                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR
Vol. 43, No. 2                                     February, 2000

                     Barbara Pierce, Editor


      Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by

              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT


                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland  21230
               NFB Net BBS: http://www.nfbnet.org
              Web Page address: http://www.nfb.org



           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 Vol. 43, No.2                       February, 2000
                            Contents

An Open Letter to Monitor Readers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Marc Maurer

The Campaign to Change What it Means to Be Blind . . . . . . . . 

A Word from the Georgia Affiliate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Alfred Falligan

From Russia with Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Linda Goodspeed

The Blind Lead the Sighted
Technology for People With Disabilities
Finds a Broader Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Eric A. Taub

Roommates From Hell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Debbie Kent Stein and Anne Emerick

Talking Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Ed Bryant

Reflecting Upon the Bamboo Tree. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
by Sheila M. Koenig

The Voice Mate
An Aural Organizer that Really Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Curtis Chong

The Colonies, the Court, and the Kittens . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Marc Maurer

How Much High-Tech Does a Blind Person
Need for Independent Travel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Tom Bickford

Fran Allison and Me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Stephen O. Benson

A Roof with a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Michael Baillif

Why Customer Service?
Reasons, Plans, and What I Hope to Accomplish. . . . . . . . . . 
     by Kimberly Mitchell

New United States Citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Doris M. Willoughby


NEWSLINE (tm) Still Growing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
     by Peggy Chong

Recipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Monitor Miniatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

       Copyright (c) 2000 National Federation of the Blind [LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: The architect's model of the National Research and
Training Institute for the Blind as it will look as part of the National
Center for the Blind]      **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
                An Open Letter to Monitor Readers
                         by Marc Maurer
                           **********
     As many of you know, during the final months of his life Dr. Jernigan
devoted much of his creative energy and imagination to planning an exciting
new facility to be built on our property at 1800 Johnson Street, which he
named the National Research and Training Institute for the Blind. A little
more than twenty years ago, when we first began renovating the turn-of-the-
century factory building that we intended to transform into the National
Center for the Blind and the headquarters of the National Federation of the
Blind, many of us found it hard to imagine that we could ever use all the
space available in the block-long building. We told each other that rent
income from the unused areas would help us meet day-to-day operating expenses.
     Through these past two decades our dreams have expanded to keep pace
with our growing strength and experience as an organization. The Materials
Center and all the publications, literature, and equipment it stores and
ships; the International Braille and Technology Center; NEWSLINE (tm) for the
Blind; bedrooms for visiting groups; and the expanding staff to meet the
demands of a growing organization: all these have been added and require
significant space to operate.
     Now the unimaginable has come to pass. We have just about run out of
space for the programs we are already conducting. More to the point, our
dreams of finding ways to use our experience and expertise to improve programs
and increase opportunity for all blind people demand expanded space if we are
to carry out the training and research that must be done.
     Dr. Jernigan saw all this coming; that is why he conceived the plan to
erect a new building. We have dedicated ourselves to bringing his dream and
our own to fruition. We have embarked on an ambitious capital campaign to
raise eighteen million dollars during the next two years. Never before have we
taken on a program as demanding as this one, but we have now begun discussing
our plans and hopes with foundations, corporations, and wealthy individuals as
we make contacts with organizations and people that might be interested in
helping us make our dreams reality.
     Federationists have never been content to ask others to do all the work
for us. We may not have millions ourselves, but we have always taken pride in
doing whatever we can to bring our dreams to fruition. The entire Board of
Directors have now made five-year personal pledges toward our campaign goal,
and many other Federation leaders and rank-and-file members have begun
planning their gifts.
     The time has come for all Federation members and friends to learn more
about our plans in order to determine what they can do to help. Perhaps you
have friends or family members who would be interested in making a gift.
Perhaps you have contacts that we should know about. I hope that each of you
will plan to make a significant gift, and I know many of you will. What is
significant? That depends on your personal resources and responsibilities. The
Research and Training Institute will allow us to affect the lives of blind
people in ways we have never before dared to attempt. A gift, no matter what
its size, generous enough to cause strain on your personal budget will honor
both Dr. Jernigan's memory and you.
     I ask each of you to take some time to reflect on whom you know and what
you might do to assist in this ambitious campaign. You can contact Vince
Connelly, who is working on this project, if you have ideas or information.
Call (410) 659-9314 and ask for Mr. Connelly. I hope you will use the pledge
form printed at the end of the following article to make your personal gift
and send it to NRTI Project, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230.
     So that you have a complete picture of opportunities, here is a brief
description of gift possibilities:
                           **********
     Contributors may choose to have their gifts recognized through
dedication to one of the Institute's Initiatives or through naming
opportunities associated with specific floors, wings, rooms, facilities,
equipment, or furnishings of the National Research and Training Institute.
Please contact the NFB Capital Campaign Office for more information on
specific naming opportunities.
                           **********
The Wall of Honor:
A permanent wall display listing individual donors above the $5,000 level will
further recognize contributors.
     All contributors, including those below $5,000, will be listed in the
appropriate gift level on the Campaign Honor Roll to be announced and
published during the campaign victory celebrations.
                           **********
    Gift Amount          Title
    $1,000,000+          Jernigan Circle, Master Builder
    $   500,000+         President's Circle, Program Builder
    $   250,000+         Director's Circle, Opportunity
                                   Builder
    $   100,000+         Leader's Circle, Independence
                                   Builder
    $     50,000+        Patrons
    $     25,000+        Partners
    $     10,000+        Benefactors
    $      5,000+        Fellows
    $      4,999-        Friends
                           **********
     What follows is the text of a document that briefly describes the
initiatives and programs we expect to undertake as the result of this capital
campaign. I hope that the plans will kindle your imagination and fuel your
dreams. Join us in making the future our own.
                           **********
                           **********
                     The Campaign to Change
                    What It Means to Be Blind
                           **********
Vision for the Future
                           **********
     The spirit and passionate dedication of the over 50,000 members of the
NFB are directed toward building a future for the blind in this country that
includes opportunity for education, employment, and full participation in our
society. Our message is one of hope and personal responsibility. We are
determined to demonstrate that blind people can achieve and prosper if trained
using a philosophy of blindness that emphasizes capacity and mutual support.
We envision a new approach to helping blind people--an approach which
transcends ancient images of darkness, ignorance, and isolation. We foresee a
revolution in services for the blind which views blindness as a characteristic
to be dealt with through the acquisition of pragmatic skills and self-
acceptance. We are a people with abilities and dreams, a people of hope and
tenacity, too long held down by our own and others' misconceptions and fears.
We are working toward a time when all of us can achieve to our capacity and
contribute fully to our society.
     The next chapter of blind people's struggle for full integration into
all aspects of our society will include the nation's first research and
training institute inspired and operated by the organized blind. We have long
known who we are; now it is time to demonstrate and implement model programs
and services that will forever change what it means to be blind.
                           **********
The National Research and Training Institute for the Blind
                           **********
     A new five-story, 170,000-square-foot building will be attached to the
present national headquarters of the NFB, located in Baltimore, Maryland. The
new facility will include a research library, technology training labs,
classrooms, a distance learning center, an adaptive technology development
center, and office and flexible meeting space. We have begun an eighteen-
million-dollar capital campaign. Funds are being solicited from members and
individual supporters of the NFB, corporations, foundations, and governmental
sources. The goal is to raise the needed funds by summer 2001 and to complete
the project in the summer of 2003.
     At least 50 percent of this country's 1.1 million blind citizens will be
directly affected by the programs, research, and technology developed during
the first ten years of the Institute's operation:
     *Through the use of newly developed distance learning technologies and
training methods, we will work toward providing an opportunity for all of the
57,000 blind children in this country to learn Braille and other needed
skills.
     *The 788,000 blind seniors today, and the projected 1.6 million by 2015
and 2.4 million by 2030, will have access to improved services and resources
stimulated by the senior initiatives of the Institute.
     *Partnerships between private-sector employers and the NFB will result
in lowering the 74 percent unemployment rate among working-age blind people in
this country.
     *Nonvisual speech and Braille technology will be developed, making it
possible for the blind to access an ever-increasing number of services and
resources delivered by computer technology.
                           **********
Major Initiatives
     The following initiatives will provide the structure for the programs,
projects, and services of the National Research and Training Institute for the
Blind.
                           **********
Technology Access and Training Initiative
     Technology is a critical element in both education and employment
opportunities today and will be even more so in the future, for the blind just
as for the general public. Advances in speech, Braille, and large-print access
technology lead some to assume that the blind now have or soon will have
access to nearly all of what technology has to offer.
     Unfortunately, due to the widespread obsession with visual design in
technology, the shortage of good technology training, the cost of equipment,
and the rapid advancements of technology applications, blind people now face
the dismaying prospect of being left out if nonvisual access is not
continually updated and improved. This means that advances in software and
hardware must include design that allows nonvisual access.
     The Institute will be the center of technological advancement for the
blind. Along with development and promotion of adaptive technology, training
will be provided to ensure that the blind move smoothly with their sighted
peers into the emerging technological age and do not become casualties of what
Bill Gates has called the digital divide.
                           **********
Blind Children's Initiative
     The 57,000 legally blind children in this country face unique
educational and daily-living challenges. Today the majority of blind children
have other disabilities, are educated in public schools rather than
residential schools for the blind, and have other individualized needs.
     Blind children are often discouraged from using alternative reading and
travel methods because uninformed parents and teachers believe that as far as
possible their children should avoid being labeled as blind. For too long
these useful tools of independence have been associated with the negative
stereotype of the hopeless, isolated blind. Unfortunately this has resulted in
less than 10 percent of blind children being able to read Braille and many not
being able to travel independently.
     Because the NFB knows that alternative skills are basic to self-esteem
among the blind and to successful employment (today 85 percent of blind people
who use Braille are employed), we have already directed significant resources
toward changing this alarming trend. By establishing a national Braille
literacy campaign, promoting early mobility training for young blind children,
and contributing to development of adaptive technology, the NFB has led the
way in innovation and change. However, because many school districts are
hiring only general special education teachers rather than specially trained
teachers of the blind, families face a growing shortage of qualified educators
and services for their blind children.
                           **********
Braille Literacy Initiative
     In 1968 40 percent of blind children in this country read Braille, 45
percent read large print, and only 9 percent read neither. However, today less
than 10 percent of legally blind children read Braille, and more than 40
percent read neither Braille nor large print. This problem reflects a
dangerous trend: the functional illiteracy of tens of thousands of blind
children.
     In the 1970's blind children began to be mainstreamed into regular
classrooms. Most school systems did not know how to teach children Braille, so
they tried to teach the children using any method available. For blind
children this meant listening and memorizing; they never learned to read and
write. For those with some sight, it meant the use of magnifiers. Imagine
trying to learn how to read when you can see only one letter at a time. The
result has been predictable: many blind children have fallen behind in school
and as adults are now significantly limited.
     For too long Braille has been associated with total blindness and many
of the misconceptions associated with this disability. Parents of blind
children are easily convinced that, if their child has some residual vision
(even if that vision is minimal, unstable, or likely to deteriorate), reading
print will somehow mean their child is not really blind. It takes people who
are positive about Braille and familiar with the real benefits of this
alternative technique to convince reluctant parents. Also much work is
necessary to upgrade the Braille skills of teachers of the blind and to
improve Braille-production and Braille-teaching technology.
     The National Research and Training Institute will be the center of a
growing Braille Literacy Initiative that will ensure that the progress led by
the NFB continues and that Braille is recognized to be a communications tool
as essential to the blind as American Sign Language is to the deaf.
                           **********
Research Initiative
     Despite the tremendous outlay of public and private funds throughout
most of the decades of this century, the objective situation of the blind as a
group remains intractably bleak: 74 percent unemployment, functional
illiteracy for tens of thousands of blind children, and exclusion from the
mainstream of society. These facts make it starkly clear that the techniques
and systems used to serve the blind in the United States are in dire need of
overhaul.
     The unsolved problems demand innovative solutions. Effective training
programs that will teach the professors who will teach the teachers and other
professionals who will teach the blind must be developed so that the age-old
cycle of dependency and despair can be broken. The Research Initiative of the
National Research and Training Institute will focus on identifying and solving
the root causes of these endemic problems.
                           **********
Blind Seniors Initiative
     Less money is spent and fewer services are available to those over
fifty-five losing vision than to younger blind people. Yet far more people
lose vision after retirement age than before. New approaches must be developed
and taught to state and local staff members in rehabilitation, older blind,
and older Americans programs and in centers for independent living. The
National Research and Training Institute will bring together knowledgeable
professionals who will design materials and develop training programs to
assist state and local agencies in helping blind and visually impaired seniors
remain independent and continue to participate in the activities they hope for
in their retirement years. Blindness can happen to anyone. Without training
and opportunity it can be devastating. In short, seniors have huge needs. The
Blind Seniors Initiative of the National Research and Training Institute will
focus on finding ways to meet them.
                           **********
Employment Initiative
     Work is one of the fundamental ways in which individuals express their
talents, make a contribution, and take responsibility for themselves. For too
long many blind people have been told by their families, teachers, and even
rehabilitation counselors that the world of competitive employment is most
likely out of reach for them.
     Since its founding in 1940, the NFB has been committed to the principle
that otherwise-able blind people should be expected to work and should be
given every opportunity to achieve. This means that the blind must believe in
themselves and employers must learn that qualified blind people make
productive, loyal employees.
     With an unemployment rate of 74 percent, many working-age blind people
are not enjoying the challenges and responsibilities of competitive
employment. Although hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in job
preparation programs around the country, this staggering number has not
changed in recent years. The employment initiative of the National Research
and Training Institute will provide focus, resources, and direction for a
comprehensive evaluation of contemporary methods for helping the blind. From
such an evaluation will come the necessary knowledge to develop, demonstrate,
and replicate innovative training programs to replace existing efforts which
have failed to bring the blind into the workforce.
     The new National Research and Training Institute will be the center of
research, demonstrations, and job-development partnerships with private
industry. These partnerships in combination with successful employment
preparation programs will create national momentum toward the full employment
of the blind.
                           **********
                           **********
        The Campaign To Change What It Means To Be Blind
                Capital Campaign Pledge Intention
                           **********
Name:
Home Address:
City, State, and Zip:
Home Phone: Work Phone:
E-mail address:
Employer:
Work Address:
City, State, Zip:
                           **********
     To support the priorities of the Campaign, I (we) pledge the sum of
$___________.
                           **********
     My (our) pledge will be payable in installments of $ __________ over the
next ____ years (we encourage pledges paid over 5 years), beginning
_____________, on the following schedule (check one): __ annually, __ semi-
annually, __ quarterly, __ monthly
     I (we) have enclosed a down payment of $ ________________
___ Gift of stock: _____________________ shares of _____________
___ My employer will match my gift.
     Please list (my) our names in all Campaign Reports and on the Campaign
Wall of Honor in the appropriate Giving Circle as follows:
__ I (We) wish to remain anonymous.
Signed: ________________________________ Date: __________________

