Year: 2011

My daughter says she doesn’t want kids.
She’s 30. She has cats. Let me tell you,
hell is real. It’s like pulling a camel
through your nose, cutting through,
cutting through. If I had to work
the whole weekend, I’d slit my throat.
Isn’t it awesome how much love
the universe contains? I’m going
to tell you a story about the toughness
of the serpent. I’m going to dangle you
from the rearview mirror. I promise,
we’re like brother and sister,
There are things that just are, you know?
Things that just mean what they mean.
Why do you care what I have to say?
Do you believe in hell, too?

In a disastrous ruling a California federal court has found in favor of airlines who refuse to make their ticketing kiosks accessible to blind travelers. See fuller details here. 

This is what comes of stuffing the regional federal courts with right wing judges–a "stuffing" that has been going on for thirty years. In this case, Judge Spero simply ruled that the Department of Transportation's rules don't sufficiently cover electronic kiosks. Left out of the ruling is the issue of equal access.

I can tell you that waiting in a line for a ticket agent when there are almost no ticket agents is pretty damned awful. Perhaps Judge Spero would do well to fly with me. But of course he probably wouldn't want to sit next to a dog.

 

S.K.   

 

From the Times:

The brothers, Philip and Joel, earned close to $1 million a year each as the two top executives running a Medicaid-financed nonprofit organization serving the developmentally disabled.

New York spends $10 billion a year caring for the disabled, more than half of which goes to private providers, with little oversight on their spending.

http://nyti.ms/pnTMRb

Sent from my iPhone

Hmmm…”Nixon knew when you testified before a grand jury you exposed yourself to perjury, so I’m betting he told the truth,” Mr Kutler said.

I saw this story on the BBC News iPhone App and thought you should see it.

** Judge approves Watergate release **
A US federal judge orders the release of former US President Richard Nixon’s secret grand jury testimony in the Watergate scandal.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14349727 >

** BBC Daily E-mail **
Choose the news and sport headlines you want – when you want them, all in one daily e-mail
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/email >

** Disclaimer **
The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC’s views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have been verified.

Sent from my iPhone

Frank Borzellieri, 48, was quietly promoted to principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School two years ago – despite a history of controversial writings and campaigns, including a push to ban a biography on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Check out this article:

White supremacist principal worries parents

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2011/07/31/2011-07-31_principal_of_hate_school_boss_racist_writings_worry_parents.html

  Terrific essay by Doug Bandow nails Joe Lieberman and John McCain on their respective bogging:

DOUG BANDOW: John McCain: Always Confused, Ever for War

Sen. John McCain has exhibited personal courage, but his geopolitical judgment is uniformly awful. Over the last 30 years there has been no war or potential war that he has opposed.

 

Sent from my iPhone

1. Don’t fight the water; move with it.

2. Use your arms less. Use your core more.

3. Hit waves head-on, straight through their crest. Otherwise, your boat might tip.

4. Change your vocabulary: “I made a wet exit from my boat” feels very different from “My boat tipped.”

5. Paddle at a quicker cadence, but with less force.

6. Look up: sandstone cliffs. Black rocks the oldest on Earth. Seagulls.

7. But don’t look up when a seagull is directly overhead.

8. Look down: stripes of colored rock beneath the water. Weeds. Broken pilings from old docks.

9. Being upside down underwater isn’t all that bad.

10. Rescuing another kayaker from the water isn’t all that hard. Talk him through it. Look him in the eyes. Don’t panic.

11. Every moment, something can be learned. Every moment, something can be taught.

12. Watch the weather. Watch the water. Shifting winds, changing current. Thundering. Rip tide. Be ready to react.

13. Don’t say a water monster’s name while you’re still on the water. That invites the monster to try to tip your boat/help you practice a water exit.

14. Kayak instructors aren’t afraid to get wet and sandy, to rinse their wetsuits in the lake. To tip their boats while demonstrating how not to tip your boat.

15. Wear a lifejacket. Make sure it’s snug around your waist, chest.

16. Wetsuits do not flatter anyone’s figure. They’re impossible to put on, and even more impossible to take off when wet. But when you practice a wet exit in Lake Superior, you’ll be glad you’re wearing one.

Poet and essayist Andrea Scarpino is a regular contributor to POTB. You can visit her at: http://www.andreascarpino.com

I remember being bullied rather routinely all through my public school years. See the following study:

http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2011/07/29/study-bullying/13634/

Sent from my iPhone

Check out this article:

TSA agent: I have one arm and I do job fine!

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2011/07/30/2011-07-30_i_have_one_arm__i_do_job_fine.html

Robert Bly once wrote a poem entitled “Those Being Eaten By America” in which he concluded: “the world will soon break up into small colonies of the saved.” In Bly’s vision salvation came by turning one’s back on predatory capitalism. In the poem, big industry was devouring its workers–it literally ate them alive. 

 

Bly’s poem was written in the dark days of the Viet Nam War and it’s reactionary impulses felt just fine to me when I was 18. Now, contemplating the extremism of the “Tea Party” I see Bly captured an omnipresent aspect of our nation’s psyche–which is to say, when things get hard there’s always a faction that wants to secede. This is old news but what the TP is proving is that Democracy stands in the way of a preferred and sentimental vision of frontier anarchy. Here is a succinct list of what the Tea Party folks believe:

 

1. We don’t require doctors. All we need is an occasional dentist who can patch you up when you’ve been shot. If things are worse than this, well, you’re supposed to die–that’s God’s will. (BTW, the dentist won’t mind if you pay him with a chicken.)
2. Children need only be educated until the third grade. Then they can go to work picking beans–surely, once we kick all the Mexicans out of the country, this will again be possible. 
3. Since everyone already has a gun we don’t require police. Those who have the most money have their own militias. Might makes right.    
4. Belief in God is the only necessary diploma–regardless of the enterprise. “God told me how to build this bridge–he also said that no gay people can drive on it.”
5. We no longer need higher education. Let’s face it, college just complicates things with its insistence on science and history.
6. We can toss out environmental regulations of any kind. After all, they are not mentioned in the Bible.   
7. We don’t need an economy–we have sufficient stockpiles of ammunition and dried beans in our bomb cellars. 
8. Elderly people, cripples, colored folks, etc. can just leave. Or…or…