Blurblogs
Global
Popular
Log in
acdha's blurblog
Software developer at a big library, cyclist, photographer, hiker, reader. Email: chris@improbable.org
24225 stories
·
217 followers

The sacred Pak Ou Caves of Laos, home to some 6,000 Buddha statues
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 10:47 PM

Yahoo Lifestyle
1 Share

At least once in their lives, devout Buddhists in Laos strive to visit a very special temple inside a natural landmark, the Pak Ou Caves, directly on the mighty Mekong River, the lifeline of Southeast Asia.

According to estimates, there are as many as 6,000 Buddha statues of various sizes and materials like wood and bronze in two limestone caves, put there by pilgrims over the centuries.

Buddha is depicted with various hand gestures - called mudras - each of which has a specific meaning.

"It is estimated that there are around 4,000 sculptures in the lower cave and around 2,000 in the upper one," says tour guide Somjai Simoonthong, who regularly brings tourists from all over the world here.

The cave temples can only be reached by boat along the Mekong. The journey from the popular tourist destination of Luang Prabang - the former capital of the Southeast Asian country - involves a boat trip of about two hours.

Inside the caves, a Laotian who lives in the US state of Colorado sprinkles a group of Buddha statues with water - as a sign of purification and respect. "I've wanted to travel here for so long, it's very important to me as a Laotian," he says.

Most people in the country believe that their ancestors entered the caves for the first time in the 8th century. At that time, Buddhism was not yet widespread, so the Pak Ou Caves were initially used as a shrine for the river spirits.

After the royal family introduced Buddhism as the national religion in the 16th century, worshippers began making pilgrimages to the caves - especially around the New Year. Many left Buddha statues there, and the cave temple in its present form is the result of centuries of pilgrimages.

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

Planting Trees and Equity in the Arizona Desert by Marcello Rossi
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 10:46 PM

Reasons to be Cheerful
1 Share

On a recent Sunday morning, the Barrio Centro neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, was abuzz with activity. People from all walks of life were busy hauling dirt, planting saplings and building earthworks like berms and swales in the warm spring air. 

They were part of a community planting event organized by Tucson Clean and Beautiful, a local nonprofit, as part of a larger, city-wide effort to fill street corners and vacant lots with groves of trees. The ultimate goal: to create more shade and increase heat resilience in the most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Tucson, sitting in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, is among the fastest-warming cities in the US. Over the past five decades, its average temperature has soared by 4.48 degrees Fahrenheit; last year, the town sustained more than 50 consecutive days with temperatures surpassing 100 degrees.

Youth employed by Tucson Million Trees work to place and irrigate young trees.
Youth employed by Tucson Million Trees work to place and irrigate young trees. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees

However, the heat hits some areas harder than others. In neighborhoods in southern Tucson such as Barrio Centro, predominantly home to Latino and low-income communities, temperatures can be up to eight degrees warmer than the city’s average and a staggering 12 degrees hotter than affluent areas in the city’s north like the Catalina Foothills.

Such a difference is the legacy of decades of neglect that prevented the development of green spaces in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, argues Fatima Luna, Tucson’s chief resilience officer. “The south part of Tucson has been historically under-resourced, and there are not a lot of tree canopies there,” she says.

The extra heat endured by low-income neighborhoods often coincides with limited access to air conditioning, putting residents at risk of heat-related illnesses and even death. “This isn’t merely an environmental issue,” maintains Luna. “It’s a critical public health concern.” 

People dig in the dirt to plant trees in Tucson.
Planting sessions take place from October through March. Courtesy of Tucson Clean and Beautiful

To address these disparities, in 2020 Tucson set a lofty goal: to plant one million trees by the decade’s end. The commitment came as the city joined the 1t.org Stakeholder Council, a coalition dedicated to global tree restoration efforts. The US chapter of this council — which includes organizations like REI, the National Forest Foundation and Amazon, and cities like Dallas and Detroit — has pledged to plant over one billion trees collectively.

