[NFBNJ] {Spam?} NFB: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, November 2016
Brian Mackey
bmackey88 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 25 17:54:38 UTC 2016
>From the desk of NFBNJ President Joe Ruffalo.
Received from Brian Burrow, NFB.
BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 59, No. 10 November 2016
Gary Wunder, Editor
Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by the
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
Mark Riccobono, President
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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT; BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND—IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES.
ISSN 0006-8829
© 2016 by the National Federation of the Blind
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Vol. 59, No. 10 November 2016
Contents
Illustration: Through Similarities and Differences, the Blind Still Intend to Speak for the Blind...................................................................................................................
Welcoming the Blind of the World to the United States of America...................
by Mark Riccobono
The World Blind Union: Future Challenges and Opportunities..........................
by Fredric K. Schroeder, PhD
Change in the Wind at the World Blind Union General Assembly......................
by Marc Maurer
Reflections from a First-Time Attendee and the Joy in Helping Host a Meeting of the World Blind Union and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment.........................................................................................................
by Gary Wunder
My Leadership Journey......................................................................................
by Karen Keninger
Nurture the Ability, Sustain the Confidence.......................................................
by Fredric K. Schroeder
Leadership: Perspectives from Ron McCallum...................................................
by Ron McCallum
Digital Accessibility: Changes for the Good, and Challenges for the Present and Future............................................................................................................................
by Gary Wunder
Statement of the National Federation of the Blind Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled..............................................................................................................
by Mark Riccobono
Newer and Flashier is Not Always Better...........................................................
by Mark Jones
How Exponential Technologies Will Impact Disabilities....................................
by Ray Kurzweil
National Industries for the Blind: Continuing to Raise Expectations and Create Opportunities......................................................................................................
Kevin Lynch
Recipes................................................................................................................
Monitor Miniatures.............................................................................................
[PHOTO CAPTION: Session meeting of the WBU delegates]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Three of the delegates from India wearing headphones as they listen]
[PHOTO CAPTION: The enclosed booth where the translators work at the back of the WBU meeting room.]
Through the Similarities and the Differences, the Blind Still Intend to Speak for the Blind
When you look at the pictures of the World Blind Union General Assembly, they look similar to those captured at the National Federation of the Blind’s national convention. Their delegates look a lot like the Federationists who attend the convention. The delegates sit at rows of tables instead of the rows of chairs to which Federationists are accustomed. But, like attendees at our conventions, they’re all sitting and listening to speakers making their presentations.
It’s only as you look closer that you realize that many of the delegates are wearing headphones. They’re not listening to music; they’re listening to the language they understand by translators courtesy of the National Federation of the Blind. The booth of translators at the back of the room is a bit different from the NFB convention, where interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing diligently work, but these translators create the mechanism through which global discussion and action can take place. No matter how similar or different, it is inspiring to see the blind speaking for themselves.
Welcoming the Blind of the World to the United States of America
by Mark Riccobono
Opening Remarks to the Ninth General Assembly
World Blind Union
Orlando, Florida
August 19, 2016
Delegates, observers, and friends of the World Blind Union, on behalf of the tens of thousands of members of the National Federation of the Blind I welcome you to the United States of America. America is a country that values freedom, independence, opportunity, determination, and democracy. Born out of revolution, our country constantly strives to have a more perfect union, including individuals with diverse characteristics, backgrounds, and beliefs. Through the value of freedom of speech, we empower our citizens to vigorously debate the governing principles of our land and to breakdown barriers to equality of opportunity and participation. The American dream has come to be the term used to describe the value that in our country all people can achieve their individual aspirations with the freedom and opportunities provided in our local communities and supported by equal protection under the law. Yet even in this great nation some classes of people continue to struggle for equal access to those ideals two hundred and forty years after our democracy was established. Although the blind have been one of the groups denied the complete rights and opportunities offered under our democracy, during the past seventy-six years significant progress has been made toward equality in society through our vehicle for collective action—the National Federation of the Blind.
A brilliant young blind scholar of the United States Constitution was the rallying point for organizing the blind of America on a nationwide basis in 1940. Dr. Jacobus tenBroek was the founding President of the National Federation of the Blind and served as its primary leader until his death in 1968. At the birth of our organization he shared these words that are still the foundation of our organization and which apply also to the World Blind Union: “Collectively, we are the masters of our own future and the successful guardian of our own common interests. Let one speak in the name of many who are prepared to act in his support, let the democratically elected blind representatives of the blind act as spokesman for all, let the machinery be created to unify the action and concentrate the energies of the blind…”
The Federation has always valued formal and informal opportunities to collaborate with other blind people around the world. In 1952 the National Federation of the Blind National Convention voted to join the World Council on the Welfare of the Blind (WCWB), but Dr. tenBroek quickly came to realize that the WCWB would not be a progressive world forum for action by the blind. The Federation continued to seek meaningful international connections to the blind through the work of pioneering blind leaders like Isabel Grant, who traveled the world to share the Federation philosophy and learn about the progress of blind people in other countries.
In 1964 we formed the International Federation of the Blind (IFB) as an authentic international forum for blind people. Dr. tenBroek became the IFB’s first president, and its constitution was drafted by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, who would later become President of the National Federation of the Blind and the most influential leader in the area of blindness during the twentieth century. The first convention for the IFB was planned for 1969, but Dr. tenBroek’s early death in 1968 took much of the momentum out of the new organization. In 1984 a joint meeting of the IFB and WCWB was held that resulted in the creation of the World Blind Union. Today we can be proud that the World Blind Union has grown into an effective international vehicle for collaboration and a meaningful advocacy organization led by the blind.
We invite our brothers and sisters from around the world to our home to share with us the ideas, insights, innovations, and dreams that come from your unique perspectives. We also share with you our progress along with our desire to continue to test the limits and raise expectations for the blind anywhere in the world. Since 1940 we have tackled discrimination in every aspect of life: education, employment, travel, finances, healthcare, recreation, civic participation, and parenting. We have used many tools in our work: organizing in local communities, marching in the streets, battling in the courts, persuading in the boardrooms, moving the politics in Congress, changing perceptions in the media, and demonstrating equality in living the lives we want. We have published extensively about our progress, and we have distributed thousands of pages of literature to all parts of our country and many parts of the world. We now provide free access to all of our publications via our website, < <http://www.nfb.org> www.nfb.org>. Our national convention, the annual gathering where we discuss our progress and set our priorities, is now the largest annual gathering of blind people anywhere in the world, and we are honored to welcome guests from twenty foreign countries to our conventions on a regular basis.
In the spirit of innovation that characterizes our nation, the blind of America have led the way in engineering solutions to take advantage of the full capacity of blind people and to eliminate artificial barriers that hold us back. One example is our work, beginning in 1975, to develop a reading machine for the blind with genius inventor Ray Kurzweil. The original reading machine was big, slow, and expensive, but it was revolutionary. Through our continued investment and engagement in refining reading technology, we now have a reading machine that can be used on handheld smartphones, which recognizes text in a second, and which costs less than $100. The current reading machine is known as the KNFB Reader, and it runs on iOS, Android, and very shortly on Windows. This technology is as strong as it is because the blind are leading the way in its development.
Literacy is critical to full participation in our society, and each and every person in this room knows that for the blind that means Braille literacy. From aggressively pursuing new Braille literacy programs to actively working on the Marrakesh Treaty, we march confidently with our friends in the World Blind Union to raise expectations for the blind in accessing the world’s knowledge. At the urging of the National Federation of the Blind, the United States Congress authorized the minting of the first-ever US coin that included actual tactile Braille. Released in 2009, the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar created a forum for greater awareness of the value of Braille and the barriers to quality Braille instruction in the United States educational system, and sales of the coin generated funds to spark new Braille literacy programs. The launch of the Louis Braille coin and the educational programs initiated in 2009 were led by a leader of the National Federation of the Blind and the WBU’s first vice president, Fred Schroeder. One of the results of our enhanced Braille literacy efforts was the nationwide expansion of the National Federation of the Blind Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning (BELL) Academy. The NFB BELL Academy provides blind children with two weeks of quality instruction in Braille, opportunities to practice skills like independent travel with a long white cane, and increased confidence from working with blind adult role models from a variety of backgrounds. During this summer alone, we have offered forty-six NFB BELL Academies in thirty-one states providing more than seventeen thousand hours of instruction to more than three hundred blind youth.
The United States is known for its technological innovations, including advancing the exploration of new frontiers in the universe. For over a decade, the Federation has been leading the way to inspire and engage blind students in science, technology, engineering, art, and math. In honor of our work and to help spread awareness about Braille, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration flew two of our Louis Braille coins aboard the Atlantis shuttle on mission STS125. Although we have yet to get a blind person into the astronaut corps and into space, we believe that the first blind astronaut is alive today, and through our work we will realize success in this and other frontiers. Leaders of the National Federation of the Blind were on hand at the Kennedy Space Center—not too far from Orlando—for the launch of STS125 to witness Braille flying into orbit. In honor of our collective determination to expand the horizons for the blind, we thought we would share with you what it was like to be on hand for the launch of that space shuttle and the first few minutes of flight. [An audio presentation from the launching of STS125 was played and was greeted with cheers and applause.]
Although the automobile was not invented in the United States, our country has taken great pride in cars that are made in America. Driving has come to be a symbol of freedom, independence, and power. Until the last decade, everybody believed that driving a car required the use of sight. In the National Federation of the Blind we continue to ask each other challenging questions about the limits for blind people. Every day we seek to raise expectations for the blind because we know that low expectations are the true obstacle between blind people and our dreams. As we turned the calendar to the twenty-first century, Marc Maurer, who served as President of the Federation from 1986 to 2014, began asking why vision is a requirement for driving. He wondered out loud if we could build access to information systems that could present data nonvisually and whether blind people could use their own abilities to drive a car completely without sighted assistance. From Dr. Maurer’s idea and under his leadership, the National Federation of the Blind began engaging with engineers around the Blind Driver Challenge. While America did not invent the car, the blind of America did imagine, engineer, and develop the technology so that we could accomplish the goal of blind people driving independently.
On January 29, 2011, I was honored to be the driver for the first public demonstration of our Blind Driver Challenge project. This took place just one hour from here at the most famous racetrack in our nation—the Daytona International Speedway. Let’s relive what it was like for me as the driver and for the five hundred members of the Federation who were among the tens of thousands of spectators that were present. [Audio from the Daytona 500 describing Mark Riccobono’s trip around the racetrack energized the audience.]
[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono sits in the Blind Driver Challenge vehicle, ready to take WBU delegates for a quick spin.]
While we do not yet have the power to put you on a space shuttle, we do have the ability to give you a ride in our blind drivable vehicle with a blind person as your chauffer. On Monday afternoon, we will have a limited number of opportunities for WBU delegates to take a trip around the parking lot with me driving the car. Please visit our general assembly welcome desk in the foyer area to sign up for one of the available times.
The blind of America continue to seek new ways to expand opportunities for the blind. We no longer know where the limits are for blind people. We do know that our imagination and dedication will allow us to pursue all of our dreams. We also know that the collaboration of the blind of our country with the blind around the world is increasingly important in pursuing those dreams. Many of the artificial barriers we encounter—whether it is inaccessible books and technology, the danger that quiet cars pose to all pedestrians, or the misconceptions about blindness that are used to restrict our rights—are now barriers on a global scale. However, these barriers are no match for the self-determined, action-oriented, and authentically driven union that brings us together today. On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind, we welcome you to our home, we thank you for your work to make our lives better as blind people, and we welcome the opportunity to learn from and share with you. In closing, I share with you the promise that the members of the National Federation of the Blind make to each other, as it is a promise we also share with the delegates of the World Blind Union: Together with love, hope, and determination, we transform dreams into reality.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Fredric K. Schroeder]
The World Blind Union: Future Challenges and Opportunities
by Fredric K. Schroeder, PhD
From the Editor: Fredric Schroeder is one of the most prolific and thought-provoking writers we have, and when his name appears on the annual convention agenda, the speeches he gives never fail to command attention and spark discussion. It is no accident that Fred Schroeder is now the president of the World Blind Union, and his service will no doubt bring the same class, intelligence, and insight that have benefited the blind of the United States. Here is what he writes for the Braille Monitor following the meeting at which he was elected:
The problems confronting blind people worldwide are not hard to list: blind children face barriers to a good education; blind adults face high unemployment; and all of us face well-intended yet damaging low expectations. We face limited opportunities that have defined our history and plague the present. So, what can and will we do? Where do we begin? What will the future be for the estimated 285 million blind and visually impaired people around the world? Will it be a continuation of poverty, lost opportunity, and discouragement, or will it be one of hope and optimism? That was the question facing the delegates to the World Blind Union’s Ninth General Assembly held August 18 to 25, 2016, in Orlando, Florida.
While the challenges are vast and complex, the solution is not mysterious nor beyond conception or reach. Time and time again, we have seized control of our own lives and asserted our ability and right to equal opportunity. We have joined together and worked together. We have combined our energy, resources, and imagination, and by so doing we have shown over and over again that, given the opportunity, blind people can live and work as others.