                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Al Falligan]
                A Word from the Georgia Affiliate
                       by Alfred Falligan
                           **********
     From the Editor: Al Falligan is the indefatigable chairman of convention
arrangements for the Georgia affiliate. Here is his first communication to
2000 convention attendees:
                           **********
     Greetings, fellow Federationists. As you ring in the New Year, I am sure
that memories of our last convention are still ringing in your mind. We, the
Georgia affiliate, are doing our best to make sure that the 2000 convention
will be even better than our effort in 1999, in fact, that it will be the most
memorable convention the NFB has ever had.
     If we had a theme for our hospitality suite, it would be "a taste of
Georgia." Come and experience some of our local specialties such as sweet
potato pie, fresh Georgia peaches, peach cobbler, Georgia goobers (peanuts),
and our world-famous Coca-Cola. For you early birds, coffee and pastries will
be available each morning.
     This year additional volunteers will be available to assist
conventioneers at the three hotels and at the Peachtree Center Food Court. We
also plan to offer group orientation to the hotels. In addition, more Braille
copies of the Marriott Marquis guide will be available this year.
     Come and let us show you what true southern hospitality is all about.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Masha and Linda Goodspeed]
                      From Russia with Love
                       by Linda Goodspeed
                           **********
     From the Editor: Linda Goodspeed is a member of the Cambridge Chapter of
the NFB of Massachusetts and a 1988 NFB scholarship winner. Like the rest of
us she struggles in all kinds of ways to demonstrate to the world in general
that blindness does not necessarily diminish one's ability to live a full and
productive life. The following story of her fight to adopt her Russian
daughter Masha first appeared in the June, 1999, issue of Vermont Magazine and
the September, 1999, issue of Boston Phoenix.
                           **********
     When I told my fifteen-year-old nephew several years ago that I was
going to adopt a baby, he replied, "That's so cool."
     Yeah, it really is cool, I thought. I didn't know just how cool it would
be until I landed in Moscow last March and was hit by minus-twenty-degree
(centigrade) winds and blowing snow off the great central plains of Russia. It
was bitter, bleak, and intimidating, but compared to what I'd been through
already, it was practically a relief.
     Russia was not my first choice for finding a child to love. I knew there
were plenty of abandoned children right here in this country--in Boston for
Pete's sake--in need of a home and a little love. What I didn't know was that
adopting a child domestically is almost impossible. Foster care, not adoption,
is promoted by the child welfare and court system in this country. I spent
nine months looking through the registry of children in state custody finally
eligible for adoption: page after page of twelve-, fourteen-, fifteen-year-old
boys who had spent a decade or more bouncing from one foster family to
another. There were girls, too. Thirteen, fourteen, sixteen. Sibling groups
whom bureaucrats would not break up; minorities whom bureaucrats would not
place in families of a different color--childhoods lost forever.
     If state-sponsored adoption is difficult, trying to adopt a child
independently is even worse. Too many nightly newscasts and based-on-a true-
story TV movies of custody battles between adoptive and birth parents were
more than enough to discourage me from this route. On television the courts
always seem to side with the birth parents--fathers who didn't know they were
fathers and never signed away their parental rights; mothers unaware or
traumatized when they signed away theirs.
     Going through a reputable private adoption agency is safer but hardly
more accessible. For $30,000 I could write an autobiography and send a picture
of myself to put in a book for pregnant women who have agreed to give away
their babies. Actually, it wouldn't have cost me $30,000 because I knew I
wouldn't be picked. I am single, and I have a disability. You don't get picked
if you have even one strike against you.
     So I am on a plane bound for Russia. It has taken me years and thousands
of dollars and millions of emotions to wade through the bureaucratic quagmire
of adoption to get here. I was two years into the adoption process before my
daughter was born; by the time I finally got her, she was already two years
old.
                           **********
     "Don't use the words `legally blind' to describe your handicap," my
adoption case worker advised me. "The words don't translate well. Say
`visually impaired.'"
     "OK," I said.
     Actually, even though I have only a very small amount of central vision
remaining in one eye--less than ten degrees--it is highly usable vision, and I
identify much more readily with the words "visually impaired" than the word
"blind," which for most people conjures up images of total darkness.
(Actually, this is one of the myths about blindness: Very few people are
totally blind. Most blind people have some degree of light perception, visual
acuity, or other residual sight.) I myself need to use a white cane to get
around because the peripheral vision in my one seeing eye is so restricted. On
the other hand, its central acuity is good enough that with proper lighting I
can read a newspaper.
     Reading children's books was my bigger concern. The Immigration and
Naturalization Service, however, which must approve every overseas adoption
applicant, was more interested in what kinds of gadgets and devices I was
going to use to take care of a baby. The INS wanted bells and whistles.
     I thought hard. "Well," I said. "I know a lot of blind parents have told
me they put little bells on their children's shoes when they start walking."
They loved it. "And, of course, it's very important to be extremely well-
organized." They seemed disappointed. Too simple.
     "It's hard to anticipate everything I'm going to need," I finally said.
"But I have a lot of resources, both blind and sighted. As problems come up,
you just solve them."
     When I was getting Masha's clothes ready to take to Russia to pick her
up, I realized I needed some sort of system to keep outfits together since I
couldn't put the clothes together visually if they became separated. I talked
to my mom, and we came up with plastic clothes pins and different drawers. As
problems come up you solve them. That's life. Visually impaired. Unimpaired.
It doesn't matter.
                           **********
     You know you can't save the world, but you can't help thinking about the
baby the U.S. adoption agency searching Russian orphanages on your behalf was
going to offer you but then didn't because her head measurements were too
small to make her a candidate for adoption. An overly small head can be
associated with fetal alcohol syndrome. You soon learn all about this
condition: How to plot head measurements on a graph; to look for Cupid's bows,
ears that stick out or are set too low. You learn how to convert grams into
pounds and centimeters into inches. You learn to overlook a diagnosis of
"perinatal encephalopathy" on a child's medical history unless it's missing.
     "In this country we use the diagnosis to mean brain damage at the time
of birth," the doctor doing my medical consult told me. "Obviously, Russian
doctors mean something quite different by this diagnosis because it's on every
medical record from Russia and eastern Europe.
     You memorize medical histories, visit medical libraries, search Medline
for explanations and prognoses of every word. And what's not there can make
the decision as hard as what is there. Other than the ubiquitous perinatal
encephalopathy, Masha's only other diagnosis was congenital myopia in her left
eye. Is that all? Nearsighted in one eye? I read the report over and over.
     "Well, it could just be that she's healthy," a friend pointed out.
     You try to hold back a little, just in case. But your heart expands
every time you look at the pictures, watch the videos. Wait for the medical
consult, you tell yourself. Wait for the answers from the orphanage to your
questions about her gestational age; her birth parents' histories, if known;
her language and social skills; comprehension. Wait, wait, wait.
     But you know this is the one. You begin to feel as if you might take off
at any moment. And then it happens--the naysayer. "She's awfully cute," said a
social worker involved in my adoption. She had been sent the same packet of
information about Masha that I had. "But I have some real concerns about her
Apgar scores. I think they could mean mental retardation."
     Of all the words to say to a prospective parent! I was devastated when I
got off the phone with her. Four years, I thought. I'll never be able to
adopt. I felt sick. I had to talk to someone else. I called every neonatal
care unit in Boston searching for a doctor, a resident, an intern, anyone to
come to the phone right now to tell me a 6/7 Apgar score was normal,
unremarkably normal, no problem, no predictor of anything whatsoever except an
incredibly normal healthy infant, breathing on her own at birth.
     Because of this woman and her label, I now have a drawer full of studies
about the use and misuse of Apgar scores; of researchers who have tried
unsuccessfully to correlate the scores with later neurological development;
about the test's utter and complete lack of predictive value.
     I became a walking encyclopedia on anything even remotely related to
Apgar. I can tell you who developed the test (Dr. Virginia Apgar), when
(1952), why (as a quick and easy measurement of an infant's condition at
birth), what the test measures (heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, reflex,
color), how the test is scored (0, 1 or 2 for each of the five measurements),
at what intervals (one minute, five minutes, and longer, as necessary). Bottom
line: The Apgar score is a quick, convenient shorthand for physicians to
assess how a baby has come through the trauma of birth. Period. I can't
understand how anyone, especially someone working in the child-welfare field,
could say the words, "mental retardation" when she obviously knew absolutely
nothing about what she was talking about.
     Slowly my relief turned to anger at this worker's ignorance and
insensitivity--for about six or seven minutes. You don't have time or room for
anger. There are too many other things to do, too many other emotions.
                           **********
     There are so many hurdles. After each one you think the finish line is
in sight. Then somebody moves it again, sets up another hurdle. Three years of
finger printing, interviews, background checks, financial statements,
references, home visits, paperwork, more paperwork, more interviews, faxes,
FedExes, phone calls, notaries, apostilles.
     I strongly urge anyone who wants to adopt a child overseas to have a
personal notary public, someone you can call on to witness your signature at
any hour, day or night. I'm not kidding. Russia is eight hours ahead of us.
They work while we sleep and sleep while we work. You should also live no
farther than a day's drive from the Statehouse. Not only does every signature
on every scrap of paper have to be notarized, but every notary's signature has
to be notarized. Only the Secretary of State can do this. It's called an
"apostille": just one of many new words you will learn. Others include I-600-
A, I-171H, I-864. You'll get used to speaking in numbers and in triplicate.
     About two years ago we started overnighting everything. Hurry up, hurry
up. Each hurdle has to be gotten over immediately because we're getting so
close...to another hurdle. At one point we had to ask Senator Kennedy's office
to try to locate my application at the INS. (He actually has a staff person
designated for this job because so many international adoption applications
get lost in that agency.) You think you've done everything, gotten every bit
of paper, every reference, every notary, every apostille; and then there's a
new request: a new power of attorney, another letter, another person to meet,
a new document request, another hurdle.
     The day the Russian judge was supposed to set my court date for the
adoption, she instead asked me to furnish proof that I was not receiving a
government pension. Never mind the financial statements, employer letters, tax
returns I had already supplied. I couldn't decide if her request was because
of my disability or my employer. Health Care For All, a nonprofit consumer
advocacy organization, where I write and produce all of the agency's
publications, does have a socialist ring to it. The judge probably thought I
worked for some kind of government agency instead of a group trying to hold
the government accountable. Having been so failed and betrayed by their own
government, no wonder the Russians were suspicious.
                           **********
     A couple of weeks after I accepted Masha, I had the good timing and
privilege of meeting in Boston the Minister of Education for Masha's region of
Russia, a small republic named Mordovia. Vasily Vasilyovich was a very sad
man, sad for his country, sad for the children who have so little future
there. Mordovia is an autonomous republic about the size of Massachusetts
located 650 kilometers southeast of Moscow. It has a population of one million
people, including 2,000 orphaned children in sixteen orphanages. Another 2,000
children are in a kind of temporary foster care. Those are the lucky kids.
There are an untold number of homeless street children. In Russian, through an
interpreter, Vasily Vasilyovich spoke movingly of his native land, the people,
the school system ("not so democratic as here; we have more strict
discipline"), and, most movingly of all, about the children. Even children in
intact families who make it all the way through the country's excellent school
system and free universities have few opportunities or jobs when they finish.
     "It is a very difficult situation," Vasily told us. "Very hard on the
teachers who are no longer being paid." With so many Russians unable to feed
their own children, let alone adopt an abandoned child, Vasily had finally,
reluctantly agreed to allow Mordovian children to be adopted internationally.
(Nations and independent republics establish their own procedures and
requirements for adoption.) But first Vasily wanted to assure himself that
Mordovian children adopted by U.S. families would be getting good homes. Last
fall he traveled to Boston and Florida to visit schools, hospitals, museums,
and Disney World and to meet American families who had already adopted Russian
children and others waiting to adopt. I made a point of going up to him to
show him pictures of Masha and to talk to him about my disability.
     "I hope I can impress upon you," I told him through an interpreter,
"that even with a handicap, if you have a strong family and friends, access to
medical care and opportunity, you can live a very full and active and
productive life." Little did I know those words would come back to haunt me.
                           **********
     Saransk, Russia, where Masha was born, is a tired, rundown, hopelessly
depressed settlement of 300,000. Despite its size and stature as the capital
of Mordovia, it's hard to call Saransk a city. There's no center, no downtown,
no stores, no supermarkets, no theaters, no nothing, no there there--just
three-, four-, and five-story cinder block apartment buildings, factories, and
government office buildings strewn along a mishmash of crumbling, unplowed
roads.
     The morning my brother David and I arrived by overnight train from
Moscow, Olga asked me what I was going to wear to court. I told her I had
brought a pair of slacks and some winter boots. (No way was I going to bring a
skirt and high heels to the Russian interior in the middle of March.) Olga was
appalled.
     "You must make a good appearance in court," she said. "Russians put a
lot of emphasis on clothes. It's not like America. Haven't you noticed how
many people wear fur coats?"
     I nodded. We had.
     Olga quickly went through my wardrobe.
     "No, no, no," she said, shaking her head at everything I pulled out.
"None of these will do. You must buy something."
     "Are the stores open on Sunday?" I asked, having just arrived and not
yet knowing there are no stores in Saransk.
     "We'll go to the market. It's not far from here."
     We shuffled over an icy, snow-covered path to an outdoor market. Olga
went from stand to stand, stopping at the ones selling skirts and shoes. It
was freezing. I tried on a couple of pairs of shoes, holding onto Olga as I
stood on one foot on an icy incline in front of a small stand. Olga said I
could try on the skirts too, but I was too cold to go behind the booth. I held
one up to my waist. It was a long black silk skirt with a slit up the back and
two long, hideous silk tie things in the front.
     "I'll take it," I said.
 ""Don't you want to try it on?" Olga asked.
     I shook my head. "It'll fit. How much?"
     Olga bartered with the shopkeeper and then selected some rubles from my
hand.
     The skirt was so small I couldn't zip it up in the back. Luckily it had
those tie things, and I wrapped them around my waist to cover up the zipper.
With nylons on (Olga refused to let me wear knee socks) the shoes were so big
they flapped when I walked.
     "You look very elegant," Olga whispered in court the next day.
     "Thank you," I said, hardly daring to breathe lest something slip.
     Later in the week Olga took David souvenir shopping, and they visited
more outdoor markets, including an open-air meat market. Fresh-slaughtered
meats were spread across tables set up in the snow. No refrigeration, no ice,
no packaging, no signs--just the butchered animal's head to advertise the
table's contents.
     Had we gone shopping earlier in the week, we might have eaten a little
more cautiously. Russia is not noted for its cuisine, haute or cold. There
were only two restaurants in Saransk, and every item on both menus contained
cabbage. There was only one hotel (the Gulag, as David called it; we couldn't
pronounce the Russian name). We were the only guests in the whole place. "I
feel like I'm in a Steven King movie," David said as we checked in.
     It was eerie. The hotel was a sort of nice (the nicest building in
Saransk) thirty-year-old concrete structure surrounded by a high barbed wire
fence with a linoleum tiled lobby, two walk-up floors of rooms, and a large
empty bar and game room with a scruffed-up pool table. We had a two-room suite
with a three-channel TV on the second floor. It had a balcony and thirty-year-
old plumbing---modern by Russian standards--that smelled so bad of mold every
time we turned on the water we gave up trying to shower. There wasn't a shower
curtain anyway. Later we learned the hotel was a government hotel built to
house visiting Soviet officials from Moscow.
     With the government in chaos and the city's once bustling factories at
about 10 percent capacity, no one comes to Saransk anymore: no one, that is,
except American families wanting to adopt abandoned Russian children. There
were eighteen American families, counting us, on the flight over to Russia to
pick up children. There were at least ten babies, counting ours, on the flight
back. It's even nicknamed the "baby flight."
     Living in Saransk must be what living in the old American West was like-
-rough, free-wheeling, and incredibly bumpy. The orphanage where Masha spent
the first two years of her life was located about sixty kilometers outside
Saransk, accessible (barely) by a narrow two-lane washed-out road lined on
both sides by six-foot snowbanks and vast expanses of empty snow-filled
fields. The road is so bad it couldn't be traveled at night, so the first time
we visited Masha--Russian law requires all adoptive parents to see their
prospective children beforehand--we had to time our trip for after her nap and
before the sun set.
     The orphanage was a two-story, wood-frame building in a small hamlet.
Entering it, I was struck by how quiet it was. Four staff members, all dressed
in white coats, greeted Olga and me and led me upstairs to a large empty room.
I recognized the room from the videos of Masha I had received. I sat on a low
bench along one side of the room. The women sat unsmiling. I felt I had
dressed all wrong again. I asked the director, a woman in her late thirties,
how many children lived at the orphanage. She replied, "Fifty-five, all under
the age of three."
     I was stunned. After a few minutes of strained chitchat in which I
described Masha's new family and her room at home, the director asked if I
would like to see her. "Yes." I could hardly breathe.
     My back was turned toward the door as I talked to one of the doctors at
the orphanage (a woman, of course--the country has the most highly educated
and professionally employed women in the world). Behind me, I could faintly
hear a steady, slow, thump, thump coming up the stairs. The thump, thump drew
nearer. I turned.
     "Eta oo Mama," the orphanage director said. Holding the director's hand,
Masha steadily made her way toward me. I knew she was small from the videos
the adoption agency had sent me, but I caught my breath at just how tiny she
really was. "Eta oo Mama," the director said again. From the thirty-word list
of phonetic Russian I had memorized before leaving Boston, I knew the director
was telling Masha, "This is your Mama."
     Masha stopped in front of me and raised her arms. I gathered her into my
lap. "Mama's here," I whispered, crying. "Mama's here."
                           **********
     Normally a Russian court hearing on a foreign adoption lasts from one to
three hours. It's not a rubber stamp, but pretty close, thanks to the intense
screening of adoptive parents done ahead of time. My court hearing in Saransk,
the capital of Mordovia, lasted eight and a half hours.
     At lunch the five of us sat subdued and depressed. Igor and Ilya, my two
Russian adoption advocates, scowled as only Russian men can. "I cannot say
what the judge will do," Ilya said, shaking his head.
     Igor was equally pessimistic. "It did not go well this morning," he
said.
     Olga just sat limp, too tired from all of the testimony of the morning
even to eat. My brother David put his arm around me and asked how I was
holding up. Despite having had nothing to eat or drink since we got up that
morning, not even a glass of water (can't drink the tap water), I had no
