                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR



                    Kenneth Jernigan, Editor
                Barbara Pierce, Associate Editor


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


              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND 
                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT 
 


                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230 

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

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



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

                            CONTENTS

                                                       JULY, 1993

THE TRUE MEANING OF REGULATIONS: A VOCABULARY LESSON FROM THE
SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
by Robert Leblond

TACTILE WARNING APPEAL FIZZLES

COMPLAINT FILED IN THE SHEILA HALL CASE
by Scott LaBarre

BLIND CITIZENS ONE STEP CLOSER TO JURY SERVICE IN THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA

TRAVELING THE GLOBE
by Jennifer Dunnam

REDEFINING REALITY: A BIZARRE NEW TWIST TO THE HANDICAPPED
PARKING DEBATE

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: SHARON GOLD EDUCATES TRANSPORTATION
OFFICIALS ABOUT TRAVEL

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER
by Thomas Bickford

VALUING THE MOVEMENT ENOUGH TO KEEP IT STRONG
by Gary Wunder

FEDERATIONIST DEMONSTRATES THE USEFULNESS OF BRAILLE

WHAT SSI RECIPIENTS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TRUSTS
by Greg D. Trapp

A PROBLEM SOLVED FOR MUSICIANS: THE YAMAHA QY10 NOW TALKS

REHABILITATION RESEARCH AND TRAINING CENTER AT MISSISSIPPI STATE
RESPONDS TO CONSUMER CONCERNS

CLIFF NOTES: A FAMILY AFFAIR
by Peg Halverson

RECIPES

MONITOR MINIATURES



     Copyright National Federation of the Blind, Inc., 1993LEAD PHOTO/CAPTION: All children learn by watching
their parents and by working with them on projects.
When David Patrick Maurer, then age eight, wanted to
give his mother a head board bookcase for Christmas
last year, he and his father, NFB President Marc
Maurer, worked together to build the gift. Pictured
here at work in the shop, located in the central
courtyard building at the National Center for the
Blind, David looks on while his father uses a cross cut
saw.

[PHOTO: Family portrait. CAPTION: Connie and Bob
Leblond with their son, Seth.]

                THE TRUE MEANING OF REGULATIONS:
       A VOCABULARY LESSON FROM THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
                        by Robert Leblond

     From the Editor: People are sometimes puzzled at the anger
and frustration expressed by many in the blindness community when
we talk about our struggle to receive service from the
rehabilitation or education establishments. It is hard for these
folk to believe us when we say that there is something surreal
about the world of governmental regulations and the bureaucratic
mind. Often the only effective protection in this jungle is a
lively sense of the ridiculous. Even so, we must always remember
that lives and futures are at stake in these absurd battles, and
too often it is our children who lose. 
     Robert Leblond is the President of the New England Parents
of Blind Children Division of the National Federation of the
Blind. His wife Connie is President of the NFB of Maine. The
Leblonds have two blind youngsters, Seth and Hope. Through the
years the Leblonds have had their share of bizarre encounters
with the special education and rehabilitation bureaucracies in
Maine. Bob Leblond has written the latest chapter in the saga of
the family's attempt to get Hope the training she needs in
Braille and cane travel. As you read the following story, bear in
mind that as a result of the nonsense the Leblonds have
encountered, Hope's IEP-mandated Braille instruction now consists
of her independent study of the Library of Congress Braille
transcription course intended as a course for sighted Braille
transcribers. The state vocational rehabilitation agency's
itinerant teacher assured Hope that she could finish the course
in a year, despite the long periods of waiting while her lessons
are graded in Washington, D.C. When Connie Leblond objected that
they should have a more realistic estimate for the time it would
take to complete the course, the teacher began eliminating
lessons and skipping contractions to insure Hope's completion of
the course within the year promised. No one has bothered to
explain how Hope is to use Braille without knowing all the needed
signs. Reading the Leblonds' story may make you feel a little
like Alice in Wonderland, but here it is:

     Special education regulations can be a nightmare for parents
of blind children. How many times has Braille instruction or
mobility training been denied to a blind or visually impaired
child simply because of a narrow or wrong-headed interpretation
of the concept of least restrictive environment? How many
children have been refused necessary services due to a too broad
interpretation of the infamous Rowley Decision, which states that
special education does not exist for the purpose of maximizing a
student's potential? Parents and their blind children are all too
often inundated by educational regulations that seem to exist
specifically for the purpose of lowering the quality of our
children's education. Time and again we are constrained by these
rules, and we wish there were some way around them so that our
children could truly benefit from their Individualized Education
Plans. Everyone will be delighted to learn that the solution to
navigating this frustrating maze of regulations is simple--become
a school department in the State of Maine, and none of the rules
will apply to you anymore.
     My wife and I are the parents of two blind children in
Portland, Maine. We therefore attend Pupil Evaluation Team
meetings (PET's) on a regular basis. I should explain that in
Maine the PET and the Individual Education Plan Team, which have
overlapping but not identical memberships, meet together to make
placement and education decisions in one big happy (or unhappy)
group. My wife Connie is the President of the National Federation
of the Blind of Maine and sits on the Division for the Blind and
Visually Impaired's Advisory Committee. I am the President of the
New England Parents of Blind Children Division, and until
recently I served on the Maine Advisory Panel on the Education of
Children with Disabilities. By virtue of these activities we are
aware of most of the regulations that pertain to special
education. Not surprisingly, when we notice an infraction of the
regulations in our children's paperwork or procedures, we try to
rectify it. 
     For example, when we attended a PET last year for our son
and tried to discuss the purchase of computer equipment, we were
told that no one at the meeting had the authority to commit the
school department's financial resources; the meeting must be
continued to a later date. State and federal regulations clearly
provide, however, that a person with that authority must always
be present at such meetings. When we reminded the school
department of this fact, we were told that these people were very
busy. What if they had to go to every PET in the city? It is
clear that this particular regulation is not followed in Maine
because it is binding on the school, not the child or the
parents.
     That same year we convened a PET on behalf of our daughter
Hope. We were seeking a one-year placement at a residential
school in order for her to hone her Braille and mobility skills
in a specialized environment. At this meeting none of my
daughter's classroom teachers was in attendance. Again both state
and federal regulations require that at least one representative
from the child's regular education program must be in attendance.
Again we reported the transgression and were told that there was
nothing that could be done, because the incident had happened in
the past. (If I could make myself aware of incidents before they
occur, I would be omniscient and could then presumably do without
the school department altogether.) Of course the residential
school placement was rejected because it didn't fit well with the
regulation of least restrictive environment. This rule--it goes
without saying--was scrupulously, if not rigidly, adhered to
since it thwarted only the student and her parents.
     The decision to refuse our daughter the opportunity of a
one-year residential placement was made by a state-hired due-
process hearing officer who was obviously more interested in
giving the school department the benefit of the doubt than in
addressing the issue of quality education. This officer was
influenced by the testimony of our assistant special education
director, one Jane Golding, who stated under oath that the school
could find a certified teacher to work with my daughter as
specified in the IEP. Although this was refuted by the testimony
of a supervisor for the Division for the Blind and Visually
Impaired, who stated quite straightforwardly that there is a
critical shortage of certified teachers of the blind in Maine
(indeed throughout the country), the hearing officer's decision
was that residential placement was denied and that the school
must have the appropriately certified personnel in place within
forty-five days. It occurred to us to wonder how this was going
to be done in the light of the fact that there were no certified
teachers of the blind in the state not already employed through
the Division for the Blind, and we were further mystified when
the position was never advertised.
     In an attempt to shed some light on the subject, I contacted
our local special education director, Angela L. Faherty, who
eventually told me that a certified person had been found to work
with my daughter. There were a number of exchanges of views
between Dr. Faherty and me during the late summer. They all
produced more heat than light. Here is one letter which reflects
my frustration and anger and the Portland School Department's
unwillingness to work in my daughter's best interest: 

                                                  Portland, Maine
                                                   August 5, 1992

Dr. Angela Faherty, Director
Special Services
Portland Public Schools
Portland, Maine

Dear Dr. Faherty:
     I am writing to you today in order to clarify some of the
issues that have arisen concerning Hope's IEP and the results of
the due process hearing that we initiated on her behalf.
     I called you this morning to inquire if the school had the
necessary personnel in place to implement the IEP. You replied
that the school did not need to hire any additional personnel
because you stated that Chris Crinion of the Division for the
Blind and Visually Impaired (DBVI) had all of the required people
to implement the plan. At that time I asked if you meant the
total level of service as written in the plan. You responded in
the affirmative. You further stated that a PET was being convened
to make specific goals and objectives with the new itinerant
teacher in attendance.
     Since Mr. Crinion has stated from the beginning that DBVI
was unable to provide the specific level of service called for in
the IEP, I said to you that this was my understanding of the
facts. You responded that it was your understanding that DBVI was
now able to provide the aforementioned services with no gaps. I
called Mr. Crinion and was told that his letter to you had
contained information indicating that his agency could provide
six hours of teacher time weekly, not the fifteen hours that the
IEP calls for. If my math doesn't fail me, this leaves a
discrepancy of nine hours--more than half the total teacher time
per week specified in the IEP.
     Mr. Crinion at this point attempted to call you and was told
you were out of the office for the day. Immediately after his
attempt, I then tried to call you and was told that you were in a
meeting. Obviously the second of these statements was the correct
one, since you eventually returned my call. One must wonder,
however, at your reluctance to communicate with Mr. Crinion, a
supervisor of the agency that is the key player in the proper
implementation of my daughter's IEP.
     In any event, I said in my second call to your department,
as well as in a call to the superintendent's office, that I did
not appreciate being lied to by you. In returning my call, you
were upset and indignant that I had referred to you as a liar.
You demanded an apology from me. In response, I would like to
state that in the first place, when I asked you, not once, but
three times, if DBVI had committed to providing all of the
services as described in the PET, you answered in the
affirmative. This left me to believe that either 1) you were not
being truthful with me, or 2) you lacked the intelligence to
comprehend the question. I opted for the lesser of two evils. Was
I correct, or was the second choice the right one?
     If in the future you believe that I am guilty of defamation
of character, the court system was created to answer just this
type of question; you need not resort to groveling.
     Also, in quoting so lavishly from the hearing officer's
orders, you seem to have neglected number two: "The school shall
ensure that the appropriately certified personnel to implement
Hope Leblond's IEP goals and objectives are in place within
forty-five days of the receipt of this decision." This means that
all of the appropriate personnel have to be in place by September
2. You have Mr. Crinion's letter indicating to you that nine
hours a week still need to be filled, yet you assure me that the
school needs no additional personnel. These are not the actions
of someone who is trying to "ensure that the appropriately
certified personnel...are in place within forty-five days." You
are treating this matter in quite a cavalier fashion, and I
resent it and will do everything in my power to compel you to
comply with the decision as rendered by the hearing officer.

                                                Very truly yours,
                                                Robert J. Leblond
                                                President, NEPOBC

cc: Marc Maurer
Chris Crinion
Pandora LaCasse
Annette Hoglund
James Oliver
David Stockford
Senator George Mitchell
Representative Tom Andrews
                      ____________________
     As I say, eventually the school told us that they had hired
a teacher to work with Hope as instructed by the hearing officer.
When I met the woman, Barbara Lowenberg-Irlandy, I requested to
see her teaching certificate. The school department refused this
request, which whetted my curiosity. I then contacted the Maine
Department of Certification and was told that she was not
certified as a teacher of any type. Here is the text of the
letter I received in mid-September, 1992, assuring me of this
fact: 

                                                   Augusta, Maine
                                               September 15, 1992

Dear Mr. Leblond:
     This letter is in follow-up to your request that Ms.
Lowenberg-Irlandy's certification status be provided to you in
writing. Currently this person does not appear on the list of
certified teachers.
     Based on our September 11, 1992, telephone conversation, you
are aware that an individual's certification status could change.

                                                       Sincerely,
                                               Pauline Lamontagne
                                          Education Specialist II
                                          Department of Education
                      ____________________
     Armed with this knowledge, I initiated a complaint with the
State Special Education Department arguing that the Portland
School Department was in non-compliance with the hearing
officer's order and that hiring non-certified personnel is
contrary to both federal and state regulations. The complaint
letter was filed in September of 1992 and, according to yet
another educational rule, had to be answered within sixty days.
     When over ninety days had passed with no answer to our
complaint, Diane Wood (wife of the Vice President of the NFB of
Maine) and I went to see the complaint investigator in person. He
stated that, although he had received my letter of complaint, he
didn't believe that it was an actual complaint and that therefore
he did not need to make a decision within the sixty days. He went
on to state that, whether or not Ms. Lowenberg-Irlandy had the
proper qualifications, the department was prepared to certify the
woman, and after this was done he would answer our complaint.
Needless to say, we were taken by surprise. Once again the rules
had been broken, and once again we were powerless to do anything
about it. In mid-January of 1993 we received a copy of a letter
to the Portland School Department from the State Department of
Education thanking them for having complied so well with the
hearing decision and stating that Barbara Lowenberg-Irlandy had
indeed been certified since August 24, 1992. Never mind my
September 15 letter from the Department of Certification flatly
stating that this woman was not certified as of mid-September,
but I can't seem to make anyone in the education establishment
care. Here is the letter from the Maine Department of Education
to the Portland School Department: 

                                                   Augusta, Maine
                                                 January 12, 1993

Dr. Angela Faherty
Director Special Education
Portland School Department
Portland, Maine

Dear Angela:
     I am pleased to advise you that the Department of Education
has reviewed your documents demonstrating compliance with the
hearing officer's decision in hearing #92.035, Leblond v.
Portland.
     Records on file in the Division of Certification indicate
that Ms. Barbara Lowenberg-Irlandy's application for
certification was processed on November 24, 1992. Ms. Irlandy
currently holds certification under certification 291 for a
period of August 24, 1992, through July 1, 1993. This
certification along with the documentation submitted by you in
early September demonstrates that the Portland School System has
substantially complied with the hearing officer's order in this
matter. The Department is closing this case and will be taking no
further action in this matter.
     Thank you for your assistance in complying with the hearing
officer's decision.

                                                       Sincerely,
                                                 Michael J. Opuda
                                          Due Process Coordinator
                                          Department of Education
                      ____________________
     There you have it. If you are a school department, you can
have your employees' credentials back-dated at your convenience,
and no one will apparently stop to consider whether the
retroactively credentialed teacher even has the necessary skills
to work with the child in question. For example, Ms. Lowenberg-
Irlandy, a reality therapist by training (whatever that is), has
demonstrated repeatedly that she knows little or no Braille and
has not the remotest idea what to do with a white cane. Her
approach during this school year, for which she was hired to
provide Hope with the skills we wanted her to sharpen at a
residential school for the blind, has been to darken and enlarge
photocopied materials for classroom use. In desperation I tried
writing a letter in early March to ascertain whether the
requirements for awarding emergency certification had been met in
this case. Here is my letter:

                                                  Portland, Maine
                                                    March 3, 1993

Mr. Michael Opuda
Maine Department of Education
Augusta, Maine

Dear Mr. Opuda:
     As you know, in the recent past I have questioned the
certification of Ms. Barbara Lowenberg-Irlandy, a person hired by
the Portland School Department to work with my daughter Hope, a
student at Deering High School. You have assured me that the
person in question is indeed certified, but what type of
certification does she hold? She lacks the qualifications to meet
the entry level standards for provisional, professional, or
master certification.
     She cannot have been granted a conditional certificate, nor
is she eligible to receive a transitional endorsement. I
therefore have to believe that the Department has granted a
waiver. If this is indeed the case, the Portland School
Department had to prove several things, including geographic
isolation and demonstrated attempts to hire a properly certified
person. This attempt must include a search timeline and proof of
statewide advertising. However, at a PET held at Deering High
School Jane Golding (assistant special ed. director) stated that
no search was undertaken prior to the hiring of Ms. Lowenberg-
Irlandy.
     I would appreciate clarification in this matter: what type
of certification does this person hold, and does she meet all of
the criteria necessary for certification?

                                                     Yours truly,
                                                Robert J. Leblond

cc: Commissioner Martin
Rep. James Oliver
Supt. of Schools, Portland
                      ____________________
     Needless to say, I have not to date received a satisfactory
answer. Mr. Opuda is the official who wrote the letter of
congratulations to the Portland schools about their having met
the hearing officer's requirement for a certified teacher to work
with Hope. One might be forgiven for presuming that before
writing a letter like the one reprinted in this article under
date of January 12, 1993, an education official would familiarize
himself with the case and understand the details. But Mr. Opuda
told me that he did not know the facts of the certification and
that I would have to learn them from the Department of
Certifications. The two offices are two doors apart, but it is I
who am now trying to untangle the certification confusion. 
     So when the rules and regulations imposed by the education
establishment weigh too heavily on you and you feel you need a
break, come to Maine; become a school department; you'll be able
to get away with anything short of murder--and flaunt it too!


