Mr. Sandman's Sandbox

Update and Thoughts on Forever 21 Assault
Mr. Sandman Since the video of Alejandro (Alex) Rea being held in a headlock/chokehold by a security guard at Forever 21 on Hollywood Boulevard was broadcast on YouTube last week, the story has gained legs; it’s now on CNN, as well as updates on the local news. At this point [as PJ noted in the comments in the [...]
Fri, Aug 20 2010

If The Law Won’t Protect Us, What Will?
Mr. Sandman Well, it’s a few days later, and we now have more information; a lot more information. This time, L.A.’s ABC affiliate, KABC, ran a couple stories on this incident. The first gives us the suspect’s name, and the fact that he was suspected of and subsequently arrested for shoplifting. Apparently the suspect already had priors. However, [...]
Sun, Aug 15 2010

Security Abuses: Deaf Man Assaulted in L.A.
Mr. Sandman Security guards as a whole bother me. Too often they are hired for the simple purpose of “loss prevention,” a fancy term for an internal inspector to prevent shoplifting. Others are there for crowd control, or simply to lend an air of authority and “law and order” to a store, a stadium, a public building, [...]
Fri, Aug 13 2010

ADA: Attitude Adjustments
Mr. Sandman One of the major problems with legislation in general is that there can be a real difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. To put it another way, the code and the attitude. What may be morally and ethically right is not always backed by the law, and sometimes [...]
Wed, Aug 11 2010

The ADA: Happy Birthday to an Imperfect Law
Mr. Sandman As many of you may already know, today is the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); one of the few good things Papa Bush ever did. The ADA essentially built on protections granted on the federal level through the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, extending those protections to the private [...]
Tue, Jul 27 2010

Driving? Pay Attention!
Mr. Sandman One of my pet peeves about driving is people who use the phone while driving. It irritates me, not just because they drive slower, they don’t move when the light turns green, and they don’t do anything except stare straight ahead. It’s because they’re not paying attention. Not paying attention is a factor in many [...]
Mon, Jul 26 2010

Media and the Deaf: A Positive Update
Mr. Sandman Most of the time I groan when I read stories about deaf people in the paper or similar media. It often is one of those feel-good “triumph over adversity” or “triumph over disability” stories, and all too often uses the term “hearing-impaired.” There was one published in the L.A. Times about a football player at [...]
Thu, Jun 24 2010

Issues in the Deaf Blogosphere
Mr. Sandman As part of my return to blogging, I've been poking around here and there, re-familiarizing myself with the Deaf blogosphere. Most of my “news” and intake from the community these days, sadly enough, has been largely through Facebook. The limited amount of time I have these days means there will be limits to how much [...]
Wed, Jun 02 2010

Back To My Roots
Mr. Sandman “Blogging takes a lot [of] effort to keep it going while trying to be fresh, informative, fun, irratating [sic] or whatever just to keep loyal readers coming back for more or just something to fill their day.” It’s not often you’ll see me agree with the blogger who wrote this sentence, but it’s true. While the [...]
Sun, May 16 2010

Final Thoughts on DeafRead Controversy: A Brief Addendum
Mr. Sandman I finally have some time to attend to business here; that includes responding to the many comments in my last post. Since I was last here, the furor at and over DeafRead seems to have died down a bit. It's still on enough people's minds, though, that I want to add a couple more things. First, a [...]
Fri, Aug 01 2008

Some Final Thoughts on the Deaf Read Controversy
Mr. Sandman The deaf blogosphere has been a rather busy place lately, with all the fuss over DBC, Deafhood, Barry Sewell, and flamers hurling insults and emotional garbage at people. I've already said quite a bit, and I think there's only so much I or anyone else can say. At some point, as Aidan Mack pointed out last [...]
Thu, Jul 24 2008

A Comment on Deaf Read
Mr. Sandman Drama! Drama! Drama! DeafDirt! Come read this post! NOW NOW NOW There. Now I've done my part to convince people to come read this post. In reality, I don't dish out drama or gossip, for the most part; I tend to take rather sober, sometimes dry, but mostly thoughtful takes on many topics. Usually a post is [...]
Fri, Jul 18 2008

DeafRead, the Deaf Blogosphere, and Ethics
Mr. Sandman “Witch hunt” is the term I'm hearing more and more over the last couple of days. At first, I discounted that– but the last few hours that I've spent catching up on DeafRead and the deaf blogosphere, the more convinced I am that certain people who have axes to grind have inflicted their grievances on [...]
Wed, Jul 16 2008

