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                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR



                    Kenneth Jernigan, Editor
                Barbara Pierce, Associate Editor


     Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc,
                        and cassette by


              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT



                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230

                             * * * *



           Letters to the President, address changes,
        subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
       articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor
             should be sent to the National Office.

                             * * * *



Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five
dollars per year. Members are invited, and non-members are
requested, to cover the subscription cost. Donations should be
made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to:


                National Federation of the Blind
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230

                             * * * *

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES



ISSN 0006-8829THE BRAILLE MONITOR
A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                            CONTENTS

                                                     AUGUST, 1993

TO SEA WITH A BLIND SAILOR: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
by Barbara Pierce

THE PITFALLS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: EUPHEMISMS EXCORIATED
by Kenneth Jernigan

PEOPLE-FIRST LANGUAGE: AN UNHOLY CRUSADE
by C. Edwin Vaughan

AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND DOWNSIZES AND RETHINKS MISSION
by Kenneth Jernigan

THE PLACE OF BRAILLE
by Fredric K. Schroeder

FROM THE EDITOR'S MAILBASKET

MIAMI LOST
by Wayne Davis

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE IN ALABAMA THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

STAND-ALONE READING MACHINES: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW
by David Andrews

PREJUDICE AND DISABILITY: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT BLINDNESS

ANOTHER FEDERATIONIST BREAKS INTO RADIO
by Connie Norheim

RECIPES

MONITOR MINIATURES












     Copyright National Federation of the Blind, Inc., 1993
    [LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: Hank Dekker learned to sail years after
becoming blind. In 1983 he sailed through Hurricane Henrietta on
his way from San Francisco to Hawaii. In 1986 he joined hundreds
of other dedicated single-hand sailors in a trans-Pacific race
from San Francisco to Hawaii and came in third. Now he is
tackling the Atlantic. Only a handful of people can boast that
they have sailed single-handed across both oceans. Dekker is
pictured here on the deck of the NFB 52, the sailing sloop on
which he and the National Federation of the Blind are attempting
to sail from Cape May, New Jersey, to Plymouth, England.]
     [PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer, President of the National
Federation of the Blind, (left) and Hank Dekker, Captain of the
NFB 52, (right) stand on deck at pier-side in Baltimore's Inner
Harbor.]
     [PHOTO/CAPTION: Captain Hank depends on tactile maps and
charts to do his navigation. Raised latitude and longitude lines
and markers indicating the position of large cities enable him to
make accurate calculations. This map was made by members of the
staff of the National Federation of the Blind.]
     [PHOTO/CAPTION: Hundreds of people came to Baltimore's Inner
Harbor to attend christening ceremonies for the sailing sloop NFB
52 and to wish good luck to Hank Dekker. Under the large
Federation sign is President Marc Maurer at a microphone. The
Baltimore Orioles' mascot looks on as hundreds of Federationists
and other well-wishers cheered the blind sailor on his way.]
     [PHOTO/CAPTION: President Maurer and Captain Dekker chat
with well-wishers from the deck of the NFB 52.]
     [PHOTO/CAPTION: Captain Hank Dekker waves farewell from the
stern of the NFB52 as she is towed toward Chesapeake Bay from
Baltimore's Inner Harbor.]


                   TO SEA WITH A BLIND SAILOR:
                      THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
                        by Barbara Pierce

     On July 26, 1993, a United States Senator from Iowa, a
member of the House of Representatives from Maryland, and the
President of the Baltimore City Council joined hundreds of blind
people and other well-wishers to cheer a blind sailor named Hank
Dekker on his way. As most Americans now know, Dekker was setting
out to sail alone to Plymouth, England, and he was doing so as
the representative of all blind Americans who dare to dream and
to strive, for the men and women of the National Federation of
the Blind had made Dekker's adventure possible. This is the
story.
     July is always an exciting month for members of the National
Federation of the Blind because the first week is filled with
convention activities. But this year the remainder of the month
was almost as busy at the National Center for the Blind in
Baltimore.
     Hank Dekker, a self-taught sailor from California, was
prepared to sail single-handed from Cape May, New Jersey, to
Plymouth. The craft was the thirty-foot sailing sloop, NFB52. The
only engine on board would be a small one used to power the
generator that charged the batteries for the navigational
equipment, the radio, and the running lights used at night to
warn other shipping of the presence of the tiny sloop. Although
one other blind man has tried to sail the Atlantic alone, no one
has yet succeeded.
     The challenges are formidable: hurricanes; North Atlantic
gales; busy shipping lanes filled with large, fast-moving
traffic; and the grueling demands of a 3,200-mile voyage in which
the captain is the only person to keep watch, calculate course-
changes, and make critical decisions. There would be no time for
proper meals and no refrigeration. Dekker would have to be
prepared to survive on such fare as dried fruit and nuts,
sardines, crackers, and water. He figured that such a trip would
take anywhere from eighteen days to a month, but probably a
little more than three weeks.
     Dekker was convinced that he could make the crossing
successfully, and he had the experience to back his confidence.
He had sailed twice from San Francisco to Hawaii, once through
the edge of a hurricane that capsized his boat, leading to
reports of his death, and once finishing third of several hundred
in the prestigious Single-Handed Trans-Pacific Race.
     The Federation too was ready for the challenge. Believing
that blind people have the right to tackle difficult problems and
that, given the chance, we can compete equally with sighted
people, the NFB was sympathetic to Dekker's argument that
crossing the Atlantic was an appropriate adventure for an
experienced blind sailor--in short, for him. Having found the
Federation, Dekker realized that here was an organization that
shared his view of the capabilities of blind people. We decided
that together we could make a powerful statement about the
capacity of blind people to meet difficult and challenging
circumstances.
     Therefore, we made plans to try. Together we purchased the
boat and fitted it out. We named her the NFB52 for the fifty-two
affiliates of the Federation. It was an expression of our
conviction that the hopes and dreams of blind people in every
state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico would be aboard
the sloop, upholding Captain Dekker in his attempt to become one
of the small handful of sailors who have successfully crossed
both the Atlantic and the Pacific and the only blind man to do
so.
     On July 26, the third anniversary of the passage of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, Dekker was to depart from the
Inner Harbor of Baltimore . The sloop would then be towed through
the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Canal to Cape May, New Jersey,
where the actual crossing would begin on Thursday, July 29.
     Media interest in this adventure was high. The July 26 issue
of Sports Illustrated carried an attractively-laid-out two-page
story about our venture. The Baltimore Sun did several excellent
stories and an editorial, and the day following the send-off
ceremonies the Washington Post carried a fine story, complete
with a picture on the front page of the Metro Section. The
Associated Press story was picked up widely across the country
and made the front pages of such papers as the Cleveland Plain
Dealer. A camera crew from the NBC program, "Today," spent almost
a week in Baltimore filming the story, and it was broadcast
together with a live interview with Hank Dekker shortly before he
cast off on that Monday morning. Altogether, the launch was
covered by at least a hundred and four TV stations, and we have
not yet been able to count the number of radio and print stories
that were done.
     The story that appeared in the Baltimore Sun on Sunday, July
25 was representative of the tone and detail of the press
coverage. Here it is:

                      SAILOR WITH A VISION
          Atlantic Crossing Ends Dekker's Journey Back
                         by Peter Baker

     Hank Dekker is sitting in a lunchroom on Johnson Street
behind Federal Hill, discussing a trans-Atlantic voyage he will
start tomorrow from Baltimore to Plymouth, England. And he is
laughing.
     An English manufacturer has shipped a full line of
foul-weather gear for use on his voyage, including a $3,000
survival suit.
     "They sent a video with the survival suit to explain how to
use it," Dekker says and laughs again at the situation.
     Dekker is blind--a blind man with a vision.
     "The Atlantic trip is a mission and an adventure both," said
Dekker, 58, who is receiving support for his voyage from the
Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind. "I have done
the Pacific twice and was the first blind guy to do it. For me,
this is just the next level up. There have only been a handful of
people who have done both the Atlantic and Pacific, and you
always want to improve yourself, be the best in your sport."
     Dekker, who lives near San Francisco, has his credentials in
order as a sailor.
     In 1983, three years after taking up sailing, he survived
the fringes of Hurricane Henrietta in a 24-foot boat while
becoming the first blind person to sail from San Francisco to
Hawaii.
     After his encounter with Hawaii wiped out his Loran-C,
taffrail log radio direction finder, Dekker navigated the last
400 miles using a Braille compass, conventional charts with
raised landmarks and longitude and latitude lines, and an AM
radio.
     In 1986 Dekker finished third in a trans-Pacific race in a
28-foot boat, even though he did not take up sailing until after
he lost his sight.

                       Hitting Rock-Bottom

     Sixteen years ago Dekker was chasing other goals. He was a
manager of an automobile dealership in Hawaii and a former race
car driver. He had a wife and two children, a mortgage, car
payments--all the pleasures and encumbrances of a successful
member of society. And then the bottom fell out. Glaucoma took
his sight and despair took him.
     "I started running from myself because I thought, what can
blind people do to earn a living?" Dekker said. "I had never
talked to a blind person in my life. The only conception of blind
people I had was that they sold pencils in front of a department
store while playing an accordion.
     "I had no idea how I was going to earn a living, pay for the
kids' education, make the car payment, pay the mortgage. I fell
apart. It was the first time in my life that I had to face
adversity.
     "I went all the way down the tubes--from general manager of
a car dealership right down to washing cars on a used car lot in
San Rafael, [Calif.] ... I tried to kill myself."
     When Dekker started receiving government disability checks,
he said, they were spent "on the cheapest booze I could get.
     "I used to sleep in hallways, beg for spare change in front
of the Greyhound bus station, and pick out the best Dumpsters to
eat from," Dekker said.
     "I didn't think I could do anything," he said. "If I had
known about the National Federation of the Blind when I was
losing my sight, they would have been an organization for me to
contact. I would never have lost my job, my wife, my family, the
mortgage, or anything else."
     Dekker has, in part, rebuilt his life through sailing. He
found it challenging to his mind and his body, an undertaking in
which he could use all his remaining faculties to best advantage.
     "When I am at sea, on blue water, I feel the weather
changes, the wind, the seas," Dekker said. "If I am asleep in my
bunk and the wind changes five degrees, I am awake.
     "I am very much attuned to all that is around me. Perhaps I
am more attuned at sea than a sighted person is on shore."

                       Something to Prove

     Dekker's voyage, aboard an ultralight Olson 30 named NFB
(after the National Federation of the Blind), is a well planned
demonstration of the capabilities of blind people.
     "I am really trying to turn the sighted world around, to
make them realize what is possible," Dekker said.
     "I think most blind people are aware of what they can
do--especially the people who have gone to school and got their
doctorates and master's degrees and can't get a job. They know
they are capable. But the public isn't aware.
     "What I am doing is really kind of simple stuff compared to
a guy who has his doctorate. That guy worked a hell of a lot
harder than I worked. But I am getting the publicity because it
is sort of a spectacular thing."
     To Dekker, the trip is spectacular only to those who have
not been there--with sight or not.
     His ultralight racer is rigged, as are many short-handed
boats, with lines running to the cockpit to minimize deck work.
The rig has been beefed up, and a roller furling system has been
installed.
     His concessions to his blindness are a set of charts that
have landmarks, latitude and longitude lines, and major cities
marked with beaded paint, a $26 Braille compass, and a voice
synthesizer that will give readouts from a Furuno Global
Satellite Positioning system.

                           The Hazards

     Dekker is setting out in hurricane season, with the
expectation of a passage ranging between eighteen and thirty-four
days. He will be taken under tow from Baltimore to Cape May,
N.J., and be met by the Fastnet Race Committee when he nears the
English Channel.
     But in between, over some 3,200 miles, he will be on his
own, sailing free in southwest and westerly winds.
     "This is probably the best time to go, between May and
September," Dekker said. I know we've got the hurricanes, but
what are you going to do? I get out of the hurricane season and
leave after September,then I have the fierce North Atlantic gales
to deal with. It is sort of a flip-a-coin type of thing."
     Another concern is commercial shipping traffic, which is far
heavier in the Atlantic than in the areas of the Pacific he has
sailed.
     "This is something all single-handed sailors have a problem
with, because no one can keep a watch at all times," Dekker said.
"And if you really think about it, you can have the best vision
in the world and continually scan the horizon with binoculars.
     "... But when you're sitting two or three feet off the
water, your horizon is only three or four miles anyway. "So you
scan the horizon, see nothing and decide to go below and fix some
soup or take a nap or do your navigation or whatever. The minute
you go below, a mast comes over the horizon. It is a container
ship doing twenty-two knots, and he is over you in fourteen
minutes.
     "If he runs over you, it's because he wasn't keeping a watch
either. I am not being trite about it, because it is a concern.
But it is no more of a concern for me than for anybody else."
     Dekker does have a radar detector on board that sets off an
alarm whenever a radar signal from another boat bounces off his.
Should the alarm go off, Dekker said, he then would get on his
VHF radio and make contact, explain that he is sailing blind and
coordinate whatever maneuvers are necessary.
     The NFB also carries the Argos System, which will allow the
U.S. Coast Guard to monitor his position and for Dekker to send
out a satellite position fix in an emergency.
     Overall, however, Dekker has avoided electronic gadgetry.
     "You can't rely on electronics. You have to know how to
sail. I am sailing my boat just as any other good sailor would.
We are not buying our way across.
     "This is an $18,000 boat, and it is a sailor's boat that is
not for intermediate sailors."

                      Changing Perceptions

     Dekker's mission is to take on the world on its terms, not
to make the world change to meet his limitations. He is totally
blind in his right eye, has pinhole recognition of light and
darkness out of the corner of his left eye, is deaf in his left
ear, and uses a hearing aid in his right.
     "When I had sight, everything came very easily. I was
successful at everything I did," said Dekker, who now makes his
living as a motivational speaker for corporations including Xerox
and IBM. "But I know I was never as good as I could have been. I
was only using about twenty-five percent of my faculties before.
     "Now I have ten or fifteen percent of my faculties left, and
I am better than most people in the world at accomplishing
things.
     "I have learned to get the maximum out of what I have left.
     "The public says you are blind and can't do it. The public
generally just wants you to sit back and collect welfare because
they don't believe you are capable of doing things."
     Dekker and his two children, Kim, twenty-six, and Mike, who
now is twenty-nine and some years ago attended Mount St. Mary's
on a scholarship, are fully supportive of his voyage.
     "They like to see their old man moving around and doing
things," Dekker said. "They know about the times when I was so
far down, and they are glad that I have come back so far."
     Dekker recalls his first trip from San Francisco to Hawaii
and the encounter with Hurricane Henrietta. He says that for
three days at sea he heard reports of his death on the radio.
When he got close enough to Hawaii to contact the Coast Guard,
the search plane that was sent out got an electronic fix on him
that differed from his position by more than fourteen miles.
     Dekker has more confidence in his navigational and sailing
skills than electronics and says that his blindness is only a
public barrier that he is helping to break down.
     "A lot of people think blind people shouldn't even go for
it," Dekker said. "A lot of people say that if you don't make it,
it will be really bad for the blind community. Well, that is what
everyone wants you to do--just stay home.
     "We have to go out there and take our chances, too."
                      ____________________

     That is what the Baltimore Sun wrote the day before the
launch.
     July 26 was warm but overcast. Hundreds of people gathered
at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, where the sloop was tied up. Senator
Tom Harkin, Senate sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities
Act, spoke to the crowd, as did Helen Delich Bentley, Member of
Congress; Mary Pat Clarke, President of Baltimore City Council;
and Monsignor Jeremiah F. Kenney. Even the beloved mascot of the
Baltimore Orioles Baseball Team was on hand for the occasion. TV
cameras, news photographers, and reporters were everywhere, and
the party atmosphere prevailed even though no one could forget
the difficulty and danger Captain Dekker would soon be facing.
     Wednesday President Maurer drove to Cape May in order to be
present at the moment when Dekker cast off the tow line in blue
water and set sail for England. The two men shook hands across
the rail of the NFB52 at 11:00 Thursday morning, and Captain
Dekker set sail in the name of blind people everywhere,
accompanied by the thoughts and prayers of thousands for his
safety.
     The winds were light for the first two days, but Friday
evening the breeze rose, and Dekker began making good time. At
about 11 p.m. he decided that he had better recharge his
batteries, so he tried to start the diesel engine that powered
the generator, but it wouldn't turn over. So he got out the crank
and started it by hand. Until the day before sailing from Cape
May, when a single side band radio was installed at the last
minute, the electrical system on board had worked perfectly. But
suddenly, as the engine roared to life, the entire electrical
system apparently shorted out, leaving the craft with no
electricity, which meant no electronic navigational aids; no
radio; and, most critical of all, no lights. As an experienced
sailor, Dekker had already demonstrated his capacity to sail
without the first two, but he immediately realized that he could
not sail in busy shipping lanes unless his running lights were
operating, so regretfully he decided to turn back to Cape May.
     His original plan was to sail to within a few miles of the
Cape and then call for an escort into harbor. But at about 8 a.m.
Saturday the wind dropped, and he was becalmed. With no radio and
no wind, he decided to lower the sails and raise a distress
signal (actually his red jacket) in the hope that another craft
would see it and come to investigate. But no other shipping was
in the area all day, and by 3:30 p.m. he began to worry about
spending a second night without running lights, so he activated
the distress signal on the ARGOS Tracking System aboard and
waited for the satellite to pick up the signal and relay it to
the monitoring station, from which it was passed by modem to the
National Center for the Blind.
     In the meantime President Maurer, who was working in his
office that Saturday, was concerned because he had noted Dekker's
Friday night course change. He had no idea what was happening,
but he knew that something had gone wrong. Two days before, he
had watched Dekker repair his faulty steering mechanism shortly
after the two men had parted company six miles off the New Jersey
coast. He knew that Dekker could handle most on-board
emergencies, so he concluded that something serious was clearly
amiss.
     Then at 4:41 p.m. the distress alarm sounded at the Center.
The satellite reported that the temperature on the NFB52 was 175
degrees and that the sloop was moving erratically. President
Maurer had no way of knowing that when a sailor activates the
Argos System's emergency signal, all information relayed to the
satellite, except the location and speed of the craft, is
unreliable. He called the Coast Guard immediately and asked that
someone investigate. A helicopter was sent and then a Coast Guard
cutter. After that there was nothing to do but to wait and worry.
     Not knowing what was happening, President Maurer and Dr.
Jernigan decided that some notification of the situation must be
given to the media since there was a good chance that the Coast
Guard might make a statement at any time. Here is the press
release the NFB circulated widely Saturday evening while we
waited to learn what had happened and whether Hank Dekker was
still alive:

                                            For Immediate Release
                                             Contact: Marc Maurer
                                                     410-659-9314
                                                     410-644-0179

