Sunday, October 25, 2009

Disability Blog Carnival #59: Disability and Work

The theme for the Disability Blog Carnival #59 is Work and Disability. It's National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Thank you to Penny from the Disability Studies Blog for co-ordinating the Disability Blog Carnival through 60 issues!

Thank you all for your contributions! All through October, they buoyed me up and gave me food for thought. I felt intense pride to be part of this very loosely knit online community of thinkers and writers.

The next Disability Blog Carnival will be hosted by the fantastic group blog FWD/Forward: Feminists With Disabilities.


  • Wheelchair Dancer contributed two posts. In Becoming Disabled On the Job she writes about how even in a supportive workplace there were many obstacles to overcome as her physical capabilities changed over several years.

    Ultimately, I was successful at my job; I wrote my heart out, presented, won awards, grants, and funding; I got myself published. Technically, however, I didn't get my work done on schedule; in fact, it took me approximately two extra years to approximate a body of work like the ones that my peers had on their resumes. I felt like that broken and imposter racehorse, uselessly gimping around behind its pure blood, beautiful, swift sisters.


    Her other post, Disability at Work, focuses on her current job as a dancer, where she is not the only person with a disability! "You know that disability is an important factor in your work environment when . . . " Ha! I love it! I'm printing out her 10 reasons why list and putting it up at my office!

  • Sophia from 'sprokenword has an otherwise excellent post which does contain some hatred expressed towards people riding airport motor transport carts who are fat. If you can read around that or bracket it, read on because the post explores some other important issues. In Disability Employment Awareness Month, Sophia describes her job working for a non-profit open source software company while dealing with gait problems, chronic pain, trouble standing, and difficulty walking. Her situation requires quite a lot of travel. I enjoyed this post and have a lot of respect for the difficulties of travel and Sophia's determination to do it. Sophia's post and Wheelchair Dancer's first post spoke to many of the issues that people with disabilities and chronic pain face in professional careers.

  • Alison Bergblom Johnson, from the blog Writing Mental Illness, posted about poetry as work. Anne Sexton: Patient or Poet. Anne Sexton was a brilliant and hard working poet. She won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. But in the psychiatric professions she is a patient and her work is considered as pathology - as evidence of her illness.

  • Deborah Kaplan wants to recognize the ways that her job is awesome in working while disabled: it's really just fine. "I could do most of those infamous "activities of daily living" without help if I had too (since I don't think that Congress defines "open-source coding and checking my feeds" as an activity of daily living). But without adaptive technology, I would not have been able to hold a job for the last 10 years, full stop." Her co-workers and employers are supportive. She has some complicated stuff to say about the tradeoff between working through pain and difficulty vs. taking time off and trying to heal and avoid stress. In all that complexity, though, her day to day experience of work is "pretty damn good".

  • Tlönista's post Work/Ability writees about some of the negative aspects of her experiences working and being a mentally ill person. She wonders how much longer she can go on. "Don’t think about the long term, don’t think about the future, treat your life like a sub-prime loan. For now I am a “good” mentally ill person. Not a menace, not a burden. I am functional. I’m so tired."

  • Sashafeather's post, "Disability and Work: What I do" centers on Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction book about an anarchist planet, The Dispossessed, where the word for work is the same as the word for play. Sashafeather describes work/play as "what occupies a person's time, and what one does with the people in one's community". She does emotional work, self care and pain management, volunteer work for the WisCon feminist science fiction convention, and disability/anti-oppression activism. She moderates several online communities and does creative work in media fandom.

    Her post made me think about self-care and pain management as an important part of community work. It's something I have to remind myself of: If I don't deal with my physical pain levels, I will be less useful to the people around me and my community. You might think the motivation of "not being in so much pain" would be enough. Often it's not.

    And she moves into very interesting territory in writing about work, disability, and feminism:
    I have personally benefitted from the feminist idea of work being a socially constructed idea, and "women's work" such as housework, childcare, and care of the elderly and ill being often unpaid or underpaid and devalued by society. The reason women are paid less than men is because women's work is undervalued. Women often provide emotional support for others, they build friendships, they build communities, they build homes. All of this takes time and effort.

    The categories of women and disabled people intersect hugely. The work of disabled people is also devalued, and disabled people face huge barriers such as pain, exhaustion, mobility and cognitive impairments, communication differences, discrimination in the work place and the wider world, and a lack of basic access to buildings, services, and transportation.


  • Eva from The Deal with Disability wrote and posted a video of herself at her dogwalking job. Sometimes accessibility is more than meets the eye. She posts flyers for her business at veterinarians' offices and was showing how though she found out she couldn't get into the office there, the staff's attitude was polite and helpful. Eva goes on to point out factors other than steps or ramps that affect accessibility.

  • The spaces in my résumé by codeman38 talks about some of the practical difficulties in getting a job by traditional means. Interviews, transport, and phone calls are not completely impossible for him as an autistic person but they are definitely obstacles. He finds jobs through friends and family.

  • Tera from Sweet Perdition writes about her job at a local game store: I am Lord Voldemort. She works for store credit at a job that her college professors would consider below her capacity - but she loves her work and their appreciation of her.
    Sometimes you think about getting a proper job, one that pays you money or, at the very least, requires you to leave the house, but you don’t want one. You realize that you don’t really want a lot of things that you’ve grown up hearing independent adults must have . . . But all this guilt is just society’s poison coursing through your brain; it isn’t you. The things you want–really want, not just think you should want in order to be a real person–are not the things your culture wants for you. Popular culture doesn’t have many models for the kind of person you are.


  • Cheryl from Uppity Crip has two posts to contribute. Heads up that her blog has music on auto-play. 51% of Workplace Accomodations Cost Nothing and Mental Illness is Still a Big Stigma.

  • I posted on BlogHer.com on Working Women With Disabilities. I was feeling exhausted and disheartened, and wanted to see other people's thoughts on working and being disabled. My own thoughts on the subject are going to take me a while to put together. When I post about my personal experiences with losing jobs, struggling to get SSI, working part time, passing as able, going back to school, and access issues on the job now that I'm working again. I'll link to it from the comments on this post.

  • Wheelie Catholic posted many times in October with Disability Awareness Month in mind. Her posts are great!

    * The Top Ten Ways For Managers to Screw Up under the ADA
    * Sears case largest disability related employment discrimination settlement
    * National Disability Employment Awareness Month: What Can We Do?
    * PBS to Air Film on Disability Advocates
    * The Campaign for Disability Employment: whatcanyoudocampaign.org
    * Disability Awareness FAIL - this one is hilarious and awful!

    Late additions:

    * Video Post from Bev from Asperger Square 8.



[ETA: warning on fat hatred on a link.]
[ETA again: I phrased that badly and i think misinterpreted sophia's words to be about scooter users. By carts she meant people who are riding the electric carts that airport employees drive around to pick people up. See comments on this post for my thoughts. - Liz 10/28/09]

Thank you all again for clueing me in to your amazing writing. And thanks for reading!

Please stay tuned to FWD/Forward for the next Disability Blog Carnival call for contributions for Carnival #60!

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

ADAPT in Atlanta kicking ass, taking names

This weekend I went right from the Blogalicious conference in Atlanta to the end of a march and start of a rally that kicked off a week of activism by ADAPT.

Their goals are, free people from being incarcerated in nursing homes, and kept in there against their will. They back the Money Follows the Person program, which means a person's benefits are under their control rather than under the control of doctors, social workers, and assisted living facilities (who are a powerful medical-industrial complex much like the prison-industrial complex: powerful lobbyists with a lot of money at stake.) Right now ADAPT also supports the Community Choice Act, a bill which you can see and follow directly with OpenCongress.org.



I hopped out of a taxi with two backpacks hanging off the back of my wheelchair, tired enough to cry but feeling jet setty, determined and super excited, as if going to the crip activist prom. As I rolled up an exhausting hill to the Martin Luther King historic site and rose garden. Hundreds and hundreds of disabled people and others were there. There were some songs and short speeches. There seemed to be three or four main organizer dudes, 70s looking older white guys. I gradually realized everyone was in groups based on the color of their tshirts.



