Can we please stop fighting over the 9/11 stuff now? Specifically I’m talking about the conspiracy theories. Through random surfing, I found my way to another one of those sites that is full of hue and cry about buildings being brought down deliberately, whether the hole in the Pentagon could have been made by a plane, etc. My response to all of that now is: Shut the hell up. It doesn’t matter.

Seriously, why does it matter if the government was lying to us? Is that going to change anything that happened? Newsflash: the government is elected in the United States. If you don’t like the government, if you think they lied, vote them out of office and change it! Let me know if that brings back the 2800 people who died that day.

The question should not be “what happened then?” The question should be “what do we do now?”

I was having a hard time posting a comment about this in a friend’s journal, so I decided to post it here instead. This is just venting about the message board at the Video Relay Services Consumer Association website. As far as I can tell, people who post over there feel exempt from the requirement to consider the needs of others as well as their own, and they don’t think it’s necessary to do any research before spouting.

There are many people on the board saying “save VRS and cut TTY” - don’t people realize that the majority of D/HH Americans do not use ASL? There are more than 25 million Americans with severe to profound hearing loss, and only about 1-2 million use ASL. All those other people are using text relay on either TTY or computers. I fully support keeping VRS - not just because I am a VI myself, but because Deaf people have a right to communicate in their first language - but if the FCC is looking to cut costs, as that website indicates, I would think they will cut the service used by a few people than the service used by a lot of people. I know I’ll get flamed for this, so I’ll repeat - VRS interpreting is my job. So I don’t want them to get rid of it, that would put me out of a job. But the people on that board are not thinking logically (needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few) or considering the needs of non-signing deaf Americans alongside their own needs as signers.

Another person said “if VRS terps are paid more than $40/hr then reduce their salary to $30/hr and don’t let it go above that.” This person apparently has no idea how VRS interpreters are paid, or even interpreters in general. I’m not sure they even realize how much actual work is involved in interpreting, how much training costs, how much experience is factored into the situation…sure, $30/hr interpreting beats working at the local burger joint for minimum wage, but it is not necessarily commensurate with what the job actually entails.

Let the flaming begin.

I have to admit I’m a little disappointed in PayPerPost’s new affiliate program. Previously, when someone put down your e-mail address as they signed up for paid blogging, you were rewarded with $5. Under the new program, you get $15 - but people have to actually click your graphical link to get signed up. This means that instead of just remembering to put in your e-mail address, the person has to remember to come back to your site when they’re actually ready to sign up. If they look around, think about whether they want to join, and then come back later to actually join - but go straight to the PPP site - you’re not credited for their referral. (At least as I understand the program.)

Also, I really don’t like the big graphical links we’ve been given to do this with. One is an 88×31 button and the other is 145×100. I would prefer the option of a text link, and it would be nice to have an 80×15 button too, as those are pretty popular these days.

Then again, it may just be that the reason I’m grouchy about it is because I already referred sewcute under the old program, and I only got $5 for it!

I got home about 1:00am and found that :MK: - my wife’s sister, who lives with us, in case you haven’t heard me mention that a million times before - had parked down the driveway. Now, normally A and I park down the driveway, and MK&R park on the street. During splatter-berry season, they park on the cross-street, because there is nowhere to park on the street where their cars will not be pummeled with messy sticky berries. On Friday night I had to park on the street because :MK: had allowed utility people to park on our driveway because she didn’t know I would be coming home so early. (It happens that they were there until after I would have normally been home, so being early didn’t actually have anything to do with it.) But my white car got all splatted up, and I need to find a car wash at some point.

Anyway, I pulled down the driveway and blocked her car and A’s car in because I was too damn tired and my feet hurt too damn much to park on the street or the cross-street. I went in and checked :MK:’s work schedule…she had to work Sunday morning. And she leaves at 5:30am. I started to write a note asking her to please move my car when she had to leave, but I didn’t want it parked on the street, so could she also move mine back down after she had moved hers up, etc. I decided that was too complicated and I should just do it myself. But I didn’t want to do the complicated stuff, so I got the brilliant idea into my head that I would move my car onto the lawn, back hers up a bit, and then move mine into its normal spot.

Yeah, that whole “onto the lawn thing” I just mentioned? Not very bright. Because, you see, I could not then get my car OFF the lawn. I ended up ripping giant holes in our lawn and the neighbors’ lawn, because I was desperately seeking a way back onto a paved surface. It was 1:00am, I was exhausted, my feet hurt, and I was really pissed that :MK: had parked down the driveway on a day when she’d have to leave for work at 5:30am. Once the cars had finally switched places - and as I came in I could see huge gashes in the lawns - I left her a note saying please do not park down the driveway unless I am out of town. Because, really, it is my parking space. If she has to bring in something heavy, I don’t mind if she pulls down the driveway to bring it in and then backs out again. But for her to park down the driveway because she is too goddamn lazy is just not okay with me. I woke up A and she agreed that it’s my parking space. (See, she owns the house, and I am her partner, and MK&R are tenants. Hence me getting the good parking space.)

Anyway, I was just absolutely furious, and I had to take one of A’s Ativan so I could calm down enough to get to sleep. Fortunately I was very tired, so I managed to fall asleep pretty quickly. Unfortunately I had a crummy day on Sunday because :MK: and I were upset with each other all day, and I’m having another crummy day today because tonight I have to go over to the neighbors’ house and apologize and offer to reseed their lawn, which I don’t know how to do. (Yes, I’ve printed instructions off the internet.) So I generally had a bad weekend, you could say.

Why does the conservative media insist on referring to her as Terri Schindler-Schiavo? Did she ever use that name herself? I’m aware that the Terri’sFight.org website was run by the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, but obviously they had a special agenda to present. The media are supposed to be independent of such an agenda, and yet the conservative outlets used Schindler-Schiavo as her last name. I already know why, though - it’s called spin. By saying Schindler, they were taking away some association with Michael Schiavo and focusing more attention on her birth family. They wanted us to feel that tie to her family, and to toss out a slur against Michael Schiavo in the process. But if Terri herself never used that name, then it’s pure bullshit for the media to use it.

Not, of course, that I expected anything different. But I do notice these things.

I just wrote a rambling entry over at CyDy Blog about a high school incident in Florida. Here’s the scariest part:

When uniformity is compromised, then authority no longer holds.

Check out the rest of my incoherent rant here.

This is just a minor vent at my brother-in-law, because he will never see it here.

Hey, buddy. You are the one who subscribes to the newspaper in our house. You are the one who reads it. Therefore, as we agreed, it is your responsibility to carry them up to the curb to put out with the recycling. Our driveway is long, and I am not strong enough to carry them myself. Driving them up there is a pain in the ass, especially when they’re your newspapers. So even though it’s my month to take the trash, bottles, and cans up to the curb…it’s always your month to carry the newspapers. You receive ‘em, you get rid of ‘em. The rest of us generate very little paper waste - I would only have to take the papers out every two or three weeks if it weren’t for all your newspapers. Kindly remind yourself of what we agreed to when we split up the garbage tasks, and take the damn newspapers up your own damn self.

(That said, I did it all this time, because while it’s fun to vent about it’s not worth actually arguing with him over.)