Applies to all – deaf and otherwise

I know.. I know.. it’s been a long while since I’d written anything but life has a way of sidetracking some things.  But things are ‘cool’ – at least for the present.

While this issue is not deaf related,  it does affect us all as human beings and this incident happened to me just a few days ago.  It’s not the first time something like this has happened in my life and each of them have affected me to the point of thinking about it for days on end.

You know we all tend to take each other for granted and this extends to our furried friends as well.  Dogs and cats, ferrets and turtles, birds and snakes..  the list goes on.   I think of them as a gift to mankind and being such, they should be treated as given their rights to a humane way of life  and death.

It was dark by the time I made my way home and the weather had been cold all that day.  I was driving down a dark stretch of a street downtown in my area, heading home.  There were just a few street lights and being the only driver on this stretch at such a late hour, I almost missed seeing a pair of eyes reflecting from my headlights.  I slowed down a bit, straining to see through my slightly dirty windshield and suddenly realized it was a cat.

My first thought was ‘Silly cat for not knowing better than to lie in the middle of the street at night’.   With that assumption in mind, I slowed down  enough to  go around it, blaring my horn as I went by  and in that split second, I knew there was something strange. Going just a short way up ahead, I found a place to turn around and crept back to where the cat had been -  and hoping I was wrong. At the same time,  I kept my eyes open for other cars heading in the direction I had been a few minutes ago and wondered what I would do if a new car appeared.  Jump out and wave my arms at them with the possibility of being thought a fool – or worse yet, a drunken one at that?

None of the above happened by the time I got back to where it was..  and it was gone.  ‘Well..  that’s that!  It’s likely hiding in one of the bushes near the street’   With the temperature dropping by the hour, I was more than ready to be home and work on my painting.

I drove to the intersection and turned around,  heading back in the original direction I’d been in the first place and drove on.  It still didn’t feel ‘right’ to me and I guess something kept me alert enough to catch from the corner of my eyes a reflection bouncing off from my headlights.  The reflection of a pair of eyes making it clear it was still lying on its side and this time to the side of the road. Slowing down even more, I decided to take a good look.

Something was wrong -  bad wrong.  I stopped the car and slowly got out.

Oh my God – it’s been hit!  What should I do?  A thousand thoughts flitted through my brain, going on overload as I walked slowly towards the tortoiseshell cat.  It watched me, then started scrabbling frantically away from me.  Her front claws dug into the cold hard surface of the road as she dragged herself forward, the back legs stretched out in full behind her -  and useless.  She was plainly in shock and fear- ridden.  Stopping where I was, I started crooning to her, hoping to keep her calm and wondering how I was going to do something.  I got close enough to lean over her and reached out with my right hand (where did my brain go at this time?  You do NOT reach out with a bare hand to an injured animal)  Spitting at me, she suddenly lunged up and bit my index finger, breaking the skin.  I moved back quickly, shaking my fingers and splattering blood around.  She was prong on the ground again, panting heavily with her sides heaving.  Wrapping a piece of cloth around my finger, I stood there for a minute thinking..

Since we were in front of a house with lights still on, I took my chances and opened the gate.  Finding myself on a old fashioned porch, I knocked on the door and was able to see a large TV on.  A woman appeared out of nowhere, her expression concerned and cautious.  She walked up to the window and moved her mouth.  I pointed to my ears and shook my head then shouted.  “Do you have  a cat?  There’s one out here hit by a car and hurt bad!”

She seemed to say something and I yelled (no idea how loud I yelled) that I was deaf and gestured for paper and pen -  hoping for some form of help.  A few minutes dragged by until she opened her door and stepped out, her bulky body wrapped in a well worn red jacket.  Luckily I could read her lips and it turned out she was going to check with her neighbors across the street because they had a cat who looked like the injured one.  I stayed near the cat, watching with hope as she ran across and up the porch of her neighbor’s. She  returned a minute later, shaking her head.  She saw their cat reclining on the porch so it wasn’t theirs.  Now what?

