4088 lines
217 KiB
Plaintext
4088 lines
217 KiB
Plaintext
THE BRAILLE MONITOR
|
||
|
||
April, 1995
|
||
|
||
Barbara Pierce, Editor
|
||
|
||
|
||
Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc,
|
||
and cassette by
|
||
|
||
|
||
THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
|
||
MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
National Office
|
||
1800 Johnson Street
|
||
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
|
||
|
||
* * * *
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Letters to the President, address changes,
|
||
subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
|
||
articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor
|
||
should be sent to the National Office.
|
||
|
||
* * * *
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five
|
||
dollars per year. Members are invited, and non-members 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 THE BRAILLE MONITOR
|
||
PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
|
||
|
||
CONTENTS
|
||
APRIL, 1995
|
||
|
||
THE JIG IS UP: DETECTABLE WARNINGS PROVEN SAFETY HOAX
|
||
by James Gashel
|
||
|
||
THINGS THAT GO BUMP UNDERGROUND
|
||
by Jonathan Yardley
|
||
|
||
ARKANSAS SCHOOL DEBACLE STILL FRONT-PAGE NEWS
|
||
|
||
A LETTER FROM TELESENSORY
|
||
|
||
REPORT OF THE 1995 WASHINGTON SEMINAR
|
||
by Barbara Pierce
|
||
|
||
RAISING THE EARNINGS LIMIT AND PRESERVING LINKAGE: <R>THE BLIND
|
||
FIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS
|
||
by James Gashel
|
||
|
||
CREATION OF A FEDERATIONIST
|
||
by Joyce Scanlan
|
||
|
||
DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP BY EDUCATING OTHERS
|
||
by Christine Boone
|
||
|
||
I TEACH ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
|
||
by Suzanne Whalen
|
||
|
||
THE NATIONAL LITERARY BRAILLE COMPETENCY TEST:
|
||
WHAT'S IN IT, AND WHO SHOULD TAKE IT?
|
||
by Thomas Bickford
|
||
|
||
CHICAGO NOTEBOOK
|
||
by Stephen O. Benson
|
||
|
||
1995 CONVENTION ATTRACTIONS
|
||
|
||
FINAL SETTLEMENT IN THE DOLLAR RENT A CAR CASE
|
||
|
||
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: RADIO SPIRITS
|
||
by Kenneth Jernigan
|
||
|
||
RECIPES
|
||
|
||
MINIATURES
|
||
|
||
Copyright <20> 1995 National Federation of the Blind
|
||
[LEAD PHOTO: Caption: From January 30 through February 1, 1995,
|
||
more than 500 Federationists from forty-seven states gathered in
|
||
Washington, D.C., to talk with their Senators and Members of
|
||
Congress.]
|
||
|
||
[Lead #1 Caption: Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich talks with
|
||
Blanche Griffin, President of the NFB of Georgia, (second from
|
||
right) and other Federationists in the halls of Congress.]
|
||
|
||
[Lead #2 Caption: Senator William Cohen of Maine talks with
|
||
Connie Leblond, President of the NFB of Maine, and her son Seth
|
||
in his office.]
|
||
|
||
[Lead #3 Caption: Senator Wendell Ford leans against his office
|
||
door while talking with Betty Niceley, President of the NFB of
|
||
Kentucky, (center) and members of the Kentucky delegation.]
|
||
|
||
[Lead #4 Caption: Carla McQuillan, President of the NFB of
|
||
Oregon, (second from left) and other members of the NFB of Oregon
|
||
stand with Senator Mark Hatfield in his office.]
|
||
|
||
[Lead #5 Caption: Congressman Jim Leach (seated on sofa arm)
|
||
talks with Peggy Elliott, President of the NFB of Iowa, and other
|
||
Federationists.]
|
||
|
||
[Photo #6 Portrait Caption: James Gashel]
|
||
|
||
THE JIG IS UP:
|
||
DETECTABLE WARNINGS PROVEN SAFETY HOAX
|
||
by James Gashel
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: As long ago as the mid eighties I seem to
|
||
remember hearing Federationists complain occasionally about the
|
||
installation of strips of bumps at some street corners in
|
||
communities that considered themselves particularly sensitive to
|
||
the needs of disabled people. The presumption was that blind
|
||
pedestrians needed these collections of raised domes, which
|
||
eventually became known as detectable warnings, in order to find
|
||
the streets and cross them safely. Never mind that we had been
|
||
crossing intersections for years and continued to do so at every
|
||
crossing that had not been adorned with the peel-up tiles.
|
||
Through the years the fixative that holds the strips in place has
|
||
apparently been improved--at least I don't hear as much these
|
||
days about loose strips tripping people as I used to--but members
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind have continued our
|
||
opposition to the detectable warnings in all their guises. In bad
|
||
weather they collect ice, snow, and mud and are hard to clean
|
||
year round. They catch at cane and crutch tips, high heels, and
|
||
the small wheels on today's wheelchairs. Moreover, they are, to
|
||
say the least, disconcerting to anyone whose balance is at all
|
||
uncertain or who steps on them without having realized that they
|
||
are there.
|
||
Distressingly, the wholesale requirement for dome
|
||
installation was inserted into federal law, not only over the
|
||
objections of many blind people and with no concern for cost, but
|
||
also with no basis in evidence. Quite simply, there is no proof--
|
||
and never has been any--that domes are needed. The subject was
|
||
never even studied until 1994, though the costly and
|
||
controversial requirement was put in place in 1990.
|
||
It is fundamental law in this country that the government
|
||
may not act without a basis. If it does, it can be successfully
|
||
sued for acting in an "arbitrary and capricious manner." The case
|
||
of the domes is a sterling example of such an instance. But we in
|
||
the Federation decided to oppose this arbitrary and capricious
|
||
regulation by other means. We have periodically reported on the
|
||
debate that has now raged for several years. (See the December,
|
||
1993, issue of the Braille Monitor for the most recent report.)
|
||
Jim Gashel is the Director of Governmental Affairs for the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind. Here is his summary of the
|
||
issue and a report of what has happened recently.
|
||
|
||
Like most other laws the Americans with Disabilities Act
|
||
(ADA) has some potential for doing good and at least as much for
|
||
doing harm in the name of doing good. As blind people our
|
||
challenge is to capture as much of the former as we can and
|
||
prevent the latter from occurring whenever possible. This
|
||
observation may seem obvious, but it is a good way to raise the
|
||
subject of detectable warnings.
|
||
The American Council of the Blind (ACB) has sought to
|
||
distinguish itself in recent years as an advocate for detectable
|
||
warnings. Its allies in this effort are few in number, but they
|
||
do exist. The ACB contends that there is a significant danger to
|
||
blind people if transit platform edges, streets approached by
|
||
curb ramps, and the like do not have a detectable warning just
|
||
before you get to them. The warnings they want are a wide bumpy
|
||
strip of raised domes which are "truncated," or flattened on top.
|
||
The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance
|
||
Board, also known as the Access Board, was given responsibility
|
||
under the ADA for issuing accessibility guidelines. Enforcement
|
||
of the Board's guidelines is the responsibility of other
|
||
agencies. For example, the Department of Justice enforces the
|
||
accessibility guidelines with respect to most buildings and
|
||
facilities, including public accommodations, other than transit
|
||
facilities. The guidelines for transit facilities, on the other
|
||
hand, are enforced by the Department of Transportation.
|
||
Under the original guidelines adopted in 1990 for both
|
||
transit and non-transit facilities, detectable warnings were
|
||
required to be installed at many locations. To put it mildly,
|
||
this was not a well-thought-out decision. A great many blind
|
||
people objected to a rule requiring detectable warnings to be
|
||
installed anywhere at all. This was certainly the view expressed
|
||
by the National Federation of the Blind, but the Access Board
|
||
wasn't listening. Their premise apparently was, if some blind
|
||
people feel a need for detectable warnings, that's enough to
|
||
justify putting them into the guidelines. The underlying theory
|
||
seems to be this: it doesn't matter that a great many blind
|
||
people don't want these domes (they are doing okay), but what
|
||
about those who are not doing okay--those who are afraid to leave
|
||
their houses, those who fear streets or platform edges? Federal
|
||
power should be used to help these less fortunate people and
|
||
regulate for the lowest common denominator, not for those
|
||
exceptional blind people, all of whom seem to be members of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind.
|
||
The theory isn't accurate, and it isn't fair. But it arises
|
||
from the confused, unarticulated conviction that, though it would
|
||
be unkind to say so out loud, the blind (or a lot of them) are
|
||
just plain helpless. Left out of this assumption are two simple
|
||
truths: Blind people who don't know how to travel independently
|
||
in safety can learn to do so without having the world rebuilt for
|
||
them, and blind people who can't get around alone safely now
|
||
won't get around any more safely with domes everywhere. Skill,
|
||
good sense, and confidence make us safe, not domes.
|
||
With the rule for detectable warnings firmly in place, the
|
||
federal government then took on the responsibility of trying to
|
||
make it stick. For some rules, such as the requirement for people
|
||
who use wheelchairs to have ramped entrances, there is a logical
|
||
connection between the individual's need and the requirement for
|
||
access. Without ramped entrances people who use wheelchairs are
|
||
totally barred from access to those facilities. This is clearly
|
||
discriminatory. Detectable warnings do not provide an analogous
|
||
case. Even those who advocate for the installation of the domes
|
||
could not argue with any semblance of rationality that their
|
||
absence presents a physical barrier to access of the kind that a
|
||
flight of stairs presents to a person using a wheelchair.
|
||
If an access rule is logically related to a demonstrable
|
||
denial of access, those required to comply are virtually
|
||
defenseless to resist it. The best they may hope to do is to
|
||
delay. Rules for which the need is not provable or about which
|
||
there is sharp controversy, however, are much more difficult to
|
||
enforce. From the beginning detectable warnings have provided an
|
||
instance of this latter situation.
|
||
Many of those who were required to comply with the
|
||
regulation to install detectable warnings did not accept the
|
||
notion that blind people would be deprived of equal access
|
||
without them. Reflecting this lack of acceptance, a highly
|
||
respected standard-setting group, the American National Standards
|
||
Institute (ANSI), withdrew detectable warnings from its
|
||
guidelines in mid-1992. Since the ANSI standards have generally
|
||
been followed by architects and building code officials, this
|
||
decision had a powerful impact. By the fall of 1992 even the
|
||
Access Board itself began to have second thoughts.
|
||
In 1993 the Access Board, the Department of Justice, and the
|
||
Department of Transportation jointly decided to suspend their
|
||
enforcement of the detectable warnings requirements while the
|
||
Access Board commissioned a study. The principal question to be
|
||
examined was whether detectable warnings are needed--a question
|
||
which had surprisingly never been studied. For reasons that were
|
||
never entirely clear, the Department of Transportation, while
|
||
suspending its enforcement of the detectable warnings
|
||
requirements, chose not to have its facilities included in the
|
||
study. As a result the government's regulatory stance began to
|
||
follow two steadily diverging tracks.
|
||
The Access Board's study, actually conducted by researchers
|
||
at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, was completed in the fall of
|
||
1994. The results were presented to the Board in great detail at
|
||
a meeting on September 13. Here in the language of the
|
||
researchers are the findings of the study:
|
||
|
||
MAJOR FINDINGS
|
||
|
||
<20> Blind travellers process a combination of cues providing
|
||
information about the built and social environment to detect
|
||
and cross intersections. Skillful travelers do not and will
|
||
not rely on a single cue.
|
||
<20> The most important cues, because they are the most
|
||
reliable, are detection of a curb edge, a slope which may be
|
||
a curb ramp, traffic sounds, and the end of a building line
|
||
or shoreline. Other cues which are often used are texture
|
||
changes or counter slopes at the street, street poles, the
|
||
sides of curb ramps, and seams between a curb ramp and the
|
||
street.
|
||
<20> Using these cues, experienced blind travelers can detect
|
||
an intersection before entering it about 85 percent of the
|
||
time.
|
||
<20> As often as 15 percent of the time, blind travelers will
|
||
step into the street before detecting an intersection. They
|
||
are 50 percent more likely to enter the street from a curb
|
||
ramp than from a curb, but when they step off a curb, they
|
||
are provided with a strong cue as to the presence of a
|
||
street.
|
||
<20> About two-thirds of the time that blind travelers enter a
|
||
street at a curb ramp, they will detect their situation
|
||
within five feet of entering the street. About one-third of
|
||
the time, or 5 percent of all crossings at curb ramps, they
|
||
will not recognize that they have entered a street within
|
||
five feet.
|
||
<20> Blind travelers are most likely to enter the street in the
|
||
absence of reinforcing cues. Among the important situations
|
||
are:
|
||
- Absence of traffic and traffic sounds.
|
||
- Absence of a building or shoreline.
|
||
- Gradual slope on a curb ramp.
|
||
- Failure to detect a curb edge to the side of the curb
|
||
ramp.
|
||
<20> The principal need at intersections is for a reinforcing
|
||
cue, recognizable in the context of an intersection, which
|
||
can increase cue density, especially in a low-cue
|
||
environment.
|
||
<20> The larger problem with curb ramps is, not their
|
||
detectability, but their potential to disorient a blind
|
||
traveler in an unfamiliar area.
|
||
- Blind travelers use curb lines not only to detect
|
||
intersections, but also to orient to the direction of a
|
||
crossing.
|
||
- Traffic sounds and building or shore lines provide
|
||
more reliable orientation cues, but in their absence a
|
||
curb line or curb ramp angle may be the best available
|
||
cue.
|
||
- Curb ramps that cut a curb at any angle other than
|
||
perpendicular and which point in any direction other
|
||
than the target area on the other side of the street
|
||
are potential hazards to blind travelers in the absence
|
||
of other cues or in the absence of good travel skills.
|
||
<20> Detectable warnings are mildly beneficial to blind
|
||
travelers and well liked; but, as currently conceived, they
|
||
may not be the best answer to safer intersections.
|
||
<20> Detectable warning benefits include:
|
||
- They do provide a potential confirming cue to the
|
||
presence of an intersection.
|
||
- They also provide a confirming cue that an
|
||
intersection has been completed.
|
||
- Even travelers who are inexperienced with detectable
|
||
warnings are observed to benefit from them by some
|
||
evaluators and overwhelmingly by self-report.
|
||
- Most particularly, detectable warnings make it easy
|
||
to distinguish the boundaries of a curb ramp and thus
|
||
to gain a more secure orientation to components of the
|
||
intersection.
|
||
<20> Problems with detectable warnings include:
|
||
- They do not address the problem of orientation of the
|
||
other components of an intersection.
|
||
- In particular, diagonal curb ramps are misleading in
|
||
the absence of other cues.
|
||
- So are curb ramps that point into a lane of traffic
|
||
(typically a turn lane) on the other side of the
|
||
street.
|
||
- Detectable warnings that orient travelers to these
|
||
kinds of curb ramps do a disservice.
|
||
<20> Because blind travelers continually adjust to their
|
||
situation, perceiving new cues and processing new data, they
|
||
will generally recover from any disorientation, error, or
|
||
mistake and complete a successful crossing. For this reason
|
||
the installation of detectable warnings will make it easier
|
||
for blind travelers but may not have any statistically
|
||
significant impact on observable outcomes of reasonable
|
||
tests which do not allow endangerment of human lives.
|
||
|
||
There you have the findings, and they confirmed the position
|
||
that had long been taken by the Federation. Blind people can
|
||
cross streets safely without detectable warnings. They use a
|
||
variety of cues to do so. The presence or absence of a detectable
|
||
warning does not add significantly to the accuracy of street
|
||
crossings by blind pedestrians. In fact, as the research data
|
||
suggest, the presence of detectable warnings can orient travelers
|
||
to angled curb ramps and thereby do a disservice. As the evidence
|
||
was presented to them, many members of the Access Board began to
|
||
understand these points. As they did so, not wanting to upset the
|
||
dome advocates unduly, they finally drew their conclusions in the
|
||
following terms, as articulated by an official of the U.S.
|
||
Department of Justice: "Detectable warnings may sometimes be
|
||
nice, but they are clearly not necessary."
|
||
The nice-but-not-necessary conclusion seems to be the best
|
||
description of the current understanding of detectable warnings
|
||
by most Access Board members. Meanwhile, with respect to
|
||
non-transportation facilities, the guidelines for detectable
|
||
warnings remain suspended, while a final, formal decision
|
||
--whether to remove detectable warnings from the guidelines or to
|
||
re-instate the requirements for their installation--is under
|
||
consideration.
|
||
Transit facilities are a different question. Although the
|
||
requirement for detectable warnings was suspended for several
|
||
months, the Department of Transportation chose to try enforcement
|
||
rather than study. In order to be effective, however, this course
|
||
of action depended upon the cooperation of the various public
|
||
transit systems. If even one decided to jump the traces, the
|
||
others might eventually follow. The revolt which could ensue
|
||
might well threaten the whole enforcement scheme. The federal
|
||
government's willingness to enforce the ADA amid the unfunded-
|
||
mandates outcry in the country would be on the line.
|
||
Enter the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
|
||
(WMATA). As a potential adversary over detectable warnings, WMATA
|
||
was undoubtedly not the Department of Transportation's first
|
||
choice because the Metro rail system operated by WMATA throughout
|
||
the greater Washington area is often viewed as a model by others
|
||
in the industry, as well as by the millions of tourists who visit
|
||
the nation's capital each year. Besides, if the Department of
|
||
Transportation (headquartered in Washington, D. C.,) could not
|
||
regulate WMATA, what system could it regulate? In any event, as
|
||
described by Stephen C. Fehr in the Washington Post of June 9,
|
||
1994, the battle over detectable warnings on the raised platform
|
||
edges of rail facilities was fully joined. Here is the story:
|
||
|
||
Metro Ordered to Install New Platform Edge;
|
||
Transit Agency Refuses to Comply, Calls Strip
|
||
for the Blind a Hazard
|
||
|
||
The Clinton administration has ordered Metro to stop
|
||
fighting installation of subway platform edges intended to warn
|
||
blind riders, but transit officials refused yesterday, saying the
|
||
new edges would cause passengers to trip and fall onto the
|
||
tracks.
|
||
U. S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena told Metro to
|
||
remove the white granite platform edges--a distinctive feature of
|
||
Washington's subway for eighteen years--and replace them with a
|
||
rubber strip of raised bumps.
|
||
Metro officials, who have battled federal officials for
|
||
nearly three years to keep the eighteen miles of granite edges,
|
||
said yesterday that they would not install the strips, setting up
|
||
a possible court fight. Most other urban transit systems are
|
||
complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act regulation
|
||
requiring that the warning strips be installed by July 26,
|
||
according to federal officials.
|
||
Under the regulation, Metro must widen its existing platform
|
||
edge from eighteen inches to twenty-four inches and put in strips
|
||
of brightly colored rubber tiles with bumps raised about two-
|
||
tenths of an inch. Federal officials believe that visually
|
||
impaired riders could feel the bumps with their feet or a cane
|
||
and would know that they are close to the platform edge.
|
||
The lights in the granite that flash on and off before a
|
||
train arrives would remain, officials said.
|
||
Pena, in a letter to Metro and in an interview, scolded
|
||
local officials for trying to avoid the requirement. Since the
|
||
regulation took effect in October, 1991, Metro has proposed four
|
||
alternative solutions, saying that the bumpy material is a fire
|
||
hazard and that the riders could trip on it.
|
||
"Metro's attention appears to have focused too little on
|
||
implementation and too much on avoidance of this requirement,"
|
||
Pena said in the letter. In the interview he said the department
|
||
had listened to all of Metro's proposals, "but at some point we
|
||
have to move on to implementation" of the warning strips.
|
||
Since 1976, two visually impaired Metro riders have died in
|
||
falls onto the tracks, and six others have been injured.
|
||
At a meeting yesterday with Federal Transit Administrator
|
||
Gordon J. Linton, Metro General Manager Lawrence G. Reuter
|
||
proposed that the agency keep the granite edge but texture it so
|
||
it would be detected by a disabled person. Linton said he would
|
||
consider the proposal, but he has said that the granite edge does
|
||
not meet the federal requirement.
|
||
Metro officials said they are upset by suggestions they may
|
||
be trying to skirt the requirement, which could cost more than
|
||
$10 million.
|
||
"There's no attempt to avoid compliance," spokeswoman
|
||
Patricia A. Lamb said. "The issue isn't compliance, it's safety.
|
||
We will not be pushed by the bureaucracy to do something that
|
||
isn't the right thing."
|
||
Before yesterday Metro had proposed widening the platform
|
||
edge by eight inches with either the same smooth granite it
|
||
currently has or a rougher, textured granite that would be
|
||
detected by people with canes.
|
||
But federal officials said eight more inches of such a
|
||
surface would not make it easier for visually impaired riders to
|
||
find the platform edge. Metro wanted permission to study the
|
||
wider granite edge to prove it would work, but Pena said in his
|
||
letter that Metro has had nearly three years to study
|
||
alternatives.
|
||
"Because of the immediate dangers posed to passengers with
|
||
visual disabilities, the department cannot afford to delay
|
||
compliance while Metro studies alternatives," Pena said.
|
||
Federal officials said that, although some of the materials
|
||
used for the warning strip are flammable, nonflammable materials
|
||
are available. They also rejected Metro's claim that the raised
|
||
bumps are dangerous, citing the experience of the San Francisco
|
||
and Miami subway systems, which have used them for several years
|
||
with few rider complaints.
|
||
"Based on the available evidence, there does not appear to
|
||
be any evidence to support your fear that the installation of
|
||
detectable warnings will place users of your system at risk,"
|
||
Pena's letter said.
|
||
Metro officials said Washington's subway, which has more
|
||
riders than San Francisco or Miami, has had fewer falls off
|
||
platforms than those cities. About 71,000 Metro riders are
|
||
disabled; of those, about 25,000 are visually impaired.
|
||
Organizations representing visually impaired riders are
|
||
split on the use of the raised domes.
|
||
The American Council of the Blind, which has 42,000 members,
|
||
and the American Foundation for the Blind, a research
|
||
organization, said the domes are effective. Lobbyist Paul
|
||
Schroeder said the regulation requires a uniform system of raised
|
||
bumps in all subways so a visually impaired person can travel and
|
||
find them anywhere.
|
||
"There's nothing left for Metro but to comply," Schroeder
|
||
said.
|
||
The Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind, which
|
||
has 50,000 members, said the raised bumps are dangerous and give
|
||
riders a false sense of security.
|
||
"People fall on them," said Marc Maurer, president of the
|
||
group. "They're more dangerous. They give the impression
|
||
something has been done to protect people, but it doesn't do what
|
||
they want it to do."
|
||
Metro was the first subway system to be designed with a
|
||
platform edge warning. New York and Philadelphia have received
|
||
extensions from federal officials because of the high cost of
|
||
modifying some of their oldest stations to comply with all of the
|
||
regulations.
|
||
|
||
The situation as the Post described it was clearly
|
||
escalating toward a climax as June faded into July. Then, as so
|
||
often happens in matters of this kind, "someone blinked." The
|
||
someone in this case was the Department of Transportation. Rather
|
||
than electing to go to the mat with WMATA, the Department of
|
||
Transportation decided to allow some time to pass for cooling off
|
||
and reflection. The decision was made to permit WMATA to conduct
|
||
a study of its own which would compare the existing granite
|
||
edge--a relatively flat surface as compared to the surrounding
|
||
floor tiles--with four other types of platform edging, including
|
||
truncated domes.
|
||
The study commissioned by WMATA was conducted during the
|
||
fall of 1994 by researchers at the Battelle Memorial Institute in
|
||
Columbus, Ohio. A research facility installed at Battelle's
|
||
headquarters was specially constructed for the purpose of testing
|
||
platform edge detectability in a metro rail system. Blind and
|
||
visually impaired people from the Columbus area were then
|
||
recruited as test participants. The tests were designed to
|
||
examine various platform edge surfaces and to determine if any of
|
||
them would enable blind people to find the edge more readily than
|
||
the present granite edge does.
|
||
The results of the Battelle study are summarized below,
|
||
followed by an article from the Washington Post which appeared on
|
||
February 9. With the data from its study now in hand, WMATA is
|
||
returning to the Department of Transportation with an application
|
||
for what is technically labeled legal recognition of its granite
|
||
edging as "equivalent facilitation." In plain English this means
|
||
that WMATA is asking the Department of Transportation to find
|
||
that the present granite edge is as detectable as a detectable
|
||
warning.
|
||
|
||
As this article is being written in mid-February, it remains
|
||
to be seen how the Department of Transportation will respond.
|
||
According to the ACB, approval of WMATA's request for equivalent
|
||
facilitation will emasculate the detectable warnings regulation
|
||
by inviting transit systems everywhere to attempt to find ways
|
||
around it. But the facts are now clear. The basis for the
|
||
detectable warnings regulation was not sound in the first place.
|
||
This is what we in the National Federation of the Blind have said
|
||
all along. Now, in case there was ever any doubt about it, our
|
||
position has been confirmed by solid research data in two
|
||
studies. Here are the Battelle findings:
|
||
|
||
MAJOR FINDINGS
|
||
|
||
<20> With use of travel aids, persons with visual impairments
|
||
should generally be able to detect the platform edge,
|
||
regardless of the warning surface used, with a high degree
|
||
of reliability.
|
||
|
||
<20> In terms of stopping distances for blind participants, no
|
||
statistically reliable differences between warning surfaces
|
||
were noted. The average stopping distances were twenty-four
|
||
inches or farther from the platform edge in the primary
|
||
detection mode (i.e., with the use of travel aids). The
|
||
average stopping distances in secondary detection mode
|
||
(detection under foot [without travel aids]) were between 8
|
||
inches and 9.1 inches. Statistically significant differences
|
||
among warning surfaces as a function of detection mode were
|
||
small and of no practical significance.
