What Now for NJ DDS?

By Ed Heaton

Recently, I was reading the biography of George Steinbrenner, by Bill Madden. The more I read, the more familiar the character of Mr. Steinbrenner seemed to me. The ego, the incessant demands, the never admitting of a mistake, blaming either his manager, general manager or players on the field for his failures. George Steinbrenner actually fired someone once because it was raining.

After reading the book, I realized why Mr. Steinbrenner seemed so familiar to me. I had the unfortunate experience of working for the George Steinbrenner of NJDDS: Joseph Amoroso.

I would have probably never written this column except for the action of Mr. William Ditto, recently retired director of the Division of Disability Services. Mr. Ditto named Mr. Amoroso Acting Director of the Division. In so doing, he took a cold and turned it into influenza.

Besides Mr. Amoroso’s questionable people skills, there are questions surrounding him concerning figures and facts. According to a document written by Mr. Ditto in December 2008, DDS’s Information and Referral Area (led by Mr. Amoroso) receives 1,700 calls per month. What Mr. Ditto did not state was what types of calls are being received. How many of the 1,700 calls are new requests for information, repeat calls, or follow-up calls?  Both Mr. Ditto and Mr. Amoroso like to point to the amount of calls received as an indicator of the success of the I & R Area. Without outcomes attached to the calls, the number of calls received is not a true indicator of the effectiveness of the I & R Area. In fact, without a report of outcomes, an evaluation of the I & R Area’s effectiveness in assisting consumers cannot even be determined.

While interpretation of data can be debated, facts cannot. In my June column, I noted that Mr. Amoroso was found guilty of a discrimination complaint by the Chief of Staff of the Department of Human Services. Since then, I have discovered that the Merit System Board denied Mr. Amoroso’s appeal of that complaint. The thing is, if Mr. Amoroso had admitted he was wrong and just accepted his punishment, I would have never found out about the complaint. Instead, by always needing to be right, Mr. Amoroso filed an appeal, which became a matter of public record. It also bothers me that a person found guilty of a discrimination complaint, not once, but twice (because of the review), was named Acting Director.  Given this, wasn’t there anyone better qualified?

A search committee has been formed to find Mr. Ditto’s replacement. In his final column in the Able Newspaper of August 6. 2010, Mr. Ditto states, “We have recruited several people from outside of state government to serve on the committee to make it as fair and impartial as possible.” What Mr. Ditto does not mention, by limiting his comment to “state government”, is that all members of the committee that I know of are directly connected to government in one way or another: either county, academic, or retired state government employees. There is no one from the disabled community or the non-profit provider community to assist this committee in making their choices. My recommendation would be to name a CIL director (Eileen Goff) and a person from an advocacy organization (Lowell Ayre), to the committee to expand its outreach.  It is my sincere hope that a replacement for Mr. Ditto is named quickly.

The people I feel most sorry for are the current employees of DDS. I have served my time in hell. Theirs is just beginning.

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All We Are

Living It Up

A while ago I saw Milery Cyrus (aka Hanna Montana) being interviewed on Good Morning America about a photo shoot she had done which was appearing in some fashion magazine. To her credit she talked about the two hours of makeup preparation prior to the shoot and the airbrushing that was done to the photos afterwards before they were ready for the magazine. She concluded by saying this process would make any individual look beautiful and sexy. This was quite a mature, candid and astute observation for such a young woman. During my 34 years of teaching I was constantly trying to help students see themselves in a more positive light. When we are subjected to negative interactions in our daily lives we tend to wonder what is the matter with us. When in reality, we should be thinking what’s wrong with the other person. We are bombarded daily with messages of what the ideal image and lifestyle for us should be. Few, if any of us, can live up to these unrealistic expectations. The majority of people seem to be less than satisfied with their physical features. This is very evident when we look at the rise in cosmetic surgery over the past few years. As Oden Black pointed out in his last blog Love You. Love Me! “We look in the mirror and see deficiencies, which are compounded by everyday negative comments and messages we receive from those around us.” Our society worships youth and perfection. How many times have you turned on the television or opened a magazine to see a celebrity who has had so much plastic surgery they are hardly recognizable. There is an additional obsession for many people to look young and in shape, and many individuals take the shortest and quickest methods available to achieve this goal such as liposuction or dangerous fad diets. If I paraphrase Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths we can begin to see a way to relieve some of this way of thinking.

Suffering is due to desire                                                                                                         

Trying to eliminating desire                                                                                                      

Will lead to a life with less suffering

Several years ago I was seeing a psychiatrist who asked me if I could identify any positive things that had come as a result of my condition. After several minutes of thought, I said I had met some wonderful people, but could think of no others. He then suggested to me that I no longer had to worry about vanity. What a ridiculous statement! If anything I’m more vain. In fairness to him, like most of the doctors I deal with, he had little experience with someone with my disability. The point I’m getting at here is that most people in society have hang ups about the way they look and the way others perceive them. So, as individuals with disabilities we are not as different from others as we may think we are. We would all be much more content and enjoy our lives much more if we accepted our physical selves the way we are and allow nature and the aging process to follow their normal courses.

As Matt Nathanson has written in his song “All We Are”

I kept falling over
I kept looking backward
I went broke believing
That the simple should be hard

‘Cause all we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful, something real

All we are we are
All we are we are
And every day is a start of something beautiful, beautiful

Where did I leave my vibrator?

