🚀 go-pugleaf

"Scott" <dovprst@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:81208285.0204011948.794b2571@posting.google.com...
> Rodney,  I really don't have time to keep up with this.  I'll respond
> below but it will be my last.  I will read your reply though.

No problem.

> Apparently you can't see the difference between communication access
> and physical access.  I really should not expect non-deaf people to
> get it.  This isn't the first time and won't be the last.

Apparently you can't see that there is no difference between communication
access and physical access.  I really should not expect non-"mobility
challenged" people to get it.  This isn't the first time and won't be the
last.

> > My argument? I've not got an argument.  I was referring to Mike's ...
>
> Well, if there's no argumeny why have we wasted all this time?

I didn't say there was no argument.  I said it was Mike's.  The straw man
again, I think ...

> > > It doesn't take much effort.  The doctor is in the DC area.  Just
> > > simply pick up the phone and call for one.  It's not hard.
> >
> > One of what??? What is it you call one of them things that translates
> > medical information into ASL? I'd not know how to look one up in the
phone
> > book.  I hope that Mike would, however.  After all, it's his "life or
death"
> > we're talking about here ...
>
> Interpreting agencies handle that stuff.  That's not an issue.
> Knowing whait know about Mike, I doubt that he has a problem with this
> issue.

Then he is in a far better position to deal with this than a doctor who
doesn't know this stuff.

> The ADA says that the Doc pays.  This is the reality of it.  When the
> doc says no then he complains.  If there were no ADA, he wouldn't be
> posting it here.  That's the world we live in.

Someone else posted a section of the ADA law, and it was not at all clear
from that that the doctor pays.  Unfortunately, my news server has already
purged the article.

But, if it's as clear-cut as you say, then why DID Mike post here (I don't
know where "here" is for you, for me it's alt.education.disabled).  If the
doctor broke the law, call the cops.  Don't call a lawyer ...

> No.  The law is clear.  It's lawyer types who are trying to make it
> not clear.

And Mike is looking for a lawyer ... :-)

> Mike needing an interpreter and the doc saying no is an access issue.

Seems to me the doc didn't say no to an interpreter.  The doc just didn't
provide one.  I doubt that he'd complain if Mike did.

> The ability of the interpreter to interpret medical jargon is a
> certification issue.  Got it?

No, I don't.  Passing a certification test in most disciplines often
correlates poorly with on the job performance, and will depend not only upon
the intelligence, ability, and ethics of the certificate holder but in his
ability to establish a rapport between himself (or herself), Mike, and the
doctor.

> > Apparently not.  As long as Mike doesn't have to do the legwork of
finding
> > an interpreter, then problem solved.  If he ends up "dead" right, he's
still
> > right.
> >
>
> Yeah, but it might help those Deaf who come after.  We could set up a
> memorial  ;-)

If the interpreters their doctors provide are no better than Mikes, then you
can start your own cemetary.

> > Yes, we were talking about the USA, and even there there isn't a level
> > playing field.  Not everybody can drink and party until they're 40, then
> > grow up to be president.  You've got to pick the right parents in order
to
> > pull a stunt like that.
>
> confusing the issue again, I see.  That has absolutely nothing to do
> with interpreters.

No, it has nothing to do with interpreters.  It has everything to do with
the fact that there isn't a level playing field (which I mentioned in
response to a comment of yours ...).

> > > You get over it.  I don't see why you're blowing a gasket over this
> > > issue.
> >
> > Hey, it was Mike who "experienced a rapid disassembly of an elastic
isomer
> > interfacial environmental barrier".  He's the one yelling for a lawyer.
Me?
> > Go look at my original post.  I'm behind him 100%.  I told him to sue
the
> > bastards.  Yes, I've questioned the internal consistency of his original
> > argument (generally in response to your posts), but all I've done was
> > suggest that the rest of us with special needs be included as well.  If
he
> > applied his logic consistantly, then he'd include the rest of us.
>
> Actually, no it wouldn't.  The ADA applies to disabilities not
> immigration or all the other stuff.

OK, then why'd you bring up immigration? I simply mentioned non-English
speakers who also need interpreters.  You wasted a lot of time if all you
wanted to talk about was disabilities.

> The ADA is not only about Deaf
> needs.  There are provisions for others.  We're talking about Deaf
> needs here.

