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Should the disabled have equal access to break the law?

Thursday, May 11, 2006

It is a lot easier to break the law and go against the system when you are not disabled. For example, the ADA (American Disabilities Act) fights to give people with disabilities equal access to education, jobs, and entertaintment. However, I went boxcar jumping with a paraplegic yesterday and NONE of the boxcars had wheelchair ramps. He complained about it, and is going to write a letter to the ADA, but we both don't expect much. How can disabled people expect to be treated equally when they can't break the law as easily as others?

I hate when I read about those disabled drug addicts who have sworn to resuscitate their souls by going on the school circuit to preach the virtues of staying on the straight and narrow. We have cancer survivors, burn victims, drug dealers, and destitutes from all walks of life addressing students all over the country. (There?s a cause, save our youth from administrative boredom). They say that they can overcome any obstacle and be productive, happy people. Often they reach ultimate pretention with phrases like, "Maybe talking to these kids is the reason God left me here." But what if, instead of teaching obedience, a disabled person wants to teach kids to be unproductive citizens just like them?

We have disabled people who use their disabilities to do what they normally would have and subvert the system. We have paraplegic dumpster divers and train hoppers. We have ?disabled? anarchists, porn stars, prostitutes and shop-lifters. To get a peek, I went on a dumpster diving run with a friend to get a real glimpse into the excess of western culture; what we throw away tells far more than what we publicly display. Why should anthropologists who cross the line between what's legal and what's not be discriminated against?

the first proof

Monday, May 01, 2006

Critical and analytical thinking are yet to provide me answers. This fact, amid a searing epistemelogical yearning, leaves me dying a slow death. It is the death of knowledge.
But non sequitur you must say; surely critical analysis is the pathway to knowledge, and to this I concord not, yet as you soon note, I offer no alternative.

I should be a scientist or a religionist. Both, though they employ differing language and differing ways of thinking about the world, do empower the individual with an epistemelogical methodology that favor the hopeful. And yes, I am full of hope, or atleast, I am full of a desire to possess hope.

Why then the discontent for either? Why must I ever run from science or religion? Is it simply because of their innability to "prove the first proof"? Why must I be so concerned with that first proof? Without it, it seems as if I am building my house upon the sand.

Dam this heroic quest for its perpetual and epic scope. It is nothing more than that. If I embrace answers, then by necessity the search for knowledge and the quest to prove the first proof must end. Is that the real reason behind my discontent for answers? What a fool I will feel, if someday, it is revealed to me that this was the case. That I cast away angelic music for my disbelief; not disbelief of angels, but of their ability to play.

  • On 10:11 AM, Blogger Alonzo Riley said…
    Dam it! yes dam it! I like that turn of phrase. Because, well, it IS like a well, a welling up that is only temporarily contained. You can stop the flow for a little while with a good god dam, but it just builds the pressure. The torrents of currents can't be held back forever. So, where do we locate the pearly flood gates?