I have not been involved on any level other than donating money to ADAPT and though I write about disability online a lot I don't get to hang out with anyone really and I miss that enormously and need some solidarity. So I was so grateful just to be there for a while with everyone. I wanted to stay and support the goals of the organization to get government officials to change policies, get people out of forced institutional living, and embody our political power with direct action.

But I'm also going to frankly tell the story of my afternoon and my thoughts.

First, here is an ADAPT logo and a link to their donation page.

DONATE!!!



Follow NationalADAPT on Twitter
Follow Michigan ADAPT on Twitter



Here's a short speech by Lois who says "Free our brothers and sisters, free our people."



I enjoyed the small bits of chanting we did. How do you spell power? A-D-A-P-T! However I have been in enough rallies in life that I never want to yell "The People united will never be defeated" again. Did it anyway in the heat of the moment. But I draw the line at "Hey Hey Ho Ho." A person has to have some boundaries. Hah!

Andrew Jones speaks about getting out of an institution with the MFP program which has now been denied funding. I missed videoing the second bit of his talk, which was fantastic (my camera ran out of batteries just then.)



Later that afternoon I went to shake Andrew's hand and tell him I'd upload the video of part of his speech, and he raffishly explained to me that I was a rather attractive and curvaceous young lady. Thanks, Andrew, but LOL that was some quick work, how about making friends first, also, actually I am 40 and prideful of my mature charms and middle aged wisdom. You are certainly silver tongued though and should get on email. It would work for you.

Thank you ASL interpreters. Y'all worked so hard. And thanks ADAPT for structuring that constant side by side translation.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

So then, there was a sort of extra staged bit which I had mixed feelings about, keep in mind I am a total outsider to ADAPT so take it all with a grain of salt. Delores Bates and Kathy and Bodie came up to the front of the rally and did not speak but the main organizer guy told Delores' story of being in an institution for "seizures" for the last 43 years. She just got out, I guess with ADAPT's help, this September, to live in her own place. IT was her 57th birthday on the day of the rally and they presented her with a birthday cake and a giant card with lots of signatures. We all sang her Happy Birthday. It was her first birthday on the outside in 43 years.




So, okay, I cried like a baby, but I also was like "So, fucking give her a piece of her own cake then? Also, what she have to say about it if anything?" And felt it was a bit stagey and poster-childy. I talked with Delores a bit afterwards and asked her if I could take a picture, she smiled and nodded and I showed her the photos in my camera for a bit. I wished she could talk with me. Thank you Delores for contributing your story and your birthday moment to ADAPT and all of us in the crowd. Congratulations on getting out.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

I wondered what happened next and I imagined again her having email and showing her Eva's The Deal with Disability blog entries so she could totally crack up laughing. And that she could have a Facebook page and people could donate directly to her if they wanted and if they cried while singing her Happy Birthday rather than it being sort of showcase for ADAPT, though I also felt like ADAPT probably does right by her and she might be happy to donate that publicity about her life for the good of others. Basically I had my little social media empowerment fantasies and started making real life plots to go to nursing homes in my area and implement my idea to get them online with wireless and take it from there. More about this later on Hack Ability.

Here are some scenes of the people and the crowd.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

I saw my friend Bethany and was very excited! We were on a panel together at the Sex:Tech conference. Then wandering around for a while I introduced myself to some women named Naomi and Joanne. They were very persuasive trying to get me to stay. I thought about calling work and begging for time off without pay, and trying to find child care, and seeing if I could change my plane ticket instead of leaving that night. Would it be possible? I considered just "accidentally" missing my plane and finding a place to stay overnight. But I'd have to accomplish all that in something like 2 hours and I didn't want to let my employers down or my family. If only I had planned to stay.


ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

Then people took off up the big ramp out of the park and up another hill to Park Manor nursing home, right next to the Rose Garden. I asked a guy to hold my hand and pull me up the hill. (Thanks!) We all marched and rolled past and waved. The Older People for Community Choice stayed outside the windows with a big banner, waving, till the end of the parade.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

Now here is the "Stay on the Sidewalk" bit, where I rant at length!

As I rolled down hill at the tail end of the march I made friends with a guy named Tali and soon we were deep in discussion about disability rights politics. Over the next few blocks we kept getting yelled at to get into single file. The march went on and on and Tali started to give me a lift - I hung onto the side of his power chair so he could pull me (and my giant backpack) up the hills (which no one who isn't in a manual chair would even think of as "hills"). We were all in the middle of the right lane of the road. Basically I don't react well to senseless orders and I'm proud of my capability to land in a strange city and get around. Also, i know how to cross the street but at every intersection another person usually one on 2 legs was screaming at me through a megaphone to keep up. This one older lady behind us in a power chair was very, very upset that Tali and I were not following the rules. I was half a lane away from the part of the street that was open to traffic and at no time was in any danger. What I think happened was a vicious cycle of this lady's instant judgement of me as a spoiled bratty child of privilege who needed to be controlled. And this kicked in all her officiousness, which in turn pushed my buttons big time so I refused to do what she said. As disabled people (or people in general) we are not served well by doing what we're told without using our own judgement. By the end of the march I was not only so mad I could spit, I was ready to go get hit by a car just out of spite. If not rolling up huge, horrible hills, being yelled at every inch while I was deep in talk with Tali, I would have liked to have a good heart to heart talk with that lady about authority, privilege, hierarchies, rules, race, disability, internalized oppression, and so on, and I mean that sincerely. Instead I lost my temper and just kept yelling No, leave me alone. The worst moment was when she decided I was too far back at the end of the line of the parade and she started yelling for someone to come and push me. "We've got a manual wheelchair here who needs a pusher" And that sent me over the edge of rage to be referred to like that. I also fight very hard to be independent in big and small ways. So it pisses me off that someone else thinks they get to decide when I need "help" which in this case would not have been help. Tali and I were cussing everyone out loudly and yelling No sorry don't need help we're anarchists. I also had some commentary from walking organizers in orange shirts about "how well I was doing"... thanks but shut up, that was a patronizing and unnecessary thing to say.

The thing is, i've been an activist and organizer for years and I know how to organize a march or parade, I know you have to get permits for it and work with the city and the police, I know how to block traffic as safely as possible, and I've been to many rallies where there are guys barking orders through megaphones at people who don't need to be ordered around at that moment, because they panic a little at being responsible and in a position of authority, and so they have to go around displaying it, because they're worried and need the feedback and reassurance that their authority is *working*. I would like to tell those guys to take a chill pill. Unless it is an actual crisis situation, you are not helping, you are just training people not to think for themselves, and causing a reaction of confusion and resentment. And in an actual crisis situation, it may very well NOT BE YOU with the megaphone and orange vest who keeps a cool head and exhibits leadership. To be overly generous, there is the opposite kind of asshole in rallies with a black bandana who is just there to fuck shit up and set a newspaper vending machine on fire and they can also kiss my ass. And I'm not that kind of asshole, i'm the *journalist kind of asshole* and also one of those rogue computer people. In any situation I look to whoever is sane and making sense and being effective. If the most sensible person there is me, then I lead. In a situation where I have information that shows that it is best for another person to lead and coordinate and there are rules that make sense, then it is best for me to go with that. That, for people fighting for "empowerment" should not be hard to understand.

Here's how I felt about it at the time and Tali too....

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

LOL!!!

Tali especially since he was put into a different "color group" as Bethany who he had specifically come there to meet as his one friend at the march and then a bunch of organizers wouldn't "let" him sit with her since he had the wrong color tshirt on or something. Um. !!?? What possible purpose could this serve. We were told over and over again that people were trying to PROTECT US. What's wrong with that statement should be a bit obvious.

Now if it is directly going to contribute to saving someone's live or helping us not be harmed in some way I can shut up about my personal dislike of orders and my special snowflake self and rights, and be dutiful for common good, but this was NOT THAT MOMENT.

Near the end of the march back I ran into my blog friend PhilosopherCrip,

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

I adore him!

We spoke super briefly and he sized up my state of mind and I think, in a post later, actually partly answered it by explaining ADAPT's organizational philosophy and how it goes into military organization mode during Actions.

