Home » Archives for September 2014

Quick Call for Comment - NEH Summer Seminars

Tuesday, September 30, 2014 0 comments
UPDATE - 10/07/2014: I am still collecting comments focused on how being abroad in an NEH seminar or institute made a difference to your teaching and scholarship. I am now waiting on FOIA requests to be delivered and am sticking on this story as long as I can. If the comment page doesn't work for you, email me at lollardfish@gmail.com

COMMENT MODERATION IS ON. I will publish your remarks ASAP.

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The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sponsors summer seminars that bring groups of scholars from all stages of their careers together. They meet in an appropriate setting, engage in discussions, hear lectures, work on their own projects, and engage in what we call "experiential learning" of various sorts. For medievalists and early modernists, the people I know best, there's also usually plenty of time in the archives.

In the past, they have been hosted around the world. But here's a surprise in the current call for proposals [my emphasis].
Prospective applicants to direct a Summer Seminar or Institute in the summer of 2016 (application deadline, February 24, 2015) are now encouraged to submit to program staff an optional preliminary sketch of their proposals (deadline, December 15, 2014). You can find the form for the preliminary sketch (in MS Word) under "Program Resources" in the sidebar on the right. NEH staff will also continue to provide feedback on partial or full application drafts (deadline, January 24, 2015). Both opportunities for receiving feedback are optional.
Please note also that projects outside the U.S. and its territories are no longer supported.
I am writing a piece about the consequences of closing off the world. I think it reinforces prestige culture and is based on this criticism from Senator Sessions, a man who is not fond of the humanities in any context.

If you have a comment on why the programs are important to you, please leave it here, on Facebook, on twitter, or via email. Email me at lollardfish@gmail.com if you want anonymity or have trouble with the comment system. Please let me know who you are as I may choose to quote you directly in my piece [Still writing!].

UPDATE - Here's the letter sent out to some past program directors last week.



Thanks.

The Empty Room - Indifference to Disability is Ordinary

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One of my absolutely favorite writers on disability, Lydia Brown, is at Georgetown. She's an increasingly well-known voice on disability issues and, not surprisingly, was asked to provide a training to student organizations about accessibility. She agreed.

No one showed up.

In a powerful post, Brown explains what the empty room means.
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the utter disregard that disabled people face every day at Georgetown than this. That of literally hundreds of student organizations with hundreds (possibly even creeping into the low thousands) of students involved on their boards or other leadership positions, not even one person deemed it worth their while to learn about access and inclusion.
She then acknowledges that yes, people at Georgetown are busy (aside - also jaded if they turn down free pizza), but it was a huge pool, and not one person decided that disability issues might possibly matter to their groups.

There is hate and scorn for people with disabilities out there, yes, but that's not the problem. It's the casual, structural, ableism, in which disability issues vanish, in which when we talk about diversity on campus, we mean race, gender, and class, not ability. Even when we throw ability into the list, we don't actually act on it. When we act on it, unless it's mandatory, no one comes. When we make it mandatory, we build resentment, hate, and scorn.

Here's how Brown finishes:
The empty room means that our fight is less against willful hate and more against the easy ignorance cloaked in the privilege of never having to live a disabled experience -- the privilege of never being guilted and shamed into going to an event that you lost the spoons for but had requested an interpreter for beforehand -- the privilege of never having to decide days in advance whether you will go to an event or not -- the privilege of never having to wonder whether you'll be able to access the handouts, presentation slides, or speech of the presenter -- the privilege of not worrying whether other attendees' perfumed products will induce an allergic reaction, meltdown, or physical illness -- the privilege of not sitting on edge in case something triggers a seizure -- the privilege of not thinking about whether something will surprise you by triggering a panic, anxiety, or PTSD attack -- the privilege of not having to think about whether you can even get into the fucking building -- the privilege of being able to go to any event you like, anywhere, with little difficulty or inconvenience except perhaps finding parking --

The empty room means that this state of affairs, a state of affairs in which our completely avoidable and unnecessary yet routine exclusion from programming on campus is simply ordinary.
I don't have an answer except to share Brown's writing and to share her frustration. Right now, I am editing our ADA documents to try and make them more robust. We will end up with stronger rules, clearer guidelines, and more resentment for the "special perks."

Today, I have no solutions for this.

Nissan announces U.S. pricing for 2015 Nissan NV200

Monday, September 29, 2014 0 comments

Nissan today announced U.S. pricing for the 2015 Nissan NV200 compact van, which is on sale now at more than 350 Nissan Commercial Vehicle dealers nationwide.
Now in its third year, the popular Nissan NV200 Compact Cargo van continues to set the standard for compact cargo van design, combining a small exterior footprint and excellent fuel efficiency with a large cargo capacity and outstanding versatility.

The 2015 NV200 also offers America's best commercial van warranty, increasing basic limited warranty coverage from 3 years/36,000 miles to 5 years/100,000 miles, whichever comes first. The powertrain limited warranty has also been extended from 5 years/60,000 miles to 5 years/100,000 miles, whichever comes first.

Enhancements to the NV200 for the 2015 model year include the addition of new Rear Sonar and Sliding Door Glass Package options; updated NissanConnect℠ with Navigation and Mobile Apps; a 1-mpg increase for highway and combined fuel economy – now 24/26/25 mpg city/highway/combined; and two new exterior colors, Cayenne Red and Graphite Blue.

The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Prices** (MSRP) for the 2015 Nissan NV200:
Nissan NV200 S $20,720 USD
Nissan NV200 SV
$21,710 USD

For more information visit www.NissanUSA.com 

Transphobia and Miscegenation - Won't Somebody Think of the (Cis-gendered) Children

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My first ever op-ed was published in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul Star Tribune. It was in 2006 and on the use of medieval rhetoric to talk about modern problems in the Middle East, a situation that continues today.

Over the weekend, the Star Tribune published this full-page ad raising the worst kind of fear-mongering about transgendered children. It says:

"A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter.
Are YOU ok with that?

So, that's pretty hateful. The context is that the MN high-school sports league is considering passing a transgender inclusion policy, and good for them for doing so. Of course, any attempt to take a step forward like this is immediately met with bigotry.

Here's a few points. 

1) Nowhere does the full-page say "paid advertisement." That seems unethical. In fact, it seems like they went out of their way to re-format the sports page to fit the ad, as shown here.


2) More importantly, while I understand that newspapers are broke, the decision to run this kind of bigotry - patriarchal (protect the daughter!) as well as transphobic - speaks poorly of the newspaper. The ad reminds me of this:


Or perhaps this


Or any number of other anti-miscegenation propaganda, as stored here on this excellent archive.

It's long been observed that the anti-gay-marriage arguments mirror the anti-interracial arguments almost exactly (fun site: Can you tell whether these quotes are anti-gay or anti-interracial marriage?). 

