Random Thoughts and Musings

Support Hamill? Yes and No
Random Thoughts and Musings Many, many people have weighed in with their opinion on the controversy surrounding Matt Hamill's decision to have Eben Kostbar play him in Kostbar's movie, Hamill. However, there is one element that has yet to be blogged about that I'd like to touch upon.Hamill is a member of the Deaf community and does not deserve to be vilified for this decision. It is for this rea...
Media Culture Mon, May 12 2008 · hide this blog

DeafSide: Home?
Random Thoughts and Musings The message at the DeafRead conference last winter, according to people who were there, was loud and clear - DeafRead was our home and now we don't have a safe harbor. Since then, DeafRead Custom has arrived. I see pros and cons to this approach, but I confess to having implemented it happily. And now we get DeafSide? Woo-hoo!!DeafRead Custom is an interesting creatur...
Language Tech Culture Sun, Apr 27 2008 · hide this blog

Don't Give Up!
Random Thoughts and Musings I've had a really, really rough 6 weeks, and there have been times when I've been ready to completely throw in the towel and just do nothing but my job, my family and friends, and my personal interests. No more community involvement. No more caring. I've had to deal with people who do not value the Deaf community, who are willing to tear down leaders to further their ...
Culture Sat, Apr 05 2008 · hide this blog

Michael Chorost on the rally
Random Thoughts and Musings I realize Amy Cohen Efron already submitted this link, but it doesn't work. Here it is again: [link] heartened to read about how peaceful the DBC California rally was and about how people are working to build bridges. This is the answer. It doesn't mean giving up our principles nor our Deaf center, but reaching out and showing the world how accepting and resp...
Culture Tue, Apr 01 2008 · hide this blog

DeafRead BROKEN. Do-do?
Random Thoughts and Musings What do we do about DeafRead? A simple blog aggregator has become the topic of so much controversy, people cannot even agree on whether or not DeafRead is broken. Those who agree that it’s broken can say what’s wrong, but they can’t agree on how to fix it. At the crux of the issue is: what exactly is DeafRead supposed to be?I’m a mere sporadic blogger, but I’ve been p...
Tech Culture Sun, Feb 10 2008 · hide this blog

Deaf People are Whole, Organic, and Natural
Random Thoughts and Musings I’m a WHOLE person!The message out in DeafBlogLand the past several weeks has changed significantly. It is trying more and more to tell me that I am not a whole person. I am lacking in family relationships, in opportunities, and many other things simply because I sign, prefer to be with other Deaf people most of the time, and have all but stopped using my voice in man...
Culture Fri, Feb 01 2008 · hide this blog

Inclusivity...At What Cost?
Random Thoughts and Musings I cannot remain silent any longer. I want to scream, "SHUT UP! STOP!!!," then in the shocked silence that follows, say my piece. I want to cry. I really do. It's painful for me to go to DeafRead now for so many reasons. As I write this, I am extremely mindful of the fact that current/future hearing parents of Deaf children may find this post and of the fact that my ow...
Sun, Jan 20 2008 · hide this blog

Interpreters: an asset or a crutch?
Random Thoughts and Musings Rant alert: Today we were treated (sarcasm intended) to a technology training workshop en masse. As if that weren't irritating enough, knowing that no one's needs were being met that way, the presenters, while well-meaning, were not prepared at all, screwing things up and not having what they needed prepared. That'd fry me all by itself, but something happened that ha...
Language Mon, Oct 08 2007 · hide this blog

The Topic That Would Not Die (or: ASL or No ASL? That is...
Random Thoughts and Musings Wow. I am blown away by the response to both of my recent posts discussing thoughts for all hearing parents. Both Amys continue to weigh in and other people continue to add their thoughts.It's clear that we are far from being on the same page here and we need to continue this dialogue in order to consider and understand varying perspectives. That said, here's *mine*: [...]
Media Language Audism Education Tech Culture Wed, Jul 25 2007 · hide this blog

