Category: Uncategorized

Lance Mannion has a recent post entitled “Vultures in the Neighborhood” which I think is the best piece of writing on the slovenly wilderness since John McPhee wrote about (insert your topic here).

The vultures are moving northward because of global warming and also because the world is becoming a non-stop ribbon of cement which produces thermal updrafts that make for warm winds. 

This latter fact has made me grateful that I live in Iowa where there are no warm winds and where believe it or not we still have lots of dirt roads. I may live in a “fly over” state and accordingly none of my coastal friends will ever visit me, by but by God I ain’t got no  vomiting vultures taking over my yard, excreting on my car, urinating on my mailbox, carrying off the Dachshund, etc.

You think I’m exaggerating do you? Read Dr. Mannion’s thorough treatment of the matter and you too will be grateful if you live as I do in a place too rural and frosty for the vulture  set.

 

S.K.

15  year old Brett Elder, a Michigan teenager with a developmental disability who was tasered by police has passed away. One can read the full story here. 

I am keeping Brett Elder and his family in my prayers. I also pray for the police who are untrained, lacking in judgment, perhaps even hostile to people with disabilities.

Lord, hear our prayer.

As always in these matters one thinks of one’s own kids–one thinks of the golden rule–by God, may the struggling children of this nation be treated as citizens.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Here is the Episcopal Litany for Social Justice

In peace let us pray to the Lord, saying “Hear our Prayer.”

Brothers and Sisters: God commands us through Jesus Christ to love one another. In baptism, we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves and to strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being.” Let us now honor those vows and pray for our nation, for wise and just leaders, and for the needs of others throughout our country and the world.

We pray for continued blessings on all peacemakers, on leaders who value peace, and on everyone who promotes nonviolent solutions to conflict. We pray for a speedy end to all violence and warfare around the world.

God of peace and gentleness,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for the strength of heart and mind to look beyond ourselves and address the needs of our brothers and sisters throughout the world; for the rural and urban poor; for the rebuilding of our communities; and for an end to the cycles of violence that threaten our future.

God of generosity and compassion,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all nations, that they may live in unity, peace, and concord; and that all people may know justice and enjoy the perfect freedom that only God can give.

God of liberty and freedom,

Hear our prayer.

We pray that the Holy Spirit may embrace the most vulnerable members of our society; we pray also for an end to the growing disparity between the rich and poor; and for the grace and courage to strive for economic justice.

God of all gifts and blessings,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for an end to prejudice throughout our country and the world; that we will respect all people as precious children of God; and that racism, sexism, and all other forms of discrimination will be forever banished from our hearts, our society, and our laws.

God of fellowship and equality,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for a reverence of creation; that we will have the tools and the will to conserve it; that we will use its bountiful resources in the service of others; and that we will become better stewards of all that has been entrusted to us.

God of nature and the universe,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all immigrants, refugees, and pilgrims from around the world, that they may be welcomed in our midst and be treated with fairness, dignity, and respect.

God of outcasts and wanderers,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for the sick, the aged and the infirm; for those with physical or mental disabilities; especially (St. John’s Prayer list), that all may have access to proper health care; and that God’s loving embrace may be felt by all who suffer.

God of comfort and healing,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all prisoners and captives; that a spirit of forgiveness may replace vengeance and retribution; and that we, with all the destitute, lonely, and oppressed, may be restored to the fullness of God’s grace.

God of absolution and mercy,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all children and families, and particularly for the orphaned, neglected, abused, and those who live in fear of violence or disease; that they may be relieved and protected.

God of children and families,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for the reconciliation of all people, and for the Church throughout the world, that it may be an instrument of your healing love. We pray for (Anglican Cycle, Diocesan Cycle, St. John’s Ministries Cycle of Prayer).

God of outreach and restoration,

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all who have died especially ____________, all and for who have died as a result of violence, war, disease or famine, especially those who died because of human blindness, neglect, or hardness of heart.

God of eternal life and resurrecting love,

Hear our prayer.

Almighty God, you have promised to hear what we ask in the name of your Son. Watch over our country now and in the days ahead, guide our leaders in all knowledge and truth and make your ways known among all people. In the passion of debate give them a quiet spirit; in the complexities of the issues give them courageous hearts. Accept and fulfill our petitions, we pray, not as we ask in our ignorance, nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

AMEN.

 

S.K.

The excerpt below is courtesy of Inclusion Daily Express:

Obama Nominates Kathy Martinez To Employment Post
(Diversity, Inc.)
March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt] Internationally recognized disability-rights leader Kathy Martinez was nominated for assistant secretary for the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) by President Barack Obama on March 20.