So congrats, Star Tribune, someday you too may be featured in an archive of bigotry so that we can look back and shake our heads and feel vaguely smugly superior to our ancestors. 

Or, perhaps you could decide not to publish transphobic, patriarchal, fear-mongering, hate speech.

Sunday Roundup - Cops, Ableism, Job Market

Sunday, September 28, 2014 0 comments

This week I had one published piece and a blog on the conference interview in academia, a practice that puts financial pressure on those with the fewest resources. It must end. My next step will be to try and understand why it isn't ending.

I wrote a piece using the language of "presume compliance." As a police officer who reads my blog commented (and who I learn a lot from), the presumption of compliance would lead law enforcement officers (LEOs) to absorb too much risk; and yet, how do we get to a sensible middle-road position without pushing hard in the other direction. So as a thought experiment, not as a real policy position, I will continue to think about a presumption of compliance as a principle. 

Meanwhile, South Carolina cop presumed non-compliance, shot someone, and was arrested and fired promptly thanks to video-camera evidence. Good work SC.

I shared a set of negative comments from CNN demonstrating Ableist Abuse. Grim, but it's important to see the evidence.

Finally, Special Olympics Washington sponsored a Run From the Cops event which demonstrated both privilege and ignorance. They eventually changed it and offered a non-apology explanation for the event.

Did you know that white suburban America has "run from the cops" or "cops and robbers" or related events for fundraising all the time? More on this to come.

Presume Compliance - Miller, Hunt, Crawford

Friday, September 26, 2014 0 comments
In the world of Down syndrome, we talk about "presuming competence" (hey, go buy a shirt!). That instead of "awareness," we'd like to see a shift to a general presumption of competence first. More on this in pieces to come.

I've been working, though, on ways of re-describing the strategic problems with police procedure as it feeds the cult of compliance. Police operate on a presuming non-compliance basis, so as soon as they get any evidence to confirm that presumption, they too often strike.

What would "presume compliance" policing look like? How dangerous would it be? I keep thinking that to roll back the proto-police state, we have to ask police to assume more risk, and that's going to be a very hard argument to make.

Here are three stories, though, of when presuming non-compliance leads to fatalities.

On Saturday a deaf man was shot and killed by Florida deputies, allegedly because he didn't comply with commands quickly enough. Here's the story:
Hernandez, 35, fired his service weapon, killing Miller, because he perceived a threat, a sheriff's office spokesman said.
The sheriff's office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are investigating the shooting, and would not release further details.
Miller's 25-year-old son witnessed his father's death. He told the Ledger that his dad, who only had two percent of his hearing, was further impaired because his hearing aid was broken at the time. He denies that his father was a threat.
“I kept telling them that he can't hear them,” the 25-year-old, who's also named Edward Miller, told the Ledger. “I kept telling them he can't understand them.”
The son told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that Hernandez shot his father six times while his dad sat inside a vehicle in the tow yard.
Meanwhile, there's John Crawford. The surveillance video of his death has gone viral just as the Grand Jury has declined to convict the officers that shot him. Attention has rightly focused on the 911 call in which Ronald Ritchie told police Crawford was waving the gun around, including at children.

Crawford wasn't. He was on the phone, distracted by the call, and likely didn't hear the police until just seconds before they shot him to death.

Then there was Darrien Hunt, the man with a sword shot in Utah as he ran away. Most recent reports think he was cosplaying from . The Guardian says [my emphasis]:
Attention was swiftly drawn online to Hunt’s remarkable resemblance as he walked around on the morning of 10 September to Mugen, a swordsman character in the short-lived Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo. The Comic Con convention had also taken place in Salt Lake City, about 35 miles to the north, the weekend before the shooting.
Hunt’s aunt, Cindy Moss, previously told the Guardian that a witness to the confrontation with police had told the family that Hunt “had his earbuds in, and was kind of doing spins and stuff, like pretending he’s a samurai”.
These three stories are obviously very different. Miller was white, Hunt mixed race but appeared black, and Crawford black. Crawford had a fake gun and a lying 911 call (which is probably criminal in Ohio, I'm told). Hunt had a sword and was acting "weird." Miller had been shouting a lot and that was interpreted as anger, rather than hearing loss.

The differences matter and what I am about to say does not erase them.

These are also the same story. A man with a permanent or temporary hearing impairment - deaf, phone, earbuds - gets the attention of the police, doesn't respond to verbal commands quickly, and so the presumption of non-compliance leads to death.

Being deaf in front of the cops is dangerous. That's long been clear. But just as we all move in and sometimes out of different stages of disability, putting on earbuds or listening to a phone call also renders you less likely to process verbal commands, functioning like hearing loss in terms of creating a vulnerability to a trigger-happy law enforcement officer.

The only solution that I can see is to change the strategic approach on a fundamental level to "presume compliance."

BMW M Guy Now Drives an i3

Wednesday, September 24, 2014 0 comments
Manny and me when I took delivery of my i3 back in May.
Some of you may recognize the name because Manny Antunes was my client advisor for my ActiveE and my i3. He works at JMK BMW in Springfield and has established himself as the go-to guy for BMW i cars in the New Jersey area and has sold more i3s than anybody on the East Coast. Well he just delivered another one, but this time he was not only the client advisor, but also the client!

While Manny has always been a strong supporter of BMW i and the i3, he never let on to me that he would be interested in getting his own i3. He's an ///M specialist (his Twitter name is m5manny) and I don't think even he thought he would get his own i3 until recently. The first hint that he may be interested was the day my i3 was delivered to JMK. It was the first time he saw an i3 in Laurel Grey in person and I could see how he was staring at it. It was a lustful type of a stare and he even made a remark (I can't remember exactly what he said), but it was something like "Now that's an  i3 I could see myself in" and I remember being a little surprised by the comment. Fast forward a couple months and he sends me an email that he's joining the electric life and just ordered his own Laurel Grey i3. I couldn't be happier for him and I'm certain he won't regret the decision. He may not know it yet, but he just took the first step towards leaving gas behind for good. My guess is it won't take him too long to realize he just doesn't need or want it anymore. He thinks he's doing it for the fuel savings. Little does he know he's going to simply like it better after a couple months.

Below is Manny's story, which he provided to BMWBLOG:


Hi, my name is Manny and I’m a BMW M Certified client advisor, and I just bought a BMW i3. Let me clarify one thing, I’m also one of the first BMWi certified client advisors and have been in the BMW EV program since I delivered the very first ActiveE in January of 2011. My heart still lies with the M cars and spending time at the track, but I simply don’t need a track car as a daily driver, what I need is an i3.

