Artistic Vision

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Mar 092006
 

City Pages is running a great profile of Serik Kulmaeshkenov, an extremely talented Minneapolis artist who has a visual impairment.  A few years ago, the Department of Human Services and VSA Arts did a joint call for poster art that promotes the employment of people with disabilities.  Serik submitted one of the winning designs and it remains my favorite of the bunch.  You can see a thumbnail of his poster here (PDF format).  It’s the second one from the left; the one with the astronauts.  Maybe I can find a better scan of it on my work computer.  The article discusses Serik’s work designing bookplates and I’m glad that he continues to get commissions.

 

Quick, Do Stuart Smalley!

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Mar 082006
 

I bet my precinct caucus had more celebrities than yours.  I arrived a few minutes late and as I was settling in, I glanced at the person sitting across from me.  “Hey,” I thought, “that guy looks like Al Franken.”  And I had a very good reason for thinking that because he was, in fact, Al Franken.  Apparently, we’re neighbors.  He was quite attentive during the caucus process and acted as the unofficial vote counter for the assorted delegate elections.  We chatted for a couple minutes after the caucus was finished and he was unassuming and pleasant.  I’ve heard the rumors that Franken might be considering a run for the Senate in 2008 and I have no idea if his presence at the caucus was in any way connected with those plans. 
 
But now that I know he lives nearby, I’m going to try inviting him to my next party in a shameless effort to impress my friends.

Equal Treatment

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Mar 072006
 

Our state legislators are giving some overdue attention to Minnesota’s publicly funded mental health care system.  For too long, Minnesotans who were enrolled in state-funded health care programs lacked access to the same range of mental health care services that were available to people on Medical Assistance.  A panel of mental health professionals and consumers is now proposing that anyone enrolled in a public health care program should have access to a comprehensive set of mental health benefits.  The proposal also envisions a statewide crisis intervention system, increased payment for some mental health providers, and more resources to school-based mental health care for children.
 
These recommendations would bring much more uniformity to a mental health system that currently varies from county to county.  It also gives a significantly larger number of people better access to the services they need to live independently in their communities.  Legislators on both sides of the aisle are making favorable remarks about the proposal, which is a hopeful sign of its eventual enactment.  Perhaps once the Legislature finishes restructuring the public mental health system, it can turn its attention to the disparities between mental and physical health care in the private insurance market. 

Surprise Decision

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Mar 062006
 

Crash was the best movie of the year?  Really?  I’m not saying the film was utterly horrible (unlike Michael and Jessa over at Bookslut, both of whom I suspect of plotting serious bodily harm against the film’s director and producers), but it did feel like an overly long ABC Afterschool Special.  Racism is bad.  Got that, kids?  I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain yet, so I’m not qualified to comment on that film’s merits, but I am curious to know whether supposedly liberal Hollywood has an unacknowledged streak of homophobia running through it. 

Civic Duty

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Mar 052006
 

I’m struggling with the decision about whether to participate in Tuesday’s caucuses.  I like the theory of political caucuses, but in practice I think they attract the same people year after year.  The caucuses are supposed to get people involved in the political process at the grassroots level, but all of the discussions about resolutions and other arcane matters gives caucuses an “insider” feel that can be alienating to most citizens who aren’t deeply involved in politics. 
 
If I do attend, I need to decide which gubernatorial candidate I want to support.  I’m torn between Steve Kelly and Becky Lourey.  They’re both strong progressives with clear agendas, but I think Kelly has more appeal to independents.  I used to think I would support Attorney General Mike Hatch, but his campaign has seemed lackluster and, well, boring.  I think Peter Hutchinson, the independent candidate, is eminently qualified and he has some good ideas, but I’m not sure he can excite enough voters to get elected.  It might not even matter who I support because no candidate is obligated to abide the endorsement process. 

Quatrain

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Mar 032006
 

It’s Friday and I’m in the mood for a meme.
 
Four jobs I’ve had:
law clerk for a judge
intern at a legal aid society
Tutor
Policy consultant
 
Four TV shows I dig:
Lost
Battlestar Galactica
The Daily Show
Hustle
 
Four places I’ve vacationed:
San Francisco
Miami
Paris
Denver
 
Four movies I can watch repeatedly:
Blade Runner
2001: A Space Odyssey
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Meaning of Life
 
Four favorite foods:
Mashed potatoes with gravy
Brie cheese
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
New England clam chowder
 
Four sites I visit daily:
 
I’m not tagging anyone else to do this because, well, I think tagging is kind of annoying.  But feel free to credit me if you get inspired to carry on the meme.

Gone But Not Forgotten

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Mar 022006
 

Death was definitely not on holiday over the past weekend.  Darren McGavin, aka Kolchak the Night Stalker, departed.  I’ve only seen a few episodes of that series; incredibly campy but McGavin lent it a curmudgeonly sort of charm.  We also lost Don Knotts and Dennis Weaver.  But the death that saddened me the most was that of Octavia Butler.  One of the few African-American women writing in the science fiction genre, Butler authored some impressive books.  Her Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents were two books that transcended the traditional constraints of the genre to explore issues of gender, race, religious fanaticism, and forgiveness. She also wrote a Hugo Award-winning short story back in the 80s entitled “Speech Sounds,” one of those stories that continues to live in my head years after I first read it. 
 
Butler recently published a new book, Fledgling, which was receiving good reviews.  It’s a shame that we won’t get the opportunity to read any of the other works that she might have been planning. 

Moving Forward

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Mar 012006
 

Some of you know that for the past couple years, I’ve been working on the implementation of a complex research initiative for the Department of Human Services.  A short abstract of Minnesota’s initiative has been posted on the website for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  We’ll be ready to actually begin enrolling individuals in a few months, a prospect which is both exciting and a little nerve-wracking.  I use Microsoft Project to track the tasks that still need to be completed before we’re up and running; the list has a troubling tendency to sprout new items every week. 
 
I’m also learning a great deal about the inner workings of the state’s publicly funded health care programs.  Minnesota offers several more coverage options than most states, which explains why we have relatively fewer numbers of uninsured than other areas of the country.  Administering all of these options is a gargantuan task and much of it is invisible to the general public, as it should be. 

Sinking To Their Level

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Feb 282006
 

In their opposition to the Dubai ports deal, a lot of progressive bloggers are indulging in xenophobic demagoguery, leaving me disappointed and despairing for any possibility of reasonable political discourse on the topic.  The claims that this Arab company’s ownership of a few American ports could jeopardize our national security is, quite frankly, hysterical bullshit.  Our ports are certainly inviting targets for potential terrorists, but it’s not like Dubai Ports World is going to paint enormous bullseyes on the docks.  Our ports were vulnerable before this deal and they will continue to be vulnerable until our own government recognizes that promoting national security takes more than empty rhetoric and a few thousand illegal wiretaps. 
 
I don’t dispute the U.A.E.’s problematic human rights record, but it’s not a demonstrably worse offender than China.  And I’m willing to bet that a few of those bloggers own Chinese-made goods. I’m as eager as any good progressive to discredit and weaken this president and his administration, but let’s not use fear and innuendo as our tools.  It cheapens us and our cause.  It makes us look like Republicans. 

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