[nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

Thu Apr 22 14:53:19 UTC 2010

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ray Foret Jr" <rforetjr at comcast.net>
To: "qubit" <lauraeaves at yahoo.com>; "NFB Talk Mailing List" 
<nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 6:49 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled


>I hate to say this; but, "someone else's problem" is very much an American 
>problem.  Quite some time ago, the local radio reading service was 
>struggling for funds.  Everyone to whom they went for help said the same 
>thing.  And what was that?  "Go ask somebody else.".  There's an example 
>for you.  Here's another.  Remember when that old man in Hartford 
>Connecticut was knocked down by that car and nobody even bothered to try to 
>help him?  Everybody just stood by and did either nothing or else took 
>pictures of it on their cell phones.
> Sincerely,
> The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!!!!
>
> Now a proud Mac user!!!!!
>
> e-mail:
> rforetjr at comcast dot net
> skype:
> barefootedray
>
> On Apr 21, 2010, at 5:05 PM, qubit wrote:
>
>> Hi -- I may be venturing on thin ice here, but there is one thing I worry
>> about.  This is not a material problem so much as a mental/spiritual one.
>> One drawback to government run programs that is more a subjective,
>> nonquantifiable one: If you give the government the full responsibility 
>> for
>> taking care of the needy in the country, it has the effect of sweeping
>> problems under the rug of "the government is taking care of it" -- kind 
>> of
>> like the SEP invisibility field in the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
>> books--adams fans will know what I'm talking about. SEP stands for 
>> "someone
>> else's problem" and has such a powerful effect on viewers as to render an
>> object invisible.
>> I think that this change will attempt to take the responsibility of 
>> looking
>> out for our neighbors and give it to the government so people will be 
>> less
>> apt to give in times of need.  In particular, if taxes are high, they 
>> will
>> figure they already gave to that cause, and maybe try to give moral 
>> support,
>> but if the government office isn't helping, the person is still in need 
>> of a
>> friend or someone to identify the problem so as to get him to the right
>> government office. and there may not be someone there. You can't 
>> predefine a
>> government office for every problem.
>> In the case of health care, there is also the question of privacy, if on
>> huge monolithic government run health agency pays the docs, then it will 
>> be
>> easy for people's records to be available for others to view, at least 
>> for
>> government employees. And in a socialistic society, there are a lot of
>> government employees...*smile*
>>
>> I guess I am playing conservative today.
>> Obama's health plan, such as it is, does allow for private medical 
>> insurers.
>> And I think government programs can be a very good thing for those who 
>> need
>> them.
>> It's just that the change has me worried.
>> Take care.
>> --le
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
>> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 4:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get 
>> labeled
>>
>>
>> A lot of money gets wasted no matter who's running a program.  What makes
>> you think a private charity is more efficient than the federal 
>> government?
>> You should check out the salaries made by the leaders of most 
>> non-profits.
>> It is not at all unusual for the President of a non-profit to make half a
>> million dollars a year. Not to mention the fact that most of our social
>> programs were created in the first place because private charities 
>> weren't
>> getting it done.
>>
>> Its simply a myth that governments can't solve social programs. Countries
>> like Switzerland and Sweeden have happy, healthy citizens. The USA, on 
>> the
>> other hand, ranks low on just about every measure of health and 
>> happiness.
>> Our infant mortality rate is high, our life expectancy is low, our
>> unemployment rate and crime rates are high.
>>
>> The available evidence would tend to indicate that the United States 
>> doesn't
>> have enough social programs, not too many. Now, you could argue that a
>> reduced tax burden and less government interference makes it worthwhile. 
>> But
>> that would be a value judgement. I mean, you could argue that our
>> independence is more valuable than living a longer life. But you can't 
>> argue
>> that government can't solve social programs. There's just no evidence for
>> that.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Amelia Dickerson" <ameliadickerson at gmail.com>
>> To: <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Cc: "Nijat Worley" <nijat1989 at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 1:25 PM
>> Subject: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled
>>
>>
>>> Hello-
>>> I'm just going to put my two cents in here. I think that when the