                 TACTILE WARNING APPEAL FIZZLES

     Those who have been following the truncated dome debate
within the A117 Committee of the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI) and beyond will remember that in June of 1992
ANSI voted to eliminate its requirements for providing tactile
warning strips composed of what are officially described as
truncated domes at intersections and the edges of drop-offs such
as train platforms. (See "Architectural Barriers for the Blind:
the Myth and the Reality" in the October, 1992, issue of the
Braille Monitor.) Soon after ANSI's decision the American Council
of the Blind, the American Foundation for the Blind, and the
World Institute on Disability banded together to appeal it.
According to the appeals process, the appellants were not
supposed to present any new arguments or information in their
appeal since the guidelines stipulated that it must be limited to
questions of consensus procedures and due process. In fact those
who have seen the appeal documents report that much new material
was presented, a departure from fair play that apparently very
much annoyed some ANSI members. 
     But the ANSI Board of Standards Review accepted and
considered it all. On April 8, 1993, the Council of American
Building Officials (CABO), ANSI's secretariat, announced that the
ACB-AFB-WIB appeal had been denied on the grounds that the A117
Committee had indeed followed its consensus procedures and had
assured due process to all materially affected and interested
parties. Here is the press release that was circulated:
          
For Immediate Release
April 14, 1993

                 ANSI Board of Standards Review
                Rejects Appeal to A117.1 Standard

     The Council of American Building Officials (CABO),
Secretariat for the ANSI A117 Committee, has announced that the
ANSI Board of Standards Review (BSR) unanimously voted to deny
the appeal to the approval of the CABO/ANSI A117.1-1992 Standard
as an American National Standard made by the American Council of
the Blind, the World Institute on Disability, and the American
Foundation for the Blind. Thus the CABO/ANSI A117.1-1992 Standard
approval is sustained as of December 15, 1992.
     In responding to the charges of the appellants, the BSR
concluded that the record of evidence clearly shows that
consensus was achieved in favor of the Standard as finally
approved by the A117 Committee; due process was followed in the
development of the Standard; neither the Secretariat nor the
Chairman of the Committee acted in a biased or otherwise
inappropriate fashion; and the Committee Chairman indicated a
willingness to establish a task group to resolve the question of
tactile cues for the blind and to encourage further research on
truncated domes in the future.
     Mr. Richard P. Kuchnicki, CABO Chief Executive Officer,
stated that he is gratified the BSR found that the Committee
Secretariat, provided by CABO, and the Committee Chairman were
diligent in following the consensus procedures and assuring due
process to all materially affected and interested parties. "As
the representative of building officials who serve all the
constituents in their respective jurisdictions," Mr. Kuchnicki
said, "It is incumbent upon CABO to endeavor at all times to
grant due process to all involved and affected parties." Mr.
Kuchnicki stated that CABO has no reason to have a bias because
the building official serves the interests of all the people.
     According to ANSI procedures, persons who believe that they
have been or will be adversely affected by the results of the
subject appeal have the right of further appeal to the ANSI
Appeals Board. Written notice of the appeal must be filed with
the Secretary of the Appeals Board within fifteen days of
notification of the BSR decision.
                           __________
     There you have the press release that was widely distributed
as soon as the letter of notification had been received by the
three parties who filed the appeal. Here is the letter sent to
them by Beth Somerville, Secretary of the Board of Standards
Review:

                                                    April 8, 1993

Mr. Eugene Lozano
     American Council of the Blind
Mr. Paul Schroeder, Director of Governmental Affairs
     American Council of the Blind
Mr. Tom Karnes
     World Institute on Disability
Ms. Elga Joffee, National Program Associate
     American Foundation for the Blind
Mr. Scott Marshall
     Associate Executive Director Governmental Affairs
     American Foundation for the Blind
Mr. Richard P. Kuchnicki
     Council of American Building Officials

Re:  Appeal from the Initial Decision of the Board of Standards
     Review to Approve ANSI/CABO A117.1-1992 as an American
     National Standard

Dear Madam and Gentlemen:
     At its meeting of April 1, 1993, the Board of Standards
Review (BSR), considered the appeal by the American Council of
the Blind, the World Institute on Disability, and the American
Foundation for the Blind from its initial decision to approve the
above referenced standard as an American National Standard.
     Upon consideration of the written evidence, including that
presented by the appellants for the first time at the appeals
hearing, and the oral presentations made by the appellants and
respondent at the hearing, the BSR unanimously (with one
abstention due to disqualification) voted to deny the appeal and
thus sustain approval of ANSI/CABO A117.1-1992, as of December
15, 1992. In connection with this appeal the BSR approved the
following findings:
     1. When viewed as a whole, the record evidence clearly shows
that consensus was achieved in favor of the standard as finally
approved by the Committee. Whether evaluated strictly on a
numeric basis or qualitatively, there was substantial agreement
among all materially interested groups concerning the terms of
this standard, including the provisions dealing with detectable
warnings. It is evident that, thus far, the appellants have not
yet persuaded a major segment of the blind community, or other
materially interested parties, that the use of truncated domes
should be required in this standard. In deciding not to add such
a requirement in this revision, the Committee properly adhered to
the concept of consensus as that term is used in ANSI's
procedures and the voluntary standards community. Indeed, at the
hearing appellants essentially conceded this point. It is not the
function of the BSR in an appeal to revise the definition of
consensus, but rather to determine whether the existing
definition was satisfied based on the record. The BSR believes
that it was in this instance. Therefore, the BSR determined that
the Accredited Standards Committee A117.1 (ASC A117.1) acted
appropriately when it did not include section(s) on truncated
domes in the final approved version of the standard.
     2. The BSR also concluded that due process was followed in
the development of the standard and that neither the Secretariat
nor the Chairman of the Committee acted in a biased or otherwise
inappropriate fashion. This was a large committee, and
appropriately so, given the scope of the standard. While
distribution of documents was not flawless, as the Secretariat
conceded, any deficiencies do not appear serious when viewed in
context and, in any event, do not appear to have impacted the
final outcome. The subject of detectable warnings was debated at
length during committee meetings, and the members of the
Committee voted only after full discussion. Due process doesn't
require perfect process (although that is always a laudable
goal). The BSR finds that due process was granted to all the
materially interested parties.
     3.   The BSR also noted that the Chairman of the ASC A117.1
indicated a willingness at the hearing to establish a task group
to resolve the question of tactile clues and to encourage further
research on truncated domes in the future. This is consistent
with ANSI Procedures, which encourage all participants in the
process to seek out acceptable compromises. Hopefully, further
discussion may provide a vehicle for resolving the current
division of opinion.
     Persons who believe that they have been or will be adversely
affected by the results of the subject appeal are hereby notified
of their right of further appeal to the ANSI Appeals Board.
Written notice of appeal must be filed with the Secretary of the
Appeals Board within fifteen (15) working days of receipt of this
letter, and must be accompanied by a check in the amount of $250
as a filing fee. The notice of appeal must specify the decision
from which the appeal is taken, the ANSI body that made the
decision, a short statement of the matter in controversy, and the
reason(s) why the appellant believes the decision is in error.
Please find enclosed a copy of the Appeals Board Operating
Procedures for further information.
                                                       Sincerely,
                                       Beth Somerville, Secretary
                                        Board of Standards Review
                      ____________________
     That was the letter of notification that the three
appellants received, and they had fifteen working days in which
to indicate their intention to go forward with the next step in
the appeals process. Those fifteen days came and went, and no one
filed the fee and documents required by the ANSI procedure. It is
now safe to declare that the American National Standards
Institute no longer maintains standards about tactile warnings of
any kind. Since ANSI is widely respected in the accessibility
field, the absence of truncated domes and their ill-begotten
siblings in the ANSI standards will surely result in the
rethinking of all accessibility regulations affecting the blind.
To have achieved this much is a great accomplishment on behalf of
all blind people who are fighting for independence and improved
mobility instruction.

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Scott LaBarre.]

             COMPLAINT FILED IN THE SHEILA HALL CASE
                        by Scott LaBarre

     Scott LaBarre is the outgoing president of the National
Association of Blind Students (NABS), the student division of the
National Federation of the Blind. In May he graduated from the
School of Law at the University of Minnesota. Late in the month
he moved to Baltimore to take a position at the National Center
for the Blind on the staff of the National Federation of the
Blind. In the 1992-93 Academic Year edition of the Student Slate,
the publication of the student division, Scott wrote an interim
report on the case of Sheila Hall, a student from Indiana. Here
it is:

     Sheila Hall is a junior at Indiana University-Purdue
University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). In a speech at the 1992
National Conference of Blind Students Sheila described the
difficulties she had incurred with the Office for Adaptive
Educational Services (OAES) at IUPUI. The office had been forcing
her to accept services which she did not desire as well as
invading her personal life by insisting that she must undergo
psychological counseling.
     The National Association of Blind Students attempted several
rounds of negotiation to no avail. Consequently, in February of
1993 we decided to file a complaint with the Office for Civil
Rights of the U.S. Department of Education under the Americans
With Disabilities Act (ADA). Specifically Sheila alleged that
IUPUI had violated her rights under Section 501-D of the Act.
That section is the one the NFB insisted be included in the
original bill before we would support passage of the Act, and the
Hall case demonstrates how necessary this section will turn out
to be. It states that any disabled person has the right to refuse
accommodations being offered if he or she so desires. The general
thrust of Sheila's complaint is summed up in the following
quotation from her letter to the Office for Civil Rights:
     "Through IUPUI's Office for Adaptive Educational Services
(OAES), the university is attempting to force me to accept
accommodations which I neither want nor need. Specifically the
OAES demands that I register with the office and arrange all my
academic accommodations through them. Furthermore, the university
is denying me the right to reader services unless I accept all
accommodations which are provided. As a result of these
violations of the ADA, I request that the Office for Civil Rights
rule that IUPUI's policies violate the ADA and that no blind or
otherwise disabled student should be forced to have any
relationship with the OAES unless the disabled student desires to
do so. Furthermore, the extent of the relationship between the
student and the office should be entirely under the control of
the student."
     The events which led up to Sheila's specific complaint began
in the fall of 1992. At the beginning of the semester Sheila
visited with each of her professors to introduce herself and to
discuss with them the procedures she normally employs to adapt
tests, assignments, and other classwork so that she can compete
with her sighted peers. Initially all of her professors agreed
that the arrangements regarding her blindness would be negotiated
and controlled exclusively by Sheila and each of them.
Approximately two weeks into the semester, however, Professor
James Thomas, Sheila's psychology professor, informed her that he
was powerless to make accommodation arrangements directly with
Sheila because the OAES had complete control over all
accommodations for disabled students. 
     On September 15, 1992, after having this conversation with
Professor Thomas, Sheila received a distressing letter from
Pamela King, the director of the OAES. In her letter she told
Sheila patronizingly that, though it was admirable that she
wanted to make her own arrangements, the OAES must be the entity
controlling them.
     Here are Ms. King's own words: "It has come to my attention
that you are not going through the Office of Adaptive Educational
Services in order to arrange for test-taking services. The policy
of the University is that any student who requests an
accommodation for testing and has a disability must go through
the Office of Adaptive Educational Services. I will inform all of
your instructors of this procedure. Please provide us with a
course syllabus in order for us to continue to provide test
proctors for testing in your courses. I appreciate your desire to
`Do things for yourself.' But the University has an obligation to
its students and to academia to provide equitable education to
all students." 
     After receiving Ms. King's letter, Sheila went to see Vice
Chancellor J. Herman Blake about her problem. At first he seemed
interested and sympathetic to her views, promising to resolve the
matter immediately.
     When Vice Chancellor Blake finally responded in writing to
Sheila on October 5, 1992, he informed her that she could arrange
her own accommodations with her professors but that she would
have to comply with several conditions. These were as follows: 
     "(1) You may not commit any University funds for payment of
support services;
     "(2) You must register with the Office of Adaptive
Educational Services so that your condition can be certified for
University policy;
     "(3) You must present to your faculty a copy of the ADAPTIVE
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES TESTING ACCOMMODATION form, which will be
supplied to you by the Office of Adaptive Educational Services;
and
     "(4) Once you have made your arrangements with the faculty,
the faculty member must return a copy of the agreed upon
accommodations to the Office of Adaptive Educational Services.
You should ask each faculty member to do so." 
     These conditions left Sheila only a little better off than
she had been before Vice Chancellor Blake's involvement. Since
the ADA states that no disabled person is required to accept an
accommodation unless he or she desires to do so, it seems clear
that Sheila should not be forced to have involvement or contact
with the OAES unless she wishes to. Therefore, the requirement
that Sheila register with the office violates her rights under
the ADA. 
     Furthermore, the arrangements Sheila establishes with her
professors should be confidential. As long as the professor
involved and Sheila come to a mutual agreement about what
adaptations she needs in the class, no one else needs a record of
their decisions. By forcing Sheila to register and to provide
information to the OAES about all her testing accommodations, the
university is forcing Sheila to accept services which she neither
needs nor desires at this time. Through Section 501-D the ADA is
intended to protect Sheila from intrusive behavior by the
university. The ADA gives blind students the freedom to manage
their own affairs and to act independently.
     Even though Vice Chancellor Blake's letter presumably
delineates current university policy, recent events seem to
indicate otherwise. As recently as February 8, 1993, one of
Sheila's professors informed her that she must go through the
OAES to arrange all of her testing accommodations, even though
Vice Chancellor Blake's letter seemed to say that Sheila could
make her own arrangements, subject to several conditions, of
course. Regardless of what the Vice Chancellor said or wrote,
IUPUI's policy clearly does not allow Sheila any opportunity to
choose which accommodations she needs and how she will employ
those accommodations. Consequently the university is continuing
to deny Sheila a basic freedom of choice which is guaranteed by
the ADA. 
     Furthermore, Vice Chancellor Blake's stipulation that Sheila
may not commit any university funds to such items as reader
services also violates her rights under the ADA. In Indiana the
only way that a blind student can receive funding to pay readers
is through offices like the OAES. Sheila constantly uses readers
to complete assignments, conduct research, and take exams. Since
the OAES and the university have demanded that she accept all of
the services offered by the OAES or none, Sheila has been unable
to pay readers from the funds that by right should be available
to her through the university. Consequently Sheila has been
forced to commit a significant portion of her limited personal
financial resources to paying readers.
     Through Section 501-D the ADA expressly permits a disabled
person to accept accommodations which are needed and reject those
which are not. IUPUI is violating Section 501-D by not allowing
Sheila to use funds to pay readers unless she accepts all the
other accommodations that the office thinks a blind student
should need from its staff. Sheila neither needs nor wants the
OAES to control her relationship with her professors, but she
does need readers. We believe that Sheila should be able to
reject the OAES's testing procedures without sacrificing her
right to commit university funds for reader services.
     Furthermore, if she does use university-financed reader
services, Sheila must have the ultimate control of such an
accommodation. Using a reader is a highly individual activity. A
blind student must be able to control the who, when, and how of
reader service. If the OAES, for example, were to mandate that
Sheila could have access to a reader only between 1:00 and 2:00
p.m. and Sheila had a class during that time, the reader service
would be of absolutely no benefit to her. Likewise, if the OAES
forced Sheila to use a reader with whom she did not work well,
Sheila would not be successful in mastering the print information
necessary for completing her classwork. 
     Therefore, Sheila must have maximum control over who reads
for her, when they read, and how they read. Currently the OAES at
IUPUI exercises complete control over the who, when, and how of
reader service on campus. The spirit of Section 501-D of the ADA
intends that a disabled student should have maximum control over
how accommodations which are provided to him or her are
implemented. Consequently it seems clear that the university is
violating Sheila's rights under the ADA by forcing her either to
do without any services at all or to accept all of the
accommodations offered by the OAES and then by mandating exactly
how she should use the reader services.
     Because the ADA requires that a person must file a complaint
about a violation of the Act within one hundred eighty days of
its occurrence, Sheila could not ask for relief from the
University's discriminatory actions during the 1991-92 school
year, but she included these items in her complaint in order to
give the Office for Civil Rights an idea of the trauma she had
suffered. The problems first started for Sheila on September 9,
1991. On that evening Sheila called the IUPUI police department
to seek general advice on self-defense techniques. For about two
weeks a strange man had been following her on Indianapolis buses.
He told her that he knew where she lived. Having been raised in a
very small town, Sheila was naturally frightened by this
encounter. Although the man had never physically accosted her,
she feared for her safety in the future. She decided that the
most sensible thing was to call the police. Toward the end of her
conversation with the police officer on duty, Sheila mentioned
that she was legally blind. 
     Within two hours several members of the residence hall staff
had knocked on Sheila's door to ask if she was okay and feeling
safe. They told her that the campus police had called them
informing them that a "little blind girl" who lived in the dorm
might need some help. Sheila assured these Good Samaritans that
she was in fact fine. Further, she told them that she might be
blind, but she was certainly not helpless.
     When the residence hall staff members left, Sheila thought
that was the end of the matter, but the next day Pamela King
called Sheila on the phone. To her surprise, Ms. King commented
that Sheila must be feeling pretty awful about the fact that
people were following her on the buses. Ms. King also informed
Sheila that she had taken the liberty of setting up psychological
counseling sessions for her. In response Sheila told Ms. King
that it had been only one man following her and that she had only
called the campus police for some general advice. Sheila further
told Ms. King that she was feeling fine and certainly did not
need any psychological counseling. In addition, Sheila pressed
Ms. King to tell her who had informed her about Sheila's call to
the campus police. Ms. King admitted that Associate Dean Winston
Baker, who is in charge of campus housing, had relayed the news
to her. 
     By now Sheila felt miserable. Every person at the university
with whom she dealt was treating her like a child, the helpless,
incompetent little blind girl the police had first signaled the
residence hall staff about. Furthermore, she felt that the
university had violated her right to privacy by spreading the
news of her conversation with the police all over campus. 
     Sheila was further insulted when she visited Dean Winston
Baker to ask why he had told Ms. King about her conversation with
the police. He said that he had been greatly worried about her
and her safety. He said, "I had to tell Ms. King of your
situation because she is in charge of people like you." Right
then Sheila informed Dean Baker in no uncertain terms that Ms.
King was not in charge of her, that Sheila was in charge of
herself!
     Then Ms. King called Sheila to request that she take part in
an intake interview. Sheila told Ms. King that she had never
heard of any such requirement before. Ms. King responded by
informing Sheila that the office needed to know more about her
and her blindness before it could offer her any other services.
Sheila said again that she did not believe such an interview was
necessary. But out of curiosity she eventually decided to go to
the interview. 
     When Sheila arrived at the office, Ms. Leslie Hawker
conducted the interview. As Ms. Hawker proceeded, Sheila realized
that she was asking questions that had nothing to do with
blindness but which, in fact, resembled a psychological
examination. 
     Later Sheila asked Ms. Hawker who had instructed her to give
her a psychological examination. She told Sheila that Pamela King
had given the order. Ms. Hawker further admitted to Sheila that
she was surprised by what she had seen in the interview as
compared with what she had been led to expect. Apparently Ms.
King had told Ms. Hawker that Sheila was a paranoid person in
great need of psychological help. Ms. Hawker then said that
Sheila was far from paranoid and certainly did not need any
psychological counseling. 
     After the intake interview Sheila realized that Ms. King had
used it as a pretence to submit her to a psychological
examination without her consent. All these intrusive and
degrading contacts resulted from Sheila's desire to seek some
simple self-defense techniques. Later Sheila realized that she
felt much more violated by IUPUI than she ever had by the strange
man on the bus.
     Sheila continued to discuss her problem with responsible
faculty and staff at IUPUI, but no official with whom she spoke
seemed to understand her desire to be free of the OAES's
controlling and paternal attitude. Finally Sheila contacted the
National Federation of the Blind through its student division.
NABS agreed to work with Sheila to resolve the problems she faced
at IUPUI. In early December Pam Dubel and Lori Duffy travelled
from Ohio to attend meetings with Sheila at IUPUI. The most
important discussion they had that day was with Dean Langston,
who was in charge of OAES. He listened intently to Sheila's story
and agreed that something needed to be done. First of all he told
Sheila that Pamela King would be instructed to write a letter
apologizing for her custodial attitudes and that the OAES would
not interfere in Sheila's efforts to control her own academic
program. Dean Langston further pledged that the university would
work with both Sheila and NABS to adopt better policies which
would encourage independence rather than foster dependence. 
     Sheila, Pam, and Lori also had the opportunity to meet with
Pamela King, and soon after that meeting Ms. King wrote Sheila to
notify her that the intake interview would be expunged from her
records and that the office would not provide services unless
Sheila so requested. Ms. King said in her letter to Sheila, "As
we discussed in the meeting, in the future we will not attempt to
offer services unless they have been requested by you as I
acknowledge that you are the best person to evaluate your own
needs." 
     When Sheila returned for the spring semester of 1992,
however, she came back to face a very distressing event. She had
been working for the OAES in its low vision room, teaching
students how to use the equipment. After the break, however,
Pamela King informed Sheila that the OAES no longer had funds
available for her to work there. A few days later, however,
Sheila found a notice on campus stating that the OAES was hiring
people to assist students in the low vision room to become
familiar with the equipment. 
     Sheila's troubles continued throughout the semester. The
OAES demanded that Sheila continue to take her examinations
through the Office. If she did not, Sheila was told that she
would either receive incompletes or fail them. In one case Sheila
attempted to take a sociology examination by using the
arrangements made by the OAES, which had reproduced the test in
very blurry blue mimeographed large print. Her classmates had
received the exam in clear, black print. Sheila struggled
mightily to take the version she had been given, since the OAES
refused to give her a clear copy. Finally, after a long battle,
Sheila was allowed to take the last two pages of the examination
using the clear black print. Since she had not been allowed to
take the vast majority of the exam with clear print, she not
surprisingly scored poorly. If she had been allowed to make her
own arrangements with the professor, she could have taken that
test either with a reader or with clear and legible print. Sheila
is convinced that she would then have received a much higher
grade. 
     As a result of these violations of the ADA, Sheila requested
that the Office for Civil Rights make several specific rulings.
Her letter said:

