Daddy Google and Mother Martha

The Roll Up

Author

Sarah Elliott
June 24, 2025

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Well hey there folks,

Wow. Just when you think you might have to go searching for a baboon story to keep the joke alive, one just falls into your lap. Is the life algorithm working? Is my husband onto something? He firmly believes he has hacked the Meta algorithm by only liking and following Chihuahuas and the occasional cute dog/capybara. He calls it “ChihuahuaInstagram” and I have to admit, it seems to be working. This coming from the initial joke in our house when we were new parents and I was doing my good elder-millennial duty by immediately immersing myself in every parenting video, following every parenting “guru”, and researching the sh*t out of every developmental leap in hopes of unlocking the “perfect parenting strategy” (spoiler alert: you should trust your gut. Unless your gut is telling you to shake the baby.) But, I digress. He called it “CryingBabiesofInstagram” and well, he wasn’t wrong. So, have I unlocked “BaboonInternet” on some unconscious/conscious level? Does the world know that I am now obsessed with baboons? IS GOOGLE-DADDY READING MY THOUGHTS ON E-PAPER RIGHT NOW?! Phew. Sorry. That got real “meta” (pun completely intended), real quick.

Back to reality. Actually, let’s not and say we did, because reality these past few weeks? No thanks pal. I was on vacation for 8 blissful days where I got to pretend for a minute that the world hadn’t marched forward and is on the brink of World War III, that my dog was still alive (Debbie downer alert: We had to say goodbye to our beagle mix of 14 years a few weeks ago - I am still not okay.) and that half of the United States (and the U.K. – heeeyyyy Shane, Co-founder of Roll 👋 ) wasn’t 100 and hell degrees. 

Anyway back to baboons  – turns out when dads (Happy belated Father’s Day to the dads out there, and those acting as dads) are nice to their daughters then they live longer, thereby making it through another birthing season (gross), and overall the sense of community grows and well, “it’s a good thing”, as ‘Mother’ Martha Stewart would say. I have said it before and I will say it again, when we live in community, we do great things. This is the cornerstone of evolution – NOT survival of the fittest – and has even been written about since the 1800s. Vanessa Woods and Brian Hare wrote Survival of The Friendliest and in their words, ‘We are at our most tolerant when the architecture of our society facilitates tolerance… [And so] we need to design the spaces we live in so we can meet each other without being afraid, disagree without being disagreeable, and make friends with those least like ourselves’ (p.185). Normally, I couldn’t agree more, but currently, I feel this is not quite enough. This review gives a very balanced take on the whole book, but read it for yourselves (or listen like I did), and form your own opinion. 

In the spirit of that quote, and in hopes of pulling myself out of the dredges of existential dread and the bottom of a bottle of Martha’s 19 Crimes Chardonnay, we can celebrate pride while still fighting for rights, and especially for LGBTQIA2S+ youth, who need our fight now more than ever. If only we could all take a page from the baboons — building what we're working toward at Roll: a strong, inclusive community that looks out for all its members. To the disenfranchised populations that exist on the fringes (but shouldn’t) thanks for being here, you matter, your voice matters, and in community, we can make the world a little bit better, together. Roll on. 

As always, thank you for the support.

~Sarah

P.S. Feel free to skip if you aren’t a baller. If you don’t follow the NBA or live in a cave and have been following along with my basketball drama, that ends now (for a few months anyway) because the Oklahoma Thunder ended up dominating the Indiana Pacers in the 2nd half of game 7 of the NBA finals to take the championship. While OKC was heads above most teams all year, I was really rooting for the Pacers who became such a fun team to watch. I was absolutely devastated for Tyrese Haliburton who was off to an amazing start in the game, but was sidelined (likely for next season too) half way through the first quarter when he snapped his Achilles tendon. Who knows how that game could’ve gone?!

