I was riding home from work on the metro, trying to chase away all work-related thoughts by reading my current novel-of-choice, The Corrections. For some reason, I looked up at one point and saw a black guy sitting across me, waving a paper that had obviously been crumbled and uncrumbled many times.

I took the paper and read it. It went something like, I am deaf, and I’m trying to get money for my mother who’s very sick, and I need to get her something, a gift that will make her Christmas much better, God bless or something like that. I didn’t read it too carefully. I handed back the paper and started signing to him.

In one of those giving moods, I told him I didn’t have any bills, but would change be okay? He said sure, so I handed them over, and we started chatting away. In the short ride between Metro Center and Potomac Avenue, I learned a little about him.

He was born in D.C. Graduated from MSSD. Never went to college. Moved up to Baltimore at one point, and maybe NYC. Returned to DC just recently, citing “fate” being the reason he was back. His mother, in her 60s, is apparently very ill and won’t live to see next summer. His family, however, tends to stretch out their life spans into the 90s and 100s. He has two sons, 17 and 13, and one daughter who passed away at one point. Both sons live in Baltimore. He’s never held a job, and is waiting on three years’ SSI pay. SSI apparently mixed up him with his deceased father, who shared the same name. He has two missing front upper teeth. He thinks Potomac Avenue is a great place to collect money, since the people who live there are military types and always give to deaf people. He says it’s hard doing the panhandling thing but he’s doing it for his mother, since he’s the only one left taking care of her. He hopes to go to NTID at one point.

When I asked what he was planning to use the money for, he said he wanted to help her buy a house. Having just acquired a place myself, I know he wasn’t getting anywhere close with that odd pocket change I gave him. But who knows?

As we parted ways above ground, I could only wonder, what the hell happened to him? He’s a MSSD graduate. What happened? How did one man’s path diverge so contrary to some of his graduating classmates who went on to four-year colleges? And what could we do about it? Then … or now?

So my sister Liz’s figured out how to swing her first-born privilege and use my blogging rights as her oratory platform. A quick bio on her: a three-year D.C. resident, she’s putting her new master’s from American University to good use by working as Gallaudet University’s Capital Campaign Specialist. Ever wonder who’s raising the ten million dollars for the new Sorenson building? It’s her. Read on..

Instead of pilfering my brother’s blog username/password, I’ve decided to just ask him to post this. Just maybe, it’d break my blog shyness. As you may know, there’s some fear in that! But I digress…

I was reading The Chronicle of Higher Education at work. For those who don’t know, in the higher education fundraising world, this is your Wall Street Journal. I came upon an article by Jean Evangelauf about 32 American students who were named as Rhodes scholars last November. 19 men and 13 women will get to study for two or three years at the prestigious University of Oxford in England. They were chosen from 903 applicants and endorsed by 333 colleges and universities. Surprisingly, for the 2nd time in 75 years, none of the candidates endorsed by Harvard University won the award. (Ouch, Yale got three this year!)

But rivalries aside, I was reading this and a thought occurred, “Has there ever been a deaf Rhodes scholar?” So, I did what any smart researcher would do: I Googled it. Good ol’ information monolith Google actually came up with a few Rhodes Scholars whose key award-winning activites included learning sign language or working with deaf students.

Huh? As if we, the deaf, as a population, are deserving of promoting hearing-ass fools (HAF) to gods and goddesses if they actually learn sign language. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by that or be thrilled at the mere possibility that the most brilliant, overachieving, and overly altruistic people actually took interest in our people and culture. Just maybe, those sign-friendly Rhodes scholars could pave the way for us.

But honestly, the deeper issue here is, what gives them the saint-like status just because they tapped us (no pun intended)? Sure, they won based on many other merits. It is a very selective process and those that won were warranted a paper of honor with a golden coupon of several free trips to London. I would have loved to win that if I only had saved the whales, solved the world’s hunger, and oh, let’s not forget, set up a big candy strip program at a local senior citizen assisted living center. Boy, I’d be exhausted by now. But, seriously, I’d love to see a deaf person win that.

