The Nutmeg of Consolidation

After helping him into his seat aboard a flight from West Palm Beach to Kansas City, a U.S. Airways gate agent returned and wheeled Tuitel back to the terminal, he said.

"He told me I could fly on U.S. Airways if I could find a companion to go with me because I was a danger to myself and others if something went wrong," Tuitel told WZZM-TV. "Trust me, they made a mistake."

I wanted to think about her assertion that 'I owed' something to this blog and the readers. I didn't think I'd signed a contract and I didn't think that I gave up the right to privacy. I weigh what I want to tell here and often tell about my observations of the world and my reactions to what I see. This is different than telling what's going on personally in my life.

No matter what the fearless defenders of freedom of speech say, there is a huge difference between a word to describe something that slows fire and someone who learns differently. There's a huge difference between a thing and a person - but, no, maybe not. After reading their diatribes regarding their freedom to spit out hurtful words, they may, really, not see people with disabilities as fully human with a human heart capable human hurt.

People mock the concept of respectful language regarding disability. People make odd arguments about the latest gaffe by ... no, I won't say her name here ... they say 'she was saying that of herself not anyone else' - um, so? The word she used was one referring, not to a commercial product, but to an oppressed minority. Yet the debate rages on and the fierceness of the attack by those who are proponents of the use of hate language are both hysterical and who often purposely miss the point. One wonders what's at stake - their personal liberty to hurt others?

It's time to recognize that the 'R' word is an attack against who people with with intellectual disabilities 'are', it is an attack against the group that they belong to. It is like other words that exist to slur an entire people, unacceptable. The fact that people do not see the seriousness of the word and the attack it represents is simply a result of the fact that they do not take the 'people' who wear that label seriously. The concerns of those with intellectual disabilities have always been diminished and trivialized. There is a sneaking suspicion that they 'don't understand, poor dears', that they 'miss the point, little lambs' so therefore their anger need not be feared as justified.

• My former neighbor, training to be a New York subway rider on the Tokyo train.

  I decide to make a beeline for the open doors in the car. I struggle to push my way about halfway to the door squeezing past people, much to their chagrin. I am stopped in my tracks by a salaryman who refuses to move.

• Top 5 Beatles songs from 1963. With, at the moment, videos.
• Via Mills River Progressive, Joe Bageant writes about politics and philosophy. Warning: May be too serious for the weekend.
• "She said, cryptically, 'Your talk was not about disabiltiies, didn't you know that?'" (Also, the comments so far won't make you squirm.)
• I have to explain for this one that I don't exactly like Lady Gaga. It's probably the shoes. I tend to go, "interesting stuff in the video, canny use of framing, dance, cinematography, and pop culture" and click on something else a minute and a half later. Not my thing. This video, however, was sufficiently hilarious that it got me to:
  1. actually listen to the song;
  2. sit through the Lady Gaga video. Yeah. SF tropes. Still not my thing.
  Via betnoir. It's probably the juxtaposition.

Having confrontations with managers while maintaining good spirits such as to not up set children and guests - now that's an art.