Ugh.

[Visual description: cover of the Wii game, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party; cartoon bunny-like creatures with wide-open mouths, unmatched eyes, and a TV screen]

Finding items like this on the front page of Amazon makes me less enthusiastic about holiday shopping this season.

From the product description at Amazon.com:

The Rabbids have taken over almost every channel you can imagine, from music to movies - even TV ads. Help the Rabbids destroy all our daily viewing and drive Rayman crazy. In Story Mode, play through a week of television, with each day bringing new wacky challenges of skill and insane movements in a compilation of mini-games. With up to eight players in turn-based mode and four players simultaneously, get ready for you and all your friends to go insane.

Really, they need to use the word "insane" twice in four sentences? Crazy, wacky, raving, and rabid too... which all apparently mean screaming with wide open mouths and unfocused eyes, causing havoc, chaos, destruction? "Get ready for you and all your friends to go insane." Lovely.

DS,TU Shopping Report: Message T-Shirts

Holiday shopping season is soon to be upon us, so maybe now would be a good time to check out some t-shirts with disability-conscious messages for young and old. I was paging through the Syracuse Cultural Workers catalog yesterday and found this one (at far right, caption is "Childhood is a Journey, not a race") which would be great for any kid (or maybe a favorite teacher). Another one from the same catalog (logo second from the right, says "You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're all the same") wouldn't be for everyone, but on the right snarky teen it would be wicked. SCW t-shirts are union-made, 100% cotton (some of the garments are specifically labeled organic cotton).

The Nth Degree is always a great source for disability-themed t-shirts, with themes like "Take me to my least-restrictive environment," "I am, therefore I matter," and "Feisty and Non-Compliant" (shown at right). Most of their t-shirt logos are also available as pins and stickers, and some are available in other formats, too.

Other sources...NoPity Shirts has the ever-popular "Keep Staring, I Might do a Trick" shirt, among many others--they let you put any logo on any color shirt, in case that's helpful; Disabled and Proud makes a t-shirt with that slogan in Spanish ("Discapacitado y con Orgullo," at right); Apparelyzed has parking sign parodies, and some interesting stylized figures with wheelchairs (including "Just Another Family"--in which one of the parent figures is on wheels).

This listing is only scratching the surface, a few starting places in a niche that's getting too big to call a niche. And who knows, someday your disability rights t-shirt could be in the Smithsonian--it wouldn't be the first.

DS,TU Shopping Report: Kids' Clothes

[I was doing some digging for another project, but I'm not one to waste research, so I'll put it up here, too.]

Wheelchair Dancer recently mentioned that she's wanting some sexy, funky clothes that work with a wheelchair--and nicely outlined the ways that can be a shopping challenge (with lots of interesting links). But looking for workable children's clothes is hard, too--because so many websites for "adaptive clothing" are geared to seniors, with styles and sizes to match. (Because my son's size and age don't match on anyone's standard charts, I'm also fighting the opposite demographic--he often fits into clothes made for 3-year-olds, but he wouldn't want to attend middle school in teddybears and "lil slugger" motifs.)

So here's what I did find. Special Clothes for Special Children (based in Harwich MA) has a doubly "special" name, but otherwise it looks like a good online catalog--plenty of practical adaptations around fit, closures, durability, washability, sensory needs, g-tubes and trachs, chair-friendly tailoring, and allergies; mostly age-appropriate, basic styles (the same company also sells adult clothes, under a different label). Adrian's Closet (San Marcos CA) has adult and children's sizes too--their styles run mostly in the sporty-fleecy vein, with a lot of attention to alternative closure placements and easy fasteners. In the UK, Rackety's has message T-shirts (as in "There's no need to stare, I know I'm cool" and "wicked on wheels"), tracksuits, pajamas, shirts, and swimsuits that are good-looking and thoughtfully designed (the tracksuit above is theirs). They also sell soft dolls and bears who use wheelchairs.

Then there are some specialties within this specialty market. Go Squeak and Pipsqueakers sell toddler shoes that squeak with each heel fall--apparently to encourage walking with audible feedback, and discourage tiptoe walking. They might also work as a "where's baby?" signal in the exploring years. (Yes, you can remove the squeakers when the novelty wears off.) Cameron's Special T's covers some therapy territory, making weighted T-shirts and similar clothes with sensory feedback function. Babylinq specializes in beautiful, tiny clothing to fit preemies (4-6 lbs) and even micro-preemies (1-3 lbs). I remember that it was discouraging when all my tiny new son's clothes were much too big (even the ones marked "newborn"), and how right it felt to dress him in something made for his size and shape.

These clothes don't come cheap, but if the adaptations are helpful, they may be worth the difference. Kids need to be comfortable, and clothes shouldn't be more of a struggle than necessary. Also worth considering with the price: the sites often mention good quality construction and fabric, and have the kind of customer service you'd expect from small family-run stores (as many of them are).