Announcing #ADA26 as The Year of #SassingBack, #CripLit-Style

 

Parody People magazine cover announcing NotPeople's Rationalest Man Alive! Peter Singer

Unlike Melania Trump, Tales From the Crip plagiarizes only its own material. In honor of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s 26th anniversary, TFtC is kicking off The Year of Sassing Back, #CripLit-Style by offering this gently-used excerpt from our first — and only! — NotPeople Magazine’s Imaginary Interviews With People Who We Wish Were Imaginary. Our own Respironics Bi-Pap S/T sat down with philosopher Dr. Peter Singer, Princeton’s Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, whose anti-crip, pro-swine agenda argues that infanticide of babies with disabilities should be legal up until the 28th day after birth, that health care for people with disabilities should be rationed, and that the consciousness of some pigs doesn’t get enough respect. Happy ADA26! We’re not dead yet!

On the Love Secrets of the Utilitarian!

RBPS/T: Isn’t “No Rules, Just Rights” pretty much the mating call of the utilitarian?

PS: “If it feels good, do it,” is a much more rational mating call.

RBPS/T: What’s a common way for a utilitarian to get friend-zoned?

PS: A utilitarian could help a hot girl move and then she gets back together with her bass-player ex. Who’s a contemporary Continental phenomenologist.

RBPS/T: That sounds…nonhypothetical. And gender-biased. But hey, you are a philosopher.

PS: JUST BECAUSE WE’RE UTILITARIANS DOESN’T MEAN WE LIKE BEING USED.

RBPS/T: Hypothetically.

PS: It was a long time ago. I am completely and 110% over it. My happiness has never been more maximized. A random person might see me on this cover and think, “Wow, he is totally living the life he said he would and here I am, possibly married to but probably long-since-dumped by an untalented string player who distracted me from what my life could have been, and if something tragic happens like I get so horribly disfigured in an accident that I need expensive but ultimately futile treatments or I have an adorable but super sick baby — which wouldn’t be so unlikely if the weak genes of a contemporary Continental phenomenologist were involved in the uterine brew — I will most definitely not want societal resources wasted on prolonging our now-useless lives that are almost entirely composed of suffering moments that don’t include one single glimpse much less the infinitely tender touch of the brilliant moral pragmatist — pragmatic moralist? — I should have appreciated and who I secretly dream of providing me with his personal care and support at no cost to the public or to his individual liberty.” SHOW ME ONE TENURED “ARTIST,” SHEILA!

RBPS/T: No projection there.

PS: What’s projection?

#CripLit Excerpt from “The Copier God Unleashes the Flood Waters”

Another Excerpt From There's No Cure for Gretchen Lowe a novelAs the West-Hesperidan Free Clinic’s Administrative Manager, Gretchen was the closest thing they had to fundraising staff now that their Director was on stress leave. She was supposed to represent the clinic at these house party things but here she was wandering on the edges, again, frankly worn out just from hauling herself in the door. Here was a question: Why does philanthropy so often require climbing stairs?

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The NotPeople Magazine Rationalest Man Alive Interview: Peter Singer Gets Notpersonal With A Respironics Bi-Pap S/T

Parody People magazine cover announcing NotPeople's Rationalest Man Alive! Peter SingerAs part of Tales From the Crip’s new series, Imaginary Interviews With People Who We Wish Were Imaginary, our own Respironics Bi-Pap S/T sat down with philosopher Dr. Peter Singer, Princeton’s Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, whose anti-crip, pro-swine agenda argues that infanticide of babies with disabilities should be legal up until the 28th day after birth, that health care for people with disabilities should be rationed, and that the consciousness of some pigs doesn’t get enough respect. These fascis — fascinating ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of why Peter Singer is gracing the cover of NotPeople magazine as the Rationalest Man Alive! 

RBPS/T:  Welcome to the United States, Dr. Peter Singer, and all Bruces from Australia.

PS: G’day.

RBPS/T: We’re going to have a rational discussion!

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Rational.

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  You’ve been named NotPeople’s Rationalest Man Alive 2015. How does this make you feel?

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Any plans for keeping the title in 2016?

PS: I don’t make plans more than 28 days ahead.

Coming Up in the Interview! 

Peter Singer as you’ve never heard him!  

“Your bizarre stereotypes about Australian people are getting in the way of me explaining why infanticide is the rational choice for parents of disabled infants!”

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And MEL saideth to the Catholic school teachers, “What did you expect?”

There’s a parable in the Old Testament’s Book of Mel called, “The Parable of the Sheriff and the Town of Rockridge,” that roughly translates into the modern idiom as an infinitely rueful, “What did you expect?”

Sadly, this parable sprang to mind instantly when I heard about the protests against San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (pronounced “COR-LEE-OWN”) regarding his proposed morality clause for teacher and other school employees’  contracts.

“What did you expect?…

‘Welcome, Fornicators?’

‘Marry whomever you want?’

‘Mazel on the IVF?’

“You work for a scary church, a church that’s long been out of hand, that despises women in the West… you know…Catholics.”

I don’t fault them for stubbornly continuing to hope that they’ll be treated with respect. Nobody EXPECTED the Inquisition.

The Archbishop, though, is doing just what it seems I should expect, given his ilk’s track record. So to him, I’d say: I’m just spit-ballin’ here but if I were really trying to get a firm grip on the whole morality thing, I’d put my energy into controlling something other than employees’ masturbation, reproductive, and marital choices. Like, oh, let’s see…child abuse? Feeding students who are hungry? Maybe continuing to clean up that giant immoral mess that your fellow priests inflicted on children?

 

 

I Want Them to Want Me Because I Will Need Them to Need Me But If That’s Not Going to Work, I Want a Lawyer.

There's No Cure for Gretchen Lowe

Every time Gretchen saw the forms on her desk at home, a wave of resentment rose. How did she know what it was like to use a feeding tube? Or a ventilator? Or have minimal brain function, for god’s sake? It was like asking an eight year-old to sign up for – or against – puberty.
Oh sure, she fumed in the dark, awake and annoyed. Tomorrow, Dr. Gabriel would repeat the official line: She could choose all medical interventions. She could elect to have whatever she wanted.
Oh, that was such bullshit. It wasn’t really her choice at all. The problem wasn’t too much extraordinary medical treatment, it was the limits of ordinary medicine to worry about, mostly financial. She didn’t have a problem being kept alive through artificial means now – she’d never seen a dollar bill push out of the dirt in spring – so she didn’t see any reason to assume she would resent it later on.

“Dear Valued Healthcare Provider,

“I’m glad everybody’s so concerned about honoring my choices. I choose to have my medical care continue regardless of ability to pay or insurance coverage, deductibles, prescription benefits, or other cost issues….”


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