I was committing the rare act of channel surfing last night when I stumbled across an HBO documentary on the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley, with a particular focus on the various fetish subgenres. Oh. My. God. I usually consider myself a sophisticate in matters of human sexuality, but I am a really a wide-eyed innocent when actually confronted with some of this stuff. Sex with lactating women. Sex with women of extremely short stature. Sex with extremely large women. Sex with guys dressed up like Sasquatch. Sex between old guys and young women. I actually had to look away a couple times. Given the seemingly infinite range of stimuli that will arouse sexual desire, I’m convinced there’s a market for porn featuring actors with disabilities. Some enterprising soul could probably turn a nice profit if they pursued the idea aggressively enough.
And before you get the wrong idea, no, I’m not interested in being on screen. I’d rather write and direct. Although I could probably be persuaded to substitute in a pinch, if I’m matched with the appropriate co-star (warning: NSFW).

I don’t get all the noise we’re hearing about Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather and who’s going to sit in what chair on what nightly newscast. I haven’t watched a network news broadcast in at least ten years. All of my news comes from the Net, NPR, and a few weekly magazines. Sitting through a 30-minutes newscast (20 minutes if you exclude the commercials) seems like a monstrous waste of time to me. If I really need a dose of television news, I’ll flip on CNN for a few minutes. In general, though, I’m not compelled to listen to the dronings of a bland white male on a daily basis.
I heard an interesting analogy yesterday. It was in the course of a discussion about the difficulties people with disabilities experience when trying to access the services they need, whether it’s health care, job training, housing, etc. Here’s the analogy: imagine yourself in the Mall of America. Scattered throughout the mall are directories that list vendors specializing in categories like clothing, electronics, books, overpriced food served in a creepy atmosphere, whatever. The directory shows you where the vendors are located in the mall, making it a relatively easy task to find them. Now imagine trying to navigate the mall without the directory. This is the struggle that many people with disabilities confront. There is an abundance of services and programs available to them, but most people have no idea that those services exist or how to access them. It’s this information gap that is one of the biggest sources of frustration for those of us in the world of disability policy. The success of a particular individual in accessing appropriate services is entirely dependent on the quality of information they receive from teachers, social workers, peers, and any number of other sources. And if that information is inaccurate or simply isn’t conveyed, the individual is denied services or opportunities that could make all the difference.

Minor correction to yesterday’s entry. It was a woman with a spinal cord injury. As Paul noted, treating someone with a spinal cord is not exactly newsworthy.
I’ve often wondered what I’d want done with my body after I’m gone. Right now, my living will states that I want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in the Seine. But then I stumbled across LifeGem, a place that takes some of the carbon from your remains and turns it into a small diamond. A bit sentimental, but still, an interesting concept. There’s something poetic about having a little piece of yourself turned into a jewel. Chances are that little gemstone would be around long after everyone who knew you had perished. However, I can’t decide on a radiant cut or a princess cut.
This idea came from a list of science-related things to try before (or after) you die. Can someone hook me up with the chance to pet a tiger? I totally want to try that.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune had an insightful editorial a couple days ago about the reauthorization of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). IDEA guarantees a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities across the country. In 1975, when the law was originally passed, it stated that Congress would fund its share of special education costs (40%) by 1982. That date has been pushed backed–again–to 2011. In the meantime, states are expected to fully fund the difference. While the new version of IDEA improves certain regulatory aspects of special education, like finding students with disabilities and delivering services to them at an earlier age, it fails at the most critical level–funding. I expect we’re going to see a lot of this sort of thing thing from this administration and this Congress over the coming years. They will pat themselves on the back for giving superficial support to this social program or that one, but the states will be expected to bear the financial burden of keeping those programs running. It will be the Reagan years all over again, with defense and debt maintenance taking a big bite out of our national budget, leaving everyone else to fight over the scraps.
I’m still trying to figure out whether to go to Mexico this winter. One thing I’m uncertain about is how to get from the airport to the resort. I don’t want to get down there and find out my only transportation option is to be strapped on the back of a burro. Maybe I should check out New Orleans at Mardi Gras instead. Hmm, beads and bare breasts vs. sun and surf. Thoughts?

I’ve been watching some of the episodes of Lost that I’ve downloaded over the last few weeks and I’m quite impressed with it so far. The writers manage not to telegraph a lot of the twists in the plot. Their presentation of one character’s background story was almost ingenious in its execution because of how the writers play with the assumptions of the audience. However, I have doubts about how long a show like this can stay fresh, given the premise of everyone being stranded on a remote island. It’s not like they can bring in a different guest star each week, at least not without turning it into Gilligan’s Island.
I downloaded U2’s new album off of iTunes earlier tonight. My initial reaction is that it’s pretty good, but I wish the band would return to some of the experimentalism they showed in Achtung Baby and especially Zooropa. Zooropa remains my favorite album of theirs. It had a noirish, urban tone that wasn’t necessarily cynical, but it kind of felt like something you would put on while you were reading William Gibson. Listening to it, I could almost imagine myself walking the nighttime streets of Berlin or Paris.