Now, when folks refer to ADAPT as the “militant” wing of the disability rights movement, they are more accurate than they may realize.  To some degree, ADAPT’s organizational structure is a representative democracy as actions are being deliberated and planned.  However, when the wheelchair tire rubber meets the road, we turn into a highly authoritarian, quasi-militaristic structure, complete with chain of command and an expectation to follow orders exactly.  This has all been a matter of reflection for me (particularly how trust relationships operate within a direct action activism structure), some of which will hopefully find its way into a future blog entry. 

I appreciate that explanation very much and it goes a fairly long way to quench my irritation. However I have a meta irritation which is that a lot of the people at the rally might not have the luxury of being irritated or going off like I could to do their own thing. There was not good information passed out to people. A lot of people don't have independent means as far as money. The pace of activities was brutally fast. I was increaasingly conscious of my own extreme privilege relative to others there. I could at any point just call a taxi and go wherever I damn pleased. So I could criticize the leadership all I wanted. That is not a good feeling, it's not right or fair, and to me is a sign something is not right in a power structure. I was like, damn, I'm even more happy for my job because it means i'm not subject to being grateful to these officious do gooders to boss me around while they're "helping me" "for my own protection".

When I'm getting arrested or facing some pepper spray then I appreciate organization but being "protected" from the simple act of wheeling down the street next to my friend ... no thanks.

As an amateur leader myself in some situations I would advise other "organizers" to cope with loose cannons like me by valuing their capabilities and not trying too hard to rule over them in the small stuff. It backfires. Just let them do their thing and then when the time is ripe, co-opt them. (LOL AGAIN) (I say this mostly to make Joe/PhilosopherCrip crack up laughing)

And as I bitched about this to my friends a lot of them said "Yeah, that's why I don't really hang with ADAPT, that stuff turns me off."

That is too bad and it's feedback that should not be dismissed.

On another level of meta I would question whether the organization has a fair amount of military veterans in it who perpetuate their drill sergeant style and somewhat out of date organizational tactics. We should be empowering each other with information and two way access to public discourse in ALL WAYS so that we can act collectively in a swarm-like fashion. What y'all need is flash mobs, not paramilitary squads and cells.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

I really do respect all that ADAPT has achieved and does!!!!

But check what you're doing and listen up. Many aspects of the rally and march reminded me of my dealings in the Houston Astrodome during Katrina with the Red Cross officials vs. the rogue anarchist computer people. And I want to tell you that what on some level what got people the hell out of that refugee camp was information and connectivity: phones and email, myspace and facebook and search engines and the web. Not Professional Organizers and charity and hierarchical leadership that hugs information and power tight to its chest. A flow of information means that people can make decisions and act together. You all need some wing of your organization that works to those ends too.

Anyway, at the hotel, I actually used my privilege to take our asses to the hotel bar and have a much needed beer and sandwich in the 20 minutes before I had to catch a taxi and plane out of town. The bar waitress was SO nice and saw I was looking for a power outlet to plug in my laptop, and she brought me my sandwich to go so I could eat some of it and take the rest. She was completely unfazed by our wheelchairs. Omni Hotel, you rock. Bethany and Sara and Tali it was the highlight of my trip to get to hang out with you.

ADAPT rally and march in Atlanta, Sunday

So I flew off literally sobbing with my desire to stay there and be in the week's actions despite my rant about power structures and being yelled at, so ready to go for it.

I resolved to donate my week's salary and to exhort other people all week to donate to the cause either by directly helping someone out or donating to ADAPT to support their actions and organization.

Would anyone out there like to match my donation? Email me, lizhenry@gmail.com, or comment here.

The next day I woke up at 5am and began following what was happening in Atlanta. All day throughout work I could not stop thinking of all of y'all in Atlanta, cheering you on over Twitter, I worked to post and tag all my photos and videos as fast as possible as the only contribution I could make remotely.

What you all achieved and are doing today is so beautiful. Congratulations on getting into the Governor's office, HUD and HHS and making top officials agree to meet right then and there and begin negotiations. So smart and so effective. You got a response and got the politicians to listen and take our power seriously. YEAH. (And direct action and the threat of an endless sit in or hundreds of us dragged out in handcuffs, ie, PR disaster, IS WHAT IT TAKES. RIGHT ON.) Good job with the talk of timelines and scheduling a series of committee meetings. Please, report on this in as much detail as you can on the net. And to report on it ASAP so we know what's going down. A lot of us are watching and putting our trust in you right now to represent our interests.

Thanks for listening. Also, thanks to Nick Dupree for letting me know about the rally and actions in the first place (last week on his blog). Now, anyone who read this who can afford it go and donate. Consider trying to get your employers or family or friends to donate as well. And, go read up on the other posts in Nick Dupree's ADAPT Blogswarm !

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Friday, October 09, 2009

A decent airline experience for once

Flying while disabled often tries my patience. Today's experience on Delta was actually decent. I'm so surprised. Though I missed my flight the ticket agents got me on another one a few hours later. The guy in the pink tie was especially nice. At the gate, no one hassled me, but one of the agents came out, crouched down next to my wheelchair at my level, and discreetly talked to me in a way that was just like two human beings talking. That's rare. She asked about an aisle chair, if I needed anything, if I wanted to board first, and gave me a gate tag, without lecturing me what was going to happen and what I did wrong or acting freaked out or being condescending or hostile. Nobody talked about me in front of me like I wasn't there. No one grabbed or pushed me. Yay!

I noticed the people working for the airline were mostly dressed in jeans and tshirts and sweaters, which I also kind of appreciated and which maybe contributed to their acting decent.

I got on the plane, one of the agents carried my bag on, and no one fussed or acted like I had two heads. (If you actually do have two heads, I apologize for my mono-headular-centric language...)

They also put me 2 rows from the plane entrance and bathroom. There is wifi on the plane (though it's only free the first flight.)

Really not bad. I think it speaks more to the horrible experiences I've had with other airlines (see I am not the wheelchair or Why is airline travel so brutal for disabled people? ) but since I've blogged so negatively about airline travel, I'd like to show that it's not all about the fiery complaining over here, and give Delta some props. Get it... "props"?

Thanks for not sucking. Meanwhile, I got some work done with the free wi-fi, and I'm excited about being in Atlanta for Blogalicious Weekend, for women bloggers celebrating their diversity and so on (representing BlogHer, where I work as a web producer and developer). I'm also really excited that I'm going to get to participate in some of ADAPT's actions on Sunday and for that I'll be participating in Nick Dupree's ADAPT Blogswarm and will, I hope, interview some folks about the Community Choice Act to end institutionalization for people with disabilities.

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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Disability Blog Carnival #59: Disability and Work

I read the other day on Disability Studies blog that they were thinking of ending the Disability Blog Carnival. I'd like to see it keep going! So I offered to host this month's edition, on Work, in honor of October being Disability Employment Awareness Month in the United States. And, as I went looking for what people with disabilities had to say about work, to write a long post on Working Women With Disabilities, I wished for more blogging on the subject.

Here's the announcement - please repost and email to pass it on!


For this blog carnival, please write about anything you please on or tangential to Disability and Work.

Here are some suggested starting points: What work do you do? How's that going? Do you get paid for it, or is it volunteer work or something you do because you just love it? What blocks you from employment? If you're employed, what could be better? Do you want a paying job, or do you feel you contribute to society just fine without one? What unpaid work do you do that you value or that others value, for example, emotional support in relationships? If you're a family member, friend or ally of a person with a disability, what thoughts do you have on work and employment? What's the employment situation like for PWD in your country or region ?

Email your post URL, title, and the name you go by, to me, Liz, at
lizhenry@gmail.com.

I'll post the final Carnival on Composite: Tech & Poetics and
Hack Ability: DIY for PWD on October 25.


Thank you! I look forward to reading some fantastic posts!

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Changing ableist, racist, and sexist language habits

I really appreciate efforts in the blogosphere to change people's habits of speech. Language is important and changes all the time for various reasons. Discouraging casual and thoughtless ableist, racist, misogynist habits of thought seems like a good reason to work to change the way people use language.

Meloukhia's Open Letter to Feministing asking for them to watch, moderate, and eliminate ableist language, posts, and comments.

I'm rubber and you're glue and Open Letter to Mark Shuttleworth feelings run high on referring to women as girls, and girls/women as a class of people who don't understand technology and software (in this case, Linux).

