Moonlighting

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Feb 172006
 

After I finished teaching my CLE today, I spent a little time chatting with a friend from law school.  He’s trying to sell a young-adult fantasy manuscript that he’s been working on for the last year or two.  If I had to guess, I’d say that approximately 25-30% percent of attorneys do some kind of writing on the side.  For most of us, writing is the lifeblood of our daily work and it can be difficult to turn off that switch at the end of the day. 
 
Talking to him also has guilted me into doing some work tonight on the book, which I’ve been neglecting for the past couple days.  So I’d better get to it. 

Killing Time

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Feb 162006
 

I’m solo-teaching a CLE tomorrow for Legal Aid attorneys at William Mitchell College of Law.  I’m a little worried because I’m scheduled to teach for three hours, but I think I have enough content only for two.  So I have a few options.  I…could…speak…very…slowly.  Or maybe I can show slides from my trip to Europe.  Who doesn’t like a good slide show?  Or I could emulate some of my own teachers by throwing my feet up on the desk and reading a magazine while I make everyone write THIS IS THE BEST CLE CLASS EVER one hundred times. 

Generation Next

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Feb 152006
 

I just returned from the Beat The Odds event, one of the more memorable fundraisers I’ve attended in recent years.  Four local kids are awarded scholarships for overcoming incredible odds to stay focused on their education and their futures.  All of the kids were incredibly earnest and direct in their acceptance speeches.  Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, gave a short but powerful keynote address.  And I even scored a couple Guthrie tickets at the silent auction. 

Sell-Out

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Feb 142006
 

My apologies to those of you who didn’t get their daily dose of The 19th Floor yesterday.  The server on which this site is hosted decided to call in sick and get totally wasted.  But everything seems back to normal now. 
 
I would wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day, but I just read this piece by Joe Bageant on the hyper-commoditized existence of the American middle class:
 
Adding to the anxiety is the lack of evidence that the world needs you or me at all. In this totally commoditized life we are dispensable. Everything is standardized. It really doesn’t matter who grows our food or makes our clothing. If we don’t make it, it someone else will. If we don’t buy it, someone else will. Some other faceless person will step forward to fill in our place. The same goes for the engineers who created this computer and the same goes for your own job. The machine rolls on. With us or without us. Naturally, we have our loved ones and our friends. But increasingly even these relationships are monetized for all classes. Family and leisure activity has become intensely commoditized.
 
Never has there been such a lonely and inauthentic civilization as the American middle class.
 
And ever since I read that, I’ve been sitting here at my desk and feeling a little guilty and a little depressed.  Because I’m undoubtedly living the life which Bageant is criticizing.  I work for a bureaucracy that is mind-boggling in its complexity.  I earn enough to impulsively buy junk on Amazon and eBay.  I don’t know most of my neighbors. 
 
My first job out of law school, I earned a little more than $10,000 and I don’t recall feeling especially deprived.  And now I can’t imagine living on much less than I make now.  I worry that I’m getting soft; worse, that what I’m feeling is typical middle-class angst. 
 
I’m sure this will pass, but right now I’m contemplating selling all of my possessions and joining the Peace Corps.  All I need is a generator to charge up the ventilator each night. 

Same To You, Buddy

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Feb 122006
 

Say you have a mobility impairment that prevents you from emphasizing your devastating verbal insults with an appropriate corresponding physical gesture.  Thanks to the miracle of modern of modern engineering, people with disabilities can now get the satisfaction of showing exactly what they think when confronted with ignorance, stupidity, or simple bad manners.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Remote-Controlled Middle Finger. 
 
http://www.strangenewproducts.com/uploaded_images/remote-controlled-middle-finger-747895.jpg
 
 
I’m so going to mount one of these on my chair and hack it to respond to voice commands.  No more Mr. Nice Gimp.  The gloves are coming off.
 
Thanks to Michelle B. for tipping me off to this incredibly useful assistive technology. 

Like You Needed More Evidence Of My Geekiness

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Feb 112006
 

I’m in the initial stages of setting up my del.icio.us bookmark list.  You can find it here.  At first, I thought I would add clever note to each entry.  But I stopped feeling clever after the six or seventh entry .
 
I had my hair chopped and colored today, which means I’m feeling quite metrosexual right now.  Perhaps I’ll get off the computer and hang pictures or arrange my closet or something. 

