Matilda Ziegler Publishing Company for the Blind
The Matilda Ziegler Publishing Company for the Blind provides a weekly online magazine aimed at offering a well rounded combination of general interest articles and blindness related material that is made accessible to blind readers.In 1966, Irv Gordon purchased his Volvo P1800 brand new. He didn’t do it expecting that he’d accomplish anything particularly noteworthy, he was just sick of his other cars breaking down and took a friend’s advice to check out the Volvo.
Today, Irv has nearly 2.8 million miles on his car, a world record. In fact, Irv set the record back in 1998 when his car reached the 1.69 million mile mark. But Irv still plans to squeeze some more mileage out of his little red car. 3 million miles is his goal, and if history is any gauge of the future, it would be surprising if he chose to stop there.
Irv has a great sense of humor about his car. The seatbelts confuse nearly every passenger and when asked if his car has air conditioning, Irv replies, “Yeah, the 465. Four windows at sixty-five miles per hour.”
As he reminisced about the days when he first started driving his car, he recalled that gas was 18 cents a gallon, and that he was shocked when it rose to 25 cents. Oh how far we’ve come.
Irv’s journey has had some bumpy times, though, as you would expect when you drive the same car for over forty years. He’s been backed into in parking lots, bumped by trucks while driving, even had incidents with a school bus, twice. In all the mishaps, the nose has been crushed and the sides popped inwards. “But that’s why they put paint in a can,” said Irv.
Surprisingly, Irv’s car is only on its second engine. They certainly don’t make cars like that anymore. No car company would ever make any money. Irv does all of the routine maintenance himself, but does rely on a trusted mechanic to take care of the big jobs. After all, he’s got a goal to meet.
So what happens once he reaches three million? Well, Irv jokes that he might try to sell it for a dollar per mile he’s put on it, that way he could retire. He’s just waiting for the offers to come in. If Volvo was smart, they’d buy the car from him and proudly display it in their headquarters.
To read the original article, please go to http://autos.aol.com/article/3-million-mile-volvo/
Planeteers say
This week Shell Oil signed a very large joint venture agreement down in Brazil. It has nothing to do with drilling rights or processing plants for crude oil, either. In fact, Shell has just put two billion dollars down on the table to join forces with Cosan SA Industria & Comercio, the world’s largest producer of sugarcane. Everything totalled, including stations and processing facilities for the sugarcane waste product, the venture is valued at nearly 12 billion.
So why is Shell looking into sugar? They haven’t gone crazy, but rather they are investigating another revenue channel that will help them branch out and start utilizing other energy sources that have nothing to do with oil. Brazil happens to use a ton of sugarcane ethanol, and it represents over 17 percent of the entire country’s source of energy. It is also a very efficient fuel to produce. For every unit of fossil fuel used in the production process, 8 units of sugarcane ethanol are produced.
Shell isn’t the only one getting into the biofuel game, though. Other energy giants like Exxon and BP have spent tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring other biofuel companies. Their sources of fuel range from producing biofuel from algae to producing it from forest biomass. It seems that if they can squeeze fuel out of it, they will.
While the idea isn’t new, Shell’s joint venture is certainly the largest to date. Should it prove successful, the other oil giants might be tempted to toss their billions around in an effort to keep up.
It’s always interesting to watch companies, especially oil companies publically attempt to secure their future. You can almost already hear their commercials about how diverse and environmentally friendly they are now that they’re working on new sustainable fuel sources to reduce our dependence on oil. The funny part is that they always seem to leave out the fact that while we may be reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, we will always have to depend on them.
Don’t get me wrong, I like to see that big oil companies are trying to find creative ways to produce energy in our future instead of drilling in Antarctica (something that BP just decided would be a bad idea). I think that it’s a positive direction to be looking, especially considering the long-term negative affects of the Deepwater incident in the Gulf. I just hope that they balance the quest for increased profits through new ventures with good business practices.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1685007/print
Planeteers say
Scientists have recently discovered that by inserting a small sliver of collagen into the eye that it actually encourages other cornea cells to begin to regrow, eventually restoring vision to the patient. It works as a sort of elemental building block for surrounding cornea cells to begin growth. They need something to attach to, and since the cornea itself is made of collagen, the collagen implant that is placed in the eye is the perfect structure to make that happen.
This process is incredibly important for a couple reasons. For one, the process is designed so that the patient’s cells are regrowing and no artificial tissue is being used that might possibly be rejected by the body. Also, this will allow doctors to treat more patients who have damaged corneas–either through infection or injury–because it does not require any transplant tissue from another person. With 42,000 people a year receiving cornea transplants, one can only imagine how many more may be waiting on the sidelines who could be treated with this process as well.
While this study is just beginning, their trials have been very successful. If future trials confirm those positive results, this treatment could realistically become commonplace in a few short years.
This is a very large step in the right direction. With more research being conducted to eliminate vision loss, it encourages scientists and doctors to experiment on many different types of vision loss so that they can get the full picture, so to speak, on how the eye works and what treatments can be given to ensure that it works properly.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100825/NEWS02/100829917/-1/headlines
Planeteers say
When you think of video games, you likely don’t think of the blind playing them, but this isn’t the case. From games that have been adapted to be playable by the blind, to mainstream games that the blind figure out how to play without modifications, the blind are definitely a part of the video gaming world. I myself just started playing a game online called Kingdom of Loathing, and when I was a PC user, I played games all the time.
So the question is what kind of games are out there, and where can you get them. I think the best place to start is a visit to a site called audiogames.net. Their database includes hundreds of games, many of which are free. The categories also range from fun word and card games to first person shooter and strategy games. All the games that are listed on this site are designed to be playable by the blind.
As I mentioned, when I was using a PC I played lots of these games. Here are a couple of my favorites. Spoonbill software offers many free card and puzzle games. All you have to do is email the developer with your request and he sends you the game. L-Works Games offers arcade style and word games and the developer himself is visually impaired. Finally, if you want to play with people online, a great option is All In Play. There is a subscription fee to play these games, but there is a free trial. Also, the games are playable by the blind and sighted so it’s a great option for families.
What are your favorite video games? If there was a game you wish was more playable for the blind, what would it be?
Planeteers say
kamal yousaf taseer said :
Good job. I was much facinated by this useful site. To live with this we can get knowledge about softwares and games and other useful activities. So I can't express my emotions about this in words.Jane Lang traveled to a Yankees game as she always does with her guide dog named Clipper to the Morris Plains train station on a particular Tuesday. However, this Tuesday would be different because the Yankees would be accompanying her.
The Yankees who met her at her home and went to the train station included Manager Joe Girardi, pitchers Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, Chad Gaudin, and former Yankee Tino Martinez.
To say the least, Lang was surprised to see them there.
The Yankees give back to the community as part of Hope Week, which stands for Helping Others Persevere and Excel.
Lang is totally blind but this doesn’t prevent her from enjoying the game. She brings a radio to the game and reacts to the action on the playing field by listening to Yankee broadcasts.
Lang doesn’t think of herself as totally blind, The Yankee manager agrees.
“She’s obviously a person who’s very humble,” Girardi said while waiting for the train. “She was saying she didn’t think Hope Week was for someone like her.”
Gaudin was also impressed by her approach to life. “She’s excited about being alive … That’s the inspiration she gives everybody,” he said.
While at her home, the Yankees gave her a bouquet of flowers. Lang couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t see the Yankees but she knew them from hearing them on TV.
Everybody in the borough knew about the Yankee visit but Lang. “Hey guys! What do you think?” she called to them. “I was so surprised.”
Lang is an inspiration to everyone. She doesn’t let her blindness get the best of her and she enjoys her life to the fullest. She takes the train and enjoys the Yankee games both at home and at Yankee stadium. She is a great example of what we should all be: easy going.
More people, sighted or not, should take a page from her book and realize that a positive and laid back attitude will simply make for a much better quality of life.
To read the original article, please go to
Planeteers say
My name is Jorge. I’m a member of the NYC chapter of the National Federation of the Blind the Blind of New York, Inc.
My parents first got involved in the federation back in 2000, with Maria Garcia, the current president of NYPOBC. In 2002, we went to our first state convention. However, we were not active in the Federation on till 2007.
In that year I remember one of our NYS affiliate members commenting to us about a program called Blind Inc., run by a private corporation which had been certified by the NFB. She personally had attended the College Introduction Program, a 9 month program taught for adults entering college. However, she mentioned that there was a “life one on one” program, which ran for youth ages 13 to 17.
For the next three years we applied and researched the program, until at the start of 2010, I got an email from them letting me know I could go and should start talking with my CBVH counselor to start the process of requesting the funding.
When I first began the program, I was shocked to discover that all our counselors were blind. Not that I had any misgivings, as I had seen successful blind people before. The thing was, back then I had been used to “camps for the blind” run by the sighted.
Let me just start with the fact that the blind teaching the blind is perhaps one of the most unique experiences I’ve had, and at the same time one of the best.
To learn techniques certified by the NFB and corresponding authorities for everything from cooking, to industrial arts, to cane travel, and have these techniques taught by blind roll models with day-to-day enforcement in the various activities that we did after school and during the weekends is the best part of the camp. To make it even better, we were learning everything with almost no modifications from the standard tools and techniques of the sighted.
It’s one of the best experiences I can remember, and I can say with full confidence that I truly began to believe in the NFB’s philosophy and gain real confidence and independence. It was rewarding to both learn, and have to use these techniques, and be able to have people who could help me if I needed help. Many times, I turned to my friends or counselors for quick help, and they always gave me exactly what I needed, while always challenging me to achieve new levels of independence.
I would certainly recommend this program to any parent of the blind for their kids, especially if their kids are between the ages of 13 and 17. When sighted kids start gaining real independence from there parents, I think it’s crucial for our blind kids to learn and understand that they are not and should not be left behind, and just as their friends get to go to the movies by themselves, etc., so do they. The only exception is that there aren’t any blind drivers–yet. But who knows, with the blind-driver-challenge pushing onwards, someday we may be giving learner’s permits to 16 year old blind and low vision students.
The key is that you have to learn from these centers. Once you know the techniques and use them, your life is truly in your hands, and the road to independence begins. It is a road that will lead you to success in every area of your life.
Planeteers say
I am writing about a friend of mine who shall go nameless. He is in a wheelchair, on a fixed income, and doesn’t go out very much because of circumstances I won’t go into. As a result, the man is frustrated because many times he wants to go out with his friends, but can’t.
I invited my friend out with us to have dinner at one of his most favorite restaurants and, of course, he sincerely wanted to go. The problem is, as is the case with many people in his situation, he can’t find an accessible and affordable ride to and from the restaurant. I tried every means at my disposal to help him. Yesterday, I found a company who provides transportation. I called the owner and told her the situation about my friend. She asked if he could transfer his body into a regular car, and I said he could. In fact, it probably would be easier for him to do that because he can move his legs better than other people in wheelchairs who need an accessible van.
I thought I was having a great conversation with the owner of this transportation company. She was very sympathetic about my friend, and wanted to take him to the restaurant. I gave her his address and the name of the restaurant, and then she quoted her price.
As I said, my friend is on a fixed income. He doesn’t work, and makes just enough money to survive. Despite his limited finances, the owner of the transportation company wanted to charge him $80 for the ride to and from the restaurant. I realize that the restaurant is 15 miles away, but I don’t think that fully excuses the company. I can get to this same restaurant for $15, and I don’t live too far from my friend.
For the record, I want to point out that this particular transportation provider is not the only company that charges these outrageous prices. There are numerous providers who have no problem telling a person with a physical disability it will cost them close to $100 of their limited monthly income in order to meet a social need. In other words, it’s simple: pay the $80 or stay home. What if we all had those limited choices? Could we survive socially?
I don’t know how these transportation providers can sleep well at night, knowing what they charge people with disabilities who struggle to make ends meet every month. After all, we pay rent, buy groceries, pay the utility bills, pay medical co-payments, etc.
I’ve had numerous discussions with people over the years about this subject. I know all about insurance costs, operating costs, labor, and the like. Even though, as a businessman, I understand and respect everything that companies have to go through to be successful at what they do, I find it an injustice when a person with limitations, who wants to do the same things that the rest of us do, has to pay an outrageous amount of money that he doesn’t even have in order to keep up.
Some of you may be asking about his family. Well, if he can’t force his family to provide him with rides, then I can’t comment or make that argument. Therefore, he, like everyone else in his situation, has to live with this terrible injustice. I am tempted to ask a transportation provider what would happen if he had a loved one in a wheelchair who couldn’t get out that easily, and then had salt rubbed in their wounds by being told he had to spend $80 to go out, and that doesn’t even include his dinner.
I know that these transportation companies are private entities, and therefore, by definition, they can do what they want to do in order to compete with each other. Again, why does this all have to be at the expense of someone who not only has a limited income, but is physically limited? I honestly don’t get it, unless someone tries to justify it. I know about the SRTA Bus Demand Response. I use it myself. However, the bus does not run in the evenings and on holidays.
Planeteers say
As I mentioned in the previous letter from the editor, I wanted to include an article about my experiences with the magazine so far. I suppose that the best place to start, as with most stories, is at the beginning.
I was asked to become the new editor of the magazine by the president of the E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, the governing body of the publishing company. I had worked on various other unrelated projects with her before and she felt that I would be a good fit for the magazine because I am a decent writer, but also because I could offer a new perspective; that of someone new to the blind community and looking forward to learning as much as I could. It was a fresh start, and I wasn’t handed the reigns from any predecessor. I had very few things at my disposal to reference and, for the most part, the rest was up to me to figure out.
I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a bit overwhelming at first. But being 24 years old at the time and having an opportunity like this handed to me, I wasn’t about to let it pass me by. Instead of tiptoeing around the pool, so to speak, I jumped right in. My first real exposure to you readers was clicking through your emails and gaining a familiarity with the types of questions I would be asked, the problems that came up from time to time, and the relationships that had been fostered with the previous staff members. To me, the latter was the most important. While questions and problems represented the nut and bolt operations of the magazine, the reader-editor relationship is what is truly important. You are my audience and it is my duty to not only work for you, to entertain you, but to also work with you. It is, after all, your magazine.
As my plans for the magazine developed through December and early January, I was excited to release my first weekly magazine. When I did so on January 18, I nervously waited for my first comments from readers. I expected that there would be problems at the start, but I had worked hard to find some interesting material to fill the magazine with and hoped that you all would really enjoy reading it.
I’m going to digress for just a moment and highlight the biggest challenge that I was met with when I first began my work here with you. I was an outsider looking in. I was a sighted person, with no prior experience within the blind community at all. I didn’t know a screen reader from a Victor reader. I couldn’t tell you the difference between the NFB and the NBP, or the NLS. Most of my knowledge about the blind came from recalling my driver’s test, when they asked what it meant if someone was walking with a white cane. I also knew not to touch service dogs, though I have no recollection of where I learned that. So I had to make a choice: go into it scared, or go into it scared, but with a lot more know-how behind me so I could get by while I continued to learn. I was determined to reduce my outsider status to at least that of a well-informed visitor.
Now, back to that first magazine. In retrospect, it was quite awful. Not so much the content, but the way it was presented. The format of the magazine needed polishing and purpose. The first version was without a proper heading and navigation symbols. The special notices and pen pals sections were nearly unreadable for anyone using a screen reader. I worked hard to find interesting topics, but the writing was hidden behind so many formatting faults that any redeeming qualities were rendered moot. It was a magazine for the blind created by a sighted person who didn’t know any better.
