Podcast appearances and mentions of Tim Brooks

Like this? Get AIDAILY, delivered to your inbox, every weekday. Subscribe to our newsletter at https://aidaily.us Meta's AI-Generated Fake Instagram Profiles: A Depressing Development Meta's introduction of AI-managed fake Instagram profiles has been met with criticism for their lack of authenticity and the dystopian feel they bring to social media. These profiles, with generic bios and AI-generated content, underscore concerns about AI's role in digital communication. Could AI Predict the Next Pandemic? AI is being explored for its potential in predicting pandemics by analyzing patterns in disease outbreaks and genetic data. While promising, experts stress the need for vast, high-quality data and robust AI models to truly foresee and mitigate global health crises. Trump's Strategy to Maintain U.S. AI Leadership Over China Under Trump, the U.S. could leverage export controls on advanced chips and data to maintain its AI edge against China. This approach involves strengthening tech alliances, investing in AI research, and ensuring U.S. dominance in AI through strategic policy and innovation Sam Altman Predicts AI Agents to Revolutionize Workforce in 2025 OpenAI's Sam Altman foresees AI agents joining the workforce this year, significantly altering business productivity. He suggests these agents will perform tasks autonomously, potentially leading to a new era of work where AI and humans collaborate closely. Google DeepMind Launches AI Team for World Modeling in Gaming and Robotics Google DeepMind is forming a team to develop AI models that simulate physical environments, with applications in gaming and robot training. This initiative, led by Tim Brooks, aims to advance AI's understanding of the world, enhancing both entertainment and automation technologies. AI Unveils Strange Chip Designs with New Functionalities AI has been used to discover unconventional chip designs, optimizing for new wireless capabilities. Researchers from Princeton and IIT have shown AI can dramatically reduce design time and costs, revealing functionalities that could enhance 5G and beyond wireless performance. Adobe: AI Chatbots and Discounts Boost Online Holiday Spending Adobe Analytics reports an 8.7% rise in online holiday spending, fueled by deep discounts and the innovative use of AI chatbots. These technologies not only attracted shoppers but also helped navigate them through purchases, contributing to a record-breaking season.

“Vision Sunday 2025” by Tim Brooks. The post Vision Sunday 2025 appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

2024 has been a year of transformative technological progress, marked by conversations that have reshaped our understanding of AI's evolution and what lies ahead. Throughout the year, Sarah and Elad have had the privilege of speaking with some of the brightest minds in the field. As we look back on the past months, we're excited to share highlights from some of our favorite No Priors podcast episodes. Featured guests include Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Andrej Karpathy (OpenAI, Tesla), Bret Taylor (Sierra), Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks, and Bill Peebles (OpenAI's Sora Team), Dmitri Dolgov (Waymo), Dylan Field (Figma), and Alexandr Wang (Scale). Want to dive deeper? Listen to the full episodes here: NVIDIA's Jensen Huang on AI Chip Design, Scaling Data Centers, and his 10-Year Bet No Priors Ep. 89 | With NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang  The Road to Autonomous Intelligence, With Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI and Tesla No Priors Ep. 80 | With Andrej Karpathy from OpenAI and Tesla Transforming Customer Service through Company Agents, with Sierra's Bret Taylor No Priors Ep. 82 | With CEO of Sierra Bret Taylor OpenAI's Sora team thinks we've only seen the "GPT-1 of video models" No Priors Ep.61 | OpenAI's Sora Leaders Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks and Bill Peebles Waymo's Journey to Full Autonomy: AI Breakthroughs, Safety, and Scaling No Priors Ep. 87 | With Co-CEO of Waymo Dmitri Dolgov Designing the Future: Dylan Field on AI, Collaboration, and Independence No Priors Ep. 55 | With Figma CEO Dylan Field The Data Foundry for AI with Alexandr Wang from Scale No Priors Ep. 65 | With Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction  0:15 Jensen Huang on building at data-center scale  4:00 Andrej Karpathy on the AI exo-cortex, model control, and a shift to smaller models  7:14 Bret Taylor on the agentic future of business interactions  11:17 OpenAI's Sora team on visual models and their role in AGI  15:53 Waymo's Dmitri Dolgov on bridging the gap to full autonomy and the challenge of 100% accuracy  19:00 Figma's Dylan Field on the future of interfaces and new modalities  23:29 Scale AI's Alexandr Wang on the journey to AGI  26:29 Outro

The 3 stories are:The race for the IOC big job - aka Bach's overtures (this doesn't make any sense but makes me sound like I know about classical music, which I don't, apart from that theme from the Hovis ad). Six months ago the word on the street was that Seb Coe wasn't running, and now he is. So, was the word wrong, or did he change his mind? Probably the former. Also, is the Samaranch name an asset or liability in the crusty world of IOC voting membership, the age profile of which makes the Tory party conference look like Coachella. Also, did you know Samaranch really likes crisps, so that's a mark in the yes column from my pov. Why Australia are paying 100million NOT to host The Commonwealth Games- echoes of the late, great Bob Hoskins, who used to tell a story about Brian DePalma paid him a couple of hundred grand not to play Al Capone in The Untouchables. Anyhow, it's hard to get beyond the ‘What's the point?' trope when the CGs is in the headlines. The messaging this week has been around Glasgow getting the games for ‘free', but - like lunch - I suspect that major quadrennial multisport events are rarely free. Which events will get the bullet, should the event have died with the Queen, will India ever engage properly and isn't the British Empire a bit, how do we put it, passé?Lego's F1 deal - Cue outpouring of engaging Gen Alpha chat, with a smattering of hastily Googled facts about the environmental impact of the company's failure to ‘transition to recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which needs about 2kg of petroleum to make 1kg of plastic. ABS is used in about 80% of Lego blocks. “It's like trying to make a bike out of wood rather than steel,” said Tim Brooks, Lego's head of sustainability, referring to how the non-oil-based material was softer and demanded extra ingredients for durability, as well as greater energy for processing anUnofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner' on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you're interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

“It’s Necessary-CMCSWMO 20 year anniversary celebration” by Tim Brooks. The post It’s Necessary-CMCSWMO 20 Year Anniversary Celebration appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

“Winning Your Battles” by Tim Brooks. The post Winning Your Battles appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

“Culture Conference 2024 Session Seven with Tim Brooks”  The post Culture Conference 2024 Session Seven with Tim Brooks appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

AI-generated videos are not just leveled-up image generators. But rather, they could be a big step forward on the path to AGI. This week on No Priors, the team from Sora is here to discuss Open AI's recently announced generative video model, which can take a text prompt and create realistic, visually coherent, high-definition clips that are up to a minute long. Sora team leads, Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks, and Bill Peebles join Elad and Sarah to talk about developing Sora. The generative video model isn't yet available for public use but the examples of its work are very impressive. However, they believe we're still in the GPT-1 era of AI video models and are focused on a slow rollout to ensure the model is in the best place possible to offer value to the user and more importantly they've applied all the safety measures possible to avoid deep fakes and misinformation. They also discuss what they're learning from implementing diffusion transformers, why they believe video generation is taking us one step closer to AGI, and why entertainment may not be the main use case for this tool in the future.  Show Links: Bling Zoo video Man eating a burger video Tokyo Walk video Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @_tim_brooks l @billpeeb l @model_mechanic Show Notes:  (0:00) Sora team Introduction (1:05) Simulating the world with Sora (2:25) Building the most valuable consumer product (5:50) Alternative use cases and simulation capabilities (8:41) Diffusion transformers explanation (10:15) Scaling laws for video (13:08) Applying end-to-end deep learning to video (15:30) Tuning the visual aesthetic of Sora (17:08) The road to “desktop Pixar” for everyone (20:12) Safety for visual models (22:34) Limitations of Sora (25:04) Learning from how Sora is learning (29:32) The biggest misconceptions about video models

“Culture Conference 2024 Session One”  The post Culture Conference 2024 Session One with Tim Brooks appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

On this episode we welcomed Tim Brooks, CEO and co-owner of Lohmiller & Company, an HVAC distributor in Denver, Colorado. Tim has built a highly successful company based on extensive employee training, aggressive expansion of value-added services, a willingness to invest in new technologies and a focus on building an exceptional culture. These capabilities offer customers the best high-touch experiences with personal interactions but also top-notch digital tools that resulted in 27% of sales coming through electronically in 2023. Listen now to hear from the CEO of a fast-growing, privately-held HVAC distributor who shares his tips for success.

Nick sits down with fellow Emerging Cricket contributor and author Tim Brooks to talk about his upcoming book The Batmaker of Copenhagen. The wartime novel is based on a true story about the Gestapo's pursuit of a man trying to source materials across Denmark to make cricket bats and ensure the game continues to run. Nick and Tim also discuss issues in the emerging game, with a focus on Europe. As always make sure to give us a five star review wherever you are listening and to follow us across the social medias, and as always you can find us at emergingcricket.com. Enjoy!

Tim Brooks talks about his brand new book, "The Batmaker of Copenhagen". Set in wartime Denmark, it's a thrilling tale of how one man is determined to keep his cricket club going against the threat of Nazi occupation. Time explains the ideas and research involved and also his interest in non Test countries that play cricket. Get your copy of his book at all good bookstores now! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/98-not-out/message

Tim Brooks of Riverview spent 12 hours at the at the Dr. Everett Chalmers hospital waiting for care.

Emergency rooms in the province were packed over the holidays, with long wait times and a shortage of beds and staff. Tim Brooks saw the challenges first hand at the DECH.

Surprise! On this lovely Friday, listen to a chat with the entire band Values Here. Their new LP "Take Your Time, I'll Be Waiting" is out today (9/22/2023) via our dear friends at End Hits Records.  Grab some of the limited variants today here: www.endhitsrecords.com www.deathwishinc.com   

We get a rundown of what all Chris does this time of year to manage his farms and prepare for fall.  We talk herbicide, clover, planting, drainage and road maintenance, doves, ducks and second place travel ball trophies.   Can't get American Joint vetch, join the crowd.  We'll touch on that and on the way out we mention a great tract of land that Brent has listed for sale.  Thanks in advance to all our buddies we name drop on this one, including Brian Hollis, Jason Hollis, Bobby Cole, Hunter Crimm, Hometown Realty, Tim Brooks (our buddy from the corps), and I'm sure I'm missing someone.  

“Culture Conference Session Six-Tim Brooks” by Tim Brooks. The post Culture Conference Session Six-Tim Brooks appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

“Culture Conference Session One-Tim Brooks” by Tim Brooks. The post Culture Conference Session One-Tim Brooks appeared first on Christian Ministries Church.

DBL#27 'FILL YOUR BOOTS' part 1 w/Tim Brooks (Razorcake Magazine, YOFC Records, Stockholm Syndrome, Young Offenders, Nerves). LEATHERFACE were a pivotal band for myself and guest contributor Tim Brooks they are our favourite UK punk band. There's general information out there already but we really dug into obscure fact finding to help fill the gaps. We both felt it important to present these facts and information here as a resource. Even a hardcore fan will find out something new here. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed and helped us put this information together. This part one covers the first era (88-93) of the band. It's punk rock, son. TRACKS INCLUDED - Stubbs/Hammond/Lainey pre Leatherface bands: REMNANTS OF WARSAW - Arctotis Sloath, HEX - Time to Decide, HDQ - There Comes a Time (7" version). + LEATHERFACE: - Cabbage Case (demo) - How Lonely (Smokey Joe version) - Dreaming (1992 Peel session) - One to Say (1991 Hit the North session) - A Cartoon (with the pain) (Test press mix) - Meaning (China Drum Cover) * both radio sessions recorded December 1991. RIP Dickie Hammond

Thank you for listening to the DCC Sermon Podcast! Tune in each week for a new sermon! To find out more about Dayton Christian Center, visit dcctx.church.

We propose a method for editing images from human instructions: given an input image and a written instruction that tells the model what to do, our model follows these instructions to edit the image. To obtain training data for this problem, we combine the knowledge of two large pretrained models—a language model (GPT-3) and a text-to-image model (Stable Diffusion)—to generate a large dataset of image editing examples. Our conditional diffusion model, InstructPix2Pix, is trained on our generated data, and generalizes to real images and user-written instructions at inference time. Since it performs edits in the forward pass and does not require per-example fine-tuning or inversion, our model edits images quickly, in a matter of seconds. We show compelling editing results for a diverse collection of input images and written instructions. 2022: Tim Brooks, Aleksander Holynski, Alexei A. Efros https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.09800v2.pdf

The last couple of pods have been in the past, so I figured I'd get up to date with some recent goods.

We spoke with Tim Brooks of the Endangered Alphabets project about the cultural importance of scripts, the pressures on marginalized and isolated scripts, his beautiful wood carvings, and the various initiatives he and his group have been working on to support script revitalization and creation around the world.Website: Endangered AlphabetsInhabit MediaTwitter: @endangeredalphaInstagram: @endangeredalphasTranscript of this episodeThis episode on YouTubeOur Patreon pageRedbubble storeThis podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International LicenseThe Endless Knot RSS

Back again with part 2 of UK in the ‘90s. As with the last one this is as much a trip down memory lane as it is an opportunity to highlight how much great shit there was.