To pinpoint the areas most in need, Tucson city officials rely on an interactive dashboard powered by American Forests’ Tree Equity Score methodology. The tool crunches data like tree canopy cover, climate, the percentage of people of color, poverty rates, unemployment rates and the population of seniors and children to produce a single measure ranging from zero to 100 for each of Tucson’s 466 neighborhoods.

“This score serves as a compass, highlighting areas needing urgent attention,” Nicole Gillett, Tucson’s urban forestry program manager, explains. “Lower scores signify a greater need for investment.”

Accessible to the public, the dashboard facilitates transparency and citizen engagement, enabling residents to track progress and report planting activities.

Planting sessions, organized in collaboration with local organizations such as Tucson Clean and Beautiful, occur on weekends throughout the planting season, which spans from October to March. During these events, volunteers are mentored by professional arborists who provide instructions on tree planting and maintenance.

Through a platform called Grow Tucson, residents also have the opportunity to actively co-design urban green spaces, ensuring they meet the needs of their community.

People planting trees in Tucson.
To date, about 100,000 trees have been planted. Courtesy of Tucson Clean and Beautiful

“Giving locals a personal stake is crucial,” notes Gillett. “It fosters purpose.”

The initiative prioritizes planting drought-resistant species indigenous to the region, such as blue palo verde, desert ironwood, desert willow and desert hackberry. “These species are particularly suited for urban environments because they grow at low elevations and depend entirely on rainwater for nourishment,” says Gillett. 

In Tucson, where much of the surface is paved and impermeable, planting these trees can even play a role in revitalizing the city’s beleaguered streamsheds rivers, and creeks.

“Adding a rain basin with every tree is like giving the rain a direct pathway into the ground where it’s needed,” explains Gillett. “That way, it’s not just watering the trees but also replenishing groundwater and supporting streamflow.”

 Some of these tree species can also contribute to addressing food insecurity in a city where nearly 20 percent of residents live more than a mile from the nearest grocery store, believes Brandon Merchant, a longtime Tucson resident and farm and garden education coordinator for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

Merchant leads a program called SOMBRA, the Spanish word for shade and an acronym for Sonoran Mesquite Barrio Restoration Alliance. The initiative aims to plant 20,000 velvet mesquite trees across the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods by 2030 to build shade and enhance food security.

Young native species being grown for future planting.
Young native species being grown for future planting. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees

Backed by the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management’s Urban and Community Forestry Program and the US Forest Service, SOMBRA began in 2021 after Merchant drew inspiration from a similar initiative in Portland, Oregon, focused on chestnuts.

“When we started thinking about it, we began noticing that mesquite trees are very much like chestnuts in that they can be grown in cities and can be used as a food supplement,” explains Merchant. “Indigenous communities living in this area have relied on it for thousands of years.”

 The food bank organizes workshops about growing, pruning and harvesting techniques to educate community members on planting and caring for mesquite trees. “That’s a big part of it, giving people the skills to plant and tend to these trees for the long haul,” Merchant explains. The training also involves processing mesquite bean pods into flour ideal for baking bread, cookies and pancakes.

As part of the initiative, Merchant has teamed up with a local high school, a community farm and representatives from local tribes. Together, they have set up four cultivation sites where saplings are grown and nurtured until they are ready for transplantation. Only a few hundred saplings have been put into the ground thus far, but Merchant is optimistic about scaling up planting efforts this year.

Become a sustaining member today!

Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can.

To date, Tucson’s initiative has led to the planting of approximately 100,000 new trees. Gillett says some of the trees planted first will start to have a small impact on shade and temperature, but it will take several more years to fully measure their impact.

The effort recently received a significant boost with a $5 million grant from the US Forest Service. This funding is part of a larger $1 billion commitment to urban forestry projects nationwide, established under the Biden administration’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act.

A mesquite tree.
In addition to providing shade, mesquite trees can help alleviate food insecurity thanks to their bean pods. Courtesy of Tucson Million Trees

The grant funding will help the city run its recently opened Tree Resource Education and Ecology Center, a hub where seedlings are nurtured, and which can accommodate approximately 5,000 trees and plants. According to Gillett, this financial support will also bolster tree-planting capabilities and contribute to youth employment through specialized training initiatives.

