[gui-talk] National Federation of the Blind Comments on Federal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

Wed Nov 29 22:09:20 CST 2006

NFB confused as Usual!

It amazes all of us that aren't mindless that an organization that claims it 
promotes the well-being of the blind community does so much to hinder 
progress.

Why is the NFB so misguided!  It hinders access on many levels:   doesn't 
want easy recognition of money, doesn't want warning strips on subway 
platforms, doesn't like guide dogs, well, doesn't like lots of nifty stuff 
that would make life easier and/or safer for blind folks.

In many ways, NFB leadership acts as crazied as the religious nuts that 
litter the intellectual landscape with creationism, intelligent design, and 
other nonsense that detracts from important issues that face us.

NFB, if you can't do anything useful, then shut up and go away; let 
well-meaning folks continue to help the blind achieve equal and easy access 
to the community at large -- if I can tell a 5 dollar bill from a ten dollar 
bill without fancy gadgets, life becomes simpler and my money safer.

Peter Duran

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
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Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 4:53 PM
Subject: [gui-talk] National Federation of the Blind Comments on Federal 
Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

         National Federation of the Blind Comments

on Federal Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

Views Effort as Dangerously Misguided

Baltimore, Maryland (November 29, 2006): The
National Federation of the Blind, the largest
organization of blind persons in America and
known as the voice of the nation's blind,
criticized as dangerously misguided a federal
court ruling saying that the design of U.S.
currency discriminates against the blind.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, said: "The blind need
jobs and real opportunities to earn money, not
feel-good gimmicks that misinform the public
about our capabilities.  Blind people transact
business with paper money every day.  This ruling
puts a roadblock in the way of solving the real
problem, which is the seventy percent
unemployment rate among working-age blind
Americans that severely limits our access to
cash.  The ruling will do nothing to alleviate
that situation; in fact, it seriously endangers
the ability of the blind to get jobs and
participate fully in society.  It argues that the
blind cannot handle currency or documents in the
workplace and that virtually everything must be
modified for the use of the blind.  An employer
who believes that every piece of printed material
in the workplace must be specially designed so
that the blind can read it will have a strong
incentive not to hire a blind person."

Maurer went on to enumerate the real needs for
access to information by the blind and made a
distinction between those needs and the issue of
identifying currency.  "Access to information of
all kinds, such as that contained on Internet Web
sites and in the press, is certainly critical to
the ability of the blind to become productive
members of society.  Blind students need
educational materials in Braille and other
alternative formats so that they can prepare for
employment and ultimately earn an income for
themselves and their families.  Given the urgent
need for access to the kind of information that
is required for success in America's information
economy, the matter of identifying the
denominations of paper bills is of relatively little concern."

Blind people traditionally identify paper
currency by folding bills of different
denominations in different ways.  "In reality,
blind people do not routinely find that we have
been short-changed," Maurer commented.  Machines
are readily available to identify paper money for
blind people who run businesses or handle large
amounts of cash.  "Essentially, the United States
Treasury has been ordered by the courts to come
up with a solution for a nonexistent problem," Maurer said.

The National Federation of the Blind believes
that with training and opportunity, blind people
can compete in the world with only minor
modifications.  The American Council of the
Blind, which brought the lawsuit against the
United States Treasury, promotes the view that
the blind are unable to compete unless the world
is modified dramatically and specifically for
blind people, and that the blind must be made
objects of care and pity rather than equal participants in society.

John G. Paré Jr.
Director of Public Relations
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland  21230
Telephone:  (410) 659-9314, ext. 2371
Cell phone:  (410) 913-3912
Fax:  (410) 685-5653
Email:  jpare at nfb.org

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