Article, Huge verdict shakes up nursing home industry

Subject: Re: Article, Huge verdict shakes up nursing home industry

In our wanderings through four very large counties on the Olympic Peninsula, we have visited at least a dozen nursing homes.  There are only two homes in which I would want to spend my final time on Earth.  Several of them met us at the door with an air of uncleanness that had to have been built up over long neglect.  That heavy odor of bile and urine mixed with sweaty bed clothes and bodies. 

One facility in Port Angeles lines the walls of the halls with inmates tied into their chairs for their daily exercise, while a staff person swamps out their rooms and changes bedding.  The patients flop over in all sorts of uncomfortable positions, some crying, while others ask us if we could help them get to the front door. 

Another time, in another home, we had to wait to see our client because she was still being bathed and fed her breakfast.  At eleven o'clock A.M.  The tired young woman helped our client to a chair and told us, "I have 12 people I must get up, bathe, change their bedding, help with their breakfast and get them settled for the day.  And most of them should have two people helping them, for safety sake.  But we are always short staffed." 

Another place in Port Orchard, which seemed to be quite clean and well staffed, had a beeper above the front desk.  I think it also had a light that flashed each time it beeped. 

We had just visited a woman and found that she was too weak to hold a magnifier for reading.  We had shown her the Talking Book tape player and she thought she would enjoy listening to books.  But she told us that she could never work the machine by herself. 

We sat in the lobby and explained this to the head nurse.  "Someone will need to come in and turn the tapes over and put in the next tapes," we explained.  "Do you have people on staff who can do that?" 

"Oh yes," she beamed, "We can have someone check in on her and do that for her". 

All the time we talked, about 35 minutes, that annoying beeper went merrily along.  Finally we  asked the nurse, "What is that beeper for?" 

"Oh, that's signals us when a patient needs attention." 

Frankly, I think our client died before anyone got around to turning over the first tape. 

 

Curious Carl

 

**********

Huge verdict shakes up nursing home industry

By PAUL ELIAS (AP) -- 2 days ago

SAN FRANCISCO --- During Cindy Cool's almost daily visits to the nursing
home, she would routinely find her Alzheimer's-suffering father wearing
urine-soaked clothes.

The Blue Lake, Calif. resident said it would take upwards of 20 minutes for
the apparently short-handed staff of Eureka Healthcare and Rehabilitation to
respond and help Cool clean her father. Other patients fared worse, she
said.

"A lot of times I walked out of there crying because of the things I saw,"
Cool said an interview.

She provided key testimony before a Humboldt County jury last month slammed
the owners of her father's nursing home with a $677 million verdict, sending
shock waves through the industry and rekindling calls for tort reform.

The verdict as it stands is already thought to be the largest in the country
this year and its ramifications are still being sorted out weeks after the
jury surprised even the plaintiffs' lawyers with the size of their verdict.
Tort reformers have seized on the verdict as the latest example of
litigation abuse.

The company's stock price has plunged on fears it will have to file
bankruptcy. Cool, 58, was part of a class-action lawsuit representing 32,000
patients that blamed the nursing home staff shortage for the misery she
encountered --- echoing a common complaint across the country that
for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with the bottom line.

After Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree
during the early years of the new century, critics charge that many
companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices.

"The major problem for most nursing homes in California and in the nation is
staffing," said Pat McGinnis, executive director and founder of the
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Many of the 16,100 homes nationwide are owned by public companies. The home
where Cool father's lived and died in 2006 is owned by Skilled Healthcare
Group Inc., which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

On July 6, the Humboldt County jury found that Skilled Healthcare on
numerous occasions violated state regulations requiring it to keep a minimum
number of nurses on duty at its 22 homes in the state.

James Gomez, president and chief executive of the California Association of
Health Facilities, called the verdict "outlandish, excessive and extreme"
and said a "good provider of skilled nursing care" is likely bound for
bankruptcy if the verdict holds up, threatening the livelihoods of 14,000
California workers.

The lawsuit accused Orange County-based Skilled Healthcare of failing to
maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient per day at its 22 nursing homes in
California. The company is just the 10th largest, based on beds, in an
industry that struggles to keep workers.

"The verdict is a statement that facilities must follow the law and meet
minimum standards," McGinnis said.

McGinnis said the 3.2 nursing hours required by California should be an easy
standard to meet because it's nearly a full hour less than the federal
recommendation of 4.1 nursing hours per patient.

"The fact that this company couldn't maintain these minimum standards makes
you wonder why it was in the nursing home business to begin with,"
McGinnis said.

Skilled Healthcare Chairman and CEO Boyd Hendrickson said in a statement
immediately after the verdict that the company is "deeply disappointed"
in the verdict and believes its nursing homes are appropriately staffed.

"We strongly disagree with the outcome of this legal matter, and we intend
to vigorously challenge it," he said.

The company's options, however, appear to be shrinking.

On Thursday, Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson shot down one
of the company's challenges when he denied its demand for a mistrial based
on juror misconduct.

Meanwhile, the company's ability to appeal is in question. Typically,
parties challenging a trial court decision are required to post 150 percent
of the verdict as a bond. The company doesn't have the cash or credit to
post the $1 billion-plus bond. It also likely faces bankruptcy if the jury's
verdict stands up.

Both sides are currently in settlement negotiations, and legal analysts said
there's good chance that the sizable verdict will be reduced.

That is what happened in another high-profile nursing home verdict won in
1998 by Michael Thamer, who is now lead lawyer in the Skilled Healthcare
lawsuit.

A Siskiyou County Superior Court jury awarded his client Reba Gregory
$95 million after a nursing home attendant dropped her during a bed
transfer, fracturing her hip and shoulder. Thamer convinced the jury that
two attendants should have attempted the transfer and that Gregory's
injuries were the result of staff shortages.

A judge later reduced the $95 million verdict to $3.1 million.

Copyright C 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

last one in is a rotten egg

Are you getting canned telephone messages from candidates?  I swear, you don't much more than get the Boob Tube shut down than they creep in under the door, through the phone, over the internet and in the mail box. 

It's still over two boring, nerve wracking months until it will be time to turn around and start preparing for the 2011 elections.  You know, there has to be a way that we can grab off a piece of this cash cow. 

Say, I have an idea.  Let's see if we can have all them tainted eggs shipped to our house.  We'll sell them to folks wanting to "express" themselves at political rallies.  Should be really ripe by November. 

A buck and egg.  Let's see...one dollar times five hundred thousand eggs equals...Ho Boy!  Let's do it! 

 

Curious Carl

 

fly paper

"Pardon me, I can't find the right kind of fly paper". 

"What do you mean?  Fly paper is fly paper." 

"Maybe out here on the Olympic Peninsula, but I'm going to Mexico and I want some Spanish fly paper." 

 

Curious Carl

 

What did they say?

So, my dear naive friend.  Haven't you heard the story of the American fellow who returned from his first trip abroad?  When they asked him how he enjoyed it, he said, "Well it was sure pretty.  Except for all those Foreigners.  I couldn't understand a word they said." 

 

Curious Carl

 

a techy I am not

I am many things to many people.  I can leap tall cobble stones at a single jump.  I can see through walls, if the windows don't have the shades down.  I can smell for miles, until I shower.  And I have the courage of a thousand brave gnats. 

But a Techy I am not.  And just to clarify that, anything more complex than booting up, opening Outlook Express, and connecting to my Gmail, anything beyond that is Techy Land. 

