Ornaments, Alt Text, Alternative Formats, Branches of the Christmas Tree

Ёлки палки! Literally, branches of the Christmas tree. Something like "Oh good grief" in English with a phonetic overtone of alternative to one strand of profanity!

RantWoman, MUST YOU meander around in other languages just to talk about end of year / new year spiritual inventory?

Why the (bleep) not? Consider it another unsolicited trip to Planet RantWoman. It's not like there are no holiday ornaments losing their glitter needing either to be stowed or moved along in the universe. Plus maybe there are still some treasures lurking.

This year, partly in a spirit of simplicity, RantWoman has mainly been appreciating public Christmas trees. RantMom happily toured RantWoman and Irrepressible Nephew around the trees at her current retirement community. RantWoman was glad to see a tree visiting another beloved elder.

The intentionally
multicultural tree
in the lobby of RantWoman's building

RantWoman is called, in true procrastinator's fashion, to do some of the mental and spiritual housekeeping that sometimes takes place on New Year's Eve. In honor of this call, first a picture and some meditations on alt text and alternate formats.

Play of street lights and
street light reflections.
Can anyone find the Christmas tree
RantWoman was trying to photograph?

Alt Text

Alt text on images, some kind of verbal description of an image  is an easy accessibility gesture in many social media channels. Even though alt text is frequently easy to provide, RantWoman today is peeved by all the #WorldBrailleDay twitter full of images without alt-text. The good news: RantWoman is already sufficiently peeved that she has no intention of looking any further for imagest missing their alt text.

Here RantWoman at first was disappointed that the picture shows so much street light reflection and so little of the tree representation she was trying to photograph. However Literature brain discovered all kinds of possibilities when trying to write alt text for what is here. No, RantWoman is not going to inventory all the possibilities, only get stuck briefly on the fact that the possibilities exist.

Alternate formats

Next a word about alternate formats, an accessibility term near and dear to RantWoman, a term she uses regularly and not, alas, always with the desired level of patience about people's learning curves. Usually in RantWoman's experience alternate formats mean alternative ways besides print to present documents. RantWoman notes that modern media also include ebooks and podcasts and RantWoman is very grateful to have devices capable of delivering information in those formats. RantWoman always appreciates links and  documents via email just in common electronic formats such as accessible web page, PDF, and so forth. Pretty much any time RantWoman goes to or thinks about going to an event where there might be handouts, RantWoman will make a reasonable accommodations request to get the handouts and Powerpoint slides and other materials in electronic formats.

RantWoman will make the request. People who recognize that it is their job to address such requests promptly and in a timely manner with respect to the corresponding event will do the best they can. That might or might not mean an organization has even thought about the need for documents in alternate formats or depending on the size of the organization about requirements under the ADA. it might or might not mean the images in the Powerpoints have meaningful alt text. Almost always  RantWoman does the best she can to receive whatever answer comes with equanamity. Almost always the result is something better than not asking at all.

Almost always. There are a couple of Friends who RantWoman would routinely request the weekly handouts in alternate formats. Sometimes email happens. Sometimes not. Enough said?

(Pop quiz because RantWoman is feeling peeved on principle: RantWoman's blog tagging is probably unhelpful and RantWoman cannot think of something that would make a good search term, but can readers find other recent or otherwise posts where RantWoman speaks of alternate formats? Hint: the topic is pretty important and RantWoman speaks of it often enough that some Friends may be tired of it. Tough. RantWoman is tired of needing such too, but nevertheless RantWoman needs alternate formats!)

A link! The same link as everyone else!

Next, a word from the Prayer Warriors, in honor of the word "connection" which emerged from worship sharing at Fourth Saturday Worship. .
10 Questions for the New Year via the Prayer Warriors

To anyone put off by the language, RantWoman suggests the words of Benigno Sanchez-Eppler about listening in tongues. Plus RantWoman means to try questions as if at a shoe store luxuriating in the possibilities inherent in 10 options that might fit RantWoman will grab the questions she can most clearly work with and figure others will also find the footwear that fits them best.

Or recall that one of RantWoman's most consistent messages in Meeting for Worship is about praying across differences. The message tends to get hung on lots of different stories and RantWoman recognizes that others sometimes find Literature Brain confusing. RantWoman does not always remember exactly what she said but does not mind being asked to try to wander the pathways again, preferably as soon as possible, if the questions might help someone better find God.

And in the meantime, God is going to go off AGAIN about links being perfectly lovely alternate formats, at least for RantWoman with the tools and skills she has!