October 31 Disabilities Awareness Item: Scary enough for the whole month

Dear Friends

Happy Halloween. I have numerous scary topics on my mind . I am going to start with some whines and a couple Halloween blog entries.

My laptop and my monitor are doing weird things as far as video. Editing with only a screen reader, excuse me, SUCKS. Okay, I know thousands of centered well-adjusted much blinder people do it all the time, but…. Luckily at last the monitor has decided to do it’s daily mess around through several cycles of power on and off until stable display results. Possible issues include failing components and video controller issues if I have my accessibility software installed wrong. So if Friends can hold my technology and paths to the wherewithal to update… in the Light. If Friends really cannot get through the day without more technological esoterica, I am happy to share further.

Update: visited another computer where the monitor works and the blue screen of death was at one point an improvement. Not necessarily reassuring to know that everyone in town is having some of the same issues with the newest upgrades. Grrrrr.

Speaking of seeing scary things, please hold my nephew in the Light. His school bus was going by as a bad incident involving a bridge or overpass happened last week. I think I saw a headline but did not click and read. My sister said my nephew saw a whole bunch of details I am not going to repeat, more than the kids in the other school bus who also saw the event. The kids who saw things got asked not to talk about it to the other kids at school which seems reasonable but my sister was complaining that the kids who did see things did not get to talk to a counselor right away. So please just hold the whole thing in the Light.

A scary technology headline:
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=6661
The scary part for me is the headline: speech recognition software tends not to work well with people who have non-standard speech patterns as many hearing impaired people do. I had to read the article to see itis the doctors who are using the software which actually sounds kind of ingenious.


The blogroll does Halloween:
http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2011/10/christian-view-of-halloween-repeat.html
http://blog.sojo.net/2011/10/28/halloween-and-jesus-a-reconciliation-in-the-dark/

A fast way to respond to this year’s query from Pagan Ministry Friend about whose deaths one has noticed from my blog:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/search/label/Memorials  .
Names that stand out are Lara harding, Agnes Schmoe from Eastside and
Amy Trice, former tribal chief of the Kootenai tribe. Read obist
yourself if you feel led. The other two have the names in the titles; here is the item about Lara.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/05/shame-vulnerability-courage-fertilizer.html

My ramble of last year.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/10/reformation-and-chocolate-eyeballs.html
This post was about the time of Pagan Ministry Friend's Samhain post which drew a letter to the editor in Western Friend. One funny follow up: I saw the editor of Western Friend, last summer at Annual session and the subject of the letter and my response came up. Friend Editor said that the author of the original letter posted something from one of the blogs I mentioned in my response on Facebook. I probably would never have known about the FB post unless Friend Editor told me because I just interact in a pretty limited way with Facebook. But I was glad to hear my suggestion spoke to the other Friend’s condition.

One part of Facebook I do interact with is the Association of Bad Friends. The Association of Bad Friends exists to encourage Quakers to poke fun at ourselves. Unfortunately most of the Bad Friends who post regularly are so earnest and serious that we cannot help frequently straying into serious topics. For instance, recently in some kind of exchange that started out about appalling things people do in Meeting for Worship, Pagan Ministry Friend mentioned how much our Meeting’s support of her ministry means. I am glad she feels well supported.

At the Association of Bad Friends one is only allowed to nominate
oneself for Quaker roles, not anyone else, even though as Bad Friends
we may be quite certain someone else deserves nominations. I used to
be clerk of the Committee on Doing Sudoku in Meeting for Worship
committee. I had to lay down that ministry but now one of the roles I
am seasoning is the Still Didn’t Get the Memo Committee on Email
Immoderation. I am unclear how I am going to be led about further
emanations. I am probably not up to the daily pace but I would still
be happy to receive Friends’ comments or further inquiries.

I am VERY clear there are a number of topics that still need further
conversation and I am unclear how I am called to proceed. I am
specifically seasoning what more needs to be said and where about a
number of scary topics, including what feel to me like contradictions
in my own thinking. Thoughts?

For instance, I complained a lot in June about it feeling like a lot
of people spent a lot of time talking ABOUT me and a lot less time
talking TO me. So then I decide I cannot deal with endless one on one
conversations. I decide to seed the conversation and tell you all to
talk amongst yourselves. At this point, I am inclined to collect
Friends questions or maybe have someone else, such as my clearness
committee collect Friends’ questions and then try to answer many
questions at once.

