read
· · to read
Attorney Charged With Filing Fraudulent Lawsuits Under The Americans With Disabilities Act by Department of Justice
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest today of STUART FINKELSTEIN on charges of mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, false declarations to a court, and obstruction of justice.  Specifically, FINKELSTEIN has been charged with stealing the identities of two individuals in order to file hundreds of fraudulent lawsuits pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) that those individuals never authorized.  In addition, FINKELSTEIN has been charged with making false declarations and obstructing justice in proceedings in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

This adds an entirely new dimention to the whole ADA trolling thing, and for those in the blind community who advocated for HR 620 that bill would not have addressed this because there are already laws which do, as illustrated by this case.

And for the sake of all of us in the accessibility and disability rights spaces, if the evidence against Finkelstein supports a guilty verdict he definitely needs to be made an example of because attorneys like him are giving all of us a bad name.

note
· · to read

Someone needs to tell Stephen King that you cannot create lovable creatures like Billy Bumblers, spend several books making us fall in love with them, and then in the last book of the series have the demonic baby you created in the book before that eat one alive.

The Dark Tower series will definitely end up on the reread pile but this is definitely the absolutely weirdest most screwed up fantasy series I’ve ever read.

I know, it’s Stephen King, we should expect screwed up, but still.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

Cloudy

note
· · to read

I think education of others by people with disabilities is important. Not that we’re obligated to do it, but it’s more productive a lot of the time.

One thing we don’t seem to be discussing though, (and I hope we can), is burn-out among people with disabilities with regard to being educators.

People who aren’t expected to do their jobs every day of every minute of their lives, and they still suffer from burn-out.

I’m not saying education is our job, but lots of times it feels like one, and so I think maybe we should look at helping each other recognize burn-out, recognize when to take a break, and more importantly learn how to give ourselves permission to take a break, because these don’t seem to be things we’re talking about when it comes to advocacy and education.

And I suspect needing a break is where a lot of us are at.

The fight seems endless, and it’s hard to see impact when you’re in the thick of it.

Just something to consider.

note
· · to read

The dictionary is caving and listing “literally” as meaning “actually”, “in effect” or “virtually” along with the original meaning and I completely resent this caving.

Militant wing of Toastmasters, rise up! (don’t tell me there isn’t a militant wing of Toastmasters I know there is you’all are just hiding it).