Used To Be An “M Guy”

Living in NJ there aren’t many occasions to drive an M5 or the new M3 and M4 to their fullest potential. And honestly driving a track prepared E39 M5 like I did for many years became a chore. Maybe you can chalk that up to old age (I’m 42 now) but driving this beast regularly began to beat me up physically. It was equipped with KW variant 3 coil overs and Dinan sway bars. Stiff is a word commonly used to describe the ride in my M5. That and the full SuperSprint exhaust with X-Pipe became a nuisance to my neighbors when I’d get home late at night from work.


When the opportunity arose for me to represent my BMW Center back in late 2010 for the then upcoming ActiveE field trial I jumped at it. Being a product guy I love learning about anything BMW, plus the opportunity to meet a new demographic of BMW buyers intrigued me. Who would buy an electric 1 Series I thought, well I would soon find out. The clients I would meet were actually car fanatics, much like myself they loved driving their BMWs as much as any other, but they knew something I didn’t yet, the EV fuel free lifestyle and the instant torque. Oh man that torque!

I’d also like to add that EV owners can afford just about any BMW in our lineup, and most certainly the fuel costs associated with some of our V8 offerings. They buy an EV because they love the instant torque, the immediate throttle response and that thing about not spending money on gas. That last part is important because it’s something that really drew me to owning an EV and in particular the i3.

What Has Drawn Me To The BMW i3

So what do I love about the i3? The fact that its “Life Module” is made entirely of carbon fiber produced at BMW’s Moses Lake plant in Washington State which makes it the lightest BMW currently offered for sale. This Life module is mounted on top of the “Drive Module” which holds the 22.8kW battery, much like body on frame construction. Being that the other components of the car such as the body panels are made from thermoplastic the whole package is very light, 2634 lbs for the BEV version and 2799 lbs for the REx.
Could the i3 be a contender for a class win at a future autocross day? We’ll find out in the spring.

The engine, not your typical engine, but nonetheless a fun one. It won’t win any horsepower wars but at 170HP and 184 lb-ft of torque all available from the second you mash the throttle, provides a rush of power similar to driving a silky smooth BMW V12. In fact the i3’s power-to-weight ratio is a very respectable 15.49 lbs/HP. For comparison the 335i rear wheel drive is 11.98 lbs/HP, a 535i rear wheel drive is 13.19 lbs/hp, and a 228i is 13.72 lbs/HP. But it’s all about the torque with the i3, not the horsepower. 

Is The i3 The Perfect Daily Driver?

So let’s boil it down, why did I buy an i3 for a daily driver? Three important aspects:

  • The lowest weight in any BMW making it a very toss-able car in the turns
  • The instant torque allowing for some interesting stop light Grand Prix
  • For my daily commute I wouldn’t have to buy gas.
Care to try it out for yourself? Put in a call to your local BMWi center, a third of the BMW dealerships are currently running a program for an Extended Test Drive on the i3. You get to experience the i3 and all its virtues for 3-4 days. Much like our own Chuck Vossler did and now he’s getting an i3 of his own, while he still owns a E92 M3 and a Porsche 911. There must be a theme here.

The i3 I purchased is an Range Extender REx “Mega world” with the optional 20 inch wheels and a few options like DC Fast Charge and heated seats. Personally I love the Laurel Grey with the BMW i frozen blue trim, it really sets the color combination off. I’ll have another article out soon on the custom bits I created for my i3 such as the custom painted calipers in BMW i blue and a few other touches.
For now I’m just enjoying passing fuel stops that I used to stop at only to hand the attendant $60 every five days.

Yes, the drive is fantastic as well but I can’t get over my fuel savings costs. Now I have more money to save to buy another track car.

South Carolina Shows How to Handle Police Violence

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In South Carolina, a state trooper pulled over a man for a seat belt violation. The man got out of the car, as he was heading to a gas station, when the trooper confronted him. The man ducked his head into his car to get his license and the officer opened fire. The man leapt backwards, shot in the hip, hands up, apologizing.

The victim is black. Fortunately, he's fine. The trooper is white. This is a story we've seen before.

Here's the twist.

The shooting took place on September 19th. Today, 9/24, the officer was arrested on a charge of "assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature." He was also fired.

Here's a report on the initial shooting and the arrest, and here's a link to dashcam video.

We give police enormous powers, but they can be held accountable. Now, the officer may not be found guilty, but I applaud the Department of Public Safety and the DA for doing the right thing.

The Academic Job Market - Fundamental Premises

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Yesterday I had a piece at Vitae on ending the conference interview and last week I had a blog post on the same topic, as a sort of prequel.

Today, I offer a few fundamental premises.

1. The job market today is about adjuncts, not graduate students.
A lot of my friends and colleagues and random internet commentators suggested graduate-training programs offer to fund sending their students to conferences if they get interviews; in fact, many programs do just that, if they are wealthy enough. But not only does it encourage another level of have/have-not, unless the programs are offering to fund grad student trips to conferences for 4-5 years, often long after they've finished their PhD, such a proposal doesn't solve the problem.
In modern academia, fewer and fewer people go straight from graduate school into a tenure-track job. Most adjunct for awhile or, if they are lucky, get post-docs or fixed-term positions. Any system has to protect them from financial exploitation.
Departments should send their graduate students to the annual disciplinary conference, though, in order to take advantage of all the professionalization and networking opportunities (and learning how to pitch books) that one can find there.
2. The conference interview is already dead.
We have a reliable technological fix that is only getting more reliable. My cellphone is better at video conferencing that the highest-tech suites of 10 years ago. Academic interviews will all turn into a round of video (or phone) followed by on-campus. This is not neoliberal. This is not corporatization. It's just efficient and smart. We don't need to be in the same meatspace to do a set of screener conversations.
It also has the benefit of being cheaper for the adjuncts and grad students. See point 1 (and pretty much every essay on this topic).
So the choice is this - take command of the funds used to send interviewers to conferences or see them lost to the general budget.  
3.  The video interview protects from certain forms of bias.
I didn't say this in my essay, but I've heard from a number of people - women who were pregnant in particular - that they are more comfortable concealing potentially bias-worthy features about themselves over video interviews (or phones). Pregnancy, in particular, is notorious red flag for departments, raising the specter of the "mommy track." It's true that on-campus such things may be visible (or there may be a baby or pumping breaks), but by that point the seachers are more invested in the candidate as a whole person. 
More to come on this topic. I am going to work very hard to get information from people doing conference interviews. I want to hear why. I want to hear what they think I'm missing.
 
 
 

National Drive Electric Week a Smashing Success!

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 0 comments

Back on October 16th 2011, I celebrated the first National Plug in Day at the only event being held within driving range of my MINI-E. That was held in New York City and was one of 29 events held nationally. Last year National Plug in Day was expanded to a weekend (even though we still called it "plug in day") because there was such interest we wanted to have more opportunities to hold events. There ended up being a little over 100 different events and it was indeed so successful, that for this year and moving forward it will be called National Drive Electric Week, and we'll dedicate an entire week to host events.

