RantWoman is THRILLED that a very broad coalition of disabled people are uniting about the issue of Text-to-Speech access to books on the Kindle. RantWoman is also thrilled to learn that Amazon is a t least talking on their blog about making the Kindle's navigation functions accessible to blind people.
The item below, which is the basis for RantWoman's cheering, came into email without a full citation so RantWoman is just dumping text for now:
Reading Rights Coalition Urges Authors to AllowEveryone Access to E-books
Informational Protest to be Held at Authors Guild Headquarters
New York City (March 30, 2009): The ReadingRights Coalition, which represents people whocannot read print, will protest the threatenedremoval of the text-to-speech function frome-books for the Amazon Kindle 2 outside theAuthors Guild headquarters in New York City at 31East 32nd Street on April 7, 2009, from noon to2:00 pddm. The coalition includes the blind,people with dyslexia, people with learning orprocessing issues, seniors losing vision, peoplewith spinal cord injuries, people recovering fromstrokes, and many others for whom the addition oftext-to-speech on the Kindle 2 promised for thefirst time easy, mainstream access to over 255,000 books.
When Amazon released the Kindle 2 electronic bookreader on February 9, 2009, the company announcedthat the device would be able to read e-booksaloud using text-to-speech technology. Underpressure from the Authors Guild, Amazon hasannounced that it will give authors andpublishers the ability to disable thetext-to-speech function on any or all of theire-books available for the Kindle 2.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the NationalFederation of the Blind, said: "The blind andprint-disabled have for years utilizedtext-to-speech technology to read and accessinformation. As technology advances and morebooks move from hard-copy print to electronicformats, people with print disabilities have forthe first time in history the opportunity toenjoy access to books on an equal basis withthose who can read print. Authors and publisherswho elect to disable text-to-speech for theire-books on the Kindle 2 prevent people who are blind or have
other print disabilities from reading thesee-books. This is blatant discrimination and we will not tolerate it."
Mike Shuttic, president of the Association onHigher Education and Disability (AHEAD), said:"AHEAD envisions educational and societalenvironments that value disability and embodyequality of opportunity. This vision of AHEAD isdirectly aligned with the efforts of thiscoalition. Although much rhetoric is made aboutpotential obstacles and problems that exist, thebasic goal is clear and simple----access foreveryone. And why create something that prevents it?"
Mitch Pomerantz, president of the AmericanCouncil of the Blind, said: "Removing thetext-to-speech features closes the door on aninnovative technological solution that would makeregular print books available to tens ofthousands of individuals who are blind or visually impaired."
Andrew Imparato, President and Chief ExecutiveOfficer for the American Association of Peoplewith Disabilities (AAPAID), said: "It is outrageouswhen a technology device shuts out people withall kinds of disabilities. AAPAID works to removebarriers to accessibility and usability intechnology, and we don't expect to see peoplewith disabilities singled out by having to paymore for access. New technologies, such aselectronic books, should be available to everyone regardless of disability."
Paul Schroeder, vice president of programs andpolicy for the American Foundation for the Blind,said: "Those of us with print disabilities havelong dreamed of a world in which books and mediaare available to us at the same time as everyoneelse. The Kindle 2 offers that possibility forthe first time. We hope publishers and authorscome to see that text-to-speech is simply analternative means of access to print."
Dr. Peter Blanck, chairman and universityprofessor at Burton Blatt Institute at SyracuseUniversity, said: "As electronic books become thenorm, denying universal access will result inmore and more people with disabilities being leftout of education, employment, and the societalconversation. We will all suffer from theabsence of their participation and contributionto the debates that occupy us as a society."
George Kerscher of the Digital AccessibleInformation System (DAISY) Consortium, said: "TheDAISY Consortium envisions a world where peoplewith print disabilities have equal access toinformation and knowledge, without delay oradditional expense. Authors and publisherssurely must share this vision. Now that theissue of human rights has been explained, and theopportunity for larger sales are known, I urgethe Authors Guild to reverse their position ontext-to-speech and join us in activelyencouraging all publishers and reading technologydevelopers to open the world of reading toeverybody. Authors, join us on the picket line."
Steve Jacobs, president of IDEAL Group Inc.,said, "Not only is text-to-speech important topeople who are blind, it is critical in providingquality educations to millions of young peoplewho rely on text-to-speech to learneffectively. This includes students with autism,learning disabilities, mobility disabilities, andcognitive disabilities that impact their abilityto acquire information with their eyes only. Iremain hopeful that the talented members of theAuthors Guild come to understand the potentialnegative impact of disabling the text-to-speechfunction on their e-books and reconsider their position."
Cynthia D. Waddell, executive director of theInternational Center for Disability Resources onthe Internet (ICDRI), said: "The mission ofICDRI supports the removal of barriers inelectronic and information technology and thepromotion of equal access. ICDRI welcomes thetext-to-speech functionality being offered by theKindle 2 since it increases mainstream access tobooks for the first time in history. We questionwhy the Authors Guild demands that it be turnedit off since many more books would be sold iftext-to-speech was turned back on. Not only
does this feature benefit persons withdisabilities, but it also helps persons for whomEnglish is not their native language. In anincreasingly mobile society, flexibility inaccess to content improves the quality of life for everyone."
James Love, director of Knowledge EcologyInternational, said: "Knowing full well that noteveryone can see, the Authors Guild wants theright to be seen, but not heard. By bullyingAmazon to change the technology of Kindle 2, theAuthors Guild will either deny access to peoplewho are disabled, or make them pay more. Byattacking disabled persons in this way, theAuthors Guild is attacking everyone who wouldotherwise benefit from the contributions thiscommunity has the potential to offer."
James H. Wendorf, executive director for theNational Center for Learning Disabilities, said:"Access to the written word is the cornerstone ofeducation and democracy. New technologies mustserve individuals with disabilities, not impedethem. Our homes, schools and ultimately oureconomy rely on support for the future, notdiscriminating practices and beliefs from the past."
While the Kindle 2 is not currently accessible toblind users, Amazon recently announced on itsKindle 2 blog that it is currently at work onmaking the device's navigational features accessible to the blind.
The coalition includes: American Association ofPeople with Disabilities, American Council of theBlind, American Foundation for the Blind,Association on Higher Education and Disability,Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, BurtonBlatt Institute, Digital Accessible InformationSystem (DAISY) Consortium, Disability RightsEducation and Defense Fund (DREDF), IDEAL Group,Inc., International Center for DisabilityResources on the Internet, International DyslexiaAssociation, International DyslexiaAssociation----New York Branch, Knowledge EcologyInternational, Learning Disabilities Associationof America, National Center for LearningDisabilities, National Disability Rights Network,National Federation of the Blind, NISH, and theNational Spinal Cord Injury Association. Inaddition to the April 7 New York City protest,the coalition will participate in the Los AngelesTimes Festival of Books on April 25-26.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Outlook restored
A terrible thing befell RantWoman first thing on Sunday morning. The claws of gravity reached out and flung RantWoman's spectacles hard against RantWoman's concrete floor, hard enough that instead of just a wiry bounce, RantWoman heard a suspicious plunk.
Okay, so gravity had help in the form of RantWoman's arm trying to move something else next to the spectacles. Mercifully there was only limited horizontal acceleration. Mercifully RantWoman fairly quickly found the battered spectacles, a splendidly intact polycarbonate lens riven asunder from a frame so discombobulated that RantWoman's first effort to tape things back together failed to hold in the sacred lens.
RantWoman cannot even guess why she did not try again immediately with the tape. Okay, actually RantWoman in fact was terrified. The last couple pairs of glasses RantWoman has have have been whisper light miracles of plastic and titanium especially compared to the ponderous things she has previously worn. The only tricky thing has been that these new high-tech wonders have whole new and sometimes more catastrophic ways to break and catastrophic ways to break tend to mean immediate need for large infusions of funds to replace them. If RantWoman had large funds to infuse into her glasses habit....
Before the age of high-index polycarbonate and titanium, RantWoman danced with various combinations of plastic and glass, heavy and ungainly in numerous ways. However, RantWoman would often lose screws and be able to do temporary repairs with a twist-tie. RantWoman also became adept at mechanical engineering involving scotch tape and then careful handling of what would no longer be a functioning hinge.
On Sunday RantWoman was reminded that her previous pair of polycarbonate and titanium glasses broke through cleanly shearing off in the middle of one ear piece. This time, RantWoman could not tell for sure what the canyons between different parts of her glasses meant, but the whole horrifying vision just sent her soul into a corner to curl up in a fetal position for most of the day. Luckily it was Sunday, the day of rest and in fact, not having functioning glasses SOMETIMES keeps RantWoman out of some kinds of trouble she might joyously wade into.
RantWoman did dutifully detour on the way to her house of worship to see if her beloved optical oasis might be open on Sunday. Alas no, though RantWoman found herself revisiting RantMom's experience with said emporium. Shortly after RantMom moved to town, she needed new glasses and asked RantWoman for a recommendation. RantWoman of course recommended her very own favorite place, a place where RantWoman has gotten several pairs of glasses, where the staff has been almost unfailingly helpful and always polite when the only cure was new spectacles. RantWoman has gotten a two pairs not quite for the price of one but at a big discount deal. RantWoman has dithered for hours with LittleSister trying to pick spectacles that would do for RantWoman's lenses, face, and other environments. RantWoman has gone there with her eyes and face in all kinds of weird conditions and the staff have always faithfully served her with politeness and respect.
Based on RantWoman's recommendation, RantMom bought her new specs there, but RantMom chose a discount discontinued frame. The discontinued frame kept losing nose pieces and RantMom kept going back and demanding that they be fixed. At first the staff charged her $10 a pop for this effort, but then RantMom complained and they stopped charging her. The nose pieces did not stop falling off and finally I think RantMom had another calamity, took her glasses to a different shop and got both a temporary fix for the other calamity and some kine of fairly durable fix for the nosepiece problem.
Now RantMom is actually trying to figure out how to get new glasses and RantWoman is again hearing much angst and anguish, much distress and dithering about matters optical including RantMom's experience with RantWoman's beloved shop, almost to the point of shaking RantWoman's own confidence.
Yesterday though, with the dawn of a new week and the need, oddly enough to demonstrate RantWoman's normal level of not reading the eye chart, RantWoman tried again with the tape and actually got to pretty credible and stable repair--just in time to beat a path from the eye doctor's to the optometrist. Even more exciting: the young woman who greeted RantWoman--and immediately undid all of RantWoman's mastery with the scotch tape--was able to fix everything with a simple screw! Whew!
RantWoman recommends: Davis Optical
Okay, so gravity had help in the form of RantWoman's arm trying to move something else next to the spectacles. Mercifully there was only limited horizontal acceleration. Mercifully RantWoman fairly quickly found the battered spectacles, a splendidly intact polycarbonate lens riven asunder from a frame so discombobulated that RantWoman's first effort to tape things back together failed to hold in the sacred lens.
RantWoman cannot even guess why she did not try again immediately with the tape. Okay, actually RantWoman in fact was terrified. The last couple pairs of glasses RantWoman has have have been whisper light miracles of plastic and titanium especially compared to the ponderous things she has previously worn. The only tricky thing has been that these new high-tech wonders have whole new and sometimes more catastrophic ways to break and catastrophic ways to break tend to mean immediate need for large infusions of funds to replace them. If RantWoman had large funds to infuse into her glasses habit....
Before the age of high-index polycarbonate and titanium, RantWoman danced with various combinations of plastic and glass, heavy and ungainly in numerous ways. However, RantWoman would often lose screws and be able to do temporary repairs with a twist-tie. RantWoman also became adept at mechanical engineering involving scotch tape and then careful handling of what would no longer be a functioning hinge.
