On the Deaf Blogsphere

September 21st, 2007, 3:37 pm · Post a Comment · posted by

I regularly visit DeafRead.com for the latest, but some of you may not be visiting DeafRead.com so I am going to highlight a few things here.

Douglas Duane Bahl

In the month of November 2006, Douglas Bahl, a well known advocate in the Twin Cities Deaf community (Minnesota) and St. Paul College instructor, was pulled over for traffic violation. It escalated into beating and arrest before Bahl was tossed in jail with no accommodations for the Deaf. While in jail, he had no interpreter or access to a TTY for his allowed phone call from jail. He sat in jail for 4 days without a way of letting a loved one know where he was. His family had no idea where he was and were searching frantically for him until he got a call through to them on the last day of his jail stay.

His trail recently went to court and he was judged guilty for “obstructing legal process” and not guilty for “criminal battery.”

The local newspaper carried this article on Doug’s trail. Fellow Deaf blogger, Misha Zena, has several very good blog posts covering Doug Bahl’s case by order of oldest to most recent.

Ricky Taylor, aka Ridor also posted some:

The Orangie Deaf Blog suggests this Free Deaf Motorist Kits, and mkrajnak suggests in a vlog to use the free visor cards from Center for Hearing Loss Help to try and avoid difficult conflicts arising from misunderstandings. NAD (National Association of the Deaf) issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to effective communication between Police and Deaf community.

* Yuba-Sutter locals, this query is open to all of the community — Police officers, Deaf /Hard of Hearing, and Hearing members. Granted, we have a fairly good relationship with each other here in the Yuba-Sutter areas, but we are still hearing horror stories in other cities. What are your thoughts and feelings on this?

Ridor - Loved and Hated.

Fellow Deaf blogger, Ricky Taylor, better known as Ridor, has been featured on Style’s Weekly cover. Style is a weekly publication in Richmond, Virginia. If you don’t know who he is, Ridor has been called the Deaf Howard Stern of the Deaf blogsphere. Outspoken, caustic and opinionated, his blog is a no holds barred discussion. His blog, RidorLIVE was voted 2006 Blog of DeafRead.com for his extensive coverage and commentary of the protests over I. King Jordan’s successor as president of Gallaudet University.

* Ridor, I’m getting a copy of that Style Weekly!

Deaf Bilingual Coalition

I watched the birth and formation of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition (DBC) happen online. They had their first public demonstration in end of July at the 2007 Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing convention “Talk for a Lifetime” in Arlington, Virginia. PR Newswire picked up the event in an publication “Deaf Bilingual Coalition to Protest AG Bell´s Summer Conference.”

The purpose of the Deaf Bilingual Coalition is to advocate the inclusion of American Sign Language in deaf children’s upbringing and education. AG Bell focuses on the elimination of American Sign Language through emphasizing and promoting Auditory Verbal Therapy, known as AVT. AG Bell has a long history of promoting Dr. Bell’s belief that deaf children should not be taught the use of sign language. In effect, denying deaf children the skills to acquire language.

DBC recently had a local meeting on August 24 in the Bay area. This local meeting was covered by Joey Baer in his blog with 5 videos. * A Note: The videos in Joey Baer’s blog don’t have voice over yet, but will be coming very soon.

Deaf Bilingual Coalition was founded by John F. Egbert, a Deaf man who discovered American Sign Language as an adult. He had been brought up through the Oral Method, speaking and lipreading, something that only 2% of the Deaf population can achieve. When he learned American Sign Language, he recognized it as the native language of the Deaf, being 100% accessible to the deaf. He also authored a novel “Mindfield” (ISBN 978-0595421589, iUniverse, Inc., http://www.egbertpress.com). John F. Egbert is passionate about deaf children having the opportunity to learn and be allowed to use American Sign Language, rather than being denied it.

DBC is also a not-for-profit organization supported by California Association of the Deaf (CAD).

Matt Hamill Robbed in Bisping vs. Hamill fight

Old news, but so many ardent followers blogged on the split decision of the Bisping vs. Hamill fight that granted Bisping a thin victory over Hamill that I elected not to do a follow-up.

Mike McConnell blogged the most about the fight in his blog, Kokonut Pundit and elicited some commentary wars. UFCGirls.com also blogged about the fight.

Simply put, I was disappointed in the decision and want a re-match. I watched the fight live and when the decision was announced I just left the room — disgusted.

iTunes 7.4 has Closed-Captioning Support!

DeafDC blogger Adam Stone tells about the features in the upgraded iTunes 7.4 and iPods that supports close-captioning on movies sold through iTunes. Also covered on iLounge web page. While close-captioning support in iTunes 7.4 is not a complete package, it is a step forward for Apple in accessibility.

Thank you, Apple!

Deaf-Hope Tea Time Garden Party: Alice in Cyberland

Deaf-Hope Tea Time Garden Party is a fund raiser to support the not-for-profit organization, Deaf-Hope for battered deaf women. Julie Rems-Smario is the current Executive Director of Deaf-Hope. This party is taking place on Saturday Sept. 29, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Alice in Cyberland focuses on the power of Deaf Women Bloggers and Vloggers with keynote speakers who are: