Poker is suddenly everywhere. Poker tournaments on television, books on improving your poker, people blogging about poker. It seems like every white male ages 18-35 is suddenly a poker freak. I’ve never gotten into cards much, although I did manage to win about $60 at blackjack on my one and only visit to an Indian casino back in Green Bay. I think I’d like poker, though. It has an interesting mixture of luck, strategy and psychology that I think I’d find appealing. The guy with whom I clerked had a regular game going. Maybe he’d let me in sometime. I’d just have to make sure the nurse holding my cards doesn’t have any revealing “tells” that would give my hand away.
Another hostage in Iraq killed. You have to wonder how many more contractors will die before companies decide that it’s just not worth it and pull out. I think the Defense Department made a big mistake when they contracted out most of the rebuilding of Iraq. It may have been cheaper, but you have civilians living and working in what is essentially still a combat zone. Most of them have no security training and are easy targets for roving militants. But I guess that train has already left the station.

The Sunday New York Times has a long article about advances in fetal genetic testing and how more expecting parents are confronted with the option of terminating a pregnancy rather than having a child with a disability. I am pro-choice and I think the decision to have an abortion is always an intensely personal one, no matter the reason. Genetic screening will one day bring us to a point where it is exceedingly rare for a child to be born with a congenital disability. I don’t see that as a good or bad thing; simply inevitable. I do think that many people underestimate the quality of a life that can be had with a disability, but I don’t think anyone should be condemned for choosing not to raise a child with a disability. Lots of people in the disability community will disagree with me on this point and will say that every pregnancy that is terminated because of genetic screening further devalues the disability community as a whole. That’s hyperbole in my eyes. My existence isn’t cheapened by the private decision of a stranger. And disability as a facet of human experience isn’t going away anytime soon. My life as a person with a disability turned out surprisingly well, but each circumstance is unique and some families may be better off not putting themselves to that test.

A few weeks ago, I managed to get a real live literary agent to look at my manuscript-in-progress. The agent e-mailed me back yesterday and told me she didn’t find the material “compelling.” I wasn’t terribly shocked or dismayed. The book is only half-complete and still needs a lot of polishing. And maybe the story is the kind of thing that won’t grab everyone’s interest. I won’t have a good sense of that until I show it to a few more people. But my gut sense is that it’s interesting enough to keep writing, and so I will. I’ll keep everyone posted on the many, many rejections that are still to come.
My sister is back from Europe and is staying with me for a few days. She brought me a tres chic black T-shirt from the Cannes Film Festival and a few other trinkets. I was asking about accessibility in Paris. She said that the only accessible Metro station was at St. Michel in the Latin Quarter. The rest have stairs and apparently many have a distinct odor of “bum piss.” Her words, not mine. She also said she only saw a handful of people with visible disabilities on the streets of Paris. Does anyone know if the EU has a department that deals with disability issues? Just curious. I suppose I can look myself. I’d be interested in seeing what sort of disability-related statistics are being collected over there in terms of population, household income, and so forth.

Saw the Beastie Boys on Letterman last night. I’m not the biggest Beastie fan, but I like some of their songs; a few of which I’ve *cough* borrowed *cough* from friends on the Internet. They did an interesting trick last night with what appeared to be a SteadiCam rolling down the street in front of them. Would have made a good video.
This guy is on a mission to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I admire his resolve, but I’m not sure it’s the quantity of the reading as the quality of the experience that’s important. Is devouring a book in seven days more worthy than reading it at a more leisurely 14 days. I read at a pretty fast clip, but I’ll admit that the books keep piling up around my living room. Part of the problem is that I tend to read a lot of stuff on the internet. News aggregators and RSS are great inventions, but they can be like brain crack for someone like me. So lately I’ve been making a conscious effort to get away from the computer after a reasonable amount of time so that I can devote some to words on paper. And even then, I have to keep up with the five or six magazines I subscribe to. Sigh. Nancy Kress wrote a novel called Beggars in Spain about people who were genetically modified so that they didn’t require sleep. I wish someone would hurry up and design a pill that can delete the sleep function encoded in our brains. I’ve got stuff to do, damnit.
I had the opportunity to get a sneak peak ride on Minneapolis’s new light rail train today. Pictures are forthcoming.

RealNetworks and Starz are launching a movie downloading service for people with broadband internet access. I think it’s great that more media distribution is being done over the Web, but I’m not sure people will pay to watch movies on their computer screens. It’s not like music, where you can play it and then walk away. You’re chained to a desk and sitting in a position that doesn’t lend itself to extended inactivity. I’d prefer to be able to kick back and watch a film on my 31″ JVC with surround sound than on my 19″ monitor. And it’s even less ideal on a notebook computer. But maybe I’ll give it a try to see what the selection is like and how they handle technical issues like image resolution. I have a feeling it’s something crappy like 640×480, but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Bob Herbert wrote this NYT editorial about recent Medicaid cuts in Mississippi (registration req’d). No, “cuts” is being charitable. More like “gutting.” Almost 65,000 elderly and people with disabilities could lose their health care. People with Alzheimer’s and CP and quadriplegia. And what’s Governor Haley Barbour’s rationale for these draconian measures? He says that taxpayers in Mississippi shouldn’t have to “pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to.”
I give you the bold new future of compassionate conservatism, ladies and gentlemen, where even those on their deathbeds will be expected to get off their lazy asses and flip a burger or two. Of course, it must be stated that Mississippi expanded Medicaid eligibility in the booming 90’s and now lacks the will to raise revenues to keep those benefits intact. It still amazes me how we treat health care like a commodity in this country. It’s not something you can give and take away like a child’s toy. Idiots.