I think, the deaf person’s key activities would be very unique, and quite admirable. Here’s the suggested list of key activities:

• Established an ASL tutoring program for 2,000 local hearing inner city high school students to work closely with Gallaudet. They get their foreign language requirement met and cultural education.
• Pioneered an activity program with my XYZ club once a week at the local senior citizen center, especially for those that suffer hearing loss.
• Set up a partnership with Harvard and Darmouth on urban planning studies incorporating a large deaf and hard of hearing population and do research on using advanced visual technology, with hopes of improving the lives of all mankind.
• Excelled in volleyball, making it to the NCAA Division III finals.
• Spearheaded a think tank committee with The Cato Institute on pioneering in hiring deaf and hard of hearing people as visual strategists for military operations.
• Fundraised over $200,000 in one year to establish a student-funded scholarship fund for deaf international students from third world countries to receive 4-year scholarship at the university of their choice in the United States.
• Worked closely with the DC City Council on making stadiums and restaurants deaf-friendly by offering sign language classes, deaf culture courses, and hiring deaf and hard of hearing employees to fairly represent the large deaf population in the nation’s capital.
• Participated in a disability committee on adding the Smithsonian’s first-ever Deaf Artists Wing at the National Gallery of Art.

I admit, this is a bit deaf-loaded. But, the point I’m making here is pretty clear. We have many opportunities to create partnerships with bigger fish out there.

It is TIME to get our own deaf/hard of hearing Rhodes scholar. A leader that exemplifies what we can do, if we had the energy and altruism. Dang it, we don’t want those HAF winning a Rhodes scholarship just because they learned the manual alphabet and actually possessed a vocabulary of 10 signs. Let them be unique by doing other things, just leave us alone.

To find out exactly what Rhodes scholarship is, check this out: http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/FS/rhodes.pdf.

Yes, you read that right. Today, my topic is not about Washington DC’s beloved (or not so beloved) Metro system. Instead, I will be writing about it’s wrinkled older brother—the New York City Subway.

The folks in New York City opened their subway system in 1904. Back then, it was called the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT). In addition, they also had an elevated train system (discontinued now). In contrast, Washington DC built the first Metro station in 1969 and opened the first segment in 1976. So, the DC Metro is actually more than 70 years younger.

Take a moment and compare the maps of the two transit systems:

NYC Subway

DC Metro

Notice the rat’s nest of lines, stops, expresses, and boroughs that make up the NYC subway’s map. Compare it to the clean (but limited) simplicity of the DC Metro.

More than 1.4 billion people ride the NYC subway each year. About 195 million ride the DC Metro. To put it in perspective, you could fit the number riding on the DC Metro inside NYC’s 7 times over.

While I was riding the 4/5 lines in NYC (don’t call it the green line—people will laugh at you) I noticed some differences between their attitudes and attitudes of the riders on the DC system. First of all, folks in NYC are not afraid to stare at you. They are also not afraid of sitting so close to you that you share their every bodily function (eating, farting, sweating, you name it). In DC, we are hyper-alert to the merest touch, screaming bloody murder when someone even accidentally brushes you.

I think there’s a real cultural difference here. While I was on the NYC subway, we were approached by panhandlers asking for money. They played music, sang something incomprehensible, and passed an hat around. This is something you would never see on a DC Metro, and if it happened, people would get angry. What does that say about the culture here in DC?

In any case, it’s an experience any DC Metro rider should go through. Take a cheap Chinatown bus up to NYC and zoom around on the NYC subway.

For more information about the histories of these two transit systems, take a look at these websites: DC Metro History at GMU, NYC Subway History at SubwayWebNews.

I’m caught between a rock and a hard place about this CNN article from this recent Monday about how technology is “helping blind, deaf enjoy movies.”

On one hand, far be it from me to disparage applauding the progress we’ve made in the last few years in gaining access to movie theaters. Yes, it’s true: I have to drive half an hour for a very limited selection of movies for a very limited choice of showtimes. But still, now, more than ever before, I can drag the significant other to the theaters and get my movie fix. That alone thrills me to no end, despite its downside.