My MINI-E on display at the very first National Plug in Day back in 2011
This year there were an amazing 152 events taking place in 5 countries, 39 US states and 6 Canadian Provinces. There were 150 different cities in which owners of over 3,000 electric vehicles registered to display their cars and share their electric driving experience with the public. The Cupertino California event set a Guinness World Record with a parade of 507 electric vehicles!

I was the city captain and host of the Montclair, New Jersey event which I held in the parking lot of my restaurant. We had 32 electric vehicles show up and a lot of people stopped by to ask questions and check out the cars. We even had a couple owners allow some people to test drive their car and give the person a chance to experience electric drive first hand.
Mercedes Benz of North America brought a new B-Class Electric Drive for display
Mercedes Benz of North America brought one of their newly released B-Class Electric Drives and had a representative there to answer questions about the car. I noticed it got a fair amount of attention throughout the afternoon as most people didn't even know Mercedes was selling an electric car. However the real highlight of the day was when two BMW i8's pulled up. It was actually the first time in the US that two i8's were together in public other than the initial press drive event a few months ago. Not only did we have the cars, but driving them were the two of the top BMW i executives in North America! Jacob Harb, head of EV Operations and Strategy for BMW North America pulled up in the white i8 and Jose Guerrero, Chief Product Manager for the i3 & i8 arrived in the Ionic Silver one. They both talked to the crowd, answered questions and Jose opened up a couple cases of BMW i pens and key chains and handed them out. It was a great showing by BMW and was really appreciated by everyone.
Why settle for one i8 when you can have two?  :)
The i8 is an awesome vehicle, but I'm perfectly content with my i3. I do however, want the Frozen Blue seat belts from the i8 for my i3. They would go perfectly with my Tera World interior so if anyone at BMW was wondering what to send me for Christmas... just sayin' : )

Of course I had to get some seat time in the i8. I actually got to drive an i8 last month but the i8s at the event were not available to test drive. I want these Frozen Blue seat belts transplanted into my i3!
It's really great to see how far electric vehicles have come in the past five years. Back in 2011 when I attended the first National Plug in Day I couldn't have imagined that in three short years we would be where we are now. In 2011 the electric cars we had on display were a Tesla Roadster, a Nissan Leaf, a Chevy Volt and my MINI-E which wasn't even available to the general public. At my event this year we had: a Tesla Roadster, Tesla Model Ss, Nissan LEAFs, Chevy Volts, a Honda Fit EV, BMW i3s, BMW i8s, a Mercedes B-Class ED, a smart electric drive, a Ford Focus EV and a Toyota RAV4 EV. There is still a long way to go for mass electric vehicle adoption but we are well on the way. Manufacturers are bringing cars to market and EV charging infrastructure is improving. Infrastructure deployment may not be going as fast as many electric vehicle supporters would like, but it is indeed happening.
The owner of this Honda fit offered test drives for those interested. Much appreciated!
2015 promises to be even better with more electric choices coming to market. Volkswagen will release an electric version of their popular Golf, Audi will introduce the A3 e-tron and Mitsubishi will bring their extremely popular Outlander plug in hybrid to the US in the spring. The Outlander PHEV has been a smashing success in Europe and Mitsubishi can't even make them fast enough. In some markets it has even eclipsed the Nissan LEAF to become the top selling plug in vehicle. Yes, the electric revolution is indeed underway. I want to thank everybody who attended this year's event and hope to see you all again next year!

REVIEW: 2014 Lexus ES350 4-DR Sedan

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After six generations, the Lexus ES sedan is still going strong for 2014-- The  ES350 4-DR Sedan is chic, comfortable and jammed packed with power its comes equipped with a 3.5-liter 268 Horsepower Four Cam 24-Value V6 Engine. The ES features independent suspension all around for a smooth, effortless ride. Standard amenities include Bluetooth wireless connectivity, R/V monitor, driver's information center, and remote control with smart access engine start.


Automatic on/off projector bulb headlamps with Integrated fog-lamps/LED Daytime Running Lights

Full Dash View

Rear Sunshade

Sunroof

Price Point: $36,470 starting msrp 

You can visit http://www.lexus.com/to learn more about Lexus vehicles

Highlights from CNN comments - #AbleistAbuseIs

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Ableism in Action - These are comments from my recent CNN article on Kanye West. These are not trolls. These are people genuinely trying to express their thinking. Italics are me. Many of the issues here relate back to my post on "Hidden Disabilities," featuring longer comments from readers.

hgflyer lollardfish • 7 minutes ago
While I can appreciate your article, and while I am mostly sympathetic, I cannot get on board with handicapped parking. I feel that item should be removed from the ADA, thinking that if you're disabled to the point that you need a special parking spot, then you probably shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.
If you need a special spot, you shouldn't drive

zzlangerhans • 34 minutes ago
Aaarghhh! These kinds of articles are so irritating. It's obvious to anyone but the most rigidly humorless that George Takei wasn't accusing a woman of faking a disability (who would choose a wheelchair over walking?) but rather MAKING A JOKE! Kanye, clumsily, was doing the same. Part of the reason that people recognize those names (along with those like George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, and hundreds of others) is that they don't conform to your uptight standards of what is verbally permissible. A real society needs that, not your neverending list of nonos and restrictions.
People give dirty looks to people who walk comfortably from their handicap spots because they support the handicapped, not because they think they are all faking. Many of those people use their relatives' handicap tags, some of whom have already died. The bureaucracy is lax and we all know it. As the son of a person in a wheelchair, I had to park many times in a regular spot and struggle to get her out because the handicapped spots were full. I didn't give the young healthy people in the handicap spots dirty looks, but I had a few choice thoughts for them. If you actually know a person with a serious physical handicap, they will tell you being "forced to prove their handicap" is the least of their worries.
Please stop trying to correct everyone's behavior and stop comedians from making jokes. You're a bore and an annoyance.
Interestingly, the people with serious hidden disabilities tell me that being forced to prove their disability is one of their most stressful worries. "It was only a joke," furthermore, is the cry of the abuser or the enabler of abuse.

FactsRBad • 35 minutes ago
Few months back, I saw some young adult park in a handicap spot at the grocery store, get out of his car and run into the store as he was apparently in a hurry. This is not an isolated incident. Getting a handicap sticker for your car is very easy - and I've seen too many folks who get out of there car and move just fine abusing the process. There should be some stricter standards.
Again, parking is the the thing everyone focuses on. It has a semiotic value that's fascinating. The wheelchair symbol carries power but limits our understanding of what disability /is/.