As I saw the first comments come in, my heart sank. Needless to say, they weren’t very positive, and to be honest, I don’t blame them. Looking at that first magazine now, I’m both proud of how far it’s come in such a short time and ashamed that my first magazine revealed my ignorance of the needs of my audience so vividly. While the comments were a mixture of brutal jabs and sadness, I soon found that many of them were issued with a mission of constructive criticism. Many recommended things like a proper heading, and navigation symbols. Leaving out the proper heading was a rookie mistake on my part, but I would have never thought of the ## navigation symbol. When its purpose was explained to me, it made perfect sense and such a simple change made the magazine so much more user friendly. Other comments came in letting me know that odd square symbols were showing up in the text. While it took me weeks to figure out what was going on, I was able to fix it with their help. Each week they told me where they were popping up.
With all of the help I received in the first week, I was able to completely reformat the magazine and resend a proper copy later that week with a full heading and navigation symbols. I felt that while it was my job to make it right, everyone was working to make it better and teaming up with people to make it happen was a great experience.
As time went on, the negative comments also turned into constructive criticism and I could tell that even those who were the most upset about the format changes had come around and were enjoying the magazine every week. The addition of my feature writers is something that I’m sure helped them come back to the magazine a lot quicker, too. Even with all of the accessible formatting in the world implemented in this magazine, it would still be a magazine for the blind written by a sighted person if it weren’t for them. As I said before, this is your magazine. It needs to have perspectives given by other blind and visually impaired writers to make it a valuable publication for you. For my part, I really enjoy discovering a few articles each week and including them at the end, but the best part of my job is reading what they’ve submitted and getting a fantastic insight into the blind community.
You are all very inspiring, and I don’t mean that in a patronizing, look at all the cool things you can do, kind of way, either. I mean that your attitudes about life are really positive and vision be damned, you’re going to live you’re life as anyone else does. I’ve never experienced vision loss, but if I do, I hope I can live with it with the strength and positivity that you all have.
So, as someone who used to be a total outsider to this wonderful community I’ve found myself immersed in, I’d like to say thank you for everything that you’ve taught me, and for welcoming me in even though things started out pretty rocky. It’s an honor to work with and for all of you and I’m looking forward to continuing this for a long time.
Planeteers say
This article was sent to me by Ziegler reader Danni. Thanks, Danni!
Results from a new study have found that the drug used to treat epileptic seizures called valproic acid, may halt or actually reverse vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that affects countless people around the world. The team who discovered this possibility work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and are planning on conducting specific trials to confirm that this find is indeed true and not a fluke.
Retinitis pigmentosa affects roughly one in four thousand people and normally causes vision loss by age forty. RP is technically a group of diseases that causes degeneration of the retina and is linked to 40 gene groups, all of which cause different types of RP. Up until now, the only treatment for RP was to inundate the patient with vitamin A palmitate, which slows the progression of the disease, but is unable to stop it entirely.
All forms of RP are essentially processes of inflammation and cell death, both conditions that valproic acid is designed to fight against. During this preliminary study, they administered specific doses of the drug to seven patients who had RP over a time between two and six months. When the trial concluded, 5 of the patients experienced vast improvements in vision even though their RP had progressed to a point that is normally untreatable.
Now that the preliminary trial has proven to be promising, 2.1 million dollars are being put into a proper study to test the drug against a placebo and hopefully achieve a more concrete result with a larger pool of participants.
It never ceases to amaze me when drugs were created for one purpose but can actually have positive affects in other areas of medicine as well. It makes you wonder what other drugs could help with many other conditions but simply haven’t been tested yet. If nothing else, it seems that valproic acid may be the answer to eliminating RP and saving the vision of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100812/NEWS02/708129760/-1/headlines
Planeteers say
In what will surely turn into a case of privacy versus public safety, New Jersey police stations have begun creating Facebook profiles and using them to advertise criminal activity in their surrounding area.
Some of their posts are placed as an effort to catch local criminals who are responsible for burglary, assault, and other crimes. In these cases, the information is no different than what would be on the air on local news stations. The criminals are still at large and need to be caught. The police need to use every resource they have at their disposal in order to catch them and it seems perfectly acceptable to utilize social media in order to close the case.
Where things get a little dicey is when they start shaming criminals from crimes like a DUI. Currently, the police station posts mug shots of people arrested for DUI, theft, and child pornography in an attempt to reveal to the public what is going on in their community and who to look out for. Their argument is that the information they post is in the public domain already, so it shouldn’t matter if it’s on their page as well. Others feel that since Facebook is such a popular venue, defamation may become an issue. Just because the information is public doesn’t mean that it needs to be posted in every available public place.
This creates an interesting situation. What criminals should and shouldn’t be posted on the Facebook page? Should it be all or nothing, or should there be a gray area open to interpretation? Should sex offenders take precedent over someone arrested for drunk driving? Would it be considered unequal treatment and punishment, since those people who make it on the Facebook page will have to face both their punishment in the justice system and scorn in their community?
There are tons of questions that can be asked about this situation and the problem is that no one answer is absolutely right or wrong. The public domain has grown extensively, and maybe this is just the next step. However, one must ask; where does it end?
Tell me what you think about this in the Reader’s Forum.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1681227/print
Planeteers say
When I was younger, I used to always fight with my mother about turning down the volume of everything from my headphones to the television. Now, it seems that I’m lucky that she won so many of those fights. A new study reveals that one in five teens have hearing loss. In fact, since a study done from 1988 to 1994, hearing loss in teens aged 12 to 19 has increased 30 percent–a huge jump.
While the majority of the loss was considered mild, there was a sharp increase in those who experienced a loss of 25 decibels or more. Doctors couldn’t definitively conclude that an increase of ear infections or volume of music was what caused the increase. Rather, they believe that the relationship between volume and related side effects has become highly underestimated by today’s youth.
Most teens don’t pay attention to things like tinnitus, a ringing in the ears after they’ve been exposed to loud noises, and that may be the cause for increased hearing loss. If it doesn’t cause noticeable pain, they may not think that there’s a problem and are less likely to report the issue to a parent or doctor.
Doctors are concerned that increased exposure to loud volumes without any intervention or personal prevention might lead to difficulties with language development and learning in general.
As I’ve gotten older, loud music has become less and less enticing and can, at times, be outright annoying if it lasts for too long. When I was a kid, I used to listen to my music at a level that would make normal people cringe. Hopefully today’s teens will grow out of the habit as I have, or else there might be serious issues that they’ll have to address in years to come. Unfortunately, with hearing, once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/teen-hearing-loss-soars-30-percent-in-three-decades/19591439
Planeteers say
Last month marked the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act into law by former President George Bush. When the former President passed this law, which is quite lengthy to read, I felt that persons with disabilities took a major step toward equality with everyone else. Despite its complexities, the entire focus of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is for all persons with disabilities to be treated exactly the same way as persons who are able bodied. In my city, New Bedford, Massachusetts, we have a bus company that offers fixed route as well as door to door service. The door to door service is specifically for passengers with disabilities, who can book their ride ahead of time and have the bus driver pick them up at their homes. This bus company abides by the ADA completely. It doesn’t allow its bus drivers to help a passenger with a disability once he’s off the bus and on the sidewalk. The logic in this is that regular busses for everyone else offers curb to curb service, so the special busses should offer the same service, even though the passengers on these busses have special needs. I know several bus drivers who want to help their disabled passengers beyond what the company requires, such as bringing the passenger to the doorway of the building. Despite the driver’s kindness, he could find himself in a great deal of trouble with his company if it is learned what he did. There are those who get angry when they see a bus driver take off on a blind person. However, advocates who push for equality between the disabled and nondisabled may want to be careful of what they ask for, if they are the ones getting upset at this bus driver. The point to this discussion is quite simple. How do you feel about the Americans with Disabilities Act? Do you think the past twenty years have served persons with disabilities in a favorable manor as a direct result of this legislation?
Planeteers say
Peter Gleick knows more about water than most people around the world. In his most recent book, he outlined the problems with bottled water and why it’s popularity is such a problem. In fact, it’s become an unsustainable business in the United States.
He says that twenty five years ago, each American drank roughly 1 gallon of bottled water in a year. Now, that number has risen to 30 gallons a year. Today, every second of the day, 1,000 bottles of water are consumed in the U.S. alone. The amounts of fuel involved in the production of the bottles, to run the plants, and to power the delivery vehicles is incredibly high. Rough calculations show that it requires between 17 and 18 million barrels of oil per year to create these bottles of water.
Recycling is another big issue. Even cities with the best recycling programs around still find their landfills brimming with empty water bottles. They harm the environment and represent money being tossed in the garbage. All the fuel costs that went into their production will never be offset by recycling them and creating something else, or even just more water bottles.
Gleick also points out that ground water depletion is another big issue. He cites one company whose water source is a desert spring in a remote canyon outside of Palm Springs. The more water the company removes from there, the less there is available for the plant and animal life in the desert area, an already dry place to be.
With worldwide bottled water consumption at around 40 billion gallons a year, it seems that the real solution is being overlooked. There are many people who do not have safe water to drink. An emphasis needs to be placed on advanced filtration systems and wells so that these people can have a reliable water source and water that can be obtained inexpensively.
Here at home, we need to emphasize that our tap water system is actually quite good, but that there is room and a need for improvement. The Safe Water Act is outdated and our systems do need to be upgraded. However, as Gleick points out, all of these upgrades can be done at a cost far lower than that of producing more and more bottled water, especially since 45 percent of bottled water is filtered municipal water anyway.
After reading this article, I thought about how much less bottled water I’ve been drinking since I bought myself a Brita filter and started drinking filtered tap water. how nice would it be if I didn’t even need the Brita and my confidence in straight tap water was restored? With such a basic necessity like water, we really need to concentrate our resources on making the overall system better for everyone and shift our focus away from company products which have seemingly stolen our public water supply away from us through marketing campaigns and ubiquitous availability.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1678595/print
Planeteers say
I am the queen of frugality, and I thrive on stability, so if you told me that I would ever be self-employed, I would say you were crazy. But here I am with three part-time jobs. The good news is that I like all of my jobs, the bad news is that they still don’t earn me the kind of money I would like to be earning. I think, though, that there is a lot to be said about self-employment when you’re disabled, so I want to tell you what I think are the benefits and drawbacks to the world of self-employment.
We’ll start with the benefits. Number one, of course is that my home is my office. If I don’t have anywhere to go for the day I can roll out of bed and stay in my pj’s if I want to. Having my home as my office also means I can work in a comfortable spot on the couch or set up a real office situation with a desk and comfy chair.
The second benefit is that all of my jobs are contract work, so I decide on my hours. If I don’t want to work until 10:00 I don’t have to. My bosses give me deadlines and projects sometimes, but I still get to decide when I want to do my assigned tasks.
The third, and one of the best, benefits has to be that I’m doing work that I like. When I started getting involved with social media and the great blind community, I knew that I wanted to work promoting a company that I believed in. Working for Sendero allows me to do that. The next thing that I found a passion for was helping people learn how to use technology that could enhance their lives. Working for the commission for the blind as their Apple computer consultant and VoiceOver specialist feeds that passion. Finally, my joy of writing led me to blogging and now being a writer for this wonderful magazine.
Now that you know the benefits, here comes what I believe are the drawbacks. I mentioned at the beginning that I’m not earning very good money. This isn’t because I’m self-employed, it just happens to be that none of my jobs pay a lot. There are numerous people who earn very good money being self-employed, but they usually have to be charging their clients a lot of money per hour, or be working more hours than I am.
The other major drawback for me is that I have to worry about taxes. When I get my checks, no money has been taken out for taxes. This means that I’m earning even less money. Thankfully I’m extremely frugal and I love saving money, so hopefully when the tax bill arrives next year I won’t completely freak out.
So, if you find that you either don’t like the work you’re doing, or that you just can’t find a regular job, consider looking at self-employment. Self-employment jobs can include everything from doing contract work like I do to owning your own business. Just remember that to be good at any job, you have to be motivated and want to be successful at the work you’re doing.
Planeteers say
How do you handle grocery shopping? Does someone accompany you? Are your groceries delivered? Our shopping experience has been by degrees amusing and aggravating and do we ever have ridiculous and outrageous tales to tell. I bet you do as well. Let me tell you, we take the shop till you drop phrase to its literal meaning. Ouch! My feet are still smarting from our latest excursion.
Hey! I Thought We got…
As individuals with partial sight, we have mainly chosen to go it alone and brave grocery shopping on our own, only asking for assistance when we really feel it to be necessary. This has made for some near misses with regard to items happily plopped into our shopping cart. I recall the day Maria proudly waved an elongated box of something in front of my face, announcing that she had found the Ronzoni pasta we usually purchased. Shaking with uncontrollable giggles, I none-too-gently informed her that she had indeed grabbed a box of Reynolds Wrap and we would not be having that with pasta sauce that evening or any other. Now, in all fairness, Maria reads the Braille and I read the print. That is our system and we have stuck to it for years. It works. This was also during a time when my vision was much clearer. Another incident found us returning home from one of our marathon shopping sprees only to find that instead of the delicious pineapples, which we dearly love, we had purchased a plastic container of so-so honeydew melon slices. They were okay but not what we wanted. Of course, we did not have a clue until we forked a few slices into our mouths. “Hmm. What on earth is wrong with this pineapple?” we thought. Or how we wound up with chopped crabmeat rather than seafood salad is anyone’s guess. It took a while to figure out what on earth it was as we did not want to open it lest we offer the unsuspecting container to our neighbor. We have also been known to try new things simply because I can read the label of a fashion. Take our latest haul. I snatched up a bottle of something called Tari Cherry juice. I had no clue whether it was to be drunk or used as a cooking sauce. We tried it and, thankfully, it is a rather tart cherry drink. Perhaps it says “Tart Cherry.” I will take another look. To be fair, Maria has become very adept at choosing reliable items. Our tried (and mostly true) method has been to pick up the item, turning it around in order for Maria to try to identify it or I peer at it using my faithful Sherlock trick.
Sherlock Holmes Revisited
It is nothing short of amazing how a few new batteries can improve the lighting of a hand-held magnifier. Purchased for sixty-five dollars at the Lighthouse Low Vision Clinic, this would be my beloved extra-wide lighted visual aid. I have no idea where the magnified glasses have gone but I am rarely without my magical magnifier. Noticing that some print was not as bright as it could be, I bemoaned the fact that I really needed to do something about it. Why it took so long to rectify the situation, I cannot fathom. Most recently, a song I’ve sung for years entitled “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine,” was never more true. I was able to read ninety-nine percent of the items we picked up for consideration into our ever-bulging cart. All I need is a cap and cape and I am ready to identify any label stuck under my nose. I have also noticed that I must hold the item in my hand in order to see it. It does me no good whatsoever to pass the magnifier over items at arms length.
My magnifier is a wonderful tool and I am lost without it, but I am constantly thwarted by the marketing departments for all the products we know and love. These hip (more than likely sighted) people are not happy unless they are changing the look of the labels. If the print is plain, large, and well contrasted against a reasonably-colored background, they sneer and look at it with a jaundiced eye and say, “Let’s change that. The buying public has been staring at that label for too long. Our product has been around for many years, let’s make it look fresh by decreasing the size of the font, change it to a modern color like lime green or sherbet pink and place it against a faint background such as lemon yellow. That way, it will stand out. If we can’t change the inside, we’ll change the outside.” I cannot even begin to tell you the hackles that are raised when I inevitably come across new labels. I then begin doing the magnifier hand dance to catch the best light and contrast in order to make out what kind of corn I am actually buying.
