Notices by Megan Lynch (she/her) (meganl@mas.to), page 6

As more people join the Fediverse, the % of people using alt text on images has gone down. This is not a desirable trend.

Please refuse to boost toots that have images lacking equitable alt text and/or image description.

Teach folks (capable of seeing & writing) how to write alt text/image description (including using the OCR tool in the Mastodon image edit window, if they must). https://mastodon.social/@AltTextHealthCheck/112549508282512228

Manual wheelchair user trying e-assist add-on. These have definitely been a gamechanger for those who can afford them. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8U7MjQUGWfI

Nobel Prize winning journalist Maria Ressa is on PBS Newshour talking about how US gov't outsourcing tech to the private sector so often has strengthened surveillance capitalism. She said that journalists need to build their own independent platforms (paraphrase by me... consult the video).

It's still live as I'm watching, but should eventually be viewable towards the end of the NewsHour broadcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWIJnLy59rk #Newstodon #Journalism

- GA case (no trial date yet)

- Jan 6 insurrection case is waiting on ruling from SCOTUS on whether this felon has immunity.

- Classified documents federal case in FL, postponed indefinitely.

PBS Newshour correspondent saying this is likely the only case that will finish before the election - this NYC case where sentencing is set for Jul 11.

Another Paralympics Games explainer, this time for Para Athletics. Again, it's lacking in audio description (Yes, the Paralympics Games org can be ableist, too...) #Sports #Paralympics #Disability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MjV1ZIiA80

They really should have audio description, esp for a video about blind football. #Sports #Paralympics #Disability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPmdtaoKFuY

CalBike call to action!

"Legislators will finalize their version of the budget in the next week. Use CalBike’s action tool to email all the crucial members with one click. Please join us in standing up for biking and walking"

https://www.calbike.org/invest-divest/

#California #Cycling #ClimateChange #Transportation

I think folks aren't thinking of treadle and cycle power enough when it comes to sustainability and resilience.

We're feeding ourselves anyway - some of us (definitely me) have lots of stored fuel on our bodies we could be using to treadle or cycle for energy. Might as well use it.

https://youtu.be/2agir3xepuQ?si=rD8--1yarvtJCTXk #Cycling #sustainability #RenewableEnergy

Wildflowers near Gorman, California, USA (not a current photo).

By Father of Nehrams2020, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3282402 #Flowers

I hate when media does inspiration porn stories in general, but particularly when:

- They let a newly disabled person with tons of internalized ableism become "the voice of disabled people"

and

- When that "success story" clearly came from access to therapeutic supports the average person doesn't have, yet now everyone who doesn't meet their standard of recovery "must not be trying hard enough". #Ableism @disability

@disability I mean, "I've always taken the approach of, ‘I don't want to let this limit me. I'm still going to just live life and push through any struggle that this might be.’ So I never really saw myself as ‘disabled,’ so to speak. It never crossed my mind that I could potentially classify for the Paralympics.”" is a dead giveaway as the internalized ableism.

It really is another aspect of systemic #ableism the way that media and caretakers have elevated the genuine challenges abled caretakers have into now being something that gets more attention than the needs of disabled people.

It really is remarkable how abled people can always make disability, inaccessibility, even systemic ableism all about themselves.

(venting in rxn to the umpteenth media Q about how ppl can support caretakers that skipped entirely over how ppl can support disabled ppl)

AI-lovers fucking up again:

2nd AI-driven corporation that spammed us, doesn't know what we do, and is listing us as their mistaken idea of what it is we do whether we consent or not.

And of course the illustration is from content thieved from actual human artists to train AI.

Fuck all you fuckers in business and institutions that are jamming through this agenda. This isn't anywhere near the worst thing they'll do with AI and it's bad enough. #Ethics

I've known for decades that the religious right has targeted non-partisan school board seats in order to exert control over public schools, make them shitty & oppressive, and drive people to home schooling and private schools. And I've certainly observed how our current fascists are repeating Nazi tactics like a playbook.

But I didn't know until I read "The Nazi Seizure of Power" that even before the Nazis came to power, they were infiltrating every org they could. https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle_m2p7

🧵 Even before I formed @ucaccessnow, I persisted through campus channels trying to get them to acknowledge that cycle racks ALSO have to be accessible, not just car parking spaces. After months of brick walls with UC and my union, I got a meeting with the head of UC Davis TAPS, who

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite #UCAccessNow #Accessibility #Cycling #CycleParkingAudit

launch a form so coalition members & supporters throughout UC could pressure the Governor, the Board of Regents, and every UC chancellor to finally make the University of California accessible to the public that built it - including disabled ppl.

UC has stonewalled every step of the way. It has cherrypicked ideas from the Demandifesto and from our activism, implemented them without working with us

#UCAccessNow #Accessibility #Cycling #CycleParkingAudit

4/? @fedibikes @disability @bikenite

with upright bikes these racks were ostensibly made for, prefer the end spaces and take them first. They prefer the end spaces because these racks aren't even good for the bikes they prioritized: narrow upright bikes for typical-sized adults.

The inaccessibility of the cycle infrastructure at UC Davis was only one of many ableisms here & I went on to form UC Access Now, release the Demandifesto, and #UCAccessNow #Accessibility #Cycling https://archive.org/details/disability-equity-and-justice-demands

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

proposed that instead of making all cycle racks accessible, I give them a list of my classes & they'd install accessible racks with "blue badges" at each bldg I had a class in.

I told them this was not a sensible solution. Not only would my classes likely be in different bldgs each quarter, making an inefficient use of funds & labor doing bespoke installations, but abled ppl (often NCAA athletes!) 2/? #UCAccessNow #Accessibility #Cycling #CycleParkingAudit

@fedibikes @disability @bikenite

Cherrypicking from our work, not working with us, burying our name & work, and giving credit to moderate disability groups who gladly take the "charity" of UC instead of demanding their rights keeps power in UC hands and makes it harder for radical anti-ableists within UC to find one another & take REAL inspiration, not inspiration porn.

Anyway, tonight I saw more of the same on campus - increased cycle accessibility, rationed out as "special needs".

6/? @fedibikes @disability @bikenite

Worse, non-activist disability groups within UC are pulled in to give it the veneer of being something that UC just happens to be doing for the disabled community at UC and some folks within the disability community have been happy to take credit for UC Access Now's work and put UC's approval on their CV.

This is UC strategy.

Ableist power does not want student-led activism to get credit or it will beget more.

#UCAccessNow #Accessibility #Cycling
5/?
@fedibikes @disability @bikenite