Journalist – Historian – Speaker
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 …
Get it? It’s a roundup! Today is Sunday. I am not watching the NFL. For me, being a football fan was a major part of my identity, one that intensified with the advent of Fantasy Football. As the concussion scandal intensified, I began to scale back my engagement with the game. First quitting fantasy, then …
My semester has begun and I’m working on a book proposal. I’ll tell you all about it if it goes anywhere. These things are eating up some of my writing time. Still, it was a pretty lively week on the blog. The story I didn’t tell yet is on Medicare rules for speech devices. The …
It’s been a busy week of writing and I hope you are enjoying this holiday weekend. Most of the week was spent on the cult of compliance and police violence. I started with a piece on CNN on 4 police killings of people with mental health issues. I argued that we need to think about psychiatric disability …
It’s been quite a week. Since the publication of my Al Jazeera America piece on the cult of compliance, I’ve done a bunch of press, written a few new essays, prepped for the start of classes (tomorrow!), and pitched some long-term projects. More news on that when there’s news. I was so swarmed with topics …
This week I wrote about Down syndrome in two context: abortion issues and comedy. Many thousands of people read my CNN piece on Down syndrome and comedy. I am deeply impressed by Wyatt Cenac’s willingness to call me and talk at length about the bit and his approach to comedy. To me, it’s what resolution …
I’ve been busy researching several new pieces this week so the blogging has been a bit light. That’s likely to continue next week as well. Bear with me! Good stuff is coming. The most important piece I wrote this week was about the efforts of a radical right-wing group to use Down syndrome prenatal testing …
I had three essays published in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week, 2 planned (they normally won’t post on the same day) and one a reaction piece. I’m exceptionally proud of my university’s work on undocumented students, and in general of the way that many Catholic universities have responded to this issue. Making decisions about …
Unexpectedly, Eden Foods became my big story of the last few weeks. It introduced my writing to thousands of new readers, for which I am grateful. I came to this topic because it’s about language and power. Like any consumer, I wrote Eden to complain, got their response, and thought, “grotesque,” now there’s an interesting …
Every Sunday I post a roundup of my writing from the blog and any external media. Next week, by the way, I am expecting copyedits of a scholarly book, Sacred Plunder: Venice and the Hagiographies of the Fourth Crusade. I’m excited, but it may limit my blogging for a few weeks. The end of the …