Why Inclusionary Language Matters is especially great. Read it please!

My own personal bad habits are in saying "lame" and "crazy" to mean bad, boring, annoying, nonsensical, etc. I managed to stop saying "gay" as a pejorative around 1983 or so despite everyone around me using it that way. I think most people I know realize that calling something girly isn't or shouldn't be used to devalue a concept or a person. I became aware at some point in the last 10 years that calling things "ghetto" was racist and didn't reflect what I really thought. "Retarded" stuck in my speech till a couple of years ago. I guess I'd just like to say in public somewhere that it's something I'm not great at, but that I believe in and work on. Around my sister in private I can say "lame" all I want becuase we both know it's meant to be ironic. But where else can I say that, and even more, what harm, alienation, and even violence am I wreaking against myself when I say it?

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Duel in translation

Because of blogging on geek feminism, BlogHer, and Hack Ability, and doing a bunch of things at work, I haven't said much here. It's been weeks of verbal, verbal verbal, blogging and coding and talking. The feeling of too much looking at code is a lot like the feeling of having my head in poetry. It's hard to come out of it and be articulate like a conversational human being again. It's divine madness hanging out with the muses.

Have some poems with my translations!

From Cortejo y Epinicio
David Rosenmann-Taub (b. 1927)
1949


XXXVII
El Combate

"¿Hacer?", me retorcía el Poderosos:
"autodefé de trámites lacayos,
amolando cilicios,
acuso la nostalgia del bozal."

"¡Hacer!", blandí, de pie. Larvas... Rivales
nieblas — andamios — en los yermos: una
luz rededora decisivamente
nutría y desmigaba.


Rosenman-Taub compacts these poems with precision - but with precise attention to ambiguities and broad meanings. I interpret this poem as an internal and external battle, a response to power, a battle about action. To make, to act, to do. Action? or Action! All came to mind to translate "Hacer!" In one mood, the poem comes out like this:

Duel

"To do?" Power wrung from me:
"Auto de fé of bootlicking bureacracy,
itching prickle of hair shirts;
I blame nostalgia for the leash."

"To do!" I blare, standing tall.
Mists - scaffoldings - in the wastelands, one
encompassing light critically
nurtured and eroded.

If you grant that is a possible interpretation of the poem, what would you say it means? What is its feeling? What is opposed to what? What relationship do those two verses, those two stances, have to each other? Are they either/or? Are they one in response to another?

Rosenman-Taub's poems are puzzles, cryptograms, circular ruins. They itch at me. The language sticks into itself, words interfacing uncomfortably with each other, like burrs. The language of a mad philosopher-poet. It's a How to Think manual, but not for Dummies. As some difficult novels function to teach the reader how to read (suspiciously, and circularly) these difficult short poems teach the poet all that difficulty in an alchemical crucible. Playfully - but dead serious.

Here are two more translations of a single poem by him, "Jerarquía". They're fun!

It is a mistake when translators translate an obscure word in one language to make it easier to understand in a new. I try to go with my judgement of how awkward, hard, stuck up, dusty, a word is. caliginous for example. I let it stand in this bullfight poem.

VIII

En el poniente de pardos vallados,
de sobaquillo y verónica de oro,
juegan el hombre y la parca: embrocados,
derivan: cuadran faena. El tesoro,

caliginoso cabestre, se oculta
de la destreza de tules solares:
risco de fauces de jade: sepulta
los quioscos gilvos. La parca ¡No pares!

hace ondular sobre los inmolados
novillos. Cómplice de acantilados
cuernos, ¡No pares! se trasvina, sigue

y sigue... El hombre a las landas del cielo
ha escudriñado con garfio gemelo.
Ya no se sabe quién es quien persigue.


Like I said, a metaphysical bullfight. What a poem, interrupting itself!

VIII

In the west wind of corralled dun bulls,
of cape-sweep and stylish lance-stab, golden,
man and fate are playing: horn-tangled,
they shift meaning: dance formal faena. The best,

caliginous maverick, half-hidden
from the dexterity of sunlight lace:
rock-crag jade jaws: he entombs
the gilted grandstands. Fate - Don't stop! -

ripples waving over the sacrificial
yearling bulls. Conspirator of cliff-edge
horns - Don't stop! - transcending, on

and on... The man come to heaven's prairies
has skewered all with twinned horn;
Now who knows who's chasing who?


It's impossible to translate a poem like this literally and not screw it up. You have to know that it means something, settle on a meaning, on meanings battling, and hover over those meanings. "Don't stop!" set off from the action and repeated I think here is perfectly timed, an abruption of what the poem means and who is speaking or thinking. Who is saying don't stop? to who? We feel the audience - we are the audience of the bullfight and the dance, the fight is between the poet and the text, or the poet and the poem. Or the author exhorts us, familiarly - go on! Don't stop! Or any number of any other beautiful air-castles of meaning. The poem turns midway through from a poem about a bullfight to a poem about ways of thinking and reasoning.

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Monday, September 07, 2009

WordPress security checkup

If you aren't using the latest version of WordPress, your blog might have been hacked. There's an attack going on right now that creates and then hides administrator accounts.

You can see if this has happened on your blog by going to the Dashboard and then the Users panel. The number listed in parentheses after Administrators should match the number of actual admins that you have for the blog!

WP users panel

If that number is higher than the amount of admins for the blog, you probably have hidden users. You could try turning Javascript off in your browser to see those hidden users.

Then, delete them (if you can) from the panel. I didn't try this myself, but I think it will work.

Or, you can use mysql or phpmyadmin to delete those users from your database. If you don't remember how to connect to your database, look at the files in your wordpress folder and read the contents of wp-config.php. That will have the username and password and database host name. You might also need to look at the help or FAQ files for your web host.

In phpMyAdmin, you can find and delete the hidden users by connecting to your database, then browsing the users table. Check the boxes by the wp_users and the email fields (or just check all of them) and then click Browse again. This should show you a list of all the users on your blog.

This is what a row of user data should look like in phpMyAdmin:

wp_users-sql-good

This is what a "hidden user" account will look like. It'll be a name that doesn't show up in your WordPress Dashboard, and it won't have an email address in that 5th field. Might be a good idea to delete these users right away.

wp_users-sql-bad

I followed Lorelle's instructions for how to recover from my WordPress blog being hacked. That worked fine:

* I did an xml export from the Dashboard and made sure I knew what that file was named and where I saved it.
* I did an sql dump of the whole blog (from the mysql command line, but you could do one from phpMyAdmin too) Just to make sure I would have everything, and so that I could do some forensics later on the contaminated db.
* Then I deleted that db, made a new db, and saved the information on how to log into it. You could also drop all the tables in the old one, I guess, and keep using it. While you could leave the old db there, it seems unwise.
* I deleted all the stuff in my wordpress folder on my server. If I'd thought, I would have saved a few custom banners and images first.
* I downloaded WordPress latest version, 2.8.4 and unzipped it, along with some themes and plugins.
* I then went to the url for my blog and told the install screen a blog name and my email address, and got a new admin password. Voila, new empty blog.
* Then, from the WordPress Dashboard, went to Manage and then Import. I imported the xml file as a WordPress import, with its attachments. This brought me all my pages, posts, comments, and so on.

A little tweaking and my blog was as good as new.

Total Crisis Panic Street Sign (While Danger is Eminent sometimes, I don't think that's what the signmaker meant!)


I think for your average user, who finds upgrading and installing a bit scary, this will seem even more scary. But it's not bad at all. It just requires you to follow the steps, write down or cut and paste all the information you will need to keep track of:

- one set of info for your web host account
- one set for your sql database account and phpmyadmin
- the information for your blog itself, for the WordPress install
- where you're saving the export file with your blog posts and comments!

In a pinch, if you really mess up in this process, you can get a backup and restore from your web host.

Now, even though I went through this process, I think that someone might potentially write a plugin or script to reveal and delete those hidden users. It might not catch all the modified data touched by those users, though. Spam may already have been inserted into your old posts, or some other havoc wreaked, which you could catch with Exploit Scanner or some other useful tool. The problem with this approach might be that there are multiple versions or exploits based on this security flaw and no one is sure yet if it's modified core WordPress code or created some other exploitable security hole. So at this point, I think it's best to do a clean install if you think you can manage it.

