Facial Difference & Prosthetics

My hometown paper has a well-deserved reputation of long standing: poorly written and edited, heavily slanted towards the owning and ruling classes, and uninteresting to boot.
In the last few months, under a new editor, the Wisconsin State Journal has been blowing my often-fuzzy mind.

Frex: a two-day series on people with facial differences ("deformities"), the prosthetics they wear, and the people who make them. People stare at those of us with facial differences partly because of the unknown. This article demystifies without turning the prosthetics users into self-narrating zoo exhibits. It's a matter-of-fact story about fellow citizens, and the craftspeople who use tools (similar to the special FX wizards') in service of the mundane.

Like any college student with a flair for fashion, Stephanie Dorsey makes key choices each morning.

Designer jeans or a skirt. Pumps or flip flops. Hair scrunched, curled, straightened or pulled up.

Dorsey also decides whether to wear her ears.

She was born without them. But she can snap triple-pierced ears made of silicone onto implants in her head.

"Some days I wear them, and some days I don't," said the energetic 20-year-old from Milton who attends Edgewood College in Madison. “It depends on what mood I’m in.”

Sunday: Prosthetics are life-changing
Monday: Part art and part medicine
Pix that aren't voyeuristic

What's so gratifying about this story is what's not there: poor victims of terrible tragedy! is not uttered. effusions of gratitude are not documented. charity is not invoked to pay for the tools—insurance coverage of these silicone bits is actually discussed.

Long Summer Night Miscellany

Great creative thinking at work over at cripchick's blog re: all the programmatic elements of accessiblity

I'm kvelling re coffeeandink's Ablism: Comment policy clarification. I think the ground is being made ready to address some of the deeper issues: interdependence, disability hierarchies, the tyranny of "normal."

MyGuy and I celebrated our 29th anniversary on Sunday night. I'm proud that we've made it so long together, and that we had the good sense to choose each other. There was some accessibility fail at the first restaurant, but I grit my teeth and got some good eats in the end.

Tapas at The Icon: tasty and not that expensive. Marinated Spanish White Anchovies, Marcona Almond Parsley Pesto, with Chocolate Espresso Crema Catalana. And room for popcorn at home later!