Showing posts with label Deafness. Show all posts

Comparing DeafRead and Deaf Village's Guidelines  

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There is an ongoing controversy involving DeafRead and Deaf Village, the new blog aggregator for the deaf and hard of hearing bloggers and vloggers. People gave birth to Deaf Village out of spite to DeafRead over due to the dispute concerning their policies. They felt that DeafRead was being unfair to them. The removal of Cochlear Implant Online was the final straw. I'm just summarizing it up for everybody who may not be familiar with the situation. It is not up for debate, so please don't bring it up in the comments section. We will be focusing on the new guidelines at Deaf Village and compare some of them to DeafRead's guidelines.

One of the Deaf Village team's goals is to be inclusive of people from all walks of life. Eventually, they will be put to the test. For now, I will just compare Deaf Village's guidelines to DeafRead's and see how they differ.

Deaf Village's guidelines are now online for everyone to read. I have read all of the guidelines. I took my time reading to make sure they are what they appear to be.

Deaf Village is a new blog aggregator. The guidelines appear to be rather short and vague at times. Over time, it is likely that it will become more detailed like DeafRead's guidelines are right now. Currently, Deaf Village has around six rules for everybody to follow.

Regarding the first rule of the six rules, it was originally said that Deaf Village would publish everything from the deaf and hard of hearing bloggers and vloggers even if their blog entries are not deaf-related.

Deaf Village Guideline #1

Blog entries from ACCEPTED contributors that do not relate to hearing loss are subject to moderation discretion, which can and may result in an article not being published on Deaf Village.

DeafRead Guideline #1

Deaf Related Posts

The entry must pertain to the deaf community and culture. The blogger being deaf or the vlog being in ASL is not enough to qualify. For example, let's say a blogger decides to do a film review of "Forrest Gump", it will not be posted because it is not deaf-related. However, if the blogger were to do a review of the availability of captions/subtitles in the "Extra Features" section of the 'Forrest Gump' DVD, that would be acceptable. Also, say a blogger initially writes about something deaf-related then goes off on a tangent and remarks about how the movie is rated. This would be fine. In short, it needs to pertain to the deaf community no matter who makes the blog/vlog entry.

The first rule contradicts that. It is similar to DeafRead's rule about what can be published and what cannot be. If it is deaf-related, it will be published onto the front page. If it is not deaf-related, it will be published onto the Extras page instead. Below is an excerpt from Aaron Rose's blog, he is responsible for the public relations at Deaf Village.

"As we the founders went further with the concept of creating a “deaf village,” we asked ourselves how we could be different from Deafread. There will be no “extras” page. Entries will be published automatically so that there is no moderation until the “village” has seen it. In the event that an entry is deemed to violate the guidelines of Deaf Village, the moderators will contact the author to remedy the situation. We are all human, thus no one is perfect and make mistakes from time to time. Rather than judging quickly, we understand the importance of discourse. The moderators of Deaf Village will utilize the removal of posts only as a last resort."

Source: Aaron Cues

The reason why I mentioned this is because it was one of the biggest controversies involving DeafRead's policies excluding blog and vlog entries, which are not deaf-related from the front page. They said they wouldn't do that. From what it looks like, they flip-flopped and decided to take cue from DeafRead's first rule. They are already changing the rules.

At the moment, I can see that they are still currently publishing blog and vlog entries, which are not deaf-related in a category called Non-Deaf/HOH Topic. It seems they have not really enforced the first rule just yet. The real question should be, will they enforce it? If not, then why is the rule there to start with?

Deaf Village - Guideline #2

Posts to Deaf Village must pass the "network TV test" and maintain a level of decorum regarding profanity, adult issues, etc. that does not exceed a "PG-13" rating.

DeafRead Guideline #2

2) Adult Material

There cannot be anything on your post that could be objectionable to parents of children under 18 years of age. This includes nudity, vulgarity, grotesque photos (i.e. a photo or video of Richard Pearle). Acceptable cuss words would be anything that is allowed to be on network TV at primetime.

Both rules are similar. Like I said, DeafRead's policies are more detailed since they have been around for quite a while. So the policies will become more detailed and more rules may be added later on. Both versions of the same rule are clear and easy enough to follow.

Deaf Village - Guideline #3

Deaf Village operates on a basis of respect for individuals' choices and respects each person's individual "deaf experience." Direct personal attacks will not be tolerated.

DeafRead Guideline #8

Name Calling and Discrimination

DeafRead is enjoyed by all kinds of people worldwide ranging from children to senior citizens. It is also safe to assume that people from all races enjoy DeafRead. We will not post anything that is an attack on a specific race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion. This offense is serious and the offending blog will be promptly considered for removal from DeafRead's subscription.

I should point out the difference. DeafRead's policy shows that if a blogger/vlogger post an entry attacking a specific group of people, they will not be published. They may even be removed from DeafRead. They do not mention the words, personal attacks. The rule shows that if you make an attack on a person using a specific trait of theirs, you may not be published. Even though it's not directly mentioned, the rule already involves personal attacks to a degree.

Deaf Village's policy on this differs from DeafRead’s; they will not publish personal attacks, but says nothing about publishing entries attacking specific groups of people. They should consider revising this rule to make it appear more articulate and specific on what can be considered a violation of their policy.

