The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Mia:

I was in Salvador, Brazil for the feast day of St. Barbara a few years ago. There was a festival, which, though not as big as the more famous festivals, was lots of fun. We all paraded through the streets and ended up at a large square where fire trucks were set up, their water tanks full of blessed water with which to shower the crowds. (Which was good, because it was a pretty hot day.)

Abi @10:

Here is what I read: "Usually it’s full of talking points, scrolling slowly by. I note that the McCain ones tend to worse grammar and spelling than the Obama ones, and more often posted from users who haven’t even bothered to attach a picture to their profiles."

None of the other information you provided in your response was present or implied in what you wrote. I didn't take anything out of context, and was taking issue with what appeared to be a choice of phrase about the use of images. The reason I didn't mention the issues of grammar or spelling was that you made a straight observation that it was poor, not that "they didn't even bother to check their spelling". If you had just said that there weren't pictures attached, then I would have accepted it as just another observational point, not an implicit critique of character.

It is fine to say that the post was hastily made, but I'm sure you're aware that as someone who posts to the main page of a fairly popular blog, there is a very good chance that people will point out where they disagree with or have issues with what you say or how you say it.
I don't know whether you "chose not to" or "didn't bother to" provide more context to your original post. I do know that if you'd provided the full context, as you did later, then that would have influenced my response.

I am also aware that when I choose to identify myself as a person with a disability while pointing out something I take issue with, it is most common to be told how offended I must be, because I am only allowed a few emotions that are rarely granted any level of nuance. The reason I chose the word "discomfitted" was because I believe it accurately represented my reaction. Not offense, not outrage, but a sense of discomfort with the way something had been expressed.

I appreciate the clarification, and wish you had provided the full explanation in the original post.

But I also remember why I post here so rarely.

Torrilin @3. Thank you. I rarely comment here, but was discomfitted by the assumptions implicit in the phraise, "haven't even bothered" in regard to pictures and Twitter profiles. There are any number of reasons people might not have a picture attached to their profile; "not even bothering" is only one of them.

For myself, being blind, I didn't even know people had pictures attached to their Twitter profiles. (Unless tagged appropriately, there is no way screenreading technology can identify a picture as anything other than a generic graphic that could mean anything.)

But before anybody jumps to an incorrect conclusion that I therefore also don't have pictures to use, I do. I don't, however, know how accessible the process of attaching a picture is in Twitter. Also, and this is a very personal thing, in public life, I am aware that I am subject to scrutiny and staring from the nondisabled public that I cannot return. I kind of appreciate that online environments allow me to balance that situation by only providing information to others that I can get from them. Maybe this means I should upload a nonrepresentational picture for myself. Maybe I will do that.

But, in general, I prefer to judge people by their words, like the differences between saying that somebody has not done something versus "hasn't even bothered" to do something, and the judgments that are made based on one piece of information.

PS, I am not a McCain supporter.

Albatross @26
I think it's very important to take note of the problem of "inconveniencing the blind" being used as a defense of not using paper ballots only. "The blind" and people with other disabilities have a right to cast a secret ballot as much as every other citizen does, but without the recent technological advancements, have not been able to exercise that right. Rights are not "conveniences".

I know, because I am affected by this, and quite frankly, entrusting that some friend or stranger is accurately recording my vote for me, and is not judging me for it is massively discomfitting.

This is why it is exceedingly important that there be ways of making sure that the electronic voting systems are secure, and that there is a way of verifying one's vote (like the random number generation technique cited above.) Then I can both vote securely, (those machines have speech output listened to through headphones, and other accessible interfaces), AND check that my vote was recorded correctly (since I can use a scanner and OCR to read my randomly numbered receipt, and log on as everyone else does.)

So am I incorrect in thinking that the characters of Carlos and Maria (and their parents) in Alan Steele's Coyote books are Latino. The names suggest it of course, but that could just be "Americans of Hispanic heritage".

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