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If you were to ask my siblings what they remember most about our son Benjamin’s first year of life, their unanimous answer would be his crying. In fact, Ben’s crying was so ever-present that my sister wrote the following ditty, which she would sing as she walked him around the house, trying to calm him:

My name is Benjamin and I like to cry
No one knows why
not even I
My name is Benjamin, my eyes are never dry
OK that’s a lie
but I do like to cry.

When caught in a meeting with campaign ads plotting ways to smear a potential opponent, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reacted with typical Nixonian double-speak by claiming to be the victim of a liberal plot. 

In this column, special education lawyer and advocate Regina Skyer will address reader’s questions and concerns regarding their child’s special education needs, as well as the services, programs and entitlements available within New York City. She asks readers to send their questions to rskyer@skyerlaw.com. For more on how the column works, click here.

Question: Can I bring a lawsuit against a yeshiva that refused admission to my child due to his disability?

Greetings, earthlings, and welcome to an occasional and possibly regular New Normal feature, "Elsewhere On The Web," in which I'll roam the Internets in search of good stuff for you to read.

Most theological references to people with disabilities portray us as broken people in need of healing who are dependent on the benevolence of others. Also, most faith traditions have a moral imperative to seek salvation by caring for the less fortunate, and people with disabilities, being deemed less fortunate, are therefore tokens for that salvation. The false perception of brokenness, coupled with the misapplied moral edict, results in a “compassionate discrimination” that limits the potential of every person with a disability.

At the recent Jerusalem Book Fair, with many publishers from all over the world showcasing their new titles, it was Janusz Korczak who caught my attention.

President Obama had to apologize this week to California Attorney General Kamala Harris for calling her the best looking attorney general in the country.  Some folks thought he was being sexist, but could it have been that Eric Holder was offended and sulking in his office at the Justice Department?

March’s employment numbers came out today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the labor participation rate for people with disabilities holds roughly steady at 20.7 percent.

Republicans are struggling to get away from a reputation that one of their own, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, pinned on them:  "the stupid party."  Having lost more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote in the last election, they have dropped their opposition to comprehensive immigration reform in the Congress, but the party remains divided between those who insist the focus on immigration should be greater border security and those who seek a way to integrate the millions who are already here and help the find a path to citizenship. 

One of my all time favorite political cartoons showed a forest of snow-laden maple trees with taps and buckets for collecting the run off and each bearing a poster saying, "Yorty for President" for the presidential campaign then-Mayor of Los Angeles Sam Yorty.  The caption read, "The sap is running in New Hampshire."