March 31, 2007
Ephemera
Explain this Twitter thing to me. My impression is that it's a site where people share whatever it is they're doing at the moment. I'm afraid my list would be somewhat redundant:
- Sitting at computer
- Sitting at computer, procrastinating work on book
- Sitting at computer, trying to ignore itchy nose
- Sitting at computer, struggling to think of blog posting that isn't about cybernetic implants or fishnet stockings
- Sitting at computer, feeling slightly disgusted at all the time I spend in front of said computer
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2007
Eewww!
Urgh. Here I am enjoying a nice, quiet Friday evening when PZ tells me about the geysers of blood shooting out of Minneapolis sewers. I'm both disgusted and a little confused. Doesn't this sort of thing usually happen in St. Paul?
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2007
Like Lemmings Going Off A Cliff
Harold Meyerson had a perceptive op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post about how the Bush administration still hasn't gotten the memo about last fall's election results. The two big scandals currently sucking all the air out of Washington--the U.S. attorney purge and the GSA "team building exercise"--both developed well after the election. Republicans in Congress seem entirely incapable of dragging the president and his inner circle into the living room for an intervention. They realize that Bush is no longer their messiah, but hero worship is a difficult habit to break.
By the way, you really should watch the testimony of GSA chief Lurita Doan. The poor woman appears to have some sort of affliction that has seriously compromised her memory.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:07 PM | Comments (1)
March 28, 2007
Coping Mechanism
The self-help industry provides incontrovertible evidence that the world is full of an alarming number of people who will believe anything you tell them. How else to explain the success of something like The Secret? The Secret (although it appears not to be much of a secret anymore) is the weird bastard offspring of an unholy union between trippy New Age philosophy and infomercial marketing. Its pitch is essentially this: wishes do come true. Whatever it is want in life--money, success, that hottie in the cubicle across from yours--will be given to you by the universe if you want it badly enough. Those who don't get their heart's desires are simply not fervent enough in their wishing. But the fact that I do not yet have a supremely competent nurse named Kandi who has the measurements of a porn starlet, a talent for giving great back rubs, and a deep inability to respect boundaries is reason enough to suspect this theory's validity.
And then there's the Thank God I...[insert your personal tragedy or crisis here] series of books. These books are meant to be inspirational and with titles like Thank God I Was Physically Abused and Thank God I Was Raped, it's hard not to feel that Someone Up There loves you. Future titles include Thank God I Had That Female Circumcision and Thank God I Discovered Heroin.
I understand the seduction of anything that promises to make sense of a chaotic and indifferent world, but it's a little troubling that so many people are compelled to ascribe reasons to life's tragedies and disappointments. And they're willing to hand over their hard-earned money to purveyors of cheap bromides and empty promises.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:25 PM | Comments (1)
March 27, 2007
Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
It looks like The Onion is trying to get in on some of the Daily Show's action. My first impression: nice try, but it needs some work. The piece on immigration was clever, but other bits fell flat (can't the writers come up with something a little less lame than Civil War reenactors going to Iraq?). The Daily Show works because so much of its humor is grounded in the absurdities of politics and real people. The Onion News Network feels like it's broadcast from some weird parallel universe real people don't exist, only caricatures.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2007
Feel Our Wrath
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Crippletron:
Because sometimes the only thing the able-bodied world understands is brute force. The next time the Supreme Court issues an opinion that spouts some Federalist Society crap about the Eleventh Amendment trumping the ADA, I'm forming my own Crippletron with some of my fellow gimps-in-arms. We're gonna traipse over to Washington, DC, rip the roof of the Supreme Court building, pluck Scalia out by his ankles, and use him as a human hackeysack until he sees reason.
I suppose this posting will go into my FBI file. Hope you got a good chuckle from this, Agent Gordon.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:16 PM | Comments (2)
March 25, 2007
My Own Personal DJ
I've spent part of today experimenting with Pandora, a streaming music service. The interface is simple enough; you enter a favorite artist or song and Pandora creates a "radio station" that plays other artists that share similar musical characteristics. There's a subscription-based version that plays the music without any interruptions, but the free version is more than tolerable. I have a feeling I'll be making quite a few iTunes purchases because of this.
