Global Crisis

2016 i3 color options. Wheel choices remain the same.BMW has added three new color options for the i3 in 2016. At the same time though, they have deleted three colors, so the i3 is still available in six different colors. The pessimist may say, "It's still only available in Solar...

A local story went national yesterday. A mother arrived at school to find her child separated from the other kids and wearing a garbage bag. According to the mother one official defended the practice by saying since there was no rule explicitly against it, it wasn't actionable.Meanwhile,...

I am a cynic about most high-prestige awards, institutions, and other fancy things. Somehow, though, the MacArthur fellowships (aka the "genius" grants) manage to please me every year. Whatever their process, which is mostly opaque, they find both high profile and low profile scholars and creators who just do outstanding work.We've had a good run of...

A proposal to build a home (note: I do not know the people building or running this home, so I cannot vouch for it. I am generally opposed to this kind of large-scale establishment, but some are alright for some people) for adults with developmental disabilities in Atlantic met with opposition. Not in backyard, they said. Then, the opposers were treated...

Fall vehicle maintenance checklist: help your vehicle adjust to seasonal changes by completing this preventative maintenance checklist.  Most of the items on this checklist are geared toward winter driving but it’s much smarter and easier to do them during fall when...

Well, my move to Wix was a disaster. I did, however, defeat sunk cost bias and moved back here. I'll be writing more about the lessons of the disaster in the next week or so.Here's what I wrote this week, even as I continue to work on my book and other long-term projects.Inspiration Porn at a Chicagoland McDonald's - DON'T TAKE PICTURES OF DISABLED...

An act of kindness at a Chicago-area McDonalds has been getting a lot of attention over the last week. A customer, Destiny Carreno, saw an employee decide to close his till and go help a disabled man eat lunch. Carreno  took a picture, placed it on Facebook, and went viral.Her Facebook post has nearly 400K shares. Buzzfeed’s  coveragehas...

Many children with Down syndrome are born with holes in their hearts. In many of those cases, the holes close by themselves as the children grow older.Unless you meet the Pope, in which case USA Today has decided to clickbait it as a miracle.The Pope asked my husband, 'How old is she? What's her name?' He told (the Pope) she has two holes in her...

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday. While this blog's primary focus is the BMW i3, I occasionally sprinkle in some featured EV products and discuss topics not necessarily i3-centric, but are instead just general electric vehicle information. In light of the recent...

Yesterday I published a brief post on Flowers v. Gopal, in which some rich California folks are trying to declare a neighboring autistic child a public nuisance. I'll have more to say about the case, including answering the, "but but he wasn't a nice kid!" comments I'm getting (short version: If he didn't have autism and they wanted to sue, they'd...

Would You Like To Learn About Your Car?Join us on October 8th, 2015 from 7pm-8pm at Wade Ford for Cupcakes, Coffee and Car Care TipsLearn all about:Under the hood checksProper Tire CareWhat is Routine Maintenance?What's in an Emergency Chick Kit and moreThis FREE event is designed...

Hey @rutgersu check this prof's email to student asking to take off #EidAlAdha (student's name removed upon request) pic.twitter.com/hMuZx1SyMB— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) September 23, 2015The above tweet details a snotty response to a student asking for an excused absence for Eid Al Adha. It's rude. It's arrogant. It's demeaning. It implies that the...

UPDATE 10/11/15: One member of the plaintiffs called me to offer their side of the story, which is that it's entirely about public safety and not about autism at all; furthermore, they claim, they only sued because the defendants served them with a cease and desist letter, leaving...

I met Arthur Chu this summer at a workshop on the problem of misogyny on the internet and we've been corresponding via email and social media a lot since then. Our writing interests overlap when it comes to representation issues in media and games. He interviewed me on the problem of claiming "authenticity" as a way to avoid diversity.Here's an excerpt:DP:...

(Reposted from 9/9/15) Jesse Stommel is leaving a tenure-track job at Wisconsin to go take a job as a faculty development director at the University of Mary Washingon. He wrote a powerful blog post about the descision, which you should read.I want to highlight just one point, out of the many, skipping the issue of the Wisconsin GOP attack on higher...

Here's a great piece from Conditionally Accepted about the way being on the tenure-track makes us conservative. It's wide-ranging and important, thinking about identity and many related issues. Read it all. Here's the bit that especially dovetails with my interests on public writing, activism, and the academy [my emphasis]:More generally, I bear the...

(Reposted from 9/18/15) Last night Donald Trump said that vaccines cause autism. It's important to remind you of a few things.1) They don't.2) The notion that autism is worse than a deadly disease reveals deeply ableistic ideology.3) See point #1.Here's a link to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's statement:While no link exists between...

(Reposted from 9/16/15 on a defunct part of the site)In West Virginia, a young man with Down syndrome is being told he can't attend the inclusive school near his house. It all started when Roy's parents noticed he was becoming more disinterested in school while attending Magnolia High School during his freshman year.In Wetzel County students with...

(Reposted from 9/14/2015 on a defunct piece of the site)Pope Francis is coming to America. Here's a media guide to his visit from John Allen at Crux (From the Boston Globe).I owe my media career to the popes. I had just turned in my tenure file and my book manuscript when Benedict retired. That morning, I was talking about how all...

The 2015 Lexus GX 460 is a luxurious midsize SUV that is jammed packed with style and performance. This vehicle is perfect for a family because its comfortable and you don't have to sacrifice the sophistication. Standard features on the base model include 18-inch alloy wheels, ...

The ChargePoint Home 25 EVSE is the latest addition to my EVSE collectionWhen most electric vehicle owners think of ChargePoint, they likely are thinking about public charging infrastructure. That's because for the past five years, ChargePoint's focus has been on installing and maintaining...

Often it’s frightening. Sometimes it’s deadly. Road rage – where flaring tempers mix with two-ton machines – continues to be a problem on America’s highways, leading to accidents, assaults and occasionally even murder. It’s a perplexing problem in part because it can happen at...