Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University

Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry?

Last night I read poems as part of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival here in DC. I read work that spoke against the war. I mentioned the close to a million Iraqi civilians killed over the past five years. I said that the President’s phrase “The War on Terror” suggests something that can’t be won with our current tactics. History shows that fighting terror with terror is a loser’s game. I’m not sure I said that precisely. When you’re on stage in front of hundreds of people you say what you can. I read a poem by my friend Sam Hamill called “True Peace”. I dedicated my portion of the reading to Sam who is a founding member of the organization Poets Against War.  I threw my hat from the Navy (the one that says: Navy: accelerate your life) into the audience. This being a pacifist crowd, well, you can predict the outcome. Someone gave me my hat back.


Back at the hotel they’ve pulled down both the shades in my room, rather than fix the one that’s stuck in the down position. I guess they figure I’m blind so what difference does it make whether I’ve got sunlight or not?


S.K.

Morning in Washington

The window shade is stuck in the down position.

Why does a blind person need a window shade?

The hotel wants to know.

“I’m not an exhibitionist,” I tell them.

But of course I am always a symbol.

The staff in the dining room seems frightened when they see me and the guide dog.

“I’m just a strange citizen, passing through,” I think to say.

In this I am no different from Walt Whitman or you or you or you.

Nira, my guide dog is happy wherever she goes.

What a teacher she is!

S.K.

Tonight in Washington

I am in Washington, DC for a three day poetry festival called "Split This Rock".  I am wearing a hat that says: "Navy: Accelerate Your Life". I believe in the U.S. Navy.

I believe in the acceleration of progress–a thing that might be different from the Navy’s sloganeer’s idea of acceleration.

Strictly speaking, if you accelerate your life you die more quickly. Strictly speaking life is life and no one needs to be faster to experience it.

What an amateur Buddhist I am!

My hotel is old and the windows are drafty and I think John Wilkes Booth has the room next door .

I was surprised tonight by a lurching drunk who managed to ambush me while my guide dog was taking a pee.

"You want some pee?" I asked?

"Nah," he said, as if contemplating pee for the first time in his life. "nah," he said, then staggered away.

Washington is the most disgraceful capitol city in the developed world.

Of course historians will tell you it was always this way.

In America we love to say "it was ever thus" as if by doing so we’re exonerated from taking a part.

I don’t believe in accelerated life.

This is of course the language and symbolism that preys on human despair.

I suspect we have plenty of despair to go around.

No one should be drawn to join the military out of financial hardship.

If the Navy had to attract the children of the rich would their slogan be: Navy: Slow Down Dude!

You get my drift of course: the rich don’t have to accelerate a thing.

Except when they’re driving through neighborhoods like this one.

S.K.

The President and One Particular Prosthetic Leg

During his speech today on the war in Iraq (which the president calls "the war on terror") George W. Bush told the story of a soldier named William Gibson who lost a leg while fighting in Iraq. In the president’s narrative, William Gibson came home and received a prosthetic leg and then went on to compete in triathalons. While competing in the famous Alcatraz swim in San Francisco Bay William Gibson was observed by a U.S. General who asked him if he could use any help. Again, according to the president, Gibson asked to be allowed to return to Iraq. He is there today.

Like so many of the president’s stories the point of this was unclear. In Bush’s framing of the narrative one should imagine that the stamina and heartfelt concern of William Gibson means that we will triumph over our foes.

As I like to say in disability studies classes: disability functions as a complex metaphor—really, for all intents and purposes you can think of this metaphorical process as having layers like an onion.

Disability is a "foe" that we must conquer.

Conquering disability is heroic.

A disabled person who is heroic inevitably inspires everyone.

Inspired people are the good guys.

Good guys don’t need complex medical or psychiatric care.

I admire bravery and I further admire William Gibson for his fighting spirit. I have no qualms about his patriotism and his concern for his fellow soldiers and the people of Iraq.

The thing that concerns me is that there are tens of thousands of veterans who have been shattered by their experiences in Iraq and in Afghanistan and these veterans are finding it’s very difficult, if not virtually impossible to get good health care.

If disability can be used as a heroic metaphor for overcoming or fighting the odds does it follow that "not talking" about the majority of disability experiences faced by our soldiers means their stories are insufficiently symbolic?

S.K.