And after you check out Pandora and like it as much as I do, sign this petition to show your support for webcasting. A recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board could dramatically increase the royalties that both small and large webcasters have to pay to labels, which could force many services like Pandora out of business. Commercial over-the-air radio is a wasteland of generic playlists and endless advertising; internet radio offers almost infinite choice and many of the webcasters are truly passionate about music. They deserve our support.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2007
Art Vs. Commerce
An MSN article discusses the persistent stigma that the movie industry continues to attach to the label science fiction, with the most recent example being Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men (one of the most brilliant movies of the last year), and his refusal to utter the phrase "science fiction" when discussing his film. The article's author points the finger at George Lucas for juvenilizing the form and emphasizing spectacle over substance. While geeks love to make sport of trashing Lucas, I don't think it's fair to place all the blame on his shoulders. SF has always occupied a cultural ghetto associated with pimply adolescent boys. And Spielberg's Jaws did just as much to convince Hollywood that special effects will sell more tickets. But I continue to be confident that the promise of DVD sales will persuade the occasional studio to take a chance on more films like Cuaron's.
Speaking of, I need to head over to Amazon to pre-order my copy of Children.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:27 PM | Comments (1)
March 23, 2007
In Rotation
This is what I've been listening to lately during my blogging sessions:
- Carnavas by Silversun Pickups: This quartet has that pre-millenial snarling angst that I associate with bands like Smashing Pumpkins or Soundgarden. The lead singer wails like he means it and the girl on bass is way cute.
- Back to Black by Amy Winehouse: Soul that leaves an aftertaste of whiskey and cigarettes. She updates the retro sound of Motown girl groups to create something more subversive, dangerous, and altogether original.
- Neon Bible by Arcade Fire: Underneath the heaps of breathless praise piled on by exuberant hipsters lies a truly great album. The arrangements are orchestral but unmistakably pop. Some writers have compared this band to U2 and I think that's a bit of a stretch. In their heyday, U2 wrote big, heady-sounding songs about big ideas like war, God, and love. Arcade Fire isn't quite so on-the-nose, but without a doubt they are one of the most interesting bands of this decade.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2007
Its Capital Is Cripopolis
The disability hierarchy gets another look in this study, which finds that people with disabilities view deafness as the most desirable impairment and schizophrenia the least. It got me thinking. In some ways, the disability community resembles a dusty, impoverished country tucked away in some isolated corner of the globe. We'll call it the Democratic Republic of Gimpistan. The rest of the world doesn't give much thought to Gimpistan; most people have never even met a Gimpistani. This state of affairs doesn't sit too well with most Gimpistanis and they often think that perhaps they should raise some sort of fuss to force people to notice them, but the Gimpistanis are a deeply tribal people. They tend to be clannish and they typically congregate only with others in their own tribe. An astonishing number of Gimpistanis won't even consider other Gimpistanis as potential mates and instead choose to trawl dating websites for attractive foreigners.
And so Gimpistan remains an obscure, forgotten place. It doesn't even have a proper flag because its inhabitants can't stop bickering about the design and appropriate symbols to be included in said flag. Fun Fact: Gimpistan has 311 ambassadors to the United Nations.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:43 PM | Comments (2)
March 21, 2007
Decoding Our Destinies
I told a friend over dinner recently that the two most transformative forces that will substantially reshape human civilization over the next couple decades are:
- universal access to information
- the decoding and manipulation of the human genome
Our grasp of human genetics allows us to do little more than take a peek into our individualized biological futures. That will change eventually, but in the meantime, people like Katherine Moser are leading us into in era that will offer many of us stark choices between living in blissful ignorance or taking a more deliberate path in the shadow of a terrible certainty.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2007
Error 404
My broadband connection has been sporadic tonight. I do not want to be one of those people who, upon losing their Internet connection, has an anxiety attack and compulsively clicks on the "refresh" button like some tweaked-out rhesus monkey that has been trained to press a switch in its cage to receive a food pellet, so I took a deep breath and loaded up Word to work on the book. Someday, I need to see if I can use my computer for an entire weekend without accessing the Web, e-mail, or any other network services. If I could do it back in 1985, I should be able to do it today.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2007
Family Ties
Oh dear, look what I've started. My sister now has a blog entitled The Fighting Socialist. She doesn't appear too militant in her picture, though. No beret, no AK-47 cradled in her lap, not even a clenched fist raised in defiance. The least she could have done is put on one of those Che T-shirts. Oh well, I guess I should be flattered. First she decides to go to law school, and now this.