More Thoughts for Hearing Parents and for Us to Consider
Random Thoughts and Musings I've been so torn up about Amy insisting that her children are fine the way they are. I've been thinking a lot about this whole thing, because it *is* much bigger than one mom and two deaf children.Before I go on, I do appreciate Amy's willingness to continue to talk with us. She clearly wants us to understand her choices. While we may strongly disagree and continue [...]
Language Audism Education Culture Sun, Jul 22 2007 · hide this blog

For All Hearing Parents of Deaf Children
Random Thoughts and Musings This is a message directly addressed to Amy and other parents of deaf children who do not support sign language. Amy, I've read your comments on Barb DiGi's entry that responds to your comments on John Egbert's site. I know you love your sons dearly and would do anything for them. I believe that you weighed everything very carefully before making your decision and [...]
Language Audism Fri, Jul 20 2007 · hide this blog

Oralism vs ASL: I'm getting irritated
Random Thoughts and Musings I just got in and am about to go out again, but I just had to take a bit of time to bang out some thoughts on the ongoing two-part saga at DeafDC.com. As of this writing, both entries have 100-plus comments and I've been following them avidly with great interest.One thing that absolutely *fries* me is that every time someone pro-ASL or pro-bilingualism speaks up, [...]
Culture Fri, Jul 13 2007 · hide this blog

Don't I get a say in this???
Random Thoughts and Musings I'm sitting in a doctor's office right now waiting for an anaesthetic to kick in, but I'm seething because a mediocre signer was nearly foisted upon me as my interpreter.**doctoruption**OK, now I'm home, ready to continue my tale. I was in to see a doctor I'd never seen before due to this odd lump in my throat (apparently an infected lymph node, a byproduct of a cold. [...]
Language Audism Mon, Jul 09 2007 · hide this blog

Should we or shouldn't we?
Random Thoughts and Musings I know I've been AWOL for a long time and I apologize to any of my readers who have been wondering where I went. Nowhere. I'm still here.I've been mulling something over for the past week - should deaf women keep their maiden names or not in order to show family affiliation? I met two women this week, one of which kept her maiden name. Soon after we met, I was able [...]
Culture Sat, Jun 23 2007 · hide this blog

Outing Myself (no, not that! *grin*)
Random Thoughts and Musings I'll confess something that may get a lot of double-takes from people who know me well. I have native or native-like proficiency in English and in ASL. I love both languages and I always prefer the original language to a translation. I'd rather watch TV with CC than watch an interpreter signing the episode, and I'd rather watch signing in a vlog than read [...]
Language Mon, May 14 2007 · hide this blog

A Tribute to My Hearing Mom
Random Thoughts and Musings On Mother´s Day, how can I not reflect on the kind of mother I have and what she has done for me, especially as a hearing mother of a deaf child? This is a woman who was born into a literate, well-educated family that has never forgotten its blue collar roots only a few generations back. This is a family with an intense love of history, travel, politics, discussions, [...]
Language Sun, May 13 2007 · hide this blog

The Real Info about CMP direct FROM CMP and an apology...
Random Thoughts and Musings Today proved that I really am all too human. I?ve always held myself to a high standard when blogging here, trying to make sure it comes across when I?m simply giving my opinion and by making sure of my sources when I report on things. Guess when I slip up, it?s a doozy. *sigh*This entry is going to do two things - set the record straight about CMP with information [...]
Thu, Mar 01 2007 · hide this blog

CMP IS NOT CLOSING ITS DOORS!
Random Thoughts and Musings Hey everyone,Thank you so much for your comments and thoughts! This is very, very brief, but to make a long story short, a mistake was made by the person sending the e-mail. I queried the person a few times to make absolutely SURE, and yes, that was what the person understood - CMP was indeed closing. I'm not going to name names nor job positions to spare the person [...]
Thu, Mar 01 2007 · hide this blog

