Monday, March 18, 2024

Let's make a deal NOT, elections around the world edition.

From RantWoman's YouTube streams:

RantWoman is feeling particularly piquant in her observations about election issues around the world, or at least around the part of the world that gets the most media attention in the US.

RantWoman is not providing video references behind her points: they are easily available along with floods of intellectual sludge and disinformation via readers' search engine of choice.

Door #1
First we consider Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader and highest ranking Jewish elected official in the US, calling on Israeli Prime Minister and ghoul extraordinaire to resign and call elections. It is not just people protesting in dozens of cities in the US, inconveniencing motorists  and reminding people of the problems getting around in #Gaza.. More to the point are the hundreds of thousands of people on the streets in Israel calling on Netanyahu to call elections. Israel has a parliamentary system so election cycles vary.

Prize:  some released hostages? an end to mass murder funded by US taxpayers in #Gaza? expanded potential for and renewed commitment to peace???



Door #2: Three days of polling in Russia in what turned out to be a bit like #StPatricksDay with ballot boxes.

RantWoman particularly notes:
--The elmination of two vocal antiwar candidates besides Alexei Navalny from election participation.
--The calculated voter surge at noon local times on March 17.
--for all the people in the US yammering about paper ballots, the splendid mix of electronic and in-person voting.
--The appearance in several locations of people throwing green dye into ballot boxes. Never mind the Pope and his sop to cease fire and territorial concessions by Ukraine. St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. Will some green dye drive Putin out of Russia????





The videos speak for themselves. RantWoman as a persistent advocate for ways to make it easier and cleaner to vote finds the blind poll inspector in Moscow particularly droll: he strode through a polling place and hailed the "transparency" and integrity of the entire voting process.lan



Door #3
#DonTheCon and the #Tr**pJ6Felons
the word bloodbath and how fast can ....mental health hold petition to revoke his bond conditions.






Forget all the legal mumbo jumbo. I am just here for the soap opera.

Seriously, MAYBE voters will be able to get everyone out of this mess. We absolutely have to try, but #DonTheCon is busy simultaneously hiding under the protections of the Constitution and doing everything he can to tear it up. He's not even promising to respect the will of the voters. In fact he has ALREADY lost the popular vote twice so maybe the third time's the charm and we will finally be able to send him into retirement.

Is the word "bloodbath" and all the other lies and accusations he is spewing in his speeches enough to get his bond revoked????

Alternatively, should someone file a petition to have him detained on mental health grounds. He can't stop confessing. Hecannot or will not comply with court orders. His civil case penalties make him extremely vulnerable to financial scams with national security implications. He is a clear danger to himself and others. Since he is not in any hurry to have trials anyway, can someone just file a petition for a long and thorough mental health evaluation in some secure location? If he is not available to campaign, oops well, the #GOP would have plenty of time before their convention to figure out options for another candidate.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Speaking of making one's head explode

#SOTU #SOTU2024 #SOTUResponse
#WomensHistoryMonth 



Rep. Mace As a WOMAN who thankfully has not been raped, I care VERY much whether other women are helping elect a long-term sexual predator. Remembe "grab 'em by ...?" Remember beauty contestants complaining about #DonTheCon walking in on them in their dressing rooms? Remember him wanting to marry his own daughter?          THANK YOU for telling your story about rape exceptions but who the HELL are you to tell a woman, her doctor, her partner, her religious counsel what is best for their situation? That too me is so far into governmental overreach that every regulation loathing Republican should hand their head in shame. I do not apologize if these questions are hard for you? Would they be easier from another woman or a GOP power broker? Thank you also for going on the talkies while the country is still nauseated by Katie Britt's exploitation of a sex trafficking survivor trying to shore up your party's fortunes and blame immigrants for all our problems. Pretty funny too that you want to dump the hardwon immigration bill and your party wants to defund federal law enforcement. Might as well hamd the cartels Get Out of Jail Free cards with a nice side request for "more sex trafficking please."

Saturday, March 9, 2024

VOTED!

Pixel 7 "smart" camera says "No recognized objects."
Outgoing ballot envelope
on top of incoming one


RantWoman is on a tear to deal with PAPERWORK, taxes and other things. Taxes this year are in the realm of "Good problem to have," except for the part about figuring out whichever online tool RantWoman decides to wade through.


Other PAPERWORK depends on tax information and whatever testing of a new portal RantWoman decides to wade into. Joy. And temptation to procrastinate commenting on any number of topics roiling the infosphere.


But there RantWoman's ballot is on her desk screaming "DEAL WITH IT."


Deal with RAGE about the Supreme court, Section 3 of the 14th amendment, the lesson in post-civil-war reconstruction history that we are all dealing with. RantWoman actually recognizes complexity about names on ballots, party machinations, conventions, and different state standards. RantWoman just thingsk SCOTUS has handled all of this badly and is glad for some persistent teams of voting rights lawyers tackling SOME associated issues.


