Opening Ceremonies

Wow, I’m actually here in Palm Desert at the NAD conference!!! After a drive down without air conditioning, I was so hot I was ready to die. I was so utterly miserable I paged a couple of people asking if I could shower in their hotel room. M responded first, and I glommed onto the opportunity faster than you can fingerspell “shower.” I am ever grateful to M for giving me the chance to just wallow in a cold tub for fifteen or twenty minutes after the shower didn’t cool me down enough. I returned to the convention area with mostly dry hair (that’s how hot it was!) and much refreshed. The hallways were abuzz with what the opening ceremony would bring and what King Jordan would have to say for himself, since he was the keynote speaker.

As I walked into the room, I saw so many people and almost forgot to sit down, I was having so much fun chatting. My old dear friend, J, found me and we sat down by a whole group of people from my local community. The speeches failed to hold my attention - I was too busy chatting with J and participating in a running commentary with people around me. We kept getting shushed by this older woman seated behind me, who was very polite about it. She said things like, “This is important to me, and I would like to watch. I’d appreciate your keeping it down.” I wanted to cooperate, and tried, but no one else was, and my resolve crumbled. I did try to keep it down and be less distracting, tho’. King came to the stage and we were all, “Emergency! Shh! Watch!” He said some blah blah about how proud Gally is to sponsor NAD, then stopped talking after only a few minutes. We were all like “Huh? Wha’?” for awhile. Then it occurred to one of us that that speech was a sponsor’s speech, not actually the keynote address! Many speeches later, the keynote speech began. A transcript can be found here in Comment #25.

King's keynote speech was infuriating. Rob Rice of DeafDC.com may disagree with me, which is his prerogative, but we were clearly sitting in different areas, and I'm not even sure we witnessed the same speech. For one thing, King chose to simcom. There had been no visible mike all night, but he made a point of searching for it and spent time adjusting it to his satisfaction. His signs were horrible. He dropped many signs and was not particularly clear. I decided to listen to see how good his voice was. He sounded terrible. He had zero cadence, his voice was choppy, and there were a lot of unnatural pauses because his signing and voicing were not quite in sync. I didn’t like it, but hey, at least it’s equal-opportunity. He mangled both languages equally. *grin* The line I most vividly recollect is “The Board of Trustees’ decision is final. Jane Fernandes will be the ninth president of Gallaudet.” His voice was very emphatic and firm when he said final. Another line that drew a lot of ire from conference-goers was “There is no crisis at Gallaudet.” (emphasis his) *snort* If there’s no crisis at Gally, I’m purple with green polka-dots. He also had the gall to quote Mandela post-apartheid, along the lines of reconcilation between whites and blacks and attempted to draw parallels between apartheid and Gallaudet. I spluttered to whoever cared to listen, “How dare he use Mandela when he is perpetuating apartheid at Gallaudet???” My “gang” and I were all muttering angry rebuttals during his speech, because we were aghast at his gross and blatant distortion of the facts. We were also the recipents of requests to shush from the lady in back of me quite a few times during his speech.

When the speech ended, we could not believe how many people clapped. Some of my friends had walked out during his speech, but I chose to stay in order to see what more he had to say and how the audience would react. Well, wotta disappointment. The lady in back of me waved at me, so I politely stopped and turned to face her. She said, “He’s an important man. He did a lot for the deaf community. Why didn’t you clap for him?” My response? “You’re right. He has done a lot for the community. But he has recently divided the community. I cannot support him now.” “But he is a leader. You need to listen to him. FOLLOW what he says.” I took a deep breath and prepared to say calmly, “You and I have different views. That’s okay.” But another woman got her attention, so I didn’t have to confront her. *whew* After they were done, she turned to face me again and wanted to know where I was from. We exchanged a few pleasant sentences, then J and I were off to chat.

Framing the Debate Again

Two days ago someone said, “Oh, I did not realize there would be so many sign-dependent people here.” Hm. Cute attempt at political correctness, and I give him credit for that. Let’s start using the phrase “voice-dependent people” in our everyday parlance, shall we?

No more CMP?

We were all at the opening ceremonies for the evaluation and undergoing the obligatory introductions and speeches. Amidst the gaiety of what felt like a reunion, a thunderbolt struck. The Captioned Media Program has: 1. had its budget slashed into half, and 2. been ordered to provide video description services for the blind. The CMP has had a 5-year contract with the U.S. Department of Education, and it is up this year. When they re-applied, they were told the above. In effect, this means the budget for captioning has been slashed to a quarter of what they’ve had for five years. This has the potential to change everything for the company.

Possible impacts:
1. CMP (which is under NAD) has to become an expert in something totally different.
2. It could change the entire evaluation process.
3. Possibly instead of 300 new titles per year, only 75 titles may be released per year.
4. No more nationwide biennial evaluations maybe.
5. Only 10% of educational media is currently voluntarily captioned. Now with even less titles made available through CMP... it hurts deaf children.