     First, the Office for Civil Rights should rule that IUPUI has violated
Section 501-D of the ADA by requiring that all disabled students must register
with the OAES. A blind or otherwise disabled student should register with the
OAES if and only if the student desires to receive services from the office.
     Second, the Office for Civil Rights should find that IUPUI has violated
the ADA by requiring that all accommodations arranged with professors must be
certified by the office. If a blind or otherwise disabled student elects to
make arrangements regarding testing or any other matter with the student's
professor, those arrangements should be honored by the OAES and kept
confidential between the student and the professor if so desired. 
     Third, the Office for Civil Rights should rule that IUPUI has violated
the ADA by requiring students to accept either all or no services from the
OAES. A blind or otherwise disabled student should be able to choose which
services are appropriate and be able to reject the services the student feels
are irrelevant. 
     Fourth, the Office for Civil Rights should rule that IUPUI has violated
Section 501-D of the ADA by refusing to give blind or otherwise disabled
students any discretion in how accommodations provided by the OAES are
administered. Blind or otherwise disabled students should have ultimate
control over how they use the accommodations offered by the office. 
     Fifth, the Office for Civil Rights should rule that IUPUI has violated
the ADA by refusing to commit funds to me for reader services. Since the OAES
is the source of funding for reader services (the practice in Indiana), I
should be able to access reader services as offered by the office. I must,
however, be able to retain maximum control over the who, when, and how of the
reader service provided to me. If I accept reader services from the OAES, the
Office for Civil Rights should further rule that the OAES cannot obligate me
to accept services provided by the office, other than those which I request. 
     Sixth, the Office for Civil Rights should insist that IUPUI comply with
the Office for Civil Rights' ruling by May 1, 1993. Since I will be taking my
final exams in early May, I should be able to take those exams and complete my
final projects free of the current discriminatory policies at IUPUI.

     That is what the complaint said, and in late March we heard
from the Office for Civil Rights. The news was not good. They
informed Sheila that they had administratively closed her case
without even conducting an investigation of her claim. According
to the folks at Civil Rights, Sheila could not state a claim
under the ADA because the University had been providing her with
adequate services. 
     Once we read the letter from the Office for Civil Rights, we
knew immediately that they simply had not understood Sheila's
complaint. Sheila was not alleging that IUPUI had been providing
inadequate services; rather she was alleging that the OAES was
forcing her to accept educational accommodations which she did
not desire. Since most people view blind persons as helpless and
always in need of greater services, it completely confounds them
when one of us comes along wanting to decline help. 
     At the time of this writing (early April), Sheila and
Federation leaders are considering the legal options, which range
from pursuing the matter further in the Department of Education
to bringing the case directly into federal court. Whatever the
decision, we intend to stand by Sheila until we have secured a
victory in this case. 
     The biggest reason for our difficulties with disabled
student services offices is that they try to help too much. They
do not allow the blind student the measure of freedom and control
he or she will be expected to exert in later life. In the work
world employers do not have offices of disabled employees to help
disabled workers. Employers do not take notes for workers,
arrange their schedules, and escort them to and from the work
place. The individual blind person will have to muster the
independent skills so that he or she can complete the job
competently. That is why it is crucial that offices like the one
at IUPUI help the blind student become independent and ready to
face what lies beyond college.
     For the last year and a half Sheila Hall has fought
valiantly to assert her right to be free from custodialism and
intrusive behavior on the part of IUPUI. We will call upon our
collective experience, the ADA, and whatever other means are
necessary to ensure that she is treated like a first-class
citizen.


[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Paul Kay.]

         BLIND CITIZENS ONE STEP CLOSER TO JURY SERVICE 
                   IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

     For blind people in many parts of this country the arrival
of that little post card announcing that one is to report for
jury duty still brings with it a sinking feeling which is very
different from that familiar to most other busy citizens. For
unless the state or municipality has passed legislation
protecting the right of blind people to serve on juries, we know
that it is all too likely that we will arrive at the courthouse
only to be told that our services are not needed. 
     This has always been the case in the Superior Court in
Washington, D.C., which has been clear about its views: blind
people may not be admitted to a jury pool even though deaf
people, for example, are welcome. Early in 1991 Paul Kay, a
lawyer practicing in the District of Columbia and a member of the
National Federation of the Blind, was called for jury duty. When
he reported to the court, he was of course told to leave. On the
whole he was not surprised because this same court was already in
the habit of restricting the cases assigned to him as a court-
appointed attorney. Because of his blindness Superior Court
judges have never given him felony cases. He protested vehemently
when he was turned down as a juror but decided to leave the
matter as it was for the moment. 
     Several weeks later Don Galloway, now serving as president
of the D.C. affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind,
was required to undergo the same humiliating experience when he
was called to jury duty in the Superior Court. He decided to file
suit in the U.S. District Court, a suit which has finally been
decided in his favor. The federal judge found that the Superior
Court had broken three separate laws in denying Galloway the
right to serve on a jury.
     Just before that decision was announced in mid-March, Paul
Kay was once again called for jury duty in the Superior Court.
This time, when he was turned down, he decided he had had enough.
He went to the press hoping to exert pressure on the court system
to reconsider its policy, and he went to City Council to ask for
legal redress. Both the Washington Post and the Washington Times
carried stories, and so did the Associated Press. In addition,
National Public Radio did an interview with Mr. Kay. When the
Federal Court decision in the Galloway case was announced in the
midst of the public furor, the media incorporated that story into
their coverage as well.  
     Meanwhile the City Council was prepared to begin considering
legislation that would protect the rights of blind citizens to
serve on juries. Here are several of the stories as they appeared
in March. The first was carried by the  Washington Times on March
10, 1993. The reporter was Catherine Toups. Here it is: 

                      Can Justice Be Blind?
              Sightless Lawyer Seeks Role as Juror

     Paul E. Kay is a good enough lawyer to earn a spot before
the bar. But forget about putting him in the jury box.
     That's the official position of the D.C. Superior Court,
which dismissed the District lawyer from jury duty on the basis
of his blindness. It was the second time he had been turned away.
     The fact that the court believes Mr. Kay can be a lawyer but
not a juror sent him into activist mode. Ward 3 D.C. Council
member James Nathanson has joined the battle and said he will
introduce legislation this summer that would make it illegal to
automatically dismiss blind people from jury duty.
     Several states, including Virginia, Washington, Oregon, and
California, have such laws. A pending federal lawsuit against the
District filed in 1991 by Donald Galloway, a blind government
worker, makes the same argument.
     "There may be some [court] cases in which blindness might be
a disqualifying factor, but that's not the case across the
board," Mr. Nathanson said.
     Court Executive Ulysses B. Hammond said yesterday the
court's policy against seating blind people on juries is "under
review." He said the policy, which was born long before "today's
posture with respect to persons with disabilities," might be
outdated.
     Mr. Kay, fifty-six, a lawyer for seventeen years who usually
is accompanied in court by his guide dog Smokey, calls the policy
discrimination. He said he has encountered it before in the six
years he has practiced criminal law after leaving the legal staff
of the Department of Transportation.
     Like other court-appointed attorneys in the rotation pool at
Superior Court, Mr. Kay has worked his way up the experience
ladder to handle increasingly complex cases.
     But he said that, despite never losing a jury trial in D.C.
Superior Court, he is not on the appointment list for felony jury
trials.
     "The point I'm making is that you can get around sight. And,
if a lawyer just presents a diagram and doesn't describe it, I
wouldn't want that lawyer representing me," he said.
     Mr. Kay said he has been told by at least four high-ranking
judges that he will not be given complex felony jury cases
because he cannot see photographs or the demeanor of witnesses.
     "I think I can listen to testimony and evaluate evidence. I
have used diagrams in a motion's hearing, and I knew exactly
where everything was. If I don't, I ask," he said.
     Several rounds of letters and meetings with judges have not
helped, he said.
     Judge Fred B. Weisberg, presiding judge of the criminal
court, could not be reached for comment.
     Mr. Kay said he is treated differently at the U.S. District
Court across the street, where he is regularly appointed to
felony cases. "In federal court I'm a lawyer like any other
person, and they appoint me to cases. I do my job, and nobody
cares that I'm blind."
                      ____________________
     That was the first story to appear after Paul Kay got angry
and decided to do something about the D.C. Superior Court. Nearly
a week later, on March 16, the following story, written by
Associated Press staff writer Matt Yancey, was picked up in
papers across the country. By this time the U.S. District Court
had ruled in the Galloway case. Here is the story: 

     Excluding blind people from juries violates three different
civil rights laws, including the 1992 Americans with Disabilities
Act, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
     "Although a blind juror cannot rely on sight, the individual
can certainly hear the witness testify, hear the quaver in a
voice...and then add these sensory impressions to the words
spoken and assess the witness's credibility," said U.S. District
Judge Joyce Hens Green.
     She said the District of Columbia's policy excluding the
blind from its Superior Court jury pools solely on the basis of
their disability violates the 1871 Civil Rights Act and the 1973
Rehabilitation Act in addition to the 1992 law.
     Green issued the ruling in a suit brought against local
officials by Donald Galloway, a former director of the Peace
Corps' operations in Jamaica and now a manager in the city's
Department of Housing and Community Development.
     Blind jurors can still be excluded from panels in cases
involving significant physical or documentary evidence, she said,
but blindness should not be an automatic disqualification for
serving in any trial.
     At least nine states--Oklahoma, California, Virginia,
Oregon, Texas, South Carolina, Washington, Massachusetts, and New
York--have enacted laws forbidding the exclusion of the blind
from jury pools solely on the basis of their disability.
     Galloway, who has been blind since sixteen, reported as
instructed for jury duty in the city's Superior Court in March,
1991. When court officials saw his guide dog, they told him he
could not serve because of his blindness.
     Green noted that the same court at one time had a blind
judge and that Galloway's daughter had served on a jury in the
court even though she is deaf.
     "No distinction can be drawn between a blind judge's ability
to make factual findings and the abilities of a blind juror,"
Green said.
     Allowing deaf jurors, she said, shows that the district
"looked behind archaic stereotypes" in dealing with people with
impaired hearing, making it "difficult to fathom why policy
differs toward blind jurors."
                      ____________________
     There you have the AP story. On March 20 the National Public
Radio program "Weekend Edition" broadcast an interview with Paul
Kay, conducted by correspondent Lynn Neary. Here it is: 

     Ms. Neary: A federal judge ruled this week that the District
of Columbia cannot exclude blind people from jury duty solely
because they are blind. According to the ruling the practice
violates several civil rights laws, including the 1992 Americans
with Disabilities Act. A number of states have similar policies. 
     On a line with us now to discuss this issue is Paul Kay, an
attorney who has argued many cases in the D.C. Superior Court.
He's blind, and because of that he's been dismissed twice from
D.C. jury duty. Mr. Kay has tried to get legislation passed that
would overturn the district's policy on blind jurors. 
     Mr. Kay, first of all, has this ruling effectively done what
you were trying to do with your legislative proposal?
     Mr. Kay: Well it has and it hasn't. It has said that the
categorical automatic exclusion of jurors on the basis of
blindness violates federal laws. We need law passed by the City
Council, signed by the mayor, and acted into law that says that
the Superior Court of the District of Columbia operates on the
local law and that under local law, as well as under federal law,
blind people cannot be excluded solely on the basis of their
blindness when they come to the jury office.
     Ms. Neary: You know I have a feeling a lot of people
listening to this might be thinking of the Rodney King case, and
in that trial, of course, a video tape is very key. Now do you
think a blind person could adequately serve on that trial? 
     Mr. Kay: Any lawyer who just shows a video tape but doesn't
talk about it, doesn't describe it--I wouldn't want that lawyer
representing me. I think any lawyer worth his or her salt has to
describe a diagram, has to describe a video tape. It probably has
some audio as well. You can pick up a lot of things by listening. 
I can listen to testimony, evaluate testimony; I can make
judgments. What's happening is that the Superior Court of the
District of Columbia has had this policy about excluding blind
people because they say we can't see the evidence. Well first of
all, not every case has physical evidence. Suppose there is a gun
as physical evidence. I don't have to see that gun. I can touch
it; I can feel it; I can probably know more about that gun by
touching it than you can by looking at it from a distance. 
     Ms. Neary: Is there any way that you can think that being
blind might be an advantage? 
     Mr. Kay: Oh yes I can. Suppose one of the most beautiful
women in the world came onto the witness stand. Now if I don't
know that, I'm going to listen to what she says. However, the guy
next to me might be looking at her and be distracted. 
     Ms. Neary: So you're saying that a jury can be very
influenced by appearance. 
     Mr. Kay: There are all kinds of things that impress jurors.
I can tell you another thing: deaf people are allowed on juries
with interpreters. Interpreters are allowed to go into the jury
room and interpret the deliberation, and once you are in the jury
pool and you go into the court, lawyers ask questions. Every
lawyer has what we call preemptory challenges, which means that
the lawyer does not have to give a reason for saying, "I don't
want this juror." Jurors are struck by preemptory challenge every
day of the week in many different courtrooms. If a lawyer wants
to do that, fine. I have no problem with it. I'm not going to go
away mad. I will have done my civic duty as a citizen. A lawyer
might not want me on a jury because I am a lawyer.
     Ms. Neary: You just want to have your day in court, so to
speak. Have you ever had trouble as an attorney because of your
blindness?
     Mr. Kay: Not trouble trying the case. I've had trouble
getting cases appointed to me. I do a lot of court-appointed
work, and there are some judges in the Superior Court who do not
want to appoint me to felony cases simply because I am blind. In
federal court I don't have that problem.
     Ms. Neary: There is a difference in the way the two courts
treat you?
     Mr. Kay: Federal court treats me like a human being. They
appoint me to cases. I do my job. Nobody cares that I'm blind. I
am just a lawyer. That's all. But in Superior Court, where they
don't appoint me to felony cases because I'm blind, I think they
can't imagine how blind people function. I will tell you that I
have never lost a jury trial in the Superior Court of the
District of Columbia.
     Ms. Neary: Pretty good record.
     Mr. Kay: Well, I haven't had that many, and that's because
they don't want to give me certain cases, but I have never lost
one. 
     Ms. Neary: So do you think that you are going to be called
to jury duty any time soon now?
     Mr. Kay: Oh I imagine it will take another two years. I was
thinking of going down and saying, "Here I am; I'm ready to
serve. When do you want me?"
     Ms. Neary: Well thanks very much for talking with us, Mr.
Kay.
                      ____________________
     That's how the press reported the actions of the D.C.
Superior Court and the Federal District Court. The City Council
must still act on Council member Nathanson's legislation. That
should happen within a few weeks. Then maybe this matter will be
settled for good, in one city at least.


