Deaf Firefighter’s Blog

Want to touch on a few things here.

1) I wanted to admire Jill Bradbury and apologize to Ridor. (yes, I used those two phrases in the same sentence.) In an earlier post, I criticized Ridor for what I perceived to be a personal attack on Ms. Bradbury.

Ms. Bradbury added a comment saying that she thought the line was funny and basically swept the rug of righteous indignation I’d cultivated out from under my feet. So I want to apologize to Ridor for the slam and acknowledge Ms. Bradbury as a more gracious person than I ever will be.

2) The “coda” in this sense is not the typical “coda” that we think of in the deaf community (that is, child of deaf adults). Rather, this is going to be a concluding remark to my earlier posting.

Probably the most read and most commented blog entry here @ DeafFF-blog has been my posting criticizing the actions of Mr. Brian Riley during the protest.

Mr. Riley has been quite vocal both on the public comments and in private emails. Additionally, some new information came to light that requires me to correct my previous posting and redact an entire paragraph.

1. One of my main assertions was that Mr. Riley was acting independently and of his own volition. If you may recall, Mr. Riley has stated in other places that he’s had a cadre of prominent deaf people directing his actions. (an example: link – #248 ) I have since received emails from a prominent deaf leader (and a mover and shaker within the FSSA) confirming his assertions.
2. Secondly, Mr. Riley has a second name (Adrian Apollo) that he uses as part of his business ventures. I apologize to him for making fun of it in my first posting.

That said, I still believe that the actions he undertook in his relationship with Mr. Graham  constituted a form of “dirty tricks”. I seriously doubt Mr. Graham would have given Mr. Riley information if he knew what Mr. Riley’s true intentions and affiliations were.

More to the point, I am appalled by the disclosure that Mr. Riley’s actions were known to and in a sense, supervised by at least one senior member of the FSSA. It seems that in trying to achieve some noble goals, these “prominent deaf people” became just as bad as the people they were trying to throw out. Furthermore, they contend they are continuing their “investigative efforts” at this time.

While I demand that all questions resulting from the protest (from the $4 million dollars that is allegedly missing to reports of extensive damage at HMB during the “occupation”) should be answered transparently and fully, I believe these vigilante “investigative efforts” will cause irreparable harm Dr. Davila’s excellent work towards reunifying and rebuilding the campus.