When I get those forwarded quizzes that say something like, “Tell us something about yourself, and share with your friends!”, one of the inevitable questions is something like, “Spring or Fall”? I usually answer, “both,” because that’s how I feel today. But when I was a kid, I probably would have said “Fall” without hesitation. For one thing, when you’re a kid (in elementary school, especially), the first day of school is exciting– who will be in your classroom? What will your teacher be like? What will your classroom look like?

Soon after the start of school is my birthday– even today, I enjoy my birthday, but as a kid it was so much more exciting. A month after that came Halloween, then roughly a month after that, Thanksgiving, and then the best holiday of all, Christmas. So for me, Fall was always jam-packed with fun stuff, decorations, and of course, the *anticipation*!

When I was young, Halloween meant dressing up in your costume at school, walking around on the playground in a parade, and having a classroom party. Then at night, of course, was trick-or-treat time! So it was never just the evening that was fun, but the day as well. The teachers would dress up, and there’d be decorations in the classroom.

Well, apparently that’s not the case anymore. The religious fundamentalists and uptight Puritans everywhere have tried to put a damper on what is now a secular holiday by pressuring schools to eliminate Halloween, all in the name of “protecting the children,” or in the name of religion. So now we have something called “Fall-o-ween.”

Excuse me? “Fall-o-ween”? Apparently it’s a sop made to Christians, Muslims, and other religious practitioners who increasingly decide that their rights come before everything else. While I understand that some people may not want their children to experience Halloween or to celebrate Halloween, I think the whole notion of tossing Halloween out the window is getting a little carried away. Instead of tossing the baby out with the bathwater, Halloween could be retained as a means to explain the cultural beliefs of the Celts, American traditions, and how spirits, ghosts, and the supernatural are a part of many different cultures everywhere.

I do agree some of the costumes are a bit gory– elementary kids who know exactly who “Chucky” or “Michael Myers” is and wearing costumes based on these characters is going a bit too far– but telling kids they can’t induldge in fantasy, make-believe, and the opportunity to exercise creativity? That’s definitely going overboard.

I like what they did in Denver at Palmer Elementary School– had a Halloween festival instead. That’s a good compromise, and is a great alternative for parents who’d rather their kids celebrate in a more supervised environment rather than roam the streets (but to me, going house to house is part of the whole fun!). Maybe instead of acceding to a small minority of parents and students, instead craft a compromise that is a win-win situation for everyone. And for heaven’s sake, call it “Halloween,” not “Fall-o-ween.”

I had my monthly book club meeting today. However, like the idiot that I am, I did not “plan ahead” and wear appropriate shoes for walking semi-long distances. The meeting was being held at Tryst in Adams Morgan.

This is where my journey in bus hell begins.

You see, I’m a regular metrorail rider, not a regular metrobus rider. My trusty friend (and bus-lover) Adam tells me exactly what to do and where to stand to grab the L2 bus:

Adam: I think you can take the L2 from Conn Ave.
Adam: L2
Adam: 20th and K
Adam: stand no no
Adam: perfect
Adam: just go to 17th and K
Adam: anywehre along K St - grab the L2 bus
Adam: stand on the westbound side of K St

Naturally, I promptly interpret these directions as “Stand on K street and catch the bus when it goes by.” I mean, who wouldn’t. In my defense, compare this to my usual daily Metrorail trip: Go down the pretty escalator steps and take the Orange/Blue to Potomac Ave.

So I get off work and walk to K street and grab the bus. I wait for about 5 minutes, and there the bus comes trundling along. No — wait, that’s the newfangled DC Circulator bus. It flies like a bat out of hell and zooms on K street. I continue to wait another few minutes, and Lo and Behold — there’s the L2 bus.

I get on.

I watch as we stop every 10 feet and collect various people. Some handicapped. White, black, brown, purple, off-white, teal, you name it. Then we start heading south. Wait a minute — isn’t Adams Morgan north? I page Adam apprehensively. He asks me “Bobby! Did you pay attention to what I said? I said to get on the WESTBOUND side of K street!”
Elapsed time: 25 minutes.
Adams Morgan Walking Distance: 25 minutes.

So, yeah, I got on the eastbound side. No matter, I’ll still get to Adams Morgan — it will just take a few minutes longer as the bus loops around and heads north. We stop to pick up an handicapped person at MacPherson Square.

But wait. The elevator that slooshes out of the steps and picks up wheelchairs and people who don’t want to walk gets stuck. The bus driver asks me if I would come over and help me. He motions me toward his driver’s seat and asks me to sit and pull a lever. Cool. I get to sit at the driver’s seat and pull levers.

