REACH | Disability Information

For Immediate Release

Phoenix Arizona-Persons with disabilities, their family members, friends and the general public now have another resource for information, news and feature rich content about disability and the people effected by it. With the official launch of http://www.disabilitynation.net and the DisabilityNation Podcast, people in the United States and others around the world now have an unique opportunity to learn more about life and disability. The podcast is an Internet based audio magazine published on a biweekly basis.

Larry Wanger, creator and producer of DisabilityNation and the DisabilityNation Podcast said, “The goal of the site and podcast is to promote people with disabilities living life to the fullest and to dispel many of the stereotypes and beliefs that are widely held by people today. The focus of DisabilityNation is to educate and inform the listener about disability and that it is simply a natural part of the human experience.” Since its premier in June of 2006, DisabilityNation has featured stories and interviews highlighting important issues in the disability community. These have included interviews with the founder of Mouth Magazine, discussions about new and innovative uses for service animals and issues to be considered, an interview with Scott Hogsett of the movie Murder Ball and member of the 2006 United States Quad Rugby team and others.

The content of the site and podcast is designed to be cross-disability related and meant to be both educational and encouraging to anyone with a disability. Content is geared toward multiple audiences including persons with disabilities, their family members, friends and the general public. The show features new episodes approximately every two weeks and is now available via popular channels including the iTunes Music Store and Podcasts. Interested persons can directly download the Podcast from http://www.disabilitynation.net and subscribe directly to the show by visiting http://feeds.feedburner.com/disabilitynation and choosing the appropriate feed.

About DisabilityNation

DisabilityNation is a podcast by and for persons with disabilities. Too often we hear about the legal, physical or attitudinal barriers facing persons with disabilities in our society today. Unfortunately, not enough attention is focused on those with disabilities just living life. The goal of DisabilityNation is to be different than normal and to give you, the listener, the opportunity to learn and grow from the experience of hearing the program.

DisabilityNation highlights people working, participating in the sport or recreation of their choice, married couples, singles, children and adults, politicians and couch potatoes who happen to be people with disabilities. You will hear conversations about life, not necessarily about the disability.

About Larry Wanger

DisabilityNation is produced in the Valley of the Sun, otherwise known as Phoenix Arizona. The show is produced by Larry Wanger. Larry moved to Phoenix in October 2004 after living for over 33 years in Michigan. As a person with a life-long disability, Larry is very familiar with some of the stereotypes and beliefs that some have about persons with disabilities. He believes that having a disability is simply part of his life and something that isn't the end of the world.

Larry has devoted his career and professional life to helping others with disabilities to increase their independence. He began his career with Disability Advocates of Kent County, the center for independent living in Grand Rapids Michigan. http://www.dakc.us He worked in the areas of employment, business development, and community organizing, individual and systems advocacy, grant writing, reporting and management with the organization. Larry worked with DAKC for six years. In October of 2004 Larry moved to Phoenix and began working with The Arizona Bridge to Independent Living. http://www.abil.org He is currently the Operations Manager of ABIL's employment services unit.

About Podcasting

A podcast is an audio file in MP3 format that can be subscribed to and is automatically delivered to your computer. With podcasts you can choose to listen on your computer or on an audio player such as the iPod. Often podcasters offer different options in that you can either stream the file or listen to it from the web site directly or you can download the show.

Don't be fooled by the "pod" in podcast, you don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts. Any MP3 player that you normally use will play podcasts. Additionally, you can listen on your computer by using software such as WinAmp, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and iTunes.

If you want to listen to or subscribe to podcasts, the first thing to get is a media aggregator. This is a small piece of software that downloads any Podcast feeds that you subscribe to. There are many programs available for subscribing to podcasts. Visit www.DisabilityNation.net and click on the podcast FAQ’s link for more details.

After downloading the software just add the XML file address for the podcast you want to listen to then click the appropriate button to download the current show. When you want to download new shows, click the button in your chosen aggregator and the software checks to see if any new shows have been added and if so, the shows are automatically downloaded to your computer. Often, the software knows to check for downloads and you never need to manually tell it to do anything.

Contact:

www.DisabilityNation.net

contact@disabilitynation.net