[4alabama] The Braille Monitor, December 2006
Brian Buhrow
buhrow at lothlorien.nfbcal.org
Mon Nov 27 06:29:45 CST 2006
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 49, No. 11 December 2006
Barbara Pierce, editor
Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Marc Maurer, president
National Office
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
telephone: (410) 659-9314
email address: nfb at nfb.org
Web site address: http://www.nfb.org
NFBnet.org: http://www.nfbnet.org
NFB-NEWSLINE® information: (866) 504-7300
Letters to the president, address changes,
subscription requests, and orders for NFB literature
should be sent to the National Office.
Articles for the Monitor and letters to the editor may also
be sent to the National Office or may be emailed to bpierce at nfb.org.
Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five dollars per
year. Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the
subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation
of the Blind and sent to:
National Federation of the Blind
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES
ISSN 0006-8829
Vol. 49, No. 11 December 2006
Contents
Convention Bulletin 2007
Maxi-Aids Seeks to Intimidate Competitors by Claiming that Somebody Stole
Intellectual Property from It
by Marc Maurer
Blindness: The Lessons of History
by Kenneth Jernigan
It's a Long Way from School Plays to Community Theater
So How Did I Get from There to Here?
by Gail Snider
An Examination of Four Stand-alone Reading Machines
by Steven Booth, Mike Tindell, and Anne Taylor
A New Day for Disabled Americans
by Karl Smith
Ask Miss Whozit
Leadership In Action:
Jernigan Institute Establishes New Program to Empower Youth
by The NFB Jernigan Institute Education Team
The 2007 National Federation of the Blind
Scholarship Program
Distinguished Educator of Blind
Children Award for 2007
by Sharon Maneki
The 2007 Blind Educator of the Year Award
by David Ticchi
What A Relief!
by Denice F. Brown
Massachusetts Appoints the Right Man
A New Way to Demonstrate Braille Literacy
by Jerry Whittle
Social Security, SSI, and Medicare Facts for 2007
by James McCarthy
The Momentum Is Building
Recipes
Monitor Miniatures
Copyright© 2006 National Federation of the Blind
[LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: Members Hall in the NFB Jernigan Institute is always
decorated for the holidays. The tree and gifts pictured here are ready for
the staff holiday party.]
[PHOTO/CAPTION: The exterior of the Atlanta Marriott Marquis]
Convention Bulletin 2007
**********
It is time to plan for the 2007 convention of the National Federation
of the Blind. This year we are returning to Atlanta and the beautiful
Marriott Marquis Hotel, site of the 1999, 2000, and 2004 conventions.
Once again our hotel rates are the envy of all. For the 2007
convention they are singles, doubles, and twins, $61; and triples and
quads, $66. In addition to the room rates there will be a tax, which at
present is 15 percent. No charge will be made for children seventeen and
under in the room with parents as long as no extra bed is requested.
For 2007 convention room reservations you should write directly to
the Marriott Marquis, 265 Peachtree Center Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia 30303,
or call (404) 521-0000. The hotel will want a deposit of $60 or a credit
card number. If you use a credit card, the deposit will be charged against
your card immediately, just as would be the case with a $60 check. If a
reservation is cancelled prior to June 1, 2007, $30 of the $60 deposit will
be returned. Otherwise refunds will not be made.
The Marquis is a beautiful, fifty-story atrium hotel with a panoramic
view of this bustling city in the heart of the New South. It is twelve
miles north of the Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. Those driving
to the convention will find the hotel conveniently located off Interstate
85, by taking Exit 96, International Boulevard, turning left onto
International Boulevard, going to Peachtree Center Avenue, and turning
right. The hotel is on the right in the second block. The Marriott has
several excellent restaurants. The hotel is currently undergoing
renovations that will result in some alteration in the configuration of
these. We will report on the changes as the convention draws near. It still
features indoor and outdoor pools, a solarium, health club, whirlpool, and
sauna. Guest-room amenities include cable television, coffee pot, iron and
ironing board, hair dryer, and dataport.
Federationists attending the convention will have access to a wealth
of restaurants, shops, and other attractions like Martin Luther King Center
(1.5 miles), Underground Atlanta (0.8 mile), and World of Coca-Cola (0.8
mile). See later issues of the Monitor for information about tours and
other attractions in the Greater Atlanta area.
The 2007 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will be a
truly exciting and memorable event, with an unparalleled program and
rededication to the goals and work of our movement. Make plans now to be a
part of it. The schedule this year is the usual one. Preconvention seminars
for parents of blind children and other groups and set-up of the exhibit
hall will take place on Saturday, June 30, and adjournment will be Friday,
July 6, at 5:00 p.m. Convention registration and registration packet pickup
for those who registered online will begin on Sunday, July 1, and both
Sunday and Monday will be filled with meetings of divisions and committees,
including the Monday morning annual meeting, open to all, of the board of
directors of the National Federation of the Blind.
Immediately following the first NFB Independence March through
downtown Atlanta, the general convention sessions will begin on Tuesday,
July 3, and continue through the afternoon of Friday, July 6. The annual
banquet will take place on Thursday evening, July 5. To assure yourself a
room in the headquarters hotel at convention rates, you must make
reservations early. The hotel will be ready to take your call or deal with
your written request by January 1.
Remember that as usual we need door prizes from state affiliates,
local chapters, and individuals. Once again prizes should be small in size
but large in value. Cash, of course, is always appropriate and welcome. As
a general rule we ask that prizes of all kinds have a value of at least $25
and not include alcohol. Drawings will occur steadily throughout the
convention sessions, and you can anticipate a grand prize of truly
impressive proportions to be drawn at the banquet. You may bring door
prizes with you or send them ahead of time (identifying the item and donor
and listing the value in print and Braille) to Thelma Godwin, 1705 Paradiso
Drive, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia 30307.
The best collection of exhibits, featuring new technology; meetings
of our special interest groups, committees, and divisions; memorable tours
arranged by the Georgia affiliate; the most stimulating and provocative
program items of any meeting of the blind in the world; the chance to renew
friendships in our Federation family; and the unparalleled opportunity to
be where the real action is and where decisions are being made--all of
these mean you will not want to miss being a part of the 2007 national
convention. We'll see you in Atlanta in 2007!
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
Maxi-Aids Seeks to Intimidate Competitors by Claiming That Somebody Stole
Intellectual Property from It
by Marc Maurer
************
For more than a decade the Maxi-Aids Corporation, along with the
family of companies that have been created by Maxi-Aids's principal, Elliot
Zaretsky, has been featured in the Monitor as an entity that would shave
the truth, steal names and intellectual material from others, and lie about
its businesses and practices to capture market share (See "Was It Swiss or
Hong Kong: The Story of Maxi-Aids," December 1994; "Summary and Brief
Excerpts from the Trial," March 1998; "On Ethics and Maxi-Aids," July 1998;
"Department of Veterans Affairs Debars Maxi-Aids," December 1999; "Maxi-
Aids Exposed Again: ILA Files Contempt-of-Court Motion," December 2001;
"Elliot Zaretsky Visits the National Center for the Blind,"
January/February 2002; "Maxi-Aids Exposed Again Part II: Able-Vision
Established to Circumvent the VA's Proposed Debarment," January/February
2002; "Perkins School for the Blind Sues Maxi-Aids," July 2002; "Maxi-Aids
Held in Contempt of Court," May 2005; and "Maxi-Aids Held in Contempt of
Court," July 2005). Now we have a document from Maxi-Aids which purports to
be a report that somebody else has taken intellectual property from Maxi-
Aids. Given the long history of prevarication of Elliot Zaretsky, one must
look upon this latest document with a substantial degree of skepticism.
Nevertheless, the Maxi-Aids missive is clearly a threat-one which
apparently seeks to intimidate others into dropping lines of business that
compete with Maxi-Aids. Here is exactly what Elliot Zaretsky says,
punctuation and usage errors and all:
************
Farmingdale, New York
************
September 2006
************
To whom it may concern,
It has come to the attention of our Legal Department, that a company
that was contracted by Maxi-Aids, has used manufacturing molds which were
designed and paid for by Maxi-Aids for the expressed purpose of the
production of Reizen products. These products have been re-produced without
the permission or knowledge of Maxi-Aids and were sold on the open market
to distributors and competitors. As this was done without the knowledge or
permission of Maxi-Aids, it is a violation of our intellectual and material
property rights.
Please see the included list of items as well as the pictures showing
the products in question. If you have purchased these items from any
reseller besides Maxi-Aids you must contact us immediately so we can let
you know if the reseller is an authorized distributor of these products. If
you have purchased products from an unauthorized reseller we will instruct
you on the proper handling of this merchandise so as to avoid litigation.
Maxi-Aids will pursue all legal avenues available in order to defend
our material and intellectual property and will seek damages from anyone
including distributors who are either knowingly or unknowingly in
possession of merchandise that was obtained without our consent.
************
Very truly yours,
Elliot Zaretsky
President
************
This letter of Elliot Zaretsky's was apparently distributed far and wide.
It contains considerable irony along with allegations which seem to be
false. Attached to the letter is a sheet containing pictures of products
associated with certain legends. For example, one of the pictures is of a
liquid level indicator. Tim Cranmer, a member of the National Federation of
the Blind, who died some years ago, invented this liquid level indicator.
He named it the "Say When." Tim had this product manufactured in Kentucky.
The National Federation of the Blind was one of the principal distributors
of Tim's Say Whens.
At one point in the history of the Say When, Maxi-Aids pirated the product.
Later, when an administrative mix-up caused the copyright on the Say When
name to lapse, Maxi-Aids appropriated this as well despite the prior use of
the name. Both the name and the product have been taken from their inventor
by Maxi-Aids. Maxi-Aids is now alleging that this is its own intellectual
property.
Another of the pictures on the Maxi-Aids sheet is a set of dominoes. Maxi-
Aids proclaims that it owns the intellectual property "Tactile Double Six
Dominoes." My memory tells me that Maxi-Aids came into being in 1986. I was
playing tactile six dot dominoes at the school for the blind in 1961. Sets
of such dominoes could be purchased during the sixties and seventies. We in
the National Federation of the Blind sell raised dot dominoes today.
Inasmuch as we do not do business with Maxi-Aids, we got them from another
supplier. Because we don't believe we can trust Maxi-Aids, we have adopted
a policy not to do business with the company. We think Maxi-Aids's claim of
intellectual ownership of this idea is complete idiocy or worse.
During the past dozen years or so, we have reported that Maxi-Aids has
engaged in many forms of sharp practice. We do not believe that it is fair
for us to be subject to intimidation, and we do not believe that the field
of blindness is well served by the behavior of Maxi-Aids. Now Maxi-Aids is
accusing others of stealing from it. The only comment that seems to fit is
that Maxi-Aids should know. It takes one to know one.
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan addresses the 1980 banquet audience.]
Blindness: The Lessons of History
An Address Delivered by Kenneth Jernigan
President, National Federation of the Blind
At the Banquet of the Annual Convention
Minneapolis, July 3, 1980
************
From the Editor: Many of the seminal speeches of the Federation are
readily available for reading and study on our Web site. But I suspect that
very few of us take the time to reread them and remember the past and
understand our history.
In the closing month of 2006 we are reprinting President Jernigan's
memorable 1980 banquet address. He was looking back over forty years of
Federation history and drawing important distinctions between the problems
the organization faced at forty from those that had beset it in earlier
days.
From the distance of more than a quarter century we may well find
ourselves startled to remember or learn for the first time just how
beleaguered the Federation was in 1980. The blindness world has indeed
changed in the years since Dr. Jernigan's report. The National
Accreditation Council staggers along, more dead than alive, with a bit over
half the number of agencies it had in 1980. The American Foundation for the
Blind has retreated from its efforts to rule the field and frequently works
fairly collegially with the organized blind. The American Council of the
Blind meanders along, cursing the NFB and struggling with its financial
difficulties. And no one even remembers the Affiliated Leadership League of
and for the Blind. Considering the matter month-to-month, it is difficult
to see progress. But rereading the 1980 banquet address, we can recognize
it. With luck we will also gain the perspective to view the problems and
challenges that face us today in a clearer light. Here is the speech:
Napoleon, in one of his more expansive moments, is said to have
quipped: "History is merely a legend agreed upon." Queen Elizabeth I,
reportedly squelched Mary Queen of Scots with the regal comment: "No,
history will not vindicate you, for I will write it." In other words,
according to this view, history is only a myth and a fable.
