Diddakoi Walt Whitman
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Updated: 04/12/02



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Friday, 12 April, 2002

She may be blind and sick, but Alien seems to be in good spirits. At least at 4:30 this morning she was. She stood next to my head and poked at me until I lifted the covers and arranged myself to her liking - she spooned her back up to me, laid her head on my arm and purred and purred and purred.

I finally got up around 5:15. She came out a little later and I tried to interest her in some of the wet cat food again. I believe her exact reaction was, "I'm not going anywhere near THAT stuff!" So I mixed up some more tuna and sour cream, but I think that the smell of the other stuff put her off, so she only ate a little bit.

[I don't blame her. It does smell, well, like wet cat food.]

The weather charlatans were way off today. Even this morning they weren't predicting rain until tomorrow - *EEEHHHNNNN* - WRONG. It started around 10:00 and has been coming down steadily ever since. Hopefully that means that they're also wrong about the rest of the weekend, and we'll actually get some decent weather out of it. We'll see.

Saw a story in the Philly Inquirer this morning about two deaf lesbians who arranged for their artificially inseminated children to be deaf. They sought out a deaf sperm donor, and got genetic counseling to determine which one of them would be more likely to pass along deafness to the babies. And in fact, they have:

Voila! They have a deaf 5-year-old daughter, and an infant son who's deaf in one ear and nearly deaf in the other.

"I want to be the same as my child," one of them said, expressing her sheer self-indulgence. "I want the baby to enjoy what we enjoy."

These women, who live in a suburb near Washington, D.C., are proponents of a politicized attitude that's prevalent among the deaf intelligentsia.

They portray deafness - Deaf culture, that is, with a capital D - not as a disability, but as a subculture to be savored for its unique art, history and language. And any attempt to cure deafness - or even to enhance hearing, such as using cochlear implants - is considered by some of them to be "genocide."

I certainly applaud people who take what most of us view as a disability, or at the very least, a challenge, and live well-balanced, meaningful, happy lives. But to try to design a baby to intentionally remove something that would make their lives easier, so that they are "just like you" is not only selfish, but [I think] criminal.

But this couple really wants to raise deaf children. OK - why not adopt? There are many children with either full or partial hearing problems that would benefit from being taken into a home where they could thrive. Why not give one of them the opportunity?

[Right idea - wrong way of going about it.]

~ ~ ~

Quote du jour:

"My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted."

--Steven Wright (1955 - ____) US comedian

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