The World Blind Union 2016 General Assembly was a time for reflection, a time for discussion and planning, and a time for the blind of the world to take unified and concerted action.
We discussed access issues, including the challenges presented by the increase in the use of shared spaces; limitations in web accessibility; the danger of silent cars; the need to make books available in accessible formats and more. We discussed education and employment, but the 2016 General Assembly was more than a time to meet and plan; it was a time to encourage and inspire one another. At the General Assembly there were blind people helping blind people; blind people sharing their ideas and experiences; and blind people lifting one another’s confidence and expectations.
At conventions of the National Federation of the Blind, it is customary to have “talking signs,” not electronic signs that talk, but blind people giving information and direction to other blind people. The idea of talking signs may not seem remarkable or dramatic, but it is a tangible expression of our shared belief in one another, our shared philosophy, and the recognition that, as blind people, we need information, but our need for information does not mean we need a protector or caretaker. The understanding that we can determine the direction of our own lives is at the heart of collective action; it is the foundation for forcing change and expanding opportunities. Some problems take money to address and others not. Some problems require advocacy or legal action and others not. Some require organized programs of public education, and some require individual blind people encouraging one another; but all require a belief in our right and ability to live full and productive lives, according to our capacity and willingness to work hard.
At the 2016 General Assembly, I was privileged and honored to be elected President of the World Blind Union. It is a four-year term and one full of challenges. But I am not in it alone, any more than the blind child fighting for an education or the blind adult fighting for a job. They are not alone. The challenges facing one blind person are the challenges facing us all. Each of us is the talking sign for another, encouraging and supporting one another.
In the United States parents fight for the right for their blind children to learn Braille and to gain a good education; the same is true around the world. In the United States blind adults face unemployment; the same is true around the world. In the United States we battle for equal web accessibility; the same is true around the world. In the United States we combat low expectations, low expectations that blight lives and crush the human spirit; the same is true everywhere around the world. The details are different, but the root cause is the same—low expectations and limited opportunity.
The good news is that there are 285 million of us around the world; 285 million talking signs, supporting one another, providing direction and encouragement; 285 million talking signs believing in one another. Will we make progress in the coming four years? Of course, but the real question is not whether we will make progress but how much. In the years to come, I will do my very best, sustained by the knowledge that together we have made progress beyond our wildest imaginings, and together we will continue to change the world.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
Change in the Wind at the World Blind Union General Assembly
by Marc Maurer
The World Blind Union and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment held joint meetings in Orlando, Florida, during August of 2016. This was a joyful opportunity for the National Federation of the Blind because our organization served as the primary host for these meetings. One of the more notable results from this meeting is that Dr. Fredric Schroeder was elected to the presidency of the World Blind Union. In 1964 Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, the founding president of the National Federation of the Blind, was elected as founding president of the International Federation of the Blind, one of the two organizations that formed the World Blind Union twenty years later. This brings the presidency of the primary world organization of blind people back to the United States. Dr. tenBroek would be pleased.
I served as chairman of the host committee, and from this position I came to know innumerable details about the operations of the meetings we held. I also reflected about past meetings of the world organization and about my participation in them.
I first traveled to the World Blind Union meeting that was held in Madrid, Spain, in 1988. My experience with blindness-related organizations consisted mostly of interacting with the National Federation of the Blind and certain agencies doing work with the blind in this country. The World Blind Union was startlingly different from what I had known. In planning the 2016 meeting, I wondered how startlingly different the delegates to the world meeting would find their experience in the United States.
In Madrid, to begin with, the food was not standard American fare—how unexpected is that for an inexperienced American? And the Spanish didn’t eat it in a pattern that seemed comprehensible to my stomach. The days began early, and they continued into the night. We stayed at an international hotel, which meant that a modified American breakfast could be found. The breakfast was part of the hotel package, and we felt some compunction to eat it because it would be wasteful not to do so. In 1988 the National Federation of the Blind had come out of a period of our history when the organization had wondered whether we could gather the funds to continue, and we were quite conscious of not wasting a dime. Of course we still have that view, but differences in cultural norms are sometimes easier to accommodate when we’ve had a little more experience with them. If I traveled to Madrid today, I would probably spend more time resting and a little less with breakfast.
My problem was that the restaurants didn’t open at night until 9:00 PM, and the dinner hour was a leisurely affair. It often concluded after midnight. Then I would have to be prepared for breakfast at 7:00 AM. Apparently Spanish people have a nap in the middle of the day (sometimes called a siesta), but we had meetings. After a few days the 7:00 AM to after midnight schedule began to wear on me.
Of course Spain is a fascinating country. We visited la Alhambra, a hilltop fortress which also includes royal gardens and palaces. During the tour we passed through the throne room, and I wondered what distinguishes a throne? After all, a throne is a place to sit, and monarchs are not strikingly different from other people in their sitting requirements. Many years later when I was visiting the House of Lords in London, Lord Colin Low told me that the person who chairs the House of Lords, the Lord Speaker, sits on a bag of wool. I concluded from this and from my reading about the British Constitution that the Woolsack was adopted as a piece of history. Wool became a primary export for England in the thirteenth century, and the government of the country stabilized its financial operation by a modest tax on the wool export. However, these reflections have still not told me what there is essential about a throne. I feel certain that it is not an ordinary chair. When I was visiting the throne room at la Alhambra, I wanted to find out, and I stepped over the rope to touch the throne. A guard in the throne room warned me away. I still don’t know what there is special about a throne.
Our hosts in Madrid, leaders of ONCE, the Spanish National Organization for the Blind, were most gracious. They took us to a restaurant where Ernest Hemingway had enjoyed dining, <http://www.botin.es/web/?q=en> El Sobrino de Botín, and I tasted suckling pig for the first time. I have been convinced ever since that the Spanish know what to do with pork. One of the days in Spain was set aside for tours, and some of us went to Toledo, the former capital of the country. I had read novels about how a single human being could block a street, and I did not really believe it could be done. But some of the streets in Toledo were built between stone walls and were narrow enough that I could reach almost from one side to the other. The construction of such passages was both fascinating and impressive.
In 2016 we did not plan for a siesta in the middle of the day. I wondered how this would seem to delegates who were coming to our meeting for the first time from countries where such a custom is part of the tradition. I also wondered what other customs that we take for granted would seem unusual.
The meetings we planned in Orlando lasted eight days. Sometimes they were meetings for the World Blind Union, sometimes they were meetings for the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment, and sometimes the meetings were jointly conducted. One element of these meetings was the tea break. One occurred from 10:30 to 11:00 in the morning, and one occurred from 3:30 to 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. We don’t have these at NFB conventions. However, they are expected at World Blind Union meetings. At the tea break it is anticipated that everybody who wants to have tea, coffee, muffins, or pastries available, will get them. In planning the World Blind Union meeting I was charged with the responsibility of assuring that these breaks would occur as scheduled with the beverages and food available for each participant. I have managed a great many meetings in American hotels, and I know that buying coffee by the gallon is a dramatically expensive experience. Nevertheless, I planned the tea breaks. When I checked them, I noticed that they were well attended.
At some of the World Blind Union general assemblies a set lunch is one of the elements of the program, but the international organizing committee did not request that we plan prepared lunches for the delegates. We do like to eat in the United States, but we don’t like restrictions. We usually hope to find many different kinds of food outlets wherever we go that remain open most of the day and much of the night and that offer a wide array of choices. Our more adventuresome colleagues tried the restaurants in the Rosen Centre and nearby the hotel such as the Red Lobster, Denny’s, a barbecue spot, or fine dining establishments. Some like pizza, some like fast food, some like products of the sea, and some like seared steak. It appeared to me that our colleagues in the World Blind Union felt much the same.
Two basic types of entities exist in the field of work with the blind. These are agencies serving the blind and organizations of the blind. In many parts of the world organizations of the blind are scarce. Organizations of the blind are made up of blind people who elect their leaders and who, through a democratic process, determine the policies and direction for the organization. In places where blind people have established organizations of the blind, the concept that blind people should run their own programs is no longer novel. However, where organizations of the blind have not been created by blind people, the idea that the blind have the ability to manage the planning and detailed execution required to run a complex organization with significant programs is often regarded as a form of insanity. Blind people cannot lead other blind people, it is thought, because when this takes place, all fall in the ditch. Consequently, the thought that democracy exercised among blind people can create programs that sustain independence for blind people is controversial.
How, I wondered, would delegates from other nations feel about being with members of the National Federation of the Blind who are blind themselves and who expect to run the organization in which they are a part? In many of the World Blind Union meetings the volunteer contingent assembled to help delegates consists of sighted people. I planned to have volunteers available, but a great many of them were blind people. How would the delegates react to this, I wondered? Would they feel uneasy with this kind of volunteer? Pam Allen served as coordinator of volunteers. Federation members who have attended our national convention know that we follow the custom of creating a system of talking signs to direct individuals to various activities and locations. “Meeting room this way,” is not an unusual expression at our meetings. I wondered how this would work with World Blind Union delegates who are new to the experience. My observation is that the delegates seemed to manage quite well.
One event for every World Blind Union General Assembly is known as the cultural night. The host committee has the opportunity to show off the culture of the country where the meeting is taking place. How can the culture of the United States be characterized? What elements synthesize the American spirit? How can this be demonstrated? We decided to show five very different things: the blind driver car, baseball, exploration of space, a mechanical representation from a rodeo, and American music.
The car that we built to be driven on the Daytona International Speedway by Mark Riccobono combines two elements of American culture—the inventive spirit of blind people and the cars that we as Americans love to build. President Riccobono offered people rides in the vehicle using the space available in the parking lot of the Rosen Centre hotel. He was the chauffer. Although these rides were brief, they demonstrated part of the ability of blind people. The blind-drivable car would not have been developed without the work and the spirit of the National Federation of the Blind.
From the concept of the rodeo comes the mechanical bull. Invented in the United States, the mechanical bull is a machine shaped like a bull which can be made to behave as if it were an untamed creature prancing in the arena for cowboys, or World Blind Union delegates, to ride. It exemplifies the American West, the frontier, and something of the unusual playfulness of the American spirit.
Another part of the cultural night was a pitching station where delegates could throw a ball tracked by a speed gun. The best pitchers in baseball can cause the ball to travel at a hundred miles an hour. Delegates could discover just how good their pitching arms were. In addition, they could enjoy baseball food—hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, and soft pretzels.
For the space exploration element, we displayed artifacts used by astronauts in the space program. An astronaut, Mike Foreman, spoke about the space program. What must a person do to qualify to become an astronaut, and what are the requirements for a spacewalk? How does life change when there is no gravity, and how does it feel to be back on Earth? Our astronaut posed for pictures with delegates from around the world and answered many questions about the experiences of being in space.
To cap off the evening we enjoyed music performed by our own members. JP Williams, the singer-songwriter who has made a name for himself in Nashville (sometimes joined by James Brown, our Tennessee president and a member of the board of directors), offered musical selections from American artists. Delegates responded enthusiastically to the songs showing musical development in the United States over more than half a century. JP Williams and James Brown concluded the evening with a rendition of their own creations that had been performed for the National Federation of the Blind’s seventy-fifth anniversary.
As chairman of the host committee it was not my responsibility to plan the work of the World Blind Union. However, I observed a great deal of it when my other duties did not call me away. I have attended all of the meetings of the World Blind Union General Assembly beginning in 1988, and I believe that the organization has changed from what it was in the early days.
The World Blind Union is a combination of organizations of the blind and organizations for the blind. In 1984 the International Federation of the Blind, an organization of blind people, and the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind, an organization composed of representatives of agencies for the blind, came together to form the World Blind Union. The result of this combination was uneasiness and distrust. Some delegates wanted the organization to be a representative one made up largely of blind people, and some delegates wanted the organization to be a think tank directing worldwide policy for the blind which would be made up of professionals who would speak on behalf of blind people. This second group wanted the union to become a coordinating body to direct resources from the wealthier parts of the world to blind people in parts of our globe where resources are scarce. In the early days, delegates fought fiercely over the nature of the organization.
In 2016 the arguments are largely a matter of history. The World Blind Union adopted for the first time this year a policy requiring all of its officers to be blind people. Although many sighted delegates remain part of the organization, the WBU is becoming an organization of the blind.
To serve as a representative body for blind people from around the world, the World Blind Union must learn what blind people want. Then, it must gain sufficient resources to exercise influence in places where decision-making about blind people occurs. Finally, it must exercise the authority of the organization with sufficient diplomacy that the use of the organization’s power does not damage its structure. This is a very delicate challenge. However, if the World Blind Union has no power to make change, it is irrelevant. If its members have no power to make change, it is also likely that the World Blind Union will have no power to make change. Consequently, the challenge for the World Blind Union is to help its members to gain power, and to coordinate the use of that power to address the most important priorities for the blind.
More than a decade ago the World Blind Union attempted to influence the United Nations to create a legal document, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Dr. Fredric Schroeder served as a representative from the World Blind Union to the United Nations for the purpose of assisting in the negotiations. The head of the World Blind Union delegation to the United Nations was its then-president William Rowland. The Convention was adopted by the UN ten years ago, and it has been ratified in more than 150 countries, but unfortunately not in the United States. Although the World Blind Union is not as well known around the world as it might be, this United Nations activity brought its name forcefully to the attention of many international organizations.
