                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR

                           March, 1996

                     Barbara Pierce, 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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Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five 
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made payable to National Federation of the Blind and sent to: 
 

                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
PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                            CONTENTS
                                                      March, 1996


NURSING HOME ADMINISTRATOR SLAMMED
BY NORTH CAROLINA COMPANY
     by Barbara Pierce

WHEELS AND WHITE CANES
TIPS FOR HELPING BLIND WHEELCHAIR USERS
     by Maureen Pranghofer

THE 1996 WASHINGTON SEMINAR:
BLIND CITIZENS MAKE THEIR VIEWS KNOWN

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION HOSTS MEETING
ABOUT INSULIN-VIAL DESIGN
     by Ed Bryant

TED HART: HUNTER AND LEADER
     by Kenneth Jernigan

CONFIDENCE AND THE CAPRINE EXPERIENCE
     by Stephanie Pieck

FEDERATION FOOD
     by John Earl Cheadle

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
     by Maria Morais

THE MIND'S EYE CAPTURES WHAT
THESE FANS DON'T SEE
     by Jim Klobuchar

THE BIG MOMENT OF DECISION
     by Angela Howard

MY SURE, STEADY CLIMB TOWARD SELF-CONFIDENCE
     by Patrick A. Barrett

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?
     by Barbara Pierce


NFB CONVENTION TOURS, ANAHEIM 1996
     by Jim Willows

RECIPES

MONITOR MINIATURES

        Copyright  1996 National Federation of the Blind
[LEAD PHOTOS: #1-The picture shows the west front of the U.S.
Capitol. CAPTION: The U.S. Capitol is perhaps the most famous
symbol of the political process in the United States. On January
29, 30, and 31, 1996, hundreds of blind Americans hiked up and
down Capitol Hill, in and out of Congressional offices, meeting
with Senators and Representatives to talk about issues affecting
the lives of students and adults who happen to be blind. #2-Two
women using canes walk down a hall. A state flag is visible on
the left, and a U.S. flag can be seen on the right. CAPTION:
Sheila Koenig (left) and Bonnie Peterson (right), President of
the NFB of Wisconsin, walk through the corridors of the Rayburn
House Office Building on their way to an appointment. #3-The
picture is of the three doors to a large office building. On the
steps leading up to the doors are two people, one using a guide
dog. CAPTION: These Federationists are getting ready to enter the
Rayburn Building as part of the NFB's 1996 Washington Seminar.
#4-A group of six people, three adults and three children, are
shown outside the Holiday Inn, Capitol. All three adults and the
two older children are holding canes. Four-year-old Maria is
sighted. CAPTION: A group of Federationists stand outside the
Holiday Inn, Capitol, headquarters hotel of the 1996 Washington
Seminar, conducted by the National Federation of the Blind. From
left to right they are Tomas Cindron (Puerto Rico), Tom Ley
(Maryland), Eileen Rivera and Maria Rivera Foreman (Maryland),
Courtney Osolinski (New Jersey), and Claire Westlund (New
Jersey).]

  NURSING HOME ADMINISTRATOR SLAMMED BY NORTH CAROLINA COMPANY
                        by Barbara Pierce

     In some ways Barbara Kreisberg's story is far from unusual.
Eighteen months ago she began losing her sight. She continued to
do a superior job as the administrator of a one-hundred-patient
nursing home. In fact, three months after her trouble began she
actually received a substantial cash bonus from her employer in
recognition of the quality of her work. Then her superiors
learned about her decreasing visual acuity and abruptly forced
her out of her job. As one of their attorneys said in his opening
statement during a mandatory mediation session on November 14,
1995: "Even though you blind people can do a lot of jobs, nursing
home administrator is not one of them."
     The U.S. Department of State told Rami Rabby the same thing
before the Congress of the United States forced it to begin
hiring blind foreign service officers. Public school
administrators used to say it to blind teacher applicants, and
some still do. Those who hire factory workers all too often still
say it to blind machinists and production line workers. In short,
the not-in-my-back-yard argument for keeping the unwanted out (in
this case a blind administrator in the nursing home industry) has
reared its head again in a particularly arrogant and
condescending guise.
     The case is far from settled, and there is unfortunately no
guarantee that it will be resolved in a way that will give a
talented and able blind woman the chance to prove herself. Some
people would like to pretend that five and a half years after
passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act the U.S. is now
the promised land for the disabled. But the ADA does not--and
perhaps never will--provide true job protection. At best it
offers a larger field on which to conduct the battle for justice.
And the Kreisberg case is just one more nasty little skirmish in
the battle for equal access to jobs and first-class status for
blind people. But also hanging in the balance is the future
career of a talented and dedicated medical administrator.
     Barbara Kreisberg began her professional career as a
registered nurse. Later she earned a master's degree in health
care administration. In recent years she has held high-level
administrative positions in hospitals in Baltimore; Washington,
D.C.; and North Carolina. On May 10, 1994, she was hired to
administer the Britthaven, Inc., nursing home facility in Wilson,
North Carolina. Britthaven operates about fifty nursing homes in
North Carolina and Kentucky. According to Ms. Kreisberg, the one
in Wilson had 115 employees and more than a hundred residents
when she took over.
     Kreisberg had been a diabetic for many years when, in the
late summer of 1994, she began losing sight because of diabetic
retinopathy. As the weeks passed and her vision continued to
deteriorate, she recognized that she would have to do something
to enable her to do the necessary reading for her job. She
consulted the North Carolina vocational rehabilitation agency
serving the blind for advice. She then purchased a closed circuit
television system (CCTV) and hired a reader. These two
accommodations allowed her to do her job completely.
     Kreisberg did not mention her medical situation to her
regional manager at this time. She says that the Wilson facility
had been in turmoil at the time she was hired, and she had her
hands full sorting things out during her first few months on the
job. It is clear from the hand-written comments in her personnel
file that Britthaven officials had been impressed with her
credentials when she arrived. Based on the substantial cash bonus
she received in November, they continued to be satisfied with her
performance after she assumed the reins. There is certainly no
evidence that they noticed any diminution in her administrative
skills as she began to lose her sight.
     In November Kreisberg's physicians recommended that she plan
to have laser surgery on her eyes in late December. This would
require a few days for recuperation, so Kreisberg was faced with
the necessity of filling out medical leave forms for the time she
was requesting to be away from her desk. This was the way
Britthaven officials learned of her decreasing visual acuity. In
late November her regional manager visited her and told her that
she could not use a live reader because allowing that person to
read charts and records would be a breach of patient
confidentiality. On December 10 the regional manager returned to
the facility, bringing along other Britthaven officials.
According to Kreisberg, they repeated the prohibition against the
reader and also said that she could not use the CCTV either,
though no clear reason was given for this rule. They then told
her that she was being placed on involuntary and indefinite
medical leave. Kreisberg says that she tried to explain the ways
in which she used the accommodations to complete her duties, but
the officials were not interested in information. Instead, they
packed up her possessions and escorted her from her office and
off the premises.
     Kreisberg continued to try to reason with Britthaven
officials. Following her surgery she had lunch with Gini Bowling,
her regional manager. Bowling asked how her sight was now that
she had had the surgery. Kreisberg replied that she was legally
blind and that she would require reasonable accommodations such
as the reader and CCTV in order to do her job. She then asked
when she could return to work from her medical leave. Bowling's
reply was that, as soon as her visual acuity was what it had been
at the time of her hiring, she could return to work.
     It was about this time that Barbara Kreisberg realized that
reasoned argument and her demonstrated competence as an
administrator were not enough to resolve the situation. She
needed help in dealing with Britthaven. She contacted the
National Federation of the Blind. Scott LaBarre, an attorney and
active member of the National Federation of the Blind of
Colorado, was asked to do what he could to get Kreisberg's job
back. So in early January of 1995 he contacted Glen Potter,
Senior Vice President for Human Resources at Britthaven's
headquarters. LaBarre says he kept the conversation low key. He
assured Mr. Potter that this problem did not need to become a
legal matter. He described the many resources that the Federation
could make available to Britthaven and Kreisberg in resolving
their differences. According to LaBarre, Potter seemed interested
in what he was saying. LaBarre then took the standard ethical
step in such matters of pointing out to Potter that the company's
lawyers could certainly be brought into these conversations.
     About two hours after this conversation, Margie T. Case of
the North Carolina law firm of Maupin, Taylor, Ellies, and Adams
contacted LaBarre. According to him, she made a number of
threats, including accusing him of a breach of legal ethics
because he had spoken directly with her client. LaBarre says he
responded that he had no interest in such sparring; he wanted to
determine whether they could resolve their differences and get
Kreisberg back to work.
     Case apparently had no interest in learning that blind
people can administer medical facilities, that reasonable
accommodations can and should be made in such situations, and
that the NFB has many resources available to assist employers.
Instead she wanted access to Kreisberg's medical records and
permission to contact her ophthalmologists. Since at the time
Britthaven was still paying Ms. Kreisberg's salary even though
she was not permitted to do her job, LaBarre was inclined to be
flexible in the hope that good-faith negotiations could begin.
     Britthaven immediately wrote to Kreisberg's doctors, asking
questions about her ability to perform the duties of a nursing
home administrator. This letter was written by Glenn Potter and
summarized the skills an administrator should have. Here in
relevant part is the letter:

                                          Kinston, North Carolina
                                                 January 11, 1995

Dear Dr. Jaffe:
     ...referring to the attached job description for Ms.
Kreisberg's position as Administrator of the facility:
     3.   Specific requirements
          a.   Must be able to read, write, and speak the English
               language.
          b.   Possess the ability to make independent decisions
               when circumstances warrant such action.
          c.   Possess the ability to deal tactfully with
               personnel, residents, family members, visitors,
               government agencies/personnel, and the general
               public.
          d.   Be a minimum of twenty-one years of age and of
               good moral character.
          e.   Must fulfill licensure requirements of this State.
          f.   Knowledgeable of nursing and medical practices and
               procedures, as well as laws, regulations, and
               guidelines pertaining to hospital and nursing home
               operation.
          g.   Ability to work harmoniously with and supervise
               professional and non-professional personnel.
          h.   Ability to plan, organize, develop, implement, and
               interpret the programs, goals, objectives,
               policies, and procedures, etc., that are necessary
               for providing quality resident care and
               maintaining a sound operation.
     4.   Physical Requirements
          a.   Must be able to move frequently throughout the
               work day.
          b.   Must be able to speak the English language in an
               understandable manner.
          c.   Must be able to cope with the mental and emotional
               stress of the position.
          d.   Must function independently, have flexibility,
               personal integrity, and the ability to work
               effectively with residents, personnel, and support
               agencies.
          e.   Must be in good general health and demonstrate
               emotional stability.
          f.   Must be able to relate to and work with ill,
               disabled, elderly, emotionally upset, and at times
               hostile people within the facility.

                                                Very truly yours,
                                                  Glenn W. Potter
                                  Vice President, Human Resources
                                                 Britthaven, Inc.

     Also enclosed with this letter was a copy of the thirteen-
page job description for nursing home administrator. Here is an
excerpt taken from the Britthaven Administrative Policy Manual,
April 1, 1994:

     1.   Establish and direct the implementation of written
          policies and procedures that reflect the goals and
          objectives of the facility. (Includes personnel
          policies, resident care policies, procedure manuals,
          job descriptions, etc.)
     2.   Assist in the development and implementation of
          departmental policies and procedures and establish a
          rapport in and between departments so that each can see
          the importance of team work.
     3.   Assure that all personnel, residents, visitors, and the
          general public follow established policies and
          procedures.
     4.   Interpret the facility's policies and procedures to
          personnel, residents, family members, visitors, etc.,
          as may become necessary.
     5.   Review policies and procedures periodically, at least
          annually, and make changes as necessary to assure
          compliance with current regulations are being
          continually maintained. [This is the exact text as it
          appears in the manual.]
     6.   Ensure that residents' rights to fair and equitable
          treatment; self-determination; individuality; privacy;
          and property and civil rights, including the right to
          make complaints, are well established and maintained at
          all times.
     7.   Maintain a good public relations program that serves
          the best interest of the facility and community alike.
     8.   Maintain an excellent working relationship with the
          medical profession and other health-related facilities
          and organizations through formal working and transfer
          agreements.
     9.   Create and maintain an atmosphere of warmth, personal
          interest, and positive emphasis as well as a calm
          environment throughout the facility.
     10.  Recruit, select, and train competent department
          supervisors and other auxiliary personnel.
     11.  Meet with department supervisors on a regularly
          scheduled basis and conduct/participate in in-service
          classes and supervisory level training programs.
     12.  Receive advice from department supervisors concerning
          the operation of their departments and other related
          areas to assist in eliminating/correcting problem
          areas, and/or improvement of services.
     13.  Review and check competence of work force and make
          necessary adjustments/corrections as required or that
          may become necessary.
     14.  Review and interpret monthly financial statements and
          provide such information to the governing board.
     15.  Assist in the establishment and maintenance of an
          adequate accounting system that reflects the operating
          cost of the facility.
     16.  Keep abreast of the economic condition/situation and
          make adjustments as necessary to assure the continued
          ability to provide quality resident care.
     17.  Prepare an annual budget for approval by the governing
          board and allocate the resources to carry out programs
          and activities of the facility.
     18.  Assure that adequate financial records and cost reports
          are submitted to authorized government agencies as
          required.
     19.  Represent the facility at and participate in top level
          meetings.
     20.  Represent the facility in dealings with outside
          agencies, including governmental agencies and third
          party payers, or provide an authorized representative
          of the facility when unable to attend such meetings.
     21.  Delegate authority, responsibility, and accountability
          to other persons.
     22.  Attend and participate in workshops, seminars, etc., to
          keep abreast of current changes in the health care
          field, as well as to maintain a professional status.
     23.  Authorize the purchase of major equipment/supplies as
          authorized by the governing board.
     24.  Make written and oral reports/recommendations to the
          governing board concerning the operation of the
          facility.
     25.  Evaluate and implement recommendations from the
          facility's committees; e.g., utilization review,
          pharmaceutical, infection control, etc.
     26.  Assure that the facility is maintained in a clean and
          safe manner for resident comfort and convenience by
          assuring that necessary equipment and supplies are
          maintained to perform such duties/services.
     27.  Assist in the planning of purposeful in-service
          training classes and on-the-job training programs that
          will lead to better understanding of resident needs.
     28.  Assist in standardizing the methods in which work will
          be accomplished.
     29.  Maintain an adequate liaison with families and
          residents.
     30.  Other related duties and responsibilities that may
          become necessary or as directed by the governing board.

     After reading Potter's letter and the job description,
Barbara Kreisberg's physicians responded that Ms. Kreisberg was
legally blind and would certainly require reasonable
accommodation to do the reading associated with the job but that
in their opinion there was no question that she was able to do
the job. This, of course, was not what Britthaven and their
attorneys wanted to hear. So Margie Case wrote a letter to the
doctors making the company's argument less subtly. Since the job
description didn't seem to include responsibilities that
absolutely demanded vision be used in their execution, she
constructed hypothetical problems that might arise during the day
of a nursing home administrator and stipulated the visual
solutions for each in the statement of the problem. The following
is the text of Case's letter. (Emphasis added.) Here it is:

                                                 January 23, 1995
                                          Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr. Glenn Jaffe
Duke Eye Center
Durham, North Carolina

Dear Dr. Jaffe:
     We understand that Ms. Kreisberg, your patient, has already
signed a release for you to supply information to our firm based
on a medical inquiry on behalf of our client, Britthaven.
     You will note that the job description supplied to you is
abstract, as all job descriptions are. However, there are
countless situations which are specific and which would require
an administrator to act based on personal observation. Therefore,
we are supplementing our inquiry by presenting additional
specific information in this letter. The following situations are
among many to be anticipated in the course and scope of day-to-
day work place experiences for an administrator. The
administrator would be totally responsible for dealing with such
situations. These examples are as follows:

     1.   A person comes into the nursing home who should
          immediately be recognized as an intruder. The
          administrator, upon seeing the individual, is
          responsible for taking immediate action to protect the
          people who live and work at the nursing home. The
          administrator must be able to recognize who is a family
          member, as opposed to, for example, a former
          disgruntled employee or a total stranger.

     2.   The administrator walks down the hall and notices that
          there are places at door frames where paint has been
          chipped or worn away due to collision with wheelchairs
          or medicine carts. The administrator, who is
          professionally trained to watch for both aesthetics and
          health hazards in the building, must immediately notify
          maintenance to take care of the problem and must follow
          up to see that the maintenance work is done properly.

     3.   The administrator walks down the hall and sees a
          patient who is drooling, unattended in a wheelchair.
          The administrator, based upon an instant assessment of
          the situation, orders that a member of the nursing
          staff attend to the patient immediately and then writes
          up what was observed. Discipline may be appropriate
          based upon the observations.

     4.   The administrator sees that a number of patients do not
          have their nails trimmed and cleaned appropriately. She
          consults with the person who is in charge of nursing
          assistants responsible for grooming the patients and,
          perhaps, disciplines the person responsible based upon
          her observations.

     5.   The administrator notices that a pipe is sweating on
          the ceiling in the kitchen, a sanitation violation. She
          also knows, based upon her examination of the
          facility's records, that this has been a problem in the
          past. She is authorized to commission an expenditure to
          correct any plumbing problem or to call the contractor
          or to decide whatever else might be appropriate based
          upon her investigation. She must follow up.

     6.   The administrator notices that documents with certain
          staff persons' signatures do not match with the times
          that these people should have been signing the
          documents. Further investigation reveals that the
          signatures do not match other signature samples. These
          documents are kept in connection with shipments of
          drugs into the facility. The administrator must take
          immediate action based upon her observations.

     7.   The administrator notices that there is a reddened
          patch of skin on the buttocks of several patients in a
          particular area of the facility. The condition is
          remarkably similar on all of the patients. The
          administrator must take immediate action.

     8.   Several nursing assistants have decided that "while the
          cat is away, the mice can play." At 2:00 a.m., when
          they are supposed to be performing their job duties,
          they are outside smoking cigarettes. The administrator
          must perform her job in such a way as to disabuse them
          of the idea that they are not being watched.

     9.   The administrator, who has received specialized
          training to be the eyes and ears of the company which
          owns the nursing home, notices that there are cookie
          crumbs on the floor in a recreation area. She also
          notes that there are heel marks on the floor at the
          entrance to the facility. Both of these are the
          responsibility of the housekeeping staff, with whom she
          must deal.

     10.  The administrator notices that the parking lot at the
          facility is not lit well enough at night to promote a
          safe environment, and the spaces are not clearly marked
          for people to park at night. The administrator further
          notes that the outside of the facility does not present
          a clean, inviting appearance. She has the authority to
          commission landscaping and whatever else is necessary
          so that the outside of the facility is visually
          acceptable.

     11.  The bed frames and other flat surfaces in a patient's
          room are not dusted properly. (This is a clear
          sanitation violation.) The administrator must check
          such details, make this determination, and take action.

     12.  The administrator must be personally familiar with the
          location and operation of cutoff valves in and out of
          the facility for water and gas. In the event of an
          emergency requiring such utility cutoff, the
          maintenance staff might not be present or in proximity.
          The administrator must handle the problem.

     13.  The administrator must monitor the attic ductwork, for
          example, checking behind the maintenance staff to be
          certain of proper maintenance.

     These and many other examples can be cited which demonstrate
that it will not be acceptable for another individual to
accompany Ms. Kreisberg to make visual observations on Ms.
Kreisberg's behalf. An administrator is trained and educated to
perform these observations. Only a trained and educated
administrator can make these observations.
     Please keep this in mind when answering our questions about
whether Ms. Kreisberg will be able to effectively perform the
duties of the job.

