Accessibility Captions

"These two things are simultaneously true:

1) Bad people can and do improve themselves and deserve to have the ability to do so.

“Disabled parking should only be valid during business hours 9 to 5 Monday to Friday.

I cannot see any reason why people with genuine disabilities would be out beyond these times.”

[Image description: screenshot of the definition “disabled” that reads “dis·a·bled / adjective / (of a person) having a physical or mental condition that limits movements, senses, or activities.”]

[first row] First panel: illustration of a cane with three flowers on it Text: MOBILITY AIDS ARE NORMAL

Second panel: illustration of three flowers with three leaves sticking out Text: DISABLED BODIES ARE NOT PUBLIC PROPERTY

Third panel: illustration of a palm with an X symbol Text: DON’T TOUCH THEM WITHOUT PERMISSION

[second row] First panel: illustration of a brain with two flowers and a bold question mark Text: STOP YOUR CURIOSITY

Second panel: illustration of a disabled person symbol with a standing person symbol next to it Text: RESPECT DISABLED PEOPLE

Third panel: illustration of a lock surrounded by flowers Text: DISABLED PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY

[last,third row] First panel: illustration of three bold question marks Text: DON’T ASK INTRUSIVE QUESTIONS

Second panel: illustration of an open eye Text: DON’T STARE

[ID: collection of tweets from Amanda Hackwith @ajhackwith reading

“If you’re fuzzy on why changes to the ADA is such a big deal, I get it. I’m keenly aware of what being abled blinds you to. I’m here to introduce you to the thing that dominates my husband and I’s life: Logistics. Hey. Abled friends. This thread is for you. #HR620

Disclaimer: I am not physically disabled. My husband is. He has used a wheelchair since birth. I’m using ‘we’ in here because that’s how we’ve experienced it, and this is shared with his permission. OK? Ok.

The reality of living with a disability is Logistics. We don’t just do something. You figure out if we CAN do something. And then try to chase down the secret hidden puzzle of how WE do it. Because, I guarantee you, we are the exception.  We are always the Exception.

So: join us. We leave home. We don’t call for an accessible taxi because that will take an hour. We can’t take a zipcar because there’s no hand controls. Walking through the door is Logistics.

We take a bus, praying that no one else with a wheelchair, walker, baby carriage, grocery bag, or big-ass backpack has already taken up the two accessible spots on the entire bus. Two. If so, we’re out of luck.

Or we take a hip, tech-will-set-us-free rideshare. There is no accessible option in the app. We pray that the ride that comes won’t drive off when they see a chair. That the folding chair will fit.

Maybe we walk home. We fought city hall for neighborhood curb cuts last year! Only fancy condo construction has torn them out again. For months. So we walk in the gutter of a busy industrial street.

We see a show. We can’t buy tickets online. We have to call to see if one of the five accessible seats in the theatre is available. There’s only one ‘companion’ seat. We aren’t expected to have friends.

We book a hotel. We have to investigate how crappy the accessible room is. (It’s usually a less desirable retrofitted room.) How a ‘normal’ room is laid out. If we can ‘get away’ with being treated as normal. For once.

We fly. We introduce ourselves to the attendants. We PROMISE we won’t be a bother. That we won’t need assistance. That we won’t need to rely on the rickety chair they want to strap him to, Hannibal-style. We make the attendants nervous.

We fly. We successfully board, but the bathroom is twenty feet to the back of the plane. We don’t have our chair. We hope we don’t need to pee for the next nine hours.

We want to do a fun tour of a new city/country/landmark. We spend hours calling tour companies, emphasizing how low fuss we are, how independent we are, how we’re one of the ‘cool’ disableds, if only they have room to fold his chair with the luggage. We promise to be good.

We want to eat at a special restaurant. It’s in a historical building. We crawl on our knees and throw the chair up the stairs to eat there anyway. There are stairs and there are stares. We are everyone’s free entertainment.