appetite. I ordered a cup of black coffee and listened as the others critiqued
the morning session.
     "It's fine that you have an active and productive life," Igor told me. I
winced, thinking about how hard I had tried to impress Vasily Vasilyovich back
in Boston with my productive life. "But this isn't about you," Igor continued.
"This is about how you're going to take care of a child. That's what the court
wants to hear. They are not convinced this adoption is in the child's best
interest."
     "He's right," David said. "You have to tell them how you're going to
take care of Masha."
     Ilya nodded. "It's all up to you, Linda."
     We had been in court since ten that morning. It was now 2:30, and we
were due back in court at 3. The restaurant had stopped serving lunch, and all
we could get was a half a slice of thick toasted bread topped with some
orange-colored tomatoes, ham, and cheese. By the time it came, it was time to
leave. But we had our strategy.
     Yes, I was adopting Masha alone, but no way was I in this by myself. My
brother's presence was testament to that. I had spent the morning talking
about myself. In the afternoon I would tell the court about my family--all of
them: biological, work, church, friends, neighbors, community.
     We arrived back at the courthouse feeling considerably more confident
and optimistic, only to be greeted by a surprise witness. When the man was
introduced as an eye specialist, I thought he was there to talk about Masha's
nearsightedness. A good part of the morning's testimony had focused on her
health and my willingness to adopt a child with a defect, known and unknown.
     God, these people are thorough, I thought.
     But when the mystery witness was further identified as the chief of the
glaucoma department at the local hospital, my heart sank. These people really
are thorough, I thought. My underlying eye condition is glaucoma. This wasn't
about Masha; this was about me.
     For the next hour I described to the court the history and prognosis of
my eye condition and what I can and can't see. The glaucoma specialist
listened and then offered his opinions and impressions of everything I said. I
felt it was not going well. How can you make ten glaucoma operations, one
cataract surgery, three laser procedures, no sight in one eye, and tunnel
vision in the other eye sound like no problem?
     Forget the past, I wanted to shout. For thirteen years my eyes have been
stable: no drugs, no surgery, no change. Nyet, nada, nothing.
     Finally, the prosecutor in the case, who was there to represent Masha's
interests, asked me to walk over and open the door to the courtroom without
using my white cane. "When Linda opened the door, I knew everything was going
to be all right," Igor said later.
     Not quite. I had convinced the court my disability did not prevent me
from opening and closing doors. I still had to convince a skeptical judge and
hostile prosecutor that my disability would not prevent me from raising a two-
year-old. After the glaucoma specialist left, I again stood up and, in two-
sentence intervals so Olga could more easily translate, told the court about
my family--Masha's family. I told about my work family, how my coworkers had
raised more than $200 to give to Masha's orphanage. I described my friends,
their generosity and interest, my neighbors, my plans to hire a Russian nanny
to take care of Masha during the day when I was working so that she could keep
her language and I could learn it. Finally I sat down. Ilya asked if my
brother David could also address the court. The judge, a woman of about sixty,
nodded, and David got up and told her that initially our family had had the
same concerns as the court about my adopting a child. "But we talked about it,
and we're behind her 100 percent," he said.
     When the judge called for another recess, our side milled together, not
quite high-fiving, but close. "We're a second half team," David said.
     "More like ninth inning," Igor said.
     "Fourth quarter in basketball," Ilya added.
     Actually, overtime was more like it. When the judge at last ruled the
adoption final at 6:30 p.m., it was dark and the courthouse long since
deserted. We hugged each other and posed for pictures under the court seal. At
dinner that night we celebrated with vodka, Russian-style: straight up.
                           **********
     The day after our marathon court hearing we again made the wild ride
over the stage coach road to the orphanage to pick up Masha forever. About
halfway there we narrowly averted a head-on collision with an oncoming double
bus. Russians are notorious drivers. Fortunately our driver was also skillful,
and we nearly squeaked past the bus. But we got caught in the ruts, and the
second bus slid into our lane, smashing into the side of our car. By the time
the military came to investigate and write up a report on the accident, we had
held up traffic in both directions for more than two hours. The sun was low in
the sky; reluctantly we turned around and headed back to Saransk. "Don't
worry, Masha," I thought. "We're going to get you. It's just taking a little
longer than usual."
     Halfway back to Saransk we met another car sent by Igor and Ilya, who
had heard about our accident over their cell phones. We clambered out of the
first car and into the second and again took off for the orphanage. It was
nearly 4 p.m. when we arrived. We had several documents that needed to be
signed and exchanged, so David went to get Masha while I stayed with the
director and Olga to complete the paperwork.
     Masha had no clothes of her own in which to leave the orphanage. I had
been warned this would likely be the case and had brought everything she
needed. She couldn't even take her doll. With fifty-four other kids all under
the age of three, many of them handicapped, the staff obviously did not want
to part with anything.
     We presented our gifts, clothes and toys, and treats for the kids, some
personal items for the staff, and the $200 in cash my coworkers had donated to
the orphanage; took down the address of the orphanage to send pictures and
letters and all the other clothes for the kids we couldn't bring with us; and
then posed for a quick picture. The three staff who were there came down to
say good-bye to Masha, taking turns holding her and talking softly to her in
Russian. She was quiet. The only tears were in the eyes of the adults. We then
took her and left.
     Our entire stay had lasted less than fifteen minutes. We got back into
the car and headed home to America.
                           **********
                           **********
                   The Blind Lead the Sighted
             Technology for People With Disabilities
                     Finds a Broader Market
                         by Eric A. Taub
                           **********
     From the Editor: The following article appeared in the New York Times,
on Thursday, October 28, 1999. It provides a broader historic and social
perspective on technology for blind people than does most writing on the
subject. Here it is:
                           **********
     Gregg Vanderheiden regularly washes his own clothes, but unlike most
people he never loses any socks. He is immune to that modern plague because he
uses sock sorters, small plastic rings that keep each pair together in the
laundry. "I haven't had a mismatched or incomplete pair in years,"
Vanderheiden said.
     While this minor invention seems a perfect product for a Lillian Vernon
catalogue, it was actually created for and originally marketed by
organizations for the blind, to help those without sight keep their matching
socks together in the dresser drawer.
     Sock sorters are not the only invention that has migrated to the general
population. Some of life's more mundane innovations, including cut-down curbs
and large-handled can openers, have come about as solutions for the disabled.
     But so have many more sophisticated, high-technology inventions, like
computer scanners and optical character recognition software. And like many
such innovations, their usefulness to the rest of society has usually been
realized only over time.
     When Thomas Edison filed his patent for the phonograph in 1877, he
listed ten uses for the machine. "Phonograph books, which will speak to blind
people without effort on their part," was second; music was fourth.
     Closed-captioned television, created to help the deaf, has become
ubiquitous in the nation's health clubs, allowing people to watch soap operas
or news shows while they work out. Descriptive audio tracks--secondary audio
programs that provide summaries of a television show to help the blind follow
the action--are popular with home workers who want to keep abreast of a show's
developments but cannot always stare at the screen.
     What type of person devises such solutions for what are for most people
life's minor problems? "Football players don't invent jar openers because they
have no trouble opening jars," said Vanderheiden, head of the University of
Wisconsin's Trace Center, which researches ways to improve access for the
disabled to information and telecommunications systems. "It takes somebody who
can't live with the way the world currently is to create a new invention."
     Or somebody in love with that type of person, like Pellegrino Turri. In
Italy in 1808, Turri invented a machine to help his lover, the blind Countess
Carolina Fantoni, write letters to him.
     That typewriting device was not needed for the seeing population because
upper-class, literate people had the time to write letters, using quill pens.
Writing with a quill was a difficult task for the blind, who could not know if
their writing was uniform or if the quill was running out of ink.
     During the early 1900's, Turri in Italy and Ralph Wedgwood in England,
working separately, each created carbon paper. Turri's paper worked with a
typewriting machine. Wedgwood's invention, patented in 1806, allowed the blind
to write without worrying about whether the pen had ink--a metal stylus could
be used instead. By 1823 carbon paper was being marketed in the United States
as a general business product.
     Of all the disabilities it is blindness that has led to most of the
technological innovations that have later migrated to the general population.
"Blindness is often an absolute, in a way that deafness isn't," Vanderheiden
said. "Changing from an acoustic to a visual world is not as hard as the
opposite."
     Raymond C. Kurzweil, developer of the first practical optical character
recognition software, said: "Blind people are early adapters. They have a much
more pressing need for new technology. Even if it's not perfected technology,
it still provides a useful sensory aid."
     Kurzweil said a blind person had once explained to him that the only
real handicap for blind people was their complete lack of access to print.
Kurzweil used his expertise to create the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first
device that gave the blind the ability to have printed material read to them
by a machine, in 1976.
     The machine combined the first charge-coupled device flat-bed scanner
with optical character recognition software and a text-to-speech voice
synthesizer. The scanner transfers the printed document into the machine, the
OCR software translates the words into recognizable text, and the synthesizer
translates that text into understandable spoken English.
     The reading machine wasn't perfect; it couldn't recognize every word.
But that was not a fatal flaw. "We didn't need 100 percent accuracy because a
human can always detect errors and make corrections in the mind," Kurzweil
said.
     It was the strong demand from the blind that made this product
successful, Kurzweil said. "We always knew that there were commercial
applications for scanners (OCR) and text-to-speech software and that prices
would eventually come down," he said. "But if we had pursued the commercial
market initially, we might not have succeeded."
     Today text-to-speech software lets the blind read text on Web sites and
in e-mail. But while some functions are newly accessible, the popularity of
graphically rich Web sites and operating systems like Windows and Mac OS has
actually reduced the ability of blind people to use a personal computer.
     Microsoft, for one, understands that, in its attempts to make the
Windows operating system easier to use, it has actually made the system more
difficult to use for a significant minority. To ease accessibility problems,
the company has charged a staff of forty full-time employees with insuring
that its products--from Windows to Office--can be mastered by people with
physical disabilities.
     Software and Web site developers are encouraged to embed hidden
descriptive text in their programs so text-to-speech software can read the
graphics to people with limited vision. "We're enforcing stricter requirements
for those who want to use our Windows logo on software packaging," said Luanne
LaLonde, the product manager for Microsoft in the accessibility and
disabilities group. "People will need to follow our accessibility rules."
     Thanks to those standards, Word and Excel users can magnify their
screens and increase the size of their toolbars, both features first perfected
for the visually impaired. Similarly, while the ability to create customized
keyboard shortcuts as substitutes for various computer commands is now taken
for granted, that concept was in fact originally developed to help those with
physical disabilities find keys they could easily use.
     The World Wide Web Consortium has developed a set of accessibility
guidelines to help the visually impaired easily read Web sites; for example,
every button on a Web page should have accurate and appropriately descriptive
text tags. Otherwise, clicking on a button marked Search on a site might
prompt text-to-speech software to say only "button."
     Marti McCuller, a legally blind Web site developer, was frustrated by
her difficulty in navigating through search engines. "My text-to-speech
software let me read the various search sites," she said, "but they often put
so many links on a page it became hard to use."
     That is because the blind, even with text-reading software, cannot
glance at a page. There is no way for them to get a quick visual overview of a
site's contents and make mental notes about where it would be worthwhile
clicking and exploring later. Rather the blind must laboriously click from
line to line, determining by a process of elimination where they want to go.
     As a solution Ms. McCuller created her own search engine
(www.seti-search.com), an amalgam of other search sites that does not force
the user to move slowly around the site and wade through advertisements to
find the right place to enter a query.
     Search words are entered at the top of the page, and appropriate links
are displayed above all other material as well. Users do not need to tab
through extraneous material.
     The search engine has become popular with the sighted as well as the
blind. "Those who can see like the fact that there are no ads getting in the
way of their information," Ms. McCuller said.
     Text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies, staple tools of the
blind, have become integral parts of a new generation of software that allows
consumers to retrieve their e-mail by phone, program household devices, and
speak to business colleagues around the world even though they speak different
languages.
     The Clarion Corporation uses speech-to-text software originally
developed by Kurzweil and licensed from the Lernout and Hauspie Corporation
for Auto PC, an in-car computer that responds to voice commands and reads
e-mail and other information.
     Jfax.com utilizes text-to-speech software to give consumers the ability
to hear their phone messages, e-mail, and eventually their faxes over the
telephone. The service is popular with business people and others who are
often not near a computer, said the company's president, Gary Hickox. In the
future a customer will be able to dictate a letter over the phone and have it
sent as an e-mail text message.
     Lernout and Hauspie has demonstrated its new simultaneous translation
system, which with just a one-second delay allows the user to speak in English
and have the words translated into another language in a grammatically correct
manner with a natural-sounding voice.
     Voice-to-text software translates the words into machine-readable text,
which text-to-text software translates. Text-to-voice software simulates the
sounds of the other language, using the company's RealSpeak speech-synthesis
software.
     "Fifteen to twenty years from now voice input and output for computers
could be the norm," said Greg Lowney, Microsoft's director for accessibility.
     A restaurant filled with diners talking into their voice-activated
pocket-size devices may be the price for society's attempt to extend the
fruits of the technological revolution to all.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Debbie Stein]
                       Roommates From Hell
              by Debbie Kent Stein and Anne Emerick
                           **********
     From the Editor: Debbie Kent Stein is First Vice President of the NFB of
Illinois. She is also a distinguished writer and reviewer. She became a
student at Oberlin College while I was still an undergraduate. If I had
bothered to get to know her, I might well have been able to help her and her
roommate, but I had not yet met the National Federation of the Blind, so I
worked hard to avoid other blind people because I didn't think I had much in
common with them. It never occurred to me that I could learn from them and
they from me.
     All this is a healthy reminder to me of how much we all have to learn
and how much pain we can inflict on others simply by refusing to reach out to
each other in the spirit of friendship.
     The following article is mostly the transcription of an agenda item at
the student seminar that took place at the 1999 convention of the NFB of
Illinois. It begins with an introduction by Debbie Kent Stein:.
                           **********
     In July, 1998, I received a brief and startling letter from my former
college roommate. We had spent a difficult, painful freshman year together and
had successfully avoided each other for the rest of our college careers. Now
my roommate had written me a letter after thirty-two years of silence. At
midlife she was looking back at the past. She wondered if we might reconnect
and look from this distance at what had happened between us. That letter led
to months of e-mail correspondence and finally to an exchange of visits. We
unwound many tangled threads of the past, making amends to each other and
trying to understand that crucial first year away from home. At the 1999 NFB
of Illinois student seminar my former roommate and I had the opportunity to
share some of our reflections with a new generation of college students.
                           **********
           NFB of Illinois Student Seminar Transcript
                           **********
October 22, 1999
Moderator: Nicole Gleason, President, NFB-I Student Chapter:
                           **********
     Moving on to our next panel, Debbie Stein is going to touch on a topic
that, as far as I know, has never been addressed at our student seminars
before. This panel will be about the challenges of living with college
roommates. So Debbie Stein.
     Debbie Stein: Nicole and I have been kicking around the idea of this
discussion for the last six months or so. A couple of things led me to suggest
living with roommates as a possible seminar topic. One was a discussion I had
recently with a blind friend who was reflecting on her college years. When she
started college, my friend told the Dean of Students that she wanted a single
room. She didn't want a roommate during her freshman year. She knew that she
would be struggling to learn a lot of new things; she would have a lot of
skills to master. If she had a roommate, everyone would expect that person to
take care of her, to be her mother in absentia. Her roommate might have the
same expectation and feel obligated to do a lot of caregiving. As a blind
student on an unfamiliar campus, my friend knew she could fall into this trap
and that it would be hard to fight her way out. Her solution was to avoid this
whole messy dynamic by requesting a room to herself.
     I was very impressed by the level of awareness my friend had shown at
such a young age and by how well she had thought things through. I have to say
that I went into college having given virtually no thought whatsoever to my
living arrangements. I did make the concession to write to my assigned
roommate ahead of time. At my college the entering freshmen were given the
name and address of their future roommates during the summer.
     I wrote to my roommate in August, and I decided that maybe it would be a
good time to inform her that I'm blind. I was encouraged to reveal this by
some blind students whom I had met. Otherwise I probably wouldn't even have
thought of that. I figured that, since blindness wasn't a big deal for me, why
should it be a big deal for anybody else?
     So I wrote my letter and went blithely off to college to live for an
entire year with a total stranger. When you think about it, this is a pretty
unnatural thing to do. It's probably the only time in your life when you will
ever do such a thing. The closest parallel I can think of would be an arranged
marriage. But in an arranged marriage at least you have a whole house to
rattle around in, hopefully. When you go off to live with a college roommate,
you're going to be sharing a little two-by-four cubbyhole.
     For the first couple of weeks my roommate and I seemed to get along just
fine. Since neither of us knew anyone else, we did a lot of things together.
But as time went on, I noticed that some tension seemed to be developing. My
roommate was less friendly as time went by, a little more distant, a little
more uncommunicative. I didn't know what was the matter, and I really didn't
have the confidence and the social skills to ask what was wrong. I only sensed
that a chill was deepening between us day by day.
     In retrospect it's quite clear to me where our problems began. I was
quite shy. I didn't know many people yet, and I didn't know my way around. My
roommate would offer to help me. She would offer to run errands for me, and it
was all too easy to accept that kind of help. If she said, "I'm walking over
to the bookstore, do you want me to pick up your book for you?" I'd say, "Oh,
sure, okay." It was easier to accept that kind of help than to figure out how
to ask for help that would have made a real difference. I could have asked her