                                                Very truly yours,
                                                   Margie T. Case
cc: Scott LaBarre, Esq. (via fax)


     There you have Margie T. Case's letter, and her Britthaven
clients and her own inability to conceive of alternative ways of
accomplishing tasks that they would use vision to accomplish
leaps from the page in every line. No administrator can be
everywhere at once, and every good supervisor develops and
depends upon the abilities and training of trusted staff members.
Moreover, a blind person learns to use tactile cues, odors,
memory, deduction, and inference to remain in control of every
situation.
     Margie T. Case was ultimately dissatisfied with Kreisberg's
physicians' responses to all her documents and her not-very-
subtle request that they pronounce her incompetent. During early
1995 she repeatedly reminded LaBarre that Britthaven continued to
pay Kreisberg's salary out of charity. When she eventually gave
up on getting the response she wanted from Kreisberg's
physicians, Case demanded that she make an appointment to see a
Britthaven doctor. Then, in the midst of these negotiations, 
Case suddenly notified Kreisberg that she would no longer receive
her salary. Case tried to assure LaBarre that the company still
considered Kreisberg a Britthaven employee, but LaBarre replied
that, if she wasn't permitted to do her job and if she was not
receiving a salary, it was hard to see how anyone could argue
that she had not been terminated. In light of all this, LaBarre
advised Kreisberg not to see the Britthaven physician.
     Realizing that there was no longer any chance of resolving
Kreisberg's problem amicably, LaBarre and the local counsel,
Travis Payne, whom the NFB had retained, filed a charge of
employment discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunities
Commission (EEOC). This is the necessary first step in filing a
case in federal court under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The EEOC office in Raleigh, however, has such a staggering
backlog of cases waiting for action that it now takes a year even
to have an investigator assigned to look into a charge. The EEOC,
therefore, told LaBarre in March that they would issue a right-
to-sue letter in this case. This was good news, but actually
getting the letter took an additional two and a half months.
     Throughout the summer LaBarre made several more attempts to
resolve the problem. He gave Britthaven officials the names and
phone numbers of several competent blind people in the medical
field. He even arranged for Dr. Fredric Schroeder, Commissioner
of the U.S. Rehabilitation Services Administration, to talk with
Margie T. Case about the abilities of blind people and the legal
obligation for employers to accommodate them. But it was all in
vain. Ms. Case remained convinced that no blind person could
competently perform the duties of a nursing home administrator.
After all, she had demonstrated to her own satisfaction, if not
to that of Ms. Kreisberg's ophthalmologists, that an
administrator must be able to make "professional visual
assessments," and she could apparently not conceive of gathering
the necessary data in any other way.
     In the face of this impasse, Barbara Kreisberg filed her
complaint in federal court in August of 1995. Most of this
document recounts in proper legal terms the events described in
this article. Here are the concluding paragraphs:

                            Complaint
                  Barbara Kreisberg, Plaintiff
                 v. Britthaven, Inc., Defendant

Facts:
     16. As a result of Defendant's insensitivity to Ms.
Kreisberg's disability and its discrimination against her, she
has suffered and endured humiliation, damage to her reputation,
mental and emotional distress, and/or pain and suffering.

Claims:
     17. Defendant's refusal to provide or allow reasonable
accommodations to Ms. Kreisberg's disability such that she could
continue to fulfill the essential functions of her job as a
nursing home administrator, its placing of her on involuntary
leave, and its discharge of her because of her disability
constitute discrimination in violation of the ADA.
     18. Defendant's refusal to allow Ms. Kreisberg to utilize
accommodations to her loss of vision that she provided at her own
expense, its refusal meaningfully to explore reasonable
accommodations for her disability, its placing of her on
involuntary leave, its requirement that she could only return to
work if her vision improved to what it was when Defendant hired
her, and Defendant's discharge of Ms. Kreisberg constitute gross,
wanton, reckless, and/or intentional violations of her rights
under the ADA, entitling her to punitive damages.
     Wherefore plaintiff respectfully requests that this Court:
     1. Accept jurisdiction of this case.
     2. Grant Plaintiff a trial by jury on all issues so triable.
     3. Declare that Plaintiff has suffered acts of
discrimination at the hands of Defendant based on her disability.
     4. Grant Plaintiff preliminary and permanent injunctive
relief directing Defendant to provide Plaintiff with reasonable
accommodations necessary for her to fulfill the essential
functions of her job as a nursing home administrator.
     5. Grant Plaintiff preliminary and permanent injunctive
relief reinstating her to her former position as Administrator of
the nursing home known as Britthaven of Wilson, with full
seniority and other benefits as if she had never been discharged.
     6. Award Plaintiff compensation for loss of salary and other
benefits, including all fringe benefits to which she would have
been entitled had her employment with Defendant not been
interrupted. Such damages shall be in an amount in excess of
$10,000, the exact amount to be determined at trial.
     7. Award Plaintiff compensatory damages for the humiliation,
damage to her reputation, mental and emotional distress, and pain
and suffering that she has experienced and endured as a result of
the discriminatory actions of Defendant towards her. Such damages
shall be in an amount in excess of $10,000, the exact amount to
be determined at trial.
     8. Grant Plaintiff punitive damages against Defendant. Such
damages shall be in an amount in excess of $10,000, the exact
amount to be determined at trial.
     9. Grant Plaintiff pre-judgment and post-judgment interest
on all damages awarded, to the maximum extent allowed by law.
     10. Grant Plaintiff her reasonable costs and attorneys'
fees.
     11. Grant such other and further relief as to the Court
seems just and proper.
     This the third day of August, 1995.
                                            M. Travis Payne, Esq.
                                          Raleigh, North Carolina
                                           Scott C. LaBarre, Esq.
                                                 Denver, Colorado

     Britthaven responded to this complaint in September, denying
all of the allegations. As an affirmative defense Britthaven also
claimed that, because Kreisberg had filed for Social Security
Disability Insurance (SSDI) in the months since her income as a
Britthaven employee had ceased, she had conclusively demonstrated
herself to be totally disabled. In other words, her eligibility
for SSDI proved, they argued, that she was unable to carry out
her old job. Such an argument may seem ludicrous to anyone who
understands that eligibility for SSDI is automatic for unemployed
legally blind people with enough quarters of coverage to qualify
for the program. Unlike people with other disabilities, blind
SSDI recipients do not have to demonstrate their inability to
engage in "substantial gainful activity," just that their
earnings are below the level of SGA. But absurd as the Britthaven
argument is, similar affirmative defenses have been upheld in
some courts, though they have been rejected in others.
     In the Eastern District of North Carolina, where this case
was filed, there is a local rule that all civil cases be referred
to mandatory mediation before being fully litigated. Through the
fall of 1995 the parties continued to explore the possibility of
settlement, but it became increasingly obvious that such efforts
were doomed. So the two sides began making arrangements for their
mandatory mediation.
     On November 14, 1995, both parties sat down with John
Harkavy, a mediator on whom both sides had agreed. Both lawyers
made statements at the beginning of the session. Frank Ward, one
of Margie T. Case's partners, said in the course of Britthaven's
opening statement, "Even though you blind people can do a lot of
jobs, nursing home administrator is not one of them." And that
pretty well summed up the Britthaven position. It was clear that
there was virtually no hope for mediation. Each side threw out
figures for settlement proposals, but not surprisingly they were
far apart, so the two parties began to creep toward an eventual
court appearance.
     During the weeks since November 14 there have been several
small displays of fireworks. Margie T. Case decided to acquire by
subpoena documents from a large number of sources which she could
have received by asking for them from Scott LaBarre and Travis
Payne directly. One of the recipients of a subpoena consulted
Payne about the demand for information, and that is the way in
which Kreisberg's counsel learned of the subpoenas. Payne set to
work to have them quashed, but the entire little test of strength
took almost three months. Barbara Kreisberg is currently
scheduled to give her deposition in early March. Discovery will
go on through the spring. Eventually there will be a motion for
summary judgment, and no one can tell how long the court will
take to rule on it.
     In some ways Barbara Kreisberg's problem seems like an open
and shut case, but the Fourth Federal Circuit has a history of
finding against plaintiffs, so there is nothing to do but wait
and hope. It is painfully clear that Britthaven does not want to
employ a blind nursing home administrator. It seems equally clear
to those in the Federation who have come to know her that Barbara
Kreisberg is a talented and experienced administrator, who
demonstrated even before she had much experience with blindness
that she could do her job. We must all hope that she and we win
the right for her to prove to Britthaven what she can do.


                     WHEELS AND WHITE CANES
             TIPS FOR HELPING BLIND WHEELCHAIR USERS
                      by Maureen Pranghofer

     From the Editor: Maureen Pranghofer writes and speaks on
many subjects. She is a fairly recent graduate of BLIND, Inc.,
the adult rehabilitation center established and conducted by the
National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota. For several years
now she has used a wheelchair, so when she began her travel
training at BLIND, she and her instructor began by working out
ways for her to move about safely. Increasing numbers of blind
wheelchair users are learning that they too can be independent
and confident travelers. This is what Maureen has to say on the
subject:

     Whether I'm traveling through the busy Minneapolis skyway
system or crossing a downtown street, I get all kinds of
reactions. These range from those people who simply ignore me as
they would any other passing pedestrian to those who have public
panic attacks.
     Daily I encounter people who want to help but don't have the
foggiest idea what they should do. So, for the most part, they
simply get in the way. There are people who outright pity me,
those who are terrified that I'm going to run them down, and
those who are simply overwhelmed.
     The reason for this variety of reactions is that, for most
people, a blind person using a motorized wheelchair is something
new. And this newness is not just prevalent in the general
public. Blind wheelchair users are an enigma among many in the
rehabilitation field, among other blind people, and among other
wheelchair users. I was told, for example, at an AER (Association
for Education and Rehabilitation) meeting the topic of which was
"Blind Wheelchair Users" that "Totally blind wheelchair users can
not travel independently." This, despite the fact that the
presenters had seen me independently come into the room; park
myself at a table; use the restroom; and go through a buffet
line, needing assistance with carrying my plate and cutting food
(because of my physical disability); but not needing assistance
to travel.
     A blind woman whom I met recently told me that she was
checking out nursing homes because she would soon have to use a
wheelchair and knew that "you can't do it if you are totally
blind." Then there are the disabled people who tell me about
disability-training simulations in which they have been
blindfolded and "Just don't know how you do it!" So here are some
tips which I have found helpful in traveling and which you may
want to remember when you are with someone who is a blind
wheelchair user.
     1. Assume that travel is possible. One of the greatest
things I have found in being an NFB member and going through my
eleven-month adjustment-to-blindness training at BLIND, Inc., was
that Russell Anderson, my travel instructor, and the other staff
at BLIND, Inc., expected that "Of course you can travel." After
becoming totally blind in an accident and finding that others had
virtually no expectation that I could ever be independent, I had
to learn to believe that I could do it. Have high expectations.
     2. If you are guiding someone who is a blind wheelchair
user, walk behind the chair and give oral directions. People tend
to walk in front of me and have me follow. But in that position I
can not always hear what is said; and if I have to stop abruptly,
I could accidentally bump them. To avoid this, people tend to
turn around to face me and walk backward. Of course this makes no
sense because the directions they give must then be reversed,
which causes much confusion.
     3. When opening doors, stay behind the door if possible.
Standing in front of a door one is holding open narrows the
pathway for the wheelchair user. No wheelchair user wants to run
over anyone's toes.
     4. Suggest that the person use a long carbon fiber cane.
Finding a cane which worked for me was probably my biggest
challenge initially because the other canes I tried were too
heavy for me to handle. I can easily maneuver this cane, and it
works well. A cane slightly longer than one used by an ambulatory
person of the same height is necessary because one needs distance
in order to stop one's chair. My cane, for example, is sixty-
three inches long, even though if I were standing, I would be
only four feet six inches tall.
     5. Remember that access for one person does not ensure
access for all. Wheelchair users have a variety of disabilities
which affect their travel. For example, I can not use my cane
independently for more than half a block or so on certain road
surfaces because the resistance of the cane's movement on the
pavement causes me pain and fatigue, but this would not be an
issue for others who do not have my disability. Some wheelchair
users are able to open doors independently while others are not.
In my case opening doors is difficult, so I make use of
electronic power doors, ask passing pedestrians for help, and
often use my cellular phone to summon assistance for getting in
and out of places in both indoor and outdoor settings.
     6. Do not panic if you see the cane encounter an object.
This seems obvious. But I can't tell you how many times people
seem to feel that, because I am in a motorized chair, I won't
stop when I encounter an object with my cane. People often seem
to believe that I will either destroy what I am about to run into
or get hurt myself. Bumping objects with a cane when one is using
a wheelchair is no different from doing so when one is walking.
     7. Encourage the seated user to hold the cane vertically
when approaching curbs. During the time I was learning to travel
at BLIND, Inc., we discovered that locating curb cuts was easier
when the cane was held in a more vertical position. This
technique assists one to locate curb cuts and curb drop-offs
quite accurately. This is not the case for locating up curbs
after crossing streets or for traveling parallel to curbs.
     8. Keeping to the perimeter in indoor settings with large
open areas or along the sides of buildings is helpful. While it
is not necessary to plaster oneself against a wall or building in
order to travel, I have found that staying near these landmarks
is useful. It is sometimes difficult to know whether one is
traveling in a straight line when one has no direct contact with
the ground. For example, I have sometimes traveled diagonally,
while thinking I was going straight, or have even turned without
realizing it. Sound cues help, of course, and one needs to learn
to use these just as any other blind traveler does, but checking
for a wall or building occasionally helps me to stay on course.
It also ensures that one will not inadvertently get too close to
the curb running parallel to the direction of travel.
     9. Be aware of objects which the cane or chair may slide
under. Like anyone else traveling with a long white cane,
wheelchair users occasionally contact objects that are not
detectable by cane. This is one time when sighted assistance or
an oral warning is helpful to a person in a wheelchair because
what might bump a standing person at waist level will hit the
wheelchair user in the face or head.
     10. Disabilities are not static. If you are helping someone
who uses a wheelchair, the individual's ability to travel
distances or on certain surfaces may vary depending on how he or
she is feeling that day. Some days, for example, I have traveled
as far as a mile and a half along a busy, pothole-ridden street
in my neighborhood which has no sidewalk. On other days, going
the block and a half to the corner bus stop is barely possible.
     11. Do not push a motorized wheelchair unless it is taken
out of gear. In their efforts to help me, many people dash up to
me and want to push my chair. Motorized chairs are not made to be
pushed unless the gears are disengaged, and attempts to move them
will only produce frustration. If a chair must be moved manually,
ask its user how to disengage the gears.
     These tips will enable you to be genuinely helpful to any
blind person you meet who happens to use a wheelchair as well.
Good luck, and thanks for the constructive assistance.

[PHOTO: Mercury Room is pictured here with two women sitting behind Braillers
at a table, one talking on the telephone. A woman is coming to the table to
make a report, and two others are standing behind the table. Sandy Halverson
is talking on the house telephone in the corner. CAPTION: The Mercury Room
operation at the Washington Seminar is conducted entirely in Braille. The
Federationist in the foreground is coming to make a report of a Congressional
visit. She will give her report to Charlotte McFatridge (seated right).
Jennifer Lehman (seated left) is taking a report over the telephone. Sandy
Halverson is talking on the house phone in the corner, and Nancy Yeager and an
unidentified volunteer stand behind the table.]
                  THE 1996 WASHINGTON SEMINAR:
              BLIND CITIZENS MAKE THEIR VIEWS KNOWN

     From the Editor: Each year in late January members of the
National Federation of the Blind begin congregating in our
nation's capital to participate in the NFB's Washington Seminar.
This year people began arriving in numbers at the Holiday Inn,
Capitol, on Friday, January 26. As usual the first event of this
winter gathering of the Federation was the Midwinter Conference
sponsored by the National Association of Blind Students (NABS),
which took place all day Saturday. Meanwhile others were
gathering at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore for
committee meetings there over the weekend.
     As usual, the NABS meeting was stimulating and energizing.
It began with a party on Friday evening. But despite the short
night, students were on hand early Saturday morning for a day-
long series of presentations culminating in another episode in
the ongoing saga "The Young and the Skilless," written by Jerry
Whittle and performed by a cast drawn from the membership of
NABS. The evening banquet address by Barbara Pierce continued the
day's theme, "The Power of Belief."
     Early Sunday morning more than a hundred eager
Federationists boarded vans and busses to travel to Baltimore for
a tour of the National Center for the Blind. They returned in the
early afternoon in time to attend the various meetings and
seminars that were scheduled at the hotel. The largest of these
was the third annual seminar for parents of blind children, which
attracted parents of blind children from across the country.
     At 5:00 p.m. the Columbia Room was jammed as usual with
eager representatives from forty-eight of our fifty-two
affiliates. It was standing room only for the opening briefing of
the 1996 Washington Seminar, a remarkable turn-out considering
that a blizzard had all but shut down much of the Midwest,
preventing a number of people from attending the event at all.
During the briefing President Maurer; Dr. Jernigan; and James
Gashel, Director of Governmental Affairs, brought the audience up
to date on recent events in the organization and prepared the
group for the following three intensive days of visits to
Congressional offices.
     Federationists were to talk about three legislative issues
with their Senators and Representatives this year. The first was
maintaining the linkage between the stipends of blind Social
Security Disability Insurance recipients and those of retirees
between the ages of sixty-five and seventy. The House of
Representatives has passed a bill which would raise the earnings
limit for seniors over the next seven years while leaving the
limit unchanged for blind SSDI recipients. The Senate may soon
consider a bill that would also break the long-standing linkage
between these two groups unless an amendment reinstating the
linkage is introduced. The second issue was to urge Congress to
include strong language in the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), which is scheduled for reauthorization this
year. This language would promote the teaching of Braille to
blind children in public and residential schools. The third
matter to be discussed was an amendment to the Copyright Act to
give automatic permission to not-for-profit and governmental
entities to produce copyrighted material in alternative formats
for the use of print-handicapped people. The legislative agenda
and the three fact sheets used during these discussions are
reprinted here:


[PHOTO: Two men are seated in front of a fireplace in an office. There is a
large mirror over the fireplace which reflects a chandelier. The Arizona State
flag is on a standard to the left of the fireplace. CAPTION: James Gashel
(left), NFB Director of Governmental Affairs, listens attentively to John
Raidt (right), staff aide to Senator John McCain of Arizona.]
                     Legislative Agenda 1996

FROM:     Members of the National Federation of the Blind
TO:       Members of the 104th Congress
RE:       Legislative Priorities of Blind Americans

     Public policies and laws affecting blind people have a
profound impact on our entire society. Most people know someone
who is blind. It may be a friend, a family member, or a co-worker
on the job. The blind population in the U. S. is estimated to
exceed 700,000. Fifty thousand Americans become blind each year.
By themselves these numbers may not seem large, but the social
and economic consequences of blindness directly touch the lives
of millions. In the form of its social consequences and to some
extent its economic consequences, blindness affects virtually
everyone.
     Blind people as a group are engaged in a common struggle for
understanding of what blindness means and public acceptance of
our ability to compete on terms of equality if given the chance.
More than being a matter of physical disability, the real
problems of blindness are lack of good training, lack of
opportunity, and lack of correct information about blindness
among employers and members of the public at large. If a blind
person has proper training and opportunity, the physical loss of
eyesight itself can be reduced to the level of a mere nuisance.
     Public policies and laws that result from misconceptions
about blindness or lack of information are often more limiting
than the loss of eyesight itself. This is why we have formed the
National Federation of the Blind. The Federation is a
private-sector resource of knowledge, encouragement, and support
for blind people in the United States and increasingly throughout
the world. The Federation's leaders and the vast majority of the
members are blind, but membership is open to anyone who wants to
join in the effort we are making to win understanding and
equality in society.
      Blind people are well-organized at the community and
grassroots levels throughout the United States. Our policy
positions are developed and determined by vote of the blind
themselves. This is why the Federation is known by lawmakers and
the public as the "voice of the nation's blind." Our priorities
for the second session of the 104th Congress express our
assessment of issues requiring particular action by Congress on
behalf of the blind this year.
     (1) Congress should enact exempt earnings provisions in the
Social Security Act to promote greater work incentives and
opportunities for persons who are blind or of retirement age.
This proposal seeks to improve the work incentives provided to
Social Security beneficiaries. Under a 1977 amendment to the
Social Security Act, the same exempt earnings amount--$960
monthly or $11,520 annually--(the same amount allowed for
seniors) is allowed for people of working age who are blind. This
proposal calls for increasing the earnings exemption threshold in
specified increments while preserving the identical exempt amount
for blind people and seniors.
     People of working age who are blind must not be forgotten as
Congress continues to debate whether changes should be made in
the Social Security retirement test. A significant relaxation of
the present earnings limitation would encourage thousands of
beneficiaries to increase their work attempts. Those who
successfully find full- or part-time work will pay taxes rather
than simply drawing benefits. The results of their greater
efforts to be productive will positively affect the Social
Security system as well as benefiting the individuals and
families involved. A complete removal of the earnings limitation
would provide beneficiaries with the maximum incentive to work.
In any case, the statutory linkage which ties the exempt earnings
amounts for retirees and working age people who are blind
together should not be broken and must be consciously kept in
mind as the debate over the future of the earnings test for
Social Security eligibility proceeds. For more details and an
explanation of the need for this legislation, see the fact sheet
entitled "Increasing the Social Security Earnings Limit: A
Critical Time of Decision for Blind People."
     (2) Congress should amend the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) to include provisions for strengthening
programs of Braille literacy instruction. This can be done by
enacting Braille literacy for blind persons provisions as part of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Goal Five
of the National Education Goals declares that by the year 2000,
"Every adult American will be literate. . . ." For blind people
this means having the ability to read and write in Braille at a
level of proficiency which makes performance on equal terms
possible. Without legislative change, today's blind children will
not be able to meet this national goal.
     As many as 32 percent of the blind students enrolled in
elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. during the last
school year were classified as "non-readers." Fewer than 10
percent read Braille. Current federal and state laws require that
an appropriate educational opportunity must be provided to
children with disabilities. Each such child is to have an
individually planned program of instruction to meet identified
needs, but growing illiteracy for blind children has been the
result. Remedial federal legislation, similar to laws now enacted
in twenty-six states, can help to reverse this trend. For more
details and an explanation of the need for this legislation, see
the fact sheet entitled "Braille Literacy and the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act."
     (3) Congress should amend the Copyright Act in order to
permit non-commercial reproduction and distribution of published
works in specialized media exclusively for use by blind or
disabled persons. This proposal would establish an extremely
narrow and targeted limitation on the exclusive rights of
copyright holders. The provision would specify that it is not an
infringement of copyright for a nonprofit or governmental entity
to convert published works into formats appropriate for
distribution exclusively for use by blind or other persons with
disabilities who cannot physically use standard print.
     Bills now pending--H.R. 2441 and S. 1284--each include a
variant of this specialized accessible media proposal. The
primary purpose of both bills is to adapt U.S. copyright laws to
developments in modern technology and the potential of the
National Information Infrastructure. While the language contained
in these bills acknowledges the need for improved copyright
provisions to promote production of publications in specialized
media, the proposed new section would institute a one-year
waiting period for conversion of published works into formats
which blind people can use. For this and other reasons, including
lack of clarity of terms, a proposal for modifying the language
is being offered. For more details and an explanation of the need
for this legislation, see the fact sheet entitled "Access to
Information for Blind Persons: How Copyright Amendments Could
Help."
     People who are blind are asking for your help in securing
positive action by Congress in the areas outlined here.
Legislative proposals will be offered to achieve each of our
specific objectives. Many priorities confront this session of
Congress, but the needs of the nation's blind must not be
overlooked. We of the National Federation of the Blind stand
ready to assist our Representatives and Senators to understand
our needs and to take meaningful action to address them. In
partnership with the National Federation of the Blind, each
member of Congress can help build better lives for the blind both
today and in the years ahead.