This week on Inside the Headset, we are featuring McKinney Boyd High School's assistant coach, Tim Brooks. Coach Brooks describes his coaching path, shares his coaching philosophy, and talks about his experiences with the AFCA's 30 Under 30. Tim Brooks is an assistant coach at McKinney Boyd High School. Prior to coaching high school Coach McKinney was the defensive coordinator at University of Saint Mary and a defensive backs graduate assistant at Texas A&M Commerce. Coach Brooks was a part of a record setting team at Saint Marys and developed a strong defensive coaching philosophy there. In 2017 Coach Brooks was also named to the AFCAs 30 Under 30. [0:53] Start of Interview [1:29] Background of Current Position [2:35] Texas Football [4:49] Transitioning to Defense [7:50] How did you become a defensive coordinator? [9:30] First year as a DC [11:09] Looking back at your first game as a DC [12:05] What prompted the move to high school coaching from college coaching? [15:24] Being successful with the changing talent you have each season [17:36] Coaching Philosophy + Developing as a coach [21:33] 30 Under 30 Experience [25:37] Social Media Twitter: @CoachTimBrooks  

A comfortable discussion with Tim Brooks; owner of the Eleanor Mustang that sits at the museum. Tim tells us why he decided to purchase a licensed Eleanor, and tells us a few of his favorite stories.

Avery Dolan just graduated from Bernice MacNaughton High School. Tim Brooks is a teacher there.

This week Bobby and Tim Brooks join me on the podcast to discuss one of their newest product designs. This product is a new tile mold that they have been working on developing for months. You can see a video of it below. Brooks Molds has been a family-owned and operated business since 1999. From...

Welcome to the CMC podcast, we appreciate you taking the time to join us.  We pray that today's word for Fathers Day, entitled "Living Under a New Lord" and delivered by Tim Brooks will provide an enriching, challenging, and encouraging inspiration for your daily spiritual growth.  We'd love to have you join us for one of our live-stream services; For more information, check out our website at cmchurch.com.

Happy Easter!  Join us today as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior with a panel discussion from our three lead pastors: Tim Brooks, Paul Kern, and Josh Barnett.  

Welcome to the CMC podcast, we appreciate you taking the time to join us.  We pray that today's word of exhortation, entitled "Door to the Kingdom" and delivered by pastor Tim Brooks will provide an enriching, challenging, and encouraging inspiration for your daily spiritual growth.  We'd love to have you join us for one of our live-stream services; For more information, check out our website at cmchurch.com.

RIP to those we lost then and since. Gone not forgotten.

Welcome to the CMC podcast, we appreciate you taking the time to join us.  We pray that today's word of exhortation, entitled "The Gospel Of The Kingdom" and delivered by pastor Tim Brooks will provide an enriching, challenging, and encouraging inspiration for your daily spiritual growth.  We'd love to have you join us for one of our live-stream services; For more information, check out our website at cmchurch.com.

Today on What's Right with Sam & Ash: Broadcasting from Emerald Island Casino Alan Stock joins us Tim Brooks joins us More great guests & St. Patrick's Day fun! Thanks for tuning into today's episode of What's Right with Sam & Ash! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and make sure you leave us a 5-star review. You can always visit us at samandashlaw.com and connect with us on our socials: TWITTER Sam @WhatsRightSam Ash @AshTheAttorney What's Right Show @WhatsRightShow Sam & Ash Law @SamAndAshLaw FACEBOOK What's Right Show https://www.facebook.com/WhatsRightShow/ Sam & Ash Law https://www.facebook.com/samandashlaw/ INSTAGRAM Sam & Ash LLP @samandashlaw YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNBZfFjep_h0TRrwm3R2SXw/featured LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/company/samandashlaw/

Welcome to the CMC podcast, we appreciate you taking the time to join us.  We pray that today's word of exhortation, entitled "The Dominion of Position" and delivered by pastor Tim Brooks will provide an enriching, challenging, and encouraging inspiration for your daily spiritual growth.  We'd love to have you join us for one of our live-stream services; For more information, check out our website at cmchurch.com.

Welcome to the CMC podcast, we appreciate you taking the time to join us.  We pray that today's word of exhortation, entitled "The Parables" and delivered by lead pastor Tim Brooks will provide an enriching, challenging, and encouraging inspiration for your daily spiritual growth.  We'd love to have you join us for one of our live-stream services; For more information, check out our website at cmchurch.com.