I told the young woman who called me about interpreting as a career
not to be afraid to contract out the parts of her work that she is not
good at. I think I did not make enough of teamwork too. On the other
hand, I have multiple gripes about points that feel to me like people
passing the buck. What does it mean to anyone else that we are all
ministers of God? What does it mean as far as specific people being
called to specific service?

(Here RantWoman intervened and is still seasoning a substantial tirade, a tirade which even by the RantWoman School of Tact and Diplomacy standards is TOO MUCH just now for the blogosphere. Hold centered discernment, seasoning,.... in the Light.


In the Light

(RantWoman)

PS: Here is another item about sex trafficking, just to toss in another scary topic.
http://blog.sojo.net/2011/10/26/lawyers-surreal-world-and-the-fight-against-selling-children/

October 30 Disabilities Awareness Item

Hi Friends

Thank you to everyone who has given indications that you are interacting at least some with the content of my messages.

Thank you to the Friend who finds a paragraph or so in several entries to relate to. I am aware it’s too much. In case my comments have not made it clear, it’s too much for me too BUT

1. I am aware this approach to mass eldering is kind of annoying. I am also aware that additional increments of wordsmithing would not necessarily lessen the annoyance level enough to be worthwhile for quick dispatches.

2. I am aware of having both muddled and seemingly contradictory messages as well as complicated circumstances in mind about some topics. The fact that they are “too much” does not mean this does not need to be talked of further, but there is plenty here for today.

3. I am not even trying to guess at things that would speak to everyone with the same points and I think too much wordsmithing might scrub out some particularity that speaks particularly to one or another person.
Here is a blog item about this last point, with a number of other good links inside it.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/03/spoons-and-twitches.html  .

I mentioned being willing to talk about my white cane. It’s not like you all are obliged to ask, but there are a couple more clear messages I probably need to make sure get through in addition to the moments below from my blog. Using my white cane REALLY helps as far as some back and neck issues. Using a white cane SOMETIMES increases the odds that bus drivers will do things I find helpful, some of which like calling stops they are supposed to do anyway. I have a time or two tried to have conversations with someone about a Meeting-related issue connected with my cane. Some of the time there has been fine progress. A time or two, someone has missed key points or their eyes have glazed over. Hold that point in the Light.
Here are an assortment of especially piquant adventures, some of which could probably be boiled down to a couple paragraphs containing the point. In other cases, the totality of the story is really part of the point.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/07/healed-blessed-jesus.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/06/not-blind-that-we-know-of.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/06/artifact.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/09/radical-dialogue-for-ramadan.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/06/allergic-to-joy-and-peace.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/08/we-are-all-transgendered-now.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-valentines-day-rantwoman-style.html

http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/12/ambassador-thwacks-school-of-percussive.html


Oh Good: some more cheerful statistics
Disability.gov   shared this report comparing crimes against people with and without disabilities, 2008 thru 2010 The report is based on the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS).

Highlights include the following:

• Persons age 12 or older who had disabilities experienced an estimated 567,000 nonfatal violent crimes in 2010.
• In 2010, the age-adjusted violent victimization rate for persons with disabilities (28 violent victimizations per 1,000) was almost twice the rate among persons without disabilities (15 violent victimizations per 1,000).
• In 2010, for both males and females the age-adjusted rate of violent crime was greater for those with disabilities than the rate against those without disabilities. The rate for males with disabilities was 23 per 1,000, compared to 16 per 1,000 for males without disabilities; for females with disabilities the rate was 26 per 1,000, compared to 15 per 1,000 for females without disabilities.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2238



On a completely different note, an item from my blogroll possibly of interest to people with fundraising or Meeting architecture concerns, an item about a Turrell Skyspace to be installed at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in North Philadelphia
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/art-entertainment-sports/item/29004-chestnut-hill-on-track-to-get-a-james-turrell-skyspace-building

In the Light

(RantWoman)

October 29 Disabilities Awareness Item

Hi Friends

So here’s the deal: I am feeling uncharacteristically attentive to thoughts of different people’s speaking and learning styles and posting here an assortment of links. Of course as far as disability awareness lifetime rather than disability awareness month and having further conversations that speak to us as a community, having everyone on different pages may or may not be helpful, but here we are.

To be honest, for me sometimes it is a lot easier to talk about something from our culture than something specific on my own mind, so I would be really pleased if Friends have anything to say in person about any of the items here. One topic I am pretty used to explaining different things about in person is my white cane, why I decided to start using it, some really clear benefits from doing so, some things that are really different for me than for other people who also use white canes, why I sometimes refer to my cane as Thwack or Ambassador Thwack. So feel free to ask.

