Banjo's World

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.

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.

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!

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.

Yes, that Oliver Stone. He is well known for tackling subjects no one would even touch with a ten-foot pole. Oliver Stone has managed to interview people like Fidel Castro and many other controversial figures around the world. Even the filmmaker, Stone is controversial. He has been arrested and charged in the past for drug uses and possessions and more. He has been criticized in the past for spewing out liberal propaganda and such in his movies. The thing about people tackling controversial subjects is that they will be criticized for everything they do.

The truth is, some people just invest too much emotions into the politics. The same could be said about Oliver Stone. It's a two-way street when it comes to politics. You say one thing, they will say one thing, and it goes on and on.

One thing that cannot be denied about Oliver Stone is that his movies spark off a large number of discussions among the people and we get to learn from each other. "JFK" is a good example of that. "JFK" did not offer any real answers, it was basically a guessing game based on countless pages of documents and theories spawned out of nothing over the years.

A few of movies of his were focused on Vietnam. I can think of a few off my head. "Platoon", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Heaven & Earth" and more. All of these movies, especially "Heaven & Earth" were controversial. Even "Alexander" was controversial because of Alexander's sexuality being a subplot in the movie.

I am not defending Oliver Stone; he is able to speak for himself. He is clearly a strong-minded independent thinker, no doubt about that. You can see that from the movies he have produced and directed in the past.

Right now, he is walking onto thin ice. He is the director of a new movie that is already starting to spark off a controversy. The movie is called, "W." Yes, just W. People wouldn't have a clue what the movie was. I was already aware of this for a good while since I often read the scoops on movies before they are officially announced to the public. That's how I knew about the title.

Now, what is the movie about?

Well, I'll give you a hint. Below is the cover of this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly.


Yep, you guessed it right. It's startling to see Josh Brolin in the role of George W. Bush. First, I will say that he doesn't strongly resemble the actual president, George W. Bush. However, you can tell whom he is supposed to look like. Josh Brolin is a fine actor and I believe he will give a good performance. I must note that Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush looks rather young, but does bear a strong resemblance to the actual Laura Bush.

Here is a close-up shot of Josh Brolin as George W. Bush, the President of the United States of America.

Oliver Stone is promising that the movie will be a fair, true portrait of the man. However, people are already accusing him of trying to influence the election even though George W. Bush will not be running for president. But I don't blame them for being wary of Oliver Stone's promises. However, the truth can be like swallowing a brick. I think that is what they are mostly afraid of seeing. But it could be the other way. The only way to know that is to see the movie and decide for ourselves.

Personally, I don't believe George W. Bush is a monster or anything close to that. Just misguided. Terribly misguided. I also suspect him of being used as a puppet at times. I do question some people's motives when they involve God in their decisions. For instance, President Bush involved God in the decision on the invasion of Iraq.

Some people just aren’t meant to lead.

This movie, "W." is definitely going to gather more buzz and spark off a lot of controversies this coming fall when it's being prepared for an early 2009 release, unless they suddenly decide to release it before the election. A rumour has it that Oliver Stone is trying to get it ready by November. We shall see about that.

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.

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 us. I can understand why some wouldn't want to subtitle their vlogs because they find it to be time-consuming. One of my vlogs is approximately 12 minutes long and I managed to subtitle it on the night I uploaded it to the internet. I'm not sure, but there may be other vlogs of mine that are nearly as long too.

Sometimes, we let politics get in the way causing more harm than necessary. Now, in my opinion, it should be up to every vlogger and blogger on whether if they want to subtitle or translate their vlogs and blogs into English or any other languages. People should not be pressured into caving to their demands. Every blogger and vlogger out there has their goals and they do differ from individual to individual. Also, there is no need to feel threatened by the discussion of subtitling vlogs because it is still up to you on whether you want to do it or not.

It’s your choice. For every action you take, you may get praised by one side and criticized by the other side. It’s hard to please everybody these days.

I probably will get criticized for some of what I said, but I am always ready to expect it. In fact, I often appreciate the criticism more than I take offense to them. Most of the times, they are constructive criticism and you can learn a few things from it.

That’s all I have to say for today. Feel free to share your opinion by leaving a comment.

Rush Limbaugh is a radio celebrity who continues to be heard by millions everyday in the USA and America. Recently, he bragged about blackmailing a journalist into cleaning up an article, which "mischaracterizes" him. How did he blackmail him?

By making a threat toward the journalist's children. That is crossing the line; people shouldn't be dragging any family members, friends and especially their children into this sort of situation.

Here's an excerpt from his radio show,

I've had journalists tell me this. "Well, we're journalists." Why are you immune? Why are you immune to the same kind of destructive reporting and behavior that you dish out? You know, we have practiced -- I've practiced it once. I am not going to tell you the story because I'm don't want to give it away, and I would have to mention names, and I'm not going to mention names. But there was a cover story on me coming out of one of the big news magazines, and it was going to totally mischaracterize me and what I do and how I do it. And we found out who was writing it and made a couple phone calls to the person writing it. And we said, "You know what? We're going to find out where your kids go to school. We're going to find out who you knocked up in high school. We're going to find out what drugs you used. We're going to find out where you go to drink and do -- we're gonna find out how you paid for your house. We're going to do -- and we're going to do exact -- and we're going to say that, you know what? You are no different than Al Goldstein. You both masturbate. You're no different than Al Goldstein, and you're both journalists, and so forth."