Episode Notes All too often we encounter people who we think cannot possibly do the same things we can do. Any of us who happen to be blind can tell you of the many times we are told that we cannot do something simply because we do not see or we cannot see well. The result of these beliefs held by many is that the unemployment rate among employable blind people, according to the U.S. Census, is nearly 70%. Did you know that this rate increased from 50% in 1910 to the 70% rate we see today? Did you know that by 1940 there were three blind people participating in the U.S. House of Representatives and two in the Senate? In our episode today we meet Peggy Chong who is known as The Blind History Lady. Peggy tells us many stories of unstoppable blind people. She gives us a glimpse of life in the late 1800s and the first half of the 20th century and how blindness and blind people were treated. Her stories will surprise you and they will leave you wanting to know more. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About our Guest: Peggy Chong's book in print, Don Mahoney: Television Star is on the shelves at many book sellers. She writes and lectures as The Blind History Lady. Her infatuation with stories she heard of those she now calls her “Blind Ancestors” surprised and inspired her to learn more, for herself at first and then bring their light to the world. Peggy researches their stories and brings to life the REAL struggles of what it was and is still, to be a blind person in the United States. Peggy is a long-time researcher and Historical author of many articles on the blind in the United States. She has written for publications that include The Braille Monitor, Dialogue Magazine, Future Reflections, The Minnesota Bulletin and the Iowa History Journal. Currently, she chairs the Preservation of Historical Documents for the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, to save the single-source files, records, news clippings and correspondence of the blind of Colorado dating back to 1915. https://theblindhistorylady.com/ Email: theblindhistorylady@gmail.com Book: https://amzn.to/30ZrjUh About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Welcome to another episode of The Unstoppable Mindset podcast. I'm your host, Mike Hingson. And we have today a person who I regard as a very special guest, and I hope you will as well. And besides that she's kind of fun. I want you to meet Peggy Chong, who is known by many as the blind history lady Peggy, welcome.   Peggy Chong  01:42 Well, thank you very much for having me on.   Michael Hingson  01:45 Well, we're glad you're here. So I want you to start if you would, by telling us just a little bit about you, things that you want people to know. And, and maybe things you don't want people to know. But go ahead and it's your turn.   Peggy Chong  02:00 Thank you very much. I work as the blind history lady, and it is what I am doing in my quote, retirement. I research and write stories about what I call our blind ancestors. I hated history in school. I didn't like writing in school. I did like researching. I did like that part. When I was growing up, I was involved in the blind community as a child. Because my mother was blind. She went to the North Dakota School for the Blind, and was very close to her classmates and those that she spent a lot of time with, during each year while she was at the school. Back when she went to the School for the Blind. It was located in Bathgate, North Dakota. And so she didn't get home. Most years except for Christmas, maybe sometimes at Easter. So she didn't see her family very much. Her school family was much closer to her in many ways. So I knew the blind piano tuners and the door to door salesman and the rug weavers and stuff growing up. When I got to be, oh, you know, like 20, you know, teenage years and stuff, when we all know everything and start losing it after that. I was rather embarrassed by them. Because I was starting to meet blind lawyers and blind businessmen, blind people who had nice homes and jobs and the blind people that I knew the old people who were probably only in their 50s younger than I am now. But they had a small trailer house, or a very small house. Not fancy. They had small apartments. I remember we visited one couple frequently and they had a basement apartment. It was very dark. They were both totally blind. And my dad was over six feet tall. So he always had to walk with his head down because bump on all the pipes and the beams in the basement. But they were fun people and I didn't appreciate them at the time. What I didn't understand back then is they were working people they were supporting themselves. They were trailblazers. They may have only been the blind drug Weaver or the blind door to door salesman in my mind, but they were the ones who made the path for the blind lawyers and the blind business people who have the nice offices. And so then back in the late 70s Because I was so familiar with the old guard as they were known. I was given the task of cleaning out all Old Files at the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota's offices, because they said, you'll know these people, you'll recognize if there's something that's important to keep or not. The task was to keep all the basic important records, the minutes, the financials, any important correspondence and so on those records dated back to 1919. And every so often, I'd stop and read a little bit of this, read a little bit of that. And the more I read, the more I kept saving. And putting aside even though it was supposed to go in the trash pile, because it was interesting to me, especially when I started to read about our blind congressman, our blind congressman, was somebody I didn't know about who was this blind Congressman that they were visiting in the 1920s, to try and get them to support these legislation.   Peggy Chong  05:58 So I put it aside. And after I finished that task, I checked out who the blind Congressman was, and his name was Thomas David Shaw, who was a blind man from the Minneapolis St. Paul area. An attorney, who I always joke about went blind because of smoking. He was an attorney who was on a break in North Dakota courtroom, they had just in salt stalled this new electric cigarette lighter, and he liked new things. And he tried out the electric cigarette lighter, however, it shorted out and blew him across the room. And within a few weeks, he lost all of his vision. So he didn't think he could be a lawyer anymore. He spent a lot of money and trying to get his vision back. When he ran out of money. His friend said, Well, hey, why don't you come here and give a speech for me here. He was a great orator. And give a speech for me there. And pretty soon somebody said, Well, why don't you run for Congress. And he did. So he was elected to Congress, we had a blind congressman in 1914. He served until 1925, when he went over to the US Senate. And he stayed there until his death in 1935. His family were dead serious when I interviewed his family that Thomas Shaw had been killed, murdered by the, what they said was the mafia arm of the Democratic Party. And when you start to put all the evidence together, back from our time, looking back, they, they have a lot of circumstantial evidence that could have probably bought brought some charges against the driver of the vehicle, who ran him down just before Christmas. So because of Thomas's story, I got really interested in the stories of our blind ancestors, I have been collecting data ever since the 70s. And finally, then, in about 2014, or so my husband basically told me either get rid of that stuff, or do something with it, because it's crowding the den. So I did, I began to write for dialogue magazine, I wrote their history column for about six years, and have been getting articles in magazines if I can, and newspapers about the blind ancestors that I research and find them fascinating, because these are men and women who, in the 1800s, early 1900s, were making a living supporting families, vibrant parts of their community. And they didn't have the benefits that we have today as blind people. They didn't have many of them the luxury of a good education, although a lot of the people I do research were students at schools for the blind, but many of them who went blind in their 20s 30s 40s did not have that opportunity. There was no rehabilitation services for adults, they had to learn on their own. And in several cases, they had to learn more than one code because just like in the schools for the blind, English may come in American Braille. But the science was in New York point, and maybe some of the classes for History or English or whatever, had novels that they were to read in moon type or a raised printing of some sort. So these men and women, especially the ones I research, I admire because, without rehabilitate without any financial support without any classes, they taught themselves alternative techniques for reading and writing, keeping their accounts relearning how to do their farming, how to raise their animals, how to run their stores, how to be a lawyer, everything, and I admire them for the things that they do. So I try to dig down deep, interviewing as many of the descendants as I can, or finding any of the records they've left behind to tell their story of the encouragement that they can provide our history can provide is, I think, very valuable today. The old adage, when we were in school, you know, if you don't learn your history, you're destined to repeat it. That's very true with blindness as well. I don't think we have sometimes as blind people as much ingenuity, or get up and go because we haven't hit rock bottom like many of them did.   Michael Hingson  11:09 Well, I think it's definitely true that the world has changed. And I think you're right. We some of us haven't hit rock bottom, like they did. But I wonder if they viewed it as rock bottom, or how they viewed their lives at the time, because what they did was, they did move on. And I wonder if they just viewed it as kind of a challenge to just keep moving forward, something that we don't do as much today, in part because we have a lot of the conveniences and other things that maybe they didn't have access to?   Peggy Chong  11:51 Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that. The one of the things that I have really learned over all of this research, and I did a lot of genealogical research for my own personal family, which is where, which is how I decided that I was going to approach this as they were my ancestors. And through that genealogical research, I took many classes and seminars on how to interpret what you were reading, how to interpret what was going on at the time, which basically meant, if you don't understand what's going on at the time, you can't understand why your family did what they did. And with our blind ancestors, it's the same thing. Some of them did hit rock bottom, in that they realized, for example, at the Iowa home for the blind, which was a short lived, it was supposed to be an industrial home where you could go to as an adult person who had gone blind, hopefully learn a trade find a place to live. The staff were paid. Like $20 a month, plus they had room and board where the blind folks were to pay two to $4 a month for their room and board work in the shop, which didn't provide them with a lot of hours many times. And so the people who went to that home ended up owing money to the state by the time they were able to break free. And there were advertisements in the newspapers from Knoxville, Iowa, which is where the home was, and the counties where these people were going back to because at that time, the counties would say, well, we're not responsible for this person because they came from your county, even though they've been in our county five years. That's where their home is. And they don't, they don't fall underneath our charitable giving, or our plans for handing out any kind of pension or compensation. So there would be ads in the paper, you please send shoes or a shirt or money for train fare for this person to return to your county, or please donate money so that John Smith's family can get them back from Knoxville on the train. There were blind people who I have researched, who would choose to go to jail and commit a crime a small crime usually to go to jail when it was cold, so that they didn't have to go to the poor farm because poor farms were actually more dangerous in many areas than actually going to jail. Those are the types of people that made decisions that they were hitting rock bottom, but then you've got a lot of these others where things around them were four things around them were difficult. The farmers were experiencing crop loss, drought flooding, or they didn't have the supplies. So there was a big flu epidemic or what have you. And they were in the same boat as the rest of the community. And they struggled to get out of that predicament just as much as the rest of the community, or at the same level. So it kind of depended on the mindset of the people the timing, whether or not they felt they hit rock bottom or not. If you got money from the city, you would have to petition to the city council or in some cases, the county, it was all in the public minutes, it was printed in the paper. And there would be a column about how much money was spent each month for individuals. And you would have so and so's name and then it would be blind on the other side, so and so's name and it would be old age, so and so's name and another reason for them to collect money. And you had to go back time and time again. Three months maybe would be all you would get at a time. And you would look at the disparaging, you would look at the the monies that people were getting. And it would be kind of interesting, if a man who was a soldier in the Civil War, or the First World War would probably get more money, then a blind soldier would probably get a little more money, then the blind widow raising four kids. Why? I don't know. I don't know the thinking at the time. But once those things were put in the paper, your family was maybe shun that church, somebody would say when you went into this store, Oh, I see you're not supporting your blind kid or your blind mother. Shame on you. So people chose to do anything rather than shame their family, or they would move away from their family to another community. And not have a lot to do with their family so that their family wouldn't be embarrassed, but also so that they could get money from a county to find a small place to live.   Michael Hingson  17:27 What I'm curious just to change the subject a little bit, what did you do for your day job before you retired?   Peggy Chong  17:35 Well, I've kind of done it all. I wanted to be a librarian. And I worked after high school as a librarian before I was going to go to college. But then I got married and had a kid, you know, did the usual Mom Stuff it did daycare for a while, that kind of thing. When my daughter was in high school, I did customer service. And you'll learn a lot of patience when working customer service. But I and I've had several positions. Over the years I've worked for blind industries and services of Maryland. And the National Federation of the Blind in their job opportunities for the blind program for several years, ran the Newsline program for the blind, the national program for several years. But for me, one of the things that is been a consistency in my life has been my involvement in the blind community. And, you know, do all the membership type things, raise money, and so on. But one of the things that was an accomplishment that I feel proud of is I was part of a group of people that established blind, blind incorporated blindness learning in new dimensions in Minnesota, and helped with a lot of the the foundation grants, finding the locations, finding staff, finding staff when we didn't have any money to pay the staff, substituting for staff when we didn't have staff who could perform the necessary jobs we needed to do. You know, one of the things that we did in building blinding Incorporated was we drew on the experiences of so many blind people, not just the ones that were you know, getting ready to retire, but the ones from that when they were in their 80s, who would tell us about what it was like in the 20s what they had to do, and how to travel because their information that they gave us, inspired us with so many ideas at how to be innovative. They had a lot of well, we didn't have this so we improvise And because BLIND Incorporated had so little money, we need a lot of in prevent, improvising, and learned from their strategies and learn from their techniques and how they made a lot out of nothing. And it gave us a lot of techniques then also to pass on to other people we brought in those people was the student body built up, we brought in those people to give seminars, talk about what it was like, going through their struggles, losing their sight as adults in the 30s, in the 40s, when there was nothing, and hopefully, help them appreciate what they were doing at that time, not focus on how sad life was, how hard life was, but how they should be grateful this is all they have to go through and not having to learn new york point, and Braille and Moon type in order to read the books that they wanted, they only had to learn one alternative form of reading.   Michael Hingson  21:14 And we should probably explain that New York type, Moon type or New York point, Moon type, and so on are different forms of raised characters that into themselves have interesting origins. Although Braille is the the main technique that we use for reading,   Peggy Chong  21:33 there were different forms of Braille with the country. There was your basic ABC Braille, there was that and we called that grade one Braille, there was grade one and a half, which my mother used. And there was grade to Braille, which is what I learned, they have different short form words, different contractions. If you were reading grade one Braille, depending on where you lived, you had either a lot of access to grade one Braille, or you have little access to grade one Braille, what made the difference was where you were being taught that if you were taught at some of the schools for the blind, who had a lot of building, they had room for all the grade one Braille. The grade one and a half Braille did not take up as much space. And several printing houses did that some of the schools printed their own material, and they would do it grade one and a half. Then when there was this decision as to what would be the written language for the United States for the blind, decided that it would be that and it would be the American grade two Braille because there was English Braille, which I always found kind of fun to read, because it had different punctuation formats, and I get tied up in that New York point was something my mother had learned New York point. New York point was only two dots high, but four dots long. And had its own set of symbols were Braille is only three dots high, and two dots across. So it only has six dots, New York point had eight dots, Moon type, it always just looked to me like somebody dropped stuff on a page and then thermal form.   Michael Hingson  23:43 Yeah, Moon type is, I read once that moon type was kind of a hybrid form of printing characters created by someone who thought that these were different enough that they could be felt and read. But Moontide never caught on like Braille. And rightly so although I, I personally did get a couple of books and Moon type and had a little bit of fun learning to sort of read them but never could get to the point of reading quickly.   