As Tucson paves its path toward a cooler and more resilient future, municipalities across the country are paying attention. Gillet says she is frequently approached by leaders interested in setting up similar schemes in their own cities. 

She believes Tucson’s approach can serve as a guiding model, as long as efforts are rooted in scientific principles, involve residents at every stage, and prioritize supporting vulnerable communities. “We’re not just planting trees,” says Gillett. “We’re planting equity.”

 

The post Planting Trees and Equity in the Arizona Desert appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

Heat Death of the Internet - takahē
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 10:31 PM

takahē
1 Comment and 3 Shares

You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring the restaurant directly and it says the number is no longer in service. You go to the restaurant and order in person. You mention that their website has the wrong number and the woman behind the counter says they have to contact the company who designed the site for changes, which will cost them, but most people just order through an app anyway.

You want to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie on YouTube but you first have to sit through an ad. Then you sit through a preview for the trailer itself. Then you watch the trailer, which is literally another ad. When it ends, it cues up a new trailer, with a new ad at the start of it.

The first page of Google results are links to pages that have scraped other pages for information from other pages that have been scraped for information. All the sources seem to link back to one another. There is no origin. The photos on the page look weird. The hands are disfigured. There is no image credit.

Your coworker sends you a PowerPoint pack to support a presentation you are giving to the executive committee, but you can’t make heads or tails of it. You call them over Zoom and they tell you they used ChatGPT to write it. You point out that it is near-unreadable, and they ask what specifically is wrong with it. You mention that, for starters, there are too many words on each slide. They tell you they’ll take care of it. They send you a new pack within the hour saying they asked ChatGPT to remove 30% of the text. It makes even less sense. You tell them you’ll just rewrite it yourself.

A billionaire got mad, bought your favourite social media site and ran it into the ground. A different billionaire got mad, bought the magazine site you liked to read on your lunchbreak and shut it down completely. A third billionaire did what they do best, bought the app you use for networking and sold it off for parts.

You want to watch a TV show from your youth so you check a streaming service, but it is not there, so you check a second streaming service but it is not there, so you check a third streaming service and it is not there. You search for it on Blu-ray but it doesn’t exist, so you search for it on DVD but it is out of print. You find a seller on eBay who has it, but the listing reads ambiguous as to whether it is the real thing or a burnt copy. You message the seller and they reply with an automated response thanking you for your interest.

You can’t read the recipe on your phone because it prioritises the ads on the page. You bring your laptop into the kitchen and whenever you scroll down, you have to close a pop-up. You turn AdBlock on and the page no longer loads, then AdBlock sends you an ad asking for money.

The Airbnb charges you a $150 cleaning fee, but insists the place needs to be left spotless. There will be a fee if the bedding hasn’t been stripped and the dishwasher hasn’t been emptied.

Your Uber driver is lost because his app hasn’t updated and keeps telling him to turn down streets that no longer exist. You still give him five stars.

Your mother sends you a link to a breaking story, but the article is behind a paywall, so you switch to the website where you do pay for news but there’s no mention of it.

You buy a microwave and receive ads for microwaves. You buy a mattress and receive ads for mattresses.

Strangers on social media assume you are American and get mad when you correct them. 

Your Gmail is approaching storage capacity. 

Your smart TV needs new firmware.

Your phone schedules an update. 

Your friend has a short story published online but you need to pay for a subscription to the site in order to read it. You message them and ask if you could get a copy. They say ‘sure’ and send you a PDF. You read the story and like it. You are curious about one detail. You message them for more information and they recommend checking out the Wikipedia page. You read the Wikipedia entry and there is a lot of useful information supplied by a community. One of the sources cited is a non-fiction book. You go to your local library’s website and although they don’t have the exact book, they do have others by the same author. You place a hold on two of them, then go get your shoes on.

Gregory Bennett is a writer and filmmaker from Wellington whose accent comes from Invercargill. They hold a Masters in Creative Writing from the IIML and currently work for a disability support services provider in Melbourne, Australia.

