Six. Almost Seven..

Monday, June 22, 2009

Happy Olmstead Day :: Let's ROCK The NOEWAIT Petition..!

You all were amazing this morning with how many signed on to the NOEWAIT Eliminate Waitlists for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities petition just a little bit ago.. Simply amazing..!

Please don't forget to keep forwarding it along wherever you can think to throughout the rest of the day as this is exactly the kind of subject matter that Lois Curtis, Elaine Wilson, and Sue Jamieson fought so hard for with respect to the Olmstead decision some ten years ago this week..

In Unity with Huge Cyber Hugs from Talking Rock..

FREE OUR PEOPLE..!!

Cindy Sue :)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Darren Couldn't Have Waited Just ONE MORE WEEK.. NOO..! :))

Just one more week, Darren.. That's all I needed, Darren.. Just ONE MORE WEEK.. :grin:

So a funny thing happened on my way to Darren Rowse's latest Problogger post, Tell us about Your Blog in 140 Characters or Less.....

I got caught with my cyber britches all the way down around my ankles and sliding off one foot with the other not far behind..! :blush:

What has been happening is that I'm in the process of revamping EVERYTHING these Fingertips have ever been online.. Dust is flying EVERYWHERE, but only as fast as $9.95 a month dialup access allows..

Most recently, this blog, Six. Almost Seven.., had started to make the move over to Wordpress.com as wisp-o'-the-will.. Really neat colors I was able to draw on to quickly generate an impromptu header image: Bold black and red using the "Neo-Sapian" theme originally created for Wordpress by WPDesigner..

Scooby Doo farts, you ask..? As Studebaker over at Twitter.. My friends over there are an unbelievably eclectic intermingling of microbloggers I adore and whom have no idea I spend some wee bit of time living vicariously through when they're not looking.. :grin:

Back on the subject of the progressive move over to Wordpress.. Was an extremely difficult decision to make, but ultimately it came down to that I really don't like having to feel like I need to visit my site occasionally just to make sure it's still "safe and sound".. Silly, yeah, but I'm kind of partial to the concept of Freedom of Speech, you know..? :wink:

Well, it was the constant worrying about the stability of one's opinion remaining online combined with the ease, or lack thereof, of being able to successfully validate Six. Almost Seven.. in its current state.. Hard as I tried to keep up with it, the most well-formed I could get it was within something like 80+ errors, give or take, over at W3C.. :grimace:

So what happened with Wordpress.com, though, that sent the virtual dust specs flying everywhere yet again a few days ago was that scripts were getting scrubbed when I entered them.. A quick check of their FAQ revealed that there are a lot of things that don't work on the dot com site that do on some others, well, like Blogger, for example.. That's TOTALLY cool, just thank GOODNESS I learned the limitations this early on.. :phew, giggle:

That realization in hand, one super quick Internet search later brought me straight back to Wordpress, only this time it was over at their dot org version.. The "fun" still wasn't done yet, though..

Seems the completely free, downloadable, use-on-your-own-site version.....

Would NOT freaking download on this end to save my Life..!!!

Best as I can figure is that it might have something to do with that I'm using a really cheap, not p/c "inexpensive" but CHEAP, Internet service provider (ISP).. Caught on tape (translation: print screened for posterity) is the evidence: The file was downloading at 37 [bleeped] bites a second.. Chances are that either my ISP or the Wordpress server was timing me out because the download was taking so [double-bleeped] long..

A Wordpress forums tipster suggested a mirror over at Softpedia.. That proved to be the ticket.. Yeehaw..!

And that is where you find me now.. Cyber britches down at my ankles as I sit this second with Wordpress.org's offering finally downloaded and extracted, YAY, and waiting for me to figure out if yes, Virginia, GoDaddy will or will not accommodate it as an upload..

Stay tuned.. And thank you so much for caring enough to pop in and visit.. :grin:

Cyber Hugs with warmest wishes of Peace and Love from the foothills of North Georgia..

