Mr. Sandman's Sandbox

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 [...]
Higher Education Language Art and Storytelling Tech Culture Mon, Feb 04 2008 · hide this blog

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, [...]
Language Tech Thu, Jan 10 2008 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Culture Wed, Jan 09 2008 · hide this blog

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. [...]
Language Art and Storytelling Tech Culture Sun, Jan 06 2008 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Language Tech Culture Thu, Dec 06 2007 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Language Audism Education Culture Sat, Jul 14 2007 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Art and Storytelling Sat, May 05 2007 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Thu, Apr 12 2007 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Wed, Apr 11 2007 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Fri, Feb 16 2007 · hide this blog

?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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 [...]
Wed, Jan 03 2007 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

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 · hide this blog

Not Again?
Mr. Sandman Police abuse occurs often enough in society in general that many well-known incidents (especially against blacks!) stand out in the public consciousness: Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, and Abner Louima are just some examples. The latest in the news these days concern Sean Bell in New York, who was shot 50 times, and here in Los [...]
Mon, Dec 04 2006 · hide this blog

The Future of the Deaf Blogosphere
Mr. Sandman Yeah, I know– most of you deaf readers out there are used to the term “DeafBlogLand,” coined by Moi; just figure me for a subversive stick-in-the-mud, okay? *grin* Anyway, the deaf blogosphere. It's grown by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, and lately has just exploded, thanks to the Tent City Protest. [...]
Thu, Nov 30 2006 · hide this blog

Time to Abandon the Rose-Colored Glasses
Mr. Sandman Well, surprise, surprise. NBC is now finally admitting the obvious: Iraq is mired in a civil war. I'm not sure exactly when this war-torn nation crossed the line from merely being occupied by an invader to being bogged down in internal strife, but that point was definitely passed some time ago. I can't find it [...]
Thu, Nov 30 2006 · hide this blog

NOW Christmastime Can Begin!
Mr. Sandman For me, the holidays are always a fun time of year– probably because when I was growing up, my mother would always bring out all the decorations pertinent to that holiday. Most of these trappings were homemade, so they had that special quality to it. For example, I still fondly remember the yellow moon with [...]
Fri, Nov 24 2006 · hide this blog

More Than One Truth
Mr. Sandman This past summer, the Middle East exploded yet again, when Israel invaded Lebanon in response to Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers. Regardless of the actors and the reasons (valid or not) behind these conflicts, discord between Israel and its neighbors has been going on for generations now, ever since the United Nations decided in [...]
Wed, Nov 22 2006 · hide this blog

Rebirth
Mr. Sandman It’s the same old blog, but a brand-new platform. Oh, yeah, and a brand new look! While I’ll miss the old-fashioned, “historian” font style and look, I think this is going to be a great home for all my rants and raves. All 270 previous posts have found their way here, so we’ll just pick up [...]
Thu, Nov 16 2006 · hide this blog

Blogger: Ave et Vale
Mr. Sandman You know, nothing is forever. Everything is finite, even the universe. So it stands to reason this blog is impermanent as well.Now, before you start wondering, no-- I haven't decided to quit blogging. I know there's been long stretches of silence, moments of herky-jerkiness, where I've backposted and filled in the void. But generally, I've managed to keep this blog [...]
Wed, Nov 15 2006 · hide this blog

BoT Forges Ahead
Mr. Sandman Since November began, there hasn't been a lot of news coming from Kendall Green (although the post-mortem in the press is another matter!). But the past few days saw press releases from the Board of Trustees indicating it's full steam ahead.On Saturday, November 11, BOT chair Pamela Holmes released a statement regarding the BoT's meeting and the fact that they heard [...]
Tue, Nov 14 2006 · hide this blog

Gallaudet: Public Perceptions
Mr. Sandman In the wake of the revocation of Fernandes' promotion by the Board of Trustees, the Deaf Blogosphere (or DeafBlogLand, if you will) celebrated and conducted an online assessment of the conclusion of the protest. Not to be outdone, the Corporate Media weighed in with its own postmortem-- but it wasn't very pretty.While our internal community's retrospective was [...]
Tue, Nov 14 2006 · hide this blog

El Día de Santos
Mr. Sandman Once again, Halloween transitions overnight into Dias de Los Muertes-- the Days of the Dead. Today is All Saints Day, and tomorrow is All Souls Day-- the days when the veil between the living and the departed is most fragile, and the quick are said to commune with the dead. It's a Latin American tradition, and one that has taken hold over the years in the United [...]
Thu, Nov 02 2006 · hide this blog

Eye of Newt, and Toe of Frog
Mr. Sandman Gallaudet may have dominated this blog and many, many others over the past month, but Gallaudet isn't and never has been the center point of my world. As I told friends a couple weeks ago, "When all this is over, I don't want to hear the word 'Gallaudet' again for about a year." The actual protest has ended (so far!), and my thoughts will be turning to some of the [...]
Tue, Oct 31 2006 · hide this blog

Tent City: Aftermath Part II
Mr. Sandman Last night I discussed some possible ideas for how to handle the transition, and what I thought the Board of Trustees should do next. Now I'd like to examine yet again each group involved in the protest, and where I think they might (or should) go from here (I previously examined the actors in Framing the Stalemate: Intermission, where I explored what each party had [...]
Tue, Oct 31 2006 · hide this blog

Tent City: Aftermath and Possible Solutions
Mr. Sandman Tonight, there are celebrations all over Deaf America; the protesters succeeded in forcing the BoT's hand. Yet, just as with DPN, there are larger, overarching problems and issues that remain, that will have to be dealt with. Now is the time for all of us, whether we are leaders on the ground, leaders of long-standing repute, or bloggers with any shred of influence, [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

Tent City: What Now?
Mr. Sandman It's official: Jane K. Fernandes was immediately removed as President-Designate of Gallaudet University, and will not be assuming the Presidency outright come January 1, 2007.The key information is at the very beginning of the communique: Today, we announce with much regret and pain that after serious deliberation in a special, all-day Executive Session of the Board [...]
Sun, Oct 29 2006 · hide this blog

Tent City: Bulldozing the Opposition
Mr. Sandman By now, those of you who have been paying attention to the Tent City Protest (and with even more national and international Tent Cities popping up, it's my belief that this name is very appropriate, rather than "Unity for Gallaudet" or "Gallaudet United Now," or any of these other monikers with "unity" in them-- I'm sorry, but it's still my opinion that this whole [...]
Sat, Oct 28 2006 · hide this blog