to show me where the bookstore was. Then I could have gone ahead and gotten my
own book, maybe even offered to pick one up for her sometime.
     Instead a very negative syndrome developed. I found myself expecting
help. My roommate found herself feeling that her help was expected and even
required. In fact, the other people we knew in the dorm seemed to have the
same sense of it. They acted as though I needed care and my roommate was
supposed to provide it for me. Maybe they felt a little sorry for her, but
there was nothing to be done about it; that was the situation she was in.
     Actually I think the whole thing was almost a set-up from the beginning.
I sometimes wondered why the powers that be selected the two of us to live
together. Supposedly roommates were matched according to interests, majors,
and other similarities. Well, my roommate and I had almost nothing in common,
as far as interests and talents went. We were very different people. But she
had been very involved in Girl Scouts all through elementary and high school.
What could be a better match, right? (laughter). She could help me across the
street! (laughter) Well, a very harmful pattern got established. If she did
something for me once, we both seemed to assume she would keep doing it again
and again. For instance, the first time she did her laundry, she offered to do
mine too. I guess I was a fairly typical seventeen-year-old kid. Someone's
offering to do my laundry for me? "Okay! If you want to do it, go right
ahead!" Rather than getting somebody to show me how the washer and dryer
worked, rather than labeling the gadgets on the machines, I was depending on
my roommate to wash my clothes for me!
     I finally got a major jolt when my roommate casually dropped the comment
that she had five things to do for me that day. That really brought me up
short! I realized I had to rethink the way I was doing things. I started to
see what this whole dependency syndrome was. That wake-up call got me to begin
mending my ways. But by then we were really in trouble. My roommate had weeks
of built-up resentment and anger. Our communication had deteriorated.
     What began as coolness grew into all-out silence. My roommate didn't
speak to me, which therefore made it very hard for me to speak to her. After a
while I didn't even try any more. The situation was intolerable and unlivable,
but neither of us knew how to change it. Basically we just toughed it out for
the rest of the year, in a complete communication vacuum, sharing our little
two-by-four cubbyhole.
     Looking back, I can certainly suggest some things to college students
today, whether you're rooming with somebody straight out of the blue as a
freshman or with someone you chose yourself later on. Any roommate situation
can be difficult at times. For starters, be careful to avoid getting into a
dependency situation. The familiar proverb about fishing comes to my mind: if
you give someone a fish, you feed him one meal; if you teach someone to fish,
he can feed himself for a lifetime. You don't want people giving you a lot of
fish. You want to learn how to catch your own. If somebody offers to walk you
to class one day and you don't ask about landmarks and street names, the next
day you'll need somebody to walk you to class again. You need to learn to fish
right from the beginning. That can really help prevent dependency from the
start.
     Another crucial piece, I think, is to keep communication open. That is
true in any human relationship, and one human relationship that can be really
sticky is living with a roommate. When you sense a problem developing, try to
open communication.
     It might be very hard for the other person to talk, especially if the
problem is in any way related to your blindness. Your roommate might be very
uncomfortable bringing such a topic out in the open. The onus really falls on
the blind student to try to break down the silence before it sets in. Once you
slide into a situation in which neither of you is speaking, it is very, very
hard to undo the damage.
     You always have the option of doing as my blind friend did her freshman
year. You can decide to room by yourself. I don't know that that is the best
option, at least not for everyone. Living with a roommate is an experience
like no other. It offers a unique opportunity for learning and growth. But it
can certainly be a challenge.
     Before I open up to questions, I'd like to introduce somebody who's here
with me today. Anne Emerick is out in the audience, and she was my college
freshman roommate. (applause) You're on, lady!
                           **********
     Anne Emerick: It is indeed an honor to be here.
     I think back to thirty-three years ago when I was about to go off to
college. I was filled with curiosity about what lay ahead of me and wondered
what my life was going to be like. I don't think I expected a letter from my
future roommate, but in fact I got one--the letter that Debbie just told you
about.
     I opened it with excitement. I am a sighted person, and when I read that
she was blind, a clutch of panic came over me. I'd never known a blind person
in my entire life. The very thought terrified me.
     When I think back to the fear I experienced, I can touch it when I
recall how I feel when I hear that a friend has been diagnosed with cancer. I
don't know how long she's going to live, and I don't know how much pain she's
going to suffer. When I opened that letter, I had the same fear of the
unknown. I had no idea what blind people were about.
     Debbie was the first blind person I had ever met. When we got to
college, I asked and learned bits about her life and tried to understand what
it was like to be blind. And yes, at first Debbie was my friend. I offered
assistance to her liberally at the beginning. As time went by, our
communication went awry over dependency issues. Soon I felt I was being taken
for granted. I became angry, but I didn't talk about it. I moved into indirect
communication. I would relay messages to Debbie through a friend in common,
rather than speak to her myself. Of course this was totally absurd. Yet that's
what I did.
     I believe I took my discomfort with Debbie's dependency and blamed
everything that was wrong between us totally on her blindness. My discomfort
with blindness moved into fear. I made a very illogical leap. Somehow I took
my fear of Debbie's blindness and put it upon myself. I was afraid of becoming
blind. I've always been very athletic--I was then, and I am now. I thought I
couldn't possibly be athletic if I were to become blind. Now I realize that's
utter nonsense. But back then, as a college freshman, I was sure that, if I
were blind, I would be completely worthless, without value because I couldn't
do the athletic things that were such a major part of my life.
     When I started college, independence was my god. I thought that to reach
out for help meant you were a failure. I couldn't ask for help. It was simply
not modeled in my family. It's hard enough to seek physical help at times, but
it is even more difficult to ask for help in the emotional world.
     I didn't reach out when my relationship with my roommate went awry. My
fear of blindness made our communication even more impenetrable. It froze my
tongue. I went silent. I pretended her existence away. I pretended her away
for most of the school year. With small exceptions this amounted to at least
six months of full out glacial silence. It was deeply wounding to both of us.
Unspoken fears reverberate. They amplify.
     If I have one word of advice for anybody heading off to college, about
to room with an unknown person, it is to find your voice. It's not easy to
find the confidence to speak up when you sense something is wrong. But you
need to do that. You need to speak up and ask at the merest whiff of trouble.
Ask, ask: how can I do things differently? Be proactive, and suggest options
yourself. Riding into town today, I heard a lovely song that has a wonderful
phrase in it. The phrase was "kindling of fear." Fear can act like kindling.
It can rise up into a brushfire and obliterate communication. Speak up early,
at the very first sign of fear. Waiting invites ugly patterns, invites
problems to become entrenched.
     The words "conflict resolution" mean a lot to me. When I went to
college, I had zero concept of what they meant. I had never even heard that
term. Thank the spirits, human beings can learn, can do things differently.
Conflict resolution is really nothing other than common sense--to listen to
each other's hard truths and work toward a solution. It is almost always
easier to listen fairly when there is a referee, since this ensures that the
conversation will be balanced. That gets dialog going. Dialog is the opposite
of silence, and it can provide the solutions you need. So if you have a
conflict and direct questions don't help, get a third party involved.
     Ask for help immediately. Asking for help is not failure. For most of us
the hardest part is to speak honestly about your own anger, your own
discomfort. Our culture is laden with signals that one is not allowed to
acknowledge, let alone talk about--negative feelings. No wonder Debbie and I
got into such a mess. To prevent communication glitches, it is a requirement
to be able to talk about and listen to negative feelings when they come up. I
needed to say I was angry and to explain why. Then it would have been my turn
to listen to Debbie. Speaking up is one hard part. The second hard part is
really to listen, even when what is being said is critical of you. This is
terribly difficult to do.
     I know this is not necessarily a miracle cure. Speaking and listening
might not work. You might not be able to straighten out a mess if
communication has gone too far adrift. You might need to reach outside and
seek help from an adult--from someone at your school, from your family, or
from the NFB. And that might not help either. You might have to request a
different roommate or even ask for a single room.
     The point is that there are options. You don't need to be trapped. And
asking for help, again, is not a sign of failure. It's a sign of maturity.
Silence serves no one. It should not be tolerated. It is a weapon, and it is a
form of abuse.
     Well, I can give you all the advice in the world to speak up; it took me
thirty-two years to do it myself!
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Ed Bryant]
            Talking Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems
                          by Ed Bryant
                           **********
     From the Editor: Ed Bryant is President of the Diabetes Action Network
and editor of its quarterly publication, Voice of the Diabetic.
     The following article first appeared in Voice of the Diabetic, Volume
14, No. 2, Spring, 1999, and was updated in July, 1999, and January, 2000.
Because diabetes management is an important topic to all those interested in
increasing the independence of blind people, we reprint it here. This is what
Ed Bryant says:
                           **********
     As editor of the Voice of the Diabetic, I am often asked about the
relative strengths and weaknesses of the various voice-enunciation-equipped
home blood glucose monitors available today. Although individuals have their
preferences, there is no best talking glucose meter; no one monitoring system
is ideal for everyone. Features, prices, convenience, and clarity of
instructions vary, and new equipment periodically appears.
     Although many companies make blood glucose monitors and some of these
display their results in large print, only four currently available meters
allow voice enunciation, in which the device's voice synthesizer actually
speaks the meter's instructions and test results.
                           **********
                           Highlights
                           **********
     My personal favorite is the Accu-Chek Voicemate. This talking meter,
which incorporates the proven Accu-Chek Advantage into a system designed and
built by Roche Diagnostics, is the most advanced on the market today and the
easiest for a blind person to use. Its new Comfort Curve test strip allows
quick and reliable nonsighted placement of the blood sample. No more hanging
drop of blood--just smear or dab it on; the strip sticks well out of the
meter, and you just find the tactile cutout on the side. Even if you have
fairly severe neuropathy in your hands, this feature should make it easy to
find the blood placement spot. And blood never drips onto the meter--so there
is far less need to clean it. Its voice is clear and understandable. The
Voicemate includes two completely new features: 1) code-key system for
calibrating the meter to a new set of strips (no more numbers to punch in),
making this the only talking meter a blind person can calibrate without any
sighted aid at all; and 2) an insulin-vial identifier. If you use Eli Lilly
insulins new enough to be bar-coded (1/2001 expiration date or later), insert
them into the special opening, follow the spoken directions, and the machine
will identify the type of Humulin insulin you are testing. (If your insulins
are not bar-coded or not from Eli Lilly, the Voicemate's other features will
still function properly.
     Past Boehringer-Mannheim meters (Roche has purchased B-M) were available
only through company representatives. The new Voicemate can be ordered through
any pharmacist. Have your pharmacist contact Roche Diagnostics, telephone
(800) 428-5076, and ask for catalog #2030802.
     The LifeScan One Touch meters--the Profile, and the now-discontinued One
Touch II--are often adapted to voice synthesis. These two meters use the same
procedures and test strips and feature the same detachable test-strip holder.
Both require a hanging drop of blood. Both meters are accurate, but their
operating drill makes them difficult for some users. Both accept talk boxes,
but voice synthesizers designed for the One Touch II will not operate with the
Profile and vice versa.
     The voice boxes, speech synthesizer modules that plug into the meter's
data port and provide its voice, are not made by LifeScan, but by several
competing firms, described below. These manufacturers have been producing
voice units for the old One Touch II and updated versions for use with the
Profile. If you already have a LifeScan One Touch II or Profile, no
modifications are needed to allow use of one of the speech synthesizers. If
you do not yet own a LifeScan monitor, shop around, because some pharmacies
and major discount stores sell glucose monitors substantially below list
price.
                           **********
            Talking Glucose Monitors and Voice Boxes
                           **********
     1)   The Accu-Chek Voicemate talking glucose monitor:Roche
Diagnostics Corporation, 9115 Hague Road, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-0100,
telephone (800) 428-5076.
     The Accu-Chek Voicemate, developed in cooperation with Eli Lilly and
Company, incorporates the Accu-Chek Advantage glucose monitor. The Voicemate
is small, portable, and weighs only twelve-and-a-half ounces. It contains a
bar-code reader to describe insulin type (Lilly insulins only). First offered
for sale in 1998, the Voicemate is supplied with a new test strip, the Comfort
Curve, which vastly simplifies the problem of blood-sample placement. Very
good audiocassette and large-print instructions are supplied (in English).
Suggested retail $495-$525, available through your pharmacist. Spanish-
language customer service is available. Purchase price includes a carrying bag
with adjustable strap.
                           **********
     Note: The National Federation of the Blind Materials Center now sells
the Accu-Chek Voicemate for $475, the lowest price on record. Contact
Materials Center, National Center for the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street,
Baltimore, Maryland 21230, telephone (410) 659-9314. 
                           **********
     2)   The Voice-Touch speech synthesizers, for the LifeScan One Touch II
or LifeScan Profile: Myna Corporation, 239 Western Avenue, Essex,
Massachusetts 01929, telephone (978) 768-9000.
     Myna makes a pair of light, compact, convenient, and reliable glucose
meter speech modules. The two models are not interchangeable. The Voice-Touch
modules attach firmly to the meter, adding little bulk and forming a single,
reliable unit. There are no separate switches to remember; the modules operate
off the controls of the LifeScan monitor. The user may choose male or female
voice. A Spanish-speaking Voice-Touch is now available.
     The Myna Corporation offers the Voice-Touch speech synthesizers for $225
for One Touch II or Profile, the LifeScan meters alone for $135 (One Touch II)
or $109 (Profile). An optional AC adapter is offered, as is a carrying case,
$15 each. Myna's instructional cassettes and large-print instructions clearly
explain the speech modules but do not describe operation of the LifeScan
glucose monitors.
     The LifeScan One Touch meters and Voice-Touch speech synthesizers are
also offered by the National Federation of the Blind, Materials Center, 1800
Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, telephone (410) 659-9314.
     Note: The Materials Center is open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., weekdays,
Eastern Time. The NFB offers the combination (One Touch II meter plus voice
module) for $309, the lowest price for a talking glucose monitor in the U.S.;
the voice module alone for $189 (specify whether for One Touch II or Profile),
or the glucose meter alone for $120 (one Touch II) or $135 (Profile). An
optional AC adapter costs $12.
                           **********
     3)   The Digi-Voice modules: Science Products, Box 888, Southeastern,
Pennsylvania 19399, telephone (800) 888-7400.
     Science Products makes several versions of its robust and reliable Digi-
Voice speech module: The Digi-Voice Deluxe, and the smaller Mini Digi-Voice.
Voice boxes designed for the One Touch II will not operate with the Profile
and vice versa. The Digi-Voice modules connect to the meter by a twenty-two-
inch patch cord, providing audio output for its readings. Controls are simple;
on the Deluxe a volume control knob and a toggle switch run the voice
synthesizer, separate from the monitor's controls. The Mini's single button
both turns on the voice box and adjusts the volume control, again, separate
from the meter's controls. Readings are announced in a clear, somewhat
military, male voice. Thorough cassette instructions explain the voice box and
briefly cover the Profile meter (Science Products' instructional cassettes do
not cover operation of the One Touch II glucose monitor). No large-print
instructions are supplied. Science Products sells the Digi-Voice Deluxe module
alone for $275 and the Mini Digi-Voice modules alone for $199 (9-volt battery)
or $219 (with AC adapter). They offer the LifeScan Profile glucose monitor for
$120. The One Touch II meter is no longer available.
     Science Products also now offers Digi-Voice modules for the later
version of the LifeScan SureStep blood glucose monitor. The later version
features a data-port for downloading to a home computer. The Digi-Voice talk
boxes access to the same port. The Digi-Voice module for the SureStep is not
interchangeable with the similarly-named modules for the One Touch meters. Be
sure to specify which.
                           **********
     4)   The LHS7 Module, a voice box for the LifeScan Profile: LS&S Group,
P.O. Box 673, Northbrook, Illinois 60065, telephone (800) 468-4789.
     The small and light LHS7 attaches to the bottom of the Profile glucose
meter by means of a Velcro patch and operates through the meter's controls.
Two-position volume control (loud and soft); AC adapter included in purchase
price. English-language voice only; no audiocassette or large-print
instructions are provided. Cost $199, or $313 with a new Profile meter.
                           **********
     5)   Connecting Cables for Adaptive Computers: Blazie Engineering, 105
E. Jarrettsville Road, Forest Hill, Maryland 21050, telephone: (410) 893-9333
     Users of Blazie's adaptive computers can connect these machines to the
LifeScan One Touch II or Profile by plugging into the meter's data port with
the appropriate adaptive cable (such as the Blazie BNS-6). With the
appropriate software (available free from Blazie; One Touch II users need no
software), their notetakers will speak the LifeScan meter's commands and
results.                        
**********
     6)  The Diascan Partner talking glucose monitor:  Formerly made by Home
Diagnostics, Inc., it is out of production and unavailable.
                           **********
                            Medicare
                           **********
     Medicare recognizes home blood glucose monitors as Durable Medical
Equipment, and coverage is provided for diabetics under Medicare Part B.
Glucose meters without audio output have one specification on the Fee Schedule
(EO607), and glucose meters with voice synthesis or add-on voice boxes for
home blood glucose monitors have another (EO609) available to diabetics who
are at least legally blind. Be sure to follow all guidelines for
reimbursement.
                           **********
                 An Invitation to Manufacturers
                           **********
     Currently available talk boxes (speech synthesizers) make use of the
same data port installed in the meter to allow interfacing with and
downloading to a computer. For many monitors the hardware is already in place,
and adding speech compatibility should be a simple process. The National
Federation of the Blind urges manufacturers to go the rest of the distance and
make talking versions of their monitors available to those diabetics who need
and want them. NFB Resolution 97-12 (adopted at the 1997 annual convention in
New Orleans, Louisiana) calls on monitor manufacturers to make their meters
speech-compatible.
                           **********
                         Hints and Tips
                           **********
     A. If an insufficient amount of blood is placed on the test strip, most
meters will indicate "not enough blood." You may even have to prick your
finger again. There are several possible explanations for this frustrating
occurrence.
     The initial drop of blood may have been too small; some folks don't
bleed enough. They can get more blood by holding hands below waist level for
about fifteen seconds, shaking them, or soaking them in warm water for a few
minutes before the test. Warm water stimulates the flow of blood to the
fingers. A slightly longer lancet with deeper penetration may help some.
Milking the finger (squeezing it gently) can also help, as can wrapping a