In layman's terms, we are to attack the opinions, not the people for who they are. Although one can easily interpret Deaf Village's policy differently from what I did and that's not a good thing. Policies should be crystal-clear and everybody should be able to interpret it the way it is supposed to be. If not, then people will be able to take advantage of it and use it against them.

Deaf Village Guideline #4

Exaggerated and unfounded claims will not be given space on Deaf Village.

DeafRead has no policy on this from what I could gather. This is an interesting guideline that is open to interpretation. It is quite vague and need to be better detailed. It has the potential to stir up a storm if one objects to how a moderator interprets it.

What claims can be considered exaggerated? What would they determine to be unfounded claims? Can an opinion involving scientific theories without support be removed from Deaf Village? Can an idea for a new approach to educating the deaf children end up being unpublished since there is no research to support it? I could go on and on. The fourth guideline is definitely wide open to interpretations by the moderators and the readers. Will they interpret it all the same way? No, not at all.

Deaf Village Guideline #5

We require all vloggers to include captions, subtitles, or transcripts to their vlogs as not everyone understands cued, signed, or spoken languages.

Yes, you read that right. This is the guideline that made me raise an eyebrow. Earlier, I mentioned that one of their goals at Deaf Village is to be inclusive of people from all walks of life. Did they mean the bloggers and vloggers? The readers? Or both?

The reason why this guideline will become a controversial topic is because not every vlogger will want to provide subtitles or transcripts. This means they won't be published simply because they are determined inaccessible to some of the Deaf Village readers.

I do offer subtitles on my vlogs as an option, they can be turned on or off, and it’s that easy. I have made my position on this subject quite clear in the past. I said that vloggers should not be required to provide subtitles or transcripts. It should be entirely optional.

Some people may come up with some arguments that some may think to be ridiculous while some may not. Some people who are not fluent in English may say the same about bloggers not providing a signed version to being inaccessible. Sounds stupid to some of you, doesn't it? To some, it doesn't sound stupid. People have opinions that differ from each other.

So, how are they meeting their main goal of being inclusive if they exclude vlogs without subtitles or transcripts simply because they are not accessible to some people? What it means is everybody must be capable of writing in English or they can't be published.

In my opinion, I don't think it's a good policy to enforce upon the vloggers because they will only fade away from Deaf Village while very few will remain. DeafRead largely thrives on vlogs. Its likely Deaf Village will be thriving more on blogs than it will on vlogs. it has been shown that vlogs with captions get more hits compared to uncaptioned vlogs. It's a choice a vlogger can make if they want to broaden their audience.

It should be up to everybody. I’ve always believed it should be optional. DeafRead has no policy on subtitles and transcripts for vlogs. It was up for debate before, but it was quickly decided that it was not necessary to mandate it. They felt that they had no business telling bloggers and vloggers what to do with their blogs and vlogs.

Deaf Village Guideline #6

All guidelines are subject to the interpretation and discretion of the Deaf Village moderating team. By submitting your feed to Deaf Village, you are agreeing to the guidelines above.

There is that word again, discretion. It was first mentioned in the first guideline. All blog entries that do not relate to hearing loss are subjected to moderation discretion. They mentioned the word again in the sixth and final guideline. Deaf Village may have painted themselves into a corner. The word, discretion voided all of the six guidelines that they laid out for everybody to follow.

The meaning of the word, discretion is to give one the freedom to decide what should be done in various situations. It means they are free to decide to do whatever they please, no matter what the guidelines say. That's the corner they painted themselves into. If that was not what they intended, then they need to revise the guidelines.

DeafRead's policy is different. All of the human editors are expected to follow the guidelines. They don't have the discretion to interpret it differently from what they were told in the first place. Granted, they make mistakes sometimes, both little and big. To err is human. The moderators at Deaf Village are human beings too. We learn from our mistakes. Sometimes we don't. Therefore, we are doomed to repeat history.

Now I have covered all of the six guidelines. There is one more thing I would like to mention. A friend of mine observed that Deaf Village categorizes the blog and vlog entries based on who they are and what they use instead of the contexts. DeafRead categorize the blog and vlog entries by the contexts. I thought it was worth mentioning.

I did what I could to compare Deaf Village's policies to DeafRead's policies. Personally, I believe the guidelines are too vague and some guidelines are too wide open to wild interpretations. Ultimately, it is the sixth guideline that rendered the rest of the guidelines vulnerable to abuse of power. If the guidelines are not revised and modified, Deaf Village will be experiencing quite a lot of abuse before they know it.

My blog feed goes through both DeafRead and Deaf Village and several other blog aggregators. So do not bother to accuse me of being associated with this and that. I am not afraid to speak my mind. I am pointing out the strong and weak points. Constructive criticism is an excellent way of learning on how to make improvements in some areas. Right now, Deaf Village's weak points outweigh their strong points. If I was in their shoes, I would be worried.

The more I read their guidelines, the more distant they seem to be from reaching their goal on inclusivity of people from all walks of life.

Deaf Priests Vs. Castle Hills, Texas  

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Yesterday, a group of deaf priests successfully won a fight with the city hall in acquiring the permit to run a seminary. The residents of Castle Hills protested the seminary out of fear that it may open up the door to group homes and fraternities.