|
||
|
||
<20> Stopping distances for low vision participants in the
|
||
primary detection mode averaged twenty-six inches or greater
|
||
from the platform edge for all warning surfaces. The average
|
||
stopping distances in the secondary detection mode were
|
||
between 17.6 inches and 21.6 inches. The differences among
|
||
warning surfaces as a function of detection mode were of no
|
||
practical significance.
|
||
|
||
<20> The percentage of successful detections in the secondary
|
||
mode (detectability under foot [without travel aids]) was
|
||
below ninety percent for all warning surfaces tested.
|
||
Assuming a ninety-five percent detection rate for
|
||
acceptability, none of the warning surfaces was adequate.
|
||
|
||
So much for the supposed superiority of truncated domes. Now
|
||
here is the Washington Post story of February 9, 1995, written by
|
||
Stephen Fehr:
|
||
|
||
Bumpy Metro Edge No Safer for Blind, Report Concludes
|
||
|
||
A bumpy subway platform edge that federal officials have
|
||
ordered Metro to install is no safer for blind riders than the
|
||
existing smooth granite edge, according to a study to be released
|
||
today.
|
||
Based on the study, Metro officials said they would ask the
|
||
Clinton administration to let them keep the eighteen miles of
|
||
white granite platform edges in stations instead of replacing
|
||
them with brightly colored rubber strips with raised domes as
|
||
required by law.
|
||
Other transit systems across the country have been complying
|
||
with what Metro officials call "regulation gone amok." Metro
|
||
General Manager Lawrence G. Reuter cites as inexplicable the
|
||
federal government's requiring the new edges in only forty-five
|
||
of Metro's eighty-three stations.
|
||
"If this is really a safety issue, why is it only required
|
||
at forty-five stations?" Reuter asked. "Why not all of them?"
|
||
Congress may weigh in; Representative Thomas E. Petri (R-
|
||
Wisconsin), chairman of a key House transportation subcommittee,
|
||
said yesterday that he planned to hold a hearing on the
|
||
regulation. The existing platform edge, with its flashing lights
|
||
that notify riders of approaching trains, "was built with
|
||
handicap access in mind," noted Petri, a frequent Metro rider.
|
||
Such warning surfaces, which have a different texture from
|
||
the rest of the platform, alert visually impaired riders that
|
||
they are nearing the edge of the platform. Two blind Metro riders
|
||
have been killed after falling from the platform, and six others
|
||
have been injured in the transit system's eighteen-year history.
|
||
One advocacy group for the blind says many more falls are not
|
||
reported because no one is seriously hurt.
|
||
Transportation Secretary Federico Pena has rejected previous
|
||
requests by Metro to retain the existing platform edges. Last
|
||
year he ordered Metro to install the domed edges as required
|
||
under the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act.
|
||
Installing the new surfaces could cost $5 million to $30
|
||
million, a so-called unfunded mandate because Metro will have to
|
||
fund the project with no help from the federal government.
|
||
Pena allowed Metro to conduct tests before making a final
|
||
decision. Those tests were made last fall by the Battelle
|
||
research firm of Columbus, Ohio, and involved five warning
|
||
surfaces, including the rubber strips with domes and Metro's
|
||
existing granite edges.
|
||
Noting that "the ability of warning surfaces to alert
|
||
patrons depends at least in part on how detectable or noticeable
|
||
the surfaces are," Battelle researchers concluded that none of
|
||
the five surfaces was more detectable than any of the others.
|
||
"With the use of travel aids [such as canes or guide dogs],
|
||
persons with visual impairments should generally be able to
|
||
detect the platform edges, regardless of the warning surface
|
||
used, with a high degree of reliability," said the study, which
|
||
will be discussed at a Metro board meeting today.
|
||
Gordon J. Linton, head of the Federal Transit
|
||
Administration, was traveling yesterday, but Berle M. Schiller,
|
||
general counsel, said Metro's request to keep their existing
|
||
edges would be reviewed. The agency already has concluded tests
|
||
showing the domed edges are more effective in preventing falls
|
||
because they provide more traction. A public hearing is set for
|
||
March 3.
|
||
Julie Carroll, a lobbyist for the American Council of the
|
||
Blind, said the tests indicated that with Metro's granite
|
||
platform edge, a visually impaired rider using a travel aid such
|
||
as a cane can detect the edge 95 percent of the time. But with
|
||
the domed surfaces, she said, the percentage rises to 100
|
||
percent.
|
||
Moreover, she said, the study said a rider who does not use
|
||
a cane or other device could detect Metro's platform edge only 37
|
||
percent of the time compared with 67 percent for the domed
|
||
surface.
|
||
Although the researchers relied heavily on people who use
|
||
canes to reach their conclusions, Carroll said most visually
|
||
impaired riders use a combination of their feet and such travel
|
||
aids. Thus, she said, the ability to detect the edge with one's
|
||
feet is more important than being able to detect it with a cane.
|
||
But Reuter said that, when snow and ice are on the platform,
|
||
a rider would be unable to detect the bumps of the proposed
|
||
surface. Same with a person wearing boots, he said. Also, most
|
||
visually impaired riders use a cane and would not continue
|
||
walking if they lost it, Reuter said.
|
||
Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind, agreed. "Your feet aren't canes," he said. "You invite
|
||
injury if you rely on your feet." The Federation supports Metro's
|
||
position, largely because that group believes visually impaired
|
||
people do not need special consideration on such issues and
|
||
should walk on the same surface as everyone else.
|
||
"The edge is the edge," Maurer said, "and having these
|
||
surfaces doesn't make that much difference."
|
||
|
||
Federationists have been working now for years to eliminate
|
||
domes from our lives. We wish they hadn't shown up in the first
|
||
place. But, since they did, we are the only ones who can tell the
|
||
truth and make the change that will save the millions that would
|
||
otherwise be spent. In cities and towns across the country we
|
||
must remain alert and tell state and local governments and
|
||
private owners that the domes are not required or soon won't be
|
||
and that they shouldn't waste the money to install them. The
|
||
Access Board seems to be moving toward this conclusion for non-
|
||
transit facilities. And, in the case of transit facilities, we
|
||
need to make the point everywhere we can that, as established by
|
||
the Battelle study, there are lots of effective platform edges.
|
||
Transit authorities shouldn't rush to put the domes in because a
|
||
change in the regulations is clearly coming. And we all need to
|
||
respond when the issue arrives on the national agenda as it
|
||
almost certainly will when the spotlight of unfunded federal
|
||
mandates hits the question of access.
|
||
|
||
One way or another, access must be paid for. One way or
|
||
another our country must live up to the ADA or decide to change
|
||
it. And, as this debate progresses, one way or another we in the
|
||
Federation must insist that the question of access as a whole be
|
||
acknowledged as an important issue and that truncated domes be
|
||
recognized as a separate matter--unjustified, lavishly expensive,
|
||
unwanted--something which should be removed from the national
|
||
agenda because it is not a part of access at all.
|
||
|
||
|
||
THINGS THAT GO BUMP UNDERGROUND
|
||
by Jonathan Yardley
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The regulations implementing the Americans
|
||
with Disabilities Act require that entities petitioning to
|
||
provide equivalent facilitation rather than that stipulated in
|
||
the regulations must conduct a public hearing during the process
|
||
of seeking approval for the change. Because the Washington Metro
|
||
Area Transit Authority (WMATA) decided to make such a petition
|
||
(see the previous story), WMATA officials scheduled a public
|
||
hearing on Friday, March 3, at 2:00 p.m. Approximately seventy
|
||
witnesses came forward to testify, so the hearing lasted until
|
||
nearly midnight. The American Council of the Blind had decided to
|
||
hold a press conference at noon to decry the cruelty of WMATA's
|
||
desire to keep its rough granite platform edges with their proven
|
||
safety record. But at the hearing Federationists outnumbered
|
||
WMATA opponents two to one, and the press turned out in force to
|
||
chronicle the event.
|
||
Not surprisingly, the media found the controversy
|
||
disturbing, once they grasped the fact of the huge expenses
|
||
involved in retrofitting the entire WMATA system with detectable
|
||
warnings. The following article appeared in the Washington Post
|
||
on Monday, March 6. It was written by Post columnist Jonathan
|
||
Yardley. It was reprinted and echoed in other area publications
|
||
in the days following. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Speaking more than three decades ago at a news conference,
|
||
John F. Kennedy delivered, impromptu, one of the more memorable
|
||
utterances of his Presidency. "There is always inequity in life,"
|
||
he said. "Some men are killed in a war, and some men are wounded,
|
||
and some men never leave the country. . . Life is unfair."
|
||
Those words were widely praised at the time as evidence of
|
||
the young President's maturity and common sense, but if ever
|
||
there was a case of in one ear and out the other, that was it. A
|
||
nation that barely a generation ago was able to accept with
|
||
equanimity life's inherent unfairness and injustice now regards
|
||
its duty as being to root out inequity even when the cost of
|
||
doing so "defies reason," as was succinctly said last week.
|
||
The speaker was Lawrence G. Reuter, who thus won this
|
||
corner's first nomination as Public Servant of the Year. Reuter
|
||
is general manager of the Washington area's Metro system; he had
|
||
been called before a House transportation subcommittee that is
|
||
investigating federal mandates requiring localities to obey the
|
||
Americans with Disabilities Act. Under that law federal
|
||
bureaucrats are trying to force Metro to install platform edges
|
||
with twenty-four-inch-wide rubbery surfaces having raised bumps,
|
||
which they claim are warning signals for the blind; the
|
||
bureaucrats at Metro, responding in singularly un-bureaucratic
|
||
style, thus far have refused to comply, claiming that the
|
||
effectiveness of the bumps is unproved and that the cost of
|
||
compliance would be in the range of $30 million, which Reuter
|
||
says riders would end up paying in higher fares.
|
||
The possibility that Reuter is grandstanding cannot be
|
||
denied; the disabilities law has been getting deservedly bad
|
||
press of late, and taking a stand against it is no longer quite
|
||
so risky as when the law was passed five years ago. But the plain
|
||
fact--certainly it should be plain to anyone who has encountered
|
||
test strips of the bumpy surface at Metro platforms or fully
|
||
installed ones at Union Station--is that we have in the case of
|
||
the bumps a classic instance of the good intentions of the
|
||
disability act leading to mandates that are wholly
|
||
disproportionate to the problem under attack.
|
||
Presumably any American in possession of something
|
||
resembling a heart and/or a conscience is sympathetic to the
|
||
difficulties faced by the handicapped and would like to ease
|
||
their passage through life. Sympathy for the handicapped is not
|
||
at issue here, nor is a reasonable and energetic response to
|
||
their needs. But what the bumpy-surface imbroglio illustrates is
|
||
that over and over again this response is not merely unreasonable
|
||
but downright irrational, pursued by the bureaucracy with a
|
||
single-mindedness that permits no deviation or dissent.
|
||
It does not matter to this bureaucracy that the blind, for
|
||
whom these bumpy surfaces allegedly were invented and then
|
||
mandated, are themselves divided over their effectiveness; one
|
||
lobbyist for the blind told the subcommittee last week that "many
|
||
blind people don't use Metro" for safety reasons, while another
|
||
objected that mandates such as this send a message that the blind
|
||
"cannot look out for themselves." Nor does it matter to this
|
||
bureaucracy that the rubbery surface designed to help the blind
|
||
may pose a hazard to others. I can testify from personal
|
||
experience that one can slip on this surface if it is wet or trip
|
||
over the bumps if he isn't paying attention.
|
||
What a delicious if cruel irony it will be when the day
|
||
arrives, as surely it will, that a person with full use of all
|
||
the senses is killed after tripping over one of these bumps and
|
||
falling in front of a Metro or Amtrak train. This is bound to
|
||
happen because in attempting to eliminate all vestiges of
|
||
unfairness from the lives of those handicapped or otherwise
|
||
afflicted, new expenses and/or risks inevitably are created for
|
||
the rest of society. Writing about this problem in his excellent
|
||
new book, "The Death of Common Sense," Philip K. Howard tells how
|
||
"the ethical issues of valuing one group's desires over everyone
|
||
else's" were studied by some college professors:
|
||
"The problem they posed went like this: The extra cost of
|
||
buses that have a lift for wheelchairs meant that 10 percent
|
||
fewer buses were purchased; then service was cut back; then a
|
||
grandmother in the Bronx had to wait an extra half hour in the
|
||
cold of a dangerous neighborhood. Who, they wondered, was
|
||
defending her rights?"
|
||
As Howard writes, "Situations like this are not
|
||
hypothetical." Transit systems of cities and towns across the
|
||
country are having to alter and cut back service because of
|
||
arbitrary mandates from the faraway federal transit offices.
|
||
Those same cities and towns have had to spend thousands upon
|
||
thousands of dollars to tear up old sidewalks and build new ramps
|
||
for wheelchairs that seldom if ever use them. Joggers on their
|
||
daily rounds and mothers pushing perambulators are grateful for
|
||
these unexpected conveniences, but for everyone else they are an
|
||
expensive luxury. As Howard writes, "Rights are handed out once,
|
||
and the legislature, basking in the praise of some group, has no
|
||
clue about what the consequences will be."
|
||
Ah yes: consequences. In our rush to make the planet perfect
|
||
for all those who inhabit it, we tend to pay scant attention to
|
||
consequences, dismissing them as the unfortunate but inescapable
|
||
price we pay for Doing Good. The trouble is that we often do more
|
||
harm than good, which may help explain why the House last week
|
||
approved "risk assessment legislation," which, if enacted into
|
||
law, would have the central effect of requiring that proposed
|
||
environmental standards be subjected to assessments of the risks,
|
||
costs, and benefits they would entail before being put into
|
||
effect.
|
||
No doubt it is true that this legislation, part of the new
|
||
majority's tiresome "Contract With America," has a lot more to do
|
||
with anti-environmental sentiment than with pure common sense.
|
||
But the principle behind it is so sound, it's amazing no one
|
||
around here thought of it before. As Mother used to say: Look
|
||
before you leap. Don't impose a federal mandate before there is a
|
||
good reason to believe that its benefits will at least equal and
|
||
preferably exceed its costs.
|
||
Don't, to put it another way, follow in the footsteps of
|
||
Federal Transit Administrator Gordon J. Linton, who says that if
|
||
Metro doesn't cave in and install the bumpy surface, he will ask
|
||
the Justice Department to sue it. Great. That's all we need: Your
|
||
federal taxes at work, paying federal lawyers to sue the local
|
||
lawyers in the employ of Metro. Onward and upward, into the ether
|
||
of "fairness."
|
||
|
||
ARKANSAS SCHOOL DEBACLE STILL FRONT-PAGE NEWS
|
||
In the March issue of the Braille Monitor we reported that
|
||
one of the four finalists in the search to replace Leonard Ogburn
|
||
as superintendent of the Arkansas School for the Blind was Dr.
|
||
Richard Umsted (who, like Ogburn, had been forced out of his
|
||
superintendent job last summer because of allegations of sexual
|
||
misconduct at his school.) In Umsted's case the institution was
|
||
the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired (ISVI), and the
|
||
sexual misconduct was apparently not his own, but that of
|
||
students preying on other students. Umsted admitted to covering
|
||
up the repeated incidents, according to sources close to the
|
||
situation, in order, as he explained his motives, to protect the
|
||
school's good name. The impropriety of contemplating the
|
||
replacement of a man who had spanked female students and staff
|
||
members by another fired for covering up multiple cases of sexual
|
||
abuse apparently escaped the Arkansas School Search Committee.
|
||
Luckily other people in the state were deeply concerned. By
|
||
Friday, February 17, 1995, when the four serious candidates for
|
||
the job were arriving for their interviews, word began to
|
||
circulate that the governor was going to freeze the hiring
|
||
process. On Saturday the story of the Umsted candidacy burst onto
|
||
the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Here is the
|
||
story by Susan Roth that appeared on February 18, 1995:
|
||
|
||
Finalist Hid Sexual Abuse at Former Job
|
||
To be Interviewed for Blind School Chief
|
||
|
||
A finalist for the superintendent's job at the Arkansas
|
||
School for the Blind was fired from a similar post in Illinois
|
||
for concealing incidents of sexual abuse at the school.
|
||
The chairman of the superintendent search committee said
|
||
this week that reference checks on all four finalists had turned
|
||
out satisfactorily. But the committee didn't contact any of
|
||
Richard G. Umsted's former supervisors, Illinois officials said
|
||
Friday.
|
||
An independent board runs the Arkansas deaf and blind
|
||
schools, and it is to pick a new superintendent Sunday based on
|
||
its search committee's recommendations. The state funds the
|
||
schools, but doesn't oversee their operations, so problems with
|
||
the choice would have no resolution beyond the board.
|
||
A bill stalled in a legislative committee would give the
|
||
governor authority over the schools' superintendents.
|
||
Umsted failed to properly notify Illinois authorities and
|
||
parents of at least six incidents where a sixteen-year-old
|
||
student molested other students at the Jacksonville school, the
|
||
Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services reported.
|
||
Another Illinois source said a state police investigation
|
||
found forty-five documented incidents of sexual abuse from 1991
|
||
to 1994 and even more cases of physical abuse that weren't
|
||
properly reported to authorities.
|
||
Umsted, the Illinois superintendent for eighteen years,
|
||
couldn't be reached for comment Thursday or Friday. He has denied
|
||
the state's charges as "misleading and unfounded," but he didn't
|
||
challenge them. Sources said Umsted, who was well-respected and
|
||
active on the school board and chamber of commerce in the town of
|
||
20,000, told others the firing was politically motivated.
|
||
The Illinois Rehabilitation Services Department, which
|
||
oversees that state's blind school, fired Umsted August 23, 1994-
|
||
-the same day Arkansas police charged Leonard Ogburn with
|
||
harassment.
|
||
Ogburn, the former superintendent of the Arkansas blind
|
||
school, resigned a month after four women associated with the
|
||
school accused him of spanking and sexually harassing them. He
|
||
pleaded no contest to the charges.
|
||
Bill Jacobson, the chairman of the blind school's
|
||
superintendent search committee, declined to discuss Umsted's
|
||
employment history this week. He said the committee checked
|
||
Umsted's references, along with those of the other three
|
||
finalists.
|
||
Whittled from a field of fifteen applicants, the other three
|
||
candidates are:
|
||
Noel E. Stephens, supervisor of the Southeast Regional
|
||
Cooperative of the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in
|
||
Tucson.
|
||
Ivan S. Terzieff, director of educational services at the
|
||
Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton, who taught at the
|
||
Arkansas blind school in 1972-73.
|
||
J. Kirk Walter, executive director of Hoover
|
||
Rehabilitation Services for Low Vision and Blindness in
|
||
Baltimore.
|
||
Their applications indicate they meet the basic requirements
|
||
for the job, which include eligibility for Arkansas certification
|
||
in administration. Umsted, who has reportedly worked odd jobs
|
||
since August, listed on his application no reason for leaving his
|
||
last job.
|
||
"We were very fortunate and happy to have such a qualified
|
||
group of people," Jacobson said Thursday. "The committee would be
|
||
happy if any of them took the position."
|
||
In fact, the committee didn't seek comment from any Illinois
|
||
officials who supervised Umsted. Of the five references Umsted
|
||
listed with his resume, only one was associated with the Illinois
|
||
School for the Visually Impaired.
|
||
And that reference was Umsted's assistant superintendent,
|
||
who was forced to take a leave or be fired last October after the
|
||
state police implicated him in the cover-up, sources said. A
|
||
state official said he took an extended medical leave through
|
||
June, when he will retire.
|
||
Jacobson said he would address Umsted's past Sunday, when
|
||
the search committee will present the four finalists to the blind
|
||
school's board.
|
||
The finalists were to arrive in Little Rock on Friday
|
||
evening for private interviews today with the search committee.
|
||
The committee then will rank the candidates and present them to
|
||
the school's board at 8:00 a.m. Sunday with the recommended
|
||
ranking.
|
||
At 9:00 a.m., the board will begin private interviews with
|
||
the candidates. A decision is expected by mid-afternoon, Jacobson
|
||
said.
|
||
The nine-member superintendent search committee includes
|
||
parents and teachers at the school and representatives of local
|
||
organizations for the blind.
|
||
Illinois policy required Umsted to report any "unusual"
|
||
incidents involving criminal activity, abuse, or neglect to his
|
||
supervisor at the Rehabilitation Services Department, to the
|
||
state's Children and Family Services Department, and to local law
|
||
enforcement.
|
||
Melissa Skilbeck, a spokesman for the rehabilitation
|
||
services agency, said an internal investigation revealed that
|
||
Umsted had reported some incidents involving the sixteen-year-old
|
||
but failed to consistently notify authorities and parents of
|
||
other incidents.
|
||
Umsted reportedly termed the initial incident, when the
|
||
sixteen-year-old attacked a nine-year-old boy last May, as
|
||
"sexual exploration."
|
||
The state police investigation, which ended last fall, found
|
||
"serious administrative issues" at the school but no criminal
|
||
offenses, Skilbeck said.
|
||
Other administrators who worked with Umsted may yet be fired
|
||
for their connection with his "serious management deficiencies";
|
||
Skilbeck said other "personnel actions are pending."
|
||
"I am stunned that he is a finalist," Skilbeck said.
|
||
David Postle, an alumnus of the school and a member of its
|
||
advisory council and superintendent search committee, echoed her
|
||
remarks.
|
||
"If I had gotten a job application like that, I wouldn't
|
||
have even interviewed the man," Postle said. He said Umsted
|
||
threatened to fire the employees who told authorities of the
|
||
abuses. Umsted told Postle he had refused to report the incidents
|
||
because he wanted to protect "the good name of the school."
|
||
"I would have really strong feelings about anyone being put
|
||
in charge of the welfare of defenseless children where he had had
|
||
that responsibility and failed to exercise it," Postle said.
|
||
|
||
There you have the article that appeared on the Saturday
|
||
that the candidates were in town for their interviews. Not
|
||
surprisingly, the front-page story had a noticeable impact on the
|
||
proceedings. The Monday, February 20 story by Chris Reinolds in
|
||
the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette described what happened next. Here
|
||
it is:
|
||
|
||
Selection of New Chief of Blind School on Hold
|
||
State Hiring Freeze Blocks Board Decision
|
||
|
||
The Board of Trustees of the Arkansas Schools for the Deaf
|
||
and Blind postponed selecting a new blind school superintendent
|
||
Sunday until the state legislature lifts a hiring freeze at the
|
||
schools.
|
||
Board chairman Aaron Hawkins said a representative from
|
||
Governor Jim Guy Tucker's office told the board Friday that it
|
||
should postpone its decision.
|
||
Board member Sharon Mazzanti said the hiring freeze was
|
||
placed on both the blind and deaf schools to determine if there
|
||
were any positions that could be cut.
|
||
Mazzanti said Sunday that three of the four final candidates
|
||
were good choices. She declined to say which of the three she
|
||
favored.
|
||
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Saturday that one
|
||
finalist, Richard G. Umsted, was fired from a similar post in
|
||
Illinois for concealing incidents of sexual abuse at the school.
|
||
But the chairman of the search committee said last week that
|
||
reference checks on all four finalists had turned out
|
||
satisfactorily. The committee didn't contact any of Umsted's
|
||
former supervisors, Illinois officials said.
|
||
"I think they (search committee) did talk to an awful lot of
|
||
people," Mazzanti said.
|
||
An independent board runs the deaf and blind schools. The
|
||
state funds the schools but doesn't oversee their operations. The
|
||
board has the final say in administrative decisions.
|
||
A bill that stalled in a legislative committee would give
|
||
the governor authority over the schools' superintendents.
|
||
The blind school has been without a permanent superintendent
|
||
since August, 1994, when police charged Leonard Ogburn, the
|
||
former superintendent, with harassment.
|
||
Ogburn resigned a month after four women associated with the
|
||
school accused him of spanking and sexually harassing them. He
|
||
has pleaded no contest to the charges.
|
||
Jim Hill, principal at the high school for the blind, was
|
||
named interim superintendent in June, 1994, when Ogburn was
|
||
placed on paid leave. Hill will continue to work as
|
||
superintendent until the board chooses a permanent replacement.
|
||
Hill said the image of the superintendent search committee
|
||
has been hurt since it was revealed that Umsted was fired from
|
||
his last job.
|
||
"People are upset by it. We didn't need it (the negative
|
||
publicity)," Hill said.
|
||
Umsted failed to properly notify Illinois authorities and
|
||
parents of at least six incidents, where a sixteen-year-old
|
||
student molested other students at the Jacksonville school, the
|
||
Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services reported.
|
||
Another Illinois source said a state police investigation
|
||
found forty-five documented incidents of sexual abuse from 1991
|
||
to 1994, and even more cases of physical abuse that weren't
|
||
properly reported to authorities.
|
||
Umsted said Sunday after the board's postponement that he's
|
||
still a finalist for the position.
|
||
Umsted said the search committee knew his background and he
|
||
spoke about the allegations and his subsequent firing during his
|
||
interview with the board Sunday.
|
||
"I had eighteen years of good evaluations, and this whole
|
||
thing was a shock," he said. "Nothing was hidden. It was just
|
||
politically expedient for me to leave (Illinois)."
|
||
Umsted, who was Illinois superintendent for eighteen years,
|
||
planned to return Sunday to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he
|
||
works at a grocery store.
|
||
The nine-member superintendent search committee includes
|
||
parents, teachers at the school, and representatives of local
|
||
organizations for the blind. Max Woolly, a search committee
|
||
member and retired superintendent of the blind school, said the
|
||
committee chose four strong candidates.
|
||
Woolly said the candidates were told Friday about the
|
||
school's hiring freeze.
