The Onion is going to launch a Twin Cities edition in September. It will be good to have another weekly paper in town, as City Pages hasn’t had any real competition since the Twin Cities Reader folded in 1997. I’ll probably stick with the on-line edition, but it will be interesting to read their coverage of the local scene. It’s not clear if the new edition will have satire directed at our region. We certainly offer plenty of material, ranging from our stoic Nordic culture to the monstrosity that is the Mall of America.
Things are not going well when our President is laughed at by the audience he’s addressing. Listen to the crowd react to Bush’s insightful and cogent analysis of tribal sovereignty issues. It borders on the absurd. it reminds me of law school and some of the lamer answers I heard in response to a professor’s question, when the person was absolutely clueless but kept blathering on in the hopes of saying something that might approximate coherence.

Att the wedding reception last night, I sat with another U of M Law School alumni. We attorneys must have an invisible aura that subconsciously identifies us to each other. It’s weird.
I was channel-surfing last night and caught some of Def Poetry. Poetry slams have always struck me as emphasizing style over substance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; I enjoyed most of the performances I saw. They had a visceral punch that is an order of magnitude different from the experience of reading a poem to yourself. The hip-hop influence on slam culture was also evident. Most of the performances shared a theme of oppression and injustice. Didn’t see any performers with disabilities, though. Maybe after I finish the book, I’ll try my hand at a slam and wow the crowd with my mad, ventilator-syncopated verse.
The LA Times has an article about the hardships faced by Iraqi war veterans who are being shipped home with severe disabilities. Like I keep saying, this is the real story of the war’s ongoing casualty count. Thousands of newly disabled men and women who are taxing the resources of an already underfunded Veterans Administration. At the same time, these disabled veterans may be able to muster the political clout to spur advances in assistive technology that would benefit other people with disabilities as well. Some good has to come out of this whole mess.
CNN is doing a documentary on the SETI project tonight. I am, of course, TiVo’ing it. I hope it’s not condescending: “Watch the funny scientists search for little green men.”

I was getting my van fixed today when I ran into another guy waiting there with his sister. He recognized me from my blog, which caught me by surprise. It’s still weird when blog life and real life intersect. He also had the same model of new wheelchair that I recently got. Except that he was actually, y’know, using his instead of waiting for it to be fixed.
They picked Alan Keyes to run against Obama? Keyes? Well, I guess someone has to take their turn in the barrel, and it might as well be him.

Here’s the deal. I need to close comments on the blog, at least temporarily. I’ve been absolutely flooded with comment spam and I haven’t had time to keep up with it. I’m getting so much spam that it’s crashing the server, resulting in nasty notes from my hosting service. I don’t want to deal with a potential account termination and finding a new host, so I figure it’s better to simply shut down commenting for now. I hope to re-open them soon, but I will probably employ a registration process. I realize that a registration system can be a hassle, but it’s the only way to be reasonably certain that this blog doesn’t get polluted with spam. I’m also hoping that the new version of MT-Blacklist will be of some help. In the meantime, you can still reach me at wintermute2_0 at the19thfloor dot com.
William Shatner recently did a cover of Pulp’s “Common People.” Listen to it. Bask in the greatness of The Shatner.
Bruce Springsteen and REM are coming to St. Paul in October as part of the Vote for Change concert series. I think the idea of doing concerts in swing states is a great one. Anything to get people to the polls in November. I’d rather see Death Cab for Cutie, who is also on the tour, but I’ll still try to get tickets. Who wants to be my date that night? In case you need to be reminded what’s at stake, here’s a quote from our President:
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

I had a bunch of meetings today dealing with transition issues. Transition, in terms of disability policy, concerns issues that affect teens and young adults with disabilities. Things like finding a job, going to college, living independently. Adolescence is a tumultuous time in life, but kids with disabilities confront additional obstacles that their peers don’t have to deal with. And I’m not just talking about getting connected with appropriate services. That’s definitely an issue, but one that can be remedied with some good policy and coordinated efforts among various agencies. The real problems facing transition-age kids are much more difficult to address. A lot of kids suffer from a crisis of low expectations that is reinforced by the parents and professionals around them. I’ve encountered kids whose plans after high school consist of little more than staying home and watching television. They simply can’t imagine being employed or going on to school. With each passing generation, things get a little better for these kids, but progress moves at a glacial pace. I won’t be surprised if, fifteen years from now, I’m sitting in another meeting to discuss the same issues.