She said she had a box and would get the location of an emergency animal clinic -  she was sure there was one across the river. I left my car lights on, blocking any oncoming cars from the injured cat and lit up a cigarette, watching the smoke drift away into the night.  My eyes traveled up to the woman’s second floor windows and could see her obviously searching a room.   She brought out an oblong box.. one perfect size for a cat with that kind of injury -  and a pair of heavy leather gloves.  I got an old blanket I keep in my car for emergencies and gently laid it over the cat, thinking the quiet darkness of the heavy cloth would help keep her calm.  The woman laid the box down next to the cat, on its side and somehow, I managed to wrap a portion of the blanket around the animal and just barely lifted her enough to get in the box.  Did I hurt her worse than she is already? 

Armed with the address of the clinic the woman gave me, I moved my groceries to the floor and placed the box on the passenger seat and took off.  About ten minutes later found me parking in front of the clinic and as I was bringing the box out, a clinician saw me and came quickly to the door and held it open as I passed through.

I explained its situation as I knew it best and wondered aloud about the possibility of having the cat transferred to the humane society after they gave it the medical attention it needed.  The woman nodded and said that’s definitely what they’re already planning on and will call them in the following morning to start the process.  They will have the cat placed in a foster home with an eye towards a permanent home willing to take on an animal with special needs.  I signed the paperwork, releasing the cat from my care and left.  But the cat never left my mind.

And with that in mind,  this was not the first time something like this has happened.  Many years ago, I came upon a possum in my old neighborhood and it had been hit badly too.  It’s entrails were spilled out over the grass where the possum had crawled over to.  I knew there was no hope for it and it was in deep shock and gasping for breath.  I took a tire iron and took the injured animal out of its misery.  It made me sick -  literally.  A life at it’s end and in the most horrible way.

But not all things ended horribly.  Nor has it been painful.  Once when I was leaving the barn where I’d kept one of my horses and found a box someone had left earlier.  Inside was a mother cat and a litter of kittens.  While I was examining them,  a car pulled into the dirt driveway to the barn.  It was a family I knew since their young daughter took riding lessons at the barn.  She and her little brother were in the back seat.  Her father asked what I was doing and I told him – and added if he’d like to take them on down to the humane society down the street  a couple of miles.  Guess what he said?

“No need.  They’ll be fine there or someone else will take ‘em in  or something”  

Right..  something…   Though I have no children, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was any way to raise kids with that kind of exposure to a parent’s approach to animals in need?  I think not.

I think animals are a gift to us.. and we should not be afraid to help when it’s called for.  Even if it’s unpleasant, a hand should be extended to them.  (Not extended like I did with the cat!)  Trust me -  you will sleep better at night instead of wondering if you should have done something.

Just do it.

Until the next time..

RFW

Just when you thought….

That our President Bush had reached the limits of stupidity,  he takes a leap even further beyond.  Evidently, there’s no limit with him…

That with the cat fur flying all over about Paris Hilton, you’d have assumed we’d had enough of ‘girls in trouble….  then Britney Spears wigs out.  Who’s next?

By the way..  don’t make plans to move to a rural area in Alabama.  It seems that a Texas plant in ‘Bama  treats human waste from New York (yes!  New York!) and turns it into fertilizer which is …… spread on Alabama farmland and now is creating a big stink -  literally.  Don’t think I’d want to buy my veggies from that area…

read below if you don’t believe me…

(link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/03/ap/strange/main3327357.shtml

Oh.. one little tidbit here….  did you know that condoms that are made according to ‘international’ sizes are too..  errr  large for a majority of Indian men (of India)?   International size????    Reports showed that a study found that more than half of the men in India measured to be shorter than ‘international standards’ for condoms and this lead to a call for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.

‘International size’??????????

hummm

I really really must get back to serious reading……  (sorry George Bush)

til next time

RFW

Now even deaf programs in public schools are being phased out…

Isn’t that wonderful? After all this time, I thought I was missing out on being in a deaf program when I went to a public school way back in the early 70′s.. well Golly.. looks like we don’t need em after all *SNORTS*

OH..? Did I just snort then? Well excusssse me.. it’s just a reflex, ya know! I tend to snort when I come upon something like this, thanks to the ever increasing ignorance of the Hearies (oh.. sorry.. I could say ‘Fully Intact People’.. how’s that? ) FYI.. Fully Intact People does NOT mean those who are neutered.. so don’t be getting the idea that we’re normal. Oh heaven forbid if anyone dares to argue otherwise!

