I think the commenting problems have been addressed. MT-Blacklist was being a little overenthusiastic, but it should play nice with everyone now.
Today’s Star Tribune includes an article detailing a legal settlement involving Fairview Medical Center and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some patients who are deaf and were receiving treatment at Fairview sued the hospital because the hospital did not provide adequate sign language interpreter services. In some cases, the interpreters provided were incompetent. In one instance, the interpreter’s spouse tried to convince a patient to come to some kind of alternative healing center for treatment. The callous and unprofessional treatment these people received is disturbing, especially considering that it occurred in a medical setting. Imagine how confused and scared you would be if you couldn’t understand the people who were poking and prodding you with assorted instruments. Like I keep saying, businesses and institutions are still clueless about their duties to accommodate people with disabilities a decade after passage of the ADA. We still have this Darwinian view of disability; adapt or die, but don’t make it our problem. We need to do a better job of getting these companies to understand that accommodations are a normal part of doing business with the community. Oh, and you don’t do that by having one day of diversity training for managers that may or may not include an hour’s worth of discussion on disability issues.
Fairview is settling for $208,000 and a judge will oversee Fairview’s future compliance with the ADA.
Let’s see, what else is pissing me off? Oh, yeah, Time and Newsweek have virtually identical covers this week. Okay, I know that slapping Jesus on the cover of a magazine probably boosts sales in the heartland. But c’mon, Time and Newsweek! Did you call each other over the weekend, sweating out your respective deadlines, and finally say, “Ah, fuck it. Nobody will notice.” I don’t mind when you have similar covers after a big news event, but I didn’t realize the birth of Jesus was a breaking story.
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