And blind, dyslexic, quadriplegic, and all those other "challenges" aren't
covered by the ADA?

> The ADA, howwever, does cover docs providing interpreters.

Again, that wasn't obvious from the section of the law that was quoted here.
Another thing that was mentioned was that a doctor has a right to refuse to
accept a patient.  That's something else to think about before calling the
lawyer or the cops.

> > And what about you? I replied to Mike.  How'd you end up with a dog in
this
> > particular fight?
>
> I'm Deaf, I've got a stake in this.  I also live in the DC area, like
> Mike, though we've never met.  I also have other more recent
> disabilities. (i.e. can't walk or drive, so I also understand those
> needs too.

I agree that you've got a stake in this.

> Many Deaf do not speak English.  Many do,but it's well known the Deaf
> people struggle with English.  The education system has failed to
> teach English to deaf people.  Why? they spend hundreds of hours
> getting them to say, "waaaaaaaa-ter" instead of teaching English
> grammar and rules.  That's a big reason why writing notes doesn't work
> for doc appointments.

But Mike seems to write well, but in general what you said is something I'd
never given any thought to until now. It sure could be a challenge to teach
phonetics.

> > So, you're viewing life as a two-story outhouse.  The sign on the top
door
> > says "English speakers, Spanish speakers, and hey, just about everybody
> > else", and the sign on the bottom door says "Deaf".  And, your solution
is
> > to reverse the signs? Mike has better access to health care than I do
(or
> > did before I left) because he can just get in his car and drive to the
> > doctor's office.
> >
>
> No, I simply said that we should provide for those born and/or raised
> here first.  The Deaf are human beings too.

My personal opinion is that we (or you guys until I get back) should provide
for all Americans, and I don't really care how long they've been Americans.
That does NOT mean that I think we should accept everyone who applies for
admission.  But, you said above that you were talking only about the deaf
and ADA, so with your permission, I'll just snip out most of the other
stuff.  I don't have unlimited time myself ... :-)

> > My only issue with Mike is his attitude that his life and death is
someone
> > else's responsibility.  It wouldn't give me heartburn if the cost of his
> > interpreter was picked up, at least in part, by the government or his
> > insurance provider.  I just don't see a problem with Mike having to
arrange
> > for one.  As you said, there's the yellow pages.  Mike should at least
know
> > what to look for.
>
> Arranging for one and paying for one are also two different things.
> Other than that I agree with you on this part at least.

Now we're getting somewhere.

> > And you'd not get any experts who'd say that ASL isn't a language? Seems
to
> > me that if ASL is a language (I'm not saying it isn't) then you could
even
> > make a good case for written English being a separate language.  And, it
> > seems to me that there was quite a bit of debate about ASL back then
just as
> > there is about Ebonics now.  "Today's 'cult' is tomorrow's 'mainstream
> > religion'".
> >
>
> Yes, there's a lot of debate on Ebonics, but as with this one, it's
> endless.  I judge the debate to actually be over, though there are
> some who hold on.  ASL is a language, period.  Though there was
> debate, it wasan't the same kind of debate as the Ebonics one.

I don't know if the Ebonics debate is over.  Political and social fads come
and go.  Things could swing back the other way eventually.

> > > I'm sure we all know where you stand on that.
> >
> > I'm not sure who "we all" is at this point.  Even Mike seems to've lost
> > interest.  I suspect that he was just venting, and now he's calmed down
and
> > we've seen the last of him on this subject.  Best I can tell, "we all"
is
> > you 'n me (unless people are commenting on lists I don't receive), and
you
> > seem too confused to know much of anything.
> >
>
> Then "we all" (me) know where you stand. ;-P

No, Scott.  Your responses indicate that you don't have a clue.  I'll try to
enlighten you.

> > So, if Ebonics isn't a language, what do deaf former Ebonics speakers
speak?
> > Is there an AASL?
> >
>
> The same as Ebonics, which is a variation of English, so there are
> variations of signs.  Perhaps, one day Ebonics will fully develop into
> another language, but that day isn't here, yet.  It's the same with
> AAS, as you call it.

No, I called it AASL.

American English (Cajun French, Central and South American Spanish, etc)
were developed because there was quite an ocean between the groups of
speakers and the dialects diverged.  Sadly Ebonica and ASL developed for
much the same reason; there are barriers that aren't physical.  In an ideal
world Ebonics, ASL, (and Braille, the wheelchair, the white cane ...) would
all go the way of the iron lung.  I'm not expecting to live long enough to
see a lot of progress, however ...

