The ADA (not the teeth folk)
Jim Hill
little, Champaign comes into compliance with the Americans with Dis-
abilities Act of 1990 (tm). Then I see Vinnie's post about the shower
stall in the strip joint, and I start to think.
I can see why it would be A Good Thing to put elevators in buildings
which may be used by people in wheelchairs. I can see that it would
be A Good Thing for television networks to broadcast with a closed-
captioned signal for the deaf.
But why should I be forced to buy a telly with the decoder built into it?
This obscure bit of circuitry is to be built into every TV sold in the
States starting in a year or so so the (ballpark guess, here) 1 in 1000
deaf folks can read what Tom Bwokaw and Babwa Wawters are wisping. This
is an unconscionable addition to the price tag. This little gimmick is
available privately. If you want one, go buy one. This is just a part
of being less-than-good-enough in some respect. I'm as nearsighted as
they come, and I don't demand that billboards be lettered in a 14400-point
type. I buy glasses. And I pay for them myself.
The folks who rammed this law down our throats (or up our asses) made the
claim that 1 in 5 Americans has some kind of disability. Bullshit. The
only way you can possibly obtain such a high fraction is to use bullshit
definitions of disabilities.
Like AIDS. Sure, it's a terrible disease, and a shitty way to check out,
but a disability? No way. Try to get jock itch classed as a disability.
It's contagious, people who have it are shunned, what the hell. It might
work.
Like gambling addiction. If your minions can't seem to stay away from
the track, not only can you not fire them, you've gotta pay for their
``treatment'' if they decide to seek counseling. The inmates have
definitely taken over the asylum.
Like being a gobby fatass. I'm a gobby fatass. I eat those tasty little
oversalted fatpatties from fast food joints. How the hell can some
500-lb. lardo claim to be disabled when she can't squeeze her lipoidal
self into a movie theater seat? She's not crippled, she's FAT!
As per usual, Our Leaders started with A Good Idea and promptly
Fucked It Up.
--
|--------------------------| ``It is a tale told by an idiot,
| Jim Hill | full of sound and fury,
| jim...@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu | signifying nothing.''
|--------------------------|
Jenny Gutbezahl
Jim Hill <jim...@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> [damned fine peeve about how America now not only caters to the
> lowest common intellectual denominator, but also caters to the
> lowest common physical denominator]
>Like AIDS. Sure, it's a terrible disease, and a shitty way to check out,
>but a disability? No way.
Actually, AIDS is one hell of a disability. I have a friend who
recently died of it, and for several months beforehand he was
seriously disabled. He didn't have the energy to walk more than three
of four blocks - he couldn't see Short Cuts, despite Altman being his
favorite director, because he couldn't stay awake and focused for the
four and a half hours that the movie runs.
On the other hand, being HIV positive is not a disability, although it
is subsidized. My friend was getting disability before he got AIDS,
simply because he was HIV+.
There is a difference between having contracted HIV and being disabled
by AIDS. My friend was HIV positive for about ten years with no
serious difference being made to his life style other than after he
was diagnosed four years ago he started getting disability payments
and freaked out every time he got a cold or something because he knew
that this lowered his resistance to AIDS. He did indeed get AIDS last
fall, and by March was unable to say his own name. If that's not a
disability, I don't know what is.
>Like being a gobby fatass. I'm a gobby fatass. I eat those tasty little
>oversalted fatpatties from fast food joints. How the hell can some
>500-lb. lardo claim to be disabled when she can't squeeze her lipoidal
>self into a movie theater seat? She's not crippled, she's FAT!
>
!Peeve: At least the amusement parks don't have the responsibility to
provide fatso seats on the roller coasters. If you're too damned
spherical to fit in the seat and under the harness, you don't ride the
Mr. Choad's Wild Ride.
Peeve: It's only a matter of time before they start adding one
oversized seat for the will-power-challenged. Then they'll have to
slow the things down, because the inertial force generated by the
weight of the globular folks might be enough to send them hurdling
from the car at its current speed. Ugh.
Yours in medico-linguistic purity,
Jenny
W. Blair Haworth Jr.
(Jenny Gutbezahl) writes:
>Peeve: It's only a matter of time before they start adding one
>oversized seat for the will-power-challenged. Then they'll have to
>slow the things down, because the inertial force generated by the
>weight of the globular folks might be enough to send them hurdling
>from the car at its current speed. Ugh.
