The answer to
Question number 4 in the Disability Awareness quiz is D.
Ron Kovic
In 1976 spoke
from his wheelchair at the Democratic convention in New York City's
Madison
Square Garden. He brought the audience to tears with this poem:
I am the
living death the
memorial day on wheels I am
your Yankee Doodle Dandy your
John Wayne come home your
fourth of July firecracker exploding
in the grave
Kovic
became a passionate peace
activist and writer, speaking out repeatedly against the poor
conditions in
American veteran's hospitals. His story was told in his book and movie Born on
the Forth of July, starring Tom
Cruise. Today Kovic is an
outspoken
critic of the war in Iraq. Myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=Kovic En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Kovic Born
on the Fourth of July
Stephen
Hawking
Professor Stephen Hawking wrote
the best selling book, A Brief
History of Time and more recently
The Universe in a
Nutshell. He was born
in north London in 1942. He studied natural science at
University
College in Oxford and cosmology in Cambridge. Hawking has
held the post of Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics since 1979.
Hawking began to see symptoms of incoordination due to Amyotrophic
Lateral Sclerosis as a young man during his third year at Oxford.
Hawking thought
that he was going to die young but when he didn't he
found that he was enjoying life in the present
more than before. He
progressed in his research. married and had three children. He
has also been
able to give many scientific and popular talks, largely
due to the high quality of his speech synthesizer,
which he reports as
unfortunately having an American accent. Hawking's
contributions to understanding
the basic laws which govern the universe are world renown. Hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html A
Brief History of Time
Christopher
Reeve
Christopher Reeve (1952-2004)
studied at Cornell University while at the same time working as
a
professional actor. In his junior year at Cornell, he was selected
along
with Robin Williams to
study at New York's famous Juilliard School of
Performing Arts. At age 24, Reeve was the
youngest actor casted as
Superman and he gained 30 pounds of muscle for the role. After being
paralyzed during a horse riding accident in 1995, Reeve and his wife
Dana, opened the the
Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource
Center, first center in the United States devoted
to teaching paralyzed
people to live more independently. Reeve continued to work
as an actor
and director after his injury and wrote his best selling
autobiography Still Me. Imdb.com/name/nm0001659/bio Paralysis.org/site/c.erJMJUOxFmH/b.1337893/k.9BEC/Brookes_Corner.htm Still
Me
Tom
Cruise
Tom Cruise is an award winning actor and director. He is
well
known for his moving role as Ron
Kovic in the movie Born on the
Fourth of July and
as the obnoxious, older brother of Raymond
Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman) an
autistic adult who shows his younger brother the value of getting
to
know people in Rain Man.
Cruise has reported that he suffered as a child from dyslexia.
When he became a scientologist, he discovered the "study technology"
the religion's founder
L Ron Hubbard had developed in the 1960's.
Now Cruise has found that he can learn anything
he wants to and is a
founding board member of the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project,
a nonprofit group that uses Hubbard's teaching techniques in a
secular setting. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise Audiblox2000.com/tom-cruise_dyslexia.htm
John
Callahan
Johan Callahan is a very funny cartoonist whose work has appeared in
numerous magazines and
books. A quadriplegic since an automobile
accident at age 21, he is successful, shocking and
irreverent. According to Robin Williams "he is the funniest man
on four wheels". Callahan's
books include: The Best of
Callahan, Get Down!
Dog Cartoons and his
autobiographical Will
the Real
John Callahan Please Stand Up? Callahan tell his story of
alcoholism and recovery
in I
think I was an alcoholic. Callahanonline.com/index.php The
Best of Callahan
