Thursday, March 31, 2011

Presto Chango!


The Cracker Barrel!  I absolutely love the Cracker Barrel.  But they don't have any here on the Wild Olympic Peninsula. 
 As careful as I am when eating, I never put both hands into my mouth at the same time and only lick them off over my plate, nonetheless I do get a teeny, tiny little smudge on my shirt from time to time.  Like every time I eat. 
It would not happen as often if my stomach didn't poke out so far in front of my chest.  The dribble shoots right on past my chest and splatters on the protrusion. 
That's when Oxi Clean comes to the rescue.  Upon returning home I take a cup of the dry Oxi Clean and mix it with very hot water.  Then I fold my shirt into the water, having first removed it from my body.  I leave it overnight, toss it into the washer and Presto Chango!  Clean and ready to receive dribbles again. 
 
Curious Carl
 

settling

Subject: Re: [acb-l] settling

To All Settlers...and those who may still be unsettled,
 
As I settle myself in my office chair this morning, I find that I am willing to settle for a little distraction before settling down to attempt to settle several client needs. 
Although I do recall using the expression many times, in my heart of hearts I really have never settled for anything.  Oh sure, I've heard myself say, "I had to settle for second best", or "We settled for the ham and cheese sandwich, since they were out of Turkey", but that's quite different than "settling" on how I conduct my life. 
I have never settled for living in a certain neighborhood because I couldn't afford to live somewhere else.  I've never settled for my current job because I couldn't convince anyone to pay me to turn my dream jobs into reality. 
I've never settled for taking a bus to work rather than driving myself. 
I guess I just don't get it.  What are we supposed to be settling on? 
Don't we just deal with life?  Where I find myself in life is based on a gazillion events, most of which I had no control over.  But even if I made some dumb decisions, I am not settling for my present situation.  It just is.  It's where I am.  Some things I do for myself that I might be better off having done for me, and some things I have done for me that I could do for myself.  That's not settling.  That's Life. 
When we are working with a client we do not say, "You will just have to settle on reading with a magnifier", or "You will have to settle on having your mail read to you".  We say, "here are your choices, given your situation".  And when a client chooses to walk into walls rather than be seen with a white cane, we don't think that she has settled for this behavior.  She is doing the best she can do with her current state of being.  As a rehab teacher, my job is to offer her better information and instruction.  But she is going to process what I do and make her own choices.  that's not settling.  That's doing the best she can do right now. 
And isn't that what all of us do? 
 
Carl Jarvis
 
 

Blind beggars through the "eye" of the blind.

In the blind community the debate goes on.  Should we accept the blind beggar or drive him/her off the streets? 
Some of us declare that the beggar makes such a negative statement that potential employers will see that image whenever one of us applies for a job, and will turn us away. 
Others feel that the blind beggar disturbs us because none of us are that far removed from taking to the streets ourselves.  And some of us just like to mess in other people's lives. 
A friend of mine drove a beer truck for a living.  He became converted to a fundamental church and when his new associates learned what he did for a living they began to criticize him and to tell him that he was giving them all a black eye and nothing would do but what he must find a more appropriate job.  Just as an aside, since Jesus turned water into wine I could not see their point, but anyway that was how they saw it.  My friend complained to me that it was putting him in a very tough place.  But being a practical man and having a family to care for, he continued driving the beer truck and told his critics that it gave him the golden opportunity to Witness before folks who were usually overlooked. 
But my point is, if this blind beggar tells you that begging is his job, then my only question would be, "Do you have a business license, and do you pay your proper taxes?"  I've known blind street beggars who made better money than I ever made. 
Most of us don't get excited or offended over the bell ringers at Christmas time.  And we all have tolerated a wide range of beggars, from the door knockers peddling their religion and asking for donations, to beggars slipping into our homes through our mail boxes.  So is it because the beggar is blind that we are highly offended?  Is it a personal affront?  Would it help if I told you that no beggar will impact you one little bit.  You are already covered by the General Blind Stereotype.  That stereotype includes you, me  and the blind beggar alike.  Getting him off the street will not change anything except for his income. 
 
Curious Carl
 

Friday, March 25, 2011

what's in a word?

The 1960 Braille Series were the first books I taught Braille from.  In Book One, using the first ten letters of the alphabet, we came upon the word Fag.  Now when I was a lad, Fag meant a cigarette.  As in "Give me a fag, will ya?" 
One day a student came to me in a rather agitated state.  "There is an offensive word in this lesson book," she declared. 
Startled, I took a look at what sort of offensive word might be tucked away in this innocent looking lesson book.  "Fag!" she announced, pointing to the page.  No matter how I tried explaining that this book was published long before the word took on any meaning other than a cigarette, she was not to be pacified. 
So I had her gather all of the Braille Book One's and bring them into my classroom.  She and I sat down and rubbed out one dot on the letter G, making the work "Fad".  She went away very pleased with herself. 
The next shipment of 1960 Braille Book One had the word Fag in it.  But I never breathed a word. 
 
Curious Carl
 

I'll sing at his grave

Show me a man without bias and I'll sing at his graveside. 
 
Curious Carl
----- Original Message -----
From: John Heim
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2011 7:01 AM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] (For All the) Public Broadcasting

But again, saying that everyone has biases does not prove the reporting on
NPR is biased. A judge can dislike a defendant and still see to it that he
gets a fair trial. A journalist can have a bias and still be fair when
reporting a story. That's a journalist's job. I still see no reason to
believe PBS and NPR's reporting is biased.

Everybody seems happy to just declare it to be true. Well, I'm not buying
it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Metz" <kenmetz@dslextreme.com>
To: "'Carl Jarvis'" <carjar82@gmail.com>; "'R. E. Driscoll Sr'"
<llocsirdsr@att.net>; "'Acb List'" <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 8:18 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] (For All the) Public Broadcasting


> No bias also allows one to have any of his/her own ideas/opinions. These
> are
> people that can't think outside the box even when it might help a blind
> guy
> become employed.
>
>
>
> KEN
>
>
>
> From: acb-l-bounces@acb.org [mailto:acb-l-bounces@acb.org] On Behalf Of
> Carl
> Jarvis
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 8:39 AM
> To: R. E. Driscoll Sr; 'Acb List'
> Subject: Re: [acb-l] (For All the) Public Broadcasting
>
>
>
> Dick,
>
> Definition of a person without a bias.  Dead.
>
> And now that you've identified what you are not, tell us what you are?
>
> I'm reminded of the fellow our state hired to direct the Commission for
> the
> Blind in Washington State back around 1981.  His claim to fame was that he
> was not a member of the ACB.  He was not a member of the NFB.  As a
> totally
> blind man he held no positions on any subject regarding anything at all.
> What he had was a blank mind, a clean slate.
>
> Of course it turned out to be a foolish attempt to deceive the Commission
> Board.  He lasted exactly one year and almost brought programs to an end.
>
> So much for guys with no bias'.
>
>
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: R. E. Driscoll Sr <mailto:llocsirdsr@att.net>
>
> To: 'Acb List' <mailto:acb-l@acb.org>
>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 7:54 AM
>
> Subject: Re: [acb-l] (For All the) Public Broadcasting
>
>
>
> Dear Friends:
> I am overjoyed to know that 'liberals' can be biased.  While I am not a
> 'conservative' nor a 'liberal' nor an 'independent' I readily admit that I
> am full of bias and have to be 'on guard' at all times lest my 'biases'
> show
> up in my conversation and thoughts.  Mea Culpa.  Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima
> Culpa.
> Regards,
> R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
>
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


> _______________________________________________
> acb-l mailing list
> acb-l@acb.org
> http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
>

_______________________________________________
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Peter Principle

The Peter Principle, by Laurence J. Peter is the only book I have read by this author. 
The basic thrust is that we all rise to our level of incompetency.  This may explain why Laurence J. Peter is only known for his one book. 
 