On Sunday RantWoman was reminded that her previous pair of polycarbonate and titanium glasses broke through cleanly shearing off in the middle of one ear piece. This time, RantWoman could not tell for sure what the canyons between different parts of her glasses meant, but the whole horrifying vision just sent her soul into a corner to curl up in a fetal position for most of the day. Luckily it was Sunday, the day of rest and in fact, not having functioning glasses SOMETIMES keeps RantWoman out of some kinds of trouble she might joyously wade into.
RantWoman did dutifully detour on the way to her house of worship to see if her beloved optical oasis might be open on Sunday. Alas no, though RantWoman found herself revisiting RantMom's experience with said emporium. Shortly after RantMom moved to town, she needed new glasses and asked RantWoman for a recommendation. RantWoman of course recommended her very own favorite place, a place where RantWoman has gotten several pairs of glasses, where the staff has been almost unfailingly helpful and always polite when the only cure was new spectacles. RantWoman has gotten a two pairs not quite for the price of one but at a big discount deal. RantWoman has dithered for hours with LittleSister trying to pick spectacles that would do for RantWoman's lenses, face, and other environments. RantWoman has gone there with her eyes and face in all kinds of weird conditions and the staff have always faithfully served her with politeness and respect.
Based on RantWoman's recommendation, RantMom bought her new specs there, but RantMom chose a discount discontinued frame. The discontinued frame kept losing nose pieces and RantMom kept going back and demanding that they be fixed. At first the staff charged her $10 a pop for this effort, but then RantMom complained and they stopped charging her. The nose pieces did not stop falling off and finally I think RantMom had another calamity, took her glasses to a different shop and got both a temporary fix for the other calamity and some kine of fairly durable fix for the nosepiece problem.
Now RantMom is actually trying to figure out how to get new glasses and RantWoman is again hearing much angst and anguish, much distress and dithering about matters optical including RantMom's experience with RantWoman's beloved shop, almost to the point of shaking RantWoman's own confidence.
Yesterday though, with the dawn of a new week and the need, oddly enough to demonstrate RantWoman's normal level of not reading the eye chart, RantWoman tried again with the tape and actually got to pretty credible and stable repair--just in time to beat a path from the eye doctor's to the optometrist. Even more exciting: the young woman who greeted RantWoman--and immediately undid all of RantWoman's mastery with the scotch tape--was able to fix everything with a simple screw! Whew!
RantWoman recommends: Davis Optical
Concept o' the day: Hertzspring Russell Diagram
RantWoman popped open Wikipedia and indulged in a most pleasant scientific digression about the Hertzspring Russell diagram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram
Check it out yourself! RantWoman must needs get on with what she went to Wikipedia for....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertzsprung-Russell_diagram
Check it out yourself! RantWoman must needs get on with what she went to Wikipedia for....
Monday, March 30, 2009
Pickled carrots 2
RantWoman has indeed been eating well from the pickled carrots food group. While the previous episode was vaguely Vietnamese, this episode is Mexican or gringo-Mex at least, as defined by http://memosmexicanfood.com/ 4743 University Way NE, the second doorway south of the Jack-in-the-Box driveway on the West side of the street.
While checking for electronic presence, RantWoman learned that Memo's is even open 24 hours a day. RantWoman tends to think people, even exuberant university students, should go home and sleep sometime, but it's really fun to know that if you don't you can get burritos, enchiladas, chorizo, breakfast burritos, guacamole, churros and dozens of other wonders--including sometimes flan--any time of the day or night.
RantWoman forgot the pickled carrots, carrots pickled in a light vinegar and mixed in a bin full of fresh cilantro, whole jalapenos, and miscellaneous onion rounds. There is red salsa, green salsa, some kind of white condiment perhaps for the fish tacos. The list of side order options includes corn tortillas, refried beans, and who knows what else.
RantWoman feasted on a lovely bean burrito the other night; today she went all out for the taco salad. Both were solidly flavorful and well-prepared. The pickled carrots and cilantro were so plentiful that RantWoman did not even regret not having any more vegetable with her burrito. The taco salad shell, an item RantWoman usually considers superfluous was crisp, fresh and pillowy enough that RantWoman found herself nibbling a bit more of it than she really intended, though next time she is likely to choose some other form of temptation.
And there certainly will be a next time for a couple other reasons. First, for such a lovely simple but tasty menu, there never seem to be very many people in the restaurant. RantWoman admits she seems to go there just after peak dining hours, but a place like this deserves to thrive on more business than RantWoman alone can bring. On a practical level, for a RantWoman who does not see well and especially does not see well at any kind of distance or when the menu is written in chalk or dry-erase marker, a wall-mounted menu with all the offerings printed in giant letters is almost enough to make RantWoman swoon. Well, perhaps RantWoman should be glad there seem not to be many people in line when she goes to Memo's because that way she can drink in as much of the menu as she wants before making up her mind. But always have the pickled carrots.
While checking for electronic presence, RantWoman learned that Memo's is even open 24 hours a day. RantWoman tends to think people, even exuberant university students, should go home and sleep sometime, but it's really fun to know that if you don't you can get burritos, enchiladas, chorizo, breakfast burritos, guacamole, churros and dozens of other wonders--including sometimes flan--any time of the day or night.
RantWoman forgot the pickled carrots, carrots pickled in a light vinegar and mixed in a bin full of fresh cilantro, whole jalapenos, and miscellaneous onion rounds. There is red salsa, green salsa, some kind of white condiment perhaps for the fish tacos. The list of side order options includes corn tortillas, refried beans, and who knows what else.
RantWoman feasted on a lovely bean burrito the other night; today she went all out for the taco salad. Both were solidly flavorful and well-prepared. The pickled carrots and cilantro were so plentiful that RantWoman did not even regret not having any more vegetable with her burrito. The taco salad shell, an item RantWoman usually considers superfluous was crisp, fresh and pillowy enough that RantWoman found herself nibbling a bit more of it than she really intended, though next time she is likely to choose some other form of temptation.
And there certainly will be a next time for a couple other reasons. First, for such a lovely simple but tasty menu, there never seem to be very many people in the restaurant. RantWoman admits she seems to go there just after peak dining hours, but a place like this deserves to thrive on more business than RantWoman alone can bring. On a practical level, for a RantWoman who does not see well and especially does not see well at any kind of distance or when the menu is written in chalk or dry-erase marker, a wall-mounted menu with all the offerings printed in giant letters is almost enough to make RantWoman swoon. Well, perhaps RantWoman should be glad there seem not to be many people in line when she goes to Memo's because that way she can drink in as much of the menu as she wants before making up her mind. But always have the pickled carrots.
Pickled carrots 1
RantWoman wound up eating two meals out on Friday. Gastronomic world traveller that RantWoman is, both involved pickled carrots (and cilantro, actually) with rather different retail associations. This item is devoted to the shredded carrots pickled with hot pepper and served with vietnamese spring rolls and dipping sauce on the takeout menu at Hai-Tai market on Aurora Avenue N, in the same complex as Oak Tree Cinema and almost always more fun than the cinema, but with no sensible electronic presence that RantWoman can find.
When RantWoman lived near what is now the Hai-Tai market, it was kind of a yuppy food museum called Larry's Market. The piles of organic eggplant were arranged just so. There was classical muzak on the PA and pretentious flavors of cheese or mustard and quinoa salad at the deli. There was a selection of cloth napkins, high-end kitchen utensils, and designer ceramics. Larry's butcher counter made their own sausage and made flavors like chicken apple walnut. There was a delectable store brand of gourmet ice cream that RantWoman never even bothered to check the fat content for fear the information alone would give her a coronary. Between proximity to RantWoman's abode and manic thrift, RantWoman managed to be a fairly frequent customer and once or twice even to work luxury items into her diet.
Then, about the time RantWoman had to move for bumpy reasons of her own, someone's bubble burst and the sustainability of yuppy food museums declined precipitously and Larry's Market got sold. The local chain got broken up and along came a long transition and then Hai Tai Market.
Hai Tai market is a prototypical Asian grocery store. There are stacks and stacks of all sizes of bags of rice. There are tanks with live seafood. There are all kinds of funky things in the produce department and the funky things are for sale for great prices. There shelves and shelves of noodle items, soy sauce, and assorted other condiments. There are smatterings of products aimed at Latinos and cans of greasy vegetables that clearly are comfort food for Russian and eastern european shoppers. Most of all, unlike "round-eye" supermarkets, the place does not reek of detergent around every aisle.
In short, RantWoman really likes the Hai Tai market. The place is two buses from her current house, so although RantWoman COULD stock up on plenty of good produce, sometimes when she goes there RantWoman just winds up stopping at the deli for a meal: spring rolls, a banh mi sandwich, or any of several spicy and unusual hot items involving curry, fish, vegetables, and other items over rice.
But the final touch, a seemingly small thing unless one is RantWoman: the Hai Tai Markets kept the old Larry's Market point of sale devices which mostly have good tactile buttons and only a couple points that RantWoman sometimes needs help to interact with.
Did RantWoman mention that the spring rolls and spicy pickled carrots are just delicious?
When RantWoman lived near what is now the Hai-Tai market, it was kind of a yuppy food museum called Larry's Market. The piles of organic eggplant were arranged just so. There was classical muzak on the PA and pretentious flavors of cheese or mustard and quinoa salad at the deli. There was a selection of cloth napkins, high-end kitchen utensils, and designer ceramics. Larry's butcher counter made their own sausage and made flavors like chicken apple walnut. There was a delectable store brand of gourmet ice cream that RantWoman never even bothered to check the fat content for fear the information alone would give her a coronary. Between proximity to RantWoman's abode and manic thrift, RantWoman managed to be a fairly frequent customer and once or twice even to work luxury items into her diet.
Then, about the time RantWoman had to move for bumpy reasons of her own, someone's bubble burst and the sustainability of yuppy food museums declined precipitously and Larry's Market got sold. The local chain got broken up and along came a long transition and then Hai Tai Market.
Hai Tai market is a prototypical Asian grocery store. There are stacks and stacks of all sizes of bags of rice. There are tanks with live seafood. There are all kinds of funky things in the produce department and the funky things are for sale for great prices. There shelves and shelves of noodle items, soy sauce, and assorted other condiments. There are smatterings of products aimed at Latinos and cans of greasy vegetables that clearly are comfort food for Russian and eastern european shoppers. Most of all, unlike "round-eye" supermarkets, the place does not reek of detergent around every aisle.
In short, RantWoman really likes the Hai Tai market. The place is two buses from her current house, so although RantWoman COULD stock up on plenty of good produce, sometimes when she goes there RantWoman just winds up stopping at the deli for a meal: spring rolls, a banh mi sandwich, or any of several spicy and unusual hot items involving curry, fish, vegetables, and other items over rice.
But the final touch, a seemingly small thing unless one is RantWoman: the Hai Tai Markets kept the old Larry's Market point of sale devices which mostly have good tactile buttons and only a couple points that RantWoman sometimes needs help to interact with.
Did RantWoman mention that the spring rolls and spicy pickled carrots are just delicious?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Velleity
RantWoman is trying to stay on track. More precisely she is trying to stay on several tracks at once. Okay, she WAS reading pleasure email, already on a nonlinear route to the tracks she needs to run today. Then the pleasure email served up a link to the daily entry on dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2009/03/28.html
Today's word is velleity, paraphrasing, the faintest hint of volition, or a little bit of will.