And the guy started screaming on the phone, just went -- "You can't do that." We said, "Watch us." And it changed the tone of the story by about 60 percent, I would say, from what it was going to be. But nobody does that to these people. Nobody does it to them. And that would be so much fun. But I'd need to be wearing body armor every day. Oh, no question, these people are playing for keeps.

Source: Limbaugh says he told journalist writing on story on him: "We're going to find out where your kids go to school" - Media Matters

There's even an audio clip on the website. Now, how can anyone defend this man? If the article truly did mischaracterize him then why did he resort to such a scare tactic? Hardly mischaracterizing because that's who he is.

How would you like it if I told you that I would be able to find out where your kids go to school? How about I find your medical records and post it here? People wouldn’t like it and they would feel threatened if I did that to them. It’s a classic form of blackmailing and shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s wrong. Period.

Anybody who defends him is condoning his actions. It's a pity that millions of sheep are still listening to him even to this day.

It's amazing what some people will publish in their magazines these days. As a Libertarian with some liberal and conservative tendencies, I am disgusted with Maclean's. It is a popular Canadian magazine, I used to read it years ago. This magazine is somewhere right-winged and often publishes articles bashing the Liberal party of both Federal and Provincial governments. I don't really have a preference when it comes to major news sources like CNN or FOX News. It varies for me; I like to get my news from a variety of websites and TV channels rather than just one channel. This way, it balances out and it's easier to spot the bias this way.

To read the cover story, 'How Bush became the new Saddam'.

I'm a little surprised that the people at Maclean's actually went ahead with the cover shown above. It's in bad taste. Even though I don't think George W. Bush is a great leader by any means. Is it really that easy to believe George W. Bush is a murderer? He is not a murderer to me, but a human being who is misguided whose mistakes has resulted in gravely consequences. Thousands of Americans soldiers sacrificed their lives fighting a lost cause. Tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives due to the near-daily terrorist attacks and car bombs in Iraq. They are still far from stabilizing the government of Iraq. It's not really my opinion of President Bush's leadership skills that matters here, it's about having class when it come to criticizing a politician. Especially when it come to comparing him to murderous dictators.

As expected, the magazine cover is now talked about over in the USA. Here it goes again, some Americans are taking the opportunity to trash us and call us all sort of names. What really bothers me is that quite a few Americans actually believe that we are "protected" by the USA. Just because we're their neighbours doesn't mean they are protecting us which they aren't.

We are very empathic to the Americans whether they want to believe it or not. People have forgotten everything but the tragedy that struck on 9/11. Do people truly remember what they all experienced on that day on a daily basis? What I remember the most about 9/11 is how all of us grieved together on a worldwide level and we did our best to offer a hand and hope to the people affected by the terrorist attacks. We even went with them to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists and the wicked government.

The sad truth is, the friendship between us didn't last. The politics got in the way. It was the war in Iraq that torn us apart. We didn't want to join them in the fight against the government of Iraq. We had our reasons. We were shunned and they turned their backs on us. I have never seen the people of America so divided over the war and all the politics associated with it.

Is it really worth destroying a friendship over a disagreement?

To me, it isn't worth it.

We're still their neighbours and we're always here to help them out when they need it. We hope for the same in return when we need the help.

I love America and I always will.

UPDATE II: Thank you for all the comments. As I expected, people all shared different opinions and I appreciated all of them very much. I'm glad to see how people here can agree to disagree.

For these who don’t condone what I did, I don't blame you. Sometimes I do things out of the blue.

As I said earlier, I did this to give everybody a voice without facing censorship or belittlement from me. Abusing readers is something I really resent watching and being unable to do something about it. Yes, there's not much we can do about it but that shouldn't stop us from speaking up.

It's for the best to close the comments section. No sense in re-igniting the fire here as people already have voiced their opinions. I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome.

For these who wish to speak to me, you can use Plugoo, which can be found on the sidebar. Or you can e-mail me, the address can be found at the top.

Everybody, have a great day.

UPDATE: The polls are now closed. Thank you for voting. The people have spoken.

Unsurprisingly, Mike McConnell of Kokonut Pundits is trying to make it all about himself. He's always trying to be the victim at the hands of the so-called Deaf militants. He's one of these people who gets into your face till you say something and then he will scream, 'Deaf Militant! Deaf Militant! Deaf Militant!' Now he's accusing Ben Moore of "personally slamming" him when all he said was that he and the others didn't care if Matt could speak or not. He only mentioned that somebody brought the subject up. Mike McConnell has done much, much worse than that on several occasions. Ben Moore was right, not many of us care about Matt Hamill using his voice.