By Odeon Black
Please note this article contains adult content and language.

Where did I leave my vibrator?  Well as it happened, my vibrator was eventually found, but I will get to that later.  First, let me give you the back-story.  My girlfriend (we will call her Becky) and I had always liked traveling.  We would travel any chance we got.  It was so great to get away from the dull drum of every day existence.  To go someplace where no one knows your name, or cares.  You are just a visitor or tourist, there to have fun.  My disability would often get lost in the dancing, sun, drinks and my favorite, sex.  This was and continues to be an escape, a place to simply be a sexual gimp with a hard-on for life.

One of our exciting trips took us to the Bahamas, fabulous beaches, great drinks, and so many foods made with conch.  There was deep fried conch, stewed, sautéed, boiled and the ever-popular sandwich.  The hotel was filled with tourist, clean and surprisingly wheelchair accessible; given it was over 10 years ago. Becky and I could not wait to check-in and get to our room, flying always frustrated us, but also made us very horny.
If you think flying with a power chair is hard now you should have flown 10 or 15 years ago.

We check-in to the hotel and race to the room, the door swings open and the clothes drop like heavy raindrops in a storm.  She tears off my t-shirt, and I rip the three buttons that hold her skimpy shirt together, off with my teeth.  The smell of sea salt wafting in through the window and the scent of sweat fills the room.  Then we remember, we brought a new sex toy; a 7 inch pink vibrator.  It was an average size I suppose, made of silicone and took two AA batteries.  We also, brought a bottle of lube and of course condoms to our mini-soirée.  She unwrapped the vibe and we worked it until the batteries died.  I held it in my mouth, my splint, and she held it in every position imaginable.  All our hotel neighbors heard was, “Oh my God, I love this Vibe”, “that’s my vibe”, “nothing better than your tongue and the vibe”.  Yes, four days and three nights of lube filled, condom smacking, pink vibrations.

Well, on the last day we pack and are ready to go; but we cannot find the pink vibe. We must have searched the whole entire room.  We came to the conclusion that maybe the maid took it or accidentally fell in the garbage can.  We had to go or miss the plane. We left wondering where it was?   We arrived at the airport and rushed to security.  They had a system where they run your carry-on baggage and suitcases through the X-ray machines, while one stands there.

We wait for our bags to go through, as the line behind us gets longer.  The Security officer, in standard white shirt, shorts an official Bahamian hat, begins his review.  One carry-on goes through, and then another, and finally the suitcase has a turn. As it is starting to come out the other end the officer stop the conveyer belt, and backs up the suitcase, he yells to the other guard.  “There is a long metal object in here!” at the same time Becky remembers where she put the vibrator.  She packed it in the suitcase first,  “so she would not forget it”.  She leans close to me and says,  “oh my god, I hate that vibe”, that’s not my vibe”, “how embarrassing”.

Now everybody is looking at us.  We have become microbes under a microscope of possible wrongdoing, passenger curiosity and Security guard indiscretions.  Yikes!
The guard slowly but methodically un-zippered the suitcase as two others watched, Becky, turned a beet red as they lifted the flap and felt around for the “long metal object.”  Yes.  His expression said it all when his hands clutched what could only feel like a worn down silicone cock.  As he “pulled-it-out”, the other guards simultaneously looked up at the young girl and her “friend” in the wheelchair.  Becky looked mortified, horrified, she was not into the “vibe”, right now.  I shrugged.

The guards quickly threw the vibe back, zipped the suitcase and yelled, next!  I was so glad we were not next.

Raised Garden Boxes

Plans For A Raised Garden Box

Would you like to raise some flowers and/or grow some vegetables for your own consumption? Raised bed garden boxes will let you do that and it is great exercise. Each spring the soil must be worked up and planted. During the growing season the vegetables must be weeded and

thinned. If the weather is not cooperating the plants must be watered. The wilted flower heads must be picked off the plants (called deadheading) which is great exercise for fingers. A box does not take up much room if space is an issue. Prior to placing a box, the area under it must be prepared. This is not necessary if it will be placed on cement or any other solid surface. If placed on the ground you must assure good drainage.

The height of the box opening should be a few inches taller than the armrests of the wheelchair. The width of the growing area should be several inches less than twice the gardener’s arm length which will allow the covering of the entire planting area. Built from pressure treated lumber, the box is open on two sides so one can drive a wheelchair underneath it and work straight on. 

The first year my boxes presented some unique problems because of the construction.  The 2” by 8” which made up the planting area did not allow for the soil to be deep enough for vegetables so most of the vegetables planted did not grow very well.  The following year, as you can see from the picture, we added about 3 inches to the height of the planting area.  This allowed adding another 250 pounds of soil to the bed.  Also, in an effort to cut down on moisture evaporation we added Hydro-Sorb to the soil. Hydro-Sorb retains water and releases it a little at a time.  These two changes made the boxes much more successful. We did not find it necessary to increase the depth of the flower boxes.               

I have 6 boxes, four I plant with vegetables and the other two with annual flowers. I enjoy working these boxes very much. I use adaptive garden tools which can be purchased online. The vegetable boxes can grow salt potatoes, broccoli, onions, baby carrots, beets and garlic. Gardening is good for many different reasons. Check out the video   Raised Bed Gardening

Raised Fower Box In Bloom

Working A Raised Garden Box