Shopper’s Assistants Or Not
Our favorite supermarket, Pathmark, used to offer shopper’s Assistants. Think of the little girl with the little curl. When it was good, it was very, very good and when it was bad, it was truly horrid! Imagine a helper who cannot read or who knows very little about the items in a store. Our assistants ranged from the outstanding to the outrageous. It takes half the time to shop with an able assistant who knows what they are doing and what you want. Breezing through the aisles, we gather our goods and get on out of there. Picture this: There we were, in the midst of asking the shopper to help us find this and that, and all of a sudden, we are standing there by ourselves and she has simply walked away. We supposed her shift was over and she had to really beat it out of there. We stood stunned for a moment. Luckily, our shopping was almost done and we were able to locate the remaining items, but we could not believe it. We never saw her again and if she saw us, she gave no hint. We were sick when we abruptly learned that they would no longer be offering this valuable service. It was akin to the feeling we experienced as we marched into Pathmark a few days ago only to find that the Chase mini-bank was no longer housed in the store. Even the ATM’s were gone. Seems the convenience of the customer is a minor consideration at this particular store.
Getting it all Home
As we must take a bus to this particular Pathmark, we do not go there often. This journey requires some planning. Not only does it take us hours to shop using our “pick up and peer” method, but then there’s the question of how do we get it all home. Do we opt to take a cab or pay for Pathmark’s delivery service? I think it’s fair to say that what I’m about to describe is a uniquely New York experience. On the occasions when we choose to take a cab, we leave the store proper with our shopping cart. Generally, a man comes up to us and asks if we would like a cab. We respond in the affirmative and he goes off. If he is fortunate enough to hail a yellow taxi, which has a fare meter, we smile with glee and satisfaction. We pile into the cab or help pack the trunk, depending on how many bags we have and we take off, tipping him for his efficiency. Lastly, we tip the driver for helping take the bags out of the trunk and load them onto a cart kept here at the apartment house. We have also taken advantage of entrepreneurial souls who have a large sport utility van who offer to take us home. We are then forced to make a painfully slow ride up to the roof in what I call the cattle car as it is a super huge elevator. Our goods are then loaded into the van and we drive off with very little stress, except for the stress I felt while riding the cattle car, I mean, elevator. At least we only tip one person for this trip.
One incident sticks out in my mind that I must relay. We came to know one of the drivers by name. As we entered Pathmark on this particular day he offered to wait for us and take us home. Smiling at our good fortune we shopped with happy hearts, believing that we would leave the store, load our groceries into his van and be on our way. Well, we were later to learn that this Pathmark is located in a, shall we say, drug-infested area. Out we came with our cart and there to greet us was a police officer who offered to hail a cab. We also noticed that the street was eerily quiet and there were indeed an inordinate amount of police officers milling about. We surmised we must have blindly stumbled into a sting of sorts. We have not seen that young man again. It is quite sad and disheartening as he was very kind to us.
The last option is for us to use Pathmark’s dubious (but fairly reliable) delivery service for which we pay six dollars over the cost of our groceries. This generally requires only that we count the bags in order to tell the person who will then relay the information to the driver. Additionally, we try to locate any ice cream or frozen goods that might melt before making it to our destination. I must admit that this is the most stressful as we never know when our groceries are going to arrive. This last delivery debacle found us waiting about four and a half hours. Several calls found that our groceries had indeed left the store at a reasonable time but had to share space with six other orders. We also learned that we are to give a three-hour waiting period for delivery. Maria was furious. The delivery guy placed our groceries in our foyer, turned and walked out without even waiting for a tip. Maria closed the door and did not look back. It was the first time ever that we did not tip a delivery person. I think we might take our chances with a cab. I suppose the one positive outcome was that the frozen shrimp were ready to eat and I was absolutely starving.
Our next Trek!
We have and might still ask my niece to accompany us. This is a pleasant affair but brings with it the always fun obstacle of scheduling, scheduling, scheduling. My Cousin has also offered to help with various visual tasks. I think I just might take her up on her offer to accompany us on our next grocery shopping outing. Independence is a wonderful and necessary aspect of our lives but can be a royal pain in the rear.
We do have a service that will deliver but it tends to be quite a bit more expensive and there are rules for delivery. Oh, how I wish Peapod delivered in our area. I was absolutely green with envy when I learned that residents in a certain part of New Zealand not only have grocery but butcher delivery. It remains to be seen what crazy experience we will have when next trying to stock our bare cupboards. Ah, you might ask if we do not have a grocery store in our neighborhood. We do but while it is near, the selection is not as wide and the prices are higher. We have returned to it, though, as it does not offer the stress and unpredictable happenings of our favorite super store uptown. Wish us luck on our next venture.
Well, Lynne strikes again. Our V8 splash drink turned out to be of the diet variety. I wonder if our neighbor would like it?
Planeteers say
Originally printed in the July/August issue of Dialogue Magazine
August 17 – 24, 2009
We’re on the bridge poised between the flagpoles separating the United States and Canada.
“Hey Mom, we’re in two countries at once.” Says my daughter.
I don’t think crossing into Mexico would feel the same. For one thing, we’re surrounded by water not desert; the other reason is the Canadian border patrol officer is brisk and efficient, dismissing us once my husband casually adds that he is a Customs and Border Protection officer back in the United States. Somehow I don’t believe that a border crossing in or out of Mexico would be as simple. In any case, it pays to have perks. In fifteen minutes we’re over the bridge and heading to our hotel overlooking the Falls.
The hotel lobby is busy and full of obstacles, and my guide dog expertly whisks me around them all and into the elevator. Luckily our room is at the end of the hall and easy for me to find.
The daughter, husband, and mother-in-law, ooh and aah over the view from the 36th floor facing the falls. “It’s beautiful, Mom” my daughter says.
I look out the window and realize that it’s all lost to me. For her sake, I try to smile. I manage a horrible sounding sigh instead.
“I wish I could see it.” My words are choked and I fight back tears. The hope of being able to sear the visual loveliness of Niagara Falls past my damaged eyes and into my memory flies away with the mist. For a few minutes I’m overcome with grief. What a bittersweet way to take the final plunge into blindness, facing the daunting and unforgiving power of Niagara.
My guide dog, Verona, steps up to the glass and looks down. I can tell by the way she holds her ears that she is thinking. It’s at a time like this that I would willingly give away the rest of my sight to know what’s going on inside her doggie brain. I stand beside her, knowing that she will make my time here less stressful. I can’t wait to work with her while we tour Niagara and downtown Ontario.
Rather than obsessing on what I can’t experience visually, I unpack, the busy work is calming. When I’m done, the grief is gone, replaced by anticipation of the pleasant sort mixed with resolve. I came here to learn how to vacation with my new guide dog and prove to myself and to family that I don’t need my vision to do it. I just hope I didn’t set the bar too high.
Our suite is spacious and well appointed a whirlpool tub and fireplace completing the amenities. Verona loves the plush, sculpted carpeting and inspects every inch at her leisure.
Day three, we take the deluxe bus tour, ending with the ride beside the Falls on The Maid of the Mist. But first we are driven to other key points in and around the Lake District. Verona and I get the front seat behind the driver. The tour bus driver, Dave, is like a cross between a big brother and walking history book. As we drive through the Niagara region, Dave tells us the parkland and the falls are leased for tourism and maintained by the parks department. The Canadian government has control of the entire area. Even the casinos are leased out, adding that the hotels and tourism by the falls have developed due to the government finally legalizing gambling.
During the tour, Verona has to work hard to keep me safe. In one park she is asked to keep up with our group. As the crowd parts to surge around a low stone bench, she stops short but I keep moving and hit my knee against it. Before I can even react, my husband is urging us around it. “Hurry up or we’ll loose our group.”
We hup up and when I finally feel my knee, I find a scrape and it’s already hot and swollen. I pop two ibuprofen and choose to ignore the pain.
On our way back to the bus I go past the bench and Verona guides me around it. I’m not quite sure what happened on our way in but our little error makes her pay even closer attention now. I relax my doubt that she can’t keep me safe and remind myself that new teams will have moments like this. Our instructor at guide dog school was always reminding us to trust our dog. She also reminded us that younger dogs will make mistakes and we need to pay attention to avoid potential errors. Perhaps if I’d paid closer attention to what Verona was trying to tell me I wouldn’t have stepped forward and hit my knee.
It’s two p.m. when we finally get on line to board the boat for the falls. We’re herded, cattle-style, into a small plaza outside the quay. It’s hot and I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with the other tourists. Verona stands with me, patient ands stoic. It takes an hour for us to finally get on the boat and I don the blue plastic poncho; the hood barely covers my head but it fits easily over my bag and body. The boat is shaped like a small ferry. The ride to the Falls is only three minutes and I hear the roar and feel the wind rushing under my thin, plastic poncho. We ride along the horseshoe curve of the Falls and it is awesome; we’re pelted with water and wind gusts so strong that our ponchos are being ripped off as we try to stuff them back in place. I’m yelling, laughing, and loving the feeling of the water and wind on my face and body. For a few moments I forget I’m holding onto Verona’s leash and a stab of concern pulls me from my adrenaline rush. I look down, feeling her huddled under my husband’s legs, trying to avoid the water. I pet her and tell her its okay. I get the feeling that she can’t wait until it’s over.
Then, as fast as it begins, it is over and we’re back at the quay, wet, excited, and glad to have done it. I have just enough time on the way out to let Verona shake off the water and I dry her, knowing she truly is a great dog. Unflappable. I’m so proud of her, and I tell her she’s done a good job. The flub into the bench is forgotten.
That evening we order pizza and have it delivered to our room. We’re all wiped out from the tour and even Verona takes a long nap on the king sized bed, belly-up. Her snores making me smile. It sounds so satisfying and less annoying coming from her than coming from my husband. Before long, I’m lulled to sleep by her soft sounds, foot sore and ready to take on what ever comes our way.
Planeteers say
I am certain that many of us share a similar reading experience. We began with cassette tapes and many might still prefer that method. Others, like Maria and I, have embraced the digital age and all it has to offer. It is my pleasure to share my reading technology experience with you. This piece will either cause you to look back with a nostalgic smile, be thankful for the way you read right now, or turn your thoughts to a digital future.
Is There Ink on My Nose?
As a young girl I was able to read regular print. Two favorites were Julie Andrews Edwards “Mandy” and Richard Scarry’s “What Do People Do All Day?” Not realizing it at the time, the Scarry book was a true vocabulary book in that each object had a descriptive word next to it. I found it imaginatively entertaining in that animals were the ones who held the various positions of teacher, farmer, doctor and such. There were no humans involved. I am certain I inhaled more ink than recommended by the family doctor, but the print was relatively large enough to read at the time and I could not keep my nose out of it. I recall needing to use a magnifier to get through the small print of the Andrews’ novel. Again, the story was engaging and I patiently went through it, thoroughly pleased with myself for having done so. The magnifier kept the ink off my nose. You see, I found something positive in what could have been a hazardous health situation.
Little Green Boxes and Big Yellow Players
Uncertain as to the exact year I began reading books on cassette, I am eternally grateful to whoever suggested that I register with the National Library Service (NLS). My mother used to complain something chronic that the post people would be unable to stuff any mail into the mailbox for all the books I was receiving. I assured her she was not missing any important bills or must-read celebrity gossip magazines as a result. Our mailbox was quite deep and everything fit nice and snug.
No selection about the cassettes from the National Library Service would be complete without mentioning their beloved playback machines. Oh, my! How many times were you enjoying a marvelous book with a riveting plot and narrator and suddenly, you hear the dreaded noise—the awful sound of a thin piece of tape being garbled by the gears? Did you attempt to fix it? I was not always able to do so by gingerly unraveling the tangled mess by poking my finger or a pencil through the holes to re-thread it, I then ran around the apartment, checking all doorknobs to find any stray rubber bands to put around the cassette in order for the powers that be at our local library to know it was damaged. As books were my lifeline, I even carried that bulky machine in my backpack wearing an earphone as I trooped up and down the noisy streets of New York. The book competed with hectic traffic and I am quite sure I missed a line or two. For those unfamiliar with an earphone, I offer the following description: Imagine a small, white piece of plastic shaped to fit into one ear with a cable at the end and a jack to plug into the machine. There was absolutely no use in using stereo headphones as the sound would only come through one ear.
Being Flexible
Also known as the Flexi-Disc, did you have an opportunity to experience these soft records? Heaven forbid they become bent then your book was warped and might not play or would sound quite strange. I recall listening to many an adventure series on this fragile media.
We feverishly wanted it and we finally got it—the ultimate reading machine—the cassette-flexible disc combination. Do you remember that lovely piece of technology? The play feature was quite unique in that you pulled a cover over the cassette that snapped into place rather than press a play button. Regrettably, these devices were quite fragile as well and did not last long. Maria and I returned to our reliable albeit bulky cassette players.
Portability at a Price!
How amazing it was to finally be able to carry a small, lightweight 4-track cassette player in my backpack that would read my beloved NLS material. My overworked back rejoiced. This portability came with a high price and, at $250.00 U.S., it was a hefty investment for someone who made a modest salary, to put it nicely. For a short period of time I tried the handy cassette sold by the American Printing House. The machine played well enough, but somehow, I know not how, the cassette door to the cassette became unhinged, probably in sympathy with its owner. The price was definitely more affordable at $125.00 but still not rock-bottom cheap. Sheepishly, I refrain from revealing how many portable cassette machines I owned. I was fast becoming a techno-nut and my poor bank account was baring the brunt of it.
CD, Anyone?
Just a note: we adore the National Library Service, but back in the day it took a while for books to be recorded and we, as avid readers, were never really ever up to date with the latest bestsellers. This changed, to our utter delight, when we began purchasing commercially-produced cassettes by the large, famous publishing houses such as Random House and Simon and Shuster. This was quickly followed by our buying books on compact disc (CD’s). Confession time: Although I read and enjoyed books on CD, I was unable to change the speed to suit my taste. I had grown used to that practice thanks, again, to the original NLS player. Additionally, imagine my horror as I sat there enjoying a good read and what was supposed to be an indestructible CD began skipping and there was nothing I can do about it. At least with the flexible disc I could place a coin on the needle and sometimes it might stop that annoying skipping and I could continue. We do not own many books on CD but recently I have begun acquiring a particularly engaging series from Listen and Live Audio. The latest book arrived by what seemed to be the snail trail but it was well worth the wait. There are those who might find commercial cassettes and audio CD’s a bit prohibitive in their pricing but the quality is generally quite high and most do come without errors.
An Audible Addict
A simple phone call from a friend started our incredible Audible.com journey. We knew nothing about digital books, save the CD’s we were collecting. I immediately investigated what was, for us, a new service. It requires some computer knowledge and I am not going to sit here and tell you that I was not baffled at its behavior at times, but this download service cannot be beat for reading current material. A wealth of programming is offered and there is definitely something to suit everyone’s taste. We have the Premium Plan, which allows two downloads for $22.95 per month. You can choose from 5 formats. Material in Format 1 is of dubious quality. Format 2 gets somewhat better. Format 3 is doable. Format 4 sounds great and is the one I choose for my downloads. There is also an enhanced format available for some books. Always remember, though, higher quality means you’ll need more storage on your device. I am not sure whether they offer a similar gift but when I signed up in 2003, I was sent my first Rio MP3 player with a whopping…hold on to your down arrows, folks…64 megabytes of storage. It barely held one book in Format 2. Things have significantly changed. Another advantage of Audible is that the books are compatible with a multitude of players.
A word about the accessibility (or lack thereof) regarding the Audible site. In its early days we were able to hear the book sample as it was a simple link. The CEO of Audible realizes that we, as blind people have not been able to successfully access the listening samples in some years but he has made no promises. The company line is that they continue to work on issues of accessibility. Sadly, at the time of this writing, with Audible having recently updated their website, I am still unable to access the samples to hear previews of the books.
