Unapproachable Deaf People?

Are deaf and hard of hearing people really that "unapproachable" simply because they have a different way of communicating? In some ways I'd say "yes" and in some ways I'd say "no." That would depend on the context of a situation. Let me give you one "unapproachable" example and that would be the Deafhood Foundation organization.  On the outside they look to be very "approachable" but at closer inspection one would began to realize they are quite the opposite. The foundation's mission is:

"....dedicated to achieving economic and social justice for all Deaf people." 

 Now, note the capital letter "D"eaf in their mission statement as they are attempting to convey that word to mean all people with hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. But the problem is that the term "Deaf" with the upper case "D" has always denoted to mean culturally deaf people. According to Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, in Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture (1988) explains the meaning and difference between "D"eaf and "d"eaf:

We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the audiological condition of not hearing, and the uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of deaf people who share a language – American Sign Language (ASL) – and a culture. The members of this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a primary means of communication among themselves, and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their connection to the larger society. We distinguish them from, for example, those who find themselves losing their hearing because of illness, trauma or age; although these people share the condition of not hearing, they do not have access to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices that make up the culture of Deaf people.

Some organizations even attempted to change that very definition by inserting "Deaf" into their own bylaws without giving any real definition to it and could easily be construed to mean only culturally deaf people. Over the last three decades Deaf (culturally deaf) people have made it a point that they "own" that word and for it to mean explicitly one thing, a group that uses ASL and have a culture. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But what is obvious here is that 98% of the deaf and hard of hearing population who do not know sign language, who are not affiliated with Deaf culture, and have other preferred means to communicate such as speaking, using Cued speech, listening and speaking, or preferring the use of Signing Exact English, for example. We still have an extremely large majority deaf and hard of hearing population that simply do not sign and they certainly are not "Deaf" people.

Deafhood Foundation is far from approachable because on their main web page it may look inviting except that their Gratitude video is only limited to those who know sign language which leaves the rest of  99.96% of the U.S. population out. So much for "social justice" when they've been demanding that "hearing people" ought to include captioning in their speaking videos. The irony is palpable here. With a signing video there is no way to approach the remaining U.S. audience if captioning isn't being used to convey their message. Not some social gabbing amongst Deaf people but a message they are trying to convey and put out for all to see.  Their own message largely resonates only to those within their own Deaf group rather than to the rest of the 98% of the population of people with hearing loss which numbers around 36,000,000 people. That's a lot of people to ignore when trying to put out a message of unity, acceptance and communication accessibility.


As for "approachable" deaf and hard of hearing people (i.e.. everybody with a hearing loss), they are increasingly using technology to allow themselves to become more approachable by giving them the ability to converse and interact with hearing people in a variety of ways.  Lately I have noticed that more and more deaf/hh people are using captioning technology to include with their own personal videos, this is true among a rising number of Deaf people taking advantage of that technology to spread their message to the rest of the English using U.S. population by using the captioned English language.  A good example of that (i.e. signing deaf) is Barry Sewell's latest video about John Yeh on conveying his message to the rest of the U.S. audience. Another approachable example would be the people who run HLAA whose own donation had already hit the million dollar mark last month since starting in January.

It's not just captioning technology but other technologies like face to face communication technology, and internet relay technology. Something that would allow the ability to interact easily with people and make them approachable. It's not about the competition of ideologies but about acceptance and understanding when it comes to accessible communication for all.

In the end the question becomes are you Frieda, the lovable, vain, unapproachable perhaps angry deaf person or are you one of those people who find a way to make themselves approachable as possible without the need to be so ungainly politically correct?

Gallaudet University's Quiet Climate Change - Part II

This is a second round to my previous blog as I have something else to add. For the longest time I supported the idea of having a robust discussion on climate science.  Because of a politically driven agenda behind the term "climate change" it has become irretrievably tainted as a code word for "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) rather than as both cooling and warming climates that is part of Earth's natural climate variability.