             TRAGEDY FEARED IN BLIND SAILOR'S VOYAGE

     Baltimore, Maryland, July 31, 1993: Marc Maurer, President
of the National Federation of the Blind, has just announced that
at 4:41 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday afternoon, July 31,
a distress signal was received from Hank Dekker, the blind sailor
who is attempting to cross the Atlantic from the United States to
England.
     "I was sitting in my office thinking about Hank and knowing
how much depended on this voyage," Maurer said, "when the alarm
from the satellite tracking system sounded." "Earlier Saturday,"
Maurer continued, "the tracking system computer at the National
Federation of the Blind Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, had
indicated that Hank's boat, the NFB 52, had reversed course and
sailed 23 miles back toward the East Coast of the United States.
It apparently reversed again and started toward England."
     "The 4:41 p.m. alarm showed high temperatures on the boat,"
Maurer said, "possibly indicating fire. I immediately contacted
the Coast Guard and asked them to send a helicopter to
investigate. They tell me the helicopter is on the way."
     "This is all the firm information I have," Maurer said, "but
if a tragedy has occurred, we must remember that Hank Dekker is
an experienced sailor. Twice in the 1980's he sailed alone in a
similar boat from the West Coast to Hawaii. Now, as then, he knew
the risks and felt they were worth taking because of what would
be accomplished.
     "Last Thursday I went with him on an accompanying boat six
miles into the Atlantic," Maurer said, "and I know how he was
feeling. He was doing this not only for himself but also for all
of the other blind people in the world. One of the last things he
said to me was what he said earlier in a press conference: There
are birds kept safe in cages, well fed and protected--but the
birds that sing are the ones in the trees, the ones that are free
and take risks.
     "The National Federation of the Blind," Maurer said, "has
sponsored and promoted this event to call attention to the innate
normality of the blind, and regardless of what happens, that has
been accomplished. Hundreds of people have tried to sail from
America to England, but only a handful have made it. Not one of
those others that tried and failed," Maurer said, "was a blind
person--but if Hank does not make it, there are bound to be at
least a few who will say it was because he was blind. They will
forget his two earlier successful trips to Hawaii. Hopefully,
most will view what is happening in a different light.
     "He is a courageous man," Maurer said, "battling odds and
battling to win."
     "Our prayers are with him," Maurer said, "and with his
family. We hope he is all right, but we will simply have to wait
and see. I will have further statements as I get more facts."
                      ____________________

     That was the press release, and it set off an avalanche of
press enquiry. By early evening the Coast Guard had reached
Dekker and reported the electrical system was gone but Dekker and
the boat were fine. Two men went on board to assess the situation
and stayed. Together they decided that Dekker should return to
Cape May under sail since everyone was afraid that under tow the
craft would be pulled under the surface because of the cutter's
much greater speed. Dekker used the time to teach the Coast Guard
men how to sail. Dekker reports that it was clear that other men
on board the cutter wanted to have a turn on the sloop learning
to sail, but the two originally assigned the duty refused to
leave.
     Shortly before midnight one of the men went below to get
something and stepped into six inches of sea water. That is how
they discovered the three-inch crack at the very lowest point of
the hull. It is not yet clear how the hull was punctured, but the
Coast Guard reported that copper grounding for some of the
electrical components had been anchored to a block fixed to the
hull at the site of the crack. However the mishap occurred, the
result was that salt water was pouring in under great pressure,
destroying food, clothing, and other personal effects and
immersing the diesel engine. The actual amount of damage done to
the equipment is yet to be determined at this writing, but it is
safe to say that repairs will be extensive.
     Knowing that Dekker was safe and that he would be arriving
Sunday at the Atlantic City Coast Guard Station, President Maurer
issued a second press release Sunday morning. Here is the text:

                                            FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                             Contact: Marc Maurer
                                                   [phone]

              BLIND SAILOR RETURNING TO EAST COAST
                  AND PLANNING FOR NEXT ATTEMPT

     BALTIMORE, MD--August 1, 1993--"The National Federation of
the Blind Transatlantic Crossing, the attempt by the blind
sailor, Hank Dekker, to go on a 30 foot boat from the East Coast
of America to England, had trouble Saturday afternoon, July 31,"
Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind
announced Sunday morning. "But Captain Dekker is all right,"
Maurer confirmed. "His electrical system failed and a crack
developed in the boat. But he handled it in the same way any
competent sailor would. Blindness was not a factor. He is now
being escorted back to the East Coast by the Coast Guard," Maurer
said.
     "It isn't just Hank Dekker who is making this sail," Maurer
said. "It's all of us in the National Federation of the Blind,
and we are already planning for the next attempt. We'll try again
this year if we don't hit the hurricane season. Otherwise, we
will go next summer."
     Maurer said, "There were two other accidents reported
Saturday, one of them a death in a hang glide effort and the
other an incident in an amusement park in West Virginia, where
eighteen people were shaken up but not seriously injured. The
West Virginia incident," Maurer said, "got more notice than Hank
Dekker's heroic feat. This fact underscores the reason for the
NFB Sail. The National Federation of the Blind Transatlantic
Crossing is," Maurer said, "in many ways comparable to
Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic in 1927. It shows what one
human being can do with initiative and a dream. If Lindbergh had
failed on the first attempt, he would have tried again. So will
the National Federation of the Blind and Hank Dekker," said
Maurer.
     For further information or to support this effort by the
blind of the nation, call (800) NFB SAIL. There are continuing
updates.
                      ____________________

     That was the NFB press release, and the Coast Guard also
issued a release Sunday morning. The Cable News Network covered
the story twice an hour beginning late Saturday evening and
continuing all day Sunday. By Sunday evening, when President
Maurer reached Atlantic City to welcome Captain Dekker,
representatives of the press were everywhere, and press calls
were coming into the National Center at a steady rate. Aside from
the clear indication of public interest in and concern for Hank
Dekker's well being, the most encouraging part of the event was
reporters' clear understanding that Dekker had handled the
emergency with competence and good sense. Blindness had nothing
to do with the problem, and the Coast Guard and the media
recognized that fact and reported it. At press conferences Sunday
evening in Atlantic City and again Monday morning at the National
Center for the Blind, questions focused on the cause of the
problem and the possibility of trying the crossing again this
season.
     That possibility is still the critical question. At this
writing it is not clear how long the repairs and refitting will
take. Hurricane season has begun and will intensify, and the
early autumn gales in the North Atlantic are becoming an
increasing concern. Dekker says that, if the repairs can be done
in two weeks or less, he will start again. The program "Good
Morning America" has just agreed to full coverage of the second
launching, and press interest continues high.
     We cannot know at this point whether the attempt will be
made this season or postponed until next summer, but it is clear
that neither Hank Dekker nor the National Federation of the Blind
is discouraged by the accident. In fact, viewed in one way, the
electrical problem is an example of Captain Dekker's sailor's
luck. If the crack in the hull had not opened wide enough to be
discovered relatively near land, the sloop would certainly have
gone down before repairs could have been made. We will hope and
pray for the continuation of Hank Dekker's good luck and for calm
seas in the Atlantic during the coming weeks.
     Whatever happens from now on, the press attention to the
dreams and ability of this courageous sailor and the blind men
and women who stand behind him has provided recognition for the
work of the National Federation of the Blind that nothing else
has ever accomplished. Calls from people who need the
Federation's help have been pouring into the NFB switchboard at
all hours, and financial support is beginning to arrive as well.
Those who wish to know where Captain Hank is in the coming weeks
or who would like to support our effort to demonstrate the
abilities of blind people can call 1-800-NFB-SAIL, 1-800-632-
7245. The adventure is just beginning.


[PHOTO: Kenneth Jernigan standing at podium microphone. CAPTION:
Kenneth Jernigan.]

             THE PITFALLS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:
                      EUPHEMISMS EXCORIATED
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

     As civilizations decline, they become increasingly concerned
with form over substance, particularly with respect to language.
At the time of the First World War we called it shell shock--a
simple term, two one-syllable words, clear and descriptive. A
generation later, after the Second World War had come and gone,
we called it combat fatigue. It meant the same thing, and there
were still just two words--but the two syllables had grown to
four. Today the two words have doubled, and the original pair of
syllables have mushroomed to eight. It even has an acronym,
PTSD--post traumatic stress disorder. It still means the same
thing, and it still hurts as much or as little, but it is more in
tune with current effete sensibilities.
     It is also a perfect example of the pretentious euphemisms
that characterize almost everything we do and say. Euphemisms and
the politically correct language which they exemplify are
sometimes only prissy, sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes
tiresome. Often, however, they are more than that. At their worst
they obscure clear thinking and damage the very people and causes
they claim to benefit.
     The blind have had trouble with euphemismms for as long as
anybody can remember, and late twentieth-century America is no
exception. The form has changed (in fact, everything is very
"politically correct"), but the old notions of inferiority and
second-class status still remain. The euphemisms and the
political correctness don't help. If anything, they make matters
worse since they claim modern thought and new enlightenment. Here
is a recent example from the federal government:

                            United States Department of Education
                                                 Washington, D.C.
                                                      May 4, 1993

                           Memorandum

TO:       Office for Civil Rights Senior Staff
FROM:     Jeanette J. Lim, Acting Assistant Secretary
               for Civil Rights
SUBJECT:  Language Reference to Persons with a Disability

     As you know, the October 29, 1992, Rehabilitation Act
Amendments of 1992 replaced the term "handicap" with the term
"disability." This term should be used in all communications.
     OCR recognizes the preference of individuals with
disabilities to use phraseology that stresses the individuality
of all children, youth, and adults, and then the incidence of a
disability. In all our written and oral communications, care
should be given to avoid expressions that many persons find
offensive. Examples of phraseology to avoid and alternative
suggestions are noted below.

      "Persons with a disability" or "individuals with
disabilities" instead of "disabled person."
      "Persons who are deaf" or "young people with hearing
impairments" instead of "deaf people."
      "People who are blind" or "persons with a visual
impairment" instead of "blind people."
      "A student with dyslexia" instead of "a dyslexic student."

     In addition, please avoid using phrases such as "the deaf,"
"the mentally retarded," or "the blind." The only exception to
this policy involves instances where the outdated phraseology is
contained in a quote or a title, or in legislation or
regulations; it is then necessary to use the citation verbatim.
     I hope this information has been helpful to you. If you have
any questions about any of these favored and disfavored
expressions, feel free to contact Jean Peelen, Director,
Elementary and Secondary Education Policy Division, at (202) 205-
8637.
                      ____________________

     That is what the memorandum says, and if it were an isolated
instance, we could shrug it off and forget it. But it isn't. It
is more and more the standard thinking, and anybody who objects
is subject to sanction.
     Well, we of the National Federation of the Blind do object,
and we are doing something about it. At our recent national
convention in Dallas we passed a resolution on the subject, and
we plan to distribute it throughout the country and press for
action on it . Here it is:

                        Resolution 93-01

     WHEREAS, the word blind accurately and clearly describes the
condition of being unable to see, as well as the condition of
having such limited eyesight that alternative techniques are
required to do efficiently the ordinary tasks of daily living
that are performed visually by those having good eyesight; and
     WHEREAS, there is increasing pressure in certain circles to
use a variety of euphemisms in referring to blindness or blind
persons--euphemisms such as hard of seeing, visually challenged,
sightless, visually impaired, people with blindness, people who
are blind, and the like; and
     WHEREAS, a differentiation must be made among these
euphemisms: some (such as hard of seeing, visually challenged,
and people with blindness) being totally unacceptable and
deserving only ridicule because of their strained and ludicrous
attempt to avoid such straightforward, respectable words as
blindness, blind, the blind, blind person, or blind persons;
others (such as visually impaired, and visually limited) being
undesirable when used to avoid the word blind, and acceptable
only to the extent that they are reasonably employed to
distinguish between those having a certain amount of eyesight and
those having none; still others (such as sightless) being awkward
and serving no useful purpose; and still others (such as people
who are blind or persons who are blind) being harmless and not
objectionable when used in occasional and ordinary speech but
being totally unacceptable and pernicious when used as a form of
political correctness to imply that the word person must
invariably precede the word blind to emphasize the fact that a
blind person is first and foremost a person; and
     WHEREAS, this euphemism concerning people or persons who are
blind--when used in its recent trendy, politically correct form--
does the exact opposite of what it purports to do since it is
overly defensive, implies shame instead of true equality, and
portrays the blind as touchy and belligerent; and
     WHEREAS, just as an intelligent person is willing to be so
designated and does not insist upon being called a person who is
intelligent and a group of bankers are happy to be called bankers
and have no concern that they be referred to as persons who are
in the banking business, so it is with the blind--the only
difference being that some people (blind and sighted alike)
continue to cling to the outmoded notion that blindness (along
with everything associated with it) connotes inferiority and lack
of status; now, therefore,
     BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in
convention assembled in the city of Dallas, Texas, this 9th day
of July, 1993, that the following statement of policy be adopted:

     We believe that it is respectable to be blind, and although
we have no particular pride in the fact of our blindness, neither
do we have any shame in it.  To the extent that euphemisms are
used to convey any other concept or image, we deplore such use.
We can make our own way in the world on equal terms with others,
and we intend to do it.


[PHOTO: Portait. CAPTION: C. Edwin Vaughan.]

            PEOPLE-FIRST LANGUAGE: AN UNHOLY CRUSADE
                       by C. Edwin Vaughan

     From the Editor: Dr. Vaughan is a frequent contributor to
these pages and a scholar in the field of disability. His most
recent book, The Struggle of Blind People for Self-Determination,
published by Charles C. Thomas, is available for $40 in
bookstores or from the National Center for the Blind. Many of us
who write and speak frequently about blindness and the problems
that blind people face have struggled in recent years against the
increasing pressure to use what has come to be called "people-
first" or "preferred" language. It is unwieldy and repetitive,
and any ear tuned to appreciate vigorous, precise prose must be
offended by its impact on a good sentence. But proponents of this
formulaic circumlocution have decided that mention of the person
must always precede reference to his or her disability or the
effect will be to show disrespect for the individual under
discussion. The result has been to shame many good speakers and
writers into forms of expression to which they would never
otherwise have stooped.
     Dr. Vaughan has had enough, and so have many of the rest of
us. We are ashamed neither of who we are nor of the
characteristics that help to shape us. Here is what he has to
say:

     From the editorial concerns of academic journals to the
opinions of individual educators and agency directors, I
encounter a continuing agenda for bringing uniformity in the
language used to describe disabled people. Proponents would have
everyone use people-first language, such as "people who are
blind" rather than "blind people" or "a person who is deaf"
rather than "a deaf person." By so doing they claim to focus on
the whole person rather than the disability. In April, 1993, an
agency executive, expressing his concern for uniform usage, wrote
to Dr. Jernigan, "The point is that the language is now putting
people first rather than our disability." He went on to say that
there had been agreement about this in the Independent Living
movement for several years.
     In that same month, in a meeting of the editorial board of a
major journal in the field of rehabilitation, a prominent
educator argued that the blindness field should "get on with it."
I have also received specific instruction from journal editors to
use the preferred language--"people who are blind." I regret to
say that I have sometimes acquiesced in order to get an article
past the gatekeepers. The issue has become so important to some
that it has even led to empirical research published in major
journals.
     One of the most recent is an article by Jan La Forge (1991)
which tabulated the use of preferred language in all major
articles in three major rehabilitation journals in 1988 (p. 50).
She concluded that, despite fifteen years of professional effort,
preferred language is used only about fifty percent of the time
(p. 50). "Perhaps those of us in the rehabilitation profession
may need to confront our own possible limiting attitudes before
we are enabled to lead the public in consistently employing
language signifying positive regard for all human-kind--including
those with disabilities" (p. 51). Using the preferred language--
persons first--puts the so-called correct user on the side of
humanity and human rights--surely a good place to be. However,
near the end of her research, she includes what I judge to be a
crucial observation: "We do not even have data to support the
claim, and belief, that those who are disabled themselves prefer
what is now called nondisabling language" (p. 51). Most of the
arguments I have encountered are put forward by the proponents of
preferred language, who are so immersed in their crusade that
they do not even demonstrate an awareness of other points of
view. But these other views, the subject of this paper, make the
people-first crusade appear not very holy and perhaps even
harmful.
     Sometimes preferred language is rejected for literary
reasons; it is awkward, tiresome, and repetitive, and it makes
articles needlessly long. Reading repetitions of the phrases
"persons who are blind" or "people who are visually impaired"
becomes tiresome to anyone after ten to fifteen occurrences. This
criticism is certainly on the mark; however, it is the least
significant of the arguments against the preferred language
crusade.
     I wonder if the proponents of people-first language believe
that putting disabled people first on the printed page
accomplishes anything in the real world? Does it alter attitudes,
professional or otherwise, about disabilities? What is their
evidence? The awkwardness of the preferred language calls
attention to a person as having some type of "marred identity"
(Goffman, 1963). But the misconceptions that diminish the lives
of disabled people must still be countered directly.
     There are at least two ways to look at this issue. First,
the awkwardness of the preferred language focuses on the
disability in a new and potentially negative way. In common usage
positive pronouns usually precede nouns. We do not say, "people
who are beautiful," "people who are handsome," "people who are
intelligent," etc. Under the guise of the preferred language
crusade, we have focused on disability in an ungainly new way but
have done nothing to educate anyone or change anyone's attitudes.
     Second, we are told that preferred usage will cause us to
focus on the whole person. In the best of all possible worlds,
where ignorance, stereotypes, and advantages over others do not
exist, this might be the case. But until we reach that condition-
-and that will be a long time coming--might it not be preferable
to use language that reflects the actual experiences of most
disabled people? In interaction with others, disabilities are
almost never ignored. Disabled people learn to manage such
situations. If we are going to expend this concentrated effort,
why not launch a broader-based, more substantive crusade which
would change images and ideas about conditions that are sometimes
frightening and seldom well understood? For example, why not work
on changing the connotations of what it means to be blind--to
challenge old understandings with new insights about blindness?
Many blind people are proud of the accomplishments of their
brothers and sisters. Just as black became beautiful, blind is no
longer a symbol of shame. To say, "I am blind" or "I am a blind
person" no longer seems negative to many, particularly those
groups with existential interest in the topic.
     Finally, in the broadest sense this issue is a political
one. From the first book of the Judeo/Christian Bible to the work
of Michel Foucault, giving a name is important and suggests
domination (Vaughan, 1993, pp. 115-142). There are many different
kinds of people with various disabilities. Some groups may have
progressed more than others in their effort to redefine their
situations in the wider society. Some individuals and groups of
individuals wish to name themselves (or at least not have new
labels, preferred usage, created for them by experts who would do
them good.) So why the current people-first language crusade? Why
not respect the wishes and diversity of many directly involved
individuals and consumer groups? Is this not in part what
empowerment is about? No one objects to other people's use of
awkward phrases such as "persons with blindness," if they want to
be tedious writers. But isn't it pretentious to make such
convolutions the preferred or even the only acceptable
constructions? Is this not rather the effort of some misguided
professionals who, without listening, are trying to change the
world of those they purport to serve?
     I know that many well-meaning professionals will disagree
and wonder how anyone could question the benevolence of the
preferred language crusaders. To me, however, this is a measure
of their isolation from the very thinking and actions within
disability groups that hold the greatest prospect for changing
attitudes and behavior. The concept of preferred language is
merely academic--in the worse sense of the term. It means very
little with respect to anything of consequence in the everyday
world. We can only hope that the day will come when editors will
retreat from their misguided demands and once again allow
language to become the carrier of positive images as well as
letting it reflect the wishes of disabled people themselves.

References

Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled
Identity. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

La Forge, Jan. 1991. Preferred language practice in professional
rehabilitation journals. The Journal of Rehabilitation, 57
(1):49-51. (January, February, March)

Vaughan, C. Edwin. 1993. The Struggle of Blind People for Self-
Determination; the Dependency-Rehabilitation Conflict;
Empowerment in the Blindness Community. Springfield, Illinois:
Charles C. Thomas.


[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Carl R. Augusto, President and
Executive Director of the American Foundation for the Blind.]

                AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND
                 DOWNSIZES AND RETHINKS MISSION
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

     May 17, 1993, was a critical day in the affairs of the
American Foundation for the Blind, perhaps a turning point in its
history. It was then that the Foundation board met in a stormy
session and by a narrow margin voted to make severe cuts in the
organization's activities and operation. The board went further,
deciding to relocate the Foundation's headquarters, change its
mission, and chart a new course. Whether these actions will lead
the Foundation to a new era of growth and strength or signal the
beginning of its decline as a major participant in the blindness
field is yet to be determined, but there can be little question
that the May 17 decisions will have far-reaching effects.
     A year ago at the Charlotte convention of the National
Federation of the Blind, I discussed the plight of the Foundation
at length in a speech titled "Shifting Balances in the Blindness
Field." I called attention to the fact that the Foundation had
been forced to cut its staff by more than twenty percent, that it
had been losing money each year since 1987, and that it urgently
needed to rethink its mission and focus its effort. Carl Augusto,
President and Executive Director of the AFB, spoke to the
convention following my address and laid out the same broadly
based and vaguely phrased set of goals that I had been saying
were part of the problem. A year has now passed since that
Charlotte convention, and with each succeeding month the dangers
facing the Foundation have become more apparent. Every year since
1987 the Foundation has spent more money than it has taken in,
and even with the draconian cuts of the May 17, 1993, board
meeting, it is not clear that the hemorrhaging has been brought
under control. In 1987 the Foundation had assets of more than
forty million dollars. As best we can determine the figure today
would be more like twenty-five million. The annual budget for
fiscal year 1994, which is just beginning, was supposed to be
fourteen million dollars, down from the all-time high of
approximately fifteen and a half million a few years ago--but
that was before the May 17 meeting.
     By all accounts it was a painful meeting. The Board came to
the unavoidable conclusion that something radical had to be done
to stop the draining of resources. As a starter, the budget for
the coming year was slashed from fourteen million to eleven
million dollars, and some fifty additional AFB employees were
either let go or told that their jobs would soon disappear. This
will bring the AFB staff down to approximately 125, according to
Augusto. Though these staff cuts have been made across the board,
the entire Southeast Regional Center, based in Atlanta, has
closed, at least temporarily; and so has the AFB library,
including the Helen Keller Archives, though Augusto says that the
library will open again as soon as financially possible.
     Perhaps the most startling decision made by the Board was to
attempt to sell the AFB headquarters of four buildings at 15 West
16th Street in Manhattan. The Foundation has been at this address
(which is a symbol and a landmark in the blindness field) since
the 1930's, and Helen Keller herself helped raise the money for
construction of the main building and placed materials in a time
capsule in its corner stone. According to AFB staff, however, the
current offices are expensive to maintain, and the Board of
Trustees hopes to find more economical facilities somewhere else
in New York City. Apparently the present complex is in such bad
condition that each time one repair is made, a number of others
are required so that continued occupancy is simply not
financially feasible. When asked if the Foundation would stay in
New York regardless of what happens, Mr. Augusto replied that, if
someone offered the organization attractive facilities at a good
price in another part of the country, they would not refuse to
consider the possibility of moving, but that he had a hard time
picturing the Foundation's not having a New York office of some
kind. For one thing, the Foundation says that it is determined to
continue its Talking Book recording studios. Although there are
those who would disagree, the Foundation says it believes the
program of the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped would be profoundly weakened if it were to
lose the pool of talented readers that are based in New York with
its theaters and broadcast industry.
     Other decisions were made at the May 17 board meeting. The
AFB plans to phase out its sales of aids and appliances for blind
people, though not in the immediate future. The Foundation says
that sales are up at the moment, but according to agency
officials the probability is that the AFB will ease out of this
area completely now that other organizations provide the service.
The AFB has already closed its research department and its
section for developing special modifications to solve individual
technological problems. Some evaluation of equipment is
continuing, but it is unclear how extensive this program will be
in the long run, according to Dr. Susan Spungin, AFB's Associate
Executive Director for Program Services.
     Although publication of texts and other books for the use of
professionals and those studying to enter the field of work with
the blind has all but ceased for the time being, the Foundation
says that it hopes and plans to resume this work as soon as
possible. The Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, AFB's
monthly publication of research and reports of interest to
professionals, will continue to circulate to its 3,300 readers.
     Those were some of the decisions made by the AFB Board of
Trustees on May 17, 1993. Here is the text of the press release
that was circulated following the meeting:

                     AFB Announces a Refocus
                  of Its Activities & Services

     Since its inception, the American Foundation for the Blind
(AFB) has been looked to as a leader in addressing the challenges
facing people who are blind or visually impaired and the
organizations and agencies that serve them. In response to a
review of the critical needs of the blindness field and in
recognition of the organization's need to achieve fiscal
stability, AFB has announced a refocusing of its activities and
services and a major reduction in staff.
     "The magnitude of the staff reductions and expense cuts was
deep," stated Carl R. Augusto, president and executive director,
"but a comprehensive action was necessary so we can realistically
and optimistically focus our energies on AFB's future. It was
time to sharpen our strategic focus, redefine our priorities, and
guarantee that AFB's tradition of leadership in the blindness
field continues."
     The mission of the organization remains the same--to enable
people who are blind or visually impaired to achieve equality of
access and opportunity--but, in the future, AFB will more
strongly focus on three aspects of that mission: being a
preeminent information resource that makes creative use of
information to benefit the field of blindness, people who are
visually impaired, and the general public; being an objective
think tank and problem solver with a view toward making the most
significant impact on the most important issues facing people who
are blind or visually impaired such as addressing the future of
specialized services; and being the leader in public education
and affecting public policy regarding the needs and capabilities
of people who are blind or visually impaired.
     Major changes at AFB include staff reductions across all
departments; phasing out of the development, manufacture, and
support of AFB engineered products; orderly transition from the
sale of consumer products to a leadership role in galvanizing
efforts to insure and expand the accessibility of products and
assistive technology; and until sufficient funds are available,
discontinuation of M.C. Migel Library services; deferral of the
publication of new books and videos by AFB Press; and closing of
the Southeast Regional Center of Atlanta, Georgia.
     At its May meeting, AFB's Board of Trustees approved a
budget for the upcoming fiscal year that reflects these
reductions. The Board also authorized initiation of the process
of relocating AFB's New York headquarters to more cost effective
space within Manhattan and selling the buildings it currently
occupies.
     "We have concluded that we must make these sacrifices now in
order to have a greater impact in the future," said Augusto. "As
always, we will be looking to all our partners in the field of
blindness to work with us to ensure that the significant issues
of the day are being addressed."
     Further information, including new contacts at AFB, shifting
of responsibilities, and other details will be communicated as
appropriate.
                      ____________________
     That is what the press release said, and though it is still
too early to tell for certain what all of the changes will mean,
it is clear that the Foundation is at last making a serious
effort to stop trying to be all things to all people in the
blindness field and to sharpen its focus. As Carl Augusto said in
an interview, "Instead of trying to implement a hundred good
ideas, we are going to have to limit ourselves to choosing ten
really good ones and be satisfied with carrying those out." Susan
Spungin explained the new focus as a determination to do those
things that the Foundation has always done best. Though the staff
is still scrambling to develop the vocabulary with which to
discuss the new focus, she said that the AFB's activities will
flow into each other. She sees the Foundation as developing a
strategy center in which problems, particularly those with public
policy implications, would be studied and attacked. Naturally
arising from this activity would come preparation of materials to
assist teachers and professionals in the blindness field. And
flowing back from professionals, agencies, and organizations in
the field would come information that would be used for further
research and development in the strategy center.
     Will it all happen? Is there a fund-raising base to support
such activities? Can the American Foundation for the Blind both
focus its efforts more narrowly and still carve for itself this
or any other stable permanent niche for the twenty-first century?
These are at least some of the questions facing the AFB and the
blindness field. The officials with whom we spoke seemed sobered
by recent developments but say they are optimistic about the
future. Others in the blindness field with whom we talked seemed
to wish the AFB well and applaud the agency's effort to narrow
its scope. The field is certainly facing serious challenges in
the years ahead, and the demise of an institution as venerable as
the Foundation would not be a positive element. The forces
outside the field that are working to divide and weaken the
effort to protect the interests of the blind and the specialized
agencies established to give them service would certainly not be
saddened by the disappearance of the Foundation. If the
Foundation can weather its current crisis and find for itself a
future course of action which is truly in the best interest of
the blind, everybody will benefit.
     As a final thought, I am moved to comment that most
organizations would be delighted with an annual budget of eleven
million dollars and a twenty-five-million-dollar reserve. So why
is the Foundation in crisis? One could argue that it has
overreached its capacity, that it has become inflexible and
immune to change, or that it psychologically lives in a bygone
era and cannot accept the new realities. However, it may be that
none of these is the real problem. When, after the May 17
meeting, I asked one Foundation official about staff morale, the
answer came back, "There is no staff morale." The greatest
problem faced by the Foundation could be that it has lost belief
in itself and its destiny. If that is the case, its troubles are
only beginning.
     Perhaps the Foundation should contemplate (and I hope they
will) the writings of the noted British historian Arnold Toynbee,
whose sweeping theory of human development is called "The Cycle
of Challenge and Response." According to Toynbee every
civilization (and I suppose the same is true of an organization)
faces a constant succession of challenges and confrontations, and
its viability and soundness can be measured by the vigor and
nature of the response. It may meet the challenge head-on,
emerging stronger and healthier for the encounter; it may react
defensively, desperately--leaving the struggle exhausted; or it
may, at the first sign of threat, simply lie down and die.



[PHOTO: Fred Schroeder standing at microphone. CAPTION: Fred
Schroeder.]

                      THE PLACE OF BRAILLE
                     by Fredric K. Schroeder

     From the Editor: As most Monitor readers know, Fred
Schroeder is a member of the Board of Directors of the National
Federation of the Blind and serves as Executive Director of the
New Mexico Commission for the Blind. In 1991 he was also elected
President of the International Council on English Braille. In
mid-June he traveled to Sydney, Australia, to preside at the
biennial meeting of the organization's executive committee,
during which the group voted to endorse and participate in the
Braille Authority of North America's (BANA's) unified code
research project. This decision insures that, if a unified
Braille code can be developed by the several committees being
appointed to work on the project, the resulting unified code will
be available for consideration by all users of English language
Braille around the world.
     While Mr. Schroeder was already on the other side of the
world, he took the opportunity to meet with several groups,
including the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind, which
was conducting a Braille conference in Auckland. The following
speech was delivered on June 8, 1993, as the conference keynote
address.

     In the United States blind people have come to realize that
the major problem of blindness is not the lack of eyesight, but
rather societal misunderstanding about blindness. The lost
opportunities that blind people have suffered come from a lack of
public understanding about their ability to work competitively.
As a result blind people in the United States banded together to
form the National Federation of the Blind in 1940. Now in its
fifty-third year, the Federation has served to focus the efforts
of blind people to reach social and economic equality. In short,
the Federation serves as a vehicle for collective action,
transforming the relatively insignificant voice of the individual
into the powerful and influential voice of the many. As blind
people our challenge is to shape a new perspective and
understanding about blindness. To accomplish this, we must start
with a philosophical framework which allows us a clear vision of
our potential and of our future. We must then inculcate this
philosophy into ourselves so that we as blind people can
coordinate our energy through shared beliefs and shared goals.
     Once we internalize our philosophy and believe it in our
hearts, then it can be expressed through collective action. In
this way we stimulate change in the public's perception of
blindness. The importance of collective action therefore is that
it serves both as an agent of change and as a way of
strengthening our own philosophy. Our united action becomes the
expression of our belief in ourselves as blind people, and this
expression serves to reshape prevailing public attitudes about
blindness. As our efforts stimulate change, the change we create
reinforces and strengthens our philosophy. In other words, we
start with a set of beliefs about blindness; express those
beliefs through collective action; and, through the change we
bring about, are in turn strengthened and reinforced in our
beliefs.
     Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, President Emeritus of the National
Federation of the Blind, has helped those of us in the United
States to refine and deepen our convictions by clearly
articulating the philosophy of the organized blind movement
through his numerous speeches and writings. One of the critically
important concepts which Dr. Jernigan has taught us is that
through training and opportunity blind people can compete on
terms of real equality. Dr. Jernigan has clearly understood the
relationship of action expressing beliefs and the results of
those actions serving to focus and bolster those beliefs. This
cycle is vital to a social movement and equally vital to the
development of the individuals comprising that movement. If we as
blind people are truly to believe that we can compete on terms of
equality, then we must initiate the actions necessary to
demonstrate this belief to the public at large. We must function
competitively if we are to convince society of our basic
equality. To accomplish this, we must have mastered the
techniques necessary to make our beliefs a reality.
     Perhaps there is no other skill more fundamental to personal
success in a modern society than literacy. It is so integral to
our daily lives that we hardly recognize its presence. We take
for granted the ability to read and write in order to communicate
thought and archive information. Yet upon reflection we do
recognize the importance of literacy as a foundation for learning
and organizing the complex of information we encounter daily.
     For all of you as transcribers and educators the importance
of Braille as a tool of literacy for the blind will come as no
great surprise. It affords blind people the same advantages as
print affords the sighted. Braille allows us to become educated
and to organize the world's complexity in effective ways. It
allows us to be competitive in our jobs and is a prime tool for
social integration. Using Braille, a blind person can make a
shopping list, write down a recipe, or record a telephone number.
Braille is a tangible expression of our ability to compete and to
become fully integrated members of society.
     There is another aspect to Braille which I believe is
equally important. I spoke earlier of the cycle of change in
which philosophy begets action and the fruit of that action
reinforces philosophy. In the lives of blind people this cycle of
encouragement and change is strongly tied to our level of
literacy. From childhood on, society teaches blind people that we
cannot achieve at the same level as our sighted peers. To change
this belief system, we must have the courage to assert a contrary
view of blindness. In spite of society's teachings, we must view
ourselves as competent, capable people. Yet sustaining this
positive image of blindness requires mastery of the skills
necessary to compete. Using Braille, blind people can achieve
literacy and by so doing project an alternative view of blindness
premised on their ability to achieve full participation. For
blind people, using Braille is tangible evidence of our ability
to function effectively alongside our sighted peers. It is an
expression of our fundamental value and of the truth of our
alternative view of blindness. For blind people, therefore,
Braille represents literacy; but it is also a symbol of our true
equality. Perhaps this is why blind people value Braille so
deeply and so personally.
     In the United States we have experienced a serious decline
in Braille use over the past twenty-five years. Many theories are
put forward to explain this decline. The fact remains, however,
that among blind people there is a strong perception that
something important has been lost. As a result, through the
National Federation of the Blind, blind people have begun
pressing for a renewed emphasis on Braille among blind children
and adults. At first this movement was viewed with suspicion,
impatience, and even hostility among professionals in the field
of work with the blind. They sought to explain away the decline
in Braille use by pointing to the increase in the number of
multiply-handicapped blind children and the proliferation of low
vision technology, which they said made Braille unnecessary. But
within the past five years there has been a shift in the
attitudes of many professionals in the United States resulting in
their recognition that the decline in Braille use constitutes a
genuine and immediate crisis.
     A recent phenomenon demonstrating the concern of blind
people about the decline in Braille use is the advent of Braille
bills in state legislatures throughout the country. Today sixteen
states [the number has now grown to twenty] have adopted Braille
bills, which to one degree or another call for a renewed emphasis
on Braille as the means to literacy for blind children. Some
Braille bills have gone further, requiring competency testing in
Braille reading and writing for teachers of blind children. Other
Braille bills have sought to identify objective criteria to
determine whether a particular child would be better served by
the use of print or Braille. A number of the more recent Braille
bills have called upon textbook publishers to provide materials
in electronic media readily translatable into Braille. This
provision is attracting significant interest due to its potential
to enhance availability of Braille materials for young blind
children.
     Perhaps the most interesting part of the Braille renaissance
in the United States is the shift of attitudes among
professionals in the field of work with the blind. The first
Braille bill to be adopted was in Minnesota in 1987. It
stimulated nothing short of an all-out war between blind people
in the state and the professional blindness establishment. In six
short years attitudes have shifted dramatically, which has
resulted in the development of some recent Braille legislation
that has been a cooperative venture among blind adults, parents
of blind children, and education and rehabilitation
professionals.
     The real importance of Braille legislation in the United
States has little to do with the substance of the sixteen Braille
laws. Our federal legislation requires the development of an
individualized educational program (IEP) for disabled students.
The development of this plan is accomplished by a committee made
up of the child's parents and various school personnel. For this
reason the legal presumption of either print or Braille
instruction constitutes nothing more than a starting point. Under
federal law the educational planning committee can modify
instruction for individual children. Thus the legal impact of
Braille legislation is less significant than its emphasis on
Braille as an expression of public policy. Braille legislation
reflects an acknowledgement of the role of Braille as the means
to literacy for the blind. Similarly our nation's adult
rehabilitation system is coming to an awareness of the critical
importance of Braille, both as a tool and as a symbol of the
basic equality of blind people. In October, 1992, the National
Council of State Agencies for the Blind (NCSAB) adopted a policy
recognizing the importance of Braille as a means for reading and
writing. NCSAB represents publicly funded adult rehabilitation
agencies.
     I regard the current recognition of the importance of
Braille as dramatic and positive. It benefits blind individuals
through increased literacy and improved social integration. Yet
to me the greatest importance of Braille is as a symbol of
fundamental equality. If we hold the belief that as blind people
we can compete on terms of real equality, and if we have the
tools to express that belief in competitive work, then we are
able to put in motion the cycle of beliefs stimulating change and
change reinforcing beliefs. Braille is a part of our heritage, a
tool in our daily activities, and an element in our overall
philosophy of blindness. It represents the liberation of an
entire class of people from the state of illiteracy and non-
participation and affords the means by which full participation
and meaningful equality can be achieved. It is a rallying point
for both political action and personal expression. Through the
use of Braille the individual can attain the dignity that comes
from being an educated, literate member of society. Certainly
Braille is not the only skill a blind person needs to attain full
participation. Yet the significance of Braille as the key to
literacy gives it distinct and important standing.
     As transcribers and educators we typically view ourselves as
needing to focus on both the present and the future. Our
immediate concern is to apply labor and technology to meet the
requirements of today's Braille readers. The blind student in
need of a text and the blind professional in need of a technical
manual drive much of our effort and consume us with immediate
demands. Still we are also focused on the future--always seeking
new teaching methods, better instructional materials, and the
newest technologies--and all with the objective of giving the
next generation the gift of literacy. Our focus on the present
and our dedication to the future are the reasons why we come
together in Braille conferences. We meet to explore the latest
and the best in production and teaching and to wrestle with the
best ways to present ever changing and expanding technical
materials. Certainly Louis Braille never envisioned a computer
code. Yet the system he gave us, while in some ways very
limiting, has proven to be remarkably dynamic. The challenge
before us today is to balance the demands of the present with the
challenges of the future.
     Shortly you will be hearing a presentation about a unified
code project initiated in North America. It seeks to consolidate
the literary code, Nemeth code for Braille mathematics, music
code, and textbook format code into a single unified system. The
reasons for this project are readily understandable by Braille
readers and Braille producers. When the Braille Authority of
North America (BANA) adopted each of these codes, the intention
was to meet a particular need for access to information. Yet
today the BANA codes stipulate, for example, one symbol for the
dollar sign in Nemeth, a totally different one in the computer
code, and still a third in the literary code. Difficulties like
this one in the present system are obvious and cry out for
solution. Hence the unified code project seeks solutions to
today's problems. At the same time, if the project is to be
responsive and genuinely successful, it must also focus on the
future. The project must seek to develop a foundation allowing
the code the elasticity necessary readily to accommodate future
demands. While the project is ambitious, there is yet one more
complexity which must be addressed. Today there is remarkable
similarity in the way Braille is written throughout the English-
speaking world. Though the unified code project would solve a
number of present and future problems, it does have the potential
to widen the currently small gaps in the general uniformity of
Braille in the English-speaking world.
     For this reason next week the Executive Committee of the
International Council on English Braille will meet to discuss
internationalizing the code unification project. The risks are
great; however, as is often the case, the potential rewards are
even greater. The more people we bring into the project, the
slower will be the progress and the less likely are we to achieve
consensus. But by the same token internationalizing the project
offers the tantalizing prospect of a truly unified code--a
single, consolidated system used throughout the English-speaking
world. The benefit of an internationally recognized unified code
is immeasurable. To the developing world the increased access to
materials usable by anyone who can read English offers
incalculable advantages. With Braille in such limited supply
everywhere, an internationally recognized unified code would
allow a system of coordinating production of materials throughout
the English-speaking world, greatly enhancing availability of
materials for blind people.
     As with any change, the code unification project is not
universally embraced. The radical among us must ultimately be
tempered by the conservative and the conservative pulled along by
the bold. For the project to work, all must gain a little and
give up a little, but all of us must participate. If Braille can
be adapted to the requirements of a changing world, then blind
people will have better tools with which to meet new challenges.
By working together to ensure that the code can meet the changing
demands of the new Braille technology and the rising expectations
of blind people, we will help ensure the literacy of future
generations. But by ensuring their literacy we also ensure more
than just the prospect of becoming educated and getting a job. We
ensure the true integration of blind people into society.
     For the blind of today to stimulate social change, we must
have the tools to give tangible expression to our belief in our
fundamental equality. By our demonstrated ability to function
competitively, we give our philosophy credence in the mind of the
public. As the public learns to view us as equals, our
opportunities expand. Collective action is the most effective
means of progress for the individual and for any class of people,
including the blind. For each blind person Braille is the means
to literacy, and for the blind collectively Braille is a tangible
expression of our fundamental equality.












