| Dad: Syndrome haunts 'good kid"™
BRENTWOOD -- Elijah Wallace was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when he was in the third grade, said his father, Eric. "My wife knew before that," Eric recalled. "When he got to junior high, it kind of escalated. The problem is that people with Asperger are intelligent. He was getting good grades, so they said, What's the problem?'" The problem was that Elijah's antisocial behavior led to conflicts and expulsion from Exeter High School. Then he was placed in an alternative school where "80 percent of the kids had police records," according to his father. "They didn't expect much from them," he said. A series of petty crimes followed -- mostly bicycle thefts -- before his son left home to live with a friend, said Eric. After being asked to leave that residence, Elijah checked into the Cross Roads House homeless shelter in Portsmouth.
Local News
New home-building guidelines that would encourage or possibly require homes to be designed with the needs of the physically disabled and elderly in mind are being developed by the county Commission on Disabilities. It would be the first time private residences in the county would be subject to such rules. The new guidelines proposed would encourage builders and architects to create homes with wider hallways and doorways to allow wheelchairs and walkers to pass, among other considerations that make getting around easier. No-step entries and reinforced walls capable of supporting grab bars are other accommodations in a movement often referred to as "universal design" The term was coined in 1989 by architect Ron Mace, who developed a set of seven design principles, which include "low physical effort" and "simple and intuitive use" Members of the county Commission on Disabilities concede that the county may not want to make such rules mandatory, at least not yet.
EMILY LE COZ: Wheelchairs and operator-assisted love
I had finished my sophomore year at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and was sharing a big house one block off campus and waitressing at a Chinese restaurant. I had just turned 20.
It was during these warm summer months that I received the first of what would become regular visits from "the wheelchair gang," a group of six or seven men ranging in age from 21 to 50, all bound to wheelchairs, and who for some reason sought my company.
It all began with Bob. A Vietnam veteran who had lost his legs in combat, Bob spotted me cleaning my yard one morning during his leisurely roll and stopped to chat. He flirted, and though I had no romantic interest, I flirted back. It was innocent and fun and harmless, so why not?
Bob apparently was charmed.
Domestic news
Fifty patients in wheelchairs and beds have been evacuated after a fire broke out at a hospital in Newcastle, north of Sydney. The fire started in a recreational room, not directly attached to the main section of the Lingard Private Hospital on Merewether Street, Merewether, at about 6.20pm (AEDT) Monday. NSW Fire Brigades Superintendent Tom Cooper said the hospital activated its emergency evacuation plan because of heavy smoke in the wards. "It was as a precaution and activated 50 people from the private hospital, it was patients in wheelchairs, some on portable beds," he said. "These hospitals have special features to stop any smoke penetrating too far into the ward, so a lot of these people weren't taken form the building, they were just taken from one part of the building to the next.
Nortel and Microsoft unveil joint unified messaging roadmap
These products and services will "dramatically improve business communications by breaking down the barriers between voice, e-mail, instant messaging, multimedia conferencing and other forms of communication" said a Nortel release. It added that the expanded integration services portfolio spans the entire network lifecycle "from design and deployment to support and evolution." The companies also announced 20 "joint demonstration centres [that allow] customers to experience the technology firsthand." In the six months since the ICA was formed, Microsoft and Nortel have signed agreements with "dozens of customers" the companies announced. "Our goal is to close the gap between the devices we use to communicate and the business applications we use to run our businesses," Zafirovski said.
|
