How to Create Accessible Documents

It strikes me as more than a little disturbing that, even now in 2011, the progressive, generally left-leaning media can even contemplate covering a gang rape of an 11-year-old as the victimization of a town or as somehow, implicitly, the victim’s or victim’s parents’ fault. But, oh wait, the whole idea of the child is nothing more than a construct, according to Essig. SO where does that leave us? Should we be talking about an 11-year-old woman and not worrying too much about whether she has sex, consensual of course, with men of various ages? The hard biological reality is that there is a vast difference both in the bodies and brains of young children and even young adults. Children, or should I say immature humans, simply are not in a position to consent to sex, and their bodies not to say their minds may be irreparably damaged by it. Therefore, Essig’s attempt to use the victim’s age to incite even more outrage than one would feel at a similar attack on a fully grown woman is entirely disingenuous, since she holds the line between child and adult to be a complete fabrication. And as to the claim that childhood is a creation of the Victorian era, I would recommend reading any number of Greek, Latin, older English, and other texts that talk about children, young adults, etc and the difference in maturity levels between them. John Locke, for instance, places a lot of weight on the distinction between those who have achieved the ability to use reason and those who are still developing that ability. Going back even earlier, Plato and Aristotle discuss the different types of education appropriate at different ages. In other words, the claim that the child was “invented” by the Victorians is completely absurd and, it seems, detracts from Essig’s more basic and, I think, more powerful argument that the color of a rape victim’s skin still determines the manner in which the attack against her is portrayed and interpreted. This in itself is bad enough; no need to muddle things with a bunch of postmodern nonsense about how everything is constructed, especially when it isn’t.

Thanks, Steve! I was unaware of that resource.

This is a timely post, as we were just discussing accessibility and multimedia (especially YouTube) in my office this week. I need to do a little digging in the ProfHacker archives, as I seem to remember that the topic has come up before. We will certainly be putting these resources to good use.

Keep in mind that although Lancet is considered a scholarly journal, it is not a peer reviewed journal and this is not ophthalmic research.  The article is written by optometrists. A whole bunch more research needs to be done in this area since the mechanism causing the problem is supposed to be lack of exposure to sunlight and therefore reduced sythesis of vitamin D.  You would have thought there would have been a whole bunch of people developing myopia before it suddenly afflicted Asians.

Each morning, at schools across China, students conduct regular “eye exercises” aimed at reducing the eye strain that comes with the continual up-close focusing that comes with intense and prolonged reading.  

These percentages were just as high when I taught in Hong Kong 1975-78. This “epidemic” has been longstanding and is far better understood in China than is reflected in this summary or the Lancet article.

There is a troubling tone to the title of this brief snippet: “… Caused by Too Much Studying.” 
Really?  (If only America had this problem on a large scale.)

John Richard Schrock

Is there a higher incidence of hyperopia when you spend too much time in class looking out the window?