[nfb-talk] audible walk signals (again)

Michael Hingson info at michaelhingson.com
Sun Apr 24 23:05:24 UTC 2011


Actually, whether or not the NFB has conducted a study about the viability
of the ATS it would be interesting for the proponents of audible traffic
signals to demonstrate why not having them is discriminatory.  The NFB has
already acknowledged that in certain instances they can be helpful.  Why is
this even coming up again.  We have strayed from the original subject of the
thread to one which has been discussed to death.  Let's move on please.

The Michael Hingson Group, INC.
 “Speaking with Vision”
Michael Hingson, President
(415) 827-4084
info at michaelhingson.com
To learn more about my upcoming book, speaking topics and speaking
availability please visit www.michaelhingson.com
Thunder Dog is now available for early ordering on Amazon!!!
http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Dog-Blind-Triumph-Ground/dp/140020304X/ref=sr_
1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289090352&sr=1-3


for info on the new KNFB Reader Mobile, visit:
http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com


-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Lisa Kidder
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 3:47 PM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] audible walk signals (again)

I would  to! hopefully a link can be posted on this list.  Lisa

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "John Heim" <john at johnheim.net
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:51:16 -0500
Subject: [nfb-talk] audible walk signals (again)

What data shows that audible walk signals drown out cars putting 
blind
people at risk?    And when did the NFB institute a studying 
audible walk
signals? Can you document that? I specifically asked Mike Freeman 
about that
and his response was that we didn't need studies.

Seriously, if you could provide a link to a study that showed 
audible walk
signals put blind people at risk, I'd be very interested in 
seeing it.

Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
ChairmanGordon Gund


I just get so tired of the same damned unrelenting straw men 
brought up
time and again, anywhere he can wedge these things in, whether 
they make
sense or not.  He's not been back two weeks and already we're all
illogical, unethical, and he's back to the straw man about how we 
all want
blind people to beg for help from sighted people.

 If I have learned one thing from politics, it's that certain 
parties
 always want to re-frame the argument so that either you agree 
with them,
 or you are against something that nobody ever would be.  Either 
I am
 right, or you support cruelty to kittens!  What do kittens have 
to do with
 anything?

 So if you listen to John, if you oppose a particular 
modification to the
 US currency, you want blind people to be helpless and dependent, 
despite
 the fact that very few are helpless or dependent in this matter 
today,
 unless it be by choice.  Money identifiers are now $100, and my 
cell phone
 can do it for the huge investment of TWO BUCKS.  John and I 
basically
 agree that electronic identifiers are not a suitable solution to 
the
 problem, and yet I cannot support his baseless attacks (and 
incessant)
 incendiary claims against the NFB on even this issue.  Despite 
the NFB's
 involvement in making the currency accessible, John's blanket 
statement is
 that we oppose doing this on every level, and in THREE YEARS (or 
longer, I
 think) he has yet to accept a single person's claim to the 
contrary.

 If you oppose chirping signals, you want blind people to die 
crossing
 streets.  An outright lie.  The NFB opposed these things because 
the data
 showed that they drowned out cars resulting in more blind people 
at risk,
 not less.  Moreover, as of eight or nine years ago, the NFB has 
been
 actively developing a safe replacement for these squawking 
monsters, and
 the documented position of the organization is that we support 
their
 installation when they will benefit people.  John's blanket 
assertion is
 that we oppose them universally.  Our own resolutions to the 
contrary are
 not evidence, and nobody can prove otherwise to his 
satisfaction.

 If you oppose blanket mandates for descriptive video without any
 consideration of what kind of descriptive video would be useful 
or in what
 context, then you are a monster who wants blind people to be 
deprived,
 uninformed, and miserable.  The fact that descriptive video 
doesn't
 actually exist as any kind of standard like closed captioning 
does and
 that it's just shoehorned haphazardly into SAP channels, that 
nobody has
 actually determined what to describe or how, or that any effort 
to mandate
 this now can only serve to prevent a universal and standardized 
solution
 from emerging is irrelevant.  Again we have the blanket 
assertion that the
 NFB opposes what is good and right, is evil for doing so, and 
not one
 single argument to the contrary is ever afforded even a first 
thought, let
 alone a second.

 I could go on, at length, but the fact remains that nobody has 
ever swayed
 John Heim on a single issue, ever, in the history of his 
presence on this
 list.  We are all just illogical, unethical, and he is 
brutalized and
 attacked from all sides, asking Dave Andrews to sanction anyone 
who
 bruises his poor, fragile ego.  He can dish it out, in spades, 
in the most
 incendiary language possible, but he can't take his own 
medicine.

 And more importantly, he won't shut the hell up about any of it.  
He just
 continues to trash the NFB, and the good people of this list.  
We have not
 forgotten this, and it should be clear that John is immovable on 
pretty
 much anything, and that includes a fundamental belief that the 
NFB is
 harmful to the blind.  So then, what is he doing here?  And why 
is he
 permitted to remain, spewing this crap day after day?