The seminary will be on an 8,100 square-foot-house. I think I can understand why some may be concerned about the idea of fraternities being allowed after this. However, I think it’s a little silly to be against group homes. Sometimes, the journalists can twist their words around to make them appear cold-hearted. I don't know if this is how they really feel. I certainly hope not. Below is an excerpt from the article.

"I hope that you are happy to live in a city that you are slowly destroying," said Councilman Tom Davis, who voted to approve the permit.

Source: Houston Chronicle (AP)

That was directed toward Rev. Tom Coughlin, the person who won the fight to obtain a special use permit for the seminary. Quite a heartwarming gesture, eh?

According to the article, the attorney found a legal loophole in relation to the uses of religious lands. That is how they won the special use permit. I don't see what the residents of Castle Hills have to worry about.

Congratulations to the group of deaf priests for the victory.

Oh The Drama!  

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I'm not going to make a big of commentary out of this. As many of you may know, it was brought to everybody's attention that the DeafRead team had decided to stop publishing blog entries from Cochlear Implant Online over allegations of Rachel Chaikof failing to disclose that Cochlear Awareness Network (CAN) is owned by Cochlear Americas. The DeafRead team was aware of Rachel's status as a volunteer for CAN, but they did not know that it was owned by Cochlear Americas until a few days ago. To remind you, I said allegations. So I am not speaking of these allegations as if they are facts.

I only read a little of this and that. From what I could gather, one side is saying DeafRead discriminated against Rachel Chaikof of Cochlear Implant Online. The other side is saying Cochlear Implant Online violated the guidelines. Am I going to support one of the sides? No, not today. I'm just sharing my observations based on what I have been reading up on.

DeafRead is a privately owned website which is exclusively sponsored by Sprint Relay. Tayler Mayer and Jared Evans, the co-founders are fully entitled to do what they want to do with their website. Rachel Chaikof has no say in that part. Nor do I and everybody else.

Joey Baer of Joey Baer's ASL Vlog is paid to advertise some of Sprint Relay's products. Some people tried to use it against DeafRead without realizing that both websites share the same sponsor. They are able to publish Joey Baer's blog and vlog entries because Sprint Relay allows it. However, Amy Efron Cohen's "The Greatest Irony" advertisement was allowed on DeafRead, some people used the advertisement against DeafRead saying it was hypocritical. Below is a word-for-word quote directly from the horse's mouth, Tayler Mayer.


"As a human editor who puts so much work into DeafRead, I wanted to help Amy and knew that it was an one-time thing. I admit my mistake."

To err is human is all I can say in response to the quote. I know there are some people who will not agree with that. Well, guess what? Not everybody can be pleased. Everybody have different opinions of this and that and they are fully entitled to it. I have gotten to know Tayler Mayer over the last couple years. From what I can tell you, he's quite a nice fellow and is a reasonable man to deal with. Maybe some of you don't get that impression, but running a filtered blog aggregator is not an easy task. Especially when it comes to the politics involving ASL, Deaf Culture, Cochlear Implants, Cued Speech and many more. Oh wait, that's what they have to deal with on a daily basis. Politics can get ugly and I mean ugly.

According to Tayler Mayer, they accidentally published an advertisement from Cochlear Implant Online on one occasion. It was for a book that Rachel and her blog partner, Elizabeth worked together on. So the mistakes of advertising are not limited exclusively to their human editors' blogs like some people are implying.

They have made mistakes in the past and it's likely they will continue to make mistakes in the future. But like I said, to err is human. We are all human beings.

The deaf communities around the world are highly diverse. We all come from all walks of life. Yet with the internet, we are constantly dueling it out with each other simply because of the differences in our opinions, philosophies, beliefs and more. Sometimes, we get too personal. Just a tad too personal. Myself, I say what I want to so I can move on. I don't make it a habit to drag on and cling onto the same subject for too long. I feel like a broken record if I keep discussing the same subject over and over.

There is quite a number of bloggers and vloggers with cochlear implants who are published on DeafRead along with the Cued Speech users, Oral-only supporters and more. So, it may be tricky to accuse DeafRead of discriminating the cochlear implant users when the others are being published. If you ask me, I would say DeafRead is a diversified blog aggregator. I like to read a variety of subjects relating to deaf-related topics.

From the very beginning of DeafRead's existence, their goal was to publish deaf-related blog and vlog entries. Nothing else. That is why they are called a filtered blog aggregator. Take it or leave it. Like I said, it is a private website. You don't have to keep using their services if you don't approve of their policies. You can complain, maybe they will listen and take your suggestions, but if they don't, there is not much you can do about it then.

There are some other blog aggregators specifically aimed at the deaf. DeafPulse is one of them. There may be more out there that I am not aware of. Well, now that I mentioned the drama that entailed at DeafRead and Cochlear Implant Online, it also resulted in a new blog aggregator. It was in the works for a while. After DeafRead announced DeafSide, several people objected to it and demanded that their blog links be removed as a political statement. Paotie was one of the first to demand the removal of his blog from DeafRead.

Rachel Chaikof and several other bloggers/vloggers including Joshua Dawson (Paotie), Mike McConnell (Kokonut Pundits), Elizabeth Boschini, Val Blakely collaborated on setting up a new blog aggregator. It is called Deaf Village. Good for them, I applaud their efforts in setting up a blog aggregator. I wish them a lot of good luck. The more blog aggregators we have on the internet, the more sources we can rely on.

