Notices by Megan Lynch (she/her) (meganl@mas.to)

How I got down from the plane in Tirana airport, where they use stairs to get down to the tarmac.

I had to wait until everyone else had deplaned & were whisked away by a bus, then this large specialty lift truck arrived on the other side of the plane from the stairs, elevated up and put over a rickety platform. For someone with acrophobia, it was terrifying. Thankfully, the driver kindly assisted me. #Ableism #Accessibility #Travel #Albania @disability

Greetings from Tirana, #Albania

It was an epic trip. Sort of a disabled Odyssey, but I'm here!

I'm glad Past Me didn't get the converted basement to save money, but knew that Future Me would be tired as hell from modern air travel and would need something calming.

It's a beautiful apt with a balcony. I heard my first call to prayer (and at first thought it was that the ambulances sounded "weird" here...)

Had a great convo with the taxi driver on the way here. Great guy.

#MoveOrBust

PLEASE BOOST: Icelandair broke two wheels off my new suitcase. I'm stuck in KEF airport in Iceland. Is the reach of Mastodon powerful enough that it can find someone nearby who can help me get a new suitcase that has dimensions that can be checked on Austrian Air? I think that's 158 cm linear.

@ai6yr The article links to another with this headline "L.A. driver goes on high-speed rampage amid violent downtown protests".

The guy attempts mass murder with a car as a weapon, but it's the protestors who are "violent".

US media is complicit in where we are. #USpol #CarCentrism #Fascism

I've seen this photo a couple times circulated without credit.

Y'know, the bosses love to rob "employees" of credit so let's make an effort to credit photojournalists and other creators. Taking folks' credit off their works is part of the type of culture that enabled mass rip-off via AI and thus mass unemployment.

Photo by Etienne Laurent of Agence France-Presse.

#Attribution #USpol

I once saw a link to this and happened to find it again...

"A Demonstrator’s Guide to Understanding Riot Munitions
And How to Defend against Them"

https://crimethinc.com/2021/01/04/a-demonstrators-guide-to-understanding-riot-munitions-and-how-to-defend-against-them #Resistance #USpol #LosAngeles

@skinnylatte Very funny the way this appeared on my TL.

@skinnylatte OMG that pun!

I was watching an Albanian interviewing a USian who'd moved to Albania. He asked him quite a few questions about how he felt about the US and how he felt about Albania. In one of his answers, he stated that the US is huge and much the same from edge to edge - you've got McDonalds in every town.

This was not a young person saying this. I don't think it's an accurate statement now and it was an even more inaccurate statement 40 years ago. This is someone who's lived in different parts of the US.

This book (and the interviews I link to further in the thread) is such a revelation. WWII is one of the historical events USians have the most familiarity with. Even if people don't like school and don't read, it's been covered a lot in film/TV. There's the old joke about the History Channel being the "Hitler Channel"...

But there are so many important things I'm hearing for the first time in this book & interviews with the author.

https://mas.to/@meganL/114497628287853578 #History #Resistance

It is pretty fucking cool the advances that are being made in customizing recumbent trikes to make them even more accessible.

Now if only abled societies weren't bankrupting disabled people so that we have trouble even affording these things...

https://azub.eu/no-hands-controls-single-leg-powered-trike/ #Recumbent #Disability #BikeTooter

@kims Thanks for the tip.

@kims "Aliens and human cops/military all agree on their hate of cyclists" #BikeTooter #CarCentrism

A new Montana majority defangs the far right

"Instead of accepting bystander status, however, the nine moderates opened a dialogue with their Democratic colleagues."

https://www.hcn.org/articles/a-new-montana-majority-defangs-the-far-right/ #GoodNews #USpol #Montana

@skinnylatte In the US, I think it would be cheese, BBQ, and sour cream & onion.

Those are the old school potato chip flavors I grew up with on the West Coast, anyway.

@Andres4NY @skinnylatte And now we live in this wondrous era of pesto chips, buffalo wing chips, crunchy frog chips...

@skinnylatte Salt & vinegar is a relatively recent addition to US chip choices (probably came in around 2000, 2010?). I actually think of it as more British.

Roundup to help Californians know what Gov Haircut has been up to.

https://laist.com/news/politics/these-are-the-2024-california-bills-gavin-newsom-has-signed-into-law-and-the-ones-he-has-vetoed #CApol

This isn't good. Even if you want cars to go away, this isn't good.

"Now, critics say Californians’ ability to recoup their money after buying a clunker could become more difficult, due to a hastily passed bill that lobbyists representing U.S. auto manufacturers and powerful attorneys groups drafted in secret.

Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t signed or vetoed Assembly Bill 1755."

https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/09/lemon-law-california-consumer-rights/ #CApol

There are quite a few people who say "everyone has trauma", "everyone is disabled in some way" and then go on to use that as a reason why the status quo is fine.

If those statements are *really* true, it's all the more reason the status quo of abuse and inaccessibility are NOT fine. #Ableism #Accessibility