![Clip from website that reads [title] Hit Song or Tequila Advertisement? Often, It’s Both. [subtitle] New research finds 6.4 percent of top hits include a mention of a specific brand of alcohol.](https://thoughtsnax.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/song-or-ad.jpg?w=300&h=92)
I’m going to apply for this job
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Author Archives: Amy Farr Robertson
What’s the wheelchair equivalent of black face? (Guest post!)
[I’m very excited to present a guest post by Frances Lively. She is responding to Joanne Ostrow’s August 9, 2012 column in the Denver Post.]
Dear Ms. Ostrow:
I have been a subscriber to The Denver Post for a very long time and always enjoy reading your column. You are a good writer with an enjoyable style and an intelligent approach to television matters.
I wondered, however, about one segment of your “Good News, Bad News,” column in the August 9, 2013, issue, concerning diversity. You are correct in noting that there are far too many white males and too few Hispanics featured in TV shows. But how can you say it represents a positive step forward for diversity to have Blair Underwood — an able-bodied person, albeit a member of a minority group — portraying a person with a disability? This casting makes the same mistake that “Glee” made in one of its teenaged characters and does not really advance inclusion of people with disabilities in our society.
I understand that the networks worry about ratings and would prefer to take their chances on a bankable star in the main role in a new show, but I would hope that you could at least point out this irony in your column rather than lauding the networks for this short-sighted casting. The irony of your comments only increases with your follow-up regarding Michael J. Fox, who does, indeed, have the illness that is to be portrayed in his new show, but who is himself a very well-known, long-time white male star. Perhaps your “good news” instead should have been that there are good actors available who happen to have disabilities and who would love the chance to be featured in a network television show.
Please do not file my message under the heading of “Can’t please all the people all of the time.” Instead, give me credit for not lighting into you regarding your description of Underwood’s character as “a highly capable, sexually active paraplegic.” Time does not permit a discussion of all of the problems with that statement.
I hope you will put my letter in the file for “How can we keep networks from being ignorant.” I’m sure many of your readers would appreciate your using your position in our community as a critic to nudge the networks in a better direction. Thanks very much for your time.
Sincerely,
Frances Lively
Ms. Ostrow responded:
Thanks for writing.
Agreed, it would be better to have a disabled actor playing a disabled character. but at least the character exists.
I’ll return to this topic in the future and keep your comments in mind.
Meanwhile I hope if you watch “Ironside” you’ll see what I mean about his action-hero antics…
Best,
Joanne
Praying feet
When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Sending love to everyone, in Washington and elsewhere, whose feet are praying, today and every day.
This is why I never read comments on news stories
On Friday, the judge in our case against Hollister stores and their inaccessible front entrances ordered that the violations be remedied within three years.
Red Alert Politics — “an online publication written by and for young conservatives” — gave the case a straightforward, factual write-up. There are two comments. The first is I guess a typical conservative response: it’s their store; they can do what they want. Not respectful; not even legal; but plain vanilla conservative.
The second comment was this, by someone designated with a little star as a “Top Commenter”:
yeah well obama is all about controlling and lying…he’ll cost anyone money he can, direct the DOJ to infringe on multiple constitutional rights and keep doing it…
think about this, any speech charge, using what you say in court against you – is against the first amendment, that is saying that you’re freedom is speech can be used against you – that’s a law to the contrary, or the second ammendment – you have the right to keep and bear arms….
article 6 is the supremacy clause and the oath that judicial branches, judges, senators, congressmen, even the president takes….
any charge for a speech or a gun is unconstitutional — ever wonder why when they charge people with murder charges, the gun NEVER EVER comes up? lawyers of that caliber would shit on it….just like america needs to shit on obama, and carry guns, and exercise their god given rights, that their ancestors fought to ensure were protected.
So in response to the fact that Hollister stores will be required to fix their raised front entrances to make them accessible to customers in wheelchairs, we are supposed to “shit on obama and carry guns.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I present: Conservative Logic and Spelling 101.
I think Google and I are not communicating
{Image description: Google search for “Moroccan restaurant south colorado blvd” with the following results (accompanied by thumbnail photos): Mataam Fez Restaurant; California Pizza Kitchen; Teddy’s Restaurant; California Pizza Kitchen; The Corner Office Restaurant; and The Black Cat.}
Hiking in Frisco
After a long week preparing for a [successful] hearing, Tim and I took off for a hike in the mountains. Love all the Vehicles Sharing Path:
{Image description: Paved hiking path with woods on either side. Yellow road sign on the right side of the path reads “Vehicles Sharing Path.” On the path, photographed from behind, are a number of cyclists and a man driving a power wheelchair with a Golden Retriever walking to his left.}
Had a beautiful, relaxing hike of at least [redacted number] [redacted unit of distance measurement]. Saguaro got about twice that, jogging alongside Tim’s chair as he and Tim shot ahead and doubled back for their slower, unwheeled, bipedal hiking companion. By the end, Saguaro was a pooped puppy; I couldn’t tell whether he was chilling in the shade or expressing a preference for a cooler vehicle than the minivan he arrived in.