Now you can see why I decided to title this blog entry the way I did. It's all drama. It's like a soap opera with new and shocking twists on a daily basis. Only I don't buy into the drama, making a mountain out of a molehill is how I would describe it. The thing is, I always see a lot of negativity toward each other's sides. It's nothing new to me. It's the same old story being retold over and over. I have friends from all walks of life and it's something to treasure. I wish some people would do the same, but I guess that's not going to happen.

I also noticed some threats of lawsuits were being made over the alleged libel and slanderous comments made by Tayler Mayer. That's too litigious for my taste. Not to mention that it has no merits. What about all of the libel and slanderous comments everybody made toward Tayler Mayer over the years? There are plenty of people he could have sued for that. I mean plenty, not just a few.

I might as well sue the sea gulls for taking a dump onto my car if people are going to start suing blog aggregators.

Honest to God, there are so much more important things to talk about than DeafRead and the politics surrounding it. For instance, the human rights in China, the AIDS epidemic all over Africa, the declining quality of education in America and Canada and many more.

Only the problem is, we are too busy getting upset over a molehill on the internet.

Okay, I guess this was quite a lengthy commentary despite what I said in the opening sentence. Apparently I just made a hypocrite out of myself. It's all of the drama that is getting to me.

Oh the drama!

Sorenson, Shame on You!  

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Sorenson, shame on you!

Shame on you!

The provincial government of British Columbia, shame on you!

Shame on you!

The federal government of Canada, shame on you!

Shame on you!

Some of you may have heard by now, Sorenson set up a VRS (Video Relay Service) call centre in Burnaby, British Columbia. It is a province right above the state of Washington. Some of you may think that's a great thing. Well, it's not. It's already causing problems for the deaf communities in British Columbia. You see, Sorenson is not supported by either governments of B.C. (British Columbia) or Canada. That means we cannot use their services. Basically, it is okay for them to lure our interpreters away and cause a critical shortage, which they already have caused in several places across the USA.

You can read the article at The Vancouver Sun, just click here to read the article.

I first learned of this news in the Yahoo! Live chatroom by someone living in B.C. She was outraged over the story and I don't blame her one bit. I was outraged too when I learned of the news. It's hard to believe that we are already being negatively affected by the VRS and we don't even have a dedicated VRS provider in Canada. This shouldn't have been allowed to happen in the first place because of how it would affect our deaf communities.

It is already affecting them; they are now being forced to reserve an interpreter weeks in advance even for a simple doctor appointment or a job interview. So if you were called in for a job interview, which is to take place in two days, you are out of luck. I would like to know how this affects a life and death situation at a hospital. I certainly hope no one had to be denied an interpreter at a hospital due to the shortage in B.C. yet. That would be just terrible.

Money talks. The interpreters living in Canada will benefit from working for Sorenson because of the lucrative salaries along with attractive benefits.

The interpreters probably knew and were told that the deaf Canadians would not be able to use the VRS provided by Sorenson. It would be too easy to point fingers at the interpreters for abandoning the deaf communities in British Columbia. I don't hold anything against them; they are only trying to make a good living. We can't just sit here and say that everybody should have principles to stick to; you know it will not happen.

If you were offered a hefty salary with amazing benefits, would you turn it down? If you said yes, so did a lot of interpreters. If I were an interpreter, I probably would have accepted the job. Like I said, money talks.

In case some of my readers are unfamiliar with what a VRS is. It is called video relay service. You may be familiar with relay services provided by phone companies, if you aren't. Well, I will just boil it down to a simple explanation. A relay service provides you a third-party person to relay your messages to the person on the other side and do the same the other way around.

Video relay service is somewhat new when compared to text relay, which has been around for many years. The video relay services started to creep in at the crack of 21st century. Today, they are much, much more common and are a growing industry. Not only to mention the incentives they receive from the government for providing video and text relay services.

Earlier, I mentioned that we don't have a VRS provider in Canada. We are able to use a couple VRS, but they are not in Canada. So what happens is that when you call some 800 toll-free phone numbers, they will be directed to the places assigned with these numbers in the USA instead of Canada. That is something not a lot of people is aware of. I wouldn't be surprised if the VRS providers didn't know either.

If we were to set up a Canadian VRS provider, the real challenge is to get more interpreters to join the service because a large number of them are or will be already employed by Sorenson and possibly other video relay services. In fact, the person I spoke to at Yahoo! Live said that one of the solutions would for the government or a major telecom to share services with Sorenson and other VRS providers. This way, both Americans and Canadians will be able to gain access to the same services.

There are probably more ideas that some people may have tossed around. There are solutions and we need them as soon as possible because we don't want every province to be affected by the time we come up with a solution.

Faces of Captioning...  