                           Fact Sheet
         Increasing the Social Security Earnings Limit:
          A Critical Time of Decision for Blind People

     Background: The Social Security earnings limit, also known
as the "retirement test," is widely recognized as causing a
significant work disincentive. For this reason Congress is moving
toward final approval of a bill to raise the earnings limit by
specified increases over seven years. Two separate bills--
H.R.2684, which passed the House in December, and S.1470, which
is pending on the Senate calendar--would change the earnings
limit and are likely to receive further consideration before
Congress adjourns next fall.
     Blind people of working age will suffer a severe setback if
the House-passed approach to the earnings limit changes becomes
law. This is because the House bill would repeal a provision in
the Social Security Act which exempts earnings of blind people
and senior citizens to the same extent. The effect of the
repealer provision--Section 2(b)(2) of H.R.2684--would be an
earnings limit for seniors of $30,000 beginning in 2002 while the
limit in effect for blind people would be less than half that
amount. The reason for increasing the seniors' exempt amount is
to diminish the disincentive caused by the present $11,520
earnings limit and to increase work and productivity. By the same
reasoning, the higher earnings exemption should also apply to
blind people who, like the seniors, are penalized for working.

     Existing Law: Section 216(i) of the Social Security Act
specifies what "blindness" means. The definition of blindness is
clearly stated in medical terms. Therefore, blindness can be
determined quite reliably on the basis of objective medical
evidence. This unique feature of the Social Security Act makes
blindness the only defined disability. All other disabilities are
determined on the basis of an individual's "inability to engage
in substantial gainful activity." This inability is actually hard
to determine reliably in many cases.
     Although blindness is precisely defined, monthly disability
insurance benefits are not paid to all persons who are blind.
Under the law benefits are paid only to those people who are
blind and who do not have substantial earnings. Wealth not
resulting from current work activity does not count as earnings
and has no effect on eligibility. Only work is penalized, just as
with retirees. The amount of earnings considered to be
"substantial" for working people who are blind is the same amount
that senior citizen retirees may earn without having their Social
Security benefits reduced due to excess earnings. This amount is
currently $960 monthly or $11,520 annually. Precisely the same
section of the Social Security Act--paragraph (D) of Section 203
(f)(8)--is used to establish the respective exempt earnings
standards for retirees and for persons of any age who are blind.

     Proposed Amendments: The amendments made by H.R.2684 and
S.1470 are identical in respect to phased-in adjustments in the
earnings limit. The modifications to the earnings limit would
occur over a seven-year period. Section 2(b)(2) of either bill
would specifically exclude blind people from the mandated
adjustments.
     In order to address this inequity, Senator Jeff Bingaman has
prepared an amendment to be offered during floor consideration of
S.1470. His amendment is designed to preserve the linkage of
earnings exemptions for blind people and seniors. The National
Federation of the Blind (along with every other organization
having interests in the blindness field) strongly supports this
amendment and opposes the linkage-breaking provision passed by
the House. By creating an earnings limit that is lower for blind
people than for seniors, the House-passed bill would apply a
harsh work disincentive policy to blind Americans.
     Although H.R.2684 passed the House in December, support
among House members to retain the linkage of earnings exemptions
in a final bill is substantial. Attesting to this, a concurrent
resolution--H.CON.RES 23 by Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly--has
attracted 179 cosponsors. This expressed support is still
building and must be considered when negotiations occur on the
final bill.
     Need to Remove Work Disincentives: Continuing the existing
policy by mandating the adjustments in the earnings limit for
blind people as well as for age sixty-five retirees will assure
that an estimated 104,300 blind beneficiaries will receive a
powerful work incentive. Most blind people could then not lose
financially by working. The mandated earnings limit changes, if
made applicable to blind people, would be cost-beneficial, since
among those of working age 70 percent are currently unemployed or
underemployed. Most of them are already beneficiaries. At present
their earnings must be strictly limited to $960 per month. When
earnings exceed this exempt amount, the entire sum paid to a
primary beneficiary and dependents is abruptly withdrawn after a
trial work period.
     When a blind person finds work, there is absolutely no
assurance that earnings will replace the amount of lost
disability benefits after taxes and work expenses are paid.
Usually they do not. Therefore, few of the 104,300 beneficiaries
can actually afford to attempt substantial work. Those who do
will often sacrifice income and will certainly sacrifice the
security they have from the automatic receipt of a monthly check.
This group of beneficiaries--people of working age who are
blind--must not be forgotten as the debate proceeds toward
modifying the Social Security retirement test. Just as with
hundreds of thousands of seniors, their positive response to the
higher amounts of earnings allowed will bring additional revenues
into the Social Security trust funds. Work, productivity, and the
opportunity for more people to pay taxes are constructive and
valid goals for blind people and senior citizens alike.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: The Delaware delegation and Jim Gashel met with Senator
William Roth, Jr. during the Washington Seminar. Pictured here left to right
are Joe Kawhnile, Donna Frost, Richard Bennett, Senator William Roth, Jr., Jim
Gashel, and James Sullivan. Lynn Sullivan is seated.]
                           Fact Sheet
                    Braille Literacy and the
           Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

     Background: The National Literacy Act of 1991 defines
"literacy" as "an individual's ability to read, write, and speak
in English and compute and solve problems at levels of
proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society to
achieve one's goals and develop one's knowledge and potential."
This definition points up the critical importance of emphasizing
high-quality literacy training programs for all Americans. For
blind Americans, especially school-age youth, the need is no less
critical. Yet surprisingly few students who are blind or visually
impaired receive instruction in Braille as a part of their
elementary and secondary education programs.
     Blind students are generally defined as those who see less
than 10 percent of what is seen by someone with normal eyesight.
During the 1993-1994 school year there were approximately 54,000
such children enrolled at the elementary and secondary levels in
the U. S. Only 5,064 of these students read Braille. The vast
majority use print materials even in situations in which reading
with sight is an unrewarding, never-ending daily struggle.
Educators often resist teaching Braille until students are unable
to make any progress at all in school by using print. As a
result, Braille has become not the method of choice but the
method of last resort.

     Existing Law: The Individuals With Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) contains federal standards for special education and
related services to be provided to children with disabilities
throughout the U.S. The most important standard is that each such
child is entitled to a "free, appropriate public education."
Education agencies, both state and local, receive federal funding
to assist in meeting this mandate. When special education
services are provided to a child, there must be an Individualized
Education Program (IEP) to describe the needs of the child for
special instruction, the services to be provided, and the goals
to be achieved. The law also requires the use of qualified
personnel to deliver services.     
     The components of an "appropriate education" are not
strictly defined in IDEA. As a result it is easy and tempting for
school personnel to determine a child's needs largely on the
basis of the school's capacity (or lack of capacity) to provide
special instruction or services. This being the case, blind
students who may have even a limited ability to read print are
guided toward receiving instruction in that form instead of using
Braille. Procedural safeguards, including the right to challenge
decisions through administrative and court appeals, exist under
IDEA, but such proceedings are time-consuming and costly in
financial and educational resources.

     Proposed Legislation: Congress should amend the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act to include provisions for
strengthening programs of Braille literacy instruction. Grants to
state and local education agencies are permanently authorized
under part B of IDEA. However, the authorization of funds for
certain ancillary programs under IDEA technically expired on
September 30, 1995. Bills to extend the expired authorizations
are being reviewed in both the House and the Senate.
     The proposal for federal legislation on Braille literacy is
necessary to support laws with a similar purpose which twenty-six
states have now enacted. These laws require individualized
assessment of a blind student's need for Braille. The federal
legislation will be designed to ensure that Braille instruction
and services are actually included in each blind child's IEP
unless all members of the planning team agree that use of Braille
is not necessary to meet the child's literacy needs. Specific
language to incorporate this requirement into section 614 of IDEA
is expected to be included in a reauthorization bill which the
House Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities will
consider during the present session.

     Need for Legislation: It is the policy of our nation as
stated in the National Education Goals that by the year 2000,
"Every adult American will be literate and will possess the
knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and
exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship." In
order for blind adults to achieve this goal, literacy instruction
must be strengthened for children. The direction of current
trends and educational programming shows that this goal will not
be achieved without deliberate corrective action. According to
official child count figures supplied annually by state and local
education agencies, 32 percent of the blind students at the
elementary and secondary levels are "nonreaders," and the
percentage of nonreaders increases every year. The number who
read Braille is correspondingly declining.
     The experience gathered in many states over several years
shows that a legislative response is needed to reverse this trend
of growing illiteracy among blind school-age youth. By enacting a
strong Braille literacy provision when programs under IDEA are
reauthorized this year, Congress can provide the leadership to
ensure that blind students graduate from our nation's schools
literate and armed with the necessary skills to be first-class
citizens of our society.

                           Fact Sheet
            Access to Information for Blind Persons:
               How Copyright Amendments Could Help

     Background: For blind people the inability to read standard
printed text can severely limit both the quantity and type of
information available. This is due in large part to the fact that
the great mass of readers can be reached cost-effectively with
the printed format. Also publishers do not consider formats other
than standard print to be cost-effective. This is largely so
because of the extremely small market for non-ink-print editions
of published works and the cost and complexity of using other
media.
     Even so, publishers have the right by law to cry foul if a
nonprint edition of a published work is reproduced and circulated
by another source. This right can be enforced even if
republication using specialized media and reaching a unique
audience, such as blind people, is sponsored and paid for by a
noncommercial source. In fact, conversion of published text into
Braille or other usable formats for the blind is done as a
nonprofit or governmental public service in virtually every
instance. However, the service cannot be provided until the
copyright holder's approval is obtained.

     Existing Law: Section 106 of title 17, United States Code,
known as the Copyright Act, presently gives copyright holders the
exclusive right to circulate published works. The copyright
holder's exclusive rights apply to any format in which the
published work might be re-distributed. The same rights also
apply even if the distribution format used by the copyright
holder by its very nature prevents effective use of the material
by blind people. The only applicable limitation on a copyright
holder's exclusive right in this regard permits noncommercial
broadcast transmission of information under narrowly prescribed
conditions for use by blind, deaf, or other persons with
disabilities who cannot use standard printed matter.
     Section 710 of title 17 provides authority for copyright
holders voluntarily to wave exclusive publication rights in
accordance with regulations made by the Librarian of Congress.
The purpose for this voluntary process is to permit transcription
of nondramatic literary works into Braille or sound-recorded
formats. This section makes possible a national network of
specialized library services for blind and disabled persons with
leadership from the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress.


     Proposed Legislation: Congress should amend the Copyright
Act in order to permit noncommercial reproduction and
distribution of published works in specialized media exclusively
for use by blind or disabled persons. This proposal would
establish an extremely narrow and targeted limitation on the
exclusive rights of copyright holders. The provision would
specify that it is not an infringement of copyright for a
nonprofit or governmental entity to convert or distribute
published works in formats exclusively for use by blind or other
persons with disabilities who cannot physically use standard
print.
     Bills now pending--H.R. 2441 and S. 1284--each include a
variant of this specialized accessible media proposal. The
primary purpose of both bills is to adapt U.S. copyright laws to
developments in modern technology and the potential of the
National Information Infrastructure. The language grants
non-profit organizations the right to reproduce or distribute
Braille, large type, or other editions of literary works if the
copyright holder has not entered the market with such editions
within one year from the date of original publication. The
audience for the specialized media is not precisely defined other
than the obvious inclusion of blind and visually impaired
persons.

     Need for Legislation: The pending amendments to the
Copyright Act are needed to support the further development and
use of the evolving National Information Infrastructure as well
as to protect the legitimate intellectual property interests of
authors and publishers. Beyond this, since use of printed media
is no longer the only option for dissemination of published
material in many instances, the advancements being made in
technology used to create, store, retrieve, and disseminate ideas
hold great promise for blind and visually impaired people.
     In contrast to sighted people, who are able to purchase a
plethora of reading matter from readily available commercial
sources, blind people in the general population have
tax-supported, specialized libraries as virtually their only
source of published literature. Suppliers, other than specialized
libraries, do exist for disseminating textbooks in Braille and
spoken-word formats, but the population they serve consists
mainly of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students. The
libraries provide Braille and "talking book" services to
approximately 800,000 people nationwide.
     Funds for mass reproduction of reading matter for the blind
do not go very far in meeting the real needs of this diverse
population. In books alone, as many as 40,000 new titles are
published in the English language each year. Using libraries as
exclusive suppliers, less than 5 percent of these newly published
works are converted annually into Braille or sound-recorded
formats. Moreover, delays sometimes exceeding a year can result
from the present copyright clearance system. In a society whose
members increasingly depend upon access to information for
successful living, blind people cannot afford to endure a growing
gap in their access to knowledge. Amendments to the Copyright Act
could help, however, by allowing immediate conversion of
published works into specialized media and by promoting greater
use of alternatives to ink print in publishing technology.




     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 the 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/CAPTION: Ed Bryant]
           FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION HOSTS MEETING
                    ABOUT INSULIN-VIAL DESIGN
                          by Ed Bryant

     From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the
Voice of the Diabetic, Volume 11, No. 1, Winter 1996, published
by the Diabetics Division of the National Federation of the
Blind. Blind diabetics have been trying for years to persuade
insulin manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
of the importance of finding some way to make insulin vials
easily identifiable by touch. Since many diabetics are blind and
many more have sight that fluctuates from day to day, it would
seem obvious that a significant segment of the insulin-using
population would benefit from such a modification. In fact, one
expert says that every diabetic, with or without impaired vision,
makes an occasional mistake in dosage because of mixing up vials,
so any attempt to multiply the number of ways in which people
could be reminded of what type of insulin they were about to
inject would seem to make good sense.
     But, of course, change costs money, and everybody has a
different idea about how the job could be done most effectively
or for the least expense. So the negotiations drag on. Moreover,
the insulin producers have taken it into their heads that the
tactile markings must not be too noticeable for fear that sighted
users might find offensive any reminder that diabetes and
blindness frequently go together.
     Ed Bryant is the Editor of the Voice of the Diabetic. Here
is his latest report on the Division's struggle to make
manufacturers agree to clear tactile identification for insulin
vials and to see that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration holds
them to it:

     Four years ago the Diabetics Division of the National
Federation of the Blind began campaigning for modifications in
insulin packaging so that blind insulin users could safely
distinguish between insulin types. The specifics have been
discussed extensively in the Voice of the Diabetic, but what
matters for the present discussion is that change is needed.
     Adaptive equipment is available, allowing blind diabetics or
those with significant vision loss accurately and dependably to
draw insulins, test blood glucose, and perform most other tasks
of daily diabetes self-management. The only missing element, the
only step these users cannot yet take with confidence, is to
identify the type of insulin in a specific vial safely. Such
identification is essential for our safety, especially with the
new quick-acting insulin, Lyspro, now awaiting Federal Drug
Administration (FDA) approval.
     In January of 1992 I received a letter from a Voice reader,
pointing out the danger of confusing vials of the different types
of insulins. In April, 1992, I wrote a letter to the insulin
manufacturers about this problem, and I forwarded a copy to Dr.
David Kessler, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration. In May of 1992 I wrote directly to Dr. Kessler.
In June of 1992 an FDA Consumer Safety Officer delivered the
official response, and in July of 1992 our Diabetics Division
sponsored a national survey about insulin-vial design in order to
arrive at a consensus.
     Ninety-four percent of the survey respondents (a mix of
blind and sighted diabetics and rehabilitation professionals)
believed that some sort of change was needed. Fifty-six percent
said that changing the shape of the vial was the best solution;
thirty-eight percent said that adding tactile markings would be
sufficient. Of those preferring tactile markings, most did not
indicate a preference for marking either vial or label.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents voted for a combination of
distinguishing vial shape and tactile-label markings. Regarding
colored labels as a solution, only 6 percent approved. I
interpreted these figures as ample evidence that most survey
respondents would prefer to be able to distinguish insulins by
touch.
     Since late 1992 a number of articles in the Voice have
reviewed our progress.
     In time and with reader support--hundreds of people wrote to
Commissioner Kessler--we convinced the FDA to bring all the
interested parties together, finally discussing the problem of
tactile insulin-vial identification face to face.
     Before the meeting, scheduled for October, 1995, I
circulated a memo to all scheduled participants: the National
Federation of the Blind, the American Association of Diabetes
Educators, the Institute for Safe Medication Practice, the
American Council of the Blind, the American Diabetes Association,
the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Food and Drug
Administration, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Eli Lilly
and Co. Here it is:

                                               September 11, 1995
                                               Columbia, Missouri

TO:       FDA Meeting Participants
FROM:     Ed Bryant
SUBJECT:  October 19, 1995, meeting
RE:       Tactile Markings on Insulin Vials

     A number of tactile cues could facilitate non-visual insulin
identification. They are here ranked in order of their
desirability:
     (1) In the past some insulins were packaged in containers
having a square cross-section (shoulder) and some in containers
with hexagonal shoulders. Although the concentration so regulated
is no longer manufactured, this federal regulation is still on
the books. Stability testing is required when any changes are
made to the primary container of any injectable medication, but
in the past the FDA has considered it safe for insulin to be
packaged in containers with round, square, or hexagonal top cross
sections.
     Under the scheme we propose, short-acting insulins would
remain as they are today, packaged in cylindrical vials.
Intermediate-acting insulins would be packaged in similar vials,
but having cross-sections (shoulders) of rounded square shape,
and all long-acting (L or U) insulins would be packaged in
cylindrically-shaped vials with hexagonal shoulders. There would
be no other changes to the primary container, and internal
dimensions would remain the same as they are today.
     (2) Although reading standard Braille is impossible for many
blind diabetics, identifying large embossed letters would not be.
Fishburne Enterprises of Hemet, California, markets the Fishburne
Alphabet, a series of symbols embossed onto thin sheets of
vacuum-formed plastic, designed expressly for blind persons with
diminished tactile sensation (such as those with diabetic
neuropathy). Samples are enclosed.
     Significant for our purpose is not the Fishburne Alphabet
itself, but the material upon which it is embossed. The thin
sheets of polystyrene can easily receive standard print, so no
current labeling information would need to be altered or deleted.
I would note that the print should be as bold and full of
contrast as possible--ideally black-on-white. Before it is
attached to the vial, the plastic label would receive two simple
sets of embossed symbols.
     At the right side of the 3 by 7 cm label, where the letters
"R", "N", "L", or "U" are now printed, those letters would be
embossed as well. They would be raised and could thus be felt by
those who could not see them. The bigger the better, but I note
the current letters are 1 cm in height; however, 1.5 cm would be
clearer. Larger letters, embossed after printing, would also help
combat the problem of fluctuating vision.
     Along the left side of the label, near the place some
products display a bar code, the label would bear one, two, or
three raised dots (tests might show the feasibility of a fourth
dot for "U" insulins). "R" insulin would bear one dot, "NPH"
would have two, and the slow-acting "L" and "U" would have three.
These dots could be further improved by roughening, perhaps by
application of a grainy material during the label-printing
process. Of course, they would be of sufficient size and
separation for a blind individual with severe neuropathy to
determine the number of dots with a finger or fingernail.
     The raised dots on the label should resemble the dots on the
Count-a-Dose T-bar (sample enclosed). Where two or three dots (or
four if feasible) are used, a space of 5 by 7 mm should separate
them, and they should be arranged in a single vertical row.
     Please note that the dots and the raised letters are meant
to be used together. Each tactile cue-type supports the other.
When this system is tested (by insulin-users with varying degrees
of sight loss and neuropathy), other symbol systems, such as a
raised square, circle, and triangle or dots and bars as in the
Fishburne Alphabet, might be tested for comparison as well.
     (3) In the past pharmaceutical bottles were cast in bivalve
molds. Raised embossed lettering was the rule. Such lettering was
astonishingly durable and frequently survives--archaeologists dig
up old bottles, and pharmacists collect them.
     A variant for today, if all other modifications were
unacceptable, might be to cast a radial pattern of raised dots
into the shoulder of the vial; one for Regular, two for NPH, and
three for L and U. Like those Jordan Medical puts on the
Count-A-Dose T-bar, these dots would have to be tall enough to be
detectable by individuals with neuropathy. A radial pattern is
less desirable than a linear one, but better than systems that
depend on sight. The vial's shoulder provides adequate surface
area for such a pattern of symbols, unlike the wildly impractical
idea of embossing the lateral edge of the aluminum ring that
retains the rubber stopper. Not only is the ring too small to
carry symbols of sufficient size; any change to its current
conformation would seriously affect makers of a number of
adaptive insulin-measuring devices for the blind and those losing
sight.

