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<TITLE>New THOUGHT PROVOKER #140- McGoo'd</TITLE>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Deafblind members</FONT></B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">RE: McGoo’d</FONT></B></P>
<P><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">This is THOUGHT PROVOKER #140 and it has a provocative question- do you think you have been effected by what people around you have learned about blindness from blind characters on the TV or from a movie? If so, like which character have you grown up to most resemble? If you have not read the PROVOKER, it follows. Recall that I collect responses and post them upon my web site for all the WWW to read and learn from and that URL is- </FONT></B><A HREF="http://thoughtprovoker.info/"><B><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">Http://thoughtprovoker.info</FONT></U></B></A><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman"> If you wish to receive THOUGHT PROVOKERS sent directly to you, just write me and ask, at- newmanrl@cox.net </FONT></B></P>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Arial">THOUGHT PROVOKER 140</FONT></B></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><B><FONT FACE="Arial">McGoo’d</FONT></B></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Whoa, that’s a big honking screen for a laptop!”</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Yeah, I like to be able to sit back and be comfortable.” Dempsey was showing off his computer to a new friend. He was attending a summer program for blind teens of high school age. Rapidly he reduced the enlargement of the text he’d been studying. “I was checking out the details of the pics and diagrams we need to use for our group project,” he lied; he didn’t think it would be cool in this group to be the one using the biggest enlargement. Squinting now, he forged ahead, getting only a part of what scrolled by. Next to him, a tiny earphone voice running at triple speed told him his neighbor was back to reading via her screen enlargement software’s voice.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Everyone finished? They want us back in the main hall in five minutes,” said Kelly, the group’s elected leader and the only one of them who was totally blind.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Dempsey’s ego hurt a little for not being chosen for lead. But deep down he knew he probably would not be able to outdo some of these guys, no matter if he could see better than them or not.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Yo! Done and got my notes Brailled up,” answered Mark, putting his slate back in his laptop case.</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">That Braille thing was something Dempsey just didn’t get. He had visited with Mark and knew the two of them had about the same vision. Dempsey and his parents had always opted for print, wanting him to fit into the mainstream.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Hey, let’s settle on who is going to present which part of the report,” Kelsey said. “I’ve got to write out the specifics of what I say.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“I’ll handle the second section,” Dempsey volunteered. He hadn’t gotten much further than that in his study of the material; he was a good student, but these guys had gotten through the four sections of readings faster. And while the rest was being organized, he quickly wrote out a few notes with a heavy marker. He knew he’d better not even try to read from prepared notes; he’d gotten teased at the school where he was the only blind student (“Smelling or reading it, Dempsey?”).</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Presentations completed, the group was given a one-hour break. Someone suggested, “Let’s go to Mickey D’s!” </FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“I know the way,” Kelly said and took the lead.</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Whoa…we going to go to a light?” asked Dempsey. </FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“That would be four blocks down,” answered Kelly. “We don’t have the time.”</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“We can handle this,” Mark said, leaning forward, listening to the traffic on the four-lane street.</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Out of the four of them, Dempsey was the only one without a cane. He had a monocular back in the dorm, but even with that, this type of street made him nervous; at home he had a folding cane…somewhere. He never wanted the stigma of a cane, didn’t need one, because he always chose where and when he would go places by himself.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Go!” </FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Heart in his throat, Dempsey followed; he wouldn’t be left behind. About the middle of the street, “Ow, darn!” as he kicked into an unseen cement island and fell. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">“Better take my arm…hurry.” Kelly said.</FONT>
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<P><FONT FACE="Arial">That evening was philosophy seminar. The topic was the effect of a blind media character upon an audience. “I have a rather provoking thought,” spoke up one teen. “We all agree that when blindness is portrayed in the mass media, it has an effect upon how blindness is viewed by society. My question is, if that influence guides how we are treated and if you view that as a process that has been worked upon you, can you come up with a single term that captures the essence of which specific blind cult figure that’s been applied to you?”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial">Dempsey got it right away, but wasn’t sure he was ready to share it. This day had brought it home to him—these guys had blindness skills, confidence, knew where in life they were going! They were competent blind people and he was basically an inferior sighted person. “Yeah, I’ve been McGoo’d.”</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Robert Leslie Newman </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Email- newmanrl@cox.net</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">THOUGHT PROVOKER Website- </FONT>
<BR><A HREF="Http://www.thoughtprovoker.info"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Http://www.thoughtprovoker.info</FONT></U></A>
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