There is a child somewhere who has not heard of death. There is always a child who has not heard of death and always a child breathing who does not think of stopping breath, or even that it could be stopped, making a rhythm of despair. Subtle, yet textured in their ignorance they are a hundred colors with one shade A thousand notes maintained in monotone. They are not [...]

Dear Starkey, Are you willing to really support the Deaf community? (The question isn’t a taunt – it’s almost hopeful, and honestly meant). Thus far you’ve been willing to take on Deaf people representing you. Now you’re looking for Deaf youth to represent you internationally. Both of these I think are great things. Now, I’d like you to take the next step. Starkey, how many Deaf people work for you [...]

The coolest thing about the iPad, for me, is that it becomes basically this powerful walking library. Yeah, it has games. Forget that. BOOKS. MOVIES. COMICS. DICTIONARIES. AUGMENTED REALITY PLANETARIUMS. And all this is in your hand – or your backpack. Now, several countries are releasing SL apps and we have the benefit of becoming acquainted with their national signed languages. Here’s a list of some awesome ones (all seem [...]

The National Association of the Deaf had recently joined an action against AGB by a group called “Audism Free America,” composed mostly of Deaf people fighting against perceived audism—situations (created or natural) where Deaf people experience discrimination. During this action – which was mostly people and children holding signs, peacefully – one person defaced a sign on the building, crossing out Deaf and hard of, leaving the words hearing. The [...]

You’ve seen them by now: the vitriolic comments under news columns about the NAD suit against Netflix to begin providing captions for all its content, not just randomly chosen items. Let’s talk about this, let’s talk about what this implies for American Deafhood, and let’s compare this to other such items in American history. Let’s look at some examples of these quotes: by stepyourgameup (642 comments) June 20, 2011 10:04 [...]

I continue to give Netflix a shot. I’m less than impressed, and will probably cancel; I’m totally behind NAD and their current suit against the Big Red Sign. Here’s why.

Dear Marlee: You did everything right the other night. I enjoyed watching you, especially when you were on the attack. You are a model for Deaf women everywhere. So forgive me for analyzing your choices during Celebrity Apprentice, as if you were some sort of laboratory specimen. I have to produce some sort of response to the anger and frustration from other Deaf folks in my living room. This anger [...]

So I just subscribed to Netflix again, after years of turning my head every time I passed a red package on the street. It’s not just the iPad app that convinced me, though. See, I believe in financial activism. When Netflix ignored Deaf customers and their calls for online access-when their top officer made discriminating, disparaging remarks about us-I cut them off. I loved Netflix DVDs and the luxury of [...]

I was saddened by reading a post a while ago that someone made on her own blog. This person is an intelligent woman, and someone I care about deeply. She wrote about her frustration in creating song translations in ASL. While I do decry the lack of models out there, surely any intelligent person in the modern age knows that all languages are inherently musical and creative, stemming as they [...]

The New York State Budget is being forced through by our Democrat In Name Only Leader, Governor Cuomo. Yesterday and today some Deaf groups began cheering, mostly because of a statement by Dr. Mowl, President of the 4201 Schools Association, claiming that full funding has been restored to schools. But from what I’m reading we have barely ten per cent of our funding restored by the State under the current [...]