This blog is by a Quaker cartographer. Somewhere on my Quaker blog I saved an interesting link about how people got around before there were visual maps. It mentions some books that sound interesting Maybe when I have time either to think systematically about how some people I know deal with spatial issues or for more conversations with blind people about different ways people get around, I will look up the titles. In the meantime, this item is interesting in itself and it has a link to a video of a British psychiatrist about localization of different activities in different parts of the brain.
http://maphead.blogspot.com/2011/10/feelings.html


Here is the PBS web page for Lives Worth Living, the documentary that aired Thursday night. I have not had a chance either to watch the documentary OR to read comments here, but perhaps Friends will find it interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lives-worth-living/



And then there is South Park and Crip fights. This video is toward the LESS tasteless end of the South park vernacular. For one thing I do not recall hearing the F word even once.
Jimmy and Timmy join the crips:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104357/crips-4-life

Topical themes: born vs late in life, fitting in, people having NO CLUE what language means.

Next, thinking about ways people get around and the people one meets and where one might or might not feel specific Quaker calls, some items about my experiences aboard Metro:

Here is an, um, interesting item about some “grammar students” I met one day on the bus. Judging by the garb of the grammar students in this item, one issue was gang affiliation but the guys in this entry were clearly trash talking AND they desisted when the driver asked them to so….
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/08/grammar-lesson-conjunctions.html


Some more Quaker-themed reflections. To be VERY clear, I am VERY grateful about many things to do with the bus, the fact that the Seattle area has what in MANY respects is a really good bus system, always with room to grow, the fact that I have the stamina and capacity to use the bus easily, the color and connections of my bus experiences. Well, read on.
Whole new windows on matters of faith:

Warning: this item includes a verbatim comment from a drunk and contains the F word.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2009/11/im-very-religious.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-to-pray.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/08/bus-eldering-123.html


And finally, one about a VERY cool thing I learned about at a recent meeting, Project Safe Place. Project Safe Place is a way for kids in difficulty to tell the bus driver they need a safe place. The blog entry has a link about it. I think LOTS of Quakers who ride the bus might like to know about it whether or not anyone might necessarily feel called to intervene about things one might hear on the bus. I personally am glad to know people talking about it at public meetings are aware of the trafficking issue even though I want to make NO assumptions about how often that specifically is an issue.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/10/project-safeplace-right-meeting.html


In the Light

(RantWoman)

October 28 Disabilities Awareness Item

Hi Friends




Today’s posting is all somewhere between work and poetry and translation and being rightly led. If you like, read it fast and think of it as throwing the pot of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks for whom. The poetry part is mixed in unfortunately. Also it’s pouring rain and I do not know whether I will go out so my fingers have more time to run wild than some days.



Here is DiversityInc’s item from today about Disabilities Employment Awareness Month. It has some statistics I have not read and some other links that look interesting:

http://diversityinc.com/diversity-facts/disability-employment-awareness-month-facts-figures-2/?mgs1=bbee5ZAqcE


someone I know only from interpreter email lists who I will call Blind Poet recently got a job teaching at a new community college.



The “rightly led” piece has a number of aspects.



First, I did a phone interview for a student of interpreting from Pierce County community College. She got my name out of the local translators’ society directory and found my comments about the business of translation and interpretation and life and networking much more “spiritual” than someone else she talked to. At the end of the interview she asked me for advice. I told her something like:

--Here is my experience and special circumstances. Your mileage may vary.

--There are a large number of ways to have a difficult career and a large number of reasons another person she talked to might be right on about it being a miserable business BUT there are also opportunities.

--Follow your heart and the money will come

--Know yourself and what you need to take care of. Some people enjoy the gamesmanship of business negotiations. Some people find it rewarding to accompany people through medical care and other sometimes heartrending difficulties. Especially recognize what you need if you are walking with people through traumas.

--Network with other interpreters; teamwork rocks.

--Never be afraid to contract out the things you hate or are less than adept about.

Second, I spent FOUR HOURS writing up life experience in response to supplemental questions for a job I applied for. The “rightly led” was just that, even though my resume shows no paid jobs that answer their questions, the words to explain how my experiences DO relate kept coming and coming. Luckily the torrents still left time for at least a fast proofread.