GIF! GIF! GIF!
Ha Li
Jim Hill <jim...@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I can see that it would be A Good Thing for television networks to broadcast
>with a closed-captioned signal for the deaf.
>
>But why should I be forced to buy a telly with the decoder built into it?
>This obscure bit of circuitry is to be built into every TV sold in the
>States starting in a year or so...
Hold onto that thought, I'll get back to it.
It gets even better. I've heard that next year GM is going to equip all
of its new cars with headlights that are on whenever the engine is running.
This, based on a study that cars with their headlights on are more visible
and hence reduce accidents. I wonder if they took into account whether such
is the case now merely because having headlights on during the day is fairly
rare and therefore the headlights make the car stand out more. However, even
if the findings are valid, I'm of the philosophy that *I* get to control when
things get turned on or off, like the damn dome light in GM cars, fr'instance.
Closed-captioned for the deaf. If only this one show would use it. Though I
rarely get to see it, there's a morning news show, maybe it's even national,
where they've got some skinny old bastard sitting next to the token anchorwoman
and he's waving his arms all over the place in sign language. Shit! This is
distracting as hell! What's even more aggravating is knowing that the only
reason he's there is political, to say "*see?* *we're* doing something special
for the deaf" (which few would know about if it were closed-captioned). They
could scroll words across the screen (not closed-captioned) and it would cost
a fraction of this bugger's salary and be less distracting to boot.
-Dave
Dan Sorenson -- Cereal Killer
>>Like AIDS. Sure, it's a terrible disease, and a shitty way to check out,
>>but a disability? No way.
>
>Actually, AIDS is one hell of a disability. I have a friend who
>recently died of it, and for several months beforehand he was
>seriously disabled. He didn't have the energy to walk more than three
>of four blocks - he couldn't see Short Cuts, despite Altman being his
>favorite director, because he couldn't stay awake and focused for the
>four and a half hours that the movie runs.
I'd like to break in here: Jenny, AIDS is no disability. Being
without motor control is a disability, being blind is a disability, but
for the life of me AIDS is mo more a disability than cancer. You watch
a man die slowly of kidney cancer, of the course of four years, until
after 3.5 years he can only ring a bell set in his lap because he
doesn't have a mouth or, for that matter, head left to cry out with.
You get picked up from a soccer game by family friends and be told,
"Your father died. Come with us and identify the body." You watch
your old man sit in a hospital bed in your living room and measure
his height as his body literally eats his legs. You watch a man try
to remember what his son looks like when he's on morphine at will.
You try to console a younger sister who no longer recognizes the
mishapen mass that used to be her father.
I think I've made myself clear. AIDS is a disease. Cancer
is a disease. My old man never smoked, never drank, died at age 39
after four years of fighting cancer. With all due respect, this is
not a disability. I spent several weeks in a wheelchair waiting for
my bones to heal -- that was a disability. A death sentence due to
a disease is not a disability -- it is a death sentence. Nothing more,
nothing less.
The only difference is, I healed and got out of the chair. My
old man died when I was 11, your friend died at some unnatural age.
That is not the mark of a disability. That is the mark of dying.
I trust the point has been made. Jenny, I don't mean to flame
you as you are a pretty cool person, but Christ on a crutch do you
honestly think a death sentence is a disability? To me, that is a
mockery of every terminal person who ever lived. A disability is
when I am no longer able to do what I used to. Dying because of it
really does put this a step beyond the "disability" catagory.
You hit a sore spot. Bite me if you don't like it.
Blair Haworth
Hill) writes:
>I can see that it would be A Good Thing for television networks to
>broadcast with a closed- captioned signal for the deaf.
>But why should I be forced to buy a telly with the decoder built into it?
Well, ferwhattitsworth, the typos and malapropisms induced by on-the-fly
transcription of the programs are frequently ridiculous and add an
unselfconscious surreal element that teevee has been sadly lacking since
the Golden Age of _Hee Haw_.
ObParaphrase: "Junior Samples was never called an asshole."
--my wife (apologies to J.Richman)
--
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