RantWoman is unsure whether the cited usages, including a writer RantWoman both enjoys and characterizes as "one of her favorite linguistic fascists" make her feel confident enough to use the word in her own discourse. That is not the important part of RantWoman's delight. The delight is just that the online Word of the Day gets to be another arrow in RantWoman's quivver of pleasurable diversions, another link in RantWoman's sense of digital inclusion in a world of standards and love of language and lexicographical diversity, another reason that long stretches of companionship with her squawking box of a computer are more than just a path to work but also a path to a rich life.
Okay, now back to the multiple other tracks RantWoman needs to run.
Today's word is velleity, paraphrasing, the faintest hint of volition, or a little bit of will.
RantWoman is unsure whether the cited usages, including a writer RantWoman both enjoys and characterizes as "one of her favorite linguistic fascists" make her feel confident enough to use the word in her own discourse. That is not the important part of RantWoman's delight. The delight is just that the online Word of the Day gets to be another arrow in RantWoman's quivver of pleasurable diversions, another link in RantWoman's sense of digital inclusion in a world of standards and love of language and lexicographical diversity, another reason that long stretches of companionship with her squawking box of a computer are more than just a path to work but also a path to a rich life.
Okay, now back to the multiple other tracks RantWoman needs to run.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Artful Bras
RantWoman opened her email and snagged a link she has to share:
http://www.quiltersofsc.org/artfullbras/artfullbras.htm
RantWoman may have to defer judgment about rantable themes, but a few quick notes:
--The pictures are tagged and the titles are as much of a hoot as the visuals.
--Your milage will vary about the visuals. Some of them RantWoman finds funny; some of them she is happy just with the titles, and some of them are so froofy, dippy with lace and ribbons and who knows what all that they remind RantWoman of why she is often allergic to this sort of make art out of some theme item exercise.
--In this case one of RantWoman's rantable themes is the insistence on only one size of theme object. RantWoman is aware that bras are needed in all sizes and that women who wear bras of all sizes get breast cancer. So she might have just specified that all entries must be able to be hung a certain way and let the artists interact as they would.
http://www.quiltersofsc.org/artfullbras/artfullbras.htm
RantWoman may have to defer judgment about rantable themes, but a few quick notes:
--The pictures are tagged and the titles are as much of a hoot as the visuals.
--Your milage will vary about the visuals. Some of them RantWoman finds funny; some of them she is happy just with the titles, and some of them are so froofy, dippy with lace and ribbons and who knows what all that they remind RantWoman of why she is often allergic to this sort of make art out of some theme item exercise.
--In this case one of RantWoman's rantable themes is the insistence on only one size of theme object. RantWoman is aware that bras are needed in all sizes and that women who wear bras of all sizes get breast cancer. So she might have just specified that all entries must be able to be hung a certain way and let the artists interact as they would.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mortification of the Flesh
RantWoman has gone to camp ALL weekend. Camp featured wonderful huge trees, fascinating people talking about fascinating things at every turn, and much, much that is still fermenting.
RantWoman had a truly wonderful time--despite some intervals so BORING that one commentator, NOT RantWoman, used the phrase "human rights violation!" Alas, now RantWoman is back home trying to catch up with thoughts on her mind while also dancing with all the other commitments she put on hold to go off to camp. RantWoman is debating how much to identify through tagging, how much to emit into the dangers and temptations of blogging, and how much she actually cares about maybe getting to the swells of thinking and other rushes of questions about the mechanics of electronic media. In the meantime, RantWoman would not be RantWoman without grumbles, gripes, and general grouches.
Consider physical amenities, as addressed by the following hypothetical customer service communication:
Dear Campers of the week,
We understand that you are not heavy into the liturgical calendar, but since you are visiting us during Lent, we have a special mortification of the flesh package for your consideration.
To assist us in fitting you into our lodging scheme, we invite you to choose from the following choices regarding accommodations:
Entryway:
__I would like a simple entryway with perhaps one step.
__Never mind that I see badly and feel self-conscious about so far being allergic to the one true religion as far as mobility training, please give me the place with the deck, three sets of steps up and a weird dropoff. (No surcharge applies).
Bed
__I would be delighted to have a double bed with a trough the size of the Grand Canyon down the middle
__Sleeping on a top bunk makes me really excited
__To heck with the top bunk. I am sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
Heat:
__I would enjoy sweltering in a room with the thermostat down the hall. *(surcharge applies)
__I would enjoy a room heater that sounds like a jet taking off every time it kicks on even if set at the lowest level possible. (No surcharge applies)
Roommate Selection: Time zone
__I would perform embarrassing rituals of adulation if you book me a roommate from the same time zone.
__Please ensure that I am ensconced with the most wacked out case of jet lag attending the event.
__A 3-hour time difference with my roommate would be just fabulous because neither of us needs to get any sleep anyway and I really really need to try to sleep through roomie's early morning cellphone chats with her sweetie at home.
Roommate Selection: Snoring
__Snore and dang proud of it.
__Snoring? Who me?
Roommate Selection: temperature preference
__I am from a tropical climate and am already freezing even though the indoor temperature is in the 60's
__I am a raving fresh air freak who still opens the window and adds blankets even when the outdoor temperature would keep polar bears happy
Restrooms:
__I would grovel to be in the same building with a restroom / shower. (surcharge applies)
__I would have spasms of inexplicable ecstasy if my sleeping space is down a dark and twisty muddy path to a restroom.
Mold:
__Just because there is moss all over the roofs of all our buildings we cannot guarantee good mold spore levels, but odds are pretty good. (No extra charge)
Pre-Arrangement:
__Please feel free to forward my email address to roomie so we can work out details in advance.
__Sign me up for the Wake up and see who you are sleeping with option.
Wi-fi
__Forget anything I said about the above. I will turn into a blubbering idiot with gratitude if there is free Wi-fi.
Food and Dining:
__We will provide tasty, fresh delightful meals but the price will make you faint.
__We will offer between meal supplements from the cookies, nachoes in scary orange sauce and ice cream with gut-wrenching fake fat food groups. (no extra charge)
RantWoman had a truly wonderful time--despite some intervals so BORING that one commentator, NOT RantWoman, used the phrase "human rights violation!" Alas, now RantWoman is back home trying to catch up with thoughts on her mind while also dancing with all the other commitments she put on hold to go off to camp. RantWoman is debating how much to identify through tagging, how much to emit into the dangers and temptations of blogging, and how much she actually cares about maybe getting to the swells of thinking and other rushes of questions about the mechanics of electronic media. In the meantime, RantWoman would not be RantWoman without grumbles, gripes, and general grouches.
Consider physical amenities, as addressed by the following hypothetical customer service communication:
Dear Campers of the week,
We understand that you are not heavy into the liturgical calendar, but since you are visiting us during Lent, we have a special mortification of the flesh package for your consideration.
To assist us in fitting you into our lodging scheme, we invite you to choose from the following choices regarding accommodations:
Entryway:
__I would like a simple entryway with perhaps one step.
__Never mind that I see badly and feel self-conscious about so far being allergic to the one true religion as far as mobility training, please give me the place with the deck, three sets of steps up and a weird dropoff. (No surcharge applies).
Bed
__I would be delighted to have a double bed with a trough the size of the Grand Canyon down the middle
__Sleeping on a top bunk makes me really excited
__To heck with the top bunk. I am sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
Heat:
__I would enjoy sweltering in a room with the thermostat down the hall. *(surcharge applies)
__I would enjoy a room heater that sounds like a jet taking off every time it kicks on even if set at the lowest level possible. (No surcharge applies)
Roommate Selection: Time zone
__I would perform embarrassing rituals of adulation if you book me a roommate from the same time zone.
__Please ensure that I am ensconced with the most wacked out case of jet lag attending the event.
__A 3-hour time difference with my roommate would be just fabulous because neither of us needs to get any sleep anyway and I really really need to try to sleep through roomie's early morning cellphone chats with her sweetie at home.
Roommate Selection: Snoring
__Snore and dang proud of it.
__Snoring? Who me?
Roommate Selection: temperature preference
__I am from a tropical climate and am already freezing even though the indoor temperature is in the 60's
__I am a raving fresh air freak who still opens the window and adds blankets even when the outdoor temperature would keep polar bears happy
Restrooms:
__I would grovel to be in the same building with a restroom / shower. (surcharge applies)
__I would have spasms of inexplicable ecstasy if my sleeping space is down a dark and twisty muddy path to a restroom.
Mold:
__Just because there is moss all over the roofs of all our buildings we cannot guarantee good mold spore levels, but odds are pretty good. (No extra charge)
Pre-Arrangement:
__Please feel free to forward my email address to roomie so we can work out details in advance.
__Sign me up for the Wake up and see who you are sleeping with option.
Wi-fi
__Forget anything I said about the above. I will turn into a blubbering idiot with gratitude if there is free Wi-fi.
Food and Dining:
__We will provide tasty, fresh delightful meals but the price will make you faint.
__We will offer between meal supplements from the cookies, nachoes in scary orange sauce and ice cream with gut-wrenching fake fat food groups. (no extra charge)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
La Ceguera / Blindness
Does one have to experience a condition to be able to write about it with integrity or to provide services to people with the condition? Should RantWoman just shut up about her literary peregrinations and just plunge into the exact problems behind the excursions?
At times, a writer's role can legitimately be to explore extrema that one would never, ever, want to go near in practice. Lately RantWoman has also been reflecting on teams at the Friendly Neighborhood Center ... who, when things are going well, should be able to borrow each other's body parts. For instance, RantWoman might need to borrow someone's eyes. Or someone else might need to borrow RantWoman's arms and legs and tall stature.
If one is going to acknowledge the point of not necessarily wanting to go near a topic, what obligations does that place on one about treatment of people who actually do deal with the situation? On the other hand, if one is going to torture an offensive metaphor all over pages and pages of literary pretension, one ought at least to have a handle on the metaphor one is attempting to stitch to one's theme. Right?
To that end, the only haiku RantWoman has ever penned in Spanish and likely the only one she ever will.
At times, a writer's role can legitimately be to explore extrema that one would never, ever, want to go near in practice. Lately RantWoman has also been reflecting on teams at the Friendly Neighborhood Center ... who, when things are going well, should be able to borrow each other's body parts. For instance, RantWoman might need to borrow someone's eyes. Or someone else might need to borrow RantWoman's arms and legs and tall stature.
If one is going to acknowledge the point of not necessarily wanting to go near a topic, what obligations does that place on one about treatment of people who actually do deal with the situation? On the other hand, if one is going to torture an offensive metaphor all over pages and pages of literary pretension, one ought at least to have a handle on the metaphor one is attempting to stitch to one's theme. Right?
To that end, the only haiku RantWoman has ever penned in Spanish and likely the only one she ever will.
Por la ceguera / A Borges le faltaba /el amarillo
We will come back to Borges and the color yellow after more haiku excursions:
RantWoman sent this effort off to a Spanish linguist friend. He immediately sent back an effort which would have about a zillion too many syllables if one pronounced the spelling in pompous gringo style but would be about right if one swallowed all the syllables as most casual speakers would. Then RantWoman heard another more studied practitioner of haiku say that really the point is a poem in a breath and the syllable count in Japanese might be different than in English. RantWoman does not know what to make of these deviations. RantWoman is not a studied poet. Haiku is about the only form she can remember but she does, horrors, permit herself multiple stanzas. In other words, aside from whatever metaphors one is messing around with, there is that pesky question of form to come and go as well.
But back to metaphors, gradations of conditions, and multiple worlds within the same space of language. RantWoman is highly amused by another blogger's literary evisceration of Jose Saramago's Essay on Blindness. RantWoman admits that this work and the film based on it have been on her "must miss" list for awhile based solely on the fulminations about them on the email list run by the local chapter of a blindness-related group to which RantWoman belongs. Well Spanish Linguist friend said more or less the same things as the list but in vernacular he and RantWoman use all the time on the phone but probably would refrain from on the internet. However, RantWoman found the other blogger's language absolutely delightful, concise and to the point.