                 ******************************
     If you or a friend would like to
remember the National Federation of the
Blind in your will, you can do so by
employing the following language:
     "I give, devise, and bequeath unto
National Federation of the Blind, 1800
Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland
21230, a District of Columbia nonprofit
corporation, the sum of $_____ (or
"_____ percent of my net estate" or
"The following stocks and bonds:
_____") to be used for its worthy
purposes on behalf of blind persons."
                 ******************************
                  FROM THE EDITOR'S MAIL BASKET

     In the June, 1993, issue of the Braille Monitor we published
an article by Dr. Tim Cranmer titled "Why I am not a Chemist: The
Braille Ceiling." Among other things Cranmer was advocating
creation of a unified Braille code of the kind Fred Schroeder
mentions in his speech printed elsewhere in this issue. Cranmer
pointed out that fifty years ago advanced science books were
simply not transcribed into Braille because those who make such
decisions assumed that blind people could not study science, so
there was no need for the textbooks to be transcribed. Moreover,
even today there are expressions routinely used in the various
sciences that have never been formally assigned standardized
Braille symbols. In fact, though Cranmer did not go into the
matter, one of the hopes for a unified code, held dear by blind
scientists, is that, with the right unified code, it would be
possible to emboss Braille copy directly from the computer files
used to produce the print text by merely running the file through
a Braille translation program. Scientific books cannot now be
produced in this way even though it can be done with books for
which the literary code is used.
     Of course, this problem has not stopped blind people from
entering the sciences, but it has certainly complicated their
lives. Even those who argue most passionately that the current
Braille code is an essential tool for them in their scientific
work say that they have modified it somewhat for their individual
use.
     The Cranmer article has stirred up a good bit of discussion.
Everyone who has so far written in response is committed to
Braille and believes that blind people have every right to enter
the sciences, providing that they have the ability and energy.
But even with these bases of agreement, there is plenty of room
for discussion. Here are two of the letters we have recently
received:

                                             Garfield, New Jersey
                                                    June 14, 1993

Dear Ms. Pierce:
     I am writing to comment on the article by Tim Cranmer in the
June, 1993, issue of the Braille Monitor. The title "Why I am Not
a Chemist" certainly caught my attention since I am a practicing
chemist. I expected to read accounts of organized discouragement
by a series of so-called experts who claimed to know the best
careers for young blind persons to follow. But the barrier
described in the article is another one with which I am only too
familiar.
     It was fortunate for me that I had just enough vision to
complete my undergraduate degree, but some years later as a blind
graduate student I was faced with the problem of reading
equations in chemistry, physics, and mathematics by some other
means. I learned the Nemeth code and adapted some of its features
to my needs in order to create a simple Braille notation for
organic chemistry. I recorded lectures and later made Braille
notes, including equations, which sometimes had to be inferred
from the text of the lectures. Recorded textbooks were most
useful, and I was able to transcribe many of the equations into
Braille. Though this was time-consuming, I believe that the
transcription and interpretation process enhanced my
understanding of many of the concepts.
     This was a tolerable investment of my time as a student but
is too time-consuming for me to do now as a working scientist, so
I searched for useful books in physical chemistry and mathematics
for physics which had already been transcribed. My intention was
to use them for reference when the need arose. Well, of course,
the available selection is somewhat less than overwhelming.
Additionally, I learned that several of the titles in which I was
interested had been deleted from the collection. I consider it
tragic that several Braille books on mathematics and physics,
which were transcribed with great effort by the transcriber,
could be disposed of. Basic texts in mathematical analysis and
quantum mechanics which were published thirty years ago can still
have considerable reference value. These books are rare and
valuable resources which should be preserved.
     Regarding the development of a new Braille code to include
scientific equations, I believe this is critical if those careers
are to be made accessible to interested blind persons. The code
should be designed in such a way as to allow production of
Braille copies directly from the files used by publishers to
produce the print copies.
     Another important issue is access to current scientific
literature. The texts of many journals exist in computer-readable
format. These are not always available to blind scientists at a
cost comparable to that of print copies available to our sighted
colleagues. However, Chemical Abstract Services has graciously
provided me, at the normal price, with diskette copies of a
bibliographic publication to which I subscribe. This is an
excellent start, but other institutions need to adopt this
policy. New technologies make many things possible, including
copyright violations. This is a legitimate concern of the
information distributors. However, such concerns are also
relevant in producing printed materials. It seems to me that
blind persons should have equal access to information in whatever
medium they prefer.
     These problems need to be addressed now if future
generations of blind students are to choose careers based on
their interest and ability rather than on whether educational and
professional materials are available in formats they can use
independently.
                                                       Sincerely,
                                                   Bill Skawinski
                       ___________________
                                               Glenwood, Illinois
                                                    June 16, 1993

Dear Editor,
     Although I appreciate that, in his article "Why I am Not a
Chemist: the Braille Ceiling" Tim Cranmer was trying to portray
life for a blind person aspiring to study science in 1939, I feel
that he should have clearly stated the fact that life as a blind
scientist has dramatically improved since then. I was greatly
distressed that such vital information was not included in Dr.
Cranmer's article because, if some blind youngster dreaming of
pursuing a career in chemistry should read this article, he or
she might be discouraged by Cranmer's statement that "limitations
of our Braille code place limitations on our education and on our
careers."
     I feel that I am qualified to disagree with Dr. Cranmer when
he asserts, "There isn't any way to convert the print symbols
representing my ideas into Braille. What am I to do?" I say this
because I am a totally blind college student who is about to
complete a major in biology and a double minor in chemistry and
secondary education. During my college career I have been hired
by my university to tutor groups of high school students in
biology and chemistry, in addition to serving as a tutor for
students in the nursing and pre-medicine programs. Because I
cannot use print, I rely heavily on the Braille code to do nearly
all chemical manipulations, including balancing molecular and
redox equations, writing electron dot pictures to show how atoms
are arranged in a molecule or ion, and performing operations in
nuclear chemistry, in which chemical symbols are frequently used.
Although I have had to alter the Braille code slightly, I
strongly disagree that limitations of the code were the only
reason why Dr. Cranmer or anyone else could not study chemistry.
Although using Braille to illustrate highly complex molecular
structures like benzene rings is not practical, I successfully
use the same molecular model kits used by my sighted peers to
work with such structures. I can also assure you that, if I could
not use Braille to teach chemistry effectively, my employers
would not have hired me for the jobs that I now do.
     I am not writing this letter to draw attention to my own
achievements; rather I want to eradicate any misconceptions that
any blind people may have about not being able to pursue
successful careers in science. Although there are many reasons
why someone may not succeed in science, it is not due to any
inadequacies of the Braille code. It is my firm conviction that
anyone who has his or her heart set on pursuing a dream and who
is determined enough to do whatever it takes to make that dream
come true will be successful, despite the obstacles. It didn't
matter to me if, as Cranmer put it, "It is ten times harder for
blind people than it is for the sighted to become physicists,
chemists, engineers, or many other technically advanced
professions...." What I want the blind to know is that I'm living
proof that it can be done. The Braille code does not place limits
on what careers blind people can pursue, but misconceptions and
negative attitudes about the abilities of blind people often do.

                                                       Sincerely,
                                                 Valerie A. Negri



[PHOTO: Wayne Davis standing at microphone. CAPTION: Wayne
Davis.]

                           MIAMI LOST
                         by Wayne Davis

     From the Editor: In the small hours of the morning of August
24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew crashed down on Dade County, Florida.
That was not the only area to sustain serious damage before the
storm blew itself out, but certainly the people of the greater
Miami area suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the
hurricane. In the Spring, 1993, issue of the NFBF Outreach, the
publication of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida,
Wayne Davis, President of the NFB of Florida and a resident of
northern Dade County, described what it was like to live through
Andrew and attempt to assist blind people in the storm's
aftermath. It seemed appropriate to share this story of pain and
optimism on the anniversary of Andrew's destruction and at a time
when Americans in the Midwest are also fighting the devastation
caused by the excesses of nature. Here it is:

     I fancy myself to be a writer, so I thought this article
would just flow out of my mind into my computer like water out of
a pitcher. But how does one describe the hell that they named
Andrew?
     The feeling and spirit that was Miami left with the storm
that history books will refer to as the hurricane of '92, leaving
little as it had been in the southern half of  Dade County, which
was hit the hardest by the winds that gusted over 160 miles per
hour. In the aftermath of the storm, the sound of Spanish music
was replaced by the growl of National Guard trucks, and fine
restaurants offering a wide range of international foods were
replaced by Army field kitchens staffed by people doing their
best to provide enough hot meals to keep Andrew's victims alive
for another day. Where stately trees once shaded avenues of well-
cared-for lawns and beautiful homes, there were streets blocked
with fallen trees and broken sidewalks, and far too many of the
homes had been reduced to little more than piles of rubble.
People who a week before had laughed and played in the sun were
walking through what looked like a scene from a war movie with
confusion and fear in their eyes.
     You have heard all kinds of stories about the damage and
hardships suffered in Dade County because of the storm. I won't
describe again the things that were shown repeatedly on
television. I will try to convey a little of what it was like to
survive the storm and to live in Dade County during the weeks and
months that followed that terrible event.
     Like most other Miami residents the day before the storm
hit, we were busy stocking up on things like flashlight batteries
and making sure the windows were covered with wood. We live on an
island, Normandy Isle, which is part of the City of Miami Beach.
We were told to evacuate the island because authorities were
expecting excessive flood damage. As we left, I remember
wondering if there would be anything to return to. We have lived
on the beach for almost sixteen years. Several times hurricane
warnings have been issued, and several times the storms have just
passed us by. I knew there was a good chance that Andrew would do
the same. Another part of me, realizing that I had never been
through a hurricane before, was a little excited, as though we
were all going to have a great adventure.
     We went to the West Hialeah home of one of my wife Carmen's
cousins, to ride out the storm. We arrived there late in the
afternoon of Sunday, August 23, 1992. Everybody was busy putting
the final touches on storm preparations. Other family members
were staying there for the duration, and there was something of a
party mood to the group. I was recovering from rather significant
oral surgery two days before, so I wasn't feeling well, but for
the most part our spirits were high. Carmen and I went to bed
shortly after midnight and fell asleep right away. The hurricane
hit in the small hours of the morning.  No movie producer or
fiction writer has ever come close to capturing the force of that
monster of nature they named Andrew.
     We lost electrical power almost at once, and the house was
in total darkness until someone lit a candle. Of course the
entire metropolitan area lost electricity, so the only light that
could be seen outside was that created by the lightning flashes.
The wood covering the windows was sucked in and out as though it
were cardboard. The plywood was ripped right off one window and
the glass smashed. All we could do was keep the door to that room
tightly closed. Strange as it may seem, every wall inside the
house was soaked. I still cannot explain why that happened. I
recall wondering whether I was about to die; I also remember
praying. I lay on the bed in the dark, listening to the storm. It
sounded like some gigantic wild animal trying to get inside and
attack us.
     When the storm finally passed on to the west and daylight
came, people began moving around. I walked into the front hallway
of the house. The floors were wet and cold, and the front door
was open. The other family members were outside in the yard, just
looking at all the changes Andrew had made. I went out to join
them. Trees and wires were down everywhere. Much of the seawall
around the lake behind the house was destroyed. The winds had
thrown concrete blocks around like paper boxes.
     Carmen got on the phone right away and started trying to
contact members of the Miami Chapter. Many of the phone lines
were down, but she was able to reach several members who lived in
the north end of the county. All of the people she talked to were
all right, but many of them had suffered a great deal of property
damage. What bothered me was all those members we could not reach
by phone. Battery-operated radios told us that the south end of
the county was all but destroyed.
     Carmen and I wanted to get back to the beach so that we
could see how much damage our home had received. At first the
authorities ordered that nobody drive cars. Because traffic
lights were out, only fire trucks and medical vans were allowed
on the streets. But by late afternoon we finally got to our home.
We were the first people to return to our block. There wasn't
much damage done to our property, but all around us trees had
fallen, crushing cars, and sidewalks were ripped up. The power
was off all over the county, and we were warned not to drink the
water. But the really heavy damage was to the south of us.
     We couldn't take the plywood off our windows because all of
our tools were in the trunk of our son David's car, and he had
gone to Tampa to take his girlfriend back to school. Because we
couldn't open the windows, the place was as hot as the pits of
you-know-where. It was too hot to sleep. That night Carmen and I
sat out on our back porch. I remember sitting there with a
flashlight and a pistol at three in the morning, watching a
raccoon walk down the sidewalk. It was spooky. With no power
available, there were no lights at all, no air conditioners, no
other electric motors running. We felt like we were miles away
from civilization. We heard a boat whistle on the ocean, some two
miles away.
     It is often said that every cloud has a silver lining, and I
guess this one does too. Two days after the hurricane passed
through, Carmen and I, white canes in hand, ventured out to a
convenience store that was open for a couple of hours. Of course
all the traffic lights were either destroyed by the storm or out
due to the lack of electricity. I don't mind telling you that I
was concerned about how we would get across the two major streets
between our home and that store. To my total surprise, people
stopped their cars and told us when to cross the street. One man
even got out to make certain that we got across a street safely.
All things considered, we were pretty lucky.
     Ralph and Mary Mormon were valued members of our chapter.
Both were diabetic, and Ralph had lost a leg to the disease just
weeks before the storm. After many, many phone calls, Carmen was
finally able to contact the Mormans two days after the storm.
Before the hurricane a county nurse had been coming every day to
change the dressing on the stump of Ralph's amputated leg. But
because of blocked roads and other emergencies, nobody had been
coming to help them since the storm. They existed for days on
warm soda and potato chips. These are the last things that
diabetics need to eat. All of their clothes and bedding were
soaked. Agencies kept promising to send them food and insulin,
but for one reason or another, nobody showed up for over a week.
Carmen was able to find a wonderful Spanish lady whose family
operated a glass company. You can imagine how busy they were
following the storm. But that lady, who had never met us or the
Mormons, left her business, fought her way through heavy traffic
to her home, prepared her own food, and then battled traffic and
blocked roads deep into South Dade to take Ralph and Mary much-
needed food. The whole ordeal, however, was just too much for
Ralph Mormon. He never regained his strength. He died in October,
another victim of Andrew. We will treasure his memory and recall
his courage every time we think about the Hurricane of '92.
     At least one other blind person died as a direct result of
the storm. He was a Spanish gentleman, and not a member of the
NFB. He walked out on his sixth floor balcony after the storm had
passed. The concrete was wet from the rain, and he had not taken
his cane, so he did not know that the storm had torn away the
safety rail. He slipped and fell to his death.
     John Allen, who is a past board member of the Greater Miami
Chapter, along with Patricia Fain and their one-year-old son
Robby, ran from one room to another as the walls in John's
parents' home collapsed. At last the whole family huddled behind
a mattress in the laundry room, trying to protect themselves from
flying glass and other debris.
     Longtime NFB member Larna Gray's home was heavily damaged.
It was weeks before we were able to contact her. Carmen worked
with the Red Cross and the local transportation office to provide
help for members of the disabled community throughout South
Florida.
     To live without refrigeration for a few days on a camping
trip can be fun, but in the aftermath of Andrew the heat added to
the wide-spread depression. Small bags of ice sold for as much as
five dollars, when you could find them. Nearly everything was
closed for the first week after the storm.
     The normally blue skies of South Florida were filled with
military aircraft, and the thump-thump-thump of helicopter rotors
could be heard at almost any hour. Everyone was trying to find
things to hang on to that had been part of their lives before
Andrew. They lived in houses with no roofs. We know personally of
nine people, two cats, and two dogs all living in one room. These
people had no extra clothing, so every night they each washed
their own clothes so they could have something clean to wear the
next day.
     Andrew was not the first major storm to hit our coastline,
and it will not be the last. With the help of God and of all our
friends in the NFB, I am sure that the members of the Greater
Miami Chapter of the NFB of Florida will work hard in a joint
effort with other organizations here in Dade County to get Miami
back on her feet. It won't be easy, but then the NFB is an old
hand at taking on big jobs and solving big problems for blind
people. The love and concern that were shown to our family by the
members of the National Federation of the Blind, both here and
throughout the nation, were all that kept Carmen and me going
through that terrible time. Many of our Florida chapter
presidents offered us the chance to share their homes. President
Maurer and Dr. Jernigan called several times to see what they
could do to help us and other members of the blind community in
South Florida. Dr. Jernigan arranged for money to be sent to
blind victims of the storm. These funds have helped many blind
people and their families to put their homes and lives back
together.
     Is Miami recovering? The answer is yes, but it will take
years. I lost my job as a result of the storm and have not yet
been able to get back to work. And I am just one of many. There
are still thousands of homeless people, people that lost
everything but their dreams to Andrew.
     At the beginning of this article I said that I did not know
the words to describe the hell they called Andrew. That is still
true, but the storm has passed. Now it is time for the citizens
of Dade County, Florida, to look forward to a better day--a day
that, with the help of God, will wipe the shadow of fear left
behind by Andrew off the faces of our children.
     A strange thing has happened in Miami since the storm.
People of different racial and ethnic backgrounds who once
resented each other are now bound together by the hard times
caused us all by the hurricane. We are working together to help
each other rebuild our dreams along with the city. When all of
the fallen trees have been taken away and all the businesses and
homes have been rebuilt, we may just find that what Miami lost
was racial prejudice and mistrust of people who speak another
language. People now take the time to smile and say hello and to
offer a helping hand to each other. It may be that, along with
everything else that Hurricane Andrew blew away, some of our hate
and fear of those a little different from ourselves has
disappeared. If this is true, historians may cite Hurricane
Andrew as the glue that helped to bind different factions
together to make Miami a better city than it was before. Miami
lost? Maybe not.