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete
1 public comment
acdha
9 hours ago
reply
So much shareholder value!
Washington, DC

Henry Cuellar indictment tests Laredo ties ahead of 2024 | The Texas Tribune
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 4:30 PM

1 Share

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

McALLEN — When federal agents raided the home and offices of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, just weeks before a competitive primary election in 2022, Democrats rallied behind him and he went on to secure another term in office. Now facing charges of bribery and money laundering, he might need them to do the same.

Friday’s indictment threw a wrench in Cuellar and his party’s South Texas plans for 2024, a year in which he had been expected to cruise to reelection. He immediately declared he’s still running for reelection. But now there are calls from Republicans for him to resign and expressions of frustration from progressives who felt Democratic Party leaders shouldn’t have stuck with him when the first hints of legal trouble emerged two years ago.

Meanwhile, allies in his South Texas district, including some top local leaders, remain stalwart in their support of Cuellar. Some are referring to a familiar refrain: "Innocent until proven guilty."

"Anyone can charge you with anything, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a fact," said Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, who added that he didn't think the allegations would hurt Cuellar's chances at reelection in November.

Vera’s response highlights Cuellar’s deep roots in the district. In Laredo, his hometown, Cuellar's brother and sister have both held local elected office.

When federal investigators searched his home in 2022, it was only a few weeks before a hard-fought primary against progressive candidate Jessica Cisneros, a Laredo-based immigration attorney who lambasted Cuellar as “Donald Trump’s favorite Democrat.” Cisneros targeted Cuellar, known as one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress, for his opposition to abortion rights and fundraising he did for colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

But then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rallied to his side, and Cuellar ended up winning in the primary runoff by 0.6 percentage points. Months later, he won the general election by a surprisingly large 13-percentage-point margin.

On Friday, many of Cuellar’s progressive critics decried that establishment support, saying it put a Democratic seat — and the party’s hopes of a House majority — at risk two years later. And they argued it would make it harder to use Donald Trump’s criminal indictments against him if the party is maintaining its support of Cuellar.

Cuellar is accused of accepting almost $600,000 in bribes from the country of Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in exchange for political favors in Congress.

He maintained his innocence Friday, and Democratic leadership appeared to stick with him — at least for now. Because of party rules, Cuellar was temporarily stripped of his leadership role on the powerful Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee in the House. But Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stressed in a statement on Friday that Cuellar “has admirably devoted his career to public service and is a valued Member of the House Democratic Caucus.”

“Like any American, Congressman Cuellar is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process,” Jeffries said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, immediately called for Cuellar to resign.

“If his colleagues truly believe in putting ‘people over politics,’ they will call on him to resign. If not – they are hypocrites whose statements about public service aren’t worth the paper they’re written on,” NRCC spokesperson Delanie Bomar said in a statement.

Two Republican challengers will face off in a May 28 runoff for the chance to challenge Cuellar in the general election: Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza.

Furman issued a video statement shortly after the news of a potential indictment, blasting Cuellar as being part of an establishment that is "selling us to other nations."

"They're trading us for their deep pockets and their forever policies that are against the values of South Texas," Furman said. "Exciting that maybe one of them will get their due."

In a Facebook post on Friday, Garza said: "There is no place for corruption in Congress!"

But unseating Cuellar remains a big challenge. In nearly 20 years representing District 28 –– a district that stretches from the Texas-Mexico border from Webb County to Starr County, and then runs north to southeast San Antonio –– Cuellar has sowed deep ties. More often than most of the congressmen and women who serve the region, Cuellar has held press conferences with local officials to celebrate funding he helped secure for local projects.

Vera, the county judge, said Cuellar is conscientious about their needs and is available to them any time they call.

"He's delivered. I've got nothing but praise for that man," Vera said.

Webb County Democratic Party Chair Sylvia Bruni says there is no denying Cuellar has been influential and brought millions of dollars into the district.

"I think the record is going to show that he's historically been very, very valuable," Bruni said. "He's managed to work on both sides of the aisle which is something he takes great pride in."

