What's New and Updated at The Shining Lamp?

Jonathan Mosen, a Blind and hard of hearing songwriter, wrote the Christmas song “A Place Beside the Fire” himself, shaped its arrangement and melody with Suno, an artificial intelligence (AI) music generator, and, because his hearing is degenerating, used AI to produce a sample of his voice. He invites Blind listeners to be glad the song exists and other listeners to learn what some Blind People hope for in a better world. We should add the song to our holiday playlists and share it far and wide.

Ableism, as Ashley Eisenmenger of Access Living explains, sorts People with Disabilities into a group seen as lesser and treats a disabled person as someone to fix. It shows up in separate schools, institutions, restraint and seclusion, and buildings and websites with no access, and in everyday slights, from using a mobility device as a footrest to talking down to a person or speaking for them. Pushing back means believing people, listening, keeping invasive questions to ourselves, and making sure People with Disabilities sit where decisions are made. We should start with the next program, service, event, or communication in planning.

Vilissa Thompson was expected to die by the age of 8 and has now lived 30 years past that prediction. She writes about ableism and medical racism in health care, the grandmother who was her first advocate, and what it means to grow older as a Black disabled woman and become a model for others.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published the first photos from the James Webb Space Telescope with alternative text, known as ALT text, and longer descriptions that Venkat, writing on Assistive Technology Blog, calls descriptive, poetic and scientifically accurate. The page shows how those image descriptions work and why ALT text should never be an afterthought.

On the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Mark Pound of CurbCutOS writes that the law’s promise has not reached the digital world: a 2022 report found failures of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines on 97.4 percent of the top one million home pages. He calls digital access a civil right and asks organizations and governments to build it in.

Sa’diyya Nesar, a Pakistani writer in Hong Kong who uses a wheelchair, writes poetry and memoir about disability and her Islamic faith and serves as a public policy adviser. She tells Hong Kong Free Press about pity, about people who talk past her, and about mosque stairs that keep her out, one of the ways ableism shows up in religious spaces.

Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act, an American Experience film from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), tells how disabled activists risked their bodies to win the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and how the curb cuts, ramps and Braille signs now taken for granted came from that fight. Its trailer and first chapter are offered with extended audio description and American Sign Language interpretation.

Sarah Marsh, who is Deaf, grew up thinking her deafness was a flaw until she met Rosie, another Deaf student, at university in 2001. Their friendship of more than twenty years taught her that she did not have to hide her hearing aids or who she was, and it showed her Deaf identity as part of who she is.

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Keely Cat-Wells shows that disabled people in the United States are twice as likely to be unemployed and that attitudes, inaccessible systems and benefits cliffs keep them out of work. She calls for skills based hiring, routine access at work, flexible schedules and disabled leadership at every decision making table.

In 1984, disabled activists from ADAPT, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, blocked Chicago buses that had no wheelchair lifts, each wearing a name tag that read “My name is Rosa Parks.” Lauren Nutall of The 19th traces how Parks shaped the disability rights movement that won the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and why activists such as Anita Cameron say the fight continues.

Ed Roberts, who became paralyzed after polio as a teenager, grew into the father of the independent living movement and spread centers run by disabled people across the country and the world. In an interview with Julia Métraux, Scot Danforth, author of a new biography, explains why Roberts’ story matters while disability rights are under attack.

Abdi Ali-Mumin, a Blind orientation and mobility instructor in Colorado, trained at the Colorado Center for the Blind and now teaches cane travel in the United States and in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. He writes that independence is a right for Blind People everywhere and that low expectations, not blindness, hold people back.

Noelle Pacl, a mother and advocate, writes that public rhetoric calling disabled people burdens has grown, and she traces such words to the institutions of the past and to the Nazi T4 program that killed tens of thousands of disabled people. She asks us to speak out against harmful words and to model respect for children.

Blind scientist and designer Joshua A. Miele was told as a teenager that he could not study physics and later heard a recruiter doubt that a Blind person could be a designer. He shows that ableism, not missing tools, is the main barrier, and he asks us to learn about disability from disabled people and to imagine how they can.

Pastors, parents and disabled worshippers in an Associated Press report show how congregations can welcome people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, from a “Calm Christmas” to an inclusive Hanukkah service. They ask faith leaders to plan with disabled members, to invite them to serve and to fully include them in worship.

In his 2024 banquet address to the National Federation of the Blind, President Mark A. Riccobono says dignity is equal for Blind People and others, yet grabbing hands, inaccessible forms and low expectations threaten it every day. He asks Blind People and allies to uphold dignity through autonomy, choice and respect, and to carry that work forward through the organized blind movement.