                The Problem of Fluctuating Vision

     Blind diabetics are not the only ones who would benefit from
the adoption of a system of bold tactile cues. Daniel L. Lorber,
M.D., Editor in Chief of Practical Diabetology, reminds us in a
recent editorial (Volume 14, No. 2) that the average sighted
diabetic mixes up insulins at least once a year. Tactile cues
could cut that frequency. He also states:
     And let's not forget the large number of sighted, but
     visually impaired, patients who have difficulty reading
     insulin-bottle labels. There are far more people with
     decreased acuity due to macular degeneration or
     capillary closure than one might think. In my own
     diabetes practice, visually impaired patients far
     outnumber the blind.
     Many diabetics experience the insidious visual impairment
known as fluctuating vision. One day their vision is fine; but on
the next, reading may be difficult or impossible. Couple this
with the natural reluctance of many individuals to admit, even to
themselves, that they are losing vision, and you have a very
strong argument for the inclusion of tactile cues on all insulin
bottles.
     Some diabetics use prefilled or reloadable insulin pens, and
though such systems preclude mixing (one uses "premixed"
cartridges or a second insulin pen), users could still benefit
from the presence of tactile cues. Systems vary, and precise
placement of such cues would be a matter for experimentation.

                           Conclusion

     Any system adopted to help blind and visually impaired
diabetics distinguish between insulins must be simple, reliable,
and universal. "Simple" means it must contain no more information
than is required for self-management. "Reliable" means
unambiguous--different users should achieve the same results. It
also means durable since the tactile cues must survive for the
life of the insulin in the vial. "Universal" means it must be
part of all insulin vials, NOT simply available as a pricey
option. There are as many as two million legally blind diabetics
in the U.S., and if they and the sighted are to benefit from a
system like the one described here, it must be part of all
insulin vials.
     The amount of insulin dispensed in the United States is not
a guess. With the completion of the diabetes control and
complications trial and the rise of tight control and
multiple-injection regimens, the opportunity for
misidentification is rising dramatically. What all participants
in this meeting need to keep uppermost in mind is that one simple
mistake, one insulin mix-up--the product of avoidable ambiguity--
can be fatal. Adoption of a system of universal tactile cues will
help alleviate this deadly ambiguity.

     That was my pre-meeting memo. On October 19, 1995, the
meeting took place at the Parklawn Building, FDA headquarters, in
Rockville, Maryland. Moderated by Consumer Safety Officer John
Short of the FDA's Division of Metabolism and Endocrine Drugs,
the meeting brought together representatives from the insulin
industry, organizations of the blind, and associations concerned
with diabetes.
     Mr. Short began it by stating that the meeting would not
have taken place "but for the efforts of Ed Bryant and the
Diabetics Division of the National Federation of the Blind. ...Ed
forced the meeting to happen," he said, and he was glad of it.
     Mr. Short went on to say that for a number of years the FDA
had discussed the blind drawing insulin, but: "Until recently we
were pretty much under the impression that totally blind
diabetics always needed assistance, someone sighted measuring and
giving them their insulin on a daily basis. ...It didn't take
long for Ed to straighten me out on this," he told the audience,
"informing me that totally blind diabetics are very capable of
taking care of themselves." He said that I had told him that, to
bring about the needed changes, I needed assistance from the
insulin manufacturers and the FDA.
     He hoped the participants would conclude with concrete
suggestions that the insulin manufacturers could implement so
that diabetics with impaired vision could have total assurance
that they were administering the correct insulin. Several
participants made formal presentations. I delivered the first, a
recap of the points covered in the memo reprinted here.
     Eli Lilly and Company, the manufacturer with 80 percent of
the U.S. insulin market, made no presentation, but Novo Nordisk
Pharmaceuticals Inc., the only other insulin maker in the U.S.
market, brought examples of different possibilities for tactile
marking and discussed them in detail. Most of the meeting was
spent in the informal exchange of ideas between the industry, the
consumer organizations present, and officials of the FDA.
     One option Novo Nordisk discussed was supplying tactile
labels to the pharmacist to attach to the insulin vial at time of
sale. They had done it in Europe but found little demand, so they
had discontinued it. The same fate overtook their plastic snap-on
insulin vial collars, also supplied to the pharmacist. A sighted
person had to attach these collars to the correct vials. Novo
assumed that a colleague or parent of the blind insulin user
would do this.
     One diabetes educator observed that Novo Nordisk's snap-on
collar would not have allowed use of the Load-Matic insulin-
measuring device. Any vial modification that inhibits use of
tactile insulin measuring devices (like the Count-A-Dose and
Syringe Support) is unacceptable.
     Most participants (including the manufacturers) agreed that
after-the-fact add-ons, whether attached by pharmacist or
consumer, are no better than the rubber bands and tape already
used by many people as tactile markers. Tactile cues need to be
permanent, universal, and attached by the manufacturer.
     One participant, with expertise in the safe handling of
pharmaceuticals, observed that nurses and other caregivers
sometimes administer the wrong insulin because vials (identical
except for the printed label) have been unintentionally switched
in their boxes. He said: "If vials were differentiated by shape
or had some other strong tactile cue to help people differentiate
[between them], we would have far fewer medication errors in
insulin use."
     Other participants pointed out that different insulin
formulations are sometimes switched in their boxes at the
pharmacy, with a less expensive formulation being sold in the box
of a more expensive product. FDA officials present confirmed this
occurrence.
     What is needed is something universal on all insulin vials,
applied by the manufacturer--the same symbols for both
manufacturers--and sufficiently clear for an individual with
severe neuropathy to distinguish between types. One way to
achieve this is by changing insulin vial shape, using vials with
different dimensional features for the different insulin types:
R, N, L, U, and soon Lilly's quick-acting Lyspro.
     Although they had done so in the past and although Novo
Nordisk packages insulin for sale in Europe in slightly different
vials from those marketed in the United States, the manufacturers
showed no interest in changing vial shape. Current insulin vials
are produced from glass tubing, and shaped or embossed types
would require molded glass. Several antique molded-glass insulin
vials were passed around the audience, and everyone but the
manufacturers agreed that it was extremely easy to achieve
tactile identification with the old-style bottles.
     The manufacturers presented a variety of objections to
changing vial shape. Most were centered on increased per-unit
cost. Even though Burroughs-Wellcome Company markets a
neuromuscular blocker for surgical use in a molded vial with a
hexagonal neck, the insulin manufacturers insisted cost
considerations precluded such an approach to insulin packaging.
There was some discussion of increased breakage risk with molded
vials, though which was the culprit, the molding or the glass
formulations of the 1950's, was never specified. The
manufacturers showed no inclination to change vial shape, and the
FDA showed less to push them.
     Having long since agreed that something needed to be done,
both manufacturers were pursuing schemes of their own. Lilly's
answer seems to be some sort of device--currently in the
patent-application stage--so the Lilly representatives could not
reveal the details. When I asked one about it, he responded:
"Some things can't be talked about."
     Novo Nordisk, which wants to mark only the "R" insulins,
proposed a scheme, already used in Europe, to place a raised dot
on the aluminum ring holding the stopper in the insulin vial. "R"
insulins would bear the dot; other types would be smooth. They
distributed samples of vials bearing this mark for our
inspection. It was very hard to feel the dot.
     Several individuals commented that, to be sufficiently
obvious to individuals with neuropathy, the dot needed to be much
more sharply raised, like Braille. An experienced diabetes
educator stated that many diabetics could not feel such a dot,
and if it were kept small enough not to interfere with use of the
Count-A-Dose and other tactile insulin measurement devices, it
would be undetectable by people with profound neuropathy, even if
they were using a fingernail.
     Novo Nordisk also manufactures a line of pen-injection
devices, and some of these are used by blind and visually
impaired diabetics, even though in the U.S. the products carry a
warning stating: "Not for use by blind or visually impaired
persons without sighted aid." Insulin mixing in a pen device is
impossible; a user who needed to mix would load factory-premixed
cartridges or use two pens.
     To distinguish between pens loaded with different insulin
formulations, pen manufacturers use different-colored trigger
buttons, a solution which is of no help to blind diabetics. At
the meeting Novo Nordisk distributed samples of pen devices
marked with a tactile dot, and the same objection holds for that
dot as for the dot on the stopper-ring of the insulin vial--it is
too small.
     A diabetes educator pointed out that designating
pen-injection devices as "for tactile, non-sighted use" (as Novo
Nordisk recommends) while including the legal disclaimer against
unassisted use by blind individuals "seems like a little
cognitive dissonance."
     Another tactile way to distinguish between insulins
discussed at the meeting was raised symbols on the label.
Inclusion of a tactile symbol on the label would require a switch
from the paper or nylon labels currently in use to the plastic
sheets (described in the memo to participants). The manufacturers
pointed out that switching to embossed plastic labels would
require retooling of the labeling process and could raise the
per-unit cost of insulin. Lilly pointed out that the durability
of any such raised tactile cue is not known and would require
further study.
     There was much discussion of the proposal to mark only the
"R" insulins tactilely. Diabetics who mix insulins almost always
use only two types, with "R" as one of the types, the other being
"N" or "L" or "U." To mark the vial of Regular insulin would cut,
but not eliminate, the ambiguity.
     Note: Once the new quick-acting Lyspro insulin analog is
available, some users, while not likely to mix Lyspro with
Regular insulin, may have three vials to keep track of. A rare
few patients, users of continuous cycling peritoneal dialysis,
might use a Lyspro/NPH mix in the daytime and Regular at bedtime,
to deal with the extra glucose coming in during the cycling
procedure. Lilly stated that, if the goal were to mark one type
only, rather than distinguishing among all the types, they would
be more willing to consider making the necessary adjustments, as
long as such marking did not include changing vial shapes.
     Novo Nordisk described marking regular insulin only as a
minimum solution. Most meeting participants agreed that
tactile-marking only the "R" insulin would be an acceptable
short-term solution while something better is worked out, though
a number cautioned that the short-term solution must not become
the long-term solution by default.
     The insulin manufacturers, along with German manufacturer
Hoechst A.G. (which had an observer at the meeting), had just
concluded a series of negotiations with the FDA to set up a
scheme for universally color-coding the various types of insulin.
The goal is commendable, and the adoption of uniform color codes
will certainly reduce dispensing errors at the pharmacy counter
(both blind and sighted participants reported such errors), but
the system they have adopted does not address the needs of blind
diabetics who with the appropriate tools are fully capable of
independent self-management.
     Both insulin manufacturers expressed the sentiment that any
tactile insulin marking should not "cause discomfort" to insulin
users without visual impairment by "reminding them that such may
be looming in the background" for them.
     I asked them: "Is the issue that you don't want people to
think they may become blind?" Finding this quaint attitude
astonishing, I suggested to the manufacturers that many diabetics
might take better care of themselves if they were reminded of
some of the ramifications of diabetes. Education, not silence, is
the answer.
     Equally quaint was their assumption that tactile labeling
was only for the blind. Dr. Daniel Lorber, editor of Practical
Diabetology, pointed out (in the quotation I cited in my memo to
meeting participants) that the average sighted diabetic mixes up
insulins once a year, and tactile cues could cut that frequency.
Color-coding and large-print labels help but cannot answer the
needs of the blind or those with fluctuating vision, whose
ability to distinguish shape and color may change unpredictably
from one day to the next.
     Both the insulin manufacturers and the FDA seemed
preoccupied with issues of world-wide distribution, surprising
for the FDA, which is charged by statute with protecting the
health of Americans.
     A number of other possible tactile-marking ideas were
proposed. One involved some sort of shrink-wrap around the
insulin vial (rejected by Lilly, who said the shrink-wrap oven's
heat would damage the insulin). Another involved a tactile-raised
label placed on the bottom of the vial (rejected by Lilly, who
said that the weight of the vial could flatten any tactile
marking on its base). Still another involved an extra-long label
end, that could be folded up and over to make a tactile mark.
(This idea was rejected by Novo Nordisk, who said that there was
new technology for attaching labels without glue. They were sure
such a label change "would cause problems in the equipment lines,
as so many labels fed through, and they'd be sure to jam
equipment.")
     Lilly said that there is no one obvious solution, but many
possible solutions--some too costly and others "cost-effective."
"Anything is doable," they said, "but the need is to achieve the
best system possible--and for that you have to go back to the
manufacturer." They reminded the audience that pharmacist-applied
tactile labeling systems have another, heretofore unmentioned
weakness: the increasing number of consumers who obtain their
insulins from mail-order supply houses. These individuals never
meet their pharmacists.
     Lilly also pointed out that insulin has a shelf life of two
and a half years (before expiration date). Once a change is
introduced, even if it is universal, it will be at least two and
a half years before all insulins on the market reflect that
change.
     At the close of the meeting moderator John Short stated that
this would be an ongoing discussion and that in future we might
involve folks in the labeling and packaging business in our
meetings. Tom Ley, President of the Diabetics Division of the
National Federation of the Blind, reminded the audience that
consumers will make the final decision whether a given proposal
works or not. "The best solution is a tactile solution," he
informed the manufacturers. We agreed to meet again in three
months.

                             Summary

     We've come a long way. The issues are on the table, and both
manufacturers and regulators know what we need and why we need
it. We are aware that the real work of insulin-vial change is
just beginning; talk without action is not sufficient.
     Our Diabetics Division has been lobbying the manufacturers
for four years now. Novo Nordisk, which made an extensive
presentation at the meeting, did not put forward any proposal
that had not existed before our campaign began. Eli Lilly, which
has been helpful and supportive throughout, is in the final
stages of product development and made no presentation.
     I hope Lilly's focus on their new product, to which I am
sure they have committed substantial financial resources, will
not preclude their consideration of other possible solutions that
may emerge at our meetings. I look forward to seeing what
positive use both insulin manufacturers make of the suggestions
already generated.
     While we search for a permanent solution satisfactory to
all, a number of temporary solutions, quick to implement, have
been proposed. The best of these involve a definite tactile cue
on the Regular/fast-acting insulins, distinguishing them from N,
L, and U types. As I have previously said, it is vital to prevent
temporary solutions from becoming permanent by default.
     Several proposals have emerged since the meeting. The
simplest of these involves attaching a thin circular band of
embossed plastic (like Dymotape) around the insulin vial above or
below the label. This strip, attached by the manufacturer as part
of the labeling operation, would be embossed with appropriate
tactile marks. Alternatively, the tape with its embossed symbols
might be transparent and wide enough to fit directly over the
label. In either case the tape would be applied by the
manufacturer.
     Another proposal involves a slight modification in the
vial-making procedure. To manufacture vials, a long tube of hot
glass is trimmed like sausages and shaped appropriately. To
receive its flat bottom, the hot vial is pressed against an
anvil. This proposal involves incising a tactile symbol on the
anvil so that its reverse would be printed on the bottom of each
vial. The vial's shape would be unchanged; the bottom would
merely bear a tactile symbol. On November 13, 1995, I forwarded
these proposals to the insulin manufacturers and the FDA for
their consideration.
     On November 17 I sent details and an illustration of another
possible tactile marking to the insulin manufacturers and the
FDA. This one would involve a 3 by 3 mm downward-projecting tab
as part of the vial's aluminum stopper-ring. The resulting
projection (on vials of Regular or fast-acting insulin) would be
easily detectable, even by individuals with severe neuropathy.
The tab would not interfere with use of any tactile insulin
measurement devices, would not modify vial shape or label, and
should require only one modification on the assembly line at the
point where the ring is clamped tight to seal the filled vial.
     I expect that other new proposals will be devised, and one
of them may be the best answer we have all been working for.
Hopefully we will see real breakthroughs at the January, 1996,
meeting. The Diabetics Division of the National Federation of the
Blind will continue to lead the way, and the Voice of the
Diabetic will keep blind diabetics informed.


