Small Town News

I was in Kalona over the weekend with my wife, my sister and her family. We stopped into the Kalona General Store to pick up some pickled asparagus which we have enjoyed in the past. While we were there, we witnessed the proprietor of the store insist that a woman with a physical disability and her service dog, a Great Dane leave the store. As a result of seeing what took place, we left the store empty handed and caught up with the woman and her dog named "Sir Vivor".

By the American's with Disabilities Act, businesses are required to accommodate disabled persons and service animals are such an accommodation. Service animals are easy to spot because they wear distinctive vests and are extraordinarily well trained. The owner of the dog should, but does not have to, keep the service certification with them.

In this person's case, she was hit by a drunken driver and suffered a stroke. As a result, her dog serves to support her physically as well as help her through grand mal seizures when they occur. She explained that in Kalona she has had a history of difficulties with the local business community and actually had to go to court to have the local pharmacy allow her and her service animal on the premises.

Life, Liberty, and Closed-Captioned Video

Tom Harkin is helping the disabled to keep up with politics.

From the Senator's Press Release:

As the author of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act that protects the civil rights of more than 54 million Americans with physical and mental disabilities, Senator Harkin has long been a champion of ensuring that all Americans have equal access and opportunities.

The recent CNN/YouTube debates have shown that the Internet and online video are rapidly becoming a mainstream medium for direct engagement in our democracy. With the advent of these new technologies and mediums it is important that we continue to ensure that every American has the opportunity to participate. That's why all of us at TomHarkin.com are proud to announce our new service to provide closed-captioning of our online campaign videos.

Please click here to visit www.tomharkin.com/closed-captioned-video and view our new closed-captioned video section.

To provide the closed captioning of our online video we have partnered with Project readOn , the web's leading and most innovative closed-captioning service. Project readOn works toward making online media content available to all by giving users the power to decide exactly what videos they want captioned, and giving webmasters an innovative and easy-to-use caption player that is easy to install on any website.

Project readOn also has also has close-captioned videos from people like this guy.