Springfeever

The death has been announced. Origins' death carts are collecting the quarantined items. But you can change all this.

IMAGINE That!

Review of Ifbyphone.com

Two Voices

Recently, I received the audio book, The American Home Front: 1941-1942 by the late Alistair Cooke. It was read by his son, John Byrne. I found it interesting, a portrait of a long-gone America. The book just missed being tossed out and not published. Cooke's secretary, about two weeks before his death in February, 2004, was cleaning out a closet and found the manuscript. (Don't we all wish our closets had such treasures? We'd clean them so thoroughly Martha Stuart would be auditioning us for a spot in her omniamedia world.)

I recalled that Alistair, original name Alfred (I might have changed mine, too), had narrated several of his books for NLS; so I dug. I found one that seemed interesting, Six Men, ordered it and decided to do a blog item on the two voices.

Hope you found this interesting. Telephone lines must contain nanites that love copper and love to distort, and even digest micro-fragments of, my voice. The words antiSemetic and racism were run together by a volume drop. Alas! I need a producer. Wonder if Howard Stern's has forgiven His Profanity for not attending the producer's father's burial or wake? (If other talk show entities can be believed?) I'm here. I'm moderately nice. I'm Catholic, we do funerals, and I'm ready for my blog to hit the magnetosphere.

IMAGINE That!

Stay tuned for a possible IfByPhone review.

Braillers on the Cheap

The price for a Perkins Brailler has become ionospheric. Last I heard it hovered around $700---or was that for institutions?---and it was $500 for a person. In any event, it's ridiculous. Who'd want to spend that for technology that came out just prior to WWII?

I have a machine about 34 years old. It works reasonably well, but it can be a little cranky. I can't count the number of Brailler repair people who have looked at it, performed a splenectomy and other surgeries on it, and said it is still in good shape. I think it rattles more than it used to and I miss the original single slotted cylinders. These new rubber things drive me crazy. Like a broken plate, I just don't think you can get an old machine back to brand new. And I am very picky about the keyboard feel. It took me ages to adapt to a Braille Lite because the keyboard was so strange.

Luckily a prototype exists for an inexpensive Brailler that would cost just $10 per unit if mass produced. Again the NFB is making it happen; guess all the other Sleeping Beauties haven't met their prince?

--Text by David Faucheux

Honk if you hate telethons, Part III

Honk if you hate telethons, Part II

Honk if you hate telethons: The disability blender

Recently, a deafwoman emailed me to say she enjoyed my audio blog. Enjoyed itbecause I included text bits that allowed her to pick up the jest of what I was talking about. The text bits are not verbatim transcripts but often amplify a point in the audio.

I don't like to tackle disability head on. It's a tricky mindfield issue. Often the "dis"abled don't themselves know all the answers but can be quick to get perturbed if you offend one of their sacred cows. Call a visually impaired person blind and see what happens or vice versa.

Read Too Late to Die Young and see for yourself what you think. She has no use for Jerry's MDA Telethon even though it raises zillions because of the stereotype images it sends out. BTW, Dr. Peter Singer is an Australian-born philosopher based at Princeton (where I'd never get in even to clean the toilets) who says that parents should decide if their severely disabled newborns should live. He figures since we have abortion, euthanasia, and birth control, why not. Sometimes, I think The Ivory Tower should stay in the clouds debating and having mind-gasms while us dumb-asses get on with life! It's people like Singer and that Shockley entity who make me glad the genius sperm bank idea in the late 70s and 80s went bust. Maybe, the Feteral Sperm Reserve flopped?

IMAGINE That!

Horror

Those of you who follow Blind Chance recall that I did several book reviews of horror books. I co-authored one witha Dr. Anthony Fonseca. It's of the Bob Harper's Twisted Rhyme CD, which featuring his spoken poetry.

-Text by David Faucheux

Choice magazine listening

If you can't read dozens of magazines and journals and papers, we have three options, The Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, The Braille Mirror, and Choice Magazine Listening. It is this latter, I want to audio-discuss today.

Meanwhile here are two pieces of wisdom taken from Dave Barry's 16 things he took until age 50 to learn.

• A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
• Your friends love you anyway.
  

What's our excuse for not learning?

Imagine that!