Meme the Time Away

ohdave.  Sigh. 

*It seems your friends westender, laffy and kirsten don’t have much patience with you.  ohdave, I’m sorry.  Perhaps they think they have more important things to do than respond to the meme you forwarded.  Perhaps they don’t but they just wanted us all to think they do, so they moaned and complained and pretended to resent the whole exercise.  Why? 

**Well dave, I have nothing more important to do. (One could assume you don’t either, or at least you didn’t, since you responded to the meme yourself.) In fact, I’ve been just sitting here wondering what to do with myself, as I so often do.  Then I remembered that you had recently tagged me and I had yet to respond.  Flushed with excitement and a sense of honor (ohdave tagged ME!), I reached for the nearest book….

(*you guys know I’m just kidding, right?)
(**you guys do know I’m just kidding, right?)

Continue reading “Meme the Time Away”

Easter Bunny and St. Valentine “One and the Same” Say Experts

(Associative Press)
By Dudley Dortmund
London, England

Doctors at the Royal London Hospital have discovered papers proving that two of the most beloved figures in western culture are the sameperson. The findings which were announced at a hastily called press conference are likely to cause controversy in the packaged candy industry.

Appearing before the hospital’s famous display of human oddities, Dr. Percival Strunk told reporters that archivists at the venerable British hospital were looking for some newspapers to stop a plumbing leak when they uncovered some lost journal entries by Sir Frederic Treves, the legendary Victorian physician who first brought Joseph Merrick, the so-called “Elephant Man” to public attention.

Dr. Strunk said that Sir Frederic Treves, who was one of the most respected surgeons in Victorian London discovered that St. Valentine and the Easter Bunny were not only “one and the same” but they were also the model for Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

“Dr. Treves was called to the queen’s palace in August of 1886 and ordered by a wildly intoxicated Benjamin Disraeli to operate on an enormous comatose rabbit.” said Dr. Strunk.

“While removing the rabbit’s gall bladder, Dr. Treves discovered that it wasn’t a rabbit at all, but an unfortunate furry man with an exceptionally strange backside.”

“After the surgery and the ether,” said Dr. Strunk, “Treves found that the bunny was essentially quite hostile.”

Dr. Treves journal describes the sub-rosa world of the bunny-man as a royall scandal of sorts. “The Queen loves this vicious creature,” wrote Treves. “She adores it when he shoots arrows at stray cats, for this apparently reminds her of her beloved deceased husband, Prince Albert, who enjoyed performing peculiar acts of garden cruelty with candy and arrows.”Cupid

Unlike Joseph Merricks, “The Elephant Man” this creature had no social refinements of any kind.

“It was quite nasty,” wrote Treves, “For it saw no distinction between good and evil. I witnessed it as it shot chocolate dipped arrows at some sleeping old persons.”

Dr. Strunk, who is a podiatrist, said the findings are likely to bring about a renewed interest in the infamous and unsolved crimes of "Jack the Ripper.”

Your Opinion? Disability & Media Consumption Survey

Originally posted on Blog [with]tv

My name is Anna Pakman and I am a first year MBA student at Columbia Business School. I am
conducting a survey as primary research for my paper on Media Consumption &
People with Disabilities for my Consumer Behavior class. I would appreciate it
if you could take a few minutes of your time to answer some questions about
your consumption of television, film, Internet, and radio programming. As you
probably know, 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.

You’ll find access to the survey on Blog [with]tv


The deadline for filling this out is March 31, 2008. Please feel free to
forward this on to any and all individuals and organizations that may have an
interest in completing the survey or getting their constituents to do so.

Should you have any further questions please feel free to contact me at apakman09@gsb.columbia.edu.
If the survey presents any problems for those using screen reading software
please let me know and I can figure out another way to get it to you.
Unfortunately, I need to use Qualtrics as it is the only surveying
software provided by Columbia University and I have no control as to how
accessible/unaccessible it is. If you have a lot of trouble, please record your
problems and e-mail them to me so I can forward it on to our IT people who can
then relay this feedback to the vendor. 

Thanks in advance for your time.

Regards,

Anna Pakman
MBA Class of 2009

Disability and Presidential Politics

We at "Planet of the Blind" are happy to pass along this announcement and call for participation in the presidential campaign by people with disabilities. This information was sent to us by our friend Mark Johnson.

S.K.

NONE of the Presidential candidates are talking about our issues publically. Members of the disability community in TX have launched a campaign to bring attention to our issues. Following is an article about Senator Clinton’s Rally in El Paso yesterday. Advocates passed out flyers (English and Spanish) and issued this Advisory.

A large presence is planned at the Democratic debate on February 21st in Austin. The candidates need to meet with representatives of the disability community before the debate. If you agree, PLEASE contact (call and write) Clinton, http://www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact/ and Obama’s,

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/contact/ campaigns.

If you would like to support this campaign and/or have any information about the Republican events in TX, please contact Bob Kafka, bob.adapt@sbcglobal.net, 512-431-4085.

All the candidates must address our issues so the public can make an informed decision. Whatever the issue or whoever the candidate, it is important that the disability community, young and old convey the fact that we care about our issues.

ARTICLE

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/02/12/politics/fromtheroad/entry3824090.shtml

PRESS ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

Subject: OUR HOMES NOT NURSING HOMES OR OTHER INSTITUTIONS

For information call: Frank Lozano (915) 565-7077 or Jose G. Lara (915) 253-1573

Members of the El Paso disability community called on Senator Clinton to include reform of the institutionally biased long term care system in her health care plan and her long term care positions.

Senator Clinton is a cosponsor of the Community Choice Act (S 799-H 1621) but has not included the passage of this legislation in either her health care or long term care positions.