Today, though something in the to the point part about people's needs makes RantWoman wonder if just possibly the metaphor really is a metaphor after all. By all accounts Saramago does not know anything about blindness. In fact, if one is using tortured metaphors, sometimes too many facts just get in the way of the metaphor. RantWoman is certainly blundering ahead unencumbered by any contact with the text here, but who on the planet who is reasonably conscious has never felt like they are the only person ever to achieve some sublime realization to which all others around them are indeed blind but desparately in need?
Add to this the juxtaposition in the original post of Saramago's needy messes and a hapless healthcare practitioner who somehow assumed a blind patient would need something more than all the other people who let him stick hands, sharp instruments, and other topical paraphrenalia into their mouths. Could Saramago be making bad assumptions about what is needed and then using that as an excuse to cower in fear while simultaneously arrogantly proclaiming his vision?
Here we come to another different essay about blindness.
Here we get to gradations and themes and the exact framework upon which one is hanging one's metaphors. RantWoman in college was kind of an academic dilettante. One aspect of this was her literary tour of several highly divergent forms of spoken Spanish as delivered in the literature classes RantWoman kept taking despite there not being obvious link with her major or her other activities.
RantWoman does remember reading a story by Mexican writer Jorge Luis Borges and also remembers hearing then that Borges eventually went blind due to some rare genetic disorder. Such is the nature of collegiate dilettantism though that RantWoman did not think more about that until a couple years ago when someone RantWoman met at one of her efforts to network her way to sanity sent her a copy of Borges essay La Ceguera.
True confession: RantWoman skimmed with bad eyes, did not look up all the words she did not know and did not even make it to the end. Now the document is frozen in electronic purgatory on a computer RantWoman no longer uses and if RantWoman needs to poke at the topic more, she will have to find another way to do so. To say the least RantWoman is concious that she may have missed colossally important major points.
What RantWoman read she really enjoyed. The essay is long and pompous and by turns literary and reflective and grateful. Borges talks about his work as the head of the Bibilioteca Nacional and other points of his career. He talks of literature and who knows what all. Somewhere in the part RantWoman read, he talked about how one of the things he missed most was the color yellow.
RantWoman has never been a giant fan of the color yellow, for one thing because she historically has only appreciated it at all in its most intense bright forms. RantWoman is also aware of the themes of skin tone and apparel and RantWoman if dressed in yellow tends more to look like she has liver trouble than like something fashionable. In other words, the very fact that yellow would be that precious to anyone is an insight that might as well be from outer space.
RantWoman thinks there is a high probability that she would think Saramago's text just as masturbatory as the other blogger does, but for some reason she could maybe possibly consider budging the title off her must-miss list. Well RantWoman could consider this, but don't count on it.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
War and Peace
RantWoman sometimes wonders whether half the point of a liberal education is to implant an articulated catalog of metaphors one can then subsequently try to stitch to whatever life delivers.
Today RantWoman took literature brain to one of her very own healthcare practitioners for an outpatient procedure. RantWoman arrived on time, but due to kinks in someone else's paperwork, RantWoman had to spend an extra spell in the waiting room. RantWoman's compensation for this forced flexibility was entertainment in another language.
RantWoman does interpreting and always reflexively notices interpreting points even when she will not, not, NOT interpret for her own providers. Today's compensation for this practice was that RantWoman got to listen to someone make jokes in a language RantWoman knows but does no interpreting in about taking out the theme body part, dusting it off, fixing it up and sticking it back in. RantWoman was trying really hard not to crack up although she has been known to make similar cracks about her situation, but she finally allowed herself to let on when one of the staff translated for someone who was looking on curiously.
RantWoman has been seeing this particular practitioner for long enough that her entire chart if dragged out of the archives, looks like War and Peace. Most of the time what comes to visits could variously be characterized as the Cliff's notes, the Reader's Digest version, or more properly in the tradition of serializing novels as the most current chapter.
Today RantWoman took literature brain to one of her very own healthcare practitioners for an outpatient procedure. RantWoman arrived on time, but due to kinks in someone else's paperwork, RantWoman had to spend an extra spell in the waiting room. RantWoman's compensation for this forced flexibility was entertainment in another language.
RantWoman does interpreting and always reflexively notices interpreting points even when she will not, not, NOT interpret for her own providers. Today's compensation for this practice was that RantWoman got to listen to someone make jokes in a language RantWoman knows but does no interpreting in about taking out the theme body part, dusting it off, fixing it up and sticking it back in. RantWoman was trying really hard not to crack up although she has been known to make similar cracks about her situation, but she finally allowed herself to let on when one of the staff translated for someone who was looking on curiously.
RantWoman has been seeing this particular practitioner for long enough that her entire chart if dragged out of the archives, looks like War and Peace. Most of the time what comes to visits could variously be characterized as the Cliff's notes, the Reader's Digest version, or more properly in the tradition of serializing novels as the most current chapter.
One problem with having a medical chart the size of War and Peace is all the implied "frequent flyer miles." RantWoman deeply wishes these could be traded for time on sandy beaches instead of say more visits to said provider, especially when the visits require RantWoman to remind staff of what was in earlier chapters. RantWoman just burst out laughing when one member of the staff whom she has seen before asked what they had done for her previously. RantWoman recognizes that it is probably not reasonable to expect staff to remember things from two years ago. Or maybe she should be glad she has been slipping on the notoriety scale.
The other problem is the staff who are new to RantWoman's story and have not heard the earlier chapters in the first place. Next came a couple blithe novice nurses who managed to thoroughly annoy RantWoman both on her own behalf and on behalf of someone else getting dragged about through their ministrations. Considering the new nurses, RantWoman SUPPOSES she should be glad she got asked several of the same questions two or three times by different nurses. Maybe the repetition increases the odds that the information will get correctly recorded because it sure did not change coming out of RantWoman's mouth. RantWoman knows enough stories of people getting things wrong that she TRIES to be patient with the repetition. What wound up helping in this case was that one of the nurses was chatty and had a lovely diverting conversation with RantWoman about The Food Channel and Food Detective.
Still, RantWoman finds herself wondering whether the staff correctly interacted with the content of what she was saying. RantWoman told the different staffpeople at least three times a very good reason not to give her something listed on the cookie cutter discharge sheet the nurses were filling out. RantWoman just has had a really, really, really bad experience about the topic. When it was time to interact with said discharge sheet, RantWoman AGAIN had to remind the nurses of the issue!
But first it was time for the procedure. Rantwoman is all for fun in the workplace, but she was not charmed that the staff were all but having a water fight as she came in. The surgery staff seemed new with the doctor and he kept instructing numerous times throughout the procedure about where to put this device and that suture on his trays. RantWoman is all for training most of the time, but today she found herself wishing someone else could be the guinea pig/ designated traininng victim.
Some further philosophical ramblings could be possible here but this provider is considered one of the better ones in town in their category. Considering today, that might not say great things about local averages. Still, RantWoman also does not especially relish either having to recite the entire saga of her medical life to a new provider or hearing another round of "we might do things differently." Also, RantWoman found herself with other remedies. RantWoman would not tell her provider that she would wind up spending a whole weekend telling people from all over the world that her doctor got paid to make her look like she had been socked in the face.
Potemkin
RantWoman has been taking literature brain off to multiple adventures this week. Maybe RantWoman will specify the adventures. Maybe not.
Yesterday RantWoman got invited to an experience that made her want to crawl through the floor while simultaneously wanting to bounce a bunch of ideas around with one of the participants. As badly as RantWoman wanted to crawl through the floor on behalf of someone, she is hoping that uttering the phrase "business need to train" made an appropriate impression so that RantWoman can put on one of her provocateur hats, chat up a person RantWoman thought made a number of highly cogent points and whom RantWoman definitely wants to get better acquainted with.
Today, RantWoman found herself massaging the remnants of yesterday's encounter with thoughts of Potemkin. RantWoman is pleading greater than everage headache as an excuse not to Wikipedia her allusions for precision and blundering ahead anyway. Potemkin was a regional prince in Russian history. The tsar was coming to check on the well-being of the locals. Potemkin did not exactly have much to show on that front so he built a bunch of fronts like a good movie set. The tsar was fooled.
RantWoman is not nearly enough of a historian to know what happened next. It would be good to know what happened next because Potemkin next surfaces in RantWoman's mind as a battleship in the Russian navy during one of the early 20th century revolutions. Arguably knowing how a battleship got named after a local politician known for architectural playacting would be yet another reason at least to visit Wikipedia, but RantWoman is stretching metaphors even further thinking of a Sergei Eisenstein film by the same name about an insurrection aboard that very battleship during that very revolution.
RantWoman is going to make her dear readers guess and speculate what in heck all this has to do with the Friendly Neighborhood Center for..... for one thing because RantWoman needs to focus on working the problems behind the russian history allusions. Let's just say we hope that in a few months this all looks like some kind of work of art, maybe with some arty overdone moments but a work of art in its own right. But art is not quite happening tonight...
Yesterday RantWoman got invited to an experience that made her want to crawl through the floor while simultaneously wanting to bounce a bunch of ideas around with one of the participants. As badly as RantWoman wanted to crawl through the floor on behalf of someone, she is hoping that uttering the phrase "business need to train" made an appropriate impression so that RantWoman can put on one of her provocateur hats, chat up a person RantWoman thought made a number of highly cogent points and whom RantWoman definitely wants to get better acquainted with.
Today, RantWoman found herself massaging the remnants of yesterday's encounter with thoughts of Potemkin. RantWoman is pleading greater than everage headache as an excuse not to Wikipedia her allusions for precision and blundering ahead anyway. Potemkin was a regional prince in Russian history. The tsar was coming to check on the well-being of the locals. Potemkin did not exactly have much to show on that front so he built a bunch of fronts like a good movie set. The tsar was fooled.
RantWoman is not nearly enough of a historian to know what happened next. It would be good to know what happened next because Potemkin next surfaces in RantWoman's mind as a battleship in the Russian navy during one of the early 20th century revolutions. Arguably knowing how a battleship got named after a local politician known for architectural playacting would be yet another reason at least to visit Wikipedia, but RantWoman is stretching metaphors even further thinking of a Sergei Eisenstein film by the same name about an insurrection aboard that very battleship during that very revolution.
RantWoman is going to make her dear readers guess and speculate what in heck all this has to do with the Friendly Neighborhood Center for..... for one thing because RantWoman needs to focus on working the problems behind the russian history allusions. Let's just say we hope that in a few months this all looks like some kind of work of art, maybe with some arty overdone moments but a work of art in its own right. But art is not quite happening tonight...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Well, not so greatly exaggerated.
The ax has fallen. The news is out. 3/17 is the last print edition of the Seattle PI. RantWoman did not think to get a copy of the inauguration day issue, and she is, um embarrassed to think she might not want a copy of the final edition lying around collecting dust either. RantWoman does not even regret in the least the fact that HOPEFULLY she will no longer have to snarl at the phone solicitors about why she has no interest in subscribing to the the print edition. Well the Seattle Times handles the business end of this and they are still in print, so RantWoman, sigh, may still get to snarl.
RantWoman did get notice that her much neglected efforts at turning the headlines into haiku will still be up and running and that the electronic archive will persist. RantWoman considers both of these points right good news. The haiku has to speak for itself and RantWoman is not even posting a link. As for the rest of the electronic archive, RantWoman is greatful to be able for at least a couple decades of material, to skim with software commands rather than with dust in nostrils or rolls of microfilm.
What's in it for you,besides exposure doing a really cool project?