Peggy Chong  24:15 No, and that was the problem with the typist, you very few people ever got to read it quickly. And they thought that the Mon type would be a lot easier for older people to read, because the dots were too close together for especially people with arthritis and that kind of stuff as you get older. But it just not just really didn't catch on and raised character printing. That was early form of a reading method for the Blind in this country. used a lot in the east coast where this early schools for the blind started but Again, it took up a lot of space. And just was not fast to read. And so when people started adopting Braille that was being taught in Europe, that made a big difference in how fast people could read. Now I find it find fun and interesting to note that the Ohio School for the Blind was, I believe, the very first state sponsored School for the Blind, all the rest were private schools or private public schools or something, but it wasn't like we think of a State School for the Blind. Today, Ohio was was one of the first. And they taught several methods of reading. But what they spent a lot of time on was teaching the blind kids, young people to handwrite. And the reason they did that is because they told them, This is the business language of the United States. This is the business language of the sighted. And if you cannot compete in the sight of community, with the written word, you won't compete in business. This is how you're going to have to send out your bills. Now we're talking 1848 1850 1860, and so on. And they would spend, I saw one schedule where they actually spent two to three hours a day, working on handwriting, and many of the graduates from the 50s. And 60s in the 70s were really competent hand writers, they could write out many of their diaries, their Ledger's, their letters to their clients letters to their family, their friends, they corresponded with suppliers. And they did it all by hand with not with a secretary or interpreter, but by themselves. So then in the late 1870s, or so that they were going to spend more time on Braille and the alumni was all upset, because they said, Now wait a minute, these guys, they're not going to be able to compete, you take away the written language of the United States from them, they're not going to be able to compete equally with their sighted peers. And I thought, I found that very interesting to watch the changes that were going through different parts of the country. And of course, the invention of the typewriter, which is an intervention for blind people. People don't always realize that once the typewriter came into vogue, well, then teaching typing than it was, this is what you do to compete in the sight of community. As you learn to type, you learn to communicate with the sighted through a typewriter. And that took the place then of teaching handwriting, handwriting, several schools did teach handwriting, but Ohio was probably the most successful at it. Many of the others just kind of dabbled in it, they could learn to write a little bit. But not how to track the lines, how to make it look like a really well formatted printed letter. Just mostly for notes and things like that. The other schools focused on the handwriting. You   Michael Hingson  28:29 mentioned something really interesting. Tell me a little bit more about the typewriter being invented for blind people.   Peggy Chong  28:35 The New York Times article that I learned all this from it and checked it out, came out probably in the late 80s, early 90s. And talked about this Countess, who was blind and she had a lover, evidently the count wasn't as attentive as he should have been. And she wanted to communicate back and forth. With her lover, he would send her letters, and her ladies in waiting would read them. And then she would have one of her ladies in waiting, write the letters out and send them to him. Well, the ladies in waiting would, you know rat her out to the count. So they had to find other ways of communicating. And her lover put together this typewriter that resembles sort of what we use today and gave it to her as a gift. And she was then he taught her how to use it and she was then able to write to him privately so that they could sort of you know, keep in contact the letters from her. Her lover could have sort of their little secret messages in it then only she knew and so on. And so that's how that all got started. The New York School for the Blind in Batavia adopted it really early on and had several of their Students working for typewriter companies. In fact, some of the high school students during the summer would work for a typewriter company traveling around many states going to the state fairs and demonstrating this new typewriter for the blind. And of course, it caught on in business, which was really great. Meaning that typewriters were more accessible all over the place for everyone caught on everywhere. And so it fascinates me now. And I always have to remind people that a typewriter was an invention for blind people. When people tell me Oh, it's too difficult to learn to keyboard. I learned to type in kindergarten, that was what you had to do when you went to the to the site saving classes, you had to learn to type that was, if you didn't know about type by the end of first grade boy, that you know, you spent a lot of time during the summer with your teacher. Well, I   Michael Hingson  30:55 like to type at home. But then I also took a typing course, in summer school one year between seventh and eighth grade I think it was. And I remember being in a class with a number of people we all had typewriters, of course, to the to work on. And people complain because the keys weren't labeled, which is something that I hadn't even thought about. You know, it didn't bother me that the keys weren't labeled, but they were complaining and the teacher had to explain what yeah, they're not labeled, because you need to learn where they are. That's what touch typing is all about. It is amazing what we complain about sometimes.   Peggy Chong  31:38 It truly is. The keys on the typewriter. When I took typing in ninth grade, it was mandatory to take typing in ninth grade. They were not labeled. And boy, everybody was really upset about that. But by that time I I knew touch typing so. So that class was great for me,   Michael Hingson  31:58 and to cross people up a lot more. My father had a typewriter that he brought back from Germany in World War Two. He said it actually came from one of Hitler's offices. And he took it apart and packed it in boxes and send it home. And when he got home, he put it back together. What was interesting was it undetermined typewriter, the Z and the Y were reversed. Because Z was apparently a more common character. So that was a little bit hard to get used to once I learned to type and started using a regular typewriter remembering that on his typewriter, the Z and the Y were reversed. And it was a noisy clunker thing, but it sure worked well.   Peggy Chong  32:42 Make it really difficult writing a letter to somebody Mr. Saba rusty.   Michael Hingson  32:46 Yeah, exactly.   Peggy Chong  32:50 He was paged when I was at the airport the other day. But yeah, that's it. And they were very, you fingers were very strong, because those old typewriters should push hard down. Oh,   Michael Hingson  33:01 you did? You did. I remember Occasionally, when we had tests in school, I got a portable typewriter. My parents bought us one. And I would carry it to school so that I could type answers. The tests were in Braille one specifically, test I recall was in eighth grade, you had to take a test here in California on the Constitution before you could graduate. And so the test was in Braille, it was transcribed by Mrs. Hershberger, who was our resource teacher. But they couldn't have someone sitting next to me to have me dictate answers. Because we were in a classroom and there was no other space. Well, and of course, the logical thing was typed the answers. So I was in the classroom, and we the typewriter was pretty quiet, but I would type all of the answers and then turned it in. And it worked really well under the circumstances. It's amazing how resourceful we can be.   Peggy Chong  34:01 My typewriter in class had to sit on foam. And mine was not a portable, mine was wheeled in on this cart. And it sat on a piece of foam, which deaden the sound some. Yeah. But still, it was, you know, I'm doing the typing in the class while the rest of the kids are all writing in their handwriting. My handwriting was really bad.   Michael Hingson  34:29 Nine as well. But I but I tell everyone, when I sign a document, well, the bank always accepts our checks, although now we don't even do much with checks anymore. Well, I'm curious. How do you think attitudes toward blind people have changed throughout the years? I mean, you've obviously got a good perspective on what history was like for blind people. And you've talked about a number of people who have been able to accomplish that, but how have attitudes changed? aged either way,   Peggy Chong  35:02 you know it for blind women is changed dramatically in that blind women, the options for a blind woman if you didn't marry was taking care of somebody if you had enough skill. Otherwise you were sort of you know that great aunt who lived in the backroom. You were taught handiwork so that you could always do the mending be useful at home. Blind women did a lot of fancy work, mending, because they weren't straining their eyes. A blind woman could work a lot longer at doing the mending, because they didn't need the light. After that, your opportunities were as a woman to become a teacher at a school for the blind. And that was about it. Music Teacher maybe teach piano at home. You didn't go out, went blind women didn't use a cane. But then sighted women didn't go out if you were a sighted woman and you were out at after dark by yourself. Boy, you were gossiped about at church? That's for doggone Sure. So what was the need for teaching a blind woman to travel, she wasn't going to go out on her own anyway. And if she was, if there was another sighted woman who needed to go out will take the blind woman with you, she needs a little air anyway. And then you could go out and take care of business as well. So for blind women, the expectations have changed so much. Not just becoming a homemaker. Boy, if I can just marry this blind daughter, haha, that'd be crazy. But you could go to school, you didn't have to just finish a lot of the girls who went to school, you look at the school for the blinds rosters, and you'll see girls there for four or five, six years, then they're going home to help cook on the family farm or take care of the sewing raise the younger children. They didn't graduate at anywhere near the same rate as the blind men blind boys did. Then when they got to be more accepted as teachers and so on in the schools for the blind that some of them became public school teachers, especially in the frontier areas, where if you, you couldn't get a lot of people to get out go out there. Some of the blind women especially through from Iowa, the blind college graduate, they were called the college for the blind at that time, because you went through 12 years of schooling, and most people only went through eight. So you know, the they call the School for the Blind in Iowa, the college for the blind. So the graduates from there, offered to go to North Dakota and South Dakota, and teach in some of the public schools and because until it became more populated, more things have opened up. Now, a blind woman has the same expectations can have the same aspirations as a blind man going to school, whatever the career they choose, and so on. For the Blind guys. You know, again, it kind of depended on where you grew up. If you came from a farming poor family, where you were land rich, but you know, the bank account didn't have a lot of money. Everyone was expected to pull their weight and the families adapted and found a job for the blind person to do and they would do it well. Some of those blind people became excellent plow drivers with their horses. Fixed machinery, did the hauling in the gardens took care of the animals in the barns. Skills that would also trade in jobs that were in town or they could then hire out to a neighbor. The some communities didn't expect a lot from their blind, relative, they'd send them to the schools for the blind and hoping that they'd find them something to do out east Perkins for many, many years. Music was the big thing at Perkins. They will be a music teacher. They will be orchestra director. They'll work at a church as the music director. And many of them did find successful careers in that. If you were out in Montana, for example.   Peggy Chong  39:49 The blind kids that went to the Montana School for the Blind for the first 20 years. They helped literally build the school, the fences, the barns care for the animals raised the animals that would be Sunday's meal, the vegetables, the, the, that were canned for the winter meals and so on. They made the furniture, they made the mattresses. So they took those skills, went back home and turn them into businesses, one of the graduates of the Montana School for the Blind. His parents had passed away, he lived with a sister, who was a teacher, but not that much older than he was, she didn't know how to raise a blind kid send him to the Montana School for the Blind during the years where the school didn't even have any heat, where they lived in two rooms of the nice building that had been built for them, but there was no heat in the building. So during that time, he learned to chop the firewood, he built the fence rails. He learned how to repair and build furniture. So when he decided to be a piano tuner, he took some classes in piano tuning, which was not a big class yet in Montana. But what he did learn was how to do the carpentry work for repairing the pianos. And he did that very well in the rescue picked up, which is kind of the opposite for some of the schools for the blind, because they focused on the piano tuning itself and telling the kids who were taking the piano tuning or the young men, well, you know, it's really hard to do the carpentry work on it, you'll never get the staining, right. So don't even bother where he learned to do all of that at the Montana School for the Blind, and he ended up becoming the owner and manager of several movie theaters. And he would get these small movie theaters, and he would do all of the repair work and building up the stage. And he even learned electrical. And he would build up the movie theaters and go on and sell that one, buy another one and had a very, very, he had one of the nicest movie theaters in a medium sized town in Oregon, when he passed away.   Michael Hingson  42:04 Well, the the thing that really is fascinating is that you're talking about a significant number of relatively speaking blind people who were successful in one way or another. But if you were to really contrast societal attitudes about what it means to be blind, then and now what what would you say? would you contrast them? Do you think that they're significantly different today? Are they the same? Are they worse? You know, how have we really changed as a as a race toward blindness?   Peggy Chong  42:43 I think in many ways, we have stepped back as society from including others, we talk about inclusion a lot. And talk about being a part of an invite people who are different blind people, particularly we're talking about now, but not always really including them as participants. Where I think my opinion is that back in 1880 1890, if a blind person proved themselves, they were accepted and expected to carry the weight. And they were more a part of the community, because they were far more isolated from other blind people than they are today. That doesn't mean that all of the people were like that you still have the schools for the blind where you had the clusters. But today, the kids who grew up in the public school systems do not have the same support, family blind support family that the kids did back then I believe that there's more contact with blind people or that you have the opportunity for more contact with blind people today than you did 110 110 years ago, 100 years ago. So it's kind of, I think, not as easy as it was back then. Because there was a whole different mindset in the communities that everybody pulls their weight. And I use, for example, is the blind people that were in politics back then, that were serving on the city council's as mayors as county commissioners, school boards. You don't hear very much and I find very little about that today. But back then, well, for example, there was a gentleman in South Carolina, John Swearengen, who Born after the Civil War, but still, South Carolina was still in reconstruction. And there were public schools home taught so on, finally was sent to the school for the blind for a couple of years, wanted to go to college. The college didn't want him until his uncle said, Well, if you're not taking my nephew, then I'm not going to give you any more financial support. Since they were financially large contributors. The school gave him but says no, absolutely no accommodation for this kid. And that means even bothering other students to walk him to class. So he used a man's walking stick a cane, to go to and from classes. So he graduates he wants to teach, the only place he can teach is the School for the Blind. His friends from college encouraged him when the State Superintendent of Education position came up, that he should run. Nobody took him seriously. But he won. Now he couldn't teach in the state of South Carolina. But he oversaw all the public schools, including the colleges and the trade trade schools in South Carolina. And he did that for 20. Some years. But you see many of these people who wanted to make a difference in the community, a teacher from the School for the Blind in Iowa, he wanted sidewalks and a paved alley and ran for the City Council. And he got that for his area of the of the city, but also left a big imprint on the city because he got involved in bringing a new bank to the city and so on. You don't see that kind of involvement. And is that because things are far bigger now. And blind people just don't get into the the cog that runs the huge wheel, where the towns and communities far more oriented towards people because they were smaller back then? I think there's some of that to be looked at as well. But we have not had a blind congressman, in our country since 1940. We have not had a blind US Senator since the 1930s. Why is that? We have five blind Congressman's up until 1940. We had two blind US Senators before that. And yet we've had nothing since I look at how many blind men and women have served in state legislatures over the years.   Peggy Chong  47:40 And there was one point in time when we had well over 25 plus to 30 blind men and women serving in different states is different state legislatures. Now, there's probably enough we could count on one hand, and we don't have that kind of interaction with our our laws, our government bodies, anymore, that I think that makes a big difference as how we are seen, by our states, we are not part of fee process of creating new opportunities. We are part of the wanting our handout, I believe that we are looked at in many ways. More than we used to, even though we don't have the begging that we use to the blind beggars all over the place. We sort of become the population that go to the state to get on this for this project and friends for that project. So it's very different than it was I think it actually if you were a blind person who had gumption if you were a blind person who tried even though you would failed more than once and kept trying, I think you had the ability for more opportunities. And I say that also because in 1910, the US census was taken that year, and one of the focuses was to find out exactly how many blind people there were in the United States and what they were doing, because there was talk of creating pensions for the blind. And what would that cost the country? What would that cost the states if we were to do something like that? So if a surveyor was out, taking down all the information, and found a blind person, they got a little extra in their pay envelope. So the incentive was there to find the people, even if they didn't self identify as a blind person, but to find those people and say yes, this person is blind enough where they don't do things the same way as other people. In that step senses, more than 60% of the blind people found, were self supporting. That meant that they weren't on any kind of charity, they weren't being supported by a family member. They weren't be supported by a county or a city. They weren't in a industrial home for blind people. And what most of them were doing was farm labor. There were not as many piano tuners as a lot of people think they were farming was the biggest occupation. And now we have a close to 70% unemployment rate for blind people. And many of those people are on some kind of public assistance. And that's just another indication that people were given an opportunity to do what they could do, and paid for it. Now, they didn't have the same living conditions that we like to think about today, some of these people, especially the farm laborers, were living in the hayloft, or in an outbuilding on a farm, they might be living in the city running a broom shop out of somebody's garage and living in that broom shop. Met in Minnesota, several of them had their own music stores, and they lived in the backroom of their music store that was their home and their business. So not the same living conditions, but they were self supporting. So I look at that. And I have to wonder if you were out there wanting to find a job if you were really trying, not in every community, but in many communities, were you given a chance to do that. And I think that we were given a chance back then, more often than not given a chance. Now people are worried about being sued. If they say the wrong thing, or if the person gets hurt, are they going to get an insurance claim that they don't want, there wasn't any of that back then. And maybe we had better chances if you were willing to get out there and, you know, work twice as hard to get half as far in many cases. But if you were willing to do that, you had an opportunity to get up there to get a job working in the back of someone's store, delivering goods for a business, working as a furniture mover.   