The Change

Court opinions often suck, but sometimes the footnotes are funny and call people stupid. It is in that spirit that I use footnotes.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” - Anatole France

“Having always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each of these experiences can isolate those who are affected, together they compose an aggregate of millions whose struggles connect them profoundly. The exceptional is ubiquitous; to be entirely typical is the rare and lonely state.” from Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

By this point in the series, Tobias has had a decent chunk of time to spend as a hawk. Through narration at the beginning of this book, we get to fly with Tobias on the pockets of warm air and hear some of the perks of being a bird of prey. In some respects, the positive aspects of his life as a bird are a clear contrast of his former life as a human kid. As an orphan, Tobias was passed between an aunt and uncle and therefore has been unable to have any say in where he would be at any given time. As a hawk, he doesn’t even have the usual childhood burden of school and is able to spend his days in reconnaissance while his friends are stuck in classrooms. As an insecure new kid in school, Tobias was perpetually the bottom of the social ladder that was picked on by bullies. As a hawk, Tobias is a predator needing to worry about very few predators above him. He is the eye in the sky for the team, able to map out the Yeerk pool while his fellow soldiers are in school.

Yet, being trapped as a hawk means he is more limited than some of his fellow soldiers. He can’t share in some of the dangers the rest of the Animorphs have gone through. He didn’t share in the horrors of being an ant. He wasn’t able to transform into a fly, termite, or cockroach to get into tight spaces. He regularly sits out big battles or plays a more minor role as a hawk who can’t morph into a bigger creature and deal damage in a fight. I mentioned that Tobias’s character was a good avenue to discuss identity and difference. As a nothlit and hawk, Tobias can be thought of as disabled¹. Once again, this isn’t some grand extended metaphor, but simply an avenue with which to think through some issues regarding disability.

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At the beginning of this book, Tobias is surveying the rest of the Animorphs. He greets Ax in the forest and spies Jake, Cassie, and Marco in class. He then catches Rachel leaving a school building and calls to her in thought speak to invite her to tour the entrances he has found to the Yeerk pool. While showing Yeerk pool entrances to Rachel, Tobias realizes he is not in a place he intended to be, WEIRD, I wonder if that will come back around, when he suddenly sees two Hork-Bajir appear from a tree in the forest moving to the side.

The two Hork-Bajir are pursued by Controllers, so Tobias and Rachel decide to rescue the two Hork-Bajir. In the escape, Tobias and the Hork-Bajir are cut off by a truck and one of the Hork-Bajir is run over, but the other nearly refuses to leave them saying that Hork-Bajir is his wife. Rachel and Tobias bring the rest of the team up to date, with one Hork-Bajir temporarily safe in a cave and the other currently in a ditch. They plan to ask the Hork-Bajir in the cave what he wants to do next. The Hork-Bajir in the cave introduces himself as a free Hork-Bajir, Jara Hamee, cutting his skull to show his Yeerkless brain.

As a troop of controllers approach the cave to recapture Jara Hamee, Tobias suggests that one of them can morph Jara Hamee to serve as a decoy. Rachel volunteers. Tobias joins Rachel as she runs to distract the Controllers but suddenly finds himself a quarter of a mile away where another Hork Bajir is being chased by human Controllers WEIRD, I wonder if that will come back around. Visser Three is one of the Controllers chasing the Hork-Bajir. Tobias blindsides Visser Three taking out his stalk eyes after he has returned to Andalite form to allow the Hork-Bajir, introduced as Ket Halpik, to escape. Back in the safety of the cave with Jara and Ket reunited the team discusses what to do next. Tobias suggests a valley up the mountain that he has never seen before but knows is there somehow WEIRD. Tobias and Ax watch over the cave as the rest of the Animorphs go home to get some sleep. As Tobias is confiding in Ax that he has been suddenly knowing information he can’t possibly know he suddenly knows that Taxxon trackers are coming for the Hork-Bajir WEIRD, I wonder if that will come back around.