Martinez, who has been blind since birth, specializes in employment, asset building, independent living, international development, and diversity and gender issues from her work as executive director of the World Institute on Disability (WID). Her impressive résumé includes Proyecto Visión, WID’s National Technical Assistance Center to increase employment opportunities for Latinos with disabilities in the United States, and Access to Assets, an asset-building project to help reduce poverty among people with disabilities.

“As a Latina who is blind, I have first-person experience with the low expectations and assumptions of the majority culture,” Martinez says. “I have seen many disabled Latinos live down to these diminished expectations. They become overwhelmed by isolation, are disconnected from the service-delivery system and don’t have disabled Latino professionals to look up to or network with. Unfortunately, even those who do access resources often are not receiving appropriate service.”

Entire article:
Obama Nominates ODEP Asst. Secretary Kathy Martinez
http://www.diversityinc.com/public/5565print.cfm

 

S.K.

I live in a prairie town and at night one can hear the freight trains running eastward from Kansas across Iowa their long mournful whistles calling over the fields. Hunched in bed I think of Huddie Ledbetter, otherwise known as “Leadbelly”–murderer and blues singer and song writer who wrote the most famous railroad song of them all, “The Rock Island Line”. The Rock Island Line is out there, just beyond my bedroom window where the Iowa wind is moaning and the engineer pulls his whistle in three long blasts as Leadbelly said he always would:

 

I Got cows.

I got corn.

I got meal.

 

And then he pulls five long blasts:

 

I got whole live stock.

 

And the sound of that freight train in the night and the spirited, playful talking blues of Leadbelly roll me gently in my bed, the engineer is still out there bragging about his transported bounty that’s coasting into Chicago and then ever east. I think of how we’re a vast country and how we’re down on our luck and that the songs are first local before they become anthems. Ghosts in the night are calling out the names of things that will feed people far away and god damn it if there isn’t a moody poetry echoing in the Iowa fields and damn it all if Leadbelly could be here he would know it instantly. And then because I get to make the story I say Leadbelly is here.

 

And another train that’s coming from the east calls back in greeting as Leadbelly said it does:

 

I thank you.

I thank you.

 

S.K.

There's an interesting post over at the web site of the Foundation Fighting Blindness entitled: "It's Time for America to Idolize Scott MacIntyre" which I'm quoting in full. I'll follow up on the south end of it:

Congratulations to Scott MacIntyre! His dynamic performance on Tuesday night secured him a place in the Top 10 on American Idol! Thank you to everyone who voted for Scott. Be sure to tune in again next Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. EST and cast your vote for Scott as he performs in the next round. With FFB’s support, Scott MacIntyre is destined to be the next American Idol!

Millions dream of making it to the final rounds of American Idol but for Scott MacIntyre, the dream has become reality. Born with severe vision loss from Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), Scott is an incredibly gifted musical performer who has made it to the Top 10 on American Idol. With his remarkable talent, Scott is bound to make it far in the competition, and we need you to support him as he shoots his way to the top!

An Arizona State University graduate, a Marshall scholar, and a Fulbright scholar, Scott learned to play the piano at the age of three.  His piano professor, Walter Cosand, said, "He's always been able to do what everyone else could do and many things no one else could do. A lot of things he does are very remarkable, even for someone without a disability."

Scott also has a sister, Katelyn, who has lost her vision to LCA. With their brother Todd, the three siblings have made a splash performing as the MacIntyre Family Singers. Scott even shared his talents with the FFB family when he performed at the opening luncheon of the 1998 VISIONS Conference in Chicago.

Simon, Paula, Randy and Kara have brought him this far; now it’s up to us to make Scott MacIntyre the next American Idol! Scott will be performing live on Wednesday, March 25, as one of the Top 10 contestants to continue to compete. Voting is free, so be sure to vote for Scott!

Stay tuned to the Foundation Fighting Blindness Web site for more information about Scott’s progress and how your votes can help him reach the top and raise awareness of retinal degenerative diseases across the country.

Learn More About Scott MacIntyre
Visit http://www.americanidol.com/videos/season_8/scott_macintyre to view Scott’s latest video interviews and hear about his passion and talent for music, his greatest musical influence, and what prompted him to try out for American Idol. You can leave comments and words of encouragement for Scott on this page too.

Click here to read an article about Scott on MSNBC.

 

**

I have written many times on this blog about the unique opportunity that's right now standing before us–we have the very real chance to cure genetically caused forms of blindness in this generation.

My colleagues here at the University of Iowa are world leaders in the effort to find a cure for Scott MacIntyre's brand of vision loss. This is an amazing moment in medical and cultural history to be sure.

Speaking for myself I hope that Scott and his family learn about the work being done here.

As a writer who also was a Fulbright scholar and who began his creative life while most kids are still chewing on wooden blocks I want to point out that Scott MacIntyre isn't an artist overcoming his disability nor is he a disabled person who is compensating for his disability through art–he's an artist who happens to be blind. In effect this is not any different than saying: Ernest Hemingway was an artist who happened to be 6 feet tall.  