 

Curious Carl

This Is Not a case of "winning"

Years ago my dad's boss ran for the state senate and He spent $25,000 out of his own money.  Back in the 1950's that was big money.  But I kept thinking, "The job pays less than $5,000 a year.  What's in it for him?"  Well he owned a big steel fabricating plant and his business quadrupled once he was in office. 

But the interesting twist to this success story is that once he had tons of new business and his shop was full of work, he proceeded to lay people off and work the remaining workers overtime.  At the time I thought that this was crazy.  But he made money by doing it that way.  Sure, he paid a worker time and a half for his overtime, but he saved on medical and annual leave, etc.  .  Profit was his bottom line, not creating new jobs.  I just don't understand what is so hard about this simple fact of life?  But Obama is no better at figuring it out than was Herbert Hoover. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Uncle Sam

 

As long as we allow the current power structure to exist, we Americans are beating our heads against a brick wall.  Why do we continue to be confused by listening to the rhetoric spewed out by the Empire Builders?  All we need to do is to look about us at the crumbling American economy, the growing poverty, the collapse of our public educational system, the steady elimination of our free press, the attack upon our human rights, to know that we are being enslaved.  And we seem to be blind to the fact that the gated communities high on the hill where the truly first-class citizens live is doing just fine. 

But no, we Americans do love our Fairy Tales.  Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Uncle Sam will all take good care of us.  We are the Good Guys in White Hats, dashing around the uncaring world trying to force...uh...share our way of life. 

Why is it so hard to see that our youth are being sacrificed to advance the multi national corporate government that is strangling free people around the world? 

The Curious Carl Plan is very simple.  I'm sure some will say, "Simple minds think up simple plans".  But nevertheless, here it is. 

All Americans in the Armed Forces will be returned to American soil.  Upon their return their weapons will be turned into plow shares, hammers, saws and the like.  Their new assignment will be to go into the countryside and rebuild America.  Our national defense budget will be spent on defending America from within.  New schools, new bridges, new highways and repaired streets, working as carpenters building up the fallen down slums of the inner cities, paramedics treating people who cannot afford medical attention, setting up full time child care centers to support working families.  The list is endless because we have been allowing the Empire Builders to suck our bones dry.  While we still have the resources to do the job we'd better get started. 

You know, and I understand that it will probably never happen, but if the majority of Americans just sat down one day and said, "We won't go back to doing anything until our government begins serving our needs", we would see a sudden change. 

 

Curious Carl , the simple minded

 

Treasury Makes Shocking Admission: Program for Struggling HomeownersJust a Ploy to Enrich Big Banks

Gee, what a surprise. 

Curious Carl

Treasury Makes Shocking Admission: Program for Struggling Homeowners Just a
Ploy to Enrich Big Banks
By Zach Carter, AlterNet
Posted on August 25, 2010, Printed on August 26, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147955/

The Treasury Department's plan to help struggling homeowners has been
failing miserably for months. The program is poorly designed, has been
poorly implemented and only a tiny percentage of borrowers eligible for help
have actually received any meaningful assistance. The initiative lowers
monthly payments for borrowers, but fails to reduce their overall debt
burden, often increasing that burden, funneling money to banks that
borrowers could have saved by simply renting a different home. But according
to recent startling admissions from top Treasury officials, the mortgage
plan was actually not really about helping borrowers at all. Instead, it was
simply one element of a broader effort to pump money into big banks and
shield them from losses on bad loans. That's right: Treasury openly admitted
that its only serious program purporting to help ordinary citizens was
actually a cynical move to help Wall Street megabanks.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has long made it clear his financial
repair plan was based on allowing large banks to "earn" their way back to
health. By creating conditions where banks could make easy profits,
Getithner and top officials at the Federal Reserve hoped to limit the amount
of money taxpayers would have to directly inject into the banks. This was
never the best strategy for fixing the financial sector, but it wasn't
outright predation, either. But now the Treasury Department is making
explicit that it was-and remains-willing to let those so-called "earnings"
come directly at the expense of people hit hardest by the recession:
struggling borrowers trying to stay in their homes.

This account comes secondhand from a cadre of bloggers who were invited to
speak on "deep background" with a handful of Treasury officials-meaning that
bloggers would get to speak frankly with top-level folks, but not quote them
directly, or attribute views to specific people. But the accounts are all
generally distressing, particularly this one from economics whiz Steve
Waldman:

The program was successful in the sense that it kept the patient alive until
it had begun to heal. And the patient of this metaphor was not a struggling
homeowner, but the financial system, a.k.a. the banks. Policymakers openly
judged HAMP to be a qualified success because it helped banks muddle through
what might have been a fatal shock. I believe these policymakers conflate,
in full sincerity, incumbent financial institutions with "the system," "the
economy," and "ordinary Americans."

Mike Konczal confirms Waldman's observation, and Felix Salmon also says the
program has done little more than delay foreclosures, as does Shahien
Nasiripour.

Here's how Geithner's Home Affordability Modification Program (HAMP) works,
or rather, doesn't work. Troubled borrowers can apply to their banks for
relief on monthly mortgage payments. Banks who agree to participate in HAMP
also agree to do a bunch of things to reduce the monthly payments for
borrowers, from lowering interest rates to extending the term of the loan.
This is good for the bank, because they get to keep accepting payments from
borrowers without taking a big loss on the loan.

But the deal is not so good for homeowners. Banks don't actually have to
reduce how much borrowers actually owe them-only how much they have to pay
out every month. For borrowers who owe tens of thousands of dollars more
than their home is worth, the deal just means that they'll be pissing away
their money to the bank more slowly than they were before. If a homeowner
spends $3,000 a month on her mortgage, HAMP might help her get that payment
down to $2,500. But if she still owes $200,000 on a house that is worth
$150,000, the plan hasn't actually helped her. Even if the borrower gets
through HAMP's three-month trial period, the plan has done nothing but
convince her to funnel another $7,500 to a bank that doesn't deserve it.

Most borrowers go into the program expecting real relief. After the trial
period, most realize that it doesn't actually help them, and end up walking
away from the mortgage anyway. These borrowers would have been much better
off simply finding a new place to rent without going through the HAMP
rigamarole. This example is a good case, one where the bank doesn't jack up
the borrower's long-term debt burden in exchange for lowering monthly
payments

But the benefit to banks goes much deeper. On any given mortgage, it's
almost always in a bank's best interest to cut a deal with borrowers. Losses
from foreclosure are very high, and if a bank agrees to reduce a borrower's
debt burden, it will take an upfront hit, but one much lower than what it
would ultimately take from foreclosure.

That logic changes dramatically when millions of loans are defaulting at
once. Under those circumstances, bank balance sheets are so fragile they
literally cannot afford to absorb lots of losses all at once. But if those
foreclosures unravel slowly, over time, the bank can still stay afloat, even
if it has to bear greater costs further down the line. As former Deutsche
Bank executive Raj Date told me all the way back in July 2009:

If management is only seeking to maximize value for their existing
shareholders, it's possible that maybe they're doing the right thing. If
you're able to let things bleed out slowly over time but still generate some
earnings, if it bleeds slow enough, it doesn't matter how long it takes,
because you never have to issue more stock and dilute your shareholders. You
could make an argument from the point of view of any bank management team
that not taking a day-one hit is actually a smart idea.

Date, it should be emphasized, does not condone this strategy. He now heads
the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, and is a
staunch advocate of financial reform.