Why We Need TV and Movies That Include People with Disabilities: Part 104

So there I was today on NPR’s “On Point” program with two terrific blind professionals and I was feeling like the school kid who has to use the bathroom and can’t wait any longer to announce the matter. I needed to say that the reason blind people are so woefully unemployed and the reason that the public marvels at the accomplishments of exemplary blind professionals like Gordon Gund or David A. Paterson is that the film and TV industries continue to make blindness look horrible.  Who wouldn’t imagine, after seeing that dreadful movie “At First Sight” (with Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino) that being blind isn’t  a minimal life? That movie came out at the same time as my memoir “Planet of the Blind” and it reinforced every cliché about blindness that I was trying to conquer. If the human resources professionals saw a prime time television show in which a blind person confidently uses state of the art assistive technology—heck, even showing the non-disabled characters a thing or two about the gizmos, well that would be as big a step toward changing the climate of unemployment for the blind as our well intentioned celebration of Governor Paterson’s oath of office. Let’s face it: the public thinks that blind people are scarcely able to navigate their living rooms. How could they possibly serve as good employees? That Ph.D. or Master’s degree must be some kind of a trick. That’s it! The “brainiac” blind woman or man is probably “faking it” just like those guys you see  begging for money with the phony sunglasses. Yep! That’s gotta be it! How do I know this at (insert company name here)? Because I just saw Disney’s film version of Mr. Magoo. Now there’s a blind guy for you! Ha! I laughed til  I dropped my popcorn on my plaid shorts. Boy Oh Boy  was that ever a good movie!

In case anybody’s wondering, I was once interviewed by a producer of ABC’s television program “20/20”about the possibility of an interview associated with the publication of “Planet of the Blind”. What did I do to ruin the deal? I mentioned that ABC is owned by Disney and that the new film of Mr. Magoo was a disgrace. They were very nice as they showed me to the door.

S.K.   

Professor Stephen Kuusisto
Department of English
The University of Iowa
308 EPB
Iowa City, IA 52242

Links:

Remembering Mr. Magoo

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv

Premise

Suppose the rain treated us

As philosophers do—

Fingering skulls with sure duration

And knowing our time is brief

Sweetly steers attention away from dying?

Minturno of spring storm;

Proclus of fog skimming the fields;

Didn’t we talk to one another about seeing?

Oh yes, rain is the art of dying:

Men fear rain who do not shut their eyes.

S.K.

Today's "Talk of the Nation"

I was fortunate to be asked by National Public Radio to appear as a guest today on their nationwide program "Talk of the Nation". I stress "fortunate" because it’s a privilege to be asked to share with the public ideas about disability in general and blindness in particular.

But I felt a sense of disappointment with the interview today.  Today’s host, Lynn Neary asked me questions like explain "how" I (a blind person) could know what a painting by Jackson Pollock might look like. I gave the obvious answer–namely that I have descriptive friends who tell me these things.

Unfortunately, I think we ran out of time before the really important questions could be asked. What I had hoped for was an interview in which I might talk about "why" 70 per cent of the nation’s blind and visually impaired people who are of working age remain unemployed. I wanted to talk about our contemporary inheritance from the Victorians who saw a disabled body as an economic liability in the machine driven world of the Industrial Revolution. I wanted to talk about "why" these outworn ideas persist in the United States–so much so that we continue to stand in amazement when a superbly intellectual and gifted man like Governor David Paterson emerges from the pack.

Instead the interview sputtered badly I’m afraid, though I tried to explain that blind people bring critical thinking and emotional intelligence to their public and professional lives.

The good news is that tomorrow I am scheduled to appear on NPR’s "On Point" program.  With any luck, I’ll have an opportunity to discuss some of this then.

S.K. 

LINK:

NPR’s Blog of the Nation "Colors and Fog": What It Means to be Blind

On Today’s Op Ed Piece in the NY Times

Good morning. I am privileged to have been asked to write an Op Ed piece for the NY Times concerning the ascendancy of David A. Paterson who will be sworn in as the nation’s first blind governor on Monday. You can follow this link to read the piece.

I wish that the Times hadn’t called the editorial “The Vision Thing” since I hate to be associated with George Herbert Walker Bush or his progeny. But they didn’t ask me.

Still, the success of David Paterson is something that all people with disabilities can celebrate!

S.K.

Professor Stephen Kuusisto
Department of English
The University of Iowa
308 EPB
Iowa City, IA 52242

LINKS:

What It Means to be New York’s First Legally Blind Governor
Who Is David Paterson?
Read All About It! Thanks Blue Girl
The Vision Thing Brigit Abstract
The first legally blind governor  Thanks Heather
David Paterson to Become First Legally Blind Governor of NY on Monday  Thanks Anne
Rhetoric about blindness begins in paterson coverage Thanks BA Haller
Kuusisto on David Paterson Thanks Ken
Building the Internal World Thanks Jean Marie
Blind elected officials  Interesting! Thanks Penny
He’s Blind. I’m Deaf. What Do I Have in Common with New York State Governor David Paterson? Thanks David
NY Times Op Ed on David Paterson Thanks, Ruth