Digital Days
There is no turning back. I have read books on a visual device called a Closed Circuit television. My days for torturing my eyeball with that time-consuming, tedious device are irrefutably over. I have also attempted to read a book on a hardware device called a PlayAway. I found the sound quality to be poor and there was but barebones accessibility. I did not finish the book, by the way. One book per PlayAway was also a drawback. Maria completed the $45.00 mystery but she is more a reading bulldozer than I will ever be.
How could I possibly forget my first piece of digital reading technology—the Book Port sold by the American Printing House for the Blind (APH)? The plain truth is had I not been trying to finally clean up my creative space, I would have sadly neglected to mention this amazing audio book player that brought us into the digital age. Small, lightweight, easy to operate, and playing MP3’s, Audible books, and books in several text formats, it rarely left my backpack. Requiring only a small compact flash card, my vacation bags became infinitely lighter. Remember, I had dragged around cassettes and CD’s and no matter how I packed and stuffed them, they remained unwieldy. The Book Port opened an incredible new world of audio to me and I cannot stress its importance as an entertainment and educational device. Currently, APH is selling the latest iteration of the Book Port called the Book Port Plus. As a techno-nut, I am interested in seeing it but am not quite certain I will purchase yet another player. What’s that? Did I hear someone say “Good for you, show some restraint.” Never had it, never will. I am waiting for the promised Wi-Fi feature to be fully-realized before considering plunking down another $300.00.
These days my reading time is divided among three players; the victor Reader Stream sold by Humanware, the BookSense sold by GW-Micro, and the NLS player distributed by the National Library Service. Why do I need three reading devices? Well, I really do not, but as someone who is steeped in the blind community, it feeds my sense of responsibility to inform people of the choices they have. That is my line and I am sticking to it.
The victor Reader Stream was my first accessible digital book player and it will probably always be my favorite. Its sound quality and ease of use are excellent and for $349.00 it has proven to be very affordable by members of the blind community. The free NLS player is the easiest to use and also has exquisite sound quality. You can either order books from your local library or purchase a 2 gigabyte cartridge that will hold at least eleven books for more reading variety. This is my preferred method of reading on the device. I have not traveled with the player, as it is smaller than its predecessor but tends to be a bit on the heavy side. Among the FM radio and four gigabytes of storage, the BookSense XT offers the ability to play Microsoft Word documents, which is beneficial to me with regard to my job. These players are also known as DAISY devices, which stands for Digital Audio Information System. Another feature that is near and dear to me on all three players is the sleep timer, as I tend to doze off during late-night reading sessions. I hear you snickering, faithful reader. Now, I know that is because you sympathize with me. Right? Of course, you do.
As someone who has gone from analog cassettes to digital media, I understand the trepidation with trying new-fangled devices, especially those that require using the computer. Trust me, I have been there. Inevitably, there is a learning curve and serious frustration regarding finding, downloading, and transferring the material to the device. If you have a chance to experience digital media and you find it just might meet your reading needs, give it time and have patience with yourself and your style of learning. You really will not regret it. If this article has cemented your resolve to continue reading in any other way but digitally, I do not blame you as it can be a royal pain. In any case, happy reading, no matter how you do it.
Planeteers say
When I turned 18, I remember being so excited about getting to vote for the first time. I am a very passionate and opinionated person, and I knew that voting would make me feel like I was making my voice heard. In November of 2000, I voted for the first time, but I had to have help. The voting machines were not accessible. I felt good about making my vote, but I didn’t like that a stranger knew who I was voting for. When I moved to Oregon in 2002, I went from voting machines to paper ballots. Since I can’t read print, voting was still inaccessible. This time, though, at least I could have a family member or friend help me fill out my ballot. Since Oregon votes by mail I hoped that my state would come up with a way to allow me to really vote on my own, and in 2008 they did.
My state’s vote by mail system made accessible voting reasonably easy. In my case, the ballot is emailed to me in a format that works with my screen reader. I then go through the document marking my vote, and then I print out my ballot and send it in. Oregon also offers large print to people with low vision, or you can opt to go to the election office and have one of their employees help you vote. It is my opinion that these are some of the best solutions to making voting accessible.
I recently received a request from the NFB asking for our input on our voting experiences. They are hosting a seminar in September to election technology developers, and they want to make sure that these developers know what works best for the blind. Their request says, “If you are blind or have low vision and have used an accessible voting system in a federal election, please send an e-mail describing your experience, the city or county and state where you voted, and the type of accessible voting system used (if known) to Lou Ann Blake, NFB Jernigan Institute, at lblake@nfb.org.”
It is my hope that very soon voting will become fully accessible to the blind. I’m curious about other people’s experiences with voting, so please leave your comments in the reader’s forum. Voting is a fundamental right, and there is no reason that the blind shouldn’t be able to vote on their own like everyone else.
Planeteers say
A new law goes in to effect this month in regards to students getting college textbooks on time. College students will be able to receive book lists when they register for their classes. Publishers also have to disclose revision information and the price of the books.
Because of the new law, students will be able to take advantage of textbook by-back programs, book rentals, and cheaper prices on the internet. Professors will also have to pay attention to the prices of the books that they assign.
“Until this year, many schools didn’t give the book list until the week before classes, and you really had no choice but to head to the college bookstore,” says Christine Frietchen, editor in chief of ConsumerSearch.com.
The law is going to assist in gaining more interest in Chegg.com, according to Dan Rosensweig of the textbook rental site.
“If information isn’t available to you until the last minute, things like the Internet don’t really benefit you,” he says.
Borders started an online site that buys and sells books to other students or they can sell them to outside companies as well. Amazon also started a buy-back program of one million books where students can turn in their books for a gift card.
Spokesperson Charles Schmidt said that college bookstores can still be competitive. In addition, he also stated that with the college stores, students will be sure to get the correct edition and those bookstores have excellent return policies.
I think that this is a good law because students will be get and idea of how much their books will cost as soon as they register for classes. When I was going to college and I had to register in June for September’s classes, professors didn’t have their books ready yet. That meant that I couldn’t order them from (Rfb&d) Recording for the blind & Dyslexic. Now with the new law you can order books from RFB&D as well as many other sources such as bookshare.org provided you can document legal blindness and the $150 will be waived. Project Gutenberg also sells EBooks. Also, don’t forget the Louis database on the American Printing House for the Blind web site where you can search for agencies that carry books in alternative formats. Another option is to scan your books with Open Book or Kurzweil 1000.
To view the resources used for this article, please go to http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/college/2010-07-30-textbooks30_ST_N.htm
Planeteers say
A U.S. veteran has been banned from a Connecticut grocery store after the dog she uses to help her balance and reach low lying objects defecated in an aisle of the store. Despite cleaning up the mess herself, the store asked her to leave and not return.
Now, the woman is considering a lawsuit, claiming that the ban is in direct violation of the ADA. According to representatives from the store, the dog was not on a leash while it was making its mess, and it is the store’s responsibility to maintain public health.
While it seems that it’s one person’s word against another, these incidents are never as cut and dried as either party wishes them to be. If this does end up in court, it will be interesting to see what evidence is presented and who turns out to be wrong.
Now, many of you are responsible guide dog owners and I know that our own writer, Steven Famiglietti, has experienced something similar with his dog. What are your thoughts on this?
To be fair, there are two possible scenarios. The first is that the woman’s dog made a mess in the store and she apologized and cleaned it up herself. In this instance, the problem would have been addressed and solved by the owner and the store should absolutely not ban them from shopping there because of that. I can understand if they would be upset about it, but banning her is too harsh.
On the other hand, if the dog was not on a leash at the time, then the store may be well within their rights to ban the woman from shopping there. For reasons above and beyond what the dog did in the store, what if a child came up to it and provoked a biting. While the dogs are highly trained, it is very possible that this could have happened. If that was the case, then I believe the store would need to be responsible for their other patrons and ask the woman to leave.
Without the appropriate evidence, this is all conjecture, but it does create an opportunity for discussion. Feel free to share your thoughts in submission to the reader’s forum or comments on the site.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.courant.com/community/north-haven/hc-veteran-dog-banned-0803-20100802,0,7473252,print.story
Planeteers say
Jonathan Schoenakase is doing what not many people would ever volunteer to do. After realizing that drunk driving was endangering the lives of people in his surrounding area, he decided to start a charity transportation service called Courtesy Rides.
The service allows anyone to call him for a ride home and most of the people he picks up are leaving bars after a night of drinking. Instead of going to their car and making the potentially lethal decision to make the drive home, Jonathan is picking them up and bringing them to their door, free of charge, to protect his community. While he does not charge for the ride, he does accept donations to help offset the costs of his philanthropic service.
However, Jonathan’s popularity may be his downfall. In the beginning, police and city officials didn’t care that Jonathan did not have a taxi license for his service. His operation was small, consisting of only one car, and the service he was providing was keeping drunks off the streets. However, Jonathan added multiple vehicles and now has a small fleet which he and a couple of his friends operate. One of the vehicles is a modified RV. According to the Chief of police, it seems that Jonathan’s mission has changed from one-way trips home from the bar to advertising round trip service to anywhere in the surrounding area.
City officials, with pressure from local taxi services, are now looking to amend the ordinance that governs transportation services so that Jonathan will have to obtain the proper licenses in order to run his charity service, which is now transforming into what looks like a business. While police haven’t received any complaints, they’re worried that if an accident were to occur between Jonathan and another car that the city could be held liable for allowing him to operate his transportation service without a license. Police have even gone so far as to put an undercover officer on his bus to see if Jonathan would try to convince people to leave him tips or donations, neither of which he was ever observed doing.
It seems that while Jonathan’s service is growing in popularity, his mission hasn’t actually changed. He wants people to be transported safely and is willing to put in his time and money to see that it happens. While he should obtain the appropriate licenses, as any transportation service should, the harassment he is now receiving from authorities and city officials is baffling. That they would attempt to cease his operation by amending a city law is absurd, considering that the alternative would most likely be an increase of drunk drivers on the road who would rather drive than pay for a cab.
What Jonathan is doing is important and shows a level of public responsibility that may not be understood because it simply isn’t seen anymore. I know many towns and cities that would benefit from this type of service and if legal matters are put in place to block it, then others who may have considered emulating this may be discouraged. That would be a shame. I truly hope that the city does not erect ridiculous legal barriers that will force him to shut down, because I think they would seriously regret the result.
To read the original article, please go to http://www3.whig.com/whig/blogs/citybeat/2009/09/success-may-end-up-hurting-courtesy-rides
Planeteers say
If she was a car, the engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, and wheels would have all been replaced. In the time span of nearly 12 years, Allison John has had all of her major organs transplanted. Due to a series of serious illnesses that at times had her mere days from death, she received a new liver, kidney, heart, and lungs. She is the first person in Britain to hold this amazing title. Frankly, it’s surprising that anyone anywhere else has done this, too.
Now, as if she hasn’t seen the inside of a hospital enough, she has completed her medical degree and will become a doctor. She says that her wealth of experience with both the procedures and the doctors involved will hopefully help her deal with patients of her own as she begins her new profession.
Her most recent and final procedure, the kidney transplant, almost didn’t happen because the doctors felt she was too weak for general anesthesia. However, the procedure occurred years into her medical study and, using her knowledge, was able to convince doctors to numb her using an epidural. The alternative was accepted, but it left her conscious throughout the entire procedure. To keep herself distracted, she listened to music on her iPod.
As far as her luck goes, Allison considers herself to be very lucky. It’s difficult to find just one matching organ donor, and she was able to find four. Now, having been through more than any one person should endure, Allison is looking forward to her career as a doctor and is getting married in the near future as well.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1299589/Woman-ALL-major-organs-transplanted–qualifies-doctor.html?printingPage=true
Planeteers say
After losing the majority of her right leg, young Whitney Hemphill and her parents knew that things were going to change. Unfortunately, though, some things remain the same–in this case, the cruelty of children. As Whitney was attending a church camp, a group of children stole her prosthetic leg while she was in the shower, leaving her stuck there feeling embarrassed and alienated among her peers. Not surprisingly, Whitney did not want to return.
Her parents, always being supportive and looking for outlets that would be accessible for Whitney, encouraged her to try a new camp. She was understandably reluctant to give another one a shot, but her mother told her that they had found a camp just for her. It turns out that she found an Amputee Coalition of America camp, located in Clarksville, Ohio.
The camp, named the “Paddy Rossbach Youth Camp seeks to provide children with amputation or limb differences a sense of independence and support,” camp director Derrick Stowell said. After some mild convincing, Whitney realized that this particular camp would be a great opportunity to meet and socialize with a bunch of other kids her age who were going through the same things.
With the ACA covering all camp and airfare costs, the kids and their families can rest easy knowing that their child has a place just for them. The list of camp activities is really limitless, too, and campers are free to try anything. Camp director Stowell mentions that a girl attending the camp wanted to play tennis, but wasn’t sure how she would be able to since she had no arms. “‘Why don’t you just go try to play?” he told her. Sure enough, she figured out a way to play tennis and is now a member of her school’s tennis team.
Many other children share in that girl’s experience of having the barriers of a restrictive world stripped away when the people operating the camp truly believe in their potential. As for Whitney, she just can’t wait to go swimming with her new friends.
Programs such as this are immeasurably important. Children with disabilities need to experience an environment that’s built for them so that they can gain confidence in themselves and go about the rest of their lives comfortable with their condition. To have someone tell a girl with no arms to go give tennis a shot, or tell a girl who’s missing a leg to just dive into the pool, gives them incredible freedom and opens doors to a world where anything is possible.
To read the original article, please go to http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/pre-teen_attends_amputee_camp.html
Planeteers say
For most of my life, I did not have enough usable vision when doing manual chores. Yet almost every sighted person that I know would ask me to keep a light on in the room while he did the same chore as me. A perfect example is dialing a telephone. I know that there are adaptable telephones on the market for a blind person. They have bigger buttons, and in some cases a voice tells you what number button you are pressing. Fortunately, I can handle a regular phone without these adaptations. Yet when a sighted person is in my apartment, and needs to use my phone, I have to put on a light. There is no way that he could dial in the dark the way I do. I’ve asked myself why that is.
The obvious answer is that I am used to the dark, and adjusted to it because I had to. A sighted person obviously depends on their vision, because they have it to use. So when they are presented with a situation where light is absent, and try to do a chore like dial a phone or look through a silverware drawer, they are not used to the darkness. Would that be considered taking their vision for granted? Maybe. If you have something valuable that you’ve been counting on all your life, you would probably think you can always use it to accomplish your goal. Whenever someone tells me to put on a light because they can’t see in the dark, I always feel like telling them that it’s not difficult to get around without light, but then I stop myself when I remember how the sighted individual never had to deal with my situation. Let me explain a classic case of how a large group took their vision for granted. Several years ago, I was invited to a formal event, which included dinner, speeches, and music. The speeches lasted nearly one hour, and could have interested me if I heard what was being said. During the speeches, a crowd of people all around me were talking to each other, making it impossible for me to pay attention to who was talking on the stage. When the event was over, I told the event coordinator that half his audience never heard his presentation because they were too busy talking. The next day, I confronted someone about it. I asked why people in my section had to talk over the speeches, leaving me unable to hear what was being said. I could have guessed the answer. Apparently, the people who were talking around me could not see the stage. So, in other words, because they couldn’t see the stage, they felt they weren’t going to get anything out of the presentation. I spent the first 52 years of my life not being able to see the stage, yet I always want to hear who is talking or performing. Can’t people with vision resort to just listening without looking? You can look at a stage all night, but if you can’t hear what’s going on, it’s pointless to even be at the event.