For this part II blog piece I'd like to continue my discussion of Bill Snape's 2008 video presentation that was presented at Gallaudet University.  He covered the Arctic sea ice in the beginning and presented a graph that showed a downward trend based on 27 years worth of Arctic sea ice data at the 9:46 time mark. He used an Arctic sea ice before and after satellite pictures taken in 1979 and 2007. Funny thing is that he said "30 years later" at the 2 minute mark referring the time difference between the two pictures which should've been "28 years later." The two satellite pictures he presented showed a large expanse of Arctic sea ice in September of 1979 and contrasted that with a much smaller expanse of sea ice in September of 2007 under the heavy pretext that the change in ice expanse was due to man's supposed additional introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere.

At the time of Bill Snape's presentation he had only 28 years worth of continuous satellite imagery and not 50, 100, 200, 500 or 1000 years worth of sea ice expanse data to see the highest and lowest sea ice extent over a longer period of time. It was simply not possible because satellite technology did not exist at the time. We're only seeing a very small window of time spanning a mere 28 years. That's not enough to make any kind of conclusion other than it's all naturally caused rather than man-made (induced). And then he said the most irresponsible thing that any self-respecting scientists would not do and that is to make a factual statement based on a theory using only 28 years worth of sea ice coverage data that the reason for less ice coverage was because of global warming. He didn't say anthropogenic-caused global warming (AGW) but the whole pretext of his presentation is on global warming as caused by human beings. There's no doubt about that one. To the unsuspecting audience watching Bill's presentation they were most likely not aware that 28 years of data do no equate as an irrefutable proof that AGW is the reason when in reality it is much more complex than that with man's contribution hardly being the source.

Let's look at a time lapse video from 1978 to 2009 using that same Arctic sea ice data and you can see the continual contraction and expansion of sea ice over time.



Here's a video time lapse from 2000 to 2009 that's a bit more detailed and clearer.



In Bill Snape's presentation he showed a September 2007 satellite picture showing the Arctic sea ice at its lowest sea expanse. That was 4 years ago. Since then the expanse has not gotten any lower than 2007 if you look at the AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent graph (go here for an enlarged picture).

You can see that after 2007 none of the sea ice extent ever got lower than 2007. There's also NORSEX's graph to look at well.  With 33 years worth of Arctic sea ice data showed a slight downward trend and that's all it is, a downward trend with no idea of what that trend may have looked like prior to 1979 leading up to today. But we can see what it might have looked like prior to 1979 using other sources to gain a better idea.

Before 1969 six ships completed the Northwest Passage when it was ice free at the time. Earlier than that you had Roald Amundsen back in 1903 made his ice-free trip in the late summer month using his 70 foot long wooden fishing boat during his three year trip to find the "holy grail" Northwest Passage. That passage was ice free then when he discovered the route.  It was also ice free in the 1940s.

St. Roch had serviced RCMP posts and Inuit settlements in the western Arctic since 1928, but it is for her epic voyages through the Northwest Passage from west to east between 1940 and 1942, and the return voyage in 1944..

It certainly wasn't ice free some 13,000 years ago when we had glacial ice sheets that extended all the way to the northern parts of the United States (geographically speaking) before it began retreating as Earth gradually warmed up. That's an indisputable fact. Earth has warmed up since then with occasional mini ice ages.
You have historical, archaelogical, and biological examples and evidences so numerous they point to a very warm Medieval period from 1000 to 1300 AD. And that temperatures were estimated as high as 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today. Crops cultivated were done further north in Europe. Tree lines in the Alps were found to have grown 2000 meters higher than today's tree line elevation. Vikings were able to live on Greenland and even grow crops there before the cold climate returned and had to abandon their established settlements (this is true in the northern parts of Norway). Grapes were grown  for wine at one time as far north as southern Norway. Citrus fruits were once grown much further north in Asia than today. All point to a very warm period of time. All documented.

