Echo

Four Senses
Echo Most of us have five senses but I only have four because I'm deprived of my hearing. It doesn't make me less of a person than the persons that have five senses and I like to think that my loss of hearing makes me more acute in other senses. Looking at photos I took, I [...]
Sun, Nov 27 2011

Sign Language Posts on Helium
Echo Some of you already know I write for a website called helium.com and while that's not the point of the post, I started looking at maybe writing a few articles about learning sign language, I wanted to see what was already on the website and I was a bit appalled. While baby sign language might [...]
Fri, Oct 14 2011

Disrespect on Relay
Echo What just happend has me fuming. A bit more upset than I should be and it's only because it's the first time something like this has happend in quite awhile so I'm kind of trying to figure out how to approach this. I went ahead and contacted the supervisor of this Karla lady. People wonder [...]
Wed, Oct 12 2011

Video Conversations
Echo As everybody
Thu, Sep 15 2011

Veditz Center Deals
Echo Veditz Center has been dealing with a lot of change lately including board structure, structure of organization, new board members, people leaving, and dealing with a big issue with the community. Even through those ups and downs, Veditz Center is still here and is going as strong as ever! Here are some highlights of the [...]
Sun, Dec 19 2010

Deaf Culture
Echo While I'm president of a non-profit organization that focuses entirely on empowerment and freeing the Deaf community from oppression and give them a safe place to go and express themselves in their natural language, it's a big struggle to understand entirely what the Deaf community is looking for in terms of awareness, education, and empowerment. [...]
Thu, Dec 09 2010

Are Vlogs Equal to Blogs
Echo Are vlogs better than blogs or are they equal? That happens to be an age old controversy not because of technology but written vs signed. There are some people in the Deaf community that would argue that blogs are actually more effective in communicating because of the audience. Vlogs are definitely great for visual images [...]
Wed, Dec 08 2010

Veditz Center Twitter
Echo Veditz Center has finally reactivated their twitter account. It was never de-activated just inactive which means it was just sitting there. Their most recent update had to do with the CDI students that are in their CDI program. Last I checked, there were roughly 9 of the original 12 students and they are to be [...]
Tue, Dec 07 2010

Advocating for Ourselves
Echo We spend so much time trying to fight for ourselves that we forget what we are truly fighting for. We are fighting for our peers, co-workers, families, friends, and even enemies to understand the struggles we, Deaf people,  go through daily. It'd only take an army of deaf people to get everybody in the world [...]
Mon, Dec 06 2010

Justin Buckhold Leaves Veditz Center
Echo Justin Buckhold is the founder of Veditz Center and has decided it is time for him to move forth.
Sat, Dec 04 2010

Why Reading is Important
Echo When we look at our children, we may beam in pride because their language is flourishing or we may cringe because we know they aren't getting the type of education they need to be able to read and write well. The only way we can improve a child's reading/writing/english skills is to expose them. It's [...]
Thu, Dec 02 2010

Veditz Center Additions
Echo The Veditz Center board is working hard to wrap up the 2010 year and one of the things they are doing is ensuring that their Teen Program does not end without another event! The Veditz Teens program has a event coming up in December and they're excited to announce it in Thursday's Crowded Kitchen edition. [...]
Tue, Nov 30 2010

Non-Profit Work
Echo When working for a non-profit organization sometimes the hardest thing is getting it back on track or even started! One of my most recent meetings was with Daisy Bravo and I have to say this woman is AMAZING! She spent 3-4 years working on setting up her organization, ASL World and made sure it had [...]
Fri, Nov 19 2010

Crowded Kitchen Issues
Echo Crowded Kitchen is the newest addition to Veditz Center. While some people don't understand why it has been established when we already have Colorado Deaf here in Denver, others are thrilled. Veditz Center has gotten raves and people are so happy that there's a newer news service. People might wonder why this is the case. [...]
Mon, Oct 11 2010

Customer Rights
Echo When we discuss issues like Sorenson and so forth, we are not always thinking about customer rights. More often than not, we focus on the idea that perhaps Corporations are corrupt and still making money off us because they can. It's really quite the opposite. We are enabling them to do this by using their services and [...]
Thu, Aug 26 2010