[PHOTO: In the first picture Chad Schearer is gazing through binoculars while
Ted Hart stands (gun in his right hand, pointing to the ground, and cane in
his left). CAPTION: Chad Schearer and Ted Hart PHOTO: In the second picture
Ted Hart lies prone, aiming his rifle.  Chad Schearer lies beside Hart,
looking over his shoulder through the barrel-mounted scope. CAPTION: Chad
Schearer directs Ted Hart's aim by looking through the barrel-mounted scope.
PHOTO: In the third picture Ted Hart stands facing the camera with his
antelope on the ground in front of him. The head and part of the neck are
visible, and it is clear that the antelope is very large. CAPTION: Ted Hart
and his antelope]
                   TED HART: HUNTER AND LEADER
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

     He's totally blind, and he recently killed an antelope. It's
not the first kill he's made.
     When I went to Iowa in 1958 as Director of the State
Commission for the Blind, I set up shop in a few small rooms in a
former high school building. There wasn't much money, and there
wasn't much staff; but we had enough for a beginning. One of the
first things we did was to establish an orientation center. We
conducted home-ec classes in the homes of staff members; we
washed pots and pans in an old laundry tub; and we borrowed and
made do.
     The 1959 Legislature gave us the money to buy the old YMCA
building in Des Moines, and we moved into it in 1960. One of the
early students was a fellow named Ted Hart. He started in the old
high school building in 1959, and he moved with us to the new
quarters in the YMCA. He stayed until some time in 1960. Shortly
thereafter, we helped him get a job at the John Deere Plant in
Waterloo, and not too long ago he retired with thirty years of
service.
     It sounds like a run-of-the-mill story, quickly told and
soon forgotten. But wait! There's more to it than that. Take the
time in 1960 shortly after we had moved into the new facility. I
had been out of town, and as I was flying back into Des Moines,
the passengers on the plane kept talking about the smoke they
could see. When we landed, the news was waiting for me that the
smoke was from our new building. It was on fire.
     I went as fast as I could get there and stayed the night. It
was late afternoon, and it was already well below freezing.
Thousands of gallons of water were being pumped into the
building, and we were facing ruin. How much could we salvage?
What could we save? All of us, students and staff alike, pitched
in with frantic effort. Throughout the night we moved furniture
and equipment, swept water with broom and mop, and loaded carts
and hunted dry places. One of the crew was Ted Hart.
     This was not the only dramatic episode during his training.
In fact, the day-to-day building of confidence and the
realization that a job and a full life were his for the taking
were far more exciting. And it all came true--a wife, children, a
job, friends, and community involvement.
     That was thirty-five years ago. Ted lives in Waterloo, Iowa,
and I am a long-time resident of Baltimore. Our friendship has
continued, but we don't see each other very much on a day-to-day
basis--now and again at a Federation function and once in a while
in passing. The old days at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in
Des Moines seem long ago and far away. And then the other day Ted
Robbins of Montana sent me a newspaper article. Here it is:

          Great Falls Tribune, Friday, October 27, 1995
                  Hunting with `borrowed eyes'
             Blindness doesn't stop antelope hunter
                        by Jeffrey Mayor

     At the age of 55, Ted Hart is taking time to enjoy
retirement. After all, the Waterloo, Iowa, resident put in his
thirty years with John Deere as a machinist.
     Hart had hunted for white-tail deer and pheasant back home,
but he wanted to try hunting in the big-game mecca that is
Montana. Every hunter has heard the tales--some true, some not-
so-true--of the trophy animals to be had under the Big Sky. So
when Hart met local guide Chad Schearer last year at an Iowa
sports show, he decided this might be time to try big-game
hunting in Montana.
     This being his first trip to the Treasure State, Hart opted
to go after pronghorn antelope. After a little practice shooting
on that Saturday, Hart and Schearer went after antelope on a
ranch near Geraldine on opening day.
     Five hours after they got started, Hart had bagged a
fourteen-inch buck, gutted it, helped carry it back to the truck,
and celebrated a little.
     Nothing unusual for sure, until you learn that Hart is blind
and has been since the age of ten.
     In Hart's case, however, it was certainly nothing unusual.
He carried his own gun, followed Schearer when they had to move
to get a better shot, and, with a little visual assistance from
Schearer, made the shot.
     The hunt was made possible because of Hart's customized .30-
06 Savage, a willingness on Schearer's part, and an intense
desire by Hart to do all the things he wants.
     "I'm not going out there, just standing there and shooting
away. People just don't have any idea of what we did to pull this
off," Hart said over lunch at Fort Benton cafe. "I wasn't up
there slinging lead. If I was going to do that, I'd use a machine
gun," he said with a gentle laugh.
     "It's the old stereotype that blind people are helpless."
     It's a stereotype Hart is doing his best to dispel.
     "I realize it's OK to be a blind guy--it took me a few years
to realize that. All we want is a chance to be like everyone
else. I want the chance to make it or fail on my own," Hart said.
     Hart has been creating his own chances since that day forty-
five years ago when he was kicked between the eyes by a horse. "I
was blind before I hit the ground."
     He raised a family, worked for John Deere, taught his
children to drive, and taught his boys to hunt. His Montana
antelope hunt was just another opportunity.
     "With me, this antelope hunt was just a matter of fact, this
is something I'm going to do. God made it possible for me to do
all these things," Hart said.
     On that sunny, windy day, the hunting gods were certainly
good to Hart.
     They were already in the field at 7:00 a.m., and there were
plenty of antelope around. At one point there were seventy-five
does around the trio. Schearer's father, S.C. Schearer, joined
them to record the hunt on videotape and 35mm film.
     "About 11:00 a.m., we saw three does and a buck coming
toward us," Schearer said. "We skirted around this ridge, but we
were still 300 yards away."
     With Hart at his side, Schearer led them closer. Finally
peeking over a rocky ridge, they were within range.
     "But the buck was eating away from us. Finally he went
broadside and I started giving Ted directions--left, up, right.
Then I said, `On three, shoot.'
     "One, two, three--boom. But the shot went right above him.
He put in another shell and boom. I started yelling, `You hit
him.'"
     "Chad and his dad started dancing around and cheering," Hart
laughed.
     "It didn't get exciting for me until I saw the antelope with
my hands. That's when it was real. I was calm when we were
shooting. I was doing just exactly what Chad was telling me and
nothing else.
     "I got excited when I could feel it. It was the knowledge
that I had done it, that we really had shot the antelope."
     As the two recalled the details of the hunt, Hart burst into
laughter when Schearer urged him to tell about some of the things
Hart had "seen" during the hunt.
     Apparently, while following Schearer, Hart came across a
cattle calling card.
     "I had turned around and there was this big, old footprint
right in the middle," Schearer said.
     "I saw it all right, with my feet," Hart said. "There was no
way it could have been anything else."
     But that is how Hart sees, with all his other senses.
     "Every part of me is an eye. It's not the eye that sees, but
the brain," Hart said.
     "That's why I had to go down and feel the antelope. It
wouldn't have meant a darn thing if I couldn't go down and see
the animal. It would have been as if Chad shot him."
     But Hart did more than see the animal.
     "I walked everywhere we went, I carried my own gun, I gutted
my own animal. I told Chad if I was going to do it, I was going
to do it myself," he said.
     "It was a normal, guided hunt except he borrowed my eyes to
shoot; he did everything else. He was more of a diehard hunter
than a lot of guys I've hunted with," Schearer said.
     "This put me on the bandwagon that blind people can do as
much as a sighted person," Schearer said.
     "I had a lot of outfitters tell me I was crazy, it would
take so much extra time, but we were tagged out in five hours.
Ted was out here for the enjoyment of the hunt. A lot of sighted
people think the only successful hunt is if they harvest an
animal."
     Hart admits that hunting is not something each blind person
can do. But, he added, he is not unique.
     "This is not for every blind person, but it's not for every
sighted person," Hart said. "But I should have the right to
decide for myself, not have someone make the choice for me.
Society doesn't know what I want."

                   How does a blind guy hunt?
                        by Tribune Staff
     How does a blind guy hunt? Chad Schearer and Ted Hart have
heard that question plenty of times.
     All it takes is a customized rifle, a little practice, and
the patience every hunter requires.
     Hart brought a new Savage .30-06 with him for his Montana
antelope hunt. The gun had been customized by Hart's brother-in-
law, Larry Pearson, a gunsmith in New London, Iowa.
     Although there was a laser site mounted under the barrel,
Hart did not use it for his hunt.
     Instead, he and Schearer relied on the 3x-7x scope mounted
on a special bracket and a Harris bipod on the barrel. The bipod
provided additional stability while the two were aiming.
     Crafted out of aircraft aluminum, the bracket extends out
four inches and them rises another seven inches. That created an
angle that allowed Schearer to look over Hart's shoulder and give
him aiming directions as they lay on the ground.
     "I would tell him up, down, right, or left," Schearer said.
     "We went out on Saturday so we could shoot together. All
those shots hit the target," Schearer said. "I had so much
confidence after we shot."
     Hart said he hopes to return to Montana next season to go
after elk. He would also like to go to Canada bear hunting. Then
there is bow hunting, another sport Hart wants to try.
     Getting the opportunity is the bottom line for Hart,
regardless of the sport or activity.
     "It's not a matter of can I or should I, but finding the
vehicle to make it work," Hart said.

     When I read that article, I called Ted on the phone. He
hadn't read the story, and one of his first questions was, "Did
they mention the Federation?"
     When I told him no, he expressed annoyance and said, "Well,
I told them to."
     He didn't have much time to talk to me since he was on his
way out the door to attend a meeting of the Blackhawk County
Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. Incidentally,
he's Chapter President.
     Ted tells me that he feels he has had a wonderfully full
life and that he looks forward to the future with joy and
enthusiasm. He says that the two things that have been the most
important in helping him succeed have been his Christian faith
and his contact with the National Federation of the Blind. As far
as I am concerned, Ted is a living embodiment of many of the
principles we taught in those early days at the Iowa Commission
for the Blind. I took great satisfaction from my conversation
with him.


              CONFIDENCE AND THE CAPRINE EXPERIENCE
                       by Stephanie Pieck

     From the Editor: Stephanie Pieck (her last name rhymes with
deck) is a member of the National Federation of the Blind of New
York. She is young, ambitious, and energetic. She also has an
unusual job, or perhaps the proper word is passion. In addition
to teaching English, Spanish, music, and Braille, she raises and
shows goats--not just any goats, prize-winning ones. Blind people
are engaged in doing all kinds of interesting things. Here is
Stephanie Pieck to tell you something about one of the more
unusual ones:

     Raising goats is not what you would consider a typical job--
cattle, sheep, or horses yes; but not goats. And raising goats is
certainly not what people would think of as a feasible job for a
blind person. There's too much requiring sight. Of course, there
are also people who dispute these claims; I happen to be one of
them.
     I took the usual route into goat raising that many
youngsters follow: they were a 4-H project. Even before 4-H, my
family had them, however, since my brother was lactose-
intolerant. At first we had ten or fifteen goats, maybe twenty in
the spring after the kids were born.
     When my parents realized that goats weren't just a passing
fancy with me, they helped me register my own farm name with the
American Dairy Goat Association, and in 1987 the first kid was
registered with my farm name: Song of Joy Gusto's Jubilee.
     Early the following year our family competed for the first
time at a national goat show. It was held in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, and over two thousand goats competed. I took part
in the youth showmanship contest and placed fourteenth in a class
of over fifty. As far as I know, it was the first time a blind
person had participated in the event. Later in the show, which
lasts a week, I took part in the Nubian intermediate doe kid
class. Nubians are a specific breed of goat of African and Asian
descent, with long, droopy ears. All the animals at the national
show were does. Intermediate kids were those born between March 1
and April 1. My entry, Song of Joy Chorus Line, was twenty-first
out of seventy-nine contestants. Again, it was the first time a
blind person had actually exhibited her own animal.
     My farm continued to grow slowly over the next several
years, and in 1993 I registered my first LaMancha kids.
LaManchas, which are a unique American breed, have very short
external ears, hence the nickname, "earless goats."
     I went again to the national show that year; it had come
back to Harrisburg. One of my LaManchas, Song of Praise My
Alleluia, was nineteenth in the junior kid class. (She was born
after April 1, so she was put in that category.) And one of my
Nubians, Song of Joy HL Arabesque, was seventeenth in a class of
sixty-nine milking does between the ages of two and three years.
     The highlight of the 1993 nationals, however, came at about
one in the morning of the fourth day of showing, when one of my
Nubians was chosen reserve national junior champion. In other
words, I had the second best non-milking Nubian doe in the United
States.
     In 1994 I was the second blind person to take the American
Dairy Goat Association's (ADGA) Judges' training conference. I
missed receiving my license by one and a half points. I don't
count that as discrimination, since I had very little judging
experience, and I was very nervous making my presentations to the
panel. The conference committee asked me to write a proposal
about how a blind person could act as a judge, since some of the
requirements (such as reading tattoos and disqualifying animals
with improper markings) cannot be done without sight. My
suggestion: Work with a consulting judge. They do it at national
shows, so why not at regional ones too?
     Also in 1994 I was chosen to serve on the Educational
Materials Committee. Since my selection I have helped the ADGA
have its guidebook produced in Braille, and its quarterly
newsletter is now available on cassette.
     Still in 1994, I took two animals to the North American
International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. We
did extremely well: my Nubian was third in her class, and the
LaMancha was seventh in hers. I handled both animals and received
many inquiries about whether or not they were for sale. The group
I was traveling with thought I was crazy since I kept blankets on
the does for the entire trip down and because I gave them beer to
drink when we arrived. They stopped kidding me after several of
their animals got sick from being cold. When they saw my does
making tremendous amounts of milk (while theirs were barely
filling their udders), the teasing about beer-drinking goats
stopped too.
     Early in 1995 I was asked to do a presentation in Florida
about how a blind person could manage to keep goats. I told the
director that I would not because such a topic suggested that
keeping goats was an amazing feat for someone who couldn't see.
But I did agree to share with other breeders techniques that
don't rely on sight, such as delivering kids, judging
conformation, and diagnosing other health problems. I used a live
animal in my presentation, and aside from keeping the audience in
stitches for a good part of the discussion--the goat wouldn't be
quiet or stand still--many people told me afterward that they had
learned a great deal. One woman who was losing her sight came up
to me and said that she had gained a lot of confidence from the
things I had said. She had assumed that, when her sight was gone,
her goats would have to leave. Needless to say, I was very glad
that in such a short time I had been able to show it didn't have
to happen.
     When it comes right down to it, confidence is one of our
strongest allies. I have been told many times that blind people
can't show their goats. Some judges have even placed me last in a
class simply because I was blind. Others don't think blind people
can stack hay bales, clean stalls, move grain into storage bins,
or deal with large, aggressive male goats during the breeding
season.
     For all these people I try to serve as an example. They have
seen me handle 300-pound bucks (male goats) that wouldn't allow
anyone else to catch them. They have gotten a good look at the
back of my overalls and my goats when they place behind me in
showmanship classes. And they have stood at ringside as several
of my does were awarded permanent championships. Each time they
have said, "You can't" to me, I have answered them with, "Why
not?"
     In 1996 the national show is coming to Springfield,
Illinois. Am I going? You bet I am! I'm already making plans:
choosing which animals to breed and when they will have their
kids, saving money to pay for the trip, and dreaming. Everyone is
trying to produce the best goat possible, and my blindness
doesn't prevent me from doing that too. Toward that goal I have
bred several of my LaMancha does to a buck who has been ranked
number one in the United States for the last three years.
     In closing I would like to say a word about helpfulness.
This story has mostly been about what I have accomplished and my
aspirations for the future. But I couldn't have achieved any of
it without the help of others. In 1993 I started a newsletter for
disabled people with goats. That year I also attended my first
state convention of the NFB of New York. I met many people there
who encouraged me to continue what I was doing. I met even more
when I attended the National Convention in Detroit in 1994. To
everyone in my family (Federation and otherwise) I want to extend
a huge, heartfelt thank you! And if, by some wonderful chance, I
come back from Illinois with another national champion goat, you
will be among the first to hear about it.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: John Earl Cheadle]
                         FEDERATION FOOD
                      by John Earl Cheadle

     From the Editor: One of the agenda items at the 1995 seminar
for parents of blind children conducted the day before the
beginning of the annual convention of the National Federation of
the Blind and sponsored by the National Organization of Parents
of Blind Children was a panel of family members talking about the
benefits of being associated with the NFB. The presenters were
sighted parents, children, and siblings of blind Federationists.
John Earl Cheadle was one of the panelists. His brother is
Charles Cheadle, an active teenage member of the NFB of Maryland,
and his parents are John and Barbara Cheadle, both of whom are
staff members at the National Center for the Blind. Barbara also
serves as President of the National Organization of Parents of
Blind Children. Here are his remarks:

     One spring afternoon, as I lay relaxing in my room, the
phone rang. I picked up the receiver and started talking to the
woman on the other end of the line. The conversation--a fairly
typical exchange relating each of our adventures over the course
of the day--took an unexpected turn when she asked me to give a
speech on the benefits of growing up in the NFB, and give it at
the NFB's National Convention no less! After considering a number
of answers I could have given this woman, I finally responded,
"Sure, Mom, I'd be happy to."
     Sitting down to write this speech, I at first felt
overwhelmed at the enormousness of the task at hand. How was I
supposed to put into words the positive effects of eighteen
years--my entire lifetime--of the NFB? Then a revelation of
divine proportions struck me: All my life the NFB has provided me
with the essential ingredient necessary to lead a happy and
productive life--lots and lots of good food! Now it is certainly
true that excellent food is served at NFB picnics, cookouts,
chapter meetings, state conventions, and of course here at the
National Convention. But I am not talking about just that kind of
food.
     I am talking, for instance, about brain food. Through the
NFB I have come in contact with some of the leading minds in
areas as diverse as statistical mathematics and social justice. I
can't count the number of times I've quoted Dr. tenBroek, Dr.
Jernigan, or President Maurer to create a more intellectual term
paper or class discussion. Barbara Pierce, with her thorough
knowledge of post-secondary institutions, was invaluable to me as
I embarked upon my search last year. I helped read for Scott
LaBarre as he studied for his bar exam and learned more than I
ever wanted to know about tort law. The vast literature has
helped me complete more than a few school projects. And the
people of this organization have been to me teachers and mentors
as excellent as those of any school. So I am exceedingly thankful
for the brain food of the NFB.
     Since I was born, the NFB has also raised me on a healthy
diet of justice. As a young infant I was protesting unfair
treatment of the blind. (I'm sure my parents will be happy to
show you pictures of my days picketing in a stroller.) For most
people my age justice is nothing more than an assignment in a
philosophy or literature class, probably given to them about the
time they were sleeping off the previous night's party. But for
me it is alive. My parents work for it day in and day out. My
sister and brother and I have to educate our peers at every turn
that the blind deserve to be treated justly because they are
normal people and should therefore be given all the normal human
rights to which everyone in this nation is entitled. I have
watched and upon occasion helped the NFB correct injustices of
every sort--small injustices and large ones, those which are
swiftly defeated and those that require years of fighting before
they are finally trampled into dust, injustices that are derived
from ignorance and those that are brutally intentional. The NFB
has given me energy, philosophy, and strategy to fight injustice.
So I count justice food as one of the best benefits of growing up
in the NFB.
     Finally, I could not talk about the benefits of being an NFB
kid without mentioning my brother Charles, known to many of you
as Chaz. Please allow me a moment to brag on my brother. He is
enrolled in the high school from which I graduated a month ago,
earning A's and B's in the college-level courses offered there.
He is active in his Boy Scout troop and is working on his Eagle
project. He plays guitar, harmonica, and a little piano. He was
recently appointed to the Governor's Committee on Service for the
State of Maryland and has put in countless hours of volunteer
work at the National Center for the Blind in Baltimore. Chaz has
given me quite a bit of firsthand experience of a blind person,
although I rarely think of him that way anymore. He's my brother.
He helps me out when I need it; he makes me laugh even when I
don't feel like laughing. And he finishes off the food on my
plate when I'm too stuffed to move. The NFB has given me one of
the best foods of all, brotherhood.
     However, these foods in and of themselves are not the most
wonderful gifts I have received. The food of the National
Federation of the Blind has provided me with a second family. In
most cultures and religions food holds an importance far beyond
the mere alleviation of hunger. It represents community--
community with nature or God or other people. This is the
greatest benefit of growing up in the NFB: being an integral part
of a community to which I give some of my energy but from which I
derive a power so much greater than my own that who I am is no
longer defined solely by my personal achievements but
increasingly by the achievements of the community in which I
function. The great benefits of growing up in the NFB have
included such rich varieties and enormous volumes of food that it
is with a proud and thankful heart that I can say that I am fed
up to here with the NFB! [laughter and applause]


[PHOTO: Maria Morais is pictured here at convention using her cane as she
walks. CAPTION: Maria Morais]
               STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
                         by Maria Morais

     From the Editor: Maria Morais was a 1987 NFB scholarship
winner. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies in special
education. This article appeared in A Personal Perspective, the
publication produced by the alumni chapter of the Louisiana
Center for the Blind, edited by Ollie Cantos. Compilation of the
book was part of the tenth anniversary celebration of the
Louisiana Center for the Blind, which took place in October,
1995.