Peggy Chong  52:42 Whatever it was a women another story again, because times had not changed for women. But for men, they had a lot more opportunities and were self supporting, not needing to go to the church for funding that meeting to go to the county.   Michael Hingson  52:59 It's interesting, though, that through all of that, today, we think of blind people may be tuning pianos and so on. But still, more often than not. We think of blind people begging back in the day, as it were. And we don't hear a lot about all of the other kinds of things that blind people did. We we are molding, if you will, and attitude about blindness, which although there was begging certainly. And not only blind people begged but But still, there was a lot of begging, but we're molding and trying to pit blind people into a pigeon hole that isn't necessarily totally accurate.   Peggy Chong  53:49 One of the things that is difficult and tracking some of the blind people is that if they didn't self identify as blind, and many did not. How do you know I mean, I have found relatives of the blind ancestors that I'm researching who had no idea that their relative was blind did made me prove it to them, that their relative was blind. And they were doing jobs like newspaper editors that they worked on the railroads. How can How could have Uncle John been blind if he had 1000 acres of land? And it's because they if they couldn't believe that a blind person could do it, they just talked about him as a person. Yeah. The articles in the newspapers if the blind person is doing something that is newsworthy. But if you bring in the blindness, it doesn't sound like you're really writing about the person. They didn't bring in the blindness and some papers did have a policy not to talk about a person's what we would call today a disability, but they would call it many other other things. And so it would be hard to track some of them that way, especially when you've got somebody who's got a common link name. You know, for example, I took genealogy classes on how to determine whether the Johann Schmidt, and I've got a few of them in my family is the Johann Schmidt you're looking for, and it was kind of fun to learn how to do that, and how to track and find the right person. And make sure you got all the right kids names, or who did that if we lived next door to them, when you knew they that that was your relative of the person you were targeting. So when I start to look at these blind people and look at who they lived with, who their neighbors were, did they follow them along what was their kids names, so that you can track them back when they are not identified as a blind person, especially when they went blind later in life, because people tried to hide that. They didn't want people to know they were having difficulty. They didn't want to burden others with their problems. They just kept on working. They just kept on running the farm. They just kept on delivering the milk, they just kept on doing what needed to be done.   Michael Hingson  56:33 I'm curious. So as a person who has grown up blind and also very active in the National Federation of the Blind, which is you and I know is the largest organization of blind people in the United States, and it's a very active social action organization. The Federation was started by Dr. Jacobus, Tim Brooke. But Dr. Temper Ik had his beginnings at the California School for the Blind. Tell me about Newell Perry. And if you know much about Dr. Perry, who was a mathematician who was blind, and who taught at the school and taught Dr. timbre.   Peggy Chong  57:13 Neil Perry is a really fascinating guy, because he taught at the school for the blind, because he felt it was important to teach blind, blind kids, he could have taught other places. Especially he could have taught mathematics as a professor. It would have been hard for him not because of the teaching aspect, but because of be getting into the schools and being accepted as a blind mathematician. But one of the things he did for a lot of kids and we're talking, you know, back in the 1920s. Kids came to the Colorado School of the Colorado I'm sorry, the California School for the Blind from a lot of different states. And dual Perry taught them how to think he taught them how to do math in their heads. He taught them how to think out of the box. And what he did was he were he there was a group of young men in California known as his Paris boys. But he taught a lot of people that went on to other states, for example, a young man went back to Hawaii in he there was no School for the Blind in Hawaii when his parents who were missionaries had this blind child and wanted an education for their blind child. So they sent him California, he came back and went to the University of Hawaii there and that young man didn't quite always get what Perry was trying to teach him. His became a little hard nosed for a while, but he went back to California and did understand later on about I you know, you've got to, you got to get out there. You've got to keep moving. Neil Perry, used a cane. Some of the earlier people who used a cane before what we consider the birth of the white cane in this country. And October is white cane awareness month, April, October 15 was white cane Awareness Day. And but no Perry taught the kids to move, get out there to run to play to climb the trees to play on the play equipment to play ball to run basis and taught them to move. And because sometimes, the young man I'm talking about in a why because Perry didn't always do that on the school grounds. It was his home. Perry lived there, taught there, went to school there. He considered at home and didn't always carry his cane but He did when He went out and his students followed his his example because he was there example. Yes, he was teaching at the school for the blind, but they knew he could do other things. And he was out in the community, advocating for other people to get the college. He was advocating for his students to get into colleges across Colorado, California, and other states, but primarily California. And he did it by example. So that the universities saw, hey, this guy, yeah, he could probably be a professor here. Yeah, well let it one of his his students and so on. He was, by example, the teacher who encouraged self confidence, who encouraged a philosophy of getting out there and trying exerting yourself taking chances falling down. The kids on the playground, when they were at the school for the blind, they fell down, they got hurt, they bumped stuff. And they learned to avoid it. They learned how to listen, they learned how to judge distance by their hearing. They learned many, many skills by playing those games, that unfortunately, that young man from Hawaii took a long time to learn. But that kind of a teacher doesn't just teach you how to do your math, how to think in your head, how to solve problems, for financial, for constructing a cabinet or carpentry, but how to think out of the box for your life. His students became travelling insurance men, they became state senators, they became attorneys, they became teachers, they became bike repairman, they became electricians. Later on, they became musicians. And not just playing in the clubs, although some of them did a really good job of doing that. But they, they became radio musicians who made records who had a following who, because of their music, were able to buy nice houses and send their kids to college. And some of his students became novelists. They didn't just go home and sit, they didn't just take a job at the sheltered shop, they didn't just become a piano tuner, although some of them who did that were very successful. But they did their job, and were a part of their community. And so that I think, when Jacobus 10, Brooke found founded the Federation, that was a spirit that he brought with, he brought that spirit that we need to be a part of the community. And the white cane law, one of the first things it says is that it encourages blind people. The model white cane law that he established with others in 1966 says that blind people are encouraged to be an active part in the community. And I think that is a real major part of the philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind, is that we need to be out in the community we need to be doing for others, because when we're doing for others we're doing for ourselves, we are feeling better about ourselves, we gain more confidence, more assured. And when you are more assured, you look more assured, you look like somebody that should be respected, that should be listened to not just somebody that should be cared for. And that was the philosophy of the Federation in 1940, is that we don't want a handout we want a hand up.   Michael Hingson  1:03:49 It's always interesting. It's interesting that regular listeners of this podcast, know something about Dr. Tim Brooke because one of our episodes was based on and we just played Dr. Tim Brooks 1956 banquet speech within the grace of God, which has always been one of my favorite speeches. And to learn a little bit more about him and to see where he came from, because he went through his own challenges at UC Berkeley, although he got a bachelor's degree, they would let him go on into dealing with the law, which is what his interest was. And he had to get around that.   Peggy Chong  1:04:34 At Berkeley was a big hub for many blind students from the 20s on up that attracted blind students and and Newell Perry had a lot to do with that. Yeah. And Berkeley was far more open to blind students than any other college in California at the time.   Michael Hingson  1:04:56 Oh, yes, and NSA It's just so sad in so many ways that attitudes and ideas about blindness haven't progressed and in some ways have really slipped. Two more questions, and then we'll have to wrap up, we've captured you enough for today. But I'd love to do this again and, and continue. But what's the most interesting person in your mind that you know about from from a historical standpoint, from the standpoint of a person who is blind? What's the most fascinating story that you tell?   Peggy Chong  1:05:38 Wow, you know, a lot of times that just depends on the person I'm researching. Because I, I find, I can go through a lot of names. And you have, we have left in many ways, a very small footprint, as blind people. And in many ways, we've left some really big shoes to fill. And I'll go through, you know, 150 200 names before I'll find somebody I can write a short story on. But like I said, Thomas, David Shaw, he was my first blind ancestor, if you will. And I do find him very fascinating because he reinvented himself all the time, and researching him. different branches of his family, know very different stories that don't always fit.   Michael Hingson  1:06:39 Isn't that interesting,   Peggy Chong  1:06:41 and I just loved him because he was a man who he got married, he had this law firm. Some people would probably call him an ambulance chaser. It was amazing how he had a lot of the same witnesses that witnessed a lot of this different accidents that happened around the city of Minneapolis. He made a lot of money as the sighted guy. And then when he went blind, they spent almost all of their money had to move into a small apartment. So when he was stony broke, that's when he decided to get into politics. And he didn't get into the blindness stuff until he had been there about 678 years when he got a police dog, before runner of the police dogs that were trained for seeing I. But he got one of the first police dogs that was trained for the First World War veterans that was brought over by a friend. And Lux was his name. Lux had quite a following. He did dog commercials and all kinds of stuff. But Lux couldn't ride in the train car, and he was going back and forth to DC on the train all the time. And Lux couldn't go with him unless he went into the baggage car. And so he tried to get an exemption for locks. But he thought, you know, I can't be the only blind guy who's got a problem with this dog guides were not what we think of as dog guides today. But blind people did travel with dogs, that they had trained themselves. As a blind man, he found that every place he went, he had to sort of educate people and didn't understand why some people just have no concept about needing a reader getting around, he got a page to help him then he gets involved with the blind folks. And he sees no reason why there shouldn't be a National Rehabilitation Program for the blind, that there should be a program for all blind people not just the blind in war veterans, because we had a program for several years after the First World War in Maryland. Evergreen, it was called that did a really great job and it was about a two year program that after about six years that program went away pretty much and that was the the floorplan that they were using for this new rehabilitation program. Now he found a lot of blind guys that were really interested in and this was some of the letters I was reading back many years ago and then when I went Who is this blind guy but he found that the agencies for the blind and the American Foundation for the Blind so well you know, gee Mr. shawls really nice guy but He just doesn't understand blindness. Now, you didn't tell that to Thomas shawls face, by the way, because he told you what, four. And you walked away going? I'm sorry, sir. Yes, sir. But they worked around him. And I found that really rather sad that they kind of said, well, you know, he just doesn't have the education and blindness that we do. We have these studies, and not all blind people can be trained. And so let's, let's look at it from a different perspective, and delayed, in many ways, 10 years legislation for blind people. But Shaw also decided, you know, if you guys are blind guys are going to fight all the time, I've got better fish to fry. And so after a couple of years, he moved on, and really didn't pay much more than lip service to blind people. After that point. He was nominated for an award, back in the 30s, of which I still am hoping to get the information for, but he didn't get it. And the reason according to one, what one letter that I found, is that, well, the American Foundation for the Blind respects Mr. shawls opinions and all but it really wasn't appropriate at that time, and probably killed off him receiving this national award in 1933.   Peggy Chong  1:11:35 But he still, even though he didn't give a lot of lip service to the legislation, he still was out there fighting for what he truly believed. And, you know, when he believes something in his heart, he went whole hog at it. He didn't like the New Deal. But he was very supportive some of Roosevelt's other programs, and he would fight vehemently against the New Deal. And then he'd be right out there, supporting the president of the opposite party. On the other platforms that he did agree with them on, he did a lot of public speaking, a lot of traveling. And he believed that the best way for him to be a good servant to the state of Minnesota, was to get out there and meet everybody. And he did that. And so he's traveling all over rural Minnesota, sometimes he would have his boys in the Summer Go with him. And talking about politics, not about blindness. But about what was important to people, what was the problems they had on the farm, what was the problem they were having in small towns, and he would do these videos, like he loved to shoot. And he still continued to do that, after he lost his sight. And what they did is they set up in the backyard of his house, this big Gong, and his sons would take this big stick with the, you know, pat it in and hit the gong. And his dad would shoot up the gown, the the boys would get the gong, and they would shoot up the gong. And he hit that gong, right the center many times. I was watching that with someone who said those boys afraid that, you know, the dads are gonna shoot him as well, you know, William Tell son survive and heal and nap on his head. So, but he showed himself as a part of the farmers as a part of those small town guys who were going hunting he showed them, he does the same things. He understands them at their level. And I admired that, that he could be that kind of a person, I'm not sure he would have been a lawyer I would have wanted from, you know, my attorney. But on the other hand, I admired him for being someone who recognized what was going on with people. And he took the chance who stood up and said, This is what I believe. This is what I'm going to fight for. And he was the one that stood at the front of the line, not the one that was back in the office. But if there was frontline issues. He was out there at the demonstrations. He was out there at the rallies. He was out there to be seen as a supporter.   Michael Hingson  1:14:29 You know, we call this the unstoppable mindset because that's what it is. People can be unstoppable. If they truly emotionally adopt a mindset that says we can do what we choose, we can do what we what we feel in our heart is the right thing to do. And talking about Mr. Shaw, you're certainly demonstrating that   Peggy Chong  1:14:58 some of these people want I read some of the articles where they're interviewed. And the interviewer will say, Well, what made you think that a blind person could ride a bicycle to their piano tuning job? So what made you think that a blind person could build furnitures and open them music store? And many times they say, well, nobody told me I couldn't.   Michael Hingson  1:15:22 Yeah, exactly right. And that's something that I've experienced, and I'm sure you've experienced Why, what makes you think you could do that? Well, why not? Last question for today. And like I said, I would love to continue this in the future. But as, as we live in our world today, what's the thing that you're most concerned about, or most afraid of?   Peggy Chong  1:15:51 The education of the literacy of people who are blind is really very disturbing. And the technology that is separating us from the sighted world, you know, I see these young kids, smart kids. And they are only being taught how to use a, an expensive Braille display, not a computer. They're taught how to use expensive equipment for the blind, that the schools purchase, which they don't have access to in the summer. And they do really great on them. But they can't write or format, a decent Word file, to send out a letter of inquiry for a job, or to volunteer at a summer camp as a teenager. Many of them are really far behind. They're graduating from college, and they can't write a resume. It's to me, that is something that blind people fought very hard for is the ability to get a decent education, to read and write. And we have made it's I think, in some ways, so specialized, that we forgotten that the point is to teach people to be literate, and that we aren't expecting literacy from our young people. They don't have their hands on a book. There's an I think that sighted people will agree with this, too, is that there's something about reading a holding the book in your hand. Yep, it's great to read stuff on the computer. And people really love their necks and everything. But every once in a while, you just want to hold that book in your hand, there's something different about that. But these kids don't have that they don't, they don't have an opportunity to read a braille book that much. And many of them don't even get to   Michael Hingson  1:18:05 learn to read Braille.   Peggy Chong  1:18:07 No. And that com

