remember minute details of games, seasons and players.

If the players regarded me as an oddity I never felt it for a moment. My sense of team and self-esteem was as strong as the fastball of the star pitcher, John Schade. I fondly remember team picnics at amusement parks and other team outings. I was always front and center in team photos and celebrations. To this day, my good friend Mick Natzel, talks about when we “played” Little League together.

Sheahan and Wohlscheid accomplished their probable goal. The sports-crazed little kid who would never play baseball felt like he belonged to a team. I never felt like the lonely, handicapped boy. Sheahan, Wohlscheid and the players made me feel as if I had a real role with a championship team.

These days I read a lot about the dramatic increase of shameful bullying in schools. It angers me and saddens me that some youngsters are harassed to the point of suicide.

News stories like that make me reflect on two things. First, I reflect on the two young girls I remember in school that were unmercifully teased. Every time I read one of those stories I have a major pang of regret that I never helped them.

Yet, I know why I didn’t. I was just so bloomin’ grateful that I wasn’t the one the other kids were teasing.

That’s when I marvel at how little I was picked on as a young kid even though I “walked funny.” I am convinced much of that was due to my young friends in the community. Practically every kid under 12 knew the batboy for Roosevelt Oil and they knew his team liked him. With the frequent help of my young friends from my Little League team, Mike Hackett, Bill McDonald and my brother Marty I survived those prepubescent years in fine shape. I knew there were always people there to help me.

Jerry Sheahan and Bob Wohlscheid with one big act of kindness offered me a hand up. It changed my young life. I salute Jerry and Bob and I salute all my friends who saved me from bullying.

At the same time I wonder if there is a youngster each of us could save from bullying by caring as much as Jerry and Bob did. And, I wonder if we’re coaching our kids enough to stand up for those youngsters around them who are getting the short end of the stick.

Tim McGuire is a Mt Pleasant native who retired as Editor of The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2002. He is now The Frank Russell Chair for the Business of Journalism at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

After a personal 62-year journey, it was a paraplegic woman named Jennifer Longdon who finally made me take my disability responsibilities seriously.

Jennifer’s story is a tough one to read and if you follow her twitter account @jenniferlongdon, it hasn’t gotten any easier in recent weeks. That twitter feed for the last three months is as mesmerizing as any novel I’ve ever read. It was a Jennifer tweet, or a series of tweets, that made me sad, angry and responsible in a blinding flash.

Let’s back up.

I was 42 or so before I finally checked the box on the form that designated me as dealing with some sort of disability. I had spent the first years of my life denying that my Arthrogriposis Multicongenita made me any different from anyone else.

I learned to walk at 18 months in plaster of Paris casts. I had 13 surgeries before I was 16 years old. My right arm is mostly decorative. I have walked with a profound limp all my life. Yet, the words handicapped or disabled were never acceptable to me.

I wasn’t in a wheelchair. I was mobile. I could play flag football, albeit badly. I didn’t work construction but I could do any job that required me to think.

I spent much of my adolescence trying to prove to everyone I was normal. I damn near killed myself with reckless behavior trying to prove I was just like everybody else.

Even as my body began to break down with age and too much weight, I resisted handicapped parking decals and any other admission of personal frailty until I was past 50. Through that decade, arthritis ate away at my ankles until I decided something had to be done. I detailed in a blog post in October my decision to have an ankle joint fusion, the difficulties that followed, and the knee stroller and electric cart that were required.

That experience made me far more sensitive to the way the American Disability Act falls far short of solving the problem. Still, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to do much to get involved in helping the disabled and journalists covering disability issues.

Then the Jennifer Longdon tweets slammed me over the head.

Jennifer participated in Ignite Phoenix. This link explains the program well, but this video of Jennifer’s performance explains it even better. If you watch it your tears and laughter are going to get mixed up into one dramatic and confused mess. It is brilliant.

The tweet that changed my attitude forever followed that presentation. It read like this:

“Lack of wheelchair access @ #ignitephx after party like being stood up 4 prom. Broke my heart. Truly. Please patronize iruna for kindess 2 me”

This tweet followed:”wish I could be there to see. Heartbroken that after party is not wheelchair accessible.”

I was at home following this on Twitter. I was beside myself with anger and frustration. This woman had invested her entire being in this event and she could not celebrate at the after party because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible.

I was clearly more angry than Jennifer. A day or two later she tweeted this:”Wanna say LOUD AND CLEAR, that I am grateful to every member of the #ingitephx team for a WOW experience. Glitches happen, you were great.” I was blown away by her graciousness but just as blown away that our society does not have a place for all of us.

That is when I accepted Kristin Gilger’s 15 month-old invitation to join the National Center for Disability Journalism. That center moved to the Cronkite School in 2009 and Kristin immediately asked me to join the board.  I  demurred for months.

