In “Transfiguration: How Dallas Wiens Found a New Face” we see in the opening line: “God took Dallas Wiens’s face from him on a clear November morning four years ago.”
One wonders if it was the clarity of the morning that caused the Almighty to nearly electrocute Mr. Wiens, or was it the fact that it was the 11th month?
Certainly it can’t be the case that disfiguration and disability are part of the routine circumstances of being human?
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Why chocolates? If you have to ask you can't dance.
Why dancing? If you have to ask you can't laugh.
Etc.
Meantime, the variable hypotheses of neurological researchers seek to explain rhythm.
Let's jump around the kitchen with chocolates in our mouths.
I used to think I knew who the good guys were. In 1960 I sat with my little blind face pushed against the Dumont black and white TV and watched Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger and felt the unambiguous decency of his lawman’s gestalt–I was of course supposed to feel this, it was the golden age of television heroes, all of whom were sweetly uncomplicated. The Lone Ranger was not secretly having an affair with the secetary over at the land grant office, hadn’t fathered a child out of wedlock, wasn’t part of a questionable kick back scheme involving infected horse blankets. Today’s TV heroes are always struggling with their silly humanity, a holdover from the 70’s when anti-heroes became the big thing and when “let it all hang out” became a stock phrase. Given the latter, I’ve always preferred Paul McCartney’s line from his album “Flaming Pie”: “May the angels of love protect us from the inner most secrets we hide.” Anyway, I miss the basic decency of the old LR, and while it was exciting to see the Green Hornet make a comeback recently, they did him over with post-70’s complications and a lot of explosives and really, his estate should file a lawsuit.
I think this longing for the uncomplicated hero has something to do with my affection, now long standing, for the CBS TV series NCIS. The characters do have dalliances and suggestions of past lives marked by adult complications, but these factors are presented as sub-sub plots, and are there largely because, as I’ve said, after the 70’s we expect some kind of lurid positioning, some offstage whispering, and yet, the general impulse of the show is toward collective human decency. Another way to say this is that there’s a little of Clayton Moore in everyone on the show. I swear its true. And I like it.
And I won’t apologize.
Baltimore, Maryland (February 14, 2012): The National Federation of the Blind, the oldest and largest nationwide organization of blind Americans, today urged the United States Congress to reject an amendment to the proposed American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012 (H.R. 7) that would allow the commercialization of highway rest stops. Currently, the only commercial activity permitted at such rest stops is the operation of vending machines by blind entrepreneurs under the Randolph-Sheppard Act.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “This amendment would threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of blind entrepreneurs in the United States who depend on revenue from rest stop vending machines. With an unemployment rate among blind Americans that exceeds 70 percent, such a move is deeply irresponsible, as these entrepreneurs will lose their businesses and be forced to rely on public assistance. We urge Congress to reject this ill-considered and reckless proposal.”
The amendment, #217, has been put forward by Congressmen Steve LaTourette (R-OH), Steve Stivers (R-OH), and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). The House Committee on Rules is expected to vote later today on whether to allow the amendment.
CONTACT:
Chris Danielsen
Director of Public Relations
National Federation of the Blind
(410) 659-9314, extension 2330
(410) 262-1281 (Cell)
Let him become a fool that he may become wise. Yes, Corinthians, yes. Today I plucked a flower in my imagination, a pansy, the flower of thought. I pulled this flower from a bed of thoughts, a sea of ideas. One small flower, the fool’s token, just a small part of a prayer.
Meantime I walked down the road in winter, snow on the branches of the trees, the houses buttoned up like old men. I carried my flower of thought in my gloved hand. Yes, I have had a dark life–my drunken mother, largely absent father, a disability, the assorted effects of misperception, never having fully understood people. When I was a child they beat me up. When I was a young man they said I didn’t belong among the sighted people. But those were not my mistakes, my negligences. I went on walking in the snow. I learned to love my darknesses. The old king of the birches told me long ago to stop feeling sorry for myself. It is easy enough to walk with the flower of a broken thought on a cold morning, yes, Corinthians.
From The New York Times:
Weakened by Age and Illness, Hands Teem With Creativity
A program aiming to bring music to a wider audience paired nursing home residents in the Bronx with Carnegie Hall musicians to create and perform original pieces.
Stephen Kuusisto
Director
The Renee Crown University Honors Program
University Professor
Syracuse University
If I hear one more talking head explain the predicament of Mitt Romney, or the evident disatisfaction of the “conservative wing” of the GOP, I’m going to explode like a microwaved whoopee cushion. Clearly it’s time for me to turn off the TV. Yes, it’s time for me to head for the bunker, the man cave, the solarium, the scullery–anywhere there’s megatheric silence. My whopee cushion is full of microwaves. I’m about to burst from the effects of social lies.
