Post from: Say What?

Post from: Say What?

What: Yard Sale & Deaf Awareness BBQ Picnic

When: Saturday, May 16, 2009
Time: Yard Sale: 8 am to 1 pm BBQ: 11 am to 1 pm

Where: Club House at 25 Via La Paz, Chico, CA 95928

BBQ Menu:
Choice of Cheeseburger, Garden burger, or 2 hot dogs
Served with pasta salad, chips, fruit and soda/bottled water

Price for BBQ: $10 per person. Extra Drinks $1 each, Extra burgers $2 each.

Sponsored by Sorenson VRS

Contact: kdethlefsen@norcalcenter.org

Post from: Say What?

When: Friday, April 3, 2009

Where: Raef Hall at American River College, 4700 College Oak Drive, Sacramento, CA 95841

Time: 6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Download flyer here.

I’d like to take a moment to talk about Audism and explain it, because I know this is not a common public knowledge.

What is Audism?

Quoted from the flyer itself: “Audism is attitudes and practices based on the assumption that behaving in the ways of those who speak and hear is desired and best. It produces a system of privilege, thus resulting in stigma, bias, discrimination, and prejudice - in overt or covert ways against Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf people of all walks of life.”

In the e-mail accompanying the flyer, was this additional text: “Audism Free America, a grassroots Deaf activist organization, will stage a one-day protest rally on April 3, 2009 in front of the Volta Bureau of the Alexander Graham Bell Association located at 1537 35th St., NW in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.  To promote participation by people from the greater Sacramento area in this growing movement for linguistic and human rights of Deaf citizens, this Blue Ribbon ceremony will be held in solidarity for Audism Free America.”

From personal experience myself, I’ve discovered that the word “Audism” is little known in the public world, yet it is practiced almost daily either with or without conscious knowledge by persons. Audism is equal to race, sex, language discrimination. The word Audism specifies discrimination on the inability to hear and the notion that a person who cannot hear, is inferior to a person who can hear. For example, a person who pushes to have a deaf baby implanted with a cochlear implant because “she/he will never have a fulfilling life as a deaf person,” is committing Audism. A person who denies an applicant a job because he/she is deaf regardless of how skilled and capable he/she is of doing the job, is committing Audism. A deaf person who apologizes for being unable to hear, is also encouraging Audism. These are small examples to illustrate Audism.

Advocacy is needed to spread knowledge of Audism and stopping it, because Audism affects both deaf and hearing people. Audism stunts the deaf person from achieving their full potentiality as human beings. Audism closes others’ eyes to the deaf person’s potentialities. Both deaf and hearing people need to be aware of Audism in order to stop discrimination that is both obvious and insidious. Standing in solidarity is a step towards spreading the knowledge of the word Audism and ending the act of Audism.

More information on Audism, Audism Free America: Google Search “audism” or visit http://www.audismfreeamerica.blogspot.com/, or http://www.audism.org/.

Post from: Say What?

Stay tuned for the coming flyer.

This year, it will be titled “The Price is Right” and will provide more events for all ages, including an expanded Costumes Contest that will give prizes for cutest, scariest, and funniest costumes.

A vampirella will be hosting the main game with a scary assistant who might grab at you if you try to leave without playing the game.  I hear the vampirella has real fangs!  There will be all kinds of interesting Halloween food, child care, some small activites to play.

Post from: Say What?

Apparently, someone took him out of the shelter overnight. When news of the puppy’s disappearance broke news through the Sacramento Bee, he was somehow traded to a homeless man for a bottle of booze. The homeless man then contacted the shelter and had the puppy returned. Click on the links to read the original articles.

It was interesting to follow and the ending was good though, I can’t help wonder who it was and why the puppy was taken.

Post from: Say What?

I got his e-mailed consultation on Monday May 5th (the phone conversation was on Friday, May 2 morning). Ironically, his title was Customer Success Manager. Since then, I’ve been told by four people — unrelated to me in any way — in face-to-face chats that 1) he had no business asking what impairment I had, 2) he was patronizing in his insistence to e-mail me and 3) I should have told him off in the best way.

