28 Weeks Later is the rare sequel that meets and sometimes even exceeds the standards of the original film. I reacted with skepticism to the announcement of this film because it seemed like a crass attempt to cash in on the modest success of 28 Days Later. But this movies matches its predecessor in both scares and smarts. The story picks up with the resettlement of London seven months after the Rage virus has decimated England. The American-led effort goes awry, naturally, and before long hordes of the newly infected are rampaging through the streets and snacking on human flesh. The movie has its occasional lapses of logic (apparently, it’s really easy to gain access to an Army medical facility), but they’re soon forgotten in the rush of adrenaline that follows. And I had to smile at the film’s last scene because I was in the exact same location not too long ago.

Why on earth are you sitting at your computer on a Friday night? Didn’t I tell you that you need to get out more? The Internet will still be here when you get back. I promise. Now, you kids go have fun.

Did anyone notice the high geek quotient of last Sunday’s Arts section of the NY Times? It featured a lengthy assessment of Philip K. Dick’s cultural significance as well as a fond recollection of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I need to pick up a few more Dick novels. I’ve read The Man in the High Castle and liked it (even though I found all the I Ching references a little tiresome), but that’s the extent of my familiarity with his oeuvre.

I’m leaving shortly to check out Peter Bjorn & John in concert. I expect to be charmed but not astounded.

I’m going to be bouncing around from one event to another this evening, so I don’t know if I’ll have time to make any witty or insightful observations today. I’m afraid you’ll have to find something else to fill those five minutes you usually devote to me. Perhaps you can pay some bills or write up a grocery list or water your plants. Carry on.

Last month, I was part of a panel reviewing proposals for a conference on disability and aging. One of proposals concerned the link between Down’s Syndrome and Alzheimer’s Disease. The proposal intrigued me because I wasn’t aware of the connection. And today I came across an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail exploring the very same topic. The article points out that people with Down’s are living longer, a trend that is now revealing the strong propensity of this population to develop Alzheimer’s. Medical and community support professionals are now working to develop living environments appropriate to the needs of these individuals.

This story demonstrates that society’s current practice of stovepiping disability and aging issues. The human services field is particularly guilty of this sort of thinking. Entirely separate support structures and bureaucracies are created to serve each population and there is depressingly little interaction or collaboration between the two. When a person with a disability turns age 65, they are considered “elderly” and they are shuffled into the “elderly” silo of supports, which often has a paradigmatically different underlying philosophy and set of priorities. Whereas the disability support system–at least in many states–emphasizes independence and community living, the elderly support system tends to have a greater bias towards institutional care settings.

More people with disabilities are going to live into old age (not to mention the fact that the boomer generation will probably resist efforts to label them either as disabled or elderly) and it may be time to do away with the notion that disability and aging are separate and distinct human experiences. Perhaps we should be more concerned with meeting the needs of the person rather than stubbornly clinging to outmoded categorizations and classifications.