If, say, Wells Fargo had taken a $20 billion hit on its mortgage book in
February 2009, it very well could have failed. But losing a few billion
dollars here and there over the course of three or four years means that
Wells Fargo can stay in business and keep paying out bonuses, even if it
ultimately sees losses of $25 or $30 billion on its bad loans.

So HAMP is doing a great job if all you care about is the solvency of Wall
Street banks. But if borrowers know from the get-go they're not going to get
a decent deal, they have no incentive to keep paying their mortgage. Instead
of tapping out their savings and hitting up relatives for help with monthly
payments, borrowers could have saved their money, walked away from the
mortgage and found more sensible rental housing. The administration's plan
has effectively helped funnel more money to Wall Street at the expense of
homeowners. And now the Treasury Department is going around and telling
bloggers this is actually a positive feature of the program, since it meant
that big banks didn't go out of business.

There were always other options for dealing with the banks and preventing
foreclosures. Putting big, faltering banks into receivership-also known as
"nationalization"-has been a powerful policy tool used by every
administration from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. When the
government takes over a bank, it forces it to take those big losses upfront,
wiping out shareholders in the process. Investors lose a lot of money (and
they should, since they made a lousy investment), but the bank is cleaned up
quickly and can start lending again. No silly games with borrowers, and no
funky accounting gimmicks.

Most of the blame for the refusal to nationalize failing Wall Street titans
lies with the Bush administration, although Obama had the opportunity to
make a move early in his tenure, and Obama's Treasury Secretary, Geithner,
was a major bailout decision-maker on the Bush team as president of the New
York Fed.

But Bush cannot be blamed for the HAMP nightmare, and plenty of other
options were available for coping with foreclosure when Obama took office.
One of the best solutions was just endorsed by the Cleveland Federal
Reserve, in the face of prolonged and fervent opposition from the bank
lobby. Unlike every other form of consumer debt, mortgages are immune from
renegotiation in bankruptcy. If you file for bankruptcy, a judge literally
cannot reduce how much you owe on your mortgage. The only way out of the
debt is foreclosure, giving banks tremendous power in negotiations with
borrowers.

This exemption is arbitrary and unfair, but the bank lobby contends it keeps
mortgage rates lower. It's just not true, as a new paper by Cleveland Fed
economists Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV and James B. Thomson makes clear. Family
farms were exempted from bankruptcy until 1986, and bankers bloviated about
the same imminent risk of unaffordable farm loans when Congress considered
ending that status to prevent farm foreclosures.

When Congress did repeal the exemption, farm loans didn't get any more
expensive, and bankruptcy filings didn't even increase very much. Instead, a
flood of farmers entered into negotiations with banks to have their debt
burden reduced. Banks took losses, but foreclosures were avoided. Society
was better off, even if bank investors had to take a hit.

But instead, Treasury is actively encouraging troubled homeowners to
subsidize giant banks. What's worse, as Mike Konczal notes, they're hoping
to expand the program significantly.

There is a flip-side to the current HAMP nightmare, one that borrowers faced
with mortgage problems should attend to closely and discuss with financial
planners. In many cases, banks don't actually want to foreclose quickly,
because doing so entails taking losses right away, and most of them would
rather drag those losses out over time. The accounting rules are so loose
that banks can actually book phantom "income" on monthly payments that
borrowers do not actually make. Some borrowers have been able to benefit
from this situation by simply refusing to pay their mortgages. Since banks
often want to delay repossessing the house in order to benefit from tricky
accounting, borrowers can live rent-free in their homes for a year or more
before the bank finally has to lower the hatchet. Of course, you won't hear
Treasury encouraging people to stop paying their mortgages. If too many
people just stop paying, then banks are out a lot of money fast, sparking
big, quick losses for banks -- the exact situation HAMP is trying to avoid.

Borrowers who choose not to pay their mortgages don't even have to feel
guilty about it. Refusing to pay is actually modestly good for the economy,
since instead of wasting their money on bank payments, borrowers have more
cash to spend at other businesses, creating demand and encouraging job
growth. By contrast, top-level Treasury officials who have enriched bankers
on the backs of troubled borrowers should be looking for other lines of
work.


Zach Carter is AlterNet's economics editor. He is a fellow at Campaign for
America's Future, writes a weekly blog on the economy for the Media
Consortium and is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine.

C 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/147955/

there's a stirring in the air

There's a stirring in the air.  It's the whispers of people beginning to realize that they are being pushed down into the muck, and they're starting to remember the long ago days of the I W W and Joe Hill and Eugene Debbs. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Jobs for the Disabled. Outsourced Call Centers ReturnTo U.S.

The following article should raise concerns by all disabled Americans. 

First, good for Maureen Quigley.  She is once again employed and at a job tailored to her special needs. 

But the implication is not good news for many disabled people fully able to travel to a job and put in long hours.  The bad news about the good news that jobs may be coming back to our shores, is that it is because we are all working for less money.  Just think of it folks, once America is on a par with all other Third World nations we will all have our jobs back,  For one third our former wages, or less. 

Well, here's my best advice.  We'd better start looking out for ourselves because you can bet your last dollar(now worth 25 cents) that no one else is going to look out for us. 

 

Curious Carl

***************

 

Outsourced Call Centers Return, To U.S. Homes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129406588&ft=1&f=1003
by Carolyn Beeler  Listen to the Story

Maureen Quigley-Hogan is the next generation of call center worker.

Wearing pink slippers and sitting at her desk in her home office in
Virginia, she takes a call from a woman in New Jersey who has a question
about her credit card bill.

Quigley-Hogan was unemployed for 10 years because she couldn't hold down a
traditional job, she says. She has rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, a
disease that causes severe fatigue.

"It was hard to get to a job," Quigley-Hogan says. "The idea of going
through a regular schedule of getting up and getting ready for work, I
would be exhausted."

She worked in customer service for more than 20 years, so two years ago,
she was thrilled to land this job where she can work from home.

Rethinking Overseas Outsourcing

For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and
broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But
American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. - and
this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.

Ten years ago, it made a lot of sense to outsource these jobs overseas. But
that's changing. Increasingly, companies that want to outsource their
customer service jobs are happy with these domestic arrangements.

High inflation and double-digit annual raises in some sectors are pushing
up the cost of labor in India. At the same time wages in the U.S. are
falling and companies are rethinking the trade-offs associated with
outsourcing.

Weighing Costs And Woes

Richard Crespin, director of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association,
says when companies decide whether to outsource overseas they have to weigh
the costs as well as "the inconvenience of having something distant from
you and not close in proximity - what I would call the pain-in-the-neck
factor."

He says when wages drop in the company's home economy, those companies are
less likely to outsource these jobs to other countries.

Experts say outsourcing is still accelerating for jobs in IT services and
manufacturing. Phil Fersht, an outsourcing analyst, says even before the
recession started, companies were starting to realize that offshoring
wasn't the best option for other services.

In some cases, workers in India are making only about 15 percent less than
workers in Nebraska, he says. That's the threshold where companies start
thinking about whether it's worth it to hire an American worker instead of
a foreign one.

Thousands Of Home Workers

Home workers, such as Quigley-Hogan, represent one of the cheapest models
for customer service. There are an estimated 60,000 people doing call
center work from home.