During the Holocene period studies have found trees that grew few hundred miles more north compared to today or that they found trees growing 1500 to 2400 feet higher in elevation in mountainous areas than today. All at a time when CO2 concentration was much, much lower, of course. Or go further back in time you had CO2 concentrations in the 1000 to 2000 ppm range where both plant and animal species thrived on land.

So, in retrospect, I have several concerns about Bill Snape's 2008 presentation to an audience that weren't exactly savvy in the field of science to understand enough the limitations of data and correlation exercises. The warming (and cooling) of Earth is not unprecedented. It has been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years, even when you have had natural catastrophic events occur such as volcanic explosions and meteor impacts which created dramatic climatic changes on a global scale in a very short time span.

On a closer time scale we have retreating glaciers of Garibaldi Park in B.C., Canada (map) where retreating glaciers revealed several thousand year old preserved tree stumps with their roots still in the soil. Trees that were once part of an ancient forest. An indication of a time when it was much warmer you had mature forest growing in abundance. The Warren glacier (one of many glaciers in Garibaldi Park) began retreating from it's maximum extent in 1705 over a span of almost 300 years to 2003 with recent photographic evidence starting in 1912.

Glaciers in Garibaldi Park have retreated and advanced several times over the last several thousand years which may be in fact tied to solar activity as an important if not main climate forcing mechanism.

Periods of advance in Garibaldi Park are broadly synchronous with advances elsewhere in the Canadian Cordillera, suggesting a common climatic cause. The Garibaldi Park glacier record is also broadly synchronous with the record of Holocene sunspot numbers, supporting previous research that suggests solar activity may be an important climate forcing mechanism.

Bill Snape, do you know what's scarier? To have an audience that isn't savvy enough to understand the limitation of scientific data and correlation exercises, and who are more easily swayed with cute pictures of polar bears with one person presenting only one side of the story that's theoretical in nature. For example, if you want to talk about correlation then tell me which of the two graphs shows a better positive correlation with global temperature change on Earth.


Picture graphs of correlation of Arctic Temperatures With Solar Irradiance (above) and CO2 (bottom).

Those graphs came from a 2005 study on the effects of solar irradiance on Arctic temperatures (Soon, W.H., "Variable Solar Irradiance as a Plausible Agent for Multidecadal Variations in the Arctic-wide Surface Air Temperature Record of the Past 130 Years," Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, 2005) where you can see that there is a much stronger positive correlation between temperatures and solar irradiance than with increasing CO2 concentration over time.

So, where I'm getting at? Well, a lot of things. One is the feeding of scientific information based on a theory such as AGW as if they were factual science and that all scientists have come to a consensus on this (they haven't). It's true that the Arctic sea ice has expanded and contracted seasonally but with only 32 years worth of data we are limited by what we can surmise why a slight downward trend on sea ice extent other than to say it's all part of the natural variability of climate change. It's certainly better than to make a giant sweeping statement saying man has indirectly caused Arctic sea ice or glaciers to retreat all because of a theory and not fact.

Bottom line, Gallaudet University students and staff need to ask real honest and hard questions and not be afraid to raise their hands say, "Excuse me,...." and ask direct, challenging questions and the need for more clarification.

Gallaudet University's Quiet Climate Change

It all began some 4 to 5 years ago at the height of this well known climate fear rippling through the fabric of our easily-duped society ominously known as "Global Warming."  Gallaudet University soon became a part of this movement at the academic level where professors and students excitedly signed about this fearful awesomeness of thermagedon known as "Global Warming."  A term that has changed rather rapidly over the years to become known as "Climate Change" and then progress laughably to "Climate Disruption"......the equivalent of moving the goal post......all within the context of anthropogenic-caused global warming (AGW) even though Earth has not warmed up for 13 years since 1998.

This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.

