I decided it was time for a new pair of shoes, seeing as how it’s been almost a decade since I purchased my current pair of Dexters. I paid a visit to Robert’s Shoes in south Minneapolis and found a nice pair of all-purpose loafers that should look quite natty on me. But I’ll be damned if I could find a pair of sandals that (a) fit me and (b) didn’t look like ass. Perhaps I should take this as a hint that the general public doesn’t want to see my bare, slightly swollen feet.
Danieal Kelly was a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who starved to death because her mother didn’t feed her. But the extent of her mother’s neglect didn’t end there. Danieal was kept hidden away in a filthy apartment and often left to lie in her own waste for days at a time. She didn’t go to school and she didn’t receive any medical attention.
But what truly gets me is the utter failure of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services and its contractor to investigate the numerous complaints they received regarding Danieal’s mistreatment. She had the supreme misfortune to have her fate rest in the hands of incompetent, apathetic bureaucrats and social workers who demonstrated little interest in performing their jobs.
As I was reading the scathing grand jury indictment [contains one very graphic photo] late last night, I began to cry. I don’t cry easily, but Danieal’s story devastated me. Perhaps it was all the systemic failures that contributed to her death. Perhaps it was the bleak horror of Danieal’s life in the care of a neglectful mother. She was an innocent kid who must’ve been in a great deal of pain and nobody lifted a finger to help her. And there are probably plenty of other kids like Danieal out there, suffering in isolated anonymity.
Today marks the start of my summer vacation. For the next week, I will not have to check my Outlook calendar and I will not have to wear pants. I’m doing the financially responsible thing and sticking close to home, but I’ll manage to keep busy. There are books to read, writing to resume, friends to see, and generally much laziness to be had. Visits to the comic book store, Sebastien Joe’s, and perhaps the lakes will also be in order. And, of course, blogging will continue as usual.
Today marks the first anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse. Construction on the new bridge began soon thereafter and should be complete sometime in the next couple months. We have adjusted quite well to the bridge’s absence and it will be strange to have it back in operation soon. I would like to see the extra lanes added to Interstate 94 made permanent. They do help with the flow of traffic, especially in the bottleneck approaching downtown Minneapolis.
To the semi-drunk woman at First Avenue who gave me a thumbs-up and shouted in my ear, “Way to get out!”: thanks for the encouragement. The home doesn’t give me day passes very often and I usually have to be back for lights-out at 9. But sometimes you have to buck the rules, y’know? And tomorrow is when I get my regular weekly bedbath, so life is looking pretty good.
The concert itself wasn’t bad. Duffy’s voice has a disconcerting warble in its live version, but that may improve with more touring experience. Assuming she avoids an implosion of Amy Winehouse proportions, she could be an interesting artist to watch.
I’m leaving in a bit to check out the UK’s latest revivalist of the classic British mod sound, Duffy. I’ll try to post again later tonight. It’s an all-ages show, so I should be home at a reasonable hour.
Ugh, middle age is settling in.
Got about 45 minutes to kill? Check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a series of web videos starring Neil Patrick Harris (remember Doogie Howser?) and Nathan Fillion (remember Firefly?). Harris plays Dr. Horrible, a somewhat shy and awkward aspiring supervillain who desperately wants admittance to the Evil Council of Evil. Fillion plays Captain Hammer, Horrible’s cocky himbo of an archnemesis. Joss Whedon (remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer?) wrote the script and it’s chockful of his trademark snark. Oh, and it’s a musical, but not too musical, if that makes sense.
In short, it’s pretty great. It has geek appeal, but it doesn’t leave everyone else scratching their heads. Whedon has already committed to doing more episodes, which can’t come soon enough.
Radio talk show hosts–the ones with million-dollar contracts and nationwide audiences–aren’t paid to be polite conversationalists. Shock and confrontation is entertaining, and that’s why I wasn’t terribly surprised when radio host Michael Savage said this about autism:
I’ll tell you what autism is. In
99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the
act out. That’s what autism is.
And then:
Stop
acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there
crying and screaming, idiot.
I doubt Savage gives much thought to autism when he’s not on the air. Of course, that’s little consolation to parents of kids with autism, who were understandably upset by these statements. Some advertisers pulled their sponsorships of Savage’s show, but I’m not sure that’s going to dissuade him from mocking some other disability or religion or sexual orientation next week.
AMC’s Mad Men returns this week for another season. I haven’t been watching much television this summer, but my TiVo stands ready to record these new episodes. Set in 1960 New York and its bucolic suburbs, the show takes a magnifying glass to a Manhattan ad agency; its executives, pitch men, and secretaries. And through their stories, we see a country that is making the transition from the buttoned-down, conformist Fifties to the freewheeling, iconoclastic Sixties. The writers are particularly good at exploring the sexual politics of the era. It’s fascinating to watch these ad men discuss how to sell a brand of soap to America’s wives while they brazenly demean and exploit their own female colleagues. It’s equally fascinating to watch the show’s women chafe against their expected roles as wives, mothers, and sexual objects.
The show is cloaked in a perpetual fog of smoke. Seriously, every character seems to have a cigarette glued between his or her fingers. And while I have no desire to see the skinny tie make a comeback, I’m all for serving bloody Marys at meetings.
I did a little cleaning and tidying up of the second bedroom this afternoon. Besides serving as sleeping quarters for guests, the second bedroom is where I put things that don’t have a defined place. Old photos, old comics, old clothes. My nurse suggested that I hang up or otherwise display some of the pictures of me that we found; a suggestion that received a muted reception from me. I’m not some third-world dictator who feels the need to have his likeness on view for any and all visitors.
I did end up hanging a sketch that some street artist in Paris did of me. The guy in the sketch is better-looking than me, so I didn’t feel too self-conscious about putting it on display.