If you're not sure, turn off Javascript in the browser, go to the Users panel, and delete the people who shouldn't be admins -- at least. And maybe there will be an easier fix in a few days -- keep checking the WordPress development blog to see if it says something more useful than "OMG, you dumbass, why didn't you upgrade right away, never, never, never do that again!" (Thanks... I know... thanks for the lecture, grumpy sysadmin...)

When I did this -- and I had to, because "upgrade WordPress to latest version" was not #1 on my to do list, and a blog of mine got messed with -- I had to re-install my plugins and go through the steps to re-create my blog. This goes to show that it's a good idea to keep a worklog of all the things you've done to a blog, or a wiki or any sort of installation, so that you can recreate it from scratch! You can do this on your blog itself, by creating a section in your About page or somewhere else, listing the plugins you use, and when you've upgraded, and so on. It is especially useful to share this information a group blog where you might have more than one administrator. If you haven't done this you could just be sure to do it next time and then write a really cranky blog post about how you don't understand how anyone in the world could be so clueless. HA.

Good luck and here's some more links on the subject!

WordPress Codex FAQ: My site was hacked
Old WordPress Version attack warning: please upgrade
Checking your WordPress security

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Monday, August 10, 2009

A dose of morning rage

This morning on my way to work at the busy intersection near my house, I passed some firefighters holding out boots to collect spare change for "Jerry's Kids". How much do I hate this? Do these people have the faintest clue how hideous their actions are, how dehumanizing, how much they set back human rights and disability activism?

My blood boils and I wanted to stop the car, get out and scream at them. Their good intentions are no excuse for their ignorance.

Sorry but I have no patience to suffer these fools or Christopher Reeve's whole thing.

Anyone in need of some education on thse points can go read

* Jerry Lewis, Oscar-sanctioned "Humanitarian". The brilliant journalist and blogger Laura Hershey tells it!

* Jesus Christ, We're Screwed - Bad Cripple's take on Josie Byzek's take on Obama's speech to disability activists

* Ragged Edge's explanation of some of the background of activism against the Jerry Lewis Telethon and its mentality

* Jerry Lewis vs Jerry's Kids - infamous "living waterbed" statement

* Bigotry towards people with disabilities

If it’s pity we’ll get some money. I’m just giving you the facts. Pity … if you don’t want to be pitied for being a cripple in a wheelchair, don’t come out of the house.


I could go on, and on...

If you want to support people with disabilities how about keep your spare change or your Telethon donations in your pocket. Instead go support what people with disabilities actually say they want and need to have an independent life.

Like the Community Choice Act!

Which I wish the Obama administration would talk about a bit more. I agree with Bad Cripple here:
What did I get out of Obama's speech?Obama wants to cure crippled people, hence he talks about Reeve and better medical care. At no point is any mention made that most people with a disability are uninsured and cannot afford health care. When obstacles are encountered in the post ADA land of nirvana the super cripple will overcome and persevere. How does he know this? Obama's father-in-law woke up early and made sure he had time to button his shirt and still get to work on time. He even struggled to walk up the steps of his home with two canes. Some how I think this was the least of his problems. Obama's words were not inspiring stuff but damaging stereotype. As Obama spoke I wondered what happened to his support for the Community Choice Act? This surely would have helped his father-in-law. No mention of this legislation was made, legislation he now supports in theory but it is off the table when talking about health care reform. Obama did not say a word, not one, about the current rate of unemployment among people with a disability. When the ADA was passed 19 years ago the unemployment rate was 70%, today it is 66% Surely we can do better in almost two decades.


If you need any more "educating" go read Nick Dupree's blog and also bookmark Blogging Against Disablism Day from this year or past years and read them every once in a while, I promise your perspective will change.

And, a personal Fuck You from me to Jerry Lewis.

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Sunday, August 02, 2009

OSCON fashion, Ignite, and beyond

I had a fabulous time at OSCON! In the spirit of my notes on the geek dress code, here's an OSCON fashion report.

Glasses were definitely IN. Me and Mario G. spaced out for a long time wearing these Trip Glasses! Maybe that's why we got into such deep conversation later in the corner of the Open Source Politics session.

OSCON

OSCON

Ingy döt Net models his 5 pairs of sunglasses. I'm not sure if this was a particular message about redundancy in code or if it was just one of those Ingy things.

OSCON

Librarian Avenger Erica had the best shoes:

OSCON

But seriously, OSCON. I had a good time and talked to a lot of smart interesting people. I hung out with Denise and Mark from Dreamwidth, with Skud, with my former co-workers from Socialtext - Casey, Ingy, and Lyssa - and with Oblomovka, Yoz, Greg Elin, and a super old school Perl monger named Dave, Emma Jane, Val. I appreciated everyone's advice on consulting and on situations where one is expected to sort of provide the diversity. (Argh.) I went to all the expo hall booths talking with people and gathering up stickers to pass out at BlogHer's Geek Lab later in the week. The only full sessions I went to were Akkana Peck's Bug Fixing talk, which was really clear and good, and the open source politics panel.

Skud's keynote Standing Out in the Crowd was great. I'm still kind of absorbing some of the reactions to it from O'Reilly Radar and from Linux World News. Women in any tech field, don your best armor before wading into those threads. My feeling is that it could have been a lot worse though and maybe we've reached a tipping point where enough people understand there's some problems and have a clue what might be helpful. For me, one of the more depressing things that happens in this field is when women with about 100 times the status and skill level I have end up giving the (private) advice that while they agree with all this and still feel it, they think it is bad for one's career to mention sexism or feminism ever. In this case, hurrah, that just didn't happen (at least that I'm aware of.) However, I think it's still the case that the vast majority of women I know in my field do feel the effects of misogyny and sexism and are often enraged by it in ways difficult to express. I would like to go further out on a limb here and say that the intersections of geek fandom culture and open source/tech people combined with the ongoing discussions of race, class, gender etc, like Racefail '09 for example, have upped the level of awareness and of discourse and have really changed some people's perspectives. Not that that translated into anyone in this discussion going "Hey, how about the rather low number of African American and Latino/a folks represented in open source at this conference and others in the U.S.?"

Anyway!

I enjoyed speaking at Ignite OSCON and hearing the amazing lightning talks.



Selena Deckelmann's talk on the election in Nigeria was pretty great. As a Postgres expert she went to connect with a few IT guys in Nigeria who were scanning and analyzing the fingerprints on a large sample of ballots. Some huge percentage of them were duplicate fingerprints. After a long legal battle, Olusegun Mimiko was declared the legal winner of the election and the governor of Ondo state.

My own talk was a short version of the DIY for PWD talk I gave at ETech.



Here's what I said, more or less:

Hi, I'm Liz Henry. Would you like a flying jetpack? I really, really would! To get them, we're going to need to apply DIY and open source ideas & organization to hack accessibility - and the idea of disability.

My wheelchair is a machine, a tool to get my body from one place to another. I'd like for it to be easy -- and possible -- for me to fix and hack. Like a bike, or a car. It's no more complex. I want root on my own mobility.

You can easily find information on how to fix a car. even though a car is like a giant polluting killing machine. There are books, tools, manuals available. The barriers to entry are low, so lots of people start car-fixing businesses.

You can find out how to fix a bike. There's tons of information freely circulated to the public. There are 20 million bike riders in the US. There's little independent bike shops everywhere. It's an industry.

But how to fix a wheelchair. 55 million disabled people are NOT feeling lucky. It's very hard to find information on how to fix a wheelchair. Or build one. How to sew your own seat back, build lightweight interchangeable parts. Nope!

Oddly, rather than being just a tool like a bike or a car, a wheelchair, walker, even a cane, is considered a MEDICAL DEVICE. Its invention, distribution, maintenance are under the control of powerful elites.

Why should you care? Well, because YOU will likely be disabled or have significant physical impairment for around 8 years of your life. That's the average in industrialized countries. No amount of individual power changes the systemic problems disabled people face.

How can you avoid this fate? Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful people on the planet, threw out his back and ended up in the worst vehicle ever. 50 pounds of cold steel, it might as well be a wheelbarrow. You can't get around in that. Bang, he's lost his independent agency.