Lilly Que • 44 minutes ago
Stupid! I've never seen or heard ANYONE question a person's disability. You are making a problem where one does not exist. And Kanye is nothing but a pathetic narcissist. Those people paid for their seats not the other way around and if someone wants to sit, lie, or jump up and down on that seat, or not, it's none of his business.
Kanye is the problem, not society

Howda Yadoo • an hour ago
It's a two way street. There are those that claim disability that are not disabled so they can get free money. In turn, this causes many to question the actual disabled because of the stigma associated with it. Claiming disability has been the new form of welfare since the late 90s and many of us that have worked in the field have seen it first hand. It's unfortunate but it's also real. I feel bad for those with "invisible" disabilities but I believe you're pointing the finger at the wrong people. It's those that abuse the system that have caused the crooked stares.
Come to my Facebook page, read the comments from people with hidden disabilities, and you'll see that these people above are mistaken.

Update - Special Olympics Washington Apologizes, sort of.

Monday, September 22, 2014 0 comments
Special Olympics Washington tweeted to me this:
Special Olympics WA@SO_Washington
@Lollardfish Our apologies. The intent was not to glamorize or offend. The name has been changed to “Run with the Cops”. Plz read below:
They then deleted that tweet (hence no link), but later re-confirmed that they are changing the name.

Here's their statement in full. I offer a few thoughts.

It was started by a police officer. I believe in his good intentions.
Since the first “Run from the Cops” here in Kennewick, other LETR programs in the US have contacted us soliciting the specifics of the run in order to create their own “Run from the Cops” SO fundraiser. I personally have been contacted by three other US state programs who have started their own events.
The Run was not intended to be a negative reflection of law enforcement, nor was it intended to glamorize the act of “running from the police.” It is solely designed to be a fun, family‐oriented event, ultimately benefitting Special Olympics. In the three years we have hosted the “Run from the Cops”, we have raised gross funds of approximately $28,000, and touched at least 1000 people, just counting the actual participants.

On a personal note, had it not been for the “Run from the Cops” here in Kennewick, I would not have had the opportunity to meet Joshua. The attached photo shows Joshua competing again this year at our Run. He has competed every year, and absolutely loves the opportunity to be involved. His mother has expressed to me her personal gratitude as Joshua looks forward to our event all year long.       
I believe that he and Joshua have a good relationship.I believe that they have raised money. I am sure that other privileged communities think, "oh, that's fun and funny!" That's wrong.

I want you to imagine a group dedicated to relieving poverty in minority communities held a "run from the cops" event.

So, with protests of having meant well, Special Olympics is changing its events. It's a small start. I hope they think long and hard about what it means that so many communities don't see running from the cops as something that's funny.

BMW NA CEO Willisch Talks i3 With Lou Ann Hammond on Driving The Nation

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Lou Ann Hammond of drivingthenation.com recently spent some time with BMW of North America's CEO Ludwig Willisch talking about the i3. One thing I found interesting is Willisch said that BMW has tradmarked all of the numbers from i3 through i9 for the use of future vehicles. I had always heard they had tradmarked i1 through i9, and didn't start at i3 as Willisch indicated. A simple trademark search reveals BMW does hold the trademark for all the names from i1 through i9. So either Ludwig made a simple mistake, or perhaps he slipped and let out the fact that BMW doesn't have any plans to ever produce an i1 or i2. This of course isn't earth-shattering news, I just found it interesting that he indicated that the reserved names start at the number 3. 

The other thing I enjoyed was all of the MINI-E and ActiveE footage in the video is of me driving my old cars. You see me plugging in at my restaurant, driving the MINI-E around in New York City and driving my ActiveE up my driveway at home. Willisch also talks about the dealers being excited about carrying the i brand. That's good news to hear because as with other manufacturers that introduce electric cars, BMW has struggled a bit so far to get the dealers up to speed with these new vehicles. They are definitely doing work behind the scenes to improve this, but there is still a lot to do to get their client advisers ready to embrace the i3. It's going to take some time, but I'm happy to report progress is definitely being made. Enjoy the clip!

Hat tip to InsideEVs.com for finding the video. 

Special Olympics - Run From The Cops; Fund-Raising Based on Privilege

Sunday, September 21, 2014 0 comments
In Washington State, the Special Olympics organized a number of "Run From the Cops" events, with the final one taking place next week. I'll let them explain.
Grab a “partner in crime” and support the more than 10,000 Special Olympics Athletes across the state in this unique nighttime 5K. Walkers, runners, kids and costumes are welcome. All participants will receive an event t-shirt!
Special Olympics Slammer!

Law enforcement will be staged throughout the course “encouraging” participants to finish in under 45-minutes to avoid being corralled and placed in the Special Olympics Slammer! Those not finishing in under 45-minutes will be ticketed for not out running the cops.
I know this is meant to be in good fun, but it reflects a lack of understanding of the fraught relationship between police and people with disabilities in this country. Moreover, it embodies a kind of privilege that needs to be called out. More on that at the end.

Most of all, it offends me on behalf of all the dead bodies of people with disablities, bodies of men and women who ran from the cops, or didn't obey the cops, and were killed by them. This is not a joke. It's life and death for the people we are and the people we love.

First, as readers of this blog know, running from the cops is among the most dangerous actions a person with disabilities can take. Running from the cops violates compliance, violating compliance leads to tasing, beating, and shooting. At least once a week, I find a new story about someone with a disability failing to comply properly in the eyes of the police, and gets hurt. So this event is lampooing a behavior that results in death for far too many. There is, for example, speculation that Darren Hunt in fact had special needs (though this as not been confirmed). He was shot repeatedly in the back while running from police. Linking disability to running from the cops is not, in fact, fun or funny.

Second, the whole "slammer" language also bothers me. Prisons are intensely dangerous places for people with disabilities, while also becoming the default place to put an "unruly" person with psychiatric disability.  The Rikers Island cases, reported by the New York Times, focus heavily on the such abuse. Linking disability to being thrown in the slammer is not, in fact, fun or funny.

EDIT: Third, as Walkersvillemom says below, all the false confessions from people with intellectual disability, resulting in unjust convictions, jail terms, and even death sentences. Some have died. Others, like in North Carolina, were released after 31 years.

I have asked Special Olympics Washington for comment and will publish it if they respond. I'd like to know who came up with this event.

To me, the whole thing emerges from privilege, and it's a privilege I share. Today I was walking with my kids towards a playground. A police officer left her car and came walking quickly towards me. I never panicked. I never got defensive. I never ran. She gave us free "slurpee" coupons, then, as my son (a 7-year-old boy with Down syndrome) approached the police cruiser, she asked me if he would like it if she turned on the lights. He did. He made his "lu-lu-lu" siren sound and was difficult to pry away from the car so the police officer could go back to looking for motorists using their cellphones. Only a passing train took his attention away.

