Roger Ebert Returns

I just read this brief story about Roger Ebert's new prosthetic face. Ebert has lost his lower jaw and his voice to cancer, and now he will be returning to the TV screen to provide movie critiques with a silicone prosthesis and a voice synthesizer. The above linked article has a picture of him with the prosthetic jaw, and this Esquire article shows him before the prosthesis and talks about his cancer battle.

Yeah yeah yeah

I know it's been a bit since I blogged, but after I get home this weekend, I'll try to take time to catch you up on the last ten weeks or so. I've just been quite busy despite depression and health issues.

So, I'll be in KS in time for supper on Saturday, and I will be around until July 29. There are pals I'm hoping to see, and you know who you are (especially you four -- Mouse, Psi, 'wela, Lachlan -- who I have not seen since P's funeral). So much to do this trip:

-- get my stupid blood under control

-- finish one manuscript, start two others

-- hang out with my peeps and hug 'em all (especially the 6-month-old nephew) 'til their eyes bug out

-- read a s*** ton of research articles

-- see HP and the Half-Blood Prince

-- get some things fixed on my chair

-- fun, novel-type reading

-- maybe talk Rolando into going to the zoo, especially the one near my house

-- do my yearlies with the cardiologist, the neurologist, the pulmonologist, and the urologist

For now, more library research. 'Night!

Expressing an opinion?

I just finished watching the Hallmark presentation movie "Sweet Nothing in My Ear" (ignoring the horridness of the title) starring Marlee Matlin and Jeff Daniels. The story is about a deaf woman and a hearing husband who eventually come to legal separation from each other over whether or not to give their eight-year-old son (born hearing but slowly went deaf around age four) a cochlear implant.

I liked that the movie ended before the parents made a decision. I felt that it was a good way to not pass judgment either way, to let the ending speak to individual choice.

But just then, they advertised Hallmark magazine. In the current issue, there is a story about a woman who was born severely hearing impaired but chose in her mid-30s to get a cochlear implant. Before anyone starts flaming me, I have no judgment about Ms. Olson. She made the decision she felt was right for her. What I care to submit is the way Hallmark magazine only put in a story about one person receiving the implant and didn't round out the issue with a story of a person who lives every day with no sound. Even within the story they have, they gloss over the fact Ms. Olson will be battling balance issues for the rest of her life due to a surgical complication. Granted, it doesn't happen in all cases, but I feel as though the article was geared toward "the small miracles of sound" and the "funny" anecdotes about fixing the refrigerator because it was so loud ("No, Mom, it always sounds like that" -- oh, isn't that quaint).

I know, I know. Hallmark is give-you-diabetes sweet (their commercials were giving me the jitters), but I can't help feeling that an opinion is being expressed. I probably shouldn't even have watched it because I'm easily made cranky these days.

Did anyone else see the movie? What are your opinions?