The End of an Era of Accessibility
Random Thoughts and Musings Hoo boy. Today was a day of blows for me. First, I got some news at work today, which I will not delineate at this time. It was an honor, yet it was a blow because I truly had different goals. As I was reeling from this dramatic change in direction and focus this news brings me, I got an incredibly upsetting e-mail. The Captioned Media Program is closing its doors [...]
Thu, Mar 01 2007 · hide this blog

No more CMP?
Random Thoughts and Musings
Wed, Feb 28 2007 · hide this blog

Profanity in DeafBlogLand
Random Thoughts and Musings
Mon, Feb 19 2007 · hide this blog

Man, are we deafies flexible or what?
Random Thoughts and Musings It struck me today how fantastically well we deafies are able to adapt to situations that limit our communication access. I went to a water aerobics class, and this time was harder than usual thanks to an instructor who shot out instructions like a New Yorker on speed. I've done water aerobics off and on for years, thanks to a family that swims almost constantly and a [...]
Tue, Jan 30 2007 · hide this blog

Captioning all v-logs... Really?
Random Thoughts and Musings Jamie Berke has written twice now in the past few days to urge captioning of all video blogs, joining the small but growing chorus of calls for accessibility. Berke makes a number of good points, many of which I agree with. One I especially agree with is the need to be accessible to every segment of our community, which is crucial for our unification. After all, [...]
Thu, Jan 25 2007 · hide this blog

Concrete Reasons Against Anonymous Attacks
Random Thoughts and Musings As I sleepily read Chris Leon's entry about Ricky Taylor's threat to sue because of an offending comment, I fell in love with a response to the entry. It was able to describe why personal attacks are so damaging to unity, especially when they are done so under the veil of anonymity. We all know why, but this response contained salient issues and points that need to be [...]
Tue, Jan 09 2007 · hide this blog

There but for the grace of God go I
Random Thoughts and Musings
Sun, Jan 07 2007 · hide this blog

Little Pitchers...
Random Thoughts and Musings I've been following all the comments and posts about the Bay Area gala event with great interest. The person who can be credited (or blamed, depending on your perspective) is Chris Leon with a roar posted the day of the gala, several hours before it began. While I, naturally, am stunned at the viciousness of some of the attacks and have thoughts about the need to [...]
Thu, Jan 04 2007 · hide this blog

A Kinder, Gentler 2007
Random Thoughts and Musings I just had the most interesting experience. When I only had a private blog with a teeny, tiny readership consisting of close friends and family, I wrote a review of a collection of deaf cinema that was shown all at once one night. The first film was Jennifer Visco dancing and signing an apparently original song, talking about how we are all deaf "same-you-me," no [...]
Tue, Jan 02 2007 · hide this blog

We All Matter
Random Thoughts and Musings My mind's just jumping all over the place right now... from the micro level (the moi-universe) to the macro level (the entire deaf community) and many points in between. Even though my thoughts are a real jumble right now, three themes are emerging:1. We are all amazing and we all have something to contribute.2. I'm being expected to do too damn much, and I need to [...]
Wed, Dec 13 2006 · hide this blog

What if Alexander Graham Bell never existed?
Random Thoughts and Musings One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Sliders, a sci-fi show about an unlikely quartet that is stuck wandering the multiverse, landing on parallel/alternate earths in a perhaps vain attempt to return to their home Earth (known as Earth Prime.) They travel the Einstein-Rosen-Podolosky wormhole between Earths over five seasons. During their five seasons together, [...]
Mon, Nov 20 2006 · hide this blog

The protest climaxed... now for the denouement
Random Thoughts and Musings WOW!!! This has been an incredible day. I didn't expect Pandora, my pager, to survive the barrage of e-mails trading information, reactions, and the like from all over the nation, but she managed. She's now taking a breather.I had decided to declare a moratorium on protest-related news and messages for most of the weekend. I spent yesterday curled up in bed with my [...]
Mon, Nov 20 2006 · hide this blog