True, I could have used the VRS (Video Relay Services). It’s more natural sounding and doesn’t have pauses. Yet I have to admit that the pauses come from me not immediately replying because I’m thinking. Anyway, next time I will use the VRS.

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ADA in ASL Podcasts

I received an e-mail that the first ASL Video podcast has been launched from the Disability Law Lowdown. It’s linked in my sidebar. Check it out and keep an eye on this series. They are also captioned for those who don’t know ASL which is good for those who are in professional fields and might have a deaf client/consumer.

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Relay on Facebook

The other day I happened to notice SprintIP’s blog announcement that they had created an application on Facebook. It gave instructions on how to find them. So I logged in to check that out. I searched for”sprintip” and found two results. One was for SprintIP and the other was a group that discussed how fun it was to abuse SprintIP by doing prank calls, drunk calls, making the operator say bad words. Nice. (insert sarcasm). How about shutting them down?

Post from: Say What?

Post from: Say What?

Presidential Candidate Scorecard - Stone Deaf Pilots looked closer at the presidential candidates when she read Daily Kos: State of the Nation. Slinkerwink noticed that Obama has all of his videos captioned - a glaring stand-out from all of the other presidency videos. Obama also outlines a plan for Americans with disabilities, which the other candidates have not or partially addressed. Worth considering.

AIM 6.8 Beta - I had been aware of this for some time, but didn’t have time to look at it. This beta release has an feature that allows AIM 6.8 users to chat in real-time. Meaning, there is no lapse between sent messages. Chatters will be viewing the others’ chats as they are being typed. This is same as what users of iChat’s Bonjour (aka Rendezvous and Jabber) see. Although there are some features to be worked on, it’s worth a try.

Post from: Say What?

It was wildly popular and got ranked 2nd most entertaining commercial by the Northwestern University Students. I saw the video, the interview, and behind-the-scenes video cross-posted so many times in all of the forums I’m part of. Everyone that I knew, told me how wonderful and funny it was and asked if that had ever happened to me (yes). All of my Deaf friends loved it and at one ladies’ coffee meeting, we traded our favorite versions of “Bob’s House” such as “The Honeymoon” and “New House.”

It created excitement among the Deaf community and people who are interested in ASL and Deaf culture. NAD (National Association of the Deaf) gave its salutations to the video in this letter. Since then, members of the Deaf community have been urged to thank PepsiCo for creating the commercial through their contact web page and snail mail.

However, it also elicited remarks from some people who did not exactly like the commercial. Namely Alexander Graham Bell Association of the Deaf organization (known as AGBell for short). In a blog post on DeafDC by Shane Feldman, Shane reports on the letters submitted to PepsiCo and NAD’s response.

Deaf Bilingual Coalition, (DBC for short) a new organization that was formed in July 2007, published three letters on their web site. DBC advocates the inclusion of ASL from the moment an individual is found to be deaf, as part of their development because ASL is seen as fully accessible.

Original Letters that I could find online:
AGBell’s Original Letter to PepsiCo (PDF)

NAD’s Original Letter in response to AGBell’s Letter.

If you are a newcomer to the scene and are unsure of why this is important, it is because AGBell is a staunch advocator of independence through listening and talking. Nowhere is ASL mentioned or used. NAD is devoted to the promoting, protection, and preservation of the rights and quality of life of deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States of America. This includes the right to communicate in sign language, namely ASL. AGBell was founded in 1890. NAD was established in 1880, making it the oldest organization of the two.

Culturally Deaf people despise AGBell for what it stands — an antithesis to Deafhood.

While it is true that deaf people as a group are highly diverse, AGBell cannot claim to be the representing educator to the public about the deaf because AGBell does not recognize sign language as an accepted method of communicating. Nor should AGBell be telling PepsiCo how they should be investing their money. If PepsiCo wants to make a video in ASL, power be to them. They have every American right and freedom to do that, and they have the blessing of a majority of the Deaf population.

Post from: Say What?