--Being unemployed means feeding lots of bureaucracies paperwork. The Friendly Neighborhood Center... can offer plenty of exhortations to get it done and plenty of moral support when facing such mirth-filled phrases as "Letter from Employment security" or "some dang thing from (insert name of vexatious bureaucracy du jour)."
--Some people from the Friendly Neighborhood Center... even know how to help with activities to fill in the blanks for some of these bureaucracies' hoops.
--The people at the Friendly Neighborhood Center...are right entertaining on multiple levels and when things are not so entertaining, sometimes it is not terrible to walk away grateful to have only one's own problems.
--You get the opportunity to meet RantWoman in person and to laugh, laugh, laugh with other people whose sense of humor is at least as twisted as RantWoman's. Who could pass that up?
RantWoman did get notice that her much neglected efforts at turning the headlines into haiku will still be up and running and that the electronic archive will persist. RantWoman considers both of these points right good news. The haiku has to speak for itself and RantWoman is not even posting a link. As for the rest of the electronic archive, RantWoman is greatful to be able for at least a couple decades of material, to skim with software commands rather than with dust in nostrils or rolls of microfilm.
RantWoman is also seriously bumming on behalf of the 130-odd writers, reporters, etc who have been surplused in the current leap into the online beyond.
Okay, now enter RantWoman's conflict of interest. The Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing needs some media and marketing assistance. RantWoman extends a sincere invitation to any journos who find themselves needing a break from the grind of unemployment and other upheavals (RantWoman knows of what she speaks) to contact RantWoman for a more formal description of options. Rantwoman thinks there exists but has not personally found a way to send email directly to RantWoman with inquiries. If RantWoman is serious about solicitation of help, she should make it easy of course, and onward anyway.What's in it for you,besides exposure doing a really cool project?
--Being unemployed means feeding lots of bureaucracies paperwork. The Friendly Neighborhood Center... can offer plenty of exhortations to get it done and plenty of moral support when facing such mirth-filled phrases as "Letter from Employment security" or "some dang thing from (insert name of vexatious bureaucracy du jour)."
--Some people from the Friendly Neighborhood Center... even know how to help with activities to fill in the blanks for some of these bureaucracies' hoops.
--The people at the Friendly Neighborhood Center...are right entertaining on multiple levels and when things are not so entertaining, sometimes it is not terrible to walk away grateful to have only one's own problems.
--You get the opportunity to meet RantWoman in person and to laugh, laugh, laugh with other people whose sense of humor is at least as twisted as RantWoman's. Who could pass that up?
Rumors...greatly exaggerated
The regular Seattle PI page http://www.seattlepi.com/ is back!
Maybe it WAS just technical difficulties.
RantWoman is really, really, really rooting for the PI to find a buyer. RantMom would dig a print edition, but RantWoman has to keep snarling at the phone solicitors about not being able to read the print edition so she is indifferent.
While we are at it, efforts to charm RantWoman with served up ads are not going so well. Last week RantWoman got served up some ad for a sale on footwear at Nordies. Unfortunately, the models shown in any of the eccentric sizes RantWoman buys women's shoes were so Gawd-awful that RantWoman would have thrown the link across the room if she could.
RantWoman is not sure what conclusions should be drawn from this experience as far as e-ad revenue and the economic viability of good journalism. If RantWoman had money to invest,...
Maybe it WAS just technical difficulties.
RantWoman is really, really, really rooting for the PI to find a buyer. RantMom would dig a print edition, but RantWoman has to keep snarling at the phone solicitors about not being able to read the print edition so she is indifferent.
While we are at it, efforts to charm RantWoman with served up ads are not going so well. Last week RantWoman got served up some ad for a sale on footwear at Nordies. Unfortunately, the models shown in any of the eccentric sizes RantWoman buys women's shoes were so Gawd-awful that RantWoman would have thrown the link across the room if she could.
RantWoman is not sure what conclusions should be drawn from this experience as far as e-ad revenue and the economic viability of good journalism. If RantWoman had money to invest,...
Sayonara Seattle PI?
The redirect says it all:
http://disaster.seattlepi.nwsource.com/
There is some pitiful message about "technical difficulties," but there is mostly old news. RantWoman was looking for a favorite columnist or, cough, banalities like the horoscope and the weather report.
There was a farewell column by one favorite columnists.
The Soundoff facility was turned off so RantWoman could not get several news threads the thrashings they deserve.
To add insult to injury, RantWoman clicked into the cross-town rival, the Seattle Times, lately admitting to financial status as dismal as the Seattle PI's.
There is fresh news.
There is more or less believable weather report. Well RantWoman would prefer candor such as "strong winds and Snowzilla," but Snowzilla is in a spitty splashy mood and RantWoman doubts that our besieged press wants to tangle.
There is a horoscope page RantWoman is too heartbroken and impatient to figure out tonight.
It's not like there has been no warning. Last week there were announcements that no buyer has been found. RantWoman is mostly underwhelmed by the do everything on the cheap / show most of the old salts the door things she has been reading about Hearst's proposed new online edition. RantWoman forgot to bookmark the site she ran across from the journos who promise to start their own site as soon as the PI ceases publication, and RantWoman has too much to do already to want to spend time on it.
But RantWoman is BUMMED. The Seattle PI was scrappy and resourceful. It ran prize-winning investigations all over the place. It covered neighborhoods and printed decent quotes in many stories other outlets flubbed. Over the last couple months, RantWoman has missed a couple invitations to go say goodbye in person. RantWoman is sorry. RantWoman is sorry for all the people dislocated. RantWoman is sorry for all their uncertainty and upheaval.
Well, RantWoman has not previously thought of herself as a fount of advice about coping in straitened circumstances, but in the face of all the upheavals going around, RantWoman admits at times to a twinge of impatience: just get on with it already. RantWoman supposes this is because, unlike people who are nourished by every embroidered retelling of personal dramas, RantWoman would almost always, always, always rather talk about anything else than have to relive whatever is eating at her guts by t-t-t-talking about it.
This does NOT mean RantWoman is unsympathetic. Far from it. RantWoman just does not always know what to say and would like as not just invite the suffering and at sea to go for a walk in the Arboretum or come over and help her with her button issues or....
RantWoman supposes that by morning there will be some new web-only thing-a-majiggy. RantWoman promises to look but if they want RantWoman to stay...
http://disaster.seattlepi.nwsource.com/
There is some pitiful message about "technical difficulties," but there is mostly old news. RantWoman was looking for a favorite columnist or, cough, banalities like the horoscope and the weather report.
There was a farewell column by one favorite columnists.
The Soundoff facility was turned off so RantWoman could not get several news threads the thrashings they deserve.
To add insult to injury, RantWoman clicked into the cross-town rival, the Seattle Times, lately admitting to financial status as dismal as the Seattle PI's.
There is fresh news.
There is more or less believable weather report. Well RantWoman would prefer candor such as "strong winds and Snowzilla," but Snowzilla is in a spitty splashy mood and RantWoman doubts that our besieged press wants to tangle.
There is a horoscope page RantWoman is too heartbroken and impatient to figure out tonight.
It's not like there has been no warning. Last week there were announcements that no buyer has been found. RantWoman is mostly underwhelmed by the do everything on the cheap / show most of the old salts the door things she has been reading about Hearst's proposed new online edition. RantWoman forgot to bookmark the site she ran across from the journos who promise to start their own site as soon as the PI ceases publication, and RantWoman has too much to do already to want to spend time on it.
But RantWoman is BUMMED. The Seattle PI was scrappy and resourceful. It ran prize-winning investigations all over the place. It covered neighborhoods and printed decent quotes in many stories other outlets flubbed. Over the last couple months, RantWoman has missed a couple invitations to go say goodbye in person. RantWoman is sorry. RantWoman is sorry for all the people dislocated. RantWoman is sorry for all their uncertainty and upheaval.
Well, RantWoman has not previously thought of herself as a fount of advice about coping in straitened circumstances, but in the face of all the upheavals going around, RantWoman admits at times to a twinge of impatience: just get on with it already. RantWoman supposes this is because, unlike people who are nourished by every embroidered retelling of personal dramas, RantWoman would almost always, always, always rather talk about anything else than have to relive whatever is eating at her guts by t-t-t-talking about it.
This does NOT mean RantWoman is unsympathetic. Far from it. RantWoman just does not always know what to say and would like as not just invite the suffering and at sea to go for a walk in the Arboretum or come over and help her with her button issues or....
RantWoman supposes that by morning there will be some new web-only thing-a-majiggy. RantWoman promises to look but if they want RantWoman to stay...
Friday, March 13, 2009
(Bleep) Competence--part 1
RantWoman's quest to be a better-adjusted version of a visually-impaired person has taken several zigs and zags. Today RantWoman is thinking with gratitude about one highly competent person she met in the course of trying to network her way to sanity and how he won RantWoman's everlasting gratitude for giving her permission to screw up without penalty.
This person is bright and very functional with major publications and an endowed academic chair, although he makes clear that he does some pillars of academia fine and does not even try anymore about others. He eschews tools RantWoman cannot live without and works miracles with tools RantWoman is considerably less than functional with. This would be partly because he has been using them his whole life and RantWoman has been using them a much smaller percentage of hers.
Someone RantWoman knows is always telling her about some blind superguy who rides a bicycle along mountain roads with steep dropoffs and does it all with echo-location. RantWoman has also read of three insane blind brothers in Tel Aviv who never use canes and get around every inch of the city well enough to have manic careers in phone phreaking without any kind of mobility aid.
Even the object of RantWoman's inspiration does his own fieldwork--at times without even a white cane and has to negotiate all sorts of weird liability issues from the institutions he partners with for his research.
But how did he win RantWoman's undying gratitude. First, in the course of a question and answer session with people at very different stages of their careers, he conceded that he thought changing courses midstream, midlife about really basic tools like one's path to literacy would be very difficult. Second, somewhere at the same gathering he admitted he still has days when he gets lost on the way to his office! RantWoman is VERY humbly grateful so far not to have that problem, but she cannot begin to explain what it means to know that someone like this inspiration does have that problem from time to time!
This person is bright and very functional with major publications and an endowed academic chair, although he makes clear that he does some pillars of academia fine and does not even try anymore about others. He eschews tools RantWoman cannot live without and works miracles with tools RantWoman is considerably less than functional with. This would be partly because he has been using them his whole life and RantWoman has been using them a much smaller percentage of hers.
Someone RantWoman knows is always telling her about some blind superguy who rides a bicycle along mountain roads with steep dropoffs and does it all with echo-location. RantWoman has also read of three insane blind brothers in Tel Aviv who never use canes and get around every inch of the city well enough to have manic careers in phone phreaking without any kind of mobility aid.
Even the object of RantWoman's inspiration does his own fieldwork--at times without even a white cane and has to negotiate all sorts of weird liability issues from the institutions he partners with for his research.
But how did he win RantWoman's undying gratitude. First, in the course of a question and answer session with people at very different stages of their careers, he conceded that he thought changing courses midstream, midlife about really basic tools like one's path to literacy would be very difficult. Second, somewhere at the same gathering he admitted he still has days when he gets lost on the way to his office! RantWoman is VERY humbly grateful so far not to have that problem, but she cannot begin to explain what it means to know that someone like this inspiration does have that problem from time to time!
Monday, March 9, 2009
Hangover!
RantWoman ONCE in her entire life went to work with a hangover. Why is RantWoman thinking of that occasion today?
RantWoman is usually kind of a drag to go drinking with. RantWoman tends not even to like the brands of beer she can afford. RantWoman likes other forms of alcohol a little better, but she still tends either to fall asleep or start to get that dry-mouthed dehydrated feeling after about half of a normal single serving of alcohol. Partly because of all this, RantWoman very seldom manages to down enough alcohol to know the following day what a hangover is.
