ooh / ah.

- ooh! Tennis champ Esther Vergeer poses nude, embracing her tennis racquet, in her wheelchair on the cover of ESPN magazine. Commentary here:

While we're hard-pressed to celebrate the reveal of a bunch of hard-bodied women like it's a major coup for femininity, a spokesperson for the magazine said: "ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue is a celebration and exploration of the athletic form, honoring athletes of diverse shapes, sizes, colors, genders, and race."

...

the paraplegic has made kicking ass her business since childhood. She recently won her 396th straight U.S. Open match in her chair.

- ah. Last week on This American Life, there was a segment on people with disabilities suing businesses for being out of compliance. It was on a show titled "Crybabies," but I would say that, on balance, it approached the issue pretty well. It edged into questioning whether suing small businesses for seemingly small instances of noncompliance (coat hangers or mirrors too high for wheelchair users, e.g.) is fair or even effective, but ultimately pointed out that this is basically the only way that the ADA can get enforced after the building permit phase is over. One business owner complains that he would have changed the height of the coat hook had someone just asked him, rather than suing, but the counterargument is implied as a woman tells the story of repeatedly asking her hair salon to provide wheelchair parking (they do initially, then repaint the lines to make two standard spots) to no avail.
Click here for full episode (story starts at about 33 min).

olympic interlude, paralympic prelude

Peter Axelson (image via Disabled Sports USA), an inventor, promoter, and 7-time World Champion in monoskiing, will be one of the U.S.' official delegates to the Olympics closing ceremony on Sunday, Feb 28 (via). Axelson has designed sports equipment for people with disabilities since 1981, when he founded Beneficial Designs and produced his first monoski. Since then Beneficial Designs has produced equipment for alpine and cross-country skiing, surfing, and rowing - releasing each design for open-source use rather than patenting and limiting its availability.
(while looking up images for this post, btw, I came across this great article on the history of adaptive skiing on disaboom)

Then the Paralympics start shortly after the Olympic Games - March 21.
The Paralympics are unlikely to be on NBC - but there is an internet TV channel for them here.
This is a great preview of the Canadian sledge hockey team (they won gold in 2006):



If anyone reading this hasn't seen it, the 2005 documentary Murderball is a fantastic warm-up to the Paralympics.