I caught the end of a cable program about a military parachute jumper who lost the lower part of both legs in some kind of accident (I missed that part).  His determined guy got prosthetics that allowed him to pilot a helicopter and go back to sky-diving, managed to convince the military to take him back as an active duty soldier, eventually retired, bikes, hikes, sky-dives, water skiis...etc, etc, etc...and at the end his wife says something like "He's done so much despite his disability." O.o WHAT!?

I'm sorry, but this guy is anything but disabled.  So he's missing the lower halves of his legs, but he's clearly able to do anything he damn well pleases.  Calling the loss of his limbs a disability seems like an insult to all he's accomplished and an insult to people who are disabled.  Maybe it's my view of what it means to be disabled or have a disability - the term suggests to me that there must be limitations on what you can do.  I'm not sure I buy that needing your prosthetic legs to do something is any different from needing legs to do something, period.  Granted, this lucky person had access to the best prosthetics available, something not everyone does, but it seems like those prosthetics put him right back among the non-disabled.  Hell, it seemed like they affect his life less than my medically imposed limit on how much weight I can lift.  And I don't exactly consider myself disabled - more like inconvenienced.

Now, someone who's paralized or has nerve damage that makes part of their body non-functional, or someone who doesn't have access to excelent prosthetics is disabled.  There are real limitations on what they can do.  Which doesn't make what they can accomplish not worth noting, because I've heard of some pretty damn impressive things people have come up with to overcome or get around such limitation.  It just seems like if one is going to properly appreciate the efforts of both people with and without limitations, there have to be different terms for those who can become unlimited again and those who can't.  Never mind that we should do more to make sure everyone who possibly can become unlimited gets that chance.  But that's another issue.

I guess what bothers me about calling someone who can do things that not all people with their original legs can do "disabled," is that...well...he's not.  When you add in the fact that we're horrible about limiting those who are disabled as much as possible, it becomes an insult to...well...everyone, because, now that I think about it we have a nasty tendency to limit everyone we possibly can as much as we possibly can.  The American culture needs some serious work -_-