I had still struggled with whether I was “handicapped enough.” I didn’t really feel called to help the center educate journalists on disabilities and journalism.

Jennifer Longdon’s rebuff at that after party changed that. I warned Kristin that while I accepted her invitation to join the board I was now a “born again” on disabilities and on the need to enlighten society on the challenges disabled folks face.

I am convinced most people believe the American Disabilities Act fixed everything. It did not. Sure, the sidewalk curbs are gone and public pedestrian access is improved, but people in wheelchairs still must climb mountains of challenges every day.

This I believe: Journalism changes minds and it changes society.

The National Center for Disability Journalism can enlighten and educate journalists that the ADA has not addressed all of the challenges disabled people face.

Thanks to the courage of Jennifer Longdon I finally have confidence I can be an effective part of that process.

In what the disability community has been saying all along, Kiewitz told GlobalPost in an interview that “it would be good if handicapped people started to be used to advertise other things.” (Handicapped is a term commonly used in Europe). “Why shouldn’t somebody with a disability be a model? It would make a change from those models who all look alike. Why don’t we have more people in wheelchairs speaking on TV, they can speak as well as anybody else,” she says.

Lots of opportunities come to mind, from models to actors to politicians. Today, Jonathan Phang, the host of Britain’s Missing Top Model, began backing a campaign calling for the fashion industry to use disabled models on the catwalk and in ad campaigns. And earlier this year Debenhams, a famous U.K. department store, became the first retailer of its kind to use disabled models in campaign photography. Debenhams has just announced they are supporting the Disabled & Sexy fashion show, which will be held October 25 in London’s Notting Hill.

“We need to look beyond stereotypes. Not only to encourage the fashion world to change their thinking, but to help raise a deeper understanding about the prejudices young, beautiful, disabled women have to overcome every day,” Chang says.

The next industry that should pick up cues Is Hollywood. Fox’s Glee has cast a singing and dancing wheelchair user who is not disabled. However, there are two actors with Down’s syndrome on the show. Out of a total of 587 characters on television shows this season, only six roles have disabilities and only one role is played by a disabled actor, according to Hollywood Reporter. That actor is Robert David Hall, a double leg amputee, who plays a coroner on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Hollywood says it’s not always easy to find talented disabled people to fill their cast and crew. ABC, for instance, recently put out a Facebook casting call for a deaf actress and two male deaf actors for a new family series.

It’s Hollywood’s job to make art reflect life, but also for life to reflect art. Forrest Gump, I am Sam and Rain Man were all superb movies, played with aplomb by able-bodied actors. This is likely more a reflection of the business model of Hollywood; not wanting to risk a typically overblown movie budget on an unknown actor who has a disability.

In the consumer space, some companies have recognized the selling opportunity and are reworking their ads to include people with disabilities. Props to Milk-Bone for including a wheelchair user in a recent T.V. commercial, and for supporting service dogs for the disabled. Kudos, too, to Babies “R” Us, who is working with Autism Speaks on a collection of photographs titled “Faces of Autism” that are appearing on signs in stores and on a section of the Toys “R” Us Website.

For many years, ads and catalogs for Toys “R” Us have included children who are physically disabled. Consumers with physical disabilities, younger and older, have appeared in campaigns for advertisers like Cingular Wireless, Levi Strauss, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Target.

Some artists are taking matters into their own hands. In May, photographer Holly Norris shot a spoof of the hip-and-skinny, teenaged American Apparel print ads with her friend Jes Sachse. Calling it American Able, the ads featured Jes, who has a rare genetic disorder called Freeman-Sheldon syndrome, in a series of poses that have been called “a searing satire of fashion photography.”

Last year, American Airlines ran a campaign that honored the best local TV commercial featuring positive portrayals of the disabled. The winning spot — the Texas Lion’s Club — won free air time during the airline’s in-flight entertainment programming. After the dismissal of a disabled passenger by US Air this week, more airlines might want to look into this niche.

There are nearly 1 billion people globally with disabilities. Like or not, the message is getting clearer: Leave out the disabled and you’ll leave money, and customers, on the table.

- By Suzanne Robitaille

Today, the Wall Street Journal published the article, For Disabled, a Job Hunt Alternative, leading with the story of New Mexico’s David Shunkey, an autistic man who runs a dog-treat business with an $850 state grant. The story does a great job talking about the opportunities as well as the hurdles that face disabled entrepreneurs. While loans are available, they’re harder to get. And in Mr. Shunkey’s case, his difficulty with communicating and running a business has potentially hurt his sales.

A key program that WSJ mentioned is one I’ve written about in the past on my website, abledbody.com, is the Entrepreneur Boot Camp for Veterans. This excellent, week-long workshop is designed to give veterans with disabilities an MBA-style crash course in being an business owner. Six schools are participating, including founder Syracuse University: Here’s how to apply.