The one exception to this was one summer. RantWoman's birthday fell on a Friday night and even though RantWoman was due on shift at a computer center in the morning, RantWoman went out dancing. The music was good. The dancing was good. The people she was with were fun. RantWoman was even enjoying whatever brew was on tap. RantWoman danced away a respectable portion of the night, went home, slept and bounded her youthful self out of bed to go to the computer lab.
RantWoman's varied careers in tecnical support included many memorable moments. One time she had to suggest to the professor in one of her very own courses that the problem about his password getting rejected was that he had the caps lock key on. Another time she had to suggest to her boss's boss that probably the external modem (that's how long ago this was) would work better if she turned it on. RantWoman had to start teaching products two days after she started learning them. RantWoman performed many other feats of public service and information. So what was the problem, besides an undiagnosed hangover?
The day after RantWoman's birthday started like any other day. Then RantWoman got to work and discovered that all of the computers in the lab had been swapped from PC's to Macs. The key software MOSTLY worked in nearly similar ways, but definitely not all. Even worse, RantWoman got no notice and of course no training except what she had already picked up working on similar equipment in other places on campus. And RantWoman's head hurt! And the hordes of people visiting the lab were all working urgently on Important Projects.
RantWoman sat down. She took stock of the sudden change and the lack of training and the hordes of demanding customers. RantWoman fired off one of her trademark incisive ruthless plainspoken Emails to Management. RantWoman had not yet learned she should set her sarcasm filter on heavy.RantWoman certainly did not realize that the pounding in her head might possibly be responsive to humble therapies such as caffeine. RantWoman just knew that Management Needed to Know!
After penning this triumph of communications, RantWoman finally went off in search of something fizzy and caffeinated. Between the catharsis and the caffeine, RantWoman felt much better. This time, RantWoman suspects she probably took more heat for communications style, but Management did notice and did do something about this so RantWoman considers the effort ultimately a success.
So why is RantWoman thinking of hangovers today. RantWoman is writing a budget for a project and some of RantWoman's collaborators think the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing should have a whole bunch of kind of specialized hardware. RantWoman is not in the least opposed to specialized hardware. However, RantWoman thinks it would be good to provide for training and time to train the people who are going to show other people how to use this hardware. RantWoman thinks if the Friendly Neighborhood Center... bought one less gizmo, there could be enough to buy some training and trainng time for the people who will support it. At this point RantWoman thinks a hangover would be more fun than arguing about it, but....
RantWoman is usually kind of a drag to go drinking with. RantWoman tends not even to like the brands of beer she can afford. RantWoman likes other forms of alcohol a little better, but she still tends either to fall asleep or start to get that dry-mouthed dehydrated feeling after about half of a normal single serving of alcohol. Partly because of all this, RantWoman very seldom manages to down enough alcohol to know the following day what a hangover is.
The one exception to this was one summer. RantWoman's birthday fell on a Friday night and even though RantWoman was due on shift at a computer center in the morning, RantWoman went out dancing. The music was good. The dancing was good. The people she was with were fun. RantWoman was even enjoying whatever brew was on tap. RantWoman danced away a respectable portion of the night, went home, slept and bounded her youthful self out of bed to go to the computer lab.
RantWoman's varied careers in tecnical support included many memorable moments. One time she had to suggest to the professor in one of her very own courses that the problem about his password getting rejected was that he had the caps lock key on. Another time she had to suggest to her boss's boss that probably the external modem (that's how long ago this was) would work better if she turned it on. RantWoman had to start teaching products two days after she started learning them. RantWoman performed many other feats of public service and information. So what was the problem, besides an undiagnosed hangover?
The day after RantWoman's birthday started like any other day. Then RantWoman got to work and discovered that all of the computers in the lab had been swapped from PC's to Macs. The key software MOSTLY worked in nearly similar ways, but definitely not all. Even worse, RantWoman got no notice and of course no training except what she had already picked up working on similar equipment in other places on campus. And RantWoman's head hurt! And the hordes of people visiting the lab were all working urgently on Important Projects.
RantWoman sat down. She took stock of the sudden change and the lack of training and the hordes of demanding customers. RantWoman fired off one of her trademark incisive ruthless plainspoken Emails to Management. RantWoman had not yet learned she should set her sarcasm filter on heavy.RantWoman certainly did not realize that the pounding in her head might possibly be responsive to humble therapies such as caffeine. RantWoman just knew that Management Needed to Know!
After penning this triumph of communications, RantWoman finally went off in search of something fizzy and caffeinated. Between the catharsis and the caffeine, RantWoman felt much better. This time, RantWoman suspects she probably took more heat for communications style, but Management did notice and did do something about this so RantWoman considers the effort ultimately a success.
So why is RantWoman thinking of hangovers today. RantWoman is writing a budget for a project and some of RantWoman's collaborators think the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing should have a whole bunch of kind of specialized hardware. RantWoman is not in the least opposed to specialized hardware. However, RantWoman thinks it would be good to provide for training and time to train the people who are going to show other people how to use this hardware. RantWoman thinks if the Friendly Neighborhood Center... bought one less gizmo, there could be enough to buy some training and trainng time for the people who will support it. At this point RantWoman thinks a hangover would be more fun than arguing about it, but....
A Super-Duper Powerpoint Festival
Now RantWoman has done it. She has gone and gotten herself invited to present at what, judging by the credentials of the other presenters,promises to be an ultra-enhanced, super-duper, extra juiced-up full-bore, large-scale Powerpoint festival!
The Super-Duper Powerpoint Festival is not until mid-April but last week's email comes with a request to please send one's paper as soon as possible by next Monday. Okay. Probably can do actually. RantWoman would not do it until the last possible minute anyway, so let's see what miracles can be wrought up-front.
Start with the requested speaker bio. Probably considering the crowd, RantWoman should not introduce herself as an opinionated, granola-munching tree-hugger with a colorful bio who tosses around phrases like "Blowing Up Puppies" as if they were sports scores. After a small amount of consideration, RantWoman actually came up with a suitably stiff but tolerably comfortable description of herself. Now it's on to figuring whether to perpetrate more Powerpoint herself or to do something more participatory. Stay tuned...
The Super-Duper Powerpoint Festival is not until mid-April but last week's email comes with a request to please send one's paper as soon as possible by next Monday. Okay. Probably can do actually. RantWoman would not do it until the last possible minute anyway, so let's see what miracles can be wrought up-front.
Start with the requested speaker bio. Probably considering the crowd, RantWoman should not introduce herself as an opinionated, granola-munching tree-hugger with a colorful bio who tosses around phrases like "Blowing Up Puppies" as if they were sports scores. After a small amount of consideration, RantWoman actually came up with a suitably stiff but tolerably comfortable description of herself. Now it's on to figuring whether to perpetrate more Powerpoint herself or to do something more participatory. Stay tuned...
The Big Purple Group Home
Lexicography note: RantWoman has almost certainly perpetrated this sort of inadvertant ambiguity in a couple foreign languages from time to time. This would be what happens when individual words rather than meaning inherent in terms are interpreted or when terms are translated on a literal level rather than on the basis of equivalents in the target language.
The two terms at issue:
Group House: shared household where residents all pay rent and are assumed to be autonomous but effectively interacting neighbors. Domain: Real Estate, rental.
Group Home: shared housing often managed by some kind of staff and residents who may need special assistance due to health, age. disability, or mental capacity issues. Domain: social services
Has RantWoman misspoken? You dear readers get to decide.
The two terms at issue:
Group House: shared household where residents all pay rent and are assumed to be autonomous but effectively interacting neighbors. Domain: Real Estate, rental.
Group Home: shared housing often managed by some kind of staff and residents who may need special assistance due to health, age. disability, or mental capacity issues. Domain: social services
Has RantWoman misspoken? You dear readers get to decide.
RantWoman is reflecting on recent contacts with a buddy she will call Caregiver Drama Friend or CDF for short. The good news is that after a prolonged and gnarly spell of emotional upset and affronts to CDF's sense of personal reality, at long last, the number of guffaws per call, one of the main merits of CDF's conversations, appears to be on the upswing.
This could be the antidepressants CDF finally intersected with. It could be that CDF has just endured the necessary amount of lawyering and CDF is slowly moving on from lurid family meltdowns. Or it could be because RantWoman just ruthlessly seizes CDF's material and latches onto any and all opportunities for mirth, for full gut-busting belly laughs of the "Why turn on the television ...when I can get all the soap opera I need over the phone" sort.
Caregiver Drama Friend has, um, a unique approach to having it all. Until recently she was principle caregiver for her octagenarian father, or OF for short. OF has had strokes and broken hips. He has had tours of several area rehab facilities. He has ruggedly fought back from all these physical difficulties though as years have marched on, it is less clear what causes him to have really good days.
CDF has two siblings with whom she has strained relations; although the siblings are not quite MIA on the caring for parent front, their situation is orders of magnitude more drama-laden than other families RantWoman knows who are facing similar issues. Perhaps a good case could even be made that OF could live somewhere else and both he and CDF might manage to have tolerable times of it. CDF wants nothing better than for OF to be vigorous and happy. At OF's age, the former is tough and the latter comes in peculiar small puffs and not always for reason CDF predicts. At any rate OF is now trying the lving elsewhere thing, and CDF opines frequently about what must be happening at her sister's because of it.
CDF and OF jointly own one Big Purple House acquired in an effort to surround OF with people of all ages and to share his caregiving needs with roommates in exchange for housing. RantWoman has had a spell or two of living with landlords, and she suspects that proposition sounded better going in than it turned out to be. The Big Purple House, despite scads and scads and scads of historical charm, a parlor with hardwood floors, a front porch and big bay windows, also has spendy old house problems.
On top of that, CDF has too kind a heart or too miraculous a knack for finding housemates with substance abuse issues, uneven capacity to carry out the contracting projects CDF would sometimes barter for rent, or just too many idiosyncrasies.
But does CDF stop there? Uh-uh! Nope. No way. Add current and former boyfriends who both have hapless kids, ex-wives, AND baby-mama-drama. Next, add Lester the Loathsome Lecherous Legal Talent with Liver Trouble who is supposed to be helping with a custody matter for one of the hapless adolescents. Next add a lawyer from CDF's own legal team who CDF is certain justneeds to get laid, though CDF mercifully feels no need to offer such services herself.
But what has happened most recently to earn cDF a spot, coveted or not, in RantWoman's musings? Enter the firearm, a firearm of indeterminate provenance that caregiver drama friend just got out of the house when her irascible charge got too paranoid. CDF has no interest in the piece but recently it came BACK in conversation between housemates and a friendly police officer. Friendly police officer was on scene in a misplaced attempt to be helpful as to some outcomes of most recent legal pas de deux.
RantWoman has no experience of any sort with this firearm. RantWoman has had multiple conversations about it with CDF and generally concurs with CDF's thought that getting such a thing out of the house when OF was acting rather erratic was probably a very good idea. RantWoman believes CDF about handing said firearm off to one of the boyfriends for disposal at the next opportunity connected with his work. RantWoman thinks one way or another CDF would have felt need to chatter about the acquisition of any other firearms and there has been no such chatter.
CDF has had no contact for sometime with housemates. That could be one of the reasons up has become down and the firearam CDF got out of the house for everyone's safety has now in household conversational practice become a firearm that CDF might wield against housemates. Mention of such a firearm, however hypothetical tends to make even the calmest police officer edgy. Once the firearm came up in conversation, CDF's efforts to retrieve some possessions lately buried in the household's efforts to shift around its flotsam and jetsam took on ever more melodrama, to the point that during the retelling RantWoman finally made a peculiar offer.