Another convention sponsored by the World Blind Union, the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled, has been negotiated through the World Intellectual Property Organization, one segment of the United Nations. This treaty, which eases legal restrictions on the transfer of books for the blind from one nation to another, became effective in the summer of 2016 just as we were gathering for the World Blind Union General Assembly. This is the only treaty of which I have ever heard that deals exclusively with the needs of the blind and print disabled. Once again Dr. Schroeder was one of the negotiators along with Scott LaBarre. Maryanne Diamond, who served as president of the World Blind Union during the negotiations, was a fierce proponent of the rights of the blind. It was she who persuaded the National Federation of the Blind to invite the United States to support the treaty. Although this treaty has become effective for the nations that have ratified it, the document is still in the negotiation stage before the Senate of the United States.
What happened at the 2016 General Assembly of the World Blind Union? Delegates considered the governing structure of the world organization but left most of the systems established previously in place. The one exception is that all officers must now be blind people. Technology for the blind was reviewed, but no new programs were created regarding technology. Recently a group of organizations dealing with blindness caused a low-cost Braille display to be produced, which is making its way onto the market. This Braille display is not dramatically different from others currently available, but it is cheaper. The cost difference may enhance the use of Braille technology in places where it has previously been cost prohibitive to use it. Programs of rehabilitation for the blind received attention. Although new plans for rehabilitation did not appear to come from the discussions, a number of countries where rehabilitation had not been emphasized may find that there is sufficient interest to proceed with teaching the blind. Exhibitors showed their products to delegates. Most of the items on display are known to the people who have attended our national convention, but some new products made their appearance—such things as a digital Braille watch that can display the time and perhaps text messages in Braille characters.
Sometimes startling change comes not from a dramatic event but a subtle alteration in the pattern. In this general assembly it seems to me that the important news is that more blind people are taking more independent action to produce more opportunity for themselves and their peers in more places around the world than has ever previously occurred. Programs for the blind get better when blind people help to shape them. The World Blind Union is causing this to happen. This is good news for world programs for the blind.
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Reflections from a First-time Attendee and the Joy in Helping Host a Meeting of the
World Blind Union
by Gary Wunder
Often in my Federation career I have heard arguments against localitis, the idea that your chapter is separate from the affiliate, and the affiliate separate from the national body. Along with other Federation leaders I have repeatedly made the case for one movement, one organization, one team, but I have always drawn the line when it comes to crossing international boundaries, being somewhat parochial in the view that I should put my effort into the country in which I live—the United States of America.
When the NFB took on the challenge of hosting the 2016 World Blind Union (WBU) General Assembly and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI), my first thoughts were, "I wonder what this will cost? I wonder how much time it will take away from the really important work we do? I wonder what benefit will accrue to us, and will it really matter to the blind of the world where these organizations meet?”
I didn't say any of this; it felt negative, and I wanted to be open to the possibility that we might give in ways that I had not considered and that we might also receive in ways I could not fathom.
So I sat through the initial planning, expecting that the Braille Monitor would want to cover the event and that I would be invited along, but not really thinking about a more active role.
Any reservation I had about putting energy into the world meeting evaporated when Debbie and I got to Orlando a day before the proceedings began. Never having traveled abroad, I was swept up by all of the different languages being spoken around me and all of the accents in which I heard English being spoken. Some of the languages sounded beautiful to my ear, and some of the accents gave me a new appreciation for our mother tongue. It also led to some interesting discussions as we delighted in the various flavors of English and the differences in meaning of phrases depending on where the person who spoke was from. When giving directions to walk from the hotel to a nearby restaurant, I might tell a person to go left down the sidewalk and the restaurant is at the second light. Someone from New Zealand would have said to go left down the footpath; someone from Britain would have said to go down the pavement; and someone from South Africa would have said to go left down the pavement, and the restaurant was at the second robot. Martine Able, who is from South Africa, told me about the first time she went for a walk in Auckland (New Zealand), and she asked a passerby how many robots she would have to cross over to find a particular shop. The passerby just disappeared on her, obviously thinking her a little crazy (or as the Brits might say, a little barmy.)
While to Americans tea is a hot beverage or perhaps a quick break to sit and chat over that liquid delight, that is not the case in other countries. In New Zealand and Britain, tea is more of an early evening meal. In South Africa, tea is more of an afternoon snack. But supper, which in America is generally agreed upon as the large evening meal, in New Zealand is a snack meal closer to bedtime, while South Africa agrees with us Americans. Though there were others, some highly amusing, and even suggestive, we’ll leave this topic for another time.
As the host, the NFB was expected to provide volunteers to assist the delegates and others who attended. This point was emphasized repeatedly, the concern being that the delegates would need help and would want it promptly. Traditionally this has meant providing plenty of sighted volunteers. While some of these were on hand, blind Federationists did the vast majority of the guiding, and the results were interesting. At this conference when the blind led the blind we did not fall into a ditch but startled and eventually motivated those we guided. When people asked for a guide, we provided them with a human guide. When they heard a cane and realized it was attached to the arm they were following, some would stop and ask what we were doing. We said we were acting as their human guide, and they made it clear that they had expected someone with sight. But, interestingly, no one hesitated for long when we explained that we knew the layout of the hotel and could get them where they wanted to go. By the time the meetings got into full swing, it was not uncommon to see delegates using their canes, sometimes with us as human guides and sometimes declining our help by proudly stating, "I can do this myself, but thank you." Hurray!
Not only were delegates impressed by their human guides and what they learned to do for themselves, but they loved the talking signs, the folks we call marshals at our national conventions. Our traditional marshals were not only talking signs but friendly hosts inviting delegates to meetings. "Welcome to the meeting of the general assembly; step right this way." "Good morning, and welcome to the first session of the World Blind Union Joint Assembly." Those who passed by couldn't just take the advice and move into the room. Almost everyone shouted out a thank you or moved to the side to tell us how exciting they found the concept of talking human signs. After the first day we realized we could have fun with this and got people who stopped to join us in the call out. The twist was that we got them to do this in their language. They enjoyed the celebrity, the participation in our project, and the reaction they heard as those filing into the room were even more amazed to hear greetings in their language. Never has it been so much fun to be a marshal or a biological talking sign.
One of the highlights in observing the general assembly was in seeing the recognition accorded to our leaders. Immediate Past President Maurer’s long service was clearly evident in the respect shown him by the delegates and officers of the WBU. The respect for the President of the National Federation of the Blind was similarly evident in the attention paid his remarks and the enthusiastic response to them. The contribution Mary Ellen Jernigan has made was acknowledged when the members of the general assembly unanimously voted to accept her as a lifetime member of the organization, an honor which is recognized with special seating in the same way designated areas are provided for the delegates from each country. When I think about the major struggles we face in maintaining our organization such as recruiting members, raising funds, and coming up with innovative programs, I will now view these challenges in a new light. Civil War is a reality in far too many countries, and blind people suffer disproportionately. We heard from service providers who risked their lives to go where blind people were; who were called upon by the rebel forces to account for why they, as government representatives, were found in rebel territory; and who were called upon when arriving back home to demonstrate their loyalty to the government by justifying why they would provide services to the rebels.
Organizing a chapter is hard work, but what we do is nothing compared with what must occur in some countries to make this happen. Many have little in the way of public transportation. Sometimes the requirement to conduct a meeting in more than one language is a significant obstacle. Cultural differences sometimes make communication between different provinces exceedingly difficult. The fact that many countries who came to the World Blind Union even have organizations of the blind is a testament to the toughness of blind men and women who want better for themselves and the inspiration they draw from one another in bringing about a better tomorrow. The National Federation of the Blind wanted to help the World Blind Union by being the host of its 2016 General Assembly, but as is the case so many times when we give, we often are the beneficiary of treasured experiences we never envisioned. This was my experience, and I thank the National Federation of the Blind and the World Blind Union for letting me be a part.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Karen Keninger]
My Leadership Journey
by Karen Keninger
From the Editor: On Monday, August 24, 2016, the World Blind Union held a session on leadership chaired by Maryanne Diamond, former president of the World Blind Union. Leaders from countries around the world offered perspectives on the exercise of leadership, and the director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped from the United States was one of the presenters. Here is what she said:
Thank you, Maryanne, and welcome, all of you. I know that we have a lot of seasoned leaders in this group, so I hope that I don't bore you. I'm going to tell you about my own leadership journey, and perhaps some of it will resonate with some of you seasoned leaders, and for some of you who are working on that, maybe you'll get a kernel or two of something useful.
My journey began many years ago, and it was a small thing, really. My little daughter came home from catechism class with a picture of a chicken. I said, "What did you learn? Why did you draw a chicken?" She had no idea. I wanted to complain: she isn't learning anything. Then I realized I had no idea what they were really doing. I figured out that if I wanted to have input into the program, I'd better plan to do the work. So I signed up to teach. It was really a lot of work: I had to get lesson plans in Braille, had to plan the lessons, and then I had to manage a room full of rowdy nine-year-olds. But by doing that I had influence over the program—they really weren't doing such a bad job after all. But the lesson that I learned was that if I wanted to influence the outcome of the program, I had to jump in and work at it, study it, get to know it, understand it, understand the potentials and the constraints, and find solutions to problems. I needed to develop opinions based on facts and the situation that was there.
I learned that I could use the unique knowledge that I had as a blind person, as a woman, as a mother, as a teacher, and the unique combination of my own gifts to influence the outcomes. To do the work effectively I had to hone my blindness skills. Now I have been blind since I was a small child, and I'm a lifelong Braille reader, and my experience has taught me that personal literacy is paramount to my success as a blind leader. When I'm writing, for instance, it's not good enough to be almost right. I don't want people saying, "Well that's pretty good for a blind person." I want people to say, "That's pretty good." Literacy is not a luxury for me. Listening only is not enough for me, either. I use Braille just the way sighted people use print: take notes in Braille on my notetaker, on my Perkins Brailler, and on my slate and stylus. I read them back in Braille; I search them on my notetaker; I flag them, I edit them; I use a combination of everything I can get my hands on to compensate for my inability to read print. I use the computer with speech, I use recorded books, I use recorded magazines, but I also use Braille and strongly believe that without the literacy Braille provides for me, I would be less able to do my job. I need to write notes and read them back; I need to write and edit documents, including the spelling, the punctuation, the paragraphing, as well as all the content; I need to read and manipulate numbers on spreadsheets for budgets; I need them in Braille. So on my desk you will find a Perkins Brailler, a slate and stylus, a notetaker, and a computer with a Braille display.
I am very fortunate to have all these devices, but the second part of that is the learning and practicing using them day in and day out so I can be efficient to do my work. It's a lot more work to learn to use a screen reader and be efficient with it than it is to learn to point and click a mouse. But it's critical these days to getting the job done.
Mobility was another thing that I had to take seriously. I've used a dog guide since I was sixteen, and for years that was sufficient. But I discovered—I'm a little slow—that some things are better done with a dog, but some things are better done with a cane, and some things are better done with a sighted guide. It depends on the situation. My preference is to be independent. My choice is to have both the dog and the cane at my disposal so that I can have the most efficient mode for the moment. Aside from the practicalities of good, independent travel, I believe that it helps in maintaining my image as a competent and professional colleague.
Jumping in and contributing at some level was where I started, honing my skills along the way. That got me into a job at a rehabilitation agency. And then came another big lesson: I was given the task of drafting a new strategic plan for the agency. Oh, I knew what I was doing. I knew the program. I drafted a beautiful, logical, may I say perfect strategic plan. And I delivered it complete and proud. And they rejected it out of hand. Why? Because I did not get buy-in from the stakeholders at the beginning and throughout the process. Yeah, it was pretty humiliating to have my work rejected so completely, and I had to start over. But this time, on the advice of my boss, I gathered input from everyone first. I learned that leadership doesn't happen in a vacuum. I couldn't lead unless I could convince others to follow. And to do that, I learned that I had to spend the time and the patience—and it took patience to listen, to gather input, and to incorporate that input into the project. And—surprise, surprise—I discovered that they had a lot of ideas I hadn't thought of. When people felt like their concerns were addressed, they were much more willing to follow my lead on the project.
The second draft was accepted. It contained other people's ideas besides my own, but because I drafted it, I was able to define the foundation of the plan, and my foundation remained through subsequent iterations.
Leadership involves risks. Sometimes projects fail, and when they do, leaders take the responsibility. I spearheaded a big project several years ago to develop a new case management system in our agency. The project failed abysmally. I could give you a long list of reasons why it failed and a long list of lessons learned, but the point is that it failed, and I had the lead responsibility. The only thing I could do was pick up the pieces and move forward, taking what I had learned and implementing them into the next project. I've worked hard, taken chances, and, perhaps most importantly, I've learned from my mistakes. Today I am in a leadership position at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. I'm at the national level of a program affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
Leadership presumes that you know where you are going, and people will follow you if the goal makes sense. I have a vision for my program, I have articulated that vision clearly (I think) and consistently for the past four years. Part of that vision includes converting our Braille program from hardcopy to electronic, providing refreshable Braille devices and electronic Braille books and magazines, and hardcopy only on demand. This is a big change for my program, but it is my vision based on my knowledge and experience. Four years ago when I came to the National Library Service and articulated that vision for the first time, it was a long way off. I knew it would not be possible to achieve unless several things happened and that I had a role in making those things happen. I needed a change to our governing laws. To get that to happen I needed the support of the Library of Congress upper management to include it in their legislative requests. To get that to happen, I had to sell the value of Braille literacy to a completely uninformed audience. I took every chance that I could to do that, and succeeded.