> > Why can't the ASL "speakers" learn English?
>
> That has been the problem for hundreds of years.  If you've got a
> solution you'd better come out with it, because to date, it's been a
> failure.  The moswt promising answer is called, "Bi/BI", but it's
> another issue not related to this thread.

I've not heard of that.  Can you send me a URL? Feel free to E-mail it if
you'd prefer.  We've taken up enough space with this.

This reminds me of a project I worked on while I was still a student in the
late 60's.  We were designing and simulating various digital transmission
systems for voice.  We'd record human speech, digitize it, send it through
the simulated network, then convert it back to audio and do a lot of
objective and subjective analyses on the results.  The goal was to develop a
good channel for speech using the least resources possible.

One of the tools we used was a sound spectrograph.  It showed amplitude
versus frequency versus time.  If you looked at it, the consonants "s"
sounds looked like random noise, because they are indeed "white" noise; they
cover the audio spectrum.  Vowels showed up as bands of energy because
they're limited to certain frequencies.  A sound spectrograph of the human
voice is as unique as a fingerprint.  What was interesting was that quite a
few of the guys in the lab learned to "read" these things.  They could look
at a spectrum and tell you what the speaker said.

This work was done on computers thousands of times slower than your average
notebook computer.  Seems to me that this technology could kill several
birds with one stone (and really anger PETA).  A deaf person could visually
compare the sounds they make with those of a hearing speaker in order to
learn to speak quicker and easier.  They could also "read" the spectrogram
in order to tie written and spoken English together, and as an aid to lip
reading and translating speech to text.  This is the same technology used in
speech recognition systems.  I'd be surprised if some of it hasn't made it
into aids for the deaf.

> I didn't see you encouraging Mike to sue for what the law says is his
> right.

I did say, "Sue the bastards ..."  Just check my original post.

> I'd say that society has indeed screwed blind people and I support
> them as well.  As for kicking asses, that's not a yardstick for
> measuring who got it worse.  They both were screwed and that's how I
> see it.

No, Scott, "society" didn't screw blind OR deaf people any more than
"society" screwed people in the middle ages when doctors didn't know to wash
their hands and they bled people as a medical treatment (looks like they
were right about leeches, however ...).  "Society" generally deals with us
with the best intentions in the world.  We sometimes suffer from ignorance,
and sometimes from economics.  As I reminded you before, a lot of us who're
deaf or blind today would've been dead just a few years ago.  Ironically, as
things get better, a smaller and smaller percentage of the population is
affected by any particular problem, so it's difficult to get resources
dedicated to the problem.

What should we do? Well, why do you think that (I'm not complaining, just
commenting) there is far more money spent on breast cancer than prostate
cancer research, although prostate cancer is more common? Two words,
"effective lobbying".  That's how it's done.  It isn't done by telling
"society" how much they've screwed us.

> Society has and continues to "screw" the Deaf by spending all of their
> energy on getting them to speak, instead of teaching the basics,
> reading, writing and arithmetic.  As well s History and all the other
> subjects of study.  It is possible to teach these things in ASL and
> teach English as a second language.  Instead, if the deaf can speak
> one word, they consider it a success.

I'm not saying that you're wrong about the teaching priorities.  I'm just
saying it ain't done out of malace.  Nobody is sitting off in a smoke-filled
room saying, "Hey, we can keep those deaf people down on the farm if we just
stick to making 'em say, 'Waaaa-ter'."

I've gone through educational fads myself.  When I was young, you were blind
or you weren't.  If you were blind, you read Braille and that was it.  I had
to teach myself to read and write print, and I was always getting in trouble
for reading Braille with my eyes.  Then, about the time I finished the 8th
grade, "mainstreaming" was all the rage.  They took me out of the school for
the blind, gave me some reading glasses, and packed me off to a public high
school.

