My wife read in the LA Times that the revised ADA rules that took effect last week mean that, from now on, miniature golf courses must be accessible and disabled fans at sporting events must be able to see over people standing and cheering in front of them. I consider this some serious fine-tuning of the law. I’ve been to dozens of sports events where I couldn’t see a thing when the people in front got raucous and it never dawned on me to complain. “Please sit down” seems like a sufficient solution to the problem, but maybe I’m naïve.

I hope I can live another thirty years to see how the disabled live in the year 2041. I’d really like to know if we rise up and rule the world, or at least part of it. The conventional wisdom is that going forward, things are getting better everyday. The ADA opened the door to historic change and will inevitably lead to expanded opportunities and experiences for people with disabilities. The disabled today are more educated, healthier, more adventurous and ambitious and not afraid to push the door open to get inside. Just you wait. We are the change we’ve been waiting for.

But, I ask myself on darker days, is that really true? Anecdotes aside, has there been enough social progress, enough inclusion, to say that we have turned the corner? Keep in mind that my perspective is a relatively short one – I became paralyzed in 1996, long after the ADA was the law of the land. I only know from reading books about Ed Roberts’ struggles to become independent in the 60’s or the battle over Section 504 or even further back, the really old days when the disabled were considered social pariahs and kids with disabilities were warehoused in snake pits with names like “New York Society of the Crippled and Ruptured.” Compared to many old timers, I’m new at this.

From my perspective, it’s a very friendly world out there for the disabled, but not necessarily an inclusive one. I can honestly say that no one has ever discriminated against me, at least to my face. (I’m sure I’ve lost writing jobs because of unspoken fear or bias). In the day to day world, I am usually overly accommodated. Grandmothers open the door for me and maître de’s push regular customers out of the way so I get the best seat. I can’t wait until I can’t get into some store or theatre so I can assault them with righteous indignation, but alas, that rarely happens. Because of Ed Roberts and Judith Heumann and Christopher Reeve and a hundred others, I am not a pariah. I’m more often than not someone’s “hero” or sentimental role model.

That being said, in the last fifteen years, I haven’t seen many large-scale shifts in the integration of the disabled in areas like employment, politics, the media, or even academia. Take media representation, for example. You see heroic people with disabilities in news stories all the time, but you rarely see people who just happen to have a disability, either delivering the news or being the news. Entertainment television is not much different. In 1984, there was one regular character on a primetime TV show with a disability played by an actor with a disability – Geri Jewell on “The Facts of Life.” In 2011, there are two regular characters with a disability played by actors with disabilities on a primetime show -- RJ Mitte on “Breaking Bad” and Robert David Hall on “CSI.” There are many more guest spots these days for actors with disabilities and TV advertising often includes disabled characters. And cartoons like “South Park” have led the way.

There is some change, in other words, but enough to alter the attitudes of those zillions of TV watchers out there, to convince them that people with disabilities are just normal, everyday blokes? I don’t think so. And behind the scenes in Hollywood, you can count the working writers and directors with disabilities on one hand and still have a few fingers left over. There are a lot of people beating the drum for more access in film and TV, me among them, but the real change, if it should come, is still ahead of us.

I’m no expert on the overall employment of the disabled, but the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) in the Labor Department reports that in February, 2011, the percentage of people with disabilities in the labor force – out of all disabled people who could work -- was 20.6. The percent of persons with no disability in the labor force was 69.5. Plus, I ask myself the question – do I ever see disabled people working? There is one woman in a chair at my local CVS pharmacy, but that’s about it.

When four out of five able people with disabilities aren’t working, that doesn’t sound good. We should all be grateful that we have an Asst. Secretary of Labor like Kathleen Martinez, a disabled person in a very high position, doing everything she can to improve those numbers, but in an economy and social environment like this, her task is clearly yeoman.

What discourages me the most about all of this is the growing collective cold shoulder toward improving the lot of anyone who is the least bit marginalized, a group growing daily, from the working poor, the elderly, and children to public employees. What gets cut first in every state budget debate in America? Social programs. When school teachers in Wisconsin have to fight to keep their heads above water, what chance does an unemployed person in a wheelchair have to find an opening? If this general anti-government, anti-humanitarian, fend-for-yourself political wave grows into a tsunami, it could seriously stall progress for the people with disabilities along with everyone else who doesn’t own shares of Goldman Sachs.

Of course the only course of action is to move forward, or to quote the famous British war slogan, “Keep calm and carry on.” There will be change but a) it’s not inevitable and b) it won’t happen in a straight upward line. Let’s not kid ourselves – this is a big damn task. But if we keep at it, and that means you and me and you and you, when I wake up in thirty years, I’ll be able to say to a young person in a chair, “Young lady, you have no idea what it used to be like,” and she’ll say, “Yeah, Pops,” and go back to playing holographic miniature golf.