"It provides a lower cost point than other traditional means of onshore
customer service," says Chris Carrington, who runs Alpine Access, the
Denver-based company that Quigley-Hogan works for. Carrington says the low
overhead of having home-based workers allows him to charge 20 percent less
for the same services provided by brick-and-mortar call centers in the U.S.

"We don't have big buildings and we don't have all of that infrastructure
cost, and so we're able to pay our people more and as well as lower our
price for the customers we serve," he says.

Even with these cost-cutting measures, American workers are still the more
expensive option. But industry watchers say so-called home sourcing will
continue to grow as companies look for quality that used to be harder to
afford.

{Sidebar} Lost In Translation: Call Center Blues
American customers say they have more trouble getting inquiries resolved
efficiently when they're routed to call centers outside the U.S.
{Chart}
Notes
The Contact Center Satisfaction Index is based on online surveys of more
than 1,500 adults. Respondents called a contact center within the past
month and spoke with a customer service representative. CFI Group used the
American Customer Satisfaction Index methodology to conduct the research.
Source: CFI Group
Credit: Stephanie d'Otreppe/NPR

{Sidebar}
Who's Taking Your Call?
American consumers expressed varying levels of satisfaction with call
centers depending on whether the center is perceived to be overseas or in
the U.S., according to a new report by the CFI Group. Here, a look at some
of the findings:
- Customer satisfaction with calls perceived to be handled in the U.S. was
more than one-fifth higher than with calls perceived to be handled outside
the country.
- Callers said one of the biggest disparities between foreign and American
call centers was the ease of understanding the customer service agent.
- Consumers report that fewer calls are now being handled by agents outside
the U.S. Nine percent of consumers say that their calls were handled by an
agent outside the U.S. in 2010, down from 11 percent in 2009.
- Joshua Brockman
Source: CFI Group's 2010 Contact Center Satisfaction Index
...
Comment
...
Copyright 2010 NPR

please, spare me the political sound bites

I am fed up to here with snippets and sound bites from political candidates telling me how the other guy is cozy with lobbyists and big money, while they are the good guys in white hats trying to serve the people.  But the bad guy then comes along during the next commercial break and tells me that it is not him/her who is turning their back on us poor slobs.  It's the other guy who is selling us out.  And it's time for a change. 

Lots of money passes hands.  Lots of snorting and slobbering.  Nothing of any substance has been said.  And usually the only time you hear the actual candidate anymore is when they say, "I approve this gobble Dee gook". 

I am so sick and tired of being lied to as if I were a simpleton.  I refuse to listen to the glossy promos any longer.  I have the emails for each channel I listen to and I let them know every time I hear part of some drooling drivel.  Of course I'm still waiting for my first reply.  It'll probably come via a knock on my door and a friendly voice shouting, "Open up in there and come out with your hands up". 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: The Roberts Court vs. Free Speech

"It's a Beautiful day in the neighborhood",

A beautiful day if you happen to live in a gated neighborhood and are among the Truly First-Class Americans. 

From time to time someone tells us that we need to level the playing field.  Get real!  What playing field?  We common folk are not allowed to play on That field.  We have a sand lot out back among the rubble and broken glass. 

When do we get the message that war has been declared upon the American People by our Superior, First Class Corporate Citizens?  And we are losing the fight because many of us are so blind as to not realize that we are engaged in battle. 

 

Curious Carl

 

NON-COERCIVE "INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING"

 

The problem with Intelligence personnel trying to elicit information from a prisoner or a detainee, effectively using a non-coercive manner, is that the real unspoken purpose of "interviewing" is to demonstrate power and control. 

From the back rooms of Chicago precinct stations to the out houses in Alabama, bullies have taken delight in beating "confessions" out of hapless victims. 

For the bully boys there is far more satisfaction in a good beating than there is in gaining useful information. 
Their objective is not aimed at protecting the rights of citizens, or even "getting at the truth".  The goal is to prove dominance.  Just as we do on a larger scale in Iraq or Afghanistan in fighting what we call a "just war".  We all know the results of beating up either another individual or an entire nation.  The result is hatred.  We never gain long term cooperation.  We never "free the people".  We simply turn loose our bully boys to vent their anger and perversion.  Because war, whether conducted on one individual in a back room, or by thousands on a battle field, is nothing more than that.  Perversion.  Abnormal behavior.  License to vent our rage. 

We are not so stupid that we do not know how to gain people's confidence and cooperation.  We have knowledge in methods of "getting at the truth", if we really wanted to do that. 

We need to open our eyes and stand up and object to what we are allowing to go on in the name of "Justice". 

If we do not, we are no more than cowardly Terrorists. 

 

Curious Carl

 

even a blind man can be blind to the feelings of others

It was 1987 and I had just been offered the promotion to assistant director of field services.  Naturally I accepted(please see, The Peter Principle) and I was eager to rush home and tell Cathy. 

I stood alone at the bus stop in  my own dream world, probably looking like a grinning ape, when a fellow approached me and without saying a word, pressed a paper bill into my hand.  I pushed it back and said, "No thank you." 

"It's for you," he said in a soft voice. 

"Thank you but I cannot accept this", I said, pushing it back at him. 

"I just want to help," he insisted. 

"Look," I exploded, "I just received a promotion and I earn 50 thousand dollars a year.  How much do you make?" 

Without a word, the man melted into the distance. 

From time to time, even these many years later, I wonder about that exchange.  What really drove me to refuse the stranger's offer?  Was I attempting to show him that all blind people standing on street corners are not beggars?  Was I so inflated by my own self importance that I was highly offended that he thought that just because I was blind that I needed his help? 

Whatever it was, I think that I was so self focused that I never took into account how this fellow felt.  I cut him off with no regard concerning why he did what he did, or what we could have said to help him see blindness in a better light. 

By slamming him to the mat I am sure that I did make a statement about blind people. 

 

Curious Carl

 

more thoughts on discrimination

I do believe that all of us, blind, black, gay, white, female or from Mars are faced with some level of discrimination.  You are too young.  You are too old.  Too tall.  Too short.  Too much education.  Not enough education.  Not enough experience.  Too much experience. 

God, the list is endless. 

But of course there are the Polly Anna's who look at the world through rose colored glasses. 

During my years directing the Orientation and Training Center, Equal to the number of students who came to me grumbling about the unfairness of discrimination were the ones who gave me the wide eyed innocent look and said, "Why I've never been discriminated against."  My stock retort was, "Then try going outside your little shell." 

But some of them didn't know discrimination when it hit them in the face. 

For example, we, the Center staff, took the students on the famous Underground Tour of old Seattle.  We arrived at the ticket window and the fellow at the counter said, "I'm only charging you blind people half price".  The students were elated.  I said, "Wait a minute.  We take up just as much space as sighted customers and just as much effort on the part of the tour guide.  Maybe even more, since they'll need to give us more detailed description." 

"But you can't see.  And that is most of the enjoyment of this tour," he said. 

"We pay full fare or we will go do something else," I declared.  He took our money.  And the rest of the week, and for weeks after that, I got chewed out by the students for forcing them to pay full fare.  Their main argument was, "We're blind and things are tough enough, therefore we deserve a few perks in life".  "Is this the road to becoming equal, first class citizens?" I asked. 

So,despite their loud protests,  I told them the story of the young secretary who loved to have doors opened for her, packages carried for her, and gentlemen paying for her meals.  She was secretary to the mayor of Spokane and I operated the snack bar in the lobby of city hall.  One evening just at quitting time she came storming past my counter, smoke pouring out of her ears. 

