When we cats were kittens, we read Senator Daniel Inouye's surprisingly engaging autobiography, Journey to Washington. Not because he was particularly famous at the time (the Watergate hearings had yet to happen), but because his story as a Japanese-American soldier in World War II was such a compelling one.
To this day, we remember the following scene: Inouye, lying in a hospital bed after battle, minus one arm, asks a nurse for a cigarette. He assumes she'll take one out and light it for him. Instead, she tosses him the pack and a box of matches and lets him fend for himself. Cursing her the whole time, Inouye finally extracts a butt with one hand and somehow manages to strike a match.
Thanks to that nurse, Senator Inouye learned that as an amputee, he would have to figure out how to do stuff for himself. After all, it was the 1940s. There was no ADA back then.
We cats believe that Americans who have served, and who have given an arm or a leg or more to their country, deserve a little more accommodation. So as Capitol Hill prepares to honor Inouye tomorrow with a lying-in-state, let's all remember what Senate Republicans did to the UN treaty on the disabled.
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