It's not all about wheelchairs. As coders you might think about hand functionality, dexterity. People invent stuff to help with that. Most of that info's in out of print books, and on a couple of personal blogs. Can vanish into the mist ... like a geocities page...

Why should you care now? Until you need it, you don't care. When you do need it, you're busy. you're poor. and you're in pain. No telomere-fixing nanobot is going to save you from age and impairment. Impossible utopian nanobots are why we don't HAVE jetpacks.

Why isn't disability hacking more popular? Two big reasons. Attitude, and socio-economic factors. Bad attitudes are: Fear of mortality. Medical experts. Expectation of charity. Isolation. Lack of information sharing.

The second factor is systemic and socioeconomic. Your impaired body makes you disabled, so you fall under the control of the medical industrial complex. Your wheelchair repair manual or voice control hack might get you sued. Might violate copyright or a patent, might ruin someone's profit.

At some point YOU will need assistive technology. And you will want to hack it. You'll need a DIY attitude about access. You'll really need open source information structures and communities. Big projects, and the ability to customize things.

Here's some cool DIY hacks. Bicycle crutch holders made from PVC pipe. I can ride a bike, I just can't walk too well. Soda bottle prosthetic arm: a bottle, a plaster cast, and a blowdryer: cheap but it works. Crutch pockets to help carry things when your hands are full.

Here's a great project you could join. Tactile maps, a brilliant mashup for people with visual impairments. Email them an address, they print and snail mail you a raised print map. Software and hardware people are collaborating on this.

And another, oneswitch.org, a brilliant collection of hacks with step by step instructions on building one-switch interfaces to electronic devices. Control with a finger or by puffs of air. Others: Whirlwind Wheelchair international, open prosthetics project.

People with disabilities need open source culture. But existing open source culture needs the physical inventiveness and software adaptations driven by necessity, made by people with disabilities. Everyone disabled has a cool hack or two. They *have* to. Pay attention to them.

In the future... Will you be a sad lonely person fumbling to epoxy tennis balls onto the feet of your totally World War II looking hospital walker ? The recipient of charity, pity, mass produced help, at the mercy of what elite "experts" think is good for you?

Or will you be hacking your burning man jetpack as part of a vibrant community that supports serendipity, free access to information, non hierarchical peer relationships, and a culture of invention?

What will our future be? A DIY approach to hacking ABILITY... will help everyone. We'll invent cool shit! We'll open sourceily collaborate our way out of nursing home prisons run by the evil medical industrial complex AND... the future will be awesome!

Thanks.


For a bit more burbling about OSCON and BlogHer '09, see my post on blogher.com: From OSCON to BlogHer.

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Geek Lab at BlogHer 09: Hold my hand please!

Can't wait for BlogHer!

I'll Be Geeking Out
I'll Be Geeking Out

Mostly I'll be in the Geek Lab area, so look for me there and say hi!

Lately I'm having a little trouble with mobility even in my ultralight wheelchair, so I will be asking people for a push or a holding-hands tow, whenever I can! If you want to hold my hand, I'd be super happy! Just don't pat me on the head or kick my tires.

Any time I'm loitering in the geek lab or the hallways, please feel free to ask me techie questions, about your blog setup, templates, code, web hosts, and so on. And, of course, about the ad network or BlogHer Publishing Network. I'll be "on" as much as possible to be helpful to everyone at BlogHer 09! (Picture Lucy from Peanuts behind her advice booth: The coder is "in".) Yes, I will get down and dirty and look at the back end of your blog, right now, if I possibly can! P.S. I really like chocolate.


Here's my plan for BlogHer 09:

Friday

8am breakfast with Newbies
9 - 10 Welcome and icebreaker
10:30 Geek Lab! I will bounce between the CMS/Drupal session and the WordPress session.
11:45 Birds of a Feather lunch (which one! Feminist, LGBT, political)
1:15 Geek lab - probably the CSS or an advanced/CMS session - or just loitering
2:45 I will do a Geek Lab session on Dreamwidth, an open source project that forked the LiveJournal code. Want to become an open source developer working on a big project to make great social & blogging tools? Devs are mostly women and very welcoming to newbies.
4:15 Community Keynote (so good!)
ROOM SERVICE PARTY IN MY ROOM lying down exhausted. Are you a hermit? Do you need a rest? Come with me! This is where I weep gently in exhaustion before getting drinks.
6:30-8:30 Cocktail party
8:30 Sweeet & OUT loud - Queerosphere party at the Crimson Lounge in Hotel Sax
Then, more "room service party" for the Lizzard! ie, lying in bed in my room quietly communing with my beloved laptop!


Saturday

8:30am Breakfast
10:45 Geek Lab - either the .htaccess stuff or loitering
12 noon - Lunch! BOF to be determined!
1:30 Geek Lab - definitely the PHP session. Yay phpwomen and oh, how I love php.net function pages as a resource for learning. The examples and comments there are so good.

2:15 STUPID UNIX TRICKS or LOVE YOUR COMMAND LINE - I will give whirlwind tour of beginning Unix and then share some super useful tricks with awk and grep. Grep your log files!

3:00 NOT IN THE GEEK LAB - I'll be in "Burning Questions about the BlogHer Publishing Network". It's my job!
5:00 Closing Keynote - Who We Will Become (I think this is where Eszter Hargittai is gonna talk and I'm totally her fangirl. Don't miss it...)
6pm is another fabulous cocktail party which I'll miss because... I'm going to...


ROLLER DERBY !!!!

The Windy City Rollers are playing on Saturday night, about a 10 minute cab ride away from the Sheraton Chicago, at 525 S Racine Avenue, doors open at 6pm, bout starts at 7pm. Buy a ticket and come with me and team member Ada Hatelace! I love how her team number is "1337". Anyway, come and we'll liveblog the roller derby!


Windy City Rollers links:

Facebook page
Tickets!

Derby Nerds!
stats





Sunday: Brunch?? and I fly out from O'Hare at 1:30. See you!

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Dawn I heard a rag rip

Greg Hall died. He was a good friend and a great poet. It drove me crazy to see him just throw away garbage bags full of his own fantastic poetry. He could shed it as easy as he could shed another "residential hotel" style apartment or an old self. Greg understood ephemera. We're always losing things. leaving the world behind with everything we do. I keep crying to think he's not still seeing and writing and losing - losing so intensely - and leaving things behind. Now he's left for good.

Sometimes he'd send me a pile of poems instead of throwing them away. I know Robert Pesich must have some, and Walter Martin, and F.A. Nettelbeck and certainly Bea Garth has got to have a ton.

Bitter, funny, sweet, profound, never boring or pretentious, slouching around chain smoking in his cowboy boots. He could swoop into cliche or pop culture or insanity and come out of that nosedive firing anti-bullshit bullets to blow your head off. Weird staccato heartfelt delivery full of line "breaks and "quote" "marks". I will miss his strange late night drunken phone calls. The man could drunk dial you a poem or just ramble endlessly about Genet or Merle Haggard. Whatever it was would make me feel like I was flying, and could say anything, as a poet and madwoman, and it would be heard & understood. You know that feeling sometimes, with a person, when the things you might write in your most private soul broken-languagely, becoming text, just connected right in; talking to him opened that up direct to conversation. There wasn't even any leaping to it, Greg was on that rocketship to fucking mars.

Greg reading Van Gogh Ambulance at a Barbershop late night living room Non-Salon, 2004.

Greg reading Chicken Little Shark Sky maybe around 2005?

Greg reading Pirate Ship 2005


some poems from Eos


CHICKEN LITTLE SHARK SKY
One by one
the parts of a body
arrive & attach
themselves
& flight
becomes more difficult
barely escaping
collision with chimneys
I sweep
through the air
with great effort
they are sharks
the left leg
the left foot
the wrists the hands
the neck the head
"I felt a great heaviness
in the water & everything
became silent"
then I was lifted
only to be
swept down
all the while
caught in a vise
"I felt no pain"
all I saw
was the eye
it seemed flat
& dead
& then the
water
turned
red
this is
getting
old
now the doctors
with aspirins like frisbees
& tubes & wires
& admonishments
every time
I light a smoke
I felt better
when I had
no body
& all I did
was fly
blind
& ecstatic
into
the
present
without
regret
or remorse
I recommend
to the young
not to age
& to fly fast
because
the sky
is
falling



Greg's "Explanatory Notes to Poems" doodle of his attitude towards literary criticism. Funny!!!
Explanatory Notes to Poems


Just about 2 poems a year...

