ADA

No, not Ada the programming language (don’t get me started on that…), the Americans with Disabilities Act. I’m pretty much in favor of the ADA, even if was signed into law by Bush V1.0. Discriminating against people because they are disabled is a Bad Thing in my world.

Unfortunately the ADA seems to be applied in ways to make no sense whatsoever. Ridiculous numbers of handicapped parking spaces. Wheelchair accessible sidewalk ramps where no human being would ever sensibly walk. Braille ATM buttons at a place only accessible to the driver of a vehicle.

Where is this ill-advised screed going? Glad you asked!

Debbie and I went to visit my Aunt Sue at the nursing home today. Yes, I’m a bad nephew, it’s December 30th and I’m just getting there for Christmas. When we got there Aunt Sue wasn’t in her room, she was in the activity room doing something. We went there and there was a discussion going on about places they found interesting. Debbie and I listened for a bit, not wanting to interrupt. Aunt Sue was talking about the mountains of Pennsylvania, and when she finished we broke in and then went up to her room for a nice visit.

We got back home and I was thinking on that, and I thought it would be really nice to get Aunt Sue a large print edition of National Geographic. She doesn’t see well, but is interested in the world beyond northeastern Indiana. I googled “large print national geographic” and to my surprise there’s no such thing. I then started searching for large print travel magazines of any sort and there’s nothing out there.

Ok, so our tax dollars can be used to create rules to require braille keys for blind drivers of vehicles to access their bank accounts. Couldn’t we spend a few bucks to subsidize magazine publishers to offset the cost the of large print editions? Heck, if we built one less F-35 jet engine we’d fund my entire idealistic large print program.

I want to write a bitter yet penetrating remark to close this post out, but all I can do is sit here and type, “do we have to be so dumb?”