Check out Comedian Kathy Griffin's Visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center this Thursday

This week on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Kathy performs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. From the previews, it looks like she visits the disabled soldiers in rehab. It looked like an interesting pop culture take on the subject, so I thought I'd put it out there. It is supposedly one of the only times that a camera crew has been inside the rehab facility at Walter Reed. This Thursday night 10/9 central (August 14th 2008).

If you aren't familiar with the show, Kathy Griffin is a moderately successful comedian who makes fun of everyone and everything, including herself. Her material is somewhat controversial, but nowhere near as racy as a lot of male comics. The show is a hilarious reality show about Kathy promoting herself and trying to become more famous, in a self-effacing sort of way. Kathy said about this episode:

I'm so proud of winning that battle with Bravo — they didn't want to make it a whole episode. But I'd found that those guys at the hospital — the majority were amputees — just have the sickest sense of humor and were so wanting to laugh and use humor to get through their situation, because that's how they deal. So I said to Bravo, "Go [bleep] yourselves — I'm not doing Frontline here, you know. I'll still be making a fool of myself and saying inappropriate things. But this'll be a window into what happens to these people that you're not gonna see on The [bleeping] Kardashians!"

Other cool stuff:

Cute article in the LA Times about teenage girls with visual impairments learning how to surf. It's a light fluffy piece that goes out of its way to emphasize the 'kids with disabilities are just like other kids' aspect. Cool picture to go along with the article.

This story from the St. Petersburg Times, "The girl in the window," is a moving profile of a little girl with developmental and physical disabilities that resulted from her extreme neglect from birth to age seven. With the love and support of the family that adopted her, she is learning to walk and talk and play for the first time at age 8. I thought it was a great portrayal of a child with a disability and what she and her family struggle with, without presenting the girl's life as a tragedy, or the parents as martyrs or heroes. Excellent journalism.

And finally, a Nike commercial, featuring Oscar Pistorius (he's at the very end). I'm not all about the Nikes, but this is a great commercial. I love the song, too (All These Things That I've Done, by The Killers).