Planet of the Blind

A Date With My Father

Last Tuesday my father and I went out on a date. I wish I could do this more often with him but he’s in New York and we’re in Ohio – for the moment. I thought it was fun to pull a boat up dockside, climb out and go have lunch (a favorite thing to do in Wolfboro, NH) but pulling up to Rick’s Runway Cafe (in Orange County, NY) in a plane was way cooler!

This is a photo of Rick’s Runway Cafe from my seat in the plane. I’m looking out from underneath the wing as we’re pulling up. What a beautiful day it was. The restaurant was a small ranch style building. Nothing fancy but it’s clean, neat and the food was fine.

Here’s a photo of Captain Bill at the controls. Out the left front window is the Hudson River below.

Pre-flight instruction included a "cheat sheet" that said "in case of emergency try to move the pilot out of the way." (Yeh right! We had about as much room as we would have sitting side by side in a refridgerator.) Instructions told you what frequency to switch to to call in the emergency. Meanwhile do this to maintain altitude and do that to maintain direction…keep an eye on these gauges…oh, and DON’T PANIC! (Photo is that of the control panel with all it’s gauges, buttons and knobs.)

Our flight is over and next we had to gas up. (In this photo, my father, dressed in blue jeans and a white polo shirt, is standing in the doorway of the building – shack – looking out at me)

Back on the tarmac, Dad tied the plane down just in time. The heavens opened up and it poured and thundered for the next 45 minutes. He was stuck sitting in the plane and I had made it to the Honda. (photo: orange and white Cessna…you can see my father climbing out after the rain finally stopped.)

Thanks for a wonderful day Dad. Oh, and HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Love always,

Connie
(Pxx to you Dad!)

P.S. Mom, wish you would have joined us! 🙂

Mr. Brooks

Last night my wife Connie and I went to see the new Kevin Costner film, "Mr. Brooks" largely on the basis of a rave review by Gene Shalit of the Today Show. Shalit said the film was well written and suspenseful and that both Kevin Costner and William Hurt are terrific in their shared role, which is to say that they both act out a part of the disturbed psyche of "Earl" who is a scion of the community and also a serial killer in secret.

The flick is indeed riveting and you won’t have a dull moment. Demi Moore plays a Portland homicide detective with genuine skill. The writing is superb.

This is also the bloodiest movie I’ve seen since Sam Peckinpaugh’s "Straw Dogs" and you should be forewarned of this if you haven’t seen the film. Gene Shalit was so attentive to the movie’s virtues that he forgot to say how astonishingly brutal it is. This omission probably has something to do with the enormous weight of his moustache. I don’t really know how heavy Gene Shalit’s moustache is, but it’s a safe bet that it’s heavier than say, your average suburban squirrel.

I know that if I had a squirrel on my lip I’d forget to tell you things.

Kevin Costner is truly amazing in this flick. He’s a cross between the man in the gray flannel suit and the Zodiac killer. That’s not an easy act to get away with, unless you work for the State Department.

Anyway, if you see this film be prepared for some serious carnage.

As for me, I felt that one of the minor characters in "Mr. Brooks" who "gets it" was a lot like someone I really don’t like and accordingly I had some quasi-pathologized catharsis which is pretty much what people go to the movies for nowadays. Yep. Even a paragon of virtue like moi can enjoy some symbiotic viciousness. And that’s also part of the film’s plot so I can’t say any more about the matter.

By the way, Gene Shalit and Patch Adams have pretty much the same wardrobe. I wonder where they shop?

S.K.

The Power of "Blindness Girl"

Among all the world’s superheroes "Blindess Girl" has the most misleading name. You know, with your standard run of the mill comic book action figures you get what you’re promised: Batman looks like a
cave dwelling fetishist, Captain America looks like a cross between Buster Crabbe and Evil Knievel (at least he used to). But Blindness Girl is suprisingly ordinary: she’s the "girl next door"– she looks like the young Patty Duke–except in fact, she’s not even blind.