I pull the lever and watch him maul the elevator trying to get it to sloosh back in. But it won’t, even after a several attempts. He shrugs and motions me off the bus.

I get off. I’m already late and I’m stuck at MacPherson Square. You see, I started off WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF ADAMS MORGAN. I could have walked there but, no, no, it’s not going to be that easy.

Elapsed time: 45 minutes.
Adams Morgan Walking Distance: 25 minutes.

I decide I’m going to just bite the bullet and call a cab. I try to motion several cabbies over but they are all holding passengers and shun me. I could see that a truck had arrived to fix the bus. A young woman gets out and helps the bus driver sloosh the elevator back in after several loud and rattling attempts.

Seeing that hailing a taxi would be futile, I get back on the bus. The bus makes 9,431 stops before getting to Adams Morgan. At one of these stops, by the way, the bus driver yells and rudely rejects a woman in a wheelchair. You see, the elevator just won’t sloosh. I finally get to Adams Morgan and get off near Tryst and head to The Diner. Changed locations on me.

The metrobus can bite me. I’m going to hide in the comforting caverns of the Metro.

Elapsed time: 65 minutes.
Adams Morgan Walking Distance: 25 minutes.

Well, the South Side of Chicago is the baddest part of town…
- “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce

For the first time since the end of World War I, the Sox have won the World Series, and in a clean sweep too. I marked the week by alternating between watching the games themselves (including the marathon third game on Tuesday night! Wonder just how many fans called in sick the next day due to staying up and watching all fourteen innings??) and settling in to watch some of my favorite baseball-themed movies, such as “The Natural” (a bit hokey, I admit, but I like it– the book, by Bernard Malamud, is good as well) and “Eight Men Out” (an appropriate choice, given it’s about the Black Sox of 1919! This one was also adapted from a book of the same title, by Eliot Asinof).

The joy of the denizens of South Chicago got me thinking, though. Why *is* the South Side of a lot of towns the worst part, or at least the more downtrodden in a metro area? Think about it: South Boston, the South Bronx, SE D.C., South Miami, South Chicago, South San Francisco, South-Central L.A…. the list goes on. I know there are some places where the southern areas/borders aren’t quite the hellholes others are, but more often than not, it’s the south side of the tracks where the bad boys live. I don’t have an answer as yet– any one want to venture an explanation for why this might be?

(I know the majority of readers are deaf and probably have no clue about the lyrics, but I just couldn’t resist using Jim Croce’s song, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” - it just seemed so fitting!)

Rochester Institute of Technology is mentioned in Doonesbury’s October 26 comic.

I have a friend who is a recent graduate of the Electrical Engineering masters program at RIT. When he showed me the comic, I exclaimed he should post it to his website showcasing his resume. It’s not often that your alma mater is in a nationally syndicated comic. :) Now to get Gallaudet University into a Ziggy or Garfield comic.

Doonesbury Website - Democrat & Chronicle: ‘Doonesbury’ chuckles

Movies are one of my guilty pleasures. I’ve always loved going to the movies, and with the advent of VCRs, enjoyed watching them at home. Now, just over a generation later, we have DVD players, and on the horizon is the next generation of DVDs. It’s amazing sometimes how technology evolves so fast. The current generation of college students has most likely never gone (or rarely gone) to a deaf club or similar organization to watch a movie. Now everyone can gather in their dorm rooms and apartments to watch the latest flick. You also don’t have to drive or walk down to the corner video store anymore; there’s Netflix, and Blockbuster has its own DVD-by-mail service. Even Wal-Mart was in on the action for a while.

Despite the advantages of staying at home on the couch to watch the latest Hollywood release, there’s still something about going to an actual theater that attracts me. Of course, these days, with the prices, I don’t do this as often as I used to. But occasionally there’s the hit summer movie (such as “Revenge of the Sith”) or a movie that you know will end up an Oscar nominee (like “Mystic River”) that either are best viewed in their original intended format (for example, the Lord of the Rings trilogy’s great no matter what, but admit it: it looks ten times better on a big screen than it does on your set, doesn’t it?), or are worth paying close to ten bucks for.

The first films I recall seeing in an actual movie theater with captions/subtitles that weren’t foreign were “Children of a Lesser God” and “Schindler’s List.” Within the next few years, the list of movies I saw in the theater without any barriers whatsoever proliferated, and today I have more options than I did twenty years ago. Yet in those twenty years, some things remain constant.