This is normal in the white middle class suburban world in which we live, and I am grateful for that. I am grateful to the police and would rely on them to help if my son ever got lost. I am so very privileged in my relationship to law enforcement. I know this, and the goal is to extend that privilege to every community, of all races, classes, genders, and levels of ability.

But I would never make the mistake of thinking everyone shares that privilege, or that being thrown in jail or running from the cops was funny.

Because it's not funny. On the other hand, if Special Olympics Washington wanted to get attention for their event, they got it! We're all paying attention and the next move is yours.

Sunday Roundup - Disabilities and Proof

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This week was focused on what the Kanye West incident tells us about disability in our culture.

  • I wrote a brief blog post about it here, linking it to another post on the "pencil test."
  • It got a very good response, so I wrote another piece about it for CNN, building on the argument.
  • That too got a big response, so I wrote another piece about disability as a spectrum, rather than a simple either/or binary. 
  • Finally, at the end of the week, I took two emails (which were emblematic of another hundred emails and comments), and wrote them into yet another post about Hidden Disabilities. In some ways, that may be the most important piece of the week, highlighting the voices of a skeptic who wants to be a good person, and a person whose disabilities cannot be seen.
This week embodies what I value about the blog. Any individual post might get from 100-2000 readers, but the posts are iterative, linking together, building a more complex argument or set of examples than any single piece of writing, and periodically poking through to mass media. I am grateful to each reader, each share, each comment.

I also wrote two other little posts.

  • One about #JusticeForEthan, a topic to which I return again and again, and the terrible brother of the sheriff who wants to deny people with disabilities and families of people with disabilities their independence.
  • Another about conference interviews, a practice in academia that perpetuates inequality. More on this next week when Vitae publishes an essay of mine. 

Hidden Disabilities; or, You Have No Idea What You Are Seeing

Saturday, September 20, 2014 0 comments
Last Tuesday, CNN published an essay of mine that took the occasion of Kanye West's bad behavior, in which he demanded fans prove their disabilities, to talk about the way that this happens to people with disabilities all the time. 

Response was mostly very positive, but I always pay attention to criticisms, even though I don't let them wound me. The two interesting ones were:

1) I was letting West off the hook for his ableism. I wasn't, and most people saw the clear condemnation of his actions in the essay, but I could have said a more clear KANYE WEST WAS BEING BAD clause, I guess to make it more obvious to casual readers. That's actually a good note for me as a writer - never assume a point is too obvious. 

2) The second criticism basically agreed that West was a bad man, and that people with disabilities have it rough, but then try to shield themselves from my criticism of their suspicion and doubt. They say - and I had roughly 25 of these comments and emails and tweets - there's so much fraud! What can we do but doubt? (and no doubt more in the 1300 CNN comments, but I have not read those carefully, as there's so much noise it's hard to find signal there).

To this, I point to the many more people who took time to write about their experience with disability and the way that the suspicions affect them. I'm going to quote two emails, identifying marks removed, with permission of the senders. And then offer a few more comments at the end.

Email 1: Criticism. I have bolded a paragraph I find interesting.
Dear Dr. Perry,
I read your essay on CNN’s website, "Kanye West and proving your disabilities.” So many of your comments were spot on, but you failed to mention at least one motive for why people want to see proof of disability: that many people are abusing the system. Those of us who have to cope with genuine disability issues resent the abuse. In my opinion, the number of people who are abusing the system is growing.
My mother is 85 years old, has Alzheimer’s disease, depends on a walker for balance, and cannot walk far. She has had several accidental falls. We carry a handicap hang tag in our car for the times when she is with us. My mother loves to go out on errands with me. It is a marvelous treat for her to leave her “Reminiscence” residence and spend time together. I take her out when I can (about once a week), even though her mobility problems, cognitive impairment, and incontinence slow me down a lot. It is my gift to her. My wife’s 89 year old father is also disabled with arthritis and gout. He uses a walker and sometimes must resort to a scooter/wheelchair. We use the hang tag when he is with us. We do not use the hang tag unless my mother or father-in-law is with us. 
All too often when we arrive at a destination, EVERY handicapped parking space is occupied. All too often, I see people who appear to be abusing the handicapped parking spaces. I am not so callous that I do not give them the benefit of the doubt. I do not glare or stare or judge or express disapproval. You are right, there is no way to know for sure. 
Nevertheless, I have seen many people who are unquestionably abusing the system. They do not have invisible disabilities. I am not a doctor. Obviously I do not have access to their specific diagnoses. I do have basic common sense. I have seen young mothers swinging and tossing their children as they all skip to their cars in the handicap slots. Trust me, none of them were disabled, invisible or otherwise. I have friends who have worked as insurance investigators. They have told me about cases where they photographed “disabled victims” doing decidedly non-disabled activities. I can cite other examples, but you get the idea.
In my opinion, there are two types of abuse: 
1. PEOPLE RECEIVE DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS WHEN THEY DO NOT REQUIRE THEM 
I recognize that our populace is aging. Furthermore, a growing percentage faces worsening health issues, some of them due to poor lifestyle choices. Both are contributing to an increase in the number of individuals who genuinely need and qualify for disability accommodations. The growing numbers of the genuinely disabled are a contributing factor to the declining availability of accommodations, such as handicapped parking. With that understanding, I also believe that more people than ever before have recognized the advantages of disability accommodations and found ways to game the system in order to qualify and use them even though they do not require them.  
2. PEOPLE ABUSE THE DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS OF OTHERS
Normal, healthy people abuse the handicap hang tag that belongs to a parent or other disabled person. I believe that the number of people who do this is also growing.  
CAVEATS:
I am not an expert in the field. The basis for what I have written is my personal observations and the observations of those whom I trust. I cannot cite specific data or research, but I believe that a well-run scientific study would confirm my assertions. 
SUMMARY:
I believe that many people are abusing disability accommodations. I feel frustrated and angry about it because of the direct impact it has on my mother and father-in-law. I recognize that many people have invisible disabilities that are not readily apparent, but I also believe that I have seen numerous examples of abusers, too.  
Those with invisible, latent disabilities have a right to feel oppressed and angry at those who would judge them and their situation. Your essay provides good examples of why we must avoid judgement or expect proofs of disabilities. I hope that those who have invisible disabilities share my frustration and anger at the people who abuse the system, for those disabled individuals must also deal with similar lack-of-available-accommodation situations. 
Sincerely yours...
So there we have it. One of the interesting things about this is that it opens with a discussion of fraud, but quickly turning to the thing we all focus on most: handicapped (or rather accessible) parking. I'd like you to notice that paragraph I bolded. It starts with "unquestionable," but then says, "I believe..." He perceives, he trusts his perceptions, and he judges. This is just one of the reasons I work so hard on how we portral/represent disability in our culture. People think they know what disabled looks like, but they have no idea. People think they know what "disabled activities" look like, what disabled people can do. So let me set you straight - disabled people, as a group, can do everything. Some can do some things. Some can do other things. Some can do some things some of the time, other things none of the time, and all things most of the time.