Curious Carl
 

remember the triangle shirt waist factory fire of 1911

Subject: remember the triangle shirt waist factory fire of 1911

Today, March 25, 2011, marks the 100th anniversary of that tragic fire in the Triangle building in New York City. 
I think it is appropriate for all of us involved in any blind organization to pause and reflect on just why we have come together. 
Remembering the conditions suffered by the garment factory workers in those distant days should remind us of the back rooms and the work shops and the poor farms where blind people existed.  Despite the hard road ahead of us, we really have come a long way.  We need to keep in mind that it has been through collective action, not by individual gain, that has brought us as far as we find ourselves. 
I would hope that regardless of our political leanings, that we all defend the right of people everywhere to organize for their own protection and advancement. 
Certainly we have seen many abuses of power in organized labor, but we only have to look about the world to see the corporate abuses which exist when there is no worker's organizations allowed. 
Imagine what would become of us and our gains if the government decided to ban the right of the blind to organize?  Who would take up our cause?  And if we had to look elsewhere, other  than within ourselves, would it really be our cause?  Or would it once again be the "care and pity" from our loving benefactors?  We've been down that road.  I, for one do not want to have to return to custodial life. 
 
Carl Jarvis
 
*************
Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves. --Eugene Victor Debs
1855-1926

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

who said...

 
Who do you think said the following? 
 

The first thing to understand is the difference between the natural person and the fictitious person called a corporation. They differ in the purpose for which they are created, in the strength which they possess, and in the restraints under which they act.

Man is the handiwork of God and was placed upon earth to carry out a Divine purpose; the corporation is the handiwork of man and created to carry out a money-making policy.

There is comparatively little difference in the strength of men; a corporation may be one hundred, one thousand, or even one million times stronger than the average man. Man acts under the restraints of conscience, and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter....

 

 

Answer: 

 

—William Jennings Bryan, in his address to the
Ohio 1912 Constitutional Convention. 

 

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

Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves. --Eugene Victor Debs
1855-1926
*************
 

how long has the battle raged?

 
How long has the war between the Ruling Class and the American People raged? 
 
Interesting notes from the  Santa Clara County vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad. from Thom Hartman's book, Unequal Protection:
 
 
 
 Speaking before the Supreme Court in 1885, attorney Delphin M. Delmas said, "This could be", he suggested, "one of the most important Supreme Court cases in the history of the United States because if corporations were given the powerful cudgel of human rights secured by the Bill of Rights, their ability to amass wealth and power could lead to death, war, and the impoverishment of actual human beings on a massive scale." 
 
President Cleveland, the only Democrat to serve as president during the Robber Baron Era, in his December 3, 1888, State of the Union address, said,

The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor. As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people. 

 

*************
Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves. --Eugene Victor Debs
1855-1926

Friday, March 11, 2011

Labor Unions and Corporate Associations

Labor Unions and Corporate Associations
 
 
A reply to a friend who believes Labor Unions have become too corrupt to be allowed to continue.

    You are partially correct my Friend.  Yes,in some cases members indifference toward their Labor Unions             allowed them to be taken over by Organized Crime.  However efforts to link unions with communist cells were never proven to be anything other than smear tactics by opponents of organized labor. 
Certainly some of the blame for corruption in unions must fall on the shoulders of the union members for not maintaining eternal vigilance, nonetheless Wall Street and Madison Avenue did all they could to discredit, weaken and destroy labor unions.  But it must be remembered that the corporate and company bosses had their own cooperatives and associations in order to join forces and maintain a balance of power.  So it was not that they were opposed to Unions.  They were opposed to the Workers Unions.  Of course the establishment usually had the upper hand in that balance of power, since they owned the factories, the banks, the money and the poloticians. 
But as long as the workers could stop production, they could hold their own with the establishment. 
It is this balance of power that Scott Walker and other governors are attempting to destroy.  By loading enough conditions on the backs of unions, they turn them into toothless Tigers. 
This month is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Building Fire in New York City.  Go back and read reports of working conditions in 1911 when the business bosses held all the cards. 
When poloticians like Walker are bought and paid for by industrialists like the Koch brothers, their loyalties are not with the people.  They will put the interests of the industrialists first.  And they will lie and tell you, while looking you straight in the eye, that they are not swayed by their contributors big bucks. 
Frankly, I do not want to see the balance swing back to 1911.  Some reform of both the Labor Unions as well as the whole process in which we now conduct our political campaigns and elections, is very much in order.  But the solution is not to destroy one or the other.  We need one another. 
It is not greedy workers that have driven factories overseas.  They were making more money than they could figure out how to spend with their factories right here.  But greed did play a major role in the desecration of our great manufacturing might. 
A good example was the comments by Phil Knight, CEO of Nike.  He said that his goal was to build the best shoe factory in the world.  When asked if it bothered him to know that 12 year old girls were working in his factory, he said that was a lie, they hired no one under the age of 14.  When asked if it bothered him to see 14 year old girls working in his factory, he said, "No!"  In fact, Knight admitted that he'd never visited his overseas factory.  His only information was second hand.  It was the bottom line that interested him. 
Think of it my friend, you are the CEO of a very successful company.  You have become a Billionaire and are living on top of the world.  You are so rich that you can never spend it all if you live to be 250 years old.  History teaches us that you will not change that which is working so well for you.  Your employees are making poverty wages and working long hours for it.  They come to you one by one asking for relief from the grinding poverty and hard working conditions.  You explain that you must keep your product competetive and cannot pay more than the other companies making similar items. 
At the same time you contribute to several key poloticians who support "Right to Work" legislation.  You have a bank of attorneys who comb the laws of the land and find loopholes that keep your taxes to vertually nothing.  You move your excess money to off shore banks.  You buy national ads on TV pointing with pride to all that you do and all of the charities that you support.  And you continue to pay the people who are making you your wealth, crap for wages. 
You tell them that you created jobs for them and they should be grateful and loyal.  But if times get tough, or they finally get enough balls to organize despite your best efforts, you show your loyalty to them by pulling up your factory and heading for China, or Mexico or any place that allows you to pay next to nothing in wages. 
What do you say to those long suffering, loyal workers?  Do you say, "you shouldn't be as greedy as your boss?" 
I view any corporation that had its start here in America and then takes its money and factories to Third World countries, as Un-American.  They leave behind desolution.  The very people who labored for them and paid extra taxes to provide them with cheap power and other tax breaks, those very people are left to live in slums. 
Those are my people.  I was born into a working class family.  That's where my roots are, and always will be.  The Ruling Class are people who do not share.  They use other people to do their bidding and earn them their wealth while looking down their noses at them and calling them useless and lazy. 
They own the government and make different rules to govern the poor than the ones for themselves.  They take your and my labor and then tell us that they have the right to live better than we do. 
I neither want to be among them nor have them rule my life.  They are focused on dollars while my people are focused on caring and sharing. 
But back to the difference between your fringe benefits and mine.  Any of us hire onto a job with a mutual agreement.  Usually called a contract.  The one Cathy and I now are signed onto provides nothing but a flat amount of money each month as repayment for documented production.  The state draws up the contract.  And the state is every bit as tight as any corporate lawyer in the private sector.  The contract protects the state and passes responsibility, liability and all operational costs to us.  We pay our medical other than my Medicare, any vacation time, all work expenses like gas and client equipment, all fees to the state and if we had one, our retirement program.  This is a far cry from the contract I worked under when I was a state employee.  Because of years of labor union negotiations state employees had some better benefits than those men and women who worked for the state 100 years ago.  Back in 1911 state employees contracts resembled the one that is used today for contract workers.  There are those in the Ruling Class who want to see this sort of contract reintroduced.  They mistakenly believe that it will save them and the state millions of dollars.  My sources tell me that following the lead of Wisconsin, Washington State will soon compare itself to Mississippi. 
When I was a state employee my benefits were part of a package worked out between the state and the employees union.  I received part of my pay each month in a lump sum.  Part of my pay was set aside to pay my share of my health program.  Part of my pay was held for my annual leave and sick leave.  And part of it went into my state pension.  I might have received this all as a lump sum and divided it myself.  But it was a great help to have it divided out by the fiscal office.  But when the state wants me to pay a greater share of my health costs, it's asking the impossible.  I'm already upholding my end of the contract we agreed upon.  Do you think that the state would be happy if employees suddenly said that they were taking an extra weeks vacation with pay?  The state would never stand for it.  Yet Walker wants to renig on the employees contract without negotiating changes with them. 
I look at my current contract and compare it to the one I worked under at the Department and I ask myself, "Which contract do I want my children and grand children to sign?"  My folks fought for a  better life for me and my sisters.  I want the same for my children. 
I'll shut up after one more thought. 
We are told by our president and our governor and our bosses that we must all make sacrifices in these hard times.  And so we do.  But tell me, what sacrifices have you seen Bill Clinton make, or George Bush?  How many millionaires are finding their budget cramped because gas and food prices have risen?  How many millionaires have had their homes foreclosed?  Lost their jobs?  Been laid off? 
My house is worth nearly 80 thousand dollars less today than just two years ago.  My youngest daughter's house lost 70 thousand dollars.  That was the money they put down on it.  They can't afford to sell.  Another down turn and they'll owe more than the house is worth.  Has George Bush or Bill Clinton jumped up and offered to bail us out?  Or Obama?  He can't even decide if the fast rising gasoline prices are an emergency or not.  Why do you suppose that is?  Who pays for his gas?  Let these people come live in your house or mine for a few years and learn what sacrifice is all about. 
But you and I will probably never agree, because we relate to different people. 
 