Bruni said the party would continue advocating for every Democrat on the ballot, including Cuellar, though she acknowledged the indictment complicated their efforts.

"What is surfacing regarding Congressman Cuellar is certainly distressing, casting a dark cloud over all our sincerest efforts on behalf of our community," she said in a statement to Webb County Democrats. Still, she wrote, “our WCDP will remain quiet regarding the allegations, presuming innocence, and trusting the Justice System to work fairly."

In an interview, Bruni added that Webb County remained a Democratic stronghold and she would count on voters to vote Democrat during a time she described as "being on the brink of losing our democracy."

Heading into November, Cuellar appeared to be on secure footing before Friday, with Republicans focusing their efforts in South Texas on two other congressional seats: Flipping District 15, currently held by first-term U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, and holding onto District 34 held by U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen.

However, Jack Byham, a political scientist at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, is not convinced Cuellar will weather the political storm.

"With something like this, it's the swing voters that are going to play a major role," he said. "His loyal supporters are going to vote for him anyway and his loyal critics are going to vote against him anyway."

His ability and willingness to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans could help explain why he's been in office for so long, said Byham.

"He's a good politician in terms of reading his constituency," Byham said, noting the constituency in South Texas is predominantly Hispanic and tends to hold socially conservative views.

Though she ultimately failed in her bids, Byhan said his opponent Cisneros’ surprising performance in 2022 indicated Cuellar isn't as beloved as his supporters would like to believe.

"We were surprised at how well she did given her inexperience so I think that is a sign that he's acquiring a few more loyal critics," Byham said.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Disclosure: Facebook and Texas A&M International University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

We’ve got big things in store for you at The Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Join us for three days of big, bold conversations about politics, public policy and the day’s news.

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

FBI looks into thrill-seeking teachers alleged to have been international art thieves | New Mexico | The Guardian
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 4:23 PM

The Guardian
1 Share

The mystery of a nondescript, middle-aged couple who hung a stolen $150m Willem de Kooning painting behind a bedroom door in their Cliff, New Mexico, home may be closer to being resolved after the FBI agreed to assist in tracking down two other paintings that had been in the couple’s possession.

A new twist to the story of Jerry and Rita Alter, a pair of New Mexico teachers who somehow funded a life of travel and adventure to the point that they are suspected international art thieves, emerged recently when the US’s top federal law enforcement agency confirmed it was getting involved in the case.

The couple, both of whom are now dead, are believed to have conducted a series of art heists in the mid-1980s. In one, the couple allegedly walked into a Tucson, Arizona, museum and stole the de Kooning using a deceptive method. A woman distracted museum staff with questions while a man in a fake moustache lifted the painting off the wall, put it under his coat and walked out.

The heist of Woman-Ochre was never decisively pinned on the Alters – the painting was recovered in 2017 after Rita died and now hangs back in Tucson. But the FBI’s involvement in another heist in the same year could help resolve questions about the Alters’ motives, if not their apparent system of theft.

According to their travel agent, who was interviewed for The Thief Collector, a 2022 documentary film about the couple, they were “adrenaline junkies” who loved to fly to one country and then pay smugglers to secret them to another.

According to the Taos News on 24 April, the second theft involves two stolen Taos Society of Artists paintings – Victor Higgins’ Aspens and Joseph Henry Sharp’s Indian Boy in Full Dress – from the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, in March 1985.

A woman in a wheelchair had distracted the museum’s attendant by asking questions about the elevator while a man in a long black coat – not wearing a fake moustache in this instance – had gone upstairs to the second floor where the paintings were hung.

“Then he’s up there with a room full of paintings and can make as much noise as he wants – but he works fast,” former curator David Witt told the outlet. “By the time he’s done with his commotion up there, [the attendant] is back at the circulation desk – in time to hear Jerry run down the stairway.”

In a news report from the time, the paper said the heist had taken place while Witt had been attending a seminar on museum security in Santa Fe. A police report said there was “no physical evidence left at the scene”.

After Jerry Alter died in 2012, five years before his wife, their nephew cleared out the home and donated some items to the Town and Country Garden Club thrift store in Silver City. Customers at the store spotted the de Kooning and the Taos works were sold at auction in Arizona.