First, there still isn’t the option to go to any movie, any time, at any theater. Second, often, even in large metro areas, theaters that offer accessible showings are at a distance from where I and my friends live. No walking down to the corner bijou to catch the latest flick. Third, there are competing formats, with no standardization whatsoever. Fourth, it’s hard to get theater owners on board, and even when they’re willing to offer captioned movies in whatever form, there’s not always the same enthusiasm to continue.

As you probably already know, there’s currently three formats for enjoying a movie: OC, or open-captions; DTS, or digital captioning; and RWC, known as Rear-Window Captioning. OC is the oldest, and started way back when, thanks to pioneers like Emerson Romero. This format requires burning the dialogue into the print itself, frame by frame. This means that the print is permanently captioned. For years, the government-sponsored Captioned Films and Videos (today known as CMP) program through NAD had tons of movies for loan, and some of you may remember going to your local deaf club or organization on certain nights to watch a movie. Today, CMP has radically reduced the number of commercial films available and offers more DVD copies than VHS or old 16mm films. Tripod took up the torch, and recently changed its name to InSight Cinema. While this is our traditional method, for a long time it meant if you didn’t live in a highly dense deaf population area like Rochester, you had to wait anywhere from 1-4 months to see the latest film. The movies would often be shown once, maybe twice, at predetermined times and days of the weeks, usually once mid-week during the day, and again mid-week at night. Lately there have been some improvements, and seeing a popular or new film is possible in a much shorter time than four months.

DTS is the newer version of OC films– instead of burning the dialogue into the print itself, the dialogue is now on a disc, and is played on a special machine, where it is projected onto the screen. This means only the disc itself needs to be transported or shipped, not the entire film. This is exciting new technology, and theoretically can solve a lot of the problems of the past. But the problem is that the projecting equipment is expensive, and not all theaters are aware of this new tool. Additionally, there have been technical problems from time to time. Fellow columnist Tayler Mayer described one such frustrating experience in his column back in July.

RWC is the third method– by using a portable plexiglass “screen”, the user adjusts the screen and through that views “closed captions” that are projected onto the screen in a manner similar to DTS. This format has spread to many theaters, and in some ways has overcome the problem of scheduling. Here in L.A. I can usually see a movie via RWC a week or two after it opens, and at any time of night or day, for a week or so. But the screen has to be adjusted, it can be difficult to view the captions if you’re not the right height or sitting in the right part of the theater, and to be honest, it’s exhausting to watch a movie this way. Personally, I prefer subtitles/open captions, and I suspect a lot of people would agree with me.

For a long time, WGBH, via its MoPix website, offered information on where to see these movies. But in June of this year, they stopped, saying the theater chains and corporations themselves needed to assume the burden of advertising the movies. While I agree with this logic, the switchover was handled somewhat ineptly. While the MoPix folks assured people the changeover would take a “short time,” a major chain, AMC, is still linking its California theatres to MoPix’s now defunct site (if you scroll down, though, AMC seems to now be posting all the information– so it may just be a matter of their web designer needing to wake up, smell the coffee, and redesign the webpage!). A number of other chains are somewhere along the continuum, with some having made the full switch to providing information both on- and off-line about their RWC/OC/DTS showings, while others, like AMC, have quite a bit more work to do.

So what to do? I’ve provided a superficial background of sorts; next time I’ll delve a little bit more into this subject, and what we, as deaf consumers, can do.

Straight from the Washington Post!

Oh, that’s Ms. Lawless. She cleans up great, doesn’t she?

Sancho is a 3-month old male silver tabby…and such a bundle of laughs for Tamara and I! We picked him up on Sunday at the PetSmart out in Crystal City, because they had oodles of kittens and cats up for adoption. After making our rounds, our eyes fell on Sancho–I love tigers, so his markings remind me very much of tigers, and the only difference is that Sancho’s base color is silver. Oh, and the obvious–the size. :)

Tamara had a scare the other day–we keep Sancho in the bathroom overnight, with his bed, food and litter. We figured that since he’s used to small spaces (he was in a cage @ PetSmart) so we’d slowly introduce him to the apartment, starting with the bathroom. During the day, when we’re home, he goes into our bedroom and explores his new surroundings. He hasn’t ventured out into the kitchen yet, but that’ll happen soon enough.

ANYWAY–back to Tamara’s scare…she checked on Sancho the other night and couldn’t find him–she woke me up, with a furtive “I can’t find Sancho!” Naturally I was *snore*zzz*HUH? wha? who? Tamara said she even checked the toilet, nevermind the fact that the seat and the lid were closed, sighing with relief at finding a kitty-less toilet :)

The little bugger found a cool hiding spot. Our sink has an inverted concave base (think: half-pipe) and it fits Sancho perfectly so he was able to disappear completely from sight in a 8′x8′ enclosure. *whew*

And, when he purrs…it’s like this little motor that just won’t shut down! :)

We decided to name him Sancho because I read Don Quixote: Man of La Mancha, and in the story, Sancho is Don Quixote’s faithful sidekick/squire, and I just thought it would be a perfect fit. Believe me, Tamara and I went back and forth…back and forth…and back and forth some more before finally settling on Sancho :)

Check back for more updates on Sancho: El Gatito de DC! (The kitten of D.C.)