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VITAC, a leader in closed captioning in America recently launched a new campaign to heighten awareness of the impact of captions have on many people. It is called CaptionsON. Below is what they had to say on the subject of why captions matter.
Captions matter because captions are…
  • Free to viewers of television and the Internet.
  • Accessible to individuals living in nearly every household in the United States.
  • Professionally produced in the US by highly skilled stenographers and offline captioners. Stenographers transcribe the audio portion of a live program as it is being aired and send the captions across the country in seconds. Offline captioners transcribe prerecorded programming with 100% accuracy before it airs.
  • An essential service for the over 31 million individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, giving them access to the audio portion of programming on TV and the Internet.
  • A tool that improves reading and listening skills of children and adults by visually tying words with sound.
  • A way to strengthen language and comprehension skills for those learning English as a second language, marrying the spoken word with the written word as well as reinforcing grammar and sentence structure.
  • A great way to engage and exercise the mind by challenging the viewer to focus on reading, listening and comprehending in real time
  • Able to enhance family time by not only allowing all members of the household to enjoy programming at lower volume levels but also knowing the added benefits captions are bringing to everyone – regardless of age.
Source: CaptionsON.com
Below are the findings in a market research. An analyst group called Decision Analyst, Inc conducted the survey in February 2008. I cannot say I am surprised about some of these findings. There is a lot of bad captioning on TV, especially in real-time. CNN, Fox News and more real-time networks are often below acceptable standards when it comes to the quality of captioning. You should see some of the errors they make on CNN. When they were covering the death of Charlton Heston, the captioning indicated that he had Always Ear Disease. It should have been Alzheimer's disease.

Key Findings:
  • Eight in ten TV viewers have been exposed to captions.
  • 50% of those exposed to captions proactively turn captions on some percent of their viewing time.
  • Less than 1/5 of them have seen captions online (17%).
  • Less than 1/3 of them report having seen captions in TV advertising (31%).
  • 70% of those who never use captions said they would turn on captions if they knew about all the benefits of captions. Among those who are under 45 the percentage jumps to 81%.
  • But unfortunately 47% of those who responded, when asked if they were unhappy with the quality of captions, said “yes.” And 45% of that group said that they change the channel/turn the program off when they are unhappy with the captions.
Source: CaptionsON.com
It's a great thing that VITAC is doing. The more awareness they spread, the better it will be for us. By the way, to visit the CaptionsOn website, just click here.

Sweet Nothing In My Ear: A Movie Review  

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Some of you may have watched the movie earlier tonight on CBS. If you haven't watched the movie and don’t want to read anything spoiling the movie; Then I suggest that you hold yourself back from reading this. Also, I have to emphasize that this blog entry is not about the cochlear implants. It is about the movie and what I thought of it.

Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin play the leading roles in this TV movie. I just finished watching it on CBS. It was quite an emotional roller coaster ride. So were the Hallmark commercials. All of them were basically short films with a touch of heartwarming story to each of them. Hee hee.

Anyway, back to the movie. This kind of movie is rarely made. Tonight, this movie was aired to millions of viewers. It may open up some people's eyes to a whole another world that some of us live in. I reckon that quite a few bloggers, both deaf and hearing will be talking about it for the next few days.

The controversial subject of cochlear implants is not the focus of the movie. It is a subplot, which entails the struggles within the couple's marriage to unravel both emotionally and politically.

As many of you know, the deaf world and hearing world are two whole worlds apart. Many of us share a role in both worlds. The husband is a hearing person and he is married to a deaf woman who he truly loves. Their son, Adam was born hearing. He went deaf when he was a few years old. One day, the father becomes interested in the technology of cochlear implants after bringing Adam to the emergency room. A doctor made the suggestion that he should consider the surgery. He was hesitant at first.

After a while, he started making a few decisions that doesn't settle too well with his wife, Laura without any prior discussions. Therefore, their marriage begins to struggle. The parents of Laura's are both deaf, her father holds a lot of pride in Deaf Culture and even wrote a book on it. I can see some people jumping the gun to label him a Deaf militant. Truth is, I don't feel comfortable using these labels to describe people. The thing is, I don't see people with labels on their foreheads. I see them as human beings. All of us have our flaws. We have our opinions. Everybody is different and unique in his or her own ways.

What I really liked about the movie is how they made every single character appear human, simple and plain. They don't make anyone out to be a heartless monster. The movie itself is neither supportive of nor against cochlear implants. It is because it is not the focus of the movie. It focuses on the political and emotional clashes between the couple that are acting in what they believe to be the best for their son.

I do have to mention a few flaws that I had spotted in the movie. For instance, the signing isn't always fully shown. In many instances, they are cropped off and they used a narrator to do voiceovers for the non-speaking characters. I realize that it may put some people off because they used the same voice for some characters. So I can see why it may be confusing.

Myself, I would have preferred that they subtitled the signing rather than doing voiceovers. Although, we all know how some people just cannot stand reading subtitles. As ridiculous and ignorant that may had sounded, but it's true. If you ask me, I think some people are just taking too much for granted to appreciate life.

Also, one thing bothered me about the movie. Why didn't they ask Adam if he wanted a cochlear implant? The parents nearly destroyed their marriage because of their political differences. I wonder if the screenwriter even thought of this during the process of writing the screenplay, which was based on a play. Really, just think about it. The boy is eight years old, I am pretty sure the boy would have been able to answer the parents' question.

A friend just mentioned the same thing to me. Great minds think alike, I must say.

My biggest disappointment was how they ended it. I felt that it was rushed and rather abrupt. That's Hollywood for you. They usually go for the happy ending. I wonder why they chose to end it the way they did. At least they showed that it is important to keep a family together and that love triumphs all.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie despite its flaws. You will be able to buy the movie on DVD this May. This movie really hit close to home for me at some points during the movie. This is one of the best portrayals of the Deaf culture I have seen in a long time.