>>> government does stuff, it ends up swallowing up a lot of money that is
>>> wasted. I have spent several months applying for jobs in the federal
>>> government and it has been a bit of a comic sketch. At the same time,
>>> we have people in our society for whom we need to care, and the fact
>>> is that any point in time, most people end up in that position.
>>> Ideally, we would privately take care of this on our own- people
>>> within a community would rise up and put together their own education
>>> system for their kids and for all of them, we would help people out
>>> with food when they needed it, doctors and therapists would take on a
>>> few patients and clients pro bono at any one time. But until people
>>> choose to do that over buying that brand new car instead of continuing
>>> to drive it even though it is no longer the latest and greatest, we
>>> need to have the government programs on which to fall back. That
>>> doesn't even address the fact that certain communities have a deficit
>>> of such resources.
>>>
>>> At my own church, I am in charge of organizing local community service
>>> activities. We have a solid core of people who give generously of
>>> their time and energy and money, but there are others who are very
>>> much occupied by the things in their own lives and they just don't
>>> really contribute to anything. Fortunately, most will give to others
>>> in some form, but there are a lot of causes and people out there to
>>> give to. I am personally in my mid 20's and my peers are a notoriously
>>> self-centered population. I know some people who meet that discription
>>> and others who do not. Honestly, I don't know what you would need to
>>> do in order to try and meet the needs of others. However, as a person
>>> with my masters in counseling and with a lot of personal experience
>>> working with people who are needy in both an emotional and physical
>>> sense, itt is absolutely not as easy as giving them money for food
>>> each month. Talk to me one on one if you want to know what it looks
>>> like to try and quote unquote "help" someone with schizofrenia or a
>>> personality disorder.
>>>
>>> In addition, I am currently taking a class on universal media design
>>> at the local state university. The principles of the class have to do
>>> with  making media and web sites accessible to everyone, whether they
>>> are using an old computer on a dial up connection, using a smart
>>> phone, the latest and greatest computer with whatever internet
>>> browser, they are hard of hearing,  or a use a screen reader. Despite
>>> its principles though, I have had to do a lot of self advocacy. They
>>> have us learning about java script from on-line clips that do not
>>> provide enough information for me to keep track of what is happening
>>> in the visual part of the training. Someone asked me to give feedback
>>> on the web site for the business association of downtown Denver in
>>> preparation for the AHEAD conference here this summer. It is all in
>>> flash, and I was unable to get any content off of it. The business
>>> association doesn't feel particularly obliged to change their web site
>>> at all, even if it also means that people out for the night cannot
>>> pull up their site on a smart phone. The conservative principle is
>>> that economic forces will convince them to change it, but they aare
>>> not yet terribly interested. Along the same lines, the web sites at CU
>>> are often times poorly designed to the extent of decreasing
>>> accessibility, but as a whole group of sites are looking at being
>>> redesigned in the next couple of years, the man in charge of it
>>> doesn't know the first thing about concepts such as the W3 standards.
>>> I met with him and showed him a bit about what makes his current site
>>> that he manages difficult to navigate with a screen reader. Maybe he
>>> will be motivated to learn more, butthus far people outside of
>>> disability services at the university have been pretty apathetic with
>>> regards to making accessibility improvements to sites. All of this is
>>> just to say that I don't tend to find that the best ideas win out; too
>>> many people are caught up in the concept of how things have always
>>> been done and "it works for me, so it's fine."
>>>
>>> With all of this having been said, I vote we stick with putting
>>> concepts out there without needing to label them as being part of one
>>> group or another. I am all for innovation, change, and progress. No
>>> political group gets to lay claim to those words and my use of them
>>> does not put me in any one group.
>>>
>>> Amelia
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Amelia Dickerson
>>>
>>> What counts can't always be counted, and what can be counted doesn't
>>> always count.
>>> Albert Einstein
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> nfb-talk mailing list
>>> nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
>>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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