Meanwhile, we had to establish the need from the perspective of the stakeholders. So we worked with Perkins to organize a Braille summit to solicit feedback and ideas on all aspects of Braille. The top recommendation coming out of that summit—as I sort of hoped it would be—was making refreshable Braille devices available to everyone. I also needed to enlist the support of the consumer organizations, because Congress needed to know that this was an important thing to all blind people.
Another thing that needed to happen was a new technology. We couldn't even consider the possibility of providing refreshable Braille displays at the current prices.
I made my vision known as widely as possible, and perhaps that helped to leverage the resources needed to develop a new technology. That technology is soon to be on the market as a result of the Transforming Braille Group, which is an international effort led by Kevin Carey. It's going to be on the market at affordable prices. Our legislation has changed as of this summer, and now we have the challenge of implementing the program. The vision is clear, and we're closer to reality now. Getting the support of the stakeholders has been critical, and beating the drum with a clear goal helps people to get behind it.
Perhaps the hardest lesson I've learned is that I can't do it alone. I have learned that lesson many times over the years, and I keep relearning it. To bring this Braille project along I needed a whole constellation of supporters. I needed the National Federation of the Blind, the American Council of the Blind, the Library of Congress, and the International Transforming Braille Group, the educators, the Braille readers, the Braille technology experts, and everyone else interested in literacy for blind people around the world. I can't do it alone, but I can do my part to make it happen.
Leading takes practice and hard work. Like everything else that's worthwhile, the rewards are there, but so are the risks and the responsibilities. I have found as a blind person that a full array of alternative techniques is critical to my success because no one thing or one way is the best way all the time.
I have learned to take into account the opinions of others and to value and promote the skills of others to get what I want done. But I think the most important thing that I have learned is that my dreams, my goals, and my aspirations are as important as anyone else's. They are valid, and they are achievable. Your dreams, your visions for a better future are just as valid as anyone else's, too. If we each do our part and we all work together, we can make them all come true.
I will end with one of my favorite quotes from Margaret Mead, an anthropologist of some repute. She said, and I echo, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Thank you.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Fredric K. Schroeder]
Nurture the Ability, Sustain the Confidence
by Fredric K. Schroeder
From the Editor: Many presentations that make it into this magazine are crafted for delivery and represent hours of preparation, but one hallmark of a good leader is to think on his feet and to be able to articulate the things he believes in when called on. Combining the head and the heart and sending their messages to others is a talent Fred Schroeder has in abundance, and his ability served all of those attending the meeting of the WBU when the absence of a previously-scheduled speaker due to illness meant the assembly needed significant and moving remarks. Dr. Schroeder was unexpectedly called upon to do this, and here is how his impromptu presentation was introduced by President Arnt Holte:
You’ll see in the program that our last speaker is Bryan Bashin from Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco. Unfortunately Bryan is unable to be with us, so at no notice I’ve invited someone else to take his place, and that’s our incoming president, Fred Schroeder. Fred has also a lifetime of leadership in very different roles, and I’m sure much to share with us. Thank you, Fred, for taking up this spot so willingly—or unwillingly.
Fred Schroeder: Good afternoon. It is a real pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. Many of the remarks that you have heard resonate with my own story. I want to begin by saying that, when we look at the challenges facing blind people, it is very easy to catalog the challenges in terms of the mechanics. In other words, difficulty getting access to a good education, difficulty in getting access to employment, even at very entry levels. But those lack of opportunities in many respects are symptomatic of the greater problem that we face, and that is low expectations. Society views us as broken people. They don’t harbor ill-will toward us, but they see us as very damaged, as broken people—people who are very limited in the ability to carry out even the most basic day-to-day activities. And so with that as the underlying assumptions, opportunities are limited.
I lost most of my vision when I was seven years old, and I went through public school in the United States without any special education support, but more tragically, no blind role models. And all I remember about my childhood as a blind person was being told what I could not do. Since I didn’t see well enough to read print, I was excused from all reading, writing, and math in the curriculum. Now, if you think about your education, if you take reading, writing, and math out of the education, there is precious little left. So I had a terrible education, a very incomplete education. However, one thing I did learn: I learned to feel inferior.
When I was in tenth grade, I had to take a biology class. Part of that biology class involved a lab experiment: dissecting a frog. The way the exercise was structured is that the class was divided into groups of two. And the dissection was divided up into two parts, and so when the dissection would begin, one student would do the first half of the dissection while the other student recorded what was being discovered, and midway through they would switch roles so that both students got the opportunity to participate in the dissection. Well in my class we were divided into groups of two except there was a group that had three people in it, that was my group. And that meant that I sat behind the other two students while they did the experiment. So I did not learn anything about dissecting a frog. Now you might think, so what? How important is it to dissect a frog? But what I did learn is a feeling of inferiority. I assumed that I could not do what others were able to do, and that I could not do it because of blindness.
I lost all of my vision when I was sixteen, and I was very fortunate because I went to an adult rehabilitation center in California, and there I learned the techniques that I would need to be able to function as a blind person. Karen Keninger spoke about these skills, the blindness skills, the ability to read and write Braille, the ability to travel independently using a white cane, the ability to cook and to clean your house and take care of your day-to-day needs. But the most fortunate part was I met other blind people. As many of you know, for all of my adult life I have been actively involved in a consumer organization in the United States, the host organization for this general assembly, the National Federation of the Blind. And it was through the Federation that I began to recognize that the limitations that I thought were because of blindness were socially-constructed limitations. In other words they were limitations that came from low expectations, and I had internalized those low expectations.
A friend of mine—well, the day I met him, he was involved in some legislative work, and he wanted me to contact him the next week, so he said, “Let me give you my telephone number, I want you to call me next week.” And I said, “I have no way of writing down your telephone number.” And he said, “Don’t you know how to read Braille?” I had learned Braille, I said yes. He said, “Do you know how to use a slate and stylus?” I said, “Yes, but I don’t have one with me.” He said, “If you’re sighted, you don’t need to carry a pen, because there are sighted people everywhere, and somebody will have a pen. But if you’re blind, you have to carry a slate and stylus because if you don’t, the odds that all the sighted people around you will have slates and styluses are pretty low.” So, by the way, to this day I carry a slate and stylus in my bag. What was he doing? What he was doing, in a gentle way, was saying quit acting helpless. Quit assuming that you cannot do things because of blindness.
That support system was absolutely critical in shaping my career goals. I wanted to be a teacher of blind children, so I went through my university training and did well. I began to see that what was limiting so many of us was the consequence of stereotypes or misunderstanding about blindness, more so than the functional aspect of blindness. I graduated with my master’s degree in 1978—some of you weren’t born in 1978. At that time in the US blind children were being educated in integrated schools, not all blind children, but the move was very strong toward integrated education. And many of the school systems were looking for teachers who could teach the academic subjects, but who also could teach orientation and mobility. In other words, a school system might only have three or four blind children, and they didn’t want to hire a teacher to teach academics and then hire an orientation and mobility specialist. So many of the students in my graduate program were getting certified to teach orientation and mobility along with their regular teacher certification. Well, I wanted a job, and I thought that would prepare me best for a job. But at that time in the United States the university training programs did not accept blind people to learn to be orientation and mobility instructors. Well, it’s a very long story, but the key part that I want to bring up this afternoon is that what allowed me—or gave the confidence, the resolve—to continue on and to earn my degree in orientation and mobility when by and large the profession was very much against me was the faith that other blind people had in me. Blind people believed in me. Blind people encouraged me. They told me that what I was doing was reasonable, that we needed to expand the kinds of jobs that blind people could do, and that sustained me. I was young, I was twenty-one years old; I had an entire profession thinking that I was some sort of troublemaker, that I was being unrealistic, that I would be putting my students in danger. I don’t say this to criticize or condemn any of the people who opposed my training. But what allowed me to sustain was the support of other blind people. As we look at leadership, we need to find opportunities to help sustain other blind people, to help encourage other blind people. Sometimes it’s through money, but it’s not all about resources. It’s about encouragement and belief.
I went on into special education. I faced discrimination, as do most blind people in trying to find employment. At the time I applied for teaching jobs, there was a huge nationwide shortage of qualified teachers of blind children. School districts would come to the university and try to recruit people before they had graduated so that they would have contracts and be committed to going to work at that particular school system upon graduation. Every single student—they were sighted—every student in my program had multiple job offers. I had no job offers. I applied for over thirty teaching jobs and received not a single job offer. Not because I wasn’t qualified, but simply because of low expectations.
My career began with a blind person who ran an agency for the blind, a long-term leader in our National Federation of the Blind, and he hired me. Well subsequent to that, I’ve had other jobs. But when I moved to Washington in 1994, I moved to work for President Bill Clinton. My job was to head up an agency called the Rehabilitation Services Administration, the agency that provides the bulk of the funding for employment training for adults with disabilities, not just blind people, but adults with disabilities throughout the country. While I was there we were in the process of trying to recruit someone for a job, and there was a blind woman who came to my attention. She had a law degree, had done very well in law school, but, like so many other blind people, when she finished law school, she could not find a job. At the time that I was recruiting for this position, she had been out of work at least six or eight years, maybe ten years since graduating from law school. So was she the most qualified candidate? No. There were other candidates who were applying who had very long resumés, lots of work experience, work experience directly related to the function of the job. But I hired her anyway. Now did I do that because I felt sorry for her? No. She had the skill, she had shown that she could compete and do the kind of work that I needed to have her do; it was analytical work, and she had a law degree with very good grades. Part of expanding leadership is helping others—other blind people—take that step into employment.
Since the time I left the government, this young woman has been promoted twice. The federal government has a system that goes from what they call GS1 to GS15, with fifteen being the highest. She is now at the GS15 level, and one of the most respected, competent people in that agency. She had the ability, but she did not have the opportunity. We have to help one another gain access to jobs that will develop blind people’s leadership potential.
So in closing, I would say again: if blind people are willing to go into leadership positions, you have to be prepared, you need those good blindness skills that Karen spoke about. You need to have the right kind of preparation, training in whatever skill area, or if it’s academic qualifications, you need to have those credentials. But also you need to have in your own mind, heart, and spirit the belief that you are just as worthy and just as capable as anyone else. And what sustains that, what nourishes that, is the support of other blind people. This is something each of us in this room can do, whether we have resources or no resources; we can find and encourage blind people, help support them, to unlock not only their own potential, but by so doing to expand opportunities for blind people everywhere. That is a quick summary of my story, and of course there are so many pieces that are left out—and I don’t really mean to end on a negative note, but I will tell you this: when I was working for President Clinton, this was a position appointed by the president, and it required confirmation by the Senate of the United States. I was on an airplane one time, and I was talking to a stranger in the seat next to me, and he asked, “What do you do?”
I said, “Well, I run a federal agency.” He was absolutely astounded.
He said, “What does the agency do?”
I said, “We provide funds for job training for people with disabilities.”
He said, “Oh, I understand.” He didn’t say it, but I’m sure what went through his mind is, “Oh, not a real job, a disabled job, oh I see how a blind person could do that, yes.” We get marginalized. I don’t say that with bitterness or with anger, but I think it is a reality, and it is a big part of our challenge around the world: To help nurture the ability in blind people; to sustain their confidence and encourage them; and, to the degree that we control hiring opportunities, to actively look for blind people—not as tokens, not just putting some unqualified person in just to have filled the slot with a blind person, but looking for people who may not have the long resumé because of the discrimination they have faced, but they have the skills, and they have the drive, and they have the ability. Thank you, Madame Chair.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Ron McCallum]
Leadership: Perspectives from Ron McCallum
by Ron McCallum
From the Editor: There is no better way to introduce this speaker to an American audience than his Wikipedia entry: “Ronald Clive ‘Ron’ McCallum AO [Order of Australia] is an Australian legal academic. He is an expert in labor law and has served as a professor and dean of law at the University of Sydney. He is the first totally blind person to be appointed to a full professorship in any subject at any university in Australia or New Zealand, as well as the first to become a Dean of Law in these countries. He chairs the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Geneva.” He spoke on Monday afternoon on the topic of leadership. Here is what he had to say:
Well, I know Charles is here, so hello, Charles. Hello, everyone. Hello to those listening on ACB Radio, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: some of the delegates are listening to this on their iPhones as they sit by the pool [laughter]. Can I say, guys, stop splashing and concentrate.
I’m a little diffident about speaking about myself, but I have to say a few introductory words; then I’ll say something about leadership in two forms, being dean of a law school, and chairing a United Nations committee, both taking different skills. Then I want to conclude by asking why are there not more blind people as leaders, and why not more blind women?