"Something wrong?" I queried. 

"I just get fed up," she stammered.  "Those guys sit around all day while we work our fingers to the bone and then at the last minute they tell us that we have to get these documents out tonight.  Even if it takes us all night.  They could care less about my life" 

"Well," I replied, "Now you are learning about discrimination.  This is the price you pay for allowing yourself to  have doors opened and packages carried for you. " 

Well, she didn't speak to me for about a week.  But later we talked about things like perception. 

But back to discrimination of us blind folk.  Some of us must deny that it occurs, just for our own survival.  Some of us feel that it is the cross we must bear.  Some of us figure it's just one other problem we need to work around in order to get down the road, which is the position I prefer. 

And there is one other thought.  Some blind people have been raised in such a sheltered, protected padded cell, that they can't sense when someone is offering regular help or when they are being discriminated against. 

Like, when someone pushes the elevator button for me.  I just naturally know if they are being generally helpful or if they think I am helpless.  I seldom miss. 

 

Curious Carl

The Koch Family takes care of their own

Like a Thorough Bred wearing blinders, eyes fixed on the finish line. 

The huge international corporations have their blinders on and are focused on only one thing.  Profit.  They must gobble up all opposition and cut all costs in their rush to the finish line.  On board is Greed, whipping them on. 

We need to be clear that this is not all corporations, just as all White People are not Red Necks.  Corporations actually exist where employees are seen as a valuable part of the company's success.        

But how do we deal with the likes of the Koch family?  And there are an over abundance of them to deal with.  They have been very successful doing what they do.  Asking them nicely to do anything else is only going to fall on deaf ears. 

Remember how the old farmer clubbed his mule over the head, saying "first I gotta git his attention." 

We, the American People, need to get the Koch's attention.  We can do this through legislation, but first we need to take the old farmer's advice and get the attention of Congress, or we can do it directly through boycotts and pickets. 

 

Curious Carl

 

in the eye of the beholder

It's all in the eye of the beholder

 

The blind woman, a student at the Oregon Commission for the Blind,  was out on her travel route being followed by her Orientation and Mobility(O&M) instructor.  This was a neighborhood on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.  The instructor was a young Black man.  As they walked through the local streets a patrol car pulled up alongside the instructor and the officers called him over.  Someone had reported a blind woman being stalked by a Black man. 

Curious Carl

 

priming the ecconomic pump with billionaire candidates money

As far as I'm concerned what you say about Republicans you can say the same about Democrats.  My personal opinion is that Greed has corrupted both parties.  In fact, I see them as one party with two heads.  Each head has only one eye in the center of it's forehead.  This one, two-headed Cyclopes has effectively blocked any other party from entering the field.  We have been misled to believe this gives us a more stable government.  Why, just look at Italy, we are told.  We certainly don't want that.  Well, Italy will have to sort out their own corruption issues.  But we here in the good old USA are being controlled by One Party.  While the Super First Class Citizens greedily grab hands full of money from our treasury, we are encouraged to square off over such important issues as whether Gays can marry, or if we can use stem cells for research, or if women should be allowed to be in charge of their own bodies. 

Our once proud nation is on its knees with the huge burden of debt on its shoulders.  Our once great public education system, the one that made us the mighty power that we became, is being desecrated.  Our cities are disgusting.  Our roads and bridges are unsafe to travel.  Our jobs are being stolen, along with our factories and shipped overseas.  Our money is being banked in off-shore banks. 

Tell me, what in this picture gives us the belief that we are coming out of the depression? 

But perhaps I overlooked one bright spot.  Today, August 25, 2010, I heard on the radio where some candidates in primary elections in Florida and Arizona spent as much as 30 million dollars.  This must be keeping TV, radio, newspapers and printers busy and happy.  Perhaps we could have elections every three months.  In this way the millionaire and billionaire candidates could pump their personal fortunes back into circulation. 

 

Curious Carl

check out my blog
www.curiouscarlscorner.blogspot.com

letter to my grandson Dylan Ford

Hi Dylan,

Not a lot going on, but I was thinking about you and thought I'd at least say, "Hi". 

A couple of days ago I turned on my computer and no sound came forth.  I jiggled all the wires, kicked the side of the computer(that actually worked once) and finally unplugged the speakers and plugged in my headphones.  They worked fine.  I'd had a loose connection in the main speaker for months but usually all I had to do was to fiddle with the volume control and it would work.  Nothing.  So I said to myself, "I'll just open the thing up and see if I can rewire it".  HA!  Without destroying the case, there is no way into the speakers.  They are self contained and meant to be thrown away rather than to be repaired. 

So off we went to the speaker store.  Staples, I think.  And for just around $20 I got new speakers.  They sound much better than the old ones.  I've had them for...hmm...ten years?  At least ten years. 

Cathy and Marlene are watching some of the winter Olympics.  Ice skating.  I root for our Americans but it's not too interesting when all I can do is to listen to the music they're performing to.  And it used to be that the music was decent.  Lately they are skating to the sounds of a tornado slamming through a auto parts shop. 

Our neighbors headed for Panama for a couple of weeks.  We're picking up their mail and the Ingles are feeding their horses.  But when I walk over to grab their mail I take a few carrots along and chat with the two horses.  Today I was almost down to their driveway when I heard something off to my right.  I stopped and listened.  It must have stopped to listen, too.  I began walking again and it began walking.  Ohoh!  It sounded big.  I turned toward the sound and it gave a snort through its nose.  A horse.  A horse on the loose.  It had to be one of Greg and Cindy's.  I walked slowly toward the horse and held out a carrot.  It just stood there, neither walking toward me or moving away.  "Wanna carrot?" I asked, holding the yummy treat out as far as my arm would stretch.  The horse leaned its neck way out and took the carrot from my hand and chomped it up.  I said, "Just stay there and I'll get Cathy and we'll bring you home". 

I hustled back to the house and told the story to Cathy.  She was making oatmeal raison walnut applesauce cookies.  She grabbed her shoes and we headed out in the ford(no relation to you).  We reached Greg and Cindy's drive and Cathy saw both their horses in the front pasture, munching away contentedly.  No horse alongside the road.  We drove all the way up to Russ and Darlene's without seeing a horse.  Both their horses were where they should be.  We drove a couple of miles the other direction and still no horse.  I have no idea whose horse it is or where it went.  But it's interesting that before they left for Panama Cindy asked us if Marlene's horse was in our pasture.  We said no.  She said both she and Greg had heard a horse over in our pasture.  Interesting.  We have had three deer munching in the field, but no horse. 

Well, they turned off the TV which means it's time for Liverpool. 

Be good and stay well. 

Gramps

************************
We have met the enemy and, he is us. -- Pogo

safe for all eternity

 

When I directed the training center in Seattle, we provided challenges to students in order to allow them to prove to themselves that they could live full, active, competitive lives regardless of how much or how little eyesight they had.  We involved students in water skiing, cross country skiing, swimming, horse back riding, over night camping, roller and ice skating and much more.  In class room settings the students learned adaptive skills.  But class rooms are inherently safe havens.  We knew that to "jump start" newly blinded adults we would need to pull them out of the safe zone an into the real world.  Noticing our many outings, some of our Department staff called the training center the "Country Club", where staff and students played the day away.  But in reality those were the most intense and stressful years of my career.  They were also among the most rewarding and happiest. 

