Hi all. I haven't posted for a few days because there's not been much going on here. With that in mind, today I will ramble again and you'll just have to deal with it. First off, someone celebrated a birthday last week. That someone is yours truly, the writer of this journal. Yes indeed, I am now a year older and I daresay it does make me an old man. Those who want to know my exact age as of a week ago, will just have to wait I guess. For many of you this would mean asking me. Anyway I am one of those people who like to have a long, drawn-out birthday. I just think it's more fun that way. On my actual birthday I received emails and phone calls from family and a few friends, and then that evening at the apartment meeting everyone signed a card and we ate chocolate cake. I had originally asked for carrot cake, but that couldn't be found. I absolutely love chocolate in all its wonderful forms and I think it should become a food group--or at least part of a food group. But I thought since I had been consuming so much chocolate it was time for a change. But I did of course settle for chocolate cake that night. The next day my tutor and his girlfriend took me out to lunch, and yes I did get my carrot-cake fix for dessert. As if that wasn't enough, a sister of mine had everyone sing to me at open-mic night that night downstairs in the community room. On Saturday a neighbor cooked dinner, and on Sunday another neighbor treated me to Starbucks. I'm so glad Starbucks is not just a coffee shop anymore because I am not a fan of coffee. The aroma doesn't bother me but the flavor does. I am rather fond of coffee ice cream though. I am going to celebrate with part of my family this weekend. So there you have it, my birthday in retrospect.
Elections. Primary elections here in the Land of Lincoln and in various other corners of the country are coming up next week, and I have more or less been tuning in and out of the debates. My Best Buddy, whom I mentioned briefly here in an earlier entry, has been helping out with one of the campaigns. I'm not going to divulge my political affiliation here because that can get pretty controversial, but I will say this. Folks, our country desperately needs a new President! Let me also say something else which I don't believe has been debated much, if at all. That is that I don't think politics and disability are good company. In other words they shouldn't mix. I know this may raise questions in the minds of a few people, but the truth is that we people with disabilities are human beings too and should be treated as such regardless of the cost to businesses and whatever else might be argued. This is exactly why the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and this is exactly why I fully support passage of the ADA Restoration Act. I am raising this whole issue because a few weeks ago I sent my Presidential candidate of choice a letter regarding the US paper money issue. I encourage others to do likewise. Just go to http://www.blinddollars.org. I had trouble getting my letter through due to website issues, but hopefully others won't have difficulty. If so, then I highly suggest composing your own letters to send to state and local legislators. This issue is very important and needs as much good publicity as possible. The proprietor of this website is someone who became disabled later in life, and she has a very good message. This as well as a few other websites talk at length about the accessible paper money issue, and it has also gotten some good media coverage. One of these additional websites is http://www.disabilitynation.net. Episode 17 of the DN podcast features interviews with a representative from both the NFB and the ACB. I had extreme difficulty following the NFB representative, and it was clear that the host did as well. The NFB representative was bringing in things which have nothing whatsoever to do with accessible paper currency. These included the lawsuit filed against McDonalds over a cup of hot coffee. Anyone remember that one? Anyway, we're moving on. I am just so outraged that we don't have paper money which is identifiable by touch! Actually I'm told some bills have markings on them which, with little success, can be identified by a person with low vision. But what about those of us with no vision, or at least no vision to distinguish anything other than light and dark? What also angers me to no end is that most of a prominent blindness organization in this country is against making our paper currency accessible. This is the National Federation of the Blind. All leaders in this organization I'm told hold this view, as well as the majority of its members. I don't know which of those angers me more, or maybe they both do on an equal level. What's ironic is that the Federation was originally in favor of making our paper currency accessible. In fact they helped to pass legislation dealing with this issue. Why then have they reversed course? Is it because their rivals brought suit against the Department of Treasury? And why has the US Department of Treasury not done the right thing? I will never understand the thinking of those who say our paper money should remain inaccessible. The Department of Treasury redesigns it every year to protect consumers against counterfeiting, so wouldn't it only make sense to extend that process to people with visual impairments? Are we not consumers as well? Or are we just some other type of life form? Other countries, many of them third-world countries where the poverty level is extremely high, have had accessible paper money for years. Many of these countries presumably didn't realize that their accessible paper currency would benefit a minority group. Those of us with visual impairments make transactions just like other people do. We need to have some way of independently identifying the bills when we first get them, and before we put them into our wallets. It's as simple as that. We don't always have the luxury of relying on someone with perfect vision to read our money for us. What's more, that person with the perfect vision could lie to one of us. I've seen it before, there are people who for whatever reason are dishonest. I understand the organization about which I speak has long advocated for bill readers that one could carry. I've not seen many of these around, but back in high school I did get to play with one. It was not very reliable, and when I held it in my hands it weighed a lot. I will fully admit cost is an issue, but let's look at it this way. Couldn't the money being sent to places like Iraq, where killings have taken place every day since this bogus war started, be better spent on things like making our paper currency accessible? As baby boomers age and in general as time goes by, more and more Americans are going to lose their vision. Just look at http://www.afb.org . If ATM's have audio and tactile features, and coins have distinguishing features, then why can't paper money? This organization has for years claimed that it speaks for all people who are blind or visually-impaired. I beg to differ!