{Image description: White pick-up truck with a Golden Retriever lying on the pavement in its shadow, panting.}
The hike was followed by lunch at Empire Burger — with hand-cut fries and a huge menu of dipping sauces — and a milkshake from Cold Stone.
Ahhhhhhhhh.
Random signs
Drove to Fountain, Colorado, today. I promise both of these signs are real.
Um, no:
{Image description: Church sign reading “Reason Is The Enemy of Faith.”}
And, um, I’d never really thought about it but yes:
{Image description: Green street sign against a blue sky, reading “A Dog Will Lick His Butt But Won’t Eat A Pickle Rd.”}
Good thing they’re pro-life in Texas
Every 2.5 Days A Construction Worker Dies in Texas
{Image description: Photo of a large banner displayed in front of a (government?) building. The banner reads “Every 2.5 Days A Construction Worker Dies in Texas.” The foreground of the photo is entirely occupied by black coffins.}
Go Bureaucrats!
As I’ve previously blogged, I’m not a big fan of the racist name of Washington’s football team. I’m pleased to report that more and more publications are taking this stand and not using the name, including Slate, The New Republic, The Washington City Paper, and Mother Jones. I’ve also enjoyed some of the suggestions for new names, including Pigskins, Griffins,
“Washington’s pro football team” or, if we get sassy, “the Washington [Redacted].”
My favorite, apparently from Huffington Post reporter Arthur Delaney:
This team should be called the Washington Department of Football. . . . At least two former Skins players were known as secretaries of defense, including Dexter Manley and David Deacon Jones. So clearly, this is a name that would honor local tradition much better than ‘Redskins’ does.
Go Bureaucrats!*
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* Defined, my Dad always said, as a Democrat who has a job a Republican wants.
The ramps of Route 1
[Cross-posted at CREECblog.]
Every summer or so, we visit my brother and his family at their place in Maine. To do this, we generally fly into Boston and then drive the four hours from Logan to mid-coast Maine. The first three hours are on I-95; the last hour or so on Route 1 from Brunswick to Thomaston. It has long struck me, as we meander up the barely two-lane road — often at 30 mph behind a giant RV or tractor — the amazing number of very small businesses that have ramps.
This past weekend I made the trip with no deadline and no one else in the car, so I had the time* to take some photos of these examples of readily-achievableness. (Ready achievability?)**
Disclaimer, because every now and again some defense-side attorney (hi, guys!) may read this: I did not evaluate these ramps for compliance with the Standards. I don’t know their dimensions or slope. If you try to introduce this as evidence in one of my cases, I will file a Motion for Judicial Notice of Completely Missing the Point.
The first couple were actually near Manchester, NH, where I had taken a detour to visit a college classmate.
These next two are churches, which aren’t even covered by the ADA (unless they have some sort of commercial business on the side):
Onward to Rte 1:
This actually might have been someone’s house. Along Route 1, the distinction between house and business is often sort of vague.
Just north of Wiscasset.
Jean Kigel Studio, Damariscotta.
Cheap cigarettes in Waldoboro.
Somewhere south of Thomaston.
The Hair Loft, Warren, Maine.
Unidentified business, Warren:
The famous Moody’s Diner, Waldoboro:
Ralph’s Homes, Waldoboro:
Random business south of Waldoboro:
The Nobleboro Antique Exchange:
So next time you hear some fancy store or chain claim that it’s not readily achievable to ramp their business, here are some examples to, in legal terminology, call baloney.***
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* My leisurely pace turned out to have been a good plan for another reason: when I got to my brother’s house, he and his family were out and their house was guarded by their snarling goldendoodle. Seriously. This dog
exiled me to the hammock until my hosts returned to chaperone my canine interaction.
I was not suffering:
** Under the ADA, buildings built after January 26, 1993 were required to be accessible. 42 U.S.C. § 12183(a). Those built before that date and not altered since must remove barriers — by, for example, ramping entrances that are only accessible by steps — where it is “readily achievable” to do so. 42 U.S.C. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(iv).
*** I might have used a different word if not for the cross-posting, but I’m trying to keep it clean on CREECblog.
Thought Snax 