Many Miles To Go

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Feb 102006
 

Legal Affairs recently hosted an on-line debate regarding the future of the ADA and the disability rights movement in general.  The participants were Ruth O’Brien, professor of political science at City University of New York, and Sam Bagenstos, professor of law at Washington University and one of the attorneys who represented Tony Goodman in the recent Georgia v. Goodman Supreme Court case.  They look at the relatively narrow decisions the Supreme Court issued in the Lane and Goodman cases and discuss whether the ADA is expanding.  As Professor Bagenstos points out, both decisions technically represent victories for the disability community, they don’t address many of the day-to-day challenges that people with disabilities confront.  Corner stores are still inaccessible, most movie theaters don’t provide audio description or closed captioning, millions of people with disabilities don’t have access to public transportation, and affordable, accessible housing is nonexistent in many communities. 
 
I think the disability rights movement is in a defensive posture at the moment, which is hardly surprising given the current political climate.  It’s nearly impossible to promote further integration for people with disabilities when the small degree of progress we have made is constantly under attack.  But the pendulum will inevitably swing the other way and we have to be ready for it.  The ADA, while an important piece of legislation, is only a partial fulfillment of the promise of a truly accessible and equitable society.  We need to find common ground with all of the issue groups that want affordable health care, quality education for all kids, better public transportation, etc.  We need to work with these groups on selling these policies to the public as part of a comprehensive vision.  We need to show how these things benefit everyone, not just the oppressed or underprivileged.  In short, we need to start seeing ourselves as part of a larger movement for social justice and civil rights. 
 
It frustrates me when disability activists get skittish about allying themselves with other advocacy groups.  We expect everyone to be sympathetic to our concerns, but I’m not sure we always return the favor.  If we are really serious about pushing for this vision of a more accessible society, we can’t get there alone.  We need other groups to tell us, “We’ve got your back.”  More importantly, we need to give them a reason to say that to us.

Citius, Altius, Fortius

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Feb 092006
 

My friend Jay Weiner, who writes for the Star Tribune, is in Turin reporting on the Winter Games.  And he’s gone all New Media with a daily podcast.  Not a bad gig.  Go give him a listen.  These Olympics have kind of snuck up on us, haven’t they?  They don’t appear to be drenched in the same amount of hype that has preceded other Games.  Which is fine with me.  Anything is better than the jingoistic circle jerk that was the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.  Maybe some European anarchists will storm the ice rink during the ice dancing competition, which would be the best thing that ever happened to the “sport” of ice dancing.

Eye In The Sky

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Feb 082006
 

The U.S. government is developing methods for data-mining massive amounts of on-line information, including blogs, for signs of terrorist activity.  I fully expect that the next time I try to get on an airplane, my name will appear on some kind of list that requires me to be subjected to an intensive pre-boarding search that includes the complete disassembly of my ventilator and the removal of my tracheotomy tube to ensure that I’m not carrying any miniature explosives or biological agents.  I wonder if the FBI has a file started on me yet.  Man, that would be so cool if I did.  I could request a copy of it and take it with me to assorted progressive rallies and try to impress women by showing it to them. 
 
I have to be at a 7:30 meeting tomorrow morning.  I’m debating whether I should just sleep in my chair tonight with my clothes on.  Or maybe I should just pour enormous quantities of coffee, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull down my g-tube and simply stay awake until I slip into a coma sometime tomorrow afternoon at my office. 

Wishful Thinking

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Feb 072006
 

Richard Dawkins is one cranky atheist.  Dawkins, a well-known British scientist who has penned several popular science books on evolution, recently did a two-part documentary entitled The Root of All Evil.  It’s an unabashedly critical look at religion’s role in global culture and history.  The series aired only in the UK, but I harnessed the arcane powers of the internets to score myself a copy.
 
I don’t disagree with much of the substance of Dawkin’s arguments.  I spent several years struggling to believe in some vague notion of a watchful, if distant, God.  But in the end, it never added up for me.  To believe in a supernatural agent that has ultimate authority over the universe seems to diminish the chaotic elegance of this reality.  It’s too pat an explanation.  I can’t believe in a divinely created universe anymore than I can believe that the tooth fairy left all that pocket change under my pillow when I was a kid or that UFOs are responsible for all those crop circles. 
 
But back to Dawkins.  Sure, I chuckled when I watched him verbally spar with a rather smug evangelical pastor.  But I’m not sure I would have told the pastor that his megachurch service reminded me of the Nuremberg rallies .  Dawkins sees religious faith as a dangerous relic of less enlightened times that has no place in this age of scientific reason, which explains his blunt words to the pastor.  And after living through the last five years under a president who, like the Blues Brothers, believes he’s on a mission from God, it’s hard to deny Dawkins this point.  But I’m a little less willing to condemn the faithful.  If biologists like E.O. Wilson are correct, humans are genetically hard-wired to believe in the supernatural.  A genetic legacy like that, reinforced by thousands of years of human history, is not likely to disappear anytime soon. 
 
Which means I’m a mutant in more ways than one. 
 

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