Dear me.. I feel another snort coming on….

Wait.. you’re looking at me and wondering if I lost it? Babycakes.. I never lost a thing in my life. (aside from my first pair of glasses in the forth grade)

Ok.. here’s this thing here.. a friend gave me a heads up on this article from the Chicago Tribune

(If there’s anyone from that area, please feel free to dispute this.. I urge you….)

Click on this link: .. no.. wait.. I’ll do better than that.. Let me just stick the whole damned nine yards in here..

*Click*

Lending ears to learners

Thanks to technology, and new teaching tools that help students use it, deaf children are excelling in mainstream classrooms

By Megan Twohey Tribune staff reporter

September 21, 2007

A beige plastic device the size of a quarter that peeks from his sandy blond hair is the only visible sign Adam Ballent is profoundly deaf.He takes notes as his teachers lecture in class at Naperville North High School. He hollers on the soccer field when his club team scores. He recites the Boy Scout pledge with other members of his troop.

“Sometimes, when it’s really noisy, I can’t hear what people are saying,” said Ballent, his words easily understood. “But most of the time, I can.”

Ballent never learned sign language. He has no deaf friends. And at age 16, the sophomore is at the forefront of a wave of deaf children with cochlear implants who are entering mainstream classrooms across the country, following a path paved with high hopes and bitter controversy.

(a bitter controversy? no shit, Sherlock)

In 1996, after major advances in the revolutionary technology — which stimulates auditory nerves in the inner ear and costs about $50,000 — the first “oral deaf education” school in Illinois opened to teach young children with cochlear implants how to speak and hear. Since then, Child’s Voice, in Wood Dale, has served more than 130 children, with many graduates going on to school districts throughout northern Illinois. Several similar programs have sprung up.Meanwhile, the Illinois School for the Deaf, which serves students through high school using sign language as a teaching method, has seen sharp declines in enrollment. So have the public schools’ special-education programs for the deaf.

“The first waves of deaf children [with implants] are starting to hit mainstream schools,” said Barbara Sims, who oversees deaf and hard-of-hearing programs for the Illinois State Board of Education.The shift is occurring across the country, said Thomas Kluwin, director of institutional research at Gallaudet University that serves the deaf in Washington, D.C.

Nearly 40,000 children in the U.S. are deaf or hard of hearing, including close to 3,000 in Illinois, according to a Gallaudet survey. Thirty years ago, 80 percent were in residential, specialized programs for the deaf, while 20 percent attended public school. Today, those numbers have flipped, Kluwin said.

Some 22,000 adults and 15,000 children in the U.S. have received the implants, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Deafness, in general, has proved to be a major obstacle to academic success. Historically, deaf children on average graduate from high school with a 3rd- or 4th-grade reading level.

RFW:  Take note..  this said Historically.. and also, bear in mind that a lot of the older generation of Deafies are a reflection of this.  Unfortunately, education as a whole (hearing or deaf) is not what it can be.  The whole picture is NOT being looked at for the deaf kids out there.  Oh! Sorry..  just expressing an opinion here..  take it or shove it

Proponents of oral education say the new technology and mainstream classes have significantly reduced learning barriers. But critics say the approach could be harmful to some deaf children.

Some say it’s a mistake to bar children from learning sign language, a guaranteed method of communication, which they see as the best path to academic success. Others point out that it can be extremely isolating to be the only deaf child in a mainstream setting.

A state task force on deaf education, formed by the Illinois legislature last year, is closely following the oral-deaf experiment.

Adam Ballent had just turned 1-year-old when hospital tests revealed that he is profoundly deaf.

“I’ll never forget that night,” said his mother, Alice Ballent, as she sat in her Naperville home recalling the 1992 diagnosis. “I felt like someone had broken into my house and stolen part of my child away.”

 

RFW:  breaking out the violin… 

Determined to fill in the missing piece, she and her husband, Tom Ballent, decided to have doctors at Children’s Memorial Hospital install a cochlear implant in their son’s left inner ear.

But afterward, the boy needed a way to learn how to make sense of the sounds hitting his brain.