Curious Carl

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Empire Strikes Back!

I truly hope we are not going to find ourselves in a violent confrontation.  The Empire Builders hold all the weapons of mass destruction.  If our government turned on us it would be a blood bath.  There has to be a peaceful way of winning. 
But win we must. 
 
Curious Carl
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: Wis. GOP strips public workers' bargaining rights

I'm willing to bet that this one's going in front of both state and federal courts very soon. Also, am I the only one thinking that we may be edging closer to another bloody civil war in the U.S.?

Ted
---- Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:


NEWS | LOCAL | POLITICS | SPORTS | OPINIONS | BUSINESS | ARTS & LIVING |
GOING OUT GUIDE | JOBS | CARS | REAL ESTATE |SHOPPING

 Wis. GOP strips public workers' bargaining rights

By SCOTT BAUER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 9, 2011; 7:45 PM



MADISON, Wis. -- Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted Wednesday night
to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after
discovering a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois nearly three weeks ago, preventing
the chamber from having enough members present to consider Gov. Scott
Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" - a proposal introduced to plug a
$137 million budget shortfall.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But
Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail
union rights, which spends no money, and a special conference committee of
state lawmakers approved the bill a short time later.

The lone Democrat present on the conference committee, Rep. Tony Barca,
shouted that the surprise meeting was a violation of the state's open
meetings law but Republicans voted over his objections. The Senate then
convened within minutes and passed it without discussion or debate.

Spectators in the gallery screamed "You are cowards."

Before the sudden votes, Democratic Sens. Bob Jauch said if Republicans
"chose to ram this bill through in this fashion, it will be to their
political peril. They're changing the rules. They will inflame a very
frustrated public."

© 2011 The Associated Press


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Scott Walker, Ronald Reagan reincarnated?

Scott Walker, Ronald Reagan reincarnated? 
 
Governor Scott Walker's underhanded tactics may be compared to Reagan's treatment of the Air Traffic Controllers, but the public response is so very much different. 
Walker likens himself to Reagan, but he is a wimp by comparison.  And I never thought of Ronald Reagan as much of a man.  He was what we later referred to as Plastic People.  All front and nothing behind it. 
But the Empire will allow Scott Walker to be taken down if it furthers their cause.  He thinks he's buddy buddy with the Billionaires, but they see him as nothing more than a flunky doing their bidding. 
When will these fools ever learn that they cannot be part of the Billionaire Brotherhood? 
How many house servants in the Old South came to believe that because they lived inside the Big House and bore their Master's children and were beloved by the family, that they were part of that family, and they turned on their own people. 
Scott Walker is nothing more than a House N-----. 
 
Curious Carl
 

wear a rubber suit

An 86 year old client was really steaming the other day when we dropped by. 
"My son wants to put foam rubber around my tables and counter edges so I won't hurt myself if I fall." 
It turned out that she had fallen.  But not in her apartment.  She had been swimming and was changing into her street clothes and grabbed her walker to steady herself as she stood up.  The walker rolled and she tumbled.  As fast as the word went out family and nosey know it alls jumped to her rescue.  Even her physical therapist got into the act, telling her that unless the exercise equipment at the apartment gym was modified for a blind person, she was not allowed to use it. 
After some discussion our client calmed down to the point that we could help pull her off the ceiling.  "Here's just a suggestion," I said with a straight face, "Tell your son that it will be much cheaper if he buys you a foam rubber suit.  That way when you fall you will simply bounce right back up."  We reviewed the obvious safety rules with her.  She uses a walker when away from her apartment and a support cane when in her rather cramped unit.  We worked on making sure she took extra time when standing up or getting out of bed.  Just then the phone rang and she leapt to her feet and staggered toward it.  "A cordless phone could serve you better.  You can keep it beside you so you don't feel the need to do a summersault in an effort to answer it:, we suggested. 
We worked on ways of better using her support cane within the apartment and finally declared her safe to continue living just as she had been doing.  "You might want to dispose of that coffee table," I offered.  "It would give you much more room in this small living space". 
She informed me that this had been her mother's coffee table and she would die before parting with it.  End of my plot to rid the world of one more coffee table. 
"What does your physical therapist think needs to be done to make the exercise equipment safe for a blind person?"  we wanted to know. 
"They must install audible counters so I will know how many repetitions, how fast I'm going and how long I've been working out", she told us. 
"What do you do now?" we wondered. 
"I get on and count to 100 and then go to the next machine", she said. 
"Do you find that you are out of breath or exhausted by doing this?" we asked. 
"Not in the slightest.  It's kept me in good shape for two years now.  I exercise so I won't wind up in a wheel chair", she snapped. 
"Then tell your physical therapist exactly what you just told us.  And if she protests, tell her you'll find a more agreeable PT.  Remember, you are your own boss." 
Curious Carl
 

One more fox

At this point in time I cannot find it in my heart to mark my ballot for Obama.  Yes, he's a better president than McCain would have been, as far as we common folk are concerned.  But only because McCain would not have felt the need to vacillate and compromise.  On the other hand, McCain and his fellow Empire supporters might have pushed things to a head faster than they are now going.  But it is clear now that the class war is out in the open.  Obama has not stepped forward to defend the people who put him in office, other than the billionaires who did pay for much of his campaign.  His inaction declares him to be just one more Fox guarding the Hen House. 
 