But there are those who think otherwise. A time-honored cliché
proclaims, with almost mystic authority: "History repeats itself, and those
who do not learn it are doomed to relive it." The very qualities which make
this pronouncement so attractive are also the ones which make it so
dangerous as a standard of conduct. Its slick phraseology and apparent
logic divert attention from its oversimplification. History does, indeed,
repeat itself-but never precisely and never exactly. There is always a new
twist, a different nuance, an added element. For one thing, the past event
itself (the one which is currently in the process of being repeated) is now
a factor. Its former occurrence is part of the pattern. It has left its
mark and skewed the picture. Those who fail to recognize this truth can
never effectively learn the lessons of history. History can give us a sense
of heritage and broaden our perspective; it can help us understand and cope
with the present; and it can assist us in predicting the future.
Tonight (in July of 1980) we stand at the threshold of the fifth
decade of our organization. As we look back to the past and call up our
heritage so that we may deal with the present and plan for the future, let
us bear in mind what the poet Tennyson said in the middle of the nineteenth
century: "I am a part of all that I have met." Let us also remember that
history has its cycles, its not quite repetitions, and its patterns and
lessons for those who can read and understand.
When the blind came to organize in 1940, the situation was as bleak
as it could possibly be. It was bright enough to create hope and dark
enough to make that hope seem impossible. Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the
brilliant scholar and constitutional lawyer who founded our movement and
led it for the first quarter century, summed up the early years as only he
could have done it:
************
The paramount problems of our first decade, the 1940's, [he said]
were not so much qualitative as quantitative: we had the philosophy and the
programs, but we lacked the membership and the means. The workers were few
and the cupboard was bare.
Each month as we received our none too bountiful salary as a young
instructor at the University of Chicago Law School, Hazel and I would
distribute it among the necessaries of life: food, clothing, rent,
Federation stamps, mimeograph paper, ink, and other supplies. So did we
share our one-room apartment. The mimeograph paper took far more space in
our closet than did our clothes. We had to move the mimeograph machine
before we could let down the wall bed to retire at night. If on a Sunday we
walked along Chicago's lakefront for an hour, four or five fewer letters
were written, dropping our output for that day to fewer than twenty-five.
The decade of the forties was a time of building: and build we did,
from a scattering of seven state affiliates at our first convention to more
than four times that number in 1950. In the decade of the forties we proved
our organizational capacity, established our representative character,
initiated legislative programs on the state and national levels, and spoke
with the authority and voice of the blind speaking for themselves.1
************
This is the way Dr. tenBroek summed up the first decade. The second
decade, the 1950's, was a time of both triumph and trouble. It began with
hope and momentum. It ended with internal strife and a civil war. By the
midfifties we had forty-seven state affiliates, money in the treasury, and
power in the halls of Congress. In the fifties we established our magazine,
the Braille Monitor, and began to outline to ourselves and to others the
distinctive nature of what we were and what we intended to be. By the end
of the decade we were so divided and demoralized that our very existence as
a continuing and viable movement seemed highly doubtful.
Dr. tenBroek recognized, as did the rest of us in that corps of
leaders he trained in the fifties, that it was no mere accident or
coincidence that our growing independence and influence were followed by
furious attacks from without by the agencies and defections and strife from
within by people who had been our colleagues in the movement. The
governmental and private agencies (the American Foundation for the Blind,
the sheltered shops, and the rehabilitation and social work establishment)
had money and position and prestige. They used these resources lavishly-not
as instruments to aid the blind but as weapons to fight us and to protect
their vested interests. They intimidated, offered jobs and positions to our
potential leaders, promised services and rewards, threatened reprisals, and
did everything else in their power to break our spirit and crush our
determination. They complained to the post office and tried to discredit
our mailings and fund appeals. They exploited the vulnerability of blind
vendors and sheltered shop workers. They coerced and promised and rewarded.
The purpose was clear: it was nothing less than the complete and total
destruction of the National Federation of the Blind. In the face of such
pressure it is not surprising that strains developed from within-that what
might, in normal times, have been minor problems of thwarted ambition or
temperamental difference became major conflict and civil war.
That first tide of Federationism and independence (which, during the
fifties, lapped higher and higher up the walls of the agency establishment
and the bastions of custodialism and exclusion) fell back upon itself at
the end of the decade, spent and exhausted.
But the Federation did not die. The movement did not disintegrate.
Too much was at stake. Too many lives had been touched. The blind had, for
the first time in their existence, sensed the possibility of first-class
status-and they would simply not be denied. We knew (all of us-not just the
leaders but also the rank-and-file: the old, the young, the educated, the
uneducated-everyone of us) that what we had so painfully achieved must not
be surrendered, that self-organization (once lost) might not come again for
a generation or a century. Those of us who were left in the movement closed
ranks, fought where we could, encouraged each other, remembered our
heritage, and marched toward the future. We understood from first-hand
experience what the black demonstrators meant when they surrounded the
factory gates and shouted with mingled hope and desperation:
************
I go to my grave.
Before I be a slave.
************
The decade of the sixties was almost the exact reverse of the
fifties. It began in despair and ended in triumph. The Federation drew
itself together, shook off the civil war, and began to rebuild. It was
during the sixties that we lost our great leader, Dr. tenBroek, but he had
done his work well. The progress continued. By the end of the decade we
were bigger, stronger, better financed, and more united than we had ever
been.
Perhaps the sixties can best be capsulized by the opening verse of
our Battle Song, which was composed in 1964. It is known by every
Federationist:
************
Blind eyes have seen the vision of the Federation way;
New White Cane legislation brings the dawn of a new day;
Right of the blind to organize is truly here to stay;
Our cause goes marching on.
************
And our cause did go marching on, swinging into the seventies. And
what a decade it was! At the beginning of the seventies we were saying to
the world, "We know who we are"; and by the end we were confidently adding,
"And we will never go back!" In the seventies the tide of Federationism
rose higher than it had ever reached before-far beyond the peak of the
fifties. It was during this decade that we completed the transition from a
scattered confederacy to a single, united national movement-powerful, self-
assured, and full of destiny. We knew that whatever happened to the blind
in the years ahead, the responsibility was ours. Our future, for the first
time in history, was in our own hands. Despite the odds, we could do with
it what we would. If we had the intelligence and the guts, we could win
first-class status and the full rights of citizenship. We did not shrink
from the challenge. We welcomed it. In fact, we demanded it. Our
declaration of independence and purpose left no doubt as to the course we
intended to follow. "We want no strife or confrontation," we said, "but we
will do what we have to do. We are simply no longer willing to be second-
class citizens. They tell us that there is no discrimination and that the
blind are not a minority; but we know who we are, and we will never go
back!"
More and more in the seventies we discovered the truth about our
heritage and history and drew strength and pride from what we learned. Our
annual conventions were the largest meetings of blind persons ever held
anywhere in the world, and (with affiliates in every state in the nation)
we came universally to be recognized as the strongest force in the field of
work with the blind.
Then the cycles of history began to assume familiar patterns.
Superficially viewed, it was a second run of the 1950's. As our voice grew
louder and our strength increased, so did the antagonism and fear on the
part of the custodial agencies. As early as the mid-1960's, there were
hints and signs of what was to come. The American Foundation for the Blind,
seeing its influence diminishing, undertook a new tactic to tighten its
loosening grip on the lives of the blind. It announced that it was
establishing a so-called "independent" accrediting system for all groups
doing work with the blind. As a first step, the Foundation appointed what
it called the Commission on Standards and Accreditation of Services for the
Blind (COMSTAC). The Commission was to hold meetings, appoint
subcommittees, and arrive at a "consensus" for the entire field. Certain
blind people (mostly agency officials or persons who were, as the saying
goes, "unaffiliated" and, therefore, largely uninformed) were brought to
the meetings; but tight control was carefully maintained.
When COMSTAC had finished its work and written its documents, it
appointed NAC (the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the
Blind and Visually Handicapped). The accreditation was, of course, to be
purely voluntary and altogether impartial. The American Foundation for the
Blind provided NAC's first executive director, gave most of the money,
prepared to control our lives for at least the rest of the century,
declared the whole process democratic, and said it was all very
"professional"-as, indeed, in a way it was.
By the middle of the seventies it was clear that the principal issues
of the fifties were again to be put to the test. It was the old question:
did we have the right to run our own lives, or did the agencies have the
right to do it for us? As the decade advanced, the struggle exceeded in
bitterness anything which had ever before been seen in the field of work
with the blind. Many of the agencies worked with us and shared our
aspirations, but others (the reactionary custodians in the American
Foundation-NAC combine) abandoned all but the shallowest pretense of
dignity and so-called "professionalism" and tried by brute force to beat
the blind into line. Especially did they concentrate their hatred upon the
National Federation of the Blind and its leaders.
But the 1970's were not the 1950's, and 1980 is not 1960. The
custodial agencies we face today are not the agencies of twenty years ago,
nor are we the blind of that generation. We are stronger and more
knowledgeable than we were then, and the agencies which oppose us (of
course, many do not) are more desperate, more frightened, and more shaken
in their confidence. Even the most reactionary are now forced to give at
least lip service to consumer participation and the rights of the blind.
1960 and 1980 have many similarities, but they also have distinct and
significant differences. For one thing, the forces which oppose us today
have (probably because of our greater strength and their greater
desperation) combined in a closer alliance than was the case twenty years
ago. Led by the American Foundation for the Blind, this alliance consists
of NAC; our break-away splinter group, the American Council of the Blind;
the Affiliated Leadership League of and for the Blind; and a handful of
other would-be custodians and keepers. They have interlocked their boards,
concerted their actions, pooled their hundreds of millions of dollars of
publicly contributed funds and tax money, and undertaken the deliberate and
calculated destruction of independent organization and self-expression on
the part of the blind.
If what I say seems exaggerated, consider a prime example right here
in this city where we are meeting. Consider the Minneapolis Society for the
Blind and its president, Dick Johnstone. The Minneapolis Society for the
Blind accepts federal and state funds and solicits charitable contributions
from the public-at-large-all in the name of helping the blind. Mr.
Johnstone (the Society's president) supposedly serves without any
compensation whatsoever, purely as a matter of public service and civic
duty. Yet last fall at the NAC meeting in Oklahoma City, Mr. Johnstone made
a speech about the National Federation of the Blind (the largest
organization of blind people in this country-a group one would think he
would particularly love and cherish since his purpose is to help the blind
and promote our interests). Here are some of the things Mr. Johnstone said:
************
All NAC needs now is a few more teeth-and the money to apply them.
Money can come to NAC-the same way it was lost: with pressure! ... NAC has
a policy right now, in hand, ready to go. They can help you in any problems
with the NFB without board action. Dr. Bleeker [NAC's executive director]
has that authority, right now, unlike other agencies who have had to fiddle
around and go to their boards. Believe me, the Minneapolis Society for the
Blind is going to have a policy the same way: any help you need, you'll get
it out of us ... Anything we needed [from NAC] we got ... One thing we did
learn, and we have researched this a little; and I hope you will, too, to
prove it to yourselves: fight! ... Negotiate? Never! ... The only thing the
National Federation of the Blind respects is strength. The power is with us
right now, if we will use our heads and use it. If we unite and help one
another, as you united to help us, we can't lose ... It's time we go on the
offensive, quit hiding our heads in the sand ... Programs and agencies
banding together in strength can only secure success for NAC and all other
legitimate agencies ... The National Federation of the Blind is going to
come back and fight harder than ever, now. The pressure is on us, the
legitimate blind, to counter the new attacks that are sure to come....