[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Jennifer Dunnam.]

                       TRAVELING THE GLOBE
                       by Jennifer Dunnam

     From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the
1992-93 academic year edition of the Student Slate, the
publication of the National Association of Blind Students. It is
taken from the remarks Jennifer Dunnam made at the 1993 National
Conference of Blind Students. Formerly the president of the
Louisiana Association of Blind Students, Ms. Dunnam now serves as
the Braille instructor at BLIND, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Because she has learned not to allow blindness to stifle her
dreams, Ms. Dunnam has had the great fortune to travel in a
number of countries. Here is what she has to say about some of
her adventures:

     I had never understood the true meaning of Murphy's law
(anything that can go wrong will) until last summer when I joined
forty-nine other students affiliated with the Arizona Russian
Institute in spending a month studying the Russian language in
St. Petersburg, Russia. In all of the literature sent to orient
us to the trip, we were repeatedly admonished to "expect the
worst" and "prepare for the unexpected." On reading these
warnings I tried to think of the worst thing that had happened to
me on a trip and decided it was the time when, at some point
during a fifty-mile bus trip, Greyhound lost a piece of my
luggage containing some fairly valuable items. Unable to come up
with a worse scenario which any preparation on my part could
prevent, I distributed the few valuables I planned to take with
me among all of my luggage and did not give the subject another
thought...until the Friday morning of my intended departure. 
     The flight from New Orleans to New York was scheduled to
leave at 11:00 a.m., and at 9:00 I was still making last-minute
preparations. By the time we arrived at the New Orleans
International Airport, it was twenty minutes to eleven, and we
could not find a parking place. Five minutes later we parked the
car, grabbed my luggage, and ran to the ticket counter. I threw
my ticket down and listened in utter disbelief as the agent began
telling me that she was so sorry but she could not let me go to
the plane because it was leaving in five minutes. I explained to
her that I was connecting with an international flight, and
another would-be passenger on the flight, who had come running in
just behind me, joined me in beseeching her to hold the plane for
us, but it did no good. This particular airline had a hard-and-
fast rule about on-time departures. I tried to work out a later
flight, but there was nothing that would get me into New York in
time to catch the flight to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where I had
an eight-hour lay-over before going on to St. Petersburg. 
     I walked away from the counter, incredulous that all the
months of planning and preparation for this trip seemed about to
come to nothing because I had re-opened my suitcases a few times
to include some last-minute items and accepted one too many phone
calls from people wishing me bon voyage. I hurried to find a pay
phone to call the travel agency in Arizona which was handling all
of the arrangements for the group. They told me that they would
try to work with the Czechoslovakian airline to get me a seat on
the next flight out of New York, which would leave the following
Monday, but that I would have to deal with the domestic flight.
Needless to say, my relief was intense until I hung up the phone
and hesitated at the implications of what had just been said. If
everything worked out as I hoped it would, I would be flying
alone out of New York into Czechoslovakia, a country where men
carrying large machine-guns were in ample supply--not to mention
the fact that I could say "yes" and "no" in Czech, but that was
about the extent of my familiarity with the language. To be
honest, I had no idea how I would handle the situation. It seemed
to me that traveling to and spending time in Russia were
challenge enough without this new complication.
     But the more I thought about it, the more I began to
remember things that I had hesitated to do in the past and then,
having done them, realized how silly it was for me to have hung
back. For instance, I got my first cane when I was twelve, and at
that time it was a big deal for me to walk independently within
and between the two buildings of the junior high school I
attended. I never went alone to places with which I was
unfamiliar; I never thought it was possible because I didn't know
any other blind people who did such things. My first exposure to
the National Federation of the Blind came when I was fourteen,
and at that point my idea of what independent travel meant began
to change--but ever so gradually. Throughout my high school years
I still often sacrificed opportunities because of my inability to
get past worrying about the details of moving from point A to
point B. 
     It was not until the first time I attended a Washington
Seminar in 1988 that I actually participated in the kind of
travel that I had observed blind people doing at other NFB
functions. Not only did these people walk quickly and gracefully
around the hotel and the Capitol, but they walked around the
whole city, even taking the subway when necessary, without
batting an eye. By the time I went to my first National
Convention in Chicago, I had decided that if all these other
blind people could go wherever they wanted to whenever they
wanted to, there was no reason why I could not do it too.
     In the fall of 1988 I started my freshman year at Louisiana
Tech University, which happened to be within walking distance of
the Louisiana Center for the Blind. That gave me plenty of
opportunity to interact with and learn from the staff and
students there and to follow their example. I can remember the
thrill I felt the first time I crossed a street independently and
unsupervised. That's something I take for granted now. So in
1990, when I was asked to serve as a chaperon in an exchange
program for blind high school students in Germany, the idea did
not seem nearly as far-fetched as it might have when I was in
high school. I spent two weeks in Germany and found that
traveling abroad was something that appealed to me very much.
Having had that experience made it easier for me the following
year when I got a scholarship to study in France for a month
during the summer. I traveled there with forty other people from
Louisiana. In this French language study program there were about
six hundred people representing forty-five countries, and I was
amazed by how much easier it is to acquire a language when one is
forced to hear it and speak it all day, every day for a month. I
even went so far as to hire a reader who didn't speak any
English.
     Through my interaction with the people I learned a great
deal about French culture. One of the highlights for me in this
respect was the street survey: Each student in the advanced
French classes was given the assignment to choose a topic for
research and ask questions about it of at least ten people on the
street. I decided to try to get some idea of what the citizens of
Angers knew and what they thought about American politics. (As
might be expected, I received a wide variety of responses, from
people who were very knowledgeable about the goings-on of foreign
governments to people who in 1991 thought the President of the
U.S. was still Ronald Reagan.)
     So I stood by that pay phone in the New Orleans airport and
thought about how frightening all this would have been, even
three years ago. I decided then and there that, even though I had
no idea what I was going to do about traveling alone through
Czechoslovakia, I would not waste energy worrying about it and
would just figure it out as I went along. Over the weekend I got
all the ticket arrangements straightened out, and on Monday I
arrived at the airport well in advance of the departure time. I
made the trip to Russia via Czechoslovakia without incident. When
I got off the plane in Prague, I found an Avis Rent-a-Car outlet
and ran into some English-speaking people; we ended up going on a
bus tour of the sites of Prague together. When I arrived at
around midnight in St. Petersburg--as did all my luggage,
amazingly enough--I was met at the airport by a driver sent by
the group, and he drove me to the Gostinitsa Gavan, the hotel in
which the group was staying.
     The month was quite an education for me, not only in
learning the language, but also in adapting to a culture which
was quite different from that of the other European countries I
had previously visited. For instance, we were advised not to
drink the water from the tap in St. Petersburg because of the
risk of contracting giardia. This sometimes caused some problems
for our group because boiled water was difficult to come by with
our limited means, and bottled water was not sold in our hotel,
so we had to travel to another hotel to get it. On about the
third day of my stay I suddenly got extremely thirsty for water.
I could not find anyone else in the group who had a need to go to
the Hotel Prebalteskaya at that time, so there was nothing for me
to do but to go there by myself. My ability to speak Russian is
now somewhat better than it was at that point, and all I knew
about how to get to the Prebalteskaya was that I needed to get on
the number 40 tram. I took this basic first step, and then I
started trying to ask people how many stops it was to the
Prebalteskaya. By the time I found someone who could understand
me and whose response I could understand, we had long since
passed the stop, so I took a scenic little tour of St. Petersburg
by tram. But when the stop came around the next time, I got off
and went to get my water. While I was at it, I managed to learn
the word for stamps and bought a couple of those, too.
     On weekdays our group's scheduled activities consisted of
three hours of class, a few optional excursions, and lectures.
The rest of our time was ours to do with as we liked, and we were
encouraged to make an effort to meet the Russian people in order
to learn as much as we could about the language and culture. This
was not difficult at all, because for the most part people were
fascinated by Americans. Usually, when people found out where I
was from, I had an instant invitation to someone's house or out
to a concert, and they almost always wanted to exchange
addresses. There was also the fact that we Americans apparently
had the words "I am a tourist" written all over us, because we
were constantly being accosted by black marketeers trying to sell
us anything from watches to military coats to Hard Rock Cafe T-
shirts. These people were easy to make friends with, because most
of them spoke at least a little English. 
     When I was on a tour of Novgorod, the oldest city in Russia,
I bought a large dinner bell from a black marketeer who had knife
slashes up and down one of his arms. He told us that he needed
the income from his work on the black market to help support the
five other people who lived in a one-room apartment with him.
When we asked him about the cuts on his arm, he said that every
time he got drunk he cut himself; there was about a two-inch
space between the last cut and his wrist. 
     We saw much evidence of the difficulties of life in Russia
brought about by the chaotic economy. Since the average Russian's
salary at the time fell about 1,000 rubles short of meeting basic
needs for clothing and food, it was common to see people in the
subway stations trying to sell shoes or books or anything that
might bring enough income to make ends meet. However, the people
I encountered were always willing to share what little they had.
One man in particular, a nuclear physicist named Zhenya, took us
under his wing. He bought us countless tickets to operas and
symphonies (some of which, incidentally, were canceled with no
prior notice). One time a small group of us took him to a hard
currency restaurant for the first Italian food he'd ever had in
his life. We also gave him eight dollars to help him work out an
agreement so he could wait in the hard currency line instead of
the ruble line to put benzine in his car; there was usually only
about an hour wait in the hard currency line, whereas four hours
was the typical wait in the ruble line.
     Zhenya was very curious about my blindness and how I walked
on the streets alone and did the other things the people in my
group did. In addition to numerous discussions on the subject, I
left him with some NFB literature that he seemed to find thought-
provoking. And how did the rest of the people I encountered react
to my blindness? Well, there was the usual tendency to try to
force unsolicited assistance on me. At first this was even more
frustrating than usual because I had difficulty communicating to
them politely but effectively that I did not need help. So I
talked about the situation with one of my group leaders, who
taught me some pat phrases, and gradually I learned to use
people's over-helpful tendencies in order to practice my Russian
as well as to educate them about blindness. When I told people
that I was studying at the Arizona Russian Institute, they were
curious about the techniques I used to do my classwork. So I told
them that I rented a Cyrillic typewriter that cost ten dollars
for the month, and I used it to type my assignments so that the
teachers could read them. During class I took Braille notes with
a slate and stylus, and I hired a reader to read homework
assignments and tests to me. Let those who say that blind people
need special services and programs set up before they can have
access to study in foreign countries take note: I don't believe a
word of it. If a blind person has the basic skills needed to
succeed in college in the U.S., there's no reason why he or she
can't study abroad.
     It all comes back to the most important lesson that I have
learned and am continuing to learn through my membership in the
National Federation of the Blind and from my travels in foreign
countries: Blindness need not be a controlling factor in what a
person does. It may affect the way in which the individual does a
thing, but it should never prevent someone from doing the things
he or she wants and needs to do. It is a truth that I am coming
to understand more and more as life goes on, and my hope is that
every other blind person will come to understand it and apply it
as well.







                       REDEFINING REALITY:
      A BIZARRE NEW TWIST TO THE HANDICAPPED PARKING DEBATE

     From the Editor: The question of the appropriate use of
handicapped parking stickers by blind people is one that recurs
from time to time. The policy of the National Federation of the
Blind has been that there is nothing inherent in blindness itself
that makes it difficult to walk from any regular parking place to
a store, office, or restaurant. If the individual blind person
has problems that make walking difficult, then he or she of
course has every right to a handicapped parking sticker and
should use it freely and with a clear conscience. In short,
handicapped parking places should be used by those who need them
and avoided by those who do not. They are not a convenience to be
enjoyed by anyone who can contrive to get hold of a sticker; they
are a necessity for those who find walking difficult, painful, or
impossible.
     Not everyone, however, sees things the way we do. The
following brief article appeared in the RSVA Newsletter, a
Randolph Sheppard Vendors of America statewide publication in
Michigan with a request that people respond to it. Don Drapinski,
one of the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind of
Michigan, happened to read the piece and sat down to answer it.
Both the original article and his answer were subsequently
printed in the Spring, 1993, issue of the Michigan Focus, the
publication of the NFB of Michigan. Here are both the article and
Don's letter:

                    A NEW LOOK AT AN OLD LAW
                          by Pat Fales

     I have recently had cause to take a look at the law which
gives a handicapped person the right to use a handicapped sticker
for parking.
     First of all, I run a food service operation in a state-
occupied building. My employee has been using my sticker for a
year and a half. Before she had use of it, other employees of
mine had use of it for at least another year. My employee did
many errands for me as well as transporting me when I needed it.
     All of a sudden, someone in the building feels I am misusing
my sticker. There was such an uproar that I sought the law's
interpretation. I found that the State Law Building License
Bureau on the local level did not know the law as written. The
State License Bureau in Lansing did not know, so they referred me
to the handicapper organization that headquarters in Lansing.
When I called the organization, I finally had the law read to me.
     In essence the law says that the handicapped person must be
in the car when the sticker is being used. 
     Each handicap is different, so the use and need of a parking
sticker will be different as well. Most handicapped people can
drive themselves. Blind people need a driver. I find in my work
that many times I cannot do the errands such as banking and
shopping for the business. I need my employee to do it for me. So
in reality she is me at that time.
     I have observed, when I take a cab to do these errands, they
park in a handicapped spot. I have also seen and heard that state
employees in certain buildings use a state car and a handicapped
sticker to assure them speedy errand-running.
     If any of you have had similar experience, please join with
me in trying to change the law to practically serve each
handicapped person in the manner which they need.
     You can get in touch with me through the Randolph Sheppard
Vendors of Michigan Board.
                      ____________________
     There it is: surely one of the most unusual, not to say
bizarre, arguments ever constructed for using a handicapped
parking sticker. Here is Don Drapinski's response:

                                             Hazel Park, Michigan
                                                 October 19, 1992

Randolph Sheppard Vendors Newsletter

Dear Editor:
     Please forward a copy of this letter to Pat Fales since it
is in response to her article about handicapped parking stickers
and their use. If I had had her address, I would have written
directly to her also. I don't know if you will print any of the
responses you get, but I had to make my voice heard.
     I have a handicapped sticker in my vehicle because I am
handicapped with a physical disability. I am also blind and have
several friends who are blind. None has ever parked in a spot
designated for the handicapped using my sticker unless I was with
them and was getting out of the car. I assume from the article in
the newsletter that Pat feels that blindness qualifies her or
anyone doing business for her to use a handicapped parking
sticker. In my opinion there is no reason that a blind person
needs to use a handicapped spot unless he or she also has a
physical disability, and to let someone else park in a
handicapped space because she was doing errands for the car's
owner is ludicrous. Should I feel good about my wife's using the
handicapped parking spot when she goes to the grocery store
because a blind or handicapped person may eat the food that she
buys? I think not. If I need money from the bank, should I feel
good about my wife's parking in a designated space because she is
getting the money for me? Absolutely not.
     We go many places where we are not able to park in a space
that is big enough to allow room to remove a wheelchair from the
car. I would like to believe that all of the spaces designated
"handicapped" were actually being used by folks who truly needed
them, instead of someone who is using a sticker to run in to pick
up lunch for a friend who is blind or handicapped. I can't accept
the philosophy that "Well, they're actually me while they're
doing business for me."
     I hope that, even if you don't print this letter, at least
you can get a copy of it to Pat and that she will think twice the
next time someone wants to use the handicapped sticker. 

