Warren Ellis, a comics writer whose work I admire, is now posting installments of a web-only serial called FreakAngels. The first issue doesn’t give many hints about the plot, but it appears to be a fusion of dystopia and steampunk. Reading comics on a screen feels clunky to me, but I’ll check out the next few issues and give the story a chance to grab me.
I received Valentine cards from a couple co-workers as well as a phone call from my mom. Oh, and one of my Facebook friends sent me some virtual chocolate. Some might call that a rather lame Valentine’s Day. I call it better than average.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the Baghdad bombing that appeared to involve women with mental disabilities as perpetrators. Now comes news that the administrator of a Baghdad mental hospital was arrested under suspicion of supplying mental patients to insurgents for use as suicide bombers. I really should stop letting the depths of human depravity surprise me. And in this case, I think it’s appropriate for the American authorities to conduct the investigation. I’m not confident Iraqi officials would show much interest investigating complicity in these women’s deaths.
I know some of you will probably think much less of me after reading this, but I’m really digging the new Terminator series on Fox. I thought it would be a shameless attempt to exploit the franchise, but the writing and acting isn’t half-bad. Like the movies (at least the first two…the third is best forgotten), the show plays with the simultaneous fear and fascination that our technology provokes. Better yet, it has really hot women punching and kicking people. Knowing Fox’s proclivity for killing scripted dramas in favor of more reality programming featuring the beautiful and the feckless, I’d better enjoy the show while I can.
The universe seems to be having some fun with me as of late. Last week, I got locked out of my office. This morning, my office flooded after the sprinkler system malfunctioned (I wasn’t there at the time). I’m a little nervous to venture back in there. What happens when my office decides to quit screwing around and really lays down the smack on me?
Members of the Writers Guild of America look set to return to work after negotiators struck a tentative deal with the studios, bringing a likely end to a three-month strike. As a regular viewer of the fake news programs, both Colbert and Stewart have impressed me with their improvisational kung foo. Colbert has been particularly good. This interview with anti-immigration demagogue Lou Dobbs, conducted entirely in Spanish by alter-ego Esteban Colberto, had me in tears:
Still, both shows will only get better once the writers return. I’m no Hollywood lawyer, but the proposed deal ending the strike establishes an important precedent by giving writers a cut of the digital media pie. And while this strike’s effects were limited to the entertainment industry, it demonstrates that unions still matter in this country.
I’ve been thinking about what I should do with the stimulus check I’ll be getting from the government in a few months. I’m getting too old and responsible to blow the whole thing on frivolities. In fact, I think i’ll put the entire amount in my savings account as an act of protest against rampant consumerism. Take that, ruling elite.
Earlier this week, I accepted an offer to be the policy lead on a new Medicaid service option for people with disabilities. Some of you know that for the past several years, I’ve served as the policy lead for the Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment. Now that the DMIE is operational, I figured it was time to try my hand at something else. This new consumer-directed option (colloquially known as the “J” because of its federal statutory citation) will give people with disabilities more control over their funding for personal assistance services. It essentially puts a cash allowance in the individual’s hands to use for purchasing human or technological assistance with their personal care needs.
I’m looking forward to developing another cutting-edge initiative as well as the exposure I’ll get to new areas of policy. If I ever want to be a disability policy guru, I need opportunities that will give me a fresh perspective on the intersection between theory and practice.
I was on an errand through the skyways last night when some guy stopped me near the Government Center and awkwardly asked my nurse if he could pray for my healing. In GimpWorld, this kind of thing is like a solar eclipse: not exactly rare, but infrequent enough that it catches you off-guard. I declined the man’s offer and shortly afterwards my nurse (herself an evangelical) said to me something like, “There are some freaky Christians out there.” The guy probably said a prayer for me anyway, which is fine. I just hope he’s from out of town. I wouldn’t want him to see me again and be all disappointed that I’m still a gimp.
A disability is not an open invitation for strangers to indulge their messianic urges, but I do appreciate the blog material.
I’ll say it again: caucuses (cauci?) are an odd method for encouraging participation in the presidential nomination process. To compress voting into a ninety-minute window is to exclude thousands of people who want to vote but have to work. My own caucus site was overwhelmed with voters and the poor volunteers could barely keep up with the flood. I saw a few people get turned away because they showed up a few minutes after the caucusing was over. It’s a confusing, disorganized process and I hope that talk of switching to primary voting gains some traction. Meeting one’s neighbors is great, but that’s what block parties are for.