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⚒️ Roll’s Nuggets ⛏️ 

Updates on the App

Unfortunately, I don’t have a ton of updates for you here this week. Our team is hard at work trying to get the sensory features for reviews built mindfully and correctly. We’ve always shared our “behind the scenes” aspects of building this app out, and that doesn’t stop now. It’s proven to be a bit more tricky than initially planned, but rest assured, it remains our top priority. But like most things, life happens, the world interferes with our crazy little plans and well, hoping to roll this out in July now. If you want to Venmo coffee money, please see the WeFunder link below. 😛 

Also, shocker, we read comments and feedback. We are constantly striving for “mo betta” and that applies to colors/readability of the newsletter and image descriptions on social media. We will keep tweaking things so keep the feedback coming!

We’d love to hear from you! Did we miss the mark, or do you have an idea to make it better? Reach out at [email protected].

👩‍🦽 Crip News You Can Use 👨‍🦼 

Accessi-stories From Around the World

NeuroFlex be flexin’. (Do the youth still say that? Youth? Ugh, my 40s are showing.) Did you see this news a couple weeks ago about a group of teens who created a new prosthetic for their friend? Talk about all the good feels - friends helping friends (see: baboons, previous newsletter) The kids really will be alright. These pals got together to help their friend, Aiden, by creating a more comfortable prosthetic. Not only did they want to make the prosthetic more comfortable, they also engineered the leg to be controlled by the brain as opposed to the limb itself. That means their design successfully anticipates Aiden’s movement 98% of the time. The best part is that the NeuroFlex is much more cost-effective compared to other bionic prosthetics on the market. Like A LOT better (about $1000 to make and operate versus $100,000 for a traditional bionic prosthetics). Yes please! More of this. The teens competed in the 75th Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair but were quick to point out that like themselves, they highly encourage others to get into creating and engineering for a specific purpose, like they did. I just, I just want to hug these young people. Shine the ever loving light on these guys!

Photo from Society of Science - Changyoung Kim, Samuel Skotnikov, and Eeshaan Prashanth.

Have you ever invented something out of necessity? We are guessing you probably have as the disability community is one of the most resourceful (out of necessity we know) communities out there.

😄 Wheel-y Good News 😁 

Good Folks Doin’ Good Thangs

Beep, Beep, who got the keys to the Jeep, Vrooooom.

*Shockingly NOT a story about toaster taxis 🍞 but actually refers to the beep part of the song line (a stretch, I know.)

In honor of all things summer, and in line with our new sensory features (an area we hope to continue to explore) I was so pleased to hear about Beep baseball. Plus, it’s super fun to say. Maybe this ISN’T news to you all, I certainly hope it isn’t, but on the off chance that it is, then let me introduce you to it. This organization is committed to fostering competition and camaraderie through the game of beep baseball for the blind and visually impaired. While there are some adaptations from the “traditional” game of baseball, including utilizing a softball sized ball that beeps, and a sighted pitcher and catcher that call “ready, set, pitch” prior to the pitch, the premise is the same, and the sport is popular, and most importantly it seems, fun. There are 26 teams in the National Beep Baseball Association. The 2025 World Series takes place late in July in St. Louis. Play ball!

photo from NBBA website, shows San Antonio Jet, Ricky Castaneda fielding a ball

Do you have a story you want to share? We want to know about it. Seriously. Send your story to [email protected]

⚖️ Policy & Prejudice 🤫 

Keeping the ol’ checks & balances in check

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is dragging (in more ways than one) the White House to court for ghosting repeated requests for ASL interpreters at press briefings. In the federal lawsuit, NAD says this isn’t just rude—it’s a violation of Section 504 and the First Amendment. Turns out, access isn’t optional when it’s the law. After months of trying to play nice, the Deaf community is (rightfully) done being polite about having to lipread through government updates like it's 1952. Let’s hope the courts sign off on some overdue accountability.

Are you keeping up with all these law suits or are you over-saturated? If you’ve heard a policy related story that you are passionate about and wants us to feature, shoot us a line at [email protected]

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📣 Say What? 📢 

Thank you for the review J D 😃 We hope that this just keeps growing and growing and growing and … Have you gotten the word out? Share it with your friends, your neighbors, on your social media feeds! The more users using the app, the more reviews, and well, you know the rest!

Would you like to tell your story? Want to be YouTube famous? Well we’d love to feature you on our channel. And we will walk you through it. Please email [email protected]

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