Now, working with older newly blinded people, we have family members worrying that we are not keeping mom or dad "safe" when we are teaching them to slice, dice, sauté and bake.  Many of these family members tuck mom or dad away in pretty, safe little cubicles called Assisted Living Facilities, where their basic needs are taken care of and they sit all day feeling forgotten and useless. 

Life is to be lived.  We'll have eternity to be safe. 

 

Curious Carl

 

Fw: another subversive Fairy Tale

The fpollowing is going around as a "True Story".  It is actually another attack on honest, hard working Americans. 

After the "Doctor's" signiture I have written a short response. 

 

 

Pictured below is a young physician by the name of Dr. Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph letter to   the White House accurately puts the blame on a   "Culture  Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis".  It's worth a   quick read:
     
                                     Dear Mr. President:

         During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had   the   pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

        While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that   her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.

        And, you and our Congress expect  me to pay for this woman's health care?  I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is  not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or  nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis   of culture",  a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on  luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.  It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

        Once you fix this  "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

        Respectfully,

        STARNER JONES,  MD

******

My response:

 

    Well         Starner Jones, MD.  Please remove your head from up your butt and take another look around this United States of America. 

You make your case against decent health care for all Americans by one extreme, and most likely made up story.  You claim that you had a patient in the emergency room whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone. 

So Doctor Jones, how would you like it if I compared you and all doctors to some greedy, elitist doctor who always checks your bank account before he checks your pulse? 

Look around you, if you managed to pull your head out, and see the millions of people who are hard working, doing the right thing, trying to raise their children to be good citizens, struggling to pay inflated rents and house payments and rising food costs, and explosive medical costs while they are being ground into the ground by the likes of Bank America and A.I.G. and a president who believes that it's better to buy off the super rich than to reach out to the common folk.  You are a disgrace to your profession, if you really are a doctor.  Besides, how can you read charts with your head up your ass? 

 

Curious Carl

 

how can you read charts with your head up your ass?

    Well, Starner Jones, MD.  Please remove your head from up your butt and take another look around these United States of America. 

You make your case against decent health care for all Americans by quoting from one extreme, and most likely made up story.  You claim that you had a patient in the emergency room whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone. 

So Doctor Jones, how would you like it if I compared you and all doctors to one greedy, elitist doctor who always checks your bank account before he checks your pulse? 

Look around you, if you managed to pull your head out, and see the millions of people who are hard working, doing the right thing, trying to raise their children to be good citizens, struggling to pay inflated rents and house payments and rising food costs, and explosive medical costs while they are being ground into the ground by the likes of Bank America and A.I.G. and a president who believes that it's better to buy off the super rich than to reach out to the common folk.  You are a disgrace to your professi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on, if you really are a doctor.  Besides, how can you read charts with your head up your ass? 

 

Curious Carl

 

 

my only class reunion

 

I only went to one of my high  school class reunions.  Of course when I attended school I was sighted.  But I returned as a totally blind man.  As I registered at the door someone slapped a sticky tag on my chest.  "What's this?" I asked.  "It's your name tag", she told me in a voice that suggested I'd just come out from under a pumpkin.  "Thanks," I said, "I can't read it myself." 

As I wandered in to the large gathering a fellow rushed up to me and bent forward peering at my name tag.  "Carl Jarvis?" he asked, "I guess I don't know you." 

"Who are you," I inquired pleasantly.  But no answer was forth coming.  He'd dashed off to find someone he did know.  I could sense several other folks pausing to check me out, but no one else spoke.  I drifted over to where several people were chatting and laughing together.  As I came close, they stopped.  From a distance I overheard voices competing with one another, telling of just how successful the speaker had become.  Everyone in that room seemed to be bent on letting everyone else know how well they had done in their lives, but while everyone was talking, no one was listening.  I peeled my sticky tag off my jacket and walked out the door.  "Do you need some help?" The woman who'd stuck the tag on me asked.  "This is the exit, did you need the bathroom?" 

"I need a breath of fresh air," I said, and headed out the front door, down the school steps and never, ever returned. 

 

Curious Carl

 

check out my blog
www.curiouscarlscorner.blogspot.com

DISABILITY AND VISIBILITY:Uncle Tom, Blind Tom, and Tiny Tim

http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/brochures/Disability%20and%20Visibility_edit.html

Disability and Visibility

 

Note:  This article originally appeared in the April 1973 issue of The Braille Monitor

 

DISABILITY AND VISIBILITY:Uncle Tom, Blind Tom, and Tiny Tim

 

By Kenneth Jernigan

 

"Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim are brothers under the skin." So declares a professor of English at the City College of New York, Dr. Leonard Kriegel, in a striking

article published in The American Scholar (Summer 1969). Dr. Kriegel also happens to be (to use the blunt, old- fashioned term which he himself prefers)

a "cripple." The full title of his article is "Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim: Some Reflections on the Cripple as Negro."

 

This scholarly essay, which is equally remarkable for what it says and what it fails to say, provides me with the text for my own remarks. The title I have

chosen reveals my debt to Dr. Kriegel. It is "Disability and Visibility: Uncle Tom, Blind Tom, and Tiny Tim." Up to a point my remarks are an extension

of the thesis advanced by Dr. Kriegel. Beyond that point they are a critique and a refutation of his argument.

 

The thesis of the Kriegel essay may be simply stated. It is that the cripple (that is, the physically disabled person) is today in much the same plight

as the Negro in America a generation ago—before the advent of the civil rights era and, more particularly, before the rise of that militant movement of

collective self-assertion known as "Black Power." As the Negro had been cast by society in the role of Uncle Tom (the bowing and shuffling "Darkie" created

by Harriet Beecher Stowe), so the cripple is cast in the image of Tiny Tim—the famous little caricature of helplessness and pathos in Charles Dickens'

classic story, "A Christmas Carol."

 

The force of these twin stereotypes, both of them symbolic of inferiority and helplessness, is such as to obscure the reality and actual identity of the

Negro and the cripple—who, in effect, have become invisible. "It is," writes Kriegel, "not the black man and the cripple alone who suffer from invisibility

in America." Other minorities also are alienated or misunderstood. "But one can suggest," he continues, "that if most persons are only half-visible, then

the cripple, like the black man until recently, is wholly invisible. Stereotypes persist long after reality fades away; for us, Uncle Tom still prays on

bent knees while Tiny Tim hobbles through the world on huge gushes of sentiment and love."

 

There is more on this point, in the Kriegel article, but this should be enough to give a serious dimension to the author's quip about the relationship between

the symbolic figures of Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim. Neither figure is an authentic reproduction of reality; both are counterfeit images—but they still pass

for the real thing and carry on their traditionally respectable careers in too many places and too many minds.

 

To these two brothers under the skin we may add a third—the oldest of all and, perhaps, the most destructive. His name is "Blind Tom." He is the proverbial

blind beggar—the pathetic fellow with the tin cup and the clutch of pencils, who taps and blunders his way through the folklore of a dozen cultures, a

shadowy figure on the lunatic fringe of life—the very model of dereliction and despair. The universality of the "Blind Tom" theme is recalled to us by

poems such as this:

 

"The Spring blew trumpets of color;

Her green sang in my brain

I heard a blind man groping

'Tap—tap' with his cane."

 

You are not Blind Tom, of course, nor am I. But he is the label too often thrown over us like a straitjacket and, all too often, worn willingly and unprotestingly.