Departing the cave at night while the rest of the team is still asleep, Tobias finds out that Jara and Ket also heard a voice tell them to leave when they escape so he stops them to find out who is behind the WEIRD things happening. The Ellimist transports him to another plane of existence where he is both boy and hawk.

HELLO, TOBIAS. WE MEET AGAIN.

The voice was huge, but not harsh. It filled my brain and seemed to resonate throughout my body. My feathers quivered. My fingers tingled.

Fingers?

And only then did I begin to realize that I was changed.

I looked down at my body.

The Ellimist reveals that he is trying to preserve the Hork-Bajir in the same way he made the offer to preserve humans.

“Once I put you and your friends in a position to give your own former species a chance. I looked deep into your future, and found a way to help you - without using my power directly. And now, you are in a position to help the Hork-Bajir. Do they not deserve the same chance as humans?”

“You’re trying to save the Hork-Bajir race from the Yeerks?”

The Ellimist smiled again and shook his head. “We do not interfere. We do not use our power for one species against another.”

“Bull,” I said.

The Ellimist let that go with just a faint smile. “I will not force you, Tobias. And I will not guarantee you will even succeed. There is every chance you will die and the two Hork-Bajir will die, and all will have been a waste.”

Finally, after some back and forth, Tobias asks for what he believes is his human form back.

“Fine. But I want to get paid for my services.”

“And what do you want, Tobias?”

“You know what I want,” I said, almost choking on the words. “You know.”

“Yes. But do you know what you want, Tobias?” The Ellimist asked. “And if you get it, will you still know?”

And suddenly, without any sensation of movement, I was back in the dark of the forest.”

The thing that Tobias thinks the Ellimist will return to him is his humanity.

After a long night of travel, running from the cave toward the valley the Ellimist was directing Tobias to, the Hork-Bajir eat tree bark and Tobias flies to hunt breakfast. Tobias nearly gets eaten by a bobcat while hunting and runs into a massive army of Controllers. The cavalry returns, Tobias updates them on everything including the Ellimist. The team reveals their humanity to the Hork Bajir. Tobias is finally able to hunt, but after eating sees helicopters. As he is headed to warn the group, he is caught in a helicopter draft and goes down, breaking a wing.

Tobias is grabbed by a racoon, going to be dismembered and eaten, when the Ellimist returns his morphing power. The Change² is immediate. But Tobias doesn’t return to human form, Tobias has his morphing power back. Tobias returns to the group. They conclude that the Yeerks will not give up until the Hork-Bajir are Controllers again or dead. Tobias has a plan, and he will be one of the Hork-Bajir. This is how he reveals to the Animorphs that his morphing power is back. The team gets into position, Rachel and Tobias morphed as Jara and Ket. Tobias and Rachel run through the forest with Yeerk forces chasing close behind. The chase ends on a cliffside that Tobias and Rachel plunge over morphed as Jara and Ket. Visser Three looks over the side and sees the mangled bodies of the two Hork-Bajir being devoured by wolves at the bottom of the cliff. The ruse works, Marco morphed as a gorilla grabbed Rachel and Tobias before they had fallen very far and pulled them into a place where they couldn’t be seen while the real Jara and Ket were at the bottom of the cliff with Cassie and Jake as wolves looking like they were devouring them.

Finally, Jara and Ket are safe and free. They arrive at the Hork-Bajir valley, everyone is blown away by how beautiful it is. Jara and Ket reveal that they are going to have a baby Hork-Bajir. The next day Tobias has a final encounter with the Ellimist. The Ellimist returns Tobias to the night before he encounters Elfangor to acquire is former human body. The Ellimist than leaves him with the understanding that his former body is now just a morph, he can stay in it for two hours but then would permanently be a human again.

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Starting with this book and with Tobias to talk about disability has its drawbacks, but so does practically any starting point with disability. The timeline of the books is a bit messy but by this point in the story Tobias has certainly been a red-tailed hawk for a while. At this point, he has also accepted and embraced this as part of his identity.

This is my life now. I accept it. And there are some very nice things about being a bird.

Some very nice things.