************
How does one account for this bitter tirade? Is this the talk of a
dedicated volunteer working devotedly for a "professional" service agency,
which has only the well-being of the blind at heart? And what does he mean
by the "legitimate blind?" Is Mr. Johnstone (in addition to damning our
morals and denying our right to exist) also questioning our paternity? This
is not the language of service and love, but of slander and war. It smacks
of dark alleys, blackjacks, and hoodlumism. Why?
Perhaps the answer is not so difficult after all. Possibly there is a
perfectly plausible explanation, one which may explain not only the conduct
of Mr. Johnstone and the Minneapolis Society for the Blind but also the
behavior of many of the others who attack and condemn us with such spleen
and irrational hatred.
First let us consider Mr. Johnstone personally-this dedicated, unpaid
volunteer. He has been president of the Minneapolis Society for the Blind
for many years. The Minneapolis Daily American in its June 2, 1972, edition
carried an article headlined: "Charity Group Refuses to Talk/Blind Are
Being Kept in the Dark/President of Non-Profit Society Given Whopping
Contract." The article says in part:
************
The Minneapolis Society for the Blind has refused to answer questions
regarding bids on a federally assisted construction project.
The question arose when the Daily American learned that Richard
Johnstone, president of the Society, also is president of the South Side
Plumbing and Heating Company, which has the mechanical contract on the
project....
Frank A. Church, a U.S. official in the Chicago office of the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, said that "special problems"
are raised if a member of the board bids on such a contract.
************
Perhaps the fact that we of the National Federation of the Blind
exposed and publicized this situation helps explain Mr. Johnstone's
attitude toward us. Some professionalism! Some volunteer! It may also help
explain the attitude of the Minneapolis Society in general. But there is
more: in the early 1970's the Minneapolis Society for the Blind had a
thirty-member board of directors, none of whom was blind. According to the
by-laws anybody who made a cash contribution was, thereby, a member. When
the blind tried to become members, the board of the Society declared that
all members were expelled and that, in the future, nobody would be
considered a member except those on the board. As Federationists know, we
took the matter to court in the early 1970's; and after some seven years of
battle and delay, we forced the Minneapolis Society to abide by the state
law and honor the provisions of its own articles of incorporation. The
courts made the Society accept blind members and hold an election. The
issue is still not finished and awaits further action by the courts. Is it
surprising that Mr. Johnstone and the Minneapolis Society hate us and wish
we would cease to exist? Not really.
But there is still more. There is the Kettner case. Lawrence Kettner
was "evaluated" so that the Society could get an exemption and wiggle out
of paying him the federal minimum wage. To say the least, the "evaluation"
was unusual. Kettner was evaluated over a period of fourteen days, but the
studies of his work were made only on the third, fourth, sixth, and eighth
days. His duties were changed, the equipment was faulty, and there were
delays in bringing him supplies. Even so, Kettner's productivity increased
markedly (from 49 percent of normal production to 79 percent), showing the
unfairness of not giving him time studies after the eighth day of the
fourteen day period. He says he was called into the director's office and
badgered into signing a statement that he was capable of only 75 percent of
normal production. He says he was told he would not be paid for the work he
had done if he did not sign. He needed the money. He signed. Even as this
was happening, he secured a job in private industry at a rate above the
minimum wage.
We publicized the Kettner case far and wide, and we told the
Department of Labor about it. Yes, I think I can understand why Mr.
Johnstone and the Minneapolis Society for the Blind hate the organized
blind movement-and it has nothing to do with so-called high-toned
"professionalism." It is a matter of money and cover-up and exploitation.
It is as simple and as despicable as that.
As to Mr. Johnstone's statement concerning the "legitimate blind," I
would say this: he is not blind, so I do not see how that part applies; and
as to the question of legitimacy, I would think (in the circumstances) the
Minneapolis Society for the Blind would not want to discuss it. The matter
of unblemished paternity is a sensitive issue. So much, then, for Mr.
Johnstone and his talk about the "legitimate blind."
But what about the others who attack us, the others in the American
Foundation for the Blind-NAC combine? Are their reasons for hating us
similar to those of Mr. Johnstone and his Minneapolis Society? Let us call
them off and examine their "legitimacy." First, the Cleveland Society for
the Blind. It is locked in a battle with blind snack bar operators. In 1972
the director of the Society told the blind operators that they must
contribute specified amounts to the United Torch Campaign or face
dismissal. Under the Federal Randolph-Sheppard Program, Ohio was authorized
to take as a service charge no more than 3 percent from the gross earnings
of operators, but the Cleveland Society was taking 8 percent. This could
amount to as much as half of the net earnings of an operator. Moreover, as
a condition of employment each blind operator was forced to sign an
agreement giving the Cleveland Society unbelievable power over his or her
personal life. The operator had to agree (and I quote) to: "have an annual
physical check-up; eat a balanced diet; obtain adequate rest commensurate
with the hours to be worked at a snack bar; bathe daily; shampoo
frequently; use appropriate deodorants; wear clean underclothing; and wear
comfortable shoes."
We in the Federation (at least, most of us do) believe in regular
bathing and good personal hygiene, but we are not willing (as a condition
of employment) to have somebody cram it down our throats-tell us how much
rest to get, what kind of food to eat, what kind of deodorants to use, and
when to change our underwear. In the newspapers the director of the
Cleveland Society defended his rules by saying that "Blind people have to
be especially careful."
And, of course, he is right. We do have to be careful-of people like
him. We (you and I, the National Federation of the Blind) took this
director and his custodial agency to court and publicized what he was
doing. The battle still continues. Is it any wonder that the Cleveland
Society for the Blind and its director hate the organized blind movement
and wish we would cease to exist? Not really. Yet, they tell us that there
is no discrimination and that the blind are not a minority; but we know who
we are, and we will never go back.
The Cincinnati Association for the Blind and the Houston Lighthouse
for the Blind have refused to comply with orders from the National Labor
Relations Board that they permit their blind workers to organize. We
stimulated those organizing efforts and are now fighting these two agencies
in the federal courts. Is it surprising that they hate us and brand us as
"militants" and "trouble-makers?" Not at all. How could it be otherwise?
The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind used every tactic it could
(including the firing of blind organizers) to prevent blind employees from
forming a union. We took the matter to the National Labor Relations Board,
and we picketed. It is hardly necessary to add that the Chicago Lighthouse
is a principal leader in the combine which attacks us. We picketed the
Evansville Association for the Blind and told the public what the
Association was doing (all in the name of charity, and with publicly
contributed funds) to exploit and hurt blind people. We picketed the
Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind in Washington, D.C., when it was having a
gala charity ball attended by leading socialites. We told these socialites
and the public-at-large how the Lighthouse really operates and what it is
doing to the lives of blind people. Agency officials in Florida and Alabama
have been criminally indicted. All of these groups (the Minneapolis Society
for the Blind, the Cleveland Society, the Cincinnati Association, the
Houston Lighthouse, the Chicago Lighthouse, the Evansville Association, the
Columbia Lighthouse, and the Alabama and Florida agencies) have two things
in common: they exploit the blind, and they are all accredited by NAC.
Then there is New York-New York, the home territory and the special
turf of the American Foundation for the Blind and NAC. In 1978 there was a
state audit of Industries for the Blind of New York, Inc. The audit showed
that this organization (which was the principal governmental procurement
agency for blind-made products in the state) spent its money on liquor and
lavish parties and expensive cars and high salaries and God knows what else
which the average human being would consider to be totally unrelated to the
welfare of the blind. And what is Industries for the Blind of New York,
Inc.? Well, it is a board consisting of the representatives of ten
agencies, seven of which are accredited by NAC. They are flagships in the
NAC fleet. Wesley Sprague, director of the New York Association for the
Blind, is (of all things) the longtime chairman of NAC's Commission on
Standards. Joseph Larkin, director of the Industrial Home for the Blind of
Brooklyn, is a NAC board member. Peter Salmon, the Industrial Home's former
director, is NAC's past president.
There are some five hundred organizations and groups in this country
which might conceivably choose to be accredited by NAC. Yet by January of
1980 (a decade and a half after its formation) NAC was forced to admit that
it had only seventy-nine agencies in its fold. But let me hasten to add
that these are very special agencies. Our best information indicates that
they probably have a total combined wealth of somewhere in the neighborhood
of a half a billion dollars. Think about it-half a billion dollars! A few
of them may truly be service-oriented and dedicated to high standards and
the best interests of the blind-but there are the others, the ones that Mr.
Johnstone would presumably call the "legitimate blind." I have detailed for
you the conduct of sixteen of these. Sixteen! More than 20 percent of NAC's
entire membership. And there is evidence which could be brought against
many of the rest. NAC: what a sorry, miserable spectacle! It is not a
concern for "professionalism" which is the bur under the saddle of some of
these people. It is the fear that we may expose their real concerns: the
making of money, the lapping of liquor, the lust for luxury, and the push
for power.
No, it is not surprising that the American Foundation for the Blind-
NAC combine hates us and that they are determined to destroy the National
Federation of the Blind. We are the principal threat to their master plan-
their effort to gain complete control over the lives of every blind man,
woman, and child in this nation-their hope to live happily in luxury ever
after. To speak of "legitimacy" in the same breath with NAC is reminiscent
of what Franklin Roosevelt said in 1936 about mentioning the Depression in
the presence of the Republican Party. It is like showing a rope to the
family of a man who has been hanged.
As I have already said, there are both similarities and differences
between the 1950's and the 1970's-between 1960 and 1980. In the fifties the
external attacks brought severe internal conflict. In the late seventies we
saw some of the same tendencies-but even though the pressures have been
greater this time around, the dissension among us has been minimal, giving
testimony to our increased strength and maturity as a movement. We are a
part of all that we met in the 1950's. We learned-and history does not
quite repeat itself.
There is also a new element, one which was not present twenty years
ago. In the fifties we had not yet become strong enough to get very many of
our own people appointed to positions of leadership in the agencies. By the
seventies the situation was different. In 1976 and 1977 we came within a
vote or two of having a majority in the National Council of State Agencies
for the Blind. A number of our own members had been named as state
directors, and many of the other state directors were and are supportive of
our cause.
However, there was a problem, one from which we must learn. Just
because an individual calls himself or herself a Federationist, that does
not necessarily mean that he or she is immune to the temptations of agency
power-the ability to control lives and the urge to equate one's own
interests with those of the blind consumers. Increasingly in the seventies
we became strong enough to bring reform to a growing number of agencies and
to play a deciding role in determining who their directors would be. Quite
naturally, our people (having suffered so grievously from the poor service
and custodial treatment dished out by the agencies) wanted to have
Federationists as directors. Sometimes we made bad choices. It was almost
as if, out of reaction to the miserable service we had received, we said:
"Give us a Federationist-any Federationist-just so long as we can throw off
the yoke of what we have had." It was a mistake-one for which we are now
paying.
Some of these so-called Federationists had hardly been appointed to
office before they tried to take over the affiliates in their states and
make them mere auxiliaries and fronts for their own vested interests. They
put aside their loyalties and principles and seemed to forget that they had
obtained their jobs as part of a national movement-the overall struggle of
the blind as a people to be free. They forgot (if, indeed, they had ever
truly believed) what it is that has brought us as far as we have come on
the road to first-class status and the full rights of citizenship. No
individual or state organization-no local group or single person-could have
done it alone. It required the combined effort of us all. It still requires
that combined effort if we are to finish the journey. In its absence none
of us (not a single blind human being) will go the rest of the way to
equality and freedom. We should have been more selective in supporting
candidates for agency leadership-but we are a part of all that we have met.
We have learned. Fortunately we are strong enough to absorb the shock of
the lesson. We will not make the same mistake again.
In the future the primary test of whether we will support an
individual for a position of leadership in an agency will not be whether
that person is called a Federationist but what kind of philosophy and
commitment the individual demonstrates. Of course, this has always been our
concern, but the emphasis is now different and the care more thorough.