Today on What's Right with Sam & Ash: John Curtas of Eating Las Vegas Tim Brooks of Emerald Island and Rainbow Club casinos Delilah-gate The Historic Water Street District in Downtown Henderson Leadership John Curtas has been covering the Las Vegas restaurant scene since 1995 — for 15 years as a restaurant/critic commentator on KNPR-Nevada Public Radio and also as a critic for Las Vegas Life, CityLife, and Las Vegas Weekly magazines. You can find John Curtas on Twitter at @eatinglasvegas Tim Brooks is the owner and general manager of the Emerald Island and Rainbow Club casinos in the historic Water Street District in Downtown Henderson. You can find Tim Brooks on Twitter at @ElCasino Thanks for tuning into today's episode of What's Right with Sam & Ash! If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and make sure you leave us a 5 star review. You can always visit us at samandashlaw.com and connect with us on our socials: TWITTER Sam @WhatsRightSam Ash @AshTheAttorney What's Right Show @WhatsRightShow Sam & Ash Law @SamAndAshLaw FACEBOOK What's Right Show https://www.facebook.com/WhatsRightShow/ Sam & Ash Law https://www.facebook.com/samandashlaw/ INSTAGRAM Sam & Ash LLP @samandashlaw LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/company/samandashlaw/

Every day we read and talk about Diversity. We hear how our population is diverse and how we must work to understand and accept our diversity. As we discuss our diverse population, we consistently leave out persons with disabilities. We talk about different racial and ethnic groups, people with a variety of different sexual orientations and we discuss the need for equality of women. However, persons with disabilities are left out of the conversation. In this podcast, Mike Hingson, a thought leader on the inclusion of people with disabilities, takes up the topic of inclusion. You will discover just how often the rights of persons with disabilities are subverted throughout society. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit: https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessibe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:19 Welcome to Episode Two of unstoppable mindset. Thanks for joining us. I hope that you were able to listen to last week's episode. And if you weren't, please go to www.michaelhingson.com/podcast where you can listen to that episode as well as just signing up for information about any of the podcast shows that we will be providing and all things podcast for unstoppable mindset. Today we're going to talk about the concept of moving from diversity to inclusion. So why do I talk about that? Why do I bring that particular title into it? Well, it is the title of a speech that I gave in 2019. And you will be hearing that speech in just a few moments. But if you think back to last year's presidential campaigns, if you look at the news today, and the discussions about various groups who are being disenfranchised, in one way or another, you hear about all this diversity in all these diverse groups, but you don't hear about disabilities, we who are blind, who happened to be in wheelchairs, who happened to have any other so called disability are not generally included in those topics of discussion. And there's no reason for that, except people still fear disability. I don't like the term disability By the way, but I haven't come up with something better, differently abled, and other kinds of things like that are just hiding the reality. And I'm not differently abled, I'm just as able in the same way as everyone else. I may not do tasks the same way. But I'm not differently abled, I have what society tends to call a disability. And until someone comes up with a term that doesn't strike hearts, or I shouldn't say doesn't strike fear into the hearts of people, then I'm going to accept and use the term disability. And I'm going to use that term to try to get the fear out of being stricken into the hearts of people. The reality is, just because I happen to be different in the way that I have some sort of so called disability, that doesn't really matter. I still can do the same things that most people do. I don't do them the same way. But we don't talk about that we're afraid of it. Michael Hingson 03:49 Our president, our Vice President, don't talk about disabilities regularly. We see so much of a discussion about other kinds of minority groups. But we're not included. And we should change that. I was at a conference this week where we talked about accessibility and disability. So it was all about dealing with the whole concept of accessibility, about websites about universal design, about how artificial intelligence is helping to create better access, so many different topics, all about disabilities. And no one was afraid to talk about it. They're one of the speakers was actually from the administration. And and he talked a little bit about the fact that we need to have more of a conversation about disabilities and everything that we do. And when it came time for questions and answers, I asked him what the administration was going to do about that, and how the administration was going to step up the level of conversation. Well, the answer really was kind of innocuous, and he didn't really Make any commitments as to how the administration would be able to do it. And that's so very frustrating because my response to that would be, why isn't President Biden or vice president Harris or anyone else, just including disabilities in the conversations, when they talk about some of the different disenfranchised groups, we hear a lot about what's happening with race, we hear about LG, bt Q, and so on, but we don't hear about disabilities, why it's easy to include us in the conversation. It's easy to raise the level of awareness or at least start to raise the level of awareness by putting us in the conversations and including us regularly, Then, and only then, when we start to see some people like our president and vice president, Attorney General and others, normally, including us in the conversation, then and only then are we going to really see a change in how we're included. Well, enough about that. Let me let you listen to the speech and then we'll come back and again, the title of the speech, as you will hear is moving from diversity to inclusion. MC 06:16 Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started. Thank you all for coming today. We do have a little housekeeping to do first, I know they're not here, but I would like to apologize to the other presenters during this hour for having to be pitted up against our speaker today. I would like to introduce to you a scholar, comedian, a gentleman. And I don't have all the facts, but I hear he's blind. When are you introducing Michael Hingson? Michael Hingson 06:52 Well, with all those things, he said, I was wondering when he was going to introduce me and said but Okay, so I want to welcome you to our class on quantum mechanics this afternoon. Today we are going to discuss the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and its impact on the relative behavior of cats in the 21st century. I'm really honored that all of you came and we'll try to make this interesting for you. I want to start with a video. Some of you may have seen this before. But let's start with it. And then we will get into our discussion. And it will be a discussion of moving from diversity to inclusion. So here's a video for you to watch. Video Narrator 07:36 There's trouble brewing at smart world coffee in Morristown, New Jersey. These two women are trying to apply for a job opening in the kitchen. Coffee Shop Owner 07:46 Are you here for coffee, or Applicant #1 07:48 no, Job application? Video Narrator 07:50 Only to find out it's not open to everyone. Coffee Shop Owner 07:54 I noticed you were signing. Applicant #1 07:55 Yeah. That's right. We're deaf. Video Narrator 07:59 And because of that the manager rejects the application. Video Narrator 08:07 what he's doing isn't just unfair, it could be illegal. Coffee Shop Owner 08:12 I'm not gonna hire a deaf person. I'll just let you know now. So we'll save you some time. I mean, your deaf. It's gonna be really hard here to work here. Video Narrator 08:21 It's the kind of thing that usually happens in secret behind closed doors. But we're putting this discrimination setters stage right out in the open. To answer the question, what would you do? Video Narrator 08:36 The bias barista, and the deaf applicants are all actors. Hannah Warrick and Maya erielle. Attend the National Technical Institute for the death in Rochester, New York. With more than 1500 students. It's the second largest college for the deaf and hard of hearing in the country. The school helped us develop this idea for the scenario. Students there say finding equal opportunity in the workplace is a big challenge. Hannah Warrick 09:06 Let me count on my really fantastic Botha to have a really keen understanding of what it means to be a deaf person how to work with deaf people, but at the same time, there are others who should not want to thin or open themselves up to that. Maya Arielle 09:24 It would be nice for them to think about what what is it like to be a deaf person? I mean, how would they like to go into a place and want to apply for a job and then be discriminated against just because of who you are. Video Narrator 09:35 Jerry Buckley is the president of MTI D. Jerry Buckley 09:40 When the President Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, many of us hope that would be the last barrier. What we found out though is that attitude, no barriers were still there, that we have much work to do to educate people. Video Narrator 09:57 Back at the coffee shop, our cold hearted Manager is busy building his own barriers. Coffee Shop Owner 10:03 I know I fill out the application, but I'm going to be honest with you, I'm probably not going to hire you. Video Narrator 10:11 Remember, it's not a question of communicating with customers. This is a kitchen job. Coffee Shop Owner 10:18 Sure you want to work here? Applicant #1 10:19 Yeah, it's a kitchen job. Right, Coffee Shop Owner 10:21 right. Can you hear me? Applicant #1 10:24 I can't really hear. But I read lips. Video 10:26 You read lips? Applicant #1 10:27 Yeah, Video Narrator 10:28 it's easy to read the look on Kristen gobies face as she watches and growing disbelief. Coffee Shop Owner 10:34 I just don't think this is the right place. Like if I yell something to the kitchen. You can't hear me. Video Narrator 10:42 But the manager ignores all those daggers. Christian shoots his way, Applicant #1 10:47 so I shouldn't even bother with this. Coffee Shop Owner 10:49 I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I'm not gonna hire you. I can fill it out now. Sorry. Sorry. Is this yours? Ma'am? Video Narrator 10:57 Coffee isn't the only thing steaming as Christians storms out. The manager played by both male and female actors continues serving up the discrimination. Shop Owner #2 11:08 We can't hire you. Video Narrator 11:10 Many customers are right next to the action. Coffee Shop Owner 11:13 Yeah. But if you can't hear me, how are we going to communicate? Applicant #1 11:16 You can write stuff down, like make a list there. Coffee Shop Owner 11:18 But what if I need something done right away. Video Narrator 11:20 But most don't openly object. A few do stand up to the discriminating manager. But the most surprising reactions come from three customers with something in common. They work in recruiting and human resources, HR Patron 11:46 human resources, let me give you a piece of advice. Coffee Shop Owner 11:48 Yeah, HR Patron 11:48 I probably wouldn't have done that. HR Patron #2 11:50 you cannot say that. Coffee Shop Owner 11:52 I want to be honest with HR Patron #2 11:53 you can't say that. And we can't handle it like that you can come after you can't discriminate. Coffee Shop Owner 12:00 If only they had stopped right there, these hiring and firing experts would have been heroes, but they didn't listen to the rest of our hidden camera recording. And you'll see why we're not showing you their faces. 12:15 I probably wouldn't have done that. Only because because when you think about it, everybody has rights. Coffee Shop Owner 12:23 So let her fill it out. 12:25 I just probably would have let her fill it out in your writing note on the back and say not a fit. Video Narrator 12:31 That's right, the outrageous advice from human resources. write a note on the back of the application that the deaf girl is not a fit. Now listen carefully to this recruiter, HR Patron #2 12:43 I mean recruiting you can handle it like that you can come after you can't discriminate, just accept it and don't call handicapped people they have no rights and anybody that you have to just accept your application. Just don't call. Video Narrator 12:59 Just don't call as they continue talking to the managers. Some might wonder if it's discrimination these employment experts disapprove of, or only open discrimination. Coffee Shop Owner 13:17 So it's not a problem to not hire her because she's deaf is just saying it out loud to her. Video Narrator 13:26 He did tell the manager that the owner might want to try out the deaf applicant. Still, in the end, it's not a recruiter or someone from human resources. Who takes the strongest stand of all, it's a guy just taking a coffee break. A man who's heard enough, Coffee Shop Owner 13:44 because you can fill out the application. Feel free to fill it out. I can't stop you from doing that. But I'm just trying to be honest with you. Coffee Shop Patron 13:51 That's absolutely discriminatory. Coffee Shop Owner 13:53 If she can't hear me, though, she's Coffee Shop Patron 13:55 really shocked. And if this is the case, I'm not bringing my business back here. I'm telling you, Coffee Shop Owner 14:00 I, I understand Coffee Shop Patron 14:02 You basically said I am not hiring a deaf person. You're not saying I'm not hiring a person that's not qualified. Coffee Shop Owner 14:08 I'm just trying to be honest with you. Coffee Shop Patron 14:10 I can appreciate that, sir. But I don't see how you expect things to change in the country, when no one will give anybody a chance. It's an affront, it's an affront to America, or you Coffee Shop Owner 14:21 can't she can't hear. Coffee Shop Patron 14:22 So what? Video Narrator 14:23 Hannah and Maya catch up with him outside. Maya Arielle 14:27 I really felt so great when you jumped in and tried to help. Thank you so much just for your willingness to do that. Video Narrator 14:38 You wanted to hug him? Maya Arielle 14:39 Yeah. Video Narrator 14:40 What message do you have for people who didn't say anything? Maya Arielle 14:44 What I would say to those people, is that if you feel that you want to say something, please say something Video Narrator 14:51 that would be giving you a voice. Maya Arielle 14:55 Absolutely. That's right. Video Narrator 15:00 And so as they continue their struggle for equality at work, this reminder to all of us in American Sign Language from students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, what would you do? Michael Hingson 15:17 And there you go. I deliberately call this presentation moving from diversity to inclusion, because as I mentioned this morning, diversity tends not to include anybody with disabilities, it doesn't happen. Over the past year and a half or two years, we have seen any number of situations where there has been discussions of discrimination against women against different races, and so on. And all of that is appropriate to discuss, and all of those battles are absolutely appropriate to fight. But what we never see in all of those discussions, is how anyone with a disability is included in those same battles. If you watch the television show in the dark, which is a new show that I think wb is putting out, it's not a blind person playing the, the woman in the show, it's a sighted person, all they have a blind consultant, but they couldn't find any blind people they say, who could be an actor in the show. I know that, for example, they did not consult with the major consumer organizations of blind people. I have had conversations with people in the movie industry about blind people acting in films. And the comment that is made is well, but the problem is that they're not necessarily qualified to do it. And my question, when I hear that is why have you, for example, tried to find someone, have you included blind people and I'm going to talk about blindness specifically, although it could apply to other disabilities, but I think there is more of a track record of by blind people being excluded in the movie industry. Then in other persons with disabilities. There are people in wheelchairs who have played all in films and so on, although a number of those parts have been played by people not in wheelchairs, they play people wheelchair, quote, bound people. One of the ones I think of most is Raymond bird playing and Ironside's years and years ago, and others and sometimes it happens with deaf people. There is a deaf actress that I know of, and I'm sure there's well there are more than one but Marlee Matlin is, is certainly death, but you don't hear about blind people being included. And the reality is, it won't change until society recognizes that the disability isn't the problem. It's their attitudes. I want to read to you something and again, this is from Dr. Tim brick I mentioned earlier and it is something that is about blind people. This is from an address given by Dr. Tim brick, are we equal to the challenge, and it was delivered at the 1967 convention of the National Federation of the Blind one year before he died of cancer. And Dr. Tim Brooks says, the blind have a right to live in the world. What a concept, the right to live in the world. That right is as deep as human nature as pervasive as the need for social existence, as ubiquitous as the human race, as invincible as the human spirit. As their souls are their own. So their destiny must be their own. their salvation or failure lies within their own choice and responsibility. That choice cannot be precluded, or pre judged. Those lives cannot be pre determined or controlled. Michael Hingson 19:36 And Dr. Tambora made those comments to talk about the fact that we have the same as blind people or any person with a disability, the same right to live in the world as anyone else. And that was what those three HR people I told some of the HR people outside I was gonna probably be in Trouble, sorry. But that is what those HR people were challenging and what they were really saying, they don't truly believe we have the same right to live in the world. They were saying ultimately, that we don't really have equal status with everyone else. If they truly believed that we did, they would never have given the advice that they did to the actor barista. And that is what inclusion is all about. Diversity has already moved on and not included us. So it is time that we really talk about the concept of inclusion. And as I said to all of you this morning, you are on the front lines, because you are in schools, teaching children, teaching other adults, and hopefully taking this stand to say, we truly believe in inclusion. And it is true that not everyone has the same capabilities as everyone else. But if we're going to talk about developmental disabilities, for example, let's talk about every politician in Washington somehow they take dumb pills, I'm not sure what it is. But when they go to Washington, they do something to dumb down. That has to be the case. But the bottom line is that we have to demand higher criteria and higher expectations. For every person with a disability, it doesn't necessarily mean that every person with a disability is going to be able to do every single job. Just like every sighted person or every so called person with it and who is not one with a disability can do every job. Most people wouldn't even have the first clue about what Schrodinger equation and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle are all about. I do. But I got that training. Michael Hingson 22:01 Many people don't have the courage to step out of of their own comfort zone in their own environment. When I lived in New Jersey, I knew people who live within 10 miles of New York City, who were adults, and had never ever been to the city and never wanted to go because they didn't want to be in that environment. They were afraid to go. My wife on the other hand, growing up in California, being in a wheelchair driving all over the place one day had to drive me into New York. It wasn't her first time. But it was one of the first times that she drove us into the city. We came through the tunnel and came out at 40 a street turn left to go north. And I said you realize that we have to turn on 41st Street. And she slammed on the brakes, turned all the way across five lanes of traffic and made it right onto 41st Street and is very proud of the fact that she did it with a single person honking their horn at her. She arrived with a far as a driver. My wife had the courage and has the courage to take those steps. My wife was very much involved in as I was the International Year of the disabled year many many years ago in terms of helping to celebrate it, helping to assist people and celebrating and, and so on. We both in various ways we're involved in a variety of efforts to deal with various issues regarding persons with disabilities. And not everyone can do that. I've spent time in Washington debating with congressional types, and others about issues concerning persons with disabilities. One of the more recent issues regards the fact that under the Fair Labor Standards Act in this country today, section 14 C, which created sheltered workshops, says that you can pay a person with a disability if you can prove that they can't work as competitively as anyone else, you can pay them less than minimum wage. When that act was formed in 1938. The rule was you could pay no more no less than 75% of minimum wage because workshops were set up to be training institutions. All over the years since 1938. Workshops organized themselves loosely together and got the law changed originally so that the floor dropped from 75% to 50%. Then it went down lower to the point where today, the floor is at zero. And there are people who have disabilities including some blind people who get zero. And they work at the sheltered workshops. I know of college graduates who are blind who couldn't find a job and their departments of rehabilitation, put them into sheltered workshops, where they're getting paid to $2.50 $3 an hour to do the work that other people get paid much higher salaries outside of the workshop environment and Of course, the workshop owners say but, you know, we don't want them to lose their SSI. These workshop people are the same ones who created their workshops as 501 c three nonprofit organizations and solicit donations to help fund the workshops. They get special subsidized contracts under the the federal government programs, including what is allowed under Section 14 C, and they have developed ways to make sure that their workers can't possibly do the job so that they can get the exemptions to pay people less than minimum wage. And they get guaranteed contracts, they have ways of triple dipping these owners or managers of these workshops to get six and seven figures, while their employees may get 20 cents an hour. It happens today. It happens because people with disabilities are not included in society. And and it are not viewed as having the same rights as everyone else. It won't change until all of us take a stand and say, yes, it doesn't matter whether someone has a so called disability. I don't like the term disability. But you know what, it doesn't really matter. It's just a word. And it doesn't necessarily mean in competence or a lack of capability. It is just one way that people describe a subset of society, just like people who are left handed are called left handed and it describes a certain segment of society. And in the past, there were times that people who were left handed were viewed as less competent, or certainly had problems that normal people in society don't have. Michael Hingson 26:46 The fact is that we collectively have to make that change. And I'm challenging you and putting the pressure on you to say you are part of what that change has to be. Jimmy Carter, former President Carter once said, We must adjust to changing times while holding to unwavering principles. And if the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution mean anything, then those principles must include all persons. All of us have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And as the Declaration of Independence says, I'm not trying to be sexist, all men are created equal. But we really know that that means all persons are created equal in today's society. We have to change it. And it won't change unless we take some stands and make those changes occur. I know it's a tough job. I told you all this morning about my parents who took some stands regarding me and being blind. But I also there are a lot of parents who won't do that. I don't dare let my child go out on their own. They're blind. After all, how could they ride a bike, I rode a bike when I was growing up. I wrote it all over the neighborhood. Let me tell you a story about riding my bike one day. So there I was out riding my 20 inch bike I was seven years old right now all around the neighborhood having a good old time, right? going anywhere I wanted to go going up Stan Ridge Avenue, going over to Third Street East going, going west to Glen Raven, and two Second Street and all that riding all over the place. In many days, I would ride my bike to school to yukka school, but I was in the first second and third grade. Well, second third grade because I didn't have my bike when I was in the first grade, but riding my bike to school along with my brother riding his bike, and we had a good time doing that while I was out riding my bike one day. And I came home after being out for a couple hours having fun and just doing what I did. And as I walked in the door after putting the bike in the garage, the phone rang. My father picked up the phone. By the way, if you bought Thunder dog, you'll see this story in there. It's still one of my favorite stories. My father picked up the phone said hello. And here's the way the conversation when I picked up from his side and what he told me later. So he answers again and he says hello. And this guy says I'm calling about your kid riding his bike out on the street. And my dad said, Okay, what about it was out riding his bike? And my dad said, Well, yeah, all the time. What's the problem? No, no, I'm not talking about the older kid. The one that can see I'm talking about the blind kid. He was out riding his bike. And