This problem kept me away from this annual event for a long time, because I didn’t want to buy tickets to go there, eat, and not hear the speeches because a large group of 100 people near me can’t see the stage and would rather talk over the speeches. Ask yourself if this is taking sight for granted. I would love to hear reactions in the Readers’ Forum.
Planeteers say
My first trip out of the country. My first trip to a tropical island. These are my thoughts as we leave the ground at JFK. The only thing I wish I could have changed was that it cost less. I fell asleep after about an hour into the flight and woke up as we approached our destination. “Is it me, or are airlines adding leg room by taking away shoulder space?” I asked myself as I took my turn on the armrest. I briefly thought family togetherness was overrated.
We got there and it was so blue it hurts my eyes. It was hot but not humid. There were iguanas everywhere; pago-pagos (like geckos) and some other lizard with purple scales sat near the pool with the guests. Birds tried to steal the food from the outdoor buffets and swoop in on discarded food left on the tables. The wildlife is kindly tolerated but I found out later that iguanas are eaten like chicken.
I went to the beach while hubby got us the drink of the day, a pink, frothy concoction that would cause brain freeze if swallowed too fast. I drank it slowly because the brain freeze face isn’t attractive.
The sand there is as soft as velvet, free of sharp objects, and feels cool even in the midday sun. The rooms in our hotel were spacious and clean. I tried to buy bottled water but the natives insisted that the water was safe. Not convinced, I drank club soda for a few days, only using the ice to see if I could tolerate it. Amazingly, the clean, clear, desalinated water had no ill effects.
On day two, the mother-in-law (MIL) and I went on a bus tour of the island while hubby and my daughter went on an off-road tour on ATVs. My son, the slug, stayed in the room, sleeping.
Our effervescent bus driver, Stanley, took us on a three-hour tour which actually ended up becoming a six-hour excursion. I whole time I was thinking, “Is this how Ginger and Maryanne felt?” I found out Aruba is only 15 miles from Venezuela, 19.6 miles long and 6 miles wide. It is split up into seven districts. We visited the California lighthouse, named after the merchant ship, California, which ran aground in the early 19th century. On part of the island, forests of cacti and aloe vera spread out to the horizon. It is breathtaking in an Ansel Adams kind of way. The bushy sea grape trees are profuse, as are the little, slanted divi trees (more like bushes) and their larger cousins, according to Stanley, what natives call squigi trees. The latter reminded me of the flat-topped acacia trees in Africa. The palms are the most normal and unremarkable trees on the island. At least that’s what I thought after Stanley stopped by an overgrown cashew tree and plucked off a nut fruit. We passed it around as he chugged up the hill, stopping at another tree, identifying it as the island’s oldest and largest Christmas cactus. It was eight feet tall and just as wide, dense and healthy. I’d never seen one with multiple arms, let alone hundreds of them in full bloom. I thought that it must have been sacred to them. How else could it survive so close to the road if it wasn’t?
Soon after, Stanley drove up the hill to the Chapel of San Christo. He told us that it was erected by Catholic missionaries in 1780-something. As we turned up the drive to the chapel, we passed a white cross festooned with ribbons. The clearing in front of it was littered with remnants of offerings–dried flowers and palm crosses. When we passec the next one, I asked Stanley about them. He said they were the stations, just like in a Catholic church but since the chapel was small, the missionaries erected the stations that way instead. I thought it was unique, yet impractical; What if they are already at the chapel? One would have to walk down the hill, and then back up the hill to stop at each station and pray. Or do it all backwards.
When we got to the chapel, the Hooters girls were there with an entourage, the photographer clicking away. Stanley shook his head, saying, “Only on Aruba.”
We waited outside the gate until they left, then went in to the courtyard. I went to the gate to push it open and I was struck with the thought of how many hands had touched that same gate? Then I saw the whitewashed benches lined up in a semi-circle in front of the chapel. I was told later that Arubans believe worshipping in the open air means they are closer to God. He can hear you better, said Stanley. We looked at the chapel but couldn’t go in–it was being renovated. No matter, one look through the window shows all. The alter was on the porch, anyway. As we crunched our way along the gravel path back through the gate and on to the bus, I thought, “This is very cool, even spiritual in spite of the Hooters gals.” I made my MIL take a snapshot of the gate.
Next, it was time for Baby Beach and snorkeling. Stanley informed us that baby beach was formed during a storm: some wicked tides chewed up the reef spreading the rocks and coral out and, voila! a breakwater and lagoon were born. We waded in, scattering schools of silver bait fish. It was just so beautiful. We didn’t snorkel because it was too crowded but we floated around taking it all in.
As we drove off, Stanley pointed out the local pet cemetery, erected about twenty years ago. As we made our way to the north shore, Stanley told us that only the very rich can have an actual burial. The rest of the island must be content with above ground burials because there simply isn’t space. The most interesting thing about it is that even the rich cannot remain in the ground for more than ten years. Once the burial time is expired, the remains are transferred from a casket to a shoe-box sized container and given back to the family. If one can afford it, the remains can be housed in a family mausoleum, but, Stanley added that most families just store them in the garage. Interesting, I think that a box of bones is certainly more macabre than grandmother’s ashes, not to mention a shoe box has less decorating potential on the mantel.
As we chugged and bounced along the broken track leading to the north shore, Stanley informed us that that part of the island was not habitable because it corrodes metals so fast it doesn’t pay to build there. We got off the bus and viewed the quarter-mile long Natural Bridges, the largest of it’s kind formed by erosion. I though, wow, if the wind, sea, and air do this to the rocks, then I can see why no one lives here.
Back on the bus. Stanley pointed out a narrow track veering off to the right leading down to the end of Ugly beach, named for it’s collection of black volcanic rocks. He said this was where the butchers used to come to dump waste. Stanley added that it is not used any longer but the water is still full of sharks.
We made our way back to the south shore’s hotel district. Stanley took us back through San Nicholas via side streets, pointing out where he was born. I fell asleep somewhere after the Harley Davidson rental shop, awakening when we stopped in front of our resort. As I left the bus, I complimented Stanley on his wealth of knowledge and sense of pride. He smiled, and touched the brim of his hat, saying, “Thank you, mum.” After I added a few dollars to his tipping cup, he mentioned with a smile, “This is one happy island.”
Planeteers say
Last week, the deaf and blind won a victory in regards to making the movies more accessible in Massachusetts. After six months of negotiation, Martha Coakley announced that three movie chains would make theaters accessible to both the deaf and blind. There would be devices in these theaters that would make this possible.
In a settlement that prevented a lawsuit, Regal Entertainment Group, National Amusements, and American Multi-Cinema, or AMC, stated that within the next three months they will increase the number of accessible theaters to 34. In addition, the number of auditoriums would increase from 14 to 63.
Massachusetts is the third state to reach a major agreement with the theater chains. New Jersey made 10 percent of the theaters accessible to the deaf and blind.
In Arizona, the Attorney General sued Harkins Theatres under The Americans with Disabilities Act for not making the theaters accessible. In an appeal in June, Harkins had to provide captioning and descriptive equipment to the deaf and blind.
“Movies are a significant part of our social and cultural fabric, and these settlements help ensure that the hearing and visually impaired have meaningful access to them,” Coakley said yesterday at WGBH studios in Brighton, which has a theater equipped with the new technology.
The deaf can read captions which feature sound effects, an overview of the music that is being played, and the dialogue that is presented. All of this comes from the back of the theater to a device that is screwed in to a cup holder on their chair.
The descriptive technology for the blind centers on scene, action, and setting. All of this is described to the blind via earphones by a professional narrator. This would be similar to a script for a play.
Larry Goldberg, the Director of the media access group at WGBH said that 400 theaters in The United States and Canada have this technology.
Advocates for the deaf and blind hope that this would lead to more theaters becoming accessible. They also hope that movie companies will make accessible DVD’S for the blind.
“I am pleased that this settlement finally guarantees meaningful access to these movie theaters,” said Janet LaBreck, commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. “As an individual who is blind, I look forward to taking advantage of this new assistive technology that dramatically enhances the movie-going experience.”
Ginny Mazur is also happy to see the agreement become a reality. She serves on the state’s Advisory Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
“This opens up the world for us,” said Mazur, who has been hard of hearing for 25 years and usually sees foreign films because she knows there will be captions. “This will hopefully bring a lot of us back to the theater and allow us to stay current with the culture.”
Theaters that have 10 or more screens have to have two accessible auditoriums. One of the auditoriums has to be the largest one in that particular theater.
The chains also have to put in the new technology in all newly built theaters. The Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Commission for the Blind are also promised to provide 200 free movie passes that the chains will give to them. The chains also have to sponsor community awareness events in regards to this new technology.
It’s great to see the movies become more accessible to the blind and deaf community because through captioning for the deaf and description for the blind, both groups can go to the theater and get their money’s worth and get a lot out of the plot.
The blind also don’t have to ask a sighted person during the movie what is going on as far as the action and the scenery is concerned. The deaf won’t have to depend on someone signing to them to find out what is going on in the movie as well.
I think the next step for the blind is to get description in all the DVD’S that are made. This is especially true with the movies that are out today that have so much action in them. The deaf should advocate for captioning in all DVD’s that the movie industry makes as well.
Comedies and crime shows on television should also be made accessible to both groups. This way they would have equal access to the content as far as TV watching and movies are concerned.
Planeteers say
When Rockford, Michigan native Jerry Douthett came home and passed out after an evening of excess drinking, he eventually awoke to find himself a bloody mess, his nightmare was just beginning because he then noticed that the source of the blood was coming from his foot, where upon further examination Mr. Douthett discovered he was missing a chunk of his big toe. Between the screams of astonishment, he realized his 1-year-old dog Kiko was lying next to him, and eventually concluded that the Jack Russel terrier just could not wait for his next meal.
Speaking of eating, that aspect of the story just serves as the appetizer. As it turned out having part of his toe gnawed off was the least of Mr. Douthett’s problem. In fact, Kiko’s actions may have saved his life because a visit to the hospital revealed that Mr. Douthett had type 2 diabetes, which caused his toe to become infected. Even though doctors said that his blood sugar was more than quadruple the amount that is normal, he can still live a relatively healthy life as long as he takes care of himself from this point.
Ironically, his wife Rosee is a registered nurse and speculated that he had diabetes all along. Coupled with the fact that his toe was very abnormal looking, Ms. Douthett also knows that her husband’s brother succumbed to complications from diabetes several years prior. Mr. Douthett is beginning to put everything together now, too. He recalls that for the last several weeks that even his friend’s dogs would constantly sniff his foot. The fact that dogs have a keen sense of when medical attention is needed is not a surprise to doctors. In fact, dogs are trained to assist people who live with various medical conditions and are legally allowed to travel with their owners everywhere as service animals. Despite the fact that Kiko playing the role of surgeon does not constitute the duties of a service animal, a woman from Illinois once had a pet dog who did the same thing. In that case the animal was put down, but Mr. Douthett does not want to say good-bye to Kiko. He is now the toast of the town and his owner can not stop coming up with comedy about Kiko’s exploits. For instance, Mr. Douthett is a musician and joked that he should have a concert and call it a “toe-jam.” Finally, prior to having the remainder of his toe amputated he had one last question for the nurse. Mr. Douthett inquired, “Is there any chance I can get whatever’s left of my toe, so I can give it to Kiko as a treat?”
To read the original article, please go to http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/08/dog_eats_rockford_mans_big_toe.html
Planeteers say
To tell the truth, I’m a casual gardener. In fact, I’m sometimes downright lazy and careless. But it’s the plants that do all the work anyway. Nonetheless, I can’t let myself get too lazy. You have to tend to the needs of plants with the same devotion you’d give a pet or guide dog and make sure they have food, water, and light. When you do that, the rewards keep you motivated.
I don’t consider myself an expert, and you don’t have to be an expert either to grow something on your own. I garden because it’s practical and enjoyable. I’ve forgotten so many things I should have absorbed along the way. I’ll never be like my friend John Steiner in England who knew hundreds of botanical names until he died well into his eighties. But that’s why there are books, magazines, the Internet, and gardening call-in shows.
The way plants grow is nothing short of miraculous. It’s truly amazing that a tiny seed, such as a tomato or berry seed that gets caught in your teeth can produce so abundantly. Think of the sprawling tomato vine that gives you dozens of luscious red tomatoes. Think of the kernel of corn that shoots up a stalk six feet tall and begs you to stretch for its golden ears.
Growing plants is exciting because there are so many of them and so many different methods to grow them. You experience an ongoing parade of scents, textures and colors and a greater awareness of the changing seasons. It’s a never ending adventure with plenty of room for experimentation and discovery.
In more than 20 years of gardening I’ve had both disappointing failures and screaming successes. But that’s true for every gardener. Thankfully there’s no such thing as total failure because something always comes up. If one variety of beans doesn’t do so well, another will. If something doesn’t grow in the spring, maybe it will make a fall crop. Or there’s always next year.
I’ve heard it said that gardeners live longer because they’re always anticipating and planning for the future. Nothing makes a gardener anticipate more than seed catalogs in the dead of winter. They make any gardener drool and daydream. Like the fool, a gardener and his money are soon parted. Oh, but what fun!
When you grow plants, you’ll find that you connect with plenty of helpful people. It’s true whether you grow houseplants or have a large garden. For example, though I lived in an apartment in 1988, my first garden became a reality because a 70-year-old woman down the street allowed me use part of her garden space.
Over the years, family and friends have shown thoughtfulness by giving me gardening books, tools or fertilizer as gifts. My first aloe plant came from a member of the Master Gardening class I took in the early 1990’s. This year my friend Gerald helped me build two raised beds for square foot gardening. And the list could go on.
But there are also plenty of opportunities for giving back and sharing with others. I’ve given plants to friends and shared some of my garden harvest. It’s the sort of thing you don’t keep track of. You just do it.
One of the most rewarding experiences is having friends over for a meal to share in your bounty. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of Thanksgiving dinner with sweet potatoes, beets, green beans, mashed potatoes and Swiss chard, all grown from your own garden.
While partaking of the harvest, I think back on planting seeds in the spring, watering on summer mornings before the day got hot, snapping beans while listening to an audio book, and checking to see which plants survived a frosty fall night.
Of course, you don’t have to wait for a holiday to immerse your taste buds in the superior flavor of home grown delights. Every bowl of salad is one less thing you didn’t have to buy from the supermarket.
In my next article I’ll share some fun and easy things I’ve grown which you may want to try yourself. And I haven’t forgotten to tell you about those cherry tomatoes you can grow indoors over winter. But that’s next time, I promise.
Planeteers say
People who are blind or have other reading disabilities currently only have access to 5% of published work, so you would think that we would be excited that e-books are becoming so popular. Sadly though, there is still no e-book reader, not even the newest version of the kindle, that is fully accessible.
It is my philosophy that my blindness should not cause me to have to buy specialized equipment that costs me more money than I have. Rather, I should be able to buy the same products that everyone else does because accessibility and usability are built in. I wanted to believe that when Amazon announced that this summer’s newest version of the Kindle would be accessible to the blind, that they would actually mean it. I am sad to report, though, that this is not the case. Thanks to a lawsuit from the NFB and ACB, the menus of the Kindle have text to speech (TTS) built in, but this appears to be the only change that has been made.