Exercising without Headphones
Echo I've been tempted to pretend that I can hear and pull on headphones and exercise with them but then again would it really help me any because I really can't hear the words, song, or anything except the bass and it has to be turned on high enough that it'd probably bother other people around [...]
Tue, Jul 06 2010

Florida Trip
Echo Seems like sometimes when we write things in our blog we don't realize that details are missing because like regular conversations, we assume people understand what's going on and know every little detail. Apparently I forgot to share a few details about my flight and why I went to florida. Sometimes when we are part [...]
Sat, Jul 03 2010

Act of Kindness
Echo When we arrive at any sort of destination that we may feel overwhelmed at, it can become frightening especially if you can't hear. It's hopeful that you'll meet the sort of people I saw today at the airport. A larger elderly lady with hearing aids looked around confused, the woman sitting next to me looked [...]
Tue, Jun 29 2010

Community Advocate
Echo When struggling in any given community, as a member of a small community, we often give up sooner than we should. One of the examples of a bigger issue at hand would be the Immigration laws in Arizona. Arizona laws are made for the state of Arizona and there has been a lot of commotion over [...]
Mon, Jun 14 2010

Educational Involvement
Echo Getting involved with other organizations other than organizations that are deaf have been very educational. Whenever I want to learn something new, going out there and getting educated is important to me especially when it's something that can benefit me and the rest of the community as a whole. Some things that I consider examples [...]
Wed, Jun 02 2010

Gizmodo Shares “Happiness”
Echo “Cochlear Implant Gives Deaf  Baby the Gift of Sound” Emphasis on deaf baby, this child is 8 months old and is having his implant turned on. The emphasis on the age is important because it's becoming never too soon for a baby to have an implant. What's next, the second the baby comes out of the [...]
Sat, May 29 2010

“Gallaudet”
Echo This morning I watched “Gallaudet” which is to be viewed  (www.facundoelement.com) on June 1, 2010. There have been a lot of vlog posts and excitement about this film and it's clear why. I would like to share a few things about the film but it is important to remember that it's from a objective point [...]
Fri, May 28 2010

Ah the Irony
Echo A few weeks ago I wrote an article on Veditz Center's website and how poorly educating it is especially for a non-profit organization. After that email, Bucky, the founder and current Director of Veditz Center called me out to meet with him. The meeting was rather interesting because it included a lot of beneficial information [...]
Thu, May 27 2010

RIT 2010 Graduation
Echo Going to RIT's graduation was rather interesting and there were some things that came up. These things are important for people to know, not just in Rochester but all over. It's known that NTID is one of RIT's 9 colleges and is somewhat separated from the rest of the campus but that doesn't mean it is [...]
Tue, May 25 2010

Educating Parents
Echo When parents are being confronted with new things and aren't educated on what to do with their children, they can appear to be bad parents because they are not doing everything possible to provide for their child's needs. This is true with a lot of deaf children because their parents don't necessarily provide all the [...]
Sun, May 16 2010

Captionfish
Echo Caption fish is a great use to those that enjoy attending movies at the theatre but want captioning. Usually we would either look it up in the newspaper or call the theatre and find out. That can be quite a bit of work but all of that work is now eliminated by the use of [...]
Sat, May 15 2010

The VRS Battle Continues
Echo Sorenson has sent out a message warning people about the issues with FCC and how they would like the Deaf Community to contact FCC and ask for a fairer rate. There are many different ways people have reacted to this: fear, anger, disgust, and some people did not react at all. Bloggers have either warned [...]
Fri, May 14 2010

What a Shocker
Echo This is not the first time that Sorenson has asked for our help telling FCC to not cut rates! Back in 2007, there was a vlog post by Amy Cohen Efron about challenging Sorenson to show the hard evidence of their losses if FCC were to cut rates. To view the Vlog Post go here. This is a [...]
Thu, May 13 2010

9 News Hang-Up Pledge
Echo A death of a child is always traumatic because it corrupts the order of life where parents are ideally supposed to die first. Parents want to outlive their children and see their children grow old with their loved ones, that's not going to happen for the Forneys. “Nine-year-old Erica Forney was just a few pedals away [...]
Thu, May 13 2010

Does Deafness Have to Equal Pity
Echo Recently a brief article about a Deaf reporter who sat on television and talked about disabilities in Chicago has come to my attention. This article is about two years old and you can find it at about.com. The article is not what portrays self-pity it's the comments that some people left. “I think it's doing more harm than good” said [...]
Wed, May 12 2010