Captioning Sucks!  

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It's a good website to check out. They tell you all of the problems associated with captioning and more. As I mentioned earlier today about captioning issues with HDTV and high-definition media/video players such as Blu-ray and HDTV receivers.

They will tell you what you need to know and have the sources to back it up. It is amazing how much power the corporations wield when it comes to passing accessibility laws. They always try to find a loophole to weasel their way out and make excuses. Corporations always send their lobbyists to the government buildings and put the pressure onto the politicians to make some changes. For example, before the digital TVs came out, the government only mandated that analog TVs with a screen size of 13 inches and above must be CC-ready.

Then they had to make a few things once they started selling HDTV displays. Today, the standards are still incredibly weak. We need to start mandating the media/video players including DVD players, Blu-ray players, HDTV receivers and more to be CC-ready. It shouldn't be just the TV sets anymore. Even portable DVD players with built-in LCD screens should be able to display CC.

It is sickening that many people are still living in blissful ignorance while we are fighting to break down the barriers. It is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to get what we want because not enough people are backing us up. Enough is enough. This needs to stop falling onto deaf ears. No pun intended.

Equal access for all.

PS3 & Blu-ray Players: Why Closed Captioning is Necessary  

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The HDMI cable, it is a wonderful thing to have. It can carry the 1080p signal bringing you true high-definition video and audio quality. The bad news is that there are drawbacks. The cable itself is only able to transmit a video signal and an audio signal simultaneously.

What this means is that you cannot put any other signal through a HDMI cable because it will not be recognized at the other end. This is an issue for many deaf and hard of hearing people. A lot of deaf people use closed captioning to read the dialogues and background noises so they can become aware of what is going on.

Closed captioning and SDH are different. SDH itself is image-based while closed captioning is ASCII-based. For the last 10 years with the HDTVs on the market, people are still facing issues with built-in CC decoders on their HDTV sets. There are a few factors in why these are happening. For example, many DVD players are unable to send the CC signal to the HDTV when it is enabled in the progressive mode. The reason why this happens is because the analog CC fills in every 21st line in the interlaced mode. So when it is in the progressive mode, all lines appear at once so the CC signal is unable to find a place to fill in the information.

So, the best way to solve that problem is to use a software decoder rather than a hardware decoder. It is available on many DVD playback softwares on both PC and Mac. The CC signal will overlay the video signal rather than being sent directly to the monitor, projector, TV, HDTV and other types of displays.

The fact is, there are no Blu-ray players out there that offer such a feature to overlay the CC signal onto the video signal. I don't know about the other Blu-ray players, but if these players’ firmware can be updated; then it may be a possibility. I am pretty certain that it is entirely possible to do it on the PS3 (Playstation 3) with a firmware update.

Now, even though most movies on Blu-ray are subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing. There are still many deaf owners who own movies on DVD. Many of these movies on DVD do not use subtitles, they use closed captioning instead.

I have brought this issue up with some film industry insiders including Bill Hunt of ‘The Digital Bits’ and more on several occasions. Whether some people like it or not, Sony, Fox, MGM and Warner Bros holds a bad reputation for not subtitling or captioning the lyrics in the main feature (movie) and the special features. I sent Sony an e-mail regarding "Across the Universe" and how they abused the use of the term, SDH (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing) when a large number of lyrics were not subtitled mainly because they were copyrighted. Actually, it isn't a copyright infringement. It seems like some people may be misinformed on that part. But it is too common these days. It's that simple, if you can't subtitle the lyrics, don't use the term, SDH to describe the subtitle track because it isn't fully accessible. They still haven't responded to the e-mail since it was sent more than a month ago. So yes, I do believe Sony is not being responsive to our needs.

Disney, DreamWorks, Paramount, Genius Products, New Line Cinema and more caption/subtitle all of the contents including the special features. They do care about our needs. There are thirty million Americans with hearing loss. It is not a small number of people at all.

Accessibility is important and should be made a top priority by every studio out there. Especially when the deaf and hard of hearing consumers pay the same price as everybody else. Just like the blind people deserve descriptive audio tracks on the movies they buy or rent.

There should be no barriers, but there are and we are constantly fighting to break them down. Sometimes, it's just easier for the majority to live in ignorance because it is blissful. However, ignoring it isn't going to make the problems go away. We do constantly face naysayers and audists on many occasions. I'm pretty much used to seeing ignorant remarks being made toward us. I don't let it get to me and I continue to fight for what I believe in.

We demand equal access. That is all we are asking for.

Hear and Now: An Intriguing Documentary?  

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The other day, I stumbled onto a preview for an upcoming documentary that was recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival. It won an award. It is about a deaf couple in their sixties. They get cochlear implants together. The interesting part is that they are both fluent in ASL (American Sign Language). As you know, it is still controversial to even speak of cochlear implants in some of the deaf circles. Though I must say that a lot has mellowed out over the years and are more accepting than they used to be. After watching the preview, it seems to be a very intriguing documentary and quite different from "Sound and Fury", a documentary from 2000.