     Anyone who has graduated from the Louisiana Center for the
Blind is familiar with Joanne Wilson's prophecy that, if you do
not become involved with the National Federation of the Blind,
you will not become the whole, successful person that you could
have been. I heard her say this to perhaps two dozen others
before she directed these comments to me. At first I believed
that she wanted our involvement to bolster numbers at meetings
and conventions. It was not until I had left Ruston that I came
to realize the true meaning of her admonition.
     Perhaps the most important lesson I learned during my stay
in Ruston was not how to cross a street or how to cut up a
chicken or even how to read and write Braille; it was instead how
to give back to others what I have received. While it is true
that I could not have gone on to earn a graduate degree and
secure a job without the skills I acquired during my training, I
certainly could not have gone on to do these things with the same
degree of success if I had not become an active participant in
the Federation. My four-hour round trip to get to monthly chapter
meetings would have seemed a staggering burden without the
countless hours of travel training that made me a confident
traveler. But, more important, I understood how important it was
to get to these meetings to ensure that I was doing all I could
to grant others the opportunity to have training similar to that
I had been given.
     A good training facility is a starting point--a place to
begin exploring the practical and philosophical aspects of our
blindness, what blindness means to us individually and as a part
of the community. All blind people are victims of misconception
and prejudice inflicted upon us, not merely by our society, but
also by ourselves. In much the same way a recovering alcoholic
finds support in Alcoholics Anonymous or a Christian finds solace
in attending religious services, members of the Federation are
reaffirmed in our conviction that we deserve first-class
citizenship by working with our local NFB chapters.
     Perhaps even more important, we can find the strength we
need in others when we are doubtful or wavering in our own
convictions. If it were not for this constant source of
reassurance and reaffirmation, we would all gradually lose the
positive attitudes and confidence which we so adamantly fought to
gain. While we may not lose the blindness skills by staying away
from the Federation, our convictions and drive would soon
diminish without the constant reinforcement by others who believe
as we do.
     I have met Federationists who do not possess the same level
of skills which I have had the opportunity to develop.
Nevertheless, they make their way to chapter meetings and other
gatherings of the Federation family to work collectively so that
good training will be available for others and for future
generations. It was the combined efforts of these individuals in
the past that enabled NFB Center students to have the
extraordinary training that we in Louisiana have all been so
fortunate to receive.
     Sir Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further, it is
because I have stood on the shoulders of giants": Dr. Jacobus
tenBroek, the founder of our Movement, and Dr. Kenneth Jernigan,
the driving force and long-time leader of our organization, and
of course, Marc Maurer, our current President, Dr. Jernigan's
student and a man who is quickly finding his own place in our
history. There are hundreds of others, many of whom we have never
even had the privilege of knowing personally. These giants have
all striven to ensure that our generation will be given a more
nearly equal chance to compete with our sighted peers. Their work
has not only altered the laws and practices in this country for
dealing with blind people, it has also irrevocably raised the
level at which each of us has been able to begin in our own
struggle to reconcile ourselves with blindness.
     We are quick to accept the improved conditions which cost
those who went before us so dearly, but we must also undertake
the challenge to become the giants for tomorrow's students to
stand on. We are the hope of those who follow, and this awesome
burden should lie heavily on our minds and souls. The only
meaningful way to fulfill our obligation to future generations is
by contributing our voices and efforts to the work of the
National Federation of the Blind.
     When Joanne speaks to us of becoming or remaining active in
the Federation, she does so from experience, not just her own,
but that of all of those with whom she has come into contact over
the years. She is not motivated by personal gratification, but
rather by her conviction that we will flourish through
involvement with, or wither through disassociation from, the most
powerful force for positive change--the National Federation of
the Blind.
     NFB Center training is the most effective means for blind
people today to achieve their personal goals, since traveling
independently, preparing meals, and finding and keeping good jobs
are essential parts of living a normal life. Although these
skills are certainly crucial goals to achieve, perhaps the most
vital function of a center is to instill in each of us the
conviction that there is no shame in being blind. Only through
collective action and shared experience can we continue to grow
and confirm the truth of our affirmation that it is respectable
to be blind.


[PHOTO: Richard Frazier is pictured working at a kitchen counter. CAPTION:
Richard Frazier works in the kitchen at BLIND, Inc.]
                  THE MIND'S EYE CAPTURES WHAT
                      THESE FANS DON'T SEE
                        by Jim Klobuchar

     From the Editor: Occasionally a reporter gets a line on a
potential story concerning blind people and manages, despite the
odds, to get it more or less right. That is what happened in late
1994 in Minneapolis--a minimum of sentimentality, no talk of
bravery in the face of catastrophe, just blind people taking
their place in society. In this case a fan noticed two
enthusiastic young Minnesota Vikings fans who had season tickets
and who happened to be blind. They came to game after game and
clearly enjoyed being part of the crowd, having as good a time as
everybody else. The man happened to mention these fans to a
friend, Jim Klobuchar, who was a reporter for the Minneapolis
Star Tribune. Klobuchar tracked down the fans, Mike Heilman and
Richard Frazier, both of whom are active members of the National
Federation of the Blind of Minnesota and graduates of BLIND,
Inc., the adult rehabilitation training center conducted by the
NFB of Minnesota. Mike also serves as President of the
affiliate's student division. The story about the two that Jim
Klobuchar wrote appeared in the Star Tribune on December 29,
1994. It was reprinted in the Fall, 1995, edition of the
Minnesota Bulletin, a publication of the NFB of Minnesota. Here
it is:

     A young rooter in the airy sections of the Metrodome went
passably nuts Monday when DeWayne Washington sucked up a San
Francisco fumble and ran it into the end zone. His exuberance has
to be explained, because he didn't see the play.
     He didn't see a play all night. He didn't see one the game
before, either, or the game before that, and neither did the guy
next to him. But nobody had a bigger blast watching the Vikings
win.
     When you buy a season ticket, you get to demand winning. So
here were two season ticket holders--the peerage at the ballpark-
-who couldn't see what was happening but pounded on the stiffs in
front of them as the crowd exploded, and high-fived and carried
on into the kickoff. Which means we have to take one minute here
to figure.
     What brings them into the Dome showing season tickets, a kid
nineteen, who has been blind since thirteen, and his pal, twenty-
two, born with a condition that produced blindness?
     The answer will tell you something about young lives with a
drive and a yen for howling good times, willing to pay their way
for it, and never mind the darkness. It says something about the
horizons in those lives, possibilities unseen but ones that exert
the hard pull of independence.
     You can watch a game without seeing it. You can get there by
earning it. You know that DeWayne Washington is charging into the
end zone because Dan Rowe and Joe Senser are busting a gut about
it on KFAN. But you can do more than listen. You can watch by
visualizing, and Richard Frazier, at least, knew almost exactly
what Washington was doing. He pictured the embracing teammates
and the triumph in the face of the player. He saw it in mental
replay, remembering the scenes on television and at the park when
he was a boy.
     Mike Heilman never saw football that way. He saw images and
movement, and still does, although those are receding. He can't
see the ball or differentiate the uniforms. It's just shaded
movement, making him legally blind. For Richard, the fellow in
the seat next to him, it came to an end when glaucoma took his
sight at age thirteen in Iowa.
     They met at the BLIND, Inc., Center in Minneapolis, where
both enrolled to broaden the skills that the sightless need to
deal with the daily grind of making it in a world without light.
Richard, his mother, and siblings came from Des Moines to be
close to the center. Mike's parents live in Northfield, where
they run a restaurant. When he finished at the center, Richard
started teaching there, showing kids years younger that it was
possible. They had to think in distance, not in bonds and
barriers.
     With the money he made, he bought Vikings season tickets. In
the seat next to him was Mike Heilman, who did the same with
money he makes marketing part-time in Twin City Storm Sash while
attending college. Neither applied for a gold star for working
while going to school. This is their world, and since that world
includes a universal need for options and independence and that
world also includes pro football games and pro basketball games
and camping and skiing, well, do it.
     It also includes, for Richard, the University of Minneapolis
and courses in African-American studies and, for Mike Heilman,
classes pointed toward a major in psychology. Mike lives alone in
an apartment in South Minneapolis. Richard lives with his mother,
sister, and two baby brothers in a Minneapolis suburb.
     But why face the stadium and the mob, people bumping you
around in the corridors, and stairways, people who don't realize
you can't see them? "That's the whole idea," Mike said. "People--
it's the energy you get from them. I feel it. The broadcasters
lay out what's happening on the field. You can picture that. If
there's some side stuff that you want to know about, you can ask
your neighbors in the section. They'll tell you because
everybody's into it. It's the adrenaline the crowd gives you. The
whole thing energizes you."
     In other words, they're like anyone else who buys a ticket.
     They go to games together when they're able, but they don't
go through any synchronize-your-watches production to do it.
They'll get a lift in somebody's car or use public buses or use a
white cane to walk from the bus stop. Sometimes they plan to
rendezvous at a station or corner or place, and sometimes they
don't. Whatever works.
     "They were sitting not far from me for the Chicago Bears
game a month ago," said Bob Wallien, a retired teacher. "It was
just fascinating, seeing them rough-housing with the rest of the
crowd, pulling out money for beverages and junk like everybody
else, but one of them saying "This is a ten" by the way it was
folded. And the vendor went into his act and pitched a box of
Crackerjacks to one of them. It was one of those three-point
shots that drifted and banged one of the young season ticket
holders from BLIND, Inc., in the head. The vendor didn't know the
situation, and everybody got a yuk out of it.
     Mike and Richard missed each other in the corridor jam after
the game. Nobody panicked. One of them got a ride home from a
stranger, the other took the bus. They're a good match. Richard
is a snappy talker, bright and animated. Mike is one of those
guys who examines, thinks it out, looks for the gradations.
They're both big in the kitchen, but if either is going to write
a cookbook, give the edge to Richard.
     "Cajun cooking is where I'm at," he discloses. "It's me."
But it wasn't on Monday at the Metrodome. What he was Monday was
a Vikings fan aching for a look at Deion Sanders, the traveling
light show who plays cornerback for San Francisco.
     "He's the guy," Richard said. "I kept waiting for them to
give him a call on the radio."
     But the Vikings were awfully bashful about throwing the ball
in the middle of Deion's circus. So Richard just visualized
without cues. Deion hunched five yards off the line. No, three
yards off the line. No. On the line.
     "You can figure out a lot about what the guy is doing. You
don't have to see him, although that would be nice."
     Looking at it that way, Richard may have seen more than his
neighbors in Section 203.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Angela Howard]
                   THE BIG MOMENT OF DECISION
                        by Angela Howard

     From the Editor: The following article is reprinted from A
Personal Perspective, the tenth anniversary publication of the
Louisiana Center for the Blind, the adult training center
conducted by the National Federation of the Blind of Louisiana.
The book was produced by the Center's alumni organization and
edited by Ollie Cantos. Angela Howard is currently a freshman at
Guilford College in North Carolina, where she is majoring in
history and women's studies.

     Like most blind children with some remaining vision, I was
always made to feel extremely ashamed of my blindness. My parents
were told I should make use of what vision I had; therefore, I
was never introduced to such alternative techniques as Braille or
the cane. I used large print books in school, causing me many
headaches, backaches, and embarrassing moments when I was forced
to read aloud in class. I would become extremely uncomfortable
hearing the word "blind," even if the conversation had nothing at
all to do with my lack of sight. For as far back as I can
remember, I felt inferior to my classmates and friends. I never
imagined I would be able to lead a normal life.
     As I got older, my problems grew worse. Textbook print got
smaller while my vision kept deteriorating. I would spend six or
seven hours a night studying and still barely passed. I spent a
tremendous amount of time worrying whether I could go out to eat
or even walk down a hall without falling over something. I missed
out on many parties and school activities simply because I was
afraid of traveling at night or in a new environment. I had no
notion of what it was like to be free, and I don't really think I
cared at that point. My main concern was hiding my so-called
visual problem from as many people as I could. I knew I would
never live a fulfilling life, and fooling others into thinking I
was doing so was the next best thing.
     But my life was changed when I was given the chance to
participate in the first children's program at the Louisiana
Center for the Blind. Much like the adult program at the Center,
the Buddy Program is designed to give blind people training in
the alternative skills of blindness as well as developing
positive attitudes about blindness in us and setting us on the
path towards freedom. Growing up around people with attitudes
about blindness that left much to be desired, I naturally
rejected the alternative techniques of blindness and philosophy
offered to me by the staff. I resented the fact that the
counselors referred to me as "blind," and I hated using the cane,
which shouted my darkest secret to the world. But, as time went
on, I began to realize that blindness didn't have to mean
incompetence or inability. No longer ashamed of admitting I was
blind, I began to understand the importance of using a cane and
Braille. I was so excited at my newfound freedom that I couldn't
wait to show the world all that I had learned.
     I wasn't prepared to cope with the negative attitudes I
faced when I returned home. I brought my cane to school my first
day of junior high. I'll never forget the looks on my friends'
faces when I showed up at school with my white cane. They
couldn't understand why I would want to carry that thing. "Why in
the world would anybody want to use something that identified her
as blind?" they asked.
     One day I asked one of my friends if she wanted to go to the
movies one weekend. She thought for a while and said, "I don't
know. Are you going to use that cane?" At that moment I was ready
to put the cane in the back of my closet and never use it again.
Looking back, this was the big moment of decision for me. Here
was someone I knew well and whose opinion mattered to me. She
wasn't comfortable with my using a cane when I was with her, and
I didn't like the thought of having to deal with the cane issue
every time I wanted to go out. But I suppose it was that
overwhelming feeling of independence I had gained by using it
that gave me the courage to tell my friend, "Yes, I use it
everywhere I go."
     As for Braille, I was so excited at the prospect of being
able to read more quickly and easily and for an extended period
of time that I pushed myself to learn all of Grade II Braille in
one month. I couldn't wait to begin using it in school. However,
my vision teachers had other ideas. They told me that Braille was
too slow and that I would make too many mistakes using the slate
and stylus. When I began arguing with them about the usefulness
of Braille, they took me aside and told me I needed to quit
prancing around, thinking I could do everything.
     I learned important lessons from those experiences in junior
high. I learned how to deal with friends and family who were
ashamed to be seen with me now that I used a cane. I also learned
to advocate for myself and do things the way I knew was more
efficient. Most important, I learned the importance of staying
involved in the National Federation of the Blind. If I hadn't had
my Federation friends at the Louisiana Center for the Blind to
encourage me and reinforce my belief that I could be independent
and successful, I would have fallen back into my old way of doing
things.
     A Federation member convinced my VI teachers to let me use
Braille in school and turn in my own typed work. They reluctantly
agreed, and I proved to them that Braille was more efficient and
that my work could look just as nice as the work produced by my
classmates. They even began teaching other students Braille and
turned to me for advice on how to motivate the other kids.
     It's funny to see how things change. My friends eventually
got used to my cane. They can now look back and see what a
difference it has made in my travel skills. A few of my friends
were recently complaining about a blind person they know who
refuses to use a cane. "Her life would be so much easier," they
said. I smiled to myself, thinking how much their attitudes about
blindness have changed and also how much my own attitudes have
changed. I now realize that, had it not been for the NFB's
establishment of the Louisiana Center for the Blind which
eventually gave rise to the Buddy Program, I wouldn't be where I
am today.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Pat Barrett]
          MY SURE, STEADY CLIMB TOWARD SELF-CONFIDENCE
                      by Patrick A. Barrett

     From the Editor: Not everyone has the courage or good sense
to take a discouragement and turn it into a victory. Doing so
requires honesty, balance, and lots of hard work. The following
article is the story of just such a journey. It first appeared in
the Fall, 1995, edition of the Minnesota Bulletin, the
publication of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota.

     A familiar statement we Federationists often use is "Given
proper training and opportunity, the blind can do the average job
in the average place of business and do it as well as their
sighted co-workers." I believe we often overlook those first
three, vitally important, words--given proper training. Proper
training in the alternative techniques of blindness is as basic
to success for a blind person as learning to ride a bike is for a
kid doing a paper route.
     In June, 1993, I moved from Idaho to Minneapolis to take a
job as an instructor at BLIND, Inc., our Federation adult
training center in Minnesota. During my probationary period of
employment, I received some training in alternative techniques at
the Colorado Center for the Blind (CCB) and at our National
Center in Baltimore. I did rock climbing for the first time with
the CCB staff and students. I really enjoyed my experiences
there, and with Mr. Cobb teaching me travel at our National
Center, I also got the opportunity to know our hard-working
leaders and staff at our National Center better.
     However, by October my probationary period was over, and we
all recognized that I was neither qualified nor confident enough
to continue as an instructor and role model for the students at
BLIND. I did not want to shortchange the students who were
working hard to get the skills they needed and deserved for
success.
     What to do next? My wife Trudy and I and our six-year-old
daughter Raeann had just pulled up roots in Idaho and moved to
Minnesota. We were scared. But over the years I have come to
believe that old axiom, "When the door closes, the Lord opens a
window of opportunity."
     What about my going through BLIND, Inc., as a student? I had
taken some rehab training at the Idaho Commission for the Blind
during the summers of 1975 and 1976 between years of school. That
is where I met Trudy as a student in 1976. She had taken the
comprehensive training for a year there with such Federation
leaders as Frank Smith, Ray Martin, and Harry Gawith. Frank Smith
had tried to get me to stay longer. But I was new in the
Federation, and my parents did not recognize the greater
importance of continuing training there rather than continuing
straight through college.
     Now I had a second chance, right in my backyard in
Minneapolis. Trudy and Raeann were behind me all the way in
taking that opportunity. I called Joyce Scanlan at BLIND. She
thought intensive training would be of great benefit to me
personally, and she helped me initiate the paperwork.
     I signed up as a client of State Services for the Blind. I
admit to being skeptical at first about the state agency because
in the past I had been burned by counselors in the Idaho rehab
system. However, Jon Benson was speedy and conscientious in
setting up my program at BLIND, Inc. Dick Davis, Assistant
Commissioner, State Services for the Blind, Department of
Economic Security, was also supportive.
     My sure, steady climb toward self-confidence began. In my
nineteen years as a Federationist I had come to have great faith
in the teachings of role models such as Dr. Jernigan, President
Maurer, Norm Gardner, and Ramona Walhof. However, St. James was
right in the New Testament when he said, "...faith without works
is dead."
     Here are some steps I took and several cherished
experiences, which helped me to pat myself on the back and gain
important self-confidence:
1.   I left my sleepshade on. Yes there were times when I was
     annoyed by it, but I recognized that it was a necessary tool
     for me in achieving mastery of the alternative skills of
     blindness.
2.   In Life Skills class, Pam Iverson motivated me to do Braille
     labeling at home and to keep a Braille check register. This
     was helpful to Trudy, too. I also started using a reader.
     (This was a struggle for me because I preferred taking a
     long time eyeballing my mail with my limited vision.) Now I
     use readers extensively and wouldn't be without them.
3.   Russell Anderson taught me how to travel with greater
     confidence. I learned that I needed to trust my own
     perceptions while traveling and not my doubts. Jennifer
     Dunnam also taught travel, and one day we had to run to make
     a bus connection. When I (wearing my sleepshade) caught up
     with her, I told her I amazed myself by being able to do it.
     Then I added, "I don't know why I thought my sprint was so
     great, when you do it all the time as a totally blind
     person." We had a good laugh.
4.   Betty Bishman gave me opportunities in Home Management class
     to learn how and why alternative techniques were used to
     accomplish daily tasks at home.
5.   I had had some experience with speech software using IBM
     computers. Sharon Duffy taught me, not only more word
     processing techniques, but also that it was more efficient
     to rely totally on the speech program. I no longer needed to
     put my nose against the screen to double check what it said.
6.   Before I entered training, I remember reading a Braille
     Monitor article by Jerry Whittle, who teaches Braille at the
     Louisiana Center for the Blind. His advice was to set a page
     goal to read every day and be sure to meet that goal. The
     idea was to increase one's speed; I took that goal to heart.
     Kathy Burnside encouraged me in making that goal and taught
     me slate skills. I also learned that reading can be fun. I
     used to strain to read large print. I used tapes, but there
     are times when it is handier and more enjoyable to sit back
     with the actual written word--print or Braille. When the
     Minnesota chill abated enough, I would read while waiting
     for the bus. Once I took my book with me and continued
     reading while having my teeth filled at the dentist's
     office.
7.   In Careers class Dan Harman taught me how important good
     blindness skills are in getting and keeping a job. Viewing
     ourselves as equals and acting that way was expected.
8.   In Seminar Joyce Scanlan, Director of BLIND, Inc., shared
     with me lessons she had learned about blindness. Sharing
     experiences with other students while Joyce guided us to
     evaluate them was of great benefit.
9.   My favorite field trips included our three-day trip to the
     Amana Colonies in Iowa. When President and Mrs. Maurer
     visited BLIND, Inc., in February, they joined us snow
     tubing. Mr. Maurer treated us to hot chocolate after the
     hills, thrills, and spills. And in May I went rock climbing.
     As a kid I always liked Spider Man. Now I was the wall
     crawler wearing the sleepshade mask. It felt super reaching
     the top.
10.  I took time out of training for a month to help with BLIND's
     summer Buddy Program. It boosted my confidence further (this
     was six months into training) to share my newly acquired
     skills with several eight- to twelve-year-olds.
     I graduated from BLIND, Inc., in August, 1994. I count the
experience as one of my best ever. I thank the good Lord for His
blessings--my wife and daughter's support and the encouragement
of BLIND, Inc., staff and students for making my experience
fulfilling and applicable to my future. But I earned it. I
learned to shrug off the bad travel days, tough computer classes,
and interesting home management results as steady steps toward
freedom. I had faith in my Federation philosophy coupled with my
personal commitment to get there. I have made a pact with myself
to keep using those skills daily.
     If you believe that you need this crucial training, take an
honest, hard look at yourself. Embark on your own ascent toward a
more capable, confident you.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Barbara Pierce]
                WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?
                        by Barbara Pierce