The really really cool thing about Blindness Girl is that she can see but she doesn’t know how to think about the stuff she observes. When she sees Dick Cheney she doesn’t perceive a man who looks like a gargoyle on a French cathedral, no, she sees the man’s inner beauty. (Yes, this is a wildly improbable "power", one that only Blindness Girl possesses, but as you will see, it makes her very heroic.)

It is rumored that Blindness Girl got this power by attending Bard College and studying the contemporary art scene, but no one knows for sure. Others say she got the power from hanging out with real blind people on the corner of 23rd Street in New York City.

It doesn’t matter how she got the power. Blindness Girl is the one you need to call when you’re having a family reunion and you require someone who can see the inner beauty of your Uncle Mert who most days drinks a bucket of vodka and shoots rats in the barn with a German luger. Blindness Girl sees that Uncle Mert loves genetically advanced roses and that he secretly loves the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln. She convinces him to buy a new pair of Hush Puppies and to trade his vodka for Zinfandel and she also gets him to swap the luger for a set of digitally remastered Montavanni records. The Montavanni records are a "win win" because it turns out even the rats like the music.

Blindness Girl can go into a teenager’s bedroom. She can ride mass transit in Philadelphia. The sight of James Carville on "Meet the Press" doesn’t terrify her. She doesn’t think that fat people are funny or that they have character flaws. She isn’t impressed by your Rolex. She thinks a few dandelions in the yard are nice. Blindness Girl thinks Rosie O Donnell has a few saving graces. She also thinks there’s some inner beauty lurking in "the Donald".

Like I said, this is a rare power.

Blindness Girl can recite the Sermon on the Mount in every known language. She can also read Braille and speak ASL.

She is a very good friend of the Dalai Lama and she likes hanging out with Whoopi Goldberg.

Children love her because she’s like Pippi Longstocking. No one needs a bath and you never need to change your clothes.

S.K.

(Caption: Our Blindness Girl is a cute cartoon of a girl with a round face, big eyes, a half smile. She’s got red hair with bangs and she’s wearing a royal blue costume with a green emblem on her chest, a green cape and green boots.)

Disability Blog Carnival #16: Borders

Pilgrimgirl is hosting this edition of the Disability Blog Carnival.

"As people with disabilities many of us find ourselves navigating
borders. We may encounter physical barriers that prevent us from fully
participating in social activities. Many of us experience awkward
interactions as we move through public spaces–often simultaneously
drawing attention and disfavor. Those of us who inhabit the Borderland
of disability may ‘pass’ for TAB in various spheres (such as on the
‘Net where our bodies aren’t on display), or we may have times where we
assert our disabled identity in order to qualify for benefits or
accommodations. At different times we may feel a kind of fractured
identity as we realize that our life is ‘normal’ for us, so why are we
marginalized or pitied when we attempt to live our everyday lives?"

Pilgrimgirl is new to us as are some of her carnival participants. So many blogs; so little time! These carnivals provide such a wonderful opportunity to *meet* the most interesting people. Don’t you think?

~ Connie

P.S.

Steve and I will be hosting the next Disability Carnival on June 28 and we’ve decided to borrow from the Reader’s Digest
and use "Laughter, the Best Medicine" as the theme this time around.
Of course, we welcome any and all topics but as we’re planning a big move
to Iowa this summer, we’re looking for any opportunity to lighten the
mood up around here! Help us please! Send us your submission(s) via this link or write to us at contact@stephenkuusisto.com Click HERE for more info.

THANKS!

Connie

Happy for the Hornets, Thank You

Dear Lord or Lady of Creation:

We small-ish creatures down here are grateful for all your gifts and I should be remiss indeed if I forgot to mention the hornets. They are lovely. Their wings are delicate as hand blown glass, and they sparkle like motile slivers from a rainbow as they flit with dark purpose around the woodpile. How delicate they are! Their waists are thin as the illuminated periods in hand painted bibles. Oh, and their abdomens swell with mystery and all that hot music of private algebra. And I haven’t even begun to marvel at their angled eyes that can discern soft innocence from a distance of a thousand yards.