Paul and Sally Taylor, the deaf couple are the focus of the documentary. The story is told by their daughter, Irene Taylor Brodsky, she is a filmmaker. This is Irene's debut as a filmmaker. Her mother, Sally Taylor was also featured in the PBS documentary, "Through Deaf Eyes."

You can find more information on the documentary by going to their official website.

The documentary will be aired on the 8th of May. Unfortunately, I do not have HBO. I don't subscribe to any movie channels in Canada. So chances are it will be on DVD one day. Although I can tell you that it is a documentary that I am looking forward to seeing.

It would be nice if I would be granted the opportunity to be given a look at the movie itself. It's a common practice with a lot of film critics to be granted access to advance screenings. However, I am not a syndicated film critic. This is quite a subtle way of hinting that I would like to review this movie and then share my thoughts with my readers.

I'm not being so subtle now, eh?

It doesn't matter if you support cochlear implants or not, this may be worth checking out. If you were lucky enough to have seen this documentary, please feel free to share your opinion of it.

Raychelle is an Asset to the Deaf Community  

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Raychelle is a deaf v/blogger. Her blogger is named Rays of Raychelle. She has an excellent command on both languages of ASL and English.

CORRECTION: Raychelle does not have a cochlear implant. This is what I get for skimping over the vlogs. Though I do agree with what Raychelle had to share in her vlogs. Regardless, I stand by what I said.

What I am about to say may generate some heat. However, I will not just sit here and say nothing while Raychelle is getting attacked. It's time for someone to stand by her side.

It is tiring to read the complaints about there being too many cochlear implant bloggers on Deafread. If you don't like what you are seeing, go somewhere else. Deafread is a highly diverse blog aggregator. The fact is, we are in the 21st century. It is a changing world. Raychelle is telling the truth about the auditory section of the brain. If you don't take advantage of it within the first five years, it will become far more difficult to acquire a spoken language.

I do have both positive and negative views on the technology of cochlear implants. I have read many stories. Some people are successful with it, some didn't benefit from it. The truth is, a large range of success stories are attributed to strong parental involvement. I don't have a cochlear implant, but I am a successful person because of my parents. I am fluent in both ASL and English. I have deaf and hearing friends.

Anyway, I am not saying all of them will succeed but like I said, it is a changing world. With the advancements made with the technology, it is not getting worse. They are getting better at helping the deaf hear. That's why Raychelle shared a valid concern about how some people believe children should wait until they are old enough to consent to the surgery. Why do children need to be consented? Deafness is a physical disability, that's why we have ears. We are supposed to hear using our ears. So why can't the children be given the opportunity to hear?

Just think about it. Think really hard.

Though I do question the accuracy of hearing tests on infants. Some babies were thought to be deaf only to be discovered that they are moderately hard of hearing or hearing months later. This is the part that really concerns me. Imagine a hearing infant mistaken for a deaf child and is implanted at age of 6 months. Cochlear implant destroys the residual hair cells. So by implanting a hearing child with a cochlear implant, you are in fact forcing deafness upon the infant. There is no way of knowing how many children this happened to because their residual hearing are already destroyed as a result of the surgery.

I do think it is a valid concern that should be looked into. Regardless, I don't think Raychelle was too far from the truth about children being denied the opportunity to be implanted with a cochlear implant. I think it's great that she is spreading the message on the importance of including both ASL and English in every child's life.

We need people like Raychelle to spread message on the importance of language acquisition for the deaf and hard of hearing. Amy Cohen Efron's "The Greatest Irony" is what came to my mind when I watched Raychelle's vlogs. It appears that Raychelle share Amy's sentiments on being inclusive of both ASL and English as a part of a child's language development. I don't think anything is wrong with the idea of giving a deaf child the opportunity to hear better and possibly speak English without any barriers.

It is incredibly sad to see people attacking Raychelle simply because of her opinions surrounding cochlear implants and is talking about it on her blog. Some people are failing to realize what a potential asset Raychelle is to the deaf community. Politics is an ugly game to play and Raychelle is a human being, just like all of us are.

She is an asset to the deaf community and should be treated like one. We can all sit here and complain about how ASL is being eliminated. The truth is, we are causing our own extinction. The parents of deaf children should not be fought against. That's the number one mistake a lot of deaf people make.

Raychelle, don't let it get to you. It took a lot of courage to speak your mind on these matters especially as a Deaf woman and a strong signer. I know it's still a taboo and by speaking up, we can get stigmatized for it. Just keep on speaking your mind. It will make an impact and open some people's eyes.

In the end, we still are all human beings. I do believe it would greatly benefit the children to include both ASL and English even if the child end up not using ASL later in its life. It still does make a difference in the first few years.

Whew. What a lengthy one I wrote today. By the way, feel free to share your opinions and please, please refrain from making personal attacks. We all know that some of us may feel compelled to make some strong and harsh personal attacks toward each other. But what does it really accomplish? Nothing but bitter feelings.

I might lose a few bluegrassers or gain a few as a result. Regardless, it's something I had to speak up on. I just had to.

A tip to the commenters, be proactive instead of reactive.

Open Captioning: Why We Need It  

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In a recent e-mail I received, the person mentioned that he is working with the local deaf community to organize events at the theatre. He is trying to get a V.I.P. -type program set up for the deaf and hard of hearing moviegoers so it would be easier to show open-captioned movies instead of using the RWC system. I must say he's one heck of a guy because of his dedication to providing accessibility to the deaf and blind moviegoers.