                                                       Sincerely,
                                                 Donald Drapinski


                  SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT:
          SHARON GOLD EDUCATES TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS
                          ABOUT TRAVEL

     Independent blind people are used to coping with eagerly
offered, unnecessary assistance as we make our daily rounds. We
learn various strategies for tactfully turning aside such help
without, one hopes, annoying or insulting the person making the
offer. We all find these encounters difficult and frustrating,
particularly when the person will not take "No thank you" for an
answer. But because we recognize that we sometimes do need
information or assistance and that there are other blind people
who find assistance useful which we think merely annoying, we
usually try to be as polite as possible in explaining what we do
need or that we don't need assistance at all.
     But sometimes the do-gooder has it in mind that some
innocent third party is the one who should help--that someone in
authority should do something, regardless of how inappropriate or
unnecessary such actions might be. It is hard to get at such a
problem since it usually manifests itself in frantic but silent
gestures and grimaces, whispered demands on the far side of the
room, or even nasty letters of complaint written to the hapless
official's supervisor at a later date.
     In situations like this, the individual blind person can
usually do nothing; but, because the organized blind movement is
growing in visibility and name recognition, we are increasingly
being consulted to provide expert opinion. This is a welcome
development and one more reason why it is essential for us to
work tirelessly to educate the general public about the National
Federation of the Blind and our views about blindness and the
abilities of blind people.
     Recently a blind man boarded a commuter train in California
accompanied by his guide dog. Apparently he found a seat without
difficulty and settled his dog at his feet. There is nothing
extraordinary in what took place. But another passenger watched
this activity and decided that the train conductor should have
done something, anything. At the very least the dog should have
been given a seat like the other passengers. The conductor, who
had been taught to leave blind passengers alone unless they
appeared to be having trouble, refused to intervene. The result
was a letter of complaint to her supervisor. Luckily she had the
sense to contact the National Federation of the Blind of
California and request a letter of explanation about the way in
which blind passengers should be treated. Here is the conductor's
written explanation of her actions made in response to the
complaint filed against her:

                                                   March 12, 1993

Amtrak-Metrolink
National Railroad Passenger Corporation
Los Angeles, California 
Attention: Mr. Harry True

     This is in response to a complaint letter received March 4,
1993, from Susan Maddox.
     When I was training for Metrolink, there was a blind
gentleman, named David, who went with us to El Monte to help us
with disabled passengers. We were told at that time that the
Seeing Eye dog was not to sit on the seat. The dog was to be on
the floor in front of the blind person's feet or between his
legs. I have spoken to Sharon Gold, the President of the National
Federation of the Blind of California, and she confirms this. She
will be following with a letter to Lois Cunning, stating that
policy for treatment of the blind.
     As far as not assisting my blind passenger with finding a
seat, he has never requested my assistance. His Seeing Eye dog
finds his seat for him; however, should he or any of my other
passengers need my assistance, I will gladly help.
                                                       Sincerely,
                                                       Mary Pabst
                                       Amtrak-Metrolink Conductor
cc: Sharon Gold
                      ____________________
     Here is the letter that Sharon Gold, President of the
National Federation of the Blind of California, wrote in
endorsement of Ms. Pabst's behavior and to explain accurately the
methods blind travelers use:

                                           Sacramento, California
                                                   March 17, 1993


Lois Cunning
Amtrak-Metrolink
Los Angeles, California 

Dear Ms. Cunning:
     This letter will respond to a complaint filed with Amtrak-
Metrolink on March 4, 1993, by Susan Maddox of Covina (#2716). I
have been contacted by Mary Pabst, the Amtrak-Metrolink Conductor
against whom this complaint was registered.
     One of the population groups that the Metrolink serves is
blind people, who customarily use a white cane or guide dog as a
mobility aid. Most blind people who travel alone are skilled
travelers and can independently enter and exit public
transportation such as buses and trains, needing no help to find
open seats. 
     Under some circumstances a blind person may request the
assistance of an employee of the railroad or a fellow passenger
in finding seating. It may be appropriate for a Metrolink
employee to ask a blind person who is unfamiliar to the employee
if he/she needs assistance in locating a seat; however, if the
blind person replies that help is not necessary, help should not
be forced upon the person. In the case of passengers who are
known to the Metrolink employee, it is appropriate to offer
assistance to those who are known to need help and inappropriate
to give more than a friendly hello to those who do not require
assistance. At no time should an employee grab or push a blind
person or touch the blind person's white cane or guide dog.
     According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide
dog is any dog individually trained to provide assistance to an
individual who is blind or visually impaired. While guiding, such
a dog customarily wears a harness with a U-shaped stiff handle.
At the seat the blind person will settle the guide dog in an
appropriate manner, lying flat on the floor at the person's feet
or, if crowded conditions prevail, sitting between the blind
passenger's knees. Guide dogs should not be distracted by other
passengers or by Metrolink employees. At no time should a guide
dog be permitted to sit on the seats of the train.
     As a general rule, seating for handicapped persons should be
reserved for those who have physical conditions that prevent them
from occupying regular seats. Blind people customarily sit in
regular seats unless they have physical conditions other than
blindness that require the use of special handicapped seating. 
     Thank you for contacting the National Federation of the
Blind of California. Should you require further information,
please be sure to contact me.
                                                Very truly yours,
                                           Sharon Gold, President
                   National Federation of the Blind of California









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

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Tom Bickford.]

                      SAUCE FOR THE GANDER
                       by Thomas Bickford

     Tom Bickford is a long-time Federation leader who lives and
works in the Washington, D.C., area. He is an experienced and
confident traveler who uses a white cane. Recently he was asked
to take part in a test of his blindness skills. As so often
happens with such things, those constructing the test instrument
had their own rather narrow notion of what they were measuring--
in this case the ability of a blind cane user to stop exactly one
step short of the street at an unfamiliar intersection. Never
mind that in unfamiliar areas blind travelers usually stop
further from the street, drifting up to the corner as the traffic
flow provides sufficient information, and that most people cross
streets without stopping if there is no traffic moving in the
area. But after all, why would anyone be interested in knowing
how effective the actual techniques of blind travelers are when
researchers can measure how nearly they conform to arbitrary,
narrowly prescribed standards, defined by what sighted
pedestrians do?
     The whole exercise was reminiscent of the research conducted
a couple of years ago in which a university professor set out to
determine how well blind cane travel teachers could see their
students at a distance. The avowed purpose of the research was to
measure the effectiveness of cane travel teaching by blind
teachers, but since the skills being assessed were those of
sighted rather than blind instructors, it was no surprise to
anyone that the blind teachers did not do as well in the tests as
sighted teachers did. As one blind travel teacher said, "Nobody
ever argued that blind travel instructors could see down the
street as well as sighted ones can; we just maintain that our
methods are safe and our students become confident travelers."
     Tom Bickford did not appreciate being used in a similarly
constructed bit of research that is no doubt now being cited to
support the contention that tactile strips of truncated domes
really are necessary at street crossings in order for blind
people to travel safely. Here is what Tom Bickford has to say:

     When I am a participant in a test group and I know that
someone will write me up and make comments on my performance in
the test, it seems only fair for me to make comments on the test
and the test-givers as well. The test in question will no doubt
soon make news because it concerns warning strips for the blind
at street crossings. But excuse me; I am taking things out of
order.
     The test was given in several cities under similar
circumstances in 1992 and 1993. My test administrator guided me
to an unfamiliar area in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. I was
asked to approach ten pre-selected intersections, starting
anywhere from fifteen to one hundred feet back from the
intersection; cautioned that I might pass driveways and parking
lots; and instructed to stop when I was within one step of the
street--that is, when my next step would take me into the street.
When I stopped more than one step back from the curb, I was told
I was not close enough. When I arrived at each curb, I was asked
what clues had shown me that I was there.
     Each intersection was unique. The test sites included a
variety of driveways, rounded corners, sign posts, intersecting
sidewalks, shallow curbs, and wheelchair ramps--many of which
were useful landmarks. At the first intersection the sidewalk was
absolutely flush with the street. The tenth was the only one with
a traditionally sized step down to the street. The test took
place during a quiet time in the afternoon with almost no
traffic.
     I failed to identify one narrow street, which had no traffic
and almost no curb, because I thought it was another driveway. I
missed another street when I heard a car waiting to cross the
area of the sidewalk in front of me. I stopped fifteen feet back
to let the car proceed. After half a minute or so, I decided that
the car must be waiting to come out of a parking lot; and, since
there was no other traffic anywhere, I stepped out, passing a
one-inch curb which I identified later. After two steps my test
administrator took my arm and told me that it was a street and
that the car had been waiting for a light.
     At the very end of the test the final question was, "Would
it have been easier if there had been tactile warning strips at
the curb?" My answer was, "Not necessarily."
     At this point it all came out. The whole thing was a set-
up. This was a study to promote the installation of tactile
warning strips at intersections and other drop-offs, such as
subway platforms. The only criterion on which the other test
subjects and I were tested was whether we could stop within one
step of the curb. We were not tested on comparable curbs with and
without truncated domes, which would have made the final question
of the test relevant.
     Well, friends, I say it this way: When I am in an unfamiliar
area, I use my cane, my feet, my ears, my nose, my sense of time
and distance, and all the common sense I can muster. When I think
I am approaching a street, I am sometimes cautious enough to stop
before I get within one step of the curb.
     I don't think that installing truncated domes at every
intersection in these fifty states, D.C., and Puerto Rico is the
way to make travel safe for blind people. If the professionals
want to ensure safe travel for us, they need to begin believing
in the capability of blind people to travel safely. Then they
need to join those of us who can and do travel confidently in
spreading the word to the rest of us who are doubtful about our
abilities. That way no one will demand a bumpy strip for the
blind at every intersection in the nation.
     First, you must believe that safe cane travel by the blind
is achievable. The next three steps are these: 1. Get a cane that
is long enough. I suggest one that reaches two steps in front of
you. 2. Swing and tap the cane widely enough to find the
obstacles and landmarks in your path. I suggest a little wider
than your shoulders. 3. Feel, smell, listen to, and think about
everything around you. Of course, there are more details than
these, but with some practice you will be able to travel, and you
won't need special bumpy strips for the blind.



[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Gary Wunder.]

          VALUING THE MOVEMENT ENOUGH TO KEEP IT STRONG
                         by Gary Wunder

     Editor's note: Gary Wunder is a member of the Board of
Directors of the National Federation of the Blind and President
of the NFB of Missouri. In September of 1992 he was the National
Representative at the convention of the NFB of Maryland. His
banquet address was thoughtful and filled with reflections that
all members of the organized blind movement would do well to
consider. Here it is:

     I want to talk with you tonight about what we have the good
fortune to share in the National Federation of the Blind and to
reflect on what I felt before becoming a Federationist, in the
hope that these recollections will help us as we strive to build
and strengthen our movement. Some of the questions I asked myself
when I was preparing for this evening were these: How did I feel
about blindness and about organizations of the blind before
becoming an active part of the Federation? How did I feel about
myself and about my responsibility to others? What part did I
believe other blind people played in my life?  Shifting to the
present, what motivates us to be here tonight? What experiences
separate us from those who do not choose to become involved? And
how can we share with others what it means to be a Federationist?
     Have you ever been in the position of hearing someone's
story and wishing it could have been yours? I have heard many
good Federation members say that they always wanted to be
involved in helping the blind and that finding the Federation was
a Godsend to them. Other members say they believed in our
philosophy long before they ever became part of our Federation
and that finding this organization was like coming home to a
family reunion.
     In comparison, my story is downright disgusting. I offer it,
however, because I believe that I am not alone and that many come
to the Federation for reasons which have nothing to do with who
we are as an organization or what we have done. If we want new
people to keep us vibrant and strong, we must pay close attention
to the things we do that attract them and those that push them
away. We are not about to sell our souls for money or members,
but we ought to do all we can to see that our organization is
well-funded and that it represents a major segment of the blind
population.
     When I first heard of the Federation, I couldn't think of
one single thing I had in common with other blind people. Oh,
maybe I could help them in some way or other, as long as it
didn't take much time or trouble. I thought of myself as a trail
blazer who was certain, from the constant reassurance I received,
that I was different from other blind people. Only exceptional
people went to public school. Only exceptional people traveled
independently with a cane. Why, there were even times when I
could travel without a cane at all because I had so many good
relationships with sighted people who almost forgot I was blind!
     As hard as it is to admit, I did not really want to be
around other blind people. My image of others who were blind was
almost as negative as the images we find in the general public. I
was not happy about using a cane, though it gave me independence,
and I took considerable comfort from those who went to great
lengths to say I was not like other blind people.
     The thing which brought me to Federation meetings was the
desire for information. I had seen a movie about guide dogs on
television and was trying to learn all I could about them.
Initial inquiries led me to a man who sold office supplies in
Kansas City. His name was Jim Couts, a National Board Member and
a Vice President of the Federation in the sixties. I called this
patient man with almost a hundred questions about guide dogs: How
do you make them sit? Where are you allowed to take them? How
much do they cost? How long are they trained? How long do you
train with them at the school? The list went on for quite some
time, but this owner of the office supply business had other
ideas. He would politely answer one or two questions; then he
would begin to talk about other people who were blind. His talk
focused more and more on this wonderful group which tried to make
life better for the blind. For every question I asked, I had to
search for an answer in his digressions. 
     "What is involved in reinforcing the dog's obedience
training?" 
     "Oh, obedience is something you do every day," he would
answer. "Even when I'm away at Conventions with more than a
thousand other blind people, I still have time to make my dog lie
down, sit, stay, and fetch. I make time between the meetings of
the teachers and the lawyers and the businessmen. We have a real
crowded schedule, but still a good dog user will make time to
take his dog out and to groom her. I groom my dog right there in
my hotel room, and then it's off to listen to some federal
Congressman talk about Social Security or vending."
     This was the nature of our conversations. To hear about the
dog, I had to hear about the Federation. After a time it got
downright irritating. At this point in my life I'd never heard
the term "alternative techniques," but I did know something about
alternative sources of information, so I decided to pursue them.
     In our discussions Jim had mentioned a blind law student who
was also a dog guide user. I decided the law student would be
more forthcoming in answering my questions, so I anxiously called
and introduced myself.
     Little did I know that this law student, named Melvin Lewis,
was the acting president of the Kansas City Chapter of the
National Federation of the Blind. Not only did he insist on
talking about the Federation, but he repeatedly pressed me to
attend a chapter meeting. Meetings were on Friday night, he would
say. Meetings were open to all--especially to blind people, who
should be keenly interested in the matters discussed. Had I said
transportation was a problem? Well then, transportation would be
provided to and from the meeting. "Did you say you like donuts,"
he asked. Well the chapter provides food at our monthly meetings,
so how about being ready by 7:30? I guessed I could free at least
one Friday evening to test the waters. Perhaps it is more
accurate to say I was willing to give over one Friday evening to
test the donuts.
     I would like to tell you that what I heard on that first
evening convinced me I had found a new home in the Federation
family and that I enthusiastically embraced a community I had
been seeking for years, but such was not the case. There were
certain people I liked, and certain people who intrigued me. On
the whole, however, I was glad for the meeting to end.
     After I had been coerced to attend another meeting or two,
someone must have become aware that I was losing interest.
Knowing I had an ego, the chapter's leadership contrived to get
me elected to a do-nothing position on the chapter's board, a
position which I felt bound me to continue attending meetings and
to become informed on the chance I might be called upon to
represent the chapter.
     I tell this story, not only because it is my story and
therefore I like it, but also because I think it's important to
remember that not everyone comes to the Federation for noble
reasons. One problem which comes with involvement is that the
more involved we get, the harder it is for us to remember a time
when we weren't involved. The more important we come to believe
our cause to be, the harder it is to relate to those who don't
see its importance.
     Putting aside for a moment the specifics of my story, the
interest in guide dogs and my chance meeting with two strong
Federationists, what were the generalizable elements in my
deciding to come and being convinced to stay? One was most
certainly that the people I talked with did not already expect me
to know what they knew and to believe as they believed. They knew
that their Federationism was not what was uppermost in my mind.
They knew that my desire was to use them for a specific purpose,
and they did not react with anger or hostility to my demand on
their time. 
     Instead they began by understanding that I was a self-
centered teenager who thought he was very different from others
who were blind. They did not challenge or refuse to listen to all
I said about my life and what I wanted to do with it. They became
my friends by first showing that they cared about me, and when I
came to care about them enough to value their opinions, they
began to tell me that what I had understood about the world was
shallow, arrogant, and selfish.
     The men and women who were my reasons for becoming involved
came to know almost all there was to know about me, whether they
wanted to or not. They knew about my involvement in ham radio, my
desire to write a book about my exceptional life, my yearning to
ride a motorcycle, the pigs I bought to make my fortune, and my
loss of a summer's wages when the pig market dropped. Had my
blind listeners told me they were too busy to listen or had they
confined our conversations only to issues relating to blindness,
I seriously doubt we would have developed a relationship strong
enough to compel me to come to meetings, to march in parades, or
to sell candy.
     Still, knowing all this, too often I find myself wanting to
fit new people into the Federation mold quickly, where they can
begin to write letters about the proposed changes in Social
Security or other important issues. After I've taken the time to
give them the literature, I expect them to know our positions on
issues and to extrapolate general principles from those to apply
to similar problems.
     Although the telephone was my major point of contact in
building my own first Federation friends, one of my biggest
complaints today is that the telephone can completely change what
I plan to accomplish in a night as a ten-minute call turns into a
two-hour conversation. I find myself wanting to say to those
newcomers with stories they find endlessly fascinating that
theirs is the story of all blind people, that for each new
recruit only the locations and the names change. But then I ask
myself how the blind teenager I use to be would react to such
indifference.
     We don't get people to join us because they already feel as
we do about what it means to be blind. Changing what it means to
be blind evolves in each of us as a desire once we come gradually
to understand what it means to be blind, not just for the single
blind person we know best, but for blind people as a class. It
isn't the preaching of a well memorized sermon on Federationism
that compels people to give of themselves--it is the example of
someone they come to admire and wish to emulate.
     You will remember that in my story I said I grew
discontented after the first few meetings. What is important here
is that the people who encouraged me didn't stop after I attended
my first meeting. They did not see my attendance as the passage
through some great barrier separating the committed from the
uncommitted. They knew it would take as much work to get me to
meeting three as it had taken to get me to meeting one, and their
understanding of this crucial fact was no small matter. Not only
did I pester my Federation friends between meetings, but they
also went out of their way to inquire about me. Had I saved
enough money to buy that new radio I wanted? Was I still skipping
lunch so I could put two dollars a week toward the purchase? Had
my parents gotten wise to the fact that I wasn't eating lunch,
and had I gotten up the courage to ask that girl to the prom?
     In some organizations I've belonged to in the past, each new
or potential member is assigned a mentor or a sponsor. This
person is the newcomer's real tie with the organization and the
person who makes it his or her business to really get to know the
fledgling. In the beginning it is not so much what the
organization stands for or how many successful programs it has
that matters. What matters is that someone in that organization
cares about the newcomer in a very special way. The seasoned
member will attempt to get a word in here or there about how the
organization has experience in some situation the newcomer is
discussing or how the organization has changed the way things
used to be, but in the initial months of membership I strongly
believe the emphasis must be on the person we are trying to bring
to our cause. These new members must come to realize that they
need us and that we need them if we are to help others as they
have been helped. Our aim in working with a new Federationist
must be to have such an  exemplary impact that he or she hopes
some day to be for a newcomer what we have been for him or her.
     How do we begin building a Federationist, one who shares
with us a common background communicated by our history and our
literature? Passing on many of the speeches and articles we prize
is an important first step, and so is sending in our newcomer's
name and address for the Monitor. I emphasize the words "first
step," because we live in a time when reading matter is readily
available, and although each of us can cite instances in which we
would like more information in specific subject areas, few of us
suffer the dearth of material Dr. Jernigan describes when he
talks about one magazine having to last the entire summer. The
key to getting our new members to read our literature and absorb
the information is to plan some organized Federation activity for
reading and discussion. Sunday afternoons are a particularly good
time to invite a small group for coffee, cookies, and a chat
about some Federation topics. Sometimes taking five or ten
minutes at a chapter meeting for presentations can also encourage
people to read and come prepared to present. Again I emphasize
that the answer is personal involvement with the new member and
that no amount of efficiently distributed literature can
substitute for this one-on-one contact.
     With all the pressures we have to perform in our jobs, to
meet the needs of our families, and to carry out the other duties
which fall to us as Federationists, the kind of extended
involvement I'm encouraging is difficult to embrace. Certainly no
one of us can be there for every new or prospective member, but
neither can we continue to grow as a Federation if we believe the
mechanical work of our organization is more important than the
human interactions which draw and keep men and women involved in
our cause. Our claim that we are a Federation family is one which
both old and new members must find credible and experience as
true.
     Of course, central questions which must be asked and
answered are these: why is the Federation worth building, and
what does it do for people to justify the emotional and financial
commitment demanded of its members? We don't have to look far for
examples of lives which are better because there is a National
Federation of the Blind.
     Just this week I was invited to lunch by a man who is now
successfully employed as an airline reservationist. To avoid the
possibility of embarrassing him, let me refer to him as Joe. When
we first met some twelve years ago, my friend was a very scared
college freshman who had come from a sheltered workshop in a
midwestern state. He had been told that even the work in the shop
was beyond him. He was advised he would continue to need constant
counseling, that his social mannerisms were such that he would
never be accepted in society, and that any thought of pursuing
work in a competitive profession was nonsense.
     While my friend outwardly rejected this gloomy assessment of
his capabilities, inside he believed much of what the
professionals said. In truth he had little reason to contradict
them. Few were the experiences he could point to in which he had
been truly accepted as a valued member of any group.
Intellectually he was average. His speech was often uncomfortably
loud. His dress was often sloppy, and his manners left much to be
desired. 
     For many of us meeting Joe, it seemed that perhaps we had
finally encountered a blind person we simply couldn't help, but
after a time we came to admire that stubborn personality who,
despite his self-doubt and negative experiences, was determined
to be a success. Cringe as we might at the thought of another
phone call or a chance meeting on the street, we could not ignore
the fact that part of being a Federationist meant helping any
blind person who could benefit from what we had to offer. All of
us had preached to others about the necessity to be open to the
needs of newcomers, and now we had the chance to see whether our
words were spoken from down deep in our guts or simply words used
to coerce others to accept people they did not want to accept.
     It would be wonderful if I could tell you my friend Joe left
the campus to pursue a job in the career he had chosen as a
college freshman. The truth, however, is that he did not become a
rehabilitation counselor, and I doubt that anything we might have
done could have changed him into a person who would have been
warmly received as a member of the helping professions. Even so,
we were more successful than we ever dreamed we could be.
Discouraged because he could not be a pilot, my friend had been
told to abandon his dream of working in the travel industry. Now
he fills rather than flies the friendly skies, and I believe he
is as happy in his job as any person I know. To compensate for
his ground-bound position, Joe uses his time off to take
advantage of the flying privileges granted to airline employees.
It is not unusual for him to spend a weekend flying from Houston
to New York, to Los Angeles, to Denver, and then back to Houston.
What does he get out of this? I haven't a clue. But I am certain
he is as content in his job and in his use of his spare time as I
am, and I am content to simply be grateful that yet another man
has found happiness in his life.
     Knowing Joe has been a wonderful experience for me, not only
because he has a story of success in which we were able to play a
part, but also because he continues to bring to my life
adventures I have only dreamed of experiencing. A little over a
year ago my telephone rang during supper, and although we don't
usually take calls during meals, I found I was being summoned to
the phone. "I think you will want to take this," Sue told me as I
took the call.
     "Hello," I said. 
     A voice on the other end said "Hey Gary, I bet you've never
been called from 35,000 feet before. Hold on just a
minute--Excuse me, Ma'am, can I get another soda?"
     Was I glad to be placed on hold, my supper getting cold, so
Joe could get a Coke? No, not really, but I couldn't help
thinking with a bit of envy about how I had heard about
telephones on airplanes, had yearned to call someone, but just
couldn't part with the $10 it would cost me to call and tell a
friend I was flying above the clouds and was calling for the fun
of it. Perhaps I also had too much false pride to admit I wanted
to play with the telephone.
     In this Federation of ours we become so involved in each
other's lives that we can sometimes feel threatened and
overwhelmed. When the work we do determines whether Joe gets a
job, whether Rita keeps a job, or whether Deborah will have the
opportunity to receive training for a job, we must come face to
face with the fact that this is no game we play in the
Federation. We are more than performers providing entertainment
for a Convention banquet, more than the casual representative who
stands before a Lions Club touting the merits of yet another
community organization. Our contact with the legislature is more
than an abstract exercise in democracy. It will determine how
much income a recipient of Social Security receives, whether a
blind child will learn to read and write, and to what extent
training will be available to help blind people in our journey
toward first-class citizenship.
     Is our organization perfect? Is every decision we make the
right one? Have we always met our fellow blind people with open
arms? Have we consistently done our best to advance this noble
cause? Of course the answer is that we have not. We are as frail
and as prone to fall victim to temptation as any other group of
men and women. At times we become lazy and make promises we don't
keep. At times we feel put upon by the demands of our
involvement. At times we take for granted the privileges we enjoy
as blind people in the 1990's and forget the responsibility which
they impose. Even so, we share a wonderful bond in our
Federation, and we know the world is a far better place for many
because of what we do.
     In a recent inaugural address it was observed that "Until he
has found a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole."
Anyone who has labored in this organization can testify to the
truth of these words, and on those nights which bring an end to
many hours of work, we who share in this cause know what it is to
sleep the sleep which springs from the toil of service in a cause
which is good and just.
     And how do we answer our critics who malign our motives,
question our rationality, and deride us as negative and hostile
malcontents? To the extent that we answer them at all, perhaps we
should remind them of the words spoken by Theodore Roosevelt, who
said: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points
out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could
have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually
in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again;
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends
himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory
nor defeat."
     It has been observed that "Character is the ability to carry
out a good resolution, long after the emotion of the moment has
passed." I hope something in this weekend's activities has
touched each of you so deeply that you will feel a renewed sense
of how important it is to share what we have with others.
Together we have the possibility to bring about positive life
changes for many who are blind, and together we will meet this
challenge with joy, enthusiasm, and determination.