But now Taos’s Harwood Museum wants them back and has called in the FBI to help find them.

Harwood’s executive director, Juniper Leherissey, told the Taos News she thinks they were bought unwittingly.

“I don’t know if they’ve since been sold from that buyer, but likely someone purchased and has been living with them for many years,” Leherissey reportedly said. “Hopefully, they’ll recognize that they belong to the Harwood and give them back.”

Read the whole story
Share this story
Delete

What Happens When a Romance Writer Gets Locked Out of Google Docs | WIRED
Saturday May 4th, 2024 at 12:59 PM

Wired
2 Shares

On May 29, 2007, journals and communities began disappearing from LiveJournal. The missing journals and groups went unclickable, mute, struck through with a single-line font effect. To a banhammer, every query looks like a nail: depictions of rape disappeared, but so did posts by rape survivors. The same was true of incest, abuse, and violence. The ensuing exodus of users led to the founding of DreamWidth, Archive of Our Own, and the Organization for Transformative Works. Today, all three are still operational.

While it’s still unclear what exactly happened to Renee’s docs, or if it’s just a fluke, the effects of mishaps like this are complex. Even though it’s now commonplace, there can still be unease around letting major corporations store personal writing. For authors who write about sex, say, or queer people trying to find a voice, hearing that your content could be flagged as “inappropriate” can have a chilling effect. The problem, says bestselling pseudonymous author Chuck Tingle, is that companies like Google now function like utilities. “It’s the same as water and electric,” he says.

Tingle would know: His “Tinglers,” erotica pieces he releases as Kindle Singles, led to his contract at Macmillan for the queer horror novels Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays. Those early singles were written without the benefit of editors, often within a matter of hours. They’re sloppy. “They’re punk rock,” he says, but they also helped him build a community around the “underdog genres” of erotica, horror, and comedy that his work falls into. If Amazon decided to stop selling his Tinglers, it would be a big blow, even though he now has a book deal.

Appropriate is a word with two usages and meanings in common parlance. The first is as an adjective, as in the message Google sent to Renee. It describes suitability in context, fitness to purpose. The second usage is as a verb, and it’s much closer to the original Latin appropriatus, which means “to make one’s own” or “to take possession of.”

Whether we’re discussing the “appropriation” of cultural slang or a piece of real estate, we mean a transfer of ownership. But both meanings of the word spring from that Latin origin and its antecedent, the word privus: the word that begat (among others) the words private, property, and proper. All of these words grew from the same source, and in one way or another they all describe qualities of belonging.

This is a story about belonging.

Accessibility, infrastructure, and organization are all important to Renee as a writer and as a person in daily life. She tracks more than just her word count: she tracks meals, moods, and medications. “We have to be organized,” she says.

By “we,” Renee means her fellow disabled people. The first time one of her patient portals experienced a privacy breach and sent her a letter about it, she was 16. By then, she’d had to give up hockey, moving from the ice to the bench to the couch. “I’m always in pain. That’s a part of my illnesses. That’s going to be my life. I’ve come to terms with that. I’ve accepted that.” She tracks her symptoms meticulously in part because the faster her appointments end, the sooner she can be back in bed.

“Listening to me now, you wouldn’t know that I’m chronically ill and disabled,” Renee says. “You can’t really see it either. My illnesses, my diagnoses, are invisible.” For this reason, Renee has experienced disbelief and gatekeeping when she uses a cane, wheelchair, or forearm crutches as a twentysomething. She has written similar moments into her fiction, like a scene wherein one character is second-guessed because she’s in a wheelchair one day and not using it the next.

Renee sees her work as opening conversations about disability and the perception of disability. Until Google Docs locked her out, she had the data to back up her hypothesis, in the form of long comment threads between reader and author. It remains the goal of her published work. “If even one person second-guesses” the way they think about disability, she says, “I feel my writing has done what it needs to do.”

Read the whole story
betajames
14 hours ago
reply
Michigan
Share this story
Delete
Next Page of Stories