     From the Editor: The following address was delivered at the
Americans with Disabilities Act Preconference Seminar of the
American Library Association, June 24, 1993. I was asked to
keynote the daylong seminar. The presentations were gathered in a
publication Library Buildings, Equipment, & the ADA: Compliance
Issues and Solutions, edited by Susan E. Cirillo and Robert E.
Danford. It has just appeared in print. Events like this seminar
give us an excellent opportunity to spread our philosophy and
educate the public about the normality of blind people. Here is
the text of my remarks:

     Before I begin my prepared remarks about achieving
compliance with the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities
Act, I would like to call your attention to a little-known
section of the ADA, which sometimes looms very large for people
with disabilities. It is Section 501 D. (I remember it as the 501
Don't Make Me Do It section.) It appears in Title V,
Construction, and the heading is Accommodations and Services. The
text reads: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require an
individual with a disability to accept an accommodation, aid,
service, opportunity, or benefit which such individual chooses
not to accept." In other words, disabled people are protected
from having to use modifications they find unnecessary or
inappropriate. It does not mean that a blind person can refuse to
use a cassette recording of an informational brochure, while
continuing to demand a Braille one, but, if, for example, a
library has designated a room for blind patrons to use with
readers, it does protect their right to read silently in the
regular reading room if they wish, and it certainly protects a
deaf patron from being forced to use the separate room.
     Such a provision may seem self-evident, but I assure you
that already disabled people have found themselves in disputes
about whether or not they can be forced by providers to use
modifications and programs that they do not need or want. I
believe that it is important to keep this provision of the ADA in
mind as we turn to an examination of what impact the Act will
have on you and the library patrons you serve.
     I remember vividly the tiny public library that served the
small Pittsburgh suburb in which I grew up. One climbed a
rickety, narrow staircase to reach it--no one who used a
wheelchair could have gained entrance, since an elevator had
never been contemplated. As I remember the facility, there could
not have been any more than three or four rooms of books, and the
children's collection must have been quite inadequate. But my
elementary school library was only one very small room, and, in
addition to the good books, it housed lots of encyclopedias,
dictionaries, and other boring resource books; so the much larger
public library was infinitely more enchanting. The librarian sat
at the desk, where all the library cards were filed, checked
books out and in, and by her own stern decorum maintained the
almost absolute silence required of everyone who dared to pass
through those magical doors.
     I should explain that while I was in elementary school my
vision was rapidly deteriorating. I had had no difficulty reading
the first grade primers, but as the print shrank in size and the
pictures shrank in number, I found the physical act of reading
more and more difficult and less and less pleasurable. But that
did not diminish my enthusiasm for good stories. My parents
continued to read to me, and sometimes I could even cajole my
younger brother Bobby into galloping through a chapter or two of
a book, if it wasn't too full of girls.
     In any case, trips to the library were eagerly anticipated
and carefully planned in our family because Mother had to take us
by car. She almost always came in with us to help in book
selection, guiding our choices as much as her prudence and our
willfulness would allow. But one fateful week my brother was
sick, and my mother had to stop at the drugstore to fill a
prescription for him before she came up to help me choose a book
for myself and several for Bobby, who was climbing the walls of
his room with boredom.
     Mother had questioned me closely about whether I felt secure
going into the library alone to begin choosing books. I had no
doubt about my ability to see the large titles on the book
spines, and I had been in the children's room so often before
that the idea of having trouble never crossed my mind. But, as I
realize now, in the past I had always been there with my brother
or mother, and the librarian had not felt any responsibility for
me or concern about her collection while I was handling the
books. As I entered the outermost room, which contained her desk,
she was dealing with another patron, so I passed unaccosted into
the children's room.
     It seemed to me that those shelves of books reached almost
to the sky. I was sure there were more books collected in that
place than I could ever manage to read, and I pined to consume
them all--even the ones about cowboys or knot-tying. Looking
back, I'm not sure what the attraction was. The ones I liked best
had such small print and so few pictures that I could not
possibly have read them, but I could enjoy the brightly colored
illustrations. As I riffled through their pages, pretending to
read a line or paragraph here and there, the feel and smell of
the books were positively intoxicating. I don't know how long I
would have been content to browse along the library shelves,
picking up a book, deciphering its title, glancing through it at
the pictures, and conscientiously putting it back in the gap
where it belonged.
     I had never noticed how poor the lighting actually was,
because always before Mother had been there to read titles and
tables of contents. Now I was struggling to read the titles for
myself, but I knew she would arrive soon, and I was still having
a fine time and feeling very grown up.
     Then the librarian finished with the people at her desk, and
she bore down on me with speed and unmistakable displeasure, even
though I hadn't been making a sound and was returning the books
to their exact places. With great indignation and no regard for
the silence that was (according to the sign over her desk) to be
maintained at all times, she demanded of me, "What do you think
you are doing?"
     Mercifully time and mortification have blotted out the rest
of that painful scene. My mother must have rescued me from the
lecture that followed her indignant question, and we surely
returned home with a supply of books, but I am absolutely certain
that I never set foot in that library again. With that one
question the librarian had taught me several painful lessons:
One, I was not welcome in her library or to handle her books
unless my mother or little brother was there with me. Two,
Holding the books close to my face in order to read their titles
was somehow inappropriate. And three, my unchaperoned presence in
the library was such an appalling interruption of decorum that
the librarian had actually been driven to raise her voice. If
other patrons had been in the library--which thank Heaven they
were not or my humiliation would have been even more shatteringly
complete--they would have heard her accusations of me. For
accusations they were. To have been asked the question, "What are
you doing?" would have been bad enough because it would have
implied the shameful suspicion that I had been doing something
detrimental to a book or to the library, which would never have
occurred to me. But instead I was asked, "What do you think you
are doing?" The implication was clear--in her eyes I was not
actually engaged in the same activity that occupied other patrons
of the library. I was pretending; these books were not for me; I
did not belong.
     Did that poor librarian intend to communicate all this to a
small girl who was in love with books but who could no longer
read their print for herself? Probably not. She was undoubtedly
uneasy at my independent appearance in her preserve and felt that
she should do something, though she was not sure what. Perhaps
she really was fearful that I would reshelve the books
incorrectly, but, if so, I would not have been the first or last
patron to do so. She clearly did not know what to do, and in her
discomfort she chose an unfortunate way of articulating her
willingness to help. That is the kindest construction I can place
on her approach and on her question. If I am honest, however, I
must admit that I am convinced there was an admixture of feeling
on her part that I did not belong there--at least not without a
keeper.
     This incident took place more than thirty years ago, and
much in our society has changed during the intervening years.
With varying degrees of success we have come to recognize that
community resources must be accessible to members of minority as
well as majority groups. People with disabilities are only the
most recent minority to win this recognition of our rights, but
complete access for us has been complicated by the presence of
actual physical barriers that often prevent it. If the parking is
too distant, the door too heavy or too narrow, the stairs
unramped, or the counter too high, actual physical access is
truly and effectively denied to some people with disabilities.
These obvious physical barriers are simultaneously the most
difficult and easiest access problems to solve. Difficult because
solving them can be expensive, and persuading cost-conscious
managers to spend money is hard these days. But easiest because
it is only one thing--money--that is at stake. When the
appropriate modifications are made, one kind of access, genuine
and measurable, has been achieved.

     However, the most fundamental, insidious barriers to full
participation in community life for people with disabilities are
the poor attitudes about disability held by most members of the
general public, including some who are disabled themselves. The
bad news is that attitudes based on ignorance and misconception
and shaped by fear and pity are widespread, almost ubiquitous in
society today. The good news is that, when it is possible to
change these attitudes through education and exposure to
sensible, competent people with disabilities, many of the access
problems that seem to loom large shrink substantially or
evaporate altogether.
     The recently enacted civil rights legislation protecting
disabled people and its implementing regulations are the subject
of much discussion everywhere these days. I expect that much of
the remainder of today's seminar will be spent in examining the
issues raised by both the law and its regulations. But right now
I wish to invite you to consider with me some ways in which
attitudinal barriers, which keep disabled people out every bit as
thoroughly as physical ones, can be dismantled and carted away.
The first step, it seems to me, is for those who are trying to
change attitudes in themselves and others to begin gathering
accurate information. We in the disability community constantly
live with and struggle to resist the presumptions of others. I
had never considered the point before, but I suppose I should
give some credit to that librarian in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania,
for bothering to ask me a question at all. Many people do not.
She did not, of course, expect or wait for an answer. In fact,
too frequently people presume either that disabled people have no
idea what we are doing or that we think we are doing something
other than what we are actually doing.
     One of my favorite examples of this phenomenon has occurred
repeatedly to me as I walk down the street. I live in a small
town in which it is possible to walk most places I wish to go. In
fact, for years I walked to work at Oberlin College every day and
popped out of my office to other places on campus for meetings
and events. There is nothing tentative about the way I travel
when I am walking somewhere on a schedule. Yet frequently drivers
pull up alongside me and, keeping pace, roll down a window to
inquire, "Where are you trying to go?" Even the question, "Where
are you going?" would be an intrusion on the privacy of another
adult, which perfect strangers would not perpetrate against any
but a blind traveler. Why does the driver presume that the
outcome of my trip is in doubt? Why should this information or my
plans be his or her business at all? If I were hovering around a
corner in obvious hesitation, looking puzzled or distressed, it
would be both kind and appropriate for a stranger to inquire
whether help or information would be useful. But people see what
they expect to see, and, if a pedestrian is using a long white
cane, in the public mind he or she is necessarily in need of
rescue.
     That is an example of the sort of difficulty that arises for
disabled people when a person acts on a presumption which is in
turn based on ignorance and misconception. We are all capable of
making such mistakes and should guard against them, or at least
against acting on them, by seeking accurate information and
drawing sensible conclusions from the available data.
     Now let us turn to the actual question of achieving access
for library patrons who happen to have disabilities. Instead of
asking them the question, "What do you think you are doing?" I
suggest that you ask this question of yourself. Are you
attempting merely to comply with federal regulations? If so, your
job is at least clear-cut. There are rules to follow and
specifications to meet. Once you have done that, your job is
complete. You will be safe from lawsuits, but don't be surprised
if your facility does not attract many of the people for whom the
modifications were made, for they will soon discover that, though
the physical barriers are gone, the attitudinal ones are intact.
     But if, as I hope and believe, your true goal is to make
disabled people genuinely welcome in your library, your efforts
to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act will not stop
with removing the physical barriers. A broader vision of equal
access is what advocates of the ADA had in mind when they worked
for its passage. And where better, more appropriate for this
broader concept to take root than in the nation's libraries?
Libraries are still the jumping-off point for people with hopes
and dreams, the repositories of our understanding of freedom and
justice. And who better to set the equal-access agenda in the
months and years ahead than librarians, the keepers of that
flame?
     The physical requirements of the ADA can be learned and
implemented, but beneath or perhaps beyond the regulations lie
common sense and good will, the intention to achieve equality.
Whether we look back on this decade and admit that institutions
of various kinds settled for complying with the letter of the
Americans with Disabilities Act or say with pride that they
embraced its spirit will depend on people like you.
     Obviously I hope that people in positions of responsibility
will take this opportunity to encourage a change in attitude:
their own, their colleagues', the public's, and that of disabled
people. A good place to begin is to help library staff members
become more comfortable in the presence of people with
disabilities. You might invite people in your community who have
disabilities of various kinds to form an advisory committee,
temporary or permanent, depending on the complexity of your
program. Bring them and the staff together to discuss
constructive modifications, changes that members of the disabled
community recognize as important or necessary and that are
possible to undertake. Committee members can also do inservice
training for library staff members. Many of the things your
colleagues do not know are painfully obvious to would-be patrons
with disabilities:
     A person seated in a wheelchair cannot conveniently
     check out a book at a high desk. But the desk doesn't
     have to be replaced immediately; just place a table and
     chair beside it so the staff member on duty can sit
     down and be at the same level as the seated patron.
     Because there are many degrees of vision loss, patrons
     may well be capable of using the large-print collection
     and certainly can use the commercially recorded
     cassette book and music collections without being able
     to spot and read library signs, even the large-print
     ones now mandated by the ADA. Their inquiries should
     not be responded to with vague gestures or directions
     like "Over there behind the woman in the green
     sweater." Learning to give helpful directions takes a
     little practice, but it is not hard once staff members
     get over the panic of realizing that the person facing
     them cannot necessarily see the usual landmarks.
     No one in the disability community expects people to know
instinctively what is appropriate, even necessary. We are well
used to articulating our requirements and preferences. There are
as many differences among us and our abilities as there are in
any other cross section of society. We do not expect you and your
staff to read minds, but it would be very helpful if you could
persuade library personnel to ask questions when they are not
certain what to do. Actually, that part is not particularly
difficult; it's the second step that's tough--getting them to
listen to the answers and be guided by them. It is frustrating
(and embarrassing to both parties) to ask for directions to a
public telephone and in response be dragged to the ladies' room.
     Ideally the aim should be to treat disabled adults as adults
until and unless by their behavior they indicate that more
custodial treatment is appropriate. If a person using a white
cane enters your library and asks for directions to the reference
desk, simply provide the information requested. That's what you
would do for a sighted patron. If the person seems uncertain and
if you or someone else is free to do so, you might offer to
accompany him or her. But if the person says that the
instructions are clear and starts in the correct direction, you
should not insist on walking along or following to see that
nothing happens. There is no reason to call the reference desk to
warn your colleague to watch for a blind person. I can assure you
that there are few things more unnerving than trying to follow a
set of directions while someone is trailing along behind, gasping
every time the long cane touches an object, and grabbing at one's
arm or waist every time the observer fears that something may go
wrong.
     By the same token, you should not put up with behavior from
a disabled patron that you would find unacceptable from an able-
bodied one. Let me be clear. Under some circumstances
modifications of library policy should be worked out if possible
in order to make a particular collection available to a disabled
patron. For example, a blind person with a reader will
necessarily make a little noise in reading material that must be
used in the building. It would be considerate to everyone to
assign the pair a distant corner or small room for reading.
Likewise, it may be necessary to rearrange the chairs at a table
in order for a person who uses a wheelchair to work there in
comfort. But it is not reasonable for a blind patron to expect
that a librarian can stop his or her assigned tasks to provide
expended reading services. The test is, how much time would the
librarian spend assisting another patron who needed help?
     It is reasonable and appropriate to refuse to provide some
kinds of assistance even when the refusal results in
inconvenience to the disabled person. No one gains anything in
the long run if people with disabilities are encouraged to take
advantage of other people's good will or sense of pity simply
because of a disability. Assistance-dog users, for example,
should be required to keep their animals close to them and under
control. Dogs should not be allowed to sprawl in the aisle,
forcing other patrons to step over or around them. It is also
inappropriate for dog users to ask others to take their dogs
outdoors to a relief area.
     It is easy for me to stand here and tell you that there are
times when it's appropriate for your staff to bend established
rules and times when it isn't necessary to do so. But people find
it hard to distinguish between such situations unless they have
the opportunity to discuss these matters with sensible disabled
people.
     So I come back to the concept of the advisory committee. Not
only will you begin to understand the difference between
appropriate services resulting from an effort to provide
reasonable accommodation and those being requested by disabled
people who have done poor planning or who are simply self-
indulgent, but you will also find yourself with an excellent
conduit for spreading the word among disabled people that the
library staff are genuinely trying to make all patrons feel
welcome to use this community resource. All this will take time.
We have been kept down and out for a lot of years. The message
that we were not welcome was clearly given and just as clearly
received. Habits of thought and patterns of action take time to
change.
     What do you think you are doing? If you are making room for
everyone in your community who wants to use the library,
regardless of disability, you can succeed. It will require
everyone, staff and patrons alike, to change some attitudes.
Broadening horizons and expanding awareness always require such
adjustments. But surely the results are worth the effort.


[PHOTO: There are two pictures with this story. The first is a sign reading
"Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament." The second shows eight knights on
horseback. The horses are fully caparisoned, with richly decorated cloth that
matches the standards which the knights are holding. The knights, who are
wearing chain mail and helmets with feathers streaming from them, are holding
shields bearing the same insignia as their clothing and the standards.
CAPTION: The knights at Medieval Times in full regalia]
                      NFB CONVENTION TOURS
                          ANAHEIM 1996
                         by Jim Willows

     From the Editor: Jim Willows is President of the National
Federation of the Blind of California. In this article he
provides you with the information you will need to make your
plans for tours during the convention. Please note that the
deadline for making these arrangements is May 3, and orders will
be filled on a first-come-first-served basis. No tour tickets
will be for sale at the convention unless there happen to be
unfilled seats still available, so read the following information
carefully and make your plans now. Here is what Jim has to say:

     We believe we have tours to suit all tastes, tours that will
show off the fun and beauty of Southern California. And, thanks
to our friends at Singer Travel of Baltimore, we can provide
these tours at very reasonable rates.
     The first three tours listed (Knott's Berry Farm; Universal
Studios Hollywood; and the Los Angeles City Tour and the Homes of
the Stars) will take place on Wednesday afternoon, July 3, 1996.
     The next two tours (the Medieval Times and Los Angeles and
Hollywood by Night) will occur Wednesday night, July 3, 1996.
     The final tour, to Catalina Island, will complete your
convention on a delightful note. Plan to stay over an extra day
or two to enjoy this tour on Saturday, July 6, 1996.

Knott's Berry Farm
     Price includes transportation to and from our hotel, $32,
adult; $22, child (three to eleven); and $19, senior citizen
(sixty-five and up). The tour leaves the hotel around 1:00 p.m.
with various return times.
     The nation's first and most popular independently-owned
entertainment park, Knott's is 150 beautifully landscaped acres
of fun for the entire family with authenticity as the hallmark.
All of the theme areas share the same vital ingredient--the
opportunity to enjoy and experience the history, heritage, and
culture of an era. Experience the Old West in the very alive
Ghost Town or the high energy excitement of Fiesta Village. Enjoy
the magic of a visit to the fun of the 1900's recreated in the
Roaring 20's area. Enjoy the magic of a visit with the Peanuts
gang in Camp Snoopy. Go back to the turn-of-the-century
California wilderness in the Wild Water Wilderness area.
Celebrate the arts, cultures, and traditions of Native Americans
in the newest theme area, Indian Trails. Knott's also offers live
entertainment, one-of-a-kind shops, and world-famous food.

Universal Studios Hollywood:
     Price includes transportation to and from our hotel: $53,
adult; $40, child (three to eleven). The tour leaves the hotel
around 1:00 p.m.; we will try to work out varied return times.
     Universal Studios Hollywood, the world's first motion
picture and television-themed attraction, is the original behind
-the-scene look at the film and TV industry.
     During nearly thirty years Universal Studios Hollywood has
become the master of presenting movies three-dimensionally and
has brought over seventy-five million guests onto the famed
Universal lot, where some of history's greatest motion pictures
and television shows were produced and continue to be filmed.
     With such highlights as "Back to the Future," "The E.T.
Adventure," "King Kong," "Earthquake--The Big One," "A Tribute to
Lucy," "The Star Trek Adventure," and "The Wild, Wild, Wild West
Stunt Show," Universal Studios Hollywood is located in Universal
City, the only city dedicated to the art of motion pictures.
Universal Studios Hollywood is the biggest and busiest movie and
television studio in the world.

Los Angeles City Tour and Stars' Homes:
     Price includes transportation to and from our hotel: $36,
adult; $28, child (three to eleven). The tour lasts approximately
four hours. It includes Sunset Strip with stops at the famous
Chinese Theater and Hollywood Bowl. In Beverly Hills and Bel Air
you will see the dazzling homes of the stars. Experience the
glamour of Rodeo Drive and stop to browse in its shops. Also
included is a drive through the world-renowned UCLA campus and
Westwood Village and a stop at Farmer's Market.

     The following two tours will take place on Wednesday
evening, July 3, 1996.