RantWoman grew up in the sort of place where everyone who was anyone with a pickup truck would be wont to drive around town with shotguns on gun racks mounted on the cabs of their pickups. If firearms really, really, really were needed at CDF's, RantWoman offered to mount a gunrack on a Volvo and bomb over to the Big Purple Group home. We will not discuss petty details like rantWoman's lack of driver's license, lack of inclination to actually acquire a shotgun, or the logistics of mounting a gunrack on a Volvo. We will simply note that the gunrack on Volvo meme had its intended effect and RantWoman and CDF were soon rolling on our respective floors howling with laughter into the telephone!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Daylight Savings Time ALREADY
This whole entry started because RantWoman feels so virtuous to have managed to have properly reset all her visual chronometers. Shockingly, RantWoman also ought to be better oriented as to calendar since she finally found her wall hooks and got the other supersize calendar hung but that level of time orientation is another topic.
The clock radio with the giant numbers was easy: It has buttons that RantWoman can usually trial and error until the clock is the right time and any unintended changes in the alarm time have been corrected. RantWoman could of course also label her buttons in Braille, but that just has not happened. RantWoman does not look at that clock much anyway. In fact RantWoman never got around to setting it back in the fall and despite Snowzilla setting in for days and days in December we are all very grateful there was never even enough of a power flicker to force RantWoman to reset her clock.
Of course the radio alarm kicked on an hour earlier than RantWoman intended and sleep influenced by public radio is another whole zone, to which RantWoman is surprised to find herself peculiarly inured.
RantWoman's other visual chronometer is her cellphone. RantWoman bought her phone in connection with a family cellplan comedy worthy of its own adventure. Merely finding the menu item to update the automated time is another gosh dang high adventure for RantWoman, but ta-da, now 'tis done!
RantWoman forced herself to go to bed at a respectable hour last night in order to get something approaching adequate sleep in spite of the impending TIME CHANGE. This actually would have been a good idea in any case: RantWoman still has not learned how not to try to get more done in a day than is humanly possible. Paradoxically a lot less is humanly possible if RantWoman is underslept, and gosh dang if it isn't already time to lose even more sleep and SPRING FORWARD.
RantWoman supposes she will be glad in a couple weeks that we have already sprung forward because otherwise dawn would be clawing enthusiastically at her window at 4 a.m. RantWoman supposes this though the time change officially marks the time it is darned appropriate to stop being giddy that the days have lengthened beyond the thud of darkness at 4:30 pm in December. RantWoman is glad of that, but the whole push of time puts RantWoman in mind of badly-needed spring cleaning and RantWoman's acute shortage of fairy godmothers to get that done.
Time change notwithstanding, Snowzilla appears to have dusted RantWoman's back yard lightly with snow. RantWoman wishes the analogy with powdered sugar on donuts were appropriate. RantWoman could really enjoy blowing it away in big fluffy puffs, but in Seattle snow is nearly always just barely frozen. Any thought of powdered sugary puffs floating gently into the great beyond is rapidly blown away in soggy slop splashing in every direction.
Even worse, what RantWoman defines as barely heavy frost may still be more then enough to kink the timetables for the local chariot service. RantWoman has a Sunday destination that requires the bus to go over one kind of scary steep hill. RantWoman thinks the hill would not be so scary in snow if a person drove it in snow fairly often. However, the legions of local bus chauffeurs don't on average have any more snow driving experience than anyone else in Seattle. RantWoman always, always, always feels obliged to root for her bus chauffeurs to succeed but she would not mind if she did not have to root so frequently on that particular hill.
Seeing what Snowzilla has wrought in the back yard, figures she better check the bus status. Egad. Newspaper website says the county has a new news blog. Entry there says what RantWoman would predict: ice in possibly some unpredictable changes out in the hinterlands. RantWoman checked the Adverse Weather link on the bus website. No indications of concern. Rats. RantWoman may have to think of some other excuse...
The clock radio with the giant numbers was easy: It has buttons that RantWoman can usually trial and error until the clock is the right time and any unintended changes in the alarm time have been corrected. RantWoman could of course also label her buttons in Braille, but that just has not happened. RantWoman does not look at that clock much anyway. In fact RantWoman never got around to setting it back in the fall and despite Snowzilla setting in for days and days in December we are all very grateful there was never even enough of a power flicker to force RantWoman to reset her clock.
Of course the radio alarm kicked on an hour earlier than RantWoman intended and sleep influenced by public radio is another whole zone, to which RantWoman is surprised to find herself peculiarly inured.
RantWoman's other visual chronometer is her cellphone. RantWoman bought her phone in connection with a family cellplan comedy worthy of its own adventure. Merely finding the menu item to update the automated time is another gosh dang high adventure for RantWoman, but ta-da, now 'tis done!
RantWoman forced herself to go to bed at a respectable hour last night in order to get something approaching adequate sleep in spite of the impending TIME CHANGE. This actually would have been a good idea in any case: RantWoman still has not learned how not to try to get more done in a day than is humanly possible. Paradoxically a lot less is humanly possible if RantWoman is underslept, and gosh dang if it isn't already time to lose even more sleep and SPRING FORWARD.
RantWoman supposes she will be glad in a couple weeks that we have already sprung forward because otherwise dawn would be clawing enthusiastically at her window at 4 a.m. RantWoman supposes this though the time change officially marks the time it is darned appropriate to stop being giddy that the days have lengthened beyond the thud of darkness at 4:30 pm in December. RantWoman is glad of that, but the whole push of time puts RantWoman in mind of badly-needed spring cleaning and RantWoman's acute shortage of fairy godmothers to get that done.
Time change notwithstanding, Snowzilla appears to have dusted RantWoman's back yard lightly with snow. RantWoman wishes the analogy with powdered sugar on donuts were appropriate. RantWoman could really enjoy blowing it away in big fluffy puffs, but in Seattle snow is nearly always just barely frozen. Any thought of powdered sugary puffs floating gently into the great beyond is rapidly blown away in soggy slop splashing in every direction.
Even worse, what RantWoman defines as barely heavy frost may still be more then enough to kink the timetables for the local chariot service. RantWoman has a Sunday destination that requires the bus to go over one kind of scary steep hill. RantWoman thinks the hill would not be so scary in snow if a person drove it in snow fairly often. However, the legions of local bus chauffeurs don't on average have any more snow driving experience than anyone else in Seattle. RantWoman always, always, always feels obliged to root for her bus chauffeurs to succeed but she would not mind if she did not have to root so frequently on that particular hill.
Seeing what Snowzilla has wrought in the back yard, figures she better check the bus status. Egad. Newspaper website says the county has a new news blog. Entry there says what RantWoman would predict: ice in possibly some unpredictable changes out in the hinterlands. RantWoman checked the Adverse Weather link on the bus website. No indications of concern. Rats. RantWoman may have to think of some other excuse...
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Why RANTWOMAN is the one who needs video
RantWoman THOUGHT she does NOT, NOT, NOT need video Skype. RantWoman is prone to computing in apparel that would give even the Fashion Emergency producers a headache. RantWoman is prone to doing things in front of her computer such as eating lunch, combing and braiding her hair, flossing her teeth, scribbling notes on whatever surfs up from the piles on her desk, fussing with her phone and generally NOT presenting an image she considers worthy of committing to electrons and emanating into the ether. RantWoman in fact thinks the entire world should be VERY grateful for closed doors and the privacy of one's own home.
RantWoman's hearing is also FINE thank you very much and she cannot imagine that lipreading on the blinky screen would be any kind of fun at all. In fact, RantWoman is so annoyed on principle by poor video quality that she used to think Video Skype would be the LAST thing she would go anywhere near.
RantWoman had an epiphany today and realized she is WRONG. RantWoman is working on anightmarish group edit project with 3 other people two of whom have either acknowledged or unacknowledged hearing loss, actually apparently quite severe. RantWoman was reflecting on how much better conversations go in person, the difficult logistics of conversations in person and the fact that she does not have video Skype. Then a lightbulb sputtered on in RantWoman's head: RantWoman really could not care less about video Skype but her group members would be ever so grateful if RantWoman would just get her act together and get herself some blankety blankety blank video skype so they can read HER lips.
RantWoman does promise to turn off the video while flossing.
RantWoman's hearing is also FINE thank you very much and she cannot imagine that lipreading on the blinky screen would be any kind of fun at all. In fact, RantWoman is so annoyed on principle by poor video quality that she used to think Video Skype would be the LAST thing she would go anywhere near.
RantWoman had an epiphany today and realized she is WRONG. RantWoman is working on anightmarish group edit project with 3 other people two of whom have either acknowledged or unacknowledged hearing loss, actually apparently quite severe. RantWoman was reflecting on how much better conversations go in person, the difficult logistics of conversations in person and the fact that she does not have video Skype. Then a lightbulb sputtered on in RantWoman's head: RantWoman really could not care less about video Skype but her group members would be ever so grateful if RantWoman would just get her act together and get herself some blankety blankety blank video skype so they can read HER lips.
RantWoman does promise to turn off the video while flossing.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Snow??????
RantWoman grew up in MT. RantWoman is not opposed to snow in its place--such as safely up in the mountains storing up moisture for the summer.or in far-off places where most of the population is more resistant to Snowzilla's Magical Stupid Ray and/ or at least knows better how to drive on snow than in Seattle.
But no! At a time when RantWoman wants to be able to tote the herbs outside and not have to fear they will get frostbitten overnight, at a time when days are longer and RantWoman starts to fantasize about bounty on her balcony, the weather forecast this weekend has those dreaded words "snow even at sea level and accumulation possible in scattered locations."
No. No. No!
And not even the thought of hearing about it in the voice of Cliff Mass, RantWoman's favorite weather guy, with a darned nice voice and hints of turgid verbiage about statistical models besides makes RantWoman any happier. Just COPE!
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Prof Cliff Mass's academic site
The UW Mesoscale Analysis and Forecasting Group
Lexicography notes:
Prof Mass's sites are good sources of references about funky weather terms such as
Cascade concrete
convergence zone
and today, jackpot,
a DOUBLE convergence zone.
But no! At a time when RantWoman wants to be able to tote the herbs outside and not have to fear they will get frostbitten overnight, at a time when days are longer and RantWoman starts to fantasize about bounty on her balcony, the weather forecast this weekend has those dreaded words "snow even at sea level and accumulation possible in scattered locations."
No. No. No!
And not even the thought of hearing about it in the voice of Cliff Mass, RantWoman's favorite weather guy, with a darned nice voice and hints of turgid verbiage about statistical models besides makes RantWoman any happier. Just COPE!
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Prof Cliff Mass's academic site
The UW Mesoscale Analysis and Forecasting Group
Lexicography notes:
Prof Mass's sites are good sources of references about funky weather terms such as
Cascade concrete
convergence zone
and today, jackpot,
a DOUBLE convergence zone.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday, Monday
RantWoman is still working on her Monday-morning inventory and motivational calamity moments. RantWoman has to STOP filling the blogosphere with her opinions and interact with Matters at Hand but apparently not quite yet:
RantWoman is following a local story that has now gone national. RantWoman thinks there are some very important local issue subtleties that have not come out yet and she does not want them to get lost in a deluge of nationwide chatter repeating what is already obvious from a couple videos.
RantWoman is also annoyed in general at her beloved Seattle PI because they have started just posting links to all over the place instead of reformatting things in their own format. The info content is the same. What is annoying to RantWoman is that every time she goes to a new site she has to spend extra time figuring out things like whether the site uses headings or had other features that make life with a screen reader more of a standardized experience. The short answer, apparently not always.