So here, by the grace of Liz Henry, arrives an
unobtrusive collection of 23 poems by the
troublesome trouble man, that restless and sleepy
man, the elusive Greg Hall.

These poems, spanning 12 years, intruded
themselves as others faded, the stack was about a
foot high and these fugitives from the
crumpling fist somehow charmed, each in their
own way, the madman, who, although having
written them, longed to find no value in them,
or to find them fatally marred – Anything to
allow an exit “towards oblivion”, as Genet once told
an interviewer, when asked, “Where do you think
you’re headed?”

Oblivion will take care of everyone – Though
perhaps that is better left unsaid. I’m only here
because this place, this planet, this hour, is
beautiful.

“Only in it for the poetry.”

I sincerely hope you find something to like in
these pages.

and if you don’t, or can’t, or won’t,
at least I died
with a sword in my hand.

Greg Hall
March 20, 2002



Self portrait doodle by Greg. You can see the shark from Chicken Little Shark sky (and other poems) and "The Man With the Hoe" (from the poem by Markham) in the background.
Greg's self portrait with shark and hoe

NO CHARGE


In my chubby
checker
existence
I go around
with pliers
in one hand
and a hammer
in the other
looking
for yr mother
so I can help
you out
I will twist
her thoughts so
you can find
a woman
who is not
crazy
with no screws
loose
then you
can
celebrate
the
birthday
of
yr
balls

(This poem especially hilarious out loud. It was in Cuts from the Barbershop)


I have Flame People as many people do & treasure; the poems from Inamorata, which I printed up into a sea-like little book with foam colored inside leaves; the manuscript of Whoregasm which I was going to publish with yellow legal pad paper marked up by cigarette burns and coffee mug rings and poem scribblings; Diary of a Desert Fox, and some other packets around here somewhere. Plus some recordings some of poems and some of Robert and me and Janel and mostly Greg, just rambling. But how much is out there? I wish I could read it. But more than that I'll miss his out loud readings and his beautiful conversation and his bad ass, innocent, bad attitude.



THE MAGIC OF FOREVER

In the white morning light

everything was waiting.

Even the trees

in vibrant state of tension

seemed to be holding

a breath inside.

An implied cry

such as a crow’s

concealed itself

among the green leaves.

And though it is

late in the year

later in the year

than I have ever been

I too was waiting.

And now the Moon

faded in the sky

appearing as a Goddess.

And now the wind

orchestrating the trees.

And now the cries

the crows in the leaves.

And now the flood

the remembrances of you.

And now everything is moving

and now nothing is waiting.

And because I myself am lost

nothing can be lost

because everything

is lost.




(from Inamorata, dedicated to Abby Niebaur)


That little book, so amazing, what other great books of his, one-offs, or the product of the culling out process of several years, are out there?

I'd send him poems and he'd be all like WHERE DID THAT COME FROM and I'd be like WTF MAN, out of my BRAIN what do you think? and he'd be like WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THAT and I'd be like well what about you man, what are you doing, can you just like, send that shit to people to keep for you instead of throwing it away?!

We lost touch the last few years. I've missed him. Now I really miss him. He meant so much to me. It's fucking unfair. I know how he'd be about it but it's not fucking fair.

Greg Hall




A player piano
on slack key strings
called to tell me

"I can't rest or sleep
until I know
you've found your place."

Toothache - telephone -

"I used to have
this pain. My tongue
feels for it in the empty space."

Oldwood sounding box
sweet
on the hollowphone

"Even as we speak
people we could have loved
die in their beds."

Halt sway & slur worn-down cylinders
the turned up shirtsleeves of the player-mad ghost,
his lost gloves & blind fingers
lost generation



and



Rocinante


disconnected

like him
you clutched your wrecked folder of printouts
like a derelict with a bottle of fire in brown paper
lurched about the room shy and a bit vacant,
your lifeline -


I can follow you a little ways now into the dark.

Rambling to the bus station with my bag of books.
Goodbye arthritic knees, goodbye neurotic carousel,

my mind freed to lightspeed floating in your words
your halting voice
I hear another voice

Struck, stunned, to follow your lightning words up into the dark
your soul in the stars
flying
lost the sense
the stammering gaps,
the truth in the joke,
the little squares below waiting for my patient hand –

An artist

in

the family –

like


like

immortality.

Did you stop there underwater, waiting for a tug on the line?
The slow bubbles in the blood, clots in the brain, shocks near to death.
The anguished rope of vision
the damage done to us

Faithless Rocinante how could you leave your master here like this?

like

my father, my father's father,
I fall from you like a plane in a tailspin, forgive me –
driving too fast down the highway with poetry in my lap
damaged
elementary particle I have seen photos of your tracks in cloud chambers

like

a crazy prince,
how cruel the world is!
How cruel the world’s beauty.
Old loon,
crying, haunted cracked vessel,

I follow your lightning words up into the dark beyond the thunderclouds
that cotton wool, that thick white, up to the clear night sky and the electric stars

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Planet of Swears

I'm writing some RSS feed scraper programs and while playing around with that, set up an install of Planet feed reader. It was very funny to see on the one hand, lots of people blogging or writing things like "Oh, this doesn't even need setup, just unzip it and you're basically done" -- and the Planet documentation itself saying that the config file's comments explained everything -- vs. actual step by step instructions of what to do, like burningbird's post, which I found very helpful. That's a lot of "nothing to do" to explain and it still didn't get far enough for what I'd like to figure out: how to set up one installation of Planet but also set up multiple feeds in different directories, each with their own template.

Meanwhile I'm very amused that for another project I get to write a spider with a curse word filter. I haven't had that hilarious of results since writing porn filters for Excite's web spider. My output files and screen output when swear-spider.py runs are very funny. "Asshole Detected!"

A quick search on lists of dirty words gets some very amusing Supreme Court hearing transcripts. Like so!

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), Decided July 3, 1978. The dissenting opinions are especially great!

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."
I'll try quoting that to my kid next time he frown at my liberal use of what he carefully calls "the f word".

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Kiva lending and people with disabilities

Kiva has opened up to lending to entrepeneurs within the U.S. and I think this is something disability activists and independent living centers need to jump on immediately. This won't help everyone, but it could help quite a few people with disabilities to start their own businesses.

For example, look at these Pass Plan examples.

# PASS Plan Abstract: Joseph's goal is to become a full-time office clerk for the state. He has the disability label of Muscular Distrophy, Cognitive, and Vision Impairments, and uses a wheel chair. Joseph's PASS will pay for OJT training experiences, a van, insurance, registration, gas maintenance, and a driver. This PASS will be used to purchase of a van, install lift modifications, and hire a personal attendant. The yearly cost is $1884.00. This PASS is for six years and a total amount of $11,304. This PASS comes from the Chicago Regional SSA Office.

How different would that proposal look if it were a request for capital and a Kiva-style loan (OR... a donation.) I've been saying for a while that what is insurmountable to a PWD, like simply needing a ramp built and a decent wheelchair, say a $5000 cost, would be easily obtainable through profiles and requests for donations or loans. Make the problem and the solution visible, and people will help, because to someone that $5000 is like pocket change and to a much greater pool of people on the Internet, a lot of small donations could make it up in no time. This would eliminate some of the structure of "professionals" who, frankly, siphon off 2/3 of the resources allocated to empower people with disabilities. Think of the people who have comfortable lives as professional experts who administer charity but who keep the objects of their charity in crazy poverty. It's not their fault, it's a systemic fault, but there's something deeply wrong there.

How might a Kiva-like structure combine with Ticket to Work to make it easier for people with disabilities not just to find jobs but to go into business for themselves. Look at the collectives and cooperatives on Kiva and how a group of women will band together. That's the kind of organization we might need to develop. If you get benefits and depend on them for, say, your health care, your personal care attendent, your ventilator; then you can't have any resources and are trapped in an endless poverty, you can't accumulate resources, you are kept in dependency. I have some problems with "being middle class" as a goal and yet faced with things like institutional living and the loss of control of our lives I think it's not a bad goal to work towards.