|
||
When asked why the committee recommended Umsted for the
|
||
position despite his job record, Woolly said, "Every
|
||
qualification he had was among the best."
|
||
The finalists arrived Friday in Little Rock for private
|
||
interviews Saturday with the search committee. The board
|
||
interviewed the candidates Sunday before taking action.
|
||
The four candidates are still eligible for the position when
|
||
the board fills it. . . .
|
||
|
||
That's what was being said by the media in Little Rock.
|
||
Meanwhile word had gotten back to Illinois that Richard Umsted
|
||
was actually being seriously considered for a job in education of
|
||
the blind in Arkansas. The following article by Christiann Baxter
|
||
appeared on Saturday, February 25 in the Jacksonville Journal
|
||
Courier. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Ex-blind School Chief Up for Job in Arkansas
|
||
|
||
The former superintendent of the Illinois School for the
|
||
Visually Impaired--who was fired from the position--is a finalist
|
||
for the superintendent's job at the Arkansas School for the
|
||
Blind.
|
||
Richard Umsted was fired from ISVI in August, 1994, for
|
||
failing to report cases of alleged sexual abuse at the school to
|
||
his superiors.
|
||
Bill Jacobson, the chairman of the Arkansas School for the
|
||
Blind's superintendent search committee, said Dr. Umsted is one
|
||
of four finalists for the job.
|
||
Dr. Umsted told the committee why he was fired from ISVI,
|
||
said Mr. Jacobson. He declined to say whether committee members
|
||
had talked to anyone at ISVI.
|
||
Melissa Skilbeck, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of
|
||
Rehabilitation Services [DORS], said no one has contacted ISVI or
|
||
DORS for a reference on Dr. Umsted.
|
||
Max Woolly, a search committee member and retired
|
||
superintendent of the Arkansas school, said Dr. Umsted told the
|
||
committee he was fired from his job for allegedly failing to
|
||
report sexual abuse but said the firing was politically
|
||
motivated.
|
||
"Teenagers are going to experiment in a residential
|
||
environment," said Dr. Woolly, "You can't stop that."
|
||
Dr. Umsted said he told the committee that his firing was
|
||
politically expedient for DORS. He refused to say why he believes
|
||
it was politically motivated.
|
||
The committee found Dr. Umsted "eminently qualified," said
|
||
Dr. Woolly. "He's a good man."
|
||
Dr. Umsted has been through interviews with the
|
||
superintendent search committee and the board of trustees for
|
||
Arkansas Schools for the Deaf and Blind, said Mr. Jacobson.
|
||
An internal investigation by the Illinois Department of
|
||
Rehabilitation Services revealed several cases of student-to-
|
||
student sexual abuse at ISVI had gone unreported to DORS, the
|
||
Department of Children and Family Services, and the parents of
|
||
affected students. Incidents not properly reported include the
|
||
inappropriate and unwanted touching of two female students and
|
||
the possible sexual abuse of four male students.
|
||
The Illinois State Police is conducting a separate
|
||
investigation to determine whether any laws were broken but has
|
||
not released any findings.
|
||
Dr. Umsted has denied the basis for his firing. He is still
|
||
a member of the District 117 school board.
|
||
The Arkansas Board of Trustees for the Deaf and Blind
|
||
Schools has postponed selecting a superintendent until a hiring
|
||
freeze ordered by the governor is lifted on the position.
|
||
Dr. Woolly said in Arkansas a state position is frozen when
|
||
it is vacated. The institution has to justify why the position is
|
||
needed before it can be filled, he said. No one had turned in the
|
||
proper paperwork to the state yet, he said. He has heard the
|
||
hiring freeze will be lifted Tuesday or Wednesday.
|
||
The State of Arkansas operates the schools for deaf and
|
||
blind students but doesn't directly oversee the operations. The
|
||
board has final say about hiring decisions.
|
||
A bill that would give the Arkansas governor authority over
|
||
the superintendents is stalled in a legislative committee.
|
||
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock reported,
|
||
February 18, that Dr. Umsted had been fired from his position at
|
||
ISVI.
|
||
A reporter from the Braille Monitor, a national publication
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind, has been in Jacksonville
|
||
to investigate the circumstances around Dr. Umsted's dismissal.
|
||
|
||
That's how the story was reported in Jacksonville a week
|
||
after it broke in Little Rock. It was clearly disturbing to those
|
||
who had been following the chronicle of the Umsted firing. The
|
||
Journal Courier printed an editorial on Sunday February 26 that
|
||
left little room for doubt about the paper's view of the Umsted
|
||
candidacy. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Disgrace at Arkansas School for Blind
|
||
|
||
|
||
A few months ago, readers might recall, we urged the
|
||
legislature to remove the Illinois School for the Deaf and the
|
||
Illinois School for the Visually Impaired from the control of the
|
||
Department of Rehabilitation Services.
|
||
We urged state Representative Tom Ryder to push through
|
||
legislation that would put day-to-day governance of the state
|
||
schools under boards of trustees appointed by the governor with
|
||
guidance from members of the Jacksonville community, especially
|
||
from the ranks of employees and students and alumni of the
|
||
institutions.
|
||
That is what Arkansas does, and it sounds like a good idea,
|
||
doesn't it? It would prevent some of the heavy-handedness DORS
|
||
has displayed in its handling of the two local schools, and it
|
||
would allow the local trustees to keep close tabs on goings-on on
|
||
the campus.
|
||
However, in practice the Arkansas School for the Blind has
|
||
been terribly managed and probably should serve as anything but a
|
||
model for us in Illinois.
|
||
The school was trying to replace a superintendent who got
|
||
canned and convicted in a sex scandal. Dr. Richard Umsted,
|
||
himself fired after nearly two decades at ISVI for failing to
|
||
report alleged sexual assaults by students, applied for the
|
||
Arkansas job and is among the finalists.
|
||
What is astounding is that the knuckleheads who are heading
|
||
up the search committee there never bothered to contact Dr.
|
||
Umsted's employers at DORS to determine the circumstances under
|
||
which he left his job at ISVI. Nor did they ask whether or not
|
||
DORS or Dr. Umsted's associates at ISVI consider him fit for the
|
||
Arkansas job.
|
||
Members of the Arkansas search committee essentially
|
||
dismissed the allegations against Dr. Umsted--"Teenagers are
|
||
going to experiment (sexually) in a residential environment. You
|
||
can't stop that," said one--and called Dr. Umsted "eminently
|
||
qualified" for the job.
|
||
They apparently believe Dr. Umsted's contention that the
|
||
charges against him were trumped up and the result of politics.
|
||
We might not have any problem with that had they actually
|
||
bothered to speak with DORS about the specific complaints that
|
||
led to Dr. Umsted's firing or to the Illinois State Police, which
|
||
also is investigating what happened at ISVI.
|
||
This is the grossest dereliction of duty on the part of the
|
||
board that runs the Arkansas School for the Blind there. The
|
||
system is probably not one Illinois should emulate in any way.
|
||
|
||
Subsequent events proved Max Woolly correct. Midweek the
|
||
legislature did indeed lift the hiring freeze, and Aaron Hawkins,
|
||
who chairs the Board of Trustees of the Schools for the Deaf and
|
||
Blind and who is also a member of the American Council of the
|
||
Blind, called an emergency meeting of the board with the apparent
|
||
intention, according to sources close to the situation, of
|
||
ramming through the hiring decision. According to these sources,
|
||
two board members refused to attend the meeting, believing that
|
||
it was improper for the body to act in haste. When the three
|
||
members who did show up settled down to work, it became apparent
|
||
that Hawkins was the only one who wanted to resolve the question
|
||
that evening. One of the members moved that the meeting be
|
||
adjourned and that the question of the appointment of a
|
||
superintendent be postponed until the meeting already scheduled
|
||
for March 9. The other member seconded the motion, the two voted
|
||
in favor, and the meeting ended.
|
||
Meantime the Arkansas Legislature was busy developing a plan
|
||
to improve the management of the Schools for the Blind and the
|
||
Deaf and to consolidate the maintenance, transportation, and
|
||
housekeeping departments under the management of the School for
|
||
the Deaf. The plan will apparently not be put into effect until
|
||
after the new superintendents of both institutions are named and
|
||
have started work.
|
||
The March 9 meeting of the board of Trustees took place as
|
||
scheduled, and the board voted unanimously to offer the job of
|
||
superintendent of the Arkansas School for the Blind to Ivan
|
||
Terzieff, the candidate who had most compellingly communicated
|
||
his dedication to the education of students. The following
|
||
article by Susan Roth appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
|
||
on March 10. Here it is:
|
||
|
||
Blind-School Educator in Iowa Chosen for Arkansas Spot
|
||
|
||
Ivan S. Terzieff will be the new superintendent of the
|
||
Arkansas School for the Blind, the school's board of trustees
|
||
decided Thursday.
|
||
Terzieff, director of educational services at the Iowa
|
||
Braille and Sight-Saving School, beat out three other finalists,
|
||
including one who was fired from his last job for concealing
|
||
incidents of sexual abuse.
|
||
Some parents, teachers, legislators, and members of national
|
||
blind organizations have expressed concerns about the search
|
||
process because such a candidate was considered a finalist.
|
||
The school has been in a state of flux since Leonard Ogburn,
|
||
the former superintendent, resigned under pressure in September
|
||
after he was charged with sexually harassing a teacher. The
|
||
scandal left the students and faculty at the school divided and
|
||
brought more allegations of long-term mismanagement that are
|
||
likely to result in close legislative oversight for the next two
|
||
years.
|
||
Sherry Bartley, a trustee, said Terzieff was the board's
|
||
unanimous choice because he stressed education of children as his
|
||
primary concern.
|
||
"We felt he expressed that better than any of the other
|
||
candidates." Bartley said. "He also said, in a very positive way,
|
||
that he looked forward to working with the Legislature to make it
|
||
the best school possible. And he will make sure the school is
|
||
united. I think he won't allow that division to go on long."
|
||
Terzieff said he felt "euphoric" after learning he was
|
||
chosen, and that he was not deterred by problems at the school.
|
||
"What happened in the past at the school may have created
|
||
some problems internally, but they are not problems that cannot
|
||
be resolved," he said. "The school itself has a very good
|
||
reputation, and given that, the faculty is very good I would
|
||
suspect."
|
||
Several teachers and members of the blind community were
|
||
relieved to hear that Terzieff was the board's first choice.
|
||
Terzieff, who taught at the School for the Blind in 1972-73,
|
||
has a good professional reputation as a teacher and
|
||
administrator, and a record of good relations with consumer
|
||
groups for people with vision problems.
|
||
|
||
There you have it. Is the long, sordid, and tangled story of
|
||
poor management and misbehavior at the Arkansas School for the
|
||
Blind close to its end? One can only hope so. Much will depend on
|
||
the skill, diplomacy, and integrity of Ivan Terzieff. The teacher
|
||
whose charges against Leonard Ogburn touched off the explosion in
|
||
the first place must still decide whether or not to sue the
|
||
school. Her persecution at the hands of some staff members and
|
||
several school officials reportedly continues. At the February 19
|
||
meeting of the Board of Trustees, for example, the Chairman,
|
||
Aaron Hawkins, attacked her publicly, which does not say much for
|
||
his intention to resolve the problems that still exist. The
|
||
legislature continues to indicate distrust of the school
|
||
administration's ability to manage the institution wisely.
|
||
Members of the staff, the student body, and the blind community
|
||
are divided and skeptical about the school's future. And of
|
||
course, the school's accreditation with the National
|
||
Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually
|
||
Handicapped (NAC) is about to come up for renewal. There is
|
||
certainly plenty for Ivan Terzieff to do when he arrives. Once
|
||
again the past months have illustrated just how accurately NAC's
|
||
good-practice seal reflects its boast of quality service at its
|
||
member institutions. If Mr. Terzieff is serious about wanting to
|
||
demonstrate that a new day has dawned at the Arkansas School for
|
||
the Blind, he could do worse than to sever the institution's
|
||
affiliation with NAC. Certainly he must find ways of
|
||
reestablishing public confidence in the school. Let us hope he is
|
||
up to the job.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #7 Portrait Caption: Larry Israel]
|
||
|
||
A LETTER FROM TELESENSORY
|
||
|
||
As Monitor readers know, in the January, 1995, issue of the
|
||
Braille Monitor we printed an article entitled "The Other Half of
|
||
the Equation: PC-Based Reading Systems, A Comparative Review."
|
||
Subsequently we received the following letter from Larry Israel,
|
||
President and Chief Executive Officer of TeleSensory Corporation:
|
||
|
||
Mountain View, California
|
||
February 27, 1995
|
||
|
||
Dear Ms. Pierce:
|
||
In the January issue of The Braille Monitor, David Andrews
|
||
presented a comparative review of PC-based reading systems from
|
||
Arkenstone, TeleSensory, and Xerox Imaging Systems. In his
|
||
article the section on strengths and weaknesses had some comments
|
||
about TeleSensory which could present a misleading impression.
|
||
David says: "On the negative side, TeleSensory is a company
|
||
in flux. The company has changed management twice in less than
|
||
two years, and rumors persist that the blindness-products
|
||
division will be spun off or sold. Some people have reported
|
||
support and service problems with TeleSensory, though we have not
|
||
had any such problems. If you ask around enough, you will hear
|
||
good and bad stories about any company, particularly the larger
|
||
ones."
|
||
The best antidote to rumors is facts. As many of your
|
||
readers already know, TeleSensory and VTEK (the company I founded
|
||
in 1971) were merged in early 1989. TeleSensory was in fact the
|
||
acquiring company, and my personal role did not include any
|
||
operating responsibilities, although I did serve on the company's
|
||
Board of Directors part of the time during the next four years
|
||
and remain a major shareholder in the company.
|
||
What transpired after that may not be equally clear to your
|
||
readers, and so I'd like to provide some factual information
|
||
which may be of interest. In late 1992 the Board replaced Dr.
|
||
James C. Bliss, the company's co-founder and its President since
|
||
its inception, with James W. Morrell. Mr. Morrell had served on
|
||
TSC's Board for about four years.
|
||
Six months later, on July 1, 1993, I rejoined the company as
|
||
Vice President Sales. Later, in January, 1994, I assumed
|
||
additional responsibilities as Vice President Sales and
|
||
Marketing. My personal motivations were to help the company
|
||
overcome various problems it was facing and to protect my
|
||
investment as a major shareholder of TeleSensory. Perhaps most
|
||
importantly, I missed the industry and the environment which I
|
||
had helped establish through VTEK in the early '70's, and wanted
|
||
to return to heavy involvement with it.
|
||
In mid-July, 1994, Mr. Morrell resigned abruptly and
|
||
unexpectedly. TeleSensory's Board of Directors unanimously
|
||
elected me as President and Chief Executive Officer of the
|
||
company on July 14, 1994, one day after Mr. Morrell's
|
||
resignation.
|
||
There were some fairly prompt changes made. The company was
|
||
reorganized into a Blindness Products Division (BPD) and a Low
|
||
Vision Division (LVD). This was a reflection of our belief that
|
||
there were significant differences in the needs of people who
|
||
were totally blind and those who were partially sighted and in
|
||
how we as a company could best meet those needs.
|
||
We also believed that we could more effectively focus our
|
||
resources on product development, technical support,
|
||
demonstrations, marketing, installation, training, and other
|
||
aspects of meeting client needs if our staff were organized in a
|
||
way which would permit them to pay attention to those differences
|
||
in a more effective manner than under our prior organization. One
|
||
of the immediate benefits is that we learned some things we were
|
||
doing right, but we also learned some things we were doing wrong,
|
||
which needed to be changed.
|
||
Yakov Soloveychik was hired as Vice President and General
|
||
Manager of the Blindness Products Division. Yakov was with VTEK
|
||
for eleven years, then with TeleSensory for a year after the
|
||
merger and later was President of Baum USA in the Los Angeles
|
||
area. At the same time, TeleSensory also acquired rights to
|
||
distribute Baum's Braille products in North America.
|
||
Our Low Vision Division, being somewhat larger, is managed
|
||
by three senior officers for Sales and Marketing, Product
|
||
Development, and Manufacturing Operations. Marc Stenzel, who is
|
||
Vice President Sales and Marketing for this division, is well
|
||
known throughout the industry. For the moment I am personally
|
||
serving as Acting General Manager for this Division, in addition
|
||
to my responsibilities as President and CEO of TeleSensory
|
||
Corporation.
|
||
Thus far results have been very gratifying. The company's
|
||
operations have been turned around, morale is generally quite
|
||
good, and we are working very hard to rebuild our reputation and
|
||
bring exciting new products to market. And we do need to rebuild
|
||
it, at least in part. I am sorry to say that I think we here at
|
||
TeleSensory have fallen down on the job over the past few years,
|
||
despite many fine people who work for us. Our reputation for
|
||
quality, reliability, and prompt and effective service to our
|
||
customers has been compromised and diminished, not through the
|
||
actions of any malevolent outside force, but because of our own
|
||
shortcomings.
|
||
Among our problems was a failure to deal with a Braille-cell
|
||
problem of a few years ago in a forthright and candid manner. Our
|
||
technical support group, while staffed with some very
|
||
conscientious and talented people, was not organized, led, or
|
||
motivated in a way which allowed those people to provide support
|
||
at the level we would have wished. We have taken major steps to
|
||
correct those shortcomings, and we believe the results and
|
||
improvement are already visible in the marketplace.
|
||
For our slippage in quality and support, I apologize to our
|
||
customers. And I pledge that all of us here at TeleSensory will
|
||
continue to expend major effort to ensure that we fulfill our
|
||
commitments to both our customers and to ourselves. I'm sure we
|
||
will continue to encounter some complaints, because perfection is
|
||
not attainable. We will work hard to reduce the frequency of
|
||
complaints and to continuously improve what we do, within the
|
||
context of ensuring that TeleSensory remains a financially sound
|
||
organization, so that it is here for years to come.
|
||
This brings me back to the reasons why I have written this
|
||
letter and why the rumors may be misleading. TeleSensory is not a
|
||
company in flux, although it might have been accurate to
|
||
characterize it that way as recently as last summer. We are now
|
||
solidly organized and well on our way to ensuring that we provide
|
||
service and support to the users of our equipment, which is
|
||
reliable, of high quality, timely, and cost-effective.
|
||
The Blindness Products Division is not for sale, and we have
|
||
no plans to spin it off. It would be foolhardy for me to say
|
||
"never," but I can assure you that is not being contemplated or
|
||
discussed by TeleSensory senior management or by its Board of
|
||
Directors.
|
||
Finally, one other point I would like to make, which is more
|
||
indicative of the "new TeleSensory," if I may call it that. We
|
||
are taking an active role to make our products, architecture, and
|
||
interfaces more open and available to others in the industry. We
|
||
are already one of the largest manufacturers in the world of
|
||
Braille cells, which are used by many of our competitors in their
|
||
products. Another example: we have recently begun discussions
|
||
with other companies who may wish to sell our refreshable Braille
|
||
displays in conjunction with their own equipment (for instance,
|
||
with a PC-based reading system of their own design), and we will
|
||
be encouraging and facilitating that. We will provide interface
|
||
specifications, technical support, and a reasonable "resale
|
||
discount" to permit other companies to resell our products
|
||
through their own distribution networks. In this way we believe
|
||
that we will facilitate the availability of assistive devices in
|
||
a broader way and will also help spur development of new
|
||
technologies to benefit those who are blind, even though the
|
||
short-term effect might be to reduce our direct market share.
|
||
I realize this letter is quite lengthy, but I hope that it
|
||
has been informative and helpful. If you would like to talk to me
|
||
or interview me to clarify or expand upon any of my comments
|
||
here, I would be delighted to meet or talk with you.
|
||
|
||
Sincerely,
|
||
Larry Israel
|
||
President and Chief Executive Officer
|
||
|
||
[Photo #8 The Holiday Inn Columbia Room is shown filled to capacity with
|
||
people occupying all the chairs, sitting on the floor and leaning against the
|
||
walls. Caption: More than 500 Federationists jammed themselves into the
|
||
Columbia Room for the opening briefing of 1995 Washington Seminar.]
|
||
|
||
[Photo #9 A crowd of Federationists wait at a table to pick up information.
|
||
Caption: Affiliate leaders pick up Congressional committee lists following the
|
||
Sunday evening briefing at the Washington Seminar.]
|
||
|
||
[Photo #10 Judy Sanders retrieves cards from a metal card file while Jan
|
||
Bailey uses a Perkins Brailler to take a report. Caption: Jan Bailey takes a
|
||
Congressional visit report from a Federationist while Judy Sanders files
|
||
completed reports in the Mercury Room.]
|
||
|
||
REPORT OF THE 1995 WASHINGTON SEMINAR
|
||
by Barbara Pierce
|
||
|
||
With every passing year the Washington Seminar takes on more
|
||
and more the character of a midwinter convention of the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind. This year Federationists began gathering
|
||
at both the National Center for the Blind and the Capitol Holiday
|
||
Inn on Friday, January 27. Several meetings were held at the
|
||
National Center immediately prior to the seminar as a convenience
|
||
to committee members who were already planning to travel that
|
||
weekend to the Baltimore/Washington area to talk with their
|
||
Members of Congress.
|
||
In addition, two day-long seminars took place at the hotel
|
||
on Saturday: the annual Midwinter Conference of the National
|
||
Association of Blind Students and, this year for the first time,
|
||
a seminar for business people conducted by the Merchants
|
||
Division. Both these exciting programs culminated in banquets.
|
||
Dr. Jernigan addressed the Merchants Division, and Dr. Fred
|
||
Schroeder, Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services
|
||
Administration, addressed the students.
|
||
Early Sunday morning more than a hundred Federationists
|
||
clambered aboard buses to drive to Baltimore for tours of the
|
||
National Center. The buses were back in time for afternoon
|
||
meetings--a legislative seminar for parents of blind children and
|
||
one on selling Associates, sponsored by the Associates Committee.
|
||
By 5:00 p.m. there wasn't a seat to be had in the meeting
|
||
room used for the briefing that officially kicked off the 1995
|
||
Washington Seminar and our visits to Capitol Hill. More than 500
|
||
Federationists from forty-seven states were ready for action and
|
||
eager to begin. President Maurer and Dr. Jernigan brought the
|
||
crowd up to date on a number of organizational activities, and
|
||
Jim Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs, described the issue
|
||
we would be discussing with our Senators and Representatives and
|
||
answered questions. The focus of our concern this year was the
|
||
Senior Citizens Equity Act (H.R. 8 in the House and S. 30 in the
|
||
Senate). The packet of materials we distributed and discussed is
|
||
reprinted elsewhere in this issue.
|
||
When the briefing adjourned promptly at 7:00, the crowd
|
||
scattered to turn in their appointment schedules, gather
|
||
materials, snatch a bite to eat, and coordinate plans for the
|
||
following day. A few people even found time to watch part of the
|
||
Super Bowl. For the next three days the halls of Congress echoed
|
||
to the sounds of canes tapping and harnesses jingling as
|
||
delegations of Federationists hurried to appointments. Many
|
||
Members of the 104th Congress took time to meet personally with
|
||
us and discuss our concerns. Speaker Gingrich told the Georgia
|
||
delegation, for example, that he was in sympathy with our
|
||
position and would work with us. And many, many others affirmed
|
||
their support of our position. There is no doubt that we had an
|
||
impact on these legislators. The task facing this Congress is
|
||
staggering, but the Members seemed encouraged by our insistence
|
||
that, above all, blind people want an opportunity to work and
|
||
contribute to the solutions of this nation's problems.
|
||
No report on the Washington Seminar would be complete
|
||
without a word of thanks to Sandy and John Halverson and the
|
||
dedicated crew of people who staffed the Mercury Room, nerve
|
||
center of the Washington Seminar. It was here that summaries of
|
||
all meetings were taken down in Braille from both phone and face-
|
||
to-face reports by team leaders. These were then entered into the
|
||
computer, and filed in huge file drawers. It was a massive
|
||
undertaking, conducted by a staff of volunteers who were always
|
||
pleasant, businesslike, and efficient. At 5:00 p.m. Wednesday the
|
||
phone lines were unplugged, the file drawers were closed, the
|
||
computer was packed away, and another Washington Seminar became
|
||
history.
|
||
But in many ways the work was just beginning. Federationists
|
||
packed their bags and made their way for the last time through
|
||
the construction in the hotel lobby to our waiting cars and cabs.
|
||
The serious letter-writing and telephoning campaign was about to
|
||
begin.
|
||
|
||
|
||
RAISING THE EARNINGS LIMIT AND PRESERVING LINKAGE:
|
||
THE BLIND FIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS
|
||
by James Gashel
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: At the 1995 Washington Seminar, January 29
|
||
through February 1, members of the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind had only one thing on their minds: Social Security earnings
|
||
limits. Two newly introduced bills, S. 30 and H.R. 8, would raise
|
||
the Social Security earnings limit to $30,000 a year over a five-
|
||
year period for retirees under the age of seventy. The idea is to
|
||
encourage seniors to continue to work and enjoy increased incomes
|
||
without jeopardizing their Social Security benefits. The plan has
|
||
much to recommend it. In fact, for years we have argued for just
|
||
such an approach to the earnings limit for Social Security
|
||
Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries who are blind, and for
|
||
exactly the same reasons.