Blogs Preach to the Choir?
Mr. Sandman Yesterday, while relaxing and reading the Sunday paper, I read an interesting Op-Ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. “Who listens to blogging heads?” by John Sides and Eric Lawrence is an interesting read, and addresses an issue that's been bouncing around my head for some time now. While computer ownership has increased over the years, [...]
Mon, Jul 14 2008

DBC and Deafhood: The Latest Deaf Blogosphere Brouhaha
Mr. Sandman As most of you know by now, the latest topic of the day in the deaf blogosphere is the furor over DBC (Deaf Bilingual Coalition). Like any good blogger, I'm jumping in here with my two cents. I've been away from the deaf blogosphere for a while, although occasionally I was alerted to blog postings here [...]
Sun, Jul 13 2008

A Blogversary, A Conference, and Some Thoughts
Mr. Sandman Yesterday, while most of the United States was tuned into the upset that was the Giants-Patriots game, a blogversary occurred. As of February 3, 2008, this blog has been floating around cyberspace for three years. I never thought it'd last that long; for me, it was just a way to gain some writing practice, vent [...]
Mon, Feb 04 2008

Sifting Through The Layers
Mr. Sandman The last couple of weeks, I've carved out some time to start cleaning up (ha!) the piles of papers and folders around here. Part of it is the usual housekeeping. But part of it is the annual preparation for the upcoming tax season. I always try to do this, because after seven or so years, [...]
Thu, Jan 10 2008

More Thoughts on the Deaf Blogosphere
Mr. Sandman In my last post on the Deaf Blogosphere, all of my commenters were optimistic about the future of our online community. But if you look at DeafRead lately, there seems to be a different tone. While some people are indeed touting the message that we can work together towards common goals, others are wondering [...]
Wed, Jan 09 2008

Thinking about the Deaf Blogosphere
Mr. Sandman Well, it's that time of year again. What started two years ago on Ridor's blog is now threatening to become a Deaf Blogosphere tradition: the annual Blog Awards, now hosted by DeafRead. If you haven't yet made nominations for this year's edition, there's still time, but not much– you have until midnight, Sunday, January 6. [...]
Sun, Jan 06 2008

21st Century Communication: How Technology is Shaping Us
Mr. Sandman Blogging is a form of communication I enjoy, and that is accessible regardless of the ability to hear. But there are other forms of communication as well; together, these methods shape our history. As a historian, there are different ways to access information, from oral histories to written documents to eyewitness accounts to secondary sources [...]
Fri, Dec 07 2007

Employers: You Pay Either Way
Mr. Sandman In the past few days, I embarked yet again on what has become a depressingly familiar scenario: looking for work. While I've had jobs here and there over the last couple of years, they've been mostly short-term gigs or part-time limited jobs, and none of them came with the comforts of health benefits. These days, in an era of vanishing benefits and pension...
Thu, Oct 18 2007

Customer Service in Corporate America
Mr. Sandman Lately I've been getting more and more fed up with customer service. I recently had to make several calls related to student loans and other financial matters (and don't get me started on student loans!). I imagine it's difficult enough to make these kinds of calls when you're hearing, but when you're deaf, there's the added layer o...
Wed, Oct 17 2007

DWD: Driving While Deaf
Mr. Sandman The verdict is in in the Doug Bahl case. Elizabeth over at Mishka Zena has posted a brief entry about the verdict itself, which sparked reaction across the Deaf blogosphere. Ridor's chimed in, and now Chris Heuer has posted at DeafDC as well. I posted about the Bahl case back when it first surfaced, last fall. At the time, I was dismayed that we are constantly [...]
Sat, Sep 15 2007

Discrimination in the Deaf-world: A Commenter Wants to Know
Mr. Sandman A friend of mine once told me he doesn't often read postings themselves. He finds the actual posts "somewhat boring." While I disagree with him on this, what he said next is true. "Often the real meat is in the comments. That's where the excitement is." Anyone who's hung out on DeafDC for any amount of time certainly knows [...]
Sat, Jul 14 2007

Coming to an Understanding
Mr. Sandman Sometimes it's difficult to get people to even try to understand what it's like to be deaf. Lots of times, kids learn a little bit in school, when they are introduced to headphones that mask sound, or have a deaf person visit their class. Sometimes people will do experiments at home, plugging up their ears for a short time. The same is true for [...]
Thu, Jun 21 2007