doubled rubber band between the first and second joints of the finger to be
lanced. This will help cause the finger to become engorged with blood. Hold
the rubber band down with the thumb while lancing. Remove the band as soon as
you lance.
     Doctors and diabetes educators who treat heart patients have noted that
prophylactic aspirin therapy, an enteric-coated aspirin a day to thin the
blood and reduce risk of a heart attack, makes it easier for their diabetic
patients to obtain a blood sample. If you are a difficult bleeder, the same
therapy with enteric-coated aspirin might help you too. Be sure to talk to
your primary-care doctor about aspirin and to your eye doctor as well because
blood thinners like enteric aspirin can increase the risk of retinopathy.
     B. There may have been enough blood, but it was placed on the wrong part
of the test strip: Some folks bleed fast and may lose the blood drop from the
finger before they are ready. By the time they get the finger to the test
strip, the blood has fallen in the wrong place. A fast bleeder needs to work
closer to the test strip and perhaps to employ one of the blood placement aids
discussed in this article. Users of the Diascan Partner should try bending up
the tail of the test strip as an aid to location and placement. If you are new
to your meter, I suggest you test in front of your diabetes educator or
someone else familiar with your meter--perhaps there is some part of the drill
you could do better.
     C. Some enthusiastic people press down too hard when placing the blood
on the strip and push the blood out of its correct position, shoving it onto
the wrong part of the strip. If you use the LifeScan One Touch II or Profile,
it is best to deposit a hanging drop of blood onto the test strip very gently.
Marla Bernbaum, Maryland, writing in The ADEVIP Monitor, offered the following
suggestion pertinent to diabetics with severe neuropathy (who wouldn't feel
the otherwise painful fingertip stick she discusses here):
     I have discovered another way to apply blood to the LifeScan test strip,
which has been useful for several of our patients. This method allows them to
stick the tip rather than the side of the finger. We use the same platform
modification [described below], with a dot of Hi-Marks or T-shirt paint on
each side of the strip guide near the depression where the blood is to be
applied. For this approach the meter should be turned sideways. The patient
can then place the pad of the finger on the raised dot perpendicular to the
length of the strip and rock the finger forward so that the tip of the finger
lines up with the depression on the strip and deposits the blood droplet in
the appropriate place. This method increases the portion of the fingertip that
can be used and is preferable for some patients, particularly for those who
bleed slowly and therefore must place the blood drop in precisely the right
location.
                           **********
                     LifeScan Modifications
                           **********
     If you use any of the LifeScan One-Touch series glucose meters, some
blood placement problems can be solved by modification of the test strip
holder (LifeScan Part #043-123: this same part fits all LifeScan One-Touch
meters). The idea is simply to provide tactile locating aids for finger
location and placement of the blood sample on the test strip. A raised dot on
either side of the test strip will work for some, but diabetics with limited
sensation in the fingertips may find a U-shaped guide more useful. Most
diabetics puncture the side of a fingertip, but those with severe neuropathy,
who can't feel the lancet and who prick the center of the fingertip, may be
helped by the U-shaped guide. With practice and the use of such tactile cues,
blind diabetics can correctly place blood samples on the test strip.
(Editor's Note: Thanks to Ann S. Williams, RN, MSN, CDE, for providing the
modified LifeScan Test Strip Holders shown here.)
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Modified LifeScan test strip guides]
[PHOTO/CAPTION: (left to right): Sure Drop (on Profile meter), Waco-U-Finger
Guide, Smart Dot (on One Touch II meter)]
     The test strip holder is detachable, and modifications as described will
in no way interfere with the operation, accuracy, or cleaning of the LifeScan
meter. LifeScan's Technical Services Department (phone: (800) 227-8862) will
provide a spare test strip holder upon request without charge. We recommend
that the modifications be made to this spare.
     The dots and U-shaped ridge were created with T-shirt paint, of the type
that stands up sharply from a fabric surface. Upon application, the paint
spreads a little, so apply sparingly. Best results come from tack-painting,
applying a small amount, then letting it dry (minimum twelve hours), with
subsequent applications to build up the height. Practice first on some other
material (posterboard or paper plate), since the paint can extrude quickly. Be
sure to have the test strip holder off the meter when applying the T-shirt
paint. For best results insert a test strip in the holder as an aid to
placement of the dots or U-shaped ridge. T-shirt paint is inexpensive and is
available at most craft and fabric stores. Although a full spectrum of colors
is available, bright, contrasting colors like orange may aid those with low
vision. Brands and types vary; find one that gives you a hard, tactile ridge.
Some paints feel too rubbery. Puff paint flakes off too easily. You may have
to experiment.
     Several vendors offer commercial alternatives to modifying the test
strip holder. One slips over the LifeScan meter, and the other attaches
directly to the test strip holder. Both devices aid in proper finger placement
and serve to guide the drop of blood more precisely to the test strip. Science
Products (address above, telephone (800) 888-7400), makes the Sure Drop, which
slips over the body of the meter. The special Teflon-like coating on the
surface of the device helps direct the blood but can be damaged by bleach or a
hard brushing--clean with mild soap and warm water. A Sure Drop made for the
One Touch II will not fit the Profile, and vice versa. The unit for the
Profile appears well-made and easy to use. The units are priced at $24.95
each.
     Smart Dot, 2655 West Central Avenue, Toledo, Ohio 43606, telephone (800)
984-1137. The Smart Dot clips directly to the test strip holder of the
LifeScan One Touch II meter. This plastic platform is easy to clean and
convenient to use, but there have been cases of its detaching from the meter
in mid-test. Cost $19.45.
     Don Kramolis and Gary Allman, Blind Rehab Specialists (Manual Skills),
at Waco VA Medical Center, Blind Rehab Clinic, Bldg. 7, BRU, 4800 Memorial
Drive, Waco, Texas 76711, telephone (817) 752-6581 ext. 7489, have developed
the Waco-U-Finger Guide, which, like the Smart Dot, fits any LifeScan Meter.
Much like the T-shirt paint described above, the Waco Guide assists with
finger orientation. The guide's other features help tactile strip insertion.
Its designers do not sell finished guides but offer plans and advice to
interested individuals.
     I have discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the blood glucose
monitoring systems with voice enunciation currently manufactured. This
evaluation should help blind diabetics and those losing vision, who are just
as capable as the sighted of independently testing their blood sugar levels
and performing all the other tasks of daily diabetes self-management. Both
blind and sighted diabetics are encouraged to consult their health care teams
and individuals experienced in use of glucose monitoring equipment.
     Choosing the most appropriate home blood glucose monitor is an important
step in diabetes self-management. As blind diabetics increase their
participation in the mainstream, efficient glycemic control is needed to
maintain good quality of life. The Diabetes Action Network of the National
Federation of the Blind, a support and information network, welcomes your
views on blood-glucose testing.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Sheila Koenig]
                 Reflecting Upon the Bamboo Tree
                       by Sheila M. Koenig
                           **********
     From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the Summer,
1999, issue of the Blind Missourian, the publication of the NFB of Missouri.
Sheila was a 1995 NFB scholarship winner. She now teaches English and Spanish
in a Springfield, Missouri, middle school.
     Thoughtful leaders in any organization recognize the importance of
encouraging the involvement and growth of young members. Organizations
stultify and eventually die if those in control discourage the introduction of
new blood. But it is one thing to pay lip service to this truism and quite
another to conduct the business of the group in such a way that new members
feel that they and their ideas are welcome. Sheila's little meditation reminds
us all that in the NFB part of the job of experienced leaders is to nurture
and guide new, young members; and the duty of young leaders is to learn and
work and grow. This process is always a balancing act; but, when it is done
successfully, we all benefit and the organization becomes stronger and more
effective. Here is what Sheila Koenig has to say:
                           **********
     One day a man planted a bamboo seedling. He cared deeply for it, so each
day he watered it and tended to it, always making sure it had the proper
sunlight to grow. After a year's time, the man saw that the plant had not
grown at all, but he continued to water it, tend to it, and make sure it was
nourished by proper sunlight. Again, after the second year the plant had not
grown. He watered and tended it through the third year and the fourth.
Suddenly, as if by magic, in the fifth it began growing. In fact, it grew two
and a half feet a day until in six weeks it was ninety feet tall.
     The bamboo tree's growth involves no magic. During its first five years
it develops miles and miles of roots beneath the ground. Though no growth is
visible, the foundation is being established and strengthened.
     I thought about this story after returning from last summer's National
Convention. Transition describes for me the tone and feeling of our convention
in Atlanta. While we breathed our history by reflecting upon the life,
teaching, and wisdom of Dr. Jernigan, we also began to dream about the future.
Many new people participated in this year's resolutions process, and a steady
shift was evident in division officers. Strength radiated in all directions.
These new leaders clearly embody the spirit of our past, and they are
skillfully guided by our present leaders.
     I recognize that the most important thing for me as a young
Federationist is to develop and strengthen my skills as a future leader. I
must study the teachings of Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Jernigan, and Dr. Maurer. I can
observe how Gary Wunder guides the Board of Directors through a meeting. These
things are essential, but this is not enough. At times it seems to me that
some established leaders are skeptical of young Federationists who are eager
to serve. Perhaps they fear that we do not fully understand the philosophy or
the policies of our organization. Perhaps the idea of change itself creates
fear and doubt. At such times I am deeply saddened and afraid. I am afraid for
the future of our organization.
     The bamboo tree cannot grow on its own. It needs to be nourished by the
sunlight, watered, and tended. Young leaders need the same. We need to be
nourished by the wisdom and experience of those who possess them. We need time
to develop the fundamental system of roots which will hold us all together. We
need opportunity to explore our strengths and, for that matter, to make our
own mistakes. We must learn from those mistakes. Only then can we grow to our
full potential and stretch our possibilities. The future does not belong to me
and my generation alone, nor does it rest only on the shoulders of our present
leaders. It is ours. All of our voices--past, present, and future--must blend
in harmony as we continue along the path of security, equality, and
opportunity.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Curtis Chong]
                         The Voice Mate
              An Aural Organizer that Really Works
                         by Curtis Chong
                           **********
     From the Editor: Curtis Chong directs the NFB's Technology Department at
the National Center for the Blind. This is what he has to say about a new
pocket organizer that the NFB is now selling.
                           **********
     A couple of years ago the Parrot Company in Paris, France, released the
Parrot Plus voice recognition organizer. Although the Parrot Plus was not
originally designed for use by the blind, it proved to have a unique appeal,
which resulted in newer versions containing improvements suggested by a
growing number of blind users.
     Perhaps the most significant problem with the Parrot Plus was its small
storage capacity. In its normal recording mode the Parrot Plus held up to six-
and-a-half minutes of recorded information; in its compressed mode (the
results of which are extremely difficult to understand), it held up to
thirteen minutes of recorded information. For any active user this was simply
not enough.
     The Voice Mate, announced by the Parrot Company in November, 1999, is
the next generation of the Parrot Plus. Physically it very much resembles the
Parrot Plus in that it is about the size of a television remote control. It
fits comfortably into a suit pocket, and you can get a leather carrying case
for it. It is powered by four standard AAA batteries which, according to
previous experience with the Parrot Plus, should last for a few months. Two
major improvements over the Parrot Plus are forty minutes of recording time
and non-volatile flash memory, which allows the batteries to be replaced
without losing data. Earphones are supplied for private listening.
     The Voice Mate has five major utilities: a talking phone book, a voice
note pad, an appointment book, a talking alarm clock, and a talking
calculator. Every one of these utilities is completely accessible nonvisually-
-in other words, the Voice Mate talks to you right out of the box.
                           **********
                     The Talking Phone Book
                           **********
     This utility is used to store information about people with whom you
communicate. In its basic form the talking phone book stores a person's name
(as spoken by you) and telephone number, which you enter through the Voice
Mate keypad. You can locate individual entries in the phone book by either
speaking the name of the person you are looking for or moving quickly through
the entries with arrow keys supplied for the purpose. Once you have found the
desired name, you can instruct the Voice Mate to generate the tones that allow
the number to be dialed using a touch-tone telephone. Alternatively, the Voice
Mate will speak the digits of the person's phone number. If you like, you can
save up to five phone numbers for any given person and also aurally record the
address.
     We found that the voice-recognition technology in the talking phone book
worked quite well. We experienced a success rate very close to 100% when
trying to locate entries using voice identifiers. Moreover, we were pleased to
note that, once a given entry had been recorded, it was possible to add or
modify any part of the information.
**********
The Voice Note Pad
                           **********
     With this utility you can record aural messages in the Voice Mate. Each
message is numbered and stored with the time and date it was recorded. When
replaying messages, you can choose whether or not to hear this information.
The Voice Mate provides a rich set of editing functions for individual
messages; you can insert more information, remove some information, or overlay
the remainder of the message with new information.
                           **********
The Appointment Book
                           **********
     This utility lets you record a message about an event which you know
will take place at a specific date and time. The Voice Mate can then be
instructed to trigger a notification beep at the date and time of the event.
If the event is likely to occur more than once--as in a birthday or weekly
meeting--the Voice Mate can be set to trigger a reminder beep. For example,
you can instruct the Voice Mate to trigger a notification beep at 10:00 a.m.
on July 5 of the year 2000 to tell you that the first general session of the
convention of the National Federation of the Blind is about to start. You can
instruct the Voice Mate to trigger an alarm at 7:30 a.m. every day to remind
you that you'd better be in your office. Or you can set up a reminder that
will go off on April 1 of every year to tell you that "Today is April Fool's
Day." Whether a notification beep or a reminder, the Voice Mate will trigger
the alarm even if you have turned it completely off.
     Another handy feature is the ability to associate aural key words with
an event. You can enter a birthday, for example, and record a key word like
"Mom's birthday." Then to locate Mom's birthday, you press a key and say
"Mom's birthday." The Voice Mate finds the appropriate entry in the
appointment book.
     Last but not least, there is the ability to look at your appointment
schedule for a specific date. This is handy if you want to avoid double-
booking meetings.
**********
The Talking Alarm Clock
                           **********
     The Voice Mate's talking alarm clock is fairly straightforward. This is
where you set the current date and time. The alarm has its own independent
volume control. You can set the clock to run using standard a.m.-p.m.
notification or a twenty-four-hour mode (military time). The date can be
entered in either European or American format.
                           **********
The Talking Calculator
                           **********
     This is a calculator which can perform the four basic arithmetic
operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Up to
twelve digits can be displayed. In addition to the four basic functions, the
Voice Mate also has a percent feature, the ability to store and retrieve a
single number from memory, and a European currency conversion function. You
can set the calculator to display from 2 to 8 decimal places. When the display
is read, numbers are pronounced in full words (e.g., 123 would be pronounced
"one hundred and twenty-three").
                           **********
Documentation
                           **********
     The Voice Mate comes with a printed manual and a tutorial on
audiocassette. The tutorial is enough to get you started, but its description
of some of the calculator functions leaves a lot to the user's imagination. If
you are familiar with the operation of the Parrot Plus, be advised that the
Voice Mate is sufficiently different that you will feel the need to listen to
the taped tutorial at least once. Large print and Braille manuals are said to
be available, but we have not had an opportunity to examine them.
**********
Areas for Improvement
                           **********
     In some of the utilities (e.g., the talking alarm clock and the phone
book), there is no way to correct an error you have entered on the keypad. It
is necessary to enter the data incorrectly first and then take steps to
correct the information. It would be nice to have a "clear current entry" or a
"backspace" function which works the same way for all of the utilities.
     It is cumbersome to use the Voice Mate as a talking clock. You have to
enter multiple commands to learn what time it is. Also, when you ask the Voice
Mate to speak the time, you hear the current date and, if it is on, the time
of the alarm. It would be nice to have a simple-to-activate function which
would speak only the time.
     The setting in the talking calculator which controls how many decimal
positions are displayed is referred to as "digits after comma." This is
confusing to someone who hasn't listened to the tutorial tape or read the
manual. This should be corrected to say "digits after decimal point."
     Finally, in the voice note pad, while you can insert new information
into a message that you have already recorded, you cannot pause the recording
of a message that you are composing for the first time. There should be a
pause function in the recording mode similar to the pause function available
when playing back messages in the note pad.
                           **********
Conclusion
                           **********
     The Voice Mate is truly an aural organizer that a blind person can use.
Its compact design, long battery life, and diverse functionality make it
extremely useful for the person on the go who needs to do a lot of things out
of the office, while at the same time keeping track of the many meetings and
events which are an inevitable part of one's working life.
**********
Availability
                           **********
     The Voice Mate is now available through the Materials Center of the
National Federation of the Blind. It is priced at $300. Telephone (410) 659-
9314. Calls to the Materials Center are accepted from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.,
eastern time.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer]
            The Colonies, the Court, and the Kittens
                         by Marc Maurer
                           **********
     From the Editor: The following story first appeared in Remember to Feed
the Kittens, the sixteenth in our Kernel Book series of small paperbacks.
                           **********
     There are oddities in the lives of blind people which are hard to
explain, but we try to explain them anyway. One of these oddities happened to
me in Williamsburg, Virginia.
     When I was a boy, our family had very few vacations, as these are
sometimes understood today. "Vacation" had two meanings for us in those days,
and maybe it still does. "Vacation" meant the time school was not in session,
but it also meant taking a trip for the purpose of enjoying the company of
family members in unfamiliar places and circumstances.
     Our family had plenty of the not-going-to-school kind of vacations, but
we were short on the other kind. We enjoyed being with each other just fine,
but we almost never "went" on a vacation. Because this is the way I grew up, I
have very few firmly established notions about what a vacation trip is
supposed to offer. I am quite certain that vacation trips are supposed to be
fun, but that is all.
     Christmas is (for my family and me) the most important and joyous
