I haven’t had time to write about the Vox piece of “Liberal professor scared of liberal students.” But I’m pleased to say that Amanda Taub, at Vox, has rebutted the piece published by Vox. Big websites like Vox are formed of independent turfs, with lots of people having access to the “publish” button (with a…
I have a new piece out at Al Jazeera America on the concept of inspiration porn. Inspiration porn still dominates depictions of disability in the news, so her work continues. In the last few weeks, three stories about disability have gone viral. A high school quarterback in Pennsylvania took a girl with Down syndrome to prom,…
I am working on a piece about accessible academic conferences and am, intentionally, focusing on academia. But there are two speculative fiction conventions that deserve mention. Convergence holds a special place in my heart. I’ve never been deeply involved with it, but have gone and performed there many times, especially in the early years before…
Yesterday I wrote about Peter Singer, my least favorite bioethicist. Today, here’s a bioethicist asking a new question – do we actually need more and more sensitive Down syndrome tests? Chris Kaposy writes: There is an inconsistency between the lived experience of people who have Down syndrome and the corporate arms race to develop new…
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of Peter Singer. He’s a eugencist. Start here with Harriet McBride Johnson. For more recent context, perhaps read this press release from the National Council on Disability. What may be less clear is that I’m not bothered by him. The world is full of terrible people saying…
I have a bunch of pieces out in various stages of edits, and hope to have 3 or 4 pieces published next week. This week I had only one, a new Game of Thrones piece for Vice. I think the changing relationship between the books and the show is interesting. Eventually, the show will become canon,…
The Trigger Warning debate is back. Did it ever really go away? Here’s my new piece of the argument: Trigger Warnings preserve access to offensive content that, nevertheless, has educational value. A year ago I wrote this piece for CNN in the context of the TW discussion. I argued that best practices for teaching any content…
I like TV shows, books, and movies that are imperfect matches for my values. They are produced in societies that are, likewise, imperfect, and few cultural creations can withstand any kind of purity test. That doesn’t mean that you just get to ignore the problem. It also doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stop enjoying…
Troll Warning: Image of a troll silhouette in a red triangle. From WikiCommons. Trolls are happy to be trolls, mostly. They like the term; it conveys power. They have driven a lot of good people off the internet in their large-scale acts, and just made it an unsafe place in an everyday, small-scale, nasty way….
This week I had one published piece – Low Cost College Isn’t Enough (CNN.com, 5/20/15) Over the next 18 months of the presidential election, there’s going to be a lot of conversation about lowering the cost of college. I am asking you to help me make sure we also talk about high quality, which for…