Beauty Past and Present: "Sleeping Beauty Wakes"
Mr. Sandman One fortunate aspect of living in a town like Los Angeles is the constant access to theater; whether through interpreted performances via Project D.A.T.E., or direct theater through Deaf West, we have the opportunity to attend plays every so often. I first encountered Deaf West during its very first play, "The Gin Game," and I was pleased recently to have [...]
Sat, May 05 2007

Hearing Aid Porn
Mr. Sandman Someone once told me my titles and posts are very "Googleable." If that's the case, I'd love to see what happens with the title above. In between brief breaks at my latest gig (which is robbing me of my sleep and sanity, slowly but surely...) where I'm having a lot of fun, I'm visiting with family and friends back home and [...]
Fri, Apr 13 2007

I Spoke Too Soon...
Mr. Sandman I think I spoke prematurely yesterday about my experience at the front desk at Gallaudet's Le Hotel Posh. Earlier in February, after attending the Blogging/Vlogging conference at Gallaudet, I bemoaned the desperate lack of ASL skills exhibited by the front desk staff at the GUKCC. I had hoped that someone, somewhere, in the bowels of campus would pick up on this [...]
Thu, Apr 12 2007

Someone Paid Attention!
Mr. Sandman I'm in DC for the Deaf history Conference at Gallaudet, a gathering that will honor the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Kendall Green and the subsequent history of what has since become Gallaudet University and its affiliated schools (MSSD and KDES). On the way to campus, it was really remarkable how the surrounding area has changed, even since my last [...]
Tue, Apr 10 2007

Leaving On A Jet Plane
Mr. Sandman Right now, I'm either safely in my seat, chewing some gum and reading a magazine, or (more likely!) dozing off to sleep as the stewardesses bustle up and down the aisle. I'll be leaving on a jet plane this morning for DC, so it's highly doubtful I'll have updates for you at this site until I return. If I can manage it, I will. More likely [...]
Tue, Apr 10 2007

Deaf Happily Ever After?
Mr. Sandman Deaf West Theatre has entered the post-Big River era lately, with its recent production of "One Act Plays: Krapp's Last Tape and Zoo Story" following in the footsteps of Open Window, which was performed at the venerable Pasadena Playhouse. Now, Deaf West's latest offering is Sleeping Beauty Wakes, starring Alexandria Wailes and Russell Harvard, [...]
Thu, Apr 05 2007

A Note on Authorship
Mr. Sandman I still haven't come to any ultimate conclusions about comments and clarifications and policies thereof, but the comments left in the last post gave me a LOT of food for thought. Thanks to all of you who have commented so far. I want to take this opportunity to address a concern of Mr. Riley's. He and I had an e-mail exchange following my post, and his [...]
Wed, Apr 04 2007

A Comment on Censorship
Mr. Sandman In the past, I've kidded a bit about "blogger wars," usually focusing on Ridor and his antagonist du jour. While there has been additional sniping in other quarters between bloggers, for the most part, we respect each other and interact with each other to some extent. I respect the majority of my fellow bloggers, and openly admire some of them. The [...]
Sat, Mar 31 2007

Congratulations to DCARA?s New CEO!
Mr. Sandman It's been pretty busy here lately– hope you haven't missed me too much! I'll be back with more food for thought, as well as some of what I've been up to of late. But for the moment, I'd like to quickly congratulate the new CEO of DCARA, the social services agency in the San Francisco [...]
Thu, Feb 22 2007

Rating GUKCC Continued
Mr. Sandman Before I left for the conference, I posted about the rack rates at the fancy-schmancy hotel at the GUKCC. It's now February 16, and they haven't changed a word– guess they don't like to dig around in the Sandbox. Well, I'm back from the conference. The room was much better this time than the [...]
Sat, Feb 17 2007

Gallaudet Conference: My Thoughts
Mr. Sandman I got home a few days ago from chilly Washington, D.C. (which since has become even more wintery), and promptly got caught up in stuff around here. Now that things have calmed down somewhat, I want to share some of my reflections on that event. As most of you know, I was one of the [...]
Sat, Feb 17 2007

?Whither Gallaudet??: My Remarks
Mr. Sandman I've just recently returned from a week in DC and the surrounding area. Right now, I'm rather exhausted, so I'll save my thoughts and reflections for the next post. In the meantime, just like a number of other participants at the conference at Gallaudet, I'd like to post the written version of my remarks. I [...]
Mon, Feb 12 2007