                   FEDERATIONIST DEMONSTRATES
                    THE USEFULNESS OF BRAILLE

     Fred Mansfield is a retired Presbyterian minister living in
Sante Fe, New Mexico. Ten years ago his sight became so poor that
he decided to learn Braille, and he has been using it ever since.
Often older people who lose their sight are told that Braille
will be too hard for them to learn and not useful enough to
justify the time and effort. Most of us, of course, take longer
to learn things when we get older, but that is no reason to stop
learning; just ask Fred Mansfield, treasurer of the La Luz
Chapter of the NFB of New Mexico and an active member of his
church and community. The following article, written by Gussie
Fauntleroy, appeared in the August 28, 1992, edition of The New
Mexican. Here it is: 

                            By Touch

     When Fred Mansfield goes to the store, his grocery list is
on one of those stiff little pieces of paper that fall out of
magazines. It doesn't matter what's printed on the paper--a
subscription offer, a mail-order form--because Mansfield doesn't
read it. He feels it.
     Mansfield, a sixty-eight-year-old retired Presbyterian
minister who lives in Santa Fe, is legally blind. He learned
Braille about ten years ago after his sight deteriorated after a
cataract operation. He can see enough to get around in his house,
but he can't drive, and he can't read printed material.
     For most of his reading Mansfield depends on Talking Books--
books that have been recorded onto cassette tapes. For things
like making grocery lists, jotting down phone numbers, and other
daily tasks, though, Braille is extremely helpful, he said.
     Using a pocket-sized gadget called a slate and stylus, he
punches Braille dots onto stiff pieces of paper, like those stuck
in magazines. Then he tucks the slip of paper away for later
reference.
     Only about forty percent of the blind people in New Mexico
read Braille, according to John Brewster, manager of the New
Mexico Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
The state library program, better known as the Talking Book
Library, offers a variety of alternative reading services and
equipment for the state's visually-impaired people. The program
also has access to recorded books and material nationwide.
     Braille is an alphabet whose letters are composed of
combinations of six dots embossed on the page to be read with the
fingers. The system is difficult to learn, particularly for those
who have lost their sight late in life, Brewster said.
     Mansfield agreed. At fifty-seven, he spent four months at an
orientation center for the sight-impaired in Iowa, similar to New
Mexico's School for the Visually Handicapped in Alamogordo. While
learning new ways of doing daily activities, he spent at least an
hour every day in Braille class.
     "It's a matter of getting your fingers sensitized to the
dots and a lot of practice," he said. "I was slow. But if I
complained, they said I should have started [learning Braille]
when I was six or seven."
     Mansfield mastered the basic alphabet and went on to the
second stage of Braille, a system of almost two hundred special
signs and shortened versions of commonly used words. It was worth
it, he said. Now he can read almost anything in Braille.
     "Some members of the blind community are encouraging the
educational system to teach Braille in the lower grades," he
said. Besides being easier to learn at a young age, Braille is
almost indispensable to high school and college students, who
need to use reference materials. Special education teachers could
learn Braille well enough to teach it to sight-impaired public
school students whose parents can't or don't want to send them to
the residential program in Alamogordo, he said.
     Currently two counselors at the New Mexico Commission for
the Blind in Santa Fe teach Braille to the legally blind at no
charge, said Lou Manus, a vocational rehabilitation counselor
with the Commission for the Blind.
     Mansfield said he believes pocket-sized tape recorders and
Talking Books play an invaluable role for the blind. Until he
learned Braille, however, he felt handicapped.
     For example, Braille allows Mansfield to try out new foods.
He uses recipes written in Braille. And every Friday Mansfield
gets his church's bulletin for the upcoming service.
     His wife looks up the hymns and reads the words to him while
he punches them out in Braille--so on Sunday, like everyone else
in the congregation, Mansfield can read the words and sing along.



[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Greg Trapp.]

          WHAT SSI RECIPIENTS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TRUSTS
                        by Greg D. Trapp

     Greg Trapp is an attorney practicing in New Mexico and a
member of the National Federation of the Blind of New Mexico. He
has done research on the ways in which trusts can be used to
assist people receiving Supplemental Security Income.
     As we were going to press, Mr. Trapp notified us that the
federal budget bill, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA-
93), contains an amendment which will drastically reduce the
circumstances under which a trust can be used to qualify a person
for Medicaid. The law, as currently proposed, could even require
the state to seek reimbursement from the estate of Medicaid
beneficiaries. The bill is being debated as this edition of the
Monitor is being distributed. The likelihood that this amendment
will pass makes it even more important to understand your rights
and to be involved in the political process. The changes,
however, will not affect the use of trusts to maintain SSI
eligibility, only that for Medicaid.  Here is Greg Trapp's
article:

     Are you named in a will?  Are you about to receive money
from a legal settlement?  If so and if you are receiving
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Medicaid, you may have good
reason to consider the advantages of using a trust.  A trust
could make it possible for you to receive an inheritance,
settlement, or gift and still be eligible for SSI and Medicaid,
if the state rules permit. 
     A trust is a legal instrument in which a first person,
called a grantor, places property in the control of a second
person, called a trustee, for the benefit of a third person,
called a trust beneficiary. The trust designates a trustee and
specifies how he or she is to manage the trust funds, called the
trust principal. The most common type is a testamentary trust,
which is created at the time a will is made. In addition to
protecting inheritances, trusts can also protect a gift or legal
settlement. If the trust is intended to supplement the needs of
an SSI recipient and if the recipient cannot spend or control the
trust principal, then it is called a special needs trust.  
     It is important to emphasize that, if you are given money or
property directly, you will be unable to create a trust and may
have to exhaust these assets before you will be eligible for SSI
or Medicaid.  Therefore, it is essential to do advance planning
while the money or property that you expect to receive still
belongs to someone else.  Once it is yours it is too late to
establish a trust for SSI or Medicaid eligibility. 

                 Benefits A Trust Can Supplement

     A special needs trust can be used to establish or maintain
SSI eligibility.  In some cases a special needs trust can also
make a beneficiary eligible for Medicaid.  Medicaid will pay for
medical treatment, prescription drugs, and transportation to
treatment. In most states eligibility for SSI automatically
entitles a person to Medicaid. However, a trust which qualifies a
person for SSI will not necessarily qualify him or her for
Medicaid. If you are thinking about a trust, you should give
careful consideration to its impact upon Medicaid eligibility,
separate from SSI. Even if it  is not practical to use a trust to
qualify for Medicaid, you should still consider a special needs
trust to establish SSI eligibility since the trust principal can
be used to pay directly for medical costs or to purchase health
insurance.

                   What The Trust Can Pay For

     A trust can pay providers directly for items other than
food, clothing, and shelter without causing a reduction in SSI
payments.  Items which can be paid for by a trust can include
medical care, telephone bills, education, entertainment, and
travel.  The cost of attendance at professional meetings or
conventions such as the NFB's could also be paid by a trust.  The
trustee can also make cash distributions to the trust
beneficiary; however, cash which is distributed directly to the
beneficiary will be counted as unearned income, resulting in a
dollar-for-dollar reduction in SSI benefits after the twenty-
dollar unearned income disregard is applied.  Payments made
directly to providers for items such as food, utilities,
clothing, and shelter will also be counted as income and could
result in a reduction in SSI benefits.  However, the reduction
resulting from these direct payments will not be greater than
$164.66 per month during 1993.  Direct payments from the trust
for food, utilities, clothing, and shelter exceeding $164.66 in
any single month will not reduce SSI payment in that month.  If
trust distributions would reduce or terminate benefits, the
distributions should be made in a single month so as to minimize
the loss of benefits.
     In some cases a trust can also be used to qualify for
Medicaid.  Medicaid can pay for medical expenses which could
otherwise rapidly exhaust an inheritance or settlement. In the
case of a person with serious medical problems, Medicaid
eligibility can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in trust
distributions. Because Medicaid programs are overburdened,
Medicaid trusts are closely scrutinized to prevent wealthy
persons from benefiting at the expense of the poor.

                     The Terms Of The Trust

     The Social Security Administration does not consider trust
principal to be a resource of the trust beneficiary if he or she
is unable to revoke the trust and does not have direct access to
the principal. So a trust created to assist a blind beneficiary 
should be a discretionary trust, which grants complete control to
the trustee. It should include a statement of the goals and
purposes of the trust. It should also contain a specific clause
stating that the purpose of the trust is to supplement state and
federal entitlement programs and to pay for only those items or
services not paid for by the entitlement programs. It should also
state that the purpose of the trust is to create a better quality
of life than would otherwise be provided by the entitlement
programs. It should also describe how public policy would be
benefitted by the trust. To show a benefit to public policy, the
trust could state that the purpose of the trust is to enable the
beneficiary to become employed or otherwise become less dependent
on public benefits.
     The trust should include provisions protecting the trust
principal from potential creditors or changes in the law. In the
case of a non-testamentary trust, it is critical that the trust
be in place so that it can be funded directly by the gift,
settlement agreement, or court. As noted earlier, if you are
given the assets directly, you will be unable to create a trust
and may have to exhaust the assets before you will be eligible
for SSI or Medicaid. Finally, since a discretionary trust places
complete control in the trustee, the grantor should take great
care when deciding whom to name as trustee.

                    Whom Can A Trust Benefit?

     The appropriateness of establishing a special needs trust
will primarily depend on the grantor's income, marital status,
age, and health and the potential amount of the trust principal.
If the grantor has a blind or disabled spouse or child, the
spouse or child may be benefitted by a trust later, even if the
family's present income or resources currently prevent SSI
eligibility. When the bread-winner dies, his or her income will
cease, and the surviving blind or disabled family members may
then become eligible for SSI benefits.
     A trust will be appropriate for persons who have a financial
need for the SSI program or who need Medicaid to cover medical
expenses.  It will be most beneficial to a blind or disabled SSI
recipient in cases where the assets that would otherwise be given
directly to the recipient are relatively modest.  Small amounts
of money received in the form of an inheritance, for example, can
easily cause SSI ineligibility unless the inheritance is paid
into a trust.  Use of a trust to shelter larger amounts may be
appropriate when there is a need to qualify for Medicaid, when
the beneficiary would be unable to spend the money placed in the
trust, or when the beneficiary has a desire to preserve the money
for future heirs.

                           REFERENCES

Ross, Sterling, "Sheltering Zebley Retroactive SSI Benefits in
     Trust," 25 Clearinghouse Review 1335, February 1992.