I was born a long time ago, I think I’m perhaps the third-oldest person here, perhaps not as old as Lord Low or Euclid, but getting there. I was born in 1948 in Melbourne, Australia. I’m a retrolental fibroplasia child, that is, too much oxygen destroyed my vision. I went to blind schools and to an ordinary high school, and then I studied law both in Australia and in Canada as a post-graduate student, where I got great help from the CNIB—I have a great soft spot for the CNIB. It was the first time I’d come across a truly national blind organization.
I ended up being an academic in Australia. My specialty was and still is labor relations law. In 1993 I found, to my great surprise, that I happened to be the first totally blind person at any Australian or New Zealand university to be appointed to a full professorship in law [applause]—oh no, don’t please. From 2002 until 2007 I was dean of the University of Sydney Law School, one of the two oldest law schools in the country, more than 150 years old. Then in 2009 I became an inaugural member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which monitors the CRPD [Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities], and my friends are still there. I finished my mandate in December 2014. I chaired the committee from February 2010 to April 2013, when my successor—who we’ve just heard from, Maria Soledad Cisternas, took over. I also had the honor between 2011 and 2012 of chairing all of the meetings of the nine chairs of the nine human rights committees of the entire United Nations, and that was perhaps the highest and most complex thing I’ve ever done at a time of treaty body reform.
Being a dean of a law school is rather different from being a chair of a UN committee, and therefore I want to look at them separately and look at some of the techniques I used. The first thing is, if you’re going to be dean of an academic institution—or any institution, for that matter—you need to be able to do the jobs that you’re asking people to do. No point in being a leader and saying, well I can’t do this, I can’t do that. You can’t do everything. But I had been a relatively successful labor relations lawyer; I’d also practiced law as a special counsel in the law firm of Ashurst, which goes around the world now. So I was able to do the jobs of teaching, researching, and practice that I wanted my staff to do when teaching young women and men to be lawyers.
Second important thing is—I know it’s a phrase often used—deep listening. Every leader needs to be able to listen to every person on their staff. How do I work out what people are made of if I can’t see their faces? Well I think we blind people are pretty good at that. I follow one of my great heroes, Jacques Lusseyran, who died in 1971. He was a blind leader in the French Resistance who vetted people by using the techniques I have tried to learn: by their voices, by their breathing, what they say, and what they don’t say. And I’ve found it very easy to get a rapport with people. My labor relations training taught me the value of conciliation and putting myself in the shoes of the other person.
The second great assistance was technology. Email made my life so much easier. If I had been dean of a law school in the 1980s when there was no email, I would have been confronted by bombastic, handwritten notes from my staff! I would have had to find someone to read them. But now, for good or for ill, they emailed, and I could read them instantly. I had so many folders I could find the latest email from any of the hundred staff in less than a minute. I learned when it was important to email and when it was important not to. I had one staff member who was concerned about an issue of leave. So I said, “Instead of having email trench warfare, perhaps we could meet?”
“Well, Ron,” he said, “I like to copy people so they’ll know how unreasonable you are.”
I said, “Well, why don’t we meet, and after the meeting you can write to your friends, copy me, and confirm my unreasonableness.” We settled it (talking) within sixty seconds.
All organizations these days, for good or for ill—I think some ways for ill—run on finances, and the law school is no different. My budget was quite small; I think it was only about 17 million, part of a university budget. I worked very hard with Excel spreadsheets in learning the finances. Sometimes I would bring in the head of finance with a—what do you call it, a text tape recorder? Not a tape recorder, you know what I mean, a text recorder—and I would go through some of the key financial systems. I had arguments with the university central people about making finance websites accessible. One of the problems I still find when I talk to people about making websites accessible is they say, “Oh, yes, yes yes yes—I have no idea what it means,” have you ever struck that? But I kept the law school in the black for five of my five years and got commendations from the president of the university, not an easy thing to do. I think it took up more of my time, but it taught me the value of financial literacy, and I think so many of we blind going into leader positions ought to think about learning financial literacy.
I had my ups and downs. My wife, who is here today, Professor Mary Crock—who has vision—she and I had been married then for twenty years, and she was a member of the staff. On occasions in academic trench warfare some of my colleagues would sort of tip a bucket over her, knowing I couldn’t get at them for that, and that made life a bit complicated. But nevertheless we both stood firm and got through it. It was a great advantage having Mary in the building, even though I think my time as five years of deanship made her “the invisible person.” Now I’m a professor emeritus, which means a has-been. I’m not about, and Mary is the only fulltime professor in the family, as she will tell you.
It was a relatively successful time: I began building the new law building which now stands wonderfully, finished by my successor; I achieved the only law school exchange—staff and students—with the Harvard Law School of any Australian university law school; we won three Rhodes Scholarships, which has never been done before or since; and we won the world championship of mooting in 2007 in the Jessup Moot [court competition]. I was very honored to play that role.
Chairing a United Nations committee takes different skills. There are, on the committee, eighteen persons from all around the world who are all elected. I couldn’t fire them! And they had just as much right as I had; we were equals. I never applied to be chair—for that matter I never applied to be dean; the president asked me; I wasn’t that interested at the time. I never applied to be chair, and at the second meeting, where there was discussion and no one could agree, a group of my colleagues came to me and said, “Look, we think you’re the only person we could agree upon.”
Why? I’ve never been employed by a disability agency. I’ve always worked in the public and in the private sectors. I’m not in the disability industry per se; I was not seeking to enhance my career by being chair. It wasn’t going to affect my career one way or the other.
What I brought was being a lawyer; I saw my job as getting the business done and following the rules. That’s what I did for three years. Because we were all equals and I had no more power than anyone else, you really needed to be deep listening and to recognize that people have different backgrounds and different thoughts. The notion of conflict of interests, which is taken very strictly by Anglo-Saxons, has a totally different meaning in Africa, Latin America, and in the Middle East. I don’t know that my view of conflict of interest is any better or any worse than the other views. But my job was to coalesce them together.
When chairing the nine human rights treaty-body chair meetings, that was the first time some of these senior people had run into a senior disabled person, and that was quite extraordinary because we were doing, if you like, reform of the treaty-body system.
Well, why aren’t there more blind leaders? Well I think the first point to note is that our level of employment is not high—certainly in Australia and Canada, the two countries I’m familiar with. We need to increase education levels, and we need to increase employment, and we need to increase the confidence of we blind people, and we need to have more role models out there to show how it can be done. My role models were Rupert Cross, a blind person who taught law at Oxford in the 50s and 60s. I’m a bit diffident in saying this, but after teaching labor law for forty-four years, there are now three blind persons at three different universities who are university lecturers in labor law. I wish they’d go to property law or criminal law; it’s my field! [laughter, applause] But nevertheless it shows the value of role models.
Finally, I think we need to establish courses to help blind people with leadership, to help them with deep listening, and to train them with financial literacy. I’m often told: blind people aren’t financially literate. I say, “Well we could train them.”
It’s been a great honor for me to speak here today, particularly next to my close friend Maryanne Diamond, who I went to school with. Can I say that, as a teenager, she was just as feisty as she is today. Bless you all, thank you.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Gary Wunder]
Digital Accessibility: Changes for the Good, and Challenges for the Present and Future
by Gary Wunder
Introduction by Immediate Past President Maurer: I wanted to offer comment about this article because I was present when these remarks were delivered, and I thought they were worth hearing. Gary Wunder made a presentation to the World Blind Union General Assembly in August of 2016 which I felt showed a great deal of thought. The World Blind Union has had a technology committee for many years, and the organization considers technology in its meetings occasionally. However the program of the organization is not as robust as it might be. The suggestions in the address by Gary Wunder are worth consideration.
Members of the National Federation of the Blind know Gary Wunder as the editor of the Braille Monitor. However, he also has other roles. He is trained in computer technology. He served as a developer of computer programming for a university hospital in Missouri. He has been the chairperson of the web developers group within the National Federation of the Blind. He has been president of the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri for decades. He has been a member of the board of directors of the National Federation of the Blind. He has served as a trusted advisor to the President of the National Federation of the Blind with regard to technology and internal political matters. He has both courage and generosity. With all of this, he is a gentle man and a gentleman.
At the World Blind Union General Assembly the panel discussion regarding technology included Gary Wunder’s presentation. The digital divide is at least as great for the blind of the world as it is for anybody else and perhaps greater. The speed at which technology is being created that requires vision is increasing. The danger is evident. What the future will bring is yet to be known. How can the problem be addressed? Gary Wunder offers a notable answer. I hope that the World Blind Union takes action in the direction he suggests. Here is what he said:
In my lifetime I have known the deprivation one feels when information is presented on white paper that is blank to the touch; the joy of knowing there is a way for me to read using my fingers; the discouragement in learning that the further along I got in school, the less likely it would be that my teachers could read my Braille; the exhilaration when realizing that more and more of the world's information was being born digitally or could easily be converted to this format; and the absolute exasperation when learning that this digital information could be created in such a way that it would be every bit as inaccessible as the white paper that so frustratingly kept its secrets.
Digitization makes it easier not only to read but to write. Now a first draft written on a computer is revised and refined; material is inserted, deleted, or moved, a process far easier than when, in my school days, writing a second draft or a final paper meant completely retyping it and hoping not to introduce new mistakes.
Digitization would mean that less Braille had to be transcribed by hand. Others were using digital means to create and distribute their work. Getting and reading this digitally born material should bring about uncharted opportunities for information. Add to this the increasing affordability and accuracy of technology that could take print from the page and make it digital, and for a time I thought that one of the major problems of blindness had been solved. Soon our organizations could turn their full attention to other things, the written word having been made universally available to all.
Well the bright future that would change our organizational priorities hasn't quite come to pass. Computers have become more powerful, but the text-based systems that initially were used to operate these marvels have given way to easier-to-use visual techniques. It is easier for a sighted person to find and point at a picture than it is for her to remember the name of a command. Navigating a screen where choices are listed is easier than remembering all of the parameters to make the program do what one wants. Pictures are a part of the real world for the sighted, so it should be no surprise that pictures have come to be a vital part of the virtual world one sees while at his computer screen.
Now the problem isn't pictures on computer screens or pointing and clicking to make things happen. These are good things that make the computer a friendlier device for the vast majority of the population. The problem is that pictures or icons too often replace words, and the mouse too often replaces keyboard alternatives. Blind people are excluded when only visual alternatives are considered in the design of technology. In some of this technology, the keyboard is useless in making a program work, and some programs are so visual that current screen-reading technology can't tell that buttons, checkboxes, combo boxes, and other controls even appear on the screen.
Like the physical world, equality in the digital world requires that blind people express our needs, participate in figuring out how to meet them, and become sufficiently active and politically sophisticated enough to have them addressed. In the National Federation of the Blind this has meant being active on four fronts: evaluating existing technology and participating in research and development to make it better; supporting and leaning on the assistive technology companies; prodding, pressuring, and eventually working with mainstream technology developers to include accessibility in their products; and asking government to help with regulations to clarify that the law of the land demands access to the digital world in the same way it does the physical one. Each of these tasks is incredibly difficult, but we are making progress. Providing meaningful comments about how to get the access we need requires people who understand how computers and screen readers work. Assistive technology developers are reluctant to share how they get the information they use or how they plan to get it in the future. Too often they cling to techniques that have worked in the past but which are now being made obsolete by the requirements of companies for greater security and stability. Mainstream companies too often see us as a minor and even an insignificant part of their customer base. They tend to see accessibility as a nice thing to do, but not if it gets in the way of a new or improved product that contains a feature they believe will make them outshine their competitors.
Eventually we turn to government, the entity that should represent us, not just because we are full-fledged citizens but because not having access leads to idleness, unemployment, and a greater burden on taxpayers. But government is reluctant to act; it fears that looking out for the blind may stifle innovation, fears being regarded as less friendly to business, and shrinks at the charge that it wishes to create new regulations, the very words being linked in much of the public's mind with an overly intrusive regime.
Four challenges—four big challenges—but we accept and embrace them because to do otherwise would be to accept defeat, to abandon our journey toward first-class citizenship, and to forsake our dream of participating in society on equal terms with the sighted.
So, how are we doing? You can see for yourselves that we have in this gathering from around the world knowledgeable people who understand the complexity of the computers we need to access, and they are offering input and help to the developers of assistive technology and working actively with mainstream providers so that many of the devices coming to market today that involve reading and writing are accessible out of the box. Is the change as fast as we would like it to be? No. Do companies sometimes release things that are inaccessible? Yes they do. But our progress is measurable, our opportunities are increasing, and more and more we are coming to be seen as worthwhile partners who, in meeting our needs, help mainstream businesses build products that more fully meet the needs of the diverse populations they wish to serve.
Thus far I've been talking about technology used in reading and writing, but other digital technology is found all around us, and some of it, if not made accessible, will truly be handicapping. Let's start in the home. Today's equipment for cooking and cleaning is becoming ever more digital. One seldom finds a stove or oven with rotatable knobs that can easily be labeled. Instead we find buttons that must be seen to be pressed, menus that must be seen to be navigated, and no means of nonvisual output that can be used to determine the temperature of our oven or the remaining time on its timer. The washing machine poses the same problem. How do we specify the size of the load; whether we want hot, warm, or cold water; whether the load is delicate or requires intense washing? The options are there, but all require vision. Many do not have feelable buttons that can be memorized and pressed with confidence that one won't ruin the clothes in the machine.