RWC stands for Rear Window Captioning. It has a bad reputation among the deaf moviegoers. I know a lot of hearing people may be surprised to hear that, but I can't say I am and I know why.

The reason why many deaf moviegoers dislike RWC system is because of how much of a hassle it is. It is a tinted plastic glass attached to a snake-like stand. It is bendable and adjustable. However, you would have to come in early to get a good seat. The best place to use it is to sit in middle of the theatre. If you sit in the back, the captions will not be able to fit in it, and if you sit at the front, the captions will be really tiny and difficult to read. If you sit to the right or left, it will be slanted. Also, it will have to sit in the cup holder next to you. So if the theatre is packed, you will have nowhere to put your cup of beverage.

Also, there are too many cases of where the neck of the snake-like stand will be unable to stay in the position you put it in because it is too worn out. So it will repeatedly bend over forcing you to readjust it. Another problem is that you have to sit very still to watch the movie with the captions reflecting off the glass. It can get quite uncomfortable after a while.

Open captioned movies is preferred by many because it's right on the screen instead of having to focus on two separate objects at once which is difficult for some because some people are unable to see both without one being out of focus. As hard as that may be to believe, but it's true. To the deaf people, it is a big pain in the neck. We do have to put up with a lot more than the hearing people ever will have to in their entire lives. The hearing people don't realize that they are really working harder to accommodate us when they could be doing much less by just offering open captioned movies.

The problem is that they are worried about how the moviegoers may react to it and how it may affect the attendance at the theatres. I can understand their argument, but have they ever tried a test run of it? Have they ever ran a month worth of nothing but open captioned movies at every showing on every screen at a few selected locations and study the impact of the experiment? I would really like to know.

In the end, they might be surprised to see how much of a difference it may make. I just hope it would be the surprise I hope for.

In fact, the person who e-mailed me is hearing and his whole family is hearing. His children watch movies with captions turned on all of the times. Just to show you that there are hearing people out there who do watch movies with captions or subtitles turned on. In fact, he is not the only one. I know several people including movie reviewers who watch movies with captions on and they are all hearing.

If they can do that, why can't everybody else? A few people will try to fuss over it but many will probably become accustomed to it. In United Kingdom, they show some TV shows with an interpreter in the corner. Myself, I don't like seeing an interpreter on the screen; I prefer captions since it's less distracting. Different strokes for everyone. But they do it anyway. How do we know how everybody will like it or hate it if we don't give it a shot?

I am not advocating that every single screen should be open-captioned. I am only saying that they should do a test run of it at selected theatres across the country where every movie shown on every screen is open captioned at every showing for a month or more. It should be a good way to study the impact it makes on the audience and how it affects the attendance at these selected theatres. I just wanted to re-clarify what I said earlier and hope people won't take it the wrong way.

If the audience reacts quite positively to the open-captioned movies, then I would say open-captioned movies are far, far more economic compared to using expensive technologies like the RWC system.

Should We Subtitle Our Vlogs?  

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I am sure a number of readers are tired of reading about subtitles in our vlogs. Though I still want to do a poll and see what the average reader think. There are two polls below.





For the last week, there was a surge in the discussion of whether we should subtitle our vlogs or not. As you know, I do subtitle most of my vlogs and the remaining vlogs that are not subtitled will be likely subtitled soon.

It was heavily discussed at Mike McConnell's blog, Kokonut Pundits. This isn't the first time I came across this subject. This is basically déjà vu for me because it reminds me a lot of what happened the last time. Who would had thought that subtitling ASL vlogs would be a very sensitive topic considering the fact that we have pushed for accessibility for many years? We are always pushing the TV networks, movie studios, movie theatres and online video services to provide captioning for all of the contents that are available to the public.

Here are some of the related topics the deaf vloggers and bloggers brought up in the last week.

Deaf Progressivism: Let's Stop, Drop and Roll

The Expatriate: Subtitles in Vlogs
Ka'lalau's Korner: Captioning or Subtitling Vlogs Is Not Necessary
Ka'lalau's Korner: Captioning Must Be UnbiasedKa'lalau's Korner: Paraphrasing vs. Captioning

Kokonut Pundits: The Advantages of Subtitles on Vlogs
Kokonut Pundits: No Subtitles for Patty
Kokonut Pundits: Japanese Sign Language

Some people would say it's hypocritical to not provide subtitles on the vlogs. The truth is, some deaf bloggers and vloggers don't want to reach a larger audience. I don't try to reach more readers either, I just blog and vlog because I enjoy it. If I end up getting more readers as a result, I would feel great about it but it's certainly not one of my goals. I do subtitle my vlogs because I have some friends who are not fluent in ASL or they may be fluent in a different sign language.

Websites like YouTube.com and other video hosting services are great to use. However, nearly none of the video contents are subtitled. I must say that it does bother me that YouTube still lack a feature to upload subtitle files like you can at Google Video. That's why I haven't used YouTube for my vlogs, it's because they are inaccessible to the deaf. Their options are too limited for my liking.

I do think it is hypocritical of people to strongly advocate against subtitling the vlogs for political reasons. The problem with that kind of political statement is that the hearing people will not care. They will just move on to other websites if they are unable to understand