Over the border from me, the Scott Walker experiment to dismantle the state of Wisconsin continues. He wants to create Kansas-North. Conservatives are loving it, and he’s just the kind of boring white guy with an allegedly criminal past that the GOP establishment might nominate for president. Not long after President Obama unveiled his ideas for…
Austen Heinz is the typical silicon valley disruptor superstar. Edgy. Controversial. Disruptive. He was profiled for his DNA Startup which allows you to “create life.” In Austen Heinz’s vision of the future, customers tinker with the genetic codes of plants and animals and even design new creatures on a computer. Then his startup, Cambrian Genomics, prints…
Usually I post my roundup on Sunday, but just so much is going on that I wrote a post instead. And I should have an article going up later today. Here are my recent posts. Seattle Museum and How to Write/Program for Disability: Seattle has a neat program for “autistic kids.” I laud the program,…
In general in disability journalism, I’d like to see us emphasize needed accommodations over diagnoses. In other words, what do people with disabilities need over what they “have.” Here’s an example. I titled this blog post “for kids with sensory issues,” but I’m referring to a piece actually called “Museum Opens Doors, Turns Down Lights…
Activists perhaps should have focused less on Michael Brown, more on shooting of 12-yr-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland http://t.co/lWevkqrY2x — Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) January 23, 2015 A tweet is just a tweet, but when you have 1.5 million followers, many of who believe in your power as a social justice hero, these kinds of tweets…
So I was going to write a post about another killing, but I’m tired. My son was up much of the night (he has a cold so his breathing isn’t great so he’s restless and wakeful). I have a lot of work to do today despite the exhaustion. So here’s something great. My daughter got…
Recently, video has surfaced of police trying to throw a man in a wheelchair from his chair. Allegedly, the individual ran over the officer’s foot. Here are some other incidents worth remembering. And these are just the ones caught on tape. Brian Sterner thrown from his wheelchair by an officer who thought he might be…
A new survey of chief academic officers is out from Inside Higher Education. Among the findings: Provosts really care about civility and think it should be part of the framework for hiring and tenure. I see this as potentially troubling. When the Steven Salaita controversy broke, I wrote a piece for the Chronicle called “Don’t Speak…
Basic principle: The fight for basic economic justice for everyone is the fight for better lives for people with disabilities. #SOTU4PWD — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) January 21, 2015 Yesterday President Obama mentioned “Americans with mental illness or physical disability” as part of his long list of inclusive terms. This is not my preferred language….
Carol Swain is a Vanderbilt University law professor and noted Islamophobe. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, she wrote a thoroughly nasty column for The Tennessean. Protests and counter protests and accusations of censorship have followed. I wrote about related issues for The Chronicle of Higher Education a few months back, in the wake…