Curious Carl
 

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See

The Blind Man Who Taught Himself To See
  Men's Journal Posted By MJ On March 1, 2011 at 7:34 pm In
Features
  Daniel Kish has been sightless since he was a year old.  Yet he
can mountain bike.  And navigate the wilderness alone.  And
recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet.  How? The same
way bats can see in the dark.
  by Michael Finkel
photograph by Steve Pyke
  The first thing Daniel Kish does, when I pull up to his tidy
gray bungalow in Long Beach, California, is make fun of my
driving.  "You're going to leave it that far from the curb?" he
asks.  He's standing on his stoop, a good 10 paces from my car. 
I glance behind me as I walk up to him.  I am, indeed, parked
about a foot and a half from the curb.
  The second thing Kish does, in his living room a few minutes
later, is remove his prosthetic eyeballs.  He does this casually,
like a person taking off a smudged pair of glasses.  The
prosthetics are thin convex shells, made of acrylic plastic, with
light brown irises.  A couple of times a day they need to be
cleaned.  "They get gummy," he explains.  Behind them is mostly
scar tissue.  He wipes them gently with a white cloth and places
them back in.
  Kish was born with an aggressive form of cancer called
retinoblastoma, which attacks the retinas.  To save his life,
both of his eyes were removed by the time he was 13 months old. 
Since his infancy -- Kish is now 44 -- he has been adapting to
his blindness in such remarkable ways that some people have
wondered if he's playing a grand practical joke.  But Kish, I can
confirm, is completely blind.
  He knew my car was poorly parked because he produced a brief,
sharp click with his tongue.  The sound waves he created traveled
at a speed of more than 1,000 feet per second, bounced off every
object around him, and returned to his ears at the same rate,
though vastly decreased in volume.
  But not silent.  Kish has trained himself to hear these slight
echoes and to interpret their meaning.  Standing on his front
stoop, he could visualize, with an extraordinary degree of
precision, the two pine trees on his front lawn, the curb at the
edge of his street, and finally, a bit too far from that curb, my
rental car.  Kish has given a name to what he does -- he calls it
"FlashSonar" -- but it's more commonly known by its scientific
term, echolocation.
  Bats, of course, use echolocation.  Beluga whales too 
Dolphins.  And Daniel Kish.  He is so accomplished at
echolocation that he's able to pedal his mountain bike through
streets heavy with traffic and on precipitous dirt trails.  He
climbs trees.  He camps out, by himself, deep in the wilderness. 
He's lived for weeks at a time in a tiny cabin a two-mile hike
from the nearest road.  He travels around the globe.  He's a
skilled cook, an avid swimmer, a fluid dance partner. 
Essentially, though in a way that is unfamiliar to nearly any
other human being, Kish can see.
  This is not enough for him.  Kish is seeking -- despite a lack
of support from every mainstream blind organization in America --
nothing less than a profound reordering of the way the world
views blind people, and the way blind people view the world. 
He's tired of being told that the blind are best served by
staying close to home, sticking only to memorized routes, and
depending on the unreliable benevolence of the sighted to do
anything beyond the most routine of tasks.
  Kish preaches complete and unfettered independence, even if the
result produces the occasional bloody gash or broken bone.  (He
once fractured the heel of his left foot after leaping from a
rock and has broken a couple of teeth.) He's regarded by some in
the blind community with deep veneration.  Others, like a
commenter on the National Federation of the Blind's listserv,
consider him "disgraceful" for promoting behavior such as tongue
clicking that could be seen as off-putting and abnormal.
  Kish and a handful of coworkers run a nonprofit organization
called World Access for the Blind, headquartered in Kish's home. 
World Access offers training on how to gracefully interact with
one's environment, using echolocation as a primary tool.  So far,
in the decade it has existed, the organization has introduced
more than 500 students to echolocation.  Kish is not the first
blind person to use echolocation, but he's the only one to
meticulously document it, to break it down into its component
parts, and to figure out how to teach it.  His dream is to help
all sight-impaired people see the world as clearly as he does.
  It begins with the lid of a pot.  "Stand up," Kish instructs,
then guides me to the center of his living room and ties a
blindfold around my head, while mentioning, in a schoolteachery
tone, that I should not for an instant think that wearing a
blindfold represents the experience of being blind.  A blindfold
almost always causes someone who can see to feel frightened,
confused, and disoriented.  Kish is none of these things.
  "Now wait here," he says.  Though he was born and raised in
Southern California, Kish has an odd, almost foreign-sounding
accent -- a bouillabaisse of Canadian, British, and relaxed Los
Angeleno.  He says it's a result of his many travels.  "I'm a
natural mimic," he explains.  Kish is 5-foot-7, thin and fit,
with an impressive mane of dark brown hair and a meandering
winestain birthmark on his left cheek.
  I hear him walk into his kitchen, his bare feet padding faintly
on the hardwood floor.  "I'm very particular about feeling life
and air around my feet," he once wrote in the journal he
braille-typed and shared with me.  I'm barefoot as well.  Kish
asked me to remove my shoes, which is one of his many little
rules you quickly learn to adopt.  Like: He's Daniel Kish, and
anyone who calls him "Dan" more than once may be struck with
withering disdain.  And don't disturb him during his sleep time
-- lately, he's been sleeping just two hours twice a day, usually
from 5 to 7 in the morning and again from 5 to 7 in the evening. 
He often stays up all night dealing with World Access logistics. 
He lives alone and does not have a significant other.  He plays a
lot of Celtic hymnal music.
  I listen as Kish opens a cabinet and rummages amid his pots. 
He returns and stands behind me.  "Make a click," he says.
  It's a terrible click, a sloppy click; what Kish calls a
"clucky click." Kish's click is a thing of beauty -- he snaps the
tip of his tongue briefly and firmly against the roof of his
mouth, creating a momentary vacuum that pops upon release, a
sound very much like pushing the igniter on a gas stove  A team
of Spanish scientists recently studied Kish's click and deemed it
acoustically ideal for capturing echoes.  A machine, they wrote,
could do no better.
  My click will work for now.  Kish tells me that he's holding a
large glass lid, the top to a Crock-Pot, a few inches in front of
me.  "Click again," he says.  There's a distinct echo, a smearing
of sound as if I'm standing in my shower.  "Now click," he says. 
The echo's gone.  "I've lifted it up.  Can you tell?"
  I can, quite clearly.  "Click again," he instructs.  "Where is
it?" I click; there's no echo.
  "It's still lifted," I say.
  "Try again," says Kish.  "But move your head, listen to your
environment."
  I turn my head to the right and click.  Nothing.  Then I click
to the left.  Bingo.  "It's over here," I say, tilting my head in
the direction of the lid.
  "Exactly," says Kish.  "Now let's try it with a pillow."
  There are two reasons echolocation works.  The first is that
our ears, conveniently, are located on both sides of our head. 
When there's a noise off to one side, the sound reaches the
closer ear about a millisecond -- a thousandth of a second --
before it reaches the farther ear.  That's enough of a gap for
the auditory cortex of our brain to process the information. 
It's rare that we turn the wrong way when someone calls our name. 
In fact, we're able to process, with phenomenal accuracy, sounds
just a few degrees off-center.  Having two ears, like having two
eyes, also gives us the auditory equivalent of depth perception. 
We hear in stereo 3-D.  This allows us, using only our ears, to
build a detailed map of our surroundings.
  The second reason echolocation works is that humans, on
average, have excellent hearing.  We hear better than we see. 
Much better.  On the light spectrum, human eyes can perceive only
a small sliver of all the varieties of light -- no ultraviolet,
no infrared.  Converting this to sound terminology, we can see
less than one octave of frequency.  We hear a range of 10
octaves.
  We can also hear behind us; we can hear around corners.  Sight
can't do this.  Human hearing is so good that if you have decent
hearing, you will never once in your life experience true
silence.  Even if you sit completely still in a soundproof room,
you will detect the beating of your own heart.
  Kish does not go around clicking like a madman.  He uses his
click sparingly and, depending on his location, varies the
volume.  When he's outside, he'll throw a loud click.  In good
conditions, he can hear a building 1,000 feet away, a tree from
30 feet, a person from six feet.  Up close, he can echolocate a
one-inch diameter pole.  He can tell the difference between a
pickup truck, a passenger car, and an SUV.  He can locate trail
signs in the forest, then run his finger across the engraved
letters and determine which path to take.  Every house, he
explains, has its own acoustic signature.
  He can hear the variation between a wall and a bush and a
chain-link fence.  Bounce a tennis ball off a wall, Kish says,
then off a bush.  Different response.  So too with sound.  Given
a bit of time, he can echolocate something as small as a golf
ball.  Sometimes, in a parking garage, he can echolocate the exit
faster than a sighted person can find it.
  I accompanied Kish on several occasions as he cruised the busy
streets of Long Beach.  The outside world is an absolute
cacophony.  Every car, person, dog, stroller, and bicycle makes a
sound.  So do gusts of wind, bits of blowing garbage, and
rustling leaves.  Doors open and close.  Change jangles.  People
talk.  Then there are the silent obstacles -- what Kish calls
urban furniture: benches, traffic signs, telephone poles, postal
boxes, fire hydrants, light posts, parked vehicles.  Kish hears
the sonic reflections from his click even in a place teeming with
ambient noise.  "It's like recognizing a familiar voice in a
crowd," he says.  The load upon his mind is undoubtedly immense. 
Yet he casually processes everything, constructing and memorizing
a mental map of his route, all while maintaining an intricate
conversation with me.  It's so extraordinary that it seems to
border on the magical.
  When we walk into a restaurant -- never a simple choice with
Kish, since he's a strict vegan -- he makes a much quieter click. 
Kish describes the images he receives as akin to a brief flick of