*shutting door*

I do not own oil stock. I am not a Republican. I want the Bush Administration to end as quickly and painlessly as much as you do, so do read the below thought-provoking excerpt.

Ah, so the theory is that higher gas prices is actually fueling more alternative energy initiatives. It’s forcing Americans to be more conservative with what energy we use today, preserving the environment. Read the full article without delay, and decide whether the current gas price justifies itself.

In the introductory letter to DeafDC.com habitués, it was mentioned that I’m knowledgeable about Deaf history and captioning issues. Now, I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t consider myself an expert on Deaf history; knowledgeable about it to a degree, yes, but do I have in-depth command (my bookcase notwithstanding!)? Probably not. As a historian of sorts, and a former Ph.D.-in-the-making, I have quite a bit of breadth on a variety of historical subjects, but my depth lies more in the American West. Some of my friends, peers, and colleagues though, are up-and-comers. Two of them are now at Gallaudet: Brian Greenwald and William Ennis. Take a bow, guys. There’s also Joe Murray, who I understand is right now somewhere in Norway with his family.

In the past, Deaf history has largely been the province of hearing authors and historians; only lately has there been an increase in work done by the deaf and Deaf themselves. Most of this is comprised of papers given at various conferences, but authors like Harry Lang are starting to contribute to the discourse. I hope to see an increase in material written and published by the Deaf themselves; perhaps this will happen among Deaf Studies scholars, who are by necessity and training familiar with history as well as culture. There’s been a number of institutional histories done at various schools by alumni and other interested parties, but history is more than just the narrative of any particular school– it’s also the story of people as a whole.

One good place to start is with the older members within our own community. Do you know an older deaf or Deaf person? Interview them, and get their story recorded now, while they’re still around. Oral history is often treated as a stepchild within the academy, but it is useful, and often complements and supplements the written record. In our case, since ASL is a visual rather than written language, oral histories are important. For example, Deaf history buffs point to the Deaf contigent in Akron, working at the factories during World War II. What oral histories have been done among these workers? Do any exist? Has anyone drafted a paper or article based on such recollections?

These memories don’t have to be that old, either. What about those my age or slightly older, who were in the vanguard of the mainstreamed era? It’s been more than a generation since the passage and implementation of PL-94-142; what was it like for these early pioneers? How has mainstreaming changed since 1975? Has mainstreaming changed public perceptions of deafness? Has it disseminated knowledge of sign languages in general, or has it served merely to isolate deaf individuals? Considering the rising numbers of mainstreamed students heading to Gallaudet since the 1980s, those who matriculate must be gaining exposure to the Deaf community somewhere. How did that happen, and where and who were their contacts? All of this is so recent that a number of you (including some fellow columnists) have experienced this directly. It may not seem like history to you, but each person’s story, once collected together as a whole, allow historians to present a wider picture that reveals a snapshot in time for future generations.

As for captioning, I’m not so much an expert as I am an advocate. There’s a difference, and while the two are not mutually exclusive, I can barely follow some of the discussions on the listserv I subscribe to (Captioning, over at Yahoo!); they’re discussions between true captioning experts, CART providers, and other similar individuals. Part of me wishes that group, established by Jamie Berke (About.com’s “Deafness” guide), would split off into two: one for the techies, and one for those of us who truly just want to work towards 100% captioning. When it comes to all the technical specifications, I’m totally lost; get me talking about which companies aren’t doing their fair share of captioning, and I’m all hands! That’s where there really isn’t much between you and I; all it takes to become an advocate is a bit of passion, some time, and a willingness to sit down and write, e-mail, or call the Powers That Be. I certainly have some more thoughts on this, and will check back in later on this topic.

Probably what I am truly an expert in right now is blabbing. I certainly don’t have any problem banging out these entries! But for now, I’ll let someone else at Blog Central take over…

October Classics have that moniker for a specific reason.

In one corner, you have a team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1917 and last appeared in one in 1959.

In the other corner, you have a team that has never been in a World Series in 44 years.

Please welcome the Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros.

Eventhough neither one of them is my beloved Yankees, I’m looking forward to this October Classic.

That’s why baseball is America’s Pasttime.