Then my mind wandered to last year’s Disabilities employment event at Microsoft, a couple guys I talked to from disability insurance companies who were all hot about the issue of ergonomics and a story about someone I will call Blind Poet. I have never met Blind Poet in person but she is a very incisive contributor to a couple email lists I am on. In addition to translation and interpretation work she also teaches business writing at different community colleges. Awhile ago, at the school where she was teaching, someone in the administrative food chain above her got upset and did some kind of very discriminatory review of her teaching. Blind Poet had to file a discrimination complaint and ask her students to help her document the issues which she ultimately won about.



Recently Blind Poet got a new job at a different institution and found herself grousing: as a result of making a reasonable accommodations request, she had to step through a 29-point questionnaire. One of these days I mean to get a blog post written about how at least there is a 29-point list to help overcome some awkwardness. But then, thinking of the guys hot about ergonomics I have been wondering, what if instead of only disabled people having to deal with the 29-point list, everyone got asked the same questions. I am sure some people think that would just lead to lots of people slacking off and asking for help they don’t “really” need, but I think asking everyone could cut down on a lot of workplace-induced strains and encourage people to get help before problems become disabling.



Apropros the workplace, I would be interested to know whether any of you who are reading my dispatches with an eye to your workplace experiences, whether you hire people or just deal with co-workers, have found ANYTHING I have sent vaguely topical to issues or questions in your workplace. For my part, I have been meditating about one difference between self-employment and working for someone else: at the moment I am self-employed so I get to call this month’s efforts free consulting. I am not sure what I would call them if someone I were supervising undertook such a campaign. But it’s Friday and I feel more like poetic excursions anyway:



Looking at the site for last night’s PBS documentary, Independent Lens short of an ASL poetry slam

http://video.pbs.org/video/2144680866


One of the things I like about this short is the way the translations are shown in parallel with the movements of ASL. For comparison, one time I went to a concert by the Seattle Pro Musica. The program was all different settings of the Ave Maria so the words were always the same. There was ASL interpretation and one of the interesting things to me was what what the interpreter did with the text to reflect differences in the music.



More from the teenagers in the poetry video: What do you love about being Deaf?

http://video.pbs.org/video/2144612276




Another really fun item. The Turrell Skyspace is this wonderful room designed by Quaker architect James Turrell at the Henry Art museum on the UW campus and this is a link about an upcoming event there.

Poetry in Translation at the Turrell Skyspace

http://www.wavepoetry.com/catalog/114-3-days-of-poetry-poetry-in-translation




Another thing about translation, nothing particularly about disability because who wants to talk about that all the time anyway?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/is-that-a-fish-in-your-ear-translation-and-the-meaning-of-everything-by-david-bellos-book-review.html


In the Light



(RantWoman)



An item off blogroll about leadings:

http://esrquaker.blogspot.com/2011/10/learning-about-leadings.html





Another about language and indirectly about the occupy movement

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2011/10/thinking-about-afsc.html

October 27 Disabilities Awareness Item

Hi All

Today I have been thinking about the inquiry from the Discipline Committee about what our Meeting’s experience / practice has been about mental illness.

On my usual route to Meeting I walk by Magus books on 42nd between the Ave and 15th NE. I frequently feel the way I imagine a recovering addict feels in the presence of his or her previous temptation: I can nearly always read the titles in the window but I really do not dare think of buying either to scrape my eyes painfully over myself or to collect dust while I find time and a human to help me read. On Sunday, the book that caught my eye is called the Essential Nash, a collection of writings by Nobel Prize winning economist John Nash. John Nash was the subject of a book called A Beautiful Mind by Silvia Nasr and also of a movie by the same name. He was a diagnosed schizophrenic. He was not the only or particularly the oddest character hanging around the math library when I was in college. He is interesting in a way I do not have time right now to look up further: at some point he stopped taking medication and as he has aged, either his symptoms have subsided or his ability mostly to control them has increased. The idea of schizophrenia subsiding with age at least some of the time seems like a very interesting idea and it would occur to me to see whether that also happens to others. Sure, in what additional free time, with what flock of graduate students trailing along behind?

Then two Meeting-related people wandered across my mind. One appeared in the form of a letter addressed to the Clerk of Peace and Social Concerns committee. Someone familiar with that Friend’s history was in the office at the same time I was picking up mail. I was VERY grateful just to hand the problem off. The second situation actually has blog entries but the blog entries are not all the story. Both situations wandered across my mind in the same context where people regularly exposed to others’ traumas need to take particular spiritual and emotional care of themselves to stay centered and healthy. Perhaps that is more than enough said. If not, you are invited to ask me in person what is on my mind.