the lights in a dark room; you get enough essential information
-- tables here, stairway there, support pillars here -- to
navigate your way through.  "It becomes as ridiculous for blind
people to run into a wall as it is for sighted people," he once
wrote in his FlashSonar manual.  He strolls casually across the
restaurant, making one or two more clicks as we approach our
table, then sits down.  It's both smooth and subtle.  Kish says
that it is rare a sighted person even notices he's making an
unusual noise.  Almost all blind people instantly do.
  What people do notice about Kish is his long white cane.  His
blind person's cane.  Using echolocation, Kish could get around
without one.  For most of his youth, in fact, he never carried a
cane, seeking to avoid the stigma attached to it.  Now, as he
approaches middle age, he's come to believe that whatever can
conveniently provide him with more information about his
environment he will use.  Echolocation's chief liability is that
it is not good at detecting holes in the ground, or small
dropoffs, which a cane can do.  There are also some figure-ground
issues with echolocation -- a park bench can "disappear" when
it's directly in front of a stone wall -- and a cane, in essence,
increases the length of your arm by as much as five feet.
  Kish also keeps aware, during the day, of where the sun is
striking him -- a good way to determine direction -- and how the
cracks between sidewalk blocks line up; if you remain steadily
perpendicular to them, you're not veering.
  When it's all put together, says Kish, he has very rich, very
detailed pictures in his head.
  "In color?" I ask.
  "No," he says.  "I've never seen color, so there's no color. 
It's more like a sonar, like on the Titanic."
  At his high school graduation in 1984, Kish was voted "most
likely to succeed." Photo courtesy Daniel Kish
  Kish can hardly remember a time when he didn't click.  He came
to it on his own, intuitively, at age two, about a year after his
second eye was removed.  Many blind children make noises in order
to get feedback -- foot stomping, finger snapping, hand clapping,
tongue clicking.  These behaviors are the beginnings of
echolocation, but they're almost invariably deemed asocial by
parents or caretakers and swiftly extinguished.  Kish was
fortunate that his mother never tried to dissuade him from
clicking.  "That tongue click was everything to me," he says.
  He has a vivid recollection of sneaking out his bedroom window
in the middle of the night, at age two and a half, and climbing
over a fence into his neighbor's yard.  "I was in the habit of
exploring whatever I sensed around me," he writes in his journal. 
He soon wondered what was in the yard of the next house.  And the
one after that.  "I was on the other side of the block before
someone discovered me prowling around their backyard and had the
police return me home to completely flummoxed parents."
  Kish was born in Montebello, California, into a difficult
family situation.  His younger brother, Keith, was also born with
retinoblastoma -- it's genetic, though neither of Kish's parents
had the disease.  Doctors managed to save enough of Keith's
eyesight so that he doesn't need echolocation.  He's now a middle
school English teacher.  Kish's father, who worked as an
automobile mechanic, was a physically abusive alcoholic, and his
mother left him when Kish was six.
  "I was a violent kid," says Kish.  He frequently got into
fistfights.  "I rarely lost.  My strategy consisted of
immobilizing opponents before they could hit me too often." He
went to mainstream schools and relied almost exclusively on
echolocation to orient himself, though at the time neither he nor
his mom had any concept of what he was doing.  "There was no one
to explain it, there was no one to help me enhance it, and we all
just kind of took it for granted," he says.  "My family and
friends were like, 'Yeah, he does this funny click thing and he
gets around.'?" They called it his radar.  Navigating new places,
he says, was like solving a puzzle.
  He rode his bike with wild abandon.  "I used to go to the top
of a hill and scream 'Dive bomb6' and ride down as fast as I
could," he says.  This is when he was eight.  The neighborhood
kids would scatter.  "One day I lost control of the bicycle,
crashed through these trash cans, and smashed into a metal light
pole.  It was a violent collision.  I had blood all over my face. 
I picked myself up and went home."
  He was raised with almost no dispensation for his blindness. 
"My upbringing was all about total self-reliance," he writes, "of
being able to go after anything I desired." His career interests,
as a boy, included policeman, fireman, pilot, and doctor.  He was
a celebrated singer and voracious consumer of braille books  He
could take anything apart and put it back together -- a skill he
retains.  Once, when I was driving Kish to an appointment with a
student, the GPS unit in my car stopped working.  Kish examined
the unit with his hands, instructed me from the passenger seat
how to get to the nearest Radio Shack, and told me which part to
buy (the jack on the power cord was faulty).  He was named "best
brain" in middle school and graduated high school with a GPA
close to 4.0.  He was voted "most likely to succeed."
  He attended the University of California Riverside, then earned
two master's degrees -- one in developmental psychology, one in
special education.  He wrote a thesis on the history and science
of human echolocation, and as part of that devised one of the
first echolocation training programs.  The ability of some blind
individuals to perceive objects well before they could touch them
was noted as early as 1749 by French philosopher Denis Diderot. 
He theorized it had something to do with vibrations against the
skin of the face.  In the early 1800's, a blind man from England
named James Holman journeyed around the world -- he may have been
the most prolific traveler in history up to that point, Magellan
and Marco Polo included -- relying on the echoes from the click
of his cane.  Not until the 1940's, in Karl Dallenbach's lab at
Cornell University, was it irrefutably proven that humans could
echolocate.
  The thesis was the first time Kish really studied what he'd
been doing all his life; it was the beginning, as he put it, of
"unlocking my own brain." He then became the first totally blind
person in the United States (and likely the world) to be fully
certified as an orientation and mobility specialist -- that is,
someone hired by the visually impaired to learn how to get
around.
  It was never Kish's goal to run a foundation dedicated to the
blind.  He planned to be a psychologist.  But he could not ignore
the fact that few blind people enjoyed anything close to his
freedom of movement, and he had grown weary of society's attitude
toward the blind.  "I am belittled, patronized, disrespected,
invaded, restricted, and presumed weak, vulnerable, or otherwise
incapacitated," he wrote in his journal.  It still drives him
crazy when he's congratulated for simply crossing the street or
preparing dinner.
  In a letter he posted on his website a few years ago, Kish
responded to a public school program in New Jersey called
Kindness Beats Blindness, in which hundreds of middle school
students were blindfolded while others led them around, to
develop sympathy for the blind.  "I have felt beaten and pummeled
by many things," he wrote, "misplaced kindness foremost among
them." When I asked Kish about the letter he said, "I have a
reputation for being a pain in the ass." One of his closest
friends sometimes refers to him as "the bridge burner."
  Young people, says Kish, are especially hard-hit.  "Most blind
kids hear a lot of negative talk.  'Don't do this, don't do that,
don't move.  No, here, let me help y.' The message you get, if
you're blind, is you're intellectually deficient, you're
emotionally deficient, you're in all ways deficient." A few
sighted people have commented to Kish that they'd rather be dead
than blind.
  So in 2001 he started World Access for the Blind.  One of its
missions is to counter every no that blind people hear. 
Blindness, Kish says, should be understood -- by both the blind
and the sighted -- as nothing more than an inconvenience.  "Most
of my life," he writes, "I never even thought of myself as blind. 
In fact, I saw myself as smarter, more agile, stronger, and
generally more capable than most other boys my age."
  World Access operates on what Kish calls "an annual budget of
silliness" -- less than $200,000 a year.  (Kish himself makes
only "a survival wage.") He depends on the "blind vine," the
chattery network of the visually impaired, to spread the word. 
When a potential student, or a parent of a student, agrees to
hire World Access, either Kish or one of three other World Access
teachers -- all blind or visually impaired -- will pay a visit,
whether it's on the other side of Los Angeles or the other side
of the world.
  Lessons can consist of private meetings a few times a month, or
an intensive week of training for students farther afield.  He's
visited a group of blind students in northern Mexico three times
and traveled to Scotland eight times.  In all, Kish has taught in
14 countries, including Armenia, South Africa, Switzerland, and
Ukraine.  Blind students or organizations in more than a dozen
other nations, from Afghanistan to Guatemala, are now on his
waiting list.  The chief focus of World Access classes is setting
students on the path to complete autonomy.  Echolocation is an
essential element of what Kish terms "a holistic approach" that
also includes lessons on comfortable social interactions,
confident self-image, and nonvisual conversational cues (a head
turn can be noted by the sound of hair swishing; arm gestures by
the whisper of skin brushing against clothing; the shift of
someone's body by the creaking of furniture).
  World Access doesn't turn anyone away for lack of resources. 
But there are a couple of reasons why the organization hasn't
trained more students.  The first is Kish's general ethos about
how blind children should be raised.  "Running into a pole is a
drag, but never being allowed to run into a pole is a disaster,"
he writes.  "Pain is part of the price of freedom." This attitude
is not wildly popular, especially in a safety-first nation like
the United States.  Also, echolocation is not easy to master. 
Kish compares it with piano lessons -- anyone can learn basics;
very few will make it to Carnegie Hall.  Only about 10 percent of
the people who learn echolocation, he admits, find their
abilities immediately enriched.
  And then there is resistance from mainstream organizations. 
The National Federation of the Blind, the largest blind
organization in America, does not endorse Kish's work.  "Let's
just say he's unique," says John Paré, the federation's executive
director for strategic initiatives, clearly straining to be