holiday of the year. I love the giving of presents and all of the planning
that is a part of the preparation for the day. I also love the wonderful
Christmas smells, the good food, and the togetherness. Christmas is important
because it is a time for the expression of love for others and for the
performance of small miracles. Bringing delight to the hearts of others is one
of the fundamental purposes for this most joyous holiday.
     Dr. Kenneth Jernigan served as President of the National Federation of
the Blind for almost twenty years. He and his wife became a part of the Maurer
family, sharing the Christmas holidays with all of the warmth and joy that
they possess.
     Dr. Jernigan loved Christmas and the Christmas season as much as the
rest of us. However, he had died in October after a yearlong fight with
cancer. I wondered how we could spend Christmas without him; I also wondered
how Dr. Jernigan's wife Mary Ellen would face this first Christmas alone.
     Although we would not want to change any of the Christmas traditions--a
big Christmas dinner together, prayers, attendance at church, the exchanging
of presents, and all that is a part of the holiday--I wondered if a change of
setting for at least part of the Christmas season wouldn't be worthwhile.
     Consequently we decided--the Maurers and Mrs. Jernigan--to take a
vacation between Christmas and New Years. We planned a visit to Williamsburg,
Virginia, a place noted as the provincial capital of Virginia prior to the
American Revolution.
     Because the adult Maurers, my wife Patricia and I, are both blind and
because the children, David and Dianna, are not old enough for driver's
licenses, Mrs. Jernigan would drive. Two days after Christmas we packed the
essentials for the trip--hand-held computer games designed for entertaining
children riding in a car, a portable CD player with headphones for private
music listening, several different kinds of Christmas candy, and (almost as an
afterthought) a few clothes.
      The Jernigan house is less than a block from our front door, and, as we
carried our bags toward the departure point, we met two of Dr. Jernigan's
kittens coming through the front gate into our yard. Some years ago Dr.
Jernigan adopted a family of stray kittens who had shown up in his yard. After
that he always made a home for others who appeared from time to time.
     I thought of him then, and seeing his kittens reminded me how he had
always taught us to share whatever we had with others. I remembered what he
had done for me and my family and for many other blind people who had had no
place to be until he showed us how to hope and believe.
     Blinking back the tears, I stopped for a moment to ask the kittens if
they had had their breakfast, but they seemed in a hurry. When we reached the
Jernigan house, we spoke to Mrs. Jernigan, wondering if the kittens would be
O.K. She told us she had made provision for them to be fed while we were away.
     There had been an ice storm, and a number of trees had fallen. These
trees blocked the roadway and slowed our progress. Furthermore, the reports on
the radio told us that Williamsburg and the surrounding area were without
electricity. Fortunately, when we arrived, our hotel had power. We would not
have to use candles, and there would be hot water, operating elevators, and
coffee.
     Mrs. Jernigan and I stepped to the hotel check-in desk to fill out our
room registration papers. Although I was standing before the desk, the clerk
asked Mrs. Jernigan what kind of room I needed. Then she asked Mrs. Jernigan
if I had any special requirements.
     I myself responded to each question. However, the desk clerk seemed
almost unaware of me. She asked Mrs. Jernigan if she would sign the
registration for me. Then she questioned Mrs. Jernigan about how I would pay
my bill. Again I responded myself.
     The peculiar nature of the conversation created some awkwardness. There
are those who find blindness so threatening that they want to ignore it.
Others believe that the blind are incapable of the most rudimentary
activities, and they automatically assume that any sighted person in the
company of a blind person is in charge.
     We tried gently to persuade the desk clerk to understand that I myself
am capable and responsible for my own family. I answered the questions put to
Mrs. Jernigan as if they had been addressed to me. However, I was completely
unprepared for the last of the questions. The desk clerk handed Mrs. Jernigan
a parking pass to be placed on the dashboard of her car. Then she asked Mrs.
Jernigan if I had also driven to the hotel and if I would like a parking pass
for my car.
     I spent some time wondering how to account for this question. The desk
clerk knew quite clearly that I was blind, yet she refused to speak to me.
Nevertheless, she offered Mrs. Jernigan a parking pass for the car she thought
I might have driven to the hotel. It reminded me that, although we have made
much progress, we still have a way to go in helping blind people achieve
opportunity in America.
     During our visit to Colonial Williamsburg we participated in a
reenactment of courtroom proceedings which had occurred more than 200 years
earlier. As we stepped into the courtroom, the bailiff said to us that jurors
must be selected for the trial. The members of the jury were required to be
adult, white, Protestant, able-bodied males. All others were prohibited from
serving.
     As I sat in the body of the court, I reflected that, although I am a
lawyer, I could not have served on the colonial jury of those days. The
bailiff did not tell us whether my blindness would have prohibited me from
representing clients in the court.
     One of the cases that afternoon was brought against a man who had failed
to go to church. The laws of Virginia in the 1770's required citizens of the
state to attend the officially recognized Protestant church service at least
one Sunday each month. The defendant in the case said he was a member of the
Catholic faith and that his religion prohibited him from participation in
Protestant worship.
     During the course of the trial it was argued that his attendance at the
Protestant service would be a mortal sin, which would subject him to eternal
damnation. As I listened to the presentation of each of the parties involved,
I thought about how I would defend this Catholic if I had been his lawyer, and
I wondered whether I would have been permitted to plead the case.
     The King's representative in court pointed out to the jurors that church
service was not merely a religious matter but a secular one as well. Edicts
from the Crown, from the House of Burgesses, or from the local city fathers
would be read at church. Consequently, it was the civic duty of every citizen
to be in attendance.
     Although the position of the parties seemed irreconcilable, I could
imagine myself attempting to touch the hearts of the jurors. The very
arguments of the King's counsel, it seemed to me, suggested that if the civic
duty could be met, there would be no need for the Catholic to participate in
the Protestant worship service.
      The argument that the civic duty was important implied that the law had
been established to serve the government rather than God. If God were being
served in some other way, this should satisfy the court.
     As we left Williamsburg on our way back to Baltimore, I thought about
how far we as blind people have come and how far we must still travel to
become self-sufficient. I am a practicing lawyer today, and I have been
summoned for jury service. In Colonial Williamsburg I might have been a
minstrel, a storyteller, or a beggar; but I would probably not have had the
opportunity for other employment.
     Nevertheless, despite my learning and ability, sometimes I find that the
desk clerk refuses to speak to me because I am blind. We must help people come
to be at ease with those of us who are blind. In the National Federation of
the Blind we are making an effort to bring this change into being. We
appreciate our friends, and we hope to find more of them. We are willing to
work and to learn, and sometimes we will take a vacation. We will do it for
ourselves and our friends, but as we do it, we will remember to feed the
kittens too.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Tom Bickford]
             How Much High-Tech Does a Blind Person
                  Need for Independent Travel?
                         by Tom Bickford
                           **********
     From the Editor: Tom Bickford is the author of Care and Feeding of the
Long White Cane, the NFB's little book of instruction on effective use of the
long cane. He is also a long-time Federationist. We all have to think
carefully about the issues surrounding audible and vibrating traffic signals.
Recently Tom has been thinking about the matter. Here are some of his
thoughts:
                           **********
     The best short description I ever heard for a cane used as a travel aid
by a blind person was "a bumper and a probe." I am sorry that I have forgotten
who said it. Please note: the cane is very low-tech and still very useful. How
about a guide dog? A complicated, interdependent relationship exists between
master and dog, but there are still no electronics. How about the human brain
alone? It is our basic travel tool and is often considered the most
complicated work of nature--but still no electronics.
     Along with other blind travelers, I recently participated in workshops
and discussions with sighted traffic planners, researchers, and O & M
teachers. The part that seemed strange to me was that, after the studies were
presented and the videos shown, no one talked about how to teach blind
travelers to walk straight or work out requirements to cross a complicated
intersection. We, the blind, need much more to be taught than to be studied.
     Once, when I brought up a point in a discussion, the only solution
offered to me was two more electronic devices. Another time, when I described
the technique of timing the sequence of lights in order to determine when my
light was green, the first response from the travel teachers was, "I wouldn't
do that," and the second response was a long list of why timing signals would
not work. When I am a student, I do not want to work with a teacher who tells
me that I don't have the ability to count seconds in order to cross a
particular intersection successfully. I want a teacher who will help me
develop and use my abilities in order to make things possible. During one
meeting I attended and after another, guess what was on display: audible,
vibro-tactile, and talking signs for street-crossing aids.
     Please indulge me while I get one of my pet peeves out of the way. Why
does the A in APS (accessible pedestrian signal) have to stand for accessible?
Does that mean that an intersection without one of these devices is
inaccessible? If the inventor had called them alternative, blind people might
not have offered so much opposition.
     It may surprise some people to hear me say that I am not totally opposed
to audible or vibro-tactile traffic signals. I believe that at some
intersections there is no other reliable way to know when a light changes. I
have used other intersections at which the audible signal was totally
superfluous. High-tech equipment is expensive to install and complicated to
maintain. If traffic engineers begin installing equipment where it is not
necessary or, worse yet, not used, blind people will come to be resented and
considered unworthy, and we will lose opportunities to receive the access we
really need.
     I interrupt myself to say that I know how to play word games. You can
play "What If" with me until the cows come home, and I can do the same with
you. First, let us learn to live in the world in which we find ourselves.
There is just no substitute for thoroughly learning and carefully using the
basic techniques of travel with the cane or dog. Just because high-tech has
not caught up with all the places I need to go, I refuse to wait at home until
it arrives. I was recently telling a bus driver that it might be nice when all
the busses were equipped with announcing systems, but in the meantime I had to
go to work every day. Neither of us thought to mention that at that very
moment I was using the low-tech method of asking the driver if my stop was
coming up.
     Nowhere do these devices give us more than information. It is still our
own responsibility to use that information wisely. I once read an account of a
blind man who heard his electronic device tell him that the light was green,
so he started right across the street. I do not consider that a wise use of
information. We have all had the experience of being kept on the curb during
our green light by a line of cars turning the corner in front of us. We still
have to use our own brains and exercise judgment.
     To my knowledge there are still no standards for identifying either
appropriate locations for audible signals or the best sounds to be used and
for determining the location of the signal emitters. There is already a
controversy over which intersections are appropriate. Sounds range from music
to bird calls to mechanical noises to human voices. The location of the sound
emitters and demand buttons when they are in use is also open for discussion.
As for sounds, I suggest the principle the quieter, the better. I am glad to
note that the current crop of sound generators is on the quiet side and can
alter their volume according to ambient noise. As for the location of sound
emitters and demand buttons, I suggest that they be right at the curb, at the
line for the crosswalk and away from the corner. Twenty feet back from the
crosswalk and behind a bush are not good places--if the button is going to be
at the intersection, put it right where I can use it.
     As for locator devices, I might have been glad to have them at two
locations during some of our recent national NFB conventions. I refer to
locating the right elevator bank and the right rest room. Let us be frank with
ourselves. They may be low tech, but we put marshals at meeting room doors for
purposes of identification. Can you think of anything that was first scorned,
later was considered a convenience, and eventually became a necessity? What
about the telephone?
     We face one real danger as these devices are installed around the
country and the world. The tendency will be to require blind people to use
only the places these devices have been installed and prohibit us from using
the places they have not. Every time that happens, my mobility is restricted,
not enhanced. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it will. You may not recognize
the restriction at first because it will come in the form of a kindness. When
riding the Washington, D.C., Metro, I have been guided to the handicapped fare
gate when it was totally irrelevant.
     I want equal opportunity, but I know that the other side of that coin is
equal responsibility. It is hard to get out there and pull my own share of the
weight, but that is what I must do if I want my equal place in the world.
Please forgive me for mixing two wonderfully expressive phrases in the coming
sentence. The most important thing that the Federation has taught me is to get
up on my hind legs and be a mensch.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Steve Benson]
                       Fran Allison and Me
                      by Stephen O. Benson
                           **********
     From the Editor: Steve Benson serves as President of the NFB of Illinois
and as a Member of the National Federation of the Blind Board of Directors.
The following recollection of a childhood meeting with television personality
Fran Allison (creator of puppet boy Kukla and dragon Ollie) reminds us how far
we have come and, in the light of recent advertisements making fun of blind
people, how far we still have to go on our journey to freedom. Here is what he
says:
                           **********
     My mother's formal education extended through part of seventh grade,
despite which she became a very clever artist who could create the most
wonderful pieces out of buttons, feathers, copper wire, colored tissue paper,
and more. She also did still lifes and landscapes in several media. Her silver
point and Japanese brush paintings were excellent. I watched her bring animals
to life on canvas with oils, but her favorite medium was watercolor. Her
paintings and other work still grace homes from coast to coast and border to
border.
     When I was a year and a half old, she and I moved from a small western
Illinois town to Chicago. Shortly after that doctors determined that retinitis
pigmentosa would severely limit my vision and would result in at least legal
blindness. I have no doubt that she was sorry to learn that my eye condition
would result in blindness; that is the usual reaction to such news. But my
mother was not destroyed by the fact that her only child would never have
normal vision. Instead she proceeded to plot a course that would expose her
young son to a rich variety of life-preparing experiences.
     Concerned that I might be reluctant to socialize, my mother steered me
to involvement in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, to Saturday Red Cross swimming
classes, and to roles in school plays even when I was in first grade.
     In the late forties she took puppetry classes at Hull House under the
direction of a nationally known puppeteer, Hans Schmitt. She learned to make
hand puppets and costumes; build stages, sets, and props; and design lighting.
She taught me to do the same, but I was more interested in the performance end
of puppetry. I became a part-time professional puppeteer, performing for
seventeen years.
     My interest in puppetry began to blossom in the late forties and early
fifties when my mother took me to see "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie," one of the
classic children's programs on early television. I was captivated by the
puppet characters and charmed by Fran Allison. My mother and I were frequent
members of the live audience, and Fran became friendly with us.
     By 1953 I was immersed in Braille at Alexander Graham Bell School, one
of Chicago's model schools. Celebrities and political dignitaries frequently
visited our classroom. During such visits the Braille-resource-room students
were required to stand at the right side of our desks and greet the principal,
who ordinarily ushered guests around the school.
     One day a small group entered our classroom, and the prescribed ritual
ensued. One of the visitors stepped away from the rest, walked up to me, put
her arms around me, and greeted me warmly. It was Fran Allison. We were
equally happy and surprised to see each other. She spent a few extra minutes
talking with each student in the room. She was genuinely warm and gracious,
and all of my classmates enjoyed meeting a real television personality.
     Our resource-room teacher (I'll call her Mrs. Q) had a different
reaction. After the visitors had moved on to another classroom, Mrs. Q
approached my desk and said, "What right do you have to know somebody like
Miss Allison?" I was shocked. But I understood what she meant, for, you see,
Mrs. Q was rich. She and her husband owned a string of race horses, and she
drove to school in a luxury car. I was a poor blind kid from a single-parent
home. Mrs. Q's message was clear: poor blind kids should stay in their place.
     Mrs. Q's behavior was unacceptable. It could have been devastating to
me, except that my classmates and I viewed her with healthy measures of
disdain and ridicule. This was not her only display of contempt for blind
kids. I don't believe any of us told our parents of incidents such as this
one; it just wasn't done in those days. But in a strange way Mrs. Q's behavior
helped to prepare my classmates and me for the condescension we would
encounter as adults from many agencies for the blind and from some members of
the public.
     During the last half century, through its Kernel Books and other
publications, the National Federation of the Blind has had measurable,
positive influence on public attitudes toward blindness and blind people. The
general public has come to be much more accepting of the idea that blind
people can compete equally, and in recent years more and more agency staff
members have begun helping us acquire the skills we need. Still, much work
remains to be done. Blind people and right-thinking sighted people must get on
with the tasks of improving education and training for blind people and of
continuing to educate the public about the competence and normality of the
blind.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Michael Baillif]
                       A Roof with a View
                       by Michael Baillif
                           **********
     From the Editor: The following story appeared in Remember to Feed the
Kittens, the sixteenth in our paperback series called the Kernel Books. It
begins with President Maurer's introduction:
                           **********
     Michael Baillif is a past president of the Student Division of the
National Federation of the Blind. In his college years he received help
through our scholarship program. Today he is a successful lawyer specializing
in corporate taxes. He is employed by a major New York City law firm--which,
by the way, sought out Michael's services because of his growing professional
reputation in his specialty.
     In his story, "A Roof With A View," Michael, who is still a young man,
looks back to a time when he was an even younger man--fifteen to be exact.
Fifteen and in love. At one level it is a delightful, lighthearted story. At
another it expresses the poignant yearning of a young man who is blind for
physical independence and spiritual self-sufficiency. Here is what he has to
say:
                           **********
     I was fifteen years old when I fell in love for the first time. The
condition of being fifteen years old and in love presents a variety of
imperatives that cannot be ignored. Deep, heartfelt sighs, long solitary
walks, and interminable conversations with friends all about "her" are among
the rituals that must be observed.
     I had become blind the year before and had not yet received meaningful
training in the alternative skills needed to succeed as a blind person. Indeed
I had never even met another blind person to whom I could look as a role
model. Nevertheless, I was functioning reasonably well as a teenager in love.
     One balmy summer evening I took it into my head that I should write some
poetry and that the only place suitable for such a solemn and spiritual
undertaking was on the roof of my house. This determination presented a
challenge that was both frightening and exhilarating. The problem was