|
||
Since 1977 earnings limits for retirees and blind people
|
||
receiving SSDI have been linked. But the current bills before the
|
||
House and Senate propose to break that linkage and leave the
|
||
blind exactly where they now are at the same time that retirees
|
||
are experiencing a distinct and growing incentive to work while
|
||
they continue to receive their Social Security benefits. What
|
||
follows is the legislative memorandum explaining the problem and
|
||
our solution to it. Along with it is the text of testimony
|
||
presented by the National Federation of the Blind before the
|
||
Subcommittee on Social Security on January 9. These are the
|
||
documents we discussed with members of Congress during this
|
||
year's Washington Seminar. Here they are:
|
||
|
||
MEMORANDUM
|
||
|
||
Re: Increasing the Social Security earnings limit: a critical
|
||
time of decision for blind people
|
||
|
||
If item seven in the Contract with America is enacted as
|
||
proposed, a provision in the Social Security Act for exempting
|
||
earnings of blind people and senior citizens to the same extent
|
||
will be repealed. The amount of earnings allowed without penalty
|
||
for blind persons will remain where it is now, with only marginal
|
||
future annual adjustments being made. Meanwhile the earnings
|
||
exemption for seniors will be raised by five mandated annual
|
||
increases in order to reach $30,000 in the year 2000. The reason
|
||
for doing this is to diminish the disincentive of the earnings
|
||
limit and to increase work and productivity. By the same
|
||
reasoning the higher earnings exemption should also apply to
|
||
blind people, who like the seniors are penalized for working.
|
||
In voting on the Contract with America, Congress must decide
|
||
whether work incentives for blind people are less important than
|
||
raising the earnings exemption standard for seniors to $30,000.
|
||
Both goals have identical merit and should be given identical
|
||
weight. Work, productivity, and the opportunity for more people
|
||
to pay taxes would be the result. Accordingly, blind persons are
|
||
asking that their need to achieve economic independence through
|
||
work not be set aside.
|
||
|
||
DESCRIPTION OF EXISTING LAW
|
||
Under an amendment authored by Congressman Archer in 1977,
|
||
blind people who have not attained age sixty-five are affected by
|
||
the same earnings limit that the Social Security Act imposes on
|
||
age sixty-five retirees. Mr. Archer's amendment, establishing an
|
||
identical earnings exemption standard for blind people and
|
||
retirees, has been law for almost twenty years. Blindness and
|
||
retirement age are both defined eligibility conditions in section
|
||
216 of the Social Security Act. The disability test--the
|
||
inability to engage in Substantial Gainful Activity--is not used
|
||
to determine whether an individual meets the blindness criteria
|
||
in the Social Security Act. Only medical evidence is used for
|
||
this determination.
|
||
|
||
CONTRACT WITH AMERICA: PROPOSED CHANGES
|
||
Item seven in the Contract with America is a bill known as
|
||
the Senior Citizens' Equity Act--H. R. 8, by Congressman Jim
|
||
Bunning, and S. 30, by Senator John McCain. The modifications to
|
||
the earnings limit being proposed include five mandated upward
|
||
adjustments in the exempt amount to reach $30,000 of annual
|
||
earnings beginning in the year 2000. Section 101(b) of the bill
|
||
would specifically exclude blind people from the mandated
|
||
adjustments.
|
||
The exclusion departs from existing law. The National
|
||
Federation of the Blind (along with every other organization
|
||
having interest in the blindness field) strongly opposes this
|
||
change. The provision would create an earnings limit for blind
|
||
people which is far more stringent than the earnings limit for
|
||
age sixty-five retirees--a serious change in direction which will
|
||
have far-reaching and harmful work disincentive effects upon the
|
||
blind.
|
||
|
||
NEED TO REMOVE WORK DISINCENTIVES
|
||
Continuing the existing policy by mandating the adjustments
|
||
in the earnings limit for blind people as well as for age sixty-
|
||
five retirees will assure that an estimated 104,300 blind
|
||
beneficiaries will receive a powerful work incentive. Most blind
|
||
people could then not lose financially by working. The mandated
|
||
earnings limit changes, if made applicable to blind people, would
|
||
be cost-beneficial since, among those of working age, 70 percent
|
||
are currently unemployed or underemployed. Most of them are
|
||
already beneficiaries. At present their earnings must be strictly
|
||
limited to $940.00 per month. When earnings do exceed this exempt
|
||
amount, the entire sum paid to a primary beneficiary and
|
||
dependents is abruptly withdrawn after a trial work period.
|
||
When a blind person finds work, there is absolutely no
|
||
assurance that earnings will replace the amount of lost
|
||
disability benefits after taxes and work expenses are paid.
|
||
Usually they do not. Therefore, few of the 104,300 beneficiaries
|
||
can actually afford to attempt substantial work. Those who do
|
||
will often sacrifice income and will certainly sacrifice the
|
||
security they have from the automatic receipt of a monthly check.
|
||
This group of beneficiaries--people of working age who are
|
||
blind--must not be forgotten as the debate proceeds toward
|
||
modifying the Social Security retirement test. Just as with
|
||
hundreds of thousands of seniors, their positive response to the
|
||
higher amounts of earnings allowed will bring additional revenues
|
||
into the Social Security trust funds.
|
||
|
||
ACTION REQUESTED
|
||
In taking a position on legislation to approve item seven in
|
||
the Contract with America, each member of Congress should vote to
|
||
ensure that equity in the work incentive policies of the bill
|
||
applies, as under current law, to senior citizens and blind
|
||
people alike. To achieve this, we ask you actively to promote
|
||
striking the exclusionary provision--section 101(b)--of the
|
||
Senior Citizens' Equity Act so that an identical earnings
|
||
exemption standard for blind people and retirees alike--the
|
||
policy of the present law--is maintained.
|
||
|
||
|
||
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY
|
||
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
|
||
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
|
||
WASHINGTON, D.C.
|
||
STATEMENT OF THE
|
||
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
|
||
JAMES GASHEL
|
||
DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
|
||
JANUARY 9, 1995
|
||
|
||
Mr. Chairman, I am James Gashel. I am Director of
|
||
Governmental Affairs for the National Federation of the Blind
|
||
(NFB). My address is 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland
|
||
21230, telephone (410) 659-9314. I am appearing today along with
|
||
Mrs. Betty Niceley, President of the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind of Kentucky. Mrs. Niceley will summarize this written
|
||
statement. Thank you for offering us this opportunity to present
|
||
the views of the NFB in response to Social Security earnings
|
||
limit issues which have been raised in legislation to fulfill the
|
||
Contract with America.
|
||
At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that the
|
||
position we are taking concerning modifications to the earnings
|
||
limit is shared by every national organization in the blindness
|
||
field. The groups in question have entered into a joint statement
|
||
of our position, and I am submitting a copy of this statement as
|
||
an attachment. I believe that each organization, represented by
|
||
the individuals on this panel, is submitting a separate written
|
||
statement for this hearing. The organizations involved are listed
|
||
at the end of the joint statement. Collectively we represent
|
||
people who are blind throughout the United States, professionals
|
||
who provide services to the blind, agencies throughout the
|
||
country which employ blind individuals in significant numbers,
|
||
and agencies in every state which assist blind people in finding
|
||
jobs in the competitive labor force. In other words, the joint
|
||
statement which we are submitting represents the complete
|
||
spectrum of interests from the blind themselves to those who
|
||
serve them.
|
||
There are over fifty thousand blind people who are members
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind. We have a local chapter
|
||
of the Federation in almost every sizable population area in this
|
||
country and a state affiliate in all states, Puerto Rico, and the
|
||
District of Columbia. In short, Mr. Chairman, NFB is organized
|
||
and active in all parts of the United States.
|
||
By virtue of its size and scope NFB represents and speaks
|
||
for the blind as a collective body. We speak for older blind
|
||
persons and younger blind persons as well. The positions we
|
||
express in hearings such as these are the result of the
|
||
democratic process of debate and decision-making among people who
|
||
are blind in the United States. The supreme authority of the
|
||
Federation is its National Convention, which occurs annually.
|
||
During the convention we openly debate (and approve or
|
||
disapprove) a number of policy resolutions. In this manner the
|
||
Federation is truly the blind speaking for themselves. It is not
|
||
simply an organization speaking for the blind. All of our elected
|
||
officers and the vast majority of our members are blind. For
|
||
these reasons the NFB is widely known as the voice of the
|
||
nation's blind.
|
||
This hearing concerns proposed modifications in the earnings
|
||
exemption threshold provisions of the Social Security Act. The
|
||
legislation which would accomplish the specific changes is known
|
||
as the "Senior Citizens' Equity Act"--introduced in the 104th
|
||
Congress as H. R. 8.
|
||
Blind people have a special concern in relationship to this
|
||
subject. Most blind people are sixty-five or older. The
|
||
retirement test affects blind retirees in precisely the same way
|
||
that it affects all senior citizens age sixty-five to seventy.
|
||
But the retirement test also affects blind people under age
|
||
sixty-five who receive Social Security benefits.
|
||
According to information available from the Social Security
|
||
Administration, this latter group is made up of about 104,300
|
||
blind beneficiaries. There are in addition approximately 57,000
|
||
blind individuals (most of whom are of working age) who receive
|
||
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments but do not also
|
||
receive disability insurance checks. This adds up to a combined
|
||
total of 161,300 blind beneficiaries whose work patterns and
|
||
earnings could be significantly improved by work incentives.
|
||
Under a provision in section 223(d)(4) of the Social
|
||
Security Act, working-age blind individuals are subject to an
|
||
earnings limitation which is precisely the same as the earnings
|
||
limitation for age sixty-five retirees. This limitation is stated
|
||
in section 203(f)(8)(D) of the Social Security Act. The present
|
||
limit is $11,280 annually or $940 monthly, which by law is
|
||
subject to upward annual adjustments.
|
||
The Senior Citizens' Equity Act would change existing law by
|
||
creating an earnings limit for the blind which is different from
|
||
the earnings limit for age sixty-five retirees. In fact, the
|
||
earnings limit for the blind of working age would be far more
|
||
severe than the earnings limit which would apply to retirees. For
|
||
this reason, while we enthusiastically support the changes called
|
||
for in the earnings exemption threshold, we are asking the
|
||
Committee and the Congress to remove from the bill the provisions
|
||
which would exclude blind people from the work incentives
|
||
resulting from the new, higher threshold amounts.
|
||
In terms of establishing the point at which an individual
|
||
becomes eligible, the Social Security Act treats blindness and
|
||
retirement age (age sixty-five) in almost precisely the same
|
||
manner. Section 216(l)(1) of the Act presently defines retirement
|
||
age as age sixty-five. The definition of blindness is found in
|
||
section 216(i)(1)(B). In looking at this definition it is
|
||
critical to understand that blindness is not the same as
|
||
disability. It may be more accurate to say that blindness under
|
||
the Social Security Act is a distinct form of disability having a
|
||
definition which is distinctly different from the definition of
|
||
disability.
|
||
The definition of disability is an "(A) inability to engage
|
||
in any substantial gainful activity . . . , or (B) blindness; . .
|
||
. ." In the latter case (blindness) the inability to perform "any
|
||
substantial gainful activity" is not a defining condition.
|
||
Blindness is defined by means of specific visual acuity and field
|
||
restrictions. Medical evidence is used to determine whether an
|
||
individual has impaired eyesight to the extent of blindness. The
|
||
determination is as clear as it is in the case of determining
|
||
whether a given individual has reached retirement age.
|
||
Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) is the test for
|
||
eligibility for persons who are disabled. In such cases, the SGA
|
||
guidelines are applied to determine the extent of the disability
|
||
and its relationship to an individual's ability to work. Earnings
|
||
are considered, but the SGA guidelines go far beyond that.
|
||
Factors such as "comparability and worth of work" tests are also
|
||
applied. The purpose of an SGA evaluation is, therefore, to
|
||
determine whether the individual is disabled. Disability is
|
||
actually defined by an individual's "inability to perform SGA."
|
||
The determination of blindness under the Social Security Act does
|
||
not depend upon an SGA finding.
|
||
Although blindness is defined medically and not by SGA as
|
||
just described, there is an SGA guideline for blind people. This
|
||
is the earnings limit which is also established for age sixty-
|
||
five retirees. Also in Title XVI (SSI) no SGA determination is
|
||
made in the case of blind individuals. They are categorically
|
||
eligible. This is exactly the same situation for persons who have
|
||
reached age sixty-five. They, too, are categorically eligible for
|
||
SSI. Of course income and resources may affect eligibility or
|
||
payment amounts for any individual. SSI is a means-tested
|
||
program, but the point is that there is no earnings limitation
|
||
attached to the basic eligibility conditions of blindness or old
|
||
age. This is as it should be.
|
||
Unlike SSI, eligibility under Title II is not means-tested.
|
||
Social Security benefits are paid to wealthy people and to poor
|
||
people alike. True to the principles of insurance, not welfare,
|
||
income for Social Security beneficiaries can be unlimited. Work
|
||
activity is limited. For blind people as well as for retirees
|
||
this is a counterproductive policy, and it is so for precisely
|
||
the same reasons.
|
||
Blindness as we still experience it today has profoundly
|
||
adverse social and economic consequences. Therefore, Social
|
||
Security benefits should offset these consequences insofar as
|
||
possible. The social attitudes about blindness are full of myths
|
||
and misconceptions. As a group the blind face an incredibly
|
||
devastating set of artificial impediments when they seek to enter
|
||
and compete in the labor force. The blind are not just viewed as
|
||
unemployed. We are usually considered unemployable.
|
||
To be sure, the blind pay a heavy price for this erroneous
|
||
labeling. For example, most people agree that over seventy
|
||
percent of the employable blind population is either unemployed
|
||
or underemployed. If before blindness an individual had an income
|
||
of, say, $20,000 annually (not an uncommon income for sighted
|
||
individuals), and if after blindness that same individual finds
|
||
employment at $12,000.00 annually (not at all an uncommon
|
||
experience for the blind), he or she will still not be eligible
|
||
to continue receiving Social Security benefits despite the fact
|
||
that a substantial loss of income has occurred.
|
||
Under prevailing social conditions, blind people are pushed
|
||
aside in competition for jobs and social opportunities. This
|
||
results in significant lost income which is not replaced by
|
||
Social Security. Responsibility for the prevailing attitudes
|
||
about blindness does not rest with the blind alone; it is a
|
||
general social phenomenon. However, it is the blind members of
|
||
our society who currently bear the cost in lost opportunities,
|
||
lost jobs, and lost income.
|
||
The Social Security system itself presents additional
|
||
economic barriers to the full integration of the blind. I am
|
||
referring to the direct impact of the earnings limitation. These
|
||
are the stark economic realities: under existing law, if an
|
||
individual becomes blind and has average monthly earnings which
|
||
do not exceed the "exempt amount," he or she will likely draw
|
||
Social Security benefits. The individual has every incentive to
|
||
remain unemployed and not return to work at all. Why? In the
|
||
first place, the beneficiary is undoubtedly not an expert in the
|
||
law. The law is complex, and the talk of allowed earnings, trial
|
||
work periods, impairment-related work expense deductions, and
|
||
extended eligibility is confusing and not generally conducive to
|
||
an attempt to resume or continue working.
|
||
Ironically, the work incentives for blind people under
|
||
Social Security are inversely related to the likelihood that an
|
||
individual can engage in productive activity. For example,
|
||
persons who are age seventy and older have the maximum incentive
|
||
to work--there is no limitation on their earnings. Persons age
|
||
sixty-five to seventy are faced with the disincentive of the
|
||
earnings limitation, but two-thirds of their earnings are still
|
||
exempt. Blind persons under age sixty-five are subject to the
|
||
harshest penalty of all--there is an absolute barrier to earnings
|
||
over the exemption threshold. If the individual goes to work and
|
||
(after a specified trial work period) is earning somewhere in the
|
||
neighborhood of $940.00 per month, benefits will be terminated.
|
||
Place yourself in the position of a blind person considering
|
||
possible employment. Remember that, including dependents'
|
||
benefits, the family income from Social Security may exceed
|
||
$1,500 per month in many instances. I know a number of blind
|
||
people who (believing in the work ethic) would accept employment
|
||
offering gross wages at somewhat less than their possible Social
|
||
Security income. However, many people are simply not in a
|
||
financial position which would allow them to do so. Of course
|
||
there are also costs associated with working that any blind
|
||
person must consider. These costs may include employment of
|
||
readers or drivers or other assistants, which will further reduce
|
||
take-home pay. When all of these costs are taken into account,
|
||
many individuals find that they cannot sustain the economic
|
||
losses which may result from working.
|
||
In the example under consideration the annual Social
|
||
Security benefit available to the primary beneficiary and
|
||
dependents would be approximately $18,000. The blind beneficiary
|
||
who, under present law, earns $11,300 ($20 over the limit) would
|
||
lose $18,000. Almost anyone that I know of would opt to earn $20
|
||
less in order to retain $18,000. This is precisely the kind of
|
||
economic choice presented to blind beneficiaries under the
|
||
present law.
|
||
Taking the example a step further, it is revealing to
|
||
examine just how much the primary beneficiary would need to earn,
|
||
if working, in order to replace the loss of $18,000 in Social
|
||
Security benefits. Using conservative numbers, such as twenty-
|
||
eight percent for all taxes (including FICA withholding) and
|
||
taking into account the cost of working (transportation, meals
|
||
away from home, blindness-related work expenses, union dues,
|
||
etc.), I would estimate that the working blind individual would
|
||
need to have an income of $27,917, not including child care
|
||
expenses. Since the example includes two dependents, child care
|
||
expenses can be anticipated. A conservative estimate for child
|
||
care would be approximately $4,600. This amount added to $27,917
|
||
means that the working blind beneficiary with two dependents in
|
||
child care would likely need to have gross income of $32,517 in
|
||
order to replace the buying power of the Social Security income--
|
||
$18,000--if lost due to working.
|
||
The proposal in the Senior Citizens' Equity Act is a phased-
|
||
in lifting of the earnings exemption threshold over a five-year
|
||
period in order to reach an annual ceiling of $30,000 in the year
|
||
2000. This policy should be adopted. If it is adopted, it should
|
||
apply to blind people and to age sixty-five retirees alike. That
|
||
is the policy of existing law. As I have already said, the
|
||
provision in the Senior Citizens' Equity Act which would withhold
|
||
from blind people the mandated adjustments in the earnings limit
|
||
threshold is a change from existing law and should not be
|
||
included in the final bill.
|
||
The policy of linking the earnings limit for the blind and
|
||
for seniors became law with the 1977 amendments to the Social
|
||
Security Act. Mr. Archer, who was at that time the ranking
|
||
minority member of this Subcommittee and is now the Chairman of
|
||
the full Committee, is the architect of this policy. The
|
||
amendment which he offered to create the present linkage was
|
||
approved with unanimous Republican support when the conferees met
|
||
to resolve differences between the Senate and House versions of
|
||
the Social Security Financing Amendments of 1977.
|
||
The 1977 bill contained five mandated increases in the
|
||
earnings exemption threshold, with automatic annual adjustments
|
||
kicking in beginning in the sixth year. Under Mr. Archer's
|
||
amendment both blind people and seniors were subject to the
|
||
mandated increases as well as to the automatic adjustments. The
|
||
Senior Citizens' Equity Act, if adopted, would be the first time
|
||
since 1977 that mandated increases in the earnings exemption
|
||
threshold have been made. The precedent, as well as the existing
|
||
law, clearly establishes that both the mandated increases and the
|
||
annual adjustments should apply to blind people as well as to age
|
||
sixty-five retirees.
|
||
If this is done, the blind person who earns less than
|
||
$30,000 could not lose by working. This policy, while not
|
||
removing the earnings limit altogether, would cover the vast
|
||
majority of blind people. The harsh reality of the choice to
|
||
receive benefits or to work would seriously be diminished, and it
|
||
would be replaced by an extremely powerful work incentive. The
|
||
beneficiaries who respond will become taxpayers, and they will
|
||
join the productive ranks of our society. The blind person is
|
||
better off being productive. Society in general is better off if
|
||
the individual is productive instead of idle--working instead of
|
||
sitting at home.
|
||
Proponents of the earnings limitation complain that
|
||
individuals with high earnings will continue to receive Social
|
||
Security benefits. The fact is that the number of blind people
|
||
being paid $12,000 a year or more is surprisingly small. Most
|
||
blind people do not even work. Approximately 161,300 blind
|
||
persons under age sixty-five now receive Social Security or SSI
|
||
benefits. They would not be paid more as a result of increasing
|
||
the earnings exemption threshold. They would have the maximum
|
||
incentive to work, and thousands would begin paying into Social
|
||
Security.
|
||
By comparison, raising the earnings exemption threshold
|
||
would add some blind persons as new beneficiaries, but this would
|
||
only be a fraction of the more than 160,000 who are now
|
||
beneficiaries. The new beneficiaries would be individuals who
|
||
earn more than the present exempt amount but less than $30,000.
|
||
Although they would begin to receive benefits, there would be an
|
||
overall positive effect on the Social Security system. That would
|
||
result from providing a powerful incentive to work to more than
|
||
160,000 beneficiaries who would not receive one dime more from
|
||
Social Security. Besides, fewer blind individuals would receive
|
||
SSI as a result of becoming Social Security beneficiaries.
|
||
Overall, there would actually be a positive cost impact on
|
||
the Social Security system resulting from increased payments into
|
||
the trust funds by working blind beneficiaries. The greater their
|
||
earnings, the greater would be the amount that they pay into the
|
||
trust funds. Considering the costs and benefits involved, the
|
||
provision which would withhold the mandated earnings limit
|
||
adjustments from blind people is truly punitive. Information
|
||
reported by the Office of the Inspector General for the
|
||
Department of Health and Human Services indicates that in 1993
|
||
there were approximately 1,700 blind beneficiaries who had
|
||
earnings above the exempt amount then in effect. It is fair to
|
||
say that many (if not most) of these individuals would continue
|
||
to receive benefits while working if the earnings limit threshold
|
||
goes to $30,000. The punitive part is that all of these
|
||
individuals would lose their beneficiary status if the policy of
|
||
linking the earnings limits for the blind and for seniors is
|
||
changed.
|
||
Mr. Chairman, in concluding this testimony I would like to
|
||
restate our long-standing position about work incentives and the
|
||
counterproductive impact of the Social Security earnings
|
||
limitation. The blind as a group are prepared to work--and work
|
||
hard. The disincentives created by Social Security force blind
|
||
people into financial dependence. We seek to renounce this
|
||
status. We are asking only for the opportunity to lead normal,
|
||
self-supporting, independent lives. If there continues to be a
|
||
limitation on earnings, those who are subject to it will be paid
|
||
to remain outside of the work force. This policy reinforces the
|
||
myth that the blind cannot be productive members of society.
|
||
Until that myth is changed, we will be subject to the conditions
|
||
of ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination which have long kept
|
||
blind people out of the mainstream. Mr. Chairman, we are
|
||
committed to use work incentives effectively as instruments of
|
||
rehabilitation, self-help, and self-support for the blind. On
|
||
behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, I thank you.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #11 Portrait Caption: Joyce Scanlan]
|
||
|
||
|
||
CREATION OF A FEDERATIONIST
|
||
by Joyce Scanlan
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The keynote speaker at the 1995 Midwinter
|
||
Conference of the National Association of Blind Students was
|
||
Joyce Scanlan, First Vice President of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind, President of the National Federation of the Blind of
|
||
Minnesota, and Executive Director of Blindness: Learning In New
|
||
Dimensions (BLIND, Inc.). Here are her remarks:
|
||
|
||
How many of you are twenty-five years old or older? [a
|
||
number of voices respond.] How many are younger than twenty-five?
|
||
[many more voices in the shout] How many of you were members of
|
||
the Federation in 1970? [one voice] I see that, when I became a
|
||
Federationist in 1970, some of you weren't even born yet. I'm
|
||
just trying to establish some rank for myself. You're probably
|
||
thinking, "She is just another old person who is going to tell us
|
||
about the good old days--how hard the old folks had it or how
|
||
lucky everyone is today because of everything that was done in
|
||
the past." As a history student and teacher I'm a firm believer
|
||
in examining the past and paying heed to the lessons it has to
|
||
teach, but that is not what I am here to do today.
|
||
It has been said that "Change starts when someone sees the
|
||
next step." That's how 1970 was for me. At the annual convention
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind that year I really saw
|
||
the next step, and as a result all sorts of changes began in my
|
||
life. Growing up in the State of North Dakota I had known what
|
||
isolation and loneliness were. I knew what being on my own meant.
|
||
I knew how to fight my battles (or I thought I did), for I was an
|
||
independent thinker and considered myself highly informed on all
|
||
matters. Did you know that 85 percent of the population believe
|
||
that they are above average? Since that can't be so, some of us
|
||
must have a greatly overblown notion of our capacities. I was one
|
||
of those folks. I had received a college education past the
|
||
master's degree level and had been successfully employed as a
|
||
teacher. I was not blind; I only had a visual problem. In my
|
||
opinion no one knew I was anything but sighted, so what a rude
|
||
awakening I had when I suddenly learned that I was destined to
|
||
lose the sight I had and would probably become totally blind.
|
||
Suddenly my bubble burst.
|
||
My goal had always been to become a college English
|
||
professor, but when I faced blindness, that goal became something
|
||
seemingly unachievable. My livelihood, career plans, and
|
||
independence all appeared to vanish from the horizon. It was not
|
||
a happy time. After several skirmishes with the rehabilitation
|
||
agency for the blind, I concluded that there was no reason to
|
||
expect assistance from that direction. In fact, I had been forced
|
||
into the state's one and only training center and was so feisty
|
||
and belligerent they had thrown me out after four short weeks.
|
||
That's all the training I had. They had determined that I wasn't
|
||
really blind. If I lost any more sight, I could come back for
|
||
further training.