Another program that didn’t receive mention — perhaps it was too new to be considered — is the U.S. Business Leadership Network’s Disability Supplier Diversity Program. The program offers businesses that are 51% owned by an individual with a disability, including service disabled veterans, an opportunity to obtain certified disability-owned business status and get access to supplier networks in major corporations and federal agencies. It’s the disability version of being a women- or minority-owned business. My company, abledbody, successfully obtained certified disability-owned status on April 30, and I’m on of 16 other small businesses that hope use this certification to do business with private-sector companies including Ernst & Young, IBM and Walgreen’s.

In fact, many people with disabilities who start businesses go to great lengths to ensure that they’re using their strengths, not their disability, to make an imprint. (Abledbody offers writing and communications services.) Other companies in the program sell products and services that cater to the disability market — such as Braille signage or ADA consulting — and for these enterprises, business can be a windfall. Let’s hope another article shows up in mainstream media that highlights these success stories, too.

- Suzanne Robitaille

On the show, she discussed how journalists can better cover autism –encouraging the media to focus on positive stories about coping with autism, rather than negative controversies.

Very interesting podcast. Check it out here.

The Poynter Institute is talking about braille and literacy, a topic jump-started by a recent New York Times Magazine article, “Listening to Braille,” by Rachel Aviv. The author writes that new technology may be undermining braille literacy as people who are blind are now “reading” via e-books, iPods, telephone news services and other text-to-speech devices.

Note to New York Times headline writers: People who are blind read braille. They don’t listen to it.

Aviv delves into scientific studies that say learning English by “visual” or “feeling” mode is far better than anything audio can provide. With new technologies, she asks, do blind people lose more than they gain?

Probably not. Most blind people would never be able to assimilate into modern society without “talking” books, computers, mp3 players and smart phones — even if they were fluent in braille. One reason is the cost of producing a braille book – about $1,000, due to the cost of labor and materials. Aviv writes:

“Braille books are expensive and cumbersome, requiring reams of thick, oversize paper. The National Braille Press, an 83-year-old publishing house in Boston, printed the Harry Potter series on its Heidelberg cylinder; the final product was 56 volumes, each nearly a foot tall.”

Alternatively, a person who is blind can read Web-braille.  Such a book is translated into digital braille and “read” via braille on a computer or PDA using a “refreshable braille display,” which is like a braille keyboard. Still, these devices cost upwards of $6,000 and one must be fluent in literary braille to use them.

That’s why digital talking books make so much more sense for today’s modern person who is blind. Books can be read aloud on “DAISY readers,” which are like the Kindle — only much more accessible, or on MP3 players like iPods. Costs start from $350 and up. That’s more favorable economics.

The bigger problem is getting the major publishers to allow their books to be translated into audio for those with visual impairments.  The New York Times and BusinessWeek have covered the recent dispute over Kindle 2′s ability to read its books aloud, which was intended for use by the blind. In a Wall Street Journal article, Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild says: “Kindle users don’t have the right to read a book out loud…that’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

Technology has caught up with the times, but the marketplace is still mired in old-school thinking. This debate will continue. Meanwhile, people who are blind will try to get their hands on literature any which way they can.

Suzanne Robitaille is the founder and editor-in-chief of Abledbody.com, a consumer Web site that covers disability news and assistive technology. She was the assistive technology columnist for BusinessWeek.com in New York from 2001-2005.

She also worked at The Wall Street Journal Online and continues to write for print and Web publications, including The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek.com, Disaboom and Media Post. She is the author of the book “The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology & Devices.”

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics compiled the data, which include statistics from federal sources and surveys on disability prevalence and population size, including breakdowns by state and disability type. The site also includes employment and earnings, education, health and health care coverage, rehabilitation and participation in benefit programs.

This resource is posted in the disability resource page.

A few weeks back I came across a story that really stood out. The story is a profile that was featured on ESPN’s newsmagazine “E:60” about a high school football player who is blind.

I was impressed with both the production values and the storytelling. The majority of the 10-minute story is told by the subject of the profile, Charlie Wilks, who also conducts most of the interviews for the piece. By the end of the story, I felt that I knew and understood who Charlie really was. On the field, his nickname is the beast because he shows no mercy and expects the same from his opponents.

The producers of the story do more “showing” than “telling” about the challenges Wilks faces and how he adapts. For example, they show Wilks using assistive technology, a BrailleNote, for the interviews he conducts. Wilks briefly explains how the technology works, but the storytelling isn’t bogged down with all the particulars. Instead, viewers can see him using it during interviews.

Significantly, it is Wilks – not his mother or grandfather or even a doctor — who explains how a brain tumor led to his blindness. This shows us more about Wilks as a person than about Wilks as a medical condition.

I was inspired by this story, not because I was told to be inspired, but because I was shown.

Decide for yourself. The story is at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/columns/story?id=4637537.