Global Crisis

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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 agoWhile I can appreciate...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...