Okay, I want everyone to go to her blog and leave comments asking her to explain why, as a child, she made her poor crippled brother hit himself in the face for her own twisted amusement. No, I don't know why she looks up to me, either. Now, just go do it. Heh.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:10 PM | Comments (1)
March 18, 2007
Kids These Days And Their Internets
Continuing yesterday's theme of old men who are more than a little befuddled by these modern times, science fiction writer Bruce Sterling thinks that blogs are a fad and will have faded from the cultural landscape within a decade. Bruce, you used to be cool, man. Doesn't he realize that he's repeating the same line that has been uttered by the establishment whenever an emerging technology threatens to disrupt the order of things? Blogs aren't even in the "emerging" stage anymore. They're entrenched in the popular consciousness. Whether the topic is politics or your favorite band or how you got wasted with your friends the other night, we are all hardwired to put ourselves on display; to share our stories with others. I don't foresee a retreat from that anytime soon.
Sterling is just going to have to get used to the growing din of human discourse. And really, is the prospect of more communication--more speech--something to be mocked and dismissed?
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)
March 17, 2007
Old Fogey
On behalf of all decent Minnesotans, I apologize for the recent comments of native son and NPR luminary Garrison Keillor regarding gay parents. Here's a direct quote from his piece in Salon:
The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men—sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control.
Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and
black polka-dot shirts. That’s for the kids. It’s their show.[emphasis added]
Dan Savage goes all kinds of ballistic on Keillor's ass, and rightfully so. Keillor may have some clever things to say about the president, but bigoted statements from a liberal are just as inexcusable as anything uttered by James Dobson or Ann Coulter. I think this is further evidence in support of my theory that the sooner the Boomer generation packs itself off to Arizona and Florida for endless days of golf and salsa dancing lessons, the better off this country will be.
And now I have yet another reason not to listen to Keillor's creaky radio show.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:18 PM | Comments (3)
March 16, 2007
Gourmet Delights
While my diet consists mostly of Osmolite (it's isotonically good!), I do occasionally give my taste buds a work-out. Here are my five favorite oral treats:
- Mashed potatoes--My ultimate comfort food. If I knew death was imminent and I had time for a final meal, this would be the only thing on the menu. When I was hospitalized for extended periods as a kid, I would request mashed potatoes with nearly every lunch and dinner. The nurses thought I was a little strange.
- Pringles--Only a truly advanced civilization could produce a snack food with such a perfect shape and texture. While some of the more exotic flavors are interesting (a handsome reward to anyone who can hook me up with more of the jalapeno variety), give me a can of the originals, some ranch dip, a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and I'm a happy man.
- Brie cheese--Because to be a good liberal, you have to like Brie. Especially good when eaten while reading the New York Times or watching a public television documentary
- Clam chowder--the New England variety. It should be thick enough to hold the spoon upright.
- Junior Mints--They're quite refreshing.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:58 PM | Comments (1)
March 15, 2007
Ladies' Man
For as long as I can remember, I've tended to have more female friends than male ones. In grade school, I hung out with the girls at recess. In college, I had female roommates and was a frequent audience for impromptu performances of "My Boyfriend Is A Total Asshole". My professional life has largely evolved in work settings where women are in the majority. Even now, while I certainly have a few close male friends, my relationships tend to skew female.
There are probably a few explanations for this state of affairs. From an early age, I think I've subconsciously regarded the opposite gender as more likely to be accepting of me and less likely to be freaked out by my disability. All the time I've spent around nurses and teacher's aides--two professions dominated by women--may have subtly influenced my own social affinities. And perhaps I'm just a damn fine listener and witty conversationalist.
The plethora of women in my life has prompted some strange reactions from others. I've been asked on more than one occasion if I'm gay. I'll concede that I'm a sharp dresser, but I find it both amusing and a little sad that a man can't have several female friends without his sexuality being questioned. To be sure, I'm not the world's most eligible bachelor, but that has more to do with my own persistent anxieties and a dubious self-image (a psychoanalyst could make a career out of my neuroses).
I wonder if other men with disabilities have similar experiences. For what it's worth, my associations with women have made me a better person--a better man. And not in a corny "getting in touch with my feminine side" sort of way. I would not be the person I am now without the encouragement, tutelage, and pure grace of the women who have passed through my life.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:17 PM | Comments (5)
March 14, 2007
Quality Control
I have this New Yorker cartoon taped to my desk:
I'm now going to apply the "breakfast wrap" test to all of my future postings. I sometimes worry that I go on about topics that are of absolutely no interest to anyone save myself and my readers are simply too polite to say anything. From now on, as I'm composing an entry, I will ask myself if my chosen topic is objectively more interesting than breakfast wraps. If I decide the answer is "no", it's back to the drawing board. And if I'm at a complete loss for material, i suppose I can just do another variation on the "disability and sex" trope. People really seem to eat that stuff up.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:21 PM | Comments (2)
March 13, 2007
Time For Some Swagger
We're about halfway into the legislative session and the DFL is treading a little too carefully for my taste. Last week, the Senate unveiled a budget plan that doesn't include any discussion of raising taxes--a political cop-out if I ever saw one. I don't think voters will react harshly to modest tax increases if lawmakers speak plainly and sincerely about the need for adequate funds to educate our kids, make our commute times shorter, and provide health care to the vulnerable and working families. Meanwhile, proposals to fund transit through a metro-wide sales tax and to give local government agencies the option to provide domestic partner benefits to employees are moving ahead, but could be derailed by a gubernatorial veto.