‘This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’

Something that scientists are increasingly being pressed to admit that this is the case acknowledging global temperature has not risen in 13 years but still attempt to tweak their own reasoning behind the lack of temperature trend increase in favor of the direction of AGW. Such disingenuous attempts.

This "climate disruption" term was first proposed for use in 2010 to replace "climate change." Such a change designed to make it sound increasingly ominous because "climate change" wasn't doing enough to put fear into gullible, fertile public minds.  However, should a cataclysmic volcanic eruption occur, a la Pinatubo or worse Krakatoa, the slamming of a 1/4 mile wide iron-fused meteor into Earth or, god forbid, multiple nuclear warheads going off in different countries then by all means "Climate Disruption" would be appropriately termed for those instances because it would definitely disrupt our climate system in such a catastrophic manner.

The term "climate disruption" was designed in the context of "global warming" (though some scientists continue to deny it's about global warming but about rapid climate change) where human is supposedly the main reason for Earth to warm up (remember, no warming since 1998) rather than attribute to natural variability when humans ultimately have no control of.  Yet some people use even more ominous phrases like "avoid catastrophic climate disruption" like Bill Snape has done last year in May 2010 (fyi, he is the head swim coach at Gallaudet University). Now, it's catastrophic! Thermagedon! This "dangerous" carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in our atmosphere high above us even though CO2 makes up about 0.03% (0.0003) of the total atmospheric gases. The same gas that we exhale everyday. The same gas that green plants absorb it along with water to produce products through photosynthesis, sugar and oxygen, which leave the leaf. In short, we exhale the CO2 while plants absorb the CO2 to make Oxygen, a gas that we need to breath in order to live. But Bill Snape managed to mention "global warming" once, "climate change" twice, and "climate disruption" twice all in the same article he wrote last year.

At the height of Gallaudet University's global warming bandwagon which presumably peaked in 2007 when they made an announcement on joining with Focus the Nation organization in a newsletter (the Dec 17, 2007 newsletter is no longer publicly available except in the Google cache).

Gallaudet students know that climate change is happening every day, but they believe they can reverse the trend. Members of the new student organization Green Gallaudet have already taken a number of actions, from selling reusable shopping bags to becoming part of the effort to make campus buildings environmentally friendly. Now the group, which held its first meeting in September, is planning a marathon day of activities surrounding climate change. Along with over 1,000 other schools and organizations nationwide, Gallaudet will host a Focus the Nation (FTN) teach-in on January 31, bringing dozens of experts to speak about climate change and how Americans can face this challenge.

The students’ concerns are founded in strong evidence. “The rate at which carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are rising is quite alarming,” said Green Gallaudet advisor Dr. Caroline Solomon, an associate professor of biology. She also points out that the increase is clearly tied to humans’ fossil fuel consumption. And it is just recently, during the lifetimes of today’s college students, that the problem has become more severe and garnered more attention. “The rise in global temperatures is having a greater impact than we could have possibly imagined ten years ago,” Dr. Solomon said.

Remember, global temperature has not risen since 1998. And certainly you have the problem of bad temperature data from bad temperature monitoring stations that skews global temperature data upward.

Gallaudet University quietly removed themselves from the Focus the Nation organization (no longer on their map) quickly jumping off of the bandwagon as you can tell below.

Focus the Nation prided themselves with their own apocalyptic prediction back in 2007 at the height of the global warming scare.

"Focus the Nation is exploding because, across the country, educators and students at every high school, college and university understand that we have just a few short years to act decisively to hold global warming to the low end of 3-4 degrees F."

Few short years? Oh my. Their past bleating prediction has now been replaced with a mission statement with no mention of climate change or global warming:

 A just and prosperous clean energy future

I've quietly observed the changes at Gallaudet University over the years when I noticed how they quietly jumped off the climate change bandwagon which probably began around 2009. Bill Snape probably made his last push to turn the tide at a global warming presentation at Gallaudet University signing and talking to students and staff in 2008 as seen in this video commenting on cute polar bears and such.  He also discussed polar bears in a May 2008 interview.