|
||
That was undoubtedly one of the most fortunate events of my
|
||
life--being thrown out of that center. I was mean and
|
||
uncooperative because they weren't meeting my expectations. All I
|
||
wanted was to be persuaded that blindness wasn't a tragedy and
|
||
that I could find a way to carry on with my life plans. All they
|
||
proved to me was that blindness was the worst thing that could
|
||
happen, that I should recognize my limitations, and that I should
|
||
become a lifelong rehab client of that agency, which, as you
|
||
probably know, was the Minneapolis Society for the Blind. It is
|
||
now called Vision Loss Resources, which I think is a better name
|
||
for them.
|
||
Although today I am grateful for not having been retained at
|
||
that center any longer than I was, at the time it was a
|
||
disappointment, a rejection. It confirmed all my fears and doubts
|
||
about my capacity to have a productive life. In 1970 I had hit
|
||
bottom. The National Federation of the Blind Convention came to
|
||
my hometown, and I went. I had lots of time to check things out,
|
||
but that wasn't why I went. I went because a friend practically
|
||
dragged me there after I had run out of excuses.
|
||
The convention was indeed a life-changing experience.
|
||
Spending four or five days at convention, attending the banquet,
|
||
meeting teachers from all over the country, and discussing
|
||
interesting topics about blindness with all kinds of well-
|
||
informed blind people proved to me that I had been doing
|
||
everything wrong and needed to make some drastic changes in my
|
||
life. My style of going it alone had not worked and would never
|
||
work. Here was an organization I could agree with. The rehab
|
||
people really had been wrong about blindness and all its
|
||
limitations!
|
||
The Federation had a lot to teach me, but at the same time I
|
||
was also treated as though I had some value. People seemed
|
||
interested in my experiences and even asked my opinion. I learned
|
||
that I had rights in the world. It was absolutely reasonable for
|
||
me to expect to resume my teaching career. Among others, I met
|
||
Jim Gashel, who was a teacher at the time. I met Rami Rabby and
|
||
Muzzy Marcellino and many other leaders in the organization. They
|
||
actually spent time talking with me, asking about my goals, and
|
||
showing genuine interest in what was happening in my life.
|
||
The President of the organization at the time was Dr.
|
||
Kenneth Jernigan. Although I didn't meet him personally until a
|
||
year later, I was tremendously impressed with his leadership, the
|
||
manner in which he chaired convention sessions, and the excellent
|
||
banquet address he delivered. No question about it, the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind had outstanding leadership!
|
||
Before joining the National Federation of the Blind, which I
|
||
did immediately after that 1970 convention, I hadn't thought much
|
||
about leadership. As a child, when my friends and I had gotten
|
||
into trouble, the house parents talked about the ringleaders.
|
||
They didn't mean it as a compliment. And when you are the only
|
||
one in your organization, there isn't much leadership--there
|
||
isn't much of anything. But after 1970 I was no longer alone, and
|
||
leadership became an issue. One of the first things I did after
|
||
becoming a member of the Federation was to read The Man and the
|
||
Movement, the biography of Dr. tenBroek, founder and first
|
||
President of the organization. From that book I learned about the
|
||
history of the organization and about the character of the
|
||
organization's leadership.
|
||
At the time I joined the Federation the Minnesota affiliate
|
||
was very different from what it is today. As a matter of fact,
|
||
1995 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the
|
||
NFB of Minnesota, so in honor of the occasion we in Minnesota are
|
||
undertaking all sorts of special events and activities. We have
|
||
been reviewing the old minutes dating back to 1920. The outfit
|
||
kept very good records. By 1970 most of the members were well
|
||
over fifty years old and had been members since the 1920's, 30's,
|
||
and 40's--it sounds like forever, doesn't it. For a long time
|
||
they had been concerned that they weren't attracting new members.
|
||
As some of you may know, at that time Minnesota had the
|
||
dubious distinction of having two NFB affiliates--something that
|
||
can't happen any longer. The other affiliate, which is no longer
|
||
with us, was having the same problem with membership. When I
|
||
joined the NFB, I could have become a member of either affiliate
|
||
or perhaps both. I joined the one where something was going on. I
|
||
learned about the other affiliate much later. That's another
|
||
piece of luck in my life--joining the right affiliate. The
|
||
President of the Minnesota affiliate and most of its members were
|
||
delighted to have new members. We who joined at that time--and
|
||
there were many of us because of the recent national convention
|
||
in our state--were welcomed warmly and put to work immediately.
|
||
Maybe the members were wearing out and were tired, but they were
|
||
very open to our ideas and supported our radical suggestions.
|
||
Many of us, myself included, thought it was time to take on
|
||
the task of reforming some of the local agencies for the blind.
|
||
Our Minnesota affiliate had previously put all its efforts into
|
||
operating a home for the blind. The new members weren't
|
||
interested in that project, so it was left to the older members.
|
||
They in turn supported those of us who were new in addressing
|
||
broader issues which affected all blind people.
|
||
Together we accomplished quite a bit. By 1972, after I had
|
||
been a member for less than two years, I was elected First Vice
|
||
President of our affiliate. I won by just two votes. The same
|
||
year we changed our name to the National Federation of the Blind
|
||
of Minnesota. In 1973, when the then president decided not to
|
||
run, I was elected president in Minnesota. I was running against
|
||
one of the older people in the organization, and this time I won
|
||
by thirty-nine votes. And that's all I remember about elections.
|
||
There have been countless changes in Minnesota since those
|
||
days. We no longer have the home for the blind. We have one
|
||
National Federation of the Blind affiliate. The then younger
|
||
people have become the older people, but most of all we are a
|
||
very active part of a nationwide movement of blind people. I met
|
||
both Dr. Jernigan and our current President, Marc Maurer, in
|
||
1971. I would have to characterize most of my early Federation
|
||
activities as bungling, trial-and-error efforts. However, after I
|
||
met Dr. Jernigan and became a state president, more support and
|
||
teaching were available. Someone was there to bail me out when I
|
||
made mistakes or to help me not make mistakes in the first place.
|
||
I truly came to appreciate the leadership of our national
|
||
President.
|
||
He gave me my best rehab lesson. I was a member of the First
|
||
Seminar, which was a leadership seminar that took place over
|
||
Labor Day weekend in 1973, just three months after I had become a
|
||
state president. The first evening, when we were all going out to
|
||
dinner together, someone suggested we go to a place
|
||
Federationists called the Charcoal Pit. We were told that we
|
||
would be able to select and grill our own steaks. I had the
|
||
impression that in the Federation we should speak up about how we
|
||
felt, so I did. I said I didn't like the idea because I had never
|
||
before grilled a steak to my liking. Dr. Jernigan very calmly
|
||
said, "Oh well, we'll help you." I was suddenly terrified. I
|
||
prayed that, when we got to the Charcoal Pit, he would have
|
||
forgotten what I had said. Of course, that didn't happen. He
|
||
immediately escorted me to the refrigerators, where all the
|
||
steaks were kept. We began examining all the shapes and sizes of
|
||
steaks and ultimately made a selection of which one to grill. He
|
||
was so enthusiastic and seemed to be having such fun that I began
|
||
to enjoy the venture myself.
|
||
With the steak selected, a plate, and a long fork we
|
||
approached the big pit. He said, "Now throw your steak out there;
|
||
just toss it out there." I did, thinking all the time about
|
||
losing the steak forever in the fire. After a short while, Dr.
|
||
Jernigan said, "All right, reach out with your fork and find the
|
||
steak and put it on the plate." I did. Then he showed me how to
|
||
turn the steak over. I was so relieved he had done it so I
|
||
wouldn't have to touch that hot meat. However, he flipped the
|
||
steak back and said to me, "Now you do it." I should have known
|
||
he wouldn't let me off so easy. Then we grilled the steak on the
|
||
other side, and I became more comfortable handling it.
|
||
I ate the steak and enjoyed it too. Everyone was having such
|
||
a good time, and for the first time I actually enjoyed a steak
|
||
that I had cooked. Then Dr. Jernigan asked me to grill a second
|
||
steak for him. It must have been okay because he ate it and
|
||
didn't complain. That was my first rehab lesson--the only one I
|
||
ever had. Dr. Jernigan was a teacher to me; yet he treated me as
|
||
an equal. I learned so much about myself, about leadership, and
|
||
about dealing with blindness just from that one experience.
|
||
Now that I have been a state president for more than twenty-
|
||
two years and have served as a national Board Member, Secretary,
|
||
and now First Vice-President, I recognize and value the trust
|
||
that has been placed in me by my colleagues in the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind. I've had good guidance and direction
|
||
from everyone around me. I have learned from President Maurer,
|
||
from Dr. Jernigan, and from everyone in this room, even from all
|
||
the people who formed the original statewide organization of
|
||
blind people back in 1920. While most of us wouldn't agree with
|
||
much of what they did in the early days, they created and built
|
||
an organization which was there for all of us when we needed it.
|
||
I know that, when I was a child, when I was in college, when I
|
||
was teaching, and when I was struggling to deal with blindness,
|
||
other blind people were busy founding a movement to help me and
|
||
others like me. I'm grateful and pleased that they did that. But
|
||
even more, I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do as they
|
||
did to keep this movement strong and vibrant for the next
|
||
generation of blind people, who will have much less struggle than
|
||
I did because of the work that we have done.
|
||
I recently came upon a list of the qualifications of a good
|
||
leader, and it goes something like this: 1) a leader must be able
|
||
to dream; 2) a leader must communicate; 3) a leader must be
|
||
honest; 4) a leader must remain enthusiastic (I remember how I
|
||
was impressed with Dr. Jernigan's enthusiasm as he taught me to
|
||
grill a steak); 5) a leader must remain focused (as we go along,
|
||
think about how these characteristics apply to you and to the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind); 6) a leader must foster unity;
|
||
7) a leader must be a good role model; 8) a leader is inspiring;
|
||
and 9) a leader must have a sense of humor (I don't think that
|
||
means just being able to tell jokes because I don't measure up in
|
||
that respect. A sense of humor is something broader). How do you
|
||
think you measure up as a leader? All of us are the beneficiaries
|
||
of much that has gone on in the past. How each of us handles our
|
||
role in the Federation in coming years will make a great
|
||
difference in our lives and in the lives of blind people not yet
|
||
born.
|
||
Dale Carnegie said, "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and
|
||
complain; and most do." Happiness is a conscious choice, not an
|
||
automatic response. You can choose happiness and meet the
|
||
responsibilities placed on you by that choice, or you can hide
|
||
away and pretend that you're satisfied with others' doing the
|
||
work, and you can remain on the sidelines complaining,
|
||
condemning, and criticizing. Because you are here today, I know
|
||
you have made the right choice. All of us here are involved in a
|
||
great and powerful organization. Because of what has been done by
|
||
our predecessors, we have many benefits. Services are available
|
||
to blind people to overcome the problems of blindness. We have
|
||
incentives to go to work rather than simply remaining on
|
||
disability benefits. We have choice provisions in our rehab
|
||
system to allow us to choose which programs we will use for
|
||
training, but most of all we have the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind--a vehicle through which we can speak out and be heard. We
|
||
can share what we have with all blind people. And through our
|
||
collective efforts we can truly change what it means to be blind.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #12 Portrait Caption: Chris Boone]
|
||
|
||
DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP BY EDUCATING OTHERS
|
||
by Christine Boone
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: The theme of the 1995 Midwinter Conference
|
||
sponsored by the National Association of Blind Students was
|
||
leadership. One of the speakers who addressed the conference was
|
||
Chris Boone, a second-year law student at Creighton University in
|
||
Omaha, Nebraska. Despite her busy schedule as wife, mother, and
|
||
law student, Chris was elected this year to serve as President of
|
||
the International Moot Court Bar at her law school. Chris has
|
||
found a number of ways in her daily life to provide leadership in
|
||
her community and to demonstrate the capacity of blind people.
|
||
This is what she had to say:
|
||
|
||
Last August my telephone rang. I wasn't really ready to go
|
||
back to school yet. But this cheerful voice on the other end of
|
||
the line said, "Chris, this is Tara. We're having a NOW rally
|
||
(the National Organization for Women) in Omaha on Saturday. I
|
||
think you have a message. Be there."
|
||
I thought, "Okay--." I just showed up, and after I got
|
||
there, I found Tara and said, "What do you want me to talk
|
||
about?" I didn't have any idea what she wanted me to say.
|
||
"Well, we're celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of
|
||
women's right to vote, and it occurs to me that perhaps blind
|
||
women don't enjoy the same kinds of freedoms most other women do.
|
||
I think that's a message these people need to hear." So I gave
|
||
that message and then went home.
|
||
The next evening my telephone rang again. This time the
|
||
caller was my classmate Tory. "Chris, the dean has been talking
|
||
to me. We've got these first-year students coming, and we have to
|
||
talk to them about what it's like to be a non-traditional
|
||
student. I don't feel very non-traditional, but they think I am.
|
||
I know you don't feel very non-traditional, but they think you
|
||
are too, so would you come and talk about being a non-traditional
|
||
student?"
|
||
So I went off and talked about the way it is when you study
|
||
and you have little children at home who need a mom. When you
|
||
walk in the door, they don't want to hear about torts or
|
||
constitutional law. On the other hand, when you get into class
|
||
the next morning, your professor doesn't want to hear about how
|
||
you read The Little Engine That Could last night. What are you
|
||
going to do? I told them that I didn't have all the answers, but
|
||
here were some of the things I did know.
|
||
By this time it was the first week of school, and I was
|
||
standing in line in the malt shop to get my cup of coffee,
|
||
without which I cannot go on! Ann came up to me and said, "Come
|
||
over here; I want to talk to you." We sat down, and she said, "I
|
||
need your opinion. What do you think? Should I shave my head?"
|
||
I said, "Well, that depends on why you want to do it, Ann."
|
||
She said, "I know that you're a feminist, but you are also
|
||
one of the more reasonable people around here, and my sister-in-
|
||
law is shaving hers. She says that, if I'm going to be a woman
|
||
who really stands for women's rights, I have to do it. I just
|
||
don't know--what do you think?"
|
||
I said, "Well, if that's your reason, then think again,
|
||
because that's the worst reason I've ever heard for doing
|
||
anything!" It seems to me that, if you're a woman and you're
|
||
proud of it, you should not feel that you have to go off and
|
||
shave your head and wear a suit and tie and look like a guy to be
|
||
equal. That's just my opinion."
|
||
Then along about September we were having negotiations
|
||
tournament, and my partner and I were doing our negotiating. We
|
||
thought we had gotten an awesome deal for our client. We came in
|
||
to be judged. It was the final round, so of course there was an
|
||
audience. There were five judges. One of them was about a hundred
|
||
and eight. He said something like, "I graduated in 1940, and I've
|
||
been practicing law ever since."
|
||
I thought, "Uh-huh, and how awake are you when you're
|
||
listening to your clients?" He and all the other judges were
|
||
giving commentaries on what they thought of us. They said things
|
||
like: "Team 2, you were too conciliatory, too nice, too friendly.
|
||
What do you think this is? You got to get a good deal for your
|
||
client! And Chris, I saw you looking at your watch. Never let
|
||
them see you sweat; and, if you're looking at your watch, they
|
||
think you're nervous, so don't do that again!"
|
||
I had thought this was a negotiation. I thought we were
|
||
supposed to be friendly to each other and talk about what it was
|
||
our client wanted. I thought, "Maybe I don't have the right idea
|
||
about this." As I reflected on that, I thought back to the year
|
||
before when my partner and I had been in the Regional Client
|
||
Counseling Competition in Kansas City. I remembered what that
|
||
judge had said to us. She said, "I think your client was nervous
|
||
because you are blind, and I really think you need to justify to
|
||
your client why as a blind person you can be a lawyer. Why should
|
||
clients come to you?" With all my training and all my involvement
|
||
in the National Federation of the Blind, I was still unprepared
|
||
for those comments. What I wanted to say was: "This is a
|
||
competition about counseling clients and doing the best job you
|
||
can for them. It's not about justifying myself to anyone. If we
|
||
only have a half hour and I'm supposed to talk about why as a
|
||
blind person, as a woman, as a student over thirty I can be a
|
||
lawyer, my half an hour is gone." But I didn't say any of those
|
||
things to her because they tell you not to talk back to the
|
||
judges if you want to get anywhere!
|
||
When I left there, I felt rotten about what had happened.
|
||
But in thinking about the judge who told me not to look at my
|
||
watch and not to be so conciliatory, I decided maybe we had made
|
||
some progress. After all, he didn't say anything about blindness.
|
||
It didn't worry him that I was a blind person and that I was in
|
||
there negotiating for my client. He said to me the same things
|
||
that he would have said to any other person and did say to other
|
||
people who were in my position.
|
||
I thought back to my first week or two or three of law
|
||
school and the way I would sit in class and wonder how in the
|
||
world I was ever going to do it, and the way I would sit alone in
|
||
the lunch room. Nobody came and talked to me during the first
|
||
couple of days. I sat there and worried about how I was ever
|
||
going to get along. Then I would go off to the restroom and cry
|
||
because I just didn't know what to do.
|
||
Then I began to think about all the other blind people who
|
||
had done these things before me, and I thought to myself, "I know
|
||
better than this. I've been in the Federation forever, and I
|
||
should know how to handle these situations." I realized somewhere
|
||
during this process that I needed to be myself. Being in the
|
||
Federation was not necessarily going to give me all the answers,
|
||
but it sure as heck was going to show me where to find the
|
||
answers if I didn't have them myself.
|
||
I began talking to my friends in the Federation about some
|
||
of the feelings of inadequacy I was having. Everyone was so
|
||
encouraging and supportive that I finally started to chill out a
|
||
little bit and realize that all my fellow first-year students
|
||
were running into the restroom crying too, because they didn't
|
||
know if they could do it either. And a lot of them were sitting
|
||
in the malt shop at lunch time not talking to anybody because
|
||
they didn't know what to say, and it was so stressful, and they
|
||
were going to get called on in torts, and what were they going to
|
||
say? So I began walking up to people and saying, "Hi. I'm Chris.
|
||
Who are you?" Lo and behold, they answered me. When none of my
|
||
professors called on me in class, I went to their offices and
|
||
said, "You can call on me. I might not know the answer, but you
|
||
can call on me." Then I left and thought "You've got to be a
|
||
maniac!"
|
||
Then there was the day in civil procedure when I raised my
|
||
hand and the professor called on me. I just knew I had the answer
|
||
to this question. I gave my answer, and I justified it. And he
|
||
said to the class, "Don't write that down!"
|
||
I thought, "Well I guess that's exactly what he would have
|
||
said to anyone else." Sometimes being treated equally isn't what
|
||
we think it's going to be: when I talked in contracts, and the
|
||
professor said, "Is that what you think?"
|
||
I said, "Yes sir."
|
||
"I don't know why you would think that; I don't know why
|
||
anyone would think that!"
|
||
I said to myself, "I guess you asked for this."
|
||
When we got back from that terrible counseling competition
|
||
in Kansas City, the faculty helped me to write a letter to the
|
||
Client Counseling Committee explaining that blind people and
|
||
people using wheelchairs and people who are deaf are going to
|
||
participate in these competitions. It is not necessary or
|
||
acceptable to comment or judge them on their disabilities but on
|
||
the way in which they compete.
|
||
We sent that letter to the Client Counseling and
|
||
Negotiations Board, and in their new bylaws there is a section
|
||
saying that you can't judge people on those personal
|
||
characteristics with which you are not familiar. But remember, it
|
||
isn't Chris Boone that has done these things; it is really the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind, because when I was eighteen or
|
||
nineteen and first joined this movement, I never had the nerve to
|
||
talk to anyone. I spent my life walking around looking at the
|
||
ground because I didn't use a cane, putting my nose against the
|
||
page because I never used Braille, never saying boo to a fly for
|
||
fear someone would contradict me or argue with me.
|
||
It's the Federation that has taught me how to travel with
|
||
the long white cane and how to read and write Braille and how to
|
||
have confidence in myself. It's the Federation which continues to
|
||
support me and all of us when we come to a mountain that we think
|
||
is too steep to climb or come up against a judge that we think is
|
||
just too irrational even to be on the planet. I would urge all of
|
||
you to go away from this place with the Federation spirit in your
|
||
heart and know that there is another brother or sister at the
|
||
other end of the phone to call and support you, to share love and
|
||
encouragement whenever you need it.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
I TEACH ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
|
||
by Suzanne Whalen
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: Suzanne Whalen, who is a talented second
|
||
grade teacher, was one of the speakers at the 1994 meeting of the
|
||
National Association of Blind Educators in Detroit. This is what
|
||
she had to say:
|
||
|
||
From my own personal experience I can assure you that blind
|
||
teachers must have confidence in themselves and be willing to
|
||
assist others. I student taught at both the elementary and
|
||
secondary levels so I would have two credentials. At the same
|
||
time I was working on a master's degree and maintaining a 3.8
|
||
grade point average. When I had completed those requirements, the
|
||
only course I had left to take was teaching reading methods. I
|
||
was told that I could not take that class. The professors in the
|
||
department of education were adamant that a blind person could
|
||
not teach reading, and that was that. Without this course, I
|
||
could not get my elementary credential. I took my problem to the
|
||
college counselor, who referred me to the NFB of Texas. The state
|
||
president then referred me to one of the members of the National
|
||
Association of Blind Educators. By the time I finally talked to
|
||
the blind educator, I was sure that I was getting the run-around
|
||
and was about to give up.
|
||
This educator told me about Section 504 of the
|
||
Rehabilitation Act and assured me that I could and would teach
|
||
reading. A letter explaining the law was sent to the dean of the
|
||
university, who promptly called me in and said that there must
|
||
have been some terrible mistake on the part of the department of
|
||
education. As a result I took that reading class and got my
|
||
credential along with all the other students.
|
||
Even since getting my job I have had to educate a number of
|
||
people about what the blind can do. There are still many
|
||
administrators who need to be educated about the civil rights
|
||
provisions in disability law and the rights provided to blind
|
||
educators. One of my principals actually went downtown to
|
||
ascertain how I could be fired.
|
||
On her own she next decided that a blind educator required
|
||
the services of a teacher's aide. I had never had one and had
|
||
never requested one. As it turned out, the principal had a friend
|
||
whose daughter needed a job. This girl was hired without my
|
||
knowledge. The poor girl had not graduated from high school, but
|
||
I was told that she would be working with me three hours each
|
||
day.
|
||
I was advised that I should not refuse to work with her, so
|
||
I found her a job doing busy work down in the library, far from
|
||
my classroom. In the meantime at my request President Maurer
|
||
wrote a letter explaining that I was not required to accept an
|
||
accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. When the
|
||
superintendent received the letter, the aide vanished. We are
|
||
certainly lucky that we have the NFB to set people straight.
|
||
Not long ago I attended a workshop on reading conducted by
|
||
experts. The head expert said her method required sight. I
|
||
ignored her and simply did what the other attendees did. She was
|
||
livid. She informed me that she was the expert and that I should
|
||
know my limitations. I said that she was definitely not an expert
|
||
on blindness and suggested that she might benefit from learning
|
||
something about her own limitations. I told her that in this
|
||
situation I was the expert on blindness and that we would all be
|
||
better off if she stuck to the things she knew something about.
|
||
Her attitude improved when she realized I was not going to be
|
||
told what I could and could not do.
|
||
Teaching is deeply rewarding, and I love it. Each fall I am
|
||
assigned a whole class of little children who speak only Spanish.
|
||
By June they have mastered a great part of the English language.
|
||
All blind educators must understand that they have a right to be
|
||
in the classroom. As members of the National Association of Blind
|
||
Educators we know our rights, and we know that the field of
|
||
education is open to the blind of this great nation.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #13 Portrait Caption: Tom Bickford]
|
||
|
||
THE NATIONAL LITERARY BRAILLE COMPETENCY TEST:
|
||
WHAT'S IN IT, AND WHO SHOULD TAKE IT?
|
||
by Thomas Bickford
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: Tom Bickford is a long-time leader in the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind. He is also an employee of the
|
||
National Library Service and a frequent contributor to these
|
||
pages. This time he tells us what it is like to take the Literary
|
||
Braille Competency Test. His description is accurate and his
|
||
advice sound. One of his points should perhaps be reinforced.
|
||
When he warns test-takers to circle the Braille errors in the
|
||
proofreading section, he is stating the exact truth. Circling the
|
||
word in which the error occurs will be counted wrong, unless the
|
||
entire word is the error. The suggestion has been made that some
|
||
blind test-takers may be incapable of circling only the cells
|
||
they intend. Mary Lou Stark, Acting Head of the Braille
|
||
Development Section of NLS, says that allowances are made when
|
||
incomplete circles are drawn by blind applicants, though she
|
||
warns that, if additional cells are frequently included in
|
||
incomplete circles, they will be counted as errors. Perhaps some
|
||
sort of accommodation will have to be developed for marking
|
||
errors in this section when the individual has difficulty with
|
||
fine motor coordination. According to Ms. Stark, the problem and
|
||
workable solutions are definitely under consideration. In any
|
||
event, here is what Tom Bickford has to say:
|
||
|
||
Yes, this is the test devised by the Library of Congress,
|
||
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
|
||
Handicapped, at the request of the Committee on Joint
|
||
Organizational Effort. It measures the literary Braille
|
||
competence of teachers of blind children and adults. But enough
|
||
for long names and general purpose.
|
||
I decided to take the test for two reasons. First, I wanted
|
||
to speak from personal experience when talking with state and
|
||
federal legislators about including successful completion of this
|
||
test in the regulations affecting the certification of teachers
|
||
of blind people. We still have work to do on that point in
|
||
Maryland, and I know that's true of other states as well. Second,
|
||
fewer than two hundred people have taken the test so far, which
|
||
is a small number for validation studies. I was glad to be one
|
||
more statistic. I hope that other Braille users will decide to
|
||
take the test. Passing it would provide an impressive credential
|
||
for blind people who act as advocates in IEP meetings.