According to a blog post from Buddy Brannen, “Voice Guide lets you navigate your Kindle with spoken menus, selectable items, and descriptions. For example, when you open a book, Kindle speaks your current location and how far you’ve read. Presently we don’t have the features like enabling the voice guide and TTS features without sighted assistance, navigate or read by smaller increments in text to speech, voice guide or text to speech work in the Web browser, or enabling text to speech for the books which have text to speech option disabled.” As you can see, the changes that were made do not meet the criteria of a device that is usable by the blind. We can’t even turn the TTS on without sighted assistance. Also, thanks to Amazon allowing the publishers to shut off TTS in any book they want, we have no way to know if the TTS feature is available until after we’ve paid for the book.
There are multiple reasons why I think the blind community needs to let Amazon know about our concerns. For one, the added accessibility may be enough to convince the FCC to allow colleges to offer Kindles to their students, even when they’re not really accessible. The blind and visually impaired have a right to read every published work just like anyone else, and having full access to a device like the Kindle would give us the access we need. Finally, companies like Amazon need to understand that we’re not going to buy their products until we can use them without assistance.
Planeteers say
BOLD (Blind Outdoor Leisure Development), is an organization that was ahead of its time–at least, in Pittsburgh– when the Western Pennsylvania Chapter was formed in 1976.
“We modeled our chapter on the group which was founded in Aspen, Colorado, to teach blind people to ski,” Pittsburgh co-founder Joyce Driben related.
Nowadays this mission might seem quite ordinary, given the existence of organizations like The United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA), and Paralympics–both of which have been encouraging blind and visually impaired athletes to participate in sports competitions. (The Americans with Disabilities Act, (ADA)–which became law on July 26th, 1990–has been a big boost to the efforts of the above-mentioned groups.)
When asked what it was like in 1976 to find sighted individuals willing to be trained–or, as Joyce says, “cliniced” to guide blind cross-country and downhill skiers, Pittsburgh co-founder Driben said, “It really wasn’t that hard because many of our original members were also members of a local ski club, so they really wanted to try and make this work. We also had a blind man who had lost his sight in his 20’s or 30’s, and he was already skiing, so he also was very invested in the success of this venture.”
Though skiing remains an important part of BOLD, the Western PA chapter has also become a multifaceted outdoor leisure and sports group. Our members, 18 and over with all degrees of vision, do everything from snow skiing to snow tubing, from wall climbing to water skiing and much more, including competitive rowing and canoeing.
Along with sharing her love of the outdoors by skiing, hiking, and camping, Joyce also possesses the leadership skills that have enabled her to be BOLD’s President several times–the office she currently holds.
When I asked President Driben what she sees in BOLD’s future, and her role in it, she replied,
“Though our focus is outdoor activities, we need also to include indoor events like Mall Walking, which is good aerobic exercise and an event that can be done year round.” “As many of our original members have gotten older,” Joyce continued, “many of us can no longer do things like skiing and rowing, but we still want to remain as active as we can.” Joyce concluded by emphasizing that, if BOLD is to continue, we need younger members willing to take leadership roles.
Many of us in the blind and vision-impaired community have demonstrated athletic abilities and outstanding leadership, but few exemplify that combination better than Western PA BOLD Co-founder and President Joyce Driben.
Do any of you have a chapter of BOLD where you live? Would you like to consider forming a chapter? If so–or to learn more about BOLD–especially some of the unusual activities we’ve done–please don’t hesitate to contact Joyce Driben at joyce.driben@verizon.net; E-mail info@wpabold.org, or visit www.wpabold.org.
Planeteers say
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Planeteers say
Matt and I are always on the search for new ideas at the grocery store and we have been quite successful in our hunting. In the spice aisle, Matt found something new from McCormick that piqued our interest. Recipe Inspirations is a recipe card on one side and a set of spices on the other. The spices are individually packaged and contain all the seasonings you’ll need for the particular recipe. This would be the perfect way to try different seasonings and not have to buy each of the different bottles. Dried herbs and spices can be rather expensive and if they are something you only use in one or two recipes, then they will more than likely go bad before you have even used half the bottle. What a waste.
The recipe card we chose was Apple and Sage Pork Chops. The seasonings included with the card were sage, minced garlic, thyme, ground allspice, and paprika. I was not sure how the ground allspice would go with the pork, but I was interested in the overall combination. Since we already had a few cans of Bavarian Sauerkraut at home in the pantry, we decided to make it a German meal. The last item we needed was a nice German beer. Matt could enjoy drinking the beer with the meal and adding some to the simmering pork chops would enhance the flavors.
Once we were home and the groceries all put away, Matt took out the four thick pork chops to thaw. I gathered up the other ingredients and set them out on the table along with the can of Silver Floss Bavarian Style Sauerkraut and Matt’s beer choice, Shiner Bock from Spoetzl Brewery. The remaining recipe ingredients were as follows:
Ingredients:
One and a half teaspoons sage
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
One Half teaspoon ground allspice
One Half teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 boneless pork chops
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 red apples, thinly sliced
One half cup apple juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
One Quarter cup German beer, optional
I mixed together the five card spices with the salt and flour in a small bowl. Matt sprinkled a tablespoon of the seasoned flour for each pork chop and set the rest of the flour mixture aside to add to the dish later. While I thinly sliced the apples and onions, Matt heated the two tablespoons of olive oil in our largest cast iron skillet. There are several well-used cast iron cookware pieces we use on a regular basis. I like using them because they can easily be used on top of the stove or in the oven. Matt finds himself reaching for a cast iron skillet more often than not because he has them hanging from sturdy nails from the broad open beams in our kitchen ceiling. The cast iron cookware also brings back fond memories of both our mothers and grandmothers. In fact, one of our wedding gifts from my parents was a set of four cast iron skillets.
Once the oil was heated, Matt cooked the chops on medium heat until they were browned on both sides. He removed them from the skillet and I handed him the thinly sliced onions, which were cooked for about three minutes. Next came the apples, which were then stirred and cooked for an additional two minutes.
Then the apple juice, beer, sugar and remaining flour mixture was stirred in with the apples and onions until they were well mixed. The pork chops were then put back in the skillet and Matt spooned some of the liquid and apples over each chop. After the contents came to a boil, we reduced the heat to a low simmer and then covered the chops with the can of Bavarian Sauerkraut. Finally, the lid was on the skillet and it could simmer away until the thick pork chops cooked to a tender juicy delight.
Once our plates were full of the tender chops, apples, onions and the pungent twang of Bavarian Sauerkraut, Matt and I settled down to enjoy this hearty German style meal. Matt couldn’t help reminiscing about a Navy deployment he had one Christmas while they were in port at Trieste, Italy. His ship had arranged different trips for their sailors while they were in port during the holidays. He had decided to take a three-day bus trip to Salzburg, Austria.
The bus ride took about six hours and drove from Italy, through a bit of the German Alps and then into Salzburg, Austria. This was the 26th of December and the weather was absolutely frigid. Just listening to him describe the sites he took in on a walking tour gave me the shivers. No wonder he took full advantage of the hot chocolate stands as he continued his tour.
All of this sounded so wonderful, even the cold weather of the Austrian Alps wouldn’t have deterred me from wanting to experience this mountain side city so full of history, architecture, good food and of course, the beer halls. Matt was even able to indulge himself by purchasing a beer stein for his collection; only one mind you, it cost over $300. There were so many beautiful steins in that shop that Matt was glad he didn’t have a credit card with him. Well, it was Christmas and since he wouldn’t be spending it here at home, I didn’t mind Saint Nicholas bringing a bit of cheer to him in Austria.
I was glad we tried out the pork chop recipe and the Bavarian Sauerkraut balanced out the sweetness from the apples and the simmered sauce. It was simply outstanding, and another recipe to add to our household recipe book. I asked Matt what was his favorite meal while he was in Austria and he paused for a bit before he answered. I couldn’t help the chuckle and grin across my face; it was pork chops with Bavarian Sauerkraut. Go figure!
Planeteers say
Named “The Plastiki,” the sail boat made up of 12,500 plastic bottles completed its 8,000 miles voyage from San Francisco to Australia. The trip took 130 days to complete.
Captained by banking heir David de Rothschild, the boat is an engineering marvel. The more than twelve thousand bottles make up 68 percent of its buoyancy, and the remaining parts of its twin hull and super structure are constructed out of recycled srPET plastic. It’s mast is a repurposed aluminum irrigation pipe and its sails are made out of a specially-woven PET plastic cloth. The binding in the cloth is a newly designed organic glue made from cashew nuts and sugar cane.
In order to power the instruments on board, the ship is equipped with a number of environmentally friendly generators. It utilizes multiple solar panels, wind turbines, trailing sea turbines, and bicycle generators. They supplemented this system with a bank of 12 volt batteries. It is also equipped with a vacuum water evaporator that desalinates the water as well as a rain catch system and urine-to-water system. For weight reduction, all of their waste went into an evaporator. They also grew some of their food in a vertical hydroponic garden.
The purpose of the boat and its voyage was to raise awareness about all of the plastic that is floating in the ocean that no one is held accountable for. Upon landing in Australia, Rothschild spoke to the media and said, “You go a couple of hundred miles off the coast, and nobody is claiming responsibility. Which allows people just to do what they want, and allows them to abuse the ocean’s depth, and its so-called scale.”
This extreme feat will hopefully shed some more light on the problem of plastic in the ocean. While many overlook it, it is there nonetheless, and eventually it will begin to impact the environment in ways that affect more than just the fish in the sea.
The Plastiki will be docked in Australia for the next month for those who are interested in visiting it.
To read the original articles, please go to http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/10989/plastiki-arrives-in-sydney.html and http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/07/26/Plastiki-finishes-Pacific-voyage/UPI-70481280126232/
Planeteers say
When was the last time you heard of someone spending $45 and making nearly 200 million because of it? Even Las Vegas’s greatest gambling tales pale in comparison to what Rick Norsigian has in his possession.
Rick, a commercial painter, had bought a couple boxes of glass plate photo negatives from a garage sale nearly a decade ago. Rick noticed the two crumbling boxes filled with the negatives and recognized that one of the photos was of Yosemite National Park, the place he had once worked. After negotiating the deal down to $45 from $70, he was on his way home.
Two years after, Rick was looking through the negatives and believed that they might be important. Some four years later, and after some extensive research, he thought that, by chance, they might have been taken by photography legend Ansel Adams. After coming to that conclusion, he moved the boxes out from under his pool table and placed them in a bank vault.
After asking for help to authenticate the photo negatives, which involved a former FBI agent and a U.S. attorney, and a photography expert, it was decided, unequivocally, that the photos were taken by Adams between 1919 and 1930 and represent a huge missing piece of his artistic career. Moreover, Rick’s $45 investment most likely bought him a collection worth as much as 200 million dollars.
Why Adams left the negatives behind is unclear. Patrick Alt, one photography expert who helped authenticate the negatives believes that he may have carried them to class and used them as a teaching tool. The negatives reveal many things about the process involved in taking quality photos, from the picture itself to its development.
While it may take years for him to sell off the collection to buyers with seriously deep pockets, the photos are being brought around the country to different universities and museums. As for the man who sold him the negatives for one five millionth of what they are actually worth, Rick says, “If he’s still around, I’m afraid he may come looking for me.”
Well Rick, the least you could do is give him back his $45. Or maybe show some generosity and give him the 70 he originally asked for.
To read the original article, please go to http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Experts%3A+Ansel+Adams+photos+found+at+garage+sale+worth+%24200+million+-+CNN.com&expire=&urlID=432265597&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2010%2FSHOWBIZ%2F07%2F27%2Fansel.adams.discovery%2F%3Fhpt%3DSbin&partnerID=211911
Planeteers say
As soldiers were sleeping in a remote base in Afghanistan on February 22, a suicide bomber was sneaking up on foot. As he drew closer to the base, barking pierced the quiet night as three dogs came running at him.
The first, Rufus, bit the terrorist, while the other two, Target and Sasha, looked on, barking wildly. The 50 soldiers inside the base tried shouting to the dogs in an attempt to quiet them down, not aware of the danger that lurked so close. As the dogs continued to bark, the bomber prematurely detonated the 24 pounds of C4 explosives before he could get through the door, killing himself. Rufus and Target were seriously injured, Sasha unfortunately died.
Duke, a National Guardsman who was in the base when the bomb exploded was wounded by shrapnel and is now adopting Rufus. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the dogs saved my life,” he said. Five other soldiers were wounded by the blast. Duke was eventually able to return to the base and was able to nurse Rufus back to health.
The two were inseparable. When Duke was homesick, Rufus was there to brighten his day. When Duke has to stand watch, Rufus was right there at his feet to help.
After returning to the States, Duke was sadly unsure if he would ever be able to see Rufus again. That’s where Robert Misseri comes in. Robert is the operator of Robert’s Cause, an animal advocacy group. He feels that the dogs and soldiers bonded in the same war-torn area and they deserve to be together once it’s all over. Anna Canaan is another person involved in a similar cause and she runs the Puppy Mission Rescue, which can be found on Facebook. Between the two groups, Rufus will be coming to his new home with Duke and his family. By way of Manhattan, Rufus will then travel to Georgia to happily live out his days with Duke, his wife, and their soon-to-be new baby. Target, the other canine survivor of the blast, is being flown to Arizona to live with the medic that saved her life.
Hug your dogs, people.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/international/dog_gets_his_day_haMOgDHiJOYZ3sFg3n0iBM
Planeteers say
Fave, Spec, Tiger Beat, 16 and Right On: the glossy, poster-filled, teen idol publications of the 1970’s. Ah, how I poured over them to learn all about my favorite singing groups. And who were the biggest, at least the ones that I found the most interesting: The Jackson 5 and the Osmonds. I hung the posters and cut out the pictures, taking care not to ruin the outline of the Jackson boys amazingly poofed-out hair. Completely obsessed with the Jackson 5, I painstakingly created a scrapbook of glossy photos of the group that I had collected. Proud and ultra gullible, I showed it to a classmate who promptly told me it was her birthday and I offered it to her as a present. What a fool I was. Growing up in a single-parent home, money did not flow freely and it had taken some serious saving on my part to acquire those magazines. To be tricked out of my labor of love was an extremely painful lesson I never forgot.
In addition to devouring the fact-filled publications, I watched the Osmond’s and Jackson 5 cartoon shows. Michael’s little pets, Rosie the cute snake and Ray and Charles, adorable mice, were just delightful and I eagerly waited for the song of the week. To my pre-adolescent mind, all those young men were oh so dreamy. Although I found the Osmond’s show entertaining and Donny Osmond very cute, one young man was fast pulling at my heart strings. Sporting a fairly large, round Afro and dazzling smile, I thrilled each time he broke into his emotion-filled solo. He was, of course, the incomparable Michael Jackson. I knew I was destined to marry him. Who cared if ten bazillion girls were thinking the same thing? I had sent a picture of Little Lynne at the super beautiful age of 10, wearing my best smile, a pretty pink dress and fake pearl necklace. How could he not fall at my feet while I was falling at his?
Come on, confess. You have an album that you played and played and played. I played mine to death. I had one such Michael Jackson album. The one song that sticks in my memory is “Dear, Michael”. In it he sings a letter written by a fan and then proceeds to croon his heart-felt reply. Well, that was it. The song truly did say everything we wanted to hear. How did he do that? As was the case with most vinyl, it became scratched. Do you recall when the needle would slide across the record, stubbornly refusing to play any song? How frustrating. I would place quarters on the needle to try to force it to play—and sometimes it actually worked. It had to; it was Michael Jackson, for heavens’ sake.
“Ben”—such a sensitive song performed with much tenderness. About a rat? My 47-year-old mind thinks how…eccentric Michael was. But young Lynne absolutely loved it and could not get enough. His next album, Off The Wall, had me spinning around my living room floor, grooving to at least six hot tracks from that chart-busting album. Michael was definitely on my pop-music radar. Like many, though, I wondered if he was actually crying at the end of “She’s Out of My Life.”