I'm assuming that the DFL is beginning to look ahead to the endgame of this session and prioritizing the items on its wish list. I'm hoping they can armtwist Pawlenty into compromising on some of these issues. He can't veto everything without looking stubborn and beholden to his base. And if Pawlenty does harbor ambitions for higher office, he might want to burnish his moderate credentials.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2007
Critic At Large: 300
Things I learned from the movie 300:
- Spartan men discovered steroids
- Had I been born a Spartan, I most likely would have been tossed over the nearest cliff at the first sign of my gimpiness
- Xerxes was kind of a dick
- Hunchbacks--and by inference, gimps in general--will sell their souls for kinky sex with Persian lap dancers
- Ancient Greece was the birthplace of heavy metal
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)
March 11, 2007
Critic At Large: The Lives Of Others
Of all the former Warsaw Pact nations, East Germany had the unfortunate distinction of having one of the most paranoid and repressive regimes. The secret police--the Stasi--had countless civilians under electronic surveillance and it recruited hundreds of thousands of people to inform on their co-workers, neighbors, and even family. This understated but compelling thriller, set in East Germany during the mid-80s, addresses the toll such constant scrutiny exacts on both the watchers and the watched.
Wiesler is a humorless Stasi agent who is fully committed to his work as a "sword and shield" of the state. He is assigned to surveil Georg Dreyman, a writer who appears to be a faithful Party servant but nonetheless is regarded with suspicion by some officials. Wiesler begins his assignment full of grim determination to find evidence of seditious behavior on the part of Dreyman, but Wiesler's constant absorption in the life of his subject begins to affect him in ways he does not anticipate.
The film works as a straight thriller, but it also serves as an allegory for the power of the artist to resist tyranny and ultimately redeem at least a few of tyranny's collaborators. At a time when Americans demonstrate a disquieting acceptance of domestic surveillance, this film demonstrates that a culture of observation makes all of us less free.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2007
When Good Companies Go Bad
Over at Consumerist, the Geek Squad is being raked over the coals by customers who have experienced the company's less-than-stellar service. Geek Squad started as a small Minneapolis-based company that provided tech support to average computer owners who needed help disinfecting their systems of spyware or troubleshooting a home network. Their services weren't cheap, but the techs seemed competent. Then the company was sold to Best Buy, which quickly infused the Geek Squad with its own ethos of hucksterism and barely concealed contempt for the customer. Now GS' service is both expensive and shoddy. I know a few people who have taken their computers to GS repeatedly but never have had their problems adequately addressed. When my last system crashed, a GS tech told me I needed a new video card, when in fact the motherboard was fried. And what exactly justifies charging someone over $100 to install a stick of RAM?
I always tell people needing tech support to avoid GS like the plague. You're better off going to a locally-owned computer repair shop or hiring the kid from down the street. Of course, my services are available at shockingly reasonable rates. If I can figure out how to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu, I can probably help you update your anti-virus definitions.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2007
Into The Wild
The spring thaw must be approaching because I'm scheduled to get out every day this weekend. My social calendar has been relatively sparse lately, so this is a welcome development.
I had lunch today with a friend who is also an attorney and wheelchair user. She was telling me about the African safari she went on. And here I thought I was being all daring and supergimp-y when I went to Europe. Now I just feel like a poseur. I have no choice but to book my own safari. I wonder if I can get a gas generator that will fit on the back of a water buffalo. .