The public gets easily confused about these matters because blindness functions as a powerful symbol. Symbolic language isn't always the best language when thinking about the complexities of human beings.

I'm rooting for Scott MacIntyre the artist. I'm rooting for a cure for LCA. I'm rooting for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. I can compartmentalize these excitements.

If Scott wasn't blind I'd still be rooting for him because he was a classically trained pianist and a former Fulbright scholar. Those folks don't generally turn up on the Fox TV network.

 

S.K.

I confess its a little trick I have of thinking about the late Victorians and the Edwardians and all that happy ghost worship they used to do. My mother was a serious ghost watcher and say what you will, such people are always happily occupied.

One thinks of Virginia Woolf talking to her grandmother:

“We sit in the dark and wait for the dead to speak,” says Virginia to her grandmother—“and they drift into the room so softly, with their faint smell of mohair and whale oil. The smell is like nothing else in the world; the entering dead who waft over our hair.”

Lately as spring arrives and the days grow longer I’ve found myself dreaming of the dead–though not the abstrract chalky missing, but rather those who I have loved and who I still miss though my days are filled with bus schedules and the nearly private gamesmanship  of getting by in the political world.

I miss John Lydenberg, Professor of English at Hobart and William Smith Colleges who taught me how to read Herman Melville. I deeply miss his sharp, unsentimental humor and his unapologetic leftist politics which he learned at Harvard in the years before the second world war when pacifism and idealism weren’t yet sullied by all that’s come since. I especially miss his game of cutting out funny, overlooked newspaper headlines: “Young Couple Happy on Small Newspaper” was particuarly good. I thought of him the other day when I read: “Pope’s Condom-stance Under Fire” .

I miss my father who died on Easter Sunday 2000. One doesn’t need a reason to miss one’s father but today I miss him because I’ve been  reading William Manchester’s “The LastLion” about Winston Churchill and I know that he would have very interesting things to say both about Manchester as a historian and about Sir Winston. I miss my dad’s voice. I miss the way he used to sing to the dog.

14 years ago today I arrived home in Ithaca, New York with my first guide dog “Corky” who changed my life in a thousand ways. How I miss her! I could start crying right now.

So I love the odd, innocent, half-shy silliness of the Bloomsbury crowd. Tonight I want to wear a turban with a sapphire pinned to the front. I want to carry on a bit with my gorgeous and beloved dead and feel them touching my hair.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

 

S.K.

 

“Poetry’s Death?”

 

By Andrea Scarpino

Los Angeles, CA  

Some say American poetry is dead, or at least, Americans’ interest in poetry is dead. It seems every couple of years, someone of great note announces the fact that Americans don’t read poetry, don’t have time for poetry, don’t understand poetry’s value. Being a someone-of-not-so-great note, I’ve often agreed with their opinions and can speak—well—poetically about the importance put on poetry in previous generations and civilizations, and/or in other countries and cultures in contrast to the United States.

However, sometimes things happen to make me wonder if American poetry is really dead. Several weeks ago, I attended a celebration of the Tufts Poetry Awards presented by the Poetry Society of America, Red Hen Press and Claremont Graduate University. Three poets read their work that night, each a former recipient of a Tufts award: Deborah Digges, Rodney Jones and Yusef Komunyakaa.

I’ll be honest: I went to hear Komunyakaa, and I figured, as usual, the crowd would be sparse. I was ready to bemoan the death of American poetry, while taking the opportunity presented by such death to speak one-on-one with Komunyakaa after the reading. Instead, the place was packed to capacity. As the poets were reading, ushers brought in more chairs so that latecomers would have a place to sit. People stood along the sides of the theater and crowded their bags into the aisles. Not even the fact that the stage was set for the theater’s contemporary re-telling of the play Tartuffe complete with a wooden lawn full of fake grass—not even that disguised the fact that the crowd was eager to hear poetry. And forget about speaking with Komunyakaa after the reading! A long line of people holding copies of his books, eager for a bit of conversation and his signature formed before I could even get out of my seat. So maybe poetry is just on life support?

Then, this weekend, the aforementioned someone-of-not-so-great-note gave a poetry reading to support her chapbook, The Grove Behind. I’ve never before given a reading in support of a book I had written, and certainly never as a “headliner” so to speak. I was terrified, not that I would stumble on my poems or trip getting to the stage—I have stood in front of classrooms long enough to know that a joke can make even the most awkward of my mistakes less terrible. Instead, I was terrified no one would come, that I would be alone in the bookstore with the wine and desserts I had brought and no one to listen to my poems but the hapless workers who had no choice but to attend. No one cares about poetry, remember?