At the time, there were no schools in Illinois that taught children with cochlear implants how to speak and hear. The closest were in St. Louis.

So in 1996, the Ballents and two other families with deaf children banded together to establish Child’s Voice. It started with one teacher and four students.

Today, its sprawling one-story building in Wood Dale bustles with nearly 80 children ranging in age from several months to 7 years. Half have cochlear implants, half regular hearing aids.Prohibited from learning sign language, the pupils are submitted to constant auditory training.

RFW:  *Snort*  *snort*  *snort*

It begins with sound recognition. Young children are asked to hold a block, then drop it to the ground every time the teacher makes a sound. From there, it’s on to articulating — over and over and over — the “tick” of a clock, the “moo” of a cow.

On a recent day, a teacher sat at a low table with two 6-year-old boys. She had an array of stickers in her hands. The boys were asked to select one and place it on his lunch box.”What is this?” the teacher asked.

“It’s a sticker,” said a boy with shaggy brown hair, an orange T-shirt and a mischievous smile.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Put it on my lump boxch.”

After two more tries he nailed it.

“Put it on my lunch box.”

A four-year-old state law requiring that all newborns be screened for deafness has resulted in early intervention for more children. It’s helped put more children on a path to mainstream schools, experts say.

On a recent day, a teacher sat at a low table with two 6-year-old boys. She had an array of stickers in her hands. The boys were asked to select one and place it on his lunch box.”What is this?” the teacher asked.

“It’s a sticker,” said a boy with shaggy brown hair, an orange T-shirt and a mischievous smile.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Put it on my lump boxch.”

After two more tries he nailed it.

“Put it on my lunch box.”

In the 1970s, dozens of local school districts in Chicago’s north and northwest suburbs formed an agency to serve deaf students. It offers sign language instruction in self-contained settings in select schools as well as support services to students attending mainstream classes.

Within the last five years, the number of students in those programs has dropped from 120 to 75, while the number of those in mainstream settings has grown from 160 to 240, said Becki Streit, the agency’s executive director.

Similarly, since 1995, the number of students with cochlear implants attending Chicago public schools has increased from 8 to 89, said Eileen Andrews, with the district’s office of specialized services.

In Adam Ballent’s case, a hearing specialist visits him once a month to discuss his progress. The teen, who enjoys English and history more than math and science, is part of his high school’s enriched language arts program. When asked what is the hardest part about being deaf, he shrugs.

“I really don’t know,” he said, seemingly bored by the topic.

Three years ago, Child’s Voice invited 30 of its graduates ages 6 through 12 who had entered mainstream schools to come back for a day of academic testing. They scored at levels comparable to their hearing peers.

Some schools say that children with cochlear implants are performing notably higher than deaf children who communicate and learn through mostly sign language.”Their language levels and vocabulary are much higher,” said Joann Kort, special services coordinator for the Schaumburg School District. “So are their reading levels.”

RFW:  Stop right here!  How about the Deafies who have moved on to higher education, moving up academically to obtaining a Ph.d in various fields at other universities?

But not everyone with cochlear implants enjoys such success, experts say. (NO???!!!! *GASP*)

Some students with implants have failed to graduate from Child’s Voice and go on to mainstream schools. Some turn out to have other disabilities, which hinder their progress, said Child’s Voice executive director Michele Wilkins. Others, for unknown reasons, cannot translate their implants into successful language skills.

The results of the oral deaf experiment, experts say, won’t be known for years, even decades.

For Adam Ballent and his family, that’s fine. They’re thrilled with the results they are witnessing.

“It’s been a miracle,” Alice Ballent said.

The End.. or is it? “Its been a long nightmare battle all the way for Deafies” RFW said Thank you AGB! Thank you! Let’s hear it for AGB!!! *holding hand to ear*

*Snorting very loudly*

Oh, Fer God’s Sake…. PLEASE.. enuff plugging for CI

 This has me rolling my eyes to the sky – and no it ain’t the pie in the sky…  Shall I mention a slight churning in my stomach after reading this?  When is this going to stop?    Read on.. and be sure to read the very last line – which is sickening because it displays a one sided view of what CAN constitute a deaf person -  from a medical viewpoint, that is.   