polite.  Paré believes that for most people, echolocation is not
worth the tremendous effort required to grasp it.  "We urge
people to learn how to use a long white cane," he says. 
According to Kish, a colleague once overheard members of the
federation refer to him as Clicker Boy.  "The blindness field is
firmly based in tradition and dogma and is very slow to evolve,"
says Kish.  "It's been traditionally dominated by sighted people
who feel the need to tell blind people what to do."
  The same afternoon I first visit Kish, I also meet Brian
Bushway and Juan Ruiz.  Bushway became blind at age 14 due to a
genetic condition known as optic nerve atrophy and was introduced
to Kish soon after.  Ruiz was born blind and was one of Kish's
first students; Kish began working with him while preparing his
echolocation thesis.  They both told me, individually, that
Kish's teaching transformed them, allowing them to feel at peace
with their blindness and at one with the world.
  Bushway and Ruiz are now in their late 20's and have become
instructors with World Access.  They often hang out at Kish's
home, forming a foul-mouthed and funny little gang.  (Bushway:
"You know why echolocators get all the girls? 'Cause they're
skilled with their tongues and comfortable in the dark.") They've
become so adept at echolocation that, in many ways, they have
surpassed their teacher -- at least in terms of fearlessness,
sociability, and willingness to run into poles.  They're the next
generation of echolocators, ready to take Kish's work and see how
far they can push it.
  If you happen to be blind and want to live a bold,
stereotype-smashing life, there will be blood.  I witness this
firsthand when I spend a day mountain biking with Bushway and
Ruiz.  (Kish, acceding to the realities of near--middle age,
stays home.) We ride on a roller-coastery ridgetop trail in the
Santa Ana Mountains, above the town of Mission Viejo.  Clipped to
the rear fork of each of our bikes is a plastic zip tie, attached
so that the end flicks through our spokes, creating a constant
snapping sound that lets Bushway and Ruiz know where the other
bikes are.  But to determine where the trail is going, and where
the bushes and rocks and fence posts and trees are, the boys rely
on echolocation.
  Bushway is a fearless biker.  He often flies down the dirt
trail in aerodynamic form, hands off the brakes, clicking as fast
and as loud as he can.  "Your brain is on overload," he says to
me during a water break.  "You feel like you can hear every bush,
every tree.  Your body is hyperaware." I try and warn them when
the trail presents a serious consequence, like a long drop-off on
one side or a cactus jutting out.  But mostly I'm just along for
the ride.  It's difficult to believe, even though it's happening
right in front of me.  It's incredible.
  And then, suddenly, it's not.  When I look behind me and see
that Ruiz has drifted back, I stop and wait for him.  I'm just
standing there, silently, and before I realize what's happening,
he is bearing down on me.  I shout, and he pulls the brakes, but
it's too late.  He smashes into me and crushes his left hand
between his handlebar and the back of my seat post.  He falls off
his bike and rolls about in pain, clutching his hand.  There's a
trickle of blood, though nothing seems broken.  I feel terrible,
but Ruiz says it's his fault -- he should have echolocated my
bike, even if I wasn't moving.  We finish the ride, with Ruiz
using only one hand.
  The next day I join Kish and Bushway as they teach Sebastian
Mancipe, who is 15 and has been working with World Access for
three years.  When he started, he rarely came out of his bedroom. 
He had little interaction with the outside world.  He developed
infant glaucoma and was blind by age three months.  His parents
moved from Colombia to the United States to give him a chance at
a better life.  His mother, Viviana, saw a brief appearance by
Kish on the Ripley's Believe It or Not television show, and soon
hired World Access to work with Sebastian.
  He now rides a skateboard.  He ice-skates.  He's popular at
school, stocked with friends and a busy social life.  I follow as
Kish and Bushway stroll around Sebastian's neighborhood, in a
busy section of Burbank.  He'd obviously mastered the
echolocation basics -- the pot lid, the pillow, general shapes. 
Kish and Bushway encourage him to push his skills further  "A
tree," says Kish, clicking a couple of times, "is like a bush on
a pole." They walk on.  "A tree without a bush on top is probably
a telephone pole." They pass a parking lot.  "A large object that
starts out low at one end, rises in the middle, and drops off
again at the other end -- that's a parked car."
  Back at home, I ask Sebastian's mother about the impact World
Access has had on her son.  "It was an awakening," she says.  "He
believes he can do anything.  To see Sebastian as a normal ch..."
She can't complete the sentence before the tears come.
  The longer the waiting list for his services grows, the more
conflicted Kish feels.  He knows what he's doing is important. 
But what he really wants, as more people clamor for his time, as
the frequent-flier miles add up, is to hand over the reins of
World Access and run away from it all.
  He's essentially a loner.  "My constitution," he says, "is that
of Grizzly Adams." In 2003 he purchased a 12-foot by 12-foot
cabin deep in the Angeles National Forest.  It was built in 1916;
he paid $10,000 for it.  To get there he'd take a taxi to the end
of the road and hike in.  "My only company," he wrote in his
journal at the time, "is a small family of mice." He explored the
wilderness.  "I taught myself how to negotiate tricky, winding
trails with sharp switchbacks, how to cross rushing streams on
slippery stones.  I've gone for miles and days without meeting
another soul."
  He was once asked by a colleague what he thought the biggest
problem was with being blind.  "My biggest barrier is people," he
answered.  "Especially sighted people." He has never once in his
life had a girlfriend or, for that matter, a boyfriend.  When I
ask him, via e-mail, to explain why, his response is three words:
"Lack of interest."
  Two tragedies, nearly 20 years apart, have bookended his adult
life.  The first was the death of his dog, a black lab named
Whiska.  This was in 1990.  She was run over by a car while Kish
was walking with her.  Kish has always blamed himself for the
accident.  "I loved Whiska with an intensity that completely
distorted my better judgment," he wrote.  "I spoiled her rotten
and took over her job.  She forgot to watch for traffic, because
I'd always done that for her." He had nightmares for a year after
the accident.  "The chain's just dangling and there's no dog. 
I'll never forget that moment." Not long after, he got another
dog, but soon started traveling and gave him away.  That was his
last pet.
  The second tragedy occurred in January 2007 when his cabin
burned down.  He'd had a wood-burning stove installed, and the
wrong materials were used for the chimney.  The fire was
fast-moving and horrific -- "my last memories of my cabin are the
ominous crackle and rumble of advancing flames" -- and Kish had
no idea if it would engulf the entire canyon, incinerating him as
well.  The disaster haunts him; he keeps a chunk of melted glass
from the cabin in his home in Long Beach.  "A piece of my own
heart has gone up in flames," he wrote.  He plans to one day
return to the woods, perhaps permanently.  "I find people," he
says, "to be incredibly draining."
  Kish has an idea.  Beyond the pot lid and the pillow, beyond
the mission of World Access, there is something he has been
quietly working on for more than a decade.  If his wish is
fulfilled -- if someone else takes over World Access and he's
able to escape from life's perpetual rush hour -- it may prove to
be his true legacy.  What Kish envisions is the next leap in
human echolocation.  His idea is to become more like a bat.
  Bats are the best.  Some can fly in complete darkness,
navigating around thousands of other bats while nabbing insects
one millimeter wide.  Bats have evolved, over millions of years,
to possess the ideal mouth shape and the perfect ear rotation for
echolocation.  They can perceive high-frequency sound waves,
beyond the range of human hearing -- waves that are densely
packed together, whose echoes give precise detail.
  There is evidence that humans could be that good.  Bats have
tiny brains.  Just the auditory cortex of a human brain is many
times larger than the entire brain of a bat.  This means that
humans can likely process more complex auditory information than
bats.  What we'll require, to make up for bats' evolutionary head
start, is a little artificial boost.
  Actually, two boosts.  We need a way to create batlike sound
waves, and we need to be able to hear those waves.  In pursuit of
these goals, Kish has spent time in New Zealand with Leslie Kay,
who worked on underwater sonar for the British Navy during the
Cold War.  For nearly 50 years, Kay tinkered with ideas for
helping the blind to see with sound.  He eventually introduced,
after many weeks of consultation with Kish, a product called the
K-Sonar, a flashlight-size machine that attaches to a blind
person's cane and emits ultrasonic pulses.  The pulses are then
digitally translated into tones humans can hear, through
earphones.  "Flowers actually sound soft," says Kish.  "Stones
sound hard and crisp.  It pretty much represents the physical
environment as music." The problem is range: The K-Sonar can
detect a postage stamp from 15 feet, but not the side of a barn
from 30 feet.
  If money were no object, Kish believes that blind people could
essentially mimic bats within five years.  A next generation of
K-Sonar, using the input from a global consortium of scientists
that Kish has been corresponding with, should have a nearly
limitless range.  Our hearing, Kish says, can be increased
tenfold through surgical augmentation -- basically, inner-ear
microphone implants.  Combine the two and it's possible that the
blind will be able to take up tennis.  Kish figures it would
require $15 million to prove whether or not his idea is feasible. 
He fears he'll never get the opportunity.
  "It's virtually impossible to gather funding for experimental
devices for the blind," he says.  "The blind population is seen
as a lost cause." Kish's patience is running thin.  He is still
reaching out to scientists and studying scholarly journals and
pondering ways to conjure the money.  But more and more these
days, he finds himself daydreaming about rebuilding his cabin and
devoting himself to playing music, to writing.  Let the new crop
of echolocators take over the research and the networking and the
panhandling.  So for the foreseeable future, at least, Kish will
continue to click in his usual way.  And the sighted world will
continue to not notice.
  This article originally appeared in the March 2011 issue of
Men's Journal.