P.S. Hm. Seems my ramen noodles were inadvertently posted elsewhere and never found their way home to roost.. In the spirit of the moment, the 140 characters or less version is:

One military B-1 bomber *approximately* equates to 1,538,461,538 single serving packages of ramen noodles, give or take a million or two..

Monday, September 15, 2008

Washington D.C. :: ADAPT Activists Set Up Operation DUH City For HUD..

Straight from their own Fingertips and in Loving Unity from this Keyboard..

Washington, DC - At 5:00 AM, ADAPT activists took over the plaza in front of the massive headquarters of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). ADAPT quickly set up tents and other structures to house activists for the remainder of the action. The action's focus is all about the need for accessible, affordable, integrated housing.

ADAPT simultaneously launched a website for the action, nicknamed Operation DUH. The website can be viewed at www.duhcity.org . ADAPT's Housing Platform can be viewed at:

www.duhcity.org/press/DUHPlatform.pdf

To make this action as effective as possible, ADAPT needs your help! Contact your Congress person and tell the to endorse ADAPT's Housing platform! Let them know that people with disabilities face a housing crisis that forces hundreds of thousands into institutions or other dangerous living conditions. Tell them to meet with ADAPT at DUH City!

Also, contact the Presidential Campaigns! Tell Senator Obama and Senator McCain that they need to endorse ADAPT's housing platform and solve the housing crisis for people with disabilities.

Chris Hilderbrant
Rochester ADAPT

In reference to ADAPT's request for everyone to contact their Congress men and women, the following will help get you there:

United States Senators :: In addition to both listing all U.S. Senators on this webpage along with a couple of options for narrowing our searches, Senate.gov additionally provides a search engine with a state drop down list at the top righthand corner of each page..
Contact your U.S. State Representatives :: The U.S. House of Representatives website offers the aforementioned contact webpage along with this Member Listing by state.. They do not immediately appear to offer that same nifty quick reference search feature at the top of their own website.. They do, however, offer a clickable visual map of the United States which is a nice accessibility touch for those of us with cognitive disabilities..

Quickie Observation :: The Senate.gov website loaded fairly easily via my crappy Internet service provider.. The House.gov one, on the other hand, phew, not so much.. Need to work on that, Fellas.. People who don't have money Vote, too.. :wink:

United In Advocacy from Talking Rock..

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Hurricane Andrew: 16 Years Ago This Past Weekend..

For my closest friends who may be wondering..

Like these grown men, I, too, have been.. choked up the last few days:

Hurricane Andrew: 16 Years Ago Today..

Dave Game is quoted as saying, There is no way to tame nature's fury.

That one unbelievably conscious Reality is as much a hard part now as the continual loss since it brings with it the ever-present knowledge that any second, absolutely any blamed second again now, it could happen all over again.. And the thing is that I, for one, just plum do not have the energy it takes to make something to feed the Soul, let alone defend Life, limb, and property against another Andrew..

Comes as much as anything from having fallen through the cracks back then.. There were some well-meaning folks, but, by and large, it was so overwhelming for all of us at the time, survivors and rescuers alike, that falling through just.....

Just happened.. multiple times along the way..

Post-traumatic stress disorder..

PTSD..

With Hurricane Katrina so much more recently in Memory, please learn about it, what it is, what it looks like..

Compassionately understand it..

As you read about it, think hard on CBS' remembrance piece and visualize the grown men depicted as misting up this near two decades later since H. Andrew..

Now, think of the 500,000 give or take that Hurricane Katrina affected and put them in those same Shoes.. For them, the disaster they bore was just that much worse than what the guys at CBS are reacting to in near tears.. I know.. I was there.. And because I was there, when I heard over and over and over what happened during Katrina, I knew it was umpteen times that much worse..