                THE MORE THINGS CHANGE IN ALABAMA
                   THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

     In the June, 1993, issue of the Braille Monitor, we
described the latest abuse against blind people at the Alabama
Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB). The problem centered on a
highly irregular banking service called a Consumer Management
Account established for the convenience of disabled employees in
the industries program at AIDB's Talladega Regional Center. The
result of all the hanky panky was the embezzlement of almost
$24,000 of worker savings by AIDB staff. By April, when we were
writing the story, the Institute had studied the problem itself
for almost a year, and the state auditor had been at it for eight
months or so, but the informal banking service without individual
account records or receipts of transactions was still doing
business, despite demands by the National Federation of the Blind
of Alabama that the Institute put an end to it and begin helping
people learn to do their own banking.
     Three months have now elapsed since that report was written,
and much has happened. The state auditor has completed and
released a report which damns the program and confirms the
losses. Regina Hann, the clerical employee with primary
responsibility for the paperwork that implemented the scheme, has
now pleaded guilty to four counts of theft. And the National
Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually
Handicapped (NAC) has completed its on-site review and, according
to the Institute's public relations director, Lynn Hanner, has
unofficially indicated that AIDB will be accredited for another
five years, assuming that NAC itself survives that long. The mid-
year list of NAC member agencies will tell the tale, but AIDB
officials are clearly confident of the outcome of the agency
review despite confessions of embezzlement by agency staff and
the profound damage done to workers who trusted and depended on
them. In other words, no matter what the crime, the incompetence,
or the bad publicity, it is business as usual at AIDB and at NAC.
     But it will be hard to pretend that nothing has happened at
AIDB in the face of the irregular procedures and conditions
enumerated in the audit report and the recommendations made to
correct the situation. Here is the official report:

                                              Montgomery, Alabama

Honorable Ronald L. Jones
Chief Examiner of Public Accounts
Montgomery, Alabama

Dear Sir:
     Under the authority of the Code of Alabama 1975, Section 41-
5-14, I submit this report on the Consumer Management Account
(CMA) of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind for the period
January 1, 1989 through September 30, 1991.

Scope
     This report encompasses a special review of receipts and
disbursements of the Consumer Management Account, an agency fund
of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB).

Comments
     The Consumer Management Account was established in January,
1989, as a banking service for handicapped consumers unable to
perform routine banking tasks. The Talladega Regional Center of
AIDB assumed the responsibility of making deposits and
withdrawing funds to handle the consumers' personal expenses upon
the mutual agreement of the Talladega Regional Center and the
consumer, parent, or guardian.
     The secretary of the Talladega Regional Center was
designated as the custodian of the account. After the secretary
resigned, an internal audit was performed on the CMA by AIDB
staff. The internal audit disclosed discrepancies in written
receipts and deposits. The management of the Alabama Institute
for Deaf and Blind requested our department to review the
Consumer Management Account.

Findings
     Management is responsible for establishing and maintaining a
system of internal control procedures which provide reasonable
assurance that assets are safeguarded from loss or unauthorized
use, that all transactions are properly recorded and executed as
authorized by management. The following conditions were noted
which reduce the effectiveness of the system of internal controls
on the Consumer Management Account of the Alabama Institute for
Deaf and Blind.
     1. Receipts were not written for all funds collected.
     2. Receipts were not always accounted for and deposited
intact and on a timely basis.
     3. Bank reconciliations were not performed properly or
reviewed and approved by supervisory personnel not responsible
for receipts and disbursements.
     4. Receipts and disbursements were not consistently posted
to the subsidiary records of individual consumer accounts.
     5. Subsidiary listings of consumer accounts were not
reconciled to the bank and book balances.
     6. Documentation for monthly bills paid for consumers were
not maintained for audit purposes.
     7. Employees were not properly bonded.
     The lack of procedural controls on the Consumer Management
Account of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind resulted in a
cash shortage of $23,817.77. This shortage consists of $22,345.67
of receipts not being deposited and overpayments to consumers of
$1,472.10.

Recommendations
     1. Receipts should be written for all funds collected.
     2. Receipts should be accounted for and deposited intact and
on a timely basis.
     3. Bank reconciliations should be performed properly,
reviewed and approved by supervisory personnel not responsible
for receipts and disbursements.
     4. Receipts and disbursements should be posted to the
subsidiary records of individual consumer accounts.
     5. Subsidiary listings of consumer accounts should be
reconciled to the bank and book balances.
     6. Documentation for monthly bills paid for consumers should
be maintained for audit purposes.
     7. Employees should be properly bonded.

Charges Against Employees
     1. Ms. Regina K. Hann, former secretary, and Mr. Mark
Skelton, Director, Talladega Regional Center of the Alabama
Institute for Deaf and Blind, are jointly charged for $23,817.77
as reflected on Exhibit 3.
     2. Official demand was made on the official and employee for
repayment of this amount. They declined to pay the charge.
     At a hearing before the Chief Examiner, relief from the
charge was denied as evidenced by the Order of the Chief
Examiner, a copy of which is contained in this report. The charge
remaining due and unpaid, this report will be certified to the
Attorney General and to the District Attorney for collection.

Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Thacker
Examiner of Public Accounts

Note: the above document was notarized on May 11, 1993.

                      ____________________

Order of the Chief Examiner
RE: Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (Special Review)
    1/1/89 through 9/30/91

     This matter coming to be heard the 7th day of April, 1993,
pursuant to the provisions of Code of Alabama 1975, Section 41-5-
22, the Chief Examiner is of the opinion that the official and
employee have failed to show just cause why the charges should
not be paid. Therefore, relief is accordingly denied.
     Entered this the 19th day of April, 1993.

Ronald L. Jones
Chief Examiner








*****************************************************************

NOTE TO BRAILLER: THE 3 FINANCIAL
SHEETS (EXHIBITS 1, 2, & 3) NEED TO BE
INSERTED HERE. THEY ARE ON THIS DISK AS
A SEPARATE FILE (CHARTS.AL) FOR YOUR
REFERENCE.

*****************************************************************
    There you have the official report documenting the
shamefully casual procedures by AIDB officials and the
disappearance of funds to which such practices inevitably led. By
mid-June Regina Hann, the secretary in the middle of the scandal,
had decided that there was no use in continuing to claim her
innocence of the charges against her. At the time her father was
also in trouble with the law, and the Talladega, Alabama, Daily
Home reported both cases in a story that went on to discuss other
unrelated crimes. Here is the relevant portion of the Tuesday,
June 15, 1993, story:

       Regina Hann Pleads Guilty; Father's Trial Continued

     Regina Hann, charged with stealing money from deaf and blind
clients of Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, pleaded guilty
Monday in Talladega County Circuit Court.
     Ms. Hann worked as a secretary for AIDB's Talladega Regional
Center, which operated a Consumer Management Account that clients
deposited their money into voluntarily.
     Her sentencing is set for August 10. A discrepancy was
discovered in the account in October of 1991 after an internal
audit was conducted by AIDB officials. The probe of account
records from January, 1989 to September, 1991, revealed that
$23,817.77 was missing.
     The Institute requested that a special audit of the account
be conducted by Department of Examiners of Public Accounts
several months later.
     The examiners released a report from the audit in May,
confirming the amount of money missing and citing improper
management as a possible reason for the disappearance of the
funds.
     According to the report, Ms. Hann was designated custodian
of the consumer account, and the shortage was discovered after
she resigned in 1991.
     In four counts of theft, Ms. Hann was charged with stealing
$3,816 from Hwa Cha Pyon; $3,677 from Kevin Doucet; $1,450 from
Horace Smelley; and $7,842 from Candice Williams.
     The cases against former Probate Judge Derrell Hann were
continued until August 16, according to Judge Jerry Fielding.
Hann is Ms. Hann's father.
     Hann is charged with theft of county funds and securities
fraud, which alleges that he knowingly misrepresented the
county's financial condition in order to get a $3.9 million bond
issue approved.
     His trial was continued "due to the fact that one of the
defense attorneys had to go out of town this week," Fielding
said.
                      ____________________

     There you have it. Ms. Hann pled guilty to four counts of
theft, and no one yet seems to know what Mark Skelton, Director
of the Talladega Regional Center of AIDB, will do or say about
the blame placed at his door in the state audit report. As far as
we know, the Consumer Management Account is still open, and one
can only hope that the safeguards listed in the audit report have
been put in place.
     Meanwhile things go on as usual at AIDB. A new president has
just been named. He appears to know nothing about educational
policy, blindness, or deafness; but he can raise money. Perhaps
the Institute will have better luck with someone who knows
nothing about the program he will be directing and the people
whom he will be serving. It is certainly the case that those with
purported expertise in the relevant fields have rendered
undistinguished service as president in recent years. One would
like to be optimistic at the beginning of a new administration.
However, when AIDB officials tell the press that past president
Dr. Jack Hawkins (who carted off thousands of dollars of state
property when he left) was "one of the institution's best, though
controversy plagued, presidents," one finds difficulty in
stirring up much enthusiasm or hopefulness. We will have to wait
and see. Here is the story that appeared in the Birmingham News
on July 20:

                Auburn's Busta New AIDB President

     An Auburn University administrator was named Monday as the
fifteenth president of the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.
     Joseph F. Busta, Auburn's vice president for advancement,
was chosen from six candidates interviewed Monday by board
members, who praised his fund-raising talents.
     "I felt like his fund-raising ability would best serve us
right now," said Ellis F. Porch of Arab, who nominated Busta,
forty-seven, for the job.
     Eight board members voted unanimously to hire Busta, who
during his interview detailed his eight years of experience
lobbying the Florida legislature and the budget growth of $100
million while he was assistant to the president at the University
of South Florida in Tampa.
     While Busta headed fund-raising for the University of South
Florida from 1985 to 1990, private support went from about
$500,000 to $24.7 million, he said. Busta also was director for
that school's $111 million campaign and financed its $40 million
foundations.
     Board members said Busta's talent for bringing in money
outweighed the fact he has no experience working with deaf and
blind students.
     Porch compared Busta with former AIDB President Jack
Hawkins, who had never worked with the deaf and blind, but is
considered one of the institution's best, though controversy-
plagued, presidents.
     Busta said he must quickly learn sign language so he can
communicate with the deaf. He said he didn't expect his lack of
those skills to interfere with his ability to run the
institutions.
     Mary Jane Ackel, regional manager for the Alabama Education
Association, said she was satisfied with the choice but would
have preferred a president with a background in education. "No
practical education experience leaves a little to be concerned
about," she said.
     Mrs. Ackel conceded she had been a supporter of former AIDB
President Thomas Bannister before he was forced out last February
under pressure from the AEA. The organization said he failed to
provide leadership.
     Bannister, a former head of the Utah School for the Deaf,
resigned from AIDB after three rocky years in office, but he
refused to accept blame for the institution's problems, arguing
they were deep-rooted and would outlast him.
     Board members are counting on a new administration to bring
harmony as well as money into the 136-year-old residential
school.
     Busta came to Auburn on the heels of a thirteen-month
controversy over accusations of wrong-doing by staff members. He
turned the department around and enjoyed three quiet years, he
said. Busta, a 1969 Auburn graduate, has been Auburn's vice
president for advancement since 1990 after nineteen at USF. "I
think I'm ready, having served that many years next to the
president," he said.
     AIDB has 2,600 students with a budget of $33.5 million,
about half of which comes from the state.



[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: David Andrews.]

       STAND-ALONE READING MACHINES: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW
                        by David Andrews

     From the Editor: There is perhaps no more attractive-
sounding piece of technology for the blind today than the stand-
alone reading machine. Just place a page of printed text on the
glass, press a button, and sit back to listen to a tireless voice
read at whatever speed you choose. That is the fantasy, and as
improvements are made in this exciting new technology, it comes
closer and closer to reality. But choosing and operating a
machine successfully are not nearly as simple as the promotional
brochures make it sound, and the cost still seems very high to
most of us. If you are contemplating the investment of your hard-
earned funds in one of these marvels or even if you merely wish
to dream about what to invest in when you win the lottery, read
the following article to learn what an objective technology
expert thinks about the various options in this important field.
     David Andrews is the Director of the International Braille
and Technology Center for the Blind at the National Center for
the Blind in Baltimore. He understands the complexities of the
various machines and manages to explain them in plain words. Here
is what he has to say:

     The most dynamic and competitive category in adaptive
technology for the blind today is that of print reading systems.
Included in this category are a variety of systems that scan the
printed page and turn its contents into synthesized speech. These
include both the so-called stand-alone reading machines and
computer-based reading systems. Until just over a year ago there
was only one stand-alone reading machine; there are now five.
These include the Kurzweil Personal Reader and the Reading Edge
from Kurzweil Computer products; An Open Book from Arkenstone,
Inc.; the Robotron TR320 and Rainbow from Robotron Pty. Ltd.; and
the ReadMan Pronounce from Schamex Research.
     What follows is a review of the four major machines
currently available. The Kurzweil Personal Reader is left out
because, though it is still for sale, its optical character
recognition technology and features are outdated. The Reading
Edge offers better performance and more accuracy at a lower
price. The two Robotron machines, the TR320 and Rainbow, are
identical except for speech, so I counted them as one machine to
get the total of five. I evaluated the Rainbow since it offers
significantly better speech than the TR320.

                    Descriptions and Features

                        The Reading Edge
                   Kurzweil Computer Products

     The Reading Edge is the latest stand-alone offering from
Kurzweil Computer Products, a division of Xerox Imaging systems.
It replaces the Kurzweil Personal Reader, which has been sold for
the past five or six years. The new machine was first introduced
in the fall of 1992.
     The Reading Edge is a compact, one-piece unit with an
eighteen-key attached keypad. It measures twenty inches wide by
seven and a half inches high by fifteen inches deep and weighs
twenty-three pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a
half by eleven and a half inches. With the optional carrying case
the machine can be used as a semi-portable unit. Aside from the
question of portability, the small, one-piece design is a nice
bonus because it can save valuable desk real estate.
     Like its predecessor, the KPR, the Reading Edge comes with a
bookedge scanner that scans to the edge of the glass which is
aligned with the front edge of the machine. This design is handy
for reading books since the spine can be put along the edge of
the glass, allowing the machine to scan the print, including that
closest to the binding. The availability of the bookedge scanner
is one of the strongest pluses for this machine and should be
heavily weighted by would-be purchasers who read a lot of books.
It is possible to read books with the other scanners, but it
takes a little more work and ingenuity. The scanner surface on
the Reading Edge is somewhat smaller than that of the earlier
Kurzweil machine. It measures eight and a half inches by eleven
and three quarters inches. If the page is over eleven inches
long, however, it is possible to do two scans and stitch the
resulting pieces of text together.
     The Reading Edge sits at a slight angle--that is, the front
is higher than the back. This helps in reading books since the
angle helps to hold them in place. There is also a lid covering
the scanner glass, which holds books and documents in place. The
front of the machine contains earphone and recording jacks. There
is also a compartment for storing the keypad. The rear of the
machine contains a serial port and the power cord. On the right
side are knobs to change volume and reading speed. The latter is
a nice feature because it allows the user to speed up and slow
down the built-in DEC-Talk synthesizer, even while it is reading
a document. No one else offers this feature, although Arkenstone
is adding it to the next upgrade of its software, due later this
summer. The Reading Edge also has a small credit card-sized piece
which plugs into the machine, which contains its software. This
design will facilitate software upgrades in the future.
     While it does not affect the operation of the Reading Edge,
there is one peculiar thing about its appearance. The front of
the unit contains a Braille label which says:

          the reading edge
         a kurzweil reader
     xerox imaging systems

The Braille used is of a nonstandard size and is spaced
improperly. Further, some, but not all, appropriate Grade II
contractions are used, and there is no capitalization. The effect
is sloppy considering that otherwise the machine is pretty well
designed.
     Some of the commands used by the Reading Edge are the same
as those used by the Kurzweil Personal Reader, in particular,
those used to control the reading itself, such as "read previous
sentence," "read current word," etc. Overall the machine is
fairly simple to operate. Of the group discussed here, only the
Robotron Rainbow and TR320 are more straightforward.
     The Reading Edge does not have the ability to control the
brightness setting automatically. There are sixteen possible
manual settings. The machine will determine the orientation of a
page automatically and read it regardless of the direction of the
print. The Reading Edge has about 220K of memory for storage of
documents, and the contents of the memory do not disappear when
the machine is turned off. While documents must be erased or sent
to a PC eventually, this temporary storage is convenient. The
method used to send documents to an external device using the
serial port is the same as on the KPR and is cumbersome at best.
Kurzweil has developed an external floppy disk drive option for
the Reading Edge, which will be offered in its next upgrade. This
accessory uses the serial port-based 3.5-inch floppy disk drive
sold by Blazie Engineering for $495.
     Another unique feature of the Reading Edge is the use of six
keys on the keypad to write Braille. These keys can be used to
name or edit a document, write short notes, or enter corrections
into the synthesizer's pronunciation exceptions dictionary. It
has a Grade II back-translator so that the user can write in
Grade II Braille.
     For beginners the machine has a startup message that
provides brief instructions on how to use it, but the message can
be turned off. The Reading Edge has a two-level help system. Like
the KPR it has a nominator key, which can be tapped before
pressing any of the other keys. The second key will then be
briefly described. If only the second key is pressed, only its
name or current function will be spoken. But tapping the
nominator key and then holding the key down results in a full
explanation of its function. This help system works quite well
and is available at any time.
     Like the KPR, the Reading Edge can be used as a speech
synthesizer for a PC equipped with a screen review program that
supports the Kurzweil machine. However, Kurzweil's implementation
of the DEC-Talk is somewhat nonstandard, so the Reading Edge must
be explicitly supported by the screen review program. Existing
DEC-Talk or KPR settings will not work. The Reading Edge does
have the ability to add inflection to the DEC-Talk, which makes
it sound considerably better than implementations without it,
such as the one used in An Open Book. However, in my opinion none
of the new DEC-Talk units sounds as good as the original ones
introduced in the mid 1980's. In particular the pronunciation of
some vowels sounds distorted to me.
     Both Kurzweil and Arkenstone are about to offer software
upgrades to their machines. Among other things both upgrades
offer support for additional languages. Check with the companies
to get an exact list. I have been able to work with beta test
versions of both companies' upgrades. Of the two, the one from
Kurzweil is more significant. It is being called  Version 2.0;
the company has been selling Version 1.01. Kurzweil says that,
among other things, the upgrade has improved optical character
recognition capabilities. A setting for scanning paper faxes has
been added and does offer significant improvements in this area.
Other than that, the recognition improvements seem to be minor.
     The upgrade also offers support for the Blazie Engineering
external disk drive. This is a 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte external
drive which can operate on batteries. The system offers a simple
and convenient way to save scanned materials as MS-DOS compatible
files. This feature, which works well, is an expensive but
valuable option. The Reading Edge now permits Scan Queuing--that
is, the machine can be told to scan the next page while it is
still recognizing the current page, and it will do so once it has
finished. Previously the machine responded with an error message
when the user attempted to initiate a scan before the current
page was completed. The other major alteration is the inclusion
of an additional editing mode. Previously editing of documents,
titles, and footnotes was done with a six-key Braille keyboard
which was a part of the standard keypad. Now there is also an
editing mode for the non-Braille user. The same six keys can be
used to cycle through lists of letters and punctuation marks,
choosing the ones needed. This is similar to the system offered
by Arkenstone's An Open Book. While it is a little tedious, it
does work. The Reading Edge upgrade will be priced at $165.