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Friday, March 4, 2011

corporate media, America's Pied Piper

corporate media, America's Pied Piper
 
I prefer to think of Americans as the Children of Hamelin rather than the Rats, but either analogy will do so long as we do not look too closely at the tale by the Brothers Grimm. 
 
Once upon a time, not so long ago and not so far away, the Empire Builders became concerned over the rapidly growing discontent among their subjects.  "If we don't stop this insurrection," they cried, wringing their bejeweled hands, "they may begin demanding to share in our great wealth.  And that will never do." 
And so when their subjects gathered before their factory doors and made demands, they called upon their National Guards and hired Thugs and Bully Boys to drive them back to their work benches and production lines.  But this only seemed to anger their subjects, and the crowds grew and the demands became even louder.  "We must solve this problem or be faced with sharing," said the Empire Builder's Leader.  The thought of sharing stunned them into silence.  As they sat quietly there came a loud knock at their palace door.  "Who knocks?" they cried in unison. 
"It is me, Mass Media.  I have come to your rescue." 
Quickly they opened the door and brought this strange looking fellow in.  He stood before them in many shapes, looking like a hundred talking heads.  "Buy up all of the available radio and TV space and pay me my price and I will charm, deceive, trick, distract, confuse, and lead your subjects astray.  They will become so overloaded with my clever charm and bold lies that they will come to believe whatever I tell them." 
The Empire Builders cried out in unison, "Yes! Yes! We will buy up all of the air space and you just name your price." 
And the Mass Media named a price that caused the Empire Builders to blanch and tremble at the thought of parting with some of their great wealth.  Putting their heads together they whispered, "It's a great price, but we can make it all back.  And besides, if it works we can refuse to pay." 
And so it came to pass that the Empire Builders bought up all of the available time on the public air waves and turned the Mass Media loose to work his magic.  In only a few short years Mass Media had charmed the subjects and lulled them into compliance.  They were distracted by game shows, sports, reality shows Soap Operas and babbling newscasters who giggled and simpered and said nothing but vague chatter, and weather reports. 
The Empire Builders could not believe their eyes.  Their subjects went about their days doing the bidding of the Ruling Class and never finding time to gather and discuss issues.  And the Empire Builders went back to the business of conquering the world and attempting to satisfy their Greed. 
But one fine day there came a knock at their palace door.  "Who knocks," they cried. 
"It is I, Mass Media.  I've come for my pay." 
"Go away!  We no longer need you and we don't need to pay you, sucker."  My how they howled with laughter. 
But when they turned to watch their TV, a shocked silence befell them.  Countless thousands of men and women were gathered together in Madison, Wisconsin.  They were shouting and demanding that the governor come out and hear them.  Channel after channel showed the Empire Builders the bad news.  It was as if their subjects could no longer hear Mass Media and were once again gathering together around the country in planning meetings and marching in unison. 
And then they heard the mighty crashing of their palace gates. 
 
Curious Carl
 
*************
Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves. --Eugene Victor Debs
1855-1926

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Creativity Is a Habit

Subject: Creativity Is a Habit

In his article, Creativity Is a Habit, Robert J. Sternberg writes, "Oddly enough, then, the very "accountability" movement that is being promoted as fostering solid education is, in at least one crucial respect,  doing the opposite: It is discouraging creativity..." 

Robert J. Sternberg's article is interesting but never raises the question of why a government would encourage conformity as it's major objective in the education of it's young. 
The fact is that creativity threatens establishments.  The Empire Builders, currently holding forth as our government, do not want creativity among the rank and file population.  They want obedience. 
Of course, human nature being what it is, their very oppression will ultimately foster revolution, and their own downfall. 
 
Curious Carl
 

Scott Walker Padded Salary Increases for Cronies DuringBudgetary Distress: 24%

What's the lesson here? 
Simple.  Scott Walker takes care of his own.  Why can't we get the message and stop supporting these greedy fellows and begin supporting our own? 
 
Curious Carl
Scott Walker Padded Salary Increases for Cronies During Budgetary Distress:
24% Salary Increase for Aide with 2 Public Pensions



By BuzzFlash



Truthout, February 19, 2011



http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12372



Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin who is spearheading the GOP effort
to crush collective bargaining, lavished relatively large salary increases
on his staff when he was chief executive of the Milwaukee County Board.
Walker surreptitiously did this in 2008 without the approval of the county
board itself and at a time that the county was facing a fiscal deficit, and
Walker was about to lay off a large number of union workers.  In addition,
700 county positions had already been left vacant due to budgetary
pressures.



According to a 2008 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/32492604.html milwaukee/32492604
article [1],which exposed Walker's illicit personal staff raises, one aide
was to achieve a 26% increase solely initiated and approved by Walker even
though the staffer, Tom Nardelli, was to receive tax-payer funded pensions
that would exceed $35,700 a year.  A member of the Milwaukee County Board of
Supervisors called Nardelli's salary increase "obscene," according to the
MJS.



As with the current "budget crisis" in the State of Wisconsin, Walker was
helping to create a budget deficit, while using the situation he is
responsible for to try and break the unions.



According to a February 18 New York Times editorial [2], "Just last month,
he [Walker] and the Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly
for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts.  That
was a choice lawmakers made, and had it not been for those decisions and a
few others, according to the state's Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state
would have had a surplus."



It's appropriate then to backtrack to 2008 and Walker's history of gilding
the lily for his cronies while trying to break the back of working families
becomes illuminated.



According to the MJS article entitled "Walker Issues Hefty Raises to Top
Milwaukee County Aides":



Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker wants a 26% pay raise for his chief
of staff, former Ald.  Tom Nardelli, while bypassing traditional County
Board approval in quietly issuing large pay raises over the summer to
several other top aides.



Nardelli would get the biggest pay increase of top-tier county officials, a
nearly $20,000 raise to $95,000 a year.  Seven county administrators also
scored increases of up to 12.5%.



Some supervisors are upset about being left out of the decision-making
process for many of the raises and say Walker's timing couldn't be worse.
Heavily rewarding a few top managers while Walker puts final touches on a
2009 budget that's expected to call for scores of layoffs of union workers
sends a message of callous disregard, critics of the raises say.



Among the other big winners among Walker's top aides was Mitchell
International Airport Director Barry Bateman.  His pay rises $13,595, or
11%, to $136,299 a year.  Facilities Management Director Jack Takerian got
an $11,771 (12.5%) raise, to nearly $106,000.