my dad said, Well, yeah, what about it? Well, but he's blind. Yeah, he's out riding his bike. Yeah. What about it? bass blind? My dad said, Did he hit anyone? Well, no. Did anyone hit him? No. Did he? Did he pass cars? Or did cars come down the street? And did he have any problems with any of them? Well, no. Did he hit any Park cars? No. Did he get hurt in any way? Well, no. Well, then what's the problem? The guy hung up. He could not deal With the fact that there was a blind child riding a bike out on his Street, I was in 1957. Let's fast forward to 2000 well to 1997. My wife and I moved to New Jersey. And we joined the Cranford United Methodist Church. And we went to the first yearly meeting of the church with the essentially the meeting of the corporation. And during the meeting, they talked about one thing and another. And they finally got to the fact that they were very interested in making accessible restrooms available at the church. Right now. They had a very steep ramp, it had a slope of probably about 45 degrees. So it was certainly not something that was truly accessible, you had to fold it down, and then go down the three steps on this ramp to get to the fellowship hall unless you walked all the way around, outside and in which didn't work well and snow. And there really wasn't an accessible restroom down there, there was something that kind of served as one but there wasn't. And they were very concerned about wanting to make accessibility possible in the church. And they were proud of the fact that in the last 10 years, they had raised $10,000, toward making accessibility possible 10 years to get $10,000, which wouldn't even be enough to probably get functioning legitimate, approved architectural drawings. However, they were very excited about that. And my wife spoke up and said, What are you guys doing? Michael Hingson 31:38 Well, we want accessibility. We want accessible restrooms, not with $10,000. You know, what are you going to do about that? Well, we're working on it. And my wife said, Look, you guys, we need to get true accessibility in the church. Let's start a fundraising campaign. Well, they wanted to put her in charge of it, of course, churches, and everybody always wants to do that. So they, they discussed it one side up and down the other and so on, and my wife agreed that she would be part of it, but only if some of the other leadership in the church would be involved. Within three months, they raised over $100,000 in pledges, and they actually started getting the money in and they began work on the accessible process. It included making elevators that would go from the congregational. Well, from the main church, the synagogue, that not synagogue, but from the main church down to fellowship hall where they wanted to put the accessible restrooms, and they started, the first thing they did was to make some accessible pews in the church. And the way they did that was they cut a couple of sections out of a couple of the pews in the middle of the church so that people in wheelchairs would have a place not off to one side, but right in the middle of the place to sit with everyone else. As that process started some of the old guard in this Cranford United Methodist Church that was nearly 150 years old, started taking exception to cutting up their pews a little bit. And they called the fire marshal. They call it the fire chief in Cranford. And they said, they're messing up our church, they're cutting up the pews. They're putting the possibility of people in wheelchairs sitting in the middle of the church. And if there's a fire, how are they going to get out? Well, there was one accessible way to get out. But to go out the front of the church, you couldn't because it was down steps. And the fire marshal said, well, sounds pretty serious to me. You know, we need to deal with that. The pastor wouldn't confront the fire chief. Some of the other people on the committee's wouldn't confront the fire chief. So finally, my wife decided if you guys aren't going to do it, I will. And she called up the fire chief said, I understand you've had some complaints, can we talk about it? And he said, Sure. Here's the problem. If you want to get out of the church, you're in your wheelchair, how you going to get out if the exits blocked? And my wife said, Well, if you're going to shut the church down and stop our efforts for doing that, are you going to go to the local Pathmark grocery store that has only one accessible exit and you're going to close it down? Well, no, we've approved it. Yeah, exactly. Right. And the fire marshal said, but you know, how? How are you making sure that you're obeying all the architectural rules? Do you have an architect drawing up all the drawings? Do you know the name Ron Meeks, sir? Yeah, he's the architect for the city. Yeah, he's also the guy that's doing our drawings Hello. The people couldn't tolerate a person in a chair being in their church. It got worse. The church had a Boy Scout troop. And as the elevators started to go in some of the exits that people would normally use to go into fellowship hall directly from the church were blocked. So they had to go outside and walk around just like people in wheelchairs. had to do. And one day my wife was confronted by one of these people saying you are messing up our church, and he and we have a scout dinner coming up, you better have this cleaned up by the time our scout dinner comes. Where's the priority? Where is their true belief in God, much less Anything else? Folks, it happens today. There are constantly blind couples who have children who are challenged by departments of family and social services. And there are attempts and sometimes successful ones, at least for a while, take take children away, because the presumption is blind couples cannot possibly raise children. It takes battles in the courts to change it. And they go on today, I'm only telling you all this, and I'm only talking about this because I want you to see that this is an ongoing problem. And it isn't going to change. Until we start having discussions. I'm looking forward to getting home. And watching the view we watched the view every every day or most days, a lot of fun will be is is a hoot. And all those people are last month Ace celebrated Spanish Heritage Month, gonna be interested to see if they're doing anything about the fact that this is blindness Awareness Month meet the blind month and nationally built national disabilities Awareness Month. Michael Hingson 36:28 Are they talking about successful persons with all sorts of disabilities? I wonder they haven't in past years, I hope they are this year. But if they're not, we'll just have to see we can write on Facebook about it. And I urge you, if you have the opportunity to watch the show, record it and see and if they're not call them on it. Put it out on Facebook, why aren't you celebrating the fact that we have a rich heritage of persons who don't have the same abilities as some of us who may have senior or super abilities compared to some of us? But why aren't you celebrating those people like you do other parts of society, we have African American Awareness Month, black, our Black History Month in February, we have all sorts of different things. So I'll be interested to see when I go home, if in fact, they're doing anything with disabilities, we'll see. But all of you, I recognize also have a challenge. Because if you start talking about some of these things, and really start encouraging your students, and your parents aren't ready to step out. They're going to challenge you. But I go back to Jimmy Carter, somewhere along the line, we have to hold to unwavering principles and blindness or other disabilities are not really the issue. It's attitudes. blind children ought to be able to come to school, there are blind kids in this country who are in high school who have guide dogs, and school administration has tried to keep the guide dog out of the school. Well, we don't know we can't be responsible, excuse me, chair here, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Do you know what a guide dog is? Do you know what a trained service animal is? And do you understand that under the law, people can bring those dogs to school. So it is a challenge in a lot of ways. And I've seen parents mightily fight back when teachers want to teach Braille, and teach Sally to read Braille, not just print, because Sally will never be a good reader of just reading print. And Sally might in fact, at some point go blind, totally blind in her life. And are you going to give her the training in advance? Or is she going to have to go back and psychologically readjust, not recognizing that blindness is just as normal as everything else. And that's the kind of thing that we need to look at. And we need to address. I could go on and give you other examples. But I think I'd like to stop, because I'd like to hear some of your thoughts. I'd like to see if you have questions and open this up for discussion a little bit. And I don't know that we have a roving mic. So I'll repeat questions. But if any of you have a question, why don't you speak up? And or if you want to say something, speak up or come up here and use the mic or whatever, just don't raise your hands because we know that doesn't work, right. Anyone? MC 39:22 And I do have a roving mic. 39:24 Oh, you've got a roving mic. All right. So we have the man with the microphone who'd like to start this off. Audience Member #1 39:30 I just wanted to say that I really appreciate you giving me a different perspective of looking at challenges that everybody has. We talk a lot about emotional challenges. We talk about physical challenges, but I love the way that you bring humor to it. And the real the real way that you talk about it, not making it politically correct. Not trying to appease everybody, but your perspective and your strength and doing that. So thanks Michael Hingson 40:00 Thank you, I believe that I will sell say that I believe that my perspective is one that is evolved over time, one with which many persons with disabilities, blind people, for example, have go to nfb.org website of the National Federation of the Blind, you'll read a lot there, you'll read about the Fair Labor Standards Act, we could talk, we just don't have time about the fact that until the mid 1980s, no person with a disability could buy life insurance, because insurance companies said that we were a higher risk. That's a longer story than we have time to tell. But, you know, invite me to your districts, and I'll be glad to tell that story. It's a great story. Today, we can buy life insurance. And it's because people who were blind with other disabilities prove to the insurance industry that they were simply prejudice, and that they in fact, weren't even obeying their own precepts and criteria for providing insurance. Another story, though, next. He's walking, so we must have someone Audience Member #2 41:03 Hi, thank you. I'm a low incidence disability specialist. And oftentimes, we have challenges. I'll use the word challenges with Jenna teachers. You know, they'll say, Well, you know, according to Union, I only have to plan like a week in advance. And oftentimes, it's shorter than that. And that doesn't give our Braille technician a whole lot of time to Braille. What are included blind students need in the gen ed classroom? Do you have suggestions for bringing humor to the conversation, so that the gen ed teacher can come a little bit more to our side and and meet in the middle. Michael Hingson 41:50 Under the law today, textbooks are required to be stored in a repository at the state and the federal level, and made available to anyone who needs them, and they're in electronic form. And point being that if you have access to a Braille embosser, the books are already available, I got news in Boston, you don't have to spend a lot of time transcribing them. They are available today, that law has been passed. Here's an ironic story talking about people with disabilities and some of the myopic views that even they have a former commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration, Dr. Fred Schroeder, back in 1997, went to the National Association of persons with disabilities meeting in San Diego. And he said, we are trying to get legislation passed at the federal level and so on dealing with requiring that Braille be taught to all blind children while they're in school using the definition of blindness that I mentioned earlier. And we would like your help in supporting that legislation. The organization said, No, we can't do that. That's a blindness thing. It doesn't deal with people with disabilities in general. So you got to take it to blind people. It isn't just outside of the system. Yet those same people want support when we're dealing with ramps and other kinds of things. But you know, it's and and all should be supported. But I would, I would say that it's an excuse, because the law already requires. And there are already facilities that have all those books in electronic format. And those teachers should know how to access those. So that all you got to do is awesome. It's not magic. And you know what the other side of it is? That isn't even an excuse. What are you talking about? Do you want our children to learn or not? Why are you coming up with the excuse? I would also say, why is it that we only have to have a week, you know, when I was in college, I would go to my college professors a quarter or more in advance, and say, I need to know what textbooks you're going to use in this class, so that I can get them put in Braille. And you know, professors don't want to give you that information. It's not time yet I haven't even made a decision. And it took a lot of effort to get some of those professors to recognize that I wasn't going to have access to the books, if they didn't give me the information up front. And it wasn't, we didn't have the ADA back in 1968 through 76 when I was going through college, and in fact, one instructor gave us a title of a book. That wasn't the title of the book that they ended up using. So I didn't even have the textbook for the first two thirds of the quarter we were studying it. I did get an A in the class. But in spite of what the professor did, I don't think it was deliberate. But, you know, at the college level, even now, in the college level, we're working to get similar legislation passed so that college texts are made available in electronic form and stored in a repository. But that does exist today. So there's no excuse for them doing that. And, you know, I don't know how best to do it with a lot of humor other than to say, you know, well, you know, I'll tell you what we'll we'll start preparing TV shows for you to watch when, you know when we get around to it, and you know, you may miss mom, or you may miss Grey's Anatomy or any other shows, because we're just not going to have them ready in time. And we're not going to let your VCR turn on until we're ready, and we have it ready for you to take. So there's, there's no easy way to do it. Because it's inexcusable. And it's a number of those same teachers who really don't want to teach blind kids Braille, because you don't need them. You don't need to do that you can get the book in electronic form. That's right, so can you and you could put it in Braille. But you can get an electronic form so the students can just listen to it. You ever tried to do a graduate or even undergraduate physics course and study mathematical equations from a recording? It is not trivial to do? It, it isn't the way to do it. Blind people need to learn to read and write and spell and do grammar and math just like anyone else. And teachers have no right to prevent that, or discourage that from happening. And in fact, they should embrace it. And I don't know how else to say it, which isn't necessarily funny. But nevertheless, that's what needs to happen. Does that help? Audience Member #2 46:28 Yeah, I think sometimes. The issue also is, as we're moving into, like a one to one district, Chromebook, a lot of teachers are pulling stuff for Google classroom, and of not textbooks anymore. So right, I mean, we go through and get all the textbooks, and they're available in Braille to the students. But teachers are pulling stuff off the fly. And, you know, it's all I can do to keep up sometimes to get, Michael Hingson 46:56 oh, I hear you to get Audience Member #2 46:57 someone in real time Braille in it as they're reading or, you know, for that student that needs Braille or doing like the, the text to speech. I mean, it's like, I just want to make it accessible. That's all. Michael Hingson 47:10 So let me ask you this teacher. Do you believe in obeying the law? Yes. Great. Glad to hear it. Do you know what the Americans know? I'm, I'm asking you to role model not be yourself. But do you know what the Americans with Disabilities Act? Is? You ever heard of it? You think you've heard of it? Let me tell you about the ADA. It says that, that companies, schools, organizations, and so on, are required under the law to make reasonable accommodations to make material available and to make jobs available and schools available to persons who happen to have a disability, in this case being blind. And the reality is, if you're pulling all this stuff up, and you're using inaccessible material, you are breaking the law. Do you really want to do that? Because if you do, maybe we need to have another discussion. Yes, I know what the teachers are doing. And we have battles with Google and work and are working with Google to make sure that their material is accessible. And a lot of it is and the teachers either have the obligation to pull the accessible material off, or work with you in an appropriate timeframe to find that material, because a lot of it is accessible. And if the teachers aren't going to the right place, then they are doing a disservice to people in their classroom, they cannot discriminate against certain segments of the population. You know, if we're gonna do that, let's turn the lights off. So none of the kids have to worry about wasting electricity. You know, you can't have it both ways teachers, and I hear what you're saying. But they need to do proper lesson planning. That's what it's about. And that's what I learned as a teacher. And if that means I've got to deal with certain things for students who may not use the same material in the same way, if I'm going to be a real teacher in society, I'm obligated to make sure that I work on that. They don't like that, necessarily. But that's what they're supposed to do. Because that's what the law says. And I and I, that may or may not be the answer that you want, that may not be an easy answer to give. But that's what the law says, right? And so push that and educate your principal. And if you need help, I'll find you people who can help with that. But they are breaking the law when they're not making their material available in an accessible form. And most of the time, it probably is available somewhere in an accessible form. So if they can't do it, or they don't want to do it, and you're the expert, they need to give you the time, and give you the information far enough in advance that you can find it or find someone who can help you find it and I can certainly connect you with people who can most likely help you find it if you can't, and I'm glad to do that. Michael Hingson 50:00 Next. Who have we taken such a hard line no one else has anything to say. MC 50:08 We have one over here. Audience Member #3 50:09 This is probably not them. But anyways, when I was about 1718 years of age, my mother worked for a chiropractor who happened to be blind. To be a chiropractor, you have to go med school and everything else. And for a female that's very hard to do. And she was born blind. And my mother said, you want a job? And I said, Oh, sure, I'll make some extra money. You can take her up. This was an Oak Park, Illinois, Chicago native. And I took her up into Barrington because she was horseback rider. She was getting pay me money, I relate to do that. At that point, I was I loved horses, I said, Forget the money, I'll just take a ride a lesson while you're doing yours. She was a fanatic rider. It was amazing. I was just like, I couldn't believe it. She was better than me. And temper that, that capability to be able to do that. It just at that age, at that point, I had a communication with someone with a disability that I had to help, you know, every weekend. And from there, it was just like, now when people you'll everyone hears this, and I hate correcting people. And I just heard Mike say this. And you'll hear many people say, Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. No, you don't see what you're saying. You can hear what they're saying. You don't see what they're saying. And bring it back. Listen for that. You can listen to the most intelligent person. And then they start saying, Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm like, Oh, my God. I respect Yeah, I was just like, Whoa, No, you can't. And you're like, catch him on it. But it's true. Yes, you can hear what you're saying. And we have all these senses about us, not just her sight. And we're going to use as many as we can to make us the better person. So thank you, Mike, for bringing that to our attention. Michael Hingson 51:56 I know we're about out of time. Thank you. I've got one more story. One another story. sirius xm 167. Canada talks radio. Gentlemen contacted me, Ari Silva, who has a show, I think his last name was silver on Canada talks every Tuesday afternoon 4pm to 5pm pacific time. And he wanted to interview me about the World Trade Center and on my story, and so on. So I was on for the last 15 minutes of the show. The first part of the show, they were talking about all the problems that Justin Trudeau the Prime Minister is having because he appeared once in blackface. And now people are blasting him for that, which is totally ridiculous. It has nothing to do with his political qualifications. It has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that 20 some odd years ago, he did that. So he did, right. What does it have to do today? Anyway, so the time came for me to be interviewed. And we started chatting, and already started talking all about blindness and blind people and all that we had a great discussion about all sorts of stuff, never did get to the World Trade Center. But we had a long conversation about a lot of the issues concerning blindness. And one of the things that we talked about was the fact that he had the opportunity to participate in a dining and the dark function. y'all heard of dining in the dark, one of the worst concepts in society regarding blind people today. So Ari, starts talking about it. And he said, I walked into this place. And he said, I've got a friend who's blind, a lawyer that I know, he's a young man, and I've been mentoring him some in some areas. And I walked into this dining in the dark thing, and I became totally petrified, I walked out, and ice. And so I said to him, what did you learn? He said, that is a real scary thing to have to do. And I said, wrong answer. But let me ask you this. Why is it scary? Well, because it's not easy to do. I said, wrong answer. The answer really is, you didn't have training, you didn't learn how to function as a blind person. And you're not going to learn it in that environment. And that's the problem with dining in the dark. People go in, and they if they can eat their food, without creating much of a mess, they think they're really successful, but they haven't learned anything about blindness. I told Ari, go get yourself a white cane and a pair of dark glasses, put the glasses on, and walk up and down the streets in Toronto, where he lived. And look at how people observe you and the expressions and the things that they do. And the way they look at you, then you're going to see something about how we're viewed. The reality is dining in the dark is disgusting. It teaches you nothing because you don't have the training, you don't have the background. You don't have the basis for an understanding of what blindness is. And the result of that is you're not going to have a good experience. And all it's going to do is reinforce a lot of poor attitudes and misconceptions about blindness. It isn't going to change anything. We shouldn't have that. And unfortunately, there are so many blindness agencies that think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread because people come and they donate and all that. But all they're doing is an incredible disservice to blind people who want to live in the world, and who have the same right to do that, as anyone else. I think we've run out of time. And so we're going to have to stop. So thank you very much. I'd love to come and work with any of you at your districts. And if you haven't gotten our card yet, come up, I've got a, I've got some business cards, I'd love to speak in your districts. And I hope that we can work together. But thank you again for inviting us to come and be a part of this today. Michael Hingson 55:44 And there we are. I want to thank you again, for listening to unstoppable mindset today. And I hope that you found this presentation pretty interesting, and that you maybe come away with a little bit of a different view about not only disabilities, but how we can and should be included in the conversation. You know, one of the things that I love to do a lot is to ask the question, what is it you think a blind person cannot do? And when I asked that question, one of the common responses is drive a car. And as we discuss on a regular basis, you think so go visit WWW.blinddriverchallenge.org. That's WWW.blinddriverchallenge.org. And watch the video of Mark riccobono, who is now the president of the National Federation of the Blind, driving a Ford Escape completely independently, without any assistance from any sighted person or any autonomous vehicle technology. He drives a car, a Ford Escape around the Daytona Speedway right before the 2011 Rolex 24 race, you'll see it all at blind driver challenge. Next week, we're going to do something a little bit different. And that is that I'm going to be interviewed and we're going to talk a lot about accessibility. We're going to talk about some of the reasons that I got into doing podcasts and other sorts of things. And then after next week's show, will not only have me making remarks from time to time, but we're going to start interviewing other people. So you don't get to listen to me all the time. Or maybe I should say you don't have to listen to me all the time. You'll get to hear other people, but we'll get there. Anyway, thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us on episode two of unstoppable mindset. Michael Hingson 57:51 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week