Better a neutral (one with the basics of a good philosophy, who is willing
to work with us in partnership to win our support) than a Federationist in
name only (one who takes it for granted that, because of his or her
reputation as a Federationist-even a strong Federationist-we will
automatically be supportive, regardless of the agency's conduct or
behavior). We have come too far on the road of liberation to turn back now.
We are not willing to exchange one master for another, even if the new
would-be custodian has been our colleague or uses the name "Federationist."
We will say it as often as we must: we want no strife or confrontation, but
we will do what we have to do. They tell us that the blind are not a
minority and that there is no discrimination; but we know who we are, and
we will never go back.
As Federationists know, I get a constant stream of letters from blind
people from all over the country. Some of these letters are highly
literate. Others are not. Taken together, they show the pattern and give
the details of what it is like to be blind in America today. They tell of
the hopes and aspirations and problems which the blind confront. I want to
share with you a brief passage from one of these letters. It is from a
woman in her early fifties. In page after page she cries out with the
heartache of a life of frustration. Here is part of what she says:
************
I went to the state rehabilitation agency because I was seeking employment.
I believe I was referred there by the employment service. I couldn't
understand why no one wanted to hire me. The reason given most frequently
was lack of experience. But I was young. "How does one get that
experience?" I kept asking myself. And the rehabilitation agency could do
nothing to help me. I am sure that each employer I saw felt that I should
get my experience someplace else....
************
This part of her letter refers to her early twenties. When she comes
to the present (the time of her early fifties) she says:
************
The rehabilitation agency can still do nothing to help me. My efforts
to obtain employment are the same continuing story. I won't drag it out any
further except to say that I have met with repeated failure. I haven't
enough skill to get a typing job, and apparently I haven't the training or
skill (or is it that I can't get the opportunity?) to do anything else. I
never have enough experience to compete, but as was the case when I was
young, how can I get that experience if no one will give me a chance to
try? And (now that I am in my fifties) who is going to give me the chance
to try with my lack of experience?
I feel already as though I am in forced retirement. I shudder to
think how the actual retirement years will be. I am not sure where to go
from here-whether I should try to change my life, or merely be resigned to
the fact that this is probably how it will be from now on.
I am sure that my story is not new to you. You must hear something
like it almost every day. Perhaps you can measure my despair by the number
of pages in this letter. I see my life ebbing away, and I have yet to find
my niche to occupy. This inactivity and lack of a life's work is not how I
would choose to spend what is left of my productive years. I dreamed of the
future when I was young. Now I look around me sometimes and say, "Dear God,
this is the future." I'm living it now. Perhaps it is the only future I
will ever have.
************
How can I answer such a letter? What can I say to ease the burden or
lighten the load? Day by day the hope has been killed, the spirit has been
crushed, and the dream destroyed. Yet NAC and Mr. Johnstone tell us that
all will be well if we will only leave it to them and their agencies. All
they need, they say, is a few more teeth-and enough money to crush the NFB.
How twisted! How pathetic! In their luxury and so-called "professionalism"
they do not even know of the existence of the deprivation and the misery-of
the daily struggles and problems of the ordinary blind individual.
As we stand at the door of the fifth decade of our organization, we
must thoroughly understand the lessons of history, for the eighties will be
a time of trial and decision. They will require all that we have in the way
of ability and devotion and courage. We must work not only for ourselves
but also for the blind of the next generation, for they are our children.
If not biologically, they are surely morally our children, and we must make
certain that they have the chance for better lives and fuller opportunities
than we have had.
When we talk of history, we usually think of the past-but what will
future historians say of us-of you and me-of the National Federation of the
Blind in 1980? What will they say of our struggle for freedom and our
battle with NAC, the American Foundation for the Blind, and the other
custodial agencies? As I said in 1973, future historians can only record
the events which we make come true.
************
They can help us be remembered, but they cannot help us dream. That
we must do for ourselves. They can give us acclaim, but not guts and
courage. They can give us recognition and appreciation, but not
determination or compassion or good judgment. We must either find those
things for ourselves or not have them at all.
We have come a long way together in this movement. Some of us are
veterans, going back to the forties; others are new recruits, fresh to the
ranks. Some are young; some are old. Some are educated, others not. It
makes no difference. In everything that matters we are one; we are the
movement; we are the blind....
If we falter or dishonor our heritage, we will betray not only
ourselves but those who went before us and those who come after. But, of
course, we will not fail. Whatever the cost, we shall pay it. Whatever the
sacrifice, we shall make it. We cannot turn back or stand still. Instead,
we must go forward.2
************
We shall prevail against NAC and the other custodial agencies; we
shall prevail against social exclusion and discrimination; and we shall
prevail against those few in our own movement who would destroy it with
bitterness and strife. We are stronger and more determined now than we have
ever been, and we have learned well the lessons of history. My brothers and
my sisters, the future is ours. Come! Join me in the battle line, and we
will make it all come true.
************
FOOTNOTES
1. Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, "The Federation at Twenty-Five: Postview and
Preview," August, 1965, Braille Monitor, pp. 87 and 88.
2. Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, "Blindness: Is History Against Us?" September,
1973, Braille Monitor, pp. 10 and 11.
------------
An Overview of Planned Giving
************
Making a charitable gift is one of the most satisfying experiences in
life. Each year millions of people contribute their time, talent, and
treasure to charitable organizations. When you plan for a gift to the
National Federation of the Blind, you are not just making a donation; you
are leaving a legacy that insures a future for blind people throughout the
country. Here are some of the special giving programs available through the
National Federation of the Blind.
************
Charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts, and charitable lead
trusts-income-generating gifts that allow the donor to make a gift of cash
or other property in trust now and receive income for life.
Planned giving through wills provides for a clear and specific
understanding about how you want to provide for the people and charitable
organizations important to you.
Gifts of life insurance allow donors to ensure that the National Federation
of the Blind will receive a death benefit that is larger than any gift they
could make during life.
Memorials and honoraria in memory of a departed loved one or in honor of a
loved one or a friend.
Gifts of appreciated securities generate a charitable deduction of the
gift's market value while avoiding tax for appreciation.
Gifts of real estate receive many favorable tax advantages. You may choose
to make a deferred gift that allows you to use the property for life while
giving the NFB future interest.
************
The National Federation of the Blind is a service organization
specializing in providing the help to blind people that is not readily
available to them from government programs or other existing service
systems. The services of the NFB are specially designed to meet the needs
of all blind people. By maintaining a widespread campaign of public
education, advocating for the rights of blind children and their families,
administering scholarship and mentoring programs for blind youth, providing
financial and other specialized assistance, conducting seminars on
blindness, evaluating and developing accessible technology, and providing
information and services to senior citizens so that they can adjust to
vision loss and live more accessible and independent lives, the NFB is
changing what it means to be blind.
We will be happy to provide you with further information about the
National Federation of the Blind or any of these giving opportunities.
Please call or write us at:
National Federation of the Blind
Department of Outreach Programs
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, ext. 2406
outreach at nfb.org
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Gail Snider as Yente in Fiddler on the Roof sits on a bench
wearing a wedding shawl that she made herself using a nineteenth century
pattern that she found while doing research on the Internet.]
It's a Long Way from School Plays to Community Theater
So How Did I Get from There to Here?
by Gail Snider
************
From the Editor: Gail Snider is a longtime Federationist who lives in
the Washington, D.C., area. As you will soon learn, she is an energetic
amateur musician and actor. She is always eager to learn and to take up new
challenges. She says that she knows that many other blind people are active
in community theater, but I suspect many more of us would like to be but
have never quite dared to try out. So here is Gail's story of her life in
amateur theater. If you have always had a yen to tread the boards, maybe
her experience will inspire you to give community theater a whirl. This is
what she says:
************
When I was nine years old, I played the Queen of Hearts in a school
production of Alice in Wonderland. I don't remember most of my lines, but I
know I put lots of energy into the queen's signature line: "Off with his
head!" Fast-forward to November 2006 when I will appear as Rebecca Nurse in
a local theater production of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's historical
drama about the Salem witch trials of 1692.
So what happened in between, and what have I learned from it? As a
child in England, I attended schools for the blind until I was sixteen,
when I was given the chance to attend my local public school. At elementary
and high school level, I participated in a number of dramatic and musical
productions because, well, we all did. As far as I can remember, no elite
group of students were selected because of extraordinary talent: being in a
play, like singing in a Christmas carol concert, was just part of a well-
rounded education. Also the part you got didn't depend on whether you were
totally or partially blind: in a production of Peter Pan in which I was one
of Tinkerbell's fairy companions, I had to run across the stage as if I
were flying. I had some sight then, but Peter and Tinkerbell did not, and
they did even more flying about the stage than I did.
At university, as I recall, I was more active in choral groups but
still took part in funny skits when they came my way. I never auditioned
for the university's drama group, possibly because I wasn't an English
major but also, probably, because I felt my blindness would disqualify me.
In 1977, two years after my family and I came to live in Washington,
D.C., I was introduced to the British Embassy Players by an Englishwoman
who was already a member and a volunteer with the local radio reading
service. She told me that the B.E.P. was auditioning readers for the Bible
reading that would be the climax of their upcoming "Christmas with the
Players" show. I had always been a good Braille reader, so I auditioned
with a Braille copy of St. Luke's Gospel and got the job. By this time I
was completely blind and could not see even the footlights, never mind my
fellow actors, but that didn't seem to matter; I sat in one spot for the
entire show, except when standing to sing alto in the carols and other
chorus numbers.
Since then I have taken part in other "Christmas with the Players"
shows and done some humorous monologues and sung the occasional solo, both
of which required me to do more than just stand in one place. Sighted
performers convey a lot with body language-hand gestures, head movements,
and facial expressions-which we as blind people often don't acquire or
think to use in daily life. On the stage, however, we want to be as
interesting to look at as we are to listen to, so I have made a point of
learning what gestures, movements, and expressions are most likely to
enhance my performance. I have found that a same-sex relative (such as my
daughter) can be most helpful in giving useful tips in this situation.
After my marriage ended in 1994, I checked the Auditions column in
the Washington Post and found that the Washington Revels' Christmas show
that year would be about Victorian London and that performers with British
accents would be welcome. When I arrived, the stage manager helped me fill
out the application form, and an assistant director took me into a side
room, where he taught me some lines from the show so I could perform them
like everyone else. I hammed it up shamelessly for the selection panel and
made them laugh, so I guess I wasn't too surprised to get a part. In
addition to acting, everyone had to audition for singing (solo and group)
and dancing. I had learned ballroom and country dancing at school in
England, and although I am not a great dancer, I don't have two left feet;
in fact, I'm willing to bet that most blind guys can dance if they get the
chance to learn.
In the late nineties I started attending classes to improve myself as
a stage performer. I attended seminars on voice production and care of the
voice, as well as one on how to prepare for an audition. This seminar was
especially helpful since it was given by two directors who explained that
you never can tell exactly what a director wants from you or sees in you.
For instance, you may fail simply because your height or build is not
considered right for the part, or you may succeed because you alone have
that indefinable quality that the director is looking for. When you
understand this, all you can do-and all you have to do-is prepare and
audition as well as you can. That doesn't mean that all my auditions have
been successful: I have bombed disastrously a few times, either because I
was ill-prepared or because I let my own anxieties get in the way. Now I
just get myself together, show up, and don't worry about trying to second-
guess the director.
In 1997 I joined the Paradigm Players, an integrated group of
performers, some of whom had physical or developmental disabilities. The
atmosphere was very nurturing as we all learned from each other and
accommodated each other wherever necessary. We staged Godspell in 1997 and
Working in 1998, two musicals that call for a fairly large ensemble, in
which most performers are in the chorus except when they have a featured
solo. In Working, for example, I had a monologue and a solo song as the
schoolteacher, and elsewhere in the show I could be seen with mop and
bucket as one of a group of housewives or dining in a restaurant with my
boyfriend.
