Disheartening as H.. :: ADA, on your 17th Anniversary, meet Reality.. Sigh..

Hopefully this comes out right.. My gray cells aren't functioning so well at all again today.. :(

PS, by the way.. Everyone with a Yahoo! group needs to please check your spam buckets.. My copy of this to you all from my desktop never made it to the lists.. Next post: The Conspiracy behind effective advocacy posts regularly finding themselves being thrown down the cyber incinerator.. :wink:

Now, about yesterday's 17th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the real Reality of the human factor behind seeking any kind of accessibility accommodations.....

Don't know why I looked at an email bearing a subject referencing a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) IRC chat log yesterday, but I did.. Guess I'm glad I did.. Ran off at the fingertips at first glance, too..

The email was a cross-post to several W3C-associated working (wg) or interest group (ig) listservs.. It was about the most recent realtime talk some members had very literally regarding rewriting how we all design our web page coding so that the Internet is accessible for absolutely everyone..

The email I responded to was by a "Joshue O'Connor" who caught what my mind just completely did not grasp on the first run through of the IRC archive.. What caught my eye most from Joshue's now archived post (w3c-wai-ig, public-html) was the following:

This section is frankly kind of amazing. In several fell swoops the entire efforts of the accessibility people on the list are dismissed as almost Pavlovian responses and then an absurd dialogue about smell-o-vision ensues. This is trivializing the efforts of people here who are concerned about the needs of people with disabilities.

He was commenting on the following block from the log:

# # [15:01] This is orthogonal to fallback/alt content for images, though

# # [15:05] oh well, the legal stick of accessibility has been waived again :-/

# # [15:05] why is it that when accessibility advocates can't come up with a rational argument, they always fall back to the legal stick?

# # [15:08] Well, maybe they realize there are no carrots available?

# # [15:25] If the Web had smell-o-vision, would accessibility advocates fight for longdescs of odors on behalf of those with no sense of smell?

# # [15:27] A perfume site that made use of smell-o-vision would probably provide a description of the smell anyway for all users, so they can know what it's like before sampling.

To put it into some kind of perspective, these are the folks, among others, who are re-creating THE Internet for the rest of us'ns.. My no-regrets and also now archived (w3c-wai-ig, public-html) response was:

More amazing to these fingertips is that this became publicly disclosed, surfaced today, July 26, 2007, the 17th Anniversary of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act..

Obviously a long, long way to go before those who seek universal access for *ALL* are not publicly ridiculed by others..

Peace and best wishes..

Cindy Sue

If you've a mind to, please have at it.. These sentiments were left literally for the World Wide Web to meander regarding the acceptance of universal accessibility, let alone the actual implementation of the same..

Ever.........

To those who participated to this level in that chat, do you all honestly think this is what Tim Berners-Lee wants associated with his vision of Reinventing HTML towards a New Net..?

Very personal to Tim.. Please tell me from the bottom of your most visionist of visionary Hearts this isn't..

Cyber hugs..

Walking in These Shoes :: Life Sucks..

Can't believe I just said and meant "Lighten up" to another.. To a major website and identifiably as myself along with exactly why because they unknowingly chose just the wrong moment to invade my inbox with a "Why haven't you come to visit us in our vision of 'visit us in this many days or you don't give a D*mn about the World'" pressure email..

That "Lighten up" didn't come without forethought, though.. Been a tough few days in the latest personal evolution since my experience within the doors of community mental health care..

I don't know.. "Lighten up" started with the trip to the grocery store a few days ago, I guess..

Sucks that I've found myself jumping up and down to everyone about being able to buy d*mn hamburger for the first time in several years.. $1.00 a pound a few days ago.. Plain white wrapper.. Greasy as H-e-double-toothpicks.. Yummy as H-e-double-toothpicks, btw..

But I digress already from that..

Life Sucks..

Sucks up the wazoo that that $1.00/pound hamburger throws my already long ago flat broke busted 50, 75-cent a day food budget allowance out the fricking window for months to come from now..

Sucks up the bigger wazoo that $1.00 a pound hamburger has to be the highlight of my day.. Oy, vey..

Sucks the even bigger wazoo that lately it's hard to find like-minded people who Love All Others, Support All Others, would Fight and Lay Down Their Own Lives for Others.. Likemindeds who do not in any way, shape, or form judge someone for how they got to be where they are through the Evolution of Life's Choices Made.. (Desperately, hungrily seeking likeminded Consciences the reason why, btw, that I was even on the aforementioned "web surfer anxious" website to begin with..)

Drum roll, please..

Sucks up the humdinger wazoo of them all that, for all the progress that can be and is being made in the preservation of disability rights and human dignity, somewhere under the radar and just out of reach today, someone has already yet again taken the Life of another because their hardened Heart was so cruel as to be woefully blind to the Value in that beautiful Life they have now irrevocably snuffed..

Yup.. Life Sucks..

And it's that Suck Factor that drives these Fingertips to now shamelessly tell it like it is from these Shoes..

Until it "don't"..

Suck..

