[Blind-international-students] introducing myself and comments on your discussion

Mon Aug 9 00:10:17 UTC 2010

Uhrn.... I am not sure the issue of non tactily identifiable currency is
such a particular problem.  I have lived in North America for 35 years...
first in Canada, then in US.

During all this time, I have been shortchanged only twice, by taxi drivers
in both cases.  In one of these cases, my sighted wife was present, and she
did not catch the swindle either.

I have found that, universaly, kindly asking the other party to tell me
which bills have what value, solves all currency identification issues.  I
then fold bills according to their values, and place them in 4 different
slots in my billfold... And no, I never make mistakes.

And no, having to shop every few years for a billfold with enough slots for
my liking is not something that I deem to be a violation of my basic uman
rights under the US Declaration Of Independence, US Constitution, ADA,
Section 504, or otherwise.

Please note that Canada uses embossing for tactile identification of
currency... Works splendidly... until a bill is a few months old, after
which markings become flat and unreadable.

Sometimes there are simple and remarkably low impact/cost
socialization-based workarounds for certain accessibility problems.  I can
only praise NFB's pragmatic approach to the entire issue.

Finally, in the current context, raising the Blind Drivers Challange is what
we call a Red herring... or a distracting argument, extraneous from the
discussion at hand. Perhaps it's an interesting topic to debate by itself,
but it does not add any value to the current debate on currency recognition.

Best,

g

Guido D. Corona
Email: guidoc at austin.rr.com
Home office: (512) 996-9187
Mobile: (512) 466-1322

-----Original Message-----
From: blind-international-students-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:blind-international-students-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Anmol
Bhatia
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2010 6:21 PM
To: Blind International Students Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Blind-international-students] introducing myself and comments
on your discussion

Hello Dave,
Let me clarify myself. I never thought that NFB is against bringing
identifiable currency, but where I have a problem is its     priorities. For
me personally identifiable currency is far more important than the Blind
Driver Challenge and far more realistic in achieving then a car that a blind
person can drive.

You are right that groups such as the NFB and ACB may not know what people
with disabilities need, but the advantage that groups such as NFB and ACB
can bring by participating in various disability coalitions is that they can
represent the needs of blind people who make up a large population of people
with disabilities.

Finally I never ment to say that all blind people should work together, but
the two major blind organizations should find more of a common ground and as
I stated the members of each respective organizations have greater
differences with each other then the two major organizations have with each
other. So the organization back and forth seems silly and does not seem to
accomplish anything for blind citizens. True we have political parties in
this country just as they do in my country, however, it is unfortunate but
blind people can not aford to have the luxury of being divided like
Democrats and Republicans because our challenges our to great and our
community is to small.

Having said all that, I commend the NFB on its work of making a difference
for blind people around the world including myself. I was fortunate to
attend the NFB convention for the first time on a scholarship and I was
impressed in being around so many blind people. So I do commend NFB on its
work but I do have some differences like any person should have with any
organization. So please understand that I am not trying to have it both
ways, but simply stating some of my differences. I invite you to participate
in the international students conference call next Sunday at 2:00 p.m.
eastern time.
Also to all members please  forgive my grammar mistakes in my previous
email.

Anmol

I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps
there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze
among flowers.
Hellen Keller

--- On Sun, 8/8/10, David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com> wrote:

> From: David Andrews <dandrews at visi.com>
> Subject: Re: [Blind-international-students] introducing myself and
comments on your discussion
> To: "Blind International Students Mailing List"
<blind-international-students at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 8, 2010, 4:44 PM
> Hi Anmol:
> 
> I have been following this discussion with interest. 
> There have been lots of good ideas.  However, I also
> feel like some people here want to have it both ways -- as
> we would say in America.  That is they want to benefit
> from an association with the NFB, and they want to use what
> the NFB has to offer, but they are not willing to support
> the NFB to they extent that they receive support.
> 
> I apologize if I offend anyone -- but I just want to be
> honest here.
> 
> Below I think you misrepresent some NFB positions.  We
> are not strongly opposed to identifiable currency, as you
> say, but we don't consider it to be our highest
> priority.  We also don't think many of the proposed
> systems will work, or are likely to be adopted.
> 
> You are right that we traditionally have not been very
> active in coalitions.  In large part this is because we
> do not know what other disabled people need, and others do
> not know what blind persons want and need.  We can not
> represent them -- and they can not represent us.  This
> is not to say that we don't participate in coalitions, such
> as the Reading Rights Coalition among others.
> 
> Finally you say all blind people should work together
> ...  These are nice words, but unrealistic.  In
> your country, is there only one political party?  Why
> doesn't everybody just work together, after all, don't they
> want the same thing.
> 
> It is only natural that people will disagree, think things
> should be done in different ways, want different people to
> be in charge etc.
> 
> Dave
> 
> At 04:37 PM 8/3/2010, you wrote:
> > Hello Jan,
> > I do believe in the basic philosophy of the NFB of
> braille education, independence, the right of blind
> individuals to teach other blind people and defeating the
> false immage and attitudes that sighted society holds
> towards blindness. However, my main issue with NFB has been
> that it sometimes goes to far. For example, I have yet to
> understand why NFB is so opposed to legislation which would
> make US currency excessable to the blind. Managing one's
> finances is a fundamental right of all Americans and even
> though technology does exist which can read papper currency
> and one can should find their method of managing their
> money, a blind are forced to depend on the honesty of
> sighted individuals to know how much money they have and
> this itself goes against the NFB philosophy  of
> independence. Also I do have some disagreement with NFB
> philosophy of total independence. I am a farely independ
> person but I think that at times it is ok to ask for help.
> As a student
> >  at the Arkansas School for the Blind I was
> thought by my hoste mother who was blind and by my teachers
> that it is ok to ask for help and as a adult I have found
> this to be so true. I consider myself to be a independent
> and confident blind adult but I still ask for help when I
> need to. Another good point you bring up is NFB does not
> seem to work with other disability organizations. Last week
> when attending the National Council on Disability Summit I
> was surprised not to see any officials  from NFB or
> ACB. This is not to say they were not there. There were alot
> of people who I did not meet. So someone from the NFB and
> ACB may have been there and I just did not know about it.
> However, I think both NFB and ACB should strive to work with
> any or all blindness related or disability organization.
> Blind people can only be put on back burner if we let
> ourselves do so and blind community is a large enough
> community within the disability community that if we unify
> >  and assert ourselves we can be the most powerful
> disabled comunity. This brings me to another point! I think
> the infighting between the NFB and ACB is really silly! Both
> organizations have alot of value to contribute for the blind
> community and frankly it seems to me that the differences
> between is not that much! It seems to me that there is more
> difference within the membership of each organization then
> there is between the organizations. Another words members of
> NFB and ACB have differences with each other more then NFB
> and ACB have with each other.Some have compared us to
> Democrats and Republicans, fair  comparison but the
> blind community is to small and our challenges to great for
> us to be Democrats and Republicans. As you know by now I am
> a person with strong oppinions and not afraid to share
> them  regardless of who I piss off or anger. lol I
> may  never be  invited to another NFB convention!
> lol
> > To answer your question about blindness organizations
> in other countries, on MIUSA's webcite there is a link which
> list all the disability organizations around the world. You
> can select which country or disability or both you wish to
> view and a list should appear.
> 
>                
>         David Andrews:  dandrews at visi.com
> Follow me on Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/dandrews920
> 
> 
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