- ♿️🇺🇸 Work this week was something of a study in contrasts, whipsawing between celebrating our students at end-of-the-year celebrations and preparing for commencement, and getting news of two major attacks on disability rights and accessibility:
- The American Council on Education has sent a letter (PDF link) to the Office of Management and Budget asking that implementation of last year’s Title II updates be delayed. The reasoning is the usual “but it’s too hard/expensive” whining from people who don’t want to do even the bare minimum of work to support disabled communities; the surprise is who the letter is coming from and being signed by. This has prompted a lot of uproar in the higher education accessibility communities, and we’re just getting started.
- The Department of Energy is trying to fast-track rolling back the regulations that require new construction to be made accessible. This would be a huge blow to accessibility, and because of how they’re doing this, comments can only be submitted until June 16 (next Monday).
- 🤓 On Saturday, we went down to the Kent Nerd Party, something of a local mini-convention in the historic downtown area. We were only there for a little over an hour (it being the first day of a two-day spring heatwave, with temperatures in the mid- to high-80s), but it was fun to see costumes, geek-centric street booths, a small Lego museum with some really impressive creations, and a few friends that we happened to run into.
📸 Photos
Seen at the Lego display at the Kent Nerd Party. My wife and I could identify most of these little artist dioramas without needing to reference the clue cards beneath.
I really appreciated this nod to classic sci-fi horror. Figured it out before I noticed the poster to the side!
Nice to see Pride flags set out across campus.
There’s an old Bloom County comic where Milo goes into a Burger King and orders a Whopper, “hold the bun”. So I was very amused to see a tray of burgers, sans bun, among the food options at a catered event on campus this week. For somewhere around four decades, I’d only ever known this as a comic strip gag, but apparently it’s a real thing?
📚 Reading
- I finished the final book in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.
🔗 Linking
- S. Baum at Erin in the Morning: Defying DeSantis, Florida Pride Marchers Light Up Jacksonville Bridge with Rainbow Colors. It’s good to remember that as horrible as Florida the state is being right now, there are still a lot of people there that don’t agree with what their local government is doing, and are willing to make that known.
- John Scalzi: Well, CAN You Prove You’re a US Citizen?: “How many US citizens could, in fact, prove that they are US citizens at the drop of the hat? Leave aside for the moment the absolutely correct argument that it should not be incumbent on any of us to do so, and focus on this particular question. Can you, directly and/or indirectly, show that you have citizenship here in the US?”
- Amanda Guinzburg: Diabolus Ex Machina: “Presented to you in the form of unedited screenshots, the following is a ‘conversation’ I had with Chat GPT upon asking whether it could help me choose several of my own essays to link in a query letter I intended to send to an agent. ¶ What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime.”
- Nathalie Graham at Seattle Met: A Midsummer Nightmare: “According to performers and volunteers interviewed for this story, something is rotten in the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire: Poor labor conditions, bad actors, and business-over-people decisions by the board of directors are sapping the Renaissance faire of its magic.” Content warning: Contains reports of sexual and domestic abuse. Ammie, the first person interviewed in the article, is an acquaintance/friend from the Norwescon and SeaGoth communities, so I’d heard bits and pieces of her story over time; the other stories are new to me.
- Sen. Patty Murray in the Seattle Times: Shut up and be quiet? No thanks: “Make yourself heard however you can. Maybe that’s a social media post or maybe it’s organizing thousands of parents to speak up for funding you care about. Big or small, it all makes a difference and it all adds up.”