straightforward: how to get onto the roof in the first instance and then, once
there, how to get down again without suffering bodily harm.
     Other issues presented themselves as well. I could not ask for help or
advice in reaching my goal. In addition, my ascent to the roof had to be done
in secret, thus avoiding the need for bothersome explanations. That's how it
is when you're fifteen years old and in love.
     As a result the simple expedient of dragging a ladder up to one end of
the house and leaning it against the roof was out of the question. Instead
more creativity was required. After much thought and exploration, I hit on the
solution.
     A trellis reaching to within a few feet of the roof ran along one corner
of the house. I formulated a scheme whereby I would sneak a chair out of the
kitchen and position it behind the trellis. I could stand on the chair and
then jump up to catch the top of the trellis, on which there was a six-inch
platform. From that precarious perch I could turn and pull myself up onto the
roof.
     I was satisfied that this approach allowed reasonable odds of achieving
the rooftop. Nevertheless, still more logistical issues needed to be
considered. First, the roof was a shingled A-frame roof that rose sharply from
the eaves to the apex. The footing was uncertain, and there were a number of
obstacles such as vents, antennae wires, and a chimney, all presenting hazards
to the unwary.
     Moreover, there was the question of how to get back down in some way
other than a headlong crash. The trellis was only a few feet long; and, if I
veered only slightly in either the ascent or descent from the pinnacle of the
roof, I could miss it altogether and end up stranded.
     I decided that these problems could best be solved through the use of a
telescoping cane. It could be carried in my backpack as I climbed up the
trellis and then taken out for use once I reached the roof. The cane would
help me locate obstacles on the roof; and, when it came time for my return to
terra firma, I could swing the cane over the edge of the roof until it located
the trellis.
     Generally I incorporated the cane into my day-to-day life as little as
possible because it was a symbol of blindness with which I was not yet
comfortable. Nevertheless, in this case I had a goal, and the cane was the
tool that would allow me to achieve it.
     After formulating my plans and drawing inspiration from one last thought
of my beloved, I put the scheme into action. I sneaked the chair out of the
kitchen without detection, and, but for a few perilous moments when I nearly
tumbled helter-skelter over the opposite end of the trellis, I attained the
roof.
     Then, according to plan, I pulled out my cane and climbed cautiously to
the roof's apex. There, taking care not to roll backwards down the other side
of the roof, I found a comfortable and reasonably secure place from which to
enjoy the evening and compose my poetry.
     From the height of the rooftop and from my perspective as a fifteen-
year-old, I surveyed the world and liked what I saw. I was in love; and,
feeling the urge to climb the roof and write poetry, I had done so despite the
fear and uncertainty that had been ever-present throughout the adventure.
     Later I would need the guidance and support of my friends in the
National Federation of the Blind to develop and mold this inherent desire for
physical independence and spiritual self-sufficiency that yearned to come
forth. But climbing the roof represented the first tentative steps along the
path that would bring me into contact with these friends who I did not even
know existed but whom I so desperately needed.
     I wrote poetry late into that summer evening and would have labored
longer except that the batteries in the tape recorder into which I was
dictating my verses began to run low. Had I known then how to use a slate and
stylus to write Braille, I might have stayed on the rooftop until sunrise.
     After dictating some final lines into the dying tape recorder, I pulled
out my cane and started the painstaking descent down the roof toward the
trellis. Upon reaching the edge of the roof, I swung my cane over the side and
held my breath; it touched nothing but air. I moved a few feet in one
direction along the edge of the roof--still nothing! I then went back in the
other direction and, to my vast relief, located the trellis with my cane. From
there I completed my return to earth without incident.
     At the time I was convinced that I carried off my entire adventure
without my parents' notice. Although this may have been the case, as I now
better understand the extent of my parents' wisdom, I suspect that they knew
all along but simply kept their own counsel.
     The last I heard, the object of my romantic attentions was somewhere in
Australia, married to a fellow named "Mr. Wright." To this day, however, I can
feel the touch of the warm evening breeze and hear the far-off sound of
crickets and feel again the surge of triumph and satisfaction that I
experienced that long ago summer night when I sat atop a roof composing poetry
just like any other fifteen-year-old in love.
                           **********
                           **********
*****************************************************************
     Did you know that you can make a gift to the National Federation of the
Blind and save taxes three ways? Well, you can! With a gift of appreciated
stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. For more information, contact the National
Federation of the Blind, Special Gifts, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore,
Maryland 21230-4998, phone (410) 659-9314, fax (410) 685-5653.
*****************************************************************
                           **********
                           **********
                      Why Customer Service?
          Reasons, Plans, and What I Hope to Accomplish
                      by Kimberly Mitchell
                           **********
     From the Editor: The Louisiana Center for the Blind has recently
established a customer-service training program similar to the one that has
been so effective at the Colorado Center for the Blind. The first student
enrolled in the program is Kim Mitchell.  She recently wrote about herself and
her growing expectations for herself as a result of the training she is
receiving. Kim demonstrates again what good training and high expectations can
do for people. We thought her words might encourage other people. This is what
she says:
                           **********
     I have many reasons for wanting to be in the customer service program at
the Louisiana Center for the Blind. First, I love to work with and be around
other people. Second, I want to better myself. My current plans are to find a
customer-service job in the Shreveport area for about two years and then
relocate to Detroit, Michigan. I hope to find a job that I love and that I am
really good at. Beyond these things, I have a one-year-old little girl, and I
don't plan to live with my mother for the rest of my life. I am in this
program to gain independence, self-confidence, and freedom. Although I have
successfully completed my O & M training at the Louisiana Center for the
Blind, my road to freedom and independence is not yet finished. I will be
fully independent when I am in my own home, making my own money, and paying my
own bills.
     One of the hardest things for me right now is missing my little girl.
For the last year I have been home with her every day. Now the closest I can
get to her is a phone call. Hearing her cry and being unable to do anything
about it hurts so much! However, I hang on to the idea that, once I complete
my training, life will be much better for both of us.
     While I am in the program, I will also learn some other important things
that I really need to know. These include computer skills, dealing with
different types of people, conducting myself in a successful interview, and
working confidently with others in a business setting. I believe that the
relationship between coworkers is just as important as job performance.
     I have often wondered what it would be like to be one of the people
assisting me on the phone. Now I will find out. I will also learn the
patience, accuracy, and dedication needed to fulfill the duties required in
this line of work.
     I know I still have a long way to go on my life's journey, but this step
is the first I will take. My outlook on the entire situation is, "A little
preparation now will lead to a lot of success." At my weakest moments, when I
am second-guessing my decision, if I just keep that thought in mind, I believe
I will be able to complete my training successfully.
     When I learned that I would be the first and for a while the only
student in this program, I started wondering if coming would still be a good
idea. As I sat and thought about it, I decided that being the only student had
its advantages. Not only would I be the first student and graduate of the
Louisiana Center for the Blind Career Center, but I would also have all the
attention of the staff, which is a very good thing. After all, being a pioneer
can be exciting. We live in a country full of job opportunities, and I am
fully prepared, ready, and willing to do whatever it takes to snatch one of
them for myself.
     Another reason why I am in the customer service program is that I do not
intend to receive Social Security for the rest of my life. I want my daughter
and me to have the best we can in life, and Social Security does not offer
that. It might satisfy some people, but I say, "Why settle for less when you
can have more?" When I consider how little money Social Security really
provides, I know I want more for myself. When I think about the skills and
abilities I am developing and about how much money there is out there in the
business world just waiting to be made, I can't help wanting to be successful.
     Many people have asked why I chose customer service. My response would
have to be that I love working with and being around other people. This makes
customer service the right line of work for me.
     I strongly encourage anyone interested in customer service to consider a
program like the one at the Louisiana Center for the Blind Career Center. You
will find that it will be time well spent, and you will know that you are
doing your part to become a member of America's working class. I know that for
a blind person some things do not come easily. However, my view is that my
struggles make my accomplishments just that much more special. One of the
greatest feelings for me is going to be when I successfully hold down a job
and receive my first paycheck. That is when I am going to be able to stand
proudly and say I am free, independent, and self-confident.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Doris Willoughby]
                   New United States Citizens
                     by Doris M. Willoughby
                           **********
     From the Editor: Doris Willoughby is a long-time Federationist and a
distinguished teacher and author in the blindness field. During the month when
we celebrate the birthdays of both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, it
is fitting for us all to pause for a moment to reflect on the blessings of
U.S. citizenship. Here is Doris's brief report:
                           **********
     The National Federation of the Blind has helped two blind people to
become citizens of the United States. Abraham Munguia-Cordova came from Mexico
to Arizona with his parents when he was about ten years old. His parents did
not become citizens, and Abe did not seriously consider going through
naturalization himself.
     When he came to the Colorado Center for the Blind (CCB) for independence
training, Abe's teachers mentioned the benefits of becoming a citizen. Soon
after graduating from the Center, he decided to go ahead. The NFB of Denver,
together with the CCB, stood behind him in his effort.
     The procedure for naturalization includes filling out lengthy forms,
being fingerprinted, etc. It also includes a personal interview with an
official to assess knowledge of U.S. history and government and facility in
the English language.
     Doris Willoughby, academic skills teacher and learning specialist,
offered to help as a volunteer. We obtained the list of 100 questions--the
examiner would ask any ten of them, and the candidate would have to answer at
least eight correctly. Whenever someone who was already a citizen looked at
the list, the comment was the same: "Oh, dear, I should know this, but that
list is hard!"
     Here are a few of the questions:
1. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution? [twenty-six]
2. For how long do we elect each senator? [six years]
3. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence? [Thomas
Jefferson]
4. What is the introduction to the Constitution called? [The Preamble]
5. What do the stripes on the flag mean? [They represent the original thirteen
states.]
                           **********
     Abe did indeed pass the test (given orally by the official examiner).
But unfortunately the date for the swearing-in ceremony was at a most
inconvenient time--the beginning of a holiday weekend. Many of his supporters
wanted to attend but could not because of travel and other obligations.
Relatives were in Arizona and unable to come.
     Ruth Stewart, a loyal NFB member, came through. She was there to admire
Abe's accomplishment, despite complicated transportation arrangements and
personal inconvenience. She reports that the ceremony was most uplifting and
impressive.
     Kostas Manthos from Greece is also a new citizen. He too is from Arizona
and a recent graduate of the CCB. Most of his instruction, as well as the
examination and ceremony, took place in Arizona with family and friends; but
he tells us that the support and encouragement in Colorado also helped him a
great deal.
     The NFB of Arizona presented him with a U.S. flag.
     The entire Federation family joins in extending hearty congratulations
and welcome to these new citizens.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Peggy Chong]
                     NEWSLINE Still Growing
                         by Peggy Chong
                           **********
     From the Editor: Peggy Chong is working full-time with the NEWSLINE (tm)
program at the National Center. Here is her progress report:
                           **********
     Of all the many projects of the National Federation of the Blind,
NEWSLINE (tm) for the Blind is one of the fastest growing. We are pleased to
welcome three new NEWSLINE sites to the state of Arizona. They are located in
the cities of Phoenix, Prescott, and Tucson and are sponsored by the Arizona
Department of Library, Archives, and Public Records. Blind people in these
communities were able to begin reading several national newspapers by the end
of January, 2000. Plans are evolving to have two local papers available soon
as well to readers in Arizona.
     An additional site in Connecticut has been established in Stamford,
funded in part by generous contributions from the newspapers that serve the
state. New sites in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, Missouri, will
also soon be online.
     This brings the number of local service centers now serving blind
readers to sixty-nine, about to become seventy-two. Through these centers
blind people in hundreds of communities now have more flexibility and options
when reading the newspaper.
     Many subscribers call to tell us how much they use and rely on NEWSLINE.
A sports reporter from Minnesota tells me that having NEWSLINE saves him time
on the job. He no longer needs to employ a reader to sift through the
newspaper to find tidbits of information about baseball. He can do it from
home early each morning or even from his hotel room while on the road.
NEWSLINE has kept him better informed and prepared for his job.
     Many seniors who have lost the ability to read the newspaper are
overjoyed to be able to read it again each day. Job seekers are also glad that
they can finally use newspapers to gather important information and background
to help them make a favorable impression during an interview and land the job.
     More and more states are finding ways to bring NEWSLINE to their home
communities, providing immediate access to today's news today. The map in the
print edition shows the thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and
Toronto, Canada, that now have access to at least one NEWSLINE Service Center.
But many communities are still without access to daily newspapers that blind
people can read for themselves.
     This easy-to-use service provides at least three national newspapers to
each local service center. In many cases additional papers, including local
ones, are added to the site. Through the local access channel smaller items of
interest are added to serve the local community better. Items such as voting
information, bus schedule changes, newsletters for seniors, and Library-for-
the-Blind publications are just a small sample of the items placed on local
channels on the NEWSLINE system.
     Each day's edition of the papers provided is made available through
NEWSLINE. Each daily paper remains on the system the day it is published and
the following day. The Sunday edition, if one is published, will remain on the
system for the entire week.
     NEWSLINE delivers the entire text of the paper. Because we use
electronic files received directly from the newspapers themselves, using text-
to-speech software, we can translate each paper quickly and make it available
to blind and print-impaired subscribers in a timely fashion. You will not find
month-old newspapers on this system.
     The NEWSLINE ID number and security code you use in your local area will
also work when you visit any of the other NEWSLINE service areas. To learn the
local telephone number for any NEWSLINE site, read "NEWSLINE Network News,"
available on your Local Service Center. If you do not have an ID number and
would like to sign up for NEWSLINE, contact your local chapter of the National
Federation of the Blind or the national office in Baltimore, Maryland.
     If you would like more information on how to establish a NEWSLINE site
in your area, call our national office at (410) 659-9314. We will be glad to
give you the information you need to help provide national newspapers to the
blind and print-impaired of your community.
[PHOTO DESCRIPTION: The map pictured here depicts the fifty United States, as
well as Toronto, Canada. States having more than one local service center are
black, those with one local service center only have a striped fill, and those
still waiting for their first NEWSLINE site are white. The fourteen black
states are AZ, CA, CT, IL, IA, MD, MI, MO, NJ, OH, OK, TN, TX, and WI. The
eighteen states and one Canadian province with one NEWSLINE site are CO, DE,
DC, HI, ID, KY, LA, MA, MN, MS, NE, NY, NC, SC, Toronto, UT, VA, WA, and WV.
The nineteen states still waiting for NEWSLINE are AL, AK, AR, FL, GA, IN, KS,
ME, MT, NV, NH, NM, ND, OR, PA, RI, SD, VT, and WY.] [CAPTION: NEWSLINE for
the Blind Service Areas]
                           **********
                           **********
                             Recipes
                           **********
     From the Editor: This month's recipes were submitted by members of the
Deaf-Blind Division.
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Kimberly Johnson]
                        Seven-Layer Bars
                       by Kimberly Johnson
                           **********
     Kimberly Johnson is an instructor at the Colorado Center for the Blind
and serves as Treasurer of the Deaf-Blind Division. Several Deaf-Blind
Division Board members are graduates of the CCB and now live in Denver.
Kimberly has taught and worked with a number of members of the division.
                           **********
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
3 cups graham cracker crumbs
14 ounces flaked coconut
12 ounces butterscotch chips
12 ounces chocolate chips
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
                           **********
     Method: Melt butter in 9-by-13 baking pan. Layer ingredients in pan in
the order listed. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes. Cut into
bars while still warm.
                           **********
                           **********
                           Shortbread
                       by Kimberly Johnson
                           **********
     Here is a yummy shortbread recipe that can be cut into fun shapes with
cookie cutters for any holiday.
                           **********
Ingredients:
2 sticks butter
2-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
                           **********
     Method: Mix all ingredients using an electric mixer or hands. Roll out
dough using a rolling pin to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Cut into triangles or
other shapes with a knife, or use cookie cutters, rolling scraps together to
use again. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for thirty to
forty minutes. If you have transferred the rolled dough to the sheet for
baking in one large piece, now cut it into shapes while it is still hot. Let
cool and remove from pan. If you have individual cookies, remove them to a
rack to cool completely.
                           **********
                           **********
                            Rum Cake
                       by Kimberly Johnson
                           **********
     This is a great cake that I learned about from a student when I taught
home management at the Colorado Center for the Blind.
                           **********
Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix with pudding
1 small package of instant vanilla pudding
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup rum
1/2 cup pecan pieces
                           **********
     Method: Blend all ingredients except pecans, and beat well. Grease bundt
cake pan. Sprinkle pecans into the bottom of cake pan. Pour batter over pecans
and bake at 350 degrees for fifty minutes. Leave cake in pan to cool.
                           **********
Glaze Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup rum
                           **********
     Method: Cook butter, sugar, and water for a short time to blend. Remove
from heat. Pierce cake surface with fork while it is still in the pan. Add rum
to cooled glaze and pour over surface of cake while still in the pan. Let sit
for a while before removing from the pan. Enjoy!
                           **********
                           **********
                        Russian Tea Cakes