Protecting the Polar Bear

May 2, 2008

Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act could force the government to take action on global warming and development in the Arctic. Host Bruce Gellerman talks with Bill Snape from the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs who sued the federal government to make a decision about the polar bear...

GELLERMAN: So what legal precedent, if any, does [this listing] set?

SNAPE: Well I think it's very significant that if the polar bear were to be listed, and I think eventually it will be listed, it will be the first major species to be listed as a result of global warming impacts. … Listings under the Endangered Species Act in general should follow a very logical, rational scientific process. It's the Bush administration that has convoluted that process as it relates to the polar bear, because global warming doesn't comport with their notion of truth...

GELLERMAN: So is this about the bears, or is this about prohibiting, you know, invasion of their habitat by oil drilling companies?

SNAPE: Well it's absolutely about the bears, because the bears are doing poorly biologically, but I think the polar bear really is the canary in the coal mine. You're seeing an Arctic ecosystem collapsing...

Polar bear as the canary in the coal mine? Even though polar bears have been around for hundreds of thousands of years even at a time when arctic ice wasn't around? Arctic ecosystem collapsing? What does that supposed to mean?   Polar bears do not always depend on ice for their livelihoods or survival despite their natural ability to swim hundreds of miles in a single swim.

And ignoring the fact that Arctic sea ice extent began its satellite photo size measurement beginning in 1979 which is a mere 30+ years worth of sea ice data of contraction and expansion against the backdrop when the Arctic ocean was ice free (here and here) during the Holocene (past ~11,000 years). Going back further they survived an even warmer period based on DNA from a 110,000–130,000-year-old polar-bear fossil that was successfully sequenced.  Polar bears were around during the Holocene period in abundance and survived man's hunting and changing climate condition which is believed to have caused the extinction of the Wooly Mammoth. Even today the population of polar bears continue to be stable or have increased over the last three or four decades and in no way appears to be endangered at all....certainly not from global warming, natural or otherwise.

Yet with the recent ruling in June 2011 that upheld the endangered species status for polar bears based on the assumption that the arctic ice (which floats on the Arctic ocean and not on land) is "melting away" (hardly the case as sea ice extent remains within the natural variability of ice contraction and expansion) due to anthropogenic global warming as being the main thrust and reason for the polar bears' endangered listing but in reality it's pure politics in play as commented by the Cato Institute.

This is a political, not a scientific act. Polar bears are at or near record population levels today. They clearly survived eras in the past where Arctic climate was warmer than it is now. For several millennia after the end of the last ice age, summer temperatures in the Eurasian Arctic were 4-13°F warmer than modern temperatures. As some summer sea-ice is lost at today's temperatures, it seems likely that it was probably absent during that era. Obviously the polar bear survived, as did the fledgling Inuit culture.

This marks the first instance of a species being listed based upon a computer model of future climate from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There has been no net warming in the last decade, and scientists recently discovered that it is likely there will be little if any for the next decade. Not one of the IPCC's models includes a two-decade hiatus in global warming. Consequently this listing is based upon obsolete science. This makes the listing of the Polar Bear obviously political and hardly scientific.

I pointed out more than a few times in my blog and elsewhere that Earth's climate is an incredibly complex, not entirely a closed system, and dynamic system involving the atmosphere, land and water whose climate change is at the whim of our nearest star which is our sun. Occam's Razor, what has been obvious all along as theories go has always been in our sun-burned faces.  And with the latest round of Climategate 2.0 where a cache of more than 5,200 email correspondences were made available to the public a few days ago showed collusions between the media, politicians and scientists to promote AGW.  An attempt to purposely deny data to people and scientists and at the same time deny people who question the AGW any necessary media coverages.  This round of emails will certainly help squelch any unnecessary claims of anthropogenic global warming, or in the words of Bill Snape, "catastrophic climate disruption."