This soap opera ought to be washed out…

Serious Story Line for Soap’s Erica Kane

By Associated Press

document.write(getElapsed(“20070913T083623Z”));Thu Sep 13, 3:36 AMUPDATED 17 HOURS 21 MINUTES AGO

Susan Lucci, who plays Erica Kane on ABC’s “All …

NEW YORK – Erica Kane may not be so selfish after all. The “All My Children” diva, played by Susan Lucci, will focus attention on her grandson’s deafness in upcoming episodes.

The ABC soap opera, known for tackling serious subjects as well as the usual murder and betrayal, is introducing a new story line Sept. 20 that has Erica’s daughter, Kendall Hart, dealing with the discovery that her toddler is deaf.

At issue is whether the child should have cochlear implants, which help the deaf to hear by turning sound into electrical impulses that activate the hearing nerve. Kendall is dubious.

“She’s a perfectionist, so she wants the perfect life for her child and she’s afraid that he won’t have it,” Alicia Minshew, who portrays Kendall, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

But Erica has tricks up her sleeve. She invites a young boy who had successful cochlear implants to be a guest on her talk show _ and arranges for Kendall to watch the interview backstage.

“Erica being Erica, reacts with action,” Lucci told the AP.

Instead of using an actor to play the boy, “All My Children” asked JQ DePaiva to play the part. DePaiva, the 10-year-old son of “One Life To Live” stars James and Kassie DePaiva, was born completely deaf and attends a mainstream school after getting implants in both ears.

“This is going to sound very cliche and very silly,” Minshew said. “I honestly feel like I am telling a story that makes a difference in people’s lives.”

Questions here about interps and Sorenson…

A short time ago, I got a reply on one of my old posts and thought it merited some looking into. Here it is:

“I have the privelage of working for Sorenson part-time(travel 200 miles one way) and full-time for a local college. The opportunity may arise in the near future to set up a Sorenson center in my home town. Decisions….decisions???? When it comes down to it I have to look out for what is best for me and my family; chances are I will leave the college where we have an average of 35 deaf and hard of hearing students to work less hours, and be compensated more. I feel it’s about time the sign language interpreter is valued, and Sorenson is the company that has stepped up and expressed just that. What does this mean for the deaf community? Well, how about getting together to implement more ITP’s, or educate your local school boards of the importance of training, paying, and appreciating their interpreters. Several friends of mine currently work within the school district as interpreters and have expressed their frustration with the “aide” mentality. It’s about time interpreters are looked at as a valuable commodity and not an “aide”. I personally feel Sorenson is an uplifter and for your appreciation toward interpreters I personally thank you.”

Interesting, eh?

While I feel the frustration of seeing so many good interps ‘beating a path’ to the doors of Sorenson to offer their services in exchange for a more stable source of income, insurance and benefits, I can readily see why they’d opt for this course. On the other hand, I have to wonder at the original purpose of the interpreter training program – one of which it’s keynotes lies in working WITH the Deaf Community.

There is no denying of our appreciation for Sorenson’s pioneering early work in giving us a new technology in communication via our video-phones to be used for VRS relay and for direct connections between the Deaf people.

But in view of this and what is apparently becoming the common outcry among the interps, what are we supposed to do? This also affects the future of the mainstreamed deaf children in public schools if a certified interp cannot be found for the classroom, resulting in a poor outcome with a mediocre (and often, uncertified) interpreter.

Let me ask you this – since Sorenson started setting up call centers across the country, how has this affected your access to a interp in your area? Is it taking longer than it used to? Do you end up with one that you’d not recommend to anyone? Most of all, what do you think about the response of the interpreter I posted above? Let’s hear your opinion

Till next time…

RFW

The Tooth and Nuthin’ but the Tooth about Bush

I think this says it all…

An Ass’ day in court…

You all know that these days, America is probably one of the most litigious countries in the world, rife with lawsuits and court appearances ranging from the serious cases to the … ridiculous. Humans are out for blood (or money) and will bring in all sorts of witnesses to present their cases (and at times, witless people who’d been dragged unwillinginly to state they’d never seen their neighbor(s) (1) flash themselves (2) leer at their wifes/husbands/whatever (3) hosted a beer keg party on a Sunday (4) and the list goes on.