So where is ASL from anyway?
Random Thoughts and Musings Carl Schroeder posits the idea that we have no concrete evidence that ASL is descended from la langue des signes française (LSF), and cites one source that is rife with grammatical and spelling errors. It is an interesting supposition and one that may have some credence. I, however, beg to differ.Schroeder is right in that we have no record of what ASL looked like in [...]
Mon, Nov 20 2006 · hide this blog

So IS ASL descended from French signs or not???
Random Thoughts and Musings Carl Schroeder posits the idea that we have no evidence that ASL is descended from la langue des signes française (LSF), and cites one source that is rife with grammatical and spelling errors. It is an interesting supposition and one that may have some credence. I, however, beg to differ.Schroeder is right in that we have no record of what ASL looked like in the [...]
Sun, Nov 19 2006 · hide this blog

"I wanna go to Gally, but I don't wanna sign."
Random Thoughts and Musings There is an interesting discussion going on at DeafDC.com. Christopher Brown wrote this thoughtful article designed to spark discussion about how to fix Gallaudet, but the discussion has strayed to other items. I actually feel sorry for the dude, 'cause his article was thought-provoking and deserves to be discussed. I was very surprised by one discussion thread. [...]
Tue, Nov 07 2006 · hide this blog

Paradigms
Random Thoughts and Musings Two and a half weeks ago, on January 7th, I had the first audiogram I've had since my college days. I had to have it in order to prove my eligibility for interpreting services for my credential classes this spring. When my hearing was last laid bare on paper for all to survey, my numbers read as follows:Left ear: 85 dB HLRight ear: 90 dB HLWell, on the 7th, I sat in a [...]
Sat, Nov 04 2006 · hide this blog

What if Alexander Graham Bell never existed?
Random Thoughts and Musings One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Sliders, a sci-fi show about an unlikely quartet that is stuck wandering the multiverse, landing on parallel/alternate earths in a perhaps vain attempt to return to their home Earth (known as Earth Prime.) They travel the Einstein-Rosen-Podolosky wormhole between Earths over five seasons. During their five seasons together, [...]
Sat, Nov 04 2006 · hide this blog

Question of the day
Random Thoughts and Musings I'm not sure what sent me off onto this tangent, but for the past half hour, I've been mulling the question of how the heck ANY deaf person learns how to speak spoken English. It's not like it's the first time I've ever wondered this, but I still don't get it.Take the word paradigm. Who'd know from looking at it that the g is silent? The Thames River - who'd know that [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

The Nature of Oppression
Random Thoughts and Musings One situation at work has really rankled for a few years and it was recently resolved. Without going into specifics, we as a team were discussing whether or not we wanted to change one policy, and if so, how we would change it. Most of us wanted to change it in a certain way to reflect Deaf cultural norms and the change would be linguistically appropriate in ASL. One [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

Dysconscious audism
Random Thoughts and Musings My new favorite phrase - dysconscious audism. Dysconscious audism is basically defined as audism (a belief and attitude that to be deaf is to be inferior to hearing people) perpetrated by members of the Deaf community because they have internalized attitudes that the hearing way is superior due to the systemic and pervasive oppression all around us.Last night Dr. [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

What is the Least Restrictive Environment?
Random Thoughts and Musings Tonight at the gathering, we discussed a lot of stuff. But one thing we discussed was mainstreaming. I have grown to hate mainstreaming more and more as I become older. This is not intended to be a "bashing mainstreaming" post. As I said in an earlier post, we did not choose our educational experiences - our parents chose that for us. This is simply intended to posit [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

Reclaiming our dignity and equality
Random Thoughts and Musings This issue has been bothering me for a while. In fact, I blogged about it on my private blog last week and just now decided to bring the topic over here. I work in a school for the Deaf, in a position that has frequent, direct student contact. The mission and values of the school purportedly provide a safe, fully accessible place for all of our students and all of our [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