As I indicated at the top of this piece, Tobias has seen significant improvements in his life over the transition to being a regular weird kid that gets picked on to a bird. But his life as a bird also obviously involves severe limitations and lack of ability compared to his friends. If you hadn’t noticed, the human world also isn’t set up to accommodate a hawk boy. I said this wasn’t a very good metaphor for disability exactly, but no matter how you understand disability it is easy to recognize Tobias’s experience inside that understanding. Which means maybe the comparison isn’t so bad after all.

We also see by the end of this book that some of the central problems Tobias has faced since becoming a nothlit are solved by the Ellimist. This is where things truly break down in my view. If you are coming at this from a perspective of faith, then maybe this makes sense as an understanding of how disability in society works. After all, this is how the stories of disability in the gospels play out. A man is born blind, encounters Jesus, and then goes away able to see. A woman is very sick, touches Jesus, and power goes out of him to heal her. Jesus asks rhetorically if it is easier to say “your sins are forgiven” which implies much more power, or “get up and walk” which is easily falsified if it doesn’t happen then goes on to tell the man he forgave in his own name to get up and walk³.

There are cases of restoring capabilities. Throughout adulthood I have referred to myself as disabled⁴, and I don’t believe that will completely change. But the full contours of it have shifted throughout my life and even before I fully considered myself disabled. When I was growing up, I generally didn’t consider myself disabled. I had asthma, and for about three years I also had chronic pain. If that was all I had to deal with I doubt I would consider it disability. At most, I was a kid who got sick more than average. I had a family that wasn’t wealthy by American standards but had enough security so that my mom could take time to advocate for me to get any care I need or push me to overcome any limitation I might have through other talents.

In adulthood, I have found myself with a more visible disability that is also probably what people think of when they think “disability.” Until last year, I couldn’t really lift much or use much upper body much without worrying that my arm would come out of its socket. A scan finally found a particular physical reason for this and as far as I’m concerned, now I can lift things without any worry⁵. I have also been lame for almost a decade. I don’t mean lame in the “my music sucks and I make dumb jokes” sense that is rather rude. I mean literally I can’t walk without a limp. More recently, it seems this may have a cause and fix as well⁶. In the best-case scenario where this problem is fixed, I will still be disabled, still consider myself disabled, but I will also have two massive problems fixed.

This “problem and solution” model of understanding disability can also be a beginning to understanding how to deal with disability⁷. Sometimes the best solution is to help the blind see, the lame walk, and the nearly dead to live again. As someone who has spent a vast amount of time in doctors’ offices or poring over studies of the trade-offs in various treatments for my many medical problems, I have found it infuriating to watch whenever a solution for a problem is staring us in the face and we refuse to embrace it as a society. Gender care is an obvious case I’ve written on before. Some of the commentary around the science of semaglutide and other similar compounds has also been frustratingly downplaying impacts of a drug that may actually turn out to be life-changing for a wide variety of people⁸.

But in most cases of disability, God doesn’t come down and discuss with humans exactly what he wants them to do that will then restore their capabilities and leave them the option to return to their former physical state. In fact, capacity is often much less fluid than we think. Tobias can’t be restored to a kid that isn’t in a war, isn’t a hawk with morphing powers. We live in a world fraught with trade-offs.

In some ways, this is clear by the sheer scope of disability. Around 1 in 5 people in the United States have some sort of disability according to the US Census. This is far higher than the more restrictive way the government considers disability in order to disburse welfare benefits. The severe restriction on what is considered disability helps to keep the cost of different categories of disability low for the US government. The exacting technicalities further restrict payments the government needs to pay out by creating administrative hoops to jump through. No single person designed this system we have, but in essence we have a system for giving out benefits to disabled people who are disabled or poor enough to meet strict criteria but not disabled enough to have no ability to navigate an underfunded bureaucracy.

It’s also a system small and arcane enough that as any reasonable person cycles through it they are either horrified and frustrated by the monstrous dystopia we’ve created for ourselves where any benefits are so slow to come, or so rich that the benefits paid out actually seem reasonable even if the service is pathetic and any benefits would never have come in time if you actually needed cash to help fund a gap in rent payments. Since the insurance like structure of SDI of our system is so generous to the upper-middle class that find themselves down on their luck and able to weather any waiting period they might still come away with the impression that the system is wasteful, and any cuts are just fine⁹.