We eat at a restaurant. It’s accessible, sure! Just call ahead and Jimbob will throw a board across the steps for you to roll up. Or there’s an accessible entrance! It’s the loading ramp, out back. Through the pee-soaked alley and trash cans. Can’t miss it.

We eat it a restaurant. It’s totally accessible! Except for the bathroom upstairs. You can hold it until we get home, right honey?

Work has a social event. It’s held at one of the above ‘trendy’ restaurants. But HR totally apologizes, okay? Be cool. We can be cool.

We want to go home. We become invisible to taxis. He hangs back until I flag one down and glare the driver into submission.

W apartment hunt. All the cute ground floor dog-friendly units are lofts with stairs. All the accessible units have been rented out to able-bodied people because ‘no one wants them’.

We apartment hunt. The ‘large’ bedroom doesn’t leave enough room to either side of the bed for a wheelchair to sit. The glitzy new apartments have bathroom doors too small to get through.

We apartment hunt. The building is totally accessible! Except for that one tiny step. In the common room. To all the amenities you’re paying for.

And this is important: We are white, educated, financially secure, fairly young and healthy aside from the wheelchair. In other words: BEST CASE SCENARIO. We literally are operating and interacting with the ADA on every privilege we can manage.

If you’re surprised by what I’ve said, keep in mind the majority of the disabled community has it so much worse. With so much less resources. Even WITH the existing ADA. #HR620

No imagine how much worse, more hostile, the world will be if every target of discrimination had to ask each business, in writing, one at a time, to please not break the law. And they have 90 days to ignore them. And another 180 after that. Every restaurant. Every store. #HR620

Imagine you had to beg every business to allow you to exist. Imagine people complaining about ‘nuisance lawsuits’ and ‘support peacocks’ to you. Your existence is a nuisance. Your existence is over legislated. Your existence is unnecessary. Now call your damn senators. #HR620 “

As disabled members of the lgbt community we should be celebrating marriage equality, right? but unfortunately us disabled people who rely on government support to survive risk losing everything and becoming totally financially reliant on our partners if we marry or even move in together.

They are replying to @neonfiona.

It reads: "But also when we use "marriage equality" remember that we don't really have full marriage equality until disabled people on government aid can get married without consequence of losing their needed aid/care.

Many disabled people have to choose between marrying the person they love or their basic survival needs. Guess which one hey are forced to choose?

Most Americans don't even know it's a thing but pretty sure it's also a UK thing too, not sure abt other places but it's likely.

The assumption is prety much if a disabled person gets married then their partner should be taking care of them."

It breaks to a reply thread from Jonathan Hume - @IamMrJ.

It reads: "You: omg marriage Equality™¡!

Reality: Disabled people who cannot work and want to marry need to give up their indepent income and become entirely reliant on their partner, which is not only dangerous but puts us in further poverty unless we marry someone loaded.

Just to explain this in a little more detail since people have asked.

If a person claiming income-based ESA marries someone earning over £16k (iirc) a year, tey lose their income entirely.

If two non-disabled/can-work ect people marry, their incomes combine.

Thus if two people earning £20k married, their income wuld be £20k per person.

If an ESA claimant married someone earning £20k, the income would be £10k per person.

Granted that living costs don't scale linearly, but the disabled partner is entirely reliant on their partner providing that £10k.

Note that after housing costs, the minimum income of a decent quality of life is £11k.

The system is built in such a way that it's safer (both froman abuse and quality of live perspective) and financially more sensible for disabled people to not marry.

If a disabled person needs to leave their partner for whatever reason they will have no independent income.

The universal credit changes means it takes 6+ weeks to get paid when starting a new claim.

Non-disabled people don't have to ask their partner to reduce their income-per-person by 50%. 

If you're marrying someone on a good income then it's inconsequential, but most of us won't be.

Here it is: Best stuff first

Extremely handy if you follow a lot of people and hate missing anything good. 

Best Stuff First moves the best stuff on your dashboard—mhm!—right up to the top. 