Sheldon, James, "PASS: SSI's Plan for Achieving Self-Support," 25
     Clearinghouse Review 962, December 1991.

Silber, Mayer Y., "The Effect of a Trust on the Eligibility or
     Liability of the Trust Beneficiary for Public Assistance,"
     26 Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal 133, Spring
     1991.



                 A PROBLEM SOLVED FOR MUSICIANS:
                    THE YAMAHA QY10 NOW TALKS

     In the December, 1992, issue of the Braille Monitor we
printed an inquiry from Suleman Currim, who wondered whether any
other musician had solved the problem of making a modern music
synthesizer's liquid crystal display accessible through synthetic
speech. Dr. Tim Cranmer, Chairman of the NFB's Research and
Development Committee, read that inquiry and remembered an
article he had recently read. Immediately he sat down to write to
Mr. Currim and send him the article. Recognizing that the
information might also be useful to other musicians and
electronics experts, he also sent the material to the Braille
Monitor. The article written by Wayne Thompson does get extremely
technical in the middle, but the general points he makes are
important and comprehensible to all of us. It is vital that we
find ways of encouraging manufacturers of today's technology to
remember that some would-be purchasers will need to modify their
products, and they can make simple, inexpensive modifications in
the design and at the time of production that will make that task
easier or in some cases even possible. Wayne Thompson is an
electrical engineer who has worked for the past eleven years at
the Department for the Blind, the state vocational rehabilitation
agency serving blind people in Kentucky. Here are Dr. Cranmer's
cover letter and Mr. Thompson's article:

                                             Louisville, Kentucky
                                                 December 4, 1992

Mr. Suleman Currim
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

Dear Mr. Currim:
     Mr. Wayne Thompson is the engineer for the Kentucky
Department for the Blind. He has adapted many products for speech
or Braille output. He recently completed work on adapting a
family of musical instruments, synthesizers, and MIDI devices
which display error messages and other information through a
liquid crystal display. Mr. Thompson's attachment makes this
information available through a speech synthesizer.
     The enclosed article written by Mr. Thompson will give you a
good idea of what is involved in adapting a particular musical
instrument for speech output. As you can imagine, the procedure
could be rather expensive.
     If you would like to follow up on this matter, you may write
or telephone Wayne Thompson, Department for the Blind, 427
Versailles Road, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601; (502) 564-4754.

                                                 Sincerely yours,
                                     T.V. (Tim) Cranmer, Chairman
                                 National Federation of the Blind
                                 Research & Development Committee

                      ____________________

     Here is the article to which Tim Cranmer referred: 

                Making the Yamaha QY10 Talk Back:
                  Music Sequencer Accommodates
                Blind and Visually Impaired Users

     Many musicians who are blind or visually impaired are
finding it increasingly difficult to use today's sophisticated
music gear. The trend to equip every device with an alphanumeric
visual display is a great aid, if you can see it.
     Musicians and composers who are sight-impaired may find
themselves becoming less competitive with their sighted peers,
who can take immediate advantage of the latest electronic music
gadgets. Certainly success is not measured by the amount of
technology you can command. But, if your inclination is to use
high tech to help create and promote your music, then you are at
a distinct disadvantage if you are blind or visually impaired.
Ironically, the same technology that created this access barrier
can be used to bridge it. This article describes one such case.
     Most solutions for providing blind and sight-impaired
persons with access to visually displayed text involve either
Braille or speech. Text-to-speech synthesizers have been used for
years by the blind community to convert text into a synthesized,
not-so-human sounding voice. Many such text-to-speech circuits
and consumer products are available. Most use a combination of
hardware and software to string together and speak phonemes
according to speech rules coded into the designer's algorithm.
     For Braille access conventional Braille on paper can be
produced by a number of commercially available Braille printers.
Also available are paperless Braille displays. These are
electromechanical or piezoelectric based devices that create one
or more lines of temporary, refreshable Braille by raising and
lowering small pins arranged in a specified pattern.
     The correct access approach, Braille or speech, depends on
many factors, including the task at hand, the user's skills, and
cost. Speech is generally much less expensive than Braille and
was the preferred means of accessing the QY10's visual display.

                      Making the QY10 Talk

     Yamaha's QY10 Music Sequencer is typical of the trend in
music technology: cram the most features and programmability you
can into a box smart enough to tell the user what to do next. The
QY10 communicates to its user through a sixteen-character LCD
(liquid crystal display). Targeted for the masses as well as for
serious musicians, the QY10 is fairly easy to operate, but it's
not a toaster. There are lots of buttons and lots of messages on
that LCD. Time must be spent experimenting and reading the user's
manual (another barrier for sight-impaired persons). But with a
little patience you'll soon be making music. Imagine, however,
undertaking this learning process with a piece of black tape
covering the QY10's visual display--extremely difficult. (I've
learned never to use the word "impossible.")
     The primary task of the speech interface for the Yamaha QY10
Music Sequencer is to allow a blind user to access the
information visually displayed on the QY10's sixteen-character
LCD module by having it spoken. This section briefly describes
the operation of the hardware and software designed to accomplish
this task. The speech interface uses commonly available parts and
could be built by anyone with average electronic technician
skills. This same interface has also been successfully connected
to Yamaha's MDF2 MIDI Data Filer, which also uses a sixteen-
character LCD module. Reference the schematic throughout this
section.
     Connection is made to the QY10 by ribbon cable connected
directly to the LCD module inside the QY10's case. The actual
soldering point is on the QY10's circuit board and is visible
after removing the back cover. A row of fourteen solder points
terminating an internal flat, flexible cable to the actual LCD
module can be found. This provides the most convenient connection
point to the LCD module. Solder a fourteen-conductor ribbon cable
to this row of pins and route it out the back between the case
halves. You will have to notch the case back cover slightly to
allow exiting clearance for the ribbon cable when the case halves
are reassembled.
     This cable plugs into J1 on the interface and contains all
signals associated with the LCD module. The signals needed are
passed on to optional J4, which allows direct connection of a
Hewlett Packard 1560B logic analyzer to assist in the
development, testing, and troubleshooting of the interface. (It
was definitely not optional when I was designing this interface.)
     LCD data lines are buffered by U9 for the 74S189 RAM chips
U5 and U6, which are used to capture, in real time, copies of all
character data written to the sixteen-character LCD module. U4
presents one of two addresses to the RAM chips U5 and U6. The
write address is selected when the QY10 is writing data to its
LCD display and is latched into U3. The read address is placed at
U1 P24-P27 and allows the 8749 single chip microcomputer to read
the RAM contents for later speaking. If the two requests should
occur simultaneously, then the write must obviously take
precedence since we must never miss capturing copies of
characters written to the LCD.
     Everything discussed so far occurs automatically in real
time without any help from the 8749 microcomputer chip U1. This
hardware approach to LCD data capture was necessary because data
and instruction writes to the LCD by the QY10 are far too fast to
be intercepted directly by software routines within the 8749. The
8749's duties are now to read the captured data from U5 and U6,
process it, monitor the user pushbuttons, monitor the QY10's
cursor address for changes, and send data and instructions to the
speech circuit for speaking. Details on these tasks can best be
understood by reading the source code, but a brief overview of
firmware functions is as follows:
     The firmware is burned into the onboard EPROM of the 8749
microcomputer chip U1. At power up an initialization routine sets
various speech parameters and other flags. Then the code begins a
polling loop, watching for either of the two user pushbuttons S2
or S3 to be pressed, or a cursor movement by the QY10. One
pushbutton invokes a routine to cause speaking of the entire
sixteen-character LCD module. The other pushbutton, or a detected
change in the QY10's cursor location as read at U1 port P20-P23,
causes only the word or item where the cursor is currently
located to be spoken.
     The 4-bit RAM read address is placed on U1 port P24-27 prior
to reading the captured RAM ASCII data at U1 port P10-P17. Data
characters and instructions are written to the speech circuit via
U1 port DBO-DB7 using U1's WR and INT lines to handshake with the
speech circuit.
     Additional information, including source and hex code, may
be obtained by contacting the author at the Kentucky Department
for the Blind, Assistive Technology Services Branch, 427
Versailles Road, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601.

                      Disability Awareness

     The recently passed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
has spawned a new era of public awareness of the many ways in
which individuals with disabilities are discriminated against,
often unintentionally. Projects like the one described in this
article are custom retrofits attempting to overcome the
information denial inherent in products designed without regard
for sight-impaired users. Custom modifications are expensive.
Most individuals cannot afford the engineering costs involved in
creating such specialized access interfaces. Often their only
recourse is rehabilitation agencies who use public funds to
provide technical services to individuals who qualify for
assistance. But many don't qualify, and funds are limited for
those that do.
     I would like to issue a challenge to the manufacturing
industry. Throughout the design phase of a new product, maintain
an awareness of how that product might be used by individuals
with disabilities. Get external input. Get input from persons who
are blind and currently using similar products. Contact
disability advocacy groups and rehabilitation agencies to avoid
re-inventing the wheel. Obviously manufacturing considerations
and cost will greatly restrict what can be done to accommodate an
admittedly small market. But oftentimes a little forethought
during the design stage can result in an extremely useful feature
or access method for users with disabilities at a minimal
increase in cost.
     For example, if the Yamaha designers had made available a
connector on the QY10 giving access to the fourteen lines
controlling the LCD, along with technical interfacing
specifications, my job would have been considerably easier. In
fact, if such a connector currently existed on the QY10, then the
speech interface described in this article would probably become
a commercially available product. Thousands of blind and
visually-impaired people with musical interests could simply
purchase the speech interface accessary and plug it into their
QY10. As it stands, however, having to tear into the user's QY10
to solder a fourteen-conductor ribbon cable makes a commercially
available speech interface for the QY10 highly unlikely. (By the
way, due to the somewhat standard fourteen-pin interface scheme
used by many alphanumeric LCD modules, I would encourage all
manufacturers of products containing these LCD's to consider
making that port available through a connector to simplify
connection of speech devices for blind users.)
     No one wants to increase the cost of products for all people
just to accommodate a few. But often it's a matter of awareness,
not cost. A little advance planning could make future products
much easier to adapt for users with special needs. The many
facets of the music industry offer varied career opportunities
for individuals who are blind or visually impaired as well as for
those having other disabilities. Let's think of them before we
build things. In the meantime, I'll be in the lab if you need me.
[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: John Maxson.]

            REHABILITATION RESEARCH & TRAINING CENTER
       AT MISSISSIPPI STATE RESPONDS TO CONSUMER CONCERNS

     In the May issue of the Monitor we published a letter
written by Curtis Chong, President of the National Federation of
the Blind in Computer Science, to Mr. John Maxson, Associate
Director of the Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on
Blindness & Low Vision. Mr. Chong was concerned about the quality
of the Braille agendas he had been given at two successive
conferences organized by the Rehabilitation Research & Training
Center. Mr. Maxson answered Mr. Chong's letter on the very day it
arrived. The tone of the response was positive, and the writer's
intentions were clearly equally constructive. Here is the letter:


                                   Mississippi State, Mississippi
                                                   April 16, 1993

Dear Curtis:
     Thank you for your letter of April 4, which I received
today. I was pleased to hear from you.
     To begin, let me say that I intend to take immediate action
to ensure solution to a problem which I thought had been solved
last fall. You are correct in bringing this to my attention, and
I really appreciate your taking the time to share concrete
examples of the Braille formatting problem with me. If we are to
be a national training resource, we have an obligation to provide
our Braille (and large print) materials to participants in the
same quality as our regular print materials.
     The Center uses the WordPerfect 5.1 word-processing
application for desktop publishing. To produce particular
materials (e.g., agendas, cover pages, and special documents),
our word-processing specialist uses graphical elements to enhance
these documents. The Center also uses the Duxbury DuxWP Braille
translation program to translate Braille materials. We have
discovered that the Duxbury DuxWP does not work properly even
when we think that we have stripped the graphical elements. In
the future we will retype the agendas and other materials in
standard WordPerfect format to ensure that the graphical elements
do not interfere with the Braille translation program.
     In June of this year we will be adding another staff member
who is a Braille reader. It will be her specific responsibility
to proofread all materials which are produced in Braille prior to
publishing. Please be assured that the Braille formatting problem
will be solved.
     I want to thank you for taking the time from your busy
schedule to present at the Seattle meeting. Our conferences for
professionals in service to persons who are blind are enhanced
when consumers can actively participate. As you indicated, we
both believe in the ability of persons who are blind and the
positive impact which technology can have in the areas of
independence and employment. I hope that we can continue to work
together in the future to share this message with people around
the country.
                                               With warm regards,
                                                   John H. Maxson
                         Associate Director and Training Director



[PHOTO: Mr. and Mrs. Ruemmler in front of their
fireplace. CAPTION: Cliff and Sally Ruemmler.]

                  CLIFF NOTES: A FAMILY AFFAIR
                        by Peg Halverson

     From the Editor: When we began discussing the recipes from
the Kansas affiliate to be published in this issue of the
Monitor, Susie Stanzel, President of the National Federation of
the Blind of Kansas, called attention to the following profile,
which was first printed in the Spring, 1993, issue of the
FreeState News, the publication of the National Federation of the
Blind of Kansas. Peg Halverson, one of the leaders of the NFB of
Kansas, wrote the piece, and Susie felt that it would make an
interesting addition to Kansas's contribution this month. Now
meet the Ruemmlers--Cliff, Sally, and Keri-Ann; they and people
like them are making a real difference in the organized blind
movement:

     At the last National Federation of the Blind of Kansas
convention, we elected new officers and several board members to
serve for the next two years. Most of those elected have been
long-time Federationists and have been leaders in Kansas and
other affiliates, and we know them well. However, one officer,
treasurer Cliff Ruemmler, is a new face and voice to
Federationists. We in Johnson County have come to know him as an
active Federationist and one who puts Federation beliefs into
action. It is with pleasure that we share a little about Cliff
with you.
     Cliff and his wife Sally are sighted members who reside in
Olathe, Kansas. Their son Cliff is a Certified Public Accountant
who works as an auditing manager in California. Suzanne, their
older daughter, works for the City of Olathe and is getting ready
to start college. Their younger daughter, thirteen-year-old Keri-
Ann, happens to be deaf-blind and is currently attending the
Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri. Their
efforts to obtain an appropriate education for Keri-Ann, as
provided by PL 94-142, brought Cliff and Sally to the Federation.
Cliff explains the process:
     "Actually, it was Sally who was looking for resources for
Keri, because just about the time we got here in the Kansas City
area we realized that there was something inhibiting her,
something besides her deafness. At the time we were told that
Keri-Ann either had a severe learning disability or was mentally
handicapped, mentally retarded. Seeing other things that she did,
we didn't buy into either one of those causes. It took us about
three years to run into Ralph Bartley at the Kansas School for
the Blind, and they diagnosed her immediately as being blind.
That is why she couldn't see and function in the normal
classrooms. It was through Ralph that we came in contact with
Susie Stanzel and the Federation, and we just progressed from
there."
     About his participation in the Federation, Cliff says:
     "Sally should be the one [being interviewed] because I
always like to stay in the shadows and be of support. My whole
philosophy of being involved with the NFB has always been that it
is an organization of and for blind people and that a sighted
person, in my opinion, should not influence direction or
philosophy, because we are not blind and will probably never
understand blindness completely. My feeling has always been that
my involvement should be following the direction and the path
that the blind members of the NFB set--the direction they want to
go. My role should be one of support, not one of leadership in
terms of choosing direction, but rather following the direction
that you guys set and supporting that direction. I don't think as
sighted people we can make good judgments, because we are not
blind and we don't know the true impact of programs or
legislation. But we should be there to support and help make
everything happen, based on the direction that the blind members
set. My being in the shadows doesn't mean keeping quiet; it means
giving support."
     Both Cliff and Sally are active Federationists in state and
local activities. Sally was instrumental with reference to
Resolution 92-2, dealing with the education of deaf-blind
students in the state of Kansas. As recording secretary for the
Johnson County Chapter, Cliff works hard. When she can, Keri-Ann
attends chapter meetings and has begun quite a friendship with
Dean and Susie Stanzel's daughter Lori. She's as sharp as a tack
and full of fun and is getting her alternative techniques down
pat. As for the proper attitude--Keri-Ann was born with it!
     Whether you are a first-time job seeker or interested in
furthering your career or education, Cliff is an excellent
resource for job seekers. But I'll let Cliff tell his own story:
     "I spent twenty years in the military prior to retiring in
1982. I started out my first year as an engine mechanic on
aircraft. Then I went to flight school and spent the rest of my
nineteen years flying various types of aircraft. In about 1978 I
realized that I had to get out and make a living, so I started
going to school, and in that five-year period I accumulated five
degrees--three associates', a bachelor's, and a master's."
     When talking about himself, Cliff is very humble, so I'll
tell you that he has an associate in science in instructional
technology, an associate in arts, an associate in science and
flight engineer technology, as well as a bachelor's degree in
education and a master's in management and human relations. Lest
some of you think you are too old to go to school, Cliff became a
student at the age of thirty-five. During my interview with Cliff
I indicated that I found him to be an encouragement and a unique
and future-oriented person. His motivations aren't nearly so
lofty, he says. "I was just an old guy who got scared and knew he
had to eat."
     Whatever his motivations, Cliff has much wisdom and shares
it freely in JOB seminars, and his warm, direct manner of
delivery ensures that all participants gain something lasting. 
     He doesn't lecture or preach; he just starts talking; and,
before you know it, there is a lively, interactive discussion.
Cliff offers sensible job-search and career-search techniques and
has a way of getting participants to think for themselves.
     For the past few years Cliff has worked for Deluxe Check and
it is Deluxe Check whom we must thank for bringing the Ruemmlers
to Kansas. To be sure, we'll be hearing more from and about them
in the future. Look out world--Cliff, Sally, and Keri-Ann are
part of the National Federation of the Blind of Kansas and are
changing what it means to be blind in Kansas and throughout the
country. It is, most definitely, a family affair!