At about this time I somehow got on to the mailing list of the
Theatre Lab, a nonprofit school of the dramatic arts that provides theater
education for diverse populations, including youth, seniors, and prisoners,
and attracts both professional and volunteer performers. Twice I have taken
their twelve-week class, Creating A Musical Role, which results in several
public performances of a full-length Broadway musical. My first was
Ragtime, in which I was a very active member of the chorus and had to take
on such diverse roles as a male juror, a female Jewish immigrant, a male
baseball spectator, and a female upper-class neighbor. I had only one
spoken line-as a bureaucrat-but there was so much singing and dancing that
I was busy almost the whole time.
The second Creating-a-Musical-Role class I took was this year's
production of Fiddler on the Roof in which I played Yente, the matchmaker.
Again I did not know the part when I auditioned, but the directors taught
me some lines and laughed when I performed them. This led me to think that
I was supposed to just play for laughs, but our directors taught us that
our characters had hearts, minds, lives, and concerns which deserved to be
portrayed accurately and respectfully. Thus I was able to create a role
that had real depth and still get some laughs.
In other years my theatrical endeavors have left me feeling drained
and anxious to get back to less strenuous pursuits such as choral singing,
but my Fiddler experience left me wanting more, so I went back to the
Washington Post and learned that the Foundry Players, a sixty-year-old
community theater group based three blocks from where I live, was
presenting The Crucible this November. As luck would have it, I was able to
get a WebBraille copy embossed in time for the audition. Luck was also on
my side when it turned out that the director had already seen me in
Fiddler, so I did not have to worry that he wouldn't give me a fair shot.
When I showed up with my Braille copy of the script, it turned out to be a
different edition from the one that everyone else was using, so one of the
younger actors sat down with me during a break and read the changes into my
tape recorder.
Now we are in the tedious process of blocking, in which the director
moves us around the stage like chessmen on a chessboard until he decides
where we should stand, sit, or go at any given moment during the play. This
is tedious because directors try one thing and then another and then
another before they make up their minds, so there is no point in trying to
memorize one's own stage directions right away. This used to bother me, but
now I just go with the flow, knowing that things will work out fine in the
end.
I have had my doubts about being totally blind on stage, but I don't
have such doubts anymore. One reason is that my directors have always been
ready and willing to make accommodations such as ensuring that a fellow
actor is nearby when I have to enter or leave by the steps leading on and
offstage. Also providing me with an escort for certain key movements around
the stage isn't nearly as obtrusive as it sounds: it can prevent a nasty
accident and an unintended spectacle! One time when I did fall over a piece
of furniture during a fast-moving sequence in Ragtime, I felt bad because
my family members were watching, but my daughter told me afterwards that
several people had fallen, including the music director.
Another concern at times has been getting the script in an accessible
format, and here again I have been quite lucky. As an employee of Services
for the Visually Impaired, I have had access, not only to Braille-embossing
equipment, but also to colleagues who know how to use it. In this regard I
am especially grateful to Judy and Lloyd Rasmussen and to Patty Droppers,
without whose help and expertise I would not have accomplished what I have
so far.
Finally in writing this article, I have felt awkward about writing
about myself as if I were special or outstanding when I know I'm not. If I
can claim credit for anything, it is that I have been bold enough (or crazy
enough) to take opportunities that presented themselves to me. So, when I
am tempted to ask: Why me?, maybe I should simply say: Why not me? And,
come to think of it, why not you?
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: ???]
An Examination of Four Stand-alone Reading Machines
by Steven Booth, Mike Tindell, and Anne Taylor
************
From the Editor: Anne Taylor is the manager of the International
Braille and Technology Center for the Blind (IBTC) of the National
Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute. Steve Booth and Mike Tindell
are both access technology specialists on the IBTC staff. If you can't
afford a Kurzweil(National Federation of the Blind Reader and you don't
have a computer, reader software, and an optical character recognition
scanner, one of the readers reviewed in the following article may be just
what you are looking for. Read on.
************
How many times have you been expecting a letter, but when a plausible
envelope arrived, you wondered, "Is this it or something else?" How many
times has a new book been released that you really want to read without
waiting until it has been recorded? If you do not use a computer with a
scanner and software for reading print documents aloud, one excellent tool
for dealing with such tasks independently is a stand-alone reading machine.
In this article we will discuss four commonly used reading machines: the
Portset, the SARA, the ScannaR, and the Extreme Reader XR10. Each unit has
built-in internal speakers, a flatbed scanner, a hard drive for storing
data, and a control panel or small keyboard. Because no computer skills are
needed, many people find a stand-alone reading machine easy to use.
************
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Steve Booth with the Portset Reader]
The Portset Reader
Reviewed by Steven Booth
************
The Portset Reader consists of one rectangular unit that sits on any
flat surface and measures approximately 18.5 by 10.5 by 4.5 inches. It
comes with an AC power cord, which plugs into the rear of the unit, and a
set of headphones. These three pieces comprise the entire machine. Weighing
just under twelve pounds, it is one of the lightest stand-alone reading
systems. On the top of the reader is the scanning surface with the scanner
cover hinged at the back. The scanner surface can handle paper which is 8.5
by 11 inches or the somewhat larger, A4 pages (which are not as large as
legal-size paper and common in the United Kingdom). The Portset Reader has
a built-in 3.5-inch disk drive for extra file storage.
The Portset will detect page orientation, so printed pages can be
placed either upside down or right side up in relation to the user.
Additionally, pages can be placed toward either the back or the front of
the scanner and along either the right or left edge. To begin, lift the
cover and place a page or a book flat on the scanner, reading-side down. If
both pages of a book will fit, the top of the book must be toward the right
side of the reader so that the pages will be read in the correct order.
The on/off power switch is at the back of the Reader. To operate the
Portset, locate the keys on the panel on the front side of the rectangular
unit. They are tilted slightly upward for easy navigation. The keys consist
of the scan/read key, which is larger than the other keys and is at the
left side of the panel. To the right of the scan/read key is an arrow pad
with four keys arranged with one key on top and three keys on the bottom
row, as on a computer keyboard. Each key has a raised line at the edge
which helps define its function such as up, down, left, or right. These
four keys are used for reading and selecting items. To the right of this
group of keys is another group of six keys across a top row and one key
below. The top row of six keys has three keys, then a space, then another
three keys. From left to right they are called key 1 through key 6. In the
first set of three keys, under keys 1 and 2, is the function key, which is
larger than keys 1 through 6. It performs no action when pressed by itself.
When pressed in combination with other keys, it provides additional
functions for the other keys. On the right side of the front panel is a
rotary dial volume control. The unit also has a headphone jack for private
listening.
When first turned on, the system beeps to let the user know it is
loading the program. After about thirty seconds you hear a brief set of
tones and an introductory message, and status messages tell you what
scanning selections are in effect and which voices are being used. (More on
these later.) The system is ready to use after it says "Reader ready." To
scan the page or book, place it face down on the scanner and press the
scan/read key. You will hear the scanner move down the page and messages
telling you that the reader is scanning and then conducting recognition.
When finished, the ready-to-read message sounds, and the machine will begin
reading the document automatically. While reading, you can pause reading by
pressing key 6. You can use the arrow keys to move up or down the lines or
sentence-by-sentence (automatically stopping at punctuation marks). The
Reader provides extensive help messages at each stage, and its user guide
is available both on the system and in print.
Functions can change both the voice and the speed of the voice. Nine
voice speeds are available with three voices for American English and
additional voices for British English. Consult your dealer to find out what
other languages are available and can be installed when you order a
Portset.
Files can be stored in the Reader for reading later. If a document
contains multiple pages, all the pages may be appended while scanning and
reading. This means that the saved file will read back as a continuous
document without page breaks. If you prefer, each page may be saved or
deleted.
The Portset Reader has several modes of operation. Settings can be
modified to scan printed pages containing columns or to allow the user to
scan across the page to assist in reading bills and memos. The scanner
brightness and contrast may be changed, which is necessary when documents
are of poor quality.
I found while testing a Portset Reader on multiple documents that
occasionally the Reader would not respond to key pressing if I did not
listen all the way to the end of a status message. Once that message had
finished speaking, however, the keys would again respond.
Recognition is good when the settings match the documents. However, I
found I frequently had to change scanner settings for contrast and
brightness to accommodate different kinds of documents. Therefore some
practice is needed to become familiar with the use of the function key and
the modes of operation. With a bit of practice most people will be able to
use this system for general reading. Its light weight and reasonably small
size make it possible to move it around a home or office as necessary.
Because it is housed in one unit, there are no cables other than the AC
power cord to connect and disconnect.
If you want a relatively easy reader with the ability to modify
settings, the Portset may be for you. Manufactured by Portset Systems in
England, it is available in the United States from Technologies for the
Visually Impaired, 9 Nolan Court, Hauppauge, New York 11788; (631) 724-
4479; toll-free (866) 689-5672; Web site <http://www.tvi-web.com>;
<tvii at optonline.net>. Current Sale Price: $2,595.
************
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mike Tindell (left) is seated at the SARA. Beside him are
Anne Taylor (standing) and Steve Booth (seated).]
SARA
Reviewed by Mike Tindell)
************
The SARA (which stands for Scanning And Reading Appliance) is a stand-
alone reading machine. The dimensions of the rectangular SARA are 20 inches
long by 12 inches wide by 3.5 inches deep. It weights about eighteen
pounds. It has a 60 GB hard drive, a CD/DVD burner for storing files, and a
slot for playing a CD. You can connect it to a television or to a computer
to save and view scanned images in large type. The unit has front-mounted
stereo speakers and a built-in microphone for recording file names of the
materials you scan and save. Across the top is the flatbed scanner. On the
front of the device is a jack for connecting headphones or stereo speakers.
The SARA works well for scanning hardback and paperback books, saving the
files, then reading them aloud on command. Forty public domain books are
preloaded in SARA for your reading pleasure. The buttons, although
numerous, are large and easy to find. All menu items and choices are spoken
aloud. As software updates are available for the SARA, they are provided on
DVD with instructions.
The front of the machine has two steps, first a small rise, then a
large rise to the flatbed scanner across the top. The vertical front of the
first step has seven buttons. The tread (if the machine were a staircase)
is slightly tilted and has eleven buttons. The riser of the next step has
speakers on the left and right with a slot for a CD between them and one
button above the slot for ejecting the CD.
Rotate the machine so that the back faces you. On the far left is a
power supply connector. Moving to the right, you find a TV Out connector
for viewing scanned images on a television. To its right the VGA port
connects a computer monitor.
Returning to the front side, the riser of the first stair (the one
closest to the user) has seven buttons. From left to right these are power
button, volume (rock left to decrease volume and right to increase volume),
four user-assignable function keys, and a voice-rate rocker switch (to
adjust the speed of the speech). At the right-hand end is a hole for the
headset jack.
The slanted surface of the first tread has two buttons to the left
and two to the right of a central group of seven buttons for navigation.
The scan button is located on the far left and above the read/pause button.
To the far right is the menu button above the help button. The navigation
section has a select button in the middle of arrow keys for up, down, left,
and right. A raised line on each button indicates its direction. To the
left of the left arrow button is the rewind button. Similarly, to the right
of the right arrow button is the fast-forward button. The rewind and fast-
forward buttons have double raised lines showing their direction.
Press the scan button to start and stop scanning. Press the read
button to start and stop reading. The menu key is used to enter and exit
menus.
Here are some of the ways to use this reading machine. When pressed,
the scan button, located on the top left of the unit, scans a page,
processes the text, then reads it aloud. SARA has a mode called "scan in
background" that allows the user to scan several pages while the unit is
reading other pages. This is not the default mode when the scanner is
unpacked. The double arrow keys, both left and right, can be disabled or
can be set to take the user forward or backward by sentence, paragraph, or
page. The up and down arrow keys move line by line, and the left and right
arrows move word by word. The select button speaks a word when pressed
once, spells a word when pressed twice, and spells the word phonetically
when pressed three times. The help key is a key describer that announces
the function of each key (press the help key then any other key to hear its
function).
