This is the first time since Tuesday I’ve had time to sit at the computer. I’m writting this from my hotel room in Georgetown. Actually, it’s a suite. Being a fellow carries a few perks. Yesterday, I was at various think tanks and walked past the White House during the State of the Union Address. Today, I was at the Capitol and spent an hour at the Holocaust Museum before it closed. Still hope to see a few of the monuments on the Mall. It snowed today, which sucked. Up next, some hobnobbing with former Clinton officals and a visit to the West Wing. Pictures are forthcoming.

CNN has a profile of a married couple and their struggle to maintain their marriage after the husband returned from Iraq with a spinal cord injury. As you might expect, they’re experiencing a range of emotions; guilt, anger, depression, and the like. As someone with a congenital disability, it’s difficult for me to imagine the sense of loss and (sometimes) bitterness that accompanies a newly acquired disability. I’ve never known a life without disability. The man in the article will have to learn to adapt to an entirely new existence. Here’s an idea for a documentary; pick a small group of soldiers returning from Iraq with various disabilities. Examine the immediate aftermath of their injuries, their rehab, the effects on their families. Then follow up with them every 3-5 years. See who’s thriving, who’s not, and explore the reasons why. It could be modeled on the Seven Up series that is being done in the UK. If we ever get our hypothetical disability network, that might be an idea worth exploring.
Not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing while in DC. One of my nurses is bringing his notebook and I’m hoping the hotel will have WiFi. If I do post, it will be very brief. We’re going to be running from meeting to meeting during most of our visit.

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer has a good critique of the ongoing hype surrounding blogging and the true believers’ claims that blogs and podcasts will bring Mainstream Media to its knees. Shafer rightly points out that the big media players have always figured out how to adapt to new technologies. A lot of journalists working for established media outlets have their own blogs now. And sites like MSNBC and The Guardian actively promote their blogs. Blogs are not the harbingers of a revolution, much as some people would like you to believe otherwise. Let’s be honest; blogs still exist at the periphery of public consciousness. How did blogs even manage to move in from the absolute fringes of media culture? Because they started getting coverage in magazines like Time or on the cable news networks. I promise you, the bloggers who are most vocal in their distaste for big media are also the same ones who would leap at a chance to get on the cover of the NYT Sunday Magazine.
I’m listening to the Current, the new music station in the Twin Cities that’s part of Minnesota Public Radio. The format is pretty good. No commercials and no obnoxious DJs. The playlist does skew towards alternative, but I’ve heard some Johnny Cash and some Nas. I hope they do some programming dedicated to specific genres like electronic or soul/hip-hop. It’d be a shame for the station to cater exclusively towards the black-turtleneck hipster set. But at least I have another station to listen to in the car besides the news station.

One of my nurses e-mailed me this picture:

It begs a few questions. Exactly what kind of incident prompted the posting of the sign? Do alligators consider us a delicacy? Are the alligators trained to lie in wait for unsuspecting wheelchair users? Is the sign intended as a warning…or a suggestion?

I’ve often considered joining a book club, but something has always held me back. This article from local magazine The Rake expresses some of my misgivings. I don’t want to join a club where people discuss the book for fifteen minutes and then talk about familial goings-on for the rest of the meeting. I don’t want to join a club that assigns something from the Left Behind series or simply apes whatever Oprah is reading. And I don’t want to be the only guy in a group of women. On second thought, that might be okay under certain circumstances. In short, I guess I want it to be like one of my seminar classes in college. But I know that I’m not likely to find something like that in the real world. Maybe I should just quit my job and go back to grad school for my Ph.D. in English. Actually, I almost did that during a particularly dark and frustrating period in law school. There are times when I’m really nostalgic for the academic life. But having a regular paycheck is also kind of nice.
Maybe I should start my own book club. It will have a membership of one, thus ensuring that the meetings are always in accessible locations and that the books are ones I want to read.