The kitchen Gods were having none of my plans, for as I inserted the
lovely container of chicken curry into the refrigerator, it jumped off
the shelf, flipped open and landed so that all the contents ended up on
the floor.

“Ah,!” thought I, “At least someone in this house shall enjoy this food.”

“Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, I called.

“Meow” came the reply.

“Come over here and help me clean up this mess” I said.

“Meow” came the response, from the other end of the kitchen, where his
treat bowl is located.

“Damn cat,” I muttered “If you think I’m going to pick this mess up,
just to put it in your bowl … Think again.”

“Meow” Came the response. “You want me to eat that from there? You must
have drunk more than tea with your meal.”

“I mean really, Cat! The minute the food splatted against the floor, any
self-respecting Labrador would have had its nose right there in the
remote possibility of something to eat. Moments later, the curry would
have been gone and all I’d have to do would be to mop up the slobber and
the odd rice grain. You’re less help than a republican senator on a
healthcare committee. Whatever happened to mutual aid and support?”

“Meow!”

So that’s it! My next pet shall be a dog. No more annoying meowing! No
more clawed furniture, no more gifts of regurgitated fur balls to be
discovered by bear feet in the morning. I’m done. Clean your own litter
box from now on. And don’t expect any treats in that bowl any time soon.

I’ve just heard via the email grape vine that a district court judge has ordered the Social Security Administration (SSA) to begin sending out notices in Braille or audio. What a concept. think of the potential for the agency to become a trend setter. Consider the potential for increasing accessibility across the entire government if SSA put into practice a system for automatically converting organizational prose into alternate formats. That system could be expanded to include other agencies.

Any federal (or state agency for that matter) which communicates with visually impaired customers should already be doing this. Perhaps a mandate of this magnitude will push our government toward a more full application of the principles embodied in the ADA.

What’s next? accessible currency?

I’ve had my web enabled talking Nokia cell phone for just over a year and have never used it to bookmark the menu pages of a restaurant I plan to visit. Googling the phone number of the White Water Grill lead me to their web page which prominently features their menu.

Well DUH, dummy! Join the 21st century already. And to think I ate out in Seattle three times last week. I wonder what I missed?

People with disabilities are not a diagnostic or rehabilitation challenge. We are people whose needs differ from the “norm” in understandable and manageable ways. To my friends, family and colleagues: please listen to what I say when I describe a need. For me, its not the active or malicious discrimination which is the most damaging; its the il-considered action. The un-thoughtful failure to provide access at a meeting is different only in degree from the failure to consider alternatives to ones choice of living arrangements. Both make assumptions about the world that are basically flawed and in need of revision.

Adapt demonstrators met with Obama officials on Monday and were told that their concerns to include long-term supports in current health care proposals would have to wait. “The administration stated that its only commitment currently
is to extend insurance to the people who are uninsured, and that the people in nursing homes and institutions would need to continue to wait until an unspecified
time in the future when it is proven that the health care reform worked.”

Nursing homes and other large institutions of “care” are often the most expensive and least appropriate places for people to live. Yet there appears to be an intensely entrenched bias which protects these institutions even in the face of considerable evidence that preferable alternatives exist.

If we are to have a truly national health plan than we must consider all of our citizens regardless of their living situation or health status. The Community Choice Act, currently being debated in congress is a first step in this direction. All of us may have the opportunity of being placed in a long-term nursing facility against our will. Current Medicaid rules only endorse this option.

Adapt’s recent press release provides more information on current advocacy activities. One may keep up with events as they happen by following ADAPT on Twitter.

While I do not feel empowered enough to be a protester and chain myself to a building, I fervently applaud those who have the courage to put their lives and reputations on the line for the things they believe. Thank you ADAPT members for your commitment and sacrifice .

This is where RSS comes in. RSS (opinions differ on what the acronym stands for) allows me to quickly survey many different web sites and get a quick overview of what is new on each. Instead of going to the BBC, the New York Times, Scientific American ETC and scanning past the ads and other things to see what’s new, I just open an RSS feed. This gives me a concise listing of the new information, usually sorted in reverse chronological order.

Both Firefox and modern incarnations of Internet Explorer have the ability to open RSS feeds. Here are links to more information.

• For a general introduction to RSS: http://rss.softwaregarden.com/aboutrss.html
• Here is the take on RSS from the perspective of Internet Explorer:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/tour/rss/
• Finally, Here is how Firefox does things:http://johnbokma.com/firefox/rss-and-live-bookmarks.html Firefox chose to call their implementation of RSS “Live Bookmarks. Here is more information about additional options: http://mashable.com/2007/05/26/rss-firefox-guide/

Once you have RSS working, you will be able to know whenever something new is published in this blog. This is the subscription address for this feed: http://www.equaltext.com/equalities/feed/

Here’s hoping this makes your life on the net just a little easier!

They describe this booklet as providing: “…the basics of the
Americans with Disabilities Act and other disability related
laws. Written in an FAQ format, The Disability Law Handbook
answers questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act, the
ADA Amendments Act, the Rehabilitation Act, Social Security, the
Air Carrier Access Act, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act,
and the Fair Housing Act Amendments.”