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:08 PM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2007
Death From Above
NASA is saying that it doesn't have the budget to pay for efforts to find and catalog asteroids that could collide with the Earth. I really don't get NASA's priorities. The agency seems willing to spend billions on a space station that has never really lived up to its promise of producing solid scientific research, but it won't invest in a project with little risk and a huge upside--namely, preserving the human race. And on most days, I tend to be on the "save humanity" side of the fence.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2007
The Soundtrack Of Our Lives
A friend asked me to make a mix CD for her. Now, mix CDs are a tricky business. A good mix is a careful balance of the mixer's own tastes and those of the recipient. This isn't the time to show off your musical geekiness (well, maybe just a little). But it's mostly about creating a memorable listening experience for the recipient. The song selection should be diverse but the transitions shouldn't be too jarring. No Billie Holliday followed by Nine Inch Nails. This isn't your iPod on shuffle. The best mixes are those that a person can stumble upon a decade later--tucked away in some attic corner--and instantly remind one of that long-ago friend or lover as soon as the "play" button is pressed.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:54 PM | Comments (2)
March 06, 2007
Geography Lesson
A map of the world hangs in my office and I glance at it from time to time. It isn't anything special. It's great for finding where exactly Azerbaijan is, but it doesn't give you any sense of the the dynamics that affect the inhabitants of our planet. The Worldmapper project is a fascinating initiative to convert the standard world map into graphical depictions of human activity. The results are often sobering. I first encountered these maps in the pages of The Atlantic, but they seem to be one of the emerging memes on the internets.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2007
Beyond The Hype
A couple things have occurred as I've followed press coverage describing the dysfunctional outpatient care infrastructure at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Facility. First, is anyone really surprised that veterans' ongoing health care needs are often ignored or inadequately treated once they're outpatients? Haven't we heard vets complain about the VA system since at least the 1960s? This administration has made a habit of underfunding health care for vets, but both parties have long ignored the crumbling bureaucracy that is supposed to care for our returned servicemembers.
Second--and Carol makes this point quite powerfully--the conditions uncovered at Walter Reed are no worse than those confronting countless people with disabilities who are warehoused in nursing homes and institutions across the country. The inadequacy of the care provided to our veterans is certainly deserving of attention, but our outrage and sympathy should not be limited to only those cases. Everyone who requires long-term care deserves to be treated humanely and with dignity.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:59 PM | Comments (1)
March 04, 2007
Sizing Up The Competition
I see that Professor Hawking, as part of his training for our upcoming smackdown in low-Earth orbit, is taking a zero-g ride on a Vomit Comet. I could argue that such extravagant preparation is a poor example of good sportsmanship, but I'm too much of a gentleman to cast such aspersions. I'll simply have to step up my range-of-motion regimen to ensure I have the requisite flexibility to extricate myself from Hawking's patented Three-Fingered Clutch of Humiliation. And while I don't have access to fancy high-altitude jets, perhaps I can persuade my nurses to bounce me off a trampoline for a few minutes each day.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2007
Off-Off-Broadway
I'm leaving in a bit to see Frankenlaw, a musical written and performed by U of M law students. You see, most people who go to law school are frustrated somethings-or-other. Writers, musicians, male strippers (as was the case with one person in my first-year study group); law school attracts high achievers who have tired of the bohemian life and have decided it might be nice to subsist on more than a steady diet of ramen noodles. We didn't do anything nearly this cool when I was a student, which is a shame. The world missed its chance to hear the raw power of my tenor soprano.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:25 PM | Comments (1)
March 02, 2007
For The Common Good
The New York Times reports that most Americans would willingly pay higher taxes to pay for universal health care coverage. Conservative true believers cling to the notion that any mention of tax hikes will ignite vociferous cries of protest across the nation, but I've long believed that people will pay more taxes if they can clearly see the connection between the sacrifice asked of them and the potential benefit to the public. Americans are smart enough to realize that paying a few more tax dollars to guarantee health care for everyone is preferable to the mess we're in right now. Slowly and inexorably, conservative ideologues are losing touch with the real concerns of their fellow citizens.
But this cluelessness really shouldn't surprise us. We can't expect much from a group that is still trying to play the word "faggot" for laughs.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:00 PM | Comments (2)
March 01, 2007
Raconteur
If some tragic accident had befallen the Orpheum Theater last night, it probably would have taken out a good third of the local hipster population. The theme of the show was near and dear to my heart: television. I especially enjoyed David Rakoff's piece about his experimental foray into the land of television after a two-decade absence. And the clips of the TAL tv show looked intriguing enough for me to want to
Dan Savage, the sex columnist and author, also did a reading. Did I ever tell you that I made a semi-anonymous appearance in Savage's column. You can read it here. I cringe a little bit now when I read it because my letter makes me sound like a whiny, inexperienced gimp with an inferiority complex. Savage doesn't treat me kindly in his response, and rightly so. But I also like to think of that letter as a precursor to the more finely crafted rants and diatribes that eventually appeared on this blog.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)