Have lost track now, but back when we did The World Bank Group's Disabled and other Vulnerable People in Natural Disasters three week deal, a grand total of some $600,000 had been earmarked for the mental health care of the survivors.. Haven't much heard of anything along those lines since..

$1.20 a survivor..

Earlier today, hm, yesterday, was reading something from the Los Angeles Times entitled Denver protester focuses on Hurricane Katrina.. In it, they write about survivor Derrick Evans who is said to have hauled an old FEMA trailer from Gulfport, Mississippi, to the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado.. The impression he wished to make..?

Where did $129 billion for Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery go?

Can someone somewhere please help him find out..? Venturing to make a wholly uneducated guess that he has many, many, many a day it's all he and/or those around him can do to simply just get up..

All it takes is just one person, even if it's just one stranger, who gives a damn and has some serious fact checking tools to go with.. That's all it would take to help him help pro-actively change the Lives of hundreds of thousands forever..

But don't take it away from him.. Please stand there beside him, instead..

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock..

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Happy Birthday, ADA :: Disability Rights Protestors Force Bush Admin Meeting..

Another one of those Eleventh Hour kinds of deals where I've been pondering today being the 18th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA.. Beyond that I've noticed I received barely anything about it all week long even as my inbox swelled yet again by several more thousand, no topics off the top of my head seemed to be celebratory enough..... Either..

Ah, but then..

In late this evening comes something from a fellow advocate I've met out on one of our wonderful disability advocacy listservs on the Net.. This piece he forwarded to his own emailing list more than qualifies as speaking out on how strongly we, as a Community, feel about retaining and improving upon the basic Human Rights so many others take for granted each waking moment..

And speaking of incredible Unity, thank you so much to the wonderful disability advocates I know have been sharing still more information regarding the situation revolving around talk show personality Michael Savage taking disabilistic pot shots at children with autism.. I can only hope you all could feel the Love Vibes coming back in your direction from one very tired little Soul.. In the next day or so, I hope to be able to bring your shared information and opinions to the forefront here along with continuing to further connect the dots all across the World Wide Web as everyone strives so hard to preserve Dignity, Rights, and Respect for all persons with disabilities..

Peace, Hope, and Social Justice For Us All..

PRESS RELEASE
For more information:

Kelly Buckland (208) 869-4135
Shannon Jones (913) 486-4565
Brad Williams (518) 424-8121

Disability rights protestors force meeting with Bush Administration
WASHINGTON, DC (July 23, 2008)

Over 200 disability rights advocates from across the country protested outside the U.S. Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) located at Potomac Center Plaza.

The boisterous group chanted until the Assistant Secretary of OSERS [ 1 ], Tracy Justesen, came down and agreed to meet with a delegation from the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL). The NCIL delegation presented the membership's demands to the Assistant Secretary.
Specifically at issue is RSA's recent interpretation of the Rehabilitation Act and the negative impact it will have on the operation of Statewide Independent Living Councils (SILCs). Despite years of accepted operation, RSA has limited the scope of councils so that they function according to minimum statutory duties.

In Kansas, by advocating for public policy issues, we have increased the employment rate for people with disabilities by 20%, stated Shannon Jones of Topeka, Kansas. These types of advocacy efforts are being thwarted by RSA's narrow interpretation of SILCs duties. Once again, people with disabilities will be marginalized because of bureaucratic nonsense.

After meeting for more than an hour, RSA agreed to respond in writing to NCIL's demands. While NCIL looks forward to their response, they are concerned about how these restrictions will continue to impede policy related to people with disabilities.

Image Description: This post's image (above) depicts multiple NCIL advocate and self-advocates protesting.. Some are holding signs that say things like "Free Our People Now", "Let Our SILCs Be Free", and "Back Off Our SILCs Or Set Us Free".. Others nearby are visibly in the act of vocalizing.. One gentleman up front is actively using a blowhorn to lead the chants that have been described as occurring during this event earlier this past week..