It is as true of the blind person as the cripple that, to quote Dr. Kriegel, "what [he] must face is being pigeonholed by the smug. ...He is expected to

behave in such-and-such a way; he is expected to react in the following manner to the following stimulus... He reacts [all too often] as he is expected

to react because he does not really accept the idea that he can react in any other way. Once he accepts, however unconsciously, the images of self that

his society presents him, then the guidelines for his behavior are clear-cut and consistent."

 

Up to this point Kriegel's analysis of the dilemma of the disabled is accurate and praiseworthy—and, with only minor reservations, can be extended to embrace

the blind as well. Uncle Tom, Blind Tom, and Tiny Tim are all brothers under the skin.

 

So far, so true. But when Kriegel turns from diagnosis to prognosis—when he writes out his prescription for reform—he loses both nerve and credibility.

For in the end he can see no real hope for the cripple, no prospect of a normal life or an equal role in society. Least of all does he envisage any concerted

voluntary action by the disabled themselves to establish their "visibility"  and  to take a hand in their own destiny. Moreover, it is at this point that

he abruptly abandons his analogy between Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim. "It is noteworthy," he writes, "that, at a time when in virtually every corner of the

globe those who have been invisible to themselves and to those they once conceived of as masters now stridently demand the right to define meaning and

behavior in their own terms, the cripple is still asked to accept definitions of what he is, and of what he should be, imposed on him from outside his

experience."

 

If this is not the way it should be for the cripple, the author seems to be saying, it is the way it must be. For the cripple is, after all, a cripple.

He really is helpless. But let Kriegel put the case in his own words. Pointing to the effectiveness of Black Power threats and actions, he declares: "If

a person who has had polio, for example, were to threaten to burn cities to the ground unless the society recognized his needs he would simply make of

himself an object of laughter and ridicule. The very paraphernalia of his existence, his braces and crutches, make such a threat patently ridiculous. Aware

of his own helplessness, he cannot help but be aware, too, that whatever limited human dimensions he has been offered are themselves the product of society's

largesse. Quite simply, he can take it or leave it."

 

Those are the words of total defeatism, the attitude of Tiny Tim himself—of the object of charity and pity, "aware of his own helplessness" and afraid to

bite the hand that feeds him. Not for the cripple the dawning belief of black Americans "that they possess choices and that they need not live as victims."

Why not? Because, we are told, "The cripple's situation is more difficult. If it exists at all, his sense of community with his fellow sufferers is based

upon shame rather than pride. Nor is there any political or social movement that will supply him with a sense of solidarity. If anything, it is probably

more difficult for the cripple to relate to 'his own' than to the normals."

 

There you have it. For all his higher education, for all his superior knowledge of literature and history, Professor Kriegel knows little of the world in

which he moves, and about which he writes. In particular he knows nothing of the politics of disability, of the power and pride of self-organization among

those whose problems in society may well exceed his own—that is, the blind. Of us—the blind—it was also once supposed that we could never relate to one

another except in shame, and surely could not mount a social movement under our own steam and leadership without all falling down in the ditch. But look

at the record and the reality. The National Federation of the Blind is well into its second generation, and not just going strong but stronger than ever—stronger

in solidarity and commitment, stronger in achievement and effectiveness, strong enough to move mountains and shake foundations. As Dr. Jacobus tenBroek

(the beloved founder of our movement) declared at our 25th Anniversary Convention in the Nation's Capital in 1965: "We have not only survived; we have

not only endured; we have prevailed." We have prevailed over the agency system which once sought to keep the blind invisible, inaudible, and sheltered.

We have prevailed over the welfare system handed down from the poor laws, which saddled the blind with a host of stigmas designed to keep us immobilized

and destitute. We have prevailed over massive barriers of discrimination and exclusion in public employment, such as those erected by the Civil Service

Commission, whose walls have now come tumbling down before the persistent trumpets of the organized blind.

 

Above all, perhaps, we have prevailed over the despair and disbelief in our own minds—the demons of doubt and defeatism, which whisper to the blind man

that half a life is better than none, that there is no place in the sun for him but only a shelter in the shade, that his destiny lies forever in the shadows

and blind alleys among the brooms and brica-brac of economic and social futility. Those demons, too, have been routed.

 

This we have done, and more,  in the span of a generation. What the organized blind of the National Federation have accomplished, others may also accomplish.

Indeed, there is already in existence a national association of the physically handicapped—as well as numerous regional and special-purpose groups, such

as the lively and progressive post-polio association in the San Francisco Bay area, which vigorously lobbies the state capitol and publishes a politically

potent newsletter.

 

One wonders what these activist "cripples" must make of the tone of despairing pessimism which runs through much of Kriegel's article. One need not wonder

at all about the reaction of blind Federationists to passages such as the following, quoted approvingly by Kriegel from the pen of another disabled author:

 

"Somewhere deep inside us is the almost unbearable knowledge that the way the able-bodied world regards us is as much as we have the right to expect. We

are not full members of that world, and the vast majority of us can never hope to be. If we think otherwise we are deluding ourselves. Like children and

the insane, we inhabit a special sub-world, a world with its own unique set of referents."

 

Do those words sound familiar? Of course they do. They are the very gospel of defeatism which once pervaded the literature on blindness and echoed gloomily

down the corridors of the governmental and private service agencies. They are the sentiments of the New York Lighthouse administrator who declared a score

of years ago that "the rank and file of blind people have neither the exceptional urge for independence nor the personal qualifications necessary to satisfactory

adjustment in the sighted world." They are the viewpoint of the historian of blindness who unqualifiedly conceded that "there is little in an industrial

way that a blind person can do at all that cannot be done better and more expeditiously by people with sight"—and who warned that "the learned professions,

including teaching, are on the whole only for those of very superior talent and, more particularly, very superior courage and determination to win at all

costs." The views of the crippled author are neither more nor less negative than the attitude of the agency psychiatrist who asserted that "blindness is

a visible deformity and all blind persons follow a pattern of dependency"

 

But there is no need further to illustrate or recollect that old familiar refrain, whose dominant theme was that blindness is synonymous with helplessness

and that the visually disabled must not be misled into supposing that they can ever venture forth into the mainstream of society. The simple and historic

fact is that the blind have been venturing forth, in droves, for several decades now. We are teaching in the public schools and the colleges and universities

of our states; we are effectively at work in all of the learned professions, including medicine and research science, as well as law and education; we

have escaped the protective custody of the agency system, have broken the "pattern of dependency," and have won for ourselves careers of full participation

and productivity, of self-sufficiency and self-respect.

 

And in the accomplishment of this great leap forward, let it be emphatically avowed, no force has been more powerful than the inner force of self-organization

among the blind themselves. In the unity and brotherhood of Federationism, in the crucible of our often embattled struggle to gain a voice and a hearing,

in the gathering of strength and access of confidence which the Federation movement has instilled in tens of thousands of blind Americans—in this remarkable

adventure of mutual aid and common action we have found a new identity as free and responsible members of society.

 

The saddest feature of the "Tiny Tim" article, with its air of futility and hopelessness, is the utter failure of the author to recognize or understand

the proven way out of alienation. Over and over he exclaims of the disabled that among them "there is no sense of shared relationships or pride"; that

"cripples do not refer to each other as 'soul brothers'"; and that the only sense of community they can share "is based upon shame rather than pride."

We have already noted this author's surprising ignorance of "any political or social movement that will supply [the cripple] with a sense of solidarity."