But another Friend comes to mind in a bit fuller palette as introduced on my blog:
Friend Poet. Friend Poet is actually a published poet. Friend Poet's spoken ministry is prone to even more poetic excursions than RantWoman's blog. When RantWoman was recording clerk, she used to despair of capturing, when necessary, the essence, of Friend Poet's words until one day the Light dawned. Friend Poet has a couple favorite themes and there is nearly always a nugget in his words. Further, it's poetry and if one misses part of the point, it's poetry anyway. Even nicer: Friend Poet seldom reads and even less often objects to anything in minutes. Friend Poet's words, while an essential ingredient in the whole stew, tend not to be key to capturing big decisions or sense of the meeting and therefore RantWoman can feel more liberated in her attentions than with some other Friends.
From http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2009/11/cast.html#comments


Here are excerpts from some more blog entries with substantial content about this Friend.
First, from an entry that wanders among a long list of themes, http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/11/baptism.html

:
…The Holy Spirit showed up in worship--TWICE. The first time was a newcomer offering a memorial for someone for the sort of odor enhanced challenging presence whom many Friends undoubtedly wish God would lead to bathe. The memorial called him a teacher and did not offer further commentary on matters of God and bathing. A good while later came a message about God loving everyone in their own way and undoubtedly loving the Unwashed Teacher just as the visiting speaker unquestionably did.

A message began teasing around the edge of RantWoman's mind about recent ministry offered by Friend Poet during Adult Education: there had been discussion in small clumps of queries something to do with feeling the presence of God among other people. Two Friends in RantWoman's small group offered thoughts related to their station and education and presence in specific communities. RantWoman does not remember what Friend Poet said in the small group but was entranced with what he said when Friends were asked to reflect thoughts back to the larger group.

Friend Poet is among the vast fellowship, people of every station who make all their fashion choices at Value Village and Friend Poet spoke of feeling the presence of God in whatever other people had worn and handled his clothes before they came to him at Value Village. RantWoman suspects that several of those assembled just brushed this off as more randomness from Friend Poet, but this specifically spoke to RantWoman's flair for the physical. …

Two more items where Friend Poet figures.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/09/slug-rut-vulnderable-to-god-and-others.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/01/cliffhanger-catchup.html

Both of these entries have multiple threads. Please bear with and focus only on the Friend Poet parts.

There is much more I think I couldsay about Meeting and this Friend walking together. I do not feel called to say any of it tonight.

In the Light.

(RantWoman)

October 26 Disabilities Awareness Item

Hi Friends

The point of this month’s email exercise is disabilities awareness so I am not displeased just to be able to pull in things that my usual information streams deliver to my desktop. The info is a slice out of time. I am making occasional effort to be comprehensive. Probably there is plenty I am missing including a number of hidden disabilities and cognitive and mental health issues. In general, I am including a mix of things I really need Friends to be aware of about me in particular including a capacity for foam at the mouth reactions and information I think it is extremely valuable for lots of people to be aware of even if some of it seems like weird minutia.

I am aware these posts include many, many topics and many points that could be discussed. Mostly I have not been posting queries or reflection questions and perhaps it would be helpful to do so. In general, although I am not interested in deleting people from the email list, I am interested in your reactions: what stands out? What questions come to your mind? Are there things you wish you knew more about? Does anything especially resonate from your experience?

Friends are again reminded of my offer to take the day off if someone else posts to this email list an item that meets my sort of arbitrary criteria for sufficient disabilities-related content.

Today’s offerings started out from an item about a test of fair housing issues in Seattle as reported in the newspaper. Also included are some links to local resources and then some more material about a spate of Fair Housing cases filed around the US, many related to service dogs. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Property-owners-victimized-black-renters-city-2229188.php


Another item about domestic violence caught my eye, or actually my screen reader. This item reminded me that October is also National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and I decided to check out current offerings on the website for Abused Deaf Women’s Advocacy Services, http://www.adwas.org/
 . ADWAS is a pioneering agency specializing in services for Deaf and Deaf-Blind people experiencing domestic violence. Their Resources page has a number of VERY valuable offerings including some about supporting a friend or loved one in such circumstances. I have not looked a the actual item but ADWAAS resources tend to have both good deafness content and good content in general. There is another page that lists similar programs in several other cities around the US. I think Seattle is very lucky to have ADWAS though there are some specific reasons for need in our community. There is a concentration of deaf-blind people many of whom work for the Lighthouse for the Blind.

