October 9 Disabilities Awareness Item

Dear Friends

Today I went to the library. Thanks to a new login procedure, I THINK people who need a screen reader or screen enlarger can now access these tools from any branch of the Seattle Public Library instead of only the downtown branch and the Columbia City branch.

Oops: the website still says only the following:
http://www.spl.org/audiences/adaspecial-services
but the accessibility tools available at any branch promise is still hoving out there.

Even before I went to the library, I decided just to mention some books I have found interesting:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman
http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2686192030_the_spirit_catches_you_and_you_fall_down

written by a social worker who was part of a care team for a Hmong girl with epilepsy and her family in Minnesota. The book is partly accounts of the medical team, partly discussion of how the girl's family coped and partly commentary on different collisions of culture.


Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language by Nora Ellen Groce
http://www.spl.org/audiences/adaspecial-services

Part ethnography, part history about a period when everyone on Martha's Vineyard used sign language. For 2-3 generations at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, inbreedining and isolation resulted in a population incidence of hereditary deafness about double the average in less isolated populations. This was enough that everyone just used sign language as a matter of course.

Privileged Hands by Geerat J. Vermeij
http://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1703067030_privileged_hands

When I whine about what a pain it is to do everything with screen readers and my lifelong allergy to things involving microscopes--because of always having to mess up the focus for everyone else, I get to think about going through Princeton in the 1960's, majoring in biology and doing everything in Braille on notecards. Dr. Vermeij is now a climate scientist who teaches at one of the Cal State U campuses. The book talks about his education and career, but I am not sure which of the things I heard him speak about in person are actually in the book.

In person he spoke of benefitting from life in post World War II Holland where the government instituted compulsory education for the blind. He also talks about doing his own field work but having to argue with his institutions about liability concerns when he needs to climb in and out of boats like everyone else. He also said he is bad at academic administrative work so he fulfils expectations about service to his institution by editing a lot of journals.

The best thing about meeting him in person though was one of many invitations to liberate myself from too much distress about not being Wonder Blind person. I was in a group where more than one person was talking about the difficulties of adjustment in midlife and he said very clearly that he thought it would be even harder to adjust to a big change than to grow up with more time practicing skills. He also talked about all this interesting field work along tide lines in different bodies of water but admitted he also still sometimes gets lost on his way to his office.

In the Light

(RantWoman)