But perhaps we should not be surprised; for this ignorance of the political facts of life, if inexcusable, is not uncommon among the supposedly informed

commentators on disability. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable about the literature on blindness—both professional and inspirational—than the resounding

silence which that literature displays on the issue of collective self-organization and  self-expression by blind Americans. One may search diligently

(often for several years at a time) through the back numbers of the New Outlook for the Blind, house organ for the American Foundation for the Blind, without

encountering a single reference to or mention of the National Federation of the Blind. One may pore over the massive files of professional publications

and periodicals churned out by the agencies, both public and private, without even a glimpse of the most significant and progressive development of this

century in the field of blindness: that is, the national movement of the organized blind.

 

I believe that it is the simple truth to observe that this conspicuous omission of virtually all reference in the literature on blindness to our organized

movement is not accidental but deliberate: that it represents nothing less than a conspiracy of silence on the part of controlling interests in the agency

system. If that charge sounds excessive, consider an analogy. Suppose that, after scanning all the published histories and studies of modern industry and

employment, you were unable to discover any mention at all of organized labor and the trade union movement. Might you not suspect that so striking an omission

could not occur by accident?

 

But this analogy is, of course, hypothetical. Let me, therefore, suggest another which is altogether real. One of the most important figures in the Russian

Communist Revolution of 1918, and in the subsequent creation of the Soviet Union, was Leon Trotsky—whose leadership role was second only to that of Lenin.

Following Trotsky's defeat and expulsion at the hands of Stalin some years later, virtually all reference to him and his influence was expunged from Soviet

histories and textbooks—even to the point of doctoring old photographs to erase his image. By this act of editorial liquidation the Russian government

has not only denied the existence of one of its major revolutionary leaders; it has also rewritten history to conform to its political specifications.

 

There are, as the Church recognized long ago, two distinct categories of sin: sins of commission, and sins of omission.    The persistent silence of the

agencies and their literature concerning the existence of the organized blind constitutes a sin of omission—a default of responsibility and a dereliction

of duty. The sin is a grievous one, and its consequences are tragic. Because of this conspiracy of silence, some individuals who are without sight may

never learn of the presence of the organized blind movement and thus may never know of the possibility of independence and achievement which might be theirs.

Because of this conspiracy of silence, serious scholars seeking to survey the field of work with the blind may, in some instances, be so deceived as to

fail even to discover the existence of the National Federation of the Blind.

 

Just how sinful this calculated omission can be is shockingly illustrated by a recent book of broad impact and influence, The Making of Blind Men, by Robert

A. Scott. Scott writes an entire treatise on what he calls "the blindness system," a book which purports to make a thorough analysis of the agencies doing

work with the blind in this country today and of the problems and hopes of the blind. Yet, I call your attention to the almost unbelievable fact that despite

the author's claim to have covered "all major points of view, issues, and activities" in the field through nearly one hundred interviews with leaders and

blindness workers, including "representatives of all major public and private organizations for the blind"—despite all this, there is no mention anywhere

in his book of the National Federation or of any other organizations of the blind themselves! No mention—despite the fact that there are almost 50,000

of us in the Federation in every part of the country! Even in his detailed discussion of the varieties of agencies and organizations in the field, which

is piled high with mountains of statistics and data, there is no reference to the organized blind whatsoever.

 

This incredible lapse of scholarship on the part of Professor Scott is, moreover, still more astonishing in view of the fact that his study is not laudatory

but highly critical of the role of the agencies in what he calls the "blindness system." It seems unlikely indeed that he has consciously suppressed information

concerning the organized blind. What is a great deal more likely is that such information was not volunteered by his informants, most of whom were agency

personnel, and that it simply did not turn up in his scrutiny of the professional literature. In short, his otherwise valuable assessment of the field

of work with the blind has been seriously distorted, not to say invalidated, by the conspiracy of silence on the part of powerful agency interests hostile

to the philosophy and achievements of the organized blind movement.

 

The moral of this story is crystal clear. The message of Federationism has not yet been broadcast far enough and wide enough; the voice of the organized

blind is not sufficiently heard in the land. Not only must we reach more blind persons themselves with our philosophy, our history and our program; we

must reach out to the wider community as well, to the reading public and its writing members, and not least to those who write of social movements and

stigmatized minorities and the politics of social service. We cannot rely on others to carry the torch for us; nor can we hide the light of that torch

under a bushel, lest it be the light that failed.

 

While there is much that can be done on the national level—through our publications and conventions, through our informational mail campaigns and white

cane observances, through our congressional bills and alliances, through the speeches and writings of our national leaders—much also can be done at the

grass roots, by our state and local chapters and most of all by individual Federationists on their own initiative. The challenge to all of us is simple:

Let no discussion of blindness and the blind, in print or on the air, whether popular or professional, go unanswered unless it demonstrates a  recognition

of the role of the National Federation and the organized blind movement. Let each of us cultivate the habit of verbal protest, by letter or phone call,

whenever we encounter the worn-out half truths of those who celebrate the good works of foundations, agencies, and bureaus—of charities and service clubs—without

an equivalent awareness of the other half of the truth embodied in Federationism. Let the word go out from every Federated corner of the land; let the

whole truth emerge; let the people know.

 

The struggle of the organized blind today has shifted its focus and battleground, but it is no less critical or crucial than it was a decade ago. It is

no longer a "hot war," fought out in the open for all to see and hear—as in the days of our battle for the right to organize, waged dramatically in congressional

hearings and violent confrontations. Although the confrontation is still frequent and violent enough, it has largely become a cold war, a silent struggle

underground, reminiscent of the words of the poet, "where invisible armies clash by night." Our struggle now is to become visible as a social force—to

break out of the conspiracy of silence—to be seen, to be heard, and to be recognized.

 

When we have accomplished that breakthrough—when we are fully visible to the professionals, the public, and ourselves in the reality of our independence

and collective strength—when these things have been done, we shall have buried forever the pitiful figure of "Blind Tom," the beggar boy, and have paved

the way for a new understanding of the blind.

 

The challenge is real; the need is urgent; and the responsibility is ours. Enlightened professionals in the governmental and private agencies can and will

help, but they cannot and should not be expected to lead the way. Likewise, sighted friends who believe in our cause and know what we are doing can give

invaluable assistance; but again, they cannot and should not be expected to furnish the impetus or provide the leadership. We as blind people must do that

job for ourselves. Do it we must, and do it we will! We have set our feet on the road. We have begun to march. We have taken up our positions at the barricades,

and we shall not rest or quit until the job is done.

 

References

 

1. KRIEGEL, Leonard, "Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim: Some Reflections on the Cripple as Negro," The American Scholar. Volume 38, No.3 (Summer 1969), pp. 412-430.

All subsequent ref-erences to this article are from these pages.

 

2. KEMP, Harry, "The Blind." Quoted in John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (edited by Christopher Morley), Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1951, p. 882.

 

3. BEST, Harry, Blindness and the Blind in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1934), p.473.

 

4. FRENCH, Richard S., From Homer to Helen Keller (New York: American Foundation for the Blind, 1932), pp. 198-201.

 

5. CUTSFORTH, Thomas D., "Personality and Social Adjustment Among the Blind." Quoted in Jacobus tenBroek and Floyd W. Matson, Hope Deferred: Public Welfare

and the Blind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 7

 

6. SCOTT, Robert A., The Making of Blind Men: A Study of Adult Socialization (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969).

 

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