Yes, they are perfect engines of suspicion without consciousness, these furious and intractable little bastards. How adoringly we embrace them with our soft and child like appendages, our little bums and piggly toes, each one of us insolvent in the richness of faith. Dear Creator, thank you.

Oh and we are also grateful for anaphylactic shock, and swollen tongues.

Thank you.

We are beseechingly yours in this world of raw and unexpected alarms. Forgive us our ungovernable innocence. How foolish we were to conceive of playgrounds and swingsets. How errant our ways in your garden where the lesson is clear: stay inside. Don’t move. Bow and pray behind curtained windows. Repeat as needed.

Faithfully yours,

Homo Erectus

Reality: Books for the Blind Still in Peril

You can imagine my surprise when I received a cell phone call yesterday from a staffer at U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s office in Washington. Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s office was calling to "correct the record" about the funding emergency facing the Talking Books program for the Blind. Apparently the folks in her office were aware of my two posts about the funding emergency that now threatens the future of books for people with reading related disabilities.

I was hoping of course to hear that the dire news about the appropriations committees decision regarding the Talking Books program had been completely misreported and that the funding needed by the Library of Congress to continue the National Library Service was already in place.

But in fact the funding that was authorized by the committee chaired by Rep. Wasserman Schultz has only given the National Library Service for the Blind approximately one third of the funding they will need to continue the program. This is a fact. You can look it up.

Apparently there was an inaccuracy in my post according to the Representative’s office, namely that the committee did not authorize the director of the Library of Congress to spend money for the Talking Books program on other programs. Aha! Here’s what they did.

The money targeted for the blind services (which is still only a third of what’s needed to continue the program, remember?) can ONLY be spent on something else if the director of the Library of Congress goes back to the committee and receives permission.

Now that’s really reassuring. I feel so much better today.

I urge my readers and friends to campaign vigorously for the full funding of the Talking Books program and please don’t let up. Taking books away from the blind and elderly is unacceptable. Period.

S.K.

Why Paris Hilton's Story Matters

Like everyone else, I woke this morning to the news that Paris Hilton, the American Hotel heiress and "celebpar excellence" has been returned to jail by the judge. I don’t care whether she deserves 45 days in the slammer for DUI or other assorted traffic violations: what matters is that she is now as of this morning a prisoner in America’s largest psychiatric facility, which is the Los Angeles County Jail. The mental health system in the United States is a disgrace. If you even dimly suspect that Paris Hilton may not belong "there" imagine all the youthful offenders who became adult offenders who hail from families that never had medical insurance or proper treatment for serious mental illnesses. Imagine the third rate care such prisoners receive in the L.A. jails. This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. Our nation’s health care crisis is in my view the most serious threat to our nation’s future. Period. S.K.

Crazy Love as in "I Am Now Damaged Merchandise"

After a jealous former boyfriend threw acid in her face, Linda considered herself "damaged merchandise" unworthy of love. Heck she went blind thanks to this lunatic former love. Who would *want* her now?

So what’s a girl to do? Marry the B@*&%#**^ ?! Which is exactly what Linda did – after he served time in prison that is.

Just out in selected movie theaters is "Crazy Love", a documentary covering the relationship between Linda and Burt Pugach. Here is what Christy Lemire of the Associated Press had to say about this PG-13 rated film:

"Crazy Love" is a documentary about a man who was so obsessively possessive of his ex-girlfriend that he lied to her about divorcing his wife, paid guys to beat her up so she’d feel frightened enough to run back to him, and, most shockingly of all, hired a thug to throw lye in her face, leaving her blind and disfigured at 22.

And it’s funny!"

Did Ms. Lemire say funny? Even after reading her review I fail to see what is so funny about this story. Should curiosity get the better of me and I decide to see the movie, will I think it funny then? Somehow I doubt it.