On the other, however, seeing this news item pop up on the front page of CNN all of a sudden has disconcerting effects. For one thing, my knee-jerk reaction was and still is: this is news? Okay, sure, people need to know about it in order to lobby on its behalf, but, honestly, have you people been living under a rock? Way to catch up on the happenings in the everyday world.

One thing that really irks me is that the article starts off with a pandering tone: wow, look at all the things we’re doing to help disabled people live with us. They couldn’t do this stuff before, and now, thanks to our smarts, technology, and a lawsuit, we can.

It’s amazing no one has commented on the irony yet. First, it isn’t that “able” people are helping “disabled” people assimilate. Rather, it’s that the “ablies” excommunicated deafies in the 1920s when they decided to introduce talkies and completely forego silents. Thus another event in a long string of building an exclusive society.

Sure, I’m pulling the rug out under my own feet — one of my favorite things about theaters is the sound system. Same goes, I’m sure, for many other people with a hearing loss who nonetheless still enjoy what they can hear or feel. And that argument doesn’t quite fly for blind people. As I have no expertise in that area, though, I’ll leave it for someone else to comment on. But my point stands, nonetheless.

The second part of the wham-bam irony is that this is only happening as a result of a lawsuit.

Rejoice with me, all ye faithful, but remember where the fruits of our labor come from: hard-fought lobbying and visits to courtrooms and lawyer’s offices. I’ve written my share of letters and e-mails, but I’ve never heard of accomodations being offered as a result of these. Most often, the judicial system has to strongarm a company into playing nice. The movie accessibility thing is no exception.

The best (and most truthful) thing about the CNN article, in my opinion, is this quote: “‘Movies are an important part of popular culture,’ said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. ‘Every adult and child should be able to enjoy a film with family and friends, especially during the holiday season.’”

This especially rang true.

I’ve just emerged especially bitter from a string of family events where me and my little deaf family were excluded from experiences with my extended (and hearing) family. First, we bought tickets online to the open captioned showing of Harry Potter at Rockville Regal. I was careful enough to call beforehand and confirm that our show would be open captioned. It was an absolutely thrilling prospect. I’ve spent twenty-five years in a family of culturephiles, but I’ve never been able to go to the movies with the people I grew up with. We arrived, settled in, and found out the hard way that the person I spoke to over the phone had given me the wrong information and the captioned show had started an hour earlier.

Then we headed to Williamsburg for the Thanksgiving holiday, with the same family members. My mother had been working diligently with the interpreter services at the foundation for more than a month to make sure we would have an interpreter at several special events we would be attending. Two days before we left, the interpreter coordinator said something about the costs being $100 being an hour. Red flags! Eventually they figured out that the people there had misunderstood my mother. Even though my mother requested an ASL interpreter, they assumed we wanted a historical interpreter. My ass. What does a family with a three year old need with a historical interpreter?

As I read over the e-mails between my mother and the coordinator, I couldn’t believe the ignorance. My mother made countless references to, “since this show is mostly music, my daughter and her family won’t use the interpreter that much, but for that one, since there’s a lot of talking…” We did get an interpreter for one event, but even she was woefully unqualified, and we spent the evening reinterpreting from English to ASL for my daughter. Needless to say, Thanksgiving with my daughter’s aunt and uncle and Marmee and Gramps turned into just another weekend with the ‘rents.

Then, just last week, my brother performed in a high school play in his first lead. I was absolutely thrilled for him — all three of us siblings have fallen in love with the theatre, and for me as the oldest, I like to think I’ve had something to do with it. We requested an interpreter two months beforehand, and I arranged for a sitter.

Not four hours before the show, we find out that the person my brother had put in a request with hadn’t had a clue what to do with an interpreter request and ended up telling my brother that all the interpreters in the county were booked so we would not have one. I canceled the sitter, my hubby stayed home, and I went, and with the help of a script and a flashlight, barely managed to sit through my l’il bro’s leading man debut. He did fantastically, but I was still fuming about the whole thing afterwards.

