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


Allies: the Theme of the 33rd Disability Blog Carnival

Ruth has put together the 33rd (WOW!) Disability Blog Carnival and it is now available on her blog, WHEELIE CATHOLIC.  Borrowing from Ruth:

"The theme of this carnival is "Appreciating Allies". So, what and who are allies? Wikipedia says
that " those who share a common goal and whose work toward that goal is
complementary may be viewed as allies for various purposes even when no
explicit agreement has been worked out between them."

Ruth
pointed out that there are opportunities for those of us in the
disability community to act as allies. In so doing, she was kind enough
to mention Anna’s Pakman’s survey on Media Consumption and people with disabilities on her carnival.  According to Anna:

“the Nielsen ratings track media consumption for just about
every population EXCEPT our community so the only way I can get this
data is through your assistance. All individual survey responses are
anonymous and will be kept strictly confidential.”

This
is a perfect opportunity to say "thanks" to all ALLIES who in one way
or the other support our efforts. And a special thanks to Ruth.  We are
fortunate to consider her an ally, as are many others.  Of that we have
no doubt.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv and Crimes Against People with Disabilities.

Get Involved: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities "Blog Swarm"

RatifyNow.org is "a
website to support the global grassroots efforts to ratify the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities."  There you will
find this announcement:

Blog Swarm!

Calling all bloggers and writers! On March 30,
2008, the RatifyNow.org site will be host to the RatifyNow CRPD Blog
Swarm 2008! If you’re reading this page, chances are, you care
passionately about disability rights. This is your chance to get on a
soap box and tell the world what the international disability rights
treaty (CRPD) means to you! Learn how to get involved.

If you are not a blogger, you too can be involved.  Simply forward your essay/comments to a blogger, here for instance, to have your thoughts be heard.

Cross-posted on Blog [with]tv and Crimes Against People with Disabilities

The Book of Ringo

Back in the sixties if you had to make a decision about anything (from whether to have children or sell your bicycle) chances are good that you consulted the I Ching. Some people still do this of course and I wouldn’t want to dissuade them from utilizing an age old book of wisdom.

But I’m announcing on this blog that I’m now putting together a new spiritual almanac that I’m calling “The Book of Ringo”.

Why? Because I believe that the wisest words of the last generation are those of the overlooked Beatle, Richard Starkey.

This is always the way of things when it comes to holy men or women. They’re right here in our midst but we don’t see them.

Everybody remembers the topsy-turvy lingo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney or the sage pronouncements of Maharishi—but we can now see that wise as these people may have been or might still be, they are, as the poet Emily Dickinson once said, “playing at paste” as opposed to Ringo who has the real gems.    

Who among you remembers that the first question asked of The Beatles as they stood on American soil for the first time at Idlewild was posed by a hostile reporter who snarled at Ringo: “What do you think of Beethoven?”

Ringo said: “I love Beethoven, especially the poems.”

I would love to top that, but I’m not wise enough. Not by a country mile in the company of my long winded grandmother am I that smart.

Like the I Ching you can sort Ringo’s lyrics and pronouncements in any shape and they will answer your questions.

Example: “Why is life so hard?”

Ringo:

“I’d ask my friends to come and see/an Octopus’s garden with me.”

But of course like all holy men, Ringo is fast.

At this year’s Grammy Awards Ringo overheard Natalie Cole complaining about Amy Winehouse’s multiple awards and he said:

"Man, those are some grapes!”

Need more proof Ringo is a guru?

Press: “What do you think of topless bathing suits?”

Ringo:  “We’ve been wearing them for years.”

Upon seeing America for the first time:

“So this is America. They must be out of their minds.”

Of course the secret of all spiritual figures is that they invariably come from humble roots. Ringo once said that Gene Autrey was his first musical influence.

I rest my case.

The process of cross-indexing the Book of Ringo could take several years. And obviously there’s some theosophical research that has to be done. What for instance does this mean exactly?