The author and I had a highly productive email exchange in which I talked about the ways in which our perceptions deceive us and ended on a good, open-minded note. I like this emailer and hope he's reading this blog (he said he'd check in). But rather than let me go on, here's email #2:


Dr. Perry,
Thank you for writing about those that have physical issues that can't be seen. 
I suffer from pulmonary fibrosis, my lungs are so scarred that breathing is pretty difficult when I'm in motion. I also have polymyositis and my muscles weaken pretty fast when I use them for anything. Up until about 5 years ago I did triathlons and was in terrific shape. Fortunately that is one of the major reasons that I am still alive today - that I conditioned my muscles and lungs so well. The problem though is that I look to be in top notch shape but my insides aren't worth a cuss! 
When I go to public places and am unable to find parking relatively close, I park in the handicap space. I've had a handicap permit for two years now. There have been times when I get out of the car and people give me the meanest looks. Just last week a lady approached me, she was so angry that she was practically spitting when she spoke to me. After I pulled out my iPhone, showed her my medical info with all of my conditions, the meds that I take, the team of doctors that take care of me and all the procedures that I've had, she was in tears. She was a nurse and knew very well how debilitating my condition could be. Also as I talked with her it became very apparent that my breathing was becoming very labored - at rest I get that way when I'm stressed and talking long. Anyway, she thanked me for teaching her a valuable lesson.

My son plays for the COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM REDACTED. Just this past weekend I attended the game, had to park far from the stadium. A golf cart drove by, with handicap sign on it for those that needed a ride. I put my hand out to signify that I needed them to stop for me, twice the people driving said no, wouldn't even listen to my explanation. The third guy stopped because I stood in his path. I explained my condition, he begrudgingly let me ride but made it very apparent that he didn't believe me and was pissed that I was even in his cart. 
I hope many read your column and think twice about judging those that look to be perfectly fine because they may very well have life threatening issues like I do.

Well thanks for letting me vent in the middle of the night - can't sleep because of incredible pain from all of my medical issues. I will be forwarding you column to my friends, who understand but hopefully they'll share with others that are not sensitized to this issue.
So here we have someone who had to prove her medical condition to a total stranger in a parking lots. This is the quotidian version of the Kanye concert.

In my comments, in my email, I have dozens of these comments, these stories, in which a challenging medical situation becomes harder because of our suspicion and doubt, because even a smart nurse educated in disability issues still feels the right to demand a diagnosis in the parking lot. Not even the right - that nurse with her medical knowledge felt a duty to question, to challenge, to force proof.

I offer three conclusions.

1. Disability is not a binary, it's not a yes/no, disabled/abled. Disability takes place along a spectrum, or rather multiple spectra, as we move in and out of disability over our lives or even over the course of  a day. Read more on this here.

2. There is fraud. There will always be fraud. The question is how much fraud are you willing to tolerate in order to make sure people get the accommodations that they need? In the context of situations like social security, we have procedures in place designed to make it hard to get qualified. People do cheat the system, but there's lots of evidence that people with hidden disabilities actually have a hard time qualifying, even if they need it. Any system doling out benefits will have fraud. It's just a question of how much do we tolerate.

3. As for parking. Reader 1 is angry because it's a scarcity model. There are only a few parking spots, his mother and father-in-law sometimes can't use a spot, and that makes him mad. It intensifies his suspicion. Instead, we need more spots, more accessible parking, more golf carts for rides, more universal design. The scarcity model causes problems.

Also, I think, the symbol causes problems. We have formed a link in our minds between the wheelchair and the parking spot. Even Kanye West said, in his definition of disability, "Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and s**t." The wheelchair, the parking pass with the wheelchair on it, these are the symbols of disability in our minds. That's a problem of representation too.

Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Harold From California

Friday, September 19, 2014 0 comments

My name is Harold and I was born electric on August 19th, 2014. 

There are two parts to my story here. The first is about my path to selecting and buying the i3, and the second is about my experiences owning and driving the i3.


PART 1:  
“IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.”

When it comes to global warming, I’m embarrassed to say that for far too long my wife and I were part of the problem.  We’re a two car family, and over the years we’ve driven a series of big, luxury, premium fuel guzzlers. As recently as 2007 we each had one of the full-size Range Rovers. Yikes, and yuck!

I gradually realized this was not tenable, but I found it very, very hard to give up the comfort (I’m 6’3 and don’t fit in most cars) and sportiness of a big luxury SUV. The very thought of shoehorning myself into the ugly and painfully boring Prius hybrid was enough to make me puke.

So my first tentative step in the right direction was to sign up to make annual contributions to one of those carbon-offset charities. I even got vanity license plates that said “I OFFSET.” Wow, how big and how brave of me!

Then BMW came out with a diesel version of their X5 so I dumped my Range Rover in favor of that on the theory that at least I would be burning a lot less fuel. As nice a car as the X5 was, it ended up only getting about 16mpg, and I also came to understand that the diesel wasn’t as clean as I had thought it might be.

Meanwhile, there were more hybrid cars coming on the market, but all still seemed to frumpy for me.  I’m sorry, but I live in California and I spend a ton of time in my car and I want it to look and feel great!

And then Audi launched their stylish little Q5, and I dumped the X5 in favor of this smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle. But even that only got around 20mpg. 

So about a year ago I started the search for my next car. I did my first exploration of EV’s. The RAV4 was too clearly a Toyota. The Leaf, which a neighbor of mine happily drives, drove like a turtle to me.  The Volt was claustrophobic – and a Chevy to boot. The Tesla was way cool, but I actually don’t fit very well in it and, at least in the San Francisco area, driving one has already become interpreted as a sign that you are an obnoxious snob.
So, I had resigned myself to getting the new edition of the X5 diesel, which promised to deliver significantly better – and cleaner – mileage than the original one. And then one day while I was checking out the new X5 on one of the BMW forums, I saw something about the coming of the i3. It looked weird as hell in the photo, but it sounded intriguing. I started to follow stories about it. 

I went to a car show in San Jose to see it in person. I fully expected to discover that I could not fit in it, but when I sat down in the model on display I discovered that it had more head room and leg room and better visibility than my Q5. (Of course at this point, BMW was showing it with a sunroof – more about that later….). Plus, the interior design was stunning. And the exterior, while weird, was weird in a sexy way.  So I was hooked.

When the test drives started happening in the Bay Area, I went to them at three different dealers.  Driving the car was a total blast (all the more so with the sunroof open…..) and I had to have one. I went to my dealer and said I’m willing to pay MSRP for one of the first ones you get, I just need to get two key options – the sun roof and the REX. Can you arrange that please?