They’re trying to make a bid to the U.S. Department of Education to allow the American Federation for the Blind to develop standards for video descriptions, and let THEM pretty much do it, and CMP just oversees it. But will the Department of Ed accept this proposal? Dunno.

By the way, video descriptions are voice-overs for actions that are visible but would not be obvious without seeing them. For example, suppose you see a dishy blonde walking up to a cupboard, opening it, taking a glass out, and closing the cupboard. One might hear the patter of feet, the clink of the glass hitting the counter, and the gentle slam of the door closing. But what the heck just happened?? Video descriptions would fill this gap.

Gad. We don’t have enough captioning as it is, and what there is is crap more and more often these days. This was talked about today - roll-up vs pop-up captions. Often sponsors aren’t willing to pay for pop-up captions. Why are CC for programs prepped weeks in advance so often crappy? No excuse, etc.

UPDATE: We found out that the woman who runs the evaluation program is in effect being fired. Her position was written out of the new grant. We are not going to conduct field evaluations on the tapes we weren’t able to get to this time, nor will we conduct field evals in the fall at home. It also looks like all the libraries and the warehouse in South Carolina will close if things don’t change. There is also a chance that there will be no more mailing out of tapes because it is too expensive. Things are really looking grim at this point. Time to trot out those letters to our representatives and senators and to the head of the Department of Education!!! (Links to help you find your representatives' contact info are embedded.) Contact NAD and insist that they fight to halt this, since CMP is a subsidary of NAD. We should try to fight this. Better to try and fail than not to try at all.

((UPDATE 2/28/07 - CMP IS shutting its doors for good on March 30th. For more info, check here.))

((UPDATE 3/1/07 - CMP IS NOT shutting down for good. Go here for more details.))

A GOOD step backwards!

Just finished voting and a few errands. My county has been voting using Diebold machines for a few years now, and most of the time I considered opting to vote absentee, just to have a paper record of my vote. This time, though, thanks to a new state law requiring a paper trail, they tossed the Diebolds and brought in optical scanners. They hope that new computers that will print out each voter's ballot will be certified in time for the November election, but they weren't certified in time for this one.

I am thrilled because I don't trust Diebold to record my vote and I believe the ability to double-check in case of problems is crucial. So far I've voted using 3 different systems. The first one was the punch-card ballots, with chads. I personally loved doing it. I loved poking the hole containing my choice - it had a very satisfying kinesthetic feel. The second one was the Diebold system. The third, which I hadn't used until today, was the optical method. I was handed a ballot and a black felt pen. I went to the booth and filled in bubbles, which brought back memories of the SATs and all the standardized tests I've had to take. I miss the punch cards, but I know they aren't coming back. I liked filling in the bubbles and feeling the solidness of the paper in my hand. I wouldn't mind continuing, but apparently it takes too long to count votes. Hmm. Some people were complaining about the "step backwards," but as far as I'm concerned, this was a good step backwards.

People who know me know I'm a political junkie, and I'm probably one of the best informed voters around... usually. Today, nope. What with the craziness my life has been for the past several months due to taking more than a full-time graduate courseload and working full-time in an incredibly demanding job, I haven't really been following anything. I hadda page a couple of friends to ask for their input (thanks, you two! *smile*) and do a quick half-hour of searching to print out my sample ballot (mine never came!) and reading/marking it. I felt so ignorant and like I shouldn't be voting, so my ballot had many blank spots. I feel strongly about being an informed voter. Voting is a right, but it is also a responsibility. I could not in good conscience mark names of people I did not know enough about to distinguish them from others on the ballot. People talk about the need to get more people to vote. I disagree. If people are uninformed, I'd prefer they not vote, frankly. Often the issues and people are not black and white. There are so many shades of gray that require sifting, sorting, discussing, and considering (though not necessarily in that order!) Even hot-button issues like abortion and gun control shouldn't be reduced to simple sound bites, no matter which way the sound bites lean, because they aren't that simple. Again, voters should take this right and responsibility seriously and do some research and analysis before participating in democracy (at least what passes for democracy these days).

I do not normally say this because I believe in respecting people's choices, but while we're on the topic of voting, I'd like to say it. I believe that people who do not vote do not have much or any right to complain about the way our government runs things. Why, you ask? Why, it's because they chose not to have input in the decision-making process. Yes, there is some question about whether one's vote truly counts these days, and those concerns are valid. However, that should not stop one from exercising the right to vote if one is truly interested and cares about our country and the direction it's headed in. For democracy to succeed, it requires citizen participation, and if those who follow events and decisions do not participate by voting and writing letters, it will not succeed.

With all this in mind, I will be doing more research before the November election to decide whom I want to support and what position to take on the various propositions that are sure to be on the ballot.