                          An Open Book
                        Arkenstone, Inc.

     An Open Book from Arkenstone is a two-piece unit consisting
of a Hewlett-Packard IIp scanner and a central processing unit.
There is also a small seventeen-key pad used for controlling the
machine. The scanner is eleven inches wide, by fifteen and three
quarters inches deep, by three inches high and weighs thirteen
pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half inches by
twelve inches. The processing unit is seven and a half inches
wide, by seventeen and three quarters inches high, by ten and
three quarters inches deep and weighs twenty-one and a half
pounds.
     The actual name of this machine is "An Open Book," not "The
Open Book" or "Open Book."  It seems a little silly to me, but it
is their machine, and they can call it what they wish.
     The scanner is a flat, rectangular device with a lid
covering a glass plate. The lid, which is hinged at the back,
protects the glass and holds the document in place. To use the
system, the lid is raised and the document is placed directly on
the glass.
     Many people have come to refer to both stand-alone reading
machines and PC-based reading systems as "scanners."  Technically
this is not accurate. The scanner is simply a device which takes
an electronic picture of a printed page. This picture or image is
then transferred to the processing unit of the reading machine,
or to a standard computer in the case of a PC-based system. This
image is then analyzed to extract the text, and the resultant
text is turned into synthesized speech.
     The main part of the Arkenstone An Open Book is the
processing unit. It is based on the Ready-To-Read computer
introduced about a year and a half ago. This machine, in other
words, is based on an IBM-compatible computer designed by
Arkenstone. When used as a reading machine, it does not function
as a computer, and all you can do with it is scan and read.
However, with the addition of a screen review program and
standard keyboard it can be converted into an IBM-compatible
machine. This can be an advantage to someone who just wants a
reading machine now but may want to upgrade to a full PC later.
     The system unit is more vertical in shape than many PC's.
The front contains a slider control for volume as well as a 3.5-
inch floppy disk drive. The back contains standard expansion
slots, serial and parallel ports, a video output port, and a jack
to connect the keypad or a keyboard. The right side of the unit
has a small compartment to store the keypad, an on/off switch,
and a reset button. There is also a flap which can be raised,
providing access to the expansion slots. Arkenstone says that it
designed the physical unit with markings and other aids to make
it easier for a blind person to use. I for one have never had a
problem sticking disks in disk drives, identifying expansion
slots, etc., and I know other blind people who have done it
without markings for years. I find this special design to be of
no value. It might be of some value to a new user, but I doubt
it. The system also produces a variety of tones and beeps to
provide indications about what it is doing and that it is still
working. These can be of some use.
     Along with the scanner and main unit, the Arkenstone has a
small keypad attached to it with a cable. This is used to control
the different functions of the machine. It actually looks like
the numeric keypad found on the right side of 101-key PC
keyboards. Current An Open Books can be purchased with either
this small keypad, a compact keyboard, or a regular 101-key
keyboard. Arkenstone can also install a screen review program.
     An Open Book is controlled by using a series of menus.
Choices on these menus are accessed by using four keys on the
keypad, which represent arrow keys. The user moves up and down
between items much as with many PC applications. Once an item is
selected, its individual choices are accessed by using the right
and left arrow keys. Choices are made by hitting what is called
the Select Key, which has a raised dot. The system has Beginner,
Intermediate, and Advanced menus. The Beginner and Intermediate
menus do not make all options available to the user and may be
useful to the new user since there are fewer choices to confuse
him or her. One drawback to this system, as it is currently
designed, is that it takes a number of keystrokes to change many
items. One must select an item, move to an individual choice,
select it, and then press the Escape Key the proper number of
times to back out of the menu system. This machine has three
basic modes: the Reading Mode, the Scanning Mode, and the Control
Menus. When reading a document, one might hit the Escape Key to
leave the Document Reader prior to hitting the Scan Key to scan
another page. Since the Scan Key is a dedicated key, it should be
possible to go directly from Reading Mode to Scanning Mode at any
time, but it is not.
     An Open Book does have the ability to control contrast
automatically. Arkenstone was the first to offer this feature,
and it generally works well and is very useful. You can also
control the contrast manually for problem pages. There are a
hundred levels of adjustment available when you choose a "Custom
Setting."  There are also settings for Normal Contrast, Darken
Page, and Lighten Page. The unit can also determine the direction
in which the print goes on the page and read it, whether it is
right side up, upside down, or sideways. This is a great time-
saver for a blind person working alone. While it adds a few
seconds to the recognition process, it is worth the time to most
people, and the feature can be turned off. Different DEC-Talk
voices can be assigned to indicate normal, underlined, bold, and
italic print. A different voice can also be assigned to the
Menus.
     The Arkenstone machine also has provisions for batch
scanning--that is, one can scan (take pictures of) a number of
pages all at once, then have An Open Book do the character
recognition at a later time--like when you are at lunch. It takes
only about ten seconds to scan a page, while recognition can take
from thirty seconds to three minutes per page, depending on the
amount of text, the complexity of the layout, and the number of
fonts used. This can be a great time-saver for those big jobs.
Once the text is scanned and recognized, it is automatically
saved on the system's hard disk.
     It is then possible to name a document and save it in a
category. The system comes with a number of categories already
set up, such as bills, books, brochures, general, letters,
manuals, recipes, etc. It is possible to establish your own
categories as well. The process for naming documents and creating
categories is a little cumbersome since one uses the arrow keys
to select one letter at a time, rotating through a list of all
possible choices. An Open Book, in addition to batch scanning,
can scan and recognize a page, then read it, or use the Quick
Speech Mode, in which speech is generated faster. However, it
does not work very well. It is choppy and doesn't save much time.
     An Open Book comes with a built-in 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte
floppy disk drive. It is possible to save files to this drive--a
real bonus to someone with a PC or to someone who wants to
exchange materials with another person. The system can save files
in a variety of word processor and other application formats--
over fifty-five of them.
     The upcoming Arkenstone upgrade, which will be offered free
of charge to all An Open Book and Open Book Unbound users,
consists primarily of bug-fixes and minor feature-adjustments. In
my opinion the most significant addition is the ability to adjust
the reading speed of the DEC-Talk synthesizer while it is reading
a document without interrupting reading or losing one's place.
While the feature does not work as smoothly as Kurzweil's
hardware-based notched knob system, it does work and is a great
convenience. It is also now possible to read a multipage document
continuously instead of page by page and to jump to any page in
the Document Reader.

                           The Rainbow
                       Robotron Pty. Ltd.

     The Robotron machine, which is from Australia, comes in two
models, the Rainbow and the TR320. Other than the speech the two
are identical. The Rainbow contains a DEC-Talk speech
synthesizer. The TR320 has the same Australian-accented voice as
the Eureka A4, also made by Robotron. Most people, including some
Australians who have visited the International Braille and
Technology Center for the Blind, have trouble understanding the
Robotron voice. It is, in my opinion, the most difficult voice to
understand that we have in the Center. Most Americans, me
included, find it virtually impossible to understand. One can
adjust to it to some degree, but not much. With the TR320
Robotron added both American and English voices, but they are no
more understandable. I have chosen to review the Rainbow because
I can understand it.
     The Rainbow is a relatively compact one-piece unit. It
measures twelve and three quarters inches wide, by five inches
high, by twenty and a half inches deep and weighs eighteen and
three quarters pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a
half inches by fourteen inches. The front panel contains eight
keys, which are used to control the machine. The back panel
contains the power cord, a serial port, and a port for future
expansion. The on/off switch is on the right side. The scanning
surface is on the top, of course, and the lid is hinged at the
back. The machine is very simple to operate and well designed. It
scans and starts reading faster then any of the other machines
reviewed here.
     There are four arrow keys, which are shaped so as to make
their function obvious. These arrows are used to navigate within
the text or to move up and down a menu used to change options.
Once the desired option is reached, the right and left arrows are
used to review the choices. There is only one menu and no choice
selection, as in An Open Book--the choice just spoken is the one
which will apply. As with the Eureka A4, the buttons are rubber
and rock back and forth a little. This means that they do not
reliably change a setting or initiate an operation when pressed.
This problem doesn't occur often, but if the edge of a key is
pressed, it may not catch.
     The Rainbow will automatically determine the orientation of
a page, but it will not automatically set the contrast. There are
only seven contrast settings, which may not be a wide enough
range for some purposes.
     The manual for the Rainbow came on tape and in print. There
was no Braille manual or reference card. The manual was short and
clear, but the Rainbow itself has no on-line help.
     The DEC-Talk synthesizer does produce some extraneous noise,
which is annoying. A hissing sound is fairly constant and
distracting. This is not true of DEC-Talk synthesizers in the
other reading machines. In its favor, the Rainbow does offer
inflection to the DEC-Talk, as does the Reading Edge. This
improves the listenability. There is a set of commands to control
the machine from an external computer. It is also possible to
send both text and image files between the two devices.


                      The ReadMan Pronounce
                        Schamex Research

     The ReadMan Pronounce from Schamex Research is the newest
reading machine on the market. Like the others it uses a DEC-Talk
speech synthesizer.
     The ReadMan Pronounce is a two-piece machine with an
attached thirty-one-key pad and a joystick control. The two
pieces, processing unit and scanner, are the same size, so that
the scanner sits on top of the processor, effectively making it a
one-piece unit. The stacked unit measures eleven inches wide, by
sixteen inches deep, by five inches high and weighs twenty-four
pounds. The scanning surface measures eight and a half inches by
twelve inches. It uses a Hewlett-Packard IIp scanner, as does An
Open Book.
     The front of the main unit contains a 3.5-inch 1.44-megabyte
floppy disk drive. The on/off switch and all the connectors for
the ReadMan Pronounce are on the back of this unit. All functions
are controlled from the keypad, which looks like the right side
of a PC keyboard: the numeric keypad, the four-key inverted T,
the six keys above the inverted T, and the three additional keys
above this last group. There are two additional keys at the upper
right of the keypad.
     The keypad is complex and not well thought out. Most
functions are controlled by one of the seventeen keys on the
numeric keypad section. There are three modes of operation--
reading, saving and retrieving files, and changing options. Each
key has a different function in each mode.
     Schamex has assigned each key a letter designation. These
are not logical. A is the first key from the left in the second
row from the bottom. B is to its right, and C is to B's right. D
is the first key from the left in the third row up, etc. These
designations go up through I. Then J is the first key from the
left in the bottom row, and the Help Key is to its right. K is to
the right of the Help Key. I don't know why the Help Key wasn't
given a letter, except that all the letters have been assigned,
and still there are additional keys. Further, someone may have
felt that Help was important enough to get a name. Nevertheless,
all this is not very logical. The remaining key designations go
across the bottom, up the right side, and across the top like a
backward print C. Further, the key used to initiate scanning is
the second key from the right in the top row. All the other
machines make the Scan Key a large one in an obvious place. Not
so the ReadMan.
     The joystick is used to control reading and scanning
functions. Some people may find it useful, and it may be of some
value to physically disabled persons.
     In its default setting the ReadMan Pronounce produces a long
tone after each key is pressed. Then the command is executed.
Since the machine is sluggish in its response anyway, this means
that there is a wait of over a second for anything to happen
after pressing a key. This tone system can be turned off, but the
responsiveness is still not very good. This machine strikes me as
something that was designed for blind people by sighted people
and shown to us for our input as an afterthought.
     The ReadMan has the ability to adjust contrast
automatically. It can also be set manually, and there are nine
possible settings. However, the machine cannot automatically
determine the orientation of a page and adjust for it. It can
read print in either portrait or landscape mode--that is
horizontally or vertically. But it must be told the mode, and
there is only one right way to orient the page in the machine. If
it is wrong, garbage will be generated. This has to be considered
a major drawback of the ReadMan Pronounce.
     The ReadMan can be very slow in the speed with which it
processes pages. The more trouble it has deciphering the print,
the longer it will take. This is true for all the machines, but
the ReadMan Pronounce is the slowest of the group.
     The ReadMan has a complete help system: the help mode
produces the name and full explanation of any key that is
pressed. The machine can also be set at the Beginner,
Intermediate, or Advanced level. This controls the length of
messages and prompting received in normal operation. One unique
feature of the ReadMan is the presence of an on-line manual. The
system does work well, although the on-line manual is not
particularly well written. Some of the wording is awkward, and
the grammar is not always very good. The same problems also exist
in the printed manual. Since the company is run by Iranians for
whom English is not the first language, it would appear that this
is the explanation of these problems. There is no Braille or
cassette manual.
     It is possible to save scanned materials as files. Each file
is assigned a number by the user. It is not possible to name
files in any other way, and there are no categories for files as
in An Open Book.

                  Scanning and Reading Accuracy

     The thing that interests most people is how accurately these
machines scan and read documents. I have developed a set of
standard documents that I use to test optical character
recognition products. These include a poor quality dot-matrix
printout--one produced with a 9-pin printer and bad ribbon; a
letter-quality printout; a laser-printed sheet with different
sized serif and sans serif fonts, ranging from six to fourteen-
point in size; a fax; a flyer from Egghead Software; and a page
from my bank statement. I scanned each of these pages with each
machine. I used default settings to start with and changed things
only if the results were bad. So, unless otherwise indicated,
brightness, contrast, and print style settings are at their
default values for all tests.
     None of the machines was able to read the low-quality dot-
matrix print reliably. By adjusting the brightness setting of the
Reading Edge, I got a good reading with only a few mistakes on a
single page. By changing the machine to the Dot Matrix setting
and putting the brightness setting at its default, I got a very
good reading with only a mistake or two. An Open Book did not do
well at the default settings but improved dramatically when
changed to its Dot Matrix setting. There were a few mistakes--a
few more than the Reading Edge--but I could follow the text. I
was never able to get reliable reading quality from either the
Rainbow or ReadMan Pronounce with this page.
     Both the Reading Edge and An Open Book read the letter-
quality document perfectly. The ReadMan made three or four
mistakes, and the Rainbow made even more. Adjusting the contrast
did not help either piece of equipment.
     The next page scanned had a variety of type sizes and faces
on it. None of the machines was able to read the six-point Roman
or sans serif typefaces well, although An Open Book did the best
by a fair margin. Things improved slightly with the eight-point
size with all the machines, although everything except An Open
Book made a substantial number of mistakes, to the point where
the train of thought couldn't be followed. An Open Book did quite
well with the eight-point sans serif type, making very few
mistakes. In general, all the machines did better with smaller
sizes of the Sans Serif type than with the smaller size Roman
type. The Reading Edge and the ReadMan did not read cleanly with
the Roman type until the twelve-point size was reached. It did
well starting with ten-point sans serif type. An Open Book did
very well with the ten-point and above in both styles. The
Rainbow did not do well until the twelve-point size was reached.
     The Reading Edge and An Open Book both read the Egghead
flyer pretty well, with only a few mistakes. This page used a
complex layout with three columns and a number of graphics
elements. It also used a variety of type styles and sizes in
different colors. It was easy to follow, and most of the mistakes
were at the top. Neither the Rainbow nor the ReadMan Pronounce
read the flyer satisfactorily. There were enough mistakes that it
was difficult to follow the text.
     I next scanned a Fax page, the standard slick thermal
printed Fax sheet--the kind that always curls up. All of the
machines had trouble with our NFB letterhead. The Reading Edge
did pretty well with a few mistakes. It did, however, think that
some of the print was emphasized, that is, bold or underlined,
when it wasn't. This was a problem that plagued the machine in
all the tests. You can set the emphasis voice to be the same as
the reading voice so that you do not know it is indicating
emphasized print. However, this version of the software cannot be
counted upon to convey such attribute information reliably. An
Open Book read the Fax quite well and did somewhat better with
the letterhead than the other machines. Both the Rainbow and
ReadMan Pronounce read the Fax adequately but made a few
mistakes.
     Finally I scanned a page from my bank statement. None of the
machines was able to read it reliably. With numbers there is no
margin for error. Of the group An Open Book did the best, but I
still would not want to rely on the results for anything
important.

                    Strengths and Weaknesses

     While all of the reviewed machines are similar, there are
differences in features and in operation, as well as in the
accuracy with which they recognize printed pages.
     The Reading Edge is fairly simple to operate. It has a good
manual, which is provided in print, in Braille, and on cassette.
The machine is compact and could be moved if need be. There is a
carrying bag, which has a handle, shoulder strap, and backpack
straps for maximum carrying flexibility. The bookedge scanner
will be a plus to many users. The nonvolatile memory is useful
for storing documents, even when the machine is turned off. The
speed of reading can be adjusted on the fly. The Braille keyboard
is a unique feature. The unit can also be used as a speech
synthesizer. Long pages can be scanned in two passes, and it is
possible permanently to correct mispronounced words.
     On the negative side, the initial version of the machine is
somewhat unstable. Some users have reported problems with the
machine crashing or locking up. Xerox even warns users of some of
these problems on a sheet included with the machine. I locked up
the machine once in regular operation and several times when
testing the Blazie disk drive option and am not quite sure how I
did it each time. Also, frequently the Reading Edge incorrectly
identifies print as emphasized. There is only one voice available
for indicating such print, which includes bold, underlining, and
italics. Some machines offer different voices for each of these
attributes. At present The Reading Edge cannot automatically
adjust its brightness or contrast setting. In the original
release there was no way of permanently archiving scanned text
short of transferring it to a computer by using the serial port.
This process is awkward and inconvenient at best. Most, probably
all, users will sooner or later fill up the machine's memory. As
mentioned earlier, a software upgrade, which may be out by the
time you read this review, offers support for the Blazie
Engineering floppy disk drive, but at $495 the drive is a little
pricey.
     An Open Book has a full set of features and options. Scanned
text can be saved on the unit's hard disk or exported to floppy
disk. Files can also be saved or exported using a large number of
file types. Uncertain characters can be marked with an unusual
punctuation mark, such as the ~, for which the user can later
search in a word processor. The three menu levels may be a help
to beginners. A number of beginners have reported to me that they
found the machine easy to learn. The manual is written in a
tutorial style. Tones and sound effects keep the user apprised
about what the machine is doing. Finally, An Open book can be
converted to a computer if necessary. All one has to do is to add
a keyboard and screen review program.
     On the negative side, An Open Book is somewhat more complex
in its operation than is the Reading Edge or Rainbow. It is more
computer-like. It takes too many keystrokes to change some
functions. I find myself hunting through menus for what I want.
Further, when you change options, like reading speed or DEC-Talk
voices, you do not hear the change until later when you make the
choice and press the Select Key. The speech is somewhat flatter
then on the Reading Edge, making it not as interesting to listen
to. The machine just doesn't sound as good. The quick speech
option is slow and choppy and of little use.
     The Robotron Rainbow is very simple and easy to use in its
operation. It normally starts reading text quite quickly, more
quickly than any other machine tested. Robotron says that it has
dedicated processors for different functions, and this approach
does seem to make a difference. The machine, at $4500, is
somewhat less expensive than other offerings.
     The Rainbow and TR320 do not have optical character
recognition accuracy on a par with the Reading Edge or An Open
Book. This alone is probably enough reason to eliminate them from
serious consideration until this is improved. At $3995, the TR320
has a price advantage, but with the poor voice and poor accuracy,
I found it almost impossible to read and understand all but the
cleanest laser-printed and type-written pages. The machines do
not have the ability to adjust their brightness, or illumination,
settings automatically.
     The ReadMan Pronounce has a few nice features. Its physical
design is compact and well thought out. The on-line manual is
easy to use and worthwhile. The joystick is an interesting
approach to controlling the machine.
     On the negative side, the optical character recognition
quality of the ReadMan is sub-standard. This along with the fact
that it offers no price advantage eliminates it from serious
consideration. In addition, others and I have found the company
difficult to deal with. When I originally contacted the company,
officials wanted 100 percent of the cost paid in advance. The
National Federation of the Blind was unwilling to do this. One
must question the viability of a company when it will not accept
a purchase order from a reliable customer like the NFB. We
ultimately purchased our machine from a ReadMan dealer, Jack Wood
of ATR Computer. He has gone out of his way to provide us with
good service. Other developments would indicate that the Schamex
people are starting to learn and be more realistic about the
adaptive technology market. However, they have been less than
forthcoming about some aspects of the ReadMan in the past, such
as disclosing what optical character recognition software it
uses. Since I wrote the above sentences, Jack Wood has ceased
being a dealer for Schamex Research because of his concerns with
the poor optical character recognition abilities of the ReadMan.