And this is in Montgomery County, which is supposed to be among the cream of the crop in the country for these kinds of things.

And now I get to read an article on CNN.com about the wonderful technological advances that are making our lives better for us. Sure, they’re an improvement. But they’re a lawsuit-forced effort in a society that clearly doesn’t want to go the extra step to earn our money and input if it can help it.

I’ll never forget the shock I felt when I learned the documentary film about deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie would not be offered captioned or subtitled in the theaters. Naturally, we deafies are drawn to movies where we see our peers (even though Evelyn doesn’t sign and claims to “read lips perfectly”). It’s a heady narcissism to see ourselves reflected in the media that most often likes to exclude us or pigeonhole us. (The same thing is happening now, as I anxiously anticipate finding out captioned showtimes for The Family Stone so I can see deaf actor Ty Giordano later this month. I will seriously throw a hissy fit if no captioned shows are available.)

For those of you who didn’t hear about it, this was the distributor’s response to one deaf theater-goer’s inquiry: “Thanks so much for your interest. I’m sorry, but it will not. We made the decision not to subtitle the prints for two reasons: the visual aspect of the film is as important as the aural, and the director felt (and we agreed) that the subtitles would be hurtful; and because much of the movie deals with sounds that subtitles cannot deal with. Since the film will be available in closed caption format when it is released on DVD, we settled for that as the way to go, though we know we are disappointing some people, such as yourself, for which we truly are sorry.”

You may view the theater patron’s commentary in full here.

So yes, even though the article on CNN.com’s front page was entirely deserving of the few pixels it occupied, even us deafies living in DC, which is practically as close to a Deaf utopia as you can get, we know the truth: this world still has a long way to go.

In other words, when I can spontaneously go see a movie with my mother without knowing that a lawsuit paved my way there, that’ll be really cool.

EDIT (December 12): The article was written by Michael Gormley of the Associated Press and was, in fact, released December 4. I have forwarded a link to this blog to the AP. If a miracle occurs and I receive a response, I hope to share it with y’all.

Be it far from me to ignore weather warnings; heeding them is often a good idea. For example, the warning last night read:

National Weather issued a Winter Storm Watch until Tuesday morning, beginning late today. Expected 3 to 4 inches of snow with winds 10-15 MPH, starting out light to moderate before ending. Temperatures low today between 30-33 and only snow no wintry mix.

Oh, goodness. 3-4 inches is a good amount of snow. Now look at the most recent advisory, straight from the National Weather Service:

A SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 AM EST TUESDAY. LOW PRESSURE DEVELOPING OVER THE GULF STATES WILL TRACK NORTHEASTWARD OVER THE CAROLINAS THIS AFTERNOON..AND THEN WELL EAST OF THE DELMARVA TONIGHT. BETWEEN 3 TO 5 INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED TO FALL ACROSS METRO WASHINGTON INTO THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. BETWEEN 2 TO 4 INCHES WILL FALL ACROSS METRO BALTIMORE. AN INCH OR TWO IS EXPECTED TO FALL ACROSS THE NORTHERN SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND EASTERN WEST VIRGINIA PANHANDLE…INCLUDING WINCHESTER…MARTINSBURG…AND HAGERSTOWN.

Ooo. 3-5 inches now! That’s quite a good amount. Then a friend IMs me. “Schools in MD are closing at 1pm! Evening activities cancelled.”

I’m in Takoma Park, DC right now. Across the street is Maryland. In fact, my window looks out in DC and MD simultaneously. And I’m trying to find snowflakes over in Maryland. I don’t see any yet.

The same friend says, “and now, VA, too! VA schools close at 1pm!

Okay. I find this all a bit too comical. This is a dead horse that has been continuously beaten for the last decade by RIT alumni living in DC. In fact, the dead horse, by now, is an unrecognizable mass of brown fur and couple dark mane hairs sticking out. Still, I’m going to have another swing at it just to make sure.

3-5 inches. And schools close preemptively. Please.

So there.