Reporter: “Why do you always wear six rings?”

Ringo: “because six is too heavy.”

Man, I’m sorry! That’s better than the Dhammapada!

S.K. 

The Triumph of Industry

"Who do you want to be?" said the doctor. He was cleaning his glasses with the sleeve of his sport coat.

"I want to be a hydro-electric pump designer," said the little girl.

"Why don’t you show me how that works with your Barbie doll," Said the Doctor.

"Okay," said the little girl. "Watch."

She popped Barbie’s head off with a flick of her index finger.

"You must take Barbie’s head off quite often," said the doctor, "It looks like you’ve practiced."

"Barbie loses her head very easily," said the girl.

Then she took a Bic pen and poked a hole In Barbie’s left foot. Then she poked another one on the right foot.

She put the hollowed tube of the Bic pen into the top of Barbie’s neck.

"If you pour water into Barbie through the Bic," said the girl, "Then you can create downward pressure because water displaces the air and creates the conditions necessary for a vacuum, except the air needs to go somewhere so it heads for her feet.: but then you can control the displacement by opening and closing her foot holes."

The girl demonstrated by pressing her thumbs on Barbie’s feet. Water spurted out of the Bic pen atop Barbie’s neck in perfect accord.

"That’s why Sir Thomas Crapper called it a "foot valve"in the first place, "said the girl.

"You know, "she said, "You can’t make this kind of stuff up."

S.K.

The Big, Ugly Parade

A friend who is both a poet and essayist and who grew up in the southwestern desert regions of the United States once told me that When he was a kid he witnessed “first hand” an occurrence that the locals called “the parade of the tarantulas”—each year a single file line of big venomous spiders would walk down the main drag of town.

The line, according to my friend would stretch for miles. People would sit on folding chairs just to watch.

I was reminded of this yesterday while watching the so-called news channels. The Samantha Powers story was bringing both the spiders and the lawn chair lurkers right out into the open.

While Senators Clinton and Obama parade their followers down the street and the body politic and media bubble is caught up in the spectacle of hairy legs and fangs, no one is debating the real issues.

Does anyone care that 30 per cent of the nation’s honeybees have mysteriously disappeared and no one knows why?

As my friend

Lorraine

would say: “I’m just sayin’!”

S.K.

Dog Food for Everyone!

When I was around ten years old I used to play a game with my cousin Jim (who was just a couple of years younger)—a game we called "Guess the Taste" which required a blindfold and a can opener. Occasionally my sister would also join us. The person wearing the blindfold would have to eat whatever combination of "goodies" the director provided, and as you can imagine this meant that one or the other of us would wind up eating canned dog food with spicy mustard or peanut butter with garden slugs. It was a dreadful game but what made it endurable was that it was democratic. If I gave Jim a pickle dipped in kitty litter he would get revenge by handing me an Oreo cookie with a housefly inside. You couldn’t refuse to eat "the thing" as we called it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I was reminded of "Guess the Taste" last evening while channel surfing. Suddenly, there appeared on my screen two overgrown ten year olds and wouldn’t you know it—they were playing with a can opener and a blindfold though of course they didn’t know .

The gassy, superannuated, and undifferentiated ten year olds were none other than right wing commentator Glen Beck and Harvard professor of law, Alan Dershowitz.

Glen Beck was saying that he counts as one of his friends a university president who reports that college professors are terrible people. Dershowitz jumped right in by saying that there is no more cowardly class of people than tenured college faculty and then he went on to say that most of them are aging liberals who harangue today’s students with political demagoguery left over from the sixties and these people will defend the rights of the very people who want to destroy our nation, etc. etc.. I think he also said something about how scandalous it is that the salaries of these professors are paid for by the taxpayers. (You’ve always got to make a bad taste even worse so the one with the blindfold won’t know what the original thing might be. But I digress.)