                           Conclusions

     Now comes the $64,000 question:  which machine should you
buy? Well, it depends. There are of course considerations that
can't be quantified here, such as special price offers, the
accessibility and quality of your local dealer, what your friends
use and can help you with, etc. However, there are also some
generalities which will be true for everyone. Because the
recognition isn't nearly as good, it is hard to justify the
purchase of a Rainbow, TR320, or ReadMan Pronounce. Unless all of
your documents are of high quality, I would look at either the
Reading Edge or An Open Book.
     Overall, I found the recognition accuracy of An Open Book to
be slightly better than that of the Reading Edge. However, there
are pages that the Reading Edge will read better. For most users
the difference is probably hair-splitting and of little or no
importance. The Reading Edge is simpler to operate. It is best
suited for situations in which you just want to sit down and read
things straight through. It starts reading quickly and sounds
good. It would be the best choice for public settings, such as a
library or university resource center. It is also better suited
for reading books. An Open Book is better suited for those
situations in which you want maximum accuracy or in which you
read more low-quality documents. It is best suited for a user
with more sophisticated needs, for someone who needs to save
scanned materials for later perusal or for export to a disk for
use on another computer. It is also ideal for someone who may
need or want to convert the material to a computer file later on.
     The reading machine and PC-Based scanning markets are
rapidly changing and very competitive. Both Kurzweil and
Arkenstone are about to offer upgrades to their reading machines,
upgrades that are likely to be out by the time you read this.
Both have indicated improved features and better scanning
accuracy. So, if you are not sure yet, keep watching or contact
the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind for
the latest information. Things are bound to change yet again.

                       Where and How Much

     The Reading Edge is available from Kurzweil Computer
Products, Xerox Imaging Systems, 9 Centennial Drive, Peabody, MA
01960; telephone [phone] or [phone]. The price is
$5495. A sheet feeder is available at an additional cost.
     The Arkenstone An Open Book comes in three models, the
Standard Edition, the Special Edition, and the Deluxe Edition.
They are priced at $4995, $5395, and $5995 respectively. The
differences are processing speed and storage capacity. The
Standard Edition is based on a 386SX processor and has a 40-
megabyte hard disk while the Deluxe Edition is based on a 386
DX/33 processor with an 80-megabyte hard disk. The Special
Edition, just released, has a 486 DX2/66 processor and a 120-
megabyte hard disk. You will notice that the Special Edition is
less expensive than the Deluxe Edition but offers more power and
storage capacity by a substantial amount. This is because
Arkenstone has received a donation of the 486 processors from
Intel and was able to drop the price on this new model. There is
absolutely no reason to purchase a Deluxe Edition at this time,
and for $400 more the Special Edition makes a great deal more
sense than the Standard Edition. While I have not seen one yet,
it is my belief that it will offer substantially better
performance than the Standard Edition, particularly in speed of
text recognition. Arkenstone says that it should be two and a
half times faster then the Deluxe Edition. Arkenstone can be
reached at Arkenstone, Inc., 1390 Borregas Ave., Sunnyvale, CA
94089; telephone [phone] or [phone].
     The ReadMan Pronounce is available from Schamex Research,
19443 Superior Street, Northridge, CA  91324; telephone (818)
772-6644. The cost of the ReadMan Pronounce is $5993. A twenty-
page document feeder costs $492, an interactive remote
diagnostics package is $349, and a heavy-duty rolling carrying
case is priced at $379.
     For information on the Rainbow and other Robotron products,
contact David Stayer, 2704 Beach Drive, Merrick, NY  11566;
telephone [phone]. The cost of the TR320 is $3995, and the
Rainbow is $4495.



                    PREJUDICE AND DISABILITY:
                  STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT BLINDNESS

     From the Editor: In January of 1991 I first heard of David
Cohen, a young Ohioan who had left college the year before when
he suddenly went blind and was now sitting at home spending his
time waiting for his friends to come around and hang out with
him. Members of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio were
driving a van to the Washington Seminar that year, so we invited
him to join the Ohio delegation in order to learn firsthand what
blind people can do when we put our minds to it. As it turned
out, the experience was very important for Dave. It was difficult
because it was physically taxing and he had not been active for
some time. But he worked hard and did what he could to learn from
the rest of us how to use his white cane and how to discuss
legislative issues with members of Congress.
     Eventually David decided he needed firstrate rehabilitation
of the kind offered at BLIND, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota;
and with encouragement and assistance from members of the NFB of
Ohio, he convinced his state rehabilitation counselor to send him
to BLIND, where he spent a number of months learning the skills
of blindness.
     After he graduated from BLIND, he returned to Ohio but soon
discovered that it would be better for him to attend college at
an institution at some distance from his home in order to use his
new skills effectively. So in the spring of 1993 he returned to
Minneapolis to enroll at the University of Minnesota. Recently
the university newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, decided to run a
series on a number of students. David Cohen was one of those
chosen for profiling. Here is the story as it appeared on May 24:

       Prejudice Imposes More Limitations Than Disability

     Editor's Note: This is the first in a series profiling
university students of varying backgrounds and experiences. No
short series could represent the spectrum of diversity on this
campus. We started the project intending to acquaint you--and
ourselves--with as diverse a student population as possible. A
common theme emerged from many of our subjects: people overcome
different obstacles to get to, and graduate from, this
institution. The profiles will appear this week and the next.

                  Perspectives on Student Life
                       by Kendall Anderson

     Two bumps in the road tell David Cohen when to get off the
bus. The noisy heating duct by Nicholson Hall tells him where to
turn as he leaves his literature class.
     Knowing when to cross, stop, or turn isn't the hardest part
of being a blind student, said the speech communications
sophomore. Misconceptions are. "People see me and think cane,
blind person, sadness," Cohen said.
     A student refused to let the twenty-two-year-old sit next to
him in Centennial Hall cafeteria. Cohen believes it was because
he is blind. But such blatant prejudice is more the exception
than the rule, he said. Store clerks' extra efforts to be nice
smack of prejudice whether they know it or not, Cohen said.
     The professor who excused Cohen from a map project after he
had handed it in--"the prof said he didn't know how I could do
it"--reminded Cohen of the limitations others impose on him.
     "David prefers to think of blindness as an inconvenience,"
said Scott LaBarre, a law student and friend of Cohen's.
     "Some people would tell you David is denying the true
problem of blindness...or they'll say that's fine for David, but
he's an exception," said LaBarre, President of the National
Association of Blind Students. Cohen said he's not denying his
blindness--just living with it.
     He lost his sight due to complications of diabetes at
nineteen, when he was a student at Wright State University in
Ohio. He transferred to the University after completing an
orientation to blindness training program at BLIND, Inc.
     Playing baseball, as he did in high school, is no longer
part of Cohen's life. Paying someone to read multiple-choice
exams is; so is requesting that books be translated into Braille.
     But Cohen is reluctant to share some details of his
disability. It's important to the former high school golf captain
and baseball player that people see his blindness simply as a
characteristic.
     Cohen opens his watch to read the time. He reaches carefully
for folded ones, fives, and tens when paying for his capuccino.
If he gets them confused, he asks the next person in line what
bill he is holding.
     Has anyone tried to take advantage of him? Yes, but Cohen
doesn't think he is more vulnerable to crime than others.
     "How many sighted people do you know that don't really pay
attention to their surroundings?" he asks.
     For example, on his way to an espresso bar one day, Cohen
commented that an outdoor restaurant was packed. His sighted
companion turned to notice what he had pointed out to her.
     "Sighted people miss things just like (blind people) do," he
said.
     Cohen no longer wonders how many eyes are watching him as he
finds his way to class.
     "I think people probably watch me and wonder what I'm going
to do at the corner of a street," he said.
     A recent Sigma Chi fraternity pledge, Cohen said he believes
interaction is the only way he can combat other students'
ignorance about blindness.
     "How many blind people do you think the average person
really knows?" he said. "People make a lot of assumptions about
blind people without really knowing if they're true."
     Yes, Cohen said, he jogs and he plays golf. He "watches"
movies--"It's interesting how people often adapt their vocabulary
to me by avoiding words like see, look, or watch." And yes, he
goes to parties.
     He also dates, which he said astonishes many people.
     Cohen said he knows some blind students disagree with what
he calls a simple philosophy: "If you're constantly reminded
every day that people have lowered expectations of you, that's
tough," he said. "Blindness is really just a characteristic."
     Cohen won't use some University services available to him.
He does not register through Williamson Hall, a shortcut the
University's disability services offers disabled students. Why
not?
     "Because then what the University is doing, out of kindness,
is segregating us," he said.
     Richard Allegra, coordinator of Hearing and Visual
Impairment Services, said, "Our philosophy is that the student
doesn't have a problem, but the environment itself has a problem.
We try to help out with that.
     "We can get a disabled person into a building with a ramp,
but they just might encounter (someone) in that building (who
has) a bad attitude toward the disabled," he said.
     Rising every morning to sounds instead of sights doesn't
bother Cohen. But others' inability to think of him as an equal
"breaks down the soul and the self-confidence" he has worked so
hard to build.
     Cohen finds it ironic that many sighted people are obsessed
with learning about his blindness yet frightened by it.
     "People ask me all the time, "How'd you go blind?" Cohen
said. "But then they don't even want to say the word because
blind carries such negative connotations."
     To his amusement, Cohen is often referred to as "visually
impaired." One man even labeled him "optically precluded."
     "This guy was obviously trying to be kind, but he must have
studied a dictionary for hours to find that term to describe me,"
he said.
     For Cohen, losing his sight has meant gaining an
understanding of what it means to be a minority.
     "Three years ago I wasn't a minority," he said. "Today I
am."
     "The day blindness becomes just a characteristic to other
people is the day society's handicap is gone," he said.
     "I only have a handicap as long as I don't have the inner
strength to deal with the way society perceives me," Cohen said.
"That's what handicaps a person."



[PHOTO: Craig Cooper standing at control board of radio station,
speaking into a microphone. CAPTION: Craig Cooper at work as a
disc jockey at K100 in Fargo, North Dakota.]

             ANOTHER FEDERATIONIST BREAKS INTO RADIO
                        by Connie Norheim

     From the Editor: Connie Norheim is the treasurer of the
National Federation of the Blind of North Dakota. Recently she
sent us the following report on Federationist Craig Cooper, who
has overcome several obstacles with the help of the NFB to obtain
a job as a disc jockey at a Fargo, North Dakota, radio station.
Here is the story as Connie tells it:

     "You're listening to the new K100, playing more country with
a better variety every hour and every day. It's 12:26. Good
morning, I'm Craig Cooper." That's what radio listeners in the
Fargo-Moorhead area of North Dakota and Minnesota are hearing now
that our newest NFB member has moved to town.
     Craig moved to Fargo in February from Waukon, Iowa, where he
had been a DeeJay at KNET. He'd enjoyed his work there but was
looking for a city with more stations and greater opportunities.
     The program director of K100 liked Craig's work and was
willing to work with him in making the necessary adaptations.
Craig Brailled all the CD's, and a Braille printer was installed
to produce the schedule log and the copy he would need to read on
the air (promos, weather reports, etc.).
     Then came the problem of reading the various meters required
by the Federal Communications Commission. The radio station had
asked for a temporary waiver from the FCC until Craig had
completed his probationary period. During this time the outgoing
DeeJay would have read the meters immediately before leaving, and
the DeeJay following Craig would have read them as soon as he
arrived. The waiver was granted by the regional office in
Minneapolis but denied by the Washington, D.C., office.
     When Greg Beach, President of the NFB of North Dakota,
called Craig to inquire about how everything was going, he
learned of Craig's troubles getting on the air, so Greg started
making phone calls to the FCC; to the national office of the NFB;
to Mike Graham, director of the North Dakota School for the
Blind; to communication experts; and to the state vocational
rehabilitation agency. As a short-term solution the state agency
is paying the wages of a person to do the meter readings for
Craig. In order for him to perform his duties independently in
the long term, the agency is ordering voice-output equipment from
Gentner Systems that will read the meter settings to Craig. He
has requested that the equipment be designed to be portable so
that, if he moves from one radio station to another, the
equipment can move with him.
     Although he arrived in Fargo the first week in February,
Craig wasn't able to start work at the radio station until May.
In the meantime he had rent and bills to pay. Having grown up
working hard on his family's farm in Iowa, he was used to keeping
busy and paying his own way. So he got a part-time job washing
dishes at Pizza Hut. He'd rather be working full-time at the
radio station, but for now dish-washing helps pay the bills.
     Craig, twenty-four years old, was born blind. He attended
the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton, Iowa, until
the seventh grade and then attended public school. Although he
found the school's approach very paternalistic, he learned what
he needed. He started learning Braille in kindergarten and finds
it an absolute necessity.
     He's always been fascinated with radio and has wanted to be
a disc jockey for as long as he can remember. He attended college
for a year, but when he was offered the opportunity to work at a
local radio station, he left school and jumped at the chance to
learn the work on the job.
     What suggestions does he have for anyone interested in radio
work? Foremost, of course, is to cultivate your communication
skills. Take any opportunity available to improve your public
speaking proficiency. Second, be a competent Braille user. Third,
develop your ability to memorize. Although much of the material
can be read over the air using Braille notes, Craig has found his
hands are often busy adjusting the various buttons and that many
times he needs to memorize such things as the weather reports.
Finally, be prepared for discrimination--some blatant, some more
subtle. "You just have to be that much better to succeed," says
Craig.
     Craig would love to talk with anyone working as a DeeJay or
anyone interested in becoming one. You can contact him at 1538
27th Ave., S., Apt. 312, Fargo, North Dakota; or call (701) 234-
0874.

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Mary Beaven.]
[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Tim Cranmer.]

                             RECIPES

     This month's recipes come from Kentucky, home of the
Kentucky Derby, held the first Saturday in May. According to Mary
Beaven and Tim Cranmer, who gathered this group of delicious
offerings from the Bluegrass State, the first two recipes are
favorites for Derby entertaining.

                         ASPARAGUS SOUP

Ingredients:
2½ pounds fresh asparagus
2 cups milk
6 tablespoons butter
¼ cup flour
1 cup dry white wine
¼ cup fresh tarragon, chopped, or 1½ tablespoons dried tarragon
salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
3 cups fat-free chicken or veal stock (or as much as needed)
Fresh tarragon, chopped, for garnish

     Method: Wash asparagus. Remove tips and drop them into
boiling salted water. Cook until barely tender (3 to 4 minutes).
Drain and set aside. Remove and discard tough ends of asparagus
stalks. Peel tender stalks and cut each into 2 pieces. Drop the
stalks into boiling salted water and cook until tender but still
crisp and bright green (5 to 6 minutes). Drain and puree stalks
in blender with 1 cup of milk. Melt butter in large heavy Dutch
oven over low heat. Add flour and stir constantly until mixture
is perfectly smooth. Gradually add remaining cup of milk.
Stirring constantly until it thickens, allow mixture to simmer
about five minutes to rid the flour of its raw flavor. Add white
wine, asparagus puree, tarragon, salt, and pepper to taste. Mix
well and simmer in order to blend flavors (about 5 minutes). Stir
in stock until the soup is the desired thickness. Simmer a few
minutes more, but do not allow soup to boil because the acid in
the asparagus will cause it to curdle. When soup is flavored
sufficiently with tarragon, strain it to remove the herb and
return soup to Dutch oven. Drop asparagus tips into hot soup and
allow them to heat through. Garnish soup with chopped fresh
tarragon--lots of it. Makes 6 to 8 first-course servings.

                           MINT JULEP

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Handful of fresh mint leaves
Bourbon
Crushed ice
Sprigs of fresh mint for garnish

     Method: Boil sugar and water for 5 minutes without stirring.
Cool and add mint leaves and refrigerate overnight in a covered
jar. Remove mint. Keep syrup in refrigerator to make individual
juleps. Syrup will keep for several weeks. To make an individual
serving, fill an 8-ounce glass with crushed ice. Add 1 tablespoon
syrup, 1 tablespoon water, and 2 ounces Kentucky bourbon. Stir
until glass is frosty. Insert mint sprig and straw.

                              CHILI
                     by Thelma Jean Cranmer

     Tim Cranmer, who serves as First Vice President of the
Kentucky affiliate and Chairman of the NFB Research and
Development Committee, reports that, after ten years of
perfecting this recipe, his wife Thelma's friends now plead for
her to keep it just as it is.

Ingredients:
1½ pounds ground beef
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 small green pepper, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 16-ounce can red kidney beans with liquid
2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
1 12-ounce can tomato paste
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 heaping teaspoons chili powder
2 heaping teaspoons ground cumin
■ teaspoon dried marjoram leaves, crushed
■ teaspoon thyme, crushed
¼ teaspoon tabasco sauce
1 bean can water
6 ounces spaghetti, broken into short pieces

     Method: Brown ground beef and pour off excess fat. Add
onion, green pepper, and garlic and cook for 10 minutes. Add
remaining ingredients except spaghetti. Cook over low heat for 45
minutes. Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drain
and rinse. Stir spaghetti into chili. Serves 6 normal persons or
two Cranmers.

                         MARY'S JAM CAKE
                         by Mary Beaven

     Mary Beaven reports that this cake is a favorite with her
family at Christmas. In fact, as Dr. Jernigan writes in his
article, "Making Hay," in the March, 1993, issue of the Braille
Monitor, in many places in the South the jam cake was the rural
equivalent of the Christmas fruit cake. It is moist and
unforgettably delicious.

Ingredients:
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
4 eggs, separated
2 cups seedless blackberry jam
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 cup pecans, broken

     Method: Cream butter in electric mixer until soft. Gradually
add sugar, egg yolks, jam, and vanilla. Sift together dry
ingredients. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Alternately
beat buttermilk and dry ingredients into butter mixture. Stir in
raisins and nuts. Then gently fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in
3 9-inch round cake pans, which have been greased and floured.
Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. When layers are done, allow
to cool slightly on racks before removing from pans. When cake
layers are completely cool, frost with the following caramel
frosting and stack:
     Caramel Frosting: In heavy medium saucepan melt 1 stick
butter or margarine and add 1 cup brown sugar. Cook over low heat
for 2 minutes. Add ¼ cup heavy cream and bring to boil, stirring
constantly. Remove from heat and cool. Add 1■ to 2 cups powdered
sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat with electric mixer until
frosting is of spreading consistency.

