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BOUTONNIERES continued

"It has uplifted their spirits,’ said instructor Larry Barron. "Oh, they talk about it all the time, they met incredible people!" Lowrey coyly suggested that perhaps none of the people his students have met is as "incredible" as Barron himself.

"It was his idea to make boutonnieres for the 1989 Inaugural, Desert Storm soldiers, Pearl Harbor’s fiftieth anniversary and to circumnavigate the globe aboard the space shuttle Discovery," said Lowrey.

Barron’s most incredible skill may be his talent for jumping on trendy bandwagons that would do credit to the best Madison Ave. public relations firm. His talent misfired at least once, though: the 30,000 boutonnieres made for the Democratic convention were never used.

"I was kind of hurt that the Democrats didn’t use them," said one student at the workshop. A scowling Barron took a harder line: "We put our heart and soul into making a difference and it obviously didn’t with the Democrats."

There isn’t anything original I can say about the tone of the CNN feature. Lowrey’s patronizing attitude and the whole cheery philosophy of "overcoming" are well known to readers of The Rag. It is not "extraordinary" when large numbers of people with disabilities are taught to perform simple assembly tasks by rote. It is not "inspirational" when nondisabled people find a way to exploit the labor of people in sheltered workshops and at the same time surround themselves with the aura of sainthood. It is disturbing, however, to see these myths manipulated for political gain. If the Republican Party sees the Homewood Flossmoore boutonnieres as a positive image of the contribution people with disabilities can make in a Presidential election, what does this say for the future of the ADA or the future of our movement’s leaders? If CNN couldn’t find an any more profound disability-issue story in the Republican convention than this, what does this say about our image in the media?

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