I’m leaving shortly for my caucus, where I’ll be supporting Barack Obama. I like and respect Hillary, but Obama is the kind of candidate who comes along once in a generation. He has the capacity, more than any other political leader I’ve seen in my lifetime, to restore our faith in ourselves and our country. He personifies all the best qualities of the American civic character: intelligence, vision, passion, and humility. Clinton would make a fine president and I will gladly support her if she is the nominee. But tonight, I’m feeling like I can play a small part in ushering in an age of transformation that finally slams the door shut on the twentieth century and carries us into a future we’ve imagined for far too long.

During one of my frequent hospitalizations as a kid, the nursing staff in the ICU created a laminated spelling board for me to use as a communication tool until the respirator could be removed from my throat. The cumbersome process of pointing at letters to express myself caused me to lose my patience on several occasions. My words trickled out at a maddeningly slow pace, crude approximations of the thoughts racing through my head. But my own brief experience with losing my speech faculties pales in comparison to that of Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on his book of the same name.

Bauby, the editor of Elle magazine, had a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, able to blink only his left eye. He learns to communicate again by having the alphabet recited to him and blinking to indicate the letter he desires, slowly spelling out words and sentences. Through this method, he eventually writes a book about his life with locked-in syndrome. Aiding him in his endeavor are several beautiful and compassionate women: therapists, assistants, and former girlfriends. Never has the alphabet sounded so alluring. But the film really shines in conveying how Bauby’s universe has shrunk after his stroke, encompassing little more than the confines of his room and the hospital grounds.

Two women with mental disabilities were sent into Baghdad markets today with explosives strapped to their bodies, which were then detonated remotely (although the last fact seems to be disputed by American authorities). We’ll probably never get the complete story, but I’m sure people with disabilities have been used like this in other conflicts. My friend Rose best summed the appropriate reaction to this event in one word: ick.

The Gimp Parade links to a news story describing how the power outages in Gaza brought on by the Israeli blockade are affecting people like Maher Al-Assali, a Palestinian boy who is ventilator-dependent. During the frequent blackouts, the boy’s family must manually ventilate him with an Ambu bag.

This post isn’t intended as a criticism of Israeli policy. But having been in situations where my ventilator quit working, I can tell you that manually bagging someone is exhausting work for the bagger and rather uncomfortable for the bagee. A human being can’t possibly mimic the regular, measured breaths of a mechanical ventilator.

Deaf employees at Pepsi produced this clever ad that will appear during the Super Bowl pre-game show. The lack of sound is going to have a lot of people fumbling for their remotes,  but it makes the ad that much more effective. Other major corporations might want to take notice and consider doing some advertising targeted at the disability community. Our collective discretionary income is only going to increase as more employers open their doors to us.

Thanks to my colleague Sonny for the tip.