312: not deafhood, but...

I was very intrigued by this piece on Al Gore at the Daily Howler. If you bear with me...

One of the primary principles of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's novel, as well as another story by Harlan Ellison the name of which I can't remember at the moment, is that eventually a society may get to the point where Equality means Everyone Must Be Kept Down On A Lower Level.

In the Daily Howler, they've been analyzing how the media treats Al Gore. And while Gore has made mistakes, a lot of his "misstatements" have come to be true. He was right on global warming, Iraq, etc. The Press is more interested in making up stories about Gore which simply aren't true, and misrepresenting the ones that are. Update: Gore was even right on the Internet. He claimed he took the initiative in creating the Internet; most newspapers made fun of his statement. In his Wikipedia biography it notes that Vinton Cerf, a Deaf man who spoke at my high school graduation and one who truly helped create the Internet, states that Al Gore did more than any other politician to foster the internet's development. Deaf people get everywhere.

I notice the same thing happens in the Deaf community; we've got to a reasonably comfortable point in our evolution as part of the USA. We still want to improve things, but we're a little scared to leave our comfortable place. So we wind up attacking each other and pulling each other down when we do something amazing. One day we will have to attack the contradiction in our society where we feel comfortable taking massive amounts of government handouts while still claiming we're not disabled.

Not that I'm against SSI or anything. It helped me through college, when I wasn't able to get terps for classes and I couldn't work to support myself and study at the same time. Later, when I could, I was - but that's the appropriate use of SSI, to help you out when you really need it. Let's face it, life is SHITTY for Deaf people in the USA sometimes.

But right now, videophones are a big-ass government handout for Americans, and video interpreting too. And I haven't seen a single peep from Deaf people that maybe they should pay for the interpreting services. I would. I don't think the government should have to pay for my private calls. I don't think it should cost me the world either - a four minute call should cost that percentage of the terp's hourly rate. Calls to each other should still be free. And hearies should pay for the service if THEY call US. Or maybe I'm just sick of people bitching about how deaf people freeload...

But maybe that says more about my internal Ayn Rand than anything else. *shrugs*

And speaking of something amazing...

• MICA Runway 2006 is coming up!
  
• My friend Curly Sue is blogging now. Had to happen one day... I wonder if she's right in her implication that all religious loonies are really severe gambling addicts.
  
• California School for the Deaf incorporates health food into the cafeteria. OK. MSSD, you next?
  
• Stock market threw up blood yesterday - here's why.

That's all for today and maybe tomorrow as I run around like a chicken sans head.