For those of you who like videos, there is a really fun video about the apartments at the ADWAS transitional housing program. The video is in ASL with captioning in English which I consider imperfectly accessible to me for instance. Nevertheless I expect it will speak to others; again Youtube offers a number of other interesting items.

One element of the apartments that caught my eye is the strobe light fire alarms / smoke detectors. Current housing codes do not, I believe, require strobe light smoke detectors and a homeowner would have to pay extra to have them installed. Most public buildings with modern equipment have both audible and strobe light alarms. This is important for deaf people, but strobe lights can cause seizures or headaches in some people.

A funny aside about modern apartment buildings with electronic entry systems: some buildings just require a person to punch in a resident’s apartment number on a keypad at the entry. Then the apartment dweller’s phone rings and the person at the front door can get buzzed in. I really have no idea what deaf people do with such things. The keypads may or may not be at a height accessible to people in wheelchairs. There might or might not be a readable directory, but my mom’s building has a funny feature that I am not sure her building staff even realize. Often with these systems a person can just punch in an apartment number but that is really not best practice as far as confidentiality of addresses. My mom’s building actually uses individual codes unrelated to apartment numbers.

I figured this out one time by bending over because the door panel is at waist level for someone tall who walks and then peering very close at a display with very poor contrast while scrolling through the directory. Now, though, I just key in the code and do not even bother about the directions to scroll through the directory. One of these days maybe I will play dumb and see whether the staff have been trained about this feature.

Other important local resources
The Alliance for People with Disabilities
http://disabilitypride.org/

The term “independent living center” has a whole bunch of specific legal and service concepts connected with it. For more detail, feel free to use your search engines. The more important point: the Alliance Resources page has information about a whole bunch of different trainings.

The Sight Connection
http://www.sightconnection.org/

This organization has a retail store near Northgate Mall and a whole page full of resource links. I THINK they also offer some trainings but I did not find them in fast poking around.

In the Light

(RantWoman)



PS As a guage of public awareness, this further item about housing discrimination also came in. There are a large number of cases about service animals, an area where Fair Housing law is different and broader than the ADA. To read it one might think there has been a sudden outbreak of discrimination against people with service dogs under the Obama administration; I think it’s more likely that the Obama administration is just making a concerted effort to address widespread problems.
These items are from the White House website. I am unclear why I am unable to reproduce the links.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has recently made several important announcements regarding housing for persons with disabilities. Below you will find the links to each of HUD’s press releases, followed by a brief summary of each announcement.

If a friend forwarded you this email and you'd like to be added to the White House disability distribution list, email us at disability@who.eop.gov .

Hud Charges Philadelphia Condominium Association with Discriminating against Residents with Disabilities Association required residents needing assistance animals to use service elevators, failed to address harassment and intimidation

HUD Charges Florida Property Owner, Managers with Disability Discrimination Management refused to relocate resident hospitalized by neighbors’ second-hand smoke

HUD Charges Utah Homeowner Association, Condo Owners with Discriminating Against a Veteran with a Disability Association and owners refused to accommodate veteran’s emotional support animal Association and owners refused to accommodate veteran’s emotional support animal The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is charging a Park City, Utah homeowner association, property management company, and a group of condominium owners with violating the Fair Housing Act for refusing to accommodate a tenant who required an emotional support dog because of a disability. HUD brings the charges on behalf of the tenant, a Gulf War veteran with a disability. HUD is alleging Fox Point at Redstone, a multifamily housing complex, assessed illegal fees and fines against the tenant and the owners of his condominium unit for the presence of the assistance animal. HUD is also charging the condominium owners for their refusal to renew the tenant’s lease unless he paid the charges. The Fair Housing Act requires landlords to make reasonable accommodations to no-pet rules for renters with disabilities who need emotional support animals.

HUD Charges University of Nebraska at Kearney with Discriminating against Student with Disabilities. University denied student's request to have therapy dog live with her on campus
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is charging the University of Nebraska at Kearney and five of its employees with violating the Fair Housing Act when they refused to grant a student permission to have a therapy dog live in her University-owned apartment and illegally inquired into the nature and severity of the student’s disabilities. The student, who required the dog in order to cope with depression and anxiety, was seeking an exception to the University’s no-pet policy as a disability-related “reasonable accommodation” under the Fair Housing Act.