Entering the Terrible Twos
Mr. Sandman As you read this, I'm sitting somewhere on a teensy portion of 99 acres in Northeast DC. I'll share more about my trip and today's experiences specifically upon my return. Today is an anniversary (or as some would say, blogversary) for me. I haven't always posted daily, and there have been stretches of silence, but I've [...]
Sat, Feb 03 2007

Rating GUKCC
Mr. Sandman Well, I'm off to DC today, so I won't be stopping by much in the next few days. A short break from the blogosphere will do me much good! Like any good deafie, though, I have a pager. So we'll see just how addicted I truly am over the weekend and into next week. *grin* While [...]
Fri, Feb 02 2007

The Canaries in the Mine
Mr. Sandman One of the films up for an Oscar a couple weeks from now is “An Inconvenient Truth.” But whether it wins or not, I know enough people have seen it (or will now) that maybe all of us globally can start seriously figuring out what to do about the environment. By environment, I'm not necessarily talking [...]
Fri, Feb 02 2007

Guttural Voices
Mr. Sandman By now, many of you are aware of the article in today's Los Angeles Times, and on the front page at that. The profile of Shawn McDonald (and by extension, a profile of his school), one of the team captains of California School for the Deaf, Riverside's football squad, has already been commented on by [...]
Mon, Jan 29 2007

And the Nominees Are?
Mr. Sandman It's been quite a day for awards of all kinds. We just finished the Golden Globes, and now the Oscar nominations are public. (If you're as big or even bigger of a movie geek than I am, my past ruminations on the Oscars of the past couple years are here, here, and here.) This past [...]
Wed, Jan 24 2007

Whither the Deaf Blogosphere?
Mr. Sandman To me, the word “whither” is associated in my mind with academia; I've been to enough conferences to notice that at least one panel has the word “whither” in it (as opposed to “wither,” but that's a tale for another time...), no matter the conference. “Whither the American West?” “Whither Shakespeare?” [...]
Mon, Jan 15 2007

Celebration of Our Realm
Mr. Sandman At the end of 2005, Ricky Taylor set up on his initiative the Deaf Blog Awards. While there were some charges of self-promotion and a lack of impartiality, I thought it was a neat idea. At the very least, it exposed me to a number of blogs I wasn't aware of, and an opportunity to [...]
Thu, Jan 11 2007

Cheap Theatrics
Mr. Sandman Being out of commission is no fun, I'll tell ya. Especially when you're missing a paycheck. I know, lots of people would love a day off from work, and so would I, but if I'm gonna take a vacation, I wanna feel like I'm on vacation, and not somewhere between the picture of health and [...]
Thu, Jan 11 2007

Whys and Wherefores Continued
Mr. Sandman One of the things I needed to consider when I made the jump over to this site was what to do about comments. As I already said, I left behind Haloscan, and all the comments within. The original comments from my early days at Blogger ported just fine, and they're all here. Another thing I [...]
Thu, Jan 04 2007

Whys and Wherefores
Mr. Sandman Approximately a month and a half ago, I made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress, and more specifically, to having the blog hosted at DeafRead. At the time, I had a few curious readers who wondered why exactly I made the switch. I'd like to take a few moments to briefly explain now. The first, and [...]
Wed, Jan 03 2007

What Was and What Will Be
Mr. Sandman Happy New Year! Hard to believe it's 2007 already. Well, first things first. None of you, and I mean NONE of you, used the remaining shopping days after my last post and sent me a gift. Consequently, I have no Favorite Gift this year. Oh, and for the record, I've modified my will, with the help [...]
Wed, Jan 03 2007

It?s Davila
Mr. Sandman As many of you probably know by now, Dr. Robert Davila is to be the interim president of Gallaudet University starting January 1, 2007. I think it's a fine choice, and hopefully Dr. Davila will start by tackling some of the various items on many people's agenda, including the short list I included in my [...]
Sun, Dec 10 2006

Post-Tent City: IPSAC Unveils Finalists
Mr. Sandman I'm in the rearguard here, but better late than never, I suppose. By now, the majority of you know that the Interim President Selection Advisory Committee (IPSAC), headed by Dr. Jane Dillehay, submitted its recommendations to the Board, and the BoT has announced the three finalists for the (most likely thankless!) job of Interim President [...]
Fri, Dec 08 2006