8 Ways to Sunday

While checking a recent design with Fangs — a screen reader emulator for Firefox — I discovered that my attempts to hide some headings from sighted users, while keeping them available for the blind, had backfired. Instead, nobody could see (or hear) them.

It turns out that the problem was my use of the CSS declaration display: none, which causes the affected text to go unread by Jaws (the most popular screen reader on the market). I found a solution to my problem at WebAIM, where there’s an article on the subject of hiding content with CSS. They’ve already done all the cross-browser testing, and cooked up a method that should work everywhere and for everyone.

The American Medical Association wants doctors to own your electronic medical records. The reason? Their “tremendous economic value.”

(Props: The Medical Blog Network)

A pair of docs from Vanderbilt cut the crap and tell it like it is: you’re simply not in much danger from bird flu. At least, not yet.

The bottom line here is “don’t panic.” There are very good reasons that the medical establishment is worried about the possibility of a pandemic, but it’s nothing to get yourself worked up over right now. It could happen next month, or it could be another twenty years. They just don’t know.

The most interesting find in this article for me is the fact that modern science has traced the three flu pandemics of the twentieth century (even the infamous “Spanish flu” of 1918) back to bird flus originating in Asia. Apparently this thing rears its head every so often, and we’re just now catching on.

(Props: Notes from Dr. RW)

I’m back in Tucson, and have been since the seventeenth. It turns out that my mother, Angela, will get to come home sooner than expected.

Phone consultations with my mom’s Wichita-based allergist, and with the interior environment specialist who examined our house, revealed some stark disagreements with “Dr. Erickson’s” assertion that the house would never be habitable for her again. According to the allergist, Erickson’s is an extremist viewpoint that leaves her with virtually no options; according to the environment specialist, all that remained to be done was replacement of the carpet in the formerly-leaky loft.

When I returned to Kansas in late September, Angela was healthier than I’d seen her in years. Over the three and a half weeks that she was on her own, however, the burden of doing all her own shopping and errands — along with searching for an apartment¹, buying a car to save money over renting one², and getting exposed to pesticide when the bushes outside the hospitality house were sprayed — had caused her to deteriorate almost to her previous level of ill health.

Shortly after I came back, she started taking oil of oregano and olive leaf extract. Both were recommended by a Tucsonite she’d befriended who knows a great deal about natural medicine. She started to cough up a lot of the remaining crap in her lungs, which turned out to be a mixed blessing. This was apparently one of those “it gets worse before it gets better” things, and there were a couple of very scary episodes. Now, however, she’s breathing much better. I’m hopeful that this will continue to be the case.

The current plan is to take the new car (a 5-door Chevy Aveo) back to Kansas on Thursday. We’ll be heading north to Flagstaff, then taking I-40 east through Albuquerque and Arlington to Oklahoma City. At Oklahoma City, we take I-35 north back to Kansas. It’s a two-day trip; we’re currently looking for hotels in Albuquerque with Evergreen rooms, where my mom can stay the night without setting off her allergies.   (more…)

Jen (finally) had her baby!

This is Andrew posting for Jen who is recovering at TMC. Jefferson David Crispin-Schnepp was born at 3:26 yesterday afternoon. The monster child came out at 9 pounds 3.5 ounces after much difficulty. They are both adjusting well to their new circumstances. I am sure Jen will share the gory details with you tomorrow when she gets home.

Congratulations to the whole family. Jefferson is very privileged to have such cool parents.