Heck. I’m not prey to the pretense that my views about the world are legion. My sense of humor alone assures that I’m mostly a lonely man. (For instance I think it’s funny that "Episcopal" and "Pepsi-cola" are composed from the same letters.)

I’ve been teaching in higher education for close to thirty years. My father was a highly successful college president. I think I can say with assurance that I’ve lived most of my life in the vicinity of American colleges and universities.

I have absolutely no idea what Glen Beck and Dershowitz are carrying on about. Professors are in my experience as uncategorizable as New York City cab drivers. Some are right wingers. Some are lefties. Some are drunks. Some are not. Some (like myself) love John Wayne movies. Some think "the Duke" was a fascist.

Beating up on "the professoriate" is as stupid and pointless as playing "Guess the Taste" except it’s even stupider since real ten year olds don’t pretend to moral or political superiority.

Colleges remain this nation’s leading forum for the free expression of ideas. Some ideas are better than others. Today, for instance, they don’t burn women at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts. Alright, I’m spray painting the lily.

Glen Beck is a smart fella. But really, c’mon. There are right wing professors who helped George W. Bush prattle on and on about the idea that global warming is a fiction.

As for Dershowitz: we know he will put anything on a fork if he thinks you can’t see.

S.K.

The Memoir on Steroids

The New York Times reports that there is a new memoir scandal afoot in American publishing.

At issue is the discovery of what appears to be an entirely fictionalized memoir by a young woman who purported to have grown up in foster care and then to have lived a sub-rosa life among teen gangs in Los Angeles. Like the scandal involving James Frey’s notorious false memoir it turns out that this gangland narrative is simply fiction. 

As a teacher and writer of literary nonfiction I want to hold my head. My first instinct is to feel alarm for the art form that I love. Literary memoir is a genre that could be irreparably tarnished by repeated disclosures that something smells rotten in Denmark.

I worry especially because as a teacher I aim to encourage younger writers to write sophisticated and brave nonfiction. I worry because we live in an era when commercial publishing is in serious trouble. I fear that the avenues for the publication of autobiographical nonfiction could be significantly narrowed by the kind of malfeasance we’ve been seeing lately.

What’s worse in my view is that the “trouble” doesn’t lie with the genre. Though it’s tempting to blame “the memoir” in much the way we blame major league baseball for the steroid scandal, the problem doesn’t rest with the “game”—the difficulty lies in the demand for instantaneous and sensational profits.  Commercial publishing is driven today by a relentless, starving shark: a shark like all sharks—its momentum driven by sensation and the promise of instantaneous rewards.

It costs too much to run a baseball team or a publishing house nowadays. So you have to get a juiced up superstar to break a time honored record or you need a shocking and quasi-lurid book to make fast profits. Today’s corporate business model is entirely built on fast quarterly earnings.

Book publishing wasn’t always like this. In the good old days publishers could receive tax credits for the unsold books in the warehouse. But in the Reagan “go go 80’s” the tax laws were changed and publishers found that they couldn’t afford to keep books in print. In turn, the industry went from “publishing” to “producing”—and until the incentives are changed this is the way it will stay with literature and with baseball. 

Memoir isn’t the same thing as a Hollywood “kiss and tell” story. While an artful memoirist may disclose painful or disturbing facts about the personal past, the larger aim of literary consciousness is largely concerned with ambiguities of all kinds.

Another way to put this is that the true writer of memoir doesn’t overcome anything. A true memoir isn’t a self-help book any more than a poem is a manual on how to build a boat.

Yet in  commercial culture the Reagan go-go 80’s lead to the “Oprah 90’s” and both circumstances call for a tabloid friendly form of personal narrative—what I have come to call the “memoir on steroids” which, like the suspicious record keeping in baseball is entirely a function of fast profits.

No one would say that the memoirs of James Baldwin or Mark Twain or Mary McCarthy were sensational narratives about overcoming a singular and crippling one-sided misfortune.

Don’t blame the memoir for contemporary greed.

S.K.