Project Runway and the Wheelchair

I know that Project Runway, one of Bravo TV's reaility show takes on Survivor, doesn't want unsolicited program ideas, but I'd love it if they'd think about this one:

Although the segment wasn't without its problems, I loved last year's show in which the contestests designed an outfit for a fellow contestant's family member. I know the contestants weren't thrilled (ahem...) about designing for someone other than a fashion model, but I loved that the producers prodded both designers and audience members to consider exactly what fashion is and who it is for on a broader canvas than what is traditionally considered the fashion world.

Well, I've recently developed a mobility problem which I hope is temporary but which may not be. This morning, when I was looking online to familiarize myself with current available assistive living devices, I found ASSIST IRELAND. As I was digging around on the site, I discovered their terrifically useful information pages. The one called "Clothing Ideas for Wheelchair Users" (here) set me thinking back to that model-in-the-family Fashion Runway episode last season.


If the folks who create the project ideas for Fashion Runway look at the web page cited and then take into account the following statistics, I think they would see the relavence/usefulness of a show in which the designers are asked to design for a disabled person:
*In 2005, the percentage of working age individuals reporting a disability was 12.6 percent in the US.
*In 2005, the median annual labor earnings of working age people with disabilities working full-time/full-year was $30,000 in the US.
*[I]n the US, among the six types of disabilities ... the highest prevalence rate was for people with ?Physical disabilities,? 7.8 percent.
*In 2005, 51.6 percent of working age people with disabilities were women in the US.
*In 2005, 10.9 percent of working age people with disabilities were ages 21-29 in the US.
[Source: "2005 Disability Status Reports
United States." StatsRRTC, Cornell University. Online.

Think what an emotional boost it could be for many disabled people to see at least a handful of talented designers consider not only their physical needs but their fashion sense needs as well.

Anybody out there listening????
©2006

a world of hope

map courtesy of theordora maps

 

jace herring newsflash - and i was thinking bin laden was tough to find

ahem. pardon me, but a rant follows...

i just read a report the us is doubling the reward for finding bin laden. i think it may not be too long before a lot of unhappy bloggers are mustering that kind of interest in jace herring who wants, it seems, no one to pay attention to that man behind the curtain at bloghosts.com.

godaddy.com just sent me a letter saying that the registrant information for my domain has to be initiated by the legal registrant. and guess who that would be? jace herring. jace herring. jace herring. SCREAM!

i had written godaddy a couple of letters, the last one quite lengthy. i explained that my domain - which i registered and owned - from 2001 until i hooked up with jace herring's bloghosts couldn't possibly be his legally . i never gave permission for herring to own my domain, only to host it. my new webhost, bless its heart, isn't having any more luck in effecting the transfer, it seems, than i have had. so i've registered for a new domain, but i want my old one back. it's mine, jace. mine. all mine.

this whole issue is heading way beyond principle for me. i'd be very interested in hearing if someone opens a class action suit against him, as has been suggested | here |. i am just heartsick. doesn't herring realize that some folks are losing not only sleep but revenue as he continues to play his mime game?

read more about it at blogrolled.

or just google " jace herring bloghosts" for an eyeful.

snow and magic

 
snowing here. we love to fill all the bird feeders, draw away from the windows, and watch. magic can happen....

what kind of toes do YOU have?

i don't have a clue how i wind up at pages like this toe-ring one. hey, i'm an old lady. i don't wear toe rings - though i do sometimes paint my toenails blue.

toe typing:

easy to fit toes: "defined/pronounced toe pad, with a slightly thinner toe."
hard to fit toes: "dramatic/chubby round toe pad with a much thinner toe." [this is the toe i would have guessed i have, but nooo. mine are evidently just those shapeless
straight fit toes: "no real defined toe pad. the toe is the same size and shape from toe tip to 2nd knuckle." for these toes," the toe-ring lady writes, "it's better to get a tighter ring and remove it before swimming."

to her i reply that my body is shaped like my toes, so who goes swimming?

