Proclamations: Past National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month, Accessible documents. Digressions.

Look World!

RantWoman has enough opportunities for her febrile mind to wander from the tasks at hand without needing to stop and comment about accessibility issues every time an accessibility issue crosses her desk.

The new staff at the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing is doing a great job about a number of things. But we have done no training about accessible document creation. Nor have we sent people off to more of any training than RantWoman remembers from a community college class in Microsoft office. So RantWoman is trying to dial back her Rant capacity about receiving a draft of a document that completely inaccessible to RantWoman without trying the "Convenient OCR" function of her screen reader. RantWoman alas is not very patient about "Convenient OCR or some other screen reader features she really COULD stand to know better.

So we will add accessible document creation to our list of training and standardization concerns.

And in the meantime we note that the new staff is in good company.

Here is a link to a nice accessible webpage about President Obama's October 2015 proclamation of National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month

On the other hand, There is the proclamation of same from Governor Inslee's office:

--RantWoman cannot find a web link.

--The first draft of the proclamation apparently was a graphic PDF unreadable for many screen reader versions

--RantWoman has received a lovely pdf that includes a nice unlabeled image which at 4x magnification RantWoman can tell is the governor's seal and some cool green border, labeling conventions for which RantWoman herself is unversed.

--RantWoman has yet to figure out a small increment of technology to attach pdf's to blog posts. So instead, rantWoman copied what she could capture with Select All from the PDF. It is reproduced below more as an artifact encouraging people in public communications roles to get training in accessible document / webpage production.

Jrorlamation

WHEREAS, October 2015 marks the 70ch anniversary of October as National Disability

Employment Awareness Month; and

WHEREAS, a quarter century ago, our country took a major step toward fulfilling the

fundamental American promises of equal access, equal opportunity, and equal respect for all

when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law; and

WHEREAS, we are at our best when we draw on the talents of all parts of our society,

and our greatest accomplishments are achieved when diverse perspectives are brought to bear to

overcome our greatest challenges; and

WHEREAS, in spite of the contributions people with disabilities make to our society and

our economy, they continue to face discrimination in employment, education and training; and

WHEREAS, we must continue to challenge and correct the false stereotypes,

assumptions and low expectations, which rob people with disabilities of opportunities to develop

and excel; and

WHEREAS, my administration is working together with leading private sector

employers to make sure that our state does not allow the incredible talents of Washingtonians

with disabilities to go to waste;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jay Lnslee, Governor of the state of Washington do hereby proclaim

October 2015 as

Disability Employment Awareness Month

in Washington, and I urge all people in our state to join me in this special obseuance.