 Joseph


 On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 08:16:28PM -0700, Gloria Whipple wrote:
Too bad that troll doesn't fall off the face of the earth!


Gloria Whipple
Corresponding Secretary
Inland Empire chapter
nfb of WA

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org 
[mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of T.  Joseph Carter
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 17:10
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
ChairmanGordon Gund

The troll returns to one of his favorite ACB-inspired arguments 
about
how evil the NFB is.  I say again, go away.

Joseph


On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 04:24:42PM -0500, John Heim wrote:
Yet, the NFB would have us ask for help to identify our money.


On Apr 22, 2011, at 9:21 PM, Gloria Whipple wrote:

Hi Joseph,

Well done! I like what you had to say.

My prayers go out to you and I hope you get better and I hope you
are free
from cancer soon.

All my best,


Gloria Whipple
Corresponding Secretary
Inland Empire chapter
nfb of WA


-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-
bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of T.  Joseph Carter
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 19:01
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] FW: {Disarmed} FW: A personal report from
ChairmanGordon Gund

Gloria,

I think what it boils down to is that language is a powerful 
thing.
The words a person uses are less important than the intent behind
them, but from a choice of certain words over others we can infer 
an
intent.  I have been battling cancer.  This implies something 
about
me and my relationship to cancer.  I have been living with it, 
and I
don't want to be.  In fact, I am fighting to make it gone, 
because
cancer is a horrible thing.

Am I fighting blindness?  Do I suffer from blindness?  Am I 
forced to
use alternative techniques?  Well yes, I do suffer as a result of
blindness.  Not because of blindness itself per se, but because 
of
the reaction of others to it who are not blind (and a few who 
are,
sadly).

The refusal to be pigeon-holed into this "sad existence" of
"suffering because of blindness" is precisely the kind of 
supposed
"unethical" behavior the NFB engages in by spreading our 
philosophy.
It is akin to those during the 60s arguing against the notion 
that
they were afflicted somehow with being black.  Blindness is a bad
thing only if you make it be so, and we refuse to make it so for
ourselves.  Moreover, we refuse to allow others to force us into 
that
role.

Those who would disparage our efforts to do so are not our 
friends,
just as those who would have you look down upon a man of color
because his skin was darker than, say, mine is.  Is he somehow 
worse
of because of that?  Is he lessened as a man or as a person?  
Does he
deserve something less, or for that matter anything more, than 
any
other person simply because of the color of his skin?  Most today
would say out of hand that he should have the same opportunities
anyone would have.  No more, but certainly no less!

The blind deserve the same equality that our more 
sunburn-resistant
brothers demanded more than forty years ago.  In just one 
generation
we have gone from a person of color being denied the use of a
drinking fountain to electing him to the United States 
presidency.
If there remains racial inequality, it cannot be because of the 
color
of a person's skin anymore.  Some individuals may yet harbor such
attitudes (and I recently observed some of those people in a 
public
display, sadly), but society rejects such people as undesirable 
when
they are exposed.  (And believe me, we are exposing them all over
YouTube, since the local media won't even report it.)

But what about the blind?  The same society who refuses to allow 
a
black man to be treated as a second class citizen openly condones 
it
when a blind man is treated likewise.  Disability is one of only 
two
acceptable areas of discrimination that remain in this country.  
(The
other is so far removed from topical for this list that I won't
discuss it here, much to Dave's relief.)

We cannot continue to meekly request that we be treated as first
class citizens.  It didn't work in the 1940s, and it hasn't 
worked
yet.  Only by refusing to be anything less will we finally 
achieve
that.  Unfortunately, that means getting a bit uppity over 
language
that paints us into a corner, as it were.  I'm not here to be 
pitied
or someone's inspiration.  I'm here because I've got a job to do, 
and
within the National Federation of the Blind, that job is to 
achieve
for myself and for all of us the basic rights of first class
citizenship afforded to anyone else in this country today, 
regardless
of their skin color, sexual orientation, and a whole host of 
other
things.

I don't expect any more, but I also won't accept any less.

Joseph

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 09:33:15AM -0700, Gloria Whipple wrote:
James,

Thanks for explaining what I wanted to say about this subject.

I am glad someone is on my side!


Gloria Whipple
Corresponding Secretary
Inland Empire chapter
nfb of WA

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for
nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/ladyglo
ria%40web
ba
nd.com


_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
for nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/john%40
johnheim.
net


_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for
nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/carter.
tjoseph%40
gmail.com

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for
nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/ladyglo
ria%40webba
nd.com


_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for
nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/carter.
tjoseph%40gmail.com

 _______________________________________________
 nfb-talk mailing list
 nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
 http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
 To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account 
info for
 nfb-talk:
 
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/john%40
johnheim.net



_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
for nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/lisakid
%40peoplepc.com

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
nfb-talk:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfb-talk_nfbnet.org/info%40michaelhing
son.com





More information about the nFB-Talk mailing list