Unlike communication, there are no laws in our country pushing industry to build accessible home appliances. Without laws we are hard-pressed to exert the same pressure that has worked with some success in the information industry. There is, of course, a solid moral argument to be made, but how does one convince a company that morality deserves a place on a statement in which the bottom line is a number representing the percentage of profit and loss? Unless we make headway on accessible home appliances, we face the very real prospect that a fully capable auto mechanic, teacher, lawyer, or physicist may not be able to function independently when wishing to live alone and maintain a home. We don't intend to let this happen, but the prospect is more than a doomsday thesis around which some novel is based.
One additional challenge faces us as we seek to avoid drowning in the digital divide. Tremendous advances are being made in medical equipment. Conditions which would once have required a prolonged hospital stay can now be treated at home given equipment for monitoring and treatment. The equipment communicates using a digital display but makes no provision for nonvisual access. Sometimes input is through a touchscreen, sometimes through buttons one cannot easily feel, and sometimes using buttons which are activated not by a press but by a simple touch. Even when buttons are detectable, too often there is no confirmation that one has been pushed or that a longer-than-intended push has resulted in the machine concluding two or more presses were intended. All of this screams of danger and discrimination. It threatens our ability to take care of ourselves, our children, our parents, and others who could benefit from our competent care and compassion.
What I intend to impart today is not a bleak picture for our future but the challenges we must meet to have the future we want. As long as we can articulate our needs, marshal the resources to meet them, and bend the laws of our nations so that they acknowledge our right to live independently, these things we now see as problems will appear in the history books as accomplishments, not stumbling blocks. They will not be what stopped us but what pushed us, both to solutions that solve today's problems and that provide foundational answers for the challenges of tomorrow. We must win because there is just too much at stake to lose. Working together, we will have access that is affordable and efficient, and we will take our place as productive members of our societies. This is the promise we make to ourselves, and we always keep our promises, not only for the blind of today but the blind of tomorrow. Let us do this together!
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Statement of the National Federation of the Blind
Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled
Fifty-Sixth Series of Meetings of the WIPO Assemblies
October 5, 2016
by Mark Riccobono
>From the Editor: One priority of the World Blind Union is ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty. We worked hard to see that it was drafted and adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization and to see that it was sent to the Senate of the United States by the Obama Administration. In further support of its ratification, President Riccobono delivered these remarks, which applauds and acknowledges the accomplishment of the world body, concedes that our nation must ratify the treaty, and encourages all nations to work vigilantly for ratification. Here are his remarks:
Today we come together to celebrate a historic milestone in the struggle for equal rights and equal access to the world’s knowledge by blind people. We also come together to recommit ourselves to all of the actions necessary to fulfill the human rights objectives that are at the core of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled.
On behalf of the members of the National Federation of the Blind—the oldest and largest national organization of the blind in the United States of America—I would like to thank and congratulate the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and each of its partners for the years of hard work to establish this treaty and now bring it into force.
The Marrakesh Treaty has been and will continue to be an urgent priority for the National Federation of the Blind. Although the United States has a well-developed network of authorized entities providing access to published works through a variety of service models, even our access to the world’s knowledge is severely limited. By the best estimates, the blind of the United States have access to less than 10 percent of published works. This is not equality. We recognize the tremendous opportunities that will come to blind people when they have equal access to all of the world’s knowledge, and we are firmly committed to pursuing the promise of the Marrakesh Treaty until it is reality for all blind people.
For us to realize that promise, we need all countries to ratify the treaty as soon as possible. I regret that our own country, the United States, has not yet completed the ratification process. In this forum I challenge the United States Senate to make swift ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty a top priority as a demonstration of support for equal rights for the blind of our nation. I also encourage the leaders of other countries to make this treaty a priority before the end of the year. In addition, all stakeholders will need to commit to cooperation, innovation, and communication to effectively accomplish global implementation of the treaty. The National Federation of the Blind is committed to carrying its share of the work, and we urge our global partners to do the same.
With the Marrakesh Treaty we have unlocked the door to the world’s knowledge, and today we open that door for those countries that have ratified the treaty. It is now time for us to build the pathway to that door and ensure that all of the world’s print disabled are on that path. Access to the world’s knowledge is a fundamental human right, and we thank all those who have helped in the development of the Marrakesh Treaty and those actively working for its implementation around the world.
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Invest in Opportunity
The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back. A donation to the National Federation of the Blind allows you to invest in a movement that removes the fear from blindness. Your investment is your vote of confidence in the value and capacity of blind people and reflects the high expectations we have for all blind Americans, combating the low expectations that create obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
In 2015 the NFB:
* Gave away over four thousand long white canes to blind people across the country, empowering them to travel safely and independently throughout their communities.
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Just imagine what we’ll do next year, and, with your help, what can be accomplished for years to come. Below are just a few of the many diverse, tax-deductible ways you can lend your support to the National Federation of the Blind.
Vehicle Donation Program
The NFB now accepts donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call (855) 659-9314 toll-free, and a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation—it doesn’t have to be working. We can also answer any questions you have.
General Donation
General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work to help blind people live the lives they want. Donate online with a credit card or through the mail with check or money order. Visit < <http://www.nfb.org/make-gift> www.nfb.org/make-gift> for more information.
Bequests
Even if you can’t afford a gift right now, including the National Federation of the Blind in your will enables you to contribute by expressing your commitment to the organization and promises support for future generations of blind people across the country. Visit < <http://www.nfb.org/planned-giving> www.nfb.org/planned-giving> or call (410) 659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.
Pre-Authorized Contribution
Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring monthly donations by direct withdraw of funds from a checking account or a charge to a credit card. To enroll, visit < <http://www.nfb.org/make-gift> www.nfb.org/make-gift>, and complete the Pre-Authorized Contribution form, and return it to the address listed on the form.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Jones]
Newer and Flashier is Not Always Better
by Mark Jones
From the Editor: Mark Jones began working in radio in 1972, the same year he joined the Federation. When he began that first job, he was told that he could do airwork for remote broadcasts if he could sell the airtime. Since he couldn’t drive, he paid the thirteen-year-old kid across the street to ride with him on a tandem bike to sell advertising. After working at a few smaller stations, he wanted to move into bigger markets but ran into difficulties. He would send out tapes of his airwork, but when the stations found out he was blind, he was turned down for the jobs. So Mark Jones decided to create his own radio station. Today he owns WVBG AM and FM in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Mark is no stranger to challenges created by others because of his blindness and the tools and technology that help him surmount those challenges. He found in conversation with other Federationists some attitudes toward technology that made him reconsider exactly which tools he chooses to use daily, and why having the spiffiest new technogizmo might not always be the best choice. Here’s what he has to say:
Three years ago I was at the national convention, and a lady was talking to me about people getting in touch with her. She said she had an iPhone, she was trying to use it, but she was having a lot of trouble. She remarked that she really loved her old flip phone because it was so much easier for her to use. I started thinking about that, and I started thinking about the things I do in my line of work every day. Some of you may know that I'm in the radio business and own three stations in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I do a variety of things in my job. Every weekday I'm out making sales calls. I have a driver to get me to the stores and businesses I call on. When I go into these businesses I can do many things that help me get the correct advertising information for my clients. I can write faster than any sighted person. In seconds I can look back and quickly read a commercial I wrote for that client possibly four years previously. When I'm walking into the store, if I've forgotten the name of the person I'm going to see because I haven't been there in a while and because I'm getting old, I can look the name up in seconds. I can bring back the commercial I've written in Braille to the radio station and record it onto our computer that schedules the commercials.
Our station does a major promotion each December called The Christmas Caroling Contest, where choirs, groups, and individuals sing, and we give away $10,000 in prize money. I work with music teachers throughout the area, put the shows together, and act as the master of ceremonies. I also work on the air as a regular old disc jockey on occasion. I also work with our bookkeeper to keep our deposits from advertising straight and our bills paid.
I'm not telling you this to toot my horn, but simply as something instructive. How do I do all of this? With Braille. And what Braille device do I use most often by far? An old Braille Lite 40. I will never forget buying it. It was at the national convention in New Orleans, and the late Dr. Tim Cranmer told me that I would never regret buying it, and he was right. Of course, I use other technology: a Windows PC at the radio station with a dedicated program on it, a BrailleNote for email and GPS wayfinding. But the old simple Braille Lite is so much quicker, so much easier to use, that I've found nothing beats it for productivity, and for what I do, there's nothing more important than productivity.
NFB state president, Gary Wunder, remarked recently to me in an email that many young people like to use the same devices as their sighted peers so they don't look blind. I have two comments about that: first, I normally don't concern myself with someone thinking I look blind. Although some people treat me differently from how they would a sighted person, most of the people I run into every day treat me just like I think they would treat a sighted person. If you are in sales, it's always good to be able to talk to people about what they're interested in. So I talk to them about their businesses, about SEC football, about their friends and families. If they ask me about using my Braille Lite because they're curious about how it works, I explain to them that the original device was really the first PDA on the market called a Braille ‘n Speak, and blind people had that before sighted people did. I wish we were ahead of the curve on other technology.
My second comment is that doing things to not look blind can get you in trouble. I will never forget the Monitor article Gary Wunder wrote about trying to go out without using a cane. That Monitor article vividly showed how sometimes not using blindness tools can get us into very awkward situations.
Earlier I mentioned working with my bookkeeper. I keep a ledger of all my checks. I have them all going back for the last twenty-three years, written in hardcopy Braille on a Perkins Brailler, which I also use every day to make my list of places to go and people to see for the next day. I do this in hard copy so I can easily look at what I need to do on paper without having to keep turning on my Braille Lite. This saves time.
These days, companies seem to want to add more and more technology to everything. Do sighted people like it? Not always. I was at a car dealership recently, and we got into the discussion about the touchscreens on the dashboards of cars. The lady told me that her daughter hated that touchscreen system because she wanted to be able to use her radio like she always had in the past, and this new high-tech dashboard made it much harder. Many other sighted people have told me they would much rather use a washer or dryer with the old, simple controls, not one that confronts you with so many options and such a steep learning curve that you need a college course on how to operate it. For the blind person, training is a big issue. I come into contact with numerous vendors in the exhibit hall at national conventions. Their devices will do all sorts of things, I believe the majority of which will never be used by most who buy the products. But there are some products that seem to do a great job because they just do a thing or two and do it well. One example is the i.d. mate that reads barcodes, and talking thermostats and Braille watches are useful devices as well.
In summation, I would like to see products every now and then that are made for the blind person with the productivity of the blind person in mind. I would also like to see more training so that we don't have to be a technical wizard or have to spend several forty-hour weeks struggling with a new device that was really designed for a sighted person.
I think those who like iPhones—and yes I have one too—are correct in admiring a company that has a little bit of concern for accessibility. But I think that if we seriously looked at the few companies that make things with the express purpose of productivity for the blind person, we would be well served. Also, it's good to have choices. I have a friend in California who loves HIMS products. He has a Braille Sense. I have been reasonably satisfied with HumanWare's products. I just bought a new BrailleNote Touch, and I'm learning to use it (actually writing on it at this minute composing this article.) But do I wish to learn touch Braille on a touchscreen? Absolutely not. I've been using a Braille keyboard since I was six years old and don't plan to stop now. I love knobs and buttons, and I bet that many of you do, too.
I would like to know the thoughts of our members on this subject. I think it would be interesting to know what blind people believe to be the most productive tools in their lives. Hopefully they're still available. Some that I use are not. So hopefully something similar will soon be on the horizon.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Ray Kurzweil]
How Exponential Technologies Will Impact Disabilities
by Ray Kurzweil
From the Editor: Sometimes the struggle the blind have in dealing with technological evolution can be maddening. Often we know that something better is to come: devices that are more intuitive, easier to use, and cost less. But at times that message is dwarfed by the need to live in the here and now, to figure out how to do assignments today, how to find and buy household equipment we can use. So it is that each year a man who can see a bit further than we can tells us about the promises that wait just around the corner and reminds us how important our role is in seeing that we can use it.
Ray Kurzweil is currently the vice president of development at Google, and his long list of accomplishments, including the development of the KNFB Reader, is well known to Federationists. Here is what he said to the 2016 National Convention:
I don't think I've had a musical introduction before. It's an honor to be back with all of you: with President Riccobono, Jim Gashel, Mrs. Jernigan, and all of my other friends here.
How many of you came to your first National Federation of the Blind convention in 1975 or earlier, raise your hand. Well, I see a few hands here at the front table. But this is my forty-second convention, and it continues to be a highlight of my year.
I want to share a few reflections with you. I just came from an onstage dialog with Mitt Romney—we tried to avoid talking about politics, but that was hard to do in that case, and I'll try again to avoid politics—but there's one point I made which I think is relevant to this gathering. If we look at the intensity of the current presidential election, there seems to be a sentiment on the right and on the left that things are getting worse in the world. I've noticed this for a while. I travel around the world, talk to people, and people think the world is getting worse, which is not the case. Now there's still a lot of problems and a lot of suffering, but by every measure the world is getting much better. The problem is that our information about what's wrong with the world is getting exponentially better. A century ago there could be a battle that wiped out the next village, and you'd never hear about it. Now an incident halfway around the world—we not only hear about it, we viscerally experience it. That's actually a good thing because it motivates us to fix the problems in the world, but it gives people the wrong impression. The way they try to figure out if the world is getting better or worse is how often do they hear about some outrage, and how often do they hear about things getting better.