The only reason why there may be a controversy surrounding Matt Hamill's use of his voice now is because he's trying his best to turn it into one. Nobody complained about the uses of his voice and not many are. He even ran some polls to gather the answers. Around 30% voted that it was unacceptable that Matt used his voice. What he doesn't know is that a large number of people deliberately voted no predicting that he will try to turn it into a controversy. I should know because I already spoke to several of the people who participated in the poll. The truth is, many of us don't care if he uses his voice or not. We don't appreciate being used like this. We shouldn't tolerate it when somebody tries to take advantage of our statuses to make a political statement.

The real irony is that he is barely hard of hearing, nowhere near to being deaf. No offense, but if someone is able to carry a conversation over the phone, that person is hardly qualified to "understand" our hardships. Yet he is trying to speak for the deaf community. Oh right, there are thirty million Americans with hearing loss. However, most of them aren't severe and many can go on with their lives without any barriers. So that number is being used rather loosely to justify his political statements.

He is the pot calling the kettle black. He is always going after people just because he doesn’t agree with them. He has a political agenda; all of us should have known that already. He is the deaf version of Dwight from the American version of 'The Office'. Nobody laughs with him, they laugh at his at his expense. One thing is for certain; he is unable to take any form of constructive criticism. Instead, He uses the 'ad homimen' or 'whiner' defenses all of the times but that doesn't stop him from hurling insults toward his readers and bloggers including me.

The reason why Kokonut Pundits is one of the least-liked bloggers around is because he chose to make it that way. It's not easy to carry on a discussion when he is taking jabs at you at every turn. To him, it's all a game. A very dirty game.

Now, here are some polls. It was just a matter of time before somebody did this. Now is the time for the deaf community to truly express themselves. Feel free to leave a comment.

As some of you may have heard. Paramount and DreamWorks Animation each has declared exclusive support for HD DVD.

Before I say more, I want to make it clear that I support the Blu-ray Disc format and not the HD DVD format. I have my reasons and there are more to the story than meet the eyes.

Yes, it is a blow to the Blu-ray camp. There's no doubt in that part. Though that's not what I'm here to discuss.

Even though nothing is official but I have my reasons to believe that at least one law was broken. It's awfully suspicious and there are already talks of the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) starting up an investigation in response to the announcement today. Keep in mind that these are all speculations. They are not official yet.

Reason No. 1:

It's a documented fact that every title released onto the Blu-ray format from Paramount in the last 8 months has outsold the same titles on the HD DVD format.

Why would they all of a sudden dump Blu-ray Disc in favour for HD DVD when they are outselling the HD DVD format by at least 200%? It doesn't make any sense, business-wise.

Reason No. 2:

Paramount was literally shilling for Blu-ray Disc as being the better format until now. They were making all sorts of praises toward the Blu-ray Disc format. According to industry insiders, the technical team at Paramount had hoped that Blu-ray would become the dominant format. The problem is, the executives at Paramount listened to the bean counters and not the technical team.

Reason No. 3:

On July 27th, Paramount announced that it was shifting its focus to Blu-ray. They were supposed to ship Blu-ray titles with lossless or uncompressed soundtracks starting with 'Blades of Glory’, which was scheduled for August 28th.

It was quite a big newsmaker that day because prior to the announcement, they were providing standard Dolby Digital soundtracks which is equal to the soundtracks found on the DVD format.

Reason No. 4:

Steven Spielberg has been quite vocal about not allowing Universal Pictures to release his movies onto HD DVD. Universal is HD DVD exclusive, just in case you didn't know. They have been committed to the HD DVD format from the beginning. However, I suspect they aren't too happy with their sales on HD DVD. If I recall correctly, Universal has a contract with the DVD Forum to release over a hundred titles onto the HD DVD format within a year. So, there is always the possibility they may go neutral and release movies onto both formats after the contract expires.

Not only to mention that Paramount will be unable to release Spielberg movies on HD DVD only. Reports claim that Spielberg insisted that his movies should be released onto both formats. However, I am skeptical for a reason. I believe Spielberg is leaning toward the Blu-ray Disc format.

In fact, the first Steven Spielberg film is coming to a high-definition format and guess what? It is Blu-ray Disc exclusive. Not convinced that Spielberg is leaning toward the Blu-ray format yet? How about the fact that he personally approved the new high-definition video master for 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'? They even shot a new video interview with Spielberg himself. Why would he embrace the Blu-ray format just like that when he flatly said no when Universal announced plans to release his movies onto HD DVD? It's the same situation with Paramount as well.

All right, I've shared four reasons and I do believe they are significant. It makes the whole situation seem awfully suspicious. This is why I mentioned the SEC earlier. Word has it that Paramount was paid an amount of $50 million and DreamWorks Animation was paid $100 million by whom?

Microsoft.

At least two blabbermouths work at Paramount. I wonder if they knew that their big mouths might result in a major SEC investigation? There weren't any mention of a payoff by Microsoft in the press release issued by V