Digital Discontinuities Du Jour

RantWoman has an organization to run.

RantWoman has invoices to complete and papers to push.

RantWoman has bills to assemble.

RantWoman has bureaucracies to propitiate on her own behalf--even though use of the word propitiate in connection with bureaucracies might indicate that RantWoman has FAR too much university education to have to be propitiating the bureaucracies she is propitiating.

Call it RantWoman's digital discontinuity tour du jour:

First attraction: neighbor who recently bought new WiFi-only iPad. RantWoman has it on good authority that neighbor has not necessarily figured out connectivity but is delighted to have cut back on expenditures for WordSearch books. Crossing new frontiers of Digital inclusion by doing on the iPad what was formerly done on paper.

Next Digital discontinuity: RantWoman had a lively conversation with a potential project partner. Potential Project partner noted that last summer 7 of the 9 youths in his program had smartphones, BUT that everyone has really limited plans that run out of minutes / money / juice a week or two before the end of the month. RantWoman feels no obligation to solve that discontinuity but does note it as an attraction on her tour.

Neighbor who comes to the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing to listen to library books and DVD's because she has no computer at home. This neighbor's discontinuity, besides lack of hardware at home: she, just like several other people RantWoman knows who need new wheelchairs or wheelchair repairs, is paralyzed by hassles from the one vendor who works with Medicare / Medicaid.

People who, according to Medicare's own rules are overdue for new chairs get put on the put it off and put it off list. People who really need new chairs get subjected to endless rounds of inadequate repairs. RantWoman does not know for SURE that Obamacare policies limited Medicare reimbursement for some kinds of equipment are to blame, but does note a suspicious correlation!

Library Book Neighbor is in especially bad shape: her electric wheelchair needs to be repaired, or really replaced. But last time the vendor dealt with the issue, they left her with a malfunctioning power chair and NO manual chair. Library Book neighbor is currently stuck in her apartment unless someone who can get her power chair in gear comes to her apartment and helps push her to the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing. RantWoman wishes that she herself could either find an able body for this task or take time to do it herself, but she cannot!

Thinking to take a break and distract herself from these tales of woe, the better to focus on things like paperwork for some software upgrades, RantWoman checked home voicemail and found one from....Curmudgeon, one of the Weed Whacking Wenches. The Weed Whackin Wenches used to route their gardening exuberance to a blog; now it has all been swallowed up by Facebookistan.
No, no, no, RantWoman does not have time to go near all the discontinuities wrought by the plethora of newfangled options for sharing one's digital oeuvre. Let us stick to digital discontinuities of the reasonable accommodations kind. Curmudgeon lives in the exciting and wonderful world of part-time language faculty.
Curmudgeon was all set to teach at a new institution. Curmudgeon needs Reasonable Accommodations to work. She needs reasonable accommodations for herself, not just the option of trying things at the student lab because she needs to do things like access the faculty server. But it took so long for the paperwork for the reasonable accommodations software to wend its way through the campus bureaucracy that Curmudgeon got word of the software purchase authorization the very same day she learned that the class she was to teach got taken by another faculty member whose class got cancelled. RantWoman has no desire to play Kremlinologist about anyone's academic bureaucracy, but has been given to understand there might be cause to question....

Back to work? NOT YET!

Ahhhh! Fresh "I am still mentally ill and disconnected from..." email from RantBrother who appears still to be in MT. RantBrother has a gift for getting kicked out of places where he might send email. Most recently a longtime friend got remarried and new wife seems to have decided that having RantBrother check email at their house is TOO MUCH. Really? RantWoman cannot imagine why.;-(!

Further Digital Discontinuity: RantBrother wants to discontinue the email he has been using. RantWoman has an alternate. This is a good thing because nearby mudslide disasters have made RantFamily members want to hug loved ones, even mentally ill really challenging loved ones. Due to distance, email will have to do.

RantWoman herself who would like the bureaucracy she needs to propitiate to both accept documents by email or fax AND as a reasonable accommodation deliver unto RantWoman communications by email. RantWoman will have to postpone further visits to this particular set of attractions.....