Planet of the Blind

Home Again

I'm back home...

I was away for awhile.  I now understand that in the "blogosphere" there is "away" and then there's "AWAY" a distinction which isn't easy to comprehend unless you are a daily newspaper columnist or a trash collector or a blogger.

The aforementioned analogy reminds me that the 19th century French poet Stephan Mallarme once remarked that the newspaper was a thing "fit only for wrapping fish".  So there's another good reason for thinking the blogosphere is superior to journalism.  Matt Drudge take note!  No matter how execrable your  blog no one can use it for collecting fish parts.

I would like to wrap Matt Drudge in newspaper.
I would like to use Matt Drudge as fish bait.
I would like to recite Egyptian love poems to Lee Hamilton.
I would prefer that Lee Hamilton not say things like: "We have neither won nor lost in Iraq."  (As he did on last night's broadcast of "Larry King Live".)
We have neither wrapped or unwrapped the fish bladders.
We are merely thinking about what's inside the newspaper.
We are not comparing the war in Iraq to the news business.
We are not comparing the war in Iraq to anything.
We are likely still sympathetic to Stephan Mallarme.
This is why I still subscribe to the literal, ink and paper edition of the daily news.

I was away from my desk.
I said goodbye to an old friend at her memorial service this past weekend.
I wept with old friends and felt old.
The first snow of the winter came.
I thought of how winter holds the key to our legacies.
I thought about the kilometers of night and the songs we still must sing for the roads ahead.
I will buy a big fish and a newspaper.
I will tune my guitar.
I will declare Spring and not become a sad beggar when the new leaves come around.

SK

How It Happens

I am recently home from a trip that took me by air through the city of Atlanta.  I have flown hundreds of thousands of miles in my adult life; heck, I even flew home from Finland in 1958 aboard the old Lockheed four propeller trans-atlantic workhorse, back in the day when everyone got a table cloth and real glassware at meal time.  But I digress.

In Atlanta I was met by staff who were supposed to escort me to my connecting flight.  How do I say this without becoming bellicose or just plain mean?  These escorts had no training in working with people with disabilities and they had poor communication skills.  One fellow insisted that I sit in a wheelchair if he was going to guide me.  His method of expression was to shout loudly: "You sit! You sit!"

I said I'd find my own way and booked it up the escalator.

Two Delta airlines flight attendants saw this situation as it unfolded and very graciously caught up with me and offered to help me.  They then revealed that the services for the elderly and people with disabilities at the Atlanta airport are in their view the worst in the nation.  They were embarrassed but also quick to point out that the company that provides this all important public service is not in any way connected with the airlines. "You get what you pay for," said one of the flight attendants.

How it works:

1. Devalue the elderly and people with disabilities at the management level of the Atlanta airport.
2. Hire a company that cuts costs by hiring people with poor public service skills.
3. Offer these underpaid and unprepared employees insufficient in-service training.
4. Imagine that you've got the job done!

So in essence, a handful of fat cats are banking the profits and real human beings are collectively under-educated, under-served, and poorly served.

I should add that in Ireland I was met at the airport by efficient, friendly, and competent personnel who took some pride in what they were doing.  And yes, they were workers from other countries in the European Union.  I surmise that it's possible to save money and still perform a public service with a social conscience.

And that is finally my point.  There are some very highly placed people in the Atlanta airport who lack evident concern about the governance and maintenance of the community's social conscience.

"You sit! You sit!"

Heck, my dog and I have better conversations than that.

S.K.