Rocky Mountain Deaf School Director’s Mistake
Echo RMDS is indeed actually doing a lot of great things for its community in Golden, Colorado however there has been something brought to the community's attention and that is using deafness as a degrading thing in order to gather funds. It is clear that RMDS needs funds to get a new building so they can [...]
Tue, May 11 2010

Sorenson Scare
Echo Today I've been feeling better so it has been time for me to think about what kind of evaluation to give this whole sorenson scare and whether we should really take it seriously. The first thing that was done was they left a message on probably every single VP that was hooked up ever. Every number [...]
Tue, May 11 2010

Veditz Center Questions
Echo After my post yesterday, some observations I've made have been obviously proven right by the tax issues that our non-profit organizations are facing (deaf community) if they are unable to raise over 25k in 3 years, there's something very wrong with the picture! This is my first attempt on asking questions in my blog because usually [...]
Sun, May 09 2010

Common Goals
Echo A common issue here in Colorado and it seems, elsewhere for deaf organizations is to find a way to work together. Regardless of whether we want to admit it or not, we all work towards a common goal, the betterment of the Deaf community in one way or another. Why is it such a hard [...]
Fri, May 07 2010

Bill AB2072 Problems
Echo “Yesterday, we learned that a bill known as AB2072 was passed within the Assembly Health Committee sending the bill to the California State Assembly to be debated on the Assembly floor.” (Thomsen Young) While this bill has been angrily discussed by a lot of Deaf people, have we ever thought about the reality of the world [...]
Thu, May 06 2010

College Education
Echo It has been rumored that only two percent of the deaf community goes to college, and even fewer actually graduate from college. Why is it that we should hold deaf people to lower standards than hearing people? Is this because they don't have the opportunities or they just don't want to take advantage of them? [...]
Wed, May 05 2010

First Echo Video Post
Echo I'm not crazy about the idea of sharing a Vlog Post but I've done it so I can play around and see what it's like. Also this post enables me to share what I'm hoping to get out of this blog! Enjoy and remember, don't laugh at me!
Wed, May 05 2010

Community’s Mixed Reaction
Echo One of the things that NAD has been working on lately is trying to get dictionaries to recognize a word that they feel is important to educate people on the way that deaf people are oppressed. The word is audism. Audism was first come up in 1975 and is defined as, “is generally defined as prejudice, [...]
Tue, May 04 2010

Deaf Community
Echo There has been a discussion recently about a deaf blogger, Dan Schwartz. He is a deaf person but he has been creating more enemies than friends in the deaf community because of some things he has chosen to say in a forum specifically for deaf people. The quote is: “If you're into Deaf culture, get lost: [...]
Tue, May 04 2010

Learn to Ask Questions
Echo Often we don't ask enough questions before joining an organization and later regret not getting enough information because it's not what we expected. When you are getting excited about joining an organization as a member, board member, volunteer, or even just somebody that regularly supports the events that the organization does. Why don't we ask que...
Mon, May 03 2010

Using Videophones in Work Environment
Echo One thing that makes finding a job difficult is not being able to answer phones especially when you're able to do everything else. Answering the phone is probably what has killed my ability to get a job at the last 20 places I would've hired if that wasn't on the list of requirements. If only [...]
Mon, May 03 2010

Getting Involved | Deaf Advocacy Agencies
Echo As a recent graduate from Rochester Institute of Technology and being a member of my sorority, I had the privilege to be educated  on what I hope will be a big part of my life. My sorority was and has been involved with ASADV (Advocacy Services for Abused Deaf Victims) but not as much as we [...]
Sun, May 02 2010

Daytona Beach: Rape of Deaf Woman
Echo A Deaf woman in Daytona Beach was raped on July 1, 2007 in a stolen vehicle. When she had refused to provide oral sex after being forced into the vehicle, she was choked by him. He also pointed a gun at her head and raped her on the spot. After escaping when he had put [...]
Sun, May 02 2010

Cochlear Implant Controversy
Echo There is a uprise in the deaf community over a recent video called, “Missoula Moanings” on YouTube. Currently it has been set at a private setting and people can't view it without the permission of the poster. The main issue right now is not that the video is on a private setting but what the [...]
Sat, May 01 2010