And then things started to fall apart. For one, it turned out the sunroof was not going to be offered in the US.  No reason for this has ever been provided, but that alone was enough to put me off.  I’m claustrophobic, and I always felt I needed a sunroof to have the feeling of openness they give. And then some negative stories started to appear about the REX – a review in Europe said driving with the REX was like driving in limp-home mode, and then it was revealed that the REX was being modified in the US in ways that made it seem even less desirable.  And,  being new to EV’s, I was at that point too chicken to go the full BEV route.

So, I abandoned my quest for an i3. I signed off of the i3 forums and facebook group. I went back to my dealer and started haggling over prices on the X5 diesel again. But the x5 diesel remained in hot demand,  and I couldn’t get what I thought was a reasonable price. And then the i3’s actually arrived. I saw two in one day “in the wild.” I went behind my dealer’s back and went to another dealer to test drive an i3 again.  I found that even without the sunroof it still felt very open. And it was just as fun to drive as I had remembered. 

So I went back to my CA, said you’re not going to believe this, but I want the i3 after all. He laughed very heartily. We worked the numbers for a while. I ended up doing the two year version of “owner’s choice.” (Went with owner’s choice vs. lease to get the full advantage of the federal tax credit,  and went two years rather than three just because I expect the EV technology is going to advance pretty rapidly over the next couple of years and I may want to move to the next edition sooner rather than later.) And within just a few weeks I was driving my new Andesite Silver Terra i3, loaded up with everything except for the 20” wheels.  And, surprise surprise, I even got over my fear of running out of juice and went with the BEV instead of the REX.


PART 2: 
“WHO SAYS MEDICINE HAS TO TASTE BAD TO BE GOOD FOR YOU?

As I mentioned earlier, a key factor that kept me from switching sooner to a more environmentally correct car was that they all just seemed too ugly, too uncomfortable, and too boring. I wanted to do the right thing for the planet – but I wanted to still be able to enjoy driving at the same time.

Thankfully, my i3 has solved all three of those problems for me. 

While I will admit that the exterior is a bit of an acquired taste, there can be no denying that the interior is stunning. Yes, the materials are all very environmentally friendly, but more important to me – they are gorgeous. The design is very fresh,  very high tech,  and yet very simple. Among the features I like most are the floating high definition screens (one for the instrument cluster stuff, one for the navigation and multimedia stuff) and the eucalyptus dash. I also really appreciate the openness of the cabin and the great sight lines.

The interior is also quite comfortable. I was initially skeptical about the thinness of the seats.  As a veteran business road warrior, I have equated the steady thinning down of airline seats over the years with an equally steady decline in the comfort of those seats. Well, I can only hope that the designers at Boeing and Airbus get to drive an i3 soon so they can see how to make a thinner seat super supportive and comfortable.

And as for the driving experience, well, I haven’t had so much fun driving a car since the very first one I owned.  First comes the peppiness. As the folks at BMW are fond of saying,  the i3 is the fastest car they make from 0 to 30 mph.  And I believe them now!  Zipping in and out of city traffic is as easy as can be – aided by how tight the turning radius is. Likewise, accelerating on to freeway ramps and passing at freeway speeds is also quick and easy. When we had a meet up of Bay area i3 drivers recently,  I had t-shirts printed up for everyone that carried this message: “I drive a BMW i3.  So you can eat my dust, not my exhaust. You’re welcome.” Trust me, the message is appropriate: this car hauls ass.
It's hard to see in the picture, but the blue T-Shirts everyone is wearing are the shirts Harold made up for the Crissy Field i3 meet. He was even gracious enough to send me a couple in the mail. Photo credit: Dino Ignacio
The steering is also very tight. I’m sure it has some degree of electronic assistance, but it doesn’t feel in the least bit mushy or vague. If anything it’s too responsive – you have to be attentive or it’s a bit too easy to oversteer.

The ride is firm, but in a good, BMW way. If you don’t want to feel the road at all, then this is not the car for you. But if you like to get some feedback from your driving, you should like this.

I really like the quietness of the car. If you keep the windows rolled up, it is super quiet; there is of course some wind noise at higher speeds, but I have not found it to be objectionable. And, at the same time, if you drive with the windows open, you can actually hear the sounds of nature!

I’m still learning all the fancy new tech tools.  Love the Harman Kardon stereo, love being able to use apps like Pandora and TuneIn. Appreciate that iDrive has gotten clearer and more manageable, though it still requires a learning curve. Love the collision avoidance system and the adaptive cruise control.  Haven’t yet tried the self-parking thing – but haven’t felt the need either, as this is the smallest car I have driven in ages and I would feel like a total wimp if I couldn’t park it by myself.  : )

As for downsides of the i3, anyone who buys this car has to accept that they are on the bleeding edge of technology and that things may go wrong. And they have for some of the early owners. But, knock on wood, after just about 1,000 miles, the worst thing that has happened to me so far is that one morning while I was driving along a nearly empty six lane freeway a warning message popped up on my screen that said something about “Danger – objects detected in roadway.” There were no objects to be seen, so I ignored the message and kept on driving and the message ultimately disappeared.

Also, if you choose as I did to go with the BEV instead of the REx, you will probably find yourself being more than a little bit paranoid about monitoring how much charge you have left. I have been running somewhere around 75 miles per full charge – a little less than what the EPA says, but then I drive with a bit of a lead foot and I leave the AC on all the time. So far I’ve only once gotten the dreaded verbal warning “you have 15 miles of range left,” and thankfully that happened when I was only about a mile from my house.

One other downside is that, to my way of thinking, the i3 is not practical as a family car. The “suicide”  doors (aka coach doors) make access to the back seat just too awkward for regular use, especially if you are trying to cope with child seats.

OK, so the i3 is good looking, it’s comfortable, and it’s fun to drive. But how does it do on my original overall reason for getting it, which is to help address the problem of global warming?

Well,  for one thing I have not been to a gas station since I got the car. And will never have to go to a gas station with it. Take that, Exxon and BP and the rest of you big oil companies! (The vanity plates I have on order for my car will read: “I86DGAS”) And, at least according to the i3 mobile app, so far I have already saved 530 pounds of CO2 from being pumped out into the air.

So,  in sum, thank you BMW for giving birth to the i3 so that I can at last do my part for solving global warming – but do it in a way that fits my own selfish needs for style, comfort, and fun!


PS- The i3 may not be right for everyone, but there are now plenty of EV’s on the market – surely one of them will be right for you!
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Thanks for participating Harold! If you drive an i3 and want to share your Born Electric story here, just send me an email and we'll set it up! tom.moloughney@gmail.com

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