Millions of Americans will be confronted with long term care decisions over the next few decades. The current long term care system, created in 1965, has an institutional funding bias that frequently forces individuals into nursing homes and other institutions. Total Medicaid long term care spending in FY 2006 was almost $100 billion dollars. 61% of these dollars were spent on institutional services leaving only 39% for all home and community services.

"All the candidates are talking about change in their campaign speeches"said Frank Lozano disability rights advocate. "We want Senator Clinton to talk about changing the institutionally biased long term care system by including passage of the Community Choice Act in her health care and long term care positions."

This issue is one of the highest priorities for the disability and aging communities in Texas and throughout the country.

Picking on the Wrong Guy

You can imagine my surprise and corresponding disgust when I saw the story about Brian Sterner this morning on the Today Show.  Brian, who is a quadriplegic, was arrested by the Hillsboro County Sheriff’s Department for outstanding traffic violations.  A sheriff’s deputy ordered him to stand for a frisking and when he declared that he was unable to do so, the deputy dumped him out of his wheelchair.  Apparently she didn’t "believe" him.  I’m certain that by the end of the day this video tape will be everywhere in the mainstream media.  As so it should be. This is absolutely appalling.

The video clip below shows Mr. Sterner being dumped on the floor, then "frisked" while lying there.  Eventually he is picked up off the floor and "dumped" back into his chair.

Brian is a disability rights advocate and a doctoral student at the University of South Florida. He teaches courses in disability studies among other things. I was particularly struck by his insistence on the Today Show that his mistreatment at the hands of the sheriff’s office represents a police abuse crisis that affects everybody.

In short: Brian Sterner wasn’t abused because of his disability! He was abused because he was essentially in the hands of the constabulary.

Of course having a "reasonable accommodation" that they can take away surely adds to the enticements of cruel and unusual punishment.

I wonder what Judge Alito, our nation’s newest expert on the acceptability of water boarding would say about this?

Alito would likely say that since Brian Sterner was not yet technically "in the jail" he wasn’t yet being punished–he was having a "pre-correctional opportunity".

At any rate, as I said to my wife after the Today Show interview: "I think they picked on the wrong guy!"

S.K.

Links:

View Scott Rains’ numerous follow-up links on the Rolling Rains Report

Match Girls For Everyone!

Why do I hate novels with this kind of plot? And why are so many of them being written these days? The "young girl who leaves home without a plan and no clue novel" is everywhere This is the plot summary for Fay a novel by Larry Brown. Read on:

Fay Jones had no education, hardly any shell you can’t call what her father’s been tryin’ with her since she grew up "love." So, at the ripe age of seventeen, Fay Jones leaves home. She lights out alone, wearing her only dress and her rotting sneakers, carrying a purse with a half pack of cigarettes and two dollar bills. Even in 1985 Mississippi, two dollars won’t go far on the road. She’s headed for the bright lights and big times and even she knows she needs help getting there. But help’s not hard to come by when you look like Fay. There’s a highway patrolman who gives her a lift, with a detour to his own place. There are truck drivers who pull over to pick her up, no questions asked. There’s a crop duster pilot with money for a night or two on the town. And finally there’s a strip joint bouncer who deals on the side. At the end of this suspenseful, compulsively readable novel, there are five dead bodies stacked up in Fay’s wake. Fay herself is sighted for the last time in New Orleans. She’ll make it, whatever making it means, because Fay’s got what it takes: beauty, a certain kind of innocent appeal, and the instinct for survival.

I don’t mean to be disingenuous. I really don’t know why these match girl novels, almost exclusively written by men, are all over the place.

Is it simply a function of male boomers who now have daughters working out their conflicted feminist schadenfreude?

SK

How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?

If you ever wonder about what it’s like to be blind or visually impaired I can attest that the story below is “legion”.  Both blindness and low vision are poorly understood by the general public.  I personally have been mocked by service employees in almost every kind of setting from airports to restaurants to hotels, bus stations, you name it.  Our hats are off to Alice Camarillo.  She is fighting for everyone on the Planet of the Blind.

S.K. 

The following article is forwarded to you by the DBTAC-Great Lakes ADA Center

New York Daily News (New York, NY)
February 9, 2008

Fast food employees mocked a blind woman who needed help reading menu
BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Continue reading “How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?”

Blogging From the "K List"

I’ve been thinking lately about blogs and blogging and about the “A List” bloggers like Lance Mannion or James Wolcott, Blue Girl in a Red State or Shakespeares Sister — bloggers who command what can only be called a readership.

When A List bloggers blog, well, even small birds cry out from the larch tree.

Here at “Planet of the Blind” we like to think of ourselves as “K List” bloggers. This means that we’re read by a lively and spirited miscellany of folks who prefer that part of the alphabet that comes before the diminuendo known as “LMNOP”.

Our readership likes to be within hailing distance of the “ABC or D” Lists, while foraging for truffles in the wild violets of Provence. But of course I’m mis-stating the case since our readers are much more likely to eat truffles found only in the Basque regions.

Provence is of course an “A List” place.

What are the “K List” places you ask?

Continue reading “Blogging From the "K List"”

Send a Haiku Postcard to the President

Split_this_rock_str_bannerhor1_6

Blue Girl? When was the last time you wrote a Haiku? 

Lance?
Dave?
Wren?
Ruth?
Ira?
Andrea?

On the Split This Rock Poetry Festival web site you’ll find a link to Blog This Rock where we can all read read haiku written to "Dubya" by attendees of the 2008 AWP Conference in New York City.

Let President Bush know how you feel.  We’re all invited to do just that.  Send a "Haiku Postcard to the President!" c/o

Split This Rock Poetry Festival
The Institute for Policy Studies
1112 16th   Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036

Here’s mine:

I support our troops
but you can’t have my children.
Not for your mistakes.

~ Connie