                       by Kimberly Johnson
                           **********
Ingredients:
2 sticks butter
1 cup powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
                           **********
     Method: Mix butter and sugar, then beat in the rest of the ingredients.
Chill dough. Roll into balls and bake at 325 degrees for fifteen to twenty
minutes. Roll cookies in additional powdered sugar while still warm.
                           **********
                           **********
[PHOTO/CAPTION: Maurice Mines]
                            Apple Pie
                        by Maurice Mines
                           **********
     Maurice Mines is First Vice President of the Deaf-Blind Division.
                           **********
Ingredients:
4 large Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter, cut or broken into small pieces
fresh or frozen pastry for a double-crust pie
                           **********
     Method: Peel, core, and slice apples. Mix with remaining filling
ingredients except butter in a mixing bowl. Roll bottom crust and place in pie
plate. Arrange filling in bottom crust of pie shell. Top filling with the
pieces of butter, then place rolled top crust over filling and tuck edges
under bottom crust. Seal with fingers or the tines of a fork. Slash top crust
with a sharp knife. Place pie on cookie sheet in 350-degree oven. Bake for
twenty-five minutes or until apples are tender when you insert a knife into
the pie through a vent. Cool and serve.
                           **********
                           **********
                       Monitor Miniatures
                           **********
Reminder to Those Submitting Monitor Miniatures:
     It's always a good idea to proofread Monitor Miniature submissions
carefully. Several times recently we have been asked to run corrections
because the contact information provided to us included typographical errors.
                           **********
Corrections:
     The December, 1999, issue included our periodic report of how much
further the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and
Visually Handicapped (NAC) has declined in recent years. The map demonstrating
how few states still have either one or more than one NAC-accredited agency
contains an error. Maryland was shown as a NAC-free environment;
unfortunately, the Maryland School for the Blind is still NAC-accredited.
Therefore, Maryland should have been depicted as shaded.
     On the other hand, the recorded, Braille, and e-mail editions failed to
list California among the states having rid themselves entirely of NAC. We
apologize, particularly to California, for the errors.
                           **********
Elected:
     At its October 23, 1999, state convention, the NFB of Maine elected new
officers. They are Connie Leblond, President; Michael Jucubouis, First Vice
President; John Batron, Second Vice President; Robbie McIninch, Secretary;
Robert Leblond, Treasurer; and Diana Knox and Rob Whitney, Board Members.
                           **********
For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Voyager CCTV Model VR2A, in excellent condition, asking $1,000 plus
shipping or best offer. Contact Barry DeGardner, (612) 786-1372, e-mail:
<barryd@coolmail.net>.
                           **********
Items Wanted:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Moinuddin Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Society for Disabled writes to
request that items be donated to this nonprofit organization, which is
registered by the Social Services Department and Affairs Bureau under the
Prime Minister's Office, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh.
     Donations are needed of Braille books, magazines, papers, and other
materials in good condition in English; Perkins Braillers, slates and
styluses; cassette recorders; Braille and talking watches; talking
calculators; white canes; and Braille paper. The receipt of your gift will be
acknowledged. Send items marked "Non-commercial, Free Matter for the Blind" to
Bangladesh Society for Disabled, 25, Central Road, Dhanmondi, Dhaka-1205;
phone: 506059, 864427, fax: 88-02-865189.
                           **********
In Memoriam:
     Ed and Toni Eames recently sent us a tribute to Stanley Doran:
     Stan Doran made a difference. Born in 1921 and raised on a farm in Ohio,
Stan grew up with a love of and respect for animals. His dream of joining the
Army Air Corps during World War II was thwarted by his limited vision. But in
honor of that dream, when he established a guide dog school in Columbus, Ohio,
in 1947, he called it Pilot Dogs. Recognizing the advantage of working in a
city, Stan located his facility in the heart of Columbus. Pilot is the only
guide dog school in which students can walk out of the training center and be
exposed immediately to sidewalks, pedestrians, and traffic.
     During his stewardship Stan developed many innovative programs. When a
breeder donated a litter of collie puppies, he placed them in the homes of
blind youngsters. After a year of puppy raising and socialization, the dogs
were returned to Pilot for professional guide dog training. Subsequently the
youngsters were trained with the dogs they had raised.
     Realizing that blind people need to use escalators in public areas, Stan
initiated a safe method of escalator training. His concept has been adopted by
the other guide dog schools in the United States.
     After leaving Pilot Dogs, Stan initiated the first radio reading service
in Ohio. Blind Columbus residents obtained access to newspapers, magazines,
and special programs devoted to blindness issues.
     Having firmly established the Central Ohio Radio Reading Service, Stan
moved on to his next major venture. Although the Newsreel, a cassette
magazine, was started in 1957 to provide a vehicle for Stan to stay in touch
with Pilot Dog graduates, it evolved into a national and international
mechanism for blind people to share ideas and experiences with each other.
Stan shepherded this organization from a Pilot Dog alumni group to its current
status as an international, membership-driven, consumer support group. Newly
blind individuals can learn from those who have been living with blindness for
years and have developed a whole range of coping mechanisms. This monthly tape
newsletter with three hours of listening per issue covers a wide range of
topics including cooking, recipes, new technology, parenting skills, adaptive
techniques, and of course guide dog issues. Since contributions are submitted
on cassette by subscriber members, readers get to know the voices of their
fellow Newsreelers.
     Although Stan retired from his Newsreel position a couple of years
before his death, he remained an active member of the board and still spent
many hours in the Newsreel office. He received recognition from numerous
local, state, and national organizations: the J. C. Penney Golden Rule Award,
Dialogue Magazine Founders Award, Columbus Area Leadership Award, and the
American Institute for Public Service's Jefferson Award. In 1957 the state of
Kentucky named him a Kentucky Colonel. In 1992 he was inducted into the
National Hall of Fame for Persons with Disabilities.
                           **********
Research Assistance Needed:
     We have been asked to carry the following request:
     I am a Ph.D. student with a visual impairment. For my dissertation I
want to interview adults with visual impairments concerning their requests,
successful or not, for any kind of print-access accommodation made over the
past few years. This includes requests for Braille, large print, audio, or
digital formatting; readers; or barrier removal for access to printed
material. These requests can have been made to employers, schools, banks,
stores, restaurants, libraries, utility or phone companies, or any government
agency. I especially want to learn about additional efforts made if a request
was not fulfilled, such as additional discussions or negotiation or an appeal
to another source.
     To tell your stories, contact me by phone, e-mail, or U.S. mail. Give a
phone number and the best time to reach you. I will call you back for the
interview. Only U.S. residents over eighteen, please. You may end the
interview at any time or decline to answer any questions you do not want to
answer. Your name will not be published. Please contact John Frank,
Rehabilitation Counseling Department, Syracuse University, 259 Huntington
Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244-2340, (315) 476-1142, e-mail:
<jjfrank@syr.edu>.
                           **********
Attention Those Interested in Issues of Religious Faith:
     The National Association of the Blind in Communities of Faith, an NFB
division, is updating its membership list. If you are a current member or if
you wish to become a member, please send your name, address, phone number,
religious faith or denomination, and preferred reading format to Maureen
Pranghofer, 4910 Dawnview Terrace, Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422, or e-mail
<maureen@winternet.com>.
                           **********
Elected:
     The Southwest Georgia Chapter of the NFB of Georgia elected new
officers. They are Max Parker, President; Sandra Ausburn, Vice President;
Sheila Gear, Secretary; Blanche Griffin, Treasurer; and Dorothy Goodley and
Agnes Wise, Board Members.
                           **********
E-mail by Telephone:
     We are reprinting the following announcement since part of a phone
number was incorrect in the original notice:
     Send and receive e-mail by telephone with Mail-Call. This service
provides a simple way for anyone to send and receive e-mail messages without
using a computer. All you need is an e-mail address and access to a telephone.
If you don't have an e-mail address, Mail-Call will provide one for you free.
It gives access to the system all day, every day.
     Mail-Call delivers a user's e-mail in an easy-to-understand computer
voice with user control of voice and rate of speech. You can reply to any
message just by speaking your reply message into the phone. You can also send
your message to a fax machine. A free demonstration of Mail-Call service is
available by calling (888) 462-4348. When the system answers and asks for an
account number, just press the pound key on your telephone to hear the system
demo.
     Mail-Call service is available anywhere in the United States for $.30 a
minute. Mail-Call does not require a contract or monthly minimums. You pay
only for the actual minutes you use. Service is billed monthly to the user's
credit card. To set up a user account, call (800) 299-4722 or visit the Web
site: <www.mail-call.com>.
                           **********
Seeking Coworkers and Friends:
     President Maurer writes the following:
     Edgar Sammons, who worked in a shop in Asheville, North Carolina, during
World War II, would like to find co-workers who were there when he was. He
would also like to have pen pals who could write in Braille or communicate on
a standard two-track cassette tape. I have never met Edgar Sammons, but I have
read enough of his letters to know that he is a man of spirit and that he
would be a good friend. His address is 2365 Cold Springs Road, Mountain City,
Tennessee 37683.
                           **********
Elected:
     At its state convention in November the NFB of Pennsylvania elected new
officers. They are Jim Antonacci, President; Judy Jobes, First Vice President;
Earl Jackson, Second Vice President; Connie Johnson, Secretary; Chuck
Morgenstern, Treasurer; and Gus Jasper, Rod Powell, Mike Wolk, Lisa Mattioli,
Ted Young, and Lois Holmes, Board Members.
                           **********
Subscription E-mail List Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Do you want to keep abreast of the latest developments in access
technology but lack the time or inclination to sift through hundreds of
messages on e-mail lists? Do you sometimes delete messages because you are
unwilling to read through extraneous headers and advertisements? If the answer
to either of these questions is yes, this list is for you.
     I monitor over a dozen e-mail lists and also subscribe to several
newsletters and magazines which focus on adaptive technology. For an annual
fee of $20, you can receive timely information about new products and
resources, updates to your adaptive equipment, and speech-friendly programs.
You will also be alerted to changes in vendor contact information and
publications and will be informed when new lists of interest become available.
You will receive tips about how to improve the performance of your computer
and will be alerted to the existence of new viruses which may infect it.
Articles which focus on accessibility issues will also be forwarded or
referenced. To subscribe, please send a $20 check payable to Amy Ruell and
mail to Amy Ruell, 9 Quail Run, Hingham, Massachusetts 02043. If you have
questions, e-mail: <aruell@world.std.com>.
                           **********
Elected:
     The NFB of Puerto Rico recently elected the following affiliate
officers: Alpidio Rolon, President; Jos` Rodriguez, Secretary; and Luz
Repullo, Board Member.
                           **********
Attention Those with Access Problems to Shaklee:
     Attention: independent Shaklee sales leaders and others in the business.
We have encountered access problems with the Shaklee Corporation. We have
mentioned to them that the catalog and price list are only in print and have
suggested ways of accessing these items using a computer. Our intent is to
provide this information in Braille or large print or electronically to people
as needed. So far the Shaklee Company has been unresponsive. Of course we want
other blind people to be successful in this business and also wish to provide
blind customers with the same ease of information access as sighted customers.
There are other access issues with the Shaklee Company, but we thought we
would start here.
     The greater the number of people working on this, the more impact we
will have in making a change. If you want to work with us on getting Shaklee
moving on this issue, please contact Jean and Franklin Shiner, 27 North
Franklin Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602; (802) 223-7067; e-mail
<fshiner@sover.net>.
                           **********
Spanish Cassette Magazine Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     El Club Latino International is a new, bi-monthly, interactive cassette
magazine in Spanish. Its purpose is to establish a network of friendship
within the blind Hispanic community as well as to offer an outlet for persons
of any background with an interest in and knowledge of Spanish. If you have
musical talent, wish to discuss technology or problems of blindness, or are
searching for love or friendship, send us your recorded message. Each member
should try to keep his or her participation under ten minutes so that many
people can get in on each tape. Braille letters in Spanish or English are
acceptable; however, I prefer recorded messages for inclusion on the club
tape.
     This project is born out of our love of the Hispanic culture and
language; therefore membership is free. However, contributions are welcome.
Send all correspondence to Elena Taylor, 111 Belle Vista Court, Winston-Salem,
North Carolina 27106, phone (336) 725-6333, or e-mail Eduardo Ramirez at
<TLRamirez@Earthlink.net>.
                           **********
Toy Guide for Children Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The American Foundation for the Blind and the American Toy Institute
have released the latest edition of Guide to Toys for Children Who Are Blind
or Visually Impaired. The guide is a one-of-a-kind resource containing
information about commercially available toys and games. It is useful for
adults with visual impairments who wish to participate in play with sighted
children. It features 100 new toys with an emphasis on multimedia and
interactive toys in a wide price range. An introductory section makes it
easier for adults choosing toys to understand the selection criteria used and
shows readers how to apply these criteria beyond the products appearing in the
guide.
     The guide is available free of charge in full-color print or on audio
cassette by contacting the American Foundation for the Blind, 11 Penn Plaza,
Suite 300, New York, New York 10001, (800) 232-5463 or the American Toy
Institute, 1115 Broadway, Suite 400, New York, New York 10010, fax: (212) 633-
1429. The guide is also posted on AFB's Web site: <www.afb.org> and ATI's Web
site: <www.toy-tma.org>.
                           **********
For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Complete Stories of the Great Operas by Milton Cross, copyright 1947,
eleven Braille volumes, good condition. It includes detailed synopses of
seventy-two operas with arias, asking $150 or best offer. Please call (816)
254-9670 or write to Norman Yale, 2600 North Hub Drive, Apartment 314A,
Independence, Missouri 64055.
                           **********
Opportunity:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Are you looking for affordable Internet education? Would you like to
make money while learning your computer? Call Nikki Bakkal any time at (877)
689-5486, extension 8130.
                           **********
Elected:
     The Clark County Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of
Washington elected the following officers for the coming year during its
December 18, 1999, meeting: Don Mitchell, President; Bob Sellers, Vice
President; Mike Freeman, Secretary; and Nancy Martin, Treasurer.
                           **********
Notice for Those Making Convention Reservations:
     Several people attempting to make convention reservations without a
credit card have been told by hotel personnel that it cannot be done.
Reservations clerks making such statements are in error. We recommend that you
courteously suggest they look a bit further in their instructions to read the
arrangements for paying by check. Convention reservations information this
year is as follows:
     Hotel rates for the 2000 convention are singles, $57; doubles and twins,
$59; triples, $61; and quads, $63. Prepare to add tax of 14 percent to the
cost of each room. There will be no charge for children in the room with
parents as long as no extra bed is requested.
     Write directly to Atlanta Marriott Marquis, 265 Peachtree Center Avenue,
Atlanta, Georgia 30303, or call (404) 521-0000. Marriott has a national toll-
free number, but do not use it. Reservations made through this national number
will not be valid. They must be made directly with the hotel. The hotel will
want a deposit of $60 or a credit card number. If a credit card is used, the
deposit will be charged against your card immediately, just as would be the
case with a $60 check. If a reservation is cancelled prior to June 4, 2000,
$30 of the $60 deposit will be returned. Otherwise refunds will not be made.
                           **********
New Smithsonian Institution Access Brochure Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The Smithsonian's Office of Public Affairs has published "Smithsonian
Access," a free guide for visitors with disabilities. It provides an overview
of accessibility features at the Smithsonian's museums and other public
facilities.
     "Smithsonian Access" includes information about designated parking,
Metro, facility entrances, and visitor services and publications and tells how
to arrange for interpreters and special tours for people with disabilities.
The sixty-page brochure is illustrated with line drawings of the museums and
several maps.
     The text of "Smithsonian Access" is also available in alternative
formats--large print, computer disk, audio cassette, and Braille.
     For copies of the "Smithsonian Access" brochure or to request one of its
alternative formats, write to Smithsonian Information, Smithsonian
Institution, Room 153, Washington, D.C. 20560-0010; call (202) 357-2700
(voice) or (202) 357-1729 (TTY), Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00
p.m., or on weekends from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; or send an e-mail request
to <info@info.si.edu>.
     In addition, the contents of the brochure are available on the
Smithsonian Institution Web site: <www.si.edu/opa/accessibility/>.
                           **********
Attention Those Interested in Acting:
     In the November, 1999, "Monitor Miniatures" we carried the following
announcement, but the telephone number was incorrect. Here, once again, is the
notice, this time with the correct contact information.
     At our 2000 convention in Atlanta we will conduct a meeting for all
those interested in forming an actors division. You are encouraged to memorize
a monologue to be performed at the meeting, and information will be provided
about acting companies looking for blind actors. Bring your ideas and be ready
to make your premiere. Please contact Angela Sasser, 2610 Whitis Avenue, No.
1, Austin, Texas 78705 or (512) 495-4010.
                           **********
Attention Entrepreneurs:
                           **********
   In September, 1999, the National Association of Blind Entrepreneurs
(N.A.B.E.) launched its Web site. The division can be found at
<www.nabentre.org>. In January, 2000, the N.A.B.E. launched a new interactive
voice conference located on this Web site. To participate, all you need is a
computer equipped with a microphone and speakers.  To connect to the web site,
go to the voice chat link and allow the necessary software to be downloaded.
Your voice software will not interfere with your ability to communicate. Those
in a voice conference just press and hold the F-9 function key to speak. While
only one person can speak at a time, others can hear all comments. We plan to
conduct monthly meetings; consult the Web site for times.
     Our hope is that in the future we can invite guest speakers from the
Small Business Administration, banking institutions, and the NFB staff.
Business owners can communicate with one another at no cost in order to
develop strategies for success. The voice conference is a great tool which
will allow this division to stay on the cutting edge of communication.
     Any member in the member directory may request a voice conference with
any board member. We encourage participation in both the conference and
message areas. See you all on the N.A.B.E. Web site.
                           **********
                           **********
                           NFB PLEDGE
                           **********
     I pledge to participate actively in the effort of the National
Federation of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the
blind; to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by
its constitution.