Sometimes though, we can go beyond fixes to individual people through medicine or benefits. I found the recent Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity by the Vatican to be a frustrating document at many points. But one of the reiterations of social teaching that the DDF gives by grounding Catholic teaching in the idea of dignity is to put a focus not on rights but on obligations. At points where this document is bad its very bad. Its reasoning is facially absurd, and it fails to do pretty basic homework on the subjects it talks about. But at high points the document does actually give some echoes at what could be. This is especially true of its focus on obligations in relationships. In this way, the document is echoing some of the most powerful moral exhortations. It reminds me of Martin Luther King when he says “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” It reminds me of the famous line from Kennedy “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

In this spirit, before going off the rails, the declaration says “Thus, every effort should be made to encourage the inclusion and active participation of those who are affected by frailty or disability in the life of society and of the Church.” This puts the church teaching on disability squarely within the ideals of the Social Model of disability which found its intellectual and moral footing in Victor Finkelstein’s experience with apartheid. There is not one solution within the Social Model, my goal isn’t to give an overview. I recommend Finkelstein’s writings, I recommend Sara Luterman as probably the best journalist writing on disability in America at the moment - probably because she is disabled herself, and Andrew Solomon’s book quoted at the top of this piece is a huge work compiled of stories of hundreds of families dealing with disability.

But I do have one, almost daily, experience that almost always strikes me. I have lived as a renter my entire adult life, and because my spouse and I are occasionally forgetful I have found myself on the receiving end of more than a couple parking tickets on street sweeping days. In one particularly infuriating experience, our car got a notice on it that it would be towed away for being abandoned when it was parked legally on the public street in front of someone’s house on an afternoon because I guess it was too ugly for them. I’m not terribly bothered by these tickets overall though, I understand street sweeping needs to happen and enforcement is routine.

But another parking law universal to everywhere I have lived that as far as I’m aware has never been enforced is when cars obstruct paths on the sidewalks. People who own enough cars or big enough cars in houses with driveways to obstruct sidewalks don’t get ticketed. Now, there isn’t any routine enforcement, so it is as if these laws to obstruct sidewalks don’t even exist. This is something I think about many days because it impacts me a little and probably impacts others like me a lot. Sometimes there is no convenient way around that doesn’t involve going down a step or into the road. I’ve tripped and hurt myself more than a few times. I don’t want to overstate this, it is a small inconvenience for me, but likely a much larger one for someone in a wheelchair.

I don’t think the people parking in my way are bad or should be horribly punished, I think they are simply thoughtless. If there was routine enforcement, it would be habit for everyone to have clearer walkways. But police don’t write tickets for obstructing walkways.

Wait.

No, see my spouse corrects me if I bring this up because she works with homeless people. Police do enforce laws about obstructing sidewalks. Police ticket people experiencing homelessness to block the walkways. In fact, there are cases before the Supreme Court now on whether it is constitutional for cities to be able to ban people from sleeping in public places. In Martin vs City of Boise, the courts have so far ruled that cities cannot enforce statutes against sleeping outdoors if they have been denied shelter and have no other option. This ruling has so far used the eighth amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment as justification but could also be grounded in the fourteenths amendments due process and equal protection clauses¹⁰.

Cities therefore need to give people experiencing homelessness any option to be able to enforce. This is what Los Angeles currently does to clear encampments¹¹ - offer shelter or hotel vouchers to bring people indoors or tell them they have to move. This is a deeply imperfect remedy for a bad situation, but it gives some protection. Two cities however basically concluded that this wasn’t cruel enough and petitioned to the Supreme Court which is how Johnson vs Grants Pass arrived at the Supreme Court. And now it is likely, though not certain, that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will overturn the previous ruling.