It's actually part of our evolutionary heritage that we're very attuned to problems, because, if you were aware of potential problems, that was good for survival. We don't really take notice of things that are getting better, but I'll mention just a few of the things that are getting better, and then I'll come to my experience with the National Federation of the Blind, where things are definitely getting better.
Steven Pinker in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature documents an exponential decline in violence. I point out to people that this is the least violent period in human history, and people say, "What are you, crazy? Don't you pay attention to the news? There were just violent incidents yesterday and the day before that and so forth."
Well your chance of actually being killed in either interpersonal violence or state-sponsored violence is hundreds of times less than it was a few centuries ago when there was extreme scarcity of resources and disputes were settled violently. This is the most prosperous time in human history. The World Bank reported that poverty in Asia has been cut by 90 percent over the last fifteen years, and all societies, including Africa and South America, are making substantial economic gains.
This is by far the most informative period. I remember that I saved up for years from my paper route as a teenager to buy an Encyclopedia Britannica for $1,000, which was a lot of money to a teenager in the early 1960s. Today you get a far better encyclopedia for free, and this is one of the literally millions of resources we have at our fingertips that really don't cost us anything.
Economic statistics factor out the progress we're making. A kid in Africa who pays $30 for her smart phone: that counts as $30 of economic activity, despite the fact that it's a trillion dollars of computation, communication, and information technology circa 1968. We're actually doubling the value of information technology every year for the same price, but that's factored out of the economic statistics.
Together with these exponential gains in technology, we're also seeing gradual progress in human understanding, freedom, liberty, equality, recognition of equal rights. My family's been very involved in these movements. It goes back to the nineteenth century. My mother's mother's mother started the first school in Europe that provided higher education for girls. This was the Stern Schule in 1868 in Vienna. If you were lucky enough as a girl to get an education at all in 1868 Europe, it went through ninth grade; this went through fourteenth grade, from kindergarten all through high school and the first two years of college. She went around Europe lecturing on the importance of girls' education, and that was very controversial. People did not understand: "What's the point of educating a girl?" That was a difficult question to answer, but she answered it, and then her daughter became the first woman in Europe to get a PhD in chemistry and went around Europe lecturing on chemistry and on girls' education and took over the school. Between the two of them they ran it for seventy years and then fled Hitler in 1938.
I came along in 1948 and in the 1950s went with my mother to civil rights marches in Washington and the South. I was actually at several events—marches—lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, and I felt fortunate that I could live in a period with such a great leader and to actually directly experience such inspiring oratory. I felt the same way in 1975 coming to my first National Federation of the Blind convention to hear the equally inspiring oratory of Dr. Kenneth Jernigan [applause]. I really felt the same way—that I was fortunate to be able to experience the inspirational leadership of these two great leaders.
That brings me to this theme of the world getting better, but not reaching perfection. I just heard Amy's [Buresh] inspiring story. I remember when I came to the NFB in 1975 that people were warning me, "Are you sure you want to get involved with this organization? They're really quite a radical organization." I thought to myself, gee, that's a good thing. I'd gone to lots of other organizations with my technology for reading for the blind, and they all were very friendly and wished me well. It was actually Dr. Jernigan and the NFB that provided the resources—including eight blind scientists and engineers that worked very closely with us under the leadership of Mike Hingson, and we would not have succeeded without the National Federation of the Blind [applause].
Things are certainly far better for blind people. Blind people are now reaching the top levels of success in every field; that was really much more limited when I became involved with this organization in 1975. Tremendous progress has been made in the human realm of equal rights and tolerance and equality, but, like everything else, we haven't reached perfection. You can see from Amy's litany—I'm sure we'll hear from Mr. Riccobono's inspiring talk tonight—that there's still a lot of progress to be made, still a lot of intolerance and lack of understanding. But the world has come a long way in terms of understanding the ability of all people to contribute.
Remember that we have the exponential gains of technology. Very briefly, the first reading machine cost $50,000, but we brought it down quickly to $20,000. Now we have a reading machine for $20, and it's far better than the one back then for $20,000. That comes from the exponential gains of information technology. We basically double price performance every year in every type of information technology. We put some of that improved price performance into price, so prices come down by a factor of one thousand in this field for example, while at the same time performance goes up.
People say, "Okay, well that's true of that sort of strange area of the economy having to do with devices and electronics and information, but you can't eat information technology, you can't build a house with information technology." All of that's going to change as well. We're applying information technology to medicine, understanding the information processes underlying biology, so we'll have great advances in our health. This is actually now starting to influence clinical practice. We're going to see a great revolution in improving our health over the next decade. We're developing three-dimensional printing, so we're going to be able to print out the things we need, including food and clothing. In fact, the first house to be snapped together in a couple of days was recently put together in Asia with little modules snapped together like LEGO bricks printed out by a 3-D printer. That was an experiment, but that's the kind of thing we're going to see in the 2020s.
This revolution of price performance is going to transform everything we care about. But we still need human understanding, first of all to apply these advances so they really benefit people. The Kurzweil Reading Machine would not have really succeeded if we hadn't worked very closely—not just getting general advice but working intimately with the blind engineers and scientists of the National Federation of the Blind, and that's continued to be a collaboration of forty-two years, which is really the aspect of my career that I'm most proud of [applause].
We're going to have some fantastic capabilities emerging over the decades ahead. We'll be able to transmit information directly from our brains and into our brains. How should we apply that to people who are visually impaired? It's a very good thing that we have the National Federation of the Blind to guide us in that endeavor.
So this has been the first forty-two years of my relationship; I look forward to the next forty-two years, and we'll continue with our exponential progress both in technology and in human understanding. Thank you very much.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Kevin Lynch]
National Industries for the Blind: Continuing to Raise Expectations
and Create Opportunities
by Kevin Lynch
From the Editor: I can do no better job in introducing this article than did President Riccobono in his remarks welcoming Kevin Lynch to the stage at the 2016 National Convention on July 3, 2016. Here is what the President said:
“Our next program item and last program item for the afternoon is National Industries for the Blind: Continuing to Raise Expectations and Create Opportunities. You heard in the Presidential Report that we have been actively engaging with National Industries for the Blind. We have been having a very honest dialog about the past and also the future, and I think that we have come to find that National Industries for the Blind is sincerely interested in addressing our concerns and raising expectations as evidenced partly by the fact that they have almost completely eliminated the use of 14(c) in all of the NIB-associated shops across the country [applause]. They have instituted other organizational policies that make it clear they have a real dedication to this. They're also trying to navigate other concerns that we brought to them, and in some ways they're fixing problems before we know about them, which is a good sign of leadership.
One of the reasons is their president and CEO, Kevin Lynch. We've been engaging with Kevin over the last couple years, and I have found, and I think you will find, that Kevin is sincerely working to find ways to link arms, not just symbolically with the National Federation of the Blind, but at a very deep level wants to be partnered with the National Federation of the Blind because he knows it is the right place to be. Here is the president and CEO of National Industries for the Blind, Kevin Lynch:”
Good afternoon, everyone. Mark, thank you so much for the introduction and also for inviting me to be here today. I have to say, though, it's a little bit of a challenge coming after Dr. Maurer and Kathy Martinez, both of whom I respect greatly for their knowledge and also the influence they have provided to me over the years. I'd also like to recognize a few other people who have been helpful that are in the audience: Dr. Schroeder, as well as Don Morris and Jim Omvig. I'm very grateful for those individuals and the friendship and the wisdom they have provided.
For those of you who aren't familiar with National Industries for the Blind, our mission is to enhance the independence of people who are blind. We work with a nationwide network of nonprofit agencies to create and sustain employment for people who are blind in many different career fields. And, like NFB, we've been around for a long time, nearly eighty years in fact. And through strengthening partnerships with organizations like NFB, we are making progress. Together we've broken down the misconceptions and the barriers they create in expanding career options for people who are blind.
NIB's roots are in the manufacturing industry, and manufacturing continues to provide a significant number of jobs to people who are blind. We are proud to be one of the nation's largest networks involved in the fields of sewing products, paper converting, and other product lines like fire hose assembly. A lot of these industries left the United States of America and went overseas. Today there's hundreds more products assembled and packaged by Americans who are blind [applause].
We are very proud to supply uniforms and equipment to our military personnel to help keep them safe when in harm's way. We also provide prescription eyewear for our nation's veterans and ensure that their prescriptions are safely protected by the plastic vials that we make. Today we're producing cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly cleaning products, and more recently we began developing LED lighting, which will reduce the government's consumption of electricity.
Over the years we've evolved. We've demonstrated that, with the right training and assistive technology, people who are blind can work in any career field [cheers]. Today we provide more career options for people who are blind than at any other time in our seventy-seven year history. For example: a decade ago we recognized the need to provide opportunities in professional services for an emerging generation of highly-educated people who are blind. Now people who are blind work at NIB networks and are operating 24/7 contact centers. They're closing out contracts that return hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal government, and they’re managing complex supply chains that deliver critical goods and services to government and military personnel around the world. We are very proud of these successes, but what we see as the ultimate goal is the growing trend of our employees being hired by the federal government as defense prime contractors. That's a success.
We recognize that to build successful careers, our employees need more than just the job opportunity. They also need the right professional training and development. NIB launched the Business Leaders Program, which has helped more than 8,000 people who are blind build their business acumen through formal training and on-the-job experience. Graduates from the programs are now call center supervisors, base supply center store managers, and CEOs of our associated agencies and national organizations [applause]. Last year NIB partnered with George Mason University to strengthen our business management training program and develop a new generation of leaders. As we look to the future NIB will continue to focus on making investments in programs designed to increase choices, remove the perceived barriers, and fill the expectations of all of our employees.
These investments start with the basics, what you would expect from any employer in any industry: competitive wages, not subminimum wages; positive and diverse work environments; opportunities for advancement; and professional development and training. We've also made investments to help people who are blind stay competitive in the job market. We launched a hands-on training program called Promote to prepare people who are blind for careers requiring advanced technical skills. Last fall eight employees who are blind completed this intensive four-week program that provides advanced computer software training, and we are getting ready to launch our second round of classes. We've also launched a pilot program to help ensure people who are blind build the technical skills needed for careers in the high-demand field of cyber security. Twenty people who are blind completed this training program that prepares participants to take and pass their A+ certification.
Like the NFB we also take strong positions on important issues affecting people who are blind: like our strong stance on the payment of at least the federal minimum wage; or recognizing the freedom of individuals who are blind to make informed choices about where to work, just like anyone else; or calling on Congress to do more to remove the cash cliff barrier for Social Security Disability Insurance. We've launched our Advocates for Leadership and Employment Program to empower people who are blind to engage members of Congress and their staffs about these important issues. NIB's advocates program has today grown to twenty-six advocates, who are successfully keeping these and other issues front-and-center among lawmakers.
Now while we are proud of our accomplishments, we also recognize that there's more to be accomplished. We need to bring all of our associated agencies up to the best-in-class standards we all expect. Today, out of the sixty-five producing-associated agencies, we still have two that are paying less than minimum wage. As Dr. Maurer once said to me, "Even one agency paying less than minimum wage is too many." And we agree.
The NIB board wholeheartedly agrees and has put into place a variety of incentive programs that are only available to agencies that make this commitment. Furthermore, no nonprofit executive who pays less than minimum wage can sit on the NIB board. We have to ensure that NIB and our associated agencies continue to advance modern disability policies and also work to change perceptions about what people who are blind can do in the workplace.
NIB has a major role in investing in new, innovative opportunities to offer many types of employment choices. For example, we are working on ways we can encourage and assist individuals who have the entrepreneurial spirit and desire to become business owners. Adding this resource to NIB's offerings will give a full range of employment and career options.
Now we know that success requires strong partnerships with organizations like NFB. I fully encourage and support the ongoing opportunity to listen to ideas and proposals from across the disability community so that we are working to develop effective solutions together. Thank you, National Federation of the Blind, for the important work and advocacy you provide. NIB is committed to work with you in advancing opportunities for all people who are blind. Thank you very much.
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Recipes
This month’s recipes come from the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado.
[PHOTO CAPTION: Maureen at the blender with a batch of Go Broncos Orange Julius]
Go Broncos Orange Julius
by Maureen Nietfeld
Something cool and healthy for the Super Bowl V Champion fans! There are more than a few at the Colorado Center for the Blind [CCB], and about twenty-five students and staff attended the one million-strong Broncos Super Bowl Victory parade on February 9:
Ingredients:
6 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
½ cup whole milk
½ cup water
¼ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
5 ice cubes
Method: Place all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth and frothy. Serve and enjoy!
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Jay displays a hotel tray of Sweet Ham and Swiss Sliders]
Sweet Ham and Swiss Sliders
by Jay Cole
Oh yes, these are great appetizers or finger food, but one of our students recently did this for his grad meal to great acclaim!