Now, as I understand it, "inclusion" is all the rage (and there were some
raging debates on alt.education.disabled about it a few years ago!).  There
are those that maintain that you put the kid in the regular classroom
("where everybody else is") regardless of the aids and support required.  So
what if the kid is deaf, blind, has an IQ of 60, and makes noises (an actual
case reported by a teacher)? The school for the blind I attended has almost
rolled over and died now.  From what I can tell, it's basically a warehouse
for kids with multiple disabilities.  I came out ahead by being in public
school, but that wasn't always true of others.  At least at the school for
the blind there were trained teachers who worked with a lot of blind kids.
In my high school, I was the only blind kid most of the teachers had ever
seen, and they didn't have a clue how to deal with me.  Fortunately, I was
too obnoxious for them to feel sorry for me.

I don't know what the answer is.  All I know is that once I became a blind
"success story", people sometimes asked my opinion.  I don't have any idea
whether or not I made a difference, but I tried to educate people about
things that worked (for me) and the things that didn't.  I participated in
workshops and did volunteer work whenever possible.

> > I told you before, there ain't a level playing field.  Put more bluntly,
> > shit happens.
>
> Well, we don't have to take it.

And who the hell are you, Scott? I mean no disrespect by that.  Why don't
you have to "take it"? What do you think you're going to do about it?
Remember that the Alabama bus boycott that Rosa Parks triggered succeeded
because Blacks made up a large percentage (I think a majority) of the
ridership of the buses.  The loss of revenue to the bus company was
devistating.  What're you going to do to "society"? How many hundredths of a
percent of the US population is profoundly deaf.  If you throw in all the
"major" disabilities and our friends and families, I don't know that you'll
get more than a few percent.  And, many are unemployed and receiving
assistance anyhow.  We don't have either the political or economic clout to
"don't have to take it".  Being bitter towards "society" does nothing but
leave you more isolated in the "disability community".  The only answer is
to treat "society" not as the enemy that screwed you over, but as a
misguided friend who harmed (or didn't help) you through ignorance.

> >We're all born with varying abilities; and varying lacks.
> > Some of those lacks are recognized as disabilities, and others aren't.
> > There are those of us with disabilities who're working while those with
> > 20/20 and two good ears and legs are sitting home drawing welfare simply
> > because we have marketable skills and they don't.  It doesn't mean
"society"
> > is "screwing" the rest.  I dislike that "let's blame society" attitude.
>
> Deaf people get a late start comparedto all the others.

I remember (sort of) a quote in a novel I read once, "People pity the blind,
but get impatient with the deaf ..."

> It is a society problem, in this case.

It isn't a society problem.  It's the deaf who're getting the late start.
Society is going along happily without you.  I want to see you convince them
it's their problem ...

> > About the only group in the States which might have a point there are
the
> > blacks, but for years those of us with disabilities (including the deaf)
> > have had Vocational Rehab, etc, while those who were healthy but
> > "financially challenged" had nothing.  I got to college based on VR.
Nobody
> > else in my family made it, and I'd sure not have gotten there on an
academic
> > (or athletic!!!) scholarship.
>
> These programs are great, but do not solve the problem.  Deaf people
> have succeeded despite the challenges.  Still, there is a long way to
> go to.

There's a long way to go for all of us, and I'll confess to having a lot
more questions than answers,.

> You speak as if VR gives them an unfair advantage.  No, it is
> an attemt t give them a chance they may not have had before.

When I saw that, my original reaction was to type, N-O-T   T-R-U-E!!!

But, upon reflection, I don't know what an "unfair advantage" is.  And, even
if I did, who's gonna fix it? I'm already over 40, so I can't go back and
drink and party and then be president.

In the case of VR, I don't even think of it like that.  I think of it as an
investment (with every expectation of a good return) in a segment of the
population which otherwise probably wouldn't "pay off".  I benefitted from
it, as have others, and I think that overall we give back more than we ever
got.  Some of us are skilled professionals who would otherwise have menial
jobs (assuming we had jobs at all).  For some of us with disabilities, VR
only helped reduce the amount of financial aid we'd need, or improved our
quality of life.  Even that was a benefit to the recipients and to their
families who care about them, and "society" was still a winner.  Sure, there
are occasional clinkers, but overall "society" gets its money's worth from
VR and then some.

I'd hate to think of where I'd be without it, and I offer no apologies for
the help I received.  It's a fact that there are a lot of "normal" people
who would also have benefitted.  They were too poor to afford a college
education or vocational training and were not bright enough and/or motivated
enough to get a scholarship.  I consider that a lost opportunity for
"society", and not an unfair advantage for me.  YMMV.

> Have a great day.

You too ...