Other than that, not much else of major importance going on in this little ol' bleached blonde Mind o' mine today (in case anyone was wondering where the H-e-double-toothpicks I'd dropped off the Edge of the Planet to this Time)..

Cyber hugs.. :wink:

Words of Wisdom :: Abraham Lincoln on being melancholy..

Came upon the following buried deep in my inbox a few minutes ago while searching on something completely unrelated.. It's a quote credited to Abraham Lincoln:

A tendency to melancholy... let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.

I don't know.. It just seemed to hit the spot when the rest of the latest anxiety-inducing emails flooding in the last few days speak more on death and hate than anything hopeful..

Cyber hugs.. :)

Lifesite :: Nurses in Oregon assisted suicide case killed patient without a physician..

Tip of the iceberg..

PORTLAND, Oregon, July 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two Portland-area nurses have admitted to the Oregon State Board of Nursing that they administered massive doses of morphine and Phenobarbital to a woman dying of cancer with the intention of causing her death. The Portland Tribune reports that the state Board of Nursing was alerted to the nurses' action, but took more than a year investigating and did not report the incident to police.

The Board's finding was that the two did participate in an assisted suicide without a physician. Oregon law states that assisted suicides must be performed with a physician.

Love (not) how it says that Oregon state police are investigating with eyes on possible criminal charges being filed.. Argh.......

Oh, and that the two nurses were allowed to keep practicing nursing..

Aside to our Ted Nugents of the World who think disability advocates are running around saying "the sky is falling": And so just exactly what part of that slippery slope is it that is so beyond comprehension..?

I know, I know.. This is just a rare, isolated instance that would never, ever occur again, right..? :raises brow:

Featured Article: Nurses Investigated In Oregon Assisted Suicide Case - Killed Patient Without a Physician: Netherlands experience showed "euthanasia, once legalized, cannot be effectively controlled
By Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com..
PORTLAND, Oregon, July 9, 2007

Rome, Georgia :: Owner of 2 Nursing Homes suing DHR and CMS over funding loss..

Just found the following story in my ever burgeoning inbox.. In circumstances such as this story involves, resources that immediately come to mind to contact include:

• State disability advocacy office
• Long term care ombudsman (National Long Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center)
• Local center for independent living (CIL)
• News media (e.g. Congress.org Media Guide) -- Don't forget to get your story out there widespread so disability advocates can see it..

In addition to the above, don't forget about your local disability self-advocacy organizations, too.. Coming immediately to mind are:

• American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT)
• People First

Checking out the ADAPT website and/or contacting them directly should provide leads to local ADAPT chapters.. Calling your local CIL or trying some creative keyword combination searches will point you in the direction of your area's nearest People First chapter..

Article :: Owner of two nursing homes filed a federal lawsuit..
By Mike Gellatly, Rome News-Tribune Staff Writer, 2007-07-07
Rome News-Tribune..

Synopsis :: George Houser of Forum Healthcare, owner of two Rome, Georgia, nursing home facilities (Mount Berry and Moran Lake) filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia Department of Human Resources (DHR), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and others.. Federal funding supporting skilled nursing services stands to be pulled from these two long term care centers on July 15, 2007.. Based on the article, ceasure of funding appears to be related to (previous) quality of care.. Funding currently being provided is earmarked for the discharge and transfer of affected residents..

Up for telling Ted Nugent where to pluck it..?

Ted Nugent's the latest to cross my inbox as supportive of Dr. Uncouth, assisted suicide, legalization, and everyone staying out of it because it is, in his so many words, not a threat to vulnerable populations..

Sic 'em.. :wink:

Whoops, almost forgot..

Dear Ted Nugent:

Well spoken from your Ivory Tower of Celebrity Privilege.. When it comes to speaking about the slippery slope from these Shoes, YOU need to listen a little bit more as to why people fear.. people like you who don't even pretend to try to understand but who rant on and on from self-important possible positions of power to change the iffies on this Life-affecting debate..

Grrrin.. You said it yourself, Ted, when you said: "I would love to know who thinks he or she has any right to tell family members or loved ones just how, when or if they can compassionately end their suffering and meet their maker."

THAT'S what we're trying to tell people like you.

Right now, these types of decisions are being made not based on Love and Compassion but instead are being made based on how much trouble persons of all disabilities are to others.. Making it any more legal, any easier than it already is ups the verticality of that "slippery slope" we all speak of these days..

Shaking your head in retort..? (Can feel the residual disturbance in the air waves from here..)

'Splain to me, then, what was the excuse Ashley's parents, of Ashley's treatment fame, gave for why they violated her womanhood, her human rights, her Life's dignities.. Because it convenienced them, because it made things easier on them..

Whether or not you'd ever admit it publicly now, you and I both know there is no way in H-E-Double-Toothpicks the Ashley treatment parents are the only ones pulling this kind of cr#p on my extended family of friends..

'Nuff said.

Reference - Waco Tribune-Herald :: Ted Nugent: When my time comes, Big Brother, butt out, Ted Nugent, Sunday, July 01, 2007..