Ingredients:
12 Hawaiian rolls cut in half
12 slices honey-roasted ham
12 slices baby swiss cheese
1 ½ tablespoons dijon mustard
4 tablespoons butter melted
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
¼ cup brown sugar
Method: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet place bottom half of dinner rolls and top each with one slice of ham and one slice of Swiss cheese. Place the top of the roll on the ham and cheese. You want the rolls to be snug together, kissing just a bit so the sauce can soak up into all of the nooks and crannies. In a small bowl combine the mustard, melted butter, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, poppy seeds, and brown sugar. Mix until combined and pour evenly over the assembled rolls. Cover with foil and refrigerate until ready to bake. Bake covered with foil for ten minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional five to ten minutes or until the tops are browned and cheese is good and melted.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Dishon and Marisol eating hummus]
Hummus
by Dishon Spears and Marisol Carmona
This is a standard teaching recipe at CCB. It involves more than one stage in preparation and is a great introduction to using the food processor, so every student makes this eventually.
Ingredients:
2 cans garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon tahini paste
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil
Method: In a food processor add garlic and process until well minced. Add remaining ingredients and process till very smooth. Serve with warm pita, cut up veggies, or corn chips.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Warren leans in to savor the smell of Pikes Peak Pecan Pie.]
Pikes Peak Pecan Pie
by Warren Knight
This is a big hit at the Thanksgiving meal our students prepare and serve in mid-November. After eating, we go around the room and say something we’re grateful for.
Ingredients:
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
½ cup butter melted
2 eggs
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chopped pecans
Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs; stir in melted butter; add sugar and flour. Then add milk, vanilla, and nuts. Pour in pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for forty minutes or until pie sets up and is not liquid anymore.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Delphina and Farhan hold up a Christmas batch of Pecan French Toast Bake]
Pecan French Toast Bake
by Delphina Rodriguez and Farhan Ahmed
This is a favorite at our annual Christmas brunch on the last day before the holiday break. Maybe it’s the association with the Secret Santa gift exchange that always follows, but we’re willing to bet you’ll love it!
Ingredients:
1 loaf sliced challah bread
3 cups half and half
2 tablespoons maple syrup
8 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Topping:
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
Method: Lightly spray a 13-by-9-inch pan with a cooking spray. Lay the slices of bread into the pan; they will stack on top of each other. In a mixing bowl combine half and half, eggs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and maple syrup. Pour this mixture over bread, making sure to get the milk in between the layers. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
In a separate bowl combine chopped butter, chopped pecans, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Make this into a crumble. This gets placed on top of your bread. You can add before you refrigerate or wait until you are ready to bake it the next morning.
Put in a 350 degree oven for thirty minutes covered, then remove cover and continue to bake for an additional twenty minutes.
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[PHOTO CAPTION: Michelle stirring an electric skillet of Chacon’s Green Chile]
Chacon’s Green Chile
by Michelle Chacon
The autumn smell of roasting green chiles at an outdoor vegetable stand is one of the quintessential experiences of Colorado, surpassed only by Michelle Chacon’s recipe. After her teaching duties are done each year, Michelle teaches at our Confidence Camp for elementary kids and coordinates the NFB of Colorado’s BELL programs, as well as serving as North Metro chapter president. Cooking is how she relaxes.
Ingredients:
4 to 6 pork chops
1 onion
Several garlic cloves
10 to 20 green chiles cleaned, chopped and seeded if you do not want your chiles too hot
1/3 cup flour
8 cups chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro, sour cream, and cheese
Method: Brown pork chops in a large heavy frying pan. Remove chops and cut up in to small pieces. In the frying pan, next sauté onion, garlic and chiles. Simmer for about ten minutes on low. Put pork and chile mixture into a large Dutch oven. Mix in flour and chicken broth. Stir constantly until mixture thickens. Add salt and pepper and any other ingredients that you would like. Simmer for at least thirty minutes to blend flavors. Serve with cilantro, sour cream, etc. Can use this to top burritos at well.
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Monitor Miniatures
News from the Federation Family
Celebrate the Holiday Season with a Gift to the National Federation of the Blind:
Have you received gifts from the National Federation of the Blind? Lots of us have. One man expressed what our gift meant to him by saying: “It is great to know there are still people in this world who care about other people besides themselves. Your gift of a white cane could not have come at a better time for me! My wonderful wife of forty-three years, who has Alzheimer’s, has moved to an assisted living facility. The only place I could find a cane was at the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Antonio, Texas. It’s a fourteen-hour roundtrip for me, and I can’t drive anymore. What you have done for me I will remember for the rest of my life.”
We give people free white canes, literacy, and confidence. If you have gained from contact with the NFB or NFB members, enjoyed our publications, or participated in an academy or program, we are asking you to give back. Celebrate the holiday season by donating much needed funds. It is easy. You can mail a donation or give online.
To mail your donation simply make out your check to the National Federation of the Blind. Please mail it to the NFB, Attention: Outreach, 200 East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230.
To give online visit our web page by going to < <http://www.nfb.org> www.nfb.org> and click on the “donate now” button.
Help us all live the lives we want.
Washington Seminar Reservations:
This message from Diane McGeorge is to advise all of you that the Washington Seminar will be held January 29 to February 2, 2017, with the Great Gathering In taking place on Monday, January 30. Additionally, I want to remind you that I am no longer managing reservations for this event. With the Holiday Inn Capitol’s progressive policy changes, we turned reservations over to the hotel beginning with our 2016 Washington Seminar and going forward. The reservation process is very standard, requiring check-in and check-out dates only, just as you experience with national conventions. This process will allow you to have full control of your reservations and any changes you need to make.
You can now reserve a room at the Holiday Inn Capitol (550 C Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024) for Washington Seminar for check-in beginning Saturday, January 28, 2017, check-out Friday, February 3, 2017. The rate is $188.00 per night. This rate does not include DC sales tax, currently 14.5 percent. You may begin booking reservations directly online by clicking on the web link below. You may also make reservations by calling (877) 572-6951 and referencing booking code F7B. Credit card information is needed at the time of reservation. The individual cancellation policy is seventy-two hours prior to date of arrival to avoid one night's room plus tax cancellation charge on the credit card provided. If your departure date changes, you must inform the hotel seventy-two hours in advance of departure to avoid a $100 fee. Please call (877) 572-6951 and reference your confirmation number. Please obtain a cancellation number when cancelling a reservation. The firm deadline date to make a reservation is Wednesday, December 28, 2016. Reservation requests received after the deadline date will be subject to availability and prevailing rate.
If you would like to hold a special meeting during the Washington Seminar, please email Lisa Bonderson at < <mailto:lbonderson at cocenter.org> lbonderson at cocenter.org> just as you have done in past years. She and I will work with the hotel on the assignment of those meeting rooms. To ensure that you get the space you need, please let us know of your meeting space needs by December 9, 2016.
Lisa and I will always be available to help you with any problems you might experience with the booking of your hotel reservations. We have worked closely with the hotel staff, and they are looking forward to working with each affiliate or group wanting to make reservations.
See you in Washington!
A Group in the Planning:
Come, one and all, blind and visually impaired Federationists who have cerebral palsy, to create an active, lively, independent, and vibrant group of blind and visually impaired Americans with cerebral palsy. The purpose of this group will be to provide support and advocacy to those of us who share two disabilities and must devise strategies to deal with each singly and together.
Meetings will be held by conference call on the first Sunday of the month (except in July when the meeting will be held on the fourth Sunday, and November when it will be held on the last Sunday) from 8:00 to 10:00 PM Eastern Time starting on Sunday, November 27, 2016. The conference phone number is (218) 339-3814. Enter pin 999999#.
We hope to hold a face-to-face meeting at the July 2017 national convention in Orlando, Florida. To assist in developing this group, contact Alexander Scott Kaiser by Braille, snail-mail, on Skype, by phone, or by email. His postal address is 52 Meadowbrook Road, Brick Township, New Jersey 08723-7850. His email address is < <mailto:Kaiser999 at gmx.us> Kaiser999 at gmx.us>. He may be reached using Skype with the name <askaiser999999>, or by phone at (848) 205-0208.
Books by Jerry Whittle Now Available on Amazon Kindle:
Try out your new Amazon e-reader with the following books by Jerry Whittle, available on Amazon Kindle e-books for $2.99 each: Slingshot, a baseball novel; Standing with Better Angels, about a blind minister; Honeysuckle Time, a Civil War novel; Two Hearts Make a Bridge, a love story; A Little Ball of Anger, a young blind man’s struggle with a horrible decision; No Town to Dishonor Nature, a young man rebels against his father and leaves home; Growing Up in Clemson, a memoir of the Fifties; Clemson in the Sixties, seeking manhood in troubled times; and Santa Rides Again, a Christmas story for all ages.
In Brief
Notices and information in this section may be of interest to Monitor readers. We are not responsible for the accuracy of the information; we have edited only for space and clarity.
A Reminder about Ski for Light:
Don’t forget that the Application deadline for Ski for Light is this month. Visit < <http://www.sfl.org> www.sfl.org> to apply for this year’s annual week of skiing, sharing, and learning in Colorado, February 5 through 12, 2017. Applications are now being accepted on a space available basis only.
NASA Summer Internships Available:
NASA is looking to increase the number of students with disabilities pursuing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers through our regular internship programs. This is not a program for students with disabilities. We are trying to recruit more students with disabilities into our regular internship programs. Disability means both physical and mental disabilities. NASA has a 2 percent hiring goal for employment of people with disabilities, and internships are a good way to get experience. However, this is not an employment program. NASA jobs can be found at < <http://www.usajobs.gov> http://www.usajobs.gov>. Students can apply for Summer 2017 internships on or about November 10, 2016. The deadline for submitting applications will be on or about March 1, 2017. We will begin extending offers to students in mid-to-late January and will continue until all positions are filled.
If you would like to subscribe to an announcement-only list about NASA internships for persons with disabilities, please send an email to < <mailto:nasainterns-request at freelists.org> nasainterns-request at freelists.org> with 'subscribe' in the Subject field or by visiting the list page at < <http://www.freelists.org/list/nasainterns> http://www.freelists.org/list/nasainterns>.
We encourage you to apply early because the best opportunities are likely to be filled quickly; plus your likelihood of being selected decreases the longer you wait. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see many internship opportunities in November. They start to appear in numbers in mid-to-late December. You can register for an account anytime at the One Stop Shopping Initiative (OSSI): NASA Internships, Fellowships, and Scholarships (NIFS) at < <http://intern.nasa.gov/> http://intern.nasa.gov/>. All material that you wish to have considered must be uploaded to the OSSI website. No documentation will be accepted that is emailed or snail mailed.
Summer 2017 internships run from early June through early August for undergraduate and graduate students. Internships run from late June through early August for high school students. All student interns get paid. The high school stipend for summer 2016 was $2,100 for a six-week internship. The summer 2016 undergraduate stipend for a ten-week internship was $6,000. The summer 2016 graduate stipend for a ten-week internship was $7,500. As an intern, you are responsible for your own housing. NASA internships for college and high school students are also offered during spring, fall, and year-long sessions through the OSSI website.
NASA has internships for high school students and for rising freshmen through doctoral students in STEM fields. A rising freshman is a high school student who has been accepted to an accredited institution of higher learning, i.e. a college or university, at the time of the internship.
Applicants must be US citizens, with a minimum GPA of 3.0 for college and 3.0 for high school; however, applicants must understand that the competition for internships is keen. High school students must be at least sixteen years old at the time the internship begins.
Internships are available at all NASA centers nationwide. It is important to remember that applying is a two-step process. The first step is to fill out everything in OSSI. The second step is to select and apply to specific internship opportunities. Students can submit a completed application whether they apply to an opportunity or not. However, applying to opportunities has the advantage of allowing applicants to be considered by mentors who work in disciplines of interest and at a particular center. Applicants may apply to as many as fifteen opportunities.
For example, an opportunity having to do with the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will be at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland because SDO is located there. Not applying to an opportunity means that prospective interns will be hoping that a mentor happens to read their applications rather than directing their applications to mentors in fields and at centers of interest.
Students who are selected for summer internships will receive an offer letter by email sometime after mid-January 2017. They will then have five calendar days to either accept or reject the offer through their OSSI: NIFS account. The offer will automatically expire after five calendar days if no action is taken.
Please feel free to contact me for more information or help with applying:
Kenneth A. Silberman, Esq.
U.S. Supreme Court, Maryland, & Patent Bars
B.A., M.Eng., J.D.
NASA Engineer & Registered Patent Attorney
Education Office Code 160
NASA/GSFC Mailstop 160
Bldg. 28 Rm. N165
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Voice: (301) 286-9281
Fax: (301) 286-1655
Email: kenneth.a.silberman at nasa.gov
Office Location: Building 28 Room W151
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NFB Pledge
I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by its constitution.
Forwarded by:
Brian A. Mackey
Brian A. Mackey
Owner, Mackey Enterprises, LLC
Treasurer & Webmaster, National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey
609-953-6988
<mailto:Bmackey88 at gmail.com> Bmackey88 at gmail.com
<http://www.mackeyenterprisesllc.com/> www.mackeyenterprisesllc.com
“Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make those dreams come true”
-Vince Papale
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