Deal with it: RantWoman also is particularly inclined toward scorn for the most junior member of SCOTUS, the one crammed onto the court a month before #DonTheCon was resoundingly voted OUT OF OFFICE: dialing back controversy seems EXTREMELY beside the point when one party is happy to place at the top of the ticket a guy who tried last time violently to overturn the will of the people. RantWoman also has RAGE about various other dimensions of campaigns. NONE of that solves the immediate problem of how to deal with the WA state Presidential primary.


Deal gratefully with ballots instead of caucuses which, the times RantWoman has gone, have proven an absolute nightmare on accessibility and aggravation grounds.


Deal with a wish somewhere for a statewide list of every county in WA with opportunity to vote in person using accessible voting methods, the location and hours of in-person early voting opportunities. 


Wait. Wait. EARTH TO RANTWOMAN.


Check out: sos.wa.gov .see the following link for County elections offices


This page has a nice combo box where people can look up county office location, hours, and contact info.

Choosing the county you want in the combo box is a better idea than just letting JAWS read the county names off the Google map. 

Urk! RantWOman sometimes gets impatient and makes bad assumptions based on my visual experience. RantWoman did that here and then decided just to try the Immersive reader in MS Edge and that cleared things up nicely. Once RantWoman found the info with the immersive reader, she also went back and did the same thing with JAWS and it worked fine.

There are other ways to find this info on county websites, but this statewide view is really nice.


Deal with it for the mental lint RantWoman is accumulating about how different states handle accessible voting practices, which states are doing accessible online voting, glacial evolution of enthusiasm by the WA Secretary of State to tackle this statewide in WA...


Deal with it for the line in tiny print on King County ballot envelopes where one is supposed to share an email or a phone number openly on the outside of an envelope.


And FINALLY, deal with the actual ballot which RantWoman thankfully has enough eyesight to spend her daily allotment of tiny print tolerance handling on her own.


--a desire to make a protest vote and irritation that by the time national elections reach WA, protest options have more than once already dropped out.


--The thought of just picking a party and then sending in a blank ballot.


--a number of OH HELL NO names.


--temptation to game out "well if the vote went this way...what about that way...?


How has RantWoman actually dealt with this???


RantWoman prefers to remain a woman of mystery with the following caveat:


There are LOTS of ways to make an impact on elections. Grab one and go for it.



And for an extra bonus rant on behalf of everyone currently asking RantWoman to opine about AI

1. Sight dependent readers who do not have a screen reader, hover the mouse over the photo for commentary about AI in RantWoman's phone camera.


2. Every dang platform RantWoman regularly interacts with is currently asking RantWoman some version of "help us improve our search" or "Wouldn't you like to try our AI?" NO! RantWoman would like to g-d get done the work she is trying to do. MAYBE LATER.


3. Reminder: RantWoman has enough vision to deal with Blogger backend. RantWoman strives to make posts  accessible, usable but cannot vouch for Blogger as a useful platform for people who are totally blind. One quirky note: RantWoman frequently uses photos from her phone. This works fine when creating the post but when RantWoman reopens, the post automatically reopens in HTML mode. In order to resave and see the photo, RantWoman has to click some button to accept whatever Blogger does to satisfy itself about the resulting HTML code. RantWoman would not mind having this fixed but has not taken the time to complain in the appropriate direction about the problem.




 

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Valid WA State driver's license required, round n+1

 One of RantWoman's frequent media streams is job posting, OFTEN in the transportation or public transit sector that, as part of job requirements, say "Valid WA State driver's license required. Translating into RantWoman terms, this means :"must make an ADA reasonable accomodations request just to apply and then must demonstrate that one can satisfy the "essential job requirements." 


In the most recent case, RantWoman looked at the job description, determined that the job will probably involve situations that might require more transportation than showing up to an office, and made a snarky post on X / Twitter about the job perhaps having some "eat your own dog food" aspects as far as creativity about multiple transportation options. Now RantWoman gets to decide whether she has the guts to apply, if not for the immediate permanent position perhaps because of the "recruiting for a pool that may involve short-term positions.


RantWoman has in fact held a driver's license. In every state where she has ever had a license, there has been some kind of notation such as "must wear corrective lenses" or "must have a rear-view mirror on the side of the vehicle where she sees badly." Now, though, RantWoman's driver's license record says "medical suspension.: This is what happens when one goes to renew one's driver's license with an undiagnosed medical issue in her better eye and then decides after the automatic one-year suspension that there is no magic wand available that would justify trying to revisit the issue. 


Now RantWoman tends to walk into meetings, sow confusion pairing white cane and eyeglasses, and say things like "I don't drive...anymore, but this sounds really confusing." in that case the traffic engineer concurred and RantWoman added the location to her list of places she might discourage infrequent senior drivers from trying to figure out.. RantWoman also learned a while ago from RantMom that a few months before his death, Grandpa Farmer was told by his doctor that because of gout-related shakiness, he could no longer drive. Grandpa Farmer lived in a small town in SW CO with no public transportation. The fact that he could no longer drive up a hill to visit his sister was devastating. In other words, besides lots of youth who grow up with vision impairments, non-driver status happens for many different reasons.