Be sure to read Part II.

Thank you for participating. 

Sign Write

The title "sign write" is as best as I can describe a situation and it has to do with an observation I noticed in a discussion forum on a deaf-related topic. There was a hearing parent (of a deaf child) who actually wrote somewhat haltingly in English as if it was done in a signing format. This hearing parent was a new member with English as the native language. So, it's not like it was a 2nd language or anything like that. I thought about using "deaf talk" but that's not right and does it reflect appropriately what I'm trying to get at here.  And so, "sign write" is as close as I can describe correctly this situation about a hearing parent. 

In later threads that parent wrote in a fashion that was grammatically smoother and stayed like that ever since. And so I have this question and I'm wondering about this. Has anyone ever witnessed anything like that before? A new hearing parent in a forum attended by mostly deaf and hard of hearing members to write English in an almost a haltingly manner like "sign write"?

I'm thinking that this parent had this misconception about the forum members' English fluency and thought it was necessary to write in such a way. Your thoughts?

A Day by Day Review

Gosh, it has nearly been 6 years since Chris Muir was inspired by my email to him about Rob McGovern and my cousin, Major Gregory Stone, who was murdered in a grenade tent attack in Kuwait days before the Iraq war to begin. The resulting inspiration of mine was incorporated into Chris Muir's Day by Day cartoon panel as seen above. That was a time early on in my blogging career when I was mostly writing political blogs more so than deaf related blogs.  Going back I can see my transition going from writing mostly politically themed blogs to deafness related blogs. In order to continue with my writing outlet in the area of politics I created Deaf Conservative Republicans blogsite back in November of 2008 with numerous deaf contributors who have contributed their blog pieces.

It's no secret that my blogging career spanned many different blogs that I've created over the years.  As always, my goal and aim were to reach both hearing and deaf readers covering a variety of interest. Other blogs I've created in the past were on my wildland fire fighting stories and pictures, strongman blog in preparation for my upcoming strongman competion, deaf aikido on martial art,  Ragtime Piano! blog, and a blog on a new soon-to-be-developed-one-of-a-kind commercial spaceport in New Mexico (my name is mentioned in a Wikipedia external link section about the spaceport) because of my interest on space and technology, and being so close to it when I lived in New Mexico for several years. BTW, the New Mexico Spaceport is still a few years away from completion.  Most of those blog lasted only a few years with the exception of my Kokonut Pundit and Ragtime Piano! blogs.  Even when hurricane Katrina hit the deaf/hh community hard I was there to try and help deaf/hh survivors find each other which yielded lots of email responses as a show of appreciation when I set up my Deaf Survivors blog. Michelle Malkin promptly recognized my call for help for deaf and hard of hearing survivors of hurricane Katrina. Even then I got criticized by a few Deaf people for having the audacity to help in time of disaster. Incredible boorish people they were.

Just making a day by day observations of my own blogging contribution Just like how the author of his Day by Day cartoon makes his daily observations about daily life full of ironies and hypocrisies. Take some time to visit his site.

Happy Veterans Day to all the U.S. veterans on 11-11-11! We're proud of you!

UPDATE: Got some interesting hits yesterday coming from NYTimes that linked to my Day by Day Review blog. I went and investigated and found my link in a recent NYTimes article.

Voting Illusion in DeafRead

In DeafRead's Extra section there is an opportunity for readers to vote on a blog piece they like. And with enough votes it could go to the main page of DR's aggregator page. I don't care much for votes but I noticed an usual pattern after my blog piece had gotten 2 or 3 votes in the beginning.  Another blog below mine in DR Extra suddenly went 2 or 3 votes higher over mine. Sensing that something is not right simply because Deaf Anthology is linked to a blog with a YouTube video containing no captions. The video contain words that were sung throughout the video. While mine was a fully dedicated Halloween blog.