One of Walker's highly questionable claims in his Koch Brothers' efforts to
squash unions by first going after public worker collective bargaining is
that the union benefits are higher than in the private sector.



Yet, in 2008, the MJS reported:



Orville Seymer, field director for Citizens for Responsible Government
Network, said the raises for Nardelli and some other Walker aides appeared
excessive.



"I just think all these people are overpaid" and unlikely to command such
salaries in the private sector, Seymer said.



In his stand-off as the point man for the Koch Brothers, Dick Armey, and the
national Republican Party, Walker is doing in 2011 what he did in 2008:
enrich his cronies and the well-off at taxpayer expense, create a budget
crisis, and then using the budgetary problem that he is responsible for to
crush the unions.



History repeats itself, doesn't it and so does the hypocrisy that threatens
the existence of the American working family.



Source URL:



http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12372

when is a government no longer a government?

When is a government no longer a government?  When it becomes the Oppressor. 
Can we honestly sing, "Oh say does that Star Spangled banner yet wave, o'er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave"? 
 
Curious Carl
 
Subject: [acb-l] Uniting a State's Body Politic

The following is an e-mail message I received from a friend who is working
for Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development:

-----*----*-----*----*----*----
Just a tiny quote from an article about the latest budget bill:
Medicaid, the state-federal health plan for the poor, includes BadgerCare
Plus, Family Care, SeniorCare and other services. It covers 1.2 million
people in Wisconsin, or one in five residents. Enrollment has swelled in
recent years as eligibility expanded and the recession led more people to
sign up.
Walker called the program "an unsustainable budget challenge" and proposed
$500 million in cuts.
About $110 million would come from Family Care, which provides long-term
care for people who are elderly or disabled. The reductions mean about 5,000
people on a waiting list for care would be taken off indefinitely, said Lynn
Breedlove, executive director of the advocacy group Disability Rights
Wisconsin.
"For some people, it could mean they'll be forced into a nursing home," he
said.
SeniorCare recipients who qualify for Medicare Part D would have to enroll
in the federal drug program instead, saving the state $15 million.
Other trims would come from limiting payments for end-stage kidney disease,
getting rid of birth control services for men and eliminating supplemental
payments to some hospitals.
To achieve much of the savings, the state would scrutinize Medicaid
enrollment and make patients pay more for services.
Walker's budget repair bill for this year, introduced last month but stalled
after 14 Democrats boycotted a vote in the Senate, would give the state
Department of Health Services new powers to restrict eligibility, modify
benefits and make other changes to Medicaid with less legislative review
than is required now.

(Thank goodness for the "Wisconsin 14")
----*----*-----*----*----*----

I think it is important to note that this friend has always been a
conservative much more in the GOP camp than even an independent!

Why Does USA Today Hate Public Workers?


Why Does USA Today Hate Public Workers? 
My God!  Do we really need to ask this question? 
Let's see, on one hand we have this newspaper that is owned lock stock and barrel by the Establishment. 
On the other hand we have a bunch of disgruntled workers demanding better working conditions, higher wages, health coverage and the like. 
Now on another hand we know that many of these workers also buy the newspaper that is owned by the Establishment. 
But on even another hand, the newspaper understands that its very existence depends upon not upsetting the Establishment.  This creates friction.  Friction creates anger.  The newspaper can't afford to get angry at the Establishment, so it turns on the workers. 
But the newspaper has to be clever about this, so it "creates" news that will keep the unruly workers spending their money to buy newspapers. 
The workers buy the newspapers in order to read the lies being printed about them.  That makes them angry and they start writing angry letters to the newspaper.  The newspaper prints the letters.  The workers buy more papers to read their letters that they sent.  The newspaper publishes editorials condemning the workers.  The workers picket the newspaper.  They try to organize the newspaper's nonunion employees.  The newspaper calls out the cops and the governor calls in the National Guard.  This disrupts the production of newspapers. 
And then we ask, "Why Does USA Today Hate Public Workers?" 
 
Curious Carl


 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Let's not be distracted

Someone wrote, "...Everyone wants everything, and no one wants to pay anything to have it." 
You know, I'm just not seeing this.  For example, most of the Blind folks we work with want to pay for the aids and appliances that we insist are being provided at no cost to them.  Over and over again we hear folks say, "Oh, I don't need that.  somebody is probably worse off than I am." 
When we tell folks that there is no charge for our services they want to know where they can send a contribution. 
Of course this is the older Blind population, but I think it's pretty much true with all decent people.  Cathy and I live in an area where our neighbors give and share among one another.  The same was true when we lived in the crowded city. 
Sure, we all run into the greedy, grubby grabbers, and they sometimes seem to overshadow the larger majority of good, decent folk, but I think that we get distracted with these kinds of stories.  Sure, I have known a few hoarders in my time.  But what they did was peanuts compared to what the Corporate Empire Builders are doing on a daily basis.  If you are going to put out energy getting mad, then let's get mad at the people who tell us we need to suck it up and sacrifice, while they come and go as if nothing has changed.  Let's get worked up over the Corporation that takes resources from the land and leaves nothing but devastation behind.  But rather than admitting their destruction, they underwrite articles that point the finger at old aunt Nell for hording toilet paper.  Well, what a deal!  A basement of toilet tissues compared to polluted rivers, clear-cut forests and starving little children. 
 
Curious Carl
 

Right to Work or right to return to the poor house

 
During World War II my dad would take me along on Saturday's to the Union Hall somewhere in down town Seattle.  A bunch of people, mostly men, but sometimes a couple of gnarly old women, would sit around and tell horror stories of "how it used to be" back in the bad old days. 
The coffee was thick and black and the air was blue with cigarette smoke. 
My dad's older brother was born in 1900.  Dad said Bill would brag about how he went about finding work.  He said he would walk up to a construction job and ask for the boss.  When that fellow showed up Bill would point to one of the workers and ask, "What are you paying him?"  When he found out, he would tell the boss that he could do twice the work for less than he was paying the fellow. 
This is what we call, "Supply and Demand".  Currently we have this large pool of unemployed people. 
Once Unions have had their teeth pulled or been shut down, employers will offer jobs to the lowest bidder.  Make no mistake about it.  Except for the past 60 or 65 years, this was the working man's fate. 
Go back and read some of the novelists from the 19th and 20th centuries.  Start with Charles Dickens.  He paints vivid pictures of life among the lower classes in England.  Mark Twain gives us detailed scenes from the same time period on the American side.  Read O'Henry or John Steinbeck or...the list is overloaded with novels depicting the hard, bleak life of the majority of Americans. 
Enter Hollywood.  With the advent of the moving pictures film makers quickly moved away from recounting the grim side of life, and began to weave wonderful fantasy worlds of life among the rich.  For a period of time it seemed that all of America lived in fine mansions and drove fancy cars and had houses full of servants.  Movies became our escape from the harshness of the Great depression and then from the brutal World War. 
Escape from reality seems to have become our passion.  Stop for a moment and count all of the ways Americans have at their disposal for avoiding their dreary, mundane lives. 
Well my friends, good news for those who long to return to the "good old days".  We're headed smack dab down that road. 
Think of that wonderful world where we can once again put in an honest 6 day, twelve hour day.  And our children will be allowed to work, too! 
Wives can take in laundry and do mending to pull enough extra money for such luxuries as fruit and shoes. 
We won't be bothered by too much TV or radio, because with the big crash we won't be buying much of the stuff currently being hawked over the airwaves.  Internet will be too costly and too closely monitored to be of any use to us.  Movies and sporting events will be priced out of our pocket books, and probably most of them will shut down.  If we're lucky enough to live in towns where electric trolleys run, we can get to town.  Otherwise we'll need to wait for the green grocers and the bread and meat wagons to pass through our neighborhoods. 
And where will this "return to the good old days" leave us blind folks?  Remember terms like, "Elizabethian Alms House"?  Or, what about "going over the hill to the poor farm".  With the shift back toward company control, we blind workers will find ourselves at the bottom of the labor pool.  Remember how it was for those of us with no or limited vision on the play field when sides were chosen up?  Who usually was ignored or picked last? 
We need to take a giant step away from debating politics and talk about our survival as blind men and women in the work force.  Who do we turn to for support?  How do we go about building alliances to protect our hard won gains? 
 
Curious Carl