                             RECIPES

              This month's recipes are from Kansas.

                      ORANGE SHERBET SALAD
                        by Maxine Bohrer

     Maxine Bohrer is the second vice president of the National
Federation of the Blind of Kansas. She was instrumental in
preserving and nurturing the South Central Chapter for many
years. 

Ingredients:
1 6-ounce package orange Jello
2 cups hot water
1 pint orange sherbet
4-1/2 ounces Cool Whip
1 11-ounce can Mandarin oranges

     Method: Mix the Jello with hot water, and stir in the
sherbet until dissolved. Fold in Cool Whip and oranges. Spread in
a 9 by 13-inch rectangular pan. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Different fruits and flavors of Jello can be substituted.

                        PEANUT BUTTER PIE
                        by Peg Halverson


     Peg Halverson is the treasurer of the Johnson County Chapter
and a member of the board of directors of the NFB of Kansas.

Ingredients:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons milk
6 ounces (1 cup) chocolate chips
1 9-ounce carton Cool Whip

     Method: To make crust, combine cracker crumbs, sugar, and
butter, and press into a 9-inch pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for
10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Blend sugar and cheese. Add peanut
butter and milk, beating until smooth and creamy. Fold chocolate
chips and whipped topping into mixture and pour into crust.
Refrigerate 5 hours or overnight. 

                        GINGER LIME PUNCH
                         by Carol Clark

     Carol Clark has been a member of the NFB since the mid-
1960's. She is currently the president of the Johnson County
Chapter of the NFB of Kansas, as well as a state board member.

Ingredients:
2 6-ounce cans frozen limeade concentrate
1 6-ounce can frozen lemonade concentrate
1 tablespoon chopped candied ginger
4 cups cold water
ice
1 large bottle of ginger ale, chilled

     Method: Pour concentrated limeade and lemonade into punch
bowl; add ginger. Chill for at least two hours to blend flavors.
Add cold water and ice. Pour ginger ale down sides of bowl.
Fluted lemon slices, small lime slices, and mint sprigs may be
floated in punch. Yields 20 servings.

                         LOVE BOAT CAKE
                        by Cliff Ruemmler

     Cliff Ruemmler is the secretary of the Johnson County
Chapter of the NFB of Kansas, as well as our very capable state
treasurer. He is the cook in the family. Sally would like to
forget that there is a room in the house called a kitchen. Cliff
brought this cake to a chapter meeting, and it was a huge
success. 

Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 large container Cool Whip
2 pints strawberries
1 can crushed pineapple
1 jar Maraschino cherries
2 boxes vanilla pudding, prepared according to label directions

     Method: Bake cake in 9- by 13-inch pan and cool. Layer
vanilla pudding and pineapple. Then layer half of Cool Whip and
strawberries. Top with remaining Cool Whip and cherries.

                      BLACK BOTTOM CUPCAKES
                        by Mary Thompson

     Mary and John Thompson have been members of the National
Federation of the Blind for many years. John worked for the NFB
both in Iowa and at the National Center for the Blind. Mary makes
these cup cakes at Christmas.

Ingredients:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese
1 beaten egg
1-1/3 cups sugar
1 6-ounce package miniature chocolate chips 
1-1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

     Method: Mix the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar, and a
pinch of salt together until creamy. Fold in chocolate chips and
set aside. Mix the remaining 1 cup sugar with the flour, cocoa,
soda, salt, water, vinegar, and vanilla to make cake batter. Fill
miniature cupcake liners 1/3 full with cocoa mixture. Then drop
1/2 teaspoon cream cheese mixture on each cup cake. Bake at 350
degrees for 20 minutes.

                       ELDORADO CASSEROLE
                       by Cindy Hallenbeck

     Cindy Hallenbeck is the president of the Douglas County
Chapter of the NFB of Kansas, as well as our state Secretary.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon onion, or more
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup ripe black olives, sliced
1 cup sour cream
1 cup small curd cottage cheese
3 or 4 green chili peppers, seeded and chopped
1 10-ounce package corn chips, crushed
2 cups Monterey Jack cheese, grated

     Method: Cook the onion and beef in skillet until brown.
Drain the grease, add tomato sauce, and simmer for 20 minutes. In
separate container mix together the olives, sour cream, cottage
cheese, and peppers. Spread the corn chips in the bottom of a 2-
quart casserole dish, reserving a few for the top. Add half the
meat mixture. Cover with half the sour cream mixture and 1 cup
Monterey Jack cheese. Repeat these layers once more. Top with the
remaining chips and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.
Serves 6 people.


                   * * MONITOR MINIATURES * *

[PHOTO: Jacobsons sitting on the floor with their
daughter. CAPTION: Nadine and Steve Jacobson with their
new daughter Elizabeth.] 

**Adopted:
     We are delighted to report that Nadine and Steve Jacobson,
leaders in the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota, 
have become the proud adoptive parents of Elizabeth Maria, who
was born April 2, 1992, in India. She arrived in Minneapolis in
April, and her mother says that she is as active and curious as
her parents could wish. All three Jacobsons will be in Dallas to
greet and meet Federation friends at the convention.

**Four More States Pass Braille Bills:
     The first quarter of 1993 has seen four more states consider
and pass new Braille literacy legislation. The four are Florida,
Idaho, Indiana, and Iowa. This brings to eighteen the number of
states working to protect the right of blind youngsters to learn
the code and have Braille texts more accessible. Congratulations
to everyone who worked to make these victories possible.

**Elected:
     Renee Donalvo, Secretary of the NFB of the District of
Columbia, writes to report that at its convention on March 26 and
27, 1993, the affiliate elected the following officers: Don
Galloway, President; Joie Stuart, First Vice President; Linda
Black, Second Vice President; Renee Donalvo, Secretary; and
Dennie Jones, Treasurer. James Carter, Paul Kay, Gail Snider, and
Artis McMoris were elected to serve on the Board of Directors.

**Conference on Blind and Visually Impaired Children:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The Eighth International Conference on Blind and Visually
Impaired Children will be held September 29 to October 2, 1993,
in Edmonton, Alberta. It is an interdisciplinary conference for
parents, educators, rehabilitation professionals, and health
service providers who are concerned about the well-being of blind
and visually impaired children. Contact the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind, the organizers, for registration
information at (403) 292-0492.

**For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale a Romeo Braille embosser, 40 characters per
second, good condition. I paid $4,100 in 1991, asking $2,500,
willing to haggle. If interested, contact (in print or Braille)
Casey Cook, 2444 Road 20, Apt. C-102, San Pablo, California
97806; or call (510) 234-7953.

**Information Needed:
     We have been asked to carry the following request:
     I would like to hear from anyone who is a technician working
in central service dispatch in hospitals. You may contact me at
(515) 280-6314; or write to Howard Craig, 219 Fourth Street, Apt.
404, Des Moines, Iowa 50309.

**In Memoriam:
     We are grieved to report that Fred Maurer, President
Maurer's father, died on Monday, May 24, 1993, after an illness
of several months. President Maurer, his brothers, and sister
were with their parents in Bellevue, Iowa, at the time of Mr.
Maurer's death. Mrs. Maurer, Sr., and her children will be in our
thoughts in the difficult weeks and months ahead.

**Easier Ways, Inc.:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Aids Unlimited, Inc. has a new name. In a special meeting on
May 6, 1993, the shareholders approved the recommendation of the
Board of Directors to change the name of the company from Aids
Unlimited, Inc., to Easier Ways, Inc. Nothing has been changed
except the name--the same people, same ownership by blind
individuals, same quality products, same competitive prices, same
fast delivery, same respect for customers, same address, which is
1101 N. Calvert Street, Suite 405, Baltimore, Maryland 21202. The
company has the same phone number, (410) 659-0232, same fax,
(410) 569-0233. Taking everything into consideration, we just
feel that Easier Ways, Inc. is a better name.

**New Chapter:
     Don Capps, President of the National Federation of the Blind
of South Carolina, reports that on May 25, 1993, the fortieth
chapter of the NFB of South Carolina came into existence. Thirty
people gathered at an area restaurant for the organizing meeting.
The newly elected officers of the Marion County Chapter of the
NFB of South Carolina are Sherry Sawyer, President; Kelly Sawyer,
Vice President; Lou Benjamin, Secretary; and Tommy Godbold,
Treasurer. South Carolina may well be the first state affiliate
to have forty local chapters as well as three statewide
divisions. Congratulations to the South Carolinians and
especially to the members of the Marion County Chapter.

**ROP Registry Announced:
     Margaret Watson, a dynamic young mother of a blind child who
has gathered some research data indicating that retinopathy of
prematurity may be caused by exposure to light rather than to too
much oxygen, has asked us to carry the following announcement:
     The organization, Prevent Blindness in Premature Babies, is
trying to locate people with the eye disease Retinopathy of
Prematurity (ROP). This disease was formerly called Retrolental
Fibroplasia, RLF. ROP, a disease that affects premature babies,
prevents the eye from developing properly and can lead to
permanent damage and blindness, even later in life. ROP is the
leading cause of blindness among children in this country. In the
nearly fifty years of this epidemic there has been no formal
means of counting the babies with ROP. That is why our
organization was formed: to compile a national registry and to
provide information and support to adults and to parents of
children with ROP. We want to demonstrate that the prevention of
ROP is an issue of utmost importance that must be addressed
immediately. Participation in this registry will help to protect
the vision of future generations of premature babies.
     People who were born prematurely or whose child was born
prematurely and who have any degree of vision loss as a result
should write to request a copy of our newsletter and survey.
Write to Prevent Blindness in Premature Babies, P.O. Box 44792,
Madison, Wisconsin 53744-4792.

**Elected:
     Kay Boyd, President of the La Luz Chapter of the NFB of New
Mexico, reports the following election results: Kay Boyd,
President; Pauline Gomez, Vice President; Brenda Aikin,
Secretary; and Fred Mansfield, Treasurer.

[PHOTO: NFB of New York members in office of Governor.
CAPTION: Pictured at bill signing (left to right):
Gisela Distel, NFB of New York president; Murray
Diamond, vendor and member of NFB of New York
Merchant's Division; Jack Ryan, Assistant Director, New
York Commissioon for the Blind and Visually
Handicapped; Governor Mario Cuomo, seated; Carl
Jacobson, NFB of New York first vice president; and
Fran Burko, advocate for the disabled of New York.
Second row: Governor's legislative staff.]

**New York Passes Little Randolph-Sheppard Act:
     Gisela Distel, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of New York, reports the following:
     It has become a law! After years of educating the New York
State Legislature, both the Assembly and the Senate passed our
Mini-Randolph-Sheppard Act in the 1992 session. In August
Governor Mario M. Cuomo signed the bill, and on January 1 the law
took effect.
     The Mini-Randolph-Sheppard Act gives blind vendors priority
in state-operated buildings in the same way that the Randolph-
Sheppard Act gives them priority in federal locations. Employment
opportunities will expand to include more than one hundred state
facilities throughout New York. Working with the New York State
Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped Business
Enterprise Program (the state program which oversees vending
operations), the National Federation of the Blind of New York is
striving to find employment for all those on the trained vendor
lists and many more unemployed blind people. 
     "It may take a while to find a location for everyone on the
list," said Carl Jacobsen, State First Vice President and
legislative chairman, "but we won't give up. We'll make sure that
New York keeps its promise to us and abides by the law." Thanks
to many years of hard work, the NFB of New York can claim an
important victory.

[PHOTO: Portrait. CAPTION: Stanley Oliver.]

**In Memoriam:
     We are saddened to report the death of Stanley Oliver of
Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday, May 30, 1993. Mr. Oliver joined the
Federation in the very early days and served on the Board of
Directors in the seventies. In recent years he formed an NFB
interest group for piano tuners and was quite active in his local
chapter. He is survived by a son and daughter, both of whom teach
in the Virgin Islands; his wife died last year. He will be deeply
missed by those who knew and worked with him.

**Pen Friends Wanted:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Peter Rosik of the Slovak Blind and Partially Sighted Union
in Slovakia writes to request pen friends for two blind
colleagues who are interested in improving their English. Sylvia
Kyov would like to correspond by cassette tape. Her interests
are music, singing, dance, literature, and traveling. Her address
is Sylvia Kyov, Garlicka 10, 085 01 Bardejov, Slovakia. Peter
Kavka prefers to correspond in Braille and print. His interests
are nature, literature, music, art, and travel. His address is
Peter Kavka, Tr. SNP 77, 040 11 Koice, Slovakia.

**For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale a Dell System 200, 80286 AT IBM-compatible
computer with a black and white monitor; Citizen 24-pin, wide-
carriage printer; and Cardinal 2400 baud modem. It contains 640K
RAM, 20MB hard drive (compressed to 40MB), 5 1/4-inch and 3 1/2-
inch floppy drives, 101 enhanced keyboard and an XT keyboard, no
speech card.
     The software included is WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3
(version 2.0), MS Works (1.0), MS DOS (4.0, not in use), Dr. DOS
(6.0), Grammatic (4.0), Procomm (2.4), and Computer Conversations
VOS (5.5).
     Asking price is $500, or best offer. If interested, contact
Bryan Sattler, 305 New Scotland Avenue, Apt. 2B, Albany, New York
12208; or call (518) 459-2177.

[PHOTO: NFB of New Hampshire members celebrate Ed
Vachon's birthday with cards and cake. CAPTION:
Pictured here at Ed Vachon's 80th birthday celebration
are members of the NFB of New Hampshire (left to
right): Lucille Lynch, assistant treasurer (Ed's
daughter); Ed Meskys, president; Mr. and Mrs. Vachon;
John Parker, vice president; Terry Dufault, treasurer;
and Louis Gossling.]

**New Hampshire Affiliate Honors Federationist:
     At its Board meeting on April 24, 1993, members of the
National Federation of the Blind of New Hampshire celebrated
Edward Vachon's eightieth birthday and his many years of
leadership in the affiliate. Vachon is almost a charter member of
the NFB of New Hampshire, having joined in July, 1956, just a few
months after it was founded. Vachon is presently semi-retired as
a piano tuner and technician.
     For many years Vachon was the chairman of the organization's
Legislative Committee and had a close working relationship with
several members of both state houses in Concord. 

**Seeking Adoption Information:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I am interested in hearing from persons who have pursued or
are in the process of pursuing either a private or an agency
adoption. I would like to locate names of agencies that are
willing to work with persons without discriminating against them
due to blindness. I am also interested in obtaining names of
attorneys throughout the country who may be able to assist with
locating children for private placement. I would appreciate
Braille or cassette tapes from anyone wishing to share
information regarding this endeavor. Contact Suzie Yost, 825
Weiblen Place, New Orleans, Louisiana 70124.

**Braille Transcription Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     At South Dakota Industries (SDIB) Braille Printing Services,
we provide Braille services for 30 cents per Braille page. Our
staff (who are blind or visually impaired) take pride in prompt,
dependable, and courteous service. We encourage you to try us and
recommend our service to others.
     For more information, please contact Frank Green, SDIB
Braille Printing Services, 800 West Avenue, North, Sioux Falls,
South Dakota 57104; phone (605) 339-6581; toll free 1-800-658-
5441; or fax (605) 330-6082.

**New Sailing Courses Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     East Shore Sailing of Ithaca, New York, has expanded its
sailing programs to include instruction for persons with visual
impairments, either partial or full. East Shore Sailing has
taught sailing and windsurfing courses for ten years, including
accredited physical education courses for Cornell University and
Ithaca College.
     Through the assistance of the Royal Yachting Association in
England, an audio compass has been obtained for teaching blind
sailors. In addition, scale models of sailboats are used to help
blind sailors determine the layout of the boats used in the
teaching course.
     Classes are available both weekdays and weekends through
September. For further information on sailing programs for the
visually impaired, contact East Shore Sailing at 1000 East Shore
Drive, Ithaca, New York 14850; or call (607) 273-2560, or FAX
(607) 273-7873.

**In Memoriam:
     We regret to report the death on May 22, 1993, of Ormand
Scott, the husband of Minetta Scott of Middleton, Massachusetts.
Mr. Scott was eighty-six at the time of his death. 
     The Scotts were long-time, faithful members of the
Massachusetts affiliate and worked tirelessly to organize and
nurture local chapters around the state. Ormand's loyal support
and hard work for the organization he loved are a loss to us all,
and he will be deeply missed.

**New Talking Thermometer Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The newest home health aid designed for blind and visually-
impaired people is now available from Blazie Engineering. Temp
Talk, the palm-sized talking thermometer, accurately measures
body temperature from 89.6 to 107.6 Fahrenheit.
     Temp Talk gives special-needs users, including older adults,
convenient access to potentially life-saving information. Precise
clinical temperature readings are both spoken clearly and shown
on an LCD display. Temp Talk is easy to use orally, rectally, and
under the arm.
     Attractive and durable, Temp Talk runs on two replaceable
batteries that last for several years. Large-print and tape-
recorded instructions for use, plus a protective carrying case,
also are included. Choose Temp Talk in English, French, German,
Italian, or Spanish.
     Blazie Engineering features the Temp Talk thermometer in its
complete line of products for blind and visually impaired people.
The Materials Center at the National Center for the Blind also
carries the English version of this thermometer. For more
information or to receive a free catalog, contact Blazie
Engineering, 105 E. Jarrettsville Road, Forest Hill, Maryland
21050; or call (410) 893-9333. Dealer inquiries welcome.