HUD Charges Housing Providers with Discrimination for Evicting Tenants Over Visitor’s Support Dog The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it is charging the owner and landlord of an apartment building in Reno, Nevada, with violating the Fair Housing Act for evicting two tenants after a friend with a disability visited the tenants with his emotional support dog. HUD brings the charge on behalf of the tenants, alleging that the DeAngeli Family Trust and Peter DeAngeli, the respective owner and landlord of the property, engaged in unlawful discrimination by refusing to make a reasonable accommodation to the building’s “no pets policy” for a person with a disability. HUD also alleges the housing providers retaliated against the tenants by evicting them when they protested the housing providers' refusal to grant the accommodation.

HUD Charges Washington State Property Owner with Disability Discrimination

Lakewood Mobile Home Park Operator Refused to Accommodate Applicants with Service Dogs The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has charged the owner and manager of a Lakewood, Washington trailer park with discriminating on the basis of disability. HUD brings the charge on behalf of the Fair Housing Center of Washington, alleging that Deidra Miller, the owner of Terrace Trailers, and property manager Claudia Welch refused to make a reasonable accommodation to their “no pets” policy for testers posing as applicants with disabilities who needed service dogs.

October 25 Disabilities Awareness Item

Dear Friends

This item is in keeping with the Pendle Hill pamphlet called On Hallowing our Diminishments about the spiritual gifts of accepting changed capacity. I have not checked the Pendle Hill site, but I THINK in addition to print in the UFM library, this pamphlet is available to order in print or in PDF. I am afraid I am stuck on my own gifts, spiritual and otherwise. Once in awhile I discern that someone else seems to be appreciating their own gifts in this vein; again, if anyone wants to offer their own spiritual gifts in this area, I am happy to take the day off—and MAYBE even be appreciative of your offerings.

I know I have written and I think I have sent more than one account of all the wacky things going on IN my eyes. Here are items about what I do or do not see.

Here is an item about the gifts of not necessarily seeing that would require one to do more housekeeping.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/02/magic-dandruff.html


Here is another item about not necessarily seeing:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2010/12/armchair-hound.html

There are two not necessarily seeing moments. The one about the underwear alludes to a time I went to dinner at my friends he Weed Whackin’ Wenches’ house.One of the Wenches was a housemate in college and is also legally blind but with different seeing and reading and mobility experiences than mine. We ate in the kitchen and I paid no attention at all to their clean underwear in a heap all over the dining room table. In other words, legally blind guests do not even have to work to overlook housekeeping lapses.


Here is an item about my not being able to read faces issue especially from across a big committee chamber. In this case, if I cannot see someone’s face to tell whether I might be boring the Chairman of a state senate committee, I at least get to be liberated of embarrassment about it. Sometimes it helps to plop one’s white cane on the table. Sometimes it does not necessarily.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/02/testimony.html
 The committee chairman in question was both direct and gracious about the matter.


Here are a couple items about when I actually see better than I ever could at normal distances with no magnification because of my screen enlargement software. This does not mean the view is recommendable, but…
Some of my comments about the Quaker-themed bit from Steven Prothero on Steven Colbert where one of them said that Quaker Meeting is like the city bus:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-like-city-bus-with-botox.html

Here is the bit off my other blog about the topic:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/04/oatmeal-people-ride-bus.html




Here is an item about trying to figure out someone’s electronic imagery.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/01/blowing-up-puppies.html



Here is an item about getting to say with impunity things one probably should not say aboard a ferry
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2010/06/rantwoman-gets-around.html



Here for the sake of conversational diversity is today’s item off DiversityInc about the Occupy protests. In a fast first pass I see no disability-specific content. Nevertheless, this link is included here to make the following point, which I hope a number of people will take to heart: I really hate not being able to read as much on my own as I used to and sometimes it becomes almost absurdly important tnat there be space in conversations not only to talk about various other Friends’ fixations but maybe possibly to talk about the content of the thimbles full of reading I get done. I see NO conflict between this point, respect for people’s time and TIMELY and APPROPRIATE interaction with requests for help. Extensive further tirade available almost instantly if asked.
http://diversityinc.com/generaldiversityinformation/diversity-strategies-to-keep-occupy-wall-street-protesters-at-bay/?mgs1=8f7c5XPowS


In the Light

(RantWoman)