Medieval Times:
     Price includes transportation to and from the hotel: $37,
adult; $26, child (three to eleven). The tour lasts approximately
three-and-a-half hours.
     Medieval Times combines the fun of a sporting event with the
enjoyment of a gourmand, if not of a gourmet. We will sit around
a large arena watching knights jousting on horseback and
participating in other medieval tournament events while we feast
in the medieval style, digging into the food by the handful.
     We will sit in one of the six sections, each identified by a
color, and cheer for the knight wearing our color. This might be
more fun than rooting for the Dallas Cowboys.
     Medieval Times is located just a few minutes from the hotel,
so you can take this tour and still get back to enjoy Casino
Night at the Hilton.

Los Angeles/Hollywood by Night:
     Price includes transportation to and from the hotel: $35,
adult; $28, child (three to eleven). The tour lasts approximately
six hours.
     During your visit to Anaheim, be sure to tour Los Angeles.
After dark, Los Angeles truly comes to life. Share in the
excitement of downtown and the Music Center. Atop the Griffith
Park Observatory explore the exhibits of our universe and the
breathtaking lights of the sprawling city. Sample the neon night
life as you cruise along Hollywood Boulevard and the Sunset
Strip, stopping at the legendary Chinese Theater. Glamour and
style await you in the chic setting of Beverly Hills and the
exclusive shops of Rodeo Drive. Next door awaits Century City, a
space-age high rise development of famous hotels and
entertainment centers.
     The last tour occurs on Saturday, July 6, 1996. Don't miss
it.

Catalina Island:
     Price includes transportation to and from the hotel: $59,
adult; $47, child (three to eleven). The tour lasts approximately
ten hours. Take a quick trip across the blue Pacific to arrive in
an island paradise. Enjoy the first-class service aboard the
newest vessels of the Catalina Express. Catalina, a sun-drenched
island, is a few miles off the coast of Southern California and
beckons visitors with its sandy beaches and the variety of its
wildlife.
     You are on your own to discover the charm of Catalina.
Explore the wonders of undersea life in modern glass bottom
boats; tour the city botanical garden. Choose from a variety of
shopping and dining opportunities, and visit the Wrigley
Memorial.
     We must have your tour ticket orders in hand by May 3, 1996.
Ticket orders will be filled in strict first-come-first-served
sequence. To order by mail, send your check or money order
immediately to Singer Travel, NFB Convention Tours, St. Thomas
Shopping Center, 9944 Reisterstown Road, Owings Mills, Maryland
21117. Include in your order your name, address, daytime
telephone number, name of tour or tours, and number of tickets
for each tour. Payment in full must be included for all tour
tickets. No orders will be taken by telephone.
     You must order your tour tickets in advance. Additional
tickets will be available at convention only if last-minute
cancellations have made space available. Tickets sold in Anaheim
will almost certainly be more expensive than the prices listed
here.
     NFB of California members look forward to seeing you at our
1996 NFB Convention in Anaheim. We know you will enjoy these
tours.
     We have another event planned for the first Saturday evening
of the convention, June 29, 1996. This is "Saturday Night at
Disneyland." We will get group-rate tickets for Disneyland. This
ticket admits you to the park and is good for all rides and
events.
     Details of this exciting opportunity will appear in the
April issue of the Braille Monitor. At this writing Disneyland
has not yet set its summer group rates, but these rates have
always been at least 30 percent below the regular admission
price. So get ready for fun in Southern California at the most
interesting and exciting gathering of blind people to take place
in 1996--the fifty-sixth annual convention of the National
Federation of the Blind.


                             RECIPES

     This month's recipes were submitted by members of the NFB of
Rhode Island.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Richard Gaffney]
                   RHODE ISLAND QUAHOG CHOWDER
                       by Richard Gaffney

     Our first recipe is a favorite of most Rhode Islanders,
especially the family of our former President Richard Gaffney. It
was handed down from his mother. Since Richard comes from a large
family, this recipe will feed twenty people, so plan accordingly.
Quahog (pronounced "co-hog") is a term handed down to us by
native Americans from this area. In most places it is called a
hard-shell clam.

Ingredients:
1 quart minced quahogs
10 pounds potatoes (peeled and diced)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cans tomato soup

     Method: In large pan combine quahogs with their juice,
potatoes, and onion. Cover with water. Cook on high until mixture
boils. Stir occasionally. Add tomato soup. Cook over medium heat
until soup comes to a boil again and reaches desired thickness.


                       ZUCCHINI CASSEROLE
                        by Ruth McGarrity

     Originally this recipe came from our former Vice President,
the late Ruth McGarrity. She served it at a picnic several years
ago and then passed it on so many other members and their
families could enjoy it.

Ingredients:
3 cups zucchini, cubed
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup Bisquick
1/2 cup salad oil

     Method: Place all ingredients except eggs and oil in greased
casserole. In another bowl beat eggs and oil and pour over
zucchini mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.


                     BEAN AND RICE CASSEROLE
                        by Mary Jane Fry

     This recipe was submitted by Mary Jane Fry, our recording
secretary. She says this recipe is a great substitute for meat.
It has lots of protein and is good with either soup or a salad.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or 1 can stewed tomatoes)
1 green pepper, finely chopped
2 cups cooked or canned kidney beans
1 cup long-grain rice
2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

     Method: In a heavy casserole, saute the onion and garlic in
the oil until soft and transparent. Add tomatoes and green
peppers and then cook and stir until mixture thickens. Add beans,
rice, water, salt, and pepper. Stir occasionally, then cover and
let simmer for twenty minutes till rice is cooked and all the
water is absorbed. Rice should be fluffy and dry. Serves four.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Kenneth Brackett]
                              BREAD
                       by Kenneth Brackett

     Kenneth Brackett is a long-time member of the NFB of Rhode
Island. He has served as President as well as in other positions
through the past twenty-five years. Another passion of Ken's is
cooking, as you will see in the following.

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
2 tablespoons shortening (may use margarine or butter)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

     Method: In a large bowl dissolve yeast in warm water, add
shortening, sugar, salt, and 2 cups flour. Blend well, adding the
remaining flour a little at a time while scraping the bowl. Let
it rise for about thirty minutes, punch down, and place in a
bread pan. Let it rise again for about forty minutes or until
double in size. Bake at 375 degrees for about forty-five minutes
or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped.


                           CARROT CAKE
                       by Kenneth Brackett

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 cup salad oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups carrots, shredded and lightly packed
1 8-ounce can crushed pineapple
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

     Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and dust with
flour a 9 by 13-inch pan. In a medium bowl stir together sugar
and oil. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla, flour,
baking powder, cinnamon, and baking soda. Add carrots, pineapple,
and nuts. Stir batter only enough to blend. Pour into prepared
pan. Bake for forty-five minutes or until wooden pick inserted in
center comes out clean.


                   GERMAN SWEET CHOCOLATE CAKE
                        by Jean Humphries

     Jean Humphries is the aunt of Barry Humphries, the affiliate
president. Barry says that he and his family have enjoyed this
delicious cake on numerous occasions.

Ingredients:
4 ounces Baker's German sweet chocolate
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
4 egg whites, stiffly beaten

     Method: Melt chocolate in boiling water. Cool. Cream butter
and sugar until fluffy. Add yolks one at a time, beating well
after each. Blend in vanilla and chocolate. Sift together flour,
soda, and salt. Add alternately with buttermilk to the chocolate
mixture, beating after each addition until smooth. Fold in beaten
egg whites. Pour into 3 8- or 9-inch layer cake pans, lined on
bottom with greased and floured wax paper. Bake at 350 degrees
for thirty to forty minutes. Cool before frosting.


                     COCONUT PECAN FROSTING

Ingredients:
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
3 slightly beaten egg yolks
1/2 cups butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups Baker's Angel flake coconut
1 cup pecans, chopped

     Method: Combine evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter,
and vanilla. Stir mixture to blend well. Cook stirring over
medium heat until frosting thickens (about twelve minutes). Add
1 cups Baker's Angel flake coconut (if desired) and 1 cup
chopped pecans. Cool until frosting is thick enough to spread.
Beat occasionally. Makes two and a half cups.


                 ** ** MONITOR MINIATURES ** **

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Joanne Wilson]
** Joanne Wilson Honored:
     The following brief notice appeared in the Fall, 1995, Path
Finder, the publication of the National Federation of the Blind
of Louisiana:
     Joanne Wilson, Director of the Louisiana Center for the
Blind and President of the National Federation of the Blind of
Louisiana, was presented with the prestigious Distinguished
Service Award in Rehabilitation at the South Central Regional
meeting of the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation
of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER).
     Citing Ms. Wilson's numerous accomplishments in the field of
rehabilitation, including initiating and developing innovative
training programs for both blind adults and children, AER
recognized her many years of tireless service to the nation's
blind by honoring her at the South Central meeting in Memphis,
Tennessee, on October 7, 1995.
     Martha Simmons, winner of the 1994 NFB of Louisiana
Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, was on hand to accept the
award for Ms. Wilson, who was unable to attend the meeting
because of previous commitments elsewhere. "She certainly
deserves this award. No one has worked any harder than Joanne to
improve rehabilitation services in Louisiana, and her work has
affected blind persons from all over the country," Ms. Simmons
said.
     Congratulations to Joanne Wilson.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Colorado Trakker Jumbo-350 external tape backup system for
sale. Connects to your computer through the parallel port. Has a
pass-through port feature for printer connection. Transfer rate
is 5 to 8 megabytes per minute. Capacity is 350 megabytes per
tape cartridge. Software works well with all speech programs.
Comes with power adaptor, connection cable, and three tape
cartridges. Asking $350. I am willing to trade for Perkins
Brailler in fine condition. Payment plan is negotiable for a cash
sale. Also available, original DOS Version 6.3 with manuals still
in the box. Asking $25.
     Interested in earning some extra cash? I am looking to
purchase some Perkins Braille Writers. Look deep into those
hidden places. If you have a Perkins Brailler that you would like
to sell (working, non-working, some parts, or all together),
contact Nino Pacini (evenings and weekends only) at (303) 885-
7330.

** Airfare Discounts Available for the National Convention:
     We have made arrangements through Singer Travel--that is,
reservations must be made with Singer--for a 5 percent discount
off the lowest available air fare at the time the reservation is
made on American or United Airlines. This discount applies for
travel to both Los Angeles International Airport (thirty-one
miles from Anaheim) and John Wayne Orange County Airport (sixteen
miles from Anaheim). Our discount fare is available for travel
originating in the contiguous forty-eight states, Hawaii, Puerto
Rico, and Canada. To make reservations through Singer Travel,
Owings Mills, Maryland, call (410) 363-3039 or (800) 248-3928. To
qualify for the discount, identify your travel as for the NFB
Convention.

** Elected:
     The Pompano Beach Chapter of the National Federation of the
Blind of Florida held its election on November 11, 1995. The
following officers were elected: Thomas P. Ryan, President;
Denise Shaible, Vice President; Adam Shaible, Secretary; and
Deborah A. Ryan, Treasurer. Shirley Smart, Eileen Brown, and Joe
Davis are the new Board members. Past President Ronald L. Burns
and his wife Audrey, long-time Federationists, have moved to
Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they expect to remain active in that NFB
affiliate.

** Braille Transcription Services Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Do you need something put into Braille for your group,
business, agency, professional organization, or personal use?
Contact Maureen Pranghofer at Hidden Gifts. Maureen has all the
necessary technology to provide quick, high-quality Braille
transcription. Cost is $10 per hour. For more information contact
Hidden Gifts, 4910 Dawnview Terrace, Golden Valley, Minnesota
55422, (612) 522-2501 for all your Braille-transcription needs.

FOR SALE:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale a Kurzweil Personal Reader, Model 7315, with
latest upgrade, all manuals, hand scanner, and automatic scanner.
Depending on location and schedule of buyer, may be possible to
provide installation and training. Price--$2,500. Contact Harold
Snider at (301) 460-4142.

** Deaf-Blind Census in Illinois:
     Steve Benson, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Illinois, recently provided us with the following
information:
     Springfield, Illinois, November 14, 1995--The Illinois
Department of Rehabilitation Services (DORS) today released the
Illinois' 1995 Deaf-Blind Census Report, which lists the total
number of Illinoisans who are deaf-blind at 5,624. This total
reflects a 300 percent increase in that population's count from
the 1990 census. The new census, conducted earlier this year with
assistive identification efforts, identified an additional 3,756
people who are deaf-blind, with ages ranging from younger than
one year to 111 years old. The 1990 count identified 1,868 people
who are deaf-blind. "We knew in 1990 that the census count was
low," said Audrey McCrimon, DORS Director. "By coordinating
several state agencies as well as private-sector service
providers, especially nursing homes, we implemented the most
thorough deaf-blind census to date."
     Chuck Murphy, Chairman of the Interagency Agreement
Committee (IAC), which conducted the survey, said, "I am very
pleased that all of IAC's hard work has more than paid off. It is
important that Illinois continue to work on maintaining an even
more accurate census of the true number of our fellow citizens
with a hearing and vision impairment."
     The IAC 1995 Deaf-Blind Census also found:
 62 percent of the deaf-blind population (2,562 people) is age
     sixty or older.
 79 percent of people who are deaf-blind and age sixty or over
     live in nursing homes.
 18 percent of the state's total deaf-blind population lives in
     Cook County.
 51 percent of people who are deaf-blind between the ages of
     twenty-two and fifty-nine live at home.
 There are 135 infants (birth to three years) who are deaf-
     blind.
 There are 591 school-age children who are deaf-blind.
 Between ages twenty-one and sixty, there are 977 persons who
     are deaf-blind.
 2.8 percent of the deaf-blind population is being served by
     more than one agency.
(Some respondents did not report age or county of residence.)
     Members of the IAC include representatives of DORS, the
Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities
(DMHDD), Department on Aging (DOA), Department of Children and
Family Services (DCFS), Department of Public Health (DPH),
Department of Public Aid (DPA), Illinois State Board of Education
(ISBE), Philip J. Rock Center (PRC), and Division of Specialized
Care for Children (DSCC).
     Deaf-blindness is defined as a combination of hearing and
vision loss that significantly affects a person's daily
activities.
     The census report is available by contacting the Illinois
Department of Rehabilitation Services (DORS), 623 East Adams,
Springfield, Illinois 62794-9429, or by calling (217) 785-9304
(V/TTY).

** Elected:
     On Saturday, September 23, 1995, the Milwaukee Chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin held its annual
election. The newly elected officers are Vern Lind, President;
William Meeker, Vice President; Sheila Koenig, Secretary; and
Cheryl Orgas, Treasurer. New Board members are Mike Hall and
JoAnn Braun.

** In Memoriam:
     Jim Willows, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of California, has written with sorrow to report the death
of Lynn Brooks, a loyal and active California Federationist for
many years. Lynn died of cancer on December 20, 1995, after
battling the disease for many months. He continued teaching until
just a few weeks before his death, and he presided at our Napa
Valley Chapter meeting in late November. Lynn was a real fighter
for our cause.
     Lynn was a founding member of the Napa Valley Chapter of the
NFB of California. He served as President of that chapter off and
on for the past thirty years. Lynn and his wife Gwen rarely
missed either a state or national convention. In addition to his
state and local activities, he was active for many years in the
National Association of Blind Educators. Lynn Brooks taught
several subjects for more than thirty years at Napa Valley High
School. He was also the school wrestling coach for the last
fifteen years of his life. In addition, he taught at his local
community college. Lynn Brooks will be sorely missed by all of
those who knew him.

** Order Forms Available:
     Did you know that the NFB Materials Center at the National
Center for the Blind offers a variety of order forms? The
descriptive aids and appliances order form is a list of over 200
aids. Items include white canes, slates, paper, Braille watches,
talking clocks, medical and diabetic devices, and games. This
catalog is available in both large print and Braille. The
literature and materials catalog (also in large print and
Braille) includes more than 800 articles, available free in
various formats, on various blindness-related topics. All of our
books, videos, and souvenir items are included as well. We also
have several specialized order forms: Selected Literature for
Blind Youth, Braille Storybook Resources, Magazine Order Form,
and That the Blind May Read video order form. Selected Literature
for Blind Youth is a list of articles that have special appeal to
blind youth, teachers, and parents. Braille Storybook Resources
is a list, updated annually, for sources of storybooks in
Braille. The Magazine Order Form is a flyer which describes all
of the publications available from the National Federation of the
Blind and the formats offered. It includes a subscription form.
Finally, the order form for That the Blind May Read is a
description of this excellent Braille literacy video and a clip-
off order form. There is no charge for any of these publications.
You may order these catalogs by writing to Materials Center,
National Center for the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore,
Maryland 21230.

** New Business Opportunity Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     A hot new trend is sweeping America! The prepaid telecard
has recently replaced outdated calling cards in Japan and Europe.
In Europe pre-paid technology is a whopping 4 billion dollar
market. Now, because of a new company, TeleSales, Inc., it is
possible for you to cash in on the wide-open market in America
and enjoy unlimited long-distance calling for yourself, all for a
one-time-only, $100 refundable start-up fee. Nothing more to pay.
The fee brings you your first hour-long calling card and a start-
up kit for beginning your own in-home business. For more
information about this opportunity, call Federationist Leonard
Shije at (800) 713-2212.

** Elected:
     On November 18, 1995, the Erie County Chapter of the
National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania elected the
following: Connie Johnson, President; Mark Zink, First Vice
President; Mindy Gunns, Second Vice President; Randy Davis,
Secretary; and Jean Thompson, Treasurer.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Steve and Nadine Jacobson with new big sister Elizabeth]
** New Baby Adopted:
     Monitor readers will remember the story in the December,
1995, Monitor titled "Loving Elizabeth." It was an account of
Steve and Nadine Jacobson's struggle to adopt their daughter
Elizabeth. Now Steve and Nadine, who are members of the NFB of
Minnesota, have written to announce the adoption of their new,
seven-month-old daughter, Catherine Angela. Congratulations to
all the Jacobsons.

** Elected:
     The New Britain Area Chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind of Connecticut held its election in November, 1995. New
officers are Jackie Doucette, President; Rev. James Foxworth,
Vice President; Diane Meyer, Secretary; and W. Van B Hart,
Treasurer. Kathy Robertson, Helen Kaminski, and Richard Violette
are new Board members.

** New Catalog Available:
     We recently received the following press release:
     The most up-to-date listings of all recorded and
computerized books available from Recording for the Blind and
Dyslexic (RFB&D) are listed in the new 1996 RFB&D Catalog of
Books, which is now available.
     The catalog incorporates several new features, such as an
improved subject reference, easy-to-use instructions, and
title/author index. These changes were requested by librarians,
RFB&D borrowers, and others who use the catalog to order taped
books.
     The catalog, which contains listings of the nearly 80,000
recorded and computerized texts in RFB&D's C.V. Starr Master-Tape
Library, comes in two editions. The Adult Collection includes
listings of books from the college level and beyond, including
texts for professionals. The Juvenile Collection includes
listings of books from elementary grades through the high school
level.
     New features are incorporated into both collections and
include:
    Book entries grouped by subject based on the Dewey Decimal
     Classification system.
    A subject and author index in the back, making it easy to
     look up the shelf number of books before ordering.
    Instructions on how to order from the catalog presented in a
     question-and-answer format, with examples set apart.
     Both volumes also contain complete listings of the products
and services RFB&D offers blind and dyslexic borrowers. The
complete set, which includes both collections, is $69.95 (plus
$8.50 shipping and handling within the U.S.).
     Each edition can be ordered separately. The Juvenile
Collection is $29.95 (plus $7.50 for shipping and handling), and
the Adult Collection is $49.95 (plus $8 for shipping and
handling). They can be ordered by calling RFB&D at (800) 221-
4792.
     To supplement the print version of the Catalog, RFB&D offers
subscriptions to its Quarterly Disk Catalog (QDC) and its
Quarterly Recorded Catalog for $16 each. These updates contain
listings of the most popular new audio and E-Text titles added to
the Master-Tape Library each quarter.

** Assistance Needed:
     Greg Trapp has asked us to carry the following announcement:
     This coming May I will be spending two weeks in Ghana as a
faculty member with Joni and Friends, which is the disability
ministry of Joni Aereckson Tada. We will be delivering
wheelchairs to the disabled, and I also plan to deliver a
quantity of NFB white canes. Blindness is very common in Africa,
and it is my hope that this small effort will help to better the
lives of the blind in the nation of Ghana. If you would like to
support this effort through financial contributions or gifts of
canes or other blindness-related materials, please contact Greg
Trapp at (505) 256-3100 during the day or (505) 266-4016 during
the evening. You may also write to me at 1330 Louisiana
Boulevard, N.E., #410, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87110.