Wistfully, I say that I was ecstatic that my vision was good enough to see my Michael perform on Motown’s 25th Anniversary show where he utterly mesmerized the expectant crowd with his unworldly moves. These days I am unable to see his incredible dancing, story line and video effects but I have my mind’s eye for that.
How many times did I watch the ground-breaking, leg-shaking, hand-waving, shape-changing, iconic video that was Thriller? More times than I can count—and I never tired of it. If VH1, my music video television of choice at the time, played it two hundred times, then that is how many times I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, the videos for “Beat It” and “Billy Jean” were excellent but Thriller had an infectious spirit that could not be denied. And I don’t simply mean all those zany zombies that danced around with the then transformed Michael. Even to this day I cannot watch that thrilling video without moving and grooving. Were I to put Thriller on now, there would be no writing done for the duration of the song. It is in my top ten favorite tunes. Craving anything having to do with the Thriller video, I glued my eyeball to the television to watch the Making of Thriller. To think that Michael sat through hours of makeup to be transformed into that gruesome Werewolf, it was positively scintillating, I tell you. I believe he really deserved the moniker “The King of Pop.”
Certain that Michael knew he needed to top himself each time he released a new album, he set about doing just that with more hits being heard from his “Bad” and “Dangerous” releases. While listening to the track lists for these offerings, I am joyfully reminded how many hits I truly consumed by this outstanding performer. During this period, knowing my passion for Michael Jackson, a dear friend purchased the compilation “Moonwalker” video for my birthday. It is still in my VHS collection. I will also remember the “Bad” album with great mirth as I asked my then very young niece to read the tracks and she read “Liberian Girl” as “Lesbian girl”. How we hooted with laughter.
Sadly, I admit that as I grew older, Michael was not a mainstay on my musical radar. A child of pop/rock music, the radio station I listened to at the time played only one song from his “Invincible” album, “You rock My World” with that horribly goofy intro done by the comic, Chris Rock. Believe me. I was pleased beyond all reason when I found a copy minus that annoying beginning. I guess I had overdosed on Michael Jackson and had moved on. I would sooner have listened to his earlier works.
Shocked, I could barely believe the many tweets announcing the death of Michael Jackson. How could this be? What happened? Unable to play his music; I listened while everyone else did that. We watched the touching memorial and I downloaded it from www.audible.com for posterity. This year, I have taken in as much as I could regarding his death and I am thankful that the stories have been relatively far and few between. The music and keepsakes I have will be greatly cherished.
Avoiding the more controversial aspects of Michael’s life, I have chosen to remember him for his stupendous contributions to the music industry, changing it forever with his songs, dances and videos. I do not believe there will be another such performer in my lifetime and I am grateful to have experienced first-hand his special brand of magic.
Planeteers say
I would like to take issue with something that keeps occurring in the rules offered by certain organizations for persons with disabilities. Allow me to start out by asking a question. I’m sure most of you are familiar with bowling leagues. There are money leagues, men’s leagues, senior leagues, junior leagues, co-ed leagues, etc. There may even be leagues for the left-handed, blue-eyed or those with rosy-red cheeks. Who knows. In a bowling league of this type, such as a non-handicapped league, have you ever heard it stated in their rules that you are not allowed to swear? Furthermore, does it ever say that if you are caught swearing three times, you are suspended from league activity? Please don’t misunderstand where this is going. I don’t swear, and I don’t like it when people use foul language in my presence, so this is not about me condoning swearing, because I don’t. The point is that society works very hard to bring the message across to handicapped individuals that swearing is bad, but it doesn’t bring the message across to non-handicapped swearers as often.
I belonged to two separate bowling leagues for the handicapped where it was voted that the no-swearing clause be included in the rules. If it is so important to make sure that a handicapped individual understands that he can’t swear, so much so that we have to write a rule about it, then why don’t we apply the same rule to the average, non-disabled, hard-working Joe who swears? Here is the dangerous precedent that we set, and sometimes without knowing it. When we work for an integrated organization, that is, one which includes handicapped and non-handicapped people, we can’t send the proper message about swearing if we don’t enforce it on the non-handicapped the same as we do the handicapped. I see this all the time in my bowling league. When a bowler with a disability swears, he or she is called on the carpet, but when a non-disabled bowler shouts out the “F” word, it almost goes unnoticed. What kind of message are we really sending to persons with disabilities about swearing if they see non-disabled people get away with it? Two weeks ago, a bowler with a disability used the “F” word, and all she heard was, “Watch your language, that’s not nice to say. There are kids around.” Moments after she used the “F” word, a macho, able-bodied bowler in his late forties used the same “F” word, and there was nothing but silence. Mind you, this macho guy swears all the time. Everyone who knows him well has heard him thousands of times, and probably accepts it so much that it’s believed that you can’t tell him anything. Nonetheless, I sarcastically opened my mouth and said, “Kevin, you better watch your language; that wasn’t very nice, and there are kids around.” I probably never said that to him in all the years I’ve known him socially, but at that moment I was making a point. This same guy who swears every minute has no problem telling the handicapped girl not to do it, but he turned around and did it. What was it? Did all the children who were around the handicapped girl suddenly disappear when the guy swore?
I don’t like double standards, and this is a classic case of one of the worst double standards I can remember.
Planeteers say
A 20 year old student named Clayton Schultz was surfing on Jacksonville Beach in North Florida when a Shark suddenly attacked him. Schultz was just trying to get back up on to the surf board when he felt the shark violently shake his foot. He then took his foot out of the water and found the skin on his foot to be pretty torn up.
Another friend who was with Schultz assisted him out of the water. He was then rushed to a hospital.
In order to close the wound, doctors had to sew him up with 300 stitches. Doctors said that Schultz was lucky that he didn’t lose his foot entirely. He was also fortunate that he didn’t lose his life.
There have been a total of 629 shark attacks in Florida since records began to be kept. Of those, 13 were fatal, with the most recent occurring in 2005
Do you think Clayton Schultz will go surfing again? I bet he will, but I also believe that he will take some precautions. I believe that he will have someone with him when he goes surfing at all times. I think that if there are any precautions that you or I would take while surfing, he would take them too.
I would also bet that he values life more and might start believing in a higher power. Schultz must realize that you never know what’s going to happen in life. One minute life may be going great but the next minute disaster may strike. He learned this lesson the hard way, but I bet it will be a lesson that will stick.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7911059/Surfer-needs-300-stitches-in-foot-after-shark-attack.html
Planeteers say
In the 1980’s, the Susan Hall Franklin Foundation produced a few issues of a Braille magazine called “The Fountain.” I can trace my evolution as a gardener to the time I read an issue while on an airplane, flying across the country. I was intrigued by an article about groundnuts from a series called “Food of Our Own.”
The idea was that we’d never have to be without food if we could find, or perhaps cultivate, groundnuts, which grow near streams and produce small potato-like tubers along their roots.
It was written by Gerald Franz, who I began to correspond with on cassette after Susan Franklin’s untimely death in the summer of 1987. That correspondence blossomed into a fast friendship that continues to this day. In fact, in 1993, Gerald and his wife Janey moved from Cincinnati to Missouri near where I live.
During our early correspondence, Gerald introduced me to books by Ruth Stout on her revolutionary and simple deep mulching method of gardening. Other books and articles followed, demonstrating the significance of growing one’s own food or marketing it to others. One book, entitled The Plant in My Window, was one man’s account of growing a philodendron and how it led him to take a greater interest in plants.
Gardening enticed me so much that I began to cultivate my first garden in 1988. Though we lived in an apartment in town, a gracious elderly lady who lived nearby allowed me to use a portion of her gardening space.
A long dormant interest in reading had been rekindled as well. I began to explore topics I had never considered before, such as the importance of genetic diversity of our food crops and the consolidation of corporations that control our food supply. I began to learn about square foot gardening, container gardening, hydroponics and other innovative growing methods for gardening and farming, both high and low tech. I discovered a web of connectedness among so many seemingly different things.
In the early 1990’s I attended a Master Gardening course, offered by university extension services throughout the country. The one I attended in Columbia, Missouri was just getting started. I met gardeners from all walks of life with a wide spectrum of interests and skills. But as much as I gleaned from the lectures and garden tours, I didn’t stay active in the Master Gardening program.
Incidentally, one of the gardeners I met was a wealthy woman who drove me the 20 miles each way to our Master Gardening classes. After a few weeks she decided she couldn’t take me any more for fear I was an insurance risk. I didn’t argue with her and found another way to get to the classes. As frustrating as that was, I took heart in the fact that the plants I grew in my garden didn’t care about such things and knew nothing of discrimination.
In 1993, Gerald Franz and I learned about Tom Speraneo in West Plains, Missouri, who operated a greenhouse that combined hydroponics with aquaculture or fish farming. We made a couple of trips to visit him, which resulted in the publication of an article I wrote for “The Growing Edge” magazine. The Speraneo operation impressed me so much I wanted to set up one like it on a smaller scale. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Since I was unemployed then, I opened my case with the state rehabilitation agency for the blind, got help writing a business plan, and began a greenhouse produce business in the mid 1990’s, hoping to sell tomatoes to stores and restaurants. The business failed after three or four years, as many small businesses do, but it served as part of my growing experience with plants.
Today I still garden, though I don’t try to sell what I raise. My focus is more strategic. I grow basic food, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, green beans and Swiss chard, to name a few. I don’t raise enough to feed my wife and me for all year, but believe me, there’s nothing more rewarding than to sit down to a meal with a plate full of vegetables I grew myself.
In a later article I’ll share a little about how you, too, can grow with plants. You don’t have to be a Master Gardener or a greenhouse grower. You can start small and take baby steps. Who knows, before long you may impress your neighbors with something exotic like growing cherry tomatoes indoors over the winter.
Planeteers say
When a couple from Independence Missouri made their way to a hospital on May 21, 2010, they knew their lives would drastically change forever. The momentous occasion brought baby Mikaela Sinnett into the world, to the proud parents of Blake Sinnett and Erika Johnson. Their jubilation would be curtailed almost immediately though, as a result of an unfortunate sequence of events.
It all started when Ms. Johnson attempted to nurse baby Mikaela for the first time and observed that something was not quite right. After requesting assistance from a nurse, it turned out that the newborn was turning blue and had to be repositioned. Once Mikaela began accepting her meal the nurse assured Ms. Johnson that everything was fine and that it was common for new mothers to need some guidance.
According to children’s services however, everything was far from okay. The couple, who both happen to be blind, were visited by a social worker just several hours later and had to answer a myriad of questions regarding how they could provide proper care for a child with out round the clock sighted assistance. Eventually, the worker concluded that the couple could not take their daughter home and Mikaela would be sent to foster care. They were granted visitation a few times a week, for a grand total of an hour each time. This debilitating ordeal would last approximately 2 months, but only an eminent law suit convinced social services to relent and let Mikaela go home. The National Federation of the Blind hired a Missouri attorney after it was determined that blindness was the only reason Mikaela’s parents were not permitted to take her home. Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the NFB, said, “Despite the fact that blind parents are successfully raising children across the nation, blind Americans continue to find that misconceptions and stereotypes about the capabilities of blind people too often result in hasty and unwarranted decisions to remove children from the custody of blind parents. The worst nightmare of parents everywhere-having a child taken away-is sadly part of the lives of too many blind parents. The National Federation of the Blind stands ready and willing to help state officials across the country understand how blind people use alternative techniques to care for their children. But the blind of America will not tolerate our children being taken from us.” Gary Wunder, President of the NFB of Missouri, also chimed in with his opinion on the matter. He said, “We have gotten Mikaela back home, but we must fundamentally change a system that presumes the incompetence of blind parents and operates on a principle of guilty until proven innocent rather than the reverse. We cannot help but think that new parents who are blind in Missouri will avoid seeking medical and social services that they may need for fear that they will experience a similar ordeal. We can never give back the two months this family has lost, nor can we restore to Erika the joy of nursing her child that this separation has made impossible. What we can do is use their adversity to change the system that allowed this atrocity and educate the people who have mistakenly equated blindness with a lack of perception, intellect, and judgment.” Finally, if they choose to do so, the NFB can still pursue legal action by filing a civil lawsuit.
Editor’s note: Source information for this article was received via NFB press release.
Planeteers say
Last week the country celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). I was just a child when the ADA went into effect, so I wasn’t able to help in the fight for its passage, but I’d like to believe that the accomplishments in my life and my commitment to advocating for the blind are a testament to all who participated in the fight. The ADA has afforded me many opportunities including the right to go to college and be a successful student, a right to take my guide dog where I need to go, and the right to be accommodated in the work place.
When I entered college in 2000 I had a meeting similar to those I had during school. Instead of it being called an IEP, or individual education plan, it was referred to as my list of accommodations under the ADA. I met with a staff member of my school’s disability services office and then my list of accommodations was provided to my professors. I believed that my accommodations were simple, but the few things that I needed ended up being a large part of my success in college. Having more time for tests meant that I could spend the necessary time to answer the questions, having books and worksheets available in audio or Braille format meant that I didn’t have to rely on a reader and therefore could do my work on my own time, and having a note taker in my classes meant that I could focus on learning rather than worrying about how I would study the material later. I only had a handful of bad experiences with professors that didn’t want to work with me, but thanks to the ADA, I had the law and the disability services team on my side.
When I transferred as a junior to the University of Oregon, I decided that I would be more independent if I had a guide dog rather than just a cane. Thanks to the ADA, my guide dog and I were allowed to go to college, and we are also allowed in all public buildings. Having a guide dog is an amazing experience, but I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for service animal owners prior to the passage of the ADA. Having a guide dog gives me the freedom to travel independently on foot, in a bus or car, and even in a plane. I have had some bad experiences regarding my guide’s right to be certain places, but I have the law to back up my claims. This makes me feel empowered.
Although I don’t feel that the ADA has succeeded in solving the unemployment problem that people with disabilities face, I think it has helped tremendously for those who find work. In the few jobs that I’ve held, my employers had no choice but to accommodate my needs. For me, that means having a computer that runs a screen reader, having the right to label needed things in Braille, and receiving all written communication from my co-workers in electronic format. Before the ADA was passed, not only would I have had to prove to an employer that my blindness was not a barrier, but I would then have had to fight for accommodations if I got the job.
I think that Americans with disabilities should be proud of the transformations that have taken place over the past 20 years, but I also know there is a long way to go. It is my hope that the ADA will be viewed as a law that is fluid and requires change as society changes, and I hope that in the next 20 years I get to help in the fight to bring true equality to people like me.
Planeteers say
Jordan Sturm, an assistant for Covia Labs in San Francisco, was asked by her boss to test out a new real-time GPS tracking system for the iphone that the company was unveiling as a service for law enforcement and military personnel. The software effectively turns the iphone into an active GPS tracking device. The idea is that police stations can keep track of where their officers are, and the military can keep track of soldiers, supplies, etc.
As Jordan stepped outside and her boss activated the software on his laptop for the demonstration, he noticed something very odd. It seemed, at least on his screen, anyway, that his assistant was running at an incredibly fast pace through downtown San Francisco.
It turns out that Jordan’s nickname isn’t the flash, but that her phone was snatched right from her hand by a thief riding a bicycle. Unknown to the thief, the phone was tracking his every movement. As he took off with her phone, she ran back inside and called the police. Using the software, which worked perfectly, they were able to track down the thief 10 minutes later. Had the man taken the time to look at the phone, he may have found it odd that an active map of the city, centered on his exact location, was displayed. The man was arrested and booked for suspicion of grand theft and possession of stolen property.