When you press the menu key, you are at the file menu. Here you can
open files, burn files to CD, save or erase files from the hard drive, open
and close documents, and create blank documents. Press down arrow to locate
the go to menu. This option allows the user to go to the top and bottom of
documents, next and previous page, next and previous paragraph, and next
and previous sentence.
SARA has a DAISY feature. It will play all three DAISY formats, audio
CD, MP3, Wave, and CDA files. It can open files in the doc, xml, rtf, and
txt formats. The voice settings menu allows a user to change the voice rate
and choose from a selection of voices. Different settings can be chosen for
the menu and reading voices. If the text is written in English, Spanish,
French, or German, SARA can read the text in those languages. For others it
is best to contact the dealer to check for availability.
In the scanning settings menu the user can choose among ignore or
divide columns, scan-and-read mode, scan-in-background mode, or scan-and-
replace mode. If the user makes a mistake and begins scanning a page which
is not the next page in order in a book or multi-page document, the command
to scan-and-replace will replace the last page scanned with the next page
scanned, and the user can continue scanning correctly from that point.
SARA works well for those who use large print. You can attach the
SARA to a computer monitor or television. In the visual settings menu you
can choose any one of seven fonts and nine color combinations of letter and
background and adjust the point size of the letters from 14 to 144. Text
spacing can be set from one to six spaces between letters. SARA will
highlight each word as it is spoken aloud.
Some have commented that the menu structure of the SARA is somewhat
difficult to move around in. However, for most documents no scanner
adjustments are necessary. For basic operation the user need only press the
scan key and the read/pause key in order to hear page after page read
aloud.
The SARA is manufactured and sold by Freedom Scientific, 11800 31st
Court North, St. Petersburg, Florida 33716-1805; (727) 803-8000; toll-free
(800) 444-4443; tech support (737) 803-8600; Web site
<http://www.freedomscientific.com>; <info at freedomscientific.com>. Current
price: $2,795.
************
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mike Tindell and the ScannaR]
The ScannaR
Reviewed by Mike Tindell
************
ScannaR (notice the capital R on the end of the word) is another
stand-alone reading machine designed to scan a document, process the text,
and read it aloud using synthetic speech. The ScannaR provides reliable
scanning and text recognition, along with several voices to choose from for
the reading and menu voices. The unit is rectangular, 19.3 inches long by
12.8 inches wide by 3.5 inches deep, and weighs fifteen pounds. The power
cable is connected to the back of the unit, and all operations are done
from the panel of buttons and knobs on the front. The ScannaR will speak
the menu as buttons are pressed and tell the user which options the up and
down buttons offer at different points in the menu.
Moving along the front of the unit from left to right, you find a
power button, a headphone jack, the external speaker, then two knobs
aligned one above the other. The top knob is for controlling volume, and
the bottom is for controlling reading voice rate. Located to the right of
the knobs is the start button, followed by the pause button. To the right
of the pause button are two more buttons set one above the other for
choosing up and down movement. The last button at the right end is the
stop/menu button.
Place a printed page face down on the glass scanning plate. The only
function of the power button is to power the ScannaR on and off. Press this
button. Many of the other buttons have multiple functions, depending on
which function is being performed. To scan and read the document, press the
start button. The scanner will scan the text and, after it completes its
scan, begin reading aloud. Press pause, and the reading will pause. To
resume reading, press pause again. If no text is being read, the stop
button serves as a menu button. Move through the menus with the up and down
arrow buttons. Use the pause button to select a menu item.
The first option in the menu is new document. If the current document
has not been saved, you will be asked if you wish to save the current
document. Use the up and down buttons to choose yes, no, or cancel. The
menu voice will present the options aurally and tell the user which button
to press for each option.
Unlike other stand-alone readers, the ScannaR often requires the user
to press two keys simultaneously to choose an action. In the menu, for
example, open document is selected by pressing pause. This places the user
in a list of files. To select a file as the names are spoken aloud, use the
arrow keys. To delete a file, press and hold start while pressing pause.
You will be asked if you wish to delete the document; the choices voiced
are yes or no. Press pause to register the selected choice. Additionally,
you can go to the top of the list, the bottom of the list, or move up or
down by ten files at a time. This is done by simultaneously pressing
different combinations of two keys on the unit. The ScannaR has only a few
keys, but many possibilities in its menu.
Document info will tell you the number of pages in the open document
as well as your position in the file. When reading a document, you can set
up to eight flags to find your spot quickly. You can quickly move from flag
to flag or delete flags. When a document is closed, a bookmark is
automatically set at the last reading position. The next time this document
is opened, the user is automatically taken to this spot in the text.
The feature called key description doesn't speak the function of each
key as it is pressed but gives a list of all shortcut keys. Within the main
menu the last function, settings, offers several possibilities. The first
menu choice can change the function of the navigation keys in order to move
through the document by line, sentence, paragraph, or page. The default
choice is line. Other features in the settings menu concern the reading
voice. They allow the user to change the voice, change the speed of the
voice, and change the language used when reading. The next option is menu
voice, which can change the voice and the rate at which the voice speaks
menu items.
Another sub-menu under settings is called scanner. In this menu the
user can read or ignore columns and change brightness and contrast
settings. Values can be chosen between minus-1000 and 1000 for both
brightness and contrast on the pages being scanned. The next item in the
menu is image type. The user can choose between black on white or gray
scale, which is recommended for colored documents. The next sub-menu under
settings is language for text recognition. The default language is English,
but the user can change to other languages.
The next item in the settings menu is general. All of the items in
this sub-menu are check boxes that can be selected or unselected by
pressing the start key. When the settings are set the way you want them,
press pause to save the settings. One useful feature in this sub-menu will
have ScannaR automatically give a signal when scanning is started or
stopped.
On the positive side, the reading voices are varied and pleasant, and
recognition of text is very fast and accurate. One problem I discovered in
testing the ScannaR is that it would sometimes lock up when setting and
deleting flags. This required a reboot before the unit would operate again.
Also it seemed unnecessarily difficult that two of the most commonly needed
commands were two levels down in the command structure and required two
keys pressed simultaneously. I suggest the commands for delete a document
and go to top and bottom of file should move to the main navigation menu in
a future update. Another common feature of most machines designed for use
by blind people is a key that, when pressed, names each key or its function
when the second key is pressed. However, in order to use this feature in
the ScannaR, you must already have a working knowledge of the machine in
order to dig down through its help menu. Once at the key describer menu,
commands are listed in separate groups, and you must use two keys together
to get to the different groups. I suggest that most users would appreciate
a key describer that can be more easily found and used.
ScannaR is sold by HumanWare, 175 Mason Circle, Concord, California
94520; (925) 680-7100; toll-free (800) 722-3393; Web site
<http://www.humanware.com>; <us.info at humanware.com>. Current price: $2,995.
************
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Anne Taylor and the Extreme Reader XR10]
Extreme Reader XR10
Reviewed by Anne Taylor
************
The Extreme Reader XR10 reads printed text aloud and can read aloud
books that are on CDs and floppy disks. It has one function for readers who
need magnification. A cable connects an external keyboard that can be moved
around to an advantageous position by the user. The Reader can access many
file types, has two on-board storage drives, a hard drive, and a 3.5-inch
floppy drive. The Extreme Reader XR10 is complete in five pieces: the
machine (a computer CPU), a small-sized scanner attached to the top of the
computer by Velcro strips, a power cord, an external keyboard, and an
external MP3 player with buttons designed for use by blind people. This
machine is the only stand-alone reading system that uses AT&T Natural
Voices (one male and one female) as one of its two speech-synthesizer
options. The alternate speech option is Microsoft Speech (one male, one
female).
This reading machine can read aloud books or documents in the
following commonly used file formats: text only format (txt), rich text
format (rtf), Microsoft Word format (doc), and portable document format
(pdf). These files must be located on a floppy disk. If the books or
documents are on an audio CD, they must be in one of these file formats:
DAISY version 2 audio files, Wave audio files, or CDA audio files.
Currently the Extreme Reader XR10 cannot read MP3 files on CD.
No file can be saved to a CD at this time; instead, the user can
export a scanned file to the MP3 player provided. Files can also be stored
on the hard drive or the floppy drive. Currently the CD drive can be used
only to read documents, not to save them. Note that a scanned file can be
saved as only a txt-formatted file or as an MP3-formatted file. Since the
stand-alone reading machine is generally designed for people who are not
advanced computer users, the limited number of file types is not considered
a serious disadvantage.
With the small external keyboard a user can control speech rate,
select voice preferences, navigate between folders and files, move between
sentences, or move from word to word within a specific file. The Extreme
Reader XR10 has an excellent help feature. If a user forgets the keyboard
layout, he or she can press the help key at the top left of the keyboard to
hear the system announce the functions of every key, starting with the top
row and moving from left to right. Note that the key describer runs through
the entire set every time it is pressed. It does not describe one key only.
However, since there are only fourteen buttons (a row of four, a second row
of four, and a bottom row of two buttons, plus four navigation keys), this
is not a great problem. To help a user with the layout of the external
keyboard, each key contains tactile markings. For example, the help key has
a print question mark on its face.
The Extreme Reader XR10 has several modes to accommodate different
types of printed information. Currency mode is used for scanning banknotes,
column mode scans books or magazines, and tabular mode scans across the
page for reading one-column books or financial statements and invoices. To
change from one mode to another, the change mode key cycles the user
through all of the mode options. Once a desired mode is announced, the
start/scan key must be pressed to start the scanning process. As with all
scanners, each page must be fully processed before the reader begins
reading the words aloud. However, after the first page is processed, that
page will be read aloud while the scanner processes the next page, which
allows for continuous reading.
The Extreme Reader XR10 features several modes used to control all of
the storage drives and exporting audio files from a CD to the external MP3
player. For example, to play a book recorded on a CD, insert the CD, choose
CD mode, then press the scan/start button.
Those who prefer magnification can connect the Extreme Reader XR10 to
a computer monitor. By default the magnification is set to 28-point type,
and the font is Arial. As the reader highlights each word, the unit reads
it aloud. The user cannot now change the size of the print or the font, but
I recommend that this limitation be changed in future upgrades.
I observed that the user interface of the Extreme Reader XR10 is
quite logical. For instance, to move forward one word at a time, press
shift and the forward key, and to move backward one word at a time, press
shift with the backward key. By default the machine reads English only, but
it supports other languages. Contact the manufacturer to learn what is
available.
The Extreme Reader XR10 is manufactured and sold by Guerilla
Technologies, 5029 SE Horseshoe Point Road, Stuart, Florida 34997; (772)
283-0500; Web site <http://www.guerillatechnologies.com>; email by online
form. Current price: $3,495.
We hope that after reading these reviews of four popular flatbed
stand-alone scanners, you have a better perspective on what is currently
available for purchase. If you have further questions, call the National
Federation of the Blind technology answer line at (410) 659-9314, option 5.
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Karl Smith]
A New Day for Disabled Americans
by Karl Smith
************
From the Editor: Increasing numbers of blind and disabled Americans
reach the polls each election day to discover that they actually can vote
independently for the first time in their lives or since they became
disabled. For me the date was November 8, 2005, and I will never forget the
experience and the unexpected pride and excitement that accompanied this
simple act of citizenship that so many take for granted that millions
actually stay home, choosing not to exercise their right to vote at all.
Karl Smith, a leader of the National Federation of the Blind of Utah, has
just voted independently for the first time in this fall's election. He
came home and wrote a letter about his experience to his local newspaper,
the Deseret News. Whether or not the paper's editor thought it worth
publishing, we think it expresses the sentiments of many of us who have
recently participated independently in this right and responsibility of
citizenship for the first time. This is what Karl wrote:
************
It is Halloween night, my fifty-first, but this year marks a special
event in my life which has nothing to do with ghosts, goblins, or even
trick-or-treat candy. After learning this afternoon of the opportunity to
participate in early voting this week, I did something I've never done
since I was first eligible to vote in 1976--cast a secret ballot in a U.S.
election.