Much to my surprise, 25 people attended. And they bought books, spoke to me with passion and intelligence about the poems I had read, asked questions, offered their opinions and personal stories. Of course, I knew most everyone as friends or students, even one former student. But for the most part, they weren’t “poetry people,” just people willing to engage poetry when given the opportunity, when invited personally by a friend, or when—ahem—offered extra credit. American poetry doesn’t have to be dead, nor does American interest in poetry. Yes, I still believe American interest in poetry is much declined from what it should be, but after nights like the Tuft’s reading and my own small reading, I have a little more hope that poetry has, after all, a place when given the chance.

 

Andrea Scarpino is the West Coast Bureau Chief of POTB and you can visit her at: www.andreascarpino.com

 

The story of the death of Otto Zehm in a Spokane convenience store where the mentally ill man was trying to buy a soda, the story of a death caused by the unwarranted use of a taser isn’t going away. Thanks again to Dave Reynolds of The inclusion Daily Express.  

 

Lawsuit Filed In Otto Zehm Death
(Spokesman-Review)
March 24, 2008
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON– [Excerpt] A federal civil rights suit against the city of Spokane and nine of its police officers says Otto Zehm died three years ago when police officers used batons and Tasers in a display of excessive force on the unarmed, passive, mentally ill man who merely wanted to buy a soda.

The lawsuit was filed Friday by the Center for Justice, five days before a legal deadline, after its attorneys spent months in private meetings with city attorneys. The negotiations failed to produce a damage settlement, a plan for changes in the way police deal with mentally ill people, or a sought-after apology.

The suit alleges the Police Department and its former acting chief, Jim Nicks, engaged in a conspiracy to portray Zehm as the aggressor after the 36-year-old janitor’s March 18, 2006, encounter with Officer Karl Thompson and other officers in a North Spokane convenience store. Zehm’s death two days later was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner.

The filing of the suit came after the Center for Justice and city attorneys failed to reach an out-of-court settlement.

Entire article:
Lawsuit filed in Otto Zehm death
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2009/red/0324d.htm

 

S.K.

 

Once many years ago when I was foolling around I told a fellow grad student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I was tarrying for awhile in my transient bookish student days that I was going to write my Ph.D. dissertation on the subject of jokes in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. “Well,” said my friend, “That ought to be a short thesis.” 

You can learn a lot about people by pulling their ambulatory appendages and in that instance I saw that my buddy didn’t know much about Emily who though a dark spirit in many of her poems was also a great master of riddles. To which I add that its no sin to not have read deeply in Emily Dickinson but I like to imagine that perhaps someday that fellow will do just that and be amused in his old age.

Jesus made a pun on Peter’s name: ‘Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church’.

Peter is petras, a stone, in Greek.

I’ve been in mind of this moment in the New Testament for a couple of reasons: the first has to do with the magic of giving one another spiritually expansive names. As I said to my friend Gary Whittington just the other day: “Has there ever been a better name than Crazy Horse?”

My own surname means grove of spruce trees in Finnish unless you take out one of the “U” s in which case the root of the word changes from Kuusi which means spruce tree to Kusi which means piss.

Grove of spruce is, I submit, a spiritual name. Piss-pot is another matter but one might argue for its religious meaning with sufficient comparative analysis and some brio.

The second thing that Jesus’ pun puts me in mind of is that we can admire each other’s strengths and build a vision from something we’ve seen that is not immediately apparent to the naked eye.

The pun is not always the lowest form of humor.

 

Perhaps the last thing to add is that it takes only a single stone to have a church. Peter is also an alter.

 

S.K.

Thanks are due to Dave Reynolds at The Inclusion Daily Express for bringing this story to our attention.

Victim Of Beating At State School Seeks Lawsuit
(Houston Chronicle)
March 23, 2009
AUSTIN, TEXAS– [Excerpt] Haseeb Chishty was beaten for sport.

A mentally disabled but physically healthy adult, Chishty was living at the Denton State School in 2002 when he was kicked and punched by a staff member who did it for fun, leaving him in a wheelchair and unable to feed himself or use the bathroom.

Chishty’s attacker went to prison and the family has for years been trying to sue the state, only to be prevented by legal roadblocks that grant the state immunity. But given new allegations of abuse that put conditions at the state’s large homes for the mentally disabled in the spotlight, state lawmakers may finally be ready to give Chishty his day in court.

The family is asking the Legislature to pass a resolution that waives the state’s sovereign immunity, allowing them to sue the Department of Aging and Disability Services for damages. They also want an atonement for what was done to him.

“I have many blisters on the soles of my feet from running around trying to find justice for my son,” Chishty’s mother, Farhat Chishty, told members of the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence on Monday.

Entire article:
Victim of beating at state school seeks lawsuit
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6334803.html