|
||
In a Maryland legislative hearing in September, 1994,
|
||
opponents of the test (teachers afraid of submitting themselves
|
||
to testing and some of their blind friends) disparaged the test
|
||
by calling it "invalid." Validation studies of the test will soon
|
||
begin, and until that process is complete, it is accurate to say
|
||
that the test is not yet validated, but that is a very different
|
||
thing from claiming that it is "invalid." I would have hoped that
|
||
college-educated teachers could understand the difference.
|
||
So let me tell you about the test and how to take it. It can
|
||
be administered in either Braille or print. There are three
|
||
general sections. Part one calls for transcribing print or
|
||
uncontracted Braille into Grade II Braille using both a slate and
|
||
stylus and a Braille writer. When doing this section, use all the
|
||
Braille rules, and be sure to follow all test instructions
|
||
exactly. For example, the directions say to use a twenty-seven-
|
||
cell line for the slate transcription. If your slate has twenty-
|
||
eight cells, you may wish to cover the last row with heavy
|
||
masking tape. You are allowed to use a Braille eraser, but
|
||
remember that any erasure felt by the person scoring the test
|
||
will be counted as an error. You may use a print or audio
|
||
dictionary to help in hyphenating words. A sighted monitor is
|
||
allowed to assist a blind applicant with this task.
|
||
Part two calls on your proofreading ability. Simply read the
|
||
passage and use a pen or pencil to circle the many Braille errors
|
||
imbedded in the text. It is important to circle only the cells
|
||
involved in the error, not the entire word.
|
||
Part three is multiple choice. You must identify certain
|
||
contractions and rules of usage. A few of the questions are
|
||
rather tricky, but others are dead giveaways.
|
||
In general I believe NLS has constructed a good, medium-
|
||
level test. You need to know Braille pretty thoroughly to pass,
|
||
but this test is nowhere nearly as detailed as the last lesson in
|
||
the transcribers' or proofreaders' course.
|
||
This is a power test, not a speed test. You are allowed as
|
||
much as six hours plus breaks. There is enough time to make and
|
||
correct errors. When I turned in my transcribing section, I
|
||
included three false starts. On one of them I got most of the way
|
||
down the page before making an incorrectable mistake. "What a
|
||
place to make an error!" I said to myself as I reached for a
|
||
fresh sheet of paper. Even at my rather slow pace of reading
|
||
Braille, I had time to proofread my own transcription and go
|
||
through the other parts twice.
|
||
If you plan to take the test, NLS wants to know that you
|
||
have fulfilled one of the following: completed the NLS
|
||
proofreading or transcribing course through lesson fourteen;
|
||
successfully passed a college-level course in Braille; or have at
|
||
least five years' experience using Braille.
|
||
The candidate is responsible for arranging an appropriate
|
||
test location and monitor and for covering associated costs, if
|
||
any. You provide your own Braille paper and writing equipment.
|
||
You must also return the test materials to NLS by certified
|
||
delivery. NLS will want to approve all arrangements before
|
||
sending test materials, so allow at least six weeks for the
|
||
process.
|
||
Upon request NLS can send you a detailed description of the
|
||
test and all requirements for taking it. A sample test, which is
|
||
similar but shorter, is now available. You can take and fail it
|
||
without its counting against you. If you fail the full-length
|
||
test, you must wait six months before a retest, six more months
|
||
before the second retest, and another year before the third
|
||
retest. Along with your third application you must also include
|
||
evidence that you have taken more instruction in Braille.
|
||
Test scoring is rather strict. Your transcribing must be
|
||
neat and accurate. You must be able to find and accurately
|
||
identify the errors imbedded in the proofreading section. Your
|
||
knowledge must include the contractions and rules of usage in the
|
||
multiple choice section. If you fail one section, you have failed
|
||
the entire test.
|
||
You and one designee will be informed of your test results.
|
||
And, if your work was good enough, you will receive a certificate
|
||
saying you have demonstrated competence in literary Braille. For
|
||
further information contact the Braille Development Section,
|
||
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
|
||
Handicapped, 1291 Taylor Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20542,
|
||
(202) 707-9307 or (800) 424-8567.
|
||
|
||
CHICAGO NOTEBOOK
|
||
by Stephen O. Benson
|
||
|
||
As you make preparations for the 1995 convention in Chicago,
|
||
you will find certain information useful, perhaps critical. At
|
||
any rate, the information in this month's Chicago notebook should
|
||
make your stay in the city much more pleasant.
|
||
|
||
Transportation
|
||
|
||
Chicago has two major airports, O'Hare Field and Midway
|
||
Airport. Virtually every major airline in the United States
|
||
serves Chicago. If you make your reservations sufficiently early,
|
||
the air fares you get should be attractive.
|
||
There are several forms of ground transportation from O'Hare
|
||
field to the downtown area. Taxi service costs about $25 for one
|
||
person. For each additional person there is a charge of fifty
|
||
cents.
|
||
Shuttle service from O'Hare to the Hilton and Towers via
|
||
Airport Express is $17.75 one way per person and $25.00 round
|
||
trip per person. The cost for each child under twelve is $6.50.
|
||
For those who travel light and have a nose for adventure, the
|
||
subway from O'Hare field to the Jackson and Dearborn stop, where
|
||
one must transfer to a Number One bus (eastbound on Jackson) the
|
||
cost will be $1.75. Remember to ask for a transfer at the O'Hare
|
||
train station.
|
||
For Federationists arriving at Midway Airport, one-way taxi
|
||
service is approximately $20 for a single person and fifty cents
|
||
for each additional person.
|
||
The Airport Express rate from Midway is $10.75 one way and
|
||
$19 round trip. Each child under twelve will cost $6.50. Coupons
|
||
will be available at the NFB of Illinois information desk giving
|
||
you a dollar off on a one-way Airport Express run.
|
||
For those arriving by Amtrak, taxi service is about $6 for
|
||
one person with an additional charge of fifty cents for each
|
||
additional person. Federationists traveling to Chicago by
|
||
Greyhound can expect to pay about $5 for cab service to the
|
||
Chicago Hilton and Towers.
|
||
|
||
Wheel Chair Rental
|
||
|
||
Wheel chairs are available for $45 for the week from Keeler
|
||
Pharmacy, 4201 W. Lawrence, Chicago, Illinois 60630, (312) 736-
|
||
5483. Ask for Bud or Al. If you or someone in your party will
|
||
need a wheelchair, you must make your own arrangements for this
|
||
rental.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #14 A pagoda-style building looms in the background of a busy street
|
||
scene in Chicago's Chinatown. Caption: The flavors and sounds of the Far East
|
||
are only minutes away from the Hilton and Towers Hotel in Chinatown.]
|
||
|
||
Wander Chicago
|
||
|
||
In last month's Monitor this year's tour package was
|
||
described in detail. We urge you to make tour reservations as
|
||
soon as possible. We expect some tours will have higher demand
|
||
than others. You should not assume that tickets will be available
|
||
at a later date. In addition, the Illinois affiliate is preparing
|
||
a brochure featuring points of interest that are accessible by
|
||
one bus ride or one subway train ride. This brochure will be
|
||
available at the NFB of Illinois information table.
|
||
|
||
Food for the Spirit
|
||
|
||
The Federation family has a variety of needs, not the least
|
||
of which is spiritual. Please check the NFB of Illinois
|
||
information desk for the names and addresses of houses of worship
|
||
for all faiths within a reasonable distance from the hotel.
|
||
|
||
To Satisfy Your Palate
|
||
|
||
Now that we have assured you of food for the soul, we must
|
||
also put you on notice that the Illinois affiliate is preparing
|
||
an extensive restaurant guide, highlighting restaurants whose
|
||
cuisine and prices run the gamut from economical and casual to
|
||
putting on the dog.
|
||
|
||
Canine Care
|
||
|
||
Guide dog users should check with the NFBI information desk
|
||
for details of dog food, exercise areas, and veterinary care. We
|
||
will also provide plastic bags for clean-up.
|
||
|
||
Greeters
|
||
|
||
In an effort to make you feel as welcome as you feel in your
|
||
own home, the Illinois affiliate will greet you as you check into
|
||
the hotel and provide all reasonable assistance. If you have
|
||
special needs, we will try our best to assist you to find
|
||
appropriate resources. We cordially invite you to come to the
|
||
Illinois suite so that we can introduce ourselves and our city to
|
||
you Chicago-style. This will undoubtedly be our largest
|
||
convention ever, and we want to make sure that everyone has a
|
||
good time.
|
||
Don't forget to make your hotel reservation as soon as
|
||
possible. Write to Hilton and Towers Hotel, 720 S. Michigan
|
||
Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60605, Attention: Reservations; or call
|
||
(312) 922-4400. While you are about it, make your tour
|
||
reservation as well.
|
||
Watch these pages next month for more information about
|
||
Chicago.
|
||
|
||
|
||
1995 CONVENTION ATTRACTIONS
|
||
|
||
From the Editor: Every year's National Convention is an
|
||
absolutely unique event. The agenda items, the exhibits, the new
|
||
friends and business acquaintances: all these give each
|
||
convention its own character and significance. Some activities
|
||
lend a luster to the convention in part because they do take
|
||
place every year and provide helpful fixed points in the whirl of
|
||
events. In this category are the meetings of the Resolutions
|
||
Committee and the Board of Directors, the annual banquet, and the
|
||
many seminars and workshops of the various divisions and
|
||
committees. Here is a partial list of activities being planned by
|
||
a number of Federation groups during the 1995 Convention, July 1
|
||
through 7. Presidents of divisions and committee chairpeople have
|
||
provided the information. The pre-convention agenda will list the
|
||
locations of all events taking place before convention
|
||
registration on Sunday, July 2. The convention agenda will
|
||
contain listings of all events taking place after that time.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #15 Della Johnson talks with Janet Bixby about her art, while Fred
|
||
Bixby and Tina Blatter confer at another table. Caption: At the 1994 Blind
|
||
Artists' Exhibit there was plenty of time for visitors to examine artworks and
|
||
talk with artists. Here Della Johnson discusses art with Janet Bixby while
|
||
Fred Bixby and Tina Blatter converse nearby.]
|
||
|
||
Art Exhibit
|
||
|
||
This year's convention will take place in a hotel which is
|
||
within easy walking distance of most of the city's downtown area.
|
||
With this in mind the artists' group is planning an exhibit for
|
||
the community as well as the convention. Instead of a half-day
|
||
exhibit in the hotel, we will have a two-week exhibit in Daley
|
||
Plaza beginning July 1.
|
||
In the heart of the downtown area, Daley Plaza is known as a
|
||
site of quality art exhibits and cultural events. The exhibit
|
||
will be visible from the street, and thousands of people every
|
||
day will be reminded that the NFB is in town and that its blind
|
||
artists can do strikingly good work. And of course there will be
|
||
much more time for conventioneers to see the exhibit.
|
||
NFB artists have also been invited to present a panel
|
||
discussion at the Museum of Contemporary Art on what blind
|
||
consumers want from museums. Staff members from all area museums
|
||
and galleries will be invited.
|
||
Janet Bixby is once more coordinating the exhibit and is
|
||
eager to hear from all artists who wish to show their work. We
|
||
will be better able to display pictures and large sculptures than
|
||
we have been in previous years, but the planning will have to be
|
||
much more carefully done. Therefore, if you want to show your
|
||
work, please call Janet at (703) 722-4712 or write her at 523 N.
|
||
Braddock Street, Winchester, Virginia 22601 as soon as possible
|
||
and not later than June 1. Indicate your medium, the number of
|
||
pieces you hope to bring, and their size. We expect that this
|
||
will be our best exhibit ever and that, in addition to providing
|
||
pleasure for conventioneers, it will have a positive impact on
|
||
the public's image of blindness.
|
||
Finally, there will be an artists' lunch and meeting at noon
|
||
on Tuesday. We hope this year to have some serious conversation
|
||
about the future direction of the group.
|
||
|
||
Blind Industrial Workers of America
|
||
|
||
The Blind Industrial Workers of America (BIWA) plans to sell
|
||
split-cash drawing tickets at the convention for $1 apiece. The
|
||
drawing will be held banquet night.
|
||
|
||
Second Annual Braille Read-A-Thon Scheduled for Chicago
|
||
|
||
On Saturday, July 1, 1995, the National Association to
|
||
Promote the Use of Braille (NAPUB) will sponsor the second annual
|
||
Braille Read-A-Thon at the annual convention of the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind. Last year in Detroit more than forty
|
||
Braille readers from all over the nation gathered to read pledged
|
||
pages or contribute pledged Braille reading time, and together
|
||
they raised over $3600. One half of this money went to the NFB,
|
||
and one half went to NAPUB. If you are a Braille reader and would
|
||
like to help raise funds for the NFB and for NAPUB, please write
|
||
to Betty Niceley, President, National Association to Promote the
|
||
Use of Braille, 3618 Dayton Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky 40207 to
|
||
receive an information packet and sponsor sheets, or you may call
|
||
Ms. Niceley at (502) 897-2632. All current members of NAPUB will
|
||
automatically receive an information packet and sponsor sheet.
|
||
This year the Braille Read-A-Thon will take place from 9:00 a.m.
|
||
to 1:00 p.m. to allow participants the opportunity to attend
|
||
other pre-convention events on Saturday, July 1. Our goal this
|
||
year is $10,000, and we need all Braille readers to participate
|
||
to promote Braille in the Greater Chicago area. Additionally,
|
||
door prizes will be available for participants, and the names of
|
||
lucky winners will be drawn at the NAPUB meeting.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #16 Two little girls play in the child care room. Caption: Laura Wolk
|
||
of Pennsylvania and a friend investigate the toys available at NFB Camp.]
|
||
|
||
General Child Care Information
|
||
|
||
The following schedule for NFB Camp, the very special
|
||
convention activity for children, is always subject to change
|
||
depending on the convention schedule, availability of workers,
|
||
funds, etc. A schedule will be available at convention when you
|
||
register your children for NFB Camp. Remember also to check daily
|
||
for any changes to the schedule.
|
||
As far as we now know, child care will be available from
|
||
8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 1, including lunch. On
|
||
Sunday it will be available only during the evening meeting of
|
||
the Parental Concerns Committee. It will also be available Monday
|
||
through Friday during daytime convention activities and Thursday
|
||
evening during the annual banquet. NFB Camp will be closed Monday
|
||
through Friday during the lunch hour, and children must be picked
|
||
up immediately following the morning session.
|
||
NFB Camp is not an ordinary child care service. It is a
|
||
special opportunity for children who are blind or who have a
|
||
blind family member to interact with each other and with blind
|
||
adults. Mary Willows, the volunteer director of NFB Camp,
|
||
organizes activities to maximize this interaction. At the 1994
|
||
NFB Camp, for example, she arranged for blind artists to come in
|
||
and conduct craft and art activities with the children. Other
|
||
blind adults, such as a blind horticulturist, also came and did
|
||
special projects with the children.
|
||
Mrs. Willows (who is an experienced educator and the blind
|
||
mother of two children) and many other members of the Federation
|
||
put in many volunteer hours each year at NFB Camp so that the
|
||
convention can be an enjoyable and enriching experience for every
|
||
member of the family.
|
||
Parents are asked to make the following donations for NFB
|
||
Camp activities: $50 for the week (including the banquet) for the
|
||
first child and $25 for each additional child; or $10 per child
|
||
per day and $10 per child for the banquet night if you do not
|
||
want to register for the full week. Parents will also be charged
|
||
a fine for late pick-ups at the noon recess and late-day
|
||
closings. There may also be additional fees for optional day-
|
||
trips. Trips and fees will be announced when you register or
|
||
check in your children at the NFB Camp room at the convention.
|
||
Parents who cannot contribute the entire suggested donation
|
||
should contact Mary Willows to discuss the contribution they can
|
||
make. Mrs. Willows will also accept pre-registrations for NFB
|
||
Camp. Contact Mrs. Willows at 3934 Kern Court, Pleasanton,
|
||
California 94566, (510) 462-8575. She will need your name,
|
||
address, and phone number; the names and ages of your child(ren);
|
||
and a brief description of any special characteristics or needs
|
||
of your child(ren).
|
||
Mrs. Willows will not locate or solicit babysitting jobs for
|
||
interested teens, but she will pass prepared information on to
|
||
parents who use NFB Camp. Contact Mrs. Willows for more
|
||
information.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #17 Gary Posch speaks to Kathleen Spear with the help of an interpreter
|
||
who signs into Kathleen's hands. Caption: Gary Posch and Kathleen Spear
|
||
converse at the 1994 convention with the help of Kathleen's interpreter.]
|
||
|
||
Committee on Concerns of the Deaf-Blind
|
||
|
||
The National Federation of the Blind Committee on Concerns
|
||
of the Deaf-Blind is planning three meetings during Convention
|
||
week in Chicago this year. All meetings will take place at the
|
||
Chicago Hilton and Towers and will begin at 7:00 p.m.
|
||
On Saturday, July 1, we will hold a seminar on assistive
|
||
listening devices. On Monday, July 3, our meeting will focus on
|
||
communication techniques for volunteers and members. The general
|
||
business meeting will be Wednesday, July 5. We may decide to have
|
||
a deaf-blind breakfast one morning during convention. We will
|
||
determine this in the near future. There will be a deaf-blind
|
||
table in the Convention Hall.
|
||
For further information contact Joseph B. Naulty,
|
||
chairperson, 1800 N.E. 43rd Court, Oakland Park, Florida 33308,
|
||
or call (305) 772-1825.
|
||
|
||
Diabetics Division
|
||
|
||
The NFB Diabetics Division will hold our yearly
|
||
conference/business meeting on Monday evening, July 3, beginning
|
||
at 6:30. This year's keynote speaker will be a registered
|
||
dietician with expertise in diabetes food management. Pertinent
|
||
dietary information relevant to diabetics will be discussed.
|
||
Plan, prepare, and be rewarded. This year's convention will be
|
||
great!
|
||
|
||
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, A Raffle
|
||
The Diabetics Division of the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind reaches out, providing support and information to thousands
|
||
of people. Because operating this valuable network costs money
|
||
and because producing the Voice of the Diabetic requires that we
|
||
generate funds, the Diabetics Division has elected to hold a
|
||
raffle, which will be coordinated by our treasurer, John Yark.
|
||
The grand prize will be $500, and the name of the winner
|
||
will be drawn on July 6, 1995, at the annual convention banquet
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind. Raffle tickets cost one
|
||
dollar each, but a book of six may be purchased for five dollars.
|
||
Tickets may be purchased from state representatives of our
|
||
Diabetics Division or by contacting the Voice Editorial Office,
|
||
811 Cherry Street, Suite 309, Columbia, Missouri 65201, telephone
|
||
(314) 875-8911. Anyone interested in selling tickets should also
|
||
contact the Editorial Office of the Voice of the Diabetic.
|
||
Tickets are available now. Names of those who sell fifty tickets
|
||
or more will be announced in the Voice.
|
||
Please make checks payable to the National Federation of the
|
||
Blind. Money and sold raffle ticket stubs must be mailed to the
|
||
Voice office no later than June 16, 1995, or they can be
|
||
personally delivered to Raffle Chairman John Yark at this year's
|
||
NFB convention in Chicago. This raffle is open to everyone. The
|
||
holder of the lucky raffle ticket need not be present to win.
|
||
Each ticket sold is a donation, which helps keep our Diabetics
|
||
Division moving forward.
|
||
|
||
Dialysis
|
||
|
||
During this year's National Convention in Chicago, dialysis
|
||
will be available. Individuals requiring dialysis must have a
|
||
transient patient packet and physician's statement filled out
|
||
prior to treatment. Conventioneers should have their unit contact
|
||
the desired location in the Chicago area for instruction on what
|
||
must be done.
|
||
Unit social workers should also contact the Shearer Program,
|
||
American Kidney Fund, 6110 Executive Boulevard., Suite 1010,
|
||
Rockville, Maryland 20852, telephone (800) 638-8299. Shearer will
|
||
pay the Medicare 20 percent co-payment (approximately $30) of
|
||
transient dialysis, as well as any physician's fees for
|
||
treatment. The program, however, does not cover the drug
|
||
Erythropoietin, chart readings, or lab work.
|
||
If Shearer is not used, individuals must personally pay the
|
||
approximately $30 not covered by Medicare. If patients wish
|
||
reimbursement, receipts must be sent to the American Kidney Fund
|
||
Shearer Program no later than two weeks after the last day
|
||
dialyzed.
|
||
Dialysis centers should set up transient dialysis locations
|
||
using the Shearer Program far in advance. This helps assure a
|
||
location's being reserved for anyone wanting dialysis.
|
||
If conventioneers do not have Medicare but do have Medicaid,
|
||
Shearer will pay $200 towards the cost of dialysis each year.
|
||
Here are some dialysis locations:
|
||
1. NEO Medica Dialysis Center, Inc., One East Delaware,
|
||
Chicago, Illinois 60611, (312) 266-9000. Location is fairly close
|
||
to the convention hotel. To schedule, call patient representative
|
||
Marie Mason, (312) 654-2785.
|
||
2. NEO Medica Dialysis Center, 640 W. Washington, (312) 386-
|
||
9050.
|
||
3. NEO Medica Dialysis Center, 51 E. Superior, (312) 266-
|
||
9000.
|
||
4. Lincoln Park Dialysis Center, 2051 N. Sedgewick, (312)
|
||
348-0101.
|
||
5. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern Dialysis
|
||
Unit, 250 East Superior, (312) 908-3327. The location is fairly
|
||
close to the convention center.
|
||
6. Hyde Park Kidney Center, 1439 East 53rd Street, (312)
|
||
947-0770. The location is approximately fifty blocks from the
|
||
convention center. Taxi fare is about $20, so pooling will
|
||
minimize cost. This unit claims to be able to accommodate ten to
|
||
fifteen patients with adequate notice. Contact Ruth Ann Riley.
|
||
Please remember to schedule dialysis treatments immediately
|
||
to insure space. If assistance is needed, contact Diabetics
|
||
Division President Ed Bryant at (314) 875-8911. See you in
|
||
Chicago.
|
||
|
||
Human Services Division
|
||
|
||
The Human Services Division will meet from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00
|
||
p.m. on Monday, July 3, 1995. Currently at least two panels are
|
||
scheduled. One discussion will be on the topic of using your
|
||
choice of reader when taking licensing or educational tests.
|
||
Included in the discussion will be the legal implications of
|
||
using the reader of your choice. The second panel will discuss
|
||
persons who have worked in the human services field in unusual
|
||
jobs and how they dealt with attitudes toward their blindness
|
||
while serving their clients. Another discussion will be on
|
||
producing a video tape of blind persons working in the human
|
||
services field for presentation to professional boards and
|
||
potential employers of blind people. If you have questions or
|
||
need further information, contact Doug Elliott at (515) 236-3369
|
||
or (515) 236-3366.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #18 A large audience sits listening attentively. Caption: There was
|
||
hardly an empty seat to be found at the 1994 JOB seminar.]
|
||
|
||
Job Opportunities for the Blind National Seminar
|
||
|
||
Do you need more information on how to succeed in your job
|
||
search? When you think about your job prospects, do you crave
|
||
some recharging of your emotional battery? Do you wish that
|
||
someone who knows that blind people do regular jobs would put on
|
||
a job seminar and do it for free? Okay, we will.
|
||
The 1995 National JOB Seminar will take place in the Chicago
|
||
Hilton and Towers on Saturday, July 1, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.,
|
||
sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind and the U.S.
|
||
Department of Labor.
|
||
This year JOB is paying special attention to the growing
|
||
profession of customer service representative. Some such jobs pay
|
||
$5 per hour, and some start at $11 per hour plus benefits. Top
|
||
blind-adult-training-center instructors and blind employees will
|
||
share their tips for success in this growth industry of the
|
||
'90's.
|
||
That's not all. In its fast-moving three-hour program, JOB
|
||
will pack in blind speakers from many different lines of work.
|
||
Check out their tips for success. One agenda item features
|
||
members from a single NFB chapter who, in just two months, have
|
||
helped six fellow members to find decent work!
|
||
Come meet your kind of people--folks who know how to get
|
||
things done. Ask questions of those who have been where you are
|
||
and succeeded. Network! Build up your personal think tank
|
||
Rolodex. You'll meet good people to call on for help when you are
|
||
back home and get stuck. Bring copies of your resume. Keep your
|
||
notebook handy. Pick up valuable JOB publications at the seminar
|
||
and on the JOB Table in the Exhibit Hall. Job seeker,
|
||
professional job developer, or employer--this seminar will help
|
||
you.
|
||
Who's eligible? Are you a legally blind resident of the
|
||
United States and looking for work? Then you are eligible for a
|
||
free subscription to the only taped job magazine in the country,
|
||
the JOB Recorded Bulletin. To get started, (call JOB at [800]
|
||
638-7518 (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST) and ask for a JOB Sample
|
||
Pack. This package includes a copy of last year's national
|
||
job seminar, a copy of the latest bulletin (both on 2-track
|
||
cassette), a JOB Application Form, a JOB Publication Order Form,
|
||
and a one-page explanation of the program. Borrow any ideas you
|
||
hear from other blind Americans that will fit your job search. We
|
||
share what works. (Counselors--you are eligible for a sample
|
||
package, too. Please call, or write on your agency's letterhead.)
|
||
|
||
JOB Networking Breakfasts: In addition to its annual free
|
||
seminar, JOB offers exciting networking breakfasts during NFB
|
||
Convention Week (July 1 to 7). Each breakfast is BYOB (Buy Your
|
||
Own Breakfast), begins in the hotel coffee shop at 7:00 a.m., and
|
||
offers a friendly gathering of like-minded people. Job seekers,
|
||
job developers, employers, parents, and others who want to talk
|
||
jobs are welcome, too. JOB Breakfast Coordinators take
|
||
reservations, keep the conversation on topic, and help everyone
|
||
get a chance to speak. You may reserve a seat at any Networking
|
||
Breakfast by calling JOB ([800] 638-7518) or by calling the
|
||
specific breakfast coordinator. You may go to as many of these as
|
||
interest you. Here is what's lined up so far:
|
||
|
||
SATURDAY
|
||
The Second Annual JOB Breakfast for First-Timers.