I’ve done a little reading of reviews of this documentary online and I thought about posting them here, but quite frankly, I’ve got better things to do. I’d like to think that proceeds from this documentary, should there be any, will be used for greater good to promote issues such as the rights of battered women or domestic violence against women with disabilities or some such thing. But somehow I doubt that too.

~ Connie

Talking Books Emergency

I received the following e-mail this morning by way of Irwin Hott, who is President of the Ohio Chapter of the American Council of the Blind. The note he is passing along is from the ACB’s "sister" organization, the National Federation of the Blind. Note that there are specific phone numbers you can call to express your opposition to the current funding proposal that would, effectively, jeopardize the continued existence of books for the blind.

S.K.

Here is more on funding of the Talking Book program:

From: Hartle, Jesse
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 4:55 PM

Urgent action is needed to respond to the House’s Legislative Branch Subcommittee’s proposed appropriations bill relating to the fiscal year 2008 budget request of the Library of Congress. As you all know the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has been working on a plan to convert the Talking Books program to a digital format. The cost of this needed transition from analog cassette to digital technology is $76.4 million over a four-year period ($19.1 million for each of the next four years). The House Legislative Branch Subcommittee has only included $7.5 million for this project in the bill, which passed the subcommittee yesterday. The subcommittee also voted against an amendment raised by Congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois that sought to include full funding for the NLS upgrade. Not only is this amount just a third of what was requested by the Library of Congress, but the subcommittee further gave the Librarian of Congress the power to transfer all or part of the funds from the Books for the Blind program to other upgrades for the Library. Essentially, if the Librarian of Congress chooses to transfer funds from the $7.5 million allotted for the digital conversion program, the Talking Books program will be killed due to a lack of equipment to repair broken tape players and the simple fact that all aspects of cassette technology will become obsolete in the next four years. The Legislative Branch Appropriations bill will now be presented to the full Committee on Appropriations on Tuesday, July 12. It is imperative that we flood the offices of Committee members and the office of Subcommittee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before July 12th to urge them to include the full funding for the digital upgrade and to protect these funds from being shifted within the Library of Congress to meet other needs. The Talking Books program is the largest and most essential available source of information for blind people as a whole, and we need to protect this information source with our greatest effort. Included below is a list of the members on the Appropriations Committee and their office numbers. Please contact their offices, and let them know how important the Talking Books program is to the blind. I will update you with further information on this initiative, but your calls should start immediately.

