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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a good law. It protects people with disabilities from discrimination and exclusion. It requires that there be access and reasonable accommodations made for people with special needs, and has allowed millions of Americans with disabilities to be active, productive members of society.

But many good laws are subject to abuse, and ADA is one that gets twisted out of its original intent more than any other I know. The particular impetus for this post is a recent lawsuit leveled against Princeton University, which is patently absurd. The case states that Princeton doesn’t meet the standards for equal access. This is because of things like “the slope of some of the paths around campus” (Princeton was built on a bunch of hills several hundred years before ADA legislation was passed – not much the school can do about the slope of those hills unless they’re willing to level half the buildings on campus).

What’s particularly galling about this case is that: None of the plaintiffs are in any way affiliated with the university. Only 1 of them even lives in the state of New Jersey – 3 have only visited the campus once for “the purposes of discovering, encountering, and engaging discrimination,”. In other words – they came to campus searching for a reason to sue on ADA grounds. They did not bother to talk to the administration to ask about accommodations – had they done so, they would have been directed to the office of disability services. That’s right – Princeton has an entire office dedicated to helping disabled visitors have access to the campus. Of course, if you refuse to make use of accessibility resources, its not surprising that you’d find the campus hard to access. And if this isn’t enough – the lawsuit is asking damages for “emotional distress and anger”.
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I recently read an article alleging that McCain is a loose cannon and has a nasty temper that he can’t control. In fact, I’ve heard this charge trumpeted by liberals for the past several months. But this was the first time that I’d read a specific charge about a specific incident where the evidence was publicly available on youtube. Its a video entitled “John McCain losing his Cool” and involves a cross-examination of a witness during MIA/POW hearings.

So I watched the video. And McCain, while clearly upset, remained polite, logical, and civil. He never raised his voice, he kept his emotions in check, and he in no way lost his cool. So then I looked at another video entitled “John McCain Loses Temper With NY Times Reporter“. And another one “McCain gets Angry“. And if you watch them, you will note that he is respectful and courteous and doesn’t shout or do anything untoward.

In other words, McCain seems to do a commendable job of keeping his emotions in line and NOT losing his cool. The guy is under constant scrutiny, and anything he says that has the slightest hint of anger gets chronicled as him having a temper. That’s simply absurd. There are a number of reasons that one may not want to vote for McCain in this fall election, but so far as I can tell his temper is not one of them.