|
||
Attending your first convention? As a job seeker with no time or
|
||
money to waste, do you have questions about how to get the most
|
||
out of the multitudes of events at this large convention? You can
|
||
start your networking fast at this easy-going breakfast amidst
|
||
friendly people. Coordinator, Lorraine Rovig. Call JOB at (800)
|
||
638-7518, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., EST, to register.
|
||
|
||
SUNDAY
|
||
JOB's Sunday Breakfast for Job Seekers. Each morning of
|
||
convention except the last, JOB holds a general talk-fest
|
||
breakfast. All blind job hunters who want to brainstorm their
|
||
searches over breakfast are invited. Coordinators: Lorraine Rovig
|
||
(call JOB) and various JOB State Coordinators (to be announced).
|
||
JOB's Other Breakfast for First-Timers. Just got in
|
||
yesterday for your first NFB convention? Join us, ask questions,
|
||
meet good people. We'll help you plan ways to access the most
|
||
education (and fun) you can have in a week. Coordinator Loraine
|
||
Stayer (a JOB Field Service Network Volunteer for New York),
|
||
(516) 868-8718.
|
||
JOB's Breakfast for Blind Travel Instructors. Are you
|
||
teaching blind people to travel with the long NFB cane? Would you
|
||
like to? Come share your tips with us. Coordinator Russell
|
||
Anderson, travel teacher at BLIND, Inc., Minnesota, (612) 872-
|
||
0100.
|
||
The Third Annual Science & Engineering (S&E) Breakfast.
|
||
You say you're a life scientist or a technophile and nobody
|
||
understands you when you get on your favorite topic? At this
|
||
breakfast everybody will speak your language. Coordinator John
|
||
Miller, California, President, S&E Division of the NFB, (619)
|
||
587-3975. Preconvention reservations are especially important for
|
||
this breakfast in order to make sure that there is enough space.
|
||
|
||
MONDAY
|
||
JOB's Monday Breakfast for Job Seekers (same as Sunday's).
|
||
JOB's Third Annual Breakfast for Braille proofreaders and
|
||
transcribers. Coordinator, Mary Donahue, Texas, (210) 826-9579.
|
||
JOB's PASS Breakfast, Let's talk about funding your
|
||
dreams. This expert runs her own business as a PASS (Plan for
|
||
Achieving Self-Support) writer and consultant. Coordinator: Nancy
|
||
Ford Winters, Indiana, (317) 547-7286.
|
||
JOB's Sixth Annual Blind Lawyers Breakfast. Whether you
|
||
are an "esquire," a paralegal, a legal secretary, an employee in
|
||
some other legal field, or a wanna-be, you're welcome to join in.
|
||
Coordinator Bennett Prows, Washington, President, National
|
||
Association of Blind Lawyers (NABL), (206) 821-7619.
|
||
JOB's First Breakfast for Medical Transcribers and Typing
|
||
Cousins. Where do you work? Whether home, clinic, hospital,
|
||
social work office, or police department, let's talk. Coordinator
|
||
Janet Triplett (MT from Oklahoma), (918) 438-3231.
|
||
|
||
TUESDAY
|
||
JOB's Tuesday Breakfast for Job Seekers (same as Sunday
|
||
and Monday).
|
||
JOB's First Annual Entrepreneurs' Breakfast. Have you
|
||
started a home business? Want to? Let's talk about it.
|
||
Coordinators and entrepreneurs Connie Leblond, Maine, (207) 772-
|
||
7305, and Maureen Pranghoffer, Minnesota, (612) 522-2501.
|
||
The Fourth Annual Blind Artists Luncheon and Meeting,
|
||
(noon to two). Does this one draw you? Coordinator Janet Bixby,
|
||
Virginia, (703) 722-4712.
|
||
|
||
WEDNESDAY
|
||
JOB's Wednesday Breakfast for Job Seekers (same as Sunday,
|
||
Monday, and Tuesday).
|
||
JOB's Third Annual Breakfast for Blind People in Medical
|
||
Fields. OT, MD, RN, MT, RT, PT, LPN--whatever your initials,
|
||
you're welcome to talk shop. Coordinator Janet Lee, Diabetic
|
||
educator at BLIND, Inc., Minnesota, (612) 872-0100.
|
||
JOB's Second Annual Green Thumb Career Breakfast.
|
||
Horticulturalists and others interested in selling what they grow
|
||
are invited to network at this one. Coordinator Pete Donahue,
|
||
Texas, (210) 826-9579.
|
||
|
||
THURSDAY
|
||
JOB's Last-Chance Breakfast for Job Seekers (same as
|
||
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday)
|
||
|
||
FRIDAY
|
||
JOB's Invitational Networking Breakfast for Service
|
||
Providers. Coordinator, Lorraine Rovig, JOB, (800) 638-7518 (8:00
|
||
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST).
|
||
|
||
A special note for counselors and job developers: This makes
|
||
sixteen formal networking breakfasts, plus one luncheon,
|
||
organized for the purpose of helping blind job seekers help
|
||
themselves. JOB assists with formal and informal networking all
|
||
week long at this largest convention of blind Americans.
|
||
Counselors and job developers are invited to come, observe, ask
|
||
questions, develop contacts, and increase their fund of practical
|
||
knowledge that will greatly assist their clients back home.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #19 Marion Gwizdala stands at the microphone playing his guitar and
|
||
singing. Caption: Marion Gwizdala takes part in the 1994 Showcase of Talent
|
||
sponsored by NFB Music Division.]
|
||
|
||
Music Division
|
||
|
||
The Music Division will conduct its annual meeting on Sunday
|
||
evening, July 2. We plan to cover the following agenda items:
|
||
Sandy Hargrove of Texas will tell us about some of her musical
|
||
experiences in prison ministries. Greg Trapp of New Mexico will
|
||
discuss important points of copyright law. A representative from
|
||
the National Library Service Braille Music Section will give us
|
||
an update on what's happening in the Braille music scores and
|
||
circulars world. We also hope to conduct a workshop on stage
|
||
presence for interested musicians. This will probably be the
|
||
final part of the division meeting on Sunday.
|
||
The Division will again sponsor its popular Showcase of
|
||
Talent this year. It will take place on Tuesday, July 4. The
|
||
deadline for registration for performing is the noon recess on
|
||
Tuesday. The registration fee for members of the Music Division
|
||
is $2, and that for nonmembers is $3. Those who do not register
|
||
during the division meeting Sunday evening can do so by speaking
|
||
to Linda Mentink in the Wisconsin delegation on the convention
|
||
floor Tuesday morning. Again this year the Showcase of Talent
|
||
will be divided into three categories: composition, amateur
|
||
performance, and professional performance. First prize will be
|
||
$100 in each category, and second prize will be $50.
|
||
|
||
National Association of Blind Educators
|
||
|
||
The National Association of Blind Educators (NABE) will hold
|
||
its annual meeting on Monday, July 3, at 3:00 p.m. This year we
|
||
will focus on the blind educator in the variety of teaching
|
||
settings of the 1990's. What are our expectations for our
|
||
careers, and what should we expect from administrators, parents,
|
||
and students?
|
||
The choices of jobs from preschool to the university are
|
||
much different from what they were some years ago. In the past
|
||
everyone respected educators, and administrators did what they
|
||
were paid to do. Now, in too many settings the educator is
|
||
responsible for everything which occurs there. The educator has
|
||
been expected to cure the ills of society.
|
||
If the educator is paid to educate, then it is up to us in
|
||
NABE to find our rightful place in this new profession. Blind
|
||
educators with much experience at all levels of education from
|
||
preschool to the university level will share experiences and
|
||
techniques. Small group leaders will give each meeting attendee a
|
||
chance to express ideas and opinions. We will also discuss how to
|
||
deal with many negative factors in the educational work place.
|
||
Good self-esteem is essential for long-term psychological well-
|
||
being. As blind educators we must learn our rights as well as our
|
||
responsibilities. The ADA may assist us, but the skills and
|
||
techniques needed by the blind educator are defined and explained
|
||
at our meeting.
|
||
Even if you are not presently working in the field of
|
||
education, come and join in our discussions, and perhaps you will
|
||
become a part of the educational profession.
|
||
|
||
National Association of Blind Lawyers
|
||
|
||
The National Association of Blind Lawyers will hold its
|
||
annual meeting and seminar on Monday, July 3, 1995. Blind
|
||
attorneys, law students, and other interested persons will come
|
||
together to discuss the hot issues of the day regarding blindness
|
||
and the law. While the agenda is not yet final, we plan to
|
||
schedule speakers on a wide range of topics, which may include
|
||
the treatment of persons with disabilities by bar associations,
|
||
provision of accommodations during bar examinations, and
|
||
techniques of an efficient practice. We are working to provide
|
||
material in such a way that continuing legal education
|
||
requirements are met for virtually every state.
|
||
The seminar and meeting will be held beginning at 1:00 p.m.
|
||
We will conduct a short business session to discuss the progress
|
||
and goals for the NABL during the coming years. If you have an
|
||
interest in the law or are a blind lawyer, join us at this year's
|
||
annual meeting. If you want further information or have ideas for
|
||
the Association, contact Bennett Prows in Kirkland, Washington,
|
||
(206) 821-7619.
|
||
|
||
The National Association of Blind Students
|
||
|
||
This July the National Association of Blind Students will be
|
||
more active than ever. For starters our annual meeting will be
|
||
held on Sunday evening, July 2. The seminar will be a time for us
|
||
to come together once again to learn from one another as well as
|
||
to meet new friends and greet the old. This year the meeting may
|
||
very well take on a different character. If you think you've seen
|
||
it all, just wait and see.
|
||
Being students, we can hardly stay in one place for long. We
|
||
love having fun, and we love being creative. That's why a lot is
|
||
in store for the upcoming convention. The annual meeting will be
|
||
just the beginning.
|
||
How would you--yes, you--like to become more physically fit,
|
||
raise money for the National Student Division and our
|
||
Federation's National Treasury, and win prizes all at the same
|
||
time? Well, you can do just that. Last year we tried a new idea.
|
||
It was called the "Steps to Freedom." Quite literally, we raised
|
||
funds by climbing flights of steps, and the resulting resources
|
||
have enabled us to advance our cause even further and thereby
|
||
come that much closer to freedom and full equality for the blind
|
||
of this country. In twenty-four hours we raised almost $1,000.
|
||
How much more can we raise if we start this far in advance?
|
||
We will be climbing stairs throughout the National
|
||
Convention, and in the meantime we will be collecting sponsors.
|
||
During Convention, as individuals reach certain goals, they will
|
||
receive certain prizes. This will be a fund-raiser in more ways
|
||
than one, and we're really looking forward to hearing from eager
|
||
and enthusiastic Federationists who would love to join us. If you
|
||
wish to participate, please send your name, address, and phone
|
||
number to Ollie Cantos, President, National Association of Blind
|
||
Students, 1420 Queen Summit Drive, West Covina, California 91791-
|
||
3949, or call (916) 424-2226, extension 3019.
|
||
Is there more? You bet there is. How does several hundred
|
||
dollars in cash sound? How would you like to have some of that
|
||
long green in your pocket? Well, it could happen. For details
|
||
write or call Ollie.
|
||
But wait. Is there yet more? The answer is a definite yes.
|
||
But the secret cannot be given away just yet; you'll have to come
|
||
to Convention to find out. If the suspense is really getting to
|
||
you, here's a hint: the thing itself will put you in suspense.
|
||
We all have much to do before National Convention as well as
|
||
during the great annual event. Since we are all students of life,
|
||
in one sense all Federationists are part of the Student Division.
|
||
So in that spirit, fellow students from near and far, see you in
|
||
Chicago!
|
||
|
||
National Association of Guide Dog Users
|
||
|
||
The annual meeting of the National Association of Guide Dog
|
||
Users will be held on Saturday, July 1, from 1:15 to 5:00 p.m.
|
||
Registration will begin at 12:30 p.m., and the meeting will begin
|
||
promptly at 1:15. The seminar, "A Guide Dog in Your Life," will
|
||
be held Sunday, July 2, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.
|
||
The following topics will be addressed during this seminar:
|
||
attractions of smaller training schools, school policy and
|
||
practice with respect to safe street-crossing, school public
|
||
relations materials and videos and their impact on public
|
||
attitudes about blindness, the Hawaii quarantine, zoo policies
|
||
about visitors' use of guide dogs, and state division activities.
|
||
Grant Park is across the street from our hotel. Arrangements
|
||
are being made to use part of this grassy area for dog relief. Of
|
||
course it will have to be kept clean. Instead of relying on hotel
|
||
or park personnel to maintain it, we hope to hire outside workers
|
||
to do the job. This should result in a more pleasant facility for
|
||
owners and dogs alike. In 1993 we voted to have each dog owner
|
||
pay $25 for use of the relief area throughout the week. We
|
||
encourage all guide dog owners to cover this cost if at all
|
||
possible. The fee is payable at division activities early in the
|
||
week. Owners who miss these opportunities for any reason can pay
|
||
Priscilla Ferris, Division Treasurer and President of the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts, later in the
|
||
week. She can be found at convention sessions in the
|
||
Massachusetts delegation.
|
||
Questions about the relief arrangements or other guide dog
|
||
matters can be directed to Paul Gabias at 475 Fleming Road,
|
||
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, V1X 3Z4, (604) 862-2352.
|
||
|
||
National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science
|
||
|
||
The 1995 meeting of the National Federation of the Blind in
|
||
Computer Science will be held on Monday, July 3. Registration for
|
||
the meeting will begin at 12:30 p.m. Although plans are not yet
|
||
final, a few things can be said about the meeting. For one thing,
|
||
certainly more than one program item will be devoted to a
|
||
discussion of the graphical user interface (GUI), which has of
|
||
late caused some concern among blind computer users who feel
|
||
their jobs are threatened by it.
|
||
We will also have a program item dealing with public access
|
||
terminals equipped with touch screens. These devices are
|
||
beginning to be used by various governmental agencies as a means
|
||
to provide so-called greater public access to their services.
|
||
When you consider that these terminals are equipped with touch
|
||
screens and voice output that has very little to do with telling
|
||
the user how to locate a particular control, the term "access" in
|
||
this context is particularly ironic. We will be hearing from the
|
||
Trace R&D Center, which has developed an interesting prototype
|
||
talking touch screen. Trace is interested in building in design
|
||
features helpful to blind consumers--consumers who comprise a
|
||
large cross section of society in their ability to use computers
|
||
and their capacity to deal with computers and computer-like
|
||
devices.
|
||
We may hear from the companies marketing screen-reading
|
||
programs for Microsoft Windows. We are fortunate that the number
|
||
of such companies seems to be growing each year. We may also ask
|
||
Microsoft to tell us what it has done in the past year to improve
|
||
our ability to use its operating systems and software.
|
||
Potential meeting attendees should be warned that NFB in
|
||
Computer Science meetings are not for the faint of heart--
|
||
technologically speaking. Some techies like to come to our
|
||
meetings to talk shop. Be prepared to hear technical terms thrown
|
||
about like so much confetti. I refer to such arcane phrases as
|
||
"building a protocol between the application layer and the
|
||
operating system layer," "accessing a Web Server," "associating
|
||
icons with text strings," and so forth.
|
||
So, if this hasn't turned you off, come to the 1995 meeting
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science. For
|
||
further information about the meeting and other computer-related
|
||
matters, contact Curtis Chong, President, National Federation of
|
||
the Blind in Computer Science, 20 Northeast 2nd Street, Apartment
|
||
908, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55413, Email: curtisc@winternet.com,
|
||
Evening Phone: (612) 379-3493.
|
||
|
||
NFB NET Training Seminar
|
||
|
||
No matter where you turn today, you are likely to hear
|
||
references to the information superhighway. With all this
|
||
interest many blind people feel the need to get and use a modem
|
||
so that they aren't left out.
|
||
We in the National Federation of the Blind have had our own
|
||
Information Superhighway since June 1, 1991, in the form of NFB
|
||
NET, our computer bulletin board service (BBS). That was the date
|
||
when NFB NET officially went on-line.
|
||
Once again this year we will be holding a training session
|
||
for NFB NET users. The session, which will be held on Saturday,
|
||
July 1, from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 is designed for new modem
|
||
users, for people who haven't accessed NFB NET before, and for
|
||
people who want to learn more about the capabilities of our BBS.
|
||
Topics to be covered will include telecommunications basics,
|
||
using your modem and communications software, registering for NFB
|
||
NET, navigating around, reading and entering messages,
|
||
downloading the Braille Monitor and other files, finding files,
|
||
setting up off-line reading facilities, and more. David Andrews,
|
||
Systems Operator (SysOp) of NFB NET, will also answer your
|
||
questions.
|
||
If you don't know what the above paragraph means and you
|
||
would like to, perhaps you had better attend the annual NFB NET
|
||
training session on Saturday, July 1, starting at 2:00 p.m. See
|
||
you on-line.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #20 Claudell Stocker teaches Braille to parents of blind children.
|
||
Caption: Claudell Stocker instructs Kevin and Antoinette Hatton in the use of
|
||
the slate and stylus.]
|
||
|
||
The National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
|
||
|
||
"The Benefits of Growing Up in the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind" is the title of the annual seminar sponsored by the
|
||
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Saturday,
|
||
July 1, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m.,
|
||
and the registration fee is $5. This fee will also cover the cost
|
||
of all special workshops--such as the Beginning Braille for
|
||
Parents workshop--sponsored by the NOPBC during the convention.
|
||
The keynote address is titled "Blindness: What Does it Mean
|
||
in the Mind of a Child?" It will be delivered by Ramona Walhof, a
|
||
former preschool teacher, blind businesswoman, and mother of two
|
||
sighted children. Other speakers will zero in on the subjects of
|
||
low-vision children, sighted siblings, other relatives of the
|
||
blind child, and sighted children of blind parents. Also on the
|
||
agenda is a panel of blind and sighted children, youth, and
|
||
adults discussing the impact of the NFB in their lives.
|
||
The afternoon session will be comprised of a number of
|
||
concurrent workshops. See the Spring, 1995, issue of Future
|
||
Reflections for the details.
|
||
Several exciting initiatives regarding the creative use of
|
||
toys and play activities for children are being developed. We
|
||
hope to kick these off at convention with some special
|
||
demonstrations. Stay tuned! We will announce any developments as
|
||
time allows through our state and local parent divisions and
|
||
chapters.
|
||
From 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday there will be a
|
||
convention orientation session for blind youth. This session
|
||
provides students (grades six through twelve) a chance to get
|
||
together early in the convention, which allows them time to begin
|
||
forming friendships. It is also a structured opportunity to meet
|
||
interesting and competent blind adults. The adult counselors will
|
||
take the youth out in groups to familiarize them with the layout
|
||
of the hotel and convention site. The counselors will also lead
|
||
discussion groups, organize get-acquainted activities, and
|
||
familiarize youth with the NFB and the NFB convention schedule.
|
||
On the day of the parent seminar we are planning a field
|
||
trip to Kiddie Land, which is a scaled-down, kid-size amusement
|
||
park. It is specially designed for younger children. The fee,
|
||
which includes admission to Kiddie Land, unlimited rides at the
|
||
park, transportation, and lunch, is $15.00 per child. Once again
|
||
Carla McQuillan, President of the NFB of Oregon, has volunteered
|
||
to organize and lead the field trip. Carla owns and operates a
|
||
Montessori preschool program. She has extensive experience as a
|
||
teacher and administrator, and she is also a parent.
|
||
Since the number of children who can be accommodated for
|
||
this trip is limited by space available on the bus and by the
|
||
ratio of volunteer workers to children, we urge you to pre-
|
||
register your children for the Saturday, July 1, day trip. The
|
||
volunteer workers, by the way, are mostly blind parents,
|
||
teachers, and students who are willing to donate some of their
|
||
convention time to helping your children enjoy convention too.
|
||
Children under the age of five and older children who choose not
|
||
to register for the Kiddie Land trip are invited to register for
|
||
NFB Camp for the day.
|
||
From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday evening the National
|
||
Organization of Parents of Blind Children and the National
|
||
Association of Blind Students will sponsor Family Hospitality
|
||
Night. Bring the kids, relax, and meet other parents. We will be
|
||
using the NFB Camp room, so there will be plenty of toys and
|
||
space to keep the kids occupied. Teachers of blind children and
|
||
blind teachers will be there too, to talk informally with parents
|
||
about educational concerns.
|
||
The annual meeting of the National Organization of Parents
|
||
of Blind Children will take place on Monday, July 3, from 1:00 to
|
||
5:00 p.m. At this meeting we meet and hear from parents from all
|
||
over the country. We discuss local and national projects (such as
|
||
our Braille Readers are Leaders contest), elect officers, listen
|
||
to a presentation from the 1995 Distinguished Educator of Blind
|
||
Children award winner, accept committee reports, and discuss
|
||
activities of our state and regional parent divisions and
|
||
chapters. This year we also have Mr. Christopher Craig as a
|
||
special guest speaker. Mr. Craig, a former NFB scholarship winner
|
||
and a doctoral student in special education, has been
|
||
investigating how blind and visually impaired children emerge
|
||
into literacy and how the family affects that process.
|
||
On Tuesday evening, July 4, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. we will
|
||
conduct an IEP workshop entitled "How to be an IEP Advocate for
|
||
Yourself and Others." The Individualized Education Program (IEP)
|
||
process continues to be the key element in planning a good
|
||
education for a blind or visually impaired child. That is why we
|
||
conduct this workshop at convention year after year. And year
|
||
after year we have a consistently high attendance. This year we
|
||
will be discussing specific strategies for Federationists who go
|
||
to IEP meetings as advocates for others. Although pre-
|
||
registration for the workshop is not required, we urge you to
|
||
preregister this year so we can prepare the proper number of
|
||
handouts in print, large print, Braille, and recorded formats.
|
||
Those who pre-register will have first shot at the prepared hand-
|
||
outs in the media of their choice.
|
||
For more information or to pre-register call Barbara Cheadle
|
||
at (410) 659-9314 or evenings at (410) 747-3472.
|
||
|
||
Public Employees Division
|
||
|
||
The Public Employees Division of the National Federation of
|
||
the Blind will meet at 1:00 p.m., Monday, July 3.
|
||
The federal employment picture is, to put it nicely, fluid.
|
||
Many agencies are downsizing, others are rumored to close, and
|
||
others will be hiring. The famous, or is it infamous, SF-171
|
||
employment form is no longer used. Personnel offices are
|
||
disappearing. Government is being reinvented.
|
||
Times of change are times in which those who are prepared
|
||
can take advantage of the change and improve themselves. Our
|
||
speaker will discuss how best to market yourself in the post-171
|
||
era. How do you find out about federal jobs when there is no
|
||
personnel office? What should you put on your resume? With no
|
||
standard resume form, how do you know what each agency wants to
|
||
know? Can you apply for a job by faxing a resume? Is there still
|
||
a selective placement program? Should you say you are blind? What
|
||
are your rights during downsizing? As usual, we will invite three
|
||
employees to discuss their public-sector jobs.
|
||
If you have questions or suggestions for additional
|
||
speakers, please contact John Halverson, President, National
|
||
Federation of the Blind, Public Employees Division, 403 West 62nd
|
||
Terrace, Kansas City, Missouri 64113, telephone (816) 426-7278
|
||
(work), (816) 361-7813 (home), and CompuServe 73132,153.
|
||
|
||
Science and Engineering Division
|
||
|
||
The Science and Engineering Division meeting is shaping up
|
||
to be jam-packed with exciting information. From microbiology to
|
||
mathematics, members know more science than I can hope to
|
||
understand. Find out how it is done at the division meeting. This
|
||
will be a hands-on seminar. Highlights include presentations of
|
||
original scientific research by blind colleagues and what works
|
||
for the blind in grasping and relating visual data. Come learn
|
||
how the blind succeed in college science and engineering courses
|
||
and how blind scientists get ahead on the job.
|
||
The Science and Engineering Division is launching its
|
||
mentorship program this year. If you are a student in the
|
||
sciences and want to spend a day with a blind professional in
|
||
your field or if you want to meet an enthusiastic, entertaining
|
||
Federationist who holds an opinion on most scientific matters,
|
||
this program is for you. To sign up as a mentor or protege,
|
||
contact John Miller, Division President, by E-mail
|
||
jamiller@qualcomm.com or call (619) 587-3975.
|
||
|
||
Social Security Seminar
|
||
|
||
An outreach seminar (Social Security and Supplemental
|
||
Security Income: What Applicants, Advocates, and Recipients
|
||
Should Know) will take place on Wednesday Afternoon, July 5. The
|
||
purpose of this seminar, which will be conducted jointly by the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind and the Social Security
|
||
Administration, is to provide information on Social Security and
|
||
Supplemental Security Income benefits for the blind. Seminar
|
||
presenters will be Sharon Gold, Member of the Board of Directors
|
||
of the National Federation of the Blind and President of the NFB
|
||
of California, and J. Kenneth McGill, Special Assistant to the
|
||
Associate Commissioner for Disability, Office of Disability,
|
||
Social Security Administration.
|
||
|
||
Writers Division
|
||
|
||
The Division will conduct a workshop from 1:15 to 4:30 p.m.,
|
||
Saturday, July 1. The major topic will be announced later. At
|
||
approximately 2:45 p.m., time will be devoted to readings of
|
||
poetry and short story fiction. All Federationists are invited.
