The Opportunity of Adversity – Aimee Mullins’ presentation at TED.

Mullins had her legs amputated as a child and has made a name for herself as a model, athlete, and inspirational speaker. Her talk addresses how the idea that she’s “overcoming adversity” diminishes her. It’s a great illustration of the power of language and our stereotypes about people with “disabilities.” It’s a good video for discussing language.

A comment on the TED site is interesting, though: Mullins wouldn’t be as effective if she weren’t pretty.

 

In football, according to my husband, a counter trey “is when ….. ” Some things happened I didn’t get, and I stopped listening. The context of this explanation was my dissertation on feminist rhetoric and women speakers. He did actually read parts of it, and givie me some feedback. His main response was that my dissertation sounded like a “counter trey.” He drew the play with the standard little circles and arrows to illustrate. I found that same scribbled drawing today while cleaning up. Although I don’t really remember what he said in detail, I did get the gist. To explain for me, here isRead More →

Today Rupert Murdoch called Obama “dangerous” according to an article in the Huffington Post: “I think Barack Obama would describe himself as a pragmatic leftist but he’s not an extremist,” Murdoch said. “I think he sees himself as a president for change and that involves bigger government. He’s made no secret of that. I think that’s dangerous.” This statement reminded me of something I read in the YWCA Dialogue on Race reading packet. I first heard this phrase of “dangerous negro” in an article called “Struggle and Transformation: The Challenge of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Vincent Harding, written in the mid-80s. Vincent Harding isRead More →

I’m reading Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet with a friend. We had a great discussion of the first chapter over breakfast this morning. The book is a solid choice for us to read because she’s a science-y person, and a dog person and I’m a Haraway person, so it’s a nice “collision” of our interests. I’m enjoying the book. The first chapter (and it appears to be true for the rest of the book) is almost light reading compared to Haraway’s other work. It’s still her typical methodology of hauling in everything and the kitchen sink into a cat’s cradle analysis of some interesting pointRead More →

Did I say yet that I really dislike Ann Coulter? I shouldn’t be giving her the time of day; she’s not worth it. She insinuated that John Edwards was a faggot, using that f-word, in her speech at the CPAC. Even some conservatives are calling her out for her statements. Interestingly, one article cites rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver’s Ideas have Consequences. I didn’t know that people still read him. In any case, I refuse to give Coulter’s comments any more space on my blog.

To order Baudrillard’s Ecstasy of Communication for next semester, I went to Amazon to get the facts of publication and ISBN number. Amazon does not have a picture of the book’s cover. Unlike most cases where there is no picture of the book’s cover, there is not even a picture saying the picture itself is unavailable. Indeed, if you click on the blank space where a picture usually sits, you are taken to a blank page (not an error message, just a blank page). How Baudrillard is that?!!!!