Thanks in advance for all of your hard work.
Jesse Hartle
Government Program Specialist
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, ext. 2233
jhartle@nfb.org
House Committee on Appropriations
Full Committee – June 7, 2007
FL D, Schultz, Rep Debbie Wasserman, 202-225-7931
(alphabetical by state)
AL D, Cramer, Rep Robert E. Bud, Jr., 202-225-4801
AL R, Aderholt, Rep Robert B., 202-225-4876
AR D, Berry, Rep Marion, 202-225-4076
AZ D, Pastor, Rep Ed, 202-225-4065
CA D, Farr, Rep Sam, 202-225-2861
CA D, Honda, Rep Mike, 202-225-2631
CA D, Lee, Rep Barbara, 202-225-2661
CA D, Roybal-Allard, Rep Lucille, 202-225-1766
CA D, Schiff, Rep Adam, 202-225-4176
CA R, Calvert, Rep Ken, 202-225-1986
CA R, Lewis, Rep Jerry, 202-225-5861
CT D, DeLauro, Rep Rosa L., 202-225-3661
FL D, Boyd, Rep F. Allen, 202-225-5235
FL R, Crenshaw, Rep Ander, 202-225-2501
FL R, Weldon, Rep Dave, 202-225-3671
FL R, Young, Rep C. W. Bill, 202-225-5961
GA D, Bishop, Rep Sanford D., Jr., 202-225-3631
GA R, Kingston, Rep Jack, 202-225-5831
IA R, Latham, Rep Tom, 202-225-5476
ID R, Simpson, Rep Mike, 202-225-5531
IL D, Jackson, Rep Jesse L., Jr., 202-225-0773
IL R, Kirk, Rep Mark Steven, 202-225-4835
IL R, LaHood, Rep Ray, 202-225-6201
IN D, Visclosky, Rep Peter J., 202-225-2461
KS R, Tiahrt, Rep Todd, 202-225-6216
KY D, Chandler, Rep Ben, 202-225-4706
KY R, Rogers, Rep Hal, 202-225-4601
LA R, Alexander, Rep Rodney, 202-225-8490
MA D, Olver, Rep John W., 202-225-5335
MD D, Ruppersberger, Rep C. A. Dutch, 202-225-3061
MI D, Kilpatrick, Rep Carolyn Cheeks, 202-225-2261
MI R, Knollenberg, Rep Joe, 202-225-5802
MN D, McCollum, Rep Betty, 202-225-6631
MO R, Emerson, Rep Jo Ann, 202-225-4404
MS R, Wicker, Rep Roger F., 202-225-4306
MT R, Rehberg, Rep Dennis, 202-225-3211
NC D, Price, Rep David E., 202-225-1784
NJ D, Rothman, Rep Steve, 202-225-5061
NJ R, Frelinghuysen, Rep Rodney P., 202-225-5034
NM D, Udall, Rep Tom, 202-225-6190
NY D, Hinchey, Rep Maurice D., 202-225-6335
NY D, Israel, Rep Steve, 202-225-3335
NY D, Lowey, Rep Nita M., 202-225-6506
NY D, Serrano, Rep Jose E., 202-225-4361
NY R, Walsh, Rep James T., 202-225-3701
OH D, Kaptur, Rep Marcy, 202-225-4146
OH D, Ryan, Rep Tim, 202-225-5261
OH R, Hobson, Rep David L., 202-225-4324
OH R, Regula, Rep Ralph, 202-225-3876
PA D, Fattah, Rep Chaka, 202-225-4001
PA D, Murtha, Rep John P., 202-225-2065
PA R, Peter son, Rep John E., 202-225-5121
RI D, Kennedy, Rep Patrick J., 202-225-4911
TN R, Wamp, Rep Zach, 202-225-3271
TX D, Edwards, Rep Chet, 202-225-6105
TX D, Rodriguez, Rep Ciro D., 202-225-4511
TX R, Carter, Rep John R., 202-225-3864
TX R, Culberson, Rep John, 202-225-2571
TX R, Granger, Rep Kay, 202-225-5071
VA D, Moran, Rep Jim, 202-225-4376
VA R, Goode, Rep Virgil H., Jr., 202-225-4711
VA R, Wolf, Rep Frank R., 202-225-5136
WA D, Dicks, Rep Norm, 202-225-5916
WI D, Obey, Rep David R., Chair, 202-225-3365
WV D, Mollohan, Rep Alan B., 202-225-4172

Go to the 19th Floor

If you click on the link on this blog to The 19th Floor you will see a succinct personal narrative by Mark Siegel about the ingrained and committed life force that keeps him and tens of thousands of other people with disabilities thinking about ways to avoid being institutionalized. Mark is an attorney in Minneapolis but he’s always just a quick turn of events away from having his independence taken away.

Disability is a tough subject for those of us who would write personal narratives because frankly the conditions of disablement place us in provisional states of being and that uncertainty is a daily thing, not some abstract French philosophical condition. As a blind person I must cross the street with the knowledge that I could be a-goner. And because I believe that consciousness is sacred I tend to recite poems in my head while I’m crossing in traffic.

Perhaps I will leave this world unexpectedly while fetching a cup of coffee. Perhaps I will sail out into the stars with Walt Whitman in my final orbit.

Disability is about living freely and it has some sobering and often unspoken realities as well.

Here’s a good poem for crossing the street:

"Mankind owns four things

That are of no use at sea:

anchor, rudder, oars,

and the fear of going down."

– Antonio Machado

S.K.