                           BENEDICTINE

     The original creator of this dip and sandwich spread was
Jenny Benedict, who operated a turn-of-the-century Louisville tea
room and apparently did quite well as a result of this delicacy.

Ingredients:
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
grated pulp of 1 medium to large cucumber
1 medium onion, grated
salt to taste
Dash tabasco
Mayonnaise
2 drops green food coloring

     Method: Before using pulp, extract juice from grated
cucumber by squeezing it in a cloth napkin until it is relatively
dry. Combine all ingredients except mayonnaise and food coloring.
Add enough mayonnaise to make a smooth spread. Stir in enough
food coloring to tint spread a delicate green. Spread on tea
sandwiches or serve as dip with vegetables or chunks of French
bread.

                            HOT BROWN

     This delicious entree was originally prepared at--and
therefore named after--the old Brown Hotel in Louisville.

MORNAY SAUCE
Ingredients:
2 cups milk
1 bay leaf
4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
6 tablespoons flour
1 ½ cups Parmesan cheese, grated
3 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

     Method: Scald milk and bay leaf in a saucepan. In a separate
heavy saucepan melt butter, and, using a whisk, stir in flour.
Make a roux by cooking for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly to
prevent burning. Remove bay leaf from milk and add milk to roux a
fourth at a time, bringing mixture to boil after each addition
and continuing to stir constantly. When entire mixture is
thickened, remove from heat and add Parmesan cheese, stirring
until cheese is completely melted. Stir in heavy cream, pepper,
and salt. Cool. Makes 6 cups.

SANDWICHES
Ingredients:
24 strips bacon
12 slices Vienna bread
4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced
3 pounds turkey breast, thinly sliced
12 ounces Cheddar cheese, shredded
12 ounces Monterey Jack cheese

     Method: Fry bacon until crisp and drain on paper towels to
remove all fat. Set aside. Lightly toast bread. Place bread
slices in an oven-proof dish. Top each with 2 tomato slices, 4
ounces of turkey, ½ cup mornay sauce, 1 ounce Cheddar cheese, and
1 ounce Monterey Jack cheese. Bake in 350-degree oven for 8 to 10
minutes or until tops of sandwiches are golden. Top each sandwich
with 2 slices of cooked bacon. Makes 12 sandwiches.



                   * * MONITOR MINIATURES * *

**American Airlines Responds to Passenger Complaints:
     In the June, 1993, issue of the Braille Monitor, Dr. John
Smith described his frustrations at the hands of American
Airlines personnel who insisted that company policy required them
to place him in a wheelchair or provide him with no assistance in
the airport. He wrote to the airline, and under date of June 25,
1993, he received the following answer:

                                         Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas

Dr. John W. Smith
Indiana University South Bend
South Bend, Indiana

Dear Dr. Smith:
     It was a pleasure to speak with you regarding the issues you
raised in your article about sight-impaired customers traveling
on commercial airlines. We share your concerns and are eager to
make your ventures as trouble-free as possible while maintaining
effective safety standards.
     Your article raised two specific issues that I would like to
address. First, the requirement to use a wheelchair when being
assisted in the terminal is not a standard company policy at
American Airlines. I regret that this was presented to you in
this manner when you arrived in Nashville, and your remarks have
been forwarded to the appropriate management personnel in an
effort to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
     Secondly, your article addressed the Braille in-flight
safety cards stating that one must leave one's cane on board the
aircraft in the event of an emergency evacuation. As we
discussed, this policy applies specifically to aircraft having an
inflatable slide used to expedite evacuation. Since canes can
potentially puncture the slide, they are not allowed to be used.
Another concern is potential injury to fellow passengers who are
trying to evacuate simultaneously.
     Dr. Smith, as we discussed, your article has raised some
valid issues that we will review thoroughly. We will revise our
Braille in-flight safety cards accordingly.
     Thank you so much for your help and insight. It was a
pleasure speaking with you.
                                                     Yours truly,
                                                     Ms. G. Paige
                                                 Staff Supervisor


**Attention Chess Enthusiasts:
     Heinz Adam, Asst. Secretary for the United States Braille
Chess Association (USBCA), has asked us to carry the following
announcement:
     Do you like to play chess but don't have the necessary
contacts to play as many games as you would like? Perhaps you
think there aren't any chess partners at your level for you to
play. Or is it that you just haven't got the time for the game or
the stamina to face the pressures a tournament would impose upon
you? Perhaps you just need to improve your game. Or maybe you
have never played chess and wish you had. If you have harbored
any ambition to play in a chess tournament but never had the
opportunity to do so, take heart. There is a solution. You can
enjoy the game and the fellowship it provides. Join the USBCA, an
organization that can inexpensively and effectively meet any of
these needs.
     A $10 check payable to Jim Hart, our treasurer, and sent to
Bob Rathbun, our director, 37 Hampshire Street, Lowell,
Massachusetts 01850, will make you a member for a year if you
join the USBCA in an odd-numbered year. If you join in an even-
numbered year, you pay $15 for a two-year membership.
     The USBCA publishes a quarterly magazine on cassette titled
Challenger. These cassettes are yours to keep for a fee of $10 a
year for members. A subscription to Challenger is optional, but
it is a valuable asset.

**For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Toshiba 1000 portable computer with 640K memory, 3.5" disk
drive, external 5¼-inch disk drive, MS-DOS in ROM, as well as a
768K memory RAM chip, into which information can be stored
without losing it, even when the power is off. The internal
speech card will support Vert and Vocal-Eyes screen readers.
     Also for sale is a Dyconics inkjet portable printer, which
takes both tractor-feed and single sheets of paper. It works well
with this portable computer and makes an excellent connection
with the Braille 'n Speak. Will throw in an extra unopened
ribbon. The price for each item is $500, or best offer for either
or both. If interested, contact Otto Zamora on cassette or in
Braille at 1826 S.W. 136 Place, Miami, Florida 33175; or call
[phone].

**Writers' Conference Planned:
     The Writers' Division of the National Federation of the
Blind will sponsor a National Conference for Blind Writers at the
National Center for the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland, beginning
on Friday, September 10, and concluding on Sunday, September 12,
1993. The registration fee will be $25, and accommodations at the
National Center will be provided free of charge. A donation will
be requested for the cost of all meals at the Center. If you are
a blind or visually impaired writer and would like to attend the
conference, write to Jerry Whittle, 22 University Boulevard,
Ruston, Louisiana 71270 for an information packet and application
form. If you need further clarification about these preliminary
facts, you may call [phone].

**VHL International Network:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     VHL Family Alliance (von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome) is an
international network of family support groups. It provides an
opportunity for families affected by VHL to share their knowledge
and experiences with each other and the medical community. Our
goal is to improve diagnosis, treatment, and quality of life for
VHL families. We offer a newsletter, pen pals, phone support, and
local groups in ten states and England with more forming. The
newsletter is available on tape. We read Braille. Write VHL
Family Alliance, 171 Clinton Rd., Brookline, Massachusetts 02146;
or call [phone] or 1-800-767-4845 for the nearest contact
person.

**TwoTimer Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Now Available: The TwoTimer. If you use a talking computer
and take dictation from a tape machine, the TwoTimer allows you
to don a standard pair of stereo headphones and hear both your
computer's speech and your dictation machine, one in each ear. It
allows you the added advantage of doing your work in silence. The
TwoTimer is based on a small speaker modified to include
connections for both a speech synthesizer and a tape machine. The
volume level can be controlled either from your equipment or by
the two controls on the TwoTimer. The speaker in the TwoTimer is
easily switched on to act as the speaker for your synthesizer,
making constant cable changes unnecessary. It is equipped with ■-
inch connectors that will fit most synthesizers and tape players.
Price, $75, including earphones. Contact Traxler Enterprises, 611
North Mayfair Road, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin 53226-4248; or call
[phone] (Voice), [phone] (BB).

**Recipes Available on Tape:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The National Federation of the Blind of Permian Basin in
Odessa, Texas, has compiled a tape recording of original and
well-loved recipes called "Variations." The tapes are available
for $5 and may be purchased by contacting Connie Eckard, 4100
North Goulder St., Trailer #38, Odessa, Texas 79764.

**For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale an Arkenstone An Open Book, deluxe edition,
demonstration unit in mint condition, featuring 120 Mhz HD and
ADF. I am asking $4,100. If interested, you may contact Joe Renzi
in Braille or 3.5" (no 5.25") PC disk at Reading Technology, 9269
Mission Gorge Rd., Suite 108, Santee, California 92071; or call
[phone].

**Installed:
     We were recently notified that Sister Joan Ridley of the
Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic, a longtime member of the
National Federation of the Blind of Louisiana, was installed on
June 13, 1993, to serve as President of the order for a four-year
term. Sister Joan was influential in helping the Louisiana
affiliate establish the Louisiana Center for the Blind in the
mid-'80's. She is an attorney and has been a member of the
Eucharistic Missionaries of St. Dominic since 1965.
Congratulations to Sister Joan and to her order.

**People with RLF Needed:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     An author with RLF (Retrolental Fibroplasia) would like to
interview other adults with RLF for a book called Small
Victories. The book will tell the stories of adults, aged thirty
through sixty, who were born very prematurely and are leading
fulfilling lives. A very broad definition of "fulfilling" is
being used. It is being written from a literary perspective
rather than a research perspective and will include stories of
individuals with RLF as well as the stories of those who
developed no apparent disabilities as a result of their
prematurity. It is the author's intention that parents of
premature babies be able to use it as a source of hope and
inspiration.
     The author developed RLF in 1946 after being born
prematurely in Salem, Oregon. She is the mother of a premature
baby and Executive Director of an educational foundation. For
information about the interviews call or write Mary Lou
Dickerson, 719 North 68th Street, Seattle, Washington 98103;
[phone].

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: David Schnair (1907-1993).]

**In Memoriam:
     We regret to report the death on June 1, 1993, of David
Schnair, one of the long-time leaders of the Blinded Veterans
Association. Mr. Schnair, who was eighty-six at the time of his
death, had been a member of the BVA Board of Directors
continuously since 1952. He was active also beyond his immediate
BVA responsibilities. Several times he served as a representative
to meetings of the North America/Caribbean Region of the World
Blind Union, and in 1988, traveling alone, he attended the
Quadrennial conference of the WBU in Madrid, Spain. He was a
remarkable man and a lively companion; he will be deeply missed
by all those who knew him.

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Kathy Kannenberg, chairwoman of the
Distribution of Publications Committee.]

**We Need You!:
     Kathy Kannenberg, chairwoman of the NFB Distribution of
Publications Committee, writes to say:
     The Distribution of Publications Committee needs to hear
from you. We would like to hear any stories you may have about
the ways in which Federation literature has changed your life or
that of someone you know--see Robin Zook's article, "Reading the
Literature," in the January, 1993, issue of the Braille Monitor.
Your story does not have to be as amazing or as well-written. We
would also like to hear about what you are doing to get NFB
literature into people's hands. Please send all correspondence,
in any format, to Kathy G. Kannenberg, 602 Dixie Trail, Raleigh,
North Carolina 27607.

**Reading Test Participants Needed:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) and Mississippi
State University are jointly conducting a research project on the
reading and writing skills of adults who have visual impairments.
Volunteers (between the ages of twenty-five and sixty years) are
needed to take a standardized reading test in adapted media and
prepare a short writing sample. The testing and a verbal
questionnaire take approximately three hours and are administered
at a time and location convenient to the participant.
     If you would like to participate or would like some more
information before you decide, please contact Laurel Tucker or
Laura Edwards at PCO, Institute for the Visually Impaired, 1200
West Godfrey Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141, or call
[phone].

**Elected:
     On May 8, 1993, the Decatur Area Chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind of Georgia elected the following
officers: Wayne High, President; Robert Smith, First Vice
President; Adam Shapiro, Second Vice President; Sandra Watts,
Secretary; Gladys Taylor, Treasurer; and Rosetta Brown, Board
member.

**Games For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     For sale several Nintendo games, $10 each. For a list of
approximately fourteen game titles, contact Cheryl Dresser, 127
Boulanger Ave., West Hartford, Connecticut 06110.

**Braille Books for Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The following Braille books are now available: Quilting and
Patchwork, 3 volumes, $6.00; Macrame Techniques and Projects, 2
volumes, $5.00; Hobbies for Art and Craft Materials, $20.00;
Spanish/English Dictionary, 10 volumes, $25.00; Lessons in
Macrame, 2 volumes, $6.00; Prepared Cooking or Cooking Techniques
for the Blind, 3 volumes, $10.00; Handicrafts from Scraps, 2
volumes, $5.00; Hobbies, 3 volumes, $8.00; American Pocket
Dictionary, 7 volumes, $25.00; Using the Cranmer Abacus, 1
volume, $2.00; Women Alive: Crafts for Fun and Profit, 2 volumes,
$5.00; and Betty Crocker Cookbook, 9 volumes, $25.00. To place an
order for any of these books, send a check to Tulia Dragona, 238
75th Street, North Bergen, New Jersey 07047.

**Travel Planning Services Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     My name is Susan Brewer; I am a totally blind travel agent
specializing in travel for the disabled. My main objective is to
work on behalf of the traveler with special needs in dealing with
airlines, cruise lines, hotels, etc.
     My services are available for both corporate and vacation
travelers. Please call at any time if I can be of assistance in
meeting your travel needs. Call toll free, [phone]; or
[phone]. Don't forget to ask about our new Cruise Club.

**Wishing to Buy:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I am looking for a used large APH four-track cassette
recorder in good working condition. Contact Joseph Laplaceliere
in Braille or tape at 604 60th Place, Fairmont Heights, Maryland
20743; or call [phone].

**NFB of California Receives Grant:
     We recently received the following press release concerning
the California Public Utilities Commission:
     The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced
today that the National Federation of the Blind of California has
been awarded a grant in the amount of $90,000 from the
Telecommunications Education Trust (TET) to reproduce TET-funded
consumer information materials in Braille and large print and on
cassette tape for statewide distribution to the blind and
visually impaired. The purpose of this TET-funded educational
program is to help blind and visually impaired consumers use
telecommunications products and services more effectively.
     The National Federation of the Blind of California is a
fifty-three-year-old organization of blind persons that works to
improve the lives of blind Californians. The organization
received a 1992-1993 TET grant to reproduce the Consumer Action
Telephone Information Project fact sheets in media readable by
the blind and to begin dissemination of these materials to the
blind of California. The grant also made it possible for the
organization to establish a consumer information line on its
Newsline for the Blind computerized newspaper reading service.
     The 1993-94 TET grant will make it possible for the NFB of
California to reproduce additional TET-funded fact sheets for the
blind and visually impaired and to increase the distribution of
all of the fact sheets.
     There you have the press release, and we say,
congratulations to the NFB of California for the grant and for
its work in providing accessible information to blind people in
California.

**Request for Overseas Correspondence:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement: "I'm
hard trying to improve my English and in this respect I would
find it nice if it was possible to correspond with some native-
English-speaking people. Would you be able to place a summons in
your Monitor Miniatures in which you can ask for me whether there
are people who'd like it to correspond with me? I have the use of
a scanner so I can read typed or printed texts. I also use
Braille but in the Netherlands we don't use the shorthand Braille
system. We write all the words completely. I'm learning your
English shorthand system but it's still a bit difficult for me.
So if they want to correspond with me in Braille, I'm afraid I
have to ask them to write the Braille completely and not to use
the shorthand system, at least not in the coming few months. I
think I'll be able to deal with the shorthand properly enough
about a few months." Contact: Kim D. Hoogenraad, Wamelplein 113,
1106 DX Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS.

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Donovan Cooper.]

**Recovering:
     Sharon Gold, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of California, reports that Donovan Cooper, one of the
leaders of the NFB of California and Immediate Past President of
the NFB Diabetics Division, has recently returned home from the
hospital. Donovan had a hip replacement on June 17 and the
following day suffered a heart attack. He underwent quadruple
bypass surgery later that week and has been recovering ever
since. He is now clearly on the mend, though sorry to have missed
the National Convention. We wish Donovan a rapid return to full
health.

**Elected:
     John TaBockhorst, Treasurer of the Bix Beiderbecke Chapter
of the NFB of Iowa, reports the following election results: Debra
Smith, President; Tom TaBockhorst, Vice President; Mary Hartle,
Secretary; John TaBockhorst, Treasurer; and Mike Manahl, Board
member.

**Cassette Duplication and Recorded Cassettes for Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
Four-track cassette duplication service is offered, C-60 or C-90.
Also, sports cassette highlights albums are for sale, each $3.50
or three for $10. Some titles are: "World Series History" and
"Super Bowl History"--too many to list. A recorded list can be
had at no cost. Others are: "The Curse of the Bambino" and
"Fenway: A History of the Boston Red Sox." Communications are
acceptable on cassette, in print, or in Braille. Make payments to
Gintautas Burba, 30 Snell Street, Brockton, Massachusetts 02401.

**Braille and Large Print Production Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Friendly Productions of Texas, Inc., is a new company, less
than a year old, based in Fort Worth, Texas. Its interlinear
Braille products are embossed in Grade II Braille on both sides
of the page. These same pages are also printed in large, bold-
face type to meet the needs of people with visual impairments.
There is a blind person on the staff as Braillist and production
person. The new company's clients include Embassy Suites, Inc.,
and a number of Houston's restaurants. If you have need for
Braille and large-print production services or know of
individuals or organizations that do, contact Friendly
Productions of Texas, Inc., 3045 Lackland Road, Suite 210, Fort
Worth, Texas 76116; or call [phone], 1-800-326-5679.

**Whole World Language Catalog Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Audio-Forum of Guilford, Connecticut, has published its
Twentieth Anniversary Whole World Language Catalog, which lists
the largest selection of self-instructional foreign language
courses available on audio and video cassettes from a single
source. The fifty-two-page catalog, available free, features a
range of two hundred thirty courses for seventy-nine languages at
various levels of learning, all emphasizing the spoken language.
     In addition to the popular Spanish, Italian, and French
language courses, Audio-Forum offers do-it-yourself cassette
courses in a wide range of Native American Indian, Russian and
East European, Asian, and African languages, all of which are
detailed in the catalog.
     Most of Audio-Forum's full-length self-instructional
language courses were developed by the U.S. State Department's
Foreign Service Institute. The self-study method is basic--listen
and imitate, the same method used to learn to talk as children
use. Only native-born speakers are recorded, ensuring correct,
natural pronunciation and intonation of the standard version of
each language.
     The catalog is available free by writing to Audio-Forum,
Dept. B, On-The-Green, Guilford, Connecticut 06437; or by
calling, toll-free, 1-800-243-1234.

**"Animal Called the Blues":
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Charles Atkins, a member of the National Federation of the
Blind of Florida, is an experienced songwriter and performer of
the blues. His career extends over more than twenty years.
Recently Mr. Atkins and The Blues Boys produced a limited-edition
cassette recording of original blues, titled "Animal Called the
Blues." To order this tape send a check or money order in the
amount of $10 to Blues Bear Co., Charles Atkins, P.O. Box 752,
Quincy, Florida 32353.

**For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale a Toshiba T1000 laptop computer with Artic
Vision hardware and software built in. The computer has 512K of
RAM plus an additional 768K of expanded memory installed. The
expanded memory can be configured as a hard drive RAM disk. There
is also a built-in 3.5-inch 720K disk drive. There are parallel,
serial, monitor, and external ports. I am asking $700 or best
offer. Please contact Loren Mikola at 13135 Argyle, Southgate,
Michigan 48195; or call [phone].