font addict - thanks, manfred klein

TbP Font talk - Manfred Klein:: page 4/4:::

Letters, numbers and symbols are atoms and molecules of our mental life, media to receive and to send messages. For some people who are interested in art they are more important or more interesting than the stuff considered as art by the wider society. Many free artists are aware of it. For the average person, type is a re-discovered cultural asset - nice. To spread reasonable, human thinking in the future not only language is required, but also type. That's pretty clear!

how i ever missed this interview with my favorite font creator, manfred klein, i'll never know. that he gives so many terrific fonts away astounds and thrills me.

a good night to close the language door

courtesy nasa/jpl-caltech

i love that nasa colored this photo of saturn's moon, titan, so romantically and so glad i found it after feeling so weighed down all day with politics.

tonight, our own total lunar eclipse...
url: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2004Oct28/TLE2004Oct28.html


i will close the language-door.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.

Like this.
(rumi)

The way the night knows itself with the moon,
be that with me.

(rumi)

[At] night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language-door and

open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.
(rumi)

maybe peace only uses windows, too...

bush finally breaks silence on the missing weapons

380 tons = 344 730.201 kilograms

380 tons - wow...that's more than even i weigh

380 Tons of Explosives Missing from Sensitive Former Iraqi Military Installation. The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. (source: new york times, 25 oct 2004)

Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the security of the United States and the world. With the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, a leader who pursued, used, and possessed weapons of mass destruction is no longer in power.(source: results in iraq: 10 ways the liberation of iraq supports the war on terrorism)

yet i read for myself the cia's summation of key findings on iraq's weapons of mass destruction at the time we shocked and awed in baghdad, and i think i've got it straight now:

not only did the us fail to find weapons of mass destruction in iraq since there were apparently none there to begin with it also seems to have lost a boatload of potent suckers that were.

yeah, these missing weapons are really bugging me, making my voting finger itch.

maybe me and others. i see that the president has finally broken his public silence on the weapons today in pennsylvania:

today - 27 oct 2004 - from the ap: [bush in pa]: Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, we do not know the facts, Bush said. Think about that - the senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that's part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected.

Bush was referring to remarks made by Kerry adviser Richard Holbrooke Tuesday in an interview with Fox News. Holbrooke said the U.N. inspectors had told the American military this was a major depot. He added: I don't know what happened. I do know one thing - in most administrations the buck stops in the Oval Office. (source: kerry hammers at bush on missing explosives in iraq, minneapolis star tribune)

buck stopping. yeah, that's the ticket...

---

as i wait for tuesday, i'm still mulling on this oldie but goodie the debates dredged up, too:

13 mar 2002 white house press conference excerpt:

Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of --

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There's going to be other struggles like Shahikot, and I'm just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shahikot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly. We're tough, we're strong, they're well-equipped. We have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

---

I call my philosophy and approach compassionate conservatism. It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and results. And with this hopeful approach, we will make a real difference in people's lives.
source: president george w. bush, fact sheet on compassionate conservatism, april 30, 2002)
...

Despite the competing meanings of the term, liberalism remains, according to the oxford companion, a focal point of Americans' efforts to balance the benefits of capitalism with larger moral and ethical priorities. (source: now with bill moyer

Long distance supporters : Pakistani schoolchildren walk with a cut-out of US Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry... as part of a rally organized by the World Minorities Alliance NGO to show support for Kerry. (AFP/Jewel Samad)

Yahoo! News - AFP Top Photos

zen, haiku, and the art of mr picassohead

here's a link to a self-portrait (ahem) composed in mr. picassohead (the program i talked about in the last posting...

go there. make silly art for no reason, and breathe deeply.

more:

everypoet's haiku generator, too (just check expectations before you click - it is programming, after all).

& dailyzen - meditation 365:

daily zen inspirational quotes from zen, buddhism, and taoism - a meditation haven with a humorous and global touch. on-site, there's also original zen art to contemplate and share.

all three are totally free, no strings. little pools of quietitude to rest by on my daily trek across the big wide world-wide web.

i need that. thanks, you guys.