|
||
Both a book auction and a gemstone auction will be held
|
||
during the convention by the Division. The book auction will take
|
||
place at the conclusion of the annual meeting at approximately
|
||
4:45 p.m. On July 3 at 9:00 p.m. the division will conduct its
|
||
gemstone auction, in which unmounted stones will be sold. The
|
||
book auction will feature books donated and autographed by
|
||
authors and is an excellent opportunity for augmenting personal
|
||
collections or for buying gifts.
|
||
With registration beginning at 1:15 p.m., and the meeting
|
||
starting at 1:30 p.m., the Division will present a program
|
||
concentrating on the writing of children's literature. Items of
|
||
business, including elections, will be conducted throughout the
|
||
afternoon with the biannual elections scheduled at approximately
|
||
4:15 p.m.
|
||
Lori Stayer will discuss the Division's publication, Slate
|
||
and Style, while Jerry Whittle will tell us about the Division's
|
||
new book, now nearing publication. The meeting will be chaired by
|
||
Tom Stevens.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #21 Portrait Caption: Ed Eames]
|
||
|
||
FINAL SETTLEMENT IN THE DOLLAR RENT A CAR CASE
|
||
|
||
Monitor readers will remember that in June, 1993, we
|
||
reported on the problems Toni and Ed Eames had in late 1991 when
|
||
they tried to rent a car from Dollar and have a friend drive it
|
||
for them on a trip. The Eameses brought suit against Dollar and
|
||
have finally received a settlement that should resolve this
|
||
problem for all blind people attempting to do business with
|
||
Dollar in the future. Here are the pertinent paragraphs of the
|
||
settlement, which was signed by a U.S. Assistant Attorney General
|
||
and took effect on January 4, 1995:
|
||
|
||
Actions to be taken by Dollar:
|
||
|
||
A. In order to afford services to individuals with
|
||
disabilities, and to individuals with visual impairments in
|
||
particular, Dollar Operations and/or Dollar Systems, as specified
|
||
below, agree(s) to implement the following changes in its/their
|
||
policies pertaining to the rental of vehicles on the effective
|
||
date of this Agreement for those actions identified at
|
||
subparagraphs 15(a), (b), (d), and (e) and within sixty days of
|
||
the date of this Agreement for those actions identified at
|
||
subparagraphs 15(c) and (f):
|
||
a. Dollar shall no longer require that an
|
||
individual with a disability seeking to rent a vehicle
|
||
at a Dollar Operations' facility present both a
|
||
driver's license and credit card bearing the same name.
|
||
b. Dollar may, however, require the authorized
|
||
driver to present a valid driver's license and the
|
||
renter to present a qualifying credit card. Dollar may
|
||
also require the individual holding the qualifying
|
||
credit card to present some form of photo
|
||
identification to ensure that he or she is in fact the
|
||
same person whose name appears on the credit card. The
|
||
individual holding the credit card for payment may be
|
||
required to sign the rental contract. Each person who
|
||
is permitted to drive the vehicle must present a valid
|
||
driver's license, and sign the rental agreement as
|
||
authorized driver or as an additional authorized
|
||
driver, as applicable. Only persons holding a valid
|
||
driver's license may drive the vehicle leased under the
|
||
rental contract.
|
||
c. Dollar shall inform all employees who have
|
||
dealings with prospective renters at Dollar Operations'
|
||
facilities of the change in policy, as described in
|
||
subparagraph (a) above, and Dollar shall incorporate
|
||
the new policy in (a) for Dollar Operations'
|
||
facilities, its Policy and Procedure Manual, and (b)
|
||
for Licensee facilities, its Operations Guide and other
|
||
appropriate training manuals. Dollar shall also
|
||
incorporate the new policy into its training programs
|
||
for employees at Dollar Operations' facilities and at
|
||
all other facilities operated under the name "Dollar
|
||
Rent A Car."
|
||
d. In addition, all prospective renters at Dollar
|
||
Operations' facilities, upon request, shall be advised
|
||
of Dollar's change in rental policy as described above.
|
||
Further, Dollar Systems shall inform all Licensees who
|
||
enter into or renew license agreements on or after the
|
||
effective date of this Agreement that the Licensee
|
||
shall advise all prospective renters at Licensee, upon
|
||
request, of the change in rental policy as described
|
||
above.
|
||
e. Further, Dollar shall incorporate by reference
|
||
its Operations Guide into those of its license
|
||
agreements that are entered into or renewed on or after
|
||
the effective date of this Agreement.
|
||
f. Dollar shall make available at Dollar
|
||
Operations' facilities to those sight-impaired
|
||
individuals who are unable to read the rental contract
|
||
a recorded version of same, either through local audio
|
||
equipment or via an 800 telephone number, or Dollar
|
||
shall otherwise ensure that the terms of the rental
|
||
contract are effectively communicated to individuals
|
||
who are blind or have visual impairments.
|
||
|
||
|
||
******************************
|
||
If you or a friend would like to remember the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing
|
||
the following language:
|
||
"I give, devise, and bequeath unto National Federation of
|
||
the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a
|
||
District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of $_____ (or
|
||
"_____ percent of my net estate" or "The following stocks and
|
||
bonds: _____") to be used for its worthy purposes on behalf of
|
||
blind persons."
|
||
******************************
|
||
|
||
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: RADIO SPIRITS
|
||
by Kenneth Jernigan
|
||
|
||
The national office of the Federation has entered into an
|
||
agreement with Radio Spirits of Buffalo Grove, Illinois,
|
||
concerning the distribution of old-time radio programs. Radio
|
||
Spirits has an extremely large collection of programs from the
|
||
golden era of radio--Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Fibber McGee,
|
||
Gunsmoke, Lux Radio Theatre, Orson Welles, One Man's Family, and
|
||
literally hundreds and thousands of others. For every cassette
|
||
that you or your friends buy from Radio Spirits, the NFB will
|
||
receive a contribution, provided you indicate in your telephone
|
||
call or your letter that you are calling in connection with the
|
||
NFB promotion. The toll free number is (800) 729-4587. You may
|
||
request information about the availability of specific radio
|
||
shows, or you may ask for a free catalogue. Every time you call
|
||
or write, you should make certain to indicate your connection
|
||
with the National Federation of the Blind. Not only will you be
|
||
helping finance our movement--you will also discover a veritable
|
||
gold mine of old-time radio treasures. All of us should help
|
||
promote this effort by asking any of our friends who are
|
||
interested in old-time radio to call Radio Spirits and indicate
|
||
that they are connected with the Federation.
|
||
|
||
|
||
RECIPES
|
||
|
||
This month's recipes come from members of the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind of New York.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #22 Portrait Caption: Tracy Carcione]
|
||
|
||
|
||
VEGETARIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE
|
||
by Tracy Carcione
|
||
|
||
Tracy Carcione is an active member of the New York City
|
||
Chapter of the NFB of New York.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
2 turnips or 1 rutabaga
|
||
1 package frozen corn
|
||
1 package baby carrots
|
||
3 or 4 cloves garlic
|
||
1 small onion
|
||
Cinnamon
|
||
Pepper
|
||
Salt
|
||
5 potatoes
|
||
Milk
|
||
|
||
Method: I have listed what I consider essential ingredients.
|
||
Frozen carrots may be substituted for baby carrots. You could
|
||
also add any other vegetable you might have in the refrigerator,
|
||
such as eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, or
|
||
whatever else seems good to you.
|
||
Chop the turnips into small pieces. If you use rutabaga
|
||
instead, steam it for a few minutes to soften it. Also steam the
|
||
baby carrots. Cut any other fresh vegetables into small pieces.
|
||
Chop the onions and garlic and saute them until soft. Put all the
|
||
vegetables in a deep casserole dish. Season generously with
|
||
cinnamon and pepper. Add any or all of the following: cumin,
|
||
allspice, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Make mashed potatoes. I
|
||
usually cook the potatoes in the microwave, then take off the
|
||
skins when they've cooled a little. Put the potatoes in a bowl
|
||
with about 1/4 cup of milk and beat until smooth, usually about
|
||
two minutes. If the consistency isn't right, add more milk and
|
||
beat until smooth. Spread mashed potatoes over the vegetables so
|
||
they form a crust (about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick). Bake at 350
|
||
degrees for forty minutes. Serves two people generously with
|
||
leftovers.
|
||
|
||
RHUBARB BREAD
|
||
by Tracy Carcione
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
1/2 cup milk
|
||
2 teaspoons lemon juice
|
||
3/4 cup light brown sugar
|
||
1/3 cup vegetable oil
|
||
1 small egg
|
||
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
|
||
1 1/4 cup flour
|
||
1/2 teaspoon salt
|
||
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
|
||
1/2 pound fresh rhubarb, diced and dusted with flour
|
||
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
|
||
1/4 cup white sugar
|
||
1<EFBFBD> teaspoons butter, softened
|
||
|
||
Method: In a small bowl combine milk (at room temperature)
|
||
with lemon juice and let stand five minutes to sour--milk should
|
||
form small curds. In a large bowl combine brown sugar, oil, egg,
|
||
and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Sift together the flour, salt,
|
||
and baking soda. Add dry ingredients with soured milk to the
|
||
sugar mixture, beating after each addition, until smooth. Fold in
|
||
rhubarb and nuts. Pour batter into buttered 4-by-8 loaf pan.
|
||
Combine white sugar and butter and sprinkle over batter. Preheat
|
||
oven to 325 degrees. Bake for one hour or until golden. Let the
|
||
bread cool in the pan for ten minutes, then remove from pan to a
|
||
rack to finish cooling.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #23 Portrait Caption: Lori Stayer]
|
||
|
||
SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT OMELET
|
||
by Lori Stayer
|
||
|
||
Lori Stayer is a Job Opportunities for the Blind Coordinator
|
||
for New York and Editor of the Writers Division quarterly
|
||
magazine, Slate and Style.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
4 eggs
|
||
4-ounce can bean sprouts
|
||
4-ounce can corn
|
||
1 small onion, diced
|
||
3 to 4 mushrooms, thinly sliced
|
||
1 ounce green squash, diced
|
||
1 ounce shredded Muenster cheese
|
||
Salt & pepper to taste
|
||
|
||
Method: Saut<75> the vegetables in a minimal amount of oil on a
|
||
big griddle. Beat eggs and pour over sauted veggies. Add shredded
|
||
cheese. Turn mixture several times with a spatula till the egg is
|
||
cooked. Serves two meal-sized portions.
|
||
|
||
|
||
CHICKEN FRANCAISE
|
||
by Debbie Miller
|
||
|
||
Debbie Miller is a member of the Syracuse Chapter of the NFB
|
||
of New York.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
6 boneless chicken breasts, skinned and pounded
|
||
1 egg, slightly beaten
|
||
Italian bread crumbs
|
||
Olive oil
|
||
1 stick butter
|
||
3 cups white wine
|
||
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
|
||
2 tablespoons lemon juice
|
||
2 tablespoons oregano
|
||
3 teaspoons garlic powder
|
||
Poppy seeds
|
||
|
||
Method: Dip chicken in egg, then bread crumbs. Saut<75> in oil
|
||
and butter until brown. Bake in oven with wine, mushrooms, lemon
|
||
juice, oregano, and garlic powder for one hour in a 350-degree
|
||
oven. Serve over buttered egg noodles and sprinkle with poppy
|
||
seeds.
|
||
|
||
SAUSAGE POTATO CASSEROLE
|
||
by Sharon Thompson
|
||
|
||
Sharon Thompson is a member of the Syracuse Chapter of the
|
||
NFB of New York.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients
|
||
1 pound bulk pork sausage
|
||
1 10-3/4-ounce can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
|
||
3/4 cup milk
|
||
1/4 cup chopped onion
|
||
1/2 teaspoon salt
|
||
1/4 teaspoon pepper
|
||
3 cups thinly sliced peeled potatoes (about 1 1/4 pounds)
|
||
1 cup (4 ounces) cheddar cheese, shredded
|
||
|
||
Method: In a large skillet cook sausage until it is no
|
||
longer pink, drain. In a bowl combine soup, milk, onion, salt,
|
||
and pepper. In an ungreased 11 by 7 by 2 inch baking dish, layer
|
||
half the potatoes, then half the soup mixture, then half the
|
||
sausage. Repeat these three layers. Cover and bake at 350 degrees
|
||
for one and a half hours or until the potatoes are tender.
|
||
Uncover and sprinkle with cheese. Return to oven and bake
|
||
uncovered until cheese is melted (about five minutes). Yields
|
||
four to six servings.
|
||
|
||
SHEILA'S FAMOUS POTATO SOUP
|
||
by Sheila Greene
|
||
|
||
Sheila Greene is a member of the Syracuse Chapter of the NFB
|
||
of New York.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
4 medium onions, chopped
|
||
8 carrots, chopped
|
||
1 13-ounce can evaporated milk
|
||
1 stick butter or margarine
|
||
4 stalks celery, chopped
|
||
8 potatoes, sliced
|
||
1 16-ounce can cream style corn
|
||
Pinch curry powder
|
||
|
||
Method: Cook onion and celery in 2 cups water. Add carrots
|
||
and potatoes. Cook until all are tender. Add butter, milk, curry
|
||
powder, and corn. Simmer gently for fifteen minutes. Do not boil.
|
||
|
||
SAUERBRATEN
|
||
by Micki Webb
|
||
|
||
Micki Webb is a member of the Syracuse Chapter of the NFB of
|
||
New York.
|
||
|
||
Ingredients:
|
||
3 to 4 pound beef or venison roast
|
||
3 cups water
|
||
1 cup vinegar
|
||
3 tablespoons sugar
|
||
1 small bottle catsup
|
||
8 to 12 whole cloves
|
||
6 to 10 bay leaves
|
||
2 large onions
|
||
Salt and pepper to taste
|
||
|
||
Method: Place meat in medium roaster and add all other
|
||
ingredients. Cover and roast in moderate oven (about 350 degrees)
|
||
until tender (about 2<> to 3 hours). Remove meat, cool, and slice
|
||
as thinly as possible. Thicken and strain gravy. Return meat to
|
||
gravy and chill overnight. Heat and serve with fried noodles.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #24 Portrait Caption: Carl Jacobsen]
|
||
|
||
Never-Fail Dinner
|
||
by Carl Jacobsen
|
||
|
||
Carl Jacobsen is President of the New York City Chapter and
|
||
First Vice President of the NFB of New York. He offers Monitor
|
||
readers his secret recipe for successful dining:
|
||
Reservations!
|
||
|
||
|
||
** ** MONITOR MINIATURES ** **
|
||
|
||
** Accessible Music Store Online:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
CDnow!, the Internet Music Store, has become the first
|
||
retailer on the Internet to introduce a special new format that
|
||
greatly facilitates shopping for the visually impaired. This
|
||
business was established by the Olim brothers, who contacted the
|
||
National Federation of the Blind to help them design a program
|
||
particularly suited for blind shoppers. The result is a
|
||
customized format using Text to Speech (TTS) mode. TTS is a
|
||
combination speaker and software device that allows the computer
|
||
to read out loud what is on the screen. CDnow!'s special new
|
||
format allows its message to be read logically in TTS mode, while
|
||
deleting the unnecessary punctuation.
|
||
"CDnow! has certainly made an effort to accommodate the
|
||
visually impaired," said David Andrews, Director of the
|
||
International Braille and Technology Center for the National
|
||
Federation of the Blind. "It offers the visually-impaired
|
||
customer access to information that otherwise would be very
|
||
difficult to get. The special format enables visually-impaired
|
||
users to gather information independently whenever they want it.
|
||
This is a liberating step for someone who is blind."
|
||
CDnow! has more than 140,000 CDs, cassettes, and mini-discs
|
||
available, which translates into almost every rock, jazz, and
|
||
classical album currently in print. CDnow! has put the All-Music
|
||
Guide on-line, which provides customers with a complete
|
||
collection of biographies, ratings, and reviews in an easy-to-use
|
||
interface that both computer novices and experts find extremely
|
||
useful in facilitating their selections.
|
||
To access CDnow! directly, networked users can type "telnet
|
||
cdnow.com." To access CDnow!'s special linear format, visually-
|
||
impaired users should type "TTS" at the main menu. For more
|
||
information about CDnow!, please call Jason Olim at (215) 646-
|
||
6125, or send e-mail to "jolim@cdnow.com."
|
||
|
||
** Elected:
|
||
Kristen Jocums, President of the Salt Lake City Chapter of
|
||
the National Federation of the Blind of Utah, writes to report
|
||
the group's election results: Milt Taylor, First Vice President;
|
||
Vince Silas, Second Vice President; and Allen Hicks and Anitra
|
||
Webber, Board Members.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #25 Portrait Caption: Adrienne Asch]
|
||
|
||
** Appointed:
|
||
Dr. Adrienne Asch, Professor of Biology, Ethics, and the
|
||
Politics of Human Reproduction at Wellesley College and a long-
|
||
time Federationist, was recently appointed to serve as a member
|
||
of the Commission on Childhood Disability for a term beginning
|
||
January 1, 1995, and ending November 30, 1995. The announced
|
||
purpose of the Commission is to evaluate the effects of the
|
||
current definition of disability under title XVI of the Social
|
||
Security Act as such definition applies to eligibility of
|
||
children to receive SSI benefits, the appropriateness of such
|
||
definition, and advantages and disadvantages of any alternative
|
||
definitions. The Commission will be taking testimony around the
|
||
nation and reporting to the Secretary of Health and Human
|
||
Services. Congratulations to Dr. Asch.
|
||
|
||
** Books Available:
|
||
The following is information about the two latest NFB
|
||
publications to be added to the Library of Congress (NLS)
|
||
collection: Standing on One Foot, edited by Kenneth Jernigan (RC
|
||
38289), eighty-four pages, read by Scott Sedar. The Library of
|
||
Congress annotation reads, "Nine essays by blind adults relating
|
||
experiences regarding their blindness. Kenneth Jernigan writes
|
||
about the pitfalls of social conditioning and accepting the
|
||
public's mistaken ideas of a blind person's limitations. Marc
|
||
Maurer describes becoming a father for the first time, and Gwen
|
||
Nelson offers her experience as a juror. 1994."
|
||
If Blindness Comes (RC 38282), edited by Kenneth Jernigan,
|
||
read by Gary Telles, 243 pages. The Library of Congress
|
||
annotation reads, "Defining a blind person as one who has to
|
||
develop so many alternative techniques as to substantially alter
|
||
his pattern of living, this guide encourages the newly blind to
|
||
ask, "How can I do it," rather than, "Can I do it?" The history
|
||
and purpose of the National Federation of the Blind are discussed
|
||
as are other available programs, devices, and employment
|
||
information. 1994."
|
||
|
||
[Photo #26 Tina Blatter, holding her cane, stands at table displaying her
|
||
tactile art. Caption: Tina Blatter displays her work at the Art Exhibit and
|
||
Sale during the 1994 NFB convention.]
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Braille/large print greeting cards for all occasions with
|
||
unique raised design by Tina Blatter, a blind artist. Tactile
|
||
collage paintings are also available with Braille/large print
|
||
descriptions included. For more information contact Tina Blatter,
|
||
Artistic Touch, 100 West Spaulding Street, Lafayette, Colorado
|
||
80026, or call (303) 665-5671.
|
||
|
||
[Photo #27 Portrait Caption: Ken Silverman]
|
||
|
||
** Appointed to Serve:
|
||
Ken Silberman, President of the Southern Maryland Chapter of
|
||
the National Federation of the Blind and an engineer at Goddard
|
||
Space Flight Center, was recently appointed to the Interagency
|
||
Committee on Disability Research (ICDR), established by the
|
||
National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research
|
||
(NIDRR). The Committee's purpose is "to promote coordination and
|
||
cooperation among federal departments and agencies conducting
|
||
research relevant to people with disabilities." At the end of
|
||
1995 the group will issue a report to the President and Congress
|
||
making recommendations concerning coordination of policy and the
|
||
development of objectives and priorities for all federal programs
|
||
conducting research related to the rehabilitation of individuals
|
||
with disabilities.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
I have the following Braille books for sale: My Life in
|
||
Three Acts, by Helen Hayes (two volumes), $10; Liar's Poker, by
|
||
Michael Lewis (three volumes), $20; and Sunset Cooking for Two
|
||
(two volumes), $15. I am also looking for anyone who works with
|
||
preschool kids. I am trying to find some different activities and
|
||
ideas. Please write in Braille or on cassette to Laurie Marsch,
|
||
211 Southbrooke, #6, Waterloo, Iowa 50702, or call after 5:00
|
||
p.m., Central Time (319) 232-1750.
|
||
|
||
** Information Wanted:
|
||
Tracy and Eric Duffy are expecting their first baby, so
|
||
Tracy wrote asking the following:
|
||
I would like to hear from experienced blind parents. I am
|
||
particularly interested in advice about strollers, backpacks, car
|
||
seats, and other equipment that people have found useful. What
|
||
types or brands have you found especially efficient or easy to
|
||
use? Please write to me at 2405 Adams Avenue, Columbus, Ohio
|
||
43202, or call (614) 262-9378.
|
||
|
||
** Playback Equipment Needed:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Professor S.K. Oswal from Tennessee is helping develop a
|
||
Library for the Blind in New Delhi, India. The project currently
|
||
needs two types of equipment: (1) four-track, 15/16 IPS speed
|
||
cassette recorders and (2) 8 1/3- and 16 1/3- RPM disk players
|
||
capable of playing Library of Congress format books (both in good
|
||
working condition). If you have one or more of these commercially
|
||
produced machines and wish to donate them, please contact
|
||
Professor Oswal in print or Braille or on cassette at Middle
|
||
Tennessee State University, Campus Box 70, Murfreesboro,
|
||
Tennessee 37132, or call (615) 898-2573.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
I have for sale an IBM model L40-SX laptop computer package,
|
||
which includes the following: 386-SX, 20 Mhz, 10MB RAM and 85MB
|
||
hard drive, 1 serial port, 1 parallel port, 1 docking station
|
||
port, 1 VGA port, 1 mouse port, full 101-key keyboard, 10-inch
|
||
LCD VGA display, one 2.5-inch, 1.44MB floppy disk drive; 2
|
||
rechargeable NICAD battery packs; Accent mini internal speech
|
||
synthesizer; and Vocal-Eyes, version 2.2 screen reading software.
|
||
Price, $1,200 or best offer. Contact Andy Baracco by email,
|
||
abaracco@netcom.com or call (818) 901-8216.
|
||
|
||
** Honored:
|
||
On February 12, 1995, Ed and Toni Eames received the Maxwell
|
||
Medallion from the Dog Writers Association of America at its
|
||
annual awards ceremony. Their article, "Kirby's Miracle," which
|
||
dealt with the rehabilitation of Ed's guide dog after cancer
|
||
necessitated the amputation of his left front leg, was voted the
|
||
best 1994 feature article in a dog magazine. The ceremony was
|
||
held in New York City the night before the opening of the
|
||
Westminster Dog Show.
|
||
|
||
** Reader Service Available:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
I am a sighted reader, and I read almost anything printed in
|
||
English onto cassette tapes. My fee is $6 an hour. I specialize
|
||
in textbooks for school and college, and I will also read
|
||
instructional manuals. For more information please write to
|
||
Teresa Simon, 12400 Rojas, #80, El Paso, Texas 79927.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Castle is a cassette chess publication pertaining to the
|
||
interests of the blind chess player. The cost for four issues is
|
||
$9. A C-60/90 cassette-duplication service is available as well.
|
||
The cost for a single 2- or 4-track tape duplication is $2.50 or
|
||
three for $6. Four-by-six-inch, see-through mailers with enclosed
|
||
plastic address card and Velcro-dot seal are available for $1.20
|
||
apiece. I also have sports highlights cassette albums. "Baseball
|
||
and Superbowl History" is one of many. A free taped catalog is
|
||
available upon request. The cost of these albums is $3.50 for one
|
||
or $10 for three. Please communicate in Braille if possible;
|
||
print is acceptable. Checks should be made payable to Gintautas
|
||
Burba, 30 Snell Street, Rockton, Massachusetts 02401.
|
||
|
||
** For Sale:
|
||
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
|
||
Braille 'n Speak Model 640, 1994 version; disk drive; serial
|
||
to parallel converter; World Port 2400 bps pocket modem; all
|
||
connecting cables and leather carrying cases $1,500. Please write
|
||
or call Harold Snider, 3224 Beret Lane, Silver Spring, Maryland
|
||
20906 or home telephone (301) 460-4142, work telephone (410) 659-
|
||
9314.
|
||
|
||
** Congratulations:
|
||
Having learned in Chris Boone's article in this issue about
|
||
the first round of the negotiation competition for law students,
|
||
readers will be interested to know that Chris and her partner
|
||
Theresia Urich participated in the National Negotiation
|
||
Competition in mid-February and came in second in the nation.
|
||
Congratulations to Chris and her partner.
|
||
|
||
** Correspondence Wanted:
|
||
Cathy and Martha Harris, members of the NFB of Pennsylvania
|
||
and former members of the Baltimore chapter, would like to
|
||
receive letters from NFB members. Martha is seven. She is in
|
||
first grade and attends a public school in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
|
||
She is totally blind, has learned grade 1 Braille, and is
|
||
learning grade 2. She would appreciate receiving letters from
|
||
other blind children.
|
||
Cathy says of herself: "I am recently divorced and am blind.
|
||
Martha is my only child. I enjoy reading, handcrafted ceramic and
|
||
wooden items, music, cooking and baking, and collecting recipes.
|
||
I would really appreciate receiving letters from NFB members.
|
||
Write to Martha and/or me at: 1528 - Crawford Avenue, Altoona,
|
||
Pennsylvania 16602. |