Well today dawns a new sense of the ridiculous. Let it be written down in American history that a courtroom never breaks out in a brawl.. or is that ‘bray’?

yup.. folks, you saw here. This was taken from Comcast news and followed by the statement:

Buddy the donkey is led by Ranch Operator Etienne Grimmett and owner Gregory Shamoun, right, into the Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 courtroom Wednesday, April 18,2007, in Fort Worth, Texas. The donkey was at the center of a dispute between oilman John Cantrell and attorney, Shamoun, that began after Cantrell complained about a storage shed Shanmoun was building in his backyard in Dallas. He said Shamoun retailiated by bringing Buddy from his ranch in Midlothian and putting him in the backyard. Cantrell complained of donkey noise and manure piles.

Buddy was the first witness and walked to the bench and stared at the jury, the picture of a gentle, well-mannered creature and not the loud, aggresive animal he had been accused of being.

I ask… who’s the donkey’s ass?

Til next time…

RFW

School shootings and violence, is security to be questioned?

Another shooting.  More young people and teachers/professors cut off in their prime before their time. More anxiety among the youth who bombard the authorities with questions such as: “I’m 15 and scared. Is this how schools are supposed to be?”  “I’m 14 years old and want to live through my college years but how can I be sure that will happen?”

If only we could know what goes on in the minds of the shooters’ heads – the reason behind their actions and what prompted them to take a deliquient path into the unknown.  So many questions and no ready answers.  All too often those things happen so quickly and unexpectly that there’s no time to react except to escape – or die.

This happens not only in America but in European schools also.  We’re not alone in this concern for our schools, which should be the last place for extreme violence to take place.  But it’s not.  Even the Amish community proved vunerable to these actions,  which occured in Pennsylvania of just a few months ago.

As recent as I could find, a school in  Erfurt, eastern Germanym a gunman (former pupil) opened fire in that school, killing 17 people before he turned the gun on himself. This was in April of 2002.

The list goes on to include another incident in Germany with a former pupil killing his headmaster and setting off pipe bombs in the technical school in Freising near Munich.  He also turned the gun on himself. Date: February of 2002

This also happened in Sanaa, Yemen and Dunblane, Scotland… and likely other places in Europe.

The victims and families react in the same way as in America -  shock, disbelief and a lot of questions.

What will it take?  The security found in most insitutions are apparently found to be wanting.  This was in evidence recently at Gallaudet University when a basketball coach was attacked and wounded in his office during campus hours.  This only served to prove how easily it could have turned into another major tragedy if its that easy for a person to enter the grounds -  armed and with a wire loose in his head.  (thus far, there have been no reports of any female taking this kind of action).

What is it that triggers males into this action and no females?  If only one of the gunmen could be captured before he turns the gun onto himself, then we might find some common answers to the questions being asked. But the biggest question lies ahead of us..  how do we prevent this from happening again?

Take a moment of silence for the victims of the Virginia Tech University.

Law and Disorder on the Deaf community?

Tonight I actually sat down on my sofa with a bowl of popcorn and watched TV.. something which is rare for me. I don’t really do ‘channel- surfing’ and ended up watching a show I always liked.. Law and Order/ CI (criminal intent).. it was one of those channels that has back to back TV shows and this was one of them. One in particular really caught my eye because it was about deaf people and CI implants.. it was a murder mystery with a ear surgeon being shot to death and they thought a deaf person committed the crime. I didn’t catch the actors’ names but in thinking about it, I had to wonder if any of them were really deaf.  I did spot a couple of actors who appear to be genuine..   correct me if  I am wrong!

What really bothered me was the context of the message being sent. Several times – usually in ‘questioning the suspects and victims’, this phrase was used. (to the best of my memory) “You were afraid that if she had the CI operation, she would become hearing and leave you.” “So this type of operation can make a deaf person become hearing?”

Those kind of questions and comments were neither refuted or denied.   This is the kind of public information sent out to a hearing audience that can lead to unrealistic expectations and misinformation – not to mention perpetuating a common myth that a deaf person can become hearing via an CI implant.