RabtWoman digresses. Back to the original job description and current job application fashion about asking applicants to perform some increment of topical work for free.


RantWoman's first question: why should non-drivers be the only applicants who have explicitly to think about getting around without driving? In fact, RantWoman MIGHT think to dream up an interview scenario for EVERYONE. Imagine a situation that would involve some kind of transportation emergency, lack of a drivable vehicle, need for a wheelchair user to travel, disruption in some major transportation choke point, multiple Sound Transit elevators deciding they just are not interested in people's transportation needs for the day, and perhaps something else to amplify the crisis level such as a major event or large international delegation in town. Open Book test: take two hours. Solve the immediate need to be somewhere or to suggest enough audio / visual wizardry to meet the communications need, develop steps to address the crisis and decide on public statements.


If RantWoman were doing especially well about out of the box thinking RantWoman might add a supplemental question such as "if any of the needed travel segments involve either flying carpets or Mary Poppins umbrellas, please be prepared to discuss technological, regulatory, and budget considerations that could make that idea fly.


Presto, equal opportunity job interview for everyone.


Now, will RantWoman or will she not apply?????

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Happy Leap Day COVID anniversary

 #LeapDay #LeapDay2024 #COVID #Pandemic








NO! RantWoman is not exactly nostalgic for pandemic lockdown, but the item popped in RantWoman's Twitter.

Plus RantWoman still means to post about themes from last year about this time, minus the #LeapDay


Use the hash tags or the words COVID and Pandemic to find past RantWoman offerintgs.


From last year:

RantMom's retirement community is, cross fingers, coming out of 10 days of dining room closure because a cluster of RantMom's neighbors who all sat together in the dining room as well as 5 staff all recentlyy tested positive for COVID. This time it wasn't RantMom, but somehow there are anniversary vibes in the air.


(Four) years ago, many of RantWoman's Asian neighbors had already been masking for weeks. 


There was the dinner with RantMom and her debate-watching buddy two weeks before..., the last name in the newspaper, the "i'm not surprised" phone conversation with the retirement community medical director while RantWoman was on a bus to buy cat food ahead of pending lockdowns. Here though are some idiosyncratic reflections:


Special shout-out to all the transit and delivery drivers and other essential workers who kept life sort of manageable.

The masks

RantWoman still has in various pockets, an assortment of masks:

--the folded bandana and ponytail holder effort RantWoman tried for awhile.

--The whcked out of new black T-shirt material items that RantWoman's blind nurse friend sent around to the local chapter of the WA council of the blind.

--Several different homemade and commercial cloth masks. A couple of the homemade styles were well-meant but not functional for instance because of ties made of slippery ribbon. Some of the commercial ones have sensible elastic at the ears though some of the elastic has long stretched beyond usefulness

--Several different paper disposable ones. RantWoman is not charmed by the mandate to buy paper masks in the first place. Cloth masks, while imperfect are better than nothing and in many cases more comfortable than paper ones. RantWoman also tends to save paper masks she has acquired, figuring they will be good in an emergency or at least interesting relics.


Mail order shoes

RantWoman is VERY glad both to have found a couple reliable mail order shoe options and to have a couple Nordstrom gift cards she needs to march down and spend for a real custom fit experience.


RantWoman has more to say about the inadequacy of online ad copy, the problem of fitting feet that are slightly different sized, and which footwear elements do or don't easily adjust. But not today.


Stimulus payment clothing

RantWoman feels VERY lucky to have been able to renew her entire wardrobe from the skin out with mail order options.


The Bed from Amazon

Previous bed installation adventures


Weird food notes:

RantWoman mostly did okay about food options or at least does not remember the worst frustrations.


RantWoman still has a whole unopened bag of spicy dried pea packets. RantWoman will either save them for the next disaster or one of these days reconstitute them and see what they can be turned into.


Other food note: a whole lot of Reese's peanut butter cups, curiously accompanied by weight loss, probably from drinking less soda and hopefully not from losing muscle mass.


The college admissions Interview questions:

RantWoman is an alumni interviewer and every year interviews a number of students applying to her alma mater. RantWoman finds the interviews really rewarding and the applicants have been gracious about answering RantWoman's standard question about how did they fare. Some found the period a time of intense personal growth, either from some kind of self-betterment or from figuring out what connections they really needed to preserve. Others just found online school a long slog. RantWoman wonders how the pandemic will look 20 years ago, the way others remember the 1968 democratic convention, the moon landing, the space shuttle catastrophes, 9/11....



And then there's the next disaster, whatever it is

nope, it doesn't let up
Event agenda



Medical Cannibis rulemaking on Leap Day

RantWoman has nothing insightful to say about why she flagged the info below.

So enjoy, 'kay.



Text in graphic

 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024