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Rebel Girl! Riot Grrl nostalgia show

This is coming up tomorrow and you're all welcome to come! I'll be reading some fun, fiery rants and giving away a few zines and vintage "riot grrl outer space" buttons.

I believe there will be accordion-playing as well!

riot grrl nostalgia reading


The National Queer Arts Festival & San Francisco in Exile Present:
REBEL GIRL: a riot grrl nostalgia show
Thursday, June 11th
The Garage
975 Howard, San Francisco
Show at 7:30; Doors at 7pm
Tickets: $10-20

Buy Tickets on-line!!: www.brownpapertickets.com

More details about the performance and the performers are at:

http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/Rebel.html

All Star, All Grrrl Cast!:

Gina de Vries
Chan Dynasty
Melissa Gira Grant
Liz Henry
Nomy Lamm
Zuleikha Mahmood
Melodie Younce

Join the National Queer Arts Festival and San Francisco in Exile for a
Riot Grrrl Revival -- where you can once again dress in your leopard
print thrift store finery, scrawl SLUT across your midriff, toss that
Huggy Bear 7" on the turntable, and make a fanzine extolling the
virtues of veganism + vibrators. It's Revolution Grrrl-Style, Now! --
with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Past and present zinestars and
grrrl revolutionaries will tell wax nostalgic about the old days, and
let you know what they've been up to recently. Zines and cupcakes will
be available for purchase.

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Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Immediate housing needed in San Francisco

K. and her three kids need a small apartment in San Francisco as soon as possible. A one bedroom apartment would work. They're looking for a rental or sublet through September, when they have housing lined up.

K. was the victim of domestic violence and called shelters in SF for months and months, to be turned away and told they don't have room, to have intake workers promise to call her back and then never call, to be told over and over - NO ROOM. Call someone else. Government and non profits, passing the buck.

A San Francisco blogger, Tangobaby, has been helping K. by telling her story, gathering donations and help from blog readers, and calling all over the city along with her to try to find resources and help. It sounds to me like they now have enough donations to pay rent on a place. In fact, at this point they could pay the entire summer's rent up front. But they are having trouble lining up a place to live.

What would you do if you were in her situation?

Think about a time you have had to go apartment hunting. And the uncertainty on - how is the landlord judging you? Now do it with 3 kids, one a 2 month old baby, while you're homeless. And while you're not white. Racism plays into this difficulty, I have no doubt of it.

I would like to propose that anyone who reads this who is in SF, contact anyone you know who owns a rental property. Talk to realtors who might know of landlords. Pull whatever strings you can to help out and contact Tangobaby if you have a good lead on a place to stay. And, here's a wild idea. Might someone who might have an easier time renting, or staying with friends, or travelling - might they move out of their own apartment and sublet to K. and her kids for the summer? Or might someone with a big apartment who needs a roommate, take a roommate with 3 kids including a baby? Think about it, and seriously, ask the people you know if they can help.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Manifesto overload - May 1, Modern Times Bookstore

Steven Schwartz and I are hosting a Manifesto reading for SF in X (SF in Exile) at 7pm tomorrow night, May 1, at Modern Times Bookstore. It will be ALL MANIFESTOS. Come by and join us in raucous, fiery polemics!

While you're there, buy lots of books at Modern Times, which is a great neighborhood bookstore that supports progressive politics and activism.

Declaimers:

Annalee Newitz - Cyborg Manifesto
Danny O’Brien - Futurist Manifesto
Daphne Gottlieb - a wild rant of a poem, and the SCUM Manifesto
Liz Henry - bitch mutant manifesto
Naamen Tilahun - an original manifesto
Nick Mamatas - a short story to set you on fire
Steven Schwartz - Dadaist Manifesto
Zuleikha Mahmoud - Femme Shark Manifesto


Manifesto!


With excerpts from the following extra fantabulous other manifestos:

Dada • SCUM • Provo Bicycle • Slut • Communist • Futurist • Unabomber • Art of Noises • Infernokrusher • Dogme 95 • International Werewolf Conspiracy • Surrealist • Bitch •
Vorticist • Turku • GNU • Femme Shark • Raver • Genderfree • Bitch Mutant • Headmap • Cyborg • Cluetrain • Anarchist • Yippie Voting • Up Against the Walls Motherfuckers • Declaration of the RIghts of Man • Bauhaus • LOL_MEME Bill of Rights • Cannibalist • And some too new to make it into this list!

Doors open at 6:30, reading starts at 7. $10-20 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of money.

AND! The party moves to Zeitgeist afterwards for Sarah Dopp's birthday.

I've loved manifestos for ages and ages. They don't pull any punches or pussyfoot around. No qualifying maybes, no disclaimers, no apologies, no hedging your bets. Take a position and state it with extreme fervor. Say it like you mean it! Rant and declare!

A few years ago Steven and I talked about editing a manifesto zine or an anthology, and that's still a possibility. For this reading, I'm excited that so many of the manifestos being read or excerpted are feminist ones!

Here are two of my favorites, done in beautiful flyers - the Why Cheap Art? and Cult of Done manifestos.

Cult of Done Manifesto

Why Cheap Art? manifesto

Hurrah!!!!

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Photoessay of the 805 Veterans disabled parking problem

Here is a visual explanation of part of the problem with disabled parking at this building.

1:48 pm Tuesday March 31st. I drove into the front parking lot. I could see the front 2 spots were full. I drove to the back. (I didn't take a photo.)

1:50 pm Tuesday March 31st. All three spots in the back are full.

All 3 spots in back full, 1:50pm Tuesday

As I paused to take this photo, a grey haired man in a suit and a dark SUV pulled into the reserved red zone, the spot next to the curb cut, where I was intending to park. I drove around to the front lot again to check the spaces there and to avoid having to interact with the man who was surely someone who works with the property manager.

A reserved spot

A couple of minutes later in the front lot, the two spaces there were still full. They are both inadequately marked as disabled spots. Frequently, people without placards park in the badly marked spot on the right-hand side.

the front 2 spots full, 1:50pm Tuesday

As I paused to take the picture above, the man in the suit who had been driving the SUV came out of the front doors and yelled something at me. I drove away, because I did not want to have any kind of confrontation with him.

1:55pm Tuesday. I drove to the back of the building again. The three spots were full, this time with the van gone and a different car in the space closest to the curb.

The back three spots are full, with a different car in the van spot. 1:55pm Tuesday

In retrospect, I think the man in the suit might have been yelling at me that there was a disabled spot open. I am led to think that he noticed me in the back lot, and knew specifically who I was.

It is a sign of the high demand for disabled parking spots at this building that by the time I drove to the back from the front, an open blue-placard spot had filled up. As I parked in the red zone in a "reserved" spot next to the man in the suit's SUV, I noted another person with a blue placard driving past me and the full spots that were marked for disabled parking. I did not get their photo however. My camera was in my pocket and I was pulling my wheelchair parts out of the front passenger seat over the steering wheel and assembling the chair on the ground next to my car.

I parked in a red "reserved" spot.

As I came into work from the parking lot I snapped this photo to illustrate that the "van accessible" spot is not properly marked or configured. The landscaping and the concrete bollard both potentially interfere with a van lift or ramp. The space is not wide enough and not properly striped.

The "van accessible" spot, which isn't.

The elevator doors in the building opened for me and I backed up to let out an elderly lady in a chair and her companion who was pushing her chair. We smiled at each other and I wished we could stop and have a good conversation. I admired the brilliant whiteness of her hair and she looked at my sparkly wheels; I wondered what she thought of them. Frankly, I enjoy getting to see the high number of other wheelchair users who come to this building to go to the PAMF clinic. We always have a friendly smile of acknowledgement or a nice word for each other.

That entire sequence (minus the guy in the van) happens nearly every day at this building no matter what time I arrive at work. By the time I leave late in the day, most of the spots are empty.

I hope that explains things a little bit better for the "able-bodied". The good thing about this experience today is that it wasn't raining.

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