Message by Tim Brooks

We may not have been around for two weeks, but we are sooooo professional that we forgot the video this week. But, either way, get ready for another round of Tim Brooks. We never want to hear you say "I want it that way" mostly because we are just physically incapable.

Tim Brooks was one of the nation's top high school lacrosse recruits, from a great family, living in one of America's most affluent suburbs. But when he showed up on Good Morning America, it wasn't because he'd won a college lacrosse title, it was because he was likely headed to prison for being the No. 2 man in a drug ring who's takedown made national headlines. Seven years sober, Tim talks with Pete about the wild ride and speaks about trading a life of 'taking' in addiction, to a life of 'giving' in sobriety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Win or lose, it's how you make the podcast that counts. Unfortunately for us, we make it weird. This week, Timothy "Habakkuk" Brooks of the Brooks Brothers (not really) joins us to get introspective, and we definitely don't enjoy what our insides look like. For you, we have an assortment of peeing in the dark, Rich's brokeback moment, gender perceptions, Tim's podcast "I'll Talk If You'll Listen", air fryer black magic, May the 4th Be With You, the beauty of Wegman's, the 501st Legion, analog vs digital, how incredibly smart Rich is, recognizing actors and voice actors, descent into madness, rally, ascent back to reality, Disney franchises (the real ones), and finally Gullible's Travels (aka Steve gets punked). We were just gonna, you know, grade our lunches, eat a few tests and hope for the best.

Tim Brooks was one of the nation's top high school lacrosse recruits, from a great family, living in one of America's most affluent suburbs. But when he showed up on Good Morning America, it wasn't because he'd won a college lacrosse title, it was because he was likely headed to prison for being the No. 2 man in a drug ring who's takedown made national headlines. Seven years sober, Tim looks talks with Pete about the wild ride and speaks about trading a life of 'taking' in addiction, to a life of 'giving' in sobriety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seeing your past in ash and rubble is hard. The temptation is for nostalgia, but God calls us into His good future through hope.

The last book of the Old Testament. A prophetic word before God's silence.

How do we read prophets? What clues do we bring to the table? Through the book of Zephaniah, we explore what makes reading the Minor Prophets difficult, and how we can see hope through the harrowing images in the text.

URComped CEO, Craig Shacklett, interviews the owner of Emerald Island Casino and the BRAND NEW Rainbow Club Casino in Henderson, NV, Tim Brooks, to learn more about his success as a Casino owner, his recent casino acquisition, and what makes his casinos special.