All of which you and I know, are untrue. What do you think happens when they take their hearing aids out? They have absolutely NO residual hearing left at all, due to being destroyed during the surgical process. Without their CI, they are completely deaf.

How – on – earth – can – any – screenwriter – FAIL – to – do – their – research???????

This is a sensitive subject and at best, an controversial one in the deaf and hearing communities. If hearing parents (at least those who do not have the in depth information) should happen to see this kind of myth being expanded on while watching TV.. what do you think is going to happen?

Did any of you happen to catch this show? I believe it was a rerun and it was aired on Wed night, April 11, 2007 on Fox 26 (I think).. otherwise, the show itself was good – and I enjoyed it. But..

Here.. I can do better than that.. here’s the link. You can see some of the video in that site. Be sure to look for the episode ‘Dr. Abel Strauss: Did Dr. Strauss silence Dr. Mallory forever? ‘

http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order:_Criminal_Intent/video/#mea=85837

What do you think? Am I over-reacting?

Anyhoo..  will catch ya the next time!

RFW

Smearing RED paint on SHP *stupid hearing people* (shhhh)

Whew.. I spent all day today (Sunday) lazying around and even ignored my dishes.  (no, they didn’t bite when I passed them).  Truth to tell, I was recuperating from a two-day show and sale sponsored by the Arkansas Sculptors’ Guild second annual Invitational show/sale held down by the river in my home town (Little Rock).

While most of it was ok, I still had to content with *ahem* hearing people’s lack of comprehension about dealing with the deaf.  I had a perfectly nice short note on my table letting them know I am deaf (didn’t want them to think I was ignoring ‘em) and still they came up and started talking.  (can’t they read???)   One man (I made a vow not to call them stupid hearing people) (ok.. so I just did.. sue me) kept on talking, leaning in closer and closer when I made it clear I didnt understand him (had my hearing aid on -  not that it did me a lot of good).  I kept asking him to simply write it down and he literally stood up and held up his hand, shook his head and walked off.   Ohhh  I wanted to smack him.

THEN this woman who claimed to have learned some signs (very badly) and when that failed, she came around the table and came right up to me.  (invaded my personal space!!!!!!!!  ACCCKKKK!!!!) and tried to talk right into my face..  I damned near pushed her away, and ended up backing away while telling her she was making it worse.

What’s a deaf artist supposed to do in a hearing artists environment, I ask ya?  me think if they hold it again next year, I will ask them if they will pay for half of an interp’s fee and I can come up with the other half..  but frankly they’re usually a full two day event  which means $$$$.

*sign*

Let me say something on this..  I think there is a real need for some kind of deaf artists’ retreat or an conference to work with resolving problems encountered in the hearing world -  many of us do have to associate with hearing people – especially those who are gallery owners, patrons, possible clients and collectors.  Who would be responsible for providing interps for deaf artists who are being featured  in gallery receptions?  What about painting/sculpture workshops with full access?  And while I’m on this tirade, how about art centers and organizations who sponsors workshops geared for the hearing artists….. and yet I hear of none destinated for the deaf.  Why?  In summer time, there are many art classes and the hearing do not have to think twice about enrolling in them (or enroll their children)..  but where does that leave the deaf community and/or the deaf kids?  ZIP.      I realize that in my area, there is probably a limited interest in this kind of venue but I don’t doubt for a minute that other deaf artists faces the same situation I encounter here.

How can this be resolved?  I think there is a growing interest in the arts amid the deaf community across the country, due to improved education, exposure and mainstreamed programs.  This was evident at the Deaf Way II in 2002.  You wouldn’t believe how many deafies were buying art there!  The only opportunities I’d had to compete with my deaf peers in the art community was in Nashville, TN and they were with a focus on the aspect of De’Via (in ASL, Deaf Art View) or Deaf art.  While I welcome this, I’d like to see other categories of art in juried shows for the deaf too.

Comments, anyone?  If you know a deaf artist…  fer god’s sake, send this to them and get ‘em to send their viewpoints.   Did you ever want to take art lessons but …..?  Then say something

Ah me..  I believe I have vented and feinted enough…

oh have a nice April Fool’s day.. (BUT the above post is true-biz!)

Til next time

RFW