It’s rolling out this week on iOS and Android, and comes with this Help Center article.  

This bullshit is being rolled out this week and it’s going to be default!

Tap the account icon (the little human).

Tap the gear wheel icon.

Tap “Global settings” (iOS) or “General settings” (Android).

Tap “Dashboard preferences.”

Turn off “Best stuff first.”

First the cracker batter baker bakes a cracker batter batch,

then the cracker batter mixer door will open and unlatch

so the batter mixer nozzle can descend onto the patch

where the cracker batter spreads out for the nozzle to attach.

When the cracker mixer nozzle sprays the cracker batter spray

and the cracker batch emulsion lies a-soaking in its haze

then the cracker batter mixer starts to stir up all the glaze

that the final cracker stacker needs to lubricate the way.

Once the cracker stacker handle stacks the cracker batter squares

then the cracker batter’s hardened into double stacks of pairs.

Now the cracker separator breaks the crackers in the stackers

so the wrappers on the stackers fit the finished stacking crackers.

Then they’re distributed to Wal-Mart.

Reads: “’Letter of the Week’? or ‘Letter of the goddamn YEAR’?”

It is an image of a newspaper article titled: Letter of the week: what is wrong with you? [text following the semi-colon italicized.] Written by Jonna Ramey. Salt Lake City.

The article reads:

I am a 67-year-old American white woman. My parents enlisted in World War II to fight fascism. They both served: my mother was a nurse, my father navigated bombers. They lost friends in that bloody war so that all the world could be free of fascism. They did not fight so that some white people could claim supremacy or that Nazis could openly walk the streets of America.

White person to white supremacist person: What is wrong with you?

People of European heritage are doing just fine in the world. They run most of the world's institutions, hold much of the world's wealth, replicate as frequently as other humans. You're not in any danger here. The world is changing, that's true. otherrs want a piece of that pie. they work for it, strive for it ad earn it. Technology (robotics) is having a greater offset on your job prospects than immigrants. Going forward tackling corporate control and climate change will need all of our attntion, ideas and energy. Put down your Tiki torches and trite flags and get involved in some real work.

By the way, the world won the war against Nazi fascism in the 1940s, just as America won the war against the Confederacy in the 1860s. Aligning with two lost causes just labels you as profound losers.

The international chain of smack talk!

Each subsequent panel has a person throwing their hands in the air while someone talks to them. The speech bubbles have a random selection of letters from the language supposedly being spoken. The background and clothes correspond to the country they’re in.

James Chapman - soundimals.com

When something sounds like nonsense, you might say “it’s all Greek to me” and every language makes fun of another one!

In Italian, people say “this is Arabic to me” (per me è arabo)

But in Arabic*, it’s “Am I speaking Hindi?” (*specifically Egypt) (^See note)

In Hindi, the saying goes “am I speaking Persian?” (क़्या मैं फ़ारसी नोल रहा हूं)

And in Persian, they say “I don’t understand Greek” (^See note)

In Greek, some people say “am I speaking Turkish?” (mostly in Cyprus) ( Εγ τούρτζ́ικα που μιλάς)

In Turkish, it goes “I am French to this” (olaya fransiz kaldim)

In French, they say “It’s Hebrew” (c’est de l’hébreu)

But in Hebrew, “It’s Chinese to me” (^^See note)

In Chinese, they say “It’s Ghost-Script” (鬼副符) [speech bubble has a scared ghost saying “Boo!”]

And as we all know, ghosts just say [image of two ghosts saying “Wooooooo”]

end id]

^Note:  I think the Arabic is badly done. I can’t copy it. All the Arabic letters are separated and confusing.

^^Note: The Hebrew appears to have been reversed - written left to right. I couldn’t reproduce it.

via [x]

[Loni (Literary_zealot) Tweeted: “It’s a privilege to just laugh with your friends and say, ‘There’s always Canada’. Not everyone has that option.”