While the demonstration actually turned out to be quite successful, it was certainly a case of wrong phone, wrong time for the robber who had to be wondering, as he sat handcuffed in the cruiser, just how they found him so quick.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/crime/detail?entry_id=68288&tsp=1
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The International Space Station is no stranger to a multitude of different languages and backgrounds. However, another language has been featured once again.
Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson took some time to answer questions via live video, and she did it all in American Sign Language, also known as ASL. In her video, she answers questions about what it’s like to live and work as she floats many miles above the surface of the Earth. She also talks about why she became interested in sign language.
“I am truly grateful for this opportunity on behalf of the deaf community and the multitudes of students who will benefit from seeing their language spoken in space,” she said. She also mentioned that she wants her message to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers to try their hand at the job and reach forth into the stars, as she has.
NASA is constantly looking to diversify the kinds of people that work with them. One of our commenters in this week’s Reader’s Forum is a visually impaired NASA employee and worked as a radio frequency engineer. By issuing a live video calling out to the deaf community and answering their questions in their language, they are opening the doors for many more people with disabilities to join the organization and further our knowledge about our world and what lies beyond it.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=31311
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I’ve known several blind gardeners over the years and even a blind farmer or two. I’m a gardener myself. But I believe there are too few of us.
Why is this? Are we afraid? Has no one taken time to teach us what we need to know? Do some of us avoid growing plants because we think they belong to the realm of the sighted?
It doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re not a gardener, or you don’t even have a houseplant or two, I’d like to invite you to join me in growing with plants.
Why do I say growing with plants? Because when you grow plants, you can’t help but grow yourself. You’d be surprised how plants broaden your horizons. Besides, it’s fun—more fun than you’d think. And it’s not as difficult or intimidating as you might have been led to believe. But I didn’t come to these conclusions easily.
Most of my growing up years were spent living in the country, though my parents didn’t farm. Both sets of grandparents did, and I spent many weeks during summers with my maternal grandparents. I can’t tell you much about farming, and I didn’t learn much about gardening then either. But I certainly reaped its rewards. New leaf lettuce, green onions, rhubarb, bread and butter pickles and strawberry preserves were my favorites.
My mom had a garden and at one time expected me to help with it. Eventually enough of my complaining won out, and I did very little gardening, leaving the work to my mom and two younger sisters. Seeing prize tomatoes and pumpkins at county and state fairs was boring and a reminder that growing things belonged to someone else’s way of life.
I couldn’t escape gardening altogether because I was recruited to shell peas, snap green beans and shuck corn. I’m sure I complained about that, too.
Having some usable vision leaves me between the world of the sighted and totally blind. This only added to my dislike of gardening and farm work because I didn’t know my capabilities as a boy, and my family didn’t know what to expect of me. It was easy for me to wimp out.
My sisters made money each summer weeding bean fields and detasseling corn for neighbors and grandparents, while I slept in and found other things to entertain myself. My family feared I’d pull up beans right along with the weeds because I couldn’t see to tell the difference and that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace of the work.
Field work is hard work, but I wish in hindsight that I’d been shown what to do and made to keep up. At least the money would have been nice.
Houseplants were off limits, too, because no one encouraged me to take an interest in them or show me how easy it is to care for many of them. Therefore, they were a mystery as well. My mom had a few plants, but my favorites were the geranium and aloe plants kept in the classroom by one of my teachers at the school for the blind. I still find the scent of geraniums intoxicating, and I’m intrigued by the slight prickle of aloe and its rubbery, spear shaped leaves. These days I have two geraniums and more aloe plants than I know what to do with.
Aloe is one of the easiest plants to grow because it practically thrives on neglect. All it needs is indoor light and occasional watering. You’d have to work at killing it. If you’re tempted to grow a plant at all, start with one of these.
It wasn’t until 1987 at the age of 28 that I first contemplated the wonders of having a garden. I’ll share how that came about in a future article.
Planeteers say
Picture this: children are kicking around a ball of trash, using it as an improvised soccer ball as they dodge barbed wire and broken glass, because every other ball they owned was damaged beyond repair.
Those images of Darfur refugees stuck with Tim Jahnigen, a Berkeley inventor. “I saw children desperate to play, living in a world where nothing makes sense and they’ve been traumatized by irrational violence. In their innocence, they were willing to play with anything,” he said.
In their jagged environment, balls often remain inflated for only a short period of time.
Jahnigen had an idea, though. He wondered if a soccer ball could be created that could last a lifetime and resist the sharp and often dangerous surroundings of the play areas the children are exposed to.
After five years of waiting, his dream became a reality with the help of musical icon, Sting. As the world was entranced by the games during the world cup, Jahnigen and his wife, Lisa Tarver, introduced the One World Futbol, a soccer ball made of closed-cell foam, the same found in Croc shoes, that can withstand any terrain.
The ball’s name is inspired by the rock group Sting and their song “One World.” The goal of the project is to distribute one million balls in the next three years to children in places ravaged by war, poverty and natural disasters.
In an effort to gain publicity for the project, Jahnigen spent the final days of the World Cup in South Africa meeting with FIFA officials and nonprofit groups. His hope is that through greater exposure with these popular organizations, more people will find out about the ball and offer funding or other support. While in Africa, Jahnigen also went out into the countryside to give away some of the balls himself.
As part of a humorous test, one of the balls went to an unusual customer at the Johannesburg zoo: a lion. “He played with it like a kitten to the point of exhaustion,” Jahnigen said. “The zoo director said they give him balls for stimulation but they usually just last a minute. This one has tooth marks and punctures all through it, but it still works.” If a lion can’t destroy the ball, it’s doubtful that any person would be able to either.
To make the project worthwhile, the couple is combining a for-profit company with a nonprofit foundation. For every $39.50 ball sold, one will be donated to an area in need. The foundation will also accept monetary donations from people who are not interested in purchasing a ball themselves, but would rather send them around the world. Nonprofit organizations who are interested in participating get a deep discount on the cost of the balls.
Jonathan Lea-Howarth travels to developing countries teaching children about HIV and drug use, and uses sports as a way to empower them. The need for a soccer ball that will never deflate is something that he is well aware of.
He says, “My experience in (the West African nation of) Burkina Faso was that when you give someone a football (soccer ball), its brilliant, it’s like giving them a PlayStation 2; they’re very highly prized,” he said. “The problem is, it was a semi-arid scrubland with lots of thorns; footballs would get punctured almost instantly. People will nurse a ball like it’s a sick relative; they’ll pay to get them stitched back up and a new lining put in, but often they don’t have the money to do that.”
After the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, Lea-Howarth traveled to bring about 21 of these indestructible balls and donate them to both children and the coaches of various programs. His ultimate goal is to create a youth soccer league in Cite-Soleil, the poorest area of Port-au-Prince, and hopes to bring a ball for each team.
Creating such a project is immeasurably important to children and disadvantaged people around the world. Jahnigen’s idea of a soccer ball that could last a lifetime, never need pumping and would withstand razor wire, sharp rocks, and broken glass would be great for people in war torn areas and poor areas of the world. The ball could also be beneficial if used in cities in the United States as a way to keep young people off the streets and involved in worthwhile activities. The ball would also be great for school departments that don’t have enough money for sports because students and staff could form teams and students could socialize.
The blind and nonprofit agencies who work with the blind would also benefit because the ball would be inexpensive to obtain and the blind would benefit because they could play a variety of sports with the ball.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/18/BUT61EF67O.DTL&type=printable
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Since my days as a college student, I belonged to several commissions, task forces, coalitions and other special interest groups. Many of these groups included persons with other disabilities, as well as the blind. As I became more of an advocate for persons with disabilities over the years, I discovered that, in many areas, the blind had more privileges than persons with other disabilities at times. For example, the blind were allowed to make a little more money than paraplegics before the Government began cutting SSI checks. In Massachusetts, the blind have a State Commission which is separate from the Commission serving other disabilities. For many years in my local community, the blind were granted free bus rides while persons with other disabilities had to pay to get on the bus. While I didn’t mind the free ride, I asked a professional why blind people seemed to have more privileges than those with other disabilities. I was told that the blind were better at lobbying than anyone else with a disability. This was the opinion of an attorney in 1984, who also happened to be in a wheelchair.
In 1994, our local bus company decided to charge blind passengers for the first time, because the Americans With Disabilities Act came into focus. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows those of us with any form
of a disability to receive the same opportunities as people without disabilities. It doesn’t say that one disability has to be treated differently from another. When our local bus company considered charging blind passengers, I took issue with it, until I realized how unfair it would be for everyone to pay for a bus ride except the blind. For 16 years, I have been proud to pay my bus fare, because it’s the thing to do. However,
if the bus fares are too high, and if this is the opinion shared by all of society, then I would complain, because what’s high for the sighted is just as high for the blind. At times, the blind may complain more because most
of that population is unemployed. In that case, it may be appropriate to grant a discount like the elders get.
I have a good question to ask. If the blind are such great lobbyists, then how come the unemployment rate of the blind is just as high today as it was 30 years ago? Are we really met with that much resistance from the business community, and that’s why seventy percent of us are still out of work? If employers are still as reluctant to hire the blind as they were 30 years
ago, is this something we simply can’t help, or maybe we should lobby even better? I’d like to think we speak very well for ourselves and for our other blind peers, no matter how much resistance we get. I guess we all must hang in there and continue to believe in ourselves, and some day we will all achieve our goals.
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A collection of Duke University bioengineers announced recently that they have developed a robot that can locate lesions in simulated human organs, accurately navigate a device to the spot of the lesion, and take samples of the tissue all without the help of a doctor.
By using 3D ultrasound pictures, the robot, nicknamed “Biopsy Bot,” can perform its tasks autonomously. The ultrasound pictures serve as the robot’s eyes and a sophisticated assembly of processors connected to motorized hands allow it to guide instruments into the body of its patient. In the tests that have been performed so far, the robot has been proven to be 93 percent effective.
The developers claim that the advantage to a system like this is that all of the necessary technology already exists and that the need to start from scratch has been entirely avoided. The systems can be easily modified, which makes the Duke scientists all the more confident that this is a viable surgical solution in the future.
So what do you think? Would you be comfortable having your appendix removed, a relatively simple surgical procedure, if it was being done by a robot without any human interaction?
Personally, that premise is a bit unsettling. While many surgeons are utilizing specially-designed robotic arms for procedures like heart surgery, they are in control of their movements at all times. An autonomous robot may not know if it has clipped a vein, or if the anesthesia has worn off and the person is coming back into consciousness.
While this program is in its very infant phases, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before this could ever be accepted by the general public.
To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1672937/print
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Since I got my BookSense, I have regained my reputation for being a bookworm. Even though I am an avid reader, I often find it hard to find new books to read either because I don’t know enough authors, or I just don’t know what is available. Thankfully this is no longer a problem thanks to the National Library Services (NLS) BARD website. Each Friday BARD gets updated and they list all of the new books that have been added to the collection. I then download the ones I’m interested in and load them onto my BookSense.
Not only do the new digital books from NLS allow me instant access, they also allow me to listen to the books whenever I want without worrying about when I need to return them to the library. In the last few months I’ve read everything from my favorite Patricia Cornwell series, to George Carlin’s Autobiography, to a book on the Biosphere 2 project. The “Recently Added” section of the BARD website is like the new releases section of a library, accept unlike a library, it’s accessible to the blind.
If you want more information on how to get access to the digital book library from NLS please visit this link. https://nlsbard.loc.gov/ApplicationInstructions.html
If you still haven’t received your digital book player from NLS, than I encourage you to contact your regional library and request one. This link will take you to a list of the regional libraries and their contact information. http://www.loc.gov/nls/find.html
Planeteers say
Once I became a visually impaired traveler, my needs and challenges changed. One day I could read the labels on those tiny hotel bottles, unconcerned with the fact that they all looked alike. Then, on a solo trip to California, I realized that even if I asked a hotel employee to help me separate them, unless I found a simple and effective way to label the bottles, I’d be running downstairs before my shower every morning to ask someone to tell me which was which. I shivered at the thought of those folks seeing me before my shower and devised a simple solution: rubber bands. I placed one around the shampoo, left the conditioner alone, and put another on the cap of the lotion bottle. It worked great.
Here are some other traveling tips that I found helpful.
Before your trip, familiarize yourself with your luggage to avoid last-minute fumbling when unpacking. If the zipper pulls all feel the same, try using a twist tie to mark the one you use the most. New luggage is especially awkward, so take the time to get to know it.
For identification purposes, put an extra name and address tag inside your checked luggage. Also, mark it so you can identify it quickly and confidently. I wrap a twist tie to the side of a handle.
Pack an extra cane in your carry on luggage. It’s as important as your medications and underwear.
Bring along some rubber bands, handy not just for marking those darned shampoo/conditioner/lotion bottles, but also other items in your hotel room, like door handles. I’ve been a guest at hotels that do not mark doors in Braille. A rubber band on your door handle eliminates guess work.
A small piece of cellophane tape placed on the corner of your key card and Do Not Disturb/Housekeeping, Please signs are other tips for easy identification.
After checking in, ask the hotel personnel to take a moment to show you the emergency exit closest to your room and make sure you are registered as a guest with a disability in case of an emergency. Being able to find the stairs on your own gives your worried bones a break.
Ask the staff to explain the phone and how to dial the desk. Some hotels even supply blind travelers with tactile maps and Braille menus. Always call ahead and ask for accommodations.
For conference goers, contact the speaker/agency at least two weeks in advance and ask for the printed materials of the seminars you are attending in an alternative format. I do this whenever I’m attending a conference and it’s great to be able to reference the information as needed. I load mine onto a note taker but digital book players, like the Victor Stream Reader will download text files, too. A Braille version may take more time to obtain, so the earlier you ask for it, the better.
For guide dog handlers, if you are going on a trip longer than a week, pack a few days of food and send the rest via parcel post to the hotel. It will lighten up your luggage and help you avoid paying for overweight baggage. Measure out each portion of dry food in a Ziploc bag so you can store it easily in your luggage. The length of the trip will decide on what doggie paraphernalia to bring, but packing an extra leash, food bowl, brush and waste bags are the minimum necessities I also bring a chew toy and soft toy to help my dog settle in.
Being prepared is the key to stress-free traveling, so do your best to plan in advance and take some of these tips along for a worry-free trip.
Planeteers say
A friend offered to take a digital picture of me. I don’t have pictures of my fatter, gray-haired self. And, occasionally, editors want pictures and they’ve figured out that I can’t be as young as my 12-year-old “current photo.”
Taking pictures always brings up how I look in them–or how I look in general. Head shots are a problem, I suppose, because my eyes look odd. Pictures where I’m standing and reading Braille are about the best. I have slender fingers and I got all the family hair.
Many photographers complain that my eyes are closed (I’m bored or afraid of the flash I used to but can no longer see) or that I’m not smiling (because I’m concentrating on looking where they say). One professional photographer desperately mentioned my good cheekbones. (I don’t think she used the picture.)
I don’t remember details about the shape of my face and I’m always sure I’ll forget what color my eyes are. But my favorite, and unfortunately most memorable, description of my face came from my brother. I had read about a blind woman who bought sclerotic shells for her eyes because her eyes looked worse as she aged. If I looked even weirder, I reasoned, I should find out and Mark would tell me.
“No,” he said, “You look about as weird as ever. Your eyes are sort of sunken in; your forehead kind of sticks out. You look, ah, Cro-Magnon.”
Other people have assured me that this isn’t true, but it’s what I always suspect especially during picture- taking.
Do you have picture-taking stories? Does your view of yourself match what others see?
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