Then RantWoman feels inadequate not only because she is annoyed by the uneven presentation, but also because RantWoman has to wonder whether the problem is somehow her fault for not being a superstar screen reader user. Then RantWoman has to go back to phone calls about topics she would much rather delegate and topics she would much rather NOT try to solve in email and things she needs to READ instead of WRITE, that is generally matters at hand.
This line of thinking could easily derail RantWoman to thinkinb about what it means that Daniel Schorr now has staff to ehlp him interact with Twitter. Yesterday on the radio he said what is missing from new media is editing. RantWoman has been known to excoriate editors on principle but she has to agree. On the other hand, sometimes RantWoman has found herself reading fewer articles but spending more time per article digesting the themes that come up in the comments. Well an awful lot of bilge in the comments could profitably be edited away, but sometimes real gems emerge.
RantWoman has some issues about non-profit sector and government programs rattling around her head. So it is helpful in a non-linear way to skim an article linked for today's email about the nonprofit sector in San Francisco. Okay, cannot act on it today, but reading calms the obsessive clamor on those notes in RantWoman's head so the topic can be better stowed for future interaction.
SF Chronicle article about non-profit sector in recession
On another note, Happy 50th Birthday Barbie. How does it feel to be eligible to join AARP? RantWoman feels riffs coming on about her own ferocious allergy to too much pink, dolls, body shape, the first lady's taste in sleeveless clothing, sturdy farm girl physique, Admiral Grace Hopper Barbie, what RantMom would or would not help her children sew, asymmetrical hairdos before they were fashionable and sundry related threads. but Enough said for now.
In all of RantWoman's copious free time she also has to work all of this into business plan and cogent interaction about how long it takes to different tasks and...
And then it's a bright sunny day which makes it easier to get stuff done around the house but also demands that RantWoman take time and get outdoors to move large muscles. Arrrrrgggh.
RantWoman is following a local story that has now gone national. RantWoman thinks there are some very important local issue subtleties that have not come out yet and she does not want them to get lost in a deluge of nationwide chatter repeating what is already obvious from a couple videos.
RantWoman is also annoyed in general at her beloved Seattle PI because they have started just posting links to all over the place instead of reformatting things in their own format. The info content is the same. What is annoying to RantWoman is that every time she goes to a new site she has to spend extra time figuring out things like whether the site uses headings or had other features that make life with a screen reader more of a standardized experience. The short answer, apparently not always.
Then RantWoman feels inadequate not only because she is annoyed by the uneven presentation, but also because RantWoman has to wonder whether the problem is somehow her fault for not being a superstar screen reader user. Then RantWoman has to go back to phone calls about topics she would much rather delegate and topics she would much rather NOT try to solve in email and things she needs to READ instead of WRITE, that is generally matters at hand.
This line of thinking could easily derail RantWoman to thinkinb about what it means that Daniel Schorr now has staff to ehlp him interact with Twitter. Yesterday on the radio he said what is missing from new media is editing. RantWoman has been known to excoriate editors on principle but she has to agree. On the other hand, sometimes RantWoman has found herself reading fewer articles but spending more time per article digesting the themes that come up in the comments. Well an awful lot of bilge in the comments could profitably be edited away, but sometimes real gems emerge.
RantWoman has some issues about non-profit sector and government programs rattling around her head. So it is helpful in a non-linear way to skim an article linked for today's email about the nonprofit sector in San Francisco. Okay, cannot act on it today, but reading calms the obsessive clamor on those notes in RantWoman's head so the topic can be better stowed for future interaction.
SF Chronicle article about non-profit sector in recession
On another note, Happy 50th Birthday Barbie. How does it feel to be eligible to join AARP? RantWoman feels riffs coming on about her own ferocious allergy to too much pink, dolls, body shape, the first lady's taste in sleeveless clothing, sturdy farm girl physique, Admiral Grace Hopper Barbie, what RantMom would or would not help her children sew, asymmetrical hairdos before they were fashionable and sundry related threads. but Enough said for now.
In all of RantWoman's copious free time she also has to work all of this into business plan and cogent interaction about how long it takes to different tasks and...
And then it's a bright sunny day which makes it easier to get stuff done around the house but also demands that RantWoman take time and get outdoors to move large muscles. Arrrrrgggh.
Strange Stones Stay Silent
RantWoman is still in her morning status check mode. It's embarrassing at this hour but onward.
A lovely-sounding item of public art if one ever gets to the campus of WSU Vancouver:
Strange Stones Stay Silent
For the record, the headline gets high points for alliteration, but RantWoman is meditating about whether to try to do better on the poetic link with content front.
A lovely-sounding item of public art if one ever gets to the campus of WSU Vancouver:
Strange Stones Stay Silent
For the record, the headline gets high points for alliteration, but RantWoman is meditating about whether to try to do better on the poetic link with content front.
Coffee hour meditations
Must hold out just a few more months. Can RantWoman do it?
A couple years ago RantWoman let people at her house of worship talk her into being part of the committee that has dominion over the kitchen. Dominion is almost certainly too strong a word. The kitchen is heavily used by several categories of people and dominion is just out of reach most of the time. RantWoman bought the line about not having to DO the work, just stay on top of some details and find other people to DO the work.
Nice try: Maybe SOME people have a charm function that causes people, when approached, to warm to the thought of dishwashing and coffee carafe scrubbing, but RantWoman somehow got overlooked when that flavor of charm was handed out. RantWoman does not even think it would be better if she could actually read the faces of those she would try to call on.
Everyone else who has ever done a stint on this committee says the committee just winds up doing the work a lot of the time. In fact there is a certain muscular satisfaction in tromping around the kitchen and banging things. The dishwasher, while fussy in small respects yields a regular stream of pleasingly clean dishes. Sometimes the company is entertaining. Sometimes clumps form of volunteers who can even sing as they press through piles of dirty coffee cups. Once in awhile RantWoman thinks of applying a bit of queuing theory to how the dishes pile up at certain choke points so puzzle brain gets engaged at least a little. Most of the time the wet dish towels get handled correctly before they turn into festering piles of moldy slime. Garbage removal seems to be like shifting sands in the Sahara, but RantWoman feels minimal obligation to do more than try to participate sensibly in that continuing conversation.
In other words, a lot of the time the gig is just a fine extension of kitchen prowess instilled in RantWoman ever since she was much smaller. RantWoman performs all kinds of wonders in her own kitchen. She does tolerably well at RantMom's and Little Sister's. When she is alone, she is even pretty awesome in the kitchen at her house of worship.
Of course, your typical house of worship not only tends to be full of other people, these people have a number of problematic traits. First, the very point of serving coffee after worship is so that people will mill around and mingle and bob around and jiggle and bounce and basically neither stay in any one place nor move predictably nor even dislodge themselves from key doorways no matter how many visually challenged RantWoman types there are about with sharp knives and carafes full of scalding liquids.
RantWoman herself falls into the second category. She hangs about the house of worship because she needs all the help she can get. In particular, when faced with masses of bobbing, weaving, earnestly conversating, clueless coffee drinkers while carrying carafes of hot liquids, RantWoman has a tendency to forget every word she knows in any language--except the very ones least appropriate for a house of worship.
Here we come to our third category: hopelessly well-meaning and peculiarly functional. Consider someone elderly and short and full of energy but unaware of how lethal a tall RantWoman's elbows could be if RantWoman made one wrong move. This person always has fascinating tales of the research and teaching projects she is still jetting regularly off too and taking the dish towels home in her car to launder at her leisure is just so much easier than RantWoman and the bus. This is ALMOST enough to cause RantWoman to forgive her for being obstinately unable to serve coffee by moving the coffee cart into the middle of the room rather than on the counter at the doorway where everyone piles up and RantWoman gets even more claustrophobic.
Ah but there's more. Some at the house of worship are hopelessly well-meaning and desparate to be needed despite other deficiencies. Consider Half-a-Brain lady. She is Half-a-Brain lady because the other half was doing her no good and basically making life unlivable.
Half-a-Brain Lady CAN be a fountain of information about how to get what one needs cheaply or other resources in the neighborhood. Half-a-Brain Lady can also be THOROUGHLY annoying in the "how could I possibly be annoying you" vein. Thanks to the miracles of brain surgery, though, even if Half-a-Brain lady detects that she is in fact annoying someone, she is utterly and completely incapable of remembering what she did that annoys you. Here RantWoman is forced to reflect on her own recent experience boring the chairman of a state Senate committee, but somehow, RantWoman needs to pretend that might be different.
But does Half-a-Brain lady stick to her wretched annoyingness so that one can feel saintly just for accommodating and putting up with her. No! No! No! Half-a-Brain Lady is very good about making sure there is a supply of her preferred non-dairy beverage adulterant. Half-a-Brain-Lady is always donating boxes of weird teas that someone seems even to drink.
Most of all, last week RantWoman somehow managed to put the ground coffee back into the freezer without getting the lid secured properly. Talk about coffee mess everywhere and bless Half-a-Brain Lady's soul. She helped RantWoman take everything out of the freezer, wipe off, sweep up and generally calm down and be patient even though RantWoman just wanted to run screaming from the room.
So maybe all that time at the house of worship is doing some good after all. Well RantWoman does not want to push her luck and the message has been received loud and clear: in a few months, somebody else gets to take up this mantle!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Ryanair aka Air Gitmo?
RantWoman spent a good bit of time over this evening's shared eggplant solving the world's problems. The most consequential problem we got to tonight was the proposal by the president of Ireland-based Ryanair to charge a pound to use the loo on the company's flights!
RantWoman is fairly broadminded about what she considers tolerable facilities, but she finds airliner restrooms so disagreeable she is trying really hard to imagine an airplane restroom anyone would pay to use. RantWoman has never flown Ryanair and she really cannot imagine that the experience would hold up well to the effects of what would happen to anyone caught without the required 1-pound coin.
The typical aircraft just does not tend to come with compost piles needing to be activated, or with mad composters collecting solid donations to give to their sweeties for Valentine's day. RantWoman just is not very confident that the Transportation Security Administration or the Department of Homeland... would cope well at all with the ramifications of such options.
However, upon a moment's reflection, if attention to a basic human bodily function is incompatible with Ryanair's profit picture, perhaps Ryanair could try a slightly different approach for enhancing their revenue. Anyone who requests one in advance could be issued a free adult-sized pullup good for the entire flight. Or discerning passengers could be offered the whole Air Gitmo package including orange jumpsuit and blackout goggles as well as the pullup. Or if Ryanair were really slick about marketing maybe they could get people to pay 25 pounds to be deprived of their human rights too?
What? You think RantWoman should not quit her day job and try for a marketing job at ....
RantWoman is fairly broadminded about what she considers tolerable facilities, but she finds airliner restrooms so disagreeable she is trying really hard to imagine an airplane restroom anyone would pay to use. RantWoman has never flown Ryanair and she really cannot imagine that the experience would hold up well to the effects of what would happen to anyone caught without the required 1-pound coin.
The typical aircraft just does not tend to come with compost piles needing to be activated, or with mad composters collecting solid donations to give to their sweeties for Valentine's day. RantWoman just is not very confident that the Transportation Security Administration or the Department of Homeland... would cope well at all with the ramifications of such options.
However, upon a moment's reflection, if attention to a basic human bodily function is incompatible with Ryanair's profit picture, perhaps Ryanair could try a slightly different approach for enhancing their revenue. Anyone who requests one in advance could be issued a free adult-sized pullup good for the entire flight. Or discerning passengers could be offered the whole Air Gitmo package including orange jumpsuit and blackout goggles as well as the pullup. Or if Ryanair were really slick about marketing maybe they could get people to pay 25 pounds to be deprived of their human rights too?
What? You think RantWoman should not quit her day job and try for a marketing job at ....
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