Good Night, and Good Luck

The Roll Up

Author

Sarah Elliott
May 27, 2025

Well hey there folks. How ya doing? How ya been? Whatcha up to?

I hope these past two weeks have found you well. Sadly, the news remains “inflammatory-and-not-so-full-of-hope-with-a-side-of-disinformation”, but (!) on an endless quest to continue to look on the bright side, much like a little red muppet designed to appeal to 4-year-olds, I have found the “shiny” amidst the gray rocks and bring to you, without further ado, The Roll Up! 

Yes, President Biden has an aggressive form of cancer. We’ve got Russian and Ukrainian prisoner swaps and drone strikes, a fertility clinic bombing in California, ongoing suffering in the Middle East, and sequels to “Twister” in areas of the U.S. where it seems like there shouldn’t be tornadoes. Sidebar — Has anyone seen Twisters, the reboot? I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t hate it. This coming from someone who had the original “Twister” recorded on a VHS directly from HBO [OG] and watched it approximately 527 times. On the bingo card, we also had a pirate ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge (really), a big-time Trans protest in Scotland (Yaldi!) Sesame Street being picked up by Netflix (Thank GAWD), a New Orleans prison break reminiscent of Shawshank (yes, really), Cheese rolls and Weiner races (unrelated to prison break… I think), the first woman to play on the Canadian men’s professional baseball team (say what?!), and flying cars (not even kidding). So, um, ya know, the norm! (Apologies to “Norm” from Cheers. Pour one out for George Wendt.) 

Don’t worry, though, I have two EXTREMELY important pieces of information to share in a very particular order: 

  1. The Denver Nuggets are out of the NBA playoffs. I’m sad. Go… Knicks?

  2. Roll is working on a long-awaited feature. See our Nuggets section below.

In all seriousness, May is both Global Accessibility Awareness Month and Mental Health Awareness Month — two things we take seriously here at Roll, despite the snark. We hope you take a moment to visit the following websites for more information Global Accessibility Day and Mental Health Awareness Month. Also, in honor of Memorial Day, we honor those who served.

Oh, and before I sign off this portion, I just wanted a few (or more) of you to know, I write this thing all by myself. (I’m a big kid now!) The ‘bots don’t do it all for us, and we are aware of the implications and ramifications. We are over here just trying to build this thing to the best of our abilities — and while it’s mostly us, a small group of rag-tag individuals that are simply passionate about building this community-based resource — occasionally, we have to ask for a little help from the aliens/robots, and I think, maybe, just maybe, we have to learn how to adopt and adapt when and where it’s appropriate, ya know? We are all just tiny specks of dust, floating around in the ether, trying to find connection and purpose. Let’s be kind to one another and hopefully make the world a little better, together. 

As always, thank you for the support.

~Sarah

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Updates on the App

Sensory features and reviews. That’s right. You’ve been asking. We’ve been working on ‘em. It’s not perfect (are we purrfect at anything? 😹 Except our sweet cat memes — did you peep that this weekend? And did you drink on a pati-, er, “cat”io this weekend? Eesh, sorry, too much Knicks and Karl-Anthony “Kat” Towns jokes at home. I’m cat-crazy right now! But maybe that’s better than baboons, ya know? Me-OW!) but we are working on getting this out of the beta testing phase and into your app. Oh, we are such a tease. 😛 😻

Have you checked out the new Teams feature on the Roll app now? I love logging on and seeing how far down I am. As one of the Roll team members (Rollators? Wheelies? WHAT ARE WE CALLED?! WHO AM I?!) I, for one, find it extremely motivating to input more reviews. I should be on top. I am competitive, and I want to be higher. I need this external validation, k? What motivates you to leave a review? We’d love to know! Drop us a line. [email protected].

👩‍🦽 Crip News You Can Use 👨‍🦼 

Accessi-sciencey-stories From Around the World

In Cyborg related news, Captain Picard, once again, was ahead of the curve. Or maybe it was all Q’s doing. In a move out of Star Trek TNG (sorry, my nerd is showing again) Apple wants to put a device in your brain to make you half Borg. I’ll wait while you pick yourself off the floor from shock. Oh! That was quick, was that not shocking? Yep, Apple is working toward a standard for brain implant devices that can help those living with a disability control devices with their thoughts. Synchron is the company that makes an implant called a Stentrode that is implanted in a vein on the brain's motor cortex. Soooo, how we feelin’ about this fam?

Photo by HI! ESTUDIO on Unsplash

To boldly go where no one has gone before. Hello, please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sarah, and I am a science NERD. Straight up. It took me a long time to get here, always fancying myself some sort of artsy writer/actor that had to go work in health care because I couldn’t hack it as a creative. Well, jokes on YOU (who the proverbial YOU is in this situation I am not quite sure…) but turns out, I LOVE science. And this is the type of science that gets my juices flowing (gross), and brain spinning (better). Not to mention the feel-good aspect of this particular story saving a literal baby. And let me tell you why. It’s the implications of this case. Of this baby. Of this gene therapy. CRISPR (which is short for "Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats") is a gene-editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify disease-causing variants in the human genome. Now, before you go all “The-Dinosaurs-Should-Be-Extinct” on me, hear me out. The positive ramifications of this potentially life-saving technology is absolutely revolutionary and it IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. However you may feel about it personally/morally etc. I just can’t help but be excited by this. If you thought cell-phone technology happened quickly, buckle up buttercup.

How are you processing all of these advances? While the reality is that these technologies will not be widely used just yet, does this strike fear or excitement or some beautiful mixture of both?!

😄 Wheel-y Good News 😁 

Good Folks Doin’ Good Thangs

Everybody is Somebody in New Mexico is one of their catchphrases, and how! New Mexico is taking a big (continued) step toward supporting the creation of more accessible tourism by increasing public restroom access. New Mexico Tourism Department recently announced the creation of the Destination Forward Accessibility Pilot Grant, which offers a special $100,000 fund to exclusively support the construction and installation of universal changing tables in qualified facilities. Snaps to New Mexico. The grant cycle closed just a few days ago, but the funds must be used by June of 2026, so we hope to see changes come in the near future!

This has us thinking, have you encountered universal restrooms in the wild? Have you put it on the app?

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

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⚖️ Policy & Prejudice 🤫 

Keeping the ol’ checks & balances in check

In a move towards universal inclusive development, the Indian government recently announced a 4% reservation in central government housing for persons with disabilities. This policy, aligned with the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and the Accessible India Campaign, (which started in 2015 to ensure that public spaces, transportation systems, and information and communications technology are more accessible to people living with a disability) aims to establish equitable housing and promote universal accessibility.

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📣 Say What? 📢 

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We get new subscribers and users every day so I thought it might be helpful to show that ANYONE can download and use the Roll app and just how easy it is to leave a review!

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