This was not because of apathy or lack of desire, but rather it was
because until this year the mechanisms for casting ballots in Utah and
other states in which I have lived were not accessible to me as a blind
person. In past elections I had to have someone, my wife, a friend, or poll
worker, read the ballot to me and punch my choices. Until today. Today, for
the first time since I became eligible to vote, I was able to cast a
completely secret ballot for myself--an experience even my children had
before I did.
After a slight bit of clumsiness at the beginning on my part as well
as that of the poll worker, who was still learning his way on the new
electronic voting equipment and who had never had a blind person come in to
use an accessible machine, which speaks all the pertinent information
through headphones, I got the hang of it and made my choices.
For several years I have been heavily involved through the National
Federation of the Blind in working for the passage of the Help America Vote
Act to see that whatever equipment finally emerged would be accessible to
blind voters. I have personally been present at product demonstrations and
tested a number of different voting machines. But nothing prepared me for
the overwhelming feeling of wonder and awe for my country and the rights
all of us sometimes take for granted. This was no test, no demonstration;
it was the first time this fifty-year-old American has fully and
independently participated in the remarkable process which defines America
and its truly extraordinary system of government.
I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to exercise your right
to vote. It is your chance to make a difference and can only be taken away
if you allow it to be.
------------
[GRAPHIC/DESCRIPTION: A formal place setting, complete with placecard
bearing the Whozit logo and the words "Miss Whozit"]
************
Ask Miss Whozit
************
From the Editor: From time to time Miss Whozit answers reader
questions about etiquette and good manners, particularly as they involve
blindness. If you would like to pose a question to Miss Whozit, you can
send it to the attention of Barbara Pierce, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore,
Maryland 21230, or email me at <bpierce at nfb.org>. I will pass the questions
along. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. Here are the most
recent letters Miss Whozit has received:
************
Dear Miss Whozit,
I wish to inquire about your comments in your July 2006 column in
response to the question raised by Buffet Baffled. The question was how to
maneuver through a restaurant or party buffet line with dignity and good
manners.
You began by saying that asking for assistance in gathering food is
"essential or prudent. We live in an interdependent society." Dr. Jernigan
wrote in "The Nature of Independence" about the importance of accomplishing
tasks efficiently rather than insisting on doing everything alone.
Negotiating a buffet line, you said, is one of those situations in which
hygiene and efficiency combine to make asking for information or even
assistance from a sighted server or dinner companion advisable.
But then you reminded Baffled that, once through the line, "you are
responsible for carrying your own plates, glasses, or bowls. You have
requested assistance learning what items are on the line and perhaps
placing the food on your plate, not providing service as a personal butler,
carrying your selections from the line to the table." My question has to do
with how one would carry plates and drinks to a table from the buffet line,
especially if the plates are breakable. It seems to me that you are setting
a double standard about when it is permissible to request assistance.
Miss Whozit, your expectation seems draconian. Nobody wants a
personal butler just to make things simple. First you say that it is
preferable to ask for assistance in the name of efficiency and cleanliness,
and then you say that asking someone to carry china and liquids is
inappropriate. While I would love to know how to carry plates and glasses
independently, I also recall your stressing that we live in an
interdependent society.
I have always admired the National Federation of the Blind for
fighting the unrelenting discrimination that blind people face and for
urging us all to demand training in the skills we need and to push
ourselves to be independent so that we can live up to our full potential.
But your conflicting advice here confuses me. Please explain.
************
Challenging Assumptions and Breaking Rules
************
Dear Challenging,
Dearie, dearie me, you have certainly caught Miss Whozit cutting
corners. She assumed, gentle reader, that everyone would understand her
implied distinctions, and your confusion demonstrates again how dangerous
such assumptions can be.
Miss Whozit will try again to make a distinction which is important
to understand but which does change from person to person and even
situation to situation. As you say, the buffet line is not an appropriate
place for tactile exploration, which means that most blind people must
recruit sighted assistance to negotiate it quickly and neatly and without
offending other diners, who do not appreciate watching someone handling the
food they are about to eat. For some blind people, assistance carrying food
and drink back to the table is every bit as necessary as help in the line.
If the blind diner has only one hand, which will be needed for using the
white cane, or must use a support cane or crutch as well as a mobility
cane, or has problems with balance, carrying the dinner plate safely or at
all is impossible, and requesting assistance is the only sensible course of
action.
But you will note that all these extenuating circumstances imply an
additional impairment. Miss Whozit was thinking and speaking about the
diner with no additional complications to independent mobility. Blind
people are told all of our lives that we cannot carry trays levelly or
glasses without spilling the contents. Yet many blind people have worked
out personal methods for doing so. Developing these techniques takes a bit
of practice-precisely the experience that is hard to acquire if you never
take the opportunity to carry a filled plate, a glass or cup of liquid, or
a loaded tray. If you are serious about mastering this skill, it is pretty
easy to gather a tray and plastic dishes and cups at home and balance the
tray on your forearm while you walk around the house.
Late in his life Dr. Jernigan discovered that it is easy to carry a
mug of hot coffee or a glass of liquid without spilling by grasping it from
above with the thumb and index finger. In this way gravity helps one carry
it level. He explains this method in the Kernel Book, Old Dogs and New
Tricks.
When blind people are developing and practicing new skills either on
their own or at a good training center, it is very important for them to
push hard against their perceived limitations. Once you know to the center
of your being that you can complete a task that people usually assume a
blind person cannot do, you no longer have to prove to yourself that you
can do it. Then you are free to do what seems most convenient in any given
situation. But that is the reason I urged Baffled to carry her food
herself. She seemed uncertain that she really could do it. She did not
suggest that there were reasons why she was inherently unable to do the
job, so I gently encouraged her to carry out the part of the task of
gathering food from a buffet that would not compromise the cleanliness of
other people's food.
Each of us is responsible for conducting ourselves considerately,
courteously, and as independently as circumstances permit. Learning how to
decide upon the appropriate behavior in accordance with these standards
takes a lifetime of thoughtful effort and the support and advice of our
Federation family.
************
************
Dear Miss Whozit,
As I sit down to write this letter, fall has come and the holiday
season will not be far behind. For me this means that it is time to begin
worrying again about how to dress for various functions.
In my office the dress code is what is known today as business
casual. I think I have mastered this standard: slacks (not jeans) and nice
sports shirts or sweaters for men and slacks (not jeans) or skirts and
blouses or sweaters for women. T-shirts, tube tops, halters, cut-offs, and
shorts are out. That's fine with me and clear enough to make compliance
easy.
I begin feeling uncertain when it comes to receptions, holiday
parties, and even my state convention. I can never decide how casual is too
casual and how dressy is too formal. I may be making the right decisions,
but I may not. So I always feel insecure and uncertain for fear I am
conspicuous, and that's before we come to the white cane and people's
uncertainty about what they should be doing to help me.
Please, Miss Whozit, I need some guidance.
************
Stuck in my Closet
************
Dear Stuck,
Miss Whozit pines for the days of yesteryear when gentlemen donned
clean collars and ties with their suits each morning, ladies wore house
dresses for cleaning, morning dresses for making calls, tea gowns for late
afternoon, and evening gowns for dinner; and everyone wore hats and gloves
as a matter of course. But that standard of dress was time-consuming and
expensive, and those days will never come again. But at least people knew
what was expected of them at any hour of the day and in any setting.
I believe that you are correct in your statement of the requirements
for meeting the business-casual standard. Offices that require more
formality demand suits and ties for men and suits with pants or skirts or
business-style dresses for women. For women this means leaving one's
contours to the imagination of others-not too tight and not so much skin
visible that your grandmother would be shocked.
These standards are fairly easy to establish and to understand, and
they probably also hold for most receptions that are business-connected,
particularly since they usually bump up against the workday. If the
reception precedes or follows an arts performance, performance attire will
govern dress for the reception. Remember that the performers will probably
be dressed formally, and while audiences today are not required to follow
suit, Miss Whozit prefers to appear only a step below them on the formality
spectrum-a suit or dress jacket and tie or ascot for men and dressy to semi-
formal attire for women.
Parties do not lend themselves to rigorous standards. Dress is
dictated by the time of day, party activity, and preference of the host. It
is always proper to enquire how formal or casual dress is to be. Unless
one's dinner host says that dress is casual, Miss Whozit always pays him or
her the compliment of dressing up at least a little. Appearing in black tie
when everyone else is in shorts would naturally make one feel
inappropriately dressed, but arriving a step or even two above the dress of
the other guests is perfectly acceptable and indicates respect for the host
and the occasion.
A decision to dress below the accepted standard for an event makes
the opposite statement and will result in one's standing out even more
painfully.
The discussion so far about what to wear has avoided the problem of
making certain that one's clothing is clean, pressed, and free of stains
and spots, which requires extra effort if you do not live with someone who
can check for and treat problem areas before clothes are washed or dry
cleaned. Making a good appearance requires not only that one be dressed
appropriately, but also that one's clothing be in good repair and look and
be clean. This means retiring the items that have seen better days.
In closing Miss Whozit wishes to make a few comments about convention
attire. We try hard to make everyone at a convention feel welcome, no
matter how casually or even grubbily dressed. We understand that many blind
people have not had good advice about appropriate dress and many have
little money to spend on clothes. But part of what we can do for each other
is to raise our expectations of what is expected in the general social
circles that we are coming to inhabit. Therefore, though etiquette demands
that all attendees be graciously welcomed at conventions no matter how they
are dressed, chapter, state, and national leaders and those who aspire to
leadership should make a point of according respect to the convention by
dressing with care and good taste. Those who present on the agenda should
certainly be dressed for business. (Some of us are old enough to remember
how insulted we felt when Larry King appeared on the NFB convention
platform in a jogging suit and called attention to the fact by excusing
himself on the grounds that he was addressing blind people.) Those seated
in the audience can get away with business casual dress, but everyone
should aim at a neat, well-groomed appearance.
The banquet is another matter. Miss Whozit regrets to report that
many people no longer bother to dress for this event. Perhaps they do not
realize that a number of the gentlemen at the national convention head
table wear black tie and all of the ladies are dressed in cocktail- or
evening-length gowns. Many in the audience as well dress appropriately
(coats and ties for the men and very dressy dresses for the women). But,
alas, many others cannot be bothered to part from their jeans and T-shirts,
and some, Miss Whozit is pained to report, have not even bothered to put on
clean T-shirts and jeans. State convention banquets need not aim for the
level of formality of the national banquet, but everyone at the head table
should most certainly wear a coat and tie or a very dressy dress or evening
pants and top. Miss Whozit would hope that banquet guests would also
demonstrate sufficient respect for the organization and the occasion to
make an extra effort to dress as well as possible for the event.
I am aware that I have set the standard for personal appearance
higher than some people might prefer. Unfortunately we are all judged by
our appearance, and if poorly or slovenly dressed blind people are not
dismissed as inappropriate, it is only because as a class we are not held
to the same standard as the rest of the community. This is a sad commentary
on how far we still have to travel to reach first-class status and be held
to general community standards.
If your wallet does not stretch to purchasing a new wardrobe from
department stores or even outlet malls, remember that every city or town
has at least one thrift store, and every metropolitan area has resale
stores in which very fine, almost new clothing is sold at a fraction of its
actual value. Invite a friend or relative who likes to shop to go with you
to such an establishment. It is possible to create a wardrobe for a very
small outlay of cash and have fun in the process. Just check beforehand to
be sure that your proposed shopping partner understands style, color, and
clothing quality. A quiet conversation with a third person about his or her
taste and fashion sense may put your mind at ease before you raise the
question of a shopping spree. Anyone who shops with you should agree
beforehand to be honest about what styles complement your coloring and body
type. You may even find it useful to read up on this subject or watch the
Learning Channel program, What Not to Wear, which will quickly convince you
that blind people are not the only ones who need constructive advice about
what to wear and what to avoid wearing.
Let us all make a New Year's resolution to build the self-confidence
we have when we know that we are appropriately dressed. This does wonders
for one's ability to face the world with poise.