I figured this was due to a bit of ego factored in only because my blog piece was above the Deaf Anthology's piece in DR Extra and seeing my number go up while Deaf Anthology's stayed behind. Then I started to see a pattern. I asked a few of my friends to vote for my blog piece and I let them know it was an experiment. It didn't take long until I was 1 or 2 votes higher than Anthology's. And it wasn't long also until the number of votes for Anthology to up 1 or 2 votes higher than mine. In no way did I touch or instruct my friends to vote for Deaf Anthology in case you're wondering.

I realized the inherent weakness when it comes to online voting. One person can easily go to Best Buy and go online using their laptop computer displays, or to a phone store with their display notebook laptops with an internet connection, a library computer room, at work, or at a college campus computer room and vote multiple times. Though I didn't go to those places except for my work. And if one has a smart phone with an internet connection, that same person can vote for the same blog article again. Not only that if you have a family then there are probably more laptops to access, including daughters' and/or sons' smart phones if they have one (mine do not).

After November 3rd (first picture at top) I let it alone for a week and saw no changes in votes. On Nov 10th with 16 vs 19 votes I decided to add three more votes (see middle picture) making it 19 vs 18 votes. It wasn't long until Athology's vote went up by three, too, with a vote of 19 vs 20 that same day. The next day Anthology's went up another two votes with 19 vs 22 votes just for good measure I suppose. 

Now, I'm letting people and Tayler Mayer know this because voting can be done multiple times by one person on his/her own blog in DR Extra. I've done this myself along with the help of my friends' help. No big secret or shame in telling you people this. My intention was not to embarrass Tayler Mayer about this. Granted, DR's online voting is not perfect and I realize that. I'm sure Tayler Mayer is already very aware of this shortcoming and realize the possibility of deceitful voting practices in DeafRead Extra.

And, yeah, this is a slow news day for me.

But happy Veterans Day! Thank you for all you have done.


Update: As soon as I blogged this I saw that Deaf Anthology's number of votes jumped up to 23. Congratulations!

UPDATE II: Poor guy, he's deflecting using a fantasy rebuttal. Tsk.

Walk4Hearing reaches pivotal fund raising goal

It took 10 months starting in January of this year the Walk4Hearing to finally reach their fund raising goal of $1.2 million dollars in record time. Money raised will be used toward resources for deaf and hard of hearing people. And why so quickly did it raise so much money in such a relatively short time? Simple. There was no politics mucking things up. No political correctness games. No secret agenda. No contacting employers because of disagreements or purely for hate against a person they don't like. No calling Child Protective Services. No practicing on exclusion.  No leading from behind. No leaving bad taste in people's mouths. No attacking other organizations. With HLAA, everybody is involved and we/they help each other out regardless of communication preferences.

Money raised is shared between the national organization (Hearing Loss Association of America) and local Walk sites.

Examples of how funds are used include:

National Programs

• Advocating for the rights of people with hearing loss
• Information, referral, education and coping resources through www.hearingloss.org, the Hearing Loss Magazine, the annual HLAA Convention, and the HLAA electronic newsletter
• A nationwide network of 200 chapters providing personal support
• 14 state organizations advocating for expanded state services
• Support for parents of children with hearing loss at www.kidsandhearingloss.org
• Outreach to veterans returning with hearing loss
• Social networking site for young adults with hearing loss at www.hearinglossnation.org

Local Programs

• Captioning and hearing assistive technology at chapter meetings to make them accessible
• Scholarships for students with hearing loss towards college tuition
• Funding for hearing aids and devices for people who cannot afford them
• Installation of hearing assistive technology in public places
• Captioning of live theater productions
• Seminars on coping with hearing loss for families

Congratulations to Walk4Hearing on their successful fund raising effort. I'm sure money will be put to good use.

Just watch me

In the world of business there are so many people out there who will tell you that you can't succeed. But what some of them will do is they turn around and say, "Just watch me!" And succeed they do. Because if people can succeed because of a product then success will be his and the company's.