There is some hope for some sort of limited ruling. This isn’t because the Supreme Court is a thoughtful and careful institution but because it is an institution whose legitimacy comes from our belief in it. The Supreme Court has wide discretion to rule how it wants or dismiss parts of a case based on standing grounds, mootness grounds, or many other technical sounding reasons that basically allow it to constrain its own power. The particular wrinkle that gives the Supreme Court an out in this case is the idea that courts must involve themselves only when there is a live case. And one of the main plaintiffs in this case, Debra Blake, died.

A lot of reporting on this seems to just mention this in passing but I want to assure you that you read that right and it is the main point I want to emphasize here. One of the main plaintiffs died. The case would be named after her if not for her death. She had been homeless for seven years and racked up $5,000 in penalties. She was 62 years old, which isn’t exactly so young that she should have been knocking on deaths door. No one has said “Oh, she probably died of being homeless,” even though that’s the obvious conclusion here, so let me put it in big bold text.

DEBRA BLAKE, THE 62 YEARS OLD FACE OF A CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT CASE DIED - PROBABLY FROM SLEEPING ON THE STREET! IF THAT’S NOT CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT I DON’T KNOW WHAT F***ING IS

Anyways. At this point I’ve wandered far from Animorphs and disability. There is, of course, many ways to connect back. At Oral Argument with the supreme court a lot of discussion was made trying to distinguish between so called “status” and “conduct” of homelessness. The idea of this argument is that cities are trying to argue that the law isn’t singling out a particular group of people, people experiencing homelessness, they are simply enforcing laws that equally apply to everyone. The liberal justices did a good job illustrating the obvious point that homelessness very clearly manifests as not being able to sleep inside, like a disabled person has certain limitations. The conduct, sleeping in public, is clearly tied to status.

Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping? - Justice Sotomayor

But the other side of the coin is the so-called state interest, clearing public sidewalks for people to walk. And that is clearly not something the cities take seriously either. There is no enforcement of cars that block walkways. This connects back to disability too. Enforcement of clearing walkways, walkways that are especially important to clear for the able passage of disabled people, is most important to the state when it is disabled poor people blocking and least important when it is thoughtless rich leaving their cars in the driveway.

1. The big question looming. Can I stop myself from wading into the never-ending person-first versus identity-first language debate?

2. Hey, that’s the name of the book!

3. Which, honestly, is Jesus coming across as a snarky Messiah and I love it. This is one of those passages that is undertheorized. Imagine if our test of how good a servant of God someone is wasn’t whether they said all the right theological things but if when they said “I’m going to help this person” that person was helped.

4. Yeah, I’m not wading in too far. Suffice it to say I use “identity first” language - “Disabled Person” as oppposed to “Person with disability” (Person First). There was a time when I didn’t really consider myself disabled and I found the argument for Person First language compelling where “person with a disability” would have been better if someone insisted on labeling me disabled. “Differently-abled” is and was always stupid and grating.

5. Which is especially important since I’m regularly now lifting a weight that is slowly increasing and full of wiggles.

6. Although the cure may be worse than the sickness

7. If you’re familiar with “models” of disability this is most squarely within the medical model, although maybe calling this the faith model and charity model would also fit here. And to some degree the social model! I’m speaking pretty loosely and not defining my terms, this is a reflection on a children’s book after all. Also, while I do think it “matters” what framework people work with and there are some things about the different frameworks that are better and worse, I think the outcomes matter more, both in terms of policy, in terms of problem solving, and in terms of who has rights and responsibilities. Of course, even in saying that I’ve tipped my hand in favor of the social model.

8. Though some friends have pointed out to me that the commentary may be a good corrective. Ozempic may be incredible, it may end up having fewer limitations and shortcomings than other drugs and treatments. But like any drug or treatment it won’t be a sure thing. And apparently dipshits don’t understand that.

9. This is sometimes referred to as the welfare model or charity model. The social model encompasses the solutions in this model as well though.

10. Actually, there are more areas where I think the constitution has something to say. The rights to be secure against unlawful search and seizure in the fourth is also at issue given the lack of privacy involved in being without privacy. The ninth amendment is also at issue.

11. Not letting Los Angeles off the hook here though, they’ve filed brief asking to overturn Martin v Boise.