I start my Humphrey Fellowship tomorrow, which has me excited. The Fellowship has two co-directors: Vin Weber and Tim Penny. Both men are former Congressional representatives and are well-known in Minnesota political circles. Vin Weber is now an influential Republican advisor and Tim Penny ran for governor as an independent a couple years ago. I’m looking forward to meeting both of them and I also hope that there’s a diversity of viewpoints amongst the fellows. It’s always nice to meet who agree with you, but that can make for a dull academic experience. I’m also a little curious about how people will react to my disability. We have orientation on Friday and I’ll probably make some kind of mention of it when we do our introductions. I usually find that it’s better to acknowledge it early on because it’s the one thing most people wonder about when first meeting me and it also demonstrates that I’m not uncomfortable talking about it. There’s a fine line between talking about your disability and letting it define you. You don’t want to pull an Ellen DeGeneres and have every conversation revolve around that one characteristic that separates you from the mainstream (I’m not trying to pick on Ellen; she actually seems much more at ease with herself in recent years). At the same time, you don’t want to try and push the elephant in the room into the broom closet.
Senator Kerry has clearly been reading my blog. How else to explain the aggressive tone his campaign has taken on lately on the issue of the Iraqi war? Seriously, I’m encouraged to see that Kerry has found his voice again. He has taken the critical step of defining the news cycle rather than responding to it. Let”s hope it continues.
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