Buddhist Marketer

More On Fringe/Justice

The progressive laws of culture are the brilliant work-around to the brutal law of the jungle. So sure, we’ll build access ramps, finance kneeling buses, design J blades and invent push-rim wheelchairs — not out of pity or political correctness but so that a wider range of human talent can enter the fray and win or lose.

From: Randy Cohen’s 2009.11.10 Are High-Tech Prostheses Fair?

What’s In That Needle?

My brother-in-law shares his memories of an ‘88 protest in St. Louis regarding the accessibility of publicly-funded and/or subsidized transportation:

The collectible item of ADAPT apparel for this action was a red and white headband that said: ADAPT met APTA in St. Louis. It was spring 1988, one of our last actions targeting the gatherings of the American Public Transit Association.

This action sticks in my memory because of the comic overreaction of the police. A television news report announcing our coming said police were conducting bomb sweeps in the rooms of APTA’s hotel. We later learned that the police did this at APTA’s behest.

Every time an ADAPT vehicle left the hotel, even to go to the drug store, it was followed by police. As we lined up to begin our marches, police helicopters hovered above.

I remember I was one of those arrested for refusing to disperse from a corridor near where APTA types were meeting. The blind man next to me was told by police that if he was arrested his dog would be sent to the pound and he probably wouldn’t get it back. So, very reluctantly, he dispersed.

They transported all us arrestees to a police lockup and during the processing they did something I’ve never seen police do before or since. They took blood samples. When one guy refused to submit to that he was held down and blood was drawn forcibly. I was among the many others who refused after that. They told us to line up so they could force us all one-by-one later. But so many refused that the police gave up on the drawing blood idea. Our lawyers later filed a lawsuit.

They kept us overnight. We slept in a roomful of cots. They gave us Ziploc bags full of toiletries. The toothpaste tube was white with no label. The watery toothpaste dripped through the bristles of the brush. As I brushed my teeth I spit out bristles. The brush handle was practically bald when I finished. They fed us the standard issue bologna sandwiches — a single slice of bologna smashed between to slices of cottony white bread.

On Tuesday we hit the Greyhound station. Somehow we slipped through the police dragnet and blocked off the St. Louis bus station. After a standoff, an irate, liquored up, stranded passenger stormed out of the terminal. “I’m sick of this shit!’ he barked and he began yanking on wheelchairs. E.T., an African American guy from Denver, resisted by holding tight to his wheels. So the furious drunken guy wrapped his hands around E.T.’s throat and shook him. The police pounced, ripped the guy away and arrested him.

The next day, as we prepared to leave town, there was a newspaper picture of E.T. parked in front of a Greyhound bus and being strangled. And the police commander dropped by our hotel to shake our hands and wish us well. He congratulated and thanked us for conducting a well-organized, nonviolent protest.

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.

But I’m grateful for folks like Mike and my sister, who raise their fists for “fringe-justice” — injustices that keep our brothers and sisters “on the fringe” from living lives scripted by someone else.  Because it’s the eradication of fringe-justices that help everyone – not just those on the fringe:

• Because curb cut-outs help strollers and gramma carts alike
• Because elevators in the subway help when I have rolling luggage
• Because walking behind a wheelchair during rush hour is like following a firetruck ;)
• etc. etc.

ADAPT’s current work helps make sure your ass doesn’t get thrown into an old lady home if you fumble your swan dive in the hotel pool:

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.

There’s no place like home; and we mean real homes, not nursing homes. We are fighting so people with disabilities can live in the community with real supports instead of being locked away in nursing homes and other institutions.

Click here to learn more about ADAPT.  Consider giving a donation while you’re at it.

Elsewhere: Gubmint, Career Nirvana, Slothy Content

Killing time while waiting for the cops to show up so that I can fill out a police report.  So, here you go!

• How should governments use web 2.0?  Add your ideas!
• Are you happy to be doing what you do, professionally?
• Content creators:  is your content lazy?  Click here to fix!

Just called them AGAIN and they haven’t even dispatched anyone yet.  I mean skeeriously.

A Brief Snip From A Brief Note

Indeed, singleness of view, I found out when I was trying to paint the river back in my teenage years, was the very thing that led to the loss of the river; and when this happened, the painting went dead.

From Will Buckingham’s “A Brief Note on Looking at Water”

Point being:  stay fluid, yo; fixed mindsets kill!

St. Patrick’s Day, 1998

Discovered a printout to a mix I made during spring break of my junior year in college.  I believe this actually was a cassette tape mix (!) as I don’t think I owned my minidisc player until senior year.

1. Sarah Vaughan’s “Misty”
2. Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror”
3. Iggy Pop’s “Success”
4. Lush’s “Sweetness and Light” **
   
5. Jane’s Addiction’s “Obvious”
6. U2’s “Even Better than the Real Thing”
7. The Sundays’ “what do you think?”
8. The Pharcyde’s “Passing Me By” **
   
9. Lush’s “Starlust”
10. Mono’s “Life In Mono”
11. Poe’s “Fingertips”
12. chemical brothers’ “Alive Alone” **
    
13. Lauren Christy’s “Walk This Earth Alone”
14. Catherine Wheels’ “Delicious”
15. Oasis’ “Wonderwall” **
    
16. No Doubt’s “Excuse Me Mr.”
17. Tori Amos’ “Siren”
18. The Sundays’ “I can’t wait”
19. Pulp’s “Like a Friend”
20. Pancho Kryztal’s “Silent Treatment”
21. Future Bible Heroes’ “Hopeless” **
    
22. David Garza’s “Slave”

These tracks were definitely in heavy rotation that semester — my clove-smoking, tea-drinking semester.  Had you visited my dorm room, you probably would have heard one of those songs playing.

The asterisked tracks can still get me to that reminisc-y place, but to paraphrase Alec Baldwin, I’ve got more things to do these days than rock black turtlenecks and pen angsty zine pieces about imaginary lost love.

I guess it was “fun” to be able to get wrapped up into music back then, but perhaps that obsessional quality prevents a different kind of getting wrapped up — the getting wrapped up in the kind of real life that involves actual other real live human beings.  And as it turns out, non-imaginary life is not — sorry Bono — better than the real thing.

What Happens In College

Email received Sunday, November 24, 1996:

Whore!! :)  You left without even saying goodbye! I didn’t get a chance to try out my roofies on one of your unsuspecting Yale friends.  I’ve got to come visit New Haven sometime… Who was the one that spent the night? Was that the Scarsdale one? She seemed to be spending a lot of effort on her makeup Saturday morning…

Uh… just so you know… the general reaction of Harvard males towards Yale females was quite favorable.  We thought that on average the female Yalie was prettier and less intelligent than her Radcliffe counterpart. :) Tell your administrators to keep up the great work! (shit, no wonder you’re #1)

< name > … picked the wrong school!

Dangers Of Cleaning House

If you start rifling through files that haven’t been opened in over a decade, you’re going to run into evidence of the person you used to be over a decade ago.

This may make you cringe.

Though I suspect Didion would be pleased…

Apartment Decorating Costs

• Previous balance, $28.18
• Two throw rugs and lots of curtain supplies from Ikea, $291.36

Running total:  $319.54