The protest climaxed... now for the denouement
Random Thoughts and Musings WOW!!! This has been an incredible day. I didn't expect Pandora, my pager, to survive the barrage of e-mails trading information, reactions, and the like from all over the nation, but she managed. She's now taking a breather.I had decided to declare a moratorium on protest-related news and messages for most of the weekend. I spent yesterday curled up in bed with my [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

The Topic du Jour in the Deaf-World
Random Thoughts and Musings All over the United States for the past few weeks, pagers have been vibrating and humming. Blogs have been abuzz with people furiously typing entries and with others commenting on those entries. AIM, videophone, and face-to-face conversations have been consumed with one topic. What topic has the Deaf community in such a tizzy? Why, the impending selection of Gallaudet [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

To voice or not to voice? That is the question.
Random Thoughts and Musings For months now, Dr. Brenda Brueggemann's choice to voice instead of signing her speech at Gallaudet's commencement last May has been a source of controversy, and the renewal of the protest has also brought renewed debate regarding her choice. There are those who yowl in outrage, saying her choice was audistic and oppressive, while there are those who defend her choice [...]
Mon, Oct 30 2006 · hide this blog

Elitism, Deafhood & the Current Protest
Random Thoughts and Musings This is the first time I?ve signed into my Blogger account since early this month. There is so much I want to talk about, because so much has happened in the last two months. But those posts will have to remain simply nuggets and partially-written snippets in a word processing file for the time being. On to the topic.As we all know, the Deaf community is in the midst [...]
Sat, Oct 28 2006 · hide this blog

Question of the day
Random Thoughts and Musings I'm not sure what sent me off onto this tangent, but for the past half hour, I've been mulling the question of how the heck ANY deaf person learns how to speak spoken English. It's not like it's the first time I've ever wondered this, but I still don't get it.Take the word paradigm. Who'd know from looking at it that the g is silent? The Thames River - who'd know that [...]
Fri, Oct 06 2006 · hide this blog

To voice or not to voice? That is the question.
Random Thoughts and Musings For months now, Dr. Brenda Brueggemann's choice to voice instead of signing her speech at Gallaudet's commencement last May has been a source of controversy, and the renewal of the protest has also brought renewed debate regarding her choice. There are those who yowl in outrage, saying her choice was audistic and oppressive, while there are those who defend her choice [...]
Fri, Oct 06 2006 · hide this blog

Reclaiming our dignity and equality
Random Thoughts and Musings This issue has been bothering me for a while. In fact, I blogged about it on my private blog last week and just now decided to bring the topic over here. I work in a school for the Deaf, in a position that has frequent, direct student contact. The mission and values of the school purportedly provide a safe, fully [...]
Sat, Sep 09 2006 · hide this blog

Update: Access, kindness, and cooperation
Random Thoughts and Musings Mr. Sandman and MishkaZena commented on my previous entry about museum access, rightly pointing out that their saying that there was only one copy was unacceptable. I agree, and I had already mentally composed a letter saying very much what they said. Thank you, Mr. Sandman and MishkaZena, for your eloquently crafted arguments showing that the museum bears most of [...]
Wed, Sep 06 2006 · hide this blog

The Nature of Oppression
Random Thoughts and Musings One situation at work has really rankled for a few years and it was recently resolved. Without going into specifics, we as a team were discussing whether or not we wanted to change one policy, and if so, how we would change it. Most of us wanted to change it in a certain way to reflect Deaf cultural norms and [...]
Wed, Sep 06 2006 · hide this blog

Access, kindness, and cooperation
Random Thoughts and Musings The Golden Rule is always a good way to live our lives, but it is especially true when it comes to access issues. If we all did to others what we wanted others to do to us, the world would be a kinder place.My point in spouting off about kindness and the Golden Rule, you ask? Well, I went [...]
Tue, Sep 05 2006 · hide this blog