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]
Leadership in Action:
Jernigan Institute Establishes New Program to Empower Youth
by The NFB Jernigan Institute Education Team
************
From the Editor: In early October blind students from a handful of
residential schools across the country gathered at the Jernigan Institute
for an intensive four-day program that opened prospects and changed lives.
Here is a report of what happened:
************
Here at the Jernigan Institute youth leadership and empowerment are
central to our work. Recently we have been working to build relationships
with educators across the nation, including strengthening ties to schools
for the blind. As a result of this effort, we talked with a number of
leaders in residential schools across the country to generate new ideas for
empowering the current generation of blind youth. These discussions have
produced a pilot program that we call the NFB Transition Leadership
Academy.
The NFB Transition Leadership Academy made its debut during the first
week of October 2006 as nine students, accompanied by chaperones, from
schools for the blind in Washington, Texas, Arizona, Indiana, and Kansas
visited the Institute for a week of leadership, mentoring, and learning
activities designed to develop leadership skills, confidence, a positive
view of blindness, and broader career awareness. In order to achieve these
goals, the Academy focused on the importance of collective action and
empowering blind youth to find their own voice in advocating for issues
that touch their lives.
After arriving at the National Center for the Blind, the group was
greeted by the core of blind mentors who would be working with them
throughout their stay. The first item on the agenda was a discussion with
NFB President Marc Maurer about what leadership is, how one becomes a
leader, and what the necessary elements are to build successful endeavors.
By the end of the discussion we were all prepared to imagine and build
greater opportunities. Dr. Maurer challenged the students to create
something so dynamic that the whole world would pay attention.
On the first full day the group headed to Washington, D.C., to visit
many historic sites in order to consider how great endeavors are built. Two
knowledgeable and entertaining tour guides showcased our nation's capital,
emphasizing American history and the symbolism behind several of the
monuments on the National Mall. These guides helped explain the purpose of
the monuments and pointed out the concepts typically conveyed through the
visual presentation of the structures. In addition NFB Director of
Governmental Affairs James McCarthy and Government Program Specialist Jesse
Hartle accompanied the students on this day-long outing, allowing them to
place their tour in the perspective of the organized blind movement.
On day two successful blind people presented workshops on topics such
as owning your blindness, the importance of mentoring, and overcoming
barriers in careers. The students learned from leaders like Betsy
Zaborowski, executive director of the Jernigan Institute, and Joanne
Wilson, executive director of the NFB Department of Affiliate Action.
Further, students learned about a variety of related topics through hands-
on activities such as challenging each other to a game of Family Feud with
a Federation twist. The students then engaged the NFB Governmental Affairs
staff in discussions about laws and legislation and the development of
policy. The group learned about the way the NFB develops organizational
policy statements--resolutions adopted through the national convention-and
about the choices that must be made in developing policy priorities.
In keeping with legislative style, the students participated in a
debate, arguing the pros and cons of such issues as "Should there be a
federal mandate for all forms of entertainment, including movies and
television, to include descriptive services for the blind?" and "Should
blind individuals accept discounts or special privileges offered at public
facilities or events?" Students were challenged to argue positions
regardless of their own opinions, and they worked with blind lawyers to
prepare their cases. In the end winning teams were chosen by the audience
based on how well organized and convincing their arguments had been,
regardless of the position being held. This provided students with an
opportunity to understand how to develop policy arguments and to think
about the broader effect of policy decisions.
On day three the students were exposed to technology and careers in
advanced science. A visit to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center provided
a rare glimpse into the vast array of career opportunities in fields
related to science, technology, engineering, and math. Additionally the
students had the opportunity to observe blind employees at NASA doing
groundbreaking work and to learn about internship opportunities. The
students also spent time with the skilled staff of the NFB's International
Braille and Technology Center for the Blind (IBTC), where they learned
about the newest developments in technology, how to evaluate the best
technology for them, and how as consumers of technology they can influence
technology development. This culminated in a demonstration and discussion
about the Kurzweil(National Federation of the Blind Reader led by James
Gashel, NFB executive director for strategic initiatives.
On day four the group could be found keeping an aggressive schedule
of visits in Washington, D.C., In contrast to their transport during their
previous visit, the group used the Washington Metro system for all of its
travel in the District. Through a visit to the Library of Congress, the
students learned about preserving history and culture, and they enjoyed an
informative lunch with Frank Kurt Cylke, director of the National Library
Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. The group also traveled
to the Executive Building at the White House, where they received a warm
welcome in the historic Indian Treaty Room. This visit culminated in a
presentation by longtime blind Federationist Olegario D. Cantos VII,
associate director for domestic policy at the White House. Finally the
group received a rare tour of the Capitol by Stacy Cervenka, another
successfully employed blind Federationist, who serves as staff assistant in
the Office of Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.
As is customary during NFB programs, the students undertook a number
of challenge activities in order to reinforce their self-confidence. Under
the direction of skilled blind mentors, the students and their chaperones
participated in activities such as grilling their own meals over an open
flame and cutting down their fears by using a gas-powered chainsaw. These
activities were done under blindfold to reinforce a phrase that came to be
a theme throughout the Academy, "Vision is not a requirement for success."
Of course the busy schedule, fast-paced travel on the Washington Metro, and
a host of other incidental activities like lighting a fire in the fireplace
for evening relaxation communicated clearly to the students the high
expectations we all have for them and reinforced the message that vision is
not a requirement for success.
The Transition Leadership Academy also issued a new challenge to its
participants. As an outcome of their time at the NFB, students were
expected to design a project that would allow them to make a contribution
to their communities and would help educate people about blindness or serve
blind people themselves. Their projects were to be based entirely on issues
of deep concern to them, and they had total freedom to plan their projects
in their own way. The students presented their preliminary project outlines
at the closing dinner for the Academy. A number of NFB leaders, including
Dr. Maurer and Dr. Zaborowski, heard the presentations and had an
opportunity to ask questions. The students successfully articulated well-
conceived projects and fielded all of the questions as if they were
experienced veterans. The students are now back home planning to implement
their ideas in their local communities with the support of the NFB as
needed. The Jernigan Institute will be receiving reports from these
students, and we are confident that the results will be worthy of report in
future issues of the Braille Monitor.
The NFB Transition Leadership Academy has raised expectations and
taught these blind youth to exercise their voices in everything that
matters. The results of this effort are best seen in the reports we have
received since the students returned home. Here is an excerpt from one of
these reports:
************
On September 29th, 2006, I flew to Baltimore, Maryland, to attend a
four-day conference hosted by the National Federation of the Blind. I had
no idea what it would be like, and it certainly never crossed my mind that
I would experience the best four days of my life and meet such influential
people. I just thought it would be another great social event and that I'd
be able to further my advocacy skills. Indeed I was able to do both of
those things, but I came away with much more than I could have ever
imagined!
One of the biggest moments for me was finally accepting my blindness.
It never occurred to me that I had a negative attitude about it because, as
far as I knew, my attitude was just fine. As I heard Betsy Zaborowski tell
her story, though, it hit me. It was not until then that I truly accepted
my blindness. I finally acknowledged that yes, I am blind, but it is
nothing more than a characteristic. It does not define who I am or even
stop me from doing what I love; it just is. I have the ability to make a
difference in the world just like anyone else.-Chelsea Munoz, Texas School
for the Blind
************
As a result of the successful completion of this pilot program, the
NFB Jernigan Institute education team is planning to expand this effort in
the future. Through building relationships with educators and
administrators across the country, we will continue to raise expectations
and build opportunities for this and future generations of blind students.
We are in our own transition--a transition to a time when every blind young
person in America believes in his or her heart that vision is not a
requirement for success. Furthermore we are committed to working to create
an environment in which every professional and parent accepts this
proposition and implements practices that support this standard. While we
have much more work to do in this transition, we can measure our progress
in the lives of students and chaperones like those who participated in the
NFB Transition Leadership Academy, who have gained or strengthened their
beliefs about blindness and who will join us in our mission to carry this
message forward to future generations.
------------
The 2007 National Federation of the Blind
Scholarship Program
**********
This year's scholarship program will be the twenty-fourth since the
organization decided to expand the number, variety, and value of the
scholarships presented each year at our annual convention in July.
Assisting the nation's most talented postsecondary students to fulfill
their academic and professional dreams is one of the most effective ways
for us to demonstrate our conviction that blind people deserve the chance
to enter whatever field they demonstrate themselves equipped to succeed in.
Scholarships will be presented this year to thirty college,
vocational-school, and graduate students. Again this year the NFB awards
will range in value from $3,000 to $12,000. This top scholarship, named the
Kenneth Jernigan Memorial Scholarship, is presented by the American Action
Fund for Blind Children and Adults. We will also bring the winners as our
guests to the 2007 convention of the National Federation of the Blind to
experience firsthand the excitement and stimulation of a gathering of the
largest and most dynamic organization of blind people in the country today.
Again we plan to present at least three of the scholarships to
students who won scholarship awards in a previous competition. The purpose
of these special awards is to nurture in today's students an ongoing
commitment to the philosophy and objectives of the Federation. The students
so designated will be recognized and honored as the 2007 tenBroek Fellows.
All current students who were scholarship winners in previous years should
take particular note of this program and consider applying for the 2007
National Federation of the Blind scholarships.
Full-time employees interested in pursuing postsecondary degrees
should take a close look at the scholarship form because one award may be
given to a part-time student holding down a full-time job.
Every state affiliate and local chapter can help in spreading the
word of this extraordinary opportunity for America's blind students. The
scholarship application is now available for downloading from the NFB Web
site, <www.nfb.org>, and forms have been or soon will be mailed to
financial aid offices in educational institutions around the country. Many
of these will be filed away and forgotten by the time students come to ask
about financial assistance. It is very helpful to have local
representatives deliver or mail forms to the actual college administrator
who works with blind students. Being identified with such a valuable
national scholarship program gives the local chapter and state affiliate
prestige and respect, and the local touch insures that more blind students
will actually have an opportunity to apply for these scholarships.
Anyone can order scholarship forms from Peggy Elliott, 805 5th
Avenue, Grinnell, Iowa 50112-1653, phone, (641) 236-3366, or email
<delliott at pcpartner.net>; or from the Independence Market, National
Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230 or
<independencemarket at nfb.org>. State presidents and members of the 2006
Scholarship Committee will also be sent scholarship forms. These may be
copied as long as all sides of the form are reproduced. Please do what you
can to spread the word about this program.
------------
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Sharon Maneki]
Distinguished Educator of Blind
Children Award for 2007
by Sharon Maneki
************
>From the Editor: Sharon Maneki chairs the committee to select the
Distinguished Educator of Blind Children for 2007.
The National Federation of the Blind will recognize an outstanding teacher
of blind children at our 2007 convention next July. The winner of this
award will receive an expense-paid trip to the convention, a check for
$1,000, an appropriate plaque, and an opportunity to make a presentation
about the education of blind children to the National Organization of
Parents of Blind Children early in the convention.
Anyone who is currently teaching or counseling blind students or
administering a program for blind children is eligible to receive this
award. It is not necessary to be a member of the National Federation of the
Blind to apply. However, the winner must attend the national convention.
Teachers may be nominated by colleagues, supervisors, or friends. The
letter of nomination should explain why the teacher is being recommended
for this award.
The education of blind children is one of our most important concerns.
Attendance at a National Federation of the Blind convention will enrich a
teacher's experience by affording him or her the opportunity to take part
in seminars and workshops on educational issues, to meet other teachers who
work with blind children, to meet parents, and to meet blind adults who
have had experiences in a variety of educational programs. Help us
recognize a distinguished teacher by distributing this form and encouraging
teachers to submit their credentials. We are pleased to offer this award
and look forward to applications from many well-qualified educators.
Please complete the application and attach the following:
A letter of nomination from someone (parent, coworker, supervisor, etc.)
who knows your work;
A letter of recommendation from someone who knows you professionally and
knows your philosophy of teaching;