There’s no such thing as the “conservative wing” of the GOP. To call the “Tea Party” a conservative wing is like calling “Joe the Plumber” a statesman–you can do it, but if you have more than a modicum of wits you know it’s a lie. And yet, and yet, every single TV network and cable news channel pretends that Mitt Romney’s problem is a conservative problem–when in point of fact, it’s a nutbag problem. And poor Romney, caught in the lie himself, continues rotating like a rotisserie chicken.
That the Tea Party factions actually sound like the Taliban is old stuff, especially in the progressive blogosphere, but the virtual absence of this assessment from pundit land is telling, because the reporting on Romney continues to depend on the fiction that there are sober, rational conservatives who don’t believe Romney has true credentials, when in point of fact, the people opposing him are entirely opposed to the establishment and maintenance of government for the common good. We might call them anarchists except that anarchists start from the position that people are basically good–instead the Tea Party begins with the proposition that everyone who isn’t “them” needs to be relocated or shot.
Meantime you can tune into http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640<p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 420px;">Visit msnbc.com for <a style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com">breaking news</a>, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507" style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;">world news</a>, and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072" style="text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#5799DB !important;">news about the economy</a></p>” target=”_self”>Meet the Press and see David Gregory carry on as though Rick Santorum is just a conservative, when in point of fact he wants to eliminate all health care, take away women's rights, deport immigrants, shove GLBT people back into the closet (at best) and do away with the social safety net.
The world gave me life, my parents eased it, turned it, and I was given roses. These are the flowers on the inside, you can't see them. All you can do is water them with the sonnets of Shakespeare, the play of childhood, the late quartets of Beethoven, the smell of new mown hay. Oh the roses really like to grow. Don't let the calendar deprive you of your rightful rain. Now is a good time to water the soul. It's not so hard. Close your eyes, dream of the white moon, in the midst of clouds, far away from the reach of men.
And what if they say they don’t know?
And what if they say just live with it?
The pain. Diagnosed with fibrocystic breasts as a teen, I’ve now struggled with breast pain for two decades. But it’s grown worse in the last five years. And since December, constant pain, all-encompassing, no break. Eight weeks. And almost as a final insult: hot flashes. Sitting alone, listening to friends, suddenly I’m flushed with heat, my face, my chest. And then it passes. Eight weeks of this.
I have gone to specialists, hotshot gynecologists, breast treatment centers. The last doctor recommended my current course of hormonal regulation through continuous birth control. Thus, eight weeks of constant pain, hot flashes, migraine. I am exhausted. My body aches. I’m ready for a last resort. Or at least, another choice: the Mayo Clinic.
Eight hours away—“One hour for every week of pain,” my friend Chris said. Five days of appointments. The visits should be mostly covered by insurance, but the driving, the week of hotel and meals, is out-of-pocket. It will be a big expense, money-wise, time-wise. Emotionally.
And what if I really am a mystery? What if there is no answer other than some strange combination of genetics and environment? What then? The best of the best—or at least the best my insurance provides, one of the best in the United States—what if they say there’s nothing to do? At least then I’ll have heard it from the best?
“What are you scared of?” Chris asked. And I don’t know, exactly. Five days of doctor’s appointments, of telling my story again and again? The possibility of very clearly bumping up against the limits of our current medical knowledge?
What I’m hoping for: an end to the pain.
Barring that: an answer, maybe, no matter how unsatisfactory. Maybe a way to end my obsessive medical journal searches, late-night googling of mastalgia, fibrocystic breasts, pain management, anti-inflammation diets. My obsessive reading of inconclusive research reports. An acceptance. Or barring that: some peace.
Ohio Governor Imitates Parkinson's Patient, Praises 'Hot Wife' In Speech
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) does not generally script his speeches, preferring to form his remarks off-the-cuff based on notes. In the case of his…
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) does not generally script his speeches, preferring to form his remarks off-the-cuff based on notes. In the case of his State of the State address on Tuesday, that approach appears to have come back to bite the first-term chief executive, as he issued a rambling 100-minute speech that featured a series of bizarre — and potentially offensive — statements and actions.During the address, Kasich imitated a Parkinson's patient, cried, insulted the people of California, praised